LITMIR.BIZ

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opposite wall opened; a peculiar, high-pitched humming sound became audible, and Jervis came out on tiptoe with his hand raised.

      "Tread as lightly as you can," he said. "We are just making an exposure."

      The attendant turned back with his lantern, and we followed Jervis into the room from whence he had come. It was a large room, and little lighter than the galleries, for the single glow-lamp that burned at the end where we entered left the rest of the apartment in almost complete obscurity. We seated ourselves at once on the chairs that had been placed for us, and, when the mutual salutations had been exchanged, I looked about me. There were three people in the room besides Jervis: Thorndyke, who sat with his watch in his hand, a grey-headed gentleman whom I took to be Dr. Norbury, and a smaller person at the dim farther end—undistinguishable, but probably Polton. At our end of the room were the two large trays that I had seen in the workshop, now mounted on trestles and each fitted with a rubber drain-tube leading down to a bucket. At the farther end of the room the sinister shape of the gallows reared itself aloft in the gloom; only now I could see that it was not a gallows at all. For affixed to the top cross-bar was a large, bottomless glass basin, inside which was a glass bulb that glowed with a strange green light; and in the heart of the bulb a bright spot of red.

      It was all clear enough so far. The peculiar sound that filled the air was the hum of the interrupter; the bulb was, of course, a Crookes tube, and the red spot inside it, the glowing red-hot disc of the anti-cathode. Clearly an X-ray photograph was being made; but of what? I strained my eyes, peering into the gloom at the foot of the gallows, but though I could make out an elongated object lying on the floor directly under the bulb, I could not resolve the dimly seen shape into anything recognisable. Presently, however, Dr. Norbury supplied the clue.

      "I am rather surprised," said he, "that you chose so composite an object as a mummy to begin on. I should have thought that a simpler object, such as a coffin or a wooden figure, would have been more instructive."

      "In some ways it would," replied Thorndyke, "but the variety of materials that the mummy gives us has its advantages. I hope your father is not ill, Miss Bellingham."

      "He is not at all well," said Ruth, "and we agreed that it was better for me to come alone. I knew Herr Lederbogen quite well. He stayed with us for a time when he was in England."

      "I trust," said Dr. Norbury, "that I have not troubled you for nothing. Herr Lederbogen speaks of 'our erratic English friend with the long name that I can never remember,' and it seemed to me that he might be referring to your uncle."

      "I should hardly have called my uncle erratic," said Ruth.

      "No, no. Certainly not," Dr. Norbury agreed hastily. "However, you shall see the letter presently and judge for yourself. We mustn't introduce irrelevant topics while the experiment is in progress, must we, Doctor?"

      "You had better wait until we have finished," said Thorndyke, "because I am going to turn out the light. Switch off the current, Polton."

      The green light vanished from the bulb, the hum of the interrupter swept down an octave or two and died away. Then Thorndyke and Dr. Norbury rose from their chairs and went towards the mummy, which they lifted tenderly while Polton drew from beneath it what presently turned out to be a huge black-paper envelope. The single glow-lamp was switched off, leaving the room in total darkness, until there burst out suddenly a bright orange-red light immediately above one of the trays.

      We all gathered round to watch, as Polton—the high-priest of these mysteries—drew from the black envelope a colossal sheet of bromide paper, laid it carefully in the tray and proceeded to wet it with a large brush which he had dipped in a pail of water.

      "I thought you always used plates for this kind of work," said Dr. Norbury.

      "We do, by preference; but a six-foot plate would be impossible, so I had a special paper made to the size."

      There is something singularly fascinating in the appearance of a developing photograph; in the gradual, mysterious emergence of the picture from the blank, white surface of plate or paper. But a skiagraph, or X-ray photograph, has a fascination all its own. Unlike an ordinary photograph, which yields a picture of things already seen, it gives a presentment of objects hitherto invisible; and hence, when Polton poured the developer on the already wet paper, we all craned over the tray with the keenest curiosity.

      The developer was evidently a very slow one. For fully half a minute no change could be seen in the uniform surface. Then, gradually, almost insensibly, the marginal portion began to darken, leaving the outline of the mummy in pale relief. The change, once started, proceeded apace. Darker and darker grew the margin of the paper until from slaty grey it had turned to black; and still the shape of the mummy, now in strong relief, remained an elongated patch of bald white. But not for long. Presently the white shape began to be tinged with grey, and, as the colour deepened, there grew out of it a paler form that seemed to steal out of the enshrouding grey like an apparition, spectral, awesome, mysterious. The skeleton was coming into view.

      "It is rather uncanny," said Dr. Norbury. "I feel as if I were assisting at some unholy rite. Just look at it now!"

      The grey shadow of the cartonnage, the wrappings and the flesh was fading away into the black background and the white skeleton stood out in sharp contrast. And it certainly was a rather weird spectacle.

      "You'll lose the bones if you develop much farther," said Dr. Norbury.

      "I must let the bones darken," Thorndyke replied, "in case there are any metallic objects. I have three more papers in the envelope."

      The white shape of the skeleton now began to grey over and, as Dr. Norbury had said, its distinctness became less and yet less. Thorndyke leaned over the tray with his eyes fixed on a point in the middle of the breast and we all watched him in silence. Suddenly he rose. "Now, Polton," he said sharply; "get the hypo on as quickly as you can."

      Polton, who had been waiting with his hand on the stop-cock of the drain-tube, rapidly ran off the developer into the bucket and flooded the paper with the fixing solution.

      "Now we can look at it at our leisure," said Thorndyke. After waiting a few seconds, he switched on one of the glow-lamps, and as the flood of light fell on the photograph, he added: "You see we haven't quite lost the skeleton."

      "No." Dr. Norbury put on a pair of spectacles and bent down over the tray; and at this moment I felt Ruth's hand touch my arm, lightly, at first, and then with a strong, nervous grasp; and I could feel that her hand was trembling. I looked round at her anxiously and saw that she had turned deathly pale.

      "Would you rather go out into the gallery?" I asked; for the room with its tightly shut windows was close and hot.

      "No," she replied quietly, "I will stay here. I am quite well." But still she kept hold of my arm.

      Thorndyke glanced at her keenly and then looked away as Dr. Norbury turned to him to ask a question.

      "Why is it, think you, that some of the teeth show so much whiter than others?"

      "I think the whiteness of the shadows is due to the presence of metal," Thorndyke replied.

      "Do you mean that the teeth have metal fillings?" asked Dr. Norbury.

      "Yes."

      "Really! This is very interesting. The use of gold stoppings—and artificial teeth, too—by the ancient Egyptians is well known, but we have no examples in the Museum. This mummy ought to be unrolled. Do you think all those teeth are filled with the same metal? They are not equally white."

      "No," replied Thorndyke. "Those teeth that are perfectly white are undoubtedly filled with gold, but that greyish one is probably filled with tin."

      "Very interesting," said Dr. Norbury. "Very interesting! And what do you make of that faint mark across the chest, near the top of the sternum?"

      It was Ruth who answered his question.

      "It is the Eye of Osiris!" she exclaimed, in a hushed voice.

      "Dear

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