Chinese Orange Mystery (26 page)

“I’m looking,” murmured Ellery, fascinated. It was, as the Sergeant had said, a most artistic job. The pink smooth skull with its fringe of gray hair was quite life-like. Even the crushed blackish area where the brass poker had struck was there, and the jelly-like radiations of dried blood.

“Look,” whispered Djuna, stretching his thin neck. “He’s got his pants on backwards. An’ his coat ’n’ everything!”

“Quite in order. Well!” Ellery breathed deeply. “Rosenzweig, my friend, I salute you. I’m certainly in the debt of that genius, whoever he is. Couldn’t have conceived a more perfect dummy for my purposes. Here. Let’s get him—”

“Gonna throw a scare into them?” growled Velie, stooping and tugging at the dummy’s shoulders.

“No, no, Velie; nothing so crude as that. Let’s sit him in that chair near the bedroom door. There. That’s the idea. … Now, Sergeant.” He straightened, flushed a little, and stared into the giant’s hard eyes. The Sergeant scratched his chin and looked suspicious.

“You want me to do somethin’,” he said accusingly, “somethin’ you don’t want no one to know about.”

“Exactly. Now—”

“Not even the Inspector, I bet.”

“Oh,” said Ellery airily, “why not surprise him? He doesn’t get much fun out of life, Velie.” He took the giant’s arm and steered him into the foyer. Djuna, a little hurt, stalked back to his kitchen. He kept his sharp ears cocked, however, and he could hear Ellery murmur earnest words and at least once an explosive exclamation from the mountainous Sergeant. The Sergeant, it appeared, was stupefied. Then there was the slam of the front door and Ellery was back, smiling and rubbing his hands.

“Djuna!”

Before the name was out of his mouth Djuna was at his side, panting and eager as a charger.

“You gonna do somepin’?”

“And, my chief of the Baker Street Division,” said Ellery, eying the smiling face of the dummy thoughtfully, “how. You’re hereby appointed First Special Laboratory Assistant, young man. We’re alone, there are no prying eyes and ears—” He fixed a stern eye on Djuna. “You take your oath as a Romany gentleman that what passes between us this night is henceforth and forever a secret, writ in words of blood? Cross your heart and hope to die?”

Djuna crossed his heart hastily and hoped to die.

“Settled! Now, first.” Ellery sucked his thumb. “Ah, yes! That small mat from the storage-closet, Djuna.”

“Mat?” Djuna’s eyes opened wide. “Yes,
sir
.” And he sped away, to return a moment later with the commandeered mat.

“Next,” said Ellery, crossing the room and gazing up at the wall above the fireplace, “the step-ladder.”

Djuna brought the step-ladder. Ellery mounted it and with the solemnity and dignity of a high priest performing a sacred rite unhooked the somewhat dusty long swords from their brackets on the wall and brought them down. These he placed beside the rolled mat and smote his palms together, chuckling.

“We progress, Djuna. Finally, a commission.”

“Com—”

“An errand. Don your legate’s robes, O Assistant.”

Djuna frowned a moment, and then grinned and vanished and reappeared in hat and coat. “Where to?”

“The hardware store on St. Nicholas Avenue. That monstrous emporium.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ellery handed him a bill. “Procure, O Assistant, a small roll of every kind of cord and twine in the establishment.”

“Yep.”

“And,” added Ellery, frowning, “also thin pliable wire—a few lengths. We must overlook no possibility in our quest for the Holy Grail in which truth lies enshrined.
Comprends
?”

Djuna ran.

“A moment, young limb. Perhaps you’d better buy us a new broom, too.”

“Why?”

“I might say platitudinously because it sweeps clean, but that would be aborting the facts. Rest content, my friend, with the bare wording of the commission.”

Djuna shook his head stubbornly. “But we got a new broom.”

“We must have another. Nothing’s happened to our saw, Djuna, I trust?”

“It’s in the tool-chest in the storage-closet.”

“Superb. The brooms may serve if the swords fail us.
Alors
, avaunt, then, my fine churl; science waits upon the vigor of your muscles!”

Djuna set his small mouth in desperate lines, stuck out his thin chest, and scudded out of the apartment. Ellery sat down and stretched his legs.

Then Djuna popped his head back. “You won’t do nothin’ till I get back, will you, Mr. El?” he asked anxiously.

“My dear Djuna,” said Ellery in a reproachful voice. And then Djuna was gone again, and Ellery leaned back and closed his eyes and laughed aloud.

At 11:15, when Inspector Queen tramped wearily into the apartment, he found Djuna and Ellery in excited discussion before the fire—a discussion which ended abruptly with his entrance. The dummy was packed in his coffin and laid out in the center of the room. The mat, the assorted rolls of twine, and the brooms were not in evidence. Even the long swords had found their way back to their accustomed places above the fireplace.

“Well, what’s the whispering about?” grunted the old man, flinging his hat and coat down and coming to the fire to chafe his hands.

“We found a—” Djuna began hotly, when Ellery clapped his hands over the boy’s mouth.

“Is that the way, O Assistant,” he said severely, “you keep to your sacred oath? Dad, I beg to report—
we
beg to report—success. Complete, utter, final success.”

“’Zat so?” said the Inspector dryly.

“You don’t seem immoderately elated.”

“I’m worn out.”

“I’m sorry.” There was a little silence. Djuna, sensing intrafamiliar trouble, slipped off to his bedroom. “I mean it, though.”

“Glad to hear it.” The Inspector sat down, groaning. He cast a long sidewise glance at the coffin-like crate in the middle of the room. “I see you got the dummy all right.”

“Oh, yes. Thanks loads.” There was another silence. Ellery’s spirits seemed dampened; he rose and went to the mantelpiece and rather nervously fingered one of the iron candlesticks on it. “How did your Forty-fifth Street tramp come out?”

“With a slug in her belly,” sniffed the Inspector. “It’s all right, though. We got the guy who plugged her. Dippy MacGuire, the coke. That ends
one
spectacular career.”

And again a silence. “Aren’t you going to ask me,” said Ellery at last in a plaintive tone, “what success means in terms of Queenian syllables?”

“I kind of figured,” drawled the Inspector, dipping into his snuff-box, “that if you were over your fit of hush-mouth, you’d tell without my asking.”

“It’s solved, you know,” said Ellery bashfully.

“Congrats.”

“I know the whole story now, you see. All the essential things. Except the little chap’s name, and that’s
not
important. But who murdered him, why, and how it was done—especially how it was done—they’re quite settled in my mind.”

The Inspector said nothing; he placed his small hands behind his head and gazed gloomily into the fire.

Ellery grinned suddenly and seized a chair and dragged it over to the fire and sat down. He leaned over and smacked his father’s knee resoundingly. “Come on, old growler,” he chuckled. “Come out of it. You know you’re putting on an act. I do want to tell you, now that I’m convinced. … Or perhaps you’d rather not—?”

“It’s up to you,” said the Inspector stiffly.

So Ellery put his hands between his knees and squatted and talked.

He talked for an hour. All the while Inspector Queen remained motionless, gazing steadily into the flames, his bird-like little face screwed up and his brows flanking a frown.

And then, all at once, he grinned all over his face and cried: “Well, I’ll be double-damned!”

M
R. ELLERY QUEEN HAD
never set a stage more carefully in the whole of his variegated experience than he did the morning after the great experiment in his living-room. And, for once, he had Inspector Queen with him.

Why they deemed it necessary to be so thoroughly cautious and painstaking about their preparations neither took the trouble to explain to any one. And the only other person who might have been able to account for it was missing. Sergeant Velie, normally the soul of punctuality, had vanished. And again, for once, Inspector Queen accepted his vanishment with equanimity.

When it began it proceeded very smoothly indeed. Early in the morning a grim-faced detective from Headquarters called on each of the persons associated with the case and constituted himself a gratuitous bodyguard thenceforward. There were no explanations or excuses. Beyond a curt: “Orders of Inspector Queen,” each detective remained silent.

Consequently, when 10:00 o’clock rolled round, the anteroom to Donald Kirk’s office—the scene of the crime—began to fill with curious, rather shaken, people. Dr. Hugh Kirk, faintly blustering, was wheeled into the anteroom by a subdued Miss Diversey under the watchful eye of Detective Hagstrom. Donald Kirk and his sister Marcella were marched in by Detective Ritter. Miss Temple, distinctly mauve-complectioned, entered with Detective Hesse. Glenn Macgowan stamped in, furious but unprotesting, under the wing of Detective Johnson. Felix Berne was a reluctantly early comer, prodded along by Detective Piggott, who seemed to have developed an abrasive dislike for his charge. Inspector Queen attended to Irene Sewell himself. Osborne found himself hustled into the anteroom by a brawny policeman. Even Nye, the Chancellor’s manager, and Brummer, the black-browed house-detective, were there in firm if polite custody; as were Mrs. Shane, the floor-clerk, and Hubbell, Kirk’s valet-butler.

When they were all assembled Mr. Ellery Queen briskly shut the door, smiled at the silent seated company, cast a professional eye over the detectives ranged against the wall, nodded to Inspector Queen, who had taken up a silent station before the corridor door, and strode to the center of the room.

Through the windows streamed a pale morning light, sluggishly emanating from an overcast, depressing sky. The coffin-like crate lay before them, its lid loosely on; the contents of this remote sarcophagus had not been revealed to them, and more than one puzzled disturbed glance was directed at it.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” began Mr. Ellery Queen, resting one neat shoe on the crate, “I suppose all of you are wondering at the peculiar character of this morning’s little convention. I shan’t keep you in doubt. We’ve gathered this morning to unmask the murderer of the man who met his death in this room not so long ago.”

They were sitting rigidly, staring at him with a sort of fascinated horror. Then Miss Diversey whispered: “Then you know—” and bit her lip and blushed in confusion.

“Shut up,” snarled Dr. Kirk. “Are we to understand, Queen, that this is to be one of those fantastic exhibitions of crime-nosing you’re reputed to be so addicted to? I must say that—”

“One at a time, please,” smiled Ellery. “Yes, Dr. Kirk, that’s precisely what this is intended to be. Let’s say: a practical demonstration of the invincibility of logic. Mind over matter. The self-taught brain victorious. And as for your question, Miss Diversey: we shall argue certain points of interest and see where they lead us.” He raised his hand. “No, no, no questions, please. … Oh, before I begin. I suppose it’s futile to request the murderer of our little corpse to step forward and save us both time and cerebral wear-and-tear?”

He looked at them gravely. But no one replied; every one kept his eyes fixed guiltily before him.

“Very well,” he said in crisp tones. “To work. …” He lighted a cigaret and half-closed his eyes. “The crux of this case was the astounding fact that everything on the scene of the crime, including the very clothes of the victim, had been inverted, turned backwards. I say ‘astounding.’ Even in my mind, trained in the observation and diagnosis of just such phenomena, there was a distinct reaction of amazement. I daresay not even the murderer, conceiving the backwards business and carrying it into effect, realized just how amazing it was going to appear.

“After the shock had passed I proceeded to analyze the facts, or rather the fact. Experience has taught me that rarely does a criminal do something positive—as opposed to an unconscious act—without purpose. This was a positive, a conscious act. It required hard work and the expenditure of precious time in the accomplishment. I was justified in saying at once, therefore, that there was
reason
behind it; that while its manifestations seemed insane its purpose, at the least, must have been rational.”

They were listening with painful attention.

“I will confess,” continued Ellery, “that until yesterday that purpose eluded me. I pursued it mentally with the tenacity of desperation, but for the life of me I couldn’t see why everything had been turned backwards. I assumed, of course, that the backwardness of the crime pointed to something backwards about somebody in the case. It seemed the only possible tack. And yet it enmeshed me in strands of philology, philately, and nomenclature so confused that more than once I was tempted to throw the whole puzzle up. There were all sorts of bewildering questions to be answered. If everything was turned backwards to point to a backwards significance about somebody, then that somebody must have been criminally involved. What was the real backwards significance, then? Whom was it intended to involve criminally? And, more important, who had turned everything backwards in the first place? Who was pointing to whom?”

He chuckled. “I see confusion here, and I can’t say I blame you. I found plenty of leads. They performed the function of leading, to be sure, but unfortunately in the direction of obfuscation, not toward a lucid solution of the problem. As for who had done the job, was it the criminal? Was it some one who had inadvertently witnessed the killing? But if it was the criminal pointing to some one else, then that some one was being framed. And yet it was the sorriest frame-up conceivable, since it was so inconclusive, so vague, so really, incomprehensible. If everything was turned backwards by some one who had witnessed the crime, why didn’t that witness come forward with his knowledge instead of taking that hideously tangled, complex method of leaving a clue to the murderer’s identity? You see what I was up against. Wherever I turned I met darkness.