The Egyptian Coffin (A Lord Ambrose Mystery)

by Jane Jakeman

  But a tranquil warm winter assuaged our fears and we were willing to set out for home — indeed, Jennet was begging to return. Charles counselled prudence, and it was not, I believe, till he had received certain papers concerning my uncle from Lord Ambrose that he was willing to let us return to Westmorland Park, and booked our passage on board the Great London from Alexandria to Portsmouth. But then a few weeks later Ariadne came very gravely one day and told me that my uncle was dead; I tried to grieve for him and might have pretended that I did, but could neither regret his passing nor force myself to a false display of mourning. I have known true loss in my life and that does not incline one to false tears.

  At any rate our passages were booked and we had an uneventful return voyage, except that poor Jennet was sea-sick again, which she had hoped would not occur, believing that one attack of sea-sickness vaccinates you against another, as it were, though I tried to explain that happened in the case of smallpox, not mal-de-mer. I fear she had misunderstood some of the conversation.

  Jennet was wondering all the way from the docks to Westmorland Park how we should find things when we got home. “I’ll be bound there’s no beds aired for us to lay our heads, Miss Lilian, nor crust nor crumb to eat. I'm afeared the house will be all deserted.”

  So as the coach turned into the drive we were at any rate pleased to see the old lodge-keeper coming out to open the gates. Here at any rate was a sign of life. And we were even better pleased at what he told us.

  “Lord Ambrose asked me to get the house prepared for you, miss. My daughter has been putting things in readiness and you’ll find she’s made up a good fire, for’tis a chilly spring and right enough, though the daffs be out on the lawns — well, you’ll see ’em as you goes up to the house.”

  See them we did, acres of pale golden trumpets in great drifts below the house, just as they had always been. And there was my mother’s magnolia tree, its branches shooting out leaves of that light spring green that presaged the white and purple streaks of flower-buds.

  As we got down from the'coach, there came the sound of footsteps from the side of the house.

  I had not allowed myself to hope nor to speak of Mr. Sholto Lawrence. An interesting acquaintance, and I was greatly in his debt. That was all that could be admitted, to myself or to any other.

  So I was not really prepared for the depths of my feeling as I saw him emerging from the path that led to the stables at the back of the house.

  “Why, Miss Lilian, take care!”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Lawrence — I stumbled somewhat on the steps! How good to see you again! Are you visiting the district?”

  “Yes, Miss Lilian, and so is another old companion of yours!”

  “Why, who could that be?”

  “One moment, I beg you.”

  Mr. Lawrence dived round the corner for a moment.

  He re-emerged, followed by a stout fellow in russet jacket and groom’s britches, holding a rein.

  It couldn’t be! That was surely Adams, our groom, whom Uncle Micah had dismissed after my accident.

  And there was something utterly incredible! I could hardly believe the evidence of my eyes!

  Yet there was the familiar soft whicker, and there, yes, beyond doubt, was the distinctive mark upon the forehead — the white crescent moon blaze of my own dear Selene, for whose death I had wept!

  I could say nothing, only rush towards her and fling my arms about her neck.

  “There, I beg you, don’t take on so, Miss Lilian! Malfine and I had the devil’s own job to wash the dye off that blaze of hers — the gypsies had disguised her mighty well, you know! But we found her — well, Malfine did — at least, Malfine and I found her together, y’know.”

  “How — how on earth?”

  “Malfine figured it out, y’see. Got a statement about that gypsy fellow who bought her. Ambrose said the gypsies would never have sold her — they’d have been accused of theft straight-away. It was much too good a horse for them to have come by honestly; he thought they’d have kept her themselves. So what would they have done with her? Not have her pulling carts, not this one. No, they would race Selene themselves — that’s what your Lord Ambrose Malfine figured out, anyway, so when I heard there was a great gypsy meeting on Exmoor I just went round watching the races and looking out for a horse that might just have a scar on the foreleg and a spot of walnut-oil or some such trickery that might be covering up a mark on its forehead. And there was a fine winner that seemed to leap like the wind itself and there was old Trito Hearne laying bets out on this mare and raking it in whenever she sailed past the winning-post, which was pretty often, I can tell you! Miss Elisabeth and I found a fellow who’d been drinking with the gypsies — he told us where old Trito was likely to be.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank you!”

  “Thank me? Oh, well, it don’t matter — I’m a bashful sort of chappie, you know. And the groom, Adams, he’s come back from Ireland. That’s where he took himself off to, and now his sister’s sent to tell him it’s safe to come home. So perhaps you’d take him on again?”

  Of course, it went without saying that I did. I think often and again of my good fortune in the devotion of my future husband (for we intend to marry in the summer). And in another respect: to how many of us is it given, as has happened to me with Selene, to have something one loves come back from the dead?

  TWENTY-FOUR - Unsigned Copy of a Letter from Lord Ambrose Malfine

  Malfine, Christmas Eve, 1832

  You wrote to me once that you thought one day some aristocratic lady might rule by my side at Malfine.

  Well, it has come to pass!

  The nobly-bred lady in question has an exquisitely long and aristocratic jaw, a sharp row of white teeth, and a pluming and feathery tail like the foam of the sea.

  In short, she is a Seluki, one of the fabled breed said to have been the hounds of the pharaohs — and that, judging by her likeness to those beasts I have seen following their master’s chariot on the carvings in ancient tombs — that is probably quite truthful. The species has been preserved by the Arabs, who took them everywhere they inhabited. And when Lilian Westmorland arrived back in England, she brought two puppies with her. They are a gift from the father of Rahaba, the Nubian girl whom we rescued, and a gift which I cannot possibly refuse! They are of a pale golden buttery-white colour, and move as if “borne by the wings of the air” as the old Arab poem about a hunting-dog has it; the Arabs say a Seluki has ears like the flower of the hyacinth, a claw like a cobbler’s awl, and eyes as clear as drops of water.

  The dogs cause much amazement in the district: as if I were not a sufficient cause for wonder, as if Zaraband were not enough animal excitement for their spirits, these young Selukis will seal the strangeness of my reputation! They have nothing in common with any familiar obedient whippet, Jack Russell or terrier; they would certainly give the Master of Foxhounds nightmares if he should ever encounter them, for they are simultaneously the fastest and laziest specimens of the canine kingdom that ever graced a palace! In short, they are throughly at home here, part of Malfine already, and will greet you with many leaps and cabrioles when you arrive, and never leave your side if you wish them to guard you, not even if they were to be cut to pieces.

  And now, my dear Elisabeth, I look forward to your return, you and the boy, from the Christmas merry-making at your mother’s house. I have spent the last few days, as I intended to do many months ago, in putting together the documents that will lay bare the bones of this affair of the Egyptian Coffin.

  But there is one question that they do not answer. As you, with your customary powers of observation put it, “But who killed him?”

  He, of course, being Casterman.

  Now, if your question were “Why was he killed?” or “Where?” these papers would of course have answered it. But “Who?” is a different matter.

  And a much graver one. The burden of murder — even such a specimen as this — the know
ledge of having sent a fellow human soul into eternity — that is a dreadful load, truly the curse of Cain!

  Yes, it was Lilian Westmorland. For when I descended to the body of Casterman in that pit, his neck was already broken. He had been dead when he hit the bottom of the shaft and I put my bullet through a lifeless man. I knew that when I saw him lying there, with his head twisted down. And there was one bullet-hole and a trace of powder upon his shirt, because my first bullet had missed and my second, which I discharged after I had got down into the pit, was fired a foot away from his heart — or whatever substitute we may suppose he had for the seat of his emotions! That is why there was very little blood. It was fortunate that the Consul in Alexandria left all the arrangements concerning the disposal of Casterman’s remains to me. I tried to make it as easy for him as possible; that there were two shots fired and only one wound in the body went unremarked. If Lilian had noticed at the time of Casterman’s death that there seemed to be two explosions, why it was but the effect of echoes coming off the rocky cliff behind the tomb. My first bullet lies hidden deep within the sands of Egypt. My second struck a corpse.

  Lilian had beckoned Casterman on, and called him to his death, as he had once tried to lure her in that tower at Alexandria, to her near-certain destruction.

  But I shall not tell her that and you, too, are sworn to secrecy. Consider, a tender young heart, a conscience as fresh and delicate as hers — why, to be saddled with such a thing as death. I know how I suffered after the death of her father. I cannot make reparation to him, but I can spare his daughter the visions of death and guilt which I fear would visit her. I can still hear her voice, ringing out across the desert:

  “Come on, then! Come on if you dare!”

  And across the years I hear still my own voice, calling out to her father as we stood at the side of the river, “Come on, then! I dare you!”

  So, as the world thinks, the death of Casterman was but one more killing for Ambrose Malfine to take upon his broad shoulders — and a well-merited death in any case. And the coffin stands in the hallway at Malfine — for though I told Lilian Westmorland it was certainly her property, as she was Micah’s only heir, she begged me to remove it from Westmorland Park.

  Belos has my instructions that the other documents, the narratives of myself and Lilian Westmorland, the statement of the gypsy, Shadrach Lee, and the letters which I received in Alexandria, are to be placed under seal in the muniment room at Malfine. With them will be placed a copy of the most shameful decision ever made in British legal history, which condemned thousands to remain in slavery.

  But all evidence of Lilian’s part in Casterman’s death is to be destroyed. Burn this letter, I pray you, when you receive it.

  Belos will take it to the post for me in a few minutes.

  I hear his footstep now and trust him never to read this.

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  APPENDIX

  Legal decision: In the Matter of a Slave Woman Named Grace.

  Grace was a slave in Antigua who had accompanied her mistress to Britain. The question was whether she was a free woman once she had set foot on British soil.

  The Judgement of Lord Stowell in November, 1827.

  {Note: “His lordship in consequence of infirmity of eyes and voice, found it necessary to devolve upon junior counsel in the case the task of reading his judgement.”}

  “It was never intended to put any restraint on a domestic slave accompanying his or her master to Great Britain or on being taken back from Great Britain to the colonies. The purpose of the law was to prevent the introduction of new slaves into the colonies. In the eighteenth century the personal traffic in slaves resident in England had been as public and as authorized in London as in any of our West India islands. They were sold on the Exchange and other places of public resort by parties themselves resident in London and with as little reserve as they would have been in any of our West India possessions.

  “In 1772 a judgement established that the owners of slaves had no authority or control over them in England nor was there any power of sending them back to the colonies ... this judgement was made by Lord Mansfield with many delays and great reluctance.

  “Lord Mansfield said ‘slavery is so odious that it cannot be established without positive law’ ... but ancient custom is now recognised as a just foundation of all law. The practice of slavery was founded upon a similar authority ... the arguments against slavery do not go beyond Britain. There has been no act of ceremony of manumission nor any act whatever that could even formally destroy those various powers of property which the owner possessed over his slave by the most solemn assurances of law ... the slave continues a slave as far as being in the colonies is concerned.

  “It would surely be a gross abusing of all principle to say that they [the West Indian slave-owners] should be deprived of their commerce. Slavery was a very favoured introduction into the colonies; it was deemed a great source of the mercantile interest of the country, and was, on that account, largely considered by the mother country as a great source of wealth and strength ... it has been continued in our colonies, favoured and supported by our own courts, which have liberally imparted to it their protection and encouragement.

  “It has been said that the law of England discourages slavery, and so it certainly does within the limits of these islands; but it uses a very different language and exerts a very different force when it looks to its colonies, for to this trade, in those colonies, it gives an almost unbounded protection.

  “Is it not most certain that this trade of the colonies has been the very favourite trade of the country and so continues?” {The conclusion was that the woman, Grace, was not entitled to her freedom and had to return to Antigua as a slave.}

  In 1807 an act was passed which forbade ships to carry out any slaves from a British port, but slavery was not abolished in the West Indies till 1838, after Parliament had voted the sum of £20 million as compensation to the planters.