The Egyptian Cross Mystery

1. Christmas in Arroyo

It began in West Virginia, at the junction of two roads half a mile out of the little village of Arroyo. One was the main road from New Cumberland to Pughtown, the other a branch leading to Arroyo.

The geography, Ellery Queen saw at once, was important. He saw many other things in that first glance, too, and felt only confusion at the contradictory nature of the evidence. Nothing matched. It was necessary to stand off and think.

How Ellery Queen, a cosmopolite, happened to be standing beside a battered old Duesenberg racing car in the muddy cold of the West Virginia panhandle at two o’clock post meridiem of a late December day requires explanation. So many factors contrived to bring about this extraordinary phenomenon! One — the primary one — was a busman’s holiday instigated by Inspector Queen, Ellery’s father. The old man was knee-deep in what might be termed a policemen’s convention; affairs in Chicago as usual were wretched, and the Commissioner had invited prominent police officials from major cities to lament with him the deplorable lawlessness in his bailiwick.

It was while the Inspector, in rare fettle, was scurrying from his hotel to Chicago’s police headquarters that Ellery, who had accompanied him, learned of the puzzling crime near Arroyo — a crime which the United Press piquantly dubbed “The T Murder.” There were so many elements of the newspaper accounts which titillated Ellery — the fact, for example, that Andrew Van had been beheaded and crucified on Christmas morning! — that he peremptorily yanked his father from the smoky Chicago conferences and headed the Duesenberg — a second-hand relic capable of incredible speed — eastwards.

The Inspector, although a dutiful father, immediately surrendered his good humor, as might have been expected; and all the way from Chicago — through Toledo, through Sandusky, through Cleveland, Ravenna, Lisbon, a host of Illinois and Ohio towns, until they came to Chester, West Virginia — the old man maintained a threatening silence, punctuated by Ellery’s sly monologues and the roar of the Duesenberg’s exhaust.

They were through Arroyo before they realized they had been in it; a tiny place of some two hundred souls. And... the junction.

The signpost with its crossbar at the top was visible in stark silhouette for some distance before the car rolled to a stop. For the Arroyo road ended there, meeting the New Cumberland-Pughtown highway at right angles. The signpost therefore faced the exit of the Arroyo pike, one arm pointing northeast to Pughtown, the other southwest to New Cumberland.

The Inspector growled: “Go on. Make a fool of yourself. Of all the dumb poppycock! Hauling me down here... just another crazy murder... I won’t be—”

Ellery switched off the ignition key and strode forward. The road was deserted. Touching the steel sky above posed the mountains of West Virginia. Underfoot the dirt was cracked and stiff. It was sharply cold, and a keen wind blew the tails of Ellery’s overcoat about. And ahead stood the signpost upon which Andrew Van, eccentric schoolmaster of Arroyo, had been crucified.