The Green Mummy

by Fergus Hume

“Well, she is dead, poor soul!” said Hope with a sigh. “God knows that if she sinned, she has paid cruelly for her sin,” after which remark, as Sir Frank was silent, he resumed his reading.

Braddock was furious when he learned of his assistant's projected trickery, and he determined to circumvent him. He agreed to marry Mrs. Jasher, as, if he had not done so, she could have warned Sidney and he could have escaped with both the mummy and the jewels by conniving with Hervey. The Professor could not risk that, as, remembering Hervey as Gustav Vasa, he was aware how clever and reckless he was. Whether Braddock ever intended to marry the widow in the end it is hard to say, but he certainly pretended to consent to the engagement, which was mainly brought about by Lucy. Then came the details of the murder so far as Mrs. Jasher knew.

One evening—in fact on the evening when the crime was committed—the woman was walking in her garden late. In the moonlight she saw Braddock and Cockatoo go down along the cinderpath to the jetty near the Fort. Wondering what they were doing, she waited up, and heard and saw them—for it was still moonlight—come back long after midnight. The next day she heard of the murder, and guessed that the Professor and his slave—for Cockatoo was little else—had rowed up to Pierside in a boat and there had strangled Sidney and stolen the mummy. She saw Braddock and accused him. The Professor had then opened the case, and had pretended astonishment when discovering the corpse of the man whom Cockatoo had strangled, as he knew perfectly well.

Braddock at first denied having been to Pierside, but Mrs. Jasher insisted that she would tell the police, so he was forced to make a clean breast of it to the woman.

“Now for it,” said Random, settling himself to hear details of the crime, for he had often wondered how it had been executed.

“Braddock,” read Archie from the confession, for Mrs. Jasher did not trouble herself with a polite prefix—“Braddock explained that when he received a letter from Sidney stating that he would have to remain with the mummy for a night in Pierside, he guessed that his treacherous assistant intended to effect the robbery. It seems that Sidney by mistake had left behind the disguise in which he intended to escape. Aware of this through me”—Mrs. Jasher referred to herself—“he made Cockatoo assume the dress and row up the river to the Sailor's Rest. The Kanaka easily could be mistaken for a woman, as he also, like Sidney, was slender and smooth-chinned. Also, he wore the shawl over his head to disguise his mop of frizzy hair as much as possible, and for the purpose of concealing his tattooed face. In the darkness—it was after nine o'clock—he spoke to Sidney through the window, as he had seen him there earlier, when searching for him. Cockatoo said that Sidney was much afraid when he heard that his purpose had been discovered by the Professor. He offered a share of the plunder to the Kanaka, and Cockatoo agreed, saying he would come back late, and that Sidney was to admit him into the bedroom so that they could open the mummy and steal the jewels. Sidney quite believed that Cockatoo was heart and soul with him, especially as the cunning Kanaka swore that he was weary of his master's tyranny. It was when Cockatoo was talking thus that he was seen by Eliza Flight, who mistook him—very naturally—for a woman. Cockatoo then returned by boat to the Gartley jetty and told his master. Afterwards, the Professor, at a much later hour, went down to the jetty and was rowed up to Pierside by the Kanaka.”

“That was when Mrs. Jasher saw them,” said Random, much interested.

“Yes,” said Archie. “And then, if you remember; she watched for the return of the couple.”

“It was nearly midnight when the boat was brought alongside the sloping stone bank of the alley which ran past the Sailor's Rest. No one was about at that hour, not even a policeman, and there was no light in Sidney Bolton's window. Braddock was much agitated as he thought that Sidney had already escaped. He waited in the boat and sent Cockatoo to knock at the window. Then a light appeared and the window was silently opened. The Kanaka slipped in and remained there for some ten minutes after closing the window. When he returned, the light was extinguished. He whispered to his master that Sidney had opened the packing case and the mummy coffin, and had ripped the swathings to get the jewels. When Sidney would not hand over the jewels to the Kanaka, as the latter wanted him to, Cockatoo, already prepared with the window cord, which he had silently taken from the blind, sprang upon the unfortunate assistant and strangled him. Cockatoo told this to his horrified master, and wanted him to come back to hide the corpse in the packing case. Braddock refused, and then Cockatoo told him that he would throw the jewels—which he had taken from Sidney's body—into the river. The position of master and servant was reversed, and Braddock was forced to obey.

“The Professor slipped silently ashore and into the room. The two men relighted the candle and pulled down the blind. They then placed the corpse of Sidney in the packing case, and screwed the same down in silence. When this was completed, they were about to carry the mummy in its coffin—the lid of which they had replaced—to the boat, when they heard distant footsteps, probably those of a policeman on his beat. At once they extinguished the candle, and—as Braddock told Mrs. Jasher—he, for one, sat trembling in the dark. But the policeman—if the footsteps were those of a policeman—passed up another street, and the two were safe. Without relighting the candle, they silently slipped the mummy through the window, Cockatoo within and Braddock without. The case and its contents were not heavy, and it was not difficult for the two men to take it to the boat. When it was safely bestowed, Cockatoo—who was as cunning as the devil, according to his master returned to the bedroom, and unlocked the door. He afterwards passed a string through the joining of the upper and lower windows, and managed to shut the snib. Afterwards he came to the boat and rowed it back to Gartley. On the way Cockatoo told his master that Sidney had left instructions that the packing case should be taken next morning to the Pyramids, so there was nothing to fear. The mummy was hidden in a hole under the jetty and covered with grass.”