Four

L

estrade had sat through some pretty bizarre breakfasts in his time. None could compare, however – not even the one at Wigston Guthlaxton – with his first in the Valley of the Kings. The morning goods were unexceptional – curved bits of pastry and a jam-like substance. The coffee was a little too thick for Lestrade’s taste. In fact, it took eight seconds by his old half hunter for the spoon to slide from the perpendicular in the cup’s contents. No, it was the setting. A trestle table, gleaming with silverware and the crested China of the Carnarvons, had been set up in the gloomy passageway that led to the tomb of Rameses XI, Excavation Number Four. The clatter of cutlery echoed back into the recesses where the great Pharaoh had lain in state for thousands of years, before the chisels of grave robbers had robbed him of his peace.

Jack Holinshed and Clifford Hanger, of course, Lestrade already knew. Across the table from him sat the tall, darkly handsome Arthur Cruttenden Mace. Over coffee, he told Lestrade his life story, whether he wanted to know it or not. He was a distant cousin of another great archaeologist, Flinders Petrie. Lestrade had heard of this man. So eminent was he that the Australians had named a mountain range after him and the chemists – or was it the glaziers – a dish. Mace had dug all over the place, at Abydos, Hiw, Dendera, Giza and Naga-el-Der. He’d joined the Metropolitan Museum twenty-two years ago as assistant Curator of Egyptian Art. He was a man of immense common sense, he told Lestrade, but he had to dash, as he was busy on the first volume of The Tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen and he had to bash out a chapter before the Olivetti’s keys became red hot in the midday sun.

That left Lestrade talking to Alfred Lucas. Physically, the Chemist of the Antiquities Service reminded Lestrade of his old friend Rudyard Kipling, with his beetling brows and heavy moustache. Sadly, the man had been born in Manchester Lestrade had ascertained, and had none of Kipling’s charisma. He was a friend of Sidney Smith’s however, and Lestrade might have need of the man’s chemistry set before the case was over.

Henry Burton – ‘Call me Harry’ – to Lestrade’s right, had long ago abandoned his native Lincolnshire for the sunnier climes of Florence. Since the outbreak of war, however, he had been digging about in the Valley of the Kings, first for the rich American Theodore Davis and more recently for Carnarvon. He was the photographer of the expedition and as if to prove it, leaped up from the breakfast table several times to take the odd snap of the team breaking croissants, spreading jam, stirring coffee etc., perhaps to prove to a disbelieving world that archaeologists did it sitting down. Arthur Callender was a bluff, no-nonsense engineer, recently retired from his post as Manager of the Egypt and Sudan Branch Railway Company. To avoid confusion with Mace in what was an over-abundance of Arthurs, he had taken to calling himself Pecky and the other team members had reluctantly taken it up.

Diagonally across from the ex-Chief Superintendent, wrestling with a particularly recalcitrant piece of toast, sat the bulky, white- suited figure of Alan Henderson Gardiner; decidedly the wrong side of forty-five, if Lestrade was any judge. With that ability he had to make the opening of a boiled egg sound as if it were an event of world interest, Cliff Hanger had introduced Gardiner to Lestrade as the foremost philologist of his generation. Lestrade nodded coolly. After all, a man’s religion was his own affair. Of all the breakfasters that morning, Lestrade sensed that this man was the most cut up about the death of Carnarvon.

‘Lindsley Foote Hall,’ the tall American extended a hand as he came late to the table, ‘MIT.’

‘Sholto Lestrade.’ Lestrade shook it. ‘L-e-s-t-r-a-d-e.’

‘I’m the expedition’s draughtsman.’ Hall clicked his fingers for a white-jacketed fellah to pour his coffee. ‘What’s your position, Mr Lestrade?’

‘Mr Lestrade has no position,’ the last member of the team said. ‘He is merely here to observe.’

All eyes turned to Howard Carter, Carnarvon’s Field Director. The man’s broken nose, immense chin and drooping moustache gave him a somewhat hangdog appearance. Lestrade had met him briefly the night before. In fact, his was the first face he had set eyes on after he woke up from his fall. After a day on a donkey, Lestrade’s legs had given out entirely and he had tripped over the animal’s reins only to fetch himself a concussing one on a huge lump of scree. A bucket of water, thoughtfully hurled by Carter, had brought him round. The hangdog features had smiled at first, but as soon as Carter learned that Lestrade was in the Valley of the Kings to investigate not one, but two suspicious deaths, his demean- our had changed entirely. Throughout breakfast, while Lestrade took the opportunity to size up the killing capabilities of the tomb team, Carter had been drumming his nervous fingers, first on the trestle table, then on his coffee cup. Finally, he’d been carving little hieroglyphs into the table cloth with his knife blade. All the time, his dark, deep-set eyes had swivelled from breakfaster to breakfaster. Until now, he had not said a word.

Now was Lestrade’s chance to put that right. ‘Mr Carter,’ he said. ‘Could I have a word?’

The Field Director’s moustache twitched irritably. Pecky Callender sensed his old friend’s mood and led as dignified an exit as he could. ‘Well, I’ve got some fellas to see,’ he announced. ‘Lindsley, could you show me those sketches.’

‘Sketches?’ the tall American was only on his first slurp of coffee. ‘Uh – oh, sure, sure, Pecky. Right with you.’ And he gulped down the thick, brown, Turkish contents of his cup and snatched up his drawing pad. ‘I’d like to get one of you, Mr Lestrade,’ he said. ‘Just for the record. Perhaps tonight?’

‘Oh, I don’t think . . .’

‘Well, now, don’t undersell yourself,’ Hall patted the man’s shoulder, an earnest expression on his face. ‘Whether you think or not, you’re a visitor to the tomb. And I’m making a point of sketching all the visitors we get.’ He leaned over to Lestrade. ‘It’ll be a cold day in hell afore the camera takes over from the pencil.’ And he stood up again, beaming broadly at Harry Burton, who ignored him.

‘Did you have a chance to sketch Mr Le Clerk?’ Lestrade’ asked him.

‘Sure did. Wanna see?’ Callender cleared his throat.

‘Later, Mr Hall,’ Lestrade said and the lanky American loped off.

‘Harry,’ Callender was gesturing at those who were left, ‘I’d like a shot or two of the entrance this morning.’

‘Another?’ Burton was about to light his pipe when he felt it taken from him by the waiter. ‘Ah, oh, of course. Right. I’ll just get another roll of film.’

‘Yes.’ Holinshed stood up. ‘Cliff, you know your way around.

Could I see the entrance? If you’re not busy, I mean?’

‘Delighted, dear boy.’ Hanger stuffed a croissant into his pocket for later.

‘Come along, Alfred.’ Mace helped the man up. ‘I’d like you to have a look at some salts I’m oxidizing.’

Lucas looked blank. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Gentlemen, would you excuse us?’

Carter dismissed the waiters with a wave of his hand. He poured another coffee for Lestrade. ‘Well,’ he said, his quiet voice curiously resonant in the echoing chamber, ‘what is it you want, Mr Lestrade?’ ‘Lord Carnarvon.’ Lestrade leaned back, watching his man through experienced, half-closed eyes. It was cool in the corridor and the day was a bright shaft of light from the far end through which the silhouettes of Carter’s team were busy vanishing in all directions.

‘I fear he is dead,’ Carter said.

‘Indeed,’ Lestrade nodded. ‘Malaria, some say.’

‘Pneumonia is the official cause on the death certificate.’

‘You’ve seen it?’

‘I have.’

Lestrade stirred his coffee. Nuts floated on the surface, sluggishly, like ships caught in the Sargasso Sea. ‘That’s not conclusive,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’ Carter’s dark eyes faltered.

‘The symptoms of pneumonia are very commonplace,’ Lestrade told the Field Director. ‘They cover a multitude of sins.’

‘What do you mean?’ Carter asked again.

‘There seems to be an echo in here,’ Lestrade observed. He leaned forward. ‘I mean’, he said, ‘that in my time I have investigated deaths that were apparently caused by pneumonia. Only to discover that the real cause was poisoning.’

‘Poisoning?’ Carter’s knife blade stopped in mid-hieroglyph.

‘You were with Lord Carnarvon when he died?’

‘No. Not exactly. I’d been with him some hours before.’

‘Here at the tomb?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did he seem?’

‘In what way?’

‘Was his vision blurred?’

‘No; at least he didn’t mention it.’

‘Was his hearing faulty?’

‘What?’

‘I said . . .’

‘Yes, I know what you said.’ Carter slammed the knife down. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Was he thirsty? His skin red?’

‘One is always thirsty in the desert, Mr Lestrade. Surely you’ve been in Egypt long enough to know that. The trick is not to give in to it. And never drink water that has not been boiled. The tsetse fly, you see.’

‘Was his skin red?’ Lestrade persisted.

‘Only his cheek,’ Carter told him. ‘What poison are we talking about, Lestrade?’

The former Chief Superintendent paused, frowning. ‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ he said. ‘You didn’t gaze into Lord Carnarvon’s eyes, I suppose?’

Carter sighed. ‘I worked for the man, Lestrade,’ he said, with what little patience he could muster. ‘I wasn’t having an affair with him.’

‘Quite.’ Lestrade was anxious to reassure him. ‘Quite.’

‘He had a headache,’ Carter remembered. ‘He seemed a little tired, that was all. Nothing in that. We all get it. It’s an exhausting business, excavating in this heat.’

‘Did Lord Carnarvon actually do the digging?’ Lestrade asked.

‘Usually, no,’ Carter told him. ‘Most of the time, he supervised from a mesh cage he’d had built. It’s out there, near the entrance. Kept mosquitoes away.’

‘Mosquitoes,’ Lestrade repeated. ‘They carry malaria, don’t they?’

Carter stood up sharply. ‘Mr Lestrade,’ he said, ‘the Carnarvon Expedition has lost its captain. Until Almina – Lady Carnarvon – returns from home, I must perforce be that captain. I have found the most exciting tomb in the world; in the whole history of archaeology. Forget Schliemann - he made most of it up, anyway. The name of Howard Carter will echo down the years. And I don’t need that idiot Hanger to dress it up for me. But,’ and he placed both hands on the table as if to steady himself, ‘all this will come to pass only if I can keep this damned team together, keep the meddling Egyptian government out of what’s left of my hair and get into that burial chamber. A simple! job, you might think? Don’t you believe it! So, if you’ll excuse me, I really have better things to do than swap symptom stories with a Scotland Yard detective who’s been put out to grass! Good morning!’

And he turned on his heel.

Lestrade was grateful for the relative cool of Alfred Lucas’s tent later that morning. The chemist had donned his white coat and his glasses were tilted up on top of his head.

‘Ah, Mr Lestrade,’ he said, waving a hand for the man to sit down. ‘Doing a spot of observing?’

‘Investigating.’ Lestrade eased himself into the canvas seat. Cleopatra’s hump had taken its toll of his lower regions.

‘Ah, that sounds exciting.’

‘Tell me about mosquitoes,’ Lestrade asked.

‘Mosquitoes?’ Lucas looked up from his microscope. ‘Well, that’s a little out of my league, but I’ll do my best. The most common sort carry anopheles maculipennis, the malaria organism. The female picks it up – pick up anything, some females, won’t they? – and the parasite lives in its stomach, forming large cysts. These rupture after a while and the parasites are spewed out into the body cavity, then into the salivary glands. I say, Lestrade, are you all right? You’ve turned a rather odd shade of green.’

‘The coffee, I think’ Lestrade said. ‘A few too many nuts in mine.’

‘Ah, Egyptian tummy.’ Lucas wagged a finger. ‘We all get it first time out. Tutmoses’s Revenge, the archaeologists call it. You came across the desert, didn’t you? Damn brave. Damn brave.’

‘So the bite of the mosquito passes the malaria organism on to a person?’

‘Hey presto!’ said Lucas, fiddling with his slides. ‘Other species spread yellow fever - that’s the most common species over here, of course; Aedes Aegypti. Others – Culex Fatigans, I believe – carry elephantiasis. Come to think of it, they’re little buggers, aren’t they? If Gibbon is to be believed, they wiped out the Roman Empire, you know. Or was that emperors copulating with their sisters? Anyway, it was something like that. Oh Lor’, you’re talking about Lord C aren’t you?’

‘They say he was bitten by a mosquito.’

‘Entirely possible,’ Lucas said. ‘We all are from time to time. But he died from pneumonia.’

‘How do you know?’

‘His death certificate said so.’

‘And you have faith in that?’

‘I have faith in science,’ Lucas told him. ‘Anyway, I’ve had long chats with Johnson, the family physician. The man’s perfectly competent, I would say.’

‘And the symptoms of malaria are not those of pneumonia?’

‘Lord, no. Well, come to think of it, some of them are. Sweating, dry skin, intense headache. Nothing pulmonary, though. And of course with malaria, you get rigor and vomiting.’

‘Did Lord Carnarvon vomit?’

‘I really don’t know. I wasn’t there. Look, my dear chap, I don’t wish to be rude or anything, but I don’t think the British public wants to read this sort of sensationalism, whatever newspaper you write for.’

‘I don’t write for any newspaper,’ Lestrade said. ‘Not even the Police Gazette.’

‘Eh?’

‘I’m attached to Scotland Yard.’

‘Good Lor’. I say!’

‘Tell me, Mr Lucas, are Lord Carnarvon’s things here? In the camp, I mean?’

‘Yes, most of them, I believe. Some of course he took to Aswan with him.’

‘Do you know if his razor is here?’

‘Have a look for yourself. Howard Carter was in the process of parcelling up his personal effects and posting them to Lady C back home. Out there.’ He pointed to a large black tent some way from the others. ‘That’s Lord C’s. Help yourself. By the way, you haven’t happened upon my glasses, have you? I could have sworn I had them here a moment ago.’ Lucas was rummaging among his souvenirs.

‘On top of your head.’ Lestrade made for the exit.

‘Eh? Oh Lor’, yes. Er . . . glad you spotted that one, Lestrade. Well done. If I can be of any further assistance?’

Lestrade paused in the tent-flap. ‘If I find a cut-throat razor with the crest of a gryphon, then you most certainly can, Mr Lucas,’ he said.

Night lent an eerie silence to the Valley of the Kings. The great, bleak outcrops were black and ominous, looming over the little storm lanterns of Carter’s camp, like tiny stationary fireflies on the Valley floor. The temperature fell through the cool of the evening to the near-freezing of midnight.

Lindsley Foote Hall was in his ante-room, the hastily erected shed glowing with a livid blue light by which he sketched after dark. Lestrade wrapped his thin serge around him. His long Bedouin cloak he’d left with Mustapha and Cleopatra at Luxor. He could have done with it now. What ridiculous weather. It was never like this in Virginia Water. He rapped on Hall’s door.

‘Just a second,’ an American voice called from within. ‘I’m roughing in at the moment.’

Lestrade raised an eyebrow. He couldn’t possibly interrupt that. Then, there was a scuffling of furniture inside and the dry rattle of bolts being undone.

‘Ah, Mr Lestrade. Welcome.’

‘It’s rather late, I’m afraid,’ the ex-Chief Superintendent apologized.

‘Nah, don’t think anything of it.’ Hall ushered him into the tiny two-roomed hut. ‘It’s a bit of a squeeze, I’m afraid. Would you like some bourbon?’

‘If that remotely resembles brandy, I’d love some.’

Hall reached down a dark bottle labelled ‘Poison’ and poured them both three fingers’ worth. ‘I’ll swear I don’t know how these Moslem guys manage without the old hair o’ the dog. May you buy up all the sketches!’ He raised his glass in a toast.

‘Good digging.’ Lestrade did likewise.

‘Well, sit you down. I guess this is what you came to see.’ And Hall tossed a drawing into Lestrade’s lap.

‘Alain Le Clerk?’

‘To the life,’ Hall nodded.

Lestrade took in the topi, the paunch, the cravat. ‘He looks better here than when I saw him last.’

‘Oh? And where was that?’

‘In Cairo Mortuary.’

‘Ah. The end of the line, huh? Say, what did the autopsy reveal?’

‘The . . . er . . .?’

‘Er . . . post-mortem I guess you’d call it in England.’ ‘

I’m afraid I don’t know . . .’

‘Uh-huh.’ Hall wagged a finger at Lestrade. ‘You may be able to fool the others that you’re an archaeologist or reporter or whatever, but you’re a detective. Trust me, fella, I know. Got a brother-in-law in the FBI. Guy just can’t help himself. You buy a new canvas and he wants to know how much tax you paid on it. You go to the ballet and he asks if there were any Undesirables in the audience. It’s in the blood, I guess.’

Lestrade chuckled. ‘I guess . . . suppose it is,’ he said. ‘All right, Mr Hall, I’m attached to Scotland Yard.’

‘Yeah,’ the draughtsman nodded. ‘I’m kinda fond of it, too. Drew some pics in London last year. ’Course it rained every god- damn day. So, why your interest in Le Clerk?’

‘As I expect your brother-in-law would say, “I’ll ask the questions” if you don’t mind, Mr Hall.’

The American shrugged. ‘Well, aside from the fact that my brother-in-law doesn’t call me Mr Hall, yeah; you got that one right. OK. Fire away.’

‘When did you make that drawing?’

‘Er . . . let me see.’ Hall rolled his glass between his fingers and stared at the sketch-strewn ceiling for inspiration. ‘Last Thursday. The day he arrived at the camp. He only stayed one day.’

‘Not overnight?’

‘No.’

‘Is that usual with visitors to the tomb?’

‘It varies,’ Hall told him. ‘It depends on how they got here. How many of ’em there are. And how interested in archaeology they are.’ There was something in Hall’s tone, something in the way he pursed his lips.

‘By which you mean?’ Lestrade asked.

‘Let me show you something, Mr Lestrade.’ Hall rummaged in a sideboard drawer to his left and pulled out an object, wrapped in sacking. ‘Take a look.’

Lestrade took it. It lay heavy in his hand. He unwrapped the cloth to reveal a gold statuette of an Egyptian, his arms crossed over his breast, his eyes flashing with red stones.

‘Solid gold,’ Hall said, with more gravel in his voice than in the Valley outside the hut. ‘The stones are cornelian. That little trinket I tend to use as a paperweight. The fact is it’s three and a half thousand years old and at today’s market prices for gold, it’s worth a little over five thousand dollars. That’s about ten years’ wages for my brother-in-law in the FBI and forty years’ wages for the fellahin who found it.’

‘I don’t follow your drift, Mr Hall.’ Lestrade handed the little Pharaoh back.

‘This is a ka,’ Hall said, putting his glass down and stroking the statuette lovingly. ‘The spirit of the dead king Tut-Ankh-Amen whose grave we are now plundering. There were several others in the antechamber. You see, we’re all grave robbers, Mr Lestrade. Oh, most of the tombs in this Valley were robbed centuries ago, probably by the guys who built them. Rich Egyptians had a silly habit of parading all these goodies through the streets on the way to the burial chamber. It’s likely some dishonest priest or architect left the seals open on the stone block that covered the entrance. And – whammo! A few days later, it’s Christmas for any fellahin with a bit of get up and go. Fort Knox is only tricky because as yet no one’s been able to buy the guy with the key. And for thousands of years, people have been trying to get inside the vaults again. Just in case. In case one’s been missed. And it had. No one had found the tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen until Howard Carter did it six months ago. And when he did; when that candle lit up that solid wall of gold, the chariots, the statues, the canopic jars, man, that was some hornet’s nest!’

‘There was a hornet’s nest in the tomb?’

‘Er . . . no,’ Hall frowned. ‘I was speaking metaphorically, Mr Lestrade. My point is that we’ve got what the whole darn world wants – the treasure of the Pharaohs. We get whole charabancs out from Luxor and Karnak, even from Cairo and Alexandria, to gape at a hole in the desert. I guess about ten per cent are really interested. The other ninety have come to see what they can buy, scrounge or steal. We’ve got two newspaper guys here – Merton of The Times and Weigall of the Mail – not to mention that shithead Hanger, that PR man. It’s sorta difficult to keep a secret when you’ve got guys shouting with loudhailers from the rooftops, “Gold! Gold!” I tell ya, Mr Lestrade, it’s like California and the Forty-Niners all over again.’

‘And Mr Le Clerk?’ Lestrade said. ‘Did he come to rob the grave?’

‘Like I said, in a manner of speaking, we all have. The native Indians from my homeland believed that if the white man took their photograph, he was stealing their soul. Maybe that’s what Harry Burton’s doing by photographing Tut-Ankh-Amen and his grave goods and what I’m doing by drawing them.’

‘Did you know Le Clerk?’

‘Only by reputation.’ Hall refilled their glasses. ‘An arrogant sonofabitch by all accounts; but then, you show me an archaeologist who isn’t. Must’ve been kinda lonely out here, though.’

‘Lonely?’

‘Well,’ Hall closed to his man, ‘he had a reputation as something of a ladies’ man.’

‘Really?’ Lestrade checked Hall’s drawing again.

‘Oh, I know, he’s no Adonis. But it was rumoured he had a second family in Palermo, a third in Ankara and a fourth in Akron, Ohio. Lookee here.’ Hall dragged down a weighty tome from his shelves. He riffled through the pages. ‘There.’ He jabbed a finger down on a photograph of a carefully posed group under the Great Pyramid of Cheops. ‘Pretty girl number one.’

She was sitting apparently on Le Clerk’s knee. Lestrade couldn’t quite see where his right hand was. The other one was draped around the neck of a camel.

‘And here.’ Hall whizzed on through several erudite chapters. ‘Pretty girl number two.’ This time he was standing behind an Egyptian girl, beaming over her shoulder. Neither of his hands was visible this time. Lestrade read the caption: ‘The great French Egyptologist and friend. Gizeh 1909’.

‘Not to mention this one.’ Hall reached up for another book and expertly found the relevant page.

Lestrade peered at it. ‘Looks like a bloke,’ he said. ‘A bit effeminate, perhaps, but a bloke none the less.’

‘What?’ Hall squinted sideways, tilting his head. ‘Oh, yeah, that’s T. E. Lawrence in his Arab period. No, the other side.’

‘I can’t tell under the veil.’

‘Take it from me, she’s all woman. That’s the second youngest daughter of King Faisal – the Catherine the Great of Mesopotamia. If Le Clerk was shafting her at the time, believe me, he’d have had to have had the stamina of a mountain goat.’

‘Why are you telling me all this, Mr Hall?’ Lestrade asked.

The draughtsman leaned back, grinning broadly. ‘Because a dick from Scotland Yard doesn’t come snooping around if a guy falls off his horse. You think he was murdered, don’t you? Well, a guy with wandering hands like Alain “I’m Hung Like A Donkey” Le Clerk picks up quite a few enemies along the way – husbands, fathers, brothers; maybe even sons – I never heard he was that choosy. Any one could’ve fixed his saddle, sawed through his cinch. It’d be easy.’

‘No doubt it would,’ Lestrade finished his drink, ‘except that he didn’t die by falling off his horse.’

‘No?’

‘No. He died by poisoning.’

‘No kidding?’

Lestrade took in Hall’s open-mouthed expression. ‘Never mind, Mr Hall,’ he smiled at the doorway, the dangling drawings fluttering in the night wind, ‘however Mr Le Clerk died, someone in this camp knows more than they’re telling. Thanks for the drink. I’ll see myself out.’

The glow of dawn was already in the sky to the east as he crossed the white paths that led back to the tent he shared with Jack Holinshed. Mercifully, the man didn’t snore, but then, having spent two nights under the stars with Mustapha and his camels, Lestrade would look on every night to come as a bonus.

He really must see a doctor when he got back to Cairo, he told himself. Do something about that ringing in his ears. Come to think of it, that ringing sounded familiar. Had a ring to it, in fact. It couldn’t be, of course, but it sounded for all the world like ‘I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate’, the smash hit of 1922. It sounded even more like it as he rounded a spoil heap and saw a glow coming from a hole in the ground, yards away across the shale. Drawn to it like a magnet, Lestrade peered down the flight of uneven stone steps. There was a new concrete lintel holding up the roof above it, but there was definitely a faint light through the door at the bottom and the muffled ragtime tune seemed louder here. There was no one in sight. The small army of fellahin, engaged all day in hauling rocks and sieving sand under the merciless sun, were huddled under canvas, already pointing to the east for morn- ing prayers. Somewhere, a camp dog whined and turned over in its sleep, chasing hares under its moon of dreams. Lestrade could see Hanger’s Ford and Carter’s Oakland axle deep in the white sand. The sand that choked and burned and stung. But there were no guards. For all that Lestrade stood on the edge of the greatest find in the history of archaeology, no one challenged him; no one called ‘Who goes?’ So down he went.

The walls were white with granite dust, scarred with ancient chisels and the steps threw him inexorably to the left. It came as no surprise to anyone but Lestrade therefore when his forehead collided with the corner of the concrete lintel and he took two paces sideways before his vision cleared again. Ahead of him stretched a bleak corridor, its walls as scarred as those he’d just passed. The glowing light was brighter through an opening at the far end, and that clearly was where the scratchy tune was coming from. It was cold down here, like ice in the dead of night, before the dawn, and Lestrade moved quickly, flapping his arms to keep his circulation going. The thud of his own heart was louder than his feet on the earth floor and try though he might, he could not match the rhythm of the music.

He ducked through an open doorway and found himself in a room, perhaps twelve feet wide and twice as long. There was a small, black doorway diagonally to his left and in the centre, near to where he now stood, a single oil lamp burned on a solitary table and beside it a gramophone, its needle slowing now as the black, spinning record began to reach the end of its momentum.

But it was not these signs of life that gripped Lestrade, but the signs of death. To his right, their white eyes glowing in the oil lamp’s flicker, stood two black figures, dressed in gold. Serpents coiled on their heads and they loomed over Lestrade, their legs thrust for- ward. For a moment, as a draught caught the flame, it looked for all the world as if they were walking towards him. Then he heard a familiar click and felt a cold muzzle nuzzle his left ear.

‘One more step towards that door, Mr Lestrade,’ a husky voice said, ‘and I’ll blow your brains all over the wall.’

‘Can’t we be adult about this?’ Lestrade asked, his hands reaching for the ceiling instinctively. Time was he would have risked a lightning swing to his left, deflecting the gun and following through with a fist or his trusty brass knuckles. Now, he was the wrong side of sixty-seven – well, all right, sixty-eight – and his knuckles lay in his jacket pocket. He just didn’t have the velocity any more.

‘They don’t come much more adult than you, do they?’ the voice croaked. Lestrade felt powerful hands frisk his pockets, jacket, the trousers. Either this man was good or the ex-Chief Superintendent’s luck had changed. ‘Well, well,’ the frisker had found the knuckles, ‘oo-er.’ Lestrade heard a click. The frisker had found the secret button that flicked out the switch-blade from the brass grip.

‘All right,’ the growler said. ‘Now you turn very slowly to your left. Very slowly, mind you. Excessive speed can cause my trigger finger to tremble.’

Lestrade did what all good coppers are supposed to do – what he was told. In front of him stood a small, wiry man, in the khaki uniform of a British soldier, sergeant’s stripes on both sleeves. His shorts reached to his knees and his long socks came thickly up to them from below. Still, with the temperature down here, who could blame him? Lestrade saw his own breath curl out.

‘Can I put my hands down?’ he asked.

‘I don’t see why not,’ the Sergeant said, but he had not lowered the .38 Webley an iota. ‘You will observe a chair to your left front. Would you like to sit on it while you tell me what the bugger you’re doin’ down here?’

‘Thank you, Sergeant. . . er . . .?’

‘Actin’ Sergeant, if you must know,’ the Acting Sergeant said. ‘Actin’ Sergeant Adamson. Didn’t the buggers upstairs mention me at all?’

‘Er . . . no.’ Lestrade eased himself down. ‘Perhaps it slipped their minds.’

‘Very likely.’ Adamson eased back the revolver’s hammer. ‘On the assumption they’ve got any. Minds, that is.’ Mercifully, he pulled the stylus off the record. ‘Vodka?’

‘Why not?’ Lestrade allowed himself to relax a little.

‘There are prob’ly lots of reasons,’ Adamson holstered the gun and jerked the cork out of a bottle with uneven teeth. ‘For one, it could kill a bloke of your age. Still, we’ve all got to go some time. No, I’ll tell you why them up there didn’t mention me. It’s because they’re all bloody snobs, that’s why. That an’ the fact that I’m a Communist.’

‘A Bolshevik?’ Lestrade frowned.

‘We comrades prefer the word Communist nowadays.’ Adamson poured for both of them. ‘Bolshevik is a little par say in the world of international brinkmanship. Now that Comrade Lenin is standin’ down, we’ll see what this bloke Comrade Stalin is made of.’

‘Steel, I understood,’ Lestrade said.

‘Yeah, well, that’s a load o’ propaganda bollocks, innit? So, what’s an ex-guardian of the Imperialist bourgeoisie doin’ down ’ere?’

‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ Lestrade said. ‘I saw your light, heard your music. Couldn’t resist it, I suppose.’

‘So you’re from Scotland Yard, eh?’ Adamson’s nostrils flare as the first slug of vodka hit his tonsils. ‘Knockin’ on a bit, aintja?’

‘Ah, but I’m cheap,’ Lestrade said.

‘No, no, comrade. Nyet. Nyet. You don’t wanna sell yourself short. If you got nuffink to offer but the labour of your body and the sweat of your brow, make the bastards pay for it, mate. That’s what I say. You know my ol’ man ’elped to build that place, dontja?’ Adamson was jabbing the chill air with his finger. Surely he couldn’t mean the door of the tomb behind Lestrade? Just how mad did you have to be to watch a grave all night? ‘The Yard,’ the Acting Sergeant went on. ‘’Course, it was gonna be all wossname, wannit? An opera ’ouse. Yerse, somewhere in the rough granite of its grandiloquent grossness lies the sweat, blood and tears of my ol’ dad, Arfur Adamson. ’E ’ad a right go at you blokes on Bloody Sunday, y’know.’

‘Did he now?’ Lestrade arched an eyebrow. He remembered the day well. And he had only just lived to tell about it. ‘And where is he now? Buried in Highgate, next to Comrade Marx?’

‘No,’ Adamson frowned. ‘’E’s in the Remains of the Day ’Ome for the ’Opelessly Elderly at Stoke Newington. Still gorra mind like a bloody Gillette, of course.’

‘Of course. Tell me, Sergeant, what lies beyond that stone door?’ Lestrade jerked his thumb behind him.

‘What many men would kill for,’ Adamson told him, topping up Lestrade’s untouched vodka and pouring another for himself. ‘The tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen ’Isself. Next month, ol’ Misery Drawers up there’s gonna open it up. Only ’e’s ’ad a peek in.’

‘Haven’t you?’ Lestrade asked.

‘Nah,’ Adamson shrugged. ‘Bores me rigid, archaeology. I’m only here against the day.’

‘The day?’

‘The blessed day when we of the Lumpenproletariat, the ’Uddled Masses rise up and overthrow them bourgeois bastards upstairs. You’re not of the faith, I suppose, bein’ a copper an’ all?’

‘Liberal, I’m afraid,’ Lestrade apologized.

‘Waste of a ballot paper.’ Adamson assured him.

‘What did you make of Lord Carnarvon?’ the ex-Chief Superintendent asked.

‘Imperialist lackey,’ Adamson dismissed him. ‘But as a bloke ’e was all right. Always perfectly civil to me. ’E got me this job, as a mat- ter of fact. I was wanderin’ around Cairo tryin’ to spread the word of the Dialectic, and getting arrested and moved on all the time.’

‘No luck with the Dialectic?’

‘Wrong dialect, I suppose. Load o’ ignorant Wogs just looked at me like I was a bloody Conservative. Well, I ask ya . . .’

‘Who killed him, Mr Adamson?’ Lestrade’s eyes burned into the blank, open face of the Acting Sergeant.

‘’Oo killed ’oo?’ Adamson wanted to know.

‘Lord Carnarvon.’

‘Nah, mate, you’ve got it wrong,’ the Sergeant chuckled. ‘Act of God, was that. Not that we Communists acknowledge such an elitist and autocratic Bein’. Nah, ’e got bit by a mosquito. There’s bloody millions of ’em out ’ere. I don’t rate your chances o’ findin’ the one responsible. Not now.’

‘You’re wrong, Adamson.’ Lestrade said. ‘I’ve been sniffing around murders now, man and boy, for more years than your Comrade Lenin has had International Rallies. Carnarvon’s death is a cover-up. Why, I don’t know. But I know he didn’t die of natural causes.’

‘Well, stick a whizz bang up my arse!’ was the Sergeant’s natural rejoinder. ‘It’s old Surly Bollocks, then. ’Oward Carter.’

‘Carter?’ Lestrade sipped his vodka and felt the tips fly off his ears. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘They quarrelled,’ Adamson said. ‘I’ve ’eard ‘em. Down ’ere of a night. “Go up for a fag, Adamson”, “Stretch your legs, Acting Sergeant”, and once I’ve gone, they’re at it, ’ammer and sickle. No love lost there, believe you me.’

‘What were these rows about?’

‘I dunno. The tomb, I suppose. Marvellous, innit? Lord Acton was bloody right when ’e said “Power corrupts”. As long as Carter ‘n’ Carnarvon was findin’ bits of crocodile shit, they was mates. Couldn’t do enuff for each other. Then, when they find the big one – boom! Not so much as a kiss my arse. Yeah. You take my word for it. If somebody done in ol’ Lord C, it was ’Oward Sourpuss Carter. Carter the Martyr, I call ’im. Got more moods than a leper’s got spots, ’e ’as. I tell ya,’ and he patted his revolver butt. ‘I wouldn’t turn my back on ’im.’

‘What about Le Clerk, the Frenchman?’

‘Nah,’ Adamson shook his head, ‘’e wasn’t ’ere.’

‘No, I mean who killed him?’

‘’Im too? Bloody ’ell. Wass goin’ on? I mean, I’m a ratepayer. What are you blokes doin’ about all these murders?’

‘Carrying out my enquiries,’ Lestrade answered. ‘Do you have any theories?’

‘Well.’ Adamson pursed his lips. ‘Frog, wannee? Egyptians don’t like ’em, ’cos they ruled over the poor buggers for years, then built the Canal and buggered off. Us British don’t like ’em ’cos they was bloody useless in the Great War. Mutinyin’ at Verdun all the bloody time. An’ anyway, they’re foreign. I don’t suppose the Yanks are all that crazy about ’em eiver. So, really, it’s any bugger’s guess, ain’t it? Blimey, mate, I don’t envy you your job. Could be any one of a million blokes.’

Lestrade left his drink where it was and stood up, sighing. ‘Thank you, you’ve been very helpful. Good-night. And I wish you joy, Adamson.’

And as his footsteps echoed down the corridor that led to the steps and the night, he heard the Acting Sergeant crank up the gramophone to the strains of the Red Flag.

No one was really ready for the apparition that came out of the Eastern Desert a little after breakfast the next day. Lestrade had spent several hours in the tents of the late Lord Carnarvon, painstakingly going over the great man’s correspondence, checking his underwear for anything suspicious and so on. Bearing in mind that the late Lord had presumably taken his toiletries with him, first to Luxor, then to Aswan, then to Cairo, the ex-Chief Superintendent was a little surprised to find a monogrammed, ivory-hilted razor among the Earl’s effects. Drawing a blank elsewhere, he passed it to Alfred Lucas, with specific instructions to check every nook and cranny of the thing.

Lestrade was just crossing back to the breakfast room when three lorries lurched into the camp, belching sand in all directions. A large man raised his broad-brimmed white fedora to all and sundry. The long-suffering fellahin were used to tourists. The ones who came up-country were not the generous ones of Cairo and Alexandria and Karnak. They kept their hands firmly in their pockets. And anyway, had not Carter Pasha threatened the sack to any fellah asking for baksheesh?

‘Hey, buddy,’ the big man called, thudding off the lorry’s running board. ‘Would you be Howard Carter, by any chance?’

‘Well, I’d need quite a bit of persuading,’ Lestrade said. ‘I think you’ll find him having breakfast. Over there.’

‘Gee, buddy.’ The newcomer removed the biggest Havana Lestrade had ever seen from between his lips. Its ash trembled down his immense white waistcoat. ‘Is that a tomb?’

‘I believe so.’

‘Ah, so you’re an archaeologist too, huh? Say,’ he grabbed Lestrade’s arm, ‘is that the tomb? The resting place of King Tut? Oh, boy, just wait ’til I tell Mildred about this. She wanted to come, you know. But I knew she wouldn’t cope with the heat an’ all. Man, next to this, downtown Dallas is cool. Oh, I’m Aaron G. String the Third, by the way.’ He shook Lestrade’s hand warmly. ‘Glad to have yuh know me, Mr . . . er . . .?’

‘Lestrade. Sholto J. Lestrade – the first, I suspect.’

‘Ah,’ String patted Lestrade’s shallow cheek. ‘You ain’t just whistling Dixie, bub. Ah jest love that cosy accent. See yuh around, Sholto.’

Lestrade had the perfect opportunity to skip breakfast, especially if it meant he had to fight for elbow room with the big Texan. However, he was on the trail of a murderer and men could let things slip at breakfast that they might not when fully awake and on their guard.

‘Yessiree,’ String assured the team several times over his ham and eggs, carried in special airtight containers on his back-up truck. ‘Railways is the name o’ the game. Goddam, Howie, ah could build yuh one right here. Man, yuh could clean up tourist-wise. Waddya say?’

Carter scowled at his new and uninvited guest. ‘I say I have a lot of work to do. Please keep your fellahin away from the workings, Mr String. This is a dangerous place.’

‘Oh, sure, sure. Say, who’s in charge of publicity around here?’

‘Er . . . that’s me,’ Hanger said.

‘Er . . . Cliff, ain’t it?’ Hanger nodded. ‘Right. Right. OK, Cliff, let’s get some pictures with Lindsley here. Harry, boy, you’re the photographer, right? Go get your camera, fella. I’ll watch the birdie.’ He squeezed his fellow American to him. ‘Y’know, fer a Yankee, you’re a good ol’ boy.’

‘Thanks,’ Hall grimaced. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology had not prepared him for his fellow countrymen like this – whirlwinds in white suits.

‘Say, you got a guy from the Dallas Mouthpiece here? Only, I figure the folks back home’d drop down dead to see this place!’

The next visitor was all the more anonymous, slipping into camp as the deadly sun sank over the silent guardians of the Valley.

‘I am told you are from Scotland Yard,’ he said, pulling up a canvas chair alongside Lestrade’s. The ex-Chief Superintendent looked at the man by the light of the crackling camp fire. He was thirty or so, with a shock of black hair and dark eyes. He could easily have passed for an Egyptian, but his accent told Lestrade that he was French.

‘I am Emil Lamartine,’ he said, flashing a warrant card. ‘Of ze Sûreté.’

‘Sholto Lestrade,’ Lestrade said.

‘And I am no relation, if you are wondering.’

‘Relation?’

‘To ze great French poet of ze same name.’

Lestrade didn’t know any French poets, called Emil or anything else for that matter. ‘I see,’ he said.

‘I am ’ere to investigate ze death of ze late, great Aegyptologiste, Monsieur le Clerk.’

‘So am I,’ said Lestrade.

‘But ’e was a Frenchman,’ Lamartine pointed out, flipping away his warrant card. ‘You ‘ave no jurisdiction out ’ere. It is a matter for ze Consulat Français.’

‘It is a matter for whoever was on the scene first. That was me.’

‘I see. I see. Well, perhaps we can . . . er . . , ’ow you say, work togezzer, huh?’

‘Perhaps,’ Lestrade nodded.

‘Well, what do you know?’

‘The square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides.’

The Frenchman looked blank, then sat bolt upright. ‘Monsieur Le Strade. Your name, it is a legend at the Sûreté.’

‘It is?’

‘To ze detectives of my grandfather’s generation, oui. But times ’ave changed. I expected better from your ’ands. ’Ave you never ’eard of the Entente Cordiale?’

‘I have,’ Lestrade assured him, ‘and I don’t care for it very much. Rather sickly, I find.’

‘Well zen,’ Lamartine tried a new tack, ‘as one professional to anozzer, will you not ’elp me? I ’ave been sent out ’ere by my Consulate. Zis . . .’ his dark eyes faltered. ‘If you must know, zis is my first murder case.’

‘Is it?’ Lestrade blew smoke rings to the lapis lazuli of the sky. He couldn’t remember the details of his first case. But he remembered that he’d vomited at the sight of the corpse. And he remembered something else. How lonely he’d felt. Uniformed constables. Relatives of the deceased, in deepest mourning. Donegalled superiors at the Yard. They all had one thing in common. They were looking at him – at him for the answers. And at the time, he didn’t have any. ‘Well, well,’ he smiled. ‘All right. What little I know, you can have. But not here. There is a saying in my country, Mr Lamartine, that walls have ears.’

‘Ah, oui, I know it.’

‘Well, in this country, you don’t need walls. Spoil heaps, oil lamps, even grains of sand listen in to conversations.’

There was a guffaw of laughter from Lindsley Foote Hall’s tent, where Aaron G. String was entertaining; or at least, he thought he was.