Egyptian Cross Mystery (12 page)

Astonishingly, as the police craft hooked onto the dead outboard, the man threw back his head and laughed—a deep, hearty laugh of pure relief and enjoyment.

He was a thin wiry individual of indeterminate age, with brownish hair and a face burnt almost purple—a complexion which could only be the result of long years under the equatorial sun. His eyes, too, looked bleached; they were water-gray, almost colorless. His mouth was a trap in flesh; the muscles of his jaw braced his purple cheek like girder-steel. Altogether a formidable person despite his flight, Ellery decided, as he watched the man roll on the sternsheets in the full ecstasy of his glee.

The female this remarkable man had abducted could only be, from her resemblance to Jonah Lincoln, the rebellious Hester. She was a plain but well-made young woman. Well-made, as the embarrassed men in the police launch had no difficulty in seeing; although a man’s coat was draped about her shoulders—the laughing man, Ellery noted, was coatless—beneath it she was scantily concealed in a dirty piece of canvas, as if someone had forcibly covered her nakedness with the first scrap of material which lay at hand.

She returned their stares out of troubled blue eyes, and then she blushed and shivered, hanging her head. Her hands crept insensibly into her lap.

“What the hell are you laughing at?” demanded the Inspector. “And who are you? What d’ye mean by kidnaping this woman?”

The coatless man dashed a tear from his eyes. “Don’t blame you,” he gasped. “Gad, that was funny!” He shook the last remnants of mirth out of his somber face, and stood up. “Sorry. My name’s Temple. This is Miss Hester Lincoln. Thanks for the rescue.”

“Come aboard,” growled Vaughn.

Isham and Ellery helped the silent woman into the launch. “I say, wait a minute,” snapped Dr. Temple. There was no humor in his face now; it was black with suspicion. “Who the devil are you people, anyway?”

“Police. Come on, come on!”

“Police!” The man’s eyes narrowed, and he clambered slowly into the launch. A detective fastened the outboard to the painter of the bigger craft. Dr. Temple looked from Vaughn to Isham to Ellery. The girl had slumped into a seat and was studying the floor. “Now, that’s queer. What’s happened?”

District Attorney Isham told him. His face went ghastly pale; and Hester Lincoln looked up with eyes full of horror.

“Brad!” muttered Dr. Temple. “Murdered … It doesn’t seem possible! Why, only yesterday morning I saw him and—”

“Jonah,” began Hester; she was trembling. “Is—is he all right?”

No one answered her. Dr. Temple was biting his lower lip; a very thoughtful look had come into his pallid eyes. “Have you seen—the Lynns?” he asked in a peculiar voice. “Why?”

Temple was silent; then he smiled and shrugged. “Oh, nothing. Just a friendly question … Poor Tom.” He sat down suddenly and gazed over the water at Oyster Island.

“Head back to Brad’s landing,” ordered Vaughn. The launch churned the water and began to move back toward the mainland.

Ellery noticed the tall outlandish figure of Professor Yardley standing on the big slip, and waved. Yardley waved his gangling arm in reply.

“Now, Dr. Temple,” said District Attorney Isham grimly, “suppose you go into your song-and-dance. What’s the idea of the big kidnaping scene, and who in the name of God is that naked lunatic who was chasing you?”

“It’s unfortunate … I suppose I’d better come out with the truth. Hester—forgive me.”

The girl did not answer; she seemed stunned by the news of Thomas Brad’s death.

“Miss Lincoln,” went on the sun-blackened man, “has been—well, let’s say a little impulsive. She’s young, and certain things make young people lose their heads.”

“Oh, Victor,” said Hester in an infinitely weary voice.

“Jonah Lincoln,” continued Dr. Temple with a frown, “hasn’t taken—how shall I say it?—he hasn’t done his duty, as I see it, toward his sister.”

“As
you
see it,” said the girl bitterly.

“Yes, Hester, because I feel—” He bit his lip again. “At any rate, when a week passed and Hester hadn’t returned from that damned Island, I thought it was high time someone brought her to her senses. Since nobody else seemed capable of doing it, I assumed the duty. Nudism!” He snorted. “Perversion, as those people practice it. I haven’t been a medical man for nothing. They’re a bunch of fakers trading on the inhibitions of decent people.”

The girl gasped. “Victor Temple! Do you realize what you’re saying?”

“Excuse me for butting in,” said the Inspector mildly, “but might I ask what business it is of yours if Miss Lincoln wants to prance around without any clothes on? She looks of age.”

Dr. Temple snapped his jaws together. “If you must know,” he said angrily, “I feel I have the right to interfere. Emotionally, she’s just a child, an adolescent. She’s been carried away by a handsome physique and a smooth line of talk.”

“That was Paul Romaine, I take it?” put in Ellery with a dry smile.

The physician nodded. “Yes, the insidious blackguard! He’s the living trademark of that crazy cult of the sun. Sun’s all right in its place. … I went over there this morning to scout around. Romaine and I had a little tussle. Like cavemen! It was ridiculous, and that’s why I laughed a moment ago. But it was serious then, and he’s a good deal stronger than I. I saw I was in for it, grabbed Miss Lincoln in the approved fashion, and ran for it.” He grinned wryly. “If it wasn’t for the fact that Romaine stumbled and hit his thick head against a rock, I’m afraid I should have been properly thrashed. And there’s the story of the great abduction.”

Hester stared at him dully; she was shivering in her fright.

“But I still don’t see what right you had—” began Isham.

Dr. Temple rose, and something fierce came into his eye. “It’s really none of your damned business, whoever you may be. But I expect to make this young lady my wife someday.
That’s
what right I have. … She’s in love with me, but she doesn’t know it. And, by God, I’ll
make
her know it!”

He glared at her, and for a moment her eyes sparked with his in an answering glare.

“‘This,’” murmured Ellery to Isham, “‘is the very ecstasy of Love.’”

“Huh?” said Isham.

A trooper caught the line on the main slip. Professor Yardley said: “Hello, Queen! Drifted back to see how you were coming on. … ’Lo, Temple! Anything the matter?”

Dr. Temple nodded. “I’ve just kidnaped Hester, and these gentlemen want to hang me.”

Yardley’s smile faded. “I’m sorry. …”

“Er—you come along with us, Professor,” said Ellery. “I think we’ll need you on the Island.”

Inspector Vaughn added: “Good idea. Dr. Temple, you said you saw Brad yesterday morning?”

“Just for a moment. As he was leaving for the city. I saw him Monday night, too—night before last. He seemed perfectly normal. I can’t understand it, I really can’t. Any suspicions?”

“I’m asking,” said Vaughn. “How’d you spend last night, Doctor?”

Temple grinned. “You’re not starting with me? I was home all evening—I live alone, you know. A woman comes in every day to cook and clean up.”

“Just as a matter of form,” said Isham, “we’d like to know a little more about you.”

Temple waved a dejected arm. “Anything you want.”

“How long have you lived here?”

“Since 1921. I’m a retired army officer, you know—a medical man. I was in Italy at the outbreak of the war and joined the Italian Medical Corps rather impulsively; I was just a shaver out of diapers and Med School. Rank of Major, shot up once or twice—I was in the Balkan campaign and got myself taken prisoner. It wasn’t much fun.” He smiled briefly. “That ended my military career. I was interned by the Austrians in Graz for the duration of the war.”

“And then you came to the States?”

“I knocked about for several years—I’d come into a sizable inheritance during the war—and then drifted back home. Well, you know how things were for many of us. Old friends gone, no family—the usual thing. I settled here, and I’ve been here ever since playing the country gentleman.”

“Thanks, Doctor,” said Isham with more cordiality. “We’ll drop you here and—” A thought struck him. “You’d better go back to the Brad house, Miss Lincoln. There may be fireworks over on the Island. I’ll have your things sent back.”

Hester Lincoln did not raise her eyes. But there was a stubborn hardness in her tone as she said: “I’m
not
staying here. I’m going back.”

Dr. Temple dropped his smile. “Going back!” he cried. “Are you insane, Hester? After everything that’s hap—”

She flung his coat off her shoulders; the sun blazed on her brown shoulders and her eyes blazed in sympathy with it. “I won’t be told what to do by you or anybody else, Dr. Temple! I’m going back, and you shan’t stop me. Don’t you
dare.”

Vaughn looked helplessly at Isham, and Isham began to work up a muttering rage.

Ellery drawled: “Oh, come, now. Let’s all go back. I think it may prove rather a lark.”

And so once more the launch cut across the waters of Ketcham’s Cove, this time achieving the little landing dock without incident. As they stepped to the dock, Hester grimly refusing assistance, they started at the appearance of what at first glance seemed to be a ghost.

It was a little old man, unkempt and brown-bearded, with fanatical eyes. He was swathed in a pure white robe. He wore curious sandals. In his right hand he held a crude and peculiar baton topped with a badly carved representation of a snake. … He strode out of the bushes, stuck out his skinny chest, and stared haughtily at them.

Behind him towered the naked swimmer—except that he had in the interim donned white duck trousers and an undershirt. His brown feet were bare.

The two parties eyed each other for an instant, and then Ellery said, with warm appreciation: “Well, if it isn’t Harakht himself!” Professor Yardley smiled in his beard.

The little ghost started, his eyes rolling toward Ellery. But the shimmer in them did not reflect a glint of recognition. “That is my name,” he announced in a shrill clear voice. “Are you worshipers at the shrine?”

“I’ll worship at
your
shrine, you little peanut,” snarled Inspector Vaughn, striding forward and gripping Harakht’s arm. “You’re the boss grifter of this carnival, aren’t you? Where’s your shack? We want to talk to you.”

Harakht looked helpless, and turned to his companion. “Paul, you see? Paul!”

“He must have liked the name,” murmured Professor Yardley. “A rare disciple!”

Paul Romaine did not shift his gaze; he was glaring at Dr. Temple, who returned the glare with interest. Hester, Ellery noticed, had slipped off into the underbrush.

Harakht turned back. “Who are ye? What is your mission? We are peaceful folk here.”

Isham snorted, and Vaughn grumbled: “Old man Moses himself. Look here, grandpa. We’re the police, understand, and we’re looking for a murderer!”

The little old man shrank as if Vaughn had struck him; his slate lips trembled, and he gasped: “Again! Again! Again!”

Paul Romaine came to life. He brushed Harakht aside roughly and stepped forward to confront the Inspector. “You talk to me, whoever you are. The old man’s a little batty. You’re looking for a murderer? Go ahead and look. But what the hell has that got to do with us?”

Ellery admired him; the man was a splendid animal physically, handsome with a magnetic masculinity that made it easy to understand why women of repressed or sentimental natures would lose their hearts to him.

Isham said quietly: “Where were you and this lunatic last night?”

“Right here on the Island. Who’s been killed?”

“Don’t you know?”

“No! Who?”

“Thomas Brad.”

Romaine blinked. “Brad! Well, it was probably coming to him. … What of it? We’re in the clear. We haven’t anything to do with those sniveling old women on the mainland. All we want is to be let alone!”

Inspector Vaughn pushed Isham gently aside; the Inspector himself was no weakling of a man, and his eyes were well on a level with Romaine’s as they locked glances. “Now you,” said Vaughn, digging his fingers into the man’s wrist, “keep a civil tongue in your head. You’re talking to the District Attorney of this county, and the boss cop of the roost. You answer questions like a good little boy, see?”

Romaine wrenched at his arm; but Vaughn’s fingers were iron, and they remained clamped about the thick wrist. “Oh, all right,” he mumbled, “if that’s the way you feel about it. It’s just that nobody lets us alone. What do you want to know?”

“When was the last time you and Chief Bilgewater behind you left the Island?”

Harakht began shrilly: “Paul, come away! These are infidels!”

“Keep quiet! … The old man here hasn’t left the place since we got here. I went into the village a week ago for supplies.”

“That’s the ticket.” The Inspector released Romaine’s arm. “Get going. We want to see your headquarters, or temple, or whatever the hell you call it.”

In single file they followed the incongruous figure of Harakht along a footpath which led from the shore directly into the brush toward the heart of the Island. The Island was curiously still; there seemed to be little bird and insect life, and no human life whatever. Romaine stamped along noncommittally; he seemed to have forgotten the presence of Dr. Temple, who followed in his footsteps, watching the brawny back with unwavering eyes.

Evidently Romaine had sounded a warning before the arrival of the investigating party, for when they emerged from the woods into a large clearing, where the house stood—a sparsely slatted, huge wooden structure crudely put together—the members of Harakht’s cult were awaiting them, all clothed. It had been a hasty warning, for the neophytes, numbering some twenty men and women of all ages and descriptions, were attired in scraps of garments. Romaine growled something indistinguishable, and like a tribe of troglodytes they scuttled back into various wings of the house.

The Inspector said nothing; he was not at the moment interested in infractions of the public decency law.

Harakht glided on, oblivious; he held the home-made uraeus high before him, and his lips moved presumably in prayer. He led the way up the steps of the central building into what was apparently the “shrine”—an amazing room, vast in extent, rigged out with astronomical charts, plastercast statues of Horus, the falcon-headed Egyptian god, cows’ horns, a sistrum, an emblematic disc supporting a throne, and a curious sort of pulpit which was surrounded by bare wooden slabs whose use was, to Ellery at least, obscure. The room was roofless, and the late afternoon sun cast long shadows on the walls.