The Egyptian Cross Mystery

13. Neptune’s Secret

Stephen Megara’s yacht Helene made a record run from Jamaica north through the peppered islands of the Bahamas, but near New Providence Island she developed serious engine trouble and her master, Captain Swift, was constrained to put her into the port of Nassau for repairs. It was several days before she was able to stand out to sea again.

So it was not until the first of July, eight days after Inspector Vaughn’s receipt of Megara’s radiogram, that the Helene hove into sight of the Long Island coast. Arrangements had been made with the Port authorities to expedite Megara’s clearing through New York Harbor, and the Helene after a brief delay steamed into Long Island Sound, accompanied by a police boat and a flock of small craft hired by enterprising newspapermen who were kept off the Helene’s holystoned decks only with the greatest difficulty.

Eight days... Eight days of singularly halcyon uneventfulness. With the exception of the funeral. And even that was a quiet affair. Brad had been interred in a Long Island cemetery without pomp or untoward circumstance; and Mrs. Brad, it was observed by the gentlemen of the press, bore the ordeal with remarkable fortitude. Even her daughter, no blood-relation of the deceased, was more affected by the interment than the widow.

The search for Velja Krosac had assumed the proportions of a national manhunt. His description had been sent to police headquarters and Sheriffs’ offices throughout the United States and to all port officers; he was being watched for by the police of the forty-eight States, Canada, and Mexico. Despite the widening of the seine, however, no Montenegrin fish was caught; the man had disappeared as effectually as if he had flown off the Earth into space. Of Kling, too, not a trace.

The chauffeur, Fox, was still under guard in his hut; not formally arrested, to be sure, but as effectively a prisoner as if he had been behind the bars of Sing Sing. Quietly the inquiry spread about him; but by the time of Megara’s arrival no identification of his fingerprints had been made in any of the Eastern rogues’ galleries. The Inspector, doggedly, sent copies of the fingerprints farther west. Fox himself maintained his iron silence. He did not complain at his unofficial confinement, but there was a desperate glint in his eye, and the Inspector grimly doubled the guard. It was part of Vaughn’s genius to ignore the man completely, except for the silent guards; Fox was not questioned or bullied; he was left strictly alone. Despite this strain on his nerves, however, the man did not break. He sat quietly in his hut, day after day, barely touching the food relayed to him from the kitchen of Mrs. Baxter, barely moving, barely breathing.

Everything was ready on Friday, the first of July, when the Helene pushed her way up Long Island Sound and through the western narrows of Ketcham’s Cove, anchoring in the deep waters between Oyster Island and the mainland. Bradwood’s landing dock was black with people — detectives, police, troopers. They watched the slow maneuvers of the yacht. It was a gleaming white, low-slung and rakish craft. In the magnifying morning air the neat glitter of her brasswork and the tiny moving figures on her deck were clearly visible. Little boats swayed around her narrow belly.

Inspector Vaughn, District Attorney Isham, Ellery Queen, and Professor Yardley stood on the dock, silently waiting. A launch put out overside, smacked into the waters of the Cove. Several figures could be seen descending the iron staircase and stepping into the launch. Immediately a police boat got under way and the launch followed submissively. They made for the landing. The crowd stirred...

Stephen Megara was a tall, sun-blackened man of powerful physique, with a black mustache and a nose which, from its appearance, had been irremediably battered in a brawl. He was altogether a vital and somehow sinister figure. His leap from the launch to the dock was quick, sure, lithe; all his movements were decisive. Here, Ellery felt as he studied him with keen interest, was the man of action; a richly different person from the paunchy, overfed and prematurely old man that must have been Thomas Brad.

“I’m Stephen Megara,” he said abruptly in English, touched by an Etonian accent. “Quite a reception committee. Helene!” He singled her out of the crowd — the chief actors, standing timidly in the background — Helene, her mother, Jonah, Dr. Temple... Megara took Helene’s hands, ignoring the others, and looked with fierce tenderness into her eyes. She flushed and withdrew her hands slowly. Megara smiled a brief, mustache-raising smile, murmured something into Mrs. Brad’s frozen ear, nodded curtly to Dr. Temple, and turned back. “So Tom’s been murdered? I’m at the service of any one who cares to introduce himself.”

The District Attorney grunted: “Indeed?” and said: “I’m Isham, D.A. of the County. This is Inspector Vaughn of the Nassau County detective bureau. Mr. Ellery Queen, special investigator. Professor Yardley, a new neighbor of yours.”

Megara shook hands perfunctorily. Then he turned and crooked a dark finger at a hard-faced, frosty old man in blue uniform who had accompanied him in the launch. “Captain Swift, my skipper,” said Megara. Swift had champing jaws and eyes like the lenses of a telescope — clear as crystal in a face as weatherbeaten as the wandering Jew’s.

“’Meetcha,” said Captain Swift to no one in particular, and put his left hand to his cap. Three fingers were missing, Ellery observed. And when they all, by tacit consent, stirred and began to move off the dock toward the path leading to the house, Ellery saw that the sailing master walked with the roll of the deepwater man.

“Too bad I didn’t get word before this,” said Megara swiftly to Isham, as they strode along. The Brads, Lincoln, Dr. Temple walked behind with expressionless faces. “I’ve been lolloping about the high seas for months; you don’t get news that way. It’s been a blow, learning about Tom.” Nevertheless, as he said it, it did not seem like a blow; he discussed the murder of his partner as unemotionally as he might discuss the purchase of a new shipment of rugs.

“We’ve been waiting for you, Mr. Megara,” said Inspector Vaughn. “Who to your knowledge might have had motive for killing Mr. Brad?”

“Hmm,” said Megara. He twisted his head for an instant to look back at Mrs. Brad, at Helene. “Rather not answer at the moment. Let me know exactly what’s happened.”

Isham opened his mouth to reply, when Ellery asked in a soft voice: “Have you ever heard of a man called Andrew Van?”

For the fraction of a second Megara’s rhythmic stride broke, but his face was inscrutable as he forged on. “Andrew Van, eh? What has he to do with this?”

“Then you know him!” cried Isham.

“He was murdered under circumstances similar to those surrounding the death of your partner, Mr. Megara,” said Ellery.

“Van murdered, too!” Something of the yachtsman’s poise dropped away from him, there was a flicker of uneasiness in his bold eyes.

“Head cut off, and body crucified in the form of a T,” Ellery went on in a matter-of-fact way.

Megara stopped short this time, and the whole cavalcade behind him stopped as well. His face went violet under its mask of sunburn. “T!” he muttered. “Why— Let’s get into the house, gentlemen.”

He shivered as he said this, and his shoulders sagged; his mahogany complexion was ghastly. He looked suddenly years older.

“Can you explain the T’s?” demanded Ellery eagerly.

“I have an idea...” Megara clicked his teeth together, and strode on.

They negotiated the rest of the distance to the house in silence.

Stallings opened the front door, and at once his bland face broke into a welcoming smile. “Mr. Megara! I’m happy to welc—”

Megara brushed by him without a glance. He made for the drawing room, followed by the others, and there began to pace the floor with long strides. He seemed to be turning something over in his mind. Mrs. Brad glided up to him and placed her pudgy hand on his arm.

“Stephen... if you could only clear up this terrible—”

“Stephen, you know!” cried Helene.

“If you know, Megara, for God’s sake spill it and end this rotten suspense!” said Lincoln hoarsely. “It’s been a nightmare for all of us.”

Megara sighed and jammed his hands into his pockets. “Keep cool. Sit down, Captain. Sorry to bring you into a scurvy thing like this.” Captain Swift blinked and did not sit down; he seemed uncomfortable, and edged nearer the door. “Gentlemen,” said Megara abruptly, “I believe I know who murdered my — who murdered Brad.”

“You do, eh?” said Vaughn with no excitement.

“Who?” cried Isham.

Megara threw back his wide shoulders. “A man named Velja Krosac. Krosac... No doubt about it in my mind. T, you say? If it means what I think it means, he’s the only man in this world who could have left it. T, eh? In a way, it’s a living sign that... Tell me just what happened. In the murder of Van as well as of Brad.”

Vaughn looked at Isham, and Isham nodded. Whereupon the Inspector launched into a terse summary of all that had occurred in both crimes, beginning with the discovery by Old Pete and Michael Orkins of the schoolmaster’s body at the crossroads of the Arroyo pike and the New Cumberland-Pughtown highway. When Vaughn related the garageman Croker’s testimony concerning the limping man who had hired Croker to drive him to the crossroads, Megara nodded slowly, and said: “That’s the man, that’s the man,” as if he were banishing his last doubt. The story concluded, Megara smiled without humor.

“I have it straight now.” He had recovered his poise; there were purpose and courage in his posture. “Now tell me just what you found in the summerhouse. There’s something a little queer...”

“But Mr. Megara,” protested Isham, “I can’t see—”

“Take me there at once,” said Megara curtly, and strode to the door. Isham looked doubtful, but Ellery caught his eye and nodded. They all streamed after the yachtsman.

As they took the path to the totem post and the summerhouse, Professor Yardley whispered: “Well, Queen, it looks like the finale, eh?”

Ellery shrugged. “I can’t see why. What I said about Krosac still applies. Where the devil is he? Unless Megara can identify him in his present personality—”

“That’s assuming a lot,” said the Professor. “How do you know he’s around here?”

“I don’t! But it’s certainly possible.”

The summerhouse had been swathed in canvas, and a trooper stood by on guard. Vaughn flipped the canvas back and, unwinking, Megara went in. The interior of the summerhouse appeared exactly as the investigators had discovered it on the morning after the crime — a bit of forethought on the Inspector’s part which, it seemed, was destined to bear fruit.

Megara had eyes for only one thing — he ignored the T, the bloodstain, the signs of a struggle and a butchery — the pipe with its bowl carved into a Neptune’s-head and trident...

“I thought so,” he said quietly, stooping and picking up the pipe. “The moment you mentioned the Neptune’s-head pipe, Inspector Vaughn, I knew that something was wrong.”

“Wrong?” Vaughn was disturbed; Ellery’s eyes were bright and inquiring. “What’s wrong, Mr. Megara?”

“Everything.” Megara looked at the pipe with bitter resignation. “You think this was Tom’s pipe? Well, it wasn’t!”

“You don’t mean to tell me,” exclaimed the Inspector, “that the pipe belongs to Krosac!”

“I wish it did,” replied Megara savagely. “No. It belongs to me.”

For an instant they digested this revelation, turning it over in their minds as if to take what nourishment there was from it. Vaughn was plainly puzzled. “After all,” he said, “even if it is—”

“Wait a minute, Vaughn,” said the District Attorney swiftly. “I think there’s more in this than meets the eye. Mr. Megara, we’ve been under the impression that the pipe was Brad’s. Stallings gave us the definite feeling that it was, although now that I think of it, it’s easy to have made such a mistake. But it has Brad’s fingerprints on it, and it was smoked on the night of the murder with his own brand of tobacco in it. Now you say it’s yours. What I can’t understand—”

Megara’s eyes narrowed; his tone was stubborn. “There’s something wrong here, Mr. Isham. That’s my pipe. If Stallings said it was Tom’s, he either lied or took it to be Tom’s just because he’d noticed it in the house before I went away last year. I left it here inadvertently when I sailed away about a year ago.”

“What you can’t understand,” said Ellery softly to Isham, “is why one man should smoke another man’s pipe.”

“That’s it.”

“Ridiculous!” snapped Megara. “Tom wouldn’t smoke my pipe, or anyone else’s. He had plenty of his own, as you can see if you open his drawer in the study. And no man puts another man’s bit into his mouth. Especially Tom; he was a fanatic on sanitation.” He turned the Neptune’s-head over in his fingers with absent affection. “I’ve missed old Neptune... I’ve had him for fifteen years. Tom — he knew how much I prized it.” He was silent for a moment. “He would no more smoke this pipe than he would put Stallings’s false teeth into his mouth.”

No one laughed. Ellery said swiftly: “We face an interesting situation, gentlemen. The first ray of light. Don’t you see the significance of this identification of the pipe as Mr. Megara’s?”

“Significance my hind leg,” snorted Vaughn. “It means only one thing — Krosac’s trying to frame Mr. Megara.”

“Nonsense, Inspector,” said Ellery genially. “It means nothing of the sort. Krosac could not possibly expect to make us believe Mr. Megara murdered Brad. Everyone knew that Mr. Megara was off somewhere, thousands of miles away, stretching his sea-legs in a periodic water tramp. And then — the T’s, and the tie-up with the murder of Van... As good as a signature. No.” He turned to the yachtsman, who was still studying the pipe with a frown. “Where were you, sir — your yacht, yourself, your crew — on June twenty-second?”

Megara turned to his sailing master. “We expected that, didn’t we, Captain?” His mustache lifted in a brief grin. “Where were we?”

Captain Swift flushed and produced a sheet of paper from one of his bulging blue pockets. “Mem’randum from my log,” he said. “Ought to answer ye, mister.”

They examined the memorandum. It stated that on June twenty-second, the Helene had passed through the Gatun Locks in the Panama Canal, bound for the West Indies. Attached to the memorandum was an official-looking slip which acknowledged payment for passage to the Canal authorities.

“Whole ship’s crew aboard,” rasped Captain Swift. “My log’s open to inspection. We been cruisin’ the Pacific workin’ east. We been as far as Australia on the westward passage.”

Vaughn nodded. “Nobody’s doubting you people. But we’ll take a look at your log, anyway.”

Megara spread his legs and teetered back and forth; it was easy to imagine him straddling a ship’s bridge, swaying to the lift and fall of a deep-sea vessel. “Nobody’s doubting us. Indeed! Not that I care a damn if you do, you understand... The closest we came to death on the whole voyage was a pain in the groin that I developed off Suva.”

Isham looked uncomfortable, and the Inspector turned to Ellery. “Well, Mr. Queen, what’s buzzing around in your noddle? You’ve got a notion, I can see that.”

“I’m afraid, Inspector, from this material evidence,” said Ellery, pointing to the memorandum and the slip, “that we can’t very well believe Krosac intended us to think Mr. Megara his partner’s murderer.” He puffed on a cigarette before continuing. “The pipe...” He flicked the ashes of his cigarette toward the odd brier in Megara’s hand. “Krosac must have known that Mr. Megara would have an unimpeachable alibi for the general period of the murder. We discount any surmise, therefore, in that direction. But from the facts that this is Mr. Megara’s pipe and that Brad would not have smoked it, we can now establish a tenable theory.”

“Smart,” said Professor Yardley, “if true. How?”

“Brad would not have smoked this Neptune’s-head pipe, the property of his partner. Yet it has been smoked — handled, apparently, by the victim himself. But if Brad would not have smoked the pipe and yet there are evidences on it that he did, what have we?”

“Ingenious,” muttered the Professor. “The pipe was made to appear as if Brad smoked it. It would be child’s play to place the dead man’s fingerprints on its stem.”

“Precisely!” cried Ellery. “And the job of making the pipe look as if it had been smoked would be simple. Perhaps the murderer himself actually loaded it, lighted it, and puffed a bowlful. Too bad the Bertillon system doesn’t take into account the variations of individual bacteria; there’s an idea!... Now, who might want to make it appear that Brad had smoked this pipe? Surely only the murderer. Why? To confirm the impression that Brad had wandered out — in a smoking jacket — to the summerhouse smoking the pipe, and had been attacked and killed there.”

“Sounds likely,” confessed Isham. “But why should Krosac do that with Mr. Megara’s pipe? Why didn’t he pick one of Brad’s own?”

Ellery shrugged. “There’s a simple answer to that, if you stop to think about it. Krosac, got the pipe — where? In the drawer of the reading table in the library. Is that right, Mr. Megara?”

“Probably,” said Megara. “Tom kept all his pipes there. When he found mine after I left, he must have put it away in the same drawer against my return.”

“Thank you. Now, going to the drawer, Krosac sees a number of pipes. He naturally assumes they all belong to Brad. He wants to leave one pipe to make it appear that Brad was smoking in the summerhouse. So he selects a pipe which is most distinctive in appearance, going on the excellent theory that the most distinctive-looking pipe will be the most easily identified pipe. Ergo — Neptune. Fortunately for us, however, Neptune was the property of Mr. Megara, not Brad.

“Ah,” proceeded Ellery in a sharp voice, “but here we come to an interesting deduction. Friend Krosac has gone to considerable trouble, has he not, to make it appear that Brad was attacked and killed while he was smoking in the summerhouse? For, you see, had there been no pipe and no evidence of smoking, we should have questioned Brad’s presence in the summerhouse, especially since he was wearing a smoking jacket; he might have been dragged there. But when we know that a man was smoking in a certain place, we know that up to a certain point, at least, he was there of his own free will... Now we find, however, that he was not smoking there, and we know the murderer wants us to believe he was. The only sane inference is that the summerhouse was not the scene of the crime, but that the murderer wanted us very much to believe it was.”

Megara was regarding Ellery with a speculative and rather cynical light in his eye. The others kept silent.

Ellery flipped his cigarette out through the doorway. “The next step is surely clear. Since this isn’t the scene of the crime, some other place is. We must find that place and examine it. Finding it, I believe, will offer no difficulty. The library, of course. Brad was last seen alive there, occupied in playing checkers with himself. He was waiting for someone, for he had carefully cleared the house of possible witnesses or interrupters.”

“Just a minute.” Megara’s mouth was hard. “That’s a pretty speech and good hearing, Mr. Queen, but it happens to be all wrong.”

Ellery lost his smile. “Eh? I don’t understand. Wherein is the analysis faulty?”

“It’s wrong in the assumption that Krosac didn’t know the pipe is mine.”

Ellery took off his pince-nez and began to swab its lenses with his handkerchief — an infallible sign in him of perturbation, satisfaction, or excitement. “An extraordinary statement, if true, Mr. Megara. How could Krosac know the pipe belonged to you?”

“Because the pipe was in a case. Did you find a case in the drawer?”

“No.” Ellery’s eyes glittered. “Don’t tell me that your initials were on the case, sir!”

“Better than that,” snapped Megara. “My full name in gilt letters was stamped on the morocco cover. The pipe was in the case when I last saw it. The case naturally has as odd a shape as the pipe, and couldn’t possibly be used for another pipe, unless it was a replica of this.”

“Oh, splendid!” cried Ellery, smiling broadly. “I take it all back. You’ve given us a new lease on life, Mr. Megara. It puts an entirely different complexion on matters. Gives us even more to work on... Krosac knew it was your pipe, then. Nevertheless, he deliberately selected your pipe to leave in the summerhouse. The case he took away, obviously, since it’s gone. Why take away the case? Because if he had left it, we should have found it, seen the resemblance between the shape of the Stephen Megara case and the shape of the supposed Brad pipe, and known at once that the pipe wasn’t Brad’s. By taking the case away, Krosac made us believe temporarily that the pipe was Brad’s. You appreciate the inference?”

“Why temporarily?” demanded Vaughn.

“Because,” said Ellery triumphantly, “Mr. Megara did come back, did identify the pipe, did tell us about the missing pipe case! Surely Krosac knew Mr. Megara would eventually do this. Conclusion — until Mr. Megara arrived, Krosac wanted us to believe that the pipe belonged to Brad, and that therefore the summerhouse was the scene of the crime. After Mr. Megara arrived, Krosac was willing that we should know the summerhouse was not the scene of the crime; willing, furthermore, since it would be inevitable, to have us look for the real scene of the crime. Why do I say willing? Because Krosac could have avoided all this merely by choosing another means of making the summerhouse seem the scene of the crime; merely, in fact, by choosing one of Brad’s own pipes!”

“You hold, then,” said the Professor slowly, “that the murderer deliberately desires us to return to the real scene of the crime. I can’t understand why.”

“Sounds funny to me,” said Isham, shaking his head.

“It’s so abominably plain,” grinned Ellery. “Don’t you see — Krosac wanted us to look at the scene of the crime now — not a week ago, mind you, but now.”

“But why, man?” asked Megara impatiently. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Ellery shrugged. “I can’t tell you specifically, but I’m convinced it makes rather remarkable sense, Mr. Megara. Krosac wants us to find something now — while you are at Bradwood — which he didn’t want us to find while you were on the Pacific somewhere.”

“Nuts,” said Inspector Vaughn with a scowl.

“Whatever it is,” said Isham, “I’m prepared to doubt it.”

“I suggest,” said Ellery, “that we follow along with Messer Krosac. If he wanted us to find it, let’s oblige him. Shall we go to the library?”

14. The Ivory Key

The library had been sealed since the morning after the discovery of Brad’s mutilated body. Isham, Vaughn, Megara, Professor Yardley, and Ellery went into the room; Captain Swift had rolled back to the dock, and the Brads and Lincoln were in their own quarters. Dr. Temple had vanished long before.

Megara stood to one side as the search was made — no perfunctory examination, this time, but a crevice-exploring expedition which left not a particle of dust undisturbed. Isham turned the secretary into a scene of carnage, strewing it with the crumpled bodies of vagrant papers. Vaughn took it upon himself to go over the furniture, piece by piece. Professor Yardley, self-delegated, retired to the alcove where the grand piano stood and amused himself by ravishing the music cabinet.

Almost at once the discovery was made — or at least a discovery, whether it were the one Velja Krosac had intended or not being at the moment of no consequence. It was a discovery of major importance — and made by Ellery, who was prowling by the Inspector’s side. Quite by accident, or in the interest of thoroughness, Ellery grasped a corner of the divan and pulled it back from before the book-filled wall so that it stood completely on the Chinese rug, where before its rear legs had rested on the bare floor. As he did this he exclaimed aloud and stooped swiftly to examine something on the part of the rug which had been hidden under the divan. Isham, Vaughn, and Yardley hurried to his side; Megara craned, but did not move. “What is it?”

“Good grief,” muttered the Inspector. “Of all the obvious places. A stain!”

“A bloodstain,” said Ellery softly, “unless experience, like my reverend Professor here, is a poor teacher.”

It was a dried blackish stain, standing out with the crudity of a wax seal on the golden colors of the rug. Near it — no more than a few inches away — there was a square depression in the fabric of the rug, the sort of impressment made by the weight of a chair- or table-leg which has stood on one spot for a long time. The shape of the depression could not be laid to the feet of the divan, which at the base were round.

Ellery, kneeling, looked around. His eyes wavered for a moment, and then went to the secretary, which stood on the opposite wall.

“There should be—” he began, and shoved the divan toward the center of the room. He nodded at once: three feet from the first depression was its mate in the pressed nap.

“But the stain,” frowned Isham, “how the devil did it get under the divan? Stallings told me when I first questioned him that nothing had been moved in this room.”

“That doesn’t require explanation, does it?” remarked Ellery dryly as he rose to his feet. “Nothing was moved — except the rug itself, and you could scarcely expect Stallings to have noticed that.”

His eyes gleamed as he looked about the library. He had been right about the secretary; it was the only article of furniture in the room whose legs could have made depressions the exact shape and size of the two under the divan. He crossed the room and lifted one of the secretary’s square-tipped legs. On the rug directly beneath the tip, plain enough, was a depression like the two on the other side of the room, except that it was not so deep or sharply defined.

“We might conduct an entertaining little experiment,” said Ellery, straightening up. “Let’s shift this rug about.”

“Shift it about?” asked Isham. “What for?”

“So that it will lie as it did Tuesday night, before Krosac changed its position.”

A great light broke over Inspector Vaughn’s face. “By God,” he cried, “I see it now. He didn’t want us to find the bloodstain, and he couldn’t get rid of it!”

“That’s just half the story, Inspector,” remarked Professor Yardley, “if I understand Queen’s implications.”

“You do,” said Ellery equably. “It’s just a matter of getting this table out of the way. The rest is easy.” Stephen Megara still stood in a corner, silently listening; he made no move to help the four men. Vaughn lifted the round table without effort and carried it out into the hall. In a very few moments, by placing a man at each corner of the rug, they were able to jerk it from under all the small articles of furniture and turn it about, so that the part which had been hidden beneath the divan now lay where it must have lain the night of Brad’s murder — on the opposite side of the room. The two depressions, they saw instantly, fitted with precision under the two front legs of the secretary. And the dried bloodstain...

Isham stared. “Behind the checker chair!”

“Hmm. The scene begins to materialize,” drawled Ellery. The bloodstain lay two feet behind the collapsible wall chair of the checker table which stood next to the secretary.

“Struck from behind,” mumbled Professor Yardley, “as he was experimenting with his infernal checkers. Might have known that obsession would get him into trouble some day.”

“What do you think, Mr. Megara?” asked Ellery suddenly, turning to the silent yachtsman.

Megara shrugged. “That’s your job, gentlemen.”

“I think,” said Ellery, sitting down in a club chair and lighting a cigarette, “that we’ll save time by a little rapid-fire analysis. Any objections, Inspector?”

“I still can’t see,” complained Vaughn, “why he should have swung the rug around. Whom was he trying to fool? We wouldn’t have found it at all if he hadn’t, as you pointed out, deliberately left a trail back to this room by that pipe of Mr. Megara’s.”

“Gently, Inspector. Let me have my head for a moment... It’s apparent now — there can’t be any disagreement on the point — the Krosac never intended permanently to conceal the fact that this room was the scene of the crime. Not only didn’t he want permanently to conceal this fact, but he even arranged matters in a deucedly clever way to lead us back to this room, at his own good time, when he knew a more careful examination of the room would disclose the bloodstain. Had he wanted permanently to conceal this fact, he would not in the first place have left the pipe trail back to the library, nor would he have left that bloodstain as it is. For observe.” Ellery pointed to the open dropleaf of the secretary. “Right at hand, almost above the bloodstain, were two bottles of ink. Suppose Krosac had left the rug in its original position, and had deliberately turned over one of these two bottles of ink by accident. The police would have found bottle and stain, would have assumed the superficial truth — that the ink had been tipped over, by Brad or some one else — and would never have thought of looking beneath the ink for a bloodstain... Instead of adopting this perfectly simple procedure, Krosac went to the vast trouble of shifting the rug around, contriving matters so that we would miss the bloodstain on first examination, would be brought back to it by Mr. Megara’s identification of the pipe as his, and would thereby find it on second examination. The essential point being that nothing was gained by Krosac in these complex maneuvers except—time.”

“All very well,” said the Professor in a nettled tone, “but I’ll be drawn and quartered if I see why he wanted us to find it at all.”

“Professor darling,” said Ellery, “don’t anticipate. This is my recitation. You’re swell on ancient history, but my forte is logic and I yield the palm to no man in my own province. Ha, ha! Well, let it go.”

He dropped his grin. “Krosac wanted not permanent concealment of the scene of the crime, but delay of its discovery. Why? Three possible reasons. Follow closely — Mr. Megara especially; you may be able to help us here.”

Megara nodded and dropped on the divan, which had been restored to its proper position before the wall.

“One: There was something in this room dangerous to Krosac which he wanted to take away later, since for some peculiar reason he could not take it away on the night of the murder... Two: There was something Krosac wanted to add or bring back to this room later, which he could not add or bring back on the night of the murder—”

“Hold your horses a minute,” said the District Attorney, who for a moment had been fiercely frowning. “Both of those sound reasonable, for in either case making the summerhouse seem the scene of the crime would draw attention away from the library, perhaps leaving it during that period accessible to the murderer.”

“Contradiction in order. Wrong, Mr. Isham,” drawled Ellery. “Krosac had to expect, even if the stain were missed in the first search — as he planned — and the summerhouse accepted as the scene of the crime... Krosac had to expect, I repeat, that the house would be guarded and that he would be prevented by purely precautionary police measures from taking something away later or bringing something back later. But there’s an even more important objection to the first two possibilities, gentlemen.

“If Krosac wanted to come back here and therefore deliberately made the summerhouse appear the scene of the crime, it would certainly be to his advantage to make the summerhouse appear the scene of the crime permanently. This would give him unlimited time and opportunity in which to gain access to the library. But he didn’t — he deliberately left a trail back to this room which, if the surmise I’ve just mentioned were correct, would be about the last thing he’d do. So I say, neither of the first two theories is tenable.”

“Over my head,” said Vaughn disgustedly. “Too fancy for me.

“Shut up like a good fellow,” snapped Isham. “This isn’t slap-me-down police methods, Vaughn. I’ll admit it’s an unorthodox way to go about solving a crime, but it sounds like the real stuff. Go on, Mr. Queen. We’re all ears.”

“Inspector, consider yourself publicly reprimanded,” said Ellery severely. “Third possibility: That there is something now in the library which was also there the night of the murder, which — a plethora of whiches — is not dangerous to the criminal, which he didn’t plan to take away later, which he wanted the police to discover, but which he did not want discovered by the police until Mr. Megara’s return.”

“Phew,” said Vaughn, throwing up his hands. “Let me out of here.”

“Don’t mind him, Mr. Queen,” said Isham.

Megara squinted steadily at Ellery. “Go ahead, Mr. Queen.”

“Since we are obliging souls,” continued Ellery, “obviously we must look for and find what Krosac planned us to find only when you, Mr. Megara, were on the scene... You know,” he added contemplatively, “I’ve always found — and I think you’ll bear me out, inspector — that the more involved a murderer becomes the more errors he’s apt to make. Suppose we get friend Stallings in here for a moment.”

The detective at the door yelled “Stallings!” and the butler appeared in dignified haste.

“Stallings,” said Ellery abruptly, “you know this room pretty well, don’t you?”

Stallings coughed. “If I do say so, sir, as well as Mr. Brad himself knew it.”

“I’m ravished to hear it. Take a look about.” Stallings dutifully took a look about. “Is everything in order? Has anything been added? Is there anything here which shouldn’t be here?”

Stallings smiled briefly and began a stately stalk about the library. He poked in corners, opened drawers, investigated the interior of the secretary... It took him ten minutes, but when he concluded his tour of inspection and said: “This room is exactly as I saw it last, sir — I mean before Mr. Brad was killed... except, sir, that the table is gone,” they all felt that there was nothing more to ask.

But Ellery was persistent. “Nothing else has been disturbed or taken away?”

The butler shook his head emphatically. “No, sir. The only thing that’s really different is that stain, sir,” he said, pointing to the rug. “It wasn’t there Tuesday evening when I left the house. And the checker table...”

“What about the checker table?” asked Ellery sharply.

Stallings shrugged with decorum. “The pieces. Of course, their position is different. Mr. Brad naturally played on after I left.”

“Oh,” said Ellery with relief. “That’s excellent, Stallings. You have within you the delicate makings of a Sherlock, the camera eye... That’s all.”

Stallings cast a reproachful look at Stephen Megara, who was staring moodily at the wall and puffing at a West Indian cheroot, and left the room.

“Now,” said Ellery briskly, “let’s scatter.”

“But what the hell do we look for?” grumbled Vaughn.

“Heavens, Inspector, if I knew a search wouldn’t be necessary!”

The scene that ensued would have been ludicrous to any observer except Stephen Megara; that man, it seemed, was minus the faculty of laughter. The spectacle of four grown men crawling about a room on hands and knees, doing their best to climb up the walls and tap plaster and wood, going through the stuffing of the divan’s pillows, wrenching experimentally at the legs and arms of chairs, divan, secretary, checker-table... an Alice-in-Wonderland situation. After fifteen minutes of fruitless search Ellery, rumpled, hot, and much annoyed rose and sat down by Megara’s side, to sink instantly into a reverie. The daydream was, from the expression on his face, more in the nature of a nightmare. The Professor, nothing daunted, toiled on; he was enjoying himself hugely as he crawled, his ungainly length doubled up, over the rug. Once he straightened and looked up at the old-fashioned chandelier.

“Now that would be an unusual hiding place,” he muttered, and forthwith proceeded to stand on a chair and tinker with the crystal ornaments of the chandelier. There was a defective or exposed wire somewhere, for he suddenly yelped and crashed to the floor. Vaughn grunted and held another piece of paper up to the light; the Inspector working on the theory, apparently, that a message had been written in invisible ink. Isham was shaking out the draperies; he had already unwound the window shades and searched for hollow interiors in the lamps. It was all pleasant and unreal and useless.

All of them, at one time or another, had cast speculative glances at the books bristling in their built-in cases, but no one had made a move toward examining them. The enormity of the task of going through those myriad volumes one by one seemed to discourage even a beginning.

Ellery leaned back suddenly and drawled: “What a pack of prime fools we are! Chasing our tails like pups... Krosac wanted us to come back and search this room for something. Then he wanted us to find it. He wouldn’t put it in a place which would take the combined ingenuity of a Houdini and a bloodhound to discover. On the other hand, he would secrete it in a place not so obvious as to be found in a superficial search, yet not in so obscure a place as never to be found, even in a thorough search. As for you, Professor, please remember when you attempt to explore chandeliers again that Krosac probably isn’t so well acquainted with this room that he knew where there would be hollows in furniture legs, or in lamps... No, it’s in a clever, but accessible, hiding place.”

“Swell talk,” said Vaughn sarcastically, “but where?” He was tired and dripping. “Know of any hiding places here, Mr. Megara?”

Professor Yardley’s chin-brush jutted out like the false beard of an Egyptian Pharaoh as Megara shook his head.

Ellery said: “Reminds me of a remarkably similar search my father, Assistant D.A. Cronin, and I made not long ago when we were investigating the murder of that crooked lawyer, Monte Field who was poisoned — you recall? — in the Roman Theater during a performance of Gunplay.[1] We found it in—”

The Professor’s eyes glistened, and he hurried across the room to the alcove in which the grand piano was ensconced. Isham had gone through the alcove some minutes before. But Yardley did not bother with the body of the instrument, or the piano chair, or the music cabinet. He merely sat down in the chair and, with all the gravity Ellery remembered from the Professor’s lectures at the university, began at the first bass note on the keyboard and wended his digital way up toward the treble, one note at a time, depressing each key slowly.

“A canny analysis, Queen,” he said as he sounded one note after another. “Gave me a positive inspiration... Suppose I were Krosac. I want to hide something — small, let us say, flat. I have only a limited time and a limited knowledge of the premises. What shall I do? Where shall—” He stopped for a moment; the note he had struck was off-key. He pressed it several times, but when it was apparent that the note was merely out of tune, he continued his ascending exploration. “Krosac wants a place which won’t be discovered until he’s ready — won’t be discovered even by accident. He looks about — and there’s the piano. Now mark this: Brad is dead; this is Brad’s room. Certainly, he reasons, no one is going to play a piano in the private study of a dead man — not for a long time, anyway. And so...”

“A positive triumph of the intellect, Professor!” cried Ellery. “I couldn’t have done better myself!”

And just as if the concert had been scheduled to begin at the immediate conclusion of this modest program note, the Professor made his discovery. The even ripple of the scale had been interrupted; he had come to a key which stubbornly refused to be depressed.

“Eureka,” said Yardley, with an expression of utter disbelief on his ugly face. He looked like a man who has been taught a trick of legerdemain and is astonished to find at his first attempt that the trick was successful.

They crowded around now, Megara as eager as the rest. The note refused to descend more than a quarter of an inch, despite all of the Professor’s efforts. And suddenly it stuck completely, refusing even to rise again.

Ellery said sharply: “Just a sec,” and took out of his pocket the little kit he always carried in defiance of his father’s derision. He selected a longish needle from this kit and began to probe the crevices between the stubborn key and the note on either side. A moment’s work, and between two of the ivory slabs the tiny edge of a wad of paper appeared.

They all straightened up, sighing. Ellery gently worked the wad out. In silence they surrounded him and backed into the library. The paper had been flattened and crushed; Ellery unfolded it with care and spread it out on the table.

Megara’s face was inscrutable. As for the others, not one of them, including Ellery himself, could have prophesied the extraordinary message conveyed by the heavily scrawled writing on the sheet.

The note was signed — it was unmistakably genuine, as an immediate comparison with other samples of the man’s handwriting in the secretary proved — Thomas Brad.

15. Lazarus

Stephen Megara’s face was a study in boiling expression. The metamorphosis in this vital, self-possessed man was startling. The pressure of the unknown had finally torn the mask of will from his face. His eyes glittered with an icy unrest. He looked rapidly about the room — at the windows, as if he anticipated the phenomenon of a phantasmal Velja Krosac leaping at him; at the door, where the detective leaned indifferently. He took a squat automatic from his hip pocket and examined its mechanism with lightning fingers. Then he shook himself and strode to the door, closing it in the detective’s face. He went to the windows, and with hard eyes looked out. He stood there quietly for a moment, uttered a short laugh, and slipped the automatic into his coat pocket.

Isham growled: “Mr. Megara.”

The yachtsman turned swiftly, his face set. “Tom was a weakling,” he said curtly. “He won’t get me — that way.”

“Where is Van? How is it he’s alive? What does this note mean? Why—?”

“Just a minute,” drawled Ellery. “Not too fast, Mr. Isham. We’ve much to chew upon before we’re served another portion... It’s apparent now that Brad placed this note in an immediately accessible place — the secretary or the drawer of the round table — intending it to be found at once if he were murdered. But he didn’t reckon with the thoroughness of Krosac, who gains more of my admiration with each passing incident of the investigation.

“Murdering Brad, Krosac didn’t neglect to search the room afterward. Perhaps he had a presentiment that such a note, or warning, existed. At any rate, he found the note and, since he saw that it was in no way dangerous to himself—”

“How do you figure that?” demanded Vaughn. “It seems to me like the last thing any murderer would do — leave his victim’s note to be found!”

“It doesn’t require gigantic ratiocination, Inspector,” said Ellery dryly, “to understand this amazing man’s motive for an apparently foolish act. Had Krosac considered the note dangerous to his safety, certainly he would have destroyed it. Or at the very least, taken it away with him. But not only didn’t he destroy it, he actually — in the face of all seeming reason, as you point out — left it on the scene of the crime, falling in with his victim’s last wishes.”

“Why?” asked Isham.

“Why?” Ellery’s thin nostrils oscillated fiercely. “Because he considered the finding of the note by the police, far from perilous to his safety, actually advantageous to himself! Ah, but here we put our fingers on the crux of the situation. What does the note say?” Megara’s shoulders twitched suddenly, and a sinister determination took possession of his vital features. “The note says that Andrew Van is still alive, and that only Stephen Megara will know where to find him!”

Professor Yardley’s eyes widened. “Devilishly clever. He doesn’t know where Van is!”

“That’s it exactly. Krosac, it’s a certainty now, somehow killed the wrong man in Arroyo. He thought he had murdered Andrew Van; Thomas Brad was next on his list, and when he had found and killed Brad he discovered this note. It told him that Van was still alive. But if he had motive to seek the life of Van six months ago, he surely has motive — and desire — still. If Van is alive — and brushing aside the petty consideration of the poor devil Krosac killed by mistake,” Ellery interpolated grimly, “Van must be sought out once more and exterminated. But where was Van? That he disappeared — took to his heels on learning that Krosac was after him and had actually killed another man through some error — was self-evident.”

Ellery brandished his forefinger. “Now consider the problem our brilliant Krosac faces. The note does not say where Van is. It says that only one man, Megara, knows where Van is...”

“Hold on,” said Isham. “I see what you’re driving at. But why the dickens didn’t Krosac just destroy the note and wait for Megara to return? Then Megara would reveal to us where Van is, and Krosac, as I suppose you’re going to say, would in some way learn from us where Van is, too.”

“An excellent question, on the surface. Actually, unnecessary.” Ellery lighted a cigarette with slightly trembling fingers. “Don’t you see that if no note were left and Megara returned, Megara would have no reason to doubt Van’s death! Would you, Mr. Megara?”

“I would. But Krosac couldn’t know that.” The austerity of Megara’s character, the iron will of the man, dominated even the pitch of his voice.

Ellery was taken aback. “I don’t see... Krosac wouldn’t know? At least that proves my point. By leaving the note here to be found by the police — at once, I mean, with the police knowing immediately on discovering the body that the library was the scene of the crime — the police would institute an immediate search for Van. But Krosac himself wants to look for Van, and a contemporaneous police search would hinder his own investigation — naturally! By delaying the discovery of the note, Krosac accomplishes two ends: One, in the interval between the murder of Brad and Mr. Megara’s arrival, he can himself search for Van unhampered by the police; who, not yet having found the note, would know nothing of Van’s being still alive. Two, if Krosac in that interval doesn’t succeed in finding Van, he has lost nothing; for when Mr. Megara arrived on the scene, he would identify the pipe, the pipe would uncover a new investigation — as it did — leading ultimately to the discovery of the library as the real scene of the crime, the library would be thoroughly combed, the note then found, Megara would learn that Van was not dead, would disclose Van’s whereabouts to the police... and Krosac has merely to follow us in order to discover exactly where Van is hiding!”

Megara muttered savagely: “Maybe it’s all over already!”

Ellery wheeled. “You mean you think that Krosac in the interim did find Van?”

Megara spread his hands and shrugged — a Continental gesture, incongruous in this virile, American-looking man. “It’s possible. With that devil, anything is possible.”

“Listen,” snapped the Inspector. “We’re wasting valuable time gassing when we might be getting real information. Just a minute, Mr. Queen; this isn’t a Kaffeeklatsch; you’ve had the floor long enough... Spill it, Mr. Megara. What the devil is the connection between Van, your partner Brad, and yourself?”

The yachtsman hesitated. “We are... we were—” Instinctively his hand darted into the pocket which bulged.

“Well?” cried the District Attorney.

“Brothers.”

“Brothers!”

Ellery’s eyes were fixed on the tall man’s lips. Isham said with excitement: “Then you were right, Mr. Queen! Those aren’t their real names. Can’t be Brad, Megara, or Van. What are—”

Megara sat down abruptly. “No. None of those. When I tell you—” His eyes clouded; he looked at something far beyond the confines of the library.

“What is it?” asked the Inspector slowly.

“When I tell you, you’ll understand what to this moment has probably been a deep mystery to you. The instant you told me about the T’s — that crazy business of the T’s — the headless bodies and rigid arrangement of the arms and legs, the T’s in blood on the door and the summerhouse floor, the crossroads, the totem pole—”

“Don’t tell me,” said Ellery harshly, “that your real name begins with T!”

Megara nodded as if his head weighed a ton. “Yes,” he said in a low voice. “Our name is Tvar. T-v-a-r... The T, you see.”

They were silent for a moment. Then the Professor remarked: “You were right, Queen, as usual. A literal significance, nothing more. Merely a T — no cross, no Egyptology, no garbled religious implication... Strange. Incredible, really.”

A shade of disappointment tinged Ellery’s face; he watched Megara with unwavering eyes.

“I don’t believe it,” asserted Vaughn out of a vast disgust “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Carving a man into the initial of his name!” muttered Isham. “Why, we’d be the laughingstock of the East, Vaughn, if we let this out.”

Megara leaped to his feet, his whole body elastic with rage. “You don’t know Central Europe!” he snarled. “You fools, he’s flinging those T’s — the symbol of our hated name — in our faces! The man’s insane, I tell you! It’s so damned clear...” His rage went out of him, and he sank back into the chair. “Hard to believe,” he murmured. “Yes, but not what’s troubling you. It’s hard to believe that he’s been hunting us all these years. Like a movie. But that he’d mutilate the bodies—” His voice hardened again. “Andreja knew!”

“Tvar,” said Ellery quietly. “A triple alias for years. Obviously for grave reasons. And Central Europe... I imagine it’s vengeance, Mr. Megara.”

Megara nodded; his voice was becoming weary. “Yes, that’s so. But how did he find us? I can’t understand it. When Andreja, Tomislav and I agreed — God, how many years ago — to disguise our identities, we agreed also that no one — no one, you understand — must learn our old family name. It was to be a secret, and the secret’s been kept, I’d swear. Not even Tom’s wife — Margaret — or her daughter Helene knows that our name is Tvar.”

“You mean,” demanded Ellery, “that Krosac is the only person who knows?”

“Yes. That’s why I can’t imagine how even he got on our track. The names we selected...”

“Come on,” growled Vaughn. “Get going. I want information. First — who in hell is this Krosac? What’s he got against you people? Second—”

“Don’t go off half-cocked, Vaughn,” said Isham irritably. “I want to digest this T business for a minute. I don’t altogether understand. Why should he pick on the initial of their name?”

“To signify,” replied Megara in a cavernous voice, “that the Tvars are doomed. Silly, isn’t it?” His barking laugh grated on their ears.

“Would you recognize Krosac if you saw him?” asked Ellery thoughtfully.

The yachtsman compressed his lips. “That’s the damnable part of it! None of us saw Krosac for twenty years, and at that time he was so young that identification or recognition today would be impossible. He may be anybody. We’re up against a man — who’s damned near invisible!”

“He has a limp in his left leg, of course?”

“He limped slightly as a child.”

“Not necessarily permanent,” murmured Professor Yardley. “It may be a dodge. The deliberate assumption of a lost physical deficiency to confuse his trail. It would be consistent with Krosac’s diabolical cleverness.”

Vaughn suddenly strode forward and drew his lips back from his teeth. “You may want to gab here all day, but I’m going to get behind this! Look here, Mr. Megara — or Tvar, or whatever your name is — why doesn’t Krosac lie down and be a good boy? What the devil does he want to kill you people for? What’s the story?”

“That can wait,” said Ellery sharply. “There’s one thing more important than anything else at the moment. Mr. Tvar, this note left by your brother says you know where to reach Van. How can you know? You’ve been out of communication with the world for a year, and the Arroyo murder took place only six months ago — last Christmas.”

“Prepared, all prepared,” muttered Megara. “For a long time, for years... I said before that I would have known without the note that Andreja was still alive. The reason was — something you told me in your recital of the Arroyo facts.” They stared at him. “You see,” he continued gloomily, “when you mentioned the names of the two men who discovered the body at the crossroads...”

Ellery’s eyes narrowed. “Well?”

Megara again searched the room with his eyes, as if to make sure that the evanescent Krosac could not hear. “I knew. For if Old Pete — the hillman you mentioned — was alive, then Andreja Tvar, my brother, was also alive.”

“I’m afraid I—” began the District Attorney blankly.

“Oh perfect!” cried Ellery, turning to Professor Yardley. “Don’t you see? Andrew Van is Old Pete!”

Before the others could recover from their astonishment, Megara nodded and continued. “That’s it. He assumed the alternate personality of the hillman years ago in preparation for just such an eventuality as this. He’s probably in the West Virginia hills now — if Krosac hasn’t already found him — hiding away in fear of his life, hoping against hope that Krosac hasn’t discovered his mistake. Krosac hasn’t seen any of us either for twenty years, remember. At least, I don’t believe he has.”

“And that’s how Krosac made a mistake in his original murder,” said Ellery. “Not having seen his victim for so many years, it was easy to fall into the error.”

“You mean Kling?” asked Isham thoughtfully.

“Who else?” Ellery smiled. “You want action, Inspector? It looks as if we’re going to get some.” He rubbed his hands briskly. “Because one thing is sure. We must forestall Krosac and fool him. I don’t believe Krosac has found Andreja yet. The Old Pete get-up was perfect; I sat in that courtroom in Weirton and never once suspected that anything might be out of character with the man. We must get to your brother at once, Mr. Megara, but so secretly that Krosac — whoever he is, no matter in what identity he may be masquerading — will still be ignorant of the hillman disguise.”

“Suits me,” said Vaughn, with a surly grin.

Megara rose; his eyes had become narrow slits of enamel. “I’ll do anything you say, gentlemen — for Andreja. As for me,” he patted his gun pocket ominously, “if that devil Krosac is looking for trouble, he’ll find it. A cartridgeful.”

16. The Envoys

Nothing Mrs. Brad — or her daughter — was able to say could persuade Stephen Megara to remain on terra firma that night. He spent the rest of the day quietly enough, his old commanding self, with the Brads and Lincoln; but when evening fell, he began to stir restlessly, and by nightfall was on his way to the anchored yacht offshore. Its riding lights pricked the blackness of Oyster Island sharply. Mrs. Brad, to whom the return of her husband’s “partner” was a comfort and a reassurance, had followed the yachtsman down the path to the landing in the dark, pleading with him to remain.

“No,” he said, “I sleep on the Helene tonight, Margaret. I’ve lived on it so long it’s really my home... Nice of you to want me. But Lincoln’s with you, and” — his tone was ugly — “my being there won’t make the house any safer for you. Good night, Margaret, and don’t worry.”

The two detectives who accompanied them to the Cove stared curiously. Mrs. Brad lifted a tearful face to the sky, and retraced her steps. It was remarkable how little the tragedy had affected her nerves; she passed the silent totem post, with its brooding wooden eagle, almost indifferently.

It had been quickly agreed by the conspirators that the story of the Tvar brothers was to be kept a secret from every one.

Stephen Megara, under the questioning glances of Captain Swift and the steward, slept under guard that night. Detectives patrolled the decks. Megara locked his cabin door, and the man on duty outside heard the gurgle of liquid and the steady chink of glasses for two hours. Then the light snapped off. Despite his assurance, Megara seemed to welcome the bolster of liquid courage. But he slept quietly enough, for the detective heard no sound all night.

The next morning, Saturday, Bradwood stewed with activity. Very early two police cars — sedans — dashed around the driveway and waited, panting, before the colonial house. Inspector Vaughn, like conquering Caesar, descended and strode in the midst of his uniformed guard down the path toward the landing dock. At the dock the engine of a police launch broke into a roar. The Inspector, very grim and red of face, jumped into the launch and was piloted toward the yacht.

The proceedings were conducted with frankness; there was no attempt at concealment. On Oyster Island several tiny figures could be descried before the greenery craning at the progress of the launch. Dr. Temple, pipe in mouth, stood on his boat landing and watched. The Lynns, under the pretext of rowing about the waters of the Cove, were all eyes.

The Inspector disappeared up the Helene’s ladder.

Five minutes later he reappeared, accompanied by Stephen Megara, who was dressed in a business suit. Megara’s face was drawn, and he reeked alcohol; he said nothing to his sailing master, but followed Vaughn down the ladder with surprisingly steady steps. They dropped into the launch, which at once put back for shore.

On the Bradwood dock they conversed for a moment in low tones; the guard waited. Then the uniforms closed in, and the two men strode up the path toward the house completely surrounded by police. It was almost a parade.

Before the house a plainclothesman saw them coming, leaped from the tonneau of the first police car, saluted, and stood waiting. Very quickly Vaughn and Megara got into the first car. The second filled with police. And then the two cars, klaxons raucously clearing the road, shot around the drive and into the highway which ran past Bradwood.

At the gate, four county troopers on motorcycles jumped to life. Two preceded the first car; two flanked it; the police car made up the rear... It was an amazing thing, but with the departure of the two cars not a single trooper, policeman, or detective remained on the grounds of Bradwood, or anywhere in the immediate vicinity.

The cavalcade thundered on the main highway, sweeping all traffic aside, proclaiming in gassy roars its intention to reach New York City...

Back at Bradwood the departure of the Inspector and Megara left everything still and peaceful. The Lynns paddled home. Dr. Temple strolled off, smoking, into the woods. The figures on the shore of Oyster Island disappeared. Old man Ketcham rowed out into the Cove in a decrepit old dinghy, bound for the mainland. Jonah Lincoln quietly backed one of the Brad cars out of the garage, and headed it down the drive.

Professor Yardley’s house, set well back from the road, was lifeless, from all outward appearances.

But that Vaughn had not taken leave of his senses would have been apparent to anyone who investigated the ends of the highway which separated Bradwood from Yardley’s estate... For at each terminal of the road — two junctions, either of which any automobile or pedestrian must pass in order to leave Bradwood by a land route — a powerful car full of detectives was unobtrusively parked.

And in the Sound, behind Oyster Island and so invisible from the mainland, a large launch drifted, motor idling, while men sat on the deck fishing... keeping a sharp look out nevertheless for the two horns of Ketcham’s Cove, past one of which any craft must come if it attempted to leave the vicinity of Bradwood by water.

17. The Old Man of the Mountain

There was good reason for the fact that Professor Yardley’s house showed no evidence of life Saturday morning. The Professor was under orders, like any officer; as was his old Negress, Nanny. To have exhibited himself openly while Inspector Vaughn and Stephen Megara were making their noisy departure might have been indiscreet. It was known that the Professor entertained a guest — Mr. Ellery Queen, special investigator, of New York City. If the Professor had strolled about alone, it might have raised suspicions in the mind of whoever deemed it necessary to be on the alert. And unfortunately the Professor could not appear with his guest. His guest was gone. His guest, to be exact, at the moment when Megara climbed into the police car, was hundreds of miles from Long Island.

It had been a canny plot. Late Friday night, in the darkness enshrouding Bradwood, Ellery had quietly slipped out of Yardley’s grounds in his Duesenberg. Until he reached the main highway he maneuvered the car like a ghost. Then he plunged forward toward Mineola. There he picked up District Attorney Isham and darted toward New York.

At four o’clock Saturday morning the old Duesenberg was in the capital of Pennsylvania. Harrisburg was asleep; both men were tired, and without conversation they checked in at the Senate Hotel and went to their rooms. Ellery had left a call for nine. They dropped into their beds like clubbed men.

Nine-thirty Saturday morning found them miles from Harrisburg, bound for Pittsburgh. They did not stop for luncheon. The racing car was coated with dust, and both Ellery and Isham showed the strain of the tedious grind... The Duesenberg for all its years responded nobly. Twice they were chased by motorcycle policemen when Ellery was sending the old engine along at seventy miles an hour. Isham produced his credentials, and they went on... At three o’clock in the afternoon they were crawling through Pittsburgh.

Isham growled: “The hell with this. He’ll keep. I don’t know how you do it, but I’m starving. Let’s have something to eat.”

They wasted precious time while the District Attorney filled his stomach. Ellery was strangely excited; he toyed with his food; although his face was marked with lines of fatigue, his eyes were fresh, and they sparkled at unexpressed thoughts.

At a few minutes to five, the Duesenberg was parked before the frame building which housed the majestic fathers of Arroyo’s municipal destiny.

Their joints creaked as they descended. Isham stretched his arms hugely, oblivious of the curious eyes of a fat old German — Ellery recognized him as the worthy Bernheim, Arroyo’s storekeeper — and the blue denim-clad countryman who seemed perpetually to be sweeping the sidewalk before the Municipal Hall. Isham yawned: “Well, might as well get it over with right away. Where’s this country constable, Mr. Queen?”

Ellery led the way into the rear of the building, where the Constable’s office lay. He knocked at the door and a rusty bass voice said: “Come in, durn ye!”

They went in. Constable Luden sat there large and sweaty as life, just as if he had not moved in the six months that had elapsed since Ellery’s last visit to Arroyo. His buck teeth stuck out of his fat red face as he gaped.

“I’ll be the son of a so-an’-so,” Luden exclaimed, crashing his big feet to the floor, “ef it ain’t Mr. Queen! Come in, come in. Still chasin’ th’ feller that bumped our scoolteacher oft?”

“Still on the scent, Constable,” smiled Ellery. “Meet a fellow-preserver of the law. This is District Attorney Isham of Nassau County, New York. Constable Luden — Mr. Isham.”

Isham grunted and did not offer to shake hands. The Constable grinned. “Town’s seen some mighty big mucks in th’ last year, mister, so don’t act so stuck-up.” Isham gasped. “Y’heard me... What’s on y’r mind, Mr. Queen?”

Ellery said hastily: “May we sit down? We’ve been driving for a few hundred centuries.”

“Set.”

They sat. Ellery said: “Constable, have you seen that daffy hillman of yours, Old Pete, recently?”

“Ol’ Pete? Now, that’s queer,” said Luden, with a shrewd glance at Isham. “Ain’t seen th’ old nut fer weeks. Don’t often come to town, Ol’ Pete, I mean, don’t; but this time — durned ef I seen him fer two months! Musta stacked up on vittles a-plenty last time he come down from the mount’n; y’might ask Bernheim.”

“Do you know where his hut is located?” demanded Isham.

“Reckon I do... What’s all th’ shootin’ fer far’s Ol’ Pete’s concerned? Ain’t goin’ t’arrest ’im, now, are ye? Harmless ol’ loonatic... Not,” added the Constable hastily as Isham frowned, “that it’s any o’ my affair... Never been up to Ol’ Pete’s shack — few folks roundabout have. Cave country up there — ol’ fellers, thousan’s o’ years old — an’ folks is jest a mite scary. Ol’ Pete’s shack is some’res in th’ hills in a mighty lonely spot. Y’ couldn’t find it y’rself.”

“Will you guide us, Constable?” asked Ellery.

“Sure thing! Reckon I c’n find ’er.” Luden stood up and, like a fat old mastiff, shook himself. “Y’don’t want word to git round, now, do ye?” he said casually.

“No!” said Isham. “Don’t even tell your wife.”

The Constable grunted. “No fear o’ that. I ain’t got no wife, praise be... C’mon.”

He conducted them not to the front of the building, where the car was parked on Arroyo’s main street, but out through a back door to a side street which was deserted. Luden and Isham waited, and Ellery circled the Municipal Hall quickly and jumped into the Duesenberg. Two minutes later the car was in the side street, and the three men departed in a cloud of choking dust, Luden clinging to the runningboard.

Constable Luden directed them by devious ways to a dirt road which seemed to plunge into the heart of the nearby hills. “Dif’rent road,” he explained. “You park ’er here, an’ well walk on up.”

“Walk?” said Isham doubtfully, eyeing the steep ascent.

“Well,” drawled Luden in a cheerful voice: “I c’d carry ye, Mr. Isham.”

They left the car in a clump of bushes. The District Attorney looked about, then stooped over the side of the Duesenberg and picked something up from the floor. It was a bulky wrapped bundle. Luden looked at it with frank curiosity, but neither man vouchsafed an explanation.

The Constable lowered his big head and, plodding through a thicket, searched — with the air of a man who does not greatly care whether he finds or not — until he pointed out a faint footpath. Ellery and Isham toiled behind in silence. It was a steadily ascending journey through wild, almost virgin, forest; the trees were so massed that the sky was invisible. The air was sultry, and all three men were soaked with perspiration before they had climbed fifty feet. Isham began to grumble.

Fifteen minutes of back-breaking ascent, with the woods growing denser and the path fainter; and the Constable suddenly halted.

“Matt Hollis, he once tol’ me ’bout it,” he whispered, pointing. “Crickets! There she is.”

They crept closer, Luden leading the way cautiously. And there, as the good Constable had said, she was... In a little clearing, under a massive outcrop of mountainside, nestled a rude shack. The forest had been hacked away for thirty feet to the sides and at the front of the hut; it was protected at the rear by the jutting granite. And — Ellery stared — the entire space of thirty feet, at sides and front, was guarded by a high, tangled, rusty, and dangerous-looking barbed-wire fence.

“Will you look at that!” whispered Isham. “Not even a gate!”

There was no opening anywhere in the barbed-wire fence. The shack inside lay cold and grim — almost a fortress. Even the streamer of smoke that drifted away from the chimney hole was forbidding.

“Cripes,” muttered Luden. “Whut’s he gone an’ fortyfied himself this way fer? Daffy, jest like I told ye.”

“A nasty place to stumble on in the dark,” murmured Ellery. “Constable, District Attorney Isham and I have a most irregular request to make of you.”

Constable Luden, perhaps envisioning his last encounter with Ellery’s largess, looked interested at once. “Now, as t’that,” he rumbled, “I’m one feller that minds ’is own bus’ness. Got to, round hyah. Plenty o’ moonshinin’ goin’ on up in th’ hills roundabout, but y’d not see me stickin’ my two cents in. Nossir — whut is it?”

“Forget this entire incident,” snapped Isham. “We never came here, understand? You are not to report it to other authorities of Arroyo or Hancock County. You know nothing about Old Pete.”

Constable Luden’s huge hand closed over something which Ellery had produced from his wallet. “Mr. Isham,” he said earnestly, “I’m deef, dumb, an’ blind... Find yer way down all right?”

“Yes.”

“Then good luck to ye — an’ thanks a lot, Mr. Queen.”

The very model of disinterest, Luden turned and stole away through the woods. He did not once look back.

Isham and Ellery regarded each other briefly; then each threw back his shoulders and stepped out before the barbed-wire fence.

They had no sooner set foot on the ground before the fence — in fact, Isham was in the act of raising the bundle he carried over the top of the highest strand of wire — when a harsh cracked voice from the interior of the shack cried out: “Halt! Git back!”

They halted, very abruptly; the bundle dropped to the ground. For from the single window of the hut, also protected, they noted, by a curtain of barbed wire, the muzzle of a shotgun had appeared and was trained directly upon them. There was no wavering of the ugly weapon; it meant business, and it was ready to speak for itself.

Ellery gulped, and the District Attorney became rooted to his patch of earth. “That’s Old Pete,” whispered Ellery. “Consistent voice-maker, at any rate!” He raised his head and bellowed: “Just a minute! Take your finger off that trigger. We’re friends.”

Silence, while they were scrutinized with slow care by the owner of the shotgun. They stood very still.

Then the harsh voice assailed their ears again: “Don’t believe you! Git out. I’ll shoot if you don’t make tracks in five seconds.”

Isham cried: “We’re the law, you fool! We’ve a letter to you from — Megara. Get a move on! For your sake we don’t want to be seen here.”

The muzzle did not move; but the bushy head of the old hillman appeared dimly behind the curtain of wire, and a pair of bright eyes regarded them with suspicion. They could sense the man’s indecision.

The head disappeared, and so did the shotgun. An instant later the heavy nail-studded door creaked inward and Old Pete himself stood there — gray-bearded, disheveled, clad in rags. The shotgun was lowered, but its muzzle covered them.

“Climb that fence, men. No other way in.” The voice was the same, but a new note had crept in.

They looked at the fence with dismay. Then Ellery sighed and very delicately raised one leg and rested it on the lowest strand of wire. He tried gingerly to find a safe handhold.

“Come on,” said Old Pete impatiently. “And no tricks, either of you.”

Isham fished about the ground for a stick; he found one, propped it between the two lowest strands, and Ellery crawled through, not without ripping the shoulder of his suit, however. The District Attorney followed clumsily; neither said a word, and the shotgun never shifted from their bodies.

Quickly they ran toward the man, and he retreated into his hut. Isham swung the heavy door to when they were inside, and dropped the bolt into place. It was the crudest of habitations, but a careful hand had fitted it out. The floor was stone, well swept, and strewn with mats. There was a full larder in one corner, and to the side of the fireplace a neat pile of firewood. A basin-like arrangement at the rear wall, opposite the single door, was obviously the hillman’s lavatory; above it hung a shelf stocked with medicinal supplies. Above the basin there was a small hand-pump; the well was apparently beneath the house.

“The letter,” said Old Pete hoarsely.

Isham produced a note. The hillman did not lower his weapon; he read the note in snatches, his eyes never off his guests for more than an instant. As he read, however, his demeanor changed. The beard was still there, and the rags, and all the superficial garments of Old Pete; but the man himself was different. He propped the shotgun slowly against the table and sat down, fingering the note.

“Then Tomislav is dead,” he said. The voice struck them with a sense of shock. It was not pitched in Old Pete’s cracked tones; it was low and cultured, the voice of an educated man in the prime of life.

“Yes, murdered,” replied Isham. “He left a message — would you care to read it?”

“Please.” The man took Brad’s note from Isham and read it rapidly and without emotion. He nodded. “I see... Well, gentlemen, here I am. Andrew Van — once Andreja Tvar. Still alive, while Tom, the stubborn fool—”

His bright eyes glazed, and rather precipitately he rose and went to the iron basin. Ellery and Isham looked at each other. A queer one, this fellow! Van ripped off the bushy beard, removed the thatch of white wig from his head. And he washed and wiped the gum from his face... When he turned back he was a vastly different figure from the one which had challenged them from the window. Tall, erect, with close-cropped dark hair, and the keen face of an ascetic, drawn with hardship. The rags hung from his strong body, thought Ellery, “above the pitch, out of tune, and off the hinges,” in the phrase of Rabelais.

“I’m sorry I can’t offer you chairs, gentlemen. You’re District Attorney Isham, I take it, and you... I believe I saw you, Mr. Queen, sitting in the first row in the Weirton courthouse on the day of the inquest.”

“Yes,” said Ellery.

The man was remarkable. An eccentric, certainly. Having apologized for his one chair, he proceeded to seat himself in it, leaving his two visitors standing. “My hideaway. A pleasant place?” His tone was bitter. “I suppose it was Krosac?”

“So it seems,” said Isham in a low voice. Both he and Ellery were struck by the man’s resemblance to Stephen Megara; there was a strong family likeness. “Stephen writes that he” — Van shivered — “he used the T’s.”

“Yes. Head cut off. Quite horrible. So you’re Andrew Tvar!”

The schoolmaster smiled wanly. “In the old country it was Andreja, and my brothers were Stefan and Tomislav. When we came here, hoping to—” He shrugged, and then sat up stiffly, gripping the seat of the clumsy chair. His eyes rolled like the eyes of a frightened horse toward the heavy door and the wired window. “You’re sure,” he said harshly, “you weren’t followed?”

Isham tried to look reassuring: “Positive. We’ve taken every precaution, Mr. Tvar. Your brother Stephen was escorted openly by Inspector Vaughn of the Nassau County police along one of the main Long Island highways, headed for New York City.” The schoolmaster nodded slowly. “If anyone — Krosac, in whatever guise he may be — should follow, there were plenty of men spotted about to pick up his trail. Mr. Queen and I left secretly last night.”

Andreja Tvar gnawed at his thin upper lip. “It’s come, it’s come... It — I can’t tell you how appalling all this is. To see a horrid specter materialize after years of empty dread... You want my story?”

“Under the circumstances,” said Ellery dryly, “don’t you think we’re entitled to it?”

“Yes,” replied the schoolmaster heavily. “Stephen and I will need all possible assistance... What has he told you?”

“Only that you and Brad and he were brothers,” said Isham. “Now what we want to know—”

Andrew Van rose, and his eyes hardened. “Not a word now! I say nothing until I see Stephen.”

His change of bearing and attitude was so sudden that they both stared at him. “But why, man?” cried Isham. “We’ve traveled hundreds of miles to come here—”

The man snatched the shotgun, and Isham took a backward step. “I don’t say either of you is not exactly what you claim to be. The note is in Stephen’s handwriting. The other is in Tom’s. But these things can be arranged. I haven’t taken these precautions to be fooled at the last by a clever trick. Where is Stephen now?”

“At Bradwood,” drawled Ellery. “Don’t act like a child, man; drop that gun. As for not saying anything until you see your brother — why, Mr. Megara anticipated that and we’ve provided for it. You’re perfectly right to be suspicious, and we’ll accede to any reasonable suggestion; eh, Isham?”

“Yes,” growled the District Attorney. He picked up the bundle he had carried all the way up the mountain trail. “That’s the way we’ll do it, Mr. Tvar. What do you say?”

The man looked uncertainly at the bundle; that he was torn between desire and indecision was evident from his manner. Finally he said: “Open it.”

Isham ripped the brown paper off. The bundle contained a Nassau County trooper’s uniform, complete to shoes and revolver.

“Can’t possibly arouse suspicion,” said Ellery. “Once we get to Bradwood you’re a trooper. There are fistfuls of them about the place. A man in uniform is always just a uniform, Mr. Tvar.”

The schoolmaster paced up and down his stone floor. “Leave the shack...” he muttered. “I’ve been here safely for months. I—”

“The revolver is loaded,” said Isham dryly, “and there’s plenty of ammunition in your belt. What can happen to you with a loaded weapon and an escort of two able-bodied men?”

He flushed. “I suppose I seem a coward to you gentlemen... Very well.”

He began to fling off his rags; he was dressed in clean and decent underwear beneath, they noted — another note of incongruity. He began, rather awkwardly, to don the trooper’s uniform.

“Fits,” remarked Ellery. “Megara was right about the size.”

The schoolmaster said nothing... When he was fully clothed, the revolver in its heavy leather holster at his side, he presented a fine figure — tall, powerful and, in a way, handsome. His hand strayed to the weapon and caressed it; and he seemed to gather strength from it.

“I’m ready,” he said, in a steady voice.

“Good!” Isham went to the door; Ellery peeped out of the wired window. “All clear, Mr. Queen?”

“It seems to be.” Isham unbolted the door, and they stepped out quickly... The clearing was deserted; the sun was setting, and the woods were already touched with the dimness of dusk. Ellery scrambled through the lower strands of the fence, Isham followed, and they both stood watching while their uniformed charge climbed — with a litheness Ellery envied — after them.

The door — Andrew Tvar had seen to that — was closed. Smoke still curled from the chimney. To anyone prowling in the edge of the forest the shack would still seem tenanted and impregnable.

The three men darted for the woods, and it closed over their heads. They made their way very cautiously down the faint trail to the clump of bushes where, like Old Faithful, the Duesenberg waited for them. They saw no one in the hills or on the road.

18. Fox Talks

The quiet departure of Ellery and Isham on Friday night and their absence all day Saturday did not leave Bradwood eventless. The mysterious trip of Inspector Vaughn and Stephen Megara, watched, it seemed, by the entire community, was on everyone’s lips. Even Oyster Island felt its percussion; Hester Lincoln tramped all the tangled way through the woods between Harakht’s “temple” and the eastern tip of the Island to ask old man Ketcham what had happened.

Until the return of Vaughn and Megara, however, Bradwood lay sunning itself in peace. Professor Yardley, true to his promise, remained in the sanctuary of his bizarre estate.

About noon — while Ellery and Isham were speeding through southern Pennsylvania between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, bound for Arroyo — the impressive cavalcade returned to Bradwood. Preceded and flanked by motorcycled troopers, with the rearguard of police, it swept into the drive and snorted to a stop. The sedan door opened and Inspector Vaughn jumped out. He was followed more slowly by Stephen Megara, ugly and silent, eyes roving with mercurial alertness. Megara was instantly surrounded by his guard, and proceeded around the house to the landing dock on the Cove. His own launch was waiting for him. Tagged by the police boat, he returned to the Helene and disappeared up the ladder. The police boat kept circling the yacht.

On the porch of the colonial house a detective, who had been amiably rocking himself, got to his feet and handed the Inspector a bulky envelope. Vaughn, who was feeling particularly helpless this morning, snatched at it as if it were a life preserver. The helpless look vanished. His face became grim as he read it.

“Just delivered about a half-hour ago by special messenger,” explained the detective.

Helene Brad appeared in the doorway, and the Inspector put the envelope very hastily into his pocket.

“What’s going on here?” demanded Helene. “Where is Stephen? I think you owe us some explanation of all this mystery, Inspector!”

“Mr. Megara’s on his yacht,” replied Vaughn. “No, Miss Brad, I owe you no explanation. If you’ll excuse me—”

“I shan’t excuse you,” said Helene angrily; her eyes flashed. “I think you people have been acting in a beastly manner. Where did you and Stephen go this morning?”

“Sorry,” said Vaughn. “Can’t tell you. Please, Miss—”

“But Stephen looks ill. You haven’t been putting him through those nasty third degrees of yours!”

Vaughn grinned. “Oh, say now — that’s a lot of newspaper talk. Nothing like that. Looks sick, does he? Guess he doesn’t feel well. He did say something about having severe pains in the groin.”

Helene stamped her foot. “Inhuman, all of you! I shall ask Dr. Temple this very moment to go out to the yacht and have a look at him.”

“Go ahead and ask,” said the Inspector eagerly. “It’s all right with me.” And he sighed with relief when she marched off the porch and took the path which led past the totem post. Vaughn clamped his jaws at once. “Come along, Johnny. Got a job to do.”

Accompanied by the detective, the Inspector descended from the porch and struck out on the western path through the woods. The little hut in which Fox, the gardener-chauffeur, was confined popped into view through the trees. A plainclothesman lounged on the doorstep.

“Quiet?” asked Vaughn.

“Not a peep out of him.”

Vaughn without ceremony pushed open the door and went into the cabin, followed by his subordinate. Fox’s face, lean, gray, black-stubbled, eyes violet with shadows, turned to him at once with eagerness. He had been pacing the floor like any restless prisoner in a cell. When he saw who his visitor was, however, his lips clamped shut and he resumed his pacing.

“I’m giving you one last chance,” said the Inspector abruptly. “Will you talk?”

Fox’s feet pounded with uninterrupted rhythm.

“Still won’t tell me what you went to see Patsy Malone for, hey?”

No answer.

“All right,” said Vaughn, sitting down lazily. “That’s your funeral — Pendleton.”

The man’s stride faltered for an instant, and then resumed. His face remained expressionless.

“Good boy,” said Vaughn with sarcasm. “Swell nerves. And guts. But it won’t get you anywhere, Pendleton. Because we know all about you.”

Fox muttered: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’ve done time.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Did a stretch in stir and don’t know what doing time means? All right, all right,” said the Inspector with a smile. “But I’m telling you, Pendleton, you’re acting like a damned fool. I don’t hold it against you because you used iron bars for curtains...” His smile disappeared. “I mean it, Pendleton. Denying it won’t do you any good. You’re in a jam — see? You’ve got a record, and under the circumstances it’s best for you to come clean.”

The man’s eyes were agonized. “I’ve got nothing to explain.”

“No? All right, let’s talk about it. Suppose I bumped into a crook below the deadline in New York City. A jeweler’s safe had just been cracked... Think my man wouldn’t have explaining to do? Guess again.”

The tall man stopped and leaned on his doubled hands; his knuckles were white against the dark table. “For God’s sake, Inspector,” he said, “give me a break! All right, I’m Pendleton. But I tell you I’m innocent in this case! I want to go straight—”

“Hmm,” said the Inspector. “That’s better. Now we know where we’re at. You’re Phil Pendleton, you were in State’s Prison at Vandalia, Illinois, serving a sentence of five years for robbery. You pulled the hero act in the prison break there last year, and saved the Warden’s life. The Governor of Illinois commuted your sentence. You’ve got a record — assault and battery in California, housebreaking in Michigan. Served time for both crimes... Now, if you’re on the level we don’t want to hound you. If you’re not, come clean and I’ll make it as easy for you as I can. Did you bump off Thomas Brad?”

The man who was known in Bradwood as Fox dropped limply into a chair. “No,” he whispered. “As God is my judge, Inspector.”

“How’d you get that last job — from the man who gave you references?”

He spoke without looking up. “I wanted to start over again. He — he didn’t ask questions. Business was bad, and he fired me. That’s all.”

“Had no ulterior motive in taking this double gardener-chauffeur’s job, eh?”

“No, it was outdoors, good pay...”

“All right. If you expect consideration, you’ve got to clear up that visit to Malone’s. If you’re on the straight, why do you look up a mob like Malone’s?”

Fox was silent for a long moment. Then he rose, and his face hardened. “I’ve got a right to lead my own life...”

“Sure you have, Pendleton,” said the Inspector genially. “That’s the ticket! We’ll help you.”

Fox spoke rapidly, looking at the detective in the doorway without seeing him. “In some way an old — an old prison pal traced me here. The first I knew about it was Tuesday morning. He insisted on meeting me. I said no — I was through. He said: ‘You wouldn’t want me to tip off your boss, would you?’ So I went.”

Vaughn nodded; he was listening intently. “Go on, son, go on.”

“He told me where to go — no names, just an address in New York. Tuesday night, after I dropped Stallings and Mrs. Baxter off at the Roxy, I drove up there, parked the car on the next block. Some gun let me in. I saw — somebody. He made me a — proposition. I said no — I was through with the old life. No more rackets for me. He told me he’d give me till the next day to consider, and if I didn’t come through he’d tell Mr. Brad who I was. I went away — and you know the rest.”

“Naturally laid off when he heard a murder was committed,” muttered Vaughn. “This was Patsy Malone, eh?”

“I... well, I can’t say.”

Vaughn eyed him shrewdly. “Won’t squeal, hey? What was the proposition?”

Fox shook his head. “I won’t tell any more, Inspector. You want to help me and all that, but if I spilled it it would be the spot for me.”

The Inspector rose. “I see. Well, I can’t say, between you and me, that I blame you. That sounds like the straight goods... By the way — Fox...” the man’s head jerked up, and he looked into Vaughn’s eyes with a mixture of astonishment and gratitude — “where were you last Christmas?”

“In New York, Inspector. Looking for a job. I answered Brad’s ad and he took me on the day after New Year’s.”

“Check.” The Inspector sighed. “Well, Fox, for your sake I hope it’s as you say. Under the circumstances my hands are tied. You’ll have to stick around. No guards, no pinch, you understand. But you’ll be under observation, and I don’t want you to try a lam.”

“I won’t, Inspector!” cried Fox. New hope had leaped into his face.

“Keep going as if nothing’d happened. If you’re in the clear I won’t discuss this thing with Mrs. Brad or disclose your record to her.”

Before this generosity Fox stood speechless. The Inspector beckoned his man and left the hut.

Fox followed slowly. He stood in the doorway and watched the Inspector and the two detectives stride down the path into the woods. His chest rose, and he breathed deeply of the warm air.

Vaughn found Helene Brad on the porch of the big house.

“Torturing poor Fox again,” she sniffed.

“Fox is all right,” said the Inspector shortly; his face showed the fatigue and helplessness he felt. “Find Temple?”

“Dr. Temple was out. He took a sail somewhere in his motorboat. I left a note for him to see Stephen the moment he got back.”

“Out, eh?”

Vaughn glanced in the general direction of Oyster Island and nodded wearily.

19. T

At 9:15 Sunday morning Inspector Vaughn, who had slept overnight at Bradwood, was summoned by Stallings to the telephone. He seemed to be expecting the call, for he looked blank at once and said in an audible mutter: “Wonder who that is.” Whether Stallings was deceived or not, he learned little enough from the Inspector’s monosyllabic replies to the early caller. “Hmm... Yes... No. All right.” The Inspector hung up and, eyes glittering, hurried out of the house.

At 9:45 District Attorney Isham made a grand entrance into Bradwood, driving up in an official county car with three county troopers. They all descended before the colonial house and Inspector Vaughn leaped forward, grasped Isham’s hands, and began earnestly to converse with him in an undertone.

Under cover of this diversion Ellery slipped his Duesenberg into the grounds of Yardley’s estate a few moments later.

No one apparently noticed that one of the three troopers who had accompanied the District Attorney did not possess the easy military bearing characteristic of his companions. He joined a larger group of troopers, who thereupon dispersed and walked off in various directions.

Professor Yardley, in slacks and sweater, smoking the inevitable pipe, greeted Ellery with a welcoming cry in the selamik of the house.

“Here’s our chief guest!” he shouted. “I thought you weren’t coming back, my boy!”

“As long as you’re in the quotative mood,” smiled Ellery, stripping off his coat and flinging himself on the tessellated marble, “you might consider the fact that hospes nullus tam in amici hospitium diverti potest... odiosus siet.”

“Why butcher Plautus? You haven’t been here three days anyway.” The Professor’s eyes were bright. “Well?”

“Well,” said Ellery, “he’s with us.”

“No!” Yardley became thoughtful. “In uniform? Good as a play, by heaven.”

“We rearranged the details in Mineola this morning. Isham got hold of a couple of troopers and an official car, telephoned Vaughn, and set out for Bradwood.” Ellery sighed; there were huge circles under his eyes. “That trip! Van was about as communicative as a clam. I’m tired! But there’s no rest for the weary. Would you care to witness the great unveiling?”

The Professor scrambled to his feet. “Decidedly! I’ve been a martyr long enough. Had breakfast?”

“We stuffed our bellies in Mineola. Come along.”

They left the house and sauntered across the road to Bradwood, Vaughn was still talking to Isham when they reached the porch. “Just telling the D.A.,” said Vaughn, as if Ellery had never been away, “the line we got on Fox.”

“Fox?”

The Inspector repeated what he had learned about the man’s history.

Ellery shrugged. “Poor devil... Where’s Megara?”

“On the yacht.” Vaughn lowered his voice. “He’s gone down to the landing... Megara had some bad pains in his groin yesterday. Miss Brad tried to get Temple, but he was out all day. I think Temple’s gone over to the Helene this morning.”

“Anything evolved from that pretty plot yesterday?”

“Nothing. Decoy didn’t pull a real live duck out of the sky. Come on, let’s go before these people start getting up. They’re all asleep yet — nobody’s been about.”

They proceeded around the house and took the path to the Cove. On the dock stood three troopers, and the police launch waited to cast off.

No one paid the least attention to the third trooper. Isham, Vaughn, Yardley, and Ellery scrambled into the launch, and the three troopers followed. The boat sputtered off toward the yacht a half-mile away.

The same procedure was observed in boarding the Helene. The four men scaled the ladder, and then the troopers followed. The members of the Helene’s crew who stood about the deck in immaculate whites had eyes only for Inspector Vaughn, who was striding along as if he meant to arrest somebody.

Captain Swift opened the door of his cabin as they passed. “How long—?” he began.

Vaughn tramped along, a deaf man, and the others meekly tramped along, too. The Captain stared after them, his jaw swelling; then he cursed with effortless fluency and retreated into his cabin, slamming the door.

The Inspector knocked on the panels of the main cabin. The door swung inward, and Dr. Temple’s taut, blackish face appeared.

“Hullo!” he said. “Out in force, eh? I’ve just been having a look at Mr. Megara.”

“May we come in?” asked Isham.

“Come in!” said Megara in a tight voice from the interior of the cabin. They filed in, silently. Stephen Megara lay on a simple bed, naked where a sheet did not cover him. The yachtsman’s face was pale and strained; there were beads of sweat on the edge of his eyebrows. He was doubled up, clutching his groin. He did not look at the troopers; his eyes were fixed on Temple with agony.

“What’s the trouble, Doctor?” asked Ellery soberly.

“Hernia testis,” said Dr. Temple. “A good case of it. It’s not anything to worry about immediately. I’ve given him temporary relief; he’ll feel the effect of it in a moment.”

“Got it on this last trip,” panted Megara. “All right, Doctor; all right. Leave us, please. These gentlemen want to discuss something with me.”

Temple stared; then he shrugged and picked up his medical bag. “As you say... Don’t neglect that, Mr. Megara. I suggest surgery, although it isn’t absolutely necessary right now.”

He bowed with military stiffness to the others and quickly left the cabin. The Inspector followed him out. He did not return until Dr. Temple was in his own motorboat headed for the mainland.

Vaughn closed the cabin door tightly. On deck two troopers set their backs against it.

The third trooper took a step forward, and licked his lips. The man in the bed plucked at the sheet.

They looked at each other, silently; they did not shake hands.

“Stefan,” said the schoolmaster.

“Andreja.” Ellery felt the alarming impulse to giggle; there was something ludicrous in the situation, tragic as its overtones were. These two straight, clean-cut men with the foreign names — the yacht, the bed of pain, the drab uniform... There had never been anything quite like it in all his experience.

“Krosac. Krosac, Andreja,” said the sick man. “He’s found us, as you always said he would.”

Andreja Tvar said harshly: “Had Tom followed my advice... I warned him by letter last December. Didn’t he get in touch with you?”

Stefan shook his head slowly. “No. He didn’t know where to reach me. I was cruising in the Pacific... How have you been, Andr’?”

“Very well. How long is it?”

“Years... Five, six?”

They fell silent. The Inspector was watching them with eagerness, and Isham barely breathed. Yardley looked at Ellery, and Ellery said quickly: “Please, gentlemen. The story. Mr. — Van...” he indicated the schoolmaster, “must get away from Bradwood as soon as possible. Every moment he lingers in this vicinity increases the danger. Krosac, whoever he is, is clever. He may easily see through our little deception, and we want no possibility of his following Mr. Van back to West Virginia.”

“No,” said Van heavily, “that’s true. Stefan, tell them.”

The yachtsman straightened in bed — the pain had either left him or in his excitement he had forgotten it — and stared at the low ceiling of the cabin. “How shall I begin? It happened so damned long ago. Tomislav, Andreja, and I were the last of the Tvar family. A proud and wealthy mountain clan in Montenegro.”

“Which has vanished,” said the schoolmaster in a frozen voice.

The sick man waved his hand as if it did not matter. “You’ve got to understand that we came of the hottest Balkan blood. Hot — so hot it sizzled.” Megara laughed shortly. “The Tvars had a traditional enemy — the Krosacs, another clan. For generations—”

“Vendetta!” cried the Professor. “Of course. Not properly vendetta, which is Italian, but certainly a blood feud, like the feuds of our own Kentucky mountaineers. I should have thought of it.”

“Yes,” snapped Megara. “We don’t know to this day why there was a feud — the original cause had been so smeared in blood that our generation didn’t know why. But from childhood we were taught—”

“Kill the Krosacs,” croaked the schoolmaster.

“We’d been the aggressors,” continued Megara, scowling, “and twenty years ago, due to the ferocity and ruthlessness of our grandfather and father, only one male Krosac remained — Velja, the man you’re after... He was a kid then. He and his mother were the sole survivors of the Krosac family.”

“How far away it seems,” muttered Van. “How barbaric! You, Tomislav, and I, in retaliation for the murder of father, killed Krosac’s father and two uncles, ambushed them...”

“Utterly incredible,” murmured Ellery to the Professor. “It’s hard to believe that we’re dealing with civilized people.”

“What happened to this youngster, Krosac?” demanded Isham.

“His mother fled with him from Montenegro. They went to Italy, hiding there, and the mother died shortly after.”

“And that left young Krosac to carry on the feud against you people,” said Vaughn thoughtfully. “I suppose his old lady pumped him full of hop before she died. You kept track of the boy?”

“Yes. We had to, in self-protection, because we knew that he would try to kill us when he grew up. Our paid agents tracked him all over Europe, but he disappeared before he was seventeen and we never heard of him again — until now.”

“You people didn’t see Krosac personally?”

“No. Not since he left our mountainside, when he was eleven or twelve years old.”

“Just a moment,” said Ellery, frowning. “How can you gentlemen be so sure Krosac wanted to kill you? After all, a child...”

“How?” Andrew Van smiled bitterly. “One of our agents wormed his way into the boy’s confidence while he was still under observation and heard him swear to wipe us all out, if he had had to follow us to the ends of the earth to spill our blood.”

“And you mean to say,” demanded Isham, “because of a kid’s wild nonsense, you actually ran from your home country and changed your names?”

Both men flushed. “You don’t know Croatian feuds,” muttered the yachtsman. He avoided their eyes. “A Krosac once followed a Tvar into the heart of southern Arabia — generations ago...”

“Then it’s certain that, if you were face to face with Krosac, you wouldn’t know him?” asked Ellery abruptly.

“How could we?... We were left alone — we three. Father, mother — dead. We decided to leave Montenegro and go to America. There wasn’t a tie to hold us — Andrew here and I were unmarried, and while Tom had been married, his wife had died and there were no children.

“We were a rich family; and our estates were valuable. We sold all our property and under assumed names, separately, we came to this country, meeting by prearrangement in New York. We had decided to take our names” — Ellery started, and then smiled — “from different countries; we consulted an atlas, and each of us assumed a different nationality — I Greek, Tom Roumanian, and Andrew Armenian, since at that time we were unmistakably Southern European in appearance and speech, and couldn’t pass for native Americans.”

“I warned you about Krosac,” said the schoolmaster darkly.

“Tom and I... we’d all been well educated — went into our present business. Andrew here was always a restless soul and he had preferred to work alone, studying the English language by himself, and ultimately becoming a schoolteacher. We all, of course, became American citizens. And gradually, as the years passed, since we’d heard nothing of or from Krosac, we almost forgot him. He became — at least to Tom and me — a legend, a myth. We thought him dead or hopelessly off the trail.” The yachtsman set his jaw. “If we’d known — At any rate, Tom married. We did well in business. And Andrew went out to Arroyo.”

“If you’d taken my advice,” snapped Van, “this would not have happened, and Tom would be alive today. I told you repeatedly that Krosac would come back and take his revenge!”

“Please, Andr’,” said Megara in a hard voice; but there was something pitying in his eyes as he looked at his brother. “I know. And you didn’t see us often. Your own fault, as you must realize. Perhaps if you’d been more fraternal...”

“Stay with you and Tom where Krosac could wipe us out with one blow?” cried the man from Arroyo. “Why do you think I buried myself in that hole? I love life, too, Stephen! But I was wise, and you—”

“Not so wise, Andr’,” said the yachtsman. “After all, Krosac found you first. And—”

“Yes,” said the Inspector. “So he did. I’d like to get that little business of the Arroyo murder straight, Mr. Van, if you don’t mind.”

The schoolmaster stiffened at some bleak memory. “Arroyo,” he said hoarsely. “A place of horrors. It was my fear that led me, years ago, to assume the character of Old Pete. A dual personality, I felt, would stand me in good stead, should Krosac” — he snarled — “find me. He found—” He stopped and then said rapidly: “For years I kept that hut, which I had discovered by accident, abandoned, when I was exploring some old caves in the hills. I set up the barbed wire. I purchased my disguise in Pittsburgh. Once in a great while, when I was free from my regular duties as the schoolmaster, I stole up into the hills and dressed as Old Pete, appearing in town often enough to make the personality real in the minds of the Arroyo people. Tom and Stephen — they always laughed at this subterfuge. They said it was a childish thing to do. Was it childish, Stephen? Do you think so now? Don’t you think that Tom, in his grave, is sorry he didn’t follow my example?”

“Yes, yes,” said Megara quickly. “Tell the story, Andr’.”

The eccentric schoolmaster took a turn about the cabin, hands behind the back of the borrowed uniform, eyes distraught... They listened to an amazing tale.

With the coming of Christmas — he said in the intense voice characteristic of all his utterances — he realized that for two months he had not appeared in Arroyo as the old hillman. His absence over such a long period might well have led some of the townspeople — Constable Luden, perhaps — to seek out the ancient hill-dweller and investigate his cabin... an event which, he pointed out, would have been disastrous to his carefully maintained deception. He faced more than a week between Christmas Day and New Year’s when his tiny school was closed; and he saw that for several days at least he could act the eremitic Pete with impunity. On previous occasions when he had assumed the ragged character it had been when the schoolmaster was supposedly on a holiday, or over weekends.

“How did you explain these absences to Kling?” asked Ellery. “Or was your servant in the secret?”

No!” cried Van. “He was stupid, a halfwit. I merely told him that I was going into Wheeling or Pittsburgh for a holiday.”

On Christmas Eve, then, he had informed Kling that he was bound for Pittsburgh to celebrate the Yuletide. He had left in the evening for the shack in the hills — all his hillman’s trappings, of course, he kept in the hut. There he became Old Pete again. Rising very early the next morning — Christmas morning — he set out on foot for town, for he needed food supplies and he knew that he could get them from Bernheim, the storekeeper, despite the fact that it was Christmas Day and the general store was closed. He had struck the road at the junction of the main highway and the Arroyo pike and there, alone, at half-past six in the morning, had made the horrifying discovery of the crucified body. The significance of the diverse T’s had struck him at once. He hurried to his house a hundred yards up the Arroyo road. The shambles that the others had seen later had painful meaning for him; he realized instantly that by sheer accident Krosac had come the night before, killed poor old Kling (thinking him to be Andreja Tvar), had cut off his head, and crucified him to the signpost.

He had had to think rapidly. What was he to do? Through an unexpected generosity of fate, Krosac now believed he had fulfilled his vengeance against Andreja Tvar; why not keep him believing it? By taking the character of Old Pete permanently not only would Krosac be deceived but the little West Virginia world in which Van lived, as well... Fortunately the suit of clothes which Kling had been wearing when he was murdered was one which Van himself had given the man a few days before, an old and well-worn garment. He knew that the Arroyo townspeople would recognize the suit as Andrew Van’s, their schoolmaster’s; and if he should put some papers in the pockets identifiable with Andrew Van, there would be no question of identification.

Securing letters and keys from old suits of his, the schoolmaster had stolen back to the crossroads, taken from Kling’s mutilated body all objects identifiable with Kling — a gruesome task, and the man in uniform shuddered at the recollection — put on the dead man the Van objects, and then deliberately hurried farther up the road into the woods. Here he built a guarded little fire, burned Kling’s personal possessions, and waited for someone to come along.

“Why?” demanded Vaughn. “Why didn’t you beat it back to your shack and lie low?”

“Because,” said Van simply, “it was necessary for me to get to town at once and by some means warn my brothers of Krosac’s appearance. If I went into town and said nothing about the body at the crossroads, I should be regarded with suspicion, for it was necessary to pass the junction on the way to town. If I went into town and related the story of my discovery of the body — alone — I might very well come under suspicion. But if I waited for someone to come along, an innocent citizen of the neighborhood, I should have a companion for the ‘discovery’ of the body, and at the same time would be able to get to town, stock up on provisions, and notify my brothers.”

Michael Orkins, the farmer, had come along in an hour or so. Van, or Old Pete, contrived to be tramping the road in the direction of the junction. He had hailed Orkins, the farmer told him to jump in, they found the body... the rest, as Van said soberly, “Mr. Queen knows from having attended the inquest.”

“And you managed to notify your brothers?” asked Isham.

“Yes. While I was in my own house, after discovering Kling’s body at the crossroads, I scribbled a hasty note to Tomis — to the man you know as Thomas Brad. In the excitement when we got to town, I managed to slip the letter through the slot in the post-office door — the post office being closed. I told Tom in the letter briefly what had occurred, warned him that Krosac was probably heading his way bent on vengeance. I wrote too that from then on I meant to be Old Pete, and neither he nor Stephen was to say anything of this. I, at least, meant to be protected from Krosac; for I was dead.”

“You were lucky,” said Megara bitterly. “When Tom couldn’t reach me after receiving your letter, he must have written that note we found addressed to the police — as a last warning to me, should anything happen to him before I returned to Bradwood.”

The brothers were pale and tense; both men showed plainly the nerve strain they were experiencing. Even Megara had succumbed to the spell. From the deck outside came a man’s coarse laugh; they looked startled, and then relaxed as they realized that it was only one of the Helene’s crew bantering a trooper.

“Well,” said Isham at last, rather helplessly, “that’s all well and good, but where the devil does it leave us? Still up a tree, as far as nabbing Krosac is concerned.”

“A pessimistic attitude,” said Ellery, “royally justified. Gentlemen, who knows or knew about the Tvar-Krosac feud? A little investigation along that line may help us narrow the field of suspects.”

“No one but ourselves,” said the schoolmaster darkly. “I naturally told no one.”

“There are no written records of the feud?”

“No.”

“Very well,” said Ellery thoughtfully. “That leaves only Krosac as a possible disseminator of the story. While it’s conceivable that he may have told somebody, it isn’t probable; why should he? Krosac is now an adult — a maniac obsessed with a vengeance-fixation, besides. His vengeance, he would feel, must be personally consummated; those things aren’t delegated to agents or accomplices. Eh, Mr. Megara?”

“Not in Montenegro,” replied the yachtsman grimly.

“Of course; it’s axiomatic to anyone who knows the psychology of feudism,” said Professor Yardley. “And in the old Balkan feuds, which were considerably more gory than even our own mountaineer feuds, only a member of the family could wipe out the stain.”

Ellery nodded. “Would Krosac have told anyone in this country? Hardly. It would place him in such an individual’s power, or would leave a trail to himself and Krosac is, from the cleverness he has displayed, a wary scoundrel despite his monomania. And if he took an accomplice — which he would not do — what had he to offer such a creature?”

“A good point,” conceded Isham.

“The very fact that he rifled Mr. Van’s house of whatever cash the tin box contained—”

“There were a hundred and forty dollars in the box,” muttered Van.

“—indicates that Krosac was hard up and took what he could find. But your brother Tomislav’s house was not looted. Certainly no accomplice, then, for had there been one the accomplice would not have passed up the opportunity to steal what he could. These have been murders for revenge, not gain... Other signs of the nonexistence of an accomplice? Yes. In the murder of Kling, only one person was seen in the vicinity of the crossroads, and that man was Velja Krosac.”

“What are you trying to prove?” growled Vaughn.

“Simply that the chances are overwhelmingly in favor of Krosac’s having worked entirely alone and having told no one of his intended crimes — judging from the individualistic motive, the horrible method, and the trail of a lone man which he made no attempt to conceal up to a certain point. Remember that Krosac practically signed his name to his crimes by plastering T’s over the scenes of both. He must have realized this, insane or not, and it’s unbelievable that an accomplice would ally himself — after that first murder especially — with such a depraved and brazen maniac.”

“And all that gets you exactly nowhere,” snapped the Inspector. “Why worry about a mythical accomplice? We haven’t made an inch of progress toward finding the principal, Mr. Queen!”

Ellery shrugged; evidently to his mind the elimination of a possible accomplice or sharer in Krosac’s secret was a pertinent and prime necessity.

District Attorney Isham paced between the two brothers restlessly. “Look here,” he said at last. “After all we mustn’t be stampeded by this thing. It isn’t sensible that a man will disappear so damned completely he can’t even be traced. We must know more about his appearance. Granted you gentlemen don’t know what Krosac looks like today, can’t you tell us more about him — characteristics that wouldn’t change from childhood to maturity?”

The brothers glanced at each other. “The limp,” said Van, shrugging.

“I told you that,” said Megara. “As a child Krosac contracted a mild hip disease — not disfiguring, but enough to make him limp on his left leg.”

“A permanent limp?” demanded Ellery.

The Tvars looked blank.

“It’s possible that the limp has been cured in the twenty years that have elapsed since then, you know. In which case the testimony of Croker, the Weirton garageman, would indicate another facet of Krosac’s cleverness. Remembering that you people knew he had limped as a child, he might, as Professor Yardley has already suggested, have been pretending a limp... provided, of course, he has been cured in the interim.”

“On the other hand,” snapped the Inspector, “the limp may be authentic. Why on earth you should throw a monkey wrench into every piece of evidence we get, Mr. Queen—”

“Oh, very well,” said Ellery dryly. “Krosac limps. Does that satisfy you, Inspector?” He smiled. “Depend on it, though. Whether he really limps or not, he’ll continue to limp whenever he makes one of his infrequent public appearances.”

“We’ve wasted enough time,” grumbled Vaughn. “One thing is sure. You gentlemen have to get plenty of protection from now on. I think you’d better get right back to Arroyo, Mr. Van, and keep out of sight. I’ll send a half-dozen guards back to West Virginia with you, and leave ’em there.”

“Oh, my dear God,” groaned Ellery. “Inspector, do you realize what you’re saying? You’ll be playing directly into Krosac’s hands! We may assume that our ruse has been successful, that Krosac still doesn’t know where Andreja Tvar is, although he knows he’s alive. Any attention we focus on Andreja Tvar, then, is bound to come to Krosac’s notice if he is on the watch, as he must be.”

“Well, what would you do?” said Vaughn belligerently.

“Mr. Van should be escorted back to his hut in the hills as unostentatiously as possible — by one man, not a half-dozen, Inspector. Why don’t you send an army? And then he must be left alone. As Old Pete he is safe. The less fuss we make, the better off he’ll be.”

“And how about Mr. Megara — er — Mr. Megara?” asked Isham. He seemed to have difficulty in selecting a proper name for the binominal brothers. “Leave him alone, too?”

“Certainly not!” cried Ellery. “Krosac expects him to be guarded, and he must be. Openly, as openly as you please.”

The brothers said nothing as their fate was being argued by these outsiders; surreptitiously they regarded each other, and Megara’s stern face grew sterner, while the schoolmaster blinked and moved restlessly about.

“Is there anything else you gentlemen wish to discuss before you’re separated?” asked Isham. “Quickly, now, please.”

“I’ve been thinking it over,” muttered Van, “and I... I don’t think it would be wise for me to return to West Virginia. I have the feeling that Krosac—” his voice trembled...” I think I’ll go as far away from this cursed country as I can get. As far from Krosac—”

“No,” said Ellery firmly. “If Krosac has any suspicion that you’re Old Pete, your relinquishment of that character and your flight would leave an open trail for him to follow. You must remain Old Pete until we’ve netted our man, or at least until we have proof that Krosac has penetrated your disguise.”

“I thought—” Van wet his lips. “I’m not a very wealthy man, Mr. Queen. You probably think me a coward. But I’ve lived under the shadow of that devil...” His strange eyes burned. “There is money coming to me under the will of my brother Tomislav. I relinquish it I only want to get away...” The inconsistency, the incoherence of his remark made them all uncomfortable.

“No, Andr’,” said Megara heavily. “If you want to run out — well, you know best. But the money... I’ll advance it. You’ll need it wherever you’re going.”

“How much is it?” demanded Vaughn suspiciously.

“Little enough.” Megara’s hard eyes became harder. “Five thousand dollars. Tom could well have afforded... But Andreja is a youngest, and in the old country ideas on the subject of inheritance were rigid. I mys—”

“Your brother Tom was the eldest son?” asked Ellery.

Megara’s face reddened. “No. I am. But I’ll make up for it, Andr’—”

“Well, do what you please about that,” said Vaughn. “But I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Van; you can’t skip. Mr. Queen is right as far as that’s concerned.”

The schoolmaster’s face was pale. “If you think he doesn’t know—”

“How the devil can he?” said Vaughn irritably. “If it will make you feel any better, Mr. Megara can arrange to give you your money, and you can take it back with you. If you have to beat it without notice, you won’t go penniless. But that’s the best we can do.”

“With my own savings in the hut,” muttered Van, “it makes a tidy sum. More than enough, wherever I go...

Very well. I return to Arroyo. And, Stephen — thank you.”

“Perhaps,” said the yachtsman lamely, “you’ll need more. Suppose I give you ten instead of five...”

“No.” The Schoolmaster squared his shoulders. “I want only what’s due me. I’ve always made my own way, Stephen, as you know.”

Megara winced as he crawled out of bed and went to a desk. He sat down and began to write. Andreja Tvar paced up and down. Now that his immediate fate had been decided for him, he seemed anxious to leave. The yachtsman rose, waving a check.

“You’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning, Andr’,” he said. “I’ll cash it for you myself and then you can pick up the money in the morning on your way back to West Virginia.”

Van looked about quickly. “I must go now. Where can I stay, Inspector?”

“We’ll let the troopers take care of you overnight.”

The two brothers regarded each other. “Take care of yourself, Andr’.”

“And you.” Their eyes held, and the intangible barrier between them trembled and almost fell. But it did not. Megara turned away, and the schoolmaster with sloping shoulders walked to the door.

When they had returned to the mainland and Andreja Tvar had marched off in the midst of a group of troopers, Ellery drawled: “Did anything strike you—? No, something did strike you, and the question is superfluous. Why did you seem disturbed, Mr. Isham, by Stephen Megara’s explanation for the Tvar brothers’ flight from Montenegro?”

“Because,” said the District Attorney, “it’s preposterous.

Feud or no feud. Nobody can tell me that three grown men will quit their homes and country and change their names just because a little shaver has the emotional incentive to kill them.”

“Very true,” said Ellery, gulping in the warm piny air. “So true that I wonder Inspector Vaughn didn’t arrest ’em on the spot for perjury.” Inspector Vaughn snorted. “It convinces me that, while the Krosac story is undoubtedly true, there was more to their departure than the fear of an eleven-year-old’s problematical vengeance.”

“What do you mean, Queen?” asked Professor Yardley. “I can’t see—”

“Surely it’s obvious! Why should three adults, as Mr. Isham says, desert their homeland and flee to a foreign country under assumed names? Eh?”

“The police!” muttered Vaughn.

“Precisely. They left because they had to leave, pursued by a danger much more immediate, I assure you, than the boy Krosac’s revenge. If I were you, Inspector, I’d make an overseas inquiry.”

“Cable Yugoslavia,” said the Inspector. “Good idea. I’ll do it tonight.”

“You see,” drawled Ellery to Professor Yardley, “life, as usual, plays shoddy tricks. They flee from a real danger, and twenty years later the potential danger catches up with them.”

20. Two Triangles

As Ellery, Professor Yardley, Isham, and Vaughn rounded the eastern wing of the house, someone hailed them from the rear. They all turned quickly; it was Dr. Temple.

“All through with the big powwow?” asked Temple; he had deposited his medical bag somewhere, and was strolling along the path empty-handed, smoking.

“Ah — yes,” said Isham.

At the same instant the tall figure of Jonah Lincoln came dashing along the path around the corner; he and Ellery collided, and Jonah stepped back with a scant mutter of apology.

“Temple!” he cried, ignoring the others. “What’s the matter with Megara?”

“Don’t excite yourself, Mr. Lincoln,” said the Inspector dryly. “Megara’s all right. Just a hernia. What’s eating you?”

Jonah wiped his forehead; he was panting. “Oh, everything’s so mysterious around here. Damn it all, haven’t we any rights left? I heard that the pack of you had gone over to the yacht after Temple, and I thought—”

“That Mr. Megara had met with foul play?” asked Isham. “No, it’s as Inspector Vaughn says.”

“Well!” The red tide ebbed from Lincoln’s sharp features, and he grew a little calmer. Dr. Temple was smoking peacefully, regarding him without perturbation. “The place is like a prison, anyway,” grumbled Jonah. “My sister had the hardest time getting into Bradwood. Just came back from Oyster Island and the man on the—”

“Miss Lincoln’s back?” said the Inspector quickly.

Dr. Temple removed the pipe from his mouth; the serene look went out of his eyes. “When?” he demanded.

“A few minutes ago. The detective wouldn’t—”

“Alone?”

“Yes. They—” Poor Lincoln’s indignation was fated never to be expressed. His mouth was open, and remained open. The other men stiffened.

From somewhere in the house came a wild screaming laugh.

“Hester!” shouted Dr. Temple, and plunged forward, bowling Lincoln over to one side and disappearing around the corner.

“My God,” said Isham hoarsely, “what the devil’s that?”

Lincoln scrambled to his feet and dashed after the physician, Ellery at his heels and the others streaming after.

The source of the scream had been the upper floor of the house. As they ran into the reception hall they passed Stallings, the butler, standing near the staircase, his face drained of blood. Mrs. Baxter’s rigid neck protruded from a rear door.

The upper floor contained the bedrooms. They reached the landing just in time to see Dr. Temple’s wiry figure hurtle through the doorway of one of the rooms... The screams persisted; peal after peal of a woman’s shrill hysteria.

They found Dr. Temple holding Hester Lincoln in his arms, smoothing her disheveled hair, hushing her gently. The girl’s face was crimson, her eyes fierce and unintelligent, her mouth crookedly open; the screams ripped out as if she had no control over her vocal chords.

“Hysterics!” snapped the physician over his shoulder. “Help me get her on the bed.”

Vaughn and Jonah leaped forward; the girl’s screaming laughter redoubled in volume, and she began to struggle. It was at this moment that Ellery heard quick steps from the corridor, and turned to see Mrs. Brad, in négligé and Helene appear in the doorway.

“What’s the matter?” gasped Mrs. Brad. “What’s happened?”

Helene hurried forward. Dr. Temple forced the kicking girl back on the bed and sharply slapped her face. A shriek trembled, and died. Hester half-rose on the bed and stared at the pale pudgy face of Mrs. Brad. Intelligence sprang into her eyes, and an inhuman hatred.

“Get out, you...you— Get out of my sight!” she cried. “I hate, hate you, and everything that belongs to you. Get out, I say, get out!”

Mrs. Brad flamed; her full lips trembled. Her shoulders shook as she gaped. Then she uttered a low cry, wheeled, and disappeared.

“Hush, Hester!” said Helene fiercely. “You don’t mean that. Be a good girl, now, and quiet down. You’re making a scene.”

Hester’s eyes seemed to turn over in their sockets; her head sagged, and she dropped like a crumpled sack on the bed.

“Out!” said Dr. Temple imperiously. “Everybody.”

He stretched the unconscious girl flat on her back as the others slowly left the room. Jonah, flushed, nervous, but in a way triumphant, closed the door softly.

“I wonder what gave her hysterics,” said Isham with a frown.

“The reaction of a violent emotional experience,” drawled Ellery. “Is the psychology correct?”

“The New England conscience,” murmured Professor Yardley, “in violent eruption.”

“Why’d she leave the Island?” demanded Vaughn.

Jonah grinned feebly. “It’s all over now, Inspector, so I guess there’s no harm in your knowing; nothing mysterious about it. Hester has been infatuated with that scoundrel Romaine on Oyster Island. But just now she came hotfooting it back. It seems he made — well, a pass at her.” His face darkened. “Another little score I have to settle with him, damn his black soul! But in a way I feel grateful to him. He opened her eyes and brought her back to her senses.”

The Inspector remarked dryly: “It’s none of my business of course, but did your sister think he’d recite poetry to her?”

The door opened and Dr. Temple appeared. “She’s quiet now; don’t bother her,” he growled. “You might go in, Miss Brad.” Helene nodded and went in, closing the door quickly behind her. “She’ll be all right. I’ll give her a sedative — get my bag...” He hurried down the stairs.

Jonah stared after him. “When she came back, she told me that she was through with Romaine and the whole damned nudist business. She wants to leave here and go off somewhere — New York, she said. Wants to be alone. Good thing for her.”

“Umm,” said Isham. “Where’s Romaine now?”

“On the Island, I suppose; he hasn’t shown his face around here, the dirty—” Jonah bit his lip and shrugged. “May Hester leave Bradwood, Mr. Isham?”

“Well... What do you think, Vaughn?”

The Inspector massaged his jaw. “Can’t see any harm in it, if we know where to get her when we want her.”

“You’ll be responsible for her, Mr. Lincoln?” asked Isham.

Jonah nodded eagerly. “I absolutely vouch—”

“By the way,” murmured Ellery, “exactly what has your sister against Mrs. Brad, Mr. Lincoln?”

Jonah’s smile faded; something froze behind his eyes. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” he said flatly. “Don’t pay any attention to her; she didn’t know what she was saying.”

“Strange,” said Ellery. “It appeared to me that she spoke with remarkable clarity. I think, Inspector, that it would be politic for us to talk with Mrs. Brad.”

“I’m afraid—” said Lincoln quickly. He stopped; they all turned at a step below.

One of Vaughn’s detectives stood there.

“This Romaine guy and the old man,” said the detective, “are down on the dock. Want to talk to you, Chief.”

The Inspector rubbed his hands together. “Now, isn’t that nice? All right, Bill, I’m coming. We’ll defer that little chat with Mrs. Brad, Mr. Queen; it’ll keep.”

“Any objection to my coming along?” asked Jonah quietly. His big right fist was already clenched.

“Hmm,” said the Inspector. He looked at the fist and grinned. “Not a one. Glad to have you.”

They strode down the path. Near the tennis court they met Dr. Temple, who was hurrying along carrying his black bag. Temple smiled briefly; he seemed preoccupied and had not noticed the two visitors from Oyster Island.

Jonah walked along grimly.

The big brown figure of Paul Romaine towered on the landing dock. Skinny little Stryker, the mad Egyptologist, sat shivering in a small motorboat tied to the dock. Both men were clothed; immortal Ra-Harakht for this visit, it seemed, had eschewed the baton and snowy robes of his mangled divinity, vaguely sensing that he might accomplish more as mortal than as god. The police launch hovered nearby, and several detectives stood by Romaine’s side.

Romaine’s legs were stockily planted on the wooden boards. The toy green treeline of Oyster Island, the slowly riding white length of the Helene behind him, somehow served him as a suitable background. Whatever else he might be, he was assuredly a man of the open. But there was indecision on his face and a half-grinning desire to please that placed his state of mind instantly.

He said at once: “We don’t want to be bothering you, Inspector. But we’d like to settle something.” His tone was agreeable. He kept his eyes steadfastly on Vaughn, ignoring Jonah Lincoln. Jonah breathed evenly; he examined Romaine almost with curiosity.

“Go ahead,” growled the Inspector. “What do you want?”

Romaine glanced briefly behind him at the cringing figure of Stryker. “You’ve just about ruined the business of His Nibs and me. You’re keeping our guests cooped up on the Island.”

“Well, isn’t that jake for you?”

“Yes,” said Romaine patiently, “but not this way. They’re all scared, like a bunch of kids. Want to quit, and you won’t let ’em. But I’m not worried about them. It’s the others. Sure won’t get any more customers.”

“So?”

“We want permission to leave.”

Very suddenly old Stryker stood up in the motorboat “This is persecution!” he shrieked. “A prophet is not without honor save in his own country! Harakht demands the right to preach the gospel—”

“Quiet,” said Romaine savagely. The madman gaped and sat down.

“Gibberish,” muttered Professor Yardley; he was pale. “Utter gibberish. The man’s a stark lunatic Quotes Matthew; garbles Egyptian and Christian theology...”

“Well, you can’t have it,” said Inspector Vaughn calmly.

Romaine’s handsome face at once became threatening. He took a step forward, doubled his fists. The detectives about him edged nearer, expectantly. But the obscure desire to please smothered his seething temper, and he relaxed.

“Why?” he asked, swallowing mightily. “You haven’t got anything on us, Inspector. We’ve been good little boys, haven’t we?”

“You heard me. I’m not letting you and that old he-goat skip out on me — not by a long shot. Sure you’ve been good. But as far as I’m concerned you’re both on the teetery edge, Romaine. Where were you the night Thomas Brad was murdered?”

“I told you! On the Island.”

“Oh, yeah?” said the Inspector pleasantly. Instead of flaring into anger again Romaine, to Ellery’s astonishment, grew thoughtful. The Inspector’s nostrils quivered; quite by accident, it seemed, he had stumbled upon something. Isham opened his mouth, and Vaughn nudged him; so Isham closed his mouth.

“Well?” barked Vaughn. “I haven’t got all day. Spit it out!”

“Suppose,” said Romaine slowly, “suppose I can absolutely prove where I was that night — by a reliable witness, I mean. Would that clear me?”

“Ah,” said Isham. “It certainly would, Romaine.”

There was a little stir behind them which no one noticed except Ellery. Jonah Lincoln’s aplomb had fled; he was growling into his throat and trying to push into the van of the group. Ellery’s fingers closed insistently about Lincoln’s biceps; they swelled and hardened under his touch, but he stopped short.

“All right,” said Romaine abruptly; he was rather white about the nostrils. “I wasn’t going to spill this, because it involves — well, some people might misinterpret it. But we’ve got to get out of here... I was—”

“Romaine,” came Jonah’s voice clearly, “if you say another word I promise I’ll kill you.”

Vaughn swung on his heel. “Here, here!” he snarled. “What kind of talk is that? Keep out of this, Lincoln!”

“You heard me, Romaine,” said Jonah.

Romaine shook his big head and laughed — a barking little laugh that raised the short hair on Ellery’s nape. “Nuts,” he said curtly. “I threw you into the Cove once, and I can do it again. I don’t give a damn about you or anybody else in this lousy place. Here’s the dope, Inspector. Between half-past ten and about half-past eleven that night—”

Silently Jonah lunged forward, arms flailing. Ellery with a grunt threw one arm about his neck and bore him backward. A detective jumped into the fray and grasped Jonah’s collar in a stranglehold. After a brief struggle Jonah subsided; he was panting, and he glared at Romaine with murder in his hot eyes.

Romaine said hastily: “I was on Oyster Island with Mrs. Brad.”

Jonah shook off Ellery’s arm. “All right, Mr. Queen,” he said coldly. “I’m quite all right now. He’s done it. Let him speak his little piece.”

“What d’ye mean — on Oyster Island with Mrs. Brad?” demanded, the Inspector; his eyes were narrowed. “Alone with her?”

“Ah, be your age,” snapped Romaine. “That’s what I said. We spent an hour together near shore, under the trees.”

“How did Mrs. Brad get to the Island that night?”

“We had a date. I waited for her at the Bradwood landing in my boat. She showed up just as I got there. A little before half-past ten.”

Inspector Vaughn took a sadly frayed cigar from one of his pockets and jabbed it in his mouth. “You go back to the Island,” he said, “and we’ll investigate your story. Take the nut with you... And now, Mr. Lincoln,” he said thoughtfully, turning his back on Romaine, “if you’d care to take a couple of pokes at this dirty specimen of a hyena’s stinking brood, go ahead. I — er — I’m going back to the house.”

Romaine stood blinking on the dock. The detectives moved away from him. Jonah stripped off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and stepped forward.

“One,” said Jonah, “for getting funny with my sister. Two,” he said, “for turning the head of a very foolish woman... Put ’em up, Romaine.”

The madman clutched the gunwale of the boat and screeched: “Paul, come away!”

Romaine looked quickly around at the hostile faces. “Go take off your diapers first,” he said, shrugging his big shoulders, and half-turned away.

Jonah’s fist collided with the man’s jaw. It was a lusty blow, well planted, and had behind it all the bitter rage which Jonah had been nursing for weeks. It would have knocked a man of ordinary strength unconscious; but Romaine was an ox, and the blow merely staggered him. He blinked again, a feline snarl wiped out his handsomeness, and he brought his bludgeon of a right fist up once in a short, powerful uppercut that lifted Jonah an inch from the wooden dock and dropped him, a senseless lump, to the boards.

Inspector Vaughn’s geniality vanished. He shouted: “Keep back!” to his men, and sprang forward like a dart. Romaine, moving with extraordinary speed for his bulk, leaped from the dock into the motorboat where Stryker cowered, almost foundering the boat, and shoved off with a gargantuan sweep of his paw. The motor sputtered, and the boat shot away toward Oyster Island.

“I’m getting into the launch,” said the Inspector calmly. “You men take this poor guy back — I’ll join you in a couple of minutes. That bird needs a lesson.”

As the launch swished away from the dock in pursuit of the motorboat, Ellery knelt by the fallen gladiator and slapped his pallid cheeks gently. Professor Yardley flung himself prone on the dock and scooped a palmful of water from the Sound.

The detectives yelled encouragement to the Inspector, who was standing in the prow of the launch, like Captain Ahab, and stripping off his coat.

Ellery dripped water onto Jonah’s face. “A remarkable example,” he observed dryly to the Professor, “of the triumph of justice. Wake up, Lincoln; the war’s over!”

They were sitting on the colonial porch fifteen minutes later when Inspector Vaughn rounded the corner. Jonah Lincoln sat in a rocker holding his jaw in both hands as if he were surprised it was still attached to his face. Ellery, Isham, and Yardley ignored him, smoking peacefully with their backs to him.

The Inspector’s face, while not precisely angelic, since there were traces of blood about his nose and a cut under one eye, nevertheless indicated that he felt satisfied with his knightly joust.

“Hullo,” he said cheerfully, pounding up the porch steps between the pillars. “Well, Mr. Lincoln, you knocked him kicking by proxy. It was a battle royal, but there’s one ladies’ man who’ll keep away from mirrors for a month.”

Jonah groaned. “I... Lord, I just haven’t got the strength. I’m not really a coward. But that man — he’s a Goliath.”

“Well, I’m his little David.” Vaughn sucked a torn knuckle. “I thought the old lunatic would throw a fit. I actually knocked out the chief disciple! Heresy, hey, Professor? Better get washed up, Mr. Lincoln.” He stopped smiling. “Let’s get back to business. Seen Mrs. Brad?”

Abruptly Jonah rose and went into the house.

“I guess she’s still upstairs,” said Isham.

“Well,” said the Inspector, striding after Jonah, “let’s get to her before Lincoln does. He’s been acting the gentleman, and all that, but this is an official investigation and it’s time we got the truth from somebody.”

Helene, it seemed, was still in Hester Lincoln’s room. Stallings thought that Dr. Temple was upstairs, as well; the physician had not reappeared after going upstairs some time before with his medical bag.

They reached the bedroom floor just in time to see Jonah disappear into his bedroom. Following Stallings’s directions, they went to a door at the rear of the house and the Inspector knocked.

Mrs. Brad’s tremulous voice said: “Who is it?”

“Inspector Vaughn. May we come in?”

“Who? Oh, one moment!” There was panic in the woman’s tones. They waited, and the door opened slightly. Mrs. Brad’s rather handsome face appeared; her eyes were moist and apprehensive. “What is it, Inspector? I... I’m ill.”

Vaughn pushed the door gently. “I know. But this is important.”

She retreated, and they entered. It was heavily feminine, this room: scented, frilled, profusely mirrored, and its dressing-table was covered with cosmetics. She kept backing away, drawing her négligé more tightly about her.

“Mrs. Brad,” said Isham, “where were you between ten-thirty and eleven-thirty the night your husband was murdered?”

She stopped drawing the négligé about her, stopped backing away; almost, it seemed, stopped breathing. “What do you mean?” she asked tonelessly at last. “I was at the theater with my daughter, with—”

“Paul Romaine,” said Inspector Vaughn gently, “says you were with him, on Oyster Island.”

She faltered: “Paul...” Her large dark eyes were haunting. “He — he said that?”

“Yes, Mrs. Brad,” replied Isham gravely. “We realize how painful this must be to you. It’s admittedly none of our business provided it’s just that and nothing more. Tell us the truth, and we shan’t refer to it again.”

“It’s a lie!” she cried. She sat down suddenly in a chintz chair.

“No, Mrs. Brad. It’s the truth. It matches the fact that, although you and Miss Brad went to the Park Theater that night, only Mr. Lincoln and your daughter returned to this house in a taxicab. It matches the fact that the doorman of the Park Theater saw a woman of your description leave in the middle of the first act that night, about nine o’clock... Romaine says he had an appointment with you, that you met him near the dock.”

She covered her ears. “Please,” she moaned. “I was crazy. I don’t know how it happened. I was a fool...” They looked at each other. “Hester hates me. She wanted him, too. She thought — she thought he was decent...” The age-lines showed with startling clarity, as if newly etched, on her face. “But he’s the worst sort of beast!”

“He won’t be doing that sort of thing for a long time, Mrs. Brad,” said Inspector Vaughn grimly. “Nobody’s judging you, or trying to. Your life is your own, and if you were fool enough to get mixed up with that high-binder, you’ve suffered enough, I suppose. All we’re interested in is: How’d you get home and exactly what happened that night?”

She twisted her fingers in her lap; a dry sob choked her. “I... I slipped out of the theater early during the performance; I told Helene I didn’t feel well and insisted that she remain and wait for Jonah... I went to Pennsylvania Station and took the first train back — luckily there was one nearly at once. I... I got off a station ahead and hired a taxi to a point near Bradwood. I walked the rest of the way and no one seemed to be about, so... so...”

“Naturally,” said Isham, “you didn’t want Mr. Brad to know you had returned. We understand.”

“Yes,” she whispered; her face was dyed a dull unhealthy red. “I met — him at the dock.”

“What time was it?”

“A trifle before ten-thirty.”

“You’re sure you saw and heard nothing? You didn’t meet anyone?”

“Yes.” She looked up with agony in her eyes. “Oh, don’t you think I’d have told — everything — if I had seen something or someone? And when — when I came back, I slipped into the house and right to my room.”

Isham was about to ask another question, when the door opened quietly and Helene Brad appeared. She stood still, looking from her mother’s torn face to the faces of the men. “What is it, Mother?” she said, her eyes steady.

Mrs. Brad buried her head in her hands and began to weep.

“So it’s come out,” whispered Helene. She closed the door, slowly. “You were too weak to keep it back.” She glanced with contempt from Vaughn to Isham and went to the sobbing woman. “Stop crying, Mother. If it’s known, it’s known; other women have tried to recapture romance and failed. God knows...”

“Let’s get through,” said Vaughn. “It’s as rotten for us as for you people. How did you and Lincoln know where your mother was that night, Miss Brad?”

Helene sat down by her mother’s side and patted the broad twitching back. “There, Mother... When Mother left me that night — well, I knew. But she didn’t know I knew. I was weak myself.” She stared at the floor. “I decided to wait for Jonah; we had both noticed — well, certain things before. When he came, I told him, and we returned home. I looked into this room; Mother was in bed, asleep... The next morning, though, when you found the... the body...”

“She confessed to you?”

“Yes.”

“If I may ask two questions,” said Ellery soberly. The girl’s large eyes, so like her mother’s, turned on him. “When did you first suspect what was going on, Miss Brad?”

“Oh!” She shook her head, as if she were in pain. “Weeks, weeks ago.”

“Do you think your stepfather knew?” Mrs. Brad raised her head suddenly; her face was mottled with tears and rouge. “No!” she cried. “No!”

Helene whispered: “I’m sure he didn’t.”

District Attorney Isham said: “I think that’s enough,” curtly, and went to the door. “Come along.” He stepped into the hall.

Meekly Inspector Vaughn, Professor Yardley, and Ellery followed.

21. Lovers’ Quarrel

“A plethora of nothing,” remarked Ellery the next night, as he and Professor Yardley sat on Yardley’s lawn watching the star-pricked sky above Long Island.

“Hmm,” said the Professor. Sparks of burning tobacco fell from his pipe as he sighed. “To tell the truth, I’ve been waiting for the fireworks to begin, Queen.”

“Patience. In a way, since this is the night of our celebrated Independence Day, you might expect the scene to crackle with fireworks... There! There’s a star-shell now!”

They were silent as they watched a long finger of brilliant light zoom into the dark sky and burst in a flash of dropping velvet colors. The single shell seemed to be a signal; instantly the entire coast of Long Island erupted, and for a space they sat and observed the celebration of the North Shore. Faintly, in the sky above the distant New York shore across the Sound, they made out answering flares, like tiny fireflies.

The Professor grunted. “I’ve heard so damned much about your pyrotechnical ability as a detective that the reality — sorry if I’m sacrilegious — lets me down. When do you commence, Queen? I mean — when does Sherlock leap to his feet and clamp the irons about the wrists of the dastardly murderer?”

Ellery stared glumly at the crazy light-patterns darting and swirling before the Big Dipper. “I’m beginning to think there won’t be a commencement — or a denouement...”

“Doesn’t look like it.” Yardley took the pipe out of his mouth. “Don’t you think it was ill-advised to withdraw the troopers? Temple told me about it this morning; he said that the Colonel of the county forces had issued the withdrawal order. Can’t see why, myself.”

Ellery shrugged. “Why not? Obviously Krosac is after only two people — Stephen Megara and Andrew Van, or the Tvars, whichever you choose to call them. Megara has sufficient protection from his watery isolation and Vaughn’s squad, and Van is well enough guarded by his disguise.

“There are a great many elements in this second crime, Professor, which would bear discussion; in their way they’re extraordinarily enlightening. But they don’t seem to go anywhere.”

“I can’t think of any.”

“Really?” Ellery stopped to watch a hissing Roman candle. “Do you mean to say you didn’t read the full — and extremely interesting — story of the checkers?”

“Checkers, eh?” Yardley’s short beard showed dimly before the glow of his pipe bowl. “I confess nothing about Brad’s last supper, so to speak, struck me as significant.”

“Then I regain some of my lost self-esteem,” murmured Ellery. “The story was very clear. But, hang it all, while it’s more conclusive than the mere guesses Vaughn and Isham have been making...” He rose and plunged his hands into his pockets. “I wonder if you’d excuse me? I’ve got to walk off this fog in my brain.”

“Of course.” The Professor leaned back and sucked at his pipe, staring after Ellery with a curious intentness.

Ellery maundered on under the stars and the fireworks. Except for spasmodic flares, it was heavily dark; the dark of the countryside. He crossed the road between Yardley’s place and Bradwood, groping blindly, sniffing the night air, listening to the faint sounds of festive boats on the water, worrying the bones of his brain like a frustrated terrier.

Bradwood, except for a night light on the front porch — Ellery could make out, as he blundered up the driveway, two detectives smoking there — was bleak and comfortless. The trees loomed vaguely to his right, and more distantly to his left. As he passed the house one of the detectives rose and cried: “Who’s there?”

Ellery put up one hand to shut off the blinding beam of a powerful flashlight.

“Oh,” said the detective. “Excuse me, Mr. Queen.” The beam snapped off.

“Such alertness,” muttered Ellery, and walked on around the house.

He wondered now why his feet should have turned in this direction. He was approaching the little path which led to the grim totem post and the summerhouse. The effluvium of fear which emanated from the path and its goal — or perhaps it was his subconscious sensitivity to scenes of horror — gripped him, and he hastened by. The main path was black before him.

Suddenly he stopped. Not far to the right, where the tennis court lay, people were talking.

Now Ellery Queen was a gentleman, as gentlemen go, but one thing he had learned from the good Inspector, his father, who was a gentle soul in everything except his cynical familiarity with crime. And that was: “Always listen to conversations.” The old man would say: “The only evidence that’s worth a red cent, son, is the conversation of people who think they’re not being overheard. You listen at times like that and you’ll find out more than you could in a hundred quizzes at the line-up.”

So Ellery, a dutiful son, remained where he was and listened.

The voices were a man’s and a woman’s. The tones of both were familiar to his ears, but he could not hear the words. Having stooped so low, there was nothing to keep him from stooping even lower. With the stealth of an Indian he leaped from the noisy gravel onto the grass bordering the path, and began a cautious advance toward the source of the voices.

A consciousness of their owners’ identities filtered through his brain. They were Jonah Lincoln and Helene Brad.

They were seated, it seemed, at a garden table to the west side of the tennis court; Ellery dimly recalled the lay of the land. He crept up to within five feet of them and became rigid behind a tree.

“It won’t do you any good to deny it, Jonah Lincoln,” he heard Helene say in freezing tones.

“But, Helene,” said Jonah, “I’ve told you a dozen times that Romaine—”

“Bosh! He wouldn’t be so indiscreet. Only — only you, with your peculiar ideas, your — your beastly cowardice...”

“Helene!” Jonah was mortally wounded. “How can you say that? It’s true that, like Sir Galahad, I tried to lambaste him a couple, and that he knocked me cold, but I—”

“Well,” she said, “perhaps that was unjust, Jonah.” There was a silence; Ellery knew that she was struggling to keep back the tears. “I can’t say you didn’t try, of course. But you’re always — oh, interfering.”

Ellery visualized the scene as well as if he could see. The young man, he was sure, had stiffened. “Is that so?” said Jonah bitterly. “Very well, that’s all I wanted to know. Interfering, hey? Just an outsider. No right. Very well, Helene. I shan’t interfere any more. I’m going—”

“Jonah!” There was panic in her voice now. “What do you mean? I didn’t—”

“I mean what I said,” growled Jonah. “For years I’ve been just a good fellow, slaving like a dog for one man who spends all his time at sea and another who stayed home playing checkers. Well, that’s out! The damned salary isn’t worth it. I’m going to leave with Hester, by God, and I’ve told your precious Megara so! Told him this afternoon on the yacht. Let him run his own business for a change; I’m sick and tired of doing it for him.”

There was a taut little interval during which neither antagonist said a word. Ellery, behind the security of his tree, sighed. He could imagine what was coming.

He heard the soft escape of Helene’s breath, and sensed Jonah’s defensive rigidity. “After all, Joe,” she whispered, “it isn’t as if — as if you didn’t owe Father’s memory something. He — he did a lot for you, now, didn’t he?” No remark from Mr. Lincoln. “And as for Stephen... oh, you haven’t said it this time, but I’ve told you so often before that there’s nothing between us. Why should you be so — so poisonous about him?”

“I’m not being poisonous,” said Jonah with dignity.

“You are! Oh, Jonah...” Another silence, during which Ellery visualized the young lady either moving her chair closer or leaning, like Calypso, toward her victim. “I’ll tell you something I’ve never told you before!”

“Eh?” Jonah was startled. Then he said hastily: “You needn’t, Helene. I’m not at all interested — if it’s about Megara, I mean.”

“Don’t be silly, Joe. Why do you think Stephen stayed away a whole year on this last trip of his?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. Probably found a hula-hula girl in Hawaii whose style he liked.”

“Jonah! That’s unkind. Stephen isn’t that sort, and you know it... I’ll tell you. It’s because he asked me to marry him. There! That’s why.” She paused triumphantly.

“Oh, yes? Well,” growled Jonah, “that’s one heck of a way to treat your intended bride. Go away for a year! I wish both of you lots of luck.”

“But I... I refused him!”

Ellery sighed again and crept back toward the path. The night was still bleak, as far as he was concerned. As for Mr. Lincoln and Miss Brad... Silence. Ellery rather fancied he knew what was happening.

22. Foreign Correspondence

“All the signs,” said Ellery to Professor Yardley two days later, on Wednesday, “tell me that justice is wagging her tail and scuttling for home.”

“Which means?”

“There are certain universal indications among balked policemen. I’ve lived with one, you know, all my life... Inspector Vaughn is, in the modest word of the press, baffled. He can’t put his finger on anything concrete. So he becomes the aggressive defender of law, chases people, whips his men into a frenzy of useless activity, barks at his friends, ignores his colleagues, and generally acts like little Rollo in a pet.”

The Professor chuckled. “If I were you, I’d forget this case entirely. Relax and read the Iliad. Or something as nicely literary and heroic. You’re paddling the same canoe as Vaughn. Except that you’re more graceful about the fact that it’s sinking.”

Ellery grunted and flipped his cigarette butt into the grass.

He was chagrined; more than that, he was worried. That the case offered no logical solution to his mind did not disturb him half so much as that it seemed to have expired of inertia. Where was Krosac? For what was he waiting?

Mrs. Brad wept over her sins in the privacy of her boudoir. Jonah Lincoln, despite his threats, had returned to the offices of Brad & Megara and was continuing to distribute rugs to a rug-conscious America. Helene Brad floated about in a glow, barely touching the earth. Hester Lincoln, after a stormy session with Dr. Temple, had departed bag and baggage for New York. Dr. Temple thereafter prowled about Bradwood, pipe in mouth, his black face blacker than ever. From Oyster Island there was silence; occasionally old man Ketcham appeared, but he tended his own business as he rowed his dinghy back and forth with supplies and mail. Fox quietly continued to massage the lawns and drive the Brad cars.

Andrew Van skulked in the West Virginia hills. Stephen Megara kept to his yacht; the crew, with the exception of Captain Swift, had been paid off and sent away with Inspector Vaughn’s permission. Megara’s personal bodyguard of two detectives, who had lolled on the Helene’s deck — drinking, smoking, playing casino — Megara insisted on dismissing; he was perfectly capable, he said curtly, of taking care of himself. The water police, however, continued to patrol the Sound.

A cable from Scotland Yard had barely ruffled the monotony. It ran:

So Inspector Vaughn acted, as Ellery said, like little Rollo in a pet, and District Attorney Isham shrewdly eased himself out of the case by the simple expedient of remaining in his office, and Ellery cooled himself in Professor Yardley’s pool, read Professor Yardley’s excellent books, and thanked his multifarious gods for a vacation — both of the body and the mind. At the same time, he kept one worried eye cocked on the big house across the road.

On Thursday morning Ellery strolled over to Bradwood and found Inspector Vaughn sitting on the porch, a handkerchief between his sunburned neck and his wilted collar, fanning himself and cursing the heat, the police force, Bradwood, the case, and himself in the same breath.

“Nothing, Inspector?”

“Not a damned thing!”

Helene Brad came out of the house, cool as a spring cloud in her white organdie dress. She murmured a good morning and, descending the steps, turned into the westerly path.

“I’ve just been giving the old oil to the newspapermen,” growled Vaughn. “Progress. Improvement. This case’ll die of improvements, Mr. Queen. Where the hell is Krosac?”

“A rhetorical question.” Ellery frowned over his cigarette. “Frankly, I’m puzzled. Has he given up? It doesn’t seem possible. A madman never gives up. Then why is he marking time? Waiting for us to retreat, to give up the case as a bad job?”

“You tell me.” Vaughn muttered to himself, and then added, “I’ll stay here, by God, till Doomsday.”

They lapsed into silence. In the garden circled by the driveway moved the tall figure of Fox, clad in corduroys, accompanied by the rattle of a lawn mower.

The Inspector sat up suddenly and Ellery, smoking with his eyes half-shut, started. The rattle had stopped. Fox was standing as still as a scouting brave, head cocked toward the west. Then he dropped the mower and broke into a run, vaulting a bed of flowers. He ran toward the west.

They jumped up, and the Inspector shouted: “Fox! What’s the matter?”

The man did not halt his leaping strides. He gestured toward the trees and yelled something which they could not make out.

Then they heard it. A faint scream. It came from somewhere on the Lynn estate.

“Helene Brad!” cried Vaughn. “Come on.”

When they burst into the clearing before the Lynn house they found Fox before them, kneeling on the grass and holding on his knee the head of a recumbent man. Helene, her face as white as her frock, stood over them clutching her breast.

“What’s happened?” panted Vaughn. “Why, it’s Temple!”

“He... I thought he was dead,” quavered Helene.

Dr. Temple lay limply, eyes closed, his dark face ashen. There was a deep welt on his forehead.

“Bad knock, Inspector,” said Fox gravely. “I can’t bring him to.”

“Let’s get him into the house,” snapped the Inspector. “Fox, you phone for a doctor. Here, Mr. Queen, help me lift him.”

Fox sprang to his feet and hurried up the stone steps of the Lynn house. Ellery and Vaughn raised the still figure gently and followed.

They entered a charming living room — a living room which once had been charming, but which now looked as if vandals had swept through it. Two chairs were overturned, the drawers of a secretary protruded from their slots, a clock had been upset and its glass smashed... Helene hurried away as they deposited the unconscious man on a settee, and returned a moment later with a basin of water.

Fox was telephoning frantically. “Can’t get Dr. Marsh, the nearest doctor,” he said. “I’ll try—”

“Wait a minute,” said Vaughn. “I think he’s coming to.”

Helene bathed Dr. Temple’s forehead, dripped water between his lips. He groaned, and his eyes fluttered; he groaned again, his arms quivered, and he made a weak attempt to sit up.

He gasped: “I—”

“Don’t try to talk yet,” said Helene softly. “Just lie down and rest a moment.” Dr. Temple slumped back and closed his eyes, sighing.

“Well,” said the Inspector, “this is a nice how-d’ye-do. Where the devil are the Lynns?”

“From the appearance of this room,” said Ellery dryly, “I should say they’ve skipped.”

Vaughn strode through the doorway into the next room. Ellery stood and watched Helene stroke Dr. Temple’s cheeks; he heard the Inspector stalking about the rest of the house. Fox went to the front door and hesitated there.

Vaughn came back. He went to the telephone and called the Brad house. “Stallings? Inspector Vaughn. Get one of my men to the phone right away... Bill? Listen. The Lynns have taken it on the lam. You’ve got their description. Charge — assault and battery. Get busy. I’ll give you more facts later.”

He jiggled the hook. “Get me District Attorney Isham’s office in Mineola... Isham? Vaughn. Start the ball rolling. Lynns skipped out.”

He hung up and strode over to the settee. Dr. Temple opened his eyes and grinned feebly. “All right, now, Temple?”

“Gad, what a whack! I’m lucky he didn’t crack my skull.”

Helene said: “I walked over here to pay a morning visit to the Lynns.” Her voice trembled. “I really can’t understand it. When I got here I saw Dr. Temple lying on the ground.”

“What time is it?” asked the physician, sitting up with a start.

“Ten-thirty.”

He sank back. “Out for two and a half hours. It doesn’t seem possible. I remember coming to a long time ago, and I crawled toward the house — tried to, anyway. But I must have fainted.”

As Inspector Vaughn went to the telephone again to transmit this item to his lieutenant, Ellery said: “You crawled? Then you weren’t struck at the spot at which we found you?”

“I don’t know where you found me,” groaned Temple, “but if you ask that question — no. It’s a long story.” He waited until Vaughn hung up. “For certain reasons I suspected the Lynns weren’t all they pretended to be. I suspected it the moment I laid eyes on them. Two weeks ago Wednesday night I came up here in the dark and heard them talk. What they said made me believe I was right. Lynn had just come back from burying something...”

“Burying something!” yelled Vaughn. Ellery’s brows contracted; he looked at the Inspector, and the same thought was behind both men’s eyes. “My God, Temple, why didn’t you tell us this at that time? Do you realize what it was he must have buried?”

“Realize?” Temple stared, and then groaned again as pain stabbed across his bruised forehead. “Why, of course. Do you know, too?”

“Do we know! The head, Brad’s head!”

Dr. Temple’s eyes were mirrors of astonishment. “The head,” he repeated slowly. “I never thought of that... No, I thought it was something else.”

Ellery said swiftly: “What?”

“It was a few years after the war. I’d been released from the Austrian internment camp and was knocking about Europe, getting the feel of free legs again. In Budapest... well, I became acquainted with a certain couple. We were stopping at the same hotel. One of the guests, a German jeweler named Bundelein, was found trussed up in his room, and a valuable consignment of jewels which he was taking back to Berlin was missing. He accused the couple; they had disappeared... When I saw the Lynns here, I was almost positive they were the same people. Their name at that time was Truxton — Mr. and Mrs. Percy Truxton... Gad, my head. From the alterations Lynn made in my vision, I could almost qualify as a telescope capable of seeing stars of the fifteenth magnitude!”

“I can’t believe it,” murmured Helene. “Such nice people! They were lovely to me in Rome. Cultured, apparently wealthy, pleasant...”

“If it’s true,” said Ellery thoughtfully, “that the Lynns are what Dr. Temple accuses them of being, then they had good reason to be nice to you, Miss Brad. It would have been child’s play for them to look you up and discover you were the daughter of an American millionaire. And then, if they had pulled a job in Europe...”

“Combine business and pleasure,” snapped the Inspector. “I guess you’re right, Doc. They must have buried some loot. What happened this morning?”

Dr. Temple smiled thinly. “This morning? I’ve been snooping around here at odd times for the past two weeks... This morning I came over, certain at last that I knew where the stuff was buried, for I’d been searching for it. I went directly to the spot and had begun to dig when I looked up to find the man in front of me. Then the whole world fell on my head and that was the last I knew. I suppose Lynn, or Truxton, or whatever his name is, spied me, realized the game was up, knocked me out, dug up the loot, and beat it with his wife.”

Dr. Temple insisted he was able to walk. With Fox supporting him he staggered out of the house and into the woods, the others following. They found, only thirty feet in the woods, a gaping hole in the grassy earth. It was roughly a foot square.

“No wonder Scotland Yard couldn’t trace ’em,” remarked Vaughn as they made their way back to Bradwood. “Phony names... I’ve got a nice juicy bone to pick with you, Temple. Why in hell didn’t you come to me with your story?”

“Because I was a fool,” said the physician glumly. “I wanted the full glory of the revelation. And then I wasn’t sure — didn’t feel like accusing possibly innocent people. I’d hate to see them get away!”

“No fear of that. We’ll have ’em under lock and key tonight.”

But, as it turned out, Inspector Vaughn was oversanguine. Night came, and the Lynns were still at liberty. No trace whatever was found of them, or of a couple answering to their description.

“Must have split up and disguised themselves,” growled Vaughn. He sent a cable to police offices in Paris, Berlin, Budapest, and Vienna.

Friday came and went, and still no news from the farflung draggers seeking the escaped English couple. Their descriptions were posted, with copies of their passport photographs, on a thousand bulletin boards in sheriffs’ offices and police headquarters throughout the country. The Canadian and Mexican borders were closely watched. But the Lynns proved once again the difficulty of plucking two ants out of the enormous nest of metropolitan America.

“Must have had a hideaway all fixed up for just such an emergency,” said Inspector Vaughn disconsolately. “But we’re bound to get ’em after a while. They can’t hide out forever.”

On Saturday morning three cables arrived from abroad. One was from the Prefect of Police in Paris:

The second came from Budapest:

The third, and most informative, came from Vienna:

“There followed a detailed description of the stolen jewels.

“There’s going to be a sweet international tangle when we lay hands on ’em,” muttered the Inspector as he, Ellery, and Professor Yardley sat on the Bradwood porch. “Wanted by France, Hungary, and Austria.”

“Perhaps the World Court will call a special session,” remarked Ellery.

The Professor made a face. “Sometimes you annoy me. Why can’t you be precise? It’s the Permanent Court of International Justice, and such a session would be termed ‘extraordinary,’ not special.”

“Oh, Lord!” said Ellery, rolling his eyes.

“Guess Budapest has first sock,” said Vaughn. “Nineteen-twenty.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” ventured the Professor, “if Scotland Yard wants them, too.”

“Not likely. They’re a thorough bunch. If they didn’t recognize the description, you can bet your last bib that there’s no criminal record against them in London.”

“If they really are British,” said Ellery, “they’d have kept away from England. Although the man might very well have been Central European in origin. An Oxford accent is one of the most easily acquired of elegances.”

“One thing is sure,” said the Inspector. “That swag they buried was the ice and the dough from the Vienna job. I’ll send the alarm out to the Jewelers’ Association and the regular channels. But it’s a waste of time. It isn’t likely they’re well enough acquainted with American fences; and they won’t dare go near legitimate dealers unless they’re short of cash.”

“I wonder,” murmured Ellery with a faraway look in his eyes, “why your correspondent in Yugoslavia hasn’t answered?”

There was an excellent reason, it turned out later in the day, for the tardiness of Inspector Vaughn’s Yugoslavian colleague. They were examining reports on the progress of the Lynn search as they came in by telegraph and telephone every few minutes.

A detective galloped up waving an envelope. “Cable, Chief!”

“Ah,” said Vaughn, snatching the message, “now we’ll know.”

But the cable, which came from Belgrade, capital of Yugoslavia, sent by the Minister of Police, merely said:

23. Council of War

Sunday, Monday... it was remarkable how little was accomplished, how tiny was the store of genuine facts they had been able to save from the wreckage of the murders. The Inspector, Ellery felt sure, would succumb to apoplexy as the ubiquitous British evaders of the law continued at large. And always the same question arose to plague their dreary conferences, their desperate discussions of ways and means: Where was Krosac? Or, if in his amazing way he was one of the chief actors in the drama, who was he and why did he delay? His vengeance was incomplete; that he had been swayed by fear of apprehension or the constant presence of the police from attempting the lives of the two remaining Tvar brothers was incredible, considering the nature of his crimes.

“Our defense of Andreja,” said Ellery sadly on Monday evening to the Professor, “has been too perfect. The only explanation I can offer for Krosac’s continued inactivity is that he still doesn’t know where — and in what guise — Van is. We’ve fooled him—”

“And ourselves,” remarked Yardley. “I’m becoming the least bit bored, Queen. If this is the exciting life of a man-hunter, I’m content to track down the source of a historical fact for the rest of my sedentary days. I invite you to join me. You’ll find it infinitely more turbulent than this. Did I ever tell you how Boussard, the French army officer, found that famous basaltic stele in Lower Egypt which has meant so much to Egyptologists — the Rosetta Stone? And how for thirty-two years, until Champollion came along to decipher its triple message of the reign of Ptolemy V, it remained—?”

“It remains,” said Ellery disconsolately, “a miniscule compared with the gigantic problem of Krosac. Wells must have had him in mind when he wrote The Invisible Man.”

That evening Stephen Megara came to life.

He stood in the center of the drawing room in the colonial mansion of his murdered brother grimly surveying his audience. Inspector Vaughn was there, fuming in a Sheraton chair, and gnawing his fingernails with vexation. Ellery sat with Professor Yardley, feeling stupid under the accusing glare of Megara’s eyes. Helene Brad and Jonah Lincoln occupied a sofa, both uneasy; their fingers were intertwined. District Attorney Isham, summoned peremptorily from Mineola by the yachtsman, twiddled his thumbs and coughed incessantly in the doorway. Captain Swift, fumbling with his cap, stood behind his employer, his scraggy neck twisting from side to side under the torture of a stiff collar. Dr. Temple, uninvited but asked to remain, stood before the dark fireplace.

“Now everybody listen to me,” said Megara in a sharp voice, “but you especially — Inspector Vaughn and Mr. Isham. It’s three weeks since my — since Brad was done in. I’m back ten days. Please tell me what you’ve accomplished.”

Inspector Vaughn squirmed in the Sheraton, and snarled: “I don’t like your tone, mister. You damned well know we’ve done the best we can.”

“Not good enough,” snapped Megara. “Not by half, Inspector. You know whom you’re after. You’ve even got a partial description of him. It seems to me that with all the forces at your command and disposal it would be a simple matter to collar your man.”

“Er — it’s just a matter of time, Mr. Megara,” said Isham in a placating voice. The bald spot surrounded by his gray hair was wetly red. “It’s really not simple, you know.”

Vaughn said sarcastically: “You know, Mr. Megara, it hasn’t been all God’s truth here, either. You people yourselves have wasted a lot of our time. None of you’s been strictly on the up-and-up.”

“Nonsense!”

Vaughn rose. “And that,” he added with a wolfish smile, “goes for you, too, Megara!”

The yachtsman’s hard face did not change expression. Behind him Captain Swift swiped at his lips with a blue sleeve and dug his maimed hand into a bulging pocket. “What the devil do you mean?”

“Now, Vaughn,” began the District Attorney, worriedly.

“Now Vaughn nothing! You let me handle this, Isham.” The Inspector stamped forward, a solid menace, and stood so close to Megara that their chests touched. “You want a showdown, do you? Okay by me, mister! Mrs. Brad gave us the runaround, and she was upheld in her phony story by her daughter and Lincoln. Fox led us a merry chase, and wasted our valuable time and a lot of effort. Dr. Temple here” — the physician started, then quietly studied Vaughn’s harsh profile as he began to fill his pipe — “was in possession of important information and tried to act the shiny hero by nabbing two crooks — and maybe worse — all by his lonesome. Result — the crooks make a clean getaway and he gets a sock on the nut. Deserved it, by Judas!”

“You said something,” replied Megara evenly, eyes locked in the Inspector’s, “about me. In what way have I hindered your investigation?”

“Inspector Vaughn,” drawled Ellery. “Don’t you think you’re acting rather — er — impulsively?”

“And I don’t want any of your lip either!” shouted Vaughn without turning. He was thoroughly aroused, and his eyes bulged as the cords of his neck tightened. “All right, Megara. The other day you told us a certain story...”

Megara’s tall figure did not stir. “Well?”

Vaughn smiled a nasty smile. “Well. Think it over.”

“I don’t understand,” replied Megara coldly. “Be explicit.”

“Vaughn,” pleaded Isham.

“I’ll be what I damn please. You know what I’m talking about. Three men left a certain place in a hurry a certain number of years ago. Why?”

Megara’s eyes dropped for the briefest instant. But when he spoke, his tone was puzzled. “I told you why.”

“Sure. Sure you did. I’m not questioning what you told us. I’m questioning what you didn’t tell us.”

Megara stepped back, shrugged, smiled. “I really believe, Inspector, that this investigation has gone to your brain. I told you the truth. Naturally, I couldn’t give you a twelve-hour autobiography. If I left anything out—”

“It’s because you thought it wasn’t important?” Vaughn laughed shortly. “I’ve heard that before.” He turned and took two steps toward his chair; then he swung about to face the yachtsman again. “But remember — when you call us to account — that our job isn’t just looking for a killer. It’s fishing through a lot of tangled motives, concealed facts, and downright lies, too. Just remember that.” He sat down, blowing his flat cheeks out.

Megara shook his wide shoulders. “I’m afraid we’ve strayed from the point. I didn’t call this council of war to bicker or to start an argument. If I gave you that impression, Inspector, I apologize.” Vaughn grunted. “I have something definite in mind.”

“That’s fine,” said Isham heartily, stepping forward. “Dandy, Mr. Megara. That’s the spirit. We can certainly use a constructive suggestion.”

“I don’t know how constructive it is.” Megara spread his legs. “We’ve all been waiting for Krosac to strike. Well, he hasn’t. But you can take my word for it that he’s going to.”

“What d’ye intend to do?” asked the Inspector tartly. “Send him an invitation?”

“Exactly.” Megara’s eyes bored into Vaughn’s. “Why can’t we rig up a trap for him?”

Vaughn was silent. Then: “A trap, hey? What have you in mind?”

The yachtsman’s white teeth glistened. “Nothing definite, Inspector. After all, your experience in such matters qualifies you rather than me... But knowing Krosac will come eventually, we have nothing to lose. He wants me, does he? Well, let him have me... I think your continued presence around here has made him lie low. If you stay here for another month, he’ll continue to lie low for another month. But if you should go away, for example, confess yourself beaten...”

“An excellent idea!” cried the District Attorney. “Mr. Megara, you’re to be congratulated. It’s deplorable that we haven’t thought of it before. Of course Krosac won’t strike while the police are infesting the place—”

“And he’ll be pretty damned careful not to strike when we fade out of here all of a sudden,” grumbled Vaughn. Nevertheless, his eyes were thoughtful. “He’s a brainy scalawag, and I’m sure he’d smell a rat... But there is something in what you say,” he added grudgingly. “It’ll bear thinking about.”

Ellery sat forward, eyes gleaming. “Commendable courage, Mr. Megara. Of course, you realize what the consequences of failure will be?”

Megara did not smile. “I haven’t knocked about the world without taking chances,” he said grimly. “I don’t underestimate his slimy cleverness, mind you. But it isn’t really taking a chance. If we work it properly, he’ll try to do me in. And I’ll be ready for him — the Captain and I — eh, Captain?”

The old seaman said gruffly: “I never seen a hard case yet that you couldn’t settle his hash with a marlinspike. That was in th’ old days. T’day I got a nice new gun, and so’ve you, Mr. Megara. We’ll handle the dirty lubber.”

“Stephen,” said Helene; she had withdrawn her hand from Lincoln’s and was staring at the yachtsman. “You can’t mean to leave yourself without any protection at all from that horrible maniac! Don’t—”

“I can take care of myself, Helene... What do you say, Inspector?”

Vaughn got to his feet. “I’m not sure. It’s a big responsibility for me to assume. The only way I could do it would be to make a feint at withdrawing my men from the grounds and the Sound, but to lay an ambush aboard your boat...”

Megara frowned. “Too clumsy, Inspector. He’d be sure to suspect.”

“Well,” said the Inspector stubbornly, “you’ll have to give me time to think it over. We’ll let ’er ride as she is for a while. I’ll let you know in the morning.”

“Very well.” Megara tapped the pocket of his yachtsman’s coat. “Meanwhile, I’m ready. I’m not going to skulk aboard the Helene like a lily-livered yellowbelly for the rest of my life. The sooner Krosac takes a crack at me the better I’ll like it.”

“What do you think?” asked Professor Yardley later, as he and Ellery stood at the eastern wing of the Brad house watching Megara and Captain Swift stride rapidly down the path, in the dim illumination of the house lights, toward the Cove.

“I think,” said Ellery with a scowl, “that Stephen Megara is a fool.”

Stephen Megara had scant time in which to display his courage — or his foolishness.

The next morning, Tuesday, while Ellery and the Professor were at breakfast, a man ran into the Professor’s dining room, unmindful of old Nanny’s scandalized protests, with a message from Vaughn.

Captain Swift had been discovered in his cabin aboard the Helene a few moments before trussed up and unconscious from a vicious blow at the back of his head.

Stephen Megara’s headless body had been discovered, stark and horrible, lashed to one of the antenna masts above the superstructure.