The Egyptian Curse Read online

  “Questioned, yes. Suspects, no.”

  “Then you don’t have any suspects?”

  “I didn’t say that, did I?”

  “Then you do have suspects?”

  “I didn’t say that either.”

  Rollins’s expression was blank, but Hale couldn’t help but believe that he was enjoying himself with all this wordplay to show how clever he was.

  “Then which is it?”

  “Neither, Mr. Hale. We have one suspect, and a damned good one.”

  “Do you mind telling me the name?”The question was a perfunctory one, asked without a hope of getting a positive answer. But Rollins surprised him.

  “I should be happy to do so. You may quote me as saying that Scotland Yard is taking a strong interest in the victim’s wife, Lady Sarah.”

  Hale’s head jerked up from the notebook on his lap. Rollins’s deep brown eyes were fixed on him, like a butterfly collector studying a specimen under a magnifying glass. Hale’s mind was numb with shock at the totally foreign notion. “Sarah?” he repeated stupidly.

  “Ah, yes, she is an acquaintance of yours, is she not?” The way Rollins stressed the word he might as well have said “paramour.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve been learning a great deal about the Barringtons in the hours since I was called in on this case.”

  Resisting the strong desire to slug the smug Scotland Yarder, Hale forced himself back into journalist mode. He put his pen to notebook again.

  “What makes Lady Sarah a suspect?”

  Rollins sat back, totally at ease. “Come, come, Mr. Hale. One of the things I’ve learned about you is that you’ve reported on more than your share of murders. Surely you must know that the wife or husband is always the most likely killer.” But not Sarah! “That’s the first reason.” He held up his index finger. “Reason number two” - the second finger - “the parlor maid, Mary Pritchard, stated that Mr. and Mrs. Barrington quarreled earlier in the evening and the mister left in a huff. Apparently that is why he spent the evening at his club.” Another finger. “And reason number three, during this argument Mr. Barrington accused his wife of having a lover.”

  Hale felt an unexpected pang of jealousy, which made him feel foolish. What was Sarah to him now, really?

  “Perhaps Miss Pritchard misunderstood her mistress,” he said. That sort of thing happened all the time in detective stories.

  “How does one misinterpret ‘You love him, don’t you?’”

  Hale found it hard to believe that the Sarah he knew would kill someone, but she was no longer the Sarah he knew. Perhaps being married to Alfie had caused her to crack. “What does Lady Sarah say about all this?”

  “She confirms that there was an argument - she called it ‘a bit of a tiff’ - but she said her husband was in error with his suspicions. After Mr. Barrington left, she had Miss Pritchard prepare a sleeping draught for her. Miss Pritchard stated that she watched her drink it. Lady Sarah was apparently still asleep when we called on her early this morning with the news of her husband’s death.”

  Now Hale was confused.”Wait a minute, Inspector. You’re saying that she has an alibi? That she was in her home sleeping when her husband was killed?”

  Rollins nodded. “We believe that to be the case.”

  “Then how could she have killed her husband?”

  “She didn’t have to, Mr. Hale. Isn’t that what lovers are for?”He straightened up in his chair and eyed Hale as he lit a cigar. “As I said, I’ve been looking forward to having a chat with you. Where were you last evening?”

  Old Lovers

  How miserable is the man who loves.

  – Plautus, Asinaria, 200 B.C.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I am not noted for making jokes during murder investigations,” Rollins said dryly. “But I presume that is an Americanism.”

  Why did I not see this coming? Of course Scotland Yard would suspect the wife, and of course they would look for a boyfriend - especially in the light of the argument overheard by the parlor maid. And Hale so conveniently fit the role, although he no longer played it. It was hardly unknown for a woman to continue a romantic relationship with a former lover after marrying another man, especially among the upper classes. That must have been why Rollins had been so forthcoming with news about the investigation: He’d been carefully watching Hale’s every reaction to the information he laid out as bait. Well, there was nothing for it but to tell the truth. Hale had nothing to hide.

  “It’s true that I was once very close to Lady Sarah Bridgewater,” he said, “but I haven’t seen her since 1922.”

  “Not since the wedding?”

  “She got married on a ship on her way back from Egypt. I saw her the day she returned, when she informed me that she was now Mrs. Barrington. That was the last time was spoke.”

  “Then you won’t mind telling me where you were last evening.”

  “Early in the evening I was at Covent Garden watching Aida. Afterwards, I went out to supper at Simpson’s.”

  “Were you alone?” He said it as if he expected Hale to answer in the affirmative.

  Hale hesitated. Was it fair to drag Prudence into this? What if she was married, as he suspected? He didn’t want to get the woman in trouble with her husband. On the other hand, there is trouble and then there is big trouble. Being questioned in a murder investigation struck Hale as big trouble.

  “I was with a woman named Prudence Beresford. We were together from about seven o’clock to just after midnight.”

  Rollins adopted an ironic smile. “That’s very convenient. I’m sure you know that Mr. Barrington’s body was found about eleven forty-five.”

  “Yes, I know. I read that in the newspaper.”

  “What do you mean by ‘together’ with this woman?”

  “Not what you think I mean. She went home from Simpson’s.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “That I don’t know. Somewhere in the country, I gather.”

  Rollins managed to infuse the arching of an eyebrow with cynicism. “You don’t know?”

  “She never told me.” Hale squirmed in his chair, knowing that this was going to be hard for the inspector to swallow. “Look, I only know this woman from seeing her at the opera. She’s no more than a casual acquaintance. I’ve never been to her house or flat and she’s never been to mine. We met up at Covent Garden and walked together to Simpson’s after the opera. That’s the extent of it. I may or may not see her again next opera season.”

  Rollins didn’t say anything, just looked at him. Hale knew that trick because he had often used it himself as a reporter. Most people are so uncomfortable with silence that they tend to fill it with words, often saying more than they should. But Hale didn’t do that. Silence hung in the air like an unwelcome guest at a party.

  After perhaps a minute, the inspector said, “You do realize that’s not a very believable story, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. If I were making it up, I’d have done a better job.”

  Rollins grunted, giving the impression that he didn’t think much of Hale’s argument. “We shall see if we can find Miss Beresford. In the meanwhile” - he held out his hand - “I should like to hold on to your passport until this matter is resolved.”

  At about the same time that mid-morning, the widow Barrington emerged from a fitful sleep for the second time that morning - this time alone in the room. She sat up in bed. Disoriented, fragmented memories returned to her... Mary shaking her awake and then-

  Alfie is dead. Everything has changed.

  The usually attractive Lady Sarah looked much older than her twenty-five years, with her short blond hair in disarray and the fair skin of her face sagging. Her wide green eyes would have s
eemed dead, had there been anyone to observe them. She had once performed on the stage under another name and had even found a dead body, but this...

  What a nightmare! That horrible man from Scotland Yard - not at all like dear Wiggins - seemed to have an endless supply of impertinent questions.

  “Was it common for your husband to stay overnight at his club, Lady Sarah?”

  “Is it true that you two had a violent quarrel last night that resulted in him storming out of the house?”

  “And in this quarrel was something said about you loving another man?”

  “Didn’t you have a strong attachment to Mr. Enoch Hale before your unexpected marriage to Mr. Barrington?”

  Question, questions, questions! She had wanted to scream.

  Rollins had seemed to imply that she arranged for Alfie to be killed by Enoch. How absurd! Enoch surely would come to hate her for that, if he didn’t hate her already. She had to find some way to get him out of this mess. But how? The only thing she could think of was to tell the truth.

  And that was unthinkable.

  Leading Suspect

  “Great is journalism. Is not every able editor a ruler of the world, being the persuader of it?”

  – Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution, 1837

  Hale stood waiting nervously as Rathbone finished reading his story. It could have been his imagination, but he thought he saw the managing director’s eyes widen as he read the first sentence:

  “Enoch Hale, a reporter for the Central Press Syndicate, has emerged as the leading suspect in the stabbing Sunday night of Alfred Barrington.”

  But Rathbone kept reading, puffing energetically on his pipe. Finally, he looked up and sat back in his chair. “You really have balls, Hale. I suppose you know that.”

  “I’ve been told so before, sir, although not always so colorfully.”

  But he didn’t feel very ballsy as Rathbone took his pen to the manuscript and started writing on it. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m turning this into a first-person account by a murder suspect, Hale. Your involvement in the story is what makes it unique. We need to run with that angle, not bury it: ‘This reporter has emerged as,’ etc. The byline will tell the readers who you are and who you work for. Half the newspapers in the United Kingdom will carry this story, and the other half will carry stories about it. Well done, Hale, well done!” That was about the most Rathbone ever gave by way of approval, and any of his reporters would have fought a duel to earn it. “Too bad it will be your last story on this case.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going to turn it all over to Malone from this point, as planned. He can handle it.”

  “So can I!”

  “But Malone isn’t a suspect in the case.”

  Hale felt his ears get red. “Surely you don’t think I killed Alfie Barrington!”

  “Of course not.” Rathbone’s eyes wandered to his pipe, to Hale’s manuscript, to the typewriter on his desk. “However, er, just for the record-”

  “No, I didn’t. I was at the opera when he was killed.” Hale forced himself to slow down and stop shouting. “That’s in my story. And I was telling you the truth this morning when I said that Sarah and I were finished long ago.”

  “Right. I have every confidence in you, Hale. That isn’t really the issue, though, is it? You can’t be reporting on a murder in which you’re Scotland Yard’s chief suspect, can you? Think about it, man!”

  Hale thought about it. Rathbone’s point made perfect sense; he had to admit that. His name on stories about the murder, even those that didn’t involve the Scotland Yard investigation, would put the Central Press Syndicate in a position that was far beyond merely awkward.

  “I understand, sir. But when Scotland Yard finds Miss Beresford” - was she really a miss? - “and verifies my alibi, I won’t be a suspect anymore.”

  “And when that happens, I’ll put you back on the story to help Malone. Meanwhile, I want you to work on a follow-up feature story on Leigh Mallory.

  “The Everest fellow?”

  George Herbert Leigh Mallory, a 37-year-old mountaineer, and his climbing partner had disappeared on the northeast ridge of Mount Everest a little more than two weeks earlier, on June 7.

  “That’s right. By this time he’s certainly dead and we’ve never told the whole story - aging mountain climber, last chance to scale the world’s largest mountain, all that. I want the story on my desk by Wednesday morning. That gives you the rest of today and tomorrow, plenty of time to do it right.”

  Hale’s alibi, the woman who had given her name to him as Prudence Beresford, read that morning’s Times story about the murder of Alfred James Barrington with great interest. It combined two of her favorite subjects: murder and Egypt. In fact, it reminded her a bit of one of her own short stories. The article had been written by a man named Artemis Howell. She had paid a lot of attention to bylines since first meeting Enoch Hale a few weeks earlier.

  Alfred Barrington, the son-in-law and close associate of Edward Bridgewater, the Earl of Sedgewood, was found stabbed to death near his club on Sunday night.

  Lord Sedgewood and the late Lord Carnarvon, sponsor of the expedition that found the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun two years ago, were long-time rivals in the field of Egyptology. The victim shared his father-in-law’s passion and traveled with him to Egypt several months before their competitor’s fabulous discovery.

  The death of Lord Carnarvon in Egypt on 23 April 1923 has been attributed by some to a mummy’s curse, although doctors blamed an infection from a bug bite. It is said that as the peer died, lights throughout the city of Cairo...

  Curse or not, she didn’t like knives and guns. Death by poison was so much neater. Besides, she knew a lot about poisons. It was just possible the stabbing could add an exotic touch, though, if the weapon turned out to be a jewelled scimitar or some such. That would lift this story above the typical sordid accounts of robbery and murder that one found in the unimaginative daily Press. There was promise here. She picked up her scissors and clipped the article.

  Bedford Place

  The less we know the more we suspect.

  –H.W. Shaw, Josh Billings’ Encyclopedia of Wit and Wisdom, 1874

  Rathbone could take Hale off of the story, but he couldn’t stop him from visiting Sarah. Hale had been asking himself since that early-morning phone call how he felt about her. He had slowly come to admit that the hurt was still there - and so was the love.

  After lunch, Hale headed for Bloomsbury. Sarah and Alfie had setup housekeeping at 12 Bedford Place, just two blocks over from the British Museum. It was a short street in a modest neighborhood of artists and academics, a little more than a tenth of a mile running between Russell Street and Bloomsbury Square Gardens.

  “Yes?” The servant who answered the door, a tall man with an abundant mop of thick gray hair and a stoop, regarded him skeptically.

  “I’m here to see Lady Sarah.”

  “I am afraid that Madam is not receiving visitors.” He started to close the door, but Hale prevented that with a quick foot.

  “I’m not a visitor, I’m an old friend.”

  “Nevertheless, sir-”

  Hale handed the man his business card. “Just give her this.”

  “As you wish, sir.”

  As the door closed in his face, Hale worried that the “Central Press Syndicate” beneath his name on the card might cause the butler to throw it away rather than take it to Sarah. Or maybe Sarah would throw it away herself. That fear grew as the minutes ticked by. Hale began to feel foolish standing on the stoop, hat in hand.

  Finally, the door opened.

  “Lady Sarah will see you, sir.” The stiff upper lip failed to conceal the butler’s surprise.

  Hale had never understood t
he reference to one’s heart skipping a beat until he entered the parlor and saw Sarah. Sitting on a divan, flanked by her brother on one side and a willowy, red-haired woman Hale didn’t know on the other, Sarah seemed at least a decade older than her true age in the mid-twenties.

  “Hello, Sarah. I’m so sorry about Alfie.”

  “Enoch!”

  She ran to him. The hug didn’t last long; just long enough to tear Hale’s heart apart. “That dreadful policeman asked me about you. How I wish you hadn’t been dragged into this!”

  “Tempest in a teapot. Don’t worry about it. Rollins will be singing a different tune as soon as he confirms my alibi.”

  Charles Bridgewater stood up, and the other woman on the divan immediately followed suit.

  “It’s been a long time, Hale,” Sarah’s brother said as he presented his hand. “Good to see you again.” Charles was still thin and still spoke as if he’d just arrived from Oxford, although he no longer wore a pince-nez on his aristocratic nose. Hale had first met him while Sarah was in Egypt[1]. Estranged from his father because of his dissolute living after returning from the War, he had been working under another name. Later, Hale had heard that father and son had reconciled. But Charles had always remained close to his sister, even when that required meeting her secretly during the estrangement from his father.

  “May I present my fiancé, Portia Lyme?”

  She smiled and offered her hand. Bright young things always did that. And she was certainly young, perhaps twenty or so. Hale suspected she was the spoiled, thoroughly modern daughter of a minor nobleman.

  “I saw the story in The Times-lot of rubbish about Carnarvon and the supposed Tutankhamun curse.” Charles held up Hale’s card. “I suppose you’re here for more of the same?”

  “Charles!” Sarah said.

  “I’m here as a friend, not as a journalist,” Hale said. “I’d like to help Sarah. But I think the best way I can do that is to act a bit like a journalist - ask a lot of obnoxious questions until I find something that might be helpful. At some point in the process I might want to pass something along to a colleague for publication, but I won’t do that without your approval.”