Chapter VIII
The Finding of the Lamps
Sergeant Daw at first made some demur; but finally agreed to adviseprivately on a matter which might be suggested to him. He added that Iwas to remember that he only undertook to advise; for if action wererequired he might have to refer the matter to headquarters. With thisunderstanding I left him in the study, and brought Miss Trelawny andMr. Corbeck to him. Nurse Kennedy resumed her place at the bedsidebefore we left the room.
I could not but admire the cautious, cool-headed precision with whichthe traveller stated his case. He did not seem to conceal anything,and yet he gave the least possible description of the objects missing.He did not enlarge on the mystery of the case; he seemed to look on itas an ordinary hotel theft. Knowing, as I did, that his one object wasto recover the articles before their identity could be obliterated, Icould see the rare intellectual skill with which he gave the necessarymatter and held back all else, though without seeming to do so."Truly," thought I, "this man has learned the lesson of the Easternbazaars; and with Western intellect has improved upon his masters!" Hequite conveyed his idea to the Detective, who, after thinking thematter over for a few moments, said:
"Pot or scale? that is the question."
"What does that mean?" asked the other, keenly alert.
"An old thieves phrase from Birmingham. I thought that in these daysof slang everyone knew that. In old times at Brum, which had a lot ofsmall metal industries, the gold- and silver-smiths used to buy metalfrom almost anyone who came along. And as metal in small quantitiescould generally be had cheap when they didn't ask where it came from,it got to be a custom to ask only one thing--whether the customerwanted the goods melted, in which case the buyer made the price, andthe melting-pot was always on the fire. If it was to be preserved inits present state at the buyer's option, it went into the scale andfetched standard price for old metal.
"There is a good deal of such work done still, and in other places thanBrum. When we're looking for stolen watches we often come across theworks, and it's not possible to identify wheels and springs out of aheap; but it's not often that we come across cases that are wanted.Now, in the present instance much will depend on whether the thief is agood man--that's what they call a man who knows his work. Afirst-class crook will know whether a thing is of more value thanmerely the metal in it; and in such case he would put it with someonewho could place it later on--in America or France, perhaps. By theway, do you think anyone but yourself could identify your lamps?"
"No one but myself!"
"Are there others like them?"
"Not that I know of," answered Mr. Corbeck; "though there may be othersthat resemble them in many particulars." The Detective paused beforeasking again: "Would any other skilled person--at the British Museum,for instance, or a dealer, or a collector like Mr. Trelawny, know thevalue--the artistic value--of the lamps?"
"Certainly! Anyone with a head on his shoulders would see at a glancethat the things were valuable."
The Detective's face brightened. "Then there is a chance. If yourdoor was locked and the window shut, the goods were not stolen by thechance of a chambermaid or a boots coming along. Whoever did the jobwent after it special; and he ain't going to part with his swag withouthis price. This must be a case of notice to the pawnbrokers. There'sone good thing about it, anyhow, that the hue and cry needn't be given.We needn't tell Scotland Yard unless you like; we can work the thingprivately. If you wish to keep the thing dark, as you told me at thefirst, that is our chance." Mr. Corbeck, after a pause, said quietly:
"I suppose you couldn't hazard a suggestion as to how the robbery waseffected?" The Policeman smiled the smile of knowledge and experience.
"In a very simple way, I have no doubt, sir. That is how all thesemysterious crimes turn out in the long-run. The criminal knows hiswork and all the tricks of it; and he is always on the watch forchances. Moreover, he knows by experience what these chances are likelyto be, and how they usually come. The other person is only careful; hedoesn't know all the tricks and pits that may be made for him, and bysome little oversight or other he falls into the trap. When we knowall about this case, you will wonder that you did not see the method ofit all along!" This seemed to annoy Mr. Corbeck a little; there wasdecided heat in his manner as he answered:
"Look here, my good friend, there is not anything simple about thiscase--except that the things were taken. The window was closed; thefireplace was bricked up. There is only one door to the room, and thatI locked and bolted. There is no transom; I have heard all about hotelrobberies through the transom. I never left my room in the night. Ilooked at the things before going to bed; and I went to look at themagain when I woke up. If you can rig up any kind of simple robbery outof these facts you are a clever man. That's all I say; clever enoughto go right away and get my things back." Miss Trelawny laid her handupon his arm in a soothing way, and said quietly:
"Do not distress yourself unnecessarily. I am sure they will turn up."Sergeant Daw turned to her so quickly that I could not help rememberingvividly his suspicions of her, already formed, as he said:
"May I ask, miss, on what you base that opinion?"
I dreaded to hear her answer, given to ears already awake to suspicion;but it came to me as a new pain or shock all the same:
"I cannot tell you how I know. But I am sure of it!" The Detectivelooked at her for some seconds in silence, and then threw a quickglance at me.
Presently he had a little more conversation with Mr. Corbeck as to hisown movements, the details of the hotel and the room, and the means ofidentifying the goods. Then he went away to commence his inquiries,Mr. Corbeck impressing on him the necessity for secrecy lest the thiefshould get wind of his danger and destroy the lamps. Mr. Corbeckpromised, when going away to attend to various matters of his ownbusiness, to return early in the evening, and to stay in the house.
All that day Miss Trelawny was in better spirits and looked in betterstrength than she had yet been, despite the new shock and annoyance ofthe theft which must ultimately bring so much disappointment to herfather.
We spent most of the day looking over the curio treasures of Mr.Trelawny. From what I had heard from Mr. Corbeck I began to have someidea of the vastness of his enterprise in the world of Egyptianresearch; and with this light everything around me began to have a newinterest. As I went on, the interest grew; any lingering doubts whichI might have had changed to wonder and admiration. The house seemed tobe a veritable storehouse of marvels of antique art. In addition tothe curios, big and little, in Mr. Trelawny's own room--from the greatsarcophagi down to the scarabs of all kinds in the cabinets--the greathall, the staircase landings, the study, and even the boudoir were fullof antique pieces which would have made a collector's mouth water.
Miss Trelawny from the first came with me, and looked with growinginterest at everything. After having examined some cabinets ofexquisite amulets she said to me in quite a naive way:
"You will hardly believe that I have of late seldom even looked at anyof these things. It is only since Father has been ill that I seem tohave even any curiosity about them. But now, they grow and grow on meto quite an absorbing degree. I wonder if it is that the collector'sblood which I have in my veins is beginning to manifest itself. If so,the strange thing is that I have not felt the call of it before. Ofcourse I know most of the big things, and have examined them more orless; but really, in a sort of way I have always taken them forgranted, as though they had always been there. I have noticed the samething now and again with family pictures, and the way they are takenfor granted by the family. If you will let me examine them with you itwill be delightful!"
It was a joy to me to hear her talk in such a way; and her lastsuggestion quite thrilled me. Together we went round the various roomsand passages, examining and admiring the magnificent curios. There wassuch a bewildering amount and variety of objects that we could onlyglance at most of them; but as we went along we arran
ged that we shouldtake them seriatim, day by day, and examine them more closely. In thehall was a sort of big frame of floriated steel work which Margaretsaid her father used for lifting the heavy stone lids of thesarcophagi. It was not heavy and could be moved about easily enough.By aid of this we raised the covers in turn and looked at the endlessseries of hieroglyphic pictures cut in most of them. In spite of herprofession of ignorance Margaret knew a good deal about them; her yearof life with her father had had unconsciously its daily and hourlylesson. She was a remarkably clever and acute-minded girl, and with aprodigious memory; so that her store of knowledge, gatheredunthinkingly bit by bit, had grown to proportions that many a scholarmight have envied.
And yet it was all so naive and unconscious; so girlish and simple.She was so fresh in her views and ideas, and had so little thought ofself, that in her companionship I forgot for the time all the troublesand mysteries which enmeshed the house; and I felt like a boy again....
The most interesting of the sarcophagi were undoubtedly the three inMr. Trelawny's room. Of these, two were of dark stone, one of porphyryand the other of a sort of ironstone. These were wrought with somehieroglyphs. But the third was strikingly different. It was of someyellow-brown substance of the dominating colour effect of Mexican onyx,which it resembled in many ways, excepting that the natural pattern ofits convolutions was less marked. Here and there were patches almosttransparent--certainly translucent. The whole chest, cover and all,was wrought with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of minute hieroglyphics,seemingly in an endless series. Back, front, sides, edges, bottom, allhad their quota of the dainty pictures, the deep blue of theircolouring showing up fresh and sharply edge in the yellow stone. Itwas very long, nearly nine feet; and perhaps a yard wide. The sidesundulated, so that there was no hard line. Even the corners took suchexcellent curves that they pleased the eye. "Truly," I said, "thismust have been made for a giant!"
"Or for a giantess!" said Margaret.
This sarcophagus stood near to one of the windows. It was in onerespect different from all the other sarcophagi in the place. All theothers in the house, of whatever material--granite, porphyry,ironstone, basalt, slate, or wood--were quite simple in form within.Some of them were plain of interior surface; others were engraved, inwhole or part, with hieroglyphics. But each and all of them had noprotuberances or uneven surface anywhere. They might have been usedfor baths; indeed, they resembled in many ways Roman baths of stone ormarble which I had seen. Inside this, however, was a raised space,outlined like a human figure. I asked Margaret if she could explain itin any way. For answer she said:
"Father never wished to speak about this. It attracted my attentionfrom the first; but when I asked him about it he said: 'I shall tellyou all about it some day, little girl--if I live! But not yet! Thestory is not yet told, as I hope to tell it to you! Some day, perhapssoon, I shall know all; and then we shall go over it together. And amighty interesting story you will find it--from first to last!' Onceafterward I said, rather lightly I am afraid: 'Is that story of thesarcophagus told yet, Father?' He shook his head, and looked at megravely as he said: 'Not yet, little girl; but it will be--if Ilive--if I live!' His repeating that phrase about his living ratherfrightened me; I never ventured to ask him again."
Somehow this thrilled me. I could not exactly say how or why; but itseemed like a gleam of light at last. There are, I think, moments whenthe mind accepts something as true; though it can account for neitherthe course of the thought, nor, if there be more than one thought, theconnection between them. Hitherto we had been in such outer darknessregarding Mr. Trelawny, and the strange visitation which had fallen onhim, that anything which afforded a clue, even of the faintest and mostshadowy kind, had at the outset the enlightening satisfaction of acertainty. Here were two lights of our puzzle. The first that Mr.Trelawny associated with this particular curio a doubt of his ownliving. The second that he had some purpose or expectation with regardto it, which he would not disclose, even to his daughter, tillcomplete. Again it was to be borne in mind that this sarcophagusdiffered internally from all the others. What meant that odd raisedplace? I said nothing to Miss Trelawny, for I feared lest I shouldeither frighten her or buoy her up with future hopes; but I made up mymind that I would take an early opportunity for further investigation.
Close beside the sarcophagus was a low table of green stone with redveins in it, like bloodstone. The feet were fashioned like the paws ofa jackal, and round each leg was twined a full-throated snake wroughtexquisitely in pure gold. On it rested a strange and very beautifulcoffer or casket of stone of a peculiar shape. It was something like asmall coffin, except that the longer sides, instead of being cut offsquare like the upper or level part were continued to a point. Thus itwas an irregular septahedron, there being two planes on each of the twosides, one end and a top and bottom. The stone, of one piece of whichit was wrought, was such as I had never seen before. At the base itwas of a full green, the colour of emerald without, of course, itsgleam. It was not by any means dull, however, either in colour orsubstance, and was of infinite hardness and fineness of texture. Thesurface was almost that of a jewel. The colour grew lighter as itrose, with gradation so fine as to be imperceptible, changing to a fineyellow almost of the colour of "mandarin" china. It was quite unlikeanything I had ever seen, and did not resemble any stone or gem that Iknew. I took it to be some unique mother-stone, or matrix of some gem.It was wrought all over, except in a few spots, with finehieroglyphics, exquisitely done and coloured with the same blue-greencement or pigment that appeared on the sarcophagus. In length it wasabout two feet and a half; in breadth about half this, and was nearly afoot high. The vacant spaces were irregularly distributed about thetop running to the pointed end. These places seemed less opaque thanthe rest of the stone. I tried to lift up the lid so that I might seeif they were translucent; but it was securely fixed. It fitted soexactly that the whole coffer seemed like a single piece of stonemysteriously hollowed from within. On the sides and edges were someodd-looking protuberances wrought just as finely as any other portionof the coffer which had been sculptured by manifest design in thecutting of the stone. They had queer-shaped holes or hollows,different in each; and, like the rest, were covered with thehieroglyphic figures, cut finely and filled in with the same blue-greencement.
On the other side of the great sarcophagus stood another small table ofalabaster, exquisitely chased with symbolic figures of gods and thesigns of the zodiac. On this table stood a case of about a foot squarecomposed of slabs of rock crystal set in a skeleton of bands of redgold, beautifully engraved with hieroglyphics, and coloured with a bluegreen, very much the tint of the figures on the sarcophagus and thecoffer. The whole work was quite modern.
But if the case was modern what it held was not. Within, on a cushionof cloth of gold as fine as silk, and with the peculiar softness of oldgold, rested a mummy hand, so perfect that it startled one to see it.A woman's hand, fine and long, with slim tapering fingers and nearly asperfect as when it was given to the embalmer thousands of years before.In the embalming it had lost nothing of its beautiful shape; even thewrist seemed to maintain its pliability as the gentle curve lay on thecushion. The skin was of a rich creamy or old ivory colour; a duskyfair skin which suggested heat, but heat in shadow. The greatpeculiarity of it, as a hand, was that it had in all seven fingers,there being two middle and two index fingers. The upper end of thewrist was jagged, as though it had been broken off, and was stainedwith a red-brown stain. On the cushion near the hand was a smallscarab, exquisitely wrought of emerald.
"That is another of Father's mysteries. When I asked him about it hesaid that it was perhaps the most valuable thing he had, except one.When I asked him what that one was, he refused to tell me, and forbademe to ask him anything concerning it. 'I will tell you,' he said, 'allabout it, too, in good time--if I live!'"
"If I live!" the phrase again. These three things grouped together,the Sarcophagus, t
he Coffer, and the Hand, seemed to make a trilogy ofmystery indeed!
At this time Miss Trelawny was sent for on some domestic matter. Ilooked at the other curios in the room; but they did not seem to haveanything like the same charm for me, now that she was away. Later onin the day I was sent for to the boudoir where she was consulting withMrs. Grant as to the lodgment of Mr. Corbeck. They were in doubt as towhether he should have a room close to Mr. Trelawny's or quite awayfrom it, and had thought it well to ask my advice on the subject. Icame to the conclusion that he had better not be too near; for thefirst at all events, he could easily be moved closer if necessary.When Mrs. Grant had gone, I asked Miss Trelawny how it came that thefurniture of this room, the boudoir in which we were, was so differentfrom the other rooms of the house.
"Father's forethought!" she answered. "When I first came, he thought,and rightly enough, that I might get frightened with so many records ofdeath and the tomb everywhere. So he had this room and the littlesuite off it--that door opens into the sitting-room--where I slept lastnight, furnished with pretty things. You see, they are all beautiful.That cabinet belonged to the great Napoleon."
"There is nothing Egyptian in these rooms at all then?" I asked, ratherto show interest in what she had said than anything else, for thefurnishing of the room was apparent. "What a lovely cabinet! May Ilook at it?"
"Of course! with the greatest pleasure!" she answered, with a smile."Its finishing, within and without, Father says, is absolutelycomplete." I stepped over and looked at it closely. It was made oftulip wood, inlaid in patterns; and was mounted in ormolu. I pulledopen one of the drawers, a deep one where I could see the work to greatadvantage. As I pulled it, something rattled inside as though rolling;there was a tinkle as of metal on metal.
"Hullo!" I said. "There is something in here. Perhaps I had betternot open it."
"There is nothing that I know of," she answered. "Some of thehousemaids may have used it to put something by for the time andforgotten it. Open it by all means!"
I pulled open the drawer; as I did so, both Miss Trelawny and I startedback in amazement.
There before our eyes lay a number of ancient Egyptian lamps, ofvarious sizes and of strangely varied shapes.
We leaned over them and looked closely. My own heart was beating likea trip-hammer; and I could see by the heaving of Margaret's bosom thatshe was strangely excited.
Whilst we looked, afraid to touch and almost afraid to think, there wasa ring at the front door; immediately afterwards Mr. Corbeck, followedby Sergeant Daw, came into the hall. The door of the boudoir was open,and when they saw us Mr. Corbeck came running in, followed more slowlyby the Detective. There was a sort of chastened joy in his face andmanner as he said impulsively:
"Rejoice with me, my dear Miss Trelawny, my luggage has come and all mythings are intact!" Then his face fell as he added, "Except the lamps.The lamps that were worth all the rest a thousand times...." Hestopped, struck by the strange pallor of her face. Then his eyes,following her look and mine, lit on the cluster of lamps in the drawer.He gave a sort of cry of surprise and joy as he bent over and touchedthem:
"My lamps! My lamps! Then they are safe--safe--safe! ... But how, inthe name of God--of all the Gods--did they come here?"
We all stood silent. The Detective made a deep sound of in-takingbreath. I looked at him, and as he caught my glance he turned his eyeson Miss Trelawny whose back was toward him.
There was in them the same look of suspicion which had been there whenhe had spoken to me of her being the first to find her father on theoccasions of the attacks.