The vengeance of the ivory skull

Front matter

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Chapter I Room 402

The longer I knock about this old world of ours, and I have wandered far and wide over the face of the globe, the more convinced I become that nothing is wholly left to chance; for only a preordained fate could have willed that I should see the beginning and the end of a mystery which involved three continents and taxed the ingenuity of one of the best minds in the United States. Nor do I regret my share in the game that was played (your archaeologist is well infected with the virus of adventure), since I was not only afforded the opportunity of renewing acquaintance with a city more fascinating than a beautiful woman to a man of my temperament, but also because I returned to America richer by a memory and the gift of a rare curiosity, the smallest and most perfect human skull ever carved from a piece of ivory.

It lies before me on the desk as I write and the malignant gleam of its infinitesimal emerald eyes, as though it would remind me of that end to which all of us must come, brings back to me that morning in June which saw the beginning of the strange and direful events into which I became irresistibly drawn.

I had just returned from a trip to Egypt, and being homeless like all nomads, I put up for the interim that I expected to be in New York at the Hotel Magnificent. I had been domiciled two days when one morning about ten o’clock as I was leaving my room I encountered a chamber-maid running down the carpeted hall toward me and shrieking at the top of her voice. Amazed at this seeming lack of discipline in an otherwise wellordered establishment, I grasped the girl by the shoul¬ der and demanded to know what was wrong.

“Oh, sir, he’s dead,” she sobbed, terror-stricken. “Somebody’s done for him, they have.”

“Dead?” I exclaimed, horrified; and when she con¬ tinued merely to weep and nod her head, I shook her impatiently. “Speak up, my girl. Who’s dead?”

“That—that dago man in 402, sir,” she gulped.

I waited to hear no more. Calling to the frightened girl, “Go and get the manager,” I hurried down the hall to 402. The man she referred to was not Italian but Brazilian, Benjamin Garcia by name, and only yes¬ terday we had lunched together at his invitation when he discovered that I had once visited his native land. And now he was dead, murdered I [2]

ROOM 402

Nonsense; it could not possibly be; such things did not happen to gentlemen. He was probably asleep and seeing him still in bed at this hour the girl had taken fright. She had left the door ajar and I stepped across the threshold boldly, determined to test the accuracy of my deduction. One step I took in the room, then I flung up my hand to shut out the awful sight that met my eyes.

In an easy chair beside the window lay Benjamin Garcia, fully dressed, in his heart a dagger and on his distorted face such a look as is seen only on the coun¬ tenances of the damned, such a look as one might imagine the lost souls in Dante’s Inferno to have worn!

The arrival of the manager and his horrified exclama¬ tion startled me into action once more.

“The police,” I said. “Call the police.”

The manager, who like all of his kind cared more for the reputation of the hotel than for the avenging of a crime, looked at me suspiciously. To prevent the ques¬ tion which I saw formulating itself on his thin lips I told him how I came to be present in that room of death. He listened courteously enough; and when the little maid, standing tremblingly in the doorway, cor¬ roborated my statement, he addressed a young clerk who had arrived with him.

“Tell the house detective to come up here and tele¬ phone the police. You needn’t come back.”

The clerk reluctantly departed with many a back¬ ward glance, hoping no doubt that the manager would recall him, but that sleek individual had already dis¬ missed the youth from his mind. He turned to me.

“Do you know this man?” he inquired. “I don’t mean merely his name. I got that from the register. Are you acquainted with him?”

“No. I lunched with him yesterday but only because he was lonely and I had friends whom he chanced to know. I had never seen him before to my knowledge,” I replied.

At this moment the house detective presented him¬ self before us, but so quietly did he come that I did not know he was there until the manager began to speak.

“You’re a fine specimen of a detective,” said the lat¬ ter angrily, waving his hand toward Garcia. “What do I employ you for, anyhow? How dare you let a thing like this happen in my hotel? What do you-?”

“Cut it, Mr. Bell,” interposed the detective coolly. “I can’t be in two places at once. Didn’t you tell me to get the dope on that Dalton couple? Well, that’s what I was doing when this happened.”

Before the manager could interrupt, his face purple with suppressed rage, I hastened to pour oil on the troubled waters.

ROOM 402

“The damage is done. Bickering won’t undo it. Supposing we get busy and try to find out how it hap¬ pened and who is responsible,” I remarked, calmly.

“That’s the ticket,” responded the detective amiably, sauntering toward Garcia with his hands in his pockets.

“I wouldn’t disarrange things too much, though,” I continued. “The police will be here any minute, now.”

A look of disappointment spread over the sallow face of the man as he bent to examine the body; then he smiled sourly, and remarked, “It’s up to me to beat them at it, then. Police detectives ain’t much on solv¬ ing mysteries.”

“And I suppose you are a wizard at that sort of work?” inquired a new voice.

I turned and saw entering the doorway a physician, an inspector, and two burly policemen. It was the in¬ spector who had made the remark in a rather caustic tone. Evidently he was no more pleased with the oc¬ currence than the manager had been. I had always imagined, probably because I had never given the sub¬ ject much thought, that the police were more or less delighted when a crime was committed as it provided them with occupation; but I presume that a steady diet of crime becomes as unpalatable as a steady diet of any¬ thing else. And the police had their reputations to maintain as well. No wonder, then, that the inspector looked annoyed and chewed savagely upon the stump of a cigar. Beyond the dead body there was nothing, not a clue of any kind, apparently, to hint as to the identity of the murderer; for even the weapon was part of the equipment of the hotel, the steel paper-cutter supplied with every desk. It was a powerful blow that could wield so blunt a dagger so effectively, I decided.

While the doctor determined the exact manner of death, the inspector addressed the manager who stood in the center of the room with a worried look on his sharp face.

“Can you find out for me whether this man had any callers last night?” asked the former, shifting the cigar to the other side of his capacious mouth.

“Yes, Inspector. I’ll secure the information for you immediately.” The manager departed on his errand and the inspector turned his attention to the maid.

“You discovered the crime, did you not?” he in¬ quired in a kindly tone when he saw how frightened she was. He was gray-haired and portly, and doubtless had daughters of his own.

“Yes, sir,” was the low reply as the girl twisted her apron nervously.

“Tell me about it. You need not be afraid. No one is going to accuse you.” The inspector laid a fatherly hand on her thin shoulder as he spoke.

“I’m supposed to clean the rooms on this floor, sir,”

she answered, giving him a gratefully tearful look.

ROOM 402

“I always start here at this end. I knock and if there’s no answer I open the door with my pass key. I—the

door was open, so I walked in and then I saw him-”

She shuddered and paused.

“The door was open, you say? Do you mean merely unlocked or was it standing open?”

“Just closed to, sir. I knocked and he—he didn’t answer. I thought he’d gone out and forgot to lock it. He’s a dago and don’t always understand, sir.”

The inspector looked across at me. “So, he’s Italian, eh?”

“Not at all. He is a Brazilian.”

“A friend of yours?”

“No, but I have exchanged a few words with him. He told me among other things that he expected to sail for home at the end of the month. I believe he had his passage engaged,” I replied.

The inspector found no time to comment upon this information. The doctor was calling us excitedly. We crossed the room to the window and joined the two men who were gazing down with such intentness upon the victim of this tragedy, and the doctor broke at once into eager speech.

“He’s been dead since midnight, Inspector, stabbed through the heart by this knife. Do you notice that the murderer has avoided plunging the knife through the thickness of coat and vest and has introduced it from above in such a way that the resistance from the man’s clothing was the least possible? With a weapon as blunt as this one such a precautionary measure was necessary to insure success. We can infer from that that the murderer probably stood behind the chair and struck when his victim’s attention was engrossed else¬ where.”

“The evils of dolling up in the evening,” commented the house detective drily. “If he hadn’t donned his tail-coat the murderer could not have reached his heart so easily.”

We did not stop to discuss this side of the affair. The doctor had more news for us. “Look here, Inspector,” he said. With a dramatic gesture he flung open the dead man’s shirt and pointed to the bared chest.

Seared into the flesh by the action of some powerful acid was the imprint of a tiny, human skull!

Fascinated I gazed upon the brand, more engrossed by the perfection and flawlessness of the impression than by its significance until the inspector’s voice roused me from my abstraction.

“Branded after he was dead?” the police official was echoing in perplexity. “If he was Italian, I’d say it was one of those darned blackhand societies that was responsible.” He swung around in relief as the man¬ ager reentered. “Well?” he demanded.

“The night clerk has some information for you, In-

ROOM 402

spector. Here he is now. He can give it to you better than I,” returned the manager, ushering forward a sharp-eyed, lantern-jawed young man who looked as though he were thoroughly wide awake and up to snuff. He spoke concisely and callously, not in the least af¬ fected by the sight of that poor dead body which a few hours ago had been a living sentient creature.

“About seven last night a man came up to the desk and asked for this fellow here,” said the clerk with a nod of the head toward the chair and its burden. “I phoned up to 402 and was told to send the guy up.”

“Just a moment,” broke in the inspector. “Did he give you his name?”

“Sure. He said it was Gilbert Parrish, but he looked kind of like a foreigner, so thought I to myself, That’s not your name at all. You can’t deceive the likes of me.’ However, if 402 was satisfied, it was none of my business what the man called himself. A half-hour later those two, Parrish and this fellow here, crossed the lobby to the dining-room as friendly as two turtle doves. About nine o’clock I saw them leave the hotel still as thick as thieves. 402 of course left his key with me and at eleven back they came and asked for it. When I was going off duty around twelve-twenty or so, I saw the other fellow come down the stairs and leave the hotel.”

“Didn’t it occur to you as very fishy that he should

JHE VENGEANCE OF THE IVORY SKULL

walk down four flights with the elevator handy?” asked the inspector irritably.

The clerk smiled superciliously and stroked what he fondly assumed to be a mustache. “Those foreigners are queer ducks. No elevators for them. Most of them use the stairs unless they happen to be on the tenth or fifteenth floors.”

“You can identify this man if you saw him again?” continued the inspector anxiously.

“Surest thing you know. I could pick him out of a million,” was the boastful reply.

“Describe him to me.” The inspector drew out a notebook and his fountain pen, and the crease between his eyes faded as he began to believe that the end of his task was in sight.

“He was tall, dark, well-set up, well-dressed,” dic¬ tated the clerk glibly.

The inspector stopped him with an angry snapping together of the covers of the book. “And how many hundreds of men are tall, dark, well-dressed?” he re¬ marked cuttingly, for he thought the clerk was making game of him.

“Hold your horses, old fellow,” retorted the clerk serenely. “I can pick him out because he limps and across his right cheek he has a livid semicircular scar! ”

Chapter II

Three days later I was requested to attend the in¬ quest which was a necessary preliminary to the finding of the murderer of Benjamin Garcia. There had been nothing of interest in the papers so far, and as the hotel management had refused to discuss the affair I had been left totally in the dark concerning the activity of the police. As I made my way to the court-room where the inquest was to be held, I speculated as to the pos¬ sibility of a solution of the crime. Had the police dis¬ covered Parrish? And if so, what account had he to give of his movements that night?

The room was crowded with the usual spectators who attend such trials and when I had told all that I knew of the dead man and the manner in which I had happened to become involved in the tragedy, I took a seat fairly close to the witness chair to await with keen interest Parrish’s turn to take the stand, for I had heard it whispered that the police had succeeded in unearthing him.

The doctor testified next, not only of those circum¬ stances with which I was already acquainted but also

[ii]

of a new discovery which he had made. Upon Garcia’s arm was a tattoo which had been partially effaced, but so skillfully had the destruction of the mark been car¬ ried out that nothing remained but a series of lines from which it was impossible to determine the original de¬ sign pricked into the flesh.

The chamber-maid and the night clerk followed the doctor, and they related what they knew at much greater length than was at all necessary, it seemed to me. Particularly did the coroner emphasize the point that Parrish and Garcia had returned to the hotel to¬ gether at eleven. What this portended I was soon to know, for as the clerk left the stand, the coroner or¬ dered Gilbert Parrish to come forward and testify.

At his words there was a stir in the court-room and down the aisle came a man such as the clerk had de¬ scribed, tall, dark, fashionably dressed, a man whose extraordinary grace of figure was belied by a halting limp and whose uncommon facial beauty was marred by an ugly scar. His unusual appearance created quite a sensation, but unfortunately his testimony which was anything but convincing, and his past, which the police were careful to bring forward in the worst possible light, told against him and turned the tide of public opinion. I found myself unconsciously pitying the fel¬ low, for the story that he told was after all straight¬ forward enough.

“Several years ago,” he began in a pleasant voice with the slightest of foreign accents, “I met Benjamin Garcia abroad. Hearing that he was in the city I called upon him.”

“One moment,” interrupted the coroner. “Did you meet him in one of those gambling resorts which you and your kind frequent for the purpose of fleecing the unsophisticated?”

The dark face of the man in the witness-box re¬ mained unclouded by the other’s offensive tone. It was as if the words passed him by, as though he were on too high a plane to stoop to notice an attempted insult.

“It is true,” he said levelly, “that I live in a great measure by my luck at cards; but it was not in such a place that I met Garcia. A mutual friend introduced us and it was the same friend who apprised me of Garcia’s presence in New York and asked me to make him feel at home. As the hotel clerk has told you I called on Garcia at the Magnificent. Had I con¬ templated doing him harm would I have been such a fool as to give him my name?” he inquired of the court.

“Not your name, but a name,” asserted the coroner, stressing the article. “A professional card player and ne’er-do-well finds it convenient to have many aliases up his sleeve.”

“You are mistaken, sir,” returned the witness with dignity. “I have never found it necessary to conceal my identity.”

The coroner’s skeptical smile showed how little credence he placed in this statement. He merely or¬ dered Parrish to continue.

“We dined together at Garcia’s invitation and later we went for a walk along Broadway. It was a glorious night and Garcia was anxious to view the gay lights and hear what I could tell him of the life of this big city during the night hours.”

“Considering that you yourself had just arrived from Naples that very morning, Mr. Parrish, you could not have known any more than he did about New York’s night-life,” interposed the coroner in a smooth voice. “As to learning of his whereabouts and being asked to make him feel at home, well, I can only remark that you are a pretty fast worker.”

“I have lived in New York before, your honor; I am at home in many cities, and it does not take a whole day to get news of one’s friends. On the other hand, this was Garcia’s first visit to this country.” I won¬ dered at the man’s self-control as he resumed his story in the same, pleasant even tones. “I indulged Garcia’s whim and we strolled along until we reached Fortysecond Street. Chancing at the moment to become aware of the hour, I recalled an appointment with a man of prominence then in town whom I was particularly desirous of seeing; so bidding Garcia good-night I left him at the corner. I glanced back after crossing the street and he was still standing there looking up at the electric signs. And that, your honor, is the last I ever saw of him.”

When Parrish had ceased speaking, the coroner stroked his chin thoughtfully, conferred with a stocky, heavy-faced man who stood near him, and then began the cross-examination. He took up the weapon and handed it to Parrish. The latter accepted it indiffer¬ ently.

“Ever see that before?” inquired the coroner sharply, his eyes on the other’s face.

“Never.” Parrish returned the weapon with a slight bow.

The coroner looked nonplussed, then he selected a! card from his desk and extended it to the witness.

“And I suppose you will deny having seen anything like this before?” was the ironic query.

Parrish examined the card with an expression of profound surprise, almost too profound to appear really genuine. “Very interesting,” he commented. “May I inquire what this pen and ink sketch, by the way it is very well done, is supposed to represent?”

The coroner retrieved the card and held it up for the benefit of the jury. “The skull drawn on that card is an exact reproduction, Mr. Parrish, of the brand found on Garcia’s chest.”

“Indeed?” The man in the witness-box spoke per¬ functorily as though he could not understand why he should be troubled with such trifling details. He was very much bored with his examination and with every answer the coroner was becoming more and more baffled. He hastened to arrive at the crux of the matter.

“Did you hear the night clerk testify that you had returned to the hotel with Garcia?”

“Yes,” said Parrish indifferently.

“How do you reconcile to that your statement that you parted from the victim of this tragedy at Fortysecond Street?”

“The clerk was laboring under a delusion. I did not return with Garcia. At the time of the murder I was in conference with the man I have mentioned be¬ fore as I carefully explained to your detective this morning when he asked me to attend this inquest,” was the calm reply.

“Have you any objections to telling the court who this man is to whom you have so often alluded in rather vague terms?” The coroner was growing caustic.

“None at all. He is well known in New York. His name is William K. Vardusi,” replied Parrish oblig¬ ingly.

[1-6]

At mention of this name the court sat up and blinked its eyes William K. Vardusi was a wealthy and re¬ spected member of society, a lawyer who stood at the top of his profession and was revered by his colleagues for his ability and his integrity. It had been said that Vardusi never took a case where there was the least doubt of his prospective client’s right to the verdict. Surely if Parrish was acquainted with Vardusi, the former was hardly likely to be a cold-blooded murderer. Public opinion, as unstable as the mob, swayed by every breath of oratory, veered toward him; the women were whispering that he was far too handsome to be a vil¬ lain; the men were declaring that he looked like a good fellow. Only the coroner seemed unimpressed. He asked Parrish to step down for a moment and give place to Mr. Vardusi’s butler.

With the wholly impersonal and detached air con¬ sonant with the attitude of the perfect butler, Vardusi’s servant waited to be questioned. He was slender and slightly bald and in his hand he carried a bowler on which he kept his eyes fixed in deference to the coroner.

“Was your master at home the night of the twentyfourth?” inquired the law’s minion.

“No, sir. He has been out of town since the first of the month. Got back this morning early, sir,” said the man to his hat.

“Did Mr. Parrish, the gentleman who has just testi¬ fied, call at the house that night?”

“No, sir. No one came to the house either that or any night,” responded the butler.

“That is all. Mr. Parrish, please.”

With the same aloof manner, the butler vanished from our midst as quietly as he had come and Parrish resumed the stand. His face had acquired a leaden hue and he searched that assemblage with something very near to panic in his hazel eyes; the look of the hunted stag when the baying of the pack resounds upon his heels and he senses inevitably that the end has come. So Parrish realized that he was trapped; yet he made one more desperate bid for liberty. He clung to his original story, insisting that his version of his actions upon that night was the true one and that Vardusi himself had answered the bell. Though the coroner put him through a grilling which would have shaken the nerve of a far less sensitive man all that Parrish would say was to reiterate what he had told us, a story which had been contradicted by reliable wit¬ nesses but from which he would not deviate by so much as a hair’s breadth. When, worn and haggard, he was finally allowed to leave the stand and the coroner turned to address the jury, it was evident that the verdict was sure to go against him. Already the crowd, swinging to the other extreme of the pendulum, were murmuring [18]

THE MAN WITH THE SCAR that the young man was a dangerous and hardened criminal.

And then just as the foreman was about to announce the decision, there came up the aisle a very wrathy and indignant member of society, a small, very dark man with bright black eyes and a gray Vandyke who raised his hand in a gesture of command and spoke to the coroner as one might reprimand a bungling servant.

“What, may I ask, is the meaning of this outrage?” he demanded in a voice of cold fury. “How dare you question the statements of a person as evidently a gen¬ tleman as Mr. Parrish? Do I look like the type of man who consorts with criminals? Let me tell you then that Gilbert Parrish is my very good and honored friend.”

At this point in his tirade he paused to grasp Par¬ rish’s hand and at a low-toned injunction to lead him back to the witness stand where they stood together but oddly contrasted; the little fiery lawyer quivering with indignation, the tall, younger man so pale that the scar leaped like a live thing against the dead whiteness of his skin.

“You know who I am,” declared Vardusi, vehement¬ ly. “You are personally acquainted with me, Mr. Dis¬ trict Attorney. You all know that my word is my bond. I have come to testify in behalf of my friend and it is a lucky thing that I happened to return to town this morning in time to prevent so monstrous an injustice as the one which was about to be perpetrated.”

He glared at the offending officials who seemed lit¬ erally to shrivel where they sat in the flame of his con¬ tempt, then he continued: “At twelve o’clock on the night of the murder, Mr. Parrish and I were in con¬ ference as he has informed you. I know that my butler has stated the exact contrary, but there are some things which, trusted though he is, I still do not tell my servant. This is one of them. Our conference was a secret one. To attend it I came back to town and let myself into my house after the butler had retired. I admitted Mr. Parrish and let him out. I also returned to my country house that same night. What we said or why we met in this manner is our concern, but it proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that Mr. Parrish was not at the Hotel Magnificent when this murder was committed.”

With a bow to the District Attorney, Vardusi stepped down from the stand leaving Parrish alone to await the verdict. The coroner was greatly puzzled and consider¬ ably annoyed. He scratched his head; he compared notes with the other police officials; but as Mr. Vardusi was a prominent individual whom it was not politic to offend and who was hardly likely to stoop to shield a criminal, the coroner directed the jury to find that Garcia had come to his death at the hands of a person or persons unknown. Parrish was accordingly released [ 20 ]

and the murder relegated to the limbo of unsolved mysteries, for though I watched the papers assiduously for a number of days thereafter nothing further was learned concerning the tragedy.

To me the strangest part of the whole affair was the fact that the hotel clerk always maintained that he was in the right, and that it was too far-fetched to assume that two men as startling in appearance as Parrish could possibly have come to the hotel that night. And then there were so many threads left dangling in the air. What had become of the skull that had caused the brand? What was the tattoo that Garcia had tried to efface and what induced him to take such a step? Why, if he was stabbed from behind as the doctor sug¬ gested, did fear, a soul-destroying terror, take posses¬ sion of his being?

Chapter III

A month later I ran across the trail of the murder again. I had remained in New York attending to a commission for a friend, but now I was at loose ends once more and was meditating where to turn next when a letter decided me.

I am an archaeologist of no mean reputation. I do not make the statement boastfully nor with any desire to be egotistical. Any person who cares to do so may verify my record, for the name of Professor Anthony Potter is a well-known one in antiquarian circles the world over.

It was therefore my custom wherever I might be sojourning at the time to dispose after breakfast of my voluminous correspondence Miich consisted mainly of requests from would-be collectors and dealers, those artful beings created by the Lord for the sole purpose of wheedling money from my perpetually flat purse, requests that I give them the benefit of my specialized knowledge in advising them of the true value of the

articles which they were desirous of either buying or [ 22 ]

selling. As I received letters from nearly every coun¬ try on the map and some that were not, I slit the gray envelope bristling with Brazilian stamps with no greater interest than I had its predecessor from Bombay. Like all of its type it would find its way into my waste¬ basket after I had read the first three lines, for how could I possibly measure the genuineness of an object which I had never seen and which I had no intentions of traversing illimitable miles to view?