Wraiths of Time Read online

  “Some place cheerful,” she found herself saying, “with lots of lights—”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  With another gasp Tallahassee swung around. The inside door between this and the neighboring office had opened. A slender man who must be at least an inch or so shorter than herself—which was not unusual: when a girl stands five-eleven-and-a-half shoeless, she does not look up to many males—was eyeing her in manifest disapproval.

  He was thin featured, his nose sharp-pointed, his mouth turning down with a sour twist. And his sandy hair had been combed back with care over a pink scalp, which showed only too readily through those thin strands, to touch his collar in the back.

  “I believe this is Dr. Greenley’s office—” His thin lips shaped each word as if he broke them off as he spoke them.

  “I am Tallahassee Mitford, Dr. Greenley’s assistant in the African division.”

  He surveyed her, Tallahassee realized, with actual distaste, and she could sense his resentment. Was he one of those who disliked and downgraded any woman with a pretense of knowledge in their own field? She had met several of that ilk.

  “You are quite young,” he commented in a way which made the observation vaguely offensive. “But surely you are aware that this place is not a proper one for social contacts.”

  He had looked beyond her at Jason. And if he was implying what she thought he was—Tallahassee had to subdue her flaring temper with every bit of control she could muster. After all, she would have to work with this man (whether either of them liked it or not) until the Brooke collection was catalogued.

  “We have something to put in the safe.” She hated herself for even explaining that much, but she knew she had to. “And—” She opened her purse. For once luck was with her. That card was right on top, and she did not have to waste any time delving around in sometimes jumbled floating contents to find it. “I was given this. It is for you to call as soon as possible.”

  She laid the card down on the edge of Dr. Greenley’s overflowing desk and did not look at the man again as she went to the safe. As long as Hawes had not yet snapped on the night alarms she could open it.

  Jason, his mouth set in a way she well knew (he had his own temper, even if he had learned long ago how to keep it under), came around the other side of the desk with the case ready. She did not know nor care at the moment whether Dr. Carey had his precious phone number or not. As the door came open at her pull Jason slipped the case in. Tallahassee slammed the door, spun the dial. Still ignoring Dr. Carey, she walked to the phone and punched the number of Dr. Greenley’s home.

  “Is Dr. Joe in?” she asked as she heard Mrs. Greenley’s deep, pleasant voice. “Yes, it’s Tally. Oh. Well, when he comes in, tell him there’s something in the safe. It was picked up—by the FBI.”

  She had Jason’s nod to reassure her that she could keep to that story.

  “Yes. They want an opinion on it. They’ll contact him tomorrow. No, I don’t know much more. But it’s terribly important. No, I’m not going home right away—Jason’s in town and we’re going to eat out. Thank you. I’ll ask him. Good-bye.”

  She set the phone down and smiled with angry brightness at Jason. “Mrs. Greenley says if you have time before you leave, do stop in and see her. Now”—she swung back to the man who had made no attempt not to listen in—“you have the reason for my being here, Dr. Carey. If you care to check on me, you need only call the Greenleys.”

  “Not so fast,” he said, as she turned away. “As you have been working on the Brooke files, I want you here the first thing in the morning. They must be completely rechecked, of course.”

  “Oh course,” Tallahassee said softly. “You have your own methods of working—”

  “I certainly do!” he snapped.

  It came to her that he was watching her with a kind of outrage—as if the mere fact that she existed and must be a part of his daily round in the future was an insult which he found hard to bear. And his hostility was so patent that she began to lose her own control, but also grew curious at what had so forcibly triggered this seemingly instant dislike for her.

  As she and Jason went down in the elevator she was aware of something else. That feeling of a third person was gone, even her queer hunch was fading. Maybe she had left it all back in the safe and, if it did have any effect, let it bother Dr. Carey—it might do him some good.

  Tallahassee sighed contentedly and Jason laughed.

  “For a black chick you sure do put away a Chinese dinner in a competent manner,” he commented.

  “I like Foo Kong’s, I like sweet-sour pork, I like—”

  “Fortune cookies?” He broke open one and unrolled the paper slip inside with the air of a judge about to pronounce sentence.

  “Well, well, this is apt enough. ‘Food cures hunger, study cures ignorance.’ What weighty thought lies in yours?”

  Tallahassee produced her own. “That’s odd …”

  “What’s odd? They put the bill for this feast in yours, Tally?”

  “No,” she answered a little absently and read: “Dragon begets Dragon, Phoenix begets Phoenix.”

  “I don’t see anything odd about that. Just another way of saying ‘like begets like.’”

  “It could have another meaning, too. The dragon was the Emperor’s symbol—no one else dared use it. And the phoenix was that of the Empress. It could mean that royalty begets only royalty.”

  “Which is just what I said, isn’t it?” queried Jason, watching her intently.

  “I don’t know—oh, I guess it is.” But why had she had that odd momentary feeling that the message of a fortune cookie, which was simply some old proverb, had a special significance for her?

  “Look here, I didn’t say anything because I had a hunch you didn’t want to talk about it.” Jason broke across her thought. “But what are you going to do about this Carey. It’s plain he’s going to make a brute of himself if he can. I wonder why?”

  Tallahassee had tried to keep their encounter with Dr. Carey out of her mind all through dinner. But she would have to face it sooner or later, and she might as well do so now that Jason had brought it into the open.

  “It could be,” she returned frankly, “because I’m black. But I think mostly because I’m a woman. There’re a lot of Ph.D.’s floating around, and not all of them are whites either, who resent any female daring to crowd into their own particular field. Which is one reason, my dear, that we’re pushing for ERA—and you hear about Amazons giving the cry the matriarchy shall rise again! Oddly enough, matriarchy of a sort did persist, and right in Africa, too, for a long time. When a queen in Europe could be pushed around like a chess-woman on some plotter’s board, queens well to the south were leading their own armies and wielding such influence as no white skin dared dream of. Each kingdom had three dominant women, if not more—the queen mother, not necessarily the ruling king’s mother, but rather the most important royal woman of the preceding generation; the king’s sister, because only she could produce a royal heir—the king’s sons mostly didn’t count; and his first wife. Why, in Ashanti, the king’s wives had the duty of collecting all the taxes and had their own very efficient guards, attendants and the like, to do just that.”

  “So—if Carey is the expert on African history he’s supposed to be,” commented Jason, “he ought to know all this. Maybe that’s why he wants to cut you down before you take over your natural-born rulership of his department. But”—Jason turned serious now—“look out for him, Tally. I think he could be an ugly customer if he sets out to be.”

  She nodded. “I know, and nothing can be deadlier than department politics. Luckily, Dr. Greenley has seen me work long enough to know what I can do. Jason, it’s nearly nine thirty!” She had glanced at her watch.

  “The knife flaying the elephant does not have to be large, only sharp!”

  She gazed at Jason. “Now just what does that mean?”

  “We had some wisdom of the East.” He gestured to the
discarded scraps from the cookies. “I was merely supplying some from our own native stock. In other words, watch your step.”

  “I’ll probably be doing that so steadily I’ll trip over my own feet,” she agreed as she stood up. “The Greenleys are pets, I won’t rock any boats to make trouble for Dr. Joe.”

  Jason was unlocking her apartment door for her when they heard the steady shrill of the telephone inside. “Oh!” She sent the door spinning with a hard push and crossed the dark living room in a rush to catch up the phone which gave one last demanding ring.

  “Tallahassee?” It was Dr. Joe, and he sounded odd, his voice strained.

  “Yes—”

  “Thank goodness I got you. Can you come down right now to the museum? I wouldn’t ask except it is of the utmost importance.” Then the line clicked off so suddenly she stood there, startled. This was not Dr. Greenley’s way …

  “What is it?”

  “Dr. Greenley.” She put the phone down. “He just told me to come down to the museum—at this hour!—and hung up. Something’s happened! It must have!”

  “I’ll take you.” Jason moved behind her to shut the door, taking out the key to hand to her. She felt a little dazed. In her two years of work—first as a junior assistant, then as a full-fledged assistant—this had never happened. She could feel the uneasiness now even as she had felt that shadow of a third presence, which, of course, had never been there, accompanying her through the museum.

  “There’s something terribly wrong,” she murmured as Jason settled beside her in the car and started to work his way out of the parking lot.

  “Sure, that Carey,” he returned.

  But what could Dr. Carey have done or said to make Dr. Joe call her down to the museum at night? She could not think of anything and was still bewildered when Jason brought her to the same back door they had entered some hours earlier. There was a light in the hall now and just inside the door was Hawes. He swung it open.

  “Go right on up, Miss Mitford. The elevator’s waiting.”

  Jason had moved out but Tallahassee turned. “No, you stay here, Jas—if it’s department business I’ll do more than put a foot wrong to bring a stranger into it.”

  “You sure?” He looked both concerned and doubtful.

  She nodded vigorously enough, she hoped, to satisfy him.

  “I’m sure. And if it’s going to be a long session I’ll phone down and Mr. Hawes can tell you. I know you have to take the early plane out. That all right, Mr. Hawes?”

  “Sure thing, Miss.”

  As Tallahassee entered the elevator, she half expected to feel that other presence. But there was nothing, except the rather eerie sensation that was always part of the museum when it was closed to the public and most of the staff was gone, intensified perhaps by the fact this was night. The storm which had promised earlier had not yet broken, but the sky outside was still overclouded and now she heard, even through the thickness of the walls about her, a roll of what could only be distant thunder.

  Thunder of drums—somehow that phrase slipped into her mind as she shifted from one foot to the other impatiently, waiting for the elevator to reach the fifth floor. Drums meant so much in Africa—the famous “talking drums” whose expertly induced sounds could actually mimic tribal tongues so that they could be understood.…

  The elevator door opened, and she looked into the open hall. There was a light on behind the frosted glass of Dr. Greenley’s door. Tallahassee found herself breathing as swiftly as if she had been running. Deliberately she made herself walk more slowly. She was not going to burst into Dr. Joe’s office as if she had been called from play like some forgetful child.

  When she knocked and heard his muffled voice in answer, she worked to summon full control. And a moment later she was facing him across a desk that was no longer stacked with papers as it had been all the length of time she had known him. Those had been swept to the floor, a snowstorm of littered pages, books, magazines. The office was in such wild confusion that she halted just within the door and gasped. It could look no worse, she believed, if a small hurricane had gone to work here.

  “What—what happened?”

  Dr. Joe’s jaw was set. “That’s what we are trying to find out, Tallahassee. Someone was undoubtedly hunting something; to the best of my knowledge there was nothing here worth this effort.”

  “No?” That supercilious voice came from the corner. Dr. Carey sat on a chair, looking about him with a satisfaction he could not hide from Tallahassee’s narrowed eyes. “Ask this Miss Mitford of yours what she and her boyfriend so conveniently locked in your safe tonight.”

  Dr. Joe did not even look at him. “Tallahassee, if you have any explanation at all of this, I would be grateful for it.”

  Tallahassee made her account brief. “I was called to the airport this afternoon, late. Jason sent for me. They had found something queer in one of the lockers there and wanted an identification. I—well, I thought the artifact looked a little like the rod of office in the Brooke Collection. So the head man—by the way,” she turned now to Dr. Carey, “did you call that number he sent? He could have explained it all—”

  “What number?” Dr. Joe looked puzzled.

  “I told this Mr. Nye that Dr. Carey was coming to evaluate the Brooke Collection. He wrote a number on a card and asked for him to get in touch as soon as possible.”

  “Carey?” Dr. Joe turned his head.

  The other showed no sign of discomfiture. “I did not know the man. If he wanted my services he need only approach me directly—which he did not. No, I did not call.”

  Why, wondered Tallahassee? The man seemed almost to take the suggestion as an insult.

  “But you put this artifact in the safe?” Dr. Joe asked.

  “Yes. It was in a lead-lined case—which is why Jason brought it up for me.”

  “Lead-lined?” Dr. Joe was plainly bewildered.

  “They said that the artifact gave off some unidentified type of radiation. They were taking every precaution.”

  “It was African—a real artifact?”

  “Look and see.” Tallahassee, shaken as she had been by the sight of the office, now felt a rising irritation.

  She put her hand to the safe dial, and then remembered the night alarms. But Dr. Joe had already anticipated her request and was on the phone to call Hawes and have those cut off. When the door opened, she brought out the case which was heavy enough that she needed both hands to swing it to the top of the desk. Flicking open the catch she lifted the cover. There the box lay as Dr. Joe went forward eagerly.

  Tallahassee took the tongs at the top and lifted out the find with care. To her surprise, Dr. Carey did not join them by the desk. She glanced at him once and saw that he only sat there calmly, a faint, satirical smile on his thin lips, watching them as if they were edging into some trouble that he had no intention of warning them against. His attitude was stranger than ever, strange enough to awaken Tallahassee’s feeling of something lurking here, waiting …

  Dr. Joe had taken the tongs from her eagerly, was moving the box slowly around.

  “Yes, yes! But, what? The style is a mixture—old, though, undoubtedly very old. And just left in a locker! We must run a test on it. Carey, what do you think it is—what culture?”

  Dr. Carey got up. He moved swiftly, oddly. His eyes were now fastened avidly on the box and the malicious look was gone. With two strides he reached the desk, elbowing Tallahassee roughly to one side. Reaching forward before either of the other two could prevent it, for they were not prepared for his sudden move, he put one hand at either side of the box.

  There was no sound, but when Dr. Carey lifted his hands, half the box came away. Inside was a small bundle wrapped in yellowed material.

  “Don’t!” Tallahassee caught at Carey’s elbow. “The radiation!”

  He did not even look at her. Instead he dropped the lid with a clatter to the desk and caught at the bundle. Dr. Joe attempted to snatch it away, his express
ion one of complete amazement.

  Dr. Carey eluded him, just as he had jerked free from Tallahassee. He was tearing at the wrapping of the bundle frenziedly. The material peeled off in bits, as if the stuff had been weakened by age. What he held, after a second or two of fighting the covering, was an object about a foot long. And the shape was familiar to them all. This was an ankh—that very ancient key to all life which every representative of an Egyptian god or goddess carried in one hand. It had been carved of some crystalline-appearing substance and showed no fracture or erosion.

  Dr. Carey dropped it to the desk top.

  “What? Why?” He was wiping his hands up and down the front of his coat as if something he feared and hated clung to them. And now his face was pinched and drawn. “Why?…” he repeated in a voice higher than usual as if he needed an answer from them as to the reason for his actions.

  At that moment there was a burst of thunder which seemed so close overhead that the roof itself might have been shattered. Tallahassee cowered and screamed, she could not help it. A second later the lights went out, and they stood in darkness.

  “No! No! No!” Someone was crying out—the sound growing fainter with every denial.

  “Dr. Joe.” Somehow Tallahassee found her voice. “Dr. Joe!” She tried to get around the table and ran into a chair, nearly losing her balance. Then she stood still.

  There was light in the room. But it did not come from any bulb, any lamp she knew. It rayed out from the ankh on the table. The thing glowed.

  And that glow drew her—just as she knew again that the presence she had sensed earlier was back, stronger than ever.

  The ankh arose from the desk top. It was moving—and it was drawing her along after it. She tried to call out, to catch at the chair, at the wall, at anything that could serve as an anchorage. But there was nothing she could do.

  “Dr. Joe!” This time her plea came as a faint whisper, the ability to say more had left her. That—that presence controlled her better than if someone had laid hands upon her shoulders and was pushing her ahead.