Silver Tomb (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 2) by P. J. Thorndyke Read Free Book Online Page A

him. I’ve an idea that with Bayoumi gone he will go running to his sources to tell them that he needs time to find another customer. They’ll be fellahs most likely, perhaps working on a dig somewhere, hopefully for Lindholm. We just need to keep our distance and see where he leads us. Where are you staying?”
    “The Grand.”
    “Good. So is Petrie. I will find out what I can and get word to you when the time is right.”
    “All right. I must be getting along. It’s a shame we didn’t have that coffee. It’s been a long time.”
    “Yes,” agreed Lazarus as she walked away. She turned and looked at him from beneath the frills of her parasol. He thought she was going to say that it was good to see him again for something similar was on the tip of his own tongue.
    “Longman?”
    “Yes?”
    “No tricks this time.”
     

Chapter Five
     
    In which a significantly longer voyage is undertaken
     
    The house where Murad was staying was reflective of the whole area. It was a crumbling tenement with pokey, dark windows from which washing dangled. The sturdy-looking door was the only thing that looked solid about the whole structure.
    Lazarus had been given the address by the proprietor of the café they had met Murad in two nights ago. He had slipped the man a couple of piastres to keep his mouth shut and not let on to Murad that he was looking for him.
    Dawn was breaking over the rooftops of Cairo, and Lazarus rubbed his eyes. He had been standing on the street corner for over an hour, dressed in the shabby clothes of a European on his uppers to deter the Cairenes from asking him for baksheesh . He kept a good supply of outfits for various occasions in his hotel room and found they invariably came in useful for situations such as these.
    At last, the door to the house opened and Murad slipped out, like a rat emerging from its hole. Murad was not a Cairene, and relied upon the generosity of friends and the vulnerability of women to sleep soundly whenever he was in the city. This made him a hard man to track, but Lazarus knew the right people and his hour of standing in the cold had paid off.
    Resisting the urge to creep up on the villain and throttle him from behind, Lazarus followed Murad down endless streets and passageways where vendors were beginning to set up shop for the day. Cafes were starting to open, the scent of their freshly brewed coffee allowed to drift out and draw in the first customers of the day.
    They drew near to the docks and Lazarus’s hopes rose. He had imagined the dealer would need passage on a vessel heading south to wherever his contacts dwelled, and he had hoped that Murad would make his move this morning. The chaos of Port Bulaq was no less at any time of day. Soon Lazarus found he had a job keeping up with his quarry as he was jostled from side to side by lost travelers, fellahs importing goods, urchins and pickpockets. He managed to keep one eye on the back of Murad’s tarboosh as it ducked down a side street.
    He followed after, pushing his way past a man struggling with a cart load of tomatoes, diving into the ally where beggars held out their hands in a permanent state of helplessness. To his dismay, Lazarus could no longer see Murad. He broke into a jog.
    The alley emerged onto a wharf where several transport agencies had set up business. Any one of them might offer the young Egyptian passage on a steamer or a dahabeah , but Lazarus guessed that Murad would choose one of the more run-down looking ones, partly because he was not a wealthy foreigner and partly because he would wish to remain inconspicuous.
    He headed for the most slapdash looking outfit, which had its name painted freehand in both Arabic and miss-spelt English on the side of its rough wall, and went indoors. The man at the desk looked up from his ledger as if he had just finished penning something in.
    “Do you have any vessels heading up the Nile today or tomorrow?” Lazarus asked the man.
    “Assuredly, effendi ,”