The Quest of Julian Day

by Dennis Wheatley

  ‘Well, if that’s the way you feel,’ Hanbury muttered, ‘we can’t even charge anyone with the kidnapping or anything else for the present.’

  ‘That’s it,’ I said. ‘But the “Angels” will be able to give you all the evidence you want about the house being a white-slaving joint so you can jug your prisoners quite satisfactorily without bringing Miss Shane into it at all.’

  He smiled then. ‘Yes, I see the situation; since I can do that I won’t press Miss Shane further. She’s been through a ghastly time and the last thing I want to do is to embarrass her with the further ordeal of having to come forward as a police witness. I shall have to, though, if we manage to lay our hands on O’Kieff or the bogus policeman.’

  The meeting broke up then and Clarissa went up to pack her few things while Harry settled for us all with the doctor. I had already packed and Sylvia had nothing but the borrowed clothes she stood up in so, while Longdon and Hanbury were comparing notes, we wandered out into the garden.

  ‘I’ve so much to thank you for I hardly know where to start,’ she said as soon as we were out of earshot.

  ‘If you feel that way,’ I smiled, ‘you might start by calling me Julian. You almost said it just now, you know, when you were making your statement to Major Hanbury.’

  ‘All right—Julian, then. I naturally think of you that way because that’s what Clarissa and Harry always call you. I am grateful, though—terribly—for everything.’

  ‘It’s Essex Pasha and his lieutenants you have to thank really. It was they who located you.’

  ‘It was you who thought of the “House of the Angels”. It was you who actually did the he-man stuff and were the first to find me in that filthy brothel. It was you who would have saved me first from the fire, if I hadn’t insisted that those poor little devils should be lowered before me; and it was you who really saved me just now from the horror of having the whole story in every paper in Egypt as a result of having to give evidence against the prisoners. I’d already made up my mind that I wasn’t going to admit to any assault charge but I hadn’t thought about an identification parade and you tipped me off about that most skilfully.’

  ‘I saw no reason why you should be dragged through the Courts when it wasn’t necessary,’ I said. ‘As for the other part of it, anyone else would have done as much; it was only that I happened to be on hand. I’m glad, though, that I was, from a selfish point of view, as at least it gave me a chance to prove that I’m out against O’Kieff every bit as much as you are. May I take it that in spite of my mysterious past you will really trust me in the future?’

  ‘Yes, of course you may. I feel rather ashamed now that I ever doubted you; but you must admit I had good reason to. Still, your past is entirely your own affair and I don’t mind a bit now if you’d rather not talk about it. The one thing I do know about you is enough. You’re quite the bravest man I’ve ever met.’

  ‘Please!’ I protested, feeling my cheeks redden ‘It’s nice to know you think that but horribly embarrassing to be told so to one’s face.’

  ‘Nothing like as embarrassing as being found stark naked in a brothel,’ she said a little grimly.

  ‘I hardly noticed that,’ I said hurriedly.

  She gave a queer little laugh. ‘That’s a pretty poor compliment. As a matter of fact I’m very proud of my figure. ‘It’s rather humiliating to learn that you didn’t even notice it.’

  I guessed at once that she was trying to make a joke of the thing in order to hide her embarrassment and get it off her mind so that she wouldn’t feel shy about it when she was with me in the future. So I quickly took up the line she was playing.

  ‘I’m rather a connoisseur of figures myself and from what little I did see I should think you’re a prize-winner every time. But to be quite honest, I was too upset when I first found you to think of anything like that because I was afraid you were dead. And afterwards, as you may remember, I was much too occupied to take in any details. I could only thank God you were alive and hope that you hadn’t suffered too much during the hours before we found you.’

  ‘I mean to try to forget that,’ she said. ‘It was damned unpleasant being beaten and I was scared stiff that they’d ship me down to one of the Red Sea ports, as they threatened, before anyone could trace me. But at all events “the worst” didn’t happen.’

  We both burst out laughing then because ‘the worst’ seemed such a delightfully comic expression.

  ‘Thank the lord for that!’ I smiled. ‘I’ve got some idea of the usual drill in such places and I was terrified they’d put you through it.’

  ‘They meant to,’ she admitted. ‘And that was after they had beaten me up and I had agreed to sign the paper, but I managed to keep my head and save myself.’

  ‘I give you full marks, then. I’m dead certain I could never have thought of a yarn that would have got me out if I’d been in your shoes.’

  She lit a cigarette and puffed at it gently. ‘It was rather a thin story but it served its purpose. I told them I was sick with, er—tuberculosis shall we call it—positively riddled with it—so they decided to wait for a medical examination.’

  ‘By Jove!’ I cried, swinging round and looking at her with admiration. ‘That was quick thinking with a vengeance. You say I’m a brave man but anything I did was just child’s play compared with the nerve required to put over a thing like that. You made a better showing in the fire than I did, too.’

  She shrugged and smiled at me. ‘Let’s call it quits, shall we, and stop throwing bouquets at one another. I still feel horribly weak, though, so if you don’t mind we’ll go back now and sit down until the cars turn up.’

  Ten minutes later, having said goodbye to Hanbury and the doctor who had attended us, we set off back to Suez. Sylvia travelled with the Belvilles in our hired car while I went with Longdon again in his.

  On the right of the road a few miles outside Ismailia we passed the magnificent war memorial to the Forces of the Empire who served in Egypt during the Great War. It is set up on a rise with nothing but the blue sky and limitless desert behind it which makes it one of the most impressive I have ever seen; but it struck me as strange that it should have been erected in such a desolate spot where few people ever see it instead of on a well-chosen site in Cairo, and I asked Longdon the reason.

  ‘It’s because it was just at this point on the Canal that we repulsed the Turkish invasion,’ he replied with a queer little smile.

  ‘Invasion?’ I echoed, puzzled. ‘I had no idea that the Turks actually penetrated into Egypt during the Great War.’

  ‘Yes,’ he laughed. ‘A corporal and five men in a rowing boat.’

  ‘But how on earth did such a queer little force break through our lines?’

  ‘There wasn’t any line to break through,’ he replied. ‘Until Allenby took command most of the generals out here weren’t very bright. The first concern of the British in Egypt was naturally to defend the Canal in order to keep it open for our shipping. As there were no Turkish troops within two hundred miles of it at the outbreak of the war we could easily have established our lines on the Turkish side of the water; but, incredible as it may sound, the idiots actually decided to defend it from the rear. They left it so that the Turks could walk right up to it without opposition and the Canal itself was in no-man’s-land.

  ‘Fortunately for us, Johnny Turk’s supplies broke down so he had to fall back through lack of water and ammunition almost as soon as he got there; but if he’d had another twenty-four hours’ leeway he might easily have sunk some of the ships in the Canal with his artillery. If he had, it would have taken us weeks to get it clear again and, in the meantime, all the reinforcements on their way from Australia, India and the East would have been bottled up in the Red Sea and rendered completely useless to us.’

  ‘What a crazy show,’ I murmured.

  He shrugged. ‘Anyhow, most of the muddlers are as dead as Queen Anne now and the staff officers picked for their brains these days.
I don’t think there’s much likelihood of the present lot trying to defend important strategic points from behind if there does come a “next time”.’

  The afternoon was fine and we raced on in the sunshine through the beautifully-kept Canal Zone which is under the administration of the immensely wealthy Suez Canal Company. The dues on shipping are so high that they sound almost prohibitive but they are worked out to a scale which would make it just a trifle more expensive, whatever the tonnage of the ship, in extra fuel and wages to take her round South Africa.

  There is no expense in connection with operating locks along the Canal as the engineers under de Lesseps who built it found, to their astonishment, that the ocean level is exactly the same in the Red Sea as in the Mediterranean, and this naturally adds enormously to the Company’s profits; on the other hand, every time there is a severe sandstorm in the Canal Zone it costs the Company £20,000 to dredge out the sand which is blown into the Canal.

  As the Canal is banked on either side its waters cannot be seen from certain portions of the road and, just as we were passing the southern end of the Little Bitter Lake, this gave rise to a most queer illusion. In front of us lay, apparently, the unbroken desert valley, yet, with smoking funnel and flags afiutter, a big liner in the distance seemed to be ploughing its way through a sea of sand.

  By half-past four we were in Suez where we said goodbye to Longdon and I got into the other car. We had had to leave Mustapha in the hospital at Ismailia on account of his shattered arm and with Amin sitting next to the driver there was a seat inside for me. Sylvia was now feeling the reaction of her ordeal and looked pathetically ill and weak. She slept fitfully most of the way back to Cairo and our journey was uneventful.

  The manager at the Continental had had a new room prepared for her and all her things moved into it, so Clarissa took her straight up to bed. The rest of us also were pretty done-in and after a scratch meal, for which we had very little appetite, we made an early night of it.

  The following morning I had an interview with Essex Pasha and gave him a verbal account of what had happened; although, of course, he had already received official reports from Hanbury and Longdon. Sylvia was too ill to come downstairs that day so I lunched with the Belvilles, and Amin took us to see a few more of the sights of Cairo in the afternoon. On account of my adventure there two nights before Clarissa was anxious to visit the City of the Dead so we drove through its desolate, uncanny, empty streets and afterwards visited the tombs of the Mamelukes.

  Until Sylvia was well again we could not do much to prepare for the expedition which the Belvilles were still set on making; and for the moment I had come to a dead-end in my vendetta against O’Kieff. Zakri and Oonas were reported by the police to be still in Alexandria. Suliman Taufik, the owner of the now defunct House of the Angels, and Gamal had both been arrested; but O’Kieff had left the Mena House and entirely disappeared. It was a considerable satisfaction to know that I had at least dealt the enemy two most effective blows, in packing up one of their dope-dens and their de luxe white-slaving depot but, for the time being, as there did not seem to be any further way of getting at them, I filled in my time by going round with Harry and Clarissa.

  On the second day after our return from Suez we went to see the Tutankhamen treasures in the Egyptian museum. I had seen them before but the Belvilles were utterly amazed, like most people who see them for the first time, at their variety and magnificence. The coloured reproductions of them which have appeared on postcards and in periodicals give but a poor idea of the actual treasures, since only a score or so of the most important objects have been selected for that purpose. The whole collection numbers over 1,700 items, each of which has some special interest on account of its uniqueness or beautiful workmanship, and fills two huge galleries; but perhaps the most staggering thing about the collection, as compared with other Egyptian antiques, is its perfect preservation. The gold and gems, the wood carving, ebony, ivory and alabaster are as fresh and bright as though they had come from the craftsman’s shop only yesterday.

  That afternoon the Belvilles drove out with Amin to see the Pyramids, which they had not yet visited, while I put in a few hours writing up this journal; but we arranged to meet again that night to see the Continental Cabaret, which is the best show of its kind in Cairo, and when we met there Clarissa said that Sylvia’s doctor had agreed that she would be well enough to get up the following day.

  The next morning the four of us got down to business. Sylvia was looking a little subdued, I thought. She had lost the hardness which had seemed to me such a prominent feature of her make-up at our first hectic meeting, and I liked her better in this chastened mood. I was glad to see that she greeted Harry and myself without the least embarrassment and that she looked fairly fit again; no worse, at all events, than if she had been confined to her room for a couple of days with a severe cold.

  Harry produced the notes she had loaned him and she read them through for us. They began with the translation of the front of the top half of the tablet which ran:

  ‘I, Heru-tem, make obeisance to thee, Osiris, Lord of Abydos, King of the Gods, Ruler of Eternity, whose names are manifold, whose transformations are sublime, whose form is hidden in the temples, whose Ka is holy. Homage to thee. Hathor-Isis, Divine Mother. To thee also, Horus, Royal Hawk, Great Son, Protector of Warriors. Intercede for me, Heru-tem, when the time of my trial cometh before thy august Father in the dread hall of Maāti. For behold, I am a just person. I know the names of the forty-two assessors of the dead and can justify before them without fear.

  ‘I was full of goodness and of gentle character and a ruler who loved his town. The hungry did not exist in my time even when there were years of famine. For behold, I ploughed the fields both north and south; thus I found food for its inhabitants and I gave them whatever it produced. I did not prefer a great person to a humble man: not a daughter of a poor man did I wrong, not a widow did I oppress. There was not a pauper round me; until the coming of the Persian there was not a hungry man in my time.

  ‘Behold. I fought gallantly; I led my men into battle.’

  It was here that the stele had been broken; the translation of the lower part of its front continued:

  ‘In my chariot I was a mighty man. My arrows sped fast. I wielded my mace tirelessly, crushing the skulls of Pharaoh’s enemies.

  ‘It was the will of the Great Ones that Pharaoh should be chastened in my day. Pharaoh submitted to the Persian and the people knew a humiliation such as had never come upon them before in the whole history of the land. The gods were mocked; their statues were thrown down; the treasure of ages was looted from the temples; the shaven priests were sacrificed as an offering to strange gods; the tears of the people were more abundant than the waters of the Nile.

  ‘In Thebes the Persian proclaimed himself Pharaoh and Lord of the Two Lands. His flail smote the peoples of the North and the peoples of the South. He commanded thy servant, Heru-tem, to appear before him. His captains had made known to him my strength and my valour. To take service under the Persian was abhorrent to me yet, behold, I did this thing that by his favour I might protect and feed the people of my town.

  ‘There came a time when even the wealth of Thebes was not sufficient to satiate his greed. He styled himself King of Kings and willed that no people should escape the weight of his sceptre. Travellers filled his ears with tales of rich cities which lay beyond the desert to the West. He planned to lead his host out of Egypt for their conquest. The riches of the distant Oasis of Amon enticed him. For many months he made preparations for his journey, yet when the time came the Great Ones willed that he should not march with his army.

  ‘The wealth of the land was collected at Thebes. The host was sent forth and behold, I, Heru-tem, was among them, being a captain of a thousand. The Persian lay sick and was to follow after. We journeyed through the Oases on the west bank of the Nile (of Kharga and Dakhla); then for many days across the sands by the way which has been prepared for u
s. Each night we halted at the cisterns (water jar dumps) which the advance-guard had placed against our coming; without them we should have died of thirst.’

  The translation was here continued from the back of the upper portion of the stele.

  ‘We deviated neither to right nor left but marched in a straight line as is the manner of the Persians.

  ‘For twenty-two days we saw no man, nor wild life, nor vegetation. For water we relied upon that which had been buried; our food we carried with us. Three days more and we should have reached the great Oasis; but the false Gods of the Persians bore them not up; their guides betrayed them. On the twenty-third day we were diverted by a ruse from the line we should have followed. That night we failed to come upon a cistern. The guides fled in the night and made off secretly to the Oasis. For two days and two nights we marched and counter-marched, striving to find our path. The third day we turned back upon our tracks. Men were dying of thirst when we found again the last cistern at which we had halted. There was a half-ration of water for the men but none for the horses. The chariots with their loads of treasure had to be abandoned. The soldiers mutinied; many officers were slaughtered.

  ‘With me was the priest-astronomer, Khnemnu. Each night he had taken observations of the stars. These are the readings for the place where the treasure of Egypt was lost; the place where the army of the Persian was stricken by the Great Ones in their wisdom; so that of itself it fell to pieces, its thousands dying in terror and confusion.’

  There followed a date from the old Egyptian calendar and numerous astronomical figures which meant nothing to us; but Sylvia said that Sir Walter had worked them all out during the previous spring and, reducing them to modern tables, had satisfied himself that the catastrophe had occurred in approximately Lat. 28° 10″ N. Long. 25° 33″ E. It was here, too, that the break in the tablet occurred again so that some of the date was on the upper part and the atronomical observations on the lower. In consequence the site of the treasure could not be calculated unless one had both halves of the tablet. Sylvia went on with the translation of the back of the lower portion which read: