I was regarding the sleuth with knitted brows. "You mean, your brother anticipated Chu San Fu's trip to Venice?"
"Not at all, but Mycroft has been captivated with the idea of something in Egypt being at the bottom of the Mid East unrest. He knew of Howard Andrade's work on the secret writings of the pharaohs, and very reasonably put two and two together."
"Holmes, you'll have to be more specific than that."
"Then I must blend fact with conjecture," he replied, his hands clasped behind him as he strode the length of the room and back again. "The ominous meetings of Moslem leaders being fact. As to what has stirred the Mid East cauldron, we must look for some new element, some occurrence out of the ordinary that has brought these various factions together at this specific time. If the catalyst is in Egypt, conjecture leads us to Andrade. If he has decoded the secret writings, that is certainly new and could lead to additional breakthroughs in the unraveling of the history of the ancient civilization. Remember, Watson, it was but in 1822 that the Frenchman, Champollion, using the Rosetta stone as his key, cracked the hieroglyphics. Since Egypt's history was recorded in stone and preserved by the unique dry climate, Champollion's discovery allowed modern scholars to learn more about life in ancient Egypt than we know of our own original Saxons. The Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799, but it took almost a quarter of a century before that black lump of basalt fulfilled its destiny."
I realized that I was shaking my head. "I'm a little vague on that, Holmes. As I recall from school days, there were some fourteen lines of hieroglyphics and fifty or so lines of Greek based on them. Since the Greek message was a translation of the ancient carvings, what took so long?"
"Actually, the message was in three forms, Watson. It included thirty-two lines of common demotic script, but that's not important. The difficulty in decoding the hieroglyphics lay in the fact that some of the signs are alphabetic, some phonetic, while others simply represent ideas. Trying to translate ideas is a bit of a problem, is it not? Lot of guesswork involved."
"Now about those secret writings, can we not assume that they were composed in part or whole by the rulers themselves, privy because of their position and authority to the as-yet-unrevealed secrets of the land of the Nile? The Rosetta Stone recorded a decree by priests of Memphis praising the pharaoh Ptolemy Fifth some two hundred years before Christ. Little of importance there. But what if one of the golden tablets, as yet undeciphered, dates back three thousand years before Christ and contains the secret of the Khufu pyramid?"
"What secret?" I said instinctively. "King Khufu, or Cheops in Greek, built the great pyramid, ol' chap. It's size alone is staggering, but its orientation is truly amazing. The mass of stone covers thirteen acres, and its sides run almost exactly to the cardinal compass points. Its deviation from true north is but five arc minutes. Such an alignment could not happen simply by chance. Do you know the shadow it casts can be used as a calendar, and an accurate one at that?"
Holmes's eyes were burning as he spoke, and it took no genius to realize that he was, for the moment, caught up in the myriad of unanswered questions of ancient Egypt. I mentally chided myself for a clod. What more reasonable that the solver of mysteries would be captivated by the greatest puzzle in the history of mankind! My own poor brain was dazzled by the thought of a civilization, predating ours by five thousand years, that could construct edifices so colossal as to defy the skills of our mechanical age! The light faded from Holmes's eyes to be replaced by the cold, analytic look that grounded his flight into the mysterious fantasies conjured up by the pharaohs of so long ago.
"But come, Watson, our duties are of a more practical nature. Either Andrade has cracked the carvings of the ruling class or he has not, and we'd best find out. Wakefield Orloff has arranged an appointment with the hieroglyphics expert, who lives but a short distance away."
Outside the hotel Holmes secured a gondola for us, which I regarded with some trepidation. The waters of the Grand Canal were as smooth as glass, and my erratic stomach was of no concern. However, the thirty-two-foot craft leaned to the left, by design of course, and being only five foot in width it did not appear seaworthy to me. However, similar vessels studded the waters of the canal, and I overcame my reservations and gingerly gained a seat as Holmes directed the gondolier, who promptly put us in motion with his single oar.
The small craft had a unique rhythm, not unpleasant, and I actually began to enjoy our journey, though convinced that this type of conveyance would never replace the dependable hansom. There was considerable traffic, but our oarsman was skillful. Holmes pointed out some truly striking mansions on the Riva del Vin, and then I spied the Rialto Bridge. It was an imposing stone span over the Canal that inspired a sinking feeling within me as we made for it.
"I say, Holmes, that bridge has shops on it."
"Two rows, old fellow, and well trafficked."
"But the thing's overloaded! It will collapse on us."
"Rest easy, Watson. It does seem a bit inelegant, but gondolas like ours have been sailing under it safely since 1591."
This silenced me and reassured me as well. Shortly after passing under the Rialto Bridge, we abandoned the Grand Canal for the San Canciano, on which the Egyptologist lived. This being a much smaller canal, there were frequent stone footbridges that curved overhead as we moved down its still waters. The houses on both sides were private dwellings of varied heights and designs though universally constructed of stone.
Our destination proved to be of two stories with its main entrance on the Rio di San Canciano and one side facing a tributary canal. There was no porch or float and, of course, no sidewalks. One simply rowed to the front door and stepped into a small vestibule. At the corner of the house was a bow window overhanging the quiet waters of the canal and sufficiently different from the general architecture to catch my eye. Some thoughtful builder had conceived of a view of both the canals the house faced on, and a pleasant sight of an evening it must provide.
Holmes instructed our gondolier to await our return and knocked on the impressive door. I noted that the adjacent house had ivy growing on its outer surface, which was dotted with small stone balconies from which tendrils of vines dangled, providing a pleasing, slightly bohemian look. Everywhere there were curved arches, stone overhangs, and the general appearance of well-tended, though ancient, construction. Many of the buildings must have been at least three hundred years old, I thought, perhaps older. They had to take good care of the stonework, for Holmes had mentioned that seasonal high tides sometimes raised the level of the water to the first story. Doors must be jolly well tight set, I thought as the one in front of us opened. I did not know what I expected to find on the other side, possibly a servant or the Egyptologist we wished to contact, but here was a familiar and welcome face: the straight nose, the small, military moustache, and the moon-shaped visage of the portly and deadly Wakefield Orloff. Those fathomless green eyes defrosted with an alien warmth as they flitted over us and, by habit, checked our backtrail. Then the security agent stepped to one side, indicating for us to enter. We were constantly meeting, usually in unusual places, and greetings were superfluous. Ever since the matter of the Louvre robbery so brilliantly handled by Holmes, Orloff had been ranked as an associate, and I was always grateful for his presence, which carried with it an insurance value as sound as the pound sterling.
"Gentlemen," said Orloff, in his low, mild voice, "this is Howard Andrade."