The Mysterious Mummy | Page 2

it may have been a fresh one. You see, the other lot were on duty up to last night.'
This was quite true, as the sergeant was aware. Three bodies of picked men share the night duties at the Great Portland Square Museum, and those on duty upon this particular occasion had not been in the place during the previous two weeks.
'Very strange!' muttered the sergeant; and a moment later his whistle was sounding.
From all over the building men came running, for none of the doors had yet been locked.
'There seems to be someone concealed in the Museum: search all the rooms again!' was the brief order.
The constables disappeared, and the sergeant, accompanied by the inspector, went down to examine the Etruscan room. Nothing was found there; nor were any of the other searchers more successful. There was no trace anywhere of a man in hiding. Beyond leaving open the door between the Roman gallery and the steps of the Etruscan room, no more could be done in the matter. The gallery communicates with the entrance hall, where the inspector, together with the sergeant and fireman, spends the night, and the idea of the former was to keep in touch with the scene of these singular happenings. His action was perfectly natural; but these precautions were subsequently proved to be absolutely useless.
The night passed without any disturbing event, and the mystery of the vanishing mummy and the ghostly cough seemed likely to remain a mystery. The night-police filed out in the early morning, and the inspector, with the sergeant, returned, as soon as possible, to the Museum, to make further inquiries concerning the missing occupant of the sarcophagus.
'A mummy in the end tomb!' exclaimed the curator of Etruscan antiquities; 'my dear sir, there has been no mummy there for nearly a month!'
'But my man states that he saw one there last night!' declared the inspector.
The curator looked puzzled. Turning to an attendant, he said: 'Who was in charge of the Etruscan room immediately before six last night?'
'I was, sir!'
'Were there any visitors?'
'No one came in between five-forty and six.'
'And before that?'
'I was away at tea, sir!'
'Who was in charge then?'
'Mr Robins.'
'Call Robins.'
The commissionaire in question arrived.
'How long were you in the Etruscan room last night?'
'About half-an-hour, sir.'
'Are you sure that no one concealed himself?'
The man looked startled. 'Well, sir,' he said hesitatingly, 'I'm sorry I didn't report it before; but when Mr Barton called me, at about twenty-five minutes to six, there was someone there, a gent in a seedy frock-coat and a high hat, and I don't remember seeing him come out.'
'Did you search the room?'
'Yes, sir; but there was no one to be seen!'
'You should have reported the matter at once. I must see Barton.'
Barton, the head attendant, remembered speaking to Robins at the top of the steps leading to the Etruscan room. He saw no one come out, but it was just possible for a person to have done so and yet be seen by neither himself nor Robins.
'Let three of you thoroughly overhaul the room for any sign of a man having hidden there,' directed the curator briskly.
He turned to the sergeant and inspector with a smile, 'I rather fancy it will prove to be a mare's nest!' he said. 'We have had these mysteries before.'
The words had but just left his lips when a Museum official, a well-known antiquarian expert, ran up in a perfect frenzy of excitement. 'Good heavens, Peters!' he gasped. 'The Rienzi Vase has gone!'
'What!' came an incredulous chorus.
'The circular top of the case has been completely cut out and ingeniously replaced, and a plausible imitation of the vase substituted!'
They waited for no more, but hurried upstairs to the Vase room, which, in the Great Portland Square Museum, is really only a part of the Egyptian room. The Rienzi Vase, though no larger than an ordinary breakfast-cup, all the world knows to be of fabulous value. It seemed inconceivable that anyone could have stolen it. Yet there, in the midst of a knot of excited officials, stood the empty case, whilst the imitation antique was being passed from hand to hand.
Never before nor since has such a scene been witnessed in the Museum. The staff, to a man, had lost their wits. What is to be done? was the general inquiry. In less than half an hour the doors would have to be opened to the public, and the absence of the famous vase would inevitably be noticed. It was at this juncture, and whilst everyone was speaking at once, that one of the party, standing close to a wall-cabinet, suddenly held up a warning finger. 'Hush!' he said; 'listen!'
A sudden silence fell upon the room so that people running about in other apartments could be plainly heard. And presently, from somewhere behind