Egyptian Cross Mystery (15 page)

“What’s your real handle? Where do you come from?”

No answer. The Inspector went to the door again and beckoned two detectives standing in the hall. “Take him back to his cabin and keep him locked up there. We’ll attend to him later.”

Fox’s eyes burned as he shambled out between the two detectives. He avoided the eyes of Mrs. Brad and Helene.

“Well!” The Inspector mopped his brow. “Sorry, Mrs. Brad, to raise such a fuss on your drawing-room floor. But the man’s evidently a bad actor.”

Mrs. Brad shook her head. “I can’t understand it. He’s always been such a nice young man. So polite. So efficient. You don’t think he was the one who—”

“If he was, God help him.”

“I’m sure he wasn’t,” said Helene with asperity; her eyes were full of pity. “Fox couldn’t be a murderer or a gangster. I’m sure of it. He’s always kept to himself, it’s true, but he’s never been drunk or disorderly or in any way objectionable. He’s a cultured man, too. I’ve often caught him reading good books and poetry.”

“These fellows are sometimes pretty cagey, Miss Brad,” said Isham. “For all we know he may have been playing a part ever since he got the job here. We looked up his references and they were genuine—but he’d worked for the man only a few months.”

“May have taken that job just for the references,” said Vaughn. “They’ll do all sorts of things.” He turned to Ellery. “You can score this one for your father, Mr. Queen. We got the tip from Inspector Queen, who’s got his fingers on more stool-pigeons and tipsters than any cop in New York.”

“I knew Dad couldn’t keep from putting his oar in,” murmured Ellery. “Was your information so specific?”

“The stoolie saw Fox go into Malone’s headquarters, that’s all. But it’s enough.”

Ellery shrugged. Helene said: “The trouble with you people is that you’re always ready to think the worst of everybody.”

Lincoln sat down and lighted a cigarette. “Perhaps, Helene, we’d better keep out of it.”

“Perhaps, Jonah, you’d better mind your own business!”

“Children,” began Mrs. Brad weakly.

Ellery sighed. “Any news, Mr. Isham? I’m starved for information.”

The Inspector grinned. “Chew on this, then.” He took a sheaf of typewritten papers from his pocket and handed it to Ellery. “If you can find anything in ’em, you’re a genius.
But …”
he said sharply, turning to Lincoln, who had risen and was about to leave the room, “don’t go yet, Mr. Lincoln. There’s something—I—want to ask you.”

It was timed nicely, and Ellery approved the Inspector’s adroit and deliberate strategy. Lincoln stopped on the instant, reddening. The two women stiffened in their chairs. All at once, from a subdued atmosphere, the air in the room crackled with tension.

“What’s that?” asked Lincoln with difficulty.

“Why,” said Vaughn pleasantly, “did you lie to me yesterday when you told me that you, Miss Brad, and her mother had come home together Monday night?”

“I—Why, what do you mean?”

Isham said: “It appears that you people are making every effort to hinder rather than help the investigation of your husband’s murder, Mrs. Brad. The Inspector’s men have discovered from the taxicab driver who took two of you from the station to Bradwood Monday night—”

“Two?” drawled Ellery.

“—that only Mr. Lincoln and Miss Brad were in the cab, Mrs. Brad!”

Helene sprang to her feet; Mrs. Brad was stricken speechless. “Don’t answer, Mother. This is infamous! Are you suggesting that one of
us
is implicated in the murder, Mr. Isham?”

Lincoln muttered: “Look here, Helene, perhaps we’d better—”

“Jonah!” She faced him, quivering. “If you dare to open your mouth I’ll—I’ll never speak to you again!”

He bit his lips, avoided her eyes, and walked out of the room. Mrs. Brad uttered a puling little cry, and Helene stood in front of her, as if to shield her from harm.

“Well,” said Isham, throwing up his hands, “there you are, Mr. Queen. That’s what
official
investigators have to contend with. All right, Miss Brad. I want you to know, though, that from this moment on everyone—and I
mean
everyone—is under suspicion for the murder of Thomas Brad!”

W
ITH THE VERVE OF
a dog carrying a bone Mr. Ellery Queen, slightly bewildered special investigator, returned posthaste to his host’s house across the road bearing the reports on work in progress. The noon sun was hot, too hot for haberdashery, and Ellery sought the cool interior with a panting relief. He found Professor Yardley in a room which might have been transported bodily out of the Arabian Nights, a patio-like affair of tessellated marble and Turkish arabesques. It looked like the inner court of a zenana; its chief delight was a pool a-brim to its mosaic lip with water. The Professor was attired in a pair of tight short breeches, and he was dangling long legs in the water while he peacefully puffed on a pipe.

“Phew!” said Ellery. “I’m more than grateful for your little harem, Professor.”

“As usual,” said the Professor severely, “your choice of words is sloppy. Don’t you know that the men’s apartments are called the selamik? … Get out of your clothes, Queen, and join me here. What’s that you’re carrying?”

“A message from Garcia. Don’t move. We’ll go over this together. I’ll be back in a moment.”

He reappeared shortly in trunks, the upper part of his body smooth and gleaming with perspiration. He dived flatly into the pool, throwing up a wave which drenched the Professor and extinguished his pipe, and proceeded to splash about with energy.

“Another one of your accomplishments,” growled Yardley. “You always were a damned poor swimmer. Come out of there before you drown me.”

Ellery grinned, clambered out, stretched full length on the marble, and reached for Inspector Vaughn’s sheaf of reports.

“What have we here?” He ran his eye down the top sheet. “Hmm. Doesn’t look like much. The admirable Inspector hasn’t been idle. Check-up with the Hancock County officials.”

“Oh,” said the Professor, struggling to relight his pipe. “So they’ve done that, have they? What’s been happening down there?”

Ellery sighed. “First, the autopsy findings on the body of Andrew Van. Absolutely devoid of the minutest particle of interest. If you’d read as many autopsy reports as I have, you’d appreciate … And a complete synopsis of the original investigation. Nothing I don’t already know, or that you didn’t read in contemporaneous newspaper accounts … Ha! What’s this? ‘Pursuant’—digest this, please; it sounds just like that fellow Crumit—‘Pursuant to District Attorney Isham’s inquiry concerning a possible relationship between Andrew Van, the Arroyo schoolteacher, and Thomas Brad, recently murdered Long Island millionaire, we are sorry to state that no such relationship exists; at least insofar as we have been able to determine from a careful study of the deceased Van’s old correspondence, and so on.’ Neat, eh?”

“A model of rhetoric,” grinned the Professor.

“But that’s all.
Alors,
we leave Arroyo and return to Ketcham’s Grove.” Ellery squinted at the fourth sheet. “Dr. Rumsen’s autopsy report on the body of Thomas Brad. Nothing that we don’t know, really. No marks of violence on the body itself, no indication of poisoning in the internal organs, and so on, and so on,
ad nauseam.
The usual trivialities.”

“I remember you asked Dr. Rumsen the other day if Brad mightn’t have been strangled. Does he say anything about that?”

“Yes. Lungs show no signs of suffocation.
Ergo,
he wasn’t strangled.”

“But why did you ask the question in the first place?”

Ellery waved a dripping arm. “Nothing earth-shaking. But since there were no marks of violence on the rest of the body, it might have been important to know exactly how the man was killed. It had to be his head, you see, which bore the brunt of the assault; which suggested strangulation. But Rumsen in this report says that it could only have been a blow with a blunt instrument on the skull, or possibly a revolver shot in the head. I should say the first, all things considered.”

The Professor kicked up a column of water. “I suppose that’s so. Anything else?”

“Investigation to discover the route the murderer took. Futile, very futile.” Ellery shook his head. “Impossible to procure a list of persons who boarded or descended from trains in the neighborhood of the Cove during the crime period. Troopers on the highways, residents near or on the roads, can offer no information. An attempt to find persons who were on or in the vicinity of Ketcham’s Cove on Tuesday evening has been unsuccessful. … And yachtsmen and others who sailed the Sound Tuesday afternoon and evening report no mysterious or suspicious activity, no strange boat which might have landed the murderer in the Cove by a water route.”

“As you say, a futile business.” The Professor sighed. “He may have come by train, automobile, or boat, and I suppose we’ll never know exactly. Might even have come by hydroplane, to reduce it to an absurdity.”

“There’s an idea,” smiled Ellery. “And don’t fall into the error of calling improbabilities absurdities, Professor. I’ve seen some queer things happen. … Let’s get on with this.” He scanned the next sheet rapidly. “More nothing. The rope used in lashing Brad’s arms and legs to the totem pole …”

“I suppose it’s also futile,” grunted Yardley, “to expect you to say ‘totem post.’”

“Totem post,” continued Ellery dutifully, “has been found to be ordinary cheap-grade clothesline, which can be purchased at any grocer’s or hardware store. No dealer within ten miles of Bradwood can offer anything which promises to be a live trail. However, Isham reports that the quest will be carried on by Vaughn’s men over a wider area.”

“Thorough, these people,” said the Professor.

“Unwilling as I am to admit it,” said Ellery with a grin, “it’s just such routine thoroughness that solves the run of crimes. … The knot, Vaughn’s pet idea. Result—
zero.
A clumsy inexpert thing, but efficient enough, according to Vaughn’s expert. Just such a knot as you or I might tie.”

“Not I,” said Yardley. “I’m an old mariner, you know. Bowlines, half hitches, and what not.”

“You’re as close to H
₂
O now as you’ve ever been—I mean in a nautical capacity. … Ah, Paul Romaine. An interesting character. The assertive male with a good healthy streak of practicality in him.”

“Your habit,” said the Professor, “of misusing words is really to be deplored.”

“Background, says Inspector Vaughn’s little piece, obscure. Beyond the fact that he joined our Egyptological avatar in Pittsburgh in February, as he himself said, nothing has been discovered about him. His trail before that is a blank.”

“The Lynns?”

Ellery put down the paper for a moment. “Yes, the Lynns,” he murmured. “What do you know about them?”

The Professor caressed his beard. “Suspicious, my boy? I might have known it wouldn’t escape you. There
is
something faintly spurious about their ring. Although they’ve been quite respectable. Beyond reproach, as far as I know.”

Ellery picked up the paper. “Well, Scotland Yard, while it doesn’t say so in so many words, thinks otherwise, I’ll warrant. Isham cabled the Yard, and the Yard cabled back, according to this report, that they could find no data on a couple named Percy and Elizabeth Lynn, as described. Their passports have also been investigated, but of course they’re in order, as might be expected. Perhaps we’ve been unkind. … Scotland Yard intimates that they are continuing a search of civilian records—criminal records, too—in the hope of unearthing information pertinent to the Lynns’ activities in English territory, since they claim to be English subjects.”

“Lord, what a mess!”

Ellery scowled. “You’re just finding it so? I’ve worked on complicated cases in my brief and brilliant time, but never anything quite so snarled as this. … You haven’t heard, of course, the latest developments about friend Fox the chauffeur, and Mrs. Brad.” The Professor’s eyebrows went up. Ellery related what had occurred an hour before in the drawing room at Bradwood. “Clear, isn’t it?”

“As the waters of the Ganges,” grunted Yardley. “I’m beginning to wonder.”

“What?”

The Professor shrugged. “I shan’t leap at conclusions. What else does that encyclopedia in your hand disclose?”

“Fast work on Vaughn’s part. The doorman of the Park Theater testified that a woman of Mrs. Brad’s description left the theater Tuesday night in the middle of the first act—about nine o’clock.”

“Alone?”

“Yes … Another thing. Vaughn’s lines have hooked the original of the money-order application for one hundred dollars which was sent to Ketcham as deposit on the Oyster Island rental. It was made out in the Peoria, Illinois post office in the name of Velja Krosac.”

“No!” The Professor’s eyes grew round. “Then they’ve a sample of his handwriting!”

Ellery sighed. “Leaping at conclusions? I thought you were being careful about that. The name was hand-printed. The address was simply Peoria—evidently Stryker’s traveling manna-dispenser stopped there to do a little business among the natives. … One thing more of local interest. Accountants are at work checking the books of Brad & Megara. Natural line of inquiry, of course. But so far everything seems aboveboard; the firm is well-known and extremely prosperous; finances are quite in order. … Incidentally, our peregrinating friend Stephen Megara, who’s lolling about somewhere on the high seas, is not active in the business—hasn’t been for five years. Brad kept a supervisory eye cocked, but young Jonah Lincoln runs the place almost single-handed. I wonder what’s sticking in
his
craw.”

“Future mother-in-law troubles, I should say,” remarked the Professor dryly.

Ellery tossed the sheaf to the marble floor of the selamik, as Yardley called it, and then leaned forward quickly to retrieve it. An additional sheet had fallen from the rear of the sheaf. “What’s this?” He scanned it with omnivorous eyes. “Good lord, here’s something!”

Yardley’s pipe remained suspended in mid-air. “What?”

Ellery was excited. “Actually information about Krosac! A later report, from the date. Evidently District Attorney Crumit held it back in his first reply, and then decided to wash his hands of the entire affair and shunt it onto poor Isham … Six months of investigation. Data galore … Velja Krosac is a Montenegrin!”