‘No,’ said Abner, ‘it was never opened.’
Randolph got on his feet.
‘Abner,’ he cried, ‘are you saying that the one who killed Doomdorf climbed the sheer wall and got in through a closed window, without disturbing the dust or the cobwebs on the window frame?’
My uncle looked Randolph in the face.
‘The murderer of Doomdorf did even more,’ he said. ‘That assassin not only climbed the face of that precipice and got in through the closed window, but he shot Doomdorf to death and got out again through the closed window without leaving a single track or trace behind, and without disturbing a grain of dust or a thread of a cobweb.’
Randolph swore a great oath.
‘The thing is impossible!’ he cried. ‘Men are not killed today in Virginia by black art or a curse of God.’
‘By black art, no,’ replied Abner; ‘but by the curse of God, yes. I think they are.’
Randolph drove his clenched right hand into the palm of his left.
‘By the eternal!’ he cried. ‘I would like to see the assassin who could do a murder like this, whether he be an imp from the pit or an angel out of Heaven.’
‘Very well,’ replied Abner, undisturbed. ‘When he comes back tomorrow I will show you the assassin who killed Doomdorf.’
When day broke they dug a grave and buried the dead man against the mountain among his peach trees. It was noon when that work was ended. Abner threw down his spade and looked up at the sun.
‘Randolph,’ he said, ‘let us go and lay an ambush for this assassin. He is on the way here.’
And it was a strange ambush that he laid. When they were come again into the chamber where Doomdorf died he bolted the door; then he loaded the fowling piece and put it carefully back on its rack against the wall. After that he did another curious thing: He took the blood-stained coat, which they had stripped off the dead man when they had prepared his body for the earth, put a pillow in it and laid it on the couch precisely where Doomdorf had slept. And while he did these things Randolph stood in wonder and Abner talked:
‘Look you, Randolph… We will trick the murderer… We will catch him in the act.’
Then he went over and took the puzzled justice by the arm.
‘Watch!’ he said. ‘The assassin is coming along the wall!’
But Randolph heard nothing, saw nothing. Only the sun entered. Abner’s hand tightened on his arm.
‘It is here! Look!’ And he pointed to the wall.
Randolph, following the extended finger, saw a tiny brilliant disk of light moving slowly up the wall toward the lock of the fowling piece. Abner’s hand became a vise and his voice rang as over metal.
‘“He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.” It is the water bottle, full of Doomdorf’s liquor, focusing the sun… And look, Randolph, how Bronson’s prayer was answered!’
The tiny disk of light traveled on the plate of the lock.
‘It is fire from heaven!’
The words rang above the roar of the fowling piece, and Randolph saw the dead man’s coat leap up on the couch, riddled by the shot. The gun, in its natural position on the rack, pointed to the couch standing at the end of the chamber, beyond the offset of the wall, and the focused sun had exploded the percussion cap.
Randolph made a great gesture, with his arm extended.
‘It is a world,’ he said, ‘filled with the mysterious joinder of accident!’
‘It is a world,’ replied Abner, ‘filled with the mysterious justice of God!’
BROMLEY BARNES
Created by George Barton (1866-1940)
A former Secret Service agent with thirty years’ experience, Bromley Barnes is supposedly retired from US government work but government seems incapable of functioning well without him. In the stories by George Barton, the sophisticated Mr Barnes, a collector of first editions and connoisseur of fine living, is regularly called back to deal with sensitive investigations in both Washington and New York. He looks into the mysterious death of an inventor, identifies the source of a series of White House leaks and thwarts a bomb attack on the National Arsenal. Many of the tales in the 1918 volume The Strange Adventures of Bromley Barnes are closer to spy fiction than crime fiction but ‘Adventure of the Cleopatra Necklace’, in which Bromley Barnes tracks down the man who stole a priceless Ancient Egyptian artefact from the renowned ‘Cosmopolitan Museum’, is a fairly traditional detective story. Barnes, who also appeared in a 1920 novel entitled The Pembroke Mason Affair, was the creation of George Barton, a regular contributor to story magazines throughout the first three decades of the twentieth century. In addition, Barton compiled a number of non-fiction works with titles such as Adventures of the World’s Greatest Detectives, Celebrated Crimes and Their Solutions, and The World’s Greatest Military Spies and Secret Service Agents.
ADVENTURE OF THE CLEOPATRA NECKLACE
It doesn’t pay to advertise – always. At least that was the conclusion of the trustees of the great Cosmopolitan Museum after the antiquarians of the country were thrown into a state of hysteria over the strange disappearance of the Cleopatra necklace. The sensational business started with a newspaper paragraph in the Clarion, reading something like this:
‘The trustees of the Cosmopolitan Museum have added to the collection of curios in Egyptian Hall a rare old necklace which they say belonged, beyond the shadow of a doubt, to the famous sorceress of the Nile. As a relic of the civilization which existed three thousand years before Christ, the collar is naturally priceless. Its intrinsic value is placed at $30,000.’
The announcement brought a crush of visitors to Egyptian Hall. The curator, Dr Randall-Brown, had provided a strong plate glass case for the precious relic, and had given it the place of honor in the very center of the marble-tiled hall. The collar
