Egyptian Cross Mystery (22 page)

Fifteen minutes of back-breaking ascent, with the woods growing denser and the path fainter; and the Constable suddenly halted.

“Matt Hollis, he once tol’ me ’bout it,” he whispered, pointing. “Crickets! There she is.”

They crept closer, Luden leading the way cautiously. And there, as the good Constable had said, she was. … In a little clearing, under a massive outcrop of mountainside, nestled a rude shack. The forest had been hacked away for thirty feet to the sides and at the front of the hut; it was protected at the rear by the jutting granite. And—Ellery stared—the entire space of thirty feet, at sides and front, was guarded by a high, tangled, rusty, and dangerous-looking barbed-wire fence.

“Will you look at that!” whispered Isham. “Not even a gate!”

There was no opening anywhere in the barbed-wire fence. The shack inside lay cold and grim—almost a fortress. Even the streamer of smoke that drifted away from the chimney hole was forbidding.

“Cripes,” muttered Luden. “Whut’s he gone an’ fortyfied himself this way fer? Daffy, jest like I told ye.”

“A nasty place to stumble on in the dark,” murmured Ellery. “Constable, District Attorney Isham and I have a most irregular request to make of you.”

Constable Luden, perhaps envisioning his last encounter with Ellery’s largess, looked interested at once. “Now, as t’that,” he rumbled, “I’m one feller that minds ’is own bus’ness. Got to, round hyah. Plenty o’ moonshinin’ goin’ on up in th’ hills roundabout, but y’d not see me stickin’ my two cents in. Nossir—whut is it?”

“Forget this entire incident,” snapped Isham. “We never came here, understand? You are not to report it to other authorities of Arroyo or Hancock County. You know nothing about Old Pete.”

Constable Luden’s huge hand closed over something which Ellery had produced from his wallet. “Mr. Isham,” he said earnestly, “I’m deef, dumb, an’ blind. … Find yer way down all right?”

“Yes.”

“Then good luck to ye—an’ thanks a lot, Mr. Queen.”

The very model of disinterest, Luden turned and stole away through the woods. He did not once look back.

Isham and Ellery regarded each other briefly; then each threw back his shoulders and stepped out before the barbed-wire fence.

They had no sooner set foot on the ground before the fence—in fact, Isham was in the act of raising the bundle he carried over the top of the highest strand of wire—when a harsh cracked voice from the interior of the shack cried out: “Halt! Git back!”

They halted, very abruptly; the bundle dropped to the ground. For from the single window of the hut, also protected, they noted, by a curtain of barbed wire, the muzzle of a shotgun had appeared and was trained directly upon them. There was no wavering of the ugly weapon; it meant business, and it was ready to speak for itself.

Ellery gulped, and the District Attorney became rooted to his patch of earth. “That’s Old Pete,” whispered Ellery. “Consistent voice-maker, at any rate!” He raised his head and bellowed: “Just a minute! Take your finger off that trigger. We’re friends.”

Silence, while they were scrutinized with slow care by the owner of the shotgun. They stood very still.

Then the harsh voice assailed their ears again: “Don’t believe you! Git out. I’ll shoot if you don’t make tracks in five seconds.”

Isham cried: “We’re the law, you fool! We’ve a letter to you from—Megara. Get a move on! For your sake we don’t want to be seen here.”

The muzzle did not move; but the bushy head of the old hillman appeared dimly behind the curtain of wire, and a pair of bright eyes regarded them with suspicion. They could sense the man’s indecision.

The head disappeared, and so did the shotgun. An instant later the heavy nail-studded door creaked inward and Old Pete himself stood there—gray-bearded, disheveled, clad in rags. The shotgun was lowered, but its muzzle covered them.

“Climb that fence, men. No other way in.” The voice was the same, but a new note had crept in.

They looked at the fence with dismay. Then Ellery sighed and very delicately raised one leg and rested it on the lowest strand of wire. He tried gingerly to find a safe handhold.

“Come on,” said Old Pete impatiently. “And no tricks, either of you.”

Isham fished about the ground for a stick; he found one, propped it between the two lowest strands, and Ellery crawled through, not without ripping the shoulder of his suit, however. The District Attorney followed clumsily; neither said a word, and the shotgun never shifted from their bodies.

Quickly they ran toward the man, and he retreated into his hut. Isham swung the heavy door to when they were inside, and dropped the bolt into place. It was the crudest of habitations, but a careful hand had fitted it out. The floor was stone, well swept, and strewn with mats. There was a full larder in one corner, and to the side of the fireplace a neat pile of firewood. A basin-like arrangement at the rear wall, opposite the single door, was obviously the hillman’s lavatory; above it hung a shelf stocked with medicinal supplies. Above the basin there was a small hand-pump; the well was apparently beneath the house.

“The letter,” said Old Pete hoarsely.

Isham produced a note. The hillman did not lower his weapon; he read the note in snatches, his eyes never off his guests for more than an instant. As he read, however, his demeanor changed. The beard was still there, and the rags, and all the superficial garments of Old Pete; but the man himself was different. He propped the shotgun slowly against the table and sat down, fingering the note.

“Then Tomislav is dead,” he said. The voice struck them with a sense of shock. It was not pitched in Old Pete’s cracked tones; it was low and cultured, the voice of an educated man in the prime of life.

“Yes, murdered,” replied Isham. “He left a message—would you care to read it?”

“Please.” The man took Brad’s note from Isham and read it rapidly and without emotion. He nodded. “I see … Well, gentlemen, here I am. Andrew Van—once Andreja Tvar. Still alive, while Tom, the stubborn fool—”

His bright eyes glazed, and rather precipitately he rose and went to the iron basin. Ellery and Isham looked at each other. A queer one, this fellow! Van ripped off the bushy beard, removed the thatch of white wig from his head. And he washed and wiped the gum from his face. … When he turned back he was a vastly different figure from the one which had challenged them from the window. Tall, erect, with close-cropped dark hair, and the keen face of an ascetic, drawn with hardship. The rags hung from his strong body, thought Ellery, “above the pitch, out of tune, and off the hinges,” in the phrase of Rabelais.

“I’m sorry I can’t offer you chairs, gentlemen. You’re District Attorney Isham, I take it, and you … I believe I saw you, Mr. Queen, sitting in the first row in the Weirton courthouse on the day of the inquest.”

“Yes,” said Ellery.

The man was remarkable. An eccentric, certainly. Having apologized for his one chair, he proceeded to seat himself in it, leaving his two visitors standing. “My hideaway. A pleasant place?” His tone was bitter. “I suppose it was Krosac?”

“So it seems,” said Isham in a low voice. Both he and Ellery were struck by the man’s resemblance to Stephen Megara; there was a strong family likeness. “Stephen writes that he”—Van shivered—“he used the T’s.”

“Yes. Head cut off. Quite horrible. So you’re Andrew Tvar!”

The schoolmaster smiled wanly. “In the old country it was Andreja, and my brothers were Stefan and Tomislav. When we came here, hoping to—” He shrugged, and then sat up stiffly, gripping the seat of the clumsy chair. His eyes rolled like the eyes of a frightened horse toward the heavy door and the wired window. “You’re sure,” he said harshly, “you weren’t followed?”

Isham tried to look reassuring: “Positive. We’ve taken every precaution, Mr. Tvar. Your brother Stephen was escorted openly by Inspector Vaughn of the Nassau County police along one of the main Long Island highways, headed for New York City.” The schoolmaster nodded slowly. “If anyone—Krosac, in whatever guise he may be—should follow, there were plenty of men spotted about to pick up his trail. Mr. Queen and I left secretly last night.”

Andreja Tvar gnawed at his thin upper lip. “It’s come, it’s come. … It—I can’t tell you how appalling all this is. To see a horrid specter materialize after years of empty dread … You want my story?”

“Under the circumstances,” said Ellery dryly, “don’t you think we’re entitled to it?”

“Yes,” replied the schoolmaster heavily. “Stephen and I will need all possible assistance. … What has he told you?”

“Only that you and Brad and he were brothers,” said Isham. “Now what we want to know—”

Andrew Van rose, and his eyes hardened. “Not a word now! I say nothing until I see Stephen.”

His change of bearing and attitude was so sudden that they both stared at him. “But why, man?” cried Isham. “We’ve traveled hundreds of miles to come here—”

The man snatched the shotgun, and Isham took a backward step. “I don’t say either of you is not exactly what you claim to be. The note is in Stephen’s handwriting. The other is in Tom’s. But these things can be arranged. I haven’t taken these precautions to be fooled at the last by a clever trick. Where is Stephen now?”

“At Bradwood,” drawled Ellery. “Don’t act like a child, man; drop that gun. As for not saying anything until you see your brother—why, Mr. Megara anticipated that and we’ve provided for it. You’re perfectly right to be suspicious, and we’ll accede to any reasonable suggestion; eh, Isham?”

“Yes,” growled the District Attorney. He picked up the bundle he had carried all the way up the mountain trail. “That’s the way we’ll do it, Mr. Tvar. What do you say?”

The man looked uncertainly at the bundle; that he was torn between desire and indecision was evident from his manner. Finally he said: “Open it.”

Isham ripped the brown paper off. The bundle contained a Nassau County trooper’s uniform, complete to shoes and revolver.

“Can’t possibly arouse suspicion,” said Ellery. “Once we get to Bradwood you’re a trooper. There are fistfuls of them about the place. A man in uniform is always just a uniform, Mr. Tvar.”

The schoolmaster paced up and down his stone floor. “Leave the shack …” he muttered. “I’ve been here safely for months. I—”

“The revolver is loaded,” said Isham dryly, “and there’s plenty of ammunition in your belt. What can happen to you with a loaded weapon and an escort of two able-bodied men?”

He flushed. “I suppose I seem a coward to you gentlemen. …Very well.”

He began to fling off his rags; he was dressed in clean and decent underwear beneath, they noted—another note of incongruity. He began, rather awkwardly, to don the trooper’s uniform.

“Fits,” remarked Ellery. “Megara was right about the size.”

The schoolmaster said nothing. … When he was fully clothed, the revolver in its heavy leather holster at his side, he presented a fine figure—tall, powerful and, in a way, handsome. His hand strayed to the weapon and caressed it; and he seemed to gather strength from it.

“I’m ready,” he said, in a steady voice.

“Good!” Isham went to the door; Ellery peeped out of the wired window. “All clear, Mr. Queen?”

“It seems to be.” Isham unbolted the door, and they stepped out quickly. … The clearing was deserted; the sun was setting, and the woods were already touched with the dimness of dusk. Ellery scrambled through the lower strands of the fence, Isham followed, and they both stood watching while their uniformed charge climbed—with a litheness Ellery envied—after them.

The door—Andrew Tvar had seen to that—was closed. Smoke still curled from the chimney. To anyone prowling in the edge of the forest the shack would still seem tenanted and impregnable.

The three men darted for the woods, and it closed over their heads. They made their way very cautiously down the faint trail to the clump of bushes where, like Old Faithful, the Duesenberg waited for them. They saw no one in the hills or on the road.

T
HE QUIET DEPARTURE OF
Ellery and Isham on Friday night and their absence all day Saturday did not leave Bradwood eventless. The mysterious trip of Inspector Vaughn and Stephen Megara, watched, it seemed, by the entire community, was on everyone’s lips. Even Oyster Island felt its percussion; Hester Lincoln tramped all the tangled way through the woods between Harakht’s “temple” and the eastern tip of the Island to ask old man Ketcham what had happened.

Until the return of Vaughn and Megara, however, Bradwood lay sunning itself in peace. Professor Yardley, true to his promise, remained in the sanctuary of his bizarre estate.

About noon—while Ellery and Isham were speeding through southern Pennsylvania between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, bound for Arroyo—the impressive cavalcade returned to Bradwood. Preceded and flanked by motorcycled troopers, with the rearguard of police, it swept into the drive and snorted to a stop. The sedan door opened and Inspector Vaughn jumped out. He was followed more slowly by Stephen Megara, ugly and silent, eyes roving with mercurial alertness. Megara was instantly surrounded by his guard, and proceeded around the house to the landing dock on the Cove. His own launch was waiting for him. Tagged by the police boat, he returned to the
Helene
and disappeared up the ladder. The police boat kept circling the yacht.

On the porch of the colonial house a detective, who had been amiably rocking himself, got to his feet and handed the Inspector a bulky envelope. Vaughn, who was feeling particularly helpless this morning, snatched at it as if it were a life preserver. The helpless look vanished. His face became grim as he read it.

“Just delivered about a half-hour ago by special messenger,” explained the detective.

Helene Brad appeared in the doorway, and the Inspector put the envelope very hastily into his pocket.

“What’s going on here?” demanded Helene. “Where is Stephen? I think you owe us some explanation of all this mystery, Inspector!”

“Mr. Megara’s on his yacht,” replied Vaughn. “No, Miss Brad, I owe you no explanation. If you’ll excuse me—”

“I shan’t excuse you,” said Helene angrily; her eyes flashed. “I think you people have been acting in a beastly manner. Where did you and Stephen go this morning?”