The Green Mummy - Page 189/191

At the inquest on the Professor and on the body of Mrs. Jasher, it was

proved that Cockatoo had warned his master that the game was up, and had

suggested that Braddock should escape by hiding in the mummy case. The

corpse of Inca Caxas was placed in an empty Egyptian sarcophagus--in

which it was afterwards found--and Braddock, assisted by his faithful

Kanaka, wheeled the case down to the old jetty. Here, in a nook where

Cockatoo had formerly kept the boat, the Professor concealed himself all

that night and all next day. Cockatoo, having got rid of his boat long

since (lest it might be used in evidence against him and his master),

ran through the dense mist and the long night up to Pierside, where he

saw Captain Hervey and bribed him with a promise of one thousand pounds

to save his master. Hervey, having assured himself that the money was

safe, since it was banked in a feigned name in Amsterdam, agreed, and

arranged to ship the Professor in the mummy case.

Thus it was that Hervey kept the four men talking up the jetty, as he

knew that Cockatoo with his own sailors was shipping the Professor in

the mummy case underneath, and well out of sight. Cockatoo had come

down stream with The Firefly, and in this way had not been discovered.

Throughout that long day the miserable Braddock had crouched like a toad

in its hole, trembling at every sound of pursuit, as he knew that the

whole of the village was looking for him. But Cockatoo had hidden him

well in the case, in the lid of which holes had been bored. He had

brandy to drink and food to eat, and he knew that he could depend upon

the Kanaka. Had Date not been suspicious, the ruse might have been

successful, but to save himself Hervey had to sacrifice the wretched

Professor, which he did without the slightest hesitation. Then came

the unlucky shot from the revolver of De Gayangos, which had ended

Braddock's wicked life. It was Fate.

At the inquest a verdict of "wilful murder" was brought against the

Kanaka, but a verdict of "justifiable homicide" was given in favor of

the Peruvian. Thus Cockatoo was hanged for the double murder and Don

Pedro went free. He remained long enough in London to see his daughter

married to the man of her choice, and then returned to Lima.

Of course the affair caused more than a nine days' wonder, and the

newspapers were filled with accounts of the murder and the projected

escape. But Lucy was saved from all this publicity, as, in the first

place, her name was kept out of print as much as possible, and, in

the second, Archie promptly married her, and within a fortnight of her

step-father's death took her to the south of France, and afterwards

to Italy. What with his own money and the money she inherited from her

mother--in which Braddock had a life interest--the young couple had

nearly a thousand a year.