Tag

"There you go, gentlemen," said Dr Mitchells as he snapped his black bag closed. "All stitched up - again." He shot both West and Gordon sharp looks.

"Thank you, Doctor," said Dr Welis as he rose from his desk to escort the physician out of the still-closed museum. "How can we repay you?"

"By finding someone to keep a close rein on that pair of irrepressible young scrappers! They'll be the death of me - if they aren't the death of themselves first!"

"Thank you, Dr Mitchells," said Jim as he pulled on a shirt Phillips was loaning him.

"We'll try to be good boys from now on, Mother," added Artie.

Dr Mitchells only snorted as he left the office in the company of Dr Welis.

"Well, I'm certainly glad," said Prof Koltien, "that no worse harm came to either one of you than those few injuries, though I'd have preferred, of course, that no harm had come to you at all! But you don't know what became of Miss Jones?"

"No, Professor," Jim said to their old friend. "By the time we took care of her girls, she was gone."

"Vanished without a trace," added Artie.

"Hmph," snorted Dr Welis. He had just returned to his office now, having seen Mitchells out. Welis scowled at his remaining guests in their chairs scattered throughout the office as he took his own seat behind the desk again. "No one vanishes without a trace," the curator declared. "It's impossible."

"Well, she certainly wasn't anywhere around anymore," Artie amended. "And we looked."

"We went back to the crossroads after we delivered all the girls to police headquarters…"

"Took a whole bunch of officers back with us too. As far as we know, they're still searching for her."

"And after that, we went to the bicycle shop and searched there as well."

"And though we didn't find her, we did recover the last of the pilfered items."

"Which we then brought back here to the museum."

"Mm-hmm. Even if we didn't find her, at least we were able to restore all the treasures to you two fine gentlemen." Artie nodded at the tome Prof Koltien was clutching to his breast.

As for the other treasures, "Yes, Phillips will soon have the moonstones, the chalice and the knife all returned to their proper places," said the curator, "and for that, Jim, Artemus, I do thank you from the bottom of my heart." He stood and reached over the desk to shake each agents' hand warmly.

"As do I," put in Koltien, following suit.

"But," Welis added as he seated himself again, "this business of Miss Jones having vanished without a trace!" He shuddered. "No, no, no. She must have gone somewhere, and the sooner she's found and apprehended, the sooner I'll sleep soundly at night again!"

"As will I," Koltien agreed. "But you know, gentlemen, there is one thing I don't understand." He laid the tome gently on the desk, opened it reverently, and began paging through it. "You see, this book was written entirely in Latin by hand, and the script is devilishly hard to penetrate even for an expert on ancient languages such as myself. So how did the young woman… Oh."

"Oh?" asked Jim as they all turned to stare at him.

With a sheepish look on his face, the expert on ancient books lifted a sheet of ordinary stationer's paper from between two leaves of the manuscript. "Well, my friends, I seem to have just answered my own question," he said. "This, in my own hand, is a translation of the spell Miss Jones tried to cast this night. Hmm…" He tilted it toward the closest lamp and began perusing the writing.

"We're very glad to return the book to you, Prof Koltien," said Artie, a twinkle in his eyes.

Once more resuming his favorite topic, Welis asked, "But where do you supposed Miss Jones may be now?"

Jim shook his head. "There's no telling - yet. She may have taken off for parts unknown, or she may be holed up somewhere waiting for the manhunt for her to die down."

Welis seized on that. "But there will be a manhunt?"

"Oh yes," said Artie. "The St Louis chief of police started gathering men to search for her as soon as we brought her girls to the jailhouse."

"And remember, we led a great number of policemen out to the grove already and left them there combing it for clues," said Jim.

"Oh, my my my!"

Again the three turned to look at Koltien, who was now chuckling as he turned one page of the ancient tome back and forth, inspecting each surface.

"Professor?" Artie prompted. "Is something wrong?"

"That would depend entirely upon one's perspective," the old man replied. "What would be wrong for our dear Miss Jones might well be perfect in our estimations. Look here." He turned the book so that they could see the Carolingian script spilling across the pages. "See here? This corresponds to the text that is translated into English, presumably her reason for using that powder of submissiveness upon me. Apparently she told me to write out what the spell requires. However," and he flipped over the loose sheet of paper, "as you can see, the spell is all that I wrote out. The contents of the other side of the page in the book," he turned to that, "are entirely missing."

Welis frowned impatiently. "And this means something?"

"It could mean a good deal, my dear Clive! You see, gentlemen, on the other side of the page are the warnings."

"Warnings?" Jim shot Artie a look.

"Oh my, yes! Fra Jubilatus carefully delineated a number of warnings regarding the fate of many who attempted to win for themselves eternal youth and beauty by means of this spell. There is, for example, a woman called Clarimona. For her, eternal youth and beauty took the form of becoming a spring of fresh flowing water. Another, Dame Ysabella, was transformed into a yew tree. Asplindetta was transmuted into a swarm of bees - well, how they would be considered eternal is quite beyond me, of course, but the point is, gentlemen, the point…" His gnarled old finger tapped the text. "…is not to leave it to the caprices of Hecate to choose the form one's eternal youth and beauty will take." He grinned. "Tell me, Jim, Artemus, when you were searching the grove for any trace of our Miss Jones, did you happen to notice a new tree growing there? Or a freshly flowing stream?"

Wham! Dr Welis jumped from his seat and smacked his palm down flat on the desk, causing the tome and practically everything else on the desktop to jump. "Really, Reuel! You cannot be serious!"

"Oh now, Clive, of course I…"

But whatever reply Koltien had in mind to make was drowned out by a sudden commotion out in the hall, followed by the office door springing open. "Dr Welis!" cried the assistant curator as he burst in, hanging onto the doorknob, his face white, his eyes staring.

"My word, Phillips, what's the matter with you?" Welis barked. "What do you mean, barging into my office without knocking?"

"I… I'm sorry, sir! It's just that…" His words failed him and he stood there for a moment, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly like a fish out of water.

Artie crossed to the liquor cabinet and poured the young man a brandy. "Here."

Phillips nodded and grasped it gratefully, downed it in a gulp, then choked and sputtered. Both Jim and Artie pounded him on the back until he settled down.

"Better, Phillips?" asked the curator.

"Y-yes, I think so, sir," Phillips faltered.

"Then out with it, man! What's wrong?"

"Well… Well, sir, I was doing as you ordered me, putting each item back into its proper place. The chalice, and then the knife, and then the moonstones. All thirteen moonstones, you know."

"All right. Then what?"

"Then…" Phillips reached into his pocket and pulled out something carefully wrapped up in a handkerchief. "I put all the moonstones back into their places, each one onto the stand from which it had been taken. And after I was done…" Now he passed the cloth with its concealed burden to the curator. "…I still had this one left."

"This one? What, are you saying you still had a moonstone left over? Then you must have miscounted!"

"Oh no, sir. I looked and looked again. Every stand is filled and… and this one… well, sir, look at it. Just look at it!"

Frowning, Dr Welis unwrapped the handkerchief, then sat down into his chair again with a cry of alarm, dropping what was in the cloth onto the desk as if it had burned him.

Jim, Artie, and Prof Koltien all pressed in to have a look. The cloth had fallen partly over the moonstone, for that indeed was what Phillips had brought in, concealing most of the lustrous gemstone from sight.

Jim reached out and pulled the cloth away. "Well, it's probably the biggest moonstone I've ever seen in my life, but I…"

His voice stopped abruptly as beside him, Artie made a noise that defied transcription.

"What is that?" Prof Koltien gasped.

Gently Jim used the handkerchief to turn the stone around. Yes, from this angle they could all see plainly what they had initially hoped they were only imagining. The stone. It had markings on it, two greenish ones near one edge, a single longer reddish one near the other. Markings that… moved.

"It… it's the lighting," Dr Welis gabbled. "It must be a trick of the light. That's all. That's all it can be."

Jim and Artie leaned closer, then shared a glance with each other. This was no trick of the light. The greenish markings were turning this way and that together, just like eyes. And the long red mark - that was opening and closing, as if forming words, forming the soundless words of "Help me."

Just like a mouth.

"Ah… Jim?" murmured Artie.

"I know. I see it, but…"

"Hmm. May I?"

Everyone leaned back as Prof Koltien accepted the cloth from Jim and scooped up the large moonstone. He tipped his head as he examined the stone closely, then sighed and folded the cloth around it, tucking it into his pocket. "I have a place for this in my collection," he said. "If no one objects?"

"You… you won't be putting that on public display, will you?" Welis squawked.

"Public? Oh my, no. No no no, Clive, no fear of that. I'll put her - my apologies, Clive! It. It! - I'll put it in a place I often go by myself to gaze on beauty that lasts, well, if not forever, then certainly longer than the span of normal human existence."

"And that place would be, Prof Koltien?" asked Artie.

"Why, among my rare editions of books, of course, my friends!" He smiled and took up the tome as well. "Good day, gentlemen."

Jim and Artie watched him go, then they too made their farewells to Dr Welis and Phillips. They waited until they had left the museum entirely before Artie murmured to Jim, "Do you really think, ah…?"

"That the murderous Miss Jones was transmuted into a moonstone, Artie? Of course not."

"But it certainly looked…! Ah… Well, then, I suppose we'll be joining the search party down there in the cypress grove, hmm?"

Jim nodded. "I will. But not you."

"Not… not me? And why not?"

Jim waved at the rising sun. "You've been up all night, Artie. You need your sleep."

"Oh, I do, do I? And what about you?"

"I had plenty of sleep, remember? I didn't wake up till about midnight. So you go on to the train," and Jim gave him a friendly cuff on the shoulder, "and get all the sleep you want."

"Oh no. You're not getting rid of me that easily, James my boy! You're up to something! Now what is it?"

Jim shrugged. "We were two men being assaulted by over a dozen crazed women. We were tossing them into the stream. What's to say we didn't miscount and not notice that one of them didn't come back out of the stream?"

Artie sighed. "Jim, we already went over that. We didn't miscount."

"Mm. Maybe we did, maybe we didn't. It's plausible."

"Oh sure, somewhat more plausible than Miss Jones getting turned to stone! But you're not really going to go tell the police chief that we lost count and let her get away, are you? Given the way he feels about you?"

"All right then, Artie. Then what do you want to tell Chief Chesterton?"

"I…! Well…" Artie stood for a moment, his mouth open but no sound coming out.

"Mm?"

Artie snapped his mouth shut. "All right, I don't know. I'm a little tired right now to think up a good lie."

"Fine then. You go back to the train and get some sleep, and I'll tell the chief you'll have the answer for him when you wake up." He started to walk away.

"Huh? Wait, no, Jim!"

Jim turned back. "Yeah, Artie?"

"Ah… Look. Just… just tell the chief whatever you want and I'll endorse it. Ok? But I do want to know one thing."

"What's that?"

Artie shot Jim a sheepish look. "What do we do if little Miss Jones shows up again and she's not a rock at all?"

"That's easy."

"Yeah? Easy? What then?"

Jim grinned. "We just take her to Prof Koltien, explain that we've made a mistake, and swap him the girl for the moonstone. And he can keep her in his locked book cabinet." Jim winked and walked away.

"Oh ha ha ha," muttered Artie as he shuffled off toward the train. "Locked in the book cabinet indeed. If I know Reuel Koltien, instead of putting her in the cabinet, he'll set her up on a pedestal and… Wait a minute. Moonstone! Inanimate object!" Eyes wide, Artie clapped his hands together. "That's it: the other ritual! Jim! Hey, Jim! I know why Prof Koltien wanted to take that moonstone. Jim! Hey, wait!"

And Artie took off running to catch up with his partner.

FIN

Author's note: I completely forgot to thank Cal Gal for graciously betaing this for me! Thanks go also to some kind folks here at FFN who helped me come up with a Latin name for Prof Koltien's other book. (And I wonder if anyone made the effort to try to translate that title...)

And one more point: the idea of someone being granted a wish for eternal youth and beauty by being transformed into such a thing as a tree or a stone was a notion I picked up years ago from the book Esbae: A Winter's Tale by Linda Haldeman. I always thought the author had cited a real legend from antiquity about King Solomon, but when I started researching the story to incorporate it into TNOT Stolen Hours, I could find no trace of it, except for within the pages of Esbae. My congratulations to this late great author for so seamlessly inventing history!