by Simon Brett
‘The gentleman in question is extremely reliable,’ said Twinks coldly.
‘Huh.’ Bengt Cøpper was again thoughtful. ‘So you want to know how much I would charge you to find the relevant burial ground and help you get the sarcophagus reinstalled there?’
‘Bong on the nose, Bengt.’
‘Hm.’ He did some mental calculations, then named a figure.
It was surprisingly less than Twinks had been expecting. From the expression on Rollo Tewkes-Prudely’s face it was also less than he had been expecting. The hard bargainer appeared to have gone soft. His charge would easily be covered by the stash of sovereigns in the sequinned reticule, and leave enough for them to drive the unburdened Lagonda back in style to Tawcester Towers.
‘What will that include?’ asked the Major, more used to the minutiae of this kind of negotiation than the arrivals from England. ‘Permissions, excavation licences, hire of local labour?’
‘Those will be extra,’ said Bengt Cøpper.
Rollo Tewkes-Prudely did a few sums in his head, then announced the total cost of the enterprise. It would eat up almost all of the sovereigns (many now converted into Egyptian pounds) in Twinks’s stash – particularly if you took into account all of the tips that would inevitably have to be added to the basic services. She mentally revised the level of lunching they would be enjoying on their return trip through Europe.
‘The first thing I will need to do,’ said the archaeologist, ‘is to see the sarcophagus.’
‘Tickey-tockey,’ said Twinks.
‘Presumably you had to smuggle it in? Or did you just pay the outrageous bribes the customs officials demanded?’
‘We smuggled it in – no problems, all creamy eclair.’
‘So where is it now?’ In their nests of wrinkles, Bengt Cøpper’s blue eyes gleamed with excitement. To be introduced to a new rarity is every archaeologist’s dream.
‘In fact it’s in my brother’s car, parked directly outside this hotel. Would you like to go and pop your peepers on it?’
‘You bet,’ said Bengt Cøpper. ‘But we should not do it in the open street. You have a driver?’
‘Of course,’ said Twinks, wondering why the question needed to be asked.
‘If he drives down into the hotel’s car park, we will be unobserved. I can take a preliminary look at it there.’
‘Splendissimo! Let’s do it zappity-ping!’ Twinks rose to her feet as she spoke. So did Rollo Tewkes-Prudely and Bengt Cøpper. ‘Are you coming, Blotters?’
To be quite honest he didn’t feel like it. Blotto had been aware of not contributing much to the recent conversation. In fact, he’d been pretty thoroughly edged out of it. He didn’t know anything about archaeology, nor did he have any interest in the subject. Why not let his sister deal with the academic and practical aspect of this particular adventure? Then when derring-do was required, that’d be the moment for him to put his oar – or rather his cricket bat – in.
Besides, the waiter had just delivered another round of drinks. And those St Louis Steamhammers had an enchanting way of uncoupling the very tenuous links of logic in his brain. They delivered a very benign muzziness. ‘No, I’ll sit this one out,’ he replied to his sister.
‘Probably a good wheeze,’ said Rollo Tewkes-Prudely. ‘Then there’ll be someone here when the other archaeologist arrives.’
‘Good ticket,’ said Blotto.
‘Though,’ Rollo continued, almost to himself, ‘if Bengt Cøpper’s taking the job, there’s not going to be much for the other archaeologist to do.’
Then, following the ‘ladies first’ principle that had been one of the mainstays of his education, he gestured Twinks to lead the way back into the hotel. His eyes were out on stalks as he watched her elegant figure slinking ahead of him. Bengt Cøpper brought up the rear.
* * *
Blotto took a long sip from his St Louis Steamhammer, detonating more small comforting explosions in minor parts of his brain. He felt quite relieved to be on his own. And though generally immune to the effects of beauty, he could not help being impressed by the night sky over Cairo.
He still wished he was back at Tawcester Towers, though. Then he could have gone down to the stables and set the world to rights with Mephistopheles. Blotto became lost in the reverie.
‘Jolly good evening to you! Waiter Johnnie said I’d find Rollo Tewkes-Prudely at this table.’
Shaken out of his dream, he looked up at the sound to see a galumphing brown-eyed blonde in khaki shirt, trousers and dusty brown boots skitter to a halt in front of him. In spite of the difference in colouring, there was something in the girl’s rangy movements and the set of her teeth that reminded him instantly and irresistibly of Mephistopheles.
‘Toad-in-the-hole!’ said Blotto. ‘Good evening.’
22
Christabel
‘I’m Blotto,’ said Blotto.
‘Too many of those, I dare say,’ said the girl, pointing mischievously at his St Louis Steamhammer and making the same mistake as Rollo Tewkes-Prudely had.
‘No, no, it’s my name. And I’m hardly wobbulated at all.’
The girl sat down, as if astride a horse. ‘My name’s Christabel Whipple.’
‘Good ticket,’ said Blotto. And then, in a rare moment of perspicuity, he observed, ‘You’re the other one.’
‘Sorry?’
‘You’re an archaeologist.’
‘Give that pony a rosette!’ said Christabel, slapping Blotto heartily on his shoulder. ‘Yes, I’m an archaeologist. Archaeology is the absolute love of my life. So if you’ve got any old fossils in your family who need investigating, I’m your lass.’ And she laughed. Blotto was transfixed. Even her laugh reminded him of Mephistopheles.
‘And I was expecting to meet a chap called Rollo here,’ she went on.
‘Ah yes. He was here a moment ago, but he just had to pongle off. Be back in two flicks of a fish’s tail.’
‘Righty-ho. I’ll wait.’
‘And I’m sure you’d like a drink.’ Blotto snapped his fingers for the waiter who manifested himself instantly. ‘What’s it to be?’
‘Lemonade.’
The waiter nodded, waited till he had been tipped, and then dematerialised.
‘You off the alkiboodles, Christabel?’
‘Pretty much. Except for high days and holidays. Then I’ve been known to gullet down the champers in large volume. But generally . . . well, it’s an occupational hazard . . . the dreaded morning after. Hard to reassemble the pieces of a three-thousand-year-old vase when your fingers are shaking like a cocktail-maker’s. Besides the alkiboodles has a devastating effect on my fielding.’
‘Fielding? Do you like cricket too?’ said Blotto, more pleased than he could say.
‘Like it? Love it, Blotto, with a passion. Never was enough cricket at school so far as I was concerned. Went to a convent and nuns aren’t that keen, God rot ‘em. Also, with their long habits, very difficult to judge lbw, hell for umpires. But I had brothers, so I played with them – and could generally outscore the little wretches. Was once smuggled into a First Class game, dressed as a boy. Scored a double century.’
Blotto hardly dared believe what he was hearing. If Christabel Whipple was as keen on hunting as well as cricket, she’d be the perfect piece of womanflesh. Tentatively he asked her.
‘Hunting? Love it, love it. By golly, if there was anything half resembling a fox out in the desert tomorrow, it’d be on with the pink coat, then up and after it like a cheetah on spikes . . . even if I had to ride a jolly old camel!’
A tremor ran through Blotto. He’d never before believed that the perfect woman existed, but now he feared he might have to revise that opinion.
‘Anyway, Blotto,’ asked Christabel, ‘what brings you out to jolly old Cairo?’
‘I’m here with my sister.’
‘Ah, maybe she’s the filly Rollo mentioned. Lady Honoria Somethingorother?’
‘Twinks.’
‘Lady Honoria Twinks?’
‘No, she’s called Twinks. Everyone calls my sister Twinks.’
‘Ah, righty-ho. Blotto and Twinks.’ She didn’t speak the names with any hint of criticism. Clearly, like the Lyminsters, she came from the kind of background where it was bad form for nicknames to have any relevance to the person they were attached to.
‘Good ticket. What do you get called for short?’ asked Blotto, hoping to increase the intimacy between them.
‘Christabel,’ said Christabel.
‘Ah. Tickey-tockey. What are you actually working on out here?’
‘I’m with a team digging in the Valley of the Kings.’
‘Are you, by Denzil?’
‘Anyway, Rollo said your sister Twinks had some archaeological problem and he thought I might be able to help you sort it out.’
‘I’m sure you could,’ said Blotto, certain by now that she could do absolutely anything she set her mind to. He found himself staring into Christabel Whipple’s eyes. The brown pupils had perfect rings of white around them. Again, just like Mephistopheles.
Also, she was as tall as Blotto was. Not something that happened often with the girls he encountered.
A deeper tremor ran through his manly frame. He couldn’t identify it, but he felt pretty sure it was a feeling he had not felt before.
* * *
The garage beneath the Two Pharaohs still smelt of fresh cement and was relatively empty. The hotel had not been open long enough to build up a large clientele, but the few cars parked there included a couple of Rolls-Royces, a Daimler, two Hispano-Suizas, a Duesenberg and a Pierce-Arrow roadster. In this exalted company Blotto’s Lagonda still managed to look like an aristocrat.
Fortunately there were no hotel staff or chauffeurs around in the garage at that time of the evening, but Bengt Cøpper still took the precaution of locking the gates before he turned his attention to the vehicle which Corky Froggett had just driven in from the street.
There was not a lot of light down there, but Twinks reached into her sequinned reticule and produced an electric torch, elegant in design but with a surprisingly powerful beam. This she directed into the interior of the Lagonda so that Corky could open the car’s hidden compartment. The Mafia engineers had done their work well and the floor panels slid back with ease to reveal the painted sarcophagus.
Bengt Cøpper’s excitement mounted as the outline was revealed. ‘Yes,’ he said in a fierce whisper. ‘That’s the one!’
‘You’ve seen it before?’ asked a curious Twinks.
‘No, no, of course not. But I have heard rumours of the existence of such an artefact. I just did not expect ever to have the good fortune to behold it with my own eyes.’
Rollo Tewkes-Prudely was also impressed. ‘I’ve seen a lot of this kind of guff out here, but few in such good condition.’
Twinks pointed out the rows of hieroglyphs to Bengt Cøpper. ‘I’ve done sort of rough translations of them.’ And she recited her versions.
‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Almost one hundred per cent accurate. How is it that you can read hieroglyphs?’
‘Oh, just the kind of thing a girl picks up,’ she replied airily.
Rollo’s dream took on a new dimension. All those flaxen-haired children were going to be not only beautiful but also incredibly brainy.
‘And I’ve got the name right, haven’t I?’ asked Twinks.
The archaeologist consulted the hieroglyph and confirmed, ‘Pharaoh Sinus Nefertop. Yes, that it right. It is strange I do not know the name. But do not worry. There are reference works I can consult in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities which will tell me how he was more commonly known.’
‘Will those reference works also tell you the location of his tomb?’
‘I am sure they will, Twinks,’ said Bengt Cøpper with a satisfied smile. ‘And now . . .’ he stepped into the Lagonda ‘. . . I am just going to check the sarcophagus’s contents.’
‘Don’t do that!’ shrieked Twinks. ‘Don’t lift the lid!’
The Norwegian looked back at her, a sardonic smile playing around his lips. ‘What is this, Twinks? Have you been listening to stories of mummies’ curses?’
‘Well . . .’
‘Do you believe the threat written in the hieroglyphs on the side of the sarcophagus?’
‘Yes, I spoffing well do.’
‘You should not. Such things were written to deter grave-robbers. They have no potency. As little power as a guard dog with no teeth.’
‘But I have seen the power they have,’ said Twinks.
‘Have you?’ asked Bengt Cøpper.
‘Have you?’ echoed Corky Froggett.
Twinks suddenly realised that she still hadn’t explained to the chauffeur the reason for the sequence of uncomfortable events that had afflicted him. And she decided now wasn’t the moment to do it. Repeating that she thought the archaeologist would be very unwise to open the sarcophagus, she led Rollo Tewkes-Prudely and Corky Froggett up the stairs that led to the Two Pharaohs’ foyer.
When the three of them got back to the table on the terrace, they found Blotto and Christabel Whipple deep in a mutual reverie. Eyes locked, they were testing each other on Test match scores from the previous twenty years. (Though Blotto could not at times even remember his own name, he had remarkable photographic recall for the minutiae of cricket.)
‘Oh, Christabel,’ said Rollo as they approached, ‘I’m so sorry to have dragged you over here. When I didn’t hear back after I’d left the message for you at the museum, I went ahead and called another archaeologist Johnnie, and I’m afraid he’s agreed to take on the job.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘But I do, old girl,’ said Rollo Tewkes-Prudely. ‘I’m afraid yours has been a wasted journey.’
‘Oh . . .’ Christabel Whipple smiled soupily at Blotto. ‘I wouldn’t say that.’
Then she said she ought to go. In his farewells Blotto informed her about seventeen times that he could be contacted at Shepheard’s Hotel. Christabel wrote down her home address, the address of the museum and the site where she was working, along with a list of telephone numbers where he could leave messages. They parted, each more vehement than the other in their assertions that they must meet up again soon. ‘I’m working at the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities most of this week,’ Christabel kept saying. ‘At the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities here in Cairo.’
After Christabel had gone, Rollo Tewkes-Prudely snapped his fingers for the waiter and ordered another round of drinks. Blotto took advantage of the momentary diversion while Rollo paid the baksheesh to slip into his jacket pocket the empty lemonade glass. The glass that Christabel Whipple had drunk from! He was determined to keep it as carefully as he looked after his cricket bat.
Because Corky Froggett was still with them – Rollo had said, ‘The hell with protocol, let’s get the poor blighter a drink’ – Twinks did not communicate to Blotto what had happened down in the garage. But she was considerably surprised when Bengt Cøpper rejoined them, apparently unscathed by the experience of opening the sarcophagus.
‘The contents are exactly what I would have expected,’ he announced. ‘Very satisfactory.’
But as he sipped his drink, remembering the Plagues of Egypt, Twinks watched him with anxious scrutiny, waiting to see his beer turn into blood.
It didn’t.
23
Breakfast on the Nile
The following morning they had breakfast served on the terrace of Twinks’s suite at Shepheard’s Hotel. She looked down at the distinctive blue of the river idling past them.
‘Eau de Nil,’ she said.
Blotto wrinkled his splendid nose. ‘Is that what it is?’
‘Sorry?’
‘The odour.’
‘No, not “odour”. Eau de . . . Oh, never mind.’
When he was away from Tawcester Towers with his sister it never occurred to Blotto to have plans of his own. As a rule he just waited till Twinks t
old him what they were going to do. But that morning there was a level of transparent deviousness in his question, as he asked with elaborate casualness, ‘Do we have any plans for the day?’
‘I thought we were going to try to purchase a summer wardrobe for you.’ Blotto had forgotten that, but as the heat of the day mounted he was already uncomfortable in his three-piece tweed suit. ‘I don’t think we’ll have much luck in the souks for what you’re after. Les Grands Magasins Cicurel, that’s where we should go.’ That was just the kind of information Twinks always had at her fingertips. ‘Apparently they stock everything. Might even get your Old Etonian tie there.’
‘Good ticket,’ said Blotto.
But there was a nuance of reluctance in his tone which only his sister would have recognised. ‘Why, do you have other plans?’
‘Just fancied a stroll down to the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities,’ he replied airily.
‘Oh?’
‘Always been keen on archaeology,’ he continued.
‘Have you, Blotters?’
‘Oh yes. So I’d just like to stroll down to the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities and see what they have on offer there.’
‘I’m sure you would, Blotto,’ said his sister.
In the event a trip was made that morning neither to the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities nor to Les Grands Magasins Cicurel. Soon after a uniformed flunkey had come in to remove their breakfast trays (and been tipped for his pains), another uniformed flunkey appeared with a telephone message for Twinks. After he had been tipped, he handed it over to her. He waited while she read the message and then asked if there was any reply. She said no, but since he seemed to feel he should be tipped for asking the question, she tipped him again.
As soon as the flunkey had gone, Twinks offered the sheet of paper to Blotto. ‘Bengt Cøpper’s moved very quickly,’ she observed with satisfaction.
It was a bit early in the morning for Blotto to concentrate on reading, so he said, ‘Just give me the main headlines, Twinks me old backscratcher.’
