Ancient Spirits (Daisy Gumm Majesty Books) (22 page)

“Thanks, Harold. Just don’t forget that I’m locking the door.”

“I promise I won’t forget. Have a nice bath.”

“I plan to. Thanks.”

As soon as the door closed behind him, I locked it. Then I glanced through the envelopes he’d given me. Ma. Flossie Buckingham. Sam Rotondo. My heart gave a little jump, which made no sense at all. I chalked it up to my being so sick.

Before I opened any of the letters, I did exactly as I’d told Harold I’d do: stripped off the nightgown in which I’d been so miserable, found a clean one in a drawer—when you’re rich, you see, maids in hotels unpack your stuff for you. As I’d told Harold, it’s actually kind of nice not to have to do anything for yourself, although it might get boring after a while—and set it, another robe, the letters and a hand towel on a marble stand in the bathroom near the tub. Then I found the bath salts I’d bought for Aunt Vi, turned on the tap and sprinkled some of the salts in the water. The fragrance of lavender was heavenly when I stepped into the tub and lowered my aching body into the water.

I’m pretty sure I slept again for a while, because when I next opened my eyes, the water had gone tepid, and I’d sunk so low into it, I was in danger of drowning. My aches didn’t ache so much, though, so I pulled the plug to let some of the lukewarm water out, refilled the tub with more hot water, leaned back, and reached first for my hand towel and then for my mail. It pays to be organized.

Ma’s letter was full of news from home. Pudge Wilson had broken his arm falling from a tree, but Dr. Benjamin fixed him up, and now he wore his cast proudly. Pudge missed me. She missed me. Pa missed me. Aunt Vi missed me. Spike missed me. I admit to shedding a few tears into my bath, since I missed all of them, too.

Setting that letter aside, I opened the one from Flossie. She was fine. Johnny was fine. Their Salvation Army flock was fine. Dr. Benjamin had given her a clean bill of health, and the baby seemed to be progressing quite well in Flossie’s nice, warm womb. Lucky kid, to have two great parents like Flossie and Johnny. I admit to shedding another tear or two, mainly because—as I’ve mentioned probably too many times before—Billy and I had been unable to have children, thanks to the blasted Kaiser’s foul bullets and mustard gas.

I set Flossie’s letter aside too, and steeled myself before opening the letter from Sam. I was glad I’d done so before I’d finished reading the first paragraph.

Chapter Seventeen

Dear Daisy,

I’m really uncomfortable about you traveling the world with Harold Kincaid. I know he’s a good friend of yours, but even you have to admit he wouldn’t be much good if you got into a jam, and you’re always getting into jams.

“Darn you, Sam Rotondo! How dare you!” Not only had he insulted Harold, who was a wonderful friend, but he’d also insulted me. I was not always getting into jams! Just because he had a bee in his bonnet about criminal gangs and drug smugglers and white slavers . . . Oh, wait. The drug smugglers were my idea. Still . . .

I remembered the two knocks on my door while Harold had been away and frowned.

No. It was too absurd to think that the instant Sam had mentioned criminal gangs targeting tourists, a gang of criminals had miraculously appeared in my life. The world didn’t work like that. Furious with Sam, I read on:

You’re probably steamed at me for telling the truth, but I swear to God, Daisy, I’ve never met anyone else in my life who manages to get herself into trouble with the ease and frequency you do. You used to drive Billy crazy with your shenanigans and, damn it, he asked me to look out for you after he died, and I’m not going to let him down now. Watch yourself. If you notice some stranger hanging around you and Harold, call the police. Oh, hell, I don’t even know if there are police in some of the places you’re staying. Just try to be careful, will you?

Darn it all, I was being careful! I’d locked the stupid door, hadn’t I? And Sam had no business saying I was always getting into trouble. I wasn’t, either!

True, Jacques Futrelle had just happened to appear in Istanbul when we did, after we’d surprised Mr. Stackville by leaving Egypt early. And a person with a French accent had knocked on my door while Harold was away.

But that was stupid. I was sick. That’s why I was connecting Sam’s insane suppositions with Stackville and Futrelle. They were probably both nice gentlemen who were . . . merely a little pushy. And who just happened to be traveling in the same places we were. Hmm . . .

Someone had been in my room at Shepheards while was away from it. I hadn’t found anything missing, but had something been added? Drugs or something? Added where? No, it was too absurd.

“Fiddlesticks!” I read on.

I’m worried about the gangs I told you about in my earlier letter. According to the bulletins we keep getting at the department, tourists are their primary targets—and don’t ask me for what, because I don’t know. I’ve heard rumors of white slavers, antiquities thieves, drug smugglers, political spies, and even illegal liquor sources. Pick your poison. Since the two of you decided to go to Egypt in the middle of the summer when nobody else in his or her right mind would want to go there, you’re probably among the very few people the bad guys can choose from. So be careful, will you? I know that’s kind of like telling the earth to stop in its orbit, but do it for Billy, if you won’t do it for your parents or me.

I’ve decided to take the vacation days I’ve earned and come after you. I know you won’t want me around, but I can’t stand knowing you’re all alone in the world with no protection except Harold Kincaid, with gangs of vicious criminals running around everywhere. Knowing you, you’ll decide to befriend an entire gang. I’ve got lots of vacation time accrued since I never go anywhere or do anything, so I’ll see you wherever you are when I get there. If you get there. Damn it, I’m worried about you!

“Good God.” The words left my lips in a whisper. Sam was coming after us? Because he was sure I was going to befriend a gang of . . . something or other? The man was out of his mind!

A knock came at the door, and I darned near dropped Sam’s letter into my delightfully scented water.

“Yes?” I called from the bathroom.

No answer.

“Who is it?” I called, louder than before.

Nothing.

“Blast and heck, Sam Rotondo! Now you’ve got me worrying!”

Since he’d already spoiled my bath for me, I decided I might as well pull the plug and get out of it. If a gang of thieves was going to break in and either steal me blind, fill my luggage with drugs, kidnap me to sell to a sultan or plant coded messages in my underwear drawer, I sure didn’t want to meet them naked. So I dried myself with one of the hotel’s fluffy towels, put on my clean nightie and robe, and went back to bed, mentally thanking the doctor and the chambermaid for the fresh, clean sheets.

And then, so exhausted I could hardly maintain my annoyance with Sam, I crawled under the covers and went to sleep.

* * * * *

It beats me to this day what awoke me in the middle of that miserable night. Groggy and aching in every bone and muscle, and with eyelids that felt as though they’d been glued together after someone had sand thrown in my eyes, a very slight noise gradually penetrated another dream in which I’d been captured by a handsome sheik and carried to his tent on the desert. Yes, my family and I had gone to see The Sheik, starring Rudolf Valentino, earlier that same year.

I turned over with a soft groan, the noise stopped, and that’s when I became fully conscious. Well, more or less. I still felt as though I’d been dropped onto the shimmering desert from the top of the Great Pyramid on the hottest day of the year, from which I gathered that my fever had returned. The doctor had said it might get worse at night, but that he believed the illness was running its course.

And then I recalled the forgotten bromide powders I was supposed to have stirred into some boiled water and drunk down before I went to bed. Huh. If I’d taken them, that noise probably wouldn’t have awakened me.

That noise . . .

Then it dawned on me that there shouldn’t have been a noise in my room in the middle of the night, and fright fought with fever. I wanted to pull the covers over my head and pretend the noise had been a figment.

But it hadn’t been.

Oh, Lord. Now what? Could one of Sam’s slave-stealing gangsters have invaded my room for some fell purpose? Could Sam himself have done so? How’d he get here so fast, and what was he doing in my room?

No. No. I wasn’t thinking clearly.

The noise came again. It sounded as if it was over by the closet, which was where my vision would land if I could pry my eyelids apart. Wonderful. Very carefully, I opened my gummy eyes and tried to focus them in the dark room. Couldn’t do it. And the noise came again. Someone had just opened the closet door, from the sound of it.

If I rolled out of bed and ran for the sitting-room door, assuming I could stand on my rubbery legs and my head didn’t fall off—which it felt as if it might do even as I lay there—I probably wouldn’t get to the door before the crook did. Should I merely open my mouth and confront whoever it was or scream bloody murder?

No. Definitely not. Not only was I unsure that my voice would work the way I wanted it to but my head already hurt. Having it bashed with a big stick or the butt of a gun or whatever this particular villain carried on his person wouldn’t help my condition at all.

Well . . . there was always ginger ale. Harold had set two bottles of the stuff on my bedside stand along with a bottle opener in case I got thirsty during the night. For my purpose, I didn’t want to open the bottle.

As silently as possible, I tested my various muscles. They seemed to work, even if they ached. Slowly and carefully, I reached for a bottle on the bedside table. Since I couldn’t see in the dark, I bungled the job, knocking one of the bottles over. I swear, that was the loudest noise I’d ever heard in my life.

Whoever was at the closet jumped back out of it—I saw that much—and made a flying run out of the bedroom and headed for the sitting-room door. I figured what the heck, did some leaping of my own, which wasn’t quite as successful as the other person’s, grabbed the bottle I hadn’t knocked over, and gave chase, out of the bedroom and across the sitting-room floor. We were definitely not evenly matched. I manage to get one good whack at the person’s head before he disappeared out through the door of my room.

Then it was that I set up a screech that would have done a Halloween witch proud. The suffragi—or whatever those guys are called in Turkey—who, as usual, was napping on his chair in the hallway, fell out of same, jumped to his feet, and gave chase to the retreating figure. But whoever my nighttime visitor had been, he took the stairs and was out of there lickety-split. I stood swaying in the doorway, one hand holding a broken ginger-ale bottle and the other clinging to the jamb, when other doors along the corridor began opening and people started pouring from their rooms, alarmed by my screech, I suppose.

Harold, whose room was next to mine, rushed up to me, tying the sash of his dressing robe. “Daisy! What the devil just happened?”

I dropped the broken ginger ale bottle and flung myself at Harold, crying. Honest to goodness, I don’t really cry all that much as a rule, but you have to remember that, even without my midnight visitor, I’d been through an ordeal that day, and I was still sick as a dog, not to mention grieving over the death of my husband. “Harold! Somebody broke into my room! I hit him with a ginger-ale bottle, but he got away.”

“Good God.” I’m sure Harold didn’t mean to be less than gentlemanly when he took me by the shoulders and moved me aside so he could enter my room, where he turned on the electrical lights and glanced around.

“Be careful of the glass, Harold.”

Harold checked the floor and managed to elude the fragments of ginger-ale bottle. “What was he doing in your room? Did he try to . . .” Harold’s face was white as a bleached sheet when he turned to gape at me, a horrified expression on his face.

I knew what he was worried about, and I hurried to assuage his worst fears. “No. Whoever it was wasn’t after me. He was after something in the closet.”

“The closet? What the devil did he want in the closet?”

“I don’t know. According to Sam Rotondo, there are criminal gangs all over the place in this part of the world, doing everything from smuggling drugs
to kidnapping women to be slaves, and they prey on hapless tourists. I suspect I’m a hapless tourist.” And then my legs gave out. Harold caught me before I could hit the floor.

Some hotel official, looking regal and with a magnificent moustache, bustled up as Harold led me into my room, and I allowed Harold to explain what had happened to him. As for me, I stumbled into the room, avoiding broken glass and spilled ginger ale, and managed to get my robe on before I flopped onto a chair, where I proceeded to ache all over. I really wanted to take some more aspirin, but couldn’t quite summon up the energy to go to the bedside stand and get myself some.

Harold and the hotel official, who appeared totally shocked, entered the room, and I managed to warn them about the broken glass before either of them could step on it.

“I don’t understand,” said the hotel fellow. “Things like this don’t happen in the Sultanahmet. We’re top of the line, you know. A first-class establishment.”