The Egyptian Curse (4 page)

In Search of Motive

“Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing it is always from the noblest motive.”

– Oscar Wilde,
The Picture of Dorian Gray,
1891

“One suspect, known to have had a romantic relationship with Lady Sarah in the past, has been helping us with our inquiries,” said Inspector Dennis Rollins of Scotland Yard, who is in charge of the investigation. “This individual has given us the name of a woman whom he says he was with at the time of the murder. After a diligent search to find this woman, however, I feel confident in saying that one Miss Prudence Beresford does not exist.”

Hale threw aside the Tuesday morning edition of
The Times
, his breakfast ruined. Rollins was playing Artemis Howell, the
Times
reporter, like a violin. It was an old game: Let the suspect know he's a suspect, pour on the pressure, and then wait for him to crack like an egg and do something stupid out of sheer panic. Careful not to mention Hale by name, Howell had nevertheless cast suspicion on him in the eyes of anyone who knew about his two-year relationship with Lady Sarah - all of his friends, all of hers, and quite a few other people that they knew more casually.

Malone would be asleep at this hour, but Hale didn't hesitate to ring him up. His ability to sound awake when he answered the phone impressed Hale.

“What did you find out about Alfie, Ned?”

“Couldn't you just pick up a copy of
The Morning Telegraph
instead of disturbing my beauty sleep? I'm sure they carried my story.”

“Did you include in it everything that you found out?”

“No, of course not. Some of it was unprintable because of our country's benighted libel laws, and some of it just didn't fit in.”

“That's what I figured and that's why I called. Let's trade. Give me everything you've got and I'll tell you what I found out at The 43 last night.”

“I'm not sure that I should-”

“I'm on your team, Ned. What do you think I'm going to do with whatever you give me - tell Artie Howell or Inspector Rollins?”

“That's a good question. What
are
you going to do with it?”

Hale paused. “I guess that depends on what you tell me. Look, you know my interest in this. I didn't kill Sarah's husband and I don't think she did either. I want to make sure that neither one of us gets railroaded into paying for a crime we didn't commit. Something you found out may help.”

“I think you spent too much time around Sherlock Holmes.” Malone sighed. “All right, I'll give you what I've got. Don't want to see you in the dock! I spent the evening going around to Alfie's clubs to see if anyone would bite on the idea that he'd spotted someone cheating. The biggest hurdle was getting into the Constitutional Club. Fortunately, my friend Challenger is a member.”

“Challenger! I thought it was a
gentlemen's
club.” The eccentric scientist had the physique of a grizzly bear and a temperament to match.

Malone ignored him. “But let's start with the Tankerville Club. Alfie played euchre there a couple of times a week. Everybody I talked to said that he was a cheerful loser, but probably won as much as he lost and didn't play for especially high stakes. So it's not likely that he lost a pile and looked for signs of cheating. There hasn't been a cheating scandal at the Tankerville Club since Major Prendergast was falsely accused back in the Eighties.”

“Then they're overdue.”

“I suppose you could say that. Nobody looked guilty when I mentioned the word ‘cheating,' although I don't suppose they would. At any rate, all of Alfie's mates at the Tankerville Club thought he was absolutely the cat's whiskers, very free with paying for drinks.

“Same goes for the crowd at the Drones Club on Dover Street in Mayfair, only more so. That one's a bunch of impoverished nobility looking for wealth to marry into. I got the impression that almost everybody owed Alfie money and very few of them actually have useful employment. Several chatty gentlemen told me that the new Lord Backwater, for example, and the younger son of the Duke of Balmoral had their hands in Alfie's pockets more often than in their own.”

Hale made a mental note of their names for future pursuit if the idea of a deadly debtor seemed tenable.

“The Constitutional Club is a bit more serious, generally an older membership,” Malone said. “Alfie was one of the newer ones. He only joined after his marriage to Lord Sedgewood's daughter. The Earl sponsored his membership. Challenger knew him by sight, but he'd never had a conversation with him.”

“Tell me about the argument.”

After a pause on the other end of the line, Malone said, “What argument?”

“Alfie Barrington and Howard Carter had a very public verbal brawl at the Constitutional Club just hours before the murder.”

“Damn! Nobody told me about that. Well, I guess well-bred gentlemen don't talk about things like that, at least not to members of the Press.”

“That's why I have Aloysius Bone. He's neither well-bred nor a gentleman. I don't know what Alfie and Carter were fighting about, but I'm going to find out.”

Hale felt a professional pride at having turned up something important that had eluded a good reporter like Ned Malone, combined with frustration that his own journalistic hands were tied. Nothing he learned would ever appear in a story under his byline, at least not until he was removed as a suspect and officially covering the case for the Central Press Syndicate. That was a journalist's nightmare.

“And there's more,” he told Malone. “Alfie was in tight with a group of radical artists and writers with some unconventional habits.” He filled Malone in on what he had heard about the Bloomsbury Group from Tom Eliot. “At some point I'm going to drop in on the Woolfs and see what they have to say.”

“Doesn't sound too promising, bunch of free-lovers like that. What about the idea that-” Malone paused. “Well, what about the idea that Lady Sarah had a boyfriend?”

She had never really answered that question when he asked her, Hale realized.
Why not?

“I don't know, Ned. I can only answer for myself. The last time I saw her was the day she got back to England from the trip that turned out to be her wedding voyage.”
That's not true.
“Wait, let me amend that. I did see her once at The 43, in a room full of other people which unfortunately included Aloysius Bone.”

And Rollins is going to think I lied to him about that.

“Enoch? I hate to tell you this, but Rollins doesn't believe there is any such person as Prudence Beresford. His men can't find her.”

“I know. Artie Howell dropped that little gem in
The Times
today. I presume it was in your story, too?”

“No. It seemed premature. It's only been a day.”

“Does Rathbone know that you're holding back on news?”

“It was his decision.”

Hale chuckled. “That old fraud! He'd be the last to admit it, but he has a soft spot.”

“I wouldn't say that. I think he just has some old- fashioned ideas about fairness and justice. He'd cut you off in a heartbeat - assuming he has a heart - if he thought you'd done for Alfie. I hope you're not holding anything back about this Prudence Beresford - something that could help Scotland Yard find her.”

“I told Rollins everything I know, and that's almost nothing! It's as if she existed just to give me an unprovable alibi.”
It's as if...
“Wait a minute. Ned, what if that's just it. What if Prudence Beresford doesn't really exist at all? The whole time I was with her I felt like she had some kind of a secret. Suppose that's not her real name. Suppose she's the killer's accomplice who met me at the opera just to make sure that I didn't have a better alibi on the night of the murder. What do you think of that?”

“I think that's a brilliant idea... for Edgar Wallace or R. Austin Freeman. It's mystery story stuff, Enoch. Nobody would dream up something so convoluted in real life.”

Malone was right, Hale thought. He was thinking like Tom Eliot or Dorothy Sayers.

“And if it's not her real name, for whatever reason,” Malone added, “I don't know how you're going to find her.”

Yes, how?
The prospect seemed bleak. Hale strained to remember what he knew about Prudence Beresford that might be helpful. She liked opera - but opera season was over - and she liked Egypt. Egypt! The British Museum! What had she said?”Almost every Thursday I go to the North Wing of the British Museum and look at mummies and the Rosetta Stone. Needless to say, I'd rather be back in Egypt.” He remembered how her face had lit up when she'd said it.

“I think I know where to find her,” Hale said. “But I'll have to wait until Thursday.”

She re-read the last paragraph of the
Times
story, in the grip of several emotions. How strange that the murder she had read about turned out to involve someone that she had met. And moreover, he was a suspect! But he didn't do it, poor man. He was with her at the time. The problem was, that meant that she was also with him. She couldn't come forward without Archie knowing that she'd been out with another man, however innocently. That would be most unpleasant. She was quite sure that what was good for the gander was definitely
not
good for the goose, in his view.

If Mr. Hale - Enoch - got arrested, she would have to come forward. She couldn't let an innocent man go to trial. But perhaps it wouldn't come to that.

Meanwhile, Scotland Yard was looking for her. That sentence, “Prudence Beresford does not exist” really annoyed her.
Of course she exists. Aren't one's characters real people?

Train Talk

A wise man is never surprised.

– Samuel Johnson,
The Rambler
, 1750

Hale spent most of Tuesday working on his story about George Leigh Mallory. Being the prime suspect in a murder case had played havoc with his concentration, but he got through it.

If the experienced mountaineer had died earlier that month on the world's highest mountain, as seemed likely, he had left behind everyone he loved: his parents, three siblings, a wife, and three children. He had also left something else, Hale suspected - an immortal quote that would be remembered long after Mallory's name was forgotten. The previous year,
The New York Times
had carried the headline
“WHY CLIMB MOUNT EVEREST?” “BECAUSE IT'S THERE,” SAID MALLORY.
Whether Mallory had actually said that in so many words or the reporter had been paraphrasing was beside the point now.

Scrambling to get the story done in a day, Hale had managed to talk to Mallory's father, the Reverend Herbert Leigh-Mallory, his younger brother, Tafford Leigh-Mallory, and his wife, Ruth. The hyphens in the last name had confused him until he found out that the father had changed the spelling about a decade before. Hale also talked to an old friend of Mallory's called Robert Graves. Mallory had taught Graves at Charterhouse School in Godalming, Surrey, and later was best man at his wedding. Graves became a poet; Mallory kept climbing mountains.

After some late-night work, Hale handed Rathbone the story on Wednesday morning as demanded.

Rathbone grunted, lit his curved pipe, and settled back to read the typed manuscript.

By Enoch Hale

Central Press Syndicate

“Because it's there.”

Friends and family say those words summed up George Herbert Leigh Mallory's attitude not only to conquering mountains, but to facing other challenges in life as well.

Mallory, along with climbing partner Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, disappeared...

“Nice work.” Rathbone said as he came to the end. He set the pages aside. “You see, a story doesn't have to be a murder mystery to be compelling.” Reaching over to the credenza, Rathbone picked up a pasteboard card with the picture of a golfer on it. He flipped it at Hale. “As you know, the British Open begins tomorrow. The qualifying rounds are already underway. I want you to cover the human interest angle.”

Hale took a moment to find his voice. “I've never written a sports story, sir. And I'm not much of a golfer. My handicap has more digits than my telephone number.”

“How are you at mountain climbing?”

Had the old man gone daft all of a sudden? “Sir?”

“You've never climbed a mountain in your life, have you? I didn't think so. That didn't stop you from writing a fine feature story about Mallory, did it? I don't want you to write about golf, Hale, I want you to write about people. Talk to the golfers' caddies, talk to their wives and girlfriends, find the fellow who's been a professional for ten years and finally made it into the qualifying rounds of the Open and his child is sick. You know what to do.”

“I do?”

The managing director glowered. “You bloody well do.”

“I don't have a choice, do I?”

Rathbone consulted his pocket watch. “There's a train leaving from Euston Station in about twenty minutes and you're going to be on it. It won't get you to the Royal Liverpool Golf Club in time for the first tee-off, but soon enough. Get moving. And come back with a good story.”

Hale was already on the move as he grabbed his hat. He could have sworn that out of the corner of his eye he saw his boss stifle a smile.

The cab ride to Euston gave Hale plenty of time to rue the way this day was going. He had hoped for a quick and easy assignment that would allow him to sneak in a conversation with Sidney Lyme, Charles Bridgewater's future brother-in-law. Hale wanted to know more about the argument between Alfie and Howard Carter at the Constitutional Club that Lyme had witnessed.

He made it to the station with three minutes to spare before his train departed. The trip to Liverpool would take two and a half hours, according to the schedule, and the club at Hoylake another half hour. As soon as the train was well clear of the station, he went back to the dining car for a cup of coffee. He was startled to see the familiar figure of a tall, lean man in his early forties with a high forehead.

“Plum? Is it really you?”

“None other, old boy! On my way to the British Open. Qualifying rounds, you know.”

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, “Plum” to family and friends, had been writing humorous tales of the British upper classes for two decades. Many of them were about golf, one of his passions in life. He was also well known for his stories and novels about a valet named Jeeves. Hale had interviewed Wodehouse a year ago for a story about Winston Churchill as a lark - Plum was avowedly non-political. They had run into each other once or twice since, and Plum always remembered him.

“Do you know Carter?” Plum asked, pointing to a brown-haired man with a mustache next to him. “He's a member of my favorite club.”

They shook hands all round as Plum made the formal introduction of Enoch Hale, “journalist chap,” and Howard Carter, “digger up of old things.” Hale couldn't believe his luck. Now he would have no need to get Lyme's account of what had happened at the Constitutional Club - he would get it first-hand from the archeologist himself.

Carter should have been on Hale's list to talk to even without the argument. Carter had enjoyed the patronage of George Herbert, the Earl of Carnarvon, with whom Alfie's father-in-law had long been in competition. Hale's Central Press Syndicate colleague, the aptly named Reggie Lestrange, had written a number of stories about their unfriendly rivalry years ago, before Hale had met Sarah.

Hale recalled that Carter and Carnarvon had been in Egypt at the same time as Sarah, her father, and Alfie. The Sedgewood party had departed in September, with Sarah and Alfie marrying on the ship on their way home, but Carter had stayed in Egypt. Two months later, he had found the tomb of a relatively unknown pharaoh named Tutankhamun. The riches discovered in the previously unplundered tomb had made Carter a household name around the world.

Almost as fascinating to Hale as the mummy's tomb filled with gold and gems was Carter's amazing life story leading up to that day at the end of November 1922. Without a university degree, he had started out in Egypt as a tomb illustrator while only seventeen years old. He rose to become the first chief inspector of the Egyptian Antiquities Service. After supervising excavations in Luxor, he transferred to Lower Egypt and discovered the tombs of Thutmose I and Thutmose II, which already had been sacked by grave robbers in antiquity.

Carter resigned from the Antiquities Service in a dispute in 1905 after siding with the Egyptian site guards in a confrontation with French tourists. A kind of exile followed, during which he worked as a watercolor painter and dealer in antiquities. Then he managed to hitch on to Lord Carnarvon as his supervisor of excavations. The Earl already owned one of the most valuable collections of Egyptian artifacts in private hands, and seemed to have an insatiable desire for more.

Carter became obsessed with one tomb in particular, that of the boy pharaoh who became familiarly known as King Tut. Year after year he searched for it. By 1922, a frustrated Carnarvon served notice that this would be his last season of funding Carter. And so Carter began digging for his final season on November 1 of that year. Three days later, he found the steps that led to the tomb of Tutankhamun. He wired Carnarvon to come to Egypt for the opening of the tomb, which the latter did. When Carnarvon died the following April, the legend of King Tut's Curse was born.

Carter's biography suggested a determined and therefore disciplined man - not one who would kill another over a row in a club. Nevertheless, there was a row, if Lyme was to be believed. Maybe Carter regretted that and went to Alfie later with the idea of making up, a gesture that ended in disaster. That seemed implausible, but not impossible.

Hale would approach the topic of Alfie Barrington slowly, he decided as they took over an empty table in the dining car - or restaurant car, as they called it on this side of the ocean.

“So - how's the mummy business?” he asked Carter jovially.

“Not so blasted good at the moment.” Carter looked like he needed something stronger than coffee. “I just returned from a speaking tour in the States and a large trunk containing some important artifacts, pictures, slides, and reference material got lost along the way. I'm on my way to the Cunard docks to press them to find it.”

“Hard cheese,” Plum said. “But that reminds me of a very funny story.”

Hale paid scant attention as the humorist went on and on with a story about losing his clubs on a golfing trip. Hale signaled the patient waiter for three cups of coffee, which were promptly delivered as Plum's tale continued.

Frustrated, Hale was trying to think of a way to bring the discussion around to Alfie Barrington. He was slowly stirring his half full cup and wondering if two hours was enough time for Wodehouse to finish the story when his opportunity came. Plum ended with, “Well, anyway, it's good to see you, Carter. It's been ages. Sorry I missed you at the Constitutional the other night. Heard you were there.”

Perfect! Good old Plum had introduced the subject for him.

Carter grunted. “Not my warmest welcome home!”

Hale waited for him to elaborate. When he didn't, Hale said, “I heard there was some kind of a row involving Alfred Barrington, the man who was stabbed outside the club later that night.”

Carter looked as if he'd been slapped. “Where the devil did you hear that?”

“I happen to know a chap named Sidney Lyme.” That was only a slight exaggeration. They
had
met. “He's a member of the Constitutional and he overheard the argument.”

“Oh, Lyme.” The expression on Carter's face was as if he'd just bit into a particularly sour lime. “He used to knock about Egypt a bit. Knowing him, he must have told you that I was the other fellow. I feel bad that Barrington's dead, but that doesn't change that fact that he was a fool and a rotter.”

Hale slowly lit a panatela. He had to be careful not to overplay his hand. “I can't say I was a fan of Alfie Barrington myself. Fact is, the cad stole my girl and married her.”

Carter gave Hale a sympathetic look. “They didn't seem a very happy couple, if that makes you feel any better. From what I gathered, they'd had an argument that night. He came to the club and started hitting the bottle rather hard. If he hadn't been drunk he probably wouldn't have insulted me.”

“But he was such an inoffensive chap!” Plum protested.

“Not to me!” Carter looked around and, seeing the waiter, signed for more coffee before he continued. “Barrington adopted his father-in-law's rivalry with Lord Carnarvon as if it were his own. With His Lordship's untimely death, that rivalry was transferred to me. I'll give you an example. I was in a dispute with the Egyptian government when I left there in March for my speaking tour. The Egyptians wanted me to use Tutankhamun's tomb as something of a tourist attraction, which was interfering with my work. But when I allowed some of the expedition members' wives into the tomb, my former friends at the Egyptian Antiquities Service demanded the keys to the tomb. Well, I couldn't have that. So I locked the gates and took the keys with me. The Egyptian government took over the site by force. Barrington seized on this bother as a wedge to try to get the Antiquities Service to give the tomb of Tutankhamun over to Lord Sedgewood's man, Linwood Baines, and keep me out. It didn't work, but it was a near thing.”

Hale waited as the waiter poured more coffee.

“Is that what you were fighting about on Sunday night?” Hale asked once the man had left.

“Well, I could hardly ignore the issue when I saw him at the club, could I?”

“But you said he insulted you.”

Carter nodded. “I'm very much a self-made man, gentlemen. Despite my record of over thirty-three years in Egypt, Barrington attacked my credentials because I don't have a blasted university education. I told him that I've never made any secret of that, and that he ought to take a hard look closer to home if that sort of thing is so important to Lord Sedgewood.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning Baines, my counterpart in the Sedgewood camp. He claims to be an Oxford man, but I've heard that isn't true. He may well be a fraud, a charlatan!”

Hale sat stunned for a moment at the vehemence in Carter's voice.

“You don't suppose,” interjected Plum, “that Barrington could have confronted this Baines chap, do you?”