Egyptian Cross Mystery (8 page)

Inspector Vaughn stood powerful and tall by the fireplace, hands clasped loosely behind his back; his eyes were fixed on Lincoln. Isham sat down, mopping his bald spot. The Professor sighed and walked quietly to a window, where he stood looking out upon the front gardens and the drive. The house was quiet, as after a noisy party, or after a funeral. There was no bustle, no crying, no hysteria. With the exception of Mrs. Brad, her daughter, and Jonah Lincoln, none of the other members of the household—servants—had appeared.

“Well, the first thing, I guess,” began Isham wearily, “is to get that business of last night’s theater tickets straight, Mr. Lincoln. Suppose you tell us the whole story.”

“Theater tickets … Oh, yes.” Lincoln glared at the wall above Isham’s head with the glassy eyes of a shell-shocked soldier. “Yesterday Tom Brad telephoned Mrs. Brad from the office that he’d secured tickets for a Broadway play for her, Helene, and myself. Mrs. Brad and Helene were to meet me in the city. He, Brad, was going on home. He told me about it a few minutes later. He seemed rather keen on my taking the ladies. I couldn’t refuse.”

“Why should you want to refuse?” asked the Inspector quickly.

Lincoln’s fixed expression did not change. “It struck me as a peculiar request to make at the time. We’ve been having some trouble at the office; a matter of accounts. I had been intending to remain late yesterday, working with our auditor. I reminded Tom about this, but he said never mind.”

“I can’t understand it,” said Mrs. Brad tonelessly. “Almost as if he wanted to be rid of us.” She shivered suddenly, and Helene patted her shoulder.

“Mrs. Brad and Helene met me at Longchamps for dinner,” continued Lincoln in the same strained voice. “After dinner I took them to the theater—”

“Which theater?” asked Isham.

“The Park Theater. I left them there—”

“Oh,” said Inspector Vaughn. “Decided to do that work, anyway, eh?”

“Yes. I excused myself, promised to meet them after the performance, and returned to the office.”

“And you worked with your auditor, Mr. Lincoln?” asked Vaughn softly.

Lincoln stared. “Yes … God.” He tossed his head and gasped, like a man drowning. No one said a word. When he resumed, it was quietly, as if nothing had happened. “I finished late, and went back to the thea—”

“The auditor remained with you all evening?” asked the Inspector in the same soft voice.

Lincoln started. “Why—” He shook his head dazedly. “What do you mean? No. He left about eight o’clock. I continued to work alone.”

Inspector Vaughn cleared his throat; his eyes were glittering. “What time did you meet the ladies at the theater?”

“Eleven-forty-five,” said Helene Brad suddenly in a composed voice that nevertheless made her mother dart a glance up at her. “My dear Inspector Vaughn, your tactics aren’t too fair. You suspect Jonah of something, goodness knows what, and you’re trying to make him out a liar and—and other things, I suppose.”

“The truth never hurt anybody,” said Vaughn coldly. “Go on, Mr. Lincoln.”

Lincoln blinked twice. “I met Mrs. Brad and Helene in the lobby. We went home. …”

“By car?” asked Isham.

“No, by the Long Island. When we got off the train Fox wasn’t there with the car and we took a taxi home.”

“Taxi?” muttered Vaughn. He stood thinking, then without a word left the room. The Brad women and Lincoln stared after him with fright in their eyes.

“Go on,” said Isham impatiently. “See anything wrong when you got home? What time was it?”

“I don’t really know. About one o’clock, I suppose.” Lincoln’s shoulders drooped.

“After one,” said Helene. “You don’t remember, Jonah.”

“Yes. We saw nothing out of the way. The path to the summerhouse …” Lincoln shivered. “We didn’t think of looking there. We couldn’t have seen anything, anyway—it was too dark. We went to bed.”

Inspector Vaughn came back quietly.

“How is it, Mrs. Brad,” asked Isham, “that you didn’t know your husband was missing until this morning, as you told me before?”

“We sleep—we slept in adjoining bedrooms,” explained the woman from pale lips. “So I wouldn’t know, you see. Helene and I retired … The first we knew of what—happened to Thomas was when Fox got us out of bed this morning.”

Inspector Vaughn stepped over and bent to whisper something into Isham’s ear. The District Attorney nodded vaguely.

“How long have you been living in this house, Mr. Lincoln?” asked Vaughn.

“A long time. How many years is it, Helene?” The tall New Englander turned to look at Helene; their eyes met and flashed in sympathy. The man braced his shoulders, drew a deep breath, and the glassiness in his eyes vanished.

“Eight, I think, Jonah.” Her voice trembled, and for the first time tears clouded her eyes. “I—I was just a kid when you and Hester came.”

“Hester?” repeated Vaughn and Isham together. “Who’s she?”

“My sister,” replied Lincoln in a calmer voice. “She and I were left orphans early in life. I’ve—well, she goes with me as naturally as my name.”

“Where is she? Why haven’t we seen her?”

Lincoln said quietly: “She’s on the Island.”

“Oyster Island?” drawled Ellery. “How interesting. She hasn’t become a sun worshiper by any chance, Mr. Lincoln?”

“Why, how did you know?” exclaimed Helene. “Jonah, you haven’t—”

“My sister,” explained Lincoln with difficulty, “is something of a faddist. Goes in for things like that. This lunatic who calls himself Harakht rented the Island from the Ketchams—old-timers who live on the Island; own it, in fact—and started a cult. Sun cult and—well, nudism …” He strangled over something in his throat “Hester—well, Hester became interested in—the people over there, and we had a quarrel over it. She’s headstrong, and left Bradwood to join the cult. The damned fakers!” he said savagely. “I shouldn’t be surprised if they had something to do with this ghastly business.”

“Shrewd, Mr. Lincoln,” murmured Professor Yardley.

Ellery coughed gently and addressed the rigid figure of Mrs. Brad. “I’m sure you won’t mind answering a few personal questions?” She looked up, and down at the hands in her lap. “I understand that Miss Brad is your daughter and was your husband’s stepdaughter. A second husband, Mrs. Brad?”

The handsome woman said: “Yes.”

“Mr. Brad had been previously married as well?”

She bit her lips. “We—we were married twelve years. Tom—I don’t know much about his first—his first wife. I think he was married in Europe, and his first wife died very young.”

“Tch-tch,” said Ellery with a sympathetic frown. “What part of Europe, Mrs. Brad?”

She looked at him and a slow flush filled her cheeks. “I don’t really know. Thomas was Roumanian. I suppose it happened—there.”

Helene Brad tossed her head and said indignantly: “Really, you people are being absurd. What difference does it make where people come from, or whom they were married to years and years ago? Why don’t you try to find out who
killed
him?”

“Something tells me with insistence, Miss Brad,” replied Ellery, smiling sadly, “that the matter of geography may become extremely important … Is Mr. Megara Roumanian, too?”

Mrs. Brad looked blank. Lincoln said curtly: “Greek.”

“What in the world—?” began the District Attorney helplessly.

Inspector Vaughn smiled. “Greek, eh? You people are all native Americans, I suppose?”

They nodded. Helene’s eyes were flashing angrily; even the fiery glints in her hair seemed to glow brighter, and she looked at Jonah Lincoln as if she expected him to remonstrate. But he said nothing, merely looking down at the tips of his shoes.

“Where is Megara?” went on Isham. “Somebody said he was on a cruise. What kind of cruise—round-the-world?”

“No,” said Lincoln slowly. “Nothing like that. Mr. Megara is something of a globe-trotter and amateur explorer. He has his own yacht and keeps sailing about in it. He just goes off and stays away for three and four months at a time.”

“How long’s he been away on this trip?” demanded Vaughn.

“Almost a year.”

“Where is he?”

Lincoln shrugged. “I don’t know. He never writes—just pops in without warning. I can’t understand why he’s stayed away so long this time.”

“I think,” said Helene, wrinkling her forehead, “that he went to the South Seas.” Her eyes were luminous and her lips quivered; Ellery regarded her curiously and wondered why.

“What’s the name of his yacht?”

Helene flushed. “The
Helene.”

“Steam yacht?” asked Ellery.

“Yes.”

“Has he a radio—wireless sending outfit?” demanded Vaughn.

“Yes.”

The Inspector scribbled in his notebook and looked pleased. “Sail it himself, does he?” he asked as he wrote.

“Of course not! He has a regular captain and crew—Captain Swift, who’s been with him for years.”

Ellery sat down suddenly and stretched his long legs. “I do believe … What’s Megara’s first name?”

“Stephen.”

Isham growled deep in his throat. “Oh, Lord. Why can’t we stick to essentials? How long have Brad and Megara been partners in this rug-importing business?”

“Sixteen years,” replied Jonah. “Went into business together.”

“Successful business, is it? No financial troubles?”

Lincoln shook his head. “Both Mr. Brad and Mr. Megara founded very substantial fortunes. They were hit by the depression, like everyone else; but the business is sound.” He paused and an odd look changed the expression of his lean healthy face. “I don’t believe you’ll find money troubles at the bottom of this thing.”

“Well,” grunted Isham, “what
do
you think is at the bottom of it?”

Lincoln closed his mouth with a little snap.

“You don’t by any chance,” drawled Ellery, “think there’s
religion
behind it, Mr. Lincoln?”

Lincoln blinked. “Why—I didn’t say so. But the crime itself—the crucifixion …”

Ellery smiled pleasantly. “By the way, what was Mr. Brad’s creed?”

Mrs. Brad, still sitting with her ample back arched, chest out, chin up, murmured: “He once told me he had been raised in the Orthodox Greek Church. But he wasn’t devout, to fact, he was a non-believer in ritual; some people considered him an atheist.”

“And Megara?”

“Oh, he doesn’t believe in anything at all.” There was something in her tone which caused all of them to look at her sharply; but her face was expressionless.

“Orthodox Greek,” said Professor Yardley thoughtfully. “That’s consistent enough with Roumania. …”

“You’re looking for inconsistencies?” murmured Ellery.

Inspector Vaughn coughed, and Mrs. Brad regarded him tensely. She seemed to sense what was coming. “Did your husband have any identifying marks on his body, Mrs. Brad?”

Helene looked faintly nauseated, and turned her head aside. Mrs. Brad muttered: “A strawberry birthmark on his right thigh.”

The Inspector sighed with relief. “So that’s that. Now, folks, let’s get down to bedrock. How about enemies? Who might have wanted to do Mr. Brad in?”

“Forget this business of the crucifixion and everything else for the moment,” added the District Attorney. “Who had a motive for murder?”

Mother and daughter turned to regard each other; they looked away almost at once. Lincoln kept staring steadfastly at the rug—a magnificent Oriental, Ellery noted, with a beautifully woven Tree of Life design; an unhappy juxtaposition of symbol and reality, considering the fact he reflected, that its owner …

“No,” said Mrs. Brad. “Thomas was a happy man. He had no enemies;”

“Were you in the habit of entertaining comparative strangers?”

“Oh, no. We lead a secluded life here, Mr. Isham.” There was something again in her tone that made them look keenly at her.

Ellery sighed. “Do any of you recall the presence here—guest or otherwise—of a limping man?” They shook their heads instantly. “Mr. Brad knew no one with a limp?” Another concerted negative.

Mrs. Brad said again: “Thomas had no enemies,” with dull emphasis, as if she felt it important to impress this fact upon them.

“You’re forgetting something, Margaret,” said Jonah Lincoln slowly. “Romaine.”

He looked at her with burning eyes. Helene flashed a glance of horrified condemnation at his clean profile; then she bit her lip and tears came to her eyes. The four men looked on with growing interest and a sense of underflowing byplay; there was something unhealthy here, a sore on the Brad body domestic.

“Yes, Romaine,” said Mrs. Brad, licking her lips; the position of her figure had not changed for ten minutes. “I forgot. They had a quarrel.”

“Who the devil’s Romaine?” demanded Vaughn.

Lincoln said in a low quick voice: “Paul Romaine. Harakht, that lunatic on Oyster Island, calls him the ‘chief disciple.’”

“Ah,” said Ellery, and looked at Professor Yardley. The ugly man raised his shoulders expressively, and smiled.

“They’ve built up a nudist colony on the Island. Nudists!” cried Lincoln bitterly. “Harakht is a nut—he’s probably sincere; but Romaine is a faker, the worst kind of confidence man. He trades on his body, which is only the cloak of a rotten soul!”

“And yet,” murmured Ellery, “didn’t Holmes recommend: ‘Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul’?”

“Sure,” said Inspector Vaughn, intent on soothing this strange witness. “We understand. But about that quarrel, Mr. Lincoln?”

Lean face worked fiercely. “Romaine’s responsible for the ‘guests’ on the Island—works up the business. He’s hooked a bunch of poor fools who either think he’s some kind of tin god, or else are so damn repressed that the very thought of running around naked …” He stopped abruptly. “Excuse me, Helene—Margaret. I shouldn’t talk. Hester … They haven’t been bothering any of the residents here, I’ll admit. But Tom and Dr. Temple feel the same way I do about it.”

“Hmm,” said Professor Yardley. “Nobody consulted
me.”

“Dr. Temple?”

“Our neighbor to the east. They were seen capering around Oyster Island absolutely nude, like human goats, and well—we’re a decent community.” Ah, thought Ellery; thus spake the Puritan. “Tom owns all this property fronting the Cove, and he felt that it was his duty to interfere. He had some sort of run-in with Romaine and Harakht. I think he was intending to take legal measures to oust them from the Island, and he told them so.”