1 The Museum Mystery

by John Waddington-Feather

  They passed the great mosques of Sultan Hassan and Sibi el Rafai as the muezzins were calling the faithful to prayer. More worldly noises blared about them as Cairo’s traffic roared incessantly. Their car pulled smoothly into a side entrance and a gaffir closed the gates behind them. They hurried out, crossing a courtyard where Waheeb pointed out a carved head of Hathor. Hartley paused.

  The statue’s nose was chipped away, defaced like many others in the Coptic period. Yet the thing stared back him with the same impenetrable gaze of the mummy he’d gazed at for years in Albert Park Museum. The world of his boyhood imagination was here for real. Colonel Waheeb caught his sleeve. “Come, my friend. It doesn’t do to hang about. The El Tubans have eyes everywhere.”

  Saniyya Misha was waiting for them and from her Hartley discovered just how fast events had moved since he’d left England. “I was told to meet Whitcliff in Tripoli,” she said, “but they wouldn’t let me in so the leader of the El Tuban group in Cairo ordered me here. I am to report to the Temple of Hathor at Dendera. They’re performing some sort of ceremony welcoming the mummy back,” she said.

  “But how?” asked Waheeb surprised. “The place is stiff with guards like all tourist sites.”

  Dr Misha smiled. “There’s another temple,” she said. “The original temple beneath the ruined one. They’ve used it secretly for centuries. It’s there they believe the gods will come down and re-claim their own. The El Tubans will be their chosen ones to rule Egypt for them.”

  She went on to tell them more. How the mummy had been smuggled over the border. That she was to report to Dendera for the ritual. That leaders were coming from all parts of the Middle East for the ceremony. They could take the lot at one fell swoop if they wanted.

  She looked expectantly at her boss, but he said she was not to go. She’d done enough. More than enough, but he couldn’t let her go to Dendera. It might be necessary to call in the army. Once they were involved, it was out of his control and anything could happen, but he’d try to locate the hidden temple himself first. Could she help him on that score at all?

  Saniyya took out a faded map from her brief-case and unfolded it on the table.

  “In that case, sir, you’ll need this,” she said. It was a map of the subterranean Temple of Hathor. “The El Tubans have their secret entrance here,” she said, jabbing her finger at the map. “But there’s another entrance hidden here. Where the temple slaves were allowed to watch the priests carry out their ceremonies.”

  “Where did you get this?” asked Waheeb.

  “I discovered it in the getaway car. It was in Riad’s belongings when I went through them after his death.”

  The map was meticulous in detail. The temple was ingeniously constructed by any standard. Checks and devices of all sorts were built into it to stop intruders gaining entrance.

  “Anyone going in there without this map would be picked off at once - even if they got past the booby traps. And that includes police as well as grave-robbers,” remarked Waheeb. “I’ve never seen anything as devilishly clever as this.”

  “Devilish indeed,” commented Hartley, looking on. He was looking into hell it seemed.

  They left the museum as stealthily as they’d come and the next day, armed with the map, Hartley and Waheeb drove to Dendera and booked in at an hotel under assumed names as tourists. They paid their first visit to the Temple of Hathor early, before the sun got too hot and before the tourists arrived.

  A high brick wall surrounded the temple area isolating it from the everyday world. Inside they became conscious of an uncanny aura. Although it was already hot, Hartley shivered involuntarily. It was the same aura he’d encountered at Pithom Hall.

  In ancient times three deities were worshipped there: Horus, Ihy and Hathor. Only the worship of Hathor had survived. The temple was now dedicated entirely to her and the columns supporting its remains were an awesome sight. Twenty-four huge columns lined the great hall, each crowned by a carved head of the goddess similar to that in the courtyard in Cairo. She had a woman’s face, embellished by the ears of a cow. A goddess of fertility as well as the stars. Other effigies about the place gave her a cow’s head.

  Facing them as they entered the inner courtyard was an ugly statue. Mordecai Waheeb explained. It was dedicated to Bes, he said, a popular deity to the ancient Egyptians. A bandy-legged bearded dwarf, Bes was the equivalent to Pan, the Greek god of music and the home. He was the god who protected people from evil. “Perhaps that’s why his statue was planted here,” said Blake Hartley, who nodded nervously at the characters about them, for the courtyard had suddenly filled with beggars and loungers.

  Waheeb wandered round acting the part of a tourist guide, but all the while his eyes were searching for the hidden entrance to the temple beneath. Innocently glued to their tourist brochures, they wandered off; into the hypostyle hall which contained more huge columns with Hathor’s head as capitals. It was cool in there, even though light flooded in through openings in the ceiling. By it, they could see carvings on the walls depicting the founding of the temple.

  Inside, one scene showed a priest at an altar sacrificing a young woman to Hathor. Around him stood sarcophagi. Waheeb explained they contained the mummified bodies of other sacrifices, handmaids of the goddess. The Romans centuries later had carved outside their own version on the walls. Only this time it was Cleopatra, not Hathor, who took centre stage. There were no sacrifices and her handmaids were, like herself, very much alive and kicking.

  The ugly-looking beggars and loungers followed them everywhere and squatted on the floor at the foot of the columns. They didn’t exactly threaten, but they watched every move the detectives and other tourists made.

  When they adjourned to a restaurant near the site, Colonel Waheeb confirmed what Hartley had suspected. “El Tuban guards, without a doubt,” he said. “Watching over their underground shrine. Making sure no one gets near the secret entrance. I’d like to bet the regular guards are also part of the set-up.”

  They spent the rest of the afternoon in the cool of the restaurant resting and sipping iced tea with other tourists, before going to their hotel for some sleep. They were returning to the temple site at night when it was cooler to locate the other secret entrance the slaves used to the underground temple, some way from the main precincts.

  It was midnight when they set out. A cloudless night with the sky like velvet. Stars studded the sky thickly, glittering like Hartley had never seen before. The moon, the merest fingernail crescent, hung cradled in a necklace of light, which swung from one horn to the other. All the light came from the stars. Their intensity was incredible.

  They went on foot to the entrance, keeping to the shadows and moving stealthily across the desert behind the main ruins. They had difficulty finding it at first. The mouth was overhung with a dense creeper and when they pulled it aside there seemed only a solid face of rock. Waheeb looked at his map. Like the vault at Pithom Hall, a hidden catch operated a slab of stone at the entrance. It slid back and a long low tunnel faced them. As in the temple, the walls were carved with figures of the gods, sentinels staring down at every step. Animal- and bird-headed deities, which fixed them with beady evil eyes.

  The tunnel was long. A mile at least. The air was thick with dust at the entrance, but as they penetrated deeper a current of clearer air came up to meet them and they began to smell incense. The same smell Hartley had noticed in Kathy Burton’s flat, and the first thing he saw as he peered with Colonel Waheeb through the observation opening were the same black candles on the altar. But neither of them expected what they saw next.

  The whole chamber was richly furnished with furniture and vessels of gold. The floor was a colourful mosaic of arcane patterns in marble. The ceiling was inlaid with jewels which glittered like the stars outside. Behind the altar was a huge granite statue of Hathor. Treasures like those of Tutankhamun’s tomb were there. So were long rows of sarcophagi, ranged round the chamber like they’d seen on the wall-carvings;
and like those they held the mummified remains of women sacrificed for centuries to Hathor. But the one nearest the altar completing the row stood open, empty, awaiting its final occupant.

  Most amazing of all were the silent priests seated before the altar, behind which sat the high priest. Motionless like the rest, his head was bowed. One priest had slipped from his chair to the floor. He lay sprawled and quite still. They were all dead!

  Hartley and Waheeb were still staring fascinated, when the figure before the altar raised his head and called out in a hollow voice. It was Jason Whitcliff! He looked ghastly, all colour drained from his swarthy face. His voice was faint, quite different from the confident, triumphant voice of their last encounter.

  “Welcome, Colonel Waheeb. Welcome, Inspector Hartley,” he said slowly. “Why don’t you join me while there’s still time…before I enter the company of the blessed. You’re quite safe. I assure you. There’s a small door to your left…at the end of the corridor. It will let you into the main chamber here. Only hurry. There isn’t much time.”

  Waheeb pulled out a pistol from his pocket and they made their way to the end of the corridor. The door was stiff. It hadn’t been opened in ages, and needed their combined weight to force it. Beyond was a flight of steps leading down into the temple chamber.

  They descended warily keeping their eyes skinned all the way. But nothing stirred. Only the eerie flickerings and sputterings of the candles in the sconces on the walls and altar gave any movement or noise.

  They had to pass the silent lines of priests to reach Whitcliff. They were all dead, and by each was an empty gold chalice. They’d been poisoned. Whitcliff still held his, though he’d consumed its contents. He watched them in silence all the way, and not until they’d reached him did he speak again.

  “So Dr Saniyya Misha didn’t come?” he began. He nodded to the empty sarcophagi to his left. “We’d prepared that for her. She was to complete the retinue of Hathor. But that must wait now. You’ll recognise the divine princess.” He stared at the coffin next to the empty one. It was the mummy from Keighworth Museum. Hartley nodded. Whitcliff smiled weakly.

  “I knew you’d come,” said Whitcliff. “That’s why I delayed joining my brother priests.” He smiled wanly and pointed to Waheeb’s pistol. “You can put that toy away, colonel. You’re quite safe among the dead.” He began to breathe in shallow gasps, and clutched his chest. When he spoke again it was more rapidly.

  “Hathor has denied you the satisfaction of taking us alive, Waheeb. You have hunted us a lifetime. It became your obsession. But mortal lives are very short, worthless, and you’ve achieved nothing. We have everything, for our time is yet to come.” He paused for breath. “You were both recognised today. We could have taken you when we wished. Dr Misha, too…”

  “But it didn’t quite work out like that, did it?” interrupted Hartley. “Your gods let you down, Whitcliff. Our God didn’t.”

  Whitcliff ignored him. Life was slipping away, fast. “Killing you would merely have led to the desecration of this temple, Hathor’s sanctuary. Imagine what would have happened had your men stormed this holy place. Worse than grave-robbers. Its sanctity would have been violated.”

  “Sanctified for what?” said Hartley. “Death?”

  For a moment anger flickered in the other’s eyes. “No! Life! Life! The only life. Life beyond this one in eternity. Life with the gods. But my time here is short. I have something to ask both of you…as religious men who value the past…”

  “What?” asked Colonel Waheeb.

  “A pledge. A pledge for sparing Saniyya Misha’s life. Oh, yes, we rumbled her. But she was to be destined for higher things here.” He nodded again at the empty coffin.

  “So?” said Waheeb.

  “I want you to leave us as you found us. In peace. Undisturbed. You will be well rewarded by the gods. Look around you, Waheeb. Look around you, Hartley. Here is all you have cherished. The past. And the future. Do you really want all this to be violated? To be taken apart and housed on display for the vulgar to see. Are there not enough spoils already taken for the so-called experts to squabble over and the greedy to covet? Keep faith with us and you will be the last of mortal men to see this…standing in the presence of the gods.”

  A dull rumble echoed down the tunnel, startling them. The candles and sconces began to splutter and go out in a strange wind which blew through the chamber. In the growing darkness, Whitcliff’s eyes seemed to blaze as he stared at Hartley, but the inspector held his gaze unflinchingly. As he looked on him, he began to feel pity for the dying man.

  “You die as sick in spirit as in mind, Jason Whitcliff. I commend your soul to Almighty God,” he said quietly.

  “To Allah, the All-merciful,” echoed Waheeb.

  And even as they spoke the light faded from Whitcliff’s eyes. His head lolled forward and he keeled over in his chair, dead, propped against the high arm-rests. The afnet he wore fell off and as it hit the marble floor, the gold cobra on it broke in two.

  Another loud rumble roared down the tunnel and rolled round and round the chamber. A rush of wind blew out the candles on the altar and one by one the sconces started to go out. The room was filled with thick smoke and would soon be in darkness.

  “Let’s get out of here while we can still see,” said Mordecai Waheeb. Hartley agreed. He was shivering and found himself praying silently.

  They hurried back the way they’d come. At the entrance, Mordecai Waheeb slid the heavy stone neatly into place. To all intents it was again part of the rock-face. The two stood silently a while gazing into the night and at the silhouettes around the temple site. It was deserted now. Gone were the guards and beggars.

  The night was fresh after the choking atmosphere they’d just left. They spoke of the thunder they’d heard. Wondered where it had come from. Doubtless there was an answer but it was a mystery they never solved. And they left behind them another for the future.

  “Just think,” mused Inspector Hartley as they walked back to their car, “if ever they uncover that place in the future, I wonder what they’ll make of it. Whitcliff and the others sat waiting the final call. Not to mention a Pharaonic mummy with a twentieth century homing device still ticking away inside!”

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  When Blake Hartley and Mary returned to England after a superb holiday in Egypt visiting the ancient sites with the Waheebs, Hartley resumed his duties at Keighworth Police Station. He looked healthy and tanned. Very different from the rest of his colleagues.

  Arthur Donaldson looked utterly washed out. The weather had been appalling while the inspector had been away. Snow, sleet, raw Pennine fogs - the lot bombarding Keighworth for weeks. On top of that, Donaldson had been at the beck and call of his Chief Constable and Special Branch. He looked done in.

  So did Khan who’d taken over the Burton investigation. The inquest had brought in a verdict of death by misadventure, drug overdose. As a result of further investigations, Madame Marie and Rosie Adams went to prison for drug-peddling. Rosie had to attend a drugs rehabilitation centre when she was released. One good outcome was she was reconciled with her mother and lived at home after Hartley had found her a job in a local store.

  But when she’d completed her sentence, Madame Marie left Keighworth. She took up with a retired publican and went back to Blackpool, where she kept a boarding house. She never entirely gave up her interest in the occult, for she told fortunes for her boarders from the tea-leaves in their cups after supper each evening.

  The mystery of Kathy Burton’s mummified body was explained to the coroner by Dr Dunwell and Sgt Khan. Blackwell was an experienced taxidermist. Not quite up to the standard of the ancient Egyptians, but sufficient for the El Tubans to make the switch with the real mummy once Blackwell had done his work.

  Khan told them all about that at the dinner Dr Dunwell threw for Mary and Blake Hartley on their return. It took place at The Silent Inn, an old hostelry in the village of Stancliff on the moors abo
ve Keighworth. It had recently won a Pub of the Year Award and Dunwell, gourmet that he was, gave the menu the full works.

  The inn held many secrets, hence its name. It was said fugitive Jesuits in the reign of James I were hidden there and that it got its name from the silence the innkeeper kept when interrogated.

  Blake Hartley said nothing about that final meeting with Jason Whitcliff. Nothing about the House of the Dead and the strange events he and Waheeb had witnessed. He mentioned only that Whitcliff had died when the El Tubans had been rounded up. When their leaders were dead, the rest had fled and they ceased to be a threat in Egypt and elsewhere.

  They told Hartley that High Royd House and the ruins of Pithom Hall were to be demolished and the land sold. He wasn’t surprised. Whitcliff, as meticulous as ever, had willed it so, and the proceeds were to go to the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies. A trust was also set up to maintain the Whitcliff Collection - minus the mummy - at Albert Park Museum.

  “So some good came from it after all,” he mused. “As the Bard once said, ‘There is some soul of goodness in things evil. Would men observingly distill it out’. Only it took a deal of distilling in Whitcliff’s case. But I’m glad it’s all tied up. It could have ended so very differently.” And he fell silent as he pondered what might have happened to Sally Anwar and Saniyya Misha.

  They were nicely into coffee and liqueurs, and Hartley was thoroughly enjoying a malt whisky, when Gus Dunwell, who was facing the door, frowned and nodded in its direction. Arthur Donaldson and his wife Daphne had just come in with another couple. They stood surveying the scene while waiting to be seated.

  “Eyes down,” said the pathologist. But he was too late. Arthur Donaldson was already waving at them, and once he’d been shown to his table, he trotted over.