The Gilded Scarab (15 page)

“Hold fire for a little, Rafe. While Cousin Agnes doesn’t hold sway here, I do have a landlady. Mrs. Carr is making a light luncheon for us. I thought you’d like a spot of refreshment.” Daniel looked apologetic. “I don’t want to arouse her suspicions. I’ve always provided a little hospitality to my visitors, and she’d notice if every time you come here we lock ourselves up for hours without me so much as offering you tea and a muffin. She may not suspect what I
am
offering you, but if it’s enough to pique her curiosity… well, I’d rather she didn’t have cause to wonder.”

I groaned. But what did he mean,
every time you come here
? Did he envisage something more than a casual liaison, then? One night at Margrethe’s Hotel before Christmas, however energetic and pleasurable, did not a great
amour
make. I was perfectly willing for another bout of pleasure, and even a regular arrangement, but wasn’t looking for more. “But of course. I’ll do all I can to help keep your landlady sweet.”

“You really are the best of good fellows.” Daniel smiled. “Come and have a look around my little domain, then, until she brings up lunch.”

There wasn’t much to see. The room had a table set before the windows, a desk in one corner, and a couple of big comfortable leather armchairs before the hearth. The rest of the room was mostly books. They filled the bookshelves lining every available wall and were piled on corners of the table and beside the chairs on the hearth rug. It was a man’s room, reminding me of my father’s study. No feminine furbelows here. Meredith had decorated it with artifacts from Aegypt, it looked like. A mummified cat sat on the table, several quaint little figurines from the tombs inhabited a shelf above the desk, one of those jars with a jackal’s head stopper was almost too big for its perch on the mantelpiece, and a stunning hawk statue, two feet high and carved from red granite, stood on the hearth itself.

Damn, but I was jealous! I really had to get my life in order and get out from under Agnes’s beady eyes. A little set-up like this was a very attractive option.

“You have a lot of old artifacts here,” I said. “The shops around the museum have many similar things. Our House hostel is in Bloomsbury, you know. I’ve come to know the area well, although so far I haven’t set foot in the museum itself.”

“I’m an Aegyptologist by profession. I excavated these things on various expeditions to Aegypt over the last few years. I have several collectors willing to buy the things I bring back, you know. It’s a useful sideline and brings in some necessary income. I expect you’re like me in being a member of a Minor House? Yes, I thought so. Stravaigor? Ah, yes. Estafette, in my case. Then you understand the old adage about the Lord helping those who help themselves, when it comes to the cadet branches.” Meredith rested one hand on the hawk’s head, the other fiddling with his watch chain. For the first time, I noticed that the watch hanging on his chain wasn’t the normal round-faced hunter, but a black enameled Aegyptian beetle with gilt-edged wings set with rubies. I rather liked it. “I don’t have the resources to fund my own expeditions, unlike some I could mention. I have to rely on funding from the Aegyptian Exploration Fund and private investors. But this season was a washout in that regard, which is why I’m teaching here and not digging in Luxor or Amarna.”

“Disappointing for you.”

“It’s quite a setback, I’m sorry to say. If you don’t excavate and find things, there isn’t much chance to publish and hence to advance in the profession. Teaching is all very well, but it doesn’t pay well, and there’s no chance for personal advancement. It’s very discouraging, especially when I see younger men able to find funding. However, I have managed to find a backer for next year’s season and possibly more after that if I’m successful. One of my private collectors has agreed to underwrite an expedition for the entire season, and generously too. Of course, that means he’ll want the bulk of the finds for his own collection, but I’ll probably manage to keep a few items for sale to others.” He tapped the hawk on the head. “I’ll keep some of them, I expect. I couldn’t bear to part with these pieces, for example.”

Well, wasn’t that naïve of me? I had had the notion an archaeologist carried out his work to increase the sum of human knowledge and what he excavated went to public museums in return for his funding. I hadn’t realized it was a lucrative little business. No doubt Meredith—no. Daniel. I must remember it was Daniel now, given that sex brings about swift social intimacy. Daniel. Well, no doubt Daniel kept the best to sell on to the private collectors and that’s why all the museum had was those shattered potsherds I remembered from childhood visits.

I didn’t approve of grave robbing for profit. It was bad enough in the name of academia.

Daniel mustn’t have liked the little silence that followed, because he frowned. So I laughed to try and ease the sudden tension.

“Another archaeologist!”

Daniel stiffened. “You know someone in the field already?”

“No. Merely someone mentioned in passing.” My turn to frown. The man was jumpier than a cat. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing. Well, as with any profession, it’s best one’s private… inclinations, shall we say? Yes. That will do. It’s important one’s private inclinations stay private. I am sure you are discreet, Rafe. I don’t think my lectureship would be safe if it were known, especially when I have a puritan like Flinders Petrie overseeing my work. His is the voice everyone listens to when it comes to funding for expeditions… well, you’ll understand I’m wary of having too many connections made. I have to be careful, that’s all.” His mouth twisted, turning down at the corners. His hand reached for his watch and caressed the beetle’s body. “I had my fingers burned several years ago, getting too involved with a fellow member of the profession. Not that he would ever expose me, but it was a difficult experience, and I lost my heart, I think.”

That was a touch dramatic. I was polite, though, and didn’t roll my eyes. Instead I said I was sorry to hear it and that I’d never been in love myself. Which was true. “We all have to be careful, no matter what our profession. People don’t approve of us, and the Wilde fiasco didn’t help matters. I don’t fancy two years hard labor in Pentonville for sodomy, and I don’t suppose my years in the Imperium’s service would be much defense.”

Daniel snorted, but had no chance to reply. His landlady knocked on the door at that moment, arriving with a tray of cold meat, crusty white bread, a pat of fresh butter, and a large jug of beer.

“If you’ll clear the table of that thing, sir.” She cast the mummified cat residing there a look of deep dislike. “It isn’t natural to keep those things on the table, Mr. Daniel. It isn’t natural to have this stuff at all. I’m always telling you that.”

“So you are,” said Daniel, laughing. He took the tray from her while I removed the cat to the bookcase and rubbed my fingers clean on my pocket handkerchief. He dismissed her with thanks and a smile before putting the tray down on the table and swiftly setting out bone-handled knives and two-pronged forks, and pouring the beer into tall glasses. “Come and eat, Rafe.”

The beer was the best his local supplier could get him, Daniel said, and rich with Kentish hops and malt, and the bread was fresh from the bakery on the corner. “I don’t eat in here much, really. Mrs. C will do me a repast like this now and again, but she won’t cook dinners. I mostly eat out. Shall we dine at the Trocadero tonight and do a show after? There’s time for you to slip back to your rooms to change before dinner, and the town will be busy and exciting tonight. A large party is planned at the Trocadero, I believe.”

Well, that would be a welcome change from sitting before my fire with Dickens on my knee, pretending to read
Our Mutual Friend.
“And perhaps Margrethe’s again, after, to celebrate? Your landlady will probably balk at me staying here all night, after all.”

“There are other places we might go. Alex’s, for example, or a little club I know in a Soho public house, the Intrepid Fox, where we can get a room—”

“I know it well. I go there often.”

“I haven’t been there for a while. Alex’s and the Criterion are my normal hunting grounds. I like Margrethe’s, but I am not a rich man, and I can’t afford to stay there often. That was something of a Christmas treat.” Daniel looked sly. “It was a pleasant night we had there, though.”

I answered with a smirk.

Daniel put down his knife and fork, and his eyes were wide, his breath suddenly coming a little short. “But first we have this afternoon. Are you hungry, Rafe?”

“Not for this.” I pushed my plate aside and smiled. I was hard as hell itself and itching to put it to good use. Meredith might be a drama queen, but he was a very pleasurable lover. “But those personal inclinations you mentioned earlier? I could work up quite an appetite for those.”

Daniel laughed. “Come to bed.” He stood up, holding out his hand. It shook a little as I grasped it. Daniel Meredith was hungry too, it seemed. He led me through the double doors and into the bedroom beyond.

The afternoon was all I could have wished for. I had a pleasant time straining fiercely against Daniel’s strong body as we rolled together in his bed, hot and sweating, skin to skin. Afterward we lay warm and quiet, cocooned in sheets smelling of men and sex, hands and mouths moving on each other in lazy contentment.

“You really are beautiful,” Daniel said at one point, with a sort of pride of possession that, for a moment, made me pause.

But it was nowhere near as interesting as what Daniel was doing with his hands. I let my mouth open in a soundless gasp and gave myself up to pleasure.

E
ARLY
IN
the new year, I arrived in Harley Street for my appointment with the eye specialist. Doctor Carrington had his office in one of the houses there. The waiting room was as grand as a drawing room, furnished with comfortable sofas and chairs upholstered in dark green leather. Thick velvet curtains had been drawn to shut out the dark, dirty afternoon and keep the warmth inside. A good fire flickered in the hearth, glinting off polished brass fire irons and a fender large enough to tether down an aeroship. The doctor’s assistant saw me comfortably established into an armchair and left me with a copy of
The Spectator
to while away the wait.

Very grand. I could see where at least some of my fee was going. I hoped the man’s expertise was worth the remainder.

Carrington himself came in a few moments later, swept me up, and bustled us both into his consulting room.

“Yes, yes. Captain Lancaster, isn’t it? Late of Her Majesty’s Aero Corps. Mmn. Yes, yes. That’s right. Now then, I believe it was an aero accident and a bad knock on the head? When was that… oh yes, September… mmn. Mmn. I can feel a slight depression here on your skull, but the wound appears to have healed well. It’s as well you have such thick hair, mmn? It hides the scarring perfectly. Now then… blurred vision, I dare say? And some lessening of the peripheral vision as well, perhaps, some blind spots? The left side? Yes, that would accord with the position of the fracture and the damage it has left behind it. Your good doctor on the
Ark Royal
… what’s the chap’s name now? Beckett! Of course it is. Well, Doctor Beckett wrote to tell me the extent of the original injuries and the treatment you were given—necessarily unspecialized, of course, while in a war theater—and yes, he has included the information on the lenses he gave you to alleviate the problems. Mmn. He has added some thoughts on prognosis, I see. Mmn. Now then, I am likely to agree with him, but I would like to examine your eyes properly for myself, so we’re sure. Tilt your head to the right, please, and look into the light. Ah! That makes your eyes sting, I expect. Yes, yes… no physical damage to the eyes I can see here. Ah… as we expected, eh! Now, let’s gauge the problem exactly, mmn? Hold this patch over your right eye for me, Captain, and tell me what you can see.”

Good Lord, but the man’s mouth ran on wheels! Half-amused, half-exhausted by the flood of words, I allowed myself to be borne along on the current. I was prodded and poked. I had lights shone in both eyes. I read from books close up and notices far away, while the doctor perched a strange goggle contraption on my nose and dropped different lenses into it, carefully recording the results of each one. I covered up one eye and then the other and repeated the reading with texts in print ranging from small to microscopic, and I submitted to similar experimentation to see how much of my peripheral vision on the left side was affected. And throughout, Carrington kept up the continual patter and was content with the occasional grunt of assent or one word comment from me.

At the end, Carrington sat down to face me across a wide desk covered with papers. He used a large glass model of the human eye for a paperweight, the iris colored an improbable blue. It didn’t look realistic. A nice hazel would have been better.

“Now then. Diagnosis first, mmn? As you’ll have realized for yourself, severe head injuries occasionally can have a permanent effect on the vision. Sadly true, in your case. The blurring of your vision tells me you have lost some visual acuity, yes, and your peripheral vision on the left side has been reduced by an arc of about twenty degrees. But—and this is most important—I fully concur with my esteemed colleague on the
Ark Royal
that your vision is unlikely to deteriorate further, except, ha! with the deplorable changes that come on us all with age. Mmn. You responded well to the tests we’ve done, and we can, I believe, correct the lack of acuity with spectacles.” Carrington patted Beckett’s letter with one hand. “Now, the lenses the good Doctor Beckett suggested for you are all very well, but I fancy that now we’re at a different stage in your recovery, some lenses of my own prescription will be more beneficial. Mmn?”

Which was, I supposed, a gentle way of saying that Beckett had got it all wrong, wrong, wrong; Carrington was a superior being whose wisdom and skill was unrivaled; and words couldn’t express how fortunate I was to be in Carrington’s care.