Egyptian Cross Mystery (2 page)

There had been much more in the same vein, including details of the unfortunate schoolmaster’s bucolic life in Arroyo, the meager tidbits of information gleaned by police about the last-known movements of Van and Kling, and the pompous declarations of the District Attorney.

Ellery took off his pince-nez eyeglasses, polished them, put them on again, and let his sharp eyes sweep over the gruesome relic.

In both arms, near the tips of the crossbar, were jagged holes in the wood where the police had torn out the spikes. Each hole was surrounded by a ragged stain of a rusty brown color. Little brown tendrils trickled from the holes, where Andrew Van’s blood had dripped from his mutilated hands. Where the arms protruded from the upright were two other holes, unrimmed; the spikes which had been wrenched from these holes had supported the armpits of the corpse. The entire length of the signpost was streaked, smeared, runneled with dried blood, the drippings emanating from the head of the post, where the raw, gaping wound at the base of the victim’s neck had rested. Near the bottom of the centerpost there were two holes not more than four inches apart, also ringed in brown blood; and these holes, where Van’s ankles had been nailed to the wood, had dribbled blood to the earth in which the signpost was staked.

Ellery walked soberly back to the car, where the Inspector waited in a familiar attitude of dejection and irritation, slumped against the leather next to the driver’s seat. The old man was bundled to the neck in an ancient woolen muffler, and his sharp red nose stuck out like a danger signal. “Well,” he snapped, “come on. I’m frozen.”

“Not the least bit curious?” asked Ellery, slipping into the driver’s seat.

“No!”

“You’re another.” Ellery started the engine. He grinned and the car leaped forward like a greyhound, turned on two wheels, plowed and bumped about in a circle, and shot off the way it had come, toward Arroyo.

The Inspector clutched the edge of his seat in mortal terror.

“Quaint idea,” shouted Ellery above the thunder of the motor. “Crucifixion on Christmas Day!”

“Huh,” said the Inspector.

“I think,” shouted Ellery, “I’m going to like this case!”

“Drive, darn you!” screamed the old man suddenly. The car straightened out. “You’ll like nothing,” he added with a scowl. “You’re coming back to New York with me.”

They raced into Arroyo.

“Ye know,” muttered the Inspector as Ellery jerked the Duesenberg to a stop before a small frame building, “it’s a shame the way they do things down here. Leaving that signpost at the scene of the crime!” He shook his head. “Where you going now?” he demanded, his birdlike little gray head cocked on a side.

“I thought you weren’t interested,” said Ellery, jumping to the sidewalk. “Hi, there!” he cried to a muffled countryman in blue denim who was sweeping the sidewalk with a tattered old besom, “is this the Law in Arroyo?” The man gaped stupidly. “Superfluous question. There’s the sign for all the world to see. … Come along, you fraud.”

It was a sleepy little settlement, a handful of clustered buildings. The frame structure at which the Duesenberg had stopped looked like one of the false-front mushroom boxes of the old West. Next door there was a general store, with a single decrepit gasoline pump before it and a small garage adjoining. The frame building bore a proudly hand-lettered sign:

ARROYO MUNICIPAL HALL

They found the gentleman they sought asleep at his desk in the rear of the building, behind a door which announced him as
CONSTABLE
. He was a fat, red-faced countryman with yellow buck teeth.

The Inspector snorted, and the Constable raised heavy lids. He scratched his head and said in a rusty bass: “Ef ye’re lookin’ fer Matt Hollis, he’s out.”

Ellery smiled. “We’re looking for Constable Luden of Arroyo.”

“Oh! I’m him. What d’ye want?”

“Constable,” said Ellery impressively, “let me introduce you to Inspector Richard Queen, head of the Homicide Squad of the New York Police Department—in the merry flesh.”

“Who?” Constable Luden stared. “N’Yawk?”

“As I live and breathe,” said Ellery, stepping on his father’s toe. “Now, Constable, we want—”

“Set,” said Constable Luden, kicking a chair toward the Inspector, who sniffed and rather delicately sat down. “This Van business, hey? Didn’t know you N’Yawkers was int’rested. What’s eatin’ ye?”

Ellery produced his cigarette case and offered it to the Constable, who grunted and bit a mouthful off a huge plug of tobacco. “Tell us all about it, Constable.”

“Nothin’ to tell. Lots o’ Chicago an’ Pittsburgh men been snoopin’ round town. Sort o’ sick of it, m’self.”

The Inspector sneered. “Can’t say I blame you, Constable.”

Ellery took a wallet from his breast pocket, flipped it open, and stared speculatively at the greenbacks inside. Constable Luden’s drowsy eyes brightened. “Well,” he said hastily, “maybe I ain’t so sick of it. I can’t tell it jest once ag’in.”

“Who found the body?”

“Ol’ Pete. Ye wouldn’t know’m. Got a shack up in th’ hills some’eres.”

“Yes, I know that. Wasn’t a farmer involved, also?”

“Mike Orkins. Got a coupla acres down off th’ Pughtown pike. Seems like Orkins was drivin’ his Ford into Arroyo—let’s see; this is Mond’y—yep, Frid’y mornin’, ’twas … Christmas mornin’, pretty early. Ol’ Pete, he was headed fer Arroyo, too—come down offen th’ mountain. Orkins give Pete a hitch. Well, sir, they git to th’ crossroads where Orkins has to turn in t’wards Arroyo, an’ there it was. On th’ signpost. Hangin’ stiff as a cold-storage yearlin’—Andrew Van’s body.”

“We saw the post,” said Ellery encouragingly.

“Guess most a hundred city people druv out in th’ past few days to see it,” grumbled Constable Luden. “Reg’lar traffic problem I had. Anyways, Orkins an’ Ol’ Pete, they was both pretty much scared. Both of ’em like to’ve fainted. …”

“Hmph,” said the Inspector.

“They didn’t touch the body, of course?” remarked Ellery.

Constable Luden wagged his gray head emphatically. “Not them! They druv into Arroyo like th’ devil hisself was after ’em, an’ roused me outa bed.”

“What time was this, Constable?”

Constable Luden blushed. “Eight o’clock, but I’d had a big night b’fore over to Matt Hollis’s house, an’ I sorta overslept—”

“You and Mr. Hollis, I think, went immediately to the crossroads?”

“Yep. Matt—he’s our Mayor, ye know—Matt an’ me, we got four o’ th’ boys out an’ druv down. Some mess, he was—Van, I mean.” The Constable shook his head. “Never seen nothin’ like it in all my born days. An’ on Christmas Day, too. Blasph’my, I calls it. An’ Van an atheist, too.”

“Eh?” said the Inspector swiftly. His red nose shot out of the folds of the muffler like a dart. “An atheist? What d’ye mean?”

“Well, maybe not an atheist exac’ly,” muttered the Constable, looking uncomfortable. “I’m not much of a churchgoer m’self, but Van, he never went. Parson—well, mebbe I better not talk about
that
no more.”

“Remarkable,” said Ellery, turning to his father. “Really remarkable, Dad. It certainly looks like the work of a religious maniac.”

“Yep, that’s what they’re all sayin’,” said Constable Luden. “Me—I dunno. I’m jest a country constable. I don’t know nothin’, see? Ain’t had more’n a tramp in th’ lock-up fer three years. But I tell ye, gentlem’n,” he said darkly, “there’s more to it than jest religion.”

“No one in town, I suppose,” asserted Ellery, frowning, “is a suspect.”

“Nob’dy that loony, mister. I tell ye—it’s someb’dy connected with Van’s past.”

“Have there been strangers in town recently?”

“Nary a one. … So Matt an’ me an’ th’ boys, we identified th’ body from th’ size, gen’ral build, clothin’ an’ papers an’ sech, an’ we took ’im down. On th’ way back to town we stopped in at Van’s house. …”

“Yes,” said Ellery eagerly. “And what did you find?”

“Hell let loose,” said Constable Luden, chewing savagely on his cud. “Signs of a ter’ble struggle, all th’ chairs upset, blood on most everythin’, that big T in blood on th’ front door th’ papers been makin’ so much about, an’ poor ol’ Kling gone.”

“Ah,” said the Inspector. “The servant. Just gone, hey? Take his duds, did he?”

“Well,” replied the Constable, scratching his head, “I don’t rightly know. Coroner’s sort o’ taken things out o’ my hands. I know they’re lookin’ fer Kling—an’ I think,” he closed one eye slowly, “I think fer someb’dy else, too. But I can’t say nothin’ about that,” he added hastily.

“Any trace of Kling yet?” asked Ellery.

“Not’s I know of. Gen’ral alarm’s out. Body was taken to th’ county seat, Weirton—that’s eleven-twelve mile away, in charge o’ th’ Coroner. Coroner sealed up Van’s house, too. State police are on th’ job, an’ the District Attorney o’ Hancock County.”

Ellery mused, and the Inspector stirred restlessly in his chair. Constable Luden stared with fascination at Ellery’s pince-nez.

“And the head was hacked off,” murmured Ellery, at last “Queer. By an ax, I believe?”

“Yep, we found th’ ax in th’ house. Was Kling’s. No finger marks.”

“And the head itself?”

Constable Luden shook his head. “No sign of it. Guess th’ crazy murd’rer jest took it along as a sort o’ souvenir. Haw!”

“I think,” said Ellery, putting on his hat, “that we’ll go, Dad. Thank you, Constable.” He offered his hand, and the Constable took it flabbily. A grin came over his face as he felt something pressed into his palm. He was so delighted that he forwent his siesta and walked them to the street.

T
HERE WAS NO LOGICAL
reason for Ellery Queen’s persistent interest in the case of the crucified schoolmaster. He should have been in New York. Word had come to the Inspector that he must cut short his holiday and return to Centre Street; and where the Inspector went, Ellery usually followed. But something in the atmosphere of the West Virginia county seat, a suppressed excitement that filled Weirton’s streets with whispered rumors, held him there. The Inspector gave up in disgust and entrained for New York, Ellery driving him to Pittsburgh.

“Just what,” demanded the old man, as Ellery tucked him into a Pullman seat, “do you think you’ll accomplish? Come on—tell me. I suppose you’ve got it solved already, hey?”

“Now, Inspector,” said Ellery in a soothing voice, “watch your blood pressure. I’m merely interested. I’ve never run across anything as baldly lunatic as this. I’m going to wait for the inquest. I want to hear that evidence Luden hinted at.”

“You’ll come back to New York with your tail between your legs,” predicted the Inspector darkly.

“Oh, no doubt,” grinned Ellery. “At the same time, I’ve quite run out of fiction ideas, and this thing has so many possibilities …”

They let it go at that. The train pulled out and left Ellery standing on the platform of the terminal, free and vaguely uneasy. He drove back to Weirton the same day.

This was Tuesday. He had until Saturday, the day after New Year’s Day, to wheedle what information he could from the District Attorney of Hancock County. District Attorney Crumit was a dour old man with shrewd ambitions and an exaggerated opinion of his own importance. Ellery reached the door of his anteroom; and no amount of pleading or cajolery could get him farther. The District Attorney can see no one. The District Attorney is busy. Come back tomorrow. The District Attorney cannot see any one. From New York—Inspector Queen’s son? I’m sorry. …

Ellery bit his lip, wandered the streets, and listened with tireless ears to the conversation of Weirton’s citizenry. Weirton, in the midst of its holly, tinsel, and glittering Christmas trees, was indulging in an orgy of vicarious horror. There were remarkably few women abroad, and no children. Men met hurriedly, stiff-lipped, and discussed ways and means. There was talk of lynching—a worthy purpose which failed because there was no one to lynch. Weirton’s police force prowled the streets uneasily. State police dashed in and out of town. Occasionally the peaked face of District Attorney Crumit flashed in steely vindictiveness as his automobile darted by.

In all the hubbub that churned about him, Ellery maintained his peace and an inquiring air. On Wednesday he made an attempt to see Stapleton, the County Coroner. Stapleton was a fat young man in a constant state of perspiration; but he was canny, too, and Ellery learned nothing from him that he did not already know.

So he devoted the remaining three days to ferreting out what he could about Andrew Van, the victim. It was incredible how little was known about the man. Few had seen him in the flesh; he had been a retiring gentleman of solitary habits and had rarely visited Weirton. It was rumored that the villagers of Arroyo had considered him an exemplary teacher: he had been kind, although not lenient, to his pupils; he had rendered satisfactory service, in the opinion of the Arroyo Town Board. Moreover, although he had not been a churchgoer, he had been a teetotaler; and this, it seemed, had cemented his position in a God-fearing and sober community.

On Thursday the editor of Weirton’s leading newspaper turned literary. The morrow was New Year’s Day, and it was too fecund an opportunity to let lie barren. The six reverend gentlemen who ministered to Weirton’s spiritual heeds preached their sermons on the front page. Andrew Van, they said, had been an ungodly man. He who lives in ungodliness shall die in ungodliness. Yet deeds born of violence. … The editor did not stop there. There was an editorial in ten-point bold face. It was fruitily dotted with references to the French Bluebeard, Landru; to the Maniac of Dusseldorf; to the American bogey, Jack-the-Ripper; and to many other monsters of fact and fiction—a dainty tidbit served to the good people of Weirton as dessert for their New Year’s dinners.

The County Court House, where the Coroner’s inquest was to be held on Saturday morning, was crowded to the doors long before the appointed hour. Ellery sagely had been one of the earliest comers, and his seat was in the first row, behind the railing. When, at a few moments before nine o’clock, Coroner Stapleton himself appeared, Ellery sought him out, exhibited a telegram signed by the Police Commissioner of New York City, and with this sesame secured entrance to the anteroom in which Andrew Van’s body was laid out.