Wicked (17 page)

“Business, indeed!” Tristan said softly, producing a shining coin.

Those around the pair seemed oblivious to the transaction. Such business was done constantly.

“Shall we slip out? Or would you ’ave another gin, luv?”

Tristan caught the woman by the arm, moving her from the bar area and closer to the table where Brian sat, his hat lowered over his eyes. “I’ve real business, money business,” Tristan told the woman. “And there’s more of these for the likes of you if you can give me a lead on it.”

“Oh?” The prostitute eagerly cocked her head.

“I’ve something to sell.”

“Ah!” She frowned. “If it be jewels you’ve snuffed off a rich one—”

“Better than that. But I need a special buyer. I’ve something from—” He paused, whispering into her ear.

The whore backed away a bit, shaking her head with disgust. “Don’t be tellin’ me ye’ve got a mummy or the like! They’re fire-fodder and little more! A chap sold one a while back, and all the amulets and little pieces that shoulda been in the wrappings were stole out already!”

Tristan motioned with a finger to his lip. “What I have is gold,” he said. “The best you’ll find on the market.”

“And what do you know of the market?”

Her accent, Brian noted, was slipping away. He had the feeling that this particular lady of the night came to the bar with more than one agenda.

“So…others are selling such antiquities?”

“Oh, aye. And they be the best.”

“Who is selling them?”

Tristan had a fierce grip on her wrist.

She struggled, aware that she hadn’t taken on a drunken sot. “He ain’t here now!” the woman cried softly.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Tristan said. He slid the coin into her hand, closed her fingers around it. “It’s a business I’m coming in on,” he said. “Now, you can give me a hand,
get me the buyers, show me my competition and make good money. Or…”

“Or?”

“Well, it’s a hard life, isn’t it?” Tristan demanded.

“This coin isn’t enough,” she said flatly.

He grinned slowly. “Then we are understood.” Tristan produced another coin. He stared at the woman, then nodded to Ralph, and the two went out.

The whore returned to the bar and whispered something to the burly man drying glasses behind it. The fellow whispered back. With a pout, the woman produced one of her coins. The fellow looked to the exit, where Tristan and Ralph had just departed. Then he walked to the far end of the bar and whispered to another man. He was lean, with a sharp, hawkish nose.

The man rose and exited. Brian did the same.

A
S
C
AMILLE STOOD
by Sir John’s desk, he returned. Camille looked up.

“What are you doing?” Sir John demanded.

“I…I came out to talk to you.”

“What is that paper doing on my desk? With my knife!”

She shook her head. “I just came out. The paper was here. And the knife.”

Sir John frowned and walked to the desk. Angrily he ripped the knife from the desk, folded it and returned it to his pocket. He opened his middle drawer and swept the paper into it. Then he stared at Camille.

“Who was here?”

“I don’t know.”

Now Sir John was looking suspicious. “How can you not know?” he demanded. He sounded angry; his voice was rough. But, she thought, there was more than anger in it. There was fear.

“I was in my room working. I’m sorry, truly sorry. I just stepped out to talk to you, and this is what I found,” she told him.

He shook his head, not really addressing her but wondering aloud. “I had a lecture…in the reading room. I spoke about the wonders of the Nile and the last expedition. I wasn’t gone more than an hour.” He sagged suddenly, nearly falling into his chair, then pressed his hands to his temples. “I’ve a headache, a terrible headache. I’m going home for the afternoon.”

He rose, suddenly stronger again. He barely glanced at her as he hurried out.

She watched him go, worried. He hadn’t even asked her why she had come out to talk to him.
Because he was afraid?

She started to walk back to her room but her toe nudged something. Looking down, she saw that he had dropped his keys in his haste. Picking them up, she started after him. “Sir John!”

But he was gone. In fact, their entire work area seemed eerily silent. She hadn’t seen Hunter that day—which wasn’t unusual. But neither had she seen Aubrey Size-more or Alex Mittleman. Not even the old fellow who cleaned was around anywhere.

She stood in the deep quiet for a long moment. She would never catch Sir John. It seemed she was alone.

She tightened her fingers around the keys. It was time to see the storeroom again.

B
RIAN QUICKLY REALIZED
that the hawk-nosed man from the bar was keeping pace with Tristan and Ralph. They wove through alleys and busy streets, then back into a section of alleyways again, coming near the river and the old Roman wall. Brian could see the rise of the White Tower across the river. Then that view disappeared.

They made a turn into a crowded street. That was when he saw the hawk-nosed fellow run up behind Tristan and shove him into a narrow, dark alley.

Brian followed in haste. Hawk-nose had a gun. By the time Brian made it into the little square at the end of the alley, he had it out and aimed at Tristan and Ralph.

“What have you got and where are you getting it from?” the fellow demanded.

Brian moved up behind him. He saw Tristan’s eyes widen but he shook his head, and before the fellow could turn to see the danger behind him, Brian had lashed out. He struck the fellow’s right arm with a crushing blow. The gun went flying into the dirt of the overgrown, trash-strewn alley. The fellow made a move for the knife at his calf, but Brian hooked him with a right jab, sending him flying back.

That was when the sound of gunfire ripped through the air.

C
LUTCHING THE KEYS,
Camille hurried back down to the exhibit area. It wasn’t terribly busy, but still, she saw a few couples, students and scholars taking notes, art students with their workbooks out as they sat or stood before various statues and reliefs. The cobra, satisfied with its recent meal, was coiled and sleeping. Aubrey was nowhere to be seen.

With a deep breath, she retraced the steps she had taken with Sir John just a few days earlier, heading down into the bowels of the museum to the storage rooms.

The lighting was very dim, and it took her several seconds to adjust to it. But once her eyes were accustomed to the shadows, she was fine. She strode through aisles and stacks of cartons and treasures until she came to the Egyptian antiquities—specifically those boxes that had been brought back from the Stirlings’ last expedition.

There were a number of mummies that were not in their sarcophagi, either having already been opened, or because they were from a mass burial in which they hadn’t been allotted separate coffins. She glanced over the forms, noting that the wrappings had been done carefully and were of the best quality. In the latter dynasties, many of the embalmers began to shirk their religious fervor for that of earthly gain, doing poor work upon their clients.

She wasn’t really interested in mummies at the moment, though. She went from box to box, reading the contents, searching for a mention of a golden cobra. If the piece had been put into the tomb as a special talisman—handmade by a revered priestess or witch—it had to be an exquisite work of art. Solid gold? Possibly. And the eyes…rubies? Diamonds? Gem stones at the very least.

But going crate by crate, she could find no mention of such a piece. And though she tried carefully to rummage through the open boxes, she couldn’t find anything that resembled the description, either.

She returned to the boxes that held mummies, wondering if it had perhaps been something smaller, maybe buried with the mummy Hethre herself.

But she didn’t think one of the casually opened mummies could be Hethre. No Egyptologist worth his salt would have opened the sarcophagus of such a renowned individual without all proper care and precaution. Just as the tombs might have sand traps, falling stones and other grave-robbing deterrents, so might such a coffin.

Frustrated, she stood staring at one of the mummies, somewhat saddened to realize that none of man’s efforts could really stop the onslaught of death and decay.

Then, what dim lights burned in the storeroom suddenly went out. And as she stood amidst the mummies, the world went black.

“G
ET DOWN
!” Brian roared, falling to the ground himself and rolling for the comparative shelter of a watering trough. He felt a burning sensation against his arm, and knew that he had been winged by one of the bullets.

Then, abruptly, the firing ceased.

He crept around the trough.

“Hey! Hey, there, old chap!”

It was Tristan’s voice. Brian breathed a sigh of relief. Carefully, he looked around the trough. Both Tristan and Ralph were coming from behind the wheels of a broken-down carriage.

The man who had followed them was on the ground. Brian walked over and hunched down by him. A bullet had torn straight into the fellow’s forehead. There was no question that he was dead.

Brian quickly rifled his pockets. He glanced up at Tristan and Ralph, who were standing by him, gaping like children who had wound up in a schoolyard fight gone bad.

“Get out of here, quickly, both of you,” he said.

“What?” Tristan said thickly.

Brian realized that neither of them had the least idea of who he was. “Get out of here before the police come, before they want to know what you’re doing here, and what your relationship was with this fellow.”

“Right…right…” Tristan murmured.

“But who shot him?” Ralph demanded.

“A relationship with this fellow…” Tristan murmured. “I don’t know the bloke!”

“He was in the pub,” Ralph said, eyes widening. “Sitting at the far end of the bar, down from us.”

“But if the police question us, we really don’t know a damn thing,” Tristan said.

“No,” Ralph agreed.

“So, do you want to be questioned?” Brian demanded.

“No!” Ralph said.

Brian continued to dig into the man’s pockets, but the fellow carried no identification of any kind. There was nothing on him but a few coins and a wad of tobacco.

He looked up. The pair remained, just staring down at him. “Go!” he urged them. “Go, quickly.”

He stood himself and surveyed the small square. It was surrounded by houses, the kind that had once housed Flemish weavers but which were now the typical, wretched housing for the poor, where single rooms were often home to over ten family members. Each house would have at least seven or eight rooms. Two of them were three-storied. Each had a back balcony or spit of flat roofing.

The two still stood there, waiting.

“Get!” Brian warned.

They started for the alley, but Brian could hear police whistles. There was a path between the two houses straight back and to the right.

“That way.”

Brian rose and pushed the pair forward. He needed more time to linger, but he didn’t want to be questioned by the police, either.

With him propelling Ralph and Tristan forward, they reached another small yard in what would be the front of the first house. He shoved them toward the crowd and hurried in the other direction.

C
AMILLE STOOD,
gripping the crate that held the mummy she had so recently pitied, and listened. At first, there was nothing. Then she heard a rustling. The sound was coming from within the box.

It couldn’t be! Though her heart hammered, she refused to believe that a mummy had come to life. But if it hadn’t, then someone was there. Someone was in the darkness
with her, standing on the other side of the crate, making the noise, searching as she had been searching, trying to scare her….

An image of the knife thrust into the newspaper clipping, right through Sir John’s face, came to her mind’s eye. This person was interested in more than simply scaring her.

She fought to remain silent, to back away from the crate. Then she heard the voice. The whisper. The rasping sound.

“Camille…”

She had nothing whatsoever that could be used as a weapon. She loathed being terrified, and she didn’t believe a word about curses, but…that voice. It seemed to rake right along her spine. To tear into her very flesh. There was something about it that was…evil.

She had to run, but it was impossible in the clutter and the boxes, in the darkness. And if she was stopped, what then?

“Camille…”

It came again, like sandpaper against the air…taunting, amused. Warning. Deadly.

She gritted her teeth and turned, totally blinded. She instantly walked into a box. She heard movement from behind her. Someone was coming around the side of the crate, seeking to find her, blinded in the darkness, as well.

She groped at the box and reached inside, hoping desperately to find some kind of weapon. Her arms gripped something covered in dust, but long and hard. A scepter, perhaps. She curled her fingers around it, felt for the box and circled around.

She remembered something of the pattern of the storage cartons and boxes and began weaving her way through. She heard footsteps, bold now, following in her wake. And again, the voice.

“Camille…!”

The door out! She could see it ahead, for it was surrounded by tiny slits of light. She raced for it.

She heard the footsteps, felt someone reach out with bony fingers…catching her hair.

She screamed, turned with her weapon and lashed out, then tore for the door and the light that lay beyond.

“T
RISTAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING,
man?” Ralph demanded.

Tristan had stopped. They were a good three blocks from the square, surrounded by folk, some who were rushing toward the sound of the police whistles, others who just kept walking or going, accustomed to the sound. Murder was not a rarity in this area.

“Come on, let’s get far away. You heard the old bearded fellow.”

Tristan shook his head. “Ralph! Good God! You must know who that was by now.”

Ralph stared at him, arching a brow. He looked around, anxious to be on his way. It was quite one thing to be a petty thief. He wasn’t accustomed to the way the world had gone since Tristan came up with the brilliant idea to help himself to a bit of Lord Stirling’s property. Until today, the debacle had stood rather well with him—lounging in the fine apartments granted him among the servants’ quarters at the castle, eating well, living the life of a gentleman, completely at ease. But now! Well, he wasn’t accustomed to being shot at.

Tristan sighed, looking at him. “It was Lord Stirling.”

“No!”

“Aye.”

“No!”

“Aye!”

“Lord Stirling!” Ralph breathed. “But if he was there, in such a disguise, why did he send us in?”

“Because we do know our way around such places, and we have been known to pawn off an illegal trinket or two,” Tristan said.

“Fine. That’s all well and good. So let’s move on now, shall we. He told us to go.”

Tristan shook his head, eyes sparkling. “I’m going back.”

“Back! To the place we were nearly shot down along with that fellow!” Ralph said with amazement. He tried hard to draw forth some serious authority and dignity. “If it was Lord Stirling, as you say, he very sternly ordered us to move on!”

“Of course, he didn’t want us involved in the questioning.” Tristan shrugged. “It’s not likely the murder of such a bloke will draw much attention, but in case it makes the newspapers at all, he wouldn’t have us involved.”

“Right. So let’s not be involved.”

“We’re not involved any longer. We’re just part of the curious public, drawn to the excitement. A man shot dead in a square! They’ll be people amassing around the scene now, so we’ll not be noticed in the least.”

“I don’t want to go back to see a dead man bleeding on cobblestones!”

“Ah, but people do! Just as they used to line up for a public hanging. Come on, my man. We’ll not be noticed. And we may hear a thing or two.”

“Oh, Tristan!” Ralph moaned.

“We need to find out what we can for Lord Stirling,” Tristan said firmly. He turned and started back the way they had come.

Groaning again, Ralph followed in his wake.

T
HE DOOR CLOSED
behind Camille, and the world was suddenly flooded with light. The chamber to the storeroom
door, however, was empty, so she tore for the stairs, racing up them.

She burst out into one of the galleries, where a few people milled around exhibits. Everyone turned and stared at her. One woman gasped; all looked at her in shock.

For a moment she was simply frozen in place, not understanding. Then she looked down at the weapon she had grabbed from the mummy crate. She was holding an arm.

Wrapped, its linen darkened by years of entombment and decay, it indeed appeared to be some kind of strange and grisly trophy.

She dropped it in horror. Then, realizing she was about to create a scene in the gallery, she smiled ruefully, smoothed back her hair and retrieved the ancient body part. “I’m so sorry. A new exhibit,” she explained.

She tore for the stairs to the offices, her mind racing. The logical thing to do was go for one of the policemen charged with museum security. But then she would have to explain what she had been doing in the storeroom. Still, whoever had been taunting her might still be lingering in the storeroom. It was time to catch the culprit!

As she ran into the office, determined to go for help and damn the consequences, she was startled from immediate action when she saw that Sir John’s desk was occupied.

Evelyn Prior was waiting in the chair.

“There you are, dear!” she exclaimed. “I was getting worried…a workday and no one about. No one at all. Why, Camille, what’s wrong? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” She raised a brow. “And you’re carrying its earthly remains around with you.”

“I…I’m fine,” she murmured. Her heart was thundering. She wasn’t in the least sure why—she had liked Evelyn very much—but she was suddenly wary. Was it possible that Evelyn had been down in the storage vaults,
that she had been the one whispering Camille’s name and was now sitting at the desk, just to allay suspicion?

“Oh, this!” She forced herself to smile. “Yes…terrible of me. I must get it back. I’m embarrassed to say that I saw a rat and panicked. One would think I’d be accustomed to dealing with such things, but…Excuse me, I have to—” She broke off. “Evelyn, what are you doing here?”

“It’s after four, my dear. I’ve come with Shelby to take a ride out to the sisters’ cottage with you. We must make sure your gown for tomorrow night is complete, that it fits perfectly and that you’ll be ready for the ball.”

“After four?” Camille murmured. “Of course, I need just a minute…if you don’t mind waiting? Excuse me, Evelyn, I’ll be right back.”

She exited the offices, closing the door behind her. It was absurd to think that Evelyn might have been stalking her in the storeroom! The woman was Brian Stirling’s right hand, so it seemed. And she had been calm and serene, simply baffled by the fact that no one had been in the office. And surely more baffled than ever to see Camille with a death grip on a mummy’s arm.

She turned quickly, realizing that there was definitely a reason for her to find one of the officers and hurry back. The mummy’s arm was still in her hands. She needed to return it. She tried to hide it in the folds of her skirt, not wanting to shock any more of the museum’s visitors, then realized there was an even more serious matter. She had dropped Sir John’s keys somewhere. And she had left the door open.

She found the guard resting in a chair in the hall with the Rosetta Stone. She was grateful to discover the man on duty was a fellow they all called Gramps, though his real name was James Smithfield. He had drawn museum duty, she thought, because of his age. He was a tall, lean
man, left with just a few wisps of gray hair beneath his hat. His powder-blue eyes were faded but kind, and he had wonderful stories to tell about his early days in the police force.

“Jim!” Camille said, shaking him by the shoulder.

He had apparently dozed off. He looked up with a start. He saw her face, knew he shouldn’t have been napping on the job and jumped up. “Camille!” He looked around, certain there must be some trouble.

She had to smile, despite her situation. “I need some help, please.”

“Yes, yes, of course, what is it lass?”

“I had to check on something in the storeroom. I think someone was down there with me. I’d like to make sure it’s empty and lock it back up.”

He frowned. She wondered if he knew that she didn’t really have the authority to be prowling around the storeroom.

“Someone prowling about?” he demanded.

“I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe even my imagination. But if you wouldn’t mind coming with me?”

“Of course not, lass! It’s my job!”

Feeling a great deal more secure—even if James Smithfield was nearly as old as some of the museum’s exhibits—Camille led the way.

The door to the storeroom was still closed, but unlocked. And when Camille pushed it open, the dim lights were back on, just as if they had burned as they were supposed to, all throughout the day.

She retraced her steps, Jim behind her, poking around containers here and there, determined that he’d not be caught napping on the job again.

Camille found the carton with the armless mummy and did her best to return the limb. The keys were on the floor by the massive container. She picked them up. Jim was
looking at her, a slight smile teasing his lips. “Now, lass, there’s no one here, nothing looks amiss! Have you been listening to much lore about mummies and curses? Whatever they thought, Camille, these fellows don’t rise again and come after the living! Ah, but then you’re young. Easy to let the mind find fear in such things, eh?”

She forced a smile. “No, I think someone was down here. But I do agree, whoever it was is gone now.”

“Probably just someone from another department,” Jim said, still smiling pleasantly, amused, yet affectionately so. He was a good man, confused as to why certain things were so important to the scholarly types in the museum when the sums they cost could feed dozens of families for weeks on end, but still tolerant. A most fatherly figure.

She caught his arm. “Thank you, James.”

“Any time you need me, Camille.”

“Thank you.”

When they left the storeroom, Camille saw to it that the door was securely locked, though she wondered just what good she was doing. It had been locked when she first arrived!

There were other keys out to department heads. Other people had access. But another department head wasn’t likely to make all the lights go out! And she was certain that it wasn’t a curator from another area who had been in the darkness with her.

They walked back. As they neared the Rosetta Stone, he paused. “I won’t be saying a thing about this, you know.” And he winked at her.

She started to tell him that it was all right, but then decided that she would be glad of his silence.

“Thank you, Jim,” she said, and started back for the offices.

B
RIAN HAD BARELY FINISHED
treating the wound where the bullet had grazed his arm when there was a tap on his door. Ajax, sitting sentinel before the hearth, lifted his head and thumped his tail.

“Yes?”

“It’s Corwin, My Lord.”

“Come in, please.”

He tied the mask at the back of his head as the fellow entered.

“What is it?” Brian asked.

“The fellow, Sir Tristan Montgomery, is here to see you.”

“Send him in.”

Corwin nodded and Tristan entered. “Good evening, Lord Stirling.”

“Good evening. So…you have a report to make? You found a place where antiquities are being sold on the black market?”

“You know that I did,” Tristan said quietly and with a great deal of dignity.

Brian stared at him for a minute and then shrugged. “I will assume then that you and your cohort made it safely away before the police arrived?”

“We made it away, but we went back,” Tristan told him.

“Oh?” Brian was definitely surprised. A man with Tristan’s past didn’t usually seek out the police.

“I thought you’d want the bloke’s name,” Tristan said.

Definitely surprised, a smile on his lips, Brian walked to a small side table with a brandy decanter and glasses and poured out two portions.

“Indeed,” he said, handing a glass to Tristan.

“He was a shady character, well-known to the coppers. Joseph Buttonwood. As of late, he’s not been the type to be in the clink. Apparently, that’s what got the coppers
most suspicious of him. Seems they suspected he was doing some dirty work for someone maybe of a higher class, since he’d given up his street robberies in Mayfair.”

“I see,” Brian murmured.

“City of London bobbies have the case—we were within the mile,” Tristan continued. “But there’s not much interest. The detective who arrived at the scene after the street boys is a jaded old fellow, Sergeant Garth Vickford. He thinks it’s well enough that the criminal element take out the criminal element, for it avoids a trial and saves the Crown and the taxpayers money. I don’t think that there will be much of an investigation.”

“You found all this out?” Brian asked.

Tristan shrugged. “I know how to get close and listen.”

Brian took a seat in the great upholstered chair before the hearth. For a moment, he didn’t reply. Despite the amazing fact that he was closer than he had ever been before to an answer, he was momentarily distracted.

It was here that he had sat the other night, holding Camille. It was too easy to remember her scent, the softness of her skin and the way her eyes had looked into his, marbled and brilliant, golden flames and emeralds, not seeming to notice the mask and, apparently, oblivious to the fact that he was known as the beast, a man cursed and scarred beyond all hope….

“I dare say,” Tristan continued, “that the dead man was no more than a runner, and his attack on Ralph and me probably foolish. That’s why someone, maybe whoever he was working for or just someone with a higher place in the thieves den, decided that he had to be silenced.”

“Yes, yes,” Brian said. He stood. “Thank you. You did me a service today. You owe me nothing more. I hadn’t really thought that I’d be putting your lives in danger.”

“But you were there. And you took a bullet in your arm.”

“A scratch, nothing more. And since I can’t guarantee that I will always be there if there is trouble, I repeat, you have done me a great service. And you owe me nothing more.”

Tristan stretched to his full height. “Lord Stirling, it’s well known that you led men and fought not from behind the ranks, but at the head of them. But I, too, was a soldier for Her Majesty. I’m not a coward, nor do I love life over honor. I’m pleased to be of greater service.”

“If I were to cause injury to you,” Brian said quietly, “Camille would loathe me and never forgive me.”

“If I were to refuse the just and righteous work offered to me by a man such as yourself and eschew the life I had been living, Camille would despair of me,” Tristan countered. “Perhaps I didn’t make a fine showing today, Lord Stirling. Perhaps, as well, I hadn’t quite believed the truth in what you’re seeking to discover. But I can take care of myself. And I will. Don’t ask me to step back now. I’m in this, and I feel as I haven’t felt in many a year.”

Brian leaned down and stroked Ajax’s great head, then rose and faced Tristan again. “All right. But I’ll ask that you not take things upon your own shoulders. Nothing is to be done without my knowledge, and you will keep your own life and limb in mind.”