The Green Mummy - Page 55/191

"An offer, sir?"

"Yes! I fancied that you loved Lucy and were broken-hearted by the news

of her engagement to Hope. I therefore intended to ask you to give me,

or rather lend me, five hundred pounds on condition that I helped you

to--"

"Stop, Professor," said Random, coloring, "I should never have bought

Miss Kendal as my wife on those terms."

"Of course! of course! and--as I say--there is no more to be said. I

shall therefore agree to Lucy's engagement to Hope"--Braddock carefully

omitted to say that he had already agreed and had been paid one thousand

pounds to agree--"and will congratulate you when you lead Donna Inez to

the altar."

"I never said anything about Donna Inez, Professor Braddock."

"Of course not: modern reticence. However, I can see through a brick

wall as well as most people. I understand, so let us drop the subject,

my boy. And this five hundred pounds--"

"I cannot lend it to you, Professor. The fact is, I lost heaps of coin

at Monte Carlo, and am not in a position to--"

"Very good, let us shelve that also," said Braddock with apparent

heartiness, although he was really very angry at his failure. "I am

sorry, though, as I wish to get back the mummy and to revenge poor

Sidney Bolton's death."

"How can the five hundred do that?" asked Random with interest.

"Well," drawled the Professor with his eyes on the young man's attentive

face, "Captain Hervey of The Diver came to me yesterday and proposed

to search for the assassin and his plunder on condition that I paid him

five hundred pounds. I am, as you know, very poor for a scientist,

and so I wished to borrow the five hundred from you on condition that

Lucy--"

"We won't talk of that again," said Random hurriedly; "but do you mean

to say that this Captain Hervey knows of anything likely to solve this

mystery?"

"He says that he does not, and merely proposes to search. From what I

have seen of the man I should think that he had all the capacities of a

good bloodhound and would certainly succeed. But he will not move a step

without money."

"Five hundred pounds," murmured Random thoughtfully, while the Professor

watched him closely. "I can tell you how to obtain it."

"How? In what way?"

"Don Pedro seems to be rich, and he wants the mummy," said the baronet.

"So when he comes here ask him to--"

"Certainly not: certainly not," raged Braddock, clapping on his hat in

a fury. "How dare you make such a proposition to me, Random! If this Don

Pedro offers the reward and Hervey finds the mummy, he will simply hand

it over to your friend."

"He can scarcely do that, since you have bought the mummy. But Don Pedro

is willing to purchase it from you."