The Green Mummy
“Oh, bother--!”
Hope, being quite exasperated with hunger, would have launched out into
a speech condemning the widow's unpunctuality, when in the hall below
the drawing-room was heard the sound of the door opening and closing.
Without doubt this was Mrs. Jasher arriving at last, and Lucy ran out
of the room and down the stairs to welcome her in her eagerness to get
Archie seated at the dinner table. The young man lingered by the open
door of the drawing-room, ready to welcome the widow, when he heard Lucy
utter an exclamation of surprise and became aware that she was ascending
the stairs along with Professor Braddock. At once he reflected there
would be trouble, since he was in the house with Lucy, and lacked the
necessary chaperon which Braddock's primitive Anglo-Saxon instincts
insisted upon.
“I did not know you were returning to-night,” Lucy was saying when she
re-entered the drawing-room with her step-father.
“I arrived by the six o'clock train,” explained the Professor, unwinding
a large red scarf from his neck, and struggling out of his overcoat with
the assistance of his daughter. “Ha, Hope, good evening.”
“Where have you been since?” asked Lucy, throwing the Professor's coat
and wraps on to a chair.
“With Mrs. Jasher,” said Braddock, warming his plump hands at the fire.
“So you must blame me that she is not here to preside at dinner as the
chaperon of you young people.”
Lucy and her lover glanced at one another in surprise. This light and
airy tone was a new one for the Professor to take. Instead of being
angry, he seemed to be unusually gay, and looked at them in quite a
jocular manner for a dry-as-dust scientist.
“We waited dinner for her, father,” ventured Lucy timidly.
“Then I am ready to eat it,” announced Braddock. “I am extremely hungry,
my dear. I can't live on love, you know.”
“Live on love?” Lucy stared, and Archie laughed quietly.
“Oh yes, you may smile and look astonished;” went on the Professor
good-humoredly, “but science does not destroy the primeval instincts
entirely. Lucy, my dear,” he took her hand and patted it, “while in
London and in lodgings, it was borne in upon me forcibly how lonely I
was and how lonely I would be when you married our young friend yonder.
I had intended to come down to-morrow, but to-night, such was my feeling
of loneliness that I considered favorably your idea that I should find a
second helpmate in Mrs. Jasher. I have always had a profound admiration
for that lady, and so--on the spur of the moment, as I may say--I
decided to come down this evening and propose.”
“Oh,” Lucy clapped her hands, very well satisfied with the unexpected
news, “and have you?”
“Mrs. Jasher,” said the Professor gravely, “did me the honor to promise
to become my wife this evening.”
“She will become your wife this evening?” said Archie, smiling.
Braddock, with one of those odd twists of humor which were
characteristic of him, became irascible.
“Confound it, sir, don't I speak English,” he snapped, with his eyes
glaring rebuke. “She promised this evening to become Mrs. Braddock.
We shall marry--so we have arranged--in the springtime, which is the
natural pairing season for human beings as well as for birds. And I am
glad to say that Mrs. Jasher takes a deep interest in archaeology.”
“And, what is more, she is a splendid housekeeper,” said Lucy.
The temporary anger of the Professor vanished. He drew his step-daughter
towards him and kissed her on the cheek.
“I believe that I have to thank you for putting the idea into my head,”
said he, “and also--if Mrs. Jasher is to be believed--for aiding her
to see the mutual advantage it would be to both of us to marry. Ha,” he
released Lucy and rubbed his hands, “let us go to dinner.”
“I am very glad,” said Miss Kendal heartily.
“So am I, so am I,” replied Braddock, nodding. “As you very truly
observed, my child, the house would have gone to rack and ruin without
a woman to look after my interests. Well,” he took the arms of the two
young people, “I really think that we must have a bottle of champagne on
the strength of it.”
Shortly the trio were seated at the table, and Braddock explained that
Mrs. Jasher, being overcome by his proposal, had not been able to face
the ordeal of congratulations.
“But she will come to-morrow,” said he, as Cockatoo filled three
glasses.
“Indeed, I shall congratulate her to-night,” said Lucy obstinately. “As
soon as dinner is over, I shall go with Archie to her house, and tell
her how pleased I am.”
“It is very cold for you to be out, Lucy dear,” urged Archie anxiously.
“Oh, I can wrap up warmly,” she answered.
Strange to say, the Professor made no objection to the excursion,
although Hope quite expected such a stickler for etiquette to refuse
permission to his step-daughter. But Braddock seemed rather pleased
than otherwise. His proposal of marriage seemed to have put him into
excellent humor, and he raised his glass with a chuckle.
“I drink to your happiness, my dear Lucy, and to that of Mrs. Jasher's.”
“And I drink to Archie's and to yours, father,” she replied. “I am glad
that you will not be lonely when we are married. Archie and I wish to
become one in January.”
“Yes,” said Hope, finishing his champagne, “my income is now all right,
as my uncle has paid up.”
“Very good, very good. I make no objection,” said Braddock placidly. “I
will give you a handsome wedding present, Lucy, for you may have heard
that my future wife has money left to her by her brother, who was lately
a merchant in Pekin. She is heart and hand with me in our proposed
expedition to Egypt.”
“Will you go there for the honeymoon, sir?” asked Hope.
“Not exactly for the honeymoon, since we are to be married in spring,
and my expedition to the tomb of Queen Tahoser cannot start until the
late autumn. But Mrs. Braddock will come with me. That is only just,
since it will be her money which will furnish the sinews of war.”
“Well, everything is arranged very well,” said Lucy. “I marry Archie;
you, father, make Mrs. Jasher your wife; and I suspect Sir Frank will
marry Donna Inez.”
“Ha!” said Braddock with a start, “the daughter of De Gayangos, who has
come here for the missing mummy. Mrs. Jasher told me somewhat of that,
my dear. But I shall see Don Pedro myself to-morrow. Meanwhile, let us
eat and drink. I must go down to the museum, and you--”
“We shall go to congratulate Mrs. Jasher,” said Lucy.
So it was arranged, and shortly Professor Braddock retired into his
sanctum along with the devoted Cockatoo, who displayed lively joy on
beholding his master once more. Lucy, after being carefully wrapped up
by Archie, set out with that young man to congratulate the bride-elect.
It was just half-past nine when they started out.
The night was frosty and the stars twinkled like jewels in a cloudless
sky of dark blue. The moon shone with hard brilliance on the ground,
which was powdered with a light fall of snow. As the young people walked
briskly through the village, their footsteps rang on the frosty earth
and they scrunched the snow in their quick tread. The Warrior Inn was
still open, as it was not late, and lights shone from the windows of the
various cottages. When the two, following the road through the marshes,
emerged from the village, they saw the great mass of the Fort bulking
blackly against the clear sky, the glittering stream of the Thames,
and the marshes outlined in delicate white. The fairy world of snow and
moonlight appealed to Archie's artistic sense, and Lucy approving of the
same, they did not hurry to arrive at their destination.
But shortly they saw the squarely fenced acre of ground near the
embankment, wherein Mrs. Jasher's humble abode was placed. Light shone
through the pink curtains of the drawing-room, showing that the widow
had not yet retired. In a few minutes the lovers were at the gate and
promptly entered. It was then that one of those odd things happened
which would argue that some people are possessed of a sixth sense.
Archie closed the gate after him, and, glancing right and left, walked
up the snowy path with Lucy. To the right was a leafless arbor, also
powdered with snow, and against the white bulked a dark form something
like a coffin. Hope out of curiosity went up to it.
“What the deuce is this?” he asked himself; then raised his voice in
loud surprise. “Lucy! Lucy! come here!”
“What is it?” she asked, running up.
“Look”--he pointed to the oddly shaped case--“the green mummy!”
CHAPTER XIII. MORE MYSTERY
Neither Lucy nor Archie Hope had ever seen the mummy, but they knew
the appearance which it would present, as Professor Braddock, with the
enthusiasm of an archaeologist, had often described the same to them. It
appeared, according to Braddock, that on purchasing the precious corpse
in Malta, his dead assistant had written home a full description of
the treasure trove. Consequently, being advised beforehand, Hope had no
difficulty in recognizing the oddly shaped case, which was made somewhat
in the Egyptian form. On the impulse of the moment he had proclaimed
this to be the long-lost mummy, and when a closer examination by the
light of a lucifer match revealed the green hue of the coffin wood, he
knew that he was right.
But what was the mummy in its ancient case doing in Mrs. Jasher's arbor?
That was the mute question which the two young people asked themselves
and each other, as they stood in the chilly moonlight, staring at the
grotesque thing. The mummy had disappeared from the Sailor's Rest at
Pierside some weeks ago, and now unexpectedly appeared in a lonely
garden, surrounded by marshes. How it had been brought there, or why
it should have been brought there, or who had brought it to such an
unlikely place, were questions hard to answer. However, the most obvious
thing to do was to question Mrs. Jasher, since the uncanny object was
lying within a stone-throw of her home. Lucy, after a rapid word or two,
went to ring the bell, and summon the lady, while Archie stood by the
arbor, wondering how the mummy came to be there. In the same way George
III had wondered how the apples got into the dumplings.
Far and wide spread the marshes, flatly towards the shore of the river
on one side, but on the other sloping up to Gartley village, which
twinkled with many lights on the rising ground. Some distance away the
Fort rose black and menacing in the moonlight, and the mighty stream of
the Thames glittered like polished steel as it flowed seaward. As there
were only a few leafless trees dotted about the marshy ground, and as
that same ground, lightly sprinkled with powdery snow, revealed every
moving object for quite a mile or so, Hope could not conceive how the
mummy case, which seemed heavy, could have been brought into the silent
garden without its bearers being seen. It was not late, and soldiers
were still returning through Gartley to the Fort. Then, again, some
noise must have been caused by so bulky an object being thrust through
the narrow wicket, and Mrs. Jasher, inhabiting a wooden house, which was
a very sea-shell for sound, might have heard footsteps and voices. If
those who had brought the mummy here--and there was more than one from
the size of the case--could be discovered, then the mystery of Sidney
Bolton's death would be solved very speedily. It was at this moment of
his reflections that Lucy returned to the arbor, leading Mrs. Jasher,
who was attired in a tea-gown and who looked bewildered.
“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