A Treacherous Curse

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  They exchanged sheepish glances and backed down, resuming their chairs and taking up their whisky glasses once more.

  I looked from one to the other. “No brawling, then? How very disappointing. Where were we?”

  “The de Morgan disappearance,” Mornaday said promptly. “For whatever reason, de Morgan chose to return to England with his wife. They had a bad Channel crossing, and he fell ill again with the same complaint that had troubled him in Egypt. Mrs. de Morgan took her husband to lodgings in Dover, a small private hotel where the expedition had stayed on their way out to Egypt. Once there, they registered and took separate rooms. De Morgan did not wish to be disturbed and his wife slept heavily. The next morning, she awoke to find no trace of her husband or the room which he had been assigned or any of his effects. We have tracked his departure on the steamer out of Alexandria with his wife, but after that all signs of him are lost.”

  “You mean he might never have crossed the Channel at all,” I said.

  Mornaday nodded. “The trail simply vanishes. We know Mrs. de Morgan claims he crossed the Channel with her, but there is no proof. He might have boarded a ship out of Marseilles or Cherbourg for anywhere in the world, taking the Tiverton diadem with him.

  “The Dover police inspector made such a blunder of questioning her that she went into hysterics and refused to answer any more questions beyond saying that she had told the truth: her husband had come with her as far as Dover and then vanished in the night. We have pursued every possible avenue of investigation, but we have nothing. Without further evidence, we are left to conjecture, and Special Branch have more important things to worry about than one stolen bit of jewelry and a cast-off wife,” he added a trifle pompously.

  “Why would Mrs. de Morgan make up such a fantastical story?” Stoker asked. He drained his whisky as he waited for the reply. His knuckles were white upon the glass, and I knew that for all his outward calm, he was still tamping down the embers of his temper.

  “Sir Hugo thinks she is colluding with her husband, that the stories of their quarrels were exaggerated and that she means to slip quietly away and join him when the furor has died down.”

  He paused, an unholy gleam lighting his brown eyes. “For my part, I believe de Morgan has absconded on his own. I think he left her in France and that Mrs. de Morgan has spun this fanciful tale in order to avoid another scandal with herself in the role of abandoned wife.” He spoke the last words as if tasting them, and his expression was one of cold satisfaction as he casually laid his hand on the newspaper on his desk—the latest edition of The Daily Harbinger.

  Stoker’s mouth curved into a mirthless smile. “You rotten little bas—”

  I leapt up before he could finish the sentence, gripping his coattails in both fists. “Stoker, that is quite enough. Sit down,” I ordered. I put up a hand, gesturing for Mornaday, who had risen to his feet in a defensive posture, to resume his chair as well.

  “So you are acquainted with Mrs. de Morgan’s marital history,” I said, keeping a weather eye upon Stoker.

  “I am,” Mornaday said with relish. “And quite a history it is.”

  I gave him a cold look. “Mornaday, bearbaiting has been illegal for more than fifty years and it requires a special stick,” I told him. “Behave yourself.”

  He had the grace to look abashed. “All right, then. Yes, we know that Caroline de Morgan once featured at the heart of a Society scandal when she sued her first husband, the Honourable Revelstoke Templeton-Vane, for divorce on the grounds of cruelty and desertion. With the tempestuous nature of her second marriage, it is possible that Mrs. de Morgan has once again been abandoned and that she finds this difficult to accept.”

  “You really think she is lying in order to hide the fact that she has been cast off by her husband?” I finished.

  “It is as likely an explanation as her partnering with him in order to steal the diadem. It depends entirely on the character of Mrs. de Morgan,” he said, turning a thoughtful eye to Stoker.

  “John de Morgan left Egypt in the company of his wife and has not been seen since. Perhaps she killed him,” Mornaday said flatly. I sucked in a sharp breath and he went on in a conversational tone. “After all, it wouldn’t be the first time she left a man for dead.”

  The glass made no sound as it flew past Mornaday’s head, but it shattered on the wall with the reverberating report of a gunshot.

  Mornaday leapt to his feet as the door was flung open.

  “Mornaday! What the devil is the matter with you, man? This is no place for brawls, and is that spirits I smell?” The man in the doorway was average in every possible way. Average height, average build, average coloring. Only his eyes, piercing and cold, were remarkable.

  Mornaday swallowed tightly. “Inspector Archibond. I did not realize you were in the building.”

  Inspector Archibond’s gaze swept from the whisky-dampened wall to the puddle on the floor. “I should think not. Clear up this mess and then get down to the mortuary. I’ve just had a note from Sir Hugo and he shall be away until the end of the week at least. I am to keep an eye upon his open cases until his return.”

  His posture was ramrod straight, but he managed to raise himself a little more stiffly. “Do you have official police business? Might I be of assistance?” he inquired in a voice that was anything but solicitous.

  “They were leaving,” Mornaday said swiftly.

  Stoker and I rose and slipped away just as Inspector Archibond began to lecture Mornaday upon the evils of drink. Once upon the pavement, Stoker paused, his eyes skimming over the assortment of folk bent upon their daily activities. After a moment he narrowed his gaze to a woman in rusty black standing upon a soapbox and hectoring a few woebegone-looking fellows.

  Stoker scribbled something into his pocket notebook, tore out the page, and handed it to the woman with a pound note. She bobbed a thank-you, bonnet plume waving, and Stoker and I turned away.

  “What was that?”

  “A subscription for Mornaday from the Temperance League of Greater London. I told her he was a disordered soul in need of saving from the degradation of drink.”

  He grinned, a shadow of his usual cheerful self, and we walked along in silence for some minutes, until Stoker stopped, not turning to look at me.

  “You haven’t asked about her. Not really.”

  “I shall not,” I promised him. “When you want to tell me, you will.”

  Still he did not look at me, but he reached out and brushed a fingertip over my hand. It was a tiny thing, that gesture, but the whole world was contained within it—gratitude, partnership, understanding. I had taken lovers around the world, more than a score of them at last count, but Stoker was the nearest thing I had ever known to an actual partner. And I knew better than to ask him for what he could not give.

  “We never told him about being followed last night,” I began.

  Stoker shrugged. “We are just as likely to solve the matter as he is. If we were followed once, we will most likely be again. We must be watchful for her and lay a better trap.”

  “Perhaps. At least we know they have exhausted all possibilities. They have given up on finding de Morgan. So long as we are prepared to stick it out, we can hardly do worse than the professionals.”

  “Where next?” Stoker asked as we came to a crossroads.

  I considered our options. “I think it is time to meet a millionaire,” I told him with a broad smile. “We are calling upon Horus Stihl.”

  CHAPTER

  8

  As befitted an American millionaire with a penchant for theatricality, Horus Stihl had booked himself and his son into the Allerdale Hotel, the most expensive lodging in London. Designed to mimic the queen’s retreat at Balmoral Castle, the hotel was a neo-Gothic Scottish monstrosity complete with tartan carpets and waiters imported from the Highlands. But the food was incomparable and th
e modern amenities second to none.

  We presented our cards to a passing porter and settled into the plaid lobby to await Mr. Stihl’s pleasure, but to my delighted surprise we were summoned immediately. The porter escorted us into the hydraulic lift and we were whisked up to the Empress suite on the seventh floor.

  “Mr. Stihl is most particularrrrrr,” the porter observed. I narrowed my eyes at him and he grinned.

  “The accent was too much, wasn’t it?” he asked.

  “A trifle,” I said thinly. “I presume you are not really Scottish?”

  “Cockney, born and bred,” he said with a nod. “But I needed the work and they’ll only hire haggis-eaters.”

  Stoker snorted, and I pressed a coin into the fellow’s hand. “Just mind your r’s and you will do quite nicely,” I advised.

  He bowed us into the suite, and I was pleased to see that here the decorators had used a modicum of restraint. The carpet was one of the more subdued tartans, and the upholstered furniture was elegantly finished in bottle green velvet. Prints of Highland scenes had been scattered about, and china bowls of heather added touches of soft purple. Above the mantel hung a picture of an indifferent deerhound looking down his nose. A fire was crackling merrily upon the hearth, and two armchairs of brown leather had been drawn near to its warmth. The whisky decanter and soda siphon were near at hand, as were the day’s newspapers. The two men who occupied the chairs rose at once.

  “Miss Speedwell, Mr. Templeton-Vane? Horace Stihl,” said the taller of the two coming towards us, hand outstretched. I took it and he shook mine warmly, holding it in the firm friendly grasp I had so often noted amongst Americans. He was of medium height, but slim, and his wiry build coupled with a shock of white hair standing on end made him seem much taller. His brows and moustaches were snowy and luxuriant, his blue eyes bright with interest. He bore a strong resemblance to the Yankee author known as Mark Twain, and he seemed the sort of man who would always find a way to enjoy himself.

  His companion was decidedly more subdued. Of a similar height to Mr. Stihl, the other man was easily half his age, with a markedly sturdier build. His demeanor was watchful and quiet, and he held a book in his hand. A Study of Drains and Effluent Matter in the Capital Cities of Europe.

  “Henry Stihl,” he said, coming forwards with obvious reluctance. He might have been the great man’s son, but he bore little resemblance to him, and I wondered what kind of woman Mrs. Stihl had been. He wore clothes of obviously expensive make that had probably been well tailored, but they were so heavily creased and crumpled it was impossible to tell. His hair resembled the plumage of a disheveled porcupine, and there were ink stains upon his fingers.

  “You are interested in drains, Mr. Stihl?” I asked brightly with a glance at his book.

  His expression was grave. “It is a subject which ought to interest us all, I think. It is only by the application of proper engineering and sanitation methods that we can hope to halt the spread of some of the most virulent diseases that currently plague us. Your own city of London provides the most instructive study. Did you know there are entire underground rivers flowing beneath our feet at this very moment?”

  I blinked at him in surprise. It is seldom that a gentleman raises the subject of sewage so early in a conversation, I reflected. His father seemed not at all shocked. He merely gave a long-suffering sigh.

  “Henry,” he said with firm authority. “No drains. Not now.”

  The young man flushed to the roots of his hair.

  “Perhaps we can resume the topic at a different time,” I suggested.

  He gave an indifferent shrug, and I wondered if it was the fate of the Tiverton and Stihl children to be overshadowed by their charismatic fathers.

  The introductions complete, Horus Stihl waved us to chairs and began the conversation with a directness that was typically American. “What can I do for you?” he asked, his expression genial but wary. No doubt the great man spent the bulk of his time fending off fortune hunters, rapscallions, and wastrels who would always linger about those with money, hoping to pick up whatever crumbs they might.

  I gave him a disarming smile. “It is more a question of what we can do for you,” I said.

  Henry Stihl narrowed his eyes. “We are not in need of any professional service at this time,” he said shortly.

  His father cut him off with an abrupt gesture. “No call to be rude, boy. We must observe the form,” he said with unnecessary firmness. Henry Stihl flushed again, this time retreating to his book to hide his blushes.

  Horus Stihl made apologetic noises. “You must excuse the pup. Henry is determined to see villains behind every strange face. Now, what can you do for me?”

  “We have come about the disappearance of John de Morgan,” I told him. From the tail of my eye, I could see Henry Stihl’s book slip. He caught it before it fell, his knuckles tightening to whiteness. He made a show of propping the book up, but during the ensuing conversation, he turned not a single page.

  “Sad business,” Horus Stihl was saying. “But nothing to do with us. We never even met the fellow.”

  “You had a different concession this year,” I ventured. “And I understand it was de Morgan’s first year digging with the Tivertons.”

  “That’s right.” Horus Stihl nodded, his extraordinary halo of white hair glowing like a nimbus about his head.

  “Where did you dig?” Stoker asked.

  “Amarna” came the prompt reply. “I thought I would have a go at finding ol’ Akhenaten. Are you familiar with him?”

  “Originally called Amenhotep IV. Eighteenth Dynasty, successor to Amenhotep III,” I answered swiftly. Stoker stared at me in frank surprise. The fact that Lord Rosemorran’s collection was bound to house some of the finest Egyptological works was something he should have deduced himself. I had read late into the night, giving myself as thorough a grounding in the subject as I could.

  Horus Stihl gave me a look of approval and I went on. “Akhenaten founded the city of Amarna, moving the capital from Thebes and wresting power from the priests of Amun by establishing the worship of the one god, the Aten.

  “The Aten was associated with the sun, was it not?” I asked.

  “The sun disc,” Horus Stihl said, his voice taking on a dreamy quality. “Amenhotep IV believed that the sun disc, the Aten, was the source of life. He changed his name to Akhenaten because it means the ‘living spirit of Aten,’ the conduit for all life in Egypt. He created a revolution, overthrowing all that had been known of culture and religion for thousands of years. He built a new capital city and commissioned art depicting himself and his family as the recipients of the favor of the Aten. Nothing like it has ever existed before or since. Imagine that,” he instructed, sitting very straight, his eyes burning with fervid heat, “a single man uprooting everything his society had known with his own two hands and refashioning the world in the image of himself.”

  His son snorted, but when I looked, his eyes were fixed firmly on the page before him. But Horus Stihl had heard it as well.

  “My son doesn’t approve of Akhenaten. He views him as an iconoclast and a rebel, but I believe he was a forward thinker, a man ahead of his time.”

  “He changed the art and moved the capital, but he did nothing to materially alter the lives of his subjects,” Stoker objected.

  From behind the book came a growl of approval.

  Horus Stihl smiled thinly. “He didn’t have the chance. First he needed to change the court and the temples. The rest would have followed in time.”

  From the slender book I had unearthed on the Amarna period, I knew Akhenaten’s reign had spanned at least a decade—plenty of time to have allowed him to improve the life of the average Egyptian who toiled from sunup to sundown.

  But it would not do to contradict Horus Stihl, I reflected. I shifted in my seat, bringing the point of my parasol down q
uietly but firmly on Stoker’s booted foot, pinning it in place.

  “How very fascinating,” I murmured, batting my lashes a little. Stihl looked from Stoker to me and stroked his lavish white moustaches.

  “And of course,” the millionaire continued, “he was most fortunate in his consort, the Great Royal Wife.”

  “Nef—what was it again?” I asked, opening my eyes very wide and deliberately stumbling over the name.

  “Nefertiti,” Stihl supplied promptly. “She was called the Lady of Grace and Sweet of Love, you know, among a host of other titles. She was the most honored consort in Egyptian history, and the most beautiful. It is a wonderful love story.”

  “Of all the sentimental rubbish,” the younger Stihl burst out, tossing his book aside. “Nefertiti was a partner, not some bit of decoration. In the temple at Karnak, she is clearly shown smiting her enemies with all the powers of a pharaoh—”

  “Now, hold on, son,” instructed the elder, holding up a hand. “I will grant you that she was his helpmeet, but presuming that she wielded the powers of a pharaoh is just nonsense, errant nonsense.”

  Henry Stihl clutched at his hair with both hands. “Do you see what I have to endure?” he demanded of no one in particular. I looked to his father and saw Horus Stihl watching his son with a gleam in his eye. Their clashes were clearly a thing of long standing and an obvious source of amusement—at least to the father.

  I hastened to pour oil on the troubled waters, as much to calm the son as to draw the father back to the point of our visit. “Naturally, Amarna would offer the greatest scope for your interest in Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Was it a successful season?”