Mr. Impossible Read online

  At least the sheik had paid attention. He told them they were free to go. He would have the police comb the metropolis for a man missing a turban and sporting a large lump on the side of his head.

  “Tell them to look for a fellow showing symptoms of concussion,” Rupert said. “Mrs. Pembroke gave him a healthy thump, and the statue was solid stone.”

  Beechey sent a dour look his way, but said nothing until later, when they set out. Night had long since fallen, and they were following Mrs. Pembroke’s entourage of police and servants to her house.

  The secretary slowed his pace and said, “I had thought I’d made it clear that Mrs. Pembroke was to be shielded from embarrassment and distress at all costs.”

  “She doesn’t like being shielded,” Rupert said. “She objects most strongly to being treated like a child.”

  “That is no excuse for you to treat her as you would one of your sporting cronies,” said the secretary. “Did it not occur to you that other villains might have concealed themselves nearby, and that you should have summoned assistance immediately? While you were leaping headlong into an ambush you should have foreseen, she might have been attacked. She might have been killed or worse.”

  Rupert came to a halt. “What could be worse than her being killed, do you think?”

  “I thought I had communicated to you Mr. Salt’s opinions and wishes in the matter of Mr. Archdale’s disappearance,” Beechey said. “I thought I used easily comprehended terms.”

  “You did,” Rupert said. “I told Mrs. Pembroke about it in much the same way.”

  “You told —” After a pause, Beechey went on, his voice strained, “You cannot have revealed our suspicions about the — ahem — places of dubious repute. This is one of your jokes, I daresay. Ha ha.”

  “She said her brother was not in a brothel or opium den and I was on no account to go to such places looking for him,” Rupert said. “I obeyed, as I was obliged to do. You did tell me I wasn’t to upset her, did you not?”

  There followed the kind of furious silence with which Rupert was more than familiar.

  It was not the first time he’d rendered a listener speechless, and it would not be the last. They walked on without talking while Rupert wondered how much time he had before Salt sent him out to the desert.

  THOUGH THE LADY was more than amply protected, Rupert continued with the escort all the way to her house. He remained to watch the assigned guards position themselves at strategic spots about the place, then parted company with Beechey and set out on his own.

  It was night, and Rupert was aware that sensible persons did not traverse the Cairo streets after dark. The safe way, however, had never been his favorite direction.

  He followed the route he and Mrs. Pembroke had taken two days ago. Though it was night, he found Lord Noxley’s house with no difficulty — apart from repeated halts en route to pacify suspicious policemen, military guardsmen, and porters.

  The street was gated and the gate locked, but by now he’d memorized the secret password. The watchman said something foreign, to which Rupert answered, “La ilaha ila-llah.”

  He might have to see about language lessons after all, he thought, like it or not. Looking on the bright side, learning Arabic from Mrs. Pembroke had to be pleasanter than learning Greek and Latin from droning schoolmasters.

  Eventually, after he’d carefully enunciated the phrases “Message from Mr. Salt” and “British consul” several times, he was admitted to his lordship’s house. This was against the rules, Rupert later discovered. He was in luck, however: his visit coincided with a jealous young woman’s temper tantrum.

  The dusky beauty he’d noticed during his previous visit was named Juman. She’d been storming about the portico when she heard him hail the porter. She had Rupert admitted and was soon confiding in him in prettily broken English enlivened with intricate hand motions.

  Lord Noxley had bought her in the slave market. Eager to please the handsome foreigner who’d saved her from life with a much older and less attractive owner, she had painstakingly learnt English. Since she was exceedingly handsome as well, his lordship let her please him in other ways, too. As a result, she’d developed expectations — as women so often did, fanciful creatures that they were — of a permanent arrangement, preferably including nuptial rites.

  Her hopes were shattered yesterday, when his lordship departed Cairo in search of the English lady’s brother.

  The abandoned Juman was still sulking. This was why she’d told the porter that the man from the consulate must be let into the house. This was why she told Rupert all her master’s private business. And this was why she offered to demonstrate the other talents she possessed besides eavesdropping. She was exceedingly talented: it took all of Rupert’s limited store of tact to disentangle himself.

  Not until a long time after he’d left Lord Noxley’s abode and was composing himself to sleep in his own lodgings did Rupert wonder why he’d been so unaccommodating. After all, dusky beauties did not fall into one’s lap — literally — every day. When heaven bestowed such gifts, only a churl would decline them. While Rupert was by no means lacking in faults, churlishness was not among them.

  It must be a touch of plague, he told himself. Then he turned over and fell asleep. He dreamt of angry green-eyed goddesses in turbans.

  WHILE RUPERT WAS dreaming, Ghazi and his men were setting out into the Eastern Desert.

  They had found two of the men who’d robbed Vanni Anaz, relieved them of the papyri and other artifacts they’d stolen, and beat them until they revealed what little they knew.

  They were mere common thieves hired, Ghazi soon understood, to divert suspicion from Duval by making the previous papyrus theft appear to be one among several, an ordinary crime. Since the thieves knew almost nothing, Ghazi might have let them live. But they’d made a fatal error: they’d panicked and killed Vanni Anaz, a useful and valuable man. Ghazi garroted them.

  Based on that interview, he soon found other informants. Within a few hours, Ghazi had all the information he needed.

  The kidnappers had set out with their captive in a nondescript boat. The papyrus traveled separately by land. The rendezvous point was a village south of Minya, more than a hundred fifty miles upriver.

  Ghazi divided his men accordingly: one group to pursue the kidnappers and another to follow the papyrus. He led the papyrus team. The kidnappers, clearly, were not the most intelligent or efficient of Duval’s underlings. On the other hand, Faruq, who carried the papyrus, was as clear-eyed, cold-blooded, and sharp-witted as Ghazi himself.

  Ghazi looked forward to their encounter.

  Chapter 7

  Friday 6 April

  “GONE?” MRS. PEMBROKE SHOT UP FROM THE divan in a flurry of black silk, knocking aside the silver tray containing their breakfast.

  The coffee sloshed in the cups, and the fateerah started sliding from its plate, but Rupert caught the tray in time, saving its precious cargo.

  While she strode to the shelf of wooden figures, Rupert helped himself to a piece of the buttery pastry, doused it liberally with honey, and sank his teeth in with a quiet sigh of pleasure. Fateerah was so far his favorite Egyptian food. But that was only one part of the present moment’s deliciousness.

  Mrs. Pembroke was taking a fit. And every abrupt movement gave him a glimpse of her slim, stockinged feet and perfect ankles.

  “Of all the presumptuous —” she began. “I can scarcely credit —” She broke off, and he lifted his gaze from her feet to her face, to watch her try to contain the tempest within…and fail, praise be.

  Few sights stirred his senses as did that of Mrs. Pembroke flying into a passion. She glared green fire at the little Egyptians. Her fine bosom — whose perfect contours the dull mourning could not completely camouflage — rose and fell like a stormy sea.

  “I daresay Noxious hadn’t time for tender farewells,” Rupert said. “He had a villain to lure out of hiding.”

  “He knew who it was,” s
he said tightly.

  “I said only that his servant mentioned a Frenchman named Duval,” Rupert said. He’d told her of the late-night visit to Noxious’s house, but not in unnecessary detail. The word “servant” discreetly covered a multitude of scantily clad dusky beauties.

  “I spoke to Salt and Beechey about him this morning,” he went on. “Their description fits our portrait of the villain. Duval is one of the French consul’s dearest friends. He despises the English. Salt says the man’s still nursing a grudge about the Rosetta Stone. Believes it properly belongs to France, it seems.”

  “Duval,” she said. She paced for a short time, the black silk whispering against her legs. “I met him once. A dinner at the Swedish consulate. Medium height, dark, elegant — or perhaps sleek is the apter word. Polished manners.”

  “Salt and Beechey say Duval’s generally reckoned a canny fellow,” Rupert said. “But lately he’d suffered a series of reverses in the antiquities line.”

  “Setbacks seem to sour and deform some men,” she said. She turned toward him, her countenance clouded. “They become angry, anxious, suspicious. They brood. They lose their sense of proportion. They grow resentful of others’ accomplishments and happiness.”

  Rupert nodded. Her troubled countenance, as much as the words and grim tone, told him she spoke from experience.

  He’d already guessed that she was not mourning quite so much as her costume declared.

  She came back to the divan. “It is not a state of mind that makes for clear thinking.”

  “This would help explain Duval’s jumping to conclusions about your brother and the papyrus,” Rupert said. “There Duval was, seething about this and that. He certainly mistrusts the English. Easy enough, then, to believe an English scholar knew more than he was telling.”

  She settled onto the divan, this time only an arm’s length away. “Three people are dead so far — that we know of. All innocent bystanders. The man must be mad.”

  “He’s dangerous, at any rate,” Rupert said. “I suppose that’s why Noxious wasted no time. He set out in his boat yesterday morning. The Memnon. A grand vessel, distinctive and quite famous, I’m told. He made sure everyone at the port knew he was going to search for your brother. No doubt he meant to get the Frenchman’s wind up. It worked. I stopped by Duval’s house on my way here. It seems he left Cairo suddenly yesterday afternoon.”

  She said nothing.

  Rupert poured her coffee. She took the cup and only stared at it.

  “You do know it’s best to have Duval out of Cairo, I hope?” Rupert said. And Noxious, too, he silently added. “You don’t want to risk his taking you hostage. Your brother wouldn’t dare try to escape then.”

  She looked up at him. “I understand that. The trouble is, now I know Miles is not in Cairo — and I cannot ask Lord Noxley where these horrible men might have taken my brother, because Lord Noxley is gone, too. I’ve been running about in circles, wasting time, when, given a little information, I might have made progress.”

  “That’s hardly likely to occur to him,” Rupert said. “He’d assume you were waiting safely and dutifully at home, with a great dumb ox from the consulate as bodyguard. Meanwhile, put yourself in Noxious’s place: brilliant scheme — waste no time — solve the mystery, race to the rescue. Return with the brother and the valuable item to universal applause. The lady weeps with gratitude…and bestows her — um — heart upon the gallant knight.”

  She stiffened. “Another lady, perhaps,” she said. “Not this one.”

  “Ah, I rather thought not,” he said. He’d certainly hoped not. He’d hoped she was too intelligent and spirited to accept the passive role Noxious assigned her.

  Rupert watched her tense for battle. She thought he, too, underestimated her.

  “We’re going after them, then, I take it?” he said.

  She blinked once, and the tension was melting out of her, and her mouth was shaping a crooked smile when she caught herself. She lifted her chin. “Of course we’re going after them.”

  It was what he’d expected of her. All the same, his heart gave a mad leap, because it was what he’d most hoped for as well. And because he’d surprised and pleased her enough to make her almost smile.

  “I thought so,” he said coolly. “Well, then, what’s your pleasure, madam: boat or camel?”

  Sunday 8 April

  TWO DAYS LATER, Daphne stood in the doorway of her boat’s stern cabin, acutely aware of Mr. Carsington standing close behind her.

  “Well?” he said.

  “It’s quite…spacious,” she said. It’s too small, she thought, too crowded.

  The boat was a dahabeeya, the Nile version of a yacht. Mr. Carsington — surprising her by knowing something of ancient mythology — had named it the Isis, after the Egyptian goddess who’d searched the world for her husband’s body.

  The Isis was large and luxurious, boasting six cabins under an unusually tall roof. Sheik Salim had commandeered it for his learned (!!!) friend Mr. Carsington. The sheik did not want his tall English friend to get a stiff neck from constantly bending over.

  Viewed from the landing place, it had seemed impressively large, especially compared to the other boats. Within, though, was another story.

  Too late Daphne realized it was a limited space, which she’d be sharing with Mr. Carsington for an indefinite span of time.

  She’d made a mistake, choosing a river journey.

  By land she need only cope with sandstorms, temperamental camels, and marauding Bedouins. It was too late to change her mind, though, and reason told her this was the wiser choice. She would do Miles no good if she got killed, and desert travel was a good way for foreigners to get killed. A large, armed escort might make it a degree safer, but this would take far too long to arrange.

  As it was, Mr. Carsington had accomplished miracles. Hiring and provisioning a boat ought to take weeks. He’d done it in two days, though Friday, when he’d begun, was the Mohammedan Sabbath, when it was impossible to get anything done.

  Unless you happened to be a genie.

  “The cupboards hold your books and notebooks,” the genie was saying. “Leena’s stowed most of your wardrobe and other necessaries in her cabin next door. The other trunks and boxes we’ve put in the cabin after. I hadn’t guessed you’d need so many. Perhaps your collection of masterful disguises is more extensive than I imagined?”

  “Miles and I were planning a trip to Thebes,” she said. “We’d already packed for it: medicines, rugs, mats, mosquito net, umbrella, lantern, broom, and candles — the everyday needs. But the other trunks’ contents are mainly his.”

  She turned carefully in the narrow passage and started back. She glanced into the maid’s crowded cabin. Leena would sleep in Daphne’s room. However, Daphne could not share one room with her or anyone else the rest of the time, day in and day out. Deprived of solitude, Daphne would turn into a caged beast. The two women could not wander about outdoors on deck all day, either. Both custom and the midday heat forbade it.

  I’ll work day and night, Daphne told herself. Hieroglyphs demanded one’s total attention, blocking out troublesome feelings and urges. She would not make herself sick with worry about Miles. She would not fret about the time passing. And above all, she would acquire a suitable detachment regarding Mr. Carsington’s…attributes.

  She wished she could do it now, but the task was beyond mortal abilities.

  Technically, he was fully dressed. However, he’d untied his neckcloth and undone his coat and waistcoat buttons. Her gaze kept straying to his throat and the V of bronzed skin below it. She remembered the heat and weight of his body against her back in the pyramid.

  It was impossible to subdue her vibrating awareness of the tall figure standing inches away. It took all her concentrated will to keep her hands to herself. A step would bring her against that muscled frame.

  She edged past him to the door of the cabin assigned to storage. “We’d planned to spend some time in Theb
es, making a study of the monuments and tombs,” she went on hurriedly. “These trunks hold Miles’s sextant and artificial horizon, chronometer, large and small telescopes, siphon barometer, thermometer, and measuring tape. And his clothes. His kidnappers did not give him time to pack, recollect.” Her voice shook a little at this last.

  “We’ll find him,” Mr. Carsington said.

  “Yes, yes, we must.” Alive, she hoped.

  “Duval has only a few days’ head start of us,” he said. “Do bear in mind, your brother is valuable.”

  “Until his captors find out the truth,” she said.

  “He’s a scholar,” Mr. Carsington said. “Obviously he’ll know how to keep them in the dark, to make them believe they must take good care of him if they want to find their treasure. If I were them, in fact, I’d play it safe and take him all the way to Thebes to help search for the tomb. He can talk a lot of incomprehensible scholarly jargon and lead them on for months, looking for it. Or he could set them digging at random. These excavations take many weeks. So you see, time is on our side.”

  The words lifted her mind from the depths into which it had so unexpectedly plummeted. Though he wasn’t the scholar the world believed him to be, Miles was by no means a fool.

  “Yes, I know that,” she said. “Or ought to know it. It’s simply…” She remembered the woman she’d been less than a week ago, her life entirely a life of the mind, all her flawed being safely engaged in solving an intellectual puzzle.

  She looked up at him, into the dark eyes that she, who could read so many languages, found so hard to read and so easy to become lost in. “Unlike you, I am unaccustomed to having an exciting life,” she said. “My mind is used to going at an even, orderly pace. Perhaps, in some ways, I have been like those women locked up in harems. They are ill-equipped for dealing with the outside world. I feel as though I am stumbling blindly about.”

  “Ah, is that all?” His mouth eased lazily into a smile. Threads of heat slid over her skin, as though his mouth were there…everywhere. “No need to fret,” he said. “If you stumble, I’ll catch you.”