Chapter Eleven

“Belle!” Professor Pepper was overjoyed to be reunited with his daughter. “And so you are not dead?” It was as though he doubted the evidence of his own eyes. He hugged Miss Pepper and, reluctant to let her go, held her at arm’s length and gazed at her until tears clouded his vision.

“Hello, Dad,” said Miss Pepper.

The old man wiped his eyes. He had a pleasant countenance, reddened by the outdoor portion of his profession. His hair was sandy in places, although tufts of white sprang from his temples. He turned his attention from his long-lost offspring to me and blinked. His expression changed and he extended a hand, which I took and shook.

“So that’s the size of it, eh?” he laughed and I wondered what he meant. “This is why you’ve kept your head down, my girl. You eloped! You ran off and got yourself married to this - this butler?”

I bristled. Miss Pepper laughed like a creaking gate.

She made the introductions and brought her father up-to-date with our exploits.

“I never liked that man Trask,” said the professor.

“Trask?” I gaped. I had heard the name before. “Do you mean, the curator of the Johnsonian? That Trask?”

“Yes; that Trask,” said Miss Pepper. “It was he who funded my research.”

My mouth worked like a fish attempting speech. Had I missed something? What about the man in the field, the one who took pot-shots at us and both poisoned and kidnapped my Cuthbert?

Miss Pepper laughed. “Yes, that was Trask, cunningly disguised. At the museum the other night, he may have come across as a respectable academic - somewhat boring, in fact - but he is a seriously dangerous man. Evil to the core.”

My head was reeling. “So, where is Cuthbert now? Where has he taken him?”

Miss Pepper addressed her father. “He’s worried about his valet. They’re very close.”

“Oh...” said Professor Pepper and I did not care for his tone. He redeemed himself to some extent by offering tea.

When it was brewed, we sat on overstuffed armchairs in his office, a room crammed with books and maps and charts and bits of skeleton.

“I’d bet you a dime to a dollar, Trask will be returning to Mexico pretty damn quick,” said the professor. “There’s a time, you see, a limited time span in which certain rituals may be conducted. The alignment of the planets, the stars, you know. The ancients knew all about them. The Aztecs were no different.”

“Rituals?” said Miss Pepper. “What’s he up to?”

The professor sat back in his chair, settling in to tell us a tale. “My guess would be the ritual of resurrection. Trask is maniac enough to attempt it.”

“Resurrection?” said Miss Pepper. “Whose?”

“My dear,” Professor Pepper smiled indulgently at his daughter. “Why, the god Xolotl himself!”

Outside, as if on cue, a bolt of lightning slashed through the sky. I jumped. The Peppers laughed.

“The bringer of lightning!” said Professor Pepper. “Perhaps we should not mention his name.”

“Oh, stuff and rot!” I scoffed. “I’m sure it’s all very fascinating, historically and anthropologically speaking, but don’t expect me to buy into any mumbo-jumbo, thank you very much.”

The Peppers exchanged amused glances. I sipped my tea. It was revolting. Oh, to be in England!

“But without the mummy - how can he perform the ritual?”

Miss Pepper’s question added to my confusion. Her father explained, in a rather patronising tone, that mummified remains, moistened by the blood of innocents, was to be imbibed during the ceremony. The god would then take possession of the leader, thereby returning to Earth in human form, and endowing the host with unimaginable power.

“Trask wants to take over the world!” I was shocked to realise.

“I may have mentioned he is a maniac,” said Professor Pepper.

“And where does Cuthbert enter into this? He’s not what you might call an innocent, not by a long stretch.”

“Trask requires minions to carry out his bidding. He recruits young men, strapping young men with no particular attachments to the world, and, using some kind of toxin he discovered in South America, he enslaves them to his will. They become mindless automatons. That way, Trask is assured of their loyalty. They will not go running to the authorities to expose his nefarious doings.”

I still didn’t see what this had to do with Cuthbert. He had, I can aver, a very particular attachment.

“Cuthbert’s bait,” said Miss Pepper. “Trask wants the mummy and he wants us to bring it to him.”

“Well, it seems straightforward enough,” I stood, putting my cup and saucer on a pile of newspapers. “The hocus pocus won’t work. We give him the mummy and I get my valet back.”

“I’m afraid I can’t allow that to happen,” Professor Pepper pulled a pistol on us. “The body of the king is to stay with me.”

Miss Pepper and I raised our hands aloft.

“Dad! What are you saying? You have the remains of King Xolotl?”

“Damn!” Professor Pepper looked displeased with himself. “I have said too much. Yes, I have the damned remains. Don’t you see? That mummy will make my name. If I may be permitted to study it properly. Don’t you understand?”

I saw then where Miss Pepper got her thirst for fame and notoriety. Was the whole Pepper family driven to it? And if so, why didn’t they take the easy route and merely write a bestselling novel?

Professor Pepper explained how he had snuck into the Johnsonian and pilfered the body, replacing the mummy with a young man - one of Trask’s brainwashed henchmen. He had not thought the boy would suffocate in the sarcophagus and he regretted Bobby’s passing most deeply, although, in his opinion, there was nothing of Bobby left as soon as Trask had enslaved him.

Which did not bode well for Cuthbert!

I saw what I must do. I had to get that mummy and deliver it unto evil. Let Trask play his silly games as long as he restored Cuthbert to me. In the field, Trask had mentioned an antidote; I had to hope such a thing existed.

“Sir,” I lowered my arms very slowly, “You shall have no argument from me. Perhaps, with my connections in publishing, I shall be able to open a few strings for you, pull a few doors, that sort of thing. What do you say?”

Professor Pepper considered this. He put his pistol away. His daughter expressed the relief we were all feeling.

“I am sorry,” the professor took my hands in his. “This is not quite the impression I would have liked to make. Yes, yes; we must talk of my book. Why, I shall write more than one!”

“We shall make a great team,” I announced. “With your archaeological expertise and my literary skills.”

Miss Pepper stifled a laugh. Everyone’s a critic.

“We shall see,” said the professor. “Perhaps you’ll get a mention in the acknowledgments, eh?”

He laughed. He clapped me on the arm. He saw in me an ally, a helping hand on his road to renown. I continued in flattering vein for some length of time until I judged the moment had come to pose the question.

“Why, of course you may!” our host beamed. “Of course you may see the mummy.”

Miss Pepper and I exchanged the briefest of glances. I knew then that I could count on her to be in cahoots with me against her own father. It seemed her own lust for fame eclipsed any familial affection or duty by which she may have been constrained.

We followed him from the office and through a classroom, descending a flight of stairs to a basement in which more books and papers were stored, along with boxes, chests and cabinets containing fragments of stone and pottery, scrolls of parchment and vellum, and bulbous-headed creatures pickled in glass jars.

“Here,” he said, indicating an unprepossessing trunk in front of the buckling shelves of an overladen bookcase. “Here are the mortal remains of the Aztec king Xolotl.”

“Coo,” I said. “Truly?”

“Sure as I’m standing here,” said the professor proudly. “Nobody would think of looking for him in here.”

“Quite right,” I said. “You are as cunning as a fox with a law degree.”

His chest swelled to hear it.

And that was when Miss Pepper fired the pistol. She must have swiped it from his desk when we left the office. Her father jumped back, into the bookcase. The shelves collapsed spilling their load on the archaeologist. A jar, imprudently stored on the very top, fell on his head, braining him into unconsciousness. Books and papers continued to rain upon him. Before long he was altogether buried in his work.

“Come on,” urged Miss Pepper. I was already heading for the stairs. “The trunk, you idiot!” she reminded me. I came back. Together we carried the remains of the much-missed Aztec ruler up and out and away.

Not half an hour had passed and we were back at the railway station, booking tickets for a journey that would take us south and west.

To Mexico!