“See if there are any more of those scorpions lurking,” Billy ordered Doogie. “I’m getting Charley out of here.”
Billy scooped Charley up in his arms and took her into the relative safety of the corridor, where there were fewer places for a scorpion or a tarantula or goodness knows what to hide.
Lowering Charley down again, Billy patted her cheek with the palm of his hand, trying to bring her round. “Charley, it’s me, Billy. Have you been stung? Where are you hurt? Charley…” Billy refused to let the panic show in his voice. “Duchess,” he urged. “Wake up, please.”
“Eh? What…what’s going on?” Charley’s voice was slurred. “Where am I?”
“You had me scared,” said Billy.
“I’m…fine,” said Charley, although her pained expression suggested she was anything but “fine”. Awkwardly she hauled herself up into a sitting position and spotted Doogie standing in the doorway to her room, waving an iron poker.
“No sign,” said Doogie.
“What is going on?” said Charley.
“That’s what we’re trying to find—”
A scream rang out, echoing down the corridor.
“Sir Gordon!” yelled Doogie, setting off at a sprint.
“Leave me!” said Charley, as Billy hesitated. “GO!”
Two seconds later and Billy was at Doogie’s side outside His Lordship’s room. Billy turned the handle but the door wouldn’t budge. “Locked.”
“Sir Gordon! Sir Gordon!” Doogie banged on the door. Another scream pierced the night.
“We’ll have to break it down,” said Billy.
They flung their shoulders against the wood and – with a splintering crack! – the lock broke and Billy and Doogie fell into the room.
“We’re too late,” said Doogie, as he saw Sir Gordon’s body sprawled across the bed, as white and blubbery as a beached whale – if beached whales wore stripy nightshirts. “He’s dead.”
But Sir Gordon wasn’t dead – Billy realized this as soon as he drew close and His Lordship lifted one buttock to release a fart of monstrous proportions.
“Sir Gordon,” said Billy, “you were screaming. What happened?”
His Lordship wiped his perspiring brow on the bedsheet. “I was in agony,” he said, gently stroking his fat belly. “Never felt pain like it. It was as if someone was jabbing at my stomach with a red-hot poker.”
“And now?” said Billy. “How do you feel now?”
“Still dreadful,” said Sir Gordon, farting again and wafting his nightshirt.
“I’ll fetch a doctor for you immediately, sir,” said Cowley, standing framed in the doorway. The butler lacked his usual dignity, dressed in a nightshirt and with a long nightcap pulled down tight over his head.
“If ye can find one who isn’t afraid of the mummy’s curse,” whispered Doogie.
A grandfather clock chimed three in the morning, signalling the start of the bleakest, loneliest, longest hour of what had already been a desperate night. Not a soul in 44 Morningside Place was sleeping. The mummy’s curse had murdered sleep.
Doctor Cushing fussed over Sir Gordon, prescribing a pinch of gunpowder stirred into a glass of warm soapy water to be drunk as a cure for the violent stomach pain. Cowley fussed over the household staff. The two parlourmaids were leaving and there was nothing he could say to persuade them to stay. Doogie fussed over Charley, although she was adamant that the headache had gone now as quickly as it had come. Charley fussed over the case notes, reading and rereading every page. And Billy? Well, Billy went down to the kitchen and made some hot chocolate. Then he sat alone at the table, the cup in both hands while he drank and tried to forget the deathstalker. They’d checked the scorpion tank in the conservatory and the lid was slightly ajar, so the nasty thing must have escaped by accident. But accident or not, it still could have ended his life with one whip of its tail.
A pale sun eventually rose over Edinburgh, bringing light but no warmth. Washed and dressed, Sir Gordon, Charley and Billy all sat round the breakfast table. Wellington lay under it. Cowley and Beth, the last remaining downstairs maid, were on hand to serve tea, hot coffee, toast with strawberry jam or bitter marmalade, porridge, bacon, sausages, black pudding, eggs (scrambled, fried, poached and boiled), kippers and kedgeree.
Charley eventually chose a simple boiled egg. She lined up some toast soldiers on the side of her plate and then took great pleasure in cracking the egg open with her spoon.
“On which,” said Billy, “how’s your head?”
“Fine, thank you,” said Charley, waving his concern away. “Although it was terrible at the time.” She poured some milk into her tea and gave it a stir. “Oh dear,” she said, wrinkling her nose as she saw the creamy blobs spinning on the surface. “I think the milk has gone off.”
Beth dropped the tray she was carrying and screamed. “It’s the curse!” she shrieked and fled from the dining room in tears, Cowley stalking after her.
“My entire household is crumbling around me,” said Sir Gordon. He sounded like a little lost six year old. “You still love me though, don’t you, Wellington?” He took the bacon off his plate and the dog gobbled it appreciatively, licking his master’s hand.
Charley had brought one of her reference books to the table. Finding the illustrated page that she was looking for, she pushed it over to Billy. “Look familiar?”
Billy instantly recognized the hideous creatures from his vision. “What are they?”
“Egyptian gods,” said Charley. “Sekhmet the lioness, Sobek the crocodile and Anubis the jackal.”
“Does that crocodile bloke remind you of anyone?” said Billy, munching through a sausage. “Like our friend back at the railway station lurking in the shadows?”
“I only saw a silhouette,” said Charley, “but it’s possible, I suppose.”
“Almost enough to put me off my breakfast,” said Billy. “But not quite.”
Billy had chosen some lighter reading, and was flicking through the newspaper while he tackled what was left of his sausage and eggs. But he stopped with a piece of fried egg halfway to his mouth when he spotted an advert at the bottom of the page. “Listen to this…”
“I think I should check it out,” said Billy.
Charley raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t I be the one to investigate a beauty parlour?”
“It’s a tough job,” said Billy, “but someone’s got to do it.”
“So nothing to do with surrounding yourself with ‘female loveliness’ then?”
“Sadly not,” said Billy. “I’ve got a hunch that the Flint family are mixed up in this. I’ve got a dodgy cousin who tried something very similar in London. He might be out of prison by now.”
“I thought you were having me on when you said he was from a family of criminals, Miss Steel!” spluttered Sir Gordon.
“I wish she was,” said Billy, “but I’m related to at least forty-five burglars; three safe crackers; one rather brilliant forger; a slightly mad arsonist; more sneak thieves, thugs and pickpockets than you can shake a truncheon at…”
Sir Gordon’s face went white at the thought of such villainy and he tucked his gold fob watch deeper into his pocket.
“But the funniest thing is that I’m the black sheep of the family.”
“Billy’s the one they talk about in whispers,” Charley added.
“Why on earth is that?” said Sir Gordon.
“Nothing on earth, actually,” said Billy cryptically.
“Eh? I’m lost,” said Sir Gordon.
“My unearthly talent has a habit of upsetting people,” said Billy. “When you tell people that you can see angels and demons and everything in between, they tend to think you’re…strange, treat you as an outcast. Mum packed me off to be a priest and that was where Luther Sparkwell found me – I was casting out an unclean spirit, he was chasing a spectre…”