The Mummy by Riccardo Stephens

Author:Riccardo Stephens [Stephens, Riccardo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Valancourt Books
Published: 2016-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XXIII

MAXWELL IS SURPRISED

“You’ve waited for me!” she said, without any attempt at greeting us separately.

“To pour out tea for us? Yes,” Perceval answered her, but she paid no attention, looking past me at either Maxwell or Maunde­ville who followed.

Maunde­ville, who entered last, ejaculated her name and went forward to her, but she barely noticed him.

“I’m late, I know,” she said, “but you’ve waited. I’ve been here ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes!” Maunde­ville echoed. “You should have come in at once.”

“Your man said you were engaged.”

“So we were—but not for you,” Maunde­ville said. “You had a right to be there. But I never heard you.”

“You have dealt,” she decided, looking from one to the other of us. Then there was an appreciable interval before she spoke again, her voice quite unrecognisable.

“Who——?” she began, and stopped. It was Perceval who answered.

“I have the honour,” he said. “Now won’t you give us tea?”

He pushed a chair up for her, and she sat down without another word and began to fumble with the kettle of boiling water and the tea-caddy. It was quite obvious that she didn’t know what she was doing. I counted eight spoonfuls of tea going into that teapot, and then I just put a hand out and moved the tea-caddy. I wanted a cup myself, and I didn’t want my nerves jangled more than they had been.

My action roused her and made her think what she was doing. She looked at me, smiled queerly, and paid more attention.

Perceval made a casual remark or two to me, and then softly, “I shall be back in town on Monday night. Can you come and give me a thorough overhauling?”

“Why?” I asked. “Do you feel ill? You seem all right.”

“I feel all right,” he said. “My point is that I want you to certify me as sound before I take in this blessed Mummy—or else to know definitely what other cause might account for any trouble after she comes.”

This seemed a very reasonable step to take, and I agreed to it. “Fix your own time,” I added, and he smiled whimsically at me.

“Dinner at eight,” he said. “You wouldn’t come two nights ago, but this is a professional engagement. Besides, you can hardly refuse me any reasonable request just now. I might accuse you of being responsible for my position.”

This remark worried me. “I did what I thought best,” I said. “It enabled me to be quite sure that pure chance decided the matter. I didn’t like the job,” but Perceval laughed outright.

“You surely don’t think I’m such a fool as to hold you responsible?” he asked. “There’s even an advantage. I guessed why you agreed to deal. You’ve always looked with suspicion on the whole lot of us. Now I suppose you’ll allow that I, at any rate, am not a criminal.”

A few minutes later we said good-bye to Maunde­ville, and the three of us, Maxwell, Perceval, and I, saw Miss O’Hagan into her carriage, which was waiting for her with Mrs. Vavasour, and then walked towards my place together.

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