The Green Mummy - Page 36/191

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 assassin 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 assistant and embalmed corpse, and was only

prevented from offering a reward for the discovery of the thief and

assassin 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.

Therefore, the remains of the unfortunate young man were taken to

his humble home, and here the body was inspected by the jury when the

inquest took place in the coffee-room of the Warrior Inn, immediately

opposite Mrs. Bolton's abode. There was a large crowd round the inn, as

people had come from far and wide to hear the verdict of the jury, and

Gartley, for the first and only time in its existence, presented the

aspect of an August Bank Holiday.