by Steve Bryant
“May we see?” said James.
Fawn lingered in the salon as James and Mohammed Bey entered the bedchamber, where the golden coffin stood open. The jewelry and other artifacts appeared untouched.
“They didn’t steal the golden coffin?” James said. “Or the jewelry? So this was not a theft motivated by money. Strange!”
“It is most puzzling,” said Mohammed Bey. “The golden casket is worth millions of dollars. Some consider the jewels to be priceless.”
James removed his magnifying glass from his pocket and passed it over the coffin, but he saw no fingerprints to turn over to the authorities, no scratch marks to indicate tampering. The beautiful face of Queen Siti, shaped in gold by craftsmen three thousand years ago, told him nothing.
“This golden container was locked?” he said. “She was removed from here?”
“Ah, on that point that I must make a confession,” said Mohammed Bey. “From nation to nation, religion to religion, modern times to ancient times, there are different customs regarding the handling of the dead. For those of us who serve our most revered ancestors, the custom is to make the dead comfortable. In this situation, our queen was removed from the case in which she travels through the underworld and placed directly upon this fine bed, closely surrounded by her favorite possessions. In the morning, after an easy night’s repose, she would have been placed back into her protective shell.”
This practice surprised James. An uncovered mummy lying in the open on a hotel bed struck him as a little ghoulish, but it was still a rather mild “infraction” compared to most things that went on behind closed doors at McGrave’s. A hotel that catered to the likes of vampires and werewolves had its secrets.
James noted that the sheet on the bed seemed pristine and undisturbed and that all the artifacts—the sword, the perfume bottles, the jewelry—were lined up perfectly. How could she have been spirited away? The windows looking out onto the Milky Way spray of city lights were sealed tight, as were all windows at McGrave’s. The management wouldn’t want anyone to jump, despite the many excellent reasons that tended to crop up. The guards had not left their posts and were only a room away. No one could have gotten past them. Was some strange magic at work?
“Do you have any guesses who might have done this? Or why?” James asked.
“Who can say? Perhaps some blackguard wishes to hold Queen Siti for ransom, for even more money than a golden coffin or exquisite jewelry might earn. Or some political enemy of our country wishes to embarrass our government. Or some crazed collector wishes to acquire her for his private museum. Who knows how many forms of villainy walk the land?”
James could not imagine how the theft had been accomplished. He tried to picture the queen lying there, her body washed three thousand years ago in palm wine and Nile water and then tightly wrapped in thin strips of linen bandages, her arms folded across her bosom. Had she enjoyed her first night of sleep in New York City, only to be interrupted by a thief in the night? Was it a single burglar or a whole gang? How did they accomplish it? Why did they do it?
Fawn joined him in the bedchamber and ran her fingertips across the sheet covering the bed. She too seemed to ponder how such a perfect snatch could have occurred.
Their eyes met, and it pleased James that Fawn perfectly understood, from a raise of his eyebrow, his silent question: “Did you see anything out there?” They were a team.
“The bathroom looked fine,” she said. “Very clean. And there are some nice books in the guest library. But nothing suspicious.”
“We must of course alert the authorities,” said Mohammed Bey. “Your local police, the FBI, and our agencies in Europe and Africa. It is a crime of international proportion. The sooner we begin searching for her, the sooner we may recover her.”
“Please, sir,” said James. “It is always better if we search the premises first. There is a newsman in the building who is already interested in you and your colleagues. It would not do for him to tumble upon this story, which would almost certainly happen if we alert the authorities. He has friends in those circles. Please, let us consult with Mr. Nash first. It is often surprising what a clear head can see.”
Mohammed Bey whispered briefly with his friends, then turned back to James. “Very well, Master James,” he said. “We shall retire to our own rooms. I must make a transoceanic radiotelephone call to inform my superiors. Only later will we contact the officials. This must be soon. You have until morning.”
Chapter Twelve
Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave
Under the circumstances, it was essential to confer with Mr. Nash immediately, with no time to drop a girl off to her angry father. James and Fawn hurried directly to the Bridal Suite, only to find themselves additions to a heavily populated crime scene.
Detective Dan Durbin was the one in the trench coat smoking a pipe. “Leave no stone unturned, boys,” he said. “It’s shocking, shocking that this poor lady should experience such a tragedy on her wedding night. No bride should suffer so.”
Mr. Nash was the one helping Detective Durbin’s assistants scour the room for clues—under furniture, behind paintings, inside drawers. He rolled his eyes as he spotted James enter the room, as if to say, “Another typical night at McGrave’s!”
Frau Grimm was the one lying on her back in the large bed, wailing, a white-gloved forearm across her eyes. “Oh, why did this happen to me? He was such a wonderful man.”
And, “The security in this hotel is appalling. I shall speak to my attorney.”
And, “Are these the best detectives New York can spare? I know the Mayor personally.”
Rupert Grimm was the one lying dead on the floor in striped pajamas. His head had gone missing, which was presenting a problem to Dr. Otto.
Dr. Otto was the one with the clipboard and the papers. “Hard to fill out a death certificate without positive identification,” he said morosely. “Can’t ID a fellow who has no face. Dental records would be of no use.”
James and Fawn gawked at the body. The neck had jagged tears as though the head had been bitten off. Stringy bits and pieces trailed out of the neck into the pool of blood. A partially smoked cigar lay nearby.
“I saw him earlier in those pajamas,” James whispered to Fawn. “He had a head then. Where could it have gone?”
One of the uniformed police officers spoke to Detective Durbin in an aside. He seemed to want to make certain Frau Grimm couldn’t listen in.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “I’ve been talking to the station. They ran a background check. Turns out this is the fourth husband Frau Grimm has lost on her honeymoon. And the three previous? Each missing a head!”
“Gad, what rotten luck,” said Detective Durbin. “How does the poor lady hold up?”
“All four gentlemen rich as billy-o,” the policeman said. “Millionaires.”
Detective Durbin turned his eyes to the heavens. “Well, thank providence for that,” he said. “At least someone is watching out for her. It doesn’t make up for her losses, but it’s something.”
“But, sir, doesn’t it give you pause?”
“How so, Murphy?”
“I mean, mysterious deaths, millions in inheritance, same modus operandi each time. Doesn’t it make you think she could be behind these incidents?”
Detective Durbin chuckled.
“Quite the opposite, Murphy,” he said. “That would be too obvious. Think, man, think. If she were the perpetrator, she wouldn’t dare do a husband in the same as before. No, I crossed her off my list straight away. But someone is behind these foul deeds, and I’ll get him. You can bank on it. No lawbreaker today can outwit modern criminal science.”
He took a satisfied draw on his pipe like Sherlock Holmes.
Overhearing this interchange, James and Fawn traded incredulous glances. Mr. Nash’s face betrayed a similar look as he placed a hand on their shoulders and drew them to a corner of the room.
�
�Jim, boy,” he said in a husky whisper. “Sorry you and the young lady had to see this. I should have foreseen the situation and done something to prevent it. Alas, they may call her the Black Widow for good reason.”
“Black widows eat their husbands—” James said.
“On their wedding night,” Fawn finished. “Yech.”
“Surely you don’t think—” James said, glancing toward the body.
“I don’t know what to think,” said Mr. Nash. “This is McGrave’s, after all.”
“Um, about the Egyptians … ” James said. It was indeed McGrave’s, after all. He quickly brought Mr. Nash up to date on the mummy situation.
“What a night,” said Mr. Nash. “I’m pleased you could stall them. Talk to Roderick and the other lads. Search the building from top to bottom. I don’t think anyone could have slipped out with a full-blown mummy in tow. She’s probably still here. Odd that they left the golden coffin and the jewels.”
James didn’t like involving Roderick, but it was a sound plan. Before dealing with Roderick, however, he wanted to take a last look about Frau Grimm’s suite. Perhaps, as was often the case at McGrave’s, he might see something the police had missed.
The first items he noticed were the used glasses and the tray of refreshments he had brought up. Someone had sipped the champagne. Someone had nibbled on the chocolates and fruit, the bread and cheese. Incredibly, the Mason jar was empty.
James told Fawn about the flies.
She recited a popular jingle: “‘Will you walk into my parlor?’ said the Spider to the Fly. ‘Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy.’”
“No way,” James said. “She might have eaten her husband, but nobody eats flies.”
“What about her name?” Fawn said. “That Frau business. Do you think she’s a Nazi?”
“I don’t even think she’s human,” James said. “She walks funny.”
“What’s that?” a voice screeched. “Why are so many people still here? Who’s that talking?”
Frau Grimm propped herself up on her pillows. Her face brightened when she saw James. “It’s my little man,” she said. “Oh, look. You’ve brought a friend. How delightful. Come closer, liebchens. Let me look at you.”
James had forgotten how wide her slit of a mouth was and how puffy her cheeks were.
“Oh, liebchens, you look as if you are sitting on a secret, yes?”
Astonishingly, as she said that, a fat fly flew out of her mouth.
“Shall I guess what it is?”
When a second fat fly emerged from her mouth, it was so startling that Fawn’s hand jumped into James’s.
Her hand was cold, and James didn’t know if this was because she was who she was, Death’s daughter, or because she was simply as frightened as he was. Whatever the cause of the chill, the effect of Fawn’s fingers intertwined with his was enough to make him feel warm all over. He held on tight.
Chapter Thirteen
The Restoration
“Roderick, Spats, Joey, and the other guys can help search the building,” James said. He and Fawn were walking in the corridor outside the Bridal Suite. James was still holding her hand. “First we need to get you back to your father. We’re probably already in deep trouble.”
“We are leaving in the morning, James,” Fawn said. “Do you really want me to leave in the middle of an adventure?”
James didn’t want her to leave at all, ever, but he was seriously reluctant to displease her father. “We promised Mr. Wu,” he said. “Plus your dad is way scary.”
“True on both counts.”
James thought it over. But immediately when dinner is concluded, you will return her here, he had agreed. He came to accept that “immediately” had come and gone. He and Fawn were in trouble, no matter what.
“Okay,” he said. “I guess if we’re this late already, a little later won’t make any difference. We’ve so broken the promise. We’ll see the adventure, as you call it, through. Then back to your suite as soon as possible.”
Fawn’s hand gave James’s a grateful squeeze.
That felt nice but did little to quell James’s fear of reckoning with her father. The very thought of Fawn’s father raised so many questions.
“The death of Mr. Grimm,” he said. “Will your father, you know, attend to him?”
“He already has,” said Fawn. “He was there when it happened. No one really sees him, of course, in the moment. He’s but a shadow of himself, a dark feeling.”
“He would know how it happened!” James said. “He would have seen everything.”
“So what is your point?”
“In fact, because the two of you are here in the hotel, it means your father knew it was going to happen.”
“Dad doesn’t interfere,” Fawn said. “It isn’t allowed. What he knows is irrelevant. He can’t change things. He can’t influence events after the fact.”
“Still, you’re sure he was there in the Bridal Suite? Tonight?”
“There are always little signs he leaves behind,” Fawn said. “Signs probably only I would recognize because I am used to them. There’s an aftermath, where everything in the room is more still than usual, more quiet, more at peace. Comforting. Like the way your maintenance staff left a white rose with a little bow on it in Queen Siti’s bathroom, next to a gold-plated faucet. I am guessing that tells you the room had been serviced. A nice touch. It’s the same with Dad.”
“Wait a minute!” James said. “You saw a rose in the bathroom tonight? At this hour?”
“Yes,” Fawn said. “But only in the queen’s bathroom. In Frau Grimm’s bathroom, everything was a mess. Goodness knows what went on in there.”
In some dark corridor of his memory, James heard a familiar, eerie squeaking wheel.
“I’m an idiot,” he said suddenly, slapping his forehead. “And you’re a genius.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know where Queen Siti is,” he said. “I know how it happened. She wasn’t snatched at all. She was misplaced!”
Fawn looked at him in astonishment.
“Come on,” said James. “We have to hurry. To the basement!”
In the elevator, for the second time that night, James wished Mr. Clancy could soup up the elevators so they would go faster. Their chamber descended at its steady but let’s-stop-and-smell-the-roses rate.
“It was Mrs. Kobler, the cleaning lady,” he said. “She was servicing the floor where they were guarding Queen Siti. She’s the one who moved her.”
“I don’t understand,” Fawn said. “Why would she do that?”
“She’s terribly nearsighted. I don’t think she ever noticed the mummy. I think she moved the sword and amulets and stuff aside, wrapped up the bedding with the mummy in it, replaced the sheet, and then rearranged the artifacts. She probably stuffed the queen into her hamper with the other linens.”
“What about the guards? Why did they allow her?”
“That’s her secret,” said James. “She’s a mesmerist. Years ago she used to work in vaudeville as Anita, the Girl Svengali. She would invite spectators on stage, hypnotize them, and then put them through a bunch of silly paces. I’m told she was amazing. Anyway, most cleaning ladies have to wait until the guests are out of their rooms to turn them. Not Mrs. Kobler. She quietly walks in, puts any guests into a trance with a few hypnotic gestures, tidies the place up, and then wakes them with a snap of her fingers on her way out the door. They never know she was there. Except, of course, their rooms look really great, and there’s a gift-wrapped rose in the bathroom.”
The elevator wheezed to a halt at the second basement level, where the laundry facilities were kept.
“I hope we aren’t too late,” James said. “We’ve lost precious time.”
James led Fawn along a row of modern electric washing machines. Each featured a large metallic drum on legs that held the main loads. Above these drums, the
two horizontal cylinders that defined the wringers seemed to stare at them like faces with grim smiles.
A dozen machines watched them from a row on each side of the aisle, but the only one working was the one at the far end. This basement level was otherwise constructed of gray concrete blocks. A highway of pipes ran overhead.
The two stopped at the only churning washer. They could hear its load oscillating in the sudsy water.
In the adjacent drying area, hanging from rows of clothes lines, freshly laundered white sheets and towels floated in the air like Saturday matinee cartoon ghosts, but James could see no other dirty linens nearby. The only recent load was now in the wash.
“Nuts,” he said.
He pushed in the knob to turn off the machine and opened the lid to inspect a large load of submerged bedding.
Carefully, James plunged his hand into the water and felt about in the wet laundry until his hand found something suspicious. He tugged, and out came a long narrow strip of gray linen. Could this be the three-thousand-year-old wrapping of a celebrated Egyptian queen? He pulled and pulled, and more and more came out, yards and yards.
If it had been her, it was no more, nothing but an unraveled accumulation of wet fabric.
“Oh, James, we’ve lost her,” Fawn said.
James felt that Queen Siti had been someone he would like to have known. He envisioned her as a child, running in reed sandals, playing in the shadows of the pyramids.
“We haven’t lost her,” he said. “I think it’s still her, but it doesn’t look like her. What if we put her back together?”
“Um, I don’t think that’s possible, James. It’s nice of you to want to try.”
“No, I think we can do it,” James said. “Look, the original mummies were really sort of husks. After the morticians washed the bodies and dried them with salt, they stuffed them with things like herbs and spices and sawdust. So the body was more or less a form to wrap the linen strips around. It’s the three-thousand-year-old wrapping that is still her. If we could simply give her a new form, we could reinvent her.”