“Egypt - a real life movie set... the ultimate setting for a mystery. You couldn’t stage this stuff, could you?”
The rich old man waved his be-ringed hand at the panorama of the pyramids on view from his balcony at the Mena House Hotel.
He was Calder Hall, a vastly rich show-biz producer and sponsor of archaeology in Egypt and he had invited Daniel to his presidential suite for a mysterious meeting.
The pyramids looked as impressive as always, Daniel had to agree. But threatening too.
Jagged arrows of stone on the skyline, like mountainous warning symbols.
Hazard triangles.
Daniel sat across from two men at a coffee table. The second man was the rich man’s attorney, Hyman Robbins.
The rich man, Calder Hall, was a shaven-headed octogenarian who put Daniel in mind of the craggy mummy of Pharaoh Seti in the museum. Daniel also noticed the old man’s distinctive walking stick resting against the table, an antique Egyptian style stick with a golden jackal-dog’s head that peered over the table. The dog’s spiky ears were pressed back to smoothen the grip. Calder had suffered an early injury in a sports car accident and now walked with the aid of the mobility stick.
“I see you’ve still got Jack,” Daniel said.
“Jack, my jackal-dog stick.” He smiled. “You remember things, Daniel.”
The walking stick had become a conversation piece when Daniel first met the rich champion of archaeology at a conference, about a year before.
“Isn’t that Khentiamentiu, the early dog god of Abydos? Or maybe his other aspect, Wepwawet?” Daniel had said on that occasion.
“Very good,” the old man had replied. “Most people just think Anubis, but of course Khentiamentiu and Wepwawet go back earlier as predecessors of Osiris the god of the dead.”
“The Opener of Ways to the underworld,” Daniel had said.
“That’s it.”
It had led to a discussion of a mutual interest in Abydos, Egypt’s most ancient and holy burial ground, and a radical theory of Daniel’s that the tomb of this canine-linked predecessor still remained to be found.
“I’ll come to the point,” the sponsor said now, turning his back on the view of the pyramids. “I want to hire your services as guest Egyptologist on a Nile cruise, but also as an investigator. The rewards will be greater than you could possibly earn in years of guest lecturing.”
A few years away from the grind of guest lecturing, time to write more of those controversial books he longed to write and pursue those controversial theories he dreamed of pursuing, instead of playing ancient history tutor to fatuous groups of tourists in order to keep his ‘body-and-ka’ together as he termed it.
“Investigate?”
“Murder... mystery...”
“I’m an Egyptologist, Mr Hall,” Daniel said. “Not a detective.”
“I know. Call me Calder.”
“Unless... this is one of those mock murder mystery games. Modern day Death on the Nile, in the spirit of Agatha Christie.”
“See, he’s deducing already. You are onto my game, Daniel. Very shrewd. And in the tradition of so many mysteries, this one centres around a Last Will and Testament. Mine. And a deplorable, gathered family. Also mine, sadly. I am a dying man, you see. I have weeks or so left to live.” He sounded remarkably fatalistic about it. This part might not be a game. Calder had a skin pallor the shade of sun-bleached limestone.
“Are
you going to be all right to go on a cruise?” Daniel said. “Do you have an
assistant to help you along?”
“A nurse, you mean? Pah! Can’t bear mothering. No, I only have Jack, my stick.
And of course the boat’s registered doctor on board if I need any attention.
But I do have an assistant of sorts. A young protégé filmmaker who is doing the
story. I want this production
recorded, you see. To help me in this, I have hired Mayet, a talented young
Egyptian filmmaker who will work unobtrusively with a camcorder, documenting
our little drama. I expect everyone to give her full support in the project. She must have full all-access, at all
times. So here’s how it plays. I
give an opening warning to my gathered clan that I’m reconsidering my Will,
rewriting it as I go, and making some drastic changes along the way, depending
on what I see in them. Hence my lawyer Hyman is along for the ride. My family
has been a great disappointment to me over the years, Daniel. This cruise will
be my last scrutiny of them all. They’ll be facing a final judgement, just as I
will be facing mine soon enough. I’ve brought them all to Egypt on a special
Nile cruise for the occasion.”
”That’s a lot of trouble to go to.”
“Trouble may be putting it mildly when it comes to the possible repercussions when they hear my ruminations on the Will and their prospects of inheritance.”
“It’s going to be controversial.”
“And competitive. In such a family as mine it may even turn out to be deadly.”
“So a murder or two, then?”
“On the cards. And not just a whodunit, it may be a who-is-going-to-do-it.”
An intriguing family murder game.
Unlike Calder Hall, the lawyer sitting opposite him did not look like a game player. He was as formally dressed as an undertaker. Who else wore a waistcoat in Egypt?
Daniel dubbed him Legal Suit.
“My client, Mr Hall is a quirky man, as he readily admits,” Legal Suit said solemnly. “He likes putting people in situations.”
“And I’m being put in one too?”
The old man now smiled.
“You are an Egyptologist and that’s like detective work, digging for the facts. But you’re also an informal man by your reputation, a man who will break with tradition.”
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