The Professor’s Mummy by Fergus Hume

“The Professor’s Mummy” made an early, possibly first, appearance in print on 3 December 1898, in the Lyttelton Times, a publication that’s notable for being the first newspaper in Canterbury, New Zealand. Several years later, in 1906, Hume included “The Professor’s Mummy” in his anthology The Dancer in Red and Other Stories.

Please note: “The Professor’s Mummy” has no connection with Hume’s novel The Green Mummy.

 

About Fergus Hume

Ferguson Wright Hume was a prolific British author of novels and short stories. He published more than 130 novels, along with several story anthologies. Although Hume is best known  as a writer of thrillers, mysteries, and detective stories, he also wrote a number of ghost stories.

Hume was born in the village of Powick in Worcester, England. While he was still pr-school age, his family moved to New Zealand, where he studied law. Shortly after graduating from the University of Otago, Hume moved to Melbourne, Australia, accepted a position as a barrister’s clerk, and began writing plays in his spare time, but his attempts to place his plays with local theaters were unsuccessful.

In 1886, after publishers refused to consider his novel Mystery of a Hansom Cab, Hume published it himself. The book quickly became an international best seller. However, he sold the English and American rights to some Autralian bussinessmen for $50, so failed to cash-in on his works, phenomenal success. Often classed as the first modern mystery thriller, Mystery of a Hansom Cab is believed to have inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to write his first Sherlock Holmes story—A Study in Scarlet.

In 1888, Hume returned to England. After a few years living in London, he relocated to Thundersley, Essex. He died on 12 July 1932, and is buried in an unmarked grave in the local churchyard.

 

The Professor’s Mummy

By Fergus Hume

(Online Text)

Gossip consists commonly of lies; yet occasionally, by acute observers grains of truth may be discerned in the untrustworthy mass. As a specimen of how iron of fact intermingles with clay of falsehood, may be instanced the rumours relative to Professor Carberry, his wife, and young Mr. Vale. It was said —and with good reason—that Carberry coveted Vale’s celebrated mummy of the XX. Dynasty, while Vale envied the professor his wife.

The Camford cynics suggested an exchange as conducive to the happiness of all parties. A sale, and the Professor would gain possession of the desired mummy; a divorce, and Mrs. Carberry would be free to become Mrs. Vale. But to the proposed course there was one objection: Vale was a poor man, and could better support a dried-up corpse, which had no needs, than extravagant Mrs. Carberry, who was said to have many. Into the ostensible truth of this latter assertion creeps falsehood.

Despite outward evidence to the contrary, Lucy Carberry was not extravagant. She had no chance of being so; for her husband kept the purse, and was niggardly in doling out its contents. He allowed a meagre sum for household expenses, a still smaller amount for clothes befitting the wife of a Camford University Professor, and not a single penny for pleasure or relaxation. Out of means barely sufficient for necessaries, Mrs. Carberry was supposed to provide the miracle of a lavish table, and achieve the impossible of a fashionable appearance. If the meals were not dainty and plentiful, if the wife was not dressed with taste and refinement, Carberry made it his business to be disagreeable, and became so to the point of ill-treatment. It was a life of blows in private, smiles in public; and poor pretty Lucy had a wholesome dread of her domestic tyrant.

Why, when, or where she married him no one knew. One day the newly-wedded pair unexpectedly took up their abode in Camford—of which scholastic town Carberry was an old resident, and a professor of Michael’s College—and so great was the contrast of her fair loveliness and his dour blackness that they speedily became known as Beauty and the Beast. Carberry himself was a wizen little man with a large head and a lined yellow face, suggestive of evil instincts kept under by force of will. He had malicious black eyes, a wisp of black moustache straggling over thin lips, and a lean small-waisted figure, straight and nervously alert. His smile and speech were cynical, his dress scrupulously neat, and in every way he was the antithesis of his pretty, soft girl-bride.

She, poor soul, was one of those delicate timid women who require attention and kindness to bring out their good qualities. Lucy was a flower which bloomed best in sunshine; a tender blossom susceptible to the least chill in the atmosphere. Pink and white in complexion, blue-eyed and golden-haired, she was emotional and charming; at once angel and martyr. Carberry, grim realist as he was, did not understand her in the least. He termed her a sentimental fool, and crushed her innocent aspirations with sneering cynicism, so that within a few months of her marriage Lucy lost her angelic wings, and became a domestic martyr, whose daily life was one of torture and silent endurance. She had not even a child to comfort her bruised heart, and the Carberry household represented a sort of domestic hell, wherein the wife was the damned, the husband the devil. And alas, alas! God was deaf to the prayers of this tortured woman.

The professor and his victim—a more appropriate name than wife—kept silent as to their meeting, and wooing, and subsequent marriage. Only John Vale knew the truth, and he gained his knowledge first hand.

“I was sold,” exclaimed Mrs. Carberry to him. “Sold by my mother like any slave in the East, and into a worse bondage. We lived at Bournemouth, mother and I. Father had been dead three years, and we supported ourselves by keeping a boarding-house. Mr. Carberry came to stay there one summer and took a fancy to me. I can’t say that it was love,” interpolated Mrs. Carberry, “for my husband does not know what that word means. I hated him from the first and refused his offer, but mother was talked over by him, and she forced me into the marriage. I was sold as a slave to this learned Pasha, and a slave he makes of me. Oh, I wish I were dead! I do! I do!” And the wretched little woman concluded the miserable story with a burst of tears.

It can be seen from this outburst that to the unhappy wife Vale was more than an acquaintance. He was a friend, and if the truth must be stated, his friendship showed signs of developing into yet closer relationship. Vale had no idea to what lengths this intimacy might go, but without intending anything definite, he had permitted himself—in the most innocent manner, be it said—to drift into a somewhat anomalous position. Friendship between a young man and a pretty woman is the most dangerous of all relationships, and Vale was aware that Mrs. Carberry claimed more of his time and thoughts than was consistent with the attitude—morally and socially—he ought to preserve towards her. Moreover the miserable life she led with an exacting and tyrannous husband aroused his pity, and that passion, according to Shakespeare, is akin to love. One false step and the result might be dangerous.

John Vale was the son of an enthusiastic Egyptologist, who had squandered a large fortune upon an archaeological collection. He had educated his son to succeed to his treasures and labours, but to his disgust John evinced distaste for mummies, coins, tombs, papri, and such-like. Also he cherished literary ambitions, and wished to make his mark as a novelist. Vale senior censured, urged, implored, commanded Vale junior to have done with such trifling: but the son was as obstinate as the father, and the breach widened between them. Finally John took up journalism in London, and Mr. Vale remained at Camford sulking amid his antiquities. In due time the Egyptologist died, and the journalist returned to learn that beyond the house, and a mummy of the XX. Dynasty, he was heir to—nothing. Vale had left his collection to the Camford Museum, and John found himself a pauper. He had been cut off with a mummy instead of the proverbial shilling, “in the hope,” said the will, “the sight of this marvellously embalmed Princess of the XX. Dynasty may induce my son John to devote his attention to the civilisation of Ancient Egypt.” Needless to say John declined to violate his taste by adopting this posthumous advice. However, he retained possession of his ironical legacy.

Professor Carberry, who long had coveted this special mummy, desired to purchase it, but to his surprise John refused the most advantageous offers. He was quite determined, he said to live in the house, and earn his livelihood by literary work; also to keep the famous mummy which, in itself, represented the fortune he should have inherited. Being a reserved young man he refused further information, and Carberry marvelled at what seemed to him to be the ridiculous decision.

“Bless me, Vale!” said he with acerbity, “why should you adopt this dog-in-the-manger attitude? You don’t care for the mummy and I do: you require money and I offer it to you. Why not then consult your own interest and sell?”

“No, Professsor. I shall keep the mummy to remind me that my father squandered twenty thousand pounds on such-like rubbish.”

“Don’t disparage those whose tastes differ from your own,” retorted Carberry with some dryness; “in my eyes your mummy is worth two hundred pounds. Come, I’ll let you have that sum for it.”

“No! I have made up my mind not to sell!”

“Obstinate man! I’ll increase my offer to guineas. It’s worth consideration!”

“I dare say: and worth more than the mummy,” said John. “However, I can only thank you, and decline your proposal.”

Carberry was vexed and showed it by frowning. Then he smiled and held out his hand. “Well, Vale, if you won’t sell you won’t,” said he, “but if you should change your mind, let me know. My offer will remain open. And Vale,” added the Professor, with a backward glance, “come and see us when you have nothing better to do.”

John did not accept this cordial invitation at once, as he had no great love for Carberry and his whims. But one afternoon at a garden party he saw a pale and delicate face which fixed his wandering attention. Forthwith he begged his hostess for an introduction, and shortly found himself walking and talking with Mrs. Carberry. The Professor was not present, otherwise he would have resented the long conversation which took place between the pair. Both Vale and Lucy were mutually attracted to one another; and after a few moments they were chatting confidentially together as though they were friends of years standing.

“I don’t know why I tell you these things,” said Lucy, stopping in the middle of a description of her taste in books. “I am sure they do not interest you.”

“But Indeed they do, Mrs. Carberry. I am enjoying our conversation more than I dare tell you.”

“Ah, that is because you are what the Italians call ‘simpatica.’ ”

“It is the first time such a term has been applied to me,” laughed John. “I am not what you term a ladies’ man. The Professor is, I understand.”

“Is he? That is news to me.”

She said this so bitterly that Vale was surprised, and glanced sideways at her charming face. The rosy colour induced by the pleasant conversation had died out, the soft eyes had hardened, and the mobile lips were firmly set in a thin line of scarlet. When Carberry was mentioned Lucy could govern her speech by limiting it to a few cold and careless words, but the expression of her face was beyond her control; and the opinion she entertained of her husband could be read thereon without difficulty. John saw dread and hate in every line of the pretty countenance; and also he deduced fear from the nervous and hurried way in which her eyes travelled round the sunlit lawn. He concluded from such evidence that Mrs. Carberry both feared and hated her husband. And in this conclusion he was absolutely right.

With considerable tact he turned the conversation into another channel, and soon he was confirmed in his opinion of her matrimonial feelings by seeing the face relax and the eyes soften. When Carberry came to take his wife away—which he did in a particularly gracious and smiling manner— Vale noted the Medusa-like transformation once more. When speaking to him Lucy’s face had been full of change and colour and charm, when leaving with her husband it was a mask of stone, hard and colourless. Only the expression of the eyes betrayed how terrified was the soul hidden in that slender body. These things afforded Vale food for much reflection on his way home.

“I knew that Carberry was a brute,” he mused, taking the most extreme view of the Professor’s character. “He tyrannises over that poor little woman. She looked like a dove caught in a snare when her husband appeared. It is a case of joy abroad and grief at home I suspect; but a few enquiries will soon enlighten me on that point.”

In this supposition he was wrong, for his few enquiries did nothing of the sort. To all the gossips of Camford he applied artfully for information and from all the gossips—on the best authority—he heard the same story. Professor Carberry was an amiable genius married to a brainless doll. He was the most delightful companion in the world, but he required a clever woman to understand and appreciate him; and Mrs. Carberry—by unanimous opinion—was not a clever women. She was pretty, in a washed-out way, she had a few social tricks like a well-bred poodle, and a feeble stream of parrot-like chatter. But brains? Where was Mr. Vale’s talent for character-reading to look for brains in that Dresden china nonentity? On the whole the verdict of Camford womanhood was dead against Lucy.

John, in his own mind, declined to accept this verdict as final. He saw that the Camford ladies grudged Lucy her acquisition of an eligible bachelor, and in revenge were determined to deny her possession of all feminine graces likely to account for the marriage. To learn the other side of the question Vale determined to use the invitation he had received from the Professor, and in pursuance of this idea he called forthwith on Mrs. Carberry. Again the mutual attraction declared itself between the pair, and they spent a most delightful hour together, notwithstanding the inconvenient presence of Carberry himself. In response to an appealing glance from Lucy—she did not dare to put her wish into words—John again repeated his visit. Ultimately, as controlled by some irresistible fate, the young man fell into the habit of passing the greater part of his spare time in the company of Mrs. Carberry. Busy bodies noted the fact, and informed the Professor, who merely shrugged his shoulders, and said that his wife liked to be amused. Nevertheless he thought sufficient of the hint to keep a close watch on the progress of this new acquaintanceship. It was at this point that Camford cynics suggested exchange of wife for mummy.

Ignorant of gossip and espionage the lovers—as they tacitly were—drifted into a knowledge that they could not live without one another. For a considerable time Lucy shrank from revealing her domestic misery, but finally she spoke out, and the indignation with which Vale received her confession drew them still closer together. Carberry made no attempt to end their friendship, but blinking like some sly beast of prey, he kept himself informed of all that was going on. At length the inevitable happened; a look too much, a sigh too long, and John declared his passion. Lucy listened, hesitated, and was lost.

How Carberry learned the actual truth—which at the present time was innocent enough—it is impossible to say. But learn it he did, and then cast about for some means whereby to punish the rebellion of his white slave and the presumption of her lover. The Spanish blood in his veins—his mother was from Catalonia—incited him to frenzy, and without considering that it was his own brutality which had alienated his wife, he determined upon revenge, and that of the most merciless. To accomplish this he feigned ignorance of the stolen glances and secret interviews of the pair; yet he noted the former, and knew when, where, and at what time the latter took place. Indeed he was actually present at one in the role of eavesdropper; and, in accordance with the proverb, he heard little good of himself.

John was drinking afternoon tea with Lucy, and the short November twilight was drawing to night, so that the room was almost in darkness. Mrs. Carberry was seated before the small tea-table, and Vale, cup in hand, was leaning against the mantel-piece, while the fire diffused a coppery glow upon scene and actors. Hidden like a tiger in a jungle, Carberry crouched behind the half-closed folding door, which opened into the inner drawing-room, and drank in every word. He heard sufficient to convince him that as yet the relationship between the pair was one of ardent friendship merely; but the discovery that they were innocent of offence only added fuel to his wrath. Nor was this allayed by hearing what the two determined upon at the interview.

“I tell you what, Lucy,” said John, enraged by the recital of fresh brutality, “you can’t live any longer with this slave-driver. Come with me to London.”

“But the world!” said Lucy, piteously.

“Never mind the world; it is of ourselves and of our happiness that we must think. As soon as you can get a divorce we will be married, and then we can defy the world. I am poor, it is true, but I have brains, and no doubt will be able to earn sufficient for our support. I love you—you love me; and you will be happier with me than with this reptile of a Carberry.”

The listening reptile repaid with a silent curse this plain speaking, and settled himself more comfortably to listen. It was to his advantage to do so.

“We must arrange the matter at once,” John was saying when the listener again caught the drift of the conversation. “You know how I love you, my poor darling. I cannot bear to think of your remaining in this wretch’s power. Say ‘yes,’ and we will go to London this week.”

“But Mr. Carberry will pursue us.”

“What of that? I’m not afraid of the rat!” said John, with a contemptous memory of the Professor’s stature. “A dozen Carberrys can’t hurt me.”

“I have no money!” objected Lucy. “Nor have you, John.”

“I have a plan to get sufficient,” said her lover, by this time on his knees. “Leave it all in my hands, dearest. You love me?”

“Better than all the world, darling.”

“Then leave Carberry, and come with me.”

“Oh, John! John!” She threw her arms round his neck. “You will never leave me, you will be good to me!”

“Always! always! I shall devote my life to making you happy!”

Then the pair fell to castle-building, and talking of a golden future, while Carberry crept away maddened with wrath and shame. Determined upon revenge, he saw as yet no mode to accomplish it befittingly. Ordering John Vale out of the house was too contemptible a means, beating Lucy had staled by repetition, and Carberry was as anxious to devise some new punishment sufficiently cruel, as Xerxes was to discover a new pleasure. Chance put a weapon into his hand the next day, when he received a letter from Vale offering to sell the mummy for two hundred pounds.

“So this is how the money is to be obtained,” sneered Carberry, taking in the situation. “The kid is to be seethed in its mother’s milk. I am to supply funds for my own dishonour. Very good! Vale has suggested a trap into which he will fall himself.”

Undoubtedly, morally speaking, the Professor had right on his side. Vale had no business to take his wife off him, and to trap him into supplying funds for the purpose of the elopement. But morality must at times give way to the law of humanity. Carberry treated his wife like a brute, and—so cunning he was in his attitude—the wretched woman had no redress by law; indeed, she had not the spirit to apply for redress even if it had been obtainable. Vale could only rescue her from a state of bondage and misery by breaking the law of morality, and there was something grimly just in his obtaining money from the husband to save the wife from further brutality. Both Lucy and John were acting wrongly—but look at the provocation. The rule anent the casting of stones may be applied in this instance.

However, Carberry esteeming himself a wronged man, proceeded with his plans for revenge. He wrote a polite note to Vale, intimating that he would call with a cheque that evening, and would bring back with him the case containing the mummy. Upon receipt of this John saw Lucy, and arranged with her to leave for London the next day, meeting her at the railway station for that purpose. Carberry lurking in the garden overheard what was determined upon, and chuckled to think what might happen—should his plans prove successful—before the elopement took place. He even taunted and tortured his unhappy wife, whom he had driven into sin, by a reference to the sale of the mummy before he left to keep the seven o’clock appointment “I wonder why Vale sold me his mummy after all?” he said artfully.

“Perhaps he wants money,” suggested Lucy, faintly.

“No doubt,” said Carberry, grimly. “Do you know why?”

“I! no—no! how—how should I know?”

“Oh nothing! Only I thought that Vale told you everything. Well, I must go,” added the Professor, going to the door. “It’ll be back in an hour, mummy and all.”

“In—in an hour?” murmured Lucy,

“Yes. I want you to see the mummy, my—my love. It is a wonderful example of embalming, and will probably surprise you.”

Grinning like a monkey, yet with an undercurrent of ferocity, Carberry took his departure, leaving his wife in a half-fainting condition. She could not understand his endearing expressions, his gentle voice and significant smiles; they all seemed to be so many signals of danger. Of old she knew them as precursors to shameful treatment, and she shuddered to think of what she might undergo before she fled to the shelter of Vale’s broad breast. Yet no idea of Carberry’s intentions crossed her mind, and she was perfectly unaware that he was employed in checkmating Vale’s plans. When she gained a knowledge of the truth, it was too late.

Outside it was raining heavily, and Mrs. Carberry walked restlessly about the room, listening to the downpour. Occasionally a flicker of blue lightening flared through the room, and a sullen roll of thunder passed over the house. The disturbance of the elements, the ominous behaviour of her tyrant, the expectation of the change in her life—all made Lucy uneasy, and she wished again and again that the morrow, with its hope of release, would come.

“Oh, John, John!” she whispered, with hands clasped to a beating heart, “I wish you were here—I wish we were away. I am afraid—afraid!—terribly afraid!”

She would have gone to bed had she dared, but the fear of punishment lay heavily upon her; so she sat by a dying fire, listening for the sound of footsteps through the storm. At nine she heard the door open, the trampling of many feet, and the bumping of a heavy case being dragged into Carberry’s study. With a sudden start she woke to the fact that the mummy had arrived, that her vigil was over; and she went out to speak with her husband as he was paying and dismissing the men who had brought the case. Then they departed, the sound of wheels died heavily away, and Carberry looked steadily at his pale-faced wife. There was danger in his regard.

“May I go to bed now?” asked Lucy, submissively, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor.

“No. I wish you to see my new treasure,” Something in his voice, hoarse and broken, made her look up, and she started back with a low cry.

The light of the candle he was holding revealed a white and distorted countenance; there was a frown on the forehead and a look of menace in the eyes, while the cruel expression lurking about the line of his thin lips terrified her into a shriek. At her ejaculation he gripped her savagely by the hand, and smiled grimly. It was not a pleasant smile.

“Why do you look so?” he demanded quietly. “Why do you cry out?”

“Your—your face!”

“Never mind my face, woman; mind your actions. If I wasn’t in the best of tempers at getting that mummy I’d—” He raised his fist, but as she shrank away terrified, he dropped it again, and continued his speech. “I have paid a long price for what is in that case. Come and look at it!”

“The mummy! I don’t like looking on such horrors.”

“All the same, you must look,” growled Carberry, pushing her into the study. “You’d rather look upon Vale, I suppose.”

Lucy made no reply to this taunt, lest she should betray herself, but sat down and stared nervously at the rough deal case which leaned against the wall. Carberry was already unscrewing it, and the poor woman braced herself up to see the remains of the ancient Princess who had lived, and loved and sinned so many years ago. To get a good working light the Professor had placed a lamp on the near table, adjusting the shade so that the glare should fall directly upon the square face of the case. The rest of the room was in semi-darkness, and Lucy’s emotions —which were those of nervous dread—were veiled by shadow. There was something grim and gruesome and terrible about the scene.

Suddenly the loosened lid of the case fell outward to Carberry’s feet; and the glare of the lamp revealed what lay within. It was not the mummy. Lucy rose slowly to her feet; and like a bird fascinated by a snake she moved slowly across the room. She looked at her husband, and again at the contents of the case. Then a whisper issued softly from out her pale lips.

“Dead?”

“Dead!” assented Carberry, cruelly. “Your lover John Vale. Dead!”

“You—you—”

“Yes I killed him. Ah! you jade, you and he thought to trick me. You laid your plans well, but I laid mine better. I knew that the money for which the mummy was sold was to be used for your flight. Do you think I took a cheque, or gold or notes in my pocket when I went to see John Vale this evening? No! I took a knife; and that knife,” he pointed a lean finger at the wound in the dead man’s breast, “that knife,” he repeated, “found his false heart. There is no flight for him or you. To him a dishonoured grave; to me revenge; to you—”

He paused in his furious speech to listen to the laughter which was rippling from Lucy’s lips. She smiled and laughed, and bent forward to kiss the cold lips of dead John Vale. At the repetition of this ghastly merriment Carberry laughed also.

“So!” said he, grimly, “your punishment has begun already. Your lover will go to the cemetery, you to an asylum. I’m sorry, my dear, I can’t stay to take you there, but I must provide for my own safety. In half an hour I leave Camford station for London, and then—the world is before me. As for you,” he added brutally, “Stay with your lover!”

Lucy again kissed the dead man, and when Carberry, leaving the room, cast a backward glance she was again laughing. Next morning the servants found Carberry absent; in the study a corpse, and a madwoman.

Ferguson Hume (1859 – 1932)