Chapter 3: More about detective methods of Mr.Randy.
At last he reached Khan El Hakim Bazaars, but here his car got stuck
among the dense crowds of howling people. Julian stared at ugly faces around
with strong apprehension and disgust, then tried to turn the car, then
to drive backward, but without any visible success. The crowd behind was
even more dense than in front, and all those abominable guys tried to push
their way forward, as if attracted by cheap sell of anti-dermatitis drugs,
which they certainly needed. They didn't put any attention of furious honking
of the horn, no more on Randy's cursing.
But then the screams came. Not the "Imhotep" yelling or cheering, but
just horrible shrieking of man in strong pain. That was a last drop on
the top of all day events, so without any further thinking Randy jammed
the gas pedal, put car on gear and crushed in the bulk of human bodies.
The car was old huge Ford Lincoln, and it made the crowd part and scamper
off, at least in extent sufficient to drive forward toward the source of
terrible screams. And then he saw it, and instantly the only Arabic word
he did know popped in his mind. "Basa". It meant "Shit".
Several of boiled guys crouched over the bloody lump on the ground, diligently tearing it apart. It took several moments for Randy to realize that bloody lump on the ground was a man. Or at least it used to be.
When the first wave of bewilderment surfed apart, the young man drew his revolver and without any hesitations shot the bastards dead. Then he jumped out the car, hauled the mutilated body onto the back seat and…several hundreds of enraged wailing assholes blocked his way out of the square. Not a bit scared by the awful fate of their comrades, they appeared to be ready to continue their filthy work. Not that Julian's plans included the piece about being tore apart by the pack of mad bastards in the middle of dirty eastern market square.
He started the car, but this time dozens of people gripped the doors and windscreen, obviously determined to block his way by their own bodies. "Imhotep" howling soared over the crowd in the pitch-black sky like the hunting cry of jackals. Randy shot several of the intruders, but he hadn't had time to reload the gun.
Then his desperate searching glance fell on the nearest tent, with dozen of enormous jars perched in front of it. He hoped beyond hope it was oil or something flammable. Let it be!
Randy snatched the torch (with which one of the rampaging cads tried
to put out his eye) and threw it on the dirty fabric of the tent's roof.
Cloth blasted apart immediately, sending a furious scarlet flashes and
sparks in the faces of attackers. They howled, this time in pain, and rushed
back, overturning the jars on their way. Several of the huge pitchers broke,
and a burning liquid splashed over the feet of crowd, and immediately the
nearest men were rolling onto the ground, turned into the fire balls and
shrieking in agony. It left enough space for Randy to start the car and
speed toward the burning hell of the tent. For one terrible moment flaming
fabric wrapped itself around the windscreen, but then the motor roared,
fabric snapped and they were free, speeding in the blessed darkness of
night.
******
The man on the back seat moaned, still alive to Randy's great surprise. One of his eyes was put out, second swollen and blind, cheekbone broken and whole body covered in blood, pouring from dozens of wounds. But he was still alive. Randy cursed. He needed a surgeon. But he didn't know any surgeon in this blasted city, except of notorious Mr.Bovenue. Not the best choice, but it looked like the only one he had. He hoped that this idler was still dancing around his long-awaited birthday-cake, i.e. remnants of unlucky Mr.Burns, back in the inn. So it was there he drived through the night city, strangely silent after all the shouting and killing and burning back in the market.
Valentine Bovenue indeed was at the inn, actually, he and his assistants seemed to be the only inhabitants of the place. He greeted Randy at the entrance with happy exclamations
"Could you believe it, we have one more of those mummified corpses down here!"
"Oh yes I could" answered Julian sulky and escorted the doctor to the car, were poor man was breathing shallowly, in short ragged breaths.
"Merde!" shrieked Dr. Bovenue and waved to his subordinates to come and take the poor wretch upstairs, where he had organized something like temporal coroner's laboratory.
When they've hoisted the victim onto the bad, Dr.Bovenue frowned and turned to Randy "You know what…I know him."
But young man already recognized the wounded himself. It was curator
of Cairo Museum. Randy visited the Egyptian exposition several times at
the beginning of his stay, strongly considering about robbing it and fleeing
back in US with handful of expensive golden trinkets. However, he had dropped
the idea, basically because of the size of golden trinkets, which were
in general sarcophaguses and huge statues. And now it proved to be a rather
good decision.
*****
Several hours after Julian Randy was sitting in the Bovenue's room, drinking coffee and staring at the evidences which he managed to collect on the crime scene. Coffee sucked a lot, because he didn't get any sugar, and evidences sucked, too, because they looked extremely weird.
First of all, he went through the pages of his notebook. There were several witnesses, who overheard conversation of O'Connell and American guys in the bar. Part of them were still lurking around when he returned from his little salvage mission, and one was extremely talkative-namely, fat aged whore who seemed to have a particular interest in the conversation with young secretary and was greatly disappointed when he had left her without any attempt to continue their acquaintance and deepen relationship.
However, she had been useful, because mentioned that Americans, O'Connell, young Carnarvon lady and her brother returned together from the desert trip, and also she eavesdropped the name of the place they had visited- "Hamunaptra". The name didn't tell him much but gave some stuff to think about.
And then the evidences he'd got from the Burns' room. The dirty shabby robes, which certainly didn't look like the main item of American's clothing, overturned cup with the last drops of liquid it - the liquid looked like green tea, smelled like green tea and hence possibly was a green tea; then several bullets and one fat black dead beetle.
"Ok, Holmes", muttered Julian to himself, spitting a coffee onto the floor and slamming the notebook shut "What could you see here?"
The most surprising part of his findings wasn't the robe or tea or even beetle, but bullets. Two of them he had picked out the back wall of the room, and five he had found lying onto the floor. Young man frowned. He wasn't good in criminology or entomology, but he was pretty certain about shooting. And all his shooting experience convinced him that bullets are not predisposed just to fall onto the ground. Rather, when you shot them, they would be inclined to get stuck in something-or somebody. Whatever. Of course they could ricochet, but five of them?
He scratched the back of his head, then ran his arm through his dark hair in confusion. It looked like they'd hit something…and then this something dissolved in thin air, leaving them lay onto the floor. Which sounded pretty stupid, on Randy's guess.
Then he picked up the beetle…and almost fell off his chair when the squeaky voice from behind screeched "Oh, what a nice specimen of Scarabaeidae Deltochilum gibbosum!"
"What?" blurted Randy when his chair stopped to rock threateningly.
"I've never seen one so big before, however", continued Dr. Bovenue, the owner of squeaky voice."It looks just like legendary flesh-eating scarab from ancient Egyptian tales."
"Flesh-eating scarab?" repeated Julian blankly.
"Yes, precisely". Doctor picked the insect and stroked his fat belly dreamy. "You know, usual scarabs are dung-eaters, but some people believe that ancient Egyptians had a different…say, strain, which lived on human flesh. Some scientists consider that they used them to prepare the mummies, but I doubt it."
"That was very edifying", muttered Randy. "But what the Hell this flesh-eating little bastard was doing there?"
Then his face cleared, and he peered at the two corpses, lying at the back of the room and covered with sheets.
"Look, you said that part of their organs are missing".
"Yes, I did", nodded the doctor.
"Well, let me put it this way-if our murderer managed to push this little buggie down the throat of those guys, wouldn't it eat away their liver or stomach or whatever?"
"That's possible. But first they'd die of strangulation, look at the size of beetle."
"Okay. But we don't know how they died."
Then he looked at the cup.
"Listen to me, doc. Couldn't it be some poison?"
"I don't think so", replied Mr.Bovenue with doubtful smile. "At least not the one I'm familiar with."
But Randy ignored him, busy fabricating a scheme.
"Now look. Those guys were in the desert. With this blasted O'Connell, who proved himself to be a great scoundrel and treasure seeker. And with the girl, who happened to be the librarian in Cairo Museum. What were they looking for? Certainly not a good mouthful of Sahara sand. I'd say some treasure. Tomb robbing, grave desecrating, so on". He smiled at this point because tomb robbing and grave desecrating were precisely the things he'd do if the occasion came.
"Well. And when the big good pile of gold smiles to you, you sometimes forget about your gentleman habits. You said that Burns' tongue was cut out before his death? So may be he knew something about the location of treasure, but somebody wanted him to shut up about it?"
Doctor appeared to be sincerely enjoying the flight of Randy's imagination, but at that point he shrugged and drawled skeptically "Truthfully, I don't think so. With his tongue severed he still could speak, not too clear but clear enough to understand him. And, besides, he could write. If you really want to make somebody mute, you need also make holes in his cheeks, to leave teeth exposed, and I'd cut his arms also to make writing impossible and…"
Randy chuckled, making a note never cross Bovenue's way, and then waved impatiently to stop the current of doctor's eloquence.
"Ok, ok, I got it. Never mind. Again, I'm petty sure about treasure part. The next question is, who did the job? This dullard of inspector insisted it was O'Connell."
"Oh, that was a bad guess. I know O'Connell. Actually, everyone who lived in Cairo enough knows him. Of course, he's a scoundrel and very dissipated young man, but not a murderer."
Randy wasn't convinced, however, and continued his reasoning.
"Let's us see. They guys went to the desert, found the treasure and have now a big problem dividing it. Ok. O'Connell came to Burns, poisoned him, fed him scarab beetle to remove his guts for no apparent reason, then Burns' friends tries to shot him, but all the story ends up with Henderson also killed and Daniels joining forces with O'Connell's gang, because they'd left together for Cairo Museum. Sounds stupid."
Dr.Bovenue readily confirmed this conclusion and went to check on curator's
pulse.
Randy dumped coffee in the sink, filled the cup with a new portion
of abominable drink and went on guessing.
"Well, as Mr.Holmes taught us if you cannot see the natural way to explain
the case don't worry and use the unnatural one. First, tongue and eyes.
Doesn't look like a thing European or even American guy is ready to do.
Rather, looks like the some idiotic savage ritual. And, because we don't
have savages in our company, except may be O'Connell but I don't take him
into account, we must put a "third player" in our game.
"Okay. He, or they, doesn't matter at the moment, appears to dwell in the desert, and our sweet party dragged them at Cairo on their tails. Nice. Returning to the hypothesis about tomb robbing, we have the next picture: O'Connel, girl, her brother and Americans came to the some ancient burial place, hiding a big treasure. They erupted into it, and our mysterious friends didn't like it very much. They had captured Burns and had cut off his tongue and put out his eyes. But hadn't killed him for some reason. May be they tried to trace him back to the company, or may be they are too merciful to kill…no, they aren't, according to further events, but never mind. Anyway, they traced them back to Cairo and here they got first Burns, and then Henderson. Question: what have something or somebody named "Imhotep" to do with t? Question: what the Hell happened to people on the streets, oh yes I understand that all Muslims are mental but it was a bit too much even for them. And what about this poor curator guy and Cairo Museum?"
Randy looked desperately at his coffee cup and seized his hair, trying to speed up his tired thoughts.
Then he muttered "Hamunaptra".
Behind him he heard a loud thud and turned to see the worthy doctor sitting on the floor with his eyes as large as dinner plates.
"Er…what did I say?"
"What did you say?" echoed Mr. Bovenue.
"Hamunaptra. The place where the story starts, according to my notes. I just considered about checking out the savage tribes around it, so on. Come on, man, what happened?"
Doctor scrambled on his feet with visible effort and slumped onto the curator's bed.
"You don't know the legend? About the ancient city guarded by mummy curse?"
"You know, I'm not a big fan of this legends stuff. Except when it speaks about the big hidden treasure…"
"But it speaks about the hidden treasure! About treasure of Pharaoh Seti the First, more correctly. It was cursed and guarded by the undead mummy, who, if was unleashed, would bring a ten plagues of Egypt…"
The burly man choked and his eyes bulged a little more, which Randy considered as practically impossible.
"Flies! Sun eclipse! Blood in the waters!"
Randy grinned in disbelief.
"Come on, man. Don't make me think that old Moses was nobody else than resurrected mummy!"
"You won't fool around these things here in Egypt!" stuttered the doctor, losing his usual vigor with frightening speed.
Randy, who got enough today, was ready to go on scoffing, but instantly the muffled moan came from the bed. The bandaged lump on it stirred, moaned again and then opened his only remained eye. And then this sad remnant of man gurgled
"The creature!"
SHALL I ASK? PLEASE TELL ME IF I SHOULD CONTINUE!