Evening Star Newspaper, October 27, 1930, Page 24

The Scarab r s By S. S. Van Dine Copyright, 1930, by 8. 8. Van Dine. INSTALLMENT XV. ANCE went direct to the end cabinet before which Kyle's body had been found, and dro) the two sofa pillows on flocr. Then he looked 5-45 speculatively at the upper edge the ‘cabinet. “I wonder. . ,” he murmured. “Dash it all! I'm almost afraid to carry on. If I should be wrong, this entire case would cofne topplin’ about my '\ e!” Markham was growin, impatient. “Soliloquies have gorg ou of date, Vance. If you have anything to show me, let's get it over with.” “Right you are.” . Vance stepped to the ash-tray and resolutely crushed out his cigarette. Returning to the cabinet he beckoned to Markham and Heath. "By way of proeludium” he began, #I want to call your attenticn to this curtaln. You will observe that the That's what I'm endeavorin' to certain, sergeant,” smiled Vance. ° may have nothing to do with it. On the other hand—" He leaned over and, with considerable effort, lifted the statue of Sakhmet. (As |T have said, the statue was about 2 feet high. It was solidly sculptured and had a heavy thick base. I later lifted the | statue ‘to ‘test it, and I should say it weighed at least 30 pounds. Vance, stepping on a chalr, placed the stat: with great precision, on top of the cal net at the very edge of the molding. Having carefully superimposed its base over the outlines in the dust, he drew the curtain shut. Then he took the free brass ring in his left hand, turned the corner of the curtain back until the ring reached the left-hand edge of the statue, tipped the statue to the right and piaced the ring just under the for- ward edge of the statue’s base. his coat pocket and drew forth the ob- | his hands away, and the statue stood THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, ');I()NIL\Y. OCTOBER £ “What I discovered, Markham,” he explained, “was a 3-inch section of a pencil, carefullv cut and trimmed. I assumed that it was a homemade ‘up- right’ such as is used in figu traps. . . . Let us see if it He tipped the statue forward and propped the plece of pencil under the rear edge of the statue’s base. He took | leading toward us, perilously balanced. For a moment it seemed as if it might topple over of its own accord, but the | prepared pencil was apparently the ex- act length necessary to tilt the statue forward without quite upsetting it equilibrium. “So far my theory checks” Vance stepped down from the chair. “No we will proceed with the experiment He moved the chair to one side, and | arranged the t sofa pillows over the | spot where Kyle's head had lain at the | set! foot of Anubis. Then he straightened up, and faced the district attorney. “Markham,” he said somberly, “I present you with a possibility. Regard | the position of that curta consider the position of the loose brass ring— | under the edge of the statue; observ the tilting attitude of Our Lady of V geance, and then picture the arri of Kyle this morning. He had been in- formed that the new treasures were in Having done this, he reached into| because he was going into the museum Ject he had found on the top of the | shipment. the end cabinet, with the curtain drawn He told Brush not to disturb Dr. Bliss, to inspect the contents of the recent elfir!t!e. I knew that “I am not sug “that Kyle met is nerves were tense. sting,” he continued, end as the result 4| of a death trap. In fact, I do not even know if my reconstructed trap will work. But I am advancing the theory as possibility; for if the defense attorne; can show that Kyle could have been murdered by some one other than Dr. Bliss—that is, by an absent person— then the case against him would receive a decided setback- He stepped over to the statue of Anubis. Lifting up the lower left-hand corner of the curtain, he stood close against the west wall of the museum. “Let us say that Kyle, after taking his position before this end cabinet, reached out and drew the curtain aside. Now, what would have happened—pro- vided the death trap had actually been 2 He gaye the curtain arp jerk to the right. It moved ove e rod until it was caught and held halfway across by the brass ring that had been insert- d beneath Sakhmet's base. The jar dislodged the statue from its perilously balanced position. and fell with a terrific thud upon the sofa pillows, in the exact spot where X had lain. ere several moments of Markham continued to smoke, s focused on the fallen statue. He s frowning and thoughtful. Heath, however, was frankly astounded. silence. his e his slow, lazy movements | It wgpled forward | phasts. demonstration had everted, to & at extent, all his set theories. He glared at the statue of Sakhmet with per- plexed amazement, his cigar held tight- ly between his teeth. ‘Vance was the first to speak. “The experiment - seems "to have worked, don't y'’know. Really, I think I've demonstrated the possibility of Kyle's having been killed while alone in the museum . . . Kyle was rather short in stature, and there was suffi- clent distance between the top of the cabinet and Kyle's head for the statue to have gained a deadly momentum. ‘The width of the cabinet is only a lit- tle over two feet, so that it would have been inevitable that the statue would hit him on the head, provided he had been standing in front of it. And he obviously would have stood directly in front of it when he pulled the curtain. ‘The weight of the statue is sufficient to have caused the terrific fracture of his skull, and the position of the statue across the back of his head is wholly consistent with his having been killed by a carefully planned trap.” Vance made a slight gesture of em- (To be continued) SEES EAST AND WEST WORLDS IN ALLIANCE |®% & o spirit of . understanding Episcopal Bishop Says Conference |to take account of our positions of Angli Has Paved the Way. By the Assoclated Press. ™ NEW YORK, October 27.—Right Rev. James de Wolf Perry, presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, yesterday expressed the belief that a| forthcoming report on the recent meet- ing in London of representatives of the Anglican and the Eastern Orthodox Churches will provide a foundation for new rapprochements between the east- ern and western worlds. “Twelve bishops of each of these two communions, led by Meletios, the patriarch of Alexandria, met day after day to take into full consideration all discover n and Orthodox Churches | conclled sacraments. Your Heater Will how readily uu‘ may when_onee the ing are allowed to have their way.” The Anglican and Eastern Orthodox Churches tions, the the ted ve been separa tical and radical condi- sald, but are heirs to ‘historic and orders when it feels Chuckle 1i Apparently he had not considered the :fitflnfilfie“}:flheé‘r E“nf?i’"nfu',‘fig lighted a | possibility of a death d Vance' wn." ‘om the first time I noticed that the small ring on the corner of the curtain was not strung on the rod, and that the left Ed{; of the curtain sagged cor- respond 3 "Yofllev’fl also observe,” Vance con- tinued, “that the curtain of this cabi- net is only half drawn. It's as if some one had started to draw the curtain snd, for some reason, had stopped. When I saw the partly drawn curtal this mo: it struck me as a bit pe- culiar, for obviously the curtain should have been entirely closed or else entirely open. We may assume that the cur- tain was closed when Kyle arrived here —we have Hani's word for it that he had pulled shut the curtain of this par- ticular cabinet because of the disorder of its contents; and Dr. Bliss mentioned to Kyle on the telephone that the new treasures were in the end cabinet— the cabinet with the drawn curtain. « » . Now, in order to open the curtain, one has only to take hold of the left- hand edge of it and pull it to the right: the brass nnfs would slide easily over the metal pole. . . . But what do we find? We flind the curtain only hall have opened the curta inspect the contents of the cabinet. ‘Therefore, I concluded that something must have halted the curtain at the Mu-v%l point, and that Kyle died before could draw the curtain en- tirely o 5 I say, Markham; are you “Go on,” Markham had become ih- ferested. Heath, too, was watching Vance with close attention. , then. Kyle was found dead in front of this end cabinet; cabinet. 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