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:
On Saturday morning three cables arrived from abroad. One was from the Prefect of Police in Paris:
PAIR AS DESCRIBED WANTED BY PARIS POLICE FOR ASSAULT AND ROBBERY IN 1925 KNOWN HERE AS MISTER AND MRS. PERCY STRANG
The second came from Budapest:
A PERCY TRUXTON AND WIFE WANTED BY BUDAPEST POLICE FOR JEWEL THEFT SINCE 1920 FIT YOUR DESCRIPTION
The third, and most informative, came from Vienna:
PAIR ANSWERING DESCRIPTION KNOWN HERE AS PERCY AND BETH ANNIXTER WANTED FOR SWINDLING FRENCH TOURIST OUT OF FIFTY THOUSAND FRANCS AND THEFT OF VALUABLE JEWELRY IN SPRING OF LAST YEAR IF SUCH PAIR HELD BY AMERICAN POLICE DESIRE IMMEDIATE EXTRADITION BOOTY NEVER RECOVERED
“There followed a detailed description of the stolen jewels.
“There’s going to be a sweet international tangle when we lay hands on ’em,” muttered the Inspector as he, Ellery, and Professor Yardley sat on the Bradwood porch. “Wanted by France, Hungary, and Austria.”
“Perhaps the World Court will call a special session,” remarked Ellery.
The Professor made a face. “Sometimes you annoy me. Why can’t you be precise? It’s the Permanent Court of International Justice, and such a session would be termed ‘extraordinary,’ not special.”
“Oh, Lord!” said Ellery, rolling his eyes.
“Guess Budapest has first sock,” said Vaughn. “Nineteen-twenty.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” ventured the Professor, “if Scotland Yard wants them, too.”
“Not likely. They’re a thorough bunch. If they didn’t recognize the description, you can bet your last bib that there’s no criminal record against them in London.”
“If they really are British,” said Ellery, “they’d have kept away from England. Although the man might very well have been Central European in origin. An Oxford accent is one of the most easily acquired of elegances.”
“One thing is sure,” said the Inspector. “That swag they buried was the ice and the dough from the Vienna job. I’ll send the alarm out to the Jewelers’ Association and the regular channels. But it’s a waste of time. It isn’t likely they’re well enough acquainted with American fences; and they won’t dare go near legitimate dealers unless they’re short of cash.”
“I wonder,” murmured Ellery with a faraway look in his eyes, “why your correspondent in Yugoslavia hasn’t answered?”
There was an excellent reason, it turned out later in the day, for the tardiness of Inspector Vaughn’s Yugoslavian colleague. They were examining reports on the progress of the Lynn search as they came in by telegraph and telephone every few minutes.
A detective galloped up waving an envelope. “Cable, Chief!”
“Ah,” said Vaughn, snatching the message, “now we’ll know.”
But the cable, which came from Belgrade, capital of Yugoslavia, sent by the Minister of Police, merely said:
EXCUSE DELAY REPORT ON TVAR BROTHERS AND VELJA KROSAC DUE TO OFFICIAL DISAPPEARANCE OF MONTENEGRO AS SEPARATE NATION MONTENEGRIN RECORDS DIFFICULT TO LOCATE ESPECIALLY OF TWENTY YEARS AGO NO QUESTION AS TO AUTHENTICITY OF BOTH FAMILIES HOWEVER AND EXISTENCE OF BLOOD FEUD OUR AGENTS WORKING ON CASE AND WILL CABLE REPORT OF SUCCESS OR FAILURE WITHIN FORTNIGHT
23. Council of War
Sunday, Monday... it was remarkable how little was accomplished, how tiny was the store of genuine facts they had been able to save from the wreckage of the murders. The Inspector, Ellery felt sure, would succumb to apoplexy as the ubiquitous British evaders of the law continued at large. And always the same question arose to plague their dreary conferences, their desperate discussions of ways and means: Where was Krosac? Or, if in his amazing way he was one of the chief actors in the drama, who was he and why did he delay? His vengeance was incomplete; that he had been swayed by fear of apprehension or the constant presence of the police from attempting the lives of the two remaining Tvar brothers was incredible, considering the nature of his crimes.
“Our defense of Andreja,” said Ellery sadly on Monday evening to the Professor, “has been too perfect. The only explanation I can offer for Krosac’s continued inactivity is that he still doesn’t know where — and in what guise — Van is. We’ve fooled him—”
“And ourselves,” remarked Yardley. “I’m becoming the least bit bored, Queen. If this is the exciting life of a man-hunter, I’m content to track down the source of a historical fact for the rest of my sedentary days. I invite you to join me. You’ll find it infinitely more turbulent than this. Did I ever tell you how Boussard, the French army officer, found that famous basaltic stele in Lower Egypt which has meant so much to Egyptologists — the Rosetta Stone? And how for thirty-two years, until Champollion came along to decipher its triple message of the reign of Ptolemy V, it remained—?”
“It remains,” said Ellery disconsolately, “a miniscule compared with the gigantic problem of Krosac. Wells must have had him in mind when he wrote The Invisible Man.”
That evening Stephen Megara came to life.
He stood in the center of the drawing room in the colonial mansion of his murdered brother grimly surveying his audience. Inspector Vaughn was there, fuming in a Sheraton chair, and gnawing his fingernails with vexation. Ellery sat with Professor Yardley, feeling stupid under the accusing glare of Megara’s eyes. Helene Brad and Jonah Lincoln occupied a sofa, both uneasy; their fingers were intertwined. District Attorney Isham, summoned peremptorily from Mineola by the yachtsman, twiddled his thumbs and coughed incessantly in the doorway. Captain Swift, fumbling with his cap, stood behind his employer, his scraggy neck twisting from side to side under the torture of a stiff collar. Dr. Temple, uninvited but asked to remain, stood before the dark fireplace.
“Now everybody listen to me,” said Megara in a sharp voice, “but you especially — Inspector Vaughn and Mr. Isham. It’s three weeks since my — since Brad was done in. I’m back ten days. Please tell me what you’ve accomplished.”
Inspector Vaughn squirmed in the Sheraton, and snarled: “I don’t like your tone, mister. You damned well know we’ve done the best we can.”
“Not good enough,” snapped Megara. “Not by half, Inspector. You know whom you’re after. You’ve even got a partial description of him. It seems to me that with all the forces at your command and disposal it would be a simple matter to collar your man.”
“Er — it’s just a matter of time, Mr. Megara,” said Isham in a placating voice. The bald spot surrounded by his gray hair was wetly red. “It’s really not simple, you know.”
Vaughn said sarcastically: “You know, Mr. Megara, it hasn’t been all God’s truth here, either. You people yourselves have wasted a lot of our time. None of you’s been strictly on the up-and-up.”
“Nonsense!”
Vaughn rose. “And that,” he added with a wolfish smile, “goes for you, too, Megara!”
The yachtsman’s hard face did not change expression. Behind him Captain Swift swiped at his lips with a blue sleeve and dug his maimed hand into a bulging pocket. “What the devil do you mean?”
“Now, Vaughn,” began the District Attorney, worriedly.
“Now Vaughn nothing! You let me handle this, Isham.” The Inspector stamped forward, a solid menace, and stood so close to Megara that their chests touched. “You want a showdown, do you? Okay by me, mister! Mrs. Brad gave us the runaround, and she was upheld in her phony story by her daughter and Lincoln. Fox led us a merry chase, and wasted our valuable time and a lot of effort. Dr. Temple here” — the physician started, then quietly studied Vaughn’s harsh profile as he began to fill his pipe — “was in possession of important information and tried to act the shiny hero by nabbing two crooks — and maybe worse — all by his lonesome. Result — the crooks make a clean getaway and he gets a sock on the nut. Deserved it, by Judas!”