The Scarab Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

“The Bliss butler… So I merely pushed the door open and entered the hallway. The steel entrance door to the museum, which is on the right of the hallway, is rarely locked, and I opened it. Just as I started to descend the stairs into the museum I saw some one lying in the opposite corner of the room. At first I thought it might be one of the mummy cases we’d unpacked yesterday—the light wasn’t very good—and then, as my eyes got adjusted, I realized it was Kyle. He was crumpled up, with his arms extended over his head… Even then I thought he had only fallen in a faint; and I started down the steps toward him.”

  He paused and passed his handkerchief—which he drew from his cuff—across his shining head.

  “By Jove, Vance!—it was a hideous sight. He’d been hit over the head with one of the new statues we placed in the museum yesterday, and his skull had been crushed in like an egg-shell. The statue still lay across his head.”

  “Did you touch anything?”

  “Good heavens, no!” Scarlett spoke with the emphasis of horror. “I was too ill—the thing was ghastly. And it didn’t take half an eye to see that the poor beggar was dead.”

  Vance studied the man closely.

  “I say, what was the first thing you did?”

  “I called out for Doctor Bliss—he has his study at the top of the little spiral stairs at the rear of the museum…”

  “And got no answer?”

  “No—no answer… Then—I admit—I got frightened. Didn’t like the idea of being found alone with a murdered man, and toddled back toward the front door. Had a notion I’d sneak out and not say I’d been there…”

  “Ah!” Vance leaned forward and carefully selected another cigarette. “And then, when you were again in the street, you fell to worryin’.”

  “That’s it precisely! It didn’t seem cricket to leave the poor devil there—and still I didn’t want to become involved… I was now walking up Fourth Avenue threshing the thing out with myself and bumping against people without seeing ’em. And I happened to think of you. I knew you were acquainted with Doctor Bliss and the outfit, and could give me good advice. And another thing, I felt a little strange in a new country—I wasn’t just sure how to go about reporting the matter… So I hurried along to your flat here.” He stopped abruptly and watched Vance eagerly. “What’s the procedure?”

  Vance stretched his long legs before him and lazily contemplated the end of his cigarette.

  “I’ll take over the procedure,” he replied at length. “It’s not so dashed complicated, and it varies according to circumstances. One may call the police station, or stick one’s head out of the window and scream, or confide in a traffic officer, or simply ignore the corpse and wait for some one else to stumble on it. It amounts to the same thing in the end—the murderer is almost sure to get safely away… However, in the present case I’ll vary the system a bit by telephoning to the Criminal Courts Building.”

  He turned to the mother-of-pearl French telephone on the Venetian tabouret at his side, and asked for a number. A few moments later he was speaking to the District Attorney.

  “Greetings, Markham old dear. Beastly weather, what?” His voice was too indolent to be entirely convincing. “By the by, Benjamin H. Kyle has passed to his Maker by foul means. He’s at present lying on the floor of the Bliss Museum with a badly fractured skull… Oh, yes—quite dead, I understand. Are you interested, by any chance? Thought I’d be unfriendly and notify you… Sad—sad… I’m about to make a few observations in situ criminis … Tut, tut! This is no time for reproaches. Don’t be so deuced serious… Really, I think you’d better come along… Right-o! I’ll await you here.”

  He replaced the receiver on the bracket and again settled back in his chair.

  “The District Attorney will be along anon,” he announced, “and we’ll probably have time for a few observations before the police arrive.”

  His eyes shifted dreamily to Scarlett.

  “Yes…as you say…I’m acquainted with the Bliss outfit. Fascinatin’ possibilities in the affair: it may prove most entertainin’…” (I knew by his expression that his mind was contemplating—not without a certain degree of anticipatory interest—a new criminal problem.) “So, the front door was ajar, eh? And when you called out no one answered?”

  Scarlett nodded but made no audible reply. He was obviously puzzled by Vance’s casual reception of his appalling recital.

  “Where were the servants? Couldn’t they have heard you call?”

  “Not likely. They’re in the other side of the house—downstairs. The only person who could have heard me was Doctor Bliss—provided he’d been in his study.”

  “You could have rung the front door-bell, or summoned some one from the main hall,” Vance suggested.

  Scarlett shifted in his chair uneasily.

  “Quite true,” he admitted. “But—dash it all, old man!—I was in a funk…”

  “Yes, yes—of course. Most natural. Prima-facie evidence and all that. Very suspicious, eh what? Still, you had no reason for wanting the old codger out of the way, had you?”

  “Oh, my God, no!” Scarlett went pale. “He footed the bills. Without his support the Bliss excavations and the museum itself would go by the board.”

  Vance nodded.

  “Bliss told me of the situation when I was in Egypt… Didn’t Kyle own the property in which the museum is situated?”

  “Yes—both houses. You see, there are two of ’em. Bliss and his family and young Salveter—Kyle’s nephew—live in one, and the museum occupies the other. Two doors have been cut through, and the museum-house entrance has been bricked up. So it’s practically one establishment.”

  “And where did Kyle live?”

  “In the brownstone house next to the museum. He owned a block of six or seven adjoining houses along the street.”

  Vance rose and walked meditatively to the window.

  “Do you know how Kyle became interested in Egyptology? It was rather out of his line. His weakness was for hospitals and those unspeakable English portraits of the Gainsborough school. He was one of the bidders for the Blue Boy. Luckily for him, he didn’t get it.”

  “It was young Salveter who wangled his uncle into financing Bliss. The lad was a pupil of Bliss’s when the latter was instructor of Egyptology at Harvard. When he was graduated he was at a loose end, and old Kyle financed the expedition to give the lad something to do. Very fond of his nephew, was old Kyle.”

  “And Salveter’s been with Bliss ever since?”

  “Very much so. To the extent of living in the same house with him. Hasn’t left his side since their first visit to Egypt three years ago. Bliss made him Assistant Curator of the Museum. He deserved the post, too. A bright boy—lives and eats Egyptology.”

  Vance returned to the table and rang for Currie.

  “The situation has possibilities,” he remarked, in his habitual drawl… “By the by, what other members of the Bliss ménage are there?”

  “There’s Mrs. Bliss—you met her in Cairo—a strange girl, half Egyptian, much younger than Bliss. And then there’s Hani, an Egyptian, whom Bliss brought back with him—or, rather, whom Mrs. Bliss brought back with her. Hani was an old dependent of Meryt’s father…”

  “Meryt?”

  Scarlett blinked and looked ill at ease.

  “I meant Mrs. Bliss,” he explained. “Her given name is Meryt-Amen. In Egypt, you see, it’s customary to think of a lady by her native name.”

  “Oh, quite.” A slight smile flickered at the corner of Vance’s mouth. “And what position does this Hani occupy in the household?”

  Scarlett pursed his lips.

  “A somewhat anomalous one, if you ask me. Fellahîn stock—a Coptic Christian of sorts. He accompanied old Abercrombie—Meryt’s father—on his various tours of exploration. When Abercrombie died, he acted as a kind of foster-father to Meryt. He was attached to the Bliss expedition this spring in some minor capacity as a representative of the Egyptian Government. He’s a sort of high-cla
ss handy-man about the museum. Knows a lot of Egyptology, too.”

  “Does he hold any official post with the Egyptian Government now?”

  “That I don’t know…though I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s doing a bit of patriotic spying. You never can tell about these chaps.”

  “And do these persons complete the household?”

  “There are two American servants—Brush, the butler, and Dingle, the cook.”

  Currie entered the room at this moment.

  “Oh, I say, Currie,” Vance addressed him; “an eminent gentleman has just been murdered in the neighborhood, and I am going to view the body. Lay out a dark gray suit and my Bangkok. A sombre tie, of course… And, Currie—the Amontillado first.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Currie received the news as if murders were everyday events in his life, and went out.

  “Do you know any reason, Scarlett,” Vance asked, “why Kyle should have been put out of the way?”

  The other hesitated almost imperceptibly.

  “Can’t imagine,” he said, knitting his brows. “He was a kindly, generous old fellow—pompous and rather vain, but eminently likable. I’m not acquainted with his private life, though. He may have had enemies…”

  “Still,” suggested Vance, “it’s not exactly likely that an enemy would have followed him to the museum and wreaked vengeance on him in a strange place, when any one might have walked in.”

  Scarlett sat up abruptly.

  “But you’re not implying that any one in the house—”

  “My dear fellow!”

  Currie entered the room at this moment with the sherry, and Vance poured out three glasses. When we had drunk the wine he excused himself to dress. Scarlett paced up and down restlessly during the quarter of an hour Vance was absent. He had discarded his cigarette and lighted an old briar pipe which had a most atrocious smell.

  Almost at the moment when Vance returned to the library an automobile horn sounded raucously outside. Markham was below waiting for us.

  As we walked toward the door Vance asked Scarlett:

  “Was it custom’ry for Kyle to be in the museum at this hour of the morning?”

  “No, most unusual. But Doctor Bliss had made an appointment with him for this morning, to discuss the expenditures of the last expedition and the possibilities of continuing the excavations next season.”

  “You knew of this appointment?” Vance asked indifferently.

  “Oh, yes. Doctor Bliss called him by phone last night during the conference, when we were assembling the report.”

  “Well, well.” Vance passed out into the hall. “So there were others who also knew that Kyle would be at the museum this morning.”

  Scarlett halted and looked startled.

  “Really, you’re not intimating—” he began.

  “Who heard the appointment made?” Vance was already descending the stairs.

  Scarlett followed him with puzzled, downcast eyes.

  “Well, let me see… There was Salveter, and Hani, and…”

  “Pray, don’t hesitate.”

  “And Mrs. Bliss.”

  “Every one in the household, then, but Brush and Dingle?”

  “Yes… But see here, Vance; the appointment was for eleven o’clock; and the poor old duffer was done in before half past ten.”

  “That’s most inveiglin’,” Vance murmured.

  Footnotes

  *Doctor Mindrum W.C. Bliss, M.A., A.O.S.S., F.S.A., F.R.S., Hon. Mem. R.A.S., was the author of “The Stele of Intefoe at Koptos”; a “History of Egypt during the Hyksos Invasion”; “The Seventeenth Dynasty”; and a monograph on the Amenhotep III Colossi.

  *According to the Bliss-Weigall chronology the period between the death of Sebk-nefru-Rê and the overthrow of the Shepherd Kings at Memphis was from 1898 to 1577 B.C.—to wit: 321 years—as against the 1800 years claimed by the upholders of the longer chronology. This short chronology is even shorter according to Breasted and the German school. Breasted and Meyer dated the same period as from 1788 to 1580. These 208 years, by the way, Vance considered too short for the observable cultural changes.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Vengeance of Sakhmet

  (Friday, July 13; 11.30 a.m.)

  MARKHAM GREETED VANCE with a look of sour reproach.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded tartly. “I was in the midst of an important committee meeting—”

  “The meaning is still to be ascertained,” Vance interrupted lightly, stepping into the car. “The cause of your ungracious presence, however, is a most fascinatin’ murder.”

  Markham shot him a shrewd look, and gave orders to the chauffeur to drive with all possible haste to the Bliss Museum. He recognized the symptoms of Vance’s perturbation: a frivolous outward attitude on Vance’s part was always indicative of an inner seriousness.

  Markham and he had been friends for fifteen years, and Vance had aided him in many of his investigations. In fact, he had come to depend on Vance’s assistance in the more complicated criminal cases that came under his jurisdiction.*

  It would be difficult to find two men so diametrically opposed to each other temperamentally. Markham was stern, aggressive, straightforward, grave, and a trifle ponderous. Vance was debonair, whimsical, and superficially cynical—an amateur of the arts, and with only an impersonal concern in serious social and moral problems. But this very disparateness in their natures seemed to bind them together.

  On our way to the museum, a few blocks distant, Scarlett recounted briefly to the District Attorney the details of his macabre discovery.

  Markham listened attentively. Then he turned to Vance.

  “Of course, it may be just an act of thuggery—some one from the street…”

  “Oh, my aunt!” Vance sighed and shook his head lugubriously. “Really, y’know, thugs don’t enter conspicuous private houses in broad daylight and rap persons over the head with statues. They at least bring their own weapons and choose mises-en-scène which offer some degree of safety.”

  “Well, anyway,” Markham grumbled, “I’ve notified Sergeant Heath.† He’ll be along presently.”

  At the corner of Twentieth Street and Fourth Avenue he halted the car. A uniformed patrolman who stood before a call-box, on recognizing the District Attorney, came to attention and saluted.

  “Hop in the front seat, officer,” Markham ordered. “We may need you.”

  When we reached the museum Markham stationed the officer at the foot of the steps leading to the double front door; and we at once ascended to the vestibule.

  I made a casual mental note of the two houses, which Scarlett had already briefly described to us. Each had a twenty-five-foot frontage, and was constructed of large flat blocks of brownstone. The house on the right had no entrance—it had obviously been walled up. Nor were there any windows on the areaway level. The house on the left, however, had not been altered. It was three stories high; and a broad flight of stone stairs, with high stone banisters, led to the first floor. The “basement,” as was usual in such structures, was a little below the street level. The two houses had at one time been exactly alike, and now, with the alterations and the one entrance, gave the impression of being a single establishment.

  As we entered the shallow vestibule—a characteristic of all the old brownstone mansions along the street—I noticed that the heavy oak entrance door, which Scarlett had said was ajar earlier in the morning, was now closed. Vance, too, remarked the fact, for he at once turned to Scarlett and asked:

  “Did you close the door when you left the house?”

  Scarlett looked seriously at the massive panels, as if trying to recall his actions.

  “Really, old man, I can’t remember,” he answered. “I was devilishly upset. I may have shut the door…”

  Vance tried the knob, and the door opened.

  “Well, well. The latch has been set anyway. Very careless on some one’s part… Is that usual?”

  Scarlet
t looked astonished.

  “Never knew it to be unlatched.”

  Vance held up his hand, indicating that we were to remain in the vestibule, and stepped quietly inside to the steel door on the right leading into the museum. We could see him open it gingerly but could not distinguish what was beyond. He disappeared for a moment.

  “Oh, Kyle’s quite dead,” he announced sombrely on his return. “And apparently no one has discovered him yet.” He cautiously reclosed the front door. “We sha’n’t take advantage of the latch being set,” he added. “We’ll abide by the conventions and see who answers.” Then he pressed the bell-button.

  A few moments later the door was opened by a cadaverous, chlorotic man in butler’s livery. He bowed perfunctorily to Scarlett, and coldly inspected the rest of us.

  “Brush, I believe.” It was Vance who spoke.

  The man bowed slightly without taking his eyes off of us.

  “Is Doctor Bliss in?” Vance asked.

  Brush shifted his gaze interrogatively to Scarlett. Receiving an assuring nod, he opened the door a little wider.

  “Yes, sir,” he answered. “He’s in his study. Who shall I say is calling?”

  “You needn’t disturb him, Brush.”

  Vance stepped into the entrance hall, and we followed him. “Has the doctor been in his study all morning?”

  The butler drew himself up and attempted to reprove Vance with a look of haughty indignation.

  Vance smiled, not unkindly.

  “Your manner is quite correct, Brush. But we’re not wanting lessons in etiquette. This is Mr. Markham, the District Attorney of New York; and we’re here for information. Do you care to give it voluntarily?”

  The man had caught sight of the uniformed officer at the foot of the stone steps, and his face paled.

  “You’ll be doing the doctor a favor by answering,” Scarlett put in.

  “Doctor Bliss has been in his study since nine o’clock,” the butler replied, in a tone of injured dignity.

  “How can you be sure of that fact?” Vance asked.

  “I brought him his breakfast there; and I’ve been on this floor ever since.”