The Seduction of Phaeton Black (28 page)
Read The Seduction of Phaeton Black Online
Authors: Jillian Stone
Phaeton dropped a small lump of sugar into his teacup and stirred. “Let’s have a read through, straight away.”
They went over all the clues again. Stickles’ file was mostly a repeat of Dr. Exeter’s notes, with a few exceptions. Each man took a turn reading to allow the others the opportunity to down a few sandwiches and have a piece of cake.
Exeter leaned back and tilted his chair. “A small tidbit here, mention of a stone mason who worked on the granite foundation. William Henry Gould, resident of Lambeth—”
“Lambeth, you say?” Stickles patted a few crumbs off his lips and picked up a pile of recent notes. He shuffled back and forth between papers. “Ah, here it is. A single sarcophagus brought in some years after the installation. No donor name recorded but a residence in Lambeth was notated. I thought it odd enough to make a note of it.”
Exeter leveled his chair. “Lambeth is a working-class neighborhood—seems unlikely anyone there would have a spare sarcophagus laying about unless—”
“Unless a resident stone mason happened to be working on the site when those two coffins fell out of the packing and onto British soil. Hard to say how this chap—Gould—ended up with the relic.” Phaeton leaned forward. “Let’s say he tucked it away for years. Perhaps something happened, a financial difficulty, he needed the income. The stone cutter asks about, contacts an antiquities dealer, who brings the item to the museum’s attention.”
Stickles nodded. “Black market acquisitions are often anonymous; usually an alias is used, but not always.”
Phaeton nervously fingered the edges of a ledger. “So gentlemen, what does our intuition tell us about this clue?”
A man’s face, lit only by a flickering torch, appeared at the end of the open shaft. “Miss Jones, Detective Investigator Farrell, Scotland Yard. I take it we have not much time to settle this unusual exchange. I would like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind?”
Phaeton had been gone for hours now, but she was grateful for the company she had received from Mr. Ping and the small contingent of police surrounding the crypt.
“Pleased to meet you, Detective Farrell. I believe Phaeton receives messages from you, though we’ve never met.”
“And you are the young lady who is helping Inspector Moore hunt down and capture a bad lot of pirates.”
“I do hope so, sir.”
“Looks as though you’ve gotten caught up in a bad lot of business. How are you getting on?”
“A great deal more comfortably now, Detective.”
“Splendid.” The man lowered his voice to a whisper. “Can you hear me, Miss Jones?”
“Perfectly, sir.”
“Very good. Phaeton and Doctor Exeter have gone off—on an important errand, I’m told. Might you know where they are?”
“Oh, Mr. Black rarely says much about his comings and goings.” She thought for a moment. “I believe yesterday he was about in Bloomsbury.”
“Bloomsbury?” The detective exhaled a rather loud sigh. “Nothing much up there, except the—” The man suddenly cut off his speech. America strained to hear bits and pieces of muffled conversation. She caught the tail end of a barked order. “Have Director Chilcott meet me at the museum.” He tipped the edge of his hat. “Thank you for your assistance, Miss Jones.”
A flurry of mist and miasma floated through the chamber. She did not have to turn around to know what caused a chill to run up her spine. “Detective Farrell?”
“Yes, miss?” The man’s brows furrowed. “Is everything all right?”
She gave him a quick nod, but signaled otherwise with a roll of her eyes. “If you find Mr. Black, tell him to take care and please hurry back.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
T
HE
B
RITISH
M
USEUM
,
BASEMENT LEVEL THREE
. A vast dark space thick with the dust of antiquity. Dismal enough. Vaguely, Phaeton made out the dim outline of objects, great and small, crated and stacked neatly in rows. He toggled the switch, hoping to add more light to the flickering lanterns held high by Exeter and Stickles. Impatient to get a better look, he slapped the torch against his palm. A swath of illumination sprang to life and cut through the endless black pit of the museum’s underground depository. He swept the beam across a woefully barren storage compartment. “Bollocks.”
HE
B
RITISH
M
USEUM
,
BASEMENT LEVEL THREE
. A vast dark space thick with the dust of antiquity. Dismal enough. Vaguely, Phaeton made out the dim outline of objects, great and small, crated and stacked neatly in rows. He toggled the switch, hoping to add more light to the flickering lanterns held high by Exeter and Stickles. Impatient to get a better look, he slapped the torch against his palm. A swath of illumination sprang to life and cut through the endless black pit of the museum’s underground depository. He swept the beam across a woefully barren storage compartment. “Bollocks.”
“Let me check the warehouse address once again.” Stickles rifled through the pages of a small ledger. “We are in aisle thirty, and this is indeed where item—”
The doctor squinted at the numbered placard. “Four fifty-one—”
Phaeton shifted the beam to the brass frame tacked to the floor. Exeter dropped onto his haunches and brushed a layer of dust off the numbered card. “Dash S.”
“See here.” He swept the circle of light along a near perfect outline of fine powder. “An object was moved recently.” His jaw twitched. “So where is the blasted box?”
Exeter’s gaze traced over the rectangular shape. “Are we on the right floor? In the correct warehouse?’
“Ahead of you there, doctor.” Stickles clapped the ledger shut. “We are in the correct spot, gentlemen, but I’m afraid the sarcophagus is not.”
“Could the ledger be wrong?” Phaeton swiveled toward the elderly gent. Despite the blinding beam in his eyes, the odd curator smiled. “What’s got you so amused, Stickles?”
“Unless the artifact is stolen, there can only be one other explanation.”
Phaeton wracked his brain. He thought of several possibilities, each one worse than the last. He needed to find the resting place of Anubis and raise the dead. Right. All in a day’s work. A deep breath and a slow and purposeful exhale helped. Perhaps the piece was on loan to another museum. Dear God, not off premises. He went with his last thought on the matter. “It’s on display.”
“Very good, Mr. Black.”
After a clamor up three sets of stairs, they faced yet another looming staircase on the main floor of the museum. Phaeton sat the wheezing curator down on a bench and loosened the man’s cravat. “Don’t die on me now, Stickles.”
“Gave up the pipe last year. Not soon enough, I expect.” The curator managed a weak grin. “You both go ahead. Number four—the mummy room.”
Phaeton swiveled, then turned back. “How will we tell one sarcophagus from another?”
“Find the placard. Every artifact on display has one. In the bottom left corner you will find the item number.”
Cool blue illumination poured in from the domed skylight, dappling the marble floor with a cobweb of shadows and light. The edge of a great white sphere slipped below the curvature of glass, a reminder the moon was setting. In the entry hall, two colossal stone heads, placed side by side, guarded the mummy room. Phaeton stopped to stare into the imposing, sightless eyes of Amenhotep and Ramses II. “We Brits do know how to loot and pillage.”
A staccato of hollow footsteps followed them across the great room filled with glass cases, inner coffins, and the tortured frames of withered mummies. At the end of a long display of funerary masks, he and Exeter hesitated. A sea of sarcophagi lay straight ahead. The stone reliquaries were placed in an orderly circle, surrounding an impressive display built to resemble a royal barge. Phaeton opened his watch. “Nearly one fifteen.”
Exeter’s demeanor, usually stoic and difficult to read, was transparently grim. “If we divide the job—”
“No.” Phaeton shook his head. “We’ll never find the damnable coffin in time.” After a few tentative paces forward, he shut everything out but the hollow rasp of his own breath and tattoo of heartbeats. He moved among the hollow-eyed dead and listened carefully to the faint whispers that were always with him.
Exeter followed several paces behind.
Lead the way, Phaeton
.
Lead the way, Phaeton
.
He distinctly heard the doctor’s voice in his head. So, the enigmatic Exeter was a fair telepath himself. Excellent, his cohort might attune to something he missed.
A slither of grey tail and an unpleasant sniveling whine alerted Phaeton to his annoying nemesis.
“That unpleasant creature, the one I always see skulking about you.” Exeter perused a reliquary. “Might the gargoyle be of any assistance, as say that hound of Mr. Ping’s?”
Phaeton had lived nearly his entire life with the pesky beast lurking in the shadows of his world. Now, in a matter of weeks, he had made acquaintance with two people who were clearly aware of the ephemeral little monster. “Pay no attention to Edvar the Sneaky.”
“Edvar”—Exeter glanced up from his examination of the coffin—“the Sneaky?”
Phaeton cleared his throat. “Miss Jones believes Edvar to be my protector.”
The doctor’s gaze narrowed on the cloud of grey matter assembling itself on a nearby display case. “Rather small, for a guardian.”
Phaeton shrugged. “Quite a talented shapeshifter, actually.”
Exeter stepped past the newly assembled gargoyle. “Hmm. If you say so.”
Walking a zigzag pattern, steadily circling displays or statuary, he and the doctor closed in on the center of the room. Along the way, Phaeton placed a copper tuppence on one or two closed sarcophagi. Remote possibilities.
Once they reached the barge, he turned back to Exeter and shook his head.
“Nothing?”
Not exactly nothing. There was a niggling speck of something. More of a foggy suspicion, really. As if some sort of unknown entity, powerful and dangerous, lay hidden deep inside a grain of sand, out of reach. Words flowed from his mouth, whisperings, really. “We are close.”
“The ancient Egyptians held a great reverence for the jackal-headed god Anubis, overseer of the weighing of souls.”
The words jarred Phaeton out of his musings. He pivoted toward the plaque as the doctor read aloud. “The heart of the deceased was balanced on a scale, against the feather of Maat, or truth. If the heart was lighter than a feather, the dead person was allowed to pass into the underworld.”
Exeter turned to Phaeton. “If I recall my ancient Egyptian mythology correctly, should the applicant fail the weighing of the heart test, the Eater of Souls devoured the departed.”
“This isn’t some royal barge, designed for an afternoon scull down the Nile.” Phaeton nodded to the signage hanging above the impressive display. “This is a model of the sun boat. The ark of Ra.”
The long sleek lines of the elegant barge all came together at the center of the craft. A rather plain, undistinguished looking stone sarcophagus had been placed upon a dais. And yet, he sensed ...
Phaeton’s gaze wavered, then returned to the coffin. “Shall we go aboard?” He didn’t have to glance at Exeter to know the doctor, as well, focused on the reliquary.
“Note the cartouche, here on the end.” Exeter ran his fingers over incised lines, carved eons ago. “The eagle feather and crown signify god or ruler, followed by the symbol for a door and the ankh.” Exeter straightened. “The door opens to death.”
Phaeton scratched his head. “I thought the ankh represented life?”
“Life, death, eternal life. Three stages of being, one symbol.”
“Ah-h. N. Oo-o. Phu-u.” The doctor sounded out the letters and vowels of the cartouche.
“Anupu. The ancient name for Anubis. God of the dead.” The thrum of his heart pounding in his chest stirred the murmurs in his head.
Yes-s-s-s-s-s.
Yes-s-s-s-s-s.
He moved to one end of the stone reliquary, fingering the coffin lid. “On the count, then?”
After several tries, the sarcophagus cover shifted. Both he and the doctor gained a better grip and were able to move the heavy slab to one edge. “Ready?” After a deep breath, they tilted the lid, straining every muscle as the stone ground down the side of the coffin.
“Try not to destroy the display.” Exeter gasped, just as the cover slipped from their grasp and hit the floor. Decking snapped, wooden planks splintered and flew into the air.
Phaeton ducked and stepped back. When the dust cleared, a large portion of the ship’s decking appeared to be dislodged. The open sarcophagus teetered on the edge of several broken floor boards, which sagged dangerously and made the most worrisome creaking noise.
To get a better look inside, Exeter placed a tentative foot forward.
Phaeton nodded. “Might as well have a go.”
They both leaned forward. An earthshaking tremble proceeded a loud crunch, as the floor gave way all around them. Phaeton, the doctor, and the stone resting place of Anubis all crashed to the ground at once.
Having landed on his posterior, Phaeton rolled over and pulled a nasty splinter out of his rear. “Ouch.” He rubbed his backside. “What happened to those gravity defying powers of yours, doctor?”
Exeter grinned at his discomfort. “We barely fell four feet.”
The coffin, however, lay broken in several pieces.
Phaeton clapped the dust off his hands and peered inside. Nothing but a few inches of sand covered the bottom of the sarcophagus.
Exeter caught his eye. “Disappointed?”
“Not sure what I was expecting.” A whiff of ancient miasma filtered into the air. Phaeton sniffed. “Bitter almonds.”
The doctor raised a brow.
“A scent I often experience before—” He broke off in midsentence. Whatever it was, the essence was strong. Phaeton sank back down onto the floor. “Odd coincidence. More than ten years ago, Qadesh arrives here, in England, in a similar condition. Sleeping peacefully through the centuries, her stone housing is suddenly dropped and broken.”
Exeter appeared mesmerized by sand pouring out of the broken corner of the stone receptacle. Piercing eyes shifted to Phaeton. “So, what awakened her?”
“The Whitechapel murders.” He sat straight up. “When did they begin—approximately?”
“You know as well as I do, the date depends greatly on which victims you count. My involvement began sometime after Mary Ann Nichols, in August of last year.”
“But what if the murders began earlier, with Emma Smith? That would put us in spring. Shortly after the Thames flood.”
A spark lit in Exeter’s eyes. “The sinkholes. No doubt one of them was her lair.”
Phaeton nodded. “The Thames overflowed her banks late last spring—by nearly four feet in some spots.” He recalled a newspaper photograph of Cleopatra’s Needle rising up from the floodwaters.
“The ankh, the eye of Horus, powerful symbols, certainly. But the Egyptians’ greatest symbol, the mother of all life ...” Exeter dusted sand and debris off his coat sleeve. “If you lived in a desert, Phaeton, what might you call the elixir of life?”
“The Nile.” Phaeton grinned. “Could water be the catalyst?”
Exeter shrugged. “Perhaps, not any water. With regards to its life-sustaining properties and importance, the Thames is not unlike the Nile.”
Exeter reached inside his jacket pocket and retrieved a flask of whiskey. “I’m afraid all I have in the way of liquid is a dram or two of Talisker’s.” He unscrewed the cap, pulled a swig and passed it over. “There’s a good drop left.”
“Cheers.” Phaeton tilted back to empty the flask as Stickles head popped into the deck opening overhead. “Dear me, it appears you have found item four fifty-one dash S.”
Phaeton coughed, wiping his mouth with his jacket sleeve. “You wouldn’t happen to have a queen’s gallon of Thames water on you, old man?”
“Afraid not.” Stickles continued to view the carnage below with bewilderment. “Would a spot of tea help? I brought a refreshment tray up, thought you gentlemen could use—”
Phaeton turned to Exeter. “Tea is brewed with Thames water.”
The doctor flashed a weary, devil-eyed grin. “Might as well give it a go.”
Phaeton turned back to the curator. “Mind pouring what you’ve got down into the sarcophagus? The tea, I mean.”
A small stream of pale brown liquid hit bottom and puddled in a hollow of sand. The moisture was quickly absorbed by the dry fine particles.
They waited. Staring at the light brown stain of dampness.
A column of white steam and bluish smoke arose from beneath the grains with a scorching hiss. Exeter and Phaeton moved back as a diminutive funnel began to cyclone, simultaneously throwing off and drawing in bits of dust and flying debris.
Something small and black emerged from the whirling particles of sand and silica. Phaeton leaned closer. “What is it?”
“I can’t tell much from up here. Appears to be a rat standing on two legs.” Stickles held the teapot poised over the sarcophagus. “Shall I continue to pour?”
Without taking his eyes off the queer creature, Phaeton signaled for more. “A few sips.”
Stickles tilted the pot a bit too far and the lid fell off. A splash of hot, brewed tea drenched the animated entity. A shrill screech tore through the little beast as it spun itself into a whirlwind.
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