hands, he gained his feet. In the darkness he could see nothing but two
blazing eyes, and not until the last spark died in them did his fingers
relax. Then, with a savage joy, he threw the limp body against the altar
of Isis, and turned to see what had become of Mrs. Athelstone. She lay
quite still where he had left her, a huddled heap of white upon the
floor.
Simpkins righted and lit the overturned lamp and lifted the unconscious
woman into a chair. There he bound her, wrapping her about with the
linen bandages, until she was quite helpless to move. The obsidian eyes
of the mummy seemed to follow him as he went about his task. Annoyed by
their steady regard, he threw a cloth over the face and sat down to wait
for the woman to come back to life.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
VII
Though her gown was torn and spotted with his blood, Mrs. Athelstone had
never looked more lovely. But Simpkins was quite unmoved by the sight of
her beauty. His infatuation for her, his personal interest in her even,
had puffed out in that moment when he had discovered in the mummied face
a likeness to Doctor Athelstone. He was regarding her now simply as
"material," and fixing in his mind each detail of her appearance, that
he might the more effectively describe her in his story. And what a
splendid one it was! The Blavatsky "spread," with the opportunity which
it afforded to ridicule two rather well-known women--that was good
stuff; the scandal which had unfolded as he worked--that was better
still; but this "mysterious murder," with its novel features--this was
the superlative of excellence in Yellow Journalism. "Talk about Teddy's
luck," thought the reporter; "how about the luck of Simp., old boy?"
He looked at his watch anxiously. He had plenty of time--the paper did
not go to press until two. Relieved, he glanced toward Mrs. Athelstone
again. How still she was! She was taking an unreasonably long time about
coming to! The shadows in the room began to creep in on him again, and
to oppress him with a vague fear, now that he was sitting inactive. He
got up, but just then the woman stirred, and he settled down again.
Slowly she recovered consciousness and looked about her. Her eyes sought
out Simpkins last, and as they rested on him a flash of anger lit them
up. Simpkins returned their stare unflinchingly. They had quite lost
their power over him.
"So you're a thief, Simpkins--and I thought you looked so honest," she
began at last, contempt in her voice.
"Not at all," Simpkins answered, relieved and grateful that she had only
suspected him of being a thief, that there had been no tears, no
pleadings, no hysterics; "I'm nothing of the sort. I'm just your clerk."
"Then, what are you doing here at this time of night? And why did you
attack me? Why have you bound me?"
"I'll be perfectly frank, Mrs. Athelstone." (Simpkins always prefaced
a piece of duplicity by asseverating his innocence of guile.) "I've
blundered on something in there," and he motioned vaguely toward the
coffin, "that is reason enough for binding you and turning you over
to the police, sorry as I should be to take such a step."
"And that something?"
"The body of your husband."
"You beastly little cad," began Mrs. Athelstone, anger flaming in her
face again. Then she stopped short, and her expression went to one of
terror.
The change was not lost on Simpkins. "That's better," he said. "If a
fellow has to condone murder to meet your standards of what's a perfect
little gentleman, you can count me out. Now, just you make up your mind
that repartee won't take us anywhere, and let's get down to cases. There
may be, I believe there are, extenuating circumstances. Tell him the
whole truth and you'll find Simp. your friend, cad or no cad."
As he talked, Mrs. Athelstone regained her composure, and when he was
through she asked calmly enough: "And because you've blundered on
something you don't understand, something that has aroused your silly
suspicions, you would turn me over to the police?"
"It's not a silly suspicion, Mrs. Athelstone, but a cinch. I know your
husband was murdered there," and he pointed to the altar. "And you're
not innocent, though how guilty morally I'm not ready to say. There may
be something behind it all to change my present determination; that
depends on whether you care to talk to me, or would rather wait and take
the third degree at headquarters."
"But you really have made a frightful mistake," she protested, not
angrily now, but rather soothingly.
"Then I'll have to call an officer; perhaps he can set us straight." And
he stood up.
"Sit down," she implored. "Let me explain."
"That's the way to talk; you'll find it'll do you good to loosen up,"
and Simpkins sat down, exulting that he was not to miss the most
striking feature of his story. Until it was on the wire for Boston, and
the New York papers had gone to press, he had as little use for officers
as Mrs. Athelstone. "Remember," he added, as he leaned back to listen,
"that I know enough now to pick out any fancy work."
"It's really absurdly simple. The cemented surface of this mummy had
been damaged, as you can see"----Mrs. Athelstone began, but Simpkins
broke in roughly:
"Come, come, there's no use doping out any more of that stuff to me. I
want the facts. Tell me how Doctor Athelstone was killed or the Tombs
for yours." He was on his feet now, shaking his fist at the woman, and
he noticed with satisfaction that she had shrunk back in her chair till
the linen bandages hung loosely across her breast.
"Yes--yes--I'll tell," was the trembling answer; "only do sit down," and
then after a moment's pause, in which she seemed to be striving to
compose herself, she began:
"I, sir, was a queen, Nefruari, whom they called the good and glorious
woman." And she threw back her head proudly and paused.
This was better than he had dared hope. Yet it was what he had
half-believed; she was quite mad. He felt relieved at this final proof
of it. After all, it would have hurt him to send this woman to "the
chair"; but there would be no condemned cell for her; only the madhouse.
It might be harder for her; but it made it easier for him. He nodded a
grave encouragement for her to continue.
"This is my mummy," she went on, nodding toward the gilded case, "the
shell from which my soul fled three thousand years ago. Since then it
has been upon its wanderings, living in birds and beasts, that the will
of Osiris might be done."
Again she paused, pleased, apparently, with the respectful interest
which Simpkins showed. And, indeed, he was interested; for his reading
on early Egyptian beliefs enabled him to follow the current of her
madness and to trace it back to its sources. So he nodded again, and she
continued:
"Through all these weary centuries, Amosis, my husband, has been with
me, first as king--ah! those days in hundred-gated Thebes--and when at
last my soul lodged in this body he found me out again. As boy and girl
we loved, as man and woman we were married. And the days that followed
were as happy as those old days when we ruled an empire. Not that we
remembered then. The memory of it all but just came back to me two
months ago."
"Did you tell the Doctor about it?" asked Simpkins, in the wheedling
tone of a physician asking a child to put out her tongue.
"I tried to stir his memory gently, by careless hints, a word dropped
here and there, recalling some bright triumph of his reign, some
splendid battle, but there was no response. And so I waited, hoping that
of itself his memory might quicken, as mine had."
"Did Brander know anything about this--er--extraordinary swapping around
of souls?"
"Not then----" began the woman, but Simpkins cut her short by jumping to
his feet with a cry of "What's that!" and his voice was sharp with fear.
For in that silent second, while he waited for her answer, he had heard
a noise out in the hall, the sound of stealthy feet behind the veil, and
he had seen the woman's eyes gleam triumph.
Again the terror that had mastered him an hour before leaped into life,
and quakingly he faced the darkness. But he saw nothing--only the
shifting shadows, the crimson blotches crawling on the veil, and the
vague outlines of the coffined dead.
He looked back to the woman. Her face was masklike. It must have
been a fancy, a vibration of his own tense nerves. But none the less,
he rearranged the light, that while its rays shone clear on Mrs.
Athelstone, he might be in the shadow, and set his chair back close
against the wall, that both the woman and the hall might be well in his
eye. And when he sat down again one hand clutched tight the butt of a
revolver.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
VIII
"You seem strangely disturbed, Simpkins," said Mrs. Athelstone quietly;
but he fancied that there was a note of malicious pleasure in her voice.
"Has anything happened to alarm you?"
"I thought I heard a slight noise, as if something were moving behind
me. Perhaps a mummy was breaking out of its case," he answered, but his
voice was scarcely steady enough for the flippancy of his speech.
"Hardly that," was the serious answer; "but it might have been my cat,
Rameses."
"Not unless it was Rameses II., because--well, it didn't sound like a
cat," he wound up, guiltily conscious of his other reason for certainty
on this point. "Perhaps Isis has climbed down from her pedestal to
stretch herself," and he smiled, but his eyes were anxious, and he shot
a furtive glance toward the veil.
"It's hardly probable," was the calm reply.
"What? Can't the thing use its legs as well as its arms?"
"Ah! then you know----"
"Yes; she reached for me when I was dusting her off, but I kicked harder
than Doctor Athelstone, I suppose, and so touched the spring twice."
"You beast!"
"Well, let it go at that," Simpkins assented. "And let's hear the rest."
He was burning with impatience to reach the end and get away, back to
noisy, crowded Broadway.
But Mrs. Athelstone answered nothing, only looked off toward the altar.
It almost seemed as if she waited for something.
"Go on," commanded Simpkins, stirred to roughness by his growing
uneasiness.
"You will not leave while yet you may?" and her tone doubled the threat
of her words.
"No, not till I've heard it all," he answered doggedly, and gripped
the butt of his revolver tighter. But though he told himself that her
changed manner, this new confidence, this sudden indifference to his
going, was the freak of a madwoman, down deep he felt that it portended
some evil thing for him, knew it, and would not go, could not go; for he
dared not pass the ambushed terror of that altar.
"You still insist?" the woman asked with rising anger. "So be it. Learn
then the fate of meddlers, of dogs who dare to penetrate the mysteries
of Isis."
Simpkins took his eyes from her face and glanced mechanically toward
the veil. But he looked back suddenly, and caught her signalling with a
swift motion of her head to something in the darkness. There could be
no mistake this time. And following her eyes he saw a form, black and
shapeless, steal along to the nearest post.
Revolver in hand, he leaped up and back, upsetting his chair. The thing
remained hidden. He cleared the partitioning sarcophagus at a bound,
and, sliding and backing, reached the centre of the hall, never for one
instant taking his eyes from that post or lowering his revolver. Step by
step, back between the pillars, he retreated, stumbling toward the door
and safety.
Half-way, he heard the woman hiss: "Stop him! Don't let him escape!" And
he saw the thing dart from behind the post. In the uncontrollable
madness of his fear he hurled, instead of firing, his revolver at it,
and turned and ran.
Tapping lightly on the flags behind, he heard swift feet. It was coming,
it was gaining, but he was at the door, through it and had slammed it
safely behind him. A leap, a bound, and he was through the ante-chamber,
and, as the door behind him opened, he was slipping out into the
passageway. He went down the stairs in great jumps. Thank God! he had
left the street door unlocked. But already the sound of pursuit had
stopped, and he reached the open air safely.
Down the deserted street to Broadway he ran. There he hailed a cab and
directed the driver to the telegraph office. Then he leaned back and
looked at the garish lights, the passing cabs, the theatre crowds
hurrying along home, laughing and chatting as if the world held no such
horror as that which he had just escaped. That madwoman's words rang
through his brain, drowning out the voices of the street; the tapping of
those flying feet sounded in his ears above the rattle of the cab. That
or this must be unreal; yet how far off both seemed!
Gradually the rough jolting of the cab shook him back to a sense of his
surroundings and their safety. He began to regain his nerve, and to busy
himself knotting the strands of the story into a connected narrative.
And when, a few minutes later, he handed a message to the manager of the
telegraph office and demanded a clear wire into the _Banner_
office, he was quite the old breezy Simpkins.
Then, coat off, a cigar between his teeth, he sat down beside the
operator and began to write his story, his flying fingers keeping time
with the clicking instrument. He made no mention of the fears that had
beset him in the hall and the manner of his exit from it. But there was
enough and to spare of the dramatic in what he sent. After a sensational
half-column of introduction, fitting the murder on Mrs. Athelstone, and
enlarging on the certainty of one's sin finding one out, provided it
were assisted by a _Banner_ reporter, he swung into the detailed
story, dwelling on the woman's madness and sliding over the details of
the murder as much as possible.
Then he described how, for more than a month, Mrs Athelstone had labored
over the body, hiding it days in the empty case and dragging it out
nights, until she had finished it, with the exception of some detail
about the head, into a faithful replica of the mummy of Amosis, the
original of which she had no doubt burned. It all made a vivid story;
for never had his imagination been in such working order, and never had
it responded more generously to his demands upon it. About two in the
morning he finished his third column and concluded his story with:
"So this awful confession of madness and murder ended. I left the woman
bound and helpless, sitting in her chair, her victim at her feet, to
wait the coming of the police." Then he added to Naylor personally,
"Going notify police headquarters now and go back to hall."
Naylor, who had been reading the copy page by page as it came from the
wire, and who, naturally, was taking a mere cold-blooded view of the
case than Simpkins, telegraphed back:
"What share did Brander have in actual murder? You don't bring that out
in story."
"Couldn't get it out of her," Simpkins sent back, truthfully enough.
"Find out," was the answer. "Get back to hall quick. Brander may have
looked in to help Mrs. A. with her night work while you were gone. Will
hold enough men for an extra."
Simpkins called a cab and started for police headquarters at breakneck
speed, but on the way he stopped at Brander's rooms; for a miserable
suspicion was growing in his brain. "If that really was Isis," he was
thinking, "it's funny she didn't nail me before I got to the door, even
with the start I had."
On his representation that he had called on a matter of life and death,
the janitor admitted him to Brander's rooms. They were empty, and the
bed had not been slept in.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
IX
It was just after three o'clock when Simpkins, an officer on either
side, entered the Oriental Building again, and hurried up the stairs to
the Society's office.
There they were halted, for Simpkins had left his key sticking in
the spring lock inside and slammed the door behind him, a piece of
carelessness over which the officers were greatly exercised; for he had
not confided to them that he had started off in a hurry. In the end,
they sent the door crashing in with their shoulders and preceded
Simpkins--and he was scrupulously polite about this--into the
ante-chamber.
There an incandescent lamp over the youth's desk gave them light and
Simpkins momentary relief. The men used hard language when they found
the second door in the same condition as the first, but Simpkins took
their rating meekly. They tried their shoulders again, but the oak was
stout and long withstood their assaults. When at last it yielded it gave
way suddenly, and they all tumbled pell-mell into the hall. Simpkins
jumped up with incredible agility, and was back in the lighted
ante-chamber before the others had struggled to their feet. Suddenly
they stopped swearing. They looked around them. Then they, too, stepped
back into the ante-chamber.
"Ain't there any way of lighting this place?" asked one of them rather
sullenly.
"Nothing but three incandescents over the desks," answered Simpkins.
"Use your lantern then, Tom; come on now, young feller, and show us
where this woman is," he said roughly, and he pushed Simpkins through
the door.
As the officers followed him, he fell back between them and linked
his arms through theirs. And silently they advanced on the altar, a
grotesque and rather unsteady trio, the bull's eyes on either side
flashing ahead into the darkness.
"The lamp's still burning," whispered Simpkins. They were far enough
into the hall now to see the glow from it in the corner. "Flash your
lights around those pillars, boys. There, over there!"
The bull's eyes jumped about searching her out. "There! now! Hold
still!" cried Simpkins as they focused on the chair.
The black mummy lay as he had left it, the cloth still on the face, but
the chair was empty. Straight to the veil the reporter ran, and pulled
the cord. Light broke from above, and beat down on an altar heaped with
dying roses and the statue of a woman, smiling. And at her feet there
crouched a great black cat, that arched its back and snarled at
Simpkins.
Beyond, the lights were still burning in Mrs. Athelstone's apartment,
but there was no one in the rooms. Some opened drawers in the bureau and
the absence of her toilet articles from the table told of preparations
for a hasty flight.
They did not linger long over their examination of the rooms. But after
replacing the broken doors as best they could and sealing them, they
went out by the main entrance to question the watchman, whom they found
dozing in his chair.
Had he seen anything of Mrs. Athelstone? Sure; he'd called a cab for her
about an hour ago and she'd driven off with her brother.
"Her brother!" echoed Simpkins.
"Yep," yawned the watchman; "you know him--parson--Doctor Brander.
What's up?"
"Nothing," Simpkins returned sourly, but to himself he added, "Oh,
hell!"
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
X
Once in the street again, after a word of explanation to the watchman,
the officers and Simpkins separated, they to report and send out an
alarm for Mrs. Athelstone and Brander, he to call up his office before
rejoining them. His exultation over his beat was keyed somewhat lower,
now that he understood what Brander's real interest in Mrs. Athelstone
was. Mentally, he wrung the neck of Buttons for not having known it;
figuratively, he kicked himself for not having guessed it; literally, he
damned his employers for their British reserve, their cool assumption
that because he was their clerk he was not interested in their family
affairs. "Cuss 'em for snobs," he wound up finally, a deep sense of his
personal grievance stirring his sociable Yankee soul.
Of course, this sickening brother and sister business wouldn't touch the
main fact of the story, but it knocked the "love motive" and the "heart
interest" higher than a kite, utterly ruining some of his prettiest bits
of writing, besides letting him in for a call-down from Naylor. Still,
the old man couldn't be very hard on him--he'd understand that some
trifling little inaccuracies were bound to creep into a great big story
like this, dug out and worked up by one man.
At this more cheerful conclusion, a newsboy, crying his bundle of still
damp papers, came along, and Simpkins hailed him eagerly. Standing under
a lamp on the corner, skipping from front page to back, then from head
to head inside, with an eye skilled to catch at a glance the stories
which a loathed contemporary had that the _Banner_ had missed, he
ran through the bunch. The _Sun_--not a line about Athelstone in
it. Bully! The _American_--he was a little afraid of the _American_.
Safe again. The _World_--Sam Blythe's humorous descriptive story of the
convention led. He stopped to pity Sam and the New York papers, as he
thought of the Boston newsboys, crying his magnificent beat, till all
Washington Street rang with the glory of it. And he could see the
fellows in Mrs. Atkinson's, letting their coffee grow cold as they
devoured the _Banner_, stopping only here and there to call across
to each other: "Good work, Simp., old boy! Great story!"
Then--Simpkins turned the page. Accident--ten killed--bank
robbed--caught--Mrs. Jones gets divorce.... What!
NOTED SCIENTIST SECURES IMPORTANT RIGHTS
DOCTOR ATHELSTONE ARRANGES FOR ROYAL SOCIETY
TO EXPLOIT RECENT DISCOVERIES
Simpkins stuttered around for an exclamation; then looked up weakly.
Instinct started him on the run for the nearest long-distance telephone,
but before he had gone twenty feet he stopped. The paper was long since
off press and distributed. He had no desire to know what Naylor was
saying. He could not even guess. There are heights to which the
imagination cannot aspire.
Then came a faint ray of hope. That was an Associated Press dispatch--a
late one probably. But if it had reached the New York papers in time to
catch the edition, Naylor must have received it soon enough to kill his
story. But even as this hope came it went. The news interest of the
dispatch was largely local. Doubtless it had been sent out only to the
New York papers.
Simpkins forced himself to read the body of the message now, although he
gagged over every line of it:
London, etc. Dr. Alfred W.R. Athelstone, well known in London as the
president of the American branch of the Royal Society of Egyptian
Exploration and Research, arrived here this morning and is stopping
at the Carlton. He announces that the Khedive has been graciously
pleased to grant to his society the sole right to excavate the tombs
recently discovered by one of its agents in the Karnak region. Doctor
Athelstone left home quietly some weeks ago, and held back any
announcement of the discoveries, which promise to be very important,
while the negotiations, now brought to a happy conclusion, were
pending. He sails for New York on the Campania tomorrow.
"Do I go off half-cocked? Am I yellow? Is a pup yellow?" groaned
Simpkins, and he started off aimlessly toward the park, fighting his
Waterloo over again and counting up his losses. That foolish, foolish
letter! Why had he soiled his fingers by opening it! Of course, that
line which loomed so large and fine in his story, that pointed the
impressive finger of Fate at Crime, "_That thing that I have to do is
about done!_" referred to Doctor Athelstone's silly negotiations. The
letter must have been from him. Now, who could have known that a grown
man would indulge in such fool monkey-business as writing love-letters
in hieroglyphics to his own wife?... And that blame black mummy. Back to
darkest Africa for his! If any one ever said mummy to him there'd be
murder done, all right. Oh, for the happy ignorance of those days when
he knew nothing about Egypt except that it was the place from which the
cigarettes came!... Brander, no doubt, had gone out to send a cablegram
of congratulation to Doctor Athelstone, and while he was away the woman
had started in to repair a crack in that precious old Amosis of hers.
Perhaps the moths had got into him! "And she thought that I was crazy,
and was stringing me along, waiting till the Nile Duck got back,"
muttered the reporter, stopping short in his agony. "Oh! you're guessing
good now, Simp., all right, because there's only one way to guess." And
as he started along again he concluded: "Damn it! even the cat came
back!"