CHAPTER XXXII.

THE GREAT AHMES

“Barry Dear:

“I don’t ask you to forgive me. I never meant to see you again. But when Jim spoke to me to-day I realized, somehow, that _you_ were here. And I knew you would come. And I knew I would have to see you. I didn’t know how hard it would be--because I never believed you cared, like that.

“I don’t know how to tell you what I see now, I _must_ tell. It all began, really many years ago, when I was a baby, and when Paul Ahmes was giving up everything to make my mother’s last days bearable. She had never loved him, but they had one thing in common. It was their passion for Egypt. She made her great success in an Egyptian opera and he as an Egyptian performer. He used to buy Egyptian antiques with all he could save. He knew more about these things than any dealer in Europe. Most of his stage properties were real. They inspired him.

“One day my mother read that a ring which had been the property of the real Thaïs was being auctioned at Sotheby’s in London. This ring had once belonged to her. She never sang Thaïs without wearing it. But poverty had forced her to sell it. Paul Ahmes, knowing what happiness the recovery of this ring would give her, went to London to buy it. This was like him. He did not bid, himself, as all the auctioneers knew him. He sent someone.

“Barry--your father was at that auction--and he has the ring to-day! When Ahmes heard that John Cumberland had secured it, he wrote to him, and without mentioning my mother’s name told him all the circumstances. Your father did not believe him.

“My mother died the night after Ahmes returned.

“Soon after that, before I can remember, we left Paris and went to live in America. I grew up to look upon Ahmes as my father. I was always surrounded by things belonging to Egypt, for my guardian had left the stage and become a professional dealer in antiques. He was sometimes away for months together, in Egypt, where he had agents now that his business had grown so big. He had changed his name. John Cumberland was one of his clients.

“But, Barry, very few of the wonderful and beautiful things he received from Egypt ever left Ahmes’s possession. They went into his own collection--which is priceless; for this was his ruling passion now that my mother was dead. He sold copies, or restored originals mostly, to his wealthy customers. Some of the most famous museums in the world contain his work! His love of everything belonging to Egypt simply wouldn’t allow him to sell a genuine piece. His genius for making duplicates (for he is, truly, a genius) made it easy for him to keep them.

“And all the money he earned in this way was spent acquiring more and more rarities for his private museum.

“Then--this was years ago--he stumbled upon the tomb of Zalithea. He reached it through a long narrow passage cut at some time by Arab robbers. He found there the great stone sarcophagus, and he raised and wedged the lid. The sarcophagus was empty.

“Thinking that one day this discovery might profit him, he reclosed and concealed the opening. This opening, I must tell you, came out in another valley, _behind the tomb_, and it led, through a hole in the roof, into the _shaft_ between the first and second portcullis. You remember where the roof had fallen? This second portcullis the thieves had broken, and also the door of the chamber where the sarcophagus was.

“I unknowingly inspired him to what followed--I and his wish to score over John Cumberland, whom he had taught me to detest. He said I had the true Egyptian profile. The showman in him came to life--this part of his strange nature was only sleeping; and he thought of the wildest plot that surely any man ever attempted to carry out.

“He said to me, ‘I will sell _you_ to John Cumberland! And if you play your cards properly you will marry a millionaire!’ I was completely under his influence, Barry. I had never known any other kind of life but this commercial use of Ahmes’s genius as an illusionist. I don’t want to excuse myself. I prepared for the thing with enthusiasm!

“This was when we came secretly to New Jersey. Mr. Brown, who took the house, was formerly Ahmes’s stage manager. His wife acted as cook. There were other members of my guardian’s old company there as well. For no one who had ever worked for Ahmes wanted to leave him.

“Here for a long time I lived like a nun. No one outside our small household ever saw me. When I went anywhere I was always heavily veiled. Ahmes taught me to speak _Coptic_. This was the mysterious language of Zalithea! Arabic I knew, because I had had an Arab nurse from childhood--an old member of Ahmes’s company--Safîyeh!

“A year before the papyrus was brought to your father, Ahmes went to Egypt. He erected the screen, as you know, his agent, Hassan es-Sugra, having traced the real, or front, entrance to the tomb. He broke through as far as the first portcullis, which he knew was intact. Then he reclosed and hid the entrance as you found it. The hieroglyphic of ‘She Who Sleeps’ he himself carved in the rock.

“By the other tunnel, the one he first discovered, he took in lifting gear and swung up the stone sarcophagus lid. The painted sarcophagus, which he had made in New Jersey and shipped out, he put inside. Then he lowered the stone lid again. The tables, lamps, couch, and other things he set in place. Some of these were genuine. Some he had made. He also added the cartouche of ‘She Who Sleeps’ to the ancient inscriptions painted on the wall.

“He cemented the door and, from the tunnel above, blocked the secret entrance. Then he came back to America. The stage was set for his last and greatest illusion.

“The ‘Zalithea Papyrus’ and the ‘Formula’ Ahmes had been at work upon for two years. They were the biggest achievements of his career! The materials had cost him no end of research. But no other man in Europe or America could have written them--to pass Horace Pain and Dr. Rittenburg!

“Yes, Barry! I’m proud of him! Until you came, it never occurred to me to question his way of life. Besides, he had taught me to hate the name of Cumberland. It was a mania with him. I believe for a long time he held John Cumberland responsible for my mother’s death.

“The Zalithea dress, the strange ingredients mentioned in the Formula, and all the other things, he got from many sources, working patiently for months and months. He put his whole soul into the affair.

“Then, just as we were ready, you had an accident right outside the house!

“We were in an awful panic. But Ahmes was always at his best in an emergency. You know how we managed to keep out of the matter. The household was dispersed. Only Mrs. Brown stayed to clear things up. I was hidden in my guardian’s apartment in New York. And I nearly ruined everything one evening by going out to our old garden in New Jersey to get some flowers. Yes! I was there that day when you came!

“As soon as the date of departure was fixed, Safîyeh and another Arab, called Omar, were sent to Egypt. Soon afterward I went, also. I sailed on the same ship, to Cherbourg, as Professor Blackwell! But it didn’t matter, because we had arranged that I should stay in my stateroom all the way.

“I remained hidden with Safîyeh in Luxor until the night before the tomb was opened. That night I was smuggled across--and you heard my voice as I stumbled in the little valley where Omar was waiting for me! Omar you saw once. He is tall and thin, and you thought he was a ghost!

“In a ruined tomb in that little valley I was dressed for the part of Zalithea. Safîyeh was there with me. But she went back to Luxor in the early morning.

“You understand, now, that when you first discovered the painted sarcophagus I was not in it? He carried me up to the tomb during _the second watch_ on the night before the lid was raised! I was placed inside. Then the lid was fastened down! I was frightened, although the gold mask allowed me to breathe freely and there were lots of air holes in the sarcophagus.

“I had to lie there for nearly three hours! But I had been training to do this for months before.

“Never shall I forget my relief when you came at last to unwrap me! Of course I had been prepared in all sorts of ways for the ordeal. And you will remember, Barry, that none of you had a chance to touch me or even see me properly up to the time that I opened my eyes.

“Yes! You were in the hands of a master illusionist!

“As for the rest--I was prepared to hate you! But on the night you came to my tent and said, ‘Forgive me. I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ I couldn’t hate you, somehow.

“Ahmes, too, had changed his mind about John Cumberland. He had learned to respect him; in fact, to love him. But he had to go on then! So did I!

“Sometimes it was good fun. Sometimes, when your father talked to me, not knowing I understood, I couldn’t bear it. But we didn’t know how to end it!

“You ended it! The night when you found me with that pig Edwards I knew it must finish. While you were asleep I went to Ahmes and told him.

“He was sorry--for me; but glad that we were through. Safîyeh went to Montreal and sailed, under her own name, for England, three days later. I was here, in Paris, before you allowed the news of my disappearance to be published. Ahmes wrote the hieroglyphic letter to relieve your mind. It was delivered by the same messenger who brought another letter. He is here, now, with the others. That is why you failed to trace him.

“That’s all, Barry dear. We have a house in Paris. It had been closed, though, and so I stayed at the Chatham for a short time. But Ahmes arrived to-day, and I am going to join him. He knows I have told you.

“Do what you like. But I shall be punished enough.

“You see--I love you.

“Marguerite.”