The Green Mummy

“What are you talking about, my dear?” she said, as Lucy led her towards the arbor. “I declare I was ever so much astonished, when Jane told me that you wished to speak to me. I was just writing a letter to the lawyer who has my poor brother’s property in hand, announcing my engagement to the Professor. Mr. Hope? You here also. Well, I’m sure.”

Lucy grew impatient at all this babble.

“Did you not hear what I said, Mrs. Jasher?” she cried irritably. “Can’t you use your eyes? Look! The green mummy is in your arbor.”

“The – green – mummy – in – my – arbor,” repeated Mrs. Jasher, like a child learning words of one syllable, and staring at the black object before which the three were standing.

“As you see,” said Archie abruptly. “How did it come here?”

He spoke harshly. Of course, it was absurd to accuse Mrs. Jasher of knowing anything about the matter, since she had been writing letters. Still, the fact remained that a mummy, which had been thieved from a murdered man, was in her arbor, and naturally she was called upon to explain.

Some suspicion in his tone struck the little woman, and she turned on him with indignation.

“How did it come here?” she repeated. “Now, how can I tell, you silly boy. I have been writing to my lawyer about my engagement to Mr. Braddock. I daresay he has told you.”

“Yes,” chimed in Miss Kendal, “and we came here to congratulate you, only to find the mummy.”

“Is that the horrid thing?” Mrs. Jasher stared with all her eyes, and timidly touched the hard green-stained wood.

“It’s the case – the mummy is inside.”

“But I thought that the Professor opened the case to find the body of poor Sidney Bolton,” argued Mrs. Jasher.

“That was a packing case in which this” – Archie struck the old-world coffin – “was stored. But this is the corpse of Inca Caxas, about which Don Pedro told us the other night. How does it come to be hidden in your garden?”

“Hidden.” Mrs. Jasher repeated the word with a laugh. “There is not much hiding about it. Why, every one can see it from the path.”

“And from the door of your house,” remarked Hope significantly. “Did you not see it when you took leave of Braddock?”

“No,” snapped the widow. “If I had I should certainly have come to look. Also Professor Braddock, who is so anxious to recover it, would not have allowed it to remain here.”

“Then the case was not here when the Professor left you to-night?”

“No! He left me at eight o’clock to go home to dinner.”

“When did he arrive here?” questioned Hope quickly.

“At seven. I am sure of the time, for I was just sitting down to my supper. He was here an hour. But he said nothing, when he entered, of any mummy being in the arbor; nor when he left me at the door and I came to say good-bye to him – did either of us see this object. To be sure,” added Mrs. Jasher meditatively, “we did not look particularly in the direction of this arbor.”

“I scarcely see how any one entering or leaving the garden could fail to see it, especially as the snow reflects the moonlight so brightly.”

Mrs. Jasher shivered, and taking the skirt of her tea-gown, flung it over her carefully attired head,

“It is very cold,” she remarked irritably. “Don’t you think we had better return to the house, and talk there?”

“What!” said Archie grimly, “and leave the mummy to be carried away as mysteriously as it has been brought. No, Mrs. Jasher. That mummy represents one thousand pounds of my money.”

“I understood that the Professor bought it himself.”

“So he did, but I supplied the purchase money. Therefore I do not intend that this should be lost sight of again. Lucy, my dear, you run home again and tell your father what we have found. He had better bring men, to take it to his museum. When it is there, Mrs. Jasher can then explain how it came to be in her garden.”

Without a word Lucy set off, walking quickly, anxious to fulfill her mission and gladden the heart of her step-father with the amazing news.

Archie and Mrs. Jasher were left alone, and the former lighted a cigarette, while he tapped the mummy case, and examined it as closely as the pale gleam of the moonlight permitted. Mrs. Jasher made no move to enter the house, much as she had complained of the cold. But perhaps she found the flimsy skirt of the tea-gown sufficient protection.

“It seems to me, Mr. Hope,” said she very tartly, “that you suspect my having a hand in this,” and she tapped the mummy coffin also.

“Pardon me,” observed Hope very politely, “but I suspect nothing, because I have no grounds upon which to base my suspicions. But certainly it is odd that this missing mummy should be found in your garden. You will admit that much.”

“I admit nothing of the sort,” she rejoined coolly. “Only myself and Jane live in the cottage, and you don’t expect that two delicate women could move this huge thing.” She tapped the case again. “Moreover, had I found the mummy I should have taken it to the Pyramids at once, so as to give Professor Braddock some pleasure.”

“It will certainly be an acceptable wedding present,” said Archie sarcastically.

“Pardon me,” said Mrs. Jasher in her turn, “but I have nothing to do with it as a present or otherwise. How the thing came into my arbor I really cannot say. As I told you, Professor Braddock made no remark about it when he came; and when he left, although I was at the door, I did not notice anything in this arbor. Indeed I cannot say if I ever looked in this direction.”

Archie mused and glanced at his watch.

“The Professor told Lucy that he came by the six train: you say that he was here at seven.”

“Yes, and he left at eight. What is the time now?”

“Ten o’clock, or a few minutes after. Therefore, since neither you nor Braddock saw the mummy, I take it that the case was brought here by some unknown people between eight o’clock and a quarter to ten, about which time I arrived here with Lucy.”

Mrs. Jasher nodded.

“You put the matter very clearly,” she observed dryly. “You have mistaken your vocation, Mr. Hope, and should have been a criminal lawyer. I should turn detective were I you.”

“Why?” asked Archie with a start.

“You might ascertain my movements on the night when the crime was committed,” snapped the little widow. “A woman muffled in a shawl, in much the same way as my head is now muffled in my skirt, talked to Bolton through the bedroom window of the Sailor’s Rest, you know.”

Hope expostulated.

“My dear lady, how you run on! I assure you that I would as soon suspect Lucy as you.”

“Thank you,” said the widow very dryly and very tartly.

“I merely wish to point out,” went on Archie in a conciliatory tone, “that, as the mummy in its case – as appears probable – was brought into your garden between the hours of eight and ten, less fifteen minutes, that you may have heard the voices or footsteps of those who carried it here.”

“I heard nothing,” said Mrs. Jasher, turning towards the path. “I had my supper, and played a game or two of patience, and then wrote letters, as I told you before. And I am not going to stand in the cold, answering silly questions, Mr. Hope. If you wish to talk you must come inside.”

Hope shook his head and lighted a fresh cigarette.

“I stand guard over this mummy until its rightful owner comes,” said he determinedly.

“Ho!” rejoined Mrs. Jasher scornfully: she was now at the door. “I understood that you bought the mummy and therefore were its owner. Well, I only hope you’ll find those emeralds Don Pedro talked about,” and with a light laugh she entered the cottage.

Archie looked after her in a puzzled way. There was no reason to suspect Mrs. Jasher, so far as he saw, even though a woman had been seen talking to Bolton on the night of the crime. And yet, why should the widow refer to the emeralds, which were of such immense value, according to Don Pedro? Hope glanced at the case and shook the primitive coffin, anxious for the moment to open it and ascertain if the jewels were still clutched grimly in the mummy’s dead hands. But the coffin was fastened tightly down with wooden pegs, and could only be opened with extreme care and difficulty. Also, as Hope reflected, even did he manage to open this receptacle of the dead, he still could not ascertain if the emeralds were safe, since they would be hidden under innumerable swathings of green-dyed llama wool. He therefore let the matter rest there, and, staring at the river, wondered how the mummy had been brought to the garden in the marshes.

Hope recollected that experts had decided the mode in which the mummy had been removed from the Pierside public-house. It had been passed through the window, according to Inspector Date and others, and, when taken across the narrow path which bordered the river, had been placed in a waiting boat. After that it had vanished until it had re-appeared in this arbor. But if taken by water once, it could have been taken by water again. There was a rude jetty behind the embankment, which Hope could easily see from where he stood. In all probability the mummy had been landed there and carried to the garden, while Mrs. Jasher was busy with her supper and her game of cards and her letters. Also, the path from the shore to the house was very lonely, and if any care had been exercised, which was probable, no one from the Fort road or from the village street could have seen the stealthy conspirators bringing their weird burden. So far Hope felt that he could argue excellently. But who had brought the mummy to the garden and why had it been brought there? These questions he could not answer so easily, and indeed not at all.

While thus meditating, he heard, far away in the frosty air, a puffing and blowing and panting like an impatient motor-car. Before he could guess what this was, Braddock appeared, simply racing along the marshy causeway, followed closely by Cockatoo, and at some distance away by Lucy. The little scientist rushed through the gate, which he flung open with a noise fit to wake the dead, and lunged forward, to fall with outstretched arms upon the green case. There he remained, still puffing and blowing, and looked as though he were hugging a huge green beetle. Cockatoo, who, being lean and hard, kept his breath more easily, stood respectfully by, waiting for his master to give orders, and Lucy came in quietly by the gate, smiling at her father’s enthusiasm. At the same moment Mrs. Jasher, well wrapped up in a coat of sables, emerged from the cottage.

“I heard you coming, Professor,” she called out, hurrying down the path.

“I should think the whole Fort heard the Professor coming,” said Hope, glancing at the dark mass. “The soldiers must think it is an invasion.”

But Braddock paid no heed to this jocularity, or even to Mrs. Jasher, to whom he had been so lately engaged. All his soul was in the mummy case, and as soon as he recovered his breath, he loudly proclaimed his joy at this miraculous recovery of the precious article.

“Mine! mine!” he roared, and his words ran violently through the frosty air.

“Be calm, sir,” advised Hope – “be calm.”

“Calm! calm!” bellowed Braddock, struggling to a standing position. “Oh, confound you, sir, how can I be calm when I find what I have lost? You have a mean, groveling soul, Hope, not the soaring spirit of a collector.”

“There is no need to be rude to Archie, father,” corrected Lucy sharply.

“Rude! Rude! I am never rude. But this mummy.” Braddock peered closely at it and rapped the wood to assure himself it was no phantom. “Yes! it is my mummy, the mummy of Inca Caxas. Now I shall learn how the Peruvians embalmed their royal dead. Mine! mine! mine!” He crooned like a mother over a child, caressing the coffin; then suddenly drew himself upright and fixed Mrs. Jasher with an indignant eye. “So it was you, madam, who stole my mummy,” he declared venomously, “and I thought of making you my wife. Oh, what an escape I have had. Shame, woman, shame!”

Mrs. Jasher stared, then her face grew redder than the rouge on her cheeks, and she stamped furiously in the neat Louis Quinze slippers in which she had in judiciously come out.

“How dare you say what you have said?” she cried, her voice shrill and hard with anger. “Mr. Hope has been saying the same thing. Are you both mad? I never set eyes on the horrid thing in my life. And only to-night you told me that you loved – ”

“Yes, yes, I said many foolish things, I don’t doubt, madam. But that is not the question. My mummy! my mummy!” he rapped the wood furiously – “how does my mummy come to be here?”

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Jasher, still furious, “and I don’t care.”

“Don’t care: don’t care, when I look forward to your helping me in my lifework! As my wife – ”

“I shall never be your wife,” cried the widow, stamping again. “I wouldn’t be your wife for a thousand or a million pounds. Marry your mummy, you horrid, red-faced, crabbed little – ”

“Hush! hush!” whispered Lucy, taking the angry woman round the waist, “you must make allowances for my father. He is so excited over his good fortune that he – ”

“I shall not make allowance,” interrupted Mrs. Jasher angrily. “He practically accuses me of stealing the mummy. If I did that, I must have murdered poor Sidney Bolton.”

“No, no,” cried the Professor, wiping his red face. “I never hinted at such a thing. But the mummy is in your garden.”

“What of that? I don’t know how it came there. Mr. Hope, surely you do not support Professor Braddock in his preposterous accusation?”

“I bring no accusation,” stuttered the Professor.

“Neither do I, Mrs. Jasher. You are excited now. Go in and sleep, and to-morrow you will talk reasonably.” This brilliant speech was from Hope, and wrought Mrs. Jasher into a royal rage.

“Well,” she gasped, “he asks me to be calm, as it I wasn’t the very calmest person here. I declare: oh, I shall be ill! Lucy,” she seized the girl’s hand and dragged her towards the cottage, “come in and give me red lavender. I shall be in bed for days and days and days. Oh, what brutes men can be! But listen, you two horrors,” she indicated Braddock and Hope, as she pushed open the door, “if you dare to say a word against me, I’ll have an action for libel against you. Oh, dear me, how very ill I feel! Lucy, darling, help me, oh, help me, and – and – oh – oh – oh!” She flopped down on the threshold of her home with a cry.

“Archie! Archie! She’s fainted.”

Hope rushed forward, and raised the stout little woman in his arms. Jane, attracted by the clamor, appeared on the scene, and between the three of them they managed to get Mrs. Jasher placed on the sofa of the pink drawing-room. She certainly was in a dead faint, so Hope left her to the administrations of Lucy and the servant, and walked out again into the garden, closing the cottage door after him.

He found the heartless Professor quite oblivious to Mrs. Jasher’s sufferings, so taken up was he with the newly found mummy. Cockatoo had been sent for a hand-cart, and while he was absent Braddock expatiated on the perfections of this relic of Peruvian civilization.

“Will you sell it to Don Pedro?” asked Hope.

“After I have done with it, not before,” snapped Braddock, hovering round his treasure. “I shall want a percentage on my bargain also.”

Archie thought privately that if Braddock unswathed the mummy, he would find the emeralds and would probably stick to them, so that his expedition to Egypt might be financed. It that case Don Pedro would no longer wish to buy the corpse of his ancestor. But while he debated as to the advisability of telling the Professor of the existence of the emeralds, Cockatoo returned with the hand-cart.

“You have lost Mrs. Jasher,” said Hope, while he, assisted the Professor to hoist the mummy on to the cart.

“Never mind! never mind!” Braddock patted the coffin. “I have found something much more to my mind: something ever so much better. Ha! ha!”

CHAPTER XIV. THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS

In spite of newspapers and letters and tape-machines and telegrams and such like aids to the speedy diffusion of news, the same travels quicker in villages than in cities. Word of mouth can spread gossip with marvelous rapidity in sparsely inhabited communities, since it is obvious that in such places every person knows the other – as the saying goes – inside out. In every English village walls have ears and windows have eyes, so that every cottage is a hot-bed of scandal, and what is known to one is, within the hour, known to the others. Even the Sphinx could not have preserved her secret long in such a locality.

Gartley could keep up its reputation in this respect along with the best, therefore it was little to be wondered at, that early next morning every one knew that Professor Braddock had found his long-lost mummy in Mrs. Jasher’s garden, and had removed the same to the Pyramids without unnecessary delay. It was not particularly late when the hand-cart, with its uncanny burden, had passed along the sole street of the place, and several men had emerged from the Warrior Inn ostensibly to offer help, but really to know what the eccentric master of the great house was doing. Braddock brusquely rejected these offers; but the oddly shaped mummy case, stained green, having been seen, it needed little wit for those who had caught a sight of it to put two and two together, especially as the weird object had been described at the inquest and had been talked over ever since in every cottage. And as the cart had been seen coming out of the widow’s garden, it naturally occurred to the villagers that Mrs. Jasher had been concealing the mummy. Shortly the rumor spread that she had also murdered Bolton, for unless she had done so, she certainly – according to village logic – could not have been possessed of the spoil. Finally, as Mrs. Jasher’s doors and windows were small and the mummy was rather bulky, it was natural to presume that she had hidden it in the garden. Report said she had buried it and had dug it up just in time to be pounced upon by its rightful owner. From which it can be seen that gossip is not invariably accurate.

However this may be, the news of Professor Braddock’s good fortune shortly came to Don Pedro’s ears through the medium of the landlady. As she revealed what she had heard in the morning, the Peruvian gentleman was spared a sleepless night. But as soon as he learned the truth – which was surprising enough in its unexpectedness – he hastily finished his breakfast and hurried to the Pyramids. As yet he had not intended to see Braddock so promptly, or at least not until he had made further inquiries at Pierside, but the news that Braddock possessed the royal ancestor of the De Gayangoses brought him immediately into the museum. He greeted the Professor in his usual grave and dignified manner, and no one would have guessed from his inherent calmness that the unexpected news of Braddock’s arrival, and the still more unexpected information about the green mummy, had surprised him beyond measure. Being somewhat superstitious, it also occurred to Don Pedro that the coincidence meant good fortune to him in the recovery of his long-lost ancestor.

Braddock, already knowing a great deal about Don Pedro from Lucy and Archie Hope, was only too pleased to see the Peruvian, hoping to find in him a kindred spirit. As yet the Professor was not aware of the contents of the ancient Latin manuscript, which revealed the fact of the hidden emeralds, since Hope had decided to leave it to the Peruvian to impart the information. Archie knew very well that Don Pedro – as he had plainly stated – wished to purchase the mummy, and it was only right that Braddock should know what he was selling. But Hope forgot one important fact perhaps from the careless way in which Don Pedro had told his story – namely, that the Professor in a second degree was a receiver of stolen goods. Therefore it was more than probable that the Peruvian would claim the mummy as his own property. Still, in that event he would have to prove his claim, and that would not be easy.

The plump little professor had not yet unsealed the case, and when Don Pedro entered, he was standing before it rubbing his fat hands, with a gloating expression in his face. However, as Cockatoo had brought in the Peruvian’s card, Braddock expected his visitor and wheeled to face him.

“How are you, sir?” said he, extending his hand. “I am glad to see you, as I hear that you know all about this mummy of Inca Caxas.”

“Well, I do,” answered De Gayangos, sitting down in the chair which his host pushed forward. “But may I ask who told you that this mummy was that of the last Inca?”

Braddock pinched his plump chin and replied readily, enough.

“Certainly, Don Pedro. I wished to learn the difference in embalming between the Egyptians and the ancient Peruvians, and looked about for a South American corpse. Unexpectedly I saw in several European newspapers and in two English journals that a green Peruvian mummy was for sale at Malta for one thousand pounds. I sent my assistant, Sidney Bolton, to buy it, and he managed to get it, coffin and all, for nine hundred. While in Malta, and before he started back in The Diver with the mummy, he wrote me an account of the transaction. The seller – who was the son of a Maltese collector – told Bolton that his father had picked up the mummy in Paris some twenty and more years ago. It came from Lima some thirty years back, I believe, and, according to the collector in Paris, was the corpse of Inca Caxas. That is the whole story.”

Don Pedro nodded gravely.

“Was there a Latin manuscript delivered along with the mummy?” he asked.

Braddock’s eyes opened widely.

“No, sir. The mummy came thirty years ago from Lima to Paris. It passed twenty years back into the possession of the Maltese collector, and his son sold it to me a few months ago. I never heard of any manuscript.”

“Then Mr. Hope did not repeat to you what I told him the other night?”

The Professor sat down and his mouth grew obstinate.

“Mr. Hope related some story you told him and others about this mummy having been stolen from you.”

“From my father,” corrected the unsmiling Peruvian; keeping a careful eye on his host; “that is really the case. Inca Caxas is, or was, my ancestor, and this manuscript” – Don Pedro produced the same from his inner pocket – “details the funeral ceremonies.”

“Very interesting; most interesting,” fussed Braddock, stretching out his hand. “May I see it?”

“You read Latin,” observed Don Pedro, surrendering the manuscript.

Braddock raised his eyebrows.

“Of course,” he said simply, “every well-educated man reads Latin, or should do so. Wait, sir, until I glance through this document.”

“One moment,” said Don Pedro, as the Professor began to literally devour the discolored page. “You know from Hope, I have no doubt, how I chance upon my own property in Europe?”

Braddock, still with his eyes on the manuscript, mumbled

“Your own property. Quite so: quite so.”

“You admit that. Then you will no doubt restore the mummy to me.”

By this time the drift of Don Pedro’s observations entirely reached the understanding of the scientist, and he dropped the document he was reading to leap to his feet.

“Restore the mummy to you!” he gasped. “Why, it is mine.”

“Pardon me,” said the Peruvian, still gravely but very decisively, “you admitted that it belonged to me.”

Braddock’s face deepened to a fine purple.

“I didn’t know what I was saying,” he protested. “How could I say it was your property when I have bought it for nine hundred pounds?”

“It was stolen from me.”

“That has got to be proved,” said Braddock caustically.

Don Pedro rose, looking more like, Don Quixote than ever.

“I have the honor to give you my word and – ”

“Yes, yes. That is all right. I cast no imputation on your honor.”

“I should think not,” said the other coldly but strongly.

“All the same, you can scarcely expect me to part with so valuable an object,” Braddock waved his hand towards the case, “without strict inquiry into the circumstances. And again, sir, even if you succeed in proving your ownership, I am not inclined to restore the mummy to you for nothing.”

“But it is stolen property you are keeping from me.”

“I know nothing about that: I have only your bare word that it is so, Don Pedro. All I know is that I paid nine hundred pounds for the mummy and that it cost the best part of another hundred to bring it to England. What I have, I keep.”