“But there ain’t any clues on the bodies,” McClellan protested. “One of these guys was found dead in the Lotus Club shower room, another is discovered dead as a door nail in a bed at the Montgomery Turkish Baths, the other is killed in the hallway of his apartment house, an’ you flush up another in the zoo park.”
“All right,” the Major agreed, “just as you say, Jim; but I think we’d better take a run down to the morgue, just the same.
“Meantime,” he smiled at the girl, who had listened in round-eyed amazement to the conversation, “I think we’d better get you home, my dear. I’ll have Jerry call you a taxi, and if your folks ask what detained you, tell them the driver had engine trouble.
“Come on, boys,” he included the Inspector and me in his glance, “get your coats on and we’ll take a look at the corpus delicti.”
The little, churchlike structure which houses the officially-detained dead of the Nation’s capital seemed gloomier and more eerie in the frozen light of the predawn than I’d ever seen it before when Sturdevant, Inspector McClellan and I drove up to its weather-stained door a few minutes later.
“Hullo!” McClellan greeted the sleepy attendant as we tramped into the little front office; “we want to look at Leland, Cleaton and Holmes—those fellows with the broken necks.”
“A’right,” the assistant agreed, leaving his seat beside the glowing cannon stove and drawing on a pea jacket, “we’ve got ’em back here, Inspector.” He led the way to the refrigeration room, and pulled out three galvanized iron trays from the tall ice box as he announced laconically, “Here y’are.”
“Gosh!” McClellan ejaculated as he viewed the unlovely, frozen death masks, and turned away with a gesture of disgust, “what d’ye want to be pokin’ around here for, Major? We can’t learn anything lookin’ at these poor fellers.”
“H’m, h’m,” the Major plucked thoughtfully at the tip of his white imperial as he viewed each frost-gray face in turn with a long, stocktaking glance. “That’s where you’re wrong, Mac. Not only can we learn something here; we’ve already learned it. See here—” he took the policeman’s arm and turned him toward each of the dead men in turn, “don’t you notice anything in common in those faces—something similar?”
“You’re dam’ tootin’ I do,” McClellan replied. “I see a good, big case of the jumps in each of ’em, for me. Say—” his voice rose wrathfully, “what’s the idea, makin’ me look at ’em like this? I don’t like it, Major!”
Sturdevant’s lips tightened in the ghost of a grim smile under his waxed white mustache. Inured to the sight of violent death in all the guises it wears in war or peace by half a century’s service in the field and intelligence services, these ghastly relics of mortality were no more than integral parts of an interesting case to him, but his tremendous breadth of understanding enabled him to sympathize with, and appreciate, the average man’s horror of death in its stark reality. “Look at their foreheads, Jim,” he urged almost gently; “don’t you see the similarity of the scars on them?”
“No, ye—yes, by gosh, you’re right, Major!” McClellan admitted as he forced his reluctant eyes to rest on first one dead face, then another. “Why, it looks almost like shorthand!”
“U’m?” Sturdevant commented. “What do you think, Frank?”
I glanced over his shoulder at the irregular scratches he had pointed out to the Inspector. “Why, sir,” I answered, “they look almost exactly like the scratches I noticed on Atwater’s forehead when we found him in the zoo—as near as I recall the scars on Atwater’s face, that is.”
“Good boy,” he applauded. “And do they remind you of anything?”
“Yes, sir; they look something like Gregg shorthand; but I can’t read them.”
“Good enough,” he slapped me jovially on the shoulder. “I saw an American girl make the same mistake in Cairo, once. She thought an Arabic sign was shorthand and wasted half an hour trying to read it. Come on, Jim, Loomis; there’s nothing more here for us.”
“Thank the Lord, that’s over,” McClellan muttered piously as we trooped back to the morgue’s office and huddled round the stove to drive some of the bitter chill of the ice-box room from our bones. “If I’d stayed there ten minutes more,” he asserted, “they’d ’a’ had me in one of those boxes, too.”
“Well,” the Major muffled his greatcoat collar about his chin, “if you’re thawed out, let’s get going. We’ve got something to do.”
“What’s next?” McClellan demanded as we bundled the motor robes about our knees. “Was that really shorthand on those guys’ faces, or—”
“Not shorthand—Arabic,” the Major corrected. “I thought I could distinguish the letters on Atwater’s brow when we found him, but the blood had run from the fresh wounds to such an extent that the outlines were blurred. They were clear enough on the other poor fellows’ faces, though.”
“Well?” McClellan and I chorused.
“Well,” he repeated as he deftly lighted a match against the wind and set one of his long, black cigars going, “the sentence is one with which every Mohammedan is familiar. It’s an Arabic proverb, and not by any means an empty saying. In English it runs ‘See Mecca and see no more!”
“Well, who the devil’s writing Arabic proverbs on dead men’s foreheads?” McClellan demanded testily.
“That’s just what you want to know,” Sturdevant replied.
“Just what I want to know—”
“Precisely. When you’ve found that out you’ll know who the murderer is. You remember what I read about the dead men in Who’s Who?”
“About their clubs?”
“Certainly not,” Sturdevant answered shortly. “About their travels. Every one of those boys was described as having traveled for a year or more in Africa and Asia.”
“But—”
“But where is Arabia?”
“In Africa.”
“Nonsense! Loomis, where’s Arabia?”
“I think it’s in Southwest Asia, sir,” I returned, none too sure of myself.
“And what’s in Arabia?”
“Why—er—”
“Why—er—nothing!” he shot back. “Mecca’s there, and you know it. Now, if four young men travel in Africa and Asia, both strongholds of Mohammedanism, and are later found dead by violence, with ‘See Mecca and see no more,’ cut on their foreheads, and you stop to remember that it’s death for any unbeliever to penetrate the Mohammedan Holy City, what are we to think?”
“Huh! It’s easy to guess some o’ the heathens bumped ’em off,” McClellan admitted, “but how are we going to catch ’em?”
“That’s the next move,” the Major conceded. “Suppose we run up to the Lotus Club and see if we can find any classmates of the dead boys. There is a possibility that we may find some youngster who made the trip to Mecca with them, and—”
“And what, Major?” I prompted as he paused, puffing thoughtfully on his cigar.
“Quien sabe?” he answered with a laugh. “It’s safest to hatch your eggs before you count your chicks.”
The green-liveried hallman drowsing on a red-upholstered bench behind the plate glass double doors of the Lotus Club rose to a sleepy attention as we mounted the brown sandstone steps between the imposing pillars of red granite and the Major rapped authoritatively for admittance on the crystal panels of the storm door. “Members of the club, sir?” the porter demanded, swinging the door open a scant three inches.
“No,” Sturdevant replied, “but we’re coming right in, just the same.” He opened his hand, displaying the official shield neatly concealed in his palm; then, as the man gave us dubious admittance: “Where’s the head steward?”
“’E’s in bed, sir,” the flunky returned, “but the night steward’s ’ere.”
“All right; let us talk with him, please. We’re in a hurry.”
When the night custodian arrived, somewhat flustered by the news that Federal Agents had entered the club’s eminently respectable
domain, the Major wasted no time in stating our business.
“Four of your members have been murdered tonight, son,” he began with brutal sententiousness, “and we’ve reason to fear others may be killed. Now, we want to know if Cleaton, Holmes, Atwater and Leland traveled together in a clique, and, if they did, whether there were any other members of their crowd. Speak up, if you know; this is serious business.”
The young man wrinkled his brow in thought a moment, then: “Yes, sir; the gentlemen you mention were nearly always together when they were at the club, and Mr. Geissel and Mr. Collier were in their crowd, too. They usually dined together and played billiards together, and—”
“That’s enough,” Sturdevant interrupted. “Where can we find these other two boys?”
“They both live at the club, sir; but I don’t know whether they’re in.”
“Call their rooms, then, please, and let me have a copy of Who’s Who while we’re waiting. Needn’t bother to announce us, just ascertain if they’re in, and hurry, please.”
While the steward phoned the upper floor the Major turned the book’s pages quickly. “Right-o,” he announced, placing the volume on the table. “These two boys’ write-ups are as much like the dead chaps’ as if they’d been carbon copies. We’ve picked up the spoor, Mac.”
“Both Mr. Geissel and Mr. Collier are in, sir,” the steward announced, “but they’re in bed, and I don’t know—”
“I do,” Sturdevant cut in, “we’ll go right up to their rooms. Have the boy show us, please.”
We followed the page into the automatic elevator leading to the club’s dormitories, turned down the thickly carpeted passageway on the fourth floor and rapped at a white enameled door.
No answer coming to our hail, Sturdevant turned the handle and walked unceremoniously into the room. “Here, young man,” he called, seizing the shoulder of the bed’s occupant and shaking it vigorously, “wake up! Wake up, or you’re apt to go to sleep for good.”
“Eh, what’s that?” demanded the sleeper, rising indignantly at the Major’s summons.
“I’m Major Sturdevant, of the Secret Service, and this is Inspector McClellan of the District Police,” Sturdevant explained. “Four of your pals, Cleaton, Holmes, Atwater and Leland, were murdered tonight, and you and Geissel are apt to go next. We’ve come to warn you and—”
“Murdered?” the young man repeated in sleepy non-comprehension. “Murdered? Why? Who would—”
“Didn’t you travel in Asia after the War?” Sturdevant demanded, “and didn’t you and your friends disguise yourselves as pilgrims and enter Mecca—even get as far the Ka’ bah?” he hurried on, before his listener could reply.
“Uh—” the other began, but Sturdevant continued:
“Don’t you know it’s death for an unbeliever to look on the Ka’ bah, or even enter the city of Mecca without permission? Son, Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace was an ice-box beside the sort o’ fire you played with, when you did that fool’s trick.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Listen: You must have learned something of Moslem lore before you attempted to penetrate the forbidden city. Does it mean anything to you when I tell you that the sentence, ‘See Mecca and see no more,’ was scratched on the foreheads of each of your chums when they were found dead tonight?”
“My God!” the boy on the bed wailed. “They’ve found us! Atwater must have boasted about it. He declared he would when we were in Paris, but we thought we’d managed to shut him up. The big-mouthed fool must have got full of booze and spilled the beans where some Mohammedan heard it. Quick—we must warn Geissel!”
He leaped from the bed, and, without donning either slippers or robe, rushed pellmell down the hall, pausing before a door at the turn of the corridor and hammering on the panels with frantic fists.
“Geissel, Geissel!” he called imploringly; “wake up, Geissel! The Turks have found us. They got Clay and Lee and Holmsie, and Atwater, too. Wake up, Geissel!”
But his companion in danger evidently cared little enough about the night’s tragedies, for no answer came to Collier’s wild alarm.
“Here,” he turned a ghastly face to the Major, “we’ll have to break in the door, sir; when he gets to sleeping there’s nothing’ll wake him short of a kick. Now, then, all together!”
The white door crashed inward under the impact of our shoulders, and Collier snapped on the electric light.
“Ha!” Sturdevant shot the exclamation between his teeth as the bulb’s glow illuminated the room.
Propped upright in bed with pillows, his eyes wide open and fairly starting from his face, his mouth open in a hang-jawed, imbecile expression, the tongue protruding slightly over his lower teeth, and his chin resting on the open collar of his pajama jacket, was the man we came to warn.
Across his forehead ran a series of irregular scratches, as though a brier-branch had recently been dragged over the skin.
“See—” cried Collier in a cracked, high- pitched voice as he pointed a shaking finger at the dead man’s forehead—“‘see Mecca and see no more!’” He ended with a peal of nightmare laughter more terrible than any shriek.
“Stop that; be quiet! Shut that door!”
Sturdevant barked the orders in quick succession. “See here, Mac—” he strode toward the open window— “what do you make of—ah, look!” Stooping quickly, he picked some object from the floor, stepping to the center of the room and exhibiting his find.
A length of closely-plaited silken cord, about the thickness of a window rope and decorated at each end with a tassel, swung from his hand. “Curtain-cord,” McClellan pronounced after a cursory glance.
“Curtain-cord is right,” the Major agreed. “It’s the cord which rang down the curtain of this poor boy’s life, and maybe the other four men’s, as well. Do you know what it really is?”
“Nope, not if it ain’t a curtain-cord.”
“It’s a bowstring.”
“Rats,” McClellan scoffed. “No bow would have a string that thick. Why, that’s a regular rope, Major.”
“H’m,” Sturdevant muttered, halfway between annoyance and humor, “‘bowstring’ is a technical word, Mac, meaning the executioner’s cord among the Arabs and Turks, just as ‘halter’ means the hangman’s noose with us. Those fellows can throw a hitch of this silk about a victim’s throat as easily as a cowboy drops a lariat over a steer’s horns, and break their man’s neck with a single jerk. Death is almost as quick as though the condemned were dropped through the trapdoor of a gallows with a regulation noose about his neck.
“See here—” he put his hand on the dead man’s cheek—“the body’s still warm. The killer must have been in a devil of a hurry to leave his tools behind him. I shouldn’t wonder if he went out the window almost as we came in the door.”
“Huh, was he a bird?” the Inspector inquired with ponderous irony. “We’re three flights up in the air, Marc—anybody who went out that window would need a parachute, or a pair o’ wings, or something.”
For answer the Major leaned across the sill and pointed to the heavy, cast-iron downspout which ran from the roof to earth at the angle of the building. “Nothing simpler,” he announced. “Any ordinarily agile man could climb up that pipe as easily as he could mount a ladder. It’s strong enough to bear several hundred pounds weight and the braces which hold it to the wall make ascent and descent as easy as if they were ratlines in a set of shrouds.”
“Well, I’ll be—you’re right, Marc,” McClellan agreed, “looks as if this gink had everything his own way, don’t it?”
“Not quite,” Sturdevant denied. “We know what he is, thanks to his leaving his monogram on his victims and his tools on the job. Now it’s up to us to find who he is.”
“Yeah, that’ll be a cinch—like frying a snowball on a cake o’ ice,” McClellan conceded.
“Cinch or not, I believe it can be done,” Sturdevant replied. “First off, young man,” he addressed the shivering Collier
, “you go back to bed and keep your door and windows tight shut. Report to me by phone tomorrow morning—I may have use for you.
“There’s nothing more we can do here tonight, as far as I can see. Suppose we all go over to my place and snatch a couple of hours’ sleep before daylight. We can make it if we step fast, and we’ll all need some rest, for tomorrow looks like a busy day to me.”
* * * *
“Loomis, Loomis, get up; I’ve got a job for you!” the Major’s voice roused me from a dream of bowstrings, mutilated dead men and mystic vengeance of the Orient.
“Eh?” I answered sleepily. “I just went to bed a few minutes ago, Major.”
“Nevertheless, up you get,” he replied inexorably. “Come on, shake a leg. Jump under the shower and get dressed in a hurry. I’ll have Jerry fix you some breakfast while you’re getting ready.
“Now,” he told me as I stowed the second plate of pancakes and molasses under my waistcoat, “I want you to take a taxi and go up to the Lotus Club after Collier. I’m going to have him here all day, for safety’s sake, and tonight—”
“Yes?” I prompted, as he paused, drumming thoughtfully on the tablecloth with long, nervous fingers.
“I may keep him here tonight, too. Now run along, and tell him to pack a suitcase full of clothes; he may have to camp here indefinitely.”
Collier was nothing loath to quit the club where his chums had been done to death, and we were soon bowling down Vermont Avenue in our taxicab, my companion nervously puffing at a cigarette, I trying vainly to recapture some of the sleep of which I had been robbed by the Major’s early call.
The sudden halt of our vehicle, all brakes set and the engine thrown into momentary reverse, shot me forward from my seat, flattening my nose against the glass partition behind the driver’s cab.
“What the devil?” our chauffeur complained, jumping from his seat and running to the motor’s head. “You damfool wops must be crazy, tryin’ to run acrost th’ street in front of a car thataway!”
I peered through the front window to discover a dark-skinned little man in tatterdemalion corduroy clothes picking himself up from the icy roadway where he had sprawled full length in the path of our hurrying cab. He reached for a battered black felt hat as he addressed a torrent of unintelligible words to the angry chauffeur, who was already bending to crank his stalled motor.
The Murder Megapack Page 31
