Xena didn’t even bother with the ANSWERS
column for this one. Instead she said, “I’m going to do some research about needles and eyes. Why don’t you see if Mom has anything that we can use in our investigation?”
She returned to the computer while Xander rooted around in the box of gadgets their mother kept after she evaluated them. You never knew what might come in handy. Who would have thought that a metal detector would help them find a painting that had been missing for a century, or that a tape recorder would lead them to a savage beast in the countryside? Plus, there was usually something cool in the box.
First Xander found some night-vision goggles. Fun but hardly useful, as their parents wouldn’t let them go out after dark by themselves. Headphones that you could use to eavesdrop on someone a long way away—were those even legal for someone who wasn’t a policeman? Xander wasn’t sure so he put them back. A hologram projector. He puzzled over the instruction manual until he discovered that it was a way to make a three-dimensional image appear and seem to be actually present with you. Way cool but not very helpful. He set it aside to try out some Halloween.
Their mother came out of her study. She was used to her kids rummaging through her gadget box and even encouraged them to do so, since she liked to be able to test how sturdy the devices were.
“What’s this?” Xander held up something that looked like a wristwatch.
She took it from him. “Oh, this is a voice-activated GPS system. It can tell you where you are and give you directions, but the screen is too small to be useful. There’s not much point to a map if you can’t read it.”
Xander strapped it on, and after it booted up, he tested it. The screen was indeed small, but he had no trouble reading it. “You should have used your reading glasses!” he teased his mother.
“You just wait!” she said with a laugh. “Someday you’ll need help reading fine print and threading a needle!”
From the computer, Xena asked, “What’s a needle without an eye, anyway?”
“A knitting needle?” their mother guessed. Xena and Xander thought a minute and then shook their heads.
“A needle without an eye is just a pin,” Xander said. “But what’s so special about a pin?”
Just then the phone rang next to Xena. “Hello?” Nothing. “Hello?” she repeated, a bit louder.
She was about to hang up when a voice said huskily, “You’d better stop looking for it now, or you’ll be sorry.” Before she could say anything, the line went dead.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Xena stared at the phone in disbelief.
“Who was it?” Mrs. Holmes asked.
Xena shook her head. “I don’t know.” She repeated the caller’s words to her mother.
“Where did the call come from?” Xander asked. Xena glanced down at the caller ID. The word BLOCKED stared back at her.
“Did you recognize the voice?” their mother asked.
Xena shook her head. “It sounded like the caller was trying to disguise it.” Something about the voice was familiar, though. Where had she heard it before? She concentrated but could not remember. This was frustrating; she had a good memory for sounds.
“Let me have the phone,” her mother said.
Xander pulled Xena aside as their mother made a call. “Did it sound like a kid or a grownup?” he asked.
“Hard to tell. A kid, I guess.” Their mom had been so distracted she hadn’t even asked that question, or, for that matter, what the caller meant by “you’d better stop looking for it.”
“All right. Thanks. Can you let me know if you find out anything?” their mother said into the phone. She hung up and said to them, “The phone company is going to contact the police, but they’re not optimistic about tracing the call. It didn’t last long enough. I wouldn’t worry about it, though. It sounds like the kind of prank call kids make.” But Xena and Xander both noticed that she looked more worried than she sounded.
Xena and Xander went into Xena’s room. “So someone knows about the amulet!” Xander said. “It must be the same person who was hiding in the locker room.”
“And he—or she—must want us to stop the investigation. There’s only one reason for that.”
“Our spy wants to find it before we do,” Xander said in a grim voice.
Xena nodded. “And we can’t let that happen. Let’s see what we can find out about water clocks. Maybe we’ll get a clue there.” She got on the computer again and typed “Egyptian water clock” into a search engine. Lots of sites came up, but one caught her interest. “Xander, check this out.”
He came over and looked at the screen. “The Timekeepers Museum—and it’s right here in London! Maybe someone there knows something that could help.”
“Not today, though. It’s Sunday, remember?”
Xander flung himself down on the couch. “How could I forget? Less than a week left! We can’t just sit here all day!”
“We can go to the Timekeepers Museum tomorrow after school. Let’s plan our trip there so that we don’t waste any time.” Xena clicked back to the museum’s home page and read the address off the screen.
“I bet I’ll find the Tube stop before you!” Xander pulled his trusty map out of his pocket, the one that their mother had given him shortly after their arrival in London and that showed some of the most famous tourist attractions in the city. He used it so much that it was frayed and the creases were split.
“Beat you!” Xena said. “I’m sending them an e-mail asking if we can find out about water clocks there.”
But Xander wasn’t listening. Something not far from their destination had caught his eye. It was the drawing of an Egyptian sphinx, and it was right on the edge of the Thames River. “Xena! Look at this!”
She finished writing the e-mail and clicked SEND. She got up and stretched. “What?”
He pointed. She looked at the sphinx and then at him. “So what?”
“Don’t you remember? The clue about the monument on the river!”
“I don’t know.” She was doubtful, as usual. “It’s not really a monument.”
“Oh, come on, Xena. You’re just saying that because I found it and you didn’t! It’s big, it’s Egyptian, and it’s right on the river. And anyway, it’s really near that Timekeepers place. We can go there afterward.”
The sun was shining weakly the next afternoon as they stood outside the Timekeepers Museum in Guildhall, a part of London that Xena and Xander didn’t know very well. They pushed the door open and saw a long, dimly lit room full of tall glass cases that held a collection of clocks made of polished wood and brass.
They stopped at the front desk to pick up a guide to the collection. “We’re not getting many people today, I’m afraid,” the man at the desk told them. “Not everybody is as interested in these things as you are. You have the place almost to yourselves!”
The cases held beautiful clocks and watches of all kinds. In one case marked CURIOSITIES, big pocket watches dangled from heavy gold chains. Cuckoo clocks with intricate carvings stood next to delicate watches and an alarm clock with two large, almost flat bells on top. “They look like the ones in cartoons,” Xander said. “You know, the ones that jump around when they ring.”
Xena admired a clock whose cover was made of glass so you could see the movement inside. It was precise and orderly, just as she liked.
The man who had let them in came up to where Xander stood looking at a case that held a special exhibit of ancient timepieces. “Not much good at night!” The man gestured at the sundial that stood in the center.
“So is that why they invented these?” Xander leaned closer to peer at the water clocks, hourglasses, and candles that had lines marked on them telling what time it was when the flame burned down to that point.
The man nodded as Xena joined them. “Yes, you could use them even when the sun was down or on a cloudy day. Some of them were quite precise, but others gave only a rough idea of the time. Are you the children who were interested in E
gyptian timekeeping?”
“That’s us,” Xena said. “So you got my e-mail?”
“Yes, I read it when I arrived at work this morning. I’m Mr. Grayson. I found some material for you in the library. Come with me.”
In his bright and cheery office was a pile of books with colorful sticky notes poking out in several places. Mr. Grayson opened the books, one after the other, to show them photographs and line drawings of water clocks. “The drip holes were drilled to very exact specifications,” he told them. “But imagine what would happen if a bug or even some dust fell into it and plugged it up!”
Mr. Grayson opened another book. This one was old, and the pages with photographs on them were covered with thin sheets of tissue paper that had become imprinted with a ghostly copy of the image on the other page. One photograph of a huge bowl shaped like a flowerpot and made of pale-colored stone, was captioned “The Thoth Clock.”
Xander instantly recognized it from the broken pieces of the water clock from the casebook! “What’s this?” he asked.
Mr. Grayson sighed. “What a shame. It was smashed over a hundred years ago.”
Xena nudged Xander, who nudged her back.
“It was broken before anyone had a chance really to examine it,” Mr. Grayson went on. “We do know a few things about it, though, because in the nineteen fifties a similar clock was found, and scientists discovered a hole drilled right here.” He put his finger under a seated figure that was so battered it was unidentifiable. “It was capped with a piece of stone so perfectly made that you couldn’t see a seam.”
“Was there anything in the hole?” Xena asked eagerly.
“Not that we know of,” Mr. Grayson said.
Xena felt a flash of excitement. That sounded exactly like a hiding place for something small, like the amulet, especially if it was hidden by a carving of a baboon, one of the ways that Thoth was pictured. And if it had been that perfectly made, no wonder the people in the Carberry Museum hadn’t seen it. They hadn’t had the chance to make a thorough examination, and even if they had, they might not have found the little hole with the limited technology of a century ago.
Xena and Xander thanked Mr. Grayson and walked out into the chilly afternoon. They turned right on Upper Thames Street and made their way to the wide gray river, walking past several bridges, until they paused on the Victoria Embankment near Charing Cross. Traffic whizzed past them, so they went into the small park, where a huge column with squared-off sides and a pointed top loomed above them.
“Look!” Xander flung his hand triumphantly at the two sphinxes at the base of the column.
“Wow!” Xena walked over and admired them.
A tour group came up, the man in front holding a bright yellow flag. The group of chatting people who followed gathered in a small group to hear him.
“Clear off, you kids,” he said to Xena and Xander. “This tour is for paying customers only.”
Xander moved away, but Xena stayed put. She knew that if she held still, she’d manage to blend in with the crowd and hear what he had to say. This was a talent she’d always had, and she found it useful in situations like this one.
“The two sphinxes here still show the effects of the German bombs dropped on them in the Second World War,” the tour guide said, and then he droned on with facts about the sphinxes’ weight, how old they were, and what the writing on them meant.
Xena caught a glimpse of someone lurking around the monument. She shifted her position to get a better look, but he ducked into the crowd. Xander didn’t seem to notice the shadowy figure, and she knew that if she said something, the tour guide would see her and make her leave. She kept one eye on her brother while she turned the rest of her attention to the guide.
“Now, this obelisk,” the man said, pointing to the column, “was brought here from Egypt in 1877. It weighs a hundred and eighty tons. Although it was made fifteen hundred years before the birth of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, it has always been jokingly referred to as Cleopatra’s Needle.”
Xena gasped. A needle—but without an eye! And it had been there well before Amin had come to London. This must be the needle in the riddle! She looked around for Xander, only to see him frantically waving to get her attention. As soon as he saw her looking at him, he pointed to a stand of trees. She spotted someone in a dark hooded sweatshirt and jeans, before whoever it was darted out of the shelter of the trees and sped toward the sidewalk. Xena squeezed through the crowd and sprinted after him.
She paused and looked around. Where had he gone? Then out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone running away at full speed down the sidewalk. Hooded sweatshirt, jeans—it was the same person! She took off again, dodging people and dogs and baby carriages. The person ahead of her tore through a crosswalk just as the light changed. Horns beeped and brakes squealed, but her quarry leaped onto the sidewalk on the other side and disappeared into the crowd.
Xena leaned over, hands on knees, to catch her breath. The person she was chasing had blended in with the other people going home or shopping, and by the time the light changed, he—or she?—would be far, far away.
When Xena could breathe regularly again, she turned back to the park. She found Xander standing near the trees where the mysterious figure had first appeared. “Too late,” she said.
“Not entirely!” Xander pointed at the ground. In the mud were two perfect footprints. Xander pulled the notebook out of his back pocket and flipped to the drawing he’d made of the print in the shower room at school. “Look! It matches, even down to that little circle on the right print.” He bent down and measured it with his hand.
Before Xena could answer she felt a drop of rain hit her head, and then another, and then it was pouring. London weather was like that—if it wasn’t raining, it either had just stopped raining or was about to start. They ran for the Underground station.
In the train car they sat close to each other so they could talk without being overheard. Luckily a group of students got on and were making enough noise to drown out most sounds.
“Did you get a good look at him?” Xander asked. Xena shook her head. “Me either.” Xander sounded as disappointed as she felt.
“I’m not even sure it was a him,” Xena said. “Whoever it was had that hood pulled up, and anyone could have been wearing jeans.”
“Well, at least we know something about his shoes. Or her shoes. What was that tour guide saying, anyway?”
“That tall thing is an obelisk. You know what that means?”
Xander nodded. “Like a column, only squared off with a pointy tip, like the Washington Monument.”
“Exactly. That one by the Thames is Egyptian, and it’s called Cleopatra’s Needle. Get it? It’s a needle without an eye.”
“Wow!” Xander exclaimed.
“It was in London when the amulet was stolen, and it was something that people would know about. The riddle must be from Sherlock’s time and not a translation of an Egyptian saying or anything, because the Egyptians didn’t call the obelisk Cleopatra’s Needle.”
“That means it’s a clue about where the amulet is. It must be something that Amin wrote and left for his descendants to find!”
As soon as they got home, Xena checked out the guide’s information. “Listen to this, Xan,” she said breathlessly. “There’s another obelisk in Paris—that’s across the Channel, not across the sea. But there’s a third obelisk in New York, and it’s also called Cleopatra’s Needle. That must be the ‘sister across the sea’!”
“Now we’re getting somewhere!” Xander said, but then his face fell. “Are we supposed to go to New York? How can we do that?”
“Let’s look at the riddle again.”
They went into Xander’s room and pulled the fragile piece of paper out of its envelope. Xander read:
“I am a needle but cannot sew.
I have no eye and cannot see.
I face my sister across the sea,
and toward my sister you must go.”
“Aha!” Xena said. “We’re supposed to go toward the other obelisk, not all the way to it. And look—the writing under it says ‘five hundred yards’! So we’re supposed to start off at the Cleopatra’s Needle in London and go five hundred yards in the direction of New York, which is west!”
Xander pulled his map out of his pocket. He figured out roughly five hundred yards due west from the Egyptian monument. The spot was in a jumble of buildings, and it was hard to tell exactly which one was meant. “Anyway,” he said, “New York isn’t exactly west from London. It’s south too.”
“But if we get a globe and draw a line between London and New York, it won’t be accurate enough to tell us what’s five hundred yards away!” This sounded like one of those impossible word problems in math: If London is X miles north and Y miles east of New York, what will be the angle of the line that you draw between the two cities, relative to the equator, and what will you find five hundred yards along that line? Xena was good at math, except for word problems. They mixed two different things—math and language—and her orderly mind had a hard time with that.
Xander smiled in the infuriating way that meant he had figured something out ahead of her. “Be right back.” He disappeared into the living room, and she heard him rummaging around in the gadget box. He came back wearing the GPS watch that their mother had said was too small to be useful.
“London. Cleopatra’s Needle,” Xander said into the watch. They heard a few beeps. “New York. Cleopatra’s Needle.” More beeps. “Connect.” Then, “Five hundred yards. Enlarge. Aha!” He showed Xena the small screen where a tiny red dot blinked on the map of London. “That’s the spot!”
She squinted at it. “Okay! Let’s go!”
They were on their way out the door when their father appeared from the kitchen. “Whoa! Where do you two think you’re going?”
“Out, Dad.” Xena was impatient. “We’re working on a case, and we just got an important clue about—”
“Have you finished your homework?”
Xena sighed in exasperation. “Not all of it.”
The Case That Time Forgot Page 4