The Green Mummy

“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?”