Curse of the Purple Pearl

by Adrian Speed

  The statue in the museum courtyard caught my eye. Mother Russia held the hammer of industry towards the sky, while Britannia protected her with a shield and held the owl of wisdom. They were flanked by representations of all nations, encircling a bronze earth. It amused me to note that the Lucon fountain, silly as it had been, claimed to speak for all humankind, while this monument was meant to flatter the Russians and the British. Then a flicker of worry spread into my mind. The Russians and the British were continuing the old nationalities of earth even as they ascended to the stars. Then again, was there any form of arrogance worse than Lucon's Americans and Europeans claiming they spoke for all the people of earth?

  “Hannah?” Sir Reginald broke my reverie. “Time to leave.”

  “Oh, coming!” I dashed out of the train, the doors snipping closed behind me as though annoyed I was getting away. “I was just...thinking.”

  “Well I can't chastise you for that, but come along,” Sir Reginald was already striding away and I had to run to catch up.

  “One thought that did occur,” I said as we descended to street level and headed for Zorya Square.

  “Do go on,” Sir Reginald smiled.

  “Why is there a giant museum here on the Moon?”

  “Because thanks to those ion-shuttles they have money to burn,” Ibrahim sniped.

  “Because the British and the Russians care about the cultural heritage of their people,” Sir Reginald said, ignoring Ibrahim. “The British Museum in London has tens of thousands of specimens it does not have room to display. So does the Natural History Museum of London, and even the National Gallery of London. The Hermitage of St Petersburg and the Moscow museums are similarly overstuffed. So they sent selected articles from their vaults to build a new museum in NovLon. Am I not correct, Ibrahim?”

  “Broadly,” Ibrahim muttered. “They only did it for the publicity of being the first museum on Luna.”

  “They remain the largest, I believe,” Sir Reginald rolled his cane in his hands as we approached the museum steps.

  “Well, anyway, the pearl you're looking for is here,” Ibrahim took the steps two at a time as if they might burn him if he touched them too long. Sir Reginald followed him into the museum.

  I paused at the top of the stairs and looked up into the faces of statues a little over twenty feet high. Something about their eyes reminded me of Lucilla. It took a moment to figure out what it was. Lucilla's eyes had been as cold and hard as the bronze statues.

  “Are you coming, my corn-rose?” Sir Reginald was holding open the door. Whatever thought my brain had been trying to form disappeared.

  “I'm here, no need to yell,” I said as I slipped inside the building.

  Immediately, the British-Luna Museum impressed. A tyrannosaurus skeleton loomed over the entrants, who had to pass through its legs, and the skeleton's long, shining teeth glinted hungrily. Beyond it, medieval tapestries hung on one wall and impressionist paintings on the other.

  “This way,” Ibrahim waved us forward and disappeared to the left down one of the wings. We followed swiftly. Down one corridor, up another, I chafed at not being able to stop and look at the exhibits. We strode through collections of rare minerals mined on Luna, medieval suits of armour, Inuit canoes, skeletons of dinosaurs that could never have dreamed of ending up on the moon, and thousands more exhibits over which I could have wasted years.

  “And here it is!” Ibrahim tapped a glass case near the end of a gallery of jewellery. Nestling between a diamond the size of a baby's head taken from an asteroid and a necklace belonging to Marie-Antoinette, the pearl glistened under museum lighting.

  The first and almost the only thing I could notice about it was that it was huge, four centimetres across and almost a perfect sphere. It was every possible shade of purple shining iridescently. The same purple squeezed from snail shells in ancient Phoenicia, the same purple worn by Roman kings so hated, and Roman emperors so beloved. It was dark and it was beautiful.

  “It's what you're looking for, right?” Ibrahim looked worried as he saw disbelief in our eyes.

  “Without a doubt.” Sir Reginald moved towards it and pulled out a notebook. He scribbled something too fast to read and replaced it.

  “Someone's removed the housing,” I said as I approached the pearl. “It's not a ring anymore.”

  “It is a small pleasure no-one was crass enough to drill through it and fashion a necklace.” Sir Reginald's eyes flashed to the lesser pearls of Marie-Antoinette. Natural white pearls like hers would be worth a fortune even without the history attached, but they didn't even come close to the Purple Pearl's value. “Empires would rise and fall to protect a pearl like that. I had no idea, until now.”

  “Let's see,” I scanned several pages of information about the pearl in both Russian and English. “Chemical composition... pearl formation... Ah, here we go! History!

  “The Marcus Aurelius Pearl, sometimes known as the Purple Pearl, is a pearl fabled to have belonged to Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius – well, we know that – and has passed into history numerous times. Experts estimate this pearl was formed in the Arabian Sea in the early third century BC and was first documented in a description of Marcus Aurelius. After the emperor's death the pearl disappeared from record until the Order of the Pearl arose in the ninth century Holy Roman Empire. The Order was small, limited only to twelve knights at a time, constantly searching for the lost pearl to return it to its rightful heir and to protect it from the prophesied Dark One. All information about this secretive order of knights comes from two fragmented documents, and many scholars doubt their existence – ha! I should show them my scar!

  “The first undisputed evidence of the pearl comes from a sketch-portrait of Henry VI of France where it is shown amongst his crown jewels. The pearl spent much time as part of the French crown jewels. Worn only on state occasions, it had tremendous value. After the French Revolution the pearl again disappeared from history until listed as part of an exhibit loaned to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford in 1854. It is unknown when it left the museum but it was not listed in the audit of 1874.

  “At an unknown point in time it came into the possession of...of...Sir Reginald Derby II who left it to his brother-in-law Albert Fairfax in 1918,” I stammered, reading the last sentence. “It remained in Albert Fairfax's possession until he gifted it to the British Museum in 1956. In 2258 it was part of the British-Lunar Museum's founding collection.” I whirled on Sir Reginald. “Sir Reginald Derby II? Aren't you the third? Is he a relation of yours?”

  “My father.” Sir Reginald didn't elaborate. He stared at the pearl as if willing it to open up and spout its secrets.

  “Your father died in 1918?” I blinked in surprise. I hadn't been expecting to find out so easily when Sir Reginald was from.

  “No,” Sir Reginald said firmly. “That is merely when he was declared legally dead by the British government after he had been missing for seven years.”

  “Oh,” I didn't press the issue. After all, just because someone died in a certain year didn't mean they were from that year. If it weren't for Sir Reginald getting me to safety I would have died in 1335, and I certainly wasn't from then. Any upbringing that had created a man like Sir Reginald would not have excluded the possibility of time travel at a young age.

  “Well then,” Sir Reginald straightened up and broke into a smile. “That's that then. One part of the mystery solved.”

  “What? The murder of Marcus Aurelius? How?”

  “The murder of Marcus Aurelius?” Ibrahim spluttered, making his thin cigar go flying across the room with a tiny robot chasing it.

  “No, my dears, why I remember the name Purple Pearl.” Sir Reginald smiled to himself. “Memory is such an unfocused thing. It astonishes how easily one forgets and how clearly one remembers once the memories are jogged awake.” He tapped his top hat with his cane. “Now we must not tarry here. The murder of Marcus Aurelius and the theft of his Purple Pearl are still mysteries that demand answers, an
d I know where we can begin to find them.”

  “Where?”

  “If my father owned that pearl it was for one reason,” Sir Reginald steeled himself. “He was either a member of, or an enemy of, the Order of the Pearl. A pearl that valuable wouldn't end up in his hands through chance. In either case he will have left notes behind, and that means there is only one place to look.”

  “Where?”

  “My uncle Albert, 1928,” Sir Reginald strode towards the door. “Come! To the time-machine!”

  “Time-machine?! Ibrahim coughed out the second cigar he had just lit. “You have a time-machine?”

  “Sorry Ibrahim, I probably shouldn't discuss that further with you,” Sir Reginald waved to him. “Thank you very much for finding the pearl and for your city's hospitality. It's always a pleasure!” He delivered the last line as a shout and disappeared down the corridor. I shrugged at Ibrahim and sprinted after Sir Reginald.

  Sir Reginald stopped dead in the museum's atrium as I arrived, and caught me by the arm.

  “Unless, you think you need more time with Dr Foster,” Sir Reginald said.

  “I've been spending an hour a day with him for almost two weeks.” I smiled, but Sir Reginald's grey eyes burnt into me, demanding the truth.

  “Are you sure, my dear?”

  “I'm sure,” I shook him off. “I've come to terms with it.”

  “If you're sure.” Sir Reginald tapped his cane against the floor. “Then by your leave.”

  Chapter XV

  The Austin Twenty roared across English countryside, shattering the tranquillity of the fields. It was a big car for a small road and it curved around the fields repeatedly just failing to crash. My hair whipped in the breeze created by the motorcar. I wrenched at the wheel as Sir Reginald gave half-hearted, distracted directions. An English summer's day shaded into autumn; warm enough we’d taken down the canopy.

  “Turn right here,” Sir Reginald instructed. He had taken off his hat and was resting it on his lap. The car struggled to slow down, and then limped around the turning. Sir Reginald winced as he heard gears crunch together. “My dear,” he said gently. “You said you could drive.”

  “I can drive!” I growled and revved the engine. I had leather driving gloves on and a black leather cap on my head to keep my hair out of my eyes. “I learnt how to drive in Canada, and then I learnt how to drive again in England! But cars back then had brakes that actually worked! And steering wheels smaller than their regular wheels! And petrol gauges! How on earth am I meant to know when to refill the petrol tank without a gauge?”

  “Mathematics,” said Sir Reginald. He withdrew a piece of paper from a jacket pocket and began to read it, keeping a firm grip on the fluttering pages. “As the driver you should be aware of the volume of the petroleum distillate receptacle, the average rate of fuel consumption, and thus how far the car can travel without requiring further distillate.”

  “But that's insane,” I said, pushing a foot down on the accelerator. The car rocketed up to fifty, all six pistons hammering on the engine like the anvil of the gods. “I have enough to worry about just driving.”

  “There is also the nuisance that a gauge of such a nature has yet to be made economical at this time.” Sir Reginald blinked his eyes up for a moment. “Left at the top of this hill.” The brakes strained to slow the car down as I wrestled with the gear stick. As I turned at the top of the hill, passing a farmer who had stopped for a sandwich under a tree, I noticed the paper Sir Reginald had in his hands. It was the thick, long-lasting paper used for legal documents.

  “That's your father's will, isn't it?” I said as we began to pick up speed again. A village came into view so I resisted the urge to floor it.

  “Yes,” Sir Reginald said, so quietly it was almost snatched away by the wind. With a start he folded the paper back up and slid it into his pocket. “A copy of it, in any case. Very little I did not know already. The estate was to be divided equally between my uncle, a charitable donation and a trust fund for myself and my brother.”

  “I didn't know you had a brother—”

  Sir Reginald ignored my interruption. “There are a few other personal bequests, trifles really, the only one of note was for my uncle to specifically be given the Purple Pearl. As brothers-in-law only, my father and my uncle were never close. I never even met my uncle, save as a babe in swaddling clothes. I believe the pearl was intended as a gesture of goodwill in order to prevent Uncle Albert from contesting the will. At the time, you understand, my brother and I were...difficult to find.”

  “Why would your uncle care about a pearl?” I changed down through the gears as we approached the village.

  “I am unsure. However, the bequest reads 'to my brother-in-law Albert Fairfax I leave a purple pearl in a blue presentation case carrying sundry items in memory of Evelyn who is lost to both of us now', so if I had to make an educated guess it would be that the pearl was originally my mother's, my uncle’s sister.” Sir Reginald stared out at the small village of Wheathampstead, scarcely more than a single street of houses. “Turn left.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” I said as I turned the car. The only visible village inhabitants clustered around the Post Office and they jeered as the car passed, perhaps the only motorcar they would see that week. “Wait a minute, how can your mother be lost to both of them if your father is dead and your uncle is—”

  “You see that copse over there?” Sir Reginald pointed to a stand of elm trees in the middle distance. “Turn right once thither and we will be at the entrance to Coldwold Park, my uncle's driveway.”

  ‘Uncle's driveway’ apparently meant a three-mile drive winding through sheep pasture. Oak trees had been abandoned in the middle of the fields in aesthetically pleasing ways and a small lake had been dug at some point. A fake shrine to the Greek gods had been built in a stand of pine trees.

  All this was lost on me as we approached the house. There were many larger country houses in the British Isles, but I’d never seen them. Regency period stone climbed twenty feet high and sprawled across the hilltop.

  “Park by the main entrance,” Sir Reginald nodded to the staircase that led up to a doorway that could have admitted an elephant if the mood struck. “I sent a telegram, he will be expecting us.” Gravel crunched like the crackling of fire as the Austin drew up to the house. I killed the engine and the car came to a stop with a shudder. Sir Reginald donned his hat and stepped out. “This is 1928.”

  “I thought the will left the pearl to your uncle in 1918,” I pulled off my gloves slowly. I didn't bother taking off the hat. Besides, I kind of liked the way it looked in the mirror. I was back in twenty-first-century clothing; it was close enough to contemporary.

  “My dear, what else was happening in 1918?” Sir Reginald gave me a weary expression.

  “The First World War,” I said instantly.

  “Known currently as the Great War,” Sir Reginald said. “And Uncle Albert was a captain on the Western Front. This is the first moment since that time that I believe he will be amenable to a visit from me.” Sir Reginald looked up at the country house as if he was looking at it for the first time. “The Great War killed more than simply the poor souls on the front.” Sir Reginald tapped his hat with his cane and sprang forward as if a rubber band had snapped in his brain. “Well, no more about that!” He strode up the steps and rapped on the door, leaving me to fluster behind him.

  “Good afternoon, sir.” A butler seemingly made entirely out of nose and moustache appeared as the door creaked open.

  “Sir Reginald Derby III to see Albert Fairfax. I am expected.” Sir Reginald tried to step inside.

  “Mr Fairfax is at the garage.” The butler was unmoved. “I shall escort you there, sir.”

  The butler stepped out of the building. He regarded Sir Reginald with some scorn and heaped it on me. The butler's suit was perfectly of the style of the late twenties, with a collar sufficiently starched to slice bread. He ushered us around the buildin
g, past the tradesman's entrance, past the mews where old horses whiled away their remaining years before the glue factory.

  “All right Jules, when you're ready old boy, start her up!” an enthusiastic voice called out from a large white building beyond the mews. A heavy wooden door covered it.

  “It would be wise to cover your ears, sir,” the butler said as we walked towards the shout. “This can be painful.”

  Before I could react there was the sound of an explosion. It didn't die away, it only grew in power. It sounded like a thousand cylinders firing at once, the engine to end all engines. An echoing, manic laugh made itself known even over the power of the engine.

  “Oh yes, old boy, oh mighty god, yes,” someone screamed. “Brandy all round tonight!”

  “Mr Fairfax is making an attempt on the land speed record,” the butler shouted to Sir Reginald. “I am afraid it is like this at all hours, sir.”

  “Not to worry,” Sir Reginald waved the apology away.

  As we drew closer to the garage the noise only grew louder, which seemed impossible when it already felt like fifty hammers a second pounding into my brain through my ears and up through my feet. I could feel the vibrations rattling around my ribcage, shaking my heart.

  “Mr Albert Fairfax,” the butler yelled when we reached the garage door and rattled a fist against it. It was the only way to make himself heard. “Mr Albert Fairfax!” he repeated. “May I present Sir Reginald Derby and his associate.”

  “And I'm Hannah Delaronde!” I called into the garage.

  “Hannah?” the voice inside almost choked on itself. The engine died away.

  With a lurch the garage door disappeared up into the ceiling and was replaced by a tall man in a waist coat and shirt with sleeves rolled up, covered in engine oil, slicked up his arms and spiking his hair into odd shapes.

  “Hannah! It really is you!” Before I could react I found myself drawn into a bear hug by the man at the door. “Oh where are my manners? I am so sorry, I’ve got oil on your blouse. My, you haven't aged a day!” he said, when he finally released me from his embrace. “When you said it would be a while before you could visit I wasn't expecting...what, ten years? Caruthers, when was I in Nigeria?”