by Anna Elliott
The Egyptian papers—those which were printed in English—featured news of the dam across the Nile at Aswan, now under construction by a British engineering firm. I recalled that Holmes had focused on similar stories when we had been in London.
The stories I read in the Egyptian papers focused on considerable debate over the project, due to the projected flooding of an ancient temple no longer in active use. Those opposed to the dam wished to preserve a valuable historic artifact. Those in favour trumpeted that the financial terms to Egypt were wonderfully generous, and that no payments to the British firm would be made unless the dam was completed and profitable.
“You are a known associate of Herr Von Bulow, who is also in Cairo,” I went on. “And since we also know that Sonnebourne is in the pay of the Kaiser—and moreover is the only man in Egypt who would have had word of Holmes death—I repeat: where is Sonnebourne and what are his plans?”
Dr. Olfrig swallowed but once again attempted to bluster. “I do not have to sit here and listen to your threats and your insults—”
“Actually, yes, you do,” Lucy said. “Unless you would prefer that I shoot you.”
“You would commit murder?” Olfrig’s upper lip curled.
“Oh, I wouldn’t kill you,” Lucy said calmly. “Only shoot you in the arm or the knee or somewhere equally painful but non-fatal. You would of course be welcome to file a complaint with the Egyptian police.”
The police force in Egypt, like nearly every other branch of the government, was ultimately controlled by the British. I saw in Olfrig’s expression how little he liked the idea of attracting their notice for any reason.
He swallowed again. “I … I do not know the man of whom you speak personally. However, I can tell you that a gentleman did call upon Herr Von Bulow for a meeting a few days ago, and spoke with him in private for some time.”
“What did they talk of?”
“I do not know!” Olfrig’s voice rose. “Their meeting was private, as I said!”
“Not good enough.” Lucy advanced a step or two, the gun still trained on the doctor’s mid-section and her green eyes hard. “Let us be crystal clear, Dr. Olfrig. Lord Sonnebourne has repeatedly threatened my family and has now kidnapped my mother. I am extremely short on patience with anyone who tries to hamper our catching up with him. Now, I find it very unlikely that a miserable, sneaking little worm such as yourself wouldn’t have found a way to listen at the door or through a keyhole. So what did Von Bulow and Sonnebourne talk of!”
Dr. Olfrig was rattled enough that he didn’t even protest at Lucy’s insults, only passed his tongue once more over his dry lips. “I heard very little,” he said. “Sonnebourne said something about hiring a boat—a dahabeeyah—for the journey to Aswan.”
My heart sank. “Aswan?” Hearing that Sonnebourne was travelling to the critically important construction project, I feared we were already too late to interfere with his plans. The city was in the far south of Egypt, a journey of at least three days up the Nile. “He is no longer in Cairo, then?”
“As far as I know, he planned to leave at once. He asked Von Bulow for money—for expenses, he said.”
“Expenses? What for?” I asked.
“He did not say. Only that he hoped to give the Kaiser, the All-highest, a suitable Christmas present.” Olfrig wiped a drop of perspiration from his brow, and added, “He said that it would be delivered on the 24th.”
CHAPTER 13: LUCY
The waters of the Nile flowed slowly beneath us, providing little opposition to the side paddle steamer we had boarded. On either side of the great river, dun-coloured buildings shone in the sunlight, evidence that we were still well within the city of Cairo. Our choice of travelling by steamer had been quite deliberate, for we were going to the British ambassador’s residence and we wished to avoid the main entrance utilised by visitors arriving in the ordinary way using carriages.
Instead, we had taken the Cook’s steamer, and I could see the docking area at the rear of the building, where the great green lawn spread out beyond the bright new white stone colonnades, leading to equally bright new stone steps approaching the garden entrance.
The building itself was equally grand, newly built in the classic Grecian style and spreading out as if luxuriating in the riverfront space.
“Seems more appropriate for a king’s palace,” Watson said, as we stood at the steamboat railing.
It was the third member of our party who answered, a dark-haired young man in his middle twenties, with a long, intelligent face.
“An investment,” Howard Carter said. “There was considerable debate in Parliament about the funding, but it was finally decided that the residence would demonstrate to the Egyptians the British commitment over the long term.” He gave a wry smile. “Or, to put it another way, awe them into submission with an intimidating show of our resources and power. Like the Sphynx. Or the Tower of London, for that matter.”
“Thank you for arranging this meeting for us, Mr. Carter,” I said. “And for summoning the police officers to the museum.”
“Only too pleased to help,” Carter smiled. “Happy to hear from Holmes as well. I think he may be right about the Germans making mischief in Egypt. And this Olfrig is known to be one of the Kaiser’s minions. A prize specimen, in fact.”
After leaving the display room, I had found Mr. Carter and presented him with Holmes’s note and request for assistance, with the result that Dr. Olfrig had been driven away in a carriage owned by the Cairo city police. Olfrig would eventually reach the British ambassador’s residence for questioning by various high officials. Though I doubted they would learn more from him than we had done.
Howard Carter looked grave as he continued, “And if Olfrig is connected to this Sonnebourne fellow, then both of them must certainly be stopped. Heaven knows what deviltry they could be stirring up.”
Aswan. I thought.
I pictured the newspapers piled in Holmes’s sitting room. I recalled Olfrig’s confession that Sonnebourne was now on his way to the location of the hugely important British construction project.
“We shall do our utmost to stop them,” Watson said.
“Though of course we have no legal authority or standing here in Egypt,” I added. I did not want to suggest anything specific to Carter. Better to deal with the officials responsible, such as Lord Cromer, the British Ambassador, whom we expected to meet in a few minutes’ time.
Carter’s sober face relaxed in a quick smile. “I wish that I had been able to see Mr. Holmes in person. He worked as a copyist on a dig several years ago, you know.”
I hadn’t known, nor, to judge by the slight widening of his eyes, had Watson. But neither of us expressed disbelief that Holmes should have added archaeology to the list of his many interests. As Watson had so famously said, it was impossible to delineate Sherlock Holmes’s limits.
“When I was excavating in the Valley of the Kings,” Carter went on. “There are those who say that the Valley is played out, that all the royal tombs have already been discovered. But Mr. Holmes was certain—and I agree with him—that the place still has secrets left to yield. He encouraged me to keep digging in the Valley, and I intend to, funds permitting. Who knows?” Carter smiled again. “Perhaps I shall discover that rarity which is every archaeologist’s fondest dream, an unrobbed tomb.”
We bid Mr. Carter goodbye at the boat dock and mounted through the garden and up the stone steps of the residence. A uniformed British officer stood at the gate of the colonnade, apparently deep in conversation with a man in the snowy white robe and the white headdress, or keffiyeh, of a wealthy Arabian.
The robed man turned at our approach, revealing Holmes’s familiar features, though his skin was darkened to a medium bronze and the fierceness of his thick black brows owed more to art than to nature.
Watson drew up sharply, then let out an explosive breath.
“One day, Holmes, I will cease to be surprised when you pop up like the demon in a panto
mime play.”
Holmes’s expression remained grave. Now that the matted hair and beard of his earlier disguise were gone, I could see he looked no more rested than he had done in London. His features were even sharper than usual, and lines of strain bracketed the corners of his mouth.
“At least one more meeting was necessary,” he said. “So that I may learn of your encounter with Dr. Olfrig. I also wish to send Mycroft a telegram via more secure channels than the ordinary ones, for which I shall need to enlist Ambassador Cromer’s help.”
“A telegram to Mycroft?” Watson repeated.
“Yes. Paul Archer’s appearance in Cairo is suggestive, is it not?”
Watson frowned. “We discussed that already. Do you mean that you intend to warn Mycroft of the potential danger on his end?”
Holmes waved a dismissive hand. “Mycroft is as aware of the danger as I am, and will be taking all due precautions.” He glanced at me. “As will Jack and Becky.”
“Of course.” That knowledge didn’t lessen the cold anxiety under my ribcage, though. But I wrenched my thoughts away from what could be happening in London. I had to trust Jack—and Becky, for that matter—to stay alive. And I had to find Lord Sonnebourne and save my mother.
“You mean,” I said, “that Paul Archer’s presence begs the question of exactly how Sonnebourne learned of our connection to him. Archer’s case was never made public knowledge.”
One of the two villains of our adventure with Paul at the London Zoo had been April Norman, an apparently charming and pretty young girl. She was the sort who inevitably arouse the sympathy of both judge and jury, and as such, she had been convicted for embezzlement only, not murder.
“Precisely,” Holmes said. “However, let us go in. Lord Cromer awaits.”
He spoke to the guard, who consulted his notebook and nodded, then beckoned us to the tall steps.
At his signal, one of the great double doors swung open to reveal the presence of another uniformed guard.
Behind him stood a somewhat portly gentleman, impeccably dressed, fresh-faced, sleek-haired and clean shaven but for a perfectly trimmed small dark moustache.
“I am Lord Cromer,” he said with a bow. “Welcome to the consulate, Mr. Holmes.”
“Or the Lord’s House, as I believe it is called,” said Holmes, stepping in and extending his hand in greeting.
Lord Cromer ushered us into a gold-trimmed conference room.
“I received your message about Dr. Olfrig, Mr. Holmes, and of course your reputation is such that he will be detained and interrogated. However, I must tell you that I am placed in somewhat of an awkward position. Already Herr Von Bulow of the German embassy has telephoned, demanding Dr. Olfrig’s release.”
“That was quick work.” Holmes sounded entirely calm. “You can stall him?”
“Oh yes.” A faint smile traced Lord Cromer’s mouth. “If there is one skill at which we diplomats excel, it is the art of prevarication and playing for time. However, since Dr. Olfrig has committed no provable crime, we will have to release him, eventually.”
“That is to be expected, and matters little. Olfrig spoke of whatever Von Bulow and Lord Sonnebourne are planning coming to fruition on the 24th.”
Concern stamped Lord Cromer’s face. “That is only three days from now.”
Holmes’s expression didn’t alter. “At which point, we shall either have succeeded or failed.”
“Is there any way I can be of assistance?” Lord Cromer asked.
“Lucy and Dr. Watson shall proceed upriver for a journey of about three days, to Aswan, since that was the location mentioned by Olfrig. We shall want your support and protection, Lord Cromer.”
“You shall have it.”
I was watching Holmes closely. “But you do not intend to accompany us?”
“If all goes well, I shall hope to join you there,” Holmes said. “Now, Lord Cromer, I take it there is a British garrison nearby to Aswan?”
“I’ll have a word with Lord Kitchener,” the ambassador said. “Military commander of the region. Just been made a baronet for his victory at Omdurman, in the Sudan, not far from Aswan.”
“I read about that,” Watson said. “As I recall, the enemy’s losses were horrific.”
“Yes, nearly forty thousand killed or wounded,” the ambassador said. “Kitchener remarked afterward that war is not a time for mercy.”
CHAPTER 14: FLYNN
A uniformed police constable was standing on the step of the house where Becky lived with Lucy and Jack.
He gave Flynn and Selim a hard stare as they came up, and looked like he was going to start in with the, What’s all this, then.
But Becky’s head popped out of the upstairs window.
“It’s all right, Constable Polk. You can let them in.”
Becky opened the door to them, and led the way into the kitchen. “Jack was called away to a murder case in Kensington, and he didn’t want to take any chances, so he left Constable Polk on guard,” she said. “He’s nice enough. Even if he won’t let me go anywhere or do anything.”
Selim was looking more sickly than ever and more collapsed onto a chair than sat down.
“Does he need a doctor, do you think?” Becky asked.
“No.” Selim had closed his eyes, but shook his head and drew a breath. “No, I need no doctor.”
Becky was eyeing him the way Mr. Holmes looked at a specimen under a microscope. “If he’s got bruised or cracked ribs, there’s not very much a doctor could do, anyway. I read about it in one of Dr. Watson’s medical textbooks.” She looked at Flynn. “All right. Tell me what’s been happening.”
Flynn brought her up to date on the night’s events. Becky listened, her eyes widening a bit when he got to the part about the nitroglycerin.
“We’d better send word to Scotland Yard. I’ll tell Constable Polk so that he can come in and use the telephone; they’ll be more likely to listen to him than to me.”
She went out of the kitchen, and a few moments later, Flynn heard the police constable telephoning from the next room.
Becky was frowning when she came back into the room.
“There’s something that doesn’t make sense,” she said.
“About the bomb Farooq’s planning?” Flynn asked.
“No. It’s about Safiya.”
Flynn had thought Selim had fallen asleep, he was leaning back in his chair with his eyes shut again. But at that he started up.
“What about Safiya?”
Selim’s voice went tight and his face looked strained every time his sister’s name came up.
Flynn felt sorry for him, but not sorry enough to keep quiet. This might be important, and he thought he knew what was in Becky’s mind.
“Becky’s right, she’s just an ordinary Egyptian girl. I know she’s your sister, but there’s nothing all that special about her.”
“Flynn!” Becky said.
It had sounded less rude in his head than when he’d said it out loud. “Sorry. What I mean is, why would Sonnebourne bother carting her with him all the way to Egypt?”
Becky nodded. “Exactly. If he’s trying to blackmail you into killing Mr. Holmes by keeping her hostage, he could just as easily have found someplace here in England to keep her. It doesn’t make sense he’d pay for her passage to Egypt. Even for a man as rich as Sonnebourne, that can’t have been cheap.”
If anything, Selim looked even more worried than he had a minute ago, with his mouth set tight and his hands clenched into fists in his lap.
But he said, after swallowing, “I do not know. I cannot explain it.”
“There’s something else,” Flynn said.
He’d been given the assignment to keep an eye on the building that housed Farooq’s stockpile of weapons. He was to report back to Mr. Mycroft Holmes straight away if he saw anything—like Farooq taking the weapons away to be handed out to his men, for example. But so far, nothing had happened.
By now, Flynn had got to thinking t
hat out of all the dangerous jobs he done for Mr. Holmes, the one that looked to do him in was this one, which might kill him with sheer boredom.
But a good thing about all the hours and days he’d spent watching the weapons storehouse, was that he’d had plenty of time to think.
He’d been remembering everything he’d overheard on the night he’d first followed Farooq and listened in on Farooq speaking to one of his men.
None of the words had been in English, but Flynn had been turning what he’d overheard over and over inside his head, and he thought he could at least remember some of the sounds. More than he’d been able to recall for Mr. Holmes, when Mr. Holmes had asked.
That was why he’d sought out Selim tonight in the first place at the Sons of Ra meeting.
“I was wondering. Could you tell me what”—Flynn tried to say the word exactly as he’d heard it. “What bar-la-man means?”
He thought Selim looked a bit relieved at the change of subject. “It means parliament. Like your English government.”
Flynn nodded. He supposed that didn’t help too much. The weapons cache was just about next door to the Houses of Parliament—just up the river.
For all he knew, Farooq had been telling the other man that he’d know what time it was when Big Ben, the clock in the tower of the Parliament building, chimed.
“What about … urabi?” Flynn was sure he had heard Farooq say that word more than once.
Flynn wasn’t even positive he’d got the pronunciation right. He definitely wasn’t ready for Selim’s face to go from green to grey-ish, or for him to seem ready to topple off the chair and onto the kitchen floor.
“Ur-urabi?” Selim repeated. His voice sounded like he was choking on something.
“I think so. Why, what’s it mean?”
“I … I am not sure.” Selim wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I am not familiar. But perhaps it might be someone’s name?”
CHAPTER 15: ZOE