He took another deep drink of the brandy. Delicious. Another long draw on the cigar. He sliced through the orange with the knife and picked it up and ate the sweet, wet meat of it.
The cigar filled the room with a perfume finer than any incense. Turkish tobacco, Julie had told him. He had not known what that meant then, but he knew now. Ripping through a little book called History of the World, he had read all about the Turks and their conquests. That was how he should start, really, with the little books full of generalities and summations: "Within a century and a half all of Europe had fallen to the barbarian hordes." The fine distinctions would come later, as he sought out the great wealth of printed material in all languages. Just thinking of it made him smile.
The gramophone stopped. He rose, went to the machine and found another black disk for it to play. This one had the curious title "Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage." For some reason that made him think of Julie again and wanting to crush her with kisses. He set the disk on the turntable and cranked the handle. A small fragile woman's voice began to warble. He laughed. He refilled his brandy and moved a little with the music, a slow dance without lifting his feet.
But it was time to do some work. The darkness was dissolving outside the windows. The first faint grey light of the dawn was coming. He could hear, even over the dull roar of the city around him, the faraway song of birds.
He went into the dark cold kitchen of the house, found "a glass," as they called them, these beautiful objects, and filled it with water from the miraculous little copper tap.
Then he went back into the library and studied the long row of alabaster jars under the mirror. All appeared unharmed. No cracks anywhere. Nothing missing. And there was his little burner, all ready for him, and the empty glass vials. All he needed was a little oil. Or one of these candles, burnt down now to a convenient stub.
Moving aside his scrolls rather carelessly, he set up the little burner properly. He slipped the candle into place, and blew out the flame.
Then he studied the jars again. His hand chose before his mind chose. And when he studied the crushed white powder he knew that his hand had been right.
Oh, if only Henry Stratford had dipped his spoon into this instead of the other! What a great shock he would have had. His uncle, a roaring lion, might have torn off his head.
It occurred to him suddenly that though the poisons might have frightened the people of his time, they would be no deterrent to the scientists of this age. A person with a spark of belief could easily have taken all these jars out of here, fed their contents slowly to animal victims, until he discovered the elixir. It would be simple enough.
As it stood now, of course, only Samir Ibrahaim and Julie Stratford knew of the elixir. And they would never divulge the secret to anyone. But Lawrence Stratford had partially translated the story. And his notebook was lying about somewhere--Ramses had been unable to find it--for anyone to read. Then of course there were the scrolls.
Whatever the case, this situation could not continue forever. He must carry the elixir on his person. And of course there was always the chance that the batch had lost its potency. Two thousand years almost, the powder had lain in the jar.
In that time, wine would have turned to vinegar, or some utterly undrinkable fluid. Flour would have turned into something no more edible than sand.
His hand trembled now as he poured all of the coarse granules into the metal dish of the burner. He tapped the jar to make sure that not so much as a speck remained. Then he mixed it in the dish gently with his finger, and added a liberal amount of water from the glass.
Now he relighted the candle. As it bubbled, he gathered the glass vials and laid them out--the ones that had been on display here on the table, and two others that had remained concealed or overlooked in an ebony box.
Four large vials with silver caps.
Within seconds the change had taken place. The raw ingredients, already quite potent in their own right, had been changed into a bubbling liquid, full of vague phosphorescent light. How ominous it looked, like something that might burn the skin off the mouth of anyone who tried to drink it! But it did not do that. It had not done it when eons ago, he had drunk down the full cup without hesitation, ready to suffer to be immortal! There had been no pain at all. He smiled. No pain at all.
Carefully he lifted the dish. He poured the steaming elixir into one vial after another until all four glass containers were full. Then he waited until the dish was cooled and he licked it clean, for that was the only safe thing to do. Then he capped the vials. And he took the candle and made the wax drip around these caps to seal them, all save one.
Three of the vials, he placed in the pocket of his robe. The fourth vial, the one which he had failed to seal, he carried with him into the conservatory. He stood there in the darkness, holding it, peering at the ferns and vines that crowded the room.
The glass walls were losing their dark opacity. He could still see his own reflection clearly, a tall figure in a wine-dark garment, with a warm room behind him--but the pale objects of the outside world were coming visible too.
He approached the potted fern nearest him; a thing of great airy dark-green fronds. He poured a bit of the elixir into the moist soil. Then he turned to the bougainvillea, whose fragile red blossoms were few and
far between amid the dark foliage. He poured many droplets of the elixir into this pot as well.
There was a faint stirring; a crackling sound. To use any more would be madness. Yet he moved from pot to pot, pouring but a few drops in each. Finally half the vial remained. And he had done enough harm, had he not? If the magic no longer worked, he would know within a few moments. He looked to the glass ceiling. The first blush of the sun was there. The god Ra sending the first warm rays.
The leaves of the ferns rustled, lengthened; tender shoots unfurled. The bougainvillea swelled and trembled on its trellis, tiny tendrils shooting up along the wrought-iron grillwork, little blossoms opening suddenly, blood red as wounds. The entire glass room was alive with accelerated growth. He closed his eyes, listening to that sound. A dark deep shudder passed through him.
How could he have ever believed that the elixir had lost its effectiveness? It was as strong as ever it had been. One powerful draught had rendered him immortal forever. Why did he think the substance itself, once created, would be any less immortal than he?
He put the vial in his pocket. He unlatched the rear door of the house and went out into the murky wet dawn.
The pain in Henry's head was so bad he could not even see the two detectives clearly. He had been dreaming of that thing, that mummy, when they awakened him. In cold terror, he had taken his gun, cocked it, slipped it into his pocket and gone to the door. Now if they meant to search him ...
"Everyone knew Tommy Sharples!" he said, fury masking his fear. "Everyone owed him money. For this you wake me at the crack of dawn?"
He squinted stupidly at the one called Galton, who now held up that damned Cleopatra coin! How the hell could he have been so stupid? To go off and leave that coin in Sharples's pocket. But for the love of hell, he had not planned to cut down Sharples! How could he be expected to think of things like this!
"Ever see this before, sir?"