She sat at her typewriter and began on the day’s assigned pages.
Today we will open the tomb. I have seen her cartouche. I have also seen the symbol of Set. Soon I shall see my beloved’s face. But no one else will ever see her after today. No one may be permitted to gawp and stare at the greatest of them all. None but I will remember the first sight of that wondrous sarcophagus. Then she will be mine for all time. Mine alone. For he shall not come between us…
Adeline made some hurried pencil notes in a small notebook she had been compiling since she wrote to the professor. Butters would never allow her to remove any of the manuscript, and she would never remember all the important extracts to relay to Professor Mayer. At least this way she would be able to give a fairly detailed account of Quintillus’s discovery and his emotions.
* * * *
On Saturday, in a chilly wind and drizzle, Adeline got off the tram and walked the short distance to the professor’s hotel—a smart, comfortable old building on Schulerstrasse, a narrow street a few yards from the cathedral square.
Professor Mayer was seated on a high-backed chair in the lobby. He saw her and beamed. “Dear Adeline. It has been too long.” Only a faint accent betrayed his childhood in Bavaria.
He struggled to his feet. Adeline hurried to help him. His rheumatism must be playing up again. Hardly surprising in all the damp weather.
How reassuring to hear his voice. A wave of relief surged through her. Surely now he was here, everything would be all right.
“I am so pleased you came, Professor.” Adeline shook the hand that wasn’t leaning on his ebony walking stick.
“My dear, how could I not? You described such a tantalizing puzzle, I simply had to come along and see for myself. Besides…” His blue eyes twinkled under heavy white brows. “I could never resist helping a lady in distress, and you seemed so distressed. Come, let us sit and we’ll order coffee.” The waiter appeared from nowhere. Adeline ordered her now favorite mélange and the professor settled on an espresso.
Professor Mayer smoothed his neatly trimmed white beard. “So, Adeline. You are working on the manuscript charting the Egyptian adventures of Dr. Emeryk Quintillus.”
“Yes. You seem to have heard of him.”
“Oh indeed. Mainly by reputation. A queer bird by all accounts. At Oxford he kept himself very much confined to his rooms and his research. Made himself quite unpopular by refusing to share his findings with anyone. Reading between the lines, I think the university encouraged him to leave.” The professor tapped the side of his nose and winked at Adeline.
“I’m not altogether surprised. The whole tone of his manuscript is of someone obsessed. He writes of Cleopatra as if she was some long lost love.”
“That doesn’t altogether surprise me. I had guessed as much from my own enquiries. But you told me in your letter that some extraordinary things had been happening.”
The waiter arrived with a tray containing two small glasses of water, some delicious-looking macaroons, and their coffee. As he laid them out, Adeline took the opportunity to retrieve her notebook from her purse. She handed it over to the professor and sipped her coffee while he read through her notes. His eyebrows rose, and his complexion grew paler with every page.
Finally he finished and handed the pad back to Adeline.
“Well, my dear, this is certainly a complex and peculiar situation to have found yourself in.”
“Can you help me, Professor? I am terrified of going back down to that basement on my own, but I feel that so much has happened, I must find out the answers or this will haunt me for the rest of my life.”
“Oh, indeed, you must have the answers. There is no question of that. Because, you see, Adeline, you are right. Whatever Quintillus unleashed when he found—and I believe, plundered—that tomb has attached itself to you. You were meant to find that body, you were meant to hear and respond to the noises, and you were meant to see that picture on your wall.”
Adeline blinked. Her mind raced, thoughts tripping over themselves while she tried to make sense of what the professor had just said. “I am out of my depth here, Professor. This is so far from anything I’ve experienced before. I’ve always been rational. Things like this belong in stories. Edgar Allan Poe. Mary Shelley…” She shook her head. “It’s been quiet these past couple of weeks. I’ve stayed out of the library at night and nothing has happened. Surely if anything was there it must have gone now?”
“I wish I could reassure you, Adeline, but I’m afraid all I can say is that the relative peace and quiet you are currently experiencing could go on for a few weeks more. But it will all inevitably begin again. Nothing is resolved and, if I am correct, you won’t be leaving that house until it is.”
Adeline stared at the professor. His face was deadly serious. Her pulse quickened. “But why, Professor? I am only there to type his manuscript. It could have been anyone.”
Professor Mayer shook his head. “Oh no, my dear, it couldn’t possibly have been anyone but you. You were specially chosen for this assignment.”
“Yes, but only because I speak German, surely.”
“The manuscript is in English. The butler is English. I am satisfied that even if you hadn’t spoken German you would have been chosen for this position.”
“I don’t understand. Why?”
“That, my dear Adeline, is the question we need to answer.”
Chapter 6
“Professor Mayer to see you, madam.” Magda showed him into the library.
The professor limped in, leaning heavily on his stick. His knee obviously pained him. Adeline rose from the chair by the fire and shook his hand.
“Please come and sit down, Professor. You must be freezing. It’s so cold out today. Come and warm yourself by the fire.” She turned to the maid, who was leaving. “Magda!” The girl reappeared. “As Butters is away this afternoon, I really don’t think he need know about my visitor.”
Magda hesitated for a moment, then the briefest smile twitched the corners of her lips. “No, madam. May I get you some coffee?”
“That will be fine. Thank you.”
Professor Mayer was glancing around the room. He stared up at the ceiling. “Fine painting.”
“Yes, Gustav Klimt was commissioned to paint the ceiling as well as the portrait I told you about.”
“Unusual style. Very modern. I’m not sure I like it, but it certainly shows talent. He is clearly very good with faces.”
“Yes.” Adeline smiled.
“Now,” the professor said, “when we have had our coffee, I suggest we begin by visiting the basement room you can access from here. We will explore it in as much detail as we can, and then we will proceed up to the doctor’s room and see what we can find both there and in the basement room that can be reached from there.”
“Yes, Professor.” However confident and matter-of-fact the professor sounded, it didn’t stop a coil of fear beginning to twist itself around Adeline’s spine.
The coffee arrived. They chatted about old times for a few minutes and then the professor gripped the chair and stood. Adeline helped him. “Thank you, my dear. These damned legs of mine don’t work the way they used to. A physician friend of mine from Oxford days, suggested that one day modern materials and medical science will combine to invent an artificial joint to replace the human knee. Artificial knees! I ask you. Whatever next? Artificial hips? Brain transplants?” He laughed and Adeline joined in. Crazy talk indeed.
Adeline had pocketed the key to the basement before the professor arrived. Now she used it. She gagged at the fusty air, tainted with the sickly smell of decay and lilies. She grabbed a handkerchief from her skirt pocket and clamped it to her nose and mouth.
“Not very pleasant, is it?” The professor wrinkled his nose. Adeline picked up the lamp she had placed near the door and lit it.
“You lead,�
�� the professor said. “I’m afraid I can’t be a lot of help to you at this stage. I need to hold the stair rail with one hand and my stick with the other until we get to the bottom.”
Adeline tucked her handkerchief back in her pocket and tried to ignore the stench as she held onto the rail and descended the steps. They proceeded along the corridor until they reached the closed door. She turned the handle and tried to concentrate on breathing normally.
Her lamp lit up the hieroglyphic-festooned walls. But…
“I swear they weren’t there before. The wall was bare—except for the portrait.”
“Gracious!” the professor said. “Come closer with your lamp, Adeline. I need to make out these symbols.”
He peered closely. Adeline brought the lamp as near as possible. “‘To speak the name of the Pharaoh is to make her live again. I speak the name of’… This is indistinct…but I believe he meant to give the cartouche of Cleopatra.”
A loud sigh echoed around the walls.
Adeline nearly dropped the lamp. “Did you hear that?”
The professor nodded and carried on reading. “‘Homage to thee, Set, oh god of darkness, of the black soul. Homage to thee for thy dark design. Thy servant awaits thy divine presence, that she may live again in the world of mortals…’”
Again the sigh echoed around the room. Adeline shivered. The temperature plummeted. Their breath clouded in front of them.
“I don’t think I can stay down here, Professor.”
“One more minute. Let me read this portion and then we will go up to the doctor’s room—unless there is another way into that other basement.”
Adeline glanced quickly around but the shadowy gloom didn’t reveal any obvious entrances.
“‘Set, my protector, redeem my soul. Free my spirit to live again. Let me see justice done and the manner of my death avenged.’” The professor moved back. “The late doctor was nothing if not faithful in his transcriptions.”
“You believe the doctor wrote this? But how? When?”
“If not, who else?”
Adeline shook her head. “All I know is that this wall was bare when I last saw it.”
“Then someone has been very busy.” The professor continued to stare at the inscription. “I believe this is a copy of something he found in the scroll. It’s a kind of spell. He really should have known better.”
“In what way?”
“This has confirmed at least one of my suspicions. He was trying to get Cleopatra back. Not her body. No, that would continue to lie undisturbed and moldering in its tomb. He believed he could somehow transport her essence—her ka if you will—back here, to be born again in some host body of his choosing.”
“You mean the girl who modeled for the portrait?”
“Possibly. Where is it, by the way?”
Adeline shone her lamp farther along the wall. Once again, that enigmatic face, reflected in the lamplight.
The professor hobbled over to it and reached up. “You told me Herr Klimt said there was something unnatural about it. If you steady me, Adeline, I believe I can get it down. We must examine it more closely.”
Shock coursed through Adeline’s veins. “I’m not sure that’s wise, Professor.” But Jakob Mayer was already balancing precariously on tiptoe. His fingertips touched the portrait, almost dislodging it. Adeline dashed over. She set the lamp on the floor and gripped the professor around the waist.
“Got it.” A strong note of triumph resonated in his voice.
Another sigh, louder, more urgent, bounced off the walls.
“Shine your lamp closer so I can see.”
Adeline did so. Close up, the full magnificence of the gold leaf, and that enigmatic profiled face were revealed as never before.
“Your Herr Klimt has done a truly inspiring job,” the professor said. “Come on, we shall take this with us.” He tucked the small portrait under his arm.”
“I really don’t think—”
“Nonsense, my dear. It’s only a painting. You even know the artist.”
“And he couldn’t wait to get it out of his house.”
“Nevertheless, we shall see it much clearer in daylight.”
The professor had already started down the dark corridor. Adeline hurried after him. “I really should go ahead of you to make sure you don’t trip in the dark. It’s pitch black down here.”
The professor stopped and let her pass, before urging her on. “Let’s get a move on. We don’t have all day and we still have a lot to do.”
Adeline hurried as fast as her long skirt would permit her. She took the painting from the professor and clamped it under the arm that held the lamp, hoping she didn’t drop it. They both made it into the library when a sudden gust of foul wind slammed the door shut.
Professor Mayer and Adeline stared at each other.
“Someone is most displeased with us,” the professor said. He retrieved the painting.
“How can you be so calm, Professor? I’m scared witless. And you told me yesterday that I had been selected. For what? I never even met the man.”
“Far too early to tell,” the professor said, as he admired the painting, a small smile on his face. “This really is most fine. Most fine indeed. And you say Herr Klimt mixed some powder with the paint?”
“Yes, Dr. Quintillus insisted on that.”
“I find that most interesting.”
“But what does it mean, Professor? Was he mad? A deranged genius of some kind?”
“Quite possibly, but he knew his stuff and he had dabbled a lot in the old wisdom and magic of the ancient Egyptians. We can dismiss most of it with our scientific knowledge and discoveries since those far off days, but there are still elements of mysticism that even the esteemed Sherlock Holmes might find hard to debunk.”
“I only wish I had never heard of Emeryk Quintillus. If I ever make it back to Wimbledon, I swear I shall never leave. However much money Miss Sinclair offers me.”
“My dear girl, of course you will return to Wimbledon. We just have to crack this particular code. That’s why I’m here. Please do not fret yourself any longer.” He set the painting down on the desk. Adeline found she couldn’t look at it anymore. It seemed too alive. Too real.
The professor hobbled across the library. “Come along now. Show me this man’s room and let’s see what we can find there.”
* * * *
They neared Dr. Quintillus’s room. The dreaded smell of lilies hit them. Inside, Adeline heaved at the stench.
“How strange,” the professor said, looking around the room. “I cannot understand where that smell is coming from.”
“I can.” Adeline pointed to a bowl of lilies on the floor, half hidden by the heavy bed cover.
“Most peculiar. Who would do such a thing?”
Adeline shrugged. “The entrance to the basement is over here.” She went over to the wall and found the catch. A blast of cold air hit them. Curiously, this time, no stench of decay accompanied it.
Adeline lit the kerosene lamp and took the lead. As they entered the room, her skin crawled as if an army of ants was marching up and down her arms, neck, and back. No sound punctured the still, heavy gloom.
“This may sound crazy, Professor, but don’t you think it’s too quiet in here?”
The lamplight caught his nod. “I know exactly what you mean.”
On the wall in front of them, something moved. Shimmered. A black shape took form. At first indistinct. Then…
“Professor! There’s something in here with us!”
Professor Mayer stood, transfixed by the emerging figure in shadow on the wall. The body of a man with a jackal-like head and long, rectangular ears. Adeline dared to look over her shoulder. The lamp picked up no one but themselves.
“Set,” the professor whispered. “But it’s impossi
ble.” He looked around. “We are alone, but not alone. Extraordinary.”
The figure on the wall raised its hand. With horror, Adeline realized what it intended to do.
“Professor!”
The god was a shadow no longer. It towered over them and took a menacing step closer to the professor, who seemed frozen to the spot.
“Professor!” Adeline called again. “It’s going to strike you!”
Professor Mayer raised his arms to protect his head. “I’m unable to move. Something is preventing me.”
Adeline tried to lift her foot. If she could just get over to him, pull him away, out of Set’s reach, but her feet remained rooted to the floor.
The god raised the arm that held the staff.
“Leave him,” Adeline cried. “He’s an old man. He’s no threat to you.”
The god let out a mighty roar that echoed off the walls. Its arm sliced down and, with a sickening crack, the staff bounced off Professor Mayer’s head. He let out a cry and crumpled, unconscious, to the floor.
The god’s eyes flashed crimson, and it vanished.
Now freed from her paralysis, Adeline raced over to the injured professor
She set the lamp down on the floor and crouched down next to Professor Mayer. Her hands shook. She felt his neck for a pulse. Relief shot through her when she found one. “Thank God. I thought it had killed you for sure.”
Jakob Mayer stirred and his eyes flickered open. He struggled to sit up, clutching his head. “It hurts like the very devil. Please help me up, my dear.”
Adeline took his hands and heaved him to his feet. The professor staggered a little and leaned on Adeline. He put his hand back to his head. “If that hadn’t just happened to me, I never would have believed it. Somehow the late Dr. Quintillus stirred up some ancient devils when he robbed the queen’s tomb.”
“Robbed it? You mean the dust he took, that he told Herr Klimt to use in the painting?”
“Oh, I think he took far more than that. Maybe he will tell us in his manuscript. You said he was about to enter the tomb in the last pages you typed?”
Wrath of the Ancients Page 8