The Case of the Shifting Sarcophagus

by Sean McLachlan

  The pot-bellied man stared in confusion at Faisal.

  “What are you doing here? What’s that?”

  Abbas looked at the last bit of paper get consumed by the fire. Faisal thought fast.

  “I, um, was smoking. I found some tobacco and rolled it up in some paper.”

  Abbas took a swipe at him. Faisal ducked out of the way.

  “Get out of here, you little wretch. Go smoke somewhere else!”

  Faisal hurried off, but the man’s strange behavior kept him from going far. Why had he been hiding in the dark in his own house? Why had he been so nervous about someone named Tawfik?

  Faisal looped around back to the house. Having grown up on the street, he had a sixth sense for how Cairo’s winding lanes and alleyways linked together, and in a few minutes managed to find the tiny alley that opened up almost opposite Abbas Eldessouky’s house.

  He made it just in time to see three men knock on the door. Abbas opened the door instantly, gave a nervous look around the street, and hustled them inside. Faisal wondered what the cotton merchant’s family thought about all this, but he suspected his wives and children had been told to stay upstairs where that light shone.

  A few minutes later the door reopened. Abbas peeked out, but just at that moment came the sound of the neighborhood watchman’s keys jangling. The door closed. After a minute the watchman appeared, jangling his keys. Faisal grinned. What a fool! Didn’t he realize that his little habit announced to the whole neighborhood where he was? On second thought, perhaps the cotton merchant had bribed him to do just that. He wouldn’t be the first neighborhood watchman to be paid to look the other way.

  As the sound of the keys faded into the distance, the door reopened, and the three men appeared, each burdened with a heavy bolt of cloth. They ran down the street as Abbas Eldessouky watched nervously from the doorway. After a minute they came back empty-handed and got more bolts of cloth from the house.

  “Plenty more coming in a few days,” Abbas told them. “I’m awaiting a shipment from Upper Egypt.”

  The men nodded and hurried off with their burdens.

  Curious, Faisal took a back route to where it looked like they were going. It didn’t take long to find a bullock cart standing in a darkened portion of the street with a man guarding it. The three fellows appeared, dumped more bolts of cloth in the back, and ran back to Abbas Eldessouky’s house.

  Faisal moved out of sight, and then reappeared on the street, walking casually. The man guarding the cart glanced at him but otherwise took no notice. No one ever took much notice of him. That came in handy.

  Faisal went up to the man with his hand out.

  “Can you give me half a piastre? I’m hungry.”

  “Get lost.”

  Faisal shrugged and walked off. He had seen what he wanted to see. The bolts of cloth didn’t have a stamp on them. All cotton had to get a stamp from the English to prove the merchant had paid tax. That tax was pretty high. Abbas Eldessouky was dodging taxes.

  It didn’t matter, he thought as he walked away. Mina wouldn’t be marrying him anyway. His friend was safe. He knew that eventually Mina would get married to someone, but that was a long way off.

  Or was it? The sudden question jabbed at Faisal’s calm. Mina’s father wanted to marry her off because he couldn’t support her anymore. That hadn’t changed. Sooner or later, probably sooner, he’d find some other husband for his daughter.

  Faisal gritted his teeth in frustration. Now what was he going to do? Cast a spell on Mina so that she never got married? No, that wouldn’t be fair. Every girl needs to get married eventually. He had to figure out a way to get her father some work again so that he wouldn’t have to marry off his daughter so early.

  But who wants to hire a man with a bad back? What work could he do? Plenty of healthy people couldn’t find work. Who would give him a chance?

  With these impossible problems whirling around in his mind, he headed back to the Englishman’s house.

  As he came to Ibn al-Nafis Street, he saw Karim walking ahead of him, checking out each house to make sure it was secure. Faisal stuck out his tongue at him and waited for him to round the corner. That fellow was always looking for an excuse to beat him. Didn’t Karim know that he guarded the Englishman’s house better than he ever could?

  And now Faisal would lose that job. Unless he could earn nine more piastres honestly—an almost impossible task—the Englishman would get married and he’d have to move back with the other boys to their shack in the alley.

  Faisal wrinkled his nose in disgust. He hated that place. It got drafty on cold nights and stank of cats’ piss. Plus the other boys always pestered him for food, which after he lost his job he wouldn’t be able to provide.

  Once Karim had safely disappeared around the corner, Faisal went around to the back of the building and climbed up to his little home on top. He looked at the snug little shack longingly for a time, wondering how much longer he would get to enjoy it.

  The sweet voice of Mohammed el-Hajji lilted through the air from the neighborhood mosque, calling the people to prayer. Faisal looked out over the moonlit rooftops, his mind troubled. He hadn’t really solved any of his problems and he knew they’d only get worse once he lost his home. But the sound of Mohammed’s singing and the beauty of the moonlight soon eased Faisal’s boyish mind and brought him back to the present. Having lived on the streets since he was eight, and having spent most of his time fending for himself even when his lout of a father had still been around, he had learned to enjoy the moment, never knowing when it would be his last. He decided to go down into the house and relax in his favorite place.

  Squeezing through the window, he got down to the third floor, confident now that the darkness held no jinn ready to attack him. He took the stairs to the second floor and strolled out to the loggia, a covered porch overlooking the courtyard. The Englishman had furnished it with a comfortable divan, a low table, and a few chairs.

  Faisal lay on the divan and took the lid off a covered dish of dates that the Englishman had kindly left on the table. The dish was always heaped with dates and the Englishman never missed one or two. Or three. Faisal started munching away, content as a Sultan, studying the intricate designs of the mashrabiya on the interior windows as they gleamed silver in the moonlight. The burble of the fountain lulled him into relaxation. He reminded himself to take care. Once he had fallen asleep here, to be awoken by the dawn call to prayer. Luckily the Englishman slept late, otherwise he would have been caught.

  Ah, this was the life! Lazing on comfortable cushions and chomping on fresh dates.

  A soft sound from above caught his attention. It sounded like the rattle of a window in its frame.

  Faisal perked his ears and became immobile as a stone. Had one of the other boys discovered his secret? A moment later he heard a soft padding sound, as of an animal, on the stairs inside. His sharp hearing followed the sound as it descended to his floor and then continued down. A moment later, the same sound repeated, as if another creature followed the first.

  His skin crawled. What was that?

  Then he remembered the baboon prints on the glass. In all the excitement he had forgotten. The baboon jinn were back!

  No, wait, the charm still worked, and the Englishman had said Europeans had brought the stone box and dead body into his house. That sound wasn’t made by jinn, but by something else.

  Plucking up his courage, Faisal crept inside to the staircase. He listened for a moment and heard nothing but the soft sound of the Englishman snoring.

  Then, from a distant part of the house below, he heard a faint scrape.

  Hurrying down the steps on bare feet, Faisal didn’t make a sound. He heard the scrape a few more times and could tell it came from the front room.

  When he got to the doorway leading to the room with all the ancient things, he peeked around the corner, his heart thudding in his chest.

  At first he saw nothing. Little moonlight filtered into this
room and so it was almost pitch black, and he didn’t dare light his candle.

  Then that scraping sound came again, and Faisal immediately located it.

  It came from the front door.

  He stared at the dark rectangle of wood at the far end of the room, looking slightly to one side to improve his night vision. There seemed to be a darker mass in the middle of the door, a shadow on a shadow.

  Scrape.

  Faisal’s eyes went wide. It was the bolt on the door! Something was opening it.

  Scrape. Clack.

  Faisal jerked as the bolt snapped open. The door opened with a creak, and the silhouettes of some men briefly appeared before the door shut again. Faisal moved back behind the doorway, leaving as little of his body exposed as he could while still being able to see.

  A match flared in the darkness, making him blink. He saw three men—two European and one Egyptian. The Egyptian—a cunning-looking man with sharp, lean features—held the match. He lit a lantern he carried in his other hand. The two Europeans carried a large sack between them.

  Then Faisal saw something that made his blood freeze.

  A pair of baboons squatted on the floor nearby.

  He almost ran off, thinking that the Egyptian with the lantern had summoned two baboon jinn, but then he remembered what the Englishman always said. He said that Faisal should use something called “logic”. That meant he should think things through instead of latching onto the first story that came into his head.

  The charm was still in place behind the crocodile-headed jinni, and Khadija umm Mohammed’s spells always worked, so the logical explanation was that the magic still worked. That meant that the baboons would have turned to stone by now. So these weren’t baboon jinn, but real baboons, trained to get into the house and open the door.

  Faisal felt like bowing in respect. These were the best housebreakers he had ever heard of.

  But respect gave way to fear and anger. These thieves were breaking into his house. Such dishonesty! Had they no respect for private property? People like that should be in jail.

  Faisal’s suspicions about the baboons were confirmed when the Egyptian motioned to the two animals and they obediently trotted over and squatted next to him. One of the Europeans turned on a flashlight. The light caught the gleam of a pistol in his hand. He turned and moved straight toward Faisal.

  Faisal ducked back around the corner, but no shot came. Good, he hadn’t been spotted. He guessed the man would go upstairs to check on the Englishman. As quietly as he could, Faisal rushed upstairs, hurried through the Englishman’s room, and hid in the bathroom, peeking out through the crack of the open door.

  Just as he suspected, the European peered in through the Englishman’s doorway. Faisal looked around the bathroom, wondering what he could use for a weapon if the intruder decided to hurt his employer. But he didn’t need to fight. The European stared for a moment at the Englishman’s sleeping form, then turned and went back downstairs.

  Faisal scratched his head. So they didn’t want to rob him or hurt him, even though they had broken into his house. These people were strange even by European standards.

  It took some nerve to go back downstairs, and by the time he did he saw the three men leaving the house, shutting the door behind them. The baboons stayed inside, and once the door closed, they leaped up on the bolt and started yanking it shut. While the animals were strong like all baboons, they were too small to stand and reach the bolt so they had an awkward time moving it.

  Faisal retreated once more, this time into the hallway bathroom, shutting the door behind him. He waited in the pitch black.

  Pressing his ear against the door, he soon heard them passing down the hallway, their claws lightly scraping the stone floor.

  The sound stopped. Faisal strained his ears.

  Then, right on the opposite side of the door, came a sniffing sound. Faisal bit his lip and trembled.

  He heard the doorknob turn.

  Faisal yanked the door shut, fumbled in the darkness for the latch, and snapped it closed.

  The door rattled. Faisal backed up, pressing himself against the far wall, almost paralyzed with fear. Baboons could be vicious. These two could tear him apart as badly as any jinn.

  The door shook again, followed by a loud bang that forced a cry from his lips.

  Then there was silence. Faisal could not hear if they left over the sound of his own pounding heart.

  It took him an hour to summon the courage to open the door a crack, and several more minutes to reassure himself the baboons had gone.

  Once he did, he lit a candle and went into the front room. What had the thieves been doing in here? Everything looked in place …

  … Except the lid on the stone box. It had been slid back to seal the box shut again.

  10

  “It’s about time you fellows showed up again,” Augustus said the next morning when he saw the lid on the sarcophagus had been moved.

  He immediately drew his automatic pistol from his pocket, although he felt reasonably safe. They had come in again while he slept, probably looked in on him, and had done nothing. These people didn’t want to hurt him; they wanted to play with him.

  “Well, if it’s a game you want, I’m happy to play along,” he said.

  Like the last time, he scoured the house from top to bottom looking for evidence of a forced entry or any other clue, and found nothing. As he passed the downstairs toilet on his way back to the showroom, he stopped short. The door to the toilet had a few scrapes on it about a third of the way up, as if some animal had scoured the wood. He felt pretty sure those had not been there before. Had the intruders brought a dog with them? And if so, why had it scraped at the toilet door?

  The door was closed, and Augustus eased himself to one side of it, pointing the pistol at the doorway and putting his hand on the doorknob.

  With a single fluid motion, he flung the door open and jammed his pistol through the open doorway.

  Nothing. The toilet was empty.

  “This just keeps getting better,” he said with a chuckle.

  He went back to the showroom and smoked a cigarette while he waited for Moustafa to show up, barely able to contain his curiosity.

  As usual, his employee impressed Augustus with his sharp perception.

  “Not again!” he cried as he came through the door, eyes fixed on the sarcophagus.

  “Shall we fetch the crowbars?” Augustus asked.

  “Very well,” his employee said with a sigh.

  Augustus laughed. “You seem less than enthusiastic about this, Moustafa.”

  “And you seem too enthusiastic,” Moustafa grumbled as he left the room.

  Poor Moustafa, Augustus thought. He certainly gets more than he signed up for, but he’s a good sport.

  When the Nubian came back, Augustus noticed he moved stiffly and the side of his face was swollen.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I followed the doorman to a low den of iniquity and got into a fight with one of the Apaches.”

  “Ah, good! Where is he? I presume you captured him.”

  “No, Mr. Wall,” Moustafa replied, shaking his head and looking at the floor.

  “But you said you fought him.” Augustus had seen Moustafa fight, and knew he didn’t lose.

  “He used some strange fighting technique on me and … got away before I could knock him out.”

  Moustafa walked stiff-legged over to the sarcophagus with the crowbars.

  “Did he kick you in the thighs then follow up with kicks to the chest and face?” Augustus asked.

  “That he did, sir.”

  “Oh dear, I’m terribly sorry. It’s a French fighting technique called savate. A mixture of classic boxing and a kicking style developed by sailors in Marseille. I should have realized the Apaches would fight that way. I’ve heard it is most effective.”

  “It is, Mr. Wall.”

  Augustus noted a trace of impatience in his employee’s voice.<
br />
  “Well,” Augustus clapped him on the shoulder, “you and I will get them in the end. Let’s see what they left for us this time, eh?”

  Moustafa told him all about what had occurred the night before, ending by saying, “They warned me that they’d kill us if we kept after them.”

  Augustus sized him up. “But you want to keep going, don’t you?”

  A spark lit in Moustafa’s eyes. “More than ever.”

  Augustus smiled. “That’s what I thought.”

  Together they fitted the crowbars on the sarcophagus lid and heaved the stone aside.

  A loud bang and flare of light made them jump back.

  Augustus blinked from the light, his vision wavering. Day turned into night, and the Germans were sending star shells to burst over No Man’s Land. The roar of the big guns in the distance filled his ears.

  “An assault is coming!” he shouted to his unit.

  Someone shook him. He blinked again, and the room came back into focus. A big African stood by him. Who was this?

  Oh, right.

  “Mr. Wall, are you here?” Moustafa said, still gripping his shoulder.

  Augustus shrugged him off. “I’m fine.”

  Unfortunately, Moustafa had learned about his little slips of the mind and worried over him like a mother hen. Most humiliating. He’d have given Moustafa the sack if he hadn’t been so damned useful.

  Moustafa stared at him doubtfully. Augustus ignored him and approached the sarcophagus, shaking a little from the vision.

  “Mr. Wall …”

  “I said I’m fine!” he barked, and peeked inside. “But this poor bugger most certainly is not.”

  A head lay within. Moustafa moved to his side and gasped.

  “That’s Claude Paget! They must have killed him for talking to me.”

  Moustafa turned away, hands over his face. Augustus hesitated a moment, then put a hand on his shoulder.

  “It’s not your fault. This only goes to show that we have to stop these barbarians.”

  Moustafa squared his shoulders. “We do. Claude was a drunken lowlife, but he didn’t deserve this.”