CHAPTER II. PROFESSOR BRADDOCK

There was only one really palatial mansion in Gartley, and that was the
ancient Georgian house known as the Pyramids. Lucy’s step-father had
given the place this eccentric name on taking up his abode there some
ten years previously. Before that time the dwelling had been occupied by
the Lord of the Manor and his family. But now the old squire was dead,
and his impecunious children were scattered to the four quarters of the
globe in search of money with which to rebuild their ruined fortunes. As
the village was somewhat isolated and rather unhealthily situated in a
marshy country, the huge, roomy old Grange had not been easy to let,
and had proved quite impossible to sell. Under these disastrous
circumstances, Professor Braddock–who described himself humorously as
a scientific pauper–had obtained the tenancy at a ridiculously low
rental, much to his satisfaction.

Many people would have paid money to avoid exile in these damp waste
lands, which, as it were, fringed civilization, but their loneliness and
desolation suited the Professor exactly. He required ample room for his
Egyptian collection, with plenty of time to decipher hieroglyphics and
study perished dynasties of the Nile Valley. The world of the present
day did not interest Braddock in the least. He lived almost continuously
on that portion of the mental plane which had to do with the far-distant
past, and only concerned himself with physical existence, when it
consisted of mummies and mystic beetles, sepulchral ornaments,
pictured documents, hawk-headed deities and suchlike things of almost
inconceivable antiquity. He rarely walked abroad and was invariably
late for meals, save when he missed any particular one altogether, which
happened frequently. Absent-minded in conversation, untidy in dress,
unpractical in business, dreamy in manner, Professor Braddock lived
solely for archaeology. That such a man should have taken to himself a
wife was mystery.

Yet he had been married fifteen years before to a widow, who possessed
a limited income and one small child. It was the opportunity of
securing the use of a steady income which had decoyed Braddock into the
matrimonial snare of Mrs. Kendal. To put it plainly, he had married the
agreeable widow for her money, although he could scarcely be called a
fortune-hunter. Like Eugene Aram, he desired cash to assist learning,
and as that scholar had committed murder to secure what he wanted, so
did the Professor marry to obtain his ends. These were to have someone
to manage the house, and to be set free from the necessity of earning
his bread, so that he might indulge in pursuits more pleasurable than
money-making. Mrs. Kendal was a placid, phlegmatic lady, who liked
rather than loved the Professor, and who desired him more as a companion
than as a husband. With Braddock she did not arrange a romantic marriage
so much as enter into a congenial partnership. She wanted a man in the
house, and he desired freedom from pecuniary embarrassment. On these
lines the prosaic bargain was struck, and Mrs. Kendal became the
Professor’s wife with entirely successful results. She gave her
husband a home, and her child a father, who became fond of Lucy, and
who–considering he was merely an amateur parent–acted admirably.

But this sensible partnership lasted only for five years. Mrs. Braddock
died of a chill on the liver and left her five hundred a year to the
Professor for life, with remainder to Lucy, then a small girl of ten. It
was at this critical moment that Braddock became a practical man for
the first and last time in his dreamy life. He buried his wife with
unfeigned regret–for he had been sincerely attached to her in his
absent-minded way–and sent Lucy to a Hampstead boarding school. After
an interview with his late wife’s lawyer to see that the income was
safe, he sought for a house in the country, and quickly discovered
Gartley Grange, which no one would take because of its isolation. Within
three months from the burial of Mrs. Braddock, the widower had removed
himself and his collection to Gartley, and had renamed his new abode
the Pyramids. Here he dwelt quietly and enjoyably–from his dry-as-dust
point of view–for ten years, and here Lucy Kendal had come when her
education was completed. The arrival of a marriageable young lady made
no difference in the Professor’s habits, and he hailed her thankfully as
the successor to her mother in managing the small establishment. It is
to be feared that Braddock was somewhat selfish in his views, but the
fixed idea of archaeological research made him egotistical.

The mansion was three-story, flat-roofed, extremely ugly and
unexpectedly comfortable. Built of mellow red brick with dingy white
stone facings, it stood a few yards back from the roadway which ran from
Gartley Fort through the village, and, at the precise point where the
Pyramids was situated, curved abruptly through woodlands to terminate a
mile away, at Jessum, the local station of the Thames Railway Line. An
iron railing, embedded in moldering stone work, divided the narrow front
garden from the road, and on either side of the door–which could be
reached by five shallow steps–grew two small yew trees, smartly clipped
and trimmed into cones of dull green. These yews possessed some magical
significance, which Professor Braddock would occasionally explain to
chance visitors interested in occult matters; for, amongst other things
Egyptian, the archaeologist searched into the magic of the Sons of
Khem, and insisted that there was more truth than superstition in their
enchantments.

Braddock used all the vast rooms of the ground floor to house his
collection of antiquities, which he had acquired through many laborious
years. He dwelt entirely in this museum, as his bedroom adjoined
his study, and he frequently devoured his hurried meals amongst the
brilliantly tinted mummy cases. The embalmed dead populated his world,
and only now and then, when Lucy insisted, did he ascend to the first
floor, which was her particular abode. Here was the drawing-room,
the dining-room and Lucy’s boudoir; here also were sundry bedrooms,
furnished and unfurnished, in one of which Miss Kendal slept, while
the others remained vacant for chance visitors, principally from
the scientific world. The third story was devoted to the cook, her
husband–who acted as gardener–and to the house parlor maid, a
composite domestic, who worked from morning until night in keeping
the great house clean. During the day these servants attended to their
business in a comfortable basement, where the cook ruled supreme. At the
back of the mansion stretched a fairly large kitchen garden, to which
the cook’s husband devoted his attention. This was the entire domain
belonging to the tenant, as, of course, the Professor did not rent
the arable acres and comfortable farms which had belonged to the
dispossessed family.

Everything in the house went smoothly, as Lucy was a methodical young
person, who went by the clock and the almanac. Braddock little knew how
much of his undeniable comfort he owed to her fostering care; for,
prior to her return from school, he had been robbed right and left by
unscrupulous domestics. When his step-daughter arrived he simply handed
over the keys and the housekeeping money–a fixed sum–and gave her
strict instructions not to bother him. Miss Kendal faithfully observed
this injunction, as she enjoyed being undisputed mistress, and knew
that, so long as her step-father had his meals, his bed, his bath
and his clothes, he required nothing save the constant society of his
beloved mummies, of which no one wished to deprive him. These he dusted
and cleansed and rearranged himself. Not even Lucy dared to invade the
museum, and the mere mention of spring cleaning drove the Professor into
displaying frantic rage, in which he used bad language.

On returning from her walk with Archie, the girl had lured her
step-father into assuming a rusty dress suit, which had done service for
many years, and had coaxed him into a promise to be present at dinner.
Mrs. Jasher, the lively widow of the district, was coming, and Braddock
approved of a woman who looked up to him as the one wise man in the
world. Even science is susceptible to judicious flattery, and Mrs.
Jasher was never backward in putting her admiration into words.
Female gossip declared that the widow wished to become the second Mrs.
Braddock, but if this was really the case, she had but small chance of
gaining her end. The Professor had once sacrificed his liberty to secure
a competence, and, having acquired five hundred a year, was not inclined
for a second matrimonial venture. Had the widow been a dollar heiress
with a million at her back he would not have troubled to place a ring
on her finger. And certainly Mrs. Jasher had little to gain from such a
dreary marriage, beyond a collection of rubbish–as she said–and a
dull country house situated in a district inhabited solely by peasants
belonging to Saxon times.

Archie Hope left Lucy at the door of the Pyramids and repaired to his
village lodgings, for the purpose of assuming evening dress. Lucy, being
her own housekeeper, assisted the overworked parlor maid to lay and
decorate the table before receiving the guests. Thus Mrs. Jasher found
no one in the drawing-room to welcome her, and, taking the privilege of
old friendship, descended to beard Braddock in his den. The Professor
raised his eyes from a newly bought scarabeus to behold a stout little
lady smiling on him from the doorway. He did not appear to be grateful
for the interruption, but Mrs. Jasher was not at all dismayed, being
a man-hunter by profession. Besides, she saw that Braddock was in the
clouds as usual, and would have received the King himself in the same
absent-minded manner.

“Pouf! what an abominal smell!” exclaimed the widow, holding a
flimsy lace handkerchief to her nose. “Kind of camphor-sandal-wood
charnel-house smell. I wonder you are not asphyxiated. Pouf! Ugh!
Bur-r-r

The Professor stared at her with cold, fishy eyes. “Did you speak?”

“Oh, dear me, yes, and you don’t even ask me to take a chair. If I were
a nasty stuffy mummy, now, you would be embracing me by, this time.
Don’t you know that I have come to dinner, you silly man?” and she
tapped him playfully with her closed fan.

“I have had dinner,” said Braddock, egotistic as usual.

“No, you have not.” Mrs. Jasher spoke positively, and pointed to a
small tray of untouched food on the side table. “You have not even had
luncheon. You must live on air, like a chameleon–or on love, perhaps,”
she ended in a significantly tender tone.

But she might as well have spoken to the granite image of Horus in the
corner. Braddock merely rubbed his chin and stared harder than ever at
the glittering visitor.

“Dear me!” he said innocently. “I must have forgotten to eat.
Lamplight!” he looked round vaguely. “Of course, I remember lighting the
lamps. Time has gone by very rapidly. I am really hungry.” He paused to
make sure, then repeated his remark in a more positive manner. “Yes, I
am very hungry, Mrs. Jasher.” He looked at her as though she had just
entered. “Of course, Mrs. Jasher. Do you wish to see me about anything
particular?”

The widow frowned at his inattention, and then laughed. It was
impossible to be angry with this dreamer.

“I have come to dinner, Professor. Do try and wake up; you are half
asleep and half starved, too, I expect.”

“I certainly feel unaccountably hungry,” admitted Braddock cautiously.

“Unaccountably, when you have eaten nothing since breakfast. You weird
man, I believe you are a mummy yourself.”

But the Professor had again returned to examine the scarabeus, this time
with a powerful magnifying glass.

“It certainly belongs to the twentieth dynasty,” he murmured, wrinkling
his brows.

Mrs. Jasher stamped and flirted her fan pettishly. The creature’s soul,
she decided, was certainly not in his body, and until it came back he
would continue to ignore her. With the annoyance of a woman who is
not getting her own way, she leaned back in Braddock’s one comfortable
chair–which she had unerringly selected–and examined him intently.
Perhaps the gossips were correct, and she was trying to imagine what
kind of a husband he would make. But whatever might be her thoughts, she
eyed Braddock as earnestly as Braddock eyed the scarabeus.

Outwardly the Professor did not appear like the savant he was reported
to be. He was small of stature, plump of body, rosy as a little Cupid,
and extraordinarily youthful, considering his fifty-odd years of
scientific wear and tear. With a smooth, clean-shaven face, plentiful
white hair like spun silk, and neat feet and hands, he did not look his
age. The dreamy look in his small blue eyes was rather belied by the
hardness of his thin-lipped mouth, and by the pugnacious push of his
jaw. The eyes and the dome-like forehead hinted that brain without much
originality; but the lower part of this contradictory countenance might
have belonged to a prize-fighter. Nevertheless, Braddock’s plumpness did
away to a considerable extent with his aggressive look. It was certainly
latent, but only came to the surface when he fought with a brother
savant over some tomb-dweller from Thebes. In the soft lamplight he
looked like a fighting cherub, and it was a pity–in the interests of
art–that the hairless pink and white face did not surmount a pair of
wings rather than a rusty and ill-fitting dress suit.

“He’s nane sa dafty as he looks,” thought Mrs. Jasher, who was Scotch,
although she claimed to be cosmopolitan. “With his mummies he is all
right, but outside those he might be difficult to manage. And these
things,” she glanced round the shadowy room, crowded with the dead
and their earthly belongings. “I don’t think I would care to marry the
British Museum. Too much like hard work, and I am not so young as I
was.”

The near mirror–a polished silver one, which had belonged, ages ago, to
some coquette of Memphis–denied this uncomplimentary thought, for Mrs.
Jasher did not look a day over thirty, although her birth certificate
set her down as forty-five. In the lamplight she might have passed for
even younger, so carefully had she preserved what remained to her of
youth. She assuredly was somewhat stout, and never had been so tall
as she desired to be. But the lines of her plump figure were still
discernible in the cunningly cut gown, and she carried her little self
with such mighty dignity that people overlooked the mortifying height of
a trifle over five feet. Her features were small and neat, but her large
blue eyes were so noticeable and melting that those on whom she turned
them ignored the lack of boldness in chin and nose. Her hair was brown
and arranged in the latest fashion, while her complexion was so fresh
and pink that, if she did paint–as jealous women averred–she must
have been quite an artist with the hare’s foot and the rouge pot and the
necessary powder puff.

Mrs. Jasher’s clothes repaid the thought she expended upon them, and
she was artistic in this as in other things. Dressed in a crocus-yellow
gown, with short sleeves to reveal her beautiful arms, and cut low to
display her splendid bust, she looked perfectly dressed. A woman would
have declared the wide-netted black lace with which the dress was draped
to be cheap, and would have hinted that the widow wore too many jewels
in her hair, on her corsage, round her arms, and ridiculously gaudy
rings on her fingers. This might have been true, for Mrs. Jasher
sparkled like the Milky Way at every movement; but the gleam of gold
and the flash of gems seemed to suit her opulent beauty. Her slightest
movement wafted around her a strange Chinese perfume, which she
obtained–so she said–from a friend of her late husband’s who was in
the British Embassy at Pekin. No one possessed this especial perfume but
Mrs. Jasher, and anyone who had previously met her, meeting her in the
darkness, could have guessed at her identity. With a smile to show
her white teeth, with her golden-hued dress and glittering jewels, the
pretty widow glowed in that glimmering room like a tropical bird.

The Professor raised his dreamy eyes and laid the beetle on one side,
when his brain fully grasped that this charming vision was waiting to
be entertained. She was better to look upon even than the beloved
scarabeus, and he advanced to shake hands as though she had just entered
the room. Mrs. Jasher–knowing his ways–rose to extend her hand, and
the two small, stout figures looked absurdly like a pair of chubby
Dresden ornaments which had stepped from the mantelshelf.

“Dear lady, I am glad to see you. You have–you have”–the Professor
reflected, and then came back with a rush to the present century–“you
have come to dinner, if I mistake not.”

“Lucy asked me a week ago,” she replied tartly, for no woman likes to be
neglected for a mere beetle, however ancient.

“Then you will certainly get a good dinner,” said Braddock, waving his
plump white hands. “Lucy is an excellent housekeeper. I have no fault
to find with her–no fault at all. But she is obstinate–oh, very
obstinate, as her mother was. Do you know, dear lady, that in a papyrus
scroll which I lately acquired I found the recipe for a genuine Egyptian
dish, which Amenemha–the last Pharaoh of the eleventh dynasty, you
know–might have eaten, and probably did eat. I desired Lucy to serve it
to-night, but she refused, much to my annoyance. The ingredients, which
had to do with roasted gazelle, were oil and coriander seed and–if my
memory serves me–asafoetida.”

“Ugh!” Mrs. Jasher’s handkerchief went again to her mouth. “Say no
more, Professor; your dish sounds horrid. I don’t wish to eat it, and be
turned into a mummy before my time.”

“You would make a really beautiful mummy,” said Braddock, paying what
he conceived was a compliment; “and, should you die, I shall certainly
attend to your embalming, if you prefer that to cremation.”

“You dreadful man!” cried the widow, turning pale and shrinking. “Why, I
really believe that you would like to see me packed away in one of those
disgusting coffins.”

“Disgusting!” cried the outraged Professor, striking one of the
brilliantly tinted cases. “Can you call so beautiful a specimen of
sepulchral art disgusting? Look at the colors, at the regularity of
the hieroglyphics–why, the history of the dead is set out in this
magnificent series of pictures.” He adjusted his pince-nez and began
to read, “The Osirian, Scemiophis that is a female name, Mrs.
Jasher–who–”

“I don’t want to have my history written on my coffin,” interrupted the
widow hysterically, for this funereal talk frightened her. “It would
take much more space than a mummy case upon which to write it. My life
has been volcanic, I can tell you. By the way,” she added hurriedly,
seeing that Braddock was on the eve of resuming the reading, “tell me
about your Inca mummy. Has it arrived?”

The Professor immediately followed the false trail. “Not yet,” he said
briskly, rubbing his smooth hands, “but in three days I expect The Diver
will be at Pierside, and Sidney will bring the mummy on here. I shall
unpack it at once and learn exactly how the ancient Peruvians embalmed
their dead. Doubtless they learned the art from–”

“The Egyptians,” ventured Mrs. Jasher rashly.

Braddock glared. “Nothing of the sort, dear lady,” he snorted angrily.
“Absurd, ridiculous! I am inclined to believe that Egypt was merely a
colony of that vast island of Atlantis mentioned by Plato. There–if
my theory is correct–civilization begun, and the kings of
Atlantis–doubtless the gods of historical tribes–governed the whole
world, including that portion which we now term South America.”

“Do you mean to say that there were Yankees in those days?” inquired
Mrs. Jasher frivolously.

The Professor tucked his hands under his shabby coattails and strode
up and down the room warming his rage, which was provoked by such
ignorance.

“Good heavens, madam, where have you lived?” he exclaimed
explosively–“are you a fool, or merely an ignorant woman? I am talking
of prehistoric times, thousands of years ago, when you were probably a
stray atom embedded in the slime.”

“Oh, you horrid creature!” cried Mrs. Jasher indignantly, and was about
to give Braddock her opinion, if only to show him that she could hold
her own, when the door opened.

“How are you, Mrs. Jasher?” said Lucy, advancing.

“Here am I and here is Archie. Dinner is ready. And you–”

“I am very hungry,” said Mrs. Jasher. “I have been called an atom of the
slime,” then she laughed and took possession of young Hope.

Lucy wrinkled her brow; she did not approve of the widow’s man-annexing
instinct.