Chinese Orange Mystery (7 page)

Something startled leaped into her eyes. “Fruit? Why—yes, sir. In fact, I—I helped myself to a piece.”

“Splendid!” smiled Ellery. “That’s better luck than I could have hoped for. And did you notice the tangerines particularly?”

“Tangerines?” She was frightened now. “I—I ate one.”

“Oh.” Disappointment showed plainly on his face. “Then these fragments of rind are from the tangerine you ate?” He indicated the peelings.

Miss Diversey stared at them. “Oh, no, sir. I threw mine, pits and all, out that open window there.”

“Ah!” Disappointment vanished to be replaced by eagerness. “Did you notice how many tangerines were left after you had taken one?”

“Yes, sir. Two.”

“That’s all, Miss Diversey,” murmured Ellery. “You’ve been most helpful. All right, Sergeant.”

Velie grinned vaguely and led the nurse away.

Ellery turned back to stare with remarkable interest at the cluster of whole fruits on the table. There was only one tangerine.

D
R. PROUTY WAS SAYING
in a blast of words that shot past the foul black cigar between his teeth: “Well, that’s all I can tell you, Inspector. Can’t add a damn’ thing to what this house doctor told you,” when Ellery stalked up to them and said over the Assistant Medical Examiner’s shoulder: “Dad, get some quiet here, will you?”

The old man stared at him. “What’s buzzing in your bonnet now?” He raised his voice. “Keep still a minute, you men!”

Silence fell.

“Gentlemen,” said Ellery in a low voice, “I’m going to ask you a ridiculous question. But I want it answered just the same. Has any one of you taken anything from that bowl of fruit on the table?”

The men gaped. No one replied. The Inspector scuttled to the table and glared down at the orange peelings and the dry pips. “Nobody swiped a tangerine?”

They shook their heads vigorously.

“That’s all,” murmured Ellery. He motioned his father and Dr. Prouty closer. “I’ve been able to establish that there were two tangerines in that bowl only a few minutes before the victim was shown into this room. Now there’s only one. Curious, eh?”

Dr. Prouty took the dead cigar out of his mouth. “Curious? What the devil’s curious about it, Queen?” Then his eyes glittered. “Oh! You mean poison?”

“Heavens, no. Nothing so
outré
. I’ll accept your own good word that our friend Mr. Nobody died of a particularly vicious swipe on the skull. But it
is
curious—considering certain other complementary facts.”

“As for instance?”

Ellery shrugged. “We’re not ready for theorizing yet. I suggest, however, that you keep those tangerine peelings in mind.”

“But why, for cripe’s sake?” snorted the Inspector. “You mean you think the murderer stopped for a little snack of orange after he got through cracking the little feller’s head?”

“Possibly,” muttered Ellery. “Although it’s much more likely that the little feller stopped for a snack of orange just before the murderer went about the head-cracking business.”

“Easy enough to test that,” said Dr. Prouty, reaching for his bag. “I’ll give you a quick autopsy. If he ate the orange I’ll find it in his tummy—and a nice fat tummy it is, gentlemen! Nicest little tummy I’ve seen in ages. … Here’s the order, Inspector. I suppose the Morgue bus’ll be here as soon as the boys get through with their crap game.” He handed the old man an official slip and loped from the room. In the corridor a sudden thought apparently struck him, for he shouted back: “I’ll look for poison anyway, Queen!” and hurried off, chuckling.

Ellery strolled over to the corpse and stared down thoughtfully. The stout man’s garments were in disarray after Dr. Prouty’s cheerful examination. He had been turned over on his back and now lay staring peacefully up at the ceiling. One of the fingerprint men was straddling the body in the act of dusting the door to the office with grayish powder. “If you could only talk,” sighed Ellery, “you unlucky little devil! Maybe you could throw some light on all this fantastic criminal exhibitionism. … Any prints, old chap?” he asked the fingerprint man.

“Don’t look like it, Mr. Queen. There ought to be, though, if the bird that did the job pulled that bolt on the right side of this door. It’s nice and oily, and oil makes swell prints. … Nope! All wiped off. Hell, we ain’t got a thing.”

“Nowhere else?”

“I don’t know about Kelly there, but I didn’t get a thing.”

Kelly, working nearby, raised his Irish head and shook it sadly. “Nor me, Mr. Queen. I’d be a damn’ sight better off seein’ a movie.”

Ellery nodded absently. He was roused from his reverie by the sound of Donald Kirk’s voice from the doorway.

“I tell you I don’t know him,” Kirk was crying to the Inspector. Sergeant Velie, colossal Nemesis, tramped behind. “I told Mr. Queen that. I can swear to it. Absolutely a stranger—”

“Well,” said the Inspector in a soft voice, “it won’t hurt to have another squint at him, will it, Mr. Kirk? Take it easy. Nobody’s hounding you. Just one good long look.” He shoved the dishevelled young man gently forward.

“Queen!” Kirk lurched toward him. “For God’s sake, Queen, I can’t stand this persecution any longer. You
know
I never saw him. I told you so! I—”

“Now, now,” murmured Ellery, “you’ve a bad case of nerves, Kirk. There’s no need for panic, and no one, of course, is persecuting you. Stiffen up!”

Kirk made two fists and swallowed. “Right,” he mumbled. Then he went slowly forward and with an effort looked down. The Inspector watched his face with bright inquisitive eyes. The dead man stared up, smiling his benignant smile. Kirk swallowed again and said in a steadier voice: “No.”

“That’s fine, that’s fine,” said the Inspector instantly. “There’s only one other thing, Mr. Kirk. This man asked for you by name as if he knew you pretty well. How do you explain that?”

“I’ve explained all that to the Sergeant here,” said Kirk in a weary tone, “until I’m sick of it. There are strangers coming to see me at this office all the time. I collect gems; I’m a specializing philatelist; and I receive a good many people on confidential matters relating to The Mandarin. I can explain this fellow’s asking for me by name only on one of these counts.”

“You think, then, he’s probably a dealer or agent in jewelry or stamps?”

The broad shoulders shrugged. “It’s a good possibility. Much better than the book angle. Generally my visitors on publishing business are authors or authors’ representatives. This man is neither, so far as I know.”

“Stamps and gems.” The Inspector sucked the end of his mustache. “Well, that’s something, anyway. Thomas!” The Sergeant tramped forward. “Play those leads. Get a quick print from the photographer of this bird’s pan and see that it goes through all the stamp and jewelry places. Something tells me he’s not going to be easy to identify.” Velie lumbered off. “You know, Mr. Kirk,” continued the Inspector, squinting at the tall young man, “his pockets have been emptied and all possible identifying marks and labels in his clothes scratched out or removed.”

Kirk looked bewildered. “But why—”

“Somebody doesn’t want us to know who the victim is. That’s a new wrinkle to me in a homicide. Generally the killer makes every effort to keep his own identity a secret. Here’s a killer that goes the tribe one better. … Well, gentlemen, I don’t think there’s anything more for us to do here. Mr. Kirk, let’s amble over to your rooms and have a little chin-chin with your family.”

“Anything you say.” Kirk’s tone was spiritless. “Although I assure you, Inspector, there can’t be any connection between this and any one in my—It’s impossible.”

“Impossible, Mr. Kirk? That’s a strong word. Which reminds me. We’ll defer that visit a couple of minutes.” The Inspector raised his voice. “Piggott!” One of the detectives bounded forward. “Get a sheet or something from one of the chambermaids and cover up the stiff. Everything but his face.”

The detective disappeared.

Kirk whitened. “You’re not going to—”

“Why not?” said the Inspector with a disarming smile. “Murder’s a hard business, Mr. Kirk, and investigating it’s even harder. It’s the one business where you come to grips with the real facts of life. And death. Not like collecting stamps or diamonds at all. … Ah, Piggy. Good boy. Artistic now; just the pan. Good! Thomas, get everybody from the Kirk apartment in here.”

They came in slowly, a silent nervous group. The least perturbed among them seemed Dr. Kirk. The fierce old man was fully dressed now; his white shirt-front glittered angrily from the wheel chair being pushed by a subdued Miss Diversey. His gauntness was amazing; he was like a bony shell filled with fury.

“What’s this mumbo-jumbo about a murder?” he was roaring, waving his long skinny arms. “Positively indecent, Donald! Why do you permit us to be dragged into this?”

“Don’t make a row, father,” said Kirk wearily. “These gentlemen are the police.”

Dr. Kirk’s white mustache lifted in a snarl. “Police! As if any one with two eyes and ears couldn’t tell. Ears particularly. You can always tell a policeman by his indefatigable mangling of the simplest past participles.” He turned on the Inspector a pair of iceberg eyes. “You’re in charge here?”

“I am,” snapped the Inspector. Under his breath he muttered: “And I’ll mangle
your
past participles!” Aloud he continued with a savage smile: “And I’ll thank you, sir, to quit raising a rumpus.”

“Rumpus? Rumpus? Obscene word. Who’s raising a rumpus, may I ask?” growled Dr. Kirk. “What do you want of us? Quickly, please.”

“Father,” said Marcella Kirk with a frown. She seemed shaken by her experience; her oval face was brilliantly pale.

“Be quiet, Marcella. Well, sir?”

Ellery, Kirk, and Detective Piggott were standing side by side, like a trio of tightly ranked soldiers, before the office-door, concealing the dead man. The fingerprint men, the photographers, had vanished. Except for Sergeant Velie, Detective Piggott and one other officer the men from headquarters who had thronged the room were gone, most of them dispatched by the Sergeant on various investigatory errands. In the corridor outside, in charge of two uniformed men, stood a group of people—Nye, Brummer, Mrs. Shane, a few others—surrounded by clamoring newspapermen.

Sergeant Velie shut the door in their faces.

The Inspector looked his audience over carefully. Marcella Kirk stood beside her father’s wheelchair with a restraining hand on his shoulder. Miss Diversey drooped behind. The black-gowned little woman, Miss Temple was eying Donald Kirk with the queerest attention; he seemed unconscious of her scrutiny and stared directly before him. Glenn Macgowan, grimacing with distaste, lounged beside Marcella. And, by herself, in the shimmering tight gown, her eyes quite fathomless, stood Irene Llewes; and she, too, was studying Donald Kirk’s face. Behind them all were the valet-butler Hubbell and Osborne, who was trying hard not to look at Miss Diversey.

The Inspector took out his worn snuff-box and thrust a pinch up each slender nostril. He sneezed three times, amiably, and put the box away. “Now, ladies and gentlemen,” he began in a genial tone, “a murder’s been committed in this room. The body is lying behind Mr. Kirk, Mr. Queen, and Detective Piggott.” Their eyes wavered and shrank. “Dr. Kirk, you indicated a moment ago that you wanted no fuss. Nor do we. I’m inviting the man or woman who killed that poor little chap to step forward.”

Some one gasped, and Ellery from his vantage-point searched their faces swiftly. But they all looked petrified. Dr. Kirk, his hair standing on end, half-rose in his chair and gasped: “Do you mean—are you insinuating that some one here—Why, this is infamous!”

“Sure is,” smiled the Inspector. “That’s the hell of murders, Dr. Kirk. Well?”

Their shocked eyes fell.

The Inspector sighed. “All right, then. Step aside, boys.” Silently Kirk, Ellery, and Piggott obeyed.

For an instant they glared with fascinated horror at the serene dead face smiling up at them. Then they began to stir. Marcella Kirk swallowed convulsively and swayed, looking ill. Macgowan placed his big brown hand on her bare arm, and she stiffened. Miss Temple shivered suddenly and turned her head away; she did not look at Donald Kirk any longer. Only Irene Llewes seemed unmoved; except for her pallor she might have been staring at a fallen waxworks figure.

“All right, Piggott, cover him up,” said the Inspector briskly. The detective stooped and the weird smiling face vanished. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, has any one anything to tell me?” No one replied. “Dr. Kirk!” snapped the old gentleman. The septuagenarian’s head came up with a jerk. “Who is this man?”

Dr. Kirk made a face. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Miss Kirk?”

Marcella gulped. “N-nor I. It’s ghastly!”

“Miss Llewes?”

The woman shrugged her magnificent shoulders. “Nor I.”

“Mr. Macgowan?”

“I’m sorry, Inspector. I’ve never seen that face before.”

“By the way, Mr. Macgowan, some one told me you’re a collector of postage stamps yourself; eh?”

Macgowan looked interested. “Quite so. Why?”

“Have you ever seen this man around the stamp places? Think hard; it may come back to you.”

“Never. But what has that—”

The Inspector waved his delicate fingers. “You, there,” he said sharply. “The buttling man. What’s your name?”

Hubbell was startled. His pasty face became the color of wet sand. “H-Hubbell; sir.”

“How long have you worked for Mr. Kirk?”

“Not v-very long, sir.”

Donald Kirk sighed. “He’s been in my employ a little over a year.”

“Please. Hubbell, did you ever see this dead man before?”

“No, sir! No, sir!”

“You’re positive?”

“Oh, yes, sir!”

“Hmm. I’ve got the statements of the rest.” The Inspector nursed his chin thoughtfully. “I suppose you all realize what my position is. Here I have a murdered man on my hands who’s apparently a total stranger to the lot of you. Yet he came up here and asked for Mr. Kirk, who says he doesn’t know him from Adam. Now somebody knew he was in this room and killed him here. The door there to the corridor wasn’t locked and anybody could have walked in here, found him, and done the job. The person who did it may even have known he was coming here, and planned the whole thing ahead of time. But murders like this aren’t usually committed against strangers. There’s a connection between this man and his murderer. … I hope you see what I’m driving at.”