The Egyptian Cross Mystery

1. Christmas in Arroyo

It began in West Virginia, at the junction of two roads half a mile out of the little village of Arroyo. One was the main road from New Cumberland to Pughtown, the other a branch leading to Arroyo.

The geography, Ellery Queen saw at once, was important. He saw many other things in that first glance, too, and felt only confusion at the contradictory nature of the evidence. Nothing matched. It was necessary to stand off and think.

How Ellery Queen, a cosmopolite, happened to be standing beside a battered old Duesenberg racing car in the muddy cold of the West Virginia panhandle at two o’clock post meridiem of a late December day requires explanation. So many factors contrived to bring about this extraordinary phenomenon! One — the primary one — was a busman’s holiday instigated by Inspector Queen, Ellery’s father. The old man was knee-deep in what might be termed a policemen’s convention; affairs in Chicago as usual were wretched, and the Commissioner had invited prominent police officials from major cities to lament with him the deplorable lawlessness in his bailiwick.

It was while the Inspector, in rare fettle, was scurrying from his hotel to Chicago’s police headquarters that Ellery, who had accompanied him, learned of the puzzling crime near Arroyo — a crime which the United Press piquantly dubbed “The T Murder.” There were so many elements of the newspaper accounts which titillated Ellery — the fact, for example, that Andrew Van had been beheaded and crucified on Christmas morning! — that he peremptorily yanked his father from the smoky Chicago conferences and headed the Duesenberg — a second-hand relic capable of incredible speed — eastwards.

The Inspector, although a dutiful father, immediately surrendered his good humor, as might have been expected; and all the way from Chicago — through Toledo, through Sandusky, through Cleveland, Ravenna, Lisbon, a host of Illinois and Ohio towns, until they came to Chester, West Virginia — the old man maintained a threatening silence, punctuated by Ellery’s sly monologues and the roar of the Duesenberg’s exhaust.

They were through Arroyo before they realized they had been in it; a tiny place of some two hundred souls. And... the junction.

The signpost with its crossbar at the top was visible in stark silhouette for some distance before the car rolled to a stop. For the Arroyo road ended there, meeting the New Cumberland-Pughtown highway at right angles. The signpost therefore faced the exit of the Arroyo pike, one arm pointing northeast to Pughtown, the other southwest to New Cumberland.

The Inspector growled: “Go on. Make a fool of yourself. Of all the dumb poppycock! Hauling me down here... just another crazy murder... I won’t be—”

Ellery switched off the ignition key and strode forward. The road was deserted. Touching the steel sky above posed the mountains of West Virginia. Underfoot the dirt was cracked and stiff. It was sharply cold, and a keen wind blew the tails of Ellery’s overcoat about. And ahead stood the signpost upon which Andrew Van, eccentric schoolmaster of Arroyo, had been crucified.

The signpost had once been white; it was now a filthy gray, and it was streaked with encrusted mud. It stood six feet high — its top was on a level with Ellery’s head — and its arms were stout and long. It looked for all the world, as Ellery paused several feet away, like a gigantic letter T. He understood now why the U.P. man had christened the crime “The T Murder” — first this signpost in the form of a T, then the T-shaped crossroads at the head of which the signpost stood, and finally the fantastic T swabbed in blood on the door of the dead man’s house, which Ellery’s car had passed a few hundred feet from the junction of the roads.

Ellery sighed, and took off his hat. It was not necessarily a gesture of reverence; he was, despite the cold and the wind, perspiring. He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and wondered what madman had committed this atrocious, illogical, and completely puzzling crime. Even the body... He recollected vividly one of the newspaper accounts of the discovery of the corpse, a special piece written by a famous Chicago reporter who was practiced enough in the description of violence:

There had been much more in the same vein, including details of the unfortunate schoolmaster’s bucolic life in Arroyo, the meager tidbits of information gleaned by police about the last-known movements of Van and Kling, and the pompous declarations of the District Attorney.

Ellery took off his pince-nez eyeglasses, polished them, put them on again, and let his sharp eyes sweep over the gruesome relic.

In both arms, near the tips of the crossbar, were jagged holes in the wood where the police had torn out the spikes. Each hole was surrounded by a ragged stain of a rusty brown color. Little brown tendrils trickled from the holes, where Andrew Van’s blood had dripped from his mutilated hands. Where the arms protruded from the upright were two other holes, unrimmed; the spikes which had been wrenched from these holes had supported the armpits of the corpse. The entire length of the signpost was streaked, smeared, runneled with dried blood, the drippings emanating from the head of the post, where the raw, gaping wound at the base of the victim’s neck had rested. Near the bottom of the centerpost there were two holes not more than four inches apart, also ringed in brown blood; and these holes, where Van’s ankles had been nailed to the wood, had dribbled blood to the earth in which the signpost was staked.

Ellery walked soberly back to the car, where the Inspector waited in a familiar attitude of dejection and irritation, slumped against the leather next to the driver’s seat. The old man was bundled to the neck in an ancient woolen muffler, and his sharp red nose stuck out like a danger signal. “Well,” he snapped, “come on. I’m frozen.”

“Not the least bit curious?” asked Ellery, slipping into the driver’s seat.

“No!”

“You’re another.” Ellery started the engine. He grinned and the car leaped forward like a greyhound, turned on two wheels, plowed and bumped about in a circle, and shot off the way it had come, toward Arroyo.

The Inspector clutched the edge of his seat in mortal terror.

“Quaint idea,” shouted Ellery above the thunder of the motor. “Crucifixion on Christmas Day!”

“Huh,” said the Inspector.

“I think,” shouted Ellery, “I’m going to like this case!”

“Drive, darn you!” screamed the old man suddenly. The car straightened out. “You’ll like nothing,” he added with a scowl. “You’re coming back to New York with me.”

They raced into Arroyo.

“Ye know,” muttered the Inspector as Ellery jerked the Duesenberg to a stop before a small frame building, “it’s a shame the way they do things down here. Leaving that signpost at the scene of the crime!” He shook his head. “Where you going now?” he demanded, his birdlike little gray head cocked on a side.

“I thought you weren’t interested,” said Ellery, jumping to the sidewalk. “Hi, there!” he cried to a muffled countryman in blue denim who was sweeping the sidewalk with a tattered old besom, “is this the Law in Arroyo?” The man gaped stupidly. “Superfluous question. There’s the sign for all the world to see... Come along, you fraud.”

It was a sleepy little settlement, a handful of clustered buildings. The frame structure at which the Duesenberg had stopped looked like one of the false-front mushroom boxes of the old West. Next door there was a general store, with a single decrepit gasoline pump before it and a small garage adjoining. The frame building bore a proudly hand-lettered sign:

They found the gentleman they sought asleep at his desk in the rear of the building, behind a door which announced him as CONSTABLE. He was a fat, red-faced countryman with yellow buck teeth.

The Inspector snorted, and the Constable raised heavy lids. He scratched his head and said in a rusty bass: “Ef ye’re lookin’ fer Matt Hollis, he’s out.”

Ellery smiled. “We’re looking for Constable Luden of Arroyo.”

“Oh! I’m him. What d’ye want?”

“Constable,” said Ellery impressively, “let me introduce you to Inspector Richard Queen, head of the Homicide Squad of the New York Police Department — in the merry flesh.”

“Who?” Constable Luden stared. “N’Yawk?”

“As I live and breathe,” said Ellery, stepping on his father’s toe. “Now, Constable, we want—”

“Set,” said Constable Luden, kicking a chair toward the Inspector, who sniffed and rather delicately sat down. “This Van business, hey? Didn’t know you N’Yawkers was int’rested. What’s eatin’ ye?”

Ellery produced his cigarette case and offered it to the Constable, who grunted and bit a mouthful off a huge plug of tobacco. “Tell us all about it, Constable.”

“Nothin’ to tell. Lots o’ Chicago an’ Pittsburgh men been snoopin’ round town. Sort o’ sick of it, m’self.”

The Inspector sneered. “Can’t say I blame you, Constable.”

Ellery took a wallet from his breast pocket, flipped it open, and stared speculatively at the greenbacks inside. Constable Luden’s drowsy eyes brightened. “Well,” he said hastily, “maybe I ain’t so sick of it. I can’t tell it jest once ag’in.”

“Who found the body?”

“Ol’ Pete. Ye wouldn’t know’m. Got a shack up in th’ hills some’eres.”

“Yes, I know that. Wasn’t a farmer involved, also?”

“Mike Orkins. Got a coupla acres down off th’ Pughtown pike. Seems like Orkins was drivin’ his Ford into Arroyo — let’s see; this is Mond’y — yep, Frid’y mornin’, ’twas... Christmas mornin’, pretty early. Ol’ Pete, he was headed fer Arroyo, too — come down offen th’ mountain. Orkins give Pete a hitch. Well, sir, they git to th’ crossroads where Orkins has to turn in t’wards Arroyo, an’ there it was. On th’ signpost. Hangin’ stiff as a cold-storage yearlin’ — Andrew Van’s body.”

“We saw the post,” said Ellery encouragingly.

“Guess most a hundred city people druv out in th’ past few days to see it,” grumbled Constable Luden. “Reg’lar traffic problem I had. Anyways, Orkins an’ Ol’ Pete, they was both pretty much scared. Both of ’em like to’ve fainted...”

“Hmph,” said the Inspector.

“They didn’t touch the body, of course?” remarked Ellery.

Constable Luden wagged his gray head emphatically. “Not them! They druv into Arroyo like th’ devil hisself was after ’em, an’ roused me outa bed.”

“What time was this, Constable?”

Constable Luden blushed. “Eight o’clock, but I’d had a big night b’fore over to Matt Hollis’s house, an’ I sorta overslept—”

“You and Mr. Hollis, I think, went immediately to the crossroads?”

“Yep. Matt — he’s our Mayor, ye know — Matt an’ me, we got four o’ th’ boys out an’ druv down. Some mess, he was — Van, I mean.” The Constable shook his head. “Never seen nothin’ like it in all my born days. An’ on Christmas Day, too. Blasph’my, I calls it. An’ Van an atheist, too.”

“Eh?” said the Inspector swiftly. His red nose shot out of the folds of the muffler like a dart. “An atheist? What d’ye mean?”

“Well, maybe not an atheist exac’ly,” muttered the Constable, looking uncomfortable. “I’m not much of a churchgoer m’self, but Van, he never went. Parson — well, mebbe I better not talk about that no more.”

“Remarkable,” said Ellery, turning to his father. “Really remarkable, Dad. It certainly looks like the work of a religious maniac.”

“Yep, that’s what they’re all sayin’,” said Constable Luden. “Me — I dunno. I’m jest a country constable. I don’t know nothin’, see? Ain’t had more’n a tramp in th’ lock-up fer three years. But I tell ye, gentlem’n,” he said darkly, “there’s more to it than jest religion.”

“No one in town, I suppose,” asserted Ellery, frowning, “is a suspect.”

“Nob’dy that loony, mister. I tell ye — it’s someb’dy connected with Van’s past.”

“Have there been strangers in town recently?”

“Nary a one... So Matt an’ me an’ th’ boys, we identified th’ body from th’ size, gen’ral build, clothin’ an’ papers an’ sech, an’ we took ’im down. On th’ way back to town we stopped in at Van’s house...”

“Yes,” said Ellery eagerly. “And what did you find?”

“Hell let loose,” said Constable Luden, chewing savagely on his cud. “Signs of a ter’ble struggle, all th’ chairs upset, blood on most everythin’, that big T in blood on th’ front door th’ papers been makin’ so much about, an’ poor ol’ Kling gone.”

“Ah,” said the Inspector. “The servant. Just gone, hey? Take his duds, did he?”

“Well,” replied the Constable, scratching his head, “I don’t rightly know. Coroner’s sort o’ taken things out o’ my hands. I know they’re lookin’ fer Kling — an’ I think,” he closed one eye slowly, “I think fer someb’dy else, too. But I can’t say nothin’ about that,” he added hastily.

“Any trace of Kling yet?” asked Ellery.

“Not’s I know of. Gen’ral alarm’s out. Body was taken to th’ county seat, Weirton — that’s eleven-twelve mile away, in charge o’ th’ Coroner. Coroner sealed up Van’s house, too. State police are on th’ job, an’ the District Attorney o’ Hancock County.”

Ellery mused, and the Inspector stirred restlessly in his chair. Constable Luden stared with fascination at Ellery’s pince-nez.

“And the head was hacked off,” murmured Ellery, at last “Queer. By an ax, I believe?”

“Yep, we found th’ ax in th’ house. Was Kling’s. No finger marks.”

“And the head itself?”

Constable Luden shook his head. “No sign of it. Guess th’ crazy murd’rer jest took it along as a sort o’ souvenir. Haw!”

“I think,” said Ellery, putting on his hat, “that we’ll go, Dad. Thank you, Constable.” He offered his hand, and the Constable took it flabbily. A grin came over his face as he felt something pressed into his palm. He was so delighted that he forwent his siesta and walked them to the street.

2. New Year’s in Weirton

There was no logical reason for Ellery Queen’s persistent interest in the case of the crucified schoolmaster. He should have been in New York. Word had come to the Inspector that he must cut short his holiday and return to Centre Street; and where the Inspector went, Ellery usually followed. But something in the atmosphere of the West Virginia county seat, a suppressed excitement that filled Weirton’s streets with whispered rumors, held him there. The Inspector gave up in disgust and entrained for New York, Ellery driving him to Pittsburgh.

“Just what,” demanded the old man, as Ellery tucked him into a Pullman seat, “do you think you’ll accomplish? Come on — tell me. I suppose you’ve got it solved already, hey?”

“Now, Inspector,” said Ellery in a soothing voice, “watch your blood pressure. I’m merely interested. I’ve never run across anything as baldly lunatic as this. I’m going to wait for the inquest. I want to hear that evidence Luden hinted at.”

“You’ll come back to New York with your tail between your legs,” predicted the Inspector darkly.

“Oh, no doubt,” grinned Ellery. “At the same time, I’ve quite run out of fiction ideas, and this thing has so many possibilities...”

They let it go at that. The train pulled out and left Ellery standing on the platform of the terminal, free and vaguely uneasy. He drove back to Weirton the same day.

This was Tuesday. He had until Saturday, the day after New Year’s Day, to wheedle what information he could from the District Attorney of Hancock County. District Attorney Crumit was a dour old man with shrewd ambitions and an exaggerated opinion of his own importance. Ellery reached the door of his anteroom; and no amount of pleading or cajolery could get him farther. The District Attorney can see no one. The District Attorney is busy. Come back tomorrow. The District Attorney cannot see any one. From New York — Inspector Queen’s son? I’m sorry...

Ellery bit his lip, wandered the streets, and listened with tireless ears to the conversation of Weirton’s citizenry. Weirton, in the midst of its holly, tinsel, and glittering Christmas trees, was indulging in an orgy of vicarious horror. There were remarkably few women abroad, and no children. Men met hurriedly, stiff-lipped, and discussed ways and means. There was talk of lynching — a worthy purpose which failed because there was no one to lynch. Weirton’s police force prowled the streets uneasily. State police dashed in and out of town. Occasionally the peaked face of District Attorney Crumit flashed in steely vindictiveness as his automobile darted by.

In all the hubbub that churned about him, Ellery maintained his peace and an inquiring air. On Wednesday he made an attempt to see Stapleton, the County Coroner. Stapleton was a fat young man in a constant state of perspiration; but he was canny, too, and Ellery learned nothing from him that he did not already know.

So he devoted the remaining three days to ferreting out what he could about Andrew Van, the victim. It was incredible how little was known about the man. Few had seen him in the flesh; he had been a retiring gentleman of solitary habits and had rarely visited Weirton. It was rumored that the villagers of Arroyo had considered him an exemplary teacher: he had been kind, although not lenient, to his pupils; he had rendered satisfactory service, in the opinion of the Arroyo Town Board. Moreover, although he had not been a churchgoer, he had been a teetotaler; and this, it seemed, had cemented his position in a God-fearing and sober community.

On Thursday the editor of Weirton’s leading newspaper turned literary. The morrow was New Year’s Day, and it was too fecund an opportunity to let lie barren. The six reverend gentlemen who ministered to Weirton’s spiritual heeds preached their sermons on the front page. Andrew Van, they said, had been an ungodly man. He who lives in ungodliness shall die in ungodliness. Yet deeds born of violence... The editor did not stop there. There was an editorial in ten-point bold face. It was fruitily dotted with references to the French Bluebeard, Landru; to the Maniac of Dusseldorf; to the American bogey, Jack-the-Ripper; and to many other monsters of fact and fiction — a dainty tidbit served to the good people of Weirton as dessert for their New Year’s dinners.

The County Court House, where the Coroner’s inquest was to be held on Saturday morning, was crowded to the doors long before the appointed hour. Ellery sagely had been one of the earliest comers, and his seat was in the first row, behind the railing. When, at a few moments before nine o’clock, Coroner Stapleton himself appeared, Ellery sought him out, exhibited a telegram signed by the Police Commissioner of New York City, and with this sesame secured entrance to the anteroom in which Andrew Van’s body was laid out.

“Corpse is in something of a mess,” wheezed the Coroner. “After all, we couldn’t hold the inquest during Christmas Week, and it’s a good eight days... Body’s been kept in our local undertaker’s parlor.”

Ellery steeled himself and removed the cloth which covered the corpse. It was a sickening sight, and he replaced the cloth quickly. The corpse was that of a large man. Where the head had been was nothing... a gaping hole.

On a table nearby lay a man’s garments: a sober dark gray suit, black shoes, a shirt, socks, underclothes — all stiff with faded blood. Articles taken from the dead man’s clothing — a pencil, a fountain pen, a wallet, a bunch of keys, a crumpled packet of cigarettes, some coins, a cheap watch, an old letter — proved, as far as Ellery could see, utterly uninteresting. Except for the fact that several of the objects were initialed A V and the letter — from a Pittsburgh bookstore — was addressed to Andrew Van, Esq., there was nothing in them likely to be of importance to the inquest.

Stapleton turned to introduce a tall, bitten old man who had just entered and was staring at Ellery suspiciously. “Mr. Queen — District Attorney Crumit.”

“Who?” said Crumit sharply.

Ellery smiled, nodded, and returned to the inquest room.

Five minutes later Coroner Stapleton rapped with his gavel and the packed courtroom stilled. The customary preliminaries were hastily disposed of, and the Coroner summoned Michael Orkins to the witness stand.

Orkins lumbered down the aisle followed by whispers and eyes. He was a gnarled, bent old farmer burnt mahogany by the sun. He sat down nervously and folded his big hands.

“Mr. Orkins,” wheezed the Coroner, “tell us how you came to find the body of the deceased.”

The farmer licked his lips. “Yes, sir. Was comin’ into Arroyo Frid’y mornin’ last in my Ford. Jest b’fore I got t’ th’ Arroyo pike I seen Ol’ Pete, from up th’ mountain, trampin’ in th’ road. Give’m a lift. We come to th’ turnin’ o’ the road, an’... an’ there was th’ body, hangin’ on th’ signpost. Nailed, it was, by th’ hands, an’ feet.” Orkins’s voice broke. “We... we beat it lickety-split fer town.”

Someone tittered in the audience, and the Coroner rapped for silence. “Did you touch the body?”

“No, sir! We didn’t even git out o’ th’ car.”

“All right, Mr. Orkins.”

The farmer sighed gustily and pottered back up the aisle, mopping his brow with a large red kerchief.

“Er — Old Pete?”

There was a stir, and in the rear of the courtroom a queer figure rose. It was that of an erect old man with a bushy gray beard and overhanging eyebrows. He was dressed in tatterdemalion garments — a conglomeration of ancient clothing, torn, dirty, and patched. He shambled down the aisle, hesitated, then wagged his head and sat down in the witness chair.

The Coroner seemed nettled. “What’s your full name?”

“Hey?” The old man stared sidewise out of bright unseeing eyes.

“Your name! What is it — Peter what?”

Old Pete shook his head. “Got no name,” he declared. “Old Pete, that’s me. I’m dead, I am. Been dead twenty years.”

There was a horrified silence, and Stapleton looked about in bewilderment. A small alert-looking man of middle age, sitting near the Coroner’s dais, got to his feet “It’s all right, Mr. Coroner.”

“Well, Mr. Hollis?”

“It’s all right,” repeated the speaker in a loud voice. “He’s daffy, Old Pete is. Been that way for years — ever since he popped up in the hills. He’s got a shack somewhere above Arroyo, and comes in every couple of months or so. Does a little trappin’, I guess. Got pretty much the run of Arroyo. A regular character, Mr. Coroner.”

“I see. Thanks, Mr. Hollis.”

The Coroner swabbed his fat face, and the Mayor of Arroyo sat down in a murmur of approval. Old Pete beamed, and waved a dirty hand at Matt Hollis... The Coroner continued brusquely. The man’s replies were vague, but enough was elicited to make formal confirmation of Michael Orkins’s story, and the hillman was excused. He shuffled back to his seat, blinking.

Mayor Hollis and Constable Luden recited their stories — how they had been roused out of bed by Orkins and Old Pete, how they had gone to the crossroads, identified the corpse, removed the spikes, carted the body off, stopped in at Van’s house, viewed the shambles there and the bloody T on the door...

A fat, ruddy old German was called. “Luther Bernheim.”

He smiled, showed gold teeth, shook his belly, and sat down.

“You own the general store in Arroyo?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you know Andrew Van?”

“Yes, sir. He bought in my store.”

“How long were you acquainted with him?”

“Ach! Many years. He was a good customer. He always paid in cash.”

“Did he purchase his groceries himself?”

“Sometimes. Mostly it was that Kling, his helper. But always he came himself to pay bills.”

“Was he friendly?”

Bernheim screwed up his eyes. “Well... yes, and no.”

“You mean he never got personal, was just pleasant?”

“Ja, ja.”

“Would you say Van was a peculiar man?”

“Hah? Oh, yes, yes. F’rinstance, always he ordered caviar.”

“Caviar?”

“Ja. He was my only customer for it. I used to order special for him. All kinds — Beluga, red, but mostly the black, the best kind.”

“Mr. Bernheim, will you, Mayor Hollis, and Constable Luden step into the next room for a formal identification of the body.”

The Coroner left the stand, followed by the three Arroyo citizens, and there was a buzzing interlude until they returned. The good storekeeper’s red face was tinged with gray, and there was horror in his eyes.

Ellery Queen sighed. A schoolmaster in a village of two hundred souls ordering caviar! Perhaps Constable Luden was shrewder than he appeared; Van had evidently had a more lustrous past than his employment and environment indicated.

The tall spare figure of District Attorney Crumit strutted up to the stand. A little thrill ran through the audience. What had gone before was trifling; this was the beginning of revelations.

“Mr. District Attorney,” said Coroner Stapleton, leaning forward tensely, “have you investigated the background of the deceased?”

“Yes!”

Ellery slumped lower in his seat; he disliked the District Attorney with vigor, but there were bodings in Crumit’s frosty eye.

“Please relate what you have discovered.”

The District Attorney of Hancock County gripped the arm of the witness chair. “Andrew Van appeared in Arroyo nine years ago in answer to an advertisement for a village schoolteacher. His references and preparation were satisfactory, and he was hired by the Town Board. He came with the man Kling, his servant, and rented the house on Arroyo Road in which he lived until the time of his death. He performed his teaching duties satisfactorily. His conduct during his residence in Arroyo was above reproach.” Crumit paused impressively. “My investigators attempted to trace the man before his appearance in Arroyo. We have discovered that he had been a public-school teacher in Pittsburgh before coming to Arroyo.”

“And before that?”

“No trace. But he was a naturalized citizen of the United States, having been admitted to citizenship in Pittsburgh thirteen years ago. His papers, on file in Pittsburgh, give his nationality before naturalization as Armenian, born in 1885.”

Armenian! thought Ellery, nursing his chin behind the railing. Not far from Galilee... Peculiar thoughts raced through his head, and he dismissed them impatiently.

“You also investigated Kling, Van’s servant, Mr. District Attorney?”

“Yes. He had been a foundling, cared for by the St. Vincent’s Orphanage of Pittsburgh, and on reaching maturity he was employed by the orphanage in a man-of-all-work capacity. He lived there all his life. When Andrew Van resigned from the Pittsburgh public-school system and accepted the Arroyo appointment, he visited the orphanage and signified his desire to employ a man. Kling had been agreeable, it seems, Van investigated him scrupulously, expressed himself as satisfied, and the two men went to Arroyo, where they remained until the time of Van’s death.”

Ellery wondered lazily what motives might impel a man to resign a berth in a metropolis like Pittsburgh to accept one in a hamlet like Arroyo. A criminal record, desire to hide from the police? Improbable; concealment came in large cities, not in hamlets. No, it was something deeper and more obscure, he felt certain; perhaps rooted in the brain of the dead man irremovably. Some men sought solitude after thwarted lives; this might very well have been the case with Andrew Van, caviar-eating schoolmaster of the Arroyoites.

“What sort of man was Kling?” asked Stapleton.

The District Attorney looked bored. “The orphanage reports him as rather a simple-minded man — psychologically a moron, I believe they rated him. A harmless fellow.”

“Did he ever show homicidal tendencies, Mr. Crumit?”

“No. He is considered at St. Vincent’s to have been a mild-tempered, rather stolid and stupid man. He was kind to the children of the orphanage. He was humble, content, and respectful to his superiors at the Home.”

The District Attorney moistened his lips afresh and appeared about to launch into the promised revelations; but Coroner Stapleton hastily excused him and recalled the Arroyo storekeeper.

“You knew Kling, Mr. Bernheim?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What sort of man was he?”

“Quiet. Of good nature. Dumb, like an ox.” Someone laughed, and Stapleton looked annoyed. He leaned forward.

“Is it true, Mr. Bernheim, that this Kling was well-known in Arroyo for his physical strength?”

Ellery chuckled to himself. The Coroner was a simple soul.

Bernheim clucked. “Ach, yes. Very strong, that Kling. He could lift a barrel of sugar! But he wouldn’t hurt a fly, Mr. Coroner. I remember once—”

“That’s all,” said Stapleton irritably. “Mayor Hollis, please take the stand again.”

Matt Hollis beamed. He was an oily little man, Ellery decided.

“You are head of the Town Board, Mayor Hollis?”

“Yep!”

“Tell the jury what you know about Andrew Van.”

“Always gave satisfaction. Had nothin’ to do with anyone. Sort of studious feller. He kept to the fine house I rented him outside of school hours, off by himself. Some thought him stuck up, and others a furriner, but not me.” The Mayor looked sententious. “Just quiet, that’s all. Not neighborly? Well, that was his business. If he didn’t want to join me and Constable Luden on a fishin’ trip, that was his business, too.” Hollis smiled and nodded. “And he spoke perfect English, like you or me, Mr. Coroner.”

“Did he ever have visitors, as far as you know?”

“No. But of course I can’t say for sure. Funny feller, though,” continued the Mayor thoughtfully. “Couple of times when I was goin’ to Pittsburgh on business he asked me to buy books for him — queer books, they were, highfalutin’ stuff. Philosophy, hist’ry, about the stars and such.”

“Yes, yes, very interesting, Mr. Hollis. Now, you’re the Arroyo banker, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am that.” Mayor Hollis blushed, and looked modestly down at his small feet. Ellery gathered, from the Mayor’s expression, that he was just about everything in the town of Arroyo.

“Did Andrew Van have an account in your bank?”

“He did not. He used to collect his salary regular, in cash, but I don’t think he ever banked it anywhere because I asked him a couple of times — you know how it is; business is business — and he said he kept his money in the house.” Hollis shrugged. “Didn’t trust banks, he said. Well, every man to his taste. I’m not one to argue—”

“Was this generally known in Arroyo?”

Hollis hesitated. “We-ell maybe I did mention it around some. I guess most everybody in town knew of this queer kink of the schoolteacher’s.”

The Mayor was waved off the stand, and Constable Luden was recalled. The Constable came up stiffly, as one who has his own ideas about how such things should be conducted.

“You searched Andrew Van’s house, Constable, the morning of Friday, December the twenty-fifth?”

“Right.”

“Did you find any money?”

“Nope.”

Gasps broke out through the room. Robbery! Ellery frowned. There was no rhyme or reason to any of it. First a crime with all the earmarks of religious mania, and then a theft of money. The two did not blend. He leaned forward... A man was carrying something to the dais. It was a cheap battered green tin box. Its hasp was badly twisted, and the puny lock hung limply. The Coroner took it from the attendant, opened it, held it upside down. It was empty.

“Constable, do you recognize this green tin box?”

Luden sniffed. “I’ll say,” he said in his rusty bass. “Found it jest like that in Van’s house. It’s his money box, all right.”

The Coroner held it up to the jury of countrymen who were craning at it. “The Coroner’s jury will please observe this article of evidence... All right, Constable. Will the Postmaster of Arroyo please take the stand?”

A wizened little old man hopped up to the witness chair.

“Did Andrew Van receive much mail?”

“Nope,” shrilled the Postmaster. “’Ceptin’ advertisin’ lit’rachoor, hardly ever.”

“Was there any letter or package during the week preceding his death?”

“Nope!”

“Did he send letters often?”

“Nope. Jest a couple onct in a while. None fer three-four months now.”

Dr. Strang, the Coroner’s physician, was summoned. At mention of his name the spectators whispered frantically. He was a seedy man with a mournful look, and he slouched down the aisle as if he had all the time in the world.

When he was seated, the Coroner asked: “Dr. Strang, when did you first examine the body of the deceased?”

“Two hours after its discovery.”

“Can you fix for the jury the approximate time of death?”

“Yes. I should say the man had been dead between six and eight hours when he was found at the crossroads.”

“That would set the murder at some time around midnight of Christmas Eve?”

“That’s right.”

“Can you give the jury further details about the condition of the corpse which might be pertinent to this inquiry?”

Ellery smiled. Coroner Stapleton had worked himself into a fine fettle; his language was sublimely official, and the spectators, to judge from their open mouths, were properly impressed.

Dr. Strang crossed his legs and said in a bored voice: “No marks on the body other than the raw wound at the neck where the head had been severed, and the nail holes in hands and feet.”

The Coroner half-rose and plumped his belly over the edge of the desk. “Dr. Strang,” he asked hoarsely, “what is your conclusion from this fact?”

“That the deceased was probably struck over the head, or shot in the head, since there are no other marks of violence on his body.”

Ellery nodded; this sad-looking country doctor had a head on his shoulders.

“It’s my opinion,” continued the Coroner’s physician, “that the victim was already dead when the head was cut off. From the nature of the wound left at the base of the neck, a very sharp instrument must have been wielded.”

The Coroner picked up a carefully bedded object on the desk before him and held it up. It was a long-handled, wicked-looking ax, its blade winking where there was no blood. “Would you say that this weapon, Dr. Strang, could have severed the victim’s head from his body?”

“Yes.”

The Coroner turned to the jury. “This exhibit was found in the back kitchen of Andrew Van’s house, on the floor, where the murder was committed. Let me call to your attention, gentlemen, that there are no fingerprints on the weapon, showing that the murderer had either worn gloves or wiped the ax clean of prints after using. This ax has been established as the property of the deceased, and was habitually kept in the kitchen, normally being used by the missing Kling to chop firewood... That’s all, Dr. Strang. Colonel Pickett, will you please come to the stand?”

The head of the West Virginia State Police complied — a tall, soldierly-looking man. “Colonel Pickett, what have you to report?”

“Thorough search of the vicinity of Arroyo,” said the Colonel in a machine-gun voice, “fails to turn up the head of the murdered man. No trace of the missing servant Kling has been found. A description of Kling has been sent to all neighboring states and he is being watched for.”

“I believe you have been in charge of the investigation relative to the last-known movements of both the deceased and the missing man, Colonel. What have you discovered?”

“Andrew Van was last seen at four o’clock on the afternoon of Thursday, December twenty-fourth. He visited the house of Mrs. Rebecca Traub, a resident of Arroyo, to warn her that her son William, a pupil in his school, was falling behind in his studies. Then he went away and no one, as far as we can find, saw him alive again.”

“And Kling?”

“Kling was last seen by Timothy Traynor, a farmer between Arroyo and Pughtown, the same afternoon at a little past four. He bought a bushel of potatoes, paid for it in cash, and lugged it away on his shoulder.”

“Was the bushel of potatoes found on Van’s premises? This might be important, Colonel, in determining whether Kling ever reached the house.”

“Yes. Untouched, and identified by Traynor as the one bought from him that afternoon.”

“Have you anything else to report?”

Colonel Pickett looked around at the courtroom before replying. His mouth was like a trap as he said grimly: “I certainly have!”

The courtroom became still as death. Ellery smiled wearily; the revelations had arrived. Colonel Pickett leaned over to whisper something into the Coroner’s ear; Stapleton blinked, smiled, wiped his fat cheeks, and nodded. The spectators, too, sensed the coming event, and twisted in their seats. Pickett signaled quietly to someone at the rear of the room.

A tall trooper appeared, grasping the arm of an amazing individual: a little old man with unkempt long brown hair and a shaggy brown beard. He had small glittering eyes, the eyes of a fanatic. His skin was the color of dirty bronze, wrinkled and battered by sun and wind as if he had lived out doors all his life. He was dressed — Ellery’s eyes narrowed — in mud-encrusted khaki shorts and an old gray turtle-neck sweater. On his bare brown feet ropy with gray veins he wore a curious pair of sandals. And in his hand he carried a remarkable object — a wandlike rod topped by a crude representation of a snake, apparently handmade by a poor craftsman.

There was instant hubbub, a burst of laughter, and the Coroner rapped like a madman for order.

Behind the trooper and his fantastic charge shuffled a white-faced young man in oil-spattered overalls. That he was well-known to most of the spectators was evident, for hands furtively reached out as he passed and patted him encouragingly, while spectators throughout the room pointed openly at his shrinking figure.

The three passed through the gateway of the railing and sat down. The brown-bearded old man was plainly in the grip of terrible fear; his eyes rolled, and his thin brown hands clenched and unclenched convulsively about the odd baton he carried.

“Caspar Croker to the stand!”

The white-faced young man in the oily overalls gulped, rose, and took the stand.

“You operate a garage and gas station on Main Street, Weirton?” demanded the Coroner.

“Why, sure. You know me, Mr.—”

“Answer my question, please,” said Stapleton sternly. “Relate to the jury what occurred about eleven o’clock at night of Christmas Eve.”

Croker drew a deep breath, looked around as if for a last friendly eye, and said: “I closed my garage Christmas Eve — wanted to celebrate. I live in a house right back of my garage. Eleven that night, while I was sittin’ in my front room with the wife, I heard an awful poundin’ and racket outside somewhere. Seemed like it was comin’ from my garage, so I ran out. Dark as old fury it was, too.” He gulped again, and resumed quickly. “Well, it was a man out there hammering on my garage door. When he saw me—”

“Just a minute, Mr. Croker. How was he dressed?”

The garageman shrugged. “Dark, an’ I couldn’t make out. Didn’t have no reason to take particular notice, anyways.”

“Did you get a good look at the man’s face?”

“Yes, sir. He was standin’ under my night light. Bundled up, he was — pretty cold at that — but it seemed to me like he didn’t want to be recognized. Anyways, I seen he was clean-shaved, dark, and kind of furrin-lookin’, though he talked good old American.”

“How old would you say he was?”

“Oh, in his middle thirties, maybe more, maybe less. Hard to say.”

“What did he want?”

“He wanted to hire a car to take him to Arroyo.”

Ellery could hear the asthmatic breathing of a stout man in the row behind him, it was so still in the courtroom. They were tense, sitting on the edges of their seats.

“What happened?” asked the Coroner.

“Well,” replied Croker, with more assurance, “I didn’t like the idea much — here it was eleven o’clock Christmas Eve, an’ my wife was alone an’ all. But he pulls out a wallet an’ he says: ‘I’ll give you ten dollars to drive me over.’ Well, sir, that’s a lot o’ money to a poor man like me an’ I says: ‘Okay, stranger, you’re on.’”

“You drove him down?”

“Yes, sir, I did. I went back to get my coat, told the wife I’d be away a half-hour or so, came back, took out my old bus, and he climbed in an’ off we went. I asked him where he wanted to go in Arroyo, an’ he said: ‘Isn’t there a place where the Arroyo road meets the New Cumberland-Pughtown road?’ I says, yes, there is. He says: ‘Well, that’s where I want to go.’ I drove him down there, he got out, give me the ten-spot, an’ I turned the car around and beat it for home. Felt kind of shivery an’ scary anyways.”

“Did you see what he did as you left?”

Croker nodded emphatically. “I was watchin’ over my shoulder. Damn near run into a ditch. He took the fork t’wards Arroyo, on foot. He limped pretty bad, sir.”

There was a gasp from the brown-bearded eccentric seated by the trooper; his eyes roved wildly as if seeking an avenue of escape.

“Which foot, Mr. Croker?”

“Well, he sort o’ favored his left leg. Put all his weight on the right.”

“That’s the last you saw of him?”

“Yes, sir. An’ the first. Never did see him before that night.”

“That’s all.”

Gratefully, Croker left the witness chair and hurried up the aisle toward the door.

“Now,” said Coroner Stapleton, transfixing the brown-bearded little man, who was cowering in the chair, with his beady eye. “You, there. Come to the stand.”

The trooper rose and hauled Brown-Beard to his feet, prodding him forward. The little man went unresistingly, but there was panic in his mad eyes and he kept shrinking back. The trooper plumped him unceremoniously in the witness chair and returned to his own seat.

“What’s your name?” demanded Coroner Stapleton.

A shout of laughter went up from the spectators as the full oddity of the man’s dress and appearance burst upon them from the vantage point of the witness chair. It was a long time before order was restored, during which the witness licked his lips and swayed from side to side, mumbling to himself. Ellery got the startling feeling that the man was praying; praying — it was shocking — to the wooden snake on the tip of the wand.

Stapleton nervously repeated the question. The man held the rod at arm’s length, threw back his skinny shoulders, seeming to summon a reserve of strength and dignity from the posture, looked directly into Stapleton’s eyes and said, in a clear shrill voice: “I am he who is called Harakht, god of the midday sun. Ra-Harakht, the falcon!”

There was a stunned silence. Coroner Stapleton blinked and recoiled as if someone had suddenly uttered gibberish threats in his presence. The audience gaped, and then burst into hysterical laughter — animated not by derision this time, but by a nameless fear. There was something dreadful and eerie about this man; he emanated an earnestness too maniacal to be assumed.

“Who?” asked the Coroner weakly.

The man who called himself Harakht folded his arms across his scrawny chest, the wand clutched firmly before him, and did not deign to reply.

Stapleton swabbed his cheeks and seemed at a loss how to continue. “Er — what is your business, Mr.... Mr. Harakht?”

Ellery sank lower into his seat and blushed for the Coroner. The scene grew painful.

Harakht said from stiff stern lips: “I am the Healer of the Weak. I make ill bodies well and strong. I am he who sails Manzet, the Bark of the Dawn. I am he who sails Mesenktet, the Bark of the Dusk. Some call me Horus, god of the horizons. I am son of Nut, goddess of the sky, wife of Qeb, mother of Isis and Osiris. I am the supreme god of Memphis. I am one with Etōm—”

“Stop!” cried the Coroner. “Colonel Pickett, for God’s sake, what is this? I thought you said this lunatic had something of importance to contribute to the inquest! I—”

The chief of the state police rose hurriedly. The man who called himself Harakht waited calmly, his first terror completely gone, as if in the recesses of his twisted brain he realized that he was master of the situation.

“Sorry, Mr. Coroner,” said the Colonel quickly. “I should have warned you. This man isn’t all there. I think I’d better tell you and the jury what he does, and then you can ask more direct questions. He runs a sort of medicine show — nutty sort of thing, all painted up with suns and stars and moons and queer drawings of Egyptian pharaohs. Seems he believes he’s the sun, or something. He’s harmless. Travels around in an old horse and wagon, like a gypsy, from town to town. He’s been going through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia preaching and selling a medicinal cure-all that puts hair—”

“It is the elixir of youth,” said Harakht gravely. “Bottled light of the sun. I am the appointed, and I preach the gospel of solarity. I am Menu, and Attu, and—”

“It’s just plain cod-liver oil, as far as I can tell,” explained Colonel Pickett with a grin. “Nobody knows his real name; I think he’s forgotten it himself.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” said the Coroner with dignity...

Ellery sat in his hard seat thrilled to the marrow by a sudden discovery. He had recognized the poorly made emblem in the madman’s hand. It was the uraeus, serpent scepter of the chief divinity of the ancient Egyptians and of their god-descended kings. At first he had been inclined to think it a makeshift caduceus, from the snake design; but the emblem of Mercury always included wings, and this, as he saw by straining his eyes, had a crude solar disc surmounting the serpent or serpents... Pharaonic Egypt! Some of the names which had fallen from the mouth of this engaging little madman had been familiar: Horus, Nut, Isis, Osiris. The others, while strange, had an Egyptian flavor... Ellery sat up very straight.

“Er — Harakht, or whatever you call yourself,” the Coroner was saying, “have you heard the testimony of Caspar Croker concerning a dark, clean-shaven man with a limp?”

A more rational look came into the bearded man’s eyes, and with it a return of that lurking fear. “The — the man with a limp,” he faltered. “Yes.”

“Do you recognize any one by this description?”

Hesitation. Then — “Yes.”

“Ah!” said the Coroner, sighing. “Now, Harakht, we’re getting somewhere.” His tone was gay and friendly. “Who is this man and how do you know him?”

“He is my priest.”

“Priest!” little mutters went up from the throng, and Ellery heard the stout man behind him say: “Damn blasph’my, by God!”

“You mean he’s your — assistant?”

“He is my disciple. My priest. High priest of Horus.”

“Yes, yes,” said Stapleton hastily. “What’s his name?”

“Velja Krosac.”

“Hmm,” said the Coroner with a frown. “Foreign name, eh? Armenian?” he shot at the brown-bearded little man.

“There is no nation but Egypt,” said Harakht quietly.

“Well!” Stapleton glared. “How do you spell that name?”

Colonel Pickett said: “We’ve got all that, Mr. Stapleton. It’s V-e-l-j-a K-r-o-s-a-c-. We found it on some papers in this man’s caboose.”

“Where is this Vel — Velja Krosac?” demanded the Coroner.

Harakht shrugged. “He has gone away.” But Ellery saw the glint of panic in the staring little eyes.

“When?”

He shrugged again.

Colonel Pickett stepped into the breach once more. “Maybe I’d better tell it, Mr. Stapleton, and expedite the business of the inquest. Krosac’s always kept himself under cover, as far as we could find out. Couple of years now that he’s been with this man. Mysterious sort of fellow. Acted as business manager and advertising agent, sort of, letting Harakht here take care of the hokum. Harakht picked him up out West somewhere. The last time Krosac was with Harakht was Christmas Eve. They’d been camped up near Holliday’s Cove” — a few miles from Weirton; Ellery remembered certain signposts. “Krosac went off around ten o’clock or so, and that’s the last What’s-His-Name claims to have seen of him. The times match, all right.”

“You’ve found no trace of this Krosac?”

The Colonel looked irritated. “Not yet,” he snapped. “Disappeared as if the earth swallowed him. But we’ll find him. He can’t get away. We’ve sent out descriptions of him and Kling.”

“Harakht,” said the Coroner, “have you ever been in Arroyo?”

“Arroyo? No.”

“They never got that far north in West Virginia,” explained the Colonel.

“What do you know about Krosac?”

“He is a true believer,” asserted Harakht deliberately. “He worships at the altar with reverence. He partakes of kuphi and hears the holy writings with high spirit. He is the pride and the glory—”

“Oh, all right,” said the Coroner wearily. “Take him away, Trooper.”

The trooper grinned, rose, grasped Brown-Beard’s skinny arm, and hauled him off the stand. The Coroner heaved a sigh of relief as the two disappeared in the crowd.

Ellery echoed the sigh. His father had been right. It looked very much as if he were due to return to New York, if not precisely with his tail between his legs, at least with a hangdog look about him. The entire proceeding was so insane, the affair so incomprehensible, so impervious to logic, that it hinged on farce. And yet — there was that brutally mutilated body, crucified to...

Crucified! He started, almost with an audible gasp. Crucifixion — ancient Egypt. Where had he run across that odd fact?

The inquest proceeded swiftly. Colonel Pickett produced a number of articles which he had found in Harakht’s wagon and which Harakht had said belonged to Krosac. They were inconsequential, of no value either intrinsically or as possible clues to the man’s background or identity. There had been no photograph of Krosac, as the Coroner pointed out to the jury — a fact which made the apprehension of the man even more difficult. To augment the difficulties, there were no samples available of the man’s handwriting.

Other witnesses were called. Small points were brought out. No one could be found who had had Andrew Van’s house under observation on Christmas Eve, or who saw Krosac after Croker the garagemen left him at the crossroads. Van’s house was the only dwelling in the vicinity of the crossroads, and no one had passed by that night... The spikes found in Van’s crucified body had come from his own tool box, usually kept in his kitchen-pantry. They had been purchased by Kling from storekeeper Bernheim long before, it was revealed; many of them having been used in the construction of a woodshed.

Ellery came to a consciousness of his surroundings just as Coroner Stapleton was rising to his feet. “Gentlemen of the Jury,” the Coroner was saying, “you have heard the proceedings of this inqu—”

Ellery leaped to his feet. Stapleton stopped to look around, annoyed at the interruption. “Yes, Mr. Queen? You’re interfering with the business of the—”

“One moment, Mr. Stapleton,” said Ellery quickly, “before you address the Coroner’s jury. There is in my possession a fact which it seems to me is pertinent to your inquiry.”

“What’s that?” cried District Attorney Crumit, starting from his seat. “A new fact?”

“Not a new fact, Mr. District Attorney,” replied Ellery, smiling. “A very old one. More ancient than the Christian religion.”

“Here,” said Coroner Stapleton — the audience was craning and whispering, and the jury had risen from their seats to stare at this unexpected witness — “what are you getting at, Mr. Queen? What’s the Christian religion got to do with it?”

“Nothing — I hope.” Ellery leveled his pince-nez at the Coroner. “The most significant feature of this horrible crime,” he said severely, “if I may, be permitted to say so, has not been touched upon at all in this inquest. I refer to the fact that the murderer, whoever he was, deliberately went out of his way to plaster the letter or symbol T around the scene of his crime. The T shape of the crossroads. The T shape of the signpost. The T shape of the corpse. The T scrawled in blood on the victim’s front door. All these things have been commented upon in the press — and rightly so.”

“Yes, yes,” interrupted District Attorney Crumit with a sneer, “we know all that. Where’s your fact, though?”

“Here.” Ellery stared at him hard, and Crumit flushed and sat down. “I fail to see the connection — I confess to complete bewilderment — but do you know that the symbol T may quite possibly not refer to the alphabet at all?”

“What do you mean, Mr. Queen?” asked Coroner Stapleton anxiously.

“I mean that the symbol T has a religious significance.”

“Religious significance?” repeated Stapleton.

A portly old gentleman wearing a clerical collar rose from the thick of the audience. “If I may make so bold,” he said sharply, “to interrupt the learned speaker — I am a minister of the gospel, and I have never heard of a religious significance embodied in the symbol T!”

Some one cried: “That’s tellin’ him, Parson!” and the minister blushed and sat down.

Ellery smiled. “If I may contradict the learned dominie, its significance is this: There is one cross among the many religious symbols which takes the shape of a T. It is called the tau cross, or crux commissa.”

The minister started from his seat. “Yes,” he cried, “That’s true. But it isn’t originally a Christian cross, sir. It was a pagan sign!”

Ellery chuckled. “Exactly, sir. And wasn’t the Greek cross in use by pre-Christian peoples for centuries before the Christian era? The tau antedates the familiar Greek cross by many hundreds of years. It’s thought by some to have been a phallic symbol in origin... But the point is this.”

They waited in bated silence as he paused and drew a breath. Then he leveled his pince-nez at the Coroner again and said crisply: “The tau, or T, cross is not its only name. It is sometimes called” — he paused, and concluded quietly — “the Egyptian cross!”