rder to be introduced to you.
The rest you know."

There was a moment's silence. Then Archie, to test if Random was
willing to admit everything--as an innocent man certainly would--asked
significantly,

"Did you see Bolton again after your interview on board ship?"

It was then that the baronet proved his good faith.

"Oh, yes," he said easily and without hesitation. "I was walking
about Pierside later, and, passing along that waterside alley near
the Sailor's Rest, I saw a window on the ground floor open, and Bolton
looking out across the river. I stopped and asked him when he proposed
to take the mummy to Gartley, and if it was on shore. He admitted that
it was in the hotel, but declined to say when he would send it on to
you, Professor. When he closed the window, I afterwards went into the
hotel and had a drink in order to ask casually when Mr. Bolton intended
to leave. I gathered--not directly, of course, but in a roundabout
way--that he had arranged to go next morning and to send on his luggage.
Then I left and went to London. In the course of time I returned here
and learned of the murder and the disappearance of the corpse of Inca
Caxas. And now," Random stood up, "having admitted all this, perhaps you
will believe me to be innocent."

"You have no idea who murdered Bolton and placed his body in the packing
case?" asked Braddock, manifestly disappointed.

"'No. No more than I have any idea of the person who placed the mummy
case and its contents in Mrs. Jasher's garden."

"Oh, you know that!" said Archie quickly.

"Yes. The news was all over the village this morning. I could hardly
help knowing it. And I believe that the mummy has been taken to your
house, Professor."

"It has," admitted Braddock dryly. "I took it myself from Mrs. Jasher's
arbor in a hand-cart, with the assistance of Cockatoo. But when I made
an examination this morning in the presence of Hope and Don Pedro, I
found that the swathings of the body had been ripped up, and that the
emeralds mentioned in that manuscript had been stolen."

"Strange!" said Random with a frown; "and by whom?"

"No doubt by the assassin of Sidney Bolton."

"Probably." Random kicked a mat straight with his foot. "At any rate
the theft of the emeralds shows that it was not any Indian who killed
Bolton. None of them would rifle so sacred a corpse."

"Besides which--as you say--the Indians in Peru do not know that the
mummy has reappeared after thirty years'