The Case of the Shifting Sarcophagus

by Sean McLachlan

  A bullet whizzed right past Faisal’s face. He didn’t have time to see who shot it or if even they were shooting at him, because just then both baboons prepared to jump at them.

  Faisal shoved the Englishwoman aside, opened the chest, and ducked, hoping the chest was empty.

  The baboons bashed against the open lid and fell into the chest. Faisal slammed the lid down and sat on it.

  The baboons shrieked and banged against the inside of the lid, making it jump and buck. Faisal felt like he was riding an unbroken stallion, and he didn’t dare get off.

  The Englishwoman rushed over, closed the latch, and stuck her parasol through the hole to secure it.

  “Thanks!” Faisal said. She sat down on the chest too, because the baboons hadn’t given up trying to smash their way out.

  The rest of the fight was still going on. To his immense relief, Faisal saw Karim lying in a pool of blood. The Englishman and Edmond were wrestling. The Englishman had a gun in his hand and Edmond was trying to get it from him. Someone had shot Yves, who leaned against a pillar holding his gut, and Vincent had crawled halfway out of the well, only to get strangled by Moustafa.

  The Englishwoman covered her eyes and looked away. Faisal could not look away. Edmond smacked the Englishman’s hand and the gun flew into the water. As the Englishman threw a punch at Edmond, the Apache leader jumped back and pulled a tiny pistol with no barrel out of his pocket.

  The Englishman chopped at Edmond’s gun hand, and the bullet that was aimed at his heart only streaked his side. Edmond fired again, but the gun only made a click. Snarling, he flipped a little spike out to point forwards and jabbed at the Englishman, who managed to get his arm up in time to stop it from hitting his face. Instead the little blade buried itself in his forearm.

  Edmond took a quick look around the room. All his companions were down. Moustafa had just dropped Vincent’s limp form and turned toward him. The Englishman looked about to spring. A police whistle shrilled upstairs.

  Edmond ran.

  He ran right through the tapestry covering the hidden passage and disappeared.

  Faisal ran after him. He didn’t know why.

  The passageway was a dank and narrow stone tunnel with a low arch. It sloped upwards and Faisal could see sunlight ahead, partially blocked by Edmond’s silhouette.

  Edmond reached the end of the tunnel, ducked to the right, and disappeared. Faisal picked up speed.

  The tunnel opened up into an area of dense undergrowth. He looked around and saw no sign of Edmond. Shouts and running feet told him the police were almost to him. He peered through the trees and saw them approaching. His sharp ears picked up another sound, a softer sound of someone creeping through the underbrush. Faisal followed it.

  He found Edmond hiding in a little hollow made by a swale in the ground covered by a fallen palm tree. The police were almost upon them. They were Egyptian and Nubian, all carrying rifles. A European officer came huffing up behind them, his red face streaked with sweat.

  Faisal turned to them and pointed in a random direction.

  “He went that way!”

  The police nodded and rushed off the way he indicated, the officer still huffing and trying to keep up.

  He turned to the hollow. It was empty.

  Faisal looked around, feeling suddenly lost. Where had he gone?

  Then he saw him several paces away, crouched behind another tree.

  Edmond grinned at him, mouthed the words “good boy” and disappeared into the thicket.

  Faisal stood there for a moment, then walked back to the secret passage.

  Faisal should have enjoyed the ride back on the policeman’s motorboat. He had never been on a motorboat before, but he barely noticed.

  His mind was so full of thoughts and feelings that it felt like a beehive someone had just thrown a stone at. Why had he helped Edmond get away? It had been a moment’s decision and he had gone with the first thing he felt like doing, but was it the right thing?

  It wasn’t like stealing, which he knew was wrong but did because he had to do it and because it was fun. And it wasn’t like saving the woman who was going to take the Englishman away and make him lose his home. That had been the right thing to do even though he didn’t want to do it. Helping Edmond had been both right and wrong, and he felt both good and bad about doing it. Edmond had treated him nicely, nicer even than the Englishman. But he was a bad man, and deserved to get caught. Even so, Faisal couldn’t bring himself to betray him, and he couldn’t quite bring himself to feel guilty about it either. He wondered if he should feel guilty about not feeling guilty.

  Good boy, Edmond had said. How often did someone say that to him?

  “Did I do well?” Faisal asked the Englishman, who sat in the prow of the boat with the police commandant.

  “Not now, Faisal, I need to speak with Sir Thomas.”

  The Englishwoman put a hand on his shoulder and smiled. She said something to him in her own language.

  Faisal frowned back at her.

  Just because I saved you doesn’t mean I’m not mad at you for stealing the Englishman, he thought.

  The woman gave him a confused look and removed her hand.

  When he had returned to the Nilometer, she had taken the Englishman’s shirt off and was bandaging his wounds. The Englishman had objected and tried to stop her, but she had firmly pushed his hands aside and kept on working on him. Great, she was already taking over.

  He stared at the water rushing by the side of the boat, trying to put all his thoughts in order.

  At last the Englishman paid some attention to him.

  “So what’s this get up?” he asked, pointing to his new clothes.

  “He’s joined them,” Moustafa growled. “I told you you shouldn’t trust a flea-bitten cur like him. Idris Wakil said a boy had climbed into the house to take the diamonds. What boy do we know who is a good climber?”

  “Hakim kidnapped me! He threatened me with the baboons. You’re the one who sent me to find him, remember?”

  Moustafa glared at him but didn’t have a reply. Faisal stuck his tongue out at him. The Nubian lunged for him but the Englishman got between them.

  “Enough. I still want an answer to my question.”

  “They made me work for them. They told me if I didn’t, they’d stick me in a cage with those baboons and sell tickets to people who wanted to watch me get eaten alive. I had to spy for them. They wanted me in respectable clothes so I could spy on the Europeans.”

  “And take bags of diamonds from their houses,” Moustafa said. Faisal gulped.

  “What else did you do?” the Englishman asked.

  “Nothing.”

  The two men studied him.

  “Nothing!” Faisal repeated.

  “Did you go to the Citadel?” the Englishman asked.

  Faisal put on a confused face. That face worked pretty good because people always underestimated him. “Why would I do that?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that someone left a clue there that brought me to the Nilometer.”

  Faisal felt tempted to admit that. It might get him a bigger reward than the one he was about to ask for, but if he told the Englishman, he would probably tell his friend the police commandant and that would lead to trouble.

  “It was Yves,” Faisal said.

  “Yes, he seemed desperate for a reunion.”

  Faisal remembered something Yves had said to him the night before. “He said that he didn’t want to fight the war the rest of his life.”

  The Englishman turned away and looked out over the water. He looked sad. Faisal realized he knew something that might cheer him up.

  “I know one of the people they worked with! They, um, mentioned him. His name is Abbas Eldessouky and he lives on Sebil al-Nimir street. He deals in cotton that doesn’t have a tax stamp.”

  “I’ll tell Sir Thomas and they’ll round him up.”

  The Englishman fished some coins out of his pocket.

  “I
suppose you’ll want some payment. You did put up a good show back there. We’ll just forget what you did under duress. Lord knows I’ve done worse. How much will it cost me this time?”

  Faisal brightened. He only needed five and a half piastres to buy the spell to stop the Englishman from getting married.

  “Could I have five and a half piastres?”

  “That’s a rather specific amount.”

  “Well, if you want to give me six, that’s fine.”

  The Englishman pulled out some coins and started counting them. Suddenly Faisal remembered something. While he had cast a spell on Mina’s marriage and gotten taken care of that greasy old man, Mina’s family was still in trouble. They would marry her off soon.

  “Actually,” Faisal started, then saw the money in the Englishman’s hand. Forcing himself to look away from all those bright, shiny coins, he said, “A friend’s father hurt his back. It’s so bad he can’t work any more. Can you get a doctor for him?”

  The Englishman cocked his head. “Who is this fellow?”

  “He runs the ful stand.”

  “Haven’t met the chap.”

  “He makes very good ful. At least he used to.”

  “Well I wouldn’t want to deny the neighborhood gourmands a chance to partake of his culinary excellence.”

  Faisal blinked.

  “That’s a yes, Faisal.”

  “Great!”

  “There is no guarantee that a doctor can help him.”

  “Egyptian magic didn’t work, so European medicine will. It’s one or the other.”

  “I wish I shared your faith in modernism.”

  “What’s modernism?”

  “A religion that says that everything new is automatically better. I thought the war had killed that belief but I think it’s only made it worse.”

  The Englishman was speaking strangely again. It must have been all that fighting. It made him crazy sometimes.

  It didn’t matter. He’d get better soon enough, and now Mina’s father would get better too. Moustafa was all beaten up but would be all right, and the Englishwoman didn’t get her face ripped off by the baboons. The other two Europeans were all right too, and Edmond was sure to get away.

  Yes, everyone was fine. Everyone but him.

  The Englishwoman was talking to the Englishman. The way she looked at him Faisal could just tell they were going to get married. Women don’t look at men like that unless they were going to get married.

  She talked to him all the way back to Cairo. Back to the city that would soon offer no home to Faisal.

  25

  It was several days later, and Sir Thomas had practically forced him to invite himself, Cordelia, and Aunt Pearl to tea. Sir Thomas had done this by a clever ruse. He had invited Augustus to dinner, something he couldn’t refuse the man after saving his life, and was thus required to return the favor. Augustus had decided on tea because it was shorter than dinner and he wouldn’t have to endure the stares of the diners in some restaurant. Besides, Aunt Pearl was still keen on buying some mementoes. If he had to suffer through their presence, he should at least make some money.

  And suffer he did. Because the details of their little outing to al-Rawdah Island had not been shared with Aunt Pearl, they could not discuss the one interesting thing they all had in common. In a brief telephone call, Sir Thomas had made it understood that he would overlook all the sneaking behind his back and he would forget the mention of his wartime deeds, and Augustus knew that came at the price of not ever knowing the contents of the letter the Apaches had put in his office.

  He could guess. Sir Thomas had done something in the war he was ashamed of. Who hadn’t? Augustus could judge this arrogant, ignorant man for so many things, but not for that. No, never for that.

  So instead of talking about what happened in the war or on the island, the conversation remained mind-numbingly dull. Aunt Pearl went into extensive detail about her lineage, none of it particularly interesting. Why did she think that just because her ancestor got clubbed to death by some kilt-wearing rabble she could go on to such tedious length about not only him, but an endless succession of landed gentry and peacetime officers?

  Lord, save me from the banality of the English.

  But he found no succor. Cordelia practically hung on him, devouring him with those eyes while nattering on about nothing in particular. To give her credit, she had held up well under pressure and had proven her nursing skills had not been forgotten. His wounds were already healing. Unfortunately, she had gone back to being a dull woman of society.

  Her brother was even worse, fulminating about how he needed to keep the natives in stricter line.

  He wished Zehra were here. Then he could sit back and watch the fireworks between her and Cordelia. That would be fun.

  But no, she had politely declined the invitation. Apparently she was too chivalrous to engage in a duel of wits with an unarmed opponent.

  Moustafa was also absent, enjoying a well-earned holiday.

  Heinrich Schäfer had shown up, but the wily devil had lingered just as long as courtesy required before retiring upstairs to peruse Augustus’s library. Being German, none of the English had restrained him. Now the fellow sat comfortably reading while he faced torture alone downstairs. Some friend.

  Once Augustus had endured as much as he could take, he excused himself by saying he had to make a telephone call and went to his upstairs sitting room, where he found Heinrich pleasantly buried in an excavation report from the 1890s. This was one of the things he admired about the scholar—he was perfectly aware that there was a tea party going on downstairs, and chose to read by himself anyway. If only Augustus could learn the secret to being left alone!

  “Sorry to disturb you,” Augustus said as he sat down.

  “Not at all. It’s your house.”

  “How goes the writing?”

  “Slowly,” Heinrich sighed. “At least I’ve finally settled on a title. I am going to call it Principles of Egyptian Art,” Heinrich said.

  “With the amount of material you’re putting into it, shouldn’t you call it Every Last Detail of Egyptian Art?” Augustus asked with a smile.

  “That might scare off readers.”

  Augustus glanced up at the windows, open now to catch the weak noontime breeze.

  “No baboons attack you?”

  “Thankfully none. Perhaps I should write a paper on the symbolism of baboons in ancient Egyptian art to commemorate your little adventure.”

  “Perhaps. Would you like a drink?”

  “You already gave me one, thank you.”

  “Would you like another?” Augustus asked, not wanting to get to the reason why he came up here.

  “No, thank you. Is something the matter?”

  Augustus shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  “I have a rather delicate matter I need some advice on.”

  Heinrich put down the excavation report and lit his pipe. “Oh my, this sounds interesting. Would you care to elucidate me?”

  “It’s an, um, romantic matter.”

  Heinrich coughed, sending a plume of burning tobacco out of his pipe.

  “You? In a romantic affair?” he sputtered as he stamped out the flames on the rug.

  “Well, in a manner of speaking, yes. It’s more a matter of one party being interested and the other not.”

  Heinrich sighed. “Now Augustus, we’ve spoken of this before. Zehra is a fine woman, but she’s married.”

  “Not her. Wait, has she said something to you?” Augustus said, leaning forward anxiously.

  “No she has not. Now tell me what’s going on,” Heinrich said with some impatience as he refilled his pipe.

  “It’s Sir Thomas’s sister. He made me play tour guide to get me off the case. Didn’t want to get one-upped again. She’s developed an attachment to me.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “She’s like a little girl who’s found a bird with a broken wing. I don’t want pi
ty. I want to be left alone.”

  “So you say. Have you considered the possibility that she’s finds you interesting and stimulating company?”

  “Perhaps too stimulating,” Augustus said. “She almost got torn apart by baboons thanks to me. Even that didn’t dissuade her. In fact, it seemed to encourage her. She called me ‘most invigorating.’”

  “Oh dear, it sounds like a serious case,” Heinrich said, puffing on his pipe. “Perhaps reverse psychology would work.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A theory by a certain alienist in Vienna—”

  “Not Freud again!”

  “Yes, Freud. He believes that a sudden change of stance can have the opposite effect on a subject than expected.”

  “Good Lord, first the Oedipus Complex and now this. That man is going to ruin medical science for a century.”

  “It might work.”

  “What? Showing interest at last? It might convince her that she’s finally won. Then it will be impossible to shake her.”

  “Have you tried ignoring her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you cancelled appointments at the last minute?”

  “At every possible opportunity.”

  “Have you treated her with your usual brusque and aloof manner?”

  “Brusque and aloof? I only treat people the way they deserve to be treated.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Have you told her flatly that you are not interested?”

  “As far as courtesy allows. And before you make any remarks regarding my social demeanor, I am always courteous to the ladies.”

  “Too courteous in Zehra’s case,” Heinrich muttered. “Now then, you have tried every possible manner short of impertinence to rid yourself of the attentions of a kind, intelligent, and lovely young woman and, woe is you, all has failed. You say that she has a bit of a mother/nurse complex, that she likes to take care of the weak and injured.”

  “To a nauseating degree. It’s most humiliating.”

  “Well, perhaps she has latched onto you because you have withdrawn from society. If you show yourself willing to engage in society, her ardor for you might cool.”