Silver Tomb (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 2) Page 2

  Lazarus smiled at his use of the term ‘we’. Petrie was known for rolling his shirt sleeves up and pitching in with the laborers in his pursuit of artifacts, dispensing with foremen entirely, something which set him apart from his peers in that field. He also insisted on paying out rewards for items found, ensuring that they were handled with care and not stolen. It also ensured that Petrie was ever desperately short of funds.

  “More recently I have been at a dig at Tell el-Amarna. There’s some fascinating building work from the eighteenth dynasty beneath all the Roman and Christian layers. We found a beautiful painted pavement showing all kinds of daily life, worth its weight in gold, although Maspero and all the others don’t see it. I seem to be the only Egyptologist in Egypt who believes that we can learn more about the past from bits of broken pottery than we can from all the sensational finds.”

  “How is the new director of the Department of Antiquities working out?” Lazarus asked. In the six years since he had left Egypt, the esteemed Auguste Mariette had died and been replaced by Gaston Maspero.

  “Oh, he’s not so bad,” Petrie replied. “A little chaotic. But his heart is in the right place. He’s dedicated to preserving the antiquities and sites of Egypt and brought big improvements on the treasure hunting practices of the old days. He’s a shrewd businessman too, letting certain artifacts slip out of the country for favors. Not that he’s corrupt, mind you. He comes down hard on the antiquities black market whenever he has a chance, which shows that he’s not only interested in the monetary value of things. Do you know he’s proposing admission charges for tourists wishing to visit ancient sites? It’s part of his plan to pay for their upkeep. Not a bad idea at all. And he’s currently engaged in uncovering the rest of the Sphinx at Gizah. He’s convinced there are tombs down there, as am I. The next few months will be terribly exciting if he can shift all that sand.”

  “Indeed. But Tell el-Amarna, that’s the city Akhenaten built, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, the Heretic Pharaoh. A fascinating place. I have a number of interesting artifacts I found there if you’d like to take a look. Except two of them have been stolen, curse it.”

  “Stolen?”

  “Yes. There was a theft at the Bulaq Museum the other week. A relief fragment was pinched right under Maspero’s nose. I was the one who found it, and it was a priceless example of the distinctive artistic style of Akhenaten’s reign. Now it’s gone. Also, I lost a cosmetic box I dug up at Tell el-Amarna. But that crime is overshadowed of course by the grisly murder of the man in whose custody the item was when it was stolen.”

  “Really? I read about that in the paper. Did you know the fellow?”

  “Yes, he was a friend of mine.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I lent him the artifact the day before. I can’t help but accept some of the blame for his death. Had I not lent him the item, perhaps he would never have attracted the attention of a murdering thug.”

  “And they’ve had no luck in finding the killer? The papers are hopelessly in the dark.”

  “As are the police. He was found with his neck broken and his hands and forearms terribly scorched, as if he had placed them upon a hotplate.”

  “Most strange.”

  They finished eating, and Petrie sat swirling his claret around in his glass expectantly. He had been very patient, Lazarus gave him that. But now he could wait no more. “I’ve told you enough about my activities since we last saw each other, Longman. Now I think it’s time you told me yours. Why have you returned to Egypt? What business has Her Majesty’s government got you on?”

  “You’ve caught me out, Petrie,” said Lazarus with a smile. “It’s been wonderful seeing you again but you’re absolutely right in thinking that my meeting you is more than a wish to catch up with an old friend. I need to ask you a question. Have you ever met Mademoiselle Eleanor Rousseau?”

  “No,” Petrie replied. “But I sorely wish I had. She’s very highly respected in my field. For a woman that is. She’s the one who discovered Akhenaten’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings last year. A wonderful find.”

  “Odd that your paths have never crossed, with both of you being here in Egypt.”

  “Not really. I spend so much time out at digs that I rarely come into Cairo. In fact it was lucky that I was at the hotel when you called. As for Rousseau, she’s even harder to find. She’s rarely in Cairo at all, by all accounts. Virtually lives out on some dig somewhere with an American fellow.”

  “Ah, so you’ve heard of him too.”

  “Lindholm or something. Haven’t heard much about his reputation as an Egyptologist at all. Probably just another treasure hunter, as if Egypt needed any more. But I would be very disappointed if Mademoiselle Rousseau was helping him in any way to rob this land of its cultural riches.”

  “Are they courting?”

  “How should I know, Longman? I’ve met neither and care little for the sordid affairs of others. Is this really why the government sent you out here?”

  “Rousseau is the fiancé of Henry Thackeray.”

  “Good lord, really? The fellow you had that very public spat with a few years ago?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Well I’m surprised you are doing him a favor after the things he said about you in the London Illustrated.”

  “Lord, no. My orders are to find Rousseau and get her back to England. Whitehall thinks she’s some sort of spy and is worried about what she knows. Any sordidness is not really my problem. Now, Flinders, tell me what you know.”

  Flinders looked around at the other patrons in the restaurant. “Very well, but here might not be the wisest place to discuss certain things.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that there are aspects of Mademoiselle Rousseau’s activities here in Egypt that have aroused the attention of organizations, like the police.”

  Lazarus was intrigued. Finally his mission seemed to be turning out to be something a little more exciting than a missing persons case. “All right. How about I take you to a little place I know for coffee? It’s a local establishment and frequented more by natives than the British. Just the place people go to discuss things without being overheard.”

  “Sounds capital, Longman.”

  They paid their bill and left the restaurant, heading north of Azbekya Gardens. The northern part of the city was the decidedly more native part, filled with dim alleys and shuttered windows, the darkness behind their lattices concealing things the British authorities were all too happy to believe did not exist. Not all the windows were shuttered. Some opened onto balconies where the city’s courtesans leaned, peering down onto the uneven streets, the oil lamps illuminating their curves, barely concealed behind white silk gowns.

  The coffee shop was nestled within a row of arches, entirely shaded. The haze of smoke that passed out between the arches came from the hookahs or ‘hubble-bubbles’; the water pipes favored by the Egyptians. They took their shoes off and entered, letting their eyes grow accustomed to the light. The ceiling was low, supported by arabesque arches. Groups of men in native dress sat about in small groups on cushions, drinking coffee and smoking.

  “By Jove, you know some rum dives!” exclaimed Petrie.

  They found an isolated spot and sat down. The proprietor came hurrying over with his coffee jug, from which he poured a steaming black stream into two cups. Lazarus ordered a hookah for them to share.

  “They use Turkish tobacco here,” Lazarus explained. “Far superior to the local stuff which tastes like burning mummy rags.”

  “I’ll remember that,” said Petrie, eyeing the contraption the proprietor had brought over with suspicion.

  They drank their coffee and took drags on the hookah, relaxing into the cushions as if they were both born and bred Cairenes.

  “You know, this stuff’s not half bad,” said Petrie, letting the smoke blast out through his nostrils. “And the coffee is excellent too. You certainly can show me a thing or two
about local establishments, Longman.”

  “I’m glad you like it. And we’re the only foreigners in the place.”

  Petrie looked around. It was true. The locals didn’t seem to mind their presence, either.

  “Now, if you feel quite safe enough,” said Lazarus, “please continue with what you were telling me in the restaurant.”

  “Right. Last I heard, Rousseau was expanding on my dig at Tell el Amarna. I don’t believe there’s anything left there to find and I suspect that she found this out, for she has since moved on. Where to, I don’t know, but acquaintances of mine who have met her say she’s obsessed with Akhenaten and the Amarna period.”

  Lazarus nodded slowly. Petrie didn’t have to fill him in about Akhenaten. Any student of Egyptology knew that particular pharaoh well. Known as the Heretic Pharaoh, Akhenaten had been born Amenhotep IV before he changed his name along with the entire religion of Egypt. His reign marked a sudden shift in the official faith of the land, from its many gods to the worship of a single solar deity represented by the sun, known as the ‘Aten’. Akhenaten (meaning ‘effective for Aten’) moved the royal court from Thebes to a new city he had constructed on the eastern bank of the Nile at Tell el-Amarna, in accordance with the rising sun. This was named Akhetaten, which meant ‘horizon of the Aten’.

  This early attempt at monotheism did not outlast the life of its greatest proponent, however, and with Akhenaten’s death, his queen Nefertiti and the rest of the court moved back to Thebes. Subsequent pharaohs restored Egypt’s polytheism and declared Akhenaten a heretic, defacing his statues and razing Akhetaten to the ground. It wasn’t until Rousseau discovered his tomb that many of the blanks of his life could be filled in.

  “It was around the time of Rousseau’s disappearance that certain items began appearing on the black market,” Petrie went on. “Items the like of which I have never seen before.”

  “How so?”

  “For instance, Longman, as a fellow Egyptologist, have you ever seen or heard of an ushabti made of solid silver?”

  Lazarus shook his head. Ushabtis were the little funerary statuettes found in tombs, made to represent the deceased should they be called upon to do any kind of manual labor in the afterlife. Naturally many ushabtis represented servants to fill in for those wealthy enough to have owned servants in life.

  “And how about scarabs?” continued Petrie, “or any other funerary goods for that matter?”

  “No,” said Lazarus. “Silver wasn’t a preferred metal for the Ancient Egyptians, being rarer than gold in this part of the world.”

  “Yes, they tended to use gold to represent the glory of the gods, especially the Aten, gold being a handy stand-in for the sun’s glare. But some of these silver items specifically allude to the Aten, suggesting that there is another aspect to Akhenaten’s religion that we have previously been blind to.”

  “A silver Aten,” mused Lazarus. “The moon, perhaps?”

  “That was my conclusion as well. A number of these items have been reported on the black market, and any significance other than their material value is lost on all but the likes of us Egyptologists. Maspero and the Egyptian police have been trying to crack an illegal antiquities ring for years without success, long before these silver items began appearing on the market. The goods are probably brought into the city by fellahs who have some access to the tombs. Maybe they live in their localities and have kept their discoveries secret, or perhaps they are employed as workmen on digs and are hiding items in their breeches, I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that some of the items I’ve seen have come from tombs undiscovered, officially speaking.”

  “Undiscovered?”

  “For example, I have seen with my own eyes a funerary necklace passing hands that bore the cartouche of Ramses II.”

  “A funerary necklace? But that could only have been buried with the mummy of its owner.”

  “And the mummy of Ramses II has never been found! Exactly! And there’s more—a ring belonging to Seti I and an ushabti bearing Thutmose II’s name. The list goes on. We know that it wasn’t uncommon for the ancient Egyptians to remove the mummies of their forefathers from tombs threatened by robbers and hide them in other tombs, often several mummies bunking in together. To me it seems that somebody somewhere knows the location of a cache of royal mummies that may contain every undiscovered pharaoh mentioned on any king list anywhere!”

  “And you believe that these silver items come from the same dealers as those who know the location of this royal cache?”

  “Well, it seems reasonable to think so. Even if the source of the silver Aten items is not the same as this royal cache, then the items are following the same channels onto the black market.”

  “But do you really think Eleanor Rousseau is behind it all? Even if she is the one who has discovered some sort of temple to the silver Aten, it doesn’t fit with what I know about her to be selling priceless items to tourists.”

  “No, I quite agree. But as I said, perhaps the fellahs working on her dig are palming the artifacts without her knowledge. If so, there has to be a great many of them for some to escape her notice.”

  “But where is this dig?” Lazarus asked.

  “Ah, that’s the real question, isn’t it? Nobody knows. No new concession has been recorded in Lindholm’s or Rousseau’s name, so if they really have found some new site they’re keeping it to themselves. And nobody’s seen hide or hair of them for a long time.”

  “Perhaps they were murdered by their workmen for control of the artifacts.”

  Petrie frowned as he took another drag of the hookah. “Not unlikely, one fears.”

  “Either way, I have to find out.”

  “Well, I’ve told you all I know and given you my thoughts on the matter. How do you intend to proceed?”

  “Right now the black market is our only possible link to Rousseau,” said Lazarus. “And that is the lead we must follow.”

  Chapter Three

  In which a short voyage in the Bulaq Harbor comes to a disastrous end

  The night was still young, despite the somber darkness of the streets and the still air whispering through the alleys. In other parts of Cairo one might still find Europeans sitting on the streets outside cafes, sipping coffee and watching the nightlife saunter past. But north of Azbekya Gardens, doors were bolted and lamps blown out in windows.

  The only life seen in the streets was the scurrying of rats, and the only sounds heard were the occasional hurried footsteps of some citizen on a late errand. There were cafes in this neglected district but they did not advertise their existence. Only those who knew Cairo’s darkest secrets knew where to find these dim cellars where the scent of scalding coffee was often masked by the more pungent odor of hashish.

  “Are you sure you know where you’re taking me?” Petrie asked, his voice betraying his tingling nerves. It was not a question of geography—he was sure Lazarus knew the city as well as any Cairene—but the darkness in the alleys seemed to be growing all about them as they delved deeper and deeper into this crumbling, seldom visited district. He did not openly challenge his companion’s wisdom in this late night foray into the city’s seedy underbelly, but hurried to keep up as Lazarus took one alley after the other, following some map in his head.

  “We’re quite safe,” Lazarus said. “Do you carry a revolver?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “You should, you know.”

  “I tend to do my damndest to avoid a situation where I might have need of one.”

  “As do I, but if we want to get to the bottom of this black market business, then we must pursue my only doorway into that world. And that doorway is a man called Murad.”

  Petrie suppressed a wince at Lazarus’s use of the word ‘we’. At no point had he expressed a desire to become an accomplice to Lazarus’s mission and at no point had Lazarus questioned the idea that he might not want to. But as they dashed down the dusty, nighted streets in pursuit of their lead, Petrie
could hardly argue that he was not a little bit excited.

  “So who is this Murad and how do you know him?” he panted as they rounded another corner.

  “Smuggler. Black market merchant. I had an encounter with him back in eighty-one. That was over some antiquities that had gone missing. But Cromer was interested in him for smuggling more than looted treasures.”

  “Guns?”

  “All manner of weapons that seemed to find their way into the hands of the Mahdi’s dervishes, as well as various nationalist groups.”

  “Is he one of those blighters?”

  “No. His pursuit of profit outweighs any political views. And that makes him useful to us.”

  They finally arrived at their destination. It was a sorry two-storey building that could have been a house, a shop, a café or all three combined, for its blank walls and dark windows betrayed no secrets. A set of steps led down to a cellar lit by oil lamps from which the sound of many voices could be heard.

  Their entrance warranted a lot more scrutiny than their visit to the previous coffee shop had. White men were almost never seen in these places, and if they were they always spelled trouble. Lazarus nodded at the proprietor who seemed to recall his face and came over. “Coffee please,” Lazarus said.

  The man nodded and poured them both cups. “You have returned, Ingleezeh.”

  Petrie raised his eyebrows. The lack of the respectful term ‘effendi’—often used by native to Englishman—indicated that Lazarus was considered to be on a more equal footing with these Egyptian night owls than the average white man.

  “I’m looking for Murad,” said Lazarus.

  The man seemed a little relieved that there was not more to their visit than the pursuit of antiquities, and set the coffee pot down. “He’s upstairs. I will get him if you would like to make yourselves comfortable.”

  They went over to some cushions and sipped their coffee. After a while their man came down the steps from the floor above, fastening his breeches and looking flushed.