Chinese Orange Mystery (24 page)

“Well, good heavens, dad,” said Ellery impatiently, “you’re obviously not dealing with an imbecile! Wouldn’t it have been extraordinarily simple for him to have been lounging about the lobby of the Chancellor keeping an eye on the checkroom
while the messenger was presenting the baggage-check
?”

Sergeant Velie went crimson. “By crap,” he said hoarsely, “I never thought of that.”

The Inspector stared at Ellery with a solemn conviction mounting in his marbly little eyes. “That sure sounds kosher to me,” he said in a rueful voice.

“Disgusting,” said Ellery bitterly. “I didn’t think of it, either, until it was too late. Golden opportunity. And yet I don’t see how else. … Of course he’d be on the alert. Just to make sure nothing went wrong. He was safe there—”

“Especially,” muttered Velie, “if he lived there.”

“Or normally had business there. But that’s beside the point. His plan patently was to watch the boy pick up the bag in the Chancellor and then follow him to Grand Central. In that way he’d be absolutely sure everything was all right.”

“So he saw the clerk call Nye and Brummer, saw Thomas, saw the boys. …” The Inspector shrugged. “Well, that’s that. At least we’ve got the valise. We’ll go back to Headquarters and give it the once-over. Wasn’t a total loss, anyway.”

It was on the journey downtown that Ellery suddenly exclaimed: “I’m witless! I’m the world’s biggest idiot! I should have my head examined!”

“Granting,” said the Inspector dryly, “the truth of all that, what’s eating you now? You hop around inside that head of yours like a flea.”

“The bag, dad. It’s just struck me. My mental processes seem to have slowed down with the years. Hardening of the cerebrum. I remember the time when a thought like that would have been instantaneous with the event. … It was perfectly logical of you to conjure up a possible bag from the fact that the victim doesn’t seem to have been a native of New York. And so to institute a search for it. But,” frowned Ellery, “why does the murderer want it?”

“You
are
running down,” snorted the Inspector. “Why d’ye suppose? I’ll admit I hadn’t foreseen that eventuality myself, but still it’s easy enough to explain when you think of it. This killer took every precaution against our finding out the identity of the dead man, didn’t he? So if the dead man’s valise is floating around and liable to be picked up by the police, do you think the killer’s going to sit back and let it be picked up? Not if he can help it! He’s afraid, or else he positively knows, that there’s something in that bag that will establish the dead man’s identity!”

“Oh, that,” said Ellery, eying the bag at their feet with suspicion.

“So what are you yelping about? I’m surprised at you, asking a question like that!”

“Rhetorical question purely,” murmured Ellery, his eyes still on the bag. “The mere existence of the brass check is enough to point to the answer. He found the Chancellor check on the victim’s body after the murder when he was cleaning out the little fellow’s pockets. The check tells its own story. The murderer took it away with him. But why hasn’t he picked up the bag before this? Why has he waited so long; eh?”

“Afraid,” said the Inspector contemptuously. “No guts. Scared to take the chance. Especially since the bag was checked at the Chancellor. It’s that fact itself that convinces me our man has some connection with the hotel, El. I mean he’s known there. He knew damn’ well that we have the Chancellor under observation. If he were an outsider altogether he wouldn’t Have had any hesitation in making a play for the valise. But if we knew him he’d be scared.”

“I suppose so.” Ellery sighed. “I’m itching to get my claws inside that thing. Lord knows what we’ll find.”

“Well, it won’t be long now,” said the Inspector placidly. “I’ve got the funniest feeling that even if we did miss out in, our chance to collar the killer, this bag is going to tell a sweet story.”

“I sincerely,” muttered Ellery, “hope so.”

There was a solemn moment in Inspector Queen’s office before the valise, so shabbily innocent-appearing from the outside, was opened. The door was shut, their coats and hats were flung helter-skelter in a corner, and the Inspector, Ellery, and Sergeant Velie stared at the bag on the Inspector’s desk with varying expressions of emotion.

“Well,” said the Inspector in a rather hushed voice, at last, “here goes.”

He picked up the valise and examined its worn, grimy canvas exterior carefully. It bore no labels of any kind. Its metal hasps were rather rusty. The canvas was eaten away in the creases. There were no initials or insignia.

Sergeant Velie growled: “Sure has seen service.”

“Sure has,” murmured the Inspector. “Thomas, hand me those keys.”

The Sergeant silently offered his superior a ringed bunch of skeleton keys. The Inspector tried a half-dozen before he found one that fitted the rusty lock of the valise. The tiny bolt turned over inside with a grating little noise; the Inspector pulled up the clamps on each side, pressed the central section of metal, and yanked the two halves of the bag apart.

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, knobby 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 assertion?”

“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 assortment 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 godly old gentleman, dad.”

“Godly old gentlemen rarely get themselves bumped 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 button. “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 identity 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 assumed chiefly during his more passionately 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 canvassed 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 nobody 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 God’s sake?”

“Nothing’s the matter,” said Ellery. There was a rapt expression on his face. “Nothing at all. God’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, bloody 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 père
y 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
dénouement
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.