Dragomans. The dragoman, especially for a stranger with no knowledge of the language, can be very useful. He is both interpreter and guide, but should be chosen only from responsible quarters. It is unwise to treat these men with familiarity, a privilege they too often abuse.
Cook’s Traveller’s Handbook to Egypt and the Sudan
The receptionist had told Clara she would need a dragoman. Larry had mentioned it, too and had shooed away a host of them touting for business outside the hotel yesterday. She consulted her Cook’s guide and did not get much more information. So she asked Mrs Christie for her advice and to her relief, the novelist said she would pass on the dragoman she had been using for the past week. ‘He has already got over the shock of a lady travelling alone, so you won’t have to flog that dead horse again.’
Clara waited outside the hotel and was approached by five or six prospective dragomen before a man pulled up in a two-passenger surrey carriage, drawn by a well-looked-after pony. The man jumped down and dispatched his rivals in rapid Arabic, accompanied by a swish of his riding crop, before turning to Clara and announcing, ‘Madam, I am King Fuad, at your service.’ He gave an elaborate bow.
Mrs Christie had already told Clara to expect a man named Fuad, whose friends called him ‘King’ – like the current sultan of Egypt, King Fuad II. Clara didn’t think the writer of the Cook’s guide would approve of such familiarity. Nonetheless, Clara said, ‘I’m pleased to meet you, your majesty.’
The pretender to the throne grinned, showing a wide mouth with very few teeth.
‘You are Miss Vale?’ he asked.
It was hard to tell his age, but she thought he might perhaps be in his sixties. Slightly built and not much taller than she. Easier to handle than a young fellow, she mused, hoping it would not have to come to that.
‘I am,’ said Clara. ‘You come highly recommended by Mrs Christie, Fuad, so I trust you will give me the same service.’
The dragoman gave another elaborate bow and said, ‘I am your servant, madam.’
With introductions over, and a request to be taken to the Egyptian University in Giza issued, Fuad helped Clara into the carriage and climbed up front. With a tap of his crop and a shout of ‘Yalla!’ they were off.
Clara followed on her Cook’s map as the carriage drove north alongside the Nile Corniche until they reached the Kasr Al Nile Bridge, overlooked by the British Army Barracks. Clara noted the Union Jack flying above a high stone wall, topped by barbed wire. The gates to the barracks were guarded by armed soldiers. Fuad turned left over the bridge and they were soon on Gezira Island, in the middle of the river. The island was the playground of wealthy Egyptians and Europeans with polo, cricket and hockey fields, as well as a croquet club. The Anglo-American hospital was also housed here, backed by a golf course. Not far to travel if you pull a muscle, thought Clara, wryly. But they had soon crossed the island and entered Giza via the English Bridge. A left turn took them back down the west bank of the Nile and onto the palm-tree-lined Sharia El Giza. Ten minutes later they were at the luscious El Urman Gardens adjacent to the Egyptian University.
Clara had sent a message from the hotel to Dr Abdul Rahman yesterday afternoon, informing him that she was in town and had been referred to him by Dr Daphne Coleman. Might she pay him a visit? She had received a reply this morning soon after breakfast: he would be honoured to receive her. And so here she was, with her hat box, being helped out of the surrey by the dragoman Fuad.
‘I wait for you?’ he asked.
‘Yes, please,’ said Clara, and gave him baksheesh, what Mrs Christie had told her was the Egyptian term for a tip.
Soon she was inside the Department of Archaeology, decorated with statues, stelae and framed papyri. After announcing herself, she was led to the dean’s office. She was shown into a book-lined room with a large bay window overlooking the gardens. An Egyptian gentleman in his late sixties rose from behind a desk to greet her with a polite bow.
‘Miss Vale? Delighted to meet you.’ He dressed and spoke like an educated Englishman, and Clara wondered if he was an Oxbridge graduate. When Clara was at Oxford she had met a number of students from wealthy families hailing from far-flung corners of the Empire.
‘And I you, Dr Rahman. Thank you for agreeing to see me.’
Dr Rahman called in his secretary and asked the man to bring them coffee. Clara remembered what Uncle Bob had said about Rahman serving him strong Turkish coffee. As the coffee arrived in a splendid set of silver, and Rahman indicated they should take a seat in two armchairs in the bay window, Clara mentioned her uncle’s visit.
Rahman smiled, sadly. ‘I remember it well. I heard your uncle passed, Miss Vale. Please accept my condolences. And the manner in which it happened …’ he shook his head ‘… terrible, just terrible.’
‘You heard?’ asked Clara.
Rahman nodded. ‘Dr Coleman wrote to me. She told me that you were donating his collection. She invited me to come to the grand opening, but alas,’ he gestured around him, ‘I had teaching commitments. However, she said the invitation is open for me to visit whenever I like. Which I may very well do this coming summer.’
‘You will be most welcome,’ said Clara, and took a sip of her coffee. Then she said: ‘Did Dr Coleman say anything else?’
Rahman cocked his head to one side. ‘Such as?’
‘About my reasons for being in Egypt.’
‘Ah that,’ said Rahman, and sipped his own brew. ‘She sent me a telegram on Monday. Telling me Bob Wallace’s niece was on her way and that you had something very important to tell me. However, she said you would only be arriving on Sunday. That you were on the Olympic.’
Clara laughed, lightly. ‘I’m afraid I abandoned ship!’ She went on to tell him about her flight with Larry Winter. ‘Do you know him?’
Rahman nodded. ‘I do, yes. He has done some work for the museum before. And he once gave a talk to my students on the uses of aerial photography in archaeology. A charming man.’
‘He is,’ agreed Clara. The coffee was nearly finished and she felt it was time to reveal the reason for her visit. She reached for the hat box which she had placed on the floor beside her. ‘Dr Rahman, this is why I am here.’ She held the box on her lap without opening it. ‘On the night of the opening of my uncle’s collection, a sarcophagus arrived from the British Museum with a mummy. It was on loan to the Hancock. However, when Daphne opened it, she discovered something surprising inside.’ Clara opened the hat box, removed the hat, and then unwrapped the velvet cloth encasing the jewels. She passed the box to Rahman.
He gasped. ‘Al-Ḥamdu lillāh! Good grief, Miss Vale! Those are the missing jewels of Ahhotep!’
‘Ahhotep?’ asked Clara. ‘Queen Ahhotep? So Daphne was right. She said these were similar to ones she’d seen from that tomb.’
‘That’s correct,’ said Rahman. ‘Queen Ahhotep. She died around 1530 BC. Her tomb was discovered in Thebes in 1859. We have other jewels and funerary artefacts at the Egyptian Museum.’
‘Were these stolen from there?’ asked Clara.
Rahman shook his head. ‘No. They never made it to the museum. They were part of the catalogue of finds from Thebes, but they “disappeared” before they got to Cairo.’
‘Disappeared?’ asked Clara with a raise of a brow.
‘Stolen. But we could never prove it. Things were a lot more lax back then. We’ve tightened up the processes since. We thought these had been taken out of the country to one of the European or American museums, and it turns out we were right. They were in England.’
‘Perhaps they have only recently arrived in England,’ observed Clara.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Rahman.
Clara took a deep breath and proceeded to tell him about the replacement mummy they found in the sarcophagus and how she and Daphne had come to the conclusion that the young woman was recently deceased.
Rahman listened with growing alarm. ‘So you’re saying, Miss Vale, that these jewels could have been recently smuggled out of Egypt with the mummy?’
‘That is one theory,’ said Clara. ‘I believe if we find out who the poor girl is then we might also find out the where, when and how of the stolen jewels.’
‘Do you have any clues as to who she might be?’
Clara nodded and reached into her pocket. She withdrew the little brooch and held it in her palm. ‘We found this when we X-rayed the body. Do you recognise it?’
Rahman went pale. ‘Oh yes, Miss Vale, I certainly do.’ He took it from her and held it up to the light. ‘Did your uncle ever mention a bursary that he was funding at this university?’
Clara nodded. ‘I have recently heard about it. He wrote to a friend and that friend has passed on his letters to me. That is how I knew that he had visited you here. He mentioned the bursary in there. For a female student. A young woman called Maryam Hassan.’
Rahman pursed his lips. ‘That is correct. Come.’ He stood, indicating Clara should follow him.
He walked across the office to a shelf and took down two framed photographs. One was a large group photograph with a dozen or so young women in a garden. The second was a smaller group of three women standing on the steps outside the Department of Archaeology with Dr Rahman. He pointed to the first photograph. ‘In September 1928 we admitted the first women students to this university. There were seventeen of them. I was one of the academics who had been pushing for it since 1925. Here they all are at a garden party to celebrate their admission. Daphne Coleman attended the event along with your uncle, although neither of them are in the photograph.’
‘Yes,’ said Clara, ‘Daphne mentioned she’d been at some party. And that’s where she first saw the brooches.’
Rahman nodded. ‘That’s correct. Hold on a moment.’ He went to his desk, opened a drawer, and returned with a magnifying glass. He gave it to Clara. ‘You’ll be able to see it better on this other photograph. These are the three young women who were admitted to this department. And that’s Maryam Hassan in the middle.’
Clara looked at the three serious young women – all wearing headscarves and academic robes. The one in the middle was uncommonly attractive. Despite the serious set to her mouth – required for the formal photograph – there was a smile in the dark eyes. Larry Winter was right: Maryam Hassan was very attractive.
‘Look closer,’ prompted Dr Rahman.
Clara did and zoned in on the lapel of the robe. And there, on all three women, was the crescent-shaped brooch. Rahman held the one Daphne had found on the mummy between his thumb and forefinger.
‘As you can see, it is the same.’
‘Yes, I see that,’ said Clara. ‘Daphne said that as far as she was aware these brooches were made especially for this intake of students. Is that correct?’
Rahman nodded solemnly. ‘It is correct. I commissioned them myself. There were twenty made. We hoped to get twenty students, but only got seventeen.’
‘And the spare three brooches?’ asked Clara.
He gestured towards his desk. ‘In my drawer. They’re still there. Which means …’
‘Which means,’ finished Clara, ‘this brooch belonged to one of the seventeen. The question is, are all seventeen women accounted for?’
Rahman let out a painful sigh. ‘Sadly not. Maryam Hassan did not return for her second year last autumn. I tried to find out why not, but I could not locate her. She stayed in a hostel here at the university during term but with her father during holidays. He had a temporary residence near Saqqara during the digging season. I went there, but neighbours said he had left. They did not know about the daughter. They said he had returned to his home village of Quft. But there was no forwarding address. I put out word among the archaeological community to ask Mohammed Hassan to get in touch with me, but since last September there has been no word.’ He opened his hands in resignation and shrugged. ‘It was all I could do.’
Clara took this all in. ‘Have you been to the home village?’
He shook his head. ‘I have not. It is hundreds of miles from here. It is a long way to travel.’ He sighed. ‘Up until today I had no reason to believe that anything untoward had happened to Maryam other than dropping out of her course. I was disappointed and hoped to convince her and her father to let her return, but when I could not find them in the vicinity of Cairo I did not want to go further. If I had suspected her life might be in danger …’ He tailed off, anguish etched across his face.
Clara nodded in sympathy. ‘I understand. There was no way you could have known.’
‘What are we going to do now?’ asked Rahman. ‘Are you going to tell the police?’
Clara shook her head. She knew that bringing the police into an investigation too soon could be counterproductive, so preferred to wait until she had evidence to present to them. She explained this to Rahman. ‘I think we need to do some more investigating ourselves. Are you willing to help? Do you trust me enough to do that?’
Rahman nodded. ‘Daphne Coleman respects you and from what she told me – about how you got to the bottom of your uncle’s death – you are a talented investigator.’
Clara was relieved. ‘Thank you. I don’t think I could do this without you.’ She gestured around. ‘I’m out of my depth here in Egypt.’
Rahman grunted his agreement. ‘Of course. And I have already done a bit of investigating myself. Not regarding Maryam, but in relation to smuggled artefacts.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Unfortunately, Miss Vale, I have a series of faculty meetings and tutorials to attend this afternoon. Then tomorrow – Friday – is our holy day. So, would you care to meet me on Saturday morning at the Egyptian Museum? I shall be taking the Ahhotep jewels there. I need to speak to some colleagues about how to proceed with that – and I should like to have a telephone conversation with Daphne, if at all possible. Those things will take a while to organise. So shall we meet at say eleven o’clock on Saturday?’
Clara considered this a moment and then agreed. ‘That sounds fine. I would also like an opportunity to speak to Maryam’s two classmates.’ She indicated the two young women in the photograph. ‘Could you arrange that?’
‘I can,’ said Rahman. ‘But not before Monday. They are away on a field trip. But first thing Monday morning I shall speak to them.’
‘Good,’ said Clara. ‘And by then my assistant Miss Cuddy will be here. She may have some insights to bring to the case too.’
Clara and Rahman said their solemn goodbyes and then Fuad – who had been waiting in the shade with his pony and carriage – took her back to the hotel.