Rim of the Pit : A RH Mystery, page 22
Ergon spoke. “We must be alone.”
Major Lathrop glanced unhappily at Kincaid. “Damn it all,” he protested to Ergon. “This man’s our guest.”
“We must be alone.”
Kincaid offered to leave, but the brothers refused to hear of such a thing. Finally they compromised by suggesting that he wait in their bedroom and examine their collection of firearms until they were free.
If Ergon believed that banishing Kincaid to the bedroom would insure secrecy, he was mistaken. The apartment was impressive to the eye, but of such flimsy construction that every word came through one wall.
“I have come,” Ergon announced, “as guardian of the child Daphne. I have communed with the Forces. It is their decision that she shall be dedicated to the Temple.”
The brothers were aghast. Ergon’s plan was worse than anything they had imagined. Indignantly they refused. They also were Daphne’s guardians. Their consent would be necessary to such a thing and they would not give it.
The great bell of Ergon’s voice took on a tone of sadness. Daphne’s dedication was the decision of the Forces. The two men might not share their sister’s enlightenment, but surely they would regard the directions in her will as a sacred trust.
Major Lathrop assured him that they regarded Daphne herself as a damn sight more sacred trust.
The last shreds of the colonel’s poise deserted him. He broke into an incoherent tirade from which Kincaid gathered only that the colonel believed Ergon was scheming to gain control of the fortune left Daphne by her father.
Ergon’s reply was scornful. A servant of the Forces had no need of money, and no more temptation to steal it than a man had to steal the playthings of a child.
Apparently the contempt in Ergon’s tone stung the colonel, for Kincaid heard him step forward angrily. The step was followed by a long pause as if a battle of wills was being fought out in the next room. Then the colonel’s feet shuffled on the carpet and Ergon spoke softly.
“I am glad you were able to conquer yourself. All truth is one. In your own sacred book it is written that he who lives by the sword must die by the sword. You were about to threaten me, but I tell you that he who voices a threat against a servant of the Forces shall himself suffer what he threatens.”
The colonel took his courage in both hands. “I don’t care what happens to me, but I do care what happens to Daphne. I’m on the retired list and not much good for anything, but I can still knock the pips out of a playing card at twenty yards. If any harm comes to Daphne through you, I am going to take one of those guns on the table and shoot you dead.”
“Oh blind, and worse than blind!” The magnificent voice struck a note of infinite pity. “You have spoken your doom. Unless I can intercede for you, you will die by your own hand.”
With that warning he left them. Kincaid could not hear his footsteps, but the click of the latch as the outer door opened and closed told that he had gone, and the rattle of glassware announced that the brothers had turned to the decanter for comfort.
When they joined Kincaid in the bedroom they were still frightened and still defiant. They glanced apprehensively at the wall opposite the door. The gambler followed their gaze but saw nothing. Then a bronze gong spoke from behind the wall and Ergon’s great voice echoed it. Each syllable was a separate bell note as if he were chanting in some forgotten tongue.
“Lerd ferbeh mahgaad!”
Major Lathrop mopped his bald head. “Fellow lives next door. Whole row of apartments is one long building really. Only partitions between. Hear every word he says.” The major chose one of the pistols and made a brave effort to explain its merits.
The strange words had an even more disquieting effect on his brother. The colonel moved restlessly from one gun to another, picking each up and laying it down almost by an effort of will.
The chant went on and on, each syllable beautifully distinct, and always returning to the same refrain,
“Lerd ferbeh mahgaad!”
The major turned to stare at the wall. “Intercession be damned! Sounds more like a curse.”
Colonel Lathrop sat down beside Kincaid. The fingers of his right hand closed around the butt of a revolver and his left moved toward the box of cartridges lying beside it. The gambler picked up the box and began tossing it idly in the air. For a moment the colonel seemed fascinated by the movement and the little click the cartridges made as the box fell in Kincaid’s hand. Slowly Ergon’s chant died away. Colonel Lathrop appeared to come out of his daze.
“You should see our target pistols. I left them in the living room.” He rose and passed through the door. The man seemed shrunken inside his clothes. All his pompousness had gone.
Afterward Kincaid was to remember the situation in detail. He followed the departing colonel with his eyes and sat staring across the tiny hall at the lock on the outside door.
Colonel Lathrop’s footsteps crossed to the table near the fireplace. There was a moment’s pause—followed by the bark of a pistol.
Kincaid’s reflexes carried him into the living room. He was through the doorway before Colonel Lathrop’s body thudded on the carpet. Major Lathrop pushed past the gambler and knelt to feel his brother’s wrist, but it was a meaningless gesture. The wound above the colonel’s eye already told the story.
The major rose and shook himself like a dog coming out of water. “By God, I don’t believe it. Boyd wouldn’t have shot himself, not for all the damn chants in the world! Besides, where’s the gun?”
“Under the edge of the sofa.” Kincaid pointed. “Don’t touch it. The police will want to examine it for fingerprints.”
“Mine are on it anyway. It’s one we shot with this afternoon. Do you mind calling the police? I’d like to stay here with Boyd.”
The telephone was in the hall. Kincaid dialled Headquarters and asked for Lieutenant Nichols, whom he knew to be shrewd and energetic and who had already learned the futility of trying conclusions with Rogan Kincaid.
While the gambler waited, someone rapped on the door. When it was opened Ergon stalked past without speaking and entered the living room.
The major saw him and began to curse with heartfelt intensity. Ergon interrupted him. “Profanity in the presence of your dead brother is impious.”
“Damn you, you killed him!”
“No. He killed himself. I do not mean with the pistol. That was merely the means. His threat against me was the cause. I tried to intercede for him but it was hopeless.”
“And now you”ve come to gloat.”
“I have come to take the child Daphne to the Temple.”
“I’ll see you in hell first!”
“Resistance to the will of the Forces is vain. They will brush you aside as they did your brother. Then, as Daphne’s sole guardian, I shall be free under human law to carry out the will of my Masters.”
The phone squawked in the gambler’s ear. “Lieutenant Nichols speaking.”
“Hello, Al. This is Rogan Kincaid. I have a homicide for . . . No, I had no motive. Besides, I have an alibi. Unfortunately the man responsible has one too, so if there’s anybody down there with brains, bring him along.”
“Ergon must have known I could hear him,” Kincaid argued to Lieutenant Nichols an hour later. “If a man’s really planning to kill someone, he doesn’t usually talk about it in front of witnesses.”
“That part’s easy enough,” Nichols replied. “If this Ergon had a way to murder the colonel and get away with it, he wanted witnesses. That would give him the sweetest racket on earth. Daphne and her money would be chicken feed. He could go around to rich guys and say, “Shell out or I’ll put the Indian sign on you like I did on Colonel Lathrop." With a threat like that he’d rake in money faster than the boys from the IRS could take it away from him.”
The lieutenant ran his fingers through his thick black hair. “On the other hand, if this Ergon did bump the colonel, how did he do it? You were watching the hall, the windows were latched and the screens were stuck to the paint.”
“What about the fireplace?”
“It’s just a fireplace. We tested every brick. Unless we can figure a way Ergon shot the old boy, it’s suicide.”
“Why should he kill himself? Even colonels don’t do things without a reason.”
“I’m not a mind-reader. That’s your speciality.” Nichols rose. “We’re taking Ergon and the major down to headquarters for further questioning. I don’t suppose you’d like to come along?”
“No. Daphne Lathrop will be home soon, and someone a little less heavy-footed than your harness bulls should be here to break the news.”
The lieutenant cocked his head on one side. “I bet she’s pretty.”
“Very, but only sixteen. Besides, seduction in Hollywood is carrying coals to Newcastle.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve turned Galahad.”
“No, but I keep strict accounts. I misjudged her once. I owe her something for that.”
At 6:30 Nichols lifted the phone in his office, recognized Kincaid’s voice and asked, “How’s Daphne?”
“Safe. I sent her to stay with friends, but she still needs her Uncle Clifford. If we don’t provide Ergon with a berth in the gas-chamber, Cliff will put a bullet through that bald head of his one fine day and the girl will wind up in Ergon’s Temple.”
“You’re tearing my heart out, but it’s no dice, friend. The laboratory evidence is in. Ergon didn’t shoot Colonel Lathrop.”
“You don’t doubt he’s responsible for the colonel’s death, do you?”
“How could he be?”
“I’ll tell you how—if you have your men take him to his apartment. You bring Major Lathrop with you and pick me up in front of the Public Library at seven sharp.”
“The Public Library!”
“That’s right—and bring a police stenographer so he can take down a confession.”
The phone clicked in Nichols’ ear.
The watch on the lieutenant’s wrist stood at one minute to seven as the big police car rolled to a stop in front of the Public Library. Kincaid greeted Nichols and Major Lathrop and introduced the man standing beside him on the curb.
“This is Svetozar Vok. He’s doing a magic act at the Paramount and he has another show to play tonight so tell your driver not to dawdle.”
As the car roared away, the Lieutenant turned to Vok.
“I saw your show and it’s good, but if Kincaid brought you to look for hanky-panky in this case, he’s wasting your time. The colonel used the gun this afternoon and his prints would be on it anyway, so we can’t actually prove he shot himself. What we can prove is that he was alone in the room and nobody else could’ve got in or out. The gun was beside him, and the bullet was fired from that gun. What’s more, three people saw Ergon come out of his own apartment within half a minute after they heard the shot. That gives him a holeproof alibi, so there isn’t any trick for you to find.”
“Mr. Kincaid did not seek my aid as conjuror,” said Vok, “but as hypnotist.”
“Hypnotist? What the hell’s that got to do with it?”
“Perhaps everything. Mr. Kincaid and I have made discovery about this Ergon. When he left the Lathrop apartment this afternoon he promised to ‘intercede with the Forces’ in an effort to preserve the colonel’s life. However, the chant which he actually made was not an intercession but rather an incantation—something in the nature of a curse.”
Major Lathrop nodded. “Said so myself.”
“Your instinct was right, but we have proof. Kincaid has a keen ear for sound and he remembered the refrain. I recognized it as “Lödd fobe magad!”, which is Hungarian for “You will blow out your brains!” I myself am Czech, but I speak Hungarian, and that also may be important.”
“None of it’s important to me,” said Nichols. “This Ergon sure as hell didn’t kill the colonel with any Hungarian curse.”
“Of course not. The words merely show that Ergon lied and that his intentions were evil. His talk of the ‘the Forces’ and ‘intercession’ was a blind. I suggest that what he actually did was to hypnotize the colonel and force him to shoot himself.”
“Baloney! You can’t hypnotize a guy into shooting anybody else, let alone himself. Everybody knows that.”
“Everybody except the men who know something about hypnosis.” Vok produced a slim volume and handed it to the lieutenant. “I borrowed that for you at the library. Read it when you have time. It is by a professor at the college of Cornell named Esterbrook. In it he makes clear that it is impossible to know whether a hypnotized subject will commit a crime unless you actually have him commit a real one. Naturally no students of hypnosis will take that responsibility.”
“You could load a gun with blanks and . . . "
“Then it would cease to be a real crime, and the subject would be aware of that fact. Our friend Kincaid is an expert at reading men’s minds from tiny clues which most men do not notice, but even Kincaid is a novice at that compared with the most stupid hypnotic subject. What the hypnotist knows, the subject may know, so experiments with mock crimes are meaningless. We shall not be certain whether a man can be forced to commit a real crime by hypnotism until someone actually uses a real crime for experiment.”
“And you think Ergon’s done it?”
“What other explanation is there?”
“I don’t know, but hell, even if you’re right, we’d never get an indictment.”
“We may, if we approach the matter properly. I myself am not without hypnotic experience. I propose to match my power against Ergon’s and force him to confess his guilt.”
“What good’ll that do? If you mesmerize a guy into confessing, it won’t stand up in court any more than if you beat it out of him with a rubber hose.”
The lieutenant was still arguing when the car pulled up before the row of apartment buildings, but Kincaid silenced him. “Come on, Al. You can’t be any worse off than you are now, and at least Vok will find out the facts.”
When the elevator left them on the second floor, Vok turned to Nichols. “This Ergon is evidently an experienced hypnotist—stronger than I, it may be. If I am to succeed I must gain at the outset the advantage. You four shall go first and leave the door open. I will come suddenly and address him in Hungarian. He will not expect that. It may throw him off balance. Then perhaps I can force him to confess in English.”
“Suppose you miss?”
“Then, my friend, you will have to use every means in your power to prevent me killing myself. For rest assured, Ergon will try to force me to do so.”
They traversed the corridor on tiptoe, not quite knowing why.
Nichols rapped on the door. When one of the two policeman set to watch Ergon responded, Vok stepped back and the others filed into the apartment.
The living room was identical to the one in the Lathrop apartment but reversed as in a mirror. Even the light brackets on either side of the mantel were duplicated. However, this room contained neither furniture nor pictures, only a carpet of coarse matting which reached from wall to wall. Ergon sat cross-legged before the fireplace, his linen robe breaking in stiff folds and his hands hidden in his wide sleeves. The eyes in the motionless face were wide open but they stared straight ahead without even a glance at the newcomers.
“Csirkefogo!” Suddenly Vok was in the room. The Hungarian caught Ergon unawares. His eyes flicked upward and in that moment Vok was standing before him with bony hands outstretched.
“Gazember!” Ergon rose to his feet as if lifted by an unseen power. The great bell notes of his voice boomed out with calm dignity.
The man radiated power. Lieutenant Nichols had to dig his fingernails into the palms of his hands to keep them from trembling.
He was certain that Vok was beaten, and if he were, God alone knew what would happen to the rest of them.
For a full minute Czech and Hungarian stood face to face. Vok took full advantage of his great height, but he lacked the other’s calm, and now that Ergon had recovered his poise Vok’s words seemed to have no more effect than a dust storm might have upon the great pyramid.
Nichols’ hands grew wet, but whether from perspiration or from blood drawn by his nails he did not know, nor could he take his eyes from the strange duel in the centre of the room for long enough to find out.
Neither of the antagonists moved, but if they had blasted each other with machine-guns the strain on the watchers could hardly have been greater. Little by little Ergon appeared to gain the upper hand. His voice became richer and more confident while Vok’s showed a tendency to waver. Nichols expected the Czech to break at any moment. Then suddenly Vok said something in a new tone, and his long arm pointed to the wall behind the other man. Ergon’s poise cracked and he stole a quick glance over his shoulder in the direction indicated by the magician’s outstretched hand. Vok laughed in triumph and spoke three more words in measured accents like a man driving nails into a coffin.
The result was a kind of satanic miracle. Ergon’s face changed for the first time, but it was merely a new expression. The bronze features seemed to run together as though melted in a crucible. The power that supported him had left him, and he seemed to collapse before their eyes.
Vok turned his back scornfully on Ergon, and spoke in English. “You may take this despoiler of orphans and destroy him, Lieutenant. He killed Colonel Lathrop.”
“You mean he hypnotized him?”
“Not he. He is a poor fraud with no power—only effrontery. This afternoon he insisted that Mr. Kincaid leave the room. The box of matched target-pistols which the brothers shot every day was on a table beside the fireplace. Ergon took two of these pistols. One he kept, the other he placed on the floor out of sight in the shadows under the edge of the couch.”
“With the colonel and the major both looking at him?”
Vok smiled. “My friend, I do a hundred more difficult things every day with a thousand people looking at me, and I do not wear a loose robe under which anything may be hidden, nor do I conceal my hands like this poor fraud who wore gloves so that he would not mar the colonel’s prints on the revolvers. The gun he left on the floor served only as a dummy. He knew Mr. Kincaid and Major Lathrop would not touch it before the police arrived. The other gun he brought here, to his own apartment where he used it to shoot the colonel. Afterwards he went back to the Lathrop apartment, put the gun with which he had murdered the colonel on the floor, and returned the gun he had used as a dummy to its box.”
