The List Of Seven (34 page)

The pounding on the door stopped abruptly. Larry took a couple of deep breaths, then slumped exhaustedly down onto a crate. "Lord, I need a drink," he said, his head in his hands. "I'm whacked to the wide."

They regained themselves in the shelter of a cove of crates. Time slowly resumed its normal curve, and Doyle's attention was drawn to the sea of curiosities surrounding them. He joined Sparks, who was standing on top of the tallest box surveying their position, holding the torch high. "Good Christ ..."

The room stretched out in every direction as far as the eye could see. The landscape was populated by small principalities of statuary: kings, queens, artists, scholars, scientists, foot soldiers and generals on horseback, heroes and villains of antiquity and folklore captured in their defining moments of triumph or infamy, parliaments of demigods and goddesses, their white marble skins aglow with a milky, luminescent sheen.

"What is this place?" asked Doyle. "I believe we are in a subbasement of the British Museum," said Sparks.

"So there's a way out then, up above," said Doyle, encouraged.

"We'll have to find a door first." "Jack, what in God's name were those—" "Not now, Doyle," said Sparks, leaping lightly down off the box. "Up and on, Larry, we're not clear of this yet."

Larry roused himself to his feet, and they set off trailing after Sparks.

"You all right, guv?" Larry asked Doyle. "Nothing a few stiff yards of scotch wouldn't set right," said Doyle.

His stoicism seemed to put the starch back in Larry's step.

"Second the motion. Thought for a minute you was goin' to chuck the sponge."

"If you hadn't been so quick with that lock, we'd have all turned up our toes by now."

"Easy as winking. Should've had it off before trouble turned the corner."

"No worry," said Doyle. "Worse things happen at sea."

They hustled to catch up to Sparks, who led them by torchlight willy-nilly through the immense storeroom. There were no paths to follow, no aisles or columns through which to plot a course. The cavern's wonders seemed to have been scattered recklessly, without benefit of any discernible design. Each turn through the dreamworld delivered them to a cargo of new wonders: a colony of urns as big as boxcars, others as delicate as acorns; ponderous sarcophagi of silver and lead inlaid with precious stones, baroque coronation carriages of alabaster and gold leaf, catafalques of ebony, ivory, and shining steel, headless mannequins in ceremonial costume from Africa, Asia, and the subcontinent; immense tapestries illustrating wars of lost and legendary kingdoms; a comprehensive zoography of savage animals taxidermed to passive domesticity—bears from every corner of the earth, great cats, ravenous wolves, rhinoceroses, elephants and ostriches, crocodiles and emus, and a spate of stranger, night-dwelling species undreamt-of or never seen before; a gallery of epic paintings in gilded frames assaying every imaginable scene, battles, seductions, royal births and deaths, bucolic Arcadias and nightmarish holocausts. At one juncture, they wandered through a ghostly fleet of skeletal ships, stripped to the ribs, awaiting resurrection. Gigantic cannons, engines of war, battering rams, catapults, and siege machines. A cityscape of uprooted walls, huts, houses, transplanted tombs, and reconstructed temples. Great stone heads. Hying machines. Feathered serpents. Instruments of music or torture. In its breathtaking totality, the chamber's contents added up to nothing less than an exhaustive anthropology of the known and unknown worlds, all of it shrouded in a thick dust of contumely and neglect.

"Have you ever seen the like?" said Doyle in amazement.

"No. I've heard rumors of the existence of such a storeroom for many years," said Sparks, as they stopped again in a clearing, not a foot closer to finding an exit.

"Like civilization's graveyard," said Larry.

"The spoils of the expansion of British Empire," said

Doyle.

"Lord have mercy on the white man. Looks like we brung back every last stick we could carry and then some," said

Larry.

"That's exactly what we've done; plundered the world's countinghouses and looted its tombs, and what booty we don't display upstairs in pride of conquest we covet from view down here in shame," said Sparks.

"Just as every other dominant culture in history has done in its ascendancy," said Doyle.

"I daresay the world above's a poorer place for it," said Larry, sadness magnified by his intimate acquaintanceship with unlawful greed.

"Let it be no cause for worry," said Sparks. "Another conquering civilization will come along soon enough to relieve us of our burden."

"It looks as if no one's been down here in years," said Doyle, wiping a black thumbprint's worth of dust off the toe of a warlike Athena.

"Someone has: long enough to steal that statue of Tuamutef, at the very least," said Sparks, laying that mystery to rest. "If not a great deal more." "How's that, Jack?"

"Although the arrangement of these items seems willfully haphazard to the eye, there is still a loose, categorical method to it. And there were significant pieces missing from nearly every valuable collection we encountered. Here's an example, do you see?"

Sparks drew their attention to a quintet of Hellenic statues depicting a series of animated and sensuous nymphs. "Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, and I believe this sprightly lass is Terpsichore," said Sparks.

"The Nine Muses," said Doyle. "I had an uncle played the calliope," said Larry. "And only five of them left in attendance. You can clearly see here by these marks on the floor that the four missing ladies—help me, Doyle: Polyhymnia, Melpomene—"

"Thalia and Urania."

"Thank you—you can see by these marks that the other four previously resided here alongside their sisters."

"You think the others were stolen?"

"I do. I've noticed similar patterns of selective larceny throughout. As you've observed, Doyle, the curators of this circus are largely absentee. The members of the Brotherhood inserted that shaft into the tunnel in order to gain access to this room; they could siphon a steady stream of treasures out of this trove from now until doomsday and not so much as a teaspoon would be missed."

"But to what purpose?"

"One of two reasons: to keep for themselves or sell off. You could hardly begin to put a price on what's in here."

"Is that the Brotherhood's purpose then? Cornering the market on antiquities?" asked Doyle.

"To assemble an elite circle of movers and shakers like the heavyweights on that list to run a fencing operation, no matter how ambitious, strikes me as a tiny bit prosy, wouldn't you say, Larry?"

"Like the great chefs of Europe gettin' together to bake hot cross buns."

"Quite. I suspect the reasons behind these thefts are twofold: the acquisition of specific and sacred items they believe necessary as their bridge to the mystic plane—i.e., our friend Tuamutef—and the profitable illicit sale of those items they don't require to finance the rest of their efforts."

"But as you pointed out, they are all enormously wealthy," said Doyle.

"And I'll acquaint you with the first ironclad rule of the enormously wealthy: Never spend one's own money."

"Amen to that," said Larry, the memory if not the light of larceny shining in his eyes.

"Pardon me, Larry. That principle is undoubtedly a good deal less class-conscious than I just stated."

"No offense taken," said Larry. " 'Fink I'll have a peepers." He lit his candle off the torch and wandered off around the next cluster of boxes.

"We can put a stop to their wanton thievery, that much is certain," said Doyle.

"Sealing that tunnel will put an end to the robberies, though I fear the worst has already been done and the trail gone cold: Witness the ruined condition of that padlock on the iron doors."

Doyle nodded, conceding the point.

"Whether or not we can successfully bring charges to bear against the firm of Rathborne and Sons for these crimes is a good deal less certain. It may not in fact be in our best interest."

"How so, Jack?"

"Without a shred of physical evidence to support the accusation, an assault on the venerated, unsullied names of the Brotherhood through the plodding course of the courts will only vouchsafe their acquittal and drive them deeper to ground, while heaping untold ridicule upon ourselves. If we're to pursue them to the heart of their purpose, it's best we keep our efforts from public view until the moment we can strike decisively."

A low whistle came from Larry on the other side of the bend. "Have a muggins at this, then."

Sparks and Doyle traced the light of Larry's candle and joined him, climbing up onto a barrier of crates that seemed to be a shield for the sight that greeted them. Sparks held high the torch, and they looked down at a solid square block of identical mummies' coffins, at least twenty in number, set shoulder to shoulder like cots in a crowded flophouse. The lids had been removed and stashed in a heap to one side. Two of the boxes still held their occupants: rangy, blackened, and withered corpses sheathed in rotting bandages. The rest were

empty.

"Good Christ," said Doyle, as they moved forward to examine the lids.

"Weapons, defensive actions," said Sparks, studying the pictographs. "These were warriors' graves. Coffins of similar size and design, identical hieroglyphs: These bodies were the royal household guard, entombed en masse. When Pharaoh died, it was custom to kill and bury his garrison alongside, an escort to the Land of the Ancients."

'There's service above and beyond the call," said Larry.

They looked at each other.

"Makes you wonder, doesn't it?" said Sparks with a strange grin.

"What should we do?" asked Doyle.

Before he could answer, the room was electrified with the expressive screech of rusty iron hinges from far across the chamber.

"For the moment," said Sparks, instantly on the alert, "I strongly suggest that we run."

Run they did, as far and as fast from the iron doors as their legs and limited light would carry them. The storeroom's fabulous inventory was reduced to an ill-defined blur. Moving along the wall, they searched for an exit and finally found one in the farthest corner—double oaken doors, exceptionally stout. Larry lit his candle and examined the locks.

"Dead bolts," said Larry, sizing up his opposition. "No access to 'em."

Throwing their collective weight against the doors did not cause so much as a quiver in the wood.

"Chains on the other side for good measure," said Larry. "Guess they don't want tourists wandering in unannounced."

"Blasted museum," said Doyle.

"Shall I have a skivvy for another way?" asked Larry.

"No time," said Sparks, casting a sharp eye around. "Larry, we need loose metal, rocks, steel, scrap iron, whatever you can find, a whole mass of it—"

"On it," said Larry, as he moved off.

"We passed some cannon a while ago, Doyle, can you remember where that was?"

"I remember seeing them. Back a ways, I think."

"Then look for them as if our lives depended on it. Because they do."

Heading back into the open room, they tried as best they could to retrace their steps through the motley collection. The passage looked frustratingly unfamiliar. Another cry of rusty hinges found its way across the vasty chamber, but as yet there was no other sign of their attackers.

"Jack, provided we find one, what do you propose to do with a cannon?"

"That depends on which of our needs arises with more urgency."

"Our needs?"

"Much as I hate the defacing of government property, we shall have to blast our way out through those doors or turn and defend ourselves. Whichever comes first."

Doyle kept his opinion about his preferred alternative to himself. Each new protest from the hinges pounded a spike of fear deeper into his mind.

Their search seemed to last an eternity but took no more than five minutes, by which time the hinges had ceased their soundings. Save for the echoes of the two men's footsteps, the room grew ominously silent. They did find cannon, masses of cannon, cannonades of cannon. The difficulty now was in choosing one to suit their purpose: Sparks quickly settled on a Turkish sixteen-pounder attached to a caisson. They lifted either side of the hitch and muled it behind them, negotiating through the storeroom as rapidly as their haphazard path and the gun's ungainly weight would allow.

"How do we know it works?" asked Doyle as they ran. "We don't."

Doyle would have given the shirt off his back for enough grease to silence the caisson's squeaky wheels, for behind them in the direction of the iron doors they heard boxes and crates toppling over, crashing; their pursuers were in the room, ignoring the aisles and taking the shortest route to their quarry. Sparks stopped and looked around. "Is this the way we came?" he said. "I was following you. I thought you knew." "Right. Grab a couple of those sabers while they're handy, will you, Doyle?" said Sparks, pointing to an overflowing cache of weapons nearby.

"Do you really think we'll need them?" "I don't know. Would you rather find yourself at a point where you regret not having them?"

Doyle took two of the long, curved blades, and they resumed hauling the cannon. Please God, let him know which way we're going, prayed Doyle, and not into the arms or claws of whatever it is that's behind us—if they are behind and not in front of us—please God, let them be far behind us and more hopelessly lost in this labyrinth than we are. There, that statue of Hercules slaying a lion—one of the Twelve Labors, he had to muck out a stables as well: What a time to think about that!—at any rate we definitely passed Hercules on our way to the cannons—

"We're going the right way!" announced Doyle.

Larry was waiting for them near the double doors beside a heap of collected debris: bricks, broken lances, fragments of metal.

" 'Fraid I had to vandalize a touch, pulling odd bits off this and that," Larry said, with a slightly stricken conscience.

"You're absolved," said Sparks. "Give us a hand."

They maneuvered the cannon into position: point-blank at :he oaken doors ten feet away.