Chapter Fifteen

I came to in dim candlelight, feeling light-headed. After a while I realised I was back in my bedroom in Luxor. It was dark outside and silent, except for the soothing sound of the crickets. A jug of water and a glass waited on my bedside table, and I suddenly realised I was parched, but the idea of having to move myself into a sitting position to reach them seemed exhausting. Still, I was very thirsty. Slowly I began to pull myself up. Then I realised there was someone else in the room with me.

“You’re awake,” said a voice in relief. “Adam, she’s awake!”

I looked up. Alice was sitting next to the bed, Adam nearby, dozing in a chair.

“Darling, we were beginning to worry,” Alice whispered, as she leant over and kissed me. “Don’t try to get up. Are you thirsty? Adam, help me sit her up.”

They lifted me up into a sitting position, and Alice held a glass of cool, lemon-scented water to my dry, cracked lips.

“You gave us all quite a scare for a while, Kate,” Adam said, as I sipped feebly. “We thought you were dead when Bennett and his men finally managed to find you.”

“Peter?” I said. At least that’s what I tried to say. Actually what came out was a dreadful, rasping croak. Adam and Alice exchanged looks.

“Here, keep swallowing,” said Alice. “You’ve been unconscious for three days now and hardly drunk a thing.”

“Thank you,” I whispered after a few minutes. This time my voice sounded stronger. “What happened? The last thing I remember is the lantern giving out and then something falling on top of me.”

“You got injured when Bennett and his men were trying to dig you out. They heard you screaming in the tomb, but it was so faint they feared they wouldn’t reach you in time, and they were working so fast they didn’t realise how close they were. The floor—our roof—caved in, and one of the men accidentally hit you with a spade.”

I lay back on the pillows, and Alice pressed a cool hand on my head.

“You still feel hot, my dear.” She stood up and looked at her watch. “It’s nearly five o’clock. I’m going to send Sayeed for Dr. Murray. Adam will stay with you. He can tell you everything that happened.” She leaned over and kissed me again. “It’s so good to have you back.”

Still feeling dazed, I watched her leave the room, then I turned and looked blearily at Adam.

“Where’s Papa? Is he—”

“He’s fine. Still tired from the malaria, but finding the Scarlet Queen and Khaemwaset’s tomb seems to have taken ten years off him. He’s desperate to see them both but wouldn’t leave the house while you were unconscious. I’ll go and wake him in a little bit.”

“No, leave him,” I said, thankful he was well. “And Bella? And Ruby? Are they—?”

“Bella’s fine. Ruby we were a little bit worried about at first. She took a nastier crack to the head than Bella. But she’s on the mend now and enjoying her fame immensely. We’re all well except for you, Kate, which seems a bit unfair.”

Adam sat down in the chair beside the bed, his face still badly bruised from the beating he had received from the mercenaries.

“You don’t look fine.”

He smiled. “A few souvenirs from my ex-employees. I’ll survive.”

“What happened, Adam? I remember finding the statue and the bones, then it all becomes a blur. What’s Peter got to do with it? What men?”

“Peter Bennett, my love, is not the humble Service inspector we thought he was.” He paused. “Obviously he wasn’t Il Namus either.”

“No. Who is he then?”

“He’s a private investigator.”

“A what?”

“A private investigator. A sort of private policeman. The Antiquities Service engaged his services six months ago after the last theft by Il Namus. They were so fed up with constantly losing all the best finds in the Valley and the temples, and they knew they’d never catch Il Namus on their own, so they decided to send to London for the best private detective they could find.”

“A private detective? Like Sherlock Holmes? And Peter’s the best there is?”

My scepticism made Adam smile. “You shouldn’t sound so surprised, Kate. If it wasn’t for him, we’d all be dead now.”

“I’m very fond of Peter, as you well know, but…” I paused, lost for words. “Really? Peter? The best private detective there is? Really?”

“Really.”

“But he’s so young.”

“Actually, he’s only two years younger than me. And now the game’s up, and he doesn’t have to play the clumsy ingenu any more, Bella’s nose has been put right out of joint. He’s barely been paying any attention to her, and it’s driving her wild.”

I smiled at the thought of Bella suddenly realising her admirer was no longer so keen. It wouldn’t hurt her at all to find out how it felt to be ignored.

“He was good enough to save us anyway,” Adam continued. “He was only three miles down the valley when all the fun started.”

“Some fun,” I muttered. “Why was he there?”

“He was waiting for Il Namus to show himself. Ahmed sent for him just in time.”

“Ahmed! Ahmed knows Peter?”

“Ahmed knows everyone, my love. He’s been helping Bennett ever since he arrived here. He and his sons know most of the black marketeers in Luxor and quite a few in Cairo too. They don’t object to a little healthy local enterprise, but they didn’t like Il Namus’s methods.”

“But why didn’t Ahmed tell me all this?”

“Bennett insisted he didn’t.” Adam’s mouth quirked into a smile. “Apparently he thought you were Il Namus.”

“Me!”

“Well, you and your father.”

“Me and Papa! Well, really!” I huffed, moving restlessly about the bed. “I’ve never heard such nonsense—”

“Well, you thought he was Il Namus for a while. Why shouldn’t he think the same about you?”

“Hmph,” I snorted.

Outside the window, faint streaks of light were appearing on the horizon, and there were sounds of the day beginning. A donkey brayed half-heartedly in the distance, and the sound of the muezzin called the faithful to prayer from the top of the top of the mosque nearby, his song a mesmeric, oddly melodic chant. Adam got up and walked towards the window.

“It’s almost daylight. You look tired, Kate.”

I smiled. “I’m fine. But there’s something I don’t understand. If Ahmed and Peter were expecting trouble in our camp, why did it take so long for them to rescue us?”

“Because they didn’t know Tillyard was Il Namus, and therefore that he was already in the camp. But they knew that once the tomb was finally excavated Il Namus wouldn’t be able to resist, and it would only be a matter of time before he showed up. What was really worrying Bennett was the sight of so many people around, which he thought might put Namus off, so he sent the ghost in hoping to persuade the Egyptians to go.”

“You mean it was Peter who was responsible for that wretched ghost?” I said in astonishment. Adam laughed.

“He got one of Ahmed’s sons to dress up. And he was very annoyed when we posted guards instead. Then, when he visited the tunnel and saw the murals on the wall, he had an inkling something was about to happen. He knew he had to do something to get everybody out of there, and he thought the best way to get most of you away from the tomb was by staging an accident, as well as another visit from the ghost. Bella was right by the way; that scorpion was meant for you.”

“Peter put that scorpion in my boot?” I scowled. “I must remember to thank him next time I see him.”

“So you should,” Adam said cheerfully. “I told you; we’d be dead without him. Anyway, after you came back from the ferry, he realised there was nothing more to be done, and he’d just have to let you stay. Ahmed told him about the doorway as soon as we found it, and they had a pretty good idea then that something was about to happen, but of course they were expecting Il Namus and his men to arrive from the outside and go into the campsite. No one realised Tillyard had already found the treasure by that time and was using the tunnels in the Tombs of the Nobles to get to our tomb. In fact, Ahmed and his sons were some way outside the main camp waiting for the next development when one of them heard either Bella or Ruby scream. That was when Ahmed decided it was time to fetch Bennett, and whilst they were waiting, they had a good scout round and eventually found that ridiculous gun of Bella’s near the Tombs of the Nobles. When they saw all the footprints, they began to suspect what had happened. Then Bennett and his men arrived, and they began searching the caves.”

“But surely Mr. Tillyard was still there? With all those awful mercenaries?”

Adam nodded grimly. “Oh, yes. He must have known that his plan was falling apart, but he was determined to take as much of the treasure as he could and that was his downfall in the end. Bennett says they cornered him in one of the tunnels between the tombs. It was blocked up, probably as a result of the explosion they created to seal us in the Cat’s tomb. Bennett tried to get him to surrender, but it did no good.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “From what Ahmed told me, he was quite insane at the end. Shooting madly at anyone he could with that damned little pistol of his. Several of Bennett’s men were injured, and one was killed.”

“Oh no,” I gasped. “And…and Mr. Tillyard?”

Adam grimaced. “Dead. He didn’t stand a chance really, especially after he’d killed the serviceman. They got most of the mercenaries as well, although a couple managed to slip away in all the confusion. And all of Khaemwaset’s treasure was recovered. The Antiquities service is very pleased.”

I looked out of the window where I could just see the sun, making great strides on the horizon by now, the delicate pinks streaks suffused with a deeper red at the edges. There is nowhere in the world more beautiful than Egypt at dawn, but just at that moment, its beauty was lost on me as I thought about Richard Tillyard and all the evil he had committed.

“Those books—did he really use chloroform to kill Sir Henry?” I asked after a while.

Adam nodded. “That’s the general opinion. Alice says she’s sure she remembers an odd smell in the room when she found Henry, but of course it was so long ago now, she can’t be absolutely certain. And she was more concerned with Henry at the time. It seems that after he killed Henry, he decided that your expedition would have to be the last robbery, at least for a while. He’s been doing this for years, by the way. Ever since he came out here in ’97 and realised how much money could be made stealing antiquities.”

I frowned. Poor Papa; he certainly didn’t expect his assistants to learn that sort of thing while they were with us.

“Anyway,” Adam continued. “He’d been keeping a careful watch on developments out here and knew you were very close to finding Khaemwaset’s tomb. It wasn’t that difficult for him to get himself invited on this trip. He’d made himself invaluable to Alice during the first few weeks of her widowhood, and he didn’t anticipate any problems getting the expedition to go his way. He put enough arsenic in your father’s medicine to trigger a relapse, but not enough to kill him, assuming that you would naturally stay behind and nurse him. We think he also assumed he’d only have me to deal with once we were at the site. It must have been quite a shock to realise you were still coming on the expedition. And not only that, but that Alice was intending to accompany us as well as old Faversham and Bella. Still he made the best of a bad job.”

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “That odious man! I can’t believe I actually liked him.”

“Don’t upset yourself, Kate. Richard Tillyard was a master manipulator. He even had your father thinking Alice and I were on a mission from the museum to cheat you out of the treasure.”

I nodded, remembering the day Papa had made me promise to go on the expedition in his place. His strange, delirium-fuelled rantings about parvenus stealing his glory made sense at last.

I shook myself. “Tell me about the Scarlet Queen, Adam. What was she doing in that awful little hole? And where were we? Not in Khaemwaset’s tomb, I’m sure.”

Adam shook his head. “Tillyard took us much further down to another level. Judging by the weapons we found there, I’d say we were in a high ranking soldier’s tomb, probably a general. And it was later than the Third Intermediate. Probably the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth Dynasty.”

“Oh.” I frowned. “And the bones—?”

Adam smiled at last. “Your father and I are almost certain they belong to the Beloved. Actually they are the remains of two people, a woman and a man, and there was a scroll in a pot, detailing why they were there. I brought it back here for your father to see the same day we got out, and he’s been working on it ever since, in between sitting with you.” Adam sat back in his chair. “It turns out she was killed. Stabbed, by her companion in the tomb with her.” He paused and grimaced. “Her lover.”

“Her lover stabbed her! Why?”

Adam rubbed his fingers across his eyes. “Her name was Meresankh,” he said. “She was one of Khaemwaset’s concubines, and she was caught having an affair with Nebnufer, a soldier in his army. Apparently, Khaemwaset was besotted with her; he worshipped her and referred to her constantly as the Beloved in his texts. And that’s why he had the statue made.”

“To bribe her,” I said softly.

Adam nodded. “To try and win her love. He knew she didn’t care for him, but I suppose he hoped to win her with precious gifts and symbols of status. He was quite old by the standards of the day, and she was young and beautiful. Anyway, it’s easy to imagine his horror when he found out she was having an affair with one of his lieutenants, giving all her love to this young upstart instead of her sovereign lord. He had intended having her share his tomb with him, but after he found them together in each other’s arms, he had a tunnel built as far away from his tomb as possible in the week following their arrest, and they were both thrown in, blocked up and left to die.”

“What was the Scarlet Queen doing in there?” I asked.

“Well, I suppose after all the love and care that had gone into making it for her, he felt she’d thrown it all back in his face and he couldn’t bear to look at it anymore, so he had it put in there with them, as a reminder during the last few hours of her life of what she had thrown away. He certainly had all traces of her existence erased extremely comprehensively everywhere else.”

“Poor girl!” I murmured. “What a terrible end. But why was she stabbed? And by her lover too. Surely…?”

“It seems Khaemwaset had a slight change of heart at the last minute. Even though he couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else having what he had been denied, he must had had some small streak of compassion left for her at the end, because he ordered a small vial of poison and a knife to be placed in the tomb with them. They were given the chance to end their lives quickly if they wanted, without having to wait in increasing pain and fear for the end.”

“Oh. But what was the knife for? Surely poison would be a much more painless—”

“There was only enough poison for one person, not two.” Adam shrugged as I looked at him, appalled.

“You mean he deliberately forced them to choose which one would take the poison, knowing the other would have to either commit suicide or murder? Lord, the poor girl.”

I closed my eyes, suddenly remembering the strange dream woman that had flashed into life for a few short seconds in the tomb. It must have been Meresankh. I recalled the sweet smile on her face as she waited for Nebnufer to deliver that last final, fatal embrace and hoped she was happy wherever she was.

“Poor both of them,” said Adam. “At any rate, they elected Nebnufer to take the poison and before he did he wrote down everything that had happened. The scrolls are quite brief. He must have been granted papyrus and writing materials as a final request, and it gets a bit patchy at the end as his light fades and I suppose the oxygen goes. But he gets the main gist of the story in. Some of it is quite poetic actually. He calls her ‘the most beloved, who rules my heart.’”

I looked out towards the window. It was now early morning, and all the familiar clamour of Luxor echoed outside my window. Donkeys and camels brayed raucously as they were driven along with their burdens, the clip-clopping of horses hooves on the road, vendors crying out to people to buy aysh and ful and figs and hot, sweet coffee. I could almost smell the acrid tang of roasting coffee beans, and I suddenly realised how hungry I was. I looked back to Adam, to ask him to ring the bell for Sayeed and saw him picking up his jacket from the back of the chair and pulling it on.

“Are you going?”

“I have to. I’ve got a meeting at the Antiquities Service with Bennett at eight o’clock, and I shall be late if I don’t leave now.”

“When will you be back?”

“As soon as I can. I won’t be long.” He bent over, stroking a stray lock of hair away from my eyes. “Don’t fret. Alice will be here soon.”

“I’m amazed she left you stay in here alone in the first place,” I said. “That’s not like her at all.”

Adam grinned as he went across to the window and blew out the last of the guttering candle. “I’ve told her we’re engaged. No doubt that removes any impropriety.”

“I thought you were going to break off our engagement if we ever got out of that tomb.”

He walked back across to the bed and sat down next to me, taking my hands in his and gently kissing each finger.

“I decided to forgive you.”

“Oh, you did, did you?” I said, reaching up and stroking his chin. It was bristly where a beard was just starting to grow, and I realised I had never seen Adam in the morning before he had shaved. The idea fascinated me for some reason; I had seen him half dead, but never with a stubbly chin.

“Yes.” He leaned further over the bed and whispered in my ear. “I’ve decided to take you with all your faults.”

I laughed as he kissed my ear then moved down to my neck. “Adam, do you think Peter will be terribly upset if you’re a bit late?”

He looked at me for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “Let’s find out.”