Indiana Jones and the Secretof the Sphinx (11 page)

The clerk pulled an old register from beneath the counter and began to turn the pages.

"Yes, here it is," he said and turned the register around so that Faye could read the entry. "February 14, 1930. Valentine's Day. Staying in one of the same rooms you are."

Faye ran her finger over the signature.

"Which room?" she asked.

"Yours," the clerk said. "Two-oh-seven. Are you related to him?"

"I'm his wife," she said, choking back a tear. "This is his daughter."

"Who's that?" the clerk asked about Indy.

"A friend," Faye said. "Helping us look. My husband's disappeared."

"Why do you remember Kaspar?" Indy asked. "You must get several hundred guests each year."

"Well, we don't get too many that are magicians," the clerk said. "He would give little performances out here in the lobby area in the evenings, and talk to folks about magic and such. An awfully friendly fellow. He stayed here about a week."

"Do you recall anything else?" Faye asked.

"He asked me if I had ever heard of a bloke named Jadoo," he said. "Sure, I says, everyone has heard of the old Jadoo, the most famous magician in India. He asked if I could help him find an address on Bengali. It's at the edge of one of the
bustees,
and hard to find if you don't know what you're looking for."

"Do you have a pencil and a scrap of paper?" Faye asked.

"Certainly."

"Would you mind telling us how to get there?"

"Not at all," the clerk said. He wrote the directions down, then said, "That's an area you don't want to be caught in after dark. I'd wait until morning."

"We can't go now?" Mystery asked.

"He's right," Indy said. "Let's wait until morning."

"Mother," Mystery said. "This is the first good clue we've had."

"We've waited four years," Faye said. "Another night isn't going to make any difference. Besides, I'm tired and hungry, and we can't pay a visit on a fellow magician looking like shipwreck victims—which, of course, we are."

They found the shop on a narrow side street. They had passed it twice before Mystery noticed the small numbers on a faded red door that read
707.
The door opened on a flight of worn stairs that led to another, more substantial door on the third floor. This door, made of oak, had a carefully polished brass nameplate attached—
Jadoo: World Famed Magician. By Appointment Only.

"How do you make an appointment?" Mystery wondered.

"Let's find out," Indy said as he rapped sharply on the door with his knuckles.

After a few moments a flap opened in the middle of the door. A pair of bloodshot eyes peered out.

"We're here to see Jadoo," Indy said. "I'm Indiana Jones, and these are—"

"So sorry," the squeaky colonial British voice that went with the bloodshot eyes said. "By appointment only."

The flap slammed shut.

Indy knocked again, this time a little harder.

The flap opened.

"You don't understand," Indy said with forced civility. "We need to see Jadoo the Magician on a matter of some importance. We don't have time to make an appointment."

"Appointment only," the voice snapped.

The flap closed again.

Indy rubbed his jaw, regarded the closed door, then pounded on it with the edge of his fist.

The flap did not open.

He pounded again, this time hard enough to bring plaster down from the aging ceiling.

"Stop," Faye said.

"I thought you wanted to see this joker," Indy said.

"I do," she said, "but not by tearing his building down."

"Be my guest," Indy said.

"Excuse me," Faye said and knocked lightly on the flap. "We're terribly sorry for the inconvenience, and I understand that all visitors should have an appointment. But if you would be so kind as to tell Jadoo that the Maskelynes are here to—"

The flap snapped open.

"What name did you say?"

"The Maskelynes," Faye repeated. "I am Faye Maskelyne, the wife of the great magician Kaspar Maskelyne, and this is our daughter, Mystery."

"Hello," Mystery said.

The flap snapped shut, and then there were the rattle of chains and the clicks of turning locks. The door opened, and a thin Indian man in a white jacket urged them in with a wave of his hand.

"I am the master's servant," the man said. "Call me Pasha."

"Thank you," Faye said.

They found themselves in an extravagantly appointed entrance room full of memorabilia of several decades of magic. The shelves were filled with books on magic in several languages and brimmed with props and other devices. The servant closed and locked the door behind them once they were in.

"I am sorry," he said, "but the master is out at the moment. He will be back very soon, however, and I am certain that he would like to see you. Do you care to wait?"

"We will wait," Faye said.

"Very well," Pasha said. "May I get you some refreshments? Tea, perhaps?"

"That would be nice," Faye said.

"Very well," Pasha said, putting his hands together and giving a little bow. Then he backed out of the room.

"This place is like a museum," Mystery said as she examined the dusty contents of the shelves. "I can see why Father would have been drawn to this place."

"Yes," Faye said.

"Look at this," Mystery said as she picked up a drinking goblet that had been made from a human skull mounted on a silver base. The skull was upside down and had been cut in two about the line of the upper jaw, so that the open cranium formed the cup of the goblet. The eye sockets and the nasal cavities were filled with hammered gold. The skull had been bleached and polished to an ivorylike degree of brightness, although the teeth were somewhat yellow. One of the molars was capped with gold.

"Is it real?" she asked.

Indy took it. The inside of the cranium was etched with the rivulets for blood vessels that, in life, had helped supply blood to the brain.

"I'm afraid so," Indy said.

"Yuck," Mystery said. She made a face and wiped the palms of her hands on her jeans. "Who could be so twisted as to want to drink from a human skull?"

"It is used for ritual magic," Indy said. "Common among primitive peoples all over the world. The idea is that if you make your rival's head into a cup, then each time you drink from it you are symbolically ingesting his power. Surely it's just a piece of the collection."

Faye took the goblet from Indy.

"Among some tribes, it is a symbol of respect, even veneration," she said. "The greater your enemy, the greater therefore you must be."

"How barbaric," Mystery said.

"Hmm," Faye said. "It's not dusty like the other items."

"You can't be suggesting...," Indy said.

Faye wiped the interior of the cranium with her middle finger, then tasted it.

"Wine," she said. "White. Not too old, I'd say."

"Terrific," Indy said.

Faye placed the goblet back on the shelf.

"Let's hope," she said, "that the owner of this skull was already dead before Jadoo fancied his head as a drinking cup."

"I wonder if
he
had an appointment," Indy said.

"We'll ask," Faye said.

Pasha returned with a tray. He poured strong British tea from a silver kettle into three cups. Faye took the steaming cup that was offered, but Indy declined.

"Me neither," said Mystery.

"Oh?" Pasha asked. "Could I get the young lady some milk, and the gentleman some wine, perhaps?"

Mystery shook her head.

"No thanks," Indy said with a smile. "I'm not thirsty."

"As you wish," Pasha said. "I expect the master back shortly. In the meantime, is there anything else that I could get for your comfort?"

"Actually, there is," Indy said. "We're expecting a wire from the States this afternoon. Could you telephone the Western Union office and ask them to deliver it here?"

"We have no telephone," Pasha said. "But I will send a messenger to the telegraph office. In whose name will this message be directed?"

"Mine," Indy said.

"Very well, Dr. Jones."

Indy searched Pasha's eyes, but he did not flinch.

"You must have a phenomenal memory," Indy said.

"Beg your pardon, sir?"

"I don't remember telling you that I was a professor."

"We do receive newswire reports, even in Calcutta," Pasha said. "It would be a very uninformed citizen of the empire who did not know the name of the famous archaeologist."

Pasha backed out of the room.

"You don't trust him," Faye said.

"There's not many people I
do
trust," Indy said. Then, when he felt Mystery's eyes on the back of his neck he added: "Present company excepted."

There was the sound of a closing door somewhere nearby, and hushed voices followed by approaching footsteps. A tall, white-haired man wearing a black turban and jacket entered the room.

His skin was the color of walnut, but his eyes were a piercing blue.

"Guests," he said. "Forgive me for making you wait. Had I known you were here, I would have hurried. Please, come into my inner office."

"Thank you," Faye said.

They followed him into a dark, well-carpeted room where a ceiling fan turned slowly. The magician sat in a richly upholstered chair and withdrew a cigar from a wooden box on a side table, then offered the box to Indy.

"No thanks," Indy said. "I don't smoke."

"I do," Faye said.

"As you wish," Jadoo said and allowed her to select a cigar.

Jadoo lit his cigar with a wooden match, then passed the matches to Faye. She bit off one end of the cigar, then sucked flame into the other end of it.

"I didn't know you smoked, Mother."

"I've had to give it up," Faye said as the smoke serpentined around her head, drawn upward by the ceiling fan. "It's difficult to get American cigarettes, and the local stuff they smoke stinks too much. My, this is strong."

Jadoo smiled.

"Dr. Jones, I know you by reputation. And madam, Pasha tells me that you are the wife of my peer, Kaspar Maskelyne. How may I help you?"

"It is because of my husband that we are here," Faye said. "We've been told that he may have visited you before his disappearance, some four years ago."

Jadoo puffed on his cigar.

"Yes," he said. "Of course I remember him. He spent the day with me, in 1930, I believe. He has disappeared? I am sorry to hear that."

"We were hoping," Indy said, "that you could share with us the substance of your conversation with him, to better inform our search."

"Ah, it was so long ago," Jadoo said. "And, I am sorry to admit, my memory is not what it once was. What strikes me most about the conversation now is how pleasant it was. We discussed the history of magic, of course, and he took notes for a book he said he was writing."

"A book?" Faye asked. "He never told me about a book."

"Now, let me think," Jadoo said and closed his eyes. "It does seem to me that a book was involved in the discussion. We talked of so many things."

"Kaspar was not the type to attempt a book," Faye said. "He was more the adventurer than the scholar. In fact, I only received three letters from him before his disappearance, and those were maddeningly brief. I have wished many times that he had been more inclined to document his activities, because it would have made the search for him that much easier."

"Now I remember," Jadoo said. "He was not writing a book about ancient magic, but looking for one. I was not familiar with it, because it seemed to deal more with religion than magic."

"Did you have any advice for him?" Indy asked.

"Yes. He asked me about ancient Hindu texts, and I was able to tell him something about Sanskrit. We also talked of the nearly universal belief among the world's religions of a book or tablet which contains the histories of every person who will ever live."

"The Omega Book," Faye said.

"That is what some cultures call it," Jadoo said. "The ancient Egyptians, for example, believed that in the city of Heliopolis, near Cairo, there was a great sacred pillar named Annu that stood before civilization existed, and contained secret knowledge on 36,535 scrolls hidden inside. The knowledge could only be revealed to the worthy, and for the benefit of the world."

Indy laughed. "That's a metaphor," he said. "The 36,535 scrolls represent the 365 days of the year, plus a fraction of the day, and there are some interpretations that the knowledge is not contained within the pillar, but in the sky—in other words, the stars."

"As above, so below," Jadoo said, quoting a common occult saying. "Plato supposedly visited the temple of Neith, where there were secret halls containing historical records which had been kept for more than nine thousand years. The historian Manetho, who provided the chronology of pharaohs and dynasties that is still used today, is said to have extracted his history from certain pillars which he discovered in underground places, upon which Hermes had inscribed the sacred letters."

"I've heard the myths," Indy said. "Including that of Edgar Cayce, the so-called sleeping prophet, who predicted that a 'Hall of Records' that contains the history of a lost civilization would be discovered beneath the paws of the Sphinx."

"Of course," Jadoo said. "We also talked of some of the great archaeological finds, and how many of them seemed more to do with magic than science. It is amazing, isn't it, how many discoveries involve three persons—a rogue archaeologist, his sponsor, and a teenaged daughter of one of the principals?"

"The Tomb of Tutankhamen," Indy said, "or the Crystal Skull of Lubantuun."

"Precisely," Jadoo said. "Surely there is some mysterious power at work there that science can never fully comprehend. After all, luck plays such a tremendous part in the act of digging in the earth, does it not?"

"In your conversation with Kaspar about this ancient book," Indy asked, "was there mention of using anything other than luck to find it?"

"Yes," Jadoo said. "The Staff of Aaron."

"Why did Kaspar believe the Staff would help him find these records?" Indy asked. "We're dealing with unrelated theologies."