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Title: The Scarab Murder Case
Author: S. S. Van Dine
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Language:   English
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by

1930

La vérité n'a point cet air impétueux.

DEDICATED

WITH APPRECIATION

TO

AMBROSE LANSING

LUDLOW BULL

AND

HENRY A. CAREY

OF THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT OF

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM

OF ART

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

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."*

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.

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.

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.*

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."

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.

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.*

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.

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. . . ."

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."

"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.

"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. . . ."

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."

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."

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."*

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.

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!"

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."

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.*

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.

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.

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