suspected that Lord Porter had been injected with a poison. When I received confirmation that it was cobra venom, I saw no explanation that was logical, except that it had been administered by the nephew. To be certain, I had to eliminate the only other visitor to Lord Porter that day, your friend McAndrew. I had to know if the two men had been alone at any time on that day."
"That was the question you asked Crawford to pose to the butler."
"In my examination of the rug in Lord Porter's bedroom, I found not only traces of cigar ash, but evidence that someone had paced up and down in a state of extreme excitement. You know my methods. What does that tell you?"
"There had been a heated argument."
"Precisely, but concerning what? Among my excursions following our sojourn to the domain of Inspector Crawford was a call upon Lord Porter's solicitor, the Honourable Dudley Walsingham. My purpose was to inquire as to the beneficiary of Lord Porter's will. It was quite a formidable estate, even before the spectacular treasures brought back from Egypt. My enquiries directed toward knowledgeable men in the financial circles and bankers in the City resulted in evidence that Basil Porter has been on the brink of bankruptcy for quite some time."
"You therefore surmised that Basil expected to be rescued from his dilemma by killing his uncle and inheriting an estate which had been substantially increased in wealth as a result of the treasures brought back from Egypt."
"But this prospect was suddenly jeopardised," said Holmes, "when Lord Porter appeared to accede to Professor Flinders Petrie's appeal to donate the expedition's finds to the BM. It was then that Basil devised a plan for murder that he had hoped would appear to be the result of the curse found in the tomb. To lay the foundation for this fantastic proposition, he killed Professor Broadmoor and in an exceedingly clever use of the press, he called attention to the coincidental incidents of the tunnel collapse, the ship bearing expedition artefacts that sank, and the death of Fulmer in the train accident. Of course, I had no proof of any of this. Each of these occurrences could be readily explained as happenstance. The only occurrence that I was able to investigate was the curious incident of the roof tile that injured Major McAndrew. This meant a visit to his quarters in Chelsea. In examining the rooftop, I found not only that the tile had been pried loose, but footprints of the person who flung them down on McAndrew. If this attack had been done by a magically animated mummy that had been wondrously transported to Chelsea, he had taken time to be fitted for a pair of shoes. We are left with no other explanation but this extraordinary drama had to be the work of Basil Porter. At that point, I had to be certain he was the only person on that day who had the opportunity."
"But what if Major McAndrew had also been alone with Lord Porter that day?"
"Motive, Watson! What motive could McAndrew possibly have had to kill Lord Porter?"
"Well done, Holmes!"
Although Basil Porter had admitted to the murders of his uncle and Felix Broadmoor, he presented to jury and judge at his trial the fantastic explanation that his deeds were the result of a brain fever that developed into insanity, which he brazenly blamed on the mummy's curse. This astonishing device proved unavailing. Convicted of two murders, he was sentenced to death and hanged for his crimes. Meanwhile, because Lord Porter had no other heirs, the treasures of the Egyptian expedition were declared the property of the Crown and consigned by a judge of the probate court to the British Museum, there to be under the supervision of Flinders Petrie. That distinguished scholar continued his work as an archaeologist, for which he would presently be knighted and named Professor of Egyptology at University College of London in 1892. The Egyptian Research Council that he established in 1894 eventually became The British School of Archaeology and, ultimately, the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in Malet Place.
As I was reviewing my notes on this extraordinary affair a few days after Holmes's solution to a case that I had decided to record under the title "The Mummy's Curse," I gazed across our sitting room at Holmes and interrupted his repose with a thought that had suddenly occurred to me. "You have proved that Basil Porter devised a murderous scheme to inherit