The Case of the Golden Greeks

by Sean McLachlan

  When he awoke the Englishman was still quiet. Faisal curled up in his corner of the tent, chin resting on his knees, and watched him.

  At last he woke up.

  The Englishman grunted and got up on one elbow, using the other hand to rub his eyes. Faisal tried not to look at his face.

  The Englishman sighed, mumbled something to himself in his own language and then looked at Faisal, noticing him for the first time.

  “What the Devil are you doing here?”

  “You let me stay.”

  The Englishman rubbed his eyes again. “So I did.”

  His hand went to the open wound on his face.

  “Good Lord!”

  He scrambled around until he found his mask and put it back on.

  “Sorry, Faisal.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “I must have put you off your breakfast. Sorry.”

  “It’s dinnertime.”

  “Sorry.”

  The Englishman wouldn’t look at him.

  “It’s all right. The djinn attacked you for two days. Are they gone now?”

  “The djinn? Oh … right. Yes, they’re gone now.”

  “Now you believe me! I told you the djinn are real.”

  “Yes, Faisal, evil spirits are real, just not in the way you think they are.”

  Faisal didn’t know what the Englishman meant by that, but he was used to the Englishman saying strange things. All that mattered was that he was better now.

  The Englishman took a long drink from the water skin and rummaged around his bag. He pulled out some money and counted it.

  “Thank you for your help,” he said, holding out some money.

  Faisal hesitated.

  “Go on, take it. You have certainly earned it.”

  Faisal took it and counted it. Fifty piastres.

  His eyes bugged. Fifty piastres!

  That was a lot of money, so why did it make him feel bad to hold it?

  He looked at the Englishman, then at the money in his hand, then back at the Englishman again.

  “I can’t take this.”

  “Of course you can.”

  “No,” Faisal said with sudden determination. He set the money down by the Englishman.

  “Take the damn money! You’re always asking for money, and when I give you some you don’t want it?”

  “I didn’t save you from the djinn for money, you silly Englishman! Why don’t you understand anything!”

  Crying, Faisal burst out of the tent and ran back to the fire.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  If the desert could have swallowed him up, Augustus would have happily allowed it to rather than face the others. On wobbly legs he staggered out of the tent and went over to the fire. The last light was just fading in the west. The Bedouin were busy preparing their meal. Moustafa didn’t look at him. Faisal sat on a distant dune watching the sunset with his back turned.

  “Dinner is ready if you are able to eat,” Abbas said.

  Augustus didn’t feel able, but they had to get started early tomorrow and he needed some energy.

  “How’s the water situation?” he asked as he sat down, landing hard on the sand.

  “Bad,” Farouk said with a note of accusation in his voice. “You drank much during your illness and there is no water on this route.”

  “What do you propose we do?”

  “It is as far to go forward as it is to go back, so we go forward. There is a detour we can make. It adds a day to our journey but there is a well there. At least, there was a well ten years ago. I do not know if it is dry now or not. None of us has been there since then.”

  “Do you think we should try it?”

  “If we do and there is water, all will be fine. If there is no water, we will have wasted a day and will be in even worse trouble.”

  Augustus bit his lip.

  “It is all in the hands of God,” Mohammed al-Biwati said.

  The other Bedouin nodded.

  Augustus managed to eat a little. The sickness that had wracked his body for the past two days had ebbed into a low ache that permeated every fiber of his being, and every one of those fibers screamed at him to return to Cairo. Only his pride kept him from taking that course. He had to go forward. Perhaps there would be a physician in Bahariya who would have some opiates.

  That, he knew, was a slim hope, but he held onto that hope to keep him heading for Bahariya.

  He looked around the barren desert and the sullen faces and felt desolate. He had no help here.

  “I suggest we try the well,” he said after much thought. “We can start early tomorrow.”

  “Are you sure you are able to travel?” Farouk asked.

  Augustus looked at him. “I have to be.”

  They set out before dawn. Augustus had managed a few hours of fitful sleep. The Bedouin got his camel packed and saddled and he just managed to get mounted without embarrassing himself.

  Within an hour the heat felt intolerable. He knew his drug-starved body had become hypersensitive. The day would be hell.

  The heat beat down on them and he tried not to think about the five or six days of travel that remained. Augustus pulled at his shirt where it stuck to him with sweat and felt something in his pocket.

  “Good Lord,” he muttered. “If that’s my opium I think I’ll have to murder someone.”

  He unbuttoned his pocket and pulled out a leather strap with a small talisman of glazed green ceramic. It had odd marks carved all over it in vague imitation of ancient demotic, obviously done by someone who had seen the script a few times but had no understanding of it.

  He urged his camel forward and caught up with Faisal.

  They rode side by side for a minute. The boy didn’t look at him. Neither he nor Moustafa had said a word to Augustus since he had woken up.

  Augustus cleared his throat. “I … um, I do believe this is yours.”

  He held out the talisman to him.

  “Keep it,” Faisal mumbled.

  “Oh, the djinn won’t come after me again. You scared them off. I wouldn’t want you to lose sleep thinking you were unprotected. You’ve lost enough sleep as it is, eh?”

  Augustus chuckled. The joke fell flat. Faisal took the talisman and put it around his neck.

  “Thank you for helping me, Faisal. You’re a good boy.”

  Faisal looked at him, shocked.

  “Yes,” Augustus coughed. “A very good boy.”

  The boy’s face lit up.

  “Clever too. You’re a great help to me. I couldn’t have solved any of these murders without you.”

  Augustus tousled his hair, trying not to wince as he felt a variety of unidentifiable particles.

  “I’ll be a big help with this mystery too!” Faisal said, bouncing up and down in his saddle.

  “I have no doubt that you shall. And when we return to Cairo I think you deserve to go to the moving pictures again.”

  “Really? Will we see the man with the funny moustache?”

  “Charles Chaplin? I think we might. There are other funny men I think you’d like. Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton …”

  Faisal laughed. “Even their names are funny.”

  The boy launched into a long description of the Chaplin film they had seen, getting so distracted that Augustus was able to wipe his hand on his saddle without Faisal noticing.

  For once, Augustus was grateful for the mite’s inane chatter. It kept his mind off things.

  Near the end of the day Farouk, who was leading the column, let out a cry of triumph.

  “The well is still there!” he shouted.

  The Bedouin all cheered and gave thanks to God.

  “Where is it?” Augustus asked.

  “There,” Farouk pointed.

  Augustus saw nothing.

  “Do not worry,” Farouk said. “Living in a city has made you nearsighted. If you lived in the desert you would see it as clearly as you see me.”

  Augustus continued to stare in the dire
ction they were headed, until after nearly an hour he saw a dark spot near the horizon. After a few more minutes it resolved itself into a cluster of little shrubs. They were half dead, their leaves few and withered, but in the middle of all that sand it looked like the Amazon rainforest.

  “Is that the oasis?” Faisal asked.

  “It is for today,” Augustus said, relieved. He had endangered the entire caravan, and while finding the well did not atone for that, it at least kept matters from becoming worse.

  Two of the Bedouin dismounted, got on their knees in the middle of the shrubs, and began to dig in the sand with their hands.

  “Where is the well?” Augustus asked.

  “It has filled,” Farouk replied. “All the small ones fill.”

  After a minute the Bedouin reached damp sand. They continued to dig until the sand had the consistency of porridge, then thin gruel. This they scooped into a leather bucket and let the sand settle to the bottom. Afterwards they filled the empty water skins.

  Everyone drank their fill. The water was gritty, the particles of sand grinding between their teeth, but it was water.

  Once they each had a long drink and had topped up every water skin, they headed out again.

  Everyone was now in much better spirits, all save Augustus. All his thoughts were for the one thing that could relieve the desolation his body felt, the great hole in his psyche.

  Pushing through these thoughts was the realization that he still had an unpleasant task remaining.

  He caught up with Moustafa, who rode in front with Farouk. The Bedouin, seeing his approach, urged his camel a little more forward and gave them room.

  Nevertheless, Augustus addressed his assistant in English.

  “Well, at least we have sufficient water.”

  “Too sandy,” Moustafa grumbled. “It’s given me a bellyache.”

  Augustus coughed. “Hmm, indeed. It isn’t exactly champagne at the Savoy.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Oh, no. I guess you wouldn’t. Look, my dear fellow, I wanted you to know I appreciate you coming all this way. I know you have a family to care for, but you put forth the effort and that speaks good of you. You are quite indispensable to the expedition.”

  “Are you going to tousle my hair and call me a good boy?” Moustafa snapped.

  Augustus paused. “Um, no. More along the lines of an, erm, apology for the things I said the other day. I was quite off my head. The, um, symptoms of well … you know.”

  Moustafa gave him a long look.

  “Actually say it, Mr. Wall.”

  Augustus coughed. “I’m … sorry. I was beastly to you. You deserve better than that.”

  Moustafa nodded, and Augustus got the distinct impression that he was being dismissed like a naughty schoolboy after a caning. Briefly anger rose in him, but he tamped it down. Moustafa had every right to be angry.

  Perhaps I should give him an increase of pay? He thought. Hmm, he might take it the wrong way. He’s a touchy fellow. I’ll tell him later when he’s cooled down.

  But can anyone cool down in this wretched heat?

  They trudged along, Augustus feeling miserable in every way he could imagine. He felt ill, bereft, and his mask itched terribly. The desert began to change. Where once there had been flat, almost featureless sand, now the brown turned to white, and white boulders appeared. These had been scoured by the wind into weird shapes. Boulders as large as a motorcar sat perched on columns so narrow he could have put his arms around them. Others had morphed into recognizable forms. One looked like the Sphinx. Another looked like a rabbit. Some towered over them, while smaller stones stood only waist high, looking like tables with a twisted, single leg. One resembled a giant egg, the effect heightened by the fact that the elements had broken it open to reveal empty space inside.

  Faisal did not appear happy, looking all around him with a long face, and every now and then giving a quick glance behind to check that nothing was sneaking up on him.

  “The djinn live here,” he whispered.

  “You have a most efficacious charm,” Augustus told him.

  Faisal moved his camel closer to Augustus’s.

  “I hope it works in a place like this.”

  “Would it do any good to explain that this is white limestone, a perfectly normal type of rock that happens to be prone to erosion from the wind?”

  “Thank you for trying to make me feel better, Englishman, but I know djinn country when I see it.”

  This was said with such authority that Augustus didn’t dare contradict him, certainly not so soon after his shabby behavior.

  “I’ll protect you,” Augustus said. “It’s only fair after you took care of me.”

  “Protect yourself, Englishman. The djinn were after you, not me.”

  “Erm, yes. I did have a rough time of it, didn’t I?”

  Faisal looked at him, with an expression that was far too serious for such a young face.

  “Take care. Once the djinn take an interest in you, they keep coming back.”

  “I won’t let them,” Augustus said with sudden determination. He sat straighter in his saddle. “No, the djinn won’t get in my head anymore.”

  He hoped that was true.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Their first sight of Bahariya Oasis was not at all what Moustafa expected. After passing through the strange formations of what the Bedouin called the White Desert, they entered what was called the Black Desert. The change couldn’t have been more startling than if they had suddenly come into a forest. Where before the white stone shone brilliant in the day, or turned pink and red with the sunset and sunrise, now the land was as black as iron. Mountains of black stone towered over them, and the desert floor was littered with countless small black pebbles. Jagged black rocks, like giant shards of dark glass, stuck out here and there. The camels tread carefully through the sharp stones, bellowing when they burned their feet. The rock absorbed the sun’s heat, radiating it back at the travelers as if they were marching on a frying pan.

  Then everything changed.

  They had entered another grim stretch of flat land, punctuated now and then by low, rocky hills of the same black stone, when suddenly the ground sloped away before them and they found themselves on the brow of a ridge overlooking a broad valley.

  Beneath them lay Bahariya oasis like an emerald in the sand. Palm trees waved in the breeze, and open green fields stretched between them. In the distance—wonder of wonders!—glittered a large lake. The map they had taken from Ainsley Fielding’s office showed the valley to be sixty miles long and half as wide, with much of it watered enough to be lush. The valley was green as far as the horizon.

  To see such a broad stretch of vegetation after so many days of nothing but sand and stone filled Moustafa’s heart with joy, but his attention was distracted by a sight closer to him.

  A few yards down the slope, hidden until they had reached the edge, was a European sketching a large boulder.

  But this was no ordinary European. Moustafa blinked and looked again to make sure his eyes were not deceiving him.

  It was a European woman, quite alone, with a deeply tanned face under her pith helmet. Her brown hair was tucked up beneath the helmet and she wore a khaki shirt of a men’s cut and matching trousers.

  Trousers!

  She sat on a camp chair, one leg crossed over the other, wearing boots like any common soldier. In fact, they indeed looked to be soldier’s boots from the British army. Her donkey grazed on some stubble nearby.

  When she noticed the approaching caravan, she set aside her sketch pad and pencil and greeted them in perfect Arabic with a Libyan accent.

  “Peace be upon you! I didn’t expect to see another foreigner. Come to steal my patch, did you?”

  For a moment no one spoke. Moustafa couldn’t think of what to say and he suspected no one else could either.

  Mr. Wall rode a little ahead of the rest, smacked at his camel until it deigned to kneel, and dis
mounted, almost falling flat on his face as he did so.

  “A donkey is a much surer ride, but I suspect you’ve come from too far away to ride donkeys,” the woman said. Moustafa couldn’t stop looking at her trousers. They showed … everything.

  “Lord preserve me from temptation,” he muttered, averting his eyes.

  “We come from Cairo,” Mr. Wall said, then added quickly. “By the way, do you have a medical kit? I have an acute pain and am in desperate need of a painkiller. I would be most happy to reimburse you.”

  Abbas snorted.

  “It’s back in Biwati, the main village here. I’ll come back with you. I was just finishing up anyway,” she said, gesturing at the boulder.

  Mr. Wall and Moustafa looked at the boulder. It was covered with a strange, angular script and a few crude drawings.

  “Ancient Libyan,” Mr. Wall said.

  “And a depiction of the god Bes,” Moustafa put in.

  The woman cocked her head. “Well, don’t you make quite the pair! I am Jocelyn Montjoy.”

  “I am Sir Augustus Wall, at your service. This is my assistant Moustafa Ghani El Souwaim.”

  She extended her hand. Mr. Wall took it and was about to bow, when she gave him a handshake. Leaving Mr. Wall to gape, she strode over to Moustafa and gave him a handshake firm enough to give credit to any man.

  Mr. Wall clapped his hands. “Right. Best be off. We’re losing daylight. Lead us on Biwati.”

  The woman mounted her donkey, shamelessly riding astride. Mr. Wall mounted his camel as quickly as he was able. His hands trembled.

  Faisal leaned over to Moustafa and whispered, “Are the djinn after him again?”

  “He’ll be fine in a little while. He just needs some … rest. Go to the back of the line.”

  He didn’t want Faisal anywhere near this woman. His morals were bad enough.

  “Why?” the child whined.

  “Because I said so!” Moustafa snapped.

  Faisal grumbled and moved away.

  “So, Mrs. Montjoy, are you and your husband excavating here?” Mr. Wall asked as he urged his camel forward.

  Moustafa tensed. Professor Harrell was murdered because of his excavations here, and now here was this woman dressed like a man and posing as an archaeologist. She was obviously of loose virtue and probably consorted with the worst dregs of humanity. Could she and her husband—no doubt an equally shifty character—be involved in all this?