Golden Heart (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles) (19 page)

Silver Tomb

Chapter One

In which our hero is unperturbed by the sound of an exploding horse

As the wailing of the muezzins from their minarets carried across the rooftops of the city calling all Mohammedans to Asr—the third of the five daily prayers—the heat of the day had barely relented. In his room on the third floor of Shepheard’s Hotel, Lazarus Longman listened to the sounds of the Cairo afternoon while he dragged a straight razor across his cheeks and neck, scraping off a mixture of sweat, black bristles and Vinolia Shaving Soap. He carefully avoided the bristles on his top lip, leaving his very neat and very English looking moustache untouched.

He halted as the sound of the explosion echoed down the street below his window and up the walls of the buildings, sending a startled flock of hooded crows flapping and cawing from the roof of a nearby mosque. He held the straight razor frozen an inch from his cheek during the stunned silence that followed the deafening roar, and when the cries of alarm quickly filled the vacuum, he resumed shaving, as uninterested in the racket as he was unsurprised.

He had seen the fools trying to get the iron horse in motion on his way back to the hotel that afternoon. Several fellahs had put it into service pulling a cartload of dates. No matter how backward, every country on the globe was trying to imitate the technological leaps and bounds that had been reported and remarked upon in the Confederate and United States of America; a land Lazarus had spent a good deal of time in over the past year. It was true that the streets of American cities were stalked by the iron hooves of steam-powered beasts of burden. Cabs were drawn by remarkable metal contraptions on four legs, belching steam and clanking along with the stuttering and jarring one might expect from a stiff corpse brought back from the dead.

But these were mere pedestrian toys in comparison to the terrifying war machines that continent had dreamed up and put into action in its twenty-five-year-long war. And the countries outside its borders, try as they might, would never even perfect a mechanical donkey without access to the valuable ore known as mechanite which seemed to be unique to the North American continent.

That didn’t stop the construction of damn-fool contraptions like the one that had just exploded near Shepheard’s Hotel. In the absence of mechanite, the idiots had over-fuelled the coal furnace and let the steam build up to an irresponsible level, resulting in the inevitable explosion. Lazarus had seen this and had tried to warn them, but the fellahs in charge of the contraption had taken his protest as yet another English interference in the Egyptian’s natural drive for advancement, and had shouted him away. The contraption was a sorry, slapdash affair that would likely have come apart at the rivets before long anyway. They had even put a daft eared-head on the thing that looked like an ironmonger had tried to make a hobby horse for a pantomime.

After his warning had been ignored and he had been rudely ushered on his way, Lazarus had shrugged his shoulders and gone up to the hotel to dress for dinner. He didn’t allow his sense of satisfaction at the sound of the mechanical horse exploding draw a smile on his lips. It was bloody dangerous to let simple farmers tinker around with coal furnaces and steam. He didn’t doubt that more than one of the fellahs had been scalded in the incident.

He finished shaving and wiped away the residue with a cloth before fixing a collar to his shirt. He went over to the armchair where the morning edition of the
Egyptian Gazette
lay; one of dozens of newspapers printed to cater to the country’s large English-speaking population.

He picked it up and rifled through it for the second time that afternoon. There was a report on the continuing investigation into the murder of a renowned Egyptologist whose body had been found scorched and mutilated down at the Bulaq docks. But the main story was the approaching visit of the
CSS Scorpion II
; the gigantic Confederate airship that, stripped of its guns, was crossing the Atlantic and making its way for Cairo on what was, for all Lazarus could gather, a mere show of might.

He scanned the article once more with distaste. The interest of the Confederate States in Egypt and the Suez Canal was worrying. Officially Britain and the C.S.A. were allies, but this landing of the airship in Cairo had the Khedive dancing with glee at the prospect of his British overlord’s humiliation. The inevitable overshadowing of their technological and military might by their American cousins, as well as the promise of further foreign investment in his country’s fledgling economy would be pleasing to him indeed. The British had held Egypt in a vice of colonialism, however unofficially, ever since they had helped him wrangle the Khedivate back from the nationalist faction of the army, and had since showed no signs of loosening their grip.

Now that Her Majesty’s empire had its hand in the running of Egypt’s economy, it would not take kindly to any American interference in its domination of the trade routes with India. Egypt was not officially part of the empire, but Britain had a financial investment in the improving economy of the country, and had appointed Evelyn Baring, the first Earl of Cromer, as their liaison with the new Khedive.

But allies or not, Lazarus Longman hated the Confederacy with a passion. It had been a gift of fortune that he had escaped from that blasted collection of states with his life, and nothing short of a miracle that he still had a job within the bureau after the debacle of the golden cities of Cibola. But he had bluffed his way through the endless debriefings, bending the truth at times and outright lying at others, and somehow had come out of it unscathed. Now, a year later, he had a different assignment.

Morton had explained the situation to him in his office at Whitehall. He had poured cognac from a decanter into two glasses, muttering irritably as he splashed a fleck on a nearby stack of paperwork.

“It’s a missing person’s job,” Morton said, easing himself down into his chair.

“A bit pedestrian for your office, isn’t it?” Lazarus asked. “Why not let the police handle it?”

“It’s in Egypt.”

“Then why not let the Egyptian police handle it? The consul has his own special branch there, yes?”

“The Mamur Zapt? Yes, well, it’s a little more complicated than that. And I want you specifically to handle it. The case is made for you, or so it seems.”

“Oh?”

“You know the party involved, you see.”

“Has somebody I know gone missing? I really must keep a closer eye on my acquaintances.”

“It’s not the missing one you know, but her fiancé.”

“Who?”

“Henry Thackeray.”

“That pompous arse? Why on earth would I care about his love life, much as it surprises me that he has one.”

Morton leveled his eyes at him. “You are not required to
care
about any case beyond your sense of duty to Her Majesty.”

“Oh, well played, that, man,” Lazarus said in a withering tone. “The old ‘duty to the crown’ card. It’s been at least a year since you used that one on me.”

Morton sighed and set down his glass, leaning forward as if the conversation required a more intimate touch. “Look, I know the past few years have been a bloody bad show for you, Longman. I don’t blame you if your confidence in the bureau has been shaken. First that bad business in Colombia and then the Cibola washout; it’s been a rotten spot of luck. But this affair should be simple enough. A quick job to get you back on your feet, as it were. And your acquaintance with Thackeray isn’t the only reason I chose you for the job.”

“No? You mean you’re handing me this routine plod case because you don’t trust me with anything bigger?”

“Not at all. It’s Egypt, man! Your area of expertise.”

“I have many areas of expertise. Got the diplomas to prove it.”

“Among which Egyptology ranks in the first class.”

“Tell me, Morton,” Lazarus said, “does this missing persons case call much for the reading of hieroglyphics? The ability to place every known pharaoh in his correct dynasty?”

Morton frowned. “Of course not. But you know Cairo. You know the Nile. You probably know every seedy tavern and shady spot better than I dare to guess. And that is what makes you our prime candidate for the job.”

“You still haven’t said what the job is other than it has something to do with some blower Thackeray has misplaced.”

“It’s not some blower. Its Eleanor Rousseau, one of France’s leading Egyptologists.”

Morton had Lazarus’s attention now. “I’ve heard of her. She was one of Mariette’s brightest disciples. Knows hieroglyphics better than Champollion did. Thackeray was running around with her?”

“Until she went missing. Ordinarily we wouldn’t care a fig for a French Egyptologist but it’s her relationship with Thackeray that has us worried not to mention the reasons for her sudden disappearing act. He shouldn’t have been running around with a French woman, not a man in his position, considering Britain’s relationship with France.”

“Yes, I hear he’s been appointed to the House of Lords.”

“Indeed. And his relationship with a French woman was strongly discouraged by the PM and kept hidden from Her Majesty.”

“Why on earth did they give him a seat?”

“Lord knows. He’s a powerful man and has the type of connections that makes a lowly civil servant like me positively green.”

Lazarus smirked. Morton was anything but a ‘lowly civil servant’ and had connections of his own that were enough to give any man a case of the willies. But still, since Henry Thackeray had come into his inheritance he was a force to be reckoned with in political circles.

“Whitehall’s worried that this French slip of his knows far too much and her disappearance has them in a funk. There are even concerns that she may have maintained a relationship with Thackeray merely to get information from him.”

“You mean they think she’s a spy?”

“That’s one concern.”

“An Egyptologist? Funny sort of training for a career as a secret agent…” and then he caught himself. His own career matched that statement exactly and they both knew it. “So, what’s the Egyptian connection?”

“That’s where she’s resurfaced.”

“If you know where she is then why am I here?”

“We don’t know exactly where in Egypt she is. Her name has come up in Cairo a couple of times and then nothing. It’s likely she’s out on some dig in the desert. I don’t suppose that during your travels in the C.S.A. you ever came across the name Rutherford Lindholm?”

Lazarus shook his head.

“He’s an American. From Virginia. A brilliant scientist in the areas of neurology, galvanism and something called ‘bio-mechanics’.”

As soon as he heard the word Lazarus felt a deep feeling of unease. “Bio-mechanics?”

“Yes. It’s all to do with those ghastly mechanical slaves they build over there. The fusion of the biological with the mechanical. You yourself encountered some of his creations during your time on that continent.”

Lazarus suppressed a shudder when he thought of the Mecha-warriors, Mecha-whores and other monstrosities he had witnessed in the Confederate States. He also thought of Hok’ee, or Pahanatuuwa to use his birth name; that gigantic native who had suffered horrific mutilations at the hands of Confederate scientists in their pursuit to perfect a warrior—part man, part machine.

“Professor Lindholm was one of the pioneers of the mechanite revolution, specifically in the creation of mechanical-men. They have organic pilots, you know of course, plugged into steam-powered suits with mechanite furnaces. Bloody unchristian, if you ask me.”

“So what does this Lindholm have to do with Eleanor Rousseau?”

“I’m getting to that. It seems that Lindholm has run into difficulties in his homeland. Some sort of legal bother. He’s gone rogue, fleeing America and popping up suddenly in Egypt.”

“Where he met Rousseau.”

“Exactly.”

“But why?”

“That’s what we want you to find out. Now the C.S.A. are our friends, politically speaking, so ordinarily we wouldn’t touch him. But if he’s gone rogue…”

“Then we can grab him and squeeze him for secrets. I just don’t see the Rousseau connection.”

“Neither do we, but they’ve been seen together and she has written to her fiancé—ex- fiancé, I should imagine by now—that she was embarking on a dig with an eminent American scientist, although she didn’t mention his name. We don’t know what his interest in Egyptology is, and quite frankly the whole business has us stumped. Shortly after Rousseau’s letter to Thackeray, all correspondence stopped. He even went over there to find her, but all traces of her have vanished. He’s worried that she may be romantically involved with Lindholm.”

Lazarus snorted with mirth.

“The poor bugger’s frantic. Reuniting the two isn’t in our interests of course, but bringing her back to Blighty is top priority. National safety aside, it could avoid a very nasty scandal. House of Lords member bedding a French spy, that sort of thing. And the more you find out about this Lindholm, the better. It’s probably just a nasty bit of sordidness, you know how these French are. Still, worth a look.”

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