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:
Ellery lost his smile. “Eh? I don’t understand. Wherein is the analysis faulty?”
“It’s wrong in the assumption that Krosac didn’t know the pipe is mine.”
Ellery took off his pince-nez and began to swab its lenses with his handkerchief — an infallible sign in him of perturbation, satisfaction, or excitement. “An extraordinary statement, if true, Mr. Megara. How could Krosac know the pipe belonged to you?”
“Because the pipe was in a case. Did you find a case in the drawer?”
“No.” Ellery’s eyes glittered. “Don’t tell me that your initials were on the case, sir!”
“Better than that,” snapped Megara. “My full name in gilt letters was stamped on the morocco cover. The pipe was in the case when I last saw it. The case naturally has as odd a shape as the pipe, and couldn’t possibly be used for another pipe, unless it was a replica of this.”
“Oh, splendid!” cried Ellery, smiling broadly. “I take it all back. You’ve given us a new lease on life, Mr. Megara. It puts an entirely different complexion on matters. Gives us even more to work on... Krosac knew it was your pipe, then. Nevertheless, he deliberately selected your pipe to leave in the summerhouse. The case he took away, obviously, since it’s gone. Why take away the case? Because if he had left it, we should have found it, seen the resemblance between the shape of the Stephen Megara case and the shape of the supposed Brad pipe, and known at once that the pipe wasn’t Brad’s. By taking the case away, Krosac made us believe temporarily that the pipe was Brad’s. You appreciate the inference?”
“Why temporarily?” demanded Vaughn.
“Because,” said Ellery triumphantly, “Mr. Megara did come back, did identify the pipe, did tell us about the missing pipe case! Surely Krosac knew Mr. Megara would eventually do this. Conclusion — until Mr. Megara arrived, Krosac wanted us to believe that the pipe belonged to Brad, and that therefore the summerhouse was the scene of the crime. After Mr. Megara arrived, Krosac was willing that we should know the summerhouse was not the scene of the crime; willing, furthermore, since it would be inevitable, to have us look for the real scene of the crime. Why do I say willing? Because Krosac could have avoided all this merely by choosing another means of making the summerhouse seem the scene of the crime; merely, in fact, by choosing one of Brad’s own pipes!”
“You hold, then,” said the Professor slowly, “that the murderer deliberately desires us to return to the real scene of the crime. I can’t understand why.”
“Sounds funny to me,” said Isham, shaking his head.
“It’s so abominably plain,” grinned Ellery. “Don’t you see — Krosac wanted us to look at the scene of the crime now — not a week ago, mind you, but now.”
“But why, man?” asked Megara impatiently. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Ellery shrugged. “I can’t tell you specifically, but I’m convinced it makes rather remarkable sense, Mr. Megara. Krosac wants us to find something now — while you are at Bradwood — which he didn’t want us to find while you were on the Pacific somewhere.”
“Nuts,” said Inspector Vaughn with a scowl.
“Whatever it is,” said Isham, “I’m prepared to doubt it.”
“I suggest,” said Ellery, “that we follow along with Messer Krosac. If he wanted us to find it, let’s oblige him. Shall we go to the library?”
14. The Ivory Key
The library had been sealed since the morning after the discovery of Brad’s mutilated body. Isham, Vaughn, Megara, Professor Yardley, and Ellery went into the room; Captain Swift had rolled back to the dock, and the Brads and Lincoln were in their own quarters. Dr. Temple had vanished long before.
Megara stood to one side as the search was made — no perfunctory examination, this time, but a crevice-exploring expedition which left not a particle of dust undisturbed. Isham turned the secretary into a scene of carnage, strewing it with the crumpled bodies of vagrant papers. Vaughn took it upon himself to go over the furniture, piece by piece. Professor Yardley, self-delegated, retired to the alcove where the grand piano stood and amused himself by ravishing the music cabinet.
Almost at once the discovery was made — or at least a discovery, whether it were the one Velja Krosac had intended or not being at the moment of no consequence. It was a discovery of major importance — and made by Ellery, who was prowling by the Inspector’s side. Quite by accident, or in the interest of thoroughness, Ellery grasped a corner of the divan and pulled it back from before the book-filled wall so that it stood completely on the Chinese rug, where before its rear legs had rested on the bare floor. As he did this he exclaimed aloud and stooped swiftly to examine something on the part of the rug which had been hidden under the divan. Isham, Vaughn, and Yardley hurried to his side; Megara craned, but did not move. “What is it?”
“Good grief,” muttered the Inspector. “Of all the obvious places. A stain!”
“A bloodstain,” said Ellery softly, “unless experience, like my reverend Professor here, is a poor teacher.”
It was a dried blackish stain, standing out with the crudity of a wax seal on the golden colors of the rug. Near it — no more than a few inches away — there was a square depression in the fabric of the rug, the sort of impressment made by the weight of a chair- or table-leg which has stood on one spot for a long time. The shape of the depression could not be laid to the feet of the divan, which at the base were round.
Ellery, kneeling, looked around. His eyes wavered for a moment, and then went to the secretary, which stood on the opposite wall.
“There should be—” he began, and shoved the divan toward the center of the room. He nodded at once: three feet from the first depression was its mate in the pressed nap.
“But the stain,” frowned Isham, “how the devil did it get under the divan? Stallings told me when I first questioned him that nothing had been moved in this room.”
“That doesn’t require explanation, does it?” remarked Ellery dryly as he rose to his feet. “Nothing was moved — except the rug itself, and you could scarcely expect Stallings to have noticed that.”
His eyes gleamed as he looked about the library. He had been right about the secretary; it was the only article of furniture in the room whose legs could have made depressions the exact shape and size of the two under the divan. He crossed the room and lifted one of the secretary’s square-tipped legs. On the rug directly beneath the tip, plain enough, was a depression like the two on the other side of the room, except that it was not so deep or sharply defined.
“We might conduct an entertaining little experiment,” said Ellery, straightening up. “Let’s shift this rug about.”
“Shift it about?” asked Isham. “What for?”
“So that it will lie as it did Tuesday night, before Krosac changed its position.”
A great light broke over Inspector Vaughn’s face. “By God,” he cried, “I see it now. He didn’t want us to find the bloodstain, and he couldn’t get rid of it!”
“That’s just half the story, Inspector,” remarked Professor Yardley, “if I understand Queen’s implications.”
“You do,” said Ellery equably. “It’s just a matter of getting this table out of the way. The rest is easy.” Stephen Megara still stood in a corner, silently listening; he made no move to help the four men. Vaughn lifted the round table without effort and carried it out into the hall. In a very few moments, by placing a man at each corner of the rug, they were able to jerk it from under all the small articles of furniture and turn it about, so that the part which had been hidden beneath the divan now lay where it must have lain the night of Brad’s murder — on the opposite side of the room. The two depressions, they saw instantly, fitted with precision under the two front legs of the secretary. And the dried bloodstain...