My research on the oracle rituals would have to wait. I changed direction and hurried to my small closet to fetch my ledger.
A miasma of cursed magic had hung over the basement for some time, but I hadn't been able to pinpoint it to a particular artifact. Since I was running out of time, I decided to just grab every last bit of wax I owned and conduct a mass Second Level Test on everything at once.
I reached my closet and fetched the ledger from the washstand, where I'd carelessly set it. Next I went to the large satchel where I kept all my curse-removing supplies and rummaged around until I had a handful of wax bits—candle stubs, mostly. Thus equipped, I headed for the catacombs.
On my way, I called softly for Isis, wondering where she'd gotten to. She normally came to greet visitors, so I was surprised she hadn't turned up in the foyer when Henry had.
Unfortunately, she didn't turn up on my way to the basement either. Which was too bad, as I always preferred a bit of company down there.
The problem with the catacombs was that so many forgotten relics had been stacked on top of one another, it was nearly impossible to tell which ones were responsible for the vile magic and dark curses that swirled about. What made matters even worse was that the Staff of Osiris hadn't even felt cursed, and I had no idea how to distinguish a power-laden artifact from an uncursed one.
I opened the door, turned up the gaslights, and then paused as the force of the dark magic hit me. I shuddered once and gripped the three amulets I wore around my neck. Just as I lifted my foot to head down, a voice behind me said, "Can I come too?"
My pulse slowed a bit at this reprieve. "Henry!" Heartened considerably by the idea of a companion—even if it was only Henry—I said, "Why, of course you can come down. If you want to. But I didn't think this sort of thing interested you all that much."
Henry shrugged. "It's not like there's anything else to do in this stuffy old place."
"Very well, then. Come along. But you need to wear this." I lifted one of the amulets from my neck and held it out to him.
He recoiled as if I had offered him a plate of boiled suet. "I'm not wearing one of your stupid necklaces."
"It's not a necklace, Henry. It's protection. Remember? I gave one to Stokes when he was injured in St. Paul's churchyard."
He shook his head at me. "Quit pretending to be all magical and mystical," he said. "You're not fooling anyone, and you just look stupid." Then, before I could stop him, he shoved past me and raced down the stairs. His words stung, and I had half a mind to leave him to the mercies of whatever magic he might find. Then we would see who was pretending. However, just the thought of that had me hurrying down the stairs after him. At the bottom step, instead of stopping, I kept right on going until I bumped smack into him.
"Watch it!" he said, pushing me away.
"Sorry," I murmured as I slipped the amulet into his coat pocket under the guise of steadying myself. Once that important business had been taken care of, I turned my attention to the catacombs.
The gaslights barely penetrated the shadowed corners of the room, mostly because they weren't run-of-the-mill shadows. I suppressed a shudder at the thought of an unprotected Henry. In front of me, Henry sniffed. "It smells like wet dog."
My eyes flew to the Anubis statue sitting atop the Canopic shrine. He was sleek black stone, not a twitch of a whisker or tail, thank goodness. He hadn't come to life again, not since I'd returned the Orb of Ra to his shrine. But I'd been alone every other time I'd come down here. I wasn't sure if a second person's ka would have an effect on him. Some curses remained dormant for centuries until they were exposed to a person's life force, which activated the magic in much the same way that the sun caused a flower to bloom.
"What's your cat doing down here?" Henry pointed to where Isis lay, curled up between the statue's front paws.
"What on earth are you doing here, Isis?"
She raised her head and blinked her golden eyes at me, then gave a meow of greeting.
Henry whistled, pulling my attention from the cat. His eyes were big and round as he stared at the mummies against the wall. "All right," he finally said. "Now I see why you call it the catacombs. This place is creepy."
I found it heartening that he finally felt a niggle of discomfort. He'd never admitted to that. "You should have seen it before I straightened it up some," I told him as I headed for the shelves in the far corner, the very place I'd found the Staff of Osiris. Ever since I'd learned that the staff had come to us as part of an entire warehouse of artifacts of unknown provenance, I'd been trying to identify the rest of the batch. That was why I'd been dragging my feet on this inventory. If there were other powerful artifacts that wielded the power of the gods, I wasn't sure I wanted to record them for all the world to see. Best to let them hide until I could get them to the Brotherhood of the Chosen Keepers and let them take it from there.
I glanced over my shoulder at Henry, who was still examining the row of mummies, paying particular attention to the mummy formerly known as Tetley. "I say, this fellow is rather odd-looking compared to the others."
"You're correct, Henry. He is from a much more recent time period than the others are." Would Henry recognize him? He had seen him once before, when Tetley was alive and we had been following him. As Henry continued to stare at the mummy, my worries grew.
"Here." I took a blank page out of my ledger and handed it to him. "Could you go write down the names of all those weapons over in the corner? I haven't had a chance to do it yet." Actually, I had, but I knew that Henry had a keen interest in weaponry and it seemed like a good place to sit him.
"Weapons?" Henry's whole face brightened. He took the sheet I held out and went over to the corner.
When he was safely occupied with that task, I proceeded toward the last shelf. As I'd inventoried the basement, I'd also done a bit of organizing, and this shelf was where all the stone tablets had ended up, along with a few nearly unidentifiable odds and ends.
Hoping for a hint of latent power, I picked up the first stone tablet and held it tight. The stele featured a pharaoh offering wine to the god Amen-Ra and looked to be from the New Kingdom. However, there was no hint of power or magical energy. Of course, there hadn't been a trickle of power when I'd first held the staff either. However, there had been a distinct flicker when I had accidentally activated it by setting the Orb of Ra into the jackal's jaws. I stared at the stele in my hands. How on earth would one activate a stele? I wondered. I shook it slightly, but nothing happened. I turned it over and over in my hands, looking for a small aperture such as a key might fit in, but there was nothing. If there was a way to activate this particular stele, it was a mystery to me.
After a quick glance at Henry to be sure he was well occupied (he was feinting and jabbing with a late Bronze Age ceremonial knife), I went on to the next stele. This one showed a pharaoh wearing the crown of Upper Egypt. The ibis-headed god of wisdom, Thoth, stood on one side while the falcon-headed god Horus stood on the other and appeared to be almost embracing him. Again, there was no visible means of activating it ... but of course! It could be a much more subtle means of activation than a mechanical method. It might respond to ba or ka or something ethereal of that nature.
Once, I had accidentally breathed too close to a bronze vessel, and my breath had activated the curse hidden in inscribed hieroglyphs, causing the vessel to fill with a revolting substance reminiscent of frog slime. Leaning in close now, I breathed on the stele, then waited.
But that wasn't the key this time. Not quite willing to give up, I carried the artifact closer to one of the gas lamps. Perhaps the flame would mimic the energy of the sun and bring any dormant curses or power to life.
"En garde!" Henry's voice erupted in the silence, startling me. I turned toward him in time to see the point of a lance coming at my head. Without thinking, I held up the stele to ward off the blow. The lance connected with the stone tablet and sent it crashing to the floor.
CHAPTER SIX
 
; The Emerald Tablet
"HENRY!" I YELLED. "What on earth are you doing? These aren't toys, you know."
Henry stared in horror at the tip of the lance blade, which was now slightly crumpled. "How was I to know you were going to bash it with a stone tablet?"
"What do you expect me to do when you come at me with a lance? Besides, I didn't mean to. It was just instinct to get something between me and the point of the blade."
I knelt down to examine the stele. Sure enough, a huge crack ran right through the middle. "Oh, Henry, you've destroyed it!"
"Have not." He replaced the lance in the corner and came to kneel beside me. "Maybe we could glue it?" he suggested.
"And hope that no one would notice? I don't think so."
"Well, it can't be very important if it's been moldering down here for ages."
"All artifacts are important, Henry." I reached out and picked up the stele, horrified when the top right corner fell onto the floor. The damage was much worse than I'd thought.
"I say! Look!" Henry pointed. Under the corner that had fallen off, a dull green stone peeked out.
I frowned in puzzlement and brought the stele closer so I could examine it more thoroughly. Henry leaned in to see better too. I glared at him. "You're breathing on me."
"Sorry. But what is that underneath, do you think?"
"I'm not sure. It almost looks as if the stele was covering something else."
"Well, then, this isn't a disaster, it's a find," he was quick to point out.
I wasn't ready to let him off the hook that easily. "I'm not so sure..."
"It is. Look!" He grabbed the stele out of my hands, set it on the floor, and began breaking off the rest of the outer layer.
"Henry! Stop! That's not how you do it."
But I was too late. In less than ten seconds he had completely peeled off the outer layer. It came away as easily as the skin of an orange, revealing a dull green stone of some sort.
I couldn't tell what kind of stone it was. Even more intriguing, there were symbols carved into its surface. They were unlike any I'd ever seen and were certainly not Egyptian hieroglyphs. Which was odd, because there were also figures of Egyptian gods carved into the surface. I recognized the ibis-headed Thoth, who was handing something to the falcon-headed Horus. They stood in front of three mountain peaks with light from Ra shining down upon them.
"This is an important discovery, isn't it, Theo?" Henry said, his chest puffing up a bit.
"Well, it was completely the wrong way to go about it, but yes," I finally admitted. "This would definitely qualify as a discovery. Of some sort."
Just then, a creak on the stairs had Henry and me jumping to our feet. Instinctively, I stepped in front of the green tablet, hoping to hide it from view.
Edgar Stilton hovered on the second stair from the bottom. I was relieved to see he wasn't looking at us but instead staring rather uneasily at the mummies against the wall. Specifically, at Tetley.
"Stilton, what are you doing down here?" My question came out rather harsh, but I hadn't forgotten that his snooping on my activities was what had led Aloysius Trawley to suspect I had magic powers to begin with.
"Your parents asked me to come find you and tell you they are ready to leave for—I say! What have you got there?" Eyes fixed on the green stone tablet, he came over to where Henry and I stood.
Without thinking, I reached down and grabbed the heavy stone from the floor and clutched it tightly in both hands. "I'm not sure," I said with a warning glance at Henry. "It's just one of the steles from the shelf." I tried to turn away as if to put it back, but Stilton reached out and stopped me.
"Can I have a look?" His face was shining and eager. And, I reminded myself, he was almost as good as I was at picking up odd threads of power and magic. Of course, he didn't know it, but I could tell. He always twitched and shuddered like a bug on the end of a pin when there were vile curses about. Rather handy, that. Especially in our museum.
He took the green stele from my hands, and I had to resist an urge to grab it back. I watched his face as he studied it, his academic interest quickly giving way to something else—awe. He looked at me, his face glowing eerily in the faint green reflection of the stele. "Do you realize what you've found, Theo?"
"Actually, it was me that found it," Henry said with a bit of a swagger.
"No, I don't," I said, elbowing Henry. "Do you?"
He returned his eyes to the stele and stared at it reverently. "I believe I do. If I'm not mistaken, you've just found the Tabula Smaragdina, otherwise known as the Emerald Tablet, which magicians and alchemists have been searching for for centuries."
"Oh," I said, uneasy. If my experience with the Arcane Order of the Black Sun was any indication, when magicians are interested in something, it usually means it holds dangerous and questionable properties.
"Does it do anyhing?" Henry asked.
Hearing Henry's voice seemed to remind Stilton that he and I were not free to talk openly. He blinked, focused his gaze on Henry, then smiled. "It is said to contain the alchemical formula that turns metal into gold."
"Gold," Henry breathed.
I frowned at Stilton. "But alchemy is all bunk, isn't it? Just an old misguided scientific theory that turned out to be wishful thinking, right?"
"I don't know, Miss Theo. Some people think there is much truth to be found in the ancient science." I cleared my throat and caught Stilton's eye.
"Er, right," he said. "Historical nonsense, really. From a more ignorant time."
"Thank you, Stilton." I did not need him planting such rot into Henry's head.
Henry's face fell. "But even if the formula was just wishful thinking, wouldn't a tablet made of emerald be worth a fortune?"
"Well, yes. There is that," Stilton conceded. Honestly. The man was not helping a bit!
"Did you say our parents were getting ready to leave?" I asked.
"Yes. Yes, I did. They were about to walk out the door when I came down here."
"We'd best hurry then, Henry. We don't want to get left behind." I turned back to Stilton. "Thank you, Stilton. Could you tell them we'll be right along? Oh, and do me a favor, if you would. Let's not tell anyone—anyone—about this find just yet. I'd like to surprise my parents with it."
"Of course, Miss Theo," Stilton said. "I won't breathe a word." Then he winked. Or twitched, I couldn't be sure.
"Henry, come put these weapons away," I said as Stilton disappeared up the stairs.
With a sigh and a sullen shuffle of his feet, Henry slumped back to the corner and replaced the weapons he'd been playing with. While his back was turned, I slipped the tablet un der an old wooden shield on the shelf. While I thought Stilton was mostly trustworthy—at least, more so than the others—I felt it best to hide the tablet, just to be on the safe side.
When Henry continued to dawdle, I gave him a little nudge (more of a push, really). I glanced around for Isis, but she had disappeared again. I worried briefly about locking her down in the catacombs for the night, then realized that since she'd gotten down there on her own, she could get out as well.
We reached the top of the stairs but found the hallway empty. "Maybe they're waiting in the foyer," I suggested. They weren't, so we hurried to the sitting room, hoping to find them there.
"Tell me again why we can't spend the night working here?" Father was saying as he shrugged into his coat. "We have over six weeks' worth of work we need to accomplish in only two."
"But darling," Mother said, wrapping his scarf around his neck. "This is Henry's first night home since Christmas."
"Blast! I forgot again!"
Well, at least I wasn't the only child he forgot about.
"That's because you've been working too hard," Mum said. "It would do you good to have a night off. Now, come along. Let's go find the children."
Not wanting to be caught eavesdropping, I stepped into the room, pulling Henry behind me. "Here we are!" I said brightly.
"Like bad
pennies, you two are," Father said. Even though his words were gruff, he ruffled Henry's hair in a playful manner. I found myself wishing for a much shorter haircut, like a boy's. It's hideously unfair that boys get to have their hair mussed as a sign of affection whereas girls aren't allowed to get mussed at all. Just as I was beginning to feel sorry for myself, Father put his arm around my shoulders. "Let's go find some dinner, shall we?"
CHAPTER SEVEN
An Unexpected Visitor
WHEN WE RETURNED TO THE MUSEUM the following morning, we found a small gathering of constables loitering in the foyer talking to Flimp, the night watchman.
"Oh no, not this again," Mother muttered.
When Father saw Inspector Turnbull, his face grew bright red. Before Father could charge at him like a raging bull, the inspector stepped forward and greeted us pleasantly. "Morning, Throckmorton. Mrs. Throckmorton. Your night watchman sent for us. He caught someone wandering around uninvited last night. Normally, I'd leave it to the constables, but with the problems you had just a few weeks ago, I thought it best if I checked it out myself."
An intruder! My gaze went immediately to the wall, but there were no mummies lined up there like the last time Inspector Turnbull had come calling.
Father decided to accept Turnbull's pleasant greeting as a peace offering. His color returned to normal and he asked, "Where is he?"
"Right this way, sir." Turnbull led us down the hallway to a utility closet. Two constables stood at attention at either side of the door. My thoughts flew to the Emerald Tablet. Had Stilton broken his word and told Trawley about it? Had the supreme master himself come last night to take it?
"Well, open it up," Turnbull told them.
The constables hurried to open the door, then stood back. I gasped. There, sitting cross-legged on the floor among the mops and pails, was none other than—