The sheik contributed some information. "The men you have captured, they are from Kurna." He spat expressively on the rock. "The place of the grave robbers, which is close by to the south and east."
"I see," said Holmes. Then his attention shifted back to Gray. "Colonel, have your men keep close watch on the prisoners, for we can't have any escape."
"My men will gladly assist," said the sheik with a grim smile. "They have no love for the thieves of Kurna."
Holmes accepted this. "Then what is to be seen here shall be viewed by just the four of us," he said. "If you can secure torches, Colonel, we have some exploring to do."
It was shortly thereafter that we left the temporary camp set up by the Sutherland-Argyle and their unusual allies, the sheik's band. At Holmes's request, Colonel Gray, who was familiar with the valley, led us towards the tomb of Rameses Sixth which, according to the cipher of the Italian Puzza, was our marker in this strange rocky fastness.
What Holmes sought he found close to the entrance to the tomb of the Sixth Rameses. It was a narrow opening in the valley floor a short distance away, shielded by a low mound of rock that concealed it from the passing eye. It was certainly unprepossessing, but there was a stone step, unmistakably, and below it another. Holmes ignited one of the torches Gray had brought, descended a short distance, and then turned back towards the three of us with a strange look on his face.
"Sixteen steps downward I make it, right through solid rock. Now we shall learn what it is the Chinaman found."
He turned again towards the tomb, and we eagerly followed in his footsteps.
The sunken stairway descended steeply, I estimated at a forty-five-degree angle. At the bottom there had been a doorway, that was evident, but it had been removed, and the torchlight revealed a passageway that slanted downward without steps.
We pressed down the passage and progressed about thirty feet when we found ourselves face to face with a door of stone blocks festooned by seals that, as Gray explained, were proof that the tomb had not been violated by plunderers. This remark promoted amazement within Holmes.
"Do you say that this doorway has not been opened?"
Colonel Gray shrugged. "I'm no Egyptologist, sir, but from the seals and the way the stones fit, I would think that it has been this way for thousands of years."
In the light of the torches, it was obvious that the sleuth was thinking intently.
"He came this far and no further. Not one unplundered tomb has been found in all of Egypt, and the Chinaman got this far and then stopped. I fear that tears it as far as my theory is concerned."
Holmes was speaking as though to himself, and it was the sheik who broke in on his thoughts.
"What did you expect to find?"
"That the Chinaman, for obviously this archeological treasure was uncovered at his instigation, had opened this crypt untouched throughout the ages and found one or more of the golden tablets."
The desert chieftain's bearded face was expressive, and it was plain to see that Holmes's words struck no responsive chord with him.
"Actually," admitted the sleuth, "faced with the cold light of fact, my theory seems a bit far-fetched. And incorrect, if we are to believe Colonel Gray here. Therefore, let us backtrack, gentlemen. If Chu San Fu did not open the tomb, I see no reason why we should, and many reasons why we should not."
I confess it was with a sense of disappointment that I followed my friend back up the strange corridor hewn from solid rock and mounted the sixteen ageless steps towards the desert night sky. What secrets lay beyond that doorway that led to the past? Something about that thought had a familiar ring, but other plans were brewing, and my attention was distracted.
As we stood on the valley floor at the entrance to one tomb and surrounded by a multitude of others, Holmes was sunk in thought and seemed despondent. The sheik expressed a reasonable question, "What would you have us do?" at the same time that Colonel Gray inquired, "What now?"
Their simultaneous and same question drew a half-smile from Holmes and shook him from his mood of the moment.
"We are holding the tiger's tail, gentlemen. For the good of the Empire, it would be better if this tomb had not been found. What I would like to do is push back time and have it remain undiscovered. At least, until the present crisis is past."
I was incapable of following Holmes's reasoning, but the sheik found nothing unusual in his words.
"It can be done. Colonel Gray's British troops can seal off the valley using the excuse of military maneuvers. The Egyptians hired to guard the place can be pressed into service to refill the passageway and stairs, and in a short while the entrance will be no more. A simple job in this place where there has been so much excavation."
"What of the workers?" I asked, and then regretted it. For expediency I might better have not touched on the subject.
The sheik's wise smile served as a reminder that this was another part of the world to me, with customs and habits that I could never completely understand.
"My men and I will leave for the south and the campfires of our home. If we take others with us, it will not be the first time, and their lot will be no worse than it is now."
His words were reasonable and reassuring, but I sensed considerable elasticity in them as regards what would actually happen. However, Holmes did not seem disposed to inquire further, and I decided not to, either.
Our journey into the Valley of the Kings had been a bizarre affair, fraught, as it proved, with danger and complications, but its resolution was simple enough.
The following day, Holmes and I went with the Scottish soldiers and Gray to the entrance of the valley and, leaving the Colonel with the men, made our way back to Luxor. Prior to our departure, the sheik and Holmes had a private conversation that I would have given much to have been in on. The connection between the desert chieftain and the great detective puzzled me no end. Actually, I tried to lead conversations round to this matter on a number of occasions but got nowhere and remained ignorant of the situation until '96, when the reconquest of the Sudan began under Kitchener.
Holmes's mood of thoughtfulness, induced by the regrouping of facts, was supplanted by an air of impatience and activity. We wasted no time returning to the Nile and crossing it, where he made fast tracks for the Luxor army headquarters to dispatch cables. Then we gathered our belongings to return to Cairo. Gray was to follow on a later train.
En route, Holmes explained that he had persuaded the military to hasten orders for the Sutherland-Argyles' departure to India, and I could understand his concern regarding this. He wanted the troopers that had accompanied us on a transport before they could wander round Luxor and mention their singular engagement in a strange valley and its unusual conclusion. That Holmes wished all knowledge of the unknown tomb suppressed completely was most apparent, though his concern regarding this eluded me. Through the years he and I had played games regarding the progress of a case, and I must admit that he kept me on my toes with his varied moods and moments of loquacity followed by taciturn periods when he was so sunk in thought that he could barely summon a "good morning" and at times could not or would not do that. However, there is a limit to one's patience, and on the train back to the Egyptian capital, I determined to wrestle some sense from him regarding recent events and his apparent change of ideas. Much to my surprise, I found him not averse to discussing the case.
"After due consideration, good fellow, I must chide myself for being overly dramatic. This ancient land and its history is a never-ending mystery. But let us pass over that, for it has to be facts that are our sure tools. We know that Chu San Fu is a deep-seated rascal and a raving megalomaniac as well. Not an inappropriate mental state for a would-be empire-builder, I might add." This statement was accompanied by a thin smile. "He has caused a groundswell that has passed through the Mohammedan areas and will evidently reach its crest in Cairo at a meeting of the leaders of this widespread religion. Now the Chinaman cannot pass himself off as a true-blue follower of the prophet, for Mohammedanism has made no inroads in the Far East. Therefore he has some other scheme in mind, for it is his own aggrandizement that he is planning. Of that we can be sure. You recall that the hieroglyphics and the secret writings as well are recondite inasmuch as they reproduce visually not only words but ideas. The golden tablets matter has distracted me no end for they are, as of now, the only exhibits of the secret writings in any detail."