THE CURSE OF THE
        OBELISK
                           Ron Goulart
  Copyright © 1987 by Ron Goulart




                           CHAPTER 1
   Paris in the spring of 1897 was a city of gaiety, light and movement,
pervaded with an air of joyous living. An immense city, full of broad
handsome streets, magnificent buildings, grand open spaces with
fountains and statues, great public gardens and parks, miles and miles of
stores and shops filled with the most beautiful and interesting things that
are made or found in any part of the world.
  Harry Challenge didn't much want to be there.
   As he went striding along the twilight Boulevard Saint Germain, unlit
cigar clenched in his teeth, he made a list of places he'd rather be.
   A lean man of middle height, Harry was dark haired and clean shaven.
His tan, weather-beaten face tended to give people the impression he was
a few years older than his thirty-one years. He wore, as he usually did, a
dark suit. His hat was soft brimmed, and in his snug shoulder holster
rested a Colt .38 revolver.
  "Fool's errand," Harry muttered to himself. Not for the first time.
  An open carriage rolled by, the horses' hooves clacking on the smooth
pavement. The satin-clad woman in the carriage glanced approvingly at
Harry, and the light of a street lamp made the diamonds in her tiara and
on the collar of her little white Maltese dog sparkle. Scowling, the dog
yapped at Harry.
  He tipped his hat to both of them and hurried on.
  The street was crowded. People strolling, people sitting at the little
tables in front of cafés, workmen in blue blouses and wooden shoes
heading homeward, even a priest in long black clothes and a broad felt hat
taking the air.
   Absently Harry patted the pocket of his vest that contained a folded
copy of the latest cable from his father in New York. The message had
been waiting for him when he checked into his far too fancy Paris hotel
this afternoon. What it said was:
   Dear son: Get off your rump. Go see our half-wit client. Name is
Maurice Allegre. He runs the Musée des Antiquités on Rue Balbec. If you
ask me he's got bats in his bonnet, but his money's good. You find out
what's really going on. I doubt his museum is haunted. Your loving
father, the Challenge International Detective Agency.
   An earlier message, which had reached Harry while he was finishing up
a case in the capital city of the small sovereign nation of Orlandia had
mentioned a mummy that roamed the museum by night.
  Harry'd handled several supernatural cases of late, too many in fact,
and he was hoping M. Allegre would turn out to be, as his father implied,
suffering from hallucinations.
  He passed the Café de Flor, dropped a few centimes in the dented
copper cup of the ragged blind man standing just beyond its bright Art
Nouveau facade and turned onto the Rue Balbec.
   The dusk was deepening. From a sharply slanting tile roof a clutter of
sparrows rose up into the oncoming night. Someone was playing a
mournful tune on a rusty violin in a lamplit parlor up in a thin building on
his left.
  Cutting across the cobblestoned street, Harry started through a public
garden. A greened brass plate on the stone column at its entrance
proclaimed it the Jardin Reve.
  According to his red-bound Baedeker, the museum he sought was on
the opposite side of this shadowy, block-square little park.
  The light was fading faster. Darkness and quiet came closing in on
Harry. He seemed to be the only person walking through the Jardin Reve.
Yet Harry was commencing to feel a shade uneasy, wondering if he really
wasn't alone.
  The white gravel path wound through a thick grove of trees. In among
them lurked pale white figures that Harry decided, after reaching into his
coat for his .38 revolver and then thinking better of it, were statues.
  He recognized, quickening his pace, a pudgy Venus and a muscle-bound
Hercules.
  Through the dark trees ahead he spotted now the two glowing electric
lamps that framed the arched doorway of the Musée des Antiquités.
  From behind him came a rustling sound.
  Halting, he spun around. He drew his Colt and stared into the darkness
behind him.
  Harry had the impression something large and dark had settled into the
high branches of one of the big trees a few hundred yards away.
  He stood still, eyes narrowed and gun ready, watching.
  The shape he thought he'd noticed wasn't there. Or if it was, the new
night masked it.
  He waited nearly a full minute before holstering his gun and continuing
on his way.
  Not quite ten seconds after that a young woman screamed. Two pistol
shots rang out.
   Harry dived to the ground, rolled across the grass and came to a
squatting position behind a wide tree trunk. His Colt was once again in
his right hand.
  "Well, damn," he remarked aloud.
  Rising up above the treetops was an immense birdlike creature. Its
body was nearly man-size and it had bat wings that creaked and made
bellows sounds as it flapped them.
  Harry sprinted back to the gravel path for a better look.
  Down out of the night sky fell a drop of something hot and sticky. It
splashed him on the cheek.
   "Serves me right." He yanked out his pocket handkerchief, wiped at his
face and stuffed the cloth away.
   The giant bird or bat or whatever it was was flying away over the
rooftops of Paris. The glow of street lamps and window lights illuminated
it until the creature rose too high. Darkness swallowed it.
  Putting away his gun, Harry went trotting back the way he'd come.
"Now where the hell's the lady who hollered?"
  She was slumped on a wrought iron bench, a derringer lying in the
grass at her feet. A slim and very pretty young woman she was, her hair a
pale reddish gold. It had tumbled down from under the checkered cap she
was wearing. The cap matched the man's Norfolk jacket and tweedy
knickers she had herself decked out in.
  "Jennie Barr." Harry's tone was not especially cordial. "You were too
busy to have dinner with me tonight. You had to get to work immediately
on your story for the New York Daily Inquirer. You lied to me."
  Taking a deep breath, Jennie sat up straighter and tucked her hair back
up under the cap. "Well, I suppose I did fib some, yes."
  "We travel all the way from Zevenburg to Paris together," he continued,
angry. "I even, behaving like what my father would classify as a
nincompoop, declare that I'm fond of you. I entertain the half-wit notion
that I can trust you not to be a newspaper reporter above all else. But you
were just conning me, Jennie, so you could—"
   "Fond of me? What you did on the Zevenburg-Paris Express, Harry, was
tell me you loved me."
   "Okay, I do love you," he admitted. "Fact is, I was in the process of
telling you that again just a few hours ago. But you told me you had to get
right to work on your assignment. No time for romance, no time for the
gaiety, light and movement of Paris. So it turns out this damn story of
yours has to do with my private—"
  "Hey, I just saved your life."
   "Thanks," he said. "Now tell me why you're dressed like a guy and
tailing me."
  Jennie grinned. "Did pretty darn well, didn't I? I followed you all the
way from the Hotel Grand-Luxe and you never even tumbled."
 "You did, huh?" He made a face and shook his head. "There's one thing
my father's right about. Getting involved with a woman dulls your—"
  "Your father, if you'll forgive my reminding you of the fact, is a sour
ball, Harry," the reporter put in. "One of the things that scares the heck
out of me is the possibility you'll grow more like him as you get older.
Spending my declining years with a curmudgeon isn't my idea of—"
  "You won't even spend the rest of the damn evening with me unless you
explain what's going on."
  Reaching up, she took hold of his arm and pulled herself to her feet.
"Take me to a nearby café and over coffee I'll tell all," Jennie promised.
  "I'm on my way to see a client. Don't have time for—"
  "Let me give you some advice." She bent, grimacing, scooped up her
tiny gun and tucked it away under her jacket. "Don't pout that way. You
don't have the face for it. I think it's an attractive face, albeit a mite
beat-up and—"
  "Okay, I'll take you someplace." When they started to walk, he noticed
the red-haired young woman was limping. "Did that critter hurt you?"
  "Nope, but I twisted my ankle while I was running and shooting at it.
That's why I fell and dropped my gun."
  "You can't faze a gigantic bird with a dinky gun like that anyway."
  "Wasn't a gigantic bird," she assured Harry. "It was a gigantic bat."
  Jennie poked at her raspberry ice with her spoon. "It is, you have to
admit, the sort of story I do well." She'd taken off the cap and the faint
night breeze brushed at her hair.
  Across the small outdoor table from her Harry lit his cigar. "A curse?"
He blew smoke at the marble tabletop.
  "Three weeks ago the noted French archaeologist Reynard Courdaud
met a strange end at his villa near Nice," said the reporter. "Then five days
ago Sir Munson Bellhouse died in a fall while hunting in Scotland."
  "A death in Nice, another in Scotland. Why does that prompt the Daily
Inquirer to send you here to Paris?"
  After savoring a spoonful of the ice, she answered, "You haven't done,
Harry, sufficient research into this affair."
  The light spilling out through the stained glass window of the sidewalk
café gave a pale golden glow to her face. Harry looked away for a moment,
toward a plump German tourist who was sipping a solitary absinthe.
"Was Bellhouse an archaeologist, too?"
   Jennie nodded. "He was one of the five men who headed the expedition
to the Valley of Jackals in 1895," she said. "They found considerable
treasures, including the dornick that's been dubbed the Osiris Obelisk."
   "Is it anything like the one in Central Park or the one right here in town
at the Place de la Concorde?"
  "This is a miniature version, only about six feet high. Thing is, one of
the inscriptions started the rumor that—"
  "Wait now. Is there a curse on the thing?"
  "There was a lot of talk to that effect, back when the Courdaud
expedition first broke into the tomb it was standing in front of. My editors
believe there's a—"
   "Awful slow for a curse. Don't they work faster than that?" He rested his
elbows on the tabletop, watching her faintly freckled face. "Waiting two
years before striking isn't my idea of—"
   "Let me give you a few details about Reynard Courdaud's death." She
set her spoon aside. "His valet swears that Courdaud was attacked on his
terrace at dusk by a giant bat. That's one reason I hollered and started
shooting when I saw that thing tonight lurking over your—"
  "A giant bat?" Harry sat up.
  "Your elbow." Jennie pointed. "You've got something sticky on it."
   "Coffee." Fishing out his handkerchief, he wiped at his coat. "This seems
to be my night for . . . hmm."
  "What is it?"
   He'd brought the stained square of linen up to his nose and was sniffing
at it. "While I'm not an expert on bat lore, I'll bet their droppings don't
smell like machine oil."
 She reached across and took the handkerchief. "That's oil sure enough.
What makes you think—"
  "While that thing was flying away directly overhead, I looked up."
   Crumpling the handkerchief, Jennie said, "This is commencing to look
like one of the oddest curses I've ever investigated."
  "This guy in Scotland . . ."
  "Sir Munson Bellhouse, one of the most respected archaeologists in
Britain. Haven't you ever heard of—"
  "What caused his fall?"
   "A gamekeeper from the estate where they were shooting swore he saw
a giant bird circling the spot where Sir Munson did his brodie. He wasn't
believed."
  "Okay, and where do I tie in?" asked Harry. "Was that damn bat
planning to make me the next victim of the curse of the obelisk? And if so,
why?"
  "Don't you know where the Osiris Obelisk is?"
  Harry ground his cigar out in the pewter ashtray. "At the Musée des
Antiquités?"
   "For five more days," she replied. "Then it's being shipped to the capital
of Urbania. The museum's sold it to a private collector. The whole
business has caused quite a stir."
 Harry said, "You were trailing me because you figure the troubles at the
museum are linked with this curse."
   "Seems likely, doesn't it?" There was a mixture of contriteness and
excitement in her voice. "Honestly, Harry, I don't like to trade on our
friendship, but so far nobody else knows the Challenge International
Detective Agency has been called in on this case. That exclusive angle'll
make my series of articles for the Daily Inquirer much more—"
  "I'll make you a deal."
  "You sound sort of grim."
   "Instead of putting on half-wit disguises and skulking around, you can
come along to the museum with me," he said. "After I meet with M.
Allegre, in private, I'll see if he'll let you interview him."
  "Well, that'd be fine, I guess. But you're scowling at me as though—"
  "We've known each other for quite a spell. Back in New York and—"
  "Known and liked. Even though sometimes—"
   "When our paths crossed in Orlandia and it turned out we were both
interested in the prisoner of Blackwood Castle, I initially tried to ditch
you."
   "Harry, I do . . . well, love you. And you can trust me," she assured him
in a quiet voice. "It's just that I'm a reporter, and a darn good one, and so
sometimes—"
   "We'll forget what happened on the train from Orlandia to Paris." Harry
stood and signaled the gaunt, apronned waiter. "It never took place. We'll
go back to being rivals, friendly rivals."
  "But, Harry, something did happen. We can't just—"
  "I'm late for the meeting with my client. You coming along?"
  She hesitated, then smiled tentatively. "Yes," she replied.


                            CHAPTER 2
   After rubbing at his nose, Maurice Allegre tapped the drawing in the
newspaper open upon his desk. "My reputation is in shreds already, M.
Challenge," he said, wringing his small hands. "Just this past Monday here
in Le Figaro no less a formidable penman than Caran d'Ache depicted me
as a grave robber. You see?"
  Harry leaned forward in his heavy wooden chair. "Doesn't resemble you
that much."
  "Ah, but all Paris knows at whom this barb is aimed," said the forlorn
museum director. "Even though he's seen fit to give me an extremely large
Hebraic nose. It is sad enough to be blamed for selling that accursed
obelisk without being branded a Dreyfusard as well. If the outside world
were to learn of my latest sorrows . . ." He sighed.
  "Suppose you detail your problem to me."
   The office was shadowy, the furniture heavy and dark, the carpets and
drapes the color of deep autumn. Hovering in the dim corners that the
light from the faintly hissing gas lamps didn't reach were coffins, mummy
cases and at least one suit of Oriental armor.
   Allegre patted at the part in his slick dark hair. "My two regular
watchmen had let me down," he said, taking another disheartened glance
at the cartoon attacking him. "After all, M. Challenge, I do not own this
Musée des Antiquités. Nay, I am but an employee. When the directors,
you understand, agreed to sell the obelisk to Baron Groll in Urbania, I
could only, meekly, go along with them." He poked a delicate finger at the
cartoon. "This is, after all, a private institution and not a public one. They
can sell whatever they wish and to whomsoever they wish. Therefore, when
this Caran d'Ache shows me looting tombs and selling the treasures of
France to foreigners, he errs in— "
  "You told my father your museum was haunted."
  Allegre said, "Your father, at least in his cablegrams, strikes one as a
highly intelligent man. I was halfway expecting that he himself would
journey here to Paris to handle the—"
  "He rarely travels these days," said Harry. "Do you have ghosts?"
  Allegre shrugged with both his shoulders and both hands. "Ah, but I
myself have seen not a one," he replied. "My addlepated watchmen, on the
other hand, insist that on several occasions some unusual incidents have
taken place."
  "Such as?"
  "Most, if not all, of this outré activity has allegedly occurred in our
Antiqués Égyptiennes Wing, M. Challenge," said the director. "Both
Gaspar and Albert have insisted they heard many strange sounds and,
furthermore, that they saw with their own eyes . . ." He shrugged once
again. "They saw one of the mummified corpses leave its resting place and
walk."
  "When did these incidents begin?"
  Allegre answered, "Approximately three weeks ago. Fortunately, I have
been able, thus far, to keep it quiet. I fear that—"
  "I'd like to talk to Gaspar and Albert."
   "Ah, but alas, monsieur, that is not possible," explained Allegre. "They
are no longer employed here. Albert, in point of fact, ran screaming from
this place three midnights ago. Though Gaspar made a less flamboyant
exit, he too is gone."
  "Is midnight when the ghostly happenings usually happen?"
   "Not every midnight, but far too many, yes," answered the museum
director. "You also cannot, I fear, interrogate either Gerard or Paul."
  "The new watchmen?"
   "Exactly, monsieur." He sighed his deepest sigh thus far. "Gerard and
Paul lasted but a single night. Thus, you have indeed arrived at a most
fortunate juncture in the affairs of our plagued institution."
  Harry eyed him for a few seconds. "You want me to act as watchman
tonight?"
  "Are you not ideally suited for such a task? A stalwart and manly fellow,
well versed in the handling of such unusual situations," said Allegre. "You
know how to deport yourself when faced with dangers of an unusual sort,
and you are not superstitious like Gaspar, Albert, Gerard and Paul."
  "Have you ever spent a night here?"
   The director shuddered. "I am, you understand, not a brave man," he
confided. "Were I to run screaming from the premises in the dead of night
it might lead to further scandal, providing fodder for yet another
unflattering caricature in Le Figaro and other vicious publications.
Besides, M. Challenge, since we are paying you such an enormous fee, it is
only fair that—"
   "Substantial," corrected Harry, "not enormous. Okay, I'll stay here
tonight. That'll give me a chance to go over the Egyptian wing and the rest
of the museum."
  "I appreciate that," said Allegre, allowing himself a small, sad smile.
"Will your quite charming young assistant who waits in the foyer be
sharing your nocturnal duties, monsieur?"
  Harry grinned. "Yes, I seldom go anywhere without her."
  The ceiling of the vast room was lost in shadows. The air was chill,
scented faintly with sandalwood and ancient dust.
   "This particular chest is one of my favorites," Allegre was saying. "The
framework is of ebony, the inner panels of beautifully carved redwood.
Here we see the bronze and ivory blended to produce . . ."
  Jennie whispered to Harry, "You're a rat."
  He assumed a beatific expression and ignored her.
   "Passing me off as an operative in your dim-witted detective agency
after promising me a chance to interview this guy." She delivered a
disappointed nudge to his ribs.
  "He loathes the press. Now hush."
    ". . . the king, you see, is offering Omnophris a pot of perfume and a
lamp. Omnophris is, of course, but another guise of Osiris, who guards the
. . ."
  "I'm not some pushy French news hound," persisted Jennie in an
annoyed whisper. "And if you don't tell him who I really am, then I myself
will."
   "Listen, didn't I arrange for you to spend the whole damn night inside
this place? When the mummy does his jig, you'll be the only reporter on
hand."
  "Yes, but—"
  "You go telling him who you really are and you'll get nothing but the old
heave-ho."
  "Ah, but I must be boring you by riding my hobbyhorse so vehemently."
The director turned away from the glass case that housed the chest.
   "I'd like to see the case the mummy climbs out of at midnight," Harry
told him.
  "But certainly, monsieur." Bowing slightly, Allegre led them past more
ornate chests, an alabaster casket, a case filled with glittering bracelets
and bangles.
   In an alcove, illuminated by a single hanging lamp, a carved coffin with
a lid of gold, turquoise and crimson rested on a low platform.
  Noticing something stuck to a nail on the platform, Harry bent and
took it. "Little hunk of linen," he said, passing it under his nose. "Doesn't
smell especially ancient."
  The museum director blinked. "May I inspect that, monsieur?"
  "I don't think it came from the mummy in that case."
  "No, certainly not. This bit of cloth is of recent manufacture." He was
rubbing it between his fingers. "Superficially like that used to wrap the
bodies of our Egyptian friends, yet not the real thing. How, do you think,
did this come to be here?"
  Retrieving the patch, Harry tucked it into the watch pocket of his vest.
"We'll try to find that out tonight."
  Allegre gestured at the coffin. "This is made of wood. Over the lid was
placed first a layer of plaster and then one of gold. After which the—"
  "Does the lid lift off easily?" inquired Jennie.
  "It is not too difficult to remove, Mile. Barr." Smiling, he demonstrated.
  Harry took a look inside. "This fellow can't do much walking around,
not with his legs wrapped together that way."
  "Precisely what I tried to explain to those fools, Gaspar and Albert." He
nodded toward Jennie. "Would you care for a glimpse of King
Baydmadroub II?"
  "Pass," she said.
  "Now I'd like," requested Harry, "to see the obelisk."
  After returning the inlaid coffin lid to its place, Allegre said, "It's really
not that impressive, monsieur. A very small and stunted thing that is no
match for the so-called Cleopatra's Needle that—" "Even so."
   The director sighed, shrugged, patted his hair. "Very well. If you will but
follow me."
   Slowly he led them through the big room, along a dimly lit corridor and
into a smaller room.
   Mounted upright on a wooden stand was the miniature obelisk, a
tapering shaft of red granite profusely covered with carved hieroglyphs.
Two small gas lamps, one on each side of the room, provided the only
light.
   Allegre hunched his shoulders. "A paltry example, hardly worth making
a fuss about," he observed, stroking his nose. "It stands approximately six
foot eight in height, which makes it roughly one tenth the size of the
obelisk to be found in your country."
  Jennie edged closer. "Do these inscriptions spell out the curse?"
  "Among other things." Reluctantly he joined her near the obelisk.
"Those lower rows there, near the base, provide the phrases that give the
obelisk its unsavory reputation."
  Harry strolled over. "What do they say exactly?"
  Impatiently Allegre translated. " 'By the awesome power of Osiris, who
holds the secret of eternal life, cursed be those who disturb this tomb.
Death, not life, shall be their sure and swift reward.' And so forth and so
on. A standard and not especially imaginative curse, as ancient curses go.
Yet sufficient, because of the idiocies practiced by the disgraceful press
to—"
  "Some reporters," put forth Jennie, "are highly reputable."
 "I am astounded to hear you express such sentiments, Mile. Barr, since
America's newspapers are, one is told, even more vile than—"
  "Is Osiris usually associated with the secret of eternal life?" asked
Harry.
  "He is the king and the judge of the dead," answered Allegre. "One
doesn't often find him addressed in exactly these terms, yet the
association is—"
  "Take the New York Daily Inquirer. There's an honest and well written
paper," said Jennie. "Why, some of the reporters on its staff are—"
   "We'd best get on with your inspection tour, Operative Barr." Harry
slipped an arm around her slim waist and gave her an unobtrusive prod in
the ribs. "You and M. Allegre can chat about journalism some other time.
I want to check all the entrances before he leaves us."
  "Ah, yes," said the director after consulting his gold pocket watch, "the
hour does indeed grow late. I would like to be far from here before
midnight strikes." He started out of the room.
  After kicking Harry in the shin, Jennie followed.


                           CHAPTER 3
  Jennie placed the tray on the floor near a case that held a gilded leopard
mask. "The coffee isn't too bad," she said, sitting down cross-legged on a
sofa cushion she'd appropriated from the long departed director's office,
"considering I had to brew it over a spirit lamp. Have some, it'll keep you
awake."
  "I am awake." He was hunkered on the floor of the Egyptian wing, back
against the buff wall. "Never go to sleep on a job."
   "I thought that was the Pinkerton slogan." She passed him a delicate
china cup. "The petits fours I can't vouch for. They may be a mite stale
since I found them in a tin in a bottom drawer of his desk."
  Harry sipped the coffee and declined the tiny cakes.
  "What about that little piece of cloth you found?" she asked him. "You
got a whiff of something off it."
  "Greasepaint."
  "That must mean—"
  "Could mean several things." He looked away from her, toward the
corridor leading to the obelisk.
  After a moment Jennie asked, "Are you still miffed at me?"
  "Miffed isn't exactly the word I'd use."
  Out in the Paris night a bell began to toll midnight.
   Jennie tried one of the petits fours, wrinkled her nose, then went on
chewing. "You still don't realize, Harry, how difficult it is for me to balance
things. My career requires my traveling all over the world for stories and
that means I can't have a settled way of life. I have a sort of rule not to let
myself get too involved with anybody anywhere. But then I bumped into
you again and . . . well, it makes things rough."
  "I know, torn between love and duty," he said. "Saw a heartrending
painting on the subject once in a saloon in Elko, Nevada."
  She gave him a polite snort. "Mother O'Malley! You're the most—"
  "Quiet a minute." He put a hand on her arm.
  "You hear something?"
  Slowly and silently Harry eased to his feet. "Key turning in a lock
somewhere."
  The auburn-haired reporter stood, watchful and listening.
  A door creaked. The sound came drifting to them across the big, chill
room.
  Harry reached under his coat. "Get back against the wall."
  "I want to see what's—"
  "Back." He pushed her into the shadows.
 Moving away from Jennie, he started for an arched doorway."Beware,"
moaned an echoing voice, "the graves of the sacred dead had been
defiled."Harry drew his Colt .38. "Speaks pretty fair French for an
Egyptian ghost.""Be careful, Harry."Through the archway a linen-wrapped
figure came limping. It looked somewhat like a mummy, with its head
wizened and nearly skeletal. One arm hung stiff at the figure's side and its
limp grew more pronounced as it took a few more faltering steps into the
Antiquités Égyptiennes Wing.
  "Flee, O despoiler of tombs," the mummy intoned.
  Harry grinned. "If you're already dead, friend, a bullet won't bother
you," he told the mummy. "But if you're some down-and-out actor dressed
up to throw a scare into us, then you'll be joining the sacred dead right
soon."
   The creature took one more faltering step. "A moment, monsieur," it
said. "You are obviously more sophisticated than the other watchmen.
Therefore, let me suggest a—"
  "Not open to suggestions," Harry told him. "Raise your hands up high
and then walk over here."
  "There's no reason why we can't agree on—"
  Two shots sounded. They both hit the mummy in the chest. It brought
up a bandage-wrapped hand to clutch at the bloody spots that were swiftly
spreading.
  "But, monsieur, I thought we . . ."
  Its left knee hit the floor, then the other. There was blood staining the
bandages all down the torso. Gasping, swaying, the mummy suddenly
died. It fell over on its ancient face, twitching.
  In the corridor it had emerged from there was the sound of at least two
pairs of booted feet running. A door opened, then slammed.
  Harry didn't give chase. Nor did he cross to the dead man.
  He turned, his gun still in his hand, to stare at Jennie. "Why the hell did
you shoot him?" he asked her.
  The young woman's face had gone pale, the freckles stood out. She was
shivering hard, teeth chattering. Her frightened eyes went from Harry to
the derringer in her hand and back to Harry. "I don't know," she said. "I
don't know."
  Harry turned up the flame on the wall gas lamp. "Feeling better?"
  "Not especially, no." Jennie, hugging herself and still shivering slightly,
was sitting in an armchair in the museum foyer.
   "Fairly soon now I'm going to have to telephone the police," he said.
"We ought to be able to convince them it's self-defense. But just for myself,
I'd like to know why you killed the guy."
  She shook her head sadly. "I really don't have any idea, Harry."
 "Maybe you were rattled. You assumed the mummy was going to attack
me and—"
  "C'mon, I don't rattle under pressure. You know darn well I can keep my
nerve under just about any circumstances," she said. "If I could stand
being locked up for a week on Blackwell's Island for a story or face an
escaped lunatic in the wilds of—"
  "Okay, I was just trying to suggest a reason."
   "I don't have one," Jennie said. "I was as anxious as you were to get him
to talk. An exclusive interview with a mummy, even a fake one, would've
been marvelous for my newspaper story. All of a sudden, though, I had this
overwhelming impulse to gun him down."
  Harry rested a hip on the arm of her tufted chair and touched her
shoulder. "Like a cup of coffee?"
  "Hemlock would be more—"
  An exuberant knocking had begun on the street door of the museum.
  Standing, Harry said, "Can't be the police."
  "What ho within!" boomed a deep voice.
  Jennie brightened. "That sounds like—"
  "The Great Lorenzo." Harry sprinted across the thick Oriental
carpeting, unlocked the heavy oaken door and yanked it open.
   The portly magician stepped in out of the night. He was clad in a suit of
evening clothes, a jauntily tilted top hat and a flowing, scarlet-lined cloak.
The buttons of his silky waistcoat glittered almost as brightly as real
diamonds. "Ah, you're not dead, my boy." He chuckled with relief and gave
his greying muttonchop whiskers a fluff.
  "Was I supposed to be?"
  The Great Lorenzo noticed Jennie, who was standing beside the maroon
armchair. Doffing his hat, he bowed in her direction. "Good evening,
young lady," he said. "You don't look as pert as when last we met in
Orlandia."
  Harry shut the door. "You were supposed to be en route to Urbania by
now, you and your entire magic show."
   "Indeed I was." He placed his topper on a claw-footed table. "You and I,
Harry, have been chums for lo! these many years. I, modestly, tend to
think of myself as a second father to—"
  "I like you better than that."
    "Ah, yes, I forgot for the moment that your dear papa lacks many of the
warm and lovable traits that I am blessed with." He fluffed his ample
sideburns once again. "As I was saying, dear lad, I have never professed to
be anything more than a humble stage illusionist— the best professional
magician in the world if one believes the critics and an idolatrous and
adoring public— simply a man with nary a true supernatural gift. And yet
. . ."
  "You had one of your visions?"
  He was gazing across the foyer at Jennie. "You're extremely peaked, my
child," he observed. "What was I saying, Harry?"
  "You had another of your mystical hunches."
   "Indeed I did." He rubbed at his broad chest. "Most inconvenient it was,
too, striking as it did whilst I happened to be sharing the opulently
furnished private railroad car of an impressively amorous countess and
demonstrating my fabled manual dexterity." He paused to cough into his
gloved hand. "Of a sudden I was taken over with a most unsettling vision,
my boy. What I saw was none other than yourself stretched out in what
appeared to be a gaudy Egyptian sarcophagus, all swaddled with linen
wrappings. The wrappings in question were splattered with blood and
you, alas, appeared to be singularly defunct."
  "As sometimes happens, Lorenzo, you got your facts slightly garbled.
But even so I—"
   "This strange and awesome power, if indeed I do possess it— and I
make no claims— doesn't always work with the accuracy and
dependability of the telegraph," said the plump magician, "included in the
trance image was the address of this benighted institution, today's date
and the warning that the traditional hour of midnight was the crucial one.
I made arrangements to disembark from the Orlandia-Urbania Express
and hastened here. An unfortunate altercation with my cabdriver over the
sanitary habits of one of his steeds caused me to arrive a few moments
beyond the witching hour. Yet I am pleased to observe that no serious
harm has as yet befallen anyone."
  Harry took hold of his plump arm. "Step into the Egyptian wing," he
invited. "Will you be okay for a few minutes, Jennie?"
  "As well as can be expected." She sank back into the chair.
   Frowning, the magician allowed Harry to escort him down a corridor
and into the large room where the dead man was sprawled. "Ah, there is
an approximation of the very bloody corpse I saw in my vision. Except it
isn't you, Harry."
  "This guy's been sneaking in here evenings to scare off the watchmen."
  Puffing some and grunting, the Great Lorenzo knelt beside the mummy.
"What precisely was his motivation?"
  "Never had the chance to ask him."
  "You were forced to shoot him to prevent his doing you and the fair
Jennie bodily harm, eh? Well, that's understand—"
  "Jennie shot him."
  The magician's knees made small crackling noises as he got up. "I fail to
detect a note of gratitude."
  "He was about to give himself up."
  The Great Lorenzo made a slow thoughtful circuit of the body. "There's
something familiar about this lad," he muttered.
  "Know him?"
   "Not as a bosom friend, no. Yet I have the feeling I've encountered him
sometime in the past," he replied. "Most likely during one of my many
triumphal engagements here in this dazzling and wordly city."
   "Somebody connected with the theater maybe.""Yes, that sounds . . ."
The magician grimaced suddenly, clutched at his middle."What's
wrong?""Jennie." He pivoted, starting trotting toward the foyer.Harry ran
faster, reaching the young woman ahead of the magician. "You seem to be
all right," he told her, puzzled. "No worse that I was a few minutes ago
when you dragged Lorenzo off to view my handiwork." She was looking up
into his face. "What were you expecting to find?"
  "He gave me the impression you were in danger."
  "She is, my boy." Panting, the Great Lorenzo halted beside the tufted
armchair.
  "From the police you mean?"
  He bent and took both her hands in his. "Sometime within the last
dozen hours, dear child," he informed her, "you were hypnotized. And for
an evil purpose."
  "By whom?" asked Harry.
   "Alas, my latest vision failed to include that helpful kernel of
information."


                            CHAPTER 4
  The sky began to lighten. In the thin blueness of dawn Harry saw the
Eiffel Tower take shape in the distance, a dark skeleton rising up into the
pale morning.
  He turned away from the paneled windows of his hotel suite parlor. The
room was mostly shades of brown, with touches of mauve and gold.
  Seated comfortably on a candy-striped loveseat was the Great Lorenzo.
He'd removed his gloves and was fingering a large silver coin. "The
procedure, I assure you, is completely and utterly painless."
  Jennie, who was now wearing a full-length dark skirt and a puff-sleeved
white blouse, was pacing the ochre and mauve carpet. "Well, it'll be just
about the first thing that is since I hit Paris this morning."
  Harry stationed himself in front of a wall covered with vertically striped
purple and chocolate wallpaper. "You don't remember running into
anyone unusual after you ditched me in the lobby?"
  "I didn't exactly ditch you," she said. "I really was sent here to cover this
obelisk story, though. Those cablegrams I showed Inspector Swann prove
that. . . . Thanks, by the way, Harry, for vouching for me and telling the
police I was more or less assisting you on this case."
  "Swann knows my father and, for some reason, admires him," said
Harry. "So he seems to have nothing but respect for the Challenge
International Detective Agency and all its investigators."
  "Your papa," remarked the Great Lorenzo, "may be a cantankerous old
goat, yet he's a sterling sleuth for all that. You're perhaps too young to
recall in full the details of such cases of his as the affair of the Yonkers
Trunk Slayer back in '77 or—"
  "Can you counteract whatever's been done to Jennie?"
   The coin was spinning from plump finger to plump finger, catching the
light of the electric chandelier overhead. "A trifling task, my boy. Fear
not."
  Jennie took a slow deep breath, then exhaled. "Well, let's get started."
  The portly magician gestured at the lyre-backed wooden chair near the
small empty fireplace.
  "If you will but seat yourself, dear child." Jennie complied. "I think,
Harry, I really was planning to follow you on the sly," Jennie confessed as
she smoothed her skirt. "But, honestly, I'm not even sure of that."
  "Don't fret. Lorenzo'll get you back shipshape."
  "This is a silver dollar," the magician told her. "On one side we notice
Liberty and on the other aneagle. Watchnow . . . Liberty. . . eagle . . .
Liberty. . . eagle . . ."
  Her hazel eyes were already taking on a glazed look.
  "The eagle seems to be . . . flapping his wings . . . flapping them . . . not
rapidly . . . but slowly .
  . . slowly . . ."
  Jennie made a small whimpering sound and slumped sideways in her
chair.
  Harry moved to help her up, but the Great Lorenzo waved him off.
   "You're asleep now, dear child," the magician informed her. "A very
pleasant sleep, very relaxing. You can hear me as you blissfully slumber
and, what is more, you will be able to speak. Isn't that right?"
  "It is, yes." Her voice was faint and childlike.
  "Not a thing can hurt you, nothing can harm you," the Great Lorenzo
assured her. "No matter what you have been told earlier. Is that clear?"
  Her hands clenched into fists. "Yes . . ."
  "Sometime today, after you arrived in Paris, you were hypnotized. Is
that so?"
  She shuddered. "I must not . . . ever say . . ."
  "No, no, child. You simply misunderstood the original instructions. I
am in control now. The Great Lorenzo is in charge and what I tell you, and
only that, is true."
  The shuddering grew more severe. Jennie shut her eyes tight, hitting
her fists together. "If I ever speak . . . terrible things . . ."
  "That was an error. A false bit of news sent to you. I am the only one you
need listen to. The Great Lorenzo. Listen to me now, Jennie, listen.
Whatever was told to you by another hypnotist, whatever warnings you
were given, whatever orders . . . they are no more. Your mind is yours
again; it belongs to none other. And you will remember all that
happened."
   She shivered even more violently. "But I must obey . . . the . . ." Leaping
to her feet, she held her arms out and cried, "Harry, Harry! Help me."
  He bounded to her, put his arms around her. "Easy now. It's all right."
    She hugged him hard, beginning to sob against his chest. "It was like . .
. like being attacked by . . . Oh, Harry, just hold on to me. Please."
  The Great Lorenzo flipped the silver dollar into the air. It vanished up
near the cocoa ceiling. "I suggest we adjourn for a bit of breakfast before
delving into the question of the identity of the scoundrel who did this."
   The restaurant's main dining room was covered over with a high dome
of steel and glass. There was a flourishing potted palm next to their
white-covered table and the Great Lorenzo, after brushing the last of the
croissant crumbs from his dimpled chin, plucked two lighted cigars from
it and passed one to Harry. "I am, dear friends, glad I made this side trip
to Paris," he told them, puffing contentedly on his cigar. "I only regret I
must journey onward in but a few days in order to reach the fabled
Spielzeug Theater in Urbania's glittering capital in time for the initial
performance of my magical extravaganza."
  "Damn good thing you did stop," Harry said. "Otherwise we wouldn't
have known what had happened to Jennie."
   For the past several minutes Jennie had been writing in a
stenographer's notebook with a stub of a pencil. Sipping now and then at
her coffee, she paid no attention to Harry, the Great Lorenzo or the other
patrons in the as yet uncrowded restaurant. "Well, I think I remember just
about everything now," she announced, dropping the pencil on the crisp
white tablecloth. "It's pretty darn strange . . . and frightening."
  Harry asked, "Are you up to talking about it?"
  "Yes. Thanks to Lorenzo, I feel I've got my mind back." She touched the
magician's pudgy hand for an instant, smiling at him. "You really are a
wizard, you know."
  "I have never laid claim to any true magical powers," he reminded. "But
one can't help but be aware that a few of my little knacks do seem a trifle
supernatural."
  Jennie flipped back a few pages in her notebook. "You have some
serious opposition, Harry," she said. "Have you ever heard of an
Englishman named Max Orchardson?"
  "A true mountebank," murmured the magician.
  Harry exhaled smoke. "Sure, he's been called the most decadent man in
Europe," he said. "He supposedly pals around with the Yellow Book
crowd— Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley and such— and also dabbles in
black magic. Though that last could be only an affectation."
  "It isn't," she said. "I wrote a series of articles on Orchardson last year
while I was in London for my paper."
  Harry frowned. "Don't recall seeing those."
   "That's because they never ran," Jennie explained. "My editors decided
we might be risking libel charges after . . . well, I'd had signed statements
from several witnesses. One evening all of them suddenly burst into flames
while sitting on my desk in the hotel room. Next, two of my best witnesses
got in touch with me and claimed they'd lied. A third dived into the
Thames one foggy night and never surfaced."
  "Typical of the way Orchardson operates," commented the Great
Lorenzo.
  "The guy is really a magician?"
  "The man seemingly does have true powers," he acknowledged. "He also
has a great deal of money, earned in India long ago by kin less aesthetic
than he. And, like Wilde, he is a master showman."
  "I had a sworn account of devil worship and at least one instance of
human sacrifice," said Jennie.
  Harry asked her, "Is Orchardson here in Paris? Is he the one who
hypnotized you?"
   She nodded. "He was waiting in my hotel room," she said, shivering
once. "He's an obese man, puffy and pale as death. He . . . even though I
tried to fight against it . . . hypnotized me. Using an opal medallion he
wears around his fat neck."
  "Nowhere near as effective as a coin," said the magician.
  "What were you supposed to do?"
  She lowered her head, picked up the pencil and tapped at the tablecloth
with its blunt tip.
  "Follow you, report to him all that you did while in Paris."
  "He knows why I'm here?"
   "Seemed to. At least he knew you were going to the museum and when.
I was instructed to follow you."
  "Why?"
  "He's interested in the Osiris Obelisk."
   Harry said, "What about shooting the mummy?"She turned to the next
page of the notes. "I was told to destroy anyone who tried to get near
it.""Including me?""No, no. I was only to keep close to you and report
regularly to him.""What about that giant bat?"The Great Lorenzo
coughed. "There's a striking detail no one has bothered to share
with—""Fill you in later," Harry promised."I don't know anything about
the bat," answered Jennie. "Apparently when I shot and scared the darn
thing off, I was acting on my own."
  "How were you supposed to report to Orchardson?"
  "He's staying in a villa in a suburb of Paris, Neuilly-sur-Seine."
  "When do you report?"
  "Three this afternoon."
  Harry nodded at the magician. "Is your afternoon free?"
   "I had intended to rekindle a touching relationship with a countess who
is, except for a cork leg, the quintessence of middle-aged charm and
beauty," he replied. "However, I'll give up that pleasure to put myself
entirely at your disposal, my boy."
  "Good. We'll pay a call on Max Orchardson."
  "Harry," warned Jennie, "he's dangerous."
  "So am I."


                            CHAPTER 5
   The Great Lorenzo swung his cane vigorously as he hurried along the
late morning sidewalk. He wore a suit of an impressive green shade, an
embroidered waistcoat and a silk cravat whose bright color scheme
rivaled that of a rainbow. With his tongue placed behind his upper teeth,
he was whistling a music hall tune having to do with a gentleman known
as Burlington Bertie.
   Dodging a family of strolling American tourists, he turned down a side
street off the Avenue Montaigne. The shop he was seeking sat squeezed
between a brownstone office building and a dark-fronted bistro.
  Inscribed in gilt on the narrow shop window was the single name
Grandville. Tumbled together on the other side of the dusty glass were
domino masks, curly blond wigs, lace-trimmed fans, shaggy dark beards,
straw hats and pairs of tinted spectacles.
   A tinny bell jangled when the magician pushed the dark wood and
stained glass door open. "You haven't changed your window display since I
was here last, Grandville," he announced to the long shadowy room. "My
little lecture on American methods of merchandising and advertising had
no effect, alas."
  Shelves lined the walls and were piled with hatboxes, shoe boxes and
bundles of clothes. Manikins dressed in the costumes of other climes and
other times stood patiently all around.
   In a high-backed wicker chair at the rear of the long, narrow shop sat a
small, dark man of fifty some years. He had both his hands resting on the
ivory handle of a stout cane. "Ah, it has to be Lorenzo," he said, wheezing
and struggling to his feet. "Who else speaks in a voice substantial enough
to shatter glass."
  "I hear there's a new tenor with the La Scala company whose vocal
prowess comes near to equaling mine." The magician went striding
toward the proprietor. "I trust I find you in good health, old friend."
  Grandville's laugh was raspy and wheezy. "I am no worse," he replied.
"But why are you in Paris, Lorenzo? I read you had been relegated to
putting on your magic show in such backwaters as Zevenburg and
Kaltzonburg."
  "Old chum, I don't mind your addressing me as plain Lorenzo rather
than the more acceptable Great Lorenzo," he informed him. "When you,
however, allude to my world renowned festival of magical artistry as a
mere magic show, I, sir, bristle."
  Grandville laughed yet again. "You are appearing, then, in Paris?"
  Leaning closer, the Great Lorenzo addressed the owner of the costume
and makeup shop in a confiding tone. "I have taken time out from a very
crowded schedule to put on a limited performance for a small, select
audience."
  "A command performance, eh?"
  "One might say that, although I am not at liberty to divulge any
details," he said. "In fact, I would appreciate it if you'd keep this visit of
mine a secret."
  "That should not be too difficult, for few of my friends or customers
even know who you are," said Grandville. "Except for Goncourt the tailor
who continues to complain that you owe him in the neighborhood of two
hundred francs for some garments he ran up for you back in 1894 and for
which you have not as—"
   "Nonsense. I've never draped myself in his shabby work," the magician
said. "Now, dear friend, let us return to the purpose of my call. I have need
of two of your excellent costumes, plus the false whiskers and makeup that
goes with them. One to fit my own manly frame, the other for a younger
chap of medium height and more slender build."
  Grandville rubbed thumb and forefinger together. "A cash deposit is
required for all costume rentals, Lorenzo."
  Giving him a disdainful look, the Great Lorenzo reached up into the
musty air above the man's head and plucked a fistful of paper money.
"Here, old friend. I trust this will soothe your greedy heart and allow us
to—"
  "This is German currency. Marks and—"
  "Ah, forgive me, my mind is wandering." He grabbed the wad of bills
back, crumpled it even further and flung it away from him. The bills
vanished before reaching the dusty wooden floor. "I would like to see what
you have in the way of costumes for—"
  "My money."
  "Eh?" The magician had wandered over to study one of the faded
theatrical posters decorating the wall of the shop.
  "The francs with which you intend to pay for the rental of the costumes
and sundries you need."
   Brow furrowed, the Great Lorenzo leaned to study the poster more
closely. "Ah, that's the name I was trying to remember," he muttered. "The
fellow wrapped in bandages last evening." He tapped the poster with a
plump forefinger., "Whatever became of LePlaut, who used to appear in
this poor man's Grand Guignol of M. Slepyan's?"
  "Ah, there is a sad tale," answered Grandville with a sympathetic
wheeze. "After the company failed, LePlaut fell in with evil companions.
When last I heard he was working as a dishwasher in a low dive in
Montmartre."
  "Do you perhaps recall the name of the place?"
  "I believe it was called Le Demon des Glaces."
   "Well, enough of this pleasant chitcat about days gone by and vanished
friends." The Great Lorenzo rubbed his hands together and turned away
from the poster. "Let me see the costumes I need."
  Whistling, and not a franc poorer, the magician exited the costume
shop some twenty minutes later. He carried a large parcel wrapped in
green paper under his arm.
   He had covered a little more than a half block when a closed carriage,
pulled by a handsome black steed, rolled up alongside him. When the
window shade was raised and an extremely pretty blonde woman of no
more than thirty-five smiled out at him, the Great Lorenzo nodded and
tipped his bowler hat.
   The door opened and the blonde, who wore a dress of satin and lace and
a white fur stole, called out to him in a sweet voice. "Is that all you have
for such an old and dear friend as Yvonne Turek? No more than a flick of
your hat, dear Lorenzo?"
   The carriage stopped and so did the magician. "Ah, forgive me, dear
lady, I was woolgathering."
  She pouted attractively. "Ah, only a few scant years ago, my dear
dumpling, and you could not tear yourself from my side. My name was on
your adorable lips from noon till night."
  Easing closer to the carriage, he scrutinized its lovely occupant. "One
can well believe that, for you are a most attractive creature, Yvonne."
   Extending a gloved hand, she tugged delicately at his sleeve. "Why not,
for the sake of old times, ride at least a short way with me?"
   "Don't mind if I do." Shifting the package, grunting and huffing, he
scrambled into the dark interior.
  Reaching around him, Yvonne shut the door. "Is this not wonderful?"
  The carriage was thick with the scent of jasmine. As soon as the door
had closed, it resumed clacking along the street.
  "It is more than wonderful, dear lady," the magician told her, "since you
have never in your entire life met me before."
  She sighed and reached into the beaded white purse. "I feared this ruse
might not work," she said, producing a pearl-handled .32 revolver and
pressing it into his portly side.


                          CHAPTER 6
  Jennie sat, hands in her lap, gazing out the window of her small hotel
room. The midday sky was growing increasingly grey. "My room is quite a
bit smaller than yours," she mentioned. "Must be difficult for you, since
you're in the mood to pace."
   "I don't enjoy posh hotels and ritzy suites. That's my father's idea, says
it keeps up the image and reputation of the Challenge International
Detective Agency." Skirting her brass bed, Harry paced along the edge of
the Persian rug. "Wish I had Lorenzo's gift of second sight, then I'd know
where the hell he is." He tugged out his pocket watch again.
   "He really does have some sort of unusual power," said the reporter.
"I've exposed a lot of bunco artists and fake mediums, but he's authentic.
Coming to the museum the way he did last night, simply getting off his
train and rushing to Paris."
   "Sure, he's got a gift." Harry frowned at his watch before returning it to
his pocket. "He's also fairly shrewd. Sometimes he can con you into
thinking a lucky guess is a mystical message from beyond."
  The sky continued to darken; a wind rattled the windows.
  Jennie said, "This plan you've worked out for getting inside Max
Orchardson's lair is—"
  "We've worked out," he corrected. "You were in on the—"
   "As a bystander mostly. You and Lorenzo outvoted me every time I
attempted to express a little reasonable doubt as—"
  "That's the essence of democracy. The will of the majority is—"
  "Well, this representative of the minority is going to be just as dead as
you two hooligans should this crack-brained—"
  "Audacious. Our scheme is audacious, not crack-brained."
  Standing, she faced him. "I don't want any of us to get hurt. No
newspaper story is that important, no detective investigation either."
  "This is a different Jennie Barr," he said, grinning. "You were claiming
only yesterday that getting the story for the New York Daily Inquirer was
more important than—"
   "Could you let up a bit, Harry. I wasn't exactly myself yesterday and I'm
feeling low enough without your—"
  "Okay, sorry." He crossed to her and put his hands on her shoulders.
"We'll all come out of this all right."
  "You're concerned about Lorenzo already, though, aren't you? Because
he's late."
  "He's only . . ." Harry let go of her to pull out his watch. "Damn, nearly a
half hour late."
  "Keep in mind he's a very romantic soul. This is spring and we're in
Paris."
  "I suppose he might've made a stop to see that lady with the cork leg."
He glanced at the door.
  "He usually doesn't dally when he's helping out on something like this,
though." "Where was he going to pick up the costumes and all?"
  "Shop of an old friend of his."
  "You know where it is?"
   "Just off the Avenue Montaigne," Harry answered. "We'll give him
maybe another half hour, then go over there to . . ." He put his finger to
his lips, hunched slightly and ran over to yank the room door open.
   The dark brown corridor was empty, but a pale blue envelope lay on the
flowered carpeting.
   Bending, Harry picked it up. "Addressed to me in Lorenzo's
handwriting." After shutting the door, he opened the message. " 'My dear
colleagues, There have been several new and illuminating developments.
Thus a small change of plans is called for. Meet me by no later than two at
the address below. And, Harry my boy, be absolutely certain you aren't
followed. Ever yours, the Great Lorenzo.' "
  Jennie frowned. "This could be a trap."
  "It could," he agreed. "But we'll have to go over there to make sure."
  Looping his arm around the stone chimney, Harry used his free hand to
pull Jennie up the slanting slate roof.
   The rain, light thus far, had begun to fall just as they'd leaped over to
this rooftop from the three story pension next door.
   Slowly and carefully Jennie worked her way up through the maze of
chimney pots and stovepipes to Harry's side. She was wearing her Norfolk
suit and cap. "The balcony of number 104 Rue Brindavoine ought to be
directly below the apex of this darn roof."
  "Yep, so I'll lower you down and then join you."
  "Be careful on this slate; rain's making it slippery."
  "I've had quite a lot of experience climbing roofs." He took hold of her
arm and pulled her down into a crouch with him. "By the way, how do you
go about buying a man's suit?"
  "I got this in the Boy's Department of Estling's Universal Emporium in
London last year." She kept close to him as he progressed toward the front
edge of the apartment building roof. "Told them it was actually for my
nephew Harry, an unattractive and rather dim lad whom I was
nonetheless attached to."
  "You didn't try it on then?"
  "No, but it fits just fine. You really are very provincial, Harry."
  "Little baggy in the seat."
  "No, it isn't. I'm certain of that because only last evening I was pinched
on the Rue—"
  "Hush for now." He was flat out on the tilting roof, the afternoon rain
pelting lightly down on him.
   Harry tugged himself until he was out over the edge and could get a
glimpse of the wrought iron balcony below.
  There was someone standing on it now, under the shelter of a pink
parasol.
  The parasol started to spin and after a half dozen turns was lowered to
one side.
  The Great Lorenzo was beaming up at him. "I'm greatly impressed by
your acrobatic entrance, my boy," he said. "Yet since time is important, it
would have been better to have availed yourselves of the doorway
downstairs."
   The Great Lorenzo was using the rolled up parasol as a pointer. Aiming
it at the blonde woman who sat stiffly in the cane-bottom chair, he
announced, "This charming damsel is Yvonne Turek— or rather that's the
name she assumed for her part in this intrigue. In reality she is Yvette
Tardi, a gifted yet, sadly, unemployed actress."
  "And who's the gent dozing on the floor yonder?" asked Harry.
   "He is Manuel Bulcao, an import from Lisbon," said the magician as he
pointed the ferrule of the parasol at him. "He's not in a hypnotic trance, as
is the fair Yvonne. Him I conked on the noggin and trussed up, using some
of the impressive knots I learned during a recent cruise of the
Mediterranean."
   "Who are those folks exactly?" Jennie was standing near the crackling
fire in the small marble fireplace. "Do they work for Max Orchardson?"
  "On the contrary," the Great Lorenzo said. "They are in the employ of
the opposition.
   Harry settled into an armchair next to a marble-top table. He drummed
his fingertips on the base of the hurricane lamp for a few seconds.
"Opposed to us or to Orchardson?"
   "Both." He took a few steps away from the entranced blonde, shoes
clicking on the black and white mosaic tiles of the parlor floor. "You have
both no doubt heard of a gentleman named Anwar Zaytoon."
  "The Merchant of Death," said Harry.
   "Just about the most powerful arms dealer in the world," added Jennie
as she held her cap to the fireplace. "I tried to interview him once in
Constantinople and three of his toadies came darn close to tossing me in a
public fountain. A very mysterious, not at all cordial man."
  Harry asked, "Is Zaytoon interested in the obelisk?"
   "Very much so." The Great Lorenzo nodded at the blonde actress. "She
was hired to entice me here and make me an offer of ten thousand francs
to double-cross you and become an informant for Zaytoon."
  "You're worth more than that."
   "Twice at least," agreed the magician. "Apparently our death merchant
is aware you're in Paris, Harry. He's had your hotel watched and your
movements scrutinized. Which is how they became aware of my advent
upon the scene and why I warned you to shake off any tails before
venturing here to share in the fair Yvonne's reluctant hospitality."
  "Why," asked Jennie, "is everyone so interested in the Osiris Obelisk?"
  "Yvonne is— forgive me for stating this so bluntly, dear lady— only an
underling who knows little of the motives of the sinister Mr. Zaytoon."
   "He's in Paris now?""Nearby."Getting up, Harry went to the window
they'd recently climbed in through and looked down at the rain-swept
street. A mournful black carriage was rolling by. "What about the
mummy— who was he working for?"
   "Zaytoon. I determined, only moments before Yvonne put her ill-fated
plan to lure me into a life of espionage and trickery into effect, that he was
a seedy actor named LePlaut. The lady confirmed that."
  "They wanted to scare off all the guards," said Harry, "and then steal
the obelisk?"
  "That's it exactly."
 Jennie said, "It's sort of ugly and squatty, not worth anywhere near as
much as some of the other artifacts at the museum."
  "Ah, my child, but it apparently holds some secret," the magician told
her. "A secret worth killing for, a secret even worth trying to corrupt a
man of my sterling character for."


                           CHAPTER 7
   Every few feet a thin tree grew up from a small plot of ground
surrounded by sidewalk. The narrow trunk of each was guarded by a
circular fence of wrought iron. The rain hit hard at the trees and made
them shiver.
  The carriage, borrowed from the unprotesting Yvonne, had been left
around the corner, the dark horse tethered to one of the frail trees.
  Held high above the heads of the three of them was an immense black
umbrella the Great Lorenzo had found in a compartment under the
driver's seat of the carriage he'd driven here to the suburb of
Neuilly-sur-Seine.
  "Don't fret should you get splashed by the elements, my boy," the
magician told Harry, shifting his grip on the ebony umbrella handle. "The
makeup I've expertly applied to our visages is one hundred percent
waterproof."
   "I wasn't worrying about that." Harry reached up to adjust the crimson
fez he was wearing. "Instead, I was wondering if Orchardson will fall for
this."
   The Great Lorenzo brushed at the striped kaftan he was wearing. "You
forget he is extremely eager to obtain the obelisk," he reminded. "He
covets the thing, despite its cursed nature. He will be, therefore, anxious
to believe the yarn we're going to spin. We are two high-placed Egyptian
officials, extremely close to his Highness the Khedive. On our handsome
persons we carry authentic documents proving beyond a shadow of a
doubt that the obelisk in question doesn't rightly belong to the Musée des
Antiquités at all. Orchardson will dote on us, never fear, and be elated at
what looks like a chance to purchase the object he seeks."
   They'd reached an iron-barred gate in a high wall of pale brownish
stone.
   Jennie swallowed hard. "This is it, Max Orchardson's villa," she said.
"I'm supposed to yank this bellpull three times."
  "Go ahead and do it," said Harry.
  "I don't think I like you with a beard."
  "Neither do I. Ring."
  "Once we're inside," said the Great Lorenzo, "I'll use my superior
hypnotic powers on the fellow and we'll find out all we want to know. Ring,
child."
  Shrugging, Jennie tugged the dangling black chain.
   Through the gates they could see a half acre of grounds covered with
hedges long untrimmed, high grass and tall shaggy pines. Beyond that
loomed a sprawling stone house, turreted, that was the exact shade of the
rainy afternoon.
  Before the third tug of the bellpull a dog was barking, a deep gruff bark
that seemed to be coming from a large hollow room.
   "Let's hope," said Harry, "we can convince the dog we're Egyptian
officials."
  "Hounds are no problem," the magician assured him. "In my vanished
youth I toured the States in the company of, among others, Professor
Swaim and his Educated Canines. He imparted to me the tricks of the . . .
Ah, this must be the butler."
  A huge black man in a frock coat and striped trousers was walking
methodically down a grey gravel path toward them. He carried no
umbrella and appeared to be oblivious of the rain.
   Halting a few yards from the locked gate, he gave Jennie an inquiring
stare. "What is the meaning of this, missy?"
  "I was told to come here," she answered. "Today. At three."
  "Alone," the butler said.
  "Well, I intended to be, but these gentlemen approached me at the
museum last evening and insisted on tagging along. They claim to have a
proposition."
  "It is?"
  "We are in a position to sell your employer the Osiris Obelisk," said the
Great Lorenzo. "Assuming that he, whoever he may be, is interested."
   "Who," asked the black man in his deep rumbling voice, "might you be,
sir?"
 Tugging impatiently at his beard, the magician said, "Ah, but of course,
my fame does not extend to foreign climes such as this. I am, my good
man, Mohammed Ali Pasha." He bowed. "My young associate is Cherif
Pasha. We both represent the Khedive of Egypt and come equipped with
papers proving the obelisk in question is rightfully ours."
  "It is," added Harry, "our wish to sell it to the highest bidder."
  Stepping forward, the butler unlocked the heavy gate. "Please to enter."
   "To hear is to obey." The Great Lorenzo bowed once more before
stepping through the open gateway.
   The black man waited until all three of them were on the villa grounds
and then relocked the gate. From beneath his frock coat he brought forth
a .45 revolver. "If you'll step inside the house, Mr. Challenge, Mr. Lorenzo
and Miss Barr," he suggested, "I'm certain Mr. Orchardson will be quite
pleased to see you all."
   The living room was on the top floor of the villa. Vast, high-ceilinged,
with peach-colored walls. There was little furniture and all of it was
huddled in the room's center around a white potbellied stove. Except for a
worn Oriental carpet on which rested a divan, two mauve armchairs, a
claw-footed table and a bust of Voltaire, the hardwood floors were bare.
  "Come in, come in, you three," invited Max Orchardson. "Like most
recluses I simply can't stand to be alone."
  He was lounging on the maroon divan, a three-hundred-pound man
who seemed to be made of partially risen bread dough. His face was puffy
and dead white, his close-cropped hair the color of driven snow. An
enormous silken smoking jacket was wrapped around him, a pattern of
exploding orchids decorating the taut silk.
   "You've lost a bit of weight, Orchardson." Harry scratched at his thick
false beard. "Judging from the last society page portrait of you I saw."
  "Yes, I do believe I'm wasting away from worry," he said. "Those of us
who loathe life as much as I do have a terrible fear of death. It might turn
out to be even more boring."
  The black butler cleared his throat with a sedate rumble. "Shall I fetch
the hot coals and the pokers, sir?"
   "Not yet, Logo." The languid fat man stretched and plucked a green
carnation from the lacquered vase on the table. "Suppose, Challenge, you
tell me what you have in mind with this delightful masquerade."
   Harry moved across the hardwood floor to the edge of the rug. "We're
all interested in the obelisk. We wanted to find out how much you knew
about it."
  "There was no need to dress up like a pair of road-show Othellos to do
that, dear boy," Orchardson pointed out, brushing at his puffy cheek with
the green flower. "No, you intended to take me unawares."
   "I'm not too happy over what you did to Jennie." Harry scratched at his
false whiskers once again. "These damn things are starting to itch."
   "The price of duplicity." Orchardson pushed himself to a sitting
position and the divan gave a protesting moan. "If I catch your drift,
Challenge, you had in mind to find out all that I was up to and perhaps
give me a sound thrashing as well."
  "I still may."
  Orchardson blinked. Then he started laughing, a whooping, gasping
noise. "Forgive me," he apologized after a moment, "I fear my grief
expresses itself in odd ways. I even laughed at my mother's funeral."
  "He's grieving for you," explained the large Logo, "because you'll soon be
dead."
   After giving his fez an adjusting shove, the Great Lorenzo went striding
over to the center of the room. "What say we get down to business," he
said. "You don't want to kill us because then you won't have a chance at
the obelisk. Nor will you be able to find out what sort of a deal we're
contemplating with your chief rival."
  Orchardson's colorless eyebrows climbed. "Who might that be?"
  "Let us refer to him merely as the Merchant of Death."
  "A colorful name." Orchardson poked the stem of the emerald-dyed
carnation into his doughy chin as he glanced toward the wide windows at
the front of the room. The rain was pelting the thick panes. "Not one that
means anything to me."
   "He's certainly aware of you. In fact, this very day he offered us, via an
emissary, a considerable sum to arrange for the delivery of the obelisk into
his hands." The Great Lorenzo pushed his fez to a more jaunty angle.
"We'll, of course, entertain a higher offer."
   Orchardson waved the green carnation at Logo. "You'd best start
bringing in the torture implements," he said. "This polite social
intercourse has started to be quite tedious." His pale lips seemed to
disappear into his flesh as he smiled. "We'll begin with the lady, since I
have never gone along with the rather antiquated dictum that young
people should be seen and not heard."
  "The iron boot, sir?"
  "To start." Orchardson plucked a few petals from the flower and
suffered another fit of laughter. Two flaring pink spots of color decorated
his pudgy cheeks as he rocked back and forth on the creaking divan. "Ah, I
do wish I could express my deep sorrow for Miss Barr in a more seemly
fashion." He flung the smashed petals to the rug.
   "You do anything to her," warned Harry, "and you'll never get the secret
of eternal life."
  Orchardson suddenly stiffened, his three hundred pounds freezing.
Finally he asked, "Whatever are you talking about, dear boy?"
  Grinning, Harry nodded at the Great Lorenzo and then started
scratching at his beard. "Now," he said.
  The portly magician threw himself to the left, snatching off his fez as he
headed for the floor. Concealed in the hat was a pearl-handled .32
revolver. He shot Logo twice in his gun arm before the black man could
swing his own weapon around to fire.
  Jennie, meantime, had dropped flat out on the hardwood.
  And Harry had yanked out the derringer that had been taped under his
bushy Egyptian beard.
  He pointed the gun at the seated Orchardson.
  The fat man did a sudden and unexpected thing. He executed a perfect,
graceful backward somersault off the divan. Landing on his slippered feet,
Orchardson ran surprisingly rapidly toward the high, wide windows. Not
even pausing to open one, he went crashing through it and out.
  "Holy Christ!" Harry sprinted to the shattered window.
  He was about to look down for a glimpse of the fat man's broken body
on the grounds far below, when two shots came whistling in at him from
out in the rainy afternoon.
  Harry hit the floor, rolled out of range.
   Looking out, he saw another of the giant bats flying away through the
rain-swept sky. Clutched in its talons was a laughing Orchardson.
   The black butler was sitting on the floor. "Forgive me, gentlemen and
lady." He slapped his good hand to his mouth, swallowed. "You shan't have
the opportunity to question me." His eyes snapped shut and he fell over
backwards on the bare floor.
  Harry lunged, tried to pry the man's mouth open. "Damn it."
  "Is he dead?" asked Jennie.
  "Nope, looks like some kind of trance."
   Squatting, the Great Lorenzo sniffed at the comatose butler. "It's
maracuya, an obscure herbal drug used by certain mean-minded tribes of
the upper Amazon," he concluded. "Friend Logo will be dead to the world
for weeks to come."
    Jennie had wandered over near the divan. "Here's something." She
lifted up the vase of green carnations. "A little wooden panel full of
buttons. That must be how Orchardson summoned that bat and had it
hovering outside the window."
  "Bats are notoriously difficult to train, child." The magician huffed to
an upright position. "I seriously doubt one could be induced to come
running every time a buzzer sounded."
  "This isn't a regular everyday bat." Harry joined Jennie to examine the
control panel. "Fact is, Lorenzo, it's probably a flying mechanism of some
sort."
 "Impossible. Successful flight is years off, its secret yet to be revealed to
mortal man."
  Jennie perched on the divan edge. "Speaking of secrets, Harry, why did
you taunt Orchardson by saying you were on to the secret of eternal life?"
   He grinned. "That's got to be what's behind all this interest in the
obelisk," he told her. "Remember that odd inscription Allegre translated
for us? Orchardson is ailing and Zaytoon, from what I've heard, is up near
ninety. Both of them are especially interested in immortality and they
must have the notion that somehow the obelisk can give that to them."
  "Though still in my prime and in tip-top shape, I must admit that I, too,
have entertained the idea of living beyond my allotted time," admitted the
Great Lorenzo. "Not for selfish reasons, mind you, but because of my
exceptional gifts. It seems unfair to keep generations as yet unborn from
enjoying an evening of my magical entertainments. My fabled Floating
Lady illusion, for instance, belongs to the ages. Even the Japanese
Diving—"
   "Hey." Harry tugged out a small drawer that had been concealed
beneath the marble top of the small table. "Some letters and a few pages
torn out of a magazine."
   "Those pages are from The Journal of Advanced Technology, published
in England," recognized Jennie.
   "Dated April 1892. Article's entitled 'The "Flying Machine" of Professor
G. P. R. Stowe Successfully Tested.' Goes on to describe the flights of a
steam-powered craft Stowe calls an aerodrome."
   "Oh, I interviewed him three or four years ago when he was in New
York trying to raise funds." Jennie shook her head and wrinkled her
freckled nose. "He struck me as an eccentric and probably a charlatan."
  "This aerodrome, though, would look quite a bit like a giant bat with a
few modifications," said Harry.
  Taking the tearsheets from him, she studied the steel-engraved
drawings. "Maybe you're right at that. Orchardson might have Professor
Stowe working for him."
  "One way or the other."
  "Ah, listen to this." The magician was thumbing through the letters.
"These missives are from various physicians in Great Britain and the
continent. The general medical opinion is that unless Orchardson
suspends his decadent style of living only a miracle can keep him alive
more than a few months."
  "A good motive for going after immortality," said Harry. "I'm
wondering, though, why everybody waited until now to make a try for the
obelisk. It's been sitting in the damn museum for months."
  "Let's search the villa," said Jennie. "The answer may be here
someplace."
  For the rest of the rainy afternoon, until twilight took over, they went
through the rented villa. But they found nothing more of interest.


                            CHAPTER 8
   The horse-drawn omnibus made an unscheduled stop directly in front
of the Musée des Antiquités. On the open upper level the Great Lorenzo
stood up, adjusted his Inverness cape and started for the metal stairway.
To the scattering of perplexed open-air passengers he said, "I hope, dear
friends, you'll be able to avail yourselves of the free passes to the Great
Lorenzo's magical extravaganza. I hear he's tops and well worth a
twenty-six-hour journey to nearby Urbania."
  He paused by a pretty nursemaid who had a chubby little boy in a sailor
suit in her care. "And for the little admiral . . ." From the mid-morning air
he plucked a bottle containing a model of a full-rigged clipper ship.
  "Where's the crew?" inquired the sour-faced little fellow as he accepted
the gift with sticky hands.
  "For you, dear lady . . ." A bouquet of yellow roses appeared in his
gloved hand. Bowing, he presented them to her.
  "Oh, monsieur. I am quite . . . taken aback."
  "And well you should be, dear Albertine. Adieu for now."
  "Oh, but how did you know my name?"
   He tipped his bowler, which was the color of green tree moss. "It is my
business to know things." Bowing again, he then went hurrying and
clanging down the stairs.
   The uniformed conductor helped him to the sidewalk and handed him
his plump portmanteau. "A pleasure to have served such an important
official, Inspector Swann."
  "Your duty to France will not go unrewarded, Gallimard." The Great
Lorenzo saluted him briskly and then grabbed up his suitcase.
  The pair of sturdy horses began moving again and the omnibus with its
nonplussed passengers rolled away down the street.
  Ascending the museum steps two at a time, the Great Lorenzo tried the
brass doorknob.
  The heavy door was locked.
  He started knocking on it enthusiastically with his fist. "I have a train to
catch."
 After a moment the door was opened a fraction and a lean, moustached
man who was obviously a plainclothes-police detective peered out. "The
museum is not open to the public at this time, monsieur."
   "I know that, which is why I've been standing out here for untold
minutes rapping on the door." The Great Lorenzo thrust a well-shod foot
into the opening. "Were you as perceptive as one in your profession ought
well to be, my friend, you would have noticed that I am far from being a
member of the public. Nay, I happen to be a confidential operative for the
prestigious Challenge International Detective Agency."
  "Ah, yes. M. Challenge, accompanied by a very charming young lady, is
within this institution at this very moment."
   "That fact, my colleague, accounts for my being upon your
doorstep.""Come in then, M. . . . I fear I don't know your name.""I am the
Great Lorenzo.""Indeed? An unusual name for a private investigator, is it
not?"The magician pushed his way into the museum. "I happen to be an
unorthodox sleuth." He went striding along the corridor toward the
director's private office.
  "Yes, your very attire gave me a clue to that fact." The policeman
remained at the entrance.
   Knocking twice, the Great Lorenzo let himself in to Maurice Allegre's
office. "Excuse my intrusion, one and all," he said, taking off his hat and
dropping it on the edge of a large alabaster casket. "I also request there be
no tears and handwringing when I make my sad announcement."
  Allegre had hopped to his feet. "Who in the world is this uncouth—"
  "One of my operatives." Harry rose from his chair. "What's happening,
Lorenzo?"
  "You sound very dire," observed Jennie from the other chair in front of
the desk.
   "I must, alas, take the very next train to Urbania's fun-filled capital of
Kaltzonburg," he announced ruefully. "It seems the madcap heir to the
throne, Prince Rudolph, has insisted on a special command performance
of my entire magical evening. The manager of the Spielzeug Theater wired
me at the crack of dawn. Therefore, I needs must cut short my stay in this
magnificient city and rush across field and fen to Urbania. Prince Rudy is
not a fellow one offends or disappoints, especially when one intends to play
three, possibly four, weeks in his domain."
  "As it turns out," Harry told him, "I'll be leaving Paris for Urbania in a
couple of days myself."
  "We'll be leaving," modified Jennie.
   "Oh, so? That's splendid news and goes far toward explaining the vision
I was visited with as the new day's rosy fingers touched at my eyelids,"
said the Great Lorenzo. "For I saw the three of us— you were excluded, M.
Allegre— Yes, I saw you and I, Harry my boy, along with you, dear Jennie,
together in Urbania and languishing in . . . Ah, but the setting is of no
import."
  "What was it?"
   "Well, a dungeon. But you know these images, these portents of the
future, are rarely one hundred percent accurate." After smiling at them
all, he put his hat back on. "Until we meet again, dear friends."
  "Bon voyage." Jennie got to her feet and kissed him on the cheek.
  "By the way, Harry," he said as they shook hands, "my hotel is still being
watched by somebody's toadies. I had to duck down several quaint Paris
byways and then commandeer an omnibus to throw them off the scent.
Farewell for now, no tears." He gathered up his heavy portmanteau and
took his leave.
  Allegre sank back into his desk chair. "An omnibus?"
  "Merely a figure of speech," Harry assured him. "Let's get back to
business."
    "There is but little more to discuss, M. Challenge," he said. "As I was
explaining before your corpulent associate burst in, Baron Felix Groll has
decided, because of certain unfortunate incidents here at the museum,
that he wants the Osiris Obelisk shipped to him even earlier than planned.
It will be crated and ready to travel, by way of a special train, two days
hence. You, as well as two of Inspector Swann's best men, shall travel with
it. And, let me add, I wish you luck."
  The restaurant floated leisurely along the darkening Seine. Its upper
deck was ringed with softly glowing paper lanterns. At the cluster of small
tables sat gentlemen in dark suits and top hats, women in stylish frocks
and hats. On the small platform at the stern of the riverboat was a trio of
hefty young men in straw hats and tight, striped blazers. They were
playing exuberantly romantic music on concertina, guitar and violin.
  The lights along the banks of the river were coming on, reflected yellow
and gold in the water.
   Harry had an elbow resting on their small checkered tablecloth. "You've
fallen silent," he mentioned.
   Jennie stroked the stem of her wineglass idly. "I dislike using trite
phrases," she said, "and so I've been sitting here trying to come up with a
fresh, brand-new way of saying how wonderful this all is."
  He grinned. "We're both off duty."
   "Very well, then it's a wonderful evening and I'm very fond of you," she
told him. "The dinner was lovely and I wish we didn't have to leave Paris
for Urbania day after tomorrow."
   "We'd have to, even if I didn't have to guard the obelisk and you didn't
have to write about it," he said. "Lorenzo gave us a pair of free passes to
his show."
  "As much as I admire his showmanship, I doubt I'd travel hundreds of
miles by rail to see him.
  Although he is . . . What's the matter, Harry?"
  "Nothing."
  She started to turn to look in the direction he'd been looking. "You saw
something that—"
  "Keep your eyes on me." He put his hand over hers.
  "What is it I'm not staring at?"
  "Couple husky fellows wearing Zouave uniforms and sitting at a table
near the opposite railing."
  "I hadn't noticed them."
  "Only came up from the saloon below about ten minutes ago."
  "Why are they causing you to scowl?"
  "For one thing they've been, very unobtrusively they think, keeping an
eye on us since they got up here," he said. "For another, their uniforms
aren't quite authentic. Costume shop stuff."
  "There's certainly been a lot of dressing up going on lately."
   "I didn't spot these boys following us earlier, so maybe they're only
interested in pretty red- haired lady reporters." "Auburn," she corrected.
"My hair isn't red."
  "Should they make a move, just duck under our table and let me—"
  "Like heck I will. I've been a newspaper reporter for eight years. A
couple of louts in fezes and pantaloons don't scare—"
  "Relax, they may not have anything to do with the obelisk."
  "Seems like just about everybody in Paris does," she said. "Max
Orchardson, Anwar Zaytoon and lord knows who else. Do you think that
hunk of granite really does contain the secret of eternal life?"
  "Doesn't matter what I think," answered Harry. "Orchanlson and
Zaytoon are obviously convinced— and I'd like to know who or what
convinced them all this time after the thing was hauled here from Egypt."
  "I've been looking into that angle." She reached into her purse for her
notebook. "After we parted company this afternoon I called on a few
people I know in Paris."
  "You were supposed to stay in your room."
  "C'mon, it's unlikely Orchardson'll try to hypnotize me twice. And most
other threats I can cope with."
  Harry shrugged. "Who'd you talk to and what'd you find out?"
  "About four months ago, and this initial information I got from Allegre
himself, a onetime professor from the University of Graustark spent a
week at the Musée des Antiquités," she said as she opened her notebook.
"He devoted a good deal of his time to photographing and measuring the
Osiris Obelisk. He got, according to Allegre,, quite excited on his last day
there. Left abruptly at midday, never to return. His name is Alexander
Fodorsky."
  "You talked to some of your contacts about Fodorsky?"
   "I did, and it turns out his reputation of late has been sort of unsavory,"
the auburn-haired reporter replied. "He'd been a reputable scholar up
until two years ago, which is, why Allegre let him hang around. His special
fields are Egyptology and Orientology. More recently, however, he's grown
interested in sorcery and the black arts."
  "Any links between him and Orchardson?"
  "Fodorsky is rumored to have been a house guest of his in London last
winter."
  Harry leaned back, glancing up at the deepening night overhead.
"Fodorsky must've found out something about the obelisk, something
Courdard and his colleagues may not've been aware of. He passed the
news on to Orchardson."
  "And somehow Zaytoon got wind of the secret, too."
  Harry said, "Why is Orchardson killing off everybody who was on the
expedition?"
   "He can't be certain they don't know something about the secret. So he
eliminates them." She shut her notebook. "In a way I'm disappointed there
really isn't a curse. With a good ancient curse my paper's guaranteed
syndication of my articles all over the—"
  "Our Zouaves," cut in Harry, "are making a move."
  Casually she looked over. "They do seem to be, don't they?"
   The two husky men, decked out in fezes, short blue jackets loaded with
glittering medals, baggy red trousers and white leggings, were coming
toward them as rapidly as they could across the crowded restaurant deck.
Each was holding a wicked-looking dagger in his teeth.
  "Sure you don't want to hide under the—"
  "Hooey."
   The larger Zouave arrived first. "I am insulted," he snarled around the
knife handle. "I can stand no more. You, monsieur, have been making
snide faces and wicked gestures at myself and my companion for far too
long."
  "The honor of the regiment is at stake." His broad-shouldered
companion took his knife from his teeth to his hand.
   "Fellows," said Harry, grinning amiably up at them, "I suggest you
forget about the honor of your alleged regiment and go quietly back to
your table before you find yourselves picking your backsides up off the
deck."
   "Gar! He insults us further." The bigger of the two grabbed his knife
from between his jagged teeth.
  "I'll take this one," Harry said across the table.
  He unexpectedly brought up his foot and kicked the Zouave
resoundingly in the groin.
   The tassle of the man's fez stood up straight. He yowled, doubled up and
clutched at himself.
  Harry kicked him in the knee. He then stood, grabbed the belligerent
Zouave by his thick neck and, seemingly with little effort, tossed him clean
over the railing.
  A paper lantern got tangled with the Zouave and it fell, shedding sparks,
down to the dark Seine with him.
   Jennie had worked less flamboyantly. She'd punched her surprised
Zouave hard in the midsection, whacked him across the shin with a spare
chair. Before he fully recovered from that, Jennie shoved him against the
railing, booted him in the backside and then tipped him over into the
river below.
  "Very deft," said Harry just after the second splash.
   Smiling, she rested her elbows on the railing and watched their two
bedraggled attackers go swimming toward a stone quay. "I suppose,
Harry, we really should've kept at least one of those louts to ask questions
of and all."
   "Maybe," he admitted. "Thing is, whenever I get into a brawl alongside
a body of water, the temptation to toss everybody in is too much."
  Smiling, she straightened up the things atop their table and seated
herself again. "Do you want to explain this incident to the waiter who's
running over here now? Or shall I?"
  "I'll handle it," he offered. "Least I can do."


                            CHAPTER 9
  On the morning the obelisk was to leave Paris Harry awoke an hour
ahead of daybreak.
  He hopped free of his brass bed, grabbed his Colt .38 from the bedside
table and sprinted to the door.
  Yanking it open, he got ready to dodge.
  "I say, those are rather smashing underdrawers, Mr. Challenge. Jove,
you Americans do have a flair for that sort of—"
  "Who the hell are you?"
   The young man was wearing a tweedy traveling suit and a deerstalker
cap. His face was long, lean and deeply tanned and there was a monocle
shielding his left eye. "One is rather impressed, don't you know, by the
acuity of your hearing," he said. "I mean to say, I was approaching on
tiptoe so as not to awaken any of your fellow guests in this jolly hotel and
yet—"
  "Who," repeated Harry, pointing the revolver at his visitor's breastbone,
"are you?"
  "Ah, deuced rude of me, old man." He smiled a toothy smile. "Name is
Albert Melville Pennoyer. Just about everyone, from the mater on down,
calls me Bertie. Rather a chummy sort of name I—"
  "Why are you pussyfooting outside my door at this ungodly hour?"
  "Is beastly early, ain't it?" Pennoyer shrugged his narrow shoulders.
"Yet if one wants to catch a ride on this deuced secret train, one had best
be up and doing with the proverbial cock, eh?"
  Taking a step back, Harry asked, "What secret train?"
  "What? Oh, I see, yes." He put his gloved right hand over his mouth
before chuckling. "Very clever of you, old bean, pretending to know
nothing of the Osiris Obelisk. Admirable example of the sort of cunning
and duplicity one expects from the Challenge International Detective
Agency."
  Frowning, Harry said, "Bertie Pennoyer. Wait now, you're one of the five
who led the expedition."
  "Very good. Mind like a steel trap. Good show. Spotted me right off." He
hid another appreciative chuckle. "When I inform you I've fair got the
wind up, Challenge old chap, you'll understand why."
  "You figure you may go the way of Reynard Courdaud and Sir Munson
Bellhouse."
  "Rightho, not to mention Emil Koontzman."
  "Did something happen to him?"
 "Just yesterday in the Bavarian Alps . . . I say, might I come inside, old
man. Confessing cowardice in a public hallway is deuced awkward."
  "Sure, come on." Harry stood aside. "What's that stuck to your shoe?"
   "Rather imagine it's a cablegram from your dear pater." Bending from
the waist, Pennoyer detached the flimsy envelope from the sole of his shoe
and passed it to Harry. "Saw the thing, don't you know, when I was
girding up the proverbial loins to knock upon your portal. Stepped in
some muck while sightseeing in Montmartre last evening, you know.
Thought I'd succeeded in scraping it all off. Sorry."
  "How'd you know my father'd be cabling me?" After elbowing the door
shut, he tore the envelope open.
   "Well, old man, I rather hoped he would. Since we exchanged wires
yesterday. Soon as I heard of poor Emil's fate." The message from Harry's
father said:
  Dear Son: A brainless ninny named Bertie Pennoyer wants a
bodyguard to see him safely to
   Urbania. Loaded with dough. Bundle him up on that special train you
told me about. Your
  loving father, the Challenge International Detective Agency.
  Refolding the message, Harry tossed it on his rumpled bed. "What
happened to Dr. Koontzman?"
  "According to preliminary reports, the poor blighter was attacked by
vampire bats while mountaineering," answered the nervous young man.
"Odd place for such creatures, one would think. Much too cold."
  "How did you find out about the train?"
  Pennoyer let his monocle pop free and caught it in his palm. "Simple,
old thing. Visited Maurice Allegre yesterday and he—"
  "That nitwit wasn't supposed to tell anyone about—"
   "But, I say, Challenge. I am not just anyone, eh?" He began polishing the
lens on his silk pocket handkerchief. "I mean to say, I'm a highly esteemed
amateur archaeologist. I did, afterall, finance the whole bloody, you'll
forgive my coarse lingo, expedition to the Valley of Jackals. Continually
doing that sort of thing, don't you know. Entire Pennoyer clan filthy rich.
Great grandfather made a pile out in India. By exploiting the wogs and the
fuzzy-wuzzies, so family tradition has it."
  "Has there been an attempt on your life?"
   "Not that one is aware of, no. Haven't noticed huge vampire bats
flapping about one's digs and all that."
  Setting his gun back on the table, Harry started getting dressed. "As of
now there's only you and—"
  "I say, shall I turn my back, old chap? Some blokes crave a bit of privacy
while—"
  "Up to you." Harry tugged his trousers on. "Only you and Lady Jane
Bedlumm are still alive, of the five who headed up the expedition."
   Pennoyer shuddered. "All this beastly talk of death makes one deuced
aware of one's mortality, don't you know," he said. "Lady Jane's a
formidable old girl. In Tibet somewhere at last report. Seeking spiritual
enlightment from some silly sounding bloke called the Ringding Gelong
Lama. Doubt the rascals'll find the old girl there."
  "Any notion who wants you dead?"
  "Not the foggiest."
  "Or why?"
  "Supposed to be a curse on the obelisk. Never believed that rot before.
But now."
  Harry buttoned his shirt. "Know Max Orchardson?"
  "By reputation. Believe he was asked to leave one of my London clubs a
few years ago. Never met the fellow. Wouldn't want to. Why do you ask?"
  "He's interested in the obelisk."
  "Suppose he would be. Goes in for a lot of magical nonsense. Not a
gentleman, you know."
  Sitting on the edge of his bed, Harry pulled on a sock. "What about
Anwar Zaytoon?"
   "The Merchant of Death chap?" He masked a small chuckle. "Never met
the bloke personally, but did see a rather amusing cartoon of him in one of
the weeklies not long ago. Artist— clever chaps these artists, how they do
it beats me— this artist, I say, depicted old Zaytoon as a vulture, don't you
know, feeding on a fat corpse that was labeled Ungodly Munitions Profits.
Awfully droll. Has the old boy been paying attention to the obelisk also?"
  "Some, yes."
  "Can't, for the life of me, figure out why." He fitted his polished monocle
back into his eye. "Not much of an obelisk as obelisks go. I mean to say,
the blooming one they've got right here in Paris beats it all hollow. Midget
by comparison. Truth to tell, Challenge old man, I'd just as soon we'd left
the thing there in the sand. Others insisted." He shook his head.
"Understand Baron Groll paid a pretty penny for it and, which I ought to
be grateful for, he's invited me to spend a few weeks at his estate in
Urbania. Wants to jaw about the obelisk, Egypt and all that sort of thing."
  "Which is why you want to tag along on this jaunt?"
   "Once again, old thing, you've hit the nail on the proverbial head," said
young Pennoyer admiringly. "Safe as houses, traveling with you and a
trainload of French bobbies. That's how I see it."
  "I suppose so, but—"
   "Already chatted with Inspector Swann. Last evening. Have a jolly nice
note from him giving me the old boy's blessing. Where'd I put the blasted
thing?" He began searching his pockets. "Jove, here's that one hundred
pounds. Your pater suggested I offer you this as a bonus should you show
any reluctance to undertake the job. Are you?"
 Harry took the money from his hand. "Not yet, but I might at any
moment."
  An hour after the special train pulled out of Paris the rain began. A
heavy rain, hitting hard at the windows of Harry's compartment.
   "Cozy," observed Jennie. She was seated opposite him, next to a basket
full of food and wine she'd packed for the journey.
  He was watching the new rain fall on the French countryside. "Hmm?"
  "I was remarking about how cozy I felt," the pretty reporter said. "Our
own little five car train. You and I together in a comfortable carriage. Two
plainclothes and ten uniformed police along as chaperones. The obelisk all
crated up and resting in a burglarproof baggage car. Cozy."
  "About that obelisk, Jennie . . ."
   "Don't tell me you're starting to believe it's really got a curse on it. That
silly ass Bertie Pennoyer seems to . . . something you want to tell me,
Harry?"
  He hesitated, then shook his head. "Nope, not really," he said finally.
"Well, I am a mite dubious about Bertie Pennoyer and that's what I've
been sitting here thinking about. Seems hard to believe anybody can
actually be as dim-witted and fatuous as he pretends to be."
  Jennie laughed. "There are numbers of the very best people in Merry
England who'd refute you, Harry," she said. "Bertie Pennoyer is simply not
very bright. He is, because of the impressive Pennoyer wealth, very
popular in British society. Nobody, though, has ever accused him of
having much in the way of brains."
   Harry took out a cigar, glanced at Jennie and put it away again. "So far
on this damn case I've encountered quite a few people who have pretended
to be what they weren't," he said. "From that guy LePlaut who was trying
to pose as a mummy to those imitation Zouaves the other night."
   "You include me on the list? Heartless reporter pretending to love you
so she can get her story."
  He grinned. "You're still on the list, but your name's only in pencil."
  "We're always going to have a complicated time of it." She rested her
hands on her knees.
  "Because just about every time I run into you I'm interested in the same
case you are. That was true of the Blackwood Castle affair and the Electric
Man business in London last year and—"
  There was a knock on the door.
  Harry said, "What?"
  The door opened and a bent old man in a fanner's smock nodded at
them. "Well, monsieur?"
  Harry scanned the bearded old man. "Not bad, Pastoral."
  "Ah," said Pastoral, "but you knew me."
   "Well, I know you here, but in a different context— in a small village, for
instance, you'd fool me for sure."
  "You agree, Miss Barr?"
  "Absolutely, Jean-Pierre."
  "Good, good."
  "No problems thus far?" asked Harry. "Not a one." He shut the door.
  "Likes to try out his disguises on me," explained Harry.
  "So I assumed."
  "Otherwise he's a pretty good police detective."
  "Going to put him on your list?"
  "Nope. But I still think maybe I ought to add Pennoyer's name."
                          CHAPTER 10
   At one a.m., nearly a half hour after they'd crossed the border and
entered Urbania, Harry was sitting alone in his compartment. The shade
on the outside door was still up and he was watching the black hill country
roll by.
  Thunder and lightning had commenced at midnight and in the sizzling
blue flashes he caught glimpses of thick forest and sharply slanting
ground.
  "Maybe I should've told her the truth," he said to himself. "But the fewer
people who—"
  A faint tapping sounded on the corridor door.
  "What?"
  "Having a devil of a time getting to sleep amid all this impressive
natural phenomenon." Pennoyer opened the door and smiled a toothy
smile in at him. "Thought if you were still up we might have a bit of a
powwow."
  "Sure." Harry took out his pocket watch. "I was going to check on you
soon anyway. Come on in."
  Pennoyer crossed the threshold, chuckling behind his hand. "All part of
the thorough Challenge International Detective Agency service."
  "Then at 2:00 a.m. I have to go through the whole train."
   Sitting opposite him, the young man said, "Been a very uneventful trip
so far. Thanks to you and all these efficient frog chaps."
  "We're still not in Kaltzonburg."
  "You actually believe, old man, that someone might try to snatch the
ruddy obelisk right off this train?"
  "Yep, that's one possibility."
  "Thing weighs quite a bit. I mean to say, it's no match for Cleo's Needle,
but one can't tote it around over one's shoulder."
  "Even so."
   Casually Pennoyer turned toward the window. When lightning next
flashed, he gasped. His monocle fell from his eye and he gasped. "Jove, it's
a giant bat!"
  Harry swung his head around. "Where?"
  It was exactly then that Pennoyer hit him behind the ear, very expertly
and very hard with a blackjack.
  Harry tumbled from the seat and slumped against the door.
  The young man hit him again. "Dreadfully sorry, old man, but we can't
have any ace sleuthhounds aboard from this point on."
  The door opened and Harry was given a strong push.
  He felt as though he were flying clear of the roaring train. He sailed
across the blackness, the rain hitting at him as he soared.
   Then he hit the ground. Shoulder, ribs, thigh smashing into the slanting
hillside.
  He heard distant thunder and passed into unconsciousness.
  Jennie hadn't undressed. She'd been sitting in her compartment
reading a Tauchnitz paper-covered edition of Rider Haggard's The
Wizard and, soon after the special train had halted at the rain-swept
border station, had fallen asleep in her seat.
  When the train came to a sudden stop at 2:00 a.m., the novel fell from
her lap and hit the carpeted floor with a thud.
  She sat up. "What the heck's going on?" She reached to pull up the
shade.
  "Don't do that, old girl. The fewer of our blokes you get a gander at the
better."
  Pennoyer had come into her compartment unannounced and uninvited.
He held a .32 revolver pointed at the reporter.
  "So Harry was right about you."
  "Did the chap suspect I was a rotter from the start?"
  "He figured no one could be as big an idiot as you appear to be."
   Pennoyer chuckled behind his free hand. "Very perceptive bloke," he
said. "Proving yet again how wise I was to get rid of him."
  She inhaled sharply, standing. "If you've killed Harry I'll—"
  "Spare me your wrath, old girl. I doubt he's dead."
  "What did you—"
  "Was very humane, actually. Merely tapped him on the skull and flung
him from his compartment."
  "He's hurt then. You—"
  "Yes, I suppose one doesn't fall from a moving train onto a
mountainside without suffering some damage. Still, don't you know, I gave
him a fighting chance. Better than the bullet in the head my superiors
suggested." He poked at the air between them with the barrel of his gun.
"Now gather up your belongings and be quick about it. And don't even
consider trying to get the better of me."
  "Why are—"
  "This train, do you see, is going to vanish. Soon as we get the bloody
obelisk unloaded," he explained. "Unless you wish to vanish with it, Miss
Barr, you'll allow me to escort you outside."
   The Great Lorenzo's command performance for Prince Rudolph and an
audience of Kaltzonburg's most distinguished citizens had been a
triumph. He had astounded and enthralled them with such awesome
illusions as the Magic Kettle, the Astral Hand and the Floating Lady.
   Those he'd followed with his bullet catching act, and for an encore he'd
introduced his newest trick, the Vanishing Mummy.
  Early on the morning after, he sat up abruptly in bed, clutching at his
chest. "Harry's been hurt," he said aloud.
   The plump, raven-haired lady beneath the silken sheets with him
stirred. "Is something troubling you, my adored one?"
   "He's lying in the woods beside the railroad tracks . . . six miles outside
of . . . Is there a town named Schamgefuhl in this delightful country of
yours, Countess Irene, my pet?"
  The middle-aged countess rolled over on her ample back. "Whatever are
you chattering about, dearest Lolo?"
    Swinging free of the wide fourposter, he hurried to the purple ottoman
on which he'd neatly stacked his clothes the night before. "Schamgefuhl . .
. I see a sign bearing that melodious name. Is there such a place?"
  "Well, yes, Lolo, but no one goes there anymore," she answered. "The
spa is quite out of fashion and the only people who'd be seen—"
  "Where is it, my pudding?"
 "A good three hundred miles to the south, Lolo, not far from the border.
Why are you—"
  "I must use your telephone at once."
  "To call someone in Schamgefuhl? I doubt they have the telephone
service in such a backward—"
   "No, to contact my dear friend and generous patron, Prince Rudy." He
was nearly dressed, struggling with his final shirt stud. "He's going to have
to convince the police and the railroad officials that I'm not a lunatic and
that my vision is anything more than a hallucination. Yes, I am going to
need considerable cooperation to get to Harry."
  "Who is this Harry person?"
  "An old friend."
  "He is in trouble in, of all places, Schamgefuhl?"
  "I'm not getting a perfectly clear picture. It's possible he's broken his
neck."
   When she sighed the pale blue sheets shivered and whispered. "Such
loyalty you display, Lolo, such touching samaritanism. Yet another reason
why I am so passionately fond of you," she said, smiling over the top of the
sheet at him, "If, however, this dear friend of yours already has broken his
neck, there may not be all that much need to rush."
   "I am hoping, dear one, part of my vision is in error." Fastening his
cloak around his shoulders, the Great Lorenzo went striding from the early
morning bedchamber.


                           CHAPTER 11
  Harry opened his eyes.
  He was flat on his back in the middle of an off-white hospital room.
  The early afternoon sun showed over the rooftops of the buildings
outside his high window.
  "Okay," he told himself, "I'm not in the woods any longer."
  His ribs, the ones on his right side, hurt. A fine, intense sort of pain it
was. And his side was tightly bandaged.
   When he reached to scratch at the bandages, he discovered that his
right wrist and part of his right hand were encased in a heavy cast.
  The off-white door opened and a very young doctor came shyly in.
"Good afternoon, Herr
  Challenge," he said in his pale voice. "We are awake, I see."
  "Apparently."
  "I will," said the lean, fair-haired doctor, "explain to you where you are
and what has happened, should you be anxious to know."
  "That would liven things up, yes."
   "First, however," he said as he approached the bed, "allow me to ask you
if a cablegram from your loving father would unduly upset you?"
  "It wouldn't."
   "I have such here." From a lumpy pocket of his white smock he took a
tongue depressor, a bottle of yellow pills and an envelope. "I may open it
for you, since your hand is not able?"
  "Appreciate that."
  "I am, by the way, Herr Doctor Hauser." He placed the message,
carefully, in Harry's bruised left hand. His father said:
   Dear Son: Quit malingering. We have another case. Scatterbrained
young woman named Stowe will contact you in Kaltzonburg. Claims her
crackpot parent is missing. Big fee. Get up and get cracking. Your loving
father, the Challenge International Detective Agency.
  Harry said, "She must be Professor Stowe's daughter."
  "Beg pardon?"
  "Never mind. Just explain to me what the situation is."
   "It is a most unusual case," Dr. Hauser began. "Not from a medical
standpoint. There we have nothing very unusual— fractured wrist, three
fractured ribs, bruises, abrasions and a mild concussion. Exactly what's to
be expected with someone who's been thrown from a moving train."
  "You get many patients here who've been tossed off trains?"
  "Well, in fact, no. You are my first, but then I am only a full-fledged
doctor six and one half months."
  "This hospital is . . . where?"
  "You are in Kaltzonburg, as a guest of no less a personage than Prince
Rudolph himself."
  Using the elbow of his good arm, Harry worked into a sitting position in
bed. "The train I was on . . . did it get through okay?" The young doctor
coughed discreetly. "Everyone is being very secretive," he confided. "It is
my impression, though, that this particular train has vanished."
  "What do you mean?"
  "It never arrived at its destination. There is no trace of it," he replied.
"At least, so I hear."
  "But Jennie . . . everyone else on the damn train . . . what happened to
them?"
   "They apparently disappeared along with it," said Dr. Hauser. "Let us
perhaps change the topic of conversation, since you seem to be getting
overly—" "No, damn it. I have to find out what happened to Jennie." He
attempted to get out of bed.
  "That wasn't even the real obelisk."
  "You must not try to—"
  The room became all at once smaller and greyer and it closed in on
Harry. He passed out.
  Fully dressed and fairly wobbly, Harry eased out of his hospital room.
He'd been waiting at a crack in the door for the past five minutes,
watching. The off-white corridor was empty now.
  Unsteady on his feet, he started down the hallway. He'd noticed, while
doing his reconnoitering, a door labeled stairway to his right.
  The day had ended and the gaslights along the hall were on. The single
narrow window showed him a rectangle of bright-lit public square ringed
by shops and cafés far below.
   Harry was three paces beyond the window when a hand caught hold of
his left arm.
  "If you must go for a twilight stroll, my boy, allow me to assist you."
  "Lorenzo," said Harry. "How did you manage to sneak—"
   "I never sneak," the portly magician reminded him. "Being highly
esteemed in royal circles, I have full access to the Kaltzonburg Memorial
Hospital, which was founded by Prince Rudy's great uncle. I was about to
peek in on you when—"
   "Listen, I have to get the hell out of here," Harry explained. "Jennie's in
trouble . . . someplace."
  "She and a squad of Paris' finest, plus an obelisk, are missing."
  "That's not even the real obelisk."
  The Great Lorenzo nodded as he opened the stairwell door. "Yes, I
understand you and
  Inspector Swann worked a variation of my famed Chinese Tomb illusion
and switched obelisks."
   "The one on the special train was made out of papiermache. The real
one, with Swann riding shotgun, traveled here in the baggage car of the
regular Paris-Kaltzonburg Express in a big crate marked Farm
Implements." Harry hesitated at the top of the stairwell. "How many
floors?"
   "Six. Would you rather I spirit you into a lift. I'm very good at diverting
attention from—"
  "Nope, I don't want to risk getting stopped."
   "Might an old and trusted comrade mention, Harry my lad, that you
look godawful."
   "Yep, seems to happen every time I get sapped and dumped off a train."
He took a deep breath and, with the Great Lorenzo supporting him, began
his descent of the metal steps. "Did the real obelisk get through?"
  "Unharmed. The gewgaw was delivered, by the estimable Inspector
Swann, to the chateau of Baron Groll. That was two days ago and since
then there's been not—"
  "Two days?" Harry halted. "No, it couldn't have arrived until this
morning because . . . Christ. I forgot to ask Dr. Hauser how long I've been
here."
   "This is the eve of your second day, my boy. You were out cold for a
good long while." The magician was watching him closely. "Harry, might
it not be better to rest at least one more night before—"
   "Nope, no." He resumed his downward climb. "Jennie's been missing
for two days."
  "Inspector Swann is, with the help and cooperation of the Urbanian
police, making a thorough and detailed—"
  "You sound like a police department handout, Lorenzo. Two days and
nothing is what it comes to."
   The magician was panting now. "Not that I expected, oh, an
illuminated scroll or even a small pewter loving cup," he said. "Yet, after
pulling strings, cutting red tape, moving heaven and earth to retrieve your
pitiful broken body from the flinders at the side of the—"
  "That's how they knew where I was. You had a vision." Harry halted
again. "Sorry, I didn't think to ask about that."
  "One more proof, lad, that you're not at your usual level of
performance," the Great Lorenzo pointed out as they continued their
downward course. "An injury to the head can do that. Well do I recall a
time in Istanbul when I was conked on the coco by an Indian club being
wielded by the irate husband of a voluptuous lady bareback rider who
managed to look always graceful even though she weighed in at over—"
  "Whatever shape my brain is in," said Harry, "I have to start looking for
Jennie. Damn it, I didn't even tell her we were just decoys. She thinks the
obelisk is the real thing."
  "It has been my experience that true love— something, alas, I have
enjoyed but seldom in my long and colorful life— true love makes for a
certain amount of truth telling and confiding, Harry."
   "I know." They'd reached the fourth floor of the hospital and he paused
for a moment. "The thing is, Lorenzo, I guess I'm still not absolutely sure I
can trust Jennie. While we were traveling from Paris to Zevenburg I was
certain . . . then it turned out she was trailing me to get material for her
damn newspaper articles."
   Tapping his temple, the magician said, "The poor child was under the
influence of that most wicked of gentlemen, the infamous Max
Orchardson. You can't really blame her for what she did while in a state
of—"
   "I haven't figured out how much of what she did is due to being
hypnotized and how much . . . Hell, what difference does it make? I have
to find her." He started downward.
   The music of an accordian drifted out of a sidewalk café across the
square. The tune reminded Harry of one he and Jennie had heard on the
floating restaurant on the Seine. "What?"
  The Great Lorenzo, who still held Harry's arm while they walked across
the parklike square, said, "I was mentioning that a very handsome young
woman named Belphoebe Stowe has been to the hospital to try to visit
you. On several occasions. She brought a basket of very tasty hothouse
plums on her second attempt."
  "My father put her on to me." They were passing an empty wrought iron
bench. "Think I'd like to sit for a spell."
  After helping Harry to do that, the magician settled down beside him.
"Perhaps we ought to consult a private physician before you go off on—"
  "I'll be okay. A shade shaky is all."
   "Miss Stowe is a wholesome British lass, blonde and well formed. A
trifle on the slender side for my taste," said the Great Lorenzo. "Reminds
me of a lady-in-waiting I once sawed in half while touring Bosnia in the
spring of—"
  "I don't want any new clients just yet."
  "Your dear papa assumes this case has concluded. You have, after all,
put an end to the haunting of the musée. You have delivered the authentic
obelisk safely to the arms of its new rightful owner. All's well, my boy."
  "And where's Jennie?"
  "Ah, but being a practical gent with the heart and soul of an
accountant, your father doesn't see—"
   "I won't take on anything new until I find Jennie." He tried to scratch at
his side with the hand that wore the cast. "Damn, I'm going to have
trouble even using a gun."
  "One more reason for being prudent." The magician poked at the grass
with the brightly polished toe of his shoe. "While sharing a plum or two
with the handsome and deeply distraught Miss Stowe, I did establish that
she is the one and only daughter of the illustrious Professor G. P.
  R. Stowe."
  "Yep, the guy who built that flying machine."
  "None other. Seems the scholarly old gentleman disappeared nearly a
year ago." He plucked a lit cigarette from the night air, took a single puff
and vanished it. "Miss Stowe, whose handsome bosom is filled with
anguish and who has an independent income that is most impressive, has
reason to believe her long lost parent may be in Urbania."
  "What reason?"
  "She did not confide that little tidbit in me."
  "Right now, even if Professor Stowe is in cahoots with Orchardson, I
can't . . . Hold on." Harry got, not very steadily, to his feet. He started
fumbling under his coat with his left hand.
  A stocky figure had moved out from behind a dead marble fountain and
was crossing the darkness toward them. "It is only I, M. Challenge."
  Harry remained standing there. "Have you found out anything about
Jennie Barr, Inspector Swann."
  "I was just now on my way to the hospital to consult with you when I
noted you and your loyal friend resting here." The French police inspector
took off his dark bowler hat and held it with both hands over the middle
buttons of his thick overcoat. "You are well enough to be up and about,
monsieur?"
  "Just about. What have you found out?"
  Swann's thick moustache drooped. "We have this very afternoon located
the special train," he said. "It had been cleverly switched off onto a disused
spur line."
  "What about Jennie and the others?"
  Swann lowered his head. "The train, monsieur, has been located at the
bottom of a deep lake at the end of the tracks," he said slowly. "Until we
are able to do some diving, we must assume that all who were aboard are
drowned."
  Harry did something he'd only done twice before in his life. He fainted.


                          CHAPTER 12
   Harry circled the rough-hewn wooden table. The table nearly filled the
vine covered arbor next to the hillside cottage the Great Lorenzo had
brought him to last night.
   Spread out atop it were several of the ordinance maps Inspector Swann
had loaned him. Resting his sore backside against the table edge, Harry
traced his good forefinger along another of the probable routes the
hijackers could've taken after running the special train into the lake.
  "Lake Knochen." He looked away from the map, out from the arbor. The
spires of Kaltzonburg were still blurred with morning mist far downhill.
"Jennie's not dead."
  "Scat!" came the voice of the Great Lorenzo from within the cottage.
"Begone."
  Harry sat down on one of the benches, studying a map and absently
rubbing his cast.
  From around the side of the whitewashed stone cottage came the
magician. "Have you ever awakened from an uneasy night's sleep to find
an obese calico cat sleeping on your chest?" he inquired.
  "Once, in Estonia."
   "No wonder I was dreaming I'd become Santa Claus." He wore an
impressive dressing gown that was covered with realistic depictions of
gigantic orange and black tropical flowers. "You're looking much more
chipper this morning, my boy.'"
  "Not quite up to chipper yet, but getting close." From the arbor you
would see part of the winding dirt road, a quarter mile off, that climbed
their hillside. A leathery old farmer was urging a half dozen shaggy goats
downhill. "About my fainting last night. I—"
   "Think nothing of it." The Great Lorenzo seated himself on another of
the wooden benches. "I've swooned a few times myself. The initial instance
I can clearly recall took place during my vanished youth and involved my
seeing, in a nearly undraped state, the first tattooed lady I had ever
  . . . Are you in the mood for breakfast?"
  "Not very hungry."
  "Coffee then?"
  "That'd be fine."
    "Haven't tried this particular magic word for many a moon. Let us see if
it's still efficacious."
  He lifted up one of the big maps and slid a plump hand under it.
"Presto!"
  The hand reappeared holding a steaming mug of coffee.
  Taking it, Harry grinned. "Suppose I had asked for breakfast?"
   "Presto." From beneath the map he produced a china plate holding a
fat, many-layered pastry.
  "Shame to waste this, now I've conjured it up." From behind his left ear
he plucked a silver fork. "Enough sugar in your coffee, my boy?"
  Harry sampled it and nodded.
   The Great Lorenzo concentrated on the pastry, which was rich in
various kinds of chocolate filling and topped with thick whipped cream,
for the next few minutes. He ate and watched the reluctant goats make
their way out of sight around a quirk in the road.
   "There are," said Harry finally, tapping the map he'd been studying, "at
least two routes they could've taken away from the lake. See here? Around
this way you pick up a good road just over these hills. That eventually
takes you to this highway. Or they could've gone back across the railroad
tracks right at this point, moved down through the valley here. Beyond
that you connect with another fair highway."
  "We have to assume they didn't know they weren't going to be stealing
the real obelisk." The magician licked a dab of chocolate off his thumb.
"The real thing weighs a couple of tons, does it not?"
  "Nearer to three."
   "You don't simply cry out, 'All right, lads, everyone lift with a will and
off we go.' What's needed is a method of draying the thing," he pointed
out.
  "Right, they had to have a wagon, a damn sturdy one, waiting there at
the lake for them."
   "Large wagon, pulled by a strong team of horses. That has to leave a
trail, even without a granite keepsake aboard."
  "Inspector Swann and the local police are supposed to be working on
that, looking for wagon tracks and all," Harry said. "First, though, he's
concentrating on getting divers down to . . . Damn it, Lorenzo. She can't
be dead." He hit the table with his cast, winced.
  "She's not."
  Harry frowned across at him. "Have you had some sort of vision
about—"
  "Alas, no. Merely a hunch." He lifted the map again, peered under it.
"Dare I have another pastry? No, only a cruller this time. Presto."
  Harry waited until the magician had taken a few appreciative bits of
the freshly materialized frosted cruller. "You can't control the visions?
Concentrate on Jennie and see—"
   "Unfortunately my gift does not work that way, Harry. Over the years
I've experimented with varied and sundry ways of trying to . . ." He
grimaced suddenly, his fingers tightening on the cruller until it broke into
crumbly pieces. Rocking sideways on his bench, the Great Lorenzo started
producing a low moaning.
  "Lorenzo?" Harry jumped up, ran around the table.
    "I'm fine . . . stay back . . ." He pressed both hands to his chest,
continuing to moan. "She is . . . alive . . . Jennie's alive . . . I can see . . . a
castle . . . like a Gothic ruin . . . same castle I saw before . . . withallofus in
it . . . Jennie is . . . locked ina . . . stone room. . . young mantaunting her . .
. nasty fellow . . . monocle . . ."
  "Bertie Pennoyer," muttered Harry.
    "I see . . . evil old man . . . decaying . . . Zaytoon . . . It's Anwar Zaytoon .
. . another woman . . . more dangerous than he . . . dark and beautiful . . .
Why, it's . . ." His body jerked, shivered.
  Harry carefully sat on the bench beside his friend. He put his good arm
around his shoulders. "Easy now."
  The Great Lorenzo began to breathe regularly again. "Some of them get
rough, like climbing an alp or two." His plump face was blurred with
perspiration. He concentrated on breathing in and out for a while.
  "So Jennie is okay?"
  "Appeared a bit peckish. Also pale and weary. Otherwise alive and not
seriously injured."
  "And Zaytoon's the one who's got her."
  "He is the master of the picturesque castle I saw, yes. Along with this
Pennoyer fellow you mentioned."
  "Pennoyer is the amiable gent who conked me and treated me like a
sack of mail," said Harry. "But you saw someone else at the castle."
   The magician took up a fragment of his ruined cruller between thumb
and forefinger and contemplated it. "Only a fleeting glimpse I had of the
lady," he said. "I am certain, however, she is the one we met before and
quite recently."
  "Not Naida Strand?"
  " 'Tis she and none other."
  "Damn, we left her at Blackwood Castle in Orlandia, sleeping in her
coffin."
  "Same as any other true vampire." The Great Lorenzo shrugged. "We
both had the opportunity to drive a stake through her black heart. Too
sentimental by far we were."
  "I don't think I can kill anyone that way. Certainly not a woman."
  "Nor I. Whenever I see a sleeping lady, be she vampire and sorceress
most foul or sweet-souled maiden, slaying her is the furthest thought from
my mind." He spread his hands wide. "Which is why, dear lad, we now
have her to contend with as well as the rest of this nest of blackguards."
 "Worse, Jennie has to contend with her." Harry tapped the nearest
map. "What about the location of Zaytoon's castle?"
  "These visions vary." He coughed into his hand. "Sometimes I get the
exact location, down to the street address. Other times I don't. This time I
didn't. Zaytoon's castle is somewhere in Urbania and that's the closest I
can come."
  From the misty courtyard came the harsh chatter of machine-gun fire.
  Jennie Barr was sitting on the cot, her notebook open on her lap.
  Zaytoon testing weapons again today, she wrote. Demonstrating to
potential customers?
  In order to see out the only window in the small grey stone room, Jennie
had to stand atop the rickety cot. The view afforded by the effort was not
especially inspiring. All she was able to see was another turret of the bleak
castle she was imprisoned in and a thin slice of sky. The activities down in
the courtyard she had to guess at, assisted by the sounds the various
weapons— machine guns, rifles, grenades— made and occasional puffs of
smoke that drifted across her portion of sky.
   The morning was a pale, overcast one. Jennie'd determined that soon
after awakening nearly an hour ago.
  She bit on the end of her stubby pencil, glancing up at the slot of a
window.
  When she began writing again, she put down Is Harry alive?
   She'd written that line before, several times since she'd been a prisoner
of Anwar Zaytoon, and she hadn't meant to put it on paper again.
  "He must be alive and he'll find me sooner or later," she said to herself.
"But if he doesn't, I've got to keep working on a way to get myself—"
  The thick metal door of her room rattled, made its usual rasping sound
and swung open inward.
  "Top of the morning, old girl." Bertie Pennoyer came briskly in, a tray in
one hand. "One hopes, don't you know, that your appetite's improved. You
keep up this ruddy fasting and you'll—"
  "I want to see Zaytoon."
  Pennoyer kicked the heavy door shut with his heel. "Quite out of the
question, as I've been telling you." He set the tray on the stone floor next to
her cot.
  "He's holding me prisoner and I want to—"
  "You're a guest." Pennoyer was wearing a double-breasted navy blue
blazer and white trousers. Leaning back against the wall, he popped his
monocle and commenced polishing it against his sleeve. "You'll remain
our guest, don't you see, until you decide to be talkative."
  "I'll talk only to Zaytoon."
   "Stubborn, ain't you?" He held the monocle toward the lone window,
squinting. "Our jovial host, the guv as I call him, is a bit under the
weather still. Only to be expected with a gent as far along in years as the
guv is. What strength he's got, he has to reserve for the many business
affairs—"
  "How old is he exactly?" asked Jennie. "When I dug into his background
once, I couldn't find any evidence of when or where he'd been born."
   "The guv's quite long in the tooth, but I've never had a gander at his
birth certificate." Pennoyer covered his mouth with the hand holding his
monocle and chuckled. "Afraid, old girl, I can't give you any facts to
scribble in your memory book."
  She said, "I came across a rumor once that Zaytoon wasn't born in the
nineteenth century at all. They said that by some magical means he's—"
  Pennoyer's monocle dropped to the stones and cracked down the
middle. "Bally old wives' tale and nothing more." Bending from the waist,
he gathered up the pieces. "One hears far too much ridiculous nonsense
being nattered about. A reporter of your reputation, one would think, is
above believing such poppycock."
  "If he is, say, a few hundred years old," persisted Jennie, "then he has a
darn good reason for wanting the obelisk and the secret of eternal life.
Could be the methods he's been using aren't working any—"
   "Who the ruddy devil told you that?" He squared his shoulders and
glared at her. "Speaking of the obelisk, which the guv is interested in
purely from a collector's point of view— we've been deuced patient with
you, don't you know. Now the time has come to be open with us."
  "I'll tell Zaytoon himself, face to face."
   He came closer. "Thus far, dear girl, the guv's been too busy with other
affairs to take a hand in questioning you," he said. "Maybe you haven't
realized that this snuggery of yours is deuced close to some of the old
torture chambers. If you aren't more forthcoming about where the rascal
obelisk has gotten to by nightfall, then you may pay those chambers a bit
of a visit."
  "I'd be happy to talk to Zaytoon right now."
   Pennoyer leaned. "A lovely old friend of yours has joined forces with us
recently and is, at this very moment, a guest of the castle," he said. "She
tells me she's most anxious to join in questioning you. And she'll, don't you
know, be doing that tonight unless you come clean. Her name is Naida
Strand."
  Jennie blinked. "I thought she perished in Blackwood Castle."
   "Far from it. She's very much alive," he assured her. "Well, as alive as a
full-fledged vampire can be."
  Harry spotted the approaching cyclist first. It was less than fifteen
minutes after the Great Lorenzo's vision and the magician was hunched,
elbows on table, scanning an ordinance map. "Perhaps the name of a
town, a river, a lake will trigger something."
  Glancing downhill, Harry noted a bright scarlet cycle being peddled
energetically in their direction. "What did you say Professor Stowe's
daughter looked like?"
  "Belphoebe Stowe is a healthy, out-of-doors sort of young lady. Typical
product of an upper-class British up-bringing and the sort of woman
who's helped make the empire great."
  "Blonde?"
   "Blonde, yes. Tall, close to five foot nine I'd estimate. Tends toward the
slim, yet—"
  "She's coming up the hill right now. Dressed in a riding habit."
  "On horseback?"
  "On a bicycle."
  The Great Lorenzo finally looked up from the map, narrowing his eyes.
"Yes, that's she. Sits a cycle well, doesn't she?"
  "How does Belphoebe Stowe happen to know I'm staying in this cottage
you borrowed from your duchess?"
  "Countess."
  "Countess then. How?"
   "Inspector Swann is aware of the location, as is Countess Irene."
Standing up, he brushed crumbs from his front and retied the orange sash
of his dressing gown.
 The cyclist disappeared from view, hidden by the cottage itself, and a
moment later there was a forceful knocking upon the front door.
  "Would you mind scooting around and welcoming the young lady,
Harry? I hate to play host when dressed so casually."
  "Anybody who greeted me wearing a thing like that'd make a terrific
impression." Reluctantly he left the arbor, walked across the tree-filled
yard to the front of the place.
   Belphoebe Stowe, wearing white riding britches, a black jacket and
riding boots, was about to resume knocking when she noticed Harry. "You
would be Mr. Harry Challenge?"
  "I would," he admitted, "and you're Belphoebe Stowe. Let me save us
some time by explaining that—"
   "My father has been kidnapped again." She came hurrying along the
flagstone path to him.
  "Again? I wasn't aware he'd even been—"
  "In the first instance, it was a gross and, I suspect, effete, man named
Max Orchardson. Most recently Anwar Zaytoon, often alluded to as the
Merchant of Death by the more sensation-minded journalists of the day,
has abducted him," she explained. "My father, although quite brilliant and
inventive in a rather strange and eccentric way, is not an especially
admirable nor particularly likeable man. He is, as I find I must keep
reminding myself, my only living parent. I, as fate would have it, am his
only child. It is my duty, therefore, to rescue him from the clutches of
Zaytoon."
  "I'd like to be able to—"
   "What I shall require from you, Mr. Challenge, is your strong right arm
to . . . Ah, but do forgive me. I note, as I should have at once were I not so
preoccupied with my own affairs, your right arm is injured. You will, since
you seem a bright and perceptive man, no doubt appreciate the meaning
of my metaphor. What I need is a stalwart and fearless champion to come
with me to this castle where Zaytoon holds my improvident father.
Someone to handle any hand to hand—"
  "Whoa," suggested Harry. "By coincidence, we were just talking about
the castle. Thing is, we're not certain where it's located. Do you—"
   "Well, of course, I know where it is. Have I not been devoting the past
week to locating it? Ever since this rather vulgar postcard reached me in
my hotel in Rome, after having followed me halfway around the globe. My
father, you see, has no idea I have been devoting my waking hours, along
with a considerable amount of my own money, to—"
  "May I see the postcard?"
   "Certainly you can. Being a detective, you will quite naturally wish to
examine it thoroughly. I can save you some time by explaining in advance
that my father, apparently having to sneak this missive out to me, had no
time to put in many specifics." She undid the three top buttons of her silk
blouse, dipped in two fingers and extracted the card. "Please ignore the
shamelessly underdressed young woman on the front of it. I am giving my
father the benefit of the doubt and assuming he, being rushed and in fear
of his life, had little choice as to what sort of postcard he could post to
me."
   The picture side showed a plump young woman in a very thin gown as
she rose on her tiptoes to greet the newly risen moon. On the other side, in
a crabbed hand, was the message:
   Now Z. has taken me from O. Do try to help. This is more than I can
stand. I am . . . must go
  now. In haste, your loving father, GPR Stowe.
  Seven weeks ago the card had been posted in the town of Lowen. Harry
knew, having spent some time going over maps of most of Urbania, that
the town was only twenty miles from here.
   "As I mentioned, Mr. Challenge, I have been able, after discreetly
making inquiries in Lowen, to locate this castle which Zaytoon and his
coterie have rented for the season," said Belphoebe. "While I am an expert
shot and excell at most sports, I am still a woman. Thus it was I contacted
your father, whose admirable reputation I have long been familiar with, to
inquire if he had an able-bodied operative anywhere in this part of
Europe. I was pleased, it goes without saying, when I received a cable
informing me that his own son was right here in Urbania. Are you, by the
way, an only child?"
  "I am, yes."
   "Then there is something we have in common. I find, and no doubt you
will agree, that some degree of common interest is often a sound basis for
a friendship," she told him. "When will you be able to undertake my
case?"
  He drew out his pocket watch. "I'm ready now."
   "I like that," she told him. "No nonsense, right to business. We will get
along famously, Mr. Challenge."
  "Never doubted it."


                          CHAPTER 13
  "I wonder," requested Belphoebe, "if you gentlemen might refrain from
smoking those odorous cigars."
  The Great Lorenzo was sitting opposite her in the plush-lined coach.
"Ah, but of course. Forgive me for assaulting your delicate nostrils." He
passed his plump hand in front of the smoldering stogie and it vanished.
  Harry, who was sharing a seat with the blonde young woman, got rid of
his cigar by tossing it out the open window of the borrowed coach that
was carrying them through the afternoon to the town of Lowen.
  "One's nostrils do not have to be especially sensitive to be offended by
such a vile stench."
   "Suppose," said Harry, "you give us a few more details about your
father."
   "My father is a brilliant experimenter in the field of heavier-than-air
flight," she said. "He is, as well, a profligate and totally unbridled old
reprobate."
  Harry nodded, watching the woodlands they were rushing through.
"How did Max Orchardson come to kidnap him in the first place?"
   "Initially my lamentable father made the acquaintance of Orchardson
at some disreputable soirée in some foul backwater of London," she
replied. "Father, along with his multitude of other faults and foibles,
believes himself to be interested in things occult and supernatural. An
interest that is, as you know, shared by the awful Orchardson. He made
the mistake of confiding the results of his work with flying machines to
that loathsome man. My father really has made incredible strides in the
designing and building of such mechanisms. He is far and away ahead of
such men as Professor S. P. Langley of your own country."
  "These giant bats are really your father's aerodromes?"
   "I am afraid they are, Mr. Challenge." She sighed, unbuttoning the
lace-trimmed blouse she had changed into before they'd commenced their
journey. She reached inside. "If you will but peruse these plans you will
note all the modifications called for by Orchardson."
  Accepting the three sheets of flimsy paper, Harry unfolded them and
spread them out on his knee. "How'd you come by these?"
   "They are copies I made unbeknowst to my misguided father," she
answered. "Originally, you see, Orchardson pretended he was only
interested in financing the building of more aerodromes." She twisted the
topmost button of her blouse. "My gullible, and not always sober, father
willingly moved into an estate of Orchardson's, a dreary pile in the wilds of
Barsetshire. After a few scant months it became all too evident the man
had other things in mind."
  The Great Lorenzo leaned, scanning the plans upside down. "The
demonstration we had, my dear, gave us the impression these mechanical
creatures can be controlled."
  She nodded. "That is another of my father's inventions," Belphoebe said.
"By utilizing an advanced electrical system, one I confess I do not fully
understand, he has been able to make an aerodrome do his bidding.
Goaded by Orchardson, my detestable father developed a flying machine
that could be made to do any number of vile things."
  "They can pick up people in their claws? Push them off high places
and—"
  "All that and more," she confirmed. "When my wayward father showed
me the plans you now are studying copies of, Mr. Challenge, I knew at
once that Orchardson was much more than a patron of science."
  "You talked your father into quitting?"
   "I did, a task that required all my wiles and wits," she said.
"Orchardson, however, was not to be so easily thwarted. Once he realized
my father had left him and returned to his own home, he dispatched his
minions to abduct him. This they succeeded in doing, after rendering me
unconscious with a rare Brazilian drug. Upon awakening, two weeks later,
I set out to follow what was, by then, a cold trail. Even so, I was able to
pick up clues as to where they had taken my father. Orchardson has
immense wealth— some say he has found the lost secret of transforming
base metal to gold— and thus he has been able to lead me a merry chase
from England to Egypt to Ruritania to Albania to Italy. It was while in
Rome, where I arrived a few weeks after the wicked Orchardson had again
moved his base of operations, that I received the bawdy postcard that led
me to call upon your capable father for assistance."
  "How did Zaytoon get hold of him?"
  "Of that I have no knowledge. Zaytoon and Orchardson are archrivals,
which must be why my father has become a pawn in some dread game
they are playing."
  The Great Lorenzo reached up over his head to pluck an eclair out of the
shadows. "I trust the scent of chocolate will not offend you, Miss Stowe?"
  "Not at all," she assured him.
  The Great Lorenzo came limping into Harry's room at the Lion's Paw
Inn. "The dear countess was right," he remarked. "This quaint little town
has fallen on sad times."
   Harry was at the cracked window, looking out across the tile rooftops
toward the wooded hills. "That must be Gewunden Castle up yonder," he
said. "Big place with a high stone wall surrounding it."
   The portly magician limped over to him. "Yes, my boy, that's the very
pile I saw in my recent vision. Jennie is within its gloomy confines at this
very moment."
  "Why are you still limping?" Harry turned his back on the window, sat
on the edge of a sagging Morris chair.
  "I am supposedly suffering from the gout, remember?" He pulled a cigar
out of the air. "Join me?"
  "Think I'll cut down."
  "Ah, the prim Miss Stowe has had an effect on your—"
  "The gout business is to fool the folks at the inn," Harry pointed out.
"To convince one and all you've come to Lowen to take advantage of the
hot springs. We're your concerned nephew and niece."
  After puffing on the cigar and limping back and forth across the
threadbare carpet, the Great Lorenzo said, "A dedicated performer, my
boy, never lets down. I am supposed to be suffering with the gout and as
long as we're here in this ragtag watering place I intend to limp in a most
convincing and pitiable manner."
   Harry grinned. "You are convincing," he said. "Brings tears to my eyes
just watching you."
  "I dropped in, now that we're all settled, to announce that I am going
out to hobble through the lanes and alleys of the town," he said. "My task
will be to gather in all the information and intelligence I can regarding the
Zaytoon household." He limped toward the off-kilter door. "We'll meet, as
planned, in the cheerless dining room of this hostelry when twilight
descends."
  "Yep, that'll give Belphoebe and I time to take a closer look at the
castle."
  The Great Lorenzo held up a cautionary forefinger. "Be extremely
careful while you're in the vicinity of that place, Harry."
  "You giving me the benefit of another vision?"
   "Merely the benefit of common sense." He bowed, opened the door and
limped out into the shabby corridor.


                           CHAPTER 14
  Belphoebe spread her arms wide and took an enthusiastic deep breath.
"This has been quite invigorating thus far," she said happily. "One can see
why you so enjoy the detective profession, Mr. Challenge. For it provides
both an intellectual challenge and the opportunity for a satisfying amount
of healthful outdoor exercise."
   Harry wiped his forehead with his pocket handkerchief, "Yes, a ten mile
hike up the side of a thickly forested steep hill is great fun," he said.
"Sometimes, when I'm between cases, I do this sort of thing for the sheer
joy of it."
  Smiling, she said, "You have a rather pleasant sense of humor."
   He moved ahead through the oak trees until he reached the edge of a
small clearing. About a half mile uphill loomed Gewunden Castle. From
his coat pocket he took a small pair of opera glasses. "Ugly joint."
  The thick stone walls were a good ten feet high, topped with rusty
spikes and what looked to be jagged shards of broken bottle glass. The
castle itself was a complex cluster of towers and dark tile roofs.
  Belphoebe came up beside him. She undid the top buttons of her
blouse. "I have brought a sketching pad and a suitable pencil," she told
him. "I am quite good at drawing landscapes and buildings, much in the
manner of your Joseph Pennell."
  "What we could really use is a floor plan of the damn place," he said.
"Nobody in town has one, though."
  "An accurate rendering of the exterior will enable us to make certain
speculations as to what lies within."
  "Okay. I want all the gates and doorways marked down," Harry told her.
"And a rough sketch of the whole setup."
  "That I can assuredly supply," said the blonde Belphoebe. "If I might
borrow your glasses for a moment."
  "Sure, here."
  "I made a few sketches on my earlier visit." She put the binoculars to
her eyes. "Yet I dared not approach anywhere near this close."
  Harry frowned, his shoulders hunching slightly. As the young woman
began making notes on her sketch pad, he backed away.
  They hadn't followed a trail up here, and the trees rose high all around
them. Branches thick with new leaves were tangled and intertwined
overhead and brush grew high on the mossy ground.
  Glancing from side to side, Harry walked back along the way they'd
come.
  Although sunset was at least a good hour off, the day was already
starting to fade.
  He had a growing feeling that someone was watching them. Eyes
narrowed, he looked to the left and right and then up into the treetops.
  "I believe I will get a better view from the clearing just below," called
Belphoebe.
  Harry turned. "Don't get out in the open."
  But she was already leaving the shelter of the trees.
  He started running. "Belphoebe, stay here."
  From above came a flapping, creaking noise— a harsh whirring, and a
wheezy coughing.
  Then a gigantic mechanical bat swooped down over the clearing.
   Belphoebe was aware of it, too, and was trying to get back to the shelter
of the woods from the center of the clearing.
  The flying machine dived right for her. Two long, clawed arms swung
down from its midsection, snatching at her. The second try was successful
and the mechanical bat caught her up by the arm and a shoulder.
   Its giant wings flapped at an accelerated rate and they both began
rising up from the clearing.
  Belphoebe cried out, kicking at the dark-painted aerodrome. Her
sketchbook fell from her hand, fluttering down to the ground.
  Harry had reached the open area and he was running toward them. If
he could leap and catch hold of Belphoebe before she rose out of reach,
then he could—
  The earth opened beneath his feet. Rotted wood, branches, leaves
snapped and he found himself plummeting down into a deep hole.
   At exactly five o'clock the clock high in the tower of the Lowen town hall
struck the hour. A lifesize automation representing Hercules emerged
from his lair, strode along a catwalk and whacked a bronze gong five times
with his club.
   Before the last echo had died, the carved wooden doors of the rustic
little café across the square from the clock tower swung open. Two large
swarthy men in the full military uniform of the far-off Latin American
country of Panazuela escorted the Great Lorenzo out into the impending
dusk. It was a double-time procession and it ended with the magician
being deposited in a bed of tulips at the base of a statue of one of the great
Urbanian statesmen of the eighteenth century and his equally
praiseworthy horse.
   "Do not," advised one of the colonels, "be so unwise, senhor, as to give
offense to the senhora again."
  "In my country," said the Great Lorenzo as he rose up out of the
mangled tulips with considerable dignity, "it is not considered offensive to
present a lovely lady with a bouquet of—"
   "This is not your country, senhor," mentioned the other colonel, "nor is
it ours. The Senhora Picada is here on a most important mission for her
beloved husband, General Miguel Picada, an extremely able militarist and
a man renowned for his jealousy. Were he here, you would be stretched
out upon—"
  "Gentlemen," said the magician, "my mission is similar to that of the
handsome Mrs. Picada. I, too, find myself most interested in the
munitions to be obtained from the esteemed Anwar Zaytoon.
  Thus, when I chanced to overhear her refer to her similar goal, I
bethought me that perhaps a merger of our—"
  "The next time you approach her with a handful of paper flowers,
senhor, we will not be so gracious."
  "Those were real roses," he assured them. "Do you think the Great
Lorenzo materializes paper—"
  "Adeus, senhor."
   Executing an impressive about-face, they marched side by side back
inside the café.
 The Great Lorenzo fluffed his side-whiskers. "A dozen roses, too," he
muttered. "That rarely fails."
  "Ah, truly it is written that the monsoon that rips off your roof oft
reveals a rainbow in the sky."
   "Eh?" The magician did a slow half turn, stepped free of the tulip bed
and scrutinized the Chinese gentleman who was sitting on a nearby
wooden bench. "Were you razzing me, sir, or passing along a bit of
celestial wisdom?"
   The man was small and lean, dressed in a frock coat and grey trousers.
A top hat rested beside him on the bench. "Wisely it is said that the newly
painted barn sometimes fools the homesick cow."
   "All well and good, yet . . . Ha!" He took a few steps toward him. "I
didn't— you're absolutely right there— recognize you sans your stage
finery, old friend."
  Standing, the Chinese bowed. "I am no longer a colleague, Lorenzo."
  "You mean you have ceased to be Fengjing the Amazing, Master of
Oriental Wizardry?"
   Fengjing shook his head. "I have found it more lucrative in the employ
of a warlord of my native country."
  "A shame, since no one does the Caged Dove illusion as deftly as you."
  "True." He bowed more deeply. "What is it that has caused our paths to
cross?"
  "I suspect," said the Great Lorenzo, approaching the bench, "we share
an interest in one Anwar Zaytoon."
  "It is written that the vulture and the maggot may feast on the same
carrion."
  "You are in town to buy arms, are you not?"
  "I am to call on the esteemed Anwar Zaytoon, or rather on his trusted
servitors, this very evening," replied Fengjing. "There is to be a small
reception at his rather dour residence. Should you care to gain entrance,
oh friend of my former life, it might be arranged for you to become one of
my party."
  "That would come in very handy," said the magician. "And, if it's not
imposing too much, I'll take the liberty of bringing a young associate of
mine along."


                          CHAPTER 15
   Harry fell approximately eleven feet straight down. He managed to land
on his good side. The impression he got, when he banged into the stone
floor, was that his taped ribs made a harplike twanging sound. That hand
that was in the cast jumped up to whap him across the cheekbone.
   A rich assortment of broken branches, splintered planking and tangled
brush was beneath him and a bit more came drifting down in his wake to
land atop him. Several nettles found their way under his collar.
  What little daylight reached the bottom of the pit showed Harry he was
sprawled on a flagstone floor. Weeds and spongy moss grew thick between
the stones, and they were damp and smelled of raw earth. He pushed
himself up to his knees, using his good hand.
  The walls were of grey stone, streaked with blackish mildew. In front of
him stretched a stone-walled tunnel. After a few yards it was lost in
darkness.
  Standing, bracing himself against a chill wall, he looked upward. There
was no sign of Belphoebe and the mechanical bat in what little of the sky
he could see.
  "The damn bat works for Orchardson," Harry said to himself. "So what
the hell is it doing here?"
   And where was it carrying Belphoebe Stowe? To Zaytoon's castle or off
to a hideout of Orchardson's?
   There were no footholds in the hole he'd unexpectedly dropped into.
Climbing out, even if he had two good hands and all his ribs were in
working order, would be damn difficult.
  "But if this is an old forgotten passway to the castle, I don't want to get
out of here anyway."
   He took a last glance at the sky above, then crouched and selected one
of the broken old boards from the hatch that had long concealed this hole.
Getting out his box of wax matches, Harry struck one with his left hand
and set fire to a pile of brush and twigs. He held the end of his three foot
scrap of board to the flames. As soon as the board was burning, Harry
stamped out the small fire and entered the tunnel.
   A thick dampness closed in on him and just beyond the throw of light
from his feeble torch he heard the sounds of scurrying.
  "Shoo," Harry advised whatever was in his path.
  Moving slowly and cautiously along, he started counting off the paces.
   By the time he reached fifteen there was darkness in back of him as well
as in front.
  He was aware of small claws skittering on damp rock, some angry
chittering.
  Harry kept going, getting the impression he was moving deeper
underground as he went ahead.
  Fifty paces in.
  A hollow dripping off to his left.
  A hundred paces.
  Something slithered across his foot. He glanced down, but it was gone.
  Two hundred.
  His makeshift torch sputtered, the flame starting to die.
  Harry stopped. Holding the board between his knees, he fished out his
matchbox with his left hand. He shook out a match, then transferred it to
the fingers that stuck out of the cast and struck the match.
   He held it to the burning end of the stick and managed to get the flame
to perk up some.
  He dropped the box back into his vest pocket and resumed walking.
  Three hundred.
  Four hundred.
  The tunnel, he was near certain, had leveled off.
  Six hundred.
  Seven hundred.
  Eight hundred.
  Up ahead Harry saw a stone wall and a heavy oaken door. A large
padlock, rusted with age, dangled from it.
  "This had better be a way into the damn castle."
   Harry thrust the end of his torch into the large upper hinge and it
stayed there, giving him a dim, flickering light.
  He squatted and tugged at the lock.
  It broke apart in his hand. At that same moment the torch died.
  Blackness took over the tunnel.
  Tiny clawed feet started coming closer across the stones.
  He felt for the doorknob. He caught it and turned. Then he pulled at the
door. For about a half a minute it didn't budge. Slowly it began to come
open. He tugged with his left hand and the available fingers of his right.
  Beyond the door stretched a stone corridor. At its end it was joined by
two other corridors and in them oil lamps were burning.
   Leaving the heavy door open behind him, Harry started toward the
light.
  Returning to the clouded mirror over his bureau, the Great Lorenzo
took another admiring look. "Marvelous," he pronounced. "The entire
populace of far Cathay would be fooled."
  The magician had tinted his visible skin a pale saffron hue, pasted on a
drooping mandarin moustache and made his eyes look a bit more
Oriental.
  Pleased, he retreated from the mirror. "But unless Harry and the fair
Belphoebe return shortly, I won't be able to do much beyond a slapdash
makeup job on the lad." He glanced out a window at the declining day,
consulted his pocket watch yet again.
  Back at the mirror he gave his disguise another approving inspection.
  "Might be worthwhile to use my Shanghai Coffin illusion during this
engagement. I could step into the box as myself, reappear downstage an
instant later as the Emperor of the Forbidden City of—"
  A faint tapping, almost a scratching, sounded on his room door.
  The Great Lorenzo trotted across the thin carpet. "Yes?"
  There was no response.
  Looking down, he noticed that a pale yellow sheet of folded notepaper
had been slipped beneath the door.
  Puffing, he stooped to pick up the note. "Can it be that the statuesque
Senhora Picada has suffered a change of . . . Damn!"
  The hand-lettered note read:
  Mr. Lorenzo: Please inform the authorities that we have Miss B.
Stowe. Her life for the obelisk. Details will follow.
  0.
  P.S.: We are addressing you rather than Mr. Challenge, since we fear
he's dead and gone.
   The room's only armchair groaned when the magician dropped into
it.He read the letter twice again, shaking his head, and then let the crisp
sheet of paper drop to the floor. "Is Harry no more?"
  Shutting his eyes, the Great Lorenzo strained to summon up a vision.
  The best he could conjure was a strong hunch.
   "Harry's alive and at the castle." He stood, hurried to the door. "I've got
to journey there right now."


                          CHAPTER 16
   Harry let himself into another underground room. This one was large
and had a vaulted ceiling. It was lit by a row of gas lamps that had been
strung along one of the walls. There were weapons everywhere, some set
up and ready to demonstrate, the rest in cases and crates.
   Making his way slowly through the maze of arms, he spotted cases of
repeating rifles, bayonets, sabres and even double-barreled eight-gauge
elephant guns. Sitting on a cleared space on the dark stone floor were two
wheeled Maxim automatic machine guns, loaded and ready to be fired for
prospective customers.
  "Zaytoon's pursuit of the obelisk hasn't gotten in the way of his business
anyhow."
  Harry sat down to rest for a while on a crate of Navy Colts. His ribs
were commencing to bother him some. He scanned the room, taking a
quick inventory of all the weapons stored there.
  "Oh, I say, this is a deuced jolly surprise."
  Turning, Harry saw Bertie Pennoyer standing in a doorway across the
wide room. "Been hoping I'd run into you."
   Pennoyer yanked a .45 revolver from the waistband of his tweed
trousers. "One hopes you're not in a foolishly vengeful mood, old boy." He
chuckled behind his free hand. "Hurt the old wrist, did we? Pity. Still,
could've been worse, eh?"
  "I came to get Jennie," he said. "And Professor Stowe."
   "That old duffer I'd almost give you gladly, don't you know. Stubborn as
a ruddy ox and won't do a blessed thing he's told." Pennoyer came down
the three stone steps into the room. "Zaytoon, don't you know, got a bee in
his blooming bonnet that he ought to have the sod working for us rather
than for that great blubbery Orchardson. Why for pity's sake? I mean to
say, who wants a bunch of silly mechanical bats flapping about. Not that
the bloke's consented to finish a single one since we've had him nattering
about the place."
   "How come," asked Harry, not moving from his perch, "you're working
for Zaytoon?"
   Pennoyer gave another masked chuckle, then rubbed his thumb and
forefinger together. "The lucre, old man," he answered. "Pennoyer
fortune's been, thanks to my excesses and those of some of my like-minded
kinsmen, just about used up. That bloody expedition nearly broke me and
the Musée des Antiquités didn't pay anywhere near what they'd promised.
Wasn't even able to smuggle much in from Egypt. Nearly on my uppers
until recently."
  "What's Zaytoon paying you for?"
  "I got onto the secret of the obelisk, old man." He leaned casually
against the wall, the gaslight making his monocle flash. "Actually, to be
perfectly frank, I pilfered old Fodorsky's notes soon as I got wind of what
he'd stumbled onto. Fodorsky himself sold the information to that pig
Orchardson."
  "There really is a secret?"
  "Jolly well better be," said Pennoyer. "Turns out the blooming obelisk
has a hollowed out section near the tip. Held in that in an ivory casket is a
supply of some fabulous lost Egyptian drug that can extend life."
  Harry grinned. "You believe that?"
    "Inclined to, yes," he said. "Mostly, you know, because old Zaytoon does.
Why does he? Because the bloke is actually nine hundred years old.
Staggering, what? Nine hundred if he's a day. Means he was born back in .
. . um . . . oh, around the year 1000 A.D. Well, when he was still living out
his original three score and ten, don't you know, he came across some of
this same stuff.
  Been taking it ever since and he is, as the chaps say, living proof that it
works."
  "His original supply is running out?"
   "Ran out last week. I'd heard rumors he was scouring the blasted earth
for more some months ago," said Pennoyer. "So when I was tipped to what
old Fodorsky had found and got hold of the info, why, I approached
Zaytoon. The rest is history."
  "Why didn't Fodorsky just take the stuff out of the obelisk?"
  "Ain't that easy, old man. After he got the heiroglyphs all translated and
realized there was a code message hidden in them, he worked that out,"
explained Pennoyer. "That told him that the stuff was in there, but that it
was sealed up tight as a drum. Only way to get at it is to saw into the
blooming rock with special tools and all that."
  "That's why Zaytoon was trying to scare off the workmen."
  "Exactly. We could've done the job in one night and been off, safe as
houses, by dawn."
  Harry stood. "I'd like to see Jennie."
  "Afraid not, old man. Since Jennie Barr knows just as much about the
whereabouts of the real obelisk as you do, we don't need you at all," said
Pennoyer. "You're going to expire right here in the bowels of the—"
  "Jennie doesn't know anything about it. But I do."
  Pennoyer hid a chuckle. "Nice try at a bluff, but afraid it won't work.
You and she were intimate, don't you know. All you know, she knows." He
swung the gun until it was pointing directly at Harry.
  "This is hardly sporting."
  "What?"
  "Okay for Zaytoon to slaughter his opponents," Harry said. "Also
acceptable for Orchardson.
  You, however, are a gentleman." Pennoyer gasped. "Jove, I do believe
you've got something there," he said thoughtfully. "Some things a
gentleman simply can't do. Murder in cold bold's one of them."
  "So how about a duel?"
  "Duel, you say?" He considered. "Yet really, old chap, you're in no shape
to—"
  "Left hand." Harry held it up. "I say I can beat you with my left hand."
  "You're suggesting what— pistols or sabres?"
  "Sabres. There's a whole case of them right over there near you."
  Pennoyer contemplated the open case. "I feel I must warn you,
Challenge, that before I was sent down from Oxford, I excelled in fencing
and—"
  "Then there's no reason to be afraid."
  "Afraid, is it?" He gestured at Harry with his .45. "First, old chap, take
your gun out of its holster and drop it safely out of reach."
  "Obviously you don't think me a gentleman or you'd trust me not—"
  "Very few Americans are gentlemen."
  Harry eased out his .38 and tossed it onto the excelsior in an opened
case of bayonets. "Just pick out a couple of sabres and toss me one."
  Pennoyer rested his own gun on a ledge. "Keep in mind, old chap, that I
warned you about my skills in this sport."
  "I will."
  Pennoyer selected two of the British-style sabres. He gripped each in
turn, hefted it, slashed at the air. "Yes, I prefer this one," he decided.
  He flung the other three-foot-long blade to Harry.
  Harry reached for it with his right hand.
  The steel hit his cast, the sabre fell to the stone floor with a clang.
  "Damn, forgot my cast." Harry bent to retrieve the sword, but only
succeeded in kicking it under one of the standing machine guns.
  "I say, if you're that bloody awkward, we can hardly expect a fair
contest."
  "Hardly." Harry made a sudden dive, got hold of the machine gun,
activated it and fired a burst of shots over Pennoyer's surprised head.
  "Here now, you—"
  "Drop the sabre, Bertie. Raise your hands high."
  "Jove, that wasn't at all sporting of you, Challenge."
  "We've already established the fact," reminded Harry, "that I'm not a
gentleman."


                          CHAPTER 17
  The day was dying when the man Jennie Barr had never seen before
came to fetch her. The shadows in her narrow stone room were deepening
and she was lighting the chunky candle on her lame cot-side table.
   The heavy door made its usual noises. Standing on the threshold was a
thickset man wearing a dark suit and a pale blue turban. His face was
pale, his whiskers a washed-out blond. "You will come with me, miss."
  She dropped the matchbox to the table. "Odd hour for a firing squad."
   "Hurry, please, miss." He held a lantern in his right hand, a .32 revolver
of German make in his right. "Should you fail to cooperate en route, I will
be obliged to shoot you. Not fatally, yet most painfully."
   "Nicest invitation I've had since I checked into this dam hoosegow." She
stood, hesitated, then picked up her notebook.
   They walked along a twisting corridor, the turbaned man behind her
with his gun barrel ready to prod. Up a long chill flight of stone stairs,
along another serpentine stone hall, through a vast empty room paneled in
dark wood, along a straight corridor, up a flight of hardwood steps, into a
hallway that was paneled, carpeted and lit with gas lamps.
  "Stop in front of the third door on your left, miss."
  Jennie did.
  Her guide knocked twice on the thick walnut door, paused, knocked
three times again. "You can go in, miss."
  "After you."
  "I'll be waiting out here, miss."
  Shrugging, the reporter opened the door and entered the room beyond.
   The coffin was the first thing she saw. It sat on a low platform in front
of the large canopied bed. An ebony coffin with fixings of gold. The lid was
open.
  The only light in the brown bedchamber came from an oil lamp resting
on a claw-footed table beside the coffin. Jennie had the impression there
was someone in the bed, muffled in the thick shadows.
  "Come here, young woman."
  Jennie inhaled sharply. "Beg pardon?" She wasn't certain if the thin, dry
voice had come from the coffin or the fourposter.
  "Here, beside the bed."
   As she passed the open coffin, Jennie glanced in. The body of a young
dark-haired woman reposed within on a bed of yellowed satin that was
streaked with dirt.
   There was an old man propped up in the bed. The remains of a man.
There seemed to be almost no flesh on his face and Jennie had the
impression the multitude of wrinkles were etched directly on the bones of
the skull. His head was like some piece of cryptic scrimshaw. Atop the
head sat a fez-like cap, crimson with a dark silky tassel. The cap had
slipped down to almost the brow ridges of the nearly fleshless skull. The
man's neck was as thin as an axe handle and it rose out of the stained
collar of the silk smoking jacket he wore. Under the jacket he had on a suit
of faded long underwear and the topmost buttons showed. Both his hands
were outside the tufted covers, folded over his sunken midsection. The
wrists were sticks, the hands themselves looked brittle and mummified.
  "I am Anwar Zaytoon," he gasped in his dusty voice. "I discovered the
secret of life eternal."
   Jennie coughed into her hand. "I'm too polite to make the obvious
rejoinder."
   A strange, awful sound began rattling and wheezing around in his
narrow chest. "You manage," he said, when he was finished laughing, "to
be droll even when in danger, Miss Barr. Yes, I am full aware I look more
like death than life."
  "This secret you found, what does it have to do with the obelisk?"
  Zaytoon didn't reply for a moment. "In Damascus in the year 986 A.D.,"
he began at last, "I discovered a supply of a rare drug developed many
centuries earlier in my native Egypt. It was derived from the now extinct
tana plant. This supply was sufficient to keep me alive, when administered
in conjunction with certain mystical rituals, until this day."
   "You're over nine hundred years old?" Her fingers tapped at the
notebook she was clutching. "How does that feel? What are your reactions
to the—"
  "This is not the time for an interview, young woman," he cut in. "My
supply of the tana drug has, at long last, run out."
  "Haven't you been scouting before this?"
   "Always, obviously," Zaytoon answered in his dim faraway voice. "In
Tyre in the thirteenth century I found a small amount that had somehow
been preserved, unbeknownst to its owners over the centuries, in a
funerary urn. Another small quantity I was able to add to my store in the
seventeenth century. It had been mistakenly stored with some Christian
relics in a country church in Livonia."
  "You killed people to get it?"
  "When necessary."
  "And the obelisk will tell you how to get more?"
  "It contains more. There is nearly a pound concealed in a hollowed
compartment inside the Osiris Obelisk."
  "Did you find that out from Professor Fodorsky?"
  "Only indirectly, since he chose to sell his knowledge to a rival of mine
named Max Orchardson," said Zaytoon. his thin lips curling. "That man
has committed more sins in one lifetime than I have in centuries."
  Jennie asked, "A pound is good for how many more years?"
  "At least five hundred," answered the old man. "In that time, given the
impressive strides being made in the realm of science, I have no doubt
that we shall be able to find a way to manufacture the tana drug
synthetically."
  "Then you could live for ever and ever."
  "Such is my intention," he replied. "The terror of death felt by an
ordinary mortal is, I assure you, nothing when compared to those fears
that plague me. The longer you live, the less inclined you are to—"
  "You'd really want to live hundreds of years more in the shape you're in
now?"
  "Ah, but the tana drug also rejuvenates as well," he told her. "Once I
begin taking it again, I'll soon assume the appearance of a relatively young
man of fifty or sixty."
  "Well, more power to you I guess," said Jennie. "Thing is, I can't help
you at all. Since I have no idea where—"
  "Don't tire yourself, Anwar. Let me question this stubborn young
woman."
   Jennie looked toward the coffin. The dark-haired young woman was
sitting up now, smiling at her.
   It took Harry just under five minutes to pick the lock of Jennie's cell. If
his right hand hadn't been in a cast he could've done it in two.
  He straightened, pulled the door slowly open.
  The stone room was empty.
  "Damn, did Bertie give me a bum steer?"
  He had the impression that Pennoyer, now trussed, gagged and stored
among the weapons, told him the truth about where Jennie Barr was
being held.
  Glancing around the candlelit room, Harry noticed the stub of a pencil
beside the flickering candle. "She was here."
  After shutting the cell door, he stood in the grey corridor for a moment.
  "Old Zaytoon ought to know where Jennie is."
  And Pennoyer had also told him where to find the arms merchant.
  Harry, somewhat awkwardly, reached inside his coat and managed to
draw out his .38 revolver. He tucked it into his belt and started along the
corridor.
   Several hundred twisting yards later he came to the steep flight of stone
steps Pennoyer had told him about. Harry climbed these and then hurried
quietly along another snaking corridor.
  He carefully opened the wooden door at the hall end. An enormous
room lay beyond, its walls paneled in dark wood, its high ceiling crossed
with thick beams. In the dust on the black and white floor he made out the
recent footprints of a woman and a man.
  The hall leading away from the room was hung with faded tapestries
across which courtly knights and fair maidens rode in eternal pilgrimage.
He went up another flight of stairs and found himself standing in an
arched doorway.
  Midway down the gaslit hall a broad man wearing a turban was leaning
beside a door. His back was, thus far, turned to Harry.
  Harry tiptoed along the carpeting. When he was about three feet behind
the turbaned guard, he reached out and tapped him on the shoulder.
  The stocky man flinched, started to spin around.
   Harry hit him in the temple with the butt of his gun, holding the
weapon in his left hand. Because of the guard's tuban and because Harry
didn't have as much strength in his left as in his right hand, it took three
whaps with the gun to knock the man out.
Harry caught him, dragged him along to a nearby alcove and dumped him
in there. Using the turban, he gagged and tied him. He appropriated the
guard's .45, stuffing it into his pocket. "Spoils the look of my suit." He
returned to the door, opened it and walked in, grinning amiably. "Harry,"
said Jennie happily. She was seated in a wing chair that had been pulled
over beside the fourposter bed. Naida Strand, wearing a floor-length velvet
gown, was standing over her. The expression on her face mingled
recognition, amusement and scorn. The old man on the bed croaked,
"Who is this audacious young man? What does he mean by— " "This is my
dear old friend Harry Challenge," said Naida, toying with the ruby brooch
around her pale neck. "Challenge? Pennoyer killed him, days ago."
"Apparently not," said Naida. Harry took his revolver out and gestured at
the dark-haired woman. "Jennie'll be leaving now." Jennie stood, notebook
pressed to her breasts. "Yes, I will," she seconded. "Thanks for having
me."
   Naida's smile was thin and cold. "You forget, dear Harry, that your gun
can't harm me," she reminded. "Surely, after all your experience in
matters occult, you know a vampire can't be killed with ordinary bullets."
  He grinned again. "Yep, I know that, ma'am," he answered. "Which is
why I have six silver bullets loaded in here. Had them cast while I was laid
up in the hospital in Kaltzonburg. Took a fall off a train a few days back."
   Jennie moved around the bed, walked by the coffin and came to Harry's
side. "I'm glad you survived."
  "I was sort of pleased myself."
  "He's bluffing you, Naida," said Zaytoon. "Take the gun out of my
bedside table and kill him."
   She was studying Harry's face, still standing straight beside the chair.
"I'm inclined to agree," Naida said. "Until you walked into this
bedchamber, Harry, you didn't even know I was in partnership with
Anwar Zaytoon. Therefore, you couldn't have prepared silver—"
   "You put a lot more faith in Bertie Pennoyer than he deserves," said
Harry. "He didn't kill me as instructed and he talked quite a lot about you
folks before he escorted me off that damn train. Talked about Zaytoon,
about the secret of the obelisk and about you, Nadia."
  "You're bluffing, just as Anwar—"
  "I let you live before." His voice was harsh now. "That was a mistake.
This time I won't be sentimental."
  She took a step back toward the table. "No, I don't believe you."
  He raised the gun, aimed it directly at her. "Well, if this was a poker
game, about now'd be the time to call," Harry said. "You go for that gun,
Naida, and I shoot you. With real silver bullets. The kind no vampire
can—"
  "Damn you." She turned, ran suddenly for a window. Tugging it open,
she dived out into the darkness.
  "Bluff worked," he said.
  Jennie said, "Harry, she committed—"
   "Nope, there are balconies along this side of the castle. I spotted them
when I was casing the place this afternoon," he said. "Naida's probably
scrambling down the side of the tower now. Let's go, since I want to get
you out of—"
  "You'll go nowhere," cried Zaytoon. He was fighting with his covers,
gnarled hands clawing at them. "I'll stop you myself."
   The old man managed to throw the covers aside. With an enormous
effort he rolled to the bed edge and thrust his stick-thin legs out and to the
floor. He stepped free of the bed and stood up.
  There was a brittle cracking sound, and another. Both legs snapped and
the bones came poking through the yellow parchment skin.
  Zaytoon gasped with pain but made an attempt to get to the table for
the gun. Instead he fell to the carpet.
  More cracking, splintering sounds. His ancient body was crumbling,
breaking up.
  "My god, Harry," whispered Jennie.
  "C'mon." He took her arm. "We still have to get Professor Stowe out of
here."
  Zaytoon was a tumble of twisted clothes and splintered bones. The
nightcap had fallen free and lay next to the chair leg, the tassle was
powdered with the scaly dust that had been the old man's skin.
  "He was nine hundred years old," said Jennie as Harry hurried her
across the room.
  "Should've picked up a little wisdom in all that time." He opened the
door.


                         CHAPTER 18
   Professor G.P.R. Stowe said, "That is typical of my daughter, all too
typical." He was a short, rumpled man with frizzled grey hair. "Arranges
to have me rescued, do you see, and neglects to send sufficient hands to
take care of all my luggage."
  "We don't have time for baggage," explained Harry. "Zaytoon is dead,
but there's still a castle filled with toadies and thugs who don't know
that."
   They were standing in the middle of the professor's combination
bedroom and workshop. Stowe was swaying some, a cut-glass decanter of
rum in his hand. Stretched out on the unmade bed was a nearly completed
flying bat.
  "Someone will come back for your stuff later," promised Jennie.
  "I notice, more in sadness than in anger, that Belphoebe did not even
see her way clear to—"
  "She was carried off by one of your damn bats."
  "Why ever did she let that happen to her?"
  "It was more Orchardson's idea," said Harry. "I made sure, in a recent
conversation with Bertie
  Pennoyer, that Zaytoon doesn't have any of your gadgets in operation
yet."
  "How can he, when the first is lying yonder upon—"
  "We'll go now," said Harry.
   "Young man, you do not seem to comprehend— and considering you are
a gentleman friend of my daughter your denseness is accounted for— you
do not understand my position. I am tired of being kidnapped by all and
sundry and each time losing more and more of my personal and
business—"
  "There are two ways you can leave here," Harry cut in. "Willingly or
unconscious."
  The professor blinked, took a swig of rum, wiped his mouth on his lab
coat sleeve and frowned.
  "Are you threatening me, young man?"
  Harry grinned. "You're damn right."
   "See here, I . . . um . . . very well." He'd noticed Harry's left hand turning
into a fist. "I, I assure you, Belphoebe is in for a severe dressing-down."
"We have to get her back from Orchardson before you can do that," said
Harry.
  Harry, Jennie and the stumbling, muttering Professor Stowe were
coming down a splendid carved wooden staircase and were only a few
hundred feet from the main door out of the castle when three large,
swarthy men in evening clothes entered the immense hall below.
  They noted the strangers on the stairway and proceeded to draw
revolvers and a dagger.
  "Far be it from me to criticize, young man," said the frizzle-haired
professor, "but attempting to exit by the most obvious—"
  "Been lucky bluffing so far," said Harry. "I thought we could work it
once more."
  "Maybe we can," said Jennie.
  Harry stepped ahead of the other two. "You men down there," he called.
"Hurry, run to the kitchen and start boiling plenty of hot water."
   "Gar?" The biggest of the three men was crouched at the foot of the
stairs with his revolver in his fist.
  "I'm Herr Doctor Hauser," Harry explained, "and I have just come from
Herr Zaytoon's chambers. I fear he's had a serious relapse and must be—"
  "Kill the infidels!" shouted another of the guards, the one with the
knife.
  "Death to intruders! By the Eye of Osiris!"
  The three large men started up the stairs, howling, waving their
assorted lethal weapons.
  "You convinced me you were a medic," said Jennie.
  "Duck behind me." He reached for his gun.
  "Halt, you craven dogs!" boomed another voice down below, "lest the
wrath of Isis visit you."
  "Gar?" The guards halted, still fifty feet from Harry and Jennie.
   A plump Oriental gentleman had appeared out of a dining room off the
hallway. He held his silken-sleeved arms high. "I must request that you
cease this unseemly display of mean-minded behavior at once," he
informed the perplexed guards. "For not only am I a guest at tonight's
buffet supper, I am a most powerful Eastern wizard."
  "Kill him, too," suggested the guard with the knife.
  The Great Lorenzo sighed, his Oriental moustache drooping even
further. "You gents give me no choice," he said. "Lando Zambini
Marvelo!"
  From out of nowhere great sputtering clouds of thick green smoke
began to billow. They came rolling up the stairs to engulf everyone.
Blood-chilling shrieks were heard, strange ominous shapes danced in the
dense green swirls.
  "Get down here fast, my boy!"
  Harry caught Jennie's arm and the professor's. "Let's go," he said. "Keep
over to the far left."
  "This latest nonsense," muttered the professor, "is almost more than I
can stand."


                           CHAPTER 19
   The main square in Kaltzonburg was filled with morning mist. The
Great Lorenzo slackened his pace and then stopped in front of a frail old
woman who was vending violets. "A moment, Harry," he said. "Be so kind
as to give me a bunch of your very best blossoms, dear lady." He pulled a
gold coin from behind his ear, handing it to her.
  "Why, you must be the Great Lorenzo." She accepted the money and
gave him the flowers.
  "Ah, little mother, you've seen and enjoyed my magical extravaganza?"
   "I fear I can't afford it, sir. But I saw your portrait, which hardly does
you justice, in the newspaper only yesterday." He upended the bunch of
violets, shook them. Two tickets fell into his palm. "Here are a couple of
free passes."
  "God bless you, sir."
  Taking hold of Harry's arm, the magician resumed their walk. "I never
get over the gratification that fame brings."
  "Did I notice greasepaint on that sweet old grandmother's face?"
  "She is not a shill, my boy."
   "Good, because I'm already impressed by your many abilities. No need
to hire a—"
   "Here I brighten the poor old wretch's otherwise drab existence by
giving her a choice pair of seats in the second balcony and you suggest
that—"
  "There's Inspector Swann."
   The French policeman was seated at a bench and facing one of the
tables set out for chess and checker players. "Good morning, monsieurs,"
he said. "Thanks to your communication of last evening, Harry, I was able
to alert the Kaltzonburg police and we raided Zaytoon's castle."
  "What about Jean-Pierre Pastoral and the rest of your men who were
on the train?" Harry seated himself on the opponent bench.
  "All alive and being kept prisoner in the castle."
  "We didn't have time, or the forces, to rescue them all last night."
  "One quite understands." Reaching into his breast pocket, he brought
out several sheets of folded paper. "First I . . . Ah, very impressive, M.
Lorenzo."
  "Hmm? Oh, the stogie." The magician, leaning against the back of
Harry's bench, had picked a lighted cigar out of his handful of violets.
"Care for a smoke?"
  "Not at the moment." Swann spread a page of pale grey paper out on
the inlaid checkerboard. "This Bertie Pennoyer we found exactly where
you told us he would be. He is being held on a number of charges,
including kidnapping and train hijacking. Of Mile. Naida Strand there
was no trace. Nor did we find the remains of Anwar Zaytoon."
  Harry said, "What was left of him was right beside the bed. In the same
room with the damn coffin."
  Shaking his head, Inspector Swann said, "We found no coffin either."
  "The dark lady returned after we took our leave," suggested the Great
Lorenzo, "to do a bit of tidying up."
  "Sooner or later I'm going to catch her," said Harry.
  Swann unfolded another sheet. "Here is the latest communication from
Orchardson," he said.
  "In your absence, M. Lorenzo, I took the liberty of intercepting this. It
arrived last evening while you were otherwise occupied at the castle."
  "What's he want?" asked Harry.
  Swann handed him the sheet of pale green notepaper. "See for
yourself."
  The note read:
  The obelisk is to be delivered to the red hunting lodge on the north
shore of Lake Langweilig at
   4:00 p.m. this Friday. Miss Stowe will be turned over to you at that
time. No tricks, if you please.
  0.
  "This particular lake," said Harry, "is about thirty miles south of here.
As I recall from my map studying of the other day."
  "Twenty-seven miles, yes," said Swann.
  "Okay, so we have three days to get everything ready."
  "What do you have in mind?"
  "First, we have to open up the obelisk," said Harry.
  "The baron will never allow such a valuable—"
  "When he hears what's inside, he will," Harry assured him. "Almost
everybody's interested in immortality."
  "Eh? Do you mean such an awesome secret as—"
  "That's what's inside the obelisk, yep."
  "Even so, how are we to gain access to—"
   "I've already arranged for that," said the Great Lorenzo, puffing on his
cigar. "Thanks to kindhearted Prince Rudy, and a few of my own local
connections, I have both a crackerjack safe blower and a gifted
stonemason standing by. The latter fellow specialized in mournful angels
for high-class tombs, but he can saw through stone like—"
  "We also have to put Professor Stowe to work on a device he was
explaining to me on our ride back from Lowen last night," said Harry.
  "Another flying machine, monsieur?"
  "Nope, something that can control the ones that already exist,"
answered Harry.
   ". . . then there was the redhead who was the understudy for the part of
Little Eva in a traveling company of a German version of Uncle Tom's
Cabin," Jennie was explaining. "He settled with her for $25,000. Next
came an American girl named, so help me, Pansy Dorf. She was a
sharpshooter with a rundown wild West show fronted by Colonel Buckskin
Dan. Her attorneys claimed—"
  "To sum up all your digging into the baron's background," interrupted
Harry, "the guy is fond of women."
  "Fond may not be a strong enough word." She glanced up from her
notebook. "Do you want to hear about the tattooed Swedish girl known as
the Portable Museum?"
  "Nope," decided Harry.
  They were on the wide terrace of Baron Felix Groll's chateau in the
wooded hills above Kaltzonburg. The morning mist had gone but the
midday sunlight was thin and pale.
  Jennie closed her notebook. "In residence at the moment is a lady
calling herself Lulu Cortez," she said. "She was stranded in Urbania four
months ago when the touring Graustark National Ballet Company went
bankrupt."
  "How old is she?"
  "Twenty-two."
  "And the baron is . . . what? . . . fifty-five?"
  "Claims fifty-five. Actually, he's fifty-nine."
  Harry nodded. "He's about to join us."
   One of the French doors facing the terrace opened and a slender man in
a blue blazer and grey trousers came walking toward them. His
short-cropped hair and beard were grey. "Ah, it is Herr Challenge and
Fraulein Barr," he said, bowing, smiling, clicking his heels. "Much have I
heard of both of you." Taking hold of Jennie's hand, he bent and kissed it.
"Your series on the tenements of New
    York City brought tears to my eyes. Ah, and your articles on the recent
unpleasantness at Blackwood Castle caused my hackles to rise as I perused
it, my dear."
  "Why, thank you."
   Harry said, "We didn't mean to get you out of your sickbed, baron. But
since we're working against time, I—"
   "Sick? Who is sick? I have been up for hours attending to my business
affairs."
  Harry grinned. "Excuse me. It's only that you seem . . . Well, I guess for
a man of sixty you don't look all that bad."
   "Sixty? I am but fifty-four." He frowned at Harry, then returned his
attention to Jennie. "You are one of the most perceptive and objective
reporters in the world, fraulein. I put it to you, do I appear to be sixty
years of age?"
  "No, I wouldn't peg you at anything beyond fifty-nine."
   Baron Groll paused to breathe in and out. "I must inform you, Herr
Challenge, that you are not putting me in a receptive mood to grant any
favors," he told Harry. "I am informed you wish to make a—"
   "You'll have to forgive us," said Harry. "It's just that I've got this
rejuvenation drug on my mind. Naturally, I'm going to be doubly aware of
the sad effects of aging on a once handsome and vital—"
   "Rejuvenation?" said the baron. "I was told some lunatic wanted my
lovely new obelisk in exchange for a young woman. By the way, she is
beautiful?"
  Jennie began. "Plain as a—"
  "Belphoebe Stowe is quite a handsome woman," said Harry, nudging
Jennie. "And she'd be eternally grateful to any man who—"
  "Might we return to this talk of rejuvenation?"
   Harry rested his backside against the marble railing that guarded the
terrace. "I'm going to confide an enormously important secret in you,
baron," he said. "Inside your obelisk, hidden for centuries, is a supply of
tana."
  "Of what?"
   "It's a powerful drug," explained the reporter. "Anwar Zaytoon used the
stuff and he lived to be nine hundred."
  "Nine hundred? But that's imposs—"
  "And up until the very end he didn't look a day over sixty."
  "Fifty," suggested Harry.
  "Fifty," amended Jennie. "That's right. Zaytoon was nine hundred, yet
he appeared to be younger than you." The baron stroked his beard, gazing
thoughtfully out at the green woodlands surrounding his chateau. "You
are certain this drug is concealed in my obelisk?"
    "It is," Harry assured him. "As the owner of the obelisk, anything inside
it is yours."
  "I could look even younger," he inquired, "and never die?"
  "That's the idea," said Jennie. "Harry knows exactly where the stuff is
and how to get it out without damaging the obelisk much at all."
  "Can have my crew here within the hour," Harry said.
  Baron Groll asked, "What do you want in return?"
  "The loan of the obelisk."
   "Loan? As I understand it this decadent mystic wants it for good and
all."
  "We'll take the obelisk apart, extract the cache of tana, put it back
together and borrow it for about a day." "Merely borrow?"
   "Harry has a way figured out to prevent Orchardson from keeping the
thing.""Then I will have this miraculous drug and my obelisk?""That's
right.""Very well, you have my permission to do what must be done," the
baron said. "Ah, but you must not mention any of this to my friend, Lulu
Cortez. I want to surprise her." "Not a word," promised Harry.


                          CHAPTER 20
   The Great Lorenzo rotated his hand in the twilight. His gold watch
climbed free of his waistcoat pocket, floated up to his hand. "I must be off,
children," he announced. "Curtain time in two hours."
  Harry and Jennie were again on the terrace of Baron Grail's chateau.
   "The crew you provided ought to have the damn obelisk uncorked any
time now," said Harry. "Why not stay and—"
   "It is my motto, my boy, never to keep my eager public waiting." The
magician manually returned his watch to his pocket. "Besides I have a
feeling . . . Ah, but no need to play the wet blanket. Farewell until the
morrow."
  "Whoa now," said Harry.
  "You're not going to leave," said Jennie, "without giving us the benefit
of your latest magical insight."
  " 'Tis not a vision," he told them, "merely a hunch."
  "And?" asked Harry.
  "You— or rather the anxious baron is in for a bit of a disappointment
perhaps." The Great
  Lorenzo adjusted his top hat, adjusted his cloak and went striding off
across the terrace and down the marble staircase that led to the front
drive where his carriage waited.
  "What's he hinting at?" Jennie watched the magician disappear into
the gathering dusk.
  "That maybe there's nothing inside the obelisk."
  "But there has to be. All these people couldn't be chasing after
nothing."
   "Wouldn't be the first time." He walked over and sat on the marble
railing.
   She perched beside him. "We ought to be back inside. Thing should be
just about open."
  "Inspector Swann'll holler," said Harry. "Unless you feel your readers
could use a few more details on granite sawing and—"
  "Darn it, Harry." She punched his arm. "Just lay off me, okay?"
  "I didn't mean to—"
  "We're both pretty enthusiastic about our jobs," she said. "You wouldn't
drop a case you were investigating to come off with me. So don't razz me
when I—"
  "Sure I would. Where do you want me to come off to?"
  She turned to study his profile. "Paris wasn't so bad. Let's go back
there."
  "When?"
  Jennie sighed. "There's the same dam snag," she said. "You won't leave
Urbania until Belphoebe Stowe's safe. I won't pack up until I file my story
on the rescue."
   "We'll both be finished by Friday," he said. "By Monday we can be back
in Paris."
  "The Daily Inquirer owes me a week of vacation," she said. "At least."
  "Okay, then we'll spend a week in Paris. But without giant bats or—"
  "Walking mummies or—"
  "Aggressive Zouaves." Harry put his good arm around her waist, leaned
and kissed her.
  "Ahem," came the voice of Inspector Swann from an open French door.
"They are ready to open it." He went away. "And no obelisks," said Jennie.
  The stonemason was a small, dark man in smock and work trousers.
Covered with granite dust, he was crouched at the tip of the lying-down
obelisk. A makeshift scaffolding was supporting the apex.
  "Easy now, chum," advised the dapper safecracker. A tall, lean man, he
was standing close by with a stethoscope dangling from his left hand.
  "We are ready," said the mason.
   The safecracker dropped the stethoscope into his coat pocket, took hold
of the tip of the obelisk. The mason did likewise.
  Baron Groll was pacing along the canvas that had been spread out on
the floor of his conservatory. "Get on with it," he urged.
  "Lend a hand," Inspector Swann told the two uniformed Kaltzonburg
policemen who'd been standing watch.
  Grunting and puffing, the four men lifted the apex free of the obelisk
and let it rest on the scaffolding.
  "The mason mentioned earlier," said Swann to Harry, "there is evidence
that's been taken off before and very artfully replaced."
  "Sure, they did that back in ancient Egypt when the—"
  "More recently than that, monsieur."
  Jennie tapped Harry's arm. "Lorenzo's hunch," she said quietly.
   The safecracker was on his knees, shining a bull's-eye lantern into the
opening that was now visible. There was a hollowed out cube about the
size of a shoebox. "Got to be mighty careful," he said. "On the lookout for
poisoned needles and other such engines of destruction."
  "There's a small ivory casket in there," said the baron. "Get it out, will
you?"
  "All in good time." The safecracker rubbed his fingertips on his palms.
   "Ah, I have no more patience." Barol Groll pushed him aside and thrust
in his hand. He pulled out a casket of gold-trimmed ivory. "Is this it, Herr
Challenge?"
  "Ought to be."
   "Foolish," muttered the safecracker. "Don't know what sort of trap them
old Gypsies set."
  The baron, hands shaking some, put the casket on a marble-topped
table. He took hold of the lid.
   "Could also be," said the safecracker, "they rigged a spring device in the
lid to shoot a—"
  "There, I've open . . ." Baron Groll stared into the open casket. "There is
nothing . . . only this folded piece of paper."
  Harry had moved to the table. He lifted the page from the box and
unfolded it. "Well, now."
  "Harry," said Jennie, "what is it?"
   "I'll read it to everybody," he said. " 'To whom it may concern: Should
anyone else ever solve the cipher, I offer my sympathies. I have already
taken the tana drug but left the casket and this note. The work was done
in the hold of the ship bringing this ugly artifact back from Egypt to Paris.
My colleagues, a simpleminded lot, know nothing of this. Quite frankly, I
don't believe anyone else will ever be clever enough to find out, as I have,
the secret of the obelisk of Osiris. Yet my vanity prompts me to write this
down and take claim for solving a riddle that eluded all others for
thousands of years. The drug is mine and I am now assured of living
forever. Most sincerely yours, Sir Munson Bellhouse.' " Harry let the note
drop to the tabletop.
  "Orchardson killed Bellhouse," said Jennie.
  "To keep him from learning the secret of the obelisk," said Harry.
  "The current whereabouts of the tana drug," said Jennie. "Only
Bellhouse knew that and he's dead now."
  Baron Groll glanced from Harry to Jennie and back to Harry again. "I
can't follow all this," he said, "yet I have the uneasy impression I'm not
going to live forever or even be rejuvenated."
  "That about," said Harry, "sums it up."


                          CHAPTER 21
   Friday was grey and misty. When they reached Lake Langweilig, a light
rain began to fall.
   The Great Lorenzo had been expecting rain and was wearing a yellow
slicker and matching hat. He and Harry were sharing the driver's seat of
the lumbering circus wagon the obelisk was being hauled in. "Is that our
destination I espy across the placid waters, my boy?" He flicked the reins
of the four sturdy draft horses who were pulling the wagon.
  Harry lowered his binoculars. "Only red hunting lodge in sight."
  "Red's a handsome color."
  "For circus wagons."
   "I rather like this vehicle. Its crimson exterior and gilded bars add a
nice touch of brightness to a drab day," said the magician. "And the words
enscribed above the cage— The Wildman of Sulu— are rather fetching. All
in all, I'm delighted I borrowed it from some of my old circus cronies."
    Harry was studying the lodge, which was still two miles away, through
the glasses again. "Looks like somebody's inside the place," he said. "And .
. . yep . . . I'm near certain there's at least one of Stowe's flying machines
roosting in those trees beyond the lodge."
  "Then your scheme ought to work," the magician said. "If you can keep
the professor sober back there."
  A coach, with Inspector Swann at the reins and Jennie and Professor
Stowe inside, was following behind them.
  "Jennie'll see to that."
  "An admirable young woman, my boy," he said. "Were I you, I'd settle
down with her in a little bower by the side of the road in some quaint
small town in the hinterland of America and there—"
  "She's not the settling down kind."
  "Ah, but love can work—"
  "Nor am I." Harry lowered the binoculars.
  "Do both of you intend to keep galavanting around the world until
you're as long in the tooth as the late Zaytoon?"
  "We'll keep on about like this for a while, bumping into each other now
and then."
   The Great Lorenzo sighed. "Let us turn, before my tender heart breaks,
to more mundane topics," he suggested. "Is that gadget of Stowe's really
going to do the trick?"
  "He assures me it will."
  "The professor, brilliant fellow though he is, fails to inspire my full and
unqualified confidence," said the magician. "Possibly that impression was
created when I found him flat on his back and snoring on the floor of the
temporary laboratory you fixed up for him at the baron's."
  "He's got a fondness for the bottle."
   "So I concluded when the fumes from his sprawled carcass made me
tipsy."
  Harry said, "There's really no way to test that control panel he built for
us. He claims he can use it to take over control of the flying machines from
Orchardson. If he can, then that'll be the easiest way to nab Orchardson."
  "And even if not, we'll still be able to exchange this dornick for the fair
Belphoebe."
  Harry nodded. "I want Orchardson, too," he said. "Any hunches?"
   Shrugging, the Great Lorenzo replied, "Nary a one. We'll simply have to
trust to chance."
  The crimson steps of the hunting lodge creaked as Max Orchardson
came down them. He wore a tweed suit and hiking boots. "Look around
you, Challenge," he advised. "Already have." Harry had climbed down from
the circus wagon and was standing near the edge of the misty lake.
  The Great Lorenzo was at the rear of the wagon, unlocking the cage that
held the obelisk.
  "Three of my men, all armed, are out there in the woods," Orchardson
came thumping toward Harry. "As well as two of my highly dependable
aerodromes."
  "I noticed."
  "There are, in addition, three armed men inside the lodge," added the
immense, pale Orchardson. "One, armed with a shotgun, stands guard
over Miss Stowe in the room directly above the entry way."
  "We didn't come to make trouble or get into a brawl," Harry assured
him. "You take the obelisk, we take Belphoebe Stowe."
  "And you're welcome to her." Orchardson started waddling toward the
rear of the circus wagon. "I thought her wretched father was the most
quarrelsome person on the face of the planet, until I took this young lady
under my roof."
   "That's one of the drawbacks of kidnapping: you don't know how your
victims are going to behave."
   "Not a bad remark, Challenge. I may be able to fashion it into an
epigram." Stopping at the open cage, he squinted at the obelisk. "Appears
to be authentic." From a coat pocket he took a magnifying glass. First he
tapped the granite base with the handle, then he scrutinized it with the
lens. "I hear tell, by the by, that Anwar Zaytoon has fallen on hard times."
  "He's dead."
   "Delightful." He continued to inspect the obelisk. "Were you responsible
for his shuffling off?"
  "Indirectly," said Harry. "The official cause of death was old age."
   "Yes, one can see where it would be." Orchardson slipped the glass into
a tweedy pocket, took two rocking steps back. "I am satisfied, Challenge. If
you and your fat friend will now retreat to the vicinity of your coach, I'll
give the signal for Miss Stowe to be released."
  "Fine. Pleasure doing business with you."
  He and the Great Lorenzo started walking toward the coach, which was
parked several hundred yards down the shore of the lake.
  All at once leaves rattled on their left.From out of the woods a giant
mechanical bat came flapping."Watch out." Harry shoved the magician
down, dived to the pebbly ground himself.The bat ignored them and sailed
over. It hovered above Orchardson for an instant, then grabbed him up.
  "Fools, what are you doing?" cried the fat man.
   The bat rose up, carrying the thrashing, struggling Orchardson in its
clawed arms.
  It rose higher and higher and went flying out over the lake.
  Crouched, Harry watched. "Damn, Stowe moved too soon."
   "Demon rum has dulled his perceptions perhaps." When the flying
machine was four hundred feet above the waters of the lake, it opened its
claws. Orchardson plummeted, screaming, down through the afternoon.
He hit the water with an enormous slamming splash and sank at once.


                          CHAPTER 22
   Harry tugged, left-handed, his revolver out of his belt. "Give me a
diversion, Lorenzo."
  Yanking off his yellow slicker hat, Lorenzo started hopping on the
beach. "El Carim Zanzibar Zatara!"
   Purple smoke commenced pouring from the hat, great thick clouds of it.
The smoke engulfed the circus wagon, covered a long stretch of the
lakeshore and surrounded the lodge. It hid Harry from the gunmen in the
woods and from those still inside.
  "Excuse my using the same trick twice," called the magician.
   Harry went sprinting for the house, revolver in his left hand. He could
barely make out the steps, but he went charging up them and shoved on
into the lodge. Just inside the front door he collided with a large coughing
man. The man was heavy set, puzzled and carried a .45 revolver absently
in his hand.
  "The whole place is on fire," warned Harry. "Get all the women and
children out fast."
  "To be sure, sir . . . what children?"
  Smoke came spilling into the rustic living room, blurring everything.
  Harry dodged the distracted guard, ran up the wooden staircase to the
second floor.
  Purplish smoke was forcing itself in through the open windows and the
hall was clouded with it.
  "Fire!" yelled Harry. "Fire and pestilence!"
  "How's that again?" A bald-headed man, cradling a shotgun, stepped
out of the room where
  Belphoebe Stowe was being held.
  "This whole lodge is going to blow sky high," explained Harry. "Get out
while you can."
  "A moment, sir. I recognize you as Harry Challenge, a fellow who's
opposed to our . . . oof!"
  Harry hit him hard in the midsection with his cast. He punched him
twice more in the temple and stepped clear as he slumped to the
hardwood floor and was covered by billowing smoke.
  "Belphoebe?"
  "Mr. Challenge." The blonde young woman appeared in the doorway.
"Whatever is going on?"
   "Essentially, this is a rescue." He took hold of her arm. "Your nitwit
father seems to have murdered Orchardson and that's meant a bit of
improvising."
  "What is the cause of all this dreadful smoke?"
  "Lorenzo. He had some left over from a stunt he pulled the other night,"
he answered, heading her toward the back stairs. "C'mon. Run."
  "I truly appreciate your efforts on my behalf."
  They hit the stairs and went rushing down.
   Harry was reaching for the back door handle when a third guard
stepped out of the purple smoke and pointed a pistol at them. "Be so kind
as to stop."
   "Oh, nonsense." Belphoebe, who was three steps from the bottom,
leaped through the cloudy air and executed a perfect tackle.
 The nonplussed guard fell over backwards, fired a shot into an elk head
mounted on the wall.
 Harry jumped, stepped on his wrist. The gun went spinning from the
man's grasp.
  Stepping over him after grabbing up the gun, Belphoebe followed Harry
out of the lodge and into even denser smoke.
  The Great Lorenzo called to Harry, "How many guards did he mention
were lurking amidst the flora?"
  "Three." Harry aimed his reply at the spot he assumed the magician
was standing.
   "I thought as much," the Great Lorenzo said, walking closer and
materializing out of the smoke. "In that case, I've succeeded in rendering
the lot of them unconscious with a blackjack once presented to me by a
fellow who claimed to be a former member of the Gashouse Gang."
  As the smoke began to lift, Jennie came running along the beach to
Harry. "You're alive," she said, smiling and hugging him.
  "I am," he agreed, kissing her.
  Inspector Swann, gun in hand, headed for the lodge. "I shall take care of
any loose ends within," he said. "You two, let me add, displayed much
inventiveness this day."
  Belphoebe was watching Harry and the red-haired reporter. "This bears
out all I have heard about the behavior of Americans."
  "No one would consider you unladylike, Miss Stowe," said the Great
Lorenzo, "should you demonstrate your gratitude to your rescuers in some
physical way."
  "Yes, I believe I shall." She marched over to the magician, kissed him,
briefly, on his cheek. "My heartiest thanks."
  He put his yellow rain hat back on, tugging it down. "I'm deeply
touched," he informed her. "Harry, my boy, we'd best hogtie the
Orchardson forces scattered in the woods and then collect them into our
barred wagon."
  "Soon as I ask the professor why in the hell he—"
   "Revenge," said Jennie. "That's what he told me while I was trying to
struggle with him and get him to put Orchardson down gently on dry
land."
  "Our original plan was to pluck him up with one of his flying bats after
Belphoebe was free and before he could start off with the damn obelisk."
  "He claims the sight of Orchardson brought back all he's suffered at his
hands," said Jennie, nose wrinkling.
  "It sounds as though my deplorable parent has caused yet another—"
  "Belphoebe, my beloved child!" The door of the coach came flapping
open. Stowe tumbled out, hit the beach with a sloppy thud.
   "There are times when I truly wish my loyalty to that awful man was not
so strong."
   "Help me up, will you? I seem to have developed a cramp from sitting so
long in this drafty conveyance." Stowe got to his knees, rubbing at his
thigh.
  Belphoebe took a few unenthusiastic steps in his direction. "Mr.
Challenge informs me that you came very close, father, you wicked old
man, to undermining the entire plan."
  "Can you blame a father for revenging himself upon the very man who
defiled his firstborn jewel and—"
   "Orchardson was not at all interested in women, as you well know. Even
if he had been, I could easily have eluded the advances of one so grossly
over—"
  "Yes, yes, go ahead. Scorn and malign me for risking life and limb to
save you from a fate worse than—"
  "Father, I suggest you climb back inside that coach at once and cease
your unseemly behavior."
   The professor was upright, more or less, at last. He brushed dirt from
his wrinkled suit. "The ingratitude you're displaying, dearest, is more
unseemly than—" "Did you mention, Mr. Lorenzo, that you are in need of
assistance in tying up some of those dreadful, debased brutes who have
been my captors?"
   "All help is most gratefully accepted," he told her. "Come along into yon
forest glade with me."
  Professor Stowe jerked a wad of handkerchief out and commenced
sobbing into it.
  "Would you mind, Harry," asked Jennie, "if I rode back on the wagon
with you?"


                          CHAPTER 23
   The Great Lorenzo tipped his top hat and six milk-white doves came
fluttering out.
  The enthusiastic audience in the packed Spielzeug Theater applauded.
   "Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to introduce yet another
brand-new and never before seen illusion," he announced, winking in the
direction of the box occupied by Harry and Jennie. "Or is it an illusion?
Can a man, a mere mortal, actually walk through solid stone? Attend well,
for you are about to witness what I call the Curse of the Obelisk illusion."
  The houselights dimmed, the gilded curtains behind him slowly parted.
   "Not a bad replica," said Jennie, nodding at the pinkish obelisk that
stood in the spotlight, flanked by two handsome young women in
diaphanous and vaguely Egyptian gowns.
  "Obelisks aren't my idea of entertainment," said Harry.
  "Well, you can't blame Lorenzo for wanting to cash in on all the
noteriety," she said. "The obelisk is news."
  "Thanks to you."
   "And most of the newspapers around the world who picked up my
stories."
  ". . . imprisoned within this solid granite, dear friends, and then bound
with sturdy chains of . .
  ." "We're going to have to leave before this final encore," reminded
Harry, "to catch the last express to Paris."
  "He'll be hurt."
  "Not Lorenzo. Romance is more important to him than magic or—"
  A polite tapping sounded on the door of their private box.
  Harry stood and opened the door.
   A red-coated young usher stood there with two pale envelopes in his
gloved hand. "Herr
  Challenge?"
  "Yep."
  "Fraulein Barr?"
  "As well."
  "Cablegrams. Urgent. I am to remain in case of any replies."
   "Thanks." Harry took the cables and gave the young man a half-gulden
piece.
  "Let's not open them just yet, Harry."
  He shook his head, passed her message to her and opened his.
  It was from his father and said:
  Dear Son: You didn't do badly with the obelisk. Pack up at once and
hightail it to London. Rich half-wit claims dead coming back to life and
secret cult after him. Ought to be worth plenty. Your loving father, the
Challenge International Detective Agency.
  Jennie finally pried her own envelope open and scanned the message.
"Grand Duke Rupert has been assassinated in Bosnia," she said ruefully.
"My darn paper wants me to get there right away and cover unfolding
events."
   Harry tapped his cable against his chin a few times and then returned it
to its envelope. "Young man," he said to the usher, "you weren't able to
find either Herr Challenge or Fraulein Barr."
  "I wasn't? But you professed to be the—"
  "All a mistake. Fact is, I'm near certain they've both left the country for
parts unknown." He gave the cables back, along with three more coins.
"You never will find them. Understand?"
   The usher smiled. "Ah, but to be sure. An affair of the heart." He took
his leave.
  "Parts unknown?" inquired Jennie.
  "Paris, actually," said Harry.
  "I advise you, ladies and gentlemen," the Great Lorenzo was saying
down on the stage, "to watch the next part most carefully. You will be
absolutely amazed."


                              The End