Silver Tomb (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 2) (12 page)

She bit her lip. “What if I help you stop Lindholm. Would you help me then?”

He thought for a moment. If Maspero or the police found out that he was aiding in the removal of artifacts, it would ruin his previous reputation as an Egyptologist. But then, he was a governmental agent now and he hadn’t worked on a dig in years and was unlikely to ever again. And Eleanor was no treasure hunter. She was a dedicated Egyptologist who had fallen in with the wrong man, and now her work was about to suffer for it. Could he let that happen? “Very well,” he told her. “I’ll help you get the items to Paris. But how will you get them to Cairo under Lindholm’s nose?”

“Leave that to me. There is room on my
dahabeah
. Now tell me how I can help you.”

“I need to know how Lindholm is planning to get his monsters to the C.S.A. Smuggling a mummy to Paris is one thing, but he has several and they would weigh a great deal more.”

“I don’t know. But I will try to find out.”

“I don’t want you putting yourself at risk. Do nothing that might jeopardize your relationship with Lindholm for the time being.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me, Lazarus. I shall be as quiet as a mouse and twice as sneaky. I’m sure I can find out something back at the site. He leaves things lying around, you know.”

“When do you return?”

“Tonight. I shall come back to Cairo in a week’s time. I hope I will have some information for you then. Will you make the arrangements for the transportation of my goods while I am away?”

“I shall do my best.”

“Then I will have them on board when I return.”

They finished eating and took a stroll down the waterfront, looking at the boats and the play of the silvery moonlight on the gently lapping waters. Lazarus grew aware that they were approaching Eleanor’s
dahabeah
.

“Thank you for tonight,” she said, turning to him. Her skin looked like alabaster in the light, smooth and perfect. “It’s been wonderful to speak with a sane human being for once. And one so nice...” She let the unfinished sentence hang in the air between them. “I suppose I would be presuming too much to offer the invitation for a nightcap on my boat? It’s just that you finally agreed to have dinner with me and...”

“Yes,” said Lazarus quickly, before his better judgment could interfere. He was tired of being so damned proper all the time. “I’d love to.”

She beamed at him and led him up the gangplank and down into the cozy cabin below. It was well fitted out. Sketches—perhaps her own—hung in frames on the dark wood paneling. A well-stocked library of books on all manner of subjects filled one wall, and a comfortable armchair and ottoman occupied the corner beneath a hurricane lamp. A walnut chaise-longue with green velvet upholstery sat opposite it. She bid him remove his coat and hat and sit down.

“The comfort of this must be a tempting alternative to sleeping in tombs,” he said as she poured them both brandies from a little bar.

“But alas, it is moored too far from our site for me to use it for anything but travelling,” she told him, sitting down close and swirling the dark amber liquid around in the glasses before handing one to him. He could smell her perfume and was struck by how apt Morton’s codename for her was. She smelled like the most fragrant breezes of Parisian society.

“Where are your servants?” Lazarus asked her.

“Yusef is sleeping on deck and Ardath is in the city procuring supplies for me,” she replied. “We will not be disturbed, I assure you.”

Lazarus nearly choked on his cognac. The forwardness of this woman would give Katarina a run for her money. “That’s not why I was asking! I meant, do you not feel vulnerable?  A beautiful woman like you alone on a
dahabeah
overnight in the docks with only two servants to guard you?”

“I am very well protected, have no fear, Galahad. And am I beautiful? Goodness, Lazarus, are you trying to seduce me?”

He could feel the color rising up around his stiff collar and he yearned to cast if off. “Nothing of the sort!”

She laughed. “I am sorry. I was only teasing you. I am so very lonely here in Egypt with nobody to offer me stimulating conversation and sporting banter. I couldn’t resist toying with you. Do you forgive me?”

“Of course. But you have Henry, back in London. Does not the thought of his love comfort you on lonely nights?”

“Now you are toying with me, Lazarus and it is most cruel.”

He suddenly felt like a pig. Of course he was toying with her. Thackeray was about as affectionate as a bulldog with piles. “I’m sorry.”

“You know that I don’t love Henry, you must know that by now. I am a doomed woman, Lazarus. I am little more than a girl and have never loved a man and yet once I am married to Henry, love will be forever denied me. Please, Lazarus, do me one service. Kiss me.”

“K... kiss you?” he managed, alarmed by how close those full, wet lips were to his own, and he was mesmerized by those dark, intoxicating eyes.

“Are you going to pretend that you are not attracted to me now?” she said in a voice that was almost a whisper, her sweet breath brushing his cheeks. “Don’t make a fool of me, Lazarus. Admit that you find me lovely. Because I find you simply wonderful.”

“I do find you lovely, Eleanor,” he said, rolling her name around in his mouth as if it were a sweet delicacy. “So very lovely. But it would not be proper—worse, it would not be right. You are engaged to a man who is... was my...”

“Friend? No longer. Don’t pretend that. But this is not about Henry. This is about us. Kiss me so that I know what it is like to be kissed by a man who knows how to show a woman some affection, a man with a heart instead of a block of ice, a man who would love me instead of use me to his own ends.”

Lazarus gave in and leaned forward just an inch to allow those glorious, all-encompassing lips to latch onto his own.
This is madness!
he thought in a wild grasp at sanity that was rapidly sailing out of his reach.
But God, it feels so good!

She leaned in close. He allowed his hand to gently touch the crinkles in the crushed silk of her dress. He moved it north and grasped her firmly around her corset, and he pulled her closer. She did not mind and they leaned back against the velvet of the chaise-longue, still kissing, gripped in an embrace that felt like it would last forever.

He started as her hand wound its way down to the lump in his breeches. It unfastened his belt and slipped inside like an asp encircling his most vulnerable spots, an asp that could strike at any moment. And he welcomed it.

Oh, God, he welcomed its venom.

Chapter Twelve

In which the mummy strikes again

Lazarus spent the next few days making the arrangements to ship Eleanor’s boxes out of Egypt. He booked transport for them on a steamer headed for Marseille, and recruited Petrie’s help in filling out the customs forms and forging the licenses. But Petrie was no fool. He went along with the idea without asking questions, but in his room late one evening over their brandies, he confronted Lazarus on the matter.

“I know that you are an honorable man, Lazarus,” he said, “And that you, like me, prize the relics of antiquity far higher than any commercial value they might present. But I must know, what is it that you are so intent on getting out of the country? If it has something to do with your work for the government, then say no more, for I’ll not pry into the secret matters of Her Majesty’s government. But I have the horrible feeling that all this has something to do with that Rousseau woman.”

Lazarus forced a grin onto his face. He was a careful man and it was not often that he was tumbled. “You’ve got me, Flinders,” he admitted. “It has everything to do with her. I can’t lie to you, but I must ask you to keep what I am about to tell you under your hat.”

Petrie sighed and peered down into his glass. “I’d like to promise you that, Lazarus, but I am a professional man and if you’re involved in something that threatens the heritage of this land, I’m afraid that I will be forced to alert the proper authorities.”

“I quite sympathies with you, Flinders, but I hope that I can persuade you that I have acted with Egypt’s best interests in mind. Well, to my way of thinking,” he faltered for a moment, “one museum is as good as another, and there are plenty of Egyptian artifacts already in the British museum, and the Louvre for that matter...”

“I think you’d best spit it out, old boy,” said Petrie, his eyes narrowed at Lazarus.

“Eleanor, that is, Miss Rousseau, has asked me to whisk some items away from Dr. Lindholm before he uses them in one of his ghastly experiments. She wants them removed to the Louvre.”

“I can sympathies with the first part of that idea, but why the Louvre? There is a perfectly good museum here in Cairo. Maspero could do with taking some tips on proper cataloguing of course but still, items from the City of the Silver Aten belong in the Bulaq.”

“She is French, after all. And she has a peculiar familiarity with Kiya, that woman you identified on the stolen fragment.”

“Does she? Well it was Rousseau who discovered her tomb, I suppose, and that of her husband. It is not uncommon for those who find themselves the first person to stand in somebody’s funerary chamber in three thousand years to feel a certain affinity or protectiveness over the persons interred. I have not discovered any mummies myself, alas, but there it stands.”

“Anyway, she wants Kiya’s mummy shipped to Paris before it falls into Maspero’s hands and winds up in his cluttered basement.”

“Hmm. And you are willing to aid in this illegal act? She had no concession to dig there, you know.”

“I see no reason not to help her. You yourself said that the cataloguing system at the Bulaq Museum leaves a lot to be desired. And Eleanor has connections in Paris. She could ensure that Kiya’s remains would receive the very best treatment and not be kept boxed up in some damp basement.”

“I agree with all that you are saying, Lazarus, but I wonder at what you are
not
saying. We met this Rousseau woman little over a week ago and you are leaping to aid her. I have to wonder why.”

Lazarus was momentarily lost for words. “Well, she’s a fellow Egyptologist trying to do the best in a less than ideal situation. Why not help her?”

“And the fact that she is incredibly beautiful has nothing to do with it?”

“Honestly, Flinders, what do you take me for?”

“And that she is Henry Thackeray’s fiancé is also irrelevant?”

“Why on earth would it be relevant? You know that Henry and I have not been on the best of terms in recent years. Why would I rush to help his fiancé?”

“Why indeed? I hope that you are not romantically involved with her.”

Lazarus set his glass down a little too heavily. “You go too far, Flinders.”

“Then I apologies. It’s just that she is so very beautiful and you do seem to have met her privately on more than one occasion. After dark...”

“For God’s sake, Flinders! I need to convince her to come back to England with me. that’s my mission! I... oh, confound the whole ruddy matter! I can’t lie to you, Flinders. I am romantically involved with her. Worse, in love with her.”

“Bloody hell!” said Petrie, putting down his glass. “I thought there was something fishy about the whole thing! Does she return your affections?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Well, you’re a cad of course, but I expect you know that. I just hope your reasons for loving each other are true and not borne of something uglier.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, she needs your help and you need hers. And you despise her fiancé. Do you not think that might play a factor?”

“Come off it! I’m not playing with her to spite Henry!”

“I’m not saying that you are, I’m just making you aware of the possibility. I... what was that?”

His head had jerked around to look at the window. Lazarus had not seen anything. “What was what?”

“A shadow just moved past the window.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t the curtains moving in the breeze?”

“Quite sure. Something flitted past, like a bloody quick cloud.”

They went to the window and opened it wider. Nobody in the bustle of Opera Square below appeared to have noticed anything unusual up on the face of the Grand Hotel. They cast their eyes along the rows of windows, some lit up by the occupants of their rooms and others left dark. From the sill of one of these unlit ones, a figure emerged, a long black cloak concealing its form, flapping wraith-like in the hot night air.

“There!” said Petrie, flinging out a finger.

They watched the figure move up the side of the hotel with astonishing agility, apparently finding hand and foot holds in the bare stone.

“It’s heading around the corner!” said Petrie.

“Katarina!” Lazarus exclaimed and ducked back inside, drawing his revolver.

“I’ll get mine,” said Petrie, heading over to his wardrobe.

They hurried out of the room and down the Brussels-carpeted corridors towards the stairwell. An alarmed couple let out a cry at the sight of their drawn revolvers.

Taking the steps three at a time, they ascended to the upper floor where Katarina’s room was. Lazarus knew the number, although he had never called on her in her room, and led the way around another corner. He hammered on the door with a bunched fist. Katarina took her time in opening it, Lazarus cursing her slowness all the way. At last her face appeared and it did not look impressed by the late intrusion.

Lazarus said nothing, but elbowed both the door and Katarina aside, storming into the room and leveling his pistol at the open window.

“What on earth are you playing at now, Longman?” Katarina demanded. She was wearing her silk negligee.

“Get her out of here, Flinders,” said Lazarus, not taking his eyes off the window.

“What do you mean, ‘get me out of here’?” Katarina demanded.

“No time to argue. That creature has tracked you down to the hotel and is currently scaling the wall in an attempt to get in.”

Katarina showed a slight loss of color in her cheeks. But before she could recover herself, Petrie was tugging at her elbow and hauling her out of the room. “We had better go, my dear,” he said. “Let Lazarus tackle this thing.”

The shape appeared at the window like a thing from a nightmare, its iron claws clutching the wooden sill and digging deep scars into it. Its monstrous face, all rotten bandages and shriveled flesh with gaping, eyeless sockets, leered in as if sniffing for want of sight.

Lazarus waited until it had hauled its torso up onto the sill so he could get a proper shot at its heart. The green gas-filled orb was obscured by its cloak and so he guessed, squeezing the trigger and sending a bullet ripping through cloth, bandage and flesh.

“Damn!” he cursed. “Missed by an inch!”

Reeling backwards, the mummy regained its clutch on the sill and squirmed forward with even more rapidity, slithering into the room like an eel. Lazarus fired again and again, trying to keep cool and focus as the monster came towards him, its joints letting out jets of steam. He backed out into the hallway and slammed the door shut.

“That’ll never hold it in!” said Katarina.

“Of course not. Now help me move this couch.”

They dragged the piece of hallway furniture up to the door just as it began to open under the pressure of the creature on the other side. They jammed the walnut rim of the couch under the door handle, but a further hurl of the creature forced it back.

“Christ, but he’s strong!” said Petrie.

The feet of the couch were caught in the thick carpet and kept the door wedged shut. They found other items to pile up—a potted plant, a grandfather clock and a rolled up rug from the other hallway—and shoved them into position, barricading the creature in the room. Evidently possessing some degree of intelligence, the creature decided that it was useless to persist hurling itself against the obstacle. The great thuds and splintering cracks of the wood subsided.

“He’ll no doubt vacate the room and look for another way in,” said Lazarus.

“But that could be any room in the hotel!” said Katarina.

“Then we’ll just have to outwit him,” said Lazarus. “And that shouldn’t be too hard. Our prime concern is getting you to a safe spot.”

“I’d be better able to look after myself if only you had let me fetch my pistol,” Katarina snapped.

“There wasn’t time,” said Lazarus. “Come on, I know where I can take you.”

There were cries of alarm at the gunshots, and the few brave heads that peered out of their rooms vanished quickly at the sight of two armed men escorting a scantily-clad female down the corridor. They arrived at a door and Katarina groaned with dismay.

“Please tell me we’re not doing this.”

Lazarus hammered on the door, which was promptly answered by the mustachioed face of Baron von Eichendorf. His bushy eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Good lord, were you involved in that shooting just now, Longman? I heard the shots and was just looking for my service revolver when...” he caught sight of Katarina in her silk negligee. “I say! Perhaps you’d better come in. All of you I mean! We can’t leave this young lady standing around in the corridor in such a state. I have a gown that is yours, madam.”

“Thank you,” Katarina mumbled as they entered the room. The Baron draped a thick, quilted gown of brown silk over her shoulders.

“Now what the devil is it all about, hmm?” said von Eichendorf as he poured all three of them some brandy.

“Miss Mikolavna’s friend has returned, I fear,” said Lazarus, accepting the brandy gratefully and gulping it down. “He broke into her room through the window. We were able to get her out in time and barricade him in, but I believe he has found a way out and is stalking the corridors of the hotel looking for her.”

“That bounder doesn’t take no for an answer, does he?” exclaimed the Baron. He fitted his monocle into place and knocked off the rest of his drink. “There’s not a moment to lose, then. Miss Mikolavna shall remain here while we scour the hotel for this character and put a stop to him once and for all. The police will be on their way no doubt, but they are much too tardy for us all to wait around while this maniac is on the loose.” He slotted several eleven millimeter cartridges into his Prussian Reichsrevolver and cocked it.

“Flinders, I want you to remain here with Katarina,” said Lazarus.

“But, old friend...” said Petrie in a valiant show of courage.

“The Baron and I are military men,” said Lazarus, “and somebody needs to be here should the monster slip past us or get in at her through the window again.”

“Monster is right,” said von Eichendorf. “Fellow needs to be put out of his misery if you ask me.”

“You have no idea,” said Lazarus. “Take my word for it and aim for the heart. He is remarkably robust and you may not get a second chance.”

They stepped out into the corridor and Petrie shot the bolt on the door behind them. The corridors were deserted. As they advanced down them, they could almost smell the fear from the occupied rooms.

“What if this fellow has gone downstairs?” von Eichendorf asked. “There’s plenty of innocent people down in the ballroom and restaurant.”

“He’ll be up here somewhere,” Lazarus assured him.

There came a scream of terror from somewhere nearby.

“Told you.”

They broke into a run and rounded the corner to find a lady in an evening dress lying in a swoon in her husband’s arms.

“Which way?” Lazarus asked.

The man stuck out a trembling finger towards the top floor bar.

“Plenty of innocent people in there, too,” said Lazarus as they headed up the steps to the lounge bar.