Ron Goulart - The Curse of the Obelisk

4 RON GOULART
"Nope, but I twisted my ankle while I was running and shooting at it. That's why I fell and
dropped my gun."
"You can't faze a gigantic bird with a dinky gun like that anyway."
"Wasn't a gigantic bird," she assured Harry. "It was a gigantic bat."
● ● ●
Jennie poked at her raspberry ice with her spoon. "It is, you have to admit, the sort of story I do
well." She'd taken off the cap and the faint night breeze brushed at her hair.
Across the small outdoor table from her Harry lit his cigar. "A curse?" He blew smoke at the
marble tabletop.
"Three weeks ago the noted French archaeologist Reynard Courdaud met a strange end at his
villa near Nice," said the reporter. "Then five days ago Sir Munson Bellhouse died in a fall while
hunting in Scotland."
"A death in Nice, another in Scotland. Why does that prompt the Daily Inquirer to send you
here to Paris?"
After savoring a spoonful of the ice, she answered, "You haven't done, Harry, sufficient
research into this affair."
The light spilling out through the stained glass window of the sidewalk café gave a pale golden
glow to her face. Harry looked away for a moment, toward a plump German tourist who was
sipping a solitary absinthe. "Was Bellhouse an archaeologist, too?"
Jennie nodded. "He was one of the five men who headed the expedition to the Valley of Jackals
in 1895," she said. "They found considerable treasures, including the dornick that's been dubbed
the Osiris Obelisk."
"Is it anything like the one in Central Park or the one right here in town at the Place de la
Concorde?"
"This is a miniature version, only about six feet high. Thing is, one of the inscriptions started
the rumor that—"
"Wait now. Is there a curse on the thing?"
"There was a lot of talk to that effect, back when the Courdaud expedition first broke into the
tomb it was standing in front of. My editors believe there's a—"
"Awful slow for a curse. Don't they work faster than that?" He rested his elbows on the
tabletop, watching her faintly freckled face. "Waiting two years before striking isn't my idea of—"
"Let me give you a few details about Reynard Courdaud's death." She set her spoon aside. "His
valet swears that Courdaud was attacked on his terrace at dusk by a giant bat. That's one reason I
hollered and started shooting when I saw that thing tonight lurking over your—"
"A giant bat?" Harry sat up.
"Your elbow." Jennie pointed. "You've got something sticky on it."