Абрахам Меррит - Seven Footprints To Satan

I looked through the pockets of my clothes, hanging in the closet. There was not even a scrap of paper.

Seven o'clock came, and with it a discreet knock at my door. It was Robert, the night clerk, with a bundle of the evening papers. His eyes were rather wide, and I could see questions sticking out all over him. Well, he couldn't be more curious about what I had to say regarding what was in those papers than I was to know what was in them. Nor would it do to let him suspect the extent of my ignorance.

So I took them from him with a discouragingly faraway air, and absent- mindedly closed the door in his face.

The headlines leaped out at me from the first I opened:

TRIPLE TRAGEDY AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM PRICELESS RELIC MISSING

WOMAN MURDERED BEFORE EYES OF GUARDS AND VISITORS HER SLAYER KILLED BY ANOTHER WHO COMMITS SUICIDE WHEN HE IS CAPTURED

EXPLORER KIRKHAM BALKS THIEVES GIVES THE ALARM THAT CLOSES DOORS WHEN MYSTERIOUS SERIES OF FATAL STABBINGS THROWS TREASURE HOUSE INTO CHAOS- ROBBER HIDES OLD EGYPTIAN PRINCESS'S NECKLACE AND MAKES ESCAPE- METROPOLITAN TO BE CLOSED UNTIL SEARCH REVEALS IT.

In different words, all the rest of the headlines said about the same thing. I read the stories. Now and then I had the feeling that somebody was shooting a fine spray of ice-water between my shoulder blades. I quote from the most complete account.

An unknown woman was stabbed to death this afternoon in the Metropolitan Museum of Art before the eyes of half a dozen guards and some twenty or more visitors.

Her murderer tried to escape, but before he could get far was attacked by the companion of the woman, tripped, and a knife thrust through his heart.

The second slayer was caught after a chase. As he was being taken to the Curator's office to await the police, he collapsed. He died within a few seconds, the victim, apparently, of some swift poison which he had managed to slip into his mouth.

Both the murders and the suicide occurred close to the Egyptian room where are kept some of the choicest treasures of the museum. Taking advantage of the confusion, some one forced open the case containing the ancient necklace given to his daughter by the Pharaoh Senusert II. The necklace, a priceless relic of the past, and long the admiration of thousands of visitors, was taken. Its removal from the building was frustrated, however, by the alertness of Mr. James Kirkham, the noted explorer, who caused the doors to be locked before any one could leave the museum.

Search of everyone within the walls failed to reveal the stolen treasure. It is supposed that the thief became panic-stricken when he found that no one could get out, and tucked the necklace away in some hidden corner. Whether he did it thinking to return and recover it, or merely to get rid of it cannot, of course, be known. The museum will be closed to visitors until it is found, which, thanks to Mr. Kirkham's quick thinking, is only a matter of time.

Neither the museum authorities nor the police believe that there is any connection between the tragedy and the theft, the latter having obviously been a sudden temptation born from the opportunity-giving confusion.

Well, I reflected, I could tell them better than that. And if the museum remained closed until they found the necklace there, the door hinges would have a chance to become rusty.

But three lives the price of the bauble! I resumed reading with cold horror at my heart.

It was shortly after two o'clock when one of the guards in the Egyptian wing first took special notice of the woman and the two men. They were talking together earnestly, discussing seemingly an exhibit of ushabti figures, toy-like wooden models from a tomb. The woman was about thirty, attractive, blonde and apparently English. The men were older and the guard took them to be Syrians. What had particularly drawn his attention to them was the curious pallor of their faces and the out-of-the-ordinary largeness of their eyes.

"Looked like dopes," he said, "and then again they didn't. Their faces weren't a sick white, more of a transparent. They didn't behave like dopes, either. They seemed to be talking sensible enough. Dressed top-notch, too."

He put them down finally as foreigners, and relaxed his attention. In a few minutes he noticed one of the men walking by him. It was later ascertained that this man had accompanied the woman when she entered the museum about 1:30. The cloak room attendant's attention had also been attracted by their pallor and their curious eyes. This man passed the entrance to the small room where the Senusert necklace was on display with other ancient jewels. He turned into the next corridor and disappeared.

The woman had continued talking to the second man, who, it appears, came into the Museum a little before two o'clock.

Suddenly the guard heard a scream. He swung around and saw the two struggling together, the woman trying to ward off blows from a long knife with which the man was stabbing at her. The guard, William Barton, shouted and ran for them. At the same time, visitors came running in from all directions, drawn by the cries.

They got in Barton's way, and he could not shoot for fear of hitting the woman or some of the excited spectators.

The whole affair was a matter of seconds. The knife plunged into the woman's throat!

The murderer, brandishing his red blade, burst through the horror-stricken onlookers and ran in the direction the first man had gone. As he was close to the door of the necklace room the people who had been in it came rushing out. With them was one of the two guards who keep watch there. They piled back, falling over each other in their haste to get out of reach of the knife. There was a panic-stricken scramble, which the second guard tried to quiet. In the meantime, the murderer had come face to face with the woman's companion at the turn of the next corridor. He struck at the latter and missed, and fled into the armor room with the other close behind him, a knife now in his own hand.

The pair gripped and fell, rolling over the tiled floor, and each striving to plunge his dagger into the other. Guards and visitors were piling in from every side, and the place was in pandemonium.

Then they saw the hand of the pursuer flash up and down. The under man shrieked- and the knife was buried in his heart!

The killer leaped to his feet, and began to run blindly. With the guards and others after him he darted out into the Egyptian wing corridor.

There they cornered him and brought him down.

He was beaten half into insensibility. As he was being carried to the Curator's office, his body went limp, and heavy. They put him down.

He was dead!

Either shock or some quick and powerful poison which he had taken when he had realized escape was impossible had killed him. The autopsy will decide which.

The whole tragedy had occurred in an almost incredibly brief time. Less than five minutes had elapsed between the first scream of the woman and the third death.

But it was time enough to give the necklace thief his opportunity.

Among the visitors at the museum was Mr. James Kirkham, the noted explorer, who recently brought to America the famous Yunnan jades which Mr. Rockbilt presented to the Metropolitan. Mr. Kirkham had been preparing an exhaustive report upon mining possibilities in China for a certain powerful American syndicate. He had been working on it for the last two days with intense concentration, and felt the need this afternoon of a little relaxation. He decided to spend a couple of hours at the museum.

He had strolled into the Egyptian room where the necklace was kept and was studying some amulets in a case in a far corner when he heard the woman's scream. He saw those who were in the room running and followed them. He did not see the killings, but was a witness to the capture of the second man.