Ron Goulart - The Curse of the Obelisk

18 RON GOULART
"Yes. Thanks to Lorenzo, I feel I've got my mind back." She touched the magician's pudgy
hand for an instant, smiling at him. "You really are a wizard, you know."
"I have never laid claim to any true magical powers," he reminded. "But one can't help but be
aware that a few of my little knacks do seem a trifle supernatural."
Jennie flipped back a few pages in her notebook. "You have some serious opposition, Harry,"
she said. "Have you ever heard of an Englishman named Max Orchardson?"
"A true mountebank," murmured the magician.
Harry exhaled smoke. "Sure, he's been called the most decadent man in Europe," he said. "He
supposedly pals around with the Yellow Book crowd— Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley and
such— and also dabbles in black magic. Though that last could be only an affectation."
"It isn't," she said. "I wrote a series of articles on Orchardson last year while I was in London
for my paper."
Harry frowned. "Don't recall seeing those."
"That's because they never ran," Jennie explained. "My editors decided we might be risking
libel charges after . . . well, I'd had signed statements from several witnesses. One evening all of
them suddenly burst into flames while sitting on my desk in the hotel room. Next, two of my best
witnesses got in touch with me and claimed they'd lied. A third dived into the Thames one foggy
night and never surfaced."
"Typical of the way Orchardson operates," commented the Great Lorenzo.
"The guy is really a magician?"
"The man seemingly does have true powers," he acknowledged. "He also has a great deal of
money, earned in India long ago by kin less aesthetic than he. And, like Wilde, he is a master
showman."
"I had a sworn account of devil worship and at least one instance of human sacrifice," said
Jennie.
Harry asked her, "Is Orchardson here in Paris? Is he the one who hypnotized you?"
She nodded. "He was waiting in my hotel room," she said, shivering once. "He's an obese man,
puffy and pale as death. He . . . even though I tried to fight against it . . . hypnotized me. Using an
opal medallion he wears around his fat neck."
"Nowhere near as effective as a coin," said the magician.
"What were you supposed to do?"
She lowered her head, picked up the pencil and tapped at the tablecloth with its blunt tip.
"Follow you, report to him all that you did while in Paris."
"He knows why I'm here?"
"Seemed to. At least he knew you were going to the museum and when. I was instructed to
follow you."
"Why?"
"He's interested in the Osiris Obelisk."