Chinese Orange Mystery (8 page)

“Now look here, Inspector,” said Glenn Macgowan suddenly in his deep voice. “It seems to me you’re taking our possible part in this affair too seriously.”

“And how is that, Mr. Macgowan?” murmured Ellery.

“Why, anybody had access to this room by way of the emergency stairs and this empty corridor. The murderer may be any one of the seven million people in New York! Why one of us?”

“Hmm,” said Ellery. “That’s always a staggering possibility, of course. On the other hand, has it occurred to you, if we’re to take Mr. Kirk’s word for it that he never saw the man before, that the murderer—
one of this group
—suggested to the man that he come to see Kirk, with the deliberate intention of involving Kirk?”

The tall young publisher was staring wildly at Ellery. “But, Queen—by God, that can’t be true!”

“Any enemies, old chap?” said Ellery.

Kirk’s eyes fell. “Enemies? Not that I know of.”

“Nonsense,” said Dr. Kirk abruptly. “That’s piffle, Donald. You’ve no enemies—not enough brains to make ’em—so who in the world would want to involve you in a murder?”

“No one,” said Kirk dully.

“Well!” smiled the Inspector. “You’re easily eliminated, Mr. Kirk, if there’s any doubt. Where were you at six this evening?”

Kirk said very slowly: “Out.”

“Oh,” said the Inspector. “I see. Out where?”

Kirk was silent.

“Donald!” roared Dr. Kirk. “Where were you, boy? Don’t stand there like a lump!”

There was the most terrifying hush. It was shattered by Macgowan, who took a quick step forward and said in an urgent voice: “Don, old boy. Where were you? It won’t go any further—”

“Donald,” cried Marcella. “Please, Don! Why don’t you—”

“I was out walking all afternoon,” said Kirk from stiff lips.

“With anybody?” murmured the Inspector.

“No.”

“Where’d you go?”

“Oh—Broadway. Fifth Avenue, the Park.”

“As a matter of fact,” said Ellery softly in the silence that followed, “I bumped into Kirk in the lobby downstairs. Quite evidently came in from out of doors; eh, Kirk?”

“Of course: Surely.”

“I see,” said the Inspector, and fumbled for his snuffbox again. Miss Temple turned her head far aside. “All right, ladies and gentlemen,” continued the old gentleman in the quietest voice imaginable. “That’s all for tonight. Please don’t leave town until you hear from me, any of you.”

The Inspector nodded to Sergeant Velie, and the Sergeant silently opened the door. They filed out like prisoners, to be swallowed instantly by the reporters.

Ellery was the last to leave. As he passed his father their eyes met. The old man’s were inscrutable. Ellery shook his head and went on. In the corridor, smoking indolently, stood two white-uniformed men. They were flicking their ashes into a huge crate-like basket on the floor, regarding the shouting newspapermen with amusement.

“We really,” said Marcella Kirk in a small voice when they had escaped the clutches of the press and were assembled in safety in the salon of the Kirk suite, “we really should be having dinner, I suppose.”

Old Dr. Kirk roused himself. “Yes, yes, by all means,” he said heavily. “A splendid idea, my dear. I’m ravenous. We mustn’t—” He stopped short in the middle of the sentence, quite unconsciously. His saturnine face was etched in lines of troubled thought.

“I, too,” said Glenn Macgowan quickly with a forced laugh. He gripped Marcella’s hand. “I think we’ve had enough of horrors for one night; eh, darling?”

She smiled up at him, murmured an apology, and hurried out.

Ellery stood in a corner by himself, feeling almost guilty. It was quite as if they considered him a prying interloper, a spy. Dr. Kirk in particular shot venomous glares his way. He felt distinctly uncomfortable. And yet something warned him to stay. There was that one puzzling matter. …

Donald Kirk had sunk into a chair, his head on his breast; occasionally he passed his hand with a sort of dazed desperation through his hair. Dr. Kirk, wheeling his chair furiously about the room talking to his guests, shifted his glance from time to time to his son with something pained and uneasy in his icy old eyes. Miss Temple sat very quietly, even smiling a little. Only Irene Llewes made no effort to dissemble. It was as if she, too, felt herself an intruder; and as if, like Ellery, she had her own reasons for remaining where she was not wanted.

Ellery sucked a tortured fingernail and awaited his opportunity. Then, when he thought the moment had come, he crossed the room and sat down in a Queen Anne chair beside Donald Kirk.

The young man looked up with a start. “Uh—Queen. Sorry I’m such rotten company. I don’t—”

“Nonsense, Kirk.” Ellery lit a cigaret. “I’m going to be honest with you, old fellow. There’s something in the wind—the wind blowing your way. Don’t have to be an Einstein to arrive at that conclusion. Something’s bothering you, dreadfully. You weren’t out walking all afternoon, despite the fact that I met you in the lobby; I have a notion your appearance in the lobby was for the benefit of the public.” Kirk drew in his breath sharply. “You lied, Kirk, and you know you lied. Why don’t you tell the truth and clear yourself? I think you know me well enough to feel assured of my discretion.”

Kirk bit his lip and stared sullenly down at his hands.

Ellery studied him for a moment and then sank back, smoking. “Very well,” he murmured. “It’s apparently something personal. … By the way, Kirk, to get back to more mundane things. You were fearfully mysterious with me late this afternoon. Called me up and asked me to climb into my dinner-clothes, amble up here, keep my eyes open—particularly to keep my eyes open. …”

The young man shifted in the chair. “Oh, yes,” he said tonelessly. “I did, didn’t I?”

Ellery flicked ashes into a receiver without taking his eyes off Kirk. “Would you mind elucidating, old man? We’d met casually—scarcely were friendly enough to warrant a sudden dinner invitation with strangers out of the blue—”

“Why?” Kirk wet dry lips. “Why, no special reason, Queen. Just—just a little joke of mine.”

“Joke? I’m afraid I don’t see the point. Joke to ask me to keep my eyes open?”

“That was just my subtle way of insuring your coming. Matter of fact,” continued Kirk in a rapid low voice, laughing hollowly, “I had a deep and dirty reason for getting you up here. Wanted you to meet Felix Berne, my partner. I was afraid you’d refuse if I asked you point-blank—”

Ellery laughed. “So that’s it. A professional approach?”

Kirk grinned eagerly. “Yes, yes, that’s it. We don’t as a rule publish your sort of thing—”

“You’re thinking of a different word, I’ll wager,” chuckled Ellery. “Kirk, I’m astonished. Piracy, by George! I thought publishers had some conception of ethics. Don’t tell me you’re really thinking of publishing a detective story?”

“Something like that. Times aren’t very good in the business, you know. Detective stories enjoy consistently good sales—”

“Don’t believe all you hear,” said Ellery sadly. “Well, well. I must say I’m bowled over. The great Mandarin Press. What will Harry Hansen and Lewis Gannett say? And Alec? Even though he does love a good juicy homicide filled with Greeks and one-syllable Anglo-Saxon words? Dear, dear. … I don’t think my present publisher will care for the idea.”

“It was just a thought,” muttered Kirk.

“Oh, no doubt,” murmured Ellery.

Glenn Macgowan was glancing over at Kirk with a curious uneasiness. Kirk seemed aware of Macgowan’s interest and shut his eyes. “I wonder,” he mumbled after a time, “where Felix is.”

“Berne? Good Lord! I’d forgotten all about him.” And then, without warning, Ellery leaned forward and jabbed Kirk’s knees. There was a spasmodic jerk and the young man’s eyes flew open, bloodshot and frightened. “Kirk,” said Ellery softly, “
let me see that note Macgowan left with Osborne for you
.”

“No,” said Kirk.

“Kirk, give me that note!”

“No. You’ve no right asking me. It’s—it’s personal. Macgowan’s my intended brother-in-law. He’s virtually one of the family. I can’t divulge—”

“Are you being deliberately incoherent,” said Ellery, still softly, “or do you mean to imply that his note referred not to you but to some one connected with both of you? To be specific—your sister Marcella?”

Kirk groaned. “For God’s sake, no! I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean to lie about it. I won’t lie. But I won’t tell you, Queen. I can’t. I’m in—”

The door from the dining-room opened and tall Marcella appeared, followed by pale Hubbell wheeling a portable bar. A tray covered with frosty glasses was on the bar. … Kirk muttered an apology and scrambled to his feet. “I need a couple of those,” he choked. Hubbell served the ladies.

“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said this evening, my son,” exclaimed Dr. Kirk, wheeling his chair rapidly to the bar. “Hubbell, let me have one of those detestable concoctions!”

“Father,” said Marcella, gliding forward. “Dr. Angini said—”

“Hang Dr. Angini!”

The cocktails inspired a slight gaiety. The old man, his thin cheeks flushed, was cynically delightful. He attached himself openly to Miss Llewes, and she was laughing in her low throaty voice. Ellery, looking up from his cocktail, caught a curious expression of distaste on Marcella’s face; even Macgowan seemed disgusted. Kirk alone was oblivious; he saw, knew nothing, downing his fourth cocktail without pausing for breath. He had quite forgotten that he was still wearing street clothes—the dowdy tweeds that hung their folds in shame before the black-and-white neatness of the three other men.

Hubbell had disappeared.

And then the door opened and Inspector Queen’s slender figure appeared behind a dark stocky man in evening clothes of foreign cut. The newcomer had wicked black eyes and a thin mouth that lay still below a mouse-colored mustache.

“Excuse me,” said the Inspector, looking curiously about at the drinking company. “This
is
Mr. Felix Berne, isn’t it?”

The dark man said angrily: “I’ve been telling you! Kirk! Tell this idiot who I am!”

The Inspector’s shrewd eyes swept from Kirk to Ellery, caught something in Ellery’s disapproving stare, blinked; and the next moment he vanished as suddenly as he had appeared, leaving Berne standing there with his bitter mouth open.

“Welcome home, Felix,” said Kirk wearily. “Miss Temple, may I present—”

“Dinner is served,” said a colorless British voice, and they turned to find Hubbell standing stiffly in the doorway to the dining-room.

E
LLERY FOUND HIMSELF SEATED
at the long oval table between Kirk, at his right, and Miss Temple. Diagonally across from him sat Berne, a scowl on his intelligent face. Marcella and Macgowan were neighbors; and Miss Llewes and Dr. Kirk, who sat at the head of the table. Of the eight only Miss Llewes and Dr. Kirk were gay. The old gentleman’s angular torso, assisted into the chair by Miss Diversey who had then vanished, genuflected toward his companion with all the rusty vigor of an ancient cavalier. His frosty eyes were no longer frosty; they sparkled with a youthful warmth, bathed in curious lights.

The woman, decided Ellery, was an enigma. She laughed throatily, showing brilliant white teeth; she murmured behind her hand to the old man; she accepted his chuckling sallies with a nonchalant grace that spoke long practice … and yet there was something essentially mirthless in her expression and her eyes never lost their wary gleam. Why was she there? That she was a semi-permanent resident of the Chancellor Ellery had learned; she had checked in from nowhere two months before. From the conversation he was able, too, to deduce that before her arrival at the Chancellor she had been unknown to the Kirks; and Berne apparently was meeting her for the first time. She was not native New York, of that he felt certain; there was a Continental air about her, and she spoke glibly of Cannes and Vienna and Cap d’Antibes and the Blue Grotto and Fiesole.

He contented himself with watching her enamelled face and Kirk’s. The young man was horribly uneasy. He could scarcely keep his eyes off his father.

And at Ellery’s left tiny Miss Temple ate quietly, her long black lashes concealing her eyes.

For a long time no one mentioned the murder. For the most part the dinner was uncompanionable.

Before dinner Felix Berne had made a superficial excuse—an unembroidered apology. He had “been detained”; he was “sorry.” He had landed that very morning, it appeared, and “personal affairs” had occupied him “all day.” Toward Miss Temple he was neither cold nor cordial: she had been a discovery of Donald Kirk’s. Never having met her before and not having read her manuscript, he seemed cynically content to place the burden of critical proof upon his partner’s shoulders.

But over the soup Berne suddenly burst into bitter speech. “I don’t know why every one’s so silent about that ghastly business across the corridor. Why the mystery, Donald? I was stopped at the elevators on this floor by some stupid flatfoot and subjected to the most humiliating cross-examination.”

All conversation abruptly ceased. The warm light fled Dr. Kirk’s eyes; Miss Llewes became rigid; Jo Temple’s lashes curled up; Macgowan frowned; Marcella bit her lip; Donald Kirk became very pale; and Ellery felt his muscles tense.

“Why talk about it?” muttered Kirk. “It’s spoiled the evening already, Felix. I’m sorry if—”

Berne’s black eyes flicked around the table. “There’s something more to this than meets the eye. Why did that irritating little Inspector insist on dragging me into that anteroom of yours and uncovering a basket and showing me the beatific face of a dead man?”

“He did—that?” faltered Marcella.

Ellery said lightly: “That irritating little Inspector, Mr. Berne, happens to be my father. I shouldn’t condemn him, you know, for doing his duty. He’s trying to identify the body.”

The black eyes gleamed with interest. “Ah! I beg your pardon, Mr. Queen. I hadn’t caught your father’s name. Identify the body? Then the man’s unknown as yet?”

“Nobody knows who he is,” growled Dr. Kirk with a grumpy look, squirming in his chair, “and what’s more nobody cares. At least
I
do not. Come, come, Felix! This is scarcely post-
hors d’oeuvres
conversation.”