Egyptian Cross Mystery (31 page)

It was signed by the Minister of Police, Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

“So,” said Professor Yardley. “You were right after all, Queen. They were nothing but common thieves.”

Ellery sighed. “An empty triumph. It merely means that Velja Krosac had an additional motive for the murder of the Tvar brothers. His family wiped out, his money stolen. I can’t see that it clears up anything but a minor point. … As for Megara’s story about having kept track of the young Krosac—it’s probably true. Except that instead of sending agents out from Montenegro, they employed men via the mails when they got to this country.”

“Poor devil. I can almost find it in my heart to pity him.”

“You can’t take away the blood and brutality of the crimes, Professor,” said Vaughn sharply. “Sure he has motive. There’s a motive for every murder. But you don’t find murderers getting off scot-free just because they had a reason. … Well, what is it?”

Another detective had dropped aboard bearing a sheaf of official-looking papers and telegrams. “Sergeant sent these, Inspector. Last night’s reports.”

“Hmm.” Vaughn rapidly went through the papers. “On the Lynns.”

“Any news?” asked Isham.

“Nothing of importance. Naturally people all over the country think they’ve spotted ’em. Here’s one all the way from Arizona—they’re following it up. Another from Florida—man and a woman of the general description seen in a car round Tampa way. Maybe, maybe.” He stuffed the reports into one of his pockets. “I’ll bet they’ve holed up in New York. Be damned fools to go shooting across country. Canadian and Mexican borders seem to be okay. I don’t think they’ve slipped out of the country. … Hullo! Bill seems to have found something!”

The detective was standing up in an outboard waving his hat and yelling something indistinguishable. He scrambled aboard like a monkey, eyes shining.

“Righto, Chief!” he cried, as soon as he had his feet on the deck. “You hit it on the head. Found plenty over there!”

“What?”

“Checked up on the rowboat first; it’s the one that belongs to that slip, all right. Rope was cut with a sharp knife; the knot’s still hangin’ on the slip ring, and the rope on the boat itself shows a cut that matches the other end.”

“All right, all right,” said Vaughn impatiently. “He used that rowboat; we know that. Did you find anything near the dock there?”

“And how. Footprints.” They all echoed the word and leaned forward. Bill nodded. “There’s soft earth just behind the slip. In it we found five prints—three lefts and two rights of the same size shoe—man’s, about eight and a half, I’d say. And whoever made those prints limped.”

“Limped?” repeated Professor Yardley. “How on earth do you know?”

Bill turned a pitying glance on the tall ugly scholar. “What the—Say, that’s the first time I ever heard anybody ask a question like that. Don’t you read the pulps? Prints of the right shoe were much deeper than the left. A hell of a lot. Right heels dug way in. A bad limp in his left leg, I’d say; left heels hardly show.”

“Good work, Bill,” said Vaughn; he regarded the antenna masts. “Mr. Megara,” he said grimly, “next time—if there’s another world and I’m there with, you—you’ll listen to me. No protection, hey? You saw where you got
with
protection. … Anything else, Bill?”

“No. The path down from the main road, between the Lynn place and Bradwood, is gravel, and the main road is macadam. So there aren’t any other prints. The boys are workin’ on the limping-man trail anyway; didn’t need the prints, although they help.”

The boys, it seemed had worked not without success.

A new deputation scudded over the blue water of Ketcham’s Cove toward the yacht; several detectives surrounded a middle-aged man with a badly frightened look, who sat on a thwart clutching its edges with both hands.

“Who the devil have they picked up?” growled Vaughn. “Come aboard; who you got there?” he shouted across the narrowing strip of water.

“Great news, Chief!” yelled one of the plainclothesmen faintly. “Got a hot tip!”

He helped his middle-aged captive up the ladder by a gentle boost in the slack of the man’s trousers; the man crawled up with a sickly half-grin and took his fedora hat off on deck, quite as if he were in the presence of royalty. They examined him curiously: he was a colorless individual with gold teeth and an air of shabby gentility.

“Who’s this, Pickard?” demanded the Inspector.

“Tell your story, Mr. Darling,” said the detective. “This is the big chief.”

Mr. Darling looked awed. “Pleased to meet you, Captain. Why, it’s nothing much. I’m Elias Darling of Huntington, Captain. I own a cigar and stationery store on Main Street there. I was closing up last night at midnight and happened to notice something in the street. There’d been a car parked in front of my store for a few minutes—a Buick, I think it was—Buick sedan. I’d happened to notice the man who parked it—a little fellow with a young girl. Just as I was closing up I saw a man, tall fellow, walk up to the car and sort of look inside—the front window was open, car wasn’t locked, you see. Then he opened the door, started the ignition, and drove off in the direction of Centerport.”

“Well, what of it?” snarled Vaughn. “Might have been the little guy’s father, or brother, or friend, or something. Maybe he was from the finance company taking the car away because the little guy didn’t pay up.”

Mr. Elias Darling looked panic-stricken. “Goodness,” he whispered, “I never thought of that! And here I am practically accusing—You see, Captain …”

“Inspector!” shouted Vaughn.

“You see, Inspector, I didn’t like the looks of it. I thought of saying something to our Chief of Police, but then I figured it wasn’t any of my business. But I remember the man limped on his left foot—”

“Hey!” roared Vaughn. “Wait a minute! Limped, did he? What did he look like?”

They hung on Mr. Darling’s words; each man felt that here at last was the turning-point of the investigation—an actual description of the man who called himself Krosac. … Detective Pickard was shaking his head sadly; and Ellery sensed that Darling’s description would be no more informative than had been Croker’s, the Weirton garageman.

“I told the detective here,” said the Huntington merchant, “I didn’t see his face. But he was tall, kind of broad-shouldered, and he was carrying one of those little valises—overnight bag, my wife calls ’em.”

Isham and Vaughn relaxed, and Professor Yardley shook his head. “All right, Mr. Darling,” said Vaughn. “Thanks a lot for your trouble. See that Mr. Darling gets back to Huntington in a police car, Pickard.” Pickard assisted the storekeeper down the ladder, and returned when the launch glided off toward the mainland.

“How about the stolen car, Pickard?” asked Isham.

“Well,” drawled the detective, “it isn’t much help. A couple answering the description given by Darling reported the theft of their automobile to the Huntington police at two in the morning. God knows where they’d been—
I
don’t. Buick sedan, as Darling says; the little guy was so excited about his broad, I suppose, that he forgot to take his ignition key out of the lock.”

“Send out a description of the car?” demanded Vaughn.

“Yes, Chief. Plates and all.”

“Fat lot of good it’ll do,” grumbled Isham. “Naturally, Krosac would want a car last night for his getaway—too risky to take a train at two or three in the morning, where the chances are somebody would remember him.”

“In other words,” murmured Ellery, “you believe Krosac stole the car, drove it all night, and ditched it somewhere?”

“He’d be a fool to continue driving it,” snapped the Inspector. “Sure that’s right. What’s wrong with it, Mr. Queen?”

Ellery shrugged. “Can’t a man ask a simple question without having his head bashed in, Inspector? Nothing’s wrong with it, so far as I can see.”

“It seems to me,” said the Professor thoughtfully, “that Krosac was taking a long chance in depending upon being able to steal a car so close to the time and scene of his projected crime.”

“Long chance my eye,” said Vaughn curtly. “Trouble is with people, they’re generally honest. You could steal a dozen cars in the next hour if you wanted to—especially out here in Long Island.”

“A good point, Professor,” drawled Ellery, “but I’m afraid the Inspector’s right.” He paused at the sounds of shuffling feet above. They looked up; the sheet-draped body of Stephen Megara was being lowered from the roof of the radio operator’s cabin to the deck. At the rail a few feet away, in a faded old sou’wester under which were his pajamas, stood Captain Swift, gazing with stony eyes at the proceedings. Dr. Temple was at his side, silent, puffing at a dead pipe.

Ellery, Vaughn, Isham, and the Professor descended one by one to the large police launch waiting below. The
Helene,
as they drew off, rode gently in the waters of Ketcham’s Cove. The body was on its way over the side to another boat. On shore they could see Jonah Lincoln’s tall figure, waiting; the women had vanished.

“What do you think, Mr. Queen?” asked Isham with pathetic eagerness, after a long silence.

Ellery wriggled about and stared back at the yacht. “I think that we’re as far from the solution of these crimes as we were three weeks ago. As far as I’m concerned, I confess to complete frustration. The murderer is Velja Krosac—a wraith of a man who might be nearly anybody. The problem still confronts us: Who is he, really?” He took off his pince-nez and rubbed his eyes impatiently. “He’s left his trail—flaunted it, as a matter of fact. …” His face hardened, and he fell silent.

“What’s the matter?” asked Professor Yardley, anxiously surveying his protégé’s bleak expression.

Ellery clenched his fist. “That idea—something! What in the name of six Peruvian devils is it?”

T
HEY WALKED QUICKLY THROUGH
Bradwood, intent on avoiding the poor victims of bewilderment and nausea moving restlessly about the estate. Jonah Lincoln said not a word; he seemed too stunned for speech and merely followed them up the path as if that were as sensible a course of action as any other. The death of Megara, peculiarly enough, hung far more like a pall over Bradwood than had the death of its owner. A white-faced Fox was sitting on the steps of the porch, his head in his hands. Helene sat in a rocker, staring fixedly at the sky without seeing one wisp of the massing thunder clouds which had sprung up. Mrs. Brad had collapsed; Stallings mumbled that Dr. Temple should see her: she was crying hysterically in her room and no one, not even her daughter, seemed, capable of taking care of her. Mrs. Baxter’s moans could be heard as they passed the rear of the house.

They hesitated in the driveway, and then forged on by tacit agreement. Lincoln followed them blindly as far as the outer gateway. There he stopped to lean against the stone pillar. The Inspector and Isham had dropped off somewhere, busy about their own affairs.

Old Nanny’s wrinkled black face was screwed up with horror; she opened the front door for them, muttering: “Dey’s a ha’nt behin’ dis, Mistuh Ya’dley, you ma’k mah words.”

The Professor did not reply; he went directly to his library, and as if refuge lay there Ellery followed.

They sat down in the same inadequate silence. On the Professor’s craggy face, beneath the shock and the distaste, lay challenge. Ellery sank into a chair and began mechanically to search his pockets for a cigarette. Yardley shoved a large ivory box across the table to him.

“What’s bothering you?” he asked gently. “Surely the thought couldn’t have entirely escaped you.”

“It’s as if it never was, except for the most ridiculous sensation.” Ellery puffed furiously at a cigarette. “You know those intangible feelings? Something leads you a chase through all the back alleys of your brain, and you never once get more than a blurred glimpse of it. That’s the way it is with me. If I could catch it … It’s important. I have the overwhelming feeling that it’s important.”

The Professor tamped tobacco into his pipe bowl. “A common phenomenon. I’ve found with myself that concentration on the capture of the idea is futile. A good plan is to erase every thought of it from your mind and talk about other things. It’s surprising how often the method works. It’s as if, by ignoring it, you tantalize it into popping out at you. Out of nowhere the full, clear picture of what you’ve been trying to recollect will appear; created, it would seem, out of irrelevancies.”

Ellery grunted. A thunder clap shook the walls of the house.

“A moment ago—fifteen minutes ago—” continued the Professor with a sad smile, “you said that you were as far from a solution today as you were three weeks ago. Very well. Then you face failure. At the same time you’ve made reference on several occasions to conclusions which you’ve reached, not obvious on the surface, unknown apparently to Isham and Vaughn and myself. Why not go over them now? Perhaps there’s something which in the exclusive concentration of your analysis has eluded you, but which will become clear if you express your thoughts in words. You may take my word for it—my whole life has been inextricably tied up with just such experiences—that there is a vital difference between the cold seclusion of independent thinking and the warm personality of a
tête-à-tête
discussion.

“You mentioned checkers, for example. Evidently the Bradwood study, the checker table, the disposition of the pieces, had a significance for you which completely escaped the rest of us. Go over it aloud.”

Under the flow of Professor Yardley’s deep and soothing voice Ellery’s keyed nerves relaxed. He was smoking more quietly now, and the lines of strain on his face had softened. “Not a bad plan, Professor.” He shifted to a more comfortable position and half-closed his eyes. “Let me tackle it this way. What story did you piece together from Stallings’s testimony and the checker table as we found it?”

The Professor thoughtfully blew smoke toward his fireplace. The room had appreciably darkened; the sun had disappeared behind a barrage of black clouds. “Many theories unsupported by concrete evidence have come to mind, but I see no logical reason for doubting the surface appearance of the data.”

“And that is?”