The Chinese Orange Mystery Read online

  "Because it annoys me, Miss Temple. Annoys me dreadfully. I never thought a mere five-letter word could annoy me so much. I had nightmares about it all last night."

  She continued to regard him with unwavering eyes as she reached out to an end-table and fetched a cigaret-box and opened it and offered him a cigaret. Neither said anything while the smoke curled cosily.

  "So you couldn't sleep last night?" she said at last. "Odd, Mr. Queen. Neither could I. That poor little man kept haunting my pillow. He smiled at me for four solid hours out of the darkness." She shivered lightly. "Well, Mr. Queen?"

  "From all I've heard," drawled Ellery, "to return to the original subject, China is a sadly backward country."

  She sat up at that, frowning. "Come, come, Mr. Queen, let's stop this idiotic fencing. Just what do you mean by that?"

  "I mean," said Ellery softly, "that I am thirsty for knowledge. Miss Temple, and that in this case you're obviously the fountainhead. Tell me something about China."

  "China's being very rapidly modernized, if that's what you mean. It's gone a long way since the Boxer affair. Matter of economic necessity, in a way. With the Japanese forcing their way in—"

  "But I didn't mean that, you know." Ellery sat up and crushed out his cigaret. "I meant 'backward' literally."

  "Oh," she said, and fell silent. Then she sighed. "I suppose I might have known. It was more or less inevitable. Yes, what you imply is perfectly true. There are some really amazing—shall I call them coincidences—to be drawn from the literal backwardness of China. I can't blame you for putting me on the rack, with this incomprehensible business of a backwards crime absorbing your attention."

  "Good girl," murmured Ellery. "Then we understand each other. You realize, Miss Temple, that I don't know where I'm going. This is all probably sheerest drivel. It may mean nothing at all that makes sense. And then again—" He shrugged. "Social, religious, economic customs are purely a matter of perspective. From our Western point of view anything that, let's say, the Chinese do that is different from what we do— or opposite—may be construed, Occidentally, as being 'backwards.' It that true7"

  "I suppose so."

  "For example, although I'm the veriest tyro in Oriental lore, I've heard somewhere that the Chinese—curious custom!—on meeting friends shake hands not with the friends but with themselves. Is that true?"

  "Quite. It's an ancient custom and a good deal more sensible than ours. For, you see, the root-idea behind it is that when you shake hands with yourself you're sparing your friend possible suffering."

  "How?" grinned Ellery. "Or should I say—come again?"

  "You don't transmit disease so easily that way, you see."

  "Oh."

  "Not that the old Chinese knew anything about germs, but having observed—" She sighed, and stopped, and sighed again. "See here, Mr. Queen, this is very interesting and all that, and I'm not averse to augmenting your fund of general information, but it's so silly, this search after phantom backwardnesses. Really, isn't it?"

  "Do you know," murmured Ellery, "women are peculiar. There's an original observation! But it seemed to me that only yesterday you were taking this backwards stuff quite seriously. And today you're calling it silly. Elucidate."

  "Perhaps," she said cautiously, "I've reconsidered."

  "Perhaps," said Ellery, "not. Well, well! We seem to have reached the well-known impasse. Indulge my silliness, Miss Temple, and tell me more. Tell me everything you know, everything you can conjure up at the moment, about Chinese customs or institutions which may be construed as 'backwards,' in the sense that they are diametrically opposed to customs or institutions here."

  She stared at him for a long moment, seemed about to ask a question, changed her mind, closed her eyes, and put the cigaret to her tiny mouth. When she spoke H was in a soft murmur. "It's so hard to know where to begin. They differ at so many points, Mr. Queen. For instance, very often in building thatched huts you'll find that the Chinese peasantry —especially in the South—will set the roof on the framework and build down, instead of building up as you—as we do."

  "Go on, please."

  "I suppose, too, you've heard that the Chinese pay their doctors as long as they are well, and stop payment when they fall ill."

  "An ingenious arrangement," drawled Ellery. "Yes, I've heard of that. And?"

  "When they want to be cooled, they drink hot liquids."

  "Marvelous! I begin to fancy your Chinese more and more. I've found, myself, that raising the internal temperature makes the external temperature much more bearable. Go on; you're doing splendidly."

  "You're ragging me!" she cried suddenly. Then she shrugged and said: "I beg your pardon. Of course, you've heard of the Chinese custom of eating as loudly as possible during a meal at a strange house and belching with enthusiasm at the expiration of the meal?"

  "To assure one's host, I take it, that one has appreciated the food?"

  "That's it exactly. Then there's ... Let me see." She put her finger on her perfect lower lip and mused. "Oh, yes! A Chinese will use a hot towel to cool himself—the same principle as the hot drink, you see—and a wet napkin to wipe himself dry of perspiration. It's infernally hot there, you know."

  "Imagine!"

  "Of course, they keep to the left side of the road, not the right—but that's not exclusively Oriental; so do most Europeans. Let's see, now. They place a low wall before their front doors as a barrier to evil spirits, since their demons can travel only in a straight line. So all approaches to front doors are winding paths around the wall, thus effectively keeping out the evil ones."

  "How naive!"

  "How logical," she retorted. "I see you've the beastly Occidental patronizing air where Orientals are concerned. The white man's burden sort of thing—"

  Ellery blushed. "Touché. Anything else?"

  She frowned. "Oh, there must be thousands of things. . . . Well, the women wear trousers and the men wear robes which give the effect of skirts. Then Chinese students study aloud in classrooms—"

  "For heaven's sake, why?"

  She grinned. "So that the instructor may be sure they're really studying. Then, too, a Chinese is one year old when he's born, since it's taken for granted that life begins at conception, not at emergence from the womb. And, for that matter, a Chinese celebrates his birthday only at New Year's, no matter in what part of the year he may have been born."

  "Good lord! That makes it simple, doesn't it?"

  "Not so simple," she said grimly. "Because the Chinese New Year's Day is as variable as a fishwife's tongue. It's not constant, since it is figured on the basis of a rather capricious thirteen-month year. Then, too, my friends pay their bills only twice a year—at the fifth moon and at New Year's; which makes it very cosy for debtors, since they simply go into hiding when the time comes round and the poor creditor goes poking through the streets in broad daylight with a lighted lantern looking for his dun."

  Ellery stared. "Why the lighted lantern?"

  "Well, if it's the day after New Year's the very fact that the creditor carries a lighted lantern shows that it isn't the day after New Year's at all, you see, but still the night before! How do you like that'?"

  "Love it," chuckled Ellery. "I see I've been heinously backward myself. There's an idea that could be appropriated by the Western World with profit. How about the Chinese theatre? Anything backwards there?"

  "Not really. Of course, there are no stage properties, Mr. Queen—sort of Elizabethan in that respect. Then, too, their music is all in one scale, and the minor at that; and all Chinese sing in falsetto; and they pick out their coffins and select their funerary attire before they die; and their barbers cut your hair and shave you not in shops but in the street; and the greatest revenge your enemy can wreak on your head is to kill himself on your doorstep—"

  She stopped very abruptly, biting her lips. And she gave him a swift sharp look from under her remarkable lashes and then looked down at her hands.

  "Inde
ed?" said Ellery gently. "That's most interesting, Miss Temple. Good of you to recall it. And what's the brilliant notion behind that little ceremony, may I ask?"

  She murmured: "It bares to all the world the secret of your enemy's culpability, and marks him eternally with public shame."

  "But you're—uh—dead?"

  "But you're dead, yes."

  "Remarkable philosophy." Ellery studied the ceiling thoughtfully. "Quite remarkable, in fact. Sort of Japanese harakiri with variations."

  "But that couldn't have anything to do with this—with this murder, Mr. Queen," she said breathlessly.

  "Eh? Oh, I daresay not. No, surely not." Ellery took off his pince-nez and began to scrub the shining lenses with his handkerchief. "And how about Chinese oranges, Miss Temple?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Chinese oranges. You know—tangerines. Anything backwards in that connection?"

  "Backwards! Well . . . But then they're not really tangerines, Mr. Queen. Oranges in China are much larger than tangerines, much more varied, much more delicious, than here." She sighed a little. "Goodness! You've never eaten an orange, really, until you've sunk your teeth into one of those big, luscious, juicy, sweet. . ." She sang out a word suddenly that made Ellery almost drop his glasses.

  "What's that?" he said sharply.

  She repeated the word in a sort of nasal sing-song. It did sound remarkably like "tanger—" something. "That's one of the dialect words for orange. There are—oh, scores, I guess. Each variety has a different name, and each name differs according to the section of China you're in. Those honey-oranges, now—"

  But Ellery was not listening. He was massaging his lean jaw and gazing at the wall. "Tell me," he said with shocking abruptness. "Why did you stop into Don Kirk's office yesterday, Miss Temple?"

  For a moment she did not reply. Then she folded her hands again and smiled faintly. "You do jump about, don’t you, Mr. Queen? Nothing serious, I assure you. I'd just happened to think about it, and I'm a very impulsive person, so I popped out after dressing for dinner to see Don—to see Mr. Kirk about it."

  "About what?"

  "Why, the Chinese artist."

  "Chinese artist!" Ellery leaped to his feet "Chinese artist! What Chinese artist?"

  "Mr. Queen, whatever's the matter with you?"

  He seized her tiny shoulder. "What Chinese artist, Miss Temple?"

  She turned a little pale. "Yueng," she said in a small voice. "A friend of mine. He's been studying at Columbia University, as so many Chinese in this city do. He's the son of one of Canton's richest native importers. And he has a perfectly remarkable water-color genius. We'd been looking for someone to do the jacket illustration for my book—the one Mr. Kirk is publishing—and I just happened at that moment to thing of Yueng. So I dashed in—"

  "Yes, yes," said Ellery. "I see. And where is this Yueng, Miss Temple? Where can I locate him?"

  "On the Pacific."

  "Eh?"

  "When I found that Donald—that Mr. Kirk wasn't in, I went back to the suite here and telephoned the University." She sighed. "But they told me he had suddenly decided to return to China a week and a half ago—I think his father died, and that would be an unspoken command, of course, to return. The Chinese take their fathers very seriously, you know. So I suppose poor Yueng's on the high seas now."

  Ellery's face fell. "Well," he muttered, "there couldn't be anything in that direction, anyway. Although . . ." When he spoke again he was smiling. "By the way, didn't I hear you say yesterday that your father's in the American diplomatic service?"

  "Was," she said quietly. "He died last year."

  "Oh! I'm sorry. You were, I suppose, raised in a Western home?"

  "Not at all. Father observed the Western customs for official purposes, but I had a Chinese nurse and I was brought up in almost a pure Chinese atmosphere. My mother died, you see, when I was a child; and father was so busy . . ." She rose, and despite her tininess she gave an impression of height. "And is that all, Mr. Queen?"

  Ellery picked up his hat. "You've really been very helpful, Miss Temple. My undying gratitude, and all that. I've learned—"

  "That I'm the person involved in this affair," she said in a soft voice, "who expresses backwardness, as it were, more clearly than any one else?"

  "Oh, but I didn't say that—"

  "Because I've been brought up in a country in which backwardness, from the Western point of view, is the rule, Mr. Queen?"

  Ellery flushed. "There are some things, Miss Temple, that are forced upon a man when he's investigating—"

  "I suppose you realize what nonsense this all is?"

  "I'm afraid," said Ellery ruefully, "that you don't like me today as much as you did yesterday, Miss Temple."

  "Sensible woman," said a curt voice, and they both turned quickly to find Felix Berne surveying them coolly from the archway of the foyer. Donald Kirk was behind him.

  Donald looked as if he had slept in his clothes. It was the same dowdy tweed, and it was fearfully crumpled, and his necktie was askew and his hair drooped over his eyes and his eyes were rimmed with red circles and he was badly in need of a shave. Berne's slight figure was immaculate, but there was a faint unsteadiness in the pose of his head.

  "Hello," said Ellery, picking up his stick. "I was just going."

  "Seems to be a habit with you," said Berne with a mirthless grin. He regarded Ellery with calm bitter eyes.

  Ellery started to say something, then saw the look in Donald Kirk's eye and refrained.

  "Shut up, will you, Felix," said Donald hoarsely, coming forward. "Glad I found you, Queen. Gives me the opportunity to apologize for father's rotten manners last night."

  "Nonsense," said Ellery quickly. "Not another word. I daresay I got what I deserved."

  "Each man to his own reward," drawled Berne. "One good feature about you, Queen, at any rate." He turned deliberately to Jo. "I stopped in, Miss Temple, to discuss the title of your book with you. It seems that Donald here has come obscene notion of aping the Buck titles and employing something like Second Cousins or Half-Brothers or The Good Grandfather. Now I—"

  "Now I," said Jo evenly, "think that you're being despicable, Mr. Berne."

  A brown tide began to spread under Berne's skin. "Look here, you—"

  "You know perfectly well that Mr. Kirk had no such idea. And certainly it was furthest from my mind. You've been abominably uncivil since I met you, Mr. Berne. If it isn't possible for you to be reasonably a gentleman, I’ll be forced to refuse to discuss my book with you at all!"

  "Jo," cried Kirk. He glared at his partner. "I can't understand what in the name of God's come over you, Felix!"

  "Damned impertinence," said Berne thickly.

  "There's no compulsion on the part of The Mandarin Press, you know," continued Jo in the same even, unhurried voice, "to publish my book. I'm perfectly willing to tear up my contract, Mr. Berne. Is that what you want?"

  The man stood absolutely still; only his chest rose, and the whites of his eyes showed blankly. There was something deadly and implacable in his glare; and when he spoke it was in a voice like congealed syrup. "What I want... If Donald chooses to publish any one barely out of diapers intellectually and with some half-baked manuscript that's a poor imitation of a great work, it's all right with me. That's why The Mandarin is so close to—" He stopped. Then he said with a spitting snarl: "I've looked over that magnificent opus of yours, Miss Temple, having wasted a perfectly good night's sleep to do it. And I think it stinks."

  She turned her back on him and walked to the window. Ellery stood quietly watching. Kirk's brown hands opened and closed, and he took a step toward Berne and said in a thickened voice: "You'd better beat it, Felix. You're drunk. I'll settle with you at the office."

  Berne licked his lips. Ellery said: "Just a moment, gentlemen, before the physical part of the drama begins. Berne, why were you late last night?"

  The publisher did not take his eyes off his partner.

>   "I asked you, Berne," said Ellery, "why you were late last night."

  The man turned his dark head slowly at that, regarding Ellery with an absent, almost insulting vacuity. "Go to hell," he said.

  And it was at that moment, with Joe trembling with indignation at the window, Donald clenching his fists impotently, and Berne and Ellery measuring each other with their eyes, that a cracked old voice howled from somewhere in the bowels of the apartment: "Help! I've been robbed! Help!"

  Ellery sped through the dining-room, past a startled Hub-bell, through a pair of bedrooms into the study of Dr. Kirk. Jo and Donald ran at his heels. Berne had disappeared.

  Dr. Kirk was hopping up and down in the center of his disarranged study, one hand on the back of his wheel-chair to steady himself, the other clutching at his bristly white hair. He bellowed: "You! You Queen fellow! I've been robbed!"

  "Of what?" panted Ellery, glancing swiftly about.

  "Father!" cried Donald, springing to the old man's side. "Sit down; you'll exhaust yourself. What's the matter? What's been stolen? Who robbed you?"

  "My books!" roared the septuagenarian, his face purple. "My books! Oh, if I find that thieving scoundrel . . ." He subsided suddenly with a groan in the wheel-chair.

  Miss Diversey, white-faced, stole into the study from the corridor, looking frightened. She flung one quick glance at her charge's face and flew to his side. He pushed her away with such force that she staggered and almost fell.

  "Get away, you harpy," he, screamed. "I'm sick of you, you and your exercises and your precious Dr. Angini. Damn all doctors and nurses! Well, Queen, well, well, well! Don't stand there gaping like an aborigine! Find the rascal who stole my books!"

  "I'm not gaping," said Ellery with a sour smile, "I'm waiting for calmness and reason, my dear Doctor. If you'll turn off the violence, perhaps we can get a rational statement out of you. I assume by this time that some books of yours are missing. How do you know they've been stolen?"

  "Detective," snorted the old gentleman. "Imbecile! See that shelf?" He pointed a long bent forefinger at one of the built-in shelves, more than half of which was empty.