Conceive the difficulties of the case. A man--name unknown--meets with, and is murdered by, a woman. This woman--also unknown--goes to keep tryst with an individual--either male or female--and is killed by him, or her. This was all the material upon which Darrel had to work, and it may be guessed that his heart failed him at the meagre detail afforded by the affair. The sole clues were two clay images coloured blue; the initials 'J.G.' marked on the murdered man's linen; and the possible chance of extracting useful information from a cabman. Yet starting from these three points, Torry hoped to arrive at the goal he aimed at, viz.: to capture, and condemn, and hang, the guilty individual. Darrel could not with-hold his admiration at the determination of the little man.
"Detective fiction is easier to follow than detective fact," said Darrel to himself as he prepared to go out. "With the materials supplied by this Mortality-lane case, I could work out a very fair novel. Fate, Fortune, Destiny, or whosoever is designing this actual romance will develop it in quite a different way, no doubt. Well"--he put on his hat--"I am one of the actors in the drama, and it is my turn to step on to the stage. Here goes for an elucidation of the Blue Mummy Mystery."
Rather amused by his own ideas, Darrel stepped into a hansom, and drove to his friend's rooms near the British Museum. In his pocket he carried the grotesque little image from which he hoped to learn so much. Luckily the Egyptologist--Patron was his name--proved to be at home, a long, lean savant with grizzled hair and spectacles. He received Darrel very amiably, for they were old friends, and had been fellow-students at Oxford. Frank looked still young and blooming, as was natural at the age of five-and-twenty; but Patron, though barely thirty, was already aged by hard study and a misanthropic temperament. In the hands of this prematurely old individual Darrel placed the image.
"Look at the Egyptian mummy, old fellow," said he taking a seat, "and tell me what you think of it."
Mr. Patron stroked his cheek and chin; examined the azure idol through his learned spectacles, and contradicted Frank in a clear, calm voice. "As usual, my dear Darrel, you speak without thinking," said he, "the image is not Egyptian at all."
"It is the representation of a mummy," protested Frank, "and I always understood that the Egyptians were the only people who salted and dried their dead."
"Then you understood wrongly," contradicted Patron. "The ancient Peruvians also embalmed their dead. This is the image of a Peruvian mummy."
"How do you know?" asked Darrel, rather amazed at this remark.
"Don't you see the representation of the sun on its breast?" snapped the other. "The ancient Peruvians were sun-worshippers. Judging from the solar symbol, I should say that this mummy comes from the tomb of some Inca. It is--what we call--a tomb image."
"What is that?" questioned the visitor.