The Case of the Shifting Sarcophagus

by Sean McLachlan

  “He’s looking around, is he? When did he last check in?”

  Moustafa shook his head. “Too long. I’m worried something might have happened to him.”

  18

  Faisal’s fear had not left him, but it had subsided to a low tension that did not stop him from clearly seeing his situation. He now knew that he would not be hurt if he did as he was told. Hakim still threatened him with the baboons, but the Frenchmen fed him and told him how rich he could be if he stayed with the gang.

  He pretended to be eager. While Faisal knew the Apaches were too clever to trust him yet, and Hakim would probably never trust him, at least they had begun to relax their guard.

  Their attitude had improved after last night, when he had been instructed to climb into the upper window of a mansion to meet with one of the servants. Faisal had entered a darkened room and crouched by the window as instructed. After a wait of several minutes, the servant, an Egyptian, had walked in and handed him a small bag.

  Without a word the servant had left, but Faisal had gotten a good enough look at him in the moonlight that he could recognize him again.

  He had gotten a good look at the contents of the bag too. Before he had climbed back out the window, he had opened it. His breath caught as a heap of diamonds sparkled in the moonlight.

  All the way down the outside wall, he dreamed of what he could do with such a stash, but of course Hakim, one of the Apaches, and both baboons waited for him at the bottom, silent as shadows.

  The baboons could have easily performed that task, but that wasn’t the point. It was a test and he had passed.

  And now it was the next day. They woke with the muezzin call from the nearby mosque.

  “Back to the city again, boy. We have a busy day today,” Edmond said over breakfast. The gang had set up beds and a table in one of the lower floors of the Nilometer, and a loyal villager brought them their meals. Faisal was really beginning to appreciate all the food he was getting. It was far more convenient than sneaking into the Englishman’s pantry.

  “You’re taking over all the gangs in the city, right?” Faisal asked. He had suddenly come up with an idea.

  “We’re making good progress. It’s a big city, though.”

  “I know a good business you can get in on.”

  Edmond handed him a boiled egg. “And what is that?”

  “There’s a merchant named Abbas Eldessouky who trades in illegal cloth. He’s buying and selling lots of it without paying tax.”

  Edmond nodded in approval. “Cheating the imperialists out of their unjust taxes. Sounds like man I should get to know.”

  “He’s got a big shipment coming in from Upper Egypt in a few days. I’m not sure when. You better hurry.”

  “And how did you come across this information?”

  Faisal shrugged. “Nobody notices me. I hear all sorts of things. Some things are useful, some aren’t. This wasn’t useful to me until I met you.”

  “And where does this merchant live?”

  Faisal extended a hand. He knew the kind of man he was dealing with.

  Edmond laughed and gave him a two-piastre coin.

  “Good enough?” the Apache leader asked.

  Faisal nodded, wondering whether it counted as honest earnings. He still needed to save money for the spell to stop the Englishman’s marriage.

  “He lives on Sebil al-Nimir street.”

  Edmond studied him. “You sold him out pretty quickly. You’ve been reluctant to help us and now this? Why?”

  Faisal looked down at his food. “I needed the money.”

  Plus when the Englishman catches the lot of you, he’ll put that greasy-haired son of a dog in jail.

  “You’ll make plenty of money with us. Do you need it for anything specific?”

  “A spell to help a friend.”

  Edmond snorted. “Your rulers keep you in superstitious ignorance.”

  “Khadija umm Mohammed’s magic works every time! She’s the best.”

  The Apache leader shook his head and looked him over. “You’ll need a new jellaba. You can’t go into the Citadel wearing that old thing. They’d beat you within an inch of your life and throw you out on your ear, if they’re feeling merciful. Come.”

  Faisal followed the gang leader, not having any other choice. Edmond brought him to the village tailor who gave them both a long look and then with a shake of his head took Faisal’s measurements and got to work. Within an hour he was wearing a clean, brand new jellaba of light blue. Edmond hadn’t even skimped on the material, buying him one better than the cheapest, something a shop owner’s son would wear.

  “I’d buy you the best,” Edmond said. “But that would raise suspicion. Perhaps on another job you’ll need to pretend to be someone rich, in which case I’ll buy you the best material available.”

  Faisal looked in amazement at his new clothes. He hadn’t had a new jellaba in two years, and the one he had been wearing was so patched and mended there was almost none of the original material left.

  “You’ll need sandals too.”

  They went and got him a new pair of sandals. Faisal had never owned a pair. Not even his father had ever bought him a pair. That would have been a waste of precious drinking money.

  They went back to the hideout and Edmond had him clean up in the water at the bottom of the Nilometer, even providing a bar of soap. Faisal never washed except when he went swimming in the Nile. The soap made him smell funny.

  “There,” Edmond said, looking at him with satisfaction. “Now you’re ready. Take a look.”

  The Apache leader pulled down a cracked mirror from the wall and held it at his level so he could get a good look at himself. Faisal blinked. He looked like a different person, like he had a home and a family and everything. He stared and stared. Edmond held the mirror patiently.

  “You like it?” Edmond asked.

  Faisal nodded.

  “You like nice things, don’t you? All those things they never let you have.”

  Faisal nodded again.

  “If you cooperate you can have those things. But first you have a job to do.”

  Edmond handed him a parcel containing his uniform.

  “The servant’s uniform you don’t put on until you get to the Citadel. That’s their custom. They don’t trust the boys to keep them clean otherwise. A guard named Selim is posted at the gate. He’s with us. He’ll get you past the other guards and inside. Once inside, no one will notice you. The Europeans won’t spare you a glance and the Egyptians will assume you’re someone new. The commandant’s office is in the large stone building next to the prison. Second floor, the large office on the far end. You bring the tea in there.”

  Faisal climbed the long road up to the Citadel gate. The hot wind howled and the lane was shrouded with dust. He kept looking at his light blue jellaba, and the smile never left his lips. He noticed his new clothes made him stand a little straighter, and his walk was a bit more confident.

  Be careful, he reminded himself. This is the most dangerous thing you’ve done in a while.

  Faisal felt the letter in his pocket. It was inside a sealed, plain envelope with something written on the outside. He wished he could read. Why deliver a message to Russell Pasha like this? Was it to signal that the Apaches could get at him? They had told him that Russell Pasha and his secretary would be called away from the office just before Faisal entered. He was to put the note on the police commandant’s chair, leave the tea like he was doing his job, and get out as fast as possible.

  So they didn’t want Russell Pasha to see him deliver the note. Why not? To keep him from getting captured and talking? That made sense, but what did the note say?

  The gate loomed ahead. Several Nubian and Egyptian guards stood in front of it with their rifles at the ready. Behind him, he knew, one of the Apaches waited on the road below casually smoking a cigarette, while really keeping an eye on him in case he tried to bolt.

  Faisal considered his chances if he told
the police why he had been sent. They would keep him for questioning, and he had seen what happened to people questioned by the police. Plus he didn’t know how many people the Apaches had inside the Citadel. If he told the wrong person, he’d end up with is throat slit.

  He approached the guards, his heart beating fast. One of the Nubians stepped forward.

  “You’re late, boy. Get in here.”

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. This must be Selim.

  The guard gave him a shove and he hurried past the other soldiers, who barely glanced at him.

  Beyond the first gate they came to a portion of the road flanked by a high wall on one side and the sheer cliff of the hillside on the other. Atop the wall stood more guards, their rifles resting on the parapet. A second gate stood further up. Faisal remembered hearing about this place. Tariq ibn Nagy did a show about it once. Way back a hundred years ago, the great Muhammad Ali Pasha wanted to get rid of the Mamluk soldiers who vied with him for power over Egypt. They pretended to be his loyal troops but really did whatever they wanted and ground the people down under their heels. The great Muhammad Ali Pasha heard his people’s cries for justice, and decided to get rid of the Mamluk beys once and for all. He invited their leaders to a big party in the Citadel. After serving them coffee and entertaining them with dancing girls, the great Muhammad Ali Pasha bade them good afternoon and they took their leave. As they marched in procession out of the upper gate, moving down this narrow lane toward the second, outer gate, both portals slammed shut, trapping them inside. Then the great Muhammad Ali Pasha ordered his troops to fire, and from the towers atop both gates and from the wall hemming in the road, the soldiers rained bullets, arrows, and spears on the treacherous Mamluks. From atop the cliff, more soldiers rolled great stones down on the Mamluks. Four hundred and sixty-nine were killed on the very spot where Faisal was walking now. Only one escaped. He rode a magnificent Arabian charger of the purest white. The Mamluk spurred his horse into an incredible leap that took him to the top of the wall. From there he leaped down to the street far below. The horse died from the fall but the Mamluk bey survived. He grabbed another horse and galloped off, not stopping until he reached Syria.

  The Mamluks had been crushed, and the great Muhammad Ali Pasha sent their heads to the Sultan in Constantinople to tell him that Egypt was now free.

  Faisal looked around and shuddered, imagining the carnage. Tariq ibn Nagy had shown him how it had been with his puppets. Horses falling over screaming with arrows stuck in their sides, Mamluks pitching out of their saddles as they got struck by bullets, or crushed by the great stones rolled off the cliff top. With so many killed in one place, this lane must surely be haunted by jinn. He felt thankful that he was walking here in the daytime.

  “Keep up,” Selim the Nubian guard said.

  They passed through the second gate and into a wide courtyard. A large mosque rose to the right, its thin minarets touching the sky. Ahead of them stood a long, low building that Faisal guessed was a barracks. A group of British soldiers stood in formation, then wheeled right at a barked order from their officer before marching off.

  Selim led him to a smaller building to the left of the barracks, from which wafted the smell of cooking. Faisla’s stomach grumbled.

  “You can change in the kitchen,” Selim said, leading him in.

  “Can I get something to eat?”

  “You have work to do.”

  They entered a busy kitchen where several Egyptian cooks stirred huge pots filled with chicken stew for the soldiers. Through a large arched doorway Faisal saw a pair of bakers hard at work at an oven. Selim gestured to a small alcove where a line of pegs held the cook’s street clothes.

  “Hurry up,” Selim ordered.

  Faisal changed as quickly as he could, reluctantly hanging up his new jellaba on one of the pegs. What if someone stole it? Then he reminded himself that this wasn’t a shack in some dirty alley like he used to live in. Everyone here had a job and money. No one would be interested in stealing his jellaba. This was a different world.

  “The cook is in our pay. Take a tray of tea from him. Russell Pasha normally takes his tea at this hour,” the guard whispered.

  Faisal did as he was told. The cook didn’t even look at him as he handed him a tray with a teapot, cup, and bowl of sugar.

  Faisal looked at it dubiously. “Did you poison this?”

  “Keep your voice down,” the cook said in an angry whisper, looking around him. “Now do as you’re told.”

  Faisal noticed that Selim the guard had disappeared.

  “Go on,” the cook urged.

  Faisal hesitated. Everyone said that Russell Pasha was bad, but his sister was going to marry the Englishman and the Englishman would never marry into an evil family.

  “I’m not going to poison anyone,” Faisal whispered.

  The cook sighed and rolled his eyes. He poured a little of the tea into a spare cup, blew on it to cool it, and drank it.

  “Satisfied?” the cook asked.

  “What are you going to do to him?”

  “Nothing compared to what I’ll do to you if you don’t do your job. Now get to the administration building. Just out the door and on the right. If you don’t deliver the tea, I’ll boil you in the soup and serve you to the soldiers.”

  The cook sounded like he meant it. Faisal hurried off.

  Sweat trickled down Faisal’s back as he approached the administration building. He struggled to contain his fear. This was no worse than breaking into a house, he told himself. If you break into a house and someone spots you, that’s it. You better run away or they’ll beat you to death. He’d been in a couple of close scrapes before. This was no different.

  But it sure felt different. Here he was walking in plain view of dozens of soldiers and policemen.

  But they think you’re a tea boy, he told himself. It’s like when you’re lounging around the market. You’re invisible. Hey, you’ve even more invisible here because you have nice clothes. In the market everyone mistrusts you because you’re wearing bad clothes.

  Faisal smiled at the thought of that new jellaba hanging on a peg in the kitchen. It was the nicest he’d ever owned, and this uniform wasn’t too bad either. The vest and fez made him look like a servant, but he could keep the pants and shirt at least. That meant he had two sets of clothes. Two sets! Incredible. What would Edmond buy him after this job?

  Immediately after that thought he felt sorry. The Englishman was after these people so they must be bad. He’d seen himself how bad they could be. Were a few nice clothes going to make him change his mind?

  But still …

  His mind in a turmoil, he strode up to the front door of the administration building, the tea tray in his hands. An English policeman stood there, a pistol in a holster on his belt.

  The Englishman shouted at something and Faisal jerked in fear, almost sending the tea tray crashing to the ground.

  The policeman shouted something again. Faisal realized he was trying to speak Arabic. It sounded something like, “Where are you going?”

  “Russell Pasha,” Faisal squeaked. Faisal couldn’t have hidden his fear even if he had tried, and it was best not to try. Policemen liked to see you afraid.

  The policeman grunted and motioned for him to go inside.

  Faisal could barely keep the the tray steady as he passed through a large front hallway abuzz with conversation. Englishmen, many in uniform, stood in serious groups talking and smoking. He had never seen so many Englishmen all in one place before. He stared around him with awe. All that power. All those nice clothes. Not a single one of them even glanced at him. He was beneath their notice.

  Fine by him. He’d love to turn invisible like the jinn’s son in the Thousand and One Nights and sneak out of here. This was the next best thing, but he didn’t get to sneak out. No, he had to see this thing through or the Apaches would hunt him down and feed him to Hakim’s baboons, assuming the cook didn’t turn him into soup first.

 
He went up the stairs, keeping the tray as steady as he could in his shaking hands. Just as he was about to step onto the second landing, a British soldier in an officer’s uniform came speeding around the corner.

  Faisal leaped back, but not before the officer bumped into the tray. The cup fell over on its side and the tray pitched dangerously, threatening to dump all its contents on the stone steps. Faisal spun around, his foot slipping on the stairs. He caught himself by stepping with his other foot on the next step down.

  But by them the tray was getting away from him. He had to run down the remaining steps, trying to balance the tray as the teapot and sugar bowl and cup slid away. At the second to last step he jumped, spun around, and thudded his back against the wall. The tea set clattered and slid. The top came off the sugar bowl and clinked against the teacup. Faisal wavered, steadied himself, and let out a sigh of relief to see that nothing had fallen off the tray.

  The officer shouted at him. He nodded and tried to look meek. The officer snapped a few more words at him, turned on his heel, and continued down the steps. Faisal stuck his tongue out at him.

  That earned him a slap from another officer coming down the steps. The force of the blow nearly made the tea set pitch over.

  After giving him a good tongue lashing in English, the officer stormed off. Faisal stood there a minute, letting his heartbeat slow and his breathing get back to normal. Then he rearranged the tea set, brushing away a bit of sugar that had spilled out of the sugar bowl. He took a couple of pinches of sugar for himself to sooth his nerves and set the teacup upright. It had a little chip on the rim. Hopefully Russell Pasha wouldn’t notice.

  He must be late by this point. They had told him the police commandant and his secretary would only be called away for a few minutes. Faisal climbed the rest of the stairs as fast as he dared, keeping to the center of the steps to avoid getting bumped into again.

  Faisal got to the right corridor and saw Russell Pasha’s office at the end with the door open. He was in luck. Most of the other doors were closed and there was no one in the hallway at the moment. The only sounds were the clattering of typewriters and the buzz of distant conversation. Faisal hurried to the office.