The Maharajah's Monkey Read Online Free PDF Page B

beautiful antique.
    Waldo suddenly let out a peal of laughter. “We’ll be rich,” he chortled.
    â€œLess of the ‘we,’” I said sharply. “I found it.”
    â€œWhere exactly did you find this, Kit?” Rachel demanded.
    â€œWhy?” I asked, stalling for time.
    â€œDon’t you ever read the newspaper?”
    We followed Rachel to the hotel’s lobby where she picked up a copy of
The Times
from a table. Next to a headline reading: ANCIENT MAP TO “EARTHLY PARADISE” DISCOVERED IN INDIA , was the following report:
    F AMOUS L ADY E XPLORER A MELIA E DWARDS ROBBED
T REASURES WERE G IFTED TO THE C ROWN Q UEEN V ICTORIA “U NAMUSED ”
    There was shock yesterday at the news of a robbery of Egyptian treasure belonging to the renowned lady explorer, Amelia Edwards. The robbery took place in a warehouse in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, where Miss Edwards was storing her collection, as she waited for it to be shipped back to England.
    Guards were alerted by flickering lights in the warehouse and the noise of crates being moved. They intercepted the robbers, and shots were fired before the thieves made off.
    When the treasures arrived in England, Miss Edwards found that some of her most precious treasures were missing. These included a scarab dating back to the reign of Thutmose 11, a sarcophagus inlaid with gems and gold and a rare and beautiful ankh from the first dynasty.
    â€œI am terribly upset,” Miss Edwards told our reporter. “I was planning to give the ankh personally to Queen Victoria and the sarcophagus to the British Museum.”
    â€œYikes!” I gasped breaking off, for my eye had caught the drawing of the ankh below the news report. “It’s the same one.”
    â€œI know.” Rachel nodded. “I recognized it as soon as I saw the cross.”
    The pieces of the puzzle were, if not exactly coming together, at least starting to form some sort of picture. But goodness, it was a confusing one. Champlon’s disappearance. The man with the turban. Now Miss Edwards’s ankh. I felt the strong pull of distant shores behind all this: Egypt … India. Which one was it? Swaying palm trees and burning deserts? Or Maharajahs and priceless jewels? In some muffled way these lands of heat and spice were calling to me. My pulse quickened with excitement.
    â€œKit, you can’t have … er … just …
found
part of Amelia Edwards’s stolen ankh.” Rachel looked at me pointedly.
    â€œThat’s exactly what I did,” I said, grinning.
    â€œHow?”
    â€œI’ve a pretty good idea of some, well, not person exactly. No, some
thing
, that is mixed up in it.”
    â€œSpit it out then.” Waldo scowled.
    â€œHold on. We should be getting home. We don’t want the Minchin to make it back before us.”
    â€œYou’re just pretending,” Waldo muttered.
    As we made our way through St. Giles to our home in Park Town I filled my friends in on my adventure. Waldo was annoyed to have missed the fun, though he was forced to agree that the monkey was mixed up in the theft of the ankh. Rachel was all for going to the police straight away, but I had other concerns: I explained what I’d learned from Peg Leg about the hansom cab that had taken the Indian, a seemingly willing Gaston Champlon and several mysterious trunks away.
    We had urgent work to do, if we were to find out why Champlon had been kidnapped. You see, I didn’t believe Peg’s description of Champlon walking happily to the cab, I was certain that the Frenchman had not left my aunt of his own volition. Someone was coercing him. The mysterious Indian must be blackmailing him.
    I was walking with my friends past the ancient sweep of St. John’s College, when I had an interesting notion about the identity of the Indian in the canal barge. Was my idea likely? Could I have stumbled on something important? Suddenly a low