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:
The District Attorney grunted: “Indeed?” and said: “I’m Isham, D.A. of the County. This is Inspector Vaughn of the Nassau County detective bureau. Mr. Ellery Queen, special investigator. Professor Yardley, a new neighbor of yours.”
Megara shook hands perfunctorily. Then he turned and crooked a dark finger at a hard-faced, frosty old man in blue uniform who had accompanied him in the launch. “Captain Swift, my skipper,” said Megara. Swift had champing jaws and eyes like the lenses of a telescope — clear as crystal in a face as weatherbeaten as the wandering Jew’s.
“’Meetcha,” said Captain Swift to no one in particular, and put his left hand to his cap. Three fingers were missing, Ellery observed. And when they all, by tacit consent, stirred and began to move off the dock toward the path leading to the house, Ellery saw that the sailing master walked with the roll of the deepwater man.
“Too bad I didn’t get word before this,” said Megara swiftly to Isham, as they strode along. The Brads, Lincoln, Dr. Temple walked behind with expressionless faces. “I’ve been lolloping about the high seas for months; you don’t get news that way. It’s been a blow, learning about Tom.” Nevertheless, as he said it, it did not seem like a blow; he discussed the murder of his partner as unemotionally as he might discuss the purchase of a new shipment of rugs.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Mr. Megara,” said Inspector Vaughn. “Who to your knowledge might have had motive for killing Mr. Brad?”
“Hmm,” said Megara. He twisted his head for an instant to look back at Mrs. Brad, at Helene. “Rather not answer at the moment. Let me know exactly what’s happened.”
Isham opened his mouth to reply, when Ellery asked in a soft voice: “Have you ever heard of a man called Andrew Van?”
For the fraction of a second Megara’s rhythmic stride broke, but his face was inscrutable as he forged on. “Andrew Van, eh? What has he to do with this?”
“Then you know him!” cried Isham.
“He was murdered under circumstances similar to those surrounding the death of your partner, Mr. Megara,” said Ellery.
“Van murdered, too!” Something of the yachtsman’s poise dropped away from him, there was a flicker of uneasiness in his bold eyes.
“Head cut off, and body crucified in the form of a T,” Ellery went on in a matter-of-fact way.
Megara stopped short this time, and the whole cavalcade behind him stopped as well. His face went violet under its mask of sunburn. “T!” he muttered. “Why— Let’s get into the house, gentlemen.”
He shivered as he said this, and his shoulders sagged; his mahogany complexion was ghastly. He looked suddenly years older.
“Can you explain the T’s?” demanded Ellery eagerly.
“I have an idea...” Megara clicked his teeth together, and strode on.
They negotiated the rest of the distance to the house in silence.
Stallings opened the front door, and at once his bland face broke into a welcoming smile. “Mr. Megara! I’m happy to welc—”
Megara brushed by him without a glance. He made for the drawing room, followed by the others, and there began to pace the floor with long strides. He seemed to be turning something over in his mind. Mrs. Brad glided up to him and placed her pudgy hand on his arm.
“Stephen... if you could only clear up this terrible—”
“Stephen, you know!” cried Helene.
“If you know, Megara, for God’s sake spill it and end this rotten suspense!” said Lincoln hoarsely. “It’s been a nightmare for all of us.”
Megara sighed and jammed his hands into his pockets. “Keep cool. Sit down, Captain. Sorry to bring you into a scurvy thing like this.” Captain Swift blinked and did not sit down; he seemed uncomfortable, and edged nearer the door. “Gentlemen,” said Megara abruptly, “I believe I know who murdered my — who murdered Brad.”
“You do, eh?” said Vaughn with no excitement.
“Who?” cried Isham.
Megara threw back his wide shoulders. “A man named Velja Krosac. Krosac... No doubt about it in my mind. T, you say? If it means what I think it means, he’s the only man in this world who could have left it. T, eh? In a way, it’s a living sign that... Tell me just what happened. In the murder of Van as well as of Brad.”
Vaughn looked at Isham, and Isham nodded. Whereupon the Inspector launched into a terse summary of all that had occurred in both crimes, beginning with the discovery by Old Pete and Michael Orkins of the schoolmaster’s body at the crossroads of the Arroyo pike and the New Cumberland-Pughtown highway. When Vaughn related the garageman Croker’s testimony concerning the limping man who had hired Croker to drive him to the crossroads, Megara nodded slowly, and said: “That’s the man, that’s the man,” as if he were banishing his last doubt. The story concluded, Megara smiled without humor.
“I have it straight now.” He had recovered his poise; there were purpose and courage in his posture. “Now tell me just what you found in the summerhouse. There’s something a little queer...”
“But Mr. Megara,” protested Isham, “I can’t see—”
“Take me there at once,” said Megara curtly, and strode to the door. Isham looked doubtful, but Ellery caught his eye and nodded. They all streamed after the yachtsman.
As they took the path to the totem post and the summerhouse, Professor Yardley whispered: “Well, Queen, it looks like the finale, eh?”
Ellery shrugged. “I can’t see why. What I said about Krosac still applies. Where the devil is he? Unless Megara can identify him in his present personality—”
“That’s assuming a lot,” said the Professor. “How do you know he’s around here?”
“I don’t! But it’s certainly possible.”
The summerhouse had been swathed in canvas, and a trooper stood by on guard. Vaughn flipped the canvas back and, unwinking, Megara went in. The interior of the summerhouse appeared exactly as the investigators had discovered it on the morning after the crime — a bit of forethought on the Inspector’s part which, it seemed, was destined to bear fruit.
Megara had eyes for only one thing — he ignored the T, the bloodstain, the signs of a struggle and a butchery — the pipe with its bowl carved into a Neptune’s-head and trident...
“I thought so,” he said quietly, stooping and picking up the pipe. “The moment you mentioned the Neptune’s-head pipe, Inspector Vaughn, I knew that something was wrong.”
“Wrong?” Vaughn was disturbed; Ellery’s eyes were bright and inquiring. “What’s wrong, Mr. Megara?”
“Everything.” Megara looked at the pipe with bitter resignation. “You think this was Tom’s pipe? Well, it wasn’t!”
“You don’t mean to tell me,” exclaimed the Inspector, “that the pipe belongs to Krosac!”
“I wish it did,” replied Megara savagely. “No. It belongs to me.”
For an instant they digested this revelation, turning it over in their minds as if to take what nourishment there was from it. Vaughn was plainly puzzled. “After all,” he said, “even if it is—”
“Wait a minute, Vaughn,” said the District Attorney swiftly. “I think there’s more in this than meets the eye. Mr. Megara, we’ve been under the impression that the pipe was Brad’s. Stallings gave us the definite feeling that it was, although now that I think of it, it’s easy to have made such a mistake. But it has Brad’s fingerprints on it, and it was smoked on the night of the murder with his own brand of tobacco in it. Now you say it’s yours. What I can’t understand—”