Charley’s eye scanned the bottles of chemicals in front of her until she found the one that she was after – sulphuric acid. That should slow it down! She pulled the glass stopper from the bottle at the same instant that the baboon took a swing at her. The ape’s mighty fist sent the chemicals on the workbench flying, and Charley was grateful for the blanket across her legs as a deadly acid rain fell all around, scorching everything it touched.
Charley threw the whole bottle of acid at the baboon’s legs and then wheeled backwards with every ounce of strength she possessed.
The effect was extraordinary, from a scientific point of view. In every other respect it was ghastly.
When the concentrated acid struck the animal’s legs there was a mighty hissing roar – and the monster began to dissolve. Plumes of smoke rose from the creature as the lower half of its body began to liquefy. The baboon’s legs collapsed into a bubbling mess, a revolting soup of bandages, bones and ancient flesh until only the upper half remained, twitching in the pool that used to be its body.
Charley let out a sigh of relief.
The baboon snorted with anger and then started to crawl towards her, dragging its stumps behind it.
Charley met Doogie running into the crime lab as she was propelling herself out. Two shapes rushed past her: a dead cat being chased by a terrier who was very much alive.
“This way!” said Charley, grabbing Doogie’s arm and dragging him away from the lab.
Doogie glanced over Charley’s shoulder and spotted the mummy baboon, crawling towards them, teeth bared. “Where are we going?”
“To the lift,” said Charley.
If she couldn’t stop the baboon then Charley at least wanted to prevent the thing from reaching her. They arrived at the lift, and after some wasted moments fumbling with the mechanism, the metal gates opened wide. “Inside, quick!” said Charley, shoving Doogie in and following after, slamming the doors shut behind her. Charley was locking them again when a pair of leathery hands, partially wrapped in decaying bandage, grabbed the cage from the outside.
The baboon began to shake the bars, screaming and screeching. Charley hadn’t been able to secure the locking mechanism, but she didn’t dare come within the baboon’s reach. Experimentally she inched forwards and the baboon responded by shoving its snout between the bars, snapping savagely. Then it pushed its arm through too, swiping at Charley, forcing her to back away.
She knew that there was no brain in its head, no air in its lungs…actually no lungs at all… And yet there was a magical fire that burned inside the beast, driving its withered muscles and crumbling bones to attack.
And then, quite suddenly, that mystic fire went out. The arm fell limp. The mouth hung open.
Cautiously, Charley poked the mummy; it didn’t respond.
With a creak and a jerk, the lift sprang into action, carrying Doogie and Charley up to the first floor. The baboon came with them, its stiff arm still stuck between the bars. Billy was waiting for them upstairs.
“I see you’ve dressed for the occasion,” said Charley, taking in the towel that was wrapped around his midriff. “What have you got there?” she asked, pointing to the long object he was carrying, bundled in another towel.
With a flourish, Billy let the towel slip and the baby crocodile rolled out. It hit the floor with a heavy thwack, as lifeless as a plank of wood. “It was attacking me,” said Billy.
“And then it stopped,” Charley finished. “Any idea why?”
“Just a theory,” said Billy. “I think that they were being controlled by someone and for whatever reason the connection broke.”
“Like cutting a puppet’s strings?” suggested Doogie.
“Exactly,” said Billy. “But who is the puppetmaster?”
“Someone who wants us dead,” said Charley softly.
Five minutes later Billy was dressed again and back in the crime lab with Charley. They had locked the crocodile and the baboon inside the lift cage, just in case the Sandman woke them up for a second round. Wellington, meanwhile, was digging a hole beneath one of the trees and burying something. It looked suspiciously like a mummified cat.
“The Sandman is even more powerful than we imagined,” said Billy. “I think he even has the power to cloak his abilities and stay hidden from me.”
“And I think I know what his goal is,” said Charley. “I knew I remembered the Sandman’s list from somewhere. I’ve been rummaging through Sir Gordon’s library. Listen to this.” She picked up a tattered book and began to read. “This is from the diary of John Dee, magician in the court of Queen Elizabeth I.” Charley cleared her throat. “Root of a mandrake, paw of a white cat, milk from a black cow, coins from a dead man’s purse, the sparkling phoenix egg, a human heart… Sound familiar?
“Well, according to John Dee, the Sandman is gathering everything he needs to become immortal.”
Billy was stunned. “So out there somewhere is a man with enough knowledge of Egyptian magick to reanimate mummies, with a fortune in stolen jewels to buy whatever he wants, and the dream of living for ever… It’s incredible.”
“It’s terrible,” said Charley.
“At least we’ve got a reliable description of him now,” said Billy. “That’s something to go on.”
“But not enough!” said Charley.
Billy continued pacing. “What about the burglaries? What linked them?”
“The victims were guests of Sir Gordon,” said Charley. “Very wealthy, obviously.”
“And on each occasion the mummy knew exactly where to look, which suggests that no matter how powerful a magician the Sandman is, he is being given information by someone on the inside.”
“The other thing that links the burglaries is the traces of Saharan sand,” said Charley.
“The circles with the hieroglyphics,” said Billy. “You’ve translated them, haven’t you, Duchess?”
“I’ve got a partial translation,” said Charley, with frustration. She wheeled over to her blackboard. “We got four glyphs at Lady Fitzpatrick’s and two more at Lady Tiffin’s, and combined they give us this sequence. The trouble is that because they are written in a circle, I can’t know for certain which glyph is the start of the sentence.”
Sir Gordon joined them then, announcing his arrival in the crime lab with a polite cough. “Thought I’d come and see how you two detectives are getting on,” he said quietly. “Don’t like being on my own in the house right now, what with most of the servants gone, and the living dead on the rampage destroying everything I own.” He sounded pitiful but he brightened a little when he looked at the blackboard. “Hieroglyphics, eh?”
“You must understand a lot of it yourself,” said Charley, talking to the man over her shoulder, “having excavated a genuine Egyptian tomb.”
“Well,” said Sir Gordon, “I haven’t done much actual studying myself… So, let me see if I’ve got this right? The funny little pictures are words?”
“Yes,” said Charley as patiently as she could manage. “The funny little pictures are words.”
“So what does it say?”
Charley furrowed her brow. “To make – or possibly see – a servant fly in an instant something power.”
“I don’t get it,” said Sir Gordon.
“Neither do I,” said Charley, “and it isn’t helped by the fact that I haven’t been able to find a meaning for one of the glyphs at all.” She circled one of the hieroglyphs with such force that she snapped her chalk in half.