Title: The Scarab Murder Case (A Philo Vance Story) (1930)
Author: S. S. Van Dine
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Title: The Scarab Murder Case (A Philo Vance Story) (1926)
Author: S. S. Van Dine
La vérité n'a point cet air impétueux.
--Boileau
DEDICATED WITH APPRECIATION TO AMBROSE LANSING, LUDLOW BULL AND
HENRY A. CAREY OF THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
OF ART
CHARACTERS OF THE BOOK
PHILO VANCE
JOHN F.-X. MARKHAM
District Attorney of New York County.
ERNEST HEATH
Sergeant of the Homicide Bureau.
DR. MINDRUM W. C. BLISS
Egyptologist; head of the Bliss Museum of Egyptian Antiquities.
BENJAMIN H. KYLE
Philanthropist and art patron.
MERYT-AMEN
Wife of Dr. Bliss.
ROBERT SALVETER
Assistant Curator of the Bliss Museum; nephew of Benjamin H. Kyle.
DONALD SCARLETT
Technical Expert of the Bliss Expeditions in Egypt.
ANÛPU HANI
Family retainer of the Blisses.
BRUSH
The Bliss butler.
DINGLE
The Bliss cook.
HENNESSEY
Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
SNITKIN
Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
EMERY
Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
GUILFOYLE
Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
CAPTAIN DUBOIS
Finger-print expert.
DETECTIVE BELLAMY
Finger-print expert.
DR. EMANUEL DOREMUS
Medical Examiner
CURRIE
Vance's valet.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
1 MURDER!
2 THE VENGEANCE OF SAKHMET
3 SCARABAEUS SACER
4 TRACKS IN THE BLOOD
5 MERYT-AMEN
6 A FOUR-HOUR ERRAND
7 THE FINGER-PRINTS
8 IN THE STUDY
9 VANCE MAKES AN EXPERIMENT
10 THE YELLOW PENCIL
11 THE COFFEE PERCOLATOR
12 THE TIN OF OPIUM
13 AN ATTEMPTED ESCAPE
14 A HIEROGLYPHIC LETTER
15 VANCE MAKES A DISCOVERY
16 A CALL AFTER MIDNIGHT
17 THE GOLDEN DAGGER
18 A LIGHT IN THE MUSEUM
19 A BROKEN APPOINTMENT
20 THE GRANITE SARCOPHAGUS
21 THE MURDERER
22 THE JUDGMENT OF ANÛBIS
1
MURDER!
(Friday, July 13; 11 A.M.)
Philo Vance was drawn into the Scarab murder case by sheer
coincidence, although there is little doubt that John F.-X. Markham--
New York's District Attorney--would sooner or later have enlisted
his services. But it is problematic if even Vance, with his fine
analytic mind and his remarkable flair for the subtleties of human
psychology, could have solved that bizarre and astounding murder if
he had not been the first observer on the scene; for, in the end, he
was able to put his finger on the guilty person only because of the
topsy-turvy clews that had met his eye during his initial inspection.
Those clews--highly misleading from the materialistic point of view--
eventually gave him the key to the murderer's mentality and thus
enabled him to elucidate one of the most complicated and incredible
criminal problems in modern police history.
The brutal and fantastic murder of that old philanthropist and art
patron, Benjamin H. Kyle, became known as the Scarab murder case
almost immediately, as a result of the fact that it had taken place
in a famous Egyptologist's private museum and had centred about a
rare blue scarabaeus that had been found beside the mutilated body
of the victim.
This ancient and valuable seal, inscribed with the names of one of
the early Pharaohs (whose mummy had, by the way, not been found at
the time), constituted the basis on which Vance reared his
astonishing structure of evidence. The scarab, from the police
point of view, was merely an incidental piece of evidence that
pointed somewhat obviously toward its owner; but this easy and
specious explanation did not appeal to Vance.
"Murderers," he remarked to Sergeant Ernest Heath, "do not
ordinarily insert their visitin' cards in the shirt bosoms of their
victims. And while the discovery of the lapis-lazuli beetle is most
interestin' from both the psychological and evidential standpoints,
we must not be too optimistic and jump to conclusions. The most
important question in this pseudo-mystical murder is why--and how--
the murderer left that archaeological specimen beside the defunct
body. Once we find the reason for that amazin' action, we'll hit
upon the secret of the crime itself."
The doughty Sergeant had sniffed at Vance's suggestion and had
ridiculed his scepticism; but before another day had passed he
generously admitted that Vance had been right, and that the murder
had not been so simple as it had appeared in first view.
As I have said, a coincidence brought Vance into the case before the
police were notified. An acquaintance of his had discovered the
slain body of old Mr. Kyle, and had immediately come to him with the
gruesome news.
It happened on the morning of Friday, July 13th. Vance had just
finished a late breakfast in the roof-garden of his apartment in
East Thirty-eighth Street, and had returned to the library to
continue his translation of the Menander fragments found in the
Egyptian papyri during the early years of the present century, when
Currie--his valet and majordomo--shuffled into the room and
announced with an air of discreet apology:
"Mr. Donald Scarlett has just arrived, sir, in a state of
distressing excitement, and asks that you hasten to receive him."
Vance looked up from his Work with an expression of boredom.
"Scarlett, eh? Very annoyin'. . . . And why should he call on me
when excited? I infinitely prefer calm people. . . . Did you offer
him a brandy-and-soda--or some triple bromides?"
"I took the liberty of placing a service of Courvoisier brandy
before him," explained Currie. "I recall that Mr. Scarlett has a
weakness for Napoleon's cognac."
"Ah, yes--so he has. . . . Quite right, Currie." Vance leisurely
lit one of his Régie cigarettes and puffed a moment in silence.
"Suppose you show him in when you deem his nerves sufficiently
calm."
Currie bowed and departed.
"Interestin' johnny, Scarlett," Vance commented to me (I had been
with Vance all morning arranging and filing his notes.) "You
remember him, Van--eh, what?"
I had met Scarlett twice, but I must admit I had not thought of him
for a month or more. The impression of him, however, came back to
me now with considerable vividness. He had been, I knew, a college
mate of Vance's at Oxford, and Vance had run across him during his
sojourn in Egypt two years before.
Scarlett was a student of Egyptology and archaeology, having
specialized in these subjects at Oxford under Professor F. Ll.
Griffith. Later he had taken up chemistry and photography in order
that he might join some Egyptological expedition in a technical
capacity. He was a well-to-do Englishman, an amateur and
dilettante, and had made of Egyptology a sort of fad.
When Vance had gone to Alexandria Scarlett had been working in the
Museum laboratory at Cairo. The two had met again and renewed their
old acquaintance. Recently Scarlett had come to America as a member
of the staff of Doctor Mindrum W. C. Bliss, the famous Egyptologist,
who maintained a private museum of Egyptian antiquities in an old
house in East Twentieth Street, facing Gramercy Park. He had called
on Vance several times since his arrival in this country, and it was
at Vance's apartment that I had met him. He had, however, never
called without an invitation, and I was at a loss to understand his
unexpected appearance this morning, for he possessed all of the
well-bred Englishman's punctiliousness about social matters.
Vance, too, was somewhat puzzled, despite his attitude of
lackadaisical indifference.
"Scarlett's a clever lad," he drawled musingly. "And most proper.
Why should he call on me at this indecent hour? And why should he
be excited? I hope nothing untoward has befallen his erudite
employer. . . . Bliss is an astonishin' man, Van--one of the
world's great Egyptologists."*
* Doctor Mindrum W. C. Bliss, M.A., A.O.S.S., F.S.A., F.R.S., Hon.
Mem. R.A.S., was the author of "The Stele of Intefoe at Koptos";
a "History of Egypt during the Hyksos Invasion"; "The Seventeenth
Dynasty"; and a monograph on the Amen-hotpe III Colossi.
I recalled that during the winter which Vance had spent in Egypt he
had become greatly interested in the work of Doctor Bliss, who was
then endeavoring to locate the tomb of Pharaoh Intef V who ruled
over Upper Egypt at Thebes during the Hyksos domination. In fact,
Vance had accompanied Bliss on an exploration in the Valley of the
Tombs of the Kings. At that time he had just become attracted by
the Menander fragments, and he had been in the midst of a uniform
translation of them when the Bishop murder case interrupted his
labors.
Vance had also been interested in the variations of chronology of
the Old and the Middle Kingdoms of Egypt--not from the historical
standpoint but from the standpoint of the evolution of Egyptian art.
His researches led him to side with the Bliss-Weigall, or short,
chronology* (based on the Turin Papyrus), as opposed to the long
chronology of Hall and Petrie, who set back the Twelfth Dynasty and
all preceding history one full Sothic cycle, or 1,460 years. After
inspecting the art works of the pre-Hyksos and the post-Hyksos eras,
Vance was inclined to postulate an interval of not more than 300
years between the Twelfth and Eighteenth Dynasties, in accordance
with the shorter chronology. In comparing certain statues made
during the reign of Amen-emhêt III with others made during the reign
of Thut-mosè I--thus bridging the Hyksos invasion, with its barbaric
Asiatic influence and its annihilation of indigenous Egyptian
culture--he arrived at the conclusion that the maintenance of the
principles of Twelfth-Dynasty aesthetic attainment could not have
been possible with a wider lacuna than 300 years. In brief, he
concluded that, had the interregnum been longer, the evidences of
decadence in Eighteenth-Dynasty art would have been even more
pronounced.
* According to the Bliss-Weigall chronology the period between the
death of Sebknefru-Rê and the overthrow of the Shepherd Kings at
Memphis was from 1898 to 1577 B.C.--to wit: 321 years--as against the
1800 years claimed by the upholders to the longer chronology. This
short chronology is even shorter according to Breasted and the
German school. Breasted and Meyer dated the same period as from
1788 to 1580. These 208 years, by the way, Vance considered too
short for the observable cultural changes.
These researches of Vance's ran through my head that sultry July
morning as we waited for Currie to usher in the visitor. The
announcement of Scarlett's call had brought back memories of many
wearying weeks of typing and tabulating Vance's notes on the
subject. Perhaps I had a feeling--what we loosely call a
premonition--that Scarlett's surprising visit was in some way
connected with Vance's aesthetico-Egyptological researches. Perhaps
I was even then arranging in my mind, unconsciously, the facts of
that winter two years before, so that I might cope more
understandingly with the object of Scarlett's present call.
But surely I could have had not the slightest idea or suspicion of
what was actually about to befall us. It was far too appalling and
too bizarre for the casual imagination. It lifted us out of the
ordinary routine of daily experience and dashed us into a frowsty,
miasmic atmosphere of things at once incredible and horrifying--
things fraught with the seemingly supernatural black magic of a
Witches' Sabbat. Only, in this instance it was the mystic and
fantastic lore of ancient Egypt--with its confused mythology and
its grotesque pantheon of beast-headed gods--that furnished the
background.
Scarlett almost dashed through the portières of the library when
Currie had pulled back the sliding door for him to enter. Either
the Courvoisier had added to his excitement or else Currie had
woefully underrated the man's nervous state.
"Kyle has been murdered!" the newcomer blurted, leaning against the
library table and staring at Vance with gaping eyes.
"Really, now! That's very distressin'." Vance held out his
cigarette-case. "Do have one of my Régies. . . . And you'll find
that chair beside you most comfortable. A Charles chair: I picked
it up in London. . . . Beastly mess, people getting murdered, what?
But it really can't be helped, don't y' know. The human race is so
deuced blood-thirsty."
His indifference had a salutary effect on Scarlett, who sank limply
into the chair and began lighting his cigarette with trembling
hands.
Vance waited a moment and then asked:
"By the by, how do you know Kyle has been murdered?"
Scarlett gave a start.
"I saw him lying there--his head bashed in. A frightful sight.
No doubt about it." (I could not help feeling that the man had
suddenly assumed a defensive attitude.)
Vance lay back in his chair languidly and pyramided his long
tapering hands.
"Bashed in with what? And lying where? And how did you happen to
discover the corpse? . . . Buck up, Scarlett, and make an effort at
coherence."
Scarlett frowned and took several deep inhalations on his cigarette.
He was a man of about forty, tall and slender, with a head more
Alpine than Nordic--a Dinaric type. His forehead bulged slightly,
and his chin was round and recessive. He had the look of a scholar,
though not that of a sedentary bookworm, for there was strength and
ruggedness in his body; and his face was deeply tanned like that of
a man who has lived for years in the sun and wind. There was a
trace of fanaticism in his intense eyes--an expression that was
somehow enhanced by an almost completely bald head. Yet he gave the
impression of honesty and straightforwardness--in this, at least,
his British institutionalism was strongly manifest.
"Right you are, Vance," he said after a brief pause, with a more or
less successful effort at calmness. "As you know, I came to New
York with Doctor Bliss in May as a member of his staff; and I've
been doing all the technical work for him. I have my diggings round
the corner from the museum, in Irving Place. This morning I had a
batch of photographs to classify, and reached the museum shortly
before half past ten. . . ."
"Your usual hour?" Vance put the question negligently.
"Oh, no. I was a bit latish this morning. We'd been working last
night on a financial report of the last expedition."
"And then?"
"Funny thing," continued Scarlett. "The front door was slightly
ajar--I generally have to ring. But I saw no reason to disturb
Brush--"
"Brush?"
"The Bliss butler. . . . So I merely pushed the door open and
entered the hallway. The steel entrance door to the museum, which
is on the right of the hallway, is rarely locked, and I opened it.
Just as I started to descend the stairs into the museum I saw some
one lying in the opposite corner of the room. At first I thought it
might be one of the mummy cases we'd unpacked yesterday--the light
wasn't very good--and then, as my eyes got adjusted, I realized it
was Kyle. He was crumpled up, with his arms extended over his
head. . . . Even then I thought he had only fallen in a faint; and
I started down the steps toward him."
He paused and passed his handkerchief--which he drew from his cuff--
across his shining head.
"By Jove, Vance!--it was a hideous sight. He'd been hit over the
head with one of the new statues we placed in the museum yesterday,
and his skull had been crushed in like an egg-shell. The statue
still lay across his head."
"Did you touch anything?"
"Good heavens, no!" Scarlett spoke with the emphasis of horror. "I
was too ill--the thing was ghastly. And it didn't take half an eye
to see that the poor beggar was dead."
Vance studied the man closely.
"I say, what was the first thing you did?"
"I called out for Doctor Bliss--he has his study at the top of the
little spiral stairs at the rear of the museum. . . ."
"And got no answer?"
"No--no answer. . . . Then--I admit--I got frightened. Didn't like
the idea of being found alone with a murdered man, and toddled back
toward the front door. Had a notion I'd sneak out and not say I'd
been there. . . ."
"Ah!" Vance leaned forward and carefully selected another
cigarette. "And then, when you were again in the street, you fell
to worryin'."
"That's it precisely! It didn't seem cricket to leave the poor
devil there--and still I didn't want to become involved. . . . I
was now walking up Fourth Avenue threshing the thing out with myself
and bumping against people without seeing 'em. And I happened to
think of you. I knew you were acquainted with Doctor Bliss and the
outfit, and could give me good advice. And another thing, I felt a
little strange in a new country--I wasn't just sure how to go about
reporting the matter. . . . So I hurried along to your flat here."
He stopped abruptly and watched Vance eagerly. "What's the
procedure?"
Vance stretched his long legs before him and lazily contemplated the
end of his cigarette.
"I'll take over the procedure," he replied at length. "It's not so
dashed complicated, and it varies according to circumstances. One
may call the police station, or stick one's head out the window and
scream, or confide in a traffic officer, or simply ignore the corpse
and wait for some one else to stumble on it. It amounts to the
same thing in the end--the murderer is almost sure to get safely
away. . . . However, in the present case I'll vary the system a bit
by telephoning to the Criminal Courts Building."
He turned to the mother-of-pearl French telephone on the Venetian
tabouret at his side, and asked for a number. A few moments later
he was speaking to the District Attorney.
"Greetings, Markham old dear. Beastly weather, what?" His voice
was too indolent to be entirely convincing. "By the by, Benjamin H.
Kyle has passed to his Maker by foul means. He's at present lying
on the floor of the Bliss Museum with a badly fractured skull. . . .
Oh, yes--quite dead, I understand. Are you interested, by any
chance? Thought I'd be unfriendly and notify you. . . . Sad--sad.
. . . I'm about to make a few observations in situ criminis. . . .
Tut, tut! This is no time for reproaches. Don't be so deuced
serious. . . . Really, I think you'd better come along. . . .
Right-o! I'll await you here."
He replaced the receiver on the bracket and again settled back in
his chair.
"The District Attorney will be along anon," he announced, "and we'll
probably have time for a few observations before the police arrive."
His eyes shifted dreamily to Scarlett.
"Yes . . . as you say . . . I'm acquainted with the Bliss outfit.
Fascinatin' possibilities in the affair: it may prove most
entertainin'. . . ." (I knew by his expression that his mind was
contemplating--not without a certain degree of anticipatory
interest--a new criminal problem.) "So, the front door was ajar,
eh? And when you called out no one answered?"
Scarlett nodded but made no audible reply. He was obviously puzzled
by Vance's casual reception of his appalling recital.
"Where were the servants? Couldn't they have heard you?"
"Not likely. They're in the other side of the house--down-stairs.
The only person who could have heard me was Doctor Bliss--provided
he'd been in his study."
"You could have rung the front door-bell, or summoned someone from
the main hall," Vance suggested.
Scarlett shifted in his chair uneasily.
"Quite true," he admitted. "But--dash it all, old man!--I was in a
funk. . . ."
"Yes, yes--of course. Most natural. Prima-facie evidence and all
that. Very suspicious, eh what? Still, you had no reason for
wanting the old codger out of the way, had you?"
"Oh, my God, no!" Scarlett went pale. "He footed the bills.
Without his support the Bliss excavations and the museum itself
would go by the board."
Vance nodded.
"Bliss told me of the situation when I was in Egypt. . . . Didn't
Kyle own the property in which the museum is situated?"
"Yes--both houses. You see, there are two of 'em. Bliss and his
family and young Salveter--Kyle's nephew--live in one, and the
museum occupies the other. Two doors have been cut through, and the
museum-house entrance has been bricked up. So it's practically one
establishment."
"And where did Kyle live?"
"In the brownstone house next to the museum. He owned a block of
six or seven adjoining houses along the street."
Vance rose and walked meditatively to the window.
"Do you know how Kyle became interested in Egyptology? It was
rather out of his line. His weakness was for hospitals and those
unspeakable English portraits of the Gainsborough school. He was
one of the bidders for the Blue Boy. Luckily for him, he didn't get
it."
"It was young Salveter who wangled his uncle into financing Bliss.
The lad was a pupil of Bliss's when the latter was instructor of
Egyptology at Harvard. When he was graduated he was at a loose end,
and old Kyle financed the expedition to give the lad something to
do. Very fond of his nephew, was old Kyle."
"And Salveter's been with Bliss ever since?"
"Very much so. To the extent of living in the same house with him.
Hasn't left his side since their first visit to Egypt three years
ago. Bliss made him Assistant Curator of the Museum. He deserved
the post, too. A bright boy--lives and eats Egyptology."
Vance returned to the table and rang for Currie.
"The situation has possibilities," he remarked, in his habitual
drawl. . . . "By the by, what other members of the Bliss ménage are
there?"
"There's Mrs. Bliss--you met her in Cairo--a strange girl, half
Egyptian, much younger than Bliss. And then there's Hani, an
Egyptian, whom Bliss brought back with him--or, rather, whom MRS.
Bliss brought back with HER. Hani was an old dependent of Meryt's
father. . . ."
"Meryt?"
Scarlett blinked and looked ill at ease.
"I meant Mrs. Bliss," he explained. "Her given name is Meryt-Amen.
In Egypt, you see, it's customary to think of a lady by her native
name."
"Oh, quite." A slight smile flickered at the corner of Vance's
mouth. "And what position does this Hani occupy in the household?"
Scarlett pursed his lips.
"A somewhat anomalous one, if you ask me. Fellahîn stock--a Coptic
Christian of sorts. He accompanied old Abercrombie--Meryt's father--
on his various tours of exploration. When Abercrombie died, he
acted as a kind of foster-father to Meryt. He was attached to the
Bliss expedition this spring in some minor capacity as a
representative of the Egyptian Government. He's a sort of high-
class handy-man about the museum. Knows a lot of Egyptology, too."
"Does he hold any official post with the Egyptian Government now?"
"That I don't know . . . though I wouldn't be surprised if he's
doing a bit of patriotic spying. You never can tell about these
chaps."
"And do these persons complete the household?"
"There are two American servants--Brush, the butler, and Dingle, the
cook."
Currie entered the room at this moment.
"Oh, I say, Currie," Vance addressed him; "an eminent gentleman has
just been murdered in the neighborhood, and I am going to view the
body. Lay out a dark gray suit and my Bangkok. A sombre tie, of
course. . . . And, Currie--the Amontillado first."
"Yes, sir."
Currie received the news as if murders were everyday events in his
life, and went out.
"Do you know any reason, Scarlett," Vance asked, "why Kyle should
have been put out of the way?"
The other hesitated almost imperceptibly.
"Can't imagine," he said, knitting his brows. "He was a kindly,
generous old fellow--pompous and rather vain, but eminently likable.
I'm not acquainted with his private life, though. He may have had
enemies. . . ."
"Still," suggested Vance, "it's not exactly likely that an enemy
would have followed him to the museum and wreaked vengeance on him
in a strange place, when any one might have walked in."
Scarlett sat up abruptly.
"But you're not implying that any one in the house--"
"My dear fellow!"
Currie entered the room at this moment with the sherry, and Vance
poured out three glasses. When we had drunk the wine he excused
himself to dress. Scarlett paced up and down restlessly during the
quarter of an hour Vance was absent. He had discarded his cigarette
and lighted an old briar pipe which had a most atrocious smell.
Almost at the moment when Vance returned to the library an
automobile horn sounded raucously outside. Markham was below
waiting for us.
As we walked toward the door Vance asked Scarlett:
"Was it custom'ry for Kyle to be in the museum at this hour of the
morning?"
"No, most unusual. But Doctor Bliss had made an appointment with
him for this morning, to discuss the expenditures of the last
expedition and the possibilities of continuing the excavations next
season."
"You knew of this appointment?" Vance asked indifferently. "Oh,
yes. Doctor Bliss called him by phone last night during the
conference, when we were assembling the report."
"Well, well." Vance passed out into the hall. "So there were
others who also knew that Kyle would be at the museum this morning."
Scarlett halted and looked startled.
"Really, you're not intimating--" he began.
"Who heard the appointment made?" Vance was already descending the
stairs.
Scarlett followed him with puzzled, downcast eyes.
"Well, let me see. . . . There was Salveter, and Hani, and . . ."
"Pray, don't hesitate."
"And Mrs. Bliss."
"Every one in the household, then, but Brush and Dingle?"
"Yes. . . . But see here, Vance; the appointment was for eleven
o'clock; and the poor old duffer was done in before half past ten."
"That's most inveiglin'," Vance murmured.
2
THE VENGEANCE OF SAKHMET
(Friday, July 13; 11:30 A.M.)
Markham greeted Vance with a look of sour reproach.
"What's the meaning of this?" he demanded tartly. "I was in the
midst of an important committee meeting--"
"The meaning is still to be ascertained," Vance interrupted lightly,
stepping into the car. "The cause of your ungracious presence,
however, is a most fascinatin' murder."
Markham shot him a shrewd look, and gave orders to the chauffeur to
drive with all possible haste to the Bliss Museum. He recognized
the symptoms of Vance's perturbation: a frivolous outward attitude
on Vance's part was always indicative of an inner seriousness.
Markham and he had been friends for fifteen years, and Vance had
aided him in many of his investigations. In fact, he had come to
depend on Vance's assistance in the more complicated criminal cases
that came under his jurisdiction.*
* As legal adviser, monetary steward and constant companion of Philo
Vance, I kept a complete record of the principal criminal cases in
which he participated during Markham's incumbency. Four of these
cases I have already recorded in book form--"The Benson Murder
Case," "The 'Canary' Murder Case," "The Greene Murder Case," and
"The Bishop Murder Case."
It would be difficult to find two men so diametrically opposed to
each other temperamentally. Markham was stern, aggressive,
straightforward, grave, and a trifle ponderous. Vance was debonair,
whimsical, and superficially cynical--an amateur of the arts, and
with only an impersonal concern in serious social and moral
problems. But this very disparateness in their natures seemed to
bind them together.
On our way to the museum, a few blocks distant, Scarlett recounted
briefly to the District Attorney the details of his macabre
discovery.
Markham listened attentively. Then he turned to Vance.
"Of course, it may be just an act of thuggery--some one from the
street. . . ."
"Oh, my aunt!" Vance sighed and shook his head lugubriously.
"Really, y' know, thugs don't enter conspicuous private houses in
broad daylight and rap persons over the head with statues. They at
least bring their own weapons and chose mises-en-scène which offer
some degree of safety."
"Well, anyway," Markham grumbled, "I've notified Sergeant Heath.*
He'll be along presently."
* Sergeant Ernest Heath, of the Homicide Bureau, had worked with
Markham on most of his important cases. He was an honest, capable,
but uninspired police officer, who, after the Benson and the
"Canary" murder cases, had come to respect Vance highly. Vance
admired the Sergeant; and the two--despite their fundamental
differences in outlook and training--collaborated with admirable
smoothness.
At the corner of Twentieth Street and Fourth Avenue he halted the
car. A uniformed patrolman stood before a call-box, who, on
recognizing the District Attorney, came to attention and saluted.
"Hop in the front seat, officer," Markham ordered. "We may need
you."
When we reached the museum Markham stationed the officer at the foot
of the steps leading to the double front door; and we at once
ascended to the vestibule.
I made a casual mental note of the two houses, which Scarlett had
already briefly described to us. Each had a twenty-five-foot
frontage, and was constructed of large flat blocks of brownstone.
The house on the right had no entrance--it had obviously been walled
up. Nor were there any windows on the areaway level. The house on
the left, however, had not been altered. It was three stories high;
and a broad flight of stone stairs, with high stone banisters, led
to the first floor. The "basement," as was usual in such structures,
was a little below the street level. The two houses had at one time
been exactly alike, and now, with the alterations and the one
entrance, gave the impression of being a single establishment.
As we entered the shallow vestibule--a characteristic of all the old
brownstone mansions along the street--I noticed the heavy oak
entrance door, which Scarlett had said was ajar earlier in the
morning, was now closed. Vance, too, remarked the fact, for he at
once turned to Scarlett and asked:
"Did you close the door when you left the house?"
Scarlett looked seriously at the massive panels, as if trying to
recall his actions.
"Really, old man, I can't remember," he answered. "I was devilishly
upset. I may have shut the door. . . ."
Vance tried the knob, and the door opened.
"Well, well. The latch has been set anyway. Very careless on some
one's part. . . . Is that unusual?"
Scarlett looked astonished.
"Never knew it to be unlatched."
Vance held up his hand, indicating that we were to remain in the
vestibule, and stepped quietly inside to the steel door on the right
leading to the museum. We could see him open it gingerly but could
not distinguish what was beyond. He disappeared for a moment.
"Oh, Kyle's quite dead," he announced sombrely on his return. "And
apparently no one has discovered him yet." He cautiously reclosed
the front door. "We sha'n't take advantage of the latch being set,"
he added. "We'll abide by the conventions and see who answers."
Then he pressed the bell-button.
A few moments later the door was opened by a cadaverous, chlorotic
man in butler's livery. He bowed perfunctorily to Scarlett, and
coldly inspected the rest of us.
"Brush, I believe." It was Vance who spoke.
The man bowed slightly without taking his eyes off of us.
"Is Doctor Bliss in?" Vance asked.
Brush shifted his gaze interrogatively to Scarlett. Receiving an
assuring nod, he opened the door a little wider.
"Yes, sir," he answered. "He's in his study. Who shall I say is
calling?"
"You needn't disturb him, Brush." Vance stepped into the entrance
hall, and we followed him. "Has the doctor been in his study all
morning?"
The butler drew himself up and attempted to reprove Vance with a
look of haughty indignation.
Vance smiled, not unkindly.
"Your manner is quite correct, Brush. But we're not wanting lessons
in etiquette. This is Mr. Markham, the District Attorney of New
York; and we're here for information. Do you care to give it
voluntarily?"
The man had caught sight of the uniformed officer at the foot of the
stone steps, and his face paled.
"You'll be doing the doctor a favor by answering," Scarlett put in.
"Doctor Bliss has been in his study since nine o'clock," the butler
replied, in a tone of injured dignity.
"How can you be sure of that fact?" Vance asked.
"I brought him his breakfast there; and I've been on this floor ever
since."
"Doctor Bliss's study," interjected Scarlett, "is at the rear of
this hall." He pointed to a curtained door at the end of the wide
corridor.
"He should be able to hear us now," remarked Markham.
"No, the door is padded," Scarlett explained. "The study is his
sanctum sanctorum; and no sounds can reach him from the house."
The butler, his eyes like two glittering pin-points, had started to
move away. "Just a moment, Brush." Vance's voice halted him. "Who
else is in the house at this time?"
The man turned, and when he answered it seemed to me that his voice
quavered slightly.
"Mr. Hani is up-stairs. He has been indisposed--"
"Oh, has he, now?" Vance took out his cigarette-case. "And the
other members of the household?"
"Mrs. Bliss went out about nine--to do some shopping, so I understood
her to say--Mr. Salveter left the house shortly afterward."
"And Dingle?"
"She's in the kitchen below, sir."
Vance studied the butler appraisingly.
"You need a tonic, Brush. A combination of iron, arsenic and
strychnine would build you up."
"Yes, sir. I've been thinking of consulting a doctor. . . . It's
lack of fresh air, sir."
"Just so." Vance had selected one of his beloved Régies, and was
lighting it with meticulous care. "By the by, Brush; what about Mr.
Kyle? He called here this morning, I understand."
"He's in the museum now. . . . I'd forgotten, sir. Doctor Bliss
may be with him."
"Indeed! And what time did Mr. Kyle arrive?"
"About ten o'clock."
"Did you admit him?"
"Yes, sir."
"And did you notify Doctor Bliss of his arrival?"
"No, sir. Mr. Kyle told me not to disturb the doctor. He explained
that he was early for his appointment, and wished to look over some
curios in the museum for an hour or so. He said he'd knock on the
doctor's study door later."
"And he went direct into the museum?"
"Yes, sir--in fact, I opened the door for him."
Vance drew luxuriously on his cigarette for a moment.
"One more thing, Brush. I note that the latch on the front door has
been set, so that any one from the outside could enter the house
without ringing. . . ."
The man gave a slight start and, going quickly to the door, bent
over and inspected the lock.
"So it is, sir. . . . Very strange."
Vance watched him closely.
"Why strange?"
"Well, sir, it wasn't unlatched when Mr. Kyle came at ten o'clock.
I looked at it specially when I let him in. He said he wished to be
left alone in the museum, and as members of the house sometimes
leave the door on the latch when they go out for a short time, I
made sure that no one had done so this morning. Otherwise they
might have come in and disturbed Mr. Kyle without my warning them."
"But, Brush," interjected Scarlett excitedly; "when I got here at
half past ten the door was open--"
Vance made an admonitory gesture.
"That's all right, Scarlett." Then he turned back to the butler.
"Where did you go after admitting Mr. Kyle?"
"Into the drawing-room." The man pointed to a large sliding door
half-way down the hall on the left, at the foot of the stairs.
"And remained there till when?"
"Till ten minutes ago."
"Did you hear Mr. Scarlett come in and go out the front door?"
"No, sir. . . . But then, I was using the vacuum cleaner. The
noise of the motor--"
"Quite so. But if the vacuum cleaner's motor was hummin', how do
you know that Doctor Bliss did not leave his study?"
"The drawing-room door was open, sir. I'd have seen him if he came
out."
"But he might have gone into the museum and left the house by the
front door without your hearing him. Y' know, you didn't hear Mr.
Scarlett enter."
"That would have been out of the question, sir. Doctor Bliss wore
only a light dressing-gown over his pyjamas. His clothes are all
up-stairs."
"Very good, Brush. . . . And now, one more question. Has the front
doorbell rung since Mr. Kyle's arrival?"
"No, sir."
"Maybe it rang and Dingle answered it. . . . That motor hum, don't
y' know."
"She would have come up and told me, sir. She never answers the
door in the morning. She's not in presentable habiliments till
afternoon."
"Quite characteristically feminine," Vance murmured. . . . "That
will be all for the present, Brush. You may go down-stairs and wait
for our call. An accident has happened to Mr. Kyle, and we are
going to look into it. You are to say nothing . . . understand?"
His voice had suddenly become stern and ominous.
Brush drew himself up with a quick intake of breath: he appeared
positively ill, and I almost expected him to faint. His face was
like chalk.
"Certainly, sir--I understand." His words were articulated with
great effort. Then he walked away unsteadily and disappeared down
the rear stairs to the left of Doctor Bliss's study door.
Vance spoke in a low voice to Markham, who immediately beckoned to
the officer in the street below.
"You are to stand in the vestibule here," he ordered. "When
Sergeant Heath and his men come, bring them to us at once, we'll be
in there." He indicated the large steel door leading into the
museum. "If anyone else calls, hold them and notify us. Don't let
any one ring the bell."
The officer saluted and took up his post; and the rest of us, with
Vance leading the way, passed through the steel door into the
museum.
A flight of carpeted stairs, four feet wide, led down along the wall
to the floor of the enormous room beyond, which was on the street
level. The first-story floor--the one which had been even with the
hallway of the house we had just quitted--had been removed so that
the room of the museum was two stories high. Two huge pillars, with
steel beams and diagonal joists, had been erected as supports.
Moreover, the walls marking the former rooms had been demolished.
The result was that the room we had entered occupied the entire
width and length of the house--about twenty-five by seventy feet--
and had a ceiling almost twenty feet high.
At the front was a series of tall, leaded-glass windows running
across the entire width of the building; and at the rear, above a
series of oak cabinets, a similar row of windows had been cut. The
curtains of the front windows were drawn, but those at the rear were
open. The sun had not yet found its way into the room, and the
light was dingy.
As we stood for a moment at the head of the steps I noted a small
circular iron stairway at the rear leading to a small steel door on
the same level as the door through which we had entered.
The arrangement of the museum in relation to the house which served
as living quarters for the Blisses, was to prove of considerable
importance in Vance's solution of Benjamin H. Kyle's murder, and for
purposes of clarity I am including in this record a plan of the two
houses. The floor of the museum, as I have said, was on the street
level--it had formerly been the "basement" floor. And it must be
borne in mind that the rooms indicated on the left-hand half of the
plan were one story above the museum floor and half-way between the
museum floor and the ceiling.
[Picture of the Museum--Museum.gif]
My eyes at once searched the opposite corner of the room for the
murdered man; but that part of the museum was in shadow, and all I
could see was a dark mass, like a recumbent human body, in front of
the farthest rear cabinet.
Vance and Markham had descended the stairs while Scarlett and I
waited on the upper landing. Vance went straightway to the front of
the museum and pulled the draw-cords of the curtains. Light flooded
the semi-darkness; and for the first time I took in the beautiful
and amazing contents of that great room.
In the centre of the opposite wall rose a ten-foot obelisk from
Heliopolis, commemorating an expedition of Queen Hat-shepsut of the
Eighteenth Dynasty, and bearing her cartouche. To the right and
left of the obelisk stood two plaster-cast portrait statues--one of
Queen Teti-shiret of the Seventeenth Dynasty, and the other a black
replica of the famous Turin statue of Ramses II--considered one of
the finest pieces of sculptured portraiture in antiquity.
Above and beside them hung several papyri, framed and under glass,
their faded burnt-orange backgrounds--punctuated with red, yellow,
green and white patches--making splashes of attractive color against
the dingy gray plaster of the wall. Four large limestone bas-
reliefs, taken from a Nineteenth-Dynasty tomb at Memphis and
containing passages from the Book of the Dead, were aligned above
the papyri.
Beneath the front windows stood a black granite Twenty-second-
Dynasty sarcophagus fully ten feet long, its front and sides covered
with hieroglyphic inscriptions. It was surmounted by a mummy-shaped
lid, showing the soul bird, or Ba--with its falcon's form and human
head. This sarcophagus was one of the rarest in America, and had
been brought to this country by Doctor Bliss from the ancient
necropolis at Thebes. In the corner beyond was a cedar-wood statue
of an Asiatic, found in Palestine--a relic of the conquests of Thut-
mosè III.
Near the foot of the stairs on which I stood loomed the majestic
Kha-ef-Rê statue from the Fourth Dynasty. It was made of gray
plaster of Paris, varnished and polished in imitation of the
original diorite. It stood nearly eight feet high; and its dignity
and power and magistral calm seemed to dominate the entire museum.*
* Kha-ef-Rê was the originator of the great Sphinx, and also of one
of the three great Gizeh pyramids--Wer Kha-ef Rê (Kha-ef-Rê is
mighty), now known as the Second Pyramid.
To the right of the statue, and extending all the way to the spiral
stairs at the rear, was a row of anthropoid mummy cases, gaudily
decorated in gold and brilliant colors. Above them hung two
enormously enlarged tinted photographs--one showing the Colossi of
Amen-hotpe III,* the other depicting the great Amûn Temple at
Karnak.
* Popularly, and incorrectly, called the Memnon Colossi.
Around the two supporting columns in the centre of the museum deep
shelves had been built, and on them reposed a fascinating array of
shawabtis--beautifully carved and gaily painted wooden figures.
Extending between the two pillars was a long, low, velvet-covered
table, perhaps fourteen feet in length, bearing a beautiful
collection of alabaster perfumery and canopic vases, blue lotiform
jars, kohl pots of polished obsidian, and several cylindrical carved
cosmetic jars of semi-translucent and opaque alabaster. At the rear
of the room was a squat coffer with inlays of blue glazed faience,
white and red ivory and black ebony; and beside it stood a carved
chair of state, decorated in gesso and gilt, and bearing a design of
lotus flowers and buds.
Across the front of the room ran a long glass show-case containing
pectoral collars of cloisonné, amulets of majolica, shell pendants,
girdles of gold cowries, rhombic beads of carnelian and feldspar,
bracelets and anklets and finger-rings, gold and ebony fans, and a
collection of scarabs of most of the Pharaohs down to Ptolemaic
times.
Around the walls, just below the ceiling, ran a five-foot frieze--a
sectional copy of the famous Rhapsody of Pen-ta-Weret, commemorating
the victory of Ramses II over the Hittites at Kadesh in Syria.
As soon as Vance had opened the heavy curtains of the front windows
he and Markham moved toward the rear of the room. Scarlett and I
descended the stairs and followed them. Kyle was lying on his face,
his legs slightly drawn up under him, and his arms reaching out and
encircling the feet of a life-sized statue in the corner. I had
seen reproductions of this statue many times, but I did not know its
name.
It was Vance who enlightened me. He stood contemplating the huddled
body of the dead man, and slowly his eyes shifted to the serene
sculpture--a brown limestone carving of a man with a jackal's head,
holding a sceptre.
"Anûbis," he murmured, his face set tensely. "The Egyptian god of
the underworld. Y' know, Markham, Anûbis was the god who prowled
about the tombs of the dead. He guided the dead through Amentet--
the shadowy abode of Osiris. He plays an important part in the Book
of the Dead--he symbolized the grave; and he weighed the souls of
men, and assigned each to its abode. Without Anûbis's help the soul
would never have found the Realm of Shades. He was the only friend
of the dying and the dead. . . . And here is Kyle, in an attitude
of final and pious entreaty before him."
Vance's eyes rested for a moment on the benignant features of
Anûbis. Then his gaze moved dreamily to the prostrate man who, but
for the hideous wound in his head, might have been paying humble
obeisance to the underworld god. He pointed to the smaller statue
which had caused Kyle's death.
This statue was about two feet long and was black and shiny. It
still lay diagonally across the back of the murdered man's skull: it
seemed to have been caught and held there in the concavity made by
the blow. An irregular pool of dark blood had formed beside the
head, and I noted--without giving the matter any particular thought--
that one point of the periphery of the pool had been smeared
outward over the polished maple-wood floor.
"I don't like this, Markham," Vance was saying in a low voice. "I
don't like it at all. . . . That diorite statue, which killed Kyle,
is Sakhmet, the Egyptian goddess of vengeance--the destroying
element. She was the goddess who protected the good and annihilated
the wicked--the goddess who slew. The Egyptians believed in her
violent power; and there are many strange legend'ry tales of her
dark and terrible acts of revenge. . . ."
3
SCARABAEUS SACER
(Friday, July 13; noon)
Vance frowned slightly and studied the small black figure for a
moment.
"It may mean nothing--surely nothing supernatural--but the fact that
this particular statue was chosen for the murder makes me wonder if
there may be something diabolical and sinister and superstitious in
this affair."
"Come, come, Vance!" Markham spoke with forced matter-of-factness.
"This is modern New York, not legendary Egypt."
"Yes . . . oh, yes. But superstition is still a ruling factor in
so-called human nature. Moreover, there are many more convenient
weapons in this room--weapons fully as lethal and more readily
wielded. Why should a cumbersome, heavy statue of Sakhmet have been
chosen for the deed? . . . In any event, it took a strong man to
swing it with such force."
He looked toward Scarlett, whose eyes had been fastened on the dead
man with a stare of fascination.
"Where was this statue kept?"
Scarlett blinked.
"Why--let me see. . . ." He was obviously trying to collect his
wits. "Ah, yes. On the top of that cabinet." He pointed
unsteadily to the row of wide shelves in front of Kyle's body. "It
was one of the new pieces we unpacked yesterday. Hani placed it
there. You see, we used that end cabinet temporarily for the new
items, until we could arrange and catalogue 'em properly."
There were ten sections in the row of cabinets that extended across
the rear of the museum, each one being about two and a half feet
wide and a little over seven feet high. These cabinets--which in
reality were but open shelves--were filled with all manner of
curios: scores of examples of pottery and wooden vases, scent
bottles, bows and arrows, adzes, swords, daggers, sistra, bronze and
copper hand-mirrors, ivory game boards, perfume boxes, whip handles,
palm-leaf sandals, wooden combs, palettes, head rests, reed baskets,
carved spoons, plasterers' tools, sacrificial flint knives, funerary
masks, statuettes, necklaces, and the like.
Each cabinet had a separate curtain of a material which looked like
silk rep, suspended with brass rings on a small metal rod. The
curtains to all the cabinets were drawn open, with the exception of
the one on the end cabinet before which the dead body of Kyle lay.
The curtain of this cabinet was only partly drawn.
Vance had turned around.
"And what about the Anûbis, Scarlett?" he asked. "Was it a recent
acquisition?"
"That came yesterday, too. It was placed in that corner--to keep
the shipment together."
Vance nodded, and walked to the partly curtained cabinet. He stood
for several moments peering into the shelves.
"Very interestin'," he murmured, almost as if to himself. "I see
you have a most unusual post-Hyksos bearded sphinx. . . . And that
blue-glass vessel is very lovely . . . though not so lovely as yon
blue-paste lion's-head. . . . Ah! I note many evidences of old
Intef's bellicose nature--that battle-ax, for instance. . . . And--
my word!--there are some scimitars and daggers which look positively
Asiatic. And"--he peered closely into the top shelf--"a most
fascinatin' collection of ceremonial maces."
"Things Doctor Bliss picked up on his recent expedition," explained
Scarlett. "Those flint and porphyry maces came from the antechamber
of Intef's tomb. . . ."
At this moment the great metal door of the museum creaked on its
hinges, and Sergeant Ernest Heath and three detectives appeared at
the head of the stairs. The Sergeant immediately descended into the
room, leaving his men on the little landing.
He greeted Markham with the usual ritualistic handshake.
"Howdy, sir," he rumbled. "I got here as soon as I could. Brought
three of the boys from the Bureau, and sent word to Captain Dubois
and Doc Doremus* to follow us up."
* Captain Dubois was then the finger-print expert of the New York
Police Department; and Doctor Emanuel Doremus was the Medical
Examiner.
"It looks as if we might be in for another unpleasant scandal,
Sergeant." Markham's tone was pessimistic. "That's Benjamin H.
Kyle."
Heath stared aggressively at the dead man and grunted.
"A nasty job," he commented through his teeth. "What in hell is
that thing he was croaked with?"
Vance, who had been leaning over the shelves of the cabinet, his
back to us, now turned round with a genial smile.
"That, Sergeant, is Sakhmet, an ancient goddess of the primitive
Egyptians. But she isn't in hell, so to speak. This gentleman,
however,"--he touched the tall statue of Anûbis--"is from the nether
regions."
"I mighta known you'd be here, Mr. Vance." Heath grinned with
genuine friendliness, and held out his hand. "I've got you down on
my suspect list. Every time there's a fancy homicide, who do I find
on the spot but Mr. Philo Vance! . . . Glad to see you, Mr. Vance.
I reckon you'll get your psychological processes to working now and
clean this mystery up pronto."
"It'll take more than psychology to solve this case, I'm afraid."
Vance had grasped the Sergeant's hand cordially. "A smatterin' of
Egyptology might help, don't y' know."
"I'll leave that nifty stuff to you, Mr. Vance. What I want, first
and foremost, is the finger-prints of that--that--" He bent over
the small statue of Sakhmet. "That's the damnedest thing I ever
saw. The guy who sculpted that was cuckoo. It's got a lion's head
with a big platter on the dome."
"The lion's head of Sakhmet is undoubtedly totemistic, Sergeant,"
explained Vance, good-naturedly. "And that 'platter' is a
representation of the solar disk. The snake peering from the
forehead is a cobra--or uraeus--and was the sign of royalty."
"Have it your own way, sir." The Sergeant had become impatient.
"What I want is the finger-prints."
He swung about and walked toward the front of the museum.
"Hey, Snitkin!" he called belligerently to one of the men on the
stair landing. "Relieve that officer outside--send him back to his
beat. And bring Dubois in here as soon as he shows up." Then he
returned to Markham. "Who'll give me the low-down on this, sir?"
Markham introduced him to Scarlett.
"This gentleman," he said, "found Mr. Kyle. He can tell you all we
know of the case thus far."
Scarlett and Heath talked together for five minutes or so, the
Sergeant maintaining throughout the conversation an attitude of
undisguised suspicion. It was a basic principle with him that every
one was guilty until his innocence had been completely and
irrefutably established.
Vance in the meantime had been bending over Kyle's body with an
intentness that puzzled me. Presently his eyes narrowed slightly
and he went down on one knee, thrusting his head forward to within a
foot of the floor. Then he took out his monocle, polished it
carefully, and adjusted it. Markham and I both watched him in
silence. After a few moments he straightened up.
"I say, Scarlett; is there a magnifyin' glass handy?"
Scarlett, who had just finished talking to Sergeant Heath, went at
once to the glass case containing the scarabs and opened one of the
drawers.
"What sort of museum would this be without a magnifier?" he asked,
with a feeble attempt at jocularity, holding out a Coddington lens.
Vance took it and turned to Heath.
"May I borrow your flash-light, Sergeant?"
"Sure thing!" Heath handed him a push-button flash.
Vance again knelt down, and with the flash-light in one hand and the
lens in the other, inspected a tiny oblong object that lay about a
foot from Kyle's body.
[Drawing of scarab--Scarab.gif]
"Nisut Biti . . . Intef . . . Se Rê . . . Nub-Kheper-Rê." His voice
was low and resonant.
The Sergeant put his hands in his pockets and sniffed.
"And what language might that be, Mr. Vance?" he asked.
"It's the transliteration of a few ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
I'm reading from this scarab. . . ."
The Sergeant had become interested. He stepped forward and leaned
over the object that Vance was inspecting.
"A scarab, huh?"
"Yes, Sergeant. Sometimes called a scarabee, or scarabaeid, or
scarabaeus--that is to say, beetle. . . . This little oval bit of
lapis-lazuli was a sacred symbol of the old Egyptians. . . . This
particular one, by the by, is most fascinatin'. It is the state
seal of Intef V--a Pharaoh of the Seventeenth Dynasty. About 1650
B.C.--or over 3,500 year ago--he wore it. It bears the title and
throne name of Intef-o, or Intef. His Horus name was Nefer-Kheperu,
if I remember correctly. He was one of the native Egyptian rulers
at Thebes during the reign of the Hyksos in the Delta.* The tomb of
this gentleman is the one that Doctor Bliss has been excavating for
several years. . . . And you of course note, Sergeant, that the
scarab is set in a modern scarf-pin. . . ."
* The daughter of this particular Pharaoh--Nefra--incidentally is
the titular heroine of H. Rider Haggard's romance, "Queen of the
Dawn." Haggard, following the chronology of H. R. Hall, placed
Intef in the Fourteenth Dynasty instead of the Seventeenth, making
him a contemporary of the great Hyksos Pharaoh, Apopi, whose son
Khyan--the hero of the book--marries Nefra. The researches of Bliss
and Weigall seem to have demonstrated that this relationship is an
anachronism.
Heath grunted with satisfaction. Here, at least, was a piece of
tangible evidence.
"A beetle, is it? And a scarf-pin! . . . Well, Mr. Vance, I'd like
to get my hands on the bird who wore that blue thingumajig in his
cravat."
"I can enlighten you on that point, Sergeant." Vance rose to his
feet and looked toward the little metal door at the head of the
circular stairway. "That scarf-pin is the property of Doctor
Bliss."
4
TRACKS IN THE BLOOD
(Friday, July 13; 12:15 P.M.)
Scarlett had been watching Vance intently, a look of horrified
amazement on his round bronzed face.
"I'm afraid you're right, Vance," he said, nodding with reluctance.
"Doctor Bliss found that scarab on the site of the excavation
of Intef's tomb two years ago. He didn't mention it to the
Egyptian authorities; and when he returned to America he had it
set in a scarf-pin. But surely its presence here can have no
significance. . . ."
"Really, now!" Vance faced Scarlett with a steady gaze. "I
remember quite well the episode at Dirâ Abu 'n-Nega. I was
particeps criminis, as it were, to the theft. But since there were
other scarabs of Intef, as well as a cylindrical seal, in the
British Museum, I turned my eyes the other way. . . . This is the
first time I've had a close look at the scarab. . . ."
Heath had started toward the front stairs.
"Say, you--Emery!" he bawled, addressing one of the two men on the
landing. "Round up this guy Bliss, and bring 'im in here--"
"Oh, I say, Sergeant!" Vance hastened after him and put a
restraining hand on his arm. "Why so precipitate? Let's be
calm. . . . This isn't the correct moment to drag Bliss in. And
when we want him all we have to do is to knock on that little door--
he's undoubtedly in his study, and he can't run away. . . . And
there's a bit of prelimin'ry surveying to be done first."
Heath hesitated and made a grimace. Then:
"Never mind, Emery. But go out in the back yard, and see that
nobody tries to make a getaway. . . . And you, Hennessey,"--he
addressed the other man--"stand in the front hall. If any one tries
to leave the house, grab 'em and bring 'em in--see?"
The two detectives disappeared with a stealth that struck me as
highly ludicrous.
"Got something up your sleeve, sir?" the Sergeant asked, eying Vance
hopefully. "This homicide, though, don't look very complicated to
me. Kyle gets bumped off by a blow over the head, and beside him is
a scarf-pin belonging to Doctor Bliss. . . . That's simple enough,
ain't it?"
"Too dashed simple, Sergeant," Vance returned quietly, contemplating
the dead man. "That's the whole trouble. . . ."
Suddenly he moved toward the statue of Anûbis, and leaning over,
picked up a folded piece of paper which had lain almost hidden
beneath one of Kyle's outstretched hands. Carefully unfolding it,
he held it toward the light. It was a legal-sized sheet of paper,
and was covered with figures.
"This document," he remarked, "must have been in Kyle's possession
when he passed from this world. . . . Know anything about it,
Scarlett?"
Scarlett stepped forward eagerly and took the paper with an unsteady
hand. "Good Heavens!" he exclaimed. "It's the report of
expenditures we drew up last night. Doctor Bliss was working on
this tabulation--"
"Uh-huh!" Heath grinned with vicious satisfaction. "So! Our dead
friend here musta seen Bliss this morning--else how could he have
got that paper?"
Scarlett frowned.
"I must say it looks that way," he conceded. "This report hadn't
been made out when the rest of us knocked off last night. Doctor
Bliss said he was going to draw it up before Mr. Kyle got here this
morning." He seemed utterly nonplussed as he handed the paper back
to Vance. "But there's something wrong somewhere. . . . You know,
Vance, it's not reasonable--"
"Don't be futile, Scarlett." Vance's admonition cut him short. "If
Doctor Bliss had wielded the statue of Sakhmet, why should he have
left this report here to incriminate himself? . . . As you say,
something is wrong somewhere."
"Wrong, is it!" Heath scoffed. "There's that beetle--and now we
find this report. What more do you want, Mr. Vance?"
"A great deal more." Vance spoke softly. "A man doesn't ordinarily
commit murder and leave such obvious bits of direct evidence strewn
all about the place. . . . It's childish."
Heath snorted.
"Panic--that's what it was. He got scared and beat it in a
hurry. . . ."
Vance's eyes rested on the little metal door of Doctor Bliss's
study.
"By the by, Scarlett," he asked; "when did you last see that scarab
scarf-pin?"
"Last night." The man had begun to pace restlessly up and down.
"It was beastly hot in the study, and Doctor Bliss took off his
collar and four-in-hand and laid 'em on the table. The scarab pin
was sticking in the cravat."
"Ah!" Vance's gaze did not shift from the little door. "The pin
lay on the table during the conference, eh? . . . And, as you told
me, Hani and Mrs. Bliss and Salveter and yourself were present."
"Right."
"Any one, then, might have seen it and taken it?"
"Well--yes, . . . I suppose so."
Vance thought a moment.
"Still, this report . . . most curious! . . . I could bear to know
how it got in Kyle's hands. You say it hadn't been completed when
the conference broke up?"
"Oh, no." Scarlett seemed hesitant about answering. "We all turned
in our figures, and Doctor Bliss said he was going to add 'em up and
present them to Kyle to-day. Then he telephoned Kyle--in our
presence--and made an appointment with him for eleven this morning."
"Is that all he said to Kyle on the phone?"
"Practically . . . though I believe he mentioned that new shipment
that came yesterday--"
"Indeed? Very interestin'. . . . And what did Doctor Bliss say
about the shipment?"
"As I remember--I really didn't pay much attention--he told Kyle
that the crates had been unpacked, and added that he wanted Kyle to
inspect their contents. . . . You see, there was some doubt whether
Kyle would finance another expedition. The Egyptian Government had
been somewhat snooty, and had retained most of the choicest items
for the Cairo Museum. Kyle didn't like this, and as he had already
put oodles of money in the enterprise, he was inclined to back out.
No kudos for him, you understand. . . . In fact, Kyle's attitude
was the cause of the conference. Doctor Bliss wanted to show him
the exact cost of the former excavations and try to induce him to
finance a continuation of the work. . . ."
"And the old boy refused to do it," supplemented Heath; "and then
the doctor got excited and cracked him over the head with that black
statue."
"You WILL insist that life is so simple, Sergeant," sighed Vance.
"I'd sure hate to think it was as complex as you make it, Mr.
Vance." Heath's retort came very near to an expression of dignified
sarcasm.
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the main door was
opened quietly and a middle-aged, dark-complexioned man in native
Egyptian costume appeared at the head of the front stairs. He
surveyed us with inquisitive calm, and slowly and with great
deliberation of movement, descended into the museum.
"Good-morning, Mr. Scarlett," he said, with a sardonic smile. He
glanced at the murdered man. "I observe that tragedy has visited
this household."
"Yes, Hani." Scarlett spoke with a certain condescension. "Mr.
Kyle has been murdered. These gentlemen"--he made a slight gesture
in our direction--"are investigating the crime."
Hani bowed gravely. He was of medium height, somewhat slender, and
gave one the impression of contemptuous aloofness. There was a
distinct glint of racial animosity in his close-set eyes. His face
was relatively short--he was markedly dolichocephalic--and his
straight nose had the typical rounded extremity of the true Copt.
His eyes were brown--the color of his skin--and his eyebrows bushy.
He wore a close-cut, semi-gray beard, and his lips were full and
sensual. His head was covered by a soft dark tarbûsh bearing a
pendant tassel of blue silk, and about his shoulders hung a long
kaftan of red-and-white striped cotton, which fell to his ankles and
barely revealed his yellow-leather babûshes.
He stood for a full minute looking down at Kyle's body, without any
trace of repulsion or even regret. Then he lifted his head and
contemplated the statue of Anûbis. A queer devotional expression
came over his face; and presently his lips curled in a faint
sardonic smile. After a moment he made a sweeping gesture with his
left hand and, turning slowly, faced us. But his eyes were not on
us--they were fixed on some distant point far beyond the front
windows.
"There is no need for an investigation, gentlemen," he said, in a
sepulchral tone. "It is the judgment of Sakhmet. For many
generations the sacred tombs of our forefathers have been violated
by the treasure-seeking Occidental. But the gods of Egypt were
powerful gods and protected their children. They have been patient.
But the despoilers have gone too far. It was time for the wrath of
their vengeance to strike. And it has struck. The tomb of Intef-o
has been saved from the vandal. Sakhmet has pronounced her
judgment, just as she did when she slaughtered the rebels at Henen-
ensu* to protect her father, Rê, against their treason."
* The ancient Egyptian name of Heracleopolis.
He paused and drew a deep breath.
"But Anûbis will never guide a sacrilegious giaour to the Halls of
Osiris--however reverently he may plead. . . ."
Both Hani's manner and his words were impressive; and as he spoke I
remembered, with an unpleasant feeling, the recent tragedy of Lord
Carnarvon and the strange tales of ancient sorcery that sprang up to
account for his death on supernatural grounds.
"Quite unscientific, don't y' know." Vance's voice, cynical and
drawling, brought me quickly back to the world of reality. "I
seriously question the ability of that piece of black igneous rock
to accomplish a murder unless wielded by ordin'ry human hands. . . .
And if you MUST talk tosh, Hani, we'd be tremendously obliged if
you'd do it in the privacy of your bedchamber. It's most borin'."
The Egyptian shot him a look of hatred.
"The West has much to learn from the East regarding matters of the
soul," he pronounced oracularly.
"I dare say." Vance smiled blandly. "But the soul is not now under
discussion. The West, which you despise, is prone to practicality;
and you'd do well to forgo the metempsychosis for the nonce and
answer a few questions which the District Attorney would like to put
to you."
Hani bowed his acquiescence; and Markham, taking his cigar from his
mouth, fixed a stern look upon him.
"Where were you all this forenoon?" he asked.
"In my room--up-stairs. I was not well."
"And you heard no sounds in the museum here?"
"It would have been impossible for me to hear any sound in this
room."
"And you saw no one enter or leave the house?"
"No. My room is at the rear, and I did not leave it until a few
moments ago."
Vance put the next question.
"Why did you leave it then?"
"I had work to do here in the museum," the man replied sullenly.
"But I understand you heard Doctor Bliss make an appointment with
Mr. Kyle for eleven this morning." Vance was watching Hani sharply.
"Did you intend to interrupt the conference?"
"I had forgotten about the appointment." The answer did not come
spontaneously. "If I had found Doctor Bliss and Mr. Kyle in
conference I would have returned to my room."
"To be sure." Vance's tone held a tinge of sarcasm. "I say, Hani,
what's your full name?"
The Egyptian hesitated, but only for a second. Then he said:
"Anûpu Hani."*
* This unusual name, I learned later, was the result of his father's
interest in Egyptian mythology while in Maspero's service.
Vance's eyebrows went up, and there was irony in the slow smile that
crept to the corners of his mouth.
"'Anûpu'," he repeated. "Most allurin'. Anûpu, I believe, was the
Egyptian form for Anûbis, what? You would seem to be identified
with that unpleasant-lookin' gentleman in the corner, with the
jackal's head."
Hani compressed his thick lips and made no response.
"It really doesn't matter, y' know," Vance remarked lightly. . . .
"By the by, wasn't it you who placed the small statue of Sakhmet
atop the cabinet yonder?"
"Yes. It was unpacked yesterday."
"And was it you who drew the curtain across the end cabinet?"
"Yes--at Doctor Bliss's request. The objects in it were in great
disarray. We had not yet had time to arrange them."
Vance turned thoughtfully to Scarlett.
"Just what was said by Doctor Bliss to Mr. Kyle over the phone last
night?"
"I think I've told you everything, old man." Scarlett appeared both
puzzled and startled at Vance's persistent curiosity on this point.
"He simply made the appointment for eleven o'clock, saying he'd have
the financial report ready at that time."
"And what did he say about the new shipment?"
"Nothing, except that he was desirous of having Mr. Kyle see the
items."
"And did he mention their whereabouts?"
"Yes; I recall that he said they had been placed in the end cabinet--
the one with the closed curtains."
Vance nodded with a satisfaction I did not then understand.
"That accounts probably for Kyle's having come early to inspect the--
what shall I say?--loot."
He faced Hani again with an engaging smile.
"And is it not true that you and the others at the conference last
night heard this phone call?"
"Yes--we all heard it." The Egyptian had become morose; but I
noticed that he was studying Vance surreptitiously from the corner
of his eye.
"And--I take it--," mused Vance, "any one who knew Kyle might have
surmised that he would come early to inspect the items in that end
cabinet. . . . Eh, Scarlett?"
Scarlett shifted uneasily and looked at the great figure of the
serene Kha-ef-Rê.
"Well--since you put it that way--yes. . . . Fact is, Vance, Doctor
Bliss suggested that Mr. Kyle come early and have a peep at the
treasures."
These ramifications had begun to irritate Sergeant Heath.
"Pardon me, Mr. Vance," he blurted, with ill-concealed annoyance;
"but do you happen to be the defense attorney for this Doctor Bliss?
If you aren't working hard to alibi him, I'm the Queen of Sheba."
"You're certainly not Solomon, Sergeant," returned Vance. "Don't
you care to weigh all the possibilities?"
"Weigh hell!" Heath was losing his temper. "I want a heart-to-
heart talk with this guy who wore that beetle-pin and drew up that
report. I know clean-cut evidence when I see it."
"I don't doubt that for a moment," Vance spoke dulcetly. "But even
clean-cut evidence may have various interpretations. . . ."
Snitkin threw open the door noisily at this point, and Doctor
Doremus, the Medical Examiner, tripped jauntily down the stairs. He
was a thin, nervous man, with a seamed, prematurely old face which
carried a look at once crabbed and jocular.
"Good morning, gentlemen," he greeted us breezily. He shook hands
perfunctorily with Markham and Heath, and squaring off, gave Vance
an exaggeratedly disgruntled look.
"Well, well!" he exclaimed, tilting his straw hat at an even more
rakish angle. "Wherever there's a murder I find you, sir." He
glanced at his wristwatch. "Lunch time, by George!" His flashing
gaze moved about the museum and came to rest on one of the
anthropoid mummy cases. "This place don't look healthy. . . .
Where's the body, Sergeant?"
Heath had been standing before the prostrate body of Kyle. He now
moved aside and pointed to the dead man.
"That's him, doc."
Doremus came forward and peered indifferently at the corpse.
"Well, he's dead," he pronounced, cocking his eye at Heath.
"Honest to Gawd?" The Sergeant was good-naturedly sarcastic.
"That's the way it strikes me--though since Carrel's experiments you
never can tell. . . . Anyway, I'll stand by my decision." He
chuckled, and kneeling down, touched one of Kyle's hands. Then he
moved one of the dead man's legs sidewise. "And he's been dead for
about two hours--not longer, maybe less."
Heath took out a large handkerchief and, with great care, lifted the
black statue of Sakhmet from Kyle's head.
"I'm saving this for finger-prints. . . . Any signs of a struggle,
doc?"
Doremus turned the body over and made a careful inspection of the
face, the hands, and the clothes.
"Don't see any," he returned laconically. "Was struck from the
rear, I'd say. Fell forward, arms outstretched. Didn't move after
he'd hit the floor."
"Any chance, doctor, of his having been dead when the statue hit
him?" asked Vance.
"Nope." Doremus rose and teetered on his toes impatiently. "Too
much blood for that."
"Simple case of assault, then?"
"Looks like it. . . . I'm no wizard, though." The doctor had
become irritable. "The autopsy will settle that point."
"Can we have the post-mortem report immediately?" Markham made the
request.
"As soon as the Sergeant gets the body to the mortuary."
"It'll be there by the time you've finished lunch, doc," said Heath.
"I ordered the wagon before I left the Bureau."
"That being that, I'll run along." Again Doremus shook hands with
Markham and Heath, and throwing a friendly salutation to Vance,
walked briskly out of the room.
I had noticed that ever since Heath had placed the statue of Sakhmet
to one side he had stood staring impatiently at the small pool of
blood. As soon as Doremus had departed he knelt down and became
doggedly interested in something on the floor. He took out his
flashlight, which Vance had returned to him, and focussed it on the
edge of the blood-pool at the point where I had noted the outward
smear. Then, after a moment, he moved a short distance away, and
again shot his light on a faint smudge which stained the yellow wood
floor. Once more he shifted his position--this time toward the
little spiral stairs. A grunt of satisfaction escaped him now, and
rising, he walked, in a wide circle, to the stairs themselves.
There he again knelt down and ran the beam of his flash-light over
the lower steps. On the third step the ray of light suddenly
halted, and the Sergeant's face shot forward in an attitude of
intense concentation.
A grin slowy overspread his broad features, and straightening up, he
brought a gaze of triumph to bear on Vance.
"I've got the case tied up in a sack now, sir," he announced.
"I take it," replied Vance, "you've found the spoor of the
murderer."
"I'll say!" Heath nodded with the deliberate emphasis of finality.
"It's just like I told you. . . ."
"Don't be too positive, Sergeant." Vance's face had grown sombre.
"The obvious explanation is often the wrong one."
"Yeah?" Heath turned to Scarlett. "Listen, Mr. Scarlett, I got a
question to ask you--and I want a straight answer." Scarlett
bristled, but the Sergeant paid no attention to his resentment.
"What kind of shoes does this Doctor Bliss generally wear around the
house?"
Scarlett hesitated, and looked appealingly at Vance.
"Tell the Sergeant whatever you know," Vance advised him. "This is
no time for reticence. You can trust me. There's no question of
disloyalty now. The truth, d' ye see, is all that matters."
Scarlett cleared his throat nervously.
"Rubber tennis shoes," he said, in a low voice. "Ever since his
first expedition in Egypt he has had weak feet--they troubled him
abominably. He got relief by wearing white canvas sneakers with
rubber soles."
"Sure he did." Heath walked back toward the body of Kyle. "Step
over here a minute, Mr. Vance. I got something to show you."
Vance moved forward, and I followed him.
"Take a look at that footprint," the Sergeant continued, pointing
toward the smear at the edge of the pool of blood where Kyle's head
had lain. "It don't show up much till you get close to it . . .
but, once you spot it, you'll notice that it has marks of a rubber-
soled shoe, with crossings like a checker-board on the sole and
round spots on the heel."
Vance bent over and inspected the footprint in the blood.
"Quite right, Sergeant." He had become very grave and serious.
"And now look here," Heath went on, pointing to two other smudges on
the floor half-way to the iron stairs.
Vance leaned over the spots, and nodded.
"Yes," he admitted. "Those marks were probably made by the
murderer. . . ."
"And once more, sir." Heath went to the stairs and flashed his
pocket-light on the third step.
Vance adjusted his monocle and looked closely. Then he rose and
stood still for a moment, his chin resting in the palm of his hand.
"How about it, Mr. Vance?" the Sergeant demanded. "Is that evidence
enough for you?"
Markham stepped to the foot of the circular stairway, and placed his
hand on Vance's shoulder.
"Why this stubbornness, old friend?" he asked in a kindly voice.
"It begins to look like a clear case."
Vance lifted his eyes.
"A clear case--yes! But a clear case of what? . . . It doesn't
make sense. Does a man of Bliss's mentality brutally murder a man
with whom he is known to have had an appointment, and then leave his
scarab-pin and a financial report, which no one else could have
produced, on the scene of the crime, to involve himself? And, lest
that evidence wasn't enough, is he going to leave bloody footprints,
of a distinctive and personal design, leading from the body to his
study? . . . Is it reasonable?"
"It may not be reasonable," Markham conceded; "but these things are
nevertheless facts. And there's nothing to be done but confront
Doctor Bliss with them."
"I suppose you're right." Vance's eyes again drifted toward the
little metal door at the head of the spiral stairs. "Yes . . . the
time has come to put Bliss on the carpet. . . . But I don't like
it, Markham. There's something awry. . . . Maybe the doctor
himself can enlighten us. Let me fetch him--I've known him for
several years."
Vance turned and ascended the stairs, taking care not to step on the
telltale footprint the Sergeant had discovered.
5
MERYT-AMEN
(Friday, July 13; 12:45 P.M.)
Vance knocked on the narrow door and reached into his pocket for his
cigarette-case. We on the floor below watched the metal panel in
silent expectancy. A feeling of dread, for some unknown reason,
assailed me, and my muscles went tense. To this day I cannot
explain the cause of my fear; but at that moment a chill came over
my heart. All the evidence that had come to light pointed
unmistakably toward the great Egyptologist in the little room
beyond.
Vance alone seemed unconcerned. He casually lit his cigarette, and
when he had replaced the lighter in his pocket, he knocked again at
the door--this time more loudly. Still no answer.
"Very curious," I heard him murmur.
Then he raised his arm and pounded on the metal with a force that
sent reverberating echoes through the great room of the museum.
At last, after several moments of ominous silence, there was a sound
of a knob turning, and the heavy door swung slowly inward.
In the opening stood a tall, slender figure of a man in his middle
forties. He wore a peacock-blue dressing-gown of self-figured silk,
which reached to his ankles, and his sparse yellow hair was tousled
as if he had just risen from bed. Indeed, his entire appearance was
that of one who had suddenly been roused from a deep sleep. His
eyes were hazy, and their lids drooped; and he clung to the inside
knob of the door for support. He actually swayed a little as he
peered dully at Vance.
Withal, he was a striking figure. His face was long and thin,
rugged and deeply tanned. His forehead was high and narrow--a
scholar's brow; but his nose, which was curved like an eagle's beak,
was his most prominent characteristic. His mouth was straight, and
surmounted a chin that was so square as to be cubic. His cheeks
were sunken, and I got the distinct impression of a man who was
physically ill but who overrode the ravages of disease by sheer
nervous vitality.
For a moment he stared at Vance uncomprehendingly. Then--like a
person coming out of an anaesthetic--he blinked several times and
took a deep inspiration.
"Ah!" His voice was thick and a trifle rasping. "Mr. Vance! . . .
A long time since I've seen you. . . ." His eyes drifted about the
museum and came to rest on the little group at the foot of the
stairs. "I don't quite understand. . . ." He passed his hand
slowly over the top of his head, and ran his fingers through his
rumpled hair. "My head feels so heavy . . . please forgive me . . .
I--I must have been asleep. . . . Who are these gentlemen
below? . . . I recognize Scarlett and Hani. . . . It's been
devilishly hot in my study."
"A serious accident has happened, Doctor Bliss," Vance informed him,
in a low voice. "Would you mind stepping down into the museum? . . .
We need your help."
"An accident!" Bliss drew himself up, and for the first time
since he appeared at the door his eyes opened wide. "A serious
accident? . . . What has happened? Not burglars, I hope. I've
always been worried--"
"No, there have been no burglars, doctor." Vance steadied him as he
walked nervously down the circular stairs.
When he reached the floor of the museum every eye in the room, I
felt sure, was focussed on his feet. Certainly my own initial
instinct was to inspect them; and I noticed that Heath, who stood
beside me, had concentrated his gaze on the doctor's foot-covering.
But if any of us expected to find Bliss shod in rubber-soled tennis
shoes, he was disappointed. The man wore a pair of soft vici-kid
bedroom slippers, dyed blue to match his dressing gown and adorned
with orange trimmings.
I did note, however, that his gray-silk pyjamas, which showed
through the deep V-opening of his gown, had a broad, turned-over
collar in which a mauve four-in-hand had been loosely knotted.
His eyes swept the little group before him and returned to Vance.
"You say there have been no burglers?" His voice was still vague
and thick. "What, then, was the accident, Mr. Vance?"
"An accident far more serious than burglars, doctor," replied Vance,
who had not released his hold on the other's arm. "Mr. Kyle is
dead."
"Kyle dead!" Bliss's mouth sagged open, and a look of hopeless
amazement came into his eyes. "But--but . . . I talked to him last
night. He was to come here this morning . . . regarding the new
expedition. . . . Dead? All my work--my life's work--ended!" He
slumped into one of the small folding wooden chairs of which there
were perhaps a score scattered about the museum. A look of tragic
resignation settled on his face. "This is terrible news."
"I'm very sorry, doctor," Vance murmured consolingly. "I fully
understand your great disappointment. . . ."
Bliss rose to his feet. His lethargy had fallen from him, and his
features became hard and resolute. He looked squarely at Vance.
"Dead?" His voice was menacing. "How did he die?"
"He was murdered." Vance pointed to the body of Kyle before which
Markham and Heath and I were standing.
Bliss stepped toward Kyle's prostrate figure. For a full minute he
stood staring down at the body; then his gaze shifted to the small
statue of Sakhmet, and a moment later he lifted his eyes to the
lupine features of Anûbis.
Suddenly he swung round and faced Hani. The Egyptian took a
backward step, as though he feared violence from the doctor.
"What do you know about this?--you jackal!" Bliss threw the
question at him venomously, a passionate hate in his voice. "You've
spied on me for years. You've taken my money and pocketed bribes
from your stupid and grasping government. You've poisoned my wife
against me. You've stood in the way of all I've endeavored to
accomplish. You tried to murder the old native who showed me the
site of the two obelisks in front of Intef's pyramid.* You've
hampered me at every turn. And because my wife believed in you and
loved you, I've kept you. And now, when I've found the site of
Intef's tomb and actually entered the antechamber and am about to
give the fruits of my researches to the world, the one man who could
make possible the success of my life's work is found murdered."
Bliss's eyes were like burning coals. "What do you know about it,
Anûpu Hani? Speak--you contemptible dog of a fellah!"
* I learned from Vance that Doctor Bliss had read, in the British
Museum, the Abbott Papyrus of the Twentieth Dynasty, which reported
the inspection of this and other tombs. The report stated that, in
early times, Intef V's tomb had been entered but not robbed: the
raiders had evidently been unable to penetrate to the actual grave
chamber. Bliss, therefore, had concluded that the mummy of Intef
would still be found in the original tomb. An old native named
Hasan had showed him where two obelisks had stood in front of the
pyramid of Intef (Intef-o); and through this information he had
succeeded in locating the pyramid, and had excavated at that point.
Hani had retreated several paces. Bliss's vitriolic tirade had
pitifully cowed him. But he did not grovel: he had become grim and
morose, and there was a snarl in his voice when he answered.
"I know nothing of the murder. It was the vengeance of Sakhmet!
SHE killed the one who would have paid for the desecration of
Intef's tomb. . . ."
"Sakhmet!" Bliss's scorn was devastating. "A piece of stone
belonging to a hybrid mythology! You're not among illiterate witch-
doctors now--you're confronted with civilized human beings who want
the truth. . . . Who killed Kyle?"
"If it wasn't Sakhmet, I don't know, Your Presence." Despite the
Egyptian's subservient attitude there was an underlying contempt in
his manner and in the intonation of his voice. "I have been in my
room all morning. . . . You, hadretak," he added, with a sneer,
"were very close to your rich patron when he departed this world for
the Land of Shades."
Two red patches of anger shone through the tan of Bliss's cheeks.
His eyes blazed abnormally, and his hands plucked spasmodically at
the folds of his dressing-gown. I feared that he would fly at the
throat of the Egyptian.
Vance, too, had some such apprehension, for he moved to the doctor's
side and touched him reassuringly on the arm.
"I understand perfectly how you feel, sir," he said in a soothing
voice. "But temper won't help us get at the root of this matter."
Bliss sank back into his chair without a word, and Scarlett, who had
been looking on at the scene with troubled amazement, stepped
quickly up to Vance.
"There's something radically wrong here," he said. "The doctor
isn't himself."
"So I observe." Vance spoke dryly, but there was a puzzled frown on
his face. He scrutinized Bliss for a moment. "I say, doctor; what
time did you fall asleep in your study this morning?"
Bliss looked up lethargically. His wrath seemed to have left him,
and his eyes were again heavy.
"What time?" he repeated, like a man attempting to collect his
thoughts. "Let me see. . . . Brush brought me my breakfast about
nine, and a few minutes later I drank the coffee . . . some of it,
at any rate--" His gaze wandered off into space. "That's all I
remember until--until there was a pounding on the door. . . . What
time is it, Mr. Vance?"
"It's well past noon," Vance informed him. "You evidently fell
asleep as soon as you had your coffee. Quite natural, don't y'
know. Scarlett tells me you worked late last night."
Bliss nodded heavily.
"Yes--till three this morning. I wanted to have the report in order
for Kyle when he arrived. . . . And now"--he looked hopelessly
toward the outstretched body of his benefactor--"I find him dead--
murdered. . . . I can't understand."
"Neither can we--for the moment," Vance returned. "But Mr. Markham--
the District Attorney--and Sergeant Heath of the Homicide Bureau
are here for the purpose of ascertaining the facts; and you may rest
assured, sir, that justice will be done. Just now you can help us
materially by answering a few questions. Do you feel equal to it?"
"Of course I'm equal to it," Bliss replied, with a slight show of
nervous vitality. "But," he added, running his tongue over his dry
lips, "I'm horribly thirsty. A drink of water--"
"Ah! I thought you might be wanting a drink. . . . How about it,
Sergeant?"
Heath was already on his way toward the front stairs. He
disappeared through the door, and we could hear his voice giving
staccato orders to some one outside. A minute or two later he
returned to the museum with a glass of water.
Doctor Bliss drank it like a man parched with thirst, and when he
set the glass down Vance asked him:
"When did you finish your financial report for Mr. Kyle?"
"This morning--just before Brush brought me my breakfast." Bliss's
voice was stronger: there was even animation in his tone. "I had
practically completed it before retiring last night--all but about
an hour's work. So I came down to the study at eight this morning."
"And where is that report now?"
"On my desk in the study. I intended to check the figures after
breakfast, before Kyle arrived. . . . I'll get it."
He started to rise, but Vance restrained him.
"That won't be necess'ry, sir. I have it here. . . . It was found
in Mr. Kyle's hand."
Bliss looked at the paper, which Vance showed him, with dumbfounded
eyes.
"In--Kyle's hand?" he stammered. "But . . . but. . . ."
"Don't disturb yourself about it." Vance's manner was casual. "Its
presence there will be explained when we've come to know the
situation better. The report was no doubt taken from your study
while you were asleep. . . ."
"Maybe Kyle himself--"
"It's possible, but hardly probable." It was obvious that Vance
scouted the idea of Kyle's having personally taken the report. "By
the by, is it custom'ry for you to leave the door leading from your
study into the museum unlocked?"
"Yes. I never lock it. No necessity to. As a matter of fact I
couldn't tell you offhand where the key is."
"That bein' the case," mused Vance, "any one in the museum might
have entered the study and taken the report after nine o'clock or
so, when you were asleep."
"But who, in Heaven's name, Mr. Vance--?"
"We don't know yet. We're still in the conjectural stage of our
investigation.--And if you'll be so good, doctor, permit me to ask
the questions. . . . Do you happen to know where Mr. Salveter is
this morning?"
Bliss turned his head toward Vance with a resentful gesture.
"Certainly I know where he is," he responded, setting his jaws
firmly. (I got the impression that he intended to protect Kyle's
nephew from any suspicion.) "I sent him to the Metropolitan
Museum--"
"You sent him? When?"
"I asked him last night to go the first thing this morning and
inquire regarding the duplicate set of reproductions of the tomb
furniture in the recently discovered grave of Hotpeheres, the mother
of Kheuf of the Fourth Dynasty--"
"Hotpeheres? Kheuf? Do you refer to Hetep-hir-es and Khufu?"
"Certainly!" The doctor's tone was tart. "I use the
transliteration of Weigall. In his 'History of the Pharaohs'--"
"Yes, yes. Forgive me, doctor. I recall now that Weigall has
altered many of the accepted transliterations from the Egyptian. . . .
But, if my memory is correct, the expedition which unearthed the
tomb of Hetep-hir-es--or Hotpeheres--was sponsored by Harvard
University and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts."
"Quite true. But I knew that my old friend, Albert Lythgoe, the
Curator of the Egyptian department of the Metropolitan Museum, could
supply me with the information I desired."
"I see," Vance paused. "Did you speak to Mr. Salveter this
morning?"
"No." Bliss became indignant. "I was in my study from eight
o'clock on; and the lad wouldn't think of disturbing me. He
probably left the house about nine-thirty,--the Metropolitan Museum
opens at ten."
Vance nodded.
"Yes; Brush said he went out about that time. But shouldn't he be
back by now?"
Bliss shrugged his shoulders.
"Perhaps," he said, as if the matter was of no importance. "He may
have had to wait for the Curator, however. Anyway, he'll be back as
soon as he has finished his mission. He's a good conscientious lad:
both my wife and I are extremely fond of him. It was he who, by
interceding with his uncle, made possible the excavations of Intef's
tomb."
"So Scarlett told me." Vance spoke with the offhandedness of
complete uninterest, and drawing up a collapsible wooden chair sat
down lazily. As he did so he gave Markham an admonitory glance--a
glance which said as plainly as words could have done: "Let me do
the talking for the time being." Then he leaned back and folded his
hands behind his head.
"I say, doctor," he went on, with a slight yawn; "speaking of old
Intef, I was present, don't y' know, when you appropriated that
fascinatin' lapis-lazuli scarab. . . ."
Bliss's hand went to his four-in-hand, and he glanced guiltily
toward Hani, who had moved before the statue of Teti-shiret and now
stood with his back to us in a pose of detached and absorbed
adoration. Vance pretended not to have seen the doctor's movements,
and, gazing dreamily out of the rear windows, he continued:
"A most interestin' scarab--unusually marked. Scarlett tells me you
had it made into a scarf-pin. . . . Have you it with you? I'd
jolly well like to see it."
"Really, Mr. Vance,"--again Bliss's hand went to his cravat--"it
must be up-stairs. If you'll call Brush--"
Scarlett had moved forward beside Bliss.
"It was in your study last night, doctor," he said, "--on the
desk. . . ."
"So it was!" Bliss was in perfect control of himself now. "You'll
find it on my desk, stuck in the necktie I was wearing yesterday."
Vance rose and confronted Scarlett with an arctic look.
"Thanks awfully," he said coldly. "When I need your assistance I'll
call on you." Then he turned to Bliss. "The truth is, doctor, I
was endeavorin' to ascertain when you last remembered havin' your
scarab pin. . . . It's not in your study, d' ye see. It was lyin'
beside the body of Mr. Kyle when we arrived here."
"My Intef scarab here!" Bliss leapt to his feet and gazed, with a
panic-stricken stare, at the murdered man. "That's impossible!"
Vance stepped to Kyle's body and picked up the scarab.
"Not impossible, sir," he said, displaying the pin; "but very
mystifyin'. . . . It was probably taken from your study at the same
time as the report."
"It's beyond me," Bliss remarked slowly, in a hoarse whisper.
"Maybe it fell outa your necktie," Heath suggested antagonistically,
thrusting his jaw forward.
"What do you mean?" The doctor's tone was dull and frightened. "I
didn't have it in this necktie. I left it in the study--"
"Sergeant!" Vance gave Heath a look of stern reproval. "Let's go
at this thing calmly and with discretion."
"Mr. Vance,"--Heath's aggressiveness did not relax--"I'm here to
find out who croaked Kyle. And the person who had every opportunity
to do it is this Doctor Bliss. On top of that fact we find a
financial report and a stick-pin that hooks Doctor Bliss up to the
dead man. And there's those footprints--"
"All you say is true, Sergeant." Vance cut him short. "But
ballyragging the doctor will not give us the explanation of this
extr'ordin'ry situation."
Bliss had shrunk back in his chair.
"Oh, my God!" he moaned. "I see what you're getting at. You think
_I_ killed him!" He turned his eyes to Vance in desperate entreaty.
"I tell you I've been asleep since nine o'clock. I didn't even know
Kyle was here. It's terrible--terrible. . . . Surely, Mr. Vance,
you can't believe--"
There was a sound of angry voices at the main door of the museum,
and we all looked in that direction. At the head of the stairs
stood Hennessey, his arms wide, protesting volubly. On the door-
sill was a young woman.
"This is my house," she said in a shrill, angry voice. "How dare
you tell me I can't enter here? . . ."
Scarlett at once hurried toward the stairs.
"Meryt!"
"It's my wife," Bliss informed us. "Why is she refused admittance,
Mr. Vance?"
Before Vance could answer, Heath was shouting:
"That's all right, Hennessey. Let the lady come in."
Mrs. Bliss hastened down the stairs, and almost ran to her husband.
"Oh, what is it, Mindrum? What has happened?" She dropped to her
knees and put her arms about the doctor's shoulders. At that
instant she caught sight of Kyle's body and, with a gasp and a
shudder, turned her eyes away.
She was a striking-looking woman, whose age, I surmised, was about
twenty-six-or-seven. Her large eyes were dark and heavily lashed,
and her skin was a deep olive. Her Egyptian blood was most marked
in the sensual fullness of her lips and in her high prominent
cheekbones, which gave her face a decidedly Oriental character.
There was something about her that recalled to my mind the beautiful
reconstructed painting made of Queen Nefret-îti by Winifred
Brunton.* She wore a powder-blue toque hat not unlike the headdress
of Nefret-îti herself; and her gown of cinnamon-brown georgette
crêpe clung closely to her slender, well-rounded body, bringing out
and emphasizing its sensuous curves. There were both strength and
beauty in her supple figure, which followed the lines of the old
Oriental ideal such as we find in Ingres' "Bain Turc."
* This colored portrait (with the Queen's name spelled Nefertiti)
appears in "Kings and Queens of Ancient Egypt."
Despite her youth she possessed a distinct air of maturity and
poise: there were undeniable depths to her nature; and I could
easily imagine, as I watched her kneeling beside Bliss, that she
might be capable of powerful emotions and equally powerful deeds.*
* I learned subsequently from Scarlett that Mrs. Bliss's mother had
been a Coptic lady of noble descent who traced her lineage from the
last Saïte Pharaohs, and who, despite her Christian faith, had
retained her traditional veneration for the native gods of her
country. Her only child, Meryt-Amen ("Beloved of Amûn"), had been
named in honor of the great Ramses II, whose full title as Son of
the Sun-God was Ra-mosê-su Mery-Amûn. (The more correct English
spelling of Mrs. Bliss's name would have been Meryet-Amûn, but the
form chosen was no doubt based on the transliterations of Flinders
Petrie, Maspero, and Abercrombie.) Meryet-Amûn was not an uncommon
name among the queens and princesses of ancient Egypt. Three queens
of that name have already been found--one (of the family of Ah-mosè
I) whose mummy is in the Cairo Museum; another (of the family of
Ramses II) whose tomb and sarcophagus are in the Valley of the
Queens; and a third, whose burial chamber and mummy were recently
found by the Egyptian Expedition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
on the hillside near the temple of Deir el Bahri at Thebes. This
last Queen Meryet-Amûn was the daughter of Thut-mosè III and Meryet-
Rê, and the wife of Amen-hotpe II. The story of the finding of her
tomb is told in Section II of the Bulletin of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art for November 1929.
Bliss patted her shoulder in an affectionately paternal manner. His
eyes, though, were abstracted.
"Kyle is dead, my dear," he told her in a hollow voice. "He's been
killed . . . and these gentlemen are accusing me of having done it."
"You!" Mrs. Bliss was instantly on her feet. For a moment her
great eyes stared uncomprehendingly at her husband; then she turned
on us in a flashing rage. But before she could speak Vance stepped
toward her.
"The doctor is not quite accurate, Mrs. Bliss," he said in a low,
even tone. "We have not accused him. We are merely making an
investigation of this tragic affair; and it happens that the
doctor's scarab-pin was found near Mr. Kyle's body. . . ."
"What of it?" She had become strangely calm. "Any one might have
dropped it there."
"Exactly, madam," Vance returned, with friendly assurance. "Our
main object in this investigation is to ascertain who that person
was."
The woman's eyes were half-closed, and she stood rigid, as if
transfixed by a sudden devastating thought.
"Yes . . . yes," she breathed. "Some one placed the scarab-pin
there . . . some one. . . ." Her voice died out, and a cloud, as of
pain, came over her face. But quickly she drew herself together
and, taking a deep breath, looked resolutely into Vance's eyes.
"Whoever it was that did this terrible thing, I want you to find
him." Her expression became set and hard. "And I will help you.
Do you understand?--I will help you."
Vance studied her briefly before replying.
"I believe you will, Mrs. Bliss. And I shall call on you for that
help." He bowed slightly. "But there is nothing you can do at this
moment. A few prelimin'ry routine things must be done first. In
the meantime, I would appreciate your waiting for us in the drawing-
room--there will be several questions we shall want to ask you
presently. . . . Hani may accompany you."
I had been watching the Egyptian with one eye during this little
scene. When Mrs. Bliss had entered the museum he had barely turned
in her direction, but when she had begun speaking to Vance he had
moved silently toward them. He now stood, his arms folded, just
behind the inlaid coffer, with his eyes fixed upon the woman, in an
attitude of protective devotion.
"Come, Meryt-Amen," he said. "I will remain with you till these
gentlemen wish to consult you. There is nothing to fear. Sakhmet
has had her just revenge, and she is beyond the mundane power of
Occidental law."
The woman hesitated a moment. Then, going to Bliss, she kissed him
lightly on the forehead, and walked toward the front stairway, Hani
servilely following her.
6
A FOUR-HOUR ERRAND
(Friday, July 13, 1:15 P.M.)
Scarlett's eyes followed her with a troubled, sympathetic look.
"Poor girl!" he commented, with a sigh. "You know, Vance, she was
devoted to Kyle--her father and Kyle were great cronies. When old
Abercrombie died Kyle cared for her as though she'd been his
daughter. . . . This affair is a terrible blow to her."
"One can well understand that," Vance murmured perfunctorily. "But
she has Hani to console her. . . . By the by, doctor, your Egyptian
servant appears to be quite en rapport with Mrs. Bliss."
"What's that--what's that?" Bliss lifted his head and made an
effort at concentration. "Ah, yes . . . Hani. A faithful dog--
where my wife's concerned. He practically brought her up, after her
father's death. He's never forgiven me for marrying her." He
smiled grimly and lapsed into a state of brooding despondency.
Heath's cigar had gone out, but he still chewed viciously on it.
He was standing beside Kyle's body, his legs apart, his hands in his
pockets, glaring with frustrated animosity at the doctor.
"What's all this palaver about, anyhow?" he asked sullenly. He
faced Markham. "Listen, Chief: haven't you got enough evidence for
an indictment?"
Markham was sorely troubled. His instinct was to order Bliss's
arrest, but his faith in Vance halted him. He knew that Vance was
not satisfied with the situation, and he no doubt felt, as a result
of Vance's attitude, that there were certain things connected with
Kyle's murder which did not show on the surface. Moveover, there
was perhaps an uncertainty in his own mind as to the authenticity of
the evidence that pointed to the Egyptologist.
He was on the point of answering Heath when Hennessey put his head
in the door and called out:
"Hey, Sergeant; the buggy from the Department of Public Welfare is
here."
"Well, it's about time." Heath was in a vicious mood. He turned to
Markham. "Any reason, sir, why we shouldn't get the body outa the
way?"
Markham glanced toward Vance, who nodded.
"No, Sergeant," he answered. "The sooner it reaches the mortuary,
the sooner we'll have the post-mortem report."
"Right!" Heath cupped his hands to his mouth and bawled to
Hennessey:
"Send 'em in."
A moment later two men--one the driver of the car, the other an
unkempt "pick-up"--came down the stairs carrying a large wicker
basket shaped like a coffin. Without a word they callously lifted
Kyle's body into it, and started toward the front door with their
gruesome burden, the "pick-up" at the rear end of the basket doing a
playful dance step as he moved across the hardwood floor.
"Sweet sympathetic laddie," grinned Vance.
With the removal of Kyle's body a pall seemed to lift from the
museum. But there was still that pool of blood and the recumbent
statue of Sakhmet to tell the terrible story of the tragedy.
Heath stood eyeing the huddled, silent figure of Doctor Bliss.
"Where do we go from here?" His question contained both disgust and
resignation.
Markham was growing restless and, beckoning Vance to one side, spoke
to him in low tones. I could not hear what was said; but Vance
talked earnestly to the District Attorney for several minutes.
Markham listened attentively and then shrugged his shoulders.
"Very well," he answered, as they strolled back toward us. "But
unless you reach some conclusion pretty soon we'll have to take
action. . . ."
"Action--oh, my aunt!" Vance sighed deeply. "Always action--always
pyrotechnics. The Rotarian ideal! Get busy--stir things up.
Efficiency! . . . Why do the powers of justice have to emulate the
whirling dervish? The human brain, after all, has certain
functions."
He paced slowly back and forth in front of the cabinets, his eyes
on the floor, while the rest of us watched him. Even Doctor Bliss
roused himself and gazed at him with a curious and hopeful
expression.
"None of these clews ring true, Markham," Vance said. "There's
something here that doesn't meet the eye. It's like a cypher that
says one thing and means another. I tell you the obvious
explanation is the wrong one. . . . There's a key to this affair--
somewhere. And it's staring us in the face . . . yet we can't see
it."
He was deeply perplexed and dissatisfied, and he walked to and fro
with that quiet, disguised alertness which I had long since come to
recognize.
Suddenly he halted in front of the pool of blood before the end
cabinet, and bent over. He studied it for a moment, and then his
eyes moved to the cabinet. Slowly his gaze ascended the partly
drawn curtain and came to rest on the beaded wooden ledge above the
curtain rod. After a while his eyes drifted back to the pool of
blood, and I got the impression that he was measuring distances and
trying to determine the exact relationship between the blood, the
cabinet, the curtain, and the moulding along the top of the shelves.
Presently he straightened up and stood very close to the curtains,
his back to us.
"Really, now, that's most interestin'," he murmured. "I wonder. . . ."
He turned, and, drawing up one of the folding wooden chairs, placed
it directly in front of the cabinet on the exact spot where Kyle's
head had lain. Then he mounted the chair, and stood for a
considerable time inspecting the top of the cabinet.
"My word! Extr'ordin'ry!" His voice was barely audible.
Taking out his monocle, he placed it in his eye. Then his hand
reached out over the edge of the cabinet, and he picked up something
very near to where Hani said he had placed the small statue of
Sakhmet. Just what it was none of us could see; but presently he
slipped the object into his coat pocket. A moment later he
descended from the chair and faced Markham with a grim, satisfied
look.
"This murder has amazin' possibilities," he observed.
Before he could explain his cryptic remark Hennessey again appeared
at the head of the stairs and called out to Sergeant Heath:
"There's a guy named Salveter who says he wants to see Doc Bliss."
"Ah--bon!" Vance, for some reason, seemed highly pleased. "Suppose
we have him in, Sergeant."
"Oh, sure!" Heath made an elaborate grimace of boredom. "O.K.,
Hennessey. Show in the gent. The more the merrier. . . . What is
this, anyway?" he groused. "A convention?"
Young Salveter walked down the stairs and approached us with a
startled, questioning air. He gave Scarlett a curt, cold nod; then
he caught sight of Vance.
"How do you do?" he said, obviously surprised at Vance's presence.
"It's been a long time since I saw you . . . in Egypt. . . . What's
all the excitement about? Have we been invested by the military?"
His pleasantry did not ring true.
Salveter was an earnest, aggressive-looking man of about thirty,
with sandy hair, wide-set gray eyes, a small nose, and a thin, tight
mouth. He was of medium height, stockily built, and might have been
an athlete in his college days. He was dressed simply in a tweed
suit that did not fit him, and the polka-dot tie in his soft-shirt
collar was askew. I doubt if his cordovan blucher oxfords had ever
been polished. My first instinct was to like him. The impression
he gave was that of boyish frankness; but there was a quality in his
make-up,--I could not analyze it at the time,--that signalled to one
to be wary and not attempt to force an issue against his stubbornness.
As he spoke to Vance his eyes shifted with intense curiosity about
the room, as if he were looking for something amiss.
Vance, who had been watching him appraisingly, answered after a
slight pause in a tone that struck me an unnecessarily devoid of
sympathy.
"No, it's not the milit'ry, Mr. Salveter. It's the police. The
fact is, your uncle is dead--he has been murdered."
"Uncle Ben!" Salveter appeared stunned by the news; but presently
an angry scowl settled on his forehead. "So--that's it!" He drew
in his head and squinted pugnaciously at Doctor Bliss. "He had an
appointment with you this morning, sir. . . . When--and how--did it
happen?"
It was Vance, however, who made reply.
"Your uncle, Mr. Salveter, was struck over the head with that statue
of Sakhmet, about ten o'clock. Mr. Scarlett found the body here at
the foot of Anûbis, and notified me. I, in turn, notified the
District Attorney. . . . This, by the by, is Mr. Markham--and this
is Sergeant Heath of the Homicide Bureau."
Salveter scarcely glanced in their direction.
"A damned outrage!" he muttered, setting his square, heavy jaw.
"An outrage--yes!" Bliss lifted his head, and his eyes, pitifully
discouraged, met Salveter's. "It means the end of all our
excavations, my boy--"
"Excavations!" Salveter continued to study the older man. "What do
they matter! I want to lay my hands on the dog who did this thing."
He swung about aggressively and faced Markham. "What can I do, sir,
to help you?" His eyes were mere slits--he was like a dangerous
wild beast waiting to pounce.
"Too much energy, Mr. Salveter," Vance drawled, sitting down
indolently. "Far too much energy. I can apprehend exactly how
you feel, don't y' know. But aggressiveness, while bein' a virtue
in some circumstances, is really quite futile in the present
situation. . . . I say; why not walk round the block vigorously a
couple of times, and then return to us? We crave a bit of polite
intercourse with you, but calmness and self-control are most
necess'ry."
Salveter glared ferociously at Vance, who met his gaze with languid
coldness; and for fully thirty seconds there was an unflinching
ocular clash between them. But I have seen other men attempt to
stare Vance out of countenance--without the least success. His
quiet power and strength of character were colossal, and I would
wish no one the task of outgazing him.
Finally Salveter shrugged his broad shoulders. A slight,
compromising grin flickered along his set mouth.
"I'll pass up the promenade," he said, with admiring sheepishness.
"Fire away."
Vance took a deep inhalation on his cigarette, and let his eyes
wander lazily along the great frieze of Pen-ta-Weret's Rhapsody.
"What time did you leave the house this morning, Mr. Salveter?"
"About half past nine." Salveter was now standing relaxed, his
hands in his coat pockets. All of his aggressiveness was gone, and,
though he watched Vance closely, there was neither animosity nor
tenseness in his manner.
"And you did not, by any chance, leave the front door unlatched--or
open?"
"No! . . . Why should I?"
"Really, y' know, I couldn't say." Vance conferred on him a
disarming smile. "A more or less vital question, however. Mr.
Scarlett, d' ye see, found the door open when he arrived between ten
and ten-thirty."
"Well, _I_ didn't leave it that way. . . . What next?"
"You went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I understand."
"Yes. I went to inquire about some reproductions of the tomb
furniture of Hotpeheres."
"And you got the information?"
"I did."
Vance looked at his watch.
"Twenty-five after one," he read. "That means you have been absent
about four hours. Did you, by any hap, walk to Eighty-second Street
and back?"
Salveter clamped his teeth tight for a moment, and stared
antagonistically at Vance's nonchalant figure.
"I didn't walk either way, thank you." (I could not determine
whether he was merely exerting great self-control or whether he was
actually frightened.) "I took a 'bus up the Avenue, and came back
in a taxi."
"Let us say one hour coming and going, then. That allowed you three
hours to obtain your information, eh, what?"
"Mathematically correct." Again Salveter grinned savagely. "But it
happened I dropped into the rooms on the right of the entrance to
take a look at Per-nêb's Tomb. I'd heard recently that they'd added
some objects to their collection of the contents of the burial-
chamber. . . . Per-nêb, you see, was Fifth Dynasty--"
"Yes, yes. . . . And as Khufu, Hetep-hir-es' offspring, belonged to
the preceding dynasty, you were aesthetically interested in the
burial-chamber contents. Quite natural. . . . And how long did you
prowl and commune among the Per-nêb fragments?"
"See here, Mr. Vance"--Salveter was growing apprehensive--"I don't
know what you're trying to get at; but if it's going to help you in
your investigation of Uncle Ben's death, I'll take your gaff. . . .
I hung around the cabinets in the Egyptian rooms for nearly an hour.
Got interested and didn't hurry--I knew Uncle Ben had an appointment
with Doctor Bliss this morning, and I figured that if I got back at
lunchtime it would be all right."
"But you didn't get back at lunch time," Vance remarked.
"What if I didn't? I had to cool my feet for nearly an hour in the
Curator's outer office after I went upstairs--Mr. Lythgoe was
talking with Lindsley Hall about some drawings. And then I had to
hang around another half hour or so while he was phoning to Doctor
Reisner at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. I'm lucky to be back
now."
"Quite. . . . I know how those things are. Very tryin'."
Vance apparently accepted his story without question. He rose
lazily and drew a small note-book from his pocket, at the same time
feeling in his waistcoat as if for something with which to write.
"Sorry and all that, Mr. Salveter; but could you lend me a pencil?
Mine seems to have disappeared."
(I immediately became interested, for I knew Vance never carried a
pencil but invariably used a small gold fountain-pen which he always
wore on his watch-chain.)
"Delighted." Salveter reached in his pocket and held out a long
hexagonal yellow pencil.
Vance took it and made several notations in his book. Then, as he
was about to return the pencil, he paused and looked at the name
printed on it.
"Ah, a Mongol No. 1, what?" he said. "Popular pencils these Fabers-
482. . . . Do you always use them?"
"Never anything else. . . ."
"Thanks awfully." Vance returned the pencil, and dropped the note-
book into his pocket. "And now, Mr. Salveter, I'd appreciate it if
you'd go to the drawing-room and wait for us. We'll want to
question you again. . . . Mrs. Bliss, by the by, is there," he
added casually.
Salveter's eyelids dropped perceptibly, and he gave Vance a swift
sidelong glance.
"Oh, is she? Thanks. . . . I'll wait for you in the drawing-room."
He went up to Bliss. "I'm frightfully sorry, sir," he said. "I
know what this means to you. . . ." He was going to add something
but halted himself. Then he walked doggedly toward the front door.
He was half-way up the stairs when Vance, who now stood regarding
the statue of Sakhmet meditatively, suddenly turned and called to
him.
"Oh, I say, Mr. Salveter. Tell Hani we'd like to see him here--
there's a good fellow."
Salveter made a gesture of assent, and passed through the great
steel door without looking back.
7
THE FINGER-PRINTS
(Friday, July 13, 1:30 P.M.)
Hani joined us a few moments later.
"I am at your service, gentlemen," he announced, looking from one to
the other of us superciliously.
Vance had already drawn up a second chair beside the one on which he
had stood during his inspection of the top of the cabinet; and he
now made a beckoning gesture to the Egyptian.
"We appreciate your passionate spirit of co-operation, Hani," he
replied lightly. "Would you be so amiable as to stand on this chair
and point out to me exactly where you set the statue of Sakhmet
yesterday?"
I was watching Hani closely, and I could have sworn that his
eyebrows contracted slightly. But there was almost no hesitation in
his compliance with Vance's request. Making a slow, deep bow, he
approached the cabinet.
"Don't put your hands on the woodwork," Vance admonished. "And
don't touch the curtain."
Awkwardly, because of his long flowing kaftan, Hani mounted one of
the chairs; and Vance stepped upon the seat of the other.
The Egyptian squinted for a moment at the top of the cabinet, and
then pointed a bony finger to a spot near the edge, exactly half-way
across the two-and-a-half-foot opening.
"Just here, effendi," he said. "If you look closely you can see
where the base of Sakhmet disturbed the dust. . . ."
"Oh, quite." Vance, though in an attitude of concentration, was
nevertheless studying Hani's face. "But if one looks even more
closely one can see other disturbances in the dust."
"The wind, perhaps, from yonder window. . . ."
Vance chuckled.
"Blasen ist nicht flöten, ihr müsst die Finger bewegen--to quote
Goethe figuratively. . . . Your explanation, Hani, is a bit too
poetic." He indicated a point near the moulding at the edge of the
cabinet. "I doubt if even your simoon--or, as you may prefer to
call it, samûn*--could have made that scratch at the edge of the
statue's base, what? . . . Or, it may be, you set down the statue
with undue violence."
* I am not quite sure why Vance added this parenthetical phrase,
unless it was because the word simoon comes from the Arabic samma
(meaning to be poisoned), and he thought that Hani would better
recognize the word in its correct etymological form.
"It is possible, of course--though not likely."
"No, not likely--considerin' your superstitious reverence for the
leonine lady." Vance descended from his perch. "However, Sakhmet
seems to have been standing on the very edge of the cabinet,
directly in the centre, when Mr. Kyle arrived this morning to
inspect the new treasures."
We had all been watching him with curiosity. Heath and Markham were
especially interested, and Scarlett--frowning and immobile--had not
taken his eyes from Vance. Even Bliss, who had seemed utterly
broken by the tragedy and in a state of complete hopelessness, had
followed the episode with intentness. That Vance had discovered
something of importance was evident. I knew him too well to
underestimate his persistence, and I waited, with a sense of inner
excitement, for the time when he would share his new knowledge with
us.
Markham, however, voiced his impatience.
"What have you in mind, Vance?" he asked irritably. "This is hardly
the time to be secretive and dramatic."
"I'm merely delving into the subtler possibilities of this
inveiglin' case," he replied, in an offhand manner. "I'm a complex
soul, Markham old dear. I don't, alas! possess a simple, forthright
nature. I'm a sworn enemy of the obvious and the trite. . . . You
remember what the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist?--
'Things are not what they seem.'"
Markham had long since come to understand this kind of evasive
garrulousness on Vance's part, and no further question was asked.
Moreover, there was an interruption at this moment, which was to
place an even more complicated and more sinister aspect on the
entire case.
The front door was opened by Hennessey, and Captain Dubois and
Detective Bellamy, the finger-print experts, clattered down the
stairs.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Sergeant," Dubois said, shaking hands
with Heath; "but I was tied up with a safe-breaking job on Fulton
Street." He looked about him. "How d' ye do, Mr. Markham?" He
extended his hand to the District Attorney. . . . "And Mr. Vance,
is it?" Dubois spoke civilly but without enthusiasm: I believe his
tiff with Vance during the "Canary" murder case still rankled in
him.
"There ain't much of a job for you here, Captain," Heath interrupted
impatiently. "The only thing I want you to check up on is that
black statue laying there."
Dubois at once became seriously professional.
"That won't take long," he muttered, bending over the diorite figure
of Sakhmet. "What might it be, Sergeant?--one of those Futuristic
works of art that don't mean anything?"
"It don't mean anything to me," the Sergeant growled, "unless you
can find some nice identifiable prints on it."
Dubois grunted and snapped his fingers toward his assistant.
Bellamy, who had stood imperturbably in the background during the
exchange of greetings, came ponderously forward and opened a black
hand-bag which he had brought with him. Dubois, using a large
handkerchief and the palms of his hands, carefully lifted the statue
and placed it upright on the seat of a chair. Then he reached in
the hand-bag and took out an insufflator, or tiny hand-bellows, and
puffed a fine pale-saffron powder over the entire figure. Following
this operation, he gently blew away all the surplus powder, and
fixing a jeweller's-glass in his eye, knelt down and made a close
inspection of every part of the statue.
Hani had watched the performance with the keenest interest. He had
slowly moved toward the finger-print men until now he stood within a
few feet of them. His eyes were concentrated on their labors, and
his hands, which hung at his sides, were tightly flexed.
"You'll find no finger-prints of mine on Sakhmet, gentlemen," he
proclaimed in a low, tense voice. "I polished them off. . . . Nor
will there be any finger-prints to guide you. The Goddess of
Vengeance strikes of her own volition and power, and no human hands
are needed to assist her in her acts of justice."
Heath threw the Egyptian a glance of scathing contempt; but Vance
turned in his direction with a considerable show of interest.
"How do you know, Hani," he asked, "that your sign-manuals will not
appear on the statue? It was you who placed it upon the cabinet
yesterday."
"Yes, effendi," the man answered, without taking his eyes from
Dubois. "I place it there--but with reverence. I rubbed and
polished it from top to bottom when it was unpacked. And then I
took it in my hands and stood it on the top of the cabinet, as Bliss
effendi had directed. But when it was in place I could see where my
hands had made marks upon its polished surface; and again I rubbed
it with a chamois cloth so that it would be pure and untouched while
the spirit of Sakhmet looked down sorrowfully over the stolen
treasures of this room. . . . There was no mark or print on it when
I left it."
"Well, my friend, there's finger-prints on it now," declared Dubois
unemotionally. He had taken out a powerful magnifying glass and was
centring his gaze on the thick ankles of the statue. "And they're
damn clear prints, too. . . . Looks to me like they'd been made by
some guy who'd lifted up this statue. . . . Both hands show around
the ankles. . . . Pass me the camera, Bellamy."
Bliss had paid scant heed to the entrance of the finger-print men,
but when Hani had begun to speak, he had roused himself from his
despondent lethargy and concentrated his attention on the Egyptian.
Then, when Dubois had announced the presence of finger-prints, he
had stared, with terrible intentness, at the statue. A startling
change had come over him. He was like a man in the grip of some
consuming fear; and before Dubois had finished speaking he leapt to
his feet and stood in a frozen attitude of stark horror.
"GOD HELP ME!" he cried; and the sound of his voice sent a chill
over me. "Those are MY finger-prints on that statue!"
The effect of this admission was dumbfounding. Even Vance seemed
momentarily shaken out of his habitual calm, and going to a small
standard ashtray he abstractedly crushed out his cigarette, though
he had smoked less than half of it.
Heath was the first to break the electric silence that followed
Bliss's cry of anguish. He took his dead cigar from his lips, and
thrust out his chin.
"Sure, they're your finger-prints!" he snapped unpleasantly. "Who
else's would they be?"
"Just a moment, Sergeant!" Vance had wholly recovered himself, and
his voice was casual. "Finger-prints can be very misleadin', don't
y' know. And a few digital signatures on a lethal weapon don't mean
that their author is necessarily a murderer. It's most important,
d' ye see, to ascertain when and under what circumstances the
signatures were made."
He approached Bliss, who had remained staring at the statue of
Sakhmet like a stricken man.
"I say, doctor;"--he had assumed an easy, off-hand manner--"how do
you know those finger-prints are yours?"
"How do I know?" Bliss repeated the question in a resigned,
colorless tone. He appeared to have aged before our very eyes; and
his white, sunken cheeks made him resemble a death's-head.
"Because--oh, my God!--because I made them! . . . I made them last
night--or, rather, early this morning, before I turned in. I took
hold of the statue--around the ankles--exactly where that gentleman
says there are the marks of two hands."
"And how did you happen to do that, doctor?" Vance asked quietly.
"I did it without thought--I'd even forgotten doing it till the
finger-prints were mentioned." Bliss spoke with feverish earnestness:
he seemed to feel that his very life depended on his being believed.
"When I had finished arranging all the figures of the report early
this morning, at about three o'clock, I came down here to the
museum. I'd told Kyle about the new shipment, and I wanted to make
sure that everything was in order for his inspection. . . . You
see, Mr. Vance, a great deal depended on the impression the new
treasures made on him. . . . I looked over the items in