Wrath of the Ancients

by Catherine Cavendish

  The girl shuddered. “I think so. When I first came here, I decided to go exploring and I wish to God I hadn’t.” She crossed herself.

  “Butters and Frau Lederer. Who are they really?”

  “Mr. Butters is a strange one. He seems so stern, but I believe he can be kind. He was attracted to Frau Lederer for a long time. He believed they had met in a previous life—in ancient Egypt. He told me he had found a way of returning them to their original selves, so that they could be together as they never could in this world. But that’s when it all went wrong. He found out Frau Lederer was not who she claimed to be. Oh, I expect she had been Josefa Lederer at one time. She was certainly somebody, but Butters became convinced that the person who inhabited her body was not the person she was born as.”

  “He mentioned something—or someone—called Arsinoe.”

  Magda’s eyes flashed. “Yes. That’s the name. Arsinoe.”

  “Who is she? Do you know?”

  “No, madam. I don’t, but Mr. Butters told me yesterday that he was becoming most concerned about Frau Lederer. He mentioned that name and said he believed she had designs on killing you.”

  “But why? I’ve done nothing to the woman.”

  “I said the dead walk this house. You’ve seen so yourself, haven’t you? Mr. Butters is charged with carrying out his late master’s instructions and Frau Lederer—or whoever was using her body—seems to have been determined to stop him. He played along with her. He didn’t want to arouse her suspicions, but when she sent that scarab to bite you, he knew he had to act. He also took the precaution of telling me their plans for today. If anything went wrong, he told me I must kill her. He said he would smash the picture and that would be my cue. I was waiting outside the door, listening. Mr. Butters told me he thought Frau Lederer planned to do away with you, using a death spell. For Dr. Quintillus’s plan to work, the ritual should have gone differently. You should have been transformed by the blood and dust into a host body for the spirit of the queen Cleopatra, but Mr. Butters was right. Frau Lederer—or Arsinoe—had other plans.”

  Adeline remembered the dead woman in the basement. “What are we going to do about her? Let the police find her?”

  “And go to prison for the rest of my life? I would rather not, madam, if you don’t mind. Leave her to me. I will dispose of her. My two brothers will help me.”

  A dark thought flashed through Adeline’s brain. “Can we really be sure she’s dead?”

  Magda stared at her and in that brief exchange, Adeline knew they shared the same fears. Whoever—or whatever—Arsinoe was, she had the power to possess the mind and body of another, and if she could do that, how could she be lying dead in that basement?

  The awful realization of the impact of Magda’s actions, seemed to hit them both at the same moment. Surely they would soon feel the full force of the wrath of the ancient ones—a force that had reduced Quintillus to some kind of living corpse and would now be turned against them.

  Chapter 10

  Professor Mayer struggled to his feet as Adeline approached his table in Café Central. Nearby, she caught a familiar face. Dr. Trotsky inclined his head and smiled. His companion—Dr. Adler—moved a black knight on the chessboard and clapped his hands in triumph. Dr. Trotsky raised his eyes to heaven.

  “Yet again, you have me at a disadvantage, Herr Doktor,” he said, winking at Adeline.

  Adeline shook the professor’s hand and sat.

  “You are acquainted with Leon Trotsky?” the professor asked.

  “Not really. He picked up a glove I dropped on my first visit here. Seems a good sort.”

  “I’m not sure I would describe him in quite that way myself,” the professor said, “although he is certainly possessed of a formidable intellect. I have a strong feeling the world will hear much more of him before the century is too much older. Anyway, my dear, we have not come to talk of that. I know you have news you couldn’t reveal to me over the telephone. Tell me what happened.”

  Adeline glanced around. As always, the café was busy. The noise of clinking china, chatter and laughter would effectively drown out their conversation. Coffee and cakes arrived, the waiter moved away and the professor let his espresso grow cold as he listened in rapt attention to Adeline’s account of all that had happened to her and Magda. She left nothing out. At the end of it, Professor Mayer took a gulp of his cold coffee and wiped his mouth on his napkin.

  “So where is the… Where is Frau Lederer now?”

  “As far as I know—and hope—still in the basement. Magda’s two brothers are coming tomorrow. They’re traveling from Hungary.”

  “And the statue?”

  Adeline lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry, Professor, I was so concerned to get out of there, I forgot it. It’s probably still down there.”

  “We can attend to that later, my dear. What did the police do?”

  “I have never come across such sloppy police work in my life. Naturally, we didn’t tell them that Butters was stabbed in the basement. Magda told them that Frau Lederer and Butters had a row in the kitchen and that the cook had a sharp kitchen knife in her hand at the time. She stabbed Butters and then, realizing what she’d done, made her getaway. Magda gave them a fairly bland description of what she looked like and they went away.”

  “Didn’t they think it odd that there was no blood and no knife?”

  “Magda apologized that she had cleaned up because she didn’t want to leave the kitchen dirty. I must say she is a much better actress than I would have given her credit for. She played dumb so well I almost believed her.”

  “I’m afraid that where the victim is a servant and the assailant is too, very little interest is taken. Did they interview the butler?”

  “Magda said the doctor had given strict instructions he wasn’t to be roused for at least another seventy-two hours. She said he had put him under sedation.”

  “And they didn’t question that? Or ask to see him?”

  “No. As I said, very sloppy. They said they would be back in three or four days. Personally, I doubt it.”

  “How is Butters after his ordeal?”

  “He drifts in and out of consciousness. I’m sure his injury isn’t severe enough for this reaction and I’m convinced there is something more at work here. Butters has angered the dark forces, and now he must pay their price.”

  The professor nodded. “Let’s go back to something you said earlier. Butters mentioned the name ‘Arsinoe’?”

  “Yes. Is it familiar to you?”

  “Most definitely. You see, Arsinoe was one of Cleopatra’s sisters. The two were bitter rivals and hated each other. Arsinoe even managed to have herself proclaimed queen of Egypt at one point, so Cleopatra had her killed.”

  “And Butters must believe that Frau Lederer is Arsinoe returned to life.”

  “It would appear so.”

  “Professor, I can’t stay in that house anymore. Butters may not want me dead but he obviously wants to carry out Dr. Quintillus’s instructions—if he even survives. Frau Lederer should, by all reason, be dead, but something tells me that is not the end of the story. I know Magda feels the same. These curses are all too real. Then there’s the statue…”

  “Would it help if I stayed in the house with you?”

  Adeline could have kissed him. “Oh yes, indeed, Professor. Butters is hardly in a position to protest, and I’m quite sure Magda won’t be put out. I think she might even welcome your presence and knowledge, maybe as much as I will.”

  “Then it shall be done. I shall move in tomorrow.”

  Adeline resisted a strong urge to kiss the elderly man. “Thank you. I don’t know how I shall ever repay your kindness.”

  “Not at all, my dear. This is a most fascinating experience and at some time in the near future, I shall commission you to type it all up for me. I’m quite sure we w
ill have publishers queuing up.”

  Adeline managed a smile. She felt a little easier now that Professor Mayer would be there to help navigate them all through whatever lay ahead.

  * * * *

  Magda was waiting for her when she arrived home. Adeline could tell from the trembling lips and frown that something significant had happened while she was out.

  “The doctor has just left. Mr. Butters suffered a heart attack and died an hour ago.”

  Adeline clamped her hand over her mouth, then released it. So she had been right, and now Butters had paid the ultimate price. “How did it happen?”

  “I went up with some soup and he seemed to be sleeping peacefully, but something in the room felt wrong. There was this strong smell of lilies, which, as you know, Mr. Butters associates with death, and something wrong with the way the moonlight shone into the room.”

  “Moonlight? It’s cloudy tonight; there isn’t any.”

  “That’s what I mean. But there was this greenish glow.”

  The hairs on the back of Adeline’s neck prickled. “Tell me the rest of it.”

  Magda swallowed. “I can’t explain why or what caused it, but Mr. Butters sat bolt upright, as if someone had dragged him up by his shoulders. He opened his eyes, stared straight ahead and screamed. Oh, madam, it was an awful sound. I could swear he saw some awful creature, but there was nothing else in the room except me, and he wasn’t looking in my direction. Then, he took one mighty breath, clutched his chest and sort of…crumpled. He didn’t fall back. It was like someone had laid him down. His eyes closed. I could swear some hand shut them, and then his mouth closed. But I knew he was dead, even before that light faded.”

  On impulse, Adeline put her arms around the maid, who sobbed quietly into her shoulder. Adeline offered up a silent prayer and struggled to quash the rising tide of panic surging up from her stomach.

  * * * *

  Adeline didn’t see Butters’s body. A firm of undertakers collected it later that evening. The following morning, Professor Mayer arrived at around eleven. He seemed unsurprised at what had happened to the butler. “Of course, we still don’t know exactly who he really was,” he said to Adeline and Magda.

  Magda smoothed her apron. “I know who he said he was,” she said.

  Adeline and the professor’s eyes turned to her.

  Magda shrugged. “For what it’s worth, he told me he was a convicted criminal. His name was James Wadsworth and he was convicted of stealing jewelry in London in 1905. He escaped from prison and Dr. Quintillus took him in. Apparently, the two of them had met some years earlier in Oxford. Mr. Butters had valeted for him, or so he told me. Dr. Quintillus told him he was moving to Vienna and he could go with him, change his identity and so on. Mr. Butters told me how grateful he had been for that second chance.”

  The professor tapped his stick. “In return, the late doctor gets a faithful servant who will do anything he requests of him. When did he tell you all this, Magda?”

  “Just before everything happened in the basement. At the same time he told me about Frau Lederer and made me promise I would shoot her if she tried to kill Mrs. Ogilvy.”

  “You are handy with a pistol then, Magda?”

  The maid smiled. “I grew up on a small farm. I used to shoot rats as a child.”

  The doorbell rang and Magda went to answer it, returning a short time later accompanied by two burly men in dusty clothes, carrying a rolled up carpet.

  “My brothers, Istvan and Ferenc. This is Mrs. Ogilvy and Professor Mayer.”

  Adeline and the professor acknowledged them.

  The two men exchanged words in Hungarian with their sister. Three oil lamps stood in readiness on the desk, and each of them took one.

  The professor nudged Adeline. “I think we should go with them, my dear. It may be necessary. And we can retrieve the statue at the same time.”

  Magda spoke. “I know where it is. I found it when I went down earlier to check she was still there. I put it in a safe place.”

  “Now we know where it is, don’t you think we should equip ourselves with the statue first before attempting to move her?” Adeline asked. “If it really is as powerful as you believe, we may need its protection.”

  “Good point, my dear,” Professor Mayer said.

  Adeline helped the professor to his feet and Magda and her brothers waited, lit lamps in their hands, until all five of them could proceed down together.

  The basement room gave off a new foul odor this time. Frau Lederer still lay where she had fallen. Magda ignored her and moved swiftly over to the far wall where she bent down. She scrabbled under some broken boxes and pulled something out. The lamplight reflected the gleam of gold.

  Magda dashed back to where the professor and Adeline stood, side by side.

  She thrust it at Professor Mayer. “Here, take it, please. I never want to see it again. The mere feel of it scares me.”

  He took the statuette from her and turned it over in his hand. “This is a very powerful weapon in the wrong hands, or if used incorrectly.”

  Magda’s brothers bent over the corpse of Frau Lederer. As they moved her to lift her, the stench of evacuated bowels set Adeline and Magda retching.

  The professor seemed unfazed. “Ah, that is nothing compared to the smell of a freshly exposed mummy.”

  The men unrolled their carpet and lifted the body onto it. They made to roll it up when it suddenly moved. The men jumped back, crossing themselves. Magda screamed. The corpse’s white face gleamed in the light. It sat up, turned its head and opened its mouth. A single shiny, scarab crawled out, then another and another, until scarabs were crawling all over the corpse. Adeline backed away. The others looked on, horrified. Only the professor seemed fascinated. Without a word, he pointed the statue at the corpse and muttered some words Adeline didn’t understand. The scarabs vanished. The corpse went limp and exhaled a rush of ordure-drenched air. It lay back, much as Adeline imagined Butters’s body must have lain back that final time.

  “You can remove her,” the professor said, “She shouldn’t cause you any more harm.”

  Magda translated for her brothers. The men hesitated, but Magda reassured them. They nodded over to the professor and he nodded back.

  “Look, Professor!” Adeline pointed to the far corner of the room behind the two men. The all-too familiar aura was forming, and a black shadow grew beside it. Shapeless. Filling half the wall in a couple of seconds.

  “I see it,” the professor said. “Magda, your brothers need to work quickly. We must leave this place.”

  The two men lifted the carpet-wrapped body to shoulder height and hurried as best they could with their heavy burden. Magda grabbed two of the lamps and Adeline retrieved the third.

  She caught a glimpse of the smashed portrait on the makeshift altar. The splintered frame crackled as shards of wood knitted together to reform. The female profile held captive within flashed into full face... glaring from the canvas. Adeline cried out a warning as the shadow crept down the wall and slicked across the floor toward them.

  “Professor!”

  Professor Mayer held the statue up high. He retreated as fast as his limp would allow. He repeated the spell. A low, guttural laugh grated on Adeline’s ears.

  An unfamiliar male voice echoed after them down the corridor. “You can do nothing to me. Nothing. She is already mine.”

  Adeline slammed the door behind them and locked it.

  Magda hurried her brothers through the library and out into the dark, silent street. Light snow fell as the men loaded their grisly burden onto their horse-drawn cart. They kissed their sister and climbed into the driving seat, tying scarves tightly around their necks against the cold. Their patient horse obeyed their command and trotted away.

  “I wonder where they’ll take her,” Adeline said.

  “A
few miles downstream along the Danube,” Magda said, as she rejoined Adeline and the professor at the entrance. “Bodies are always turning up. By the time this one does, the fishes will have done their work.”

  “The woman doesn’t even have a confirmed identity,” Professor Mayer said.

  Magda raised an eyebrow.

  “I mean,” said the professor, “Professor Lansdowne finally managed to trace a Josefa Lederer listed on a marriage certificate dated 1907. Her husband’s name was Anton and their honeymoon was tragically cut short on their wedding night when someone stabbed and killed the young man in an apparently unprovoked attack on a street in the Margareten district here in Vienna. As far as Professor Lansdowne is aware, the police never apprehended anyone in connection with the attack. His widow then disappeared from public record.”

  Magda coughed. “Mr. Butters told me Frau Lederer came to work here in late 1907.”

  Adeline and the professor exchanged glances.

  “That would seem to indicate her identity then,” the professor said. “One less mystery to solve.”

  “Could Dr. Quintillus have had anything to do with her husband’s death?” Adeline asked.

  The professor tapped his stick for a few moments. “Possibly, but I think it unlikely. The timing seems wrong somehow. I no longer believe that Frau Lederer was the model for the Cleopatra portrait. We may never know who that was. You told me he said the woman who would pose for Cleopatra had already been known to him. Right under his nose, so to speak. I doubt the doctor would have been aware of her prior to her coming to work for him and she hadn’t been with him very long. I can’t see a man like him associating himself too much with the woman who cooked his food. Besides, we now know that the ancient spirit that inhabits Frau Lederer’s body is—or rather was—Arsinoe. Who the model was, or where she came from will have to remain a mystery.”

  “So Herr Lederer’s death was just a tragic accident then,” Adeline said.

  “Probably. Maybe her grief left his widow vulnerable to possession in some way. I am no expert in these matters. Now, may we please return to the fire? My hands are turning blue.”