The Mummy Case
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1 - Museum Mystery
Chapter 2 - The Pharaoh’s Warning
Chapter 3 - Mummy Powder
Chapter 4 - The Weird Intruder
Chapter 5 - All Aboard!
Chapter 6 - A Raging Storm
Chapter 7 - Surprise Message
Chapter 8 - The Spy at the Embassy
Chapter 9 - An Unpredicted Flood
Chapter 10 - The Runaway Van
Chapter 11 - Wet Guns
Chapter 12 - Tunnel of Horrors
Chapter 13 - The Empty Coffin
Chapter 14 - The Trapdoor
Chapter 15 - “It’s a Crocodile!”
Chapter 16 - The Deserted Temple
Chapter 17 - Valley of the Kings
Chapter 18 - Stranded on the Nile
Chapter 19 - The Welcoming Committee
Chapter 20 - Kidnapped in New York
WHEN five priceless Egyptian statuettes are stolen from a New York museum, the Hardy Boys travel to exotic Egypt, the ancient land of the Pharoah’s curse. En route, the boys are asked to safeguard a mysterious mummy and find themselves tangled in a web of international intrigue.
While searching for the missing statuettes, the Hardy Boys fall into the clutches of a gang of sinister thieves and political rebels, and risk losing the mummy forever! What is the connection between the New York theft and the Egyptian mummy? In an exciting spin along the Nile, the young detectives uncover a secret hiding place with countless stolen treasures and realize they must get to the police fast!
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Copyright © 1980 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved. Published
in 2005 by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group,
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. THE HARDY BOYS® is a
registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a
trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. S.A.
eISBN : 978-1-101-07672-9
http://us.penguingroup.com
1
Museum Mystery
Frank Hardy tossed a baseball into the air, brought his bat around in a flashing arc, and hit a line drive that his brother Joe caught with a quick backhand stab.
Joe grinned. “Not bad, eh? Just throw me anything and I’ll get it!”
“Pure luck!” Frank retorted. “That one had base hit written all over it.”
The boys were practicing in their back yard for their high-school team’s big game with Bayport’s arch rival, Greenpoint. Just then their Aunt Gertrude poked her head out of the kitchen door.
“Frank and Joe! You’re wanted on the phone.”
“Who is it, Aunt Gertrude?” Frank asked.
“Your father. Come quickly. He’s calling long-distance.” Gertrude Hardy, who had been living with her brother’s family for quite some time, waved impatiently. She had a habit of disguising her fondness for her nephews behind a crisp, no-nonsense manner.
Frank and Joe ran into the house. Frank picked up the hall phone while his brother went to get the extension in his father’s study. “Hi, Dad,” the dark-haired, eighteen-year-old boy said. “What’s up?”
“A new case,” Mr. Hardy replied. “Are you both there?”
“Yes,” Joe spoke into the receiver. “Go ahead.”
Fenton Hardy, the famous private detective, sounded serious. “Listen carefully. I’m at the United Nations in New York, working on an assignment for one of its members. I’ve learned about a plot to overthrow that nation’s government. That’s all I can say, because it’s highly confidential. A leak might trigger an international crisis, and Uncle Sam would be right in the middle of it!”
“What can we do to help?” Joe inquired excitedly.
“Nothing on this case,” Mr. Hardy replied. “But there’s something else I’d like you to handle for me. Go to New York tomorrow morning and see Curator Henry Wilcox at the Egyptian Museum. Some statuettes were stolen from the collection. Wilcox wanted me to look into it but I can’t because of this UN investigation.”
“Sure, Dad,” Frank said. “We’ll be glad to.”
“If you need help, call Sam Radley,” his father added. Radley was one of his top operatives who had assisted the Hardys on many of their assignments.
Mr. Hardy now asked to speak to the boys’ mother, and Frank and Joe returned to the yard. They resumed their baseball practice and Joe hit a couple of grounders. “We’ve worked on a lot of thefts,” the blond, seventeen-year-old amateur detective said, “but we’ve never chased ancient Egyptian statuettes before!”
Frank grinned. “I hope we catch them. With Dad busy on another case, I’d hate to let him down.”
Aunt Gertrude had come into the yard to hang up clothes. “Ancient Egyptians, eh?” she sniffed. “Next thing I know you’ll be playing baseball with a mummy!”
“If a mummy can hit, we’ll put him on the team,” Joe declared.
Next morning, the Hardy boys had an early breakfast, then set off on the long drive to New York City. When they reached the museum, they parked their yellow sports sedan in the garage underneath the building and went upstairs. They identified themselves to one of the staff members and asked to speak to Mr. Wilcox. After a brief conversation on his intercom, the man told them to go to the curator’s office. “Take the main stairs,” he directed, “then go down the hall past the Weapons Room. Mr. Wilcox’s office is at the very end.”
Frank and Joe walked between two replicas of an Egyptian sphinx flanking the staircase, reached the next floor, and went down the hall. As they passed the Weapons Room, they saw an arsenal of ancient arms. Swords, bows, spears, and daggers hung on the walls and a chariot stood in the middle of the room.
“There’s enough military hardware in there to start a war,” Frank commented with a grin, then he knocked on the curator’s door. Wilcox opened it. He was a tall man wearing rumpled clothing and horn-rimmed glasses. The boys recognized him at once. A famous archeologist, he had been photographed by journalists and television crews at digs in Egypt.
“You must be the Hardy boys,” Wilcox said as he shook hands with the visitors. “Your father told me you’d come. I’m glad you can take this case.”
He led the young detectives into his office, motioning for them to sit down. Then he settled himself in a swivel chair behind his large desk.
“Tell us about the robbery,” Joe began. “All we know is that some statuettes are missing.”
“The pieces disappeared one night from the Statuary Room,” Wilcox declared. “Five small golden statuettes of the ancient pharaohs.” He handed the boys a number of photographs. “Here they are. It happened last week.”
“Does the museum have an alarm system?” Frank inquired.
The curator nodded. “But it didn’t go off!”
“Perhaps it was an inside job,” Frank conjectured. “The thief could be someone who works here and knows how the alarm functions.”
Wilcox nodded. “The police arrived at the same conclusion. That’s why I had the system changed immediately. Now even the guards don’t know how it operates. I was advised to keep it a secret. If the thief is one of my staff and makes another attempt, he’ll trigger the alarm.”
“The police are working on the case?” Joe asked.
“Yes. But I felt it would be good for an outsider or two to help. You ca
n mingle with the staff more easily and might find out something the police didn’t. People are wary when they talk to the authorities. They might speak more freely to you.”
“We’ll be glad to do all we can,” Frank said.
“Good. As for the robbery, I’ll have the guard describe it to you.”
Wilcox snapped on his intercom. “Have Ahmed Ali report to my office,” he said.
Ali was a small, dark Egyptian with black eyes and a nervous manner. “I was on duty that night,” he testified. “I saw and heard nothing. The statuettes were there when I checked the room early in the evening. Next morning, they were gone!”
“Where were you during the rest of the night?” Frank inquired.
“Checking the other rooms,” the Egyptian said defensively. “I—”
“It wasn’t his fault,” Wilcox put in. “His partner on guard duty became sick and had to go home. It takes two men to patrol the entire museum, but Ali had to do it alone that night. ”
After a few more inconclusive answers, the man left.
“He wasn’t much help,” Frank said. “But I suppose he’s our one and only suspect so far, simply because he was here at the time of the theft.”
“The police questioned Ali and found nothing,” Wilcox declared. “Also, we’ve never had any reason to mistrust Ali. He‘s—”
A loud clanging reverberated through the building and interrupted the curator’s sentence. On a control board near his phone, a red light began to flash.
Wilcox stared at it in surprise. “The alarm!” he exclaimed. “Somebody’s in the Weapons Room!”
He jumped up from his chair and headed for the door with the Hardys close behind him. All three hurried to the Weapons Room.
Ali was standing near the wall, holding an Egyptian dagger in his hand! The sharp blade gleamed as he stood perfectly still, an astonished expression on his face.
“What are you doing?” Wilcox demanded sternly.
The guard slowly lowered the dagger. “It was loose on the wall, so I took it down to straighten the clamp. I didn’t realize that it was enough to set off the burglar alarm. It never went off before.”
“Well, it does now. See that things are not removed from their displays in the future.”
“I will,” Ali murmured as he put the dagger back on the wall. Then he quickly went out of the Weapons Room.
Joe examined the clasp holding the dagger. “I don’t see anything wrong with it,” he declared.
“Neither do I,” Frank agreed. “I think Ali was fooling with the dagger for his own purposes. I wonder if he was trying to steal it? Though that would be pretty stupid with us here!”
Wilcox agreed, nodding his head. “Well, let’s go back to my office. I have my two assistant curators coming in, William Colden and Najeeb Salim, and I’d like you to speak to them.”
After Wilcox was seated behind his desk again, he turned off the burglar alarm, then inquired over the intercom about Colden and Salim. He was told that the two men had not yet returned from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they had been inspecting a new shipment of Egyptian artifacts.
“While we’re waiting,” Wilcox suggested, “I’ll show you something that might interest you.”
“What’s that?” Joe asked.
“The mummy of an unknown Egyptian pharaoh who died about three thousand years ago. It was stolen!”
2
The Pharaoh’s Warning
“Stolen!” Joe gasped. “Another robbery here at the museum?”
“No,” Mr. Wilcox replied. “This mummy was taken out of Egypt by an unscrupulous archeologist many years ago. We purchased it in good faith. However, when Najeeb Salim joined our staff, he proved to me that the mummy really belongs to his country. So, we’re preparing to send it back. Salim will accompany it and make the official presentation in Cairo. He’ll sail the day after tomorrow aboard the freighter Admiral Halsey.
“Mr. Colden contends that a ship is the safest way of transport,” Wilcox continued. “He’s in charge of the mummies in the museum, so I’m taking his advice. Would you like to see the mummy?”
Frank and Joe agreed enthusiastically, and Wilcox took them through the hall to an elevator that carried them into the basement.
In one corner, a specialist was fitting bits of broken pottery together. Two men were measuring a small sphinx, whose damaged head lay beside it, while a woman was sorting out a box full of jewelry.
Wilcox led the way to the opposite side of the room near the stairs. Here, all by itself, the Hardys saw an ornate Egyptian case or sarcophagus. The lid bore the likeness of the pharaoh who had been buried in it. The headdress extended down to his shoulders, meeting a gown that reached to his feet. The face was shown in repose, its features carefully painted in brilliant colors. The chin terminated in a long, narrow beard, and the arms were crossed over the chest with one hand holding a scepter, the other a flail.
“I suppose you know the meaning of the scepter and the flail?” the curator asked.
“We’ve both studied Egyptian history in high school,” Frank said. “The scepter is a symbol of the pharaoh’s right to rule.”
“And the flail,” Joe added, “means he had a right to knock anybody on the head who didn’t obey.”
Wilcox smiled. “You’re good students as well as good detectives. Now let’s open the case.”
With the curator’s help, Frank and Joe lifted the lid and placed it carefully on the floor.
“Meet our mummy,” Mr. Wilcox said. “I’m sorry I can’t introduce him by name, but we still haven’t figured out who he was.”
An eerie feeling penetrated the Hardys as they gazed down at the pharaoh who had been dead for three thousand years. He was wrapped from head to foot in linen cloth, with the features of his face painted on the bandages. Through holes in the linen, two artificial black eyes were staring at the boys.
“He—he almost looks alive!” Joe stammered. “As if he were about to say something to us!”
“That’s what the ancient Egyptians intended,” Mr. Wilcox replied. “They wanted the embalmed mummy to be as lifelike as possible for its journey to the next world.”
“Embalmed?” Frank asked. “The pharaoh was embalmed?”
“That’s correct,” the curator declared. “It was a complicated process that’s still somewhat of a mystery. But we do know that most of the internal organs were removed, then the body was put in a jar of salted water. Sometimes preservatives were used, such as resin and natron.”
“And then?” Joe asked. “I mean, you can’t just salt a guy in a jar and expect he’ll last forever!”
Wilcox laughed. “Of course not. The ancient Egyptians filled the body with other chemicals, wrapped it tightly, and put it in its case. The burial site was the Valley of the Kings.”
“That’s up the Nile near Luxor where they buried the pharaohs in the cliffs, isn’t it?” Frank said.
“That’s right. They covered the tombs to keep them from being found. But grave robbers got into all of them, except the one of King Tutankhamen.”
Joe smiled. “We saw the exhibition of King Tut’s treasures,” he said. “It was fantastic how well everything was preserved.”
Frank noticed hieroglyphics on the case above the mummy’s head. “Do you know what these mean, Mr. Wilcox?”
“It’s the pharaoh’s curse.”
Frank felt a cold chill run up and down his spine. He stared at the mummy, mesmerized for a moment, then shook himself out of his trance. “What curse? What’s this guy saying to us?”
“I’ll translate it into verse,” the curator replied. “It goes something like this:
Cursed is he
Who touches me;
He soon shall die
Whose face I spy.“
Joe shuddered. “It gives me the creeps!”
“The ancient Egyptians wrote this type of warning because they thought it would protect the mummy,” Wilcox went on. “Unfortunately, it didn’t help
much.”
“It worked in the case of King Tut,” Joe pointed out. “If I remember correctly, Lord Carnarvon, the British aristocrat who financed the search, died shortly afterward. ”
“That’s right,” Frank added. “He didn’t even see the mummy of Tutankhamen. It was found later.”
“On the other hand,” Wilcox said, “Howard Carter, who directed the excavation, lived to a ripe old age!”
Joe grinned. “If King Tut put the whammy on anybody, it should have been Carter. The pharaoh knocked off the wrong man!”
“That’s about it,” Wilcox agreed. “But don’t underestimate the power of the pharaoh’s warning. Many people still believe in it.”
Frank and Joe replaced the lid on the mummy’s coffin, then they all went back to the curator’s office. Two men were waiting for them. One, William Colden, was short, rotund, and had a friendly smile. The other, Najeeb Salim, was a tall, thin man with a dark complexion and a solemn expression on his face. Although he wore Western dress, he was unmistakably Egyptian.
“We were caught in traffic,” Colden apologized after the introductions had been made. “That’s why we’re late. ”
Wilcox nodded. “I showed Frank and Joe the mummy in the meantime. They’re here to investigate the theft of the golden statuettes.”
Salim glowered at the Hardys. “And have you discovered the culprit?”
“So far we haven’t much to go on,” Frank replied, “except for maybe Ahmed Ali and the dagger.” He described the event in the Weapons Room after the alarm had gone off. “Ali could have stolen the statuettes,” he added. “He knew about the alarm system the museum used to have, and he was on guard that night.”
Wilcox got to his feet. “I’d like to stay longer,” he said, “but I have to catch a plane to Chicago for a conference of archeologists. In fact, I’m the main speaker. You boys know what you have to do, so I’ll leave the investigation to you.”
“What about the mummy?” Colden asked.
“You and Najeeb are in charge,” Wilcox replied. “See that the case is prepared for shipment to Cairo and cooperate with Frank and Joe in the matter of the stolen statuettes.”