The Deeds of the Disturber Read Free Page A

Emerson replied. "It is impossible, Amelia, for me to satirize the literary style of your friend O'Connell. Those are his exact words."
    His voice had dropped in pitch, but I knew, from his use of my first name, that he was still annoyed with me. Since the halcyon days of our courtship, in an abandoned tomb in Middle Egypt, Emerson has referred to me by my maiden name of Peabody when feeling affectionate. For my part, I never succumb to the childish trick of employing his given name of Radcliffe, which he detests. Emerson he was to me then, and Emerson he will always be—the name hallowed by memories as tender as they are thrilling.
    However, he was eventually persuaded to relate to me what he had read of the case. The malignant mummy did not reside in Egypt, as I had supposed, but in the dusty halls of that venerable institution, the British Museum. The sprained ankle was a rather labored device of Mr. O'Connell's, but the initiating incident had been a good deal more serious-—fatal, in fact.
    Going to his post in the Egyptian Room one morning, a guard had discovered the body of one Albert Gore, a night watchman, sprawled on the floor in front of one of the exhibits. The poor fellow had apparently suffered a stroke or heart attack, and if he had collapsed by a black-figured vase or a medieval manuscript, his passing would have attracted no interest—except, one presumes, to his friends and family. However, the exhibit happened to be a mummy case, complete with mummy, and that had aroused O'Connell's journalistic instincts. He could be regarded, I suppose, as something of an authority on ancient Egyptian curses.
    "Brain seizure—but why?" was his first headline. Emerson's reply. "Curse it, the chap was sixty-four years of age!"
    "What caused the look of frozen horror on the dead man's face?" O'Connell demanded. Emerson: "The lunatic imagination of Mr. Kevin O'Connell."
    "Can fear kill?" Kevin inquired, and Emerson replied, to me: "Balderdash!"
    The mummy had been presented to the museum the preceding year, by an anonymous donor. Kevin had displayed the enterprise I would have expected of him in tracking down the name of this individual, and his discovery only served to intensify interest in what was otherwisea fragile tissue of imaginative fiction. Nothing fascinates the British public so much as royalty, and a hint of royal scandal is even better.
    I deem it advisable to conceal the true names and titles of the individuals concerned, even in the pages of this private journal, for if at some future time the archaeological notes contained herein should be deemed worthy of publication (which they unquestionably will), I would be the last one to wish to recall a long-forgotten stain upon the Monarchy which, despite its failings, must command the loyalty of any true Englishwoman. Suffice it to say that the donor—whom I shall henceforth designate as the Earl of Liverpool—was related by blood to a most distinguished Lady. As Emerson would say—and in fact did say fairly often—she had altogether too many descendants, direct and collateral, bumbling around the world and getting into trouble.
    If the Earl hoped to save himself from the malignant influence of his Egyptian souvenir, he delayed too long. Shortly after giving it up, he met with a fatal hunting accident.
    "Served the villain right," commented Emerson, who shared my aversion to blood sports. "Sensible mummy; intelligent cadaver. His son did not get off scot-free either. He seems to be a thoroughly disgusting young reprobate, who suffers from a thoroughly disgusting degenerative disease. Perfect case of poetic justice. Excellent mummy!"
    "What disease is that, Emerson?"
    Emerson had turned to another issue of the newspaper. He rattled it loudly. "A modest woman would not ask such a question, Peabody."
    "Oh," I said. "That thoroughly disgusting disease. But surely even a newspaper like the Yell would not name it."
    "There are euphemisms, Peabody, there are