The Khamsin Curse (7 page)

“Ah, yes, I saw her as we
docked yesterday. Sekhmet – The One who is Powerful, daughter of
Ra, the goddess with the face of a lioness. She may have been a
pre-dynastic precursor to the Sphinx. It was Sekhmet who led
warriors in battle. Offerings were made to her at the end of war.
She is a powerful figure in the Egyptian pantheon.”

“A formidable goddess makes a
nice change to the Christian pantheon. The Christian church feared
women so much they expunged them totally, unless you count the
oxymoron of Virgin Mother. I believe most female saints were
beatified for attempting to escape rape, incest or a bad marriage.
No Sekhmets there!” Her eyes roved back to the mummified crocodile.
“Are you interested in purchasing a mummy for one of your
clients?”

“Ah, yes, everyone wishes to
have a mummy to show-off to their friends.”

“You have just purchased
something else. A statuette? May I ask which god interests you?”
The Countess’s tone was light and friendly despite being
probing.

“A statuette of Sobek; not for
me; but a gift for my wife. She is unwell and could not join us on
this trip. She is fond of Sobek! Ali Pasha, he wraps it well so
that the long nose does not get damaged during my travels, and
while I wait I come to look at the mummies. You are interested in
purchasing a mummy?”

“No, but my companion, Dr
Watson is interested. Are these the real thing?”

“Oh, yes, all genuine,” he
assured. “Ali Pasha can spot a fake and he has a good reputation.
He looks a bit like Sobek, don’t you think?” Herr Graf gave a quiet
chuckle and looked at the door to make sure the antiquities trader
was not about to walk in on them.

“I have a theory,” she dared,
“that all men resemble an animal in one way or another. Dr Watson
reminds me of a bear. (She refrained from adding baby bear.)
Professor Mallisham with his tight, curly, fair hair and stern
features reminds me of the ram-headed god.”

Herr Graf gave a throttling
laugh. “Oh, yes! Khnum the ram! The god of inundation! I hope that
is not an omen of ill-luck! And randy too! Yes! Yes! That rich
young American will need to watch out! And the other two ladies as
well! He will make sport with all three. Oh, I beg your pardon. I
lost my head.” He went bright red.

“No need to apologise, Herr
Graf. I thought the same thing the first time I met him.”

As if to atone for his
embarrassing faux pas, he turned the harsh spotlight on himself.
“And me – what animal do you see?” Herr Graf was short and
embonpoint with an ambling gait. His face was defined by a pair of
beetling brows and the top of his head was flat, covered with a
helmet of straight black hair. “You are too polite to say, but my
wife, Gisela, she calls me her Kabraz or Kafer! I am Khepri, the
scarab god! Yes?”

The Countess knew that kafer
and chafer shared the same Old Germanic-English root. From it came
the word cockchafer! “Khepri – He who is coming into Being. Yes,
Herr Graf that is you! You should buy your wife a scarab while you
are here.”

He gave a hearty laugh which
almost dislodged his pince-nez. He pushed it back into place. “She
already has three of them!”

They were joined by Dr Watson.
It had long been a fantasy of his to purchase a mummy and he had no
choice but to check what was on offer in the room where the German
chatted to the Countess.

Herr Graf, sensing some unease
on the part of the doctor, bid farewell and departed. After much
umming and ahhing, the doctor chose a female mummy and paid to have
it shipped to Baker Street. Mrs Hudson would die a thousand deaths
when she saw a life-size parcel from Egypt and Sherlock would be
thrilled to bits. He’d probably unwrap it and start prodding and
poking before the doctor even got home.

Countess V purchased a
statuette of Sekhmet and another of Anubis, several cigarette boxes
and half a dozen scarabs. She asked for her purchases to be
delivered to the hotel. When Ali Pasha learned they were intending
to have lunch at a street stall before paying a visit to the
Citadel, he insisted on serving them lunch. He lived above the
shop.

An old woman - not his mother -
did the cooking, and a houseboy of Nubian extraction called Japhet
kept house. Houseboy was a misnomer. The handsome young man was
tall and muscular with an ostentatious sense of style that ran to
the exotic, indicative of that particular fashion once known as
Turquerie. In other words, he reminded them of a eunuch in the
harem of an Ottoman Sultanate.

A delicious repast was quickly
procured even though Ali Pasha was not expected home for another
hour. It started with Egyptian flatbread, soft white cheese, tahini
dip, then came Mulukhiya, a rich green broth flavoured with garlic
and coriander, followed by Kushari, a dish with lentils and chick
peas, then Fatta, rice stew with fried bread, garlic, onion and
meaty chunks, finishing with a tisane and some sweet Halawa.

A feast fit for the
Pharaohs.

5

From the ramparts of the
Muqattam Hill it was possible to appreciate the vastness of the
featureless plain that stretched northward for endless miles. The
twelfth century Ayyubid ruler, Salah al-Din (Saladin), who ordered
the construction of the Citadel, must have stood here and surveyed
his kingdom with pride and not a little humility. The sun would
have gilded the shiny armour of any Crusader Knight foolish enough
to venture thus far just before it cooked him inside his own pot;
and in pre-Biblical times - how fiercely the menacing lances and
swords of ancient warriors must have glinted and bristled in that
searing moment prior to the heat of battle!

Dr Watson wondered how many
wars had been won and lost on this very spot, how many conquerors
had triumphed, and how many had tasted the bitter gall of defeat.
“Every man who stands here must picture himself at the head of an
all-conquering army.”

“Indeed! Never on the losing
side!” teased the Countess. “You haven’t sneezed once since we came
up here and yet there is plenty of dust and sand blowing about in
little eddies. Your head cold or allergy must have
acclimatized.”

“Mmm, yes, let’s go inside
before those eddies breach my defensive nose hairs!”

They were in the process of
removing their shoes in preparation for entering the Citadel which
was now a mosque, when they spotted Herr Graf standing out of the
sun under one of the archways. He appeared to be waiting for
someone.

“Let’s go inside before he
catches up to us,” suggested the doctor, who was able to forgive
but not forget the rudeness of the German. Not being on vacation
was no excuse for hogging three deck chairs!

“He must be waiting for his
niece,” observed the Countess as she slipped her stockinged feet
into a pair of cloth slippers.

Wearing a worried frown, Dr
Watson lined up their footwear. “I hope no one steals our shoes
while we’re inside. Do you mean the young woman who joined him at
the hotel?”

“Yes, she’s the daughter of
Rhinehart Graf, the Egyptologist who translated numerous papyri.
He’s written several books on the subject of hieroglyphs. The most
famous being a translation of the papyrus of Heliopolis. I got him
confused with his brother. Half way through the conversation with
the German I recalled that the brother killed himself. That was
about ten years ago. I cannot recall the details but there was some
sort of scandal involving his archaeology work.”

They were about to pass from
suffocating heat into the airy coolness of the mosque, with the
Countess ushering a few steps ahead of the doctor, when the latter
glanced back over his shoulder to check if the German had spotted
them, and what he saw pulled him up sharp with a suddenness that
caused his breath to catch.

Herr Graf had met up with
Colonel Hayter. That of itself would not normally have garnered his
attention but the meeting appeared pre-ordained. There was no
greeting, no look of surprise, no formal acknowledgement of the
other. They were standing deep in the complicit shadow of an
archway and each man seemed to be looking over his own shoulder as
if in fear of being observed. And then it got worse. Herr Graf
passed an envelope to the colonel.

Now, there were lots of reasons
one man might give an envelope to another man, but it was what
happened next that invited alarm. Colonel Hayter looked inside the
envelope and nodded as if pleased with the contents. He then took a
piece of paper from his inside breast pocket and gave it across to
Herr Graf. This time it was the German who checked the paper and
looked pleased. No words were exchanged during this transaction.
Without ado the two men parted and walked off in separate
directions, Colonel Hayter shambling off across the dusty courtyard
like an etiolated ghost and portly Herr Graf beetling directly
toward the doors of the Citadel.

Quickly, Dr Watson rushed
inside, looked around for the Countess and spotted her conversing
with the fair-haired German niece. He knew what would happen next
but he had no hope of avoiding it. Herr Graf would arrive any
moment and the four of them would be forced to make polite
chit-chat. Clichés would fall thick and fast as soon as
introductions were out of the way, followed by comparisons to the
Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.

Miss Ursula Graf turned out to
be an intelligent young woman who was happy to translate the
Koranic verses adorning the walls. Dr Watson encouraged her because
it saved him blurting out accusations about what he’d just
witnessed. The transaction appeared not only furtive but dishonest.
He felt incensed, alarmed, angry and alert to the possibility of
something underhand, perhaps even linked to the reason they had
come to Egypt.

The incident cemented his
dislike of the German and caused him to fret even more about his
old chum. Was Colonel Hayter taking bribes? He had admitted to
being hard-up. And the thickness of the envelope suggested a wad of
money. His thoughts returned to the espionage business they had
been charged with investigating on behalf of the Foreign Office –
more specifically Mycroft Holmes. Was a highly respected, British
colonel at the heart of it? The mere thought of it made him break
out in a cold sweat.

As soon as he was able, he
proposed heading back to the souk, explaining that he had forgotten
to purchase some Latakia for his pipe. The Syrian tobacco was his
favourite and he vaguely recalled a tobacco shop a few doors down
from the shop of Ali Pasha. The Countess offered to go with him but
he insisted on allowing her to continue sightseeing. He could see
that she was enjoying the company of Herr Graf and Fraulein Graf.
They were talking about visiting some more mosques. He left them to
discuss it and hurried away.

He took a calash back to the
Bab al-Badistan gate where he remembered the shop of Ali Pasha was
situated. Inside the antiquities shop he noticed Mrs Baxter at the
counter. Her unassuming manner appeared to have been replaced by a
more forceful personality. It caused him to pause in his tracks and
stare through the open window. She was shaking her head and
remonstrating about something; at one stage she slammed her hand on
the counter. Most likely she was haggling about price. Since the
items in the shop were genuine, they were pricey. If she wanted
something cheaper there were plenty of street traders. Then it
occurred to him she might be buying something for her employer at
his request. But then why haggle? The cattle king could afford to
buy the whole shop.

He moved on before they noticed
him staring at them.

The tobacco shop was two doors
down. He bought a large quantity of Latakia and was coming out of
the shop when he bumped into Mrs Baxter. She had two items in her
possession, both wrapped in brown paper. One was an odd shape, most
likely a statuette. The other was in the shape of a scroll. He
assumed it was a papyrus. Tourists often had them framed when they
returned home. The hieroglyphs were works of art worthy of any
wall.

“Hello, there,” he said
genially, pleased with his tobacco purchase and feeling inclined to
be friendly. “You’ve been having a busy day.”

She seemed flustered to meet
him; a return to her naturally retiring nature. “Oh, Dr Watson,
yes, the souk is marvellous.”

He glanced at her latest
purchases. “I saw you in the shop of Ali Pasha as I passed. Were
you picking something up for Mr Lee?”

She seemed even more flustered.
“Oh, yes, just a couple of things. It’s all frightfully expensive.
But then Mr Lee can well afford it.”

“Did you try to haggle the
price down?”

She must have realized that he
had seen her arguing with the crocodilian trader. “Oh, no, I was
just incensed with Ali Pasha. He made a…a… rather inappropriate
remark to me.”

That comment left a sour taste
in the doctor’s mouth. It spoiled the delicious lunch he had
enjoyed in the home of the hospitable antiquities trader.

“Would you like me to escort
you back to the hotel?”

“Oh, that is very chivalrous of
you, Dr Watson, but I have several more things to collect for Mr
Lee. Besides, I am used to foreign cities. I am a widow now but my
late husband worked for the diplomatic service and together we
travelled widely throughout the Middle East. I’m afraid I will be
quite a while yet. I need to go to the Wikala al Qutn for some
assuit caftans.”

“Assuit?”

“Assuit is flax threaded with
open metalwork – copper, silver or gold – also known as tulle bi
telli. It is an amazing fabric that drapes beautifully; it was worn
in ancient times.” She paused and looked around. “You appear to
have lost your travelling companion?”

“The Countess is sightseeing
with Herr Graf and his niece. Are you acquainted with the
Grafs?”