The Red-headed Man. Fergus Hume
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the mummy to red-hair as a receipt for the jewel; in her turn she received the second figure on delivering up the jewel to her assassin.
"Well, admitting as much, why having obtained what he wanted, should he have killed her?"
"Find out that and I'll find the murderer," said Torry grimly. "Well, Mr. Darrel, here is your detective novel in real life. What do you think of the plot provided by chance?"
"Plot!" echoed Darrel. "I should rather call it a riddle--and one quite impossible to guess."
"Ah, sir, you'll never make a detective if this mystery discourages you so early."
"But I don't see how you intend to begin."
"Well," said Torry, "in the first place there is the clue of the initials. I'll go to that shop in Bond-street and find out what the letters 'J.G.,' stand for. Thus I may arrive at the identity of the man, and thereby be able to learn about his past life. In his past life I may discover the motive for the crime. In itself the marked shirt is a good starting point, but there is also the clue of the four-wheeler."
"The four-wheeler?" repeated Frank. "The one driven by Henry which the red-haired man used as a blind, or the second owned by Bike in which I followed?"
"Neither. I am alluding to the third cab which was not on the stand when you returned at one o'clock."
"I don't see what that cab has to do with the business."
"Mr. Darrel! Mr. Darrel!" cried Torry gently. "You may be a good novelist, but, if you'll pardon my saying so, sir, you are a very bad detective. Is it not reasonable to suppose that the woman, anxious to get as far as possible from the scene of her crime would come up Mortality-lane and jump into the third cab? Also you must not forget that she had a rendezvous at Cleopatra's Needle, and, perhaps had to drive quickly to be in time."
"Yes; but coming into contact with a cabman she ran the risk of being--recognised. She must have known that when the murder was discovered the police would probably guess her flight in the four-wheeler, and inquire about her from the driver. He would give her description and----"
"Oh, that is very well!" said Torry, dismissing this objection with a wave of his plump hand, "but the woman never guessed for a moment that chance would intervene; and that by means of her death we should obtain evidence of her crime. She thought she would escape scot-free; also I daresay she was disguised. Or it might be that she was too agitated to pay attention to the risk she ran.
"Anyhow, I am certain that she used the third cab to get away; and I am going to look up the driver."
"How will you find him?"
"By questioning Henry and Bike. Moreover, he may be on the cab-stand himself. I tell you what. Mr. Darrel," cried Torry, getting on his short legs, "let us make a division of labour. You go to Harcot and Harcot in Bond-street to find out what is the name attached to the letters, 'J.G.,' and I'll see to the cabman."
"Very good, Mr. Torry. When and where am I to see you?"
The detective pencilled an address on his card, and threw it across the table. "My private office, where we won't be disturbed," said he. "Eighty Craven-street, Strand. Come at four o'clock this afternoon. By the way, you might then be able to give me some information about the idol there."
"I'll try," said Darrel. "My friend lives near the British Museum, so I shall have time to run up and see him. But there is one thing you are not certain of yet."
"Sir," replied Mr. Torry drily, "there are many things of which I am not certain. But this special thing----"
"You don't know if the individual who killed the woman at Cleopatra's Needle is male or female."
"A male--a man, I'll stake my professional reputation on it."
"Why are you so sure?"
"Why?" echoed the detective, "because the woman ran too great a risk in committing the murder--she would only risk so much for a man."
CHAPTER IV.
THE DEAD MAN'S NAME
Doing is better than dreaming; and a year of experience is worth a century of theorising. All his life Darrel had sat in his study laboriously weaving romances out of such material as he had collected in his wanderings. Now, by a happy chance of fortune, he was about to step out of his ideal world into actual life, and take an active part in a real story. Already fate had laid the foundation of an intricate plot; and it was his business to work out to a fit conclusion the criminal problem presented to him. In his own mind Darrel considered the task impossible.
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.
Patron cleared his throat, adjusted his spectacles, and prepared for a long historical lecture. "In common with certain Asiatic nations," said he, "the ancient Peruvians practised the barbarous custom of immolating victims at the obsequies of great men. Sometimes--according to Prescott--a thousand attendants and favourite concubines would be slaughtered, so that they might accompany the dead Inca to his bright mansion in the sun. On occasions, however, the actual slaughter was dispensed with, and images of clay in the form of mummies, such as we see here," said the savant, pointing to the blue figure, "were substituted for human beings. For every