The Case of the Purloined Pyramid

by Sean McLachlan

  “Even though he almost certainly didn’t know or appreciate what he was looking at,” Heinrich Schäfer interjected.

  “Indeed,” Augustus said, lighting a cigarette. “But perhaps he was told what to look for by that diplomat, Dieter Neumann. That fellow certainly seemed to know his business. He probably thought that I might have some new inscriptions on display for my grand opening, and I do.”

  “But none of them are large blocks of polished limestone with giant hieroglyphs,” Moustafa pointed out. “The only thing unusual about the inscription Cavell stole was that it was of high quality and the hieroglyphs were so large, obviously from some immense monument.”

  Zehra brightened. “Several antiquities dealers have mentioned in recent days that customers have asked for large monumental inscriptions on polished white limestone.”

  “Were the customers German?” Augustus asked.

  “I didn’t ask. I will.”

  “Please do, although I think I can anticipate the answer. It’s interesting that they specified the type of stone. Customers don’t usually care about that.”

  “I thought that was strange as well,” Zehra agreed.

  “Perhaps they are looking for fragments from the same inscription,” Heinrich said, puffing on his pipe.

  “That’s a pretty tall order after all this time,” Augustus said. “And why would it matter so much to them?”

  The art historian gave a helpless gesture. “That I do not know. You said Herr Neumann was inspecting the cracks in your masonry.”

  “Yes. At first I figured he might be looking for some hidden safe or room, but he seemed happy just from what he saw in the cracks. When I had him pinned to the wall and asked him about it, he clammed up and claimed diplomatic immunity. I had to let him go to avoid trouble. I couldn’t even tell the police.”

  “Shall we go inspect these cracks?” Heinrich suggested.

  “Very well. They’re upstairs.”

  “One moment, let me call my eunuch,” Zehra said. “Mehmid! Come with me!”

  “Whatever do you need your eunuch for?” Augustus said.

  Zehra raised her eyebrows. “Really, Augustus. A married woman can’t go upstairs with three men who aren’t her relations without the guardianship of her eunuch. I may be a woman of business, but I haven’t lost all sense of propriety.”

  Mehmid stepped forward from where he had been guarding the door. He was an older Turk with a smooth face and a fair amount of flab, but beneath the fat, Augustus discerned muscles to rival those of Moustafa.

  Now safely chaperoned, Zehra accompanied the men upstairs to the room Neumann had examined. Augustus produced a torch, and they shone the light in the cracks.

  “Nothing but dust and stone,” Moustafa said.

  “He wasn’t interested in this particular crack. He seemed to like this one better.”

  Augustus led them to the next crack. They all peered inside.

  “Ah, look!” Heinrich said. “See the stone beyond the one that makes up the inner wall of the room? It’s limestone. White limestone.”

  “And it’s polished like the one stolen from Monsieur Dupris’s dig,” Moustafa added.

  “Let’s check this other one across the room,” Augustus said. “Neumann liked that one too.”

  As they suspected, the inner stone was also of white limestone. They couldn’t see anything except a chipped corner, but everyone suspected that it was polished on one side as well.

  “Does Neumann really think that my house is partially built with ancient Egyptian stone?” Augustus asked.

  “Ancient stone was often reused in later buildings,” Zehra said.

  “Yes, and Neumann said this house might date back to the Bahri Dynasty,” Augustus mused. “That’s fourteenth century, isn’t it?”

  “From 1250 to 1382,” Zehra said.

  Heinrich looked impressed. “You are quite an educated woman, Mrs. Hanzade!”

  Zehra lowered her eyes modestly. “The Bahri Sultans were Mamluk Turks, Herr Schäfer. Any proud Turk knows her history.”

  “I wish the Soudanese did,” Moustafa said. “No one in my village ever heard of Meroë or Kush and wouldn’t have cared if they had.”

  Augustus studied the wall. “So Neumann and his henchman are searching for an Egyptian monumental inscription. But why the subterfuge? And why kill a man?”

  No one had any ideas.

  Augustus turned to Moustafa. “Did Dupris sketch or photograph the inscription before it was stolen?”

  “He did a preliminary sketch, yes.”

  “We need see it,” Augustus said. “Tomorrow you and I will go back to Giza. Maybe the inscription will give us a clue as to why Neumann wants the complete text so badly.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Khadija umm Mohammed was well known throughout the neighborhood for being wise in the ways of the hidden world. When a woman had trouble with childbirth, the family called on her. Before a man asked his beloved’s father for the girl’s hand in marriage, he called on her. If a house was haunted by jinn, the family brought in Khadija umm Mohammed.

  So that’s why Faisal found himself in the courtyard between four ramshackle buildings where the old woman sat sifting grain in the morning sun, the light shining off her white headscarf.

  “I have nothing to give you. I can barely provide for myself,” Khadija said, giving Faisal a dismissive wave as soon as he entered the courtyard.

  “I’m not here to beg. I need your help.”

  The woman fixed her watery eyes on him. “With what?”

  “How do you get rid of jinn?”

  “Recite surahs from the Koran. God will protect you,” she said, bending back over her work.

  Faisal shifted uncomfortably. “It’s not for me, it’s for a friend. His house is plagued with jinn. There must be a thousand of them from the front door all the way up to the rafters!”

  Khadija umm Mohammed looked at him seriously for the first time. She thought about his question for a moment and then replied, “It’s very difficult to protect an entire house, but I know how to make a special amulet, engraved in precious stone with a secret spell that will make all the jinn in the house flee in terror. All you have to do is put it in the house, and the entire building will be safe as long as it is not removed.”

  Faisal leaped with joy. “That’s what he needs! Can I get one?”

  “It’s a very difficult spell and takes some time to prepare. It will cost twenty piastres.”

  Faisal’s heart sunk. Twenty piastres? Where was he going to get such a sum?

  Khadija pointed a withered finger at him. “And one more thing, the money must be honest money. God knows all. If the money is stolen or earned by selling goods that are stolen, the spell will have no effect.”

  Faisal trudged out of the courtyard, utterly defeated. Stealing twenty piastres would be difficult enough, but how could he ever earn it?

  Even if he could save the money somehow, it would take forever. He’d tried to enter the house the previous night after the police went away and the street became deserted, but the Englishman had closed the window. There was no other way in, and he was afraid to knock on the front door in case Hassan noticed him or the Soudanese giant threw him onto the street again. Now he had to risk going there by daylight.

  He was in luck. As he came to the square that led to Ibn al-Nafis Street, he saw Hassan half a block away, swaggering through the crowd and heading the other direction. Faisal waited until Hassan rounded the corner and hurried to the Englishman’s house.

  He found the Englishman outside with the big Nubian getting into a motorcar. All the men in the café across the street were staring at the machine. Faisal couldn’t remember seeing one on this street before.

  Faisal waved and ran up to the Englishman.

  “Go away. Nothing for you,” the Soudanese barked.

  “Wait! Do you remember me?” he asked the Englishman.

  “Oh yes, Farouk, the little beggar boy who never seems
to go away.”

  “Faisal.”

  “What?”

  “My name’s Faisal.”

  “What of it, Faisal?”

  “You’re in danger!”

  “Yes, I did notice someone got shot at my party last night. Thank you for informing me.”

  The two men climbed into the motorcar.

  “No, wait! I have to tell you. Hassan was bragging about how he will take his revenge. He wants to break into your house and kill you so he can steal everything you have.”

  That got their attention.

  “How does he plan to break in?” the Nubian asked.

  Faisal paused. What could he say? Certainly not the truth!

  “Um, I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

  “Well, thank you for the warning,” the Englishman said, digging into his pocket. “Here’s a half piastre.”

  Faisal took it, and the Englishman turned back to the motorcar.

  “Wait! There’s more.”

  The Englishman sighed. “And how much will that cost me?”

  “Nothing,” Faisal replied while pocketing the coin. “But of course, um, if you want to give me something that would be fine.”

  “I’m in a hurry, Farouk.”

  “Faisal.”

  “Fine. I’m in a hurry, Faisal.”

  “Your house is infested with jinn!”

  Both men burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” Faisal asked.

  The Soudanese wagged a finger at him. “Listen to how you talk. This is why Egypt isn’t a great country anymore. People cling to silly superstition.”

  Faisal stamped his foot. “I’m not silly!”

  “Look, I used to be just like you,” the Soudanese man continued in a fatherly tone. “I grew up ignorant in a little village way down south in the Soudan. I believed in jinn and spirits and magic of all kinds. But that’s in the past. We have to put those childish things aside and improve ourselves. Do you think the Europeans are so strong because they believe in jinn?”

  “Jinn are real! I’ve seen them!”

  “Thank you for your concern, Farouk,” the Englishman said.

  “Faisal!”

  “Right, Faisal. Anyway, I’ll be sure to watch out for the jinn.” The Englishman tried to say this with a straight face and failed. He climbed into the driver’s seat. Moustafa got in beside him. “But seriously, thank you for warning me about Hassan. I’ll be on the lookout. Now we need to go.”

  The Englishman started the motorcar. Faisal stared at it in wonder. Just as the car moved forward, he remembered the third thing he needed to tell him.

  “Wait! I almost forgot!”

  The Englishman rolled his eyes and stopped the car.

  “Now what?”

  “That foreigner who shot one of your guests. He dropped something.”

  He had their attention again.

  “What did he drop?” the Englishman asked, his arm on the door of the car as he looked at Faisal intently.

  Faisal stared at the car. He’d never been in one before.

  “Are you going to answer me?”

  “Where are you going?” Faisal asked.

  “Giza. What did he drop?”

  “He dropped a little book. It has writing in it. And pictures.”

  The Englishman got out of the car. Faisal took a step back.

  “Give it to me,” the Englishman demanded.

  “Can I ride in your motorcar?”

  The Nubian stormed out of the motorcar.

  “Enough of this, you little infidel! He already gave you half a piastre, and that’s more than you deserve. Hand it over.”

  The giant lunged for him, but Faisal scampered away. Both men followed. They ran a circle around the motorcar before the two adults got smart and split up, coming around the motorcar from different directions. Faisal ran across the street to a nasty pool of stinking water. He pulled the little book from his pocket and dangled it over the water.

  Both men stopped, still out of reach.

  “Take me in your motorcar, or I’ll drop this in the sludge.”

  “I’ll tear you apart!” the Nubian roared.

  “Not if I do it first,” the Englishman said.

  “Come on. What difference does it make to you? I’ll ride in the back and be no trouble. If all the foreigners go to Giza, it must be like paradise! I want to go there, and I’ve never been in a motorcar before.”

  “This car is on loan from a German gentleman, a scholar!” the Nubian said. “We will not repay his hospitality by letting you infest his car with fleas!”

  “No ride, no book,” Faisal said with a grin. “And buy me a big lunch when we get there.”

  The Nubian glowered at him. “The Nile will run dry before Mr. Wall ever takes you to Giza.”

  ***

  Moustafa glared at Faisal in the rearview mirror. The boy sat in the back seat, an idiotic grin plastered on his face. Moustafa swore that if that little brat so much as left a fingerprint on Herr Schäfer’s motorcar, he’d pluck the boy’s fingers off his hand one by one.

  At least Mr. Wall had put a blanket down for the urchin to sit on. The filthy fabric of the boy’s jellaba would probably rot the seat if it came into contact with it. The blanket couldn’t stop the things the wind was blowing out of the boy’s hair, though.

  “When do we get to Giza?” Faisal asked.

  “It takes some time,” Mr. Wall said.

  “When do we stop for lunch?”

  “When I say so,” Mr. Wall said, swerving around a man leading a donkey down the middle of the street.

  “I’m hungry.”

  “Wait.”

  “There’s a man selling simit! Can you get me some simit?”

  “No.”

  “Quiet back there!” Moustafa said.

  “Can I have twenty piastres?” Faisal asked.

  Moustafa turned around in his seat. “Twenty piastres? Mr. Wall lets you ride in the motorcar, and you ask him for twenty piastres?”

  Faisal stuck out his lower lip. “It’s for something important.”

  “Important? Bah! You’ll just waste it.”

  Faisal was the kind of African Moustafa loathed—dirty, ignorant, and with no interest in bettering himself. Granted, he was a child, and God had given him a rough start to life, but that was no excuse for filth and no excuse for willful ignorance. Jinn? What nonsense! Faisal was an embarrassment.

  The only kind of African Moustafa loathed more were the Africans who tried to be more European than the Europeans, sitting in high-class cafés wearing imitation Western suits and speaking bad French. There was much to be admired in European culture, but Africa was not Europe and should not try to be European. Take the best parts of Europe, yes, like science and technology and learning, and leave the rest. Moustafa had read the papers. He knew what the war in Europe had been like. The Europeans had everything and had almost lost it all over some pointless struggle. So the heir to the Hapsburg throne had been assassinated. What of it? They had caught the assassin, hadn’t they? They should have tortured him to death in a public square, and that would have been the end to it. Instead they launched a war, and now there was no Hapsburg throne. Fools.

  Sa’ad Zaghloul and the other independence leaders were the kind of Africans who thought they were more European than the Europeans. All those leaders were aristocrats, living in fine mansions in ‘Abdin, thinking their French wine and English cigarettes would earn them respect in London. The fools! And now they were in prison. Served them right for forgetting their religion and thinking they were something they were not. Better to be stuck with the British than to be ruled by a cheap imitation of the British.

  “So what does that notebook say, Moustafa?” Mr. Wall asked as they got onto a wide street leading to downtown Cairo. There were more motorcars here and a tram line. The crowded bazaars gave way to tidy shops with European-style facades.

  “It is in German,” Moustafa replied. “That is a language I haven
’t learned yet.”

  “We’ll have to get you lessons with Herr Schäfer. The way you are with languages he’ll have you reading Goethe in a month.”

  Moustafa laughed, enjoying the compliment because it was true. Languages just seem to fall into place inside his head. He never understood why some people had so much trouble with them. Too bad Mr. Wall was joking about the lessons. Europeans often made promises they never intended to keep. They didn’t even realize they were doing it.

  Some German lessons wouldn’t be a bad idea, though. Perhaps he could convince Mr. Wall to really arrange it?

  “When I flipped through it all I saw was some occult mumbo jumbo,” Mr. Wall said. “I’ll take a closer look at it after we speak to Dupris. First things first, though. Hey, what’s this?”

  They were passing through the Sayyid Zaynib neighborhood and saw a large crowd ahead. The traffic, mostly horse carriages and motorcars, began to back up as the crowd marched along a cross street. As they approached, the chants of the marchers became audible.

  “Long live Sa’ad Zaghloul! Long live independence! Long live Sa’ad Zaghloul! Long live independence!”

  “They didn’t waste any time. I’ll back up and take another way,” Mr. Wall said.

  “Why are they shouting?” Faisal asked as he peeked between the shoulders of the two men in front.

  “They are angry the British arrested Sa’ad Zaghloul,” Mr. Wall said. “Do you know who he is?”

  “Of course I do! The British said he would be the next sultan of Egypt!”

  “Not quite,” Moustafa said, although that was probably what the fellow really wanted.

  “Why did they arrest him?” the boy asked.

  “Because he was causing trouble,” Moustafa said.

  “Because he was reminding the British that they don’t keep their promises,” Mr. Wall said.

  They had to drive several blocks to get around the protestors, who numbered in the thousands, mostly young men, students by the look of them. There were too few policemen around, and all they could do was channel the protest down the street. The crowd seemed to be heading for the high commissioner’s building. Moustafa had no doubt the main group of police would be there, waiting.