"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."