THE JUDGMENT OF ANÛBIS
(_Saturday, July 14; 11 p.m._)
“I say, Sergeant! Don’t be rash.” Despite the drawling quality of
Vance’s tone Heath halted abruptly. “If I were you I’d take a bit of
legal advice from Mr. Markham before arresting the doctor.”
“Legal advice be damned!”
“Oh, quite. In principle I agree with you. But there’s no need to be
temerarious about these little matters. Caution is always good.”
Markham, who was standing beside Vance, lifted his head.
“Sit down, Sergeant,” he ordered. “We can’t arrest a man on theory.”
He walked to the fireplace and back. “This thing has to be thought
out. There’s no evidence against Bliss. We couldn’t hold him an hour
if a clever lawyer got busy on the case.”
“And Bliss knows it,” said Vance.
“But he killed Kyle!” Heath expostulated.
“Granted.” Markham sat down beside the table and rested his chin in
his hands. “But I’ve nothing tangible to present to a grand jury. And,
as Mr. Vance says, even if Scarlett should recover I’d have only an
assault charge against Bliss.”
“What wallops me, sir,” moaned Heath, “is how a guy can commit murder
almost before our very eyes, and get away with it. It ain’t
reasonable.”
“Ah, but there’s little that’s reasonable in this fantastic and
ironical world, Sergeant,” remarked Vance.
“Well, anyhow,” returned Heath, “I’d arrest that bird in a minute and
take my chances at making the charge stick.”
“I feel the same way,” Markham said. “But no matter how convinced we
are of the truth, we must be able to produce conclusive evidence. And
this fiend has covered all the evidence so cleverly that any jury in
the country would acquit him, even if we could hold him for
trial--which is highly dubious.”
Vance sighed and stood up.
“The law!” He spoke with unusual fervor. “And the rooms in which this
law is put on public exhibition are called courts of justice.
_Justice!_--oh, my precious aunt! _Summum jus, summa injuria._ How can
there be justice, or even intelligence, in echolalia?… Here we three
are--a District Attorney; a Sergeant of the Homicide Bureau; and a
lover of Brahms’ B-flat piano concerto--with a known murderer within
fifty feet of us; and we’re helpless! Why? Because this elaborate
invention of imbeciles, called the law, has failed to provide for the
extermination of a dangerous and despicable criminal, who not only
murdered his benefactor in cold blood, but attempted to kill another
decent man, and then endeavored to saddle an innocent third man with
both crimes so that he could continue digging up ancient and venerated
corpses!… No wonder Hani detests him. At heart Bliss is a ghoul; and
Hani is an honorable and intelligent man.”
“I admit the law is imperfect,” Markham interrupted tartly. “But your
dissertation is hardly helpful. We’re confronted with a terrible
problem, and a way must be found to handle it.”
Vance still stood before the table, his eyes fixed on the door.
“But your law will never solve it,” he said. “You can’t convict Bliss;
you don’t even dare arrest him. He could make you the laughing-stock
of the country if you tried it. And furthermore, he’d become a sort of
persecuted hero who had been hounded by an incompetent and befuddled
police, who had unjustly pounced on him in a moment of groggy
desperation in order to save their more or less classic features.”
Vance took a deep draw on his cigarette.
“Markham old dear, I’m inclined to think the gods of ancient Egypt
were more intelligent than Solon, Justinian, and all the other
law-givers combined. Hani was spoofing about the vengeance of Sakhmet;
but, after all, that solar-disked lady would be just as effective as
your silly statutes. Mythological ideas are largely nonsense; but are
they more nonsensical than the absurdities of present-day law?…”
“For God’s sake, be still.” Markham was irritable.
Vance looked at him in troubled concern.
“Your hands are tied by the technicalities of a legalistic system;
and, as a result, a creature like Bliss is to be turned loose on the
world. Moreover, a harmless chap like Salveter is to be put under
suspicion and ruined. Also, Meryt-Amen--a courageous lady----”
“I realize all that.” Markham raised himself, an agonized look on his
face. “And yet, Vance, there’s not one piece of convincing evidence
against Bliss.”
“Most distressin’. Your only hope seems to be that the eminent doctor
will meet with a sudden and fatal accident. Such things do happen,
don’t y’ know.”
Vance smoked for a moment.
“If only Hani’s gods had the supernatural power attributed to them!”
he sighed. “How deuced simple! And really, Anûbis hasn’t shown up at
all well in this affair. He’s been excruciatingly lazy. As the god of
the underworld----”
“That’s enough!” Markham rose. “Have a little sense of propriety.
Being an æsthete without responsibilities is no doubt delightful, but
the world’s work must go on.…”
“Oh, by all means.” Vance seemed wholly indifferent to the other’s
outburst. “I say, you might draw up a new law altering the existing
rules of evidence, and present it to the legislature. The only
difficulty would be that, by the time those intellectual Sandows got
through debating and appointing committees, you and I and the Sergeant
and Bliss would have passed forever down the dim corridors of time.”
Markham slowly turned toward Vance. His eyes were mere slits.
“What’s behind this childish garrulity?” he demanded. “You’ve got
something on your mind.”
Vance seated himself on the edge of the table and, putting out his
cigarette, thrust his hands deep into his pockets.
“Markham,” he said, with serious deliberation, “you know, as well as
I, that Bliss is outside the law, and that there’s no human way to
convict him. The only means by which he can be brought to book is
trickery.”
“Trickery?” Markham was momentarily indignant.
“Oh, nothing reprehensible,” Vance answered lightly, taking out
another cigarette. “Consider, Markham.…” And he launched out into a
detailed recapitulation of the case. I could not understand the object
of his wordy repetitions, for they seemed to have little bearing on
the crucial point at issue. And Markham, also, was puzzled. Several
times he attempted to interrupt, but Vance held up his hand
imperatively and continued with his résumé.
After ten minutes Markham refused to be silenced.
“Come to the point, Vance,” he said somewhat angrily. “You’ve gone
over all this before. Have you--or haven’t you--any suggestion?”
“Yes, I have a suggestion.” Vance spoke earnestly. “It’s a
psychological experiment; and there is a chance that it’ll prove
effective. I believe that if Bliss were confronted suddenly with what
we know, and if a little forceful chicanery were used on him, he might
be surprised into an admission that would give you a hold on him. He
doesn’t know we found Scarlett in the sarcophagus, and we might
pretend that we have got an incriminatin’ statement from the poor
chap. We might go so far as to tell him that Mrs. Bliss is thoroughly
convinced of the truth; for if he believes that his plot has failed
and that there is no hope of his continuing his excavations, he may
even confess everything. Bliss is a colossal egoist, and, if cornered,
might blurt out the truth and boast of his cleverness. And you must
admit that your one chance of shipping the old codger to the
executioner lies in a confession.”
“Chief, couldn’t we arrest the guy on the evidence he planted against
himself?” Heath asked irritably. “There was that scarab pin, and the
bloody footmarks and the finger-prints----”
“No, no, Sergeant.” Markham was impatient. “He has covered himself at
every point. And the moment we arrested him he’d turn on Salveter. All
we’d achieve would be the ruination of an innocent man and the
unhappiness of Mrs. Bliss.”
Heath capitulated.
“Yeah, I can see that,” he said sourly, after a moment. “But this
situation slays me. I’ve known some clever crooks in my day; but this
bird Bliss has ’em all beat.… Why not take Mr. Vance’s suggestion?”
Markham halted in his nervous pacing, and set his jaw.
“I guess we’ll have to.” He fixed his gaze on Vance. “But don’t handle
him with silk gloves.”
“Really, now, I never wear ’em. Chamois, yes--on certain occasions.
And in winter I’m partial to pig-skin and reindeer. But silk! Oh, my
word!…”
He went to the folding door and threw it open. Hani stood just outside
in the hall, with folded arms, a silent, watchful sentinel.
“Has the doctor left the study?” Vance asked.
“No, _effendi_.” Hani’s eyes looked straight ahead.
“Good!” Vance started down the hall. “Come, Markham. Let’s see what a
bit of extra-legal persuasion will do.”
Markham and Heath and I followed him. He did not knock on the study
door, but threw it open unceremoniously.
“Oh, I say! Something’s amiss.” Vance’s comment came simultaneously
with our realization that the study was empty. “Dashed queer.” He went
to the steel door leading to the spiral stairs, and opened it. “No
doubt the doctor is communin’ with his treasures.” He passed through
the door and descended the steps, the rest of us trailing along.
Vance drew up at the foot of the stairs and put his hand to his
forehead.
“We’ll never interview Bliss again in this world,” he said in a low
voice.
There was no need for him to explain. In the corner opposite, in
almost the exact place where we had found Kyle’s body the preceding
day, Bliss lay sprawled face downward in a pool of blood. Across the
back of his crushed skull stretched the life-sized statue of Anûbis.
The heavy figure of the underworld god had apparently fallen on him as
he leaned over his precious items in the cabinet before which he had
murdered Kyle. The coincidence was so staggering that none of us was
able to speak for several moments. We stood, in a kind of paralyzed
awe, looking down on the body of the great Egyptologist.
Markham was the first to break the silence.
“It’s incredible!” His voice was strained and unnatural. “There’s a
divine retribution in this.”
“Oh, doubtless.” Vance moved to the feet of the statue and bent over.
“However, I don’t go in for mysticism myself. I’m an empiricist--same
like Weininger said the English are.”[*34] He adjusted his monocle.
“Ah!… Sorry to disappoint you, and all that. But there’s nothing
supernatural about the demise of the doctor. Behold, Markham, the
broken ankles of Anûbis.… The situation is quite obvious. While the
doctor was leaning over his treasures, he jarred the statue in some
way, and it toppled over on him.”
We all bent forward. The heavy base of the statue of Anûbis stood
where it had been when we first saw it; but the figure, from the
ankles up, had broken off.
“You see,” Vance was saying, pointing to the base, “the ankles are
very slender, and the statue is made of limestone--a rather fragile
substance. The ankles no doubt were cracked in shipping, and the
tremendous weight of the body weakened the flaw.”
Heath inspected the statue closely.
“That’s what happened, all right,” he remarked, straightening up.… “I
ain’t had many breaks in my life, Chief,” he added to Markham with
feigned jauntiness; “but I never want a better one than this. Mr.
Vance mighta lured the doc into a confession--and he mighta failed.
Now we got nothing to worry about.”
“Quite true.” Markham nodded vaguely. He was still under the influence
of the astounding change in the situation. “I’m leaving you in charge,
Sergeant. You’d better call the local ambulance and get the Medical
Examiner. Phone me at home as soon as the routine work is finished.
I’ll take care of the reporters in the morning.… The case is on the
shelf, thank God!”
He stood for some time, his eyes fixed on the body. He looked almost
haggard, but I knew a great weight had been taken off of his mind by
Bliss’s unexpected death.
“I’ll attend to everything, sir,” Heath assured him. “But what about
breaking the news to Mrs. Bliss?”
“Hani will do that,” said Vance. He put his hand on Markham’s arm.
“Come along, old friend. You need sleep.… Let’s stagger round to my
humble abode, and I’ll give you a brandy-and-soda. I still have some
_Napoléon_-’48 left.”
“Thanks.” Markham drew a deep sigh.
As we emerged into the front hall Vance beckoned to Hani.
“Very touchin’, but your beloved employer has gone to Amentet to join
the shades of the Pharaohs.”
“He is dead?” The Egyptian lifted his eyebrows slightly.
“Oh, quite, Hani. Anûbis fell on him as he leaned over the end
cabinet. A most effective death. But there was a certain justice in
it. Doctor Bliss was guilty of Mr. Kyle’s murder.”
“You and I knew that all along, _effendi_.” The man smiled wistfully
at Vance. “But I fear that the doctor’s death may have been my fault.
When I unpacked the statue of Anûbis and set it in the corner, I
noticed that the ankles were cracked. I did not tell the doctor, for I
was afraid he might accuse me of having been careless, or of having
deliberately injured his treasure.”
“No one is going to blame you for Doctor Bliss’s death,” Vance said
casually. “We’re leaving you to inform Mrs. Bliss of the tragedy. And
Mr. Salveter will be returning early to-morrow morning.… _Es-salâmu
alei-kum._”
“_Ma es-salâm, effendi._”
Vance and Markham and I passed out into the heavy night air.
“Let’s walk,” Vance said. “It’s only a little over a mile to my
apartment, and I feel the need of exercise.”
Markham fell in with the suggestion, and we strolled toward Fifth
Avenue in silence. When we had crossed Madison Square and passed the
Stuyvesant Club, Markham spoke.
“It’s almost unbelievable, Vance. It’s the sort of thing that makes
one superstitious. Here we were, confronted by an insoluble problem.
We knew Bliss was guilty, and yet there was no way to reach him. And
while we were debating the case he stepped into the museum and was
accidentally killed by a falling statue on practically the same spot
where he murdered Kyle.… Damn it! Such things don’t happen in the
orderly course of the world’s events. And what makes it even more
fantastic is that you suggested that he might meet with an accident.”
“Yes, yes. Interestin’ coincidence.” Vance seemed disinclined to
discuss the matter.
“And that Egyptian,” Markham rumbled on. “He wasn’t in the least
astonished when you informed him of Bliss’s death. He acted almost as
if he expected some such news----”
He suddenly drew up short. Vance and I stopped, too, and looked at
him. His eyes were blazing.
“_Hani killed Bliss!_”
Vance sighed and shrugged.
“Of course he did, Markham. My word! I thought you understood the
situation.”
“Understood?” Markham was spluttering. “What do you mean?”
“It was all so obvious, don’t y’ know,” Vance said mildly. “I
realized, just as you did, that there was no chance of convicting
Bliss; so I suggested to Hani how he could terminate the whole silly
affair----”
“You suggested to Hani?”
“During our conversation in the drawing-room. Really, Markham old
dear, I’m not in the habit of indulgin’ in weird conversations about
mythology unless I have a reason. I simply let Hani know there was no
legal way of bringing Bliss to justice, and intimated how he could
overcome the difficulty and incidentally save you from a most
embarrassin’ predicament.…”
“But Hani was in the hall, with the door closed.” Markham’s
indignation was rising.
“Quite so. I told him to stand outside the door. I knew very well he’d
listen to us.…”
“You deliberately----”
“Oh, most deliberately.” Vance spread his hands in a gesture of
surrender. “While I babbled to you and appeared foolish no doubt, I
was really talking to Hani. Of course, I didn’t know if he would grasp
the opportunity or not. But he did. He equipped himself with a mace
from the museum--I do hope it was the same mace that Bliss used on
Kyle--and struck Bliss over the head. Then he dragged the body down
the spiral stairs and laid it at the feet of Anûbis. With the mace he
broke the statue’s sandstone ankles, and dropped the figure over
Bliss’s skull. Very simple.”
“And all that rambling chatter of yours in the drawing-room----”
“Was merely to keep you and Heath away in case Hani had decided to
act.”
Markham’s eyes narrowed.
“You can’t get away with that sort of thing, Vance. I’ll send Hani up
for murder. There’ll be finger-prints----”
“Oh, no, there won’t, Markham. Didn’t you notice the gloves on the
hat-rack? Hani is no fool. He put on the gloves before he went to the
study. You’d have a harder time convicting him than you’d have had
convicting Bliss. Personally, I rather admire Hani. Stout fella!”
For a time Markham was too angry to speak. Finally, however, he gave
voice to an ejaculation.
“It’s outrageous!”
“Of course it is,” Vance agreed amiably. “So was the murder of Kyle.”
He lighted a cigarette and puffed on it cheerfully. “The trouble with
you lawyers is, you’re jealous and blood-thirsty. You wanted to send
Bliss to the electric chair yourself, and couldn’t; and Hani
simplified everything for you. As I see it, you’re merely disappointed
because some one else took Bliss’s life before you could get round to
it.… Really, y’ know, Markham, you’re frightfully selfish.”
I feel that a short postscript will not be amiss. Markham had no
difficulty, as you will no doubt remember, in convincing the press
that Bliss had been guilty of the murder of Benjamin H. Kyle, and that
his tragic “accidental” death had in it much of what is commonly
called divine justice.
Scarlett, contrary to the doctor’s prediction, recovered; but it was
many weeks before he could talk rationally. Vance and I visited him in
the hospital late in August, and he corroborated Vance’s theory about
what had happened on that fatal night in the museum. Scarlett went to
England early in September,--his father had died, leaving him an
involved estate in Bedfordshire.
Mrs. Bliss and Salveter were married in Nice late the following
spring; and the excavations of Intef’s tomb, I see from the bulletins
of the Archæological Institute, are continuing. Salveter is in charge
of the work, and I am rather happy to note that Scarlett is the
technical expert of the expedition.
Hani, according to a recent letter from Salveter to Vance, has become
reconciled to the “desecration of the tombs of his ancestors.” He is
still with Meryt-Amen and Salveter, and I’m inclined to think that his
personal love for these two young people is stronger than his national
prejudices.
[The End]
ENDNOTES
[1] Doctor Mindrum W.C. Bliss, M.A., A.O.S.S., F.S.A., F.R.S., Hon.
Mem. R.A.S., was the author of “The Stele of Intefoe at Koptos”; a
“History of Egypt during the Hyksos Invasion”; “The Seventeenth
Dynasty”; and a monograph on the Amen-hotpe III Colossi.
[2] According to the Bliss-Weigall chronology the period between the
death of Sebk-nefru-Rê and the overthrow of the Shepherd Kings at
Memphis was from 1898 to 1577 B.C.--to wit: 321 years--as against the
1800 years claimed by the upholders of the longer chronology. This
short chronology is even shorter according to Breasted and the German
school. Breasted and Meyer dated the same period as from 1788 to 1580.
These 208 years, by the way, Vance considered too short for the
observable cultural changes.
[3] As legal adviser, monetary steward and constant companion of Philo
Vance, I kept a complete record of the principal criminal cases in
which he participated during Markham’s incumbency. Four of these cases
I have already recorded in book form--“The Benson Murder Case”
(Scribners, 1926); “The ‘Canary’ Murder Case” (Scribners, 1927); “The
Greene Murder Case” (Scribners, 1928); and “The Bishop Murder Case”
(Scribners, 1929).
[4] Sergeant Ernest Heath, of the Homicide Bureau, had worked with
Markham on most of his important cases. He was an honest, capable, but
uninspired police officer, who, after the Benson and the “Canary”
murder cases, had come to respect Vance highly. Vance admired the
Sergeant; and the two--despite their fundamental differences in
outlook and training--collaborated with admirable smoothness.
[5] Kha-ef-Rê was the originator of the great Sphinx, and also of one
of the three great Gîzeh pyramids--_Wer Kha-ef-Rê_ (Kha-ef-Rê is
mighty), now known as the Second Pyramid.
[6] Popularly, and incorrectly, called the Memnon Colossi.
[7] Captain Dubois was then the finger-print expert of the New York
Police Department; and Doctor Emanuel Doremus was the Medical
Examiner.
[8] The daughter of this particular Pharaoh--Nefra--incidentally is
the titular heroine of H. Rider Haggard’s romance, “Queen of the
Dawn.” Haggard, following the chronology of H.R. Hall, placed Intef in
the Fourteenth Dynasty instead of the Seventeenth, making him a
contemporary of the great Hyksos Pharaoh, Apopi, whose son Khyan--the
hero of the book--marries Nefra. The researches of Bliss and Weigall
seem to have demonstrated that this relationship is an anachronism.
[9] The ancient Egyptian name of Heracleopolis.
[10] This unusual name, I learned later, was the result of his
father’s interest in Egyptian mythology while in Maspero’s service.
[11] I learned from Vance that Doctor Bliss had read, in the British
Museum, the Abbott Papyrus of the Twentieth Dynasty, which reported
the inspection of this and other tombs. The report stated that, in
early times, Intef V’s tomb had been entered but not robbed: the
raiders had evidently been unable to penetrate to the actual grave
chamber. Bliss, therefore, had concluded that the mummy of Intef would
still be found in the original tomb. An old native named Hasan had
showed him where two obelisks had stood in front of the pyramid of
Intef (Intef-o); and through this information he had succeeded in
locating the pyramid, and had excavated at that point.
[12] This colored portrait (with the Queen’s name spelled Nefertiti)
appears in “Kings and Queens of Ancient Egypt” (Charles Scribner’s
Sons).
[13] I learned subsequently from Scarlett that Mrs. Bliss’s mother had
been a Coptic lady of noble descent who traced her lineage from the
last Saïte Pharaohs, and who, despite her Christian faith, had retained
her traditional veneration for the native gods of her country. Her only
child, Meryt-Amen (“Beloved of Amûn”), had been named in honor of the
great Ramses II, whose full title as Son of the Sun-God was Ra-mosê-su
Mery-Amûn. (The more correct English spelling of Mrs. Bliss’s name
would have been Meryet-Amûn, but the form chosen was no doubt based on
the transliterations of Flinders Petrie, Maspero, and Abercrombie.)
Meryet-Amûn was not an uncommon name among the queens and princesses
of ancient Egypt. Three queens of that name have already been
found--one (of the family of Ah-mosè I) whose mummy is in the Cairo
Museum; another (of the family of Ramses II) whose tomb and sarcophagus
are in the Valley of the Queens; and a third, whose burial chamber and
mummy were recently found by the Egyptian Expedition of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art on the hillside near the temple of Deir el
Bahri at Thebes. This last Queen Meryet-Amûn was the daughter of
Thut-mosè III and Meryet-Rê, and the wife of Amen-hotpe II. The story
of the finding of her tomb is told in Section II of the Bulletin of
the Metropolitan Museum of Art for November, 1929.
[14] I am not quite sure why Vance added this parenthetical phrase,
unless it was because the word _simoon_ comes from the Arabic _samma_
(meaning _to be poisoned_), and he thought that Hani would better
recognize the word in its correct etymological form.
[15] The irrigation to which Scarlett referred was the system that
resulted in the Aswân Dam, the Asyût Weir, and the Esneh Barrage.
[16] Sir E.A. Wallis Budge defines _ka_ (or, more correctly, _ku_)
both as “the double of a man” and “a divine double.” Breasted,
explaining the _ka_, says it was the “vital force” which was supposed
to animate the human body and also to accompany it into the next world.
G. Elliot Smith calls the _ka_ “one of the twin souls of the dead.”
(The other soul, _ba_, became deified in identification with Osiris.)
_Ka_ was the spirit of a mortal person, which remained in the tomb
after death; and if the tomb were violated or destroyed, the _ka_ had
no resting-place. Our own word “soul” is not quite an accurate
rendition of _ka_, but is perhaps as near as we can come to it in
English. The German word _Doppelgänger_, however, is an almost exact
translation.
[17] An old Arabic proverb meaning: “The only answer to a fool is
silence.”
[18] Guilfoyle, I recalled, was the detective of the Homicide Bureau
who was set to watch Tony Skeel in the “Canary” murder case, and who
reported on the all-night light at the Drukker house in the Bishop
murder case.
[19] The prism referred to by Salveter was the terra-cotta one acquired
by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago during its
reconnoitering expedition of 1919-20. The document was a variant
duplicate of the Taylor prism in the British Museum, written about two
years earlier under another eponym.
[20] Vance was here indulging in hyperbole, and believed it no more
than John Dennis believed that “a man who could make so vile a pun
would not scruple to pick a pocket.” Vance knew several Egyptologists
and respected them highly. Among them were Doctor Ludlow Bull and
Doctor Henry A. Carey of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who had once
generously assisted him in his work on the Menander fragments.
[21] Chief Inspector O’Brien was at that time in charge of the entire
Police Department of the City of New York.
[22] The Sun Cholera Mixture for dysentery (a recipe of Doctor G.W.
Busteed) was so named because its formula had been published by the
New York _Sun_ during the cholera excitement in New York in June, 1849.
It was admitted to the first edition of the National Formulary in
1883. Its constituents were tincture of capsicum, tincture of rhubarb,
spirits of camphor, essence of peppermint, and opium.
[23] Sir E.A. Wallis Budge was for many years Keeper of the Egyptian
and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum.
[24] Swacker, a bright, energetic youth, was Markham’s secretary.
[25] A similar dagger was found on the royal mummy in the tomb of
Tut-ankh-Amûn by the late Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter, and
is now in the Cairo Museum.
[26] Vance was referring jocularly to the declaration of Sakhmet in
the Chapter of Opening the Mouth of the Osiris Ani in the Egyptian
_Book of the Dead_:
[Illustration]
“I am the Goddess Sakhmet, and I take my seat upon the side of the
great west (wind?) of the skies.”
[27] Salveter was here referring to the Earl of Carnarvon, Colonel the
Honorable Aubrey Herbert, General Sir Lee Stack, George J. Gould,
Woolf Joel, Sir Archibald Douglas Reid, Professor Lafleur, H.G.
Evelyn-White, and Professor Georges-Aaron Bénédite. Since that time
two more names have been added to the fatal list--those of the
Honorable Richard Bethell, secretary to Howard Carter, and Lord
Westbury.
[28] Theogonius was a friend of Simon Magus, who, because of his fear
of the Emperor Caligula, pretended imbecility in order to hide his
wisdom. Suetonius refers to him as Theogonius, but Scaliger, Casaubon
and other historians give “Telegenius” as the correct spelling.
[29] Vance of course was referring to the French _Fête Nationale_ which
falls on July 14th.
[30] This was my guess during Vance’s operation. Later I calculated
the weight of the lid. It was ten feet long, four feet wide, and was
surmounted by a large carved figure. A conservative estimate would
give us ten cubic feet for the lid; and as the density of granite is
approximately 2.70 grams per cubic centimeter, or 170 pounds per cubic
foot, the lid would have weighed at least 1,700 pounds.
[31] The actual dedication reads: “I inscribe this book of adventure
to my son, Arthur John Rider Haggard, in the hope that in days to come
he, and many other boys whom I shall never know, may in the acts and
thoughts of Allan Quatermain and his companions, as herein recorded,
find something to help him and them to reach to what, with Sir Henry
Curtis, I hold to be the highest rank whereto we can obtain--the state
and dignity of English gentlemen.”
[32] Nor did I. But while this record of mine was running serially in
the _American Magazine_ several readers wrote to me pointing out the
inconsistency.
[33] It will be recalled that in the Greene murder case the murderer,
pretending to be frightened at the sinister danger lurking in the dim
corridors of the old Greene mansion, made a similar error in
psychological judgment by descending to the pantry in the middle of
the night for no other reason than to gratify a mild appetite for food.
[34] Vance was here referring to the famous passage in the Chapter--“Das
Judentum”--in Otto Weininger’s “Geschlecht und Charakter”: “_Der
Engländer hat dem Deutschen als tüchtiger Empiriker, als Realpolitiker
im Praktischen wie im Theoretischen, imponiert, aber damit ist seine
Wichtigkeit für die Philosophie auch erschöpft. Es hat noch nie einen
tieferen Denker gegeben, der beim Empirismus stehen geblieben ist; und
noch nie einen Engländer, der über ihn selbstständig hinausgekommen
wäre._”
[End of Endnotes]
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. death-trap/death trap,
scarab-pin/scarab pin, etc.) have been preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Convert footnotes to endnotes.
Fix a couple minor punctuation issues.
[Chapter XI]
Change “from the direct _ofject_ of the interrogation” to
_object_.
[Chapter XIX]
“Salveter appeared even more _puzzzled_” to _puzzled_.
[End of text]