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“Good evening, Lady India,” said Malcolm.
Indy gaped at him. “You know it’s me?”
“I knew the second I saw you enter Somerset House,” Malcolm replied.
“Then why did you allow me to enter?” asked Indy.
“I’m an admirer of your theories on the Pharaoh Hatshepsut—I think you’re right about her gender. But that’s beside the point, since you’ve just made yet another startling discovery. Very impressive, my lady.” Malcolm made a short bow.
“Ravenwood had no idea it was a forgery,” said Indy with a smug smile.
“You have a magnifying glass,” muttered Raven.
“I have eyes,” she replied.
Malcolm approached Indy. “I do think perhaps you’re one of only three or four of my colleagues who could have discerned the deception so swiftly, my lady.”
“Thank you.” Indy inclined her head, smiling at Malcolm, clearly pleased to be acknowledged as a greater expert than Raven. “His Grace didn’t even recognize that it was me earlier.”
Perfect. Raven was trying to prove that he was fit for service and she was calling him unobservant.
“I was only pretending not to recognize you,” he asserted.
“No you weren’t. I had you completely flummoxed,” she crowed.
“Is the meeting over already?” Raven asked Malcolm.
“Montrose is giving a lecture on Stonehenge and he’s bound to blather on for at least an hour.” Malcolm turned to Indy. “And as for your question on how the stone was stolen, we had a shipment of Greek sculptures with a great many crates involved, and workers with winches and carts milling about. They must have made the switch during the chaos, stealing the stone and replacing it with this forgery.”
“It’s a very clever forgery,” said Indy, “except that the depth of the carving is slightly off in some places. If you look closely with a magnifying glass, it becomes even more apparent.”
“I actually hadn’t noticed the lack of ink from the lithographic processing,” said Malcolm. “Again, I’m very impressed.”
Wonderful, just bloody wonderful.What was Malcolm doing with all this flattery? Attempting to recruit Indy, as he’d recruited Raven?
Over his dead body.
“I’ll find the workers and interrog—interview them,” he said.
“Already attempted. Unsurprisingly, they’ve all disappeared,” said Malcolm. “It was an operation of considerable forethought, skillfully and professionally executed. We’ve tracked a likely crate to Paris, but then the trail goes cold.”
“So it was the French,” said Raven.
“We don’t know that for certain,” said Malcolm.
Raven knew precisely who’d stolen the stone: Le Triton.
He’d spent years infiltrating the French criminal underworld and stalking the man who ruled its shadowy reaches. Le Triton wasn’t his real name, but it was appropriate since he had only three fingers left on one hand—like Triton’s trident in the Greek myth. His influence and control encompassed gambling, stolen antiquities, prostitution, arms, and nearly every other nefarious dealing.
Le Triton’s calling card, the mark he left, was a clever forgery in place of the antiquities he stole.
Once an ancient treasure disappeared into his heavily fortified estate on the outskirts of Paris, it was never seen again. The private collectors who purchased his stolen antiquities were sworn to secrecy on threat of death.
Raven knew, because he’d found one of them who had been less than discreet. The fellow had been dead as a doornail.
“Why would the French do this?” asked Indy, her brow wrinkling.
“I can think of several reasons,” said Raven. “The stone is one of our most famous archaeological treasures and only on loan to the antiquarian society for further study. It would be hugely embarrassing to the antiquaries, and to England, if news of its theft were made public.”
