The Khamsin Curse (26 page)

He also wanted to inform the
three engineers that Mallisham and Lee were dead. They might even
be able to shed some light on the matter. They knew Mallisham quite
well because he opposed the work they were doing.

Moreover, he wanted to find out
if they were aware Sharif was a descendent of Ibn-the-Mad.
Questioning the foreman about the missing explosives might prove
helpful too in establishing a motive for those crocodiles. That was
a cold-blooded act that could not be left to go unsolved. Someone
wanted them off the island. Was that because it was a sacred site?
If someone considered the island sacred, did they also consider the
dam a sacrilege?

The Countess could tell Dr
Watson had something on his mind. He kept fidgeting with his
napkin, running his fingers along the creases, slapping it on the
table as if he were finished with the meal and then slipping it
back onto his lap.

When the three ladies departed
for the peace and quiet of their cabins, and Herr Graf and Colonel
Hayter shuffled off to the nearest deck chairs, she lingered at
table with the man she had come to know better than anyone and the
man for whom she felt a warm stirring not only in the fork of her
body but in her heart.

Jack had made her heart dance
and sing. Jim made her heart skip a beat. But Major Inigo Nash made
her heart stand still and swell.

That’s why - or so she told
herself - she had not yet solved this espionage case. She had
allowed romantic fantasy to get in the way of her work. There was
something she was overlooking. Perhaps that’s why women made such
hopeless detectives. They let their emotions get in the way of
their logic. Take the other night. She should have been aware that
following the crocodile incident it was important to stay alert, to
watch proceedings keenly, and to keep abreast of all possible
eventualities. That’s what Sherlock would have done. Instead, she
allowed herself to be led by the hand like a small helpless child
away from the action and into the darkness.

And look at the result.

Two murders.

Right under her very nose.

And no closer to finding the
foreign agent responsible for undermining the British war effort
either. Her prevarication was putting at risk the lives of brave
men and prolonging the misery for everyone. She waited until the
three of them were quite alone.

“What are you thinking?” she
put bluntly to her sleuthing counterpart.

“Me?” he said, fidgeting with
his napkin, always uncomfortable when put under the gun like
that.

“You have something on your
mind,” she pressed.

He scrunched his napkin into a
tight ball. “Well, I’m thinking that I need to examine those two
bodies. Here I am, a trained doctor. I have had experience with
post mortems. Someone needs to perform a post mortem. We cannot
just accept what Moran said about the Pashtun ritual. Urine could
be covering up another poison.”

Gideon began nodding. “I agree.
But you cannot do it on your own. Questions will be asked as soon
as you start undressing those dead bodies. There’s a British
surgeon at the construction site and a proper hospital, albeit in a
mud hut. He has all the instruments you will need. I have the
authority to instruct him to perform post mortems and you can
assist him. That way you are on hand but it looks as if he is doing
the work on behalf of the British government.”

The Countess began nodding too.
“Let’s not tell him how the men supposedly died. Let him reach his
own conclusions in his own good time. When can you arrange it?”

“I’m going across in a felucca
as soon as I can hail one. I thought the one that ferried Ali Pasha
might make a come-back. I can take the two bodies with me.”

“Leave the bodies here,”
advised the Countess. “You go across and make all the arrangements
and we can take the bodies in the Sekhmet tomorrow. That way it
looks less desperate.”

“Yes,” agreed the doctor. “And
we don’t yet know what just happened when those explosions went
off. If the surgeon is dealing with serious injuries the last thing
he needs is a double post mortem and I will have to perform the
task myself here after all.”

“Speaking of explosions,” said
Gideon. “I was thinking that what happened with the crocodiles
might be related to what is happening at the dam. If someone wants
us off the island, they might also want the dam to fail. They want
the status quo to prevail. I need to speak to the three engineers
to make sure they’re aware Ibn-the-Mad and Sharif share the same
bloodline.”

Dr Watson drained the dregs of
wine at the bottom of his glass which was now warm and unpalatable.
It made him wince. “All hell will break loose with the local
population when they see those dead crocodiles inside the
Kiosk.”

“I’ve asked Colonel Moriarty to
take care of it. That’s another reason I need to go to the
mainland. I want to ensure he understands that it’s a task that
requires speed and discretion.”

The Countess looked past
Gideon’s broadly contoured shoulder. “There’s that felucca now.
It’s coming this way. Dr Watson can hail it while you go and get
your jacket and hat.”

She followed him into his
cabin. They hadn’t had a moment alone together since before the
party. And she was painfully aware she had spent the night with Jim
while he had been searching frantically for his gun, worried sick
about his weapon and about her too. Her arms coiled themselves
around his neck. And she gave him a quick kiss.

“Is that a guilty conscience
kiss?” he said, cinching her waist before she could think to step
back from the embrace.

“I don’t need an excuse to kiss
you.”

“And neither it seems does Jim
when it comes to kissing you.”

“He wasn’t aware how I felt
about you.”

“But you made it clear to
him?”

“The conversation didn’t go
that way.”

“I see – which way did it go?”
He was still holding onto her waist, forcing her to look at him or
drop her gaze.

“It meandered all over the
place.”

“Like your hand?”

He let go and watched her
spring back like a female Jack-in-the-box “What?”

“You heard.” Deftly, he scooped
up his jacket and threw it over his shoulder, grabbed his Panama
hat and glided smoothly past her to the door. “Before you give me a
lecture about jealousy being unbecoming, let me just say,
two-timing is worse.”

Unable to face Dr Watson lest
he pick up on her agitated state, the Countess made her way to the
cabin of Lorna Baxter. She rapped quietly and was invited to
enter.

Lorna Baxter had kicked off her
shoes and pulled off her stockings. She was sitting on the bed with
her legs stretched out, fanning her face with a cheap paper fan on
the end of a stick.

“If you don’t mind, Countess
Volodymyrovna, I won’t get up. My legs ache and my feet are
blistered. Please take a seat. Have you come to speak to me about
Mr Lee? I still don’t know how he died. No one seems to know. I
think you know but you won’t say either. No one will say. It makes
me think it must have been something awful. Those crocodiles were
awful. We could have died. All of us. I’m worried. And frightened.”
She was rambling on a bit, voicing all the things she never had a
chance to say. In her profession, expressing her thoughts freely
would have been impossible. “You’re a consulting detective. You and
Dr Watson. Someone mentioned it to me. I think it was Colonel
Moran. Dr Watson used to partner the great Sherlock Holmes. I hope
you can work out what’s going on. Professor Mallisham is dead too.
It seems like a dream. Or a nightmare. This should have been a
happy trip. Everyone was looking forward to it. I don’t know what
will become of me. I’ll be left without a job. I don’t have much
put away. My husband died suddenly. He didn’t have anything saved
because he wasn’t expecting to die. His prospects were good. His
career was just starting to take off. He was undersecretary to the
attaché to the Minister of Persia. But then he drowned in the
Bosphorus. A ferry sank. I didn’t find out what happened to him for
almost a week. I was in Baghdad waiting for him at a hotel. I
thought he’d run off and left me for another woman and then I
discovered he was dead. I didn’t have the money to settle the
account. A stranger paid the bill for me. I was in a daze. I feel a
bit the same way now. It seems unreal. I’m sorry for talking too
much. You must have some questions you want to ask me or you
wouldn’t have come here.”

She stopped talking suddenly
and the silence seemed oppressive.

“Yes,” said the Countess, in a
bit of a daze herself; her eyes drifting aimlessly from the kilim
rug on the floor to the two vivid scarves hanging on the back of a
chair, to the fluttering fan, “I came to ask you some questions but
I don’t really know where to start. Bear with me if I meander all
over the place.” Oh, God! There was that guilt-laden word! Meander!
“It’s a ghastly business. As for how Mr Lee and Professor Mallisham
died, I cannot say for sure. I would only be guessing. There might
be a post mortem.”

“Post mortem?”

“Yes, the surgeon at the
construction site will probably perform it. Mr Longshanks has gone
to ask if it can be done. It’s the only way of putting everyone’s
fears to rest.”

“Yes, yes, Hypatia will want to
know. She will start asking questions as soon as she comes to her
senses. She will become quite angry if she doesn’t get any answers.
She is actually quite strong-willed. And the loss for her will be
doubly bad because she was extremely fond of Professor Mallisham
but you probably noticed that yourself?”

The Countess nodded; her eyes
still meandering listlessly until they came to rest on an item
wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. She guessed it was the
second item Lorna Baxter had picked up in Ali Pasha’s shop the day
Dr Watson bumped into her. It didn’t belong to Mr Lee and here it
was, sitting on her desk. It was shaped like a scroll.

“You bought a gift for
someone?” The Countess’s voice was gentle and coaxing.

Lorna Baxter followed her gaze;
the fan stopped fluttering. “Oh, yes.”

“I see from the way it is
wrapped that it is a papyrus scroll from Ali Pasha’s shop.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“A gift for Miss Lee for her
birthday?” The Countess improvised a suggestion to see if Lorna
Baxter would go along with it.

The fan started to flutter
faster when the pale cheeks turned pink. “Not exactly. Please don’t
say anything to Miss Lee or Miss Clooney. I purchased it with Mr
Lee’s money for myself. The same with the kilim rug. I would have
bought the scarves with his money too but you paid for them. I
meant to thank you. Please accept my belated thanks.” She took a
quick breath. “I buy things occasionally for myself with his money,
you see. It’s not really stealing. He’s rich. He can afford it.
And, and, I’ve earned it. He touches me sometimes. Not, not
roughly, but, well, inappropriately, sometimes on the arm or the
leg when we’re together in his private study. The first time it
happened I was shocked. But then I forced myself not to overreact.
I told myself it might lead to a marriage proposal. But I knew it
wouldn’t. Men like Mr Lee don’t marry women like me. They marry
women like you. They need to prove to society that they have
arrived. They want to be invited to the right parties. A society
wife is the best way to gain acceptance. The wife can be poor but
she needs to be from the right stock.”

The Countess was impressed by
Lorna Baxter’s directness and honesty. She stood up and angled her
body toward the desk to pre-empt a negative response. “I won’t
mention it to Miss Lee or Miss Clooney. Do you mind if I take a
look at the scroll? I was considering buying one for myself when we
returned to Cairo.”

“I guess it won’t hurt if you
look but please be careful with the wrapping. I want to re-wrap it.
I don’t want Miss Lee or Miss Clooney to see it. I don’t want to be
accused of theft.”

The Countess nodded as she
untied the string and folded back the brown paper. It was an
interesting papyrus but nothing special: Two figures in profile,
male and female, inside cartouches, with hieroglyphs on the side.
“Do you know what it says?”

“Yes, they’re the names of the
husband and wife. I fell in love with the white folds on the wife’s
robe.”

“Mmm, yes, diaphanous pleats
with the slender body underneath. It’s quite sensual.”

“Yes, yes, that’s it exactly!
It’s sensual!”

After carefully re-wrapping the
scroll, the Countess turned her gaze to the kilim. “What are these
symbols in the corners?” She knew very well they were
scorpions.

“Scorpions. At least that’s
what the trader in the marketplace told me. I was born in November,
you see. It’s my zodiac symbol. The zodiac features quite heavily
in eastern mysticism. My late husband once told me astrology
started with the Babylonians? The rug reminded me of our travels in
the Middle East. He was always being posted to one city or another.
It was an exciting time.” She sighed wistfully. “Where was Mr Lee’s
body found? Miss Clooney told me it was in the Inner Courtyard. She
heard it from one of the stretcher bearers.”

The Countess re-took her seat.
“Yes, it was inside the main courtyard.”

“And Professor Mallisham
too?”

She nodded and thought about
how to frame the next question tactfully without putting Lorna
Baxter on the defensive. “That was a frightening windstorm we had
that night,” she began vaguely. “And coming straight after the
incident with the crocodiles, well, it was unnerving. I understand
you left the Kiosk with Colonel Moran?”

The fluttering fan suffered a
slight pause, hardly noticeable unless you were watching for it.
“Yes, that’s right. Everyone was in a state of shock. Someone took
me by the hand and led me out of that god-awful place full of dead
crocodiles. I just went. I didn’t even look to see who it was. I
was thankful later that the colonel seemed to know where he was
going. I don’t know how he knew it. We ended up in a temple on the
west side. It didn’t have a roof but the walls were sturdy and
there were no crocodiles. That’s the first thing I looked for. The
wind howled all night. I was terrified. I don’t think I slept a
wink. I couldn’t stop shaking. I don’t care what people say. It was
reassuring to be with a man who had a rifle.”