"Why should the emeralds be missing?" asked Hope quickly.
Braddock shrugged his shoulders.
"Sidney Bolton was killed," said he in a low voice, "and it was not
likely that any one would commit a murder for the sake of this mummy,
and then leave it stranded in Mrs. Jasher's garden. I have my doubts
about the safety of the emeralds, else I would not have consented to
sell the thing back again."
With this honest speech, the Professor vigorously attacked the lid of
the case, and inserted a steel instrument into the cracks to prize up
the covering. The lid was closed with wooden pegs in an antique but
perfectly safe manner, and apparently had not been opened since the
dead Inca had been laid to rest therein hundreds of years ago among the
Andean mountains. Don Pedro winced at this desecration of the dead, but,
as he had given his consent, there was nothing left to do but to grin
and bear it. In a wonderfully short space of time, considering the
neatness of the workmanship and the holding power of the wooden pegs,
the lid was removed. Then the four on-lookers saw that the mummy had
been tampered with. Swathed in green-stained llama wool, it lay rigid
in its case. But the swathings had been cut; the hands protruded and the
emeralds were gone--torn rudely from the hard grip of the dead.