Horatio Lyle (6 page)

‘I would like to speak to Lord Elwick.’

‘I’m not sure if
. . .
’

At the clerk’s feet, Tate sneezed violently. Tess hid her smile. Lyle’s expression could have frozen a small volcano. Seeing it, the clerk tried to hide in his own shoulders. ‘I’ll see if his lordship is available.’

He scurried away.

Lyle and Tess stood looking thoughtfully at the door. Finally Lyle said, ‘Teresa, I’m perplexed.’

‘Oh dear, Mister Lyle. Sit down and see if it goes away.’

‘Teresa
. . .
’ He shook his head slightly. ‘No. Maybe not.’

‘What?’

‘Have you ever read a book called
. . .
’

She scowled, cutting him off before he could finish. ‘A
book
?’

Silence. Lyle had frozen, a man whose world has just been shaken. ‘Teresa?’ he murmured dully after a long, long while. ‘Can you even
. . .
?’

‘What?’

Silence. He half-turned away. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

She opened her mouth to answer rudely, but Tate, having grown bored with this conversation, had pushed his way through the small, half-open space between door and wall and padded into the darkness of the vault. A sudden barking erupted from inside it and Lyle rolled his eyes. ‘Nag, nag, nag,’ he muttered. He pulled the heavy door back a little further and stepped into the gloom, unhitching a lantern from the wall. The dull orange light fell in a little pool around his feet, and the shadows peeled back to reveal, gleaming very faintly, gold.

Tess’s eyes widened, her mouth dropped. ‘There ’s
. . .
’

‘Yes.’

‘I mean, no one could possibly
. . .
’

‘They could.’

‘But it ain’t
fair
! We could just
. . .
’

‘No.’

‘But it ’s so shiny.’

‘Yes.’

‘But no one would ever guess.’

‘Teresa,’ he said reproachfully, ‘we are here on a matter of law.’

She pulled herself together. ‘Yes, Mister Lyle.’

They picked their way along shelves lined with countless treasures, the majority of them doubtless stolen in the first place and locked away for posterity. The light bent and split inside jewels, shimmered off bronze, flashed off gold, slithered off silver, to all of which Lyle seemed oblivious. At the end of the shelves stood delicately painted giant vases from China or heavily adorned ones from India, and along the far wall stood huge statues of people with too many arms to be comfortably thought on or too few clothes to be practically viable in the English climate. Lyle and Tess wove their way back and forth through these shelves until Lyle muttered, ‘It’s a little vulgar, really.’ Tess said nothing, and stared.

They found Tate barking indignantly at what looked to Tess like a large stone box. He gave them a look that said, ‘What took so long?’ Lyle raised the lamplight a little higher to let it fall on the old yellow stonework, and Tess saw symbols carved all around it, strange eyes and birds and people who looked as if they didn’t know which way they were going. On the top the box curved to form a crude face and a pair of crossed arms, the blue, red, gold and brown paint chipped and peeled by ages. She whispered, feeling that it would be wrong to talk loudly in front of something this strange, ‘What is it?’

‘A sarcophagus,’ replied Lyle.

She nodded sagely. ‘Oh.’

He looked sideways at her and added, ‘From Egypt.’

‘Ah.’

‘It’s a box where people a very long time ago put other dead people.’

Her face split into an expression of delighted disgust. ‘That ’s horrid!’

He brightened at seeing something nearing enthusiasm. ‘What they did was remove all the internal organs and put them in canopic jars for preservation, including the brain which was removed through the
. . .
’

Her face wrinkled up, but her eyes glowed. ‘Why did they do that?’

Delight lit up Lyle ’s eyes, as an opportunity to enlighten the ignorant on a favourite topic presented itself. ‘Well, they believed in the afterlife, and thought that if you weren’t properly prepared you couldn’t get into paradise. At the gates of heaven, Anubis would weigh your heart against a feather and
. . .
’ He stopped, his expression frozen. He put his head on one side and stared at the sarcophagus. He said quietly, ‘Oh.’

She hopped in irritation as Lyle’s voice trailed off. ‘What is it,
what is it
?’

‘Uh
. . .
would you hold this?’ He handed her the lantern. She took it uncertainly and tried to hold it up to her full, unimpressive height as Lyle squatted down by the side of the sarcophagus and rummaged in his pockets. From the depths of his large grey coat he pulled out a roll of blue cloth, opening it carefully on the floor in front of him. Strange tools, the use of which Tess could-n’t even begin to guess at, rested in little sewn compartments inside the cloth. Lyle twiddled his fingers expectantly in the air and, like a falcon diving for its prey, picked out a long, thin blade. Turning it so it was parallel with the slit between the top of the sarcophagus and the main body, he ran it very carefully through the gap. The tip of the blade came out stained with a very thin, bright red dust. Lyle rubbed it between his fingers and started to grin.

Tess squeaked, trying to hide her excitement, ‘Mister Lyle, what is it?’

‘Wood rot.’ He straightened up, prodding the sarcophagus with his toe. ‘This bit’s stone.’ Then, to Tess’s astonishment and dismay, he slammed the palm of his hand down on the top of the sarcophagus. It boomed emptily. ‘This is light, hollow wood.’

He tried to get his fingers under the lid and pull it up. Something inside gently clicked. Tess brightened. ‘It ’s locked on the inside, ain’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well
. . .
’ She chewed her lip. ‘There ain’t no hinges, so it ’s probably got two locks on either side what click in place when the lid comes down - the release would be on the inside
. . .
uh
. . .
have you got acid?’

He stared at her. ‘You
. . .
want
me
to give
you
acid?’

‘What? You ain’t never burnt your way through a difficult lock?’

‘Erm
. . .
’ He patted his pockets with a dazed expression, as if only just beginning to remember who he kept company with, and only just beginning to wonder why. Things clinked inside them. Then he unbuttoned his coat and patted two inside pockets. He sighed. ‘Nothing that I could easily administer.’

‘You got another knife?’

He blinked, as if seeing her for the first time. ‘You want me to trust
you
with a sharp object?’

‘Yes.’ She made it sound as though he was asking a stupid question.

Lyle hesitated. Then he raised his hands in defeat. ‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘I’m probably aiding and abetting as it is.’ He handed her his blade and, after searching through his pockets, pulled out another, wrapped in greasy leather and slightly chipped. Wordlessly Tess walked round to the other side of the sarcophagus and ran her blade between lid and body. Lyle did the same on his side and, glancing at each other for confirmation, they slowly started sliding their blades along the sides until, almost together and directly opposite, they hit something solid inside the lid which prevented their passing. Tess grinned. Lyle rummaged in his bag until he found a slim hook.

Tess said, ‘Why do you carry that kinda thing, Mister Lyle?’

‘Oh, you never know when you might need a bent bit of metal or a piece of string or a pair of scissors or a spring or a spare bottle of ammonia nitrate,’ he replied easily.

‘Mister Lyle?’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you go out ever?’

‘It’s been known.’

‘With Miss Chaste?’ she asked, grinning slyly.

‘Miss Chaste is a vicar’s daughter,’ he said with a scowl. ‘What more can I say?’

‘I could think of
. . .
’

‘No! If you must know, I have a fondness for the fireplace and early nights.’ Glowering across the top of the sarcophagus, Lyle slid the hook between the lid and body, and carefully bent it side to side, until something clicked. The lid jerked slightly and he hastily turned the knife, pushing the lid up half an inch, when it would go no further. Wordlessly he passed the hook over to Tess, who slid it under the lid and wiggled it until, on her side of the sarcophagus, a like mechanism gave a similar click. The lid jerked slightly and Lyle slid his fingers under, pulling it up lightly and holding it open. The two of them looked down into the dark rectangle of the sarcophagus. Tess said thoughtfully, ‘Shouldn’t there be somethin’ there?’

Lyle looked surprisingly cheerful, carefully putting down the wooden lid and brushing his hands clean, a severe expression mingling with an excited look in the eyes. ‘There should be a mummy.’

‘A
. . .
’

‘Dead person in bandages.’

‘Oh.’ She looked utterly disinterested.

Lyle sighed, disappointed that she wasn’t sharing his enthusiasm, and said almost reproachfully, ‘I think I know how it was done.’

‘Oh. So does that mean we can stop workin’ now and have lunch? I mean, not that I ain’t curious an’ all, but
. . .
lunch
. . .
’ Tess’s eyes bulged in what, on any other species from injured puppy to pining kitten, would have been a desperate cry for emotional support, and on her gave her young face a slightly gerbil-like quality.

Lyle glowered and rolled up his bundle of tools, slipping them back into a pocket. He strode towards the door with the confidence of someone who knows what he expects to find and isn’t prepared to tolerate anything else. Tess followed dutifully. Tate yawned. At the door, Lyle paused to examine the hinged bolts that ran across it and towards the wall. The hinge ran, by a complicated series of bolts and turns, into an arm that extended into the iron door itself, and moved up and down in a carefully cut groove. Lyle peered inside, but with just the low lamplight, could see nothing but darkness, smelling of oil. He sighed again and dug in his pocket, pulling out a small globe of tinted glass that fitted easily in the palm of his hand. He said, businesslike, ‘Pass the lantern, please.’

Tess handed him the lantern and watched in fascination as he held the globe carefully over the flame until the bottom started to blacken, and carefully slid a tiny glass shutter off the top of the globe, so that the top was open to the air. Almost immediately, it blossomed into burning white light, too bright to look at directly, and only slightly filtered by the tinted glass. Tess jumped away hastily. ‘What the holy hell is that!’

‘Language.’

‘Sorry, sir. What
is
it?’

‘Magnesium.’

‘Oh, you should’ve said it were
magnesium
, sir, that makes everything clearer. I mean, it were all we ever talked ’bout down at Shoreditch, sir, how they ain’t makin’ magnesium the way they used’a do, how it ain’t never blowin’ up and fizzin’ and goin’ all scary and bright without warnin’ like we always said it should. If you’d said it were
magnesium
, sir, I would never have lost five years of my life just then, sir.’

He shot her a sideways look, and said nothing.

Holding the globe carefully between thumb and forefinger, he peered into the groove once more, the white light falling on internal gears and bolts that lined the inside of the door in small armies. He said brightly, ‘Ah. There it is. Teresa?’ She took the lantern back and, with some trepidation, the burning globe, holding it at arm’s length while inside it the metal blazed white, occasionally sparking in the process and leaving a bright after-burn ingrained on her eyeballs. With a strained expression Lyle slid his knife into the small groove under the protruding metal arm and twiddled it. There was a click. Something inside the door went
thunk
in a loud, decisive manner. Lyle drew back his hand quickly as the arm slowly descended, sending the bolts shooting across the door. Tess jumped. Lyle grinned, and, reaching into the groove, turned the knife the opposite way. The arm lifted and the hinges retracted to the open position again. Looking smug, he wrapped the knife up. ‘I think I’m getting interested in this. The old brain has started to work once more. If we’re lucky, it’ll be over in time for Brahms at St Martin’s.’

In Tess’s hand, the little sphere of burning light flickered and died. Lyle sighed and plucked it from her nerveless fingers, wrinkled his nose at the little wisp of smoke coming off it, wrapped it in a handkerchief and dropped it back into his pocket.

‘Sir?’

‘Yes?’

‘What the
. . .
uh
. . .
I mean, what ’s happenin’?’

‘I know how the thief got in. Actually, I know how the thief got
out
having got in, which is by far the trickier question. I’m just a little concerned that he came so well prepared. Come on, Teresa, let’s go and pester the aristocracy.’

She brightened at this prospect. ‘I’ve never pestered a bigwig, sir.’

‘It’s a wonderful pastime.’

They walked side by side up along the corridor, past the guard ’s room to the iron door just beyond. Tess said, ‘How’d he get past this?’

‘One of two methods. No - one of two
rational
methods.’

‘Yes?’

‘Either he picked the lock, or the door was already unlocked.’

She frowned. ‘The last one seems easiest.’

‘You
are
economical, aren’t you?’

‘It’s my best quality, sir.’ She paused, then said, ‘So
. . .
how’d he do it?’

‘I’m afraid of telling you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re already far too good at what you do without me giving you ideas.’

Tess beamed proudly, and nudged him, trying to look sly. ‘Go on, sir. You want me to help you with security, right?’

They walked on through long dim corridors, until Lyle suddenly reached out and grabbed Tess by the arm. ‘Shush.’ At his feet Tate started growling.