"Van Dine, S S - Philo Vance 05 - The Scarab Murder Case" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Dine S S)

When Vance had gone to Alexandria Scarlett had been working in the Museum laboratory at Cairo. The two had met again and renewed their old acquaintance. Recently Scarlett had come to America as a member of the staff of Doctor Mindrum W. C. Bliss, the famous Egyptologist, who maintained a private museum of Egyptian antiquities in an old house in East Twentieth Street, facing Gramercy Park. He had called on Vance several times since his arrival in this country, and it was at Vance's apartment that I had met him. He had, however, never called without an invitation, and I was at a loss to understand his unexpected appearance this morning, for he possessed all of the well-bred Englishman's punctiliousness about social matters.

Vance, too, was somewhat puzzled, despite his attitude of lackadaisical indifference.

"Scarlett's a clever lad," he drawled musingly. "And most proper.

Why should he call on me at this indecent hour? And why should he be excited? I hope nothing untoward has befallen his erudite employer. . . . Bliss is an astonishin' man, Van, one of the world's great Egyptologists." Doctor Mindrum W. C. Bliss, M.A., A.O.S.S., F.S.A., F.R.S., Hon. Mem. R.A.S., was the author of "The Stele of Intefoe at Koptos"; a "History of Egypt during the Hyksos Invasion"; "The Seventeenth Dynasty"; and a monograph on the Amen-hotpe III Colossi.

I recalled that during the winter which Vance had spent in Egypt he had become greatly interested in the work of Doctor Bliss, who was then endeavoring to locate the tomb of Pharaoh Intef V who ruled over Upper Egypt at Thebes during the Hyksos domination. In fact, Vance had accompanied Bliss on an exploration in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. At that time he had just become attracted by the Menander fragments, and he had been in the midst of a uniform translation of them when the Bishop murder case interrupted his labors.

Vance had also been interested in the variations of chronology of the Old and the Middle Kingdoms of Egypt, not from the historical standpoint but from the standpoint of the evolution of Egyptian art.

His researches led him to side with the Bliss-Weigall, or short, chronology (based on the Turin Papyrus), as opposed to the long chronology of Hall and Petrie, who set back the Twelfth Dynasty and all preceding history one full Sothic cycle, or 1,460 years. After inspecting the art works of the pre-Hyksos and the post-Hyksos eras, Vance was inclined to postulate an interval of not more than 300 years between the Twelfth and Eighteenth Dynasties, in accordance with the shorter chronology. In comparing certain statues made during the reign of Amen-emhкt III with others made during the reign of Thut-mosи I, thus bridging the Hyksos invasion, with its barbaric Asiatic influence and its annihilation of indigenous Egyptian culture, he arrived at the conclusion that the maintenance of the principles of Twelfth-Dynasty aesthetic attainment could not have been possible with a wider lacuna than 300 years. In brief, he concluded that, had the interregnum been longer, the evidences of decadence in Eighteenth-Dynasty art would have been even more pronounced.

According to the Bliss-Weigall chronology the period between the death of Sebknefru-Rк and the overthrow of the Shepherd Kings at Memphis was from 1898 to 1577 B.C., to wit: 321 years, as against the 1800 years claimed by the upholders to the longer chronology. This short chronology is even shorter according to Breasted and the German school. Breasted and Meyer dated the same period as from 1788 to 1580. These 208 years, by the way, Vance considered too short for the observable cultural changes.

These researches of Vance's ran through my head that sultry July morning as we waited for Currie to usher in the visitor. The announcement of Scarlett's call had brought back memories of many wearying weeks of typing and tabulating Vance's notes on the subject. Perhaps I had a feeling, what we loosely call a premonition, that Scarlett's surprising visit was in some way connected with Vance's aesthetico-Egyptological researches. Perhaps I was even then arranging in my mind, unconsciously, the facts of that winter two years before, so that I might cope more understandingly with the object of Scarlett's present call.

But surely I could have had not the slightest idea or suspicion of what was actually about to befall us. It was far too appalling and too bizarre for the casual imagination. It lifted us out of the ordinary routine of daily experience and dashed us into a frowsty, miasmic atmosphere of things at once incredible and horrifying, things fraught with the seemingly supernatural black magic of a Witches' Sabbat. Only, in this instance it was the mystic and fantastic lore of ancient Egypt, with its confused mythology and its grotesque pantheon of beast-headed gods, that furnished the background.

Scarlett almost dashed through the portiиres of the library when Currie had pulled back the sliding door for him to enter. Either the Courvoisier had added to his excitement or else Currie had woefully underrated the man's nervous state.

"Kyle has been murdered!" the newcomer blurted, leaning against the library table and staring at Vance with gaping eyes.

"Really, now! That's very distressin'." Vance held out his cigarette-case. "Do have one of my Rйgies. . . . And you'll find that chair beside you most comfortable. A Charles chair: I picked it up in London. . . . Beastly mess, people getting murdered, what?

But it really can't be helped, don't y' know. The human race is so deuced blood-thirsty."

His indifference had a salutary effect on Scarlett, who sank limply into the chair and began lighting his cigarette with trembling hands.

Vance waited a moment and then asked: "By the by, how do you know Kyle has been murdered?"

Scarlett gave a start.

"I saw him lying there, his head bashed in. A frightful sight.

No doubt about it." (I could not help feeling that the man had suddenly assumed a defensive attitude.) Vance lay back in his chair languidly and pyramided his long tapering hands.

"Bashed in with what? And lying where? And how did you happen to discover the corpse? . . . Buck up, Scarlett, and make an effort at coherence."

Scarlett frowned and took several deep inhalations on his cigarette.

He was a man of about forty, tall and slender, with a head more Alpine than Nordic, a Dinaric type. His forehead bulged slightly, and his chin was round and recessive. He had the look of a scholar, though not that of a sedentary bookworm, for there was strength and ruggedness in his body; and his face was deeply tanned like that of a man who has lived for years in the sun and wind. There was a trace of fanaticism in his intense eyes, an expression that was somehow enhanced by an almost completely bald head. Yet he gave the impression of honesty and straightforwardness, in this, at least, his British institutionalism was strongly manifest.

"Right you are, Vance," he said after a brief pause, with a more or less successful effort at calmness. "As you know, I came to New York with Doctor Bliss in May as a member of his staff; and I've been doing all the technical work for him. I have my diggings round the corner from the museum, in Irving Place. This morning I had a batch of photographs to classify, and reached the museum shortly before half past ten. . . ."

"Your usual hour?" Vance put the question negligently.

"Oh, no. I was a bit latish this morning. We'd been working last night on a financial report of the last expedition."