Chapter Thirty Two
A Heart’s Secret
“Mr Edgecumbe was always of an antiquarian turn of mind, and when he left England he took up the study of Egyptology in order to occupy his time,” said the solicitor, as we sat in the taxi whirling along Newgate Street. “He spent many years in Egypt, and being, of course, in possession of ample funds, he was enabled to make very extensive explorations, for which he was granted special privileges by the Khedive. Many of his discoveries have enriched the British Museum, the Louvre, and other museums on the Continent, while, stored here in London – in a place of which I hold the key – is a magnificent and valuable collection of objects from the period of Shaaru, down to that of the first Amenhotep, all of which will pass into the possession of his daughter, Miss Asta. Even the collection in the British Museum cannot compare with them in value or interest. Every object in our late client’s collection is absolutely unique.”
“As is the bronze cylinder,” I added.
“Yes. I confess I have been filled with wonder as to what it can contain ever since the receipt of the letter asking us to advertise on the third of November for an unknown person – yourself, Mr Kemball. Whatever where the actions of the late Mr Edgecumbe, we must not lose sight of the main fact that the death of his wife, whom he adored, caused in him certain eccentricities. He was devoted to his little daughter Asta, and in order that she should never know that her father had been accused and compelled to fly from justice, he induced his partner to adopt her – only to discover afterwards that he was a criminal and unscrupulous, and was, moreover, in association with a man and woman who were, undoubtedly, criminals. Yet having taken the step he had done ten years before, he could not well draw back. I advised him, as soon as exposure came, to stay and face the music. But the death of his wife had utterly broken him, and his only reply was to say that he was tired of an active business life, and preferred obscurity and study abroad. Yes, Mr Kemball,” added the man at my side, “Arnold Edgecumbe was a decidedly remarkable man – a man of great talent and attainments, of wondrous perception, and honest as few men in this city of London are honest nowadays. He knew that Harford’s arrest would bring disgrace upon Asta, and for that reason urged you to become his friend. The situation was, indeed, unique.”
On arrival at the Safe Deposit vaults we found, unfortunately, that they had been closed a quarter of an hour, therefore there was nothing to do but to wait till next morning.
So, after some final words with Fryer, I left him, promising to return on the morrow, and then drove straight to St. Pancras, and went down to Lydford, arriving there soon after nine o’clock.
Asta was, I found, so much better that she had been left in charge of a nurse whom Sir George had summoned from London that day. And at my urgent request she allowed me to see her patient alone.
As I stood beside her bed, our hands clasped in meaning silence, I saw that she smiled gladly at my arrival.
Then, presently, when she had motioned me to a chair and I had congratulated her upon her rapid progress towards recovery, I related in as quiet a voice as I could all that I had learned that day in London.
“Mr Arnold was my father!” she cried, looking at me amazed and stupefied. “I never knew that – I – I can’t believe it – and yet how kind he has always been to me – what beautiful presents he used to buy for me when I was a child – and how tenderly he used to kiss me when we met. Ah yes!” she cried, “I ought to have known; I ought to have guessed. Poor dear father – and he died without betraying to me the secret of my birth.”
“He was a lonely man, Asta,” I said in a low voice, calling her by her Christian name for the first time. “He loved your mother and revered her memory. And he kept from you the secret that he had been cruelly misjudged as a shark and a swindler. He entrusted you to the man I know as Shaw, believing him to be upright and a friend. But, alas! how greatly his confidence has been abused.”
Her eyes were filled with tears.
“You alone, Mr Kemball, have stood my friend,” she said scarcely above a whisper, as she turned her bright gaze upon me. “When I saw that terrible spider in my room I sent word to you, after chasing it out into the corridor. A vague suspicion that it had been placed there purposely crept over me. But Shaw must have allowed it to pass into my room again, after I had dropped off to sleep.”
“I was your father’s friend,” I replied, “and I hope – ”
“Poor dear father! Why did he not tell me? He wrote to me to come to the hotel, urging me to say nothing to Mr Shaw. Perhaps he had something to tell me – ah! who knows?” she exclaimed reflectively. “But I arrived there, alas! too late – too late!”
“He probably intended to reveal to you the truth,” I remarked, looking into her pale, wan countenance. “But had he done so perhaps – perhaps you and I would not have been such close friends as we are to-day.”
“Perhaps not,” she sighed. “I remember how, when we motored to Aix, Shaw was very careful of a little box. Ah yes! I owe more to you than I can ever repay.”
“No,” I said softly. “But – but let me make a confession to you, Asta,” and I took the tiny hand that lay outside the down-quilt. “When I first knew you I grew jealous of poor Guy for – ah, forgive me – because – because, Asta, I loved you!”
Her pale face reddened, and her eyes were downcast. She tried to withdraw her hand from mine.
“But I knew what a good honest fellow he was, and I determined to become his friend. Alas! his friendship for me, because he intended to consult me and tell me what he had discovered, cost him his life.”
“Ah no!” she cried, “do not recall that. It is all too terrible – too terrible!”
“I know what a blow it was for you,” I went on madly. “I suffered all your poignant grief because I loved you – ”
“No, no?”
“Let me finish – let me tell you, Asta, now, once and for all, what I feel and what is in my heart. I knew that, with memories of poor Guy still upon you, that you could care nothing for me – perhaps barely like me. I know that at first you almost felt you hated me, yet I have kept my secret to myself, and I have loved you, Asta – loved you better than mere words of mine can tell.”
And I bent and drew her gently to me.
She made no response. Only she looked at me swiftly, and a long sigh escaped her lips.
“In all my life I have never loved any woman but you – so long as I live I never shall,” I declared, in a fervent voice. “If you are not my wife, Asta, then no other woman will ever be. I could not speak before – I dared not. I could not think that you even liked me, and I should have to take time to teach you the sweet lesson I longed to teach you. But to-night, my beloved, I have thrown hesitation to the winds. Now that you are to live, I have told you – I ask you, my love, to be my wife!”
“And I – I thought – ”
“Yes,” I said, tightening my hold upon her hand and placing my arm softly about her neck.
“I – I never thought that you loved me,” she said suddenly. But the look in her splendid eyes, the tone of her voice, the rare sweet smile which parted her lips in sheer gladness, unconsciously shown at my confession, told me more than a whole volume of words could have told me.
And slowly my lips met hers in a long kiss – a long, long kiss of ecstatic love – a kiss that changed my whole life from that moment.
“I love you, dearest. I love you with all my soul,” I said, looking down at the pale, thin little face that rested upon my shoulder as she lay.
“You love me?” Her words were scarcely a breath, but I heard them clearly enough in the silence of the room.
“I love you,” I repeated, with fervour and simplicity. “I love you, Asta, as I have never loved, and as I shall never love again. But you – it is of you that I have had the doubt; it is your love that I have feared I might not yet have won. Have you nothing to say to me? You rest here in my arms. You have let me kiss your lips – ”
Through the room there sounded a half laugh, half sob that silenced me. Two soft arms wound themselves about my throat and lay softly there; two sweet tear-dimmed eyes looked straight into mine with something in their depths that held me silent for sheer joy; and two warm lips lifted to mine gave me back, shyly, one out of my many caresses.
“Yes, Lionel, I do love you,” she said at last, so low that I had to bring my ear close to her lips to catch the words. “And – and if you really mean that you want me for your wife – ”
“Really mean it!” I echoed. “My dear love, cannot you understand that I live for you alone – only you – that for you to be my wife is the greatest, almost the only wish of my life?”
“Then it shall be as you wish,” she said softly. What passionate words escaped me I do not remember. All I know is that our lips met again and again many, many times, and we sat in each other’s embraces childishly blissful in our new-born happiness.
For a long time, indeed, no further word was spoken between us. Our minds were too full for mere uttered phrases.
Thus we sat until recalled to a sudden consciousness of the situation by the nurse’s light tap upon the door.
Then, before I left that room, and heedless of the presence of the nurse, I bent and kissed fondly upon the lips my wife who was to be.
Ah! can I adequately describe my feelings that evening, my heart-bursting to tell to some intimate friend the secret of our love? No, I will leave you who have loved to imagine the boundless joy I felt at the knowledge that Asta loved me after all, and that we were betrothed.
Chapter Thirty Three
Plot and Counter-Plot
In London next day I met Mr Fryer by appointment at half-past eleven at the Holborn Restaurant, being near Chancery Lane, and together we went to the Safe Deposit Company’s vaults, where we obtained the ancient cylinder from the strong box in which I had placed it, and then entered a taxi and drove to the City.
Across Holborn, in Red Lion Street, we found a locksmith, and took him with us to Fryer’s office in London Wall. He brought with him some tools, but when he seated himself and examined the mysterious cylinder he shook his head, remarking – “This’ll be a pretty tough job. It’s been very well welded together. I’ll have to file it off!”
“Is it ancient welding?” I asked.
“Oh no, sir. It’s a very ancient bit o’ bronze, but the top’s been off of late, and when, welded on it’s been painted over green to imitate the patina of the old bronze. Whoever did it was one of those fakers of antiques, I should say.”
“Well,” said the solicitor, “make a start on it, and get it open.”
The mechanic seated himself at the table and, taking up a long sharp file, began to cut into the hard metal, while we stood aside watching him intently.
What could it be that was so securely concealed therein – the Thing that had been withheld even from Mr Fryer, the dead man’s confidant in everything?
For a quarter of an hour the man worked hard, but made little or no impression upon the ancient metal. So the solicitor took me into an adjoining room, where after a brief chat he said —
“Since our conversation last night I’ve been carefully weighing matters. The motive of the cruel and ingenious assassination of your friend Nicholson is perfectly plain. Harford knew that there was a will in existence, for now I recollect Mr Edgecumbe, after getting me to make it, told me that he had revealed its provisions to his friend. They are that his daughter should inherit the whole of his very substantial fortune, but in the event of her death while unmarried it was to go to Harford himself, in recognition of his friendship and of his kindness to Miss Asta. Now if Nicholson had married her, the money would have passed beyond his control. Therefore, aided, no doubt, by Earnshaw and his wife, they killed him by a method which fully bears out my estimate of the craft and cunning of my client’s late partner. Edgecumbe, not long before his death, had somehow become aware of the existence of the huge spider, kept as a pet, and having suspicions as to what use it might be put to, warned you of it with his last effort. Nicholson, against whom it is more than probable an unsuccessful attempt was made one night while sleeping at the Hall, also discovered Harford’s secret. He intended to reveal it to you, but was attacked, and succumbed before he could call upon you. Harford next feared lest you might propose marriage to his ward, hence the fact that he carried his pet to the Continent with him, and you saw the terrible ‘Hand’ and narrowly escaped its fatal grip on that night in the old French inn. Yes, Mr Kemball,” Fryer added, “depend upon it that Harford played his last card when he allowed the terrible spider to pass into Miss Asta’s bedroom. He intended that she should die, and that Arnold Edgecumbe’s fortune should be his – a plot which would, alas! have been successfully accomplished, had your suspicions not been providentially aroused.”
A sudden call from the locksmith caused us to return hastily to Fryer’s room, and there we saw that the top of the ancient cylinder had been filed entirely off.
“There’s something inside, sir,” said the man, addressing the solicitor. “Perhaps you’d like to take it out yourself.”
And Mr Fryer drew forth a portion of an ancient leather thong, attached to which was a large old seal of clay with an ancient Egyptian cartouche impressed upon it.
Chapter Thirty Four
What the Cylinder Contained
Mr Fryer then took the cylinder in his hand, and with eager fingers first drew forth a piece of modern paper about six inches long, folded lengthways many times. When he opened it I saw that parts of it were brown as though scorched, while it bore at its base one of the long green stamps used in the Consular service, obliterated together with attesting signatures.
At a glance he recognised its nature.
“Why!” he exclaimed. “This is a fresh will signed a year ago before the British Consul-General at Naples! Ah!” he went on, reading it swiftly. “I see. His disillusion regarding Harford, whom he believed to be his friend, caused him to revoke his previous will, and by the terms of this he leaves his entire fortune, as well as what may accrue from the enclosed knowledge, unconditionally to his daughter Asta, but in the event of her death, it is to go to found a sanatorium for the treatment of destitute consumptive patients.”
“Then he must certainly have had suspicions of Harford!”
“Without a doubt. In order to warn Asta of the existence of that deadly spider, and probably to make other provisions for her, he came to England from Egypt, but unfortunately died on the day prior to her call at the hotel. When he wrote to me he, no doubt, felt a presage of imminent death, for he knew well that he suffered from heart-affection and might expire quite suddenly. He intended, by making this new will in secret and placing it in your hands, that should Asta expire mysteriously, the assassin would receive a shock at finding that the money did not revert to him after all. And see,” he said. “Read what is written here.”
I peered over his shoulder and read the lines of small but clear handwriting at the foot of the document, evidently penned after it had been completed at the Consulate.
“Memorandum made by me this Fourth day of February, 1909: – In case of the sudden or mysterious death of my dear daughter Asta before the opening of this cylinder, I desire that the circumstances of her death be fully investigated. The man Harford, alias Harvey Shaw, in whose charge I injudiciously placed my beloved daughter, keeps as pet a specimen of the lycosa tarantula of Ecuador, which is most venomous and dangerous, and will attack human beings when they are asleep. In Ecuador and Peru, on account of its size and formation, it is known as ‘The Death Hand.’ Inquiries I have made show that a bite causes inflammation of the brain, so that medical men in South America are very frequently deceived. I have suspicions that the man Harford intends to use his pet for purposes of secret assassination, and hereby place my strong convictions upon record for my above-named executor, Mr Cyril Fryer, to use at his own will and discretion. Signed by me, Arnold Edgecumbe.”
“By Jove!” I said. “That’s a pretty plain allegation.”
“Yes, and not far short of the truth,” replied my friend. “With these suspicions in his mind I wonder what could have been the nature of his letter to Harford which you delivered at Totnes Station?”
“It was addressed in the name of Dawnay.”
“One of the names he used – one of his actual Christian names. It is evident, however, that, in it, he gave Harford no cause to suspect that he was aware of the existence of the strange pet, otherwise he would not have made that too successful attempt upon Nicholson.”
“Yes, but by its delivery he knew that its writer was dead,” I said. “Your client, perhaps, acted with some indiscretion in sending it. It at once placed Asta in peril.”
“He had a motive, no doubt – but it imperilled Asta. Yet if he had not sent it you would never have met the young lady, or been instrumental in exposing the clever and ingenious plot from which she has so narrowly escaped with her life,” the solicitor remarked.
The locksmith had been paid and retired. So we were again alone together.
“The wording of this latest will is peculiar,” Mr Fryer went on. “It refers to ‘all that may accrue from the enclosed knowledge.’ What enclosed knowledge, I wonder?”
And taking up the cylinder he again looked into it. “Why, there’s something else here?” he exclaimed, and inserting a long steel letter-opener he succeeded in drawing forth a small roll of ancient brown papyri which, very tender and crumbling, was covered by puzzling Egyptian hieroglyphics.
“This, in all probability,” he exclaimed, “is what the cylinder originally contained when he discovered it in the tomb of the Great Merenptah. We must obtain a translation.”
“Yes,” I cried eagerly. “Let us take it to the British Museum. Professor Stewart will be able to decipher it at once.”
So, replacing the papyri in its bronze case, we took it with us in a taxi, and half an hour later sat in the room of the professor, the same eminent Egyptologist whom I had seen on my previous visit there.
The great scholar put on his spectacles very leisurely, and with great care opened the crumbled relic out before him as he sat at this table and placed a sheet of glass over it.
Then for a long time he pored closely over the queer, crude drawings. At last he broke the silence as he looked up at us through his round glasses, saying —
“This, I may as well tell you, is one of the most remarkable and interesting records that have ever come out of Egypt, and, like the papyri which I deciphered for Mr Arnold, and which was found accompanying this cylinder, it is in the hieroglyphics in use during the period after Alexander the Great had delivered Egypt and it was ruled by Ptolemy and his descendants. Ptolemy the First, you will remember, perhaps, reigned from 323 to 285 B.C., and was succeeded by twelve other kings of his dynasty. The famous Cleopatra was daughter of Ptolemy the Eleventh, and in 43 B.C. became Queen of Egypt. Here we have before us, upon this piece of papyri, a most important record concerning that famous woman. This was written at Thebes by one Sanehat, or Sa-nehat, son of the sycamore, a general and a royal favourite in the year and month of Antony’s death. Listen, and I will decipher one or two extracts to show you its purport,” and carefully wiping his spectacles the celebrated Egyptologist readjusted them; and then, examining the half-faded lines of hieroglyphics, said —
“The opening is a long one in which Sanehat, son of the sycamore – probably from his having been born or living at some place where there was a celebrated sacred sycamore – describes the love between Cleopatra and Antony, and the great treasures of the wonderful palace of the Ptolemies, which stood about in the centre of the shore of the eastern bay of Alexandria. He relates how Antony and Octavian fought desperately for the possession of the world at the Battle of Actium, and how, after that wonderful royal banquet which Athenaeus has already described to us in his writings, Antony sank deeper and deeper in the flood of his wild passion for Cleopatra. We have the Queen’s marvellous beauty, her fascinations – her limbs like gold and her hair like lapis lazuli, so precious in Egypt in those days – and her sins here described by the hand of one who was her most trusted general – and who, by the way, is mentioned in at least two other records of this period, one now preserved at St. Petersburg, and the other at Berlin, published in facsimile in the Denkmaler of Lepsius. It tells us of the gorgeous life led by this most brilliant Queen of Queens, of the wealth and favours she lavished upon Antony and his captains, and of how she built her tomb near the temple of Isis Lochais, at the eastern end of the harbour where Fort Silsileh stands to-day. All this is most intensely interesting, coming as it does from the hand of the Queen’s trusted favourite, but there is something more – something which certainly arouses our curiosity and which must be investigated. Listen, and I will read just the most important extracts.”
Then again he paused for a few moments, and halfway down the crinkled papyri he read a disjointed decipher as follows: —
“The Horus, life of births, lords of crowns, life of births, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Kheper-ha-ra, son of the Sun, Amen-em-hat, ever rising into eternity. Order for those who read. Behold this order of the Queen is sent to thee to instruct thee of her will…
“Cleopatra, whose ruling passion was to be a monarch of a greater Egypt and to enlarge the borders of the South, remained in the Palace of her fathers, but Antony was valiantly defending the fortress of Pelusium against Octavian. In dead of night I was called by the Lord Steward unto the pearl chamber of the Queen, and she, reclining upon her bed of pearl and gold with censers of sweet perfumes burning, commanded me to silence, and sent away her slaves. She had received Neb-ka-n-ra as messenger from Antony telling her of Octavian’s strength… She therefore commanded me with my captains User-ref and Hordedef to repair unto the treasury of the while house and take possession of the greatest of her jewels and place them in a place of safety, lest the accursed Octavian conquering, the Palace be attacked.
“In obedience I called my two most trusted captains, and went in secret unto the white house, and opening it with the Queen’s own key, obtained therefrom much gold and precious stones… with the great jewels of Sotor of Euegates, and of Ruddidet… and the sacred sapphires of Amen-em-hat… and next night we concealed them. Five times did we journey, under cover of night, unto the treasury, and in baskets of green tamarisk took therefrom… strings of emeralds and of pearls and electrum and new malachite… the hundred rubies the size of pigeons’ eggs… the goblets of gold and stones and the great bowls of gold encrusted with jewels which were served at the banquet to Antony… Know ye that fifteen basketsful of precious stones of ka, statues of gold, breast ornaments of emeralds, beads of lapis lazuli, and pearls of great price did we take and conceal in the place where Octavian – whose name be accursed – should not know.
“…And at dawn, when our work was completed, I went again unto the Queen and kneeling told her of the place where we had hidden them. And Ra had spread fear over the land; his terrors in every place, and the Queen was greatly pleased, and rewarded me with fifty talents. And she commanded me to write this record and to place it where it should remain through the ages, so that if death consumed her, the whereabouts of her treasure shall not be utterly lost unto the world.
“Know, therefore, ye who dareth to open this tube of bronze which she gave unto me and to face the wrath of the Sun-God, and of Osiris the Eternal, that the pit where we have dug… and wherein we have concealed the great treasure and gold and lazuli and heart scarabs and khulal stones set in gold of our Queen Cleopatra the Magnificent, lieth three hundred cubits and seven towards the sunrise from the eastern angle of the Temple of Denderah, which our Queen hath founded and which beareth her image graven by Uba-aner upon its wall. With thy back unto the eye of her image pace three hundred cubits and seven, and the gold and jewels which our Queen secured for Antony… shall there be found hidden…
“I, Sanehat, make this record lest the great treasure of Cleopatra be lost for all time. I write this so that he beloved of Ra, of Horus, and of Hathor, who readeth this my message, may seek and may find… for Antony fought well, and went from battle unto death by his own hand because he heard falsely that his Queen was already dead. Yea, in their splendour but one moon ago, they founded the synapothano menoi (the people who are about to die together), and so Antony took his life when he heard that his Queen was dead.
“Two suns have not set since User-ref and Hordedef, my loyal and well-beloved captains, were put to death by the Queen’s orders, the month Paophi… the seventh day the god entered his horizon… so that they may not betray the hiding-place of her jewels, and I have fled here unto Thebes, for, alas! her hand is now uplifted against me for the same cause… and this written record will I place in the tomb of the Great Merenptah, that it shall remain there through generations in the keeping of Ra, till it be discovered by one of courage who cometh after me, and upon whom may the blessing of our great Osiris for ever rest. Excellently finished in peace. He who destroyeth this roll may Tahuti smite him.”
“How curious!” I exclaimed, utterly astounded.
“Does this Temple of Denderah still exist?”
“Most certainly,” replied the professor. “I myself have seen the graven image of Cleopatra upon its wall, as well as that of her child Caesarion. As far as I can distinguish, this record, which has reposed in its cylinder for nearly two thousand years, is perfectly genuine, and as it is known that the marvellous Egyptian queen must have possessed untold treasures, this record of Sanehat should certainly be investigated. It was evidently written on the day of Cleopatra’s death, but before the news that the gorgeous queen had committed suicide rather than be carried captive to Rome had become known.”
“But does this wonderful collection of gems still exist, do you anticipate?” inquired Fryer.
“Well, after reading such an authentic document as this, I am certainly inclined to believe that it may very possibly be found. I recall that the vicinity of the temple is desert, and that the ground at the spot indicated certainly shows no signs of recent excavation.”
“Then knowledge of this papyri must be kept a profound secret, and the Egyptian Government approached in confidence with a view to allowing exploration in the vicinity,” Fryer said, his business instinct at once asserting itself.
“Most certainly,” replied the professor. “I am, of course, most intensely interested in this matter, and if I can be of any assistance I shall only be too happy. Personally, I believe that by this important papyri the great treasures which Cleopatra was known to possess, and of which history gives us no account after her death, may actually be recovered.”