Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

“In the end it would make no difference.”

“It might even help,” I said, “if we were not there.”

“How so, old chap?”

“It would mean that they were not distracted by unnecessary complications.”

“Complications?”

“The bottle,” I said. “Would they understand it? Abstinence is enjoined on them by their religion.”

“True, true,” said Herbert. “Let us say nothing about the bottle.”

“Nor about the footprints.”

“Nor about the footprints,” agreed Herbert. “They might not believe us.”

“It might lead them astray again. For who knows how speculation or superstition might work on their weak minds?”

“It would only be for a short time,” Herbert remarked, as we moved the body.

After some deliberation we moved it into one of the out-houses. It was a long low building dug out of the ground and lined with bricks and had once, I think, been an ice-house. It had obviously not been used for some time and sand had drifted in and now filled half the space. Yet, situated below ground as it was, and with the roof so well lined, it was still cool enough to arrest the body’s deterioration, which would mean, as I pointed out to Herbert, that the investigation would not be affected.

“True,” said Herbert. “True.”

He seemed, however, a little uneasy.

“It does mean, of course,” he said, “that it will not be possible to bury the poor fellow the same day.”

It was the practice in Egypt to bury the dead on the day that they departed; a sensible, hygienic practice in the heat.

“But, then,” I pointed out, “that could not have happened anyway. They will have to send for the mamur from Toukh and by the time he gets here and has heard all the depositions it will be Tuesday and by then we will have returned to Cairo.”

He still seemed a little troubled, however.

“It is, perhaps, as well, after all, that Clara couldn’t come,” he said suddenly.

At the very last moment, even as the carriages were being loaded, one of the children had developed a stomach-ache.

“It’s just excitement,” Herbert had said. But Clara, a connoisseur in her children’s illnesses, had shaken her head.

“It’s more than that,” she had said. She had suspected that it might be the onset of malaria.

“If you think that, my dear,” said Herbert, “then we shouldn’t go!”

“It seems a pity, though,” said Clara, “when you and Pip have been so looking forward to it.”

And indeed we had. We had been slaving away in the Counting House for nearly two years without a break.

“No, you must go,” she said now with decision. “You go and I will stay here with the children.”

Of course, we dissented vehemently.

“No,” she said firmly, “you must go. I have been thinking for some time that you are both beginning to look rather peaky. And, besides,” she had said, with a smile, and putting her hand on my arm, “you will enjoy recapturing the intimacy of those old bachelor days in London!”

“Just as well that she couldn’t,” I said now to Herbert, and we returned to the house.

Running along the front of the house was a broad verandah, on which there was a table and some cane chairs with cushions. After the sand storm of the previous day the cushions were covered with sand which had drifted in. Herbert raised the cushions to give them a shake and in doing so uncovered a pair of scorpions.

“How very annoying!” said Herbert, brushing them away. “The headman swore that the house had been cleaned!”

It had, indeed, been flooded, as was the usual custom when a house was about to be reoccupied, to rid it of any infestation.

“I suppose their attention did not extend to outside the house,” I said.

“Yes, but-”

I laid my finger on my lips.

“Now, Herbert,” I said, “did we not swear before we left that we would pay no attention to trifles? That we would put aside all care for the proper discharge of duties in others? Put the Counting House entirely behind us?”

“We did, old chap, we did. And we will!”

He plumped up the cushion and sat down, and I went into the kitchen to find a bottle to replace the one that had disappeared. The sand which had blown in the day before, just after we had arrived, was still there on the floor of the sitting room, and still there were the huge, bestial footprints.

I took the bottle out on to the verandah and poured out two glasses.

“Your health, dear Herbert! And a very good Christmas!”

“And to you, too, my very dear Handel!”

He put the glass down.

“If a strange one.”

“You are thinking of your family,” I said gently.

“I acknowledge it. Of the children especially. The Christmas stockings, you know.”

“We can go back at once, if you wish.”

“No, no. Clara would not forgive me.”

He toyed with his glass.

“And, besides,” he said, “are there not things to be done here?”

“You are still disquieted about the body, Herbert?”

“I am, I must confess. For suppose the body is not to be separated from the strange things that happened last night? If we conceal those things from them, how are they to proceed?”

“You mean, we should disclose -? But I thought we had discussed that, Herbert.”

“Yes, yes. And you rightly convinced me that the strangeness of the happenings here might prey upon their weak minds. But you see where that leads to, Handel?”

“That we should tell-”

“No, no. Not at all. That we should investigate the matter for ourselves and present our findings to them when we have all the answers.”

The house we had secured was in a remote village, about fifty miles from Cairo in the Damiatta direction. It had once been a farm house and was surrounded by plantations of orange trees and fields of dourah, which is the corn they have thereabouts, and cotton. Being closer to the sea, the air was fresher than it was inland and the temperature slightly lower, a mere ninety degrees in the shade and 120 in the sun. At night the temperature fell sharply and we deliberated whether to sleep outside on the verandah or to retreat indoors where it would be warmer. In the end we decided for indoors.

That night, as I lay in my bed, I could hear through the open window as well as the singing of grasshoppers and frogs the distant cry of wolves, answered occasionally by the cries of jackals and hyaenas. Later, there appeared to be a pack of wild desert dogs circling the house. It was, as Herbert had said, a strange place to spend Christmas.

Clara had entrusted me with a veritable mound of presents, among which I was surprised to find a not inconsiderable number for myself. We opened them over coffee on the verandah. I could see that they turned Herbert’s thoughts to home so after a while I crept away leaving him there to muse. He was still sitting there an hour later, when I thought the time had come to direct his mind to other things.

“My dear Herbert-” I said.

He sat up with a start.

“You are right, my dear Handel,” he said. “It is time to begin.”

The facts, such as they were, were that we had arrived the previous afternoon, just as the sun was setting in a red ball of fire above the desert. Even as we looked, it seemed to darken over.

“Is that a sandstorm?” said Herbert. “How untimely!”

We went round the house closing all the shutters. By the time we had finished, the wind was rising and fine particles of sand were beginning to seep through the slats of the shutters. We knew from long experience that there was nothing now to be done but sit it out. We gave ourselves a hasty supper and cleared the plates away before the full force of the storm hit us – there is nothing worse than sand in your food, in your wine, in your mouth. Then we sat down opposite each other and put blankets over our heads and a bottle of wine on the table in front of us. From time to time one of us would put out a hand and refill the glasses, putting a table mat over the glass as soon as it was filled, to keep out the sand. Then we would retreat beneath our blankets.