Silver Tomb (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 2)

by P J Thorndyke

  “One of you-know-who’s little friends,” she replied, her words mouthing the cryptic message to him.

  “Here, in Cairo?” Lazarus hadn’t really believed that Lindholm would risk all by sending one of his creations into the city. It was far too conspicuous. “How exactly was he dressed?”

  “Like a woman,” said Katarina.

  “Good Lord!” exclaimed the Prussian.

  “It—he—had on one of those long black garments some women wear here that covers all, including the face.”

  “That’s a devilish trick,” the Prussian said. “Didn’t want you to recognize him, eh? Who is this fellow sending his people after you?”

  “An ex-lover,” said Lazarus, enjoying the expression on Katarina’s face as he said this. “She jilted him and he’s been on her trail since she left Moscow.”

  “Moscow? I thought the accent was distinctive. Well, madam, I’m sure you had your reasons for leaving him, and by the sound of it this fellow is one to be well rid of.” He turned to Lazarus. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Baron Friedrich von Eichendorf.”

  “A baron, no less?” said Lazarus, bowing low. “I am Lazarus Longman, and Katarina here is an acquaintance of mine. I thank you for bringing her back here safely. She may hide it well, but she no doubt required the aid of a gentleman and you stepped up magnificently.” He tried not to smile at the blazing indignation on Katarina’s face.

  “The pleasure was all mine, I assure you,” said von Eichendorf. “I do hope you will call the police on her behalf, young sir, for it would be a crime in itself to leave this cross-dressing bounder at liberty to threaten this lovely young lady further.”

  “Come, on,” said Lazarus as the Baron moved away. “Let’s get a drink and you can tell me all about it.”

  They took gin in the bar and Katarina related her tale. “I had an inkling I was being followed as I left the docks,” she said. “I ducked into a doorway to see if my pursuer would walk right past or loiter somewhere down the street. It did neither and came in on me in the doorway and I knew then that its mission was to kill me. It was so heavy, and was pressing me down against the door. Its furnace was so terribly hot that I could get no hold on it.”

  “Hmm,” said Lazarus. “It seems sensible to think that this creature was the very same that murdered Petrie’s friend and stole the cosmetic container he was carrying. The victim’s hands were badly scorched. And his wallet was not taken.”

  “And so by extension,” said Katarina, “the creature also stole that relief fragment from the museum?”

  “I’ll buy it.”

  “So will I.”

  “Did you scream?” Lazarus asked her. “When it attacked you?”

  She glared at him. “What would that have achieved? No, I didn’t scream. I put a bullet in its chest at point blank range.”

  “Ah, as we know, only a bullet to the heart does it in for these things.”

  “I didn’t exactly have the time or the range of movement to take a proper shot, so one in the gut was all I could manage to knock it back a pace and allow me time enough to free myself. It came charging down the street after me and I turned and fired off two more rounds—I don’t know if either hit it—but while I had my head turned I was nearly knocked down by a carriage. I had run right out into a main street. The passenger in the carriage was that infuriating Prussian fellow who insisted on manhandling me back to the hotel. I looked around to see some sign of my pursuer, but it had vanished. Evidently, it doesn’t trust the effectiveness of its disguise enough to wander into the more populated parts of the city. That probably explains why it attacked me at night.”

  “What exactly were you doing down at the docks, anyway?”

  “Taking the night air,” she replied, knocking down the rest of the gin in one and motioning the barman to refill her glass.

  “Oh, come off it, Katarina!”

  “What?”

  “You were spying on me!”

  “What on earth are you getting at?”

  “I suppose it was a coincidence that I happened to be down at the docks also? It’s a wonder we didn’t bump into each other!”

  “Longman, it may surprise you to know that I have better things to do with my evenings than keep up with your petty romances.”

  “Romances? For a start that’s incorrect and secondly, you have just exposed yourself. How did you know what I was doing?”

  “Oh, all right, for God’s sake! I was spying on you! How else am I supposed to find out where this woman sleeps at night and what she gets up to on her trips to Cairo? She’s my only connection to Lindholm, and if I can’t return to his hidden city in the desert then I will have to go through her to get to him.”

  “You just be careful,” Lazarus warned her. “I don’t want her getting hurt.”

  “You’re her guardian angel now, are you? Good God, man she’s got you wrapped around her little finger!”

  “Rubbish! She’s an innocent in this whole business. It’s Lindholm that’s got her tied up. She doesn’t even dare run away for fear of what he’ll do to her.” That wasn’t strictly true but Lazarus didn’t feel like going into Eleanor’s bizarre sentimentality towards Kiya’s mummy.

  “Very well, Lazarus,” Katarina replied. “I just think you should be careful. Or it may be you who ends up getting hurt.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just be prepared for the possibility that Miss Rousseau may not be as innocent as she seems. Don’t you think it strange that the mummy came after me the night she was moored up in the city? Don’t you wonder where this creature is kept in the daytime? Who controls it?”

  “Oh, this is going too far, Katarina! What are you suggesting? That Eleanor keeps a stock of mechanical mummies on board her dahabeah?”

  “Well, whoever controls the mummy is interested in artifacts pertaining to Kiya. Just as your friend Rousseau is.”

  “Well, it still may be coincidental. Petrie only made the connection between the kohl container and the relief fragment after they were stolen. It seems unlikely that anybody else would know that the fragment depicted Kiya. Not even Eleanor Rousseau.” He let the matter rest at that.

  “Goodnight, Longman,” said Katarina. “I’m tired and am feeling the effects of these drinks too much to argue with you further. I think I shall rest a while before dinner.”

  The following morning, Lazarus found a telegram waiting for him in reception. It was from London and worded in the usual cryptic mumbo-jumbo he had come to expect from Morton’s office.

  LONGMAN

  PROCEED WITH PROCURING THE PARISIAN PERFUME. FORGET THE AMERICAN WHISKEY. HAVE IMBIBED TOO MUCH LATELY

  M

  Lazarus cursed. Morton’s timing was impeccably inconvenient, as ever. The ‘Parisian Perfume’ clearly meant Eleanor, so his original mission was still in effect. But somebody in Morton’s outfit had evidently found out that Lindholm was no rogue scientist, but a minion of the Confederate States conducting experiments for the army. So the ‘American whiskey’ was not to be touched, eh? Once more Lazarus cursed the Empire’s association with the C.S.A. The world could go to hell so long as Britannia kept her head above water and her friends friendly. Even if they were a lot of murdering bastards, like General Reynolds.

  Later that evening he went to Port Bulaq and asked Eleanor if she wouldn’t mind reopening that offer of dinner. She did not mind one bit, and they found a pleasant little restaurant not too far from the water’s edge where they watched the sunset over the pyramids in the south. They seemed to glow with a dusty rose color, and set the mood for a fine dinner wonderfully.

  He did not mention the attack on Katarina, for he did not want to spoil the evening He was still too angry with her accusations to think about it, much less discuss it with Eleanor. Instead they talked of other things; Egyptology, Maspero’s dig at the Sphinx, Lazarus’s government work and Eleanor’s life in Paris before she had met Henry Thackeray.

  “He can’t understand why
I still want to spend my time chasing down relics of the past instead of building a future with him,” she said.

  “Perhaps your reluctance to relinquish Kiya’s mummy is in fact a reluctance to relinquish Egyptology itself,” said Lazarus.

  “Perhaps. But I really do feel for that woman. I want to get her remains and effects out of Egypt as soon as possible.”

  “Out of Egypt? There’s certain difficulties with that, as you and Lindholm had no concession to dig there. Maspero would likely see you both as treasure hunters, despite your previous archaeological successes.”

  “I know, and yet, if I tell anybody, the site will be taken away from me and Kiya will wind up in the basement of the Bulaq Museum. I must get her to Paris. There, in the Louvre, she can receive the honor she deserves, surrounded by the artifacts I found at Akhetaten—not to mention being reunited with her husband. Will you help me do it, Lazarus? Please say that you will!”

  “Eleanor, I’m not really in the business of smuggling antiquities out of Egypt. Not only do I disagree with the practice but it’s not in my line of work. Please do not misunderstand, I do not put you in the same class as those who would despoil Egypt of its treasures. I know that you have the interests of knowledge and preservation at heart. But it’s simply not my mission here.”

  She bit her lip. “What if I help you stop Lindholm. Would you help me then?”

  He thought for a moment. If Maspero or the police found out that he was aiding in the removal of artifacts, it would ruin his previous reputation as an Egyptologist. But then, he was a governmental agent now and he hadn’t worked on a dig in years and was unlikely to ever again. And Eleanor was no treasure hunter. She was a dedicated Egyptologist who had fallen in with the wrong man, and now her work was about to suffer for it. Could he let that happen? “Very well,” he told her. “I’ll help you get the items to Paris. But how will you get them to Cairo under Lindholm’s nose?”

  “Leave that to me. There is room on my dahabeah. Now tell me how I can help you.”

  “I need to know how Lindholm is planning to get his monsters to the C.S.A. Smuggling a mummy to Paris is one thing, but he has several and they would weigh a great deal more.”

  “I don’t know. But I will try to find out.”

  “I don’t want you putting yourself at risk. Do nothing that might jeopardize your relationship with Lindholm for the time being.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me, Lazarus. I shall be as quiet as a mouse and twice as sneaky. I’m sure I can find out something back at the site. He leaves things lying around, you know.”

  “When do you return?”

  “Tonight. I shall come back to Cairo in a week’s time. I hope I will have some information for you then. Will you make the arrangements for the transportation of my goods while I am away?”

  “I shall do my best.”

  “Then I will have them on board when I return.”

  They finished eating and took a stroll down the waterfront, looking at the boats and the play of the silvery moonlight on the gently lapping waters. Lazarus grew aware that they were approaching Eleanor’s dahabeah.

  “Thank you for tonight,” she said, turning to him. Her skin looked like alabaster in the light, smooth and perfect. “It’s been wonderful to speak with a sane human being for once. And one so nice...” She let the unfinished sentence hang in the air between them. “I suppose I would be presuming too much to offer the invitation for a nightcap on my boat? It’s just that you finally agreed to have dinner with me and...”

  “Yes,” said Lazarus quickly, before his better judgment could interfere. He was tired of being so damned proper all the time. “I’d love to.”

  She beamed at him and led him up the gangplank and down into the cozy cabin below. It was well fitted out. Sketches—perhaps her own—hung in frames on the dark wood paneling. A well-stocked library of books on all manner of subjects filled one wall, and a comfortable armchair and ottoman occupied the corner beneath a hurricane lamp. A walnut chaise-longue with green velvet upholstery sat opposite it. She bid him remove his coat and hat and sit down.

  “The comfort of this must be a tempting alternative to sleeping in tombs,” he said as she poured them both brandies from a little bar.

  “But alas, it is moored too far from our site for me to use it for anything but travelling,” she told him, sitting down close and swirling the dark amber liquid around in the glasses before handing one to him. He could smell her perfume and was struck by how apt Morton’s codename for her was. She smelled like the most fragrant breezes of Parisian society.

  “Where are your servants?” Lazarus asked her.

  “Yusef is sleeping on deck and Ardath is in the city procuring supplies for me,” she replied. “We will not be disturbed, I assure you.”

  Lazarus nearly choked on his cognac. The forwardness of this woman would give Katarina a run for her money. “That’s not why I was asking! I meant, do you not feel vulnerable? A beautiful woman like you alone on a dahabeah overnight in the docks with only two servants to guard you?”

  “I am very well protected, have no fear, Galahad. And am I beautiful? Goodness, Lazarus, are you trying to seduce me?”

  He could feel the color rising up around his stiff collar and he yearned to cast if off. “Nothing of the sort!”

  She laughed. “I am sorry. I was only teasing you. I am so very lonely here in Egypt with nobody to offer me stimulating conversation and sporting banter. I couldn’t resist toying with you. Do you forgive me?”

  “Of course. But you have Henry, back in London. Does not the thought of his love comfort you on lonely nights?”

  “Now you are toying with me, Lazarus and it is most cruel.”

  He suddenly felt like a pig. Of course he was toying with her. Thackeray was about as affectionate as a bulldog with piles. “I’m sorry.”

  “You know that I don’t love Henry, you must know that by now. I am a doomed woman, Lazarus. I am little more than a girl and have never loved a man and yet once I am married to Henry, love will be forever denied me. Please, Lazarus, do me one service. Kiss me.”

  “K... kiss you?” he managed, alarmed by how close those full, wet lips were to his own, and he was mesmerized by those dark, intoxicating eyes.

  “Are you going to pretend that you are not attracted to me now?” she said in a voice that was almost a whisper, her sweet breath brushing his cheeks. “Don’t make a fool of me, Lazarus. Admit that you find me lovely. Because I find you simply wonderful.”

  “I do find you lovely, Eleanor,” he said, rolling her name around in his mouth as if it were a sweet delicacy. “So very lovely. But it would not be proper—worse, it would not be right. You are engaged to a man who is... was my...”

  “Friend? No longer. Don’t pretend that. But this is not about Henry. This is about us. Kiss me so that I know what it is like to be kissed by a man who knows how to show a woman some affection, a man with a heart instead of a block of ice, a man who would love me instead of use me to his own ends.”

  Lazarus gave in and leaned forward just an inch to allow those glorious, all-encompassing lips to latch onto his own. This is madness! he thought in a wild grasp at sanity that was rapidly sailing out of his reach. But God, it feels so good!

  She leaned in close. He allowed his hand to gently touch the crinkles in the crushed silk of her dress. He moved it north and grasped her firmly around her corset, and he pulled her closer. She did not mind and they leaned back against the velvet of the chaise-longue, still kissing, gripped in an embrace that felt like it would last forever.

  He started as her hand wound its way down to the lump in his breeches. It unfastened his belt and slipped inside like an asp encircling his most vulnerable spots, an asp that could strike at any moment. And he welcomed it.

  Oh, God, he welcomed its venom.

  Chapter Twelve

  In which the mummy strikes again

  Lazarus spent the next few days making the arrangements to ship Elea
nor’s boxes out of Egypt. He booked transport for them on a steamer headed for Marseille, and recruited Petrie’s help in filling out the customs forms and forging the licenses. But Petrie was no fool. He went along with the idea without asking questions, but in his room late one evening over their brandies, he confronted Lazarus on the matter.

  “I know that you are an honorable man, Lazarus,” he said, “And that you, like me, prize the relics of antiquity far higher than any commercial value they might present. But I must know, what is it that you are so intent on getting out of the country? If it has something to do with your work for the government, then say no more, for I’ll not pry into the secret matters of Her Majesty’s government. But I have the horrible feeling that all this has something to do with that Rousseau woman.”

  Lazarus forced a grin onto his face. He was a careful man and it was not often that he was tumbled. “You’ve got me, Flinders,” he admitted. “It has everything to do with her. I can’t lie to you, but I must ask you to keep what I am about to tell you under your hat.”

  Petrie sighed and peered down into his glass. “I’d like to promise you that, Lazarus, but I am a professional man and if you’re involved in something that threatens the heritage of this land, I’m afraid that I will be forced to alert the proper authorities.”

  “I quite sympathies with you, Flinders, but I hope that I can persuade you that I have acted with Egypt’s best interests in mind. Well, to my way of thinking,” he faltered for a moment, “one museum is as good as another, and there are plenty of Egyptian artifacts already in the British museum, and the Louvre for that matter...”

  “I think you’d best spit it out, old boy,” said Petrie, his eyes narrowed at Lazarus.

  “Eleanor, that is, Miss Rousseau, has asked me to whisk some items away from Dr. Lindholm before he uses them in one of his ghastly experiments. She wants them removed to the Louvre.”

  “I can sympathies with the first part of that idea, but why the Louvre? There is a perfectly good museum here in Cairo. Maspero could do with taking some tips on proper cataloguing of course but still, items from the City of the Silver Aten belong in the Bulaq.”