/Next/ day the ordinary course of things was resumed at the Gezireh
Palace Hotel, and the delights and flirtations of the fancy-ball began
to vanish into what Hans Breitmann calls “the _ewigkeit_.” Men were
lazier than usual and came down later to breakfast, and girls looked
worn and haggard with over-much dancing, but otherwise there was no
sign to indicate that the festivity of the past evening had left
“tracks behind,” or made a lasting impression of importance on any
human life. Lady Chetwynd Lyle, portly and pig-faced, sat on the
terrace working at an elaborate piece of cross-stitch, talking scandal
in the civilest tone imaginable, and damning all her “dear friends”
with that peculiar air of entire politeness and good breeding which
distinguishes certain ladies when they are saying nasty things about
one another. Her daughters, Muriel and Dolly, sat dutifully near her,
one reading the _Daily Dial_, as befitted the offspring of the editor
and proprietor thereof, the other knitting. Lord Fulkeward lounged on
the balustrade close by, and his lovely mother, attired in quite a
charming and girlish costume of white foulard exquisitely cut and
fitting into a waist not measuring more than twenty-two inches,
reclined in a long deck-chair, looking the very pink of painted and
powdered perfection.
“You are so very lenient,” Lady Chetwynd Lyle was saying, as she bent
over her needlework. “So very lenient, my dear Lady Fulkeward, that I
am afraid you do not read people’s characters as correctly as I do. I
have had, owing to my husband’s position in journalism, a great deal
of social experience, and I assure you I do _not_ think the Princess
Ziska a safe person. She may be perfectly proper--she _may_ be--but
she is not the style we are accustomed to in London.”
“I should rather think not!” interrupted Lord Fulkeward, hastily. “By
Jove! She wouldn’t have a hair left on her head in London, don’cher
know!”
“What do you mean?” inquired Muriel Chetwynd Lyle, simpering. “You
really do say such funny things, Lord Fulkeward!”
“Do I?” and the young nobleman was so alarmed and embarrassed at the
very idea of his ever saying funny things that he was rendered quite
speechless for a moment. Anon he took heart and resumed: “Er--well--I
mean that the society women would tear her to bits in no time. She’d
get asked nowhere, but she’d get blackguarded everywhere; she couldn’t
help herself with that face and those eyes.”
His mother laughed.
“Dear Fulke! You are such a naughty boy! You shouldn’t make such
remarks before Lady Lyle. She never says anything against anyone!”
“Dear Fulke” stared. Had he given vent to his feelings he would have
exclaimed: “Oh, Lord!--isn’t the old lady a deep one!” But as it was
he attended to his young moustache anxiously and remained silent. Lady
Chetwynd Lyle meanwhile flushed with annoyance; she felt that Lady
Fulkeward’s remark was sarcastic, but she could not very well resent
it, seeing that Lady Fulkeward was a peeress of the realm, and that
she herself, by the strict laws of heraldry, was truly only “Dame”
Chetwynd Lyle, as wife of an ordinary knight, and had no business to
be called “her ladyship” at all.
“I should, indeed, be sorry,” she said, primly, “if I were mistaken in
my private estimate of the Princess Ziska’s character, but I must
believe my own eyes and the evidence of my own senses, and surely no
one can condone the extremely fast way in which she behaved with that
new man--that French artist, Armand Gervase--last night. Why, she
danced six times with him! And she actually allowed him to walk home
with her through the streets of Cairo! They went off together, in
their fancy dresses, just as they were! I never heard of such a
thing!”
“Oh, there was nothing remarkable at all in that,” said Lord
Fulkeward. “Everybody went about the place in fancy costume last
night. I went out in my Neapolitan dress with a girl, and I met Denzil
Murray coming down a street just behind here--took him for a
Florentine prince, upon my word! And I bet you Gervase never got
beyond the door of the Princess’s palace; for that blessed old Nubian
she keeps--the chap with a face like a mummy--bangs the gate in
everybody’s face, and says in guttural French: ‘_La Princesse ne voit
per-r-r-sonne!_’ I’ve tried it. I tell you it’s no go!”
“Well, we shall all get inside the mysterious palace next Wednesday
evening,” said Lady Fulkeward, closing her eyes with a graceful air of
languor. “It will be charming, I am sure, and I daresay we shall find
that there is no mystery at all about it.”
“Two months ago,” suddenly said a smooth voice behind them, “the
Ziska’s house or palace was uninhabited.”
Lady Fulkeward gave a little scream and looked round.
“Good gracious, Dr. Dean! How you frightened me!”
The Doctor made an apologetic bow.
“I am very sorry. I forgot you were so sensitive; pray pardon me! As I
was saying, two months ago the palace of the Princess Ziska was a
deserted barrack. Formerly, so I hear, it used to be the house of some
great personage; but it had been allowed to fall into decay, and
nobody would rent it, even for the rush of the Cairene season, till it
was secured by the Nubian you were speaking of just now--the
interesting Nubian with the face like a mummy; he took it and
furnished it, and when it was ready Madame la Princesse appeared on
the scene and has resided there ever since.”
“I wonder what that Nubian has to do with her?” said Lady Chetwynd
Lyle, severely.
“Nothing at all,” replied the Doctor, calmly. “He is the merest
servant--the kind of person who is ‘told off’ to attend on the women
of a harem.”
“Ah, I see you have been making inquiries concerning the princess,
Doctor,” said Lady Fulkeward, with a smile.
“I have.”
“And have you found out anything about her?”
“No; that is, nothing of social importance, except, perhaps, two
items--first, that she is not a Russian; secondly, that she has never
been married.”
“Never been married!” exclaimed Lady Chetwynd Lyle, then suddenly
turning to her daughters she said blandly: “Muriel, Dolly, go into the
house, my dears. It is getting rather warm for you on this terrace. I
will join you in a few minutes.”
The “girls” rose obediently with a delightfully innocent and juvenile
air, and fortunately for them did not notice the irreverent smile that
played on young Lord Fulkeward’s face, which was immediately reflected
on the artistically tinted countenance of his mother, at the manner of
their dismissal.
“There is surely nothing improper in never having been married,” said
Dr. Dean, with a mock serious air. “Consider, my dear Lady Lyle, is
there not something very chaste and beautiful in the aspect of an old
maid?”
Lady Lyle looked up sharply. She had an idea that both she and her
daughters were being quizzed, and she had some difficulty to control
her rising temper.
“Then do you call the Princess an old maid?” she demanded.
Lady Fulkeward looked amused; her son laughed outright. But the
Doctor’s face was perfectly composed.
“I don’t know what else I can call her,” he said, with a thoughtful
air. “She is no longer in her teens, and she has too much voluptuous
charm for an _ingénue_. Still, I admit, you would scarcely call her
‘old’ except in the parlance of the modern matrimonial market. Our
present-day _roués_, you know, prefer their victims young, and I
fancy the Princess Ziska would be too old and perhaps too clever for
most of them. Personally speaking, she does not impress me as being of
any particular age, but as she is not married, and is, so to speak, a
maid fully developed, I am perforce obliged to call her an old maid.”
“She wouldn’t thank you for the compliment,” said Lady Lyle with a
spiteful grin.
“I daresay not,” responded the Doctor blandly, “but I imagine she has
very little personal vanity. Her mind is too preoccupied with
something more important than the consideration of her own good
looks.”
“And what is that?” inquired Lady Fulkeward, with some curiosity.
“Ah! there is the difficulty! What is it that engrosses our fair
friend more than the looking-glass? I should like to know--but I
cannot find out. It is an enigma as profound as that of the Sphinx.
Good-morning, Monsieur Gervase!”--and, turning round, he addressed the
artist, who just then stepped out on the terrace carrying a paint-box
and a large canvas strapped together in portable form. “Are you going
to sketch some picturesque corner of the city?”
“No,” replied Gervase, listlessly raising his white sun-hat to the
ladies present with a courteous, yet somewhat indifferent grace. “I’m
going to the Princess Ziska’s. I shall probably get the whole outline
of her features this morning.”
“A full-length portrait?” inquired the Doctor.
“I fancy not. Not the first attempt, at any rate--head and shoulders
only.”
“Do you know where her house is?” asked Lord Fulkeward. “If you don’t,
I’ll walk with you and show you the way.”
“Thanks--you are very good. I shall be obliged to you.”
And raising his hat again he sauntered slowly off, young Fulkeward
walking with him and chatting to him with more animation than that
exhausted and somewhat vacant-minded aristocrat usually showed to
anyone.
“It is exceedingly warm,” said Lady Lyle, rising then and putting away
her cross-stitch apparatus, “I thought of driving to the Pyramids this
afternoon, but really …”
“There is shade all the way,” suggested the Doctor, “I said as much to
a young woman this morning who has been in the hotel for nearly two
months, and hasn’t seen the Pyramids yet.”
“What has she been doing with herself?” asked Lady Fulkeward, smiling.
“Dancing with officers,” said Dr. Dean. “How can Cheops compare with a
moustached noodle in military uniform! Good-bye for the present; I’m
going to hunt for scarabei.”
“I thought you had such a collection of them already,” said Lady Lyle.
“So I have. But the Princess had a remarkable one on last night, and I
want to find another like it. It’s blue--very blue--almost like a rare
turquoise, and it appears it is the sign-manual of the warrior Araxes,
who was a kind of king in his way, or desert chief, which was about
the same thing in those days. He fought for Amenhotep, and seemed from
all accounts to be a greater man than Amenhotep himself. The Princess
Ziska is a wonderful Egyptologist; I had a most interesting
conversation with her last night in the supper-room.”
“Then she is really a woman of culture and intelligence?” queried Lady
Lyle.
The Doctor smiled.
“I should say she would be a great deal too much for the University of
Oxford, as far as Oriental learning goes,” he said. “She can read the
Egyptian papyri, she tells me, and she can decipher anything on any of
the monuments. I only wish I could persuade her to accompany me to
Thebes and Karnak.”
Lady Fulkeward unfurled her fan and swayed it to and fro with an
elegant languor.
“How delightful that would be!” she sighed. “So romantic and
solemn--all those dear old cities with those marvellous figures of the
Egyptians carved and painted on the stones! And Rameses--dear Rameses!
He really has good legs everywhere! Haven’t you noticed that? So many
of these ancient sculptures represent the Egyptians with such angular
bodies and such frightfully thin legs, but Rameses always has good
legs wherever you find him. It’s so refreshing! _Do_ make up a party,
Dr. Dean!--we’ll all go with you; and I’m sure the Princess Ziska will
be the most charming companion possible. Let us have a dahabeah! I’m
good for half the expenses, if you will only arrange everything.”
The Doctor stroked his chin and looked dubious, but he was evidently
attracted by the idea.
“I’ll see about it,” he said at last. “Meanwhile I’ll go and have a
hunt for some traces of Amenhotep and Araxes.”
He strolled down the terrace, and Lady Chetwynd Lyle, turning her back
on “old” Lady Fulkeward, went after her “girls,” while the fascinating
Fulkeward herself continued to recline comfortably in her chair, and
presently smiled a welcome on a youngish-looking man with a fair
moustache who came forward and sat down beside her, talking to her in
low, tender and confidential tones. He was the very impecunious
colonel of one of the regiments then stationed in Cairo, and as he
never wasted time on sentiment, he had been lately thinking that a
marriage with a widowed peeress who had twenty thousand pounds a year
in her own right might not be a “half bad” arrangement for him. So he
determined to do the agreeable, and as he was a perfect adept in the
art of making love without feeling it, he got on very well, and his
prospects brightened steadily hour by hour.
Meanwhile young Fulkeward was escorting Armand Gervase through several
narrow by-streets, talking to him as well as he knew how and trying in
his feeble way to “draw him out,” in which task he met with but
indifferent success.
“It must be awfully jolly and--er--all that sort of thing to be so
famous,” he observed, glancing up at the strong, dark, brooding face
above him. “They had a picture of yours over in London once; I went to
see it with my mother. It was called ‘_Le Poignard_,’ do you remember
it?”
Gervase shrugged his shoulders carelessly.
“Yes, I remember. A poor thing at its best. It was a woman with a
dagger in her hand.”
“Yes, awfully fine, don’cher know! She was a very dark woman--too dark
for my taste,--and she’d got a poignard clasped in her right hand. Of
course, she was going to murder somebody with it; that was plain
enough. You meant it so, didn’t you?”
“I suppose I did.”
“She was in a sort of Eastern get-up,” pursued Fulkeward, “one of your
former studies in Egypt, perhaps.”
Gervase started, and passed his hand across his forehead with a
bewildered air.
“No, no! Not a former study, by any means. How could it be? This is my
first visit to Egypt. I have never been here before.”
“Haven’t you? Really! Well, you’ll find it awfully interesting and all
that sort of thing. I don’t see half as much of it as I should like.
I’m a weak chap--got something wrong with my lungs,--awful bother, but
can’t be helped. My mother won’t let me do too much. Here we are; this
is the Princess Ziska’s.”
They were standing in a narrow street ending in a _cul-de-sac_, with
tall houses on each side which cast long, black, melancholy shadows on
the rough pavement below. A vague sense of gloom and oppression stole
over Gervase as he surveyed the outside of the particular dwelling
Fulkeward pointed out to him--a square, palatial building, which had
no doubt once been magnificent in its exterior adornment, but which
now, owing to long neglect, had fallen into somewhat melancholy decay.
The sombre portal, fantastically ornamented with designs copied from
some of the Egyptian monuments, rather resembled the gateway of a tomb
than an entrance to the private residence of a beautiful living woman,
and Fulkeward, noting his companion’s silence, added:
“Not a very cheerful corner, is it? Some of these places are regular
holes, don’cher know; but I daresay it’s all right inside.”
“You have never been inside?”
“Never.” And Fulkeward lowered his voice: “Look up there; there’s the
beast that keeps everybody out!”
Gervase followed his glance, and perceived behind the projecting
carved lattice-work of one of the windows a dark, wrinkled face and
two gleaming eyes which, even at that distance, had, or appeared to
have, a somewhat sinister expression.
“He’s the nastiest type of Nubian I have ever seen,” pursued
Fulkeward. “Looks just like a galvanized corpse.”
Gervase smiled, and perceiving a long bell-handle at the gateway,
pulled it sharply. In another moment the Nubian appeared, his aspect
fully justifying Lord Fulkeward’s description of him. The
parchment-like skin on his face was yellowish-black, and wrinkled in a
thousand places; his lips were of a livid blue, and were drawn up and
down above and below the teeth in a kind of fixed grin, while the
dense brilliance of his eyes was so fierce and fiery as to suggest
those of some savage beast athirst for prey.
“_Madame la Princesse Ziska_,” began Gervase, addressing this
unfascinating object with apparent indifference to his hideousness.
The Nubian’s grinning lips stretched themselves wider apart as, in a
thick, snarling voice he demanded:
“_Votre nom?_”
“_Armand Gervase._”
“_Entrez!_”
“_Et moi?_” queried Fulkeward, with a conciliatory smile.
“_Non! Pas vous. Monsieur Armand Gervase, seul!_”
Fulkeward gave a resigned shrug of his shoulders; Gervase looked round
at him ere he crossed the threshold of the mysterious habitation.
“I’m sorry you have to walk back alone.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Fulkeward affably. “You see, you have come on
business. You’re going to paint the Princess’s picture; and I daresay
this blessed old rascal knows that I want nothing except to look at
his mistress and wonder what she’s made of.”
“What she’s made of?” echoed Gervase in surprise. “Don’t you think
she’s made like other women?”
“No; can’t say I do. She seems all fire and vapor and eyes in the
middle, don’cher know. Oh, I’m an ass--always was--but that’s the
feeling she gives me. Ta-ta! Wish you a pleasant morning!”
He nodded and strolled away, and Gervase hesitated yet another moment,
looking full at the Nubian, who returned him stare for stare.
“_Maintenant?_” he began.
“_Oui, maintenant_,” echoed the Nubian.
“_La Princesse, où est elle?_”
“_Là!_” and the Nubian pointed down a long, dark passage beyond which
there seemed to be the glimmer of green palms and other foliage.
“_Elle vous attend, Monsieur Armand Gervase! Entrez! Suivez!_”
Slowly Gervase passed in, and the great tomb-like door closed upon him
with a heavy clang. The whole long, bright day passed, and he did not
reappear; not a human foot crossed the lonely street and nothing was
seen there all through the warm sunshiny hours save the long, black
shadows on the pavement, which grew longer and darker as the evening
fell.