"Oh," said Don Pedro, looking up from where he was seated, "so you have seen that old woman? What does she say about the clothes?"
"She sticks to her story. Sidney, she declares, borrowed the clothes to give to me for a model. Now, I never asked Bolton to do this, so I fancy the disguise must have been intended for himself, or for Mrs. Jasher."
"But what had Mrs. Jasher to do with him?" demanded Random sharply.
"Well, it"s odd," replied Hope slowly, "but Mrs. Bolton declares that her son was in love with Mrs. Jasher, and when he returned from Malta intended to marry her."
"Impossible!" cried Sir Frank. "She engaged herself to Braddock."
"But only after Bolton"s death, remember."
Don Pedro nodded.
"That is true. But what you say, Mr. Hope, proves the truth of Hervey"s theory."
"In what way?"
"Mrs. Jasher, as we know from what Random told us, wanted money. She would not marry a man who was poor. Bolton was poor, but of course the emeralds would make him wealthy, as they are of immense value. Probably he intended to steal them in order to marry this woman. This implicates Mrs. Jasher in the crime."
"Yes," a.s.sented Sir Frank, nodding. "But as Bolton did not know that the emeralds existed before he bought the mummy in Malta, I do not see why he should borrow a disguise beforehand for Mrs. Jasher to meet him at the Sailor"s Rest."
"The thing is easily settled," said Hope impatiently. "Let us both go to Mrs. Jasher"s this evening, and insist upon the truth being told. If she confesses about her secret engagement to Sidney Bolton, she may admit that the clothes were borrowed for her."
"And she may admit also that she placed the ma.n.u.script in my room," said Sir Frank after a pause. "Hervey did not place it there, but it is just possible that Mrs. Jasher, having got it from Bolton when she talked to him through the window, may have done so."
"Nonsense!" said Hope with vigorous commonsense. "Mrs. Jasher would be spotted in a moment if she had gone to your quarters. She had to pa.s.s the sentry, remember. Then, again, we have not yet proved that she was the woman in Mrs. Bolton"s clothes who spoke through the window. That can all be settled if we speak to her this evening."
"Very good." Random glanced at his watch. "I must get back. Don Pedro, will you tell Inez that I shall come in this evening? We can then talk further about these matters. Hope?"
"I shall stop here, as I wish to consult Don Pedro."
Random nodded and took a reluctant departure. He dearly wished, as an engaged lover should, to remain on the chance that Donna Inez might return, but duty called him and he was forced to obey.
The night was very dark, although it was not particularly late. But there was no rain, and Random walked rapidly through the village and down the road to the Fort. He caught a glimpse of the lights of Mrs.
Jasher"s cottage twinkling in the distance, and smiled grimly as he thought of the invisible spell he had placed thereon. No doubt Mrs.
Jasher was shivering in her Louis Quinze shoes at the idea of being watched. But then, she deserved that much punishment at least, as Random truly thought.
When entering the Fort, the sentry saluted as usual, and Random was about to pa.s.s, when the man stepped forward, holding out a brown paper package.
"Please, sir, I found this in my sentry box," he said, saluting.
Sir Frank took the packet.
"Who placed it there? and why do you give it to me?" he demanded in surprise.
"Please, sir, it"s directed to you, sir, and I don"t know who put it in my box, sir. I was on duty, sir, and I "spose someone must have dropped it on the floor of the box, sir, when I was at the other end of my beat, sir. It was as dark as this, sir, and I saw nothing and heard nothing.
When I come back, sir, I stepped into the box out of the rain and felt it with my feet. I struck a light, sir, and found it was for you."
Sir Frank slipped the package into his pocket and went away after a grim word or so to the sentry, advising him to be more on the alert. He was puzzled to think who had left the packet in the sentry box, and curious to know what it contained. As soon as he got to his own room, he cut the string which bound loosely the brown paper. Then, in the lamplight, there rolled out from the carelessly-tied parcel a glorious sea-green emerald of great size, radiating light like a sun. A sc.r.a.p of white paper lay in the brown wrapping. On it was written, "A wedding gift for Sir Frank Random."
CHAPTER XXIII. JUST IN TIME
Of all the surprises in connection with the tragedy of the green mummy, this was surely the greatest. Sidney Bolton had undoubtedly been murdered for the sake of the emeralds, and the a.s.sa.s.sin had escaped with the spoil, for which he had sold his soul. Yet here was one of the jewels returned anonymously to Random, who could pa.s.s on the same to its rightful owner. In the midst of his amazement Sir Frank could not help chuckling when he thought how enraged Professor Braddock would be at Don Pedro"s good fortune. At the eleventh hour, as it were, the Peruvian had got back his own, or at least a portion of his own.
Placing the emerald in his drawer, Random gave orders to his servant that the sentry, when off duty, should be brought before him. Just as Random finished dressing for mess--and he dressed very early, so as to devote his entire attention to solving this new problem--the soldier who had been on guard appeared. But he could tell nothing more than he had already related. When doing sentry-go immediately outside the gate of the Fort, the packet had been slipped into the box, while the man was at the far end of his beat. It was quite dark when this was done, and the soldier confessed that he had not heard a sound, much less had he seen anyone. The person who had brought the glorious gem had watched his opportunity, and, soft-footed as a cat, had stolen forward in the darkness to drop the precious parcel on the floor of the sentry box.
There the man had found it by the feel of his feet, when he stepped in some time later to escape a shower. But what time had elapsed from the placing of the parcel to its discovery by the sentry it was impossible to say. It must, however, as Random calculated, have been within the hour, since, before then, it would not have been dark enough to hide the approach of the person, whether male or female, who carried a king"s ransom in the brown paper parcel.
At first Random was inclined to place the sentry under arrest for having failed so much in his duty as to allow anyone to approach so near the Fort; but, as he had already reprimanded the man, and, moreover, wished to keep the fact of the recovered jewel quiet, he simply dismissed him.
When alone, he sat down before the fire, wondering who could have dared so very greatly, and for what reason the emerald had been handed to him. If it had been sent to Don Pedro, or even to Professor Braddock, it would have been much more reasonable.
It first occurred to him that Mrs. Jasher, out of grat.i.tude for the way in which he had treated her, had sent him the jewel. Remembering his former experience, he smelt the parcel, but could detect no sign of the famous Chinese scent which had proved a clue to the letter. Of course the direction on the packet and the inscribed slip of paper were in feigned handwriting, so he could gather nothing from that. Still, he did not think that Mrs. Jasher had sent the emerald. She was desperately hard up, and if she had become possessed of the gem by murder--presuming her to have been the woman who talked to Bolton through the window--she a.s.suredly would have sold it to supply her own needs. Certainly, if guilty, she would still possess the other emerald, of equal value; but undoubtedly, had she risked her neck to gain a fortune, she would have kept the entire plunder which was likely to cost her so dear. No; whomsoever it was who had repented at the eleventh hour, Mrs. Jasher was not the person.
Perhaps Widow Anne was the woman who had talked through the window, and who had restored the emerald. But that was impossible, since Mrs. Bolton habitually took more liquor than was good for her, and would not have the nerve to deliver the jewel, much less commit the crime, the more especially as the victim was her own son. Of course she might have found out Sidney"s scheme to run away with the jewels, and so would have claimed her share. But if she had been in Pierside on that evening--and her presence in Gartley had been sworn to by three or four cronies--she would have guessed who had strangled her boy. If so, not all the jewels in the world would have prevented her denouncing the criminal. With all her faults--and they were many--Mrs. Bolton was a good mother, and looked upon Sidney as the pride and joy of her somewhat dissipated life.
Mrs. Bolton was certainly as innocent as Mrs. Jasher.
There remained Hervey. Random laughed aloud when the name came into his puzzled head. That buccaneer was the last person to surrender his plunder or to feel compunction in committing a crime. Once the skipper got his grip on two jewels, worth endless money, he would never let them go--not even one of them. Arguing thus, it seemed that Hervey was out of the running, and Random could think of no one else. In this dilemma he remembered that two heads were better than one, and, before going into dinner, he sent a note to Archie Hope, asking him to come to the Fort as speedily as possible.
Sir Frank was somewhat dull at dinner on that evening, and scarcely responded to the joking remarks of his brother officers. These jocularly put his preoccupation down to love, for it was an open secret that the baronet admired the fair Peruvian, although no one as yet knew that Random was legally engaged with Don Pedro"s consent. The young man good-humoredly stood all the chaff hurled at him, but seized the opportunity to slip away to his quarters as soon as coffee came on the table and the smoking began. It was nine o"clock before he returned to his room, and here he found Hope waiting for him impatiently.
"I see you have been dining at the Pyramids," said Random, seeing that Hope was in evening dress.
Archie nodded.
"Yes. I don"t put on this kit to have my humble chop at my lodgings. But the Professor asked me to dinner to talk over matters."
"What does he say?" asked Random, looking for the cigarette box.
"Oh, he is very angry with Mrs. Jasher, and considers that she has swindled him. He called to see her this afternoon, and--so he says--had a stormy interview with her."
"I don"t wonder at that, if he speaks as he generally does," said the other grimly, and pushing along the cigarettes, "There you are! The whisky and soda are on yonder table. Make yourself comfortable, and tell me what the Professor intends to do."
"Well," said Archie, turning half round from the side table where he was pouring out the whisky, "he had already started action, by sending c.o.c.katoo to live at the Sailor"s Rest and spy on Hervey."
"What rubbish! Hervey is, going away to-morrow in The Firefly, bound for Algiers. Nothing is to be learned from him."
"So I told the Professor," said Hope, returning to the armchair near the fire, "and I mentioned that Don Pedro had induced the skipper to write out a full account of the theft of the mummy from Lima thirty years ago. I also said that the signed paper would be handed in at the Gartley jetty when The Firefly came down stream to-morrow night."
"Humph! And what did Braddock say to that?"
"Nothing much. He merely stated that whatever Hervey said toward proving the ownership of your future father-in-law, that he intended to stick to the embalmed corpse of Inca Caxas, and also that he intended to claim the emeralds when they turned up."
Random rose and went to the drawer of his desk.
"I am afraid he has lost one emerald, at all events," he said, unlocking the drawer.