The Seven of Calvary

by Anthony Boucher

  Martin held up the bottle for a sorrowful examination. “I’m not so sure he will have another.”

  “Wait a minute,” Alex suggested. “I’ve got about half a pint. Be back in a minute.”

  As Alex left, Martin handed the bottle to Kurt. “Here,” he said. “Kill it, Kurt.”

  Kurt obeyed gratefully. “Thank you, Martin. You don’t know what you’ve done for me.”

  “Don’t worry, Kurt,” Paul interposed. “He will know. You see, Martin reads mystery novels. He breaks down alibis. In short, he’s a dangerous person to have around where there are secrets.”

  The hour that passed after Alex returned with his whiskey, the quantity of which he had under-estimated grossly, was a little vague when Martin tried to recall it the next morning. The chief memory was that of a glorious glow, in which Paul lost his dignity, Alex his earnestness, and Kurt his nerves. On such occasions there was very little for Martin to lose; instead he found somewhere what seemed at the time to be a singing voice, and joined in lustily on “Blow the Man Down” and “The Bastard King of England.”

  Kurt, whose English vocabulary was limited to printable words, got a little lost, but sought revenge with a song in Swiss dialect which was, he assured them seriously, the bawdiest song ever invented. None of them understood a word of it, but they believed Kurt implicitly and found it colossally panicking. Then Paul, who had, as a sign of general laxity, abandoned his pipe for Martin’s cigarettes, gave them the story of Anthony Claire, who was a notable conjurer of surprising articles. All three others joined in on the lusty chorus until a banging on the wall and on the ceiling led Martin to suggest adjournment of the session.

  He stumbled into bed, leaving his clothes on odd portions of furniture, and reviewed the day’s events in his mind. He finally came to the conclusion, which seemed at the time to be of some subtle importance, that it had been a Full Day.

  It was not until the next morning that he learned that the day (Friday, April sixth, to be precise) had included among its many events the murder of Dr. Hugo Schaedel, at approximately eleven-thirty P. M.

  ____________

  1 “May I speak with you a moment?”

  2 “Later, Kurt. Shall we say at nine-thirty in my room.”

  CHAPTER II

  The Observations of Dr. Ashwin

  SAVANT SLAIN WITH STILETTO

  Berkeley Murder By Unknown Fiend

  Mystery Killer Leaves Cryptic Warning

  An unknown hand dealt death last night to a man who has given his life to fighting death. Dr. Hugo Schaedel, unofficial ambassador of the Swiss Republic, who was scheduled to give several public addresses in the Bay Region on the subject of World Peace, was found dead last night in front of a private residence at 27 Panoramic Way, Berkeley. He had been stabbed from behind by some instrument with a long thin blade which had pierced the heart. Death must have been almost instantaneous, police surgeons report.

  The body was discovered by Miss Cynthia Wood of 27 Panoramic Way, graduate student at the University of California and daughter of Robert R. Wood, prominent Eastbay financier. Miss Wood states that a man unknown to her called at her house at 11:28 last night. She is able to give the exact time because the stranger asked the time and also how to find his way to International House. Immediately after he had left, Miss Wood heard a cry and rushed outside, accompanied by Miss Mary Roberts. On the sidewalk in front of her house she found the body of the man she had just spoken with.

  Miss Roberts called Dr. H. D. Calvert and the police, but the man was already dead. Because of his question to Miss Wood, Sergeant Cutting requested Warren Blakely, head of International House, to inspect the body. Blakely identified it as that of Dr. Schaedel.

  Although Miss Wood rushed from the house immediately upon hearing the cry, she did not see the mysterious assailant. There is no clue to his identity beyond a piece of paper left beside the corpse on which a symbol is written, the meaning of which has not yet been discovered. Sergeant Cutting reports that the police have several indications which will not as yet he made public. An arrest is expected shortly.

  Martin read this surprising account over a very late breakfast in the House cafeteria. The shock served to dissipate completely his random fears lest some stern disciplinarian might have reported last night’s binge to the House authorities. When a large glass of tomato juice and several cups of black coffee had cleared away the haze of his hangover, he lit a cigarette and reread the article carefully.

  It was impossible nonsense. No one could want to kill that inoffensive and charming little man. “An arrest is expected shortly.” That was obviously padding, partly to maintain official reputation, partly, perhaps, to frighten the murderer into a false move. There seemed to be no doubt that it was murder. Stabbing from behind could scarcely be accident or suicide, nor yet self-defense—as though anyone should need to defend himself against Dr. Schaedel. It seemed necessarily to be cold-blooded murder. But why?

  Martin turned to the second page of the newspaper. Here there were many photographs; one of the exterior of 27 Panoramic Way, a little house familiar to Martin, with the conventional X marking a spot on the sidewalk just to the left of the path leading to the porch; one of the “cryptic warning” (Martin could scarcely see the element of warning involved in leaving a note beside a corpse—unless—and he suddenly paused—it were as a warning to the next victim); and one of Cynthia registering horror at the discovery of the body. It was a good picture of Cyn. Martin played momentarily with the thought of a Hollywood executive picking up this San Francisco paper and instantly wiring Cynthia to come at once.

  The warning, or whatever one chose to call it, attracted Martin’s attention again. It was drawn, apparently in pencil, on what looked like half of an ordinary sheet of typing paper. Despite the scientific leanings of the Berkeley police, that would not be easy to trace, unless there were fingerprints. And fingerprints would be useless save as corroboration, unless the murderer were a professional criminal, which seemed unlikely.

  The figure itself was a strange one. It consisted of what looked like a curious sort of italic F, mounted upon three rectangles shaped like steps. The arrangement, for some reason, brought a cross to Martin’s mind, although he could not see the connection. The symbol fascinated him. It brought the final touch of melodrama to the nonsensical story-book murder of this good man. He stared at it intently:

  “Ah, I see that you interest yourself in our local murder, Mr. Lamb,” Boritsin remarked as he seated himself at Martin’s table.

  “Yes. I’m trying vainly to make any sort of sense out of it.”

  The Russian removed his coffee from the tray and shoved the latter onto an empty table. “You think it makes no sense?” he asked, lighting a cigarette.

  “None at all. You met Dr. Schaedel last night. You know his reputation. Why should he be killed?”

  “In the first place, Mr. Lamb,” Boritsin replied, “you assume too much. You assume that he was as blameless as you—and I, too, I admit—thought him.” Having thus, for variety, uttered two sensible sentences, the aristocrat reverted to a more characteristic type of reasoning. “But in the second place, may one not see in his very blamelessness a sufficient motive for killing him?”

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “He was preaching Peace, was he not? And most sincerely and effectively. Well?”

  “Yes?”

  “He came here from New York and he was going on to China and to Russia. Well?”

  “Well what?”

  Boritsin was enjoying himself. He settled back in his chair and blew an admirable smoke ring before he answered. “Who is behind the movement for World Peace?” he asked.

  “I wish that I could answer, ‘Everyone.’ But certainly a great many forces, from Francis Lederer to the Society against War and Fascism.”

  “Aha!” Boritsin gleamed. “There you have it. The Society against War and Fascism. That is a Communist organization. Now you see it all!”

&
nbsp; “Do I?”

  “It is a Soviet plot. These Communists, they spread peace, peace, everywhere, and why? So that there may be no more munitions, no more armies; and then these Communists will conquer all. They are happy to see Dr. Schaedel convert Europe, convert America to peace. But then he proposes to visit China, visit Russia itself. Suppose he converts the red soldiers of China to peace? Suppose he makes converts to the glory of peace in very St. Petersburg—I will not speak its accursed new name—what then? So, they say, we must kill him. And voilà—it is done!”

  Martin was polite. He made some vague comment, looked impressed, gulped his coffee, and hurried out into the lounge where he could laugh to his heart’s content. It was such a wonderful theory, and so superbly Boritsin. He expected that the Russian would soon discover that the F stood for Fascism, and that the three steps represented Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky—for the aristocrat’s mind would doubtless lump them all together. And then the police would receive an anonymous letter advising them to search the National Students’ League headquarters for the murderer of Dr. Schaedel.

  “What are you laughing about, Lamb?”

  There was no mistaking that pseudo-Oxonian accent. Martin controlled himself a little as he looked up at Worthing. “The … the murder,” he spluttered.

  “Really?” The Canadian raised his voice and his eyebrows. “I can’t say that I find it so excruciatingly funny, old man.”

  “It’s not that. It’s Boritsin. He was just telling me how Dr. Schaedel was murdered by Moscow Gold.”

  “Oh, I say. That is a bit thick. Especially when the whole ruddy thing is so blasted simple.” Worthing, having never visited the Mother Country which he so worshiped, had picked up his British colloquialisms chiefly from popular novels, and never bothered to notice the level of society at which they were used.

  “So simple?”

  “Oh, I’ve heard rumors. There’s a lot more of that sort of thing goes on than one knows about, you know.”

  “What sort of thing?”

  “You understand, old man, I’m not saying anything. But you know what one means.” He lowered his voice, if not his eyebrows. “Cherchez la femme! What?” And he discarded his Oxford elegance to the extent of a broad wink.

  As Worthing made his exit on this effective line, Martin began thinking. The Canadian’s theory, if it could be called that, was as preposterous as Boritsin’s. Lechery did, of course, crop up in unexpected places; a life in academic circles had accustomed Martin to that phenomenon. But he could not associate it with Dr. Schaedel. It was wrong. There was in fact something damnably wrong about the whole thing. Martin picked up the paper again and read over the brief biography of Dr. Schaedel.

  There was nothing there to help him. It simply gave the dates marking the doctor’s slow rise to fame and a moderate fortune. Beginning as a humble private tutor, he had finally become Professor of Economics at the University of Berne. During the World War, he entered politics and was elected to the National Council on a platform of maintaining Switzerland’s neutrality. Later he became a member of the Federal Council itself, finally retiring in order to devote his time as an unofficial envoy to the cause of world peace. His political life had been quiet. He had given active support to the expulsion of Hoffmann from the Federal Council; but surely no quarrel so old could have anything to do with the present. He was unmarried, and left no living relatives save his sister’s son, Kurt Ross.

  There was nothing in all this, Martin decided. If he were to carry out his sudden whim of evolving a theory of the murder, he must seek elsewhere. He put a cigarette in his mouth and struck a match, then paused suddenly and reread the last statement in the biography. He stared curiously at the paper until the forgotten match burned his finger.

  “Have you seen Cyn today?” Martin asked Alex Bruce over lunch.

  “I went over as soon as I’d seen the papers, but I couldn’t see her. She’s had a nervous collapse. Mary was with her and wouldn’t let anyone in. There are policemen, uniformed and plain-clothes both, scattered all over Panoramic Way. They’re trying to find the direction in which the murderer vanished.”

  “Cynthia didn’t see him?”

  “That’s right. Neither did Mary.”

  “Neither did I what?” Mary Roberts stood beside the luncheon table, looking surprisingly fresh and sensible.

  “Sit down, Mary,” Martin said. “Three guesses what we’re talking about.”

  “Is anybody on campus talking about anything else? If it keeps on much longer, I’ll be having a breakdown like Cynthia.” Mary paused to give her order, and went on. “I’ve been up there all morning—I stayed the night, of course—more to keep away from people than to help Cynthia. Sorry she couldn’t see you this morning, Alex. I told her you were there, and it just seemed to make her worse than ever.”

  “I think she’s annoyed with me,” Alex confessed. “I said I’d go over last night, and I worked so hard in the lab that I forgot all about it. While you were finding corpses, I was starting off on a fairish binge with Martin. My conscience hurts me a little.”

  “Maybe that’s why she was so worried. She called me up, you know, about ten last night and said she was alone and would I please come over right away. She wanted to talk to me about something.”

  “What was it? Or ought you to tell me?”

  “I don’t know.” Mary paused in her attack upon a lamb chop. “All evening it seemed as though she were just going to say something important. And then it all happened, and of course she hasn’t said anything since.”

  Martin finished his pie and lit a cigarette. “Mind if I ask you a question, Mary?”

  “I suppose I’ll have to get used to it. Go ahead.”

  “This murderer seems to be a very elusive person. You rush right out—only a couple of yards—and there’s not a soul in sight. Either he’s the Invisible Man or he must have popped into one of the houses around.”

  “But we didn’t rush right out. Rather, we did, but we didn’t get there. Cynthia tripped on the porch and came a cropper. So what with me helping her to her feet and her testing her ankle, which wasn’t sprained after all, the man had plenty of time to get away.”

  “Why is it people always say ‘the man’?” Alex wondered. “It seems like a definite double standard.”

  “When in doubt, use the masculine,” Martin replied. “Besides, this looks like a male crime.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Mary asked through a mouthful of jello.

  “I’m not quite sure. But I think one may safely generalize—”

  Martin’s generalization, whatever it may have been, was interrupted by two new arrivals at the table—Remigio Morales, the Bolivian, and his sister Mona.

  “Do you know where we seek the answer to this riddle?” Morales was asking almost immediately after the mutual greetings.

  “In the Gran Chaco?” Martin ventured, tongue in cheek, mindful of Boritsin’s ingenuity.

  “But exactly,” Morales replied seriously. “How did you guess it?” And he launched into an elaborate explanation of the dastardly Paraguayan plot which had destroyed the inoffensive Dr. Schaedel.

  Martin did not dare listen too closely, for fear of a return of the laughing attack which had so shocked Worthing. At last he interposed a cautious question. “Have you seen Kurt Ross this morning? What does he think of it all?”

  “I have not seen him,” and Morales continued his exposition.

  “But I have,” Mona interrupted. “I have forgotten to tell you, Remigio. I was sitting in the lounge after breakfast when Kurt came through with a tall man in an overcoat.”

  “With a cigar?” Martin asked.

  “No. Why?”

  “The traditions are being shamefully neglected. Go on, Mona.”

  “I had not yet heard of the death, and I said, ‘Where do you go so early?’ He said, ‘They want to ask me some questions,’ and went on. I think that it was the police.”

  There was sudden silence at
the luncheon table. Martin wondered if anyone else had been already struck by that sentence in the newspaper biography.

  “Poor Lupe,” Mary sighed. “She must be dreadfully worried.”

  “Had you not heard about Lupe Sanchez?” Mona, usually quiet, was enjoying to the full her possession of exclusive news. Her brother was becoming impatient; he had not yet fully explained about the Argentinian millionaires who were backing Paraguay in the Chaco.

  “What about Lupe?”

  “She is ill. She left this morning for a hospital in San Francisco.”

  “What’s the matter with her?”

  “Anything serious?”

  “Why not the hospital here on campus?”

  “That is a question which answers itself, I think.” Mona smiled cryptically and hoped that she would not be pressed for an explanation. In her black eyes Martin noticed the glint of a modest girl flirting pleasantly with an immodest topic.

  He leaned back in his chair while Morales resumed his revelations. It all fitted together too nicely. Motive, opportunity, and, he supposed, means. It was disappointingly simple. There were only two things against it: one, that idiotic symbol; and two, the fact that he liked Kurt Ross.

  Martin spent the afternoon in the library poring over old volumes of the Jahrbuch der Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, trying to find if anyone had anticipated his theory that Caspar Wilhelm von Borcke, first German translator of Shakespeare, had used the Theobald edition. It was a doubly useful afternoon. First it established beyond a doubt that his theory, well backed by internal evidence, was new and probably worth publishing; second it kept his mind off Dr. Schaedel and Kurt Ross.

  But his worries returned to him during dinner. He brushed them away with the thought that the police would doubtless find whatever there was to discover; but this was small consolation. At last he decided that he must give way to the obvious.

  As he left the dining room, he heard the sound of music from the Home Room upstairs. He thought he recognized the voice, and he was sure that he recognized the song, a plaintive Bolivian folktune.