Chinese Orange Mystery (11 page)

“Hold on, Doctor,” murmured Ellery; the Inspector was apoplectic with suppressed wrath. “Would you say the tangerine had been eaten in that room?”

“From the comparative times involved? But certainly,
mon ami
. Ta-ta,” and, chuckling, Dr. Prouty swung off with a jaunty stride.

“Ass!” hissed the Inspector springing to his feet and slamming the door behind the Assistant Medical Examiner. “Makes a cheap vaudeville-house out of my office. Don’t know what’s come over that man. He used to be—”

“Tut, tut. You’re not especially yourself this morning, either, you know. Dr. Prouty, permit me to inform you, has just contributed one of the most brain-tickling developments of the case.”

“Bah!”

“Bah yourself. I refer to the tangerine. We had to be sure that our little man ate it in that room. That room. … Everything about that room is important. And the tangerine—Of course you see the essential point.”

“See? See? God Almighty!”

“What,” asked Ellery abstractedly, “is a tangerine?”

The old gentleman stared with baleful eyes. “Asking me riddles now! An orange, you idiot.”

“Precisely. And what kind of orange, please?”

“What ki—How should I know and what difference does it make, anyway?”

“But you do know,” said Ellery earnestly. “You know. I know. Every one knows. And I’m beginning to believe the murderer knows, as well. … A tangerine is known familiarly as a
Chinese orange
!”

The Inspector deliberately circled his desk and raised his hands to the theoretical heavens. “My son,” he said in a stern voice, “this is the last straw. This bird went into a strange room to wait for somebody. While he waited he spied a bowl of fruit on a table. He was hungry—Doc said so himself. So he picked himself out a nice juicy tangerine and ate it. Then somebody came in and bashed him one. What in the name of all that’s sane and sensible is wrong with that?”

Ellery bit his lip. “I wish I knew. Chinese orange. … Oh, hell, I can’t explain it. It’s not the orange part of it—” He rose and reached for his coat.

“All right,” said the Inspector, dropping his arms wearily. “I give up. Go the whole hog. Go puzzlin’ your brains about Chinese oranges and Mexican tamales and alligator pears and Spanish onions and English muffins, for all I care! All I say is—can’t a man eat an orange without some crackpot like you reading a mystery into it?”

“Not when it’s a Chinese orange, honorable ancestor. Not,” snapped Ellery suddenly with a surge of temper, “when there’s a novelist from China in the cast and a collector of postage stamps who specializes in China and everything’s backwards about the crime and …” He stopped suddenly, as if he felt that he had said too much. A look of remarkable intelligence came into his eye. He stood that way, stockstill for a moment, then he clapped his hat on, tapped his father’s shoulder absently, and hurried out.

H
UBBELL OPENED THE DOOR
of the Kirk suite and seemed faintly startled at seeing Mr. Ellery Queen standing there, Homburg in hand, stick companionably raised, smiling, with an air of good-fellowship.

“Yes, sir?” whined Hubbell, without stirring.

“I’m a bounder,” said Ellery cheerfully, thrusting the ferrule of his stick over the sill. “That is, I bound. Or perhaps I should say that I’m a rebounder, Hubbell. Yes, yes; I rebound after I’m thrown. Thrown out. May I—?”

Hubbell seemed distressed. “I’m very sorry, sir, but—”

“But what?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but there’s no one at home.”

“That same dear old trite observation.” Ellery looked sad. “Hubbell, Hubbell, boil and bubble, or is it toil and trouble. … How
does
the witches’ chant go? But the point is I’m not wanted, I take it?”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Nonsense, man,” murmured Ellery, pushing gently past the fellow, “that sort of ukase is evoked only against unwanted guests. I’m here in an official capacity, you see, so you can’t keep me out. Dear, dear; life must be complicated for the great serving class.” He stopped short on the threshold of the salon. “Don’t tell me, Hubbell, that you spoke the truth!” The salon was empty.

Hubbell blinked. “Whom did you want to see, Mr. Queen?”

“I’m not particular, Hubbell. Miss Temple will do. I scarcely think I could conduct a reasonably amiable conversation with Dr. Kirk at the moment, you know. I’m fearfully sensitive about being kicked out of places. Miss Temple, old fellow. She’s in, I trust?”

“I’ll see, sir.” And Hubbell said: “Your coat and stick, sir?”

“Official, I said,” drawled Ellery, wandering about. “That means you keep your coat on.
And
your hat, if you’re a second-grade detective. Excellent Matisse, that. If it is Matisse … Hubbell, for heaven’s sake, stop gawping and fetch Miss Temple!”

The tiny woman came in very quickly. She was dressed in something cool and gentle.

“
Good
morning, Mr. Queen. Why so formal? You haven’t brought your handcuffs, I trust? Take your coat off, do. Sit down.” They shook hands gravely. Ellery sat down, but he did not take his coat off. Jo Temple continued in a swift breathlessness: “May I apologize, Mr. Queen, for that horrid scene last night? Dr. Kirk is—”

“Dr. Kirk is an old man,” said Ellery with a wry smile, “and I’m a damned fool for being angry with his senilities. May I compliment you, Miss Temple, upon your choice of gown? It reminds me of a hydrangea or something, if that’s what they have in China.”

She laughed. “You mean the lotus blossom, I presume? Thank you, sir; that’s the prettiest compliment I’ve had since I came West. Occidentals haven’t much imagination when it comes to flattering women.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” said Ellery, “since I’m a misogynist anyway,” and they grinned together. Then they both fell silent, and nothing could be heard except the stiff stalk of Hubbell across the foyer.

Jo folded her small hands in her lap and eyed Ellery steadily. “And what’s on your mind, Mr. Queen?”

“China.”

He said it so suddenly that she gave a slight start; and then she sank back with her lips compressed. “China, Mr. Queen? And why is China on that clever mind of yours?”

“Because it annoys me, Miss Temple. Annoys me dreadfully. I never thought a mere five-letter word could annoy me so much. I had nightmares about it all last night.”

She continued to regard him with unwavering eyes as she reached out to an end-table and fetched a cigaret-box and opened it and offered him a cigaret. Neither said anything while the smoke curled cosily.

“So you couldn’t sleep last night?” she said at last. “Odd, Mr. Queen. Neither could I. That poor little man kept haunting my pillow. He smiled at me for four solid hours out of the darkness.” She shivered lightly. “Well, Mr. Queen?”

“From all I’ve heard,” drawled Ellery, “to return to the original subject, China is a sadly
backward
country.”

She sat up at that, frowning. “Come, come, Mr. Queen, let’s stop this idiotic fencing. Just what do you mean by that?”

“I mean,” said Ellery softly, “that I am thirsty for knowledge, Miss Temple, and that in this case you’re obviously the fountainhead. Tell me something about China.”

“China’s being very rapidly modernized, if that’s what you mean. It’s gone a long way since the Boxer affair. Matter of economic necessity, in a way. With the Japanese forcing their way in—”

“But I didn’t mean that, you know.” Ellery sat up and crushed out his cigaret. “I meant ‘backward’ literally.”

“Oh,” she said, and fell silent. Then she sighed. “I suppose I might have known. It was more or less inevitable. Yes, what you imply is perfectly true. There are some really amazing—shall I call them coincidences?—to be drawn from the literal backwardness of China. I can’t blame you for putting me on the rack, with this incomprehensible business of a backwards crime absorbing your attention.”

“Good girl,” murmured Ellery. “Then we understand each other. You realize, Miss Temple, that I don’t know where I’m going. This is all probably sheerest drivel. It may mean nothing at all that makes sense. And then again—” He shrugged. “Social, religious, economic customs are purely a matter of perspective. From our Western point of view anything that, let’s say, the Chinese do that is different from what we do—or opposite—may be construed, Occidentally, as being ‘backwards.’ Is that true?”

“I suppose so.”

“For example, although I’m the veriest tyro in Oriental lore, I’ve heard somewhere that the Chinese—curious custom!—on meeting friends shake hands not with the friends but with themselves. Is
that
true?”

“Quite. It’s an ancient custom and a good deal more sensible than ours. For, you see, the root-idea behind it is that when you shake hands with yourself you’re sparing your friend possible suffering.”

“How?” grinned Ellery. “Or should I say—come again?”

“You don’t transmit disease so easily that way, you see,”

“Oh.”

“Not that the old Chinese knew anything about germs, but having observed—” She sighed, and stopped, and sighed again. “See here, Mr. Queen, this is very interesting and all that, and I’m not averse to augmenting your fund of general information, but it’s so silly, this search after phantom backwardnesses. Really, isn’t it?”

“Do you know,” murmured Ellery, “women are peculiar. There’s an original observation! But it seemed to me that only yesterday you were taking this backwards: stuff quite seriously. And today you’re calling it silly. Elucidate.”

“Perhaps,” she said cautiously, “I’ve reconsidered.”

“Perhaps,” said Ellery, “not. Well, well! We seem to have reached the well-known
impasse
. Indulge my silliness, Miss Temple, and tell me more. Tell me everything you know, everything you can conjure up at the moment, about Chinese customs or institutions which may be construed as ‘backwards,’ in the sense that they are diametrically opposed to customs or institutions here.”

She stared at him for a long moment, seemed about to ask a question, changed her mind, closed her eyes, and put the cigaret to her tiny mouth. When she spoke it was in a soft murmur. “It’s so hard to know where to begin. They differ at so many points, Mr. Queen. For instance, very often in building thatched huts you’ll find that the Chinese peasantry—especially in the South—will set the roof on the framework and
build down
, instead of building up as you—as we do.”

“Go on, please.”

“I suppose, too, you’ve heard that the Chinese pay their doctors as long as they are well, and stop payment when they fall ill.”

“An ingenious arrangement,” drawled Ellery. “Yes, I’ve heard of that. And?”

“When they want to be cooled, they drink hot liquids.”

“Marvelous! I begin to fancy your Chinese more and more. I’ve found, myself, that raising the internal temperature makes the external temperature much more bearable. Go on; you’re doing splendidly.”

“You’re ragging me!” she cried suddenly. Then she shrugged and said: “I beg your pardon. Of course, you’ve heard of the Chinese custom of eating as loudly as possible during a meal at a strange house and belching with enthusiasm at the expiration of the meal?”

“To assure one’s host, I take it, that one has appreciated the food?”

“That’s it exactly. Then there’s … Let me see.” She put her finger on her perfect lower lip and mused. “Oh, yes! A Chinese will use a hot towel to cool himself—the same principle as the hot drink, you see—and a wet napkin to wipe himself dry of perspiration. It’s infernally hot there, you know.”

“Imagine!”

“Of course, they keep to the left side of the road, not the right—but that’s not exclusively Oriental; so do most Europeans. Let’s see, now. They place a low wall before their front doors as a barrier to evil spirits, since their demons can travel only in a straight line. So all approaches to front doors are winding paths around the wall, thus effectively keeping out the evil ones.”

“How naïve!”

“How logical,” she retorted. “I see you’ve the beastly Occidental patronizing air where Orientals are concerned. The white man’s burden sort of thing—”

Ellery blushed. “
Touché
. Anything else?”

She frowned. “Oh, there must be thousands of things. … Well, the women wear trousers and the men wear robes which give the effect of skirts. Then Chinese students study aloud in classrooms—”

“For heaven’s sake, why?”

She grinned. “So that the instructor may be sure they’re really studying. Then, too, a Chinese is one year old when he’s born, since it’s taken for granted that life begins at conception, not at emergence from the womb. And, for that matter, a Chinese celebrates his birthday only at New Year’s, no matter in what part of the year he may have been born.”

“Good lord! That makes it simple, doesn’t it?”

“Not so simple,” she said grimly. “Because the Chinese New Year’s Day is as variable as a fishwife’s tongue. It’s not constant, since it is figured on the basis of a rather capricious thirteen-month year. Then, too, my friends pay their bills only twice a year—at the fifth moon and at New Year’s; which makes it very cosy for debtors, since they simply go into hiding when the time comes round and the poor creditor goes poking through the streets in broad daylight with a lighted lantern looking for his dun.”

Ellery stared. “Why the lighted lantern?”

“Well, if it’s the day after New Year’s the very fact that the creditor carries a lighted lantern shows that it
isn’t
the day after New Year’s at all, you see, but still the night before! How do you like that?”

“Love it,” chuckled Ellery. “I see I’ve been heinously backward myself. There’s an idea that could be appropriated by the Western World with profit. How about the Chinese theatre? Anything backwards there?”

“Not really. Of course, there are no stage properties, Mr. Queen—sort of Elizabethan in that respect. Then, too, their music is all in one scale, and the minor at that; and all Chinese sing in falsetto; and they pick out their coffins and select their funeral attire before they die; and their barbers cut your hair and shave you not in shops but in the street; and the greatest revenge your enemy can wreak on your head is to kill himself on your doorstep—”