John Adams - The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

"Ah, at last," Holmes exclaimed "Now, we're getting somewhere. You have associated the stones of the curse with your unfortunate encounter with the falling tile."

"I am not a superstitious man, but my injury, occurring after some peculiar and tragic events since the conclusion of the Porter-Broadmoor expedition, has caused me to wonder if there might be something to this curse business."

"Your story becomes even more compelling," said Holmes. "What were these peculiar events, as you so colourfully put it?"

"The first was the collapse of a tunnel at the tomb site. No one was injured or killed at that time, but we had to work very rapidly to shore up the walls in order to extricate the diggers."

"The next incident?"

"One of the ships carrying several larger artefacts from the dig to England was lost in a Mediterranean storm. Again, there was no loss of life or injury, but the artefacts are now lying at a depth that leaves them unrecoverable."

"When did someone die?"

McAndrew smiled appreciatively. "I can see that Dr. Watson in his writings has not exaggerated your facility at deduction, Mr. Holmes. Several weeks ago, an expert in Egyptian hieroglyphics who translated the curse, Anthony Fulmer, was killed in a train wreck in Kent."

Recalling reading in the newspapers that several persons had died, I muttered, "A terrible accident, indeed."

"What happened next?" asked Holmes.

"Last week Felix Broadmoor was waylaid in the night by a robber on a street near his home in Cambridge. He was so badly beaten that he died without recovering. The police have attributed the incident to a gang of toughs who have been plaguing the area. As far as I know, there have been no arrests."

"How many individuals participated in the expedition?"

"Including diggers, carters, and others that we hired from the local population, there were about two hundred. Those who came out from England were Lord Porter, as financial backer; his nephew Basil; an exceptional Egyptologist from the BM named Geoffrey Desmond, who is still in Cairo; Mr. Broadmoor; and Mr. Fulmer."

"Six men," I said, "two of whom are dead and yourself injured. If one were inclined to believe in the occult, your mummy's curse would seem to have taken quite a toll."

With a sigh, McAndrew replied, "I'm certain all of this is pure coincidence, but it does provide me with a good barracks yarn. I only wish I possessed the Watson talent for spinning a riveting tale. When will I have the pleasure of reading your next story in The Strand?"

"You will find it especially interesting, as it involves the deadliest snake in India."

McAndrew shuddered. "The swamp adder?"

"Exactly, along with a whistle, a saucer of milk, a ventilator, and a bell pull."

"Fascinating. I'm eager to read your account of the case."

With a cautioning look at me, Holmes said, "There were aspects of the affair, involving the young woman who brought the matter to my attention, that I do not believe would serve any useful purpose if they were made public at this time. Don't you agree, Watson?"

"Quite so, Holmes."

With that, Major McAndrew repeated his concern that he was keeping Holmes and me from our dinner, voiced a hope that he and I might meet again soon to reminisce about army days, and excused himself.

"Your friend has suddenly whetted my appetite for all things Egyptian," Holmes said as the sergeant returned to his table. "This interesting encounter has provided me reason for us to call upon a remarkable man I have been wanting to meet. When we return to Baker Street you can look him up in the Index under P."

A set of commonplace books, the Index was an alphabetized conglomeration of facts, snippets of data, numerous press clippings, notations by Holmes on scraps of paper, and trivia that Holmes had accumulated over a period of decades that were as astonishing in scope as his ability to recall the exact volume in which they were to be found.

"The name you seek," said Holmes, "is William Matthew Flinders Petrie."

On a biographical article torn from a two-month-old edition of the Times, the item noted that Petrie was the author of Stonehenge: Plans, Description, and Theories, published in 1880, followed recently by The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh. "The son and namesake of a civil engineer and professional surveyor, and the maternal grandson of the famous navigator and explorer of the coasts of Australia, Professor Flinders Petrie is a remarkable man in his own right," declared the writer of the article. "As with many great men, he had little formal education, yet he has become a respected mathematician and highly esteemed in the emerging field of Egyptology as the father of modern archaeology."

Seated pensively in his favourite armchair and lighting a long pipe as I continued to read, Holmes said, "I do not in the least exaggerate when I state that Flinders Petrie's methodology of precisely recording and preserving data has raised the excavation of ancient sites from rooting around aimlessly in the earth with a pick and shovel to a science. You have often quoted me on the importance of trifles. Well, this fellow leaves me in the dust, so to speak. What I observe in the importance of cuffs of sleeves, thumbnails, and the great issues that hang from a boot lace, this man discerns in a shard of five-thousand-year-old Egyptian pottery. As I can reconstruct a crime and deduce the identity of a criminal from a cigar ash or an ink smudge on a sheet of stationery, Flinders Petrie divines the structure of an entire civilization."

Returning the "Index" to the shelf, I asked, "Where do we locate this paradigm?"

"Where else but the British Museum? If you have nothing to occupy you in the morning, I hope you will accompany me to Bloomsbury. Following our consultation with Flinders Petrie on the subject of mummy's curses, I shall treat you to a fine midday meal at a nearby public house, the Alpha Inn. I understand it is under new ownership, so I doubt anyone will remember me, although I spent many hours there after mornings in the Museum's Great Reading Room when I resided around the corner in Montague Place."

At eleven o'clock the next morning, as our hansom cab rattled along Marylebone Road to the Euston Road then turned down Gower Street, I allowed my mind to imagine Holmes during the time he had dwelt in Bloomsbury. Wondering what mysteries may have occupied his unique powers of observation and deduction in the years before I met him, and whether he would ever reveal them to me, I looked at him out of the corner of my eye and found a figure that had become familiar, yet always retained an air of mystery. His body was next to me, but his mind was far away. As we rode in the utter silence that I had learned to expect on such occasions, he sat to my left with his head turned slightly. He gazed through the window with a blank expression that I knew masked a brain that was alert to everything around him, but racing ahead in time in anticipation of what he expected to learn from Flinders Petrie on the subject of curses inscribed on the walls of tombs.

When the cab slowed to turn into Great Russell Street, my companion stirred, sighed, and muttered, "This was where the wine merchant Vamberry had his shop. Poor fellow. He was such a fool, wouldn't you agree, Watson?"

"How would I know? I have never heard the name."

"No, of course not. Before your time. Here we are! The good old BM."

Leaping from the hansom, he dashed through the iron gate, across the stone plaza, up the steps, and under the portico of imposing pillars so quickly that I lagged behind. As I caught up, a uniformed attendant was saying. "It's been a long time, Mr. Holmes. What game is afoot today? Blackmail? Robbery? A nice murder?"

"Perhaps, Mr. Dobbs. Perhaps," Holmes replied. "Call it the adventure of the mummy's curse. Which way to the office of Professor Flinders Petrie?"