Death from Nowhere

by Clayton Rawson

  Don straightened and went forward to meet the lieutenant. “And will you—”

  Brophy grunted. “I will not!”

  Out of the corner of his eye Don saw the reporter slip out of the room and vanish in the hall.

  Don shrugged at Brophy, held up his hand, and let the cards cascade to the floor — all but one. Then, over his shoulder, he addressed the wing-back chair.

  “Your card, Woody, was—?”

  And Woody’s voice, sent there by Don’s expert ventriloquism, came back, “The queen of spades.”

  Don let the queen of spades flutter to the floor and then, reaching into thin air, produced a fan of cards at his fingertips. He reached again, and then again, until he had a full deck.

  With that he swiftly proceeded to run through a bewildering and expert routine of card juggling. The cards swished through the air from hand to hand in a long stream. They were laid out in a long row along his arm which suddenly dropped from beneath, moved back and shot forward again scooping the cards from the air as they fell. Waterfall shuffles succeeded one-handed shuffles.

  The card on the deck’s face changed from a ten spot to a six to a deuce and then became blank. The backs of all the cards in the deck changed from blue to red and back again. More cards appeared from nowhere.

  Brophy couldn’t help himself. He scowled at this pyrotechnical display of smooth, expert conjuring with a wary but fascinated eye.

  Shivara, at the window, had turned to watch. He did not appear to notice Woody’s absence. Don’s nimble-finger prestidigitation rose to new heights of attention-compelling skill.

  Inspector Church didn’t question Nicholas Sayre long. He found out that the mysterious Mr. Shivara had appeared out of nowhere two weeks before and introduced himself to Sayre because of the latter’s absorbing interest in Oriental occultism; he learned that Sayre was positive that Shivara had been with him every minute of the time from two P.M. until shortly before Sayre and Richards had left to call on Don Diavolo: he discovered that Sayre was the man who had supplied the financial backing for Theodore VanRyn’s archeological trip into the East.

  But when the millionaire got started on the subject of Indian and Tibetan sorcery and admitted that it was quite possible that Shivara, because of his power to project a tulpa of himself, could have been both with Sayre and at the Winfield Hotel at one and the same time, Church called a halt.

  Sayre, in his opinion, had a large flock of bats swarming in his belfry and was thus not a creditable witness in the matter of Mr. Shivara’s whereabouts at any time. Furthermore, the Inspector was anxious to get his hooks into the Hindu and take him efficiently over the bumps.

  He dismissed Sayre, came out with him across the hall, and scowled with annoyance as he saw the act Don was putting on for Brophy. “Lieutenant,” he ordered, “take those cards away from him and fire them out of a window!”

  Then he turned toward Shivara and, in the manner of a spider speaking to a fly, said, “You next.”

  He waited in the door as Shivara came toward him. Suddenly he gave a small, surprised grunt, his eyebrows shot upward and he barked, “Brophy, where the hell is Richards?”

  The lieutenant blinked and started to say, “But he didn’t … I thought—”

  Then, from down the hall, beyond the Inspector and to his right, an answer came — an answer to the Inspector’s question that struck with whirlwind force and, as the words faded, left behind a silence that was like that of interstellar space.

  The voice was Woody’s, but so changed and shaken that it might have been that of a ghost.

  It said, “Richards is here. He’s dead!”

  Time ticked on, a dull, flat, wasted interval in which nothing moved and no sound came. Then, all at once, as if animated by the same crackling electric shock, the transfixed figures of the wax tableau jerked into life.

  Inspector Church whirled to face the hall; Brophy and Don Diavolo plunged toward him.

  Down the hall they saw tall double doors, one of them half open. Woody Haines stood there facing them, his hand still on the doorknob. His face was white; forehead streaked with damp.

  He moved back, leaning against the door, and swung it further in as they approached.

  In the dim room beyond, a tall bronze statue of the Buddha towered, its slant eyes gazing from half lowered lids downward at the still figure on the floor — and beyond it toward some distant and ultimate Nirvana.

  Richards sprawled face down before the sculptured prophet as if engrossed in the weird and secret rites of some unknown worship.

  The yellow shaft of a dagger projected from between his shoulder blades and the bright warm pool of red that lay around him still grew.…

  CHAPTER X

  The Dagger of Darius

  THE Homicide Squad had never worked in stranger surroundings. The photographer’s flash bulbs flared against the richly intricate patterns of cashmere hangings and the glowing color harmonies of XVIII Century Rajput paintings that covered the walls.

  Hulking, big-shouldered men with Irish names leaned against the exhibition cases that contained the rarest of Ming dynasty porcelains, bronze libation cups from the Palace of Heaven, silver girdle-chains that had been worn by Indian princesses in the days when Asoka reigned, jade necklaces of holy beads.

  A sergeant of detectives idly touched a prayer wheel and sent it spinning through a dozen revolutions, not knowing that he had sent the mystic formula Om mani padme hum winging heavenward and earned himself an infinitesimal advance toward the great void of Nirvana.

  Woody Haines should have turned that wheel. He needed Nirvana. He wished heartily he could attain forgetfulness of the story he had to tell. Knowing that Church wouldn’t give it a single moment’s serious consideration, he had lied the first time he was questioned.

  He told the Inspector that he had not gone into the curio room at all, but had opened the door and found Richards’ body just a moment before he called out. The Inspector accepted that for the moment, but an hour later he faced Woody again and told him that it was high time he thought up a nice fresh story that was nearer the truth.

  “Your fingerprints,” he stated flatly, “are on the inside knob of that door. You left the living room to follow Richards. You went in to the room after him. What happened?”

  The reporter looked across at Don Diavolo. “You promised me a story,” he said. “I got it. And I’m stuck with it. It’s another dithering impossible fairy tale. The Inspector isn’t going to believe one single solitary word of it. What do I do about that?”

  “You tell me anyway,” Church growled. “All of it. If you do anything else, you’ll get shipped down to a cell in the Tombs so fast you won’t know—”

  “And if I do tell you, I’ll go there even faster.” Woody was definitely unhappy. He shrugged helplessly.

  “When I ducked out into the hall,” he said, “Richards had disappeared. I knew he hadn’t gone up the main stairs because you can see the bottom steps from the living room and I had seen him go on past. There were two or three doors at the rear of the hall. One, I knew, led to the dining room. I tried a couple of the others. One opened on a sun room, another went back to the kitchens. Then, just outside those big double doors I heard someone inside talking. It was Richards’ voice. I put my ear against the door and listened.

  “It sounded interesting. He was mad and scared and he was saying, ‘He suspects I took that phone call. I know it. I don’t think he recognized me, but when he does he’ll take me down town and they’ll work over me like they did once before. I won’t stand that. You’re paying up now and I’m getting out before it’s too late.’ Then another voice spoke, a quiet voice. I couldn’t make out the words. Then Richards again, ‘No, it’s not enough, not half. You didn’t tell me there was murder in it. That comes higher.’”

  Woody stopped and asked, “Inspector, who was Richards?”

  “I’ve just heard from headquarters,” the Inspector said. “They had his prints on file. His name
was Parsons. He killed his wife back in ’30 and then managed to skip the rap by pleading insanity. He was committed to Matteawan. He was released as cured about a year ago. But get on with it. Richards was talking to the murderer. Who was it?”

  Woody shook his head. “I wish I could tell you, Inspector. But I can’t. The other voice was too low, just a mumble. It said something else and then … then that was all. It was too quiet in there. I put my hand on the door and pushed it open.”

  Woody’s audience stared at him, waiting, wondering what he had seen beyond that door. But the reporter hesitated.

  Church was impatient. “Well?” he asked grimly.

  Woody stared at the Inspector without seeing him. “I pushed the door open,” he said again. “Richards stood there before the Buddha statue. He saw me and he said, ‘Om vajra guru …” Woody Haines broke off in a confused way, shook his head and said, “No, I mean … That was later. I’ve seen so many damn fool impossibilities tonight. I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. He said—”

  Church broke in. “Who else was there with Richards?”

  “I was afraid you would ask that,” Haines said. “There wasn’t anyone else there. Richards said, ‘What do you want?’ and I asked him where his friend was. I figured he was hiding behind one of the exhibition cases. Richards never had a chance to answer. He died then, and — and I backed out and called you.”

  Woody had said Church wasn’t going to like the story. Church didn’t. He had half a dozen objections.

  The first one was, “I searched that room immediately. There are no other doors. There was no one there but you and Richards’ body! Are you crazy?”

  Helplessly Haines said, “Maybe I am.”

  Church didn’t care for that either. “No. You’re not going to put up an insanity defense. If you killed that man, I’m going to find out why and I’m going to—”

  Diavolo broke it up. “Skip it, Inspector,” he said. “Woody might make a mistake and sock somebody a little too hard, but he wouldn’t use a knife. How did he die, Woody? If you saw him stabbed, you should know—”

  “I do,” Woody replied slowly. “The knife killed him. There was no one else there. The knife—”

  “Do you mean it was thrown and you didn’t see who—” Church started.

  “It was worse than that, Inspector. No one threw the knife. I heard that Hindu’s words, the same ones he used when the poker moved and when he doubled up on us. Om vajra guru padma siddhi hum! They echoed in the air — but they didn’t come from anywhere. They were just there! And the yellow dagger moved!

  “It was lying on the glass top of an exhibition case twenty feet from Richards, behind and to his left. I saw it rise and float in the air!” Woody’s voice was strained and tense.

  “It pointed toward Richards. It moved toward him, slowly — then faster … faster.…

  “When it struck him he threw his arms above his head; his knees gave way; he staggered, and dropped, turning as he fell. I stood there for a moment without moving. I couldn’t believe it. Then, outside, I could hear your voice, asking where Richards was. I told you. And that’s that. I still don’t believe it. You can throw questions at me all night. You won’t get anything different.”

  The Inspector gave Woody Haines a long cold stare. Then, finally he turned to Don Diavolo. “That’s in your department,” he said. “There weren’t any mirrors in that room, or wires, or trapdoors. Could anything like that have happened?”

  Don, his eyes still on Woody said, “May I see the dagger?”

  Church turned to the detective at his elbow. “Get it,” he ordered, “and tell Brophy to search this house from top to bottom.” He faced the others again as the detective went out.

  “If Brophy doesn’t find anyone hidden in the house, Haines killed Richards. Everyone else has an unbreakable alibi. Even the servants. They were all together in the kitchen. Dr. Bent here was with Miss Allison in her room. Diavolo, Chan and Shivara were in the living room with Brophy. Nicholas Sayre was with me. No one has left this house since it happened. The burglar alarms are in good working order and if anyone as much as touches a window it sounds like a four-alarm fire.”

  The detective came back and laid a paper-wrapped object on the desk before the Inspector. The latter carefully folded it. “There aren’t any prints on it,” he said.

  Don Diavolo bent above it and then his eyes jerked up to meet the Inspector’s. “It’s the dagger Delaney described, isn’t it?” he asked.

  Church nodded. “Yeah. The dagger Delaney saw in Room 713. Haines, where were you at two-thirty this afternoon?”

  Woody didn’t get to answer that just then. Nicholas Sayre was leaning above the knife, staring wide-eyed at the long yellowish blade, at the dark stains that were on it now, at the raised design along the blade that depicted bearded Persian archers and a sacred bull, and at the strange, faint inscription of finely worked characters that ran like a border along the blade’s edge.

  Sayre stared and his hands trembled. But he said nothing.

  The Inspector’s voice snapped. “You know something about this knife. What is it?”

  Sayre turned without answering toward a globe of the world that stood in one corner of the library. He moved it until the continent of Asia appeared and then ran one excited finger down a median that cut across the Western corner of the red triangular patch that is India.

  Sayre started to speak just as Shivara’s words cut across the room, apparently calm as ever, but with a strong hint of an underlying excitement that was as deep as Sayre’s.

  “Tell him,” he said. “But you will be wise not to say too much. Mos gus yod na khyi so od tung.”

  The Inspector growled. “What was that last? Translate it!”

  Shivara bowed and, with a perfectly straight face, said, “Only the pure may advance along the Secret Path.”

  Church knew it was a dirty crack and he suspected that Shivara’s words had actually meant something far different, but there was not a lot he could do about it. The police stenographer who was transcribing the conversation in his notebook couldn’t even get the original statement on paper. He had never traveled any further toward the mystic many-tongued Orient than Hoboken, New Jersey.

  Then Sayre spoke, his eyes shining. “Perhaps VanRyn, before he died, did find it after all! Alexander’s treasure! Six hundred and fifty million dollars’ worth of the spoils from Susa and Persepolis. Art objects whose worth would be beyond price!”

  “Treasure!” Church jumped. “Six hundred and fifty million — Say what is this?”

  And Sayre, speaking rapidly, with mounting excitement told him. “This dagger is Persian. It dates before 331 B.C. when Alexander routed Darius at the battle of Arbela and marched on to take and loot Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis. He continued on across Turkestan and down into India through the Khyber Pass. Then, in 325, his soldiers balked. They wanted to go home to Macedonia.

  “They were laden with the spoils of war and the desert wastes of western India offered no chance to spend it. Alexander finally gave in. He built a fleet and sailed his army down the Indus River. But he had more loot, more gold and precious stones, than he could carry. He buried an incalculable treasure there in Bahawalpur, between the Indus and the Derawar desert. He never returned to claim it.”

  The Inspector was skeptical. “That was over two thousand years ago. If nobody found it in all that time how could you expect—”

  “No one has tried to get it, Inspector. At first the local ruler didn’t dig for it because he feared Alexander’s return and vengeance. Even after Alexander’s death succeeding rulers hesitated, partly because all the neighboring principalities demanded a cut. A thousand years passed and the great cache lingered only as a memory.

  “Then, in 878 A.D. Dira Sidh, Rajah of Uch, camped on the spot after a severe sandstorm. His camels were given salted water so that their thirst the next morning would make them fill up to capacity for a long desert trek. But one of them filled up durin
g the night from a cask of wine instead, got roaring drunk and, kicking around wildly, unearthed a wooden chest filled with gold.

  “The Rajah used that gold to build a fortress-mosque of forty bastions that you may see on the banks of the Indus today. And that, mind you, with the contents of but one chest.”

  “Why did he stop with one chest? What makes you think he didn’t dig up the rest and salt it away?”

  “The religion of Bahawalpur,” Sayre explained, “was then, as it is today, Mohammedan, and the illegal presence of that wine was a scandal in the eyes of Allah. The Rajah was convinced that a treasure hunt with such an impious beginning could have no good end. He kept his hands off.

  “Then, a highly important saint, Mukdam, known as the Second Adam, insisted on being buried smack over the site of most of the treasure. And, at once, every saintly minded Mohammedan for miles around wanted to be buried just as close to the Second Adam as possible. In India other things are of importance beside gold. That section of the desert is now called the ‘place of a million saints.’ To a Mohammedan it would be flying in the face of Providence to disturb that saintly stratum of bones.”

  The Inspector sniffed. “A two-thousand-year-old treasure with a curse on it! Why in the name of Allah can’t I get a nice restful murder once in a while instead of pipe-dreams like this?”

  “There was an ancient prophecy,” Sayre added, that said the gold would be dug up ‘when men shall fly in the air and the desert sands shall shake with the thunder of chariots pulled without horses, or camels, or bullocks.’ The Imperial Airways mailplanes and the Uch-Derawar bus have fulfilled that prophecy.

  “His Highness, the Nawab, Maharajah of Bahawalpur, cautiously tested the fulfillment of the prophecy and the potency of the curse in 1938 by allowing one of his subjects to try his luck. He let the man dig for a month, and then, since no lightning struck and no sudden death resulted, the Nawab decided to excavate on his own and in a big way. A Calcutta syndicate was formed and tractors and steam shovels were shipped up the Indus.” Sayre stopped.