The Quest of Julian Day (52 page)

‘Isn't it amazing that the leather should have lasted all this time,' Sylvia said. ‘But probably it's lain undisturbed for centuries until yesterday's sandstorm uncovered it. Let's look about and see if we can find anything else.'

‘No, you mustn't waste your strength,' I demurred. ‘Our first job is to find the car again. Then if the others do find us after all we can always come back here.'

But as we walked on down the valley we found quite a number of other remains scattered in our path. They were mostly broken pieces of the same brittle leather from helmets, belts and shields; or pieces of crude iron, being the studs from these and the heads or grips of spears. But we found one javelin and a rather nice belt-buckle of chased brass.

It was about half an hour after our first discovery that to my great relief we sighted the car, and another twenty minutes' slow walking brought us to it. The first thing we did was to take stock of its contents. There were two quart bottles of Evian in it, as a reserve without which the cars never left our camp, and one bottle of Perjac orangeade left over from the previous day's picnic lunch. We also had our reserve supply of food which consisted of iron-rations enough to last us for two days. In addition there were our coats which would help to keep us warm at night and various other oddments which might come in handy for rendering our situation a little less disagreeable. As Sylvia pointed out, too, when we had exhausted our supply of bottled water we could always drink that which was in the radiator of the car. It would mean smashing a hole in it to get the water out as the car was upside down, but we had the tools with which I could manage that; and, allowing for evaporation, it would give us at least another half gallon, so it looked as if we should be able to hang out for four or five days. That seemed to give us a slightly better chance than we had reckoned on as Harry would be searching for us from dawn to dusk each day.

Yet I was very far from optimistic. Taking the camp as the centre of a circle, since we were 30 miles from it, the circumference of that circle upon which we stood must measure 180 miles. Harry knew that we had gone roughly south-west so he
would concentrate his search on that quarter of the circle, but, even so, he had a front to cover of 45 miles in extent. In each journey he could only see approximately half-a mile to either side of his route and we were so far out that he could not make more than one journey each day. With five days to go the odds were exactly nine-to-one
against
his finding us.

As we had so far eaten nothing we made a modest breakfast off some of our tinned supplies and when we had done I decided to have a look at the thing which had caused the car to turn over. I now had a pretty shrewd idea as to what it might be, and leaving Sylvia sitting in the shadow of the car I went off up the slope to see if I were right.

I was. There was a biggish black object protruding from the sand which I had noticed the day before, and as I had suspected this was more of the Persian loot we had been after.

Before the car crashed it the thing had been a large, iron-bound leather chest. The top had been dashed to fragments by the wheel of the car but inside it I saw the stuff that had given it sufficient solidity to turn us over. It was full to the brim with a dinner-service of ancient plate.

I picked one of the pieces up and looked at it, coming quickly to the conclusion that it had little value except that which it might fetch in the sale-room as an antique. It was certainly not gold or silver but some dullish metal not unlike pewter with a faintly reddish tinge.

Gathering up a pile of this first real treasure-trove I hurried with it back to Sylvia; both of us would have been extraordinarily thrilled by such a find only twenty-four hours before but even if the edge were taken off our excitement by the small likelihood of our ever being able to make use of our find, we still got quite a kick out of it.

We always carried a couple of spades in each of the cars so that we could start to dig at once if we found anything on any of our prospecting trips, and I thought that in any case a little digging would serve to keep our minds off the anxiety which always lay like the pain of a nagging tooth at the back of them: so I assisted Sylvia up the slope, settled her comfortably and began to dig.

There was quite a lot of stuff round about the neighbourhood of the chest and within a few inches of the surface of the
ground. Most of it was practically unidentifiable, having rotted to bits with the shifting of the sand; but I unearthed a small armoury of spearheads, javelins and swords; and by digging round it for the best part of two hours, a queer contraption that looked something like the remains of a sedan-chair.

Sylvia suggested that it probably
was
a carrying chair for some high officer who had been wounded or was too gouty to mount his horse; so we knocked off the top of it and started to clear the interior by baling the sand out with our cupped hands.

So far I had not come across a single bone or anything that might be taken for a portion of mummified human body. In the immense length of time that had elapsed since the army had perished, the bodies would have rotted and even the bones would have calcined during the periods when they had lain exposed in the valley bottoms to the burning sun and the constant friction of wind-driven sand; but before we had got very far down in the sedan-chair we came upon an extraordinarily gruesome spectacle; the remains of the dead man were still in it.

Evidently he had died there, either because he was too weak to get out or had decided at the last to meet death philosophically and at least sheltered from the blazing sun by the roof of his carrying-chair. Unlike the bodies of his servants and companions which had been exposed to the ever-shifting grit, his had been protected by the framework of the chair in which he was sitting until it had gradually silted up and his body had become mummified in the warm, dry, stationary sand.

As soon as we got to the level of his shoulders the old boy's head fell off and as I lifted it out it weighed almost as light as a feather. We dug down further hoping that he might have had things of value on his person and our patience was rewarded. When we got to his chest we found a beautiful ornament of uncut rubies set in gold. Still lower, we unearthed his scimitar which was a lovely thing with semi-precious stones which we could not identify in its hilt. Lower still, down at his feet, where we imagined it had dropped from his hands as he died, we came upon a statuette of Osiris. It was of pure gold, about ten inches high, and had tiny sapphires inlaid for its eyes. Evidently it was part of the loot which the Persians had taken with them from Ancient Thebes, and Sylvia declared that such a piece
would fetch infinitely more than its gold content; two, or perhaps three thousand pounds, she thought.

Besides these three really valuable finds we came upon his belt-buckle, a number of silver and gold buttons from his tunic and some strips of paper-thin gold which Sylvia said were used as money. Evidently he had been someone of importance and the dinner-service which had overturned the car must have been part of his baggage, so we had great hopes of being able to locate the rest.

By this time the sun was high in the heavens; almost overhead. We knew that it was about midday and our work had given us a decidedly worrying thirst so we decided to knock off for the time being. Taking our principal treasures with us we went back to the car and made a light meal, after which we decided that we would sleep during the worst of the heat and set to work again later in the afternoon.

As the car was upside-down I arranged its cushions and our coats to form a couch on the inside of its roof. When I had done we crawled into it through one of the windows and lay down together. Few ways of spending the afternoon could have been more pleasant if only we could have been a bit more hopeful about our prospects of being rescued, but with thoughts of the previous night in mind we turned instinctively towards each other and forgot our anxieties for a time in very sweet and gentle love-making which yet had an eerie quality of romantic unreality as if we were actors rehearsing a part. After which we cuddled up together and drifted off to sleep.

We both woke at the same instant with the roar of an engine in our ears. For a second I thought that it must be Harry in the car dashing over the nearest sand-dune and coming straight at us; but almost instantly I realised that the noise came from overhead and that its note was the steady hum of an aeroplane engine.

Scrambling out of the car I looked up into the sky and there she was circling right over us. Sylvia crawled out beside me and we both waved frantically while shouting with all the strength of our lungs.

Almost at once out hearts leapt in exultation. The people in the 'plane had seen us and it was coming down. It slowly circled into the wind and, dropping gently, bumped along the
valley bottom coming to rest within a hundred yards of where we stood.

In her excitement Sylvia forgot the pain in her ankle and grabbed me by the hand as we both ran forward to it. The 'plane was quite a small one and looked like a four seater but it meant precious life to us.

When we were within twenty yards of it the door of the 'plane swung open and an Egyptian in European dress jumped out. He carried a rifle and with quick movement brought it up to his shoulder. I had barely time to let out a gasp of amazement when I recognised a second figure who had followed the first. It was Sean O'Kieff.

A third figure stepped from the 'plane; Zakri Bey, plump, oily, smiling. The strong-arm man had us covered with his rifle; evidently they had come down believing us to be armed and had made up their minds not to take any chances of our shooting at them first.

Sylvia and I halted in our tracks some fifteen paces from them. Our excited hails had died upon our lips; the almost crazy joy that had seized us at the sight of the landing 'plane had been snuffed out like the flame of a candle in that one devastating second when we had recognised its occupants. As though blasted by lightning and struck dumb, we stood there stupidly, our mouths agape, staring at O'Kieff.

Although the sands were sizzling hot in the glare of the afternoon sun he was not clad for a visit to the desert. A Trilby hat concealed his grey hair and a single-breasted grey tweed overcoat, more suitable for London wear, hung loose on his tall, raw-boned figure. I remembered as I noticed his get-up that in the old days he was always complaining of the cold.

A little smile flickered across his thin-lipped mouth as he addressed Sylvia:

‘Good afternoon, Miss Shane. You may remember that we met in Ismailia a few weeks ago, when I had the privilege of entertaining you for a short time. Unfortunately I had to leave in rather a hurry, so I had no opportunity to wish you good-bye.'

Sylvia stared at him hard-eyed but made no reply; while Zakri, his plump face wreathed in smiles, tittered in a horrid, false way, unlike a man but on a note approaching that of a eunuch or a schoolboy.

‘And here is Mr. Julian Day,' O'Kieff went on, transferring his glance to me, ‘who took such an interest in my doings when
we were passengers in the “Hampshire”. I see now that we also met for a few moments in the House of the Angels, although I did not realise at the time that it was you with whom I was exchanging shots—owing to the removal of your beard. I only had a feeling that your face was vaguely familiar.'

He paused a moment, then suddenly stepped forward. ‘Good God! I know you now. You're Du Crow Fernhurst!'

I nodded. ‘That's right; and I've never had any desire to conceal the fact from
you
. Day is only the name I took to make life bearable among decent people after I was slung out of the Diplomatic Service through your filthy scheming.'

He resumed his normal calm. ‘That explains a lot. I felt sure you were not tied up with the police or any of the Intelligence Services; and it's puzzled me a great deal as to why a young man named Julian Day should concern himself with my affairs and pursue me with such bitter but quite inexplicable hostility.'

‘Yes,' I agreed. ‘You've got me to thank for the closing down of Gamal's dope-joint in Cairo and the smashing-up of the House of the Angels; from both of which feats I derive enormous pleasure.'

He smiled again. ‘My dear boy,
you
should know better than to imagine that such pin-pricks could seriously inconvenience
me
. Gamal deserved all he got for his stupidity in allowing a stranger like yourself to collect dope from him; and the loss of eight young women with the house at Ismailia is a matter of very minor importance. As an old friend of yours I'm really rather distressed to think that circumstances may prevent you from getting any more fun out of your purity-campaign. By it you have succeeded in bringing to my notice one or two weak links in my organisation. This is a valuable service and I am not ungrateful; as I propose to prove to you. What sort of success have you had in your search for Cambyses' treasure?'

It was impossible to try to conceal our ‘dig' so I shrugged and glanced back towards the exposed sedan-chair and chest of plate sixty yards away up the slope.

‘You can see for yourself. We've found a few things but nothing of much value.'

‘I also see that you have had an accident.' He pointed towards the overturned car. ‘And unless I'm much mistaken you're marooned out here.'

For a second I hesitated, wondering if we had better tell him the truth and throw ourselves on his mercy, but I knew him to be merciless. His talk of ‘gratitude' was pure sarcasm and I did not believe there was one chance in a million that he would give us a lift back to civilisation in his 'plane. It would be better to pretend, for the time being at least, that although we were unarmed our friends would appear on the scene at any moment.

‘Oh no, we're not marooned,' I laughed as lightly as I could, ‘The Belvilles and the rest are digging some other stuff up in a near-by valley. We had a spill on our way out this morning, but as we didn't get back after lunch they will be coming along any time now to find us.'