by Kat Ross
“It’s a fair point, but we don’t know why this killer took Dr. Sabelline’s eyes. It could be connected to something ritualistic, a burial practice related to his work. Or something else entirely that’s of significance only to his murderer. There are no other similarities that we’re aware of. No bloody messages. No satanic pacts.”
She blinked snow from her eyelashes. Harry’s favorite hat—a saucy confection with a single black raven’s feather—had blown off on the elevated platform, a casualty of New York’s sudden capricious gusts. “Let’s hope this one’s not a repeat killer too.”
They crossed Seventy-Fifth Street, walking along the east side of the avenue and the low stone wall that skirted the park. The lake lay on the other side. Beyond it stretched the woods of the Ramble. Bare of leaves, with fresh snow on the ground, this rustic section of Central Park looked bright and open.
It had been a different place on a sultry August night the previous summer, when Harry chased another killer into its dense thickets. She thought briefly of an archway dark as midnight, and the dull gleam of a blade….
“Let’s move on to the locked door,” John said. “There were only two keys. Sabelline had one, the guard had the other.”
Harry tore her gaze from the Ramble. The terror she’d felt that night seemed so unreal now, with John at her side and the happy shrieks of children in the distance.
“The lock had been changed at Sabelline’s request on the morning of the party,” she said. “It makes a copy by a third party unlikely, although not impossible. But it does raise the question of why he changed the locks at all. It almost sounds like he expected a break-in.”
They’d both read the report on the train, but Harry found reviewing the details aloud helped clarify her thoughts.
“Which is why the police initially arrested Boot, the guard. Even if Sabelline had left his office door unlocked and the killer waltzed straight in, how could he—or she—have locked it behind…them?” John thrust his hands in his coat pockets. “Sabelline’s key was found in his desk, where he’d placed it when he entered. There were no windows in the office. So Boot is the only person present who could have done it.”
They waited as a carriage rolled past on its way downtown, the horses’ breath steaming in the cold air. Harry switched the small valise she carried to her left hand. They’d made a hurried stop at her townhouse on West Tenth Street before heading uptown so she could grab the bag. Harry had kept it packed and ready for years.
“And yet Boot was released hours later for lack of evidence,” she pointed out. “No blood on his shoes, or anywhere on his clothing. And the others all saw him slip out for a cigarette. He was gone only a few minutes, and a smoking butt was observed in the alley when they summoned him back in. I believe the police found it and took it into evidence. Boot simply wouldn’t have had time to commit murder.” She gave a thin smile. “It’s a pretty mystery, John. However, I’m certain that once we are in possession of all the facts, a solution will present itself.”
“It had better. I wouldn’t want our first case for the American S.P.R. be a dog’s dinner.” John skipped over a puddle of slush. “What about motive? The police seem to assume it was a robbery since Sabelline’s strongbox was emptied.”
“Let us not assume anything,” Harry said dryly. “The report doesn’t even specify what was taken, except that the objects were connected with the Egyptian exhibit. What else?”
“Only the bizarre fact of footprints not belonging to the victim leading into a pool of his blood but not out again. It’s what drew the S.P.R.’s attention to the case in the first place. That and the fact that Orpha Winter happened to be there.” His voice took on a gleeful sing-song quality. “This one’s a stumper, Harry.”
Besides her status as one of the shining lights of New York society, Orpha Winter happened to be a vice president of the S.P.R. She was also a potential suspect in Dr. Sabelline’s murder. This was almost certainly a conflict of interest, but one Harry had to overlook if she wanted to be an agent for the Society.
“Maybe Orpha did it,” Harry muttered.
“We can’t rule her out,” John agreed cheerfully. “Though the footprints were most definitely male. Size eleven. Both Jackson Sabelline and Nelson Holland are size eleven, but their shoes didn’t match the tread.”
Harry sighed. “There’s much yet to be learned. I’m sure this morning’s interviews will shed some light on what happened the night before last.”
Having been forewarned by the sad fate of Harry’s little French number, John grabbed onto his hat as a gust of wind swept across the park. They weren’t far from the fortress-like structure of the Croton Receiving Reservoir. Harry fancied she could feel the chill of that great body of water even from several blocks away.
“I hope so,” John said, jamming the Homburg more firmly onto his head. “Rupert’s probably opening all my presents right now and handing them out to the other savages.”
By mutual unspoken agreement, their steps slowed as the gothic building of the American Museum of Natural History appeared on the north side of Seventy-Seventh Street. Two police wagons stood on the verge.
Harland Kaylock, vice president of the New York branch of the Society for Psychical Research, had promised his newest agents full authority to view the crime scene. But despite her recent success in the Jekyll and Hyde case, Harry felt a twinge of nerves. Working for the S.P.R. was a lifelong dream come true. She didn’t want to contemplate what failure on her first official assignment might mean.
Oh, she knew Kaylock didn’t expect her to actually solve the murder. That was a job for the police. Homicide lay well outside the bounds of the S.P.R.’s mandate, which focused on apparitions, clairvoyance, precognitive dreams, thought-reading, hauntings, mesmerism and other supposedly supernatural phenomena.
Harry’s only task would be to determine whether there were any credible occult elements involved in the case, and to investigate them to the best of her ability. She would then compile her findings in a report almost no one would read, and that would be the end of the matter.
The real problem, which even Harry had to acknowledge, was her own ambition. Growing up in the shadow of her elder sister Myrtle Fearing Pell, whose reputation as the scourge of the criminal classes, both high and low, seemed to grow by the day, Harry felt an acute need to prove herself. Perversely, solving the Brady case had only poured oil on the flames.
A single victory could be chalked up to luck. Now she had the chance to show her new employers she was, if not smarter than Myrtle—no, never that, Harry thought with a hollow laugh—at least competent. She could already picture the half-amused, half-pitying look in Myrtle’s cool grey eyes if her sister got wind that Harry’s case had dead-ended.
John seemed to understand all this, for he didn’t rush her. “I haven’t been here in ages,” he said, surveying the five-story red-brick building. “We came once on a trip when I was in school at St. Andrew’s. Lots of fossils and dusty taxidermied animals, as I recall.”
“I’ve never been, not since it moved from the Central Park Armory,” Harry admitted. “Mrs. Rivers took me and Myrtle there when we were children. I don’t think Myrtle cared much for it, except for the venomous spiders, of course. And the snakes.”
John laughed. “They had live ones too back then, didn’t they? I got the impression the museum was more popular before it moved uptown. When my class came here, oh, seven or eight years ago, it was practically deserted.”
“I imagine the new Alexandria exhibit is supposed to give attendance a boost.” Harry stamped her boots, hoping to regain some feeling in her toes. It had been nearly a mile’s walk from the elevated station. “Shall we, Mr. Weston?”
“Off to the races,” he said, tipping his hat at her.
A lone guard stood dolefully outside the front doors, his cheeks ruddy with cold. “We’re closed,” he yelled the moment they came within hearing distance.
“And we’re expected.” John flashed a
toothsome smile. “Merry Christmas, sir.”
“Not for me,” the guard grumbled. “First time I’ve ever worked on Christmas Day, and it ain’t worth the pay and a half.” He eyed them with open disenchantment, and a touch of quiet but heartfelt hostility. “You the pair come to see Mr. Holland?”
“We are indeed.” John rubbed his hands together and turned the grin up a notch, undeterred in his relentless spreading of yuletide cheer. “Can you point us in the right direction?”
“Let’s see some identification first.”
John and Harry produced their spanking new S.P.R. badges—a circle with the Greek letter Psi in the center, which John thought looked a bit like a candelabra—and were ushered inside. The Egyptian exhibits had been moved to the east wing early that morning and replaced with the usual motley assortment of stuffed fur, fowl and scales. Altogether, the museum boasted some twelve thousand birds, more than a thousand mammals, three thousand reptiles and fish, and a large number of corals. Its collection was unrivaled, in America at least, but the lifelike dioramas for which it was to become famous in later years had not yet materialized, and some of its harsher critics compared the museum to a glorified cabinet of curiosities.
Harry felt the gazes of dozens of glass eyes as the guard re-locked the door and escorted them up several flights of stairs to the fourth-floor corner office of Nelson Holland, head of Near East and North African Acquisitions.
“Come in,” a deep, resonant voice commanded.
“S.P.R. people, Mr. Holland,” the guard said, eying them askance.
“Of course. Mrs. Winter mentioned you’d be popping by.”
Nelson Holland rose from his desk to greet them. Harry guessed his age at somewhere in the late forties. He sported thick auburn whiskers with his chin shaved clean. Holland had narrow, close-set eyes and a scholar’s high forehead and fine bone structure, but his hands and shoulders indicated a powerful build.
Two windows behind the desk overlooked Central Park, where people were venturing out for strolls and sledding on some of the larger hills. Old Latin maps hung on the walls, and a few photographs of Holland posing in exotic jungle locales. Tomes on history and archaeology lined the shelves of a mahogany bookcase. It was a highly ordered room, Harry noticed, with minimal clutter. Even the masses of paper on the desk were organized in neat piles.
“Mr. Weston,” Holland said, shaking John’s hand. “And Miss Fearing Pell. I’ve heard of your sister, of course.”
“Of course,” Harry said with a tight smile. “Who hasn’t?”
John leapt into the silence. “Perhaps you’re familiar with Miss Pell from the Hyde case?” he said loyally. “She’s the one who caught him.”
Holland frowned. “Those murders last summer? I vaguely recall them from the papers. In any event, Orpha spoke quite highly of you both.” He gestured to chairs that had been placed in front of the desk. “Please, sit down.”
Harry and John shared a brief, puzzled look. Orpha Winter was Kaylock’s archrival at the S.P.R. Neither of them had met her yet, although Harry knew her reputation. She was a firm believer in psychic and occult phenomena, unlike Mr. Kaylock, who was known to be a skeptic. Harry couldn’t help but wonder why Mrs. Winter would give them such a ringing endorsement.
“Was she here?” Harry asked. “Since the party, I mean.”
“Yes, Orpha stopped by early this morning. She was interested in the progress of the investigation. I suppose you know they released Mr. Boot.” Holland picked up an inkwell, examined it in a distracted way, then set it back down. “Hard to imagine he’d do such a thing.” He gave a humorless laugh. “But I suppose that leaves the rest of us. I honestly don’t know what to make of it.”
“I imagine the police thoroughly searched the building?”
“Oh yes. They’re still at it. Windows and doors locked tight. No sign of any break-in.”
Harry gave him a small, sympathetic smile. “What can you tell us about Julius Sabelline?”
“A brilliant man. We’re all reeling from the tragedy.” Holland leaned back. “Jessup has managed to keep it out of the papers so far, but I expect the murder will be front page news by tomorrow. Quite a disaster for the museum. I’m sure they’ll play up the curse angle. It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
John visibly perked up. “Curse?”
Holland sighed. “The relic taken from Dr. Sabelline’s strongbox was supposed to be cursed. Of course, this wasn’t uncommon. In ancient Egypt, curses were often placed on sacred objects and possessions to stop the living from disturbing them, grave robbers mainly.”
“Interesting,” John said, drawing out every syllable with relish. “And what did this particular curse say?”
“It’s a long one.”
“We’re in no great hurry,” John said with an encouraging smile, pulling out a notebook and putting nib to paper.
Holland sighed again, more deeply. “Some nonsense about They who shall disturb this talisman of the Underworld shall lose their earthly positions and honors, be incinerated in a furnace, capsize and drown at sea, have no successors, receive no tomb or funerary offerings of their own….Um, Their bodies will shrivel because they will starve without sustenance, they will be struck blind and their bones will decay to dust.”
“That does seem quite exhaustive—” John began, scribbling furiously.
“As for every mayor, every wab-priest, every scribe and every nobleman who shall touch the talisman, his arm shall be cut off like that of this bull, his neck shall be twisted off like that of a bird, his office shall not exist, the position of his son shall not exist, his house shall not exist in Nubia, his tomb shall not exist in the necropolis, his god shall not accept his white bread, his flesh shall belong to the fire, his children shall belong to the fire, his corpse shall not belong to the earth, I shall be against him as a crocodile on the water, as a serpent in the field, and as an enemy in the necropolis.”
John waited to see if there was any more, but Mr. Holland seemed to have wound down. Harry tried to maintain a sober expression. She had little use for curses unless they were carried out by human agency—which seemed to be the case with Julius Sabelline, unless vengeful mummies had taken to wearing size eleven men’s dress shoes.
“How many people knew of the curse?” Harry asked.
“Oh, everyone involved in the exhibit. We thought it was, well, rather funny.”
“I’m impressed that you memorized the whole thing.”
“As I said, we made rather a joke of it.” He glanced meaningfully at a clock atop the bookshelf.
“Just a few more questions, if you don’t mind, Mr. Holland. I understand you were in your office when Dr. Sabelline was killed?”
“Yes. I had some grant proposals I planned to take home over the holiday. There are several expeditions in the works for next year and we need to find backers. Mr. Jessup believes strongly that exploration is a key mission of the museum.”
“Such as the one Dr. Sabelline conducted in Alexandria?”
“Precisely. That was financed by a private benefactor and the Egypt Exploration Fund.”
“By private benefactor, I take it you’re referring to Count Balthazar Jozsef Habsburg-Koháry?” Harry asked. Kaylock had mentioned his name that morning at the S.P.R. offices.
“Yes. The Egypt Exploration Fund covered about twenty percent of the costs, and the count generously paid for the rest. He is a collector of antiquities.”
“So he was Sabelline’s patron?”
“I suppose you could say that. Sabelline worked with Flinders Petrie for many years until they had a falling out. Julius was quite well-connected in Egypt. Spoke Coptic and Greek fluently. A stickler on methodology, not like some of the slapdash archaeologists out there. When his partnership with Petrie ended, Count Habsburg-Koháry approached him about a dig in Luxor. It proved successful and they planned a second expedition to Alexandria.”
“Did Dr. Sabelline have any enemies?”
“
None that I can think of. Julius was a quiet man, devoted to his work.”
John looked up from his notes. As a student at Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, he knew firsthand how bitter academic rivalries could become. “Were any other teams elbowed aside at Alexandria?”
“Quite the opposite. Most of them laughed at him when he said he planned to dig there. Nothing of value had ever been found. The general wisdom is that there was nothing left. Sabelline proved them all wrong. It turned out to be a goldmine.”
“He found items belonging to Claudius Ptolemy?”
“Yes, among other things. The city was founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. It became the capital of Egypt and quickly grew to be one of the greatest cities of the ancient world, second only to Rome.”
For the first time, Holland showed a spark of enthusiasm. It was clearly a subject he enjoyed talking about. “Then, in 641 AD, Alexandria was besieged and fell to the Rashidun Caliphate. The city entered a long decline. Over the centuries, the original granite and marble buildings vanished, but the ancient sewer system remained. There’s a network of underground chambers. It was in one of these that the primary find was made. The Tomb of Ptolemy.”
“That was about five months ago?” John asked.
“Yes. It took time to transport the relics to New York and prepare them for exhibition. Julius had been working on it night and day.”
“Do you know why he went back to his office after the party ended?” Harry asked.
Holland nodded. “He’d gone to lock up one of the objects on display. Sabelline kept a strongbox next to his desk. That’s what was emptied. His papers were left untouched, but his attacker took an item Count Habsburg-Koháry Balthazar placed special value on. It was a condition of lending it to the museum that it be secured at night.”
“Which item carried the curse?” John asked.
“The amulet of Osiris. It’s called a Tet, or Djed. About the size of my hand. I suppose you could say it resembles a pillar with four stacked squares on top. The curse was in Greek on the lid of the box containing it. We don’t know who wrote it, although Julius believed it was Ptolemy himself. There are also three hieroglyphs carved into the amulet. One meaning door, or gateway. A second representing a key.”