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:
With the coming of Christmas — he said in the intense voice characteristic of all his utterances — he realized that for two months he had not appeared in Arroyo as the old hillman. His absence over such a long period might well have led some of the townspeople — Constable Luden, perhaps — to seek out the ancient hill-dweller and investigate his cabin... an event which, he pointed out, would have been disastrous to his carefully maintained deception. He faced more than a week between Christmas Day and New Year’s when his tiny school was closed; and he saw that for several days at least he could act the eremitic Pete with impunity. On previous occasions when he had assumed the ragged character it had been when the schoolmaster was supposedly on a holiday, or over weekends.
“How did you explain these absences to Kling?” asked Ellery. “Or was your servant in the secret?”
No!” cried Van. “He was stupid, a halfwit. I merely told him that I was going into Wheeling or Pittsburgh for a holiday.”
On Christmas Eve, then, he had informed Kling that he was bound for Pittsburgh to celebrate the Yuletide. He had left in the evening for the shack in the hills — all his hillman’s trappings, of course, he kept in the hut. There he became Old Pete again. Rising very early the next morning — Christmas morning — he set out on foot for town, for he needed food supplies and he knew that he could get them from Bernheim, the storekeeper, despite the fact that it was Christmas Day and the general store was closed. He had struck the road at the junction of the main highway and the Arroyo pike and there, alone, at half-past six in the morning, had made the horrifying discovery of the crucified body. The significance of the diverse T’s had struck him at once. He hurried to his house a hundred yards up the Arroyo road. The shambles that the others had seen later had painful meaning for him; he realized instantly that by sheer accident Krosac had come the night before, killed poor old Kling (thinking him to be Andreja Tvar), had cut off his head, and crucified him to the signpost.
He had had to think rapidly. What was he to do? Through an unexpected generosity of fate, Krosac now believed he had fulfilled his vengeance against Andreja Tvar; why not keep him believing it? By taking the character of Old Pete permanently not only would Krosac be deceived but the little West Virginia world in which Van lived, as well... Fortunately the suit of clothes which Kling had been wearing when he was murdered was one which Van himself had given the man a few days before, an old and well-worn garment. He knew that the Arroyo townspeople would recognize the suit as Andrew Van’s, their schoolmaster’s; and if he should put some papers in the pockets identifiable with Andrew Van, there would be no question of identification.
Securing letters and keys from old suits of his, the schoolmaster had stolen back to the crossroads, taken from Kling’s mutilated body all objects identifiable with Kling — a gruesome task, and the man in uniform shuddered at the recollection — put on the dead man the Van objects, and then deliberately hurried farther up the road into the woods. Here he built a guarded little fire, burned Kling’s personal possessions, and waited for someone to come along.
“Why?” demanded Vaughn. “Why didn’t you beat it back to your shack and lie low?”
“Because,” said Van simply, “it was necessary for me to get to town at once and by some means warn my brothers of Krosac’s appearance. If I went into town and said nothing about the body at the crossroads, I should be regarded with suspicion, for it was necessary to pass the junction on the way to town. If I went into town and related the story of my discovery of the body — alone — I might very well come under suspicion. But if I waited for someone to come along, an innocent citizen of the neighborhood, I should have a companion for the ‘discovery’ of the body, and at the same time would be able to get to town, stock up on provisions, and notify my brothers.”
Michael Orkins, the farmer, had come along in an hour or so. Van, or Old Pete, contrived to be tramping the road in the direction of the junction. He had hailed Orkins, the farmer told him to jump in, they found the body... the rest, as Van said soberly, “Mr. Queen knows from having attended the inquest.”
“And you managed to notify your brothers?” asked Isham.
“Yes. While I was in my own house, after discovering Kling’s body at the crossroads, I scribbled a hasty note to Tomis — to the man you know as Thomas Brad. In the excitement when we got to town, I managed to slip the letter through the slot in the post-office door — the post office being closed. I told Tom in the letter briefly what had occurred, warned him that Krosac was probably heading his way bent on vengeance. I wrote too that from then on I meant to be Old Pete, and neither he nor Stephen was to say anything of this. I, at least, meant to be protected from Krosac; for I was dead.”
“You were lucky,” said Megara bitterly. “When Tom couldn’t reach me after receiving your letter, he must have written that note we found addressed to the police — as a last warning to me, should anything happen to him before I returned to Bradwood.”
The brothers were pale and tense; both men showed plainly the nerve strain they were experiencing. Even Megara had succumbed to the spell. From the deck outside came a man’s coarse laugh; they looked startled, and then relaxed as they realized that it was only one of the Helene’s crew bantering a trooper.
“Well,” said Isham at last, rather helplessly, “that’s all well and good, but where the devil does it leave us? Still up a tree, as far as nabbing Krosac is concerned.”
“A pessimistic attitude,” said Ellery, “royally justified. Gentlemen, who knows or knew about the Tvar-Krosac feud? A little investigation along that line may help us narrow the field of suspects.”
“No one but ourselves,” said the schoolmaster darkly. “I naturally told no one.”
“There are no written records of the feud?”
“No.”
“Very well,” said Ellery thoughtfully. “That leaves only Krosac as a possible disseminator of the story. While it’s conceivable that he may have told somebody, it isn’t probable; why should he? Krosac is now an adult — a maniac obsessed with a vengeance-fixation, besides. His vengeance, he would feel, must be personally consummated; those things aren’t delegated to agents or accomplices. Eh, Mr. Megara?”
“Not in Montenegro,” replied the yachtsman grimly.
“Of course; it’s axiomatic to anyone who knows the psychology of feudism,” said Professor Yardley. “And in the old Balkan feuds, which were considerably more gory than even our own mountaineer feuds, only a member of the family could wipe out the stain.”
Ellery nodded. “Would Krosac have told anyone in this country? Hardly. It would place him in such an individual’s power, or would leave a trail to himself and Krosac is, from the cleverness he has displayed, a wary scoundrel despite his monomania. And if he took an accomplice — which he would not do — what had he to offer such a creature?”
“A good point,” conceded Isham.
“The very fact that he rifled Mr. Van’s house of whatever cash the tin box contained—”
“There were a hundred and forty dollars in the box,” muttered Van.
“—indicates that Krosac was hard up and took what he could find. But your brother Tomislav’s house was not looted. Certainly no accomplice, then, for had there been one the accomplice would not have passed up the opportunity to steal what he could. These have been murders for revenge, not gain... Other signs of the nonexistence of an accomplice? Yes. In the murder of Kling, only one person was seen in the vicinity of the crossroads, and that man was Velja Krosac.”
“What are you trying to prove?” growled Vaughn.