by Simon Brett
‘I’m not sure,’ said Twinks, ‘that you’ll be able to buy an Old Etonian tie in Cairo.’
Her brother laughed. ‘Oh come on, me old toenail clipper, there’s surely nowhere in the world where you can’t buy an Old Etonian tie.’
‘Well . . .’ said Twinks dubiously.
As well as his British certainty about Old Etonian ties, Blotto maintained his British certainty about the way he drove in Egypt. It was very similar to the way that he had driven through Europe. The drifting sand on either side of the road made going down the middle the only real option. The main difference was that some of the people he forced off the road were on camels. And rather than berets or lederhosen, they wore long white robes.
These Egyptian road-users were at greater risk from the Lagonda than their European counterparts had been. Because of the huge weight of the sarcophagus-laden Lagonda and the amount of sand on the road, there was an ever-present risk of the great car sinking in and becoming immobilised. The only way for them to avoid that hazard was driving the vehicle at maximum speed to maintain its momentum. Which only served to increase the potential danger to everyone else on the road.
After one donkey cart had been missed by a hair’s breadth and ended up buried in a roadside dune with its owner’s legs waving in the air, Twinks said, ‘Hold back the hounds a bit, Blotto. Don’t want to sour up the locals.’
‘Just showing them who’s in charge,’ said her brother.
‘But we’re not in charge.’
He looked shocked. ‘You mean this isn’t one of the bits of the map that’s painted pink?’
‘Great Wilberforce, no, Blotters. Egypt isn’t part of the British Empire.’
‘Oh.’ He thought about this for a moment, then he said, ‘Well, it spoffing well should be.’
‘We still have quite a bit of influence here, though.’
‘I should jolly well hope so.’
‘Egypt was even a British protectorate for a while.’
‘Was it?’
‘Yes, you see Egypt’s status was as an autonomous vassal state of the Ottoman Empire.’
‘Ottoman Empire?’
‘Yes, Blotters.’
‘What, a whole empire named after one of those footstool things?’
‘I think it was the other way round. The footstool things were named after the empire.’
‘Toad-in-the-hole!’
‘Blotto, would it help if I gave you a short history of modern Egypt?’
Her brother grinned. ‘Sweet of you, Twinks me old back collar stud, but no thanks.’
Mercifully, though there were some breathtakingly close calls, nobody was actually killed during the Lagonda’s progress from Alexandria to Cairo. And the injuries didn’t amount to more than a few sprains and bruises (and those again were only to foreigners). But it was just as well that the English party’s arrival in Egypt was not meant to be secret. Though used to the visitations of foreign tourists, the locals could not fail to be aware of this particular invasion – the huge blue car with its three pallid passengers thundering across their desert roads.
Navigating one’s way through the great sprawl of Cairo is a challenge even to its residents, but Twinks had done her homework on the most up-to-date Baedeker and guided Blotto seamlessly through the narrow crowded streets and markets to the city’s grandest hotel, Shepheard’s. She had cabled ahead from Athens to reserve rooms and as soon as brother and sister had given baksheesh (or what Blotto, who didn’t like foreign words, called ‘tips’) to the doorman, the receptionist, the porter, the liftman and other uniformed flunkeys they met on the way, they were installed in adjacent suites. There electric fans mercifully stirred the heavy air off the Nile into an inadequate but still welcome breeze.
Needless to say, Twinks had secreted in her sequinned reticule an address book containing contacts for useful people in Cairo (as she had for every major city in the world – and a good few minor ones). After she had settled into her suite, she returned to the hotel’s cavernous and opulent lobby to make a couple of pertinent calls from one of the telephone booths. Then she crossed to Reception.
‘Good evening, milady,’ said the smiling Egyptian behind the counter, who not only spoke immaculate English but had clearly been briefed about his guest’s nobility.
‘Good evening. I was wondering . . . would it be possible for you to arrange the despatch of a cablegram?’
‘Certainly, milady. There will of course be a small matter of a baksheesh to expedite the . . .’ Twinks tipped him. The receptionist reached under the counter for a brown form. ‘If your ladyship would like to fill out the content that you wish to write?’
‘Tickey-tockey,’ said Twinks.
It was a message she had been wanting to send ever since they’d left Tawcester Towers, but this was the first opportunity she’d had. Ever since she had deciphered the second row of hieroglyphs on Pharaoh Sinus Nefertop’s sarcophagus, there was something about them that had been puzzling her. She needed the help of an expert.
On the brown form, with the fountain pen she kept in her sequinned reticule, she wrote in the box provided:
‘Thank you for your letter – your advice bong on the nose as ever. Have followed it and are now in Cairo, shortly to return the sarcophagus. One questionette, though . . . Hieroglyphs on the other side of it say Curse will be obviated by solving the Riddle of the Sphinx. Any thoughts on this?’
And she filled in the addressee’s details as Professor Erasmus Holofernes of St Raphael’s College, Oxford. She handed the completed form back to the receptionist. And tipped him again.
21
A Meeting of Experts
Twinks’s work on the telephone had produced immediate results. While she and her brother were dining in Shepheard’s Hotel’s splendid Moorish Dining Room, a uniformed bellboy approached their table with a telephone message. Once he had received baksheesh, he handed it across.
‘Larkissimo!’ said Twinks when she had read the text.
‘Grern?’ asked her brother who was chewing his way through a rather tough steak.
‘After dinner we’re going to meet someone useful.’
‘Gnar,’ said Blotto, still chewing.
‘Is there anything else, milady?’’ asked the bellboy.
‘Yes. Could you arrange for our chauffeur to have the car outside the front entrance in . . . half an hour?’
‘Of course, milady.’ And he held his hand out for further baksheesh.
Following the young mistress’s instructions, Corky Froggett guided the great Lagonda through the narrow streets of Cairo. In spite of the lateness of the hour, the alleys were still crowded and the brightly lit bazaars open. With the car’s top down, the English visitors could smell the mix of spices, roasted meat and other less salubrious aromas. From the cafés and bars they passed emanated Arabic music and the occasional sounds of jazz.
Corky brought the Lagonda to a halt outside another hotel, the Two Pharaohs, of much more recent provenance than Shepheard’s. In fact, it looked as if it had only been completed the previous day. There was a lot of new development along the banks of the Nile. After the upheavals of the Great War Cairo seemed to have woken up to the potential for international tourism. Hotels were springing up all over the place.
While Blotto and Twinks went inside the hotel’s grand entrance, Corky Froggett stayed in the car, already the object of considerable interest from the street children who flocked around it. He had to maintain extreme vigilance to ensure that no hubcap, leather strap or other detachable part should be detached from the gleaming vehicle. (Though the Lagonda had arrived in Cairo covered in dust from its desert drive, Corky had spent all the time since in the Shepheard’s Hotel’s garage buffing up the bodywork to meet his customary exacting standards.)
Having given baksheesh to the uniformed doorman who directed them through the open door, Blotto and Twinks approached the concierge. Once he had been tipped, he told Twinks where to find the gentleman with whom she
had made a rendezvous. He then summoned a uniformed flunkey who, having been tipped, led them through the Two Pharaohs’s ostentatious opulence to a terrace built out over the Nile. Elegant tables and chairs were laid out under giant purple umbrellas. At the water’s edge was a landing stage, so that guests could embark and disembark from the motor launches and feluccas that took them on sightseeing trips. Stars and lights from the far side were reflected in the dark surface of the mighty river. For the first time the day felt almost temperate.
The siblings were led to a linen-covered table at which sat a tall young man wearing the moustache and uniform of a British Army major. He rose immediately at their approach, and tipped the uniformed flunkey. ‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘I’m Major Rollo Tewkes-Prudely. You must be Lady Honoria Lyminster and Lord Devereux Lyminster.’
‘Bong on the nose, Rollo,’ said Twinks, offering her slender hand to his large outstretched one.
‘Welcome to Cairo.’
Blotto saw something he recognised in the Major’s eye, something he’d seen so often before that a wave of deep boredom swept through him. All the symptoms were there – the sagging lower jaw, the soft panting sound, the popping eyes, the slight sheen of sweat on the forehead, the total inarticulacy. Yes, there was no doubt about it. Rollo Tewkes-Prudely, like so many before him, had fallen in love with Twinks, instantly and as heavily as a giraffe on an ice rink. He goggled at her like a goldfish with hiccups.
‘Thank you. It’s a great pleasure for us to be here. And please call me Twinks.’
‘Blotto,’ said Blotto.
‘No, I’m not,’ said the Major. ‘I’ve only had a couple.’
‘No, my name’s Blotto. People call me Blotto.’
‘Ah. Right. Anyway, take pews and let’s get you something to gargle with. What’ll it be?’
As she sat down, Twinks looked across at his glass. ‘Is that a dry martini?’
‘Certainly is.’
‘So they do cocktails here?’
‘Certainly do. In this hotel they pride themselves on doing everything just like the Brits and the Yanks do. Haven’t been open long, so they don’t always get it right, but they give it their best shot.’ His eyes were still locked on the azure perfection of hers. ‘So is it a martini for you . . . drier than a Saharan sandstorm . . . Lady Honoria?’
‘Twinks.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I said you should call me Twinks.’
‘Ah. Righty-ho. Twinks it is. Martini?’
‘Do they do a Cobbler’s Awl?’
‘Sure they do. What’s your poison, Blotto?’
‘Tell you what’d really bang the bull’s-eye. There’s something called a St Louis Steamhammer . . .’
Rollo Tewkes-Prudely snapped his fingers and a lurking waiter sidled out of the shadows to take his order (and be tipped). Then the Major sat back and just gazed, mesmerised, at Twinks.
She was used to this. Having grown up being the kind of breathsapper she was, Twinks accepted soupy looks from amorous swains as just an occupational hazard. To tell the truth, she hardly noticed them any more. So she was quite brisk in bringing Rollo Tewkes-Prudely back to his senses. ‘I said on the telephone that it was an archaeological matter on which I wanted your advice . . .’
‘Yes, yes.’ He dragged himself back from the vision of his English stately home with Twinks as its chatelaine and a bevy of flaxen-haired children gambolling at their feet. ‘Yes, archaeological – right. Well, nothing out here’s a problem on that front. All the johnnies out here who run the archaeological shooting match are French for some reason.’
‘Napoleon, perhaps?’ suggested Twinks.
‘Not with you.’
‘It was Napoleon who revived interest in Egyptology as a result of his 1799–1801 expedition here.’
‘Was it?’ said the Major, his eyes once again glazing over with visions of flaxen-haired children.
Their drinks arrived. Once the waiter had been tipped, they all sipped gratefully. Blotto’s cranium felt the afterglow of the pyrotechnic display a St Louis Steamhammer always set off in there.
Unwillingly, Rollo Tewkes-Prudely refocused his mind on the promising present rather than the glorious future. ‘Well, as I say, the French control the whole business, so whatever you want to do, it has to be done through the Frogs. Not that that’s a problem. Like everyone else out here, they’re as corrupt as hell, so you just have to make sure the right bribe goes to the right person. And the Johnnie you want in this case is a particularly slimy Frog with whom I’ve had a lot of dealings over the years. His title’s Administrator of Archaeology, something like that. He’ll get you whatever you need . . . excavation licence, permissions, export licence if there are treasures you want to take back to Blighty . . . so long as you pay his going rate. I can organise an introduction to him for you, easy as pie.’
‘It’s not actually getting treasures out of the country that we’re after . . .’ Twinks began.
‘Whatever it is, the Frog’s still your man.’
Twinks decided not to amplify at that point what their real intentions were. Instead she said, ‘I mentioned on the telephone about our needing advice from some archaeological experts . . .’
‘Don’t worry.’ Tewkes-Prudely looked at his wristwatch. ‘Two of Egypt’s finest – well, not that they’re Egyptian, of course – will be joining us shortly.’
‘Thank you, Rollo,’ said Twinks, and she smiled one of her special smiles.
Rollo Tewkes-Prudely was once again instantly submerged in reverie. The first of the flaxen-haired children, he decided, they would call Herbert, after Lord Kitchener.
As Corky Froggett got out of the Lagonda for the fourteenth time to chase off cheeky Arab street boys, he saw someone he recognised going in through the hotel entrance. The man was wearing the same clothes, which made him look like some kind of dusty cowboy. The broad-brimmed leather hat, salty with sweat stains, was unmistakable.
It was Mr Snidely’s companion from the café in Athens.
Coincidence, thought Corky Froggett, probably just coincidence. For a moment he felt tempted to mention his sighting to the young master – or more probably the young mistress, who was better at making connections between things.
But then again, he thought, if he did raise the matter there was no way he could avoid giving more detail than he wished to about how he’d spent that evening in Athens.
Probably safer to keep quiet about the whole business.
Rollo Tewkes-Prudely was shaken out of his dream of flaxen-haired children by the approach of a man in dusty brown clothes and a leather hat. He leant across, enveloping himself in Twinks’s heady perfume. Resisting the strong temptation to plant a kiss on her oh-so-kissable lips, he murmured, ‘Watch out for this cove. Very mercenary, drives a hard bargain.’
Then he rose to greet the man. ‘Bengt,’ he said. ‘May I introduce Lady Honoria Lyminster and Lord Devereux Lyminster? This is Bengt Cøpper.’
The newcomer assessed them through small blue eyes surrounded by tight wrinkles born of squinting at the sun. Twinks felt no romantic attraction in his gaze. He seemed to be valuing her and Blotto, as a cattle farmer might cows at market.
‘What will you drink, Bengt?’
‘Beer. Stella. Cold.’ His English was good; only its singsong quality revealed his Scandinavian origins.
Another flick of fingers from the Major and the waiter (once he had received his baksheesh) scurried off to fetch the order.
The man in dusty brown sat down. ‘Bengt,’ said Rollo, ‘is originally from Norway and he is one of the foremost archaeologists currently in Egypt.’
The man nodded in acknowledgement of this claim, but he seemed in no hurry to initiate conversation. He waited for the Major to continue.
So Rollo Tewkes-Prudely did. ‘Lady Honoria and Lord Devereux – who incidentally are known to everyone as Twinks and Blotto . . .’ Still the Norwegian said nothing but his blue eyes seemed to question why anyone ever shoul
d be given names like that. ‘Anyway, they need assistance on a rather unusual mission and it’s one I thought you might be able to help them on, Bengt.’
‘I’ll help anyone on anything,’ said Bengt Cøpper, ‘so long as the price is right.’
‘Money’s no object,’ said Twinks.
‘No, we—’ But a look from his sister stopped Blotto before he completed the sentence. Somehow she’d intuited he was going to say, ‘No, we haven’t got any.’
‘So what is it you want doing?’ asked the Norwegian. ‘Want me to find you a nice little sarcophagus you can take back to England to display in the Great Hall of your stately home?’
‘No, by Denzil!’ said Blotto.
‘In fact, we want you to help us do the exact opposite of that,’ said Twinks.
‘Oh?’
And she explained about the depredations of Rupert the Egyptologist. ‘Most of the stuff he brought back was fake,’ she concluded.
Bengt Cøpper chuckled. ‘Yes, there have always been a lot of shysters out here, on the lookout for upper-class Englishmen of very low intelligence.’
Blotto looked puzzled. He had a vague feeling someone was talking about him.
‘Anyway,’ said Twinks, ‘what we want is to return the sarcophagus to the burial ground from which it was taken.’
‘Taken? Stolen, I think you mean.’
She shrugged. ‘Whatever.’
‘And do you know the name of the person whose remains are inside the sarcophagus?’
‘Pharaoh Sinus Nefertop,’ Twinks announced.
Bengt Cøpper nodded thoughtfully. ‘I haven’t heard of him, but many of the pharaohs were known by more than one name.’
The waiter arrived with the archaeologist’s Stella. Once he had been tipped, he put bottle and glass down on the table and poured. Bengt Cøpper took a long, grateful swallow before asking, ‘Do you have any idea what dynasty your Pharaoh might be from?’
‘An expert we consulted in England reckoned, from various pieces of corroborating evidence, that the sarcophagus probably dates from the Nineteenth or Twentieth Dynasty.’
‘Relatively recent then.’ The archaeologist nodded again, before adding with a note of contempt. ‘Though I’m not sure how much credence should be placed on the word of an expert who is not in Egypt.’