Theodosia and the Staff of Osiris-Theo 2 (22 page)

With a self-pitying sigh, I heaped extra eggs onto my plate, grateful that they, at least, were not considered unclean. A girl couldn't be expected to face evil spirits and curses on oatmeal alone.

Mum glanced at my plate as I sat down. "No bacon, dear?"

"Not this morning, I think. I'm not all that hungry."

Father peeked out around his newspaper. "Then why have you put a small mountain of eggs on your plate?"

Father did pick the most inconvenient times to become observant. Thankfully, there was a timely pounding at the front door.

Father scowled, my eggs quickly forgotten. "Who on earth could that be?"

Mother picked up her napkin and gently dabbed her mouth. "I have no idea," she murmured.

I began shoveling eggs in as fast as I could. A visitor during breakfast was not a good sign. There was a very good chance the meal would be over within minutes.

We all listened as Betsy went to see who it was. Shouting ensued. I bolted down my eggs even faster. Seconds later, our harried-looking housemaid reappeared. "There's an Inspector Turnbull to see you, sir. I asked him to wait, but he was most insistent on—"

"Throckmorton? Where are you?" Turnbull's voice boomed off the walls of the breakfast room. "By gad, you've gone too far this time."

Furious at this intrusion, Father stood up so fast that he knocked his chair over. "What are you doing here at this hour? And what are you blathering on about, anyway?"

"The mummies! You've taken all the mummies again!"

Father threw his napkin down onto the table like a gauntlet. "I have not!"

"Well, they've all gone missing again!" Turnbull shoved past Betsy, who looked undecided as to whether she should stand aside or try to block the man's entrance.

"What makes you so sure I'm the one to have taken them?"

"Because I headed for your museum first thing and forced that watchman of yours to let me in. Oddly enough, you're the only man in all of London who still has his mummies! That's too big a coincidence for me, Throckmorton."

The amulets! The very thing I'd done to protect our mummies was now incriminating Father! The eggs in my stomach wobbled unpleasantly.

"Nonsense," Father said. "We just have better security than the other places."

Turnbull snorted through his mustache. "I have half a mind to haul you down to headquarters right now."

"On what grounds?" Father thundered back. Honestly. It was like listening to a fight between two bull moose.

"I don't know yet, but I'll find them. Where were you last night?"

"Here in my own home with my wife."

Turnbull turned his hot, angry gaze to Mum, who nodded her confirmation.

He dismissed it with a brusque wave of his hand. "It's not like you'd tell me if your husband snuck out for a couple of hours, is it?" he scoffed. With one final glare of disgust, he stormed out.

Father stared after him for a moment. "We're leaving for the museum. Now."

***

It was a tense, silent ride to the museum. When we arrived, we were greeted by an even bigger crowd than the last time.

"Perhaps it would be better if we went around to the side entrance," Mother suggested.

But Father was in high dudgeon. "I will not run from this rabble, Henrietta. I have nothing to hide."

A wall of constables lined up against the museum kept the crowd at bay. We alighted from the carriage and began working our way toward them. Lord Snowthorpe was in the thick of it, as were a few of the newspaper reporters who'd been here three days earlier. I spotted Peter Fell—Petet—and quickly looked away. I did not want to deal with my scorpion bodyguards at the moment, even though, if the crowd's mood was any indication, we might need them.

"What 'ave ye done wi' our gold?" a heavyset man in a butcher's apron called out.

"Burn all the mummies!" an older woman with a sour face
cried. She was dressed all in black and brandishing an umbrella.

Father began using his cane (none too gently, I'm afraid) to force the crowd to make way. With one final shove, we reached the entrance. Constable Biggs recognized us immediately. "Inspector Turnbull is waiting," he informed us.

Once inside, I saw Father look at the far wall, frowning when he saw it was empty of mummies. "Well, where are they, then?" he asked.

Vicary Weems stepped forward. "They're all still in the exhibit room, where they belong. Sir," he added as an afterthought. He looked suspiciously cheerful, almost as if he were calculating just how much his salary might be when he took over Father's position.

Interrupting Father's conversation with Weems, Turnbull addressed all of us in the foyer. "No one leaves until I question them, understood? Beaton! Kimble! Search the entire building. If there are any mummies that don't belong here, I want to know about it immediately. Biggs, you get everybody lined up for questioning. I'm talking to everyone personally." He glowered at us all from under his bushy eyebrows, as if daring us to disagree.

This was going to put a big fat crimp in my ability to sweep the museum free of evil spirits. The redheaded policeman,
Beaton, headed upstairs to conduct his search. The second man, Kimble, headed down the hall toward the loading dock. He paused when he came to the door leading to the catacombs. "What's down here, then?" he asked.

Weems and Fagenbush looked at each other while Stilton glanced over at Father before speaking. "It's the basement, sir. Where we store items not currently on display."

Turnbull narrowed his beady eyes. "Any mummies down there?" Turnbull asked Father.

Father glanced over at me. "Um, yes. If I remember correctly, there are..."

I sneezed.

"Bless you," Mum muttered. "Go on," Turnbull said to Father.

I sneezed again. And again. And again. Then four more times.

"Eight!" Father said, his voice firm. "There are eight mummies in the basement." Excellent! He'd gotten my message. Sometimes Father wasn't completely hopeless. He tossed me a look that said,
Well done.

Kimble gave a nod, then opened the basement door. I tensed. While I had been able to turn the Anubis statue back into stone, I had never gotten around to completely removing the curse from it. Kimble was a large, robust man, which meant he most likely had a strong life force. Not to mention
he was carrying a very bright electric torch. All I could do was cross my fingers and hope for the best.

A moment later, a loud, sharp bark erupted from the stairwell, followed by a shout of surprise. Then there was heavy thumping as Kimble came racing up the stairs, the jackal close on his heels.

"There's a mad dog down there!" he cried, trying to close the door on the jackal, who was already halfway through. Giving up, the constable raced back into the foyer and joined the rest of us, possibly hoping that with a variety of targets the creature wouldn't zero in on him.

"What in the blazes..." Father began.

"A dog?" Mum shot me a suspicious glance, no doubt remembering the barking she had heard a week before. "Do you care to explain that, Theodosia?"

My rescue came from a most unlikely place. "It looks more like a jackal," Father muttered.

Growling and baring his teeth, the dog faced the constables. Turnbull bore down on Father, furious. "Is this your idea of a joke? Siccing a guard dog on my men? Why didn't you warn us?"

"Because I didn't know he was down there!" He paused a moment. "Did you know he was down there, Theodosia?"

Uh-oh. I could just imagine how well my explanation would go over with this lot.
Why yes, Father. The Old Kingdom
statue we have of Anubis came to life when I was down there last.
So this meant, unfortunately, I had to lie. "Perhaps whoever let the mummies into the museum three nights ago left one of the doors open and a stray got in? Oh! And perhaps that's why our mummies are still here! Perhaps the dog chased away the mischief-makers!"

Father looked at me a moment longer, then nodded. "Makes as much sense as any of this," he said.

A loud growl exploded through the foyer and we all turned to watch as the jackal lunged for Kimble, who scrambled back out of the way. Everyone was staring at the animal now, except for Stilton, who looked at me with open awe. The dolt. Could he be any more obvious? He was going to give away all my secrets if he wasn't careful.

Beaton, hearing the commotion, came running back downstairs with his billy club out. Anubis glanced at him, then back at the men in front of him. Without warning, he leaped to the side, evading them all and heading straight for the front of the museum. When he reached the bank of windows, he launched himself up into the air and crashed through, shattered glass falling everywhere.

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then the front door opened and Miss Sharpe walked in. "What on earth was that?"

I
FOUND IT INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT
to keep my mind on my lessons (and had my knuckles rapped a number of times for it—thank goodness I wore gloves!). My mind kept returning to the poor mummies from the other museums, wondering where on earth they were. The idea of them wandering around London, lost, was most distressing. However, I was certain we would hear of any reports of such a thing. Besides, it seemed to me that the mummies had always moved under the cover of darkness before. So perhaps they had gotten to wherever they were going the night before.

Wherever they had gone.

I sat bolt upright, startling Miss Sharpe. "What is it, Theodosia?"

"Nothing, Miss Sharpe. I just landed on a solution to this problem you gave me."

But what had jolted through me like a bolt of lightning was that wherever the mummies had gone was most likely where the Serpents of Chaos—and the staff—could be found. The mummies responded to the staff; they were drawn to it's power—that is the only place they would head.

So if we found the mummies, we'd find the staff. Brilliant!

All I had to do was remove the protective amulet from one of our mummies. It would be drawn by the power of the staff, and someone from the Brotherhood of the Chosen Keepers could follow it straight to Chaos's headquarters.

There was a sharp rap on the desk. "Theodosia!"

I flinched. "Yes?"

"I thought you said you'd worked out that problem, but you haven't written a thing."

"Oh. Sorry. I was wrong. It wasn't the solution after all."

Miss Sharpe's nostrils quivered in frustration. "Very well. I want you to now write out one hundred times,
I will not be overconfident.
"

It was going to be a long day. The only thing that kept me going was the idea that soon Will would arrive and I could turn this all over to Wigmere.

***

By midmorning, I had excused myself to go to the lavatory six times in an attempt to pass a message to Will. Miss Sharpe had taken to pinching me whenever I announced my need, and Stilton had stopped looking me in the eye after my third trip. Although I should have been embarrassed by the sheer indelicateness of it all, I had much bigger problems to worry about.

Such as the fact that it was becoming clear that Will had no intention of showing up today. Was he put out with me and refusing to act as messenger anymore? Or had something happened to him? He had seemed quite worried about the Grim Nipper.

There was one possibility I refused to allow myself to contemplate: that he wasn't showing up because he'd given in and done what the Grim Nipper had asked him to do.

Without Will, I had to come up with an alternate plan. Of course, the simplest would be for me to follow the mummy myself, but I do have some sense (in spite of what Father says). Even I wasn't willing to wander around the streets of London by myself late at night. Taking a cab was one thing, but following a mummy on foot who was heading straight for the Serpents of Chaos? No. That was out of the question.

But what, then?

I heard a creak outside the reading room and looked up to find Stilton peering in. Time for his late morning check, apparently. It was enough to stifle a sardine!

But wait—the Black Sunners! They claimed to want to do my every wish and command. And they were grown men. I could have
them
follow the mummy. Of course, I'd give them the strictest instructions not to do anything—not to approach our mummy or the mummies they found or the Serpents of Chaos—but they could find the location for me. That would work.

I wiggled my eyebrows at Stilton, who still hovered in the doorway, then jerked my head in Miss Sharpe's direction. He nodded, then cleared his throat. "Miss Sharpe?"

She looked up from her book. "Yes, Mr. Stilton?"

"I believe the constable was asking for you."

A wrinkle of distaste crossed her face.

Stilton shrugged apologetically. "They're questioning everybody, you know. It's nothing personal."

An aggrieved sigh escaped from my governess. "Very well, but I must say, this is much more than I signed up for."

Once she had left, Stilton slipped into the room and closed the door behind him. "What is it, Miss Theo?"

"I have an assignment for you and the other scorpions."

His face lit up like a Christmas tree. "Yes, O Bringer of Light. We live to serve you."

"Yes, yes. So you've said. But here's what I need you to do..."

As I explained the plan to him, his eyes grew bigger and bigger and his face flushed with excitement. "So I was right, then. You can raise the dead."

"Well, no. Not really." But it still didn't seem smart to explain about the staff. I was fairly certain I trusted Stilton, but I most definitely did not trust Trawley. And if Stilton told him about the staff, Trawley would most likely want it for his own.

"I will get word to the grand master at once to ask for his permission."

"Permission? But I thought you were assigned to me?" I distinctly remembered hearing them jaw on about adoration and being at my command.

"Yes, Miss Theo, but we are assigned to watch
over
you. We will need permission if we are to leave your side."

This was beginning to sound more and more like a prison every day. "Very well. But let me know as soon as you find out."