The Case of the Golden Greeks

by Sean McLachlan

  “And what are they saying about the big meeting in the mosque?”

  Jocelyn glanced uncertainly in the direction of the mosque and madrasa. “They say it’s just a religious meeting. It sounds larger than the others I’ve heard, and I got the impression that they were keeping something from me. Of course they probably know little themselves. The women here are kept in a state of ignorance. Whatever they do manage to wheedle out of their husbands isn’t going to be shared with a foreigner.”

  “Would you care to join us for some tea back at our camp?” Augustus asked, his heart beating faster.

  “Oh, that would be lovely.”

  “I’m afraid we must be off,” Captain Williams said. “I need to get back to my post. You should be all right. As I said before, these things never escalate into violence. Keep a sharp lookout in your camp in any case. I’ll come down tomorrow and check on you.”

  “Bring Ahmed back too!” Faisal said, jumping up and down.

  “Of course,” the soldier said with a grin. “I’ll drive you to your camp. It’s on the way.”

  When they got there, Farouk came up to them, his face grim.

  “I have bad news, Mr. Wall. A group of farmers we didn’t recognize came with some chickens to sell us, and while we were distracted, one of them got into your luggage. I think they might have stolen something.”

  Irritated by the interruption, Augustus apologized to Jocelyn and told Farouk to go make some tea for their guest. Jocelyn went with them, chattering away in Arabic, and Augustus searched through the baggage. His binoculars, some tinned food, and a few packets of Woodbines were gone.

  “The Bedouin took the things, Englishman,” Faisal whispered.

  Augustus hadn’t realized he was still there. “How do you know?”

  “I could tell by the look on your face each time you found something gone. Things were taken from three different bags. Would the farmers have been able to distract the Bedouin for so long?”

  “Hmm, I see your point.”

  “And they said they came selling chickens. So where are the feathers? The farmers would have held them up to show them off, and even if the Bedouin didn’t buy any, there should be a few feathers around.”

  Augustus smiled. “You’re quite the little detective.”

  Faisal jumped up and spun around. “You wouldn’t have solved any of those murders without me. You said so.”

  “You’re quite the little thief too. How about while I talk with Jocelyn you sneak around and try to find out where my things are. Steal them back for me.”

  Augustus gave a description of what was missing. Faisal nodded.

  “All right. I’ll wait until it’s dark so they don’t see me. The sun will set soon. Right now I’m going to the hot spring. Do you have any soap?”

  Augustus nearly had a heart attack.

  “Did you just ask me for … soap?”

  “Sure. Bathing in the hot spring feels good. It’s like a hammam. After I’m done maybe you and the other Englishman would like to go.”

  “Oh! Um … I don’t think, she—I mean he—would want to. Anyway, here’s your soap. Keep it.”

  Faisal ran off.

  When Augustus joined Jocelyn at the small campfire the Bedouin always kept lit, he found her comfortably settled on a crate covered in blankets. Another was set nearby for him, with a third crate in between to serve as a table. Farouk and Abbas busied themselves making tea. He looked wryly at the Bedouin, so eager to show hospitality after robbing him.

  “I apologize for the rather crude surroundings,” he said as he sat down.

  “Oh, pay it no mind. I’ve been living rough for many months now, and I find the desert, especially this oasis, far more comfortable than Lapland or Svalbard.”

  “Your Arctic journeys sound interesting. Whatever made you decide to go all the way up there?”

  The woman shrugged, crossing her legs in a most fetching manner. Augustus had to admit that while he had at first been rather shocked at seeing a woman in trousers, now he saw the advantages and hoped they would one day become the fashion.

  “Because it was remote, I suppose. I had traveled some with my late husband. All the usual places—France and Italy. Germany before the war. And while it was all very interesting and improving, I found myself looking at the edges of the maps, at the far north and the far south, and the blank spots in Africa and the Middle East. There’s nothing that excites me more than a white area on a map. After I became widowed, I had savings and a modest pension, and so I decided to indulge myself.”

  “Claud tells me you’ve written some books.”

  She laughed. “They provide the excuse for my travels.”

  “I should like to read one.”

  “I don’t have any at hand. My last copies went to a darling little Franciscan running an orphanage in Benghazi.”

  “I shall have to hunt them up in Cairo then. I know an excellent bookseller who can order anything.”

  “You must give me his address. I shall be in Cairo before long.”

  “Really?” Augustus winced at the boyish tone of glee with which he said this.

  “Yes, in the autumn. I shall probably spend the summer in Bahariya. It will be too hot to travel the desert by the time my work is finished here.”

  “Another book?”

  “I am writing about the women of the Libyan Desert. So little is known about them. Most explorers are men, you see, and don’t meet the local women.”

  “You are the only woman I’ve spoken with since I left Cairo.”

  “How are your explorations going?” Jocelyn asked.

  Augustus remembered they were posing as Egyptologists. That disguise had worn pretty thin.

  “Moustafa is drawing the temple of Alexander as we speak. Today we were looking at an area I suspect is a Greco-Roman necropolis. This has been the first day of any sort of real work. Starting a bit slow, I’m afraid.”

  “You look much better.”

  “Yes, thanks to you,” Augustus said, embarrassed. “The, um, pain is much relieved.”

  To his shock, Jocelyn put a hand on his knee. “There’s no need to be embarrassed, Augustus. My brother went through the war and cannot sleep at night without his dose of opium.”

  Augustus looked away. He almost said that it was unmanly to wake up at night screaming, or to need a nightly dose just to keep away the nightmares like some fragile child. But to say such things would be to insult her brother too, and many other good men besides, so he said nothing.

  “You mustn’t feel I think ill of you,” Jocelyn said. “On the contrary, I admire you. Despite all you went through here you are, making archaeological explorations and running your own business. You even found a native woman to marry.”

  “Married a native woman? Whatever do you mean?”

  “Faisal is your son, isn’t he?”

  “Good Lord, no! He’s a waif who has attached himself to me like a limpet.”

  Jocelyn smiled. “Attached to you he most certainly is. He watches you like a hawk.”

  “No doubt looking for the next handout. I’ve become a ready source of falafel and piastres.”

  “For such an intelligent man, Augustus, you can be extraordinarily stupid.”

  Augustus wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that. “Well, he can be useful at times, I must admit. I’m not faulting the boy, you know. But no, I don’t have a wife, native or otherwise. Have you never thought to remarry?”

  Jocelyn clucked her tongue. “Heavens no. I’m not looking for a knight in shining armor. Mine fell on the field of battle and while I miss him dearly, I do not miss the state of matrimony. Now I am as free as the wind.”

  “But don’t you get lonely?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Augustus paused. This conversation had gone too far. If he answered with a lie, Jocelyn would see it. If he answered with the truth, he might follow up by making a fool of himself.

  He turned to the Bedouin. “Farouk, is there
more tea?”

  They drank more tea and soon the conversation got back on a lighter vein. Jocelyn recounted her adventures among the Senussi. Augustus, remembering his purpose for being here, tried to tease out any information about the religious group’s intentions.

  “I didn’t get to speak to many of the men, except for the boys and a few men I hired as guides. They were mostly regretful of the war. Proud, of course, with all sorts of boasts about their valor in battle, but most saw attacking Egypt as a major mistake.”

  “Most?”

  Jocelyn took a sip of her tea and looked askance at the Bedouin. She had been speaking in English, but the automatic movement told Augustus that what she had to say was important.

  “I met a few of the more ardent followers of the sect, who still clung to the idea that all foreigners needed to be kicked out of North Africa.”

  “I’m surprised they talked to you at all.”

  “‘Lectured’ would be the better term. Strictly speaking, the more devout Senussi will not interact with an unbeliever. This comes up against their natural curiosity and sense of hospitality. What you must remember is that these people were desert dwellers long before they were Muslims, and Muslims long before they joined the Senussi order. Old habits die hard. Whenever I met a lone Senussi in the desert, they always invited me to tea whether they wanted to or not. If I met a group, someone, willing or unwilling, would make sure I was taken care of and most of the others would pretend I didn’t exist.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t get attacked. I would never travel through that region.”

  Jocelyn smiled. “I wouldn’t recommend that you do. As a man, you’d probably be killed. As a woman, the natives aren’t sure what to think of me. It didn’t always save me. In one village I was denounced as a spy. The local sheik had to spirit me away in the dead of night. He’s the one who gave me Bucephalus.”

  “What did the Senussi think of your being English?”

  Jocelyn laughed. “I told them I was Danish!”

  Augustus smiled. This woman was a clever one. “Did they even know where Denmark is?”

  “No, but I assured them Denmark took no part in the last war.”

  “You mentioned that this meeting is bigger than earlier ones. Are there newcomers in town?”

  “Just today I heard some talk among the women that there are. The farmers often have a shed next to their fields if the fields are far away from their house. This allows them to stay overnight if they must rise earlier than usual or if they need to guard their crops during one of the many feuds that happen here. Several women mentioned that travelers have rented out those sheds.”

  “Travelers?”

  “They said nothing more.”

  “Did they say how many of these travelers had come?”

  “No. Why? You seem concerned.”

  “Oh, it is nothing,” Augustus said.

  Having already started with the lie that they were conducting excavations, he didn’t want to admit the truth. Plus, he didn’t want to involve her. He was aware that he had a habit of putting his associates in danger, and a woman had no place in a murder investigation. The killer with the blowgun was around here somewhere.

  He realized the most chivalrous thing to do was to distance himself from her. It would keep her safer. But he found that impossible. Her company was too welcome.

  They talked until sunset. The Bedouin made dinner, which did not include chicken, and they ate, Faisal sitting a bit apart. After they finished, Faisal came over and tugged on his arm.

  “What is it?” Augustus asked, irritated at the interruption.

  Faisal jerked his head toward the other side of camp.

  “I need to speak with you,” he whispered.

  “Speak to me then.”

  Faisal glanced at Jocelyn and jerked his head toward the other side of camp again.

  “Alone.”

  “Oh go with him, Augustus,” Jocelyn said. “At his age whatever he is thinking at the moment is the most important thing in the world.”

  Grumbling, Augustus stood and walked with Faisal through the darkening camp.

  “What is it?” he demanded.

  “Moustafa isn’t back yet.” Faisal looked worried.

  “He wanted to wait until dark and see if anything was happening around the tombs at night.”

  “We should be with him in case there’s trouble.”

  Augustus was about to object, and then realized the boy was right. He had been so enthralled by that fascinating woman that he had forgotten his mission.

  “Very well then. We’ll wait until it’s fully dark so we can go there undetected.”

  “Oh, I found your binoculars in Abbas’s bag. I slipped them out without him seeing and put them back in yours.”

  “Good boy, did you find the other things?”

  Faisal smiled proudly. “A pack of your cigarettes. They were already open and half were gone. I guess they smoked them. I didn’t find any of the other cigarettes or the tinned food. I bet they sold them.”

  “And here we are stuck with them all night.”

  “Maybe we could go up to the mountain once we find Moustafa?” the boy asked hopefully.

  “It’s too far, and I have the feeling we’ll be quite busy tonight. You can see your friend tomorrow. Tonight we have work to do.”

  Jocelyn soon left to write up her notes. Augustus and Faisal waited another hour before telling the Bedouin they were going to visit Jocelyn.

  As soon as they got out of sight of camp, they left the path and sneaked through palm groves, avoiding the scattered farms. Once they got to the edge of the oasis, the low bulk of Alexander’s temple a shadow in the middle distance, they watched and waited for a time. No one was about.

  “I’ll go fetch him,” Faisal whispered.

  “All right. Be careful.”

  Faisal moved off, his bare feet silent as they padded on the sand. The boy stuck to every shadow, every dark spot in the lighter stretch of the desert’s edge. Augustus watched, impressed, as he flitted from the shadow of a rock to the shelter of a log, before crawling along behind a low rill in the sand and then scurrying to the darkness of a shrub. Anything that reflected less of the pale moonlight than the sand, Faisal stuck to, pausing and looking around before daring to expose himself as he bolted to the next bit of shelter.

  Augustus nodded in approval. The boy would have done credit to any trench raiding party in No Man’s Land.

  He disappeared in the distance.

  Augustus waited, eyes and ears alert. He saw and heard nothing but the rustle of the wind in the palm trees and the occasional cry of a night bird. He remained patient. If the war had taught him anything, it taught him to remain patient and let the specialist do his job.

  “He’s not there.”

  Augustus had turned around and half raised his pistol before he recognized Faisal’s voice.

  The boy was just visible as a darker shadow in the gloom of the palm grove behind him.

  “How did you get back there?”

  “By being quiet. You be quiet too. He’s not there. I think he’s been kidnapped.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Something I touched. Come.” His voice came out strained. Augustus followed without a word.

  The boy led him further into the grove, then squatted on the sloping bank of an irrigation canal deep enough to hide them from view of the surrounding area.

  Faisal stuck his hand out.

  “Turn on that electric torch you have,” he said.

  Augustus did as he asked. The light shone on the boy’s hand and he saw a dark stain on the palm and fingers.

  Blood.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Moustafa half expected his captors to kill him on the spot. Instead they searched him for weapons and hustled him off into the palm groves. There they bound his hands behind his back and blindfolded him.

  They remained silent. All he heard was their footsteps and the labored brea
thing of the two men carrying the Bedouin he had killed.

  They led him along a path and then cut through some fields. He soon lost all sense of direction. All he knew was that they walked far, for at least half an hour. At last they slowed and he heard whispered voices. He was pushed forward and a door closed behind him, the dull clatter of wood on wood telling him they had barred the door from the outside.

  He stood for a minute, listening. No one seemed to be with him. The voices outside sounded distant and he could not make out their words.

  Squatting, he was able to rub his face against his knees until he freed himself of the blindfold.

  That didn’t help much. He was inside a hut of palm branches, a peaked roof just visible above. The hut was a few paces to a side and completely empty. The structure was common in villages all over Egypt and Sudan, a cheap and easily built shelter to store tools or other items. It would be easy enough to smash through a wall, but he had no doubt there were guards waiting to kill him if he did. Even if he could get out of the ropes it would be suicide to try.

  And the ropes were tied securely. They had made sure of that.

  So he leaned against the central column holding up the roof and waited.

  About an hour later they came for him.

  The beam rattled, the door opened, and a lantern shone in his face. He blinked at the sudden light and waited for his eyes to adjust.

  Three men, the bottom of their faces covered by headscarves, came through the door. The one in the center held the lantern and a pistol. The two flanking him held rifles.

  “Who are you?” the man holding the lantern demanded.

  “A good Muslim who was attacked in the night and defended himself,” Moustafa replied.

  “Good Muslims do not copy ancient pictures. I looked through your things and found your drawings. I had the pleasure of using them to wipe my ass in the privy just now, and then I used water to wash myself for I realized I had only made myself dirtier.”

  Moustafa ground his teeth. A day’s work gone because of this ignorant peasant!

  “If I am found dead, things will go very badly for you,” Moustafa warned.

  The man with the lantern chuckled. “Oh, you mean they will try and kill us? They are trying to do that already. Now who are you and why were you spying on us?”