Chapter 10

Phileas woke near noon after being up all night. He went downstairs in his robe and slippers. He removed the map from his safe and laid it out to look at more carefully. It was ancient, an antiquity itself. The Valley of the Kings in Geza was laid out. The three great pyramids and the Sphinx, along with other landmarks, showed approximate locations for several dozen burial sites. Phileas didn't read hieroglyphics. He wasn't sure many did. The Rosetta Stone, he had read about, supposedly offered a key to deciphering them. He suspected this was made by a priest or court scribe who had been charged with keeping such records centuries ago.

As soon I saw this last night, I knew what Major Anderson had stumbled into. Tomb robbing is a very lucrative business. Egyptian antiquities are all the rage.

The papers found with the map included a written report on a very well-organized smuggling operation the Major had discovered as part of the supply lines coming in and out of several remote stations he was charged with. According to the report, a band of Arabs did the digging and looting. They brought what they found to the supply stations. The officer in charge at those sites inspected the loot and shipped the best to Alexandria, where a native expert assessed their worth and presided over secret, private auctions. The proceeds, he supposed, were divided between the officers involved, and the Arab antiquities expert, who oversaw the site excavations and paid the workers.

This had been going on years long before the Major discovered it. The report had been addressed to his direct colonel. On a piece of stationery slipped inside, was a letter addressed to another colonel with a list of the officers who he found involved.

Colonel Frazier,

I have made a potentially deadly mistake since we last spoke. If you have received this, I am now dead. I have discovered the reasons for the discrepancies in the supply logs we spoke of. Army supply lines have been covertly used to move antiquities out of the deserts to Alexandria for sale. My predecessor was part of it, and these officers.

I made a full report of what I had uncovered, sending it to my superiors here in the city. That was a mistake. I should have known Colonel Patterson would have had to know. I have since been told you have shut down similar operations.

Included with a copy of my original report, you will find the map of the Valley of Kings. I took this from the conspirators as I overheard them making assessments of a shipment. That, too, appears to have been a mistake, as I am now a marked man. I am putting this in your hands with the hopes you will stop this corruption. If the Egyptian government ever learns the Army is directly involved with the looting of its antiquities, the repercussions will be enormous.

Colonel Benjamin Patterson

Major Charles Westland

Captain Ben Clarke

Captain Will Underhill

Captain George Billings

Captain Quincy Hastings

Use this to finish my investigation. Don't let them get away with this.

Please, also take charge of my daughter. She knows nothing, yet she could be in danger because of me. Please, see that Melody comes to no harm and is returned to my son in England.

Sincerely

Charles Anderson, Major

"Apparently, you were intended as an instrument of concealment to move the report and evidence to Colonel Frazier," Phileas said, looking at the Chinese soldier laying on his desk. "He must have been killed before putting that plan into motion."

Phileas leaned over his desk, understanding the way Major Anderson's death came about and how his estate had been managed after his death. The corporal sent to deal with his affairs had been sent only to search his papers and office for the map and report. That's why Melody wasn't allowed in her father's room.

Melody said the Colonel arranged for her trip back to England. If the report had been that well-hidden, he must have concluded it would stay hidden. But someone, an Arab involved, must have been unwilling to take that chance. That or this map was too valuable to lose. No doubt it is.

If this is not the doing of one of these officers, the man who took Melody is an Egyptian partner.

Walking back to the stairs, thinking over all this, Phileas noted how quiet the house was. Passepartout and Rebecca were still asleep. He walked to the kitchen and heated a pot of water for tea. In the cupboard, he found some of Melody's breakfast pastries carefully wrapped. He took two of those, put them on a plate and carried everything back to the study. When he reached his destination, he found Rebecca studying the map and report.

"Phileas," Rebecca said, looking up as he entered. She was sitting on the corner of his desk. She had on a light dressing gown. It covered her from chin to toes as conservatively as a nun's habit, but was made of soft cream silk.

Phileas nodded to her. "You should wear something warmer. There's a chill this morning."

"True, but all my things are at my house now. I had to borrow from Melody's things." "Which is why she is in this mess–my concern for her wardrobe." She said it with remorse.

"Good morning," he said, not addressing that.

"I was just trying to remember if these officers were part of a group I heard accused of getting rich off their duties. Colonel Patterson, I met. He didn't make much of an impression on me, but his wife was dripping with jewelry worth at least two year's pay. And I met Colonel Frazier." He seemed a good man. It didn't appear that the two officers liked each other."

"No doubt, with one smuggling Egyptian artifacts and the other actively opposed to the doing. I was in the kitchen getting tea," Phileas said, balancing his many burdens on a tray.

"Ah, pastries I see," Rebecca came closer, taking one of the two he had brought. "I was with Melody while she made those yesterday morning. She and your cook seem to have an understanding," Rebecca said with a giggle. "As long as she doesn't try to cook a full meal, Melody gets no sour looks when she commandeers the kitchen. Right out of the oven, they were heavenly. Hmmm. They aren't bad cold either."

"You know, I was told that the Egyptian government has discovered several burial sites ransacked in the last few years. They are furious, as one would expect. We may have stumbled onto the answer."

Phileas watched helplessly as his cousin slowly savored half his breakfast. "If you go to the kitchen for a cup for your tea and bring back the rest of them."

That was all the encouragement Rebecca needed. Ten minutes later, the plate of pastries was gone, and the cousins were topping them off with tea and conversation. They had moved to their favorite area, the soft wing chairs in front of the fire in his study. It was a warm, cozy spot, much like one at Rebecca's house in the front parlor where the family, when whole, had settled for the same purpose. Their topic was not the map or the report, but the absent woman who had come into their lives.

"You must admit she has done wonders with the parlor and the rest of the house," Rebecca was saying. "Parts of this house have been little more than excess space. Now they are much nicer."

Phileas declined to comment on Melody's decorating. She had not done a great deal, but what she had done had indeed turned his bachelor's house into a warmer, more inviting place. If he were to give Melody her head and the funds, the townhouse and Shillingworth Magna would get their long overdue renovations, with far better results than what he could do.

"You two seem to be getting along better since your talk last week," Rebecca said. "I knew you would finally get that fear of hers out of the way if you sat down and talked to her."

"She told you of that?" Phileas said.

"She tells me a great deal. I am the only woman she speaks with," Rebecca reminded him. "It took a bit of doing to get her to accept me for a confident, but once she did, we became close quickly."

Rebecca smiled at Phileas's stiffening posture.

"Oh, come now, Phileas; you asked me to stay here with her when you were away. What did you think we talked about, dress designs and decorating?"

"I admit I didn't give it much thought," Phileas said. "I assumed it would be something along those lines. Unless you have told her of your real occupation. I didn't think you would discuss daggers and dynamite fuses."

Rebecca scowled. "Humph. So much for your powers of deduction. Do you want me to tell you what else we talked about? You might find it enlightening."

"Please, go on if you wish."

It was an opening, not a good one, but Rebecca took it. The time for her to speak had come.