Greek Coffin Mystery (7 page)

The men lowered themselves cautiously into the black pit, and for a few moments the confused sounds of their hoarse voices and scraping feet could be heard. Then something large and shiny and black crawled into view, and apparatus was hastily adjusted, instructions given. …

Finally, the coffin lay on the surface of the graveyard, a little to one side of the gaping crypt.

“He reminds me of
Herr
Frankenstein,” murmured Ellery to Pepper, looking at Dr. Prouty. But neither of them smiled.

Dr. Prouty was sniffing like a bloodhound. But now they all detected a foul, sickening smell; it grew more malodorous with every passing second. Sloane’s face had turned grey; he fumbled for his handkerchief and sneezed violently.

“Was this damned body embalmed?” demanded Dr. Prouty, crouching over the coffin. No one replied. The two gravediggers began to unscrew the lid. On Fifth Avenue, at precisely the dramatic moment, a vast number of automobiles began a cacophony of raucous horn-tooting—an unearthly accompaniment singularly appropriate to the noisome character of the scene. Then the lid came off. …

One thing was immediately, horribly, unbelievably evident. And that was the source of the grave-smell.

For, crammed on top of the stiff, dead, embalmed body of Georg Khalkis, its members askew and—where their rotting flesh was naked to the sky—all blue and blotched … was the putrescent body of a man. A
second
corpse!

It is at such moments that life becomes an ugly thing, pushed aside by the dreadful urgency of death, and time itself stands still.

For the space of a heart-beat they were puppets in a tableau—unmoving, moveless, stricken dumb, pure terror gleaming in their distended eyes.

Then Sloane made a retching sound, his knees quivering, and he clutched childishly at Woodruff’s meaty shoulder for support. Neither Woodruff nor Jan Vreeland so much as sighed—they just glared at the noxious interloper in Khalkis’ coffin.

Dr. Prouty and Inspector Queen looked at each other in stupefaction. Then the old man strangled a shout and leaped forward, a handkerchief at his offended nostrils, peering wildly into the coffin.

Dr. Prouty’s fingers curved into talons; he grew busy.

Ellery Queen threw back his shoulders and looked at the sky.

“Murdered. Strangled.”

Dr. Prouty’s brief examination revealed so much. He had managed, with Sergeant Velie’s assistance, to turn the body over. The victim had been found lying face down, head cradled against Khalkis’ lifeless shoulder. Now they could see the face itself—eyes sunken deeply in the head, open eyes revealing eyeballs incredibly dry and brownish. But the face itself was not so distorted as to be inhuman. Under the irregular livid patch was a dark skin. The nose, a little flaccid now, must nevertheless have been sharp and pointed in life. The lines and creases of the face, softened and puffed by putrefaction, must still have been harsh before decay set in.

Inspector Queen said, in muffled tones, “By heaven, that mug looks familiar!”

Pepper was leaning over his shoulder, staring intently. He muttered: “To me, too, Inspector. I wonder if—”

“Are the will and the steel box in there?” asked Ellery in a dry, cracked voice.

Velie and Dr. Prouty prodded, pulled, felt. … “No,” said Velie disgustedly. He looked at his hands, and made a surreptitious brushing movement along his thighs.

“Who cares about that now!” snarled the Inspector. He rose, his small body quivering. “Oh, that was a marvelous deduction of yours, Ellery!” he cried. “Marvelous! Open the coffin and you’ll find the will. …
Faugh!”
He wrinkled his nose. “Thomas!”

Velie lumbered to his side. The Inspector rapped words at him; Velie nodded and plodded away, making for the courtyard gate. The Inspector said sharply, “Sloane, Vreeland, Woodruff. Get back in the house. At once. Not a word to any one. Ritter!” A burly detective lounging at the fence scrambled across the yard. “Stave off the newspaper men. We don’t want them nosing about now. Hurry!” Ritter plunged toward the Fifty-fourth Street gate of the graveyard. “You—Sexton What’s-Your-Name. You men there. Put that lid back on and let’s get this damned—this thing into the house. Come along, Doc. There’s work to do.”

T
HERE WAS SUCH WORK
as Inspector Queen knew, better perhaps than any other executive of the New York Police Department, how to do.

In five minutes the house was again under siege, the drawing-room converted into a makeshift laboratory, the coffin with its ghastly double burden deposited on the floor. Khalkis’ library was commandeered as an assembly-hall and all exits were put under guard. The door to the drawing-room was shut, and Velie’s wide back set against its panels. Dr. Prouty, his coat off, was busy on the floor with the second corpse. In the library, Assistant District Attorney Pepper was dialing a telephone number. Men were running mysterious errands in and out of the house.

Ellery Queen faced his father, and they smiled rather wanly at each other. “Well, one thing is sure,” said the Inspector, wetting his lips. “That inspiration of yours uncovered a murder that probably would never have been suspected otherwise.”

“I’ll see that ghastly face in my sleep,” muttered Ellery. His eyes were a little bloodshot and he was twirling his
pince-nez
ceaselessly in his fingers.

The Inspector inhaled snuff with grateful breaths. “Fix him up a little, Doc,” he said to Dr. Prouty, steadily enough. “I want to get that crowd in here for a possible identification.”

“I’ve got him about ready now. Where do you want to put him?”

“Better take him out of the coffin and stretch him on the floor. Thomas, get a blanket and cover up everything but his face.”

“I’ve got to get hold of some rosewater or something to drown that awful smell,” complained Dr. Prouty facetiously.

It seemed, when the preliminaries had been taken care of and the corpse of the second man hurriedly made presentable, that not one of the fearful, pallid people who filed in and out of the drawing-room could identify the dead face. Were they certain? Yes. They had never, they said, seen the man before. You, Sloane? Oh, no!—for Sloane was very, very ill; the sight had turned his stomach, and he had a little bottle of smelling-salts in his hand which he applied to his nostrils frequently. Joan Brett had looked, through eyes held steady only by a straining of her will, thoughtful. Mrs. Simms, roused out of her sick-bed, was led in by Weekes and a detective; she had no idea of what was occurring and, after one long horrified glimpse at the face of a strange dead man, promptly screeched and fainted, requiring the combined efforts of Weekes and three detectives to haul her back to her room on the upper floor.

They were all herded back into Khalkis’ library. The Inspector and Ellery hurried after, leaving Dr. Prouty alone in the drawing-room with two corpses for company. Pepper, a very excited Pepper, was waiting impatiently for them by the door.

His eyes shone. “Cracked the nut, Inspector!” he said in a low eager voice. “I knew I’d seen that face somewhere before. And I’ll tell you where
you
saw it—in the Rogues’ Gallery!”

“Seems likely. Who is he?”

“Well, I just called up Jordan, my old law-partner—you know, sir, before I was appointed to Sampson’s office. I had an idea I knew who the fellow was. And Jordan refreshed my memory. He was a guy by the name of Albert Grimshaw.”

“Grimshaw?” The Inspector stopped short. “Not the forger?”

Pepper smiled. “Good memory, Inspector. But that was only one of his accomplishments. I defended him about five years ago when we were
Jordan & Pepper.
We lost, and he was sentenced to five years, says Jordan. Say, he must have just got out of the pen!”

“That so? Sing Sing?”

“Yes!”

They moved into the room; everybody looked at them. The Inspector said to a detective, “Hesse, scoot back to h.q. and go over the files on Albert Grimshaw, forger, in Sing Sing for the past five years.” The man disappeared. “Thomas.” Velie loomed over him. “Put somebody on the job of tracing Grimshaw’s movements since his release from stir. Find out how long ago he was let out—might have got time off for good behavior.”

Pepper said: “I called the Chief, too, and notified him of the new development. Told me to take care of his end down here—he’s busy on that bank investigation. Anything on the body to make identification certain?”

“Not a thing. Just a few odds and ends, a couple of coins, an old empty wallet. Not even an identifying mark on his clothing.”

Ellery caught Joan Brett’s eye. “Miss Brett,” he said quietly, “I couldn’t help noticing a moment ago, when you looked at the body in the drawing-room, that … Do you know the man? Why did you say you had never seen him?”

Joan colored; she stamped her foot. “Mr. Queen, that’s insulting! I shan’t—”

The Inspector said coldly: “Do you know him or don’t you?”

She bit her lip. “It’s a dashed long story, and I didn’t see that it would do any good, since I didn’t know his name. …”

“The police are generally good judges of that,” said Pepper with conscientious severity. “If you know anything, Miss Brett, you can be prosecuted for withholding information.”

“Can I, indeed?” She tossed her head. “But I’m not withholding anything, Mr. Pepper. I wasn’t sure at first glance. His face was—was. …” She shivered. “Now that I think it over, I do recall having seen him. Once—no, twice. Although, as I said, I don’t know his name.”

“Where did you see him?” The Inspector was sharp, and he seemed not at all impressed by the fact that she was a pretty young lady.

“In this very house, Inspector.”

“Ha! When?”

“I’m coming to that, sir.” She paused deliberately, and something of her self-assurance returned. She favored Ellery with a friendly smile, and he nodded encouragingly. “The first time I saw him was a week ago Thursday night.”

“September the thirtieth?”

“Yes. This man appeared at the door at about nine o’clock in the evening. As I said twice, I don’t know—”

“His name was Grimshaw, Albert Grimshaw. Go on, Miss Brett.”

“He was admitted by a maid, just as I chanced to be passing through the foyer …”

“What maid?” demanded the Inspector. “
I
haven’t seen any maids in this house.”

“Oh!” She seemed startled. “But then—how silly of me!—of course you couldn’t have known. You see, there were two maids employed in the house, but they were both ignorant, superstitious women and they insisted on making off the day Mr. Khalkis died. We couldn’t prevail upon them to stay in what one called ‘a house of death, ma’am.’”

“Is that right, Weekes?”

The butler nodded dumbly.

“Go on, Miss Brett. What happened? Did you see anything further?”

Joan sighed. “Not very much, Inspector. I saw the maid go into Mr. Khalkis’ study, usher in the man Grimshaw, and then come out again. And that’s all that evening.”

“Did you see the man leave?” put in Pepper.

“No, Mr. Pepper. …” She lingered over the last syllable of his name and Pepper angrily turned his head away, as if to conceal an undesirable, unprosecutorlike emotion.

“And what was the second occasion on which you saw him, Miss Brett?” asked the Inspector. His eyes strayed slyly to the others; they were all listening attentively, straining forward.

“The next time I saw him was the night after—that is, a week ago Friday night.”

“By the way, Miss Brett,” interrupted Ellery with an odd inflection, “I believe you acted as Khalkis’ secretary?”

“Right you are, Mr. Queen.”

“And Khalkis was blind and helpless?”

She made a little
moue
of disapproval. “Blind, but scarcely helpless. Why?”

“Well, didn’t Khalkis tell you anything Thursday about his visitor—the man to come in the evening? Didn’t he ask you to make the appointment?”

“Oh, I see! … No, he did not. Not a word to me about an expected visitor Thursday night. It was a complete surprise to me. In fact, it may have been as complete a surprise to Mr. Khalkis! But please let me continue.” She contrived, by the artful twitching of a dark unspoiled eyebrow, to convey maidenly annoyance. “You people
interrupt
so. … It was different on Friday. After dinner Friday night—that was the first of October, Inspector Queen—Mr. Khalkis summoned me to the library and gave me some very careful instructions. Some
very
careful instructions indeed, Inspector, and—”

“Come, come, Miss Brett,” said the Inspector impatiently. “Let’s have it without embroidery.”

“If you were on the witness-stand,” said Pepper with a trace of bitterness, “you’d make a distinctly undesirable witness, Miss Brett.”

“Not really?” she murmured. She heaved herself to a sitting position on Khalkis’ desk and crossed her legs, raising her skirt ever so little. “Very well. I shall be the model witness. Is this the correct pose, Mr. Pepper? … Mr. Khalkis told me that he expected two visitors that night. Quite late. One of them, he said, was coming incognito, so to speak—he was anxious, Mr. Khalkis said, to keep his identity secret and therefore I was to see that nobody caught a glimpse of him.”

“Curious,” muttered Ellery.

“Wasn’t it?” Joan said. “Very well, then. I was also to admit these two persons myself, and to see that the servants were out of the way. After admitting them I was to go to bed—just like that, upon my word! Naturally, when Mr. Khalkis added that the nature of his business with these two gentleman was extremely private, I asked no questions and followed orders like the perfect secretary I’ve always been. Charming bit o’ fluff, eh, Lord Higginbotham?”

The Inspector frowned, and Joan looked down demurely. “The visitors arrived at eleven,” she went on, “and one of them, I saw at once, was the man who had called by himself the previous evening—the man you say was named Grimshaw. The other, the mysterious gentleman, was bundled up to the eyes; I couldn’t see his face. I did get the impression that he was middle-aged or older, but that’s really all I can tell you about him, Inspector.”

Inspector Queen sniffed. “That mysterious gentleman, as you say, may be mighty important from our standpoint, Miss Brett. Can’t you give us a better description? How was he dressed?”