The Green Mummy
that nothing has been touched. I have sent for the Pierside inspector to
come. There will be all sorts of trouble,” cried Braddock despairingly,
“and my work--most important work--will be delayed, just because this
silly young ass Sidney Bolton chose to be murdered,” and the Professor
stormed up and down the hall, shaking impotent arms in the air.
“Good heavens!” stammered Robinson, who was young in years and somewhat
new to his profession, “you--you must be mistaken.”
“Mistaken! mistaken!” shouted Braddock with another glare. “Come and see
that poor fellow's body then. He is dead, murdered.”
“By whom?”
“Hang you, sir, how should I know?”
“In what way has he been murdered? Stabbed, shot, or--”
“I don't know--I don't know! Such a nuisance to lose a man like
Bolton--an invaluable assistant. What I shall do without him I really
don't know. And his mother has been here, making no end of a fuss.”
“Can you blame her?” said the doctor, recovering his breath. “She is his
mother, after all, and poor Bolton was her only son.”
“I am not denying the relationship, confound you!” snapped the
Professor, ruffling his hair until it stood up like the crest of a
parrot. “But she needn't--ah!” He glanced through the open door, and
then rushed to the threshold. “Here is Hope and Painter. Come in--come
in. I have the doctor here. Hope, you have the key. You observe,
constable, that Mr. Hope has the key. Open the door: open the door, and
let us see the meaning of this dreadful crime.”
“Crime, sir?” queried the constable, who had heard all that was known
from Hope, but now wished to hear what Braddock had to say.
“Yes, crime: crime, you idiot! I have lost my mummy.”
“But I thought, sir, that a murder--”
“Oh, of course--of course,” gabbled the Professor, as if the death was
quite a minor consideration. “Bolton's dead--murdered, I suppose, as he
could scarcely have nailed himself down in a packing case. But it's my
precious mummy I am thinking of, Painter. A mummy--if you know what a
mummy is--that cost me nine hundred pounds. Go in, man. Go in and don't
stand there gaping. Don't you see that Mr. Hope has opened the door. I
have sent Cockatoo to Pierside to notify the police. They will soon be
here. Meanwhile, doctor, you can examine the body, and Painter here can
give his opinion as to who stole my mummy.”
“The assassin stole the mummy,” said Archie, as the four men entered the
museum, “and substituted the body of the murdered man.”
“That is all A B C,” snapped Braddock, issuing into the vast room, “but
we want to know the name of the assassin, if we are to revenge Bolton
and get back my mummy. Oh, what a loss!--what a loss! I have lost nine
hundred pounds, or say one thousand, considering the cost of bringing
Inca Caxas to England.”
Archie forebore to remind the Professor as to who had really lost
the money, as the scientist was not in a fit state to be talked to
reasonably, and seemed much more concerned because his Peruvian relic of
humanity had been lost than for the terrible death of Sidney Bolton.
But by this time Painter--a fair-haired young constable of small
intelligence--was examining the packing case and surveying the dead. Dr.
Robinson also looked with a professional eye, and Braddock, wiping
his purple face and gasping with exhaustion, sat down on a stone
sarcophagus. Archie, folding his arms, leaned against the wall and
waited quietly to hear what the experts in crime and medicine would say.
The packing case was deep and wide and long, made of tough teak and
banded at intervals with iron bands. Within this was a case of tin,
which, when it held the mummy, had been soldered up; impervious to
air and water. But the unknown person who had extracted the mummy, to
replace it by a murdered man's body, had cut open the tin casing with
some sharp instrument. There was straw round the tin casing and straw
within, amongst which the body of the unfortunate young man was placed.
Rigor mortis had set in, and the corpse, with straight legs and hands
placed stiffly by its side, lay against the back of the tin casing
surrounded more or less by the straw packing, or at least by so much as
the Professor had not torn away. The face looked dark, and the eyes were
wide open and staring. Robinson stepped forward and ran his hand round
the neck. Uttering an ejaculation, he removed the woollen scarf which
the dead man had probably worn to keep himself from catching cold, and
those who looked on saw that a red-colored window cord was tightly bound
about the throat of the dead.
“The poor devil has been strangled,” said the doctor quietly. “See: the
assassin has left the bow-string on, and had the courage to place over
it this scarf, which belonged to Bolton.”
“How do you know that, sir?” asked Painter heavily.
“Because Widow Anne knitted that scarf for Bolton before he went
to Malta. He showed it to me, laughingly, remarking that his mother
evidently thought that he was going to Lapland.”
“When did he show it to you, sir?”
“Before he went to Malta, of course,” said Robinson in mild surprise.
“You don't suppose he showed it to me when he returned. When did he
return to England?” he asked the Professor, with an afterthought.
“Yesterday afternoon, about four o'clock,” replied Braddock.
“Then, from the condition of the body”--the doctor felt the dead
flesh--“he must have been murdered last night. H'm! With your
permission, Painter, I'll examine the corpse.”
The constable shook his head. “Better wait, sir, until the inspector
comes,” he said in his unintelligent way. “Poor Sid! Why, I knew him. He
was at school with me, and now he's dead. Who killed him?”
None of his listeners could answer this question.
CHAPTER VI. THE INQUEST
Like a geographical Lord Byron, the isolated village of Gartley awoke
one morning to find itself famous. Previously unknown, save to the
inhabitants of Brefort, Jessum, and the surrounding country, and to
the soldiers stationed in the Fort, it became a nine days' centre of
interest. Inspector Date of Pierside arrived with his constables to
inquire into the reported crime, and the local journalists, scenting
sensation, came flying to Gartley on bicycles and in traps. Next morning
London was duly advised that a valuable mummy was missing, and that
the assistant of Professor Braddock, who had been sent to fetch it from
Malta, was murdered by strangulation. In a couple of days the three
kingdoms were ringing with the news of the mystery.
And a mystery it proved, to be, for, in spite of Inspector Date's
efforts and the enterprise of Scotland Yard detectives summoned by
the Professor, no clue could be found to the identity of the assassin.
Briefly, the story told by the newspapers ran as follows:
The tramp steamer Diver--Captain George Hervey in command--had berthed
alongside the Pierside jetty at four o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon in
mid-September, and some two hours later Sidney Bolton removed the case,
containing the green mummy, ashore.
As it was impossible to carry the case to the Pyramids on that night,
Bolton had placed it in his bedroom at the Sailor's Rest, a mean little
public-house of no very savory reputation near the water's edge. He was
last seen alive by the landlord and the barmaid, when, after a drink of
harmless ginger-beer, he retired to bed at eight, leaving instructions
to the landlord--overheard by the barmaid--that the case was to be sent
on next day to Professor Braddock of Gartley. Bolton hinted that he
might leave the hotel early and would probably precede the case to its
destination, so as to advise Professor Braddock--necessarily anxious--of
its safe arrival. Before retiring he paid his bill, and deposited in
the landlord's hand a small sum of money, so that the case might be sent
across stream to Brefort, thence to be taken in a lorry to the Pyramids.
There was no sign, said the barmaid and the landlord, that Bolton
contemplated suicide, or that he feared sudden death. His whole demeanor
was cheerful, and he expressed himself exceedingly glad to be in England
once more.
At eleven on the ensuing morning, a persistent knocking and a subsequent
opening of the door of Bolton's bedroom proved that he was not in the
room, although the tumbled condition of the bed-clothes proved that he
had taken some rest. No one in the hotel thought anything of Bolton's
absence, since he had hinted at an early departure, although the
chamber-maid considered it strange that no one had seen him leave the
hotel. The landlord obeyed Bolton's instructions and sent the case, in
charge of a trustworthy man, to Brefort across the river. There a lorry
was procured, and the case was taken to Gartley, where it arrived at
three in the afternoon. It was then that Professor Braddock, in opening
the case, discovered the body of his ill-fated assistant, rigid in
death, and with a red window cord tightly bound round the throat of the
corpse. At once, said the newspapers, the Professor sent for the police,
and later insisted that the smartest Scotland Yard detectives should
come down to elucidate the mystery. At present both police and
detectives were engaged in searching for a needle in a haystack, and so
far had met with no success.
Such was the tale set forth in the local and London and provincial
journals. Widely as it was discussed, and many as were the theories
offered, no one could fathom the mystery. But all agreed that the
failure of the police to find a clue was inexplicable. It was difficult
enough to understand how the assassin could have murdered Bolton and
opened the packing case, and removed the mummy to replace it by the body
of his victim in a house filled with at least half a dozen people; but
it was yet more difficult to guess how the criminal had escaped with so
noticeable an object as the mummy, bandaged with emerald-hued woollen
stuff woven from the hair of Peruvian llamas. If the culprit was one who
thieved and murdered for gain, he could scarcely sell the mummy without
being arrested, since all England was ringing with the news of its
disappearance; if a scientist, impelled to robbery by an archaeological
mania, he could not possibly keep possession of the mummy without
someone learning that he possessed it. Meanwhile the thief and his
plunder had vanished as completely as if the earth had swallowed both.
Great was the wonder at the cleverness of the criminal, and many were
the solutions offered to account for the disappearance. One enterprising
weekly paper, improving on the Limerick craze, offered a furnished house
and three pounds a week for life to the fortunate person who could solve
the mystery. As yet no one had won the prize, but it was early days
yet, and at least five thousand amateur detectives tried to work out the
problem.
Naturally Hope was sorry for the untimely death of Bolton, whom he had
known as an amiable and clever young man. But he was also annoyed
that his loan of the money to Braddock should have been, so to speak,
nullified by the loss of the mummy. The Professor was perfectly furious
at his double loss of assistant and embalmed corpse, and was only
prevented from offering a reward for the discovery of the thief and
assassin by the painful fact that he had no money. He hinted to Archie
that a reward should be offered, but that young man, backed by Lucy,
declined to throw away good money after bad. Braddock took this refusal
so ill, that Hope felt perfectly convinced he would try and wriggle
out of his promise to permit the marriage and persuade Lucy to engage
herself to Sir Frank Random, should the baronet be willing to offer a
reward. And Hope was also certain that Braddock, a singularly
obstinate man, would never rest until he once more had the mummy in