CHAPTER XIX. NEARER THE TRUTH

For a few moments there was silence. Lucy and Archie sat still, as they

were too much surprised by Don Pedro's recognition of Captain Hervey as

the Swedish sailor Vasa to move or speak. But the Professor did not seem

to be greatly astonished, and the sole sound which broke the stillness

was his sardonic chuckle. Perhaps the little man had progressed beyond

the point of being surprised at anything, or, like, Moliere's hero, was

only surprised at finding virtue in unexpected places.

As for the Peruvian and the skipper, they were both on their feet,

eyeing one another like two fighting dogs. Hervey was the first to find

his very useful tongue.

“I guess you've got the bulge on me,” said he, trying to outstare

the Peruvian, for which nationality, from long voyaging on the South

American coast, he entertained the most profound contempt.

But in De Gayangos he found a foeman worthy of his steel.

“I think not,” said Don Pedro quietly, and facing the pseudo-American

bravely. “I never forget faces, and yours is a noticeable one. When you

first spoke I fancied that I remembered your voice. All that business

with the chair was to get close to you, so that I could see the scar

on your right temple. It is still there, I notice. Also, I dropped my

cigarette case and forced you to pick it up, so that, when you stretched

your arm, I might see what mark was on your left wrist. It is a serpent

encircling the sun, which Lola Farjados induced you to have tattooed

when you were in Lima thirty years ago. Your eyes are blue and full of

light, and as you were twenty when I knew you, the lapse of years has

made you fifty--your present age.”

“Shucks!” said Hervey coolly, and sat down to smoke.

Don Pedro turned to Archie and Braddock.

“Mr. Hope! Professor!” he remarked, “if you remember the description I

gave of Gustav Vasa, I appeal to you to see if it does not exactly fit

this man?”

“It does,” said Archie unhesitatingly, “although I cannot see the

tattooed left wrist to which you refer.”

Hervey, still smoking, made no offer to show the symbol, but Braddock

unexpectedly came to the assistance of Don Pedro.

“The man is Vasa right enough,” he remarked abruptly. “Whether he is

Swedish or American I cannot say. But he is the same man I met when I

was in Lima thirty years ago, after the war.”

Hervey slowly turned his blue eyes on the scientist with a twinkle in

their depths.

“So you recognized me?” he observed, with his Yankee drawl.

“I recognized you at the moment I hired you to take The Diver to Malta

to bring back that mummy,” retorted Braddock, “but it didn't suit my

book to let on. Didn't you recognize me?”

“Wal, no,” said Hervey, his drawl more pronounced than ever. “I haven't

got the memory for faces that you and the Don here seem to possess.

Huh!” He wheeled his chair and faced Braddock squarely. “I'd have

thought you wiser not to back up the Don, sir.”

Braddock's little eyes sparkled.

“I am not afraid of you,” said he with great contempt. “I never did

anything for which you could get money out of me for, Captain Hervey or

Gustav Vasa, or whatever your name might be.”

“You were always a mighty spry man,” assented the skipper coolly, “but

spry men, I take it, make mistakes from being too almighty smart.”

Braddock shrugged his shoulders, and Don Pedro intervened.

“This is all beside the point,” he remarked angrily. “Captain Hervey, do

you deny that you are Gustav Vasa in the face of this evidence?”

Hervey drew up the left sleeve of his reefer jacket, and showed on his

bared wrist the symbol of the sun and the encircling serpent.

“Is that enough?” he drawled, “or do you want to look at this?” and he

turned his head to reveal his scarred right temple.

“Then you admit that you are Vasa?”

“Wal,” drawled the captain again, “that's one of my names, I guess,

though I haven't used it since I traded that blamed mummy in Paris,

thirty years ago. There's nothing like owning up.”

“Are you not Swedish?” asked Lucy timidly.

“I am a citizen of the world, I guess,” replied Hervey with great

politeness for him, “and America suits me for headquarters as well as

any other nation. I might be Swedish or Danish or a Dago for choice.

Vasa may be my name, or Hervey, or anything you like. But I guess I'm a

man all through.”

“And a thief!” cried Don Pedro, who had resumed his seat, but was

keeping quiet with difficulty.

“Not of those emeralds,” rejoined the skipper coolly: “Lord, to think

of the chance I missed! Thirty years ago I could have looted them,

and again the other day. But I never knew--I never knew,” cried Hervey

regretfully, with his vividly blue eyes on the mummy. “I could jes' kick

myself, gentlemen, when I think of the miss.”

“Then you didn't steal the manuscript along with the emeralds?”

“Wal, I did,” cried Hervey, turning to Archie, who had spoken, “but it

was in a furren lingo, to which I didn't catch on. If I'd known I'd have

learned about those blamed emeralds.”

“What did you do with the copy of the manuscript you stole?” asked Don

Pedro sharply. “I know there was a copy, as my father told me so. I have

the original myself, but the transcript--and not a translation, as I

fancied--appeared in Sir Frank Random's room to-day, hidden behind some

books.”

Hervey made no move, but smoked steadily, with his eyes on the carpet.

However, Archie, who was observing keenly, saw that he was more startled

than he would admit. The explanation had taken him by surprise.

“Explain!” cried the Peruvian sharply.

Hervey looked up and fixed a pair of very evil eyes on the Don.

“See here,” he remarked, “if the lady wasn't present, I'd show you that

I take no orders from any yellow--that is, from any low-down Don.”

“Lucy, my dear, leave us,” said Braddock, rising, much excited; “we must

have this matter sifted to the bottom, and if Hervey can explain better

in your absence, I think you should go.”

Although Miss Kendal was very anxious to hear all that was to be heard,

she saw the advisability of taking this advice, especially as Hope gave

her arm a meaning nudge.

“I'll go,” she said meekly, and was escorted by her lover to the door.

There she paused. “Tell me all that takes place,” she whispered, and

when Archie nodded, she vanished promptly. The young man closed the door

and returned to his seat in time to hear Don Pedro reiterate his request

for an explanation.

“And 'spose I can't oblige,” said the skipper, now more at his ease

since the lady was out of the room.

“Then I shall have you arrested,” was the quick reply.

“For what?”

“For the theft of my mummy.”

Hervey laughed raucously.

“I guess the law can't worry me about that after thirty years, and in

a low-down country like Peru. Your Government has shifted fifty times

since I looted the corpse.”

This was quite true, and there was absolutely no chance of the skipper

being brought to book. Don Pedro looked rather disconsolate, and his

gaze dropped under the glare of Hervey's eyes, which seemed unfair,

seeing that the Don was as good as the captain was evil.

“You can't expect me to condone the theft,” he muttered.

“I reckon I don't expect anything,” retorted Hervey coolly “I looted the

corpse, I don't deny, and--”

“After my father had treated you like a son,” said Don Pedro bitterly.

“You were homeless and friendless, and my father took you in, only to

find that you robbed him of his most precious possession.”

The skipper had the grace to blush, and shifted uneasily in his chair.

“You can't say truer than that,” he grumbled, averting his eyes. “I

guess I'm a bad lot all through. But a friend of mine wanted the corpse,

and offered me a heap of dollars to see the business through.”

“Do you mean to say that some one asked you to steal it?”

“No,” put in Braddock unexpectedly, “for I was the friend.”

“You!” Don Pedro swung round in great astonishment, but the Professor

faced him with all the consciousness of innocence.

“Yes,” he remarked quietly, “as I told you, I was in Peru thirty years

ago. I was then hunting for specimens of Inca mummies. Vasa--this man

now called Hervey--told me that he could obtain a splendid specimen of

a mummy, and I arranged to give him one hundred pounds to procure what

I wanted. But I swear to you, De Gayangos,” continued the little man

earnestly, “that I did not know he proposed to steal the mummy from

you.”

“You knew it was the green mummy?” asked Don Pedro sharply.

“No, I only knew that it was a mummy.”

“Did Vasa get it for you?”

“I guess not,” said the gentleman who confessed to that name. “The

Professor went to Cuzco and got into trouble--”

“I was carried off to the mountains by some Indians,” interpolated the

Professor, “and only escaped after a year's captivity. I did not mind

that, as it gave me the opportunity of studying a decaying civilization.

But when I returned a free man to Lima, I found that Vasa had left the

country with the mummy.”

“That's so,” assented Hervey, waving his hand. “I got a berth as second

mate on a wind-jammer sailing to Europe, and as the country wasn't

healthy for me since I'd looted the green mummy, I took it abroad and

yanked it to Paris, where I sold it for a couple of hundred pounds. With

that, I changed my name and had a high old time. I never heard of the

blamed thing again until the Professor here turned up with Mr. Bolton

at Pierside, asking me to bring it in The Diver from Malta. It was what

you'd call a coincidence, I reckon,” added Hervey lazily; “but I did cry

small when I heard the Professor here had paid nine hundred for a thing

I'd let slip for two hundred. Had I known of those infernal emeralds,

I'd have ripped open the case on board and would have recouped myself.

But I knew nothing, and Bolton never told me.”

“How could he,” asked Braddock quietly, “when he did not know that any

jewels were buried with the dead? I did not know either. And I have

explained why I wanted the mummy. But it never struck me until I hear

what you say now, that this mummy,” he nodded towards the green case,

“was the one which you had stolen at Lima from De Gayangos. But you

must do me the justice, Captain Hervey, to tell Don Pedro that I never

countenanced the theft.”

“No! you were square enough, I guess. The sin is on my own blessed

shoulders, and I don't ask it to be shifted.”

“What did you do with the copy of the manuscript?” asked Don Pedro.

Hervey ruminated.

“I can't think,” he mused. “I found a screed of Latin along with the

mummy, when I looted it from your Lima house, but it dropped out of my

mind as to what became of it. Maybe I passed it along to the Paris man,

and he sold it along with the corpse to the Maltese gent.”

“But I tell you this copy was found in Sir Frank's room,” insisted De

Gayangos. “How did it come to be there?”

Captain Hervey rose and took a turn up and down the room. When Cockatoo

came in his way he calmly kicked him aside.

“What do you think, Mr. Hope?” he asked, coming to a full stop before

Archie, while Cockatoo crept away with a very dark scowl.

“I don't know what to think,” replied that young gentleman promptly,

“save that Sir Frank is my very good friend, and that I take his word

that he knows nothing of how the manuscript came to be hidden in his

bookcase.”

“Huh!” said Hervey scornfully, and took another turn up and down the

room in silence. “I surmise that your friend isn't a white man.”

Hope leaped to his feet.

“That's a lie,” he said distinctly.

“I'd have shot you for that down Chili way,” snapped the skipper.

“Possibly,” retorted the artist dryly, “but I happen to be handy with my

revolver also. I say again that you lie. Random is not the man to commit

so foul a crime.”

“Then how did the manuscript get into his room?” questioned Hervey.

“He is trying to learn, and, when he does, will come here to let us all

know, Captain Hervey. But I ask you on what grounds you accuse him? Oh I

know all you said to-day,” added Hope scornfully, waving his hand; “but

you can't prove that Random got the manuscript.”

“If it's in his room, as you acknowledge, I can,” said Hervey, speaking

in a much more cultivated tone. “See here. As I said before, that copy

must have been passed along with the corpse to the Maltese man. Well,

then, the Professor here bought the corpse, and with it the manuscript.”

“No,” contradicted the little man, prodigiously excited. “Bolton

wrote to me full particulars of the mummy, but said nothing about any

manuscript.”

“Well, he wouldn't,” replied Hervey calmly, “seeing that he'd know

Latin.”

“He did know Latin,” admitted Braddock uneasily; “I taught him myself.

But do you mean to say that he got that manuscript and read it and

intended to keep the fact of the emeralds secret?”

Hervey nodded three times, and twisted his cheroot in his mouth.

“How else can you figure the business out?” he demanded quietly, and

with his eyes fixed on the excited Professor. “Bolton must have got that

manuscript, as I can't remember what I did with it, save pass it along

with the corpse. He--as you admit--doesn't tell you about it when

he writes. Well, then, I reckon he calculated getting this corpse to

England, and intended to steal the emeralds when safely ashore.”

“But he could have done that on the boat,” said Archie quickly.

“I guess not, with me about,” said Hervey coolly. “I'd have spotted his

game and would have howled for shares.”

“You dare to say that?” demanded De Gayangos fiercely.

“Keep your hair on. I dare to say anything that comes up my darned back,

you bet. I'm not going to knuckle down to a yellow-stomach--”

Out flew Don Pedro's long arm, and Hervey slammed against the wall. He

slipped his hand around to his hip pocket with an ugly smile, but before

he could use the revolver he produced, Hope dashed up his arm, and the

ball went through the ceiling. “Lucy!” cried the young man, knowing

that the drawing-room was overhead, and in a moment was out of the

door, racing up the stairs at top speed. Some sense of shame seemed to

overpower Hervey as he thought that he might have shot the girl, and he

replaced the revolver in his pocket with a shrug.

“I climb down and apologize,” he said to Don Pedro, who bowed gravely.

“Hang you, sir; you might have shot my daughter,” cried Braddock. “The

drawing-room, where she is sitting, is right overhead, and-”

As he spoke the door opened, and Lucy came in on Archie's arm. She

was pale with fright, but had sustained no damage. It seemed that the

revolver bullet had passed through the floor some distance away from

where she was sitting.

“I offer my humble apologies, miss,” said the cowed Hervey.

“I'll break your neck, you ruffian!” growled Hope, who looked, and was,

dangerous. “How dare you shoot here and--”

“It's all right,” interposed Lucy, not wishing for further trouble. “I

am all safe. But I shall remain here for the rest of your interview,

Captain Hervey, as I am sure you will not shoot again in the presence of

a lady.”

“No, miss,” muttered the captain, and when again invited by the angry

Professor to speak, resumed his discourse in low tones. “Wal, as I was

saying,” he remarked, sitting down with a dogged look, “Bolton intended

to clear with the emeralds, but I guess Sir Frank got ahead of him and

packed him in that blamed case, while he annexed the emeralds. He then

took the manuscript, which he looted from Bolton's corpse, and hid

it among his books, as you say, while he left the blamed mummy in the

garden of the old lady you talked about. I guess that's what I say.”

“It's all theory,” said Don Pedro in vexed tones.

“And there isn't a word of truth in it,” said Lucy indignantly, standing

up for Frank Random.

“It ain't for me to contradict you, miss,” said Hervey, who was still

humble, “but I ask you, if what I say ain't true, how did that copy of

the manuscript come to be in that aristocrat's room?”

There was no reply made to this, and although every one present, save

Hervey, believed in Random's innocence, no one could explain. The reply

came after some further conversation, by the appearance of the soldier

himself in mess kit. He walked unexpectedly into the room with Donna

Inez on his arm, and at once apologized to De Gayangos.

“I called to see you at the inn, sir,” he said, “and as you were not

there, I brought your daughter along with me to explain about the

manuscript.”

“Ah, yes. We talk of that now. How did it come into your room, sir?”

Random pointed to Hervey.

“That rascal placed it there,” he said firmly.