I took the opportunity to lean up against her for a moment, to absorb some of her strength and chase away the horrid chill that had come over me. "I'm not sure I like funerals," I said, Sopcoate's warning still ringing in my ears.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Wedjadeen
THE ONLY GOOD THING to come of my run-in with Sopcoate was that my parents decided I wasn't feeling well. That made a perfect excuse for all of us to avoid going to the funeral luncheon at Grandmother's house. I supported this wholeheartedly by leaning my head back against the cab cushion and making as pitiful a face as I could.
It wasn't hard. My nerves were still twanging like plucked strings. When I glanced down at my hands, I saw they trembled slightly. I clutched them together and folded them in my lap.
"Are you sure you're not feverish?" Mum asked, putting her hand to my forehead again. "You still look a bit flushed."
"I think I am just overset from the funeral. That's all."
Henry stared at me with big, worried eyes. I tried to give him a reassuring smile, but I'm afraid it wobbled a bit. I closed my eyes and tried to calm my nerves.
"How a girl who spends as much time as you do in a museum full of dead things can get overset at a funeral is one of life's mysteries I'll never understand," Father said as he rapped on the carriage roof, signaling the driver to be off.
I opened one eye and looked at him.
"Not that I'm not grateful." He winked.
I shut my eye quickly. Did that mean he thought I was faking? Wouldn't that just cork it? The one time I was most certainly not faking, Father thought I was. Sometimes I worried that he saw far more of what went on than he admitted. That was a disturbing idea.
"I for one will be glad to get back to the museum," Father said heartily. Clearly, he didn't like funerals any more than I did. Probably for different reasons, however.
"I suppose I should take Theo home," Mother said reluctantly.
I rolled my head to look at Mother. "I am feeling a bit better, now that we're away from that church and all that incense. I would be happy to lie down quietly in the family withdrawing room if you and Father would like to get back to work."
Mother gave me a brilliant smile. "How understanding of you, darling. Thank you."
Henry let his head drop back against the seat in resignation.
That settled, Father called out new directions to the cabby and we headed toward the museum.
When we arrived, the curators seemed a bit surprised to see us back so soon. Stilton startled so badly when he saw us that he bumped into the row of shabtis he was just setting up and sent them tumbling into one another until they were all lying flat.
"Be careful, you dolt!" Weems growled, then pasted a smile on his face and came to greet us.
Mother began removing her gloves, pulling off one finger at a time. When Weems was close enough, she said, "I really don't think it's necessary to call our employees names, do you, Mr. Weems? Name-calling seems to me the province of bullies who have no other skills with which to motivate their employees. But that's not the case with you, is it?" She looked up suddenly and met his gaze head-on. "I would hate to think we'd made a mistake about you."
The foyer was filled with dead silence as we all watched Weems's face turn bright red. Nearly everyone looked ready to cheer. Finally, Father cleared his throat. "I believe the weapons up in the workroom are ready to be crated and moved down here, if you would see to that, Weems. Fagenbush, that scarab collection is also ready to be moved."
Weems blinked rapidly, his Adam's apple bobbing in distress. "Yes, sir," he said through his pinched lips. He turned and minced angrily from the room. Fagenbush followed.
Mother smiled brightly at the others. "It's beginning to look like an exhibit around here," she said, then she went to find a work smock.
Of course, the truth was that, in spite of what I'd told my parents, I had no intention of lying down. There were far too many things I needed to attend to. For one, how had Sopcoate known about the Emerald Tablet? Only a handful of people knew it was here at the museum: Stilton, Wigmere, Fagenbush, Will, Henry, and Awi Bubu. I was quite certain that Will, Henry, and Wigmere hadn't told him. Nor had Fagenbush, if Wigmere's judgment was correct. And while I could quite easily see Stilton letting slip the existence of the Emerald Tablet to Trawley, I was sure he wouldn't want it to fall into Chaos's hands. The same went for Trawley. If Stilton had told him about it, he'd want to keep it for himself and not give it to Chaos.
Which left Awi Bubu.
Was he a Serpent of Chaos? It would explain so much: how he knew about the Staff of Osiris and the Heart of Egypt, his enhanced powers. And it made sense that Chaos would recruit people from the Antiquities Service in Egypt.
It also fit in with Awi Bubu's claim that he was an exile from his homeland.
But if he was a Serpent of Chaos, wouldn't he have just taken the tablet that night he was here? He'd had plenty of opportunity. And he'd never once threatened me, which was something the other Serpents did quite frequently.
But if he wasn't a Serpent of Chaos, he clearly hadn't told me everything he knew about the Emerald Tablet either. For Chaos to want it, it had to be very powerful indeed, most likely destructive. That Egyptian and I needed to have a chat. I wanted to know the truth about the wretched tablet. Now.
The next step would be to get to Wigmere and tell him what I had learned. I was so desperate to get his take on all this that I briefly considered telling Fagenbush so he could enlist Wigmere's aid. However, if the leak about the tablet hadn't come from Awi Bubu or Stilton, then Fagenbush was my next best suspect. Perhaps he worked for the Serpents of Chaos but had been assigned to infiltrate the Brotherhood of the Chosen Keepers as a means of keeping tabs on them? If that was the case, I didn't want to tip my hand to him. Or give him any more information than was absolutely necessary.
Which meant I had to get him out of the way so I would be free to come and go as I needed without risking his following me. What sort of distraction could I arrange in the next half-hour? Father had assigned Fagenbush to assemble the scarab collection this afternoon. Scarabs ... oh!
I hurried to the Egyptian exhibit. There was one scarab there that had defied all my attempts at removing the curse that infected it. Luckily, it wasn't a serious curse, merely an unpleasant one.
Glad for the hideous funeral gloves I still wore, I slipped the lapis lazuli scarab from its case and hid it in my pocket. Now I just had to sneak this cursed scarab in with the others without Fagenbush noticing. A fine trick indeed, when he paid attention to my every little move.
I went to the foyer and waited for an opportunity to present itself.
A short time later, when he returned lugging a crate, I made my move. I pushed away from the wall, threw a guilty look over my shoulder, then hurried down the east corridor and out of sight.
"Dash it all." His voice echoed down the hall where I waited. "I forgot the display board upstairs," he told Stilton. "I'll be right back."
But of course, he didn't go upstairs at all—he began following me. I turned and continued down the hallway, then made a wide sweep through Receiving and came up the west hallway, effectively circling back so I could reach the foyer before he caught up to me.
As I sailed into the foyer, Stilton jerked in surprise, dropping the shabti he was holding and causing all the others to tumble over again.
"Sorry about that," I murmured as I headed for the crate of scarabs.