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 A
thin red trail flowed over ivory-colored marble.
It
curled left and crossed a second tiny stream before pausing to expand
at a seam between tiles. The fluid resumed its course until a new stream
snaked to join the current, sprouting from the pool of blood three feet
away.
William
watched the pattern evolve with morbid fascination.
The
house was unusually quiet. He stood still; head cocked, listening, no
sounds of servants moving or clatter of pans from the kitchen. He glanced
at the pendulum clock in the hall. Ten to six.
He
crouched by the body sprawled beneath the upstairs balcony.
The
back of John Forthwait's head was an ugly mass of brown twists and maroon
paste. His face lay turned toward the half-parted doorway, staring with
a lifeless eye and open mouth. A crumpled nightshirt draped onto the
stained floor, which transformed the white cloth to a shade of burgundy.
Shuffling
sounds filtered in from outside. William straightened, hearing
his brother-in-law climb the front steps. The door swung open
with a blast of morning light. Charles' quiet conversation with Emily
and Elizabeth abruptly ended.
“My
God, it’s Forthwait!”
Charles
twisted to shield the women's wide-eyed glimpses. He looked back quizzically
over his shoulder.
William
glanced once more at the corpse, and shook his head with sudden impatience
at his timid relation. "Don't bother about that, help me roll his
body over."
They lifted the sagging flesh. Splotched fabric fell away revealing
an ugly gash at the victim’s midsection.
Elizabeth
darted upstairs.
Emily
stood behind the men, rubbing her pale arms in an effort to stop trembling.
“How could this happen? We were outside for less than an hour.”
She
looked up to see her two sisters start down the curved stairway. Elizabeth
clutched her sibling tightly, forcing the cringing girl to take each
step toward the tragedy below. When they reached the landing, eighteen-year-old
Victoria stopped to behold her boyfriend’s rumpled mass. Color drained
from her face with eyes looking as lifeless as those of dead man. Abruptly,
she fainted.
Charles
lunged to keep her sagging head from hitting the floor. He carried her
limp torso into the adjoining room and settled it onto a chesterfield.
Relieved of his burden, he headed to the servant’s quarters, shouting
names to arouse the household.
Cold
nausea gripped William. He shot a worried glance at Elizabeth.
Neither his years at Oxford nor a sizeable fortune would do them much
good in the face of a murder investigation. They had enough to worry
about without this unthinkable crime at his brother-in-law’s estate.
He
took his wife’s arm and looked up at the balcony above. “The wound
suggests he was stabbed, and pushed over the upstairs railing,”
Elizabeth
put a hand to her mouth. “No! Who would do such a thing?”
“It’s these damn Forth’s.
They won’t let up until they have everything we own. Now, somehow,
one of us has killed their relation. They’ll come after us for this.”
********************************************************************
“Master,
you have found the Forbidden City of my ancestors! It is said that the
Pharaohs once built a secret hiding place never to be discovered. They
could spend a year inside, if necessary, secure from their enemies with
a few trusted slaves to serve them. I thought it to be only a bedtime
story, until now.”
William
gazed in astonishment at the huge space. The torchlight revealed a distant
ceiling one hundred feet above a geometric pattern of cube-like buildings
laid out in orderly rows. The space extended at least as wide and its
length stretched beyond the illumination of their flames.
He
sighed in the absolute stillness. Besides Bidderman, we are probably the first visitors to this
place in over three thousand years.
He
turned to the slave. “I’m only interested in recovering a document
that belongs to my family. It was hidden here years ago. Search the
buildings, but disturb nothing. The rest we shall leave for the archeologists.”
They
stood on a small rise overlooking the carefully laid out pattern of
buildings. Each row contained seven flat-roofed structures measuring
ten feet on a side. Two pathways separated the inner three buildings
from the two at each end. Behind this array, William could make out
a second line of similar stone houses. He counted the tops of seven
rows and could just make out three other tall constructions toward the
rear of the cavern. Looking closer at the nearby enclosures, he could
see intricate carvings of half-naked human figures etched above the
doorways of the center three cubicles. Those confinements at the ends
of the rows were unmarked, possibly to be used by the slaves. In the
dancing torchlight, each house appeared foreboding with hollow doorways
and two small triangular-shaped windows.
The
two visitors walked to the center-most domicile of the first row, stepping
over a surface as smooth as amarble. In the absolute quiet, both men
spoke softly as if on sacred ground. William followed Salaam inside.
As he passed over the threshold, he caught a glimpse of a shadow out
of the corner of his eye. It moved quickly around a corner at the end
of the row.
Blasted
flickering torch makes the shadows jump,
William mused with an eerie discomfort.
Inside
the room, a wall divided the living quarters from a bathing room holding
a table littered with small clay containers. The floor of the main area
displayed rotted mats and decayed fabric pieces. In one corner, a stack
of papyrus rolls exhibited the inscrutable markings of the famous Egyptian
hieroglyphics. William could not tell if the house had ever been occupied
or whether it lay in wait for some future emergency. By mutual consent,
they turned and quietly stepped back outside.
William
scratched his head. “We’ll have to go through each one, Salaam.
You start at the left end and search to the middle of each row. I’ll
take the four rightmost. We’ll work our way toward the back and meet
in front of those larger buildings.”
They
moved off in separate directions. Most of the cubicles were empty.
As each site was searched, William occasionally caught sight of Salaam
moving between buildings at the opposite end, shaking his head to indicate
no significant discovery.
When
the last row was searched, William stepped into the open area in front
of the structures at the rear of the cavern. Thirty feet away, a round
tower stretched upward into the darkness. It was flanked by two featureless
buildings looking like huge boxes, fifty-feet on a side.
Probably
storehouses, he thought.
After
a moment’s hesitation, William walked to the central tower, which
measured ten feet in diameter across its base. He crouched in front
of a small doorway, and then wiggled inside. The room was disappointingly
devoid of artifacts. The low circular wall surrounded a shallow pit
in the middle of the space, leaving a two-foot wide walkway around the
perimeter. Three poles were set in the grooves of a low wall that encompassed
the center recess and extended across the blackened pit. Overhead, the
room narrowed, but its roof was beyond the torchlight.
He
tramped around the interior and was about to leave when he spied a narrow
shadow on the otherwise featureless floor. One of the smooth stones
was slightly raised. William bent down and used his fingernails to pry
up an inch thick layer of marble. Underneath, a hollow space extended
downward several feet below the cover between foot-thick granite blocks.
Resting at the bottom was a mound of cloth, not ancient Egyptian, but
modern wool.
Shaking
with anticipation, William carefully picked up the clump of material
and found a roll of paper inside. As he delicately unrolled the parchment
under the flickering torchlight, tears began to form. Before him was
the bequest of the Earl of Rothmere and there, near the bottom, the
name of Darmon was clearly written together with the boundaries of the
Mayfair property.
He
carefully re-rolled the paper and placed it within an inside pocket,
then he crawled back outside. “I have it, Salaam! Come here.
We can leave this place now.”
He
waited in silence for a minute and called again. What’s that confounded
Bedouin gotten into now? Behind the last row of buildings to his
right, light from the other torch reflected off the adjacent walls.
William lumbered quickly toward it.
As
he rounded the row and turned to his left, the light source came into
view. The torch lay on the ground sputtering in front of the second
doorway. William stopped. “Salaam?”
He
hurried to the entrance and saw a foot jutting just inside. William
stopped. He thrust his torch inside the doorway. On the floor, Salaam
lay on his back, motionless, staring up. Blood oozed from his
throat. A brown stain spread over the floor.
William
jerked back in panic. The hairs stood up on his neck. Someone else
is in the cavern! A cold sweat formed on his brow. He glanced over
his shoulder at the distant trap door. Had the other slave followed
them inside and murdered his comrade? Terrified, he backed inside, watching
for any movement. Stacks of boxes rested against the wall beyond Salaam’s
body. At the base of the pile, a remnant of another burned out torch
smoked in the gloom. Someone had already been in there before they arrived.
But who could have known that a visitor would find a way inside at this
time? It had to have been Ravensforth who waited for them! William
could barely breathe. He forced his body to step back to the entrance
and peered out. There was no sign of anyone. He took a deep breath and
crept away from the sputtering torch, leaving his light behind as well,
not to reveal his location.
He
tiptoed quietly on trembling legs, crossing each row toward the bank
under the tunnel opening. Where is the blackguard? Did he leave already?
Upon
feeling the rising ground, he started to crawl upwards. What if he
left and took the line? He began to shake uncontrollably.
********************************************************************
William
dared not move. He could barely breathe, hoping they would forget about
him held hostage within the ship’s hold. Sweat dripped from his brow,
stinging his eyes. His arms shook with the terror of what might happen
next. Through a cracked plank, he glimpsed stars overhead. Perhaps he
could climb up and work the damaged beams to get out.
Minutes
passed.
The
ship turned slightly.
A
distant muffled sound came.
Then
all hell broke loose.
The
ship let loose three cannon shots. Incoming missiles began raining down
on them. Five, six hits at once. The ship shattered, breaking apart
in every direction. The surface overhead disintegrated in crash after
crash. A cannon ball pierced the deck and exploded thought the hull,
scattering debris everywhere. Jagged pieces of wood flew at William
from every direction. He yelled out from his curled position. The hull
wall to his left burst, erupting in a torrent of sea water. The entire
upper deck caved in and crashed down upon him.
Frantic
shouts came louder without the ceiling. Burning wood filled the wreckage,
creating a dense fog while the few remaining boards fell inward.
William
looked up in a daze. For an instant, the entire universe seemed aflame
as the mainsail caught fire. Another crushing impact exploded at mid-ship.
Amid the showering splinters, a body hurtled into the hold, landing
inches from William’s head. He stretched his bound hands to the man’s
knife and desperately cut his bindings.
The
mass of floating timbers began to pull him backwards. The ship’s remains
were sinking rapidly. Another impact jolted his senses.
William
tried to climb out of the debris that now pinned him against a hull
section. The largest portion of the xebec rose vertically, and then
leaned over to one side. As the starboard hull climbed upward, more
water poured in from where the upper deck had been. The main mast cracked,
splintered and smashed into the water. What was left of the ship was
now completely on its side.
Over
three quarters of the hold swirled with river current. His only chance
was to dive under the hull to where it first burst. As he pushed himself
downward, he was relieved to be free of the weight of the tangling refuse
and was able to pull his body toward the bottom of the hull section.
In
the darkness, William could sense the huge mass pressing ever downward.
He was racing the sinking ship to the bottom! Thirty feet underwater,
he felt the shattered hull. Pulling his body through an irregular opening,
his pant leg caught on a rough edge. For ten terrible seconds, he yanked
at the claw without success. Finally, by kicking with the untangled
foot, the limb ripped free. Cannon ball impacts still thumped the water
as he swam for his life.
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