He looked me straight in the eye. "He's very lucky to have such a clever, brave daughter."
My chest felt full, as if my heart were too big to fit inside me any longer. "Thank you, sir."
"I won't keep you too long—we just have a couple of loose ends to tie up."
"Did you catch them? Sopcoate and the others?"
"No, I'm afraid they had too great a head start. We got the four that you and Will disabled. How'd you manage to give Bollingsworth such a nasty curse?"
I explained about the mut I'd trapped in the rope.
"Ah. Quick thinking, that. Once the curse has been removed, Bollingsworth will be imprisoned in a high-security facility along with Jacques LeBlanc, Franz Stankovich, and Yuri Popov."
I wrinkled my nose. "But sir, I thought the French and Russians were our allies?"
"And so they are. You have to remember that these men don't represent their governments any more than Nigel Bollingsworth represents ours."
I brightened. "Then that should help to take some of the pressure from the Germans, won't it?"
"Some, yes. But members of government often see only what they want to see."
"It's quite disappointing, you know. I was so hoping we'd get them this time."
"You and me both. But we'll have to settle for having thrown a wrench in their works once again." He was silent for a moment. "That was a close call." He shook his head. "A poisonous fog that can kill? We'd always thought the Fog of War to be metaphorical."
"I would have made the same assumption, sir."
"It's a perfect weapon, really. Quite hard to defend against. We'll have to hope it remains firmly in the past."
I put my hands on my hips. "Speaking of the past, sir, why didn't you tell me Fagenbush was working for you? Wouldn't that have been much simpler than letting me go on suspecting him?"
Wigmere shook his head. "We never identify our agents to outsiders, Theo. That's standard policy."
"But I'm practically working for you!"
He smiled. "True enough. But you've now had occasion to run into each other on assignment, so all is made clear. And speaking of assignment, is the staff secure?"
"Yes. Am I to keep it or should I give it to you now?"
"We've decided it would be safest for all concerned if the Orb of Ra and the staff itself were separated. That way no one will be able to access all that power."
"That sounds like an excellent idea."
"At some point, we would like to return one of the components to Egyptian soil. I'd feel safer with a continent or two between them, myself. But for now, we'll settle for separating them. We'll take one piece and hide it, then you take the second piece and hide it, and we'll not reveal the hiding places to each other. That way, no single living person will know how to find the two pieces."
"Very well, sir. Which piece would you like?"
"Whichever piece you don't. It makes no difference to me."
I left the room and returned to the catacombs, where I approached the jackal cautiously. He'd been friendly enough when we had both had the same goal of retrieving the staff from Chaos, but I wasn't certain how he'd feel about the idea of separating the orb and staff. When he made no move for my outstretched arm, I snatched the staff and stepped back out of his reach. "Thank you again for all your help," I said. "We're just going to take this for safekeeping now."
I tugged the orb from the jaws on the head of the staff, then looked around the catacombs for a good hiding place. My eyes landed on the jackal's shrine. Really, I might as well continue to use him as a guardian. I opened one of the doors on the side of the shrine and carefully placed the orb inside, then closed the door.
Wigmere was waiting for me at the top of the stairs. I handed him the staff.
He carefully examined it, taking in the crooked jointed sections and the jackal head. "So this is what caused all that trouble?" He grasped the top section and straightened it.
"How do you think something this powerful ended up here, of all places?"
"Ah. We found an answer to that. Remember how I told you about the small, dedicated group who had vowed to protect the pharaohs and their treasures until the end of time? How they managed to smuggle a cache of Egyptian treasures out of the Alexandrian library before it burned?"
I nodded, my heart beating faster as I saw where he was going with this.
"If you follow that trail, something went awry and the group lost possession of the treasures. Their worst fears were confirmed when rumors of the artifacts circulated among the French in Egypt during Napoleon's occupation. Napoleon was said to have had all his agents searching for these artifacts of power in order to help him with his wars.
"But in a very tricky bit of patriotism, Reginald Mayhew, a British explorer masquerading as a Frenchman, got a hold of the artifacts and sent them to England. Only, the man was killed under mysterious circumstances before he could return to his native shore, and his crates lingered unclaimed in warehouses by the docks until the whole lot of them was auctioned off. The crates were purchased by one Augustus Munk, the original owner and founder of the Museum of Legends and Antiquities, who apparently didn't recognize their value or their power."
A forceful knock resounded through the building. A moment later, Will poked his head around the corner and made a face. "It's that gran of yours."
"Oh, dear," I said, turning to Wigmere. "What should I tell her about Admiral Sopcoate?"
"I talked briefly with Captain Bacon and the prime minister before I came here. It would be too disastrous for the country's morale to know the truth—that one of our highest-placed officials has betrayed us."
"But why? Why do you think he betrayed his country?"
Wigmere's eyes were heavy with sorrow. "Why does any man turn bad? Greed, sorrow, bitterness. A combination of all three? We will likely never know. However, the official story is that a secret unidentified group of rebels managed to trick Admiral Sopcoate into taking them aboard the Dreadnought, where he quickly realized his mistake and tried to overpower them. In the struggle, they took flight from the ship to a boat they had waiting. He followed and is presumed dead or missing.
"That story isn't going out to the general public. Only to those who need to know. I trust you to use your best judgment." He'd straightened the staff out by now and, tucking his cane under his left arm, placed the end of the staff on the ground. "I think that should work nicely." He looked back at me, his face solemn again. "I only wish I could sort out what to do with you as easily. It is unacceptable to have you in so much danger, yet for some reason, you seem to find yourself in the thick of things." He sighed. "Well, with Chaos scattered to the four winds, things should calm down now."
Grandmother knocked again.
"I'd best let you go." Wigmere handed Will his cane, then motioned for him to lead. As Will darted back down the corridor, Wigmere followed at a more sedate pace, leaning heavily on the staff.
I headed for the front door. Hopefully Chaos really had been dealt a debilitating blow this time. One could always hope—
"Stilton! What are you doing here in the corner?"
"Hello, Miss Theo." His gaze slid from my face to where Wigmere had just disappeared down the hallway, then back again. "I wanted to make sure you were all right. Trouble does seem to follow you about."
What rot! He'd been eavesdropping. How much had he heard? "Yes, well, you can see that I'm fine. And thank you so much for fetching Inspector Turnbull! He came at just the right moment. But I must run. My grandmother's here."
"So I heard."
"Well, thank you again. You were a lovely help. And thank the other scorpions for me, would you?"
As I continued on my way, I couldn't help but think of Aloysius Trawley and wonder what the Arcane Order of the Black Sun would do when they learned I no longer had the power to raise the dead.