The Deadly Curse

by Tony Evans

  ‘This is becoming something of a habit,’ Mina said to Delland with a smile. ‘I shall soon feel unable to visit any large house in London without finding you and a corpse on the premises. In this instance your officer intimated that the scene within might be rather too much for my feminine sensibilities.’

  Delland grimaced. ‘Constable Peters doesn’t have the advantage of knowing you, Mrs Harker. However, I’m afraid this is no laughing matter. I’ve invited you here because I think there’s a connection between this affair and the Flinzer murder. Please come through – but keep to the sides of the room as far as you can.’

  We entered what was clearly a gentleman’s study. Deep bookshelves lined two walls and a large writing desk stood under the bay window at the far end. A police sergeant stood in front of an ornate cast-iron fireplace. In the middle of the carpet a man lay on his back, his arms and legs stretched out at each side. His torso had been covered with a table-cloth, which was now stained bright red. He was lying in a spectacularly large pool of blood; I wondered what dreadful wound he must have received in order to have suffered such a dramatic exsanguination.

  At the opposite side of the room I noticed that a small object, about the size of a cushion, rested on the floor, and was entirely covered with another cloth of some kind –perhaps a bed-sheet. This covering, too, was soaked with blood, as if from another corpse, yet the bulge below it was far too small for a body – even that of a child. A vague premonition of the horrible truth hovered at the edge of my consciousness, and I glanced at Mina who stood next to me, her face pale and anxious.

  ‘Sergeant Drew, I won’t need you while I’m here,’ Delland said to his colleague. ‘I’d get some fresh air, if I were you. If the doctor arrives, show him up.’

  The sergeant left with some alacrity, and Delland stepped towards the corpse.

  ‘This gentleman is – or rather was – Signor Fosco Peretti,’ he said. ‘I’ve spoken to his butler who tells me that Peretti moved to London from Naples four years ago, and was a bachelor of independent means who patronised the arts. That’s all I know of him as yet. At six o’clock this morning the parlourmaid came into this study to lay the fire – and found Peretti as you see him. The body – and that other thing over there – were covered up by the sergeant on my orders. Peretti has suffered a violent assault – to be blunt, he’s been disembowelled. Opened up from his breastbone to his groin, as if he’d been sent to a slaughterhouse. And no sign of a weapon to be found.’

  As Delland spoke, Van Helsing advanced gingerly towards the half-shrouded corpse and took hold of one corner of the tablecloth.

  ‘May I?’ he asked. ‘I’m a doctor of medicine, and would be interested to see exactly what has been done to this poor fellow.’

  The inspector nodded and Van Helsing peeled away the cloth, which had started to adhere to the body below as the blood continued to dry. As the full ghastliness of the sight was revealed, Mina gave a short involuntary cry. Even to the layman it was all too clear that the thorax had been wholly eviscerated, leaving only a ghastly cavity in place of the stomach, heart and other organs. The same thought must have occurred to the three of us, as Van Helsing, Mina and I turned our eyes to the small bloodstained mound at the side of the room.

  ‘I see you’ve guessed what’s under there,’ Delland said. ‘I’m afraid you’re right. It’s Peretti’s innards, as far as I can tell. I ordered them covered up. Scooped out like the filling from a pie, and dumped on the floor. Doctor Crawford should be here any minute – he’ll be able to tell for sure. Of course if you’d like a peep, Professor, feel free.’

  Van Helsing lifted the sheet from the little mound in such a way that the horror beneath was mercifully shielded from the rest of us.

  He nodded. ‘Yes, these are certainly internal organs of a human adult, inspector. It should be possible for the police doctor to confirm that they are from this corpse’ – he pointed at Peretti’s remains – ‘by ascertaining if the cut or torn ends of the larger blood vessels match those in the chest cavity.’

  At that moment there was a knock on the study door. Sergeant Drew entered, followed by an elderly man with old-fashioned, ginger side-whiskers and the professional air of a physician.

  ‘Ah, Doctor Crawford,’ Delland said. ‘Has the sergeant explained the situation? Good. In that case I’ll leave you to your business and talk to these gentlemen and the lady outside.’

  I have to confess that it was with some relief that I found myself outside Peretti’s study.

  ‘Tell me, Inspector,’ I said. ‘A short while ago, you said that you suspected a connection between this ghastly business and the Flinzer affair. Are you able to enlighten us?’

  ‘That’s my intention,’ Delland said. ‘If you’ll follow me, I’d like to take you to Signor Peretti’s drawing room.’

  When we arrived at the opulently furnished room the inspector led us to the large fireplace. There, in front of it, were two large ceramic pots, badly broken, with shards scattered around as if they had been dropped from a great height. The lids of each were still almost intact and made it immediately obvious even to one with no specialist knowledge that they were Ancient Egyptian artefacts. Both lids were in the shape of a stylised animal head: the first of a powerful bull, the second of a fearsome falcon.

  ‘You see what I mean?’ Delland said. ‘This is old Egyptian pottery, sure as eggs. Found by the servants this morning – they’ve never seen these jars before. Now, one thing that my job’s taught me over the years is to be very suspicious of coincidence. Here we are on Thursday morning in Mayfair with a horrible murder on our hands, and some old Egyptian items – perhaps valuable, perhaps not –¬ at the scene. Now, last Monday night – or early Tuesday morning – another bizarre killing took place in Islington in a house cluttered up with Egyptian tomb relics. There has to be some connection.’

  ‘Do you have a theory, Inspector?’ Van Helsing asked.

  ‘I do,’ Delland said with an air of some satisfaction. ‘And that’s where you can help me. I’d be greatly obliged if you could take the remains of the pots and ask your friend Miss Wilton if she could give me her opinion of them. I’d particularly like to know if they came from the Wilton Collection. I’ll be honest with you – I could get someone at Scotland Yard to look into it, and I’d get my answers next week if I’m lucky, or the week after if not. But I need to know in the next few days, while the case is fresh.’

  We agreed to Delland’s request and were soon loading the remnants of the pots into two cardboard boxes provided by Peretti’s butler. I noticed that within the largely intact base of each pot there was a handful or two of what looked like dried vegetables or seaweed.

  ‘Do you think these containers were used for food storage?’ I said to Van Helsing.

  ‘I rather think not,’ he replied. ‘If I am right, they are what’s known as canopic jars – but Sarah will be able to explain their purpose better than I.’

  Mina held up a shard. ‘This piece is covered in little signs and symbols,’ she said. ‘In fact, the whole jar is.’

  I examined the fragment. ‘I don’t see anything,’ I said.

  Mina took the piece and turned it around so that the concave side faced towards me. Van Helsing peered over my shoulder. ‘No, the symbols are inscribed on the inside of the jar,’ she said. She picked up another shard. ‘You see - the whole of the inner surface is covered with them.’

  ‘Remarkable,’ Van Helsing observed with excitement. ‘First the craftsman throws the pot on his wheel and then inscribes the wet clay on the inside with a stylus before firing it. But how? The necks of these vessels are narrower than the walls. I shall be most interested to hear what Miss Wilton makes of it all. Inspector Delland, may I ask you what you were able to discover regarding the dispatch of the khopesh – the item that failed to reach Dr Levin in Edinburgh?’

  ‘Of course. Flinzer’s valet has explained the matter very clearly, and the parlourmaid has corroborated his statement. Three wee
ks ago Flinzer instructed Simpkins to have a small wooden crate prepared and to line it with straw. Last week – on Wednesday November 3rd – Simpkins was summoned by his master, who wanted the crate nailed up and posted. It so happened that Flinzer left the room for a few minutes, and in his absence Simpkins gave way to his curiosity and took a look inside. He described to me what he saw – it was definitely the khopesh. The nailing up was completed, and Simpkins took the crate to the post office. He remembers that it was sent to an address in Edinburgh.’

  ‘That is most interesting,’ Van Helsing said, glancing at me. I guessed that he was thinking the same as I: that it was most unlikely that the weapon had been stolen on its journey to Edinburgh and later used by the thief to murder Flinzer.

  ‘Now, before we take the remnants of these pots to Miss Wilton, we must tell you what we learned last night about the state of Flinzer’s finances,’ I said to Delland. ‘I believe we may have discovered why he felt obliged to sell off the Wilton Collection. He was evidently supporting the indiscretions of his wife’s brother: a wastrel, by all accounts.’

  *

  By lunchtime Van Helsing, Mina and I were back at the Professor’s house, having waited for Sarah Wilton to deliver her lecture and collected her en route. The young academic was both shocked and intrigued at what we had told her regarding the horrible scene we had witnessed in Mayfair. After a hurried cold luncheon we took the two cardboard boxes to Van Helsing’s study. Once Maxwell had brought a tarpaulin to cover the Turkish carpet, Van Helsing and I carefully removed the contents of each box, making sure that the remains of each pot were kept separate.

  Sarah knelt down beside the fragments and took out a large magnifying glass from her handbag. She held up a shard from each vessel and studied the edges of the fragments carefully through the powerful lens.

  ‘I’m delighted to say that these canopic jars are perfectly genuine,’ she said. ‘Almost certainly Eighteenth Dynasty and no earlier than 1,500 BC. How unfortunate that they have been so badly damaged. Ironically it would have been much harder to gauge their bona fides had they not been broken. Modern copies of such objects look surprisingly authentic on the surface, but the ancient method used for producing the glaze has proved impossible to replicate – and can be judged by examining a cross-section of the pottery. We can tell Inspector Delland that in their unbroken state the jars would have had a considerable value: of course the damaged items are worth far less.’

  I leaned forward and poked my finger into the mass of what I had taken to be dried vegetables or other foodstuffs, which adhered to the base inside each pot.

  ‘And what of these remains?’ I asked. ‘Are these pots cooking utensils?’

  Sarah shook her head. ‘You are rather wide of the mark, Mr Harker,’ she said. ‘Canopic jars are found exclusively in burial chambers. They contain the internal organs of the mummified bodies that have been entombed: removal of the organs is an essential part of the preservation process, but it was believed that in the afterlife the reanimated beings would still need access to their heart, lungs, et cetera. The remains you have been prodding so disrespectfully are the dried remnants of such organs.’

  The significance of Sarah’s comments was clear, and I could see from the expressions upon my friends’ faces that they, too, had come to the same conclusion as I. There was surely some connection between the brutal evisceration of Signor Fosco Peretti and the mysterious appearance of the canopic jars in his drawing room, containing the insides of another corpse, albeit one that had died more than three thousand years earlier, and – one hoped – before the removal of his or her internal organs.

  ‘These are evidently very deep waters,’ Van Helsing said. ‘Although I dare say Inspector Delland will have convinced himself of a rational explanation. We can at any rate report back to him what Miss Wilton has discovered.’

  Mina held up her hand. ‘Wait. Are we not forgetting something? What of the inscription?’

  Van Helsing snorted in annoyance. ‘Of course. My apologies, Miss Wilton. Perhaps my advancing years are finally taking their toll. We also require your opinion regarding the curious symbols which appear on the inside of the canopic jars.’

  Sarah looked puzzled. ‘Inside?’ she said, and picked up a fragment. ‘I, too, missed this in my earlier examination, so I think we can acquit you from the charge of senility, Professor. This is really most unusual. These symbols are Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs – a form of picture writing. Thanks to the work of Champollion, Uhlemann and other scholars, they are now readily translatable, although the process might take me some time.’

  ‘But how on earth could the writing have been inscribed on the inside of the jars?’ Mina asked. ‘There would not have been room to guide a stylus through the opening.’

  ‘That is where the creator of these unique vessels has been most ingenious,’ Sarah replied with a smile. ‘Canopic jars are normally made on a potter’s wheel – a device that has hardly changed for millennia. However, these two jars – most unusually – were constructed in a different manner.’

  She lifted up one of the larger pieces and held it up to the light. ‘Do you see the slightly raised seam which runs from top to bottom of this side of the vessel? That shows that it is what ceramicists call a “slab pot”. Such containers are usually square shaped, but a skilled potter can produce a rounded version. They are made from a thin sheet – or sheets – of clay, which are then rolled up or stuck together to make the final shape.’

  I clapped my hands. ‘I see! So the hieroglyphic writing could have been scratched onto the clay before it was rolled together – to appear on the inside of the final product. How ingenious.’

  ‘And how extraordinary,’ Van Helsing interjected. ‘To take an inordinate amount of time and trouble to record a message that will probably never be read. Tell me, Miss Wilton, how long will it take you to prepare your translation?’

  ‘Let me see. I may have to further dismantle the pots in order to do so, but they are so badly damaged already I think that we can permit such vandalism. I have no lectures to deliver on Friday – shall we say tomorrow evening, at six? Perhaps it would be best if I came here, Professor; we are likely to have more privacy than at my house in Endsleigh Street. Meanwhile I suggest you communicate with Inspector Delland and inform him of the provenance of the jars. I propose you say nothing regarding the hieroglyphs as yet, other than that I am subjecting the fragments to further examination.’

  Chapter 6

  The following morning we sent Van Helsing’s butler to Scotland Yard with a note for the Detective Inspector giving him Sarah’s preliminary findings concerning the jars, and stating that she might have more to tell him after further examination of the shards. There seemed little else that we could do until our appointment with Sarah Wilton that evening, and after breakfast I suggested to Mina that she might wish to visit the Impressionist exhibition at the Blatchford Gallery.

  As she concurred with my suggestion I extended the invitation to our host. He declined with a shake of his head.

  ‘The paintings are rather too modern for my taste,’ he said. ‘Although I’m sure that Mina will appreciate their subtleties. However, I’m tempted to invest in one or two canvases. I’ve a feeling they may be worth a great deal in years to come.’

  ‘By which time you will be unable to enjoy your profits,’ I said with a smile. Then a thought suddenly occurred to me in that unaccountable way that ideas have of appearing when the mind is least occupied in the conscious deliberation of a problem.

  ‘I’ve been a fool,’ I said with some annoyance, causing Mina to look up sharply. ‘Your talk of money has made me realise. As Mrs Flinzer has been uncooperative, it may be some time before we can ascertain exactly what items have been sold. However, unless Flinzer was paid in cash – which seems unlikely considering the transactions were legitimate – there may well be a record kept at his bank.’

  ‘Surely Inspector Delland will already have checked that possibility?’
Mina interjected.

  ‘Perhaps, but I think it unlikely,’ I said. ‘He was notably sceptical about the significance of the warning the late Sir Edward Wilton found in the tomb of Karnos II, and will probably not feel that tracing any additional sales is of pressing importance. Remember, he has his own theory: that of a falling-out between thieves. Let me make a suggestion. I recollect that Miss Wilton has mentioned the name of her father’s bank. Now what was it?’

  ‘Havelocks,’ Van Helsing said. ‘Their office is in Marylebone, not more than two miles from here. Jonathan, if your proposal is that we visit the branch immediately, I concur absolutely. The worst that can happen is that we are told the information has already been given to Inspector Delland. If any more artefacts from the tomb of Karnos have been disposed of, it is essential that they are located and retrieved before any further violent retribution is meted out to the unsuspecting purchaser.’

  I had expected Mina to accompany Van Helsing and I to the bank, but she declined, saying that she wished instead to spend some time investigating some other aspects of the puzzling case in which we had become involved. When I asked her to take care she acknowledged my concerns with the understandable insouciance of one who has faced far greater terrors than are likely to be found on a crisp autumn day in central London.

  *

  Some twenty minutes later Van Helsing and I had passed through the imposing portals of Havelocks Bank and persuaded the reluctant chief clerk to grant us an interview with the manager, Mr Barnabus Buford. We were left to languish in a chilly anteroom for what seemed like hours, although my pocket watch confirmed that only fifteen minutes had passed before yet another immaculately dressed and well-spoken minion ushered us into the manager’s presence. That august personage was seated behind an enormous mahogany desk, our cards arranged neatly in front of him. He had the desiccated appearance of one who could have been any age between fifty-five and seventy, and an expression of poorly concealed annoyance. He waved us ungraciously towards a set of hard-backed chairs in front of him. A small open fire glowed faintly at one end of the office, and the temperature was hardly more comfortable than it had been in the waiting room.