Barnabas Tew and The Case Of The Missing Scarab Page 2

  “Well, yes, I suppose there was that, too,” interrupted Wilfred, determined to help his employer shake off his dismal mood. “But I say! Remember that case a few months ago? The one we handled for the Egyptian fellow?”

  “Ah yes,” said Barnabas. “Mr. Kesim Kafele. We helped him find his missing amulet, or ankh, or whatever it was.” Barnabas chuckled. “What nonsense that was! He seemed to think it had some sort of magical power. He was quite frantic about finding it, I recall.”

  Wilfred laughed too. “The poor fellow! He burst in here all in an uproar, with his face all red, huffing and puffing about how someone had stolen his ankh. A treasure more precious than could be imagined, he called it. I thought he was fit to burst from the anxiety of losing it!”

  “What an odd character he was!” said Barnabas, for the moment caught up in the pleasant memory of a successfully solved case. But then his mood shifted again. “But the solution was so obvious. Lady Rainford’s little dog could have solved it as easily as we did. That was no great success.”

  “Nay!” said Wilfred. “On the contrary! It was a stroke of genius to deduce that Mr. Kafele’s cleaning lady was the culprit.”

  “Hmmph, well,” said Barnabas. He was embarrassed and yet pleased by the compliment, and he was trying very hard to show neither.

  “It was a job well done, I say!” said Wilfred. “Mr. Kafele was so terribly grateful and impressed. Surely he will refer our services to others in due time.” He paused as they both considered the possibility that ‘due time’ might very well be far too long relative to the financial viability of their enterprise. Although it was doubtful that the kind Mrs. Crowder would ever evict them for failure to pay the rent, still a fellow needed to eat and buy clothes and the like. A paying client was sorely needed, and quickly.

  “I know how to cheer our spirits!” Wilfred exclaimed. “It’s no use sitting about being morose about the state of things. Let us go out and about and take our minds off of our troubles. There is an exhibit at the museum, of a mummy that they just found in a tomb in Egypt. It will be just the thing!”

  “Why, my dear boy…,” said Barnabas, his interest at once piqued. There was something so very interesting, so very exotic, about the mummies the archaeologists were excavating from the ancient tombs of Egypt that Barnabas couldn’t help but be fascinated by the prospect of viewing this new one. He thought this exhibit could indeed be a wonderful diversion and a perfect distraction from his current professional quandary. “I think you might be on to something. A mummy does sound quite interesting. And I fear I shall go quite mad if I continue to sit here for another moment, waiting for the bell to ring and yet fearing who it might be if it were to ring!”

  “And the exhibit is free to the public, so it will be of no expense at all. Perhaps we may even find ourselves caught up in a caper whilst there!” said Wilfred, excited at the prospect of an outing.

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” said Barnabas, laughing. “Such things only happen in stories. But we will make a pleasant day of it, nonetheless, adventure or no. And we do happen to be quite the experts on all things Egypt, don’t we? Proper Egyptologists we are, I’d say!”

  He rose and gathered up his hat and coat (which were, of course, a deerstalker cap and long trench coat so as to look the part of a proper detective, just like Mr. Holmes). Then he and Wilfred left the flat and hailed a cab, the both of them very jolly now, glad of a distraction from their woes and excited at the prospect of seeing a real Egyptian mummy. Thus, their steps were light and their conversation jovial as they made their way hence.

  Chapter Two

  The line to get into the museum was very long as the arrival of a real Egyptian mummy in London was thought to be very exciting in general, a spectacle not to be missed. Moreover, Barnabas and Wilfred had arrived rather late in the day and so were forced to wait at the end of the line. Consequently, it was very late indeed by the time they actually entered the museum. Indeed, it was close to evening, and the museum was quickly clearing out as people, satiated with the exotic sights of the exhibit headed home to their dinners and their warm fireplaces.

  The exhibit was laid out in such a way that visitors were funnelled through a labyrinthine maze of convoluted corridors lined with assorted Egyptian relics before coming upon the main attraction; namely, the mummy. Most of the people had little interest in the ancient objects, having come merely for the thrill of the mummy, and so made their way quickly to that main exhibit.

  Barnabas and Wilfred, however, were quite fascinated by the relics and lingered over them for some time. “Do you know,” said Barnabas, who had taken a course in antiquities whilst at university and so fancied himself a bit of an expert on such things, “that they extracted the dead person’s organs and put them in these jars for safekeeping until the poor fellow could get to the afterlife and reclaim them?” He gestured towards a set of four beautifully painted canopic jars.

  “Interesting!” said Wilfred. “Which organ went in which jar, do you know?”

  “Hmm, well, ah, not quite, I suppose,” prevaricated Barnabas, embarrassed that his knowledge on the subject had run out so quickly. He paused, searching his brain for relevant information. Then he brightened. “But each jar is protected by a specific god. The four sons of, um, Horus, I believe. And Horus was the son of Osiris, who was very important indeed.”

  Wilfred smiled and nodded as they moved on past the jars. “Oh look!” exclaimed Wilfred. “A scarab!” He squinted as he pressed his nose into the glass to get a better view of the embossed enamel beetle that hung from a delicately wrought chain. “It looks similar in style to the ankh we found for Mr. Kesim Kefele. I wonder if this scarab is as magical as that ankh,” he laughed.

  “I’m sure they are all magical, to the minds of the ancients,” replied Barnabas with a chuckle. He assumed the air of good-humoured smugness that people who fancied themselves modern intellectuals often affected when discussing the beliefs of other cultures. “What silliness! To think of believing in gods and magical scarabs and an afterlife where one’s organs must be kept safe in a jar. Such poppycock!”

  “But rather delightful poppycock, I must say,” observed Wilfred, still looking at the beautiful scarab beetle. Barnabas smiled his agreement, for the relics were indeed a joy to behold. Indeed, Barnabas had most certainly found his antiquities class to be of the utmost interest. The complex relations of the gods and the intricacies of the rituals were terribly fascinating (although, of course, it had been terribly difficult to keep it all straight for the examinations). Still, Barnabas had enjoyed the subject immensely, and there was no denying the beauty of the objects on display here.

  “The scarab had a special significance to the Egyptians, I believe,” he said. He scratched his chin, trying to remember just what that significance might be. “Something to do with dung beetles. Yes, that’s it! A scarab beetle is the same thing as a dung beetle. The Egyptians believed a god in the form of a scarab beetle rolled the sun across the sky every morning.” He nodded sagely, pleased with himself for recollecting so much information.

  “What was the god’s name, do you know?” asked Wilfred, who was quite interested in all of this. He had very much enjoyed working on the case for Mr. Kesim Kafele (he too had taken a class on Egyptology at university), and enjoyed increasing his knowledge all he could about such things.

  “Hmm, well. Hmmph,” said Barnabas, embarrassed again, for he had no idea what the scarab god’s name might be.

  “Oh well,” said Wilfred, who had moved on to a series of hieroglyphic paintings on plaster. “Perhaps we can get a book about it later. There is so much to know!”

  “Yes, indeed,” agreed Barnabas somewhat ruefully. “That is a splendid idea. It seems I could use a refresher on the subject, after all.” Although easily embarrassed, Barnabas was, to his credit, also quick to admit to his own shortcomings. Indeed, he was ofttimes far too modest, and sometimes even prone to fits of extreme self-doubt.

  They continued o
n in this way, lingering over everything in the exhibit and making comments here and there when they came across things of particular interest (gilded statues of cats particularly caught Barnabas’ fancy, whilst Wilfred was captivated by a series of portraits depicting gods with animal heads that had been drawn on papyrus).

  It took them so long to properly view everything that the entire queue quickly moved so that the people ahead of them were quite far ahead indeed; Barnabas and Wilfred only just caught sight of their backs as they rounded a corner and disappeared from view. Now Barnabas and Wilfred were entirely alone.

  Barnabas checked his pocket watch. “Oh dear!” he exclaimed. “Look at the time! It’s after five o’clock. Isn’t the museum meant to close at five o’clock?”

  “Yes, I think so,” replied Wilfred. “Perhaps they only close the front doors but allow the people already inside to finish their viewing.” He looked around doubtfully. “I don’t see anyone else here, however,” he said, and, in truth, it appeared that the lights had dimmed somewhat so that it was rather dark in the corridor. They must have been so engrossed in the ancient artifacts that they didn’t notice the lights going down.

  “Yes, we do seem to be the only people left here,” agreed Barnabas. “But I’m certain that someone would tell us if they meant for us to leave immediately. Surely they wouldn’t lock up the museum with us still inside!”

  But even as he said this, he felt a bit nervous. Perhaps they had gotten so far behind the rest of the queue that the museum people had assumed that everyone was gone and closed up the museum with Barnabas and Wilfred left alone within. Barnabas greatly enjoyed looking at the artifacts, to be sure, but to be locked up with them all night was another thing entirely.

  “I’m sure that is so. They must do a check to make sure everyone is out,” said Wilfred. He laughed, then added, “Still, we should hurry so we can at least see the mummy for a few moments before we are thrown out of here on our coattails.”

  “Quite so, quite so,” said Barnabas, anxious to get out of the museum before it closed but also curious about the mummy and loath to leave the museum without first having a proper look at it. To that end, he and Wilfred quickened their pace and reached the mummy display within just a few minutes.

  Although they had hoped that there might still be a few stragglers milling about, lingering in front of the mummy, there was no one else there. Barnabas and Wilfred were alone (excepting, of course, for the mummy itself).

  They knew they should hurry up, that there was a chance they might get locked inside the museum if it were to close before they exited the building. But they had been so pleased by the rest of the exhibit, and so excited at the thought of seeing a real mummy, that both found it difficult to pass by the mummy without giving it at least some small degree of their attention.

  But both men thought it only a slight chance they would be locked in all night. There must be someone there after hours – a cleaning crew, security, administrative types – who could easily unlock the doors and let them out if need be.

  So, they stopped in front of the mummy display, feeling like naughty schoolboys who had broken the rules. In fact, Barnabas discovered that he quite enjoyed this feeling; indeed he was quite exhilarated by it. He felt like a rebellious youth, a scoundrel, a man of adventure. And, of course, it was such a small infraction of the rules. Surely, any consequences would be quite minimal.

  He glanced at Wilfred to see if he shared the same excitement, but the young man was regarding the mummy with an expression of skepticism on his face. Barnabas leaned closer to get a better look at the thing.

  “Hmmm,” he said. “Well.” He found that he was at a loss for words.

  He had been expecting to see a mummy like the ones depicted in newspaper articles, tidily wrapped in clean white linens and nicely propped up in beautiful sarcophagi.

  But this one was just lying there on a raised platform behind a fence of red velvet rope. There were no pretty linens to hide the state of the decomposed body, nor was there even any skin left upon the thing. It was just exposed, preserved muscle, there for all to see. Little tufts of reddish hair puffed out from the top of its skull, and Barnabas saw from the placard that the sad, shriveled thing was called “Ginger” because of this.

  “Ugh,” agreed Wilfred. “I hate to say this, but it’s really quite…well…”

  “Disgusting?” supplied Barnabas. He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t mean to disrespect the dead, but it’s a bit gruesome, I think. You know, having all of one’s under-bits just out there for all to see. Shouldn’t they have wrapped it up or something?”

  “Most definitely!” agreed Wilfred. “Perhaps it was wrapped before and the wrappings came off, and the archeologists didn’t want to interfere with the historical nature of it, or some such?”

  There was, in fact, a sarcophagus standing just behind the mummy, and Barnabas wondered if perhaps the real mummy was inside of that. But the sarcophagus was standing well behind the rope enclosure, and was firmly closed. Barnabas may have been feeling a bit rebellious but not sufficiently so to cross over the ropes and into the restricted areas in order to pry open parts of the display. He shuddered at the prospect of the embarrassment he would feel if he were to be caught committing so egregious an act.

  The two sat there and contemplated the skinless Ginger for a few moments, trying to see the educational value of merely placing a dead person on a platform with no skin on whatsoever. Neither man could, however, and feeling a bit queasy at the sight of it, they moved on, intending to leave rather quickly.

  They had both been so caught up with the spectacle of poor Ginger that neither paid much attention to the sarcophagus behind the mummy. If they had, they might have noticed that, in the eyeholes of the sarcophagus, actual eyes moving about, and that those eyes were watching Barnabas with interest.

  As Barnabas and Wilfred followed the corridor that they supposed led to the museum’s exit, however, they grew a bit uneasy. There was no one in sight and, except for the sound of their own shoes clicking on the floor, the museum was quite dark and utterly silent.

  There were several turns to be made, but none were marked. They quickened their pace, hoping that the exit would be just around each corner, but it never was. Soon enough they were miserably lost in a warren of corridors that all looked the same. They had evidently gone off the main path somewhere, and now they had no idea how to get back to the proper place.

  “There!” exclaimed Wilfred, pointing ahead for he thought that he had seen a shadow moving in the hallway. “Pardon? Excuse me? Sir?” he called to the imaginary shadow, thinking that it must have belonged to a person. He hurried after it.

  Barnabas was about to follow (although, in truth, he was doubtful there was anyone there; still he had no wish to be left alone in this eerie place) when he heard a sound coming from behind him. He turned around and squinted into the shadows.

  He heard the sound again, a bit closer this time, so that he was able to identify it as a voice. It wasn’t his imagination after all! But there was something strange about the voice, a rhythmic sound to it as though someone were chanting. And underneath of that was a more subtle sound that he struggled to interpret. It sounded like something was being dragged across the floor.

  Someone chanting oddly whilst dragging things along the floor made no sense to Barnabas, and he scratched his head as he thought about it. Should he be frightened? Was it a ne’er-do-well up to some cryptic or occult shenanigans in the bowels of the museum? Ought he to run after Wilfred and seek out the authorities?

  Then it came to him. It must be a cleaning man singing as he pushed his mop to and fro. That would account for the chanting as well as the dragging. He laughed a bit at his own excitability. Clearly the mummy had spooked him more than he had thought.

  “Hello?” he said, thinking smugly that perhaps he had found their deliverer whilst Wilfred was off chasing shadows. “Is someone there? We seem to be quite lost. If you could just point us in the
right direction…”

  But he broke off mid-sentence. It seemed that his first assessment of the situation had, in fact, been the correct one. The figure he saw rounding the corner behind him was most certainly a ne’er-do-well of the utmost kind, and what it was doing was the very description of occult shenanigans.

  Incredibly, the thing (for surely this could not be described as a man!) that followed Barnabas looked something like a person but with the head of a jackal. This beast looked much like the pictures of the gods of the dead that he and Wilfred had so marveled over just minutes ago.

  The creature was chanting in a deep, low voice and moving its hands strangely, almost like it was trying to emulate an orchestra conductor even though there was no orchestra present. And then Barnabas saw what the movements and chants of the jackal-man were actually directing, and his feet froze to the spot in terror.

  A terrible thing had emerged from behind the jackal-man and was now coming down the corridor at quite a pace. It had no skin! Indeed, it looked quite a lot like Ginger, the disappointing mummy. Such a thing surely couldn’t be alive, much less running towards him and waving its arms in the most animated fashion. This was extremely impossible, thought Barnabas. This was unnatural. Nothing could run and flail about like that whilst it was so lacking in skin!

  As it drew closer, Barnabas saw little tufts of reddish hair emerging from the thing’s scalp, and he realized that it was indeed Ginger coming after him in this darkened hallway. And he realized that, if he didn’t move quickly, the thing would be upon him shortly; and he was fairly certain it wasn’t going to ask him to sit down to tea and scones.

  This realization broke his paralysis and he opened his mouth to scream. “Aaaah!” he yelped as he turned to run. “Wilfred! Help! Help!”

  His fancied he heard Wilfred’s voice in the distance calling back to him, but alas, Barnabas’ feet tangled up beneath him and he fell. He landed hard and the wind was knocked out of him.