“I knew you would be,” she said, sanguine, nodding. “Stressful events tend to increase the appetite, Da… used to say.”
They paused. Watson studied Leighton’s face, deciding it looked pinched and pale. She cast him a sorrowful glance, and he averted his gaze, not knowing what to say.
Finally she continued, “Did you sleep well, John?”
“Reasonably so,” he admitted, rueful, “if dreams full of cobras can be said to permit sound sleep.”
“Ew,” she murmured, wincing. “Yes. It was dreadful, wasn’t it?”
“I have seen worse, I suppose. But… yes, it was dreadful.” He reached out and took her hand in his. To his surprise, she withdrew it gently.
“Leigh?”
“John, we… need to talk,” she confessed.
“What is wrong?”
“This has been… all too much,” she said, shaking her head with a weary, disconsolate sigh. “First Da, then Dr. Beaumont—though he received his comeuppance, I must say—and… John, he killed… Alimah is dead. Dear, sweet Alimah. Did you know?”
“Yes,” Watson said, deeply regretful. “Udail told me, last night, when I asked after her. I was afraid, when Beaumont turned up in the vault, that, well, you know…” he broke off, then finally added, “…and it seems that fear was justified.”
“I cannot… it is all too much,” Leighton reiterated, visage forlorn. “I cannot face it, dear, dear John. Not yet.” She paused, drew a deep breath. “Nor can I face you, nor Sherry. I… am sorry; in time, my feelings may change. I sincerely hope they do, for you are both dear to me. But for now, you both cause me to… to recall too much. Sometimes I think I shall never be able to erase the memory of Da’s body lying there, with his head… dear Lord forgive me, his head… with his eyes staring so blankly…” She rose abruptly and took several deliberate steps away, then turned, face paler than ever. “I must leave here, John. I must get away. I must go home, where I can… begin to forget… all I have seen. And I must ask you not to come to visit me for some time to come. You… I love you both deeply, you and Sherry, but it will be many months, possibly years, before I can see either of you and not immediately think of, of what we… of finding Da, in the, the tomb…”
“I… see,” Watson murmured, dismayed. “What will you do?”
“I talked it all over last night with Uncle Parker and Landers—mostly Uncle Parker, because he wouldn’t let Landers say much,” Leighton revealed. “While you and Sherry were… nearly getting killed, I suppose. I am so very glad you are both safe! But, but, they have offered to escort me back to London, and I have accepted. We will depart as soon as we can get all of Da’s things packed. If Udail is willing to send Da’s stuff on, we may depart even sooner. Under the circumstances, I should like to be home in time for the holidays. If I could leave this very instant, I would.”
“What of Holmes? Do you need me to convey this message to him?”
“No, no, I… I will tell him later, when he is up and about,” Leighton said, straightening with determination, then she gave a wry chuckle. “Somehow, I suspect he may actually be glad to see the back of me.”
“I think you might be surprised, Leigh,” Watson said, swallowing his hurt and disappointment. “But… do try to stay in touch, won’t you? At the least, drop a letter in the post from time to time. And if you should ever need—or want—me back in your life…”
“I will, John,” Leighton murmured. “But… too much has happened. I hope you understand.”
“I do,” Watson conceded with a doleful sigh. “I could easily wish I did not. I had hoped for more out of our relationship, Leigh.”
“I know, John. I did, too. But I fear it was not to be.”
She left the tent, where Phillips and Nichols-Woodall fell into step on either side of her, dutiful guardians, and Watson was left staring into the bottom of his empty teacup.
* * *
Late that evening, before sunset, Watson saw Leighton approach Holmes as he left the mess tent, and say something to the detective. Holmes nodded, and followed her away from the camp, chatting with her.
Some half an hour later they returned. There were tear stains on Leighton’s face, and Holmes’ expression was closed, giving nothing away. But by now Watson knew his friend well enough to see the pain hidden deep in the grey eyes, and he nodded to himself.
“There’s an end of it, then,” he murmured, and joined Holmes as Leighton departed.
* * *
Two days later, Leighton Whitesell left the expedition camp in company of Landers Phillips and Dr. Parker Nichols-Woodall. Michael McMillan Cortland, Earl of Trenthume, chose to accompany them, as well.
Holmes decided to stay for a few more days, issuing final orders and seeing to the equipment and payrolls. Then he and Watson packed their things as the campsite was dismantled around them. Udail helped them load their trunks, and he personally drove the baggage cart, while Holmes drove the dog-cart down to the village, where they hired a steam launch to carry them down the Nile to Cairo.
CHAPTER FINAL
Confederations and Councils
—::—
“Well, that is that, Watson,” Holmes sighed. It was a melancholy sound.
The pair sat in a small, cool upper room in the Zhalam Al-Qamar66 Inn in Cairo; the screened windows were open to the refreshing evening breeze off the Nile, gauze curtains billowing gently. They had gone across the street to a food stall earlier, for a delicious, exotic, and filling meal of koshary,67 and now relaxed with their pipes.
“I am sorry, Holmes.”
“So am I. I shall miss Professor Whitesell, but there it is. And in the end, he failed in his quest to find the first Pharaoh. That, in itself… pains me.”
“Will Miss Leighton… Whites-…” Watson broke off, tried again, “will Leigh be all right, do you suppose?”
“I’ve no doubt. The Professor left everything to her, you know, and it has been a prosperous family for generations, so she is quite well off now. That young lady has the wit of her father and the passion of her mother. In all likelihood Phillips will find himself with a handful for a wife, I should think. In about a year’s time, look for wedding invitations in the post, I expect.”
“But Holmes! He is beneath her,” Watson protested. “His behaviour leaves considerable to be desired!”
“Oh, Leigh will take care of that in a very short time, I am sure. The lady is EXTREMELY determined, as you may have noticed.”
It was Watson’s turn to sigh. Holmes cast him a sympathetic glance.
“Watson, as much as I care for Leigh, I think you likely got the better end of that deal,” he offered. “She was a veritable ball of fire as a child, and is just as headstrong as an adult. I cannot think that she would have been happy to have a husband with the freedom to which YOU are accustomed.”
“You are probably right, Holmes. But I should have liked more of an opportunity to find out for myself.”
“No doubt, old chap. I am sorry—on many levels.”
“So am I.”
They sat for a time in silence, puffing upon their pipes, thoughtful. At last Holmes laid his spent pipe aside and stood, hefting his satchel from the floor and placing it upon his bed.
“Now, pack the rest of your things, my dear fellow. The boat train to Alexandria leaves early on the morrow. Thankfully, our trunks are already upon it, with no misdirection, and I shall be glad to see Baker Street once more.”
* * *
The trip home proved far less eventful than the trip out had been. There were no cases of tainted food, no misrouted baggage, no problems with ticketing. In good time, they found their carriage pulling up in Baker Street, and Mrs. Hudson emerged to welcome them home to a holiday-festive flat, as the driver unloaded their trunks, enlisting the boots to help him carry them upstairs.
* * *
After Watson went to bed, Holmes extracted the leather cylinder containing the strange parchment from the secret compartment of his trunk and e
xamined it carefully.
“Interesting,” he murmured to himself, gingerly turning it over in his hands, lest he damage it. “Archaic cuneiform, but it is on parchment, not clay. Yet pulled from its hiding place in the depths of an ancient Egyptian construct… containing a bluestone from Celtic lands. And according to its possessor, a virtual duplicate to some which were found in the jungles of South America. How very… unique. This will take some time to translate…”
Removing several large reference tomes from a lower shelf, he spread the parchment out on his desk, laid the books beside it, and began work.
* * *
The next day, Billy came into the sitting-room while Watson was at his club.
“Mister Holmes, suh, it’s Wiggins, suh. He’s downstairs, waitin’. He has that information you wanted afore ye left.”
“Ah yes, excellent. I’d almost forgotten. Send him up, please; there’s a good lad.”
Billy scampered down to the front door, and moments later another pair of small feet, clad in tatty, oversized leather shoes patched with pasteboard—Holmes decided by the sound—came pounding up. Wiggins entered and saluted.
“’Ere, Mistuh Holmes, suh!” he exclaimed, handing over a sheaf of papers and telegraph flimsies. “Oy gots ever’thin’ yer asked for royght ’ere, an’ ’en some.” He puffed up his chest. “Oy writ it all out me own self, Oy did, from t’ boys’ an’ girls’ reports.”
“Very good, Wiggins! You took my advice and you’ve been going to the school, I gather?”
“Yas suh! Oy kin bof read an’ write now, suh!”
“Capital! I’m very pleased. You will find that a proper education will only help you get ahead, lad. You might pass along the advice to the other Irregulars; it is likely to help me, as well. Now, let me see this.” Holmes accepted the rag-tag collection of scraps of paper and flipped through it, murmuring to himself. “Mm. A professor, eh? Of mathematics, no less. I suppose it makes for a good cover, though… indeed? He is quite serious about it, then. I shall have to keep my eye on him in future. This bodes… hm. Well, at least I now know whom I might consult on the other matter. Very good, Wiggins. The Irregulars have done an outstanding job this time. Payment at the usual scale, with a guinea bonus all ‘round. How many Irregulars were on the trail?”
“A round dozen, suh.”
“Very good then,” Holmes said, rising. “Let me fetch my pocket-book.”
* * *
The day after, while Watson was looking into the possibility of setting up a small practice in Baker Street, Holmes unpacked a few more things from his trunks. This included the khopesh, which he had had mounted on a plaque in Cairo, and which he now hung on the wall of his bedroom, opposite the bed.
Then he wandered into the sitting-room and over to his desk. There, he picked up the latest edition of the Times and studied its headlines, growing melancholy as he spotted a particular article. Reaching into his pocket, he extracted his pocket-book, opened it, and fished out a wrapped paper. Undoing it, he produced a little greenish-blue pebble with creamy markings, flat on one side. He let it lie in the palm of his hand, studying it for long moments, thoughtful.
Finally he opened the top drawer of his desk and tucked the little stone into the corner, where he could see it each time he obtained writing implements.
Thereupon he closed the drawer, walked over to the book-case, and took down his violin.
* * *
“Listen to this, Watson,” Holmes said a few days later, turning from his desk in their flat in Baker Street, where he still reviewed the strange scroll.
“I am all ears, Holmes. What is it?”
“It is the scroll that Beaumont wanted from the room containing the bluestone.”
“Great Scot! You have it? I thought it went down into the snake-pit with him!”
“No, no, he dropped it as he fell. ‘Flung’ is, perhaps, a more accurate term. I picked it up and put it in my pocket before we made our way out. I have been translating it; it is written in Sumerian cuneiform.”
“Sumerian! In Egypt?! Well, I suppose it is no less likely than a rock from Stonehenge being found in an Egyptian tomb. What does it say, then?”
“It appears to be possibly the original document from which Plato excerpted in his Timaeus. It is in a truly ancient and archaic form of Sumerian; I have put forth my utmost in its translation, and I think I may well have surpassed myself. I am rather pleased with my efforts. Hark:
“‘Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded in our histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which, unprovoked, undertook such as would be against the whole of Europa and Asia and the lands beyond, and to which the Peoples of the Great Sea-Centre put an end. This power came forth out of the north of the Great Ocean, for there were islands there, many and habited, and one principal island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island group was larger than Libu’—that is Libya of our day, though by the context, they may mean all of North Africa,” Holmes interjected—“’and lesser Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these one might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a true Sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless Continent.’”
“They could only be speaking here of North and South America, Watson, for they are in reality but one land mass, though that will change if France has her way with the canal across the Isthmus of Panama. It goes on:
“‘Now in this island of the Great Sea-Centre there was a high and wonderful confederation of kings, Aleteans which had rule over the whole island and many others, and furthermore, the men of the Great Sea-Centre had allied the parts of Libu within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europa north of Libu, and more beside, including the peoples and coalitions of that boundless continent across the Great Ocean. This vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue at a blow the whole of the region of Albion, which sued for peace. But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods, when a bolt fell from heaven; and in a single day and night of evil misfortune, the island of the Peoples of the Great Sea-Centre sank into the earth and disappeared in the depths of the sea.’”
Watson had pulled down his Jowett’s translation of Plato and followed a passage as Holmes read his translation. When Holmes finished, Watson looked up.
“It is indeed wondrous like, Holmes. Perhaps you have it. Or perhaps when Beaumont composed that before he hid it,” he gestured at the parchment in the sleuth’s hands, “he copied from Plato.”
“Possibly. But Watson… I had opportunity to decipher a few of the old… for want of a better term, ‘pre-proto-hieroglyphics’… in the chamber where we found the stone slab. I said nothing at the time, because it was… unexpected. More… it told that anyone who found the copy of the treaty itself could never leave the crypt alive.”
“What? So you knew…”
Holmes nodded.
“As soon as Beaumont opened that small compartment where the scroll was hidden, he triggered the booby-traps that were built into the place. Did you not hear the additional clicks? Those denoted the arming of the traps. As soon as anyone’s body weight rested upon the floor of the outer room, it would open up and let him down. That is why I let Beaumont leave, when I had him covered from the beginning with the derringer in my pocket; it was far better that he trigger the traps and end the matter, than that we should.” He paused. “More, I went back late the next day, only to discover that the floor had re-set.”
“But the wall inscription?”
“Yes. As I said, unexpected. For it read, in part, ‘Herein lies the token of that treaty of peace between the Confederation of the Peoples of the Great Sea-Centre and that rebellious land of the islands to the north.’ It was even the same phrasing… as one migh
t expect of an international treaty which had been translated into the native language of one of the signatories. And Beaumont could not possibly have created those. Even his forged Middle Kingdom hieroglyphs were awkward, at best, and likely pulled from a lexicon of such; I doubt he could even read them—which is confirmed by his being unaware of the traps.”
“But… surely you jest.”
“Not in the least. Moreover, I have found a… a positive correlation, shall we say… between a particular Egyptian name and a certain Sumerian name in this scroll.”
“Tell on, then.”
“There is some confusion in archaeological circles,” Holmes explained, “over the name of the first Pharaoh. Based on different depictions of the hieroglyphs, some claim it as Ka; others make it Sekhen —a variant of Ka—and some hyphenate permutations on those, as I have mentioned before.”
“Yes, I recollect it.”
“A literal translation accepted by most has the name rendered into English as, variously, King Arms, King of Arms, or Arms King, similar to one or more of his successors, who appears to have been dubbed ‘King Scorpion,’ or the like,” Holmes continued. “At any rate, I found the name, or title, as it sounds to me to be rendered, inscribed in the antechamber of the crypt where we found the large bluestone slab. Now, the hieroglyphs reference arms as the limbs of a human body. Yet the Sumerian proto-cuneiform, which is even older, makes reference to a King of All Armaments.”
“What?!”
“I now believe, based on these various documents I have translated, that Pharaoh Ka-Sekhen is so much fiction, and the serekh, a play on words,” Holmes declared. “I believe the term refers to a THING, not a person.”
Watson blinked, and stared at a solemn Holmes for a long moment.
“So… you are saying that… it really…”
“Indeed.” Holmes nodded confirmation. “And the record of the chamber confirms it. No, Watson, this scroll is no forgery; it has lain there with the bluestone slab, concealed in the chamber within the Cobra Mountain for untold aeons, protected both by the cobra temple beneath, and the wile of a forgotten people. According to the document which was briefly in Beaumont’s possession, which I hold here and in which I have expended much effort in translation, and which may have had a twin that previously also had fallen into Beaumont’s hands, the nation we now know as Britain has been in existence in some form for far longer than anyone realised,” Holmes began, fingering the ancient parchment as Watson settled back with his pipe. “Known once as Albion, it, along with many other ancient peoples, comprised members of an alliance headed by no less than the actual, lost kingdom of Atlantis.”
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