by Kat Ross
“And the third?”
“The third is an Amenta. The symbol for the Underworld.”
“The key to the gates of Hell,” John whispered.
“Something like that.”
Harry adjusted the small valise on her lap. “Was anything else missing?”
“From the exhibit? No. And some of the items on display were solid gold, worth far more than the contents of Julius’s strongbox.” Holland tapped his fingers on the desk. “I must say, Miss Pell, the police already asked me all of these questions. I thought you’d be focused on the occult aspects. Isn’t that why Mrs. Winter sent you?”
“I’m interested in the facts,” Harry said blandly. “All of them.”
“Your employer is a great friend of the museum, which is the only reason I agreed to entertain this visit, but I’m afraid there’s not much more I can tell you.”
“Of course,” John said. “We’ll just be on our—”
“One last thing. Was anyone with you in your office that night?” Harry interrupted.
“I was working alone. I believe Sharpe was also in his office. But you can ask him that yourself.”
“We’d like to see Dr. Sabelline’s office first, if you don’t mind.”
Holland rose with a weary expression. “Yes, I thought you might. The body was taken away yesterday, but otherwise the room was left exactly as they found it.”
He escorted them back down to the basement. A young patrolman from the Thirty-First Ward stood outside Sabelline’s office. He had a droopy mustache, closely shorn hair, and the beefy solidity typical of New York’s Finest.
“Officer Clancy, these are the people I told you about. From the S.P.R.” Holland said it with an air of faint awkwardness, like someone pretending to laugh at a joke that had gone on just a bit too long.
Harry presented the patrolman with her card. It still secretly thrilled her to see her name engraved next to those illustrious initials, Holland be damned.
“You worked the Jekyll and Hyde case, didn’t you?” Clancy said.
Harry smiled. Clearly, her reputation was growing. “I did.”
The policeman nodded slowly. “Are you the poor bugger she shot?” he asked, turning to John.
John made a choking sound that sounded suspiciously like suppressed laughter. “Afraid so.”
“It was an accident,” Harry said, a red flush creeping up her neck. “He’s fine now.”
“That true?”
John flapped his left arm. “Right as rain.”
Clancy grinned. “Well, Miss Pell, you might be a lousy shot, but you brought that maniac down in the end, so I guess you’re okay.” He stood aside. “Don’t touch anything,” he warned. “The detectives have been through twice, but it’s still an active crime scene until they say otherwise.”
Harry and John nodded assent. Nelson Holland discreetly cleared his throat.
“I’m afraid I have to leave you to it,” he said. “As deeply as it pains all of us, the exhibit must proceed without Julius, and there is much yet to be done. If you wish to interview Davis Sharpe, you’ll find him at the end of the hall. Just follow it around to the left. He works with his door open.”
John thanked him for his time. Harry gave him a card in case he thought of anything else, but the careless way he shoved it into his pocket and hurried off made her doubt they’d be hearing any more from Mr. Holland.
“Ready?” she asked John.
He nodded, hazel eyes dead serious for a change. They’d been to one crime scene together before, an old grain elevator on the East River where an actress named Anne Marlowe had been brutally strangled. When Harry and John arrived, the chain was still wrapped around her slender neck. The killer had slashed open her wrist and used the blood to write Mors me solum potest prohibere in backwards Latin on an adjacent wall.
Only death can stop me.
The stranger part had been the fingerprints John found burned into her skin. It was one of several aspects of the Hyde case Harry had never resolved to her satisfaction.
Anne Marlowe had not been an easy sight. In fact, the image had haunted Harry for days. But when she opened the heavy oak door of Dr. Sabelline’s office and saw what waited there, she understood that there were far worse ways to die.
Chapter 13
Harry felt her bile rise. From the way John stood stiffly next to her, not venturing any further, she knew he wrestled with the same emotions—revulsion, shock, a visceral urge to look away. As a medical student, he was no stranger to death. But this was something else.
“My God,” he said quietly.
The office was roughly the same size as Holland’s, although more austerely furnished. It held a graceful Queen Anne desk of polished cherrywood and a matching chair, which had been overturned. A bookshelf occupied the wall opposite the door. In front of it sat an empty strongbox with the lid open. Reddish-brown streaks and splashes covered the walls and carpet—even some parts of the ceiling. The smell was overpowering.
Some of the stench emanated from a pile of sick about two feet to the left of the door. That’s where Jeremy Boot must have lost the contents of his stomach. It had dried to a congealed mass. Harry took a deep breath through her mouth and began a slow circuit of the room, pausing here and there for closer examination. A profusion of footprints crossed in and out of the blood.
“Mr. Boot entered first, but he only made it two or three steps before he was overcome,” she said, trying to regain some degree of professional detachment. Going over the basic facts of the police report helped. “Araminta rushed in behind him. You can see her smaller footprints in that bloodstain near the desk as she went to her husband. Then she fainted.”
“Who was next on the scene?” John asked.
“Davis Sharpe, but he was smart enough to stay out and go for help,” Officer Clancy offered. He stood just inside the door, ready to swoop down if anyone disturbed the evidence.
Harry opened her valise and removed a short ruler. “May I?”
“I’m sure the Society for…what is it? Psychic something?”
“Psychical Research.”
“Right. I’m sure the Society for Psychical Research is the pinnacle of criminal apprehension,” Clancy said. “But the New York Police aren’t complete idiots. The detectives already did that.”
“Merely double-checking,” Harry said with a disarming smile.
He shrugged. “Commissioner Porter himself gave permission, so go ahead. But I thought you were looking for ghosts.” He laughed to himself.
“Mummies, actually,” John said. “Probably Ptolemy himself. Most likely suspect in a case like this.”
Clancy looked at him uncertainly. John returned his gaze with perfect blandness.
Harry ignored the jibe. Carefully avoiding the bloodstains, she laid the ruler next to a set of prints that stood out from the rest. They followed a clear path across the diamond-patterned carpet to the wood floor by the strongbox, where the largest pool of blood had accumulated.
“Size eleven male dress shoe with pointed toes,” Harry confirmed. “Brand new, from the crisp heel pattern. No signs of wear whatsoever.”
“Leading into the blood, but not out again,” John said, shaking his head.
Harry got down on hands and knees and crept around the edge of the still-damp stain, muttering to herself and occasionally plucking fibers with a pair of tweezers and stuffing them into glass vials that she tucked into the valise. Clancy watched her with a bemused expression. At last she rose and dusted off her skirts.
“Interesting,” she said noncommittally. “Let’s move on to the rest of the scene. What do you think, John?”
“Based on the position of the body as described in the police report and the arterial spray on the wall, I’d say Sabelline was most likely caught by surprise and stabbed in the neck from behind while sitting at his desk,” John ventured. “He rose and staggered across the room, then collapsed next to the strongbox.”
Harry nodded. “I’
d agree with that assessment.”
The box itself was made of cast iron. Using the ruler, Harry called out the dimensions, which John duly noted: height of ten inches, width of one foot, eight inches, depth of one foot, one inch. She approximated the weight at one hundred forty pounds.
As Kaylock had told them that morning, there were no windows. The only way into the room was the door to the corridor, which had been locked when Sabelline was found. Harry looked around, her keen eyes taking in every inch of the room.
High up in a corner to the right of the door, she noticed a small duct to permit ventilation of the gas wall sconces, roughly four inches high and five inches across.
“Did the police examine this?” Harry asked Clancy.
He frowned. “What’s the point? It’s too small for anything, Miss Pell.”
“And yet we’d be remiss to overlook it, would we not?” She glanced around, but the only furniture was bloodied and she doubted Officer Clancy would allow her to use it as a ladder. “Give me a boost, John.”
Gingerly picking his way through the minefield of blood, John crossed to the vent and knit his fingers together so Harry could use them as a platform.
“I don’t suppose anyone has a screwdriver?” she asked.
“Try a coin,” the cop suggested.
John rummaged through his pockets and gave Harry a penny. With a few twists, she loosened the screws and placed them in her pocket.
“They weren’t as tight as one might expect, indicating they’ve been recently removed and replaced,” she observed. “And now….”
Harry lifted the grating away. The shaft was too dark to see into beyond a few inches. She touched a finger inside. It came back with a coating of dried reddish flakes.
“By God, that looks like blood,” Clancy said.
“Indeed.”
“Best come down, Miss Pell. This is new evidence. We need light.”
Clancy returned a moment later with a portable police lantern. He and John dragged the strongbox over. Clancy used it as a stepstool and trained the light inside.
“Nothing in there, but I see a thick layer of dried blood. Best fetch the detectives.”
“It’s quite suggestive,” Harry murmured.
“Of what?”
“Various possibilities, the most likely being that the killer attempted to conceal the murder weapon inside this shaft.”
Clancy considered this. “Why didn’t he leave it, then?”
“I don’t know. Fear of discovery?”
“Or perhaps it didn’t fit,” John suggested.
Harry nodded. “Yes, that would make more sense. But it’s quite large enough for a knife.” She frowned. “Perhaps it wasn’t the weapon at all.” Her gaze fixed on the footprints. “Perhaps it was the shoes.”
“I reckon a pair of size elevens would be a tight fit,” Clancy agreed.
“If he was unable to get rid of them in the air vent, he had to stash them somewhere else,” Harry said. She’d decided it was simply easier to revert to he for the purposes of theorizing. “Have the trash bins been emptied?”
“We checked those first thing yesterday.”
“Someplace else then.”
“I’ll tell Detective Jones,” Clancy said. “It’s his case. But I imagine he’ll be grateful for the lead.”
Harry concluded her examination of the office by examining the door lock. It showed no signs of having been tampered with.
“I think we’ve discovered all there is here,” Harry said at last. “Thank you, Officer Clancy, for your kind cooperation.”
“Well, I’d say you earned it,” he said. “I imagine they’ll call for another sweep of the basement now.”
“Have Holland and Sharpe both had access to this floor since yesterday?”
He nodded. “Afraid so. The search was completed so there was no reason to bar them, except from Sabelline’s office.”
“I understand. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to let me know if anything turns up?” She offered him a card.
“I’ll do my best, Miss Pell.” Clancy slipped it into his coat pocket.
Harry and John ventured down the dim corridor in the direction they’d been given. Unlike Nelson Holland, whose office on the top floor had sweeping views of the park, Davis Sharpe was also relegated to the museum’s basement. They passed a number of doors with small brass plaques labelling them as storerooms or offices. As Holland had predicted, Sharpe’s door stood open.
John stuck his head in and gave a courtesy rap with his knuckles.
“Mr. Sharpe? We’re with the S.P.R. I’m John Weston, and this is my colleague, Harrison Fearing Pell.”
“Oh, yes.” He sat slumped in a chair and did not rise to greet them. “Come on in.”
Davis Sharpe was in his mid-thirties, with a shock of brown hair and wide-set blue eyes that appeared slightly bloodshot. He wore a rumpled coat and scuffed boots. Harry’s first impression was of a normally dapper man—his mustache had been neatly trimmed and the cut of his clothing was quite fashionable—who had lately grown careless of his appearance.
“I’d ask you to sit down, but I’m afraid there aren’t any other chairs,” he said ruefully. “I don’t get many visitors down here.”
The office was less than half the size of Sabelline’s, little more than a broom closet. Untidy stacks of books and papers were crammed into every corner.
“It’s quite all right,” Harry said with a smile. “We don’t mind standing.”
“Feels a bit awkward. I’ll get a neck cramp staring up at you. Perhaps you’d like a tour of the Alexandria exhibit whilst we speak?”
Harry looked at John, who shrugged.
“That could prove useful,” Harry agreed. “Thank you.”
Sharpe set aside the journal he’d been reading and stood up, turning sideways to get past John to the door. “I still can’t believe someone murdered Julius,” he said. “What a horrible thing.”
They followed the corridor to the stairs leading up.
“How did you find him?” John asked.
“His wife, Araminta, came to my office. Said she couldn’t get him to open the door. At first I thought he’d had a heart attack or stroke.” Sharpe shook his head. “At the time, it was the worst case scenario.”
“Could you hear anything inside?”
“Nothing. So after fruitlessly calling his name, we went for the guard. He had the only other key.” Sharpe swallowed. “We found him outside, having a cigarette.”
“So neither of you had stayed behind at Sabelline’s office?” Harry asked.
“No.” He gave her a look. “You think the killer could have been in there?”
“It’s possible. What happened then?”
“The guard, Boot, found the key on his ring and opened the door. I remember the smell. I knew right away something terrible had happened. Boot saw the body and became ill. Araminta was just behind. She called her husband’s name, tried to go to him, and fainted dead away.”
“What did you see?”
Sharpe had grown paler as they spoke, almost greenish. “I saw Julius. He’d been stabbed. There was so much blood. But that wasn’t the worst part.” He seemed unable to continue.
“The eyes, you mean?” John prompted.
Sharpe shuddered. “I’ve seen some things in the jungle tribes, but it was the most horrific sight. I’ll carry it in my mind until the day I die.”
They were silent for a moment.
“Is there any significance?” Harry asked. “Any religious connection to his work?”
“Not that I’m aware of. I mean, there’s the curse. But no one takes it seriously.” He glanced at them and seemed to remember he was speaking with agents for the Society for Psychical Research. “At least most people don’t.”
They’d reached the east wing of the museum, where the Alexandria exhibit was in the middle of being finalized. Packing crates filled with straw and wool had been piled against the wall, their contents arranged on two long
tables with paper tags.
“Julius was very interested in the underworld, the Duat,” Sharpe explained as they meandered through the silent rooms, footsteps echoing. “The ancient Egyptians believed burial chambers formed portals between the everyday world of the living and the realm of the dead, and spirits could use tombs to travel back and forth.”
“What about the stolen amulet?” John said, dropping his voice an ominous notch. “The key to the gates of Hell.”
Sharpe smiled. “I don’t think it’s meant to be taken literally, Mr. Weston. Besides which, the Duat is not our Christian version of Hell, or even Heaven. More of a midpoint between earth and the afterlife.”
“Would such an object be valuable to a collector?” Harry asked.
“It was to Julius’s Hungarian count, that’s for sure. And simply the fact that it was found in Claudius Ptolemy’s tomb would make it worth a fortune, I suppose.” Sharpe wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “Speaking of Hell, it’s awfully warm in here,” he said with a weak laugh. “Or perhaps I’m coming down with something.” He stared into space for a moment, then seemed to pull himself together. “In any event, Julius was always convinced there was more to be found beneath Alexandria than anyone credited, and he was right.”
“Why did he think there would be?” John asked. “If everyone else had written it off.”
“I believe it began when he stumbled across the writings of the Flemish traveler Guillebert de Lannoy. In 1421, Lannoy was sent by Henry the Fifth to Palestine. He wrote an account of his travels, which was rediscovered and published in 1826. Describing Alexandria, he reported that underneath the streets and houses, the whole city was hollow. Julius was convinced it was true. He became obsessed with the idea. Eventually he got permission to tunnel down beneath the sewers.”
“And what is your expertise, Mr. Sharpe?”
“Ancient languages. I did my graduate thesis on hieroglyphs.” He pointed to a slab of stone. Harry noticed a slight tremor before he shoved the hand back into his coat pocket. “This is from the Book of Gates, describing the Fourth Division of the Duat. It says, Open thou the earth, force thou a way through the Duat and the region which is above, and dispel our darkness; hail, Ra, come thou to us.”