“Miss Hilda Salter?” the little man said, approaching my aunt. Then his eye fell on Ahmed, Isaac and I. “Goodness! What is this?”
“Don’t worry, they’re house-trained,” Aunt Hilda said gaily.
“An absolute gaggle of little creatures.” He peered at us, horrified. “What are they?”
“Who are they, you mean. My niece Kit and her chums, amateur archaeologists.”
“No. They absolutely cannot come in. The Brothers cannot bear children. They positively loathe the messy, loud, brainless little goblins.”
“Fine,” my aunt said, standing up. “Children, you will wait for me here.”
The little man glared at us as he ushered my aunt into the Brothers’ presence: “No snooping!”
“Let’s snoop,” Isaac said as the door banged shut after them. “Where do you think these thugs keep their secrets?”
The corridor stretched endlessly. The walls were lined with portraits, an exceedingly ugly collection of ancestors, if that is what they were. There was a bewildering number of doors.
“Which one do you think we should try?” Isaac continued.
“That one,” I said, pointing to the door next to the library, which bore a plaque marked STUDY. “Something tells me it’s the study.”
The room was richly decorated, the walls lined with paintings, including one famous Italian painting which I had seen somewhere before. A lady with a mysterious smile, in front of a hazy vista of hills. Had I read somewhere that this particular painting had been stolen?
There were no bookshelves, but inserted in the wall was a massive safe built by Mr. Chubb, who boasted his locks were unpickable. Isaac, of course, was instantly drawn to the safe.
The desk was absolutely clean, except for one manuscript. Annoyingly, the drawers were locked.
“There’s nothing here,” I said, frustrated, bending down to the carpet to search for some forgotten slip of paper which might give us the clue we needed. Where, oh, where were the Brothers keeping the mummy? “These men are so clean and tidy it can’t be true.”
Isaac, who had given up on the safe, picked up the manuscript on the desk and gave a low whistle. “What do you make of this?” he asked, passing it to me. It was a copy of my father’s latest book, The World’s Oldest Words: from the Book of the Dead to the Rig Veda. It hadn’t even been published. My father had spent three years working on the book and was terribly proud of it, but no one except a handful of learned men could be expected to read it. How had the Baker Brothers got hold of it?
“It doesn’t make sense,” Isaac said. “Why would they want this?”
“Who knows?” I replied, my attention diverted by a small door, opposite the Chubb safe. I approached the door and turned the handle, to my delight it opened into a room the size of a cubby-hole. It was in total darkness.
I tiptoed over to the window, almost stumbling over something on the floor and opened the shutters, letting sunlight flood in.
Isaac and Ahmed had joined me. What we saw lying on the parquet floor made us gasp. A pile of bandages thrown in a disorderly heap. Next to them, a shrunken, gnarled old thing. It reminded me of the roots of an ancient, blackened tree. No, that wasn’t quite right. There was something leathery about the mummy, something shiny and almost translucent. Like a strip of skin peeled off your thumb.
I identified the sharp, citrus scent in the air as natron, the salt used by the embalmers all those millennia ago to preserve the corpse. Kneeling down by it, I took a closer look. You could still see the shape of Ptah Hotep’s cheek, the blackened and decayed teeth. Even a few wisps of reddish hair adhering to the four-thousand-year-old skull. The mummy’s empty eye sockets seemed to peer out at me from across the ages.
A hush fell over us as we gazed at the mummy. The ancient sage, Ptah Hotep looked back at us, over the chasm of the ages. A miracle of miracles.
All was not well with the mummy. Of course there was the ancient damage to the corpse. The slit in his side, where the embalmers had removed the internal organs. But that was a neat cut and it had been sewn up.
What angered me was the evidence of more recent violence to his person. One side of Ptah Hotep’s rib cage had been brutally bashed in. His neck was broken. It was cruel. Sheer vandalism. Ahmed, by my side, made a furious noise in his throat. His eyes had a wild glitter.
“How could they do this to him?” he hissed. “They are savages. No respect.”
“Shush,” I quieted Ahmed. “We must be calm.”
“They don’t care about the mummy,” Isaac said softly. “It is not what they are after.”
“They don’t care about anything,” Ahmed spat.
I was searching in the pile of bandages, but already I knew the truth. The scarab was not there.
“The Baker Brothers found the scarab. That’s all they want.” Ahmed said. “They have no idea of what is good or holy or true. No respect for anything. All they know is what they desire. These men, they want the scarab. They find it so they have no care for this gentle man’s soul. They, how do you say, they smash Ptah Hotep.” It was one of the longest speeches I’d heard him utter. The blood had drained from his face but he spoke calmly.
“The scarab has gone, Ahmed.” I said, rising from the heap of bandages. “Look, we won’t have much time. Isaac, can you get into the safe? I bet the scarab’s in there.”
We went into the next room and stared at the safe. It was an impressive object, a glittering combination of black enamel and bronze. The lock looked impregnable.
“Can you get into that, Isaac?” I repeated.
“I’ll give it a go,” Isaac replied, but he sounded doubtful.
Suddenly there was a noise of scraping from the room next door. “Quick,” I hissed. We scampered out of the room, down the corridor and into the waiting room. We just had time to return to our seats before the secretary opened the door and ushered my aunt out. He cast a suspicious look at my flushed face:
“Where’s the other one?” the secretary said.
“Pardon.”
“The thin one. The one with dirty hair and glasses.”
With a stab of horror I realized that Isaac had not made it back to our seats. The foolish boy had vanished. Really he was more of a liability than anything. I had to think fast.
“I’m afraid my friend has had to rush home,” I lied, hoping my “innocent” face was convincing. “He suffers from a serious vomiting illness and didn’t want to be sick on the rugs.”
“What’s this illness called?” the secretary asked, still frowning.
I was straining to come up with a name for his fictitious disease, when to my surprise Aunt Hilda joined in with the deception. “You mean Isaac’s bilharzia?” she said.
“He caught it in China, poor boy. His vomit is green when he really gets going and they say it’s terribly catching.”
Involuntarily, the secretary shuddered and drew back from us. There was a definite haste in the way he led us down to the lobby and out of the door. I had the feeling he was glad to be rid of us. Out in Eaton Square my aunt strode ahead of us, I had to run to keep up.
“Thanks, Aunt Hilda,” I muttered.
“I don’t know what you are up to Kit and to be candid, I don’t want to know,” she replied.
“But what on earth is bilharzia?”
“Haven’t a clue,” she replied airily. “Probably a type of rum from Rangoon.”
I gaped at Aunt Hilda. “It was decent of you to help us out.”
“I couldn’t bear to let that odious little man get the better of you. You must learn to keep a straight face when you’re telling fibs, my dear. The secret of successful lying is all in the delivery.”
My aunt settled herself in the waiting carriage, arranging her carpet bag and umbrella to her satisfaction on the leather seat. Ahmed and I squeezed ourselves into the remaining space. I was thinking of requesting that we wait for Isaac but Aunt Hilda had already boomed a command to the driver. We were off, the horses threading
their way through the heavy West End traffic. There was a set look on my aunt’s face, as she gazed out of the window. I wondered if her mission was a success, but instinct told me to hold my tongue. If she had received bags of sovereigns from the Baker Brothers she would be boasting about it.
Discretion was definitely the best policy with Aunt Hilda, when she was in this mood. As her carriage made its way back to Bloomsbury, we sat in silence. I was sick with anxiety about Isaac. If he was caught by the Bakers’ thugs snooping in their house, they would not be gentle with him. The secretary might very well check with the butler and find out that my friend had not left the house. Isaac was a dreamer, a thinker. Not someone suited to safe-breaking. He wouldn’t know what a “jimmy” was, not if it hit him square on the head.
At this very moment, while we traveled home to Bloomsbury in safety, for all I knew my friend was being roughed up by thugs. They might shove him in the coal cellar—or, worse, in the Thames. Why had I asked him to break into the safe? But for once I refused to blame myself, not totally anyway. Was it my fault that Isaac displayed the common sense of a flea? Then another thought struck me, one that chilled me to my very bones.
Rachel. What would she have to say about this?
Chapter Seventeen
I opened the door to the parlor, weary and depressed. Sitting on the maroon velvet sofa, deep in conversation, looking solid and real were my father and Isaac. I blinked in surprise. I was seeing things. I must be seeing things. Isaac was back at the Bakers’ mansion, being torn limb-from-limb by their thugs, and my father was in Oxford. I was about to retreat to my room for a good, baffled lie-down when my aunt barged in behind me.
“Good afternoon, Theo,” she bellowed as my father stood up to greet us. Then she turned to Isaac. “And—you, fellow! How d’ya get here before us?”
“I took an omnibus,” Isaac replied calmly, as if he was a real flesh-and-blood boy, not a ghost at all.
“Dratted driver. I always tell him not to go via Hyde Park and he always ignores me. Traffic is atrocious round there. The man has no sense.”
With that Aunt Hilda bundled out of the room and clomped down the hall calling for the maid Mary. I sank on the sofa next to Isaac and hissed: “How did you really get here so soon?”
He grinned at me.
“What were you up to at the Bakers’?”
“I have my secrets,” he replied. “Just like you.”
“I was worried sick about you, Isaac. I thought they were going to kill you.”
“You worry too much,” he said and turned back to my father, resuming their interrupted conversation. “Now why did you think the Bakers had a copy of your manuscript?”
“I really cannot say,” my father said, mildly. “It is rather flattering, though. I had not envisaged that there would be such an interest in the World’s Oldest Words. I really do believe there is increasing popular appetite for serious scholarship.”
“What is your book about, Father?” I asked. “Is there anything about old Egyptian books? Or Ptah Hotep?”
“Why, of course, Kit. You should know that the Book of the Dead is Egyptian, as are many of the oldest manuscripts in the world. For example the The Maxims of Ptah Hotep. This is an ancient papyrus which, unfortunately, the French have got hold of. A Middle Kingdom copy of wisdom from the Old Kingdom, many, many centuries before. Really rather amazing the way scribes passed the wisdom down for centuries, but unfortunately the oldest papyrus has long been destroyed.”
“Do we know much about it? The Ptah Hotep manuscript.”
“Not much solid information,” Father admitted. “Ptah Hotep is thick with legend and rumor. The French, obviously, know more but they say that magical—”
“What’s this about the French?” interrupted my aunt, who had bustled back into the room followed by Mary with a tray laden with whisky and soda. “Not that rotter Champlon?”
I quickly distracted her. Once she started on the French, we would have no peace. “How is it that the Baker Brothers are reckoned as such great collectors, Aunt Hilda? It’s not as if they have a museum, or do they?”
“I do not think, my dear, you understand collectors,” Aunt Hilda replied. “A true collector doesn’t buy things to display in a museum. He buys them for himself. So he can keep them—possess them.”
“That’s not a collector,” I said. “That’s a miser. To hoard treasures just for yourself.”
“Miser, collector. Let’s not split hairs.”
“Beautiful things should be enjoyed by everyone.”
“All that matters in the real world, my child, is who can pay. In England the richest man invariably wins.”
Aunt Hilda poured a glass of lemonade and passed it to me. Mary had already served her with a strong whisky and soda and was now mixing a drink for my father.
“I don’t say I’m fond of the Baker Brothers, though I count them as friends of sorts. Stingy fellows, they are. Count every penny of their money. Refused to give me money today, outright.” My aunt downed her whisky in a few large gulps and indicated to Mary to pour her another one. “But I do believe, Kit, that in this life you have to be a realist. Money counts, my dear. Brass, doubloons, sovereigns, lucre, gold call it what you will. It’s money that gets things done, not ideals or other such nonsense.”
Father made a small noise of protest, his woolly head trembled and his eyes were worried. I felt a gush of love for him. Aunt Hilda might be off, haring round the world in search of lucre but for father ideals would always count for more than mere money. In fact, given a choice between a sack of gold and a worthless old manuscript he would opt for the manuscript every time. He was a hopeless old romantic.
There was a sharp tap on the parlor door and the next moment it swung open. A bronzed and stringy man stood in front of us.
“Madame Salter, I believe?” he inquired.
The man was a strange sight. A combination of battered skin and extreme elegance. His complexion was as worn as an old leather saddle, yet he was beautifully dressed in top hat, waistcoat of shot silk and seamed trousers. Over his lips hung the biggest, waxiest, blackest mustache imaginable. More of a plant than a piece of facial hair. The man must tend it lovingly, watering and feeding it at every meal.
“Gaston Champlon,” said the man, executing a bow which made his mustache tremble.
“You!” Aunt Hilda said. “This is a surprise, I must say. I had you down as too much of a coward to face me!”
“Outrageous,” Champlon spluttered. “I am wounded to my ’eart.”
“You have no heart!”
“Madame, I cannot have you telling lies about me in the newspapers.”
My aunt drew herself up, all five foot of her, eyes blazing: “Lies? Just you wait and see what I have up my sleeve.”
“You need to stop these at once!”
“Never!”
“In that case I need to make my challenge. I cannot fight you, madame, for you are a …” the Frenchman paused, surveying my aunt’s jodhpurs critically. “You are called a ledee. So name your man and I will challenge ’im. We fight tomorrow at dawn in ’Ampstead ’Eet.” Pistols or swords. The choice is yours, madame, for I am a master of both.’
This couldn’t be. Was this crazy Frenchman actually challenging my aunt to a duel?
“Done!” My aunt hopped from foot to foot, quivering with excitement. “I thought you would never dare to tangle with me, Champlon. Too much of a scared rabbit—”
“Gaston scared of a ledee! Madame, ’ow dare—”
“We will meet you in Hampstead Heath at first light. My brother will be my standard bearer. I myself will act as his second! The weapon will be pistols!”
“Hilda. Wait!!” my father moaned but neither Gaston nor my aunt took the slightest notice. With another formal bow, the Frenchman retreated from the room. As for me, I was in utter shock. My father could not fight Monsieur Champlon. It would be sheer murder; like challenging a pet hamster to fight a boa constrictor.
“I can’t do this.” Father sank into the sofa cushions, as if they could offer him a hiding place.
“Pull yourself together, Theo!” My aunt’s gaze swept over my father, taking in his faded tweeds, his woolly hair, his trembling face. “You’re not exactly champion material, I admit. But we must face facts, you’re all I’ve got.”
Chapter Nineteen
First light on Hampstead Heath. Down below, the sun rose over the city spires, painting them gold. Wind swooshed through the leaves; otherwise everything lay silent, suspended. Two lean figures were silhouetted in the murk. One had a soup-strainer mustache, forming a dark question mark in the morning fog. The other seemed frailer, unsure in his gait.
“Your paces, gentlemen!” bellowed one of the seconds—a rather squat figure beside the men.
The two gentlemen bowed, turned their backs and slowly began walking back from each other. I counted with them, my heart thundering. One, two, three, four … This couldn’t be happening, in the heart of London, the most advanced city in the world. Down in the village of Hampstead were telegraph poles and gas lamps. And here in the swirling fog, a murderous medieval ritual was taking place.
“Take your positions, gentlemen,” my aunt called out.
Rachel clutched my arm. We watched from the shade of a clump of elm trees, my friends and I.
“Do not be alarmed, Kit,” my father whispered in my ear. “Waldo is a fine young man. He will come through this ordeal splendidly.”
I glowered at him. Since when was Waldo a man? He was a boy. Sure he claimed to be a dab hand at the pistols, but these guns were not shooting blanks. How could my father and aunt put up with this? Naturally my father had jumped at Waldo’s offer to fight in his place. As for Aunt Hilda, this was proof she had no conscience at all.
“Are you ready?” her voice sang out.
Courteously, Waldo moved to take off his top hat but Champlon gestured to him to keep it on.
The Mummy Snatcher of Memphis Page 11
