The Buried Pyramid

by Jane Lindskold

  “Mr. Syms was having none of that, though. He hit one man and took his gun, then shot another. The highwaymen ran for their lives, then, but not before the good man himself was shot. Mrs. Syms herself drove the coach to the nearest house, but there was no saving her husband. They had no children, being young married then, and she never looked to wed again. Lord Cheshire was some sort of a cousin to her and gave her a roof so her small inheritance wouldn’t be wasted, and Lady Cheshire has continued just as kind.”

  Another point to her, Jenny thought with a certain desperation. I don’t want to hear good things about Audrey Cheshire. I can feel in my bones she doesn’t mean well by us.

  “Poor Mrs. Syms,” Jenny replied with real feeling. “I can indeed see why she might be interested in spiritualism. I wonder if she has ever forgiven herself.”

  Emily sighed agreement. “I can’t imagine how I’d feel seeing my Bert bleed out his life to save my honor. It’s romantic enough in stories, but I think it would really be quite horrid.”

  “You are a sensible woman, Mrs. Hamilton,” Jenny said. “The ladies’ servants may be chatty, but I saw Captain Brentworth’s boy for the first time today, and he’s quiet enough.”

  Emily’s eyes grew round.

  “You mean the Mohammedan lad?” she said. “Oh, he’s quiet, and like to stay that way. Polly tells me he’s a mute and an idiot. Captain Brentworth hired Rashid from some orphanage or poorhouse in Cairo. The lad cannot say a single word, only makes a sort of flat noise like a goat bleating that’s supposed to be laughing. He fair gives me the creeps, never looking you in the eye, though I suppose he’s a good enough soul. He’s kind to that queer pet of his, and they do say you can always judge a man by how he treats his creatures.”

  “Mute?” Jenny said. “Is Rashid deaf as well?”

  “No, he can hear right enough, just can’t make his throat shape talking sounds. Can’t write, neither, on account of not being very bright.”

  “So how does he make his master know what is needed?”

  Emily grew guarded.

  “I don’t suppose Captain Brentworth is the type to take much direction from a servant, Miss.”

  “But what if Rashid needs supplies? Needles and thread or something?”

  Jenny felt rather vague about those things a manservant might use to tend his master’s needs, but Emily understood.

  “I think Rashid has a few signs he can make, gestures and suchlike,” Emily replied. “They must get by, since Rashid has been in Captain Brentworth’s service some years now—though Polly says the captain is always threatening to get rid of him.”

  “True.”

  Fascinated by the exotic young servant, Jenny found excuses to have her path intersect Rashid’s and to offer a pleasant nod or a polite greeting in her rather stilted Arabic. Such opportunities were not difficult to find. Rashid seemed to be the favorite errand boy for both Lady Cheshire and Captain Brentworth, as Babette, Lady Cheshire’s French maid thought herself above such tasks, and Polly was not taking well to sea travel.

  The number of ladies traveling on Neptune’s Charger was not large, so even if Jenny had wanted to avoid Lady Cheshire, she could not have done so. However, she did not wish to do so—not with Uncle Neville forming a member of Lady Cheshire’s court more often than Jenny felt was wise.

  Sir Neville had even taken to reading poetry to the lady. His selections were not in the least romantic, but Captain Brentworth, who could not read aloud without making the verse sound like barked commands, clearly envied the other man his delivery—and his proximity to the lady. When Lady Cheshire suggested that Sir Neville read for one of the entertainments the passengers regularly got up for their mutual amusement, Captain Brentworth was clearly irate.

  Stephen Holmboe had already participated in one of these entertainments, reading the grisly “Murders in the Rue Morgue” by the American author Edgar Allan Poe, and afterwards arguing quite engagingly about the merits of pure deduction as a means of solving mysteries. Sir Neville had taken the opposite side, and the pair had been applauded for their skill in arguing black white, which Mr. Babellard, the clergyman, had said verged on the Jesuitical.

  Jenny was considering what she could offer as her portion of one of these entertainments—perhaps some of the frontier tales that had so fascinated Emily would do—when another communication in hieroglyphs jolted her party out of their more casual preoccupations.

  The missive had been handed to Stephen along with the rest of the Hawthorne party’s mail when he went below to fetch a book he needed to consult during one of Jenny’s lessons on Egyptology.

  “Whatever is wrong, Mr. Holmboe?” Jenny asked, when Stephen returned, an envelope held awkwardly in one hand.

  “Something rather curious,” he said, moving his hand so that she could see that a series of hieroglyphs had been written at the bottom of the envelope below the otherwise very usual routing instructions. Had it not been for their earlier experience, she might have dismissed them as decoration.

  Stephen lowered his voice. “I fear we should not discuss whatever this contains in such a public area. If you will locate your uncle and ask him to meet us at his stateroom, I will gather up our books and will join you shortly.”

  Jenny did so. She waited until Uncle Neville had concluded the long passage he was reading from one of Browning’s dramatic monologues, and had received the gushing praise of Lady Cheshire, before saying rather petulantly:

  “Uncle Neville, I wish you would resolve an argument between myself and Mr. Holmboe. I tell him that his interpretation of one of the exercises he has set me cannot be correct.”

  “Oh,” replied Sir Neville, obviously amused. “You wish me to defy my own instructor on your behalf?”

  Jenny pouted slightly. “I think you could help. This lesson reminds me of the first lesson we did back at Hawthorne House, the one on phonetics. You were able to offer some valuable clarification then, and I do wish you would do so now.”

  For a moment she thought he might not remember that first lesson, but the momentary flicker of puzzlement departed his features almost as soon as it formed. He laughed, perhaps a trifle theatrically, and rose to his feet.

  “If you ladies will excuse me,” he said, bowing around the small group. “Mr. Holmboe forgets himself in his enthusiasm. It may be that a more recent student such as myself may indeed be able to offer some assistance.”

  The ladies did excuse him, though Jenny thought that Lady Cheshire would have liked to have had a reason to attach herself to their party. However, she had already admitted ignorance of all but the most general principles of hieroglyphic writing, so there was no reason why her presence might be helpful.

  Jenny followed her uncle to his stateroom, where Stephen Holmboe joined them almost immediately, firmly closing the door into the small room.

  “Same correspondent,” he began, dropping the envelope onto the table for their inspection. “I recognize the hand.”

  Jenny was now familiar enough with hieroglyphic writing to know that the signs were shaped slightly differently by every scribe. Still, she thought Stephen’s distinction unnecessary.

  “I should hope so,” she said. “I can hardly imagine two such cranks!”

  Stephen cocked a bushy blond eyebrow at her.

  “We should not make assumptions,” he said. “When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.”

  He grinned then, and Jenny, remembering that “ass” was not as rude a term in British English as it was in American, stopped being shocked and caught the joke. She snorted and returned her attention to the envelope.

  “It’s addressed to you, Uncle Neville. Open it!”

  Neville Hawthorne was frowning at the routing instructions. Except for the line of hieroglyphs, they were in keeping with the other letters that had arrived in the same post—although the postmarks were somewhat blurred, as if the envelope had been splashed.

  “I wonder who is sending these to us?” he said.
/>   “Let’s look at what’s inside,” Jenny suggested. “Maybe this one will be easier to read.”

  Nodding, Sir Neville slit open the envelope and removed a folded sheet of paper, neatly lettered with a series of hieroglyphs. Jenny bent forward, eager to see if she could read any of them.

  “Our correspondent has used some of the same words,” Jenny said, recalling the previous letter, which she had poured over repeatedly with a sort of horrified fascination. “Isn’t that ‘the’?”

  Uncle Neville nodded. He had taken one of the chairs, and motioned Jenny toward the other.

  “Let us see what we can make of this,” he said.

  In a few moments, they had come up with a list of letters nearly as unintelligible as the original.

  BHYND TH BRYTST UF SMYLS LRKS DRKST INTNT GRD IS A PR RSUN FR SCRILG LF THE GD KING T HS RST SFYNKS.

  “I think it’s going to be easier this time,” Stephen said. “We know it’s in English, so we can fill in fairly easily.”

  Jenny nodded. “That’s ‘the good king’ there toward the end.”

  Sir Neville raised a hand. “Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? ‘Behind the brightest of smiles… ’ ”

  “ ‘Lurks,’ ” Stephen said, not so much interrupting as letting his enthusiasm rule his tongue. “‘Lurks darkest intent.’ The next word is a poser until you read on, then it just has to be ‘greed.’ ”

  “Yes,” Jenny said, continuing his translation. “ ‘Greed is a poor reason for sacrilege.’ But lf? Leaf is all that comes to my mind, and that makes no sense at all.”

  “Laugh?” Stephen suggested, but he didn’t sound convinced. “Luff? Rather too nautical, I fear.”

  “Luff… That rather reminds me of old Alphonse Liebermann,” Neville said. “He always transformed his ‘V’s into ‘F’s so whenever he spoke about ‘love’—as he did frequently when Eddie’s attraction to Miriam came apparent—it sounded like he was discussing a high wind.”

  “Love is rather like a high wind,” Stephen said. “Blows you away.”

  He grinned, and Jenny groaned. She had already learned that Stephen was a punster—and she could imagine just how popular this trait would have made him with the serious archeologists who might otherwise have found him a valuable assistant.

  Sir Neville frowned at this levity, his attention fixed on the letter.

  “Stephen, am I remembering correctly that the Egyptians don’t seem to have had a phonetic equivalent for ‘V’?”

  “That’s right!” Stephen said. “If our correspondent hadn’t been able to think of a way around using a letter that, after all, is very common in English, he might have had to resort to the next best choice—an ‘F.’ ”

  “So ‘love’ is an option,” Jenny said, “but it doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Look at the text that follows,” Stephen urged. “ ‘Lf the good king,’ then a single ‘T’—it just has to be ‘to.’ ”

  “ ‘To his,’ ” Jenny said, filling in the next words, “‘rest.’ And the last word is…”

  “Sphinx!” Stephen said. “With that, I’m betting then that ‘lf’ is ‘leave.’”

  Sir Neville pushed his notes forward so they could read the finished text. “ ‘Behind the brightest of smiles lurks darkest intent. Greed is a poor reason for sacrilege. Leave the good king to his rest.’ And it’s signed ‘Sphinx.’ ”

  “A good name for him, since he persists in speaking in riddles,” Neville said. “If it is indeed a signature, as this seems to indicate, it rather changes our reading of the first letter, as well.”

  He pulled out their translation.

  “The last sentence becomes, ‘Beware the grinning woman. Sphinx.’ It’s a warning against a specific person—a grinning woman.”

  Stephen looked rather uncomfortable. Jenny glanced over and met his eye, but neither of them spoke. Over her lessons they had traded a few confidences, and she knew that he too had his doubts about Lady Cheshire and her winning smiles. Uncle Neville, however, seemed unaware of their suspicions.

  “I suppose we’ll know this grinning woman when we see her,” he said. “I’m less happy with the rest of this. It does seem as if the blighter knows what we’re after, and has the effrontery to warn us off.”

  Unable to make herself address the matter of Lady Cheshire, Jenny brought up the other thing that had been troubling her.

  “We’ve been referring to whoever’s writing these as ‘he,’ ” she said, “but wasn’t Oedipus’s sphinx, the one who spoke those famous riddles, wasn’t that one female?”

  “A point,” Stephen said. “Well, if so that rather narrows the field, doesn’t it?”

  In answer to Jenny’s questioning look, he said, “I mean, there aren’t that many women who read and write hieroglyphs, if you see what I mean.”

  “I would have said,” Jenny replied a bit stiffly, “that it broadened the field to include the entire human race.”

  Then she relented. “But I see what you mean. Really, there aren’t that many people who read and write hieroglyphs at all.”

  “Unfortunately,” Neville said, “we are heading to a part of the world with what I suppose must be the largest concentration of hieroglyph readers per capita . Does anyone have a nomination as to who our correspondent might be?”

  Jenny shook her head.

  “It would be easier if we could limit ourselves to people on this vessel. Unhappily, there is daily contact with land that includes the same postal delivery that brought us this. Lots of people in England and a few in Egypt know we’re on this ship.”

  “So the writer could be anyone,” Neville said, “in two countries—including those frustrating Sons of the Hawk. Stephen, are you willing to continue with me in my search for the Valley of Dust?”

  Both Jenny and Stephen nodded, and Jenny felt a thrill in her heart at not being excluded. That thrill faded some at Uncle Neville’s next words.

  “Jenny, I think you had better unpack that little derringer of yours and discreetly wear it about your person. Stephen, I have delayed your shooting lessons too long. Colonel Travers was speaking just the other day about his concern that his men were doing too much flirting and too little soldiering. I believe he will be quite happy to include you in the training sessions he plans.”

  Uncle Neville stared down at the papers spread on the table, glowering at them for a long moment before beginning to fold them away.

  “We will take precautions,” he said, “but I have come too far and waited too long to be turned away by a few riddling words.”

  5

  Auguste Dupin

  When Neptune’s Charger was only a few days out of Alexandria, a tremendous uproar broke the lazy hour between tea and dinner. First the passengers visiting on the shaded promenade deck observed the purser, Andrew Watkins, hurrying to the first class cabins. Not long after an assortment of the ship’s officers—including, astonishingly, Captain Easthill himself—hurried in the same direction.

  Neville, who had been enjoying a quiet conversation with Lady Cheshire while supervising Jenny’s lessons, was amused when his niece, obviously curious about what was going on, excused herself, saying she needed something from her cabin. She was turned back politely but firmly by one of the purser’s flunkies. Even this was news of a sort, so she returned to her companions and reported.

  “We haven’t seen the ship’s surgeon go by,” Lady Cheshire commented. “Otherwise, I might hazard illness.”

  “He might have arrived from another direction,” Stephen Holmboe commented, marking his place in Scott’s The Heart of Midlothian with his thumb. “The one is not ruled out by the other.”

  “ Oui, Monsieur Dupin ,” Lady Cheshire responded with a charming laugh.

  Mr. Holmboe apparently did not take well to the lady’s teasing, for he colored deeply, and prepared to hide his embarrassment in the pages of his book.

  “Look,” Jenny said. “I believe we are going to learn something. Here comes Mr. Watkins.�
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  Andrew Watkins had been in the Royal Navy, and something of that service’s discipline remained with him, even on purely social occasions. This afternoon, however, his hat was off and his thinning hair was in disarray. He paused a short distance from the gathered passengers, clearly looking for one in particular, then hurried over to where Mary Travers was taking advantage of the rare absence of both of her parents to flirt with a few of her favorite soldiers under Mrs. Syms’s indulgent supervision.

  “Miss Travers,” Watkins said, barely concealing his agitation, “if you would come with me, your mother is in need of you.”

  Mary might be flighty, in Neville’s opinion, but she was a good girl at heart. There was nothing at all affected in the way she sprang to her feet, her face suddenly pale.

  “Is Mother ill?”

  “It seems so,” Mr. Watkins admitted. “Doctor MacDonagal says there is no danger, but your presence may be beneficial.”

  “I’ll come right away,” Mary said, and did so, not even bothering to reply to the several earnest offers of assistance proffered by the young officers who moments before had been so central to her attention.

  Neville frowned. He genuinely liked Colonel Travers, even if he thought him a bit by the book and unimaginative. Mrs. Travers had all the best qualities of a career military wife. Indeed, Neville privately thought her permitting Mary a bit of flirtation out from under her mother’s eye was an indication of this, the wisdom that an easy hand on the rein kept the mouth soft and sensitive to guidance.

  Jenny looked after her departing friend with real concern in those remarkable violet eyes.

  “Uncle Neville,” she said, “do you think I should offer my help? Perhaps Dr. MacDonagal is unaccustomed to treating ladies.”

  “If he’s an officer on a passenger ship, he most certainly has done so,” Neville assured her. “I’m certain that they would be as happy for your offer later as now.”

  Jenny sat back and picked up her book, but Neville doubted she saw anything before her. Her downcast eyes had clouded, and before she could stop it, a tear leaked from beneath her lashes. She quickly mopped the betraying drop away, and Neville thought it better not to comment. Clearly, these were not tears of pique, but of sorrow at the memory of her own mother’s death when she—unlike Mary—had been far away and unable to help.