“Pardon me, sir, but you’re Hector Mortlake. The Hector Mortlake. Writer of world renown.”
I will admit his flattery caused me to grow an inch or two - in height - but I wasn’t quite getting his drift.
“And so,” he went on, “you’ll be recognised, won’t you, sir? They’re not likely to give you the bum’s rush, are they, sir? Not because you ain’t got a bit of paper, sir.”
He was altogether correct, of course.
“And...” a twinkle danced in his eye, “whoever it was that robbed your invitation must be going to show up. Stands to reason, don’t it, sir?”
Well, I had no argument with which to contradict him. We left that dolt Jenkins in his office and made our way to the vestibule where Cuthbert tipped the concierge to hail us a cab.
“Oh, dear,” I said, holding onto my top hat as the carriage rattled along pothole-ridden streets. “I fear we may be on the brink of another adventure.”
Cuthbert gave two things. The first was a chuckle that suggested he would relish the prospect of a spot of intrigue, danger and derring-do; the second was a squeeze to my left knee, which suggested something suggestive I suggested he should not be suggesting.
Not out in public, at any rate.
Chapter Two
The Johnsonian emulates our own dear British Museum in terms of outward grandeur and inner cavernousness. Gothic arches vie with classical pilasters. Every inch of floor is marbled. The place resonates with permanence and continuance and power - even though the paint is still wet on some of its walls. Compared to us, America is but a child in the world, and it is in establishments like the Johnsonian that it collects artefacts and artworks from other nations, having destroyed a lot of what the native population had going on - along with, of course, most of the native population itself.
Cuthbert and I decanted from the carriage and while my man paid the driver and gave one of the horses a friendly pat, I took in the sight before me. The broad flight of stairs to the main entrance was lined with electric lanterns - still a novelty in most homes - and a canvas banner stretched across the portico, welcoming all-comers to the Great Expo. I shuddered at the abbreviation. Men in black frockcoats and women in bustled crinolines were flocking into the building and there was a general air of excitement as the great and good of New York City gathered for an evening of mutual congratulation in the guise of civic pride and philanthropy.
Cuthbert nodded and held back, walking behind me rather than at my side, as befits his station as my valet. We had agreed that while I attended the formalities of the evening, he would scout around for our flat-capped intruder and then we would see what was what.
I reached the top step where a man in livery fingered his forehead in salute. He extended a gloved hand for my invitation but when he saw that I had none to show him, he looked up from my hand to my face and his eyes widened in recognition.
“Aw gee, Mr Mortlake!” Against all protocol he seized my hand and pumped it heartily. “Sir, your stories - well, they just about make my hair stand on end. That thing in the lake. Golly gee, I wouldn’t like to meet her in a dark alley, I can tell you.”
“Quite,” I said, wresting my hand from his grip.
“I don’t suppose - no - any chance of an autograph?”
“Later, perhaps,” I touched the brim of my topper.
“You have a great evening now!” he called after me. I did not turn around but I raised a hand to acknowledge the sentiment. My face was glowing with a mixture of pride and embarrassment. Cuthbert had been right. But then, he invariably is.
Waiters in the same livery glided through the assembled crowd with silver trays from which we were exhorted to take flutes of champagne - although I doubt it was the genuine tipple. Others bore platters of titbits to amuse our bouches. I declined them all; I had an inkling I might need a clear head should something untoward happen. The presentiment was making my stomach queasy and skittish - people often proclaim how they could eat a horse; I felt as though I had already ingested one.
In a corner, a string quartet sawed away but their Mozart or whatever it was, was completely overwhelmed by the general din of chitter-chatter. I scanned the nearest faces and received similar scrutiny in return. Flickers tickled their eyelids. Nudges twitched their elbows. They were not going to point fingers or gape as evidence of surprise but I could see they had ‘clocked me’ (as Cuthbert would have it) and they all knew who I was. Unlike the effusive doorman, they were keeping their reviews to themselves.
Oh, I know my writing is nothing Henry James would come up with, and I lack the wit of poor, dear Oscar, but my book has been selling by the bucket-load and that must count for something. These people looked like they had never even seen a bucket, or would never admit to it under the most extreme duress.
I felt like a lonely swan in a flock of censorious penguins and began to think eschewing the sham-pagne was the wrong idea, when the sounding of a gong drew our attention to a bald man on the great staircase, bashing away at the instrument on the platform where the stairs split into two flights rising in opposite directions.
When the gong was the only sound, he ceased his banging and stilled his mallot. He was grinning from ear to ear.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” he addressed us in a voice accustomed to public speaking. “Welcome to our little soiree! I am Merton Q. Johnson, founder of this little shack of treasures. Please, I entreat you all to make your way through to the great hall and to take your seats. Our show is about to begin!”
With a flourish he banged that blasted gong again and laughed like a madman. The crowd began to shuffle through double doors that must have been over twenty feet tall. I found it impossible to resist the tide and resented every jostle and shove. And then I found my elbow gripped by a lilac glove.
“Mr Mortlake,” said a woman at my side, “Come with me.”
She pulled me through the throng like a jungle explorer beating a path through the undergrowth. I was powerless to resist.
The great hall was lined with rows of wooden chairs all facing a stage. My abductor led me to a couple of vacant seats.
“Oh, there’s no need to look so worried!” the woman laughed and I heard that she was an American - hardly surprising in a country that is riddled with them, I suppose. “I ain’t going to hurt you. But you’re on your own and I’m on my own so what say we two lonesome polecats sit together?”
“Um...” was all I could muster.
She sat and patted the chair next to hers. “Now, come on, Mr Wordsmith, I won’t take No for an answer.”
I hesitated, getting my first good look at her. Her outfit was all the same lilac as her gloves, save for a short, black cape that enveloped her shoulders. Her hair was fiery red and barely tamed by the pins with which she had essayed to pile it up. A jaunty fascinator of lace and feather sat on this unruly pyre but what drew my eye irresistibly and charmingly were her bright eyes, which sparkled green like a pair of wet emeralds.
I sat. Moments later, the rest of the chairs were occupied so there was no option remaining to me other than to remain where I was.
I turned my head to inquire her name - she had the advantage of me, so to speak - but before I could frame the question our gong-banging friend had taken the stage and was appealing for hush in front of the curtain.
The chandeliers dimmed and the flickering footlights cast an elongated shadow of Merton Q. Johnson across the expanse of red velvet. It was quite an unnerving effect and quite at odds with the man’s welcoming demeanour.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour to welcome you all here this evening for this special preview of our newest exhibition. In a moment, I shall ask for the veil to be drawn back and you shall see for yourselves our latest acquisitions but for now, I ask you to put your hands together for our illustrious curator - I’m just the moneybags after all! - Woul
d you all welcome, please, Hiram Trask. Hiram, come out here, old buddy. Say hi to these good people.”
One might think old man Johnson was trying to coax a reluctant nephew onto the stage to give a recital but then a slender, skeletal man strode up - and a second, more angular shadow stalked across the curtain, doubling my misgivings.
The ripple of polite applause died away and after giving the new arrival a hearty handshake and a pat on the back, Johnson backed away, pleased as Punch.
Trask’s eyes, hooded and dark, stared into the gloom. I shrank; I always get the feeling that I am being stared at directly in these situations - it’s one of the reasons I never set foot in church.
“He looks like a starved eagle,” whispered the red-haired woman at my side. I had to confess this was indeed the case.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Trask intoned. “I have just returned from a voyage to Mexico where, after negotiations lengthy and hard, I procured for the Johnsonian something quite unique. Something which is my privilege to present to you tonight. Behold, oh behold, I entreat you-” It was all getting rather melodramatic and silly by this point, “-as I bring you the earthly remains of the legendary Chichimec leader from the thirteenth century, none other than King Xolotl himself!”
The names meant nothing to me and why should they? I glanced at my new acquaintance whose mouth dropped in a sideways grimace, suggesting that she wasn’t exactly au fait either.
A drum sounded as the curtain parted and swept aside. The stage was in shadow but a tall, dark shape could be determined. Liveried acolytes marched on from the wings bearing flaming torches which they set in holders. The flames illuminated a dun sarcophagus and the drum continued to beat. Trask swooped around in a cloak, like a sideshow magician - the Americans bring show business into everything, don’t you know? It’s all too gaudy for my tastes but I will admit there was quite an atmosphere building up. The other guests were entranced.
Eventually, there was sufficient illumination for the coffin to be clearly visible. Trask made a gesture and the drum was silenced.
Alone and unadorned, the coffin was little more than a large crate, darkened with age and battered from abuse.
“You may observe,” said Trask, “the ornamental trappings of the sarcophagus have long been stripped away by robbers and iconoclasts but imagine if you will the carvings decorated with gold leaf. The intricate designs, the rare and valuable jewels that would have bedecked the likeness of the king here and here.” He pointed at a couple of places but without opera glasses, I couldn’t see a thing from this distance. Everyone seemed willing to take his word for it.
“Fortunately, for posterity and for us, the contents of this unprepossessing box endure untouched. Some say this is because the tomb raiders were deterred by the curse.” He paused to let the word sink in... A palpable frisson went through the room.
“Balderdash,” muttered the red-head. “They’ll say anything to sell tickets to this joint.”
“Before I open the casket, ladies and gentlemen, and I will open the casket in good time, I assure you, I should like to tell you a little more about our eminent guest.”
“Here we go,” my companion groaned. “The history lesson.”
* * *
A Potted History of King Xolotl
Worry you not, I shan’t trouble you with every damned thing that starved eagle told us - and he didn’t half drone on. Suffice it say that this king fellow was a bit of an all-round good egg, uniting tribes, establishing a common language that we now recognise (or rather the people into that kind of thing recognise) as ‘Aztec’. In Texcoco he built a temple for sun worship, along with a grand palace with ornamental gardens to rival Versailles, by all accounts, and married off his daughters to other dynasties, bringing order and stability to a region oft-ravaged by war.
He was succeeded by his son - I forget his name but it sounds like something one might take to alleviate a headache - who oversaw the greatest funereal arrangements his nation had ever seen. It is said that on the day of the king’s death the sky turned red and remained that colour until long after the funeral rites had ended, making the water in the canals that irrigated the maize fields look the same as the sacrificial blood that coursed down the temple pathways.
The high priest officiating, his dagger dripping with the entrails of children, gave thanks for the life of the king and the continuance of the royal family. In order for the prosperity to go on, the priest claimed, the king must be allowed to rest in peace for all eternity, undisturbed and unmolested - a bit rich considering he’d been hollowed out and stuffed, his organs burned and their ashes bottled. He’d been embalmed - the king not the priest, I mean - and laid to rest in the bejewelled but now denuded sarcophagus presently before us.
As the stone slab was slid into place over the tomb, a bolt of lightning struck the blade of the priest’s raised dagger, killing him instantly. It was an omen, the people said, but of what they couldn’t say.
For the king was named after the god of lightning, the bringer of death, the fearsome and terrible Xolotl, the god with the head of a jackal.
It’s my view that the poor fellow strove all his days to get out from under that particular shadow, doing all his good works despite his namesake’s reputation. Give a dog a bad name, and all that.
* * *
What is queer now though is that as Trask mentioned the god’s name, the hall was illuminated by a flash of light. Everyone gasped, believing it to be a theatrical trick and rather a good one at that, but rumbling thunder and rattling rain against the windows betrayed the meteorological origins of the effect.
Outside a humdinger of a storm was raging. The electric lights flickered and dimmed. There was a sense of general unease seeping into the audience but Trask went on doggedly with his presentation.
His pronunciation of the name was ‘Eks-o-lot-l” when I should have thought the softer ‘Soh-lotl’ to be more euphonious and correct. But then, I confess I am no expert of antiquity and, most assuredly, no American. You, dear reader, are free to choose or, indeed, pronounce it any way you please.
At long last, the time came for the opening of the box. The drum was called into service once more, this time performing a ‘roll’ in a bid to increase the level of suspense. The instrument was hard pressed to counter the rolls of the thunder - it sounded as though the heart of the storm was situated directly overhead. Often in fiction, nature conspires to match the prevailing mood. You get downpours at funerals, for example, as though the sky itself is shedding tears of grief. Tonight, the heavens were conspiring to frighten us all - I am not above the use of pathetic fallacy.
Everyone in the hall leaned forward in their seat. Trask had us all on tenterhooks - whatever they are. He positioned himself in front of the casket, turned sideways on like one of those Egyptian figures you see in their ancient writings. (It is a measure of that long-ago civilisation that as well as building pyramids and sphinxes and what-have-you, they also invented the comic strip!) Trask clasped the edge of the lid with both hands and then, stepping backwards, pulled it from the coffin in a movement that was as efficient as it was theatrical.
The drumming stopped. The collective intake of breath was audible.
In the casket, arms folded across his chest in parody of the traditional position for burial stood a liveried member of staff who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years old and never mind eight hundred. The young man was quite, quite dead. He slumped - his dead limbs unable to support him in the vertical plane and fell, flat as a plank, face forward to land at the astonished curator’s feet.
We all rose to ours and questions were barked at the stage. What was this? What was going on? Did Trask really expect us to believe the legendary Aztec chappie would sport the uniform of the Johnsonian Museum? It reeked of a publicity stunt gone awry.
“I don’t understand...” Trask
repeated. Johnson, the proprietor, rushed back onto the stage, demanding an explanation. Trask just stared at him blankly, gaping like a landed codfish.
“Well, well,” said the red-head at my side. “Xolotl strikes!”
I frowned at her. “What mean you?”
She laughed - altogether inappropriate in my view, considering the circumstances. “Forgive my melodrama! You know: the bringer of death!” She held her arms in front of her and let her head tilt to one side like reanimated corpses are reputed to do. “Relax,” she said, on perceiving my complete and utter lack of amusement. “Somebody’s stolen the mummy, that’s all.”
“That’s all? Madam, a young man is dead.”
“And I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for that unfortunate eventuality,” she said. “Or do you believe the kind of mumbo-jumbo you write, Mr Mortlake?”
It was my turn to gape. I felt my cheeks colour. It was only by passing off the account of my European exploits as fiction that I had been able to get the story published. That the story was purely autobiographical and one hundred per cent the truth, no one would swallow, apparently. I was not swift, therefore, to discount supernatural involvement in the events unfolding on the stage.
Johnson was appealing for calm. With regret he announced that the evening had to be brought to a premature close but if we would care to collect an envelope on our way out, he would be happy to accept our pledges...
And that was the moment I knew why I had been invited. I had money, pure and simple, and the Johnsonian wanted to me fork over a portion of it to support its continuing expansion. How foolish I felt! It was not me that had been invited, but rather the pictures of dead presidents in my wallet.
Someone was on his feet and haranguing the museum proprietor, making sweeping gestures at the windows. “You can’t expect us to leave in this tempest!” he cried and instantly, dozens of others added their voices to the cause. “We shall catch our deaths!”
I had a suspicion that Johnson would not grieve unduly - unless the deceased had not included his museum in their wills.
Xolotl Strikes! Page 2
