In the three years following my introduction to Sherlock Holmes in the chemistry lab of St. Bart's hospital by our mutual friend Stamford—resulting in Holmes and me sharing lodgings in Baker Street—I had grown accustomed to Holmes's investigations beginning with the arrival of a telegram or letter, our landlady announcing an unexpected caller, or the plodding footsteps of a Scotland Yard detective ascending the stairs with a grudging appeal for assistance. On one or two instances I happened to be the instrument that launched Holmes upon what he commonly called "a problem." Such was the occasion on a warm April evening in 1883. We had barely settled into our chairs in the sitting room of 221B Baker Street on the second evening following our return from the Surrey home of the villainous Dr. Grimesby Roylott when Holmes bolted from his chair and declared, "Watson, our exertions in this singular episode at Stoke Moran have earned us the reward of a superb dinner."
Half an hour later, we were seated in Simpson's-in-the Strand. As always when Holmes patronized that venerable establishment, our table in the upstairs dining room was next to a large window overlooking the busy thoroughfare. "In this passing parade of humanity," he had said in explanation on a previous occasion, "and in a city of four million inhabitants, all jostling one another, there is no telling what convergence of events or trifling happenstance might unloose a chain of events resulting in a calamity, or simply one of those incidents that seem whimsical on the surface, but are rife with dire consequences for those involved."
While Holmes alternately peered down to study the constantly changing street tableau, he picked at the roast beef that had been carved from one of the immense silver trolleys, known as "dining wagons," which had been the hallmark of Simpson's since it opened its doors in 1848. I was enjoying a steak, kidney, and mushroom pudding for which the restaurant was equally and justifiably renowned. As I glanced around the crowded, festive room, I was astonished to see a comrade from my army service striding boldly towards our table.
A burly figure in the uniform of my former regiment, the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, and with a shock of unruly red hair that had among his fellow officers earned him the nickname "Rusty," Major James McAndrew would have been an arresting figure anywhere, but making his way across the large dining room he was especially noticeable because of a bandage encircling his head like a laurel wreath. As he drew near our table, he flung out his powerful arms and bellowed, "By Jove, it really is you, Watson!"
"Rusty, my dear friend," said I, rising to grip his large hand. "This is a surprise. I had no idea you were in England. How good it is to see you. May I present my friend, Sherlock—"
"No introduction is required, John. It's an honour to meet you, Mr. Holmes. As a devoted reader of Watson's accounts of your investigations in The Strand Magazine, I assume that your keen eyes have taken my measure and your detective's mind has deduced my entire life story."
"I wouldn't go so far as to say that I know everything about your life, Major," Holmes replied as they shook hands, "but the tattoo of a ship below a cross on your left wrist and one of a mermaid on the right are evidence that you went to sea as a very young man. They are in the unmistakable style of a particular practitioner of body adornment who worked the Portsmouth docks three decades ago."
"Right you are!"
"How long it has been since you gave up seafaring for the army is impossible to state."
"Because my father had been a captain in the navy and thought I had the makings of an officer, I shipped out in 1845 at the age of thirteen, but after five years, I decided that I'd rather be in the army. Earning the rank of Major took another twenty. What else have you observed?"
"You are a man of exceptional ability, courage, loyalty, and patriotism. All of these virtues are evidenced by your lifetime of service to your country. You are also adventurous and impetuous. I deduce from these traits that you switched to the army because you craved more excitement."
"It was at the time of the Great Mutiny. My blood was boiling to punish the Mughals and Muslims for their perfidy, after all that we had done for the good of India. This is fascinating, Mr. Holmes. Please continue."
"Although the ring finger of your left hand indicates that you are not married," said Holmes, "I'm certain that a man of your dashing countenance and demeanor has not lacked opportunities to engage in affairs of the heart. You felt strongly enough about one woman called Elizabeth to have her name placed under the tattoo of the mermaid."
"That is true, sir, but I decided early on that the hard life of a sailor and later of the army on the northwest frontier of India in the aftermath of the Mutiny was not one that a gentleman should impose on the gentle sex."
"Beyond these observations, Major, I note only that you have been quite lucky in your life in that you have returned to England from the wars of the East with your body evidently intact and your spirit unbroken, undoubtedly because of a deeply religious nature that is indicated by the tattoo of the cross, and may I say, because of the strengthening of your faith by your participation in the rites and rituals of Freemasonry?"
"I see how you reached your conclusions concerning my naval and military life—it's quite simple, really. But on what basis can you state with such conviction that I am a Mason?"
"You revealed it yourself."
"Really! I don't recall—"
"I know that Watson is a Master Mason. You and he greeted one another with the unique handshake of those who have attained the third degree of Masonry, therefore you are also a Master. What I cannot state with conviction is whether you joined the fraternity before or after you entered into the army. As Watson will attest, I never guess."
"I was accepted as Entered Apprentice in a military lodge when I arrived in Bombay in 1873 and raised to Fellowcraft a year later in Calcutta. I received the apron of the Master Mason in 1879 in the lodge of the Fifth Fusiliers at the time of the Second Afghan War. I am proud to say that Watson presided over the induction ceremony as Most Worshipful Master."
Recalling that moment with pleasure and pride, I interjected, "I was honored to do so."
"When you were transferred to service with the Berkshires, I lost track of you. I later heard through the grapevine that you had been wounded and were sent home. The next thing I knew, you had become an associate and chronicler of the world's most illustrious private detective. It's wonderful to see you again, John, and to observe that you seem to have fully recovered from your wound. I must say, you look smashingly well."
"Now and then I feel a twinge in my leg to remind me of that bloody day."
"You've had quite an injury yourself, Major," Holmes observed.
Raising a hand to the bandage and gingerly touching it, McAndrew replied, "Receiving this bump was nothing as romantic as the Jezail bullet that felled John at Maiwand."
"How did your injury happen?"
"I was struck a glancing blow by a tile that had become dislodged and fell from the roof of my quarters in Pimlico Road near the Chelsea Barracks."
"You're a fortunate fellow," I said. "You could have been killed."
"Indeed so. In my case, the mummy's curse does appear to have gone amiss, but perhaps only because I was a minor member of the expedition that disturbed the old gent's bones. I am not a believer in the occult, but this incident has almost made me one."
Leaning forwards with a look of astonishment, Holmes exclaimed, "Such an extraordinary statement requires elucidation, Major."
"Yes, I suppose it does, but I'm afraid that I've kept you from enjoying your meal long enough. Another time, perhaps."
"Really, Major," said Holmes insistently, "I cannot allow you to refer to your injury as the result of a mummy's curse, then go off and leave Dr. Watson and me to simply go on eating as if nothing were more important than our next course. Draw up that chair and tell us everything from the beginning."
"I am not one of our countrymen who takes an interest in the so-called supernatural," said McAndrew as he seated himself, "but, as you observed, Mr. Holmes, I am a m
an of faith. You cannot be a Freemason and not believe in a Supreme Architect of the Universe."
"Quite so," said I. "It's the cornerstone of the Craft."
"Because I am a Christian," McAndrew continued, "I made my way homeward from my service in Afghanistan by way of the Holy Land. I naturally visited the biblical city of Ur and the rivers of Mesopotamia. After a few days in Baghdad, I continued to Jerusalem. I wished to see the Jewish Temple Mount, now claimed by the Mohammedans as their third most holy shrine, and to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Because I am an amateur archaeologist, I was also interested in exploring the discoveries of Edward Robinson, Charles Warren, and, of course, General Charles Gordon. As you know, he has located a skull-shaped hill and a nearby garden that he has identified as the true location of Calvary and Our Lord's burial place, rather than the tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, as the Roman Catholics believe. After my explorations of the Holy City, I journeyed to Cairo to have a look at the pyramids of the Giza Plateau and the Sphinx. During my stay at the Mena House, a very fine old hostelry in the shadow of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, I chanced to meet Basil Porter. He is a nephew of Lord Porter, under whose auspices a dig had been organised. He graciously invited me to join them. The expedition was led by Professor Felix Broadmoor of Cambridge University. Perhaps you've heard of it."
"The newspapers were full of it, and rightly so," I said emphatically. "I expect that Her Majesty will presently recognize its achievements with the appropriate honours."
"As well she should," said McAndrew. "However, Lord Porter has been subjected to a firestorm of criticism from some quarters for not consigning the expedition's finds to the nation by turning everything over to the British Museum."
"I'm certain that will eventually be sorted out," said Holmes. "Please go on with your story and the matter of the mummy's curse."
"The expedition was hoping to locate tombs from the period of the Sixth Dynasty king named Raneferef. We did not find a royal sarcophagus, but located the burial place of a minor official called Sarenput. It was a discovery of breathtaking riches. Believe me, gentlemen, nothing I had seen of the wealth of Indian maharajahs matched the treasures that we unearthed. The mummy itself was in an excellent state of preservation in a tomb that had escaped the grave robbers that through the millennia have looted so many burial chambers, perhaps because of the curse that had been carved into the door of the main chamber. It was so chilling that it is etched in my memory so indelibly that I can recite it exactly: 'The priest of Hathor will punish any of you who enters this sacred tomb or does harm to it. The gods will confront him because I am honoured by his Lord. Anyone who desecrates my tomb will drown, burn, be beaten, and be destroyed by the crocodile, hippopotamus, and lion. The scorpion and the cobra will strike him. Stones will crush the trespasser.'"
"Ah, at last," Holmes exclaimed "Now, we're getting somewhere. You have associated the stones of the curse with your unfortunate encounter with the falling tile."
"I am not a superstitious man, but my injury, occurring after some peculiar and tragic events since the conclusion of the Porter-Broadmoor expedition, has caused me to wonder if there might be something to this curse business."
"Your story becomes even more compelling," said Holmes. "What were these peculiar events, as you so colourfully put it?"
"The first was the collapse of a tunnel at the tomb site. No one was injured or killed at that time, but we had to work very rapidly to shore up the walls in order to extricate the diggers."
"The next incident?"
"One of the ships carrying several larger artefacts from the dig to England was lost in a Mediterranean storm. Again, there was no loss of life or injury, but the artefacts are now lying at a depth that leaves them unrecoverable."
"When did someone die?"
McAndrew smiled appreciatively. "I can see that Dr. Watson in his writings has not exaggerated your facility at deduction, Mr. Holmes. Several weeks ago, an expert in Egyptian hieroglyphics who translated the curse, Anthony Fulmer, was killed in a train wreck in Kent."
Recalling reading in the newspapers that several persons had died, I muttered, "A terrible accident, indeed."
"What happened next?" asked Holmes.
"Last week Felix Broadmoor was waylaid in the night by a robber on a street near his home in Cambridge. He was so badly beaten that he died without recovering. The police have attributed the incident to a gang of toughs who have been plaguing the area. As far as I know, there have been no arrests."
"How many individuals participated in the expedition?"
"Including diggers, carters, and others that we hired from the local population, there were about two hundred. Those who came out from England were Lord Porter, as financial backer; his nephew Basil; an exceptional Egyptologist from the BM named Geoffrey Desmond, who is still in Cairo; Mr. Broadmoor; and Mr. Fulmer."
"Six men," I said, "two of whom are dead and yourself injured. If one were inclined to believe in the occult, your mummy's curse would seem to have taken quite a toll."
With a sigh, McAndrew replied, "I'm certain all of this is pure coincidence, but it does provide me with a good barracks yarn. I only wish I possessed the Watson talent for spinning a riveting tale. When will I have the pleasure of reading your next story in The Strand?"
"You will find it especially interesting, as it involves the deadliest snake in India."
McAndrew shuddered. "The swamp adder?"
"Exactly, along with a whistle, a saucer of milk, a ventilator, and a bell pull."
"Fascinating. I'm eager to read your account of the case."
With a cautioning look at me, Holmes said, "There were aspects of the affair, involving the young woman who brought the matter to my attention, that I do not believe would serve any useful purpose if they were made public at this time. Don't you agree, Watson?"
"Quite so, Holmes."
With that, Major McAndrew repeated his concern that he was keeping Holmes and me from our dinner, voiced a hope that he and I might meet again soon to reminisce about army days, and excused himself.
"Your friend has suddenly whetted my appetite for all things Egyptian," Holmes said as the sergeant returned to his table. "This interesting encounter has provided me reason for us to call upon a remarkable man I have been wanting to meet. When we return to Baker Street you can look him up in the Index under P."
A set of commonplace books, the Index was an alphabetized conglomeration of facts, snippets of data, numerous press clippings, notations by Holmes on scraps of paper, and trivia that Holmes had accumulated over a period of decades that were as astonishing in scope as his ability to recall the exact volume in which they were to be found.
"The name you seek," said Holmes, "is William Matthew Flinders Petrie."
On a biographical article torn from a two-month-old edition of the Times, the item noted that Petrie was the author of Stonehenge: Plans, Description, and Theories, published in 1880, followed recently by The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh. "The son and namesake of a civil engineer and professional surveyor, and the maternal grandson of the famous navigator and explorer of the coasts of Australia, Professor Flinders Petrie is a remarkable man in his own right," declared the writer of the article. "As with many great men, he had little formal education, yet he has become a respected mathematician and highly esteemed in the emerging field of Egyptology as the father of modern archaeology."
Seated pensively in his favourite armchair and lighting a long pipe as I continued to read, Holmes said, "I do not in the least exaggerate when I state that Flinders Petrie's methodology of precisely recording and preserving data has raised the excavation of ancient sites from rooting around aimlessly in the earth with a pick and shovel to a science. You have often quoted me on the importance of trifles. Well, this fellow leaves me in the dust, so to speak. What I observe in the importance of cuffs of sleeves, thumbnails, and the great issues that hang from a boot lace, this man discerns in a shard of five-thousand-year-old Egy
ptian pottery. As I can reconstruct a crime and deduce the identity of a criminal from a cigar ash or an ink smudge on a sheet of stationery, Flinders Petrie divines the structure of an entire civilization."
The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Page 24