The Quest of Julian Day (15 page)

Being a guide himself he had free access to all such places and none of the regular guardians of a Tomb accompanies an official guide unless asked to do so. In consequence, he was alone. I watched him descend into the pit and stole a cautious glance round. There being nobody else in sight, I slipped across the broken ground and followed him down into it.

I had noted with dismay that he was not carrying any bag or parcel but as soon as he saw me coming down the wooden stairs he gave me a cheerful greeting and proceeded to produce various parcels from under his long silk
jibba
.

He had carried out Harry's instructions to the letter, thank
goodness, and brought me everything I needed including a couple of large ham rolls and some bananas for my breakfast. Fortunately, too, he had had the forethought to bring a candle, so, relieving him of his burdens, I disappeared into the cave while he remained to keep watch outside.

The clothes were just what I wanted; a cheap, white cotton shirt open at the neck, a pair of light, striped trousers, a shiny gaberdine coat and a straw hat which had seen better days. I was soon transformed from a Red Indian Brave into a poorer class Greek workman, with the exception of my skin which was too dark and my face which still bore traces of war-paint. Cleaning up the mess was easy but I soon found that toning down my skin to near-white again was a much more difficult business and gathering up my abandoned garments I rejoined Amin outside the cave. We secreted ourselves in a lonely part of the large, desolate plot where he assisted me in getting the dark stain off my face and hands.

We had only just done when the musical cry of ‘
Haya alla ‘Salat! Haya alla falah
! which is the Moslem call to prayer, came faintly to us from the minaret of a neighbouring mosque. It was midday already and I told Amin that we were to take the three o'clock train for Cairo. To avoid showing myself at the railway-station booking-office I gave him some money to get second-class tickets for us both, with instructions to meet me again when he had done so at a cheap restaurant near the station which he had suggested as being the sort of place where I would not be conspicuous in my new disguise.

Now it was broad daylight I could hardly climb over the fence again and I was a little uneasy that the men on the gate, having seen Amin come in alone, might wonder where I had suddenly sprung from if I went out with him; but they proved to be disinterested, and we reached the street without being questioned. While I was waiting for Amin at the little restaurant my feeling of gloom was by no means lightened on seeing that my disappearance provided the chief topic of news in the morning's paper. Fortunately they had no photograph of me available which they could publish, but the paper gave a full description of my appearance and urged its readers to report me to the police at once should they happen to see me.

There was a photograph of Sir Walter and a rather stilted
account of his murder, but the paper devoted four whole columns to his career, and I saw that he was an even bigger personality in the archæological world than I had imagined.

My flight from the ship seemed to have convinced whoever was responsible for reporting the case that I was the murderer although the statements about that were in the usual guarded language. After I had read them through I was so depressed that I had half a mind to chuck my hand in and walk round to the police-station; but now that we had recaptured the tablet and knew that O'Kieff was leaving for Cairo on the three o'clock train a certain pig-headedness made me reason, without the least justification, that if I could only sit on his tail for a few hours longer I should be able to get something definite against him.

Amin's arrival with the tickets cheered me somewhat, and worries, thank goodness, have never interfered with my appetite, so we ate a simple but hearty lunch and walked over to the station. We were there by half-past two as I was anxious to make quite certain that O'Kieff did travel by the three o'clock express and mark down his carriage so that I should have no difficulty in following him when he left the train at Cairo.

I had not shaved since the night before so with the slight stubble on my chin and my shoddy, second-hand clothes I presented a very down-and-out appearance. There were several policemen on the station but it heartened me a lot to see that none of them even bothered to throw a glance in my direction.

The Belvilles turned up soon after we arrived. I, of course, ignored them, and I don't think they recognised me as Clarissa was looking in the other direction and Harry's face remained quite blank when they passed within a few feet of Amin and myself. There were numerous other passengers from the ‘Hampshire' travelling on the same train, but I was careful not to meet the eye of any of those I knew and most of them were busily occupied in saying goodbye to friends or seeing to their luggage. O'Kieff duly appeared and was installed in a first-class carriage by his valet; after which Amin and I took our seats and some ten minutes later the train steamed out.

Although I had made the journey before I found abundant interest in the passing scene. One is apt to think of Egypt as a land of sand but the Delta is the exact opposite of a desert. Its
rich, black soil, brought down by the five branches of the Nile at each inundation, supports three crops a year and every inch of it is cultivated. In some ways the landscape is not unlike that of Holland; flat, green fields stretch away as far as the eye can reach to misty horizons and occasionally the prospect is broken by the great white or red sail of a boat which is mysteriously gliding through the fields on some unseen canal.

In detail, though, the two countries are entirely different. The triangular sail of an Egyptian
felucca
has little resemblance to that of the Dutch barge; the distant spires one sees in Holland are minarets or the white domes of small mosques set among groups of palms in Egypt; and the gay bungalows with their neat gardens of the Dutch hamlets are replaced by Arab villages of incredible squalor.

Provincial towns and villages alike in Egypt all have a strangely unfinished appearance owing to the flat roofs both of houses and hovels upon which huge mounds of long reeds are left to dry; skinny chickens peck about in the rubbish and ragged garments from the family wash are hung out on lines. On the ground floor whole families herd together with their live-stock in indescribable filth and confusion. Yet outside the villages one often sees a charming vignette of peasant life; a line of supple, straight-backed women in dark robes walking in single file with pitchers or great bundles balanced on their heads; a small, naked child leading a hump-necked bullock, or a woman perched on the hindquarters of a donkey with a child in her arms just like a picture of the Virgin Mary, during the flight into Egypt.

It was dark before we got to Cairo and the myriad lights of the Egyptian capital twinkled in the crisp air on either side as we steamed in. Amin and I were out of our carriage almost before the train had stopped. Passing the barrier at once I sent him to secure a car while I waited within a few feet of the ticket-collector for O'Kieff and Grünther to come through.

Uniformed
kavasses
from all the big hotels were on the platform but that gave me no guide as O'Kieff waved them all aside and was escorted by a private dragoman to a handsome Rolls. Running round to the place where Amin was waiting I jumped into the car he had engaged and told the driver to follow O'Kieff.

As soon as we were clear of the station yard the Rolls turned right instead of towards central Cairo. After a few minutes we passed the Museum and crossed the Nile by the famous Kasr el Nil bridge. On reaching the west bank we turned left and were soon out on the fine open road to Gizeh.

In the old days Cairo's European quarter was concentrated on the island of Gezira which lies in the middle of the Nile, and the race-course, golf-course and polo-grounds of the Gezira Club, which is the centre of British social activities, still occupies many acres of it much to the chagrin of the Egyptians. But numbers of the more wealthy European residents have now built houses in fine gardens out along the Gizeh road and I imagined that it was for one of these that O'Kieff was making. However, we could see his car ahead of us on the long straight road and it showed no signs of slowing down.

We followed him for mile after mile until Cairo's suburbs had been left far behind and I knew there was only one place for which he could be heading—the Mena House Hotel which nestles at the foot of the Great Pyramid. Sure enough his car turned in to the semicircular drive before the wide verandah. I pulled our man up before we reached the gates and Amin and I got out.

Telling our fellow to wait, we walked on as far as the hotel drive and I was just about to turn up it when I remembered that, in my poverty-stricken get-up as a Greek workman, I was in no fit state to enter a
de luxe
hotel where crowds of visitors were sipping their before-dinner cocktails after a welcome bath and a long day's sightseeing. I would have given anything for a bath and a drink myself, but I knew that I must do without either. Amin, too, was barred from entering the hotel by the regulation current throughout Egypt by which all dragomen report to the hall-porter when they wish to see their employers and await their pleasure on the steps of the terrace.

However, Amin was well-known among the other guides and the house-boys of all the principal hotels in Egypt. So I said to him: ‘Look here, I want you to have a chat with one of the porters and find out the number of the room that O'Kieff's been given. Also where abouts it is, if possible. D'you think you can do that?'

‘Why yes, sir.' he replied at once. ‘I will speak with my friend
Hussein, the boss boy of the terrace waiters. He will be able to tell me what you wish to know.'

I waited outside the gate for the best part of a quarter of an hour before Amin rejoined me.

‘The gentleman had reserved a suite,' he said. ‘It is on the first floor at the back. Come with me, sir, and I will show you.'

We turned into the fine gardens on the right-hand side of the hotel and walked down an avenue of palm trees.

‘There, that is it.' Amin suddenly stopped and pointed. ‘All five windows where the lights are, on the first floor. Four windows from the corner of the building. The gentlemens is up there now, I expect.'

‘Good,' I said. ‘That's all I want to know. The next thing is for you to drive back in the car to Cairo, go to the Semiramis and ask for Mr. Belville. Tell him we've traced O'Kieff out to Mena House and that I am remaining here for the moment; but that I hope to see him some time before he goes to bed tonight. They would never let me into the Semiramis dressed like this but he is taking care of my luggage for me so I want you to ask him to put one of my lounge-suits with a shirt and collar into a small suitcase and bring it back with you. I could easily change behind the bushes. You'll find me waiting for you either where the car is now or somewhere about here in the garden.'

When Amin had gone I sat down on a bench to keep observation on O'Kieff's lighted windows. As usual, he was doing himself well. Those first-floor rooms overlooking the tennis-courts and garden were about the best that were to be had in the hotel. The other side faces a sandy slope which is hardly compensated for by the fact that some of the windows give an uphill view of the Pyramids.

Occasionally I could see shadows moving behind the blind and I guessed that Grünther was unpacking for his master. O'Kieff was doubtless enjoying a bath and he seemed to be taking his time about it. I waited patiently, knowing that sooner or later they would both go down to feed, but I could not altogether suppress a rising sense of excitement at the contemplation of the scheme I had in mind.

The previous night I had obtained a package under false pretences; now I intended to add burglary to my crimes. It would be quite an easy climb up to one of those first-floor
windows and once O'Kieff's suite had been vacated I meant to pay a clandestine visit to it. I had seen from his luggage on the station that he still had the flat, steel-lined despatch case with him, and it was that which I was after. If I could only secure it and break it open we might find enough incriminating documents inside to hang a regiment.

The night was warm, the air soft, the atmosphere fragrant from the perfume of the night-flowering shrubs in the carefully-tended garden. Most of the hotel guests were occupied over dinner. The dragomen and outdoor servants were all on the far side of the building, and during my time of waiting only two couples passed me, in both cases much more interested in each other than myself.

I must have sat there for well over an hour when the lights in O'Kieff's suite were switched out one after another. I gave its occupants five minutes to get downstairs and then crossed the gravel path. Entering the shrubs in the bed beneath the windows I clutched a convenient drain-pipe and hauled myself up by it until I could get my hand on the window-ledge of what I believed to be the sitting-room. My movements were screened by the avenue of palm trees which ran parallel to the side of the hotel and in spite of my light-coloured suit no one could have seen me unless they had been walking along the path immediately below.

With my knees still clutching the drain-pipe and clinging to the window-ledge with one hand I was able to use the other to ease up the catch of the already open window and pull it out as far as it would go. I wriggled a little further up the pipe, hung out sideways from it; then, thrusting myself off, I sprang for the sill, landing with my chest against it and my head inside the window.

For a moment I hung there kicking, but with another violent heave, I jerked myself up until I was half in and half out of the room.

It must have been the slight noise I made myself and the efforts of the last few moments which prevented me from hearing the approach of footsteps; but I was still kicking wildly in my endeavour to wriggle over the sill when a voice exclaimed: