Egyptian Cross Mystery (4 page)

Ellery smiled. Coroner Stapleton had worked himself into a fine fettle; his language was sublimely official, and the spectators, to judge from their open mouths, were properly impressed.

Dr. Strang crossed his legs and said in a bored voice: “No marks on the body other than the raw wound at the neck where the head had been severed, and the nail holes in hands and feet.”

The Coroner half-rose and plumped his belly over the edge of the desk. “Dr. Strang,” he asked hoarsely, “what is your conclusion from this fact?”

“That the deceased was probably struck over the head, or shot in the head, since there are no other marks of violence on his body.”

Ellery nodded; this sad-looking country doctor had a head on his shoulders.

“It’s my opinion,” continued the Coroner’s physician, “that the victim was already dead when the head was cut off. From the nature of the wound left at the base of the neck, a very sharp instrument must have been wielded.”

The Coroner picked up a carefully bedded object on the desk before him and held it up. It was a long-handled, wicked-looking ax, its blade winking where there was no blood. “Would you say that this weapon, Dr. Strang, could have severed the victim’s head from his body?”

“Yes.”

The Coroner turned to the jury. “This exhibit was found in the back kitchen of Andrew Van’s house, on the floor, where the murder was committed. Let me call to your attention, gentlemen, that there are no fingerprints on the weapon, showing that the murderer had either worn gloves or wiped the ax clean of prints after using. This ax has been established as the property of the deceased, and was habitually kept in the kitchen, normally being used by the missing Kling to chop firewood. … That’s all, Dr. Strang. Colonel Pickett, will you please come to the stand?”

The head of the West Virginia State Police complied—a tall, soldierly-looking man. “Colonel Pickett, what have you to report?”

“Thorough search of the vicinity of Arroyo,” said the Colonel in a machine-gun voice, “fails to turn up the head of the murdered man. No trace of the missing servant Kling has been found. A description of Kling has been sent to all neighboring states and he is being watched for.”

“I believe you have been in charge of the investigation relative to the last-known movements of both the deceased and the missing man, Colonel. What have you discovered?”

“Andrew Van was last seen at four o’clock on the afternoon of Thursday, December twenty-fourth. He visited the house of Mrs. Rebecca Traub, a resident of Arroyo, to warn her that her son William, a pupil in his school, was falling behind in his studies. Then he went away and no one, as far as we can find, saw him alive again.”

“And Kling?”

“Kling was last seen by Timothy Traynor, a farmer between Arroyo and Pughtown, the same afternoon at a little past four. He bought a bushel of potatoes, paid for it in cash, and lugged it away on his shoulder.”

“Was the bushel of potatoes found on Van’s premises? This might be important, Colonel, in determining whether Kling ever reached the house.”

“Yes. Untouched, and identified by Traynor as the one bought from him that afternoon.”

“Have you anything else to report?”

Colonel Pickett looked around at the courtroom before replying. His mouth was like a trap as he said grimly: “I certainly have!”

The courtroom became still as death. Ellery smiled wearily; the revelations had arrived. Colonel Pickett leaned over to whisper something into the Coroner’s ear; Stapleton blinked, smiled, wiped his fat cheeks, and nodded. The spectators, too, sensed the coming event, and twisted in their seats. Pickett signaled quietly to someone at the rear of the room.

A tall trooper appeared, grasping the arm of an amazing individual: a little old man with unkempt long brown hair and a shaggy brown beard. He had small glittering eyes, the eyes of a fanatic. His skin was the color of dirty bronze, wrinkled and battered by sun and wind as if he had lived out doors all his life. He was dressed—Ellery’s eyes narrowed—in mud-encrusted khaki shorts and an old gray turtle-neck sweater. On his bare brown feet ropy with gray veins he wore a curious pair of sandals. And in his hand he carried a remarkable object—a wandlike rod topped by a crude representation of a snake, apparently handmade by a poor craftsman.

There was instant hubbub, a burst of laughter, and the Coroner rapped like a madman for order.

Behind the trooper and his fantastic charge shuffled a white-faced young man in oil-spattered overalls. That he was well-known to most of the spectators was evident, for hands furtively reached out as he passed and patted him encouragingly, while spectators throughout the room pointed openly at his shrinking figure.

The three passed through the gateway of the railing and sat down. The brown-bearded old man was plainly in the grip of terrible fear; his eyes rolled, and his thin brown hands clenched and unclenched convulsively about the odd baton he carried.

“Caspar Croker to the stand!”

The white-faced young man in the oily overalls gulped, rose, and took the stand.

“You operate a garage and gas station on Main Street, Weirton?” demanded the Coroner.

“Why, sure. You know me, Mr.—”

“Answer my question, please,” said Stapleton sternly. “Relate to the jury what occurred about eleven o’clock at night of Christmas Eve.”

Croker drew a deep breath, looked around as if for a last friendly eye, and said: “I closed my garage Christmas Eve—wanted to celebrate. I live in a house right back of my garage. Eleven that night, while I was sittin’ in my front room with the wife, I heard an awful poundin’ and racket outside somewhere. Seemed like it was comin’ from my garage, so I ran out. Dark as old fury it was, too.” He gulped again, and resumed quickly. “Well, it was a man out there hammering on my garage door. When he saw me—”

“Just a minute, Mr. Croker. How was he dressed?”

The garageman shrugged. “Dark, an’ I couldn’t make out. Didn’t have no reason to take particular notice, anyways.”

“Did you get a good look at the man’s face?”

“Yes, sir. He was standin’ under my night light. Bundled up, he was—pretty cold at that—but it seemed to me like he didn’t want to be recognized. Anyways, I seen he was clean-shaved, dark, and kind of furrin-lookin’, though he talked good old American.”

“How old would you say he was?”

“Oh, in his middle thirties, maybe more, maybe less. Hard to say.”

“What did he want?”

“He wanted to hire a car to take him to Arroyo.”

Ellery could hear the asthmatic breathing of a stout man in the row behind him, it was so still in the courtroom. They were tense, sitting on the edges of their seats.

“What happened?” asked the Coroner.

“Well,” replied Croker, with more assurance, “I didn’t like the idea much—here it was eleven o’clock Christmas Eve, an’ my wife was alone an’ all. But he pulls out a wallet an’ he says: ‘I’ll give you ten dollars to drive me over.’ Well, sir, that’s a lot o’ money to a poor man like me an’ I says: ‘Okay, stranger, you’re on.’”

“You drove him down?”

“Yes, sir, I did. I went back to get my coat, told the wife I’d be away a half-hour or so, came back, took out my old bus, and he climbed in an’ off we went. I asked him where he wanted to go in Arroyo, an’ he said: ‘Isn’t there a place where the Arroyo road meets the New Cumberland-Pughtown road?’ I says, yes, there is. He says: ‘Well, that’s where I want to go.’ I drove him down there, he got out, give me the ten-spot, an’ I turned the car around and beat it for home. Felt kind of shivery an’ scary anyways.”

“Did you see what he did as you left?”

Croker nodded emphatically. “I was watchin’ over my shoulder. Damn near run into a ditch. He took the fork t’wards Arroyo, on foot. He limped pretty bad, sir.”

There was a gasp from the brown-bearded eccentric seated by the trooper; his eyes roved wildly as if seeking an avenue of escape.

“Which foot, Mr. Croker?”

“Well, he sort o’ favored his left leg. Put all his weight on the right.”

“That’s the last you saw of him?”

“Yes, sir. An’ the first. Never did see him before that night.”

“That’s all.”

Gratefully, Croker left the witness chair and hurried up the aisle toward the door.

“Now,” said Coroner Stapleton, transfixing the brown-bearded little man, who was cowering in the chair, with his beady eye. “You, there. Come to the stand.”

The trooper rose and hauled Brown-Beard to his feet, prodding him forward. The little man went unresistingly, but there was panic in his mad eyes and he kept shrinking back. The trooper plumped him unceremoniously in the witness chair and returned to his own seat.

“What’s your name?” demanded Coroner Stapleton.

A shout of laughter went up from the spectators as the full oddity of the man’s dress and appearance burst upon them from the vantage point of the witness chair. It was a long time before order was restored, during which the witness licked his lips and swayed from side to side, mumbling to himself. Ellery got the startling feeling that the man was praying; praying—it was shocking—to the wooden snake on the tip of the wand.

Stapleton nervously repeated the question. The man held the rod at arm’s length, threw back his skinny shoulders, seeming to summon a reserve of strength and dignity from the posture, looked directly into Stapleton’s eyes and said, in a clear shrill voice: “I am he who is called Harakht, god of the midday sun. Ra-Harakht, the falcon!”

There was a stunned silence. Coroner Stapleton blinked and recoiled as if someone had suddenly uttered gibberish threats in his presence. The audience gaped, and then burst into hysterical laughter—animated not by derision this time, but by a nameless fear. There was something dreadful and eerie about this man; he emanated an earnestness too maniacal to be assumed.

“Who?” asked the Coroner weakly.

The man who called himself Harakht folded his arms across his scrawny chest, the wand clutched firmly before him, and did not deign to reply.

Stapleton swabbed his cheeks and seemed at a loss how to continue. “Er—what is your business, Mr.—Mr. Harakht?”

Ellery sank lower into his seat and blushed for the Coroner. The scene grew painful.

Harakht said from stiff stern lips: “I am the Healer of the Weak. I make ill bodies well and strong. I am he who sails
Manzet,
the Bark of the Dawn. I am he who sails
Mesenktet,
the Bark of the Dusk. Some call me Horus, god of the horizons. I am son of Nut, goddess of the sky, wife of Qeb, mother of Isis and Osiris. I am the supreme god of Memphis. I am one with Etōm—”

“Stop!” cried the Coroner. “Colonel Pickett, for God’s sake, what is this? I thought you said this lunatic had something of importance to contribute to the inquest! I—”

The chief of the state police rose hurriedly. The man who called himself Harakht waited calmly, his first terror completely gone, as if in the recesses of his twisted brain he realized that he was master of the situation.

“Sorry, Mr. Coroner,” said the Colonel quickly. “I should have warned you. This man isn’t all there. I think I’d better tell you and the jury what he does, and then you can ask more direct questions. He runs a sort of medicine show—nutty sort of thing, all painted up with suns and stars and moons and queer drawings of Egyptian pharaohs. Seems he believes he’s the sun, or something. He’s harmless. Travels around in an old horse and wagon, like a gypsy, from town to town. He’s been going through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia preaching and selling a medicinal cure-all that puts hair—”

“It is the elixir of youth,” said Harakht gravely. “Bottled light of the sun. I am the appointed, and I preach the gospel of solarity. I am Menu, and Attu, and—”

“It’s just plain cod-liver oil, as far as I can tell,” explained Colonel Pickett with a grin. “Nobody knows his real name; I think he’s forgotten it himself.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” said the Coroner with dignity. …

Ellery sat in his hard seat thrilled to the marrow by a sudden discovery. He had recognized the poorly made emblem in the madman’s hand. It was the uraeus, serpent scepter of the chief divinity of the ancient Egyptians and of their god-descended kings. At first he had been inclined to think it a makeshift caduceus, from the snake design; but the emblem of Mercury always included wings, and this, as he saw by straining his eyes, had a crude solar disc surmounting the serpent or serpents. … Pharaonic Egypt! Some of the names which had fallen from the mouth of this engaging little madman had been familiar: Horus, Nut, Isis, Osiris. The others, while strange, had an Egyptian flavor. … Ellery sat up very straight.

“Er—Harakht, or whatever you call yourself,” the Coroner was saying, “have you heard the testimony of Caspar Croker concerning a dark, clean-shaven man with a limp?”

A more rational look came into the bearded man’s eyes, and with it a return of that lurking fear. “The—the man with a limp,” he faltered. “Yes.”

“Do you recognize any one by this description?”

Hesitation. Then—“Yes.”

“Ah!” said the Coroner, sighing. “Now, Harakht, we’re getting somewhere.” His tone was gay and friendly. “Who is this man and how do you know him?”

“He is my priest.”

“Priest!” little mutters went up from the throng, and Ellery heard the stout man behind him say: “Damn blasph’my, by God!”

“You mean he’s your—assistant?”

“He is my disciple. My priest. High priest of Horus.”

“Yes, yes,” said Stapleton hastily. “What’s his name?”

“Velja Krosac.”

“Hmm,” said the Coroner with a frown. “Foreign name, eh?
Armenian
?” he shot at the brown-bearded little man.

“There is no nation but Egypt,” said Harakht quietly.

“Well!” Stapleton glared. “How do you spell that name?”

Colonel Pickett said: “We’ve got all that, Mr. Stapleton. It’s V-e-l-j-a K-r-o-s-a-c-. We found it on some papers in this man’s caboose.”

“Where is this Vel—Velja Krosac?” demanded the Coroner.

Harakht shrugged. “He has gone away.” But Ellery saw the glint of panic in the staring little eyes.

“When?”

He shrugged again.