Philo Vance 12 Novels Complete Bundle

by S. S. Van Dine

  "How long did you listen?"

  "For half an hour. Then I went up-stairs."

  "You have not seen either Doctor Bliss or Mr. Scarlett since?"

  "No, effendi."

  "Where was Mr. Salveter during the conference in the study?" Vance was striving hard to control his anxiety.

  "Was he here in the house?" Hani asked evasively. "He told me at dinner that he was going to Boston."

  "Yes, yes--on the nine-thirty train. He needn't have left the house until nine.--Where was he between eight and nine?"

  Hani shrugged his shoulders.

  "I did not see him. He went out before Mr. Scarlett arrived. He was certainly not here after eight--"

  "You're lying." Vance's tone was icy.

  "Wahyât en-nabi--"

  "Don't try to impress me--I'm not in the humor." Vance's eyes were like steel. "What do you think happened here to-night?"

  "I think perhaps Sakhmet returned."

  A pallor seemed to overspread Vance's face: it may, however, have been only the reflection of the hall light.

  "Go to your room and wait there," he said curtly.

  Hani bowed.

  "You do not need my help now, effendi. You understand many things." And the Egyptian walked away with much dignity.

  Vance stood tensely until he had disappeared. Then, with a motion to us, he hurried down the hall to the study. Throwing open the door he switched on the lights.

  There was anxiety and haste in all his movements, and the electric atmosphere of his demeanor was transmitted to the rest of us. We realized that something tragic and terrible was leading him on.

  He went to the two windows and leaned out. By the pale reflected light he could see the asphalt tiles on the ground below. He looked under the desk, and measured with his eyes the four-inch clearance beneath the divan. Then he went to the door leading into the museum.

  "I hardly thought we'd find anything in the study; but there was a chance. . . ."

  He was now swinging down the spiral stairs.

  "It will be here in the museum," he called to us. "Come along, Sergeant. There's work to do. A fiend has been loose to-night. . . ."

  He walked past the state chair and the shelves of shawabtis, and stood beside the long glass table case, his hands deep in his coat pockets, his eyes moving rapidly about the room. Markham and Heath and I waited at the foot of the stairs.

  "What's this all about?" Markham asked huskily. "What has taken place? And what, incidentally, are you looking for?"

  "I don't know what has taken place." Something in Vance's tone sent a chill through me. "And I'm looking for something damnable. If it isn't here. . . ."

  He did not finish the sentence. Going swiftly to the great replica of Kha-ef-Rê he walked round it. Then he went to the statue of Ramses II and inspected its base. After that he moved to Teti-shiret and tapped the pedestal with his knuckles.

  "They're all solid," he muttered. "We must try the mummy cases." He recrossed the museum. "Start at that end, Sergeant. The covers should come off easily. If you have any difficulty, tear them off." He himself went to the anthropoid case beside Kha-ef-Rê and, inserting his hand beneath the upstanding lid, lifted it off and laid it on the floor.

  Heath, apparently animated by an urgent desire for physical action, had already begun his search at the other end of the line. He was by no means gentle about it. He tore the lids off viciously, throwing them to the floor with unnecessary clatter.

  Vance, absorbed in his own task, paid scant attention except to glance up as each lid was separated from the case. Markham, however, had begun to grow uneasy. He watched the Sergeant disapprovingly for several minutes, his face clouding over. Then he stepped forward.

  "I can't let this go on, Vance," he remarked. "These are valuable treasures, and we have no right--"

  Vance stood up and looked straight at Markham.

  "And if there is a dead man in one of them?" he asked with a cold precision that caused Markham to stiffen.

  "A dead man?"

  "Placed here tonight--between eight and nine."

  Vance's words had an ominous and impressive quality, and Markham said no more. He stood by, his features strained and set, watching the feverish inspection of the remaining mummy cases.

  But no grisly discovery was made. Heath removed the lid of the last case in obvious disappointment.

  "I guess something's gone wrong with your ideas, Mr. Vance," he commented without animus: indeed, there was a kindly note in his voice.

  Vance, distraught and with a far-away look in his eyes, now stood by the glass case. His distress was so apparent that Markham went to him and touched him on the arm.

  "Perhaps if we could re-calculate this affair along other lines--" he began; but Vance interrupted.

  "No; it can't be re-calculated. It's too logical. There's been a tragedy here to-night--and we were too late to intercept it."

  "We should have taken precautions." Markham's tone was bitter.

  "Precautions! Every possible precaution was taken. A new element was introduced into the situation to-night--an element that couldn't possibly have been foreseen. To-night's tragedy was not part of the plot. . . ." Vance turned and walked away. "I must think this thing out. I must trace the murderer's reasoning. . . ." He made an entire circuit of the museum without taking his eyes from the floor.

  Heath was puffing moodily on his cigar. He had not moved from in front of the mummy cases, and was pretending to be interested in the crudely colored hieroglyphs. Ever since the "Canary" murder case, when Tony Skeel had failed to keep his appointment in the District Attorney's office, he had, for all his protests, believed in Vance's prognostications; and now he was deeply troubled at the other's failure. I was watching him, a bit dazed myself, when I saw a frown of puzzled curiosity wrinkle his forehead. Taking his cigar from his mouth he bent over one of the fallen mummy cases and lifted out a slender metal object.

  "That's a hell of a place to keep an automobile jack," he observed. (His interest in the jack was obviously the result of an unconscious attempt to distract his thoughts from the tense situation.)

  He threw the jack back into the case and sat down on the base of Kha-ef-Rê's statue. Neither Vance nor Markham had apparently paid the slightest attention to his irrelevant discovery.

  Vance continued pacing round the museum. For the first time since our arrival at the house he took out a cigarette and lighted it.

  "Every line of reasoning leads here, Markham." He spoke in a low, hopeless tone. "There was no necessity for the evidence to have been taken away. In the first place, it would have been too hazardous; and, in the second place, we were not supposed to have suspected anything for a day or two. . . ."

  His voice faltered and his body went suddenly taut. He wheeled toward Heath.

  "An automobile jack!" A dynamic change had come over him. "Oh, my aunt! I wonder . . . I wonder. . . ."

  He hurried toward the black sarcophagus beneath the front windows, and scrutinized it anxiously.

  "Too high," he murmured. "Three feet from the floor! It couldn't have been done. . . . But it had to be done--somehow. . . ." He looked about him. "That taboret!" He pointed to a small solid oak stand, about twenty inches high, against the wall near the Asiatic wooden statue. "It was not there last night; it was beside the desk-table by the obelisk--Scarlett was using it." As he spoke he went to the taboret and picked it up. "And the top is scratched--there's an indentation. . . ." He placed the stand against the head of the sarcophagus. "Quick, Sergeant! Bring me that jack."

  Heath obeyed with swiftness; and Vance placed the jack on the taboret, fitting its base over the scars in the wood. The lifting-head came within an inch of the under-side of the sarcophagus's lid where it extended a few inches over the end elevation between the two projecting lion-legged supports at the corners.

  We had gathered about Vance in tense silence, not knowing what to expect but feeling that we were on the threshold of some appalling revelation.r />
  Vance inserted the elevating lever, which Heath handed him, into the socket, and moved it carefully up and down. The jack worked perfectly. At each downward thrust of the lever there was a metallic click as the detent slipped into the groove of the rack. Inch by inch the end of the ponderous granite lid--which must have weighed over half a ton*--rose.

  * This was my guess during Vance's operation. Later I calculated the weight of the lid. It was ten feet long, four feet wide, and was surmounted by a large carved figure. A conservative estimate would give us ten cubic feet for the lid; and as the density of granite is approximately 2.70 grams per cubic centimeter, or 170 pounds per cubic foot, the lid would have weighed at least 1,700 pounds.

  Heath suddenly stepped back in alarm.

  "Ain't you afraid, Mr. Vance, that the lid'll slide off the other end of the coffin?"

  "No, Sergeant," Vance assured him. "The friction alone of so heavy a mass would hold it at a much greater angle than this jack could tilt it."

  The head of the cover was now eight inches in the clear, and Vance was using both hands on the lever. He had to work with great care lest the jack slip from the smooth under-surface of the granite. Nine inches . . . ten inches . . . eleven . . . twelve. . . . The rack had almost reached its limit of elevation. With one final thrust downward, Vance released the lever and tested the solidity of the extended jack.

  "It's safe, I think. . . ."

  Heath had already taken out his pocket-light and flashed it into the dark recesses of the sarcophagus.

  "Mother o' God!" he gasped.

  I was standing just behind him, leaning over his broad shoulders; and simultaneously with the flare of his light I saw the horrifying thing that had made him call out. In the end of the sarcophagus was a dark, huddled human body, the back hunched upward and the legs hideously cramped, as if some one had hastily shoved it through the aperture, head first.

  Markham stood bending forward like a person paralyzed in the midst of an action.

  Vance's quiet but insistent voice broke the tension of our horror.

  "Hold your light steady, Sergeant. And you, Markham, lend me a hand. But be careful. Don't touch the jack. . . ."

  With great caution they reached into the sarcophagus and turned the body until the head was toward the widest point of the opening. A chill ran up my spine as I watched them for I knew that the slightest jar, or the merest touch on the jack, would bring the massive granite lid down upon them. Heath, too, realized this--I could see the glistening beads of sweat on his forehead as he watched the dangerous operation with fearful eyes.

  Slowly the body emerged through the small opening, and when the feet had passed over the edge of the sarcophagus and clattered to the floor, the flashlight went out, and Heath sprawled back on his haunches with a convulsive gasp.

  "Hell! I musta stumbled, Mr. Vance," he muttered. (I liked the Sergeant even more after that episode.)

  Markham stood looking down at the inert body in stupefaction.

  "Scarlett!" he exclaimed in a voice of complete incredulity.

  Vance merely nodded, and bent over the prostrate figure. Scarlett's face was cyanosed, due to insufficient oxygenation of the blood; his eyes were set in a fixed bulging stare; and there was a crust formation of blood at his nostrils. Vance put his ear on the man's chest and took his wrist in one hand to feel the pulse. Then he drew out his gold cigarette-case and held it before Scarlett's lips. After a glance at the case he turned excitedly to heath.

  "The ambulance, Sergeant! Hurry! Scarlett's still alive. . . ."

  Heath dashed up the stairs and disappeared into the front hall.

  Markham regarded Vance intently.

  "I don't understand this," he said huskily.

  "Nor do I--entirely." Vance's eyes were on Scarlett. "I advised him to keep away from here. He, too, knew the danger, and yet. . . . You remember Rider Haggard's dedication of 'Allan Quartermain' to his son, wherein he spoke of the highest rank to which one can attain--the state and dignity of an English gentleman?*. . . Scarlett was an English gentleman. Knowing the peril, he came here to-night. He thought he might end the tragedy."

  * The actual dedication reads: "I inscribe this book of adventure to my son, Arthur John Rider Haggard, in the hope that in days to come he, and many other boys whom I shall never know, may in the acts and thoughts of Allan Quartermain and his companions, as herein recorded, find something to help him and them to reach to what, with Sir Henry Curtis, I hold to be the highest rank whereto we can obtain--the state of dignity of English gentlemen."

  Markham was stunned and puzzled.

  "We've got to take some sort of action--now."

  "Yes. . . ." Vance was deeply concerned. "But the difficulties! There's no evidence. We're helpless. . . . Unless--" He stopped short. "That hieroglyphic letter! Maybe it's here somewhere. To-night was the time; but Scarlett came unexpectedly. I wonder if he knew about that, too. . . ." Vance's eyes drifted thoughtfully into space, and for several moments he stood rigid. Then he suddenly went to the sarcophagus and, striking a match, looked inside.

  "Nothing." There was dire disappointment in his tone. "And yet, it should be here. . . ." He straightened up. "Perhaps . . . yes! That, too, would be logical."

  He knelt down beside the unconscious man and began going through his pockets. Scarlett's coat was buttoned, and it was not until Vance had reached into the inner breast pocket that his search was rewarded. He drew out a crumpled sheet of yellow scratch paper of the kind on which Salveter's Egyptian exercise had been written, and after one glance at it thrust it into his own pocket.

  Heath appeared at the door.

  "O.K.," he called down, "I told 'em to rush it."

  "How long will it take?" Vance asked.

  "Not more'n ten minutes. I called Headquarters; and they'll relay it to the local station. They generally pick up the cop on the beat--but that don't delay things. I'll wait here at the door for 'em."

  "Just a moment." Vance wrote something on the back of an envelope and handed it up to Heath. "Call Western Union and get this telegram off."

  Heath took the message, read it, whistled softly, and went out into the hall.

  "I'm wiring Salveter at New Haven to leave the train at New London and return to New York," Vance explained to Markham. "He'll be able to catch the Night Express at New London, and will get here early to-morrow morning."

  Markham looked at him shrewdly.

  "You think he'll come?"

  "Oh, yes."

  When the ambulance arrived, Heath escorted the interne, the blue-uniformed driver and the police officer into the museum. The interne, a pink-faced youth with a serious brow, bowed to Markham and knelt beside Scarlett. After a superficial examination, he beckoned to the driver.

  "Go easy with his head."

  The man, assisted by the officer, lifted Scarlett to the stretcher.

  "How bad is he, doctor?" Markham asked anxiously.

  "Pretty bad, sir." The interne shook his head pompously. "A messy fracture at the base of the skull. Cheyne-Stokes breathing. If he lives, he's luckier than I'll ever be." And with a shrug he followed the stretcher out of the house.

  "I'll phone the hospital later," Markham said to Vance. "If Scarlett recovers, he can supply us with evidence."

  "Don't count on it," Vance discouraged him. "To-night's episode was isolated." He went to the sarcophagus and reversed the jack. Slowly the lid descended to its original position. "A bit dangerous, don't y' know, to leave it up."

  Markham stood by frowning.

  "Vance, what paper was that you found in Scarlett's pocket?"

  "I imagine it was an incriminatin' document written in Egyptian hieroglyphs. We'll see."

  He spread the paper out smoothly on the top of the sarcophagus. It was almost exactly like the letter Vance had pieced together in Bliss's study. The color of the paper was the same, and it contained four rows of hieroglyphs in green ink.

  Vance studied it while Markham and Heath, who ha
d returned to the museum, and I looked on.

  "Let me see how well I remember my Egyptian," he murmured. "It's been years since I did any transliterating. . . ."

  He placed his monocle in his eye and bent forward.

  "Meryt-Amûn, aha-y o er yu son maut-y en merya-y men seshem pen dya-y em yeb-y era-y en marwet mar-en yu rekha-t khet nibet hir-sa hetpa-t na-y kheft shewa-n em debat nefra-n entot hena-y. . . . This is done very accurately, Markham. The nouns and adjectives agree as to gender, and the verb endings--"

  "Never mind those matters," Markham interrupted impatiently. "What does that paper say?"

  "I beg of you, Markham old dear!" Vance protested. "Middle-Kingdom Egyptian is a most difficult language. Coptic and Assyrian and Greek and Sanskrit are abecedarian beside it. However, I can give you a literal translation." He began reading slowly: "'Beloved of Amûn, I stop here until comes the brother of my mother. Not do I wish that should-endure this situation. I have-placed in my heart that I should-act for the sake of our well-being. Thou shalt-know every-thing later. Thou shalt-be-satisfied toward me when we are-free from what-blocks-the-way, happy-are we, thou together-with me. . . .' Not what you'd call Harvardian. But such were the verbal idiosyncrasies of the ancient Egyptians."

  "Well, it don't make sense to me," Heath commented sourly.

  "But properly paraphrased it makes fiendish sense, Sergeant. Put into everyday English, it says: 'Meryt-Amen: I am waiting here for my uncle. I cannot endure this situation any longer; and I have decided to take drastic action for the sake of our happiness. You will understand everything later, and you will forgive me when we are free from all obstacles and can be happy together.' . . . I say, Sergeant; does that make sense?"

  "I'll tell the world!" Heath looked at Vance with an air of contemptuous criticism. "And you sent that bird Salveter to Boston!"

  "He'll be back to-morrow," Vance assured him.

  "But see here";--Markham's eyes were fixed on the incriminating paper--"what about that other letter you pieced together? And how did this letter get in Scarlett's pocket?"