Barnabas Tew and The Case Of The Missing Scarab Page 11

  “Every night when the sun goes below ground, the sun god, Ra, battles and defeats the lesser chaos gods.”

  “I imagine that must grow quite tiresome for them, being defeated nightly like that,” pointed out Barnabas.

  “Ah!” said Wilfred. “So, perhaps, if the sun was left in the sky forever, never to go underground, then the lesser chaos gods would not have to be defeated!”

  “Exactly!” said Anubis, regaining a bit of faith in his hapless detectives.

  “Off we go then! We will accost these lesser chaos gods and find the truth of the matter in no time!” said Barnabas, feeling his enthusiasm for the job returning now that they had a direct course of action before them.

  “Where are they? Who are they?” asked Wilfred, ever the practical detective-assistant.

  Anubis sighed again. “Try Apep first,” he said. “He lives under the mountain called Bakhu. Over there.” He pointed at a dark peak far off on the horizon. “Good luck, and do try not to kill anyone else.” With that, he dismissed them and Barnabas and Wilfred were on their way once more.

  They walked quietly for some time, immersed in their own thoughts. At last Wilfred broke the silence. “Bad luck, that. About the crocodiles, you know.”

  “It is the worst of luck,” wailed Barnabas. To Wilfred’s great consternation, he saw that his employer was beginning to cry. “It seems that we have lost innocent clients once again.”

  “No, no,” said Wilfred, patting Barnabas’ shoulder to console him. “What could we have done about it?”

  “But we have doubled the number of people we have killed, even if we killed them indirectly,” said Barnabas. “No, tripled! Doubled? How many is it now?” Barnabas tried to count on his fingers, but the arithmetic eluded him.

  “Don’t even think it!” said Wilfred. “Those deaths are most assuredly Set’s fault, and Khnum’s. Not ours.”

  “Do you really think so?” sniffed Barnabas, wanting to believe Wilfred’s words but still feeling as though it was his own actions that had doomed all of those poor villagers.

  “Most definitely!” said Wilfred. “All we did was try to get a little bit of water for their crops. Who could have guessed that it would turn out the way it did?”

  “Indeed!” agreed Barnabas. “And Khnum was horrible, the way he delighted in all the destruction. “No decent, sane person could ever have predicted that anyone would behave in such a way! How could we have known?”

  “Exactly!” said Wilfred. “So you see? Our conscience is clear.” He thought for a moment. “Although,” he said at last, “it wouldn’t hurt for us to be a bit more careful who we trust, as Anubis said.”

  “Quite so, quite so,” said Barnabas. He leaned closer to Wilfred in order to whisper, even though there was no one around whatsoever to overhear what he said. “Don’t you think that Anubis was quite a bit, well, judgmental about the whole business? Especially for someone who goes about killing people with mummies all the time?”

  “Indeed!” said Wilfred. “He killed us both, directly, didn’t he? And then we are merely involved with a bit of an accident, in the most peripheral of ways, and he behaves as if we were the most reprehensible people in the world.”

  “Most unfair,” sniffed Barnabas. “When it comes down to it, we were only very slightly involved, really, in the flood. As you said before, it was entirely not our fault at all.”

  “Terribly unfair,” agreed Wilfred.

  The two walked in silence for a while longer (both were privately enjoying their sense of righteous indignation, and were quite pleasantly thinking about all of the indignities that had been foisted upon them in this place, and how outraged they were, and about how brave anyone hearing the tale would think them).

  At last, they came upon a building that looked like an inn of sorts. It was a two-story affair, made of what looked to be some sort of brown stucco (or perhaps it was mud) with a steeply pitched thatched roof. The strange thing about it, though, was that the building was entirely cylindrical in shape so that the tall peak of the roof sloped down to form a cone shape that sat atop the curved walls like a silly hat.

  A sign in front of the door (that was also round) labeled the place as the Grey Mouse. Delicious smells wafted from the open windows (which were, of course, round) as well as a soft tinkle of high pitched laughter.

  “Oh!” exclaimed Barnabas. “How delightful! We simply must go in.” He paused to rub his belly over his voluminous robe. “Really, I believe we haven’t eaten anything since that wonderful piece of fruit from…” He broke off awkwardly. “Well, you know.”

  Wilfred grimaced at the memory of the ill-fated village, but then hunger and exhaustion overcame guilt. “We may as well eat something whilst we are here,” he said, “and perhaps take a bit of a rest, too. I am quite overcome from so much exertion.”

  “Quite so. And a well-rested detective is a good detective, is what I always say,” said Barnabas, who had never said any such thing (until just this very moment, that is).

  Pleased with their decision, they pushed their way through the little round door (indeed, it was so small that they both had to duck so as not to bump their heads on the low frame) and entered the Grey Mouse. They found themselves in the main dining room. Everything here, too, was cut to a small scale: child-sized tables and chairs, a bar at the far end that came up only to about mid-thigh of an average-sized person, and ceilings that were so low that Barnabas and Wilfred were forced into an uncomfortable slouch.

  The reason for all of this smallness was also readily apparent, and was the source of the high-pitched laughter that they had heard from outside. Seated at the little tables, eating off of little plates with little utensils, were groups of very little people. Each of these people had the head of a mouse. Whiskers twitched and snouts quivered as they ate and talked and laughed amongst each other.

  “Oh, my,” said Barnabas, finding the entire atmosphere of the place quite adorable. “It is quite like walking into a primary school classroom, isn’t it? That is, if little mouse people went to primary school instead of ordinary children.”

  Wilfred nodded his assent as he looked about in wonderment at the strange, tiny place with its funny little patrons. He too was charmed by the mouse people and was entirely delighted with the place.

  A mouse person (presumably a hostess of some sort, since she was wearing an apron over her long skirt) approached them and chirped something at them that was entirely unintelligible. However, she waved a beckoning paw as she moved towards an unoccupied table so that her meaning was quite clear, and Barnabas and Wilfred followed her.

  They sat at the indicated table, the short chairs scrunching their legs up so high that their knees pressed into their chests as they perused the menus the hostess set in front of them. Luckily, the menu was comprised entirely of pictures of the available dishes, so that they could read it quite easily. The selection was very limited, catering, as the place did, to such a unique clientele, but Barnabas and Wilfred quickly settled quite happily upon a cheese and cracker platter.

  When the hostess came back with their food, they made ready to dig in. However, the hostess chirped something at them that sounded, by the slight lilt towards the end, like a question. Barnabas, thinking that she must, of course, be asking where they were headed (which was a logical assumption, based on normal, polite conversation at an inn located, as the Grey Mouse was, directly on a roadway), replied, “We are going to Bakhu, to see Apep.”

  The hostess raised her eyebrows and immediately began chattering quickly at them. Soon, other diners seated nearby and overhearing the conversation, such as it was, joined in. It was not long before the entire company was chittering and chirping and squeaking. Whiskers twitched and paws flailed about as the mouse people gesticulated wildly.

  Unable to understand a word of what anyone was saying, Barnabas and Wilfred could only nod and smile politely. “It seems,” whispered Barnabas to Wilfred from the corner of his mouth, “that these fellows are quite
excited by Apep or Bakhu or both. I wonder why?”

  “I’ve no idea,” said Wilfred. “I can’t understand them in the slightest, can you?”

  “Not one word,” said Barnabas. “Still, they are quite animated on the subject. I would dare say that they must be quite enamored of Apep, as they seem very excited at the thought of him.”

  “Hmmm,” said Wilfred, not at all sure their excitement was the positive thing Barnabas was taking it to be. Indeed, Wilfred thought that the reaction of the mouse people might instead be interpreted as one of extreme alarm, what with all the twitching and flapping about and wide mousy eyes bugging out over quivering mousy snouts.

  Still, he kept his doubts to himself. Barnabas seemed so pleased with his own deductive skills that it seemed a shame to puncture his pride, and besides, Wilfred didn’t know for certain that the mice were alarmed by the mention of Apep. And really, why should they be? He was merely a minor god of chaos and not nearly as terrifying as the actual god of chaos that they had already faced. Wilfred couldn’t remember ever hearing anything about Apep (and he was certain that if the god had done anything too terrible, he most likely would have learned about it in his Egyptian Studies class). He looked about the room, and seeing all of the upset mice, frowned a bit despite himself.

  Barnabas, although sometimes a bit of a naïve person, was still a detective, after all, and therefore not entirely obtuse, saw Wilfred’s expression and instantly knew what his assistant was thinking. “What are you worried about now?” he asked, a bit cross at this example of what he considered to be Wilfred’s slightly excessive (and, in truth, a bit tedious) cautiousness.

  “It’s just that they seem a bit agitated,” pointed out Wilfred.

  “Agitated, excited, what’s the difference?” asked Barnabas.

  “Well, said Wilfred, “it just seems to me that maybe the mention of Apep made them quite nervous, is all.”

  “Bah!” said Barnabas dismissively. “They are happy!” He gestured towards the company. “Look at them waving their paws; listen to their squeaking!” He paused for a moment, thinking. “And, even if they were scared, what of it? They are mice. They would be afraid of a cat. Are you afraid of a cat?” With that, Barnabas sat back with the expression of a man who had just scored a 29 hand in cribbage.

  Wilfred sighed. Perhaps Barnabas was right, and after all, it certainly never hurt to keep an optimistic outlook about things anyway. So thinking, he smiled kindly at Barnabas and nodded. “Very true,” he said, acquiescing. “Quite so.”

  They both yawned then and agreed it was time to turn in for the evening. Barnabas hailed the hostess and dramatically mimed a man sleeping (although she had had no apparent difficulties in understanding their speech whatsoever; so far, indeed, the communication breakdown had occurred entirely the other way around).

  Together, the two tired detectives followed the hostess up the short, narrow stairs to the second floor, where they were ushered into a room that boasted extraordinarily small round beds (that, in truth, looked a great deal more like nests than beds), and fell instantly asleep.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next morning they awoke early, even though they had both thought to sleep in (it seemed that mice tended to be early risers, and Barnabas had found it difficult to merely lie in bed whilst there was so much scurrying and scuffling going on in the rooms around them. Barnabas had tried to ignore the sounds for a while, but he had at last become quite unnerved by something that sounded like scratching on the other side of the thin wall and had jumped up, flustered, thereby waking Wilfred as well.)

  Still, once they were both fully awake and had grown a bit more accustomed to the sounds of the busy mice all about them, they realized that their sleep, abruptly shortened as it was, had a restorative effect on their spirits. Barnabas felt positively buoyant, and he was excited to interview Apep and thus solve the case, and Wilfred too found that the new day had brought a greatly improved mood, so that he, too, was optimistic about their chances of success on the mountain Bakhu.

  They went down to the restaurant area and breakfasted on an unsurprising yet satisfying meal of cheese and fruit, then made ready to leave.

  “Well, good day, and thank you very much,” said Barnabas to the hostess (the same one as the night before). He deposited a small pile of pounds sterling on the table, hoping that the British currency would be accepted in this place. She scooped it up efficiently off of the table with scarcely a glance, and Barnabas let out a short breath of relief. Too tired to think about the issue last night, he had worried a bit this morning about what might happen were the Grey Mouse to demand payment of a more local kind.

  The waitress twittered something pleasant towards them, and they made their way to the door. Whilst they walked across the room, it seemed that all eyes were upon them (as well they might, as folk such as Barnabas and Wilfred, with their human heads, were quite rare in these parts). “Very well, then,” said Barnabas, feeling as though something were expected of him, though he knew not what. “Regards to you all! We are off to see Apep.”

  At once the company broke into a furor just as they had the night before. Barnabas beamed. “See how they cheer for us?” he said to Wilfred with a broad smile.

  Wilfred, though still far from entirely certain that the mice weren’t dancing about and yelling in terror rather than acclaim, was at least also not entirely certain that they were terrified and not merely excited. “Hmmm,” he said, prevaricating, as he saw that Barnabas was looking at him expectantly. He saw Barnabas’ smile start to slip a bit, and so he quickly added, “They certainly do make quite a ruckus!” Barnabas took this for agreement, and the two detectives left the Grey Mouse, waving regally to the extremely excited (or, depending on one’s interpretation, the completely terrified) group of little mouse people within.

  They set out walking once more towards the great mountain that rose darkly from the horizon. As they drew closer, the mountain loomed ever larger and seemed ever more ominous. A great opening gaped across the front at the bottom, which they took to be the entrance into Apep’s lair. The place was far from welcoming, and Barnabas felt the ebullience that the happiness of the mouse people had awakened within him fade away. His footsteps slowed and then stopped entirely. Wilfred paused beside him.

  “Oh dear,” Barnabas said, looking up at the intimidating edifice.

  “Dear, indeed,” agreed Wilfred, looking up at the mountain as well.

  Barnabas lifted his eyebrows and exhaled noisily through pursed lips. “Well,” he said, “I suppose it really would be better if we rang first. It’s quite rude to just drop in on a fellow. We can send a note, pay a messenger… Maybe there are telegrams…” His voice trailed off nonsensically as he spun on his heels and made as if to walk back to the Grey Mouse. Indeed, he moved so quickly now that Wilfred had to trot to catch him up.

  “Wait! Hold on!” he said as he drew up beside Barnabas. He reached out to hold Barnabas’ elbow. Barnabas, wide-eyed, looked at the hand under his elbow, wriggled himself away with an unexpected, undulating movement of his arm, and quickened his steps even more.

  Wilfred hurried along beside him, making snatching motions every few steps in a vain attempt to recapture Barnabas’ arm. “A moment, please!” called Wilfred. “If we could just discuss…” Barnabas merely broke into a flat-out run in response.

  Not much of an athlete, Barnabas looked quite a bit like a frightened chicken scurrying this way and that; little legs kicking out to the sides, arms circling and fluttering about. Wilfred found himself running double-time in order to intercept his employer’s zigzag path.

  At last exhaustion caught up to Barnabas where Wilfred could not. (Barnabas had only been in full flight for about a minute, but he was certainly not in peak condition. Wilfred was in slightly better shape, though he, too, was winded by the brief flurry of exercise.) They stood together, panting, for a long moment. Barnabas hunched over his bent knees with his hands on his thighs; Wilfred performed a slight
backbend to open his lungs, hands to the back of his head.

  “You were right,” said Barnabas mournfully, once he had caught enough breath to speak. “We should not have come here.”

  “Well,” said Wilfred, glad to have his opinion on the matter noted at last, “I didn’t mean that we mustn’t come here at all. I only meant that we should be careful about it, is all.”

  “Careful, like we were with Set?” asked Barnabas morosely. He sat, defeated, cross-legged upon the ground. “Or, perhaps, as careful as we were with Khnum? Or in the museum? Or with Mrs.…”

  “Yes, yes, but perhaps even more careful,” interrupted Wilfred quickly, before his employer’s mood could sink even farther into despair. It would not do to have Barnabas feeling so sorry for himself that he became immobilized on the road directly in front of Apep’s mountain. “We can learn from what went wrong in those places and make a better job of it here.”

  “But how?” asked Barnabas, his voice muffled. His head was now in his hands and bowed so low that he spoke almost directly into his own lap.

  “Well,” said Wilfred, thinking aloud, “we have hitherto tried to employ subterfuge, yes?”

  “Yes,” said Barnabas (or, at least, that’s what Wilfred thought that he said, as his voice was now so soft that it was nearly impossible to hear him).

  “So, we could try a direct approach this time. Just come right out and say who we are and what we are doing. We can walk through those doors,” he gestured grandly to the big, black opening in the mountain, though Barnabas was not looking at him at all but instead seemed to be intently contemplating the ground between his bent legs, “as calmly as you please!”

  “Huh?” said Barnabas, lifting his head a bit.

  “I mean, really,” said Wilfred, trying a different tack. “It’s not as if any of those things were our fault, remember?”

  “You don’t think?” asked Barnabas, lifting his head a bit more.