The Case That Time Forgot

by Tracy Barrett

  Actually, she hadn’t even started it.

  “It’s okay,” Xander said. “I’ll go. It’s just a few Tube stops away.”

  “No, you won’t,” their father said. “Not by yourself on the Underground. Besides, it’s getting late. We’ll be eating dinner soon. Xena, get back to work, and, Xander, you find something to do. The case can wait until tomorrow.”

  No it can’t! Xena wanted to say. We have less than a week left! But she knew there was no point in arguing, so she slumped down at the table.

  Xander gave Karim a call. “Making any progress?” Karim asked.

  “A little.” Xander explained about the obelisk. “We’re going back tomorrow to see what’s there. And we think someone was following us.” He told Karim about the hooded figure whom Xena had chased. “Can you meet us after school? We can tell you about it, and you can go with us to the place we think the clue was talking about.”

  “Super! I have a piano lesson on Tuesdays, but it’s over in an hour.”

  That night both Xena and Xander had a hard time falling asleep. When Xena finally did, she had a series of strange dreams about ancient Egyptian gods. As a tall, lean human figure with the head of a long-beaked bird leaned over her, its glittering eye fixed on her, she woke with a start. She lay there, her heart pounding, while her head cleared.

  It was just a dream, she told herself, but in the dark quiet of her room, anything seemed possible. Had Thoth come to visit her? And if so, was he asking Xena and Xander to help find the amulet?

  Or had it been a warning?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was still drizzling the next day, so PE was indoors. After a while Xander asked permission to go into the locker room and use the bathroom. The coach nodded, hardly paying attention to him before turning back to the boys still passing the ball to one another.

  Xander felt uneasy in the locker room by himself. Usually it was crowded with talking, laughing boys. Now it was silent, and he could hear every creak and pop of the old building. Someone had left a showerhead dripping, and the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of the drops hitting the tile got on his nerves. He went into the shower room and turned it off.

  He looked around, thinking back to last Friday when Karim first told him about the case. Where had the mysterious eavesdropper hidden? The shower stalls were separated by shallow partitions. You could see into almost all of them just by standing in the doorway, and he and Karim had gone all the way in. There was only one way out—through the locker room. Nobody had gone that way or the two boys would have noticed.

  Or was there only one way out?

  Xander looked around. Six shower stalls lined one wall. On the back wall was the janitor’s utility closet. Next to it—he stopped and looked again. The closet! Someone must have been hiding there!

  No, that couldn’t be it. Mr. Franklin had been mopping the floor when they were in there, and he would have seen a person in the place where he kept the mop and bucket.

  “ ‘When you have excluded the impossible,’” Xander quoted his famous ancestor softly, “‘whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’” It was improbable that someone had hidden in the closet, but everything else was impossible.

  He had to get a look into the closet somehow. He wished he’d asked the SPFD for a set of lock-picking tools. Halfheartedly he turned the knob, and to his surprise, the door opened. Silently, he noticed. Someone hiding in there could have come into the shower room, and he and Karim never would have heard a thing.

  Then he noticed something else. At the back of the closet, a thin line of light ran along the floor. There was another door! Whoever had come in had done it after the janitor had removed his supplies. That was why Mr. Franklin hadn’t noticed.

  Where did the door lead? Xander closed his eyes and pictured the floor plan of the ground floor of the school. Aha! This was the same janitor’s closet as the one near his locker. Someone must have come in through the hallway.

  Now he was getting somewhere. Xander had been careful not to disturb any evidence. He went back into the locker room, feeling around in his backpack. There it was—the multipurpose tool that he always carried, with a small flashlight and magnifying glass.

  Back in the shower room, he squatted near the door to the closet and ran the light over its walls and floor. He saw rags, cleaning solution, and an industrial-sized vacuum cleaner. And something else. On the floor was a dusting of what looked like spilled cleaning powder. He peered over to look at it more closely, but the powder got up his nose and he sneezed. The force of his sneeze was enough to blow the powder all over, scattering it.

  But not before he saw that there were footprints in the dust. Familiar footprints, made by athletic shoes, with a little circle in the middle of the right one.

  Xena couldn’t concentrate in her classes. They had found out enough about each of the clues to give them some hope that they’d solve the case—but then they had hit a wall. It was so frustrating. All she could think about was finding the spot that was five hundred yards along the line between the two Cleopatra’s Needles.

  But what if they were wrong about the clue? And even if they had the amazing accuracy of a GPS to pinpoint exactly five hundred yards, what if in Sherlock’s time the measurement had been off? Even if the measurement had been accurate when Karim’s great-great-great-granduncle, Amin, wrote the clue, Xena couldn’t help remembering that one hundred years had passed. Buildings were torn down and new ones were built; people threw things away; objects broke. Even if he’d left something, they had no guarantee it was still there, and if it was, how would they know when they’d found it? It would hardly have a sign on it saying CLUE!

  So she wasn’t paying much attention when she heard someone calling her name as she finally made her way to her locker.

  It was Hannah. “What’s your problem?” She knocked gently on Xena’s forehead. “Hello? Anybody home?”

  Xena forced a laugh. “Sorry! I was thinking.”

  “Obviously! I wanted to know if you could come with us. There’s no football practice today, so Shane and I are going to have tea around the corner. I think Jake’s coming too.”

  “I can’t. I have to do something with my brother.”

  “Oh, Xena, you’re not his babysitter!” Hannah pouted. “He can do whatever it is on his own!”

  “My parents don’t like him to travel alone,” Xena said. “He’s only ten!”

  “When I was ten—”

  But Xena didn’t find out what Hannah had done when she was ten, because at that moment Xander came up behind her.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “See you tomorrow,” Xena said to Hannah. Hannah didn’t answer, but turned away and joined some other people who were zipping up their jackets. Xena felt herself flush with anger. Maybe Hannah wasn’t such a good friend, after all, if she got so rude at a little disagreement.

  Xena followed Xander down the corridor, trying not to look back at the others as they burst out laughing. She hoped it wasn’t at something Hannah had said about her. “What’s your hurry?” she asked her brother. “We have an hour before Karim’s piano lesson is over.”

  He wasn’t paying attention. “Another clue!” He told her about the footprint. “Someone must have been listening to me and Karim that day,” he finished. “It’s probably the same person who made the threatening phone call.”

  “And the same person who was following us down by the river! When he saw he couldn’t scare us off the case, he must have decided to follow us,” Xena said. “Time to figure out who it is. Let’s find out what kind of shoe made that print.”

  Hannah forgotten, Xena headed to the library, where the after-school program’s homework hall met. With Xander looking over her shoulder, she typed rapidly on a computer, starting a search. A few sites came up, but they were all about selling shoes, not showing what their soles looked like. She tried again, and still nothing.

  “Give up,” Xander said. “Not everything is on the net.”
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  Xena brightened. “I bet the SPFD knows a shoe expert. Let’s see if we can find Andrew.”

  But Andrew had already gone. Xena tried to call him and left a voice mail when he didn’t answer. She figured he must be on the Tube, where cell phones didn’t work.

  “I’ll make a better drawing,” Xander said. “We’re going right to the business part of London, and there must be all sorts of places where we can send a fax.” Using his memory and the sketch in his notebook, he drew a more detailed picture.

  “Okay,” Xena said. “Let’s go, or we’ll be late!”

  Karim was waiting for them outside the Tube station nearest to the spot on the map.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he said as they came up the stairs. He shot a nervous glance over one shoulder. “I think I’m being followed.”

  “Followed?” Xena and Xander chorused. Someone was following Karim too?

  Karim nodded and looked around again. “I keep seeing someone, but I can’t get a good look at him. He keeps hiding behind things.”

  “Are you sure it was a him?” Xander asked.

  “I think so, but I’m not sure,” Karim answered.

  “We’ve got to lose him,” Xena said. “We can’t risk having him figure out where we’re going and get there ahead of us. Let’s split up and meet right here.” She pointed at the map, showing Karim the point that Xander had determined was five hundred yards past the obelisk. “Ready? Go!”

  The boys took off running in different directions. Xena pretended she had to tie her shoe, hoping that whoever was following them would have been taken by surprise and wouldn’t react in time to follow one of the boys. That way, if the unknown person wanted to stay with one of them, he—or she—would be forced to follow Xena. And I’ll give you something worth following! she thought. The track coach had recently been training her on hurdles, and she was itching to put her new knowledge to good use.

  She shot off, dodging and twisting through the streets. When she found herself camouflaged by a large crowd, she ducked into a doorway and flattened herself, panting, to see if a slim figure in a hoodie would pass. Nothing. As soon as the sidewalk was clear, she broke out of the doorway and sprinted in the opposite direction. Someone was unloading boxes from a van onto the sidewalk. Finally! Something to jump over. She cleared the first one and leaped over the second. The man unloading the boxes shouted at her, but some other people cheered. Great! That would attract the attention of the shadowy figure.

  She kept running until at last she was sure she had shaken any pursuer off her trail. Then she made her way, still taking unexpected turns and occasionally whirling around to check behind her, to where she had agreed to meet the boys.

  They were standing under an awning, pretending to inspect the objects in the window. Hmm—hardware. Not likely. Good thing nobody seemed to pay attention to them. “See anyone?” Xena asked.

  “No,” Karim said, and Xander said, “Me either.” He added, “I faxed Andrew that paper, by the way.”

  “What paper?” Karim asked.

  “Tell you later,” Xena said. “What is this place, anyway?” The building that towered at the end of the square looked like a Greek temple, with columns and steps, but above it soared a steeple.

  “This is St. Martin-in-the-Fields,” Karim informed them.

  “What is it, some kind of museum?” Xander asked.

  “No, it’s a church.”

  A church? It hardly seemed likely that someone would hide a clue about a missing Egyptian amulet in a house of worship. Still, you never knew.

  The rain started up again, and this time it was more than a drizzle. They ran up the stairs and through the large door into the building.

  They were greeted by the sound of music and people standing at their pews. A service was just starting. “We can’t go in now,” Xena whispered. “It’s not respectful. Let’s find someplace to get out of the rain and come back later.”

  On the porch again, they surveyed the street. They’d have to run through a large open space to get to shelter, but there appeared to be some shops around the corner.

  “Let’s go that way.” Xena pointed to the right. “We’ll stop at the first place where we can sit down and figure things out.”

  Fortunately they came upon a pub almost immediately. They ducked inside, water pouring off them, and hung their wet things on hooks by the door.

  “Phew!” Karim said, surveying the crowd. “We’re not the only ones getting out of the rain.”

  Xena spotted a couple getting up from a table and managed to snag three seats for them.

  “So what’s going on?” Karim asked.

  Xena and Xander filled him in on the phone call, the strange person they’d seen lurking around the obelisk, and, most of all, the new clue about the needle.

  “Wow!” Karim’s eyes sparkled.

  “The real question,” Xena went on seriously, “is who could be after the amulet?”

  The man wiping the counter swiped at their table with a damp cloth. They ordered cocoa. “What brings you kiddies out in this weather?” he asked.

  “We’re—um, we’re looking for something,” Xander said.

  “It’s kind of a scavenger hunt,” Xena added. She thought that if they mentioned a missing Egyptian amulet, the man would think they were either crazy or making fun of him. And in a way, it was a scavenger hunt.

  “Oho, so you need to bring something back that proves you were here?” The man seemed pleased by the idea, so Xena didn’t want to contradict him. She smiled in what she hoped was a neutral way.

  “Here, take one of these.” He picked up a coaster from the next table and handed it to her. On it was written the name of the pub, The Cat and Crown, and below it, “R. S. Collins, proprietor.”

  Xander said, “Thank you, Mr. Collins.”

  “Oh, I’m not Mr. Collins!” He laughed. “Mr. Collins passed away years ago, poor old soul. No, I just work here. The proprietor is his widow, Mrs. Rosie Collins. She’s not here today, but the pub’s been in her family for over a hundred years.”

  Xena wasn’t paying attention. She was staring at the coaster.

  A large group left, and the waiter went to clear their table. As soon as he was out of earshot, Xena said, “Look at that!” She pointed to the pub’s logo.

  “So what?” Xander asked. “Lots of pubs and restaurants have strange names—like The Slug and Lettuce.”

  “Turk’s Head,” offered Karim.

  “The Green Man.”

  “The Bishop’s Finger.”

  “The—”

  “Not the name,” Xena broke in. “I mean, not that the name is strange. It’s the picture—it’s a cat wearing a crown! Bastet is the cat goddess—and in this restaurant she’s a queen. A ruler! This is where Bastet rules!”

  Karim studied the coaster. “What about the rest of it—she Bastet rules?”

  “I don’t know,” Xena admitted. “But I bet we’ll find out. It’s got to be the same place!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Anything else, kids?” The waiter had come back with three mugs of steaming cocoa while they were talking. Xena looked at Xander as though to say, You’re on! The man had been friendly, but he was clearly busy, and Xander’s famous charm might help if they wanted him to stay and talk for a minute.

  Xander flashed a smile at the man. “My sister and I are from the States,” he began.

  A snort. “I could tell that!”

  Xander had gotten used to people commenting on his accent. “We don’t have places like this there, at least not where we live in Florida. How old is the pub?”

  The waiter seemed pleased at their interest. “More than two hundred years. Been in the same location all this time.”

  “Wow!” Xena was genuinely impressed.

  “Here, look at this.” The waiter went behind the counter and beckoned them to follow him. “Look here.” Scratched in the wood were words, some numbers, and what looked like abbreviations. “These are th
e prices of things that they served here long ago.” Xena and Xander looked for something—anything—that could be a clue. There were no hieroglyphs or anything that looked Egyptian. No drawings of the sun, either.

  “Where did the name come from—The Cat and Crown?” Karim asked.

  “I don’t rightly know.” The man rubbed his chin. “Why don’t you come back tomorrow and ask Mrs. Collins? She’s here most afternoons except when she goes to visit her son, like today. Will there be anything else?”

  “This case is frustrating,” Xander said as they fastened their raincoats. “Every time we get close to something, we hit a dead end.”

  “All we can do is come back, like the waiter said.” Xena felt just as gloomy as her brother. They walked through the rain with Karim to the corner where his mother was going to pick him up.

  “There’s something I don’t get,” Xander said as they hurried along, heads hunched against the drizzle. “Why did Amin write down the clues? Why didn’t he just tell his brother or somebody where the amulet was?”

  “I bet he didn’t get a chance,” Xena answered. “He was in hiding. Then, after he was caught, the brothers probably didn’t have a chance to talk again.”

  “Plus I don’t think he wanted his brother to have it,” Karim added. “It wasn’t until he was dying that he gave up on getting it himself and sent that clue to my great-great-great-grandfather. He must have figured it was better for someone in the family to have it than for the amulet to stay hidden forever.”

  “Why didn’t he just call?” Xander asked.

  Karim shook his head. “It must have been really expensive to make a phone call from Egypt back then. He was only an archaeologist’s helper and then a guard, and he probably never got either of those jobs again after what he did in London. He must have been really poor. If he wrote a letter, it would probably get intercepted by the police, so he wrote that clue instead. The police wouldn’t think it had anything to do with the amulet, so they’d let it through.”

  “Anyway, I don’t believe that Amin was making up all that stuff about the amulet.” Xena was convinced of this. “He must have been angry, and he might have wanted to make Sherlock look stupid by sending him on a wild-goose chase, but Sherlock took it seriously, and he wasn’t easy to fool.”