by Alice Duncan
“He all right,” said Ali. Then he sighed, must have realized I wasn’t going to hang back while everyone else did the dirty work, and said, “You follow me. But stay back. No get hurt.”
“Um, do you think they have any weapons?” I asked, feeling the least little bit squeamish. A fine time for that to happen, but there you go.
Nodding, Ali said, “They have guns.”
Oh, good God.
“Daisy, you’d better stay with me,” said Harold.
“Nuts. Come with us and bring your gun if you want to be useful.”
Ali rolled his eyes. I was getting quite tired of men rolling their eyes at me, but I’d wait until later to scold him for it. “Mister Harold, he stay here. You follow me.” His voice was quite authoritative, so we did as he demanded.
My heart hammered like a kettle drum as I tiptoed after Ali, being as silent as I possibly could be, my piece of lumber held in both hands and in striking position, just in case. Ali gestured to me to crouch as we neared Ahmet, who still stood watch. Well, he crouched, too, but you know what I mean.
Putting his finger to his lips, Ali joined Ahmet. Then Ali produced a piercing whistle, clearly a prearranged signal I didn’t know about beforehand, the two men smashed down the door with their shoulders and rushed into the building. Ali’s brothers had also heard the signal, and they charged into the building, too, a couple through another door, and one through a window he broke out.
And then all hell broke loose, as the saying goes. Everything was so confusing there for a few minutes, I wasn’t sure who was who and what was happening, but I struck out at anyone who came near me wearing a European suit, managing to get one of the villains a good one on the shins. I think it was Futrelle, because he said something in French that I was pretty sure was a swear word, although I don’t speak French. I think it was Stackville who pulled the trigger on his gun, but he didn’t hit anyone because Ali or one of this brothers—or maybe it was Ahmet—whacked him with the backside of his dagger and the gun went flying. I didn’t see where it landed because at that moment, Mr. Gaylord Bartholomew, the third villain, shoved me aside and ran for the door.
I gave chase and managed to give him a good wallop on the back of his head with my board, but he only swore, staggered a little bit, and kept running. By that time I was out of breath—I’d been through a good deal that day already, and I had to stop and catch my breath. But I saw that Mr. Bartholomew was headed straight in Harold’s direction, so I shrieked, “Harold! Stop that man!”
And, by gum, Harold pulled out his gun and fired. Mr. Bartholomew screamed, clutched at his leg, and fell down.
Then Harold fainted.
* * * * *
It turned out that Harold had shot Mr. Bartholomew in the thigh, and that his injury wasn’t life-threatening. I, feeling pretty darned bloodthirsty by that time, said I was disappointed to hear it.
Sam, looking much the worse for wear in a filthy white suit and with bumps and bruises all over him, scowled at me. “What the devil did you come with the men for? Don’t you have any sense at all?”
By this time we were all piled into the Turkish police headquarters, and the two London policemen had joined us. There were other Turkish officials there, too, although I don’t know who they were. Harold was having palpitations, but Dr. Weatherfield, who’d been sent for to attend to Sam and Mr. Bartholomew, gave him a powder and he eventually calmed down.
“Darn you, Sam Rotondo! I helped in your rescue. The least you could do is be grateful we got you out of there.”
“I’m glad to be out of there. I’m not glad you were involved. For God’s sake, Daisy, don’t you have the brains God gave a goose?”
I was so mad at Sam, I couldn’t speak to him without hollering, so I turned my attention to Harold. “You turned out to be a genuine hero, Harold. If you hadn’t shot Mister Bartholomew, he might have escaped.”
“Please don’t remind me.” Harold’s eyes rolled back in their sockets and he keeled over sideways. I caught him before he could fall out of his chair.
“Let’s have some order and discipline here,” said DCI Miller. “I don’t like it that you civilians carried out this so-called rescue by yourselves. Why didn’t you come to us? We have the fire power and the men to do the job, and you also bypassed the Turkish officials, who aren’t any more happy about your shenanigans than we are.”
Ah. A target for my anger. “A lot you know about it!” I cried. “You’d have taken forever and ever to get organized. Ali and Ahmet and Ali’s brothers knew exactly where Sam was and how to get him back again, and they did. And they rounded up the crooks, too. You should be thanking them instead of moaning about how you were left out of the party!”
“My dear Missus Majesty—”
“Don’t you ‘dear Missus Majesty’ me, DCI Miller! We rescued Sam and you didn’t, and we caught the crooks, and that’s that. What I want to know now is why they’ve been plaguing us ever since Egypt!”
I glared at Mr. Stackville, who appeared much less suave than usual, thanks to having been knocked about a bit by Ali and his brothers. Futrelle, also most untidy, was grumpy and kept rubbing his shin where I’d smacked him with my board. Good for me. Except for Mr. Bartholomew, who moaned a bit, none of the criminals said a word.
It was Sam who finally told us what the three villains had been after all this time.
“They tell me you bought a golden canopic jar in Cairo. The shop keeper wasn’t supposed to sell it, because it was stolen from a royal tomb, although nobody’s supposed to know about the tomb yet, especially the authorities and the antiquities department or whoever keeps track of these things. Evidently the shop keeper’s nephew or brother or some other relation was running the shop for him that day, and he sold it to you.”
“A golden canopic jar?” I stared blankly at Sam, who, naturally, frowned back at me. “I don’t have a golden canopic jar. I don’t even know what a canopic jar is.”
“I don’t know what one is, either, but they think you do and, what’s more, they think you have the one they want,” he growled. “And they kept hitting me to get me to tell them where it was. Is.”
I glared at Stackville. “I don’t know what in the world you’re talking about. What golden canopic jar? Which golden canopic jar? What in the world is a canopic jar? Whatever it is, I don’t have it, and if you’d asked me instead of burgling my rooms, I’d have told you so.”
Stackville only glared back at me.
Bartholomew groaned some more, probably because Dr. Weatherfield was working on his leg. I glanced at him for a mere second, discovered the doctor had scissored his pants leg off at the thigh so he could get at the wound, and quickly glanced away again. I didn’t care to see any more of Mr. Bartholomew than I had to.
A shaky voice said, “I think I know what they’re talking about.”
We all turned to stare in amazement at Harold, who was white as table salt and looking shaky. “Do you remember that golden urn I bought at the souk when we were shopping in Cairo?”
“Um . . . Oh, yes! I remember now. But you called it an urn.”
“Evidently, the correct term for such a thing is a canopic jar,” whispered Harold, who clearly didn’t take the notion of shooting people, even if only in the leg, lightly.
“Well, for heaven’s sake. Why didn’t anyone tell us that?” I turned on Stackville once more. “You idiots! Even I’d known what you were after, I wasn’t the one who had the thing. It was Harold who had it!”
“They thought he bought it for you,” said Sam. I was sorry the doctor hadn’t seen to his cuts and bruises first and left Bartholomew to fester, but I guess doctors have to abide by some kind of code, so he tended to the more grievously wounded party first.
“But they searched my room before he even bought the thing!”
“They were looking for a place to hide it once they got it. That’s what these fellows do, you know. They have innocent tourists smuggle things back to England in their lug
gage.”
“Good grief. You’re truly a villainous trio, aren’t you?” I glared at Stackville, Bartholomew and Futrelle. Neither Stackville nor Futrelle seemed the least little bit ashamed of himself. Bartholomew was too busy being in pain to glance at me. I heaved an exasperated sigh.
“Harold bought that thing for Del, not for me,” I said, disgusted with pretty much all men at that moment. “For heaven’s sake, what would I do with a golden canopic jar? Put it in the china cabinet? Maybe Aunt Vi could use it as a gravy boat. Besides that, if they were going to hide it in my luggage, why didn’t they just leave us alone after Harold bought it?”
Sam shrugged. “I guess their plans changed. You two didn’t stay in Egypt long enough to suit their purposes. They’d have had stashed a lot of other stolen artifacts with you if you’d done what you’d said you were going to do and taken the Nile cruise. Then, when you scooted out of Egypt before they were prepared for your departure, they wanted to get the canopic jar back.”
“Why didn’t they search Harold’s room, then? He was the one who bought the stupid thing.”
“They thought you were brother and sister, and that you were both rich and that Harold had bought it for you because you were grieving.”
“I am grieving. And Harold’s no more my brother than you are. And why didn’t they search Harold’s room after they didn’t find the stupid thing in mine?”
“They didn’t have time because you two left Egypt too soon.”
Then I noticed that things had come to a standstill in the Turkish police office and that everyone was staring at me. Oops. Guess I’d said too much. How typical of me.
“You aren’t brother and sister?” DCI Miller asked.
“We thought it would be better to pretend we were brother and sister so people wouldn’t get the wrong idea,” I said, feeling stupid.
“Let me see if I have this right,” said DCI Miller in an icy voice. “You recently lost your husband, and now you’re traveling to foreign parts with a man unrelated to you?”
“They’re just friends,” Sam said grouchily. “Have been for years. Nothing’s going on between them.”
“I have never heard of such a thing in my life.” DCI Miller said. I could tell he was dreadfully offended by our breach of what he considered etiquette.
As for me, I’d taken about all I aimed to take from the snippy copper. For the second time that day, I let rip at DCI Miller. “You have absolutely nothing to say about anything Harold or I do, and you can keep your antiquated opinions to yourself! We saved the day, let me remind you, and you have your cursed gang of cursed antiquities thieves. So just stuff that in your pipe and smoke it!
DCI Miller, who looked as if he’d like to use a riding crop on me, turned to Sam. “We need to get that canopic jar back.”
Sam, who appeared rather grumpy with the London copper himself, said, “Well, don’t tell me about it. Ask Harold. He’s the one who has the damned thing.”
Harold said, “I have it in my room. Come by this evening and you can take it with my blessings. But don’t come before nine. I need to recover from this day’s work first.”
We left shortly after that, Sam eschewing the doctor’s offer to see to his bumps and bruises. DCI Miller didn’t speak to me again, which was probably wise of him. None of the Turkish police officials spoke to us once, which was probably wise of them. Ali accompanied Sam, Harold and me back to the Sultanahmet Hotel, where Mr. Ozdemir met us with much hand-wringing and congratulations. I guess word had already got around that we’d perpetrated a daring rescue and captured a gang of sinister European antiquities smugglers.
At the door to my room, Harold gave Ali about a ton and a half of Turkish coins. “For you and your brothers and Ahmet, Ali. We truly appreciate your help.”
If Ali had bowed any lower, his head would have bumped the carpet.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sam was looking pretty dilapidated when we all entered my sitting room. I told him so.
“You look like hell, Sam. You need to have your wounds taken care of before another minute passes.” I turned to Harold. “Do you suppose Doctor Weatherfield has returned to the hotel yet?”
Harold, still ashen and shaky, said, “I don’t know. All I know is that I’m going to my room, and I’m going to lie down. And if you still have that chloral hydrate, you might consider giving it to me as a gift.”
I waved a hand. “It’s all yours.”
“Watch out for that stuff,” said Sam gruffly. “Only take a little bit.”
“Don’t worry. I’m going to bathe, take a sip of chloral and lie down. Perhaps later on we can take dinner in the hotel.” Before Sam could object, Harold held up a hand and said, “My treat. We all deserve it, and I won’t allow you to refuse.”
“What’s going to happen to the jar?” I asked, truly interested.
“They can have the cursed thing. I don’t care any longer.”
“Do you suppose they’ll reimburse you for it? You spent a lot of money on that thing.”
“I don’t care. It’s my gift to Egypt, if that’s the way they want to look at it. I’ve lost my taste for Egypt anyhow. I think I’ll get Del a gift from Turkey. They must have lovely treasures in the Grand Bazaar.”
“Oh, good. We didn’t get the opportunity to see the Grand Bazaar yet. Other . . . things intervened.”
“Other things,” Sam muttered under his breath.
“Farewell, all. I’ll come to pick you up at seven-thirty, Daisy, and you can either meet us in Daisy’s room or in the dining room, Detective Rotondo. I suppose we’ll have to dine early if we’re to be here at nine when the authorities come to fetch the jar.”
I gave Harold the bottle containing the chloral hydrate and saw him to the door. The poor fellow was clearly suffering from the day’s events. While I was there, I asked Gaffar, who still stood guard outside my door, if he’d see if Dr. Weatherfield had come back and if so, if he’d be kind enough to come to my room and fix Sam.
Gaffar toddled off, like the good fellow he was, to fetch the doctor, and I closed the door and turned to run my gaze over Sam. “I’m so sorry about all of this Sam. If we’d only know what those villains were after, we could have given them that wretched jar and it would have been over with.”
“Except the bad guys would have escaped with a rare Egyptian artifact, and that wouldn’t have been good for anybody. Besides, they’d planned to plant more stuff on you. And they might have killed you before the whole thing was over.”
“Good Lord, do you really think so?”
I really didn’t deserve the sour look Sam gave me. “For God’s sake, Daisy, I’m not kidding about those guys being cold-blooded villains.
“But . . .”
“Yes! They’ve killed people before. They were going to kill me, for God’s sake.”
With a heavy sigh, I said, “I guess you’re right. But I’m really sorry they treated you so badly. I sent Gaffar for the doctor, and he’ll get you all fixed up. Then you can go back to your hotel and clean up and come back here for dinner.”
“I don’t need a damned doctor,” Sam snarled. “What I want to know is why you put yourself in danger by coming with the search party today.” He stood and glowered down at me.
“Well, I like that! We save your sorry hide and capture the crooks, and all you can do is scold me for being a party to the action. For your information, Sam Rotondo, I forced Ali to take me. He didn’t want me to come. I made him take me! I wasn’t going to trust the life and health of Billy’s best friend to the hands of strangers.”
Sam ran both hands through his hair, which, I noticed, was splotched with blood in spots. I grimaced. “Did they hit you in the head?”
“For the love of God, Daisy, it doesn’t matter what they did to me. Do you realize you could have been hurt in that melee today? Dammit, you could have been killed!”
“Well, I wasn’t.” I was getting mighty tired of Sam ragging on me about helping to save his lif
e.
“Listen, before he died, Billy asked me to take care of you. Why do you think I came out to this heathen place, anyway? I was trying to take care of you! Even though you seem to do everything in your power to prevent anyone on earth from taking care of you!”
“Darn you, Sam Rotondo, if you aren’t the most aggravating man in the universe, I don’t know who is! Billy would have been proud of me for saving your worthless life, curse it! You were his best friend. He’d have done anything in his power to rescue you, and I was only doing what he’d have done if he’d been here.”
“Damn it, putting yourself in danger isn’t what Billy would have wanted you to do!”
“I wasn’t in danger, curse it! You were the one in danger! Why are you harassing me? For Pete’s sake, everything turned out all right. You don’t have to keep carping at me!”
“Damn it all to hell and back again, you were, too, in danger!”
“I was not! Anyway, why do you care?”
“Why do I care?” Sam roared. “Damn it all, Daisy Majesty, I love you! That’s why I care!”
And we both stood there in the silence that descended upon us like a cloud, staring at each other in utter astonishment.
Fortunately for both of us, a knock came at the door just then. Otherwise, I don’t know what would have happened or how long Sam and I would have gaped at each other, neither of us knowing what to say next.
But . . . Sam loved me? Sam Rotondo, the bane of my existence? Loved me? The bane of his? Good Lord.
I walked to the door rather like an automaton and opened it to find Dr. Weatherfield holding his little black bag and smiling at me. “I understand Detective Rotondo is in your room, Missus Majesty.”
“Yes,” I said, my voice a trifle hoarse. “He is. Thank you for coming, Doctor.”
“My pleasure. It’s always more satisfying to help a hero than a villain.”
“I’m no hero,” growled Sam.
“Nonsense.” Dr. Weatherfield turned to me. “Missus Majesty, I do believe it’s safe for you to walk about in the hotel unguarded now, so if you wouldn’t mind stepping out for about a half-hour, that would give me time to see to Detective Rotondo’s injuries.”