Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 8, No. 11, November 1963

The Awful Experiment by Michael Zuroy

Our quest for immortality utilizes today — in lieu of sacrificial rites — devices such as discovery and fame. Though such pursuits may warm the scientific heart, there are some experiments best left unconducted.

Even here, in the prison death-house, I derive what is probably a perverse amusement from knowing that I shall be the first Professor of Archaeology ever to be executed by law in the country, possibly in the whole wide world.

A unique distinction, I feel; even a sort of success. I wonder, shall my dear wife, Freda, ever share this view?

My name is Holloway S. Dutt, professor without portfolio at the moment, a qualified Archaeologist who was once driven like a charlatan from my badly needed position by the intolerance, pettiness and narrow vision of my allegedly distinguished colleagues.

Why was I fired from the faculty of the University of West Pendergast? They said I drank to excess. Yes, I did at times; I had reason. They said I was a gambler. Who has not a touch of the gambler in him? If I risked my money at the races it was also for good reason — I needed more money for my researches. They said I was incompetent. Ah, this was the wicked charge!

The truth is, they were shocked by my work on the long-dead of the ancient Egyptians.

Mumbo-jumbo, they scorned. A faker, they called me, a man with the semblance of a scientist dabbling in futile occult nonsense. An incompetent.

I have not always been confidant, assured of my standing as some of my colleagues, but it ever I hoped to accomplish a great thing, it was in this matter. My mistake was to reveal my work prematurely — I had hoped that needed funds would be granted. I should have realized that there are no bigots, no witch-hunters like the scientists when their principles are threatened. Yes, I might hope for funds from a Mrs. Pummerly, not from science.

The ancient Egyptians mummified their dead because they believed that their souls might some day return. They believed that the preserved bodies might someday live again.

A scientist must hold an open mind, even to the unthinkable. The thing had never been fully investigated. Why should I not try? Perhaps no one but my dear wife, Freda, shall ever understand with what passion I wished to try.

Consider what I had accomplished before I was dismissed:

I had actually learned five of the conditions.

To discover at all this secret, known only to the highest ranking of Egyptian priests, that six conditions must be fulfilled to bring the long-dead to life, was in itself an accomplishment. To uncover five of the conditions took endless, painstaking search of ancient records, transcriptions of hieroglyphics and papyrus writings from many different dynasties, a patient piecing together of clues and scraps of information. And I had done this. Only the sixth conditions still cluded me, and I was on the track of that; somewhere in the narrowing body of writings awaiting my attention I felt I would find it.

These were the five conditions that I had uncovered:

That of the Hawk

That of Repose

Thai of Sustenance

That of Love

That of the Moon

Consider also that I had agents in Egypt who had found mummies suitable for my experiments and were ready to ship them.

Consider also that for additional experimentation it was even possible for me to make use of fresh cadavers. There are channels through which one may obtain cadavers.. I had discovered how to mummify a cadaver in a matter of hours — and the existence of this process, which took so much long research on my part. I had revealed to no one. The popular belief that the art of mummifying was lost with ancient Egypt is incorrect. All there of the methods used are well known to archaeology. I had simply discovered how to use modern chemicals to speed up the process.

It will be admitted, then, that I had made much progress at the time I was suddenly severed from my position and my income. Hard hit though I was, never for a moment did I consider giving up the project that had become so important to me. But how to go on? I was practically destitute, having spent all my personal funds on my work or in ill-fated ventures to increase my means at the races. I had not even access to a laboratory any more.

It was than that I received the invitation from Mrs. Thornwood Pummerly, president the Women’s Cultural Group of the town of Fallingford. I had lectured to her group once. She wanted to engage me to lecture again. She would be honored if I would stay at the Pummerly residence while I was in town.

Here, it struck me, might be an opportunity. I was not thinking only of the fee I could charge, helpful, but inadequate to solve my problem. I was also thinking of the fact that the Pummerlys were wealthy.

I was remembering Mrs. Pummerly’s respect and dogged interest in the cultural arts and sciences. Like many others of no personal talent in these pursuits, the worshipped at the shrine.

I was remembering, above all, the effect of my own charm upon Mrs. Pummerly. I hope my dear wife, Freda, will forgive this, but I was desperate.

Objectively and without conceit, let me explain that I am a man of striking appearance, accustomed from my earliest youth to interest of the ladies. In my early forties when Mrs. Pummerly met me, I was tall, distinguished, with handsome eagle-like features, yet eyes that have been characterized as “dreamy”, thick hair bearing a wave of gray, impeccable attire covering a vigorous physique. My voice is a vibrant baritone which I can modulate to reach down into a matron’s toes. In short, I could be cast as a certain movie species of archaeologist, which, by the way, I believe to be another factor that aroused the distrust and resentment of my distinguished colleagues. As through one could not be both handsome and able at the same time!

However that my be, I well remembered the rather warm way in which Mrs. Pummerly’s eyes had rested upon me during my last visit, the lingering touch of her fingers on my arm. Might there be a chance that I could charm and influence Mrs. Pummerly into acting as a patroness of science, financing and supporting my researches? I need not, of course, reveal my project, which might only terrify her; I could easily fabricate an acceptable objective for her benefit.

Furthermore, I was sure that Mrs. Pummerly had not heard of my change of status, else there would not have been an invitation.

Here was a chance that I must grasp, and I did — at once. Nothing of this could I say to my dear wife, Freda, but I bade her a sad farewell, hoping that she would in time understand how necessary it was that I leave her in loneliness, for now.

Mrs. Pummerly met me at the station, driving one of her expensive cars. “How wonderful that you could come, Professor Dutt,” she said in a throaty contralto, holding on to my hand.

There was no doubt about my welcome.

I wasted no time. “So formal?” I smiled at her. “Please call me Holloway. After all, we’re no longer strangers.” I have a certain virile yet teasing manner when I wish.

A pleased pinkness expanded upwards from her neck. “Then you must call me Valerie!”

We chatted easily during the drive to the Pummerly estate/ Wanting no time, as I say, I dropped a few remarks about how valuable a contribution she was making to science and culture by arranging these lectures and how, although she might not be aware of it, certain distinguished circles had already taken note of her activities, and how I hoped that her reputation would continue to grow through the even greater future contribution I was sure she would make, but which I did not explain at the moment.

I punctuated these remarks by patting her arm occasionally. I also placed my hand upon her thigh once in somewhat more than a pat.

Yes, I can be quite bold with the women. Bold, promising and precipitous without losing the aura of dignity and correctness. Part of my charm. The women who succumbed to me before I was married never felt that they were doing wrong.

I noted that when we drew up at the Pummerly place, which was reached by a winding private drive, the was breathing somewhat rapidly and that the pink glow had deepened. She made an agreeable picture. Mrs. Pummerly was not unattractive, it must be realized. Not far from my own age, as I judged, she had a blonde fullness which, if a degree more buxom than it should have been, was still not at all objectionable. Yes, actually, she did not stir me. I was a rake once, yes, but since the moment I first saw the girl who became my dear wife, Freda, no other woman has owned me. In truth, I wished no affair with Mrs. Pummerly, only such flirtation as might advance my cause. To me, Pummerly was a means to an end.

The Pummerly mansion was a long and massive edifice of stone and slate, winged, turreted and gabled. Mr. Pummerly, I understood, made his money in the manufacture of talcum powder from the local tale mines. I was installed in a comfortable room in a wing, attended by well-trained servants and dined well. Mr. Pummerly did not join us. Business to take care of, it seemed, which suited me.

Alter dinner a chauffeur drove Mrs. Pummerly and myself to the lecture hall.

Facing the largely female audience, I felt myself, at always on the platform, in my element. Supreme confidence came to me as the focus of all those approving and respectful female eyes. I knew how I could sway these unwillingly aging matrons, remove them through my magic from their dullness of existence in the town of Fallingford.

But, just at I was about to break the hush, a doubt assailed me, and for an instant I seemed to see myself through the eyes of my colleagues. “Dutt?” I could hear them sneering. “Sure, a flashy hand on the platform. Gets the ladies, all right. Bui there’s nothing to him. No scientist. What’s he ever done but fool around with some hocus-pocus...”

The doubt did not last long. I was after something big. If I succeeded... I began to speak.

It amused me to skirt the subject of my researches without revealing them. As I spoke that night of death practices in ancient Egypt, I watched with interest the shuddering fascination of my audience, the thrilled response to the nuances of my voice which ranged from the romantic to the ghastly... I spoke of the exotic life of Queen Akhotupu, of her dress and ornaments in life, of her sarcophagus in death, and the burial trappings it contained. I described the mummy wrappings and the three methods of mummification... “The most expensive method,” I told them, “used by the nobility, cost about one talent of silver, which would be about twelve hundred dollars nowadays. The body was filled with myrrh, cassia and other spices and soaked in natron for months. Then it was wrapped in the finest of linens heavily smeared with gum, or sometimes pitch which, however, turned the mummy black, as in the case of King Rameses. So effective was this method that the soles of the feet of mummies three thousand years old are found to be still soft and elastic.”

I said nothing, of course, about the case of chemicals among the equipment stored in my luggage, now reposing in the Pummerly residence, which could duplicate such mummies in hours, from an ordinary cadaver.

I went on to describe the cheaper methods. “The poor classes were simply put into a salt solution for about seventy days. We know that millions of mummies were made in Egypt throughout all the dynasties. As I have mentioned, the Egyptians expected that some of these mummies would one day walk again. Superstition, of course, but let us examine some rather curious facts. Certain insects, such as the wasps, lose their body juices in winter, seem to dry up and die, in effect to mummify, yet with the arrival of warm weather they return to vibrant life. Why not the human mummy then, under the proper conditions? Biological objections notwithstanding, the Egyptians believed that if the wandering soul, or Bai, would return, the mummified body would grow firm and elastic again, alive...

“Superstition, as I say, but I have found records of inexplicable incidents that occurred from time to time in the past. In 1905, for instance, Sir Reginald Farnsworth, a private collector of antiquities, found two mummies missing from his collection one morning. Theft unlikely. In 1884, a stranger visited Arthur Thatcher of New York, a historian, and corrected him on material he had written about the Sixth Egyptian Dynasty. New findings later confirmed the stranger. Thatcher recalled that he bore a striking resemblance to a carving of Akhomen II, a Pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty. In 1922, two more mummies disappeared from the University of Sorbonne collection. Inexplicably. A student swore that he saw them walking away before he fainted, but this was put down to hallucination.”

They were all staring at me in rapt horror. I allowed a moment of silence, then dropping my voice, said, “So many millions of mummies. How can we be sure that some don’t live again? Perhaps among you right now there is a resurrected mummy. Perhaps your neighbor, or your best friend.”

For a moment, I had them. I had them believing. They sat in stricken dismay. Tiny stealthy sideways glances appeared here and there. I broke the spell before their own reaction could. I sent a booming laugh through the hall. “Come, ladies,” I laughed, “only superstition, remember?”

They laughed with me in heady relief. My words and presence had chilled them, disturbed them, thrilled them, amused them. My lecture was, as always, a success.

“Holloway,” said Valerie Pummerly to me that night as we strolled in her gardens, “you are a strange man. Do you know, I’m quite frightened of you?”

“Don’t be, I beg you,” I replied. “I’m just a plain man of science who, at the moment, feels much too susceptible, much too vulnerable.”

“Vulnerable?”

“To a lovely and intelligent woman.”

“Come, now!” But she was not displeased. We strolled in silence. Presently, she inquired with obvious casualness, “You never told me, are you married?”

“Yes. But what does that matter?” Inwardly, I hoped that my dear wife, Freda, the only woman to whom I could ever consider myself married, would forgive the lie. “Valerie,” I turned to her. She shivered. I embraced her. She fell into my arms like a wounded duck. Upon her yielding lips I deposited a kiss laden with fervid devastation.

“Holloway!” she panted, hands clutching at me.

I disengaged her. It took some strength. “Forgive me,” I said. “This is madness.”

“Holloway!” she said.

“Please don’t reproach me,” I said. “Although I admire and respect you, I couldn’t help—” I gave her hand a passionate, promising squeeze. “I’ll leave in the morning.”

“No, no, I wish you’d stay. I men — a few days visit—”

“I can’t. I have much to do,” I said gravely.

“I am engaged in a private research project, while on leave from the university. It will take funds beyond my means, however. I must find a backer, a place to work. A most important project, you understand, which will add distinction to my name and to the name of whoever supports it. No, I must get started on this at once.”

A thoughtful look came gradually to Valerie’s face. “This project — tell me about it, I’m so interested.”

An unused room in the wing of the house was turned over to me. “Mr. Pummerly used to store some odds and ends here once,” Valerie told me, “but he has no real need for it.” A generous fund was set up in a bank upon which I was at liberty to draw for my researches, keeping, of course, an accounting. The object of my researches, I explained to Valerie, was to trace the effect upon the cultural and social mores of ancient Egypt between the first dynasty and the eighteenth, Tutankhamen’s time, of the art of the neighboring races such as the Syrians. I would have to send to Egypt, I explained, for certain transcriptions of records, certain artifacts. She seemed quite satisfied.

Mr. Pummerly, himself, did not seem altogether delighted with my presence. He was a thick, rednecked man with small cobalt eyes which glowered at me suspiciously. With the resignation, however, of a man who had apparently fought many losing battles with his wife’s cultural and social aspirations, he made no overt objections. He seemed seldom about, anyhow.

Keeping Valerie at bay was something of a problem. I could not afford to lose her interest either, so that while on the one hand I seemed to glow with ardor and affection, on the other I put her off with lofty platonic sentiments whenever she managed to find me alone and away from my work. After a time, she acquired a rather frantic and predatory expression. I might, of course, have taken the easy way, but when I thought of my dear wife, Freda... No. Still, it was becoming difficult.

But it was my work that mattered. At last I could get at it. I immediately wired funds to my agents in Egypt, instructing them to procure and ship to me the mummies I needed for the experiment. I was glad that it would not be necessary for me to rely only upon making mummies from whatever cadavers I might acquire. Thee old, authentic article was best.

While I waited for the mummies to arrive, I spent most of my time searching through my innumerable copies of ancient hieroglyphics, seeking the sixth condition that still eluded me. It was slow work, and as time passed without results I began to fear that the proper condition of the moon might pass before I found it. This would mean I would have to wait another year, and I certainly could not expect to maintain my Pummerly set-up that long.

Of the five condition I already knew, the condition of the Moon was the most fleeting. The Bai would only enter its mummy, the Egyptians believed, when the moon was in the position of Thomma. To as moderns, this is the moon’s yearly position of maximum displacement from the orbital mean; I had no trouble in ascertaining the date. I had only a few weeks.

The other conditions could be fulfilled. The condition of the Hawk meant that the mummy of a hawk must be present during an attempt to bring life to the long-dead. This is the reason that mummified hawks are found in Egyptian tombs. My agents were sending me several.

The condition of Love meant that success would be more certain if the attempt was made with two mummies who had been lovers in life. My agents were sending me the remains of Sethomana, a prince of Egypt during the second dynasty, and his consort, Tolatha, a couple whom, the records showed, had been always together during life holding each other dear. There were certain love poems in hieroglyphics.

The condition of Sustenance meant that wines and tempting foods must be on hand. No difficulty there.

The condition of Repose meant that tranquility and ease must surround the bodies. It would be best to lay them out on a cushiony surface.

Mrs. Pummerly was not yet aware that the mummies were on the way to her home. I judged it best to get them in before explaining to her that they were essential to my researches.

Still, the time went by and still, the sixth condition eluded me. Not even a clue could I uncover; I was certain only that it existed.

There were periods, late at night when my eyes smouldered exhausted in my head and the ache of weariness laid hold of me, that I knew discouragement and even despair. Were my colleagues right about me, after all? Was I a shallow trifler, an empty vehicle fit only to play at science and charm the ladies, a dabbler in nonsense? Was I pursuing this improbable chimera with no better basis than hope? What had I ever accomplished in my chosen field up to now? What discoveries, what unearthings, what travels, what hardships, what brilliant analyses, what papers, what books written? None.

It was the thought of my dear wife, Freda, waiting patiently for me at home that saved me then. Ah, Freda, Freda, you who always believed in me, who burst upon me when I was no more than a trifler and became a star to steady me. Freda, it was for you I had to do this and for you to prove one truth so that others might believe in me too and I might believe in myself.

Yes, come what may, I had to follow this awful experiment to its very end.

The Pummerlys were not home the day the mummies arrived. I was thankful for that. I had the truckmen put the massive wooden shipping cases into the room set aside for my researches. When they had gone, I asked the butler, Weed, to assist me in dismantling the cases. He was quite willing; his curiosity as to the contents was obvious. I saw no point in further concealment. I was sure there were duplicates of the key to the room and, in any case, the household would soon know.

They had not shipped the cumbersome sarcophagus, of which there was no need, but as we ripped the wood slats away, the caskets themselves appeared, painted, carved, wonderfully wrought. “Easy now, Weed,” I said absently, hearing his pry bar clatter to the floor. Absorbed, I lifted a lid and exposed the mummy of Sethomana, prince of Egypt.

He had been preserved in pitch, so his face was black, but wonderfully life-like. The teeth were gleaming white in a smile, the hair was fair and silky about the black ears. He had been wrapped in fine amber-yellow linen.

As for Tolatha, she was dainty yet with full, sensuous lips formed as though to say some sweet word.

Wonderful specimens. I was well pleased.

“Mummies, sir?” said Weed, his voice not entirely steady.

“Mummies,” I said.

He stared at me without expression. Presently, one side of his face twitched. He turned and walked away jerkily, back stiff.

I had hoped to see Mrs. Pummerly that evening about my mummies, but she was staying with some friends for the night. I did not care to see Mr. Pummerly at all, so I retired early to my bedroom near my research room.

How was I to know that Mr. Pummerly would arrive late with a visitor?

The first I knew about it was when their voices reached me from the hall. “Hits me sometimes,” the man with Pummerly was saying. “Queasy stomach, you know. Usually, a stiffish drink fixes me up.”

“Got just the thing,” Pummerly’s voice said. “Prime old stuff. Had it locked in a cabinet in this room for years.” With horror, I heard Pummerly unlocking the door to my research room.

“Just a small snort,” the visitor’s voice said. “Then we can discuss our business, old man. Glad to place my orders with old-line stable people like you. Some of the people in these other outfits are nothing but eccentrics.”

I heard the click of the light-switch. I heard feet crossing the floor. I remembered that the coffin lids were up.

There was then a small period of silence. A strangled gasp. A sick grunt. The visitor — “Mummies, Pummerly? You keep mummies?”

Incoherent sounds from Pummerly.

“Sick,” the visitor’s voice moaned. “My stomach. Got to get home...” Footsteps hurried away.

I only overheard a small snatch of the conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Pummerly the next day, although Pummerly was speaking rather loud. “That character,” Pummerly was grating, “has got to go!”

I felt that he had taken the wrong tack, fortunately. Mrs. Pummerly did not take kindly to orders and criticism of her judgment.

Still, she appeared on the grim side at our interview. “Why, Holloway,” she asked, “have you brought mummies into my home?”

I launched my persuasive explanation as to why I needed mummies for my studies of Egyptian mores. Had it been the evening before, it would have gone well. But now, after the incident, her grimness was not abating. Knowing the nature of the eternal female, I understood that partly behind it was pique at my resistance of her charms. I was afraid she might put me out, halting the experiment.

We were alone. There was only one thing to do. I made use of one of my qualities of voice, a seamless caress that absorbed her as within a pastel sea, I sent her a look of moody desire across a long diagonal, I touched the crook of her arm.

Presently, I removed my lips from hers and examined her rapt and hypnotized face. Enough. Firmly, I detached her. Her eyes opened. They were glazed. “We must stop, Valerie,” I said sternly. Our consciences, our honor.”

“Honor,” she repeated wildly.

“Lovely child,” I whispered. “If I don’t go from you this minute—”

“What, Holloway, what might happen—?”

“Don’t torture me,” I said hoarsely. Then, through the teeth, passionately, “I swear, Valerie, one day I shall lose control of myself—”

It was a promise that assured me of her continued backing. Rather neat of me, I thought. I had no trouble, for a time, after that. Mr. Pummerly remained suppressed. He said nothing about the mummy incident, in fact spoke to me not at all during the rare times that we met. I did note a somewhat malign glare, a barely audible rumbling in his throat.

Thomma, the time of the Moon, was drawing nearer. According to my astronomical tables, the moment when the dead might rise would come at two-forty-seven A.M. on that night. And still I did not know the secret of the Sixth Condition. I drove myself frantically, delving into the ancient hieroglyphics, working every possible moment.

It was a near thing. It was the day before Thomma that, at last, from a scrap of Third Dynasty recordings by an obscure priest the knowledge blazed at me.

The Sixth Condition.

It shocked me. It stunned me.

I read the incredible thing over an over again. No mistake. Could I steel myself to this? Did I dare?

That day was also the day the butler and the cook gave notice. Altogether, a disturbing day.

Mr. Pummerly’s voice was raised so loud that morning that I could hardly avoid overhearing his quarrel with Mrs. Pummerly. “Damn him!” Pummerly was roaring. “Now he’s driving the servants away! Invaluable man, Weed. Don t blame him for refusing to work in the same house with mummies! But it’s the cook I mind most! We’ll never find another one like her. Her fried chicken— If you don’t get rid of Dutt today, I’ll throw him out my self!”

Mrs. Pummerly’s reply was too low-pitched for the words to come through, but the tone was firm, determined. I could tell that she was holding the line. Good girl.

“Refuse, do you!” Pummerly roared. “Why so attached to him, hey? Don’t think I haven’t wondered about this before.” His voice went suspicious, grating. “What’s going on between you two, anyhow?”

Again he had taken the wrong tack. Mrs. Pummerly’s reaction was immediate and explosive. Her voice rose sharply in an offended torrent, all the more vehement I knew for her illicit desires. It went on and on, ever more edged, until his attempts to break in grew weaker and further apart and finally died altogether. “All right,” I heard him say morosely, suppressed, when she finally paused. “Sorry I said anything. All right, all right, let’s not talk about Dutt anymore.”

I silently applauded Valerie.

But the thing that mostly haunted me that last day was the Sixth Condition. The ghastly thing had to be done, but could I do it? To give up my experiment now was unthinkable. It was a chance for me to prove myself, yes, but more than that it was a chance to know. To know. To penetrate an everlasting secret of life and death, to learn if immortality existed... But to comply with the Sixth Condition was to enter into horror, to risk all, life itself... And still — was my goal not worth any risk? And yet — was it in me to do this thing? I had never been a saint, but this—? Could I?

In this manner I wearily agonized all day, but when night had come and deepened, I still could not tell what I would do. Mechanically, I made ready for the experiment so that all might be in order if I complied with the Sixth Condition. From among my instruments, I chose a suitable one and secreted it adroitly on my person.

I complied with the Condition of the Hawk, laying the mummified birds upon the breasts of my long-dead Egyptians.

The room was tranquil. I had bedded the mummies most comfortably in their caskets. The Condition of Repose was met.

Wines and food on the table fulfilled the Condition of Sustenance.

Outside, above the small dark clouds that now and then floated by, silver-rimmed, rode the bright full moon but a few hours from its appointment, slowly, inevitably, bringing the Condition of the Moon.

The Condition of Love — the serenity of Sethomana and Tolatha was that of love, of content in each other. Who could doubt that these two had loved, indeed still loved? It seemed to me that there hovered in the room now an intangible essence, an ectoplasm of love that defied the ages.

All ready. Almost midnight. Now, could I—?

A key turned in the lock and my door was flung open.

Startled, I saw Mr. Pummerly swaying in the doorway. He bared his teeth, strode in, slammed the door.

“You louse,” he said.

I saw that he had been drinking. All day, no doubt, while he brooded about me. He was in a foggy, ugly state. “Goin’ have pleasure,” Mr. Pummerly stated heavily, “of punchin’ you right in snoot. Then throw you the hell out.” He began to stalk me. “All right,” he was growling, “invade my house, all right. Bring in mummies, all right. Chase my customers, scare my butler, fool with my wife, all right. But when you lose me bes’ cook ever had, s’too much...” He launched a wide swing at me.

Immobile with surprise, I was hit. I went down. I sprang up in furious reflex, my body awakening to violence. While a remote cell in my brain thanked Mr. Pummerly for making it easy for me to meet the Sixth Condition, I drew the instrument I carried, the knife, and stabbed him to the heart.

He died rapidly.

No stopping now.

I left the room, locked the door behind me, softly padded through the dark halls and chambers of the huge, sleeping house, up to the bedrooms. I did not worry about the servants, their quarters were remote and they must have retired. I entered Valerie Pummerly’s bedroom.

I approached silently, cautiously — but she woke.

The moon filtered full upon me through the window curtains. “Valerie,” I whispered tenderly.

She could come to only one conclusion. “Holloway,” she breathed happily. “At last.” She sat up, and the covers fell away revealing her buxom beauty straining within the flimsy nightgown. I felt regret, but not temptation, no, never temptation with the image of my dear wife, Freda, in my soul. I went into Valerie’s open arms, feeling the softness of her flesh, the agreeable sleaziness of her gown, and with regret still — regret because she was comely and had been good to me — once more I drew my knife.

It entered her heart as she clutched at me. She coughed once. Her arms fell away. She dropped back.

Stealthily I carried her body through the silent house to my experimental room. Locked the door. Laid her out on the rug, next to the mummy of Tolatha. Then I laid out the body of Mr. Pummerly alongside the mummy of Sethomana.

Done. I had met the Sixth Condition — the Condition of Sacrifice. As required, I had provided the bodies of a mated couple, stabbed through the heart on the day of Thomma.

Now, if it was to be, these ancient dead would rise in little over an hour. I had only to wait. I sat with my eyes fixed on the mummies as the moon drew ever closer to Thomma.

How can I confess what happened next? What vindication, when the experiment meant so much? Yes, my body and mind were exhausted from long labors, perhaps it was natural that in reposing — but there can be no excuse.

I fell asleep.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock... this time the sound that woke me, the only sound in that silent room, coming from the wall clock. The time was three twenty-six.

I had slept through the critical moment.

In the midst of my dismay and anger at my weakness, I realized something.

The caskets were empty. Sethomana and Tolatha were gone.

I examined the room. The mummy wrappings were there, empty. Some wine and fruit were gone. I raised the wine glasses to the light, illuminating the purple dregs and, yes, the cloudy imprints of human lips! I went to the door. It had been unlocked from the inside, the catch turned. I locked it again and sat down to think.

Although I had missed the awful spectacle, the evidence indicated that the experiment had been a success. Sethomana and Tolatha must be living again, somewhere outside, somewhere in the night. And in the wisdom that the ages had given their souls, I thought, they would know how to acquire protective coloration, to disappear into our modern civilization, to present the semblance of ordinary human beings. Undoubtedly, I speculated, others of the long-dead had done the same in the past. I had little hope of ever finding them.

This was disappointment. I had no proof to present to the world, to science, to my doubting colleagues, I had seen nothing, but at least — I knew.

But did I know? Was there another explanation possible?

To my knowledge, I have never sleep-walked.

But suppose this time I had, in wish-fulfillment? Suppose I had removed the mummies myself and destroyed them? Suppose it was I who had turned the lock, I who had eaten the fruit and drunk wine from two glasses?

I considered this possibility, then chose to dismiss it. It clashed with every instinct of mine, with that intangible conviction that comes to human beings to resolve their doubts. Proof or not, I felt that I knew. I had found a way to immortality.

Abruptly, I became aware of my danger. The bodies of the Pummerlys—. I ceased my musings and grew coldly practical. If the bodies were discovered, I would be convicted of murder. If it could be avoided, I had no wish to die just yet. Bodies were difficult objects to dispose of, but—

I knew exactly what to do. There were still some hours before daybreak, still time before the Pummerlys would be missed.

I had with me, as I have said, the means of changing ordinary cadavers into mummies in a matter of hours.

I mummified the Pummerlys.

As their bodies dried and their skins shriveled and blackened it was also possible for me to alter somewhat the cast of their features. Arranging with utmost care the mummy wrappings, I stowed the Pummerlys in the caskets in place of Sethomana and Tolatha. Their ancient dignity was splendid.

Even an expert could not have told them from Egyptian mummies thousands of years old. And who would think of suspecting mummies?

I was arrested, naturally. The servants contributed much unkind testimony. But none of them, not even Weed, recognized the mummies as their employers, nor even glanced at them, nor had desire to approach them.

As for the police, as I had expected, they were incapable of thinking the unthinkable. Other evidence was not wanting, bloodstains, garments, fingerprints, but no bodies. Their drawn out, painstaking, methodical searches amused me. I was greatly diverted on the occasion when a crack detective, leaning on the mummy casket that held Mr. Pummerly, eyes sliding blankly over the mummy, growled at me, “Come on, come on, we know you did it. We’ll find them sooner or later so you might as well tell us. Where’d you hide the bodies?”

“What bodies?” I said innocently.

Yes, a hundred times the police must have by-passed the mummies without a spark of suspicion.

They gave up grilling me. I could not be convicted — no corpus delicti. I was released.

I should not be in the death house now, waiting to pay the supreme penalty for murder — but we all makes mistakes.

Needing money after my release, stripped of assets, having again lost what little remained at the races, I sold the mummies. I sold them to an amateur collector. I felt perfectly safe, entirely convinced that he could not detect the imposture.

However, it seems that I overlooked one small detail. When the buyer curiously inspected his purchase later, he found on Mr. Pummerly’s finger the ring that I had in my haste neglected to remove. There were certain symbols on the ring which the man recognized. He called the police because he could not understand how a mummy thousands of years old could have belonged to Mr. Pummerly’s lodge.

So, sooner than I expected, I shall die. Regrettable, but there is no despair in me. I have now hope and faith that I shall live again. I have given certain instructions. My body shall be mummified, entombed in a crypt that waits for me in my home town, with a message to those who will live in the future. Though no one may believe, I at least have new pride in myself; I know that I have accomplished a greater thing than any of my colleagues; I have learned that death need not be final.

Ah, death that cruelly takes those we love from us, that often comes too early, too suddenly! It was when death took her from me after her illness, years ago, that I first embarked upon these experiments. My Freda, you were made for life and light, not for dark disintegration! But now — we who love so much shall be together again, we shall walk the earth again, we shall laugh together and once more hold each other tenderly.

It is for this I have worked.

It is for this that my mummy shall be placed in the same crypt where there has been awaiting me these past years, in lonely patience, the sweet and precious mummy of my dear wife, Freda.