The Mysterious Mummy
plus six
Sax Rohmer
The Mysterious Mummy
It was about five o'clock on a hot August afternoon, that a tall, thin man, wearing a weedy beard, and made conspicious by an ill-fitting frock-coat and an almost napless silk hat, walked into the entrance hall of the Great Portland Square Museum. He carried no stick, and, looking about him, as though unfamiliar with the building, he ultimately mounted the principal staircase, walking with a pronounced stoop, and at intervals coughing with a hollow sound.
His gaunt figure attracted the attention of several people, among them the attendant in the Egyptain room. Hardened though he was to the eccentric in humanity, the man who hung so eagerly over the mummies of departed kings and coughed so frequently, nevertheless secured his instant attention. Visitors of the regulation type were rapidly thinning out, so that the gaunt man, during the whole of the time he remained in the room, was kept under close surveillance by the vigilant official. Seeing him go in the direction of the stairs, the attendant supposed the strange visitor to be about to leave the Museum. But that he did not immediately do so was shown by subsequent testimony.
The day's business being concluded, the staff of police who patrol nightly the Great Square Museum duly filed into the building. A man is placed in each room, it being his duty to examine thoroughly every nook and cranny; having done which, all doors of communication are closed, the officer on guard in one room being unable to leave his post or to enter another. Every hour the inspector, a sergeant, and a fireman make a round of the entire building: from which it will be seen that a person having designs on any of the numerous treasures of the place would require more than average ingenuity to bring his plans to a successful issue.
In recording this very singular case, the only incident of the night to demand attention is that of the mummy in the Etruscan room.
Persons familiar with the Great Portland Square Museum will know that certain of the tombs in the Etruscan room are used as receptacles for Egyptian mummies that have, for various reasons, never been put upon exhibition. Anyone who has peered under the partially raised lid of a huge sarcophagus and found within the rigid form of a mummy, will appreciate the feelings of the man on night duty amid surroundings so lugubrious. The electric light, it should be mentioned, is not extinguished until the various apartments have been examined, and its extinction immediately precedes the locking of the door.
The constable in the Etruscan room glanced into the various sarcophagi and cast the rays of his bull's-eye lantern into the shadows of the great stone tombs. Satisfied that no one lurked there, he mounted the steps leading up to the Roman gallery, turning out the lights in the room below from the switch at the top. The light was still burning on the ground floor, and the sergeant had not yet arrived with the keys. It was whilst the man stood awaiting his coming that a singular thing occurred.
From somewhere within the darkened chamber beneath, there came the sound of a hollow cough!
By no means deficient in courage, the constable went down the steps in three bounds, his lantern throwing discs of light on stately statues and gloomy tombs. The sound was not repeated:
and having nothing to guide him to its source, he commenced a second methodical search of the sarcophagi, as offering the most likely hiding places. When all save one had been examined, the constable began to believe that the coughing had existed only in his imagination. It was upon casting the rays of his bull's-eye into the last sarcophagus that he experienced a sudden sensation of fear. It was empty; yet he distinctly remembered, from his previous examination, that a mummy had lain there!
At the moment of making this weird discovery, he realised that he would have done better, before commencing his search for the man with the cough, first to turn on the light; for it must be remembered that he had extinguished the electric lamps. Determined to do so before pursuing his investigations further, he ran up the steps--to find the Roman gallery in darkness. The bright disc of a lantern was approaching from the upper end, and the man ran forward.
'Who turned off the lights here?' came the voice of the sergeant.
'That's what I want to know! Somebody did it while I was downstairs!' said the constable, and gave a hurried account of the mysterious coughing and the missing mummy.
'How long has there been a mummy in this tomb?' asked the sergeant.
'There was one there a month back, but they took it upstairs. They may have brought it down again last week though, or it may have been a fresh one. You see, the other lot were on duty up to last night.'
This was quite true, as the sergeant was aware. Three bodies of picked men share the night duties at the Great Portland Square Museum, and those on duty upon this particular occasion had not been in the place during the previous two weeks.
'Very strange!' muttered the sergeant; and a moment later his whistle was sounding.
From all over the building men came running, for none of the doors had yet been locked.
'There seems to be someone concealed in the Museum: search all the rooms again!' was the brief order.
The constables disappeared, and the sergeant, accompanied by the inspector, went down to examine the Etruscan room. Nothing was found there; nor were any of the other searchers more successful.
There was no trace anywhere of a man in hiding. Beyond leaving open the door between the Roman gallery and the steps of the Etruscan room, no more could be done in the matter. The gallery communicates with the entrance hall, where the inspector, together with the sergeant and fireman, spends the night, and the idea of the former was to keep in touch with the scene of these singular happenings. His action was perfectly natural; but these precautions were subsequently proved to be absolutely useless.
The night passed without any disturbing event, and the mystery of the vanishing mummy and the ghostly cough seemed likely to remain a mystery. The night-police filed out in the early morning, and the inspector, with the sergeant, returned, as soon as possible, to the Museum, to make further inquiries concerning the missing occupant of the sarcophagus.
'A mummy in the end tomb!' exclaimed the curator of Etruscan antiquities; 'my dear sir, there has been no mummy there for nearly a month!'
'But my man states that he saw one there last night!' declared the inspector.
The curator looked puzzled. Turning to an attendant, he said: 'Who was in charge of the Etruscan room immediately before six last night?'
'I was, sir!'
'Were there any visitors?'
'No one came in between five-forty and six.'
'And before that?'
'I was away at tea, sir!'
'Who was in charge then?'
'Mr Robins.'
'Call Robins.'
The commissionaire in question arrived.
'How long were you in the Etruscan room last night?'
'About half-an-hour, sir.'
'Are you sure that no one concealed himself?'
The man looked startled. 'Well, sir,' he said hesitatingly, 'I'm sorry I didn't report it before; but when Mr Barton called me, at about twenty-five minutes to six, there was someone there, a gent in a seedy frock-coat and a high hat, and I don't remember seeing him come out.'
'Did you search the room?'
'Yes, sir; but there was no one to be seen!'
'You should have reported the matter at once. I must see Barton.'
