THE CAMBODIAN CURSE AND OTHER STORIES Read online

  The murder is achieved by a mechanical trap;

  It is a suicide which is set up to look like murder;

  After committing the killing and leaving the room, the killer impersonates the victim, thus confusing who is in the room when the crime is done;

  The murderer has left his victim unconscious (stunned or drugged), and left the room. He is the first one back into the room and commits the murder at that time;

  The murderer commits the crime from outside the locked room by means of having frozen ice pellets, an icicle or similar, shot through a window or some other opening;

  The room has been locked from the outside by a string or some other device.

  In an imaginative touch Gigi Pandian has invented a series of miracle crimes, each one of which uses one of Dr. Fell’s methods. And like Carr she often creates a spooky supernatural atmosphere, with the presence of magic pervading several of the stories.

  You have much to look forward to.

  —Douglas G. Greene

  Table of Contents

  The Cambodian Curse

  The Hindi Houdini

  The Haunted Room

  The Library Ghost of Tanglewood Inn

  The Curse of Cloud Castle

  Tempest in a Teapot

  A Dark and Stormy Light

  The Shadow of the River

  BONUS NOVELLA: Fool’s Gold

  The Cambodian Curse

  A new Jaya Jones novelette appearing for the first time here in this collection.

  i.

  As I unlocked the door to my office, I had the strongest sensation I wasn’t alone. Something was wrong. Out of place.

  With the door cracked open, I was greeted by a six-foot statue of Ganesha that towered over me. The elephant-headed sculpture filled nearly a quarter of my tiny campus office, yet since the day the gift had been unexpectedly delivered, it felt like it belonged there.

  What didn’t belong was the man sitting behind my desk. It was the subtle fragrance of woody-scented cologne that had alerted me to his presence. Dressed in an impeccably tailored dark gray suit with a subdued tie, he was leafing through a tattered copy of the Journal of World History. Henry North. A man I never thought I’d see again. And one I’d hoped I wouldn’t.

  “I’m not going to ask how you got into my locked office,” I said, sighing and dropping my red messenger bag onto the desk. “I know better.”

  “I needed to speak with you privately,” he said in his posh English accent.

  “You could have simply called.”

  “You wouldn’t have called me back.”

  “True.”

  “That landlady of yours is far too inquisitive. Your students, however, are absorbed in their own problems. I thought it best to catch you after class, without prying eyes.”

  “How did you know I wouldn’t go straight home? No, don’t answer that either. What do you want, North?”

  “You look good, Jaya. I didn’t know if you’d be content returning to academia, but you look happy.” He stood and offered my own desk chair to me, an otherwise-suave move ruined by the howler monkey decibel squawk of the rusty chair. I suspected that chair had lived in my office since the history department came into existence.

  “I’m fine standing.” Without high heels, I was a hair under five feet tall. With them, I was still several inches shorter than North.

  He sat back down and steepled his hands together. “I need your help.”

  If I hadn’t known him, I would have sworn he was sincere. The expression on his classically handsome face was almost humble. Almost. I should have kicked him out of my office then. But I knew why I didn’t. Henry North had once saved my life, at great risk to his own. For some reason that made me think I owed it to him to at least hear him out.

  “Don’t look so worried,” he continued. “I’m not asking you to rob a museum. Not this time. I’m asking you to help me figure out who did.”

  I must have laughed, because he continued, “Truly, I’m a legitimate businessman now. I help museums and private individuals with art collections assess their security holes.”

  “Why do you need me?” Damn. Why had I said that? “Not that I’m helping.”

  I expected to see him smirk at my defeat, but he didn’t. He frowned. “Things got messy. I can’t risk getting close to this. You know I like to stay out of the papers.”

  “And I don’t?”

  “No.” He smiled. “I don’t believe you do. You talk a big game about wanting the quiet life of a history professor. Jaya Anand Jones, the wunderkind professor whose students look up to her and who writes well-respected articles involving heaps of dreary footnotes that lift the veil on little-known historical mysteries. But you don’t really want that. You never have. You don’t want to be stuck here in this cramped office. You want to be doing more important things than this.” He tapped on the journal he’d been reading when I’d walked in. “Your discoveries reach all of us, not just a narrow audience of academics. You see through to the bones of truth in local legends and glean what they can tell the world about lost history.”

  “It’s time for you to leave.”

  “Have you read today’s newspaper yet?”

  “This is the twenty-first century, North. Who gets the paper?”

  He shook his head. “Kids these days…” He trailed off with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes that made him look like a kid himself.

  I glared at North and ran a hand self-consciously through my straight, shoulder-length black hair. I might have been a tad touchy about my age, because of how frequently I was mistaken for a student instead of a professor. “I’m in my thirties.”

  “I know exactly how old you are,” he said. “I know your birthday, the dates you received your various—and might I add impressive—degrees, every professor you’ve ever had, all the places you’ve lived in your adult life, including when you slept on your brother’s couch while finishing your dissertation and the house built on stilts you rented in Cambodia. Don’t ever forget how thorough I am.”

  I’d never forget what he was capable of, but I wasn’t going to let him see that he’d shaken me. I didn’t look away.

  “Look at this morning’s Chronicle,” he continued. “Front page, below the fold. Margery Lexington, owner of the Lexington Museum here in San Francisco, is my client. Or rather, she was.”

  “She fired you? I can’t say I’m surprised.”

  “No. She got herself killed.”

  He reached into an inside pocket of his jacket and handed me a folded newspaper. “I know you’re done with classes and office hours for the day. Read the article. Then meet me for coffee in two hours. Your favorite spot around the corner from your house. The place where all the baristas are required to have a face piercing of some kind.”

  “I’m not meeting you, North.”

  “Read the story. That’s all I ask.”

  I did.

  I stayed in my office for nearly two hours after North left, reading the article as well as everything I could find online about the dual crimes that were in play: a seemingly impossible murder and the theft of an ancient sculpture.

  The stolen piece wasn’t only of great historical significance, but was one I knew. By all accounts, it appeared Margery Lexington had been murdered and the valuable piece of history stolen, not by a person—but by a curse.

  Which is why, in spite of my better judgment, I found myself on the way to the coffee shop to meet the man who’d once tried to ruin my life before saving it.

  ii.

  When I walked into Coffee to the People, North was waiting at a two-person table in the window. He sat facing the door and had already ordered me a steaming hot coffee prepared exactly as I liked it. A double espresso with four sugars.

  “What did you think?” he asked.

/>   “You could have told me everything in my office two hours ago, but you didn’t think I’d believe you.”

  “The mystery is rather unbelievable, isn’t it?”

  “That’s an understatement. She was your client, so I know you’ve got more information than the reporters covering the story. If you want my help, you need to tell me the real details—after you tell me why exactly I’m here.”

  “All things in time.”

  I downed half my coffee and focused on my breathing. Which, unfortunately, I was terrible at doing. I sometimes wondered if I was the only person of Indian descent who’d been kicked out of multiple yoga classes for disrupting the tranquility.

  “If you picked this public spot to make sure I wouldn’t strangle you,” I said, “terrific job.” Though I did consider “accidentally” dumping the rest of my coffee in his lap. I might have too, if it hadn’t been so tasty and caffeinated.

  He raised his mug in a toast. “To awkward acquaintances. Cheers.” He had the audacity to smile as grandly as if we were dear old friends.

  What did North want with me? He was a con man, and I was a professor of history who studied the British East India Company. Margery Lexington’s museum specialized in Southeast Asian art, and the killer had stolen a valuable Cambodian sculpture. I was familiar with the museum and had once traveled through Cambodia while backpacking through Asia. It was a tenuous connection at best. Why did North think I could help him figure out who had robbed the museum?

  “Let’s begin at the beginning.” He paused, glancing around at the cafe’s eclectic clientele. The people in the surrounding tables were a mish-mash of locals. I’d moved into a semi-legal apartment in the attic of a Victorian house in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood two years before when I’d relocated to San Francisco to teach history.

  When North resumed speaking, he lowered his voice. “Let’s start with the sculpture that began this series of unfortunate events that led to Margery’s death.”

  “The sculpture,” I said, “is the one thing I already know about with certainty. The Churning Woman sculpture was the museum’s centerpiece, a single section of a larger Khmer bas-relief that depicted a famous scene from a Hindu myth. It’s about the Churning of the Ocean of Milk, a tug-of-war between gods and demons for an elixir of immortality. The sandstone sculpture is unique because the characters depicted in the bas-relief battle weren’t only the usual ones: a woman warrior was featured prominently too.”

  North grinned. “Personally, I never understood why the term ‘bas-relief’ caught on. Couldn’t art historians have come up with a clearer term for the common man, like ‘flat carving’?” He sighed. “Gold star for doing your homework.”

  “I expect that’s why you gave me a full two hours. But I’d already seen the sculpture. It’s well known to anyone interested in Asian feminist history. Scholars are still debating who this mystery woman was—Jayavarman VII’s second wife Indradevi or an apsara dancer—and it makes that single piece from the full set of carvings even more special.” Because of Cambodia’s connection to India, I’d come across Queen Indradevi in my research, and her story had always fascinated me. It was the real reason I couldn’t say no to North’s invitation. My boyfriend Lane was out of town, otherwise I had no doubt he would have saved me from myself.

  “You certainly know how to deflate a fellow’s ego. Yet I doubt you know the tragic history of The Churning Woman. The Lexington Museum was originally opened by Margery’s grandfather, Harold Lexington. It was Harold himself who found The Churning Woman and the other six sandstone panels depicting the famous Hindu myth. He discovered the carvings deep in the jungles of Cambodia in the 1920s. But they came at a price. A curse.”

  “One of the less reputable newspapers reported Margery’s grandfather and father were killed by the curse before her.” Though I didn’t believe in curses, I’d looked up their fates. Both men had indeed died young. I gave an involuntary shudder as I thought of it again.

  “The Chronicle story I gave you was much more civilized, wasn’t it? They focused on the facts, which I can confirm are accurate. Margery had been receiving death threats in the month leading up to her death. That’s why she hired extra security—my own humble firm. Yet in spite of my impeccable precautions, someone broke into Margery’s office and killed her in a robbery-gone-wrong. They got away with The Churning Woman, the sculpture specifically mentioned in the death threats.”

  “They weren’t exactly death threats.”

  “Well spotted. The anonymous letters she received weren’t straightforward threats—they were worse. The typewritten letters invoked the curse on the Lexington family. The anonymous letter writer claimed to be a Good Samaritan simply warning Margery of her fate. They insisted the curse would be lifted if she returned the museum’s Khmer treasure to the temple in Cambodia from which it had been taken, and said that The Churning Woman centerpiece was the most important item to return in order to break the curse. One of the letters referred to a 1925 French colonial law that forbids the removal of antiquities from Cambodia. But Harold Lexington had removed the sculptures before that, so there’s no real claim.”

  “Why would a curse be concerned with a colonial law?”

  “Exactly. The thief mixed his messages, which indicates to me that it was a hoax, part of his scheme. Maybe he thought if she wasn’t frightened by the idea of a curse, at least she’d wonder if there was a legitimate claim that the sculptures didn’t belong to her.”

  “But instead of returning the sculpture to Cambodia, she hired you. Were you her personal bodyguard as well?”

  North raised an eyebrow. “Of course not. I’m the brains. She had the museum’s security guard, Clay—a man as stupid as a rock, so his name is quite fitting—to escort her from place to place whenever she wasn’t with her husband William. She didn’t want to be alone in the open.”

  “She thought being with someone else could save her from a curse?”

  “Margery was an intelligent woman. Rationally, she knew the letters must have been a con. Yet underneath, I could see she questioned whether something else was going on.”

  “I imagine it feels different when your own family has been cursed.”

  “True,” North said. “I was worried too, but for a different reason. It looked to me like a clever thief wanted to bait her into moving the bas-relief to a more secure location, and that’s when he’d strike. Easier to steal a large sculpture when it’s already in transit. It’s a smart plan, actually. One I once employed… but enough of that. I didn’t want Margery to act rashly and move it to a bigger museum, something she told me she was considering when she interviewed me. I saw that with small changes, her museum could be more secure than a larger one with more resources. As you know, large museums have their own vulnerabilities.”

  “So she listened to you and kept The Churning Woman at the Lexington Museum.”

  “She did, although she insisted on removing The Churning Woman centerpiece panel from the display and putting it in her office. A secure office on the second floor, a room without any windows and one fitted with a safe.”

  “That’s the room—”

  “Yes, that’s the impossibly sealed room where Margery was killed and the sculpture weighing hundreds of pounds simply vanished.”

  “Leaving the only possible explanation a supernatural curse,” I murmured. “I know you don’t believe it. You said you need my help figuring out who robbed the museum. Why do you need me? Isn’t that what you and the police are for?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Not really. I’m not a detective or a security expert. A poor woman has been killed because your security—”

  “There was nothing wrong with the security.” North spat out the words, and his face grew dark for the first time since I’d seen him that day, making him resemble the man I’d known before. The criminal. But the flash of anger di
sappeared nearly as quickly as it had emerged, and his voice was calm when he continued. “I don’t know how exactly it was done yet, but—”

  “I’m not a security expert.”

  “You misunderstand me. That’s not what I need from you. The Churning Woman was stolen on my watch, and I have to get it back. My security assessment was unimpeachable. This wasn’t a flaw in my security. I’m certain of it.”

  “Then why am I here?” Though as I spoke the question, I knew the answer. North had given it to me as soon as he’d appeared in my office. He mentioned the way I saw the truth in historical legends. And how those truths had led me to lost treasures.

  “To find the treasure, my dear girl. I want you to find the missing treasure.”

  iii.

  “It’s horrible that Margery Lexington was killed,” I said as I stood up to leave, “and I hope her killer is brought to justice, but The Churning Woman will turn up soon. At this point, the sculpture is already in transit back to Cambodia. Mystery solved. You don’t need me. Only time.”

  North shook his head. “Sometimes you display a degree of naiveté that surprises me, Jaya. Those threatening letters were a ruse to get her to act foolishly and move the sculpture.”

  “I know it was a ruse. But a ruse to get the sculpture back to Cambodia. Wasn’t that the whole point of the robbery? To get the national treasure back to its people one way or another?”

  “Your innocence is rather endearing. This has to be an inside job—and none of the suspects are that altruistic.”

  I sat back down. “Why do you say that?”

  “An inside job is the only way it’s remotely possible to have circumvented my security precautions. Margery’s husband William is the curator. At first, I didn’t think he had it in him to kill his wife, even though he was having an affair. But now my money is on William: if Margery was planning to divorce him over the affair, stealing the sculpture would be a way to ensure he’d get his favorite piece of art from the museum. His mistress Emily also works there, and I wouldn’t put it past her. Strange woman, she’s doesn’t care about people in the least. The security guard, Clay, is useless—Margery swore she wouldn’t tell him anything about our new procedures and would only use him as a bodyguard. But with his behemoth shoulders and brooding scowl—which I’m sure he practices in the mirror—she might have revealed more than she meant to. None of the other staff could have had access to the information they needed. It had to have been William, Emily, or Clay, so I was waiting for the police to arrest one of them.”