Chinese Orange Mystery (22 page)

“Hmm. If you’ll tell me what you’re talking about, maybe I’ll understand you.”

“The situation is briefly this,” said Ellery, leaning back and blowing smoke. “I asked you to get the Llewes woman—fascinating wench!—out of the way so that I could pursue a little hunch of mine. It was obvious that she had a hold on Kirk—something she was waving over his head which was keeping that harassed young idiot quiet and which he would have given the remnants of his fortune to get back. Well, what was she waving over his head? Obviously, again, something of a tangible nature. Such being the case, I said to myself in the typical rococo style of a vanished literary era, it was in her possession and very close to her charming person. Where? Her apartment, of course. She’s too foxy and experienced a creature to get mixed up with safety-deposit vaults and the consequent records. So—you obliged me and engaged her in Centre Street chit-chat while I burgled her rooms.”

“And without a warrant, too!” gasped the Inspector. “That’s the second time, you fool. Some day you’re going to step into a nasty mess of trouble. Suppose it hadn’t been there? By the way, did you find it?”

“Certainly I found it. A Queen, as the saying goes in Centre Street, never fails.”

“Never mind how the saying goes in Centre Street,” growled the old gentleman. “You ought to hear how the saying goes in City Hall. Well, give!”

“Of course, I neglected to mention that I bumped into young Kirk on my prowl. It seems we both had something of the same brilliant idea—”

“What!”

“Don’t look so startled; it’s unbecoming. The poor boy’s desperate, or at least he was until about two-thirty this morning. I packed him off to bed and returned to Miss Llewes’s American lair and found the—ah—papuhs; and I waited for the admirable lady to return to said lair from her visit to Headquarters, where I fancy you were entertaining her with tiffin. I blush to confess that I made her see the light. Would you believe it? She even returned the loot she got from Kirk!”

“Surprising you were smart enough to think of that,” snapped the Inspector. “It broke my heart to have had to hand it over to her. Come on, come on; let’s see those—well, whatever they are.”

“That’s the funniest thing,” drawled Ellery. “I can’t for the life of me remember where I put them. I was so damned sleepy last night—”

The old gentleman glared. “What—Say, look here, El, stop making a fool out of yourself. Let’s see those papers!”

“Perhaps,” said. Ellery quietly, “it’s better that you don’t. I can tell you what’s in them and still retain the evidence.”

“But why don’t you want me to have them, for cripe’s sake?” snarled the Inspector.

“Because you’ve such a confounded loyalty to duty. They remain in my possession. So you won’t be placed in the position of succumbing to the temptation of dragging a very sad and pitiful story out into the light of day.”

The Inspector sputtered incoherently for a moment. “Why, you presumptuous young dope! I thought you were going to be a help. … Well, tell me, then.”

“I must exact a promise first.”

“Exact your Aunt Tillie!”

“It’s between us exclusively? You won’t spill it to any one—the press, the Commissioner, the Chief Deputy Inspector?”

“Boy, it sure must be a honey,” said the Inspector sarcastically. “All right, I promise. Now what’s it all about?”

Ellery puffed reflectively on his cigaret. “It concerns Marcella Kirk. It’s a howling little tragedy, and it’s the sort of thing a vulture like this Llewes woman would snap up in her filthy beak.

“Marcella’s not quite as adolescent as she looks. Several years ago—in her pre-deb days—she met a man. He seems to be—or to have been—an American expatriate who’d spent most of his recent time in Paris among the wolves. But Marcella met him in New York and fell in love with him. He was apparently old enough to be her father, but she was extremely impressionable and he swept her off her feet. Anyway, with an eye on the Kirk money, I suppose, he carried her off and married her secretly in Greenwich.”

“So what?” growled the Inspector.

“It wasn’t until it was all over that Donald Kirk learned of even the existence of this man, let alone what followed. The man went by the name of Cullinan, Howard Cullinan. Kirk instituted a feverish but quiet inquiry and discovered that Cullinan was already married; had a wife in Paris.”

“Good Lord,” said the Inspector.

Ellery sighed. “Nasty mess, as nasty as they come. Nobody else apparently knew. Not even old Dr. Kirk. Donald found Marcella alone in Greenwich—the man was out somewhere—disclosed to her what he knew, and took the poor girl away, more dead than alive. Cullinan seems to have possessed a certain amount of bravado; he shrewdly guessed that Kirk would rather hush the affair than prosecute him for bigamy. And the upshot of the sordid business was that Kirk paid him a sizeable sum to keep his mouth shut and clear out.”

“Well, even so—” muttered the Inspector, knitting his bushy brows.

“Tut, tut. The worst is yet to come; this is a story for the ages. That would have been bad enough, you understand. But Marcella kept writing Cullman letters on the sly, as she had written him before they eloped. The girl was desperate, unbalanced, on the verge of suicide. She was afraid to tell even her brother what actually had happened.”

“Oh,” said the Inspector in a low tone. “She was pregnant?”

“Exactly. Which made it an altogether different story. Cullinan naturally washed his hands of her. Marcella’s being pregnant only complicated matters for him; he’d got his cut and that’s all he was interested in. So Marcella, in a pitiable state, went to Donald with the news. You can imagine poor Kirk’s feelings.”

“I wouldn’t blame him if he’d cut that skunk’s throat,” growled the Inspector.

“Odd, isn’t it?” murmured Ellery with a queer smile. “I had the same thought. … Anyway, he trumped up some story of a breakdown for the benefit of his family and friends, let this Dr. Angini in on it—he’s a very old and trusted friend—and the doctor and Kirk took Marcella away to Europe. She had her baby there, the wheels of progress being oiled by the worthy physician. Unfortunately the child was born quite healthy, and it’s still in Europe in the care of a trusted nurse.”

“So that was the hold Sewell had on Kirk,” muttered the Inspector.

“Quite a hold, eh? One the Strangler would be proud of. … I don’t know precisely how she first got wind of it, but somehow she found out—probably through the intercession of some underworld intermediary—and negotiated with Cullinan, who had drifted back to Paris and was of course on his uppers, for the sale of the letters and the marriage certificate. The letters incidentally tell enough of the story to permit a complete reconstruction of what happened. … Then Miss Irene Llewes came to the Hotel Chancellor, making the crossing from France for the sole purpose of squeezing Donald Kirk to within an inch of his last dollar. What happened then is history. Poor Kirk was caught properly—”

“Macgowan, of course,” said the old gentleman gloomily.

“Precisely. In the meantime Marcella, with the resilience of youth, had rehabilitated herself. No one suspected. She’d almost forgotten the whole dreary horrible business. And then Macgowan, Kirk’s best friend, suddenly realized that Donald had a beautiful grown-up sister. It developed into a romance; they were engaged. Next scene: the Llewes creature turns up and Kirk was in for it with a vengeance.”

“Doesn’t Marcella Kirk know what’s been going on?”

“Not the faintest vestige of the breath of a minute suspicion, as far as I can make out. From the internal evidence of the letters she seems to have gone half-potty from the pressure of conscience and shame—I mean during the time she was pregnant. I suppose Kirk has felt that a reopening of the mess would put the finishing touch on her. And then Macgowan, for all his worldliness, is a puritanical soul, and he comes from one of those blue-plush-and-carryall families who would insist on his breaking off the engagement at the first breath of scandal. Poor Kirk has had his hands full.”

“And the ice he gave Sewell?”

“Blackmail. It wasn’t what she had expected, but she made the best of it. Wasn’t so bad, since she’s specialized in gem swindles and probably has connections with ‘fences’ in Amsterdam. … He had to give her parts of his collection, you see, because unfortunately he was in straitened circumstances when she popped onto the scene. He gave her what cash he could scrape together and then when the cash gave out—he even borrowed from Macgowan in his desperation—he gave the woman jewels from his collection. What she got makes a sizeable sack, I’ll tell you that. But then you saw it yourself.”

“And she forced him to write that note to cover her up in case something went wrong,” mused the Inspector. “Smart. I s’pose the touch about asking her to marry him in the note was another little nest-egg for the future—if he ever recovered financially she’d sue him for breach of promise. But when the murder occurred and the police started nosing around, she got a little scared and generously handed Kirk over to his new lady-love. Well, well! So now where are we?”

“As regards the murder?” murmured Ellery.

“Sure.”

Ellery rose and went to the window. “I don’t know,” he said in a puzzled way. “I really don’t. And yet I have a fugitive idea—”

“Sa-a-ay!” The Inspector bounced from his chair, wildly excited. “Oh, what fools we are! Listen to this, El; just listen to this.” He began to trot about the room, hands gripped behind his back, head low. “Just struck me. It all ties in. Swell! Listen.
The bird who was bumped off at the Chancellor was Marcella Kirk’s boyfriend
!”

Ellery said slowly: “You’ve caught the fugitive. You think so?”

“Well, isn’t it a perfect set-up?” The Inspector waved his spindly arms about. “Here’s a man on his uppers; we can’t trace him here; Marcella’s man hung out in Paris; it’s possible. … He came over here to put the screws on Kirk himself, see? Soon as he got off the boat; there was a boat from France that day. … He’s desperate, see; he was afraid before, with the girl having a kid, and all that; but he needs money bad, and he’s decided to go back for more. He beats it to the Chancellor to see Kirk. … Great!” Then his face fell. “But Kirk should have recognized him, if he’s the one. Maybe—”

“Curiously enough,” muttered Ellery, “Kirk never met Cullinan. He paid the man off by mail.”

“But then there’s Marcella. … She fainted, didn’t you say, when she first got a look at the dead man?”

“Yes, but that may have been merely shock.”

“At the same time, if it
was
the Parisian guy,” mused the Inspector in a fierce undertone, “she naturally would shut up; naturally wouldn’t admit she knew him. Didn’t the Sewell woman know Cullinan by sight, either?”

“She says she saw him only once, and then under unfavorable circumstances. She can’t be sure of anything, she maintains. Yes, yes, it’s a possibility; no doubt about it.”

“I like it,” said the Inspector with a ferocious grin. “I like it, El. It ties in. First time in this blasted case I’ve got the feeling of co—co—what d’ye call it?”

“Cohesion?”

“That’s it. It’s tightened up, the whole thing. Because now we can establish a strong connection—”

“In theory,” said Ellery dryly.

“Sure. Between this dead palooka and the people, most of ’em, involved in this thing. Motive’s clear as crystal against almost any of ’em.”

“As?”

“Well, now take Donald Kirk, poor young squirt. He’s in the hotel that afternoon—I don’t doubt seeing the Sewell animal on her demand for a powwow. He knows in some way that—we’ll call him by the Paris feller’s name—that Cullinan is upstairs waiting, or is coming to see him. He dodges up the stairway from the twenty-first floor, waits for a clear field, sneaks into the anteroom, bumps off Cullinan, goes back. … Then there’s Marcella. Ditto for her. And for the old walrus, Dr. Kirk. All had the same reason—to shut Cullinan’s mouth. Of course none of ’em except Donald and Marcella knew that there were two people floating around with knowledge of the affair.”

“And Macgowan?” murmured Ellery, squinting at his smoke.

“Even he’s a possibility,” said the Inspector argumentatively. “Suppose in some way he’d found out Marcella’s story but hadn’t let on? I’ll make it better! Suppose he’d found out through Cullinan
himself
who, let’s say, read in the papers about Macgowan’s engagement to Marcella and promptly wrote asking blackmail?”

“Superb,” said Ellery.

“So Macgowan brings this bird over from the other side and kills him in—in—”

“In his best friend’s office?” Ellery shook his head. “Doesn’t wash, dad. That’s the last place he would have selected for the job.”

“Well, all right,” grumbled the Inspector, “Macgowan’s out. But Llewes, or Sewell, or whatever the hell her name is, had a motive, too. She showed up in the office after the murder, didn’t she? Well, suppose she did that just as a sort of cover-up? She was certainly on the twenty-second floor that afternoon. Suppose she’d seen Cullinan in the anteroom—suppose she’s lying about not being able to remember what he looked like—suppose she found out from him his plan to blackmail Kirk, or Macgowan, or somebody. So what? So she kills him to cut him out of the gravy, or keep him from spoiling her game. How’s that?”

“Masterly,” murmured Ellery, “as are your speculations about the others. In classic terminology you’ve put your finger on probably an epic motive. But there’s just one little element which puts the damper on the boodle of ’em, especially if the motive is what you claim it to be.”

“What?”

“The fact that the murderer turned everything backwards. I might add,” continued Ellery reflectively, “another. The fact, too, that the murderer thrust those
Impi
spears up the dead man’s clothes.”

“Well, even so,” said the Inspector irritably, “I don’t see that because we don’t know why the killer did those fool things it cuts out my theory. Might still fit.”

“Conceivable.”

“But you don’t think so?”

Ellery stared out at the sky over 87th Street. “Sometimes I get a furtive glimpse of what might be the last outpost of the truth. It’s the damnedest thing. Keeps eluding me, like a piece of wet soap in the dark. Or like a dream you’ve forgotten but are conscious of. That’s all I can say.”