Chinese Orange Mystery Part 19

Ellery and Velie leaned over the desk.

Inspector Queen began to pull things out of the bag, like a prestidigitator over a silk hat. The first object he brought out was a black alpaca coat, creased and worn-looking, but clean.

Ellery's eyes narrowed.

The old gentleman fished the things out swiftly, ranging them in piles on his desk. When the bag was empty he scrutinized its interior closely, holding it up to the light, grunted, tossed the bag aside, and turned back to the desk.

"If we have to we can try to trace that thing," he said in a slightly disappointed voice. "Well, let's see what it comes to. Isn't much, is it?"

The coat was part of a two-piece suit, the other being a pair of trousers of faintly foreign cut. The Inspector held it up against himself; it was just right for his own short legs. "That looks like it might have been his," he muttered. "Nothing in the pockets, darn the luck."

"Or in the coat, either," reported the Sergeant.

"No vest," said the Inspector thoughtfully. "Well, there wouldn't be with this summer suit. Don't see many of 'em in these parts."

The next series of exhibits consisted of shirts-linen and cotton, all with collarless neckbands and all, from their crisp appearance, fairly new.

The next pile was of hard collars, narrow and shiny and old-fashioned.

Beside it lay handkerchiefs.

A little heap of clean, light tropical underwear.

A half-dozen pairs of black cotton socks.

A pair of worn black shoes, k.n.o.bby and old.

"That's Doc Prouty's corn-and-bunion diagnosis," murmured Ellery.

All the garments from the bag were cheap. And all, with the exception of the suit and shoes, were new and bore the label of a Shanghai haberdasher.

"Shanghai," said the Inspector thoughtfully. "That's China, El," in a wondering tone. "China!"

"So I see. What's remarkable about that? Bears out the Missing Persons Bureau's guess that the man didn't hail from the United States."

"I still think-" Then the Inspector stopped with a curious light in his eyes. "Say, this couldn't be a plant!"

"Is that a question or an a.s.sertion?"

"I mean, is it possible it is?"

Ellery raised his eyebrows. "I don't see how, if that clerk in the Chancellor checkroom maintains that it was really the victim who checked the bag."

"I guess you're right. S'pose I'm just naturally suspicious." The Inspector sighed and looked over the a.s.sortment of clothing on his desk. "Well, it gives us something to work on, anyway. Sa-a-ay!" He eyed Ellery shrewdly. "What's coming off here? I thought it was you who were always so soft on that China tie-up in this case. Now you say it's not remarkable, or something. How come?"

Ellery shrugged. "Don't interpret everything I say literally. Let's see that Bible."

He delved among the miscellaneous objects from the bag and fished out a torn, worn, coverless book. It looked as if it had been used as ammunition in a major conflict.

"Not a Bible. Ordinary cheap little breviary," he muttered. "Hmm. And those pamphlets-ah, religious tracts! We seem to have struck a very G.o.dly old gentleman, dad."

"G.o.dly old gentlemen rarely get themselves b.u.mped off," said the Inspector dryly.

"And this." Ellery put down the book and picked up another. "An ancient edition-London-of Hall Caine's The Christian. And here's Pearl Buck's The Good Earth in the original American edition that looks as if it had been kicked from here to Peiping. Who says that never the twain shall meet? ... Queer."

"What's queer about it? He'd probably read that Buck book if he came from China."

Ellery started from a reverie. "Oh, certainly! I'm just communing with myself. I didn't mean the books." He fell silent, sucking his thumb and staring at the littered desk.

"Might 'a' known," grumbled Sergeant Velie, looking disgusted, "that this would be a dud. Not even a clue to his monicker."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said the Inspector with a faraway expression. "It's not so bad, Thomas. We'll know soon enough who he is." He sat down at his desk and pressed a b.u.t.ton. "I'll cable the American consul in Shanghai right off, and I'll bet you it won't be long before we've got the whole story of this bird's life. After that it ought to be a cinch."

"How d'ye figure that?"

"The killer took the devil of a lot of pains to keep the dead man's ident.i.ty a secret. So when we find it out I figure we'll strike something real hot. Oh, come in, come in. Take a cable to the American consul in Shanghai, China-"

While the Inspector was dictating his cable Sergeant Velie drifted out of the office. Ellery folded his lean length in the Inspector's best chair and pulled out a cigaret and lit it and smoked away with a deep frown. There was the most extraordinary expression on his face. Once he opened his eyes and re-examined what lay on the desk. Then he closed them again. He snuggled back in the chair until he rested on the nape of his neck-a favorite position with him, which he a.s.sumed chiefly during his more pa.s.sionately concentrative moments-and he remained that way without stirring until his father's deskman went out and the old gentleman turned back with a chuckle, rubbing his hands briskly together.

"Well, well, it won't be long now," said the Inspector genially. "Just a question of time. I'm sure we've got it now, El. Everything clears itself up, when you think it out. For instance, that business of our check-up with all the shipping people. We concentrated on the Atlantic. That was a mistake. He probably came by the Pacific route and then took a train across the continent from San Francisco."

"Then why," murmured Ellery, "didn't some genius like your Chancellor clerk remember him? I thought you'd rather thoroughly canva.s.sed the railroad people."

"I told you once that that's a tough job. Nothing wrong there. He was an ordinary-looking little coot, and I s'pose n.o.body noticed him, that's all. These people see thousands of faces every day. In a story I guess he'd have been spotted. But things don't always work out that way in real life." He leaned back, gazing dreamily at the ceiling. "Shanghai, eh? China. Guess you were right."

"About what?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing. I was just thinking. ... I s'pose we were wrong, at that, about this guy Cullinan. Can't sort of connect Paris and Shanghai. We'll be hearing from Chiappe soon, and then we'll know definitely." He chattered on.

He was brought to an abrupt realization of his surroundings by a sudden crash. He jerked upright, startled, to find Ellery on his feet.

"What's the matter, for G.o.d's sake?"

"Nothing's the matter," said Ellery. There was a rapt expression on his face. "Nothing at all. G.o.d's in His heaven, the morning's dew-pearled, all's right with the world. Good old world. Best little world. ... I've got it."

The Inspector gripped the edge of his desk. "Got what?"

"The answer. The ruddy, b.l.o.o.d.y answer!"

The Inspector sat still. Ellery stood rooted to the spot, his eyes clear and excited. Then he nodded to himself several times, vigorously. He smiled and went to the window and looked out.

"And just what," said the Inspector in a dry voice, "is the answer?"

"Most remarkable thing," drawled Ellery without turning round. "Perfectly amazing how things come to you. All you have to do is think about them long enough and, pop! something bursts and there it is. It's been there, staring us in the face from the very beginning. All the time! Why, it's so simple it's childish. The whole thing. I can scarcely believe it yet, myself."

There was a long silence. Then Inspector Queen sighed. "I suppose that long string of chatter means you don't want to tell me."

"I haven't begun to glimpse all the possibilities as yet. It's just that I've discovered the key to the whole business. It explains-"

The Inspector's deskman came in with an envelope. Ellery sat down again.

"Well, the dead man isn't Cullinan," growled the old gentleman. "Here's a wire from the Prefect of Police in Paris. Chiappe says Cullinan's in Paris. On his uppers, but alive right enough. So that's that. What were you saying?"

"I was saying," murmured Ellery, "that the key explains virtually every important mystery."

The Inspector looked skeptical. "All that turning-around business-the clothes, the furniture in the room, all that?"

"All that."

"Just one little key, hey?"

"Just one little key."

Ellery rose and reached for his hat and coat. "But there's still something eluding me. And until I figure it out I can't do anything drastic, you see. So I'm going home, mon perey and I shall get into my slippers and root myself before the fire and dig in until I catch that slippery fugitive. I've got only part of the answer now."

There was another silence, this time distinctly awkward. It had always been a bone of contention between them that Ellery was stubbornly uncommunicative until the very denouement of a case. Neither pleas nor wild horses could drag a single explanatory word out of him until he was mentally satisfied that he had built up a flawless and impenetrable argument. So there was really no point in asking questions.

And yet the Inspector felt chagrined. There all the time! "What gave you the tip-off, then?" he demanded with irritation. "I'm not the world's biggest dope, and yet I'll be switched if I can see-"

"The bag."

"The bag!" The Inspector looked at the top of his desk in bewilderment. "But I thought you said the answer was there all the time. And we only found the bag a couple of hours ago."

"True," said Ellery, "but the bag served the double purpose of setting off the spark of a.s.sociation and confirming what went before when the result of the conflagration was a.s.similated." He went to the door thoughtfully.

"Talk English, will you? Just how much do you know? Who is the dead man?"

Ellery laughed. "Don't let me dazzle you with my display of mental pyrotechnics. I'm not a crystal-gazer. His. name is the least important part of the solution. On the other hand, his t.i.tle-"

"His t.i.tle!"

"Precisely. I think I know why he was murdered, too, although I haven't given that phase of it sufficient thought. The big thing bothering me at the moment is how, not who or why."

The Inspector gasped. "Do you realize what you're-. What d'ye mean, El, for jiminy's sake? Have you gone batty?"

"Not at all. There's a vital problem tied up there somehow; I don't know exactly how at the moment. That's going to be my job until I get the answer."

"But you do know how he was murdered!"

"Strangely enough, I don't."

The Inspector bit his fingernails in a fever of baffled uncertainty. "You'll be the death of me yet with your d.a.m.n' puzzles. Why, you act as if you didn't even care what the American consul is going to cable me!"

"I don't."

"Cripe! You mean to say it doesn't make any difference to you what he finds out about the dead man?"

"Not," said Ellery with a smile, "a particle." He opened the door. "I could tell you right now, as a matter of fact, what his reply in substance will be."

"Either I'm crazy or you are."

"Isn't lunacy a question of point of view? Now, now, dad, you know how I am. I'm not entirely sure of my ground yet."

"Well, I guess I'll have to burn up waiting. You're sure, now, you do know who pulled the murder? You haven't gone off half-c.o.c.ked on some wild notion?"

Ellery tugged at the brim of his hat. "Know who did it? What put that idea in your head? Of course I don't know who did it."

The Inspector sank back, utterly overwhelmed. "All right, I give up. When you start lying to me-"

"But I'm not lying," said Ellery in a hurt voice. "I really don't know. Oh, I might hazard a guess, but. ... That doesn't say, however," he went on, his lips compressing, "that I won't know. I've a remarkable start; simply unbelievable. I must find the answer now. It would be unthinkable that after this-"

"According to what you say," said the Inspector bitterly, "you don't know any of the really important things. I thought you had something."

"But I have," said Ellery in a patient tone.

"Well, what the devil did those two African spears sticking up the dead man's backside mean, then?" The Inspector half-rose from his chair, shocked by the look on Ellery's face. "For the love of Mike! What's the matter now?"

"The spears," muttered Ellery, staring blindly at his father. "The spears."

"But-"

"Now I do know how. ..."

"I know, but-"

Ellery's face came alive. His cheeks screwed up, and his eyes blazed, and his lips trembled. Then he howled like a maniac: "Eureka! That's the answer! Those blessed spears!"

And with a whoop he dashed out of the office, leaving a dazed and collapsed Inspector behind.

CHALLENGE TO THE READER-.

Somewhere along the trail, during the creation of my past novels, I lost a good idea. Those kindly persons who-it seems ages ago-discovered that there was a gentleman named Queen writing detective stories and who continued to read that worthy's works will recall that in the early books I made a point of injecting at a strategic place in each hook a challenge to the reader.

Well, something happened. I don't know precisely what. But I remember that after one novel was completed and set up and the galleys corrected some one at the publisher's-a discerning soul indeed-called my attention to the fact that the usual CHALLENGE was missing. It seems that I had forgotten to write one. I supplied the deficiency hastily, rather abashed, and it was stuck into the offending volume at the last moment. Then conscience p.r.i.c.ked me and I engaged in a little research. I found that I had forgotten the CHALLENGE in the book BEFORE that, too. LONGA DIES NON SEDAVIT VULNERA MENTIS, either, believe me.

Now my publisher is very firm about the integrity of the Queen books, and so I give you ... the CHALLENGE. It's really a simple matter. I maintain that at this point in your reading of THE CHINESE ORANGE MYSTERY you have all the facts in your possession essential to a clear solution of the mystery. You should be able, here, now, henceforward, to solve the puzzle of the murder of the nameless little man in Donald Kirk's anteroom. Everything is there; no essential clue or fact is missing. Can you put them all together and-not make them spell "mother," to be sure-by a process of logical reasoning arrive at the one and only possible solution?

ELLERY QUEEN.

The Experiment.