The Case That Time Forgot (12 page)

Xander saw understanding flash across Xena's face as she straightened. She nodded slightly.

“Enough,” the man said. “Can you walk?”

“I think so,” Xander said.

“All right, then.” He sounded disgusted. “Down we go. All of us. I'll have to come back another day.”

Xena bent to tie her shoelace. “Be right with you,” she called as Mr. Grayson herded the three boys, Xander limping dramatically, in front of him.

As soon as they rounded the bend, she leaped for the wall. She knew she had only a few seconds, but luckily the pitted and scarred stone gave her plenty of finger- and toeholds. In a flash, she was running her hand along the line indicated by the arrow.

Nothing.

She shifted her weight a little farther and reached out even more.

“What's keeping you?” came from below.

“Knot in my shoelace!” she called. “Got it now! I'm coming!” And at that moment, her fingertips reached into a rough hole.

Heavy footsteps were approaching from below. Mr. Grayson must be coming back. She dug her fingers furiously into the hole, and the tip of one finger touched it.

It was a thin piece of something. It felt hard and cold, like metal.

X
ena had barely grabbed the object and dropped back down when Mr. Grayson's head poked around the corner of the winding staircase. “What's taking you so long?” He sounded furious. Poor guy; it had been hard for him to climb the stairs and now it was all wasted. Xena promised herself that once they found the amulet, they would explain and try to find some way to make it up to him.

“Sorry.” She squeezed past him and hurried down the stairs. She didn't want to leave Xander with Shane, even if Jake was there too. Mr. Grayson's footsteps grew fainter behind her as he made his careful way down.

Outside, Xena spotted her brother hanging out near a group of people who were pointing up at the tower and consulting a guidebook. Good—he'd had the sense to stick close to adults. Shane wouldn't dare do anything in front of them.

Shane, his hands on his hips, was scowling at Xander, while Jake stood a little apart looking uncomfortable. Xena ran up to them and stood next to her brother.

“So what was
that
all about?” Shane's voice was a snarl, and Xena flinched.

“You know what it was about,” Xander shot back. “You've been following us and making prank calls to our house. And what about that scorpion?”

“That—” Shane shook his head. “You're daft,” he said coldly.

“Oh, come off it,” Xena said. “We know it was you.”

“You know what was me?” Shane's voice rose until the tourists, who had moved away, turned and stared.

Jake put his hand on his friend's arm. “Come on,” he said. “Let's go. He's playing some kind of game with us. See you Monday, Xena.” He tried to tug Shane along with him, but Xander stepped forward.

“Oh, yeah?” Xander challenged Shane. “Then how do you explain the tack in your shoe?”

“The tack in my shoe?” Shane looked bewildered. “What are you talking about?”

“Come
on
, Shane.” Jake sounded anxious, and Xena narrowed her eyes and looked at him.

“Go on,” Xander said. “Let me see the sole of your shoe.”

With the air of humoring a crazy kid, Shane held Jake's shoulder for balance and kicked his left foot up.

“Not that one,” Xander said. “The right one.”

Shane heaved an exaggerated sigh, rolled his eyes, and lifted his foot. “See? Nothing.” But Xander darted forward and scraped at the area near the toe with his fingernails. A clod of mud fell off, revealing the bright shine of a tack head.

“All right, so there's a tack in it.” Shane sounded a little abashed to be proven wrong. “I don't know how Jake got it and I don't see—”

“How
Jake
got it?” Xena looked at the other boy in confusion.

“Yes, these are Jake's shoes. He loaned them to me because I forgot to bring my regular shoes to football practice. We went to Jake's house before we came here and he gave me these. He wanted to come look at Big Ben for some reason.” Shane snorted. “Now are you satisfied?”

But Xena and Xander weren't paying him any attention. They were staring at Jake, who had turned red. “It was you?” Xena asked softly.

Jake nodded, not looking at her. He shrugged Shane's hand off his shoulder and stood with his hands dug deep into his pockets, his eyes on the ground. “You might as well go home, Shane,” he said. “I'll see you Monday, okay?”

“But—” Shane began, then he shrugged. “Okay. See you.” He walked away, casting one look back at them.

Xena, Xander, and Jake stood in silence. The tour group had drifted away, leaving them alone. The buzz of traffic and the gurgle of pigeons was all they heard.

Xena couldn't stand it anymore. “Why, Jake? Why did you do those things?”

“It's my mum.” He kicked at a small pebble and then stopped.

“What about her?” Xena asked.

“You remember how I told you she works at the university?” Xena nodded. “Well, she teaches archaeology. They've been trimming the budget at the university, and it looks like she's going to be made redundant.”

“Huh?” Xander was bewildered.

“Laid off,” Xena informed him. “Like fired, only not because of anything that's her fault.”

“Right.” Jake nodded. “She loves her job, and she's been sad ever since she found out. Anyway,
last Friday I forgot my gear in the gym, so I took a shortcut through the janitor's closet. I had just stepped in when I heard that boy—Karim?” Xander nodded. “I heard Karim say something about a missing ancient Egyptian amulet. If my mum found something like that, I'm sure they'd keep her.”

“Is that what you were looking for?” Xander asked cautiously. He didn't know how to bring up the magic. “Just a regular old Egyptian amulet?”

Jake looked as though he might smile if he weren't so miserable. “I don't know what's so regular about an ancient Egyptian amulet. Was there something special about this one?”

“No,” Xena said. “Not that we know of.” It wasn't really a lie; she still didn't know how she felt about the whole time-standing-still business.

“I'm really sorry,” Jake said. “I didn't know that scorpion stings hurt so much until Dr. Holloway made his announcement about it. I thought it would just scare you.”

Xena and Xander knew they should be angry, but Jake looked so miserable that they couldn't.

“How did you find out about The Cat and Crown?” Xena asked.

“I followed you. Your friend, actually. I listened to you talking to the waiter, and the next day I went back and met the old lady. Then today I was following you again. I couldn't get rid of Shane, but he didn't notice you.” He wouldn't, Xander thought. “I heard you mention Big Ben in school, so I figured that was where you were going. And there's something else.” Jake reached into his backpack and pulled out the casebook.

Xander whooped and grabbed it, then clasped it to his chest. “I'll never let it out of my sight again.” He closed his eyes to let the relief sink in. “How did you get into my locker?”

“Shane showed me how one day.” Jake looked, if anything, more ashamed. “We were bored, and he knows how to open any kind of lock.”

Xena and Xander each knew what the other was thinking—as soon as this was over, they were going to investigate the school thefts, even if they had nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes. It probably wouldn't take much to prove that Shane was the culprit.

“I read that note you left in the casebook,” Jake went on, “you know, the one about holding the secret to the sun?” They nodded. “But the
lady in the pub wouldn't let me take the piece of paper with me. I didn't know what to do after that. That's why it was such a piece of luck overhearing you at school talking about Big Ben.”

“You have to tell Dr. Holloway that it was you with the scorpion,” Xena said.

“Oh, I will,” Jake said fervently. “I want to get everything off my chest.”

Xander glanced at his watch. “Xena, it's getting late! Tomorrow is when the fifty years are up. We still have some investigating to do. I'll call Andrew and tell him we're on our way.” He started walking away while punching in a number on his phone.

Xena looked at Jake, who was standing with his hands in his pockets, staring down at the ground. She felt like saying something to him but didn't know what. She finally settled on, “See you Monday,” and he nodded without looking at her. She turned and followed Xander, pulling from her pocket the object she had found in the bell tower. It was dull gray metal, and scratched on it were two rows of hieroglyphs.

She caught up with her brother. “Tell Andrew we're going to need to see Dr. Bowen again, the Egyptologist.” Xander relayed that
information, then folded up his phone. He took a firmer grip of the casebook as they started off in the direction of the SPFD. Xena turned back just before they rounded a corner and saw Jake still standing where they had left him, looking very small against the immense building, and very much alone.

 

“We have the casebook! We got it back!” they shouted as they squirmed through the tiny door into the Society's meeting room. A crowd of people—Aunt Mary, Mr. Brown, and four or five others—stood waiting for them.

“Congratulations!” Mr. Brown beamed at them. “I knew you'd find it!”

“You're lucky you did,” Andrew said, but he looked relieved, and not as grumpy as his words sounded. “Dr. Bowen, the Egyptologist I consulted before about the hieroglyphs, is on her way. Come have some tea while we wait.”

When Dr. Bowen arrived, Xena gasped and nudged Xander.

“What?” he whispered.

“Don't you recognize her?” Xander shook his head. “It's Jake's mother!”

Dr. Bowen bent over the piece of metal that Xena had placed on the table. The Egyptologist
sighed, shook her head, and straightened up. “Whoever wrote this wasn't a scholar, I'm afraid, so it's hard to tell exactly what they intended to say. The top line does look like an attempt to write something in Egyptian, but the second line is nonsense, like the first sample you sent me. It appears that the person who wrote this consulted Sir Alan Gardiner's
Egyptian Grammar
—no, that wasn't published until 1927, and you told me this is earlier than that, correct? Perhaps he had access to—”

“Thank you,” Andrew interrupted. “But we don't really care at the moment which book he used. Can you tell us what it says?”

Dr. Bowen leaned over the piece of metal again. “Well, it's quite rough, and as I said, the grammar is execrable.” Finally she said, “More or less—and mind you, this is just the best I can do and the meaning might be somewhat different, but more or less the significance is, ‘That which you seek is in the hand of the pharaoh.' ”

“ ‘The hand of the pharaoh?'” Xena echoed. “But there aren't pharaohs anymore, and I don't think there were any in Sherlock's time either.”

“I know!” Xander burst out. “A mummy!” But which one? There were hundreds of mummies all over! The British Museum alone had lots of them.

“Which symbols mean that?” Xena asked, and Dr. Bowen moved over to show her the top row of hieroglyphs.

“But what about those other letters?”

“They're not really letters,” Dr. Bowen started to explain. “Egyptian hieroglyphs aren't an alphabet, but a syllabary—”

“But do they
spell
anything?” Xander asked.

“Not a thing.”

“What letters—or syllables or whatever—do they stand for?” Xena asked.

Glancing at the hieroglyphs, Dr. Bowen wrote
K-R-B-R-R-Y-M-S-M.

“The Carberry Museum!” Xena and Xander sang out together.

X
ena glanced at her watch. The museum must be closed by now. “But we can't wait until tomorrow!” She felt close to tears. “It might be too late! We have to get to it now!”

“Too late for what?” Dr. Bowen asked. They launched into an explanation, leaving out the part about Jake's involvement. It was up to him to tell his mother, not them.

“The Thoth Clock!” Dr. Bowen's eyes widened as she reached for her cell phone. “I've heard about that. And there was an amulet hidden in it?” She punched some numbers into her phone. “I don't know about the part about time standing still, but it does sound to me as though there's reason to make some inquiries. Hello, Nigel? Excuse the ring at home, but I have something rather urgent.” She filled him in on the story. “Yes, yes, I know it sounds odd, but I can vouch for the Society. Yes, I see. I'll ask.” She
covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “Just what is it you need to know?”

“Are all the mummies in display cases or are any out in the open?” Xander asked.

“All in cases, with security,” she said after consulting with the person on the other end.

“What about when the water clock was stolen?”

It took longer to get an answer to this one, but Dr. Bowen finally said, “One mummy had been purchased along with the clock and was out in the open.”

“Don't you remember?” Xander asked Xena. “Sherlock said it was—” He broke off. “No, that was Karim! That day in the locker room, he told me that one of the mummies had been moved, like someone was looking for something under it, but nothing was stolen.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“Forgot. It didn't seem important. Anyway—”

Dr. Bowen interrupted. “The mummy's hand appeared damaged at the time but they were afraid of harming it even more, so it was never repaired.” She snapped the phone shut. Xena and Xander stared at her in dismay, and she smiled at their expressions. “No, we're not giving up. We're meeting the curator of
Egyptian antiquities at the Carberry Museum tomorrow.”