The Egyptian Coffin (A Lord Ambrose Mystery) Read online

  “Yes,” I answered, for there were but three hours to go before the vessel sailed, and no earthly way of reaching Southampton in that time. And yet, I suddenly bethought myself of a possibility, an outside chance.

  “Do the ships out of Southampton not stop at Falmouth for mail? The last point at which they can pick up the packets and letters for Malta and Alexandria — surely that is when they anchor in Falmouth roads? The Great London will be there in twenty-four hours — and will take the evening tide from Falmouth tomorrow night!”

  “Why, Lord Ambrose, you are in the right of it! But that’s still no comfort to us — no creature alive could catch up with the Great London now — she is a steamship!”

  “You are wrong, Sandys,” said I. “There is a horse that can catch her! Zaraband can do it!”

  FIVE

  Elisabeth stepped out of the great portico at the front of Malfine. She was wrapped up against the autumn gales in a black cloak of wadded silk; her hood and long tendrils of escaping hair fluttered about her face.

  I took her hands. I had found her in a perilous household, that murderous nest at Crawshay’s Farm, where she had been forced to keep her own counsel, separated as she was from any family or friends who could protect or advise her, and had brought her to the safety of Malfine, where we two had shared a small kingdom for a brief time, now perhaps to end.

  She is a brave spirit, and I did not flatter myself that she would be unable to stand the buffets of this world without me. Yet I had found her after so much suffering, and when least expected, so that her presence at Malfine was constantly surprising and marvellous to me and leaving her was now proportionately painful. And not only because we are of like mind and spirit, she and I.

  The thought of her long white body under that fluttering silk pulled me back to her now, but she said: “No, Ambrose, go you must; you have taken the protection of this girl upon yourself, for all you would deny the power of the world beyond. I have feared losing our life here — have dreaded it every night since you brought me here, if the truth be known, for we have led an enchanted existence at Malfine, as though this house were on a star. But I knew it could not long continue and the hubbub of the world must one day reach us with all its absurd and frantic cries.”

  I released her and stroked a strand of that long, soft hair which the wind was whipping about her face. Would she wait for me? That was in my mind, for the life that her parents could offer her if they wished for a reconciliation — a comfortable and respected life in a handsome establishment — how could my scarred body and my solitary existence and desires compete with that? It was not impossible that the loss of Elisabeth, the end of our hot and naked passions as well as of our cooler cerebral intimacies, would be the price. The price, that is, of my redemption from a long-forgotten yet inescapable bond.

  Her hands were cold.

  “Do not stay here, I beg you, get back into the house and sit near the fire in the library till the carriage comes round.” For we were bound to go our separate ways, at least for a while. She was leaving for her family home in Bristol, and I was to ride with desperation across a cold countryside in a last-minute effort to watch over the child of my old friend and to guard her from the harm that I sensed was closing in around her.

  “I hate farewells!” said I to Elisabeth. “I cannot delay this departure, I swear it, for I must get aboard the Great London when she anchors off the coast. It is just possible we can make Falmouth in time, and if I can travel on that ship, I may yet be able to protect the girl!”

  “Is there nothing with which they can be charged?” said Elisabeth. “Surely those two men — Casterman and Miss Westmorland’s uncle — have they not transgressed any law? To shut up the house, to separate her from all her friends — does this not augur some great ill-will towards her?”

  “There is nothing with which either of them can be charged,” I said. “What would I be able to lay before a judge — that Micah Overbury has a tight fist? That Casterman has a pock-marked face? We have no evidence that points to their involvement with the murder of that poor child — yet I fear for Lilian Westmorland if she is travelling with Casterman, and away from her friends and neighbours here! One death has occurred already at the very gates of Westmorland Park, and I had the clearest impression that Casterman was determined to keep me away from the stables there. I cannot trust either of them, Casterman or his employer. You know there is a debt I must repay, and I am persuaded that this is my only means of doing it. God knows why I am such a fool as to be cursed with this damned sense of honour that jumps out now and again!”

  “There is no gainsaying it! What can I do but wait till the fit passes! But, seriously, I fear for you, yet nothing will persuade you to a safer course of action, so I must turn my back and leave for Bristol, and make my peace with my mamma, for I will not wait for you here at Malfine and fret my life away in your absence. Write to me when you can, that is all I ask.” Elisabeth turned and walked towards the house, without looking back.

  Had I lost her? Some women will wait and wail; others will stride away, It is not always those who sob and plead who are the most devoted, but those who will not wait are the ones we cannot forget.

  Action, not thought, was my best course now.

  I plunged with relief into the distraction of issuing orders. Belos, a fellow of modest appearance, a man who is almost unnoticeable to a fault as I often tell him, a person of average height, with nondescript brown hair and sober garments, stood calmly like the still centre of a hurricane as I whirled around him with last-minute commands. When I was in my hot youth, I would have leaped upon Zaraband’s back straightaway and we should have dashed off into the storm with no thought or preparation whatsoever as I had done when fighting with the Greek guerillas, whose impetuousness knew no check. But I had learnt a little since then.

  “Belos, if I make the rendezvous at Falmouth, I shall be travelling to Egypt. Will you arrange to have some necessaries despatched after me, into the care of the British Consul in Alexandria? And will you give it out that it is for my own health, and that I go to join my sister, who has hired a houseboat on the Nile for the winter?”

  “Your lordship is surely taking a risk in exposing yourself to the rigours of such a climate. But, Lord Ambrose, is there not more to your sudden decision to embark for Egypt? Your sister, Miss Ariadne has been in Cairo for six months or more!”

  “You are a shrewd fox, Belos! Well, there is something more — aye, that’s true enough. Well, I think no one in these parts knows of that, so they should not find fault with the explanation that you give them. But look, will you not write to me and send the letters by the fast packet?” Here I had to issue more instructions, swinging my heavy riding cloak over my shoulders the while. Belos handed me a leather flask of brandy which I thrust into a pocket.

  Even as we spoke, the groom, Pellers, came round the corner of the house, leading Zaraband. She was my only chance of getting across three counties, of covering moor and dale even in a bitter autumn, as it seemingly was turning out to become. If anything could get me to the port of Falmouth in time to meet the Great London as she started her long voyage to the east, if anything could dash between Lilian Westmorland and those who might desire to threaten her, it was this slender Arab mare, delicately boned, hard as steel, fast as the very winds of heaven.

  “Fetch a horse-blanket. Roll it up and strap it on the saddle,” I said to Pellers. “You are to follow by the stage coach to Falmouth, along the road through Newton Abbot and Buckfastleigh. I will leave Zaraband in the stables of the Royal Hotel at Falmouth — they have a man there who knows about horses. And then you can ride her home — in easy stages, mind! We have the devils own task before us, Zaraband and I!”

  Zaraband whinnied exultantly as I approached and set my foot in the stirrup. She longs for the challenge — that is her touch of greatness! And, like myself, she finds that challenge impossible to resist, and therein perhaps lies a fatal flaw which is common to our nature
s. We have saved each other time and again, Zaraband and I, from some idiocy or another — and we have landed ourselves in many a folly, too!

  Well, there was enough of a challenge here to satisfy even the great Arab heart! It is, you know, a physical fact that their hearts are stronger than those of other breeds, as their minds are more intelligent and their courage higher.

  The night lay before us. I counted that we had a little over twenty-four hours — perhaps about twenty-six — before the Great London, which had both steam and sail, winched up her mighty iron anchors and those massive steam-pistoned engines thrust her out towards the Atlantic, there to beat her thousand horse-power way round the Bay of Biscay regardless of wind or tide, her stokers like demons in hell shovelling coal into her furnaces, and so south till she anchored again in the calmer waters of the Mediterranean. Against the immense strength of those engines, I could set only the frailty of flesh and blood — but it was the flesh and blood of an Arab mare. Zaraband is of the asil kind — that is, the purest of all the lines of descent, coming from the stock of the Five Mares beloved by the Prophet.

  Pellers, the groom, I had employed after I caught him one day sneaking into the stables at Malfine: he was watching, a runty little fellow who had crept up from the village, his eyes as big as saucers, as Zaraband. emerged from her stall. “Beg pardon, sir — my lord — I have never seen anything like it — like this horse, my lord ...” he was stuttering as I gripped him by his collar.

  “What do you make of her?” I asked him.

  Even as he struggled to answer me, and I felt his body shaking with fear, he still could not take his eyes off her. “Describe the horse! Tell me what you see!” I shook him a little, just to persuade him.

  He stumbled over his words, struggling hard to find them. “Well, her head is very delicate — and she is quite small — much smaller than Squire Anderton’s hunter. But she goes fast — fast as the wind — I saw you galloping through the woods one night — I’ve never seen such speed!”

  “That’s right,” I said. “The Arabs are smaller than other horses. But they are also faster and stronger. They have more endurance, you see.”

  I told him more about Arab horses: how they have immense intelligence, as is shown by the jibbah, or the great bulge of the forehead, so prized by the Arabs. How the muzzle is small, delicate, and sensitive, yet the windpipe and the hind-quarters comparatively larger and more powerful than in any other breed. I told him the tale of Fairs, the great Arab horseman who is credited with choosing the Five Mares from whom all Arab horses are descended. I told the gap-mouthed boy of the War Mares, the fearless creatures who share the Arab tents, are ridden into battle, and will defend their masters from all-comers.

  “Can I touch the horse?” he said with awe when I had finished.

  Zaraband courteously allowed him to place his hand timidly on her muzzle. This was unusual: she normally objected loudly to the approach of any of the heavy-handed local stableboys, none of whom I had thought of as remotely suitable to attend her.

  “She does not mind you and I need a groom,” I said to young Pellers. (I had released his collar by this stage in our acquaintance.) “Have you had any experience of horses?”

  “Oh no, sir — your worship — none whatever!”

  And he looked utterly woebegone and downcast, but he soon took heart.

  “That is exactly what I want — someone who will learn to serve as groom for this particular creature. I would not want any village ostler or squire’s stableboy, used to broken-spirited ill-fed hacks and worn-out ponies. I keep no other grooms but if you want to stay at Malfine, I will teach you your duties myself. But mind, you are to sleep over Zara-band’s stable, and do not go near any other horse. You are for her alone, remember. It is not a question of training the horse, but of training you.”

  That had been a year before, and I thanked Heaven for my foresight; I had now a well-versed groom whom I could trust to bring Zaraband back safely. But getting to Falmouth was the first consideration.

  I have said that I did not dash off into the night like some young fool, without forethought or preparation — many a horse has been ruined by such idiocy, and I had worked out our route. The whole distance we must cover would be a good hundred and twenty miles, before we could come to Falmouth harbour. Young Pellers could take the coach which would follow the good roads to the south of Dartmoor. But Zaraband and I must go the fastest way — and I confess that my heart sank when I stood in the library at Malfine, held a candle high over the maps spread out on the table, and saw the path we must follow. Through a gap in the Quantock Hills to Taunton — well, that presented no difficulty. Then keeping north of the Black Down Hills to Exeter. So far, so good; we could be well provisioned in such places. We would cross many small streams and water would be no problem.

  But then I saw where we had to go. Right across the wilderness — straight over Dartmoor, that great expanse of emptiness, exposed to all the elements, between rocky tors and treacherous bogs, through the harshest moorland in England.

  I did not doubt for a moment that Zaraband could do it. But it would be my part, if anything, to keep her in check, to prevent that mighty courage from driving itself to breaking-point. Another horse might have needed spurring on: Zaraband would, I knew, need no urging, for once she was galloping flat out without restraint, she would give every ounce of strength she possessed.

  Now, on this cold, wet evening, I swung myself up into the saddle. “Belos, you will have thought this horse a spoiled and pampered creature,” I said. “Oh yes, do not deny it — I have seen it in the way you look at her. But now you will know why I pamper her so. There is not another horse in England who could ride one hundred and twenty miles in four and twenty hours!”

  He raised his hand in a salute, saying something. I heard not what he said, for Zaraband had already danced away into the night and the wind was rushing past as we galloped for the Quantock Hills. There was moonlight enough to see the road that lay ahead and the fresh winds of night blew out along our path; we were two creatures that longed for escape, for excitement, I realised: that was in both our natures, horse and man alike.

  *

  Our road lay through a part of Britain with ancient traditions, the West Country which had possessed its own kingdoms, its own legends, its own language, a part lying remote and isolated still, which had often rejected attempts to govern it from the remoteness of London. As we rode into the heart of this rebellious and stubborn land, I was aware that we were in some way moving deeper and deeper into England’s past, a dark history that closed about like mist, and then was blown away again, so that it was forever wraith-like and uncaught.

  I had not concerned myself much with this — the hot and sunlit history of my mother’s land of Greece had captured my imagination in my youth, but now I felt myself for the first time conscious of those old curling vaporous ghosts that whirled and parted before us in our race for the coast. Through the gap in the Quantocks, we reached Taunton, and swept through the town, past the White Hart Inn, and I knew the spot — I had been told of it some time in that forgotten childhood — where West Country rebels who rose for the Duke of Monmouth had been hanged by the bloody and ruthless Colonel Kirke of infamous memory.

  We had been fortunate, with moonlight to show us the road; the thickest part of the night was over and early in the wintry dawn we clattered into Exeter. I pulled into the livery stables, shook a surprised ostler by the shoulder, bade him bring fodder and water. For myself, I strode into the empty dining-room of the inn and carved myself a slice of beef, flinging a coin down on the table in my haste and taking a pull of wine. An hour’s break here: I took mine lying in straw next to Zaraband’s stall. When you have served in an army, even one as ragged and ill-disciplined as the band of guerrillas I had led in that hopeless raid upon the shores of Crete, you learn to take your rest when you can.

  There was an orange glow of chilly sunshine as we rode out of Exeter and towards the wall of m
ist that lay beyond the town. I knew what that mist portended: the moor, the rugged hard heart of southern Britain, and the keeper of many old secrets of its history. We had to cover the forty miles between Exeter and Tavistock on the other side of Dartmoor along the rough track that lay across the very loneliest stretch of the moor; Dartmoor Forest would lie to the north of the road, the bright-green grass patches of treacherous swampland to the south.

  It was bitterly cold out there in the mist, yet as the morning sun rose and the white clouds that hung so heavily over the land gradually lost themselves in shreds and wisps, like the intimations of a strange history which I had sensed during the previous night, I felt an exhilaration such as I had not experienced since my return from Greece — the excitement that came from straining every nerve, of feeling life pouring through every vein in my body. Zaraband was moving at a fine pace, yet I sensed that she still had strength in reserve and every ten miles or so we seemed to find a little stream where she could drink. We had a short stop at Two Bridges, the hamlet that marks the crossing-point of the two routes over the moor, where I flung the horse-blanket over her back to keep her muscles from chilling while we paused, and then we were off again to the south-west. And now the afternoon sun was sinking in the sky: the evening would soon begin, and then, if we could not make it in time, the powerful screws of the Great London would turn the ship out to sea, and Miss Lilian Westmorland would be committed to the mercy of Casterman, with no one to watch over her.

  Not for the first time, I cursed my own selflessness in appointing myself unofficial guardian of my dead friend’s daughter. Why could I not leave her to her fate? After all, there was doubtless nothing wrong with the man — why should her uncle desire to place her in the care of a villain? Sandys apparently thought we should give Casterman the benefit of the doubt. I was a fool, and a fool who would alienate the woman I loved and perhaps injure the horse which was my most precious possession — and all for the sake of a chimera, an enemy whose wicked shape I alone appeared to see, no more substantial than those wraiths of mist, or those ghosts of the past that haunted our route.