Mr. Impossible Read online

  Amazingly enough, the injured soldier’s comrades had not hacked Carsington to pieces and let their superiors make up a law to explain it later. He’d certainly tested their patience on the way to the city. Though outnumbered twenty to one, he attempted escape three times, inflicting many injuries in the process.

  Yet the city remained quiet, and Lord Hargate’s troublesome son was alive and in possession of all his limbs, confined to a rat-ridden hellhole of a dungeon in Cairo’s Citadel.

  Though this conveniently kept him out of trouble, one could not leave him in the cesspit indefinitely.

  The Earl of Hargate was a very powerful man who could easily arrange for Mr. Salt’s exile to some godforsaken, antiquity-less corner of the globe.

  But getting Carsington out — Good God! The consul reviewed the figures on the document in front of him. “Must we pay all these people?” he said plaintively.

  “I’m afraid so, sir,” his secretary said. “The pasha has discovered that Mr. Carsington’s father is a great English lord.”

  Muhammad Ali was an ignorant, illiterate man, but he was not stupid. After someone had read to him Machiavelli’s The Prince, the pasha of Egypt had said, “I could teach him some things.”

  One thing Muhammad Ali could do to admiration — besides lead an army of deranged killers repeatedly to victory — was count, and he had counted up a ludicrous sum to free the great English lord’s son.

  If Mr. Salt paid the sum, his rapidly dwindling funds wouldn’t cover his excavation expenses — and the instant he abandoned a site, his French competitors would move in.

  If, on the other hand, he did not arrange for Carsington’s release, Mr. Salt might easily end up as British ambassador to the Antarctic Peninsula.

  “Let me think,” said the consul.

  The secretary went out.

  Five minutes later, he came in again.

  “Now what?” said Mr. Salt. “Has Carsington blown up the Citadel? Made off with the pasha’s favorite wife?”

  “Mrs. Pembroke is here, sir,” said the secretary. “A matter of great urgency, she says.”

  “Ah, yes, Archdale’s widowed sister,” said the consul. “Something of earthshaking importance, no doubt. Perhaps he has discovered a vowel. I can scarcely contain my excitement.”

  Though Mr. Salt was mainly interested in acquiring impressive Egyptian artifacts, he did have a scholarly interest, and had made his own attempts at deciphering the baffling code. But today he was not in the mood.

  He’d returned from a too-short holiday in the suburbs to the Carsington fiasco. Swiftly sinking into the gloom of his perpetual money troubles, he could not view Mrs. Pembroke with scholarly detachment.

  The deep mourning she wore, head to toe — and her elderly husband dead more than five years! — did nothing to raise the consul’s spirits. She always put him in mind of certain ghostly shadow figures he’d seen on the walls of royal tombs.

  On the other hand, the late Mr. Pembroke had left his young wife everything, and everything comprised a magnificent property and an even more magnificent fortune.

  If Mr. Salt could feign excitement about whatever little squiggle she imagined Archdale had deciphered, she might feel inclined to invest a part of her wealth in an excavation.

  As she entered, Mr. Salt arranged his mouth in a smile of welcome and advanced to greet her.

  “My dear lady,” he said. “How good of you to call! What an honor this is! Please allow me to offer you refreshment.”

  “No, thank you.” She put back her widow’s veil, revealing a pale, heart-shaped face. Shadows ringed the unnaturally green eyes. “I have no time for social pleasantries. I need your help. My brother has been kidnapped.”

  AKMED WAS NOT dead. He had been badly beaten, though, and when at last he reached the Esbekiya, he’d collapsed.

  It was long past sunset yesterday by the time he regained sufficient strength to speak, and then he was barely intelligible. By the time Daphne made sense of his tale, it was too late to act. At night the streets of Cairo belonged mainly to the police and the felons they hunted.

  In any event, Europeans in difficulties must apply to their consul, not local officials. Mr. Salt and his secretary being away yesterday, Daphne had had to wait through the long night.

  Now, body and spirit exhausted, she was on the brink of hysteria. She could not succumb. Men merely humored emotional women. She needed to be listened to. If she wanted men to take action, she must first make them take her seriously.

  After her initial shaky declaration, she let Mr. Salt lead her to a shaded portico overlooking the garden. She drank the thick, strong coffee a servant brought. It restored her fortitude.

  She told the story from the beginning, as requested.

  Her brother, servants, and crew had returned from Giza early yesterday morning. Shortly after Miles disembarked from the ferry at Old Cairo, some men who claimed to be police took him away. When Akmed attempted to follow — to find out where they were taking his master and why — he was taken up, too. The “police” dragged Akmed to a solitary place, beat him senseless, and left him.

  “I did not understand why they beat Akmed and abandoned him,” Daphne said. “He believes these men were not police, and logic compels me to agree. If they truly were law officers, why did they not take Akmed to the guardhouse with Miles? Moreover, it is impossible that my brother committed any crime. No person of sound intelligence would dream of running afoul of the local authorities. Everyone knows that diplomatic conventions mean little here.”

  “It will turn out to be a silly misunderstanding, I daresay,” said Mr. Salt. “Some of these petty officials are over-quick to take offense at trifles. They are not all as honest as one could wish, either. Still, there is no need for alarm. If Mr. Archdale has been jailed, you may be sure the authorities will inform me before the day is out.”

  “I do not believe he has been jailed,” Daphne said. Her voice climbed. “I believe he has been kidnapped.”

  “Now, now, I am sure it is nothing of the kind. Merely an official looking for a bribe. An all too common occurrence,” the consul added bitterly. “They seem to think we are made of money.”

  “If money was all they wanted, why not send Akmed directly to me with their demands?” Daphne said. “Why beat him senseless? It is illogical.” She waved her hand, impatiently exiling all disorderly thinking from the discussion. “I believe the servant was beaten to prevent his promptly reporting the incident. I believe that while you try to humor me with comfortable explanations, the trail to my brother grows ever colder.”

  “The trail?” the consul said, startled. “I hope you do not seriously consider that Mr. Archdale is the victim of a plot of some kind. Who would risk torture and beheading to make off with a harmless scholar?”

  “If you, who have been consul general in Egypt for six years, cannot produce a plausible motive, it is absurd to ask a woman who has been here scarcely three months,” she said. “It strikes me as illogical as well to debate villains’ motives. It would make more sense to find the persons responsible and ascertain their motives by interrogating them, do you not think? And this ought to be done sooner rather than later, I believe.”

  “My dear lady, I beg you to recollect that we are not in England,” he said. “Here we have no Bow Street officers to undertake an investigation. The local police are no substitute, being for the most part pardoned thieves. I dare not abandon my many other responsibilities to search for missing persons, nor can I spare my secretary. None of my agents is within a hundred miles of Cairo at present. As it is, we are sadly undermanned and underfunded for the work we are expected to do. We are all of us a great deal occupied, with scarcely a minute to collect our thoughts.”

  He added, after the briefest pause, “All of us, that is to say, except one.”

  Two hours later

  ALTHOUGH DAPHNE WAS covered from head to toe, her face veiled, she’d forgotten how clearly her clothes proclaimed, “European, female.
” Until she entered the Citadel and became aware of the men staring at her, then looking away and muttering to one another, she hadn’t considered she might be unwelcome.

  She told herself that (a) women were unwelcome in all too many places, and (b) these men’s opinions didn’t signify. In addition to her maid Leena and the consul’s secretary Mr. Beechey, she had an official escort, one of the district sheiks. They followed the prison guard down a deeply worn stone stairway that grew steadily darker while the air grew increasingly rank and oppressive.

  By the time they reached the bottom, the stench was making her sick, and she was wishing she hadn’t insisted on coming. She might have left it to Mr. Beechey to arrange matters. She didn’t need to be here.

  But she hadn’t been thinking clearly. She’d been too aware of time passing, every minute taking Miles more deeply into danger.

  She needed help, and the only help available, apparently, was being held in a dungeon deep enough to be flooded during the inundation. Was that one of the tortures employed here? she wondered. Would they leave a man chained, to watch the water rise until it drowned him? Was Miles in such a place?

  She gave one quick, involuntary shudder, then firmly banished the image from her mind and squared her shoulders.

  Beside her, Leena murmured a charm against evil.

  The men waved the odd torches that worked like dark lanterns, lightening the gloom a few degrees. They could not lighten the air, which was thick and unspeakably foul.

  “Rejoice, Ingleezi,” the guard called out. “See who comes. Not one but two women.”

  Chains clanked. A dark figure rose. A very tall, dark figure. Daphne could not make out his features in the gloom. Surrounded by protectors, she had no reason to be alarmed. All the same, her heart picked up speed, her skin prickled, and every nerve ending sprang into quivering awareness.

  “Mr. Beechey,” she said, her voice not as steady as she could wish, “are you sure this is the man I want?”

  An impossibly deep voice, most definitely not Mr. Beechey’s, answered with a laugh, “That would depend, madam, on what it is you want me for.”

  Chapter 2

  THE SOUND OF AN ENGLISH VOICE — AN ENGLISH woman’s voice — was more welcome than Rupert would have guessed.

  He had been growing exceedingly bored. The feminine sound instantly revived his good humor.

  He knew which of the females had spoken. His eyes had long since grown accustomed to the darkness. Though both women were veiled, the taller wore European dress. He knew she was not only English, but a lady. The cultured accents of her clear, musical voice — a trifle unsteady at present — told him so.

  He could not, however, determine whether she was old or young, pretty or not. He knew, too, that one could never be absolutely certain of a woman’s figure until she was naked. But looking on the bright side, she must possess all the necessary parts — and if she’d made it down all those hundreds of stairs, she couldn’t be decrepit.

  “Mrs. Pembroke, may I present Mr. Rupert Carsington,” Beechey said. “Mr. Carsington, Mrs. Pembroke has generously agreed to pay for your release.”

  “Have you, indeed, ma’am? That’s deuced charitable of you.”

  “It is nothing of the kind,” she said stiffly. “I’m buying you.”

  “Really? I’d heard the Turks were severe, but I never guessed they’d sell me into slavery. Well, well, you learn something new every —”

  “I am buying your services,” she cut in, the musical voice frosty.

  “Ah, I stand corrected. And which services would you be requiring?”

  Rupert heard her sharp inhalation.

  Before she could retort, Beechey said smoothly, “It is an assignment, sir. Mr. Salt has released you from your regular consular duties so that you may assist Mrs. Pembroke in searching for her brother.”

  “If all you want is a brother, you’re welcome to one of mine,” Rupert said. “I’ve four. All saints. Ask anybody.”

  He was not a saint, and no one had ever mistaken him for one.

  The lady turned toward Mr. Beechey. “Are you sure this is the only man available?”

  “How did you contrive to lose your brother, by the way?” Rupert said. “In my experience, the feat’s impossible. Everywhere I go, there they are. Except here. That was one reason I jumped at the chance when my father offered. It came as a vast relief, I’ll admit. When he summoned me to his study, I thought it was going to be one of those devil - and - the - deep - blue - sea choices, like the one he offered Alistair three years ago: ‘Get married or suffer a fate worse than death,’ or something like that. But it was nothing of the kind. It was, ‘Why don’t you go to Egypt, there’s a good boy, and find your cousin Tryphena some more of those stones with the picture writing on them.’ Stones and — What else did she want? Those brown rolled-up thingums. Paper rice or some such.”

  “Papyri,” came the melodious voice, strained through gritted teeth, by the sounds of it. “The singular is papyrus. The plural is papyri. The Latin word derives from the ancient Greek. It is a paper made, not from rice, sir, but from a reed plant native to these regions. The articles you refer to, furthermore, are not ‘thingums,’ but valuable ancient documents.” She paused, then said in milder, puzzled tones, “Did you say Tryphena? You do not refer to Tryphena Saunders?”

  “Yes, my cousin — the one with the hobbyhorse about the comical picture writing.”

  “Hieroglyphs,” said the lady. “The decipherment of which — Never mind. Attempting to explain to you their importance would be, I have not the smallest doubt, an expenditure of breath to no purpose.”

  She turned abruptly, in a delicious rustle of silk, and started away.

  Beechey hurried after her. “Madam, I do apologize for detaining you in this disagreeable place. Naturally you are distressed. However, I must beg you to recollect —”

  “That man,” she said in low but still audible tones, “is an idiot.”

  “Yes, madam, but he’s all we’ve got.”

  “I may be stupid,” Rupert said, “but I’m irresistibly attractive.”

  “Good grief, conceited, too,” she muttered.

  “And being a great, dumb ox,” he went on, “I’m wonderfully easy to manage.”

  She paused and turned to Beechey. “Are you sure there’s no one else?”

  “Not between here and Philae.”

  Philae must be a good distance from here, else the lady wouldn’t be scouring the dungeons of Cairo for help, Rupert thought. “I’m as strong as an ox, too,” he said encouragingly. “I could lift you up with one hand and your maid with the other.”

  “He’s cheerful, madam,” Beechey said, sounding desperate. “We must give him that. Is it not remarkable how he’s kept up his spirits in this vile place?”

  Obligingly, Rupert began to whistle.

  “Obviously, he doesn’t know any better,” she said.

  “In the present circumstances, fearlessness is a great asset,” Beechey said. “The Turks respect it.”

  The lady said something under her breath. Then she turned to the Turk who’d brought them — someone important, apparently, with an immense turban — and said something in one of those impossible Oriental tongues. The bigturbaned fellow tsk-tsked a good deal. She talked some more. He didn’t seem happy. It went on.

  “What’s she saying?” Rupert called out.

  Beechey said they spoke too quickly for him to follow.

  The maid drew closer to Rupert. “My mistress bargains for you. I am sorry for you that your wits are so slow. When we came, she was willing to pay almost the full price, but now she says you are not worth so much.”

  “Really? How much were they asking?”

  “With all the bribes, it came to three hundred purses,” she said. “A white girl slave — the most expensive slave — is only two hundred purses.”

  “I don’t suppose you know what three hundred purses amounts to in pounds, shillings, and pence?” Rupert said.
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  “It is more than two thousand English pounds.”

  Rupert let out a soft whistle. “That does seem steepish,” he said.

  “This is what she tells the sheik,” the maid said. “She says you are of little worth to anybody. She says your head on a pike would be good for entertaining the Cairenes, but this is all the value she sees. She tells him that lords are as common in England as sheiks in Egypt. She says only the oldest son of an English lord is valuable, and you are one of the youngest. She says your father sent you away because you are an imbecile.”

  “Astonishing,” he said with a laugh. “She can tell all that — when we’ve only just met — and in the dark, too. What an amazingly clever woman.”

  The turbaned fellow launched into a harangue. The lady shrugged and started to walk away.

  The price of release was ridiculous; no one in his right mind would pay it, including Lord Hargate. All the same, Rupert was disappointed to see her depart.

  Searching for her brother could be interesting. It had to be more interesting than digging in sand for broken chunks of stone, and a good deal more amusing than prying papyri from the clutches of ancient corpses. Yes, he knew what the correct word was. If he’d heard it once, he’d heard it a thousand times from Tryphena. He’d said it wrong only to hear Mrs. Pembroke’s reaction — and that was highly entertaining.

  Now he might never find out what she looked like.

  The maid left to follow her mistress. Beechey threw up his hands and started after them.

  Rupert watched the taller feminine figure until the gloom swallowed her up.

  Then the turbaned man called out something.

  Mrs. Pembroke emerged from the gloom, and Rupert’s heart gave a small but unmistakable leap.

  DAPHNE DIDN’T STAY to see Mr. Carsington released. Having settled on the price, she left Mr. Beechey to sort out the details and distribute bribes — the baksheesh that oiled most transactions in the Ottoman Empire.

  She couldn’t wait to be away from the Citadel. Her skin crawled. She berated herself for bargaining with the sheik for so long. But to discover the sort of blockhead upon whom her hopes were to depend, then to be bullied by an official who very likely couldn’t write his own name —