“But I solved the case,” I said. “No more zombies.”
“Get out of my office!” he shouted.
“What about my expenses?”
“Get out!”
Maura was waiting for me outside.
“How’d it go?” she said.
“About as expected. He got a little emotional about the pygmies.”
“Oh well,” she said, tucking her hand into my arm. We strolled down the sidewalk. “At least Backus paid you. So, how about buying me lunch? I’m in the mood for octopus.”
THE INHERITANCE OF POLLY INCH
“With the exception of the gift of a moldy, shrunken head from the Nanomani Tribe generously bequeathed to the Explorers Society (which I trust will remind them of the quality of their own heads), the remainder of my estate goes to my niece, Polly Inch.”
Here, the lawyer, old Mr. Fleming, stopped reading the will and looked at Polly.
“I have here, Miss Inch,” said Mr. Fleming, “a list of your uncle’s assets. I won’t bother reading the entire thing. It’s excessive and—ah—rather peculiar.”
“Uncle did like to travel,” said Polly. “I accompanied him on several of his trips, and I must say he was not fond of the beaten path.”
“We require a copy of that list.”
Polly turned to glare at the man from the IRS. Actually, there were three of them, but they looked drearily the same. Dark blue suits, pasty white skin, briefcases clutched on their laps.
“Must you be here?” she said. “I’ve already forgotten your names. You’re ruining the ambiance.”
“I’m Mr. Brown,” said the one who had spoken. “And these are my colleagues, Mr. Black and Mr. White. Seeing that the IRS has a lien on your late uncle’s estate, Ms. Inch, quite a considerable lien, not to mention the death taxes you will owe, we have every right to be here.”
“Now, now,” said Mr. Fleming hurriedly, before Polly could say anything else. “I’ve got another copy right here. Always do things in triplicate, that’s what lawyers do. You’re a lawyer yourself, aren’t you, Mr. Brown?”
“Naturally,” said Mr. Brown, snatching the thick sheaf of papers. “Now, Miss Inch, I demand that we pay a visit to the warehouse referenced here. Is this the only place Professor Inch had? Surely a man of his stature would own a residence? Did he live in this warehouse?”
“Professor Inch,” said Mr. Fleming somewhat coldly, “was a traveling man. I doubt he spent more than several weeks a year back in the States. He lived in a hotel whenever he returned to this city. Here, Miss Inch, are the keys to the warehouse. If you don’t mind, my dear, I will accompany you in order to, ah, keep an eye on things.”
It was raining from a cold, grey sky when they exited Mr. Fleming’s office. The old lawyer unfurled his umbrella and trotted along next to Polly, shielding her from the rain. He ushered her into his elderly Mercedes. The engine turned over with a cough.
“I’m afraid your uncle was not wise with money,” said Mr. Fleming. He eased the car out into traffic. “The IRS was after him for years. Why, I remember the time he smuggled himself back into the country inside a sarcophagus. The postman delivered it to my house. My wife was quite startled when she opened it.”
“Speaking of which,” said Polly, flipping through the pages, “there are quite a lot of sarcophagi on this list. Incan, Egyptian, and even some Chinese. I can’t imagine how the IRS is going to set a value on such things. This isn’t their expertise. Uncle Thaddeus never really knew when enough was enough, did he?”
“Your field of study is Egyptology, is it not?”
“All Uncle’s doing. He took me on my first dig when I was twelve years old. The Upper Nile. Beetles, mummies, dysentery, the works. It was delightful. I’ve been hooked ever since. Oh, there aren’t many jobs that necessitate such a degree, so I’m not sure what I’ll do when I graduate. Perhaps go in for sarcophagi smuggling or plundering pyramids. Will you look at that?!”
“At what, exactly?” said Mr. Fleming, taking an admiring look at Polly.
“Dr. Stewart I’m-So-Famous-and-Handsome Bulstrode! What’s he doing here?”
They pulled up at a warehouse. The sedan with the IRS lawyers swerved in behind them. A tall man in an elegant suit waited at the warehouse door, umbrella in hand.
“Ah, Polly, my dear,” he said. “How very good to see you.”
“That’s Ms. Inch to you,” Polly said coldly. “What are you doing here? This is private property. Go away before I call the police.”
“Dr. Bulstrode is with us,” said Mr. Brown, dodging puddles as he hurried over. “The IRS has retained his services in order to appraise the estate of Professor Inch. Dr. Bulstrode is the world’s premier authority on antiquities of the Egyptian, Inca, and Mesopotamian eras.”
“As well as the Han and Ming Dynasties and the Greco-Roman era,” said Dr. Bulstrode modestly.
“He’s the world’s premier ass, is what he is,” snapped Polly. “My uncle took him under his wing when he was a snot-nosed graduate student, taught him almost everything he knew, and what did he get as thanks? Wonderboy here stole priceless jewels from the Amarna Dig and sold them on the black market.”
“I was fully exonerated in court,” said Dr. Bulstrode. “As fiery as ever, aren’t you, Polly? I’ve always admired that about you.”
“Open the door,” said Mr. Brown. “The IRS does not like to be kept waiting.”
Polly delved in her purse and retrieved the keys. The door was a rusty slab of iron that looked more like it belonged on a bank vault than a warehouse. It had no less than six locks, each one rustier and more recalcitrant than the last. And when the last key turned, the door took a great deal of pulling and tugging before it reluctantly opened.
The little group hurried inside out of the rain and stood dripping in the gloomy shadows. Dr. Bulstrode looked around, his nose twitching like a hound dog’s. It was a large warehouse, with a tall, cavernous ceiling of metal rafters and dusty beams that vanished up into darkness. There were no windows. A musty, peppery sort of odor filled the air. Mr. Fleming found a fuse box near the door and began flipping switches until a series of hanging lamps bloomed into radiance, blinking on one by one in a long line away from them. The place was crowded with stacks of enormous wooden crates. Each crate was neatly labeled with a typed white card.
“Here you are, Dr. Bulstrode,” said Mr. Brown, handing him the list of Professor Inch’s assets. “We thought we’d start with the most valuable objects and work our way down from there. If you would be so kind as to advise us on where to begin?”
“Patience, my good accountant, patience. Now, he lists a lot of nice Mayan statuary here. The Cacaxtla Dig, I would think. Splendid stucco reliefs on those, don’t you know. The depictions of human sacrifice to their god of death, Huncame, are quite moving. A similar piece, dated from around 1100 bc, recently sold at auction in London for 4.3 million.”
Dr. Bulstrode strode down an aisle between the stacks of crates, reading through the list. The three IRS agents hurried after him. Polly and Mr. Fleming followed more sedately.
“Dollars?” said Mr. White, whipping out his calculator.
“English pounds. Aha! Here’s a promising item. The funeral urn of Queen Hadaname of Ur. Complete with ashes and bone shards. More than two thousand years before the birth of Christ, give or take a few years. How’d you like that on your mantle alongside your Aunt Marge? A jeweled Phoenician grave mask. Not one, but three of them. Now we’ve hit the jackpot!”
“What?” said Mr. Brown, looking around at the wooden crates. “The grave masks? The urn? How much can we get for the urn?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Dr. Bulstrode gave him a withering look. “The sarcophagi. Though I had serious professional disagreements with Professor Inch over his methods, I would be the first to admit he knew his sarcophagi. You, sir, might know your forms and your circulars and your exemptions, but Inch knew his sarcophagi. Priceless!”
“How big of you to admi
t that,” mumbled Polly.
“Which one?” said Mr. Brown. “Or, rather, which ones? How much can we sell them for?”
“Well, it isn’t that straightforward. It’s more a question of who will buy them. An Etruscan sarcophagus will have certain buyers that an Incan sarcophagus will not have, and vice versa. Some collectors are buying history with their antiquities. Others are in it for portfolio diversification. There are other motivations, such as national pride, boredom, revenge, all that sort of stuff. But the most valuable sarcophagus in Professor Inch’s collection would have to be—well, let’s see. Hmm. I’d have to say—no, perhaps not. Polly, my dear girl, which sarcophagus would you say was your uncle’s finest discovery? I already know, of course, but I’m always happy to hear your opinions.”
“You are, are you?” said Polly. She paused in the middle of the aisle and then shrugged. “I suppose the IRS is going to take most of this anyway, so we might as well get this over. As it happens, I do know which sarcophagus is the finest of Uncle’s collection.”
“You do? Of course you do. Which one is it?”
“I actually assisted Uncle on that dig. It was at the headwaters of the Nile in the middle of summer. Hotter than Hades, as Uncle always said. The air was red with dust blown in off the desert. The sunsets were absolutely—”
“While your travelogue is fascinating, Ms. Inch, time is money.” Mr. Brown slid back his cuff and tapped his watch. “In the case of Thaddeus Inch, each passing minute means an extra five dollars and thirteen cents in interest, compounded monthly. I suggest you point out the sarcophagus in question and allow us to get on with our job.”
“The crate at the end on the right,” snapped Polly. “It contains the sarcophagus of Pharaoh Menekeht the First. He’s been asleep for a long time. Five thousand years, I think. You really shouldn’t bother him.”
Dr. Bulstrode laughed. “How very quaintly put, my dear girl. Women. So poetic. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have some appraising to do.”
“We have some money to make on behalf of the United States government,” said Mr. Brown severely.
Bulstrode and the three IRS agents hurried away down the aisle. Polly stood watching them.
“Don’t you want to see the sarcophagus?” said Mr. Fleming. “After all, if it was the jewel of your uncle’s collection, it really must be a sight. Five thousand years old! I’m curious myself.”
She put her hand on his arm. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather have a breath of fresh air.”
The girl and the old man turned and strolled back to the warehouse door.
“That’s odd,” said Mr. Fleming, peering at the door. “There are no locks on the inside.”
“Of course not,” said Polly. “They’re all on the outside. The walls in this place are concrete, two feet thick, with steel sandwiching both sides. Uncle built this warehouse in order to keep things inside. He wasn’t too concerned about people breaking in.”
She turned in time to see Dr. Bulstrode triumphantly pull off the top of the crate at the far end of the warehouse. The IRS agents crowded around him to peer inside, calculators in hand.
“To keep things in?” said Mr. Fleming with some bewilderment. “What on earth do you mean by that?”
“What I mean is that it’s time to shut this door,” said Polly. And she gently pushed him outside. She swung the door closed just as a piercing scream came from inside the warehouse. But then the door slammed shut, and all they could hear was the falling rain pattering down around them. Polly swiftly locked each of the six locks.
“Soundproof, thief-proof, and mummy-proof,” she said, dropping the keys into her purse. “Old Menekeht always was a light sleeper. I suppose one gets rather hungry after several thousand years.”
THE CHRISTMAS CAPER
The last house of the night. That’s when it happened. In Manhattan. Can you believe it? Seven billion presents, twenty-four time zones, more chocolate chip cookies than I could count. Or stomach. Maybe it was the cookies that were to blame. Or the jet lag.
Whatever the reason, I was feeling pretty woozy by the time I squeezed down through that last chimney. The soot made my nose tickle. I adjusted my night-vision goggles when I got to the bottom and looked around. Nice place. One of those Park Avenue brownstones where you couldn’t swing a crystal chandelier without hitting a Matisse or a Degas. No real need for me. Still, tradition is tradition.
I sampled the cookies on the sideboard. I couldn’t help it. Gourmet. Bittersweet chocolate chips with macadamia nuts. Then, with a polite burp, I schlepped my sack over to the tree in the corner. Sixty seconds later I was done for the season. Grabbed the last cookie for the road and wormed my way back up the chimney.
There were three guys on the roof when I stuck my head out of the chimney. They were standing around, staring at my sled.
“How’s it going?” I said.
My first thought was that they were from the City Building Inspection Department. But then my second thought was, if they were, why were they all wearing masks? And what were they doing on a roof at three in the morning? That’s when the closest one hit me over the head with a blackjack. I went out like a light. Didn’t even remember falling back down the chimney.
I woke up with some guy in blue shining a flashlight in my eyes.
“You’re under arrest,” he said.
“But I’m Santa Claus!” I said.
“And I’m the Queen of England,” he said.
I was booked in at the 52nd Precinct. They did the thing with the fingerprints and the mug shots. I’ve never liked how my profile turns out in photos.
“Name,” said the sergeant on duty.
“Santa Claus,” I said.
“A real wise guy,” he said, looking bored. “You wanna give me your name, or what?”
“My name’s Santa Claus. First name’s Santa, last name’s Claus. Listen, you’re making a big mistake.”
“Whatever, freak. Everyone knows Santa Claus is an old fat man with a white beard.”
“That’s my dad. It’s a family thing. He retired. I’m Santa Junior.”
“Okay, Junior,” he said. “You can spend the night with all the other freaks.”
They threw me in cell number nine. All the hard cases were in there. A couple of mean drunks, a guy covered in enough tattoos to rival the Sistine Chapel, and another thug big and hairy enough to double as the gorilla at the Central Park Zoo.
“What’re you in for?” rumbled the gorilla.
“Nothing,” I said. “They made a mistake. I’m Santa Claus.”
“Santa,” he said, staring at me.
“Santa!” wailed one of the drunks. He burst into tears. “It’s Christmas.”
Before I knew it, everyone in the cell was weeping and wailing. The sergeant hurried down the row of cells and glared at me.
“You’re a troublemaker,” he said.
“Hey, don’t I get a phone call?”
He nodded, reluctant.
The phone rang and rang.
“Come on,” I mumbled. “Pick up. Somebody.”
The trouble was, most of the elves were probably already halfway to Tahiti. Or Bali. Or passed out from too much eggnog.
The phone kicked into the message. I ground my teeth together.
“I’m sorry,” said the recorded voice sweetly, “but no one’s available at this time. If you’d like to leave a message for Santa, press one. For the Research and Development Department, press two. For the Warehouse, press three. For the Mechanic Shop, press four. For Production, press five. For the Front Desk, press zero.”
I pressed zero. “It’s me,” I whispered into the phone. I could feel the sergeant staring at me from down the hall. “I’m at the 52nd Precinct Station in Manhattan. That’s New York State, in the USA, if you numbskulls need to look at a map. I’ve been arrested. Get me out of here! Quick!”
“Time’s up,” said the sergeant.
I slept poorly that night. The gorilla snored like a rusty chainsaw
, the tattooed man seemed to be gnawing on the bars, and the drunks kept on bursting into song.
The judge wasn’t impressed the next morning.
“Claus, eh?” he said, staring down at me. “I never believed in you as a kid, and I don’t now.”
“Er, well. . .”
“Breaking and entering, grand theft. Over three million dollars’ worth of art missing from that residence you burgled. Quite a night you had, Mr. Claus. You take, and the mythical fat man in the red suit gives. Your choice of pseudonyms, while ironic, irritates me. Bail’s denied. Court date set for next Wednesday, nine a.m. sharp. Next!”
The only thing positive about a formal charge was that I got my own jail cell. I paced back and forth. Ate lunch. Stared at the wall. Mentally cursed the elves. And then jumped to my feet in horror.
My bag! The all-encompassing sack of toys!
Where was it? Was it still on the roof? Had it fallen down the chimney with me? Had the police confiscated it as evidence? My hands trembled.
You see, there’s more to Santa’s sack than just toys. Theoretically, that is. Have you ever wondered how Santa—that’s me—could haul several billion toys all over the world in one mid-sized velvet-lined sack without throwing his back out? Well, there’s a trick to it, and here’s what it is.
You can pull anything you want out of that sack. Just think about it, stick your hand in, and pull it out. I forget exactly how the elves in R&D figured that one out, but it’s something to do with some extremely good sewing and the fifth dimension. It works great. A toy train, a rocking horse, the latest video game? Just visualize, reach in, and pull it out. The only problem is, that sack in the wrong hands could generate anything. Anything at all. I sat down on the bed and gulped.
“Claus?”
She unlocked my cell. The badge on her belt was the only thing signifying she was an officer. She was a tall, brunette drink of ice water with frozen blue eyes. But I don’t mind the cold, living at the North Pole and all.
The Mike Murphy Files and Other Stories Page 6