“Sweet sympathetic laddie,” grinned Vance.
With the removal of Kyle’s body a pall seemed to lift from the museum. But there was still that pool of blood and the recumbent statue of Sakhmet to tell the terrible story of the tragedy.
Heath stood eyeing the huddled, silent figure of Doctor Bliss.
“Where do we go from here?” His question contained both disgust and resignation.
Markham was growing restless and, beckoning Vance to one side, spoke to him in low tones. I could not hear what was said; but Vance talked earnestly to the District Attorney for several minutes. Markham listened attentively and then shrugged his shoulders.
“Very well,” he answered, as they strolled back toward us. “But unless you reach some conclusion pretty soon we’ll have to take action…”
“Action—oh, my aunt!” Vance sighed deeply. “Always action—always pyrotechnics. The Rotarian ideal! Get busy—stir things up. Efficiency!… Why do the powers of justice have to emulate the whirling dervish? The human brain, after all, has certain functions.”
He paced slowly back and forth in front of the cabinets, his eyes on the floor, while the rest of us watched him. Even Doctor Bliss roused himself and gazed at him with a curious and hopeful expression.
“None of these clews ring true, Markham,” Vance said. “There’s something here that doesn’t meet the eye. It’s like a cypher that says one thing and means another. I tell you the obvious explanation is the wrong one… There’s a key to this affair—somewhere. And it’s staring us in the face…yet we can’t see it.”
He was deeply perplexed and dissatisfied, and he walked to and fro with that quiet, disguised alertness which I had long since come to recognize.
Suddenly he halted in front of the pool of blood before the end cabinet, and bent over. He studied it for a moment, and then his eyes moved to the cabinet. Slowly his gaze ascended the partly drawn curtain and came to rest on the beaded wooden ledge above the curtain rod. After a while his eyes drifted back to the pool of blood, and I got the impression that he was measuring distances and trying to determine the exact relationship between the blood, the cabinet, the curtain, and the moulding along the top of the shelves.
Presently he straightened up and stood very close to the curtain, his back to us.
“Really, now, that’s most interestin’,” he murmured. “I wonder…”
He turned, and, drawing up one of the folding wooden chairs, placed it directly in front of the cabinet on the exact spot where Kyle’s head had lain. Then he mounted the chair, and stood for a considerable time inspecting the top of the cabinet.
“My word! Extr’ordin’ry!” His voice was barely audible.
Taking out his monocle, he placed it in his eye. Then his hand reached out over the edge of the cabinet, and he picked up something very near to where Hani said he had placed the small statue of Sakhmet. Just what it was none of us could see; but presently he slipped the object into his coat pocket. A moment later he descended from the chair and faced Markham with a grim, satisfied look.
“This murder has amazin’ possibilities,” he observed.
Before he could explain his cryptic remark Hennessey again appeared at the head of the stairs and called out to Sergeant Heath:
“There’s a guy here named Salveter who says he wants to see Doc Bliss.”
“Ah—bon!” Vance, for some reason, seemed highly pleased. “Suppose we have him in, Sergeant.”
“Oh, sure!” Heath made an elaborate grimace of boredom. “O.K., Hennessey. Show in the gent. The more the merrier… What is this, anyway?” he groused. “A convention?”
Young Salveter walked down the stairs and approached us with a startled, questioning air. He gave Scarlett a curt, cold nod; then he caught sight of Vance.
“How do you do?” he said, obviously surprised at Vance’s presence. “It’s been a long time since I saw you…in Egypt… What’s all the excitement about? Have we been invested by the military?” His pleasantry did not ring true.
Salveter was an earnest, aggressive-looking man of about thirty, with sandy hair, wide-set gray eyes, a small nose, and a thin, tight mouth. He was of medium height, stockily built, and might have been an athlete in his college days. He was dressed simply in a tweed suit that did not fit him, and the polka-dot tie in his soft-shirt collar was askew. I doubt if his cordovan blucher oxfords had ever been polished. My first instinct was to like him. The impression he gave was that of boyish frankness; but there was a quality in his make-up,—I could not analyze it at the time,—that signalled to one to be wary and not attempt to force an issue against his stubbornness.
As he spoke to Vance his eyes shifted with intense curiosity about the room, as if he were looking for something amiss.
Vance, who had been watching him appraisingly, answered after a slight pause in a tone that struck me as unnecessarily devoid of sympathy.
“No, it’s not the milit’ry, Mr. Salveter. It’s the police. The fact is, your uncle is dead—he has been murdered.”
“Uncle Ben!” Salveter appeared stunned by the news; but presently an angry scowl settled on his forehead. “So—that’s it!” He drew in his head and squinted pugnaciously at Doctor Bliss. “He had an appointment with you this morning, sir… When—and how—did it happen?”
It was Vance, however, who made reply.
“Your uncle, Mr. Salveter, was struck over the head with that statue of Sakhmet, about ten o’clock. Mr. Scarlett found the body here at the foot of Anûbis, and notified me. I, in turn, notified the District Attorney… This, by the by, is Mr. Markham—and this is Sergeant Heath of the Homicide Bureau.”
Salveter scarcely glanced in their direction.
“A damned outrage!” he muttered, setting his square, heavy jaw.
“An outrage—yes!” Bliss lifted his head, and his eyes, pitifully discouraged, met Salveter’s. “It means the end of all our excavations, my boy—”
“Excavations!” Salveter continued to study the older man. “What do they matter? I want to lay my hands on the dog who did this thing.” He swung about aggressively and faced Markham. “What can I do, sir, to help you?” His eyes were mere slits—he was like a dangerous wild beast waiting to pounce.
“Too much energy, Mr. Salveter,” Vance drawled, sitting down indolently. “Far too much energy. I can apprehend exactly how you feel, don’t y’know. But aggressiveness, while bein’ a virtue in some circumstances, is really quite futile in the present situation… I say; why not walk round the block vigorously a couple of times, and then return to us? We crave a bit of polite intercourse with you, but calmness and self-control are most necess’ry.”
Salveter glared ferociously at Vance, who met his gaze with languid coldness; and for fully thirty seconds there was an unflinching ocular clash between them. But I have seen other men attempt to stare Vance out of countenance—without the least success. His quiet power and strength of character were colossal, and I would wish no one the task of outgazing him.
Finally Salveter shrugged his broad shoulders. A slight, compromising grin flickered along his set mouth.
“I’ll pass up the promenade,” he said, with admiring sheepishness. “Fire away.”
Vance took a deep inhalation on his cigarette, and let his eyes wander lazily along the great frieze of Pen-ta-Weret’s Rhapsody.
“What time did you leave the house this morning, Mr. Salveter?”
“About half past nine.” Salveter was now standing relaxed, his hands in his coat pockets. All of his aggressiveness was gone, and, though he watched Vance closely, there was neither animosity nor tenseness in his manner.
“And you did not, by any chance, leave the front door unlatched—or open?”
“No!… Why should I?”
“Really, y’know, I couldn’t say.” Vance conferred on him a disarming smile. “A more or less vital question, however. Mr. Scarlett, d’ye see, found the door open when he arrived between ten and ten-thirty.”
“Well, I didn’t leave it that way… What next?”
“You went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I understand.”
“Yes. I went to inquire about some reproductions of the tomb furniture of Hotpeheres.”
“And you got the information?”
“I did.”
Vance looked at his watch.
“Twenty-five after one,” he read. “That means you have been absent about four hours. Did you, by any hap, walk to Eighty-second Street and back?”
Salveter clamped his teeth tight for a moment, and stared antagonistically at Vance’s nonchalant figure.
“I didn’t walk either way, thank you.” (I could not determine whether he was merely exerting great self-control or whether he was actually frightened.) “I took a ’bus up the Avenue, and came back in a taxi.”
“Let us say one hour coming and going, then. That allowed you three hours to obtain your information, eh, what?”
“Mathematically correct.” Again Salveter grinned savagely. “But it happened I dropped into the rooms on the right of the entrance to take a look at Per-nêb’s Tomb. I’d heard recently that they’d added some objects to their collection of the contents of the burial-chamber… Per-nêb, you see, was Fifth Dynasty—”
“Yes, yes… And as Khufu, Hetep-hir-es’ offspring, belonged to the preceding dynasty, you were æsthetically interested in the burial-chamber contents. Quite natural… And how long did you prowl and commune among the Per-nêb fragments?”
“See here, Mr. Vance”—Salveter was growing apprehensive—“I don’t know what you’re trying to get at; but if it’s going to help you in your investigation of Uncle Ben’s death, I’ll take your gaff… I hung around the cabinets in the Egyptian rooms for nearly an hour. Got interested and didn’t hurry—I knew Uncle Ben had an appointment with Doctor Bliss this morning, and I figured that if I got back at lunch time it would be all right.”
“But you didn’t get back at lunch time,” Vance remarked.
“What if I didn’t? I had to cool my feet for nearly an hour in the Curator’s outer office after I went up-stairs—Mr. Lythgoe was talking with Lindsley Hall about some drawings. And then I had to hang around another half hour or so while he was phoning to Doctor Reisner at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. I’m lucky to be back now.”
“Quite… I know how those things are. Very tryin’.”
Vance apparently accepted his story without question. He rose lazily and drew a small note-book from his pocket, at the same time feeling in his waistcoat as if for something with which to write.
“Sorry and all that, Mr. Salveter; but could you lend me a pencil? Mine seems to have disappeared.”
(I immediately became interested, for I knew Vance never carried a pencil but invariably used a small gold fountain-pen which he always wore on his watch-chain.)
“Delighted.” Salveter reached in his pocket and held out a long hexagonal yellow pencil.
Vance took it and made several notations in his book. Then, as he was about to return the pencil, he paused and looked at the name printed on it.
“Ah, a Mongol No. 1, what?” he said. “Popular pencils, these Fabers-482… Do you always use them?”
“Never anything else…”
“Thanks awfully.” Vance returned the pencil, and dropped the note-book into his pocket. “And now, Mr. Salveter, I’d appreciate it if you’d go to the drawing-room and wait for us. We’ll want to question you again… Mrs. Bliss, by the by, is there,” he added casually.
Salveter’s eyelids dropped perceptibly, and he gave Vance a swift sidelong glance.
“Oh, is she? Thanks… I’ll wait for you in the drawing-room.” He went up to Bliss. “I’m frightfully sorry, sir,” he said. “I know what this means to you…” He was going to add something but halted himself. Then he walked doggedly toward the front door.
He was half-way up the stairs when Vance, who now stood regarding the statue of Sakhmet meditatively, suddenly turned and called to him.
“Oh, I say, Mr. Salveter. Tell Hani we’d like to see him here—there’s a good fellow.”
Salveter made a gesture of assent, and passed through the great steel door without looking back.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Finger-Prints
(Friday, July 13; 1.30 p.m.)
HANI JOINED US a few moments later.
“I am at your service, gentlemen,” he announced, looking from one to the other of us superciliously.
Vance had already drawn up a second chair beside the one on which he had stood during his inspection of the top of the cabinet; and he now made a beckoning gesture to the Egyptian.
“We appreciate your passionate spirit of co-operation, Hani,” he replied lightly. “Would you be so amiable as to stand on this chair and point out to me exactly where you set the statue of Sakhmet yesterday?”
I was watching Hani closely, and I could have sworn that his eyebrows contracted slightly. But there was almost no hesitation in his compliance with Vance’s request. Making a slow, deep bow, he approached the cabinet.
“Don’t put your hands on the woodwork,” Vance admonished. “And don’t touch the curtain.”
Awkwardly, because of his long flowing kaftan, Hani mounted one of the chairs; and Vance stepped upon the seat of the other.
The Egyptian squinted for a moment at the top of the cabinet, and then pointed a bony finger to a spot near the edge, exactly half-way across the two-and-a-half-foot opening.
“Just here, effendi,” he said. “If you look closely you can see where the base of Sakhmet disturbed the dust…”
“Oh, quite.” Vance, though in an attitude of concentration, was nevertheless studying Hani’s face. “But if one looks even more closely one can see other disturbances in the dust.”
“The wind, perhaps, from yonder window…”
Vance chuckled.
“Blasen ist nicht flöten, ihr müsst die Finger bewegen—to quote Goethe figuratively… Your explanation, Hani, is a bit too poetic.” He indicated a point near the moulding at the edge of the cabinet. “I doubt if even your simoon—or, as you may prefer to call it, samûm* —could have made that scratch at the edge of the statue’s base, what?… Or, it may be, you set down the statue with undue violence.”
“It is possible, of course—though not likely.”
“No, not likely—considerin’ your superstitious reverence for the leonine lady.” Vance descended from his perch. “However, Sakhmet seems to have been standing on the very edge of the cabinet, directly in the centre, when Mr. Kyle arrived this morning to inspect the new treasures.”
We had all been watching him with curiosity. Heath and Markham were especially interested, and Scarlett—frowning and immobile—had not taken his eyes from Vance. Even Bliss, who had seemed utterly broken by the tragedy and in a state of complete hopelessness, had followed the episode with intentness. That Vance had discovered something of importance was evident. I knew him too well to underestimate his persistence, and I waited, with a sense of inner excitation, for the time when he would share his new knowledge with us.
Markham, however, voiced his impatience.
“What have you in mind, Vance?” he asked irritably. “This is hardly the time to be secretive and dramatic.”
“I’m merely delving into the subtler possibilities of this inveiglin’ case,” he replied, in an offhand manner. “I’m a complex soul, Markham old dear. I don’t, alas! possess a simple, forthright nature. I’m a sworn enemy of the obvious and the trite… You remember what the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist?—‘Things are not what they seem.’ ”
Markham had long since come to understand this kind of evasive garrulousness on Vance’s part, and no further question was asked. Moreover, there was an interruption at this moment, which was to place an even more complicated and more sinister aspect on the entire case.
The front door was opened by Hennessey, and Captain Dubois and Detective Bellamy, the finger-print experts, clattere
d down the stairs.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Sergeant,” Dubois said, shaking hands with Heath; “but I was tied up with a safe-breaking job on Fulton Street.” He looked about him. “How d’ye do, Mr. Markham?” He extended his hand to the District Attorney… “And Mr. Vance, is it?” Dubois spoke civilly but without enthusiasm: I believe his tiff with Vance during the “Canary” murder case still rankled in him.
“There ain’t much of a job for you here, Captain,” Heath interrupted impatiently. “The only thing I want you to check up on is that black statue laying there.”
Dubois at once became seriously professional.
“That won’t take long,” he muttered, bending over the diorite figure of Sakhmet. “What might it be, Sergeant?—one of those Futuristic works of art that don’t mean anything?”
“It don’t mean anything to me,” the Sergeant growled, “unless you can find some nice identifiable prints on it.”
Dubois grunted and snapped his fingers toward his assistant. Bellamy, who had stood imperturbably in the background during the exchange of greetings, came ponderously forward and opened a black hand-bag which he had brought with him. Dubois, using a large handkerchief and the palms of his hands, carefully lifted the statue and placed it upright on the seat of a chair. Then he reached in the hand-bag and took out an insufflator, or tiny hand-bellows, and puffed a fine pale-saffron powder over the entire figure. Following this operation, he gently blew away all the surplus powder, and fixing a jeweller’s-glass in his eye, knelt down and made a close inspection of every part of the statue.
Hani had watched the performance with the keenest interest. He had slowly moved toward the finger-print men until now he stood within a few feet of them. His eyes were concentrated on their labors, and his hands, which hung at his sides, were tightly flexed.
“You’ll find no finger-prints of mine on Sakhmet, gentlemen,” he proclaimed in a low, tense voice. “I polished them off… Nor will there be any finger-prints to guide you. The Goddess of Vengeance strikes of her own volition and power, and no human hands are needed to assist her in her acts of justice.”
The Scarab Murder Case Page 7