Act Three, Part One

Artie instantly pasted on a smile as little Mr Memphis glared at him, the smaller man's hands clenching and unclenching. "Now, now," said Artie, temporizing, "it's not what you think."

"Isn't it? Isn't it?" gabbled Memphis, his voice rising nearly to a shriek. Mastering himself with some difficulty, he hissed, "As soon as Mr West told Zorana and me that you had collapsed with a heart attack upon hearing that the Phoenix had been taken, I knew it was a lie, that you were faking this illness. And I was right! You only pretended to have a heart attack to make yourself look innocent, Kutman, to throw suspicion off yourself, but you cannot fool me. You stole the Phoenix!"

Ah! Artie nearly laughed out loud with relief. When Memphis had accused him of faking it, Artie had thought at first that the little man had penetrated his disguise and knew him to be Artemus Gordon, the one who really had arranged for the Phoenix to vanish and had faked the injuries upon himself. How good to learn that instead, Memphis believed him to be the real Kutman! And if Memphis thought Kutman had taken the Phoenix, Artie was perfectly willing to play along with that.

Recalling to mind Kutman's voice and speech patterns - lower and slower than his own, and somewhat stilted - Artie smiled a hooded smile and rumbled, "Ah, so you've found me out! Do forgive my little ruse. I suppose you're simply too smart for me."

Memphis snorted. "A baby pigeon would be too smart for you, Kutman! Now, where is the Phoenix? What have you done with it?"

"The Phoenix," said Artie, folding his hands across his ample waist as he warmed to his role, "is hidden away, my dear friend, in a place you wouldn't expect." Which was perfectly true.

"Hmph. I suppose you had Koch take it off and hide it…"

"Suppose whatever you wish."

"…but you see, I too speak German," Memphis smirked. "I might just be able to make a deal with him."

Artie chuckled. "Deal all you wish with Koch; you'll never get the Phoenix from him." Again, perfectly true.

Anger twisted Memphis' features once more. "Curse you, Kutman! What have you done with the Phoenix?"

"All in good time, dear fellow, all in good time. But you must admit, I have the upper hand here."

Memphis shrank down. "Yes. Yes, you do. But I don't want the Phoenix - not permanently. It was Zorana who planned to make it, ah, disappear once we'd reached land again. I only want…" He paused and turned his large, pleading eyes toward Kutman's face. "…fifteen minutes with the Phoenix. Just fifteen minutes alone with its dazzling beauty. To… to say my good-byes."

Fifteen minutes alone with the Phoenix? What, Artie wondered, could Memphis have in mind that would take just fif…?

Ah! Artie began to chuckle again, using the same rich, rolling sound he'd heard from the man himself in the carriage the day before. "Fifteen minutes alone with the Phoenix, is it? Or would it suffice you to spend fifteen minutes alone… with its case?"

Memphis gaped, his chin quivering. His shoulders sagged as he groaned, "Then you found them."

"Oh yes," said Artie, taking a very broad application of the word "you." "Five curiously shaped little lumps of gold. They should fetch me a pretty penny, my dear fellow." Artie eyed the man; now that they knew who had hidden the gold within the case, perhaps they could find out what the items were as well. "Of course, I'll probably just have the lumps melted down to sell it that way."

"No!" squealed Memphis. "Oh no, you mustn't! You don't know what I've been through, all the time and planning and bribes and… Please, please! Don't melt down the mice!"

Mice? Artie watched Memphis all but melt down himself.

"I… I found them years ago," Memphis confessed, "in a strange little shop in Cairo, of all places. The shopkeeper named me a reasonable price for so many items made of gold, but he didn't know what he had, no he didn't!"

"And you did."

"Oh yes!" The little man's face was alight, animated. "I was shocked that the five of them had managed to remain together for all these centuries. I've no idea what became of the five emerods that were originally with them. I wouldn't know what a gold emerod would look like, and I'm not even sure that I'd want to know."

Golden mice? Golden emerods? A memory was stirring in the back of Artie's head, a memory of a curious old Bible story he'd heard in his youth. "But if they are mice, Mr Memphis," he asked, "where are their ears? Where are their tails?"

"I wondered about that at first myself, Mr Kutman. In fact, I thought perhaps the ears and tails had been broken off at some point during the passage of time. But when I examined them, you see, I found no ragged stumps to show where such appendages were broken away. And then as I looked more closely, I saw fine lines etched into the gold outlining the shapes of the ears on their heads and delineating the tails coiled up around their bodies. Oh, if you only had them here, I could show you!"

Within the curtain, Prof Montague took up one of the mice and inspected it closely, then showed it to Jim, whispering, "He's right! See here? And here?"

Jim nodded and waved him to silence.

"So you discovered the five golden mice that the five lords of the Philistines made as an offering to appease the Lord God of Israel for having captured His Ark of the Covenant in battle, in the hopes of stopping the plague that was ravaging their cities," said Artie.

"Yes! Yes. Just imagine what a coup it would be for any collector of antiquities to own such an item!"

"And here you had found not one but all five!" Artie fixed Memphis with a glittering gaze. "But you didn't buy them for the Smithsonian, did you, Mr Memphis?"

"No. I… I didn't work for the Smithsonian yet. And my name wasn't Memphis. I bought them - haggled the price down and bought them. Then I hid them and set about making plans to smuggle them out of Egypt."

Artie's eyebrow arched. "If you needed to smuggle them out, that tells me you saw no legal means to remove them from Egypt. Why would that be, Mr Memphis? Were you perhaps known - well known - for illegal activities?" As Memphis blanched, Artie turned his eyes serenely up toward the ceiling and added, "If memory serves, I recall the tale of a certain little fellow wanted all through the Levant on charges of art theft, antiquities theft. A fellow by the name of, ah… dear me, what was the name of the city in which you discovered the mice? You remarked on it as if the name constituted a coincidence."

Memphis was now as white as a sheet. "Oh, please, Mr Kutman. Please! You don't know what I've been through trying to secure the mice! I changed my name a dozen times - finally managed to get hired by a museum. This assignment to escort the Phoenix was a godsend!"

"Ah? Then God sends help to thieves?" Artie rumbled out another laugh. "And what were your plans for the mice? No, let me guess: you would break up the set, selling the mice off one by one to private collectors, leading each man to believe that he had the only surviving mouse from of old, and then you would disappear to live on the proceeds, retaining, I should think, the final mouse for yourself. Hmm? Am I right?"

The look on the little man's face told him he was. Artie laughed again. "Such a pity then that you have lost possession of your precious mice, Mr Cai… forgive me, Mr Memphis. But all is fair in love and war - and in art theft."

"Please, Mr Kutman, I implore you!" cried Memphis, clutching suddenly at Artie's sleeve. "I'll do whatever you want. The countess knows you have the Phoenix. In her plan to steal it for herself, she was expecting me to help her. And now that you have the Phoenix, she'll expect me to help her take it from you." He sidled closer, a cunning look in his large eyes. "I can distract her," he said. "Foil her plans. Ensure that she doesn't steal it from you. Anything. Yes, even kill her!"

"You? Kill someone?" Artie scoffed. Not only was he skeptical that someone like Memphis could kill anyone, but as an officer of the law, Artie certainly didn't want this to degenerate into murder!

Memphis drew himself up as tall as he could and straightened his vest. "I… I've killed before," he bragged.

"Oh, I'm sure," said Artie, sarcasm oozing from every syllable.

"I have! More than once. It would be easy to kill her. Just…" He plucked at Artie's sleeve again. "Just give me back my mice, Mr Kutman. Please! You don't know what I've gone through. I have to have my mice back. Plea…"

Zorana's voice hissed through the door just then. "The guard has left to fetch a doctor for me! He will be back any moment, Jo… I mean, Bartholomew. You must hurry!"

Memphis leaned in close and whispered, "We are partners now, yes? I help you; you help me?" He held out a hand, which Artie, cold eyed, deliberately did not shake.

"Heh," laughed Memphis nervously. He lifted the ignored hand to run his fingers through his curls. "I… I have to go." He darted for the door and disappeared through it. From beyond the door the pair's voices lifted, particularly hers, then receded along with their footsteps into silence.

"Well," said Artie after a long moment. "Wasn't that interesting?"

Jim snapped open the curtains. "I'll turn the mice over to Col Richmond," he said. "In the meantime, what do you think, Prof Montague? How long will it take you to finish making the replica?" And as the professor frowned and cast his eyes toward the ceiling, Artie added, "Your, ah, best estimate, Professor."

"Ah! Well. I, I suppose… A day? Twenty-four hours? Provided, of course, that Artemus is able to stay and help me."

"A day," Artie repeated. "Amazing how your estimates keep getting shorter!" And as the professor smiled enigmatically, Artie added, "Well, I imagine that Mr Kutman can have another twenty-four hours to recuperate. Right, Jim?"

"Which Mr Kutman might that be, Artie?" Jim asked as he tucked the five mice, each well bundled, into various pockets of his jacket. "The original, or the new improved model?"

"Oh, either," Artie replied airily.

The corners of Jim's mouth quirked upwards. "Twenty-four hours it is," he said. "And as it looks like I've stirred up plenty of hornets for the moment, I believe after I report in to Col Richmond, I'll just go and keep vigil at my poor injured partner's bedside for a while, plotting my vengeance on the miscreant who put him into this hospital." He paused, a twinkle coming up in his eye. "You do realize, Artie, that there will be vengeance meted out for all this worry and anxiety I'm being put through."

"Worry? Ha! What worry? I'm the one who always worries enough for us both!" But then Artie shot Jim a look askance. "Wait, should I be worried? After all, I am the aforementioned miscreant who put me into this hospital."

Jim smiled that small devilish smile of his. "Well, that's the question, isn't it: Should you be worried?" And as Artie turned a querying glance at the professor, who responded with a baffled shrug, Jim opened the door and left.