III
t nine o'clock the next morning Simpkins presented himself at the Society's office, and a few minutes later he found himself in the fascinating presence of Mrs. Athelstone. He soon grasped the details of his simple duties, and then, like a lean, awkward mastiff, padded along at her heels while she moved about the hall and pointed out the things which would be under his care.
"If I were equal to it, I should look after these myself," she explained. "Careless hands would soon ruin this case." And she touched the gilt mummy beside her writing-table affectionately. "She was a queen, Nefruari, daughter of the King of Ethiopia. They called her 'the good and glorious woman.'"
"And this—this black boy?" questioned Simpkins respectfully. "Looks as if he might have lived during the eighteenth dynasty." He had not been poring over volumes on Ancient Egypt for two nights without knowing a thing or two about black mummies.
"Quite right, Simpkins," Mrs. Athelstone replied, evidently pleased by his interest and knowledge. "He was Amosis, a king of the eighteenth dynasty, and Nefruari's husband. A big, powerful man!"
"What a bully cigarette brand he'd make!" thought Simpkins, and aloud he added:
"They must have been a fine-looking pair."
"Indeed, yes," was the earnest answer, and so they moved about the hall, she explaining, he listening and questioning, until at last they stood before the black altar in the west and the veil of velvet. Simpkins saw that there was an inscription carved in the basalt, and, drawing nearer, slowly spelled out:
| TIBI | |
| VNA | QVE |
| ES | OMNIA |
| DEA | ISIS |
"And what's behind the curtain?" he began, turning toward Mrs. Athelstone.
"The truth, of course. But remember," and her tone was half serious, "none but an adept may look behind the veil and live."
"The truth is my long suit," returned Simpkins mendaciously. "So I'll take a chance." As he spoke, the heavy velvet fell aside and disclosed a statue of a woman carved in black marble. It stood on a pedestal of bronze, overlaid with silver, and above and behind were hangings of blue-gray silk. A brilliant ray of light beat down on it. Glancing up, Simpkins saw that it shone from a crescent moon in the arched ceiling above the altar. Then his eyes came back to the statue. There was something so lifelike in the pose of the figure, something so winning in the smile of the face, something so alluring in the outstretched arms, that he involuntarily stepped nearer.
"And now that you've seen Isis, what do you think of her?" asked Mrs. Athelstone, breaking the momentary silence.
"She's the real thing—the naked truth, sure enough," returned Simpkins with a grin.
"It is a wonderful statue!" was the literal answer. "There's no other like it in the world. Doctor Athelstone found it near Thebes, and took a good deal of pride in arranging this shrine. The device is clever; the parting of the veil you see, makes the light shine down on the statue, and it dies out when I close it—so"; and, as she pulled a cord, the veil fell before the statue and the light melted away.
"'She's the Real Thing.'"
"Aren't you initiating the neophyte rather early?" a man's voice asked at Simpkins' elbow, and, as he turned to see who it was, Mrs. Athelstone explained: "This is our new clerk, Mr. Simpkins; Doctor Brander is our treasurer, and our acting president while my husband's away. He left a few days ago for a little rest." And Mrs. Athelstone turned back to her desk.
Simpkins instantly decided to dislike the young clergyman beside him. He was tall and athletic-looking, but with a slight stoop, that impressed the reporter as a physical assumption of humility which the handsome face, with its faintly sneering lines and bold eyes, contradicted. But he acknowledged Brander's offhand "How d'ye do?" in a properly deferential manner, and listened respectfully to a few careless sentences of instructions.
For the rest of the morning, Simpkins mechanically addressed circulars appealing for funds to carry on the good work of the Society, while his mind was busy trying to formulate a plan by which he could get Mrs. Athelstone to tell what she knew about the whereabouts of Madame Blavatsky's soul. He felt, with the accurate instinct of one used to classing the frailties of flesh and blood according to their worth in columns, that those devices which had so often led women to confide to him the details of the particular sensation that he was working up would avail him nothing here. "You simply haven't got her Bertillon measurements, Simp.," he was forced to admit, after an hour of fruitless thinking. "You'll have to trust in your rabbit's foot."
But if Mrs. Athelstone was a new species to him, the office boy was not. He knew that youth down to the last button on his jacket. He knew, too, that an office boy often whiles away the monotonous hours by piecing together the president's secrets from the scraps in his waste-basket. So at the noon hour he slipped out after Buttons, caught him as he was disappearing up a near-by alley in a cloud of cigarette smoke, like the disreputable little devil that he was, and succeeded in establishing friendly and even familiar relations with him.
It was not, however, until late in the afternoon, when he was called into the ante-chamber to discover the business of a caller, that he improved the opportunity to ask the youth some leading questions.
"Suppose you open up mornings?" he began carelessly.
"Naw; Mrs. A. does. She bunks here."
"How?"
"In a bed. She's got rooms in de buildin'. That door by Booker T. leads to 'em."
"Booker T.? Oh, sure! The brunette statue. And that other door—the one to the left. Where does that go?"
"Into Brander's storeroom. He sells mummies on de side."
"Does, eh? Curious business!" commented Simpkins. "Seems to rub it into you pretty hard. And stuck on himself! Don't seem able to spit without ringing his bell for some one to see him do it. Guess you'd have to have four legs to satisfy him, all right."
"Say, dat duck ain't on de level," the grievance for which Simpkins had been probing coming to the surface.
"Holds out on what he collects? Steals?"
"Sure t'ing—de loidies," and the boy lowered his voice; "he's dead stuck on Mrs. A."
"Oh! nonsense," commented Simpkins, an invitation to continue in his voice. "She's a married woman."
"Never min', I'm tellin' youse; an dat's just where de stink comes in. Ain't I seen 'im wid my own eyes a-makin' goo-goos at 'er. An' wasn't there rough house for fair goin' on in dere last mont', just before de Doc. made his get-away? He tumbled to somethin', all right, all right, or why don't he write her? Say, I don't expect him back in no hurry. He's hived up in South Dakote right now, an' she's in trainin' for alimony, or my name's Dennis Don'tknow."
"Does look sort of funny," Simpkins replied, sympathetic, but not too interested. "When was it Doc. left? Last week?"
"Last week, not; more'n a mont' ago, an' he ain't peeped since, for I've skinned every mail dat's come in, an' not a picture-postal, see?"
"That isn't very affectionate of Doc., but I wouldn't mention it to any one else; it might get you into trouble," was Simpkins' comment. "You better—Holy, jumping Pharaoh! what a husky pussy!" As he spoke a big black cat, with blinking, tawny eyes, sprang from the floor and curled itself up on the youth's desk. "Where'd that——"
A snarl interrupted the question; for the temptation to pull the cat's tail had proved too strong for the boy. Bowed over his desk in a fit of laughter at the result, he did not see the door behind him open, but Simpkins did. And he saw Mrs. Athelstone, her eyes blazing, spring into the room, seize the youth by the collar and shake him roughly.
"You nasty little brute!" she cried. "How dared you do that to a——" And then catching sight of Simpkins, she dropped the frightened boy back into his chair.
"I can't stand cruelty to animals," she explained, panting a little from her effort. "If anything of this sort happens again, I'll discharge you on the spot," she added to the boy.
"Shame!" Simpkins echoed warmly. "Didn't know what was up or I'd have stopped him."
"I'm sure of it," she answered graciously, and, stooping, she picked up the now purring cat and left the room.
Simpkins followed her back to his desk and went on with his addressing, but he had something worth thinking about now. Not for nothing had he been educated in that newspaper school which puts two and two together and makes six. And by the time he was through work for the day and back in his room at the hotel, he had his result. He embodied it in this letter to Naylor:
Dear Mr. Naylor:
I am in the employ of Mrs. Athelstone. How I managed it is a yarn that will keep till I get back. [He meant until he could invent the story which would reflect the most credit on his ingenuity, for though he knew that the whole thing had been a piece of luck he had no intention of cheapening himself with Naylor by owning as much.] I had intended to return to Boston to-night, but I'm on the track of real news, a lovely stink, something much bigger than the Sunday story. There's a sporting parson, quite a swell, in the office here who's gone on Mrs. A., and I'm inclined to hope she is on him. Anyway, the Doc. left in a hurry after some sort of a row over a month ago, and hasn't written a line to his wife since. She's as cool as a cucumber about it and handed me a hot one right off the bat about poor old Doc.'s having gone away for a rest a few days ago. I've drawn cards and am going to sit in the game, unless you wire me to come home, for I smell a large, fat, front-page exclusive, which will jar the sensitive slats of some of our first families both here and in dear old London.
Yours, Simpkins.
He hesitated a few minutes before he mailed the letter. He really did not want to do anything to involve her in a scandal, but, after all, it was simply anticipating the inevitable, and—he pulled himself up short and put the letter in the box. He could not afford any mawkish sentiment in this.
