The upshot of the argument was that Lucy got her own way, and the Professor rather unwillingly agreed to part with the mummy and restore the thousand pounds.  But he regretted doing so, as he wished to get all the money he could to go towards his proposed Egyptian expedition, and Mrs. Jasher’s fortune, as he assured his step-daughter, was not so large as might be thought.  However, Lucy overruled him, and retired to bed, congratulating herself that she would soon be able to marry Hope.  She was beginning to grow a trifle weary of the Professor’s selfish nature, and wondered how her mother had put up with it for so long.

Next day Braddock did not go with Don Pedro to Pierside, as he was very busy in his museum.  The Peruvian went alone, and Archie, after a morning’s work at his easel, sought out Widow Anne to ask questions.  Lucy and Donna Inez paid an afternoon visit to Mrs. Jasher and found her in bed, as she had caught a mild sort of influenza.  They expected to find Sir Frank here, but it seemed that he had not called.  Thinking that he was detained by military business, the girls thought nothing more of his absence, although Donna Inez was somewhat downcast.

But Random was detained in his quarters by a letter which had arrived by the mid-day host, and which surprised him not a little.  The postmark was London, and the writing, evidently a disguised hand, was almost illegible in its crudeness.  The contents ran as follows, and it will be noticed that there is neither date nor address, and that it is written in the third person: 

“If Sir Frank Random wants his character to be cleared and all suspicion of murder to be removed from him, he can be completely exonerated by the writer, if he will pay the same five thousand pounds.  If Sir Frank Random is willing to do this, let him appoint a meeting-place in London, and the writer will send a messenger to receive the money and to hand over the proofs which will clear Sir Frank Random.  If Sir Frank Random plays the writer false, or communicates with the police, proofs will be forthcoming which will prove him to be guilty of Sidney Bolton’s death, and which will bring him to the scaffold without any chance of escape.  A couple of lines in the Agony Column of The Daily Telegraph, signed `Artillery,’ and appointing a meeting-place, will suffice; but beware of treachery.”

CHAPTER XXI

A STORY OF THE PAST

Mrs. Jasher’s influenza proved to be very mild indeed.

When Donna Inez de Gayangos and Lucy paid a visit to her on the afternoon of the day succeeding the explanations in the museum, she was certainly in bed, and explained that she had been there since the Professor’s visit on the previous day.  Lucy was surprised at this, as she had left Mrs. Jasher perfectly well, and Braddock had not mentioned any ailment of the widow.  But influenza, as Mrs. Jasher observed, was very rapid in its action, and she was always susceptible to disease from the fact that in Jamaica she had suffered from malaria.  Still, she was feeling better and intended to rise from her bed on that evening, if only to lie on the couch in the pink drawing-room.  Having thus detailed her reasons for being ill, the widow asked for news.