"No receiver would touch the tablets because of the platinum content?"
"I think they misled Hublein there. The man was not a trained criminal but merely a mimic. A fence could have had the tablets melted down and then separated the gold and platinum. I think the robbery was just a little too hot, and it scared them off."
Not long thereafter we returned to the Bristol Kempinski, leaving a delighted von Shalloway in Alexanderplatz. The police chief with his unresolved cases solved and the matter of Hublein cleared up as well was much inclined towards hosting a victory dinner, but Holmes begged off, I regret to say. He stated that duties beckoned, and von Shalloway was too acute to inquire as to their nature.
Back at the hotel, Holmes indulged in one of his disappearing acts. I suspect that he beat a hasty path to the British Embassy and made use of the diplomatic wire to contact his brother in London. What other messages he may have sent or received I do not know. On his return we packed, which was not time consuming since we were traveling light.
Now Holmes was intent on reaching Egypt. I mentioned, somewhat snidely perhaps, that I hoped the freighter carrying the relic stolen from the Spaulding mansion had not altered its plan of sailing and beaten us to Alexandria. Holmes, as usual, had an answer.
"The Hishouri Kamu was missing two stokers just before they weighed anchor, Watson. They were forced to sign on two new crew members: Burlington Bertie and Tiny. The freighter is on schedule and will not reach Egypt for some days."
So, Holmes, had planted his men on the cargo ship to keep an eye open. I had thought him somewhat casual about the Sacred Sword to which he attached so much importance.
I suggested that we augment our limited wardrobe at one of the fashionable Berlin shops, but there was no time for that. Holmes booked us by rail to Constanza, Romania. The train trip was dull, but there was a surprise when we arrived at the port on the Black Sea. A carriage took us to the waterfront, where we boarded a destroyer of Her Majesty's Navy, a means of transportation provided without a doubt by Mycroft Holmes. Wasting no time, the needle-thin craft traversed the Black Sea to the Dardanelles, and soon we were pitching and tossing in the Mediterranean.
I shall draw the curtain of charity over this trip. Suffice to say that I was pale, wan, and frightfully sick throughout. Holmes did his best, I must say, staying with me in the little cabin in the officers' quarters that we shared. In an effort to distract me from my misery, he did speak in unusual detail about the matter that we were involved in, opening up a new line of thought completely.
"You know, good fellow, ancient Egypt was a literate society completely capable of leaving a clear history, and after Champollion deciphered the Rosetta stone, it was reasonable to expect answers to age-old mysteries. But such was not the case."
"You feel the golden tablets might unlock hidden doors?" I asked, and then made myself available of the tin basin that Holmes had in readiness.
"Or I may be in fear of it. We are very vague on how they built the pyramids, you know, and have no idea of why they are aligned with the four compass points. Or why the Sphinx and the Colossi of Memmon both face east, parallel, by the way, with the axis of the great Amon-Ra temple at Karnak."
"Simple, Holmes," I sputtered, wiping my face and mouth with a wet towel. "The rising sun. They did worship the sun along with other deities."
"I'll accept that," he said. "But consider that other ancient structures, seemingly impossible to build in a non-mechanical age, are also lined up to risings and settings of the sun and moon. I refer to Stonehenge and the Mayan temples in Yucatan, to name but two."
"Good heavens, do you suspect some cosmic significance, some secret power?" I never got an answer to that, for I became deathly sick again and lost all interest in the subject.
Chapter Thirteen
Back Alleys of Cairo
"Of course," said Colonel Gray, "all of the seven wonders of the ancient world were constructed B.C., for the Greeks listed them in the second century before Christ. All gone now save the oldest and the largest." His right hand, which had been fanning him with his hat, gestured westward towards the Nile. "The pyramids of Giza remain as the sole survivors. Built two thousand years before Nebuchadnezzar conceived the hanging gardens. Infinitely old when the bronze fragments of the toppled Colossus of Rhodes were carted away by a junk dealer."
The skin on the colonel's hands and arms was ebony dark, but his face was the color of new brick. He took a sip of gin and lime and continued in his drawling, somewhat bored, voice.
"And, Doctor, when we are gone and when England is gone, they'll still be there. I'll take you to see them tomorrow if you wish. No trip at all. Over the Nile bridge and you're practically there."
I shrugged, disinclined to be definite about anything at the moment. When we had arrived in Alexandria, it was immediately apparent that Holmes had been burning up the cables and that there were definite plans afoot. He had placed me in the hands of Colonel Gray for safekeeping to Cairo whilst he involved himself in who-knows-what in the port of Alexandria and, possibly, that of Rosetta as well. The Colonel was obviously an old Egyptian hand, though what his exact duties were in the protectorate was not made clear to me. He got me to Shepheard's Hotel, which was all I cared about. That sedate establishment, center of British society in Cairo, was welcome indeed, and I'm sure some color came back to my face at the mere sight of it.
We were seated on the veranda acceding to a hallowed custom of the area known as the "sunset drink." Gray, a fountain of general knowledge, regaled me with stories of Richard Lepsius's German expedition in '43, his excavations at the Sphinx, which had led to mention of the adjacent pyramids.
Frankly, I was rather surfeited with discussions of the wonders of this ancient land and sought to divert the conversation to more modern and informative channels.
"Colonel, aren't there an unusual number of military in the area?"
For a moment his eyes registered surprise over the rim of his glass. Then he grunted. Colonel Gray commanded a large variety of grunts, all uninformative.
"Has there been local trouble?" I persisted.
"Nothing on the surface," he finally said cautiously.
"A feeling, then? Understand you chaps can sense that sort of thing."
He agreed with this and set about to prove that I was right.
"Egypt has closer ties with the Orient than with Europe, you know. Orientals are, underneath, a frightfully superstitious lot. Then, one of those religious revival periods is overdue among the Moslems. The native town seems to have the wind up over some prophecy or rumor. Probably the latter."
Since he seemed disposed to drop the matter, I prodded him.
"Not something like that Mahdi business?"
"Heavens, no! A wild tale, no doubt. Something about a prophet from the grave. A squib appeared in the Al-Ahram—"
He registered on my puzzled expression.
"—Our leading paper. Unusual for them to comment on the gossip of the mosques and bazaars, but. . . ."
Colonel Gray's glass made contact with the table between us. "Care for another?" he asked tentatively.
"Thank you, no. Look here, awfully grateful for your acting as guide and whatnot, but I rather imagine I am an inconvenience. I'll have dinner here at the hotel and fancy a good long sleep."
"Mr. Holmes did express concern about your condition," said Gray. I sensed he was glad for the opportunity to unload me.
"I'll drop by, come morning, and see if Mr. Holmes has showed up," he said, shaking my hand perfunctorily. This idea produced another of his grunts, and he delayed his departure.