A Case of Curses Page 5

  I said, “Sir, please be honest with me. When you do your seances, do you indulge in a bit of showmanship? The shaking table? The popping noises?”

  “What? No! Never!”

  I believed him. I didn’t believe for a minute, however, that those phenomena had been caused by spirits breaking through from The Other Side.

  “Right,” I said, rising.

  I walked over to the octagonal table and knelt down near the raised side, where Alexander had been sitting the night before. I reached beneath the table and felt—just as I'd thought.

  “There’s some sort of machinery down here,” I began.

  Footsteps sounded on the floor. I opened my mouth to caution the laird not to exert himself—and turned just as Alexander Fraser's boot swept toward my face.

  I caught the foot against my chest, pitching backward into the table with a teeth-rattling thud. Alexander cursed as I gave his leg a sharp twist, and he went down. My chest ached as I tried to draw breath; I hoped the impact hadn't cracked a rib. Mustering my strength, I pulled myself on top of him.

  “You should leave, Richard,” Alexander said as he struggled beneath me. “You know what could happen if you upset yourself.”

  “I think you’re counting on that,” I said through gritted teeth. “One fit too many then off to an asylum.”

  “Alexander, is it true?” Richard cried.

  “Of course not. He’s lying,” Alexander growled. He loosed an arm and punched me right where his boot had landed. The world flashed bright with pain, and I gasped. He rolled over on top of me.

  Hatred blazed in his eyes, as well as desperation—how long had he been planning this? “You were shaking the table,” I said. “Make your brother think…all the better to…make him sound….”

  “Alexander!” Richard cried.

  The younger brother's hands were around my neck, now. I struggled for breath. Spots danced before my eyes.

  “Richard…go…to…your….”

  “And…blame it on…War.…”

  There was a terrible crash, and suddenly Alexander's grip went slack. He slumped on top of me. As I pushed him off, shards of Chinese pottery sliding from his head, I saw Richard standing over us, the neck of a very expensive vase in his hand. He staggered forward a step and caught himself on the table.

  “By God! Sir!” Phillips cried from the doorway.

  Richard straightened. He dropped the piece of vase he was holding and squared his shoulders. Despite the robe and the ravages of his ordeal, he now looked every inch the laird and master.

  “Phillips,” he said with new authority in his voice. “Send for the police.”

  •••

  I didn’t see Cal again until a few days later. I was walking back to the section house after my shift had ended when he caught me up.

  “Constable!” he called. I stopped on the pavement a few doors down from the station and turned. We shook hands—brief, businesslike, unsatisfying. All the same, considering the last time we’d spoken, the contact alone was so reassuring it pained me to end it. “I wanted to thank you for helping Richard and Elliott.”

  “Just doing my job, Mr. Webster,” I said. Inspector McClelland had himself responded to the butler's summons to Comiston House. The Laird and I had both given our statements, and McClelland had arrested Alexander on the spot. Perversely, nothing in Alexander's campaign to have his brother committed to an asylum had fallen afoul of the law. However, the law took a dim view indeed of assaulting a police officer.

  “I’m glad you did it so thoroughly,” Cal said. “Plenty of officers might have followed the obvious conclusion, especially if it would have meant picking up a few easy convictions along the way.”

  I nodded, allowing myself a small smile. “I trust the new laird is settling into his role, and has engaged a physician better versed in the latest medical developments.”

  “Indeed. I’ve introduced him to Uncle Henry. You remember Dr. Murray.”

  Of course I did. Cal and I had met during my investigation of vandalism at the building site where Dr. Murray was erecting a new hospital. Murray wasn’t actually Cal’s uncle—more like a family friend. A wealthy, philanthropic family friend who had taken on Cal’s welfare and education as a personal project. Such things happened, but they never happened without a reason. A small, unsettlingly jealous part of me had always wondered about that reason. I tucked those thoughts away and forced my attention back to the conversation.

  “Of course Uncle Henry entertains no old-fashioned misconceptions about seizures, and he’s confident of a full recovery. It’s a shame about Alexander, though. I'd always rather liked him.”

  “A shame his money and connections saw the charges dismissed,” I said.

  “Oh, I shouldn't worry about that. Richard gave him a rather impressive lump of dosh and a ticket to America, in exchange for never darkening the family doorstep again.”

  “And the laird trusts him to keep his word?” I said.

  “Of course. Otherwise he forfeits everything. It's all in black and white. Elliott drew up the agreement himself.”

  I laughed, shaking my head. The rich were, indeed, a different species. “I’m glad it worked out for them,” I said. “Even if Mr. Warwick would still as soon thrash me as look at me.”

  Cal laughed as well. “He's not a bad chap, just protective. He and Richard are planning a tour of Scotland’s haunted castles this summer. Maybe they’ll see a real ghost one of these days.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  The snow from the other night had long since melted away, but as we stood there in the gathering evening, small, light flecks fell, landing on my face, in his hair. He started to move his hand toward me, perhaps to brush the falling snow from my cheek, but, remembering we were in public, not even one street down from a police station, he stopped and jammed his hand into his pocket instead.

  “Simon, I keep forgetting you’re new to all this… I think… I was unfair the other night. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” I said.

  “For what?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. It seemed the right thing to say.”

  He laughed then, and, despite the snow and gathering wind, it felt like the sun had come out. He glanced around then leaned in, lowering his voice again. “I want to see you again.”

  Relief flooded through me. “Oh, yes, please.”

  “Good.” He held out his hand, and I took it, making up for the brevity of contact by holding his fingers as tightly as propriety allowed. “I have exams coming up, but then there’s a break. I’ll send word.”

  “Please do.”

  He caught my eyes and held them, a warm spark dancing in his own. Then, cheekily, he turned on his heel and started to walk away.

  I watched him go. Where was this headed? Where would it end? Because surely something this precious would have to end—either with him losing patience with me, or with me returning to London. Or perhaps as a result of some unforeseen calamity that would be so much worse than either of those.

  But for now it was time to celebrate—the successful and satisfying conclusion of this case, as well as the possibilities that lay ahead. Whistling a little tune, I started off down the street. The snow began to fall in earnest.

  I welcomed it.

  THE STAR-CROSSED LOVERS

  April 1887

  Edinburgh

  April found me still in Edinburgh. I wasn’t complaining, but Cal, apparently, was.

  “I still think we should have gone up Caerketton instead,” he said, with a wistful look in the direction of the Pentland hills. It was a rare, sunny morning, and every self-respecting Scotsman was out climbing mountains, throwing cabers, or engaging in other vigorous, outdoor activities. Except for Cal, who was stuck going to a museum with me.

  Today's outing, Edinburgh's first exhibit of Egyptian artifacts, had been my choice.

  “Museums are edifying,” I replied, hearing my father’s voice as I repeated his words
from so long ago.

  “But the weather is too nice to be inside.”

  Cal—Callum Webster, a medical student I’d met on a case two months earlier—wasn’t that much younger than I was. But sometimes the gap yawned.

  “I spend entire days being edified,” Cal muttered as the crowds pushed us forward out of the main gallery. “What I really could do with is an adventure.”

  “Well, I spend entire days up to my elbows in adventure, and it’s not at all what it’s cracked up to be. Besides, they said there will be a three thousand year old jar of honey on display. And it’s still edible. Can you imagine?”

  “I can imagine plenty of more interesting things to do with honey than putting it in a museum,” he said.

  His saucy tone made me laugh out loud. Then panic flashed through me. Indiscretion at the wrong moment could cost us both dearly. Fortunately, the crowd at the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art seemed more concerned with finding a place to stand to hear the exhibit’s opening address, than with anything Cal or I might have said.

  “That’s enough out of you,” I replied. He made a face, and I laughed again.

  The exhibition’s centerpiece was a pair of mummies from the Nineteenth Dynasty. The first was a prince by the name of Sethotep. The second had been a person named Nefer-mery, who was described as the prince’s “constant companion.” There was no further explanation for their relationship, though my mind eagerly filled in the gaps. Newspapers of a certain character, of course, cast dark aspersions. In my own mind, I thought of them as star-crossed lovers.

  The mummies had traveled all the way up from the aforementioned British Museum—a fact that had proven to be more controversial than one might expect. One group of Egyptian scholars, members of the British Egypt Exploration Fund, wanted them to remain in London, because London was the Center of the World. Another group of scholars, who were actually from Egypt, were upset—rightfully, I thought—at the continuous flow of antiquities out of their country. Add to the fact that this was the first exhibition of Egyptiana to come all the way up to Scotland, and it seemed like a very decent adventure indeed. And one that had every chance of finishing with a good meal and a pint at our favorite pub.

  I was about to say as much, when a voice called to me through the din.

  “Pearce!” My colleague, Constable James Drummond, waved from the other side of the gallery. I waved back and gestured for him to join us. The crowd parted as he made his way across the gallery floor. Not because the tall, dark-haired constable cut a dashing figure in his uniform, which he did, but because of the enormous beast at his side.

  “Hades,” I said, saluting to the dog as he approached.

  “It’s Hamish, now, lad,” Drummond said. He frowned at Cal, his mustache twitching. He’d met Cal at the same crime scene I had. But Drummond had eyes only for his wife. Cal had clearly not made the same impression on my colleague that he’d made on me.

  “Jimmy, you remember Mr. Webster, young Mr. Murray’s friend. Cal, this is Constable Drummond.”

  “Yes, of course. Guid to see ye again.” Drummond said, as he and Cal shook hands. Drummond’s expression wasn’t unfriendly, but it was clear he wasn’t sure what Cal was doing there, at a museum, with me. Moreover, I had the impression that thoughts he couldn’t quite articulate were telling him it was best not to ask.

  Shrugging, Drummond turned to the dog and scruffed the animal’s ears with one hand. “Hades was too hard a name for such a fine fellow.”

  “If you say so,” I said.

  I’d brought the dog up from London two months earlier as a gift from my station inspector to Edinburgh’s chief inspector. He’d struck me as a bloodthirsty beast—both the dog and the chief inspector—though Drummond swore that all the dog had needed was a bit of proper handling. As for the recently deposed chief inspector, he was now awaiting trial for murder at the Calton Jail, a dark, medieval-looking stone complex that loomed down on the city from its perch on Calton Hill. The torments it held were medieval, too, by all accounts. And though MacKay was indeed a murderer, and the department was well shot of him, I wasn’t sure even he deserved that.

  Drummond’s new best friend was sitting on his haunches like a family pet, tongue lolling to one side, a doggy smile plastered on his monstrous face. He seemed as pleased to be in Drummond’s care as Drummond was to care for him.

  “Are you two providing security for the prince and his companion?” I asked.

  “Aye,” Drummond said. “Anyone lays a finger on that stone coffin, Hamish here will sort them out.”

  I was about to explain that a coffin and a sarcophagus were two different objects, when my attention was drawn to a man standing near the dais, where the prince’s sarcophagus was about to be unveiled. His clothing was what you might expect from a middle class British academic. Maybe even a bit more carefully—dark suit, cravat, pressed white shirt, overcoat, expensive shoes. What caught my eye, though, was the fact that he was the only dark skinned man in a room full of pale Scots. More than this, he was looking at the sarcophagus, still beneath its white sheet, with such unwavering intensity that he was causing a blockage around which the crowd had to maneuver.

  “What is it, lad?” Drummond asked. I had to double check to make sure he was talking to me and not to the dog.

  “That man over there.” I gestured toward the dais.

  “Aye, I noticed him.”

  The man looked like he knew what he was doing, and like he was exactly where he was meant to be. His clothing and demeanor were correct for the occasion. And yet he seemed out of place somehow. I thought again about the angry Egyptian academics, and wondered if the man had come all the way from Cairo to make his displeasure known. But before I could say any of this, a young, eager-looking Scotsman in a tweed suit and round spectacles took the podium.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen.”

  “That’s Malcom!” Cal cried.

  “You know him?” The delight in my companion’s voice disturbed me, and I was ashamed at the unexpected wave of jealousy that broke over me.

  “Malcom Findlay. He’s the assistant curator. Uncle Henry introduced us.”

  Ah, Uncle Henry—Dr. Henry Murray—not an actual uncle, but a family friend who was making a personal quest of Cal’s education and induction into Edinburgh’s vaunted medical brotherhood. I couldn’t put a finger on what bothered me about this arrangement, but it had always grated a bit. I was happy for him, and yet I couldn’t understand why Murray would concern himself to that degree.

  My companion waved toward the assistant curator, whose face lit up when he saw who was signaling him. And, I recognize that my reaction was irrational, but I did not like that one bit.

  “Ah,” I said. Then I wisely said no more.

  It was difficult enough trying to navigate the boundaries of my own relationship with Cal, without trying to keep track of his legions of friends and connections. He was the type who could walk into a room full of strangers and emerge with twenty new best friends. This ability both impressed and baffled me, and often times left me feeling like the younger brother tagging along behind him. Findlay was attractive in a wiry, nervous-academic sort of way. But a lot of people were attractive. I had to remind myself that it didn’t necessarily mean anything.

  “I’d have expected the curator to be unveiling the mummy,” Cal continued. “I wonder where he is.”

  Findlay spoke for a bit about the prince and his companion, and what an honor it was to host them. Then he touched on his hopes for more Egyptian exhibits in the future. The possibly Egyptian man appeared to be listening—that is, he was facing the dais and looking in Findlay’s general direction. But his eyes were scanning the rear of the room as if he were watching something else.

  Movement behind the dais caught my eye. A woman stood at the back of the room, partially obscured by the curtains. A secretary, I imagined, or some other low-ranking employee, sneaking out of the office to watch the unveiling.

  “So without fur
ther delay, I give you….”

  Several things happened then. The dark skinned man took a giant step back from the ropes. The floor beneath the sarcophagus exploded in a burst of wood splinters and smoke. Screams ripped through the air, and the crowd scattered as fiery missiles of wood found their targets.Then the prince’s sarcophagus lurched off of its stand and fell onto the dais with a great thud.

  I threw my arms around Cal's shoulders and pulled him to the floor, shielding him with my body until the flaming wooden shards stopped raining down.

  “You're safe now,” I said when it seemed the worst of it was over. I'm not sure what I expected at that moment, but it definitely was not anger and indignation.

  “What the devil do you think you're doing?” he cried.

  As I struggled for words, he wriggled free of my grip and pushed me roughly away.

  “But—” I finally managed.

  “Malcom is injured. He needs help.”

  Before I could respond, he was sprinting toward the dais to check on the assistant curator, who was lying, dazed, behind the podium.

  “Order!” Drummond shouted. He gave several harsh tweets from his whistle, while Hamish barked wildly. “Order!”

  I sprang to my feet and, with one final glance at Cal’s back, shook my head clear.

  We had to secure the room. There were close to a hundred witnesses here, and, God help us, we were going to have to interview them all.

  Drummond apparently had the same thought. He was standing in the gallery entrance, arms outstretched, trying to keep people from running out of the museum. But the Edinburgh police hadn't anticipated a riot. They had only sent one constable to make sure the exhibition went smoothly. And the panicking spectators were pushing past him and his enormous hound as if they weren't even there.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a streak of black linen and white silk. The foreign man I'd seen earlier was running for the door. I ran after him, fighting my way through the stampede. Somewhere behind me, Hamish’s booming bark sounded once more.