Egyptian Cross Mystery (37 page)

“A perfect vacuum as far as I’m concerned,” confessed the Professor.

“Count me out, too,” said the Inspector.

Vaughn and Isham were looking at Ellery suspiciously.

“Good lord,” cried Ellery, flinging his butt out of the window, “it’s so clear! There’s an epic story written in and around that hut, gentlemen. What’s that motto hanging in the classroom of the School for Scientific Police at the Palais de Justice, Dad? ‘The eye sees in things only what it looks for, and it looks only for what is already in mind.’ Our American police might take that to heart, Inspector Vaughn.

“Outside the hut, the footprints. You examined them carefully?”

Vaughn and Isham nodded.

“Then you must have seen at once the patent fact that only
two
people were involved in that murder. There were two sets of prints—one ingoing, the other outgoing; from the shape and size of the tracks both sets had been made by the same shoes. It was possible to fix roughly the time the tracks had been made. The rain had stopped in Arroyo at about eleven o’clock the previous night. It had been a heavy rain. Had the prints been made before the rain stopped they would, in their exposed position, have been completely washed out and obliterated. Then they were made certainly at eleven or later. The condition of the body crucified to the wall of the hut at the time I saw it showed me that the victim was dead about fourteen hours—had died, in other words, at about eleven o’clock the night before. The prints—the only prints, incidentally—were made therefore at approximately the time of the murder.”

Ellery stuck a fresh cigarette into his mouth. “What did the prints reveal? That only one person had walked into and out of the hut during the approximate period of the murder. There was only one entrance or exit—the door; the single window being effectively barred with barbed wire.”

Ellery applied a match to his cigarette and puffed thoughtfully. “It was elementary, then. There was a victim and there was a murderer. We had found the victim. Then it was the murderer whose tracks were impressed on the wet earth before the shack. The tracks showed a limping man—so far, so good.

“Now, on the stone floor of the hut there were several most illuminating objects. Exhibit Number One was a bloody and iodine-stained coil of bandage which from its shape and circumference could only have been wound about a wrist. Nearby lay a partially used roll of bandage.”

Again Isham and Vaughn nodded, and the Professor said: “So that’s it! I wondered about the wrist.”

“Exhibit Number Two: a large blue-glass bottle of iodine, its cork a few feet away on the floor. The bottle was opaque, and it had no label.

“The question immediately confronted me: On whose wrist had that bandage been wound? There were two people involved: victim and murderer. Then it came from one or the other. If the victim had worn the bandage, then one of his wrists would show a wound. I examined the wrists of the corpse—both unmarked. Conclusion: the murderer had cut one of his own wrists. By inference when he had wielded the ax on the victim’s body, or possibly during a struggle before the victim was killed.

“If the murderer had cut his wrist, it was he then who had used iodine and bandage. The fact that he had cut off the bandage later was irrelevant—the wound must have bled profusely, as the bandage indicated, and he merely changed dressings before leaving the hut.”

Ellery brandished the smoking cigarette. “But observe what a significant fact has been brought out! For if the murderer used the iodine, what have we? It should be child’s play now. Don’t you see it yet, any of you?”

They tried very hard, from their scowls and finger-gnawings and looks of deep concentration; but in the end they shook their heads.

Ellery sank back. “I suppose it’s one of those things. To me it seems extraordinarily clear. What were the two characteristics of the iodine-bottle, peculiar to that bottle itself, which the murderer had left on the floor? First: it was of opaque blue glass. Second: it bore no label.

“Then how did the murderer know it contained iodine?”

Professor Yardley’s jaw dropped, and he smote his forehead in a manner amusingly reminiscent of District Attorney Sampson, that admirable prosecutor associated with Ellery and Inspector Queen in so many of their metropolitan cases. “Oh, what an idiot I am!” he groaned. “Of course, of course!”

Vaughn wore a look of immense surprise. “It’s so damned simple,” he said in a wondering tone, as if he could not understand how it had escaped his observation.

Ellery shrugged. “These things generally are. You see, therefore, the line of reasoning. The murderer couldn’t have known it was iodine from the bottle itself, since there was no label and the blue color and opacity of the glass disguised the hue of its contents. Then he could have known its contents only in one of two alternative ways: either by being familiar with the contents of the bottle from previous experience, or by uncorking it and investigating.

“Now you will recall that there were two blank spaces on the medicine-supply shelf above ‘Old Pete’s’ homely little lavatory. It was apparent at once that those two blank spaces had held the two objects on the floor—the bottle of iodine and the roll of bandage—both of which would normally stand on a medicine shelf. In other words the murderer, having wounded himself, was constrained to apply to the medicine shelf for bandage and iodine.”

Ellery grinned. “But how odd! What else was on the shelf? Surely you recollect that, among miscellaneous and innocuous articles, there were two bottles which the murderer might have taken down for use in his extremity—one of iodine and one of mercurochrome,
both plainly labeled?
Why, then, should he uncork the unlabeled, opaque bottle in a search for an antiseptic when there were two clearly marked bottles of antiseptic in full view? Actually, there can be no reason; no man, a stranger to that hut, with time at a premium, would explore a bottle whose contents were unpredictable when what he wanted was right before his eyes all the time.

“Then the first of my two possibilities must apply: the murderer must have been familiar with the large opaque unlabeled bottle, must have known
in advance
that it contained iodine! But who could have such knowledge?” Ellery sighed. “And there it was. From the circumstances and Van’s own story of the isolation of his hideaway, only one person could have had such knowledge—the owner of the hut.”

“I told you so,” said Inspector Queen excitedly, as he reached for his ancient brown snuff box.

“We have shown that only two people were involved—murderer and victim—and that it was the murderer who cut his wrist and used the iodine. So if the owner of the hut, Andreja Tvar, alias Andrew Van, alias Old Pete, was the only one who could have known in advance that the mysterious bottle contained iodine, then it was Andrew Van whose wrist was cut, and the poor fellow crucified to the wall was not Andrew Van, but had been murdered by Andrew Van.”

He lapsed into silence. Inspector Vaughn stirred uneasily, and District Attorney Isham said: “Yes, but how about the preceding murders? You said last night after we took Van in custody that the whole thing was clear to you from beginning to end as soon as you investigated the last murder. I can’t see, even granting the argument about Van as the culprit in the last murder, how you can logically prove him to have been the murderer in the preceding crimes.”

“My dear Isham,” said Ellery, raising his eyebrows, “surely from here it’s an open-and-shut case? Just a matter of analysis and common sense. Where did I stand at that point? I knew then that the missing man, the man who had left the limp-footprints, the murderer, was Andrew Van himself. But that he was the murderer was not sufficient. I could visualize a situation in which Van might have murdered a marauding Krosac, for example, purely in self-defense; in which case he could not under any circumstance be considered the murderer of the other three. But one fact stood out: Andrew Van had killed somebody and left the corpse of that somebody in his hut
dressed in the rags of Old Pete;
which is to say, dressed as himself. Then here was deception! I knew then that the problem would be relatively simple. Who had been murdered in this last butchery?

“The body was not Van’s, as I’ve already shown. The incongruous possibility that it might be Brad’s I considered and discarded: Brad’s body had been positively identified by his widow through the strawberry birthmark on his thigh. Purely for logical purposes I asked myself in the same vein if this last corpse was Megara’s. No, it could not be; Dr. Temple had diagnosed Megara’s ailment as a specific form of hernia, and Dr. Rumsen had found in the body strung up on the
Helene’s
antenna-mast an identical hernia. Then the bodies taken to be Brad’s and Megara’s had been genuinely theirs. Only two other figures were involved in the case—discarding the remote possibility of a total stranger: they were Velja Krosac and Kling, Van’s manservant.”

Ellery paused for breath, then continued: “Could the body have been Krosac’s? This would be the superficial conclusion. Yet if this was Krosac and Van had killed him, Van would have had a perfect plea of self-defense! All he would have had to do was call in the police, point to the body, and with the background of the case known and accepted, would have been freed without question. From Van’s viewpoint, if he were an innocent man, such a procedure would be inevitable. The fact that he didn’t do this proves that he
couldn’t.
Why? Because the body was not Krosac’s!

“If it wasn’t Krosac, it must have been Kling, the only remaining possibility. But Kling was supposed to have been killed in the first crime, that murder in Arroyo at the crossroads seven months ago! Ah, but how did we know that first body was Kling’s? Only through Van’s own story, and Van is now proved a murderer, and a deceiver to boot. We have a perfect right to hold that any unsupported testimony given by Van is open to doubt, and that under the circumstances, since the facts point to it as the sole possibility left, the last corpse must have been Kling’s.”

Ellery went on rapidly. “See how everything fell neatly into place. With the last body Kling’s, where the devil was Krosac? Brad’s body and Megara’s body are accounted for in their respective murders. Then the only person who logically could have been done to death in Arroyo seven months ago was Krosac himself? The ‘devil’ who for seven months has been sought by the police of forty-eight states and three nations. … No wonder no trace of him was found. He was dead all the time.”

“Amazing beyond belief,” said the Professor.

“Oh, you listen to him,” chuckled Inspector Queen. “He’s full of surprises like that.”

A Negro porter appeared with a tray of iced drinks. They sipped in silence and stared out of the windows at the chameleon landscape. When the porter had gone, Ellery said: “Who killed Krosac in Arroyo? We lay down the fundamental qualification at once that, whoever committed that first murder, knew and utilized the history of the Tvars by leaving those T signs. Who had knowledge of the Tvar history? Van, Megara, Brad, and Krosac; for both Van and Megara told us that only the Tvar brothers and Krosac knew this back-history. Could Megara, then, have murdered Krosac in Arroyo and left the T signs? No; Megara is ruled out for purely geographical reasons—he was on the other side of the world. Brad? Impossible; Mrs. Brad had testified in the presence of persons who could deny it if it were untrue, that Brad had entertained the National Checker Champion
on Christmas Eve
and had played with him incessantly that night Krosac, the victim, is out, of course. Kling, the only other physical possibility? No, for besides being ignorant of the fatal T significances he has been repeatedly characterized as a weak-witted, moronic individual, who would be mentally incapable of executing such an intelligent crime. Then Krosac must have been murdered by Van, the only factor remaining who fills all the qualifications of the Krosac killer.

“And there it was. Van had murdered Krosac. How, under what circumstances? The story can be pieced together. He knew Krosac was after him and his brothers. In some way he discovered where Krosac was—traveling with the old lunatic, Stryker. He himself must have baited Krosac into coming to Arroyo by an anonymous letter. Krosac, seeing that his dream of vengeance was actually on the brink of fulfillment, swallowed the bait—not questioning the source of his information in his eagerness—and maneuvered the movements of his dupe, Stryker, so that the caravan came to the neighborhood of Arroyo. Then Krosac—Krosac himself, for the one and only time he actually appeared in the case as an active participant—hired the car from Croker, the Weirton garage-man, and had himself driven to the crossroads. Krosac carried no valise, you recall, in Weirton—significant when you consider that the murderer did carry a valise in the subsequent crimes. Why didn’t Krosac carry a valise that first time—that only time, for him? Because he had no intention of making chop-meat out of his victim; he was probably a sane, if determined, avenger who would have been satisfied by the mere death, not the butchery, of his enemies. If Krosac’s plan had succeeded, we should have found the body of the Arroyo schoolmaster, quite unmutilated, probably shot to death.

“But Van, the instigator of the entire chain of events, was lying in wait for the unsuspecting avenger, and killed him. Having already bound up and hidden the
living
body of the unfortunate Kling, Van proceeded to dress the dead Krosac in his own clothes, then decapitated the corpse, and so on and so on.

“It’s evident that this was the plot of Van, or Andreja Tvar, from the beginning. A crime of years in the making. He planned the series of murders in such a way that they appeared to be the vengeance of a man, Krosac, who might very well have become crazed by years of brooding. He hid Kling away for the express purpose of using his body at the end to appear his own. Then his plot made it seem that Krosac, after killing an innocent man first, murdered two of the Tvar brothers and finally the third—a correction of the apparent error seven months before. As for Van, this last deceptive murder made it seem as if he, too, had been caught by the monomaniac’s revenge; while he himself actually made an escape with his life’s savings and the tidy sum which he had craftily managed to worm out of his brother Stephen. Meanwhile the police would search eternally for the phantasmal, long-dead Krosac. … The deceptions in the bodies were easily contrived; remember that Van himself hired Kling in the Pittsburgh orphan asylum, and so could select a servant whose physical appearance was similar to his own. As for the first deception—making Krosac’s body seem to be his own—it was probably the similarity in physique between himself and Krosac—a similarity he discovered when he first located the Montenegrin, before sending the anonymous letter—that helped inspire the entire plot.”