by Talbot Mundy
I suggested we might take the bull by the horns and go straight to the Administration with the whole story before Joan Angela’s arrival. I did not mean that, and I would have voted against it, but I wanted to switch his thoughts off on to another track and get him into a constructive mood. But I missed my aim.
“Do you suppose there is one man in the Administration who would dare to keep that secret to himself, or any three of them who could keep it between them?” he asked. “The fat ‘ud be in the fire within five minutes!”
I asked him what he thought Joan Angela could do, in view of the law about antiquities.
“She can set anarchy loose!” he answered. “She can pull the trigger! Being a woman, she can choose the worst moment for doing it. That’s all the difference she can make!”
Narayan Singh was sitting in a shop door opposite, keeping watch on the spies who were watching us. There was nobody else to talk to, so I went upstairs and found Chu Chi Ying as happy as a lunatic among his instruments. He had drawn a great plan of the pyramid, showing an extra chamber right in the middle, about half way between those that were discovered long ago and the apex. He said that it, too, would be discovered one of these days, and I asked him how he knew that.
“Mathlematics no can lie,” he answered. “Youu no savvy. Me savvy.”
He was obsessed by mathematics; but, according, to him, as I understood his explanations, music and mathematics are the interpretation of law that governs the whole universe, and he who understands them owns the key to everything.
He had that undiscovered chamber in the pyramid all drafted out to scale, showing its exact dimensions and the thickness of its walls. He knew the temperature inside it, or so he declared, saying that it would be found to be midway between the freezing and boiling points of water at that level.
“That one not yet disclovered. When disclovered, same shape — same size — same weight — same sortee stone — all same as Khufu’s tomb!”
Nor was that all. He added that Khufu’s real tomb would be found at exactly the same distance underground as this undiscovered chamber is above the pyramid foundations.
“Is there anything in that undiscovered chamber?”
Instead of answering he wrote a string of figures on paper, added them, and set down the total.
“Anything in that?” he demanded.
I failed to understand him, so he laughed. I
“Figures — pylamid; same thing!” he explained. “Figures — paper — ink. Pylamid — stone. Same thing! Anything inside pylamid? Same thing inside figures — inside music — nothing. Figures tell something. Music tell something, pylamid tell something.”
“According to you, then,” I said, “the pyramid is a key to the discovery of Khufu’s real tomb. Do you suppose he left any clue as to how that gold could be got out without discovery?”
Chu Chi Ying laughed and rubbed his hands together.
“Khufu think no can do,” he answered. “Khufu allee same damn-fool, makee mlistake, not know evlything! Damn-fool thinkee money good for dead man makee plenty more mlistake. Wise man makee look, see. Savee?”
CHAPTER XIII. “Go to it, boys!”
We were all ready for Joan Angela. Two days before her steamer was due word came in from Atkins, out in the desert, that he had succeeded in uncovering a section, ten feet long, of a tunnel built of stone slabs, whose direction corresponded with Chu Chi Ying’s rough drawing. With that, Grim’s fit of pessimism left him.
We took no chances that could be foreseen, but engaged a suite of rooms for Joan Angela at an hotel in Alexandria and made no stipulation about keeping the reservation secret. We engaged them for a whole week, and paid the money in advance. Then we arranged for a private car to meet her at the docks and convey her straight to the station, where we had a compartment reserved on the Cairo Express in a different name altogether.
Expense being no argument, we repeated that trick in Cairo, reserving rooms for her at one of the but secretly arranging for her to stay as a guest of a banker and his wife, who were friends of Grim’s — a Mr. and Mrs. Norwood — people who could be absolutely trusted if it should become necessary to let them into the secret. That arrangement was all the easier to make because Joan Angela had already cabled in advance arranging for credit with the bank of which Norwood was managing director.
The next step was to arrange for Narayan Singh to act as her personal servant and bodyguard. Sikhs, as a rule, do not take kindly to the more menial positions, being by race and religion stalwarts; but Narayan Singh volunteered his services, for his heart was in the game.
Our precautions were not likely to be good for more than a day or two at most, but there is more than a little in keeping the enemy guessing, if only for one day.
It was not likely that they would attempt to murder her at the first start off, because although that might leave them free to begin a lawsuit with her heirs, to upset title to the land, it would certainly compel investigation. The secret of the treasure would then become known to the Administration, which would be the end of its value as far as Zegloush and party were concerned.
But it was perfectly certain that they would discover her whereabouts and start trouble within forty-eight hours at the most; so we laid our plans for action on the very day of her arrival in Cairo. The first move had to be absolutely secret, and Grim took charge of the arrangements for that.
So I met Joan Angela at the dock in Alexandria, and immensely enjoyed the jealousy of sundry British officers, all of whom had laid careful plans for entertaining her. She had come by way of Marseilles, and five days on the P. & O. had been plenty. She had a travelling companion with her, a Mrs. Watts, whom I had never seen or heard of, and they were even making love to that middle-aged, plain, hearty-looking female in order to get the inside track. The unexpected swoop on Cairo took Joan Angela, as well as the enamoured officers, entirely by surprise, for we had been careful in the wireless that we sent her to mention no more than that the suite had been reserved at the Alexandria hotel.
My job, until we reached Cairo, was to persuade Joan Angela and Mrs. Watts of the seriousness of the situation, and I might just as well have tried to persuade two gobs off a warship that the shore police should be considered with respect. It wasn’t possible, and that was all about it. They would take nothing seriously, not even my warning that their lives were in danger. Exuberant animal spirits was the diagnosis, and I had no physic that would fit the case.
Joan Angela had reached her own conclusions; and since arguing with a woman who has done that always seems to me an even more futile and irritating waste of time than golf or tiddly-winks, I gave it up at last, and laughed with them.
We arrived in Cairo long after dark, and there Grim met us, with Narayan Singh looming behind him like a jinnee out of the Arabian Nights. He had a great hired limousine in waiting, and took us straight to the hotel instead of to the Norwoods’ house. There Mrs. Watts was installed in the suite we had reserved for Joan Angela, and thither came Norwood presently, with his own private car, in a hurry to carry his guest away. But he had to wait, for Grim had worked a miracle.
There were two men in Egypt at that moment who really ranked as statesmen, and nobody quite knew which of them held the reins in the absence of the High Commissioner. Theoretically they were members of a council; but as there never yet was a theory that could be confined within four walls, nor a council that functioned as intended, those two men notoriously held control between them. Needless to say, they were perfectly aware of it. And if you think it is simple to persuade such men to come to you and hear your story, instead of your going to them and waiting on their convenience, just try it once and see. Grim had persuaded both those men to come to the hotel and listen to what we had to say; and said miracle gave birth to a young one en route, for they kept their appointment to the minute.
Simultaneously with them arrived Chu Chi Ying, blinking through horn- rimmed spectacles, holding great rolls of drawings in his hand, and
bowing to everybody like one of those toy mandarins whose heads are balanced on a pendulum.
The financial member of a council always considers himself the most important. Like the other, the legal member, this one was a Scotsman-a short, full-tummied, grey, nearly bald man of about sixty, who bowed to Joan Angela, sat down with his hands folded one on top of the other on his lap, and studied Joan through his gold-rimmed spectacles. He was suspicious of her, having daughters of his own, nevertheless respectful, because in his estimation money was the life-blood of civilization.
The other man was rather tall and lean and canny-looking-decidedly inclined to be flirtatious in a noncommittal way; he somehow conveyed the impression of holding a power-of-attorney empowering him to flirt on behalf of the British nation, and of being careful not to let the nation go too far.
Like most middle-aged family-men they were half scandalized and half captured by Joan Angela’s good looks. Nevertheless, first, last, and all the time they were on their guard lest some trick might be played on the Government they represented.
Grim opened the ball without preliminary. He told the whole story of the effort to form an incorporation in the U.S. in order to get title to the thousand acres in the Fayoum and exploit them under the aegis of the U.S. Government. Then he described our adventure in rescuing Chu Chi Ying out of the empty house next door to that occupied by Zegloush Pasha.
“You broke the law there!” snapped the legal member, pursing up his lips.
Grim did not wait for any dissertation on the legal aspects of the situation, but promptly tackled Chu Chi Ying’s deductions from the pyramid, hitting only the high places, so to speak, and merely tracing the outline of how the calculations indicated that strange well in the desert, and how we had investigated it, and what we had discovered there.
Both members of the council looked incredulous. The legal member curled his lip, and the two men exchanged glances of derision that I suppose they thought we were too bat-blind to notice. Joan Angela was taking particular notice of everything, however, and said nothing.
Grim, who felt the coolness with which his statements were received, sat down and asked Chu Chi Ying to show his map and diagrams. Nothing could have pleased the old Chinaman better; he started to spread them out on the floor, perhaps thinking that the members of the council would squat on the carpet beside him and be entertained. But there was nothing of that sort going to happen.
“We’ve all heard a very great deal of nonsense talked about the Great Pyramid,” said the legal member. “There are theories and theories about it, but few of them are even plausible to my way of thinking. I have even gone so far as to read one or two books that have been published in order to prove that the pyramid sets the date for the end of the world. All very ridiculous, I think. The pyramid was a tomb-just a tomb and nothing else. As for that well in the desert-it may possibly be in some way connected with another tomb; but it seems to me that you have let yourselves be carried away by-ah-cacoethes antiquarii.”
The financial member, with his hands still folded in his lap and his spectacles down on the end of his nose, nodded and smiled.
“Cacoethes antiquarii is a disease rather prevalent in Egypt. It’s endemic,” he said dryly.
“Do you think I have it?” asked Joan Angela quietly.
She was looking straight at the financial member; he could not avoid her eyes, and I don’t think he wanted to, although he found her silk stockings almost equally attractive.
“You seem to me to have come a very long way to investigate a mare’s nest,” he said with a little apologetic laugh.
“It’s my property. Can anybody stop my digging there?” she asked.
“No,” replied the legal member. “You may dig on your own land.”
“And keep any treasure I find?”
“Ah! That’s different. If you should discover a gold mine, you could work it, I believe. There are so few mines here that I’m not familiar with the regulations. I can inquire, if you wish.”
“I asked about treasure-gold or silver bullion — ornaments — coin — that kind of thing.”
“That would not be yours. Treasure of that sort would have to be surrendered. If it had no particular intrinsic value you might be permitted to export portions of it, but not otherwise.”
“What sort of man is this Zegloush Pasha?” she asked next, switching her line of attack. Both men were perfectly aware she was attacking. They made wry faces, and glanced at each other again.
“I advise you to have nothing whatever to do’ with him,” said the financial member “He is a politician of the meanest calibre, who enjoys an unsavoury reputation. Enjoys it, I said.”
“Would you prefer to deal with him or with me?” she asked instantly. “I could sell the property to-night to Zegloush and his friends. Would you I like me to do that?”
“Why not sell it back to the Government?” suggested the legal member.
But the financial member shook his head.
“No funds!” he remarked with an air of finality.
“I propose to reach a decision this evening,” said Joan Angela, and both members of the council raised their eyebrows in alarm. They were not used to dealing with young women who stood right up to them.
“All the way down from Alexandria,” she continued, “I’ve been listening to a sermon from Mr. Ramsden about the danger if Zegloush should get hold of the treasure that’s supposed to be in Khufu’s tomb.”
“Nothing could be worse!” said the financial member.
“Nothing!” agreed the other.
“Very well,” said Joan Angela. “If you ask me not to sell to Zegloush Pasha—”
“I have advised you to have nothing whatever to do with Zegloush,” said the financial member.
“Thank you for advice,” Joan answered, “but you’ll have to do more than advise. If you don’t want me to sell—”
“Please don’t,” said the financial member.
“Very well,” she answered. “But who is to have that treasure, supposing it’s there?”
“We would like time to consider that,” said the legal member.
“We have until midnight,” she answered sweetly.
“We could only discuss the question unofficially, then.”
“Go ahead,” she answered. “Be as unofficial as you please. Who does that treasure rightfully belong to, if it’s there?”
“To the Government,” said the legal member.
“Which Government?” she asked. “The Egyptian Administration?”
Both men hesitated palpably.
“The Egyptian Administration,” said the lawyer, “is in a peculiar, I might say unique, position. You might say we are trustees, holding Egypt on behalf of her foreign creditors, who are of almost every race under the sun. That was the original condition of occupation, and the change from avowed protectorate to decidedly qualified independence has hardly changed that. So, legally speaking, I would have to answer your question, perhaps, in one way; ethically, in another.”
“You might dig out that treasure and hand it over to the Egyptian politicians to spend,” she suggested. “Perhaps they would pay Egypt’s debts with it,”
“Perhaps!” the financial member remarked dryly.
“You have raised a fine point,” said the legal member, setting the tips of his fingers together and crossing his legs. “Supposing the treasure to be there, and if we were to say for the sake of argument that it belongs to the latter-day Egyptians because a king who reigned four thousand years ago raised the money in the form of taxes, we would be assuming what we cannot prove, On the same basis you would have to assume that buried treasure discovered, say, in Mexico belonged exclusively to the descendants of the Aztecs. But suppose we listen first to you, Miss Leich; you must have had some definite idea before coming all this distance. We are speaking unofficially, remember.”
Joan Angela smiled, and I knew that minute she had made her mind up, and had only waited to be asked to stat
e her terms.
“That money belongs to the whole world,” she answered. Her voice was in the middle of the note, and her mind in the middle of the track. She was speaking from conviction, saying something that was as clear to her as twice two equals four.
“That’s an original suggestion!” said the legal member.
“Original, very!” the other echoed.
“I’ve no objection to the British being trustees for it,” Joan Angela went on. “I think they’re entitled to be. Fifty years ago Egypt was a desert; everybody knows that. To-day it’s a rich country, and Egyptians have done precious little in return, except to swindle foreigners. If there really is treasure in Khufu’s tomb, I reckon Egypt owes it to the world!”
“Original! Original! Then what do you propose?” asked the financial member.
“To dig! We’ll soon know whether it’s there or not. If it is, I want it used in the general public interest, in the form of a trust, and I want a vote on the board of trustees. If you’ll agree to that, all right. If not, I’ll sell the land to the highest bidder and let the future take care of itself.”
“My dear lady, we have no authority to treat with you in a matter of that kind!” exclaimed the legal member.
“You’re men, aren’t you?” she retorted. “If you don’t agree, you can say so.”
“We’ll have to think it over.”
“You’ve until midnight,” she answered.
“But arrangements would have to be made to keep any such solution absolutely secret in order to avoid an uprising, and how can that be done, if, as you say, Zegloush and his party already know of the existence of the treasure?” objected the legal member.
“You can leave that to my gang,” she answered. “They’re a good gang. If they get any kind of square deal from you folks there’s nobody on earth can beat them.”
“You mean you want the British Government to have that money?” asked the financial member, looking at her in amazement over the top of his spectacles.