No, the most interesting thing was the mechanite. How had that come into Egypt? Stolen from the Americans? Smuggled here by an American? Had an American put the thing together or had it been a British scientist? Or an Egyptian carried away by the influence more developed countries had exerted on Egypt in recent years? Lazarus offered no theories on this.
When Hassanein and his men finally left, Lazarus, Katarina and Petrie joined Baron von Eichendorf for brandies in his room. They felt like they needed a drink more due to the captain’s grilling than to their encounter with the mummy.
“Well, I hope tonight has put paid to your ideas about Eleanor Rousseau being behind the attacks,” Lazarus told Katarina.
“Why would it?” she replied.
“She’s on her way back to the dig! Her boat is far from Cairo. And besides, there is no room on board it for a mechanical mummy’s sleeping quarters.” As soon as he had finished his sentence he realized his error.
“So you’ve seen the interior of her boat, have you?” Katarina snapped. “Well, I suppose that answers the question of what you’ve been doing with your evenings lately. Isn’t she the fiancé of your friend? Funny way to treat a friend.”
“How dare you!” Lazarus protested weakly, knowing that this was another argument he was not going to win.
Katarina was on her feet and heading towards the door. “And for your information, Longman,” she said by way of parting, “she could have been keeping that creature somewhere else in the city. The lack of arrangements for it on her dahabeah doesn’t prove a damn thing!”
Lazarus followed her out into the corridor. “You are so devilishly eager to place the blame at her doorstep, aren’t you?” He didn’t care if they woke the whole hotel arguing in the corridor like this in the small hours. This beef between them needed to be hammered out. “You’ll drum up any theory that suits you!”
“No, I’m just not blind to the facts as you seem to be,” she replied.
“And how exactly am I blind?”
“Because you’re so in love with her that you can’t see beyond the end of your own nose anymore!”
“My God, you’re jealous!” said Lazarus.
Her mouth fell open. “What on Earth...?”
“Come on, Katarina! You know as well as I that there has been something brewing between us ever since Arizona. That journey in the Santa Bella was as agonizing for you as it was for me. I don’t know why we didn’t just admit our feelings for each other and made the trip a glorious romance, but we didn’t and now it drives you mad to see me with another woman.”
Her face trembled with rage and she spoke in a slow, cold voice. “You’ve got some funny ideas about yourself, Longman. And about women.” She turned and left him standing in the corridor.
The newspapers for the rest of the week were full of the incident of the ‘Steam-man at the Grand Continental’. Many wild theories were tossed around, but few were taken seriously by the public, who remained as much in the dark about matters as the police.
When Eleanor’s boat docked the following Tuesday, Lazarus met her for lunch in a prearranged cafe. At once it was like old lovers reuniting after a long time apart. The public setting restrained Lazarus from embracing her and kissing her on the mouth. It took every ounce of his self-control, and he had to make do with the memories of their night together on her dahabeah while they drank tea, ate sandwiches and made small talk.
“Is everything arranged for the transport of my goods, darling?” she asked him. “All is packed up in crates on my boat, Kiya and all.”
Lazarus was suddenly alarmed by the notion of Eleanor sleeping in such close proximity to that horrible, withered old mummy, but he put his anxiety down to his recent experiences with the more animated brand of dead Egyptian. He reminded himself that Kiya was just a regular embalmed corpse and not one of Lindholm’s abominations.
“All is prepared,” he told her. “I have booked passage for you and your cases on a steamer headed for Marseille, where a train will take to you Paris.”
“Thank you! I knew I could count on you!” Her hand touched his over the small round table that held their tea and sandwiches and he briefly grasped it, conscious of eyes looking in their direction from the other tables. He had noticed before how soft and smooth her skin was, like pale silk. And her perfume... he didn’t know what it was but every time he smelled it he wanted to gulp down great lungfuls.
“For the time being, I think you should stay at the Continental,” he told her. It’s too dangerous down at the docks with Lindholm’s monsters running about. If he gets an inkling that you have departed the site, he might send them after you.”
“Very well,” she said. “I have some information for you in return.”
“Oh?”
“Lindholm is making moves to abandon the site himself. He has had empty crates shipped to him. I have no doubt he is planning to pack his monstrous creations and all his equipment into them for transport.”
“Any markings on the crates?”
“Yes, the name of the Bulaq Museum!”
“What?”
“I don’t know what he is planning. Perhaps he is not intending to ship them to America at all.”
“No, I believe that is his intention. But I can’t see where the museum figures into it. They surely can’t be aiding him. Maspero would never allow it. And Brugsch knew nothing of Lindholm’s involvement in the robbing of the Deir el-Bahari cache. These crates must be forgeries to conceal their contents.”
“But why mask them as the property of the museum? What could that achieve? Do you think he is intending to sneak them into the museum?”
“I don’t know. I don’t see his reasoning in this but I will find out. Now, we must turn our thoughts to another pressing matter.”
“And that is?”
“What is to become of us once I have halted Lindholm in his tracks and you have fled to Paris?”
She looked down at the tablecloth for a moment, tracing the arabesque patterns with a delicate finger. “I don’t know. Your work for the British government would surely keep you very busy.”
“I’m not sure that I can continue working for them if I go against Lindholm.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was warned off him. The government doesn’t want their friendship with the Confederacy jeopardized.”
“And you are disobeying your orders? Not for me, I hope. I shall be far out of his reach soon.”
“No, not just for you. I have to stop him. After having fought against his creatures, I cannot let him continue his research, especially back in the safety of his homeland, orders or no.”
“But what will happen to you once you return to England? Dismissal? Imprisonment? Oh, Lazarus, I could not bear it!”
“Neither could I, believe me. That is why I was thinking of accompanying you to Paris.”
A strange expression passed across her face at his words, as if they presented some deep problem to her. But she quickly beamed at him. “That would be wonderful! We could marry!”
“Steady on!” said Lazarus, unable to conceal his grin at her eagerness. “You’re still engaged to Henry. Christ, I will come out of all this looking like the greatest of cads, won’t I? But I don’t care. Not if it means that I can be with you.”
“Yes, poor Henry. I will write to him. We are awful though, aren’t we? Wicked and wrong.”
“Listen, if we can make each other happy in this God-forsaken world, then nobody in it has the right to keep us apart.”
Lazarus returned to his room and penned a letter of resignation addressed to Morton. He felt guilty at betraying the old man. It resembled desertion. But the thought of no more gallivanting around the globe on the orders of Her Majesty’s government made him giddy with happiness.
He met with Petrie that night and told him of their plans. He trusted the Egyptologist more than any man in Cairo and, although he was still met with stern disapproval, he knew that Flinders would support him an
d not betray his confidence.
“By the way, Flinders,” said Lazarus. “Do you know of any large shipments the museum is making in the near future?”
“None that I’m aware of. I’m hopelessly out of the loop since I lost out on the Deir el-Bahari cache.”
Lazarus still felt bad for his friend. The newspapers had found something new to scream about since the incident at the Grand Continental, but the pain at missing out on the biggest find in living memory clearly still burned deep in Petrie’s bosom. Lazarus promised himself that he would try to make amends in any way possible once this business was all taken care of. “Lindholm is using the museum’s stamp to disguise his creations as antiquities for shipment.”
“Makes sense, really. They are antiquities. Bits of them, anyway.”
“I know I’ve asked a lot of you in recent days, particularly in the matter of discretion.”
Petrie said nothing.
“But do you think you could try and find out how Lindholm might be able to conceal a dozen large packing cases marked with the museum’s stamp? Is there some large consignment leaving the country in which they may be concealed?”
“I’ll have an ask around. I still have some friends up at the museum. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, Flinders. For everything.”
The following day Petrie caught up with Lazarus in Azbekya Gardens. They walked together and watched the crows in the trees.
“Well, I have found out something which will no doubt help your case,” said the Egyptologist.
“Indeed?”
“Maspero’s fuming about the whole business, but the orders have come from the Khedive himself. I’m forced to side with Maspero on this one, although I have no personal standing on the matter of the C.S.A. Of course, you may feel differently.”
“What’s the news, Flinders?”
“It’s all to do with this visit from the Confederacy, you see. The CSS Scorpion II landing.”
Lazarus snapped his fingers in irritation at his own stupidity. “Of course! Why didn’t I see it sooner! What better way to smuggle items to America than on board a diplomatic vessel! No doubt the crew and captain are in on it, probably under the same orders as Lindholm. But how is he planning on getting the items on board under the eyes of the Egyptian and British authorities?”
“That’s what I’m telling you, Lazarus. As a special gift to the C.S.A. and in recognition of their visit, the Khedive is giving them a collection of Egyptian antiquities; everything from mummies and jars to busts and statues! It’s an outrageous waste! What appreciation will these items find in a land ravaged by war as you have described?”
But Lazarus wasn’t thinking along those lines. “I don’t believe the antiquities will ever leave Egypt,” he said, “so you have no need to worry about them. Lindholm will no doubt switch the cases for his own and leave the gifts aside. But how is he planning to make the switch? When is the Scorpion II due to leave?”
“In two day’s time.”
“Then Lindholm’s crates will be on their way. Maybe they are in Cairo already. I have to find a way to stop them from being loaded on board.”
“But you don’t know where the shipment of antiquities is being held,” said Petrie. “Perhaps in the museum’s basement?”
“Perhaps,” said Lazarus. “But such a valuable cargo will be well guarded. And I have a feeling that two guns will be better than one in this case.”
“Well, your request isn’t wholly outrageous,” said Katarina in the doorway to her room.
“It’s more of an offer than a request,” said Lazarus, his face frozen. “Take it or leave it.”
They had not spoken since their argument several days previous. As far as Lazarus was concerned, he would be quite happy never to speak to the Russian again. But then, he knew how good she was in a fight. In fact they complimented each other very well.
“Rubbish,” she said, seeing right through him. “You wouldn’t come to me unless you needed me. We haven’t exactly seen eye to eye over this.”
“Look, I’m offering you the chance to grab Lindholm. All I’m interested in is stopping him from reaching America.”
“And I can have him? We’re agreeing on that?”
“My mission was never to get Lindholm. In fact my agency has warned me not to touch him.”
“And you are disobeying them? Again? Tut-tut, Longman. Whatever are they to do with you?”
“What happened in Arizona is far beyond their comprehension. As far as they are concerned, I found Cibola, but no gold. So I’m clean as a whistle. Besides, you were the one who really betrayed your country. And you’re still alive.”
“Very well. What’s your plan?”
Chapter Fourteen
In which another voyage is undertaken
The crowds swarmed to the square in front of the Mohamed Ali Citadel. Built by Saladin as a defense against crusaders, the walled fortress rose up above the roofs of the city like a proud grandfather, the minarets of the alabaster-tiled mosque of Mohamed Ali Pasha piercing the azure sky.
The balloon of the CSS Scorpion II was fully inflated now. The vessel strained against its guide ropes while supplies were loaded on board under the watch of grey-uniformed Confederate soldiers. Complementing this group of foreign warriors was the Egyptian army, lined up in regiments on the other side of the square in their bright blue uniforms and scarlet tarbushes.
There was a band, and pavilions had been set up in the square for the aristocracy, the Khedive and the British Agent, Evelyn Baring. Soldiers kept the crowds back, preventing any from entering the square, both as a precaution against any nationalist attacks on the Khedive and to stop any interference in the careful preparations the airship’s crew were undertaking for departure.
In a warehouse to the side of the square, Lazarus, Katarina and Petrie stared at the mass of crates bearing the Bulaq Museum’s stamp.
“I think they’re all here,” said Lazarus, looking from once case to the other. “Eleanor said that there were about a dozen. There’s at least double that here. Must be both real antiquities and Lindholm’s cargo. They can’t be planning on taking the whole lot on board. Somebody would notice. The Khedive and anybody of importance is out there watching.”
“They must be marked in some way,” said Katarina, inspecting the nearest crate.
“Here!” said Lazarus. “The corner of this one is daubed with red paint. What about yours, Katarina?”
“Blue! He’s marked out his own shipment!”
“But which is it? Red or blue?”
“We’ll have to open one of the crates and have a look.”
“Now steady on!” exclaimed Petrie. “I managed to sneak you in here through my connections in the museum. Those guards may believe that you are part of the Khedive’s team in dispatching the artifacts, but their faith in my lie may be shattered should any of them come in here and catch us prying open crates.”
“There’s no other way, Flinders,” said Lazarus. “There must be a tool about here somewhere.”
“Here,” said Katarina, seizing a crowbar and jamming the narrow end between a crate and its lid.
Petrie groaned as the lid was wrenched free with a squeal of nails. They peered inside. There was a coffin within, its surface lined with hieroglyphics. They lifted the lid off. Within was a mummy in very poor condition. Both arms were smashed and the right leg had been utterly severed. Its chest had been hacked open by some blade; the unmistakable sign of grave robbers looking for loot concealed within the bandages. Mutilations aside, it was a regular mummy with none of the mechanical attachments.
“Well, this crate was a blue one,” said Katarina. “I suppose Lindholm’s mechanicals are in the red crates.”
“Not so fast,” said Lazarus as he began to read the hieroglyphics on the lid of the coffin.
“Really, Longman,” Katarina said. “Now is not the time for a spot of Egyptology.”
Lazarus spoke through his teeth, not takin
g his eyes off the ancient script. “Eleanor said that Lindholm lifted many mummies from the Deir el-Bahari cache and stored them as a supply for his experiments. This could be one of them. My way of thinking is that if this coffin is not one from the museum’s collection, then it must be one of Lindholm’s.” He turned to Petrie. “Thutmose the Second. Was this fellow already the property of the museum?”
“Certainly not,” Petrie replied. “It’s the first I’ve heard that Thutmose the Second’s mummy has been discovered.”
“Then the blue crates are Lindholm’s,” Lazarus said with certainty. “He’s planning on shipping his unmodified mummies to America for further experiments.”
There came the sound of voices from the doorway to the warehouse.
“Oh, wonderful!” said Petrie. “How am I going to explain our way out of this one?”
“Go and keep them busy,” said Lazarus. “We’ll think of something.”
“For God’s sake get this mess cleared up and that lid back on the crate!” said Petrie as he hurried off. “I won’t be able to hold them up for long!”
“Well, what’s the plan?” Katarina asked. “Paint the red crates blue and the blue ones red?”
“Do you see any paint lying around?” Lazarus said. “Besides, it would take too much time. Listen, you won’t like this, but I have an idea.”
“Go on.”
“Help me lift this mummy out.”
Katarina sighed and stepped forward. They grasped the mummy around the torso and dragged it from its coffin. Its limbs were so frail that the detached leg came away, trailing bandages.
Silver Tomb (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 2) Page 13