The Green Mummy

“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.”