by John Burke
“But—”
“In the interests of the expedition,” said Sir Giles bitterly, “I suggest you accept Mr. King’s offer. At least the funfair will then be conducted with, at any rate, a modicum of taste.”
“But if you feel like that,” John protested, “why not retain control yourself?”
“I couldn’t.” Sir Giles drank deeply. “No, I couldn’t do it. But you can. I won’t stand in your way.”
John directed a mute appeal at Annette. But she had nothing to contribute. She gave him a wan little smile which he might construe as advice to accept. She had heard everything that was said, but it had conveyed no emotional undertones to her. It was unreasonable to think that he should be able to rely on her; if anything, she was the one who needed support.
“Have dinner with me tonight,” said King. He chuckled, ready to be amiable again. “I know a place where we can sample the local delicacies.”
Local delicacies proved, in Alexander King’s view, to be belly dancers and obsequious waiters. The standard of the food meant little to him: he kept the waiters scurrying to and fro, and tossed coins to the dancers accompanied by yells of bawdy appreciation, but the authenticity of the setting and atmosphere aroused as few queries in his mind as the various courses and side dishes aroused on his palate.
Annette put up as good a show as possible at eating, but she was still remote and uncommunicative. John was more interested in King’s plans than in the banalities of a social evening. The man’s gross materialism repelled him and yet at the same time fascinated him. All his own instincts were on the side of Hashmi and Sir Giles Dalrymple; but there was something stimulating in this crude, forceful man who knew what he wanted and intended to get it. He provided a challenge. There was something larger than life about him—certainly larger than the restricted academic life which John had lived for so long.
In the middle of a jangling improvisation by three discordant reed instruments and a stringed contrivance which bore some slight resemblance to a decorative figure on Ra Antef’s sarcophagus, King abruptly turned his attention to the matter in hand. He switched off one part of his mind and switched on another.
“You’ve made up your mind to stick with me?”
John was not sure until this instant that he had made his decision. The answer came of its own accord. He said:
“Yes. I’m with you, Mr. King.”
“I’m glad,” said Annette quietly and unexpectedly.
King beamed. “That’s what I like to hear. We’re going to get along fine. A pity about Sir Giles, but I suppose you could say he’s living in the past. This is 1900. You have to think modern.”
And while we’re dealing out platitudes, thought John, why not add that you have to take the rough with the smooth? He was going to have uncomfortable moments with King: he knew that already. But better that he should accept the position he had been offered than that the treasures of Ra Antef should be handed over entirely to showmen and cheapjacks. Whatever lay ahead, he intended to do all he could to exhibit these splendors of the past with suitable dignity. He would be the defender of the dead.
He realized that King was smirking paternally at Annette and himself.
“What do you two kids plan for the future?”
Annette lowered her eyes. A few weeks ago she would have answered swiftly, with a French sparkle that never failed to pluck at John’s heart. Now she played at being demure. No . . . she was not playing.
King waited for a reply.
John said hastily: “The future? Well . . . as long as it’s a long and happy one . . . together . . .”
“Not worried about the curse of the Pharaohs, eh?”
It was impossible to tell whether King was probing, testing his reliability, or whether this was just another topic in his bubbling stream of conversation.
“So you know about that,” said John warily.
“Know about it? I wish I’d invented it. Anybody who opens a Pharaoh’s tomb is doomed to die horribly.” King’s pleasure was boyishly naïve. “Hell, there’s thousands of dollars’ worth of free publicity in that. And don’t think I’m not going to use it in my campaign. As my friend Phineas T. Barnum said, there’s one born every minute. And they’ll love this. The public love to be close to danger as long as that danger isn’t real, hey? Say . . . maybe ten cents isn’t enough.”
A dark boy came wriggling through the crowded room towards them. John braced himself for the usual demands for money, the offer of strange pleasures or simply of more food. But the boy said urgently:
“Effendi, I bring urgent message from your master. He says you come quickly.”
“From whom?”
Annette blinked and seemed to come out of a trance. “He must mean Sir Giles.”
The boy nodded eagerly. “That is right. Yes. Please, you come quickly.”
John glanced at King. “He wouldn’t have sent this message if it weren’t important. Would you mind, sir, if we—”
“I’ll come with you.” King was already spilling money lavishly from his fist. “It’ll be quicker. I’ve got things pretty well organized round here.”
They extricated themselves from the throng. A convoluted dance was just starting. King halted briefly to look back. He had some difficulty in tearing himself away.
“If ever they learn to do that to ragtime,” he observed as they finally went out, “I could set them up and make a fortune.”
They were driven back through the pale, still night to the caves. Even from a distance lights were visible moving up and down the slope, and the cave entrance was a bright glow on the hillside. Activity of this kind was unusual at this hour. John felt a prickling of alarm.
The alarm was justified. Sir Giles’s face when they entered the cave was enough to confirm that. Tight-lipped, flushed, he was examining a case which might have been selected from the litter on the floor—a litter of objects from the grave, scattered around as though by a violent storm.
“What’s been going on here?” King strode into the middle of the cave and glared round at the chaos.
“The place has been ransacked,” said Sir Giles. He set the vase down with a sigh. “Thank heavens, nothing appears to have been broken.”
“Broken, hell. Has anything been stolen?”
“Not that I can trace. They were obviously searching for something, but it doesn’t look as though they found it.”
“Searching for what?” demanded King.
“If we could answer that question”—Hashmi moved in from the farther chamber—“we’d know who they were. They have not taken gold or jewels which most men would covet.”
They looked at each other dubiously. It was a relief to learn that none of the treasures had been removed; but disquieting that someone should have been on the prowl and should have been able to wrench open so many of the cases stored here.
“Who was on guard—you did have a guard, huh?” snapped King.
“It was Ahmed,” said Hashmi. “He . . . he is missing.”
“And I don’t suppose we’ll be seeing him again.”
“Effendi.” John, nearest to the cave entrance, turned to see the wide, frightened eyes of one of the porters. He went out. Lights swarming to and fro were now all flickering in towards one spot. He stumbled down behind the porter to where a wavering brightness fell on the crumpled form of a man.
It was Ahmed. He was dead. There was a knife in his chest, and from the condition of his body it seemed likely that he had been thrown or kicked from the cave entrance.
The men who had congregated around him began now to edge backwards. Having seen what had happened to their comrade, they wanted no more to do with him—no more to do with anything that might be going on here.
“John!”
Annette’s voice drifted down to him. Silhouetted against the light from the cave, she was beckoning him to return. He indicated that two of the porters should carry Ahmed up behind him as he went, but did not wait to see whether they would summo
n up the courage to obey him.
When he reached Annette she said: “John, your lists have gone.”
“Gone?”
“I locked them away, but the container was smashed open. That’s what they’ve taken.”
John groaned. There were no copies of those lists: there had been no time to prepare any. All his work had been wasted.
“But why?” he asked. “What possible use could they be to anyone else?”
Hashmi stood behind Annette. He said: “If one wanted to know the complete contents of the tomb, your lists are the quickest way of finding out.”
“This means,” said John, “that we’re not the only people interested in the treasures of Ra.”
4
At night the sea was as dark, alien, and limitless as the desert. But from the sea came a refreshing breeze that was like a cool wine after the months in that arid land. Annette felt that she could lean on the ship’s rail forever, day and night, listening to the cleansing splash and hiss of the water as it streamed away from the bows. Thankfully she felt herself begin to unwind. Away from that ancient civilization with its memories of barbarity and its present-day savageries, she would recover from the shock of her father’s murder. Nobody had been accused of that killing; nobody had been arrested. It had been accepted almost as an occupational hazard. Perhaps in time she would learn, like the rest, to dismiss it from her mind.
The ship’s orchestra played faintly, nostalgically in the distance. A man went past, lazily humming the fragment of a tune. Life on board was leisurely and uncomplicated.
But below decks, in the depths of the ship, far below the laughter and the music and the luxury, the dead relics of the past were laid out. They had not been left behind in their homeland: they travelled with their captors, and Annette felt the great weight of them as a physical burden.
Her hand gripped the rail. A cool, firmer hand covered it.
John said: “It’s a beautiful night.”
“I remember a night just like this when we were on our way to Egypt.”
He nodded. “Do you realize that was almost a year ago?”
It had been a happy voyage. She had felt very close to John and together they had been pan of an enthusiastic team, eager to wrest the secrets of the past from the secretive earth. Now the taste of adventure had gone sour. She shivered.
“Cold?” asked John solicitously.
“No, not really.”
“Is there something wrong?”
“I don’t quite know. Just that I can’t bear to think of that mummy lying down there . . .”
“You needn’t worry about him. Safely locked up and clearly labelled ‘Not Wanted on Voyage”! You know, the only real danger you may be in—physical danger—is not from the mummy but . . . from me.”
He tried to put his arm round her. Annette flinched away. She could not explain her reluctance to be touched. Soon she would be ready for John and everything would go as they had planned it. She could not bear to see his hurt expression, yet she was incapable of pretence.
“I’m sorry,” he said sullenly.
“John, I’m not just being silly. There’s something . . . I feel it, but I just can’t explain. When we’re back in civilization it will all come right. I’m sure it will.”
John forced a laugh. “A lot of experts would say that what we have just left is civilization—the greatest the world has ever known.”
Annette thought of the brooding atmosphere of the tombs, the obsessive preoccupation with death which made a necropolis more important than a palace and a million times more important than the homes of ordinary men and women, and of the ritual killings which still lingered on as a holy duty despite all the protests of the authorities to the contrary. She tried to make herself think of other things. Soon they would be home. In a different setting the mummy and its accoutrements might seem less fearsome. It would be, literally, what people casually called a museum piece.
Somebody blundered close to them, staggering slightly across the deck although the sea was smooth. It was Sir Giles Dalrymple.
“Good evening, Sir Giles,” said John quietly.
“Hm? Oh. Oh, yes. Good evening. And you, my dear—good evening. You look beautiful. Good . . . g’night . . .”
Sir Giles looked puzzled for a moment, then lurched away. When he was out of earshot, making his unsteady way round the promenade, John said:
“If he carries on like this, he’ll soon be as pickled as the mummy.”
Annette gazed down into the water. Even through her own sadness she had been conscious of what was happening to Sir Giles. It was a tragedy. At the beginning of the voyage he had stayed in his cabin for a large part of the time, and when at last he emerged it was obvious that he had settled down to steady, heavy drinking. The whole business with King had had a deep effect on him. The unkindest blow of all had been an official communication from the Egyptian Government, written in most undiplomatic language after it had been made clear that Ra Antef and his possessions were not to be handed over to the Cairo Museum but to be removed from the country. The Government told Sir Giles, and simultaneously announced to the Press, that he had conducted his last expedition anywhere on their territory. Future explorations would have to be carried out under more responsible guidance. This hit Sir Giles hard. It was not in his nature to try to turn the blame where it belonged—on to Alexander King. He remained silent, accepting the thrust without wincing. But he would never be the same man again. His dreams shattered, he sought new dreams in a succession of bottles.
“What will he do?” asked Annette.
“He may have to retire,” said John. “He’s no longer a youngster.”
“But it’s such a waste. He knows more about Ancient Egypt than anyone apart from my father. And my father . . .”
As she lapsed into a bitter silence, there was a sudden cry that rose above the faint music and the steady rush of water below. It was a strangled cry, rising to a cracked note that was abruptly cut off. A man’s voice—the voice of Sir Giles.
John pushed himself away from the rail. Annette made to follow, but he stopped her.
“Stay here.”
He ran towards the doors which opened on to a wide companionway. Annette braced herself against the rail for a moment, but she simply could not stand here waiting and wondering. Nobody else appeared to have heard the scream. A tall young man sauntered along the promenade deck towards her, but without haste: he was merely taking an evening stroll.
She went after John.
Just as she reached the door, it was flung open and a man raced out. He cannoned into her, and instinctively she grabbed his arm to save herself from falling. In the uncertain light there was a sudden flash. A knife blade slashed close to her face. Annette gasped and let go. She went reeling off balance against a stanchion, and then collapsed into a chair. The man was poised above her, the knife raised.
There was the thud of an impact, and the rush of breath punched out of him. The young man who had been approaching was suddenly large, purposeful and efficient. He swung two sharp blows to the attacker’s stomach, and sent him sprawling across the deck. The knife rattled away.
Annette tried to get up, but she had fallen in an ungainly heap into the chair. As she twisted round, she saw the two figures locked in a struggle, indistinguishable one from the other. Then they were separate again, swinging punches—and her assailant was once more staggering away. He smacked hard against the rail, and in an incredibly slow movement rolled back over it.
All at once the deck seemed crowded with people. They clustered in from every side. A murmur of voices dissolved into shouts.
“Man overboard!”
For most of them it was an exciting experience. They buzzed happily together.
There was the clang of the ship’s bell and a sudden blast from its siren.
“Man overboard!”
The man who had saved Annette came towards her, tugging his jacket into shape and dusting his sleeves fastidiously
. In the light from the companionway he was, she saw, not as young as she would have thought at a casual glance. He had brooding, almost severe aquiline features—a face that was smooth yet somehow infused with the melancholy of experience. It was strange that he should make such an immediate impression on her: she saw him, as it were, complete and self-sufficient in one vivid instant.
He bowed slightly and said: “You would appear to have aroused strong emotions in that fellow’s bosom.”
“I can’t imagine who . . .” She broke off. “Where’s John?”
She was on her feet again, hurrying down the steps to the cabins and staterooms. Sir Giles’s cabin was six doors along. His door was open, and John was crumpled over the threshold. As Annette ran towards him he groaned and tried to get up. She put her arms under his shoulders and helped him. With his eyes still half shut he waved feebly towards the cabin. Sir Giles was in a similar condition—just coming round, and clutching his head in his two hands.
“John, what happened?” she demanded.
He steadied himself on his two feet and leaned against the open door.
“A man attacked Sir Giles. And then me.” He fingered his head gingerly. “I’m going to have a wonderful lump here. Probably Sir Giles has got a matching piece.”
Sir Giles groped his way towards a cabin trunk which stood open beside his bed. He took out a bottle and took a long swig, then held it out waveringly to John. John shook his head—and immediately regretted it.
“Is there anything I can do?”
The stranger stood behind Annette. She moved to one side so that John could see him. The two men looked at each other: John muzzily and uncomprehendingly, the newcomer in clear, cool appraisal.
“Let me introduce you,” said Annette. “Er, John Bray . . . and . . . er . . .”
“My name is Adam Beauchamp.”
The two of them shook hands. On the far side of the cabin Sir Giles noisily gulped another mouthful.
John turned to him and said: “Is there anything missing?”
“Missing?” Sir Giles stared owlishly. “Couldn’t be. Nothing here to steal.” He took out his wallet and tried to count the banknotes, then gave up the task when his fingers refused to separate two notes. “Money’s all right.”
