Mystery

"God knows! God knows!" sobbed the old woman, "but you--"

"Mrs. Bolton, you are raving," said Hope hastily, and strove to raise
her from the floor. "Let Miss Kendal take you away. And you go, Lucy:
this sight is too terrible for your eyes."

Lucy, inarticulate with nervous fear, nodded and tottered towards the
door of the museum; but Widow Anne refused to be lifted to her feet.

"My boy is dead," she wailed; "my boy Sid is a corp as I saw him in my
dream. In the coffin, too, cut to pieces--"

"Rubbish! rubbish!" interrupted Braddock, peering into the depths of the
packing case. "I can see no wound."

Mrs. Bolton leaped to her feet with an agility surprising in so aged a
woman. "Let me find the wound," she screamed, throwing herself forward.

Hope caught her back and forced her towards the door. "No! The body must
not be disturbed until the police see it," he said firmly.

"The police--ah, yes, the police," remarked Braddock quickly, "we must
send for the police to Pierside and tell them my mummy has been stolen."

"That my boy has been murdered," screeched Widow Anne, waving her skinny
arms, and striving to break from Archie. "You wicked old devil to kill
my darling Sid. If he hadn't gone to them furren parts he wouldn't be a
corp now. But I'll have the lawr: you'll be hanged, you--you--"

Braddock lost his patience under this torrent of unjust accusations and
rushed towards Mrs. Bolton, dragging Cockatoo by the arm. In less time
than it takes to tell, he had swept both Archie and the widow out into
the hall, where Lucy was trembling, and Cockatoo, by his master's order,
was locking the door.