The Murder Megapack

by Talmage Powell

  But Jarvis didn’t unlock the door for several minutes and when he backed into the room away from Evans, he was shaking like a leaf. A window across the room was wide open and tree branches were close enough so that anyone could have entered or left the room by that exit.

  “I—just wanted to be alone. To—to think,” Jarvis explained lamely.

  “Tell me,” Evans asked, “how long have those signs been nailed to the trees? The old ones, I mean.”

  “Why for—for ages,” Jarvis gasped. “Each one is dated, isn’t it?”

  “But did you ever notice them before?” Evans insisted.

  “No—no, I didn’t, but I never wandered around the estate very much until lately. Dodson discovered them first and from then on my life here has been a hell on earth. Officer, I’m going back to the city, to a hotel suite where there are people and talking and lights. I can’t stand living here any longer. If I go away, perhaps that curse won’t follow me. I’ll cheat that gallows tree.”

  “I think it’s a good idea,” Evans said. “We’ll talk about it later on. Meantime you can pack your bags if you wish. When will you be ready to go?”

  “In about half an hour. I must be alone now. Please, sergeant. I promise to call out if anything happens. I’ve a decision to make and I can’t think unless I’m by myself.”

  Evans shrugged and walked out. He heard the lock click immediately after the door closed. Usher was at the bottom of the stairs, anxiously waiting.

  “He wants to leave,” Evans said. “Darned soon too. Says he has packing to do and some brain work as well. Must be left alone. Tell me, Usher, how long after I left the house, did Jarvis go upstairs?”

  “Almost immediately and I thought it was rather odd because he’d just said he was afraid to be left alone. The man contradicts himself every time he talks. What do you think of all this, sergeant?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Evans grunted. “I’m sure though, that we haven’t seen the last of murder tonight. Trouble is, there’s only you, I, Jarvis and the cook for victims. I don’t like the way Jarvis is acting.”

  “Holy smokes,” Usher cried, “you don’t think he asked me to bring you up here so he could commit murder and be alibied at the same time? If so, he must have help. How could any of us have dropped Dodson from that tree unless—Sergeant—the cook. Maybe he’s in with Jarvis. Maybe Cavanugh and Dodson knew something that meant trouble for Jarvis.”

  “You might be right,” Evans said. “I’m going to find out. Stay here and keep your eyes and ears open. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Evans went out the front door, circled the big house which required fully five minutes and finally stood just below Jarvis’ lighted window. Expert at this method of climbing now, he pulled himself well up into the tree. He was almost opposite the illuminated window when every light in the house winked out.

  Half a second later a gun blared from the window and bark flew against Evans’ cheek from the bullet. Two more shots were fired and both came dangerously close. Evans grabbed the branch on which he was standing, swung himself down and dropped to the ground. He fell heavily, but was up in a moment and rushing to the front of the place again.

  Usher had the door open and was dancing around excitedly. “Shots,” he jabbered. “Shooting—yells. Somebody must be killing Jarvis.”

  “Where is the cook?” Evans barked.

  “I don’t know. Haven’t seen him. Oh, here he comes. At least it’s somebody from the back of the house.”

  The cook stumbled through the darkness toward them. He was livid with terror in the white ray of Evans’ torch. But he swore he knew nothing of what had happened.

  “I’m going upstairs,” Evans said. “Stay here.”

  He took about four steps upward and stopped. A groan reached him and then tottering footsteps headed his way. It was Jarvis, so terror-stricken that he could hardly walk. There was a big revolver in his hand and—dangling from around his neck was a short noose. Evans ran up the stairs to help him descend.

  Jarvis was aided to a chair. The only light came from Evans’ flash and it cast weird shadows all around the huge living room. Jarvis finally found his voice.

  “I was—upstairs—in the room. The door was locked. I heard something make a clicking sound, as if the key was being turned from outside. Then, a few moments later, the lights went out. Someone came into the room and struck me. I fell down. The noose was placed around my neck and pulled tight. I was being strangled.”

  Evans took the big gun out of Jarvis’ hand, broke the breech and grunted. No shots had been fired from this weapon.

  “I got the gun after—after I was able to get up,” Jarvis explained. “Just as the noose was pulled tight, the murderer suddenly let go and then there was a lot of shooting. That’s all I know. I guess I fainted. Officer, we’re leaving this house at once.”

  “You’re right,” Evans agreed. “Get ready as quickly as you can. I’ll see you safely into town and return here with enough men to search the place properly. I’ll go upstairs with you, Jarvis, and I won’t take no for an answer either. Here—my arm.”

  “If you promise not to come into the room with me,” Jarvis hedged. “I can’t permit that. But I would like to know you were outside.”

  “Okay, but let’s get started. Cook, you go out front and get the car ready. Motor running and all. You might work the switch that opens the main gate, too.”

  “How?” the cook quavered. “With our power plant not working?”

  “Then we’ll crash through,” Evans said sharply. “Come on, Jarvis.”

  He helped the old man up the steps, using his flash sparingly because the battery was none too good. Jarvis went to the same room, the noose which had been around his throat dragging from one hand now. He suddenly seemed to realize what he was holding and dropped it with a grimace of distaste.

  The door closed and Jarvis turned the key. Evans knelt outside the door and looked at the lock. There were scratches indicating that someone, armed with a fine pair of pliers, had successfully twisted the key from outside. That seemed to place Jarvis in the clear. Evans shut off the flash, straightened up. Something exploded against his skull.

  Evans slumped to his knees. Another blow sent him sprawling on his face and he lay very still, expecting to feel a noose draped around his throat at any second. He wasn’t unconscious, but his arms and legs felt as though they were separated from the rest of his body.

  Someone grasped Evans’ ankles and pulled him gently down the hall, making hardly any noise. He was left there. Evans slowly fought to recover some co-ordination between nerves and muscles. He sat up slowly. His flash and gun were missing, but he didn’t care much about that.

  Without making a sound, he pulled himself erect and reeled down the hall toward Jarvis’ room. The door opened unexpectedly and Evans acted with the speed of an attacking panther.

  Usher, at the foot of the high staircase, saw Jarvis’ stooped figure coming down. There were two small valises tucked under each arm and he clutched suitcases in both hands too. He stumbled several times in the darkness and as he took the last step to reach the hallway, Usher suddenly gave a forward leap.

  One hand was upraised and it held a knife. The blade came down in a swishing are, but Jarvis’ figure moved agilely to one side and the knife missed its mark. Usher gave a curse and tried again. This time strong fingers closed around his wrist, twisted savagely and the knife fell to the floor with a clatter.

  Usher raised one leg and kicked. The other man grunted in pain and let go. Usher ran back a few steps, drawing a gun as he did so. He fired at the figure, but missed and then Usher felt a fist crack against his jaw. He fired again, but the gun was knocked aside and the bullet just plowed into the wall. Usher managed to get the gun raised and smashed it toward the head of his enemy. It connected and the man staggered back. Usher moved like lightning then. His gun prodded the other man’s chest. Usher spoke in a cold, murderous voice.

  “S
o I didn’t knock you out up there, Evans? Well, you should have pretended I did because now I’m going to blow a hole in you. Tried to trick me, acting like Jarvis, eh? Where is the old skinflint?”

  “Upstairs—in his room. I had to knock him out. Usher, you’re a rat. You’ve got me. I know I’m going to die, but I’d be willing to go through that if I could just get my hands around your throat and strangle you, as you killed Cavanugh and Dodson.”

  Usher laughed. “So you guessed that too, eh? Sure I killed them. You don’t know how though.”

  “Don’t I? Both were drugged, propped up in trees so that when they awakened, their movements would send them toppling off with a rope around their necks, Cavanugh recovered consciousness a little too soon and dropped directly in front of my car. I hit him so hard the rope broke. You ran back, removed it from his neck and later on removed the rest of it from the tree branch. That was just before I showed up and you tried to gun me out too.

  “You wanted it to look as though Cavanugh had just mysteriously been thrown in front of the car. Otherwise, you were afraid I’d insist on calling in a dozen men and so ruin your plan for scaring Jarvis so badly he’d clear out and take what’s in these bags with him. Dodson fell at exactly the right time.”

  “That’s enough talk,” Usher snarled. “I’m going to kill you—dispose of the old man and tell the cook he shot you and then killed himself. Everybody will believe he was crazy. Then I’ll take those four bags he packed so thoughtfully. Know what’s in them, sergeant?”

  “Thousands of dollars in cash,” Evans answered quietly. “Money you brought here personally after selling Jarvis’ securities. He got burned in the bank run back in 1929 and never trusted banks after that. He kept all the cash here and you wanted it. But Jarvis had the stuff pretty well hidden. He’d have died before he told where it was so you tried to scare him into taking the stuff out of its hiding place.

  “You planted that book in the house—you nailed up those supposedly century old signs on the trees. The whole thing was faked, even to the book which was treated with dilute acid to make it look old. But it was written with a steel pen and they weren’t invented at the time it was supposed to have been inscribed.

  “The century-old signs were fakes too—cleverly done. But they were nailed up with machine-made nails, something else that wasn’t in existence at the time those signs were supposed to have been created. Now go ahead and shoot. That’s my gun you’re holding, isn’t it?”

  “Yes—and I won’t miss.” Usher’s finger tightened against the trigger. There was a click, but no explosion. Then two hands pinned his arms and forced him back against the wall. Fingers closed around his throat, holding him there, and a big fist was waved in front of his nose.

  “You fired the last bullet before,” Evans laughed. “I knew how many were left because I had no extra ammunition and had to conserve.”

  Handcuffs snapped around Usher’s wrists. He reeled over and sat down heavily. Evans yelled for the cook and had him fix the lights. They came on ten minutes later. Jarvis was downstairs by then.

  “I’m sorry I had to knock you out, Jarvis,” Evans said. “But I knew what Usher was up to so I wanted to take your place. I had evidence enough on him, but he confessed when he attacked me. Usher was one of the few men who knew you kept money in this house. He was one of the very, very few who ever came to see you. And he had the opportunity of planting that fake book so it looked as though it fell off the shelf and would attract your attention.”

  “The ungrateful—murderer,” Jarvis exploded. “I trusted him implicitly.”

  “You know, Usher—” Evans faced the killer—“you were so doggone anxious for me to get the impression that horrible things would happen, that you mentioned something about the estate being bloody and evil, that its history was bad. Yet you showed surprise when you saw that faked book. I wondered about you then. Well, let’s take a ride. All of us. We’ll come back later to gather loose ends. That is—we’ll all come back except Usher.”

  THE MUMMY’S CURSE, by Anonymous

  Originally published in Beyond Comics, November, 1950.

  Fame was Eric Thorwald’s god, and there was one person who stood in his way to the attainment of the degree of fame in the archaeological world which he sought. That person was Cass Lyman, the man who supplied the funds for Thorwald’s excavations. Lyman’s inherited wealth enabled him to buy almost anything he wished, with little effort on his own part. Through the labor of Thorwald’s hands and mind, he sought to buy that one thing which Thorwald desired most for himself.

  A nicely worded, but legally unmistakable clause in their contract indicated that Lyman was to receive credit for most of what Eric Thorwald accomplished.

  Thorwald studied the thin, delicate features of the mummified priestess for a moment. Then his gaze centered on the rectangular golden ornament fastened over her bosom.

  There had been nothing really unusual about the exquisitely tooled golden asp at its center, for the sacred serpent of Egypt is found everywhere in the art of the Pharaohs. But when, recognizing the great value of the ornament, he had followed his natural impulse and begun fingering it to examine it more closely, something entirely unprecedented had happened.

  A tiny catch had been released, and in response a slender spring of coiled wire had leaped, with the quickness of thought, from the asp’s mouth. By some miraculous chance the two forking needles at the end of the spring had slipped between the fingers of one of his hands, without piercing the skin. If it had—well—Eric Thorwald had a fairly certain idea about what would have been his fate.

  The tongue of the asp still protruded from its mouth. Cautiously Thorwald clutched the spring just below the point where the needles were fastened. Little beads of sweat broke out on his forehead when he noted the keenness of those slender points of hardened bronze, and the thin, harmless-looking coating of lusterless green substance that covered them. In Thorwald’s mind there was a conviction that it was some deadly concoction prepared by a clever chemist in a temple laboratory of ancient Egypt.

  “I’m satisfied, mummy.” Thorwald whispered. “That is the way Cass Lyman will die!”

  Thorwald wrote a brief message for Lyman. Then he left the tent and sought out Said among the tents of the workmen. In a few minutes, a truck was hurrying down the shadowy gorge toward Luxor in the Nile Valley ten miles away.

  “Now for the remainder of what we must do,” Thorwald muttered when he was again alone with the mummy.

  The mummy’s breastplate bore a cartouche, or hieroglyphic royal name, which Thorwald recognized as belonging to one or several of the thirteen Ramessid kings of the nineteenth and twentieth dynasties. Those ancient rulers each had such a host of names and titles that it was not always easy to keep them straight.

  The breastplate was fastened to the mummy wrappings by means of a delicately wrought golden pin, the upper portion of which was fashioned in the form of the scarab or sacred beetle. It also bore an almost microscopic Ramessid cartouche.

  Thorwald immediately saw the great value of the bit of jewelry. He had a similar though far less precious pin in his possession, which he knew he could substitute for this one with perfect impunity. No need to let the Cairo Museum take possession of it, as it certainly would do, backed up as it was by the law of Egypt regarding the distribution of antiques.

  Donning a pair of gloves, he made the change quickly, being careful to rub incriminating fingerprints from the pin which he substituted for the more valuable one. Then, coolly he set to work on his more important task.

  He took out his jackknife and wrapped a corner of his handkerchief about its blade. With the blade thus padded, so that it would leave no telltale scratches on the metal, he began to work the spiral spring, coil by coil, back into the golden asp’s mouth. It was a nerve-racking ordeal, but at last it was accomplished. The poisoned needles disappeared into the maw of the serpent, and the clawlike catch held the asp’s tongue in place.

  La
ter when the truck returned from Luxor, Thorwald was cool and collected and ready to act his part perfectly.

  Said was at the wheel, beside him was the short, paunchy figure of Cass Lyman, and squeezed in at the edge of the seat was another man. Thorwald gave a little inward start. He had not expected a third person. But no, it would make no difference.

  “Hello, Thorwald!” Lyman greeted with a kind of barking joviality. “Came as quickly as I could to see for myself just how good our luck has been.” Lyman pointed to the stranger beside him.

  “This is Mahmud Abudi,” Lyman offered informally. “Mr. Abudi didn’t come along with me solely because he’s interested in archaeology. You see he’s connected with the Secret Service of the Egyptian police, and part of his business is to prevent fortunate Egyptologists from smuggling valuable antiques out of the country.”

  Thorwald’s heart missed a beat on learning that this was a Secret Service man, but he quickly reassured himself. It was all the better that he should have such a witness to Lyman’s death. It would save many painful explanations. Fate was indeed on his side.

  “And now,” Lyman cut in, “let’s have a look at the mummy you found, Thorwald. You say you haven’t examined it at all yet?”

  “Well,” Thorwald said with a brief laugh, “I did lift the lid a little to peep in. Curiosity got the better of me to that extent. But I thought it best to wait until you had arrived here, before I did anything further.”

  The three men entered Thorwald’s tent, and there the archaeological excavator witnessed the clever murder he had planned. Nothing went wrong, and he enjoyed every bit of the little drama, or almost every bit.

  He gloated inwardly over the gurgling exclamation of surprise and pleasure which Lyman gave at sight of the golden bauble on the mummy’s bosom. Equally pleasant was Lyman’s greedy and automatic gesture to finger the golden instrument of death.

  Then the trigger was sprung, and with a vicious, twanging sound, the golden asp struck! The powerful spring drove the poisoned needles deep into Cass Lyman’s shoulder.