The Sphinx Swindle is the prequel to The Sphinx Scrolls. Archaeologist Ruby Towers embarks on a televised search for the fabled Hall of Records within the Sphinx at Giza, unaware that her career is being manipulated from the shadows by a seedy television producer who has placed her at the heart of the greatest archaeological swindle of modern times. Meanwhile, her on-screen relationship with the documentary?s presenter, Matt Mountebank, alarms her eccentric friend Lord `Ratty? Ballashiels, who is viewing the nightly broadcasts from his crumbling English manor. Ratty flies to Cairo, plotting to carry out a desperate plan in front of the television cameras. When he arrives, the shocking consequences of the swindle start to unravel. Ruby?s reputation is in tatters, and any hope of finding the real Hall of Records seems lost for a generation. Ratty has one last chance to make things right, but it will cost him everything?
Release date:
February 27, 2017
Publisher:
Accent Press
Print pages:
85
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A square panel within the door moved sideways, accompanied by a groan. The groan emanated not from the ancient oak timbers, however, but from the aristocratic mouth that appeared.
‘Oh,’ said Lord Ballashiels, with a long breath that whistled through neglected teeth.
‘You remember me, Your Lordship?’ added the bailiff.
‘As a certified bailiff, I’m sure you’re aware that it was Marcus Tullius Cicero who said that old people remember what interests them: the names of their creditors. I paraphrase, of course, as you will have spotted, however I’m not yet of pensionable age, nor am I interested in usury, which is why you beefy fellows all look to me rather like wotsits in a thingy.’
‘My name’s Kevin Ludlow. I’ve been instructed by the High Court to recover goods to the value of five hundred and twenty thousand pounds. Open the door, please.’
Lord Ballashiels – better known as Ratty to his friends due to a facial protuberance that seemed to owe more to the genus Rattus rattus than to his own species – looked at the luxuriantly padded bailiff and noted that he wore his polyester suit as if he had been shrink-wrapped into it. The man should fire his tailor, thought the aristocrat, distracting himself momentarily from the ominous line of trucks waiting on the capacious driveway of Stiperstones Manor. His family’s long occupation of this shabby stately home was about to end in ignominy. He had failed his ancestors. Under the Ballashiels stewardship, Stiperstones Manor had resisted Cromwell’s army, avoided wartime requisition and repelled charity collectors. To lose everything now and, worse, to a Kevin, was unthinkable.
‘You hope to sell my chattels against this piffling debt?’ asked Ratty, playing for time while he attempted to think of a plan.
‘Yes,’ sighed Kevin. ‘That’s how debt collection works. Unless you can make a substantial payment today, of course.’
‘Has anyone offered you chaps a cup of tea?’
‘Anyone? We understood that you’re alone here,’ said Kevin. ‘Unless that man over there works for you. He’s not with us.’
Kevin pointed to a pale, middle-aged man in white suit and a Panama hat, standing motionless at the far side of the driveway with a briefcase in his hand.
‘Never seen him before,’ replied Ratty. ‘This house hasn’t seen a servant in decades. I am tout seul ici, if you’ll pardon my French.’
‘Please open up so we can get started, Your Lordship. I’ve got five men with me today. The longer this takes, the more it’s going to cost you.’
Ratty slid the hatch shut and panted up several staircases to a section of flat roof above the turret. When his lungs completed their loud protest at this unexpected burst of exercise he leaned over and shouted, addressing the bailiffs and the man in the Panama.
‘Whilst it pains me to be so inhospitable, forgive me for asking if you all wouldn’t mind awfully just tootling off? Private estate and wotnot!’
‘Come back down, sir!’ Kevin replied.
‘I have a cannon up here!’ Ratty added, a desperate rush of adrenaline flooding his delicate system.
‘A photocopier isn’t worth much these days,’ came the response. ‘We’re more interested in any paintings and antiques you might have.’
Ratty trotted down to the turret room and pulled open a cupboard door. Inside was an array of defensive equipment, unused for generations. Cannon balls, gunpowder and muskets. He selected some items, returned to the roof, loaded an iron ball into the cannon and poured an unmeasured quantity of gunpowder into the chamber. With a premature sense of triumph, he ignited the fuse with a cigarette lighter, stood back and watched as the fuse fizzled out.
Ratty harrumphed and returned to the staircase just as the cannon ball blasted a hole in the crenulations and sent stonework tumbling to the ground, many storeys below.
Some minutes later the hatch in the main door slid open once again.
‘If anyone had been standing under the turret they would have been killed!’ yelled Kevin. ‘Will you now...What is that you’re wearing?’
‘Fifteenth century jousting suit. Bit of a squeeze, really. Decided to skip the iron trousers in the interests of procreation. And please accept my deepest didgeree-doodahs about the cannon incident. Complete accident, of course.’
‘Too late for that. You discharged a firearm, so I’ve called the police. What are you going to do next, pour boiling oil over us?’
‘Can’t afford to waste the extra virgin, frankly.’
‘OK, I’ll ask you one more time to open the door,’ said Kevin. There was no response. ‘Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘I said I’ll ask you one more time to open the door.’
‘I know. I’m still waiting for you to make such a request.’
‘I just did.’
‘It sounded to me as if you were telling me of your intention to make that request in the future.’
‘It makes no difference, Lord Ballashiels. Whether you wear armour or not, whether you open the door or not, as soon as the police get here you’ll be arrested. As Sheriffs of the High Court, we’re not permitted to force entry to a private residence, but now you’ve committed a crime the police will be able to break in and we can simply walk in after them.’
‘Ah,’ said Ratty, removing the helmet. ‘Ingenious. Well, no one will need to break in.’
‘So you’re going to do the right thing and open the door for us?’
‘Goodness, no. I would never dishonour the family name in that way. But Constable Stuart has a key. In case of emergency. He’ll let you chaps in. Now I need to get this armour off me before I rust.’
A policeman arrived on a bicycle. Kevin flashed his ID.
‘Lord Ballashiels is resisting a High Court order to recover goods–’ the bailiff began.
‘Yes, yes, I’m sure that’s how it seems,’ interrupted Constable Stuart, removing his helmet to reveal a thinning mane of silver hair.
‘And he’s recklessly fired a cannon at us, endangering the health and safety of–’
‘Yes, well, you know, I’ve been a police officer for many years.’
‘Eh? He’s still inside. You go ahead and make the arrest, and we’ll follow to do our job.’
‘Ha, ha,’ said Constable Stuart, smiling broadly. ‘You youngsters are always in a hurry!’
‘I’m forty-three,’ said Kevin. ‘And the clock’s ticking. Lord Ballashiels’ debt is increasing by the hour, and that just adds to our workload.’
‘Well I never. I’d swear you weren’t a day over thirty.’
‘Look at that rubble. That’s what fell down near to us when he fired the cannon. If I’d been standing ten yards to the right I could have been killed. Are you going to do him for attempted murder or reckless discharge of a firearm or what?’
The policeman kicked the rubble with his shoe. A dusty cannon ball rolled out from beneath it.
‘I’m sure His Lordship has learned his lesson.’
‘Learned his lesson? He tried to kill me!’
‘So you say,’ said the constable. ‘There’s always two sides to every story. Which is why we co. . .
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