"Robinson, you"re a--a--a fool!" shouted Braddock, glaring at the suave looks of the doctor. "I am in perfect health, d.a.m.n you, sir."
"Then Miss Kendal--?"
"She is quite well also. But Bolton--?"
"Oh!" Robinson looked interested. "Has he returned with your mummy?"
"Mummy," bellowed Braddock, stamping like an insane Cupid--"the mummy hasn"t arrived."
"Really, Professor, you surprise me," said the doctor mildly.
"I"ll surprise you more," growled Braddock, dragging Robinson into the garden and up the steps.
"Gently! gently! my dear sir," said the doctor, who really began to think that much learning had made the Professor mad. "Didn"t Bolton--?"
"Bolton is dead, you fool."
"Dead!" The doctor nearly tumbled backward down the steps.
"Murdered. At least I think he is murdered. At all events he arrived here to-day in the packing case, which should have contained my green mummy. Come in and examine the body at once. No," Braddock pushed back the doctor just as fiercely as he had dragged him forward, "wait until the constable comes. I want him to see the body first, and to observe 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 a.s.s 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 a.s.sistant. 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 c.o.c.katoo 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 a.s.sa.s.sin stole the mummy," said Archie, as the four men entered the museum, "and subst.i.tuted 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 a.s.sa.s.sin, 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, 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 a.s.sa.s.sin 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 a.s.sistant 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 ident.i.ty of the a.s.sa.s.sin.
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, ash.o.r.e.
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 a.s.sistant, 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 a.s.sa.s.sin 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 a.s.sistant and embalmed corpse, and was only prevented from offering a reward for the discovery of the thief and a.s.sa.s.sin 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 his possession. That the murderer of Sidney Bolton should be hanged was quite a minor consideration with the Professor.
Meanwhile Widow Anne had insisted on the dead body being taken to her cottage, and Braddock, with the consent of Inspector Date, willingly agreed, as he did not wish a newly dead corpse to remain under his roof.