The Coptic Secret Read Free Page B

some affair at the British Museum. With any luck at all, the damn Yank would go back to wherever it was he came from before the bodies started piling up.
    But that faint wish had evaporated like smoke the minute the telephone clattered.
    A robbery and kidnapping?
    Two casualties, one a guard employed by the museum and the other one of the kidnappers? He was less than surprised to learn the latter had died by Reilly's hand. And Sir Eon Weatherston-Wilby was apparently kidnapped. One of the country's best-known philanthropists.
    The media would be on this like another scandal at Buckingham Palace. The difference was that Scotland Yard didn't get pressure when one of the royals acted like Euro- trash.
    The inspector felt a migraine coming on, that headache that only Langford Reilly seemed to precipitate.
    He got up with a resigned sigh and went to the hall closet. Through the Sheetrock, he could hear the Wilsons arguing again on their side of the semidetached.
    "Going out, dear?" Shandon, his wife, asked from the kitchen. "Will you be long?"
    "I doubt I'll be any shorter," he replied glumly, the hoary joke they shared.
    His mood was not improved when he had to wait a good quarter hour for Patel, his immediate assistant and driver, to pull to the curb. As usual, the man had filled the small BMW with the smell of curry. Nor did Fitzwilliam's disposition improve when the dark face broke into its perpetual grin as though the man enjoyed having his evenings interrupted.
    "The British Museum, sah?"
    Fitzwilliam swallowed a retort, realizing it would be lost on Patel. "Yes, yes. The museum."
    Two blocks of Great Russell Street and Montague Place were blocked off with yellow crime scene tape as was all of Russell Square. Floodlights illuminated the small park with a harsh glare, the edges of which blended into the blue and red flashes of police cars. If anyone in Bloomsbury didn't already know a crime had been committed, they had to be blind and deaf.
    Inside, the uniforms had prevented anyone from leaving, a splendid case of securing the barn door long after the horse's departure. Two policemen were seated at a small table in the great court, taking names and addresses of possible witnesses whose interviews would consume days.
    "Where's Mr. Reilly?" Fitzwilliam asked one of the constables at the door.
    The man pointed, "Right over there, sir."
    Fitzwilliam had never seen the man in person before but recognized him from his image on the cameras at Heathrow as well as at least one wanted poster from a foreign country. He watched as a short, redheaded woman in a police uniform took down whatever was being said.
    The American was not as tall as the inspector had imagined, shy of two meters. Dark hair with dove wings of silver brushed over the ears. His tuxedo had obviously been tailored; it fit him perfectly. He seemed intent on what he was saying, completely unruffled by killing a man. With a spear, if Fitzwilliam's information was correct.
    The man next to him was the Jewish barrister, Annulewitz, pipe in his mouth despite the no smoking signs. Shorter, balding and going to fat. Fitzwilliam had gotten the impression the relationship between the two exceeded a professional one. It had been outside Annulewitz's flat that Reilly had once killed two anonymous thugs, although the fact was never proved. A couple of years later, Reilly had escaped from Annulewitz's law office at the Temple Bar leaving Fitzwillam's men looking foolish indeed.
    Lang was just finishing his third recitation of the evening's events when a man in a worn tweed jacket wandered over, the only man he could see without either a tux or a police uniform.
    "Inspector Dylan Fitzwilliam," the stranger introduced himself.
    Lang extended a hand. "Lang Reilly."
    The inspector glanced at the extended hand as though it might explode and stuck his own into his jacket pockets. "I'd appreciate you walking me through what happened."
    The man's tone implied he was giving an order, not