Sherlock Holmes and the Mummy's Curse (8 page)

“I’ll take you for a walk later, Leigh, perhaps during the siesta period, if it isn’t too hot,” Phillips offered. “But Holmes is right. We need to work for now.”

“I want to walk with SHERRY,” Leighton demanded. “I see you all the time, Landers. I haven’t seen Sherry in years.”

“I am busy right now, Leigh,” Holmes reiterated. “I need to familiarise myself with the terrain, if I am to be of any use in helping determine where the tomb is.”

“But—”

“Go back to your tent, Leighton,” a mildly irked Whitesell ordered his daughter, “if you aren’t interested in the work. You brought a small trunk of books, needlework, and the like, to include a whole collection of those blasted penny dreadfuls
29
that Phillips got you started on; I’m sure you can find something to keep yourself occupied for the day.”

A disconsolate and vexed Leighton wandered out of the artefact tent en route to her own tent, as the men began to pore over the maps.

* * *

Leighton, more than a little impatient, was already waiting in the “mess tent,” as Watson tended to term it, when the men arrived from the artefact tent after the luncheon bell was rung. They all took their assigned seats, and Abraam began to pour the wine. A perspiring Watson showed up moments later, having apparently jogged from the tent he shared with Holmes.

“So sorry to be late,” he panted, hurrying to his seat. “I’ve been hauling equipment all over, and tying off tarpaulins, and the like. I’m afraid I lost track of the time. Then, when the gong rang, I had to finish what I was doing before I could come, or it would all have fallen down.”

“Well, Doctor, how is the medical department coming along, then?” Whitesell asked, as the meal was served. “It sounds as if you’ve been quite busy, though I’ve no idea at what.”

“Decently enough, I suppose,” Watson replied, digging in hungrily. “Yes, I have been very busy. I have my emergency kit unpacked and more or less deployed, though it is rather crowded in the tent now. I did have the idea to see your quartermaster about matters of a large tarpaulin, cord, and tent pegs, in order to create a kind of lean-to shanty onto the side of the tent in which Holmes and I are staying, where I may place two cots and some tables for equipment,” he noted. “At least until the proper hospital is found.”

“Capital notion, my dear Watson,” Holmes offered. “That should ease the crowding a bit, and allow for a place for any long-term patients to lie close by where you may readily tend them, without our being required to vacate our own beds, or for you to trek over half the camp.”

“Precisely, Holmes,” Watson said, then downed an entire glass of water at a go.

“I think the good doctor is tired, thirsty, and hungry, after a morning’s hot, hard work,” Beaumont noted with a friendly smile, as one of the servants came up and refilled Watson’s water goblet, only for him to dive back into it. “How far along are you, Dr. Watson?” Watson had to come up for air to reply.

“I have the tarpaulin, the cording, the tent pegs, some folding cots and tables,” Watson told him, “and I know where I want everything, and I even have the canvas attached to the side of the tent, but I still need to drive the tent pegs and string it all up properly, then position the tables and such like underneath.”

“What about your staff?” Phillips wondered.

“I sent them to help Lord Trenthume and the quartermaster search for the hospital pavilion,” Watson explained. “Besides, two of the three are women, one more elderly, and I should think they might not be able to hammer tent pegs into the ground with a heavy mallet. It would hardly be good for my first patients to be my own staff.”

“Good point,” Whitesell decided. “Cortland, any news on that front?”

“None, Will,” the Earl of Trenthume replied. “The thing has simply vanished into thin air, as that American magician is wont to say. I have sent downriver to see about purchasing another one. We cannot go on like this, should something serious happen; Dr. Watson would be overrun, and poor Holmes here would have nowhere to sleep, even with the lean-to arrangement.” He shook his head. “And if a
haboob
30
should come in, it would well and truly be a mess.”

“Ooo, good point,” Phillips murmured.

“The bloody damn—oh, forgive me, Miss Whitesell—the blasted canopy is likely still lying in the ship’s hold, wherever THAT has got to. Off to Timbuktu, I suppose.” Cortland rolled his eyes in annoyance.

“How long before the replacement arrives?” Whitesell asked.

“The tentmaker in Luxor indicates we will have it within the week… if nothing else goes wrong.”

“Then in the meanwhile,” Beaumont offered, “may I suggest that we strapping men go with the doctor after luncheon, and assist him in erecting his, ah, ‘adjunct office,’ gentlemen?”

“Sounds like a cracking good plan, Beaumont,” Nichols-Woodall agreed. “You never know, after all: one of us might wind up needing it! With all of us at it, we can erect the canvas, tie it down well, set up tables and cots, position all the equipment Dr. Watson is willing to leave exposed to the elements under it, and still have plenty of time for a nice cool nap in our own tents.”

“Consider it done,” Professor Whitesell decreed.

* * *

After the meal, they all traipsed off to Holmes’ and Watson’s tent, where in only a scant quarter-hour, the makeshift medical office was erected and its furnishings positioned; even Leighton got into the act, helping determine the best layout for the furnishings, based upon efficiency of movement.

“There,” Watson said, hot and tired, but with a satisfied light in his eyes. “Even after the hospital tent is set up and a proper surgery in operation, I think I shall leave this; smaller matters, especially anything that may crop up in off-hours, can be tended here, rather than having to go over to the hospital.”

“And you have overflow room, in the event of something… catastrophic,” Nichols-Woodall murmured.

“Of course, of course,” Watson said. “But let us hope and pray nothing does.”

“Quite,” Holmes agreed, growing solemn as his eyes became distant with memory. “May Providence watch over us all, in this treacherous desert. I shall never forget the young boy who… became lost in the
haboob
… on my second expedition with the Professor…” He averted his face briefly.

“Oh,” Whitesell said, sobering. “I… recollect that…”

“Well, let us all go back to our own tents, relax, and cool down,” Beaumont suggested, changing the subject before the conversation became too maudlin. “It has become uncomfortably hot to-day.”

“It has, indeed. Absolutely excellent notion, that,” Watson declared, mopping his profusely perspiring brow.

The other men dispersed. Watson went straight into the tent; Holmes heard the soft creak of his cot as he stretched out upon it. He turned, intent on going back to the artefact tent to spend more time studying the maps…

…And nearly tripped over Leighton.

“Now for a walk?” she asked with a smile. Holmes subtly took a deep, exasperated breath, let it out; reined in his irritation.
It will not do,
he thought,
to upset Leigh or her father. I should much prefer to remain on good terms with the both of them. I shall have to be gentle, but firm.

“No, Leigh,” he told her quietly. “I have some catching-up to do, relative to the rest of your father’s team, as I am so late arriving. I had in mind to return to the artefact tent and continue studying, well, everything that is available to study. Given my background as a consulting detective, the determination of a tomb site is a perfectly reasonable task.”

“But…”

“Perhaps, after dinner, you, your father, and I, can repair to his tent and have a nice talk, get properly caught up on one another,” Holmes suggested offhandedly. “It would hardly be proper for me to take you on an unchaperoned walk, in any event.”

“Well, that’s true…” Leighton admitted, considering. “At least until Da says it’s all right.”

“Exactly.” Holmes quickly set his mind onto how to communicate delicately to Professor Whitesell that it was not “all right.”

“Then perhaps some tea in the dining tent, at the end of the siesta break?”

“Ah,” Holmes said, caught off guard, “perhaps.”

“All right,” Leighton lilted, happy. “I’ll come fetch you for tea, then.” She fairly danced off.

And I,
Holmes thought, as he headed for the artefact tent,
will make sure to come back and fetch Watson first…

* * *

Holmes spent the rest of the early afternoon poring over the various items in the artefact tent, especially the maps. He located the entry log for the different relics, and tried to compare the locales where they were found to the maps, with some difficulty. There were no grease pencils that he could find—it was his experience that they tended to migrate into the dig fields and become lost, anyway—and he was loath to mark on the precious maps with anything else.

“I believe what I need to do,” he mused to himself, “is to create my own map, which will position the various found items on it, as well as pertinent geologic and topographic features, and their relative relations to same. Then I may ruminate on it at my leisure, including in our tent in the evenings, over a pipe. I should fetch my sketch-pad from my trunk.” He pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket and checked it. “Mm. And it is high time I also fetched Watson, as well.”

* * *

“But Holmes, would she not be ideal for you?” Watson protested, as Holmes dug through his trunk in search of his sketching pad. “Surely you cannot really mean to remain single forever. She is intelligent, beautiful, her father fairly dotes on you…”

“You know my principles, Watson,” floated up from the trunk’s depths. “That is, in fact, precisely what I do intend. And I doubt the Professor is looking to marry her off as yet, in any case. It is still some few years to her majority. Young woman she is, to be sure… but the emphasis is still upon
young
.”

“Holmes… had you stopped to think about the seating arrangement at meals, and what it possibly implies, in this regard…?”

Holmes’ dark head, hidden deep inside the trunk, suddenly popped up, almost cracking against the trunk lid, and he turned to gaze at Watson, grey eyes wide.

“Damnation,” he said.

* * *

“This will not do, Watson,” a concerned Holmes told his friend, sitting on his cot opposite his companion. “I did not come all this way to be married off, like some witless, titled dandy.”

“Careful, Holmes,” Watson advised,
sotto voce
. “If Trenthume were to overhear, he might take offense.”

“None was intended in that direction,” Holmes replied. “But we both know the type of which I speak. Historically, there have even been a few in the extended royal family.”

“True.”

“And we both know I am not that type of man.”

“Also true.”

“This will take some thought,” Holmes considered. “I do not wish to hurt Leigh, nor do I wish to insult the Professor, but…”

“I only wish I had your troubles,” Watson grumbled. “I am most like to spend my time extracting splinters and treating bruises, blisters, and scrapes, not fending off the gentle advances of a beautiful woman.”

“If you come with me to meet her for tea, I may see what I can arrange!”

“I’ve no objection, of course, but why do you need me to play gooseberry?”

“I don’t NEED you,
per se
,” Holmes allowed. “It simply makes matters easier. If there is someone else about, a trusted friend, say, Leigh is less likely to become as demonstrative as she might, otherwise. She was always an affectionate child, and I shudder to think, if we were alone…”

“But is she not a proper lady?” Watson asked, confused.

“Oh, she is a lady, never doubt that,” Holmes vouched. “I did not mean to imply differently. But our previous relationship permits for a few more liberties than would otherwise be expected.”

“How so?”

A reminiscent smile spread across Holmes’ face at that.

“She was an adventurous, precocious youngster, adorable in her own way,” he recalled. “And mischievous! The child Leigh delighted in pulling pranks. I had to watch my step around her, and no mistake! A very affectionate child, too—whenever I arrived at their house, I needs must brace myself against the hugs, or I risked being bowled over—you saw how she greeted me when we first arrived? Well, imagine that same greeting, hitting you about the knees! She fairly took the legs from under me once, shortly after I began working for the Professor. I landed on the floor like a thousand of brick, as the Americans say! She was intelligent, curious almost to a fault, and as devoted as any puppy. If she was around, I had a tiny, faithful shadow everywhere I went.” He sighed. “But evidently she—and the Professor—expect to pick up the relationship where it left off… and possibly expand upon it. And at her age now, that is… perilous waters.”

“Waters you’d rather not plumb.”

“Exactly.”

Watson sighed irritably and heaved himself to his feet.

“Well, grab your drawing pad and let us go, then,” he fussed. “Else she will come looking for you and overhear, and then we WILL have a situation.”

Holmes caught up the pad, and they hastened back to the artefact tent, where Holmes managed to complete a rough sketch of the area’s topography before Leighton came looking for him for afternoon tea.

* * *

Watson considerately buffered Leighton’s affectionate nature from Holmes’ reserved sensibilities, managing to hide his own disconsolation from the young woman, though he had his serious doubts about whether Holmes was fooled. Others came and went, taking tea before returning to the dig, and soon Whitesell, Beaumont, Phillips, and Nichols-Woodall arrived to escort Holmes back to work. Leighton promptly excused herself, returning to her tent.

Then Watson betook himself back to the tiny infirmary lean-to, alone.

* * *

As the group headed in the general direction of the artefact tent, the professor broke the silence.

“I have it to understand you’ll be visiting us to-night, Holmes,” Whitesell said with a knowing grin. At the back of the group, Phillips blinked, then scowled.