The Illusion of Murder Read Online Free Page A

dirt field with camels, tents, and a bit of dung underfoot.
    Instead, passing through the gate we go back in time, not to the ancient Land of the Pharaohs, but to medieval Baghdad of the Arabian Nights , to Ali Baba who spoke the magical “Open sesame” to steal the treasure of the Forty Thieves, and to the mystifying Arab quarters called casbahs.
    The bazaar is dark and twisted, mysterious, and puzzling, all at the same time; an exotic blend of people, merchandise, and animals that plays out as if it is planned by an artist for his canvas. Rather than a world of organized shops, it is a menagerie of tiny cubbyholes crammed with merchandise pouring out like horns of plenty, some selling spaces so small they are no more than cupboards.
    The passageways, scarcely wide enough for two people walking abreast, are covered with canopies of Nile reeds, turning the walkways dark and shadowy even in daylight. The muted light, and hooded robes and turbans add to the mystique and the fathomless mysteries of this culture that has lived along the Nile for thousands of years.
    People press up against walls to keep from being trampled as donkeys and camels laden with goods force their way through the walkways, yet no one seems to be bothered. The chaos is organized.
    The atmosphere is spellbinding as a contortionist prances along with us, twisting his limbs in impossible positions, while a tumbler makes great leaps in the air, jumping, bouncing, and rolling like a rubber ball. As with the camels, people simply move out of their path.
    I catch the pungent scent of spiced Turkish tobacco from an open-air café where men wearing the ubiquitous hooded robes drink muddy Turkish coffee and mint tea from tiny glass cups and share water pipes called hookahs.
    Copper pots and carpets are for sale, as are clothes ready to buy, cloth ready to be sewn, and cloth still being woven on looms—cotton, lamb’s wool, and goat hair. A man takes a live chicken from its cage and with one quick blow, chops its head off—blood splats on his robe, mixing with the blood of chickens now roasting over hot coals. “Genuine” papyrus paintings of pharaohs in chariots and dancing girls with their bosoms bare can be purchased for the cost of a pack of gum back home. There are flutes, drums, bells, cymbals, jewelry, and spices.…
    Goods are everywhere; there are no bare spaces, not even the passageways themselves, some so narrow we are almost shoulder to shoulder with merchandise.
    The exotic Eastern marketplace is everything I imagined and nothing I expected. I’m sure if I looked close enough, I would find frankincense and myrrh, and perhaps behind the public facades of shacks lining alleys, I could buy treasures looted from the tombs of pharaohs.
    “I find the stench of a marketplace insufferable but his lordship enjoys contact with the natives,” says Lady Warton, fanning herself with a very pretty pink silk fan that has the design of small flowers on it. “He served in Morocco for a year with the Foreign Office, advising the local officials about growing grains.”
    “He’s a farmer?”
    “Of course not! He has farmlands on his estate. Naturally the farming is overseen by his manager, not by his lordship.”
    “Of course,” I murmur, keeping myself from wondering aloud why the Foreign Office didn’t send the farm manager to Morocco instead.
    Ragged beggars with bodies so dirty that their skin is hardly discernible from their fouled rags come up to us with outstretched hands and heartrending pleas. “Baksheesh, baksheesh…”
    Lady Warton glares at them and swings her umbrella to shoo them away. “Go away, go away.”
    I give them coins, remembering my mother’s admonition whenever she saw a person with a deformity: “But for the grace of God go any of us.”
    “Feeding lice only causes them to multiply,” she says.
    “Sorry.”
    Finding myself ill at ease with her insufferable attitude of superiority, I button my lips as any well-mannered