Chinese Orange Mystery (21 page)

“I’m ready,” said Kirk in a muffled voice.

Ellery held the door open for him and then switched off the light. In the darkness they went through the apartment to the front door and passed out into the corridor. There was no one about. They stood still for a moment.

Then Donald Kirk said: “Well, good night,” in the dreariest of tones and trudged off down the corridor toward the stairs without once looking back.

Ellery watched his drooping shoulders until they vanished.

He turned in a seemingly aimless motion and peered sharply out of the corner of his eyes at the turn of the corridor behind him. There had been … But there was nothing to be seen.

For five long minutes Ellery waited without stirring from the spot. No one turned up, no one even looked his way from the far length of the corridor. He strained his ears and kept his eyes open. … But the corridor was as still as a cathedral.

And so, this time without hesitation, he inserted his skeleton key in the lock of the door and swiftly reentered the Llewes suite.

But even in the isolation of the darkness there he was troubled. He
had
seen some one, he felt sure. And, from the tininess of the ankles, that some one who had watched them emerge from the apartment had been Jo Temple.

M
ISS IRENE SEWELL, ALIAS
Llewes, came swiftly into her apartment at two o’clock in the morning, humming a waltz. She did not look like a woman who had spent several hours under the searching scrutiny of the police.

Under her arm she carried a small package done up in brown paper.

“Lucy!” she called gaily. “Lucy!” Her voice echoed through the sitting-room. But there was no answer, and with a shrug she let her mink coat slip to the floor and glided into the living-room. She turned on the light, still humming, and looked about with a slow sweep of her remarkable brown eyes. The hum ceased abruptly. An expression of suspicion disturbed her large beautiful features. A sixth sense told her subtly that something was wrong. What it was she could not conceive, and yet … Her eyes blazed, and she strode forward and yanked open the bedroom-door and snapped on the light.

Mr. Ellery Queen sat smiling in the plush chair facing the door, his legs comfortably crossed. At his elbow lay an ashtray overflowing with butts.

“Mr. Queen! What’s the meaning of this?” she demanded in her throaty voice.

“Good entrance, Miss Llewes,” said Ellery cheerfully, getting to his feet. “I mean the business. The speech wasn’t so good. Hackneyed, don’t you think?”

“I asked you,” she said sharply, “what you’re doing in my bedroom at this hour of the morning!”

“Implying, I trust, that at an earlier hour you would have no objection whatever? Thank you. …” He stretched his lean arms and yawned politely. “That was a long wait, Miss Llewes. I was beginning to believe that you’d found my father a positively enchanting host.”

She clutched the back of the nearest chair, her mask stripped off. The bundle was still under her arm. “Then it was a trick,” she said slowly. “He returned Kirk’s jewels to me and kept asking me questions. …” Her eyes travelled over the furniture, probing for signs of disturbance. They widened a little when she saw that the lowest drawer of the vanity was open. “Then you’ve found it,” she said with bitterness.

Ellery raised his shoulders. “Very clumsy, my dear. I should think that a woman of your experience would have chosen a more subtle hiding-place. Yes, I’ve found it; and that’s why I’ve waited in this damnably sleepy chair.”

She advanced toward him with oddly uncertain steps, as if she did not quite know what to do or say. “Well?” she murmured at last. Her peculiar progress was taking her in a sidling way to the vanity.

“The .22 isn’t there any more,” said Ellery, “so you may as well sit down, Miss Llewes.”

She went a little paler, but she said nothing and obediently turned and went to the
chaise-longue
, upon which she sank in a tired way.

Ellery began to pace the rug thoughtfully. “The time has come—to paraphrase the immortal Walrus—to discuss fundamentals. You’ve been playing a dangerous game, my dear. Now you’ve got to pay the price.”

“What do you want of me?” she asked huskily; there was no defiance in her voice.

Ellery cocked a shrewd eye at her. “Information. Explanation. … I must say I’m inexpressibly astonished, even a little disappointed in you, Irene. No resistance beyond that instinctive groping toward the little .22?
Tch, tch
. I suppose you’ve decided that submission is the better part of conflict.”

“What can I say?” She leaned back, and the folds of her evening gown draped her in long clean curves. “You’ve won. I’ve been stupid.
Voila
!”

“Much as it goes against the gentleman in me,” murmured Ellery, “I must agree with you. You’ve not only been stupid, Irene, but criminally stupid. To keep those letters so carelessly in your bedroom! Why didn’t you put them in the wall-safe?”

“Because the wall-safe or any safe is the first place people examine,” she replied with an unnatural smile.

“The Dupin principle, eh?” Ellery shrugged. “And then, too, people like you place too great reliance upon firearms. I suppose you thought the .22 was protection enough.”

“I usually,” she murmured, “carry it in my bag.”

“But tonight, of course, you left off the lethal jewelry for purposes of your visit to Headquarters. Quite so. Perhaps I’ve been hasty in my judgment, Irene. … Well, my dear, it’s late; and much as I enjoy the intimate nature of this
tête-à-tête
, I should relish sleep more. Why,” he snapped suddenly, “did you change your name to Llewes from Sewell?”

“It seemed an interesting surname,” she said brightly.

“I suppose you realize that Llewes is Sewell spelled backwards?”

“Oh, that. Of course. That was how …” She sat up in alarm. “You don’t mean—you don’t think—”

“What
I
mean or think, dear lady, is inconsequential. I’m just a cog in the machine.”

“But it happened so long ago—years ago,” she faltered. “I assure you there wasn’t—there couldn’t be the slightest connection between the name and the—”

“That remains to be seen. Now, Miss Llewes, to get down to business. I’ve found those letters and the copy of the certificate. It’s unnecessary for me to point out that your little game has been played, and that you’ve lost.”

“Possession of those—isn’t documents the technical word, Mr. Queen?” she murmured with a sudden sparkle in her eyes—“merely establishes the proofs, you know. But you can’t eradicate from my brain the knowledge of what happened, you see. And it’s quite evident that Mr. Donald Kirk is anxious that I keep quiet. What do you say to that?”

“Awakening resistance,” chuckled Ellery. “Wrong again, my dear. Your word—the word of a woman with a long criminal record—wouldn’t stand for an instant against mine if I should testify that I found these papers in your possession. And Kirk, knowing you no longer possess them, will be willing to testify in his turn that you blackmailed him. So—”

“Oh,” smiled the woman, rising and stretching her long white arms, “but he won’t, d’ye see, Mr. Queen.”

“Resistance stretches. I apologize for the accusation of stupidity. You mean, I presume, that with or without the papers in your possession, Kirk’s only concern is to keep you silent, and that if it came to a matter of arrest and trial he couldn’t prevent your telling the story in open court?”

“How clever you are, Mr. Queen.”

“Now, now, no flattery. But let me point out in rebuttal,” said Ellery dryly, “that if it does come to a showdown in court, the story must come out anyway. And since it must come out and Kirk will be powerless to prevent its coming out, he’ll testify against you with a grim and enthusiastic vengeance, my dear, that will put that fetching body of yours behind bars—ugly American bars—for years and years and years. And what do you say to that, Irene?”

“Am I to understand,” she murmured, coming closer to him, “that you’re proposing an
entente
, a conspiracy of silence, Mr. Queen? That you won’t prosecute in return for my silence?”

Ellery bowed. “I beg forgiveness again; I underestimated the acuteness of your perceptions. Precisely what I’m proposing. … And please don’t come any nearer, my dear, because while I can exercise stern self-control on occasion, this is not one of the occasions. I’m still human. At two o’clock in the morning my moral resistance is at its lowest ebb.”

“I could like you—very much, Mr. Queen.”

Ellery sighed and hastily retreated a step. “Ah, the Mae West influence. Dear, dear! And I’ve always said that the Hammetts and the Whitfields are wrong in their demonstrated belief that a detective has countless opportunities for indulging his sex appeal. Another credo blasted. … Then it’s agreed, Miss Llewes?”

She regarded him coolly. “Agreed. And I have been a fool.”

“A fascinating fool, at any rate. Poor Kirk! He must have had the very devil of a time with you. By the way,” murmured Ellery, and his eyes belied the smile on his lips, “how well did you know that man?”

“What man?”

“The Parisian.”

“Oh!” Her mask slipped on. “Not very well.”

“Did you ever meet him?”

“Once. But he was unshaven—wore a beard, in fact. And he was foully drunk when he sold me the letters. I met him only when the letters and money changed hands. For an instant. All previous negotiations had been conducted by letter.”

“Hmm. You saw the face of the corpse, Miss Llewes, upstairs the other day.” Ellery paused. Then he continued slowly: “
Could the man from Paris have been the man murdered upstairs
?”

She stepped back, dazed. “You mean—that little … Good heavens!”

“Well?”

“I don’t know,” she said hurriedly, biting her lips. “I don’t know. It’s so hard to say. Without the beard … It was a bushy beard that concealed most of his features. And he was horribly seedy and dirty, a wreck. But it’s possible. …”

“Ah,” frowned Ellery. “I’d hoped for a surer identification. You can’t be certain?”

“No,” she murmured in a thoughtful tone, “I can’t be certain, Mr. Queen.”

“Then I’ll bid you good night and pleasant dreams.” Ellery snatched up his coat and wriggled into it. The woman was still thoughtful, standing in the middle of the room like a draped tree. “Oh, yes! I knew I’d forgotten something.”

“Forgotten something?”

Ellery walked over to the
chaise-longue
and picked up the brown-paper package. “Donald Kirk’s precious antiques. Dear, dear! It would have been a beastly oversight to leave without them.”

The color ebbed out of her face. “Do you mean to say,” she demanded in a furious voice, “that you’re taking those, too? You—you brigand!”

“Lovely, my dear. Anger becomes you. But surely you didn’t think I’d leave them in your care?”

“But then I have nothing left—nothing!” She was almost sobbing in her rage. “All these weeks, months. The expense … I’ll tell the whole story! I’ll call in the press! I’ll splatter that story all over the world!”

“And spend the best part of the remainder of your life behind cold gray walls, in a narrow cell, and with coarse—I assure you it’s unreasonably coarse—cotton underwear next to your skin?” Ellery shook his head sadly. “I think not. You’re about thirty-five now, I should say—”

“Thirty-one, you beast!”

“I beg your pardon. Thirty-one. When you’re out you’ll be—let’s see—Well, in your case, considering the plenitude of your
dossier
, you should get—”

She flung herself on the
chaise-longue
, panting. “Oh, get out of here!” she screamed. “Get out! Or I’ll tear your eyes out!”

“Heavens, you’ll wake the neighbors,” said Ellery with horror; and then he smiled and Bowed and went away with the package under his arm.

He startled the night-clerk at the desk in the lobby of the Chancellor by reaching for one of the house-telephones.

“Here, man!” cried the night-clerk. “What do you think you’re doing? Don’t you know it’s almost half-past two?”

“Police,” said Ellery portentously, and the man fell back, gaping. Ellery murmured to the hotel operator: “Ring Mr. Donald Kirk on the twenty-second, please. Yes, important.” He waited, whistling a merry tune. “Who’s this? Oh, Hubbell. This is Ellery Queen. … Yes, yes, man; Queen! Is Donald Kirk in? … Well, get him out of bed, then! … Ah, Kirk. … No, no, nothing’s the matter. Actually, I’ve rousing good news for you. You’ll be glad I woke you up at this obscene hour. I’ve something for you—call it a little engagement gift. … No, no. I’ll leave it for you at the desk. And let me tell you, Kirk, that your troubles are over. About M., I mean. … Yes! Well, don’t shout my ears off, old chap. And, as far as I. L. is concerned, her claws are permanently trimmed. She won’t bother you again. Stay away from her like a good little boy and devote yourself—you lucky devil!—to the lady known as Jo. Night!”

And, chuckling, Ellery deposited the package with the clerk and marched out of the Chancellor, reeling a little from sheer fatigue but glowing with the consciousness of a good deed exceedingly well done.

Ellery astounded his father and Djuna by appearing at the Inspector’s breakfast table at the Inspector’s usual breakfast hour, which was an early hour indeed.

“Well, look who’s here,” said the old gentleman a little brokenly, because his mouth was full of eggy toast. “Sick, El? Must be something wrong to get you up this early.”

“Something right,” yawned Ellery, rubbing red-rimmed eyes. He sank into a chair with a groan.

“What time did you get in?”

“About three. … Djuna, the royal oofs, if you please.”

“Oofs?” said Djuna suspiciously. “What’s them?”

“What are those, my lad; this association with the youth of 87th Street is contaminating you. Oofs, Djuna, is a sort of bastardized French for eggs. I could stomach a right good egg at the moment. Turn ’em over and slap ’em in the behind; you know—the usual style.”

Djuna grinned and vanished into the kitchen. The Inspector grunted: “Well?”

“You may well say well,” murmured Ellery, reaching for the cigarets. “I am happy to report unmitigated success.”