CHAPTER VI.
A Message From Pharaoh.
On the morning following her visit to the opera, Betty sat at her desk in the library, with a copy of theLiterary Digest, which had just arrived in the mail spread out before her. The waiting heap of correspondence was forgotten, and she read and reread as if hypnotized the chance advertisement which had caught her eye:
"Wanted:—Translator of Egyptian inscriptions and papyri of later dynastic periods. Scholar conversant with Mallory method preferred. Exceptionally high rates, tripling those ever previously paid in America will be given for accurate authentic work. No immediate time limit. Call office nine, National Egyptological Museum."
A gray haze of exuding frost arose from the bare dun lawns stretching before the window and the cedars drooped their branches as if weary of the long wait for spring, but she was blind to the somber prospect before her. Instead rose gorgeous pictures of the East and her vision was peopled with the glory of long-buried kings.
Her own precarious position, the inexplicable shadow which lay like a pall over the house, even the dead man upon whom she had stumbled on that never-to-be-forgotten night had faded alike from her thoughts, and her eyes glowed with an eagerness almost fanatical.
If only she dared to reply in person to the advertisement! Aside from the emolument, which might prove an asset by no means to be despised in her straitened circumstances, the work would relieve her mind from the terrific strain under which she had placed herself.
Why should she not avail herself of this opportunity to pursue a study which possessed for her an irresistible fascination? In spite of her preoccupation, time hung heavily upon her hands and she had come to dread the many hours during which she was left to her own devices with only the wretched treadmill of her thoughts to bear her company.
It might be that with the successful accomplishment of her strange mission at the opera house she would enter upon a new phase of her present situation, with exciting adventures in store for her, on like mysterious errands, but she looked forward to that contingency with no lightening of her spirit. It would be merely a part of the task which she had assumed, and was constrained to carry through.
But to feel again the rustle of ancient papyrus beneath her fingers; to decipher the messages pictured in quaint hieroglyphs by patient hands long since turned to dust, that the unborn legions of the future might sit at the feet of ageless philosophy; to delve once more into a past which was of a bygone age even when three wise men journeyed out of the East—the desire became an obsession which she tried vainly to exorcise.
She did indeed thrust the idea from her while the letters demanded her attention, but it returned again with unabated force with the first moment of leisure. Why should she not at least investigate the advertisement?
At luncheon, Mrs. Atterbury herself precipitated her decision.
"My dear, I wish you would go to Jennings' Art Shop for me this afternoon and select a Colonial frame for that tall mirror which hangs in my room. They sent me a gilt monstrosity when I ordered by 'phone, and I don't want the bother of going myself. If you walk straight across town until you come to the park, and follow its wall around the southern end to the east side you cannot miss it. The Egyptian Museum is on the opposite corner. By the way, Professor Stolz tells me that you, too, are interested in Egyptology. How did you ever acquire a liking for that sort of thing in the middle west?"
"Through a neighbor, who had made a study of it in Egypt," Betty replied readily enough. "It is really fascinating, like a grown-up picture puzzle. But about the mirror, does the shopman know the size you require?"
With the details of her commission carefully pigeon-holed in her mind, the girl started upon her errand. She walked briskly, for she realized that her time must be accounted for, and she had determined to use a portion of it for her own ends. Reaching the park, she struck boldly through it instead of following the longer way around, and no one who had known its every path could have chosen a more direct course than she, a self-confessed stranger.
The purchase was quickly consummated and she had turned to leave the shop, when a figure barred her way. She glanced up to find herself confronted by a tiny, fairy-like creature wrapped in sables with a great bunch of livid purple orchids at her belt. Her hair shimmered like spun gold beneath the fur toque and her face, innocent of cosmetics, was exquisitely fair.
For an instant the stranger visibly hesitated and then as if resolutely checking her impulse, turned and walked to a distant counter.
Betty, too, halted in uncontrollable surprise, then made her way to the street as if in a daze. She had never, to her knowledge, encountered the other before, yet the stranger's face had blanched at sight of her and in the round, babyish blue eyes which for a fleeting moment had met hers, she read unmistakable repulsion and an underlying desperate fear. For whom had the woman mistaken her? She was veiled, but the birthmark must have been plainly discernible. Could it be that her disfigurement was so great as to cause such repugnance and almost hysterical fear in a chance observer?
The sight of the museum, however, drove all thought of the odd encounter from her mind, and as she ascended the low, broad steps to the revolving entrance door she resolved to accept the proffered opportunity, whatever the result should Mrs. Atterbury discover her dereliction.
The gray-haired attendant directed her to an upper floor where in a broad echoing marble corridor she found a double row of office doors. Number nine was ajar, and when she knocked a pleasant, masculine voice bade her enter.
The office was small, with files and glass cases lining the walls above which hung framed sections of parchment, time-frayed and shrunken. The westering sun shone through the single window full upon the desk, behind which sat a boyish-looking young man, with merry twinkling eyes and more than a suspicion of red in his chestnut hair.
Betty had been prepared to confront a sedate philologist of settled age and perhaps stern demeanor, and she came forward rather shyly.
"I am looking for the person who advertised in the current issue of theLiterary Digestfor an Egyptian translator," she remarked.
The young man rose from the chair, his eyes still fixed on hers, and she observed that they had narrowed swiftly with a keen intensity which lent maturity to his expression.
"Please be seated." His tone was quietly courteous. "I placed the advertisement in the magazine you mention. Do you understand the Mallory method?"
"If you mean the system employed by Professor Mallory, of Cairo, and the form of transliteration used by him so that the ancient phraseology might be retained, I can claim to be thoroughly conversant with it." Betty sank into the chair indicated, her breath ending in a little gasp. For all her self-possession, the young man's impersonal but fixed regard had a disturbing effect, and in the attempt to combat it her manner grew strained. "I have made practical use of it in translations for the Museum at Gizeh—"
She paused, biting her lip, but the young man appeared unobservant of her sudden check.
"You have studied under Professor Mallory?" The question was casually uttered, yet it brought a swift blush to her brow.
"I was a pupil of an associate of his." She spoke slowly as if choosing her words with care. "You mention the later dynastic periods in your advertisement; you refer doubtless to the era of the Persian influence?"
"Precisely. One papyrus in particular which we wish translated as literally as possible for purposes of record is believed to be a message from one of the kings of the twenty-seventh dynasty, who was called 'the Great Pharaoh'." The young man diverted his gaze at last, as he fumbled in a desk drawer. "I have a copy here. He isn't the same chap as the one mentioned in the Bible, whose daughter found Moses in the bulrushes, you know."
Betty could scarcely believe her ears. The flippant display of ignorance on the part of one who must be an important official of the museum seemed incredible, and a dim suspicion came to her that she was being made the victim of a hoax.
"I am aware of that fact," she responded frigidly. "The twenty-seventh dynasty was inaugurated only some five hundred years before Christ. Two of its rulers were known as 'the Great Pharaoh'; Xerxes and Artaxerxes. By which was this papyrus believed to have been inscribed?"
"I will let you judge that." He smiled in winning friendliness, quite unabashed by her icy tone. "To tell you the truth, I am not very well posted on it."
If this were indeed a hoax, Betty determined to obtain some personal satisfaction from it.
"Can you tell me, however, if an interlinear transliteration is required, as well as a translation?"
The young man lifted his hands in a gesture of helplessness almost comic.
"I mean," she explained, dimpling behind her veil, "do you wish the corresponding letter in our alphabet placed beneath each pictured letter or hieroglyph, with the translation of the whole phrase on a third line? That is the form used by Professor Mallory."
"Then I presume that is what will be required. I am not going to try to impose on you by any false display of a knowledge I do not possess," he said with engaging candor. "As a matter of fact, I am lamentably ignorant of Egyptology in general, but I happen to be a sort of honorary member of the board of directors governing the museum, and the task of finding a translator was delegated to me, with instructions to obtain, if possible, a pupil of Professor Mallory for the work. The official translator for the museum is in Egypt at the present time. Here is the photographic copy of the papyrus in question."
He opened a portfolio and took from it several large sheets which he passed to her across the desk. Her momentary resentment was forgotten and a little exclamation of fervid interest escaped her lips as she spread the pages out before her and threw back her veil the more clearly to scrutinize them.
The young man leaned slightly forward studying her face, then quietly he touched a button in the wall and the room was suddenly flooded with light.
"That is better, isn't it?" he asked.
Betty glanced up, blinking in the sudden glare, then nodded abstractedly and bent again over the hieroglyphic scrawl. Several minutes passed while she sat absorbed, no sound breaking the stillness but the occasional rustle of the papers beneath her hand. At length she rearranged them with a sigh of satisfaction.
"This purports to be a message from Khshiarsha, or Xerxes, the first ruler of the twenty-seventh dynasty to be called 'the Great Pharaoh' and if the date of the original papyrus has been authenticated, it is a wonderful find, and a valuable addition to Egyptiana. This copy will serve perfectly for translation, but I should like very much to see the original sometime, if it is in the possession of the museum——"
The eager words died on her lips, and her glowing face paled, then flushed hotly. She had looked up to find that the young man's eyes were fixed with an expression which she could not fathom upon the birthmark on her cheek, and it burned her like a newly-seared brand. With a swift gesture she lowered her veil.
"I will see that you have access to it." The young man rose. "I could place it in your hands now, but the curator is out. However, if, as you say, this copy is suitable for translation, do you care to undertake the work? I cannot, of course, judge of your proficiency, but I am willing to take it for granted."
"Thank you," Betty responded, simply. "I am confident that my translation will be satisfactory. It will take me a few days to complete it; shall I bring it here to you?"
"If you will, please. Should I not be here, leave it with the assistant curator for Mr. Ross. The fee for translation will be fifty dollars. Now, if you will give me your name and address——?" He paused expectantly, and Betty's heart sank.
This was a contingency which had not occurred to her. To name her present abode would mean that letters or instructions might be forwarded to her there, and inevitable discovery on Mrs. Atterbury's part would ensue with the probable consequence of immediate dismissal. This risk despite the shadow of tragic mystery which enveloped the house and her own undoubted peril should the extent of her knowledge become known, she would not hazard. A determination stronger than fear of death itself bound her to Mrs. Atterbury's service.
But the pause was lengthening, and the young man eyed her in puzzled inquiry.
"My name is Shaw—Betty Shaw," she stammered, adding with a sudden inspiration: "I live at 160 Wakefield Avenue. Have you any special instructions for me, Mr. Ross?"
"None. I will leave the work entirely in your hands. You say you will require a few days in which to complete it. Can you bring it here to me by Tuesday afternoon, at this time?"
"I will try." Betty flushed behind her veil. "My time is not absolutely my own, so I cannot make a definite appointment, but I shall make every effort to be here."
"There will be more work when this is finished, you know; inscriptions from tombs and that sort of thing," he added, as if on a sudden inspiration. "By the way, have you done any translating from the modern languages—French, German?"
Betty shook her head, and although the young man waited, she vouchsafed no further response.
"Well, we are in no hurry for this." He opened the door for her at last and held out his hand smilingly. "We only want to file the translations before the originals are placed on exhibition. Good afternoon, Miss Shaw."
Betty hurried from the museum, now grim and shadowy in the gathering dusk and started south toward Wakefield Avenue with the precious transcript clasped tightly in her muff. Late as it was she felt that she must arrange to have her change of address concealed should the exceedingly frank young man with the laughing eyes attempt to communicate with her. His personality had impressed her so strongly that the oddity of the whole interview did not present itself to her mind. If the translations to be placed on record in a National museum were left to the discretion of a young man who was avowedly ignorant of the work, it was a proceeding which aroused no suspicion in her mind. She knew nothing of the directorship of similar institutions in America, and gave it no thought. Her chief concern was that her subterfuge should not be discovered.
The work itself, fascinating though it would prove, shrunk to insignificance beside the interest the strange young man had aroused in her. Isolated as was her voluntarily assumed position, hedged in by mystery and distrust and even danger, the candid, disinterested friendliness of his attitude had made an appeal to which her lonely spirit responded joyously. The crafty, scheming expression which sometimes hardened her face was gone as if it had never existed, and her eyes glowed with a new unconscious happiness as she turned the corner of Wakefield Avenue, and ran lightly up the dingy steps of the once familiar house.
Meanwhile, the young man upon whom her thoughts were centered had also left the museum and was hastening across the park as fast as a taxi could carry him. Blue eyes, brown hair, education, refinement, youth; every attribute tallied with the rather vague description furnished to him, and the knowledge of Egyptology which the girl had displayed, unless it were the most improbable of coincidences, seemed the last detail needed to prove the identification complete.
And yet his client had made no mention of the one salient point which would render the girl who had just left his presence distinctive in a multitude; the strange scar or birthmark, like a clutching hand upon her cheek.
The sincerity of Madame Dumois' search, whatever her ultimate motive might be, was unquestionable. She could serve no object by deliberately eliminating so conspicuous a detail from her description, and it was incredible that she could have forgotten it, had the young woman she sought possessed such a means of recognition.
His taxi slewed recklessly through the mud as it rounded a corner into the North Drive and he glanced idly out of the window at a square stone house, half-hidden in a grove of cedars past which he was being rapidly whirled. A figure which appeared to be loitering beside the gate turned at the sound of the motor and for an instant his face loomed with almost grotesque distinctness against the enveloping dusk.
Herbert Ross uttered a sharp exclamation, and starting forward in his seat, reached for the speaking tube. The next moment he had checked the impulse and sunk back once more, but his round, candid eyes had narrowed to mere slits in each of which a steely point glittered and his jaw was set in a grim line of dogged relentlessness.
Some half-mile further down the Drive, his taxi turned in at the modest ivy-clad gate of an estate smaller than its pretentious neighbors, but surrounded with an air of solid, unchanging antiquity which they could not boast.
A white-haired butler opened the door and ushered Herbert Ross ceremoniously into the drawing-room. It was a long, narrow apartment, stiff and ugly with the prim austerity of the mid-Victorian period from which it obviously dated, and the conservative handful of coals in the grate served only to accentuate the chill and gloom in the lurking shadows beyond its proscribed radius.
Madame Dumois appeared with businesslike promptitude.
"Have you news for me, Mr. Ross?" She regarded him shrewdly as she extended her hand. "Or are you going to try to wheedle some more information from me? If you are, you may spare yourself the trouble. I admit that the surprise of encountering a detective who talked Persian poetry loosened my tongue the other day but you have all the data I can give you to help you locate the young woman, and what takes place between us when you have found her, will be my affair."
"Are you sure that I really have all the data, Madame Dumois?" he asked earnestly. "Is there not something that you have forgotten or purposely withheld, which would be a distinctive means of recognition?"
"I don't know what you mean!" Her voice was guarded, but her eyes snapped with sudden fire. "You have a description of the young woman's appearance, together with a lot of quite irrelevant detail which I was a babbling fool to disclose—"
"Have I?" he insisted. "You have given me a description which would fit probably four-fifths of the young women one meets, without a single distinguishing feature. Has she none? Think, please. The smallest scar, or physical peculiarity would be of inestimable value in identification."
He watched her narrowly, but her expression did not change an iota.
"She is unfortunately not branded, like Western cattle!" The old lady snorted contemptuously. "Nor is she, as far as I know, six toed like a cat. She is just an average, normal, young person, with an abnormal amount of duplicity."
"Then she possesses no scar, or birthmark?" Ross inquired slowly.
"Good heavens, no!" Madame Dumois exclaimed. "I wouldn't consider her actually pretty, but she has no disfigurement or blemish unless she has been injured recently."
"How recently?" He shot the question at her, but she was on her guard.
"It would have to be a comparatively fresh scar." She smiled grimly at his discomfiture. "No, Mr. Ross. The young woman for whom I am searching has absolutely no feature to distinguish her from a thousand and one others. I see your point, and I regret that I can give you no fuller information concerning her."
She rose as if to terminate the interview, and he was constrained to accept the hint.
"You still could aid me greatly, Madame Dumois, if you would." The detective spoke in his most persuasive manner. "Let me see the photograph of her, which I am sure you possess."
The old lady drew herself up to her full commanding height.
"There are no grounds for your assurance, sir," she declared coldly. "I have no photograph of the young woman."
"Then I will not detain you longer." He bowed. "I cannot accost a stranger, claiming her as the girl you seek, unless I can be absolutely certain of my ground, no matter how conclusive my suspicions are."
"You mean that you have found some one who answers the description, only that she has a scar?" Madame Dumois spoke with rigid control. "Take me where I can see her, and I will soon tell you whether your suspicions are correct or not."
"Unfortunately, that would be impossible." Mr. Ross shook his head gravely. "If I should prove to have been mistaken, explanations might involve you in the very notoriety you are seeking to avoid. But if you can obtain a likeness of her the question will be settled once and for all."
He paused and there was a brief silence while the old lady seemed to hesitate. At length she said grudgingly:
"I will try to get one. In the meantime, Mr. Ross, do not lose sight of the person you suspect."
He reassured her on that score and departed. He was confident that his client would produce the photograph at his next interview with her, but a grave doubt filled his mind that the girl who had come to him that afternoon was the one sought. The old lady's astonishment at the suggestion of a scar or birthmark had been unfeigned, and that single incontrovertible fact would overthrow the whole structure of his theory. The case which he had assumed practically blindfold seemed no nearer a solution and no other translator had risen to the bait offered by the advertisement who could by any possibility have been associated with his subject.
Meanwhile, Betty had concluded a satisfactory arrangement with her former landlady and was hastening homeward. A confused babel of voices arose as she crossed the avenue, and amid the raucous shouts one phrase beat upon her brain:
"Wuxtry! Wuxtry! Latest news about the big murder! Coroner's inquest adjourned. Wuxtry!"
She purchased a paper from the first newsboy who accosted her, and stopped in the rosy reflected glow from a drugstore window to scan the headlines. The light shining through a crimson globe dyed the page a sinister hue and from it there stared out at her the face of a man in the prime of life, with a square, determined chin and fine eyes, albeit there clustered about them the unmistakable lines of world knowledge and satiety.
Beneath it in double type she read:
"Breckinridge inquest adjourned. Coroner holds case open for further evidence. Rumor that detectives are working on new and startling clue. Close friend of George W. Breckinridge, millionaire clubman whose body stabbed to the heart was found in a secluded spot on Vanderduycken Road, declares that he has for some time been under a cloud—"
The letters ran together and blurred before Betty's eyes, and crumpling the sheet convulsively, she dropped it at her feet. Then as if suddenly conscious of the conspicuous spot in which she stood, the girl slipped quickly away into the shadows. Her pulse pounded in her ears and her brain seemed reeling, but one fact stood out in terrible, relentless clarity; the pictured face was that of the man who had lain dead in the dining-room of the house among the cedars.