THE GRANITE SARCOPHAGUS
(_Saturday, July 14; 10.10 p.m._)
We arrived at the museum in less than ten minutes. Vance ran up the
stone steps, Markham and Heath and I at his heels. Not only was there
a light burning in the vestibule, but through the frosted glass panels
of the front door we could see a bright light in the hall. Vance
pressed the bell vigorously, but it was some time before Brush
answered our summons.
“Napping?” Vance asked. He was in a tense, sensitive mood.
“No, sir.” Brush shrank from him. “I was in the kitchen----”
“Tell Doctor Bliss we’re here, and want to see him at once.”
“Yes, sir.” The butler went down the hall and knocked on the study
door. There was no answer, and he knocked again. After a moment he
turned the knob and looked in the room. Then he came back to us.
“The doctor is not in his study. Perhaps he has gone to his bedroom.…
I’ll see.”
He moved toward the stairs and was about to ascend when a calm, even
voice halted him.
“Bliss _effendi_ is not up-stairs.” Hani came slowly down to the front
hall. “It is possible he is in the museum.”
“Well, well!” Vance regarded the man reflectively. “Amazin’ how you
always turn up.… So you think he may be potterin’ among his
treasures--eh, what?” He pushed open the great steel door of the
museum. “If the doctor is in here, he’s whiling away his time in the
dark.” Stepping to the stair-landing inside the museum door, he
switched on the lights and looked about the great room. “You’re
apparently in error, Hani, regarding the doctor’s whereabouts. To all
appearances the museum is empty.”
The Egyptian was unruffled.
“Perhaps Doctor Bliss has gone out for a breath of air.”
There was a troubled frown on Vance’s face.
“That’s possible,” he murmured. “However, I wish you’d make sure he is
not up-stairs.”
“I would have seen him had he come up-stairs after dinner,” the
Egyptian replied softly. “But I will follow your instructions
nevertheless.” And he went to search for Bliss.
Vance stepped up to Brush and asked in a low voice:
“At what time did Mr. Scarlett leave here to-night?”
“I don’t know, sir.” The man was mystified by Vance’s manner. “I
really don’t know. He came at about eight--I let him in. He may have
gone out with Doctor Bliss. They often take a walk together at night.”
“Did Mr. Scarlett go into the museum when he arrived at eight?”
“No, sir. He asked for Doctor Bliss.…”
“Ah! And did he see the doctor?”
“Yes, sir.… That is,”--Brush corrected himself--“I suppose he did. I
told him Doctor Bliss was in the study, and he at once went down the
hall. I returned to the kitchen.”
“Did you notice anything unusual in Mr. Scarlett’s manner?”
The butler thought a moment.
“Well, sir, since you mention it, I might say that Mr. Scarlett was
rather stiff and distant, like there was something on his mind--if you
know what I mean.”
“And the last you saw of him was when he was approaching the study
door?”
“Yes, sir.”
Vance nodded a dismissal.
“Remain in the drawing-room for the time being,” he said.
As Brush disappeared through the folding door Hani came slowly down
the stairs.
“It is as I said,” he responded indifferently. “Doctor Bliss is not
up-stairs.”
Vance scrutinized him sternly.
“Do you know that Mr. Scarlett called here to-night?”
“Yes, I know.” A curious light came into the man’s eyes. “I was in the
drawing-room when Brush admitted him.”
“He came to see Doctor Bliss,” said Vance.
“Yes. I heard him ask Brush----”
“Did Mr. Scarlett see the doctor?”
The Egyptian did not answer at once. He met Vance’s gaze steadily as
if trying to read the other’s thoughts. At length, reaching a
decision, he said:
“They were together--to my knowledge--for at least half an hour. When
Mr. Scarlett entered the study he left the door open by the merest
crack, and I was able to hear them talking together. But I could not
distinguish anything that was said. Their voices were subdued.”
“How long did you listen?”
“For half an hour. Then I went up-stairs.”
“You have not seen either Doctor Bliss or Mr. Scarlett since?”
“No, _effendi_.”
“Where was Mr. Salveter during the conference in the study?” Vance was
striving hard to control his anxiety.
“Was he here in the house?” Hani asked evasively. “He told me at
dinner that he was going to Boston.”
“Yes, yes--on the nine-thirty train. He needn’t have left the house
until nine.--Where was he between eight and nine?”
Hani shrugged his shoulders.
“I did not see him. He went out before Mr. Scarlett arrived. He was
certainly not here after eight----”
“You’re lying.” Vance’s tone was icy.
“_Wahyât en-nabi_----”
“Don’t try to impress me--I’m not in the humor.” Vance’s eyes were
like steel. “What do you think happened here to-night?”
“I think perhaps Sakhmet returned.”
A pallor seemed to overspread Vance’s face: it may, however, have been
only the reflection of the hall light.
“Go to your room and wait there,” he said curtly.
Hani bowed.
“You do not need my help now, _effendi_. You understand many things.”
And the Egyptian walked away with much dignity.
Vance stood tensely until he had disappeared. Then, with a motion to
us, he hurried down the hall to the study. Throwing open the door he
switched on the lights.
There was anxiety and haste in all his movements, and the electric
atmosphere of his demeanor was transmitted to the rest of us. We
realized that something tragic and terrible was leading him on.
He went to the two windows and leaned out. By the pale reflected light
he could see the asphalt tiles on the ground below. He looked under
the desk, and measured with his eyes the four-inch clearance beneath
the divan. Then he went to the door leading into the museum.
“I hardly thought we’d find anything in the study; but there was a
chance.…”
He was now swinging down the spiral stairs.
“It will be here in the museum,” he called to us. “Come along,
Sergeant. There’s work to do. A fiend has been loose to-night.…”
He walked past the state chair and the shelves of _shawabtis_, and
stood beside the long glass table case, his hands deep in his coat
pockets, his eyes moving rapidly about the room. Markham and Heath and
I waited at the foot of the stairs.
“What’s this all about?” Markham asked huskily. “What has taken place?
And what, incidentally, are you looking for?”
“I don’t know what has taken place.” Something in Vance’s tone sent a
chill through me. “And I’m looking for something damnable. If it isn’t
here.…”
He did not finish the sentence. Going swiftly to the great replica of
Kha-ef-Rê he walked round it. Then he went to the statue of Ramses II
and inspected its base. After that he moved to Teti-shiret and tapped
the pedestal with his knuckles.
“They’re all solid,” he muttered. “We must try the mummy cases.” He
recrossed the museum. “Start at that end, Sergeant. The covers should
come off easily. If you have any difficulty, tear them off.” He
himself went to the anthropoid case beside Kha-ef-Rê and, inserting
his hand beneath the upstanding lid, lifted it off and laid it on the
floor.
Heath, apparently animated by an urgent desire for physical action,
had already begun his search at the other end of the line. He was by
no means gentle about it. He tore the lids off viciously, throwing
them to the floor with unnecessary clatter.
Vance, absorbed in his own task, paid scant attention except to glance
up as each lid was separated from the case. Markham, however, had
begun to grow uneasy. He watched the Sergeant disapprovingly for
several minutes, his face clouding over. Then he stepped forward.
“I can’t let this go on, Vance,” he remarked. “These are valuable
treasures, and we have no right----”
Vance stood up and looked straight at Markham.
“And if there is a dead man in one of them?” he asked with a cold
precision that caused Markham to stiffen.
“A dead man?”
“Placed here to-night--between eight and nine.”
Vance’s words had an ominous and impressive quality, and Markham said
no more. He stood by, his features strained and set, watching the
feverish inspection of the remaining mummy cases.
But no grisly discovery was made. Heath removed the lid of the last
case in obvious disappointment.
“I guess something’s gone wrong with your ideas, Mr. Vance,” he
commented without animus: indeed, there was a kindly note in his
voice.
Vance, distraught and with a far-away look in his eyes, now stood by
the glass case. His distress was so apparent that Markham went to him
and touched him on the arm.
“Perhaps if we could re-calculate this affair along other lines----”
he began; but Vance interrupted.
“No; it can’t be re-calculated. It’s too logical. There’s been a
tragedy here to-night--and we were too late to intercept it.”
“We should have taken precautions.” Markham’s tone was bitter.
“Precautions! Every possible precaution was taken. A new element was
introduced into the situation to-night--an element that couldn’t
possibly have been foreseen. To-night’s tragedy was not part of the
plot.…” Vance turned and walked away. “I must think this thing out. I
must trace the murderer’s reasoning.…” He made an entire circuit of
the museum without taking his eyes from the floor.
Heath was puffing moodily on his cigar. He had not moved from in front
of the mummy cases, and was pretending to be interested in their
crudely colored hieroglyphs. Ever since the “Canary” murder case, when
Tony Skeel had failed to keep his appointment in the District
Attorney’s office, he had, for all his protests, believed in Vance’s
prognostications; and now he was deeply troubled at the other’s
failure. I was watching him, a bit dazed myself, when I saw a frown of
puzzled curiosity wrinkle his forehead. Taking his cigar from his
mouth he bent over one of the fallen mummy cases and lifted out a
slender metal object.
“That’s a hell of a place to keep an automobile jack,” he observed.
(His interest in the jack was obviously the result of an unconscious
attempt to distract his thoughts from the tense situation.)
He threw the jack back into the case and sat down on the base of
Kha-ef-Rê’s statue. Neither Vance nor Markham had apparently paid the
slightest attention to his irrelevant discovery.
Vance continued pacing round the museum. For the first time since our
arrival at the house he took out a cigarette and lighted it.
“Every line of reasoning leads here, Markham.” He spoke in a low,
hopeless tone. “There was no necessity for the evidence to have been
taken away. In the first place, it would have been too hazardous; and,
in the second place, we were not supposed to have suspected anything
for a day or two.…”
His voice faltered and his body went suddenly taut. He wheeled toward
Heath.
“An automobile jack!” A dynamic change had come over him. “Oh, my
aunt! I wonder… I wonder.…”
He hurried toward the black sarcophagus beneath the front windows, and
scrutinized it anxiously.
“Too high,” he murmured. “Three feet from the floor! It couldn’t have
been done.… But it had to be done--somehow.…” He looked about him.
“That taboret!” He pointed to a small solid oak stand, about twenty
inches high, against the wall near the Asiatic wooden statue. “It was
not there last night; it was beside the desk-table by the
obelisk--Scarlett was using it.” As he spoke he went to the taboret
and picked it up. “And the top is scratched--there’s an indentation.…”
He placed the stand against the head of the sarcophagus. “Quick,
Sergeant! Bring me that jack.”
Heath obeyed with swiftness; and Vance placed the jack on the taboret,
fitting its base over the scars in the wood. The lifting-head came
within an inch of the under-side of the sarcophagus’s lid where it
extended a few inches over the end elevation between the two
projecting lion-legged supports at the corners.
We had gathered about Vance in tense silence, not knowing what to
expect but feeling that we were on the threshold of some appalling
revelation.
Vance inserted the elevating lever, which Heath handed him, into the
socket, and moved it carefully up and down. The jack worked perfectly.
At each downward thrust of the lever there was a metallic click as the
detent slipped into the groove of the rack. Inch by inch the end of
the ponderous granite lid--which must have weighed over half a
ton[*30]--rose.
Heath suddenly stepped back in alarm.
“Ain’t you afraid, Mr. Vance, that the lid’ll slide off the other end
of the coffin?”
“No, Sergeant,” Vance assured him. “The friction alone of so heavy a
mass would hold it at a much greater angle than this jack could tilt
it.”
The head of the cover was now eight inches in the clear, and Vance was
using both hands on the lever. He had to work with great care lest the
jack slip from the smooth under-surface of the granite. Nine inches…
[Illustration]
ten inches… eleven… twelve.… The rack had almost reached its limit of
elevation. With one final thrust downward, Vance released the lever
and tested the solidity of the extended jack.
“It’s safe, I think.…”
Heath had already taken out his pocket-light and flashed it into the
dark recesses of the sarcophagus.
“Mother o’ God!” he gasped.
I was standing just behind him, leaning over his broad shoulders; and
simultaneously with the flare of his light I saw the horrifying thing
that had made him call out. In the end of the sarcophagus was a dark,
huddled human body, the back hunched upward and the legs hideously
cramped, as if some one had hastily shoved it through the aperture,
head first.
Markham stood bending forward like a person paralyzed in the midst of
an action.
Vance’s quiet but insistent voice broke the tension of our horror.
“Hold your light steady, Sergeant. And you, Markham, lend me a hand.
But be careful. Don’t touch the jack.…”
With great caution they reached into the sarcophagus and turned the
body until the head was toward the widest point of the opening. A
chill ran up my spine as I watched them, for I knew that the slightest
jar, or the merest touch on the jack, would bring the massive granite
lid down upon them. Heath, too, realized this--I could see the
glistening beads of sweat on his forehead as he watched the dangerous
operation with fearful eyes.
Slowly the body emerged through the small opening, and when the feet
had passed over the edge of the sarcophagus and clattered to the
floor, the flash-light went out, and Heath sprawled back on his
haunches with a convulsive gasp.
“Hell! I musta stumbled, Mr. Vance,” he muttered. (I liked the
Sergeant even more after that episode.)
Markham stood looking down at the inert body in stupefaction.
“_Scarlett_!” he exclaimed in a voice of complete incredulity.
Vance merely nodded, and bent over the prostrate figure. Scarlett’s
face was cyanosed, due to insufficient oxygenation of the blood; his
eyes were set in a fixed bulging stare; and there was a crust
formation of blood at his nostrils. Vance put his ear on the man’s
chest and took his wrist in one hand to feel the pulse. Then he drew
out his gold cigarette-case and held it before Scarlett’s lips. After
a glance at the case he turned excitedly to Heath.
“The ambulance, Sergeant! Hurry! Scarlett’s still alive.…”
Heath dashed up the stairs and disappeared into the front hall.
Markham regarded Vance intently.
“I don’t understand this,” he said huskily.
“Nor do I--entirely.” Vance’s eyes were on Scarlett. “I advised him to
keep away from here. He, too, knew the danger, and yet.… You remember
Rider Haggard’s dedication of ‘Allan Quatermain’ to his son, wherein
he spoke of the highest rank to which one can attain--the state and
dignity of an English gentleman?[*31]… Scarlett was an English
gentleman. Knowing the peril, he came here to-night. He thought he
might end the tragedy.”
Markham was stunned and puzzled.
“We’ve got to take some sort of action--now.”
“Yes.…” Vance was deeply concerned. “But the difficulties! There’s no
evidence. We’re helpless.… Unless----” He stopped short. “That
hieroglyphic letter! Maybe it’s here somewhere. To-night was the time;
but Scarlett came unexpectedly. I wonder if he knew about that, too.…”
Vance’s eyes drifted thoughtfully into space, and for several moments
he stood rigid. Then he suddenly went to the sarcophagus and, striking
a match, looked inside.
“Nothing.” There was dire disappointment in his tone. “And yet, it
should be here.…” He straightened up. “Perhaps… yes! That, too, would
be logical.”
He knelt down beside the unconscious man and began going through his
pockets. Scarlett’s coat was buttoned, and it was not until Vance had
reached into the inner breast pocket that his search was rewarded. He
drew out a crumpled sheet of yellow scratch paper of the kind on which
Salveter’s Egyptian exercise had been written, and after one glance at
it thrust it into his own pocket.
Heath appeared at the door.
“O.K.,” he called down, “I told ’em to rush it.”
“How long will it take?” Vance asked.
“Not more’n ten minutes. I called Headquarters; and they’ll relay it
to the local station. They generally pick up the cop on the beat--but
that don’t delay things. I’ll wait here at the door for ’em.”
“Just a moment.” Vance wrote something on the back of an envelope and
handed it up to Heath. “Call Western Union and get this telegram off.”
Heath took the message, read it, whistled softly, and went out into
the hall.
“I’m wiring Salveter at New Haven to leave the train at New London and
return to New York,” Vance explained to Markham. “He’ll be able to
catch the Night Express at New London, and will get here early
to-morrow morning.”
Markham looked at him shrewdly.
“You think he’ll come?”
“Oh, yes.”
When the ambulance arrived, Heath escorted the interne, the
blue-uniformed driver and the police officer into the museum. The
interne, a pink-faced youth with a serious brow, bowed to Markham and
knelt beside Scarlett. After a superficial examination, he beckoned to
the driver.
“Go easy with his head.”
The man, assisted by the officer, lifted Scarlett to the stretcher.
“How bad is he, doctor?” Markham asked anxiously.
“Pretty bad, sir.” The interne shook his head pompously. “A messy
fracture at the base of the skull. Cheyne-Stokes breathing. If he
lives, he’s luckier than I’ll ever be.” And with a shrug he followed
the stretcher out of the house.
“I’ll phone the hospital later,” Markham said to Vance. “If Scarlett
recovers, he can supply us with evidence.”
“Don’t count on it,” Vance discouraged him. “To-night’s episode was
isolated.” He went to the sarcophagus and reversed the jack. Slowly
the lid descended to its original position. “A bit dangerous, don’t y’
know, to leave it up.”
Markham stood by frowning.
“Vance, what paper was that you found in Scarlett’s pocket?”
“I imagine it was an incriminatin’ document written in Egyptian
hieroglyphs. We’ll see.”
He spread the paper out smoothly on the top of the sarcophagus. It was
almost exactly like the letter Vance had pieced together in Bliss’s
study. The color of the paper was the same, and it contained four rows
of hieroglyphs drawn in green ink.
Vance studied it while Markham and Heath, who had returned to the
museum, and I looked on.
“Let me see how well I remember my Egyptian,” he murmured. “It’s been
years since I did any transliterating.…”
He placed his monocle in his eye and bent forward.
“_Meryet-Amûn, aha-y o er yu son maut-y en merya-y men seshem pen
dya-y em yeb-y era-y en marwet mar-en yu rekha-t khet nibet hir-sa
hetpa-t na-y kheft shewa-n em debat nefra-n entot hena-y._… This is
done very accurately, Markham. The nouns and adjectives agree as to
gender, and the verb endings----”
“Never mind those matters,” Markham interrupted impatiently. “What
does that paper say?”
“I beg of you, Markham old dear!” Vance protested. “Middle-Kingdom
Egyptian is a most difficult language. Coptic and Assyrian and Greek
and Sanskrit are abecedarian beside it. However, I can give you a
literal translation.” He began reading slowly: “‘Beloved of Amûn, I
stop here until comes the brother of my mother. Not do I wish that
should-endure this situation. I have-placed in my heart that I
should-act for the sake of our well-being. Thou shalt-know every-thing
later. Thou shalt-be-satisfied
[Illustration: THE HIEROGLYPHIC LETTER]
toward me when we are-free from what-blocks-the-way, happy-are we,
thou together-with me.…’ Not what you’d call Harvardian. But such were
the verbal idiosyncrasies of the ancient Egyptians.”
“Well, it don’t make sense to me,” Heath commented sourly.
“But properly paraphrased it makes fiendish sense, Sergeant. Put into
everyday English, it says: ‘Meryt-Amen: I am waiting here for my
uncle. I cannot endure this situation any longer; and I have decided
to take drastic action for the sake of our happiness. You will
understand everything later, and you will forgive me when we are free
from all obstacles and can be happy together.’… I say, Sergeant; does
that make sense?”
“I’ll tell the world!” Heath looked at Vance with an air of
contemptuous criticism. “And you sent that bird Salveter to Boston!”
“He’ll be back to-morrow,” Vance assured him.
“But see here;”--Markham’s eyes were fixed on the incriminating
paper--“what about that other letter you pieced together? And how did
this letter get in Scarlett’s pocket?”
Vance folded the paper carefully and placed it in his wallet.
“The time has come,” he said slowly, “to tell you everything. It may
be, when you have the facts in hand, you can figure out some course of
procedure. I can see legal difficulties ahead; but I now have all the
evidence we can ever hope for.” He was uneasy and troubled.
“Scarlett’s intrusion in to-night’s happenings changed the murderer’s
plans. Anyway, I can now convince you of the incredible and abominable
truth.”
Markham studied him for several moments, and a startled light came in
his eyes.
“_God Almighty!_” he breathed. “I see what you mean.” He clicked his
teeth together. “But first I must phone the hospital. There’s a chance
that Scarlett can help us--if he lives.”
He went to the rear of the museum and mounted the spiral stairs to the
study. A few minutes later he reappeared, his face dark and hopeless.
“I spoke to the doctor,” he said. “There’s not one chance in a
thousand for Scarlett. Concussion of the brain--and suffocation.
They’ve got the pulmotor on him now. Even if he does pull through
he’ll be unconscious for a week or two.”
“I was afraid of that.” I had rarely seen Vance so distressed. “We
were too late. But--dash it all!--I couldn’t have foreseen his
quixotism. And I warned him.…”
“Come, old man.” Markham spoke with paternal kindliness. “It’s not
your fault. There was nothing you could have done. And you were right
in keeping the truth to yourself----”
“Excuse _me_!” Heath was exasperated. “I myself ain’t exactly an enemy
of truth. Why can’t I get in on this?”
“You can, Sergeant.” Vance placed his hand on the other’s shoulder.
“Let’s go to the drawing-room. ‘And every mountain and hill shall be
made low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places
plain.’”
He moved toward the stairs; and we followed him.