“The sarcophagus, yes,” she answered, careful to offer her correction as an alternative rather than as an outright dismissal of her colorfully termed “death box.” “Could you tell me where you acquired the piece?”
His eyes narrowed as he tried to determine whether her interest was sincere, and wondered whether he ought not to charge extra for the information he gave her. After a moment, he must have made up his mind, however, for he gave an almost imperceptible nod and moved toward the window to remove the cat carving.
“I’m afraid I’m not sure where this item came from, Your Grace,” he said, the fatuous smile not losing any of its falseness. “We have gotten in quite a bit of new inventory of late, so it is difficult to know.”
Ah, Cecily thought. So he wants to play that game, does he?
“Surely you are more careful about the provenance of your wares, sir. I cannot believe for one moment that you do not know where each and every item in this shop hails from.”
At his sharp intake of breath, she gave him a frown. “Just because I am a lady,” she warned him, “does not mean that I am mentally deficient.”
She gave a slight smile at Juliet’s and Madeline’s nearly inaudible cheers.
“Now,” Cecily snapped. “Let’s begin again. Where did you acquire this piece?”
Clearly overset at being caught out in a lie by a duchess—a duchess who might consider spending quite a large sum of money in his shop—Hogg smiled again, this time in an obviously placating manner.
“Oh,” he said, as if he’d only just now remembered her question. “I believe that piece was obtained from the collection of a gentleman who has just recently returned from a trip to Africa.”
“Indeed.” Cecily tried and failed to keep her impatience from showing. “And why did he sell it?”
“I believe he was … that is to say … he…”
“Had pockets to let?” she supplied.
“Yes.”
Finally, she thought. Aloud she continued, “And do you know whether the piece is genuine?”
“It would appear so to me, Your Grace,” he said, shifting from one foot to the other like a naughty schoolboy.
“Might I see your loupe?” she asked, nodding at the tiny magnifying tool he wore on a string around his neck.
“But of course, Your Grace,” he said, his forehead breaking out with beads of sweat. He handed the little glass to her and she held it up to her eye, adjusting it so that she might see the sarcophagus properly. Carefully, she looked at the casket, searching the slightly bumpy wooden surface for some sign that it might be opened using a secret latch of sorts. But if there was such a latch, it was invisible.
“I’ll take it,” she told the proprietor, handing back his eyepiece.
“But madam.” He hesitated. “Do you not wish to know the price? To consult your husband?”
“Uh-oh,” Juliet said under her breath.
“He’s in for it now,” Maddie whispered back.
And sure enough, Cecily stared at the man as if horns had begun growing from his forehead. “My husband?” she asked with a deceptive purr. “What would my husband have to say about matters?”
Perhaps realizing that he trod on thin ice, the man tried to retract his statement. “N … nothing, Your Grace.” He gave a high-pitched girlish laugh. “Nothing at all. It was silly of me to think of it.”
“Indeed it was.” Cecily nodded agreeably. “Now, hadn’t you best take my blue cat back there and wrap it up? I should like to take it with me.”
Twenty
Lucas was in the study when Cecily returned to Berkeley Square with her cat sarcophagus.
To her surprise, she found him examining a specimen that seemed remarkably similar to her own.
“Where did you find that?” she demanded, handing her hat and gloves to Watkins, who stood hovering behind her. She ignored the man’s look of reproach as she took the mummified cat back from him. He was put out with her because she’d refused to allow either himself or a footman to carry it into the house for her.
“Good afternoon to you too, my dear,” her husband said, stepping aside to allow her to place her sarcophagus next to his own, and leaning in to give her a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Do not ‘good afternoon’ me, Winterson,” she huffed. “I supposed that this was the only Egyptian blue cat in London and now I’ve come home to find you with one exactly like it. This is not the time for pleasantries.”
“Well, I should think it would be perfectly obvious to you that I found this mummy in the same place where yours came from.”
“From Mr. Hogg’s shop in Bond Street?”
“No, my dear bluestocking,” he said with a laugh, stepping back from the desk to look at the two pieces lying side by side. “From your friend Lawrence’s warehouse of things he brought back for the museum.”
The news nonplussed her. “Oh, Lucas,” she said, looking up at him. “Do not tell me that you went back there alone.”
“No,” he assured her, “I did not. This was among the things that Bow Street brought to me that they suspected belonged to William that were found with his body. What with the burial and seeing to Mama and Clarissa, and that madman trying to shoot you, its presence here escaped my notice until this morning, when I decided to box up the rest of William’s things to send to Clarissa.”
She searched his face but all she saw was grief.
As if sensing her worry, he smiled sadly at her. “Do not worry, wife,” he said. “I have decided that his death is too large a burden to carry with me for the rest of my days. I know that Will would not have wished that for me. And even if I will always feel a sense of sorrow for what might have been, I have decided that the best way to honor my brother will be to live my own life to the fullest. After, of course, I learn who is responsible for his death and see that he is punished to the fullest extent of the law.”
Cecily smiled. “That is good to hear.”
“Now,” he said, changing the subject, “tell me where you came upon your mummified cat. I know that these are not all that uncommon, but it seems strange to note that these two are so remarkably similar.”
He turned his own mummy onto its right side, then did the same thing with hers. He pointed to a particular mark on the underside of the wooden casket’s carved cat head. It was a small mark of about an inch in length and appeared to be a flaw in the wood. Only that very same flaw was there on both of the carvings.
Cecily leaned forward to get a closer look at the indention. The marks were remarkably similar. And of course, the thing that set the pieces apart from the genuine pieces she’d examined from the most recent batch of items brought back from her father’s last trip was the one thing she herself was most confident in using to debunk the two mummies.
The hieroglyphs.
Unlike the pieces she had examined in the past, there was nothing on either of these two sarcophagi that intimated in the least that they were genuine artifacts from Egypt. First of all, there was nothing at all to indicate the status or position of the man who had owned the cat. If it were genuine, she’d have expected to find invocations to the various deities imploring them to care for the beloved pet in the hereafter. What language there was, was disjointed and made no sense. There was nothing to be discerned from the juxtaposition of “water,” “hand,” and “hill slope.” No, she was quite sure that both of the items before her were not only fakes, but also were simply two of a number of others. There was something about the sameness that seemed to mark these two pieces that made her imagine a long line of workers adding bit by painstaking bit these trappings of Egyptian culture—and having no notion of just how far off the mark their forgeries were.
“I found it in the shop of one Adolphus Hogg, in Bond Street. He said that he’d purchased it from a gentleman who was down on his luck and had been forced to sell off his valuables. One of which happened to be, according to Hogg, at least, a priceless Egyptian relic.”
“Well, clearly,” Lu
cas said with some asperity, “your Mr. Hogg has been misinformed. I find it utterly alarming to know that there can be such a lack of forthrightness among the pawn trade these days.”
“Indeed,” she said, moving to examine the other sarcophagus. “I suppose the creator of these two items never expected to be so unlucky as to have them both examined by an expert in Egyptian hieroglyphics.”
“The thought probably never occurred to the fellow,” her husband returned. “I would imagine that most items like this are snatched up by true collectors—who lock their prizes away from the prying eyes of the hoi polloi—and of course museums and such establishments as the Egyptian Club.”
“Oh, I suspect whoever created these had no intention of them ever making it to either a museum or the club. It would be far too risky to allow them to be seen by those with the ability to discern their falseness.”
“Indeed.” Lucas’s brow furrowed.
“What is it?” Cecily wondered, looking up from her examination. “Are you wondering why this piece was found buried with William?”
“Yes,” he said with a frown. “I cannot help but think that William stumbled upon whoever was responsible for creating these two forgeries, and in doing so got himself killed.”
She slipped her hand into his, and leaned into his body with her own. She might not yet be comfortable returning his love, but she would not flinch from offering him comfort when she could.
“Suppose it’s true,” she said. “What then? Could it be that someone on that trip was engaged in creating forgeries of Egyptian artifacts? If that is the case, then there could be a panic among both the people working in the museum and among the members of the Egyptian Club.”
Lucas sat in the massive chair behind his desk and pulled a protesting Cecily into his lap.
“I wonder,” he said. Gazing down at his mummified cat, he ran his fingers over the base of it. “Do not be alarmed,” he said, then to her surprise, he grasped a small lip of plaster and pulled.
“Oh, no!” she said, unable to stop herself from crying out at the destruction of the piece. But to her astonishment, the piece did not begin to unravel. Rather a circular plug came away from the base, revealing a small recess within the piece.
“You’d better take it out,” he said to a gaping Cecily. “Your fingers are smaller than mine.”
She shook her head in exasperation at him. “How did you know that would happen?” she asked. “It could just as easily have disintegrated in your hands.”
“I had a hunch,” he replied, watching as she pulled a rolled-up piece of foolscap from within the mummy. “Besides, you’ve already established that it is not actually an ancient Egyptian artifact. Even if this one had disintegrated we still have another to show to the authorities.”
Unrolling the paper, Cecily held it before them so that they could both read it.
“It’s an inventory of the items from the excavation of the—tomb,” she said. “Why would it be hidden here? Surely Papa would have kept this in order to check it against the actual cargo he brought back.”
“I’ve got another idea,” he said, and proceeded to pick up Cecily’s mummy and began to pull on the identical lip of plaster at the base. Sure enough, the same sort of plaster plug came away and he wordlessly handed it back to his wife and watched as she removed another piece of foolscap.
“It’s another inventory.”
They spread the two sheets out side by side on the desktop, scanning the two documents for similarities and differences.
“Lucas,” she said, pointing to the first sheet, “look here where it lists the scarabs. Why are there twelve on the first sheet, but only six on the second? Both of these inventories seem to have the same types of items, but the numbers are half as small on the first page as on the second.”
“I’m afraid, my dear,” he said, “that we’ve found something that is definitely worth killing for.”
“You mean someone was stealing these items?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Remember I looked around the warehouse for a bit before we found the sarcophagus with Will in it? Do you remember there being nearly as many items there as are listed on this first page?”
Cecily thought back to their visit to the warehouse. That whole day had been so traumatic she’d tried to put the memory of that warehouse, of the sights and smells she’d been exposed to, from her mind. But she closed her eyes and visualized the room. Tried to remember what impression she’d gotten of the volume of antiquities housed there.
“No,” she answered, opening her eyes to meet his. “There were not nearly as many items in that warehouse as there are on this list. But perhaps that’s just because the second list is the correct one.”
He shook his head. “Why go to the trouble of writing out two lists if only one is correct?”
“Good point,” she said, pursing her lips in concentration. Then, she snapped her fingers. “I’ve got it! Do you remember something odd about the warehouse?”
“You mean aside from its location? Not particularly.”
“I recall thinking when we entered the building that it appeared much larger on the outside than it appeared to be from the inside. Items from the expedition were lined up all along the back wall of the room, and if there was another door back there, I certainly did not see it.”
Lucas rubbed a hand thoughtfully along his jaw. “Nor did I,” he said.
“What if whoever oversaw the shipment of the artifacts from Egypt to England kept two sets of cargo? With two sets of inventories? One, the smaller inventory sheet, would be shown to the customs agents when they arrived back in port. The other, he hid inside of the mummified cat, thinking to remove it once he got back to England.”
“How did they manage to get the extra artifacts into the country without the customs officials noticing?”
“It is not all that difficult to create a false bottom in a wooden crate,” she said. “The extra artifacts would be stored within the false bottom, and the top part would appear to be filled with whatever artifacts appeared on the label and perhaps sawdust or some other filler material to make it seem as if whoever packed the items simply did not know how to do it properly. And I am afraid that the agents who check those sorts of things are rather notorious for being quite easy to pay to look the other way when necessary.”
“Then once the artifacts were unloaded they were divided into two groups—one of smuggled items that were to be sold off as quickly and quietly as possible so that the members of the club and the museum did not discover that their pieces were not as unique as they seemed, and one to go to the club and the museum.”
“But which lot was real and which lot was forged?” Cecily demanded. “I cannot believe that Papa would knowingly pass off forgeries as genuine. Especially not after staking his career on his reputation. And what of Will?”
“I’m afraid that both your father and my brother must have discovered what was going on. And Will paid the ultimate price for his knowledge.”
Cecily dropped into the chair. “But how on earth could someone have provoked Papa to apoplexy?”
He went down onto his haunches next to her, and chafed her hand between his. “I don’t know. I wonder if there is not some sort of medicine or herb that might bring an attack on. In someone of your father’s age I would imagine it wouldn’t be too difficult to do.”
Her eyes were bleak when she raised them to him. “All of this—murder and mayhem—all of it to protect someone who wanted to use my father’s expedition as a means to make more money than was possible with the actual artifacts.”
“I would venture a step further,” he said. “And posit that whoever it was, was not entitled to the profits from the original excavation, and managed to hire someone in Cairo to create cheap replicas that might be taken back to England with them and sold at a profit.”
“I never thought I’d say this,” Cecily said sorrowfully. “But if I do not see another hieroglyphic or Egyptian artifact again it
will be too soon.”
Lucas kissed the back of her hand. “Don’t say that, sweetheart. It is neither your fault, nor the fault of the ancient Egyptians, that this happened. It may all be heaped upon the head of a murdering, lying snake, who will be stopped soon enough. Just you wait.”
She smiled sadly. “I know you are right,” she said, “but I cannot help but think of all the people who might still be alive if none of us had ever even heard of the ancient Egyptians. Papa and your brother, Will. How many more have been cursed by the gods?”
“Surely you do not believe in that curse nonsense,” he said with a frown. Being a little down was understandable. Actually believing that the gods had placed a curse on all who dared disturb their tombs was another thing entirely.
A sigh escaped her. “No. I do not believe the curse. Though Uncle Geoffrey has worked hard enough to make me heed it. If I didn’t know he was such a rational being I’d wonder if he weren’t beginning to lose his mind to age a bit.”
“Indeed,” her husband returned. “Now, I suppose we had best request the Bow Street runners to come for a visit so that we may inform them of our theory. If nothing else, they may wish to examine the warehouse for themselves.”
Twenty-one
While Lucas spoke with the Bow Street runners, Cecily traveled the short distance to Hurston House, hoping to spend a bit of time with her father before his afternoon session with the latest physician.
Though she could not forgive him for his attempts to keep her away from the studies that had given her such a sense of purpose, her relationship with Lucas had shown her that her father’s relationship with her mother had likely been more complex than she had been able to understand as a child. In addition, she now understood Lord Hurston’s reasons for wishing to shield his daughter from the dangers that his travels abroad could bring. She didn’t agree with him, but given that one man had died, and another had almost done so, she was willing to concede that there were perhaps some elements of her father’s work that were indeed more dangerous than she could have imagined.
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