Egyptian Cross Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page B

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