23/04/2023 – Following Leads (2)
A Different Approach
They return to the hotel. Tiger says he clearly knows something and they should break in at night. Cassandra points out Mr Najjir is a victim, not a cultist. Alex says the cult has got to him. There is a pile of newspapers outside Cassandra’s room and she sets about reading them.
Zalkador offers to go and talk to Mr Najjir on his own. Jeziah suggests taking Mahmoud as the man’s English was not great. Zalkador does a tarot reading first, but he only gets that he is a business man who has been crossed by powerful enemies. The cards do suggest though that he likes money, so Cassandra agrees to have Jeziah give him money to bribe the man.
Zalkador sets off, collecting Mahmoud from the hotel lobby first. On the way, he picks up a gift for the man with advice from Mahmoud. When he gets there it is 5pm and Mr Najjir is closing up his shop. With help from Mahmoud, Zalkador bribes Mr Najjir with 10 shillings and is able to persuade Mr Najjir to speak, but he will only do so at the local Al-Hussein Mosque. He agrees to meet there after prayers, around 7:30pm.
They return to the hotel to wait until then. Zalkador gives Mahmoud the remaining 5 shillings that Jeziah gave him, making him a friend for life. They have mint tea in the hotel. He asks Zalkador why they are here and he tells an abridged version of their mission, mainly to find out what happened to Roger Carlisle.
The Clive Expedition
Cassandra reads about the Clive Expedition finding the sarcophagus of a hither-to unknown Egyptian Queen, Nitocris, in a hidden chamber in the Mycerius Pyramid, the smallest of the three Great Pyramids of Giza. Before tests could be carried out, the sarcophagus with the body of the Queen disappeared over night. The site only had one entrance and it was guarded. The sarcophagus is enormous and heavy, there could be no way to simply steal it easily. There is a suspicion that the Expedition arranged for the body to “disappear” so they could take the body out of the country illegally, but the Police were unable to find enough evidence.
The Expedition quickly left Giza and they have moved to another site in Memphis. They have been in Egypt for five months now. The journalist writing the article states that the Expedition is very secretive about what it is actually doing.
In a later article, it is rumoured that one of the members of the Clive Expedition was sacked, allegedly for incompetence.
Talking to Faraz Najjir
Zalkador heads to the Mosque for 7:30pm and meets Mr Najjir. They go into a side room. Zalkador asks questions while Mahmoud translates. Zalkador asks about the item in Warren Bassett’s letter. He remembers Mr Carlisle and he did not believe in the supernatural in those days. He was able to obtain items concerning the Black Pharaoh through Warren Bassett and Roger Carlisle paid generously. The items included a scroll that described a hidden room in an unnamed Pyramid that contained the tomb of the Black Pharaoh, as well as a bust of the Black Pharaoh, a drum and a crown that belonged to the Black Pharaoh owned. He gets a rough descriptions of them.
It turns out the items were stolen from Omar Al-Shakti, a rich local man and the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh. Al-Shakti found out he was the thief and he sent a fire demon to burn down his shop. He gets Al-Shakti’s address, in a cotton plantation north of Cairo.
Mr Najjir also tells him a rumour that the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh are after a sacred item that is held in the former Mosque of Ibn-Tulun, which is now a hospital. There is also a woman, called Nuri, who lives in El-Wasa, a village down sound from Cairo. Her son worked for the Carlisle Expedition.
That is all Mr Najjir knows. Zalkador thanks him and returns to the hotel with Mahmoud. Zalkador then does a Tarot reading for Mahmoud, learning he is an orphan. He has an interesting future ahead of him.
The Investigators then exchange information about what they have learned. They wonder why, if the Brotherhood was involved, why the Expedition bought items that were the property of the Brotherhood anyway. They wonder if the Expedition was not initially involved with the Brotherhood or there are tensions between the British and Egyptian branches. When they check the letter that Gavigan had from Egypt, asking for stolen items to be returned, they realise that came from Omar Al-Shakti.
Drunken British Soldiers
Meanwhile, Tiger has gone to the local British Army barracks, trying to find a British army person who knows Arabic and would not have problems “persuading” a local to talk. He has to spend a while drinking in the bar, winding people up with stories of locals kidnapping white people. Eventually, rather drunk, late that night, he takes a group of soldiers into the Old City of Cairo and they pick on a random shop. They break to door down of the shop and threaten the man, firing their guns into the air. When they hear the whistles of the Police approaching, they decide to head back to the bar. They manage to talk the Police into not arresting them and make it back to the bar.
Tiger stumbles into his join hotel room with Alex very late that night.
Sunday, 10 March 1935
Tiger's Hangover
Everyone except Tiger are up for breakfast that morning. Jeziah tells Alex to remind Tiger he is an employee and staying out late drinking and missing breakfast is not acceptable. They review the next clues to investigate and also consider visiting the Egyptian Museum.
One thing they are still not sure about is exactly what the Carlisle Expedition did do while in Egypt. They read through the newspaper clippings that Jackson Elias had but they do not clarify things. Alex points out those are International newspapers, perhaps they should enquire at the Cairo Bulletin. Cassandra recalls that Nigel Wassif wrote a lot of the articles on the Clive Expedition.
Tiger eventually emerges with a hangover and has the chef cook him an English breakfast. Cassandra asks him if he learned anything useful and Tiger says they were unable to locate the man to ask. When questioned why he got drunk, “soldiers like to drink” is accepted as an answer.
Zalkador notices Mahmoud is waiting on the side for them. He gestures for the boy to come over and offers him a sausage. Mahmoud tries one, but when he realises it is pork he spits it out. He rushes to the toilet to wash his mouth out. Zalkador did not know that Muslims are not supposed to eat pork.
They decide to visit the Egyptian Museum, but as it is Sunday, it is closed. They decide to relax for the rest of the day.
Monday, 11 March 1935
The Egyptian Museum
In the morning, after breakfast, they get a taxi to the Egyptian Museum, at Mahmoud’s suggestion. It is a large building with a big dome and there is a lot to see. They explore the different wings and learn a lot about the various dynasties of Ancient Egypt. Even Alex is fascinated. They check the section that covers the 4th Dynasty, when the Black Pharaoh was supposed to have ruled, but there is no mention of him.
They decide to ask one of the curators, who points out that there are plenty of gaps in knowledge of the distance past. They ask about Queen Nitocris, which featured in the news recently. The staff member they ask does not really know and refers them to Dr Ali Kafour, who is their resident expert. They go to see him, who is sat at a desk outside some large, metal doors that are closed.
Dr Ali Kafour
He is an elderly gentleman, dressed well in an Edwardian style suit and wears a fez. His English accent is very good and he tells them that little is known about Queen Nitocris. She was beautiful but apparently very evil and she was buried alive by her subjects during the 6th Dynasty. She apparently revived worship of a former, much darker Pharaoh known only as the Black Pharaoh, who allegedly reigned between the 3rd and 4th dynasties during a gap in knowledge of the past. He is called Black because he was considered to be a dark, evil figure.
They then ask about the Clive Expedition. Dr Kafour does not know a lot about them, apart from what he has read in the newspapers. He does not understand how they managed to find a secret room in the Mycerius Pyramid. He then unlocks the large metal doors and gets some notes on the Black Pharaoh.
He then reads through the notes for them. There was apparently a priest, Nefru-Ka, who was the high priest mentioned in the Necronomicon, who started the cult of the Black Pharaoh 1000 years before Queen Nitrocris. It is rumoured the voice of Nefru-Ka swept across Egypt like a Black Wind. Pharaoh Snefru overthrew Nefru-Ka and established the 4th Dynasty. Apparently, a pyramid built at Meidum by Snefru was supposed to contain Nefru-Ka’s body but it collapsed and they had to build a second one, which became the Bent Pyramid.
He hints there is a supernatural element to the stories of the Black Pharaoh and then gets back to his work.