The Mummy Snatcher of Memphis

by Natasha Narayan

  “The lamp, dear,” Mrs. Guppy reminded her husband. The lights were extinguished and a dreary half-twilight descended on the room.

  “Let us cleanse our hearts of all impure elements,” intoned Mrs. Guppy. “The Lord’s Prayer, my dear Mr. Guppy, if you please.”

  Mr. Guppy chanted the Lord’s Prayer and we all joined in. As our prayers continued a musky scent drifted through the air and a plangent wailing began. This startled me till I realized Mr. Guppy was strumming on a guitar. On the table in front us were arrayed a variety of instruments including a violin, a banjo and a French horn.

  “Join hands, let the healing energy flow through you. Ishtar, Sahara, Gabriel … we implore your presence,” Mrs. Guppy droned.

  I linked hands with Ahmed on one side and the fat lady on the other. Her hand lay in my own like a hundredweight of ham. She hadn’t observed mourning totally, for her fingernails were painted scarlet.

  “I can feel them flowing through my limbs, igniting my nerves with their passions. The spirits are awake. They will visit us this day.”

  On my left the widow gave a gasp of excitement. Before my very eyes the banjo, the violin and the horn rose in the air where they proceeded to strum and blast all at the same time. The widow’s hand was trembling violently in my own. The banjo was so close to me I could stretch out and touch it. Then it levitated, higher, higher, its strings a-quiver.

  I felt a thrill of awe.

  Bang. All the instruments clattered to earth at the same time, falling with heavy thuds on the lace tablecloth and Turkey carpet. The din was silenced at a stroke, leaving our nerves jangling.

  A ghostly apparition was floating out of the center of the table. A silvery thumb, fingers splayed. A wonderful apparition, a spirit hand. Across the table Rachel was wide-eyed with wonder.

  I had a sudden, wild impulse. I let go of my partner’s fingers and reached out for the spirit hand, intending to grab it. In doing so my feet banged against something under the table and the hand fell to the ground. It was all so dark and blurred I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw a stick poking through a hole in the table, which rapidly closed up. A moment later the hand had vanished.

  “We have a non-believer in the room.” Mrs. Guppy leapt up, majestic in her rage. “Who dares assault the sanctity of the séance?”

  I had failed to catch the spirit hand, but in my clumsiness I had knocked over a jug of water. Liquid sloshed over the polished table, collecting in a little pool in the center.

  “Kit!” Waldo hissed, while all the others turned reproachful eyes on me.

  “I’m sorry!” I muttered. I felt foolish and ashamed.

  “You have no right to interrupt the séance; you’d never dare behave like this in church!” he fumed.

  Mrs. Guppy collapsed back into her chair, as if utterly exhausted. Her husband was fluttering around her. Waves of hostility were directed at me. Even Rachel was angry.

  “The séance is at an end,” Mr. Guppy announced.

  Immediately everyone began to clamor, the whiskered man protesting he had paid dearly for a spirit communication and he wasn’t going to have it ruined by some chit of a girl.

  “Take no notice of Kit,” Waldo declared. “She never could control herself.”

  “The spirits have been insulted,” Mrs. Guppy replied. “They will not return this day.”

  “Fine by me.” I pushed away my chair and stood up, glaring at Waldo. “We’re leaving.”

  But none of my friends rose to support me.

  Turning, I noticed Ahmed. He was taking no notice of the commotion but was instead staring, with an awed expression, at the pool of spilled water on the table. The puddle which had collected after the jug overturned. Puzzled, I followed his gaze. What was so fascinating? The water was just water. Silvery, a faint sheen of dust on its surface. I looked again. Then I saw.

  Bubbling in the surface of the liquid was the impression of a man’s face. Eyes, lips, nose, a hint of a whitish hair. Faint, but no mirage. Something was in that puddle. Angel or spirit. This was something real, not flesh and blood, but a thing that existed nevertheless.

  “Father!” Ahmed croaked.

  All around the room heads turned and a profound silence fell on the room. Ahmed reached out as if to touch the surface of the water, to stroke his father’s face. The movement of air made the thing ripple, then it was still once more.

  A careworn face, more dead than alive. I could see Ahmed in the fine, large eyes, the sculpture of the man’s bones. With a difference, though. There was something hollow about this man. The image moved further from us, as if we were traveling away and there it was, a human skeleton lying on a simple wooden bed.

  “Father. Forgive me.”

  The image flickered and vanished and now something else appeared, a shining youth, bare foot. He looked like Ahmed, except older and somehow golden. He had the honey color of desert sand dunes and there were yellow glints in his eyes. He smiled at us, merry, almost mocking. What was this? Were we all hypnotized? Perhaps we were all sunk in the same strange dream. Ahmed had jumped up and now he blurted a single, strangled word.

  “Khalil!”

  “You never thought you’d see me again.”

  “How, brother?”

  The boy Khalil shrugged, or at least I think that was what it was, for his image rippled and then reformed.

  “I come about Father,” we heard the spirit say. At least we think that was what we heard. “You must go home to him.”

  “The scarab. I must find the scarab,” Ahmed pleaded.

  “Gone, my little brother. You were never the wanderer. It was I who should have sailed the world. Your place, Ahmed, is at home.”

  “I must find the scarab to help father. The scarab will bless us again and the treasure will be saved.”

  “Come home. Father’s time is short.”

  A low moan came from across the table. Mrs. Guppy was rigid, her face drawn with shock. She looked terrified. Suddenly I realized why. I would wager this was the first true spirit ever to have graced her parlor.

  Ahmed’s voice choked in his throat as the water flickered and fell still. It was just a puddle again. His brother—a ghostly messenger from twilight space between life and death—had gone.

  “You see,” he turned to me and his eyes were full of tears. “You see the truth now.”

  “Oh, Ahmed,” I began, but I was cut off by a loud thump on the table.

  “THAT’S ENOUGH!” a voice rang out. The fat lady had risen from her chair, a commanding figure in her black garments. The veil had fallen from her face. The drooping widow was gone. In her place was a harpy with cruel eyes, her mouth a slash of scarlet.

  “You’ve had yourselves some fun and games. Time to get down to business,” she spat.

  In her hand Velvet Nell held a pistol, pointed straight at my chest.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  “We bin patient as sheep,” said the whiskered man. “Now it’s time to turn tiger.”

  With a lazy movement he tore off his mustache, revealing the insignificant mouth and weak chin of Bender Barney. He too had a gun, this one trained on Waldo.

  I looked around the table: naval man, fat lady, whiskers. Not harmless spiritualists at all, but ruthless members of the Velvet Mob. I knew the so-called spiritualists seemed familiar, I had sensed danger. But I’d been fooled by the atmosphere of the séance. I had thought that the menace would be of the other-worldly kind. The thugs, all-too-human, surrounded us, each one bearing a gun. Rachel’s scream echoed through the parlor. Mrs. Guppy was so bewildered her mouth was opening and closing like goldfish.

  “You cover the Egyptian,” Barney ordered the naval man. “I’ve a history with this lad.” He grabbed Waldo by the ear and shoved him out of the room in front of him.

  I followed, Velvet Nell’s gun digging into my back.

  “Thank you for your little show, Mrs. Guppy,” Velvet Nell turned at the top of the stairs. “I’ve a good mind to mention you to
the management at the Alhambra. You could do a nice little turn there, after the performin” monkey.’

  Mrs. Guppy’s doughy face crumpled. As for her husband, he had managed to melt into thin air.

  The three thugs shepherded us down the stairs, covering us with their pistols every inch of the way. My breath was ragged, heart thump, thump, thumping. Maybe we could do something in the small space of the stairs. If I bumped into Waldo, who was in front of me, and he fell against the thug leading the way—then if Ahmed tripped up the naval man …

  “None of your tricks now,” Velvet Nell snapped, as if she could read my mind. “Try any fancy moves and I’ll put one through your head.”

  We tumbled out into the smog of Kensington High Street. A cab was waiting, the driver smoking a gasper. He winked at the mob, threw it away and picked up the reins. Barney opened the door and gave Waldo another push.

  “In yer get,” he snapped.

  “Not so fast, Barney,” Velvet Nell commanded.

  “Wot?”

  “I said let’s teach ’em a lesson, we don’t need to drag along the whole bleeding pack of ’em.”

  “I want the boy.”

  “Sorry. Not today.”

  Barney glowered, but a glance from the woman squashed him flatter than a rat under the wheels of an omnibus. Clearly it was Nell who gave the orders. She walked by, inspecting us closely, then stopped by Rachel.

  “We’ll take her,” she said, stroking Rachel’s ringlets with the nozzle of her gun, an elegant weapon with a mother-of-pearl handle. “She won’t be half as much trouble. Come along, dear.” Her fingers closed around Rachel’s arm and she turned to us. “Now you run along, children, and keep out of trouble. I warn you, one squeak out of you, your pretty little friend gets it. She wouldn’t look half so nice with a bullet in her skull.”

  “Take me instead,” I blurted.

  “You’re a troublemaker. I can tell these things straight off.”

  “Please.”

  “I made meself quite clear. You keep your noses out of other people’s business and your friend here will be unharmed. One step out of line and she’s coffin filler. Clear?”

  Miserably, I nodded.

  Rachel had not uttered a word. Her face was pale and she moved like a sleepwalker as Barney took over from Nell and shoved her roughly into the cab. Nell kept us covered with her pistol, she was the last to climb in. Once all the thugs were inside with their captive she looked out and waved at us gaily. Then she yelled a command to the driver and the horses started up, clipping through the traffic at a breakneck speed.

  “No!” I shouted, the word ringing out of me like a pistol shot

  It was too late. The traffic surged, swallowing up the cab and Rachel with it.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  “Wait,” Ahmed called after the thugs. “I can help you. I’ll do anything you ask. I will—” he stopped mid-sentence, his words hanging broken in the air. “This is all my fault.”

  “No. I’m to blame.” Waldo said. “If I hadn’t had that stupid idea about going to the séance.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” I cut in. “What does it matter whose fault this is? We should be halfway to Belgravia or the East End or I don’t know, Cornwall by now. Quick. Stop a cab. I bet they’re going to the Bakers” castle in Cornwall.’

  “Forget Cornwall!” a voice rang out.

  A cab had drawn up, a skinny grime-spattered figure leaning out of the door.

  “Hop in,” the dirty shape yelped.

  Waldo gaped at the person, unsure whether it was another kidnapper or merely an odd stranger. “Where have you been, Isaac?” I said as I ushered us all into the cab. It was my friend, under several layers of what looked like Thames mud. Once we were all in, Isaac was just about to start talking when I shushed him. Instead I bellowed to the driver.

  “Follow that cab!”

  “What cab?” The man asked, looking where I was pointing. “Any particular cab in mind?”

  The road was choked with cabs, of all shapes and sizes.

  “It doesn’t matter. That direction. And get a move on.”

  “Follow that cab the little lady says, as if I’m a bloomin” magician.’

  Grumbling, the cabby whipped his horses and we rumbled off, clattering past the rest of the traffic. Past the Royal Albert Hall and toward the snaking blue thread of the Serpentine. Here the traffic suddenly thinned out and there hoved into view the mob’s cab, going at a fantastic pace.

  As the horses galloped I explained Rachel’s kidnapping to Isaac, in a few words. The hardest words I have ever had to say. He went very quiet. The cab lurched after the gangsters and Waldo hung out of the door, urging the driver to push the horses ever harder.

  Where were we going? The mob had turned past Hyde Park and gone down toward the river. Then along the Thames, passing the Strand and going east.

  “The East End,” I said. “The Velvet Mob must have some sort of hide-out there.”

  “You’re wrong,” Isaac said, coming out of his reverie. His tongue tripping in his hurry, he started to tell us about one of his new inventions, a device he’d named a “telesphere.” It seemed that a telesphere was a sort of extendable ear that our brilliant friend had invented, a kind of bell-shaped receiver linked to a device Isaac carried. It sounded improbable, mad! I could see Waldo and Ahmed were skeptical from the looks they gave me. Don’t ask me how it worked for I haven’t a clue. I freely admit that I only understand a quarter of what goes on in Isaac’s head. Anyway, the telesphere was the “secret” Isaac had been so quiet about over the last few days. When we lost him at the Baker Brothers’ he had, in fact, been planting a telesphere in their study. For the last few days he had skulked around their house, listening for useful information. To no avail, mostly. It seemed the Baker Brothers kept a most monastic silence. Besides, though Isaac was a little cagey about this, his device didn’t always work—and what he did hear tended to be a little muffled.

  Two hours ago though, Isaac, our hero, had finally come up trumps. He had overheard the secretary and the servants discussing their master’s traveling plans. Cook was complaining that she was expected to provide a feast for the Bakers to take on the Morning Star—with only a few hours’ notice. The secretary, meanwhile, called cook a “lazy pudding” and sniffed that a bit of work would do her good.

  The meaning of the exchange was startling.

  The two brothers were not going to their Cornish castle after all. They were setting sail for Cairo aboard the Morning Star, a P & O steamer. They were leaving from West India Dock that very afternoon. Reluctant to trust their minions with such a fabulous haul they were going after the Pharaoh’s treasure themselves.

  “You think they’re taking Rachel to Egypt?” Ahmed gasped.

  “It looks that way,” Isaac said. In front of us, almost hidden behind a hansom carriage was the mob’s black and gold vehicle. “They are already three-quarters of the way to West India docks.”

  “We have to stop them,” I said. “Even if it means going all the way to Egypt.”

  The Docks. Stench, clanging and the hubbub of a thousand different tongues pressed upon us. The entire world had descended upon this corner of London. Africans in brilliant robes, Chinamen running hither and thither. Indians, Arabs, Lascars, Italians. Bales of cinnamon and ginger, tea and coffee pouring into giant warehouses. It was dangerous to stand still for more than a second for a thundering trolley would send you reeling. Worst of all, you might get in the way of one of the enormous swinging winches, used for unloading pallets from ships.

  We’d seen the empty cab at the entrance to the docks, but in among all the chaos we had completely lost Rachel and her kidnappers.

  Over in one corner of the docks was a bedraggled queue: men, women and children waiting. Even the tots were bowed down by bags, bundles wrapped in sacking, pots and pans. I was wondering who these people were, when I suddenly understood. They were emigrants, preparing to leave Europe behind and set sa
il for the new world. Baruch and Sarah might well be in that queue, or one like it.

  “This is hopeless,” I moaned. “It’s like bedlam here. What are we going to do?”

  “Ask at the P & O passenger office,” Isaac said. “Find out when the Morning Star departs for Egypt.”

  “No need,” Waldo murmured.

  “You have any better ideas?” I snapped.

  “It’s a little too late for that!” He was pointing at something, an object in the crowded mouth of the docks.

  My eyes followed Waldo’s finger. Pulling away from us was a splendid steamship. For a moment I didn’t see the lettering, stretching proud along her sides. Then I took it in.

  The Morning Star

  “The Morning Star ’s leaving,” I said stupidly.

  The ship was racing out of the docks, creating a broad wash as it pounded past merchant vessels and river tugs. Modern and fast and splendid. The finest steamer money could buy. We could make out two figures on the deck. One was the potato shape of Bender Barney Beside him, slim and dark, hung Rachel. Even from port I could tell she was listless, in the way she drooped over the ship’s rails.

  From beside me came a wild howl. It was Ahmed. He pulled off his coat, clearly he meant to leap into the Thames.

  “Ahmed!” I screamed, trying to grab him.

  “I’m a good swimmer,” he yelled back, pushing me away. “It’s the only way to save Rachel now!”

  He gave an almighty jump and landed in the Thames, thick with the contents of London’s sewers. Oily green liquid bubbled and boiled around his neck as he swam with strong strokes toward the Morning Star.

  “Don’t be a bloody fool,” yelled Waldo.

  Ahmed had miscalculated. The water in the Thames was foul, too heavy to swim in. At every stroke some bit of debris held him back and we could see his shoulders sinking under the effort. Meanwhile, the steamer was chugging away to the open seas, far too fast for Ahmed to catch. The thugs on deck turned and walked off as we watched.