Barnabas Tew and The Case Of The Missing Scarab

by Columbkill Noonan

  Barnabas, however, had been looking back repeatedly towards the great marble palace of Hathor, and he now saw that they had passed from the sight of it. Ignoring Wilfred’s question and smiling enigmatically at his assistant, he tapped the chariot driver on the shoulder.

  “There is a change of plans. We won’t be going to Bes’s house after all. Instead, make all haste to the throne room of Anubis. From there, we shall go directly to Montu’s abode.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the chariot driver, turning at the last minute from one direction to another so that Barnabas and Wilfred were jostled quite alarmingly.

  Once they had righted themselves and the chariot was rumbling smoothly along on its proper course, Wilfred looked questioningly at Barnabas. “To Anubis?” he asked. “Then Montu? Why?”

  Barnabas smiled smugly, feeling quite clever and enjoying the apparent confusion on Wilfred’s face. “Yes, my dear boy,” he said. “We go to Montu to spy. There was something quite sneaky about him, and I’m sure that we shall find out a great deal by seeing what he is about in the privacy of his own home.”

  “Ah!” said Wilfred. “That is brilliant!”

  “Yes, well,” said Barnabas, secretly agreeing with Wilfred but still feeling a flush of modesty. “And, of course, we can’t very well go with, well, these.” He waved a hand in front of his mouse head. “Montu knows us with these mouse heads, and besides, I didn’t care much for the way he looked at us.”

  “As though we were dinner?” asked Wilfred.

  “Indeed,” said Barnabas. “It was most alarming, really.”

  “Quite,” agreed Wilfred. He thought for a moment. “But if Anubis restores us to our usual appearance, then, well… What about Bindi?”

  Barnabas sniffed. “There is nothing for it. We must have our proper heads about us. And besides, I don’t go in for that sort of romantic silliness. As I told you before.”

  However, the flush of red in Barnabas’ ears and the sudden quietude into which he fell belied the nonchalance of his words, and Wilfred regretted bringing the matter up as they rode the rest of the way to Anubis’ throne room in awkward silence.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Barnabas had regained his composure by the time they reached their destination (and, indeed, would have denied vigorously that anything had been wrong with him at all, if anyone would have asked) so that they dismounted from the chariot in relatively good spirits. This was in stark contrast to their mood at the start of the trip, and quite a good way into it, as well.

  At the beginning of the journey Barnabas had been sunk in deep contemplation of the fruitlessness of his unfortunate affection for the mouse-headed hostess whilst Wilfred tormented himself with guilt over bringing up a subject that so clearly caused Barnabas distress. It seemed to him that apologizing would only exacerbate the situation, and so he had held his tongue.

  Therefore, they bounced along in silence as the chariot flew along the rutted dirt road. At last, however, after the driver turned round and announced that the journey was nearly over, Barnabas spoke. “I do hope that Anubis proves to be more helpful this time than he has in the past,” he said, a conciliatory smile on his face.

  Relieved, Wilfred smiled back to show all was well. “As do I,” he agreed. “He is a terribly cagey fellow, is he not?”

  “Ha!” snorted Barnabas. “Cagey is putting it gently, my dear boy.” Barnabas looked up towards the sky, thinking. “In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had something to do with this whole business,” he mused.

  “Really?” gasped Wilfred. “You think that Anubis… But then why go to all the trouble of bringing us here?”

  Barnabas sighed. “No, no, I suppose that can’t be it. Still, he has proven himself to be quite tricksy and not above a bit of moral turpitude when it suits him.” He wagged his finger towards Wilfred pointedly. “He’s not to be trusted, I say. We would do well to be exceedingly careful around him.”

  “Most definitely,” said Wilfred. “You know, it really was quite genius to misdirect Hathor and Montu in that way.” (He had put together all of the necessary pieces in his mind during the long and quiet ride, so that he completely understood Barnabas’ strategy now.)

  “Thank you very much.” Barnabas beamed, pleased. “It was nothing, really. Just a bit of quick thinking to stay ahead of one’s suspects, which is something all good detectives should do.” He tapped the side of his forehead with his finger, feeling himself to be quite smart indeed.

  “So,” continued Wilfred, who had gone a bit farther during the time he had had to think. “Since we are staking out Montu, ought we not do the same to Anti?”

  “Anti?” asked Barnabas, frowning. “But, why should we spy on Anti?”

  “Well, for the same reasons we are spying on Montu. Namely, that he has suffered demotion due, in part, to Khepre and that he, too, has taken in some servants from Khepre’s household.”

  “Huh,” said Barnabas, frowning. “I suppose they do have that in common. But it was Montu who acted suspiciously and not Anti.”

  “True,” said Wilfred, “but ought we not take a look at him just the same? After we’re finished with Montu, of course.”

  “Well, we could, I suppose. Although I am quite certain that the case will be quite closed once we’ve seen what Montu is about. And I simply don’t believe that Anti could have anything to do with it. He’s been quite helpful, really, and he seems very harmless. Why, he doesn’t even have all of his toes anymore! How could he grab onto a giant scarab beetle such as Khepre? I don’t think Anti could snatch up a normally sized scarab beetle with those things.”

  “You must be correct, I’m sure,” said Wilfred. “Although, you must admit Anti has been a bit, well, moody at times.”

  “Well, yes, to be sure,” said Barnabas. “Perhaps his temper could use some improvement, but he certainly hasn’t looked at us as though he might gobble us up at any moment as Montu has.”

  “Quite right,” said Wilfred. “But then again he hasn’t seen us with these yet.” He pointed at their mouse heads. “He may behave differently once he has.”

  “Yes, well, I suppose that is possible,” said Barnabas (a bit snippily, if truth be told). “But really we ought to focus on our current suspect.”

  “Quite right,” capitulated Wilfred, sensing that his employer’s good humor was beginning to evaporate.

  “Who is currently Montu,” added Barnabas firmly.

  “Yes, of course. Montu is the most suspicious of them all. I was merely speculating aloud,” said Wilfred placatingly.

  “Yes, he is the most suspicious,” reiterated Barnabas. “Don’t you agree?”

  “Completely,” said Wilfred. “I am certain that we will find our stakeout of his home most enlightening.”

  “Yes, we shall,” agreed Barnabas, now cheered. “Yes we most certainly shall. Oh! And here we are. Anubis’ place!”

  The chariot came to a stop and the driver came round to help Barnabas and Wilfred disembark. Barnabas bade the man to wait for them, and he and Wilfred walked along the riverside that served as Anubis’ reception hall.

  “Hullo?” said Barnabas, looking about the empty strand. “Sir Anubis?” He peeked around behind the empty throne, but no one was there. “Huh,” he said again. “Where can he have got off to? Doesn’t he have to greet the dead or something?”

  “Indeed he does,” said Wilfred, disturbed. “He greets them and leads them to Osiris to have their hearts judged.”

  “To have their hearts judged?” asked Barnabas. “And how, exactly, does one judge a heart?”

  “Well,” replied Wilfred, “if I remember correctly from my Egyptian Studies course, Osiris takes their heart and puts it on a scale. A feather is placed on the counterbalance. In order to get into the afterlife, one’s heart must prove to be lighter than the feather.”

  “But that is impossible!” exclaimed Barnabas. “And entirely preposterous. A heart simply cannot weigh less than a feather. Unless it were to be an
extraordinarily heavy feather, I suppose…”

  “Yes, well, that is what the Egyptians believed, nevertheless. I suppose one could take it as an allegory,” Wilfred suggested.

  “And how does he separate the heart from the body? I mean, one needs one’s heart in order to live!”

  “Yes, well, the Egyptians buried people with their various parts in jars that they could carry with them into the afterlife,” said Wilfred.

  Barnabas shuddered. “Barbarous!” he said. “Most unacceptable. Perhaps that is why everyone here seems to be in such a bad temper all of the time. I suppose one might be a bit put out if all of one’s organs were in jars instead of inside of them where they belonged.”

  “Quite so,” agreed Wilfred. “Still, it is an important job that Anubis does, escorting the newly dead to see Osiris. So his absence now may be cause for concern. Something must be terribly wrong.”

  “You could not be more right about that if you tried!” exclaimed a pot-bellied baboon-faced man who had snuck up unheard behind them, giving them both a terrific start.

  “Oh my!” exclaimed Barnabas. Then, remembering his manners, he added, “Thank you?”

  “You’re welcome!” said the baboon man jovially. “Although for what I’m not sure!” He laughed at his own cleverness (a bit maniacally, thought Barnabas privately).

  Barnabas and Wilfred waited patiently for the man to stop laughing and state what it was that he was about. Unfortunately, his mirth seemed inexhaustible, and after a decent interval had passed, Wilfred decided to prod things along a bit.

  “I say, good man,” he said politely, “you wouldn’t happen to know where Anubis has got off to, would you?”

  “Of course I do!” said the man. “I’m his cousin, after all… No, wait, nephew? Cousin-nephew once removed? Really, I’m not sure at all what you’d call it, but we’re family, you see.”

  “Splendid,” said Wilfred. “Now, about Anubis…”

  “Oh look!” interrupted the baboon man, jumping up and down in excitement. “Speaking of family, here come my brothers! I was wondering where they were, they were right behind me just a moment ago, and then I saw you, and then I didn’t see them anymore, so I wondered, but it’s alright, because here they are now!”

  So saying, he bounced over to greet the newcomers with a flurry of excited babbling.

  “Oh dear,” said Barnabas.

  “Oh dear indeed,” agreed Wilfred.

  “I do hope that his brothers aren’t all as, well, excitable as he is, whoever he is. The fellow is actually capering, I do believe.”

  “If that’s not capering, I don’t know what is,” said Wilfred.

  “And for no reason that I can see, either,” said Barnabas. “Perhaps we should just move along before he notices us again…”

  They had just begun to slink off quietly to the side when the baboon man whirled about to face the place they had been when he left them just moments ago. “Shall you come meet my brothers, then?” he called, talking to empty space. He looked about until he saw them standing sheepishly twenty feet away, half hidden by a large boulder. “Well what are you doing over there? Come back here and say hello. Don’t be shy!”

  “Lovely,” muttered Barnabas under his breath, sighing. Grudgingly, he complied with the baboon man’s request, followed by Wilfred.

  “I see you’ve met my brother Hapi,” said one of the newcomers, a fellow with (refreshingly, thought Barnabas and Wilfred) the face of a person. “I am Imsety, this is Duamutef,” he continued, gesturing towards a man with a jackal head, “and this is Qebehsenuet,” gesturing to the last brother, who had the head of a falcon. “You must excuse Hapi. He is most,” (here, he paused dramatically), “exuberant.”

  Barnabas was far too polite to agree out loud, but inwardly he was extremely thankful that one brother, at least, seemed to be level-headed.

  “You must be the detectives Anubis hired,” continued Imsety. “He asked us to keep an eye out for you in case you returned.”

  “I see,” said Barnabas. “Because you are his cousin-nephews?”

  Imsety rolled his eyes (quite rudely, Barnabas thought). “I suppose you could say that,” he said. “We are Horus’ sons, you see.”

  “Ahhh,” said Wilfred, understanding at last who these fellows were.

  “Ahhh,” said Barnabas, still having no idea who they were but not wanting to seem left out.

  Wilfred, of course, understood the ways of his employer all too well and diplomatically came to his rescue. “So you are the ones who manage the canopic jars, then?” he asked. “The jars where the lungs and livers and what not of the dead are placed for safekeeping before they enter the afterlife properly?”

  “That is us, and none other!” cried Hapi happily. “I’m in charge of the lungs.”

  “Very good, Hapi,” said Imsety dryly. “Thank you for enlightening us all.”

  “Well, this is all very well and good,” interjected Barnabas, “but we really must find Anubis and be on our way. Do you know where he is or when he might return?”

  “He will be gone for some time,” said Imsety. “He has gone to fetch Ma’at.”

  “Ma’at?” asked Barnabas.

  “The goddess of truth and justice,” supplied Wilfred. “She carries the feather against which people’s hearts are weighed. If their heart is lighter than the feather, they may continue on into the afterlife.”

  “What happens if their heart is heavier than the feather?” asked Barnabas. “I suppose that must be quite common, considering that most things are heavier than a feather, really.”

  “I don’t believe I know,” said Wilfred.

  “Well, they are eaten by Ammut, of course,” said Qebehsenuet (with a bit too much enthusiasm, thought Barnabas).

  “Is that so terrible, if they are already dead to begin with?” Barnabas asked.

  “Well, yes,” said Imsety. “It’s bad enough to die once, but to die twice would obviously be twice as unpleasant, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose so, if you put it that way,” said Barnabas.

  “And Ammut is part crocodile, part lion, and part hippopotamus, so it really is quite grizzly,” said Qebehsenuet. Duamutef barked a quick laugh at that.

  “Uhhh,” said Barnabas, unsure of what to say in reply.

  “Perhaps you can help us?” asked Wilfred, attempting to change the subject.

  “I suppose that depends on what you need done,” replied Imsety.

  “Of course we’d be thrilled to help!” cried Hapi, earning himself a harsh look from his more taciturn brother.

  “Well,” said Wilfred, “we need to go spy on…” A quick smack from Barnabas on his arm made him catch himself just in time before spilling the entirety of their plan. “We need to spy on someone, but we are concerned that we might not be entirely safe, what with these mouse heads and all.”

  “People do seem to want to eat us quite a bit, since we’ve obtained these,” added Barnabas. “And there are a great lot of falcons about. It’s enough to make one terribly nervous.” He looked at the falcon-headed Qebehsenuet. “No offence meant, of course,” he said hastily. Qebehsenuet merely looked back at him inscrutably, and Barnabas flushed and looked away.

  “Hmmm, yes,” said Imsety. “I see your predicament. Sadly, however, we do not have the power to change your heads back to whatever they were before you became mice.”

  “Why, we were people, of course!” said Barnabas indignantly. He looked at Imsety, then at Hapi, Duamutef, and Qebehsenuet; three of whom were not entirely people. “No offence, again. I’m quite sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that there’s anything wrong with having a, well, unique head. It’s just that, when you’re used to having your head in a certain way and then all of a sudden it’s a different way, well…”

  “Yes, yes,” interrupted Imsety, waving away Barnabas’ apology impatiently. “But as I said, we simply don’t have the power to do anything about that.”

  “We could add some things on,”
suggested Duamutef, “to make them look more fearsome. Perhaps some antlers. Then no one would know what they were, exactly, and maybe not want to eat them because of that.”

  “And do you have any antlers handy?” asked Imsety.

  “Well, no,” said Duamutef.

  “So that’s not terribly helpful, is it?” sniped Imsety. Duamutef curled his lip at his brother but said no more.

  “We could peck their heads off right now,” said Qebehsenuet, snapping his beak peckishly. “That way no one could peck them off later.” Barnabas and Wilfred looked wide-eyed at each other, terribly alarmed.

  Imsety sighed. “And how will they do their job if you’ve pecked their heads clean off?”

  “Well, you never said anything about what they’d do after,” said Qebehsenuet. “And you must admit, it would solve their problem of having mouse heads quite nicely. Because they wouldn’t have mouse heads anymore, you see.”

  “No, no, that really won’t do,” said Imsety.

  “We could put these baskets on their heads!” chirped Hapi, proffering two woven reed baskets. “They’re just the right size, and I can cut little eyeholes out of them, and put a strap under the chin, and no one will have any idea what’s under there!” So saying, he went to work, busily modifying the baskets in the ways he had indicated and then sticking them unceremoniously atop Barnabas’ and Wilfred’s heads.

  The effect was quite comical, really, and all of the brothers, including the humorless Imsety, enjoyed a good chuckle at the sight. And though they felt ridiculous, still Barnabas and Wilfred had to admit that the things were functional, at least. They could see easily through the eye holes, and their mouse heads were quite hidden from view.

  “Well, there you have it,” said Imsety. “Now you’d really best hurry. You can go on down to the ferry and Anti will take you where you need to go.”

  Dismissed, Barnabas and Wilfred trudged off towards the ferry, stumbling a bit as they strove to find their balance with the somewhat ungainly weight of the baskets upon their heads.