Egyptian Cross Mystery (26 page)

Jonah stared after him. “When she came back, she told me that she was through with Romaine and the whole damned nudist business. She wants to leave here and go off somewhere—New York, she said. Wants to be alone. Good thing for her.”

“Umm,” said Isham. “Where’s Romaine now?”

“On the Island, I suppose; he hasn’t shown his face around here, the dirty—” Jonah bit his lip and shrugged. “May Hester leave Bradwood, Mr. Isham?”

“Well … What do you think, Vaughn?”

The Inspector massaged his jaw. “Can’t see any harm in it, if we know where to get her when we want her.”

“You’ll be responsible for her, Mr. Lincoln?” asked Isham.

Jonah nodded eagerly. “I absolutely vouch—”

“By the way,” murmured Ellery, “exactly what has your sister against Mrs. Brad, Mr. Lincoln?”

Jonah’s smile faded; something froze behind his eyes. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” he said flatly. “Don’t pay any attention to her; she didn’t know what she was saying.”

“Strange,” said Ellery. “It appeared to me that she spoke with remarkable clarity. I think, Inspector, that it would be politic for us to talk with Mrs. Brad.”

“I’m afraid—” said Lincoln quickly. He stopped; they all turned at a step below.

One of Vaughn’s detectives stood there.

“This Romaine guy and the old man,” said the detective, “are down on the dock. Want to talk to you, Chief.”

The Inspector rubbed his hands together. “Now, isn’t that nice? All right, Bill, I’m coming. We’ll defer that little chat with Mrs. Brad, Mr. Queen; it’ll keep.”

“Any objection to my coming along?” asked Jonah quietly. His big right fist was already clenched.

“Hmm,” said the Inspector. He looked at the fist and grinned. “Not a one. Glad to have you.”

They strode down the path. Near the tennis court they met Dr. Temple, who was hurrying along carrying his black bag. Temple smiled briefly; he seemed preoccupied and had not noticed the two visitors from Oyster Island.

Jonah walked along grimly.

The big brown figure of Paul Romaine towered on the landing dock. Skinny little Stryker, the mad Egyptologist, sat shivering in a small motorboat tied to the dock. Both men were clothed; immortal Ra-Harakht for this visit, it seemed, had eschewed the baton and snowy robes of his mangled divinity, vaguely sensing that he might accomplish more as mortal than as god. The police launch hovered nearby, and several detectives stood by Romaine’s side.

Romaine’s legs were stockily planted on the wooden boards. The toy green treeline of Oyster Island, the slowly riding white length of the
Helene
behind him, somehow served him as a suitable background. Whatever else he might be, he was assuredly a man of the open. But there was indecision on his face and a half-grinning desire to please that placed his state of mind instantly.

He said at once: “We don’t want to be bothering you, Inspector. But we’d like to settle something.” His tone was agreeable. He kept his eyes steadfastly on Vaughn, ignoring Jonah Lincoln. Jonah breathed evenly; he examined Romaine almost with curiosity.

“Go ahead,” growled the Inspector. “What do you want?”

Romaine glanced briefly behind him at the cringing figure of Stryker. “You’ve just about ruined the business of His Nibs and me. You’re keeping our guests cooped up on the Island.”

“Well, isn’t that jake for you?”

“Yes,” said Romaine patiently, “but not this way. They’re all scared, like a bunch of kids. Want to quit, and you won’t let ’em. But I’m not worried about them. It’s the others. Sure won’t get any more customers.”

“So?”

“We want permission to leave.”

Very suddenly old Stryker stood up in the motorboat “This is persecution!” he shrieked. “A prophet is not without honor save in his own country! Harakht demands the right to preach the gospel—”

“Quiet,” said Romaine savagely. The madman gaped and sat down.

“Gibberish,” muttered Professor Yardley; he was pale. “Utter gibberish. The man’s a stark lunatic Quotes Matthew; garbles Egyptian and Christian theology …”

“Well, you can’t have it,” said Inspector Vaughn calmly.

Romaine’s handsome face at once became threatening. He took a step forward, doubled his fists. The detectives about him edged nearer, expectantly. But the obscure desire to please smothered his seething temper, and he relaxed.

“Why?” he asked, swallowing mightily. “You haven’t got anything on us, Inspector. We’ve been good little boys, haven’t we?”

“You heard me. I’m not letting you and that old he-goat skip out on me—not by a long shot. Sure you’ve been good. But as far as I’m concerned you’re both on the teetery edge, Romaine. Where were you the night Thomas Brad was murdered?”

“I told you! On the Island.”

“Oh, yeah?” said the Inspector pleasantly. Instead of flaring into anger again Romaine, to Ellery’s astonishment, grew thoughtful. The Inspector’s nostrils quivered; quite by accident, it seemed, he had stumbled upon something. Isham opened his mouth, and Vaughn nudged him; so Isham closed his mouth.

“Well?” barked Vaughn. “I haven’t got all day. Spit it out!”

“Suppose,” said Romaine slowly, “suppose I can absolutely prove where I was that night—by a reliable witness, I mean. Would that clear me?”

“Ah,” said Isham. “It certainly would, Romaine.”

There was a little stir behind them which no one noticed except Ellery. Jonah Lincoln’s aplomb had fled; he was growling into his throat and trying to push into the van of the group. Ellery’s fingers closed insistently about Lincoln’s biceps; they swelled and hardened under his touch, but he stopped short.

“All right,” said Romaine abruptly; he was rather white about the nostrils. “I wasn’t going to spill this, because it involves—well, some people might misinterpret it. But we’ve got to get out of here. … I was—”

“Romaine,” came Jonah’s voice clearly, “if you say another word I promise I’ll kill you.”

Vaughn swung on his heel. “Here, here!” he snarled. “What kind of talk is that? Keep out of this, Lincoln!”

“You heard me, Romaine,” said Jonah.

Romaine shook his big head and laughed—a barking little laugh that raised the short hair on Ellery’s nape. “Nuts,” he said curtly. “I threw you into the Cove once, and I can do it again. I don’t give a damn about you or anybody else in this lousy place. Here’s the dope, Inspector. Between half-past ten and about half-past eleven that night—”

Silently Jonah lunged forward, arms flailing. Ellery with a grunt threw one arm about his neck and bore him backward. A detective jumped into the fray and grasped Jonah’s collar in a stranglehold. After a brief struggle Jonah subsided; he was panting, and he glared at Romaine with murder in his hot eyes.

Romaine said hastily: “I was on Oyster Island with Mrs. Brad.”

Jonah shook off Ellery’s arm. “All right, Mr. Queen,” he said coldly. “I’m quite all right now. He’s done it. Let him speak his little piece.”

“What d’ye mean—on Oyster Island with Mrs. Brad?” demanded, the Inspector; his eyes were narrowed. “Alone with her?”

“Ah, be your age,” snapped Romaine. “That’s what I said. We spent an hour together near shore, under the trees.”

“How did Mrs. Brad get to the Island that night?”

“We had a date. I waited for her at the Bradwood landing in my boat. She showed up just as I got there. A little before half-past ten.”

Inspector Vaughn took a sadly frayed cigar from one of his pockets and jabbed it in his mouth. “You go back to the Island,” he said, “and we’ll investigate your story. Take the nut with you. … And now, Mr. Lincoln,” he said thoughtfully, turning his back on Romaine, “if you’d care to take a couple of pokes at this dirty specimen of a hyena’s stinking brood, go ahead. I—er—I’m going back to the house.”

Romaine stood blinking on the dock. The detectives moved away from him. Jonah stripped off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and stepped forward.

“One,” said Jonah, “for getting funny with my sister. Two,” he said, “for turning the head of a very foolish woman. … Put ’em up, Romaine.”

The madman clutched the gunwale of the boat and screeched: “Paul, come away!”

Romaine looked quickly around at the hostile faces. “Go take off your diapers first,” he said, shrugging his big shoulders, and half-turned away.

Jonah’s fist collided with the man’s jaw. It was a lusty blow, well planted, and had behind it all the bitter rage which Jonah had been nursing for weeks. It would have knocked a man of ordinary strength unconscious; but Romaine was an ox, and the blow merely staggered him. He blinked again, a feline snarl wiped out his handsomeness, and he brought his bludgeon of a right fist up once in a short, powerful uppercut that lifted Jonah an inch from the wooden dock and dropped him, a senseless lump, to the boards.

Inspector Vaughn’s geniality vanished. He shouted: “Keep back!” to his men, and sprang forward like a dart. Romaine, moving with extraordinary speed for his bulk, leaped from the dock into the motorboat where Stryker cowered, almost foundering the boat, and shoved off with a gargantuan sweep of his paw. The motor sputtered, and the boat shot away toward Oyster Island.

“I’m getting into the launch,” said the Inspector calmly. “You men take this poor guy back—I’ll join you in a couple of minutes. That bird needs a lesson.”

As the launch swished away from the dock in pursuit of the motorboat, Ellery knelt by the fallen gladiator and slapped his pallid cheeks gently. Professor Yardley flung himself prone on the dock and scooped a palmful of water from the Sound.

The detectives yelled encouragement to the Inspector, who was standing in the prow of the launch, like Captain Ahab, and stripping off his coat.

Ellery dripped water onto Jonah’s face. “A remarkable example,” he observed dryly to the Professor, “of the triumph of justice. Wake up, Lincoln; the war’s over!”

They were sitting on the colonial porch fifteen minutes later when Inspector Vaughn rounded the corner. Jonah Lincoln sat in a rocker holding his jaw in both hands as if he were surprised it was still attached to his face. Ellery, Isham, and Yardley ignored him, smoking peacefully with their backs to him.

The Inspector’s face, while not precisely angelic, since there were traces of blood about his nose and a cut under one eye, nevertheless indicated that he felt satisfied with his knightly joust.

“Hullo,” he said cheerfully, pounding up the porch steps between the pillars. “Well, Mr. Lincoln, you knocked him kicking by proxy. It was a battle royal, but there’s one ladies’ man who’ll keep away from mirrors for a month.”

Jonah groaned. “I—Lord, I just haven’t got the strength. I’m not really a coward. But that man—he’s a Goliath.”

“Well, I’m his little David.” Vaughn sucked a torn knuckle. “I thought the old lunatic would throw a fit. I actually knocked out the chief disciple! Heresy, hey, Professor? Better get washed up, Mr. Lincoln.” He stopped smiling. “Let’s get back to business. Seen Mrs. Brad?”

Abruptly Jonah rose and went into the house.

“I guess she’s still upstairs,” said Isham.

“Well,” said the Inspector, striding after Jonah, “let’s get to her before Lincoln does. He’s been acting the gentleman, and all that, but this is an official investigation and it’s time we got the truth from somebody.”

Helene, it seemed, was still in Hester Lincoln’s room. Stallings thought that Dr. Temple was upstairs, as well; the physician had not reappeared after going upstairs some time before with his medical bag.

They reached the bedroom floor just in time to see Jonah disappear into his bedroom. Following Stallings’s directions, they went to a door at the rear of the house and the Inspector knocked.

Mrs. Brad’s tremulous voice said: “Who is it?”

“Inspector Vaughn. May we come in?”

“Who? Oh, one moment!” There was panic in the woman’s tones. They waited, and the door opened slightly. Mrs. Brad’s rather handsome face appeared; her eyes were moist and apprehensive. “What is it, Inspector? I—I’m ill.”

Vaughn pushed the door gently. “I know. But this is important.”

She retreated, and they entered. It was heavily feminine, this room: scented, frilled, profusely mirrored, and its dressing-table was covered with cosmetics. She kept backing away, drawing her
négligé
more tightly about her.

“Mrs. Brad,” said Isham, “where were you between ten-thirty and eleven-thirty the night your husband was murdered?”

She stopped drawing the
négligé
about her, stopped backing away; almost, it seemed, stopped breathing. “What do you mean?” she asked tonelessly at last. “I was at the theater with my daughter, with—”

“Paul Romaine,” said Inspector Vaughn gently, “says you were with him, on Oyster Island.”

She faltered: “Paul …” Her large dark eyes were haunting. “He—he said that?”

“Yes, Mrs. Brad,” replied Isham gravely. “We realize how painful this must be to you. It’s admittedly none of our business provided it’s just that and nothing more. Tell us the truth, and we shan’t refer to it again.”

“It’s a lie!” she cried. She sat down suddenly in a chintz chair.

“No, Mrs. Brad. It’s the truth. It matches the fact that, although you and Miss Brad went to the Park Theater that night, only Mr. Lincoln and your daughter returned to this house in a taxicab. It matches the fact that the doorman of the Park Theater saw a woman of your description leave in the middle of the first act that night, about nine o’clock. … Romaine says he had an appointment with you, that you met him near the dock.”

She covered her ears. “Please,” she moaned. “I was crazy. I don’t know how it happened. I was a fool. …” They looked at each other. “Hester hates me. She wanted him, too. She thought—she thought he was decent …” The age-lines showed with startling clarity, as if newly etched, on her face. “But he’s the worst sort of beast!”

“He won’t be doing that sort of thing for a long time, Mrs. Brad,” said Inspector Vaughn grimly. “Nobody’s judging you, or trying to. Your life is your own, and if you were fool enough to get mixed up with that high-binder, you’ve suffered enough, I suppose. All we’re interested in is: How’d you get home and exactly what happened that night?”

She twisted her fingers in her lap; a dry sob choked her. “I—I slipped out of the theater early during the performance; I told Helene I didn’t feel well and insisted that she remain and wait for Jonah. … I went to Pennsylvania Station and took the first train back—luckily there was one nearly at once. I—I got off a station ahead and hired a taxi to a point near Bradwood. I walked the rest of the way and no one seemed to be about, so—so …”