The Khamsin Curse (32 page)

“Mr Longshanks mentioned
something about suffering from heatstroke,” essayed the Countess
airily. “When I bumped into him on my way to lunch he requested to
be allowed to rest undisturbed.” They would all discover the
prisoners were dead soon enough, but the last thing Gideon needed
was Colonel ‘dithering’ Hayter getting in his way.

Dr Watson returned just as
lunch was drawing to a close. There was enough food left to satisfy
his abstemious needs. He was wearing his stolid face. It told her
there had been no surprises with the post mortems. If there had
been anything unusual he would not have returned to the Sekhmet
until almost dinner time.

Herr Graf burped and mumbled
something about having a lie down in his room. Colonel Hayter
swabbed his brow with his napkin and mumbled something about a gin
and tonic in the saloon. The four ladies retired to their
cabins.

When our two sleuths were sure
they would not be overheard they talked quickly for there was much
news to share. “You go first,” she said.

“The post mortem revealed that
both men died from drowning, asphyxiated by urine.”

“What did Dr Bell make of
that?” she asked, curiosity high, watching him mop up the last of
the tahini dip with a chunk of flatbread.

“He is a seasoned professional.
A fact is a fact. Emotion doesn’t enter into it. He asked me if I
had any idea who the females were and I replied that I had
not.”

“Females?”

“Female urine has a less
pungent smell. There were also traces of blood found in the urine
in the bladder of both victims but no blood found in the mouth or
gums from the sticks. Pungency alone is not an indicator, but male
urine cannot carry traces of blood because men do not menstruate.
It was female urine.”

“So Moran was right! The two
men were killed in the Pashtun tradition by a woman or several
women or someone who used female urine.”

“So it seems,” he said grimly,
moving on quickly. “Where’s Gideon? I didn’t see him at the
luncheon table as I mounted the gangway.”

“He’s dealing with the
saboteurs. They’re both dead. Scorpion bites by the looks of
things. Xenia found a jewel case in Lorna Baxter’s cabin while
searching for burqas. The case was full of scorpions. It is now
empty. I have it in my room. I’m going to question Mrs Baxter
shortly. I didn’t want to speak to her during lunch in front of
everyone.”

“What, urgh,…” Disbelief had
him choking on a crumb of flatbread. “What the blazes was she doing
with scorpions in her jewel case?”

“What the blazes was she doing
with a jewel case? It was a Morocco case similar to mine. They
don’t come cheap.”

A glass of warm Pimms helped to
unclag his glutinous throat. “How did she kill the saboteurs so
quickly?”

“She must have had help –
either Hayter or Azrafel.” She watched him wince but wasn’t sure if
the sour expression was because the Pimms was warm or because he
refused to believe his ex-army chum could be guilty of anything
more than incompetence and petty corruption. The latter seemed the
likely culprit.

“What happened on Agilkia
Island with Ali Pasha?”

“I expected hostility but
received a warm welcome. Japhet is still alive. I fell into the
bigoted trap of not being able to see beyond dark skin. The Nubian
who attacked Gideon wasn’t Japhet, though he was wearing Japhet’s
Turquerie slippers, possibly to incriminate him in the event of
Gideon’s sudden demise. Ali Pasha went to the papyrus workshop in
Luxor to have it out with Mallisham. Mallisham is creating his own
fake artifacts. Herr Graf is selling them. Herr Graf passed fake
artifacts to his own brother, Rhinehart, which resulted in the
brother’s disgrace and suicide. According to Ali Pasha, Jurgen Graf
was jealous of his younger brother.”

“Why should we believe anything
Ali Pasha says? He probably wants to divert suspicion form himself.
Who but Sobek would play a dirty trick with crocodiles? However, if
Herr Graf is dealing in fake artifacts, that gives him a motive for
killing both Mallisham and Lee. There could be some double-dealing
going on, including secret codes on some of the artifacts. And
let’s not forget the tomb that waits to be
discovered
. I
wonder if Fraulein Graf is privy to the plan? Did she have a torn
burqa?”

The Countess recalled what
Xenia said about the burqas. “Her burqa was intact, as was Daisy
Clooney’s. She didn’t mention Lorna Baxter’s. Hypatia Lee’s burqa
was missing.”

“Hmm, I wonder if Fraulein Graf
stole Miss Lee’s burqa to incriminate her.”

“Hmm, I wonder if Ursula knows
about her uncle’s jealous streak. I can speak to her straight after
I speak to Lorna Baxter. It wouldn’t hurt to ask Hypatia about her
missing burqa too. She was looking slightly feverish the last time
I saw her.”

“I’ll speak to Herr Graf about
buying some artifacts. I’ll call Ali Pasha a fraud and see what he
says. I’ll speak to Hayter too. I’ll tell him I suspect Ali Pasha
released those crocodiles, just to see what he has to say. We don’t
have much time. There’s a lot of disquiet at the construction camp.
Gideon invited Willcocks, Aird, Baker and Dr Bell to dinner. Things
could get out of hand fairly quickly if the workmen start linking
the Sekhmet to dead crocodiles, ritualistic murder and evil
curses.”

“Keep an eye out for
scorpions,” she warned.

20

Someone sneezed.

“That photic nerve response
must be driving you to distraction,” cooed the Countess. “You poor
darling! Hopefully, it will abate when we leave the solar-disc of
Ra behind us and decamp to colder climes.”

“That wasn’t me,” replied the
doctor, pushing up from his chair. “It came from the lower deck.
Whose bedrooms are down there? We weren’t talking too loudly, were
we?”

A look of consternation passed
over her face. “I’m afraid we were. On the lower deck are Lorna
Baxter, Daisy Clooney, Ursula Graf and Herr Graf.”

He moved quickly to the guard
rail and peered over as far as he could. “No one there,
dammit!”

“I think it was a woman’s
sneeze.”

He nodded in agreement. “Let’s
get to work. No time to lose.”

They raced to the centre of the
ship where a flight of stairs led to the lower deck. Gideon was
hurtling toward them, taking the stairs by twos. His blue eyes were
spitting sparks and his stern face was set in a rigid frame.

“Where’s Hayter?” he
barked.

They both glanced back at the
door of the saloon. The action was intuitive.

Gideon brushed roughly past
them and made straight for the saloon. Dr Watson, feeling alarmed,
did an about face and raced after Gideon. A spontaneous impulse
propelled the Countess in the same direction.

Hayter was slumped in an
armchair. His eyes were closed but he wasn’t asleep because he was
idly drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair, as if marking
time. The ubiquitous gin and tonic was, for once, not glued to the
palm of his hand. Gideon shirt-fronted the Acting High Commissioner
and hauled him out of the chair so that his legs dangled
helplessly. He looked as if he was tap-dancing on his toes.

“Where’s the key to the luggage
room?”

“What? Unhand me! Have you lost
your senses, man? Let go!”

Gideon let him drop and bunched
a fist. “Where’s the key to the luggage room?” he repeated
brusquely before telegraphing a punch to an unco-operative jaw that
failed to respond in the desired manner first time round. The
Acting High Commissioner bounced across the saloon like a cricket
ball hit for six until it bumped up against the drinks trolley.
Fortunately, it was at the tail end of the spin and the trolley
didn’t come crashing down on top of it.

Dr Watson could see what was
coming next – Colonel Hayter’s lip was already cut and bleeding –
so he put himself between the two men. “Calm down, Major Nash!
What’s this about the luggage room?”

Gideon realized that his cover
had just been blown. Anger fuelled by frustration turned into fury.
“Shut-up and step out of the way, Dr Watson. This doesn’t concern
you!”

No one could ever accuse Dr
Watson of cowardice though he was a pacifist at heart. He stood his
ground despite Gideon’s fist being twice the size of his. At the
same time he realised his mistake and cringed but it was too late
to recant. “I’m sorry, Major Nash, but you cannot go about beating
up defenceless men. It does you no credit and I will not stand for
it. If you have a bone to pick or an accusation to make, you must
do it lawfully.”

The Countess was worried
Gideon’s next telegraph might be dispatched straight to the teeth
of the well-meaning doctor. “The luggage room is where the
saboteurs must have been imprisoned,” she reasoned quickly.
“Whoever had the key to the luggage room must have killed them.”
She looked directly at Gideon in an effort to distract him from his
own fury, and wilfully held his gaze. “Is that right? Was it
scorpions?”

“Yes,” he grunted, breaking
free from her powerful hold over him before glaring at Hayter, who
had managed to pick himself up and was currently trying to muster
some dignity. “Azrafel had a key but he didn’t go near the luggage
room. Three men have sworn to that and one of the men was one of
ours, working undercover. Moran escorted the men to the luggage
room then left Hayter to lock the door. Moran left the ship almost
immediately. Hayter stayed below for about ten minutes. He was the
last one to see them.”

Gideon took a menacing
side-step around the doctor. Hayter dodged and fumbled for the key
in his top pocket.

“Yes, I have a key to the
luggage room. Here it is. But this is the first I’ve heard that the
saboteurs are dead. Scorpions? What scorpions? Where would I get
scorpions from? When I left those men, they were alive. I remained
below for ten minutes because I was checking entrances and exits,
cupboards and storerooms, to make sure no one was hiding down there
to avoid exactly what just happened.”

The Countess was the first to
notice his voice was no longer a whiny stammer; it was firm and
forceful. “Your voice?” she said.

Hayter slapped the key into
Gideon’s hand as he by-passed him and picked up his gin and tonic
tumbler from a side table. “The game is up. There’s no gin in here.
It’s water. Taste it.” He handed the glass to Dr Watson. “I’ve been
working undercover too, off my own bat, unofficially. The last High
Commissioner suspected Mallisham of dealing in fake artifacts. It’s
not the sort of thing we want to encourage in the colonies. It
gives the Empire a bad name and sets a precedent that anything
goes. Just before he left to join the Foreign Legion, Rex Bootham
informed me of his suspicions and hand-balled the problem to me.
When I heard Mallisham was travelling with Mr Lee to Philae I
decided to get on board. I could check out the dam, keep an eye on
the Eastern advocate,” he paused and cast a dubious look Gideon’s
way, “and hopefully find the proof I needed to nail Mallisham at
the same time.” He paused and looked wryly at Dr Watson. “Have you
tasted it?”

“Yes, it’s water,” confirmed
the doctor before passing the glass to Gideon.

“Please continue,” said Gideon
after taking a sip and agreeing it was not gin, “but keep your
voice down.”

“When I discovered Dr Watson
was in Cairo I feared he might spoil my well-laid plans so I
feigned being a drunk to put him off spending any time with me. I
do apologise. I had recently suffered a bout of influenza and my
weight was down. I still looked a bit sickly and thought I could
use that to my advantage. But as luck would have it, the good
doctor ended up on the Sekhmet too. I had to keep pretending to be
a drunk. I kept re-filling the gin bottle with water to dilute it
and whenever I thought no one was looking I tipped the contents of
my glass into the pot plants or spilled as much of it as I could.
When Mallisham and Lee were killed I actually suspected Colonel
Moran and Mr Longshanks, whom I now understand is a British agent,
presumably looking into the sabotage of the dam.” He extended a
hand to the man who had just given him a bloody lip. “Welcome
aboard, Major Nash. If you are looking for who killed the two
saboteurs you will need to look further afield.”

“Who suggested locking those
men in the luggage room?” asked the Countess, breaking up the male
camaraderie. “Moran or Azrafel?”

“Azrafel,” replied the colonel,
wondering how his old cadre, bless his provincial Scottish heart,
had ever found such an unlikely travelling companion – autocratic,
aristocratic, attractive, clever and damned rich to boot!

“Hmm, Azrafel could have
observed from the upper deck as the two men were being escorted
with their wrists bound. He could have prepared the luggage room in
advance,” she suggested, thinking quickly. “He would have had about
ten minutes. According to my maid, he had been checking the cabins.
He was the likeliest person to have removed that jewel case from
Lorna Baxter’s cabin, possibly expecting jewellery and finding
scorpions instead. He could have released them in the luggage room,
and then placed the empty jewel case in the saloon. Lorna Baxter
would hardly complain that her scorpions were missing. If he
offered the men a drink of water with some sedative in it then they
would have been sleepy or numb. They would have slumped to the
floor and been bitten many times over. It also explains why they
didn’t cry out.”

“Blast me down!” exclaimed the
colonel. “He had two tin cups waiting on a shelf in the luggage
room. I thought that was mighty efficient on his part.”

Gideon surged toward the door.
“I’ll arrest him now! Colonel Hayter would you care to come? We’ll
pick up a Smith & Wesson from the gun cupboard on the way.”

“No,” said the Countess,
pulling him up short. “No arrest as yet. Azrafel thinks you suspect
the colonel. Let him go on thinking it. Colonel Hayter can be
locked in his room. It is a fitting prison for someone of his rank
- only a ruse until dinner, of course. You may keep your own key,
colonel. We want the ringleader, remember. And we have a murderer
to catch as well. I want to speak to Lorna Baxter about why she had
scorpions in her jewel case, and to Miss Lee about her missing
burqa. Dr Watson will speak to Herr Graf about Ali Pasha. In the
meantime, you can get that Smith & Wesson and fill Colonel
Hayter in on what we are dealing with.”