A FOUR-HOUR ERRAND
(_Friday, July 13; 1.15 p.m._)
Scarlett’s eyes followed her with a troubled, sympathetic look.
“Poor girl!” he commented, with a sigh. “You know, Vance, she was
devoted to Kyle--her father and Kyle were great cronies. When old
Abercrombie died Kyle cared for her as though she’d been his
daughter.… This affair is a terrible blow to her.”
“One can well understand that,” Vance murmured perfunctorily. “But she
has Hani to console her.… By the by, doctor, your Egyptian servant
appears to be quite _en rapport_ with Mrs. Bliss.”
“What’s that--what’s that?” Bliss lifted his head and made an effort
at concentration. “Ah, yes… Hani. A faithful dog--where my wife’s
concerned. He practically brought her up, after her father’s death.
He’s never forgiven me for marrying her.” He smiled grimly and lapsed
into a state of brooding despondency.
Heath’s cigar had gone out, but he still chewed viciously on it.
He was standing beside Kyle’s body, his legs apart, his hands in his
pockets, glaring with frustrated animosity at the doctor.
“What’s all this palaver about, anyhow?” he asked sullenly. He faced
Markham. “Listen, Chief: haven’t you got enough evidence for an
indictment?”
Markham was sorely troubled. His instinct was to order Bliss’s arrest,
but his faith in Vance halted him. He knew that Vance was not
satisfied with the situation, and he no doubt felt, as a result of
Vance’s attitude, that there were certain things connected with Kyle’s
murder which did not show on the surface. Moreover, there was perhaps
an uncertainty in his own mind as to the authenticity of the evidence
that pointed to the Egyptologist.
He was on the point of answering Heath when Hennessey put his head in
the door and called out:
“Hey, Sergeant; the buggy from the Department of Public Welfare is
here.”
“Well, it’s about time.” Heath was in a vicious mood. He turned to
Markham. “Any reason, sir, why we shouldn’t get the body outa the
way?”
Markham glanced toward Vance, who nodded.
“No, Sergeant,” he answered. “The sooner it reaches the mortuary, the
sooner we’ll have the _post-mortem_ report.”
“Right!” Heath cupped his hands to his mouth and bawled to Hennessey:
“Send ’em in.”
A moment later two men--one the driver of the car, the other an
unkempt “pick-up”--came down the stairs carrying a large wicker basket
shaped like a coffin. Without a word they callously lifted Kyle’s body
into it, and started toward the front door with their gruesome burden,
the “pick-up” at the rear end of the basket doing a playful dance step
as he moved across the hardwood floor.
“Sweet sympathetic laddie,” grinned Vance.
With the removal of Kyle’s body a pall seemed to lift from the museum.
But there was still that pool of blood and the recumbent statue of
Sakhmet to tell the terrible story of the tragedy.
Heath stood eyeing the huddled, silent figure of Doctor Bliss.
“Where do we go from here?” His question contained both disgust and
resignation.
Markham was growing restless and, beckoning Vance to one side, spoke
to him in low tones. I could not hear what was said; but Vance talked
earnestly to the District Attorney for several minutes. Markham
listened attentively and then shrugged his shoulders.
“Very well,” he answered, as they strolled back toward us. “But unless
you reach some conclusion pretty soon we’ll have to take action.…”
“Action--oh, my aunt!” Vance sighed deeply. “Always action--always
pyrotechnics. The Rotarian ideal! Get busy--stir things up.
Efficiency!… Why do the powers of justice have to emulate the whirling
dervish? The human brain, after all, has certain functions.”
He paced slowly back and forth in front of the cabinets, his eyes on
the floor, while the rest of us watched him. Even Doctor Bliss roused
himself and gazed at him with a curious and hopeful expression.
“None of these clews ring true, Markham,” Vance said. “There’s
something here that doesn’t meet the eye. It’s like a cypher that says
one thing and means another. I tell you the obvious explanation is the
wrong one.… There’s a key to this affair--somewhere. And it’s staring
us in the face… yet we can’t see it.”
He was deeply perplexed and dissatisfied, and he walked to and fro
with that quiet, disguised alertness which I had long since come to
recognize.
Suddenly he halted in front of the pool of blood before the end
cabinet, and bent over. He studied it for a moment, and then his eyes
moved to the cabinet. Slowly his gaze ascended the partly drawn
curtain and came to rest on the beaded wooden ledge above the curtain
rod. After a while his eyes drifted back to the pool of blood, and I
got the impression that he was measuring distances and trying to
determine the exact relationship between the blood, the cabinet, the
curtain, and the moulding along the top of the shelves.
Presently he straightened up and stood very close to the curtain, his
back to us.
“Really, now, that’s most interestin’,” he murmured. “I wonder.…”
He turned, and, drawing up one of the folding wooden chairs, placed it
directly in front of the cabinet on the exact spot where Kyle’s head
had lain. Then he mounted the chair, and stood for a considerable time
inspecting the top of the cabinet.
“My word! Extr’ordin’ry!” His voice was barely audible.
Taking out his monocle, he placed it in his eye. Then his hand reached
out over the edge of the cabinet, and he picked up something very near
to where Hani said he had placed the small statue of Sakhmet. Just
what it was none of us could see; but presently he slipped the object
into his coat pocket. A moment later he descended from the chair and
faced Markham with a grim, satisfied look.
“This murder has amazin’ possibilities,” he observed.
Before he could explain his cryptic remark Hennessey again appeared at
the head of the stairs and called out to Sergeant Heath:
“There’s a guy here named Salveter who says he wants to see Doc
Bliss.”
“Ah--_bon_!” Vance, for some reason, seemed highly pleased. “Suppose
we have him in, Sergeant.”
“Oh, sure!” Heath made an elaborate grimace of boredom. “O.K.,
Hennessey. Show in the gent. The more the merrier.… What is this,
anyway?” he groused. “A convention?”
Young Salveter walked down the stairs and approached us with a
startled, questioning air. He gave Scarlett a curt, cold nod; then he
caught sight of Vance.
“How do you do?” he said, obviously surprised at Vance’s presence.
“It’s been a long time since I saw you… in Egypt.… What’s all the
excitement about? Have we been invested by the military?” His
pleasantry did not ring true.
Salveter was an earnest, aggressive-looking man of about thirty, with
sandy hair, wide-set gray eyes, a small nose, and a thin, tight mouth.
He was of medium height, stockily built, and might have been an
athlete in his college days. He was dressed simply in a tweed suit
that did not fit him, and the polka-dot tie in his soft-shirt collar
was askew. I doubt if his cordovan blucher oxfords had ever been
polished. My first instinct was to like him. The impression he gave
was that of boyish frankness; but there was a quality in his
make-up,--I could not analyze it at the time,--that signalled to one
to be wary and not attempt to force an issue against his stubbornness.
As he spoke to Vance his eyes shifted with intense curiosity about the
room, as if he were looking for something amiss.
Vance, who had been watching him appraisingly, answered after a slight
pause in a tone that struck me as unnecessarily devoid of sympathy.
“No, it’s not the milit’ry, Mr. Salveter. It’s the police. The fact
is, your uncle is dead--he has been murdered.”
“Uncle Ben!” Salveter appeared stunned by the news; but presently an
angry scowl settled on his forehead. “So--that’s it!” He drew in his
head and squinted pugnaciously at Doctor Bliss. “He had an appointment
with you this morning, sir.… When--and how--did it happen?”
It was Vance, however, who made reply.
“Your uncle, Mr. Salveter, was struck over the head with that statue
of Sakhmet, about ten o’clock. Mr. Scarlett found the body here at the
foot of Anûbis, and notified me. I, in turn, notified the District
Attorney.… This, by the by, is Mr. Markham--and this is Sergeant Heath
of the Homicide Bureau.”
Salveter scarcely glanced in their direction.
“A damned outrage!” he muttered, setting his square, heavy jaw.
“An outrage--yes!” Bliss lifted his head, and his eyes, pitifully
discouraged, met Salveter’s. “It means the end of all our excavations,
my boy----”
“Excavations!” Salveter continued to study the older man. “What do
they matter? I want to lay my hands on the dog who did this thing.” He
swung about aggressively and faced Markham. “What can I do, sir, to
help you?” His eyes were mere slits--he was like a dangerous wild
beast waiting to pounce.
“Too much energy, Mr. Salveter,” Vance drawled, sitting down
indolently. “Far too much energy. I can apprehend exactly how you
feel, don’t y’ know. But aggressiveness, while bein’ a virtue in some
circumstances, is really quite futile in the present situation.… I
say; why not walk round the block vigorously a couple of times, and
then return to us? We crave a bit of polite intercourse with you, but
calmness and self-control are most necess’ry.”
Salveter glared ferociously at Vance, who met his gaze with languid
coldness; and for fully thirty seconds there was an unflinching ocular
clash between them. But I have seen other men attempt to stare Vance
out of countenance--without the least success. His quiet power and
strength of character were colossal, and I would wish no one the task
of outgazing him.
Finally Salveter shrugged his broad shoulders. A slight, compromising
grin flickered along his set mouth.
“I’ll pass up the promenade,” he said, with admiring sheepishness.
“Fire away.”
Vance took a deep inhalation on his cigarette, and let his eyes wander
lazily along the great frieze of Pen-ta-Weret’s Rhapsody.
“What time did you leave the house this morning, Mr. Salveter?”
“About half past nine.” Salveter was now standing relaxed, his hands
in his coat pockets. All of his aggressiveness was gone, and, though
he watched Vance closely, there was neither animosity nor tenseness in
his manner.
“And you did not, by any chance, leave the front door unlatched--or
open?”
“No!… Why should I?”
“Really, y’ know, I couldn’t say.” Vance conferred on him a disarming
smile. “A more or less vital question, however. Mr. Scarlett, d’ ye
see, found the door open when he arrived between ten and ten-thirty.”
“Well, _I_ didn’t leave it that way.… What next?”
“You went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I understand.”
“Yes. I went to inquire about some reproductions of the tomb furniture
of Hotpeheres.”
“And you got the information?”
“I did.”
Vance looked at his watch.
“Twenty-five after one,” he read. “That means you have been absent
about four hours. Did you, by any hap, walk to Eighty-second Street
and back?”
Salveter clamped his teeth tight for a moment, and stared
antagonistically at Vance’s nonchalant figure.
“I didn’t walk either way, thank you.” (I could not determine whether
he was merely exerting great self-control or whether he was actually
frightened.) “I took a ’bus up the Avenue, and came back in a taxi.”
“Let us say one hour coming and going, then. That allowed you three
hours to obtain your information, eh, what?”
“Mathematically correct.” Again Salveter grinned savagely. “But it
happened I dropped into the rooms on the right of the entrance to take
a look at Per-nêb’s Tomb. I’d heard recently that they’d added some
objects to their collection of the contents of the burial-chamber.…
Per-nêb, you see, was Fifth Dynasty----”
“Yes, yes.… And as Khufu, Hetep-hir-es’ offspring, belonged to the
preceding dynasty, you were æsthetically interested in the
burial-chamber contents. Quite natural.… And how long did you prowl
and commune among the Per-nêb fragments?”
“See here, Mr. Vance”--Salveter was growing apprehensive--“I don’t
know what you’re trying to get at; but if it’s going to help you in
your investigation of Uncle Ben’s death, I’ll take your gaff.… I hung
around the cabinets in the Egyptian rooms for nearly an hour. Got
interested and didn’t hurry--I knew Uncle Ben had an appointment with
Doctor Bliss this morning, and I figured that if I got back at lunch
time it would be all right.”
“But you didn’t get back at lunch time,” Vance remarked.
“What if I didn’t? I had to cool my feet for nearly an hour in the
Curator’s outer office after I went up-stairs--Mr. Lythgoe was talking
with Lindsley Hall about some drawings. And then I had to hang around
another half hour or so while he was phoning to Doctor Reisner at the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts. I’m lucky to be back now.”
“Quite.… I know how those things are. Very tryin’.”
Vance apparently accepted his story without question. He rose lazily
and drew a small note-book from his pocket, at the same time feeling
in his waistcoat as if for something with which to write.
“Sorry and all that, Mr. Salveter; but could you lend me a pencil?
Mine seems to have disappeared.”
(I immediately became interested, for I knew Vance never carried a
pencil but invariably used a small gold fountain-pen which he always
wore on his watch-chain.)
“Delighted.” Salveter reached in his pocket and held out a long
hexagonal yellow pencil.
Vance took it and made several notations in his book. Then, as he was
about to return the pencil, he paused and looked at the name printed
on it.
“Ah, a Mongol No. 1, what?” he said. “Popular pencils, these
Fabers-482.… Do you always use them?”
“Never anything else.…”
“Thanks awfully.” Vance returned the pencil, and dropped the note-book
into his pocket. “And now, Mr. Salveter, I’d appreciate it if you’d go
to the drawing-room and wait for us. We’ll want to question you
again.… Mrs. Bliss, by the by, is there,” he added casually.
Salveter’s eyelids dropped perceptibly, and he gave Vance a swift
sidelong glance.
“Oh, is she? Thanks.… I’ll wait for you in the drawing-room.” He went
up to Bliss. “I’m frightfully sorry, sir,” he said. “I know what this
means to you.…” He was going to add something but halted himself. Then
he walked doggedly toward the front door.
He was half-way up the stairs when Vance, who now stood regarding the
statue of Sakhmet meditatively, suddenly turned and called to him.
“Oh, I say, Mr. Salveter. Tell Hani we’d like to see him here--there’s
a good fellow.”
Salveter made a gesture of assent, and passed through the great steel
door without looking back.