Chinese Orange Mystery (20 page)

Berne continued to smile. There was a glassy calm in his inflamed eyes that fascinated Ellery. “Oh, you don’t know, do you, Inspector?”

“Why, you-”

“Because obviously, if you did know,” murmured Berne, “you wouldn’t have put the question that way. Amusing, very amusing. Eh,
cara
? The naughty policeman who protects our wives and homes and civic honor doesn’t know, and, simple soul that he is, apparently doesn’t even suspect. Oh, perhaps I’m being faintly astigmatic; he
does
suspect, let us say, but he hasn’t been able to find out definitely.” The woman was staring up at him with bewildered, adoring eyes. It was evident that the rapid interchange of English had taxed her simple knowledge of the language. “And, putting his faith in the comfortable labyrinth of our Anglo-Saxon laws, he realizes that without evidence he is like a child without its mother, or,” Berne drawled, “a lovely piece of feminine Italian flesh without a chaperon. Eh, Inspector?”

A deadly quiet settled over the room with the extinction of Berne’s last word. Ellery, glancing at his father, felt uncomfortably aware of the possibilities. The old gentleman’s face had turned to marble, and there was a pinched look about his little nostrils that made his face seem even smaller and harder than it was. There was danger, too, from the direction of Sergeant Velie; his huge shoulders were hunched pugilistically and he was glaring at the publisher with a candid menace that startled Ellery.

Then the moment passed, and the Inspector said in almost a matter-of-fact voice: “Then your story is that you spent the whole day in your apartment with this woman?”

Berne, coolly indifferent to the threatening atmosphere, shrugged. “Where did you think a man would spend the day with this enchanting morsel to keep him company?”

“I’m asking you,” said the Inspector quietly.

“Well, then the answer is sweetly in the affirmative.” Berne smiled the old ghastly smile and said: “The inquisition is over, Inspector? I may go with lovely Lucrezia to bear me company?
La politesse
calls. Mustn’t keep our hostess waiting, you know.”

“Go on,” said the Inspector. “Beat it. Beat it before I choke the ugly smile off your face with my own hands.”

“
Bravo
” drawled Berne. “Come, my dear; it seems that we’re no longer wanted.” And he drew the bewildered woman closer to him and swung her gently about and steered her toward the door.

“But, Felicio,” she murmured, “what—is—”

“Don’t Italianate me, my dear,” said Berne. “Felix to you.” And then they were gone.

None of the three men said anything for some time. The Inspector remained where he was, staring expressionlessly at the door. Sergeant Velie was drawing deep breaths, as if he had been laboring under tremendous strain.

Then Ellery said gently: “Oh, come, dad. Don’t let that drunken boor get the best of you. He
does
raise the hackles, I confess. I’ve felt, myself, a prickling at the nape of my neck that’s as old as man’s enemies … Get that look off your face, dad, please.”

“He’s the first man,” said the Inspector deliberately, “in twenty years who has made me feel like committing murder. The other one was the bird who raped his own daughter; and at least
he
was crazy.”

Sergeant Velie said something venomous to himself in a soft mutter.

Ellery shook his father’s arm. “Now, now! I want you to do something for me, dad.”

Inspector Queen turned to him with a sigh. “Well, what is it now?”

“Can you hale that Sewell woman downtown late tonight on some pretext or other? And get her maid out of the way?”

“Hmm, What for?” said the Inspector with a sudden interest.

“I have,” murmured Ellery, sucking thoughtfully on a cigaret, “an idea based on that phantom glimmer I mentioned a few moments ago.”

M
R. ELLERY QUEEN, NOT
having been reared in that dark quarter of the cosmopolis which breeds those whimsical Raffles who steal in and out of people’s homes and manage still to preserve a certain
savoir-faire
, peered nervously up and down the corridor of the Chancellor’s twenty-first floor. The coast being clear, his shoulders quivered once or twice beneath his bundling topcoat and he slipped a skeleton key into the keyhole of the Llewes front door. The bolt turned over with a sharp squeak and he pushed the door open.

The reception-foyer was inky black. He stood very still and listened with an intentness that made his ears ache. But the suite was quite silent.

He cursed himself for a cowardly fool and advanced boldly into the darkness toward the spot on the wall where memory told him the electric switch lay. Fumbling, he found it and pressed. The foyer sprang into being. A quick glance through the sitting-room to the door of the living-room for orientation, and he switched off the light and made for the far door. He tripped over a hassock and swore again as he flailed wildly to keep his balance. But at last he reached his goal and opened the door and stole into the living-room.

By the vague flickering light of a hotel electric sign across the canyon of the street he made out the door to the bedroom and went toward it.

The door stood ajar. He poked his head through, held his breath, heard nothing, and slipped into the room shutting the door behind him.

“Not so bad after all,” he said to himself, grinning in the darkness. “Maybe I’ve neglected a natural talent for house-breaking. Now where the deuce is that switch?”

He groped around in the jumpy quarter-light, straining his eyes. “Ah, there you are,” he grunted aloud, and extended his hand to the wall.

And his hand froze in midair. An instantaneous prickle climbed up his spine. A hundred thoughts raced through his head all at once. But he did not move, did not breathe.

Some one had opened the front door. There could be no mistake. He had heard the telltale squeak of the unoiled bolt.

Then movement surged back in a wave, and his arm dropped, and he whirled on the balls of his feet and sped toward a Japanese-silk screen which he had dimly perceived a moment before during his hunt for the switch. He reached its shelter and crouched low behind it, holding his breath.

It seemed an eternity before he heard the cautious metallic rasp of the bedroom knob being turned. He heard a scraping, too, as of a shoe over the sill of the door. And then the unmistakable panting intake of a human breath. The metallic sound occurred again; the prowler had closed the door behind him.

Ellery strained his eyes through a crack between two of the leaves of the Japanese screen. Oddly, his nose became sensible of a faraway odor which made him think of the perfumed flesh of a woman. But then he realized that the odor had been there before the prowler, before himself; it was the odor of Irene Sewell. … His pupils, enlarged by immersion in the darkness, began to make out a human form. It was the figure of a man, so muffled that not even the skin of his face glimmered in the pulsating dusk of the room. The man was moving about swiftly and yet nervously, jerking his head from side to side, breathing in hoarse gulps, almost sobbing.

And then he pounced upon a low vanity built along modern lines and began pulling drawers open with wild swoops of his arms, apparently careless of the clatter he was making.

Ellery tiptoed from behind the screen and made his way noiselessly across the thick Chinese rug to the wall near the door.

With his arm raised he said in a pleasant unhurried voice: “Hello there,” and in the same instant pressed the switch.

The prowler whirled about like a tiger, blinking and silent. In the brilliant light Ellery made out his features clearly as the upturned lapels of the man’s coat dropped stiffly back.

It was Donald Kirk.

They measured each other for an eon, as if they could not tear their eyes away, as if they could not believe what their eyes saw. They were both shocked into silence by surprise.

“Well, well,” said Ellery at last, drawing a grateful breath and advancing toward the tall motionless young man. “You
do
get about, don’t you, Kirk? And what’s the meaning of this horribly trite nocturnal visit?”

Donald relaxed completely all of a sudden, as if he could not bear the tension an instant longer. He sank into a nearby white plush chair and with trembling fingers pulled out a cigaret-case and lit a cigaret.

“Well,” he said with a short despairing laugh, “here I am. Caught red-handed, Queen—and by you, of all people.”

“Fate,” murmured Ellery. “And a kind fate for you, my careening young bucko. A more vigorous operative might have—what’s the phrase? ah, yes—plugged you first and asked questions afterward. Fortunately, having a sensitive stomach, I don’t carry firearms. … Fearfully bad habit, Kirk, prowling about ladies’ bedrooms at this time of night. Get you into trouble.”

And Ellery seated himself comfortably on a zibeline
chaise-longue
opposite the plush chair and produced his own cigaret-case and selected a cigaret with dreamy abstraction and lit it.

They smoked thoughtfully and in silence for some time, regarding each other without once lowering their eyes.

Then Ellery swallowed a mouthful of smoke and said: “I suffer a bit from insomnia, too. What do you do for it, old boy?”

Kirk sighed. “Go on. Say it.”

Ellery drawled: “Care to talk?”

The young man forced a grin. “Curiously enough, I’m not in a conversational mood at the moment.”

“Curiously enough, I am. Peaceful atmosphere, two intelligent young men alone, smoking—perfect background for small talk, Kirk. I’ve always said—a most original observation, of course—that what America needs is not so much a good five-cent cigar as the civilizing influence of inconsequential conversation. Don’t you want to be civilized, you heathen?”

The publisher let smoke dribble out of his nostrils. Then he leaned forward suddenly, elbows on his knees. “You’re playing with me, Queen. What d’ye want?”

“I might ask you,” said Ellery dryly, “substantially the same question.”

“Don’t get you.”

“Well, since I must be specific: What were you looking for so strenuously in Miss Irene Sewell’s vanity a few moments ago?”

“I won’t tell you, and that’s final,” snapped Kirk with a defiant flare of his pinched nostrils.

“Pity,” murmured Ellery. “I seem to have lost all power of persuasion.” And there was a long and pregnant silence.

“I suppose,” muttered Donald at last, studying the rug, “you’ll turn me in.”

“I?” said Ellery with elaborate astonishment. “My dear Kirk, you grieve me. I’m not—er—official, you see. Who am I to go about making people unhappy?”

The cigaret burned down to Kirk’s fingertips and he crushed the fire out between his fingers unconsciously. “You mean,” he said slowly, “you’ll pass it up? Won’t tell any one about it, Queen?”

“I had some such thought,” drawled Ellery.

“By George, that’s white of you!” Kirk sprang to his feet, a revitalized man. “Damned decent, Queen. I—I don’t know quite how to thank you.”

“I do.”

“Oh,” said the young man in a different voice, and he sat down again.

“Look here, you dithering fool,” said Ellery cheerfully, flipping his cigaret-butt out one of the open windows. “Don’t you think you’ve tortured yourself with that secret of yours just about to a sufficiency? You’re essentially honest, Kirk; haven’t either the flair or the technique for intrigue. Why can’t you get it through that stubborn young skull of yours that the biggest mistake you’ve made in this miserable business was in not confiding in me?”

“I know it,” muttered Donald.

“Then you’ve come to your senses at last? You’ll tell me?”

Kirk raised haggard eyes. “No.”

“But why not, man, for God’s sake?”

The young man rose and began to pace the rug with hungry strides. “Because I can’t. Because—” the words came reluctantly—“because it’s not my secret, Queen.”

“Oh, that,” said Ellery quietly. “That’s scarcely news to me, old chap.”

Kirk stopped short. “Just what … You know?” There was a deep sounding of pain and tragic despair in his voice.

Ellery shrugged. “If it had been your secret you would have come out with it long ago. Kirk, my lad, no man would stand by and permit the woman he loves to get a horribly distorted impression about him without taking the obvious defensive measures—unless his tongue was paralyzed by the necessity of protecting some one else.”

“Then you don’t know,” murmured Kirk.

“Protecting some one else.” Ellery looked sympathetic. “I’d scarcely be worth my salt as an observer of human beings if I couldn’t perceive that the one you’re protecting is—your sister Marcella.”

“Good God, Queen—”

“I was right, then. Marcella, eh? … Does she know what threatens her, Kirk?”

“No!”

“I thought not. And you’re saving her from it. Perhaps from herself. Stout fellow, Kirk. Knight-in-shining-armor business. I’d no idea lads like you still paced the earth. I suppose Kingsley was right when he said that the age of chivalry is never past so long as there’s a wrong left ‘unredressed.’ And that, of course, is what attracts the female of the species. Your tiny Jo is apparently no exception. … No, no, Kirk, don’t clench your fists; I’m not poking fun at you. I mean it. You’re adamant in your refusal, I suppose?”

The veins at Donald’s temple were angry knots. Perspiration materialized on his forehead. But he choked: “No,” and said at once: “I mean—yes!” and tossed his head about like a restless horse, chafing at the rein of circumstances.

“And still I’m morally certain you were going to tell Papa Queen all about it on the night of the murder. Then we found the body and you pulled in your horns. You were going to ask my advice, weren’t you, Kirk?”

“Yes, but not about—this. About this Llewes—Sewell—woman …”

“Ah, then the secret that concerns your sister has nothing to do with your charming Irene?” asked Ellery quickly.

“No, no, I didn’t say that. Oh, good God, Queen, don’t make it so hard for me. I just can’t say any more.”

Ellery rose and went to the open window to stare out inscrutably over the flickering dark canyon below. Then he turned and said lightly: “Since we’ve reached the climax of our little bout of dialectic, I suggest we get out of here before the mistress of this boudoir returns with excursions and alarums. Ready, Kirk?”