The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker (ebook and pdf reader .txt) 📖
- Author: Bram Stoker
- Performer: -
Book online «The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker (ebook and pdf reader .txt) 📖». Author Bram Stoker
Ra and Osiris in the Boat of the Dead, with the Eye of Sleep, supported
on legs, bending before her; and Harmochis rising in the north. Will
you find that in the British Museum-or Bow Street? Or perhaps your
studies in the Gizeh Museum, or the Fitzwilliam, or Paris, or Leyden, or
Berlin, have shown you that the episode is common in hieroglyphics; and
that this is only a copy. Perhaps you can tell me what that figure of
Ptah-Seker-Ausar holding the Tet wrapped in the Sceptre of Papyrus
means? Did you ever see it before; even in the British Museum, or
Gizeh, or Scotland Yard?”
He broke off suddenly; and then went on in quite a different way:
“Look here! it seems to me that the thick-headed idiot is myself! I beg
your pardon, old fellow, for my rudeness. I quite lost my temper at the
suggestion that I do not know these lamps. You don’t mind, do you?”
The Detective answered heartily:
“Lord, sir, not I. I like to see folks angry when I am dealing with
them, whether they are on my side or the other. It is when people are
angry that you learn the truth from them. I keep cool; that is my
trade! Do you know, you have told me more about those lamps in the past
two minutes than when you filled me up with details of how to identify
them.”
Mr. Corbeck grunted; he was not pleased at having given himself away.
All at once he turned to me and said in his natural way:
“Now tell me how you got them back?” I was so surprised that I said
without thinking:
“We didn’t get them back!” The traveller laughed openly.
“What on earth do you mean?” he asked. “You didn’t get them back! Why,
there they are before your eyes! We found you looking at them when we
came in.” By this time I had recovered my surprise and had my wits
about me.
“Why, that’s just it,” I said. “We had only come across them, by
accident, that very moment!”
Mr. Corbeck drew back and looked hard at Miss Trelawny and myself;
turning his eyes from one to the other as he asked:
“Do you mean to tell me that no one brought them here; that you found
them in that drawer? That, so to speak, no one at all brought them
back?”
“I suppose someone must have brought them here; they couldn’t have come
of their own accord. But who it was, or when, or how, neither of us
knows. We shall have to make inquiry, and see if any of the servants
know anything of it.”
We all stood silent for several seconds. It seemed a long time. The
first to speak was the Detective, who said in an unconscious way:
“Well, I’m damned! I beg your pardon, miss!” Then his mouth shut like
a steel trap.
We called up the servants, one by one, and asked them if they knew
anything of some articles placed in a drawer in the boudoir; but none of
them could throw any light on the circumstance. We did not tell them
what the articles were; or let them see them.
Mr. Corbeck packed the lamps in cotton wool, and placed them in a tin
box. This, I may mention incidentally, was then brought up to the
detectives’ room, where one of the men stood guard over them with a
revolver the whole night. Next day we got a small safe into the house,
and placed them in it. There were two different keys. One of them I
kept myself; the other I placed in my drawer in the Safe Deposit vault.
We were all determined that the lamps should not be lost again.
About an hour after we had found the lamps, Doctor Winchester arrived.
He had a large parcel with him, which, when unwrapped, proved to be the
mummy of a cat. With Miss Trelawny’s permission he placed this in the
boudoir; and Silvio was brought close to it. To the surprise of us all,
however, except perhaps Doctor Winchester, he did not manifest the least
annoyance; he took no notice of it whatever. He stood on the table
close beside it, purring loudly. Then, following out his plan, the
Doctor brought him into Mr. Trelawny’s room, we all following. Doctor
Winchester was excited; Miss Trelawny anxious. I was more than
interested myself, for I began to have a glimmering of the Doctor’s
idea. The Detective was calmly and coldly superior; but Mr. Corbeck,
who was an enthusiast, was full of eager curiosity.
The moment Doctor Winchester got into the room, Silvio began to mew and
wriggle; and jumping out of his arms, ran over to the cat mummy and
began to scratch angrily at it. Miss Trelawny had some difficulty in
taking him away; but so soon as he was out of the room he became quiet.
When she came back there was a clamour of comments:
“I thought so!” from the Doctor.
“What can it mean?” from Miss Trelawny.
“That’s a very strange thing!” from Mr. Corbeck.
“Odd! but it doesn’t prove anything!” from the Detective.
“I suspend my judgment!” from myself, thinking it advisable to say
something.
Then by common consent we dropped the theme—for the present.
In my room that evening I was making some notes of what had happened,
when there came a low tap on the door. In obedience to my summons
Sergeant Daw came in, carefully closing the door behind him.
“Well, Sergeant,” said I, ‘sit down. What is it?”
“I wanted to speak to you, sir, about those lamps.” I nodded and
waited: he went on: “You know that that room where they were found
opens directly into the room where Miss Trelawny slept last night?”
“Yes.”
“During the night a window somewhere in that part of the house was
opened, and shut again. I heard it, and took a look round; but I could
see no sign of anything.”
“Yes, I know that!” I said; “I heard a window moved myself.”
“Does nothing strike you as strange about it, sir?”
“Strange!” I said; “Strange! why it’s all the most bewildering,
maddening thing I have ever encountered. It is all so strange that one
seems to wonder, and simply waits for what will happen next. But what
do you mean by strange?”
The Detective paused, as if choosing his words to begin; and then said
deliberately:
“You see, I am not one who believes in magic and such things. I am for
facts all the time; and I always find in the long-run that there is a
reason and a cause for everything. This new gentleman says these things
were stolen out of his room in the hotel. The lamps, I take it from
some things he has said, really belong to Mr. Trelawny. His daughter,
the lady of the house, having left the room she usually occupies, sleeps
that night on the ground floor. A window is heard to open and shut
during the night. When we, who have been during the day trying to find
a clue to the robbery, come to the house, we find the stolen goods in a
room close to where she slept, and opening out of it!”
He stopped. I felt that same sense of pain and apprehension, which I
had experienced when he had spoken to me before, creeping, or rather
rushing, over me again. I had to face the matter out, however. My
relations with her, and the feeling toward her which I now knew full
well meant a very deep love and devotion, demanded so much. I said as
calmly as I could, for I knew the keen eyes of the skilful investigator
were on me:
“And the inference?”
He answered with the cool audacity of conviction:
“The inference to me is that there was no robbery at all. The goods
were taken by someone to this house, where they were received through a
window on the ground floor. They were placed in the cabinet, ready to
be discovered when the proper time should come!”
Somehow I felt relieved; the assumption was too monstrous. I did not
want, however, my relief to be apparent, so I answered as gravely as I
could:
“And who do you suppose brought them to the house?”
“I keep my mind open as to that. Possibly Mr. Corbeck himself; the
matter might be too risky to trust to a third party.”
“Then the natural extension of your inference is that Mr. Corbeck is a
liar and a fraud; and that he is in conspiracy with Miss Trelawny to
deceive someone or other about those lamps.”
“Those are harsh words, Mr. Ross. They’re so plain-spoken that they
bring a man up standing, and make new doubts for him. But I have to go
where my reason points. It may be that there is another party than Miss
Trelawny in it. Indeed, if it hadn’t been for the other matter that set
me thinking and bred doubts of its own about her, I wouldn’t dream of
mixing her up in this. But I’m safe on Corbeck. Whoever else is in it,
he is! The things couldn’t have been taken without his connivance-if
what he says is true. If it isn’t-well! he is a liar anyhow. I would
think it a bad job to have him stay in the house with so many valuables,
only that it will give me and my mate a chance of watching him. we’ll
keep a pretty good look-out, too, I tell you. He’s up in my room now,
guarding those lamps; but Johnny Wright is there too. I go on before he
comes off; so there won’t be much chance of another house-breaking. Of
course, Mr. Ross, all this, too, is between you and me.”
“Quite so! You may depend on my silence!” I said; and he went away to
keep a close eye on the Egyptologist.
It seemed as though all my painful experiences were to go in pairs, and
that the sequence of the previous day was to be repeated; for before
long I had another private visit from Doctor Winchester who had now paid
his nightly visit to his patient and was on his way home. He took the
seat which I proffered and began at once:
“This is a strange affair altogether. Miss Trelawny has just been
telling me about the stolen lamps, and of the finding of them in the
Napoleon cabinet. It would seem to be another complication of the
mystery; and yet, do you know, it is a relief to me. I have exhausted
all human and natural possibilities of the case, and am beginning to
fall back on superhuman and supernatural possibilities. Here are such
strange things that, if I am not going mad, I think we must have a
solution before long. I wonder if I might ask some questions and some
help from Mr. Corbeck, without making further complications and
embarrassing us. He seems to know an amazing amount regarding Egypt and
all relating to it. Perhaps he wouldn’t mind translating a little bit
of hieroglyphic. It is child’s play to him. What do you think?”
When I had thought the matter over a few seconds I spoke. We wanted all
the help we could get. For myself, I had perfect confidence in both
men; and any comparing notes, or mutual assistance, might bring good
results. Such could hardly bring evil.
“By all means I should ask him. He seems an extraordinarily learned man
in Egyptology; and he seems
Comments (0)