_SCARABÆUS SACER_
(_Friday, July 13; noon_)
Vance frowned slightly and studied the small black figure for a
moment.
“It may mean nothing--surely nothing supernatural--but the fact that
this particular statue was chosen for the murder makes me wonder if
there may be something diabolical and sinister and superstitious in
this affair.”
“Come, come, Vance!” Markham spoke with forced matter-of-factness.
“This is modern New York, not legendary Egypt.”
“Yes… oh, yes. But superstition is still a ruling factor in so-called
human nature. Moreover, there are many more convenient weapons in this
room--weapons fully as lethal and more readily wielded. Why should a
cumbersome, heavy statue of Sakhmet have been chosen for the deed?… In
any event, it took a strong man to swing it with such force.”
He looked toward Scarlett, whose eyes had been fastened on the dead
man with a stare of fascination.
“Where was this statue kept?”
Scarlett blinked.
“Why--let me see.…” He was obviously trying to collect his wits. “Ah,
yes. On the top of that cabinet.” He pointed unsteadily to the row of
wide shelves in front of Kyle’s body. “It was one of the new pieces we
unpacked yesterday. Hani placed it there. You see, we used that end
cabinet temporarily for the new items, until we could arrange and
catalogue ’em properly.”
There were ten sections in the row of cabinets that extended across
the rear of the museum, each one being about two and a half feet wide
and a little over seven feet high. These cabinets--which in reality
were but open shelves--were filled with all manner of curios: scores
of examples of pottery and wooden vases, scent bottles, bows and
arrows, adzes, swords, daggers, sistra, bronze and copper
hand-mirrors, ivory game boards, perfume boxes, whip handles,
palm-leaf sandals, wooden combs, palettes, head rests, reed baskets,
carved spoons, plasterers’ tools, sacrificial flint knives, funerary
masks, statuettes, necklaces, and the like.
Each cabinet had a separate curtain of a material which looked like
silk rep, suspended with brass rings on a small metal rod. The
curtains to all the cabinets were drawn open, with the exception of
the one on the end cabinet before which the dead body of Kyle lay. The
curtain of this cabinet was only partly drawn.
Vance had turned round.
“And what about the Anûbis, Scarlett?” he asked. “Was it a recent
acquisition?”
“That came yesterday, too. It was placed in that corner--to keep the
shipment together.”
Vance nodded, and walked to the partly curtained cabinet. He stood for
several moments peering into the shelves.
“Very interestin’,” he murmured, almost as if to himself. “I see you
have a most unusual post-Hyksos bearded sphinx.… And that blue-glass
vessel is very lovely… though not so lovely as yon blue-paste
lion’s-head.… Ah! I note many evidences of old Intef’s bellicose
nature--that battle-ax, for instance.… And--my word!--there are some
scimitars and daggers which look positively Asiatic. And”--he peered
closely into the top shelf--“a most fascinatin’ collection of
ceremonial maces.”
“Things Doctor Bliss picked up on his recent expedition,” explained
Scarlett. “Those flint and porphyry maces came from the antechamber of
Intef’s tomb.…”
At this moment the great metal door of the museum creaked on its
hinges, and Sergeant Ernest Heath and three detectives appeared at the
head of the stairs. The Sergeant immediately descended into the room,
leaving his men on the little landing.
He greeted Markham with the usual ritualistic handshake.
“Howdy, sir,” he rumbled. “I got here as soon as I could. Brought
three of the boys from the Bureau, and sent word to Captain Dubois and
Doc Doremus[*7] to follow us up.”
“It looks as if we might be in for another unpleasant scandal,
Sergeant.” Markham’s tone was pessimistic. “That’s Benjamin H. Kyle.”
Heath stared aggressively at the dead man and grunted.
“A nasty job,” he commented through his teeth. “What in hell is that
thing he was croaked with?”
Vance, who had been leaning over the shelves of the cabinet, his back
to us, now turned round with a genial smile.
“That, Sergeant, is Sakhmet, an ancient goddess of the primitive
Egyptians. But she isn’t in hell, so to speak. This gentleman,
however,”--he touched the tall statue of Anûbis--“is from the nether
regions.”
“I mighta known you’d be here, Mr. Vance.” Heath grinned with genuine
friendliness, and held out his hand. “I’ve got you down on my suspect
list. Every time there’s a fancy homicide, who do I find on the spot
but Mr. Philo Vance!… Glad to see you, Mr. Vance. I reckon you’ll get
your psychological processes to working now and clean this mystery up
_pronto_.”
“It’ll take more than psychology to solve this case, I’m afraid.”
Vance had grasped the Sergeant’s hand cordially. “A smatterin’ of
Egyptology might help, don’t y’ know.”
“I’ll leave that nifty stuff to you, Mr. Vance. What I want, first and
foremost, is the finger-prints on that--that----” He bent over the
small statue of Sakhmet. “That’s the damnedest thing I ever saw. The
guy who sculped that was cuckoo. It’s got a lion’s head with a big
platter on the dome.”
“The lion’s head of Sakhmet is undoubtedly totemistic, Sergeant,”
explained Vance, good-naturedly. “And that ‘platter’ is a
representation of the solar disk. The snake peering from the forehead
is a cobra--or uræus--and was the sign of royalty.”
“Have it your own way, sir.” The Sergeant had become impatient. “What
I want is the finger-prints.”
He swung about and walked toward the front of the museum.
“Hey, Snitkin!” he called belligerently to one of the men on the stair
landing. “Relieve that officer outside--send him back to his beat. And
bring Dubois in here as soon as he shows up.” Then he returned to
Markham. “Who’ll give me the low-down on this, sir?”
Markham introduced him to Scarlett.
“This gentleman,” he said, “found Mr. Kyle. He can tell you all we
know of the case thus far.”
Scarlett and Heath talked together for five minutes or so, the
Sergeant maintaining throughout the conversation an attitude of
undisguised suspicion. It was a basic principle with him that every
one was guilty until his innocence had been completely and irrefutably
established.
Vance in the meantime had been bending over Kyle’s body with an
intentness that puzzled me. Presently his eyes narrowed slightly and
he went down on one knee, thrusting his head forward to within a foot
of the floor. Then he took out his monocle, polished it carefully, and
adjusted it. Markham and I both watched him in silence. After a few
moments he straightened up.
“I say, Scarlett; is there a magnifyin’ glass handy?”
Scarlett, who had just finished talking to Sergeant Heath, went at
once to the glass case containing the scarabs and opened one of the
drawers.
“What sort of museum would this be without a magnifier?” he asked,
with a feeble attempt at jocularity, holding out a Coddington lens.
Vance took it and turned to Heath.
“May I borrow your flash-light, Sergeant?”
“Sure thing!” Heath handed him a push-button flash.
Vance again knelt down, and with the flash-light in one hand and the
lens in the other, inspected a tiny oblong object that lay about a
foot from Kyle’s body.
[Illustration: SCARAB OF INTEF V]
“_Nisut Biti… Intef… Si Rê… Nub-Kheper-Rê._” His voice was low and
resonant.
The Sergeant put his hands in his pockets and sniffed.
“And what language might that be, Mr. Vance?” he asked.
“It’s the transliteration of a few ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. I’m
reading from this scarab.…”
The Sergeant had become interested. He stepped forward and leaned over
the object that Vance was inspecting.
“A scarab, huh?”
“Yes, Sergeant. Sometimes called a scarabee, or scarabæid, or
scarabæus--that is to say, beetle.… This little oval bit of
lapis-lazuli was a sacred symbol of the old Egyptians.… This
particular one, by the by, is most fascinatin’. It is the state seal
of Intef V--a Pharaoh of the Seventeenth Dynasty. About 1650 B.C.--or
over 3,500 years ago--he wore it. It bears the title and throne name
of Intef-o, or Intef. His Horus name was Nefer-Kheperu, if I remember
correctly. He was one of the native Egyptian rulers at Thebes during
the reign of the Hyksos in the Delta.[*8] The tomb of this gentleman
is the one that Doctor Bliss has been excavating for several years.…
And you of course note, Sergeant, that the scarab is set in a modern
scarf-pin.…”
Heath grunted with satisfaction. Here, at least, was a piece of
tangible evidence.
“A beetle, is it? And a scarf-pin!… Well, Mr. Vance, I’d like to get
my hands on the bird who wore that blue thingumajig in his cravat.”
“I can enlighten you on that point, Sergeant.” Vance rose to his feet
and looked toward the little metal door at the head of the circular
stairway. “That scarf-pin is the property of Doctor Bliss.”