Sherlock Holmes and the Mummy's Curse (18 page)

“Helping,” she replied tightly. “Which is more than you seem to be doing at the moment.”

“Eh,” he grunted. “That lout Holmes must have broken my nose last night when I was defending your honour, my dear. I’ve come to see about getting it set properly.”

Leighton drew herself up. Watson swore the temperature in the infirmary dropped twenty degrees in an instant.

“Then you wasted your time and got your nose broken for nothing last night, for there was no stain upon my honour,” she told him, her voice ice-cold.

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Phillips replied, face turning red. “But he certainly hurt you, now, didn’t he?”

“That is none of your business, MISTER Phillips,” she declared, then spun on her heel, gathered the linens she’d dropped, and carted them off to sort through. As she passed Watson, she jerked her head back toward Phillips and muttered, “He’s all yours, John.”

“I’ll take care of it, Leighton,” he murmured back, irked at the man himself. “Do you go fold some clean linens, and stay in the back, out of sight. Everything is fine.” She nodded, and he walked over to Phillips, as Sati and Wahbiyah eased themselves between Leighton and Watson’s patient.

* * *

“Broken nose, eh?” Watson noted as he walked up, surveying Phillips’ facial bruises, black eyes, and crooked nose. The physician’s skilled hands slid lightly over the protuberance, palpating lightly, feeling the bone and cartilage beneath the flesh, as he gazed into the other man’s eyes. He did not entirely like what he saw there, and it had nothing to do with Phillips’ attitude.

“I think so,” a diffident Phillips said, sitting down in the folding chair Watson indicated. “Can you fix it, Doctor?”

“I can,” Watson agreed. “Take a deep breath and hold it.”

“What? Why?” Phillips asked, as Watson placed one hand firmly behind Phillips’ head, and got a good strong grip on his nose with the other. Then he jerked the nose sideways and down. There was a loud, crunching pop, and a trickle of blood surged from Phillips’ nostrils.

“EEEYOW!” Phillips screamed. “Hellfire and damnation, Doctor! What the blazes are you doing?!”

“Setting your nose,” Watson said calmly. “It was indeed broken.”

“Did you have to be so rough?”

“Did you think it would be easy to set?” Watson turned. “Alimah, would you bring me some packing?”

“Right here, Doctor,” the older woman said, approaching with the tray she had anticipated and prepared. Lying on it were several rolls of cotton gauze of narrow diameter, and a surgical forceps.

“What’s that for?” a surly Phillips demanded, holding his nose tightly with his left hand. Watson smacked his hand away.

“Get away from that,” he said, curt, “unless you want me to have to set it again.”

“Oh, HELL no,” Phillips muttered, dropping his hands to his sides. “What’s that for, I asked.”

“To stop the bleeding,” Watson said, grabbing a roll and shoving it up Phillips’ right nostril. “And to help keep everything in place until it can heal.”

“OWWW!” Phillips howled. “THAT HURTS!”

“Of course it does,” Watson snapped. “You broke the ruddy damned thing by getting into an unnecessary fight last night, with someone far better than you are.” He used a pair of forceps to push the roll deeper into the nostril as Phillips yelped and groaned in pain. “It’s going to hurt. And I find that injuries that are obtained due to one’s own stupidity tend to hurt worse than others.” A roll of gauze went into the other nostril, and Phillips let out another roar of pain, which subsided into additional whimpers as Watson used the forceps to ensure that, too, was firmly and deeply seated in the nostril. “Next time, my advice to you, sir, would be to ascertain that a lady actually needs her honour defended, and WANTS YOU to defend it, before taking it upon yourself to do the deed.” He took the pad of gauze Alimah handed him, placed it over Phillips’ entire nose, then took a full roll of gauze and wrapped it around and around Phillips’ head to hold the dressing in place. He finished off by pinning down the gauze, just behind Phillips’ left ear, so it could not unwind. “There. We’re finished.”

“How’b I s’bosed doo breade lig dis?” Phillips demanded to know.

“Through your mouth, until I say otherwise,” a terse Watson informed him. “Wahbiyah, please prepare some pain pills for Mr. Phillips. Laudanum, tincture number 23, please. Standard dose. No more than half a dozen to take with him, and one for dosing right now.”

“Yes, Doctor.” She moved to the medicinal cabinet, unlocked it with a key on her chatelaine,
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and started the work of compounding the medication.

“Mr. Phillips,” Watson addressed his patient, “these pills should ease your pain. They will make you very drowsy, however, so I should strongly recommend you return to your bunk for the rest of the day, and remain there until you have finished the course of medication. I will notify Professor Whitesell personally of your indisposition. You are to take the medication every eight hours for two days. By then you should be able to make do with a salicylic acid powder.”

“Bud whad ib de paid geds worse?” Phillips asked. “Id does dod feel ady bedder daow.”

“You deal with it, and you take a powder in addition to the pills,” Watson declared, stern. “Or come back to me. Under no circumstances do you take the laudanum any more frequently, else you may become addicted.”

“So?”

“Have you ever seen any of the poor unfortunate frequenters of opium dens, Mr. Phillips?”

“Ub, yes?”

“Laudanum is tincture of opium. Do you want to end up like them?”

“Oh. I see your poidt; do, I doo dod.”

“Good. Then do as I say, and everything will be fine. Trust me on this.”

“All righd.” Phillips sighed.

“Here you are, Doctor,” Wahbiyah said, coming to Watson with a tray on which was a small dark glass bottle; inside were just discernible six tiny pills. Next to it was a small dosing cup containing one additional pill, and a glass of water.

“Excellent, Wahbiyah, thank you,” Watson said, picking up the bottle and handing it to Phillips. “Here we are. Tuck this into your pocket, Phillips, then take this pill. It is…” He pulled out his pocket-watch and checked it. “It is nearly eleven o’ clock in the morning. Your next dose is due at seven o’ clock to-night.”

Phillips tucked the bottle into his waistcoat pocket, placed the pill in his mouth, then washed it down with the glass of water.

“Very good,” Watson said. “Sati, can you see Mr. Phillips back to his tent? I expect he will be more comfortable there than in a hospital cot, but if he is unused to it, the laudanum may take effect much faster than he expects. Chances are, he is already mildly concussed, and with his nose broken as well, it would not do for him to pass out halfway there.”

“I should be happy to do so, Doctor,” Sati replied, and escorted Phillips out of the hospital tent.

* * *

After Phillips left the infirmary, Leighton returned from the back, where she had put the linens she’d dropped into the dirty hamper to be picked up and washed by the camp launderers. Then she had folded towelling. Now she placed the stack of clean towels into their proper shelf. She turned as Watson came up to her.

“Are you all right?” he asked quietly.

“Yes, I suppose so,” she decided with a sigh, leaning lightly against the table. “I could have done without that, however.”

“Holmes said much the same thing last night after the fight.”

“I’m sure he did,” she said, and giggled.

“Well! That sounded good, if unexpected,” Watson noted.

“I suppose,” she considered. “John, tell me something.”

“If I can, of course I shall.”

“Were, um, weren’t you just a, a little hard on poor Landers’ nose?” she wondered. “They might have heard him scream in Cairo!”

“No, my dear, I did not take out my feelings on Phillips, I assure you,” Watson chuckled. “No matter what I may have thought, what I may have said—and I freely admit to dressing him down. But I have too much respect for my chosen profession for such as that. No, setting a nose is not fun in any event, either for physician or patient, though it is rather harder on the patient! Every nose I have ever set—and there have been a few—and every nose I have ever seen set—and those have been even more—the patient has reacted in the same fashion. Though if it makes Phillips think before leaping in next time, I am glad of it!”

Leighton fairly doubled up in giggles, and Watson grinned.

“I take it, you approve of him using his head for something more than a hat rack, next time?” Watson asked.

“Oh, John! Indeed I do!” she agreed. “Oh, do understand—he is a nice enough man, and quite smart in his own way. But… he was reared in a bit, um, less refined an environment than you and I,” she explained. “I just…”

“No, it’s all right, I see,” Watson cut her off. “Is he trying to court you without your permission, then?”

“Didn’t Sherry tell you?”

“Oh no, not unless you told him to, or gave him permission to do so,” Watson said. “That would not be respecting your privacy.”

“Well then, yes, he is,” Leighton confessed. “That was part of the reason for staying so close to Sherry, you see, to ward off Landers’ attentions. And Sherry knew, and, and agreed. Now, with everything that has happened—I just don’t know. I don’t mind being friends with Landers, but—” She broke off abruptly with a sharp inhalation.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Watson asked, concerned. Leighton gave him a rueful grin.

“Let us just say I suddenly understand Sherry’s point of view a lot better,” she offered, wry. “While I’m not of a lower, um, class than Sherry, I know he’s very, very smart, and so learnéd. Me? Well, not so much, I suppose. I… guess I can understand why he wouldn’t be interested, even if he was ‘so inclined,’ as I think he put it.”

“Do not denigrate yourself, Leighton,” Watson advised. “You are a lovely woman, with intelligence, wit, and fire. Just because you were not able to catch Holmes’ eye—and I have yet to see any woman who could do so—does not make you incapable of catching another’s.” At that remark, Leighton scrutinised him intently, and he suddenly realised the way his statement might be taken. “Oh, I, um, that is, I didn’t mean…”

“Hush, John,” she told him with a gentle smile. “Sherry already told me you found me attractive, and I’m flattered. I just wondered if you realised beforehand how you had phrased that statement.”

“I… did not,” he said, sheepish. “In light of that, I am no longer certain I should make the offer I was about to…”

“What was it?”

“Well, since Holmes is no longer available for the purpose, I was going to offer to keep you company, so as to help you avoid Phillips. But perhaps you had rather I didn’t.”

“Really? You were going to do that? Just to help me avoid Landers?”

“I swear,” Watson averred, putting his hand to his chest. “I had no ulterior motives behind it.”

“Hm.” She pretended to consider, then smiled. “I think I should like that, John.”

CHAPTER 7

Homing In on A Mystery

—::—

“It has to be,” Nichols-Woodall decided, tapping the maps with his index finger. “These right here. These would be the best strata for excavating with the tools that they would have had to hand.”

“Do you think so?” Beaumont asked, considering the idea. “Why?”

“Because they are soft enough for the brass and bronze chisels the workers would have used to cut the stone, but strong enough to stand up to the intervening time without collapse.”

“I think I agree with him, Thomas,” Whitesell said. “What say you, Holmes?’

“It makes sense to me,” Holmes agreed. “Especially based on the incised rock I translated the other day, which discovery site seems to me to point to that general area, though I think based on that alone, I should move a smidgen farther to the south. I defer to Dr. Nichols-Woodall’s superior knowledge of the strata, however.”

“But if I understand correctly,” Lord Trenthume interjected, “the stone we found the other day is a different kind from the stones you are proposing they excavated, Parker.”

“It is,” Nichols-Woodall admitted. “But that is not a difficulty, milord. They may well have dressed harder stones, not only to help support the doorway arch, but to face the façade, and thus make it stronger, more resistant to weathering. They desired their tombs to last for the ages, but needed the rock in which they situated them to be soft enough to carve out such a large space.”

“Aha, I see,” Lord Trenthume replied, and subsided.

“It does, as you say, make sense, Parker,” Beaumont noted. “Where is the softest point, do you think? Is that not where we should begin digging the exploration trench?”

“Right here.” Nichols-Woodall pointed to a spot on the topographic map. “I think we should start digging trenches here…” he pulled the map over, “and here.”

“Where is Phillips?” Lord Trenthume wondered. “We should have him fetch Udail, to start the trench digging.”

“Oh, he is indisposed and lying down, Cortland,” Whitesell said. “I had a note from Dr. Watson a bit ago. His nose was indeed broken, with possible concussion into the bargain, and Dr. Watson set the nose, then sent him off to bed with some laudanum for the pain, to sleep it off. I suspect he will be invalided for some few days.”

“Which will teach him to pick a fight with Mr. Holmes, here, next time,” Nichols-Woodall chuckled. “That was a nice combination you used, Holmes, if I may say so. Never mind, milord; it isn’t that important. In fact, I think I shall go find Udail myself; that way, I can tell him exactly where I want him to begin digging.”

“Very good, then,” Lord Trenthume said. “It is almost time for luncheon, so the rest of us may as well repair to our tents to freshen up a bit, while you and Udail get the logistics laid for the work this afternoon.”

* * *

Unsurprisingly, Landers Phillips was not at luncheon that day; Leighton Whitesell, much to her father’s delight and Holmes’ secret pleasure, came to lunch on Watson’s arm, the two of them laughing at some unheard joke.

“Dr. Nichols-Woodall will be a bit late,” Whitesell announced to the wait staff. “He went to the dig pits to fetch Udail and tell him where to dig exploratory trenches this afternoon. You may begin service when you are ready, and he will join us as soon as he may.”