Эллери Куин: The Egyptian Cross Mystery

“What happened?” asked the Coroner.

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

“You drove him down?”

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

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

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

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

“Which foot, Mr. Croker?”

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

“That’s the last you saw of him?”

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

“That’s all.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Who?” asked the Coroner weakly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do you recognize any one by this description?”

Hesitation. Then — “Yes.”

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

“He is my priest.”

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

“You mean he’s your — assistant?”

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

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

“Velja Krosac.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“When?”