English fiction; Horror tales, English; Short stories, English
And that was what befell on the 14th of April last at No. 17, Badderly
Gardens. I began by saying that it would seem too grotesque to dogmatize
as to what it was which actually did occur; but I give my impressions,
_our_ impressions (since they are corroborated by Harvey Deacon and John
Moir), for what they are worth. You may, if it pleases you, imagine that
we were the victims of an elaborate and extraordinary hoax. Or you may
think with us that we underwent a very real and a very terrible
experience. Or perhaps you may know more than we do of such occult
matters, and can inform us of some similar occurrence. In this latter
case a letter to William Markham, 146M, The Albany, would help to throw
a light upon that which is very dark to us.
THE JEW’S BREASTPLATE
My particular friend Ward Mortimer was one of the best men of his day at
everything connected with Oriental archæology. He had written largely
upon the subject, he had lived two years in a tomb at Thebes, while he
excavated in the Valley of the Kings, and finally he had created a
considerable sensation by his exhumation of the alleged mummy of
Cleopatra in the inner room of the Temple of Horus, at Philæ. With such
a record at the age of thirty-one, it was felt that a considerable
career lay before him, and no one was surprised when he was elected to
the curatorship of the Belmore Street Museum, which carries with it the
lectureship at the Oriental College, and an income which has sunk with
the fall in land, but which still remains at that ideal sum which is
large enough to encourage an investigator, but not so large as to
enervate him.
There was only one reason which made Ward Mortimer’s position a little
difficult at the Belmore Street Museum, and that was the extreme
eminence of the man whom he had to succeed. Professor Andreas was a
profound scholar and a man of European reputation. His lectures were
frequented by students from every part of the world, and his admirable
management of the collection intrusted to his care was a commonplace in
all learned societies. There was, therefore, considerable surprise when,
at the age of fifty-five, he suddenly resigned his position and retired
from those duties which had been both his livelihood and his pleasure.
He and his daughter left the comfortable suite of rooms which had formed
his official residence in connection with the museum, and my friend,
Mortimer, who was a bachelor, took up his quarters there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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