The Mysterious Mummy | Page 5

beating as the light shone on my rubber
countenance.
But he was satisfied, this stupid policeman, and I heard his footsteps retreating to the
door. I allowed him time to get to the top, and extinguished the light in the Etruscan room,
and then. . . I was out of my tomb and hidden in the little niche immediately beside the
foot of the stairs. I coughed loudly. Heavens! He came back down the steps with such
velocity that he was carried halfway along the room. He began to flash his lantern into
the tombs again; but, before he had examined the first of them, I was upstairs in the
Roman gallery!
Without the electric light it was quite dark in the Etruscan room, which is in the basement;
but, being a bright night, I knew I could find what I required in the Roman gallery
without the aid of artificial light; besides, I had not to act in the open-someone might
arrive too soon. So, thoroughly well posted as to the situation of the switches, I
extinguished the lamps, and dodged in among the Roman stonework to the foot of a great
pillar, towering almost to the lofty roof and surmounted by an ornate capital.
I had planned all this beforehand, you see; but I must confess it was an awful scramble to
the top. I had only just curled up on the summit, the handle of my invaluable leather-case

held fast in my teeth, when a sergeant came running down the gallery, almost into the
arms of the constable who was running up the steps from the Etruscan room.
A moment's hurried conversation, and then the lights turned on and the sound of a whistle.
It was foolish, of course; but I had expected it. From all over the building the police
arrived, and, fatigued as I was with my climb, yet another acrobatic feat was before me.
The top of my pillar was no great distance from the stone balustrade of the first-floor
landing, on which the Egyptian room opens, and a narrow ledge, perhaps of eleven inches,
runs all round the wall of the Roman gallery some four feet below the ceiling. I
cautiously stepped from the pillar to the ledge-I was invisible from the other end of the
place-and, pressing my body close against the wall, reached the balustrade. Before
Constable Smith-who had left his post and descended to the lower gallery on hearing the
sergeant's whistle-re-entered the Egyptian room, my bright, new key had found the lock
of a certain cabinet, and I was secure behind a mummy case-whilst a little steel pin
prevented the spring of the lock from shutting me in.
Poor Constable Smith! I was sorry to have to act so: but, ten minutes after the closing of
the doors of communication, I came on him from behind, having silently crept from the
case as he passed me, and followed him down the darkened room, the thin linen
wrappings that covered my feet making no sound upon the wooden floor. I had a pad
ready in my hand, saturated with the contents of a small phial that had reposed in my
mummy garments.
I thrust my knee in his spine and seized his hands by a trick which you may learn for a
peseta any day in the purlieus of Tangier. A muscular man, he tried hard to cope with his
unseen opponent; but the pad never left his mouth and nostrils, and the few muffled cries
that escaped him were luckily unheard. He soon became unconscious, and I had to work
hard lest the inspector should make his round before I was ready for him. The mummy
case had to be lowered on to the floor, and the heavy body tightly bound and lifted into it,
then stood up again and securely locked behind the glass doors. It was hot work, and I
had but just accomplished the task and climbed into the constable's uniform, when the
inspector's key sounded in the door. Ah! it is an exciting profession!.The rest was easy.
Wrapped up in my yellow mummy linen were the various appliances I required, and in
the leather box was the imitation Rienzi Vase. The circular glass top of the case gave
some trouble. So hard and thick was it that I had to desist five times and conceal my tools,
owing to the hourly visits of the inspector. Poor Constable Smith began to groan toward
six o'clock, and a second dose of medicine was necessary to keep him quiet for another
hour or so.
I filed out with the other police in the morning, the Rienzi Vase inside my helmet. As to
the sequel, it is brief. Of course the detectives tried their hands at the affair; but, pooh!