- Title: The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy
- wiki: link
Throwback Tuesday takes us back to a mystery involving the Three Investigators whose mantra of “We Investigate Everything” leads Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw, and Bob Andrews looking into a cursed mummy who has begun to whisper. Brought to their attention by Hector Sebastian (Alfred Hitchcock in the original printing), the boys attempt to help decipher the mystery of Egyptologist Professor Yarborough‘s 3,000 year-old mummy and a series of peculiar events that have happened since the professor brought the mummy home. The fact that the mummy only speaks to Yarborough initially makes the Investigators suspicious, at least until Jupiter hears the mummy himself.
The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy, originally published in 1964, includes several staples of The Three Investigators novels including a young companion working with the boys (although both are weary of each other initially), the Investigators getting into trouble getting trapped in the mummy’s coffin (not once but twice), an escape from a locked room, a late rescue, the use of the Ghost-to-Ghost Hookup and the Rolls-Royce, and Skinny Norris butting into the case making it harder for the trio to solve.
We also get a missing cat that plays into the larger story and a fake psychic who sends ancestors of Ra-Orkon halfway round the world in search of the mummy. Eventually all the mysteries are solved explaining why Professor Freeman was so obsessed with getting his hands on the mummy (or, to be more precise, the coffin), why Hamid and his family believe to be their ancestor, how all the “cursed” events actually occurred, and how exactly the criminals made the mummy appear to talk.