The Egyptian Cross Mystery
- Автор: Куин (Квин) Эллери
- Серия: Ellery Queen #5
- Год: 1932
- Язык: английский
- Год: Frederick A. Stokes Company
- Жанр: Классические детективы
Электронная книга - «The Egyptian Cross Mystery». Краткое содержание книги:
“Looks that way,” muttered the Inspector. “We’ll have to do something about that right away... Here he comes.”
Old Ketcham reappeared, his face red with perspiration, triumphantly waving a dirty, much-fingermarked sheet of paper.
“This here letter now,” he said, “it come from this Krosac. Y’can see fer y’rselves.”
Vaughn snatched it from him, and Ellery and Isham examined it over his shoulder. It was a typewritten communication on a sheet of undistinguished stationery, dated October thirtieth of the previous year. It was answering, it said, an advertisement in a New York newspaper offering Oyster Island for summer rental. The writer was enclosing, the letter said, a money order for one hundred dollars as a binder until occupancy should be taken, which would be on March first following. The letter was signed — in type — Velja Krosac.
“The money order was enclosed, Mr. Ketcham?” said Vaughn quickly.
“Sure was.”
“Good,” exclaimed Isham, rubbing his hands. “We’ll trace it and get hold of the slip Krosac must have made out in whatever post office he sent it from. It will bear his signature, and that’ll be plenty.”
“I’m afraid,” drawled Ellery, “that if Mr. Velja Krosac, our esteemed and slippery quarry, is as canny as his activity to date indicates, you’ll find the money-order application made out by friend Harakht. There were no samples of Krosac’s handwriting to be found in the Van investigation, remember.”
“Did this man Krosac appear in person on March first?” asked the District Attorney.
“Noss’r. Nob’dy o’ that name ever did come, but the ol’ banshee back yonder — Har — Harakht’s his name? — he come, an’ the feller who come with him, Romaine, they paid over th’ balance o’ the rent in cash an’ took occup’ncy.”
By mutual consent Vaughn and Isham dropped the Krosac line of inquiry. Obviously this old character could contribute nothing more in that direction. The Inspector slipped the letter into his pocket, and began to ask questions concerning the Brad-Harakht quarrel. He discovered that from the beginning, when it was evident that the cult was really a colony of nudists, Brad had come to the Island personally to voice the joint objection of the mainland community. Harakht, it appeared, had been impervious to cajolery or threats; and Romaine had bared his teeth. Brad, in desperation, had offered to reimburse them many times over; he had named a preposterous sum for their lease.
“Who signed the lease, incidentally?” asked Isham.
“The ol’ polecat,” replied Ketcham.
Harakht and Romaine had refused Brad’s offer. Then Brad had threatened legal action on the ground that the two men were maintaining a public nuisance. Romaine had retorted that they were harming no one, that the Island was off the public highways, that for the duration of their lease it virtually belonged to them. Whereupon Brad had endeavored to persuade Ketcham to oust them by legal action on the same ground.
“But they weren’t hurtin’ me an’ Mrs. Ketcham none,” said the old man. “Mr. Brad offered to give me a thousand dollars ef I’d do it. No, sir, says I, not ol’ man Ketcham; no lawsuits fer ol’ man Ketcham.”
The last quarrel, and the most violent, had taken place just three days before, continued Ketcham — on Sunday. Brad had sailed across the waters of the Cove like Troy-bound Menelaus, had met Stryker in the woods, and they had had a fierce battle of words, in the course of which the little brown-bearded man went into a frenzy. “Thought he’d throw a fit, I did,” remarked Ketcham placidly. “This feller Romaine — pow’rful brute, he is — he mixes in an’ orders Mr. Brad offen the Island. Me, I’m watchin’ from the woods; none o’ my business, ’twa’nt. So Mr. Brad, he won’t go, an’ Romaine, he grabs Mr. Brad by th’ neck an’ he says: ‘Now, git, damn ye, or I’ll wallop the everlastin’ daylights outa ye till yer own mother wouldn’t know ye!’ an’ Mr. Brad, he gits, yellin’ that he’d git even with ’em ef it took every cent he had.”
Isham rubbed his hands again. “Good man, Mr. Ketcham. Wish there were more like you around here. Tell me — did any one else from the mainland ever have a run-in with Harakht and Romaine?”
“Betcha.” Old Ketcham looked gratified, and smiled cunningly. “That feller Jonah Lincoln — lives at Bradwood. Had a fist fight with Romaine last week, right here on this Island.” He smacked his leathery lips. “Man, that was a battle! Reg’lar champeenship shindy. Lincoln, he’d come over to git his sister Hester, who’d jest arrived.”
“Well, well?”
Old Ketcham waxed eloquent; his eyes sparkled. “Nice figger, that gal. She went an’ tore off her clothes, durned ef she didn’t, right in front o’ the two of ’em! She was that mad at her brother fer interferin’. Said he’d sat on ’er an’ ruled ’er life since she was a mite, an’ she could do what she dum’ pleased now... I tell ye, that was somethin’. I was lookin’ through the trees...”
“Ketcham, you o’ he-bull!” shrieked the feminine voice from the interior of the cabin. “Y’oughta feel ’shamed o’ yr’self!”
“Mm,” said Ketcham, sobering. “Anyways, when Lincoln hears his sister won’t go back, an’ sees ’er standin’ there nekkid as the day she was born, right there, mind ye, in front o’ Romaine — an’ didn’t he like it! — he hauls off an’ cracks Romaine one, an’ they had their little tussle. Lincoln, he took a pow’rful beatin’, but he’s game, he is — took it like a man. Romaine threw ’im smack into th’ Cove, by thunder. Pow’rful feller, Romaine.”
There was nothing more to be learned from the garrulous old man. They returned to the launch. Professor Yardley was quietly smoking, and Dr. Temple was pacing up and down the deck, his purple face stormy.
“Learn anything?” inquired Yardley mildly.
“A little.”
They were all thoughtful as the launch spluttered and swung about for the mainland.
10. Dr. Temple’s Adventure
The afternoon lengthened. District Attorney Isham departed. Inspector Vaughn issued orders and received reports in an unending — and inconsequential — stream. Oyster Island was quiet. Mrs. Brad was closeted in her bedroom; ill, it was reported, and her daughter Helene was attending her. Jonah Lincoln paced the grounds restlessly. Troopers and detectives yawned all over Bradwood. Reporters came and went, and the evening air was thick with flashlight powder.
Ellery, not a little weary, followed Professor Yardley across the main road, through a gate in a high stone fence, up a gravel walk to Yardley’s house. Both men were subdued and wrapped in their own thoughts.
Evening came, and then a black night unilluminated by any star. Oyster Island as the darkness fell seemed to sink into the Sound.
By tacit consent neither Ellery nor his host discussed the odd problem with which they were grappling. They talked of old and pleasanter things — university days, the crusty old Chancellor, Ellery’s maiden excursions into criminal investigation, Yardley’s placid career in the years since they had parted. At eleven o’clock Ellery girded his loins in a pair of seersucker pajamas, grinned, and went to sleep. The Professor smoked serenely in his study for an hour, wrote several letters, and then retired.
It was nearly midnight when there was a stir on the porch of Dr. Temple’s stone house, and the physician, attired in black trousers, black sweater, and black moccasins, extinguished his pipe and stepped noiselessly off the porch to disappear among the dark trees between his house and the eastern boundary of Bradwood.