LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘No, indeed, Lady Willard,’ said Poirot quickly. ‘I, too, believe in the force of superstition, one of the greatest forces the world has ever known.’

      I looked at him in surprise. I should never have credited Poirot with being superstitious. But the little man was obviously in earnest.

      ‘What you really demand is that I shall protect your son? I will do my utmost to keep him from harm.’

      ‘Yes, in the ordinary way, but against an occult influence?’

      ‘In volumes of the Middle Ages, Lady Willard, you will find many ways of counteracting black magic. Perhaps they knew more than we moderns with all our boasted science. Now let us come to facts, that I may have guidance. Your husband had always been a devoted Egyptologist, hadn’t he?’

      ‘Yes, from his youth upwards. He was one of the greatest living authorities upon the subject.’

      ‘But Mr Bleibner, I understand, was more or less of an amateur?’

      ‘Oh, quite. He was a very wealthy man who dabbled freely in any subject that happened to take his fancy. My husband managed to interest him in Egyptology, and it was his money that was so useful in financing the expedition.’

      ‘And the nephew? What do you know of his tastes? Was he with the party at all?’

      ‘I do not think so. In fact I never knew of his existence till I read of his death in the paper. I do not think he and Mr Bleibner can have been at all intimate. He never spoke of having any relations.’

      ‘Who are the other members of the party?’

      ‘Well, there’s Dr Tosswill, a minor official connected with the British Museum; Mr Schneider of the Metropolitan Museum in New York; a young American secretary; Dr Ames, who accompanies the expedition in his professional capacity; and Hassan, my husband’s devoted native servant.’

      ‘Do you remember the name of the American secretary?’

      ‘Harper, I think, but I cannot be sure. He had not been with Mr Bleibner very long, I know. He was a very pleasant young fellow.’

      ‘Thank you, Lady Willard.’

      ‘If there is anything else—’

      ‘For the moment, nothing. Leave it now in my hands, and be assured that I will do all that is humanly possible to protect your son.’

      They were not exactly reassuring words, and I observed Lady Willard wince as he uttered them. Yet, at the same time, the fact that he had not pooh-poohed her fears seemed in itself to be a relief to her.

      For my part I had never before suspected that Poirot had so deep a vein of superstition in his nature. I tackled him on the subject as we went homewards. His manner was grave and earnest.

      ‘But yes, Hastings. I believe in these things. You must not underrate the force of superstition.’

      ‘What are we going to do about it?’

      ‘Toujours pratique, the good Hastings! Eh bien, to begin with we are going to cable to New York for fuller details of young Mr Bleibner’s death.’

      He duly sent off his cable. The reply was full and precise. Young Rupert Bleibner had been in low water for several years. He had been a beach-comber and a remittance man in several South Sea islands, but had returned to New York two years ago, where he had rapidly sunk lower and lower. The most significant thing, to my mind, was that he had recently managed to borrow enough money to take him to Egypt. ‘I’ve a good friend there I can borrow from,’ he had declared. Here, however, his plans had gone awry. He had returned to New York cursing his skinflint of an uncle who cared more for the bones of dead and gone kings than his own flesh and blood. It was during his sojourn in Egypt that the death of Sir John Willard had occurred. Rupert had plunged once more into his life of dissipation in New York, and then, without warning, he had committed suicide, leaving behind him a letter which contained some curious phrases. It seemed written in a sudden fit of remorse. He referred to himself as a leper and an outcast, and the letter ended by declaring that such as he were better dead.

      A shadowy theory leapt into my brain. I had never really believed in the vengeance of a long dead Egyptian king. I saw here a more modern crime. Supposing this young man had decided to do away with his uncle—preferably by poison. By mistake, Sir John Willard receives the fatal dose. The young man returns to New York, haunted by his crime. The news of his uncle’s death reaches him. He realizes how unnecessary his crime has been, and stricken with remorse takes his own life.

      I outlined my solution to Poirot. He was interested.

      ‘It is ingenious what you have thought of there—decidedly it is ingenious. It may even be true. But you leave out of count the fatal influence of the Tomb.’

      I shrugged my shoulders.

      ‘You still think that has something to do with it?’

      ‘So much so, mon ami, that we start for Egypt tomorrow.’

      ‘What?’ I cried, astonished.

      ‘I have said it.’ An expression of conscious heroism spread over Poirot’s face. Then he groaned. ‘But oh,’ he lamented, ‘the sea! The hateful sea!’

      It was a week later. Beneath our feet was the golden sand of the desert. The hot sun poured down overhead. Poirot, the picture of misery, wilted by my side. The little man was not a good traveller. Our four days’ voyage from Marseilles had been one long agony to him. He had landed at Alexandria the wraith of his former self, even his usual neatness had deserted him. We had arrived in Cairo and had driven out at once to the Mena House Hotel, right in the shadow of the Pyramids.

      The charm of Egypt had laid hold of me. Not so Poirot. Dressed precisely the same as in London, he carried a small clothes-brush in his pocket and waged an unceasing war on the dust which accumulated on his dark apparel.

      ‘And my boots,’ he wailed. ‘Regard them, Hastings. My boots, of the neat patent leather, usually so smart and shining. See, the sand is inside them, which is painful, and outside them, which outrages the eyesight. Also the heat, it causes my moustaches to become limp—but limp!’

      ‘Look at the Sphinx,’ I urged. ‘Even I can feel the mystery and the charm it exhales.’

      Poirot looked at it discontentedly.

      ‘It has not the air happy,’ he declared. ‘How could it, half-buried in sand in that untidy fashion. Ah, this cursed sand!’

      ‘Come, now, there’s a lot of sand in Belgium,’ I reminded him, mindful of a holiday spent at Knocke-sur-mer in the midst of ‘Les dunes impeccables’ as the guide-book had phrased it.

      ‘Not in Brussels,’ declared Poirot. He gazed at the Pyramids thoughtfully. ‘It is true that they, at least, are of a shape solid and geometrical, but their surface is of an unevenness most unpleasing. And the palm-trees I like them not. Not even do they plant them in rows!’

      I cut short his lamentations, by suggesting that we should start for the camp. We were to ride there on camels, and the beasts were patiently kneeling, waiting for us to mount, in charge of several picturesque boys headed by a voluble dragoman.

      I pass over the spectacle of Poirot on a camel. He started by groans and lamentations and ended by shrieks, gesticulations and invocations to the Virgin Mary and every Saint in the calendar. In the end, he descended ignominiously and finished the journey on a diminutive donkey. I must admit that a trotting camel is no joke for the amateur. I was stiff for several days.

      At last we neared the scene of the excavations. A sunburnt man with a grey beard, in white clothes and wearing a helmet, came to meet us.

      ‘Monsieur Poirot and Captain Hastings? We received your cable. I’m sorry that there was no one to meet you in Cairo. An unforeseen event occurred which completely disorganized our plans.’

      Poirot paled. His hand, which had stolen to his clothes-brush,

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