"You mean," I inquired, "the son of Mr. Harding, the bank president?" The Hardings, as everybody knows, are among the best-known millionaire families in Baltimore society.
"The same," replied Mrs. Eden. "Miss Anstey and he have been friends for a couple of years. I am sure both will be grateful to you for finding this pin. Now that I recall it, it may be that they have already had words about it being lost. He was here last evening and they were both rather excited. At breakfast Ethel complained of having a headache and looked as though she had been crying. They called each other up several times by 'phone during the morning, but Ethel told me nothing, and I thought it tactful to say nothing to her. When he came this afternoon I told her she looked so pale she ought to rest, but she laughed me off."
"We will come again after they have returned," I said to Mrs. Eden as I rose to go. "Perhaps, as you say, I may be able to straighten out the little trouble. Meanwhile, I would suggest that you say nothing to them."
It had grown dark when we stepped outside. Dorland gripped my hand warmly. "McIver," he exclaimed, "you're a wonder! I see the whole case now. Gee, but its a rum affair!"
The professor was mystified. "I don't quite see, gentlemen, how the whole affair is settled. Where is the mummy? And who was the thief?"
"The mummy, professor," I remarked, oracularly, "is most probably in the automobile of Mr. Raymond Harding."
"You don't mean that he is the thief?"
"I believe he took the mummy. I believe he dropped the pin in doing it. This also fell out of his auto cap." I produced a gilt paper initial "H," such as hatters put in headwear for their customers. It was my second find in the sweepings.
"But the motive, man, the motive!" persisted the professor. "Why should a millionaire's son break into a Woman's College building to steal a mummy? It sounds ridiculous."
"That, sir, is the part I want Miss Anstey to explain. It is the only element of doubt in a perfectly plain chain of circumstances. Raymond Harding I know slightly, and he has a certain reputation for reckless pranks, although he's not a bad fellow."