‘I say, is everything okay? Jeepers, you look like you’ve seen, or read about a ghost!’
He didn’t answer, but folded the page carefully into quarters and put it in his breast pocket.
‘Everything is fine,’ he said, nodding, still pale.
‘Does that mean something to you?’ asked Posie, not believing him for a moment. ‘Do you think it was a message from the intruder? That they left that page for me on purpose?’
‘No,’ said Alaric firmly. ‘I don’t believe for one moment that you were meant to see this. Absolutely not, in fact. You told me you hadn’t yet read the whole of Ianthe’s novel, didn’t you?’
Posie nodded. ‘Unfortunately, I had only read the very start. A nice country house murder mystery by the look of things…’
‘I wonder what else Ianthe managed to put into it,’ Alaric whispered, crossing his arms, miles away. ‘Never mind. What’s done is done.’
He seemed to snap back to earth and he looked at the map with her, tracing his finger across possible airfields and aerodromes which were marked there. They were focusing intently, heads down, when a voice horribly familiar to Posie suddenly broke into their study:
‘What-ho, Posie!’
Posie looked up to find Binkie Dodds looming alongside their table, fanning himself in the heat with a menu. He looked searchingly at Posie and then at Alaric, who was now observing Binkie with polite surprise. Binkie’s face was the colour of beetroot, and his thick glasses were fogged up with the heat. He was still wearing his unsuitable English tweeds and he looked like a steamed plum pudding.
‘You look like you need a granita, old chum,’ said Alaric, cordially. ‘I’m Alaric, by the way. Sit down, why don’t you? Any pal of Posie’s is a pal of mine.’
And before Posie could protest and explain, he had managed to call over another waiter and had ordered three almond granitas.
Binkie sat down heavily on a third seat, eyeing them both suspiciously.
‘Terrible noise,’ he moaned, indicating with a backwards hand gesture at the ever-swelling crowd behind him in the square. Posie noticed however that his eyes were moving quickly behind the bottle-bottom glasses from her to Alaric, and he was looking at both of their necks. She sighed, and introduced him formally to Alaric, who had only just noticed that something was amiss in Binkie’s manner and in Posie’s reception of him.
‘Where is it then?’ Binkie suddenly snapped at Posie, all decorum gone. ‘Where the blazes have you taken it?’
‘Sorry, old chap. What are you on about?’ said Alaric, a beat behind. The waiter hovered at their table briefly, placing a cold glass of frozen granita in front of each of them, lingering to place long paper straws in each glass. Posie caught a glimpse of black-gloved hands and saw that a handwritten bill was being placed on Alaric’s plate with solemn courtesy.
She sighed. ‘It’s gone, Binkie,’ she said guardedly. ‘It’s been given back to the monks of the Serafina Monastery, where it belongs.’
Binkie’s mouth dropped open and he stuttered in outraged disbelief. He turned to Alaric:
‘You worm! You spineless worm! You could have consulted me first!’ He grew redder and redder in the face and then burst into tears. By now people at other tables had started to turn to him and point and laugh.
‘I say!’ Alaric muttered. ‘I’m sorry, old bean. Drink some of your granita and then we’ll speak about it all, what? You look very hot. In fact, you’re overheating.’ He looked down at his own drink and then back at Binkie’s with a frown on his face.
‘On second thoughts,’ he said, switching his glass for Binkie’s, ‘let’s swap. You take mine. Look at this! Mine is nearly frozen solid and crystally – how it’s supposed to be, in fact – and will be much more refreshing in this heat. Yours is almost fully melted! Dratted waiter! Drink it up, old chump. That’s right!’
Surprisingly, Binkie obeyed Alaric, much like a child, and was slurping up his granita through the paper straw. He didn’t stop until he had finished every last drop, never once taking his eyes off Posie and Alaric, who drank down their own iced drinks in an awkward silence, averting their eyes. Posie was just wondering how they could politely get rid of Binkie and make their excuses and leave when she noticed that the people at the next table were pointing over in their direction again and laughing hysterically. She looked up at Binkie and gasped.
He was puffing and blowing and frothing at the mouth. He started to thrash around and his eyes bulged horribly.
‘Get some water!’ said Alaric sharply in Italian as another waiter swung past. ‘Golly, I’ve never seen heat-stroke like that before!’
But Posie’s blood froze, an icy grip at her throat. Binkie suddenly lost his balance and hit the table head first, his glasses smashing to the floor. He was as dead as a dodo.
‘He’s dead,’ Posie whispered under her breath. She sat rooted to her seat, a horrible calm certainty stealing over her. ‘And that wasn’t heat-stroke! Sure as bread is bread, that was poison!’
She ignored Alaric’s horror-stricken face and grabbed a napkin; with it she picked up Binkie’s granita glass and sniffed. She picked up her own glass and did the same. She remembered Inspector Lovelace’s words about the almondy smell of veronal being similar to cyanide.
‘See here? Binkie’s glass smells overpoweringly of almonds. But it’s a strange smell – like bitter almonds – it smells synthetic. Our glasses, even though they held almond granita too, smell only faintly nutty, like real almonds. Like Christmas marzipan.’
‘So?’
‘I’d say that Binkie’s drink was spiked with veronal. Probably the same drug as was used to kill Ianthe. But a huge dose of the stuff! Oh Alaric! It means we’re not safe. Not even here!’
Alaric was staring in horror at the dead face of Binkie Dodds.
‘But that’s not all,’ he whispered as crowds and waiters and carnival-masked locals started to flock over in unhelpful droves.
‘That drink was intended for me! I swapped it with Binkie and made him drink it! It’s my fault he’s dead now! That wretched poison was intended for me!’
****
About one hour later Alaric and Posie finally left the café, having called in the specialist services of Inspector Lovelace’s contact in the Siracusa police force, Inspector Gobbi, who handled the scene and the ensuing chaos like the professional that he was.
The Inspector had, fortunately, already been briefed by Inspector Lovelace and knew of their urgent need to leave the island, and of the danger they were facing, which had unfortunately proved to be all too real.
When asked about the best possible airfield to use, Inspector Gobbi had come up trumps, nominating the Water Aerodrome in Siracusa itself, the ‘De Filippis’, and providing directions on how to get there. Inspector Gobbi assured Alaric that he would be able to hire a Sea-Plane without much trouble, and he had signed an important-looking warrant enabling them to side-step the usual formalities.
Having given their Witness Statements and left Inspector Gobbi and his officers taking away Binkie’s body, they managed to gather up their luggage and slip away from the crowds relatively unnoticed.
Posie and Alaric walked in a shocked silence down a hot and dusty shaded alleyway, their thoughts still with the unfortunate Binkie Dodds. As they turned at the end of the street and trotted past a big pile of mouldering rubbish, Posie’s eye caught sight of a family of black-and-white cats playing in the rubbish, frisking in the sun, and as she watched them she saw something else there which grabbed her attention.
Posie dashed over furiously, sending the cats scarpering off in all directions. She dragged a dusty black cloak, black gloves and a wide black hat off the top of the rubbish pile. Underneath the black clothes she found a cheap white Venetian mask, its plaster nose and eyeholes now broken and crumbled, as if someone had thrown it off in a sudden rage and stamped on it in a fury, disfiguring it.
‘This was worn by the person pretending to be the waiter back there,
’ she said to Alaric. ‘The person who served us the granita drinks! This is the very same disguise that the person wore who was following me about two days ago. They must have realised their plan was foiled! That they had poisoned the wrong person! Binkie instead of you! They’ve escaped down here! Down this alley! We should go back and tell Inspector Gobbi to start a search in this direction. That the killer came along here!’
She turned as if to head back towards the café, the soiled and broken costume heavy in her hands, but Alaric looked at her like she was crazy.
‘No,’ he said, grabbing her hand and forcing her to discard the clothes. ‘We’re getting out of here. Now.’
****
At the De Filippis Water Aerodrome half an hour later, Posie found herself sitting in the back of a Sea-Plane on the water, with Alaric at the front behind the controls, studying a map given to him by the man he had hired the plane from. Alaric folded the map up quickly, and then indicated suddenly to the man, who was lingering nearby on the tarmacked jetty. The man came over and they spoke together in quick Italian. The noise from the other Sea-Planes buzzing in and out and revving their engines was very loud.
The man dug in his pocket and produced yet another map, which he passed to Alaric, who produced some coins in exchange. He then studied it intently.
‘What’s happening?’ Posie shouted above the noise. She felt suddenly nervous. Goodness only knew, she was keen on trying most things but she had never flown in a plane before, let alone a Sea-Plane. She tried to forget the butterflies rising in horrible waves in her stomach.
‘Change of plan, old girl,’ Alaric replied, gently starting up the motor of their Sea-Plane. ‘We’re not going home. We’re flying to Benghazi.’
‘Sorry?’
‘And then I’ll pick up another plane there and then we’ll fly on to Alexandria.’
‘Alexandria? In Egypt?’ Posie gasped.
‘Yep. That’s right. And then we’ll stop and either fly or sail down the Nile to Luxor. We’ll go to this tomb which good old Harry Redmayne was telling you about. Sounds fascinating.’
Posie was speechless and goggled at him. She busied herself by tying up her hair. With a sweep of his white silk scarf, and pulling on his flying-glasses Alaric turned around quickly:
‘After all, the killer is expecting us back home now. What are the chances they’ll think to look for us out on an archaeological dig? And more importantly, what are the chances they’ll follow us out there?’
****
PART THREE
Egypt
(July, 1921)
Seventeen
‘More tea, madam?’ the handsome Egyptian serving-boy in his immaculate white outfit asked, bowing low to Posie, brandishing a teapot on a silver tray and offering some little nutty baked goods, too. She nodded and smiled, extending her empty cup, and passed him his daily tip:
‘Please, Hammad. Thank you. And just a couple of those delicious biscuits, if you don’t mind…’
From the shadow of her tent and the comfort of her deckchair Posie looked out over the huge archaeological dig at Luxor, which had been the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes in the far-distant past.
As far as the eye could see there were men in white turbans and tunics running about in all directions, local men who had been drafted in in big teams to help cut and lug away the vast quantities of dusty rubble. The men loaded the pale yellow stone onto their donkeys which were saddled up to low wooden carts, waiting patiently in lines under the blistering, unforgiving sun. A cloudless blue sky arched overhead.
Busloads of tourists from Luxor, mainly English and Americans, visited the site on a daily basis. There was a special tea-tent set up for them and some enterprising locals were even trying to sell roughly-carved souvenirs of Pharaohs’ heads from the cast-off stone.
It was funny, but at first the vast site had seemed more like a building site than an archaeological dig to Posie. But now the lines of neat, white, ordered tents which housed the many archaeologists from the universities and museums of Europe felt like a second home.
There were several women out here, too, including a female photographer called Lenny from the British Museum, and a group of middle-aged volunteers from Guildford in Surrey who liked to stay at base camp in the shade and sieve the small finds which were brought back every day. All of them wore linen trouser suits like Posie’s and she felt smugly satisfied that she had got every last penny’s worth out of it, despite the fact that it was now turning orange from the hot desert dust and it would never be fit for wearing on the streets of London again. Prudence would be pleased.
Alaric and Posie had been in the Valley of the Kings at Luxor for three weeks now.
It had taken them nearly all of that time to get used to the soaring daytime temperatures and the strange pattern of the working days: early starts, long midday siestas, and the long productive afternoons which turned into gin-fuelled, raucous evenings when the archaeologists ate together at trestle tables in the one big dining marquee. Often they gave after-dinner talks on their most recent discoveries, or slide-shows on their pet subjects. Posie found herself looking forwards with great excitement to these lectures, which were advertised on a big blackboard outside the main tent. Sometimes these were planned way in advance and sometimes they were given at a moment’s notice.
Alaric’s arrival in Luxor had proved timely and he had been seized upon in a frenzy of great excitement by the archaeologists on the dig, some of whom had been stationed out there for months and were keen for fresh news and tales of daring exploits from someone famous.
Alaric had already given a couple of impromptu evening talks, one about his flying antics in general, and another about favourite places he had visited in Africa. Posie had been secretly impressed at his easy and humorous speaking style, but she figured it was hardly surprising given all the practice he had had. It was obvious that he relished public speaking, and it seemed that the archaeologists couldn’t get enough of the celebrity in their midst.
‘Golly, you must keep a low profile!’ Posie begged him constantly, feeling like an awful nag and a spoil-sport to boot. ‘You can’t go and spoil it all now. Just decline politely! These fellows have international contacts, you know. The last thing we need is a newspaper article appearing in London advertising to the whole world your exact whereabouts, reporting on some wonderful talk you’ve just given! So far we’ve been lucky, Alaric. Let’s hope our luck holds out. Besides, I promised Inspector Lovelace!’
When they had reached Alexandria, before travelling down to Luxor in an old Avro training plane which Alaric had managed to hire, Posie had insisted on calling the Inspector to let him know they were safe. She had also telegrammed to Prudence at the Grape Street Bureau, telling her not to expect an early return.
The Inspector had greeted the news of their location with thinly-disguised ill humour.
‘Have you told anyone else where you are?’ he groaned.
‘No, of course not! I would call or send a telegram to Lady Violet and let her know our whereabouts, but there’s no point – I have no idea where she is! Do you?’
‘No,’ the Inspector snapped, uncharacteristically. ‘I haven’t the foggiest! It seems we’ve lost the whole bally lot of them! I’ve got men on watch in London and at all the ports and airports but so far there have been no sightings of anyone. Which reminds me…You know you told me about Lady Cosima possibly being in Sicily?’
‘Yes?’
‘Seems you might have seen her there, after all. She left Stowe-on-the-Middle-Wold at much the same time as you did last week. She could be anywhere by now. Major Marchpane has been going off his head with worry.’
‘I see,’ said Posie, coolly.
‘So stay safe and below the radar. Let as few people know you are there as possible. Promise me? And call me once a week from now on, Posie. I’d be happier if you were both back here, but I doubt our killer is going to follow you out there. It seems an awfully big leap of the imagination.�
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She had reported the conversation to Alaric and while at first they had been incredibly careful, with Alaric even sporting a white turban and tunic on the dig, like the other archaeologists, and Posie always under cover of her sun-hat and glasses, it had been difficult to stay vigilant.
In truth, they kept having to remind themselves why they were out in Luxor in the first place; they were almost having fun! Boynton Hall and London and even Ortigia and all the horror of the stalking and the deaths of Ianthe Flowers and Binkie Dodds seemed a long, long way away from the magic and the bustle and the easy excitement of the archaeological dig.
Harry Redmayne had been as excited as the next man about Alaric’s arrival, and he had basked in the reflected glory of his having invited Alaric out on the excavation site. They had filled Harry in on all the details of the case on the first night of their arrival, including telling him about the death of Binkie Dodds, and Harry had listened, wide-eyed but unfazed by the whole sorry tale. Harry had promised to keep an eye on them both, and had insisted on hiring an extra local man, Didi, to act as a watchman around the clock, covering Alaric’s back.
‘Seems to me you have more to fear from the living than the dead, and that’s not often the case out here!’ Harry had laughed at the end of the revelations.
‘People tend to get paranoid about things such as Pharaohs’ curses out here. Even in my own team of sensible, highly-trained experts superstition is rife. Funny, really. The tomb of Tutankhamun sure has a lot to answer for!’
The weeks at Luxor had given Posie ample chance to get to know Harry Redmayne, and she was impressed with what she had seen: loyal, friendly, hard-working and above all deeply excited by what he had been asked to excavate by the British Museum, his general demeanour was like a child on the night before Christmas, and it took a lot to repress his spirits. Even at five o’clock in the morning, when coffee and sweet sugary cakes were served as breakfast and the stars were still visible in the dark sky above the Valley of the Kings, his humour was irrepressible. He was always looking forwards to the long day of work ahead.
The Tomb of the Honey Bee: A Posie Parker Mystery (The Posie Parker Mystery Series Book 2) Page 17