Sands of Time (Out of Time #6) (7 page)

Cross shot him another glare, but Elizabeth patted his chest and the fire in Cross’s eyes dimmed. Not for the first time, Jack thought a beautiful and compassionate woman was the best weapon ever invented.

Jack dipped his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out Mason’s watch. “Ya know, now that we have two of these, if you wanted to go, I could stay and see it through.”

As expected, Cross’s eyes lit up at the possibility while Elizabeth’s forehead wrinkled in worry.

“You’d have to teach me how to use it,” Jack said, as he put the watch back into his pocket. “But—”

“And you’d have to wait until the next eclipse,” Elizabeth said quickly. “And we have no idea when that is.”

As exciting as the idea of having his own time travel device was to Jack, having to travel back and forth during an eclipse made things a little dicey. Not knowing when the next one was, made it even more so.

“Or we could give him the key,” Cross said, deflating her balloon in one stroke.

There was that, Jack thought. The watchmaker, Teddy Fiske, had made a special watch key for Elizabeth that allowed the bearer to travel without needing an eclipse. Problem was, there was only one key.

She looked at Cross briefly and nodded. “We could.”

“But you don’t want to,” Jack prompted.

“It’s not that,” she said. “We could give it to you, but then
we’d
have to wait for an eclipse to leave.”

Cross grunted, clearly displeased his idea embraced flawed logic. “True.”

“Besides,” Elizabeth said softly, her eyes lowered briefly before she looked up at Cross. “I want to stay. I know this is dangerous, but three of us have a better chance of success than one of us. No offense,” she added.

“None taken,” Jack assured her.

“And,” she said. “This is who I am.”

Cross looked at her. The unease and admiration mixing in his eyes.

“It’s who I want to be,” she said.

Jack saw Cross’s jaw muscle clench and unclench as he fought his instinctive reaction to argue. Cross reached out and caressed her cheek tenderly before remembering Jack was standing there. He dropped his hand and cleared his throat.

“If I do agree to this,” Cross said somewhat pompously, clearly more comfortable standing on imperious ground. “Where can we possibly start? Mason didn’t reveal what he knew about the missing watch to Travers. It was pure luck Travers discovered Mason had traveled to Egypt at all.”

Cross slipped his jacket on and continued, “And need I remind you that our one lead died this morning and any chance of picking up the trail for the missing watch died with him.”

“Not necessarily,” Jack said as he walked across the room toward them. “We know Mason was here looking for a watch that some other Council member lost or left behind here, right?”

Elizabeth nodded. “Travers said that Mason had somehow traced it here, but he wasn’t sure exactly where.”

Jack reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope. “On the train Mason said he was close to finding it.”

“Yes,” Cross said. “But he died before he could tell us anything more.”

“I think he did anyway.” Jack took a piece of paper out of the envelope and unfolded it. “He had this on him.”

Cross took the paper and he and Elizabeth frowned as they looked at it. “I don’t understand,” Cross said. “It’s just a long series of numbers.”

Jack pointed at the top line. “It’s a code. I’m not sure what kind yet, but you don’t code messages that don’t have valuable information in them.”

Jack jabbed at the paper. “He knew something. Something he didn’t want anyone else to know.”

“Except the person he was sending that to.” Elizabeth examined the envelope. “Louche, Blomster & Blackwood.”

She looked up at him questioningly, but all he could do was shake his head and shrug.

Cross took the envelope from her. “Solicitors. A very old English firm.”

“The plot thickens,” Jack said.

Elizabeth worried her bottom lip for a moment. “The code, can you break it?”

Jack wasn’t sure. He’d had some training in it, but he was far from an expert. “Eventually.”

Cross arched an eyebrow. “That’s hardly comforting.”

“This isn’t all we have to go on, ya know,” Jack said as he took back the paper and envelope and tucked them into his jacket. “Everyone leaves a trail. And Mason might have been good at what he did, but he left us a trail a mile wide in the desert. Five’ll get you ten, we can pick up his trail here in Cairo too.”

“He was staying here at this hotel,” Cross reasoned. “He must have chosen this particular place for a reason.”

“What do you mean?” Elizabeth asked.

“If you want to stay off the radar,” Jack said. “You don’t fly high.”

Elizabeth frowned and looked to her husband for an explanation.

“Shepheard’s is the hub of the Cairo social scene,” Cross said, warming to the mystery. “If someone didn’t want to be seen, this would be the very last place they’d stay. He must have come here because he needed something here.”

“Or someone,” Elizabeth added.

“Right,” Jack said with a grin. He tugged on his shirt cuffs, ignored Cross’s obvious hesitancy, and held out his arm for Elizabeth. “I say we go downstairs, have some dinner and make some new friends.”

CHAPTER NINE

Simon had been too tired to appreciate the wonderfully grand absurdity of the lobby and entrance hall at Shepheard’s before, but now, rested, it stood before him in all of its overwrought glory. He might as well enjoy it while he could. He was still unconvinced staying here was wise. He’d see it through tonight and hope he could talk sense into Elizabeth in the morning.

As they descended the grand staircase into the main hall, they passed two life-size bronze statues of bare-breasted women with ancient Egyptian headdresses, holding up electric lamps. Thick columns topped with lotus flowers led to an enormous octagonal Moorish hall with a sixty foot ceiling. What appeared to be a canopy of glass was the centerpiece of wildly detailed and adorned walls, floors and ceilings. Grand pointed Coptic arches, intricate latticework and mosaics evoked the lavish feeling of the great Cairo of centuries past for the European traveler. Divans, rattan chairs and tables were scattered on and around ubiquitous oriental carpets. Among the potted palms and trays of champagne were princes and marquis, generals and titans of industry. Europe’s elite called Shepheard’s home. As he understood it, it was more of a social club than a hotel really. A place to see and be seen. Simon could only hope Mason was one of the latter and not just the former.

As they walked through the long hall and toward the front desk, Simon absently tried to place the tune the small orchestra in the loggia played. Anything to take his mind off last night. The memories of those long hours, not knowing, imagining the worst shadowed him still.

Reflexively, he reached out to touch Elizabeth. His hand landed lightly on the small of her back. Just a small reassurance, but one he needed.

Jack had suggested they stop at the front desk and make an inquiry before dinner. Simon let Elizabeth precede him through a knot of British soldiers. The hotel and the rest of Cairo wasn’t dominated by their presence the way it surely had been during the war years, but they and their uniforms were still omnipresent.

“Hello,” Jack said to the clerk, as he casually leaned against the front desk. He pointed to Simon and Elizabeth. “We’re friends of George Mason. He’s also staying in the hotel. We tried his room, but there was no answer. Did he change rooms?”

The slender clerk bowed his head slightly and quickly consulted a ledger behind the counter. “Mr. Mason is still in room 226, but I believe he is away at the moment.”

Jack turned to Simon. “I told ya.” He looked at Elizabeth for confirmation. “Didn’t I tell ya? And he knew we were coming.”

He sighed and addressed the clerk again. “You don’t know when he’ll be back, do you?” Jack leaned in conspiratorially and lowered his voice. “We have some business and it’s getting a little…urgent, if you know what I mean.”

The clerk nodded again and smiled. “I understand, sir. I am afraid I am not privy to Mr. Mason’s schedule. But perhaps Professor Whiteside can help you. They spent a great deal of time together.”

Jack snapped his fingers. “Whiteside. Right. Mason mentioned him. Is he around?”

Simon was impressed. Wells didn’t miss a beat. His lies sounded more natural than his truths. He’d not only managed to find out Mason’s room number, but a contact as well.

“I believe the professor and his daughter are in the dining room.”

Jack pointed in one direction and the clerk corrected him by pointing in the other.

Jack rapped the counter with his knuckles. “Good man.”

He turned to Simon and Elizabeth with a grin. “Shall we?”

The dining room was large, holding at least fifty tables, elegantly set with white linens and silver service. Like the entrance hall, it too had an enormously high ceiling and was decorated in classic Moorish design with embellished columns patterned with green diamonds, an emerald carpet and large gilt mirrors.

A dozen or so waiters in white robes with wide maroon sashes about their waists and matching fezzes, or tarbooshes as they were known locally, lingered around the edges of the room ready to meet a diner’s needs. Simon stopped one of them and asked for the professor’s table. The man bowed and directed him to a table near the cascading, tiered fountain at the far end of the room.

The table next to Whiteside and his daughter was empty giving them the perfect opportunity to meet them both. Whatever Mason wanted with Whiteside, it had something to do with the missing watch. At least, that was the logical conclusion. It could simply have been part of his cover, but Simon’s instincts told him it was something more.

Simon pulled out a chair for Elizabeth, and then he and Jack took their seats. Whiteside was perhaps in his late fifties or early sixties. His hair had gone mostly white and what there was left of it sprouted off his head in unruly short curls. He was slightly disheveled, not from lack of money, but lack of care. His suit was well-made and expensive, but wrinkled in a way university professors’ often were. He looked to be the sort who would perpetually have chalk dust on his forearm and neither notice nor care.

“I’m sorry, my dear,” he said with a vague hint of a Lincolnshire accent. “I simply must meet Jouvet tomorrow at the museum.”

The young woman, presumably his daughter, teetered between childhood and womanhood, probably no more than eighteen. She pushed her glasses back up on her nose and looked at her father with alarm.

“But, papa!” she started in an excited voice, before regaining her composure. “I can go alone. I don’t need George to escort me. Really.”

“Don’t be absurd, dear.”

The girl chewed on her lip and tugged nervously on a tendril of blonde hair that had escaped from her bun as she furiously searched for a counter-argument.

Whiteside looked up from the book he was reading and patted her hand. “I’m sure you can amuse yourself here for the day.”

The girl continued to fret, but in silence, and Simon took advantage of the opening. “I’m sure Mason will be along before too long,” he said, somewhat loudly.

Jack grunted. “It’s just like George to do this.”

“I’m sure he had a good reason for running off,” Elizabeth said, joining their little play. “I hope he’s all right.”

Whiteside cleared his throat and turned toward them. “I’m terribly sorry to intrude, but did you say something about George Mason?”

Simon shifted in his chair to face him. “Yes, we did. Do you know him?” Simon glanced back to Jack and Elizabeth. “We’re a little concerned.”

“As am I,” Whiteside said with a frown. “Forgive me,” he stood and stuck out his hand. “Arthur Whiteside. This is my daughter, Christina.”

Simon stood, shook his hand and bowed slightly toward the girl. “Simon Cross. My wife, Elizabeth, and Jack Wells. So, you know George Mason?”

Whiteside’s forehead creased in worry. “Yes, we share common interests.”

From the short dossier Travers had given them, Simon knew Mason’s areas of expertise. While they varied from ancient literature to philosophy, combining his clear love of antiquity with their current location, it was hardly difficult to guess. “Egyptology?” Simon asked.

“Yes,” Whiteside said with a broad, dreamy smile as if he were thinking of a lover and not a field of study. He came back to himself and said, “Mason was an avid collector. Very well versed on the subject.”

“Cross here is no slouch himself,” Jack said winning a quick glare from Simon.

He had studied the subject, of course, both at university and in his own pursuits, but… “Compared to Mason and yourself, Professor, I’m merely an amateur.”

Whiteside was pleased at the compliment and his smile broadened. “Won’t you join us?” He gestured to their large, empty table. “We have plenty of room, as you can see. The Everetts seem to have disappeared as well.”

Christina rolled her eyes and shook her head in obvious exasperation with whomever the Everetts were. “They’re probably drunk again.”

Whiteside laughed uncomfortably and shot his daughter a surprised and confused look as though he didn’t realize she knew what drunk was. He cleared his throat and looked back to Simon who saved him from further embarrassment and steamrolled right over the awkward moment, thanking him profusely for the offer.

“You mentioned that you were worried about George, too,” Elizabeth said as she settled into her seat at the new table. “Do you have any idea where he went?”

Whiteside summoned a waiter with a wave of his hand. “Not the foggiest, I’m afraid. Mason’s a bit of an odd duck.” He laughed and then clapped Simon on the forearm. “But then I don’t need to tell you, do I? And not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. I’ve been called far worse.”

The waiter appeared at their table and Whiteside tapped his own Old Fashioned and raised a finger, signaling for another, before casting his glance around the table. “What would you like?”

They placed their orders and the awkward silence that always followed an interruption settled in around them.