“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 handcart, 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 handcart.
“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!”
XIV
The Unexpected Happens
In spite of newspapers and letters and tape-machines and telegrams and suchlike 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 hotbed 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 everyone 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 handcart, 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
