Egyptian Cross Mystery Read Online Free PDF

my garage door. When he saw me—”
    “Just a minute, Mr. Croker. How was he dressed?”
    The garageman shrugged. “Dark, an’ I couldn’t make out. Didn’t have no reason to take particular notice, anyways.”
    “Did you get a good look at the man’s face?”
    “Yes, sir. He was standin’ under my night light. Bundled up, he was—pretty cold at that—but it seemed to me like he didn’t want to be recognized. Anyways, I seen he was clean-shaved, dark, and kind of furrin-lookin’, though he talked good old American.”
    “How old would you say he was?”
    “Oh, in his middle thirties, maybe more, maybe less. Hard to say.”
    “What did he want?”
    “He wanted to hire a car to take him to Arroyo.”
    Ellery could hear the asthmatic breathing of a stout man in the row behind him, it was so still in the courtroom. They were tense, sitting on the edges of their seats.
    “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