“You’ll have to find them first,” said Braddock savagely; “and as to the mummy, you shan’t have it.  I decline to sell it.  So there!”

“If you don’t,” said Random very distinctly, “Don Pedro will bring an action against you, and Captain Hervey will be called as a witness to prove that the mummy was stolen.”

“Don Pedro hasn’t the money,” said Braddock triumphantly; “he can’t pay lawyer’s fees.”

“But I can,” rejoined the young man very dryly.  “As I am going to marry Donna Inez, it is only just that I should help my future father-in-law in every way.  He has a romantic feeling about this relic of poor humanity and wishes to take it back to Peru.  He shall do so.”

“And what about me?—­what about me?”

“Well,” said Random, speaking slowly with the intention of still further irritating the little man, whose selfishness annoyed him, “if I were you I should marry Mrs. Jasher and settle down quietly in this house to live on what income you have.”

Braddock turned purple again and spluttered.

“How dare you make a proposition like that to me, sir?” he bellowed.  “You ask me to marry this low woman, this adventuress, this—­this—­this—­” Words failed him.

Of course Random had no intention of advising such a marriage, although he did not think so badly of Mrs. Jasher as did the Professor.  But the little man was so venomous that the young man took a delight in stirring him up, using the widow’s name as a red rag to this particular bull.

“I do not think Mrs. Jasher is a bad woman,” he remarked.

“What! what! what!  After what she has done?  Blackmail! blackmail! blackmail!”

“That is bad, I admit, but she has failed to get what she wanted, and, after all, you indirectly are the cause of her writing that blackmailing letter.”

“I am?—­I am?  How dare you?”

“You see, she wanted to get five thousand out of me as her dowry.”

“Yes, and told me lies about her damned brother who was a Pekin merchant, when after all he never existed.”

“Oh, I don’t defend that,” said Random coolly.  “Mrs. Jasher has behaved badly on the whole.  Still, Professor, I think there is good in her, as I said before.  She evidently had bad parents and a bad husband; but, so far as I can gather, she is not an immoral woman.  The poor wretch only came here to try and drag herself out of the mire.  If she had married you I feel sure that she would have made you a most excellent wife.”

The Professor was in such a rage that he suddenly became calm.

“Of course you talk absolute rubbish,” he said caustically.  “Had I my way this woman would be whipped at a cart’s tail for the shameful way in which she has deceived us all.  However, I shall see her to-day and make her confess who murdered Bolton.”

“Don Pedro will be greatly obliged if you do.  He wants those emeralds.”