The Case of the Singing Sword (The Billibub Baddings Mysteries)

by Tee Morris

  I shoved him away, still keeping my eyes fixed on him. “Then when you met me and figured out I was your key to solving the mystery, you let me get away with thievery in broad daylight. Today was going to be the day I got you out of the Ryerson and back on your academic track, wasn’t it?”

  “Mr. Baddings, please!”

  “What?”

  “If you would shut up and give me a chance to correct you on a point!”

  Now, that’s what I wanted to hear! If anyone else had told me to shut up, I might have been offended, but I’d been pushing this bookworm hard. It was about time he busted open. Now he was going to set me straight…which is exactly what I wanted him to do.

  “Mr. Baddings,” Hammil began shakily, “when I tried to win over my patrons, I did not count on any of them using my business transactions against me.”

  “Someone putting the thumbscrews on you, then?”

  “An interesting way to put it, Mr. Baddings, but yes. I now have a very exclusive relationship with this…particular patron, involving rare antiquities.”

  “Including the Singing Sword.”

  “You were right in that respect, Mr. Baddings. Just when I was starting to lose faith in this patron’s supposed sway over my peers, the communiqué from Egypt came across my desk concerning the Singing Sword. I was trying very hard to keep this find outside of the administrative circles here. Provided I was the only one who knew about it, my patrons would not ask. However, a find of this magnitude is hard to keep secret. The phone calls started the day it arrived, and I did my best to put them off. A few days after I catalogued the Singing Sword in the presence of essential museum staff only, it went missing. The Board of Directors immediately convened, and I convinced them to keep the news a secret. The team in Cairo would remain there, and I knew exactly who at the Ryerson knew about the Singing Sword. I assured these people that if word leaked out to the press about the Singing Sword’s disappearance, their curriculum vitae had better be in order!”

  “Careful, Doc,” I smirked. “You’re starting to sound like a Capone of Academia.”

  From the glare I just received, I don’t think Hammil liked the comparison between himself and Capone, but he had a nice little operation going, and his people followed his orders without question, so the analogy was apt enough.

  “We’re keeping the Sword’s disappearance a secret because we can’t afford the bad publicity before our Summer Gala.”

  Featuring that “Chicago’s Who’s Who” list I saw on my first visit, no doubt.

  “And this patron who has the ‘exclusive relationship’ with you?” I asked. “How did he feel about not getting his mitts on the Singing Sword?”

  “Not happy in the least,” Hammil sighed.

  “But the good news, if I’m following you right, is that your exclusive patron couldn’t do a thing about it because ratting you out would mean losing his dealer of fine acquisitions.”

  That is something you can count on with nobility of any kind. They do love their baubles and bangles; the harder-to-come-by the possession, the bigger the bragging rights they hold over their buddies. Dr. Hammil lacked street sense, but he was smart enough to make himself important enough not to lose.

  “So does this exclusive patron have a name?”

  “Absolutely not,” he said, pulling himself up to his feet. “Absolutely not, Mr. Baddings. Revealing this patron’s identity would only make this mess worse, and I simply cannot afford that.”

  “No, Doc, you can’t…just like I can’t afford to tell you anything else about the Singing Sword.” I shrugged. “I tell you what: You hang on to that picture and your notes and keep on doing what you do best—and I don’t mean fencing archeological finds to Chicago royalty.” With that, I made for the door. “If I need to chit-chat with you about this case, I’ll give you a call. And don’t you worry about me flapping my gums to anyone. As I like to say, there’s a reason why I’m a private investigator.”

  I had just touched the doorknob when I felt a sharp pain against the back of my head that sent me forward into the door, knocking my fedora into my face. Turning around, I saw the leather-bound book right before its spine clocked me in the noggin. The last time I saw that many stars, my regiment’s encampment was deep in the Messina Plains, the night sky was so bright that I could read my journal at any hour I wished. As I landed among a few tall stacks of books, all of which toppled on me, I had to admit it was a good hit. Hammil would have been good with a battle-axe or an ace hitter for the Pirates with a swing like that. I was fading fast, but not before I heard him one last time.

  “As I said before, Mr. Baddings, I cannot afford for this mess to get any worse.”

  *****

  That stinks!

  A strange thought to wake up to, but those two simple words screamed out what I couldn’t in that moment. The smell was coming from formaldehyde, or some other kind of preservative used for specimens and acquisitions. By now I’d remembered that I was in the Ryerson, but I knew that I was not in Hammil’s office.

  I tried to blink, but that sent a sharp, piercing pain into my head—a souvenir from the temple strike, no doubt. I went to check and see if I was bleeding, but my hands were tied at the wrists. Apparently, the Doc knew his knots, and my bonds weren’t going anywhere.

  At this point, my eyes finally focused and I realized exactly where I was …or, rather more to the point, exactly what I was in.

  I was tied up inside what looked like an Egyptian sarcophagus. Towering over my coffin was a nearby shelf unit containing other ancient coffins from the desert regions of this world. The stacks of caskets looked uncannily similar to the final resting places of Dwarven miners and builders in Acryonis, where holes were chiseled out of the stone walls in whatever location these loyal subjects of Gryfennos happened to drop. There they lie forever, a tribute to what they died to create.

  Egyptian royalty, stacked in a warehouse like common folk. Wouldn’t that bring those Tutankhamens and Nefertitis back to life in an uproar?

  As I gave the ropes another tug, I heard movement close by. Didn’t have to take too many guesses as to who it was.

  “Hey, Doc, you’re pretty good at tying someone up! Should I ask what you’re up to in your private life?”

  “You will forgive me, Mr. Baddings, if I ignore you for the moment,” his voice filtered back in reply. “As soon as I am finished here, I’ll be giving you my undivided attention.”

  Back home, bookworms were usually the last to join up with my cross-country missions. When they did join up, they tended to stay in the back during skirmishes because they didn’t like to besmirch their lily-white hands with blood. (Made it a lot harder for turning the pages of their spell books.) But this Dr. Hammil had not only sucker-punched me with the tools of his trade, but also stripped me of my jacket and shirt, leaving me with only a tank top to cover my hairy torso. (I really wasn’t sure why I was down to my undershirt, but considering my earlier question and the tightness of the ropes, maybe I didn’t want to know.)

  I slowly worked myself up to a sitting position, grimacing at the pounding in my head. Damn, the Doc had really dealt me a hammer’s blow!

  Now that I was upright, I could see that Hammil had his back to me, working at a table across from my private casket. He was fiddling with a syringe, mixing various vials of clear and not-so-clear potions. From where I was sitting, it looked pretty full.

  “So, you’re a bartender, too? What’s that cocktail you’re mixing there?”

  “Something I’ve been reading about.” Holding the syringe up to the light, Hammil laughed, the sound emerging as a series of high-pitched squeaks. With a slight nudge to the rubber bulb, he sent a few drops of his potion running along the length of the needle and out through the tip. “I’m not sure if you would appreciate its scientific name, so I will give you its simplified name: truth serum. This will allow you to relax and talk a bit.”

  “You are just huesia-bent-for-leather in finding out about the S
inging Sword, aintcha?”

  He didn’t answer. I gave another tug against my ties. The rope wasn’t that heavy—all I needed was a rough surface. An edge.

  “So, Doc, how much do you know about Dwarven biology?” It never really held my attention at the public library, but I understood enough to know that it’s mighty different from the human variety.

  “Tonight, instead of adhering to scientific facts, we are—you might say—playing it by ear, Mr. Baddings,” he said, giving the syringe a few taps. “There, that should do it.”

  My throat felt like it was filling with sand and grit. In the next few moments, I was going to become a living witch-doll. I knew that certain things in this realm didn’t affect me the same way they affected humans, but there was the additional problem of the opposite being true. When I got a nasty paper cut in the office one day, Miranda insisted I dab some iodine on it to make sure I didn’t get a nasty infection. Instead, I was laid up in bed with a fever for a week because of a bad reaction to that stuff. So I tend to stay away from seafood and such, but because I’m a constant enigma with the medical types in this realm, I still don’t know what will and won’t set me off.

  Fortunately, Mick’s chili was a-okay for my system.

  That was my last passing thought before taking Hammil’s needle in the arm. If I struggled, I would only make this bad situation worse; a broken needle in a vein wouldn’t do much for me at the moment.

  “We’ll start with a mild dosage. See where that gets us.”

  “Great,” I winced as he pulled the needle free.

  Either truth serum works fast, or a Dwarven bloodstream takes to it like a nosferatu to the darkness. I suddenly tasted salt in my mouth…a lot of salt, like over-seasoned pork at the dinner table. My mouth watered, but my throat remained dry and rough. I don’t know how much of that stuff the doctor pumped into me, but for a minute there, I thought I had just downed an entire keg’s worth of malt beer on my own.

  “Haaaaaammmmilllllllll…”

  Okay, mouth and brain not playing well with each other. Come on, Billibub, keep it together.

  “I think…yooooooouuu ussss’t plenty.”

  “We will see, Mr. Baddings.”

  With that, Dr. Hammil (or at least the blurry form that could pass for Dr. Hammil) took a seat next to the sarcophagus and pulled out something that bore a marked resemblance to the journal I saw on his desk earlier.

  “Now, listen to me carefully, Mr. Baddings…”

  “Billi. C’mon, Doc,” I giggled. (I was giggling? Now that was just wrong.) “We’re pals now.”

  “Very well, then…Billi…tell me about the Singing Sword. You know, the photograph you borrowed from me?”

  “Photograph…photograph…?” I knew what he was asking, but I didn’t really want to tell him the truth so much as I wanted to take a nap. I was having a tough time holding my head up.

  All of a sudden, the image of the Singing Sword popped into my head, clear as a Spring day. My head jerked up and I shouted it out. “The Sssssssssword of Arrrrrrrrrrrrranah-ha-ha-haaassss, you mean?”

  Was my voice just echoing in my head, or were the acoustics in the room that good?

  Then I heard what I thought was steam escaping from a radiator, but it was just Hammil shushing me. Were we not alone in the museum, then?

  “Is that its name, Billi? The Sword of Arran—Arran—?”

  “Ass!” I snapped. “Arrrrrrr—hhhhhhannnnnnn—ASS!” I sniggered like a pimply-faced schoolboy. “I said a naughty one, didn’ I? Don’ tell Mama Baddings, ’kay? She’ll tan my bott’m!”

  “No need to fret, Billi,” he said. I think he was getting slightly annoyed with me, but I warned him about the dosage! As it turned out, he’d given me all I needed and then some. “Now then…”

  “MY TURN!”

  We both stared at one another for a second, neither one of us expecting that to come out of me.

  “What?” Dr. Hammil finally managed.

  “S’my turn.” Now I was annoyed. “Is my turn t’assa queshen. No fair if you ass’all th’ queshens.”

  I could feel a fog slowly consuming my brain—no doubt the same fog that was messing with my vision. If I didn’t try to fight through this ogre piss in my bloodstream, I knew I was going to be in trouble. I could hear in the Doc’s tone he was losing patience. Fast. Still, I wasn’t loopy enough to forget I had something he wanted.

  “Very well, Mr. Baddings,” he conceded with a frown, “I will play your little game. Ask me a question.”

  “Whhhhhhhhhy…okay, whhhhyyyy…” Damn, this crap really made talking hard! “Why am I in a carsophagas?”

  “You mean a sarcophagus?”

  “Yeah…that, too.”

  His civil smile sobered me up a little, but not as much as his next words did.

  “It’s my own little tribute to you, Mr. Baddings. I’ve got a cable here, written by the Egyptian Ambassador, demanding the return of this most hallowed artifact. It’s false, of course, but I’m intending to seal you inside this casket and ship you off to Egypt so that you will be put on display in the Museum of Cairo. If you survive the journey to Egypt, perhaps they will open the sarcophagus up and rescue you before you starve to death, but I happen to know that the curator there is so backlogged in his work that he will be most fortunate to catalog you by May…”

  What, it was March now? That didn’t sound so bad.

  “…1935.”

  All right, six years without food: Bad. Six years without a beer: Worse.

  “WOW! Tha’s a loooooong time!” I shook my head. “I’m not gonna feel so good when they fin’ me.”

  “Indeed, Mr. Baddings, which is why I’m going to empty this syringe into your veins once we’re done. If you’re fortunate, you will slip into a coma before tomorrow morning.”

  “Heeeyyyyy, than’s, Doc. I ’preeshiate y’lookin’ out fer me!”

  “Now, the Sword of Arannahs?”

  “Oh, that!” I motioned with my head for him to come closer. “S’a weapon of ainshent power…a power that c’n ooooooonly bee desssscribed like…” My head drooped a bit. By the Fates, I was really feeling worn out. “Like…”

  Hammil leaned in closer, his whisper matching mine. “Like what, Mr. Baddings?”

  “Like thissssss…”

  I brought my head up into his jaw with everything I had. I knew that I’d pay for it tomorrow, provided I would even see tomorrow. The pain helped me focus enough to see Hammil stumble back on the table where the syringe sat.

  With a groan, I pulled myself up to my feet and jumped out of the sarcophagus. When I landed, I realized that I was still lacking a bit in the coordination department. I didn’t know how hard I had stunned the Doc, but I didn’t have time to think much about it. I slowly pulled myself up to my feet and made a break for the darkness.

  Whatever this place was, it was cold, dark, and completely foreign to me. I took refuge next to shelves of what looked like Roman pottery. Using my chin, I nudged a particularly large urn over the edge, shattering it against the floor. The crash provided the Doc with my exact location in this warehouse, sure, but it also provided me with a shard sharp enough to start cutting the ties around my wrists. Still cutting, I continued into the shadows with the telltale footsteps of Dr. Hammil right behind.

  “That was a find of incredible worth you just destroyed, Mr. Baddings,” he called out in my direction.

  “You can bill me!” I barked back, feeling the rope start to slacken.

  Despite the blood-rush of my escape, I still felt a bit tipsy. What few wits I kept about me led me back to the sarcophagus. I hoped the doctor—being inexperienced at handling hostages and prisoners—would have left the rest of my things there, including Beatrice.

  On my way there, I caught a glimpse in between the shelf units of a figure with what appeared to be a weapon in his hand. The Doc wasn’t serious, was he? Did he really think he could handle my girl?

  I was still tugging at my ties, stil
l moving the sharp clay shard back and forth, when suddenly the ropes broke free with a dull pop, sending my wrists flying in opposite directions. One wrist went through a glass windowpane of what looked like stained glass. Stained glass, the way I knew it back in the mother country. Nice to know the craft made it to this side of the portal. Broke my heart that I just destroyed it.

  I heard the window above me crack and finally shatter from the gunfire. The pitch of the gun was too high for Beatrice. Reaming low to the ground, I felt the holster still strapped around my calf. Empty.

  “Do you know how rare it is to find such samples of Tudor glasswork?” Dr. Hammil screamed from some distant part of the warehouse.

  “Tell you what, Doc!” I shouted back. “How about you stop shooting, and I’ll stop breaking your priceless artifacts?”

  I continued crawling toward the sarcophagus by homing in on a pair of desk lamps, the only light illuminating this dingy space. Hammil was moving a lot faster now because his long legs covered more distance than my smaller hands and knees.

  Reaching my coat, I felt for the shoulder holster draped over the same chair with the jacket shirt, and tie. There she was. My girl, Beatrice. Guess the not-so-good doctor felt a little intimidated by her size.

  I had just slipped Beatrice free from her scabbard when Dr. Hammil emerged from the shadows, my.38 in his hand with two rounds left. I slowly started to back away from the table, but the click-click-click of the pistol’s hammer pulling back stopped me in mid-step.

  “That is far enough, Mr. Baddings.”

  I didn’t know what to keep an eye on—Hammil himself, or the trembling pistol in his grasp. If it shook any harder, I thought it was going to go off on its own accord.

  “Place the gun at your feet.”

  I lowered myself slowly, the fog of the truth serum beginning to settle in again as I did so. Placing a hand against a nearby shelf unit to steady myself, I noticed that the structure swayed ever so slightly, despite the weight of the massive coffins stacked there.