The Scarab Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

  “You’re an incorrigible pessimist, Markham,” Vance returned, getting into a printed foulard dressing-gown. “It has been just fifteen hours since we found Sakhmet athwart Kyle’s skull; and you must admit, painful as it may be to a District Attorney, that the average murder investigation has scarcely begun in so brief a time…”

  “In the average murder case, however,” Markham retorted acidly, “we’d at least have found a lead or two and outlined a workable routine. If Heath had been handling the matter he’d have made an arrest by now—the field of possibilities is not an extensive one.”

  “I dare say he would. He’d no doubt have had every one in jail, including Brush and Dingle and the Curators of the Metropolitan Museum. Typical tactics: butcher innocent persons to make a journalistic holiday. I’m not entranced with that technic, though. I’m far too humane—I’ve retained too many of my early illusions. Sentimentality, alas! will probably be my downfall.”

  Markham snorted, and seated himself at the end of the table. For several moments he beat the devil’s tattoo on a large, vellum-bound copy of “Malleus Maleficarum.”

  “You told me quite emphatically,” he said, “that when this second episode happened—the attempt on Bliss’s life—you’d understand all the phases of the plot and perhaps be able to adduce some tangible evidence against Kyle’s murderer. It appears to me, however, that to-night’s affair has simply plunged us more deeply into uncertainty.”

  Vance shook his head seriously in disagreement.

  “The throwing of that dagger and the hiding and finding of the sheath have illuminated the one moot point in the plot.”

  Markham looked up sharply.

  “You think you know now what the plot is?”

  Vance carefully fitted a Régie into a long jet holder and gazed at a small Picasso still-life beside the mantel.

  “Yes, Markham,” he returned slowly; “I think I know what the plot is. And if the thing that I expect to happen to-night occurs, I can, I believe, convince you that I am right in my diagnosis. Unfortunately the throwing of the dagger was only part of the pre-arranged episode. As I said to you a while ago, the tableau was not completed. Something intervened. And the final touch—the rounding-out of the episode—is yet to come.”

  He spoke with impressive solemnity, and Markham, I could see, was strongly influenced by his manner.

  “Have you any definite notion,” he inquired, “what that final touch will prove to be?”

  “Oh, quite. But just what shape it will take I can’t say. The plotter himself probably doesn’t know, for he must wait for a propitious opportunity. But it will centre about one specific object, or, rather, clew—a planted clew, Markham. That clew has been carefully prepared, and the placing of it is the only indefinite factor left… Yes, I am waiting for a specific item to appear; and when it does, I can convince you of the whole devilish truth.”

  “When do you figure this final clew will turn up?” Markham asked uneasily.

  “At almost any moment.” Vance spoke in low, level and quiet tones. “Something prevented its taking shape to-night, for it is an intimate corollary of the dagger-throwing. And by refusing to take that episode too seriously, and by letting Hani find the sheath, I made the immediate planting of the final clew necess’ry. Once again we refused to fall into the murderer’s trap—though, as I say, the trap was not fully baited.”

  “I’m glad to have some kind of explanation for your casual attitude to-night.” Despite the note of sarcasm in Markham’s voice, it was obvious that at bottom he was not indulging in strictures upon Vance’s conduct. He was at sea and inclined, therefore, to be irritable. “You apparently had no interest in determining who hurled the dagger at Bliss’s pillow.”

  “But, Markham old dear, I knew who hurled the bejewelled bodkin.” Vance made a slight gesture of impatience. “My only concern was with what the reporters call the events leading up to the crime.”

  Markham realized it was of no use to ask, at this time, who had thrown the dagger; so he pursued his comments on Vance’s recent activities at the Bliss house.

  “You might have got some helpful suggestions from Scarlett—he evidently was in the museum during the entire time…”

  “Even so, Markham,” Vance countered, “don’t forget there is a thick double wall between the museum and the Bliss domicile, and that those steel doors are practically sound-proof. Bombs might have been exploded in the doctor’s room without any one in the museum hearing them.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.” Markham rose and stood contemplating Vance appraisingly. “I’m putting a lot of trust in you—you confounded æsthete. And I’m going against all my principles and stultifying the whole official procedure of my office because I believe in you. But God help you if you fail me… What’s the programme for to-morrow?”

  Vance shot him a grateful, affectionate look. Then, at once, a cynical smile overspread his face.

  “I’m the unofficial straw, so to speak, at which the drowning District Attorney clutches—eh, what? Not an over-whelmin’ compliment.”

  It was always the case with these two old friends that when one uttered a generous remark the other immediately scotched it, lest there be some outward show of sentiment.

  “The programme for to-morrow?” Vance took up Markham’s question. “Really, y’know, I hadn’t given it any Cartesian consideration… There’s an exhibition of Gauguins at Wildenstein’s. I might stagger in and bask in the color harmonics of the great Pont-Avenois. Then there’s a performance of the Beethoven Septet at Carnegie Hall; and a preview of Egyptian wall paintings from the tombs of Nakhte and Menena and Rekh-mi-Rê—”

  “And there’s an orchid show at the Grand Central Palace,” Markham suggested with vicious irony. “But see here, Vance: if we let this thing run on another day without taking some kind of action, there may be danger ahead for some one else, just as there was danger for Bliss to-night. If the murderer of Kyle is as ruthless as you say and his job hasn’t been completed—”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Vance’s face clouded again. “The plot doesn’t include another act of violence. I believe it has now entered upon a quiescent and subtle—and more deadly—stage.” He smoked a moment speculatively. “And yet…there may be a remote chance. Things haven’t gone according to the murderer’s calculations. We’ve blocked his two most ambitious moves. But he has one more combination left, and I’m countin’ on his trying it…”

  His voice faltered, and rising he walked slowly to the French window and back.

  “Anyway, I’ll take care of the situation in the morning,” he said. “I’ll guard against any dangerous possibility. And at the same time I’ll hasten the planting of that last clew.”

  “How long is this rigmarole going to take?” Markham was troubled and nervous. “I can’t go on indefinitely waiting for apocalyptic events to happen.”

  “Give me twenty-four hours. Then, if we haven’t received further guidance from the gentleman who is pullin’ the strings, you may turn Heath loose on the family.”

  It was less than twenty-four hours when the culminating event occurred. The fourteenth of July will always remain in my memory as one of the most terrible and exciting days of my life; and as I set down this record of the case, years later, I can hardly refrain from a shudder. I do not dare think of what might have happened—of what soul-stirring injustice might have been perpetrated in good faith—had not Vance seen the inner machinations of the diabolical plot underlying Kyle’s murder, and persisted in his refusal to permit Markham and Heath taking the obvious course of arresting Bliss.

  Vance told me months later that never in his career had he been confronted by so delicate a task as that of placating Markham and convincing him that an impassive delay was the only possible means of reaching the truth. Almost from the moment Vance entered the museum in answer to Scarlett’s summons, he realized the tremendous difficulties ahead; for everything had been planned in order to force Markham and the police into
making the very move against which he had so consistently fought.

  Though Markham did not take his departure from Vance’s apartment on the night of the dagger episode until half past two, Vance rose the next morning before eight o’clock. Another sweltering day was promised, and he had his coffee in the roof-garden. He sent Currie to fetch all the morning newspapers, and spent a half hour or so reading the accounts of Kyle’s murder.

  Heath had been highly discreet about giving out the facts, and only the barest skeleton of the story was available to the press. But the prominence of Kyle and the distinguished reputation of Doctor Bliss resulted in the murder creating a tremendous furore. It was emblazoned across the front page of every metropolitan journal, and there were long reviews of Bliss’s Egyptological work and the financial interest taken in it by the dead philanthropist. The general theory seemed to be—and I recognized the Sergeant’s shrewd hand in it—that some one from the street had entered the museum, and, as an act of vengeance or enmity, had killed Kyle with the first available weapon.

  Heath had told the reporters of the finding of the scarab beside the body, but had given no further information about it. Because of this small object, which was the one evidential detail that had been vouchsafed, the papers, always on the lookout for identifying titles, named the tragedy the Scarab murder case; and that appellation has clung to it to the present day. Even those persons who have forgotten the name of Benjamin H. Kyle still remember the sensation caused by his murder, as a result of that ancient piece of lapis-lazuli carved with the name of an Egyptian Pharaoh of the year 1650 B.C.

  Vance read the accounts with a cynical smile.

  “Poor Markham!” he murmured. “Unless something definite happens very soon, the anti-administration critics will descend on him like a host of trolls. I see that Heath has announced to the world that the District Attorney’s office has taken full charge of the case…”

  He smoked meditatively for a time. Then he telephoned to Salveter and asked him to come at once to his apartment.

  “I’m hopin’ to remove every possibility of disaster,” he explained to me as he hung up the receiver; “though I’m quite certain another attempt to hoodwink us will be made before any desperate measures are taken.”

  For the next fifteen minutes he stretched out lazily and closed his eyes. I thought he had fallen asleep, but when Currie softly opened the door to announce Salveter, Vance bade him show the visitor up before the old man could speak.

  Salveter entered a minute later looking anxious and puzzled.

  “Sit down, Mr. Salveter.” Vance waved him indolently to a chair. “I’ve been thinkin’ about Queen Hetep-hir-es and the Boston Museum. Have you any business that might reasonably take you to Boston to-night?”

  Salveter appeared even more puzzled.

  “I always have work that I can do there,” he replied, frowning. “Especially in view of the excavations of the Harvard-Boston Expedition at the Gîzeh pyramids. It was in connection with these excavations that I had to go to the Metropolitan yesterday morning for Doctor Bliss… Does that answer your question satisfactorily?”

  “Quite… And these reproductions of the tomb furniture of Hetep-hir-es: couldn’t you arrange for them more easily if you saw Doctor Reisner personally?”

  “Certainly. The fact is, I’ll have to go north anyway in order to close up the business. I was merely on the trail of preliminary information yesterday.”

  “Would the fact that to-morrow is Sunday handicap you in any way?”

  “To the contrary. I could probably see Doctor Reisner away from his office, and go into the matter at leisure with him.”

  “That being the case, suppose you hop a train to-night after dinner. Come back, let us say, to-morrow night. Any objection?”

  Salveter’s puzzlement gave way to astonishment.

  “Why—no,” he stammered. “No particular objection. But—”

  “Would Doctor Bliss think it strange if you jumped out on such sudden notice?”

  “I couldn’t say. Probably not. The museum isn’t a particularly pleasant place just now…”

  “Well, I want you to go, Mr. Salveter.” Vance abandoned his lounging demeanor and sat up. “And I want you to go without question or argument… There’s no possibility of Doctor Bliss’s forbidding you to go, is there?”

  “Oh, nothing like that,” Salveter assured him. “He may think it’s queer, my running off at just this time; but he never meddles in the way I choose to do my work.”

  Vance rose.

  “That’s all. There’s a train to Boston from the Grand Central at half past nine to-night. See that you take it… And,” he added, “you might phone me from the station, by way of verification. I’ll be here between nine and nine-thirty… You may return to New York any time you desire after to-morrow noon.”

  Salveter gave Vance an abashed grin.

  “I suppose those are orders.”

  “Serious and important orders, Mr. Salveter,” Vance returned with quiet impressiveness. “And you needn’t worry about Mrs. Bliss. Hani, I’m sure, will take good care of her.”

  Salveter started to make a reply, changed his mind, and, turning abruptly, strode rapidly away.

  Vance yawned and rose languorously.

  “And now I think I’ll take two more hours’ sleep.”

  After lunch at Marguéry’s, Vance went to the Gauguin exhibition, and later walked to Carnegie Hall to hear the Beethoven Septet. It was too late when the concert was over to see the Egyptian wall paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, he called for Markham in his car, and the three of us drove to the Claremont for dinner.

  Vance explained briefly what steps he had taken in regard to Salveter. Markham made scant comment. He looked tired and discouraged, but there was a distracted tensity about his manner that made me realize how greatly he was counting on Vance’s prediction that something tangible would soon happen in connection with the Kyle case.

  After dinner we returned to Vance’s roof-garden. The enervating mid-summer heat still held, and there was scarcely a breath of air stirring.

  “I told Heath I’d phone him—” Markham began, sinking into a large peacock wicker chair.

  “I was about to suggest getting in touch with the Sergeant,” Vance chimed in. “I’d rather like to have him on hand, don’t y’know. He’s so comfortin’.”

  He rang for Currie and ordered the telephone. Then he called Heath and asked him to join us.

  “I have a psychic feelin’,” he said to Markham, with an air of forced levity, “that we are going to be summoned anon to witness the irrefutable proof of some one’s guilt. And if that proof is what I think it is…”

  Markham suddenly leaned forward in his chair.

  “It has just come to me what you’ve been hinting about so mysteriously!” he exclaimed. “It has to do with that hieroglyphic letter you found in the study.”

  Vance hesitated but momentarily.

  “Yes, Markham,” he nodded. “That torn letter hasn’t been explained yet. And I have a theory about it that I can’t shake off—it fits too perfectly with the whole fiendish scheme.”

  “But you have the letter,” Markham argued, in an effort to draw Vance out.

  “Oh, yes. And I’m prizin’ it.”

  “You believe it’s the letter Salveter said he wrote?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “And you believe he is ignorant of its having been torn up and put in the doctor’s waste-basket?”

  “Oh, quite. He’s still wonderin’ what became of it—and worryin’, too.”

  Markham studied Vance with baffled curiosity. “You spoke of some purpose to which the letter might have been put before it was thrown away.”

  “That’s what I’m waiting to verify. The fact is, Markham, I expected that the letter would enter into the mystery of the dagger throwing last night. And I’ll admit I was frightfully downcast when we’d got the whole family snugly back to bed without having
run upon a single hieroglyph.” He reached for a cigarette. “There was a reason for it, and I think I know the explanation. That’s why I’m pinnin’ my childlike faith on what may happen at any moment now…”

  The telephone rang, and Vance himself answered it at once. It was Salveter calling from the Grand Central Station; and after a brief verbal interchange, Vance replaced the instrument on the table with an air of satisfaction.

  “The doctor,” he said, “was evidently quite willin’ to endure to-night and to-morrow without his assistant curator. So that bit of strategy was achieved without difficulty…”

  Half an hour later Heath was ushered into the roof-garden. He was glum and depressed, and his greeting was little more than a guttural rumble.

  “Lift up your heart, Sergeant,” Vance exhorted him cheerfully. “This is Bastille Day.* It may have a symbolic meaning. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that you will be able to incarcerate the murderer of Kyle before midnight.”

  “Yeah?” Heath was utterly sceptical. “Is he coming here to give himself up, bringing all the necessary proof with him? A nice, accommodating fella.”

  “Not exactly, Sergeant. But I’m expecting him to send for us; and I think he may be so generous as to point out the principal clew himself.”

  “Cuckoo, is he? Well, Mr. Vance, if he does that, no jury’ll convict him. He’ll get a bill of insanity with free lodging and medical care for the rest of his life.” He looked at his watch. “It’s ten o’clock. What time does the tip-off come?”

  “Ten?” Vance verified the hour. “My word! It’s later than I thought.…” A look of anxiety passed over his set features. “I wonder if I could have miscalculated this whole affair.”

  He put out his cigarette and began pacing back and forth. Presently he stopped before Markham, who was watching him uneasily.

  “When I sent Salveter away,” he began slowly, “I was confident that the expected event would happen forthwith. But I’m afraid something has gone wrong. Therefore I think I had better outline the case to you now.”