The Scarab Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

  “It looks as if we might be in for another unpleasant scandal, Sergeant.” Markham’s tone was pessimistic. “That’s Benjamin H. Kyle.”

  Heath stared aggressively at the dead man and grunted.

  “A nasty job,” he commented through his teeth. “What in hell is that thing he was croaked with?”

  Vance, who had been leaning over the shelves of the cabinet, his back to us, now turned round with a genial smile.

  “That, Sergeant, is Sakhmet, an ancient goddess of the primitive Egyptians. But she isn’t in hell, so to speak. This gentleman, however,”—he touched the tall statue of Anûbis—“is from the nether regions.”

  “I mighta known you’d be here, Mr. Vance.” Heath grinned with genuine friendliness, and held out his hand. “I’ve got you down on my suspect list. Every time there’s a fancy homicide, who do I find on the spot but Mr. Philo Vance!… Glad to see you, Mr. Vance. I reckon you’ll get your psychological processes to working now and clean this mystery up pronto.”

  “It’ll take more than psychology to solve this case, I’m afraid.” Vance had grasped the Sergeant’s hand cordially. “A smatterin’ of Egyptology might help, don’t y’know.”

  “I’ll leave that nifty stuff to you, Mr. Vance. What I want, first and foremost, is the finger-prints on that—that—” He bent over the small statue of Sakhmet. “That’s the damnedest thing I ever saw. The guy who sculpted that was cuckoo. It’s got a lion’s head with a big platter on the dome.”

  “The lion’s head of Sakhmet is undoubtedly totemistic, Sergeant,” explained Vance, good-naturedly. “And that ‘platter’ is a representation of the solar disk. The snake peering from the forehead is a cobra—or uræus—and was the sign of royalty.”

  “Have it your own way, sir.” The Sergeant had become impatient. “What I want is the finger-prints.”

  He swung about and walked toward the front of the museum.

  “Hey, Snitkin!” he called belligerently to one of the men on the stair landing. “Relieve that officer outside—send him back to his beat. And bring Dubois in here as soon as he shows up.” Then he returned to Markham. “Who’ll give me the low-down on this, sir?”

  Markham introduced him to Scarlett.

  “This gentleman,” he said, “found Mr. Kyle. He can tell you all we know of the case thus far.”

  Scarlett and Heath talked together for five minutes or so, the Sergeant maintaining throughout the conversation an attitude of undisguised suspicion. It was a basic principle with him that every one was guilty until his innocence had been completely and irrefutably established.

  Vance in the meantime had been bending over Kyle’s body with an intentness that puzzled me. Presently his eyes narrowed slightly and he went down on one knee, thrusting his head forward to within a foot of the floor. Then he took out his monocle, polished it carefully, and adjusted it. Markham and I both watched him in silence. After a few moments he straightened up.

  “I say, Scarlett; is there a magnifyin’ glass handy?”

  Scarlett, who had just finished talking to Sergeant Heath, went at once to the glass case containing the scarabs and opened one of the drawers.

  “What sort of museum would this be without a magnifier?” he asked, with a feeble attempt at jocularity, holding out a Coddington lens.

  Vance took it and turned to Heath.

  “May I borrow your flash-light, Sergeant?”

  “Sure thing!” Heath handed him a push-button flash.

  Vance again knelt down, and with the flash-light in one hand and the lens in the other, inspected a tiny oblong object that lay about a foot from Kyle’s body.

  CARAB OF INTEF V

  “Nisut Biti…Intef…Si Rê…Nub-Kheper-Rê.” His voice was low and resonant.

  The Sergeant put his hands in his pockets and sniffed.

  “And what language might that be, Mr. Vance?” he asked.

  “It’s the transliteration of a few ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. I’m reading from this scarab…”

  The Sergeant had become interested. He stepped forward and leaned over the object that Vance was inspecting.

  “A scarab, huh?”

  “Yes, Sergeant. Sometimes called a scarabee, or scar-abæid, or scarabæus—that is to say, beetle… This little oval bit of lapis-lazuli was a sacred symbol of the old Egyptians… This particular one, by the by, is most fascinatin’. It is the state seal of Intef V—a Pharaoh of the Seventeenth Dynasty. About 1650 B.C.—or over 3,500 years ago—he wore it. It bears the title and throne name of Intef-o, or Intef. His Horus name was Nefer-Kheperu, if I remember correctly. He was one of the native Egyptian rulers at Thebes during the reign of the Hyksos in the Delta.* The tomb of this gentleman is the one that Doctor Bliss has been excavating for several years… And you of course note, Sergeant, that the scarab is set in a modern scarf-pin…”

  Heath grunted with satisfaction. Here, at least, was a piece of tangible evidence.

  “A beetle, is it? And a scarf-pin!… Well, Mr. Vance, I’d like to get my hands on the bird who wore that blue thing-umajig in his cravat.”

  “I can enlighten you on that point, Sergeant.” Vance rose to his feet and looked toward the little metal door at the head of the circular stairway. “That scarf-pin is the property of Doctor Bliss.”

  Footnotes

  *Captain Dubois was then the finger-print expert of the New York Police Department; and Doctor Emanuel Doremus was the Medical Examiner.

  *The daughter of this particular Pharaoh—Nefra—incidentally is the titular heroine of H. Rider Haggard’s romance, “Queen of the Dawn.” Haggard, following the chronology of H.R. Hall, placed Intef in the Fourteenth Dynasty instead of the Seventeenth, making him a contemporary of the great Hyksos Pharaoh, Apopi, whose son Khyan—the hero of the book—marries Nefra. The researches of Bliss and Weigall seem to have demonstrated that this relationship is an anachronism.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tracks in the Blood

  (Friday, July 13; 12.15 p.m.)

  SCARLETT HAD BEEN watching Vance intently, a look of horrified amazement on his round bronzed face.

  “I’m afraid you’re right, Vance,” he said, nodding with reluctance. “Doctor Bliss found that scarab on the site of the excavation of Intef’s tomb two years ago. He didn’t mention it to the Egyptian authorities; and when he returned to America he had it set in a scarf-pin. But surely its presence here can have no significance…”

  “Really, now!” Vance faced Scarlett with a steady gaze. “I remember quite well the episode at Dirâ Abu ’n-Nega. I was particeps criminis, as it were, to the theft. But since there were other scarabs of Intef, as well as a cylindrical seal, in the British Museum, I turned my eyes the other way… This is the first time I’ve had a close look at the scarab…”

  Heath had started toward the front stairs.

  “Say, you—Emery!” he bawled, addressing one of the two men on the landing. “Round up this guy Bliss, and bring ’im in here—”

  “Oh, I say, Sergeant!” Vance hastened after him and put a restraining hand on his arm. “Why so precipitate? Let’s be calm… This isn’t the correct moment to drag Bliss in. And when we want him all we have to do is to knock on that little door—he’s undoubtedly in his study, and he can’t run away… And there’s a bit of prelimin’ry surveying to be done first.”

  Heath hesitated and made a grimace. Then:

  “Never mind, Emery. But go out in the back yard, and see that nobody tries to make a getaway… And you, Hennessey,”—he addressed the other man—“stand in the front hall. If any one tries to leave the house, grab ’em and bring ’em in—see?”

  The two detectives disappeared with a stealth that struck me as highly ludicrous.

  “Got something up your sleeve, sir?” the Sergeant asked, eying Vance hopefully. “This homicide, though, don’t look very complicated to me. Kyle gets bumped off by a blow over the head, and beside him is a scarf-pin belonging to Doctor Bliss… That’s simple enough, ain’t
it?”

  “Too dashed simple, Sergeant,” Vance returned quietly, contemplating the dead man. “That’s the whole trouble…”

  Suddenly he moved toward the statue of Anûbis, and leaning over, picked up a folded piece of paper which had lain almost hidden beneath one of Kyle’s outstretched hands. Carefully unfolding it, he held it toward the light. It was a legal-sized sheet of paper, and was covered with figures.

  “This document,” he remarked, “must have been in Kyle’s possession when he passed from this world… Know anything about it, Scarlett?”

  Scarlett stepped forward eagerly and took the paper with an unsteady hand.

  “Good Heavens!” he exclaimed. “It’s the report of expenditures we drew up last night. Doctor Bliss was working on this tabulation—”

  “Uh-huh!” Heath grinned with vicious satisfaction. “So! Our dead friend here musta seen Bliss this morning—else how could he have got that paper?”

  Scarlett frowned.

  “I must say it looks that way,” he conceded. “This report hadn’t been made out when the rest of us knocked off last night. Doctor Bliss said he was going to draw it up before Mr. Kyle got here this morning.” He seemed utterly nonplussed as he handed the paper back to Vance. “But there’s something wrong somewhere… You know, Vance, it’s not reasonable—”

  “Don’t be futile, Scarlett.” Vance’s admonition cut him short. “If Doctor Bliss had wielded the statue of Sakhmet, why should he have left this report here to incriminate himself?… As you say, something is wrong somewhere.”

  “Wrong, is it!” Heath scoffed. “There’s that beetle—and now we find this report. What more do you want, Mr. Vance?”

  “A great deal more.” Vance spoke softly. “A man doesn’t ordinarily commit murder and leave such obvious bits of direct evidence strewn all about the place… It’s childish.”

  Heath snorted.

  “Panic—that’s what it was. He got scared and beat it in a hurry…”

  Vance’s eyes rested on the little metal door of Doctor Bliss’s study.

  “By the by, Scarlett,” he asked; “when did you last see that scarab scarf-pin?”

  “Last night.” The man had begun to pace restlessly up and down. “It was beastly hot in the study, and Doctor Bliss took off his collar and four-in-hand and laid ’em on the table. The scarab pin was sticking in the cravat.”

  “Ah!” Vance’s gaze did not shift from the little door. “The pin lay on the table during the conference, eh?… And, as you told me, Hani and Mrs. Bliss and Salveter and yourself were present.”

  “Right.”

  “Any one, then, might have seen it and taken it?”

  “Well—yes,…I suppose so.”

  Vance thought a moment.

  “Still, this report…most curious!… I could bear to know how it got in Kyle’s hands. You say it hadn’t been completed when the conference broke up?”

  “Oh, no.” Scarlett seemed hesitant about answering. “We all turned in our figures, and Doctor Bliss said he was going to add ’em up and present them to Kyle to-day. Then he telephoned Kyle—in our presence—and made an appointment with him for eleven this morning.”

  “Is that all he said to Kyle on the phone?”

  “Practically…though I believe he mentioned the new shipment that came yesterday—”

  “Indeed? Very interestin’… And what did Doctor Bliss say about the shipment?”

  “As I remember—I really didn’t pay much attention—he told Kyle that the crates had been unpacked, and added that he wanted Kyle to inspect their contents… You see, there was some doubt whether Kyle would finance another expedition. The Egyptian Government had been somewhat snooty, and had retained most of the choicest items for the Cairo Museum. Kyle didn’t like this, and as he had already put oodles of money in the enterprise, he was inclined to back out. No kudos for him, you understand… In fact, Kyle’s attitude was the cause of the conference. Doctor Bliss wanted to show him the exact cost of the former excavations and try to induce him to finance a continuation of the work…”

  “And the old boy refused to do it,” supplemented Heath; “and then the doctor got excited and cracked him over the head with that black statue.”

  “You will insist that life is so simple, Sergeant,” sighed Vance. “I’d sure hate to think it was as complex as you make it, Mr. Vance.” Heath’s retort came very near to an expression of dignified sarcasm.

  The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the main door was opened quietly and a middle-aged, dark-complexioned man in native Egyptian costume appeared at the head of the front stairs. He surveyed us with inquisitive calm, and slowly and with great deliberation of movement, descended into the museum.

  “Good-morning, Mr. Scarlett,” he said, with a sardonic smile. He glanced at the murdered man. “I observe that tragedy has visited this household.”

  “Yes, Hani.” Scarlett spoke with a certain condescension. “Mr. Kyle has been murdered. These gentlemen”—he made a slight gesture in our direction—“are investigating the crime.”

  Hani bowed gravely. He was of medium height, somewhat slender, and gave one the impression of contemptuous aloofness. There was a distinct glint of racial animosity in his close-set eyes. His face was relatively short—he was markedly dolichocephalic—and his straight nose had the typical rounded extremity of the true Copt. His eyes were brown—the color of his skin—and his eyebrows bushy. He wore a close-cut, semi-gray beard, and his lips were full and sensual. His head was covered by a soft dark tarbûsh bearing a pendant tassel of blue silk, and about his shoulders hung a long kaftan of red-and-white striped cotton, which fell to his ankles and barely revealed his yellow-leather babûshes.

  He stood for a full minute looking down at Kyle’s body, without any trace of repulsion or even regret. Then he lifted his head and contemplated the statue of Anûbis. A queer devotional expression came over his face; and presently his lips curled in a faint sardonic smile. After a moment he made a sweeping gesture with his left hand and, turning slowly, faced us. But his eyes were not on us—they were fixed on some distant point far beyond the front windows.

  “There is no need for an investigation, gentlemen,” he said, in a sepulchral tone. “It is the judgment of Sakhmet. For many generations the sacred tombs of our forefathers have been violated by the treasure-seeking Occidental. But the gods of old Egypt were powerful gods and protected their children. They have been patient. But the despoilers have gone too far. It was time for the wrath of their vengeance to strike. And it has struck. The tomb of Intef-o has been saved from the vandal. Sakhmet has pronounced her judgment, just as she did when she slaughtered the rebels at Henen-ensu* to protect her father, Rê, against their treason.”

  He paused and drew a deep breath.

  “But Anûbis will never guide a sacrilegious giaour to the Halls of Osiris—however reverently he may plead…”

  Both Hani’s manner and his words were impressive; and as he spoke I remembered, with an unpleasant feeling, the recent tragedy of Lord Carnarvon and the strange tales of ancient sorcery that sprang up to account for his death on supernatural grounds.

  “Quite unscientific, don’t y’know.” Vance’s voice, cynical and drawling, brought me quickly back to the world of reality. “I seriously question the ability of that piece of black igneous rock to accomplish a murder unless wielded by ordin’ry human hands… And if you must talk tosh, Hani, we’d be tremendously obliged if you’d do it in the privacy of your bedchamber. It’s most borin’.”

  The Egyptian shot him a look of hatred.

  “The West has much to learn from the East regarding matters of the soul,” he pronounced oracularly.

  “I dare say.” Vance smiled blandly. “But the soul is not now under discussion. The West, which you despise, is prone to practicality; and you’d do well to forgo the metempsychosis for the nonce and answer a few questions which the District Attorney would like to put to you.”

  Hani bowed his
acquiescence; and Markham, taking his cigar from his mouth, fixed a stern look upon him.

  “Where were you all this forenoon?” he asked.

  “In my room—up-stairs. I was not well.”

  “And you heard no sounds in the museum here?”

  “It would have been impossible for me to hear any sound in this room.”

  “And you saw no one enter or leave the house?”

  “No. My room is at the rear, and I did not leave it until a few moments ago.”

  Vance put the next question.

  “Why did you leave it then?”

  “I had work to do here in the museum,” the man replied sullenly.

  “But I understand you heard Doctor Bliss make an appointment with Mr. Kyle for eleven this morning.” Vance was watching Hani sharply. “Did you intend to interrupt the conference?”

  “I had forgotten about the appointment.” The answer did not come spontaneously. “If I had found Doctor Bliss and Mr. Kyle in conference I would have returned to my room.”

  “To be sure.” Vance’s tone held a tinge of sarcasm. “I say, Hani, what’s your full name?”

  The Egyptian hesitated, but only for a second. Then he said:

  “Anûpu Hani.”*

  Vance’s eyebrows went up, and there was irony in the slow smile that crept to the corners of his mouth.

  “‘Anûpu’,” he repeated. “Most allurin’. Anûpu, I believe, was the Egyptian form for Anûbis, what? You would seem to be identified with that unpleasant-lookin’ gentleman in the corner, with the jackal’s head.”

  Hani compressed his thick lips and made no response.

  “It really doesn’t matter, y’know,” Vance remarked lightly… “By the by, wasn’t it you who placed the small statue of Sakhmet atop the cabinet yonder?”

  “Yes. It was unpacked yesterday.”

  “And was it you who drew the curtain across the end cabinet?”

  “Yes—at Doctor Bliss’s request. The objects in it were in great disarray. We had not yet had time to arrange them.”