‘Surely,’ I said, ‘you do not believe any of this, Holmes?’
‘You are missing the point, Watson. The important thing is what the thief thinks, and this theory fits the facts. The Stelé was certainly not stolen for purely financial reasons. The British Museum is full of more valuable items, and selling it would be virtually impossible. I think Dr Bhey’s theory is all too likely. In any event we are searching in the dark. If Sakhara reveals nothing, what will we have lost?’
It was therefore agreed that we would meet Bhey at Gizeh before dawn the next day, and together travel the forty miles or so over the desert to Sakhara.
The plateau was deserted when we arrived. The shadowy forms of the Pyramids stood in stupefying immensity before us, their eastward faces flushed faintly with the glow of coming light.
Below the pyramids crouched the great stone creature that had inspired poets and artists throughout time, the very symbol of mystery, its face more enigmatic than
La Giaconda.
Without uttering a word, Holmes placed himself before the great solemn visage, sat in the dust, and gazed up. I would have come every mile of our journey just to witness the meeting, face to face, of those two sphinxes.
It was already hot out on the desert plateau, and what faint breath of air stirred there was dry and scorching. Holmes did not seem to feel it as he communed with the beast of stone. It was as if the secrets of the Ages were passing between them.
Some while later, Holmes turned slowly away to the desert, in the direction we were soon to take on our seemingly hopeless quest. I hardly recognised the voice when he spoke.
‘This is not a place that can be reckoned in mortal measurements, Watson. The desert is unchanging, eternal, and these mountains of stone somehow partake of its eternity. And this—this benign monster, waiting, forever waiting, its power withheld like a guardian of the plateau. How small human life seems here. A blink and we are gone. The Sphinx has gazed down on Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon. All of them great Generals who had conquered much of the world and were idolised as Gods.
‘Each one came before this face and was no more than a speck of desert dust that drifted into sight, hung a while, and disappeared. Each of them was in turn no more, and still the face looked on. They all went to dust, and still the face looked on.
‘If someone is using the Stelé to gain immortality, who can blame him? It would be insane in London, but here life seems such a tiny thing, and eternity so close. It must be a temptation to come before this Lord of the Desert on equal terms.’
A cry broke Holmes’s reverie. A grubby urchin on a dusty horse cantered up.
‘You go to Sakhara? This horse good horse for you, Mister.’
We were gesturing him away as Bhey rode up with a guide, leading our horses. The urchin departed at full gallop.
‘Good day to you, gentlemen!’ shouted Bhey. ‘A good early start for our journey, yes?’
As dawn rose, and flooded the desert with light and heat, we rode off at a steady trot, saving the horses for what we knew would be a tiring journey.
As our guide led us through the rubble-strewn terrain, I was surprised to see just how many pyramids lay crumbling away in the desert. We must have ridden past twenty, eaten away by wind and heat, ground to dust by time and scattered to the winds, yet still retaining something, some echo, of the haunting shapes at Gizeh.
It had been some years since I had braved the heat of desert sands, and the ride seemed interminable. It was, I think, no more than three hours or so before Bhey rose up on his stirrups and pointed to a pair of ram-headed sphinxes half buried in the sand.
‘This is the beginning of the Avenue built by Nectanebo, gentlemen.’
Holmes gestured us to halt, and dismounted. Dropping to the sand he crawled this way and that, his face close to the ground. Bhey and the guide were fascinated by such unusual behaviour. It suddenly occurred to me, with a surge of barely controlled amusement, that to anyone unfamiliar with Holmes’s methods, his actions must have seemed ridiculous. Oblivious to all this, Holmes returned to his horse, and gestured us to go on.
‘A large number of men passed this way very recently. Those on the outside walked unburdened. The eight or so who walked in the middle carried a heavy weight.’
‘Could they have been carrying the Stelé?’ I asked.
‘If it was a procession after the ancient pattern,’ offered Bhey, ‘the Pharoah would be carried on a portable throne, along with the Stelé.’
As we rode on, Holmes’s observations revealed that the group’s progress had been elaborately intricate in its choreography. They had halted several times, set down the throne, lit fires, and killed birds. Blood and feathers lay among the ashes.
The Avenue of ruined sphinxes terminated at a ruined building. All that remained was a low section of wall and a truncated column amidst rubble.
‘That,’ said Bhey, ‘is all that remains of Nectanebo’s temple.’
Holmes was examining the ground.
‘The sand around this slab is very smooth,’ he said.
‘It has obviously not been disturbed for some time,’ I admitted.
‘But would one not expect some disturbance caused by the Ceremony, or at least by the movements of desert dwelling creatures?’
He was on his knees again, brushing sand away from the edge of the slab.
‘Help me if you will, gentlemen, by putting your weight against this edge and giving a push. Yes, it is moving—see.’
A flight of time-worn steps was revealed. Bhey was beside himself with excitement.
‘These steps are unrecorded. There could be anything down there.’
‘Hardly
anything,
Dr Bhey. Someone has long had access to this place by the look of things. Still, let us see.’
Leaving the guide with the horses, we descended the steps and found a small chamber, bare save for unlit torches in slots around the walls. Holmes lit one, and Bhey looked with interest at the carvings on the walls.
‘Here is a series of symbols I have seen before, on the papyrus. Do you see an old man leaning on a staff, passing into a doorway, and a male child emerging on the other side? The inscription beneath it reads “The Hoary One shall become young”.’
Holmes was stalking round the chamber like a caged lion, sniffing the air.
‘They were here, gentlemen, and not long ago. Can you smell the vestiges of that ancient incense on the air, see the faint sand marks of their feet? Why, the Stelé may well have been set down here, on this low block of stone. We are so close we could almost have touched it. Still, we must not be downhearted. This surely confirms Dr Bhey’s theory. It cannot be by chance that Sakhara is the first site to which the Stelé would have been brought in ancient times. You believe, Dr Bhey, that their intention is to visit each Centre of Power in turn? Where will they go next?’
‘It is a question of interpretation, and I may be wrong, but I believe the second site is in Luxor.’
‘Then to Luxor we must go with all speed.’
On our return to Cairo we were able to arrange a comfortable sleeping car on a Luxor-bound train that evening. At the station a street urchin tried to get money in return for helping us with our luggage. For some reason he seemed oddly familiar. When I mentioned this to Holmes, after we had boarded the train, he simply nodded as he drew on his pipe.
‘We are being followed, Watson, and you are correct that the young Egyptian boy was at Gizeh this morning. If he is spying on us I suppose he may be someone’s “Cairo Irregular”. He is not the problem, however. Two men followed us to the station and boarded the train. Let us hope they are content to watch, but be on your guard, gentlemen.’
Bhey, who was clearly enjoying the adventure, smiled enthusiastically as he nodded his assent.
The train was soon rattling through desert, where the desiccated corpses of camels and donkeys could be seen along the trackside. Whenever we ran close enough to the Nile to pass through cultivated regions, we saw native workers engaged in the endless toil of irrigation.
As the hours passed, Bhey and I drowsed, but Holmes just sat smoking and looking out of the window. A knock at the door roused us. It was the steward, carrying a tray of tea and cakes. Another followed with a tray equally laden. I was just thinking that we were in for a banquet, when the first man dropped his tray and launched himself at Holmes. The second produced a knife and attacked me.
Bhey, who was closer to me, lent assistance, and with difficulty we began to overcome our assailant.
Holmes was having more difficulty on his own against the larger of the two men, who had let down the window and seemed bent on pushing Holmes out of it. It seemed that by sheer strength the assailant would force Holmes back out of the gaping space. The whole top half of Holmes’s body was out of sight when he got a grip on the garments of the man and kicked with his feet. They both hung at the point of balance, legs flailing, then both of them disappeared out of the window.
Bhey and I stood stunned. The second attacker squirmed free, gave a glance of defiant indifference, and threw himself to certain death out of the window. The calm and casual way he ended his own life, as if his purpose for living was over, was somehow more terrifying than any sight I have ever seen.
I ran over to the window and tried to look out. The night air was full of gritty dust that stung my eyes. Bhey was similarly blinded but presently we were able to shield our eyes and look again.
‘It is hopeless!’ shouted Bhey. ‘The bodies will already be far back down the track. No one could have survived such a fall.’
I knew as much, but did not want to admit it, even to myself.
‘What shall we do?’ Bhey was shouting. ‘What shall we do?’
Once we had regained some composure, it was agreed that we could achieve nothing by stopping the train. Bhey assured me that we would be tied up in Egyptian red tape for weeks, and that the quest for which Holmes had given his life would fail utterly. We were resolved to finish the task, and make sure that Holmes’s last case was a success. I was filled with a dull rage at the thought of so tragic a loss, and was determined to hunt down the leader of the assassins.
I now think that I would have killed the second man myself if he had not thrown himself out of the window. As it was, I found myself haunted equally by the last glimpse of Holmes balanced in a struggle at the window’s edge, and the calm glance of the suicide as he ended his own life. I had no doubt that we were pitted, without the leadership of my friend, against a terribly ruthless enemy.
It was really at Luxor, after we had booked into a hotel and taken some sustenance, that the full horror of what had just occurred sank in. I was depressed and angry, while Bhey did his best to keep up my spirits.
It dawned on us gradually that we had conceived of no plan beyond getting to Luxor, confident that Holmes would do the rest. For days we wandered the ruins of Luxor and Karnak, not even knowing whether or not the ritual had already taken place. It was a grim time.
There was one other slight vexation to add to my woes. We had almost grown inured to the persistent clamour for
bakseesh
from the local children. On our wanderings around Luxor I recognised one as the boy who had followed us since our arrival in Egypt. It seemed our spy was still with us.
I was rather proud of the idea I had then. If the boy was working for our enemies, then he might lead us to them. It was a stroke worthy of Holmes. We resolved to turn the tables on him and be spies ourselves.
And that was how, with a heart still heavy for the great loss, I came to pursue the young street urchin through the bustle of Luxor market. I was confident that he did not see us as he went about his own particular business, stealing from the stalls and exchanging jibes with the outraged stallholders. I was sure that, sooner or later, he would return for instruction to our adversaries.