Sherlock Holmes and the Sacred Sword

Since the Egyptologist seemed intent in going over various inscriptions and had a courteous audience in Holmes and Orloff, I withdrew from the scene slightly. The ancient writings had little appeal to me, and I moved to the bow window that had captured my attention upon our arrival.

On the San Canciano canal there was an endless procession of boats and gondolas, and I noted skyrockets from the direction of Campo San Marco. There was a drumbeat of sound, almost like muted gunfire, which I identified as fireworks, concluding that it was but another festival night in the city noted for such celebrations. As my gaze swiveled towards the small tributary canal running at right angles to the San Canciano, I shook my head for a moment and blinked my eyes.

"I say," I exclaimed, turning to the others, "there seems to be some sort of rope made of knotted sheets dangling from a window of this house."

My words had an immediate effect. A quick glance passed between Holmes and Orloff, and the sleuth darted for the curved staircase leading to the upper story. I was right on his heels and as I stumbled after Holmes, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a remarkable sight. Orloff had not made a move towards the stairs. Instead, as though levitated, he was now on the top of the stout table, but for no more than an instant. Two steps forward on the table surface and his steel legs dipped and then straightened with a surge of power and he was in the air, arms outstretched and above his head. His leap would have been admired by a ballet dancer! Then widespread fingers gripped the top of the balcony railing and the amazing power of his arms and shoulders took over, propelling his body upwards. His legs tucked in and then swung between those knotted arms with exquisite grace, the hands were released and, catlike, he was on the gallery as Holmes and I came round the curve in the stairs.

Orloff's movements were without pause. Already he was flowing across the floor and his shoulder crashed against the door of the bedroom, knocking it asunder like a battering ram. There was a flash of light from within the room and the thunder of a gun, but the security agent had dropped to the floor in a rolling movement. Scrambling to the head of the stairs, Holmes and I could see the bedroom interior. By an open window, an indistinct figure had one leg through the opening. Three more flowers of light blossomed from the vicinity of the man's right hand, and the roar of sound was continuous. The ever-moving mass that was Orloff had rolled behind a substantial chair and was coming to a semi-erect position, his hand reaching to the back of his neck and the chamois sheath attached between his shoulder blades. His arm was no more than a blur, and then there was the flash of metal, but the Toledo steel of his Spanish throwing knife, buried itself in the window frame, for the figure had dropped through the opening.

I thought I heard a splash from without as I reached the bedroom door. Orloff had moved behind his knife, brushing the chair in front of him away as though it were a toy. Then the first interruption in his continuous flow of movement from the floor below to the bedroom occurred. Crossing like a quicksilver shadow towards the window, his foot stumbled over a small stool, unseen in the dim light, and his legs came out from under him. But it did not stop him. The man's reflexes were truly of another world, for in midair he dipped into a forward roll, his thick neck and shoulders caressing the floor and, of a sudden, he snapped erect on both feet beside the window.

His actions really defied description, for though they were made with a speed that one could not accept in retrospect, such was his grace that he seemed to float in slow motion, an illusion fostered by the total absence of any wasted movement. When danger crooked its ominous digit and invited mischance, Orloff seemed to embark on a programmed path, always one step in advance of fate's finger. An outstretched palm halted Holmes's progress towards the window, and I bumped into him from behind.

"They've fished him into a gondola," said the security agent in a calm voice suitable for an invitation to tea. "They're turning into the main canal." As he spoke, his right hand dipped to his wasteband and a small-caliber revolver seemed to materialize. "I could—"

"No." stated Holmes flatly. "The fireworks have covered the gunfire, but let's not have target practice in the San Canciano. By the time we reach our waiting gondola they will have lost themselves in the canal traffic, so we'd best write this matter off."

Holmes raised the flame in a gas lamp, throwing additional illumination into the room.

"No aspersions on your marksmanship, good fellow. I know you could have picked the intruders off like clay pigeons, but I'm not sure that's the way we wish to play it." Orloff's green eyes were locked with the sleuth's for a moment, and a shadow of understanding touched his face. Then the handgun disappeared, and he calmly retrieved his throwing knife from the window frame, tucking it back between his shoulder blades with an automatic movement.

He then indicated a makeshift rope anchored to the bed and running through the window. "How about this?"

Holmes shrugged, having already noted the bed sheets hurriedly knotted together. "Improvised, which tells us this incident was not preplanned."

As Orloff drew the line of bed linen back through the window there was an exclamation from the landing, and Howard Andrade, puffing from his ascent, was regarding us with wide, startled eyes. I had quite forgotten the good man, but his appearance served as a further reminder of all that had happened in such a brief period of time. Our host had been spectator to the abrupt departure of his three visitors, then the sound of a shattered door, a burst of gunfire, and finally silence. Having recovered his wits and made his way upstairs, he found nothing but two men calmly analyzing the scene and another, myself, looking befuddled.

"I say," Andrade stammered, "what have we here? A mameluke revolt?"

His voice was a full octave higher than normal. Suddenly his eyes darted round the room. "Where is Aaron?"

"Your assistant?" questioned Holmes.

"Aaron Lewis. I secured his services in Venice."

Suddenly I shook off the dazed feeling that had enveloped me.

"Look here, you said this Lewis chap was exhausted and had retired before collapsing. This is your bedroom?"

"Yes," replied Andrade. "Lewis normally resides in a small room on the ground floor. I sent him up here so that my potting around would not disturb the poor fellow."

"Why, it's as plain as a pikestaff," I said triumphantly. "The intruders were after you, and spirited away your assistant by mistake."

"Good Lord, why?"

Since neither Holmes nor Orloff seemed disposed to offer a comment, I elaborated for the benefit of the startled cryptographer.

"Someone wishes to learn the code of the secret writings. That's rather obvious."

"I think," said Holmes gently, "that a discussion is called for."

Falling in with his thought, I rather led Andrade towards the stairs and the living room below.

Questions bubbled to the surface of my mind but were submerged by my medical training. Andrade seemed to be suffering a reaction from all the excitement, and I thought it well to get him seated below, securing some alcoholic stimulation for him from a well-stocked cabinet.

In a moment the Egyptologist's color improved, and he was able to regard the three of us with a whimsical expression.

"This rather bizarre occurrence is much more in your line, Mr. Holmes, than mine. Am I to assume that there might be more of the same?"

It was Wakefield Orloff who spoke up. "I think not, sir. At least, I shall take suitable precautions to make sure your domicile is not invaded again."

I well knew what that meant. More of Mycroft Holmes's faceless men would appear. For all I knew, Orloff might already have associates at his beck and call in Italy.

Andrade took another sizable sip of his libation. "What is the meaning of all this melodrama, gentlemen, and what about Aaron Lewis, my poor associate?"

Warned by the haunted look in his eyes and fearing palpitations, I spoke instantly and in my most soothing doctor manner.

"Once the hoodlums learn they have the wrong man, surely they will release Lewis from their clutches."

"Let us hope so," said Holmes. It struck me that his manner was surprisingly casual. "About your assistant, Mr. Andrade. How did he happen to come into your employment?"

"I am a bachelor, so it was easy for me to pull up stakes and come to Venice in search of solitude to complete my project. The house is mine by virtue of a generous, now departed, uncle, I knew that I was on the verge of a breakthrough, and my work was intensified. At this point, much filing was required. I was at my wits' end when Lewis appeared at my door, much as Mr. Orloff did but recently."

"Possibly for the same reason," commented Holmes quietly.

The Egyptologist did not notice this remark, but I filed it away.

"Lewis said he had heard of my project and had excellent references, including a rather glowing letter from Flinders Petrie. I know Petrie and recognized his distinctive script. Lewis seemed well up on the Egyptian picture and took charge of my files, putting them in workmanlike order. It was such a relief to have the paperwork attended to that I was able to progress much faster towards what is now the final solution."

"What did he look like?" asked Orloff.

"Lewis? Tall, thin-boned. I suppose 'cadaverous' is not amiss as a description. Very quiet chap, used to the simple life, but then those who have been on expeditions to the Nile most often are. Had a nasal problem and tobacco smoke bothered him. Fact is, that is why I suggested that he use my bedroom today. With the successful translation of the Mannheim tablets a fait accompli, I was terribly keyed up and smoking like a blessed steel mill. Lewis is along a bit, age-wise, and I was concerned for his physical well-being."

"As I am for yours right now," I interjected. "You've been on your feet for a day and a half, and the recent events have been wearing. I'm prescribing bed rest immediately."

There were other questions that Holmes wished to ask, possibly Orloff as well, but both stifled their instincts in consideration of Howard Andrade's condition. One of the dividends of my profession is the delight in having the last word. When a doctor says "that's it!" there are seldom arguments, from a prime minister on down.

We took Orloff in our gondola to the Grand Hotel, where I assumed he was staying. I had the idea that he would join us at the Venezia after resolving matters that claimed his attention, one being to throw a net round Howard Andrade. On our journey, Holmes pointed out the beautiful Palazzo Dario to me, planned by Pietro Lombardo, as well as the huge and luxurious Piazza Corner della Ca' Grande, planned by Jacopo Sansovino. Lombardo and Sansovino were unknown to me, but my friend seemed to place great store in their names. I recalled that he indulged in a passion for Renaissance architecture at one time. It was in relation to an old case, not without points of interest, which I may make available to readers someday.

The hour was late but Venice is cosmopolitan, and Holmes and I were able to secure a satisfying meal in the hotel dining room at an hour when most Englishmen would be dawdling over their last brandy and seriously considering their beds.

The same thought was crossing my mind as we occupied ourselves with a bowl of fruit augmented by some fine cheeses. It was then that we were joined by Orloff. Our waiter hastened to secure a chair for the security agent. Whether he knew Orloff, who was well traveled, or just reacted to the commanding presence of the deceptively rotund man I do not know. During dinner Holmes had been preoccupied and I had not disturbed his thoughts, but now revelations would be forthcoming, which delighted me.

Orloff was no Randolph Rapp, but then who was? However, his experience, honed to a fine edge in the shadow-land of international espionage, was extensive. Being a man of acute perception and few words, his conversations with Holmes frequently had a staccato quality, and I was invariably hard pressed to keep abreast of the two.

"Andrade is well covered?" This was more a statement than a question from Holmes as he sliced the peeling from an orange.

"Cooks himself. Simplifies things. Cleaning woman comes in three times a week. We'll check her out." Orloff accepted a wedge of cheese that I offered him. "May put a man on the premises. Butler, courtesy of Her Majesty's government. The cryptographer won't object. Rather keen, you know. Must realize that his discovery has touched off a bit of a chain reaction."

If not, I thought, you will convince him. Orloff was to the manor born, and I could picture said gentleman plying a thriving trade selling sand in the Sahara.

"What news of the Chinaman?" queried Holmes.

"His yacht should be here shortly."

"Hmm! You'd think Chu San Fu's arrival would have signaled the move on Andrade's residence."

"Whole thing was rushed. Sloppy job."

I had poured Orloff a tot of after-dinner liqueur, and he was regarding Holmes over the rim of a sparkling glass.

"I've a mind as to what hurried them. You."

It was at this point that I threw patience to the winds.

"Could you translate this interchange for my dull ears?" I fear my manner was somewhat huffy.

"Chu San Fu's agents are in Venice," explained Orloff. "They hastily removed Aaron Lewis from Andrade's home, ahead of schedule, I'd say. The answer has to be Sherlock Holmes."

"How do you figure that?"

Orloff's lips twitched, a sign of satisfaction rarely seen on his features.

"Noticed your friend here react when Howard Andrade described his assistant."

My gaze shifted to Holmes, whose eyes were twinkling.

"Dear me, I have become transparent, but Orloff is right. The description of the assistant, Lewis, bore a remarkable resemblance to Memory Max."

My inquisitive stare was undiminished, for I did not share Holmes's encyclopedic knowledge of members of the criminal classes.

"In his early years, Max did a turn in the music halls as a memory expert. Answered any question. Photographic memory, you see. However, he turned his not inconsiderable talents to less legitimate pursuits and became one of the leading forgers of our time."

"How strange," I exclaimed. "A man with a freak memory turning to forgery."

"Not so, Watson. Those with an unusual mental aptitude frequently find great relaxation in working with their hands. Max's dexterity with tools and dies proved most embarrassing to the government."

Well, I thought, you rather disprove that, old fellow. But then my mind rejected this thought. Holmes did, in moments of relaxation, derive great solace from his violin.

Orloff was sipping his liqueur thoughtfully. "Max specialized in guineas and sovereigns. I know of him."

"But I know him," said Holmes, and there was an instant gleam in Orloff's eyes.

"I was instrumental in laying Max by the heels, back in '81 as I recall. An early case. He's been safely in Dartmoor for years, but obviously is out now."

"Wait," I blurted. "You mean that Memory Max was a . . . a plant next to Howard Andrade?" I was pleased at coming up with a suitable colloquialism.

"Of course." Holmes's tone, not by intent, indicated that a five-year-old child would be au courant with this.

"But the mysterious 'they' were after Andrade himself. They got into his bedroom, you know."

"I allowed your re-creation to stand, Watson, since it served as an alarm to Howard Andrade. However, you had it all wrong. Bed sheets torn and knotted together to form a rope to allow one to descend from the first-story room to the canal level are not a means of entry but of exit. What happened is clear enough. Memory Max was used as a means of getting close to Andrade, to memorize his files and learn the secret of his decoding of the secret writings. At an appropriate time, the arrival of Chu San Fu's yacht, I presume, he was to be spirited away to join the master criminal. Destination? Egypt. But an unforeseen element was introduced when we arrived in Venice."

"Were I to come face to face with Memory Max, I would recognize him, so the 'they' you refer to had to prevent our meeting. They signaled Max to get out, setting a time for a gondola to be under the window of the master bedroom. Using the plea of exhaustion, the forger arranged to be in the bedroom, and fashioned the rope of bed sheets to facilitate his escape. Your spotting it almost upset their plans."

I leaned back in my chair, more than a little pleased with the last statement. Holmes's eyes adopted that opaque look that I knew so well. Silence fell on the table, and I exchanged a look with Orloff that drew a shrug as a reply. Finally the security agent said softly, "What now?"

"There is," responded Holmes in an almost dreamy manner, "a bit more surmise than I approve of. Chu San Fu has the Sacred Sword and it is headed for Alexandria. The Chinaman's yacht is en route here. Beyond these facts, we are guessing. My thought is that Chu San Fu will pick up Memory Max here in Venice and then continue to Egypt. But what of the Mannheim tablets? I have a feeling those writings in gold are a part of the puzzle. I recall that they were stolen from the Mannheim collection and believe that the thief was captured. Without my files and commonplace books, details elude me. Can you prompt me on this matter, Orloff?"

"In part. One Heinrich Hublein was convicted of the theft and is in prison now. The tablets were never found, but the why of that I do not know."

"Wolfgang von Shalloway might," said Holmes. "I will cable the esteemed Chief of the Berlin Police tonight, and if his answer proves interesting, we shall resume our travels tomorrow, Watson, in an attempt to add more pieces to this international jigsaw."

Chapter Twelve

The Madman's Tale

The Berlin police chief's response to my friend's cable must have been encouraging, and Holmes must have waited at the cable office for it. At dawn I was rousted from my comfortable bed, and we were soon on the Hamburg Express, which passed through Berlin en route to its eventual destination. Our journey is vague in my mind. I dozed fitfully a great part of the time, which was just as well since Holmes was indisposed to talk and there were lines of worry and concern around his eyes and noble forehead.

As was our custom whenever in the German capital, we checked into the Bristol Kempinski, where I was grateful to wash away the dust of our journey. The following morning we made our way to the Alexanderplatz and the nerve center of the machinelike Criminal Investigation Department of the Berlin Police Force.

Holmes had for years enjoyed an entente cordiale with von Shalloway, famous Berlin police chief, and Arsene Pupin, the pride of the Sureté. It was a fortuitous "you scratch my back" arrangement for all three, augmented by actual admiration and friendship. In the matter of "The Four Detectives" they had actually worked together on a case, but that is another story indeed.

Wolfgang von Shalloway was his small and dapper self, and after greetings got to business more rapidly than is customary on the continent. To have his fellow investigator contact him was to summon his best efforts, for it was a matter of pride that the German Eagle display a sharp beak in the presence of the British Lion.

"He is dragging you all over Europe, nicht war, Doctor?"

I summoned a weary smile of agreement.

"I did not think you were in Venice for your health, and now, Germany. It must be something big to entice Holmes from his beloved London."

"It could be," replied Holmes.

"Well, if you can throw some light on the matter of the Mannheim tablets, I will be in your debt."

"You have the thief, do you not?" I asked.

"We have Heinrich Hublein in a facility for the criminally insane. That is all we have. The tablets? Poof!"

Von Shalloway's hands gestured expressively. There was a look of distaste around his firm mouth.

"Not satisfied?"

"Far from it, Holmes. This happened four years ago. Hublein was not my only problem." The chief indicated a file on his desk, then tapped it with his index finger.

"Four cases, gentlemen, all unresolved. You Britishers would call it a blot on my escutcheon, and it is. They are. Never mind. One thing I will say for Hublein. He was good luck. After he confessed, no more unresolved cases."

"The thief confessed?" I asked.

"Is crazy nicht war? And the doctors say he is crazy. 'Catatonic' they call him. Withdrawn into a secret world within himself. Possibly this is so."

Von Shalloway rose from behind his desk as though to remove himself from the file he had referred to. There was a soft knock on his office door and an assistant entered, registered on a gesture from the chief, and disappeared without saying a word. I recalled Holmes once saying that when von Shalloway said "Jump!" his aides asked, "How high?"

Holmes surprised me. "Tell us about the unresolved cases."

He surprised von Shalloway also. "I thought you were interested—" His jaw abruptly clamped shut. "Never mind. Perhaps you can came up with something. I should not look a gift . . . a gift . . ."

"Horse in the mouth?" I suggested.

"Ja. Watson is up on the, how you say, 'lingo.'"

"He reads sensational American literature," commented Holmes dryly. "About those other cases."

Von Shalloway was back at his desk with the file open, but that was purely a gesture of habit. Obviously, he knew the contents backwards.

"Better than six years ago, we have a robbery in Morenstrasse. The thief jimmied the door to a built-in stairs that served as the fire escape. It was a well-to-do apartment house and out of all the residents, he picks a suite occupied by a supposed financier who we know is a big-time fence. His door is jimmied, too, and a lot of money is stolen."

"Ah ha!" I exclaimed. "A receiver of stolen goods would keep a lot of ready cash on hand."

Von Shalloway pointed towards Holmes. "That he learned from you and not from sensational literature. Anyway, we went over the locks. Hammer was on the case."

"Good man!" said Holmes.

"I trained him," replied von Shalloway. "Something about the scratches on the locks rang a bell, and he went to the Meldwesen."

Fortunately, this was not gibberish to me. A mind like Sherlock Holmes's had to be fascinated by the machinelike logic of the Germans and their genius for organization. I had heard from him all about the Meldwesen, the huge catalogue of cards that constituted the most exhaustive body of information on criminal matters assembled. Holmes referred to it as a crime machine, and since it took one hundred and sixty rooms to house, I judged it to be a big one.

"It was the jimmy that was the clue. It was a special design used by only one man according to our records. We picked him up soon enough. It had to be him, only the night of the robbery he was in jail on suspicion of involvement in a casino robbery in Bad Homburg."

"The case fell apart?"

"Completely." Von Shalloway was on his feet again. "All four cases the same. In Bremen, a jewel robbery. The victim, we think maybe he is a smuggler. His wife's jewels are taken. Possibly, also some diamonds that he spirited through customs. But, no mind. The thief gets in with a glass cutter. Everything about the job spells one man whose modus operandi we have catalogued. So what happens? The suspect, the night of the robbery, is acting as a snitch in a weinstube we are raiding in Berlin. My own men give him an alibi."

Von Shalloway accepted a Capstan cigarette I offered him and lit it nervously. "Danke, Doctor. Hmmm! Tightly packed, no? The American cigarettes, they are better."

"I prefer them," said Holmes.

"Anyway, we have constructed a machine. Our Meldwesen and Kriminal Archiv cannot fail. But still I have those four cases."

"What about Hublein?"

"Make that five cases, Holmes. The two gold tablets were stolen from Mannheim's home in Spandau. As you know, Herr Mannheim has one of the largest collections of art objects in the world. The thief gained access through a fourth-story window. There is only one man who could have done it. Schadie, also called 'The Shadow.'"

"He had an alibi?" I asked enthralled.

"We have never found him. We know all about him, of course. He uses suction cups on his hands and attached to his knees. He can go up a wall as smooth as glass. The Mannheim case, uhh, we heard a lot about that from high places. Herr Mannheim's steel mills are important to Germany. There were traces. Our technicians found indications of rubber on the outer wall of the building. It had to be Schadie. But, into headquarters comes this Hublein. No record. He is pretty wild-eyed, but he insists that he stole the tablets."

Von Shalloway thumped his desk with exasperation.

"It had to be Shadow Schadie, but try to convince a jury when they are facing a man who has confessed. Hublein was convicted. He made no defense. The few words the lawyers could get out of him were incriminating. Then the doctors got hold of him. I agree with them. Hublein has bats in his, how you say . . . ?"

"Belfry?"

"Ja! Und now he is in the booby . . . booby . . ."

"Hatch."

"That is so, Doctor."

"You say he had no record?" asked Holmes.

Von Shalloway regarded us both with an embarrassed expression. "Tanks Gott the journals did not make much of the case. A confessed criminal is not news. Gentlemen, Heinrich Hublein was a female impersonator."

I half rose from my chair. "Come now, von Shalloway, you're pulling our legs."

"I wish it was so. But, nein, Hublein was entertainer. He had what they call 'a good act.' He is small, dark of hair with thin bones and classical features. Always, he makes himself up as a blond and he sings in high voice and pretty good, too. Then at the conclusion of his turn, when the applause comes, he sweeps off his wig and audience realizes that he is not woman at all."

"A female impersonator and a crime of the century," mused Holmes thoughtfully. "I rather feel your newspapers missed a bet. Can I see this most unusual prisoner?"

"Of course. But you will look over the four cases I mentioned, no?" Von Shalloway was leafing through his records and extracted some typewritten sheets, which he handed to Holmes.

"Study them, please. Every day I come in here and I see that file, and then I think of Hublein and it is not such a good day suddenly."

The sleuth nodded. "Might I first have a go at the Meldwesen? You know how it delights me."

Von Shalloway turned to me with twinkling eyes.

"Ach, he is looking for something." His bright eyes shifted back to Holmes. "I shall have Hammer escort you, and while you are going through files, Doctor Watson and I will have luncheon. I know a beerstube which has the best bratwurst you have ever tasted, Doctor."

I winced. The German chief of police was as trim as a dancer despite an astonishing capacity for dark beer and rich food, whereas I. . . . But Holmes urged me to accept, and so it was that I spent the better part of two hours with von Shalloway and returned to his office feeling much the better for it. Holmes was waiting in the anteroom.

"I had a delightful time in your files, von Shalloway. The good Hammer offered to take me to see Hublein, but I felt that Watson's presence would be beneficial. Medical opinion, you know."

"Of course," I said, belching slightly. "By all means, let us be off to the crazy house."

The facility for the criminally insane was adjacent to the city jail. Holmes suggested that I have a discussion with the doctor in charge while he inquired amongst the personnel as to Hublein and his attitude during his incarceration. Sergeant Hammer was taking us to the man's cell when I reported my findings.

"A model prisoner, Holmes. Makes no fuss and actually says nothing at all, symptomatic of his mental disorder. He has become a mute."

"Save on certain rare occasions, usually at night, when peals of laughter come from his cell," said Holmes. "One attendant I spoke to described the sound as devoid of mirth and of a mechanical nature, interrupted only by pauses for air."

I shuddered instinctively. "The man is not dangerous, in any case."

"But silent. The worst kind for our purposes."

We were at the cell door now, which Hammer unlocked for us.

Heinrich Hublein was as von Shalloway had described him. He was sitting erect on the cot in his room, staring at the wall in front of him with small, button-black eyes. I noted that his mouth twitched, but he made no notice of our entrance. Hammer closed the cell door and stood by it, alert. Hublein was classified as non-dangerous, but we were in a mental institution, and a complete reversal of temperament was possible.

Holmes remained motionless, studying the figure on the cot and possibly waiting for him to register on our presence. In appearance Hublein seemed fragile, with a flat chest and delicate, pipestem bones. I felt that his nervous system and sensory tissue had relatively poor protection, a contributing cause to what I diagnosed as a breakdown followed by a deliberately enforced withdrawal from a world that was unbearable. He seemed the type that would react dramatically to a shock or a situation from which he demanded escape at all costs. Like many who have fled from reason, he was youthful-looking.

"Hublein?" It was Holmes using a soft tone in an inquisitive manner.

The man nodded slightly, as though we barely existed on the periphery of his existence.

"The famous entertainer?" continued the sleuth. There might have been a sudden flash in those dull eyes. I could not be sure.

"This really will not do," said Holmes. His voice had a faint, chiding sound to it. "They will never know what you did."

Hublein's eyes slowly, reluctantly abandoned the wall, and an inch at a time his face turned in our direction, the rest of his slight body remaining motionless. It was like a diver allowing the buoyancy of his body to bring him to the surface. When his head had made a forty-five-degree turn, he seemed to be looking through us and beyond.

"They don't think you stole the tablets, you know. They certainly don't know about your great performance."

The dark eyes came slowly into focus, regarding Holmes's expressive face and, I felt, actually seeing him for the first time. The sleuth's words seemed to have drawn him from another dimension.

"It's never been done before, you know. Nobody ever thought of it but you."

There was a flicker of understanding now, of interest.

"How do you know?" His voice was husky, as though rusted from lack of use. I was conscious of Hammer stiffening. Words from Hublein had startled him.

"I am Sherlock Holmes."

The thin-boned, delicate face was fastened on the sleuth, and he pushed a lock of dark hair off his narrow forehead.

"To use the machine against itself. A revolutionary concept."

The lips twitched again, and a half-smile forced itself shyly onto the pale face with almost translucent skin.

"It was a good idea," he admitted. His words came easier this time.

"But you must have had to practice. How did you learn to use the jimmy?"

Now there seemed an actual desire to speak, to explain, to indulge a starved vanity.

"They had diagrams of the tool in the files. Besides, you meet all kinds of people when you work in cabarets."

"So you got some tips from a swag man. Also some instruction on how to use a glass cutter." Holmes might have been a professor congratulating a student on good marks.

"I can do things with my hands. I started out working with puppets."

"Before you took up female impersonating."

Irritation flitted over Hublein's face. "There was more money in the impersonating. I could sing in a high key and dance enough to get by. Men in the audience used to try to grab me. They felt like fools when I took off my wig."

"But you never liked it."

"No. People thought I was a freak."

"So you wanted to do something truly dangerous. Be a Robin Hood." Holmes corrected himself: "William Tell."

The veil was completely brushed aside from the eyes now. They glowed.

"It wasn't wooden puppets or cosmetics and wigs. It was exciting, no make-believe. The darkness, the silence, and the thrill when you got away and knew that you had done it. You'd fooled them."

"Fooled everybody," commented Holmes factually.

"But I was fooled in the end." The thought was a bitter one, and the shutters of Hublein's eyes started to close again. I sensed he was beginning to drift back into the catatonic escape, but Holmes was alert to this danger as well.

"What about Frau Mueller? That was the finest touch."

This bait proved irresistible, and the performer was with us again.

"That was easy. No one suspected me."

"Because you always impersonated beautiful women."

The small face nodded jerkily.

"Frau Mueller was a crone. I blackened several teeth. Her wig looked like frayed hemp. I penciled in lines and used a wart right here." A slender finger indicated an area between chin and lips. "One look at Frau Mueller was enough. She was an unpleasant sight. I had to give up the cabaret work, of course."

"So that you could pose as a night cleaning woman at headquarters. Not being an old or arthritic woman at all but young and agile, you could fulfill the duties of the job and have some extra time to search through the Meldwesen files until you found the cards you wanted."

"The first four robberies were trial runs. I wanted to do something big. Something that would be in the papers and that people would talk about for years."

"So you decided to 'steal the act' of Shadow Schadie."

Holmes's show-business colloquialism pleased Hublein. "I had to practice for months. But finally I mastered the suction cups. I am very light, you see. That helped."

"And you turned yourself into a veritable human fly."

Hublein nodded. "The papers were full of the purchase, by Mannheim, of the golden tablets. I thought that would be the great robbery, the one that would cause the most talk. The tablets were so valuable that I could sell them and retire. No more cabarets and no more Frau Mueller either. But they were white gold. No fence would touch them."

There was anguish in Hublein's face now and the suggestion of moisture in his eyes.

"I'd done it. I'd worked so hard and planned so carefully and I had ended up with nothing. When the Chinaman approached me and offered me so little for the tablets, I felt my whole life was for nothing. I was a puppet with no one on the strings. I sold him the tablets, and then . . . and then. . . ."

The voice dwindled away. The seated man's head slowly turned back so that his unseeing eyes were fastened on the blank wall again. Heinrich Hublein had retraced his steps back to the kingdom of forgetfulness, of silence, of nothingness.

Holmes's eyes encountered mine. There was a resigned expression in them, as though he realized that he had no more bait to tempt the vanishing personality back into the world of reality.

He signaled to Hammer, who opened the cell door. Hublein was not conscious of our departure.

An aura of sadness enveloped me when we left the poor, misguided, unbalanced man, but it vaporized in the heat of excitement liberally spiced by wonderment.

"Holmes, how did you ever deduce that Hublein was the perpetrator of five crimes? And that he created the character of a spurious cleaning woman?"

There was a thin smile on Holmes's aquiline features that I recognized as an indication that he was pleased with himself.

"When von Shalloway described the robberies in his office, did not something strike you?"

I cast my mind back in a determined effort to locate the telltale that had allowed Holmes to cut the Gordian knot, but in my heart of hearts sensed that it would elude me.

"Each crime bore the trademark of one criminal who had a cast-iron alibi."

"The alibis were happenstance. Think, Watson! The Morenstrasse robbery involved the flat of a fence. In Bremen, the jewels were stolen from a suspected smuggler. It immediately occurred to me that someone was using the Meldwesen files not only to copy the methods of certain criminals but to select the victims as well. Who, besides the officials, would have access to the files? Someone invisible."

"Oh, come now, Holmes!"

"Patience, old chap. Mailmen have a certain invisibility. We see them on their appointed rounds with such regularity that after a while we cease to see them. A cleaning woman falls in the same category. And we had Hublein, a female impersonator. The Germans file and list everything, so I was able to learn that one of the nighttime cleaning force, a certain Frau Mueller, failed to show up for work the day that Hublein surrendered himself to the police. She has not been located to this day."

"Until the elusive Frau Mueller was unmasked by Sherlock Holmes," I stated proudly. "Your discoveries will certainly delight von Shalloway, but how do they affect us?"

"Hublein mentioned a Chinaman who purchased the tablets from him at bargain rates."

"Chu San Fu?"

Holmes shook his head. "An agent of his, no doubt. This was four years ago, and Chu was still in the role of the collector. I suspect he secured the tablets because they were too good a bargain to miss. Since then something has happened that has made them precious to him."

We were almost back at von Shalloway's office when another thought struck me.

"Hublein mentioned white gold. What is that, Holmes?"

"Pure gold is twenty-four carats. In modern times, most gold is mixed with an alloy to provide rigidity. The most common, fourteen-carat, has a large percentage of brass. Pink gold uses copper. White gold can be produced in two ways: with nickel, which is inexpensive; or with platinum, which is rarer and more valuable than gold itself. The sacred tablets used platinum as an alloy, not for the sake of rigidity, it being as malleable as gold, but for ostentation."

"No receiver would touch the tablets because of the platinum content?"

"I think they misled Hublein there. The man was not a trained criminal but merely a mimic. A fence could have had the tablets melted down and then separated the gold and platinum. I think the robbery was just a little too hot, and it scared them off."

Not long thereafter we returned to the Bristol Kempinski, leaving a delighted von Shalloway in Alexanderplatz. The police chief with his unresolved cases solved and the matter of Hublein cleared up as well was much inclined towards hosting a victory dinner, but Holmes begged off, I regret to say. He stated that duties beckoned, and von Shalloway was too acute to inquire as to their nature.

Back at the hotel, Holmes indulged in one of his disappearing acts. I suspect that he beat a hasty path to the British Embassy and made use of the diplomatic wire to contact his brother in London. What other messages he may have sent or received I do not know. On his return we packed, which was not time consuming since we were traveling light.

Now Holmes was intent on reaching Egypt. I mentioned, somewhat snidely perhaps, that I hoped the freighter carrying the relic stolen from the Spaulding mansion had not altered its plan of sailing and beaten us to Alexandria. Holmes, as usual, had an answer.

"The Hishouri Kamu was missing two stokers just before they weighed anchor, Watson. They were forced to sign on two new crew members: Burlington Bertie and Tiny. The freighter is on schedule and will not reach Egypt for some days."

So, Holmes, had planted his men on the cargo ship to keep an eye open. I had thought him somewhat casual about the Sacred Sword to which he attached so much importance.

I suggested that we augment our limited wardrobe at one of the fashionable Berlin shops, but there was no time for that. Holmes booked us by rail to Constanza, Romania. The train trip was dull, but there was a surprise when we arrived at the port on the Black Sea. A carriage took us to the waterfront, where we boarded a destroyer of Her Majesty's Navy, a means of transportation provided without a doubt by Mycroft Holmes. Wasting no time, the needle-thin craft traversed the Black Sea to the Dardanelles, and soon we were pitching and tossing in the Mediterranean.

I shall draw the curtain of charity over this trip. Suffice to say that I was pale, wan, and frightfully sick throughout. Holmes did his best, I must say, staying with me in the little cabin in the officers' quarters that we shared. In an effort to distract me from my misery, he did speak in unusual detail about the matter that we were involved in, opening up a new line of thought completely.

"You know, good fellow, ancient Egypt was a literate society completely capable of leaving a clear history, and after Champollion deciphered the Rosetta stone, it was reasonable to expect answers to age-old mysteries. But such was not the case."

"You feel the golden tablets might unlock hidden doors?" I asked, and then made myself available of the tin basin that Holmes had in readiness.

"Or I may be in fear of it. We are very vague on how they built the pyramids, you know, and have no idea of why they are aligned with the four compass points. Or why the Sphinx and the Colossi of Memmon both face east, parallel, by the way, with the axis of the great Amon-Ra temple at Karnak."

"Simple, Holmes," I sputtered, wiping my face and mouth with a wet towel. "The rising sun. They did worship the sun along with other deities."

"I'll accept that," he said. "But consider that other ancient structures, seemingly impossible to build in a non-mechanical age, are also lined up to risings and settings of the sun and moon. I refer to Stonehenge and the Mayan temples in Yucatan, to name but two."

"Good heavens, do you suspect some cosmic significance, some secret power?" I never got an answer to that, for I became deathly sick again and lost all interest in the subject.

Chapter Thirteen

Back Alleys of Cairo

"Of course," said Colonel Gray, "all of the seven wonders of the ancient world were constructed B.C., for the Greeks listed them in the second century before Christ. All gone now save the oldest and the largest." His right hand, which had been fanning him with his hat, gestured westward towards the Nile. "The pyramids of Giza remain as the sole survivors. Built two thousand years before Nebuchadnezzar conceived the hanging gardens. Infinitely old when the bronze fragments of the toppled Colossus of Rhodes were carted away by a junk dealer."

The skin on the colonel's hands and arms was ebony dark, but his face was the color of new brick. He took a sip of gin and lime and continued in his drawling, somewhat bored, voice.

"And, Doctor, when we are gone and when England is gone, they'll still be there. I'll take you to see them tomorrow if you wish. No trip at all. Over the Nile bridge and you're practically there."

I shrugged, disinclined to be definite about anything at the moment. When we had arrived in Alexandria, it was immediately apparent that Holmes had been burning up the cables and that there were definite plans afoot. He had placed me in the hands of Colonel Gray for safekeeping to Cairo whilst he involved himself in who-knows-what in the port of Alexandria and, possibly, that of Rosetta as well. The Colonel was obviously an old Egyptian hand, though what his exact duties were in the protectorate was not made clear to me. He got me to Shepheard's Hotel, which was all I cared about. That sedate establishment, center of British society in Cairo, was welcome indeed, and I'm sure some color came back to my face at the mere sight of it.

We were seated on the veranda acceding to a hallowed custom of the area known as the "sunset drink." Gray, a fountain of general knowledge, regaled me with stories of Richard Lepsius's German expedition in '43, his excavations at the Sphinx, which had led to mention of the adjacent pyramids.

Frankly, I was rather surfeited with discussions of the wonders of this ancient land and sought to divert the conversation to more modern and informative channels.

"Colonel, aren't there an unusual number of military in the area?"

For a moment his eyes registered surprise over the rim of his glass. Then he grunted. Colonel Gray commanded a large variety of grunts, all uninformative.

"Has there been local trouble?" I persisted.

"Nothing on the surface," he finally said cautiously.

"A feeling, then? Understand you chaps can sense that sort of thing."

He agreed with this and set about to prove that I was right.

"Egypt has closer ties with the Orient than with Europe, you know. Orientals are, underneath, a frightfully superstitious lot. Then, one of those religious revival periods is overdue among the Moslems. The native town seems to have the wind up over some prophecy or rumor. Probably the latter."

Since he seemed disposed to drop the matter, I prodded him.

"Not something like that Mahdi business?"

"Heavens, no! A wild tale, no doubt. Something about a prophet from the grave. A squib appeared in the Al-Ahram—"

He registered on my puzzled expression.

"—Our leading paper. Unusual for them to comment on the gossip of the mosques and bazaars, but. . . ."

Colonel Gray's glass made contact with the table between us. "Care for another?" he asked tentatively.

"Thank you, no. Look here, awfully grateful for your acting as guide and whatnot, but I rather imagine I am an inconvenience. I'll have dinner here at the hotel and fancy a good long sleep."

"Mr. Holmes did express concern about your condition," said Gray. I sensed he was glad for the opportunity to unload me.

"I'll drop by, come morning, and see if Mr. Holmes has showed up," he said, shaking my hand perfunctorily. This idea produced another of his grunts, and he delayed his departure.

"You know, in London it is a bit hard to understand how things are out here."

"On the borders of the Empire, as 'twere."

"Humph! But your friend seems rather up on things."

How Colonel Gray had become aware of this fact puzzled me. I wondered if he was really the choleric-faced, stereotyped colonial official that he seemed to be.

I luxuriated in a cool tub in the suite secured for us by Gray, donned a suit of lightweight that the Colonel had helped me select in an arcade shop opposite the hotel, and dawdled over a dinner. Still somewhat weak, I ate lightly.

Afterwards I walked through the lobby and out onto the terrace of Shepheard's. It was comforting to have solid ground beneath my feet. With the setting of the sun the Egyptian heat had moderated, though the evening was muggy. However, in my tropicals I was comfortable enough. With no news from Holmes I was a bit at loose ends and debating whether to cross the street and view the arcade shops or return to my room when I saw him.

He was walking on the Sharia Kamel, squat, short-legged, and progressing at a fair rate of speed. It is said that to an Occidental all Chinamen look alike, but I disproved this by recognizing the man immediately. It was Loo Chan, the Chinese lawyer employed by Chu San Fu. As he passed under a street lamp I noted the perpetual sheen of his olive features and the drawn lips, revealing alarmingly white teeth so large and perfect as to seem false.

I did not even consider my next move but threw aside my cigarette and took after him. The lawyer was headed in the direction of the Ezbekiyeh Gardens and, with a flash of inspiration, I hastened to the other side of the street to continue my pursuit. My brain was working feverishly, trying to recall what I had heard of the exploits of Slippery Styles, whose uncanny skill at trailing men was a legend. There was sufficient traffic so that my presence was not noticeable and plenty of shop windows available to turn towards if the Chinaman happened to take a look over his shoulder.

Having acted instinctively, I now mentally paused to take stock of the situation. The fact that the London lawyer was in Cairo was at first surprising, but with Chu San Fu headed for the Nile, what more reasonable than that members of his criminal group were already in Egypt. Could I but locate Loo Chan's place of residence, I might be able to relay important information to Holmes on his arrival in Cairo. It occurred to me that it would be most comforting if the great detective were with me now as I walked the streets of a city virtually unknown to me on the heels of a member of a criminal conspiracy. But this was no moment for the faint-hearted, especially since my task was becoming more demanding.

We were on the outskirts of the European city, and ahead were the bazaars and narrow streets of the native quarter. Pedestrian traffic thinned out, and soon the thoroughfare we followed was deserted. Loo Chan continued forward, never once looking back, which might have seemed strange to a wiser dog on the scent. Then the Chinaman did pause and glance over his shoulder before turning into an alley. His move could not have happened at a worse time for I was, though on the opposite side of the street, badly positioned near one of the infrequent street lamps. However, Loo Chan made no note of me, turning purposefully into the dark alley, and it was then that some sense forced itself upon me.

"He's leading me into a trap," I thought. "Somehow he or a cohort spotted me at the hotel, and he has baited me into the open. Well, two can play that game," I thought with a surge of confidence.

I continued down the street, steeling myself not to even glance at the alley mouth into which the lawyer had ducked. At the next intersection, I turned to the right and passed the corner. The native quarter was deserted, all inhabitants having withdrawn to their lodgings. No surprise that, since Cairo was known to wake early. With no observers about, I accelerated into a trot that brought me, somewhat short-winded, to the next corner. I did not round it but rather peered towards where I felt the alley opening might be. If Loo Chan emerged, I would have him under observation whilst hidden myself. But there was no sign of the Chinaman. Now I faced an impasse. My best bet seemed to be to try to return to Shepheard's, but if the minions of Chu San Fu were after me, they could well overtake me in the darkened streets of this quarter of Cairo and no one would be the wiser. I had no weapon to forestall them and chided myself for leaving my revolver in my suitcase at the hotel. But then I had not anticipated a foray into nighttime Cairo after dinner.

Well, peering round a corner was getting me nowhere, so I took a deep breath and rounded it, cautiously making my way down the block. The alley did open on the street I had chosen and I slipped into it, feeling somewhat the better for the total darkness that enveloped me. I could see nothing but could not be seen either. Such was my thought. Loo Chan must have entered a building facing the alley. Perhaps after all he was not conscious that he was being followed. I could traverse the narrow footway, regain the street on the other side, and beat a hasty retreat, making note of the locale for a report to Holmes.

Keeping the fingers of one hand on the wall on my right, I moved in the planned direction at a snail's pace indeed, for I was in horror of stumbling over some obstruction like a baggy-pants clown in a circus. Somewhat surprisingly, I moved silently in the Stygian darkness and was conscious of the dim light at the alley end, which spelled escape. Then I heard the soft, sibilant sound of a voice, and a curtain was raised almost by my head, allowing a shaft of light to split the night. I froze, and then instinctively moved to the wall beside me, pressing my back to it.

The voice was a mumble of sound, and then I heard a chair being moved within the ground-floor room on the other side of the wall. A shadow crossed the light emanating from the window. I eased closer to the aperture, removed my hat, and, summoning all the nerve at my command, stole a peek into the room. Loo Chan had seated himself at a plain round table, and standing opposite him was the impressive form of the Manchurian wrestler who had been my jailer when Chu San Fu had kidnapped me in London. The Chinese lawyer was looking upwards at the muscular figure, something he would have had to do even if he were not seated.

"The yacht should arrive sometime tomorrow," he said. Evidently this statement had significance, for the Manchurian nodded.

Good heavens, I thought with a flood of elation! I am privy to a conference here! Possibly the key to the strange series of events will be revealed to me. What a coup!

"We must be prepared for his coming," continued Loo Chan.

Whatever else he intended to say I did not learn, for a horny palm was slapped across my mouth, stifling all but my faintest sounds of protest. Nor could I put up an effective struggle, for an arm, more like a nautical hawser, encircled my arms and body. I did get in a couple of backward kicks with my heels, but to no avail. Suddenly the arm encircling me slid away, as did the one over my mouth, and to my amazement I was free. There was the soft sound of a falling body, and I turned and found a large form motionless on the pavement of the alley. It was the other Manchurian, for there were two of them, brothers, employed by Chu San Fu. I hadn't the slightest idea of what had happened. Possibly a falling object, like a flowerpot, had fortuitously felled my captor. One thing was clear. They were on to my presence. In a flash I recalled that to the Chinese, surprise is akin to fear and is the breeder of it. This fact, well tested by experience, had to be used, or my goose was cooked to a turn!

Steeling myself, I marched through the door on the far side of the window into an odoriferous hallway and then through another door into the room I had observed.

Loo Chan wore a bland expression of satisfaction, and there was a gleam of cunning in his small, obsidian eyes, which faded when he realized that I was present without escort.

"Good evening," I said in a matter-of-fact manner! "If you will send your bully boy here into the alley, he can drag his unconscious brother within."

As I sat down opposite the lawyer, I was delighted to note his startled reaction.

"Your attempt at strong-arm tactics was ridiculous, of course, since I'm here to have a word with you."

"You are—what?" Chan was completely unnerved, and rattled to the Manchurian in Chinese. The wrestler left the room.

"Surely you don't think your clumsily baited trap would fool anyone but a child," I stated contemptuously. "Even the sometimes obtuse Inspector Lestrade would have laughed at it."

Alarm had flooded Loo Chan's eyes, and I pressed on.

"Dear me, I can see clearly that you have overdramatized again. The open window, the sound of a voice, and the curiosity of the Anglo-Saxon will entrap him. Do you think me a dunderhead? Had you not been aware of my presence, would you have spoken in English? Surely not, but in your native tongue."

I leaned back in the straight-back, regarding Loo Chan with disdain. In the alleyway this thought had not occurred to me, but the Chinese didn't know that, a knowledge gap that I hoped to preserve.

"Why . . . why then would you come here, on my footsteps, if you suspected a trap?" As he spoke, Loo Chan was mentally stumbling round, trying to regain firm footing.

"Because—in the patois of the American dime novel—the jig is up! Lawyers are reputed to be a cautious lot, and you had better get out now."

Consternation and confusion fought a battle on his face. Since the best defense against a counterattack is to never let it get started, I continued to knife him verbally, all the while trying to preserve an icy façade.

"I can afford to be generous with advice. Surely, here, I am completely safe." I indicated my dingy surroundings airily, as though I were seated in the commissioner's office at New Scotland Yard.

Loo Chan almost sputtered. In fact, he did. "You, the intimate and associate of that devil Holmes, think you are safe with us?"

"Completely." I leaned over the table, spearing him with an outstretched finger. A very effective gesture that, and one that I had seen Sherlock Holmes use to enforce a point.

"If Chu San Fu arrives tomorrow in Cairo, you cannot have him meet me. What might I tell him about the destruction of his London organization?"

Loo Chan's round face froze. He did not grasp what I was touching on, but the sound was ominous. His worried eyes were fastened on me with an unspoken question. I summoned an answer.

"You recall that the Limehouse Squad just happened to have a veritable blueprint of every part of Chu San Fu's operations in London. Where do you think it came from? Your files. Rather careless to have such information in your safe, don't you think? I'll wager Chu San Fu will."

"My safe was not opened."

"Wasn't it?"

"Furthermore," he continued desperately, as though trying to forestall the fatal moment, "none of my records were missing."

I actually laughed. It wasn't easy, but I believe I pulled it off rather well.

"They were photographed."

"But that's illegal."

"So it is. You should have a good case. Let's see, who will you sue? The master cracksman who got into your office? The photographer?" I did not choose to reveal that Slim Gilligan had performed both jobs. "Possibly, the man who planned the whole thing?"

"Holmes!" he exclaimed, and the taste of the word was gall and wormwood. Emotion twisted the Chinaman's face as he imagined disaster. Then the spark of cunning reentered his eyes.

"If you could not tell Chu San Fu—"

I used an upright palm to stem his words before he gained confidence by uttering them.

"You can't present him with a dead body. Do you think he would believe that you and those two gargantuans could not take me with ease? Impossible!"

The flicker of hope was erased from Loo Chan's face, and then the passivity of resignation settled over it.

"What is your thought?"

I had of late listened to so much of the history of Egypt from Holmes, Sir Randolph Rapp, and most recently Colonel Gray that I decided to make use of it.

"The ancients of this land made a habit of obliterating from history certain distasteful matters, which is why the reign of some of their pharaohs is hardly known at all. I suggest that tonight never happened. I was never here. If you can control the Manchurians, I see no problem."

I could sense the lawyer trying this thought for size and searching it for a flaw. Evidently he did not find one, for he rose to his feet, indicating the window.

"So be it. Best you leave this way. I will take care of the Manchurians."

While clambering out of a half-opened window in a dark alley in Cairo is not my idea of a dignified exit, all in all I felt that the matter had been well handled. True, I had consorted with the lawless, but surely this was better than filling a shallow grave in the shifting sands of Egypt. Or being the prisoner of Chu San Fu, whose feelings towards me were hardly benevolent.

As I scurried out of the alleyway and hastened back to Shepheard's, it jostled my conscience to accept the fact that I had played the role of the blackmailer. However, I was alive and free, so surely this transgression had been in a good cause.

If I could muster an alibi for my solo flight into dark doings in far-off places, I cannot, in conscience, deny a certain pride that provided me with great joy when I regained the lobby of the hotel only to run into an irate and anxious Colonel Gray.

"Good God, Doctor, where have you been? My men are searching the city for you!"

The high color of his face was more pronounced and the banality of his personality was a thing of the past, a mere cover, as I had already begun to suspect.

I regarded him with a cool manner, tinged with surprise.

"I was conducting an investigation of my own, Colonel. Please explain your concern." It was but a little thing, and yet I shall always cherish it in my memory.

"You were what!" Gray verged on apoplexy. "You realize that they would have handed me my head in London had something happened to you unless Holmes beat them to it right here!" He seemed ready to embark on more of the same when a new thought segued into his mind. Possibly there is more here than meets the eye, he was thinking. This Doctor may be an unknown quantity, and I'd best walk softly. Discipline forced his severe mouth into a semblance of a mirthless smile.

"Forgive my concern, sir, but you are a visitor to these shores." These were but words to cover an awkward situation. Gray knew it and suspected that I did as well. He was grateful to have an escape hatch.

"A Mr. Orloff from the Foreign Office has arrived, Doctor, and has been asking for you. I took the liberty of allowing him entry to your suite."

"Excellent, Colonel. I am in your debt." Gray almost clicked his heels as I made my way towards the lift with, I hope, a preoccupied expression.

Now there was no doubt in my mind regarding the Colonel's activities in Egypt. A squad of men were searching the city for me, and he could maneuver the hotel staff at will. Gray was Military Intelligence. The dark shadow of Orloff had shown up in Cairo. We had been transported by a naval vessel. Obviously, Holmes was not the only one concerned by the doings of Chu San Fu in the land of the Nile.

Outside our suite, I took the precaution of knocking on the door before fitting my key in the lock. Bursting unannounced into a room containing Orloff was no way to insure a safe existence. The rotund security agent was comfortably seated in a chair, the steel-rimmed hat that he so often employed, such an awesome weapon in his hands, close by. I may have detected a smidgen of concern vanishing from his green eyes. There was about him a quality always helpful to my ego. Orloff habitually treated me as an equal, an abrupt departure from his usual good sense, but I always felt the better for his faulty judgment.

"I trust," he said with his lazy smile, "that Colonel Gray knows of your return. The gentleman tends to be excitable."

"Chu San Fu's people are here in Cairo," I blurted out.

"You spotted them?"

"The lawyer, Loo Chan, and those two Manchurian bodyguards, one of whom you laid out like a mackerel as I recall."

"Ah yes, the altercation on Baker Street. It would seem that you have been busy."

"Happy chance. I just happened to spot Loo Chan."

"Or he let you do so," replied Orloff.

"That thought did occur to me," I said, and was thankful that the security agent didn't pursue the matter.

"That Chu would have some of his apparatus here awaiting his arrival is reasonable. I wonder if they know what he has in mind?"

"I doubt it," I said, expressing a thought that had crossed my mind when closeted with Loo Chan in the native quarter. "In fact, I'm not certain his people are too enthusiastic."

"Dissension in the ranks?"

"They may feel they are following a falling star."

Orloff's eyes could not suppress a slight glow.

"There are times, Watson, when you do surprise me."

And myself as well, I thought. Then I wondered how I was going to explain all this to Holmes. The sleuth would insist on the details that Orloff chose to ignore.

The moment of truth was close by, for there was the sound of a key in the lock and Holmes's thin form entered the room.

"Ah ha!" he exclaimed, tossing his deerstalker on a chair. "The eagles gather."

"To do battle with the forces of darkness," was Orloff's contribution, and a surprising one since humor was not prominent in his makeup.

"What news?" inquired Holmes. "You do look much better, Watson," he added as his eyes swiveled to Orloff.

"What you expected," said the security agent. "Voices have been bought and tongues have been wagging. Like the snowball downhill, a rumor has gathered strength. I judge it to be an expensive but effective bit of propaganda."

"You mean the Moslem unrest?" I asked, and noted that both Holmes and Orloff looked at me in surprise.

"There was mention of it in the local paper," I added.

"Do tell," said Orloff.

"An indication of how far this groundswell has progressed." Happily, Holmes elaborated. "In a land, nay continent, where the printed word is in the hands of a few, a tale told on a caravan trail or a whisper in the bazaar carries more weight than the front page of the Times. In Egypt, we are not far removed from the town crier. And when a story goes from mouth to ear, it never loses in the telling."

Holmes and Orloff were looking at each other, and a silence fell. I began to get that feeling again. The same that I experienced when my friend consorted with his brother, Mycroft, and one sensed that there was unspoken communication as two minds evaluated facts, each knowing the line of thought that the other was following. However, this was not as unusual as it seemed at first glance, for Wakefield Orloff was an extension of Mycroft Holmes. "The Walking Arsenal," as Holmes described him, was the steel forged to strike terror in the hearts of the enemies of the nation. That this unusual man chose to display an antagonism towards the enemies of Sherlock Holmes was another matter. Finally the detective broke the vacuum of silence.

"You have been in touch with London?"

Orloff nodded. "Finally, Whitehall and Downing Street seem aware that there is a pending crisis out here. A cabinet meeting was called and a lengthy, sometimes heated, debate followed. In the end, it was agreed that since a British subject who had been of service to the Empire was on the spot, he should approach the matter. It is hoped that it can be resolved without embarrassment to the Crown."

There was another pause as the security agent's words sank in. Orloff continued in a casual tone.

"If you pull this off, you may have to refuse knighthood a second time."

Holmes dismissed this idea with a gesture. "Poor Mycroft will be accused of nepotism."

"It was Bellinger and Lord Cantlemere who swung the day. I understand Cantlemere was quite grandiose in his references to you, mentioning, among other things, 'wooden ships and iron men.'"

"The aged peer may not be original, but I have no doubts as to his eloquence," was Holmes's dry comment. His eyes captured my startled ones.

"Well, Watson, we'd best come up with something or we dare not show our faces on Baker Street again."

"We, indeed! As near as I can figure out, you are practically Viceroy of Egypt."

"Let us not dramatize, ol' chap. Surely the word 'unofficial' will be used in all dispatches and echoed by that august personage in Balmoral Castle."

Orloff distrusted politicians and disliked anything but the direct approach, but he tried to be fair. "Really the only solution, you know. 'Investigation' is a very elastic word and does present the government with a disclaimer if 'private' is used in conjunction with it. The news has been relayed to the right quarters. You can count on the cooperation of the authorities, as reluctant as they may be."

"All right," said Holmes, springing to his feet. "The matter is coming to a head, that we know. Our first move is to keep that yacht of Chu San Fu's under observation. The Hishouri Kamu should also arrive shortly. Now, if there is to be some revelation to the Moslem world, it must take place in the Mosque of al-Ashar right here in Cairo. It has been Islam's center for religious study for a thousand years."

"That concurs with the feeling of the local men," said Orloff.

"Then we'd best to bed," said the sleuth. "Why don't you stay with us?" he asked Orloff. "There is ample room."

"I was hoping you would ask. The sofa out here will be fine. Let me tend to a few things, secure my bag, and rejoin you."

The only entry to our suite was the main door, and I saw what the security agent was up to. Holmes's presence in Cairo had become vital, and any unwarranted visitor would have to pass Orloff before reaching our bedroom door. Since Orloff had the nighttime instincts of a Bengal tiger, I ranked such an attempt as impossible.

Before extinguishing the lights, I recounted my adventure in the back alleys of Cairo to Holmes, and his face reflected sternness, then gravity, and finally relief.

"Good heavens, Watson, had your quick wit not come to your aid and you'd come to harm in the hands of Loo Chan, what would I have done?"

These few words were Holmes's most emotional reaction since that day when I had been superficially wounded by a bullet from the gun of Killer Evans. Once again I had a brief glimpse of the great heart that lurked behind his usual cold and austere manner. As though ashamed of himself, he shook off the mood.

"But Shakespeare was right. 'All's well that ends well.'"

The next morning, following breakfast, there was a parade of local authorities to our suite, and I recognized that the situation was an uncomfortable one. It was they who had put in the time here on the edge of the Arabian desert, yet in a moment of crisis, an unofficial investigator from London was to call the shots. To have his associate, a doctor no less, in attendance would have added to the strain. To vacate the premises, I contacted Gray and asked if he would take me to the pyramids as he had volunteered the previous evening. I could tell that the Colonel felt he was being shunted off again, but he stood by his invitation.

So it was that we passed through the city to the Nile bridge. In the morning hours, Gray informed me, one encountered a true cross-section of natives and animals, and I agreed with him. There were camels and donkeys and asses in profusion carrying or being led by turbaned men, veiled women, and everywhere squalid children. I had expected to be assailed by Arabs crying for baksheesh, but such was not the case, no doubt because of Colonel Gray's trim uniform and official manner. On the other side of the Nile donkeys awaited us, and we mounted them and set off in the direction of the three huge figures, triangular lighthouses rising from a sea of sand.

Gray must have supervised many such a visit and he had, in fact, mentioned the Prince of Wales's tour of Egypt. Since I recalled that this took place in '62, he obviously had been on the scene a long time.

He had cautioned me about the heat and took pains to remind me of my weakened condition upon my arrival in Egypt. As a precaution I took my small medical kit with me. The black valise rode nicely in a saddle pouch on my donkey.

The monuments or tombs seemed but a stone's throw but proved to be considerably further. I suggested visiting the largest, that of Cheops. As we drew closer, I was amazed that the pyramid rising more than four hundred feet did not seem that tall, but the blazing sun, reflected from the stones in a dazzling manner, made an estimation difficult. At its base, I was imbued with the thought of climbing to the top, an idea that found little favor in Colonel Gray's eyes. However, it did not seem difficult since the pyramid resembled a huge staircase, if one can accept steps four feet high.

Gray decided to humor me, and close to half an hour later, sweaty and breathless, I was atop the oldest and largest of its kind. In former times it had been taller, but now its apex was a platform that extended thirty or more feet. Having Gray with me proved invaluable since he pointed out and named other pyramids, easily seen, along with various smaller tombs. From where I stood, the emerald green of the valley of the Nile was of breathless beauty. In contrast, the vast desert that was everywhere beyond the fruitful reach of the great river was awesome in its absolute desolation.

Gray's warnings about the midday heat were made in a genuinely concerned voice and I began to heed them, feeling as though I was in Neville's Turkish baths on Northumberland Avenue.

There was no shade, nor did there seem to be any at the base of the pyramid either, with the midday sun blazing on all four sides. Gray took me to the north side, saying that if we descended two-thirds of the way, we could gain the entrance to the tomb of Cheops and find refuge from the inferno. I agreed to this idea promptly. Gray cautioned me to step to the very edge of each of the great stones, a necessity if one wished to see the step below. Heights have always bothered me but did not on this occasion, for all I could think of was relief from the desert sun and heat.

Our descent was really a succession of four-foot jumps from one tier to the next. Finally we made it into a dark corridor that pitched sharply downwards. It was airy and cool, thank heavens, or so it seemed in comparison to my ill-conceived climb, which I felt must have melted the superfluous fat from my frame. Gray offered to take me to the king's and queen's chambers, but since I understood there was little to see, I declined. I knew full well that the interior of Cheops was safe and constantly traversed by tourists, but I was aware of those tons of huge stones all round us and had an irrational fear of their moving inward and downward. When I was sure that my body temperature was sufficiently lowered, I was glad to vacate the entry to the colossus and descend to our donkeys.

In riding towards the Sphinx, we passed close by several large tents that I had noted from the top of the pyramid. Gray had explained that they indicated Arabs from the south and would be struck when the heat lessened and the Bedouins chose to continue, probably to Cairo. Some spanking horses were tethered by them, standing in the slight shade provided by these white, mobile shelters.

Gray was riding ahead of me as we drew abreast of the tents, probably computing the number of times his duties had involved escorting visiting idiots. It was then that a tall, bearded man emerged from the nearest tent. He was clad in flowing garments that to my untrained eyes seemed of excellent quality. Round his middle was a broad belt of interlocking silver links, and it supported an ornate scabbard that, judging from the hilt that protruded from it, contained a scimitar. His shoes were of a soft material, with much handiwork, and the toes were pointed. A desert dandy, I thought. Behind him came another man with an unkempt black beard. A curved scar ran from his left temple across his cheek towards his nose. The old wound had formed a puckered ridge in healing, which pulled the lower lid of his eye downward, lending a ghoulish expression to his face.

All this registered in a split second, for my attention was captured by the curved dagger the second man was pulling from a sash round his middle. My lips parted and as a shrill shout burst from them, my right hand grabbed at the saddle pouch of my donkey, plucking the medical kit from it. I threw it desperately and the object reached the assailant, catching him in the head as he lunged at the tall Arab who had whirled round at my cry.

I know not if my improvised weapon deflected the attacker's aim. The dagger plunged, into the loose robe of the Arab, and there was a cry of pain from him as he kicked his attacker in the groin. Then there was the flash of the scimitar in the sun and a dull sound like a pole-axe striking home in a slaughterhouse. The assailant was on the ground, blood pouring from his neck, his head almost completely severed from his body.

I was off my donkey in a trice, every movement from memory and without planning or thought. As I raced across the sand to retrieve my medical container, I noted the Arab wipe his scimitar in a practiced fashion on the material of his garment and return it to its scabbard. But there was a growing redness in the vicinity of his ribs, and the blood was his.

Gray had reined round and was trying to grasp the situation. From the tent four or five forms emerged pell-mell, and as I opened my kit and noted that the contents were undamaged, it seemed that the group of desert men were about to annihilate me, for knives and guns appeared like magic. The wounded man spoke sharply in a foreign tongue that I assumed was Arabic, and the others drew up short. Then the dignified bearded man made as though to address me, but did not get the chance.

"I, sir, am John Watson, M.D. You are wounded, and I insist on tending your needs."

What I expected this to accomplish I do not know; I couldn't speak to the man in Arabic, not knowing a word. But this was no time to stand on ceremony, and I had his garment half open, exposing his chest on the right side and revealing a sizable though not fatal gash that was bleeding freely. As I touched him, there was a murmur from the Bedouins behind me, but another gesture from my patient subdued them. True to their instincts, they formed a half circle and watched intently. If an Arab cannot participate, he makes a rapt audience. Gray had recovered his wits by now and his right hand was moving away from the army issue holstered at his side, realizing that the tenseness of the situation was relieved.

I grabbed one of the Bedouins who formed my audience and pressed him into service. With gestures, I managed to have him hold the bottle of antiseptic with a peroxide base that I had automatically secured from my limited supplies, while I fashioned a padding of cotton. The man's teeth were broken and his breath was so garlic-ridden that I could have used it as an antiseptic had I nothing better at hand. His eyes were wide with fright, like an unwilling volunteer in a magician's act. Poor beggar probably felt that he was just that, I thought, as I removed the bottle stopper and indicated for him to pour the contents onto the pad. A hand gesture stopped the flow of liquid, with which I then swabbed the wound. Since I had managed to clean off the blood, the considerable gash was revealed and the peroxide went to work with its customary fizzing sound and bubbling appearance.

There was a deep sign of wonder from my Arabian audience, though my patient seemed unconcerned and stoical. I now was able to wind a bandage round the man and, for a makeshift job, it seemed tidy enough. As I retrieved my kit from my Bedouin assistant, I was surprised to note that his broken teeth were actually chattering and his swarthy skin had adopted a pale cast. I realize now that to him and his companions as well, the action of the antiseptic had given the illusion that flesh was being created by my wizardry. The bearded leader's face was creased by a gentle smile of understanding.

"Some gesture of reassurance will work wonders," he prompted, in Oxonian English that startled me. It was as though we were an alliance of two in placating less sophisticated minds.

I returned my kit to the placid donkey, thinking furiously, and then retraced my steps to place both my palms on the turban of the shivering Arab and gazed skyward, fortunately towards the east, as I later learned from Gray.

"Dancer, Prancer, Donner, and Blitzen!" I intoned in a sepulchral voice, and then removed my hands, clapped them once and smiled.

Jerk a toy from a baby and laugh and he will laugh with you, for it is a game. Jerk it away and scowl and he will cry, for he is being mistreated. It pays to know how to handle children.

My intent audience all chanted in Arabic and clustered round their comrade, clapping him on the back as though he had just won the French Legion of Honor.

My patient, showing no signs of indisposition from his bloodletting, seemed pleased.

"Aside from your medical expertise, Doctor, your alarm may have prevented my wound from being fatal. I trust our paths will cross again, for I am in your debt."

He turned to bark orders to his crew, a sinister-looking group really, and they set themselves to work striking the tents and dragging off the body of the late assailant. As I mounted my donkey, I found Gray regarding me suspiciously.

"Doctor, you were with Gordon, I presume?"

"No. Indian Army."^*

"There are no Arabs in India."

"But a great many Mohammedans, Colonel. The Sikhs and Afghans among them."

Our journey back to Cairo was made in silence. I don't think Gray could make me out.

^*Actually, Watson did not serve with the Indian Army. The Northumberland Fusiliers were of the British Army stationed in India during the Afghan war.

Chapter Fourteen

The Caesar Code

I had something to mull over myself: an Arabian sheik, for such he had to be, speaking impeccable English with an accent that made it odds-on that he was a university graduate. What was he doing in the shadow of the Sphinx—leading a scurvy crew of land pirates? But then again, why not? Holmes had forecast a great meeting of Mohammedans in the Mosque of al-Ashar. No doubt my patient had come from some far-off oasis for just that gathering. I regretted that I had not questioned him regarding his social calendar but shoved that thought aside. Medical ethics, you know.

In our suite at Shepheard's, I was happy to find Holmes and Orloff alone. Their mood was a clue that their news was not reassuring, and such proved to be the case.

"Things have gone amiss, ol' chap. Chu's yacht arrived at Alexandria, but he is not aboard."

"Good heavens, Holmes!"

"They came by way of Rosetta. Obviously slipped Chu ashore there, and even now he is secreted aboard a native dhow making his way up the Nile Delta. Certain members of the secret service feel very chagrined, which helps us not a bit."

"But you are sure he's coming to Cairo?"

"There is going to be the great meeting we anticipated in the Mosque of al-Ashar in a week. That's what Chu is here for."

Orloff was seated upright in a chair, his weight balanced on the toes of his feet, his hands resting in his lap. The man's ability to remain completely motionless and relaxed was a source of wonderment to my medically trained mind. It was as though he saved every ounce of strength for those moments when it was needed. Possibly that was why he was able to move so fast when he had to. Now he spoke.

"Then there is the matter of the cable."

My eyes shot towards Holmes questioningly, and he seemed to wince.

"The Hishouri Kamu put in at Port Said. The coffin containing the corpse of Sidney Putz remained aboard, but a certain crate did not. Burlington Bertie and Tiny were not able to pursue the object, so we've lost that as well."

A horrible thought was crossing my mind.

"Look here, you are chiding yourselves for no reason. Chu suddenly altered his plans regarding himself and the sword. Might not my little foray last evening have been the reason? Certainly Loo Chan could have contacted the freighter, and I'll wager Chu's yacht has wireless equipment as well. The minute Chu learned we were in Cairo, he put an alternate plan into operation."

"It's possible, you know," said Orloff.

"There is an Arab expression," responded the sleuth, "'All things are possible in the caravan of life.' Now let us see what is possible for us. We've had reports from the Intelligence people, the army, the civil authorities; all more chaff than wheat. Chu will be in Cairo. It is his plan that eludes me. I can't shake the idea that those tablets might have contained a secret of the past. You were at the pyramids today, Watson. How did they build them almost five thousand years ago with nothing more than the lever, the roller, and vast embankments?"

"Plus the flood waters of the Nile to float the stone," added Orloff, "and unlimited manpower."

"Wait!" Surprisingly, it was my voice that rang out. "Gray told me something interesting today. In the twelfth century, Saladin's son had the notion to demolish the pyramids. He started with the Red Pyramid of Mycerinus, which had a casing of Aswan granite. They had the wheel and tools the Egyptians never dreamed of. Civilization had advanced four thousand years."

"What is your point?" asked Orloff.

"They couldn't do it. The best they could manage was two blocks a day. Destruction is easier than construction, but they couldn't tear it down."

At this point there was a knock on our door, revealing Colonel Gray, whom I had just quoted.

"Mr. Holmes," he said respectfully, "there's a Chinaman, Loo Chan, who requests permission to speak with you."

I had prepared myself a small libation and now almost dropped the glass.

"He is alone, I assume," said Sherlock Holmes, getting a nod in response. "By all means have him come up . . . Wait!" The sleuth's added thought caught Colonel Gray at the door. "He may be a messenger, a role he has played in the past. If I see him to the door, have the Oriental followed. If Dr. Watson shows him out, don't bother."

Gray's face brightened. This was more to his taste. "I'll be standing by, sir."

Orloff was at the sitting room windows, checking the street below out of habit. Holmes's eyes, alight with interest, encountered mine.

"This may prove a dividend from your nighttime excursion, ol' chap."

When Loo Chan was ushered into the room, the habitual sheen on his face was no more noticeable than at other times I had seen him. With a short, courteous bow to each of us, he assumed a chair in a nerveless fashion, a picture of Oriental calm. But he did not indulge in flowery preambles, so often a trademark of his race. He did not question the presence of Orloff, who was standing, watching him closely.

"Mr. Holmes . . . I need. . . ." Loo Chan took a quick breath, his only sign of agitation, and began again. "I am in great need of something, and I have something of interest."

"The one for the other," was Holmes's rejoinder. My friend was seated with his legs crossed, leaning on one arm of his chair and regarding the visitor without antagonism or any other emotion for that matter. Loo Chan nodded, and Holmes continued.

"Then let us deal with your need first."

"There is an 'Orient Middle East' liner entering the Suez Canal, destination Macao. I would like to be on it."

Holmes's eyes narrowed. "You don't need me to buy you a ticket, I'm sure."

Loo Chan's heavy lids blinked rapidly. "I do need you to get me out of Egypt. Alexandria, Port Said, the canal are all . . . the expression is 'bottled up,' I believe. There is no warrant for me in England, but had I tried to book passage I would have been in custody in a minute. Something about my passport, no doubt."

Holmes shot a quick look at Orloff. "He could be put aboard at Port Tewfik," said the security agent.

"What you ask can be done." Holmes let this hang in the air.

"I do not know, Mr. Holmes, Chu San Fu's plans regarding Egypt. I could tell you about the money he has spent of late in a number of Mid East countries, but I suspect you know more about that than I do."

"One thing. In Berlin. The Mannheim tablets?"

"I negotiated for them. Another of those rare items that Chu San Fu added to his collection."

"What happened?"

"He did not sell them when he disposed of his collection. They were stolen property, so he could not have put them on the market anyway. But he seemed to attach great importance to them."

The sleuth appeared disappointed. "You do have something?"

"I hope so." The Oriental shrugged. "As you know, part of my duties were associated with Chu San Fu's collection. There is a bit of guesswork involved in art objects. I developed the habit of attending estate sales and even disposal-of-property sales involving the belongings of unknowns. If their background was colorful."

Holmes exhibited interest as the Chinaman continued. "I picked up the notebook of an explorer, Puzza, an Italian who had been with Giovanni Balzoni in Egypt. It had entries regarding certain escapades of the incredible Balzoni. One page contained letters without meaning that Chu San Fu found intriguing. Then, two years ago, he referred to it once as 'the gateway to the past.' The notebook has been by his side ever since."

"You have it?"

"No, but I have a copy of the strange message that my employer found so interesting."

"Which you will give me if you can flee Egypt for Macao."

Loo Chan indicated this was so. There was a lengthy pause, and the Oriental seemed to feel the need of some explanation.

"Last night, Doctor Watson used words that I had refused to consider. Now I agree with him." His slanting eyes turned towards me. "It's time to get out."

"Done," said Holmes.

Loo Chan removed a piece of paper from his inner pocket, passing it to the detective. After regarding it for a moment, Holmes gave a signal to Orloff, who took the Chinaman from the room and out of our lives. What the waiting Colonel Gray thought of that arrangement, I did not learn until later.

As the door closed, I voiced a thought tentatively.

"This could be bait of some sort?"

"No more than a ten percent possibility." Holmes was studying the message. "Loo Chan knows that if he has played us false, the Dutch authorities can pick him up in Macao. I'm inclined to consider this coded message as genuine. The timetable is right. It was two years ago that Chu's attention was caught by it. An idea could have been born in his mind at that time. One thing surprises me: the utter simplicity of the code."

Holmes rose and spread the paper on an end table, allowing me to view it by his side.

DW WKH IHHW RI WKH VLALWK UDPHWHV OLHV WKH ERB LQ HWHUQDO HKVH XQNQRZQ WR NXUQD DQGDOPDPXQ VRQ RI WKH KHUHWLF KHHYDGHGGRRP

"Simplicity, Holmes? You jest."

"This cipher might present problems but for the spacing, which is revealing. Consider the first line. There are seven combinations of letters. Six in the second line. We can assume they represent words."

"I don't see how that helps."

"Regard the same two lines, old fellow. There are three identical three-letter combinations. WKH. Surely that indicates the word 'the' to you. Three letters and oft-used. I can almost decipher this standing here, but let me hazard a guess. This associate of Balzoni—"

"Puzza was his name."

"Also an Italian. I assume this is a substitution cipher. One letter in place of another. Now if you were an Italian and were going to put something in code, playing a game with yourself perhaps, is it not reasonable that you should think of a Roman hero like the first Caesar?"

Not being able to interpret the thoughts of others with Holmes's facility, I didn't know what I would have done.

"I suppose that makes sense," I said.

"It is an historical fact that Julius Caesar encrypted his messages from Gaul by substituting letters three places farther on in the alphabet. D for A and E for B. Now let us test this with the three-letter combination of WKH. W becomes T and K is H. H represents the most used letter in the alphabet, which is E. The word is 'the' as we have already assumed. Just note the number of H letters in this message. We've solved it, Watson."

"We" had nothing to do with it, but if it made Holmes happy to put it that way, who was I to complain? When Wakefield Orloff returned to the room, the sleuth was seated, working on the cipher with a pen. It was so simple for him that he digested Orloff's report at the same time.

"Loo Chan will be on the train to Suez within the hour. I've arranged to have the train stop at a point along the Bitter Lakes. A boat will get him to the liner before it enters the Sweetwater Canal. No one will be the wiser, so we've kept our part of the bargain." The security agent regarded the silent Holmes thoughtfully. "Gray can bring a man from the code office if you wish."

Holmes waved one hand in an aimless gesture without meaning, and I took it from there.

"No need. Holmes has already deciphered it."

It is with joy that I report that Orloff's jaw dropped slightly.

"You do recall," I added with no little pride, "that Holmes's pamphlet on codes and secret writings is now required reading for the cipher division."

My moment of reflected glory was interrupted by the sleuth, who was regarding his handiwork with a frown.

"We may have broken one code and run into another. It would seem the late archeologist, Puzza, was of a whimsical nature."

Holmes allowed himself a small chuckle, and I suspected his humor was directed at himself.

"Our substitution key is correct, Watson, for the letters become words, but what we end up with is a rather clumsy rhyme. Let me read it to you:

"At the feet of the sixth Rameses

Lies the boy in eternal ease,

Unknown to Kurna and Al Mamun

Son of the heretic he evaded doom."

"The sixth Rameses I would assume is a pharaoh, but the rest means little to me."

Orloff offered no comment, so I made a suggestion.

"That Colonel Gray chap has been in Egypt for a devilishly long time and seems up on all these things."

"Capital idea, Watson!"

Orloff was already on his way to the hall and returned quickly with Gray.

"I didn't know what to do when you left with the Chinaman, Mr. Orloff, so I stayed at my post."

"Good thinking, Colonel," said Holmes. "Loo Chan is of no further concern to us, but another problem has arisen that requires your expertise. Can you make anything out of this?"

Gray read through the message Holmes handed him and then read through it again in the manner of the military. "Better say nothing than say it wrong." is an army byword. It produces accuracy, but has a stultifying effect on inventiveness.

"Well, sir," Gray finally said, stroking his moustache, "would this be in reference to a tomb, perhaps?"

"Very possibly. What prompted you to consider that?"

We were all clustered round the message on the table and Gray, quite delighted to be the center of attention, indicated certain words as he spoke.

"At the feet of the sixth Rameses could mean at the base of a statue of Rameses Sixth, of course. Thank God it isn't Rameses Second. There is no end to statues of him. The reference to 'boy' evades me, but Kurna and Al Mamun certainly indicate a tomb."

"Wait!" said Holmes. "Kurna." He turned to me. "Didn't Mycroft mention Kurna? A city of thieves?"

"Grave robbers," I stuttered.

"That's right, sir," said Gray. "Al Mamun refers to Caliph Al Mamun, who forced his way into the great pyramid in the ninth century in search of treasure. Bit of a disappointment, that, since it had been sacked centuries before."

"Then being unknown by Kurna and Al Mamun must mean an undiscovered grave. One unpillaged by grave robbers," I said.

"I'll accept that," said Holmes, "But look, does not 'son of the heretic' refer to the 'boy' in the second line?"

Gray's eyes lit up. "The heretic in Egyptian history would be Amenhotep Fourth."

"Pity," said Holmes. "I had hoped you would mention another name."

"Who?"

"Do you recall, Watson, that Rapp mentioned a pharaoh who espoused a one-god idea?"

"Ikhnaton," I said, and will never know how that name came to my mind.

"Same chap," was Gray's surprising reply. "Ikhnaton, Amenhotep, Akhenaten; all names for the same ruler. Took charge in 1379. Changed his capital from Thebes to Akhetaten. Wanted to do away with the other gods in favor of the sun god, Aton. Didn't make it stick, you see. Out of touch with his people and was not very prepossessing. When you are in the god business you have to have a bit of personality, to spread the faith, as 'twere."

Holmes's face had recovered its enthusiasm. "Then this boy in the message must be the son of Ikhnaton."

Gray shook his head. "Ikhnaton or Akhenaten had no son. He was succeeded by Smenkmare. Brother, I believe. But wait a minute."

The Colonel studied the message again. "You have a cipher here, possibly written by an Egyptologist?" Holmes nodded. "When would he have been active?"

Holmes scratched his chin. "I read about Balzoni . . ."

"Oh, Balzoni." Gray was on familiar grounds. "Everyone out here knows about him."

"Actually, this was written by an associate of his."

"Balzoni left Egypt in 1819. I know because a year later he wrote a rather good book on his adventures. Point is that early in the century the tombs in Egypt were a bit of a new thing. At that time it was believed that Akhenaten was the father of Tutankhamen."

Holmes shook his head.