The Deeds of the Disturber (42 page)

"And where are the occupants of the carriage now?" Emerson inquired.

"Just inside the gate, with Bob and Henry standing guard," Ramses replied. "The rest of us at once hastened to the house, for we had learned (thanks to the insistent questioning of Mr. Gargery here) that you were imprisoned in the cellar and that—if you will excuse a somewhat melodramatic turn of phrase—the water was rising rapidly. I heard Papa's voice—"

"Yes, all right, my boy, we know what happened after that," Cuff said. "And this person is—"

"Gargery, our butler," I said.

Cuff stared at Gargery, who was swinging a life preserver in one hand. "Butler," he repeated.

"Never mind that now," Emerson said impatiently. "While we stand here chatting the house is blazing like a torch. Shouldn't we send for the fire engines? And what about the servants? Better get them out, eh?"

"I doubt there is imminent danger, Papa," Ramses replied judiciously. "The fire is still a good distance from the main part of the house, and I hear cries and calls of alarm which would suggest the occupants have been alerted to the danger. But I will go and make certain."

He trotted off.

The fire was so bright it cast ghastly shadows across the clipped grass. The old wing would soon be a gutted shell; the windows had all burned out and flames soared like bright banners from every empty aperture. There was a dreadful beauty about the sight, and we stood watching in silence. Emerson's arm was around me, and Cuff had bowed his head.

"He was dead, Emerson. Wasn't he?"

"Yes, my dear." After a moment Emerson said in an odd voice, "A noble end, trying to save a helpless woman from a fate worse than death. Eh, Cuff?"

Cuffs head lifted sharply. He and Emerson exchanged a long look.

"Quite right, sir," said Inspector Cuff. "And now, sir, and Mrs. Emerson, shall we go and take charge of the prisoner your son and your butler have kindly captured for us?"

By the time we reached the gate the household had been aroused and the grounds were alive with screaming maids in billowing white nightgowns, looking like a flock of chickens that had escaped from the henhouse. By the gate were two carriages. Our own brougham had
been drawn across the drive in such a way as to block the passage of the other, a dark, closed carriage drawn by a pair of handsome black horses. I could not see Henry, but Bob, one of the younger footmen, stood rigidly at attention, as if guarding two people who were half-sitting, half-reclining on the grassy verge.

Miss Minton was swathed from neck to feet in some heavy dark fabric. Her loosened hair had tumbled down; it spread in a shining veil across the knees of the young man on whose lap her head rested. He had pressed both hands to his face, but I knew him, for the moonlight shone full upon his fiery red head.

"O'Connell!" I cried. "No! Not Kevin O'Connell—"

Emerson caught me by the shirttail, which I had neglected to tuck in. "I fancy he is part of the rescue force, Peabody. Surely you didn't think he—"

"Certainly not. Never for an instant." (But when the strangling hands had held me with careless strength, clean off the ground, I had been reminded of the ease with which Kevin had lifted me on the night of the riot at the Royal Academy. Few men could have done it—certainly not the frail young Earl.)

"Ha, ha," I said. "You will have your little joke, Emerson. The murderer is not Mr. O'Connell. He is—"

I stopped and looked expectantly at Emerson. He smiled. "Inside the carriage, Peabody."

And that is where he was, so tightly swathed with ropes, cravats, handkerchiefs, and scarves that he was no more capable of motion than the poor mummy he had desecrated. On the seat opposite sat Henry, with a cudgel in his hand. But there was no more fight left in the killer—Mr. Eustace Wilson.

After we had delivered the prisoner to Bow Street and seen him charged, Inspector Cuff declared he had a great deal of work to do, but Emerson insisted he accompany us back to Chalfont House. "You can take our statements there as conveniently and much more comfortably," he declared. "Confound it, Cuff, we have all had a hard night. We deserve a little rest and a celebration."

Fortunately we had been up very late the night before, and slept late in consequence; after I had changed and removed the cursed corset, I felt quite fresh. We all gathered around the table in the servants' dining room, which was conveniently close to the kitchen, and where Gargery and the others would feel more at ease; and a merry party it was, with cold mutton and pickles and a nice apple tart, and a great quantity of
things to drink. Ramses tried his usual trick when the wine was being poured, holding out a glass and hoping his papa would fill it before he noticed whose it was. Emerson did notice; but he laughed and splashed a scant inch of hock into the tumbler. "You deserve it, my son. Now, Peabody, don't frown; he must learn to drink his wine like a gentleman."

"He deserves it is right," declared Gargery, who had already had a glass of stout. "Wasn't for him, we wouldn't have come in time, sir and madam, for none of us knew where you'd gone off to."

"I suppose you were hanging on to the back of the cab," I said to Ramses.

"Yes, Mama, that is correct. I knew you would go out looking for Papa, so I changed my clothing and followed you. Greatly as I was tempted to stay with you and render whatever assistance I could, I knew that would not be sensible; so I stayed with the cab when it returned to London, and immediately enlisted the aid of Mr. Gargery and the others. Mr. O'Connell had been here inquiring about Miss Minton, so I took the liberty of sending for him as well."

Kevin, of course, made one of the party. In fact, the only people not at the table were Miss Minton, who was upstairs sleeping off her inadvertent debauch, and Mrs. Watson, who was watching over her, and who would, in any case, have found the proceedings not to her taste.

"I am sure your concern will touch Miss Minton deeply," I assured Kevin.

"She thought I was someone else," Kevin muttered, staring sadly into his glass of beer. "All the time I held her and rained kisses on her dear face . . . Och, I know a gentleman should not take advantage, but it was more than flesh and blood could bear, finding her so yielding and soft and sweet . . . She put her arms around my neck and smiled into my eyes, and called me . . . She called me ..."

Emerson was as red as a mahogany bureau. I let him suffer for a while before I interrupted. "People who are delirious or suffering from the effects of drugs are quite unaware of what they are saying, Kevin. Nor do their mutterings have any significance whatever. It is up to you to win her affection, if that is what you want. You will be well on the way to doing it when I tell her of how you pummeled Mr. Wilson into unconsciousness, despite the revolver he fired at you, and with complete disregard for your own safety."

Emerson made a rumbling noise and scowled at me. "Enough of this sentimental nonsense," he declared. "We promised the Inspector a statement. He has his work to do, you know. He has no time to waste on romantic twaddle. Have a little more wine, Inspector."

"I don't mind if I do," Cuff remarked. "A very fine vintage, Professor; fruity and not too sweet, with just the proper touch of acidity. Hem."

"You see," Emerson explained, "Mrs. Emerson and I are in the habit of carrying on friendly little competitions when it comes to solving cases such as this. So I am going to let her begin the narrative. Tell the Inspector how you deduced the identity of the killer, Peabody."

There was a suspicious twitch at the corner of his mouth, which I chose to ignore. "Thank you, Emerson, I will be glad to begin. This has proved to be one of the strangest cases I—we—have ever investigated—a peculiar blend of vulgar crime and exotic trimmings, if I may put it that way."

"Put it any way you like, but get on with it," Emerson said.

"Let me begin at the beginning, then—with the death of the night watchman. By the way, Inspector, I think you may want to have the body exhumed. You will find, I believe, that the poor man died of an overdose of opium."

"What?" The Inspector stared at me. "But the medical examiner said—"

"The effects of an excessively large amount of opium resemble those of cerebral hemorrhage, Inspector. It affects the respiratory center in the medulla oblongata, and results in death from respiratory failure. The watchman had not taken opium before. He was given it as a treat—part of his payment for allowing the orgy—for so I must call it—to take place.

"That was the meaning of the strange debris found in the room where the body lay. Not only an orgy, but one with an ancient Egyptian theme—wreaths of flowers, wine in crystal glasses (not so appropriate, that, but common clay cups would not be good enough for those spoiled young men), and suitable costumes, including scepters and masks made of the ever-popular papier-mache. It was the sort of bizarre, unseemly jest that would have appealed to these jaded men; and there was another purpose in the selection of that unlikely place, a darker and more sinister purpose, which I will discuss in due time.

"Obviously a number of people had to be bribed if such an event was to take place. Oldacre was one of them; he was always toadying to the rich and would have given his mean little soul to be a member of such a group. The night watchman in charge of that part of the museum was paid a large sum, and invited to participate, as a means of ensuring his silence. His death was an accident; none of them anticipated the opium would kill him. When they realized he was dead, their first thought was to conceal what had taken place. They gathered up the
bottles and glasses and the wreaths of flowers, leaving the body where it lay. The women ... I fancy Ayesha supplied them. They were no danger, they would not dare speak out against such noble gentlemen.

"Oldacre was another matter. It wasn't only money he wanted; he wanted to be one of them, an intimate—a guest at their clubs, and in their homes. His death was in itself the clue to the identity of his killer; for which of those young aristocrats had real cause to fear him? The truth might have caused a scandal, but they were used to scandals, they had seen plenty of them.

"Eustace Wilson, on the other hand, stood to lose everything if the truth came out. He would never find another position in archaeology; and if he was arrested and disgraced, he would also lose his hold on the young man he was methodically milking of his fortune."

The Inspector looked doubtful. "That's all well and good, Mrs. Emerson, and now that the case is solved, your reasoning makes excellent sense; but I didn't see it that way at the time. Those who suffer from—from his lordship's disease are sometimes subject to violent rages. Being threatened by a contemptible creature like Oldacre might well have induced such a homicidal rage."

Emerson coughed. He no longer attempted to conceal his smile.

"If you will allow me to continue, Inspector," I said coldly, "you will find that my assumption concerning the death of Oldacre was confirmed by other evidence."

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," said the Inspector.

"I had felt all along that the man we wanted was no dilettante, but an individual who had been trained in Egyptology. His costume was authentic in every meaningful detail, and the quotations he chose were too obscure and too apt to be readily discovered by a casual student of the subject. The paper found in Oldacre's dead hand contained an invented message, not a quotation—and that was an even stronger indication of expertise in the language, for it is easier to copy a text than compose a new one. The errors of orthography and grammar in that message were of the sort that would be made, not by an amateur, but by a student—particularly by a student of Mr. Budge's.

"Oldacre was one of Budge's subordinates. It was barely conceivable (for in the investigation of crime, Ramses and gentlemen, one must consider all possibilities, however unlikely) that he had written the message himself, for purposes unknown, and that its application to his death was purely coincidental. However, Oldacre was dead when the ushebtis and their messages were delivered. Heaven knows there are many of Budge's students wandering around the world—too many, some
might say. But the only other one closely connected with the case was Mr. Eustace Wilson. He knew Oldacre, and I do not doubt that the acquaintance was closer than he led me to believe.

"What threw me off the track for a time was the involvement of Lord Liverpool and his friend, Lord St. John. In fact, the Earl's hideous disease was the ultimate cause of the entire business. There is no cure for it. Death is certain. When people face death, they will try any purported cure, however bizarre and senseless. What have they got to lose? I confess that the full truth did not dawn on me until we discovered, on the night of the affair at the Royal Society, that the mummy had been unwrapped.

"The wrappings must have been removed while the mummy was still at Mauldy Manor. Certainly the Museum authorities had never authorized such an act, so it must have been done by the former Earl or his son, who succeeded him as Lord Liverpool. But why would either do such a thing? The late Earl was a collector pure and simple, not an amateur student of Egyptology. His son had even less interest in the subject. Moreover, if innocent though inept scientific curiosity had prompted the unwrapping, there would not have been such a desperate need to conceal its having been done. What other possible reason could there be for exposing a mummy?"

Emerson's lips parted. He was in a quizzical mood that evening, and I thought it wiser not to allow him to offer a suggestion, so I hastened on.

"As early as the twelfth century, there is a record of a physician prescribing ground-up mummy as medicine. Four centuries later, mummy was a standard drug, to be found in apothecaries' shops throughout Europe. Large quantities of mummies were imported for that purpose, and when the supply dwindled, unscrupulous persons manufactured them, from fresh cadavers.

"One would suppose that in this modern age, the advancement of science and reason would have destroyed this superstition, but in fact there are still shops in London and, I am told, in Paris and in New York, where powdered mummy can be purchased. Ignorance never dies, Ramses and gentlemen; and when it is combined with desperation, we can hardly wonder that the young Earl was ready to believe that the revolting substance, drawn from an unimpeachably genuine source, and combined with solemn rituals and prayers, might assist his desperate need.