Meanwhile the thief and his plunder had vanished as completely as if the earth had swallowed both.
Great was the wonder at the cleverness of the criminal, and many were the solutions offered to account for the disappearance.

One enterprising weekly paper, improving on the Limerick craze, offered a furnished house and three pounds a week for life to the fortunate person who could solve the mystery.

As yet no one had won the prize, but it was early days yet, and at least five thousand amateur detectives tried to work out the problem.
Naturally Hope was sorry for the untimely death of Bolton, whom he had known as an amiable and clever young man.

But he was also annoyed that his loan of the money to Braddock should have been, so to speak, nullified by the loss of the mummy.

The Professor was perfectly furious at his double loss of assistant and embalmed corpse, and was only prevented from offering a reward for the discovery of the thief and assassin by the painful fact that he had no money.