The Case of the Backward Mule

Twelve

In exactly eighteen minutes after Terry Clane had telephoned, the buzzer on the apartment rang.

Clane waved Yat T’oy aside and opened the door.

Chu Kee stood on the threshold, his face bland and expressionless. He was wearing a light topcoat, his hat and gloves in his left hand. He shook hands with Terry Clane, American fashion.

A step behind him, Sou Ha was bundled up in a fur coat with a high collar which reached above her ears. She wore a brimless hat with a red feather trailing out at a jaunty angle. The hat was bright blue and the feather of vivid, conspicuous crimson.

“How’m I doing, Terry?” she asked.

“That’s fine,” he told her.

“I had to do a little mind-reading over the telephone.”

“You made a fine job of it. Come in.”

Cynthia Renton dropped a little curtsy to Chu Kee, then went over to give Sou Ha her hand. Yat T’oy, his aged eyes sparkling with pride in his race, took their hats and coats, brought in pots of hot tea, little plates of dried melon seed, cigarettes and shavings of fresh coconut boiled in sugar, and thin crisp wafers made from rice flour; saw that cigarettes and ashtrays were in place, and then discreetly withdrew.

Clane got down to business at once. “Cynthia is wanted by the police,” he said.

“For what reason?” asked Chu Kee.

“They aren’t sure.”

“Ignorance breeds uncertainty,” Chu Kee remarked.

“The police,” Clane explained, “are investigating.”

“Only the lucky dare to hurry,” Chu Kee observed, his graceful fingers picking up a dried melon seed.

“Don’t beat around the bush, First-Born,” Sou Ha said. “You want her out of here and the place is watched, isn’t that right?”

Clane nodded.

Sou Ha said, “I thought that was it. I wore a coat with a collar that conceals most of my face. The natural target for the police gaze would be the blue hat with the conspicuous red feather.”

“You mean I’m to dress in her clothes and go out?” Cynthia Renton asked.

Clane nodded.

“And then what?” Cynthia Renton asked.

Chu Kee spoke almost instantly, as though the speech had been rehearsed. “I am no longer young,” he said. “Some day I shall join my ancestors. Perhaps it will be sooner than I think. I desire that I leave behind some likeness of myself. I wish a portrait painted. You are the portrait painter I have selected. Would it, perhaps, be possible for you to live in my humble dwelling for a time and paint the portrait which I desire?”

“Dark in tone,” Sou Ha said eagerly. “A rather dark background and then my father’s face illuminated so that it shows the expression of the eyes, the kindly lines about the mouth. You could make a wonderful portrait, Cynthia.”

Chu Kee regarded her with resignation. “Oh, that I might but capture the wisdom of youth,” he said.

Sou Ha abruptly became quiet.

Terry Clane said, “It would have to be a good job, Cynthia. You’d have to make it convincing. It should be pretty well finished by the time anyone finds you long enough to ask questions.”

“But, Owl, I haven’t anything with me. I haven’t my paints. I’ve lost my purse. I haven’t even lipstick.”

“Things which can be bought will be provided,” Chu Kee said.

“Paints, they are available, are they not?” Sou Ha asked. “Canvas may be purchased in the stores which deal in artists’ supplies, and lipstick is in every drugstore.”

“Wouldn’t questions be asked about the new paints?” Cynthia inquired of Terry Clane.

Sou Ha said with dignity, “My father is a man of distinction. Paints that are used for his portrait must be used once and only once. It is unfitting that the paints which have been used to paint the portrait of my father should thereafter be used to paint the likeness of a man of less importance.”

Chu Kee thought that over, then slowly nodded in grave approval. “There are times,” he said, “when one may become conceited without seeming arrogant.”

Sou Ha was on her feet almost at once. She said to Cynthia Renton, “It is cold out. You have a heavy coat?”

“Yes, I...”

“Not heavy enough for this chill wind which I think is apt to come up a little later on,” Clane said.

“That is fine,” Sou Ha observed. “I will lend you my fur coat, and would you mind putting on the hat? I want to see how it looks.”

Terry Clane clapped his hands. Yat T’oy appeared at once carrying hats and coats.

Sou Ha fitted the distinctive blue hat with the red feather on Cynthia’s head. “Oh, it’s delightful on you,” she said. “Please accept it as a gift. It is so much more becoming to you than it is to me. You must take it and wear it.”

“Well,” Cynthia said, hesitating, and then laughed a little nervously, “I suppose you’d be willing to accept mine by way of a swap?”

“Oh, but that’s wonderful of you,” Sou Ha said.

“And I hope you’ll take my coat. It’s rather a distinctive plaid and — you know, in case you should want to go out before I get back with your coat.”

“You are kind,” Sou Ha said.

There were tears in Cynthia Renton’s eyes. She took the Chinese girl in her arms, kissed her on the cheek. “You are wonderful, Sou Ha.”

Sou Ha’s face was without expression. “Thank you.”

“And now,” Chu Kee said, “it is time to depart. Posing for a portrait is very tiresome. I am no longer young and I wish to have the freshness of morning upon me when my features are placed upon canvas.”

Clane said in Chinese, “You will, perhaps, be followed by those who are interested in seeing where you go.”

“There is no secret about where I go,” Chu Kee said benignly. “I will go to a door which is at the foot of a flight of stairs. After I have climbed those stairs, the eyes of a spy will not know what becomes of me; and if he should wait for me to emerge from that same door, he would be a very old man before he again saw me.”

Clane nodded approvingly.

Chu Kee bowed and shook hands, this time after the Chinese fashion, with his hands clasped over his heart. He turned to Cynthia Renton. “If you are now ready?” he asked.

She laughed nervously. “I am now ready.”

Clane watched them down the corridor, then went back to where Sou Ha was sitting, her silken legs crossed at the knees, her fingers languidly picking up dried melon seeds which she cracked with her teeth, deftly extracting the kernel with the tip of her tongue, performing the whole operation as neatly as a canary bird cracking hemp seeds.

“I didn’t like, to ask it,” Clane said, “but there seemed to be no other way out.”

“Don’t feel like that, First-Born,” she said with some feeling. “My father is your friend. It is a privilege when he can do things for you.”

“And you?”

Her eyes went to his face. “You know how I feel,” she said. Then suddenly her eyes moved away and she added, in almost an undertone, “Or do you?”

“Smoke?” Clane asked.

“No, thanks. I will follow the custom of my race and sip tea and eat melon seeds. I feel very Oriental today, not an American at all.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I am fighting a tendency to retire within myself.”

“Why fight it?”

“Because I want to, I suppose.”

“And why do you want to?”

She smiled at him and said, “Because I think I will have more fun if I don’t.”

“Are you,” Clane asked, “leading up to something?”

“Yes.”

“Go ahead.”

“You know that in China we have an expression — you’ve probably heard it: tie doh hahk hay.”

Clane nodded. “Meaning ‘too much of a guest’.”

“Exactly,” she said. “It is a rebuke that a hostess sometimes gives to a person who is on sufficient terms of intimacy to be accepted as one of the family, but who is acting with the formal restraint of a guest.”

“And what is the application in this instance?” Clane asked. “Do you think you are being too much of a guest?”

“No, you are.”

“I am the host.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Suppose,” Clane said, “I ask for a bill of particulars?”

“Whenever you wish us to do something, you are too diffident.”

“This particular thing may be rather tricky and dangerous, Sou Ha.”

“It’s a pleasure to feel that what one does is important. Tell me, First-Born, is it only when things concern the Painter Woman that you become so self-conscious and embarrassed about asking our aid? Is it because you feel that your friends are not our friends, particularly the friends who are closest to you?”

Clane faced the steady, inscrutable eyes. “What are you getting at, Sou Ha?”

“It would be embarrassing if she were to become your wife and thereafter felt that there was any reason why she should not avail herself of our friendship — any reason.”

“She is not my wife.”

“She may become your wife.”

“Is not that crossing a bridge before one comes to it?”

She said, “I do not like your proverbs. I prefer the proverbs of China. You say that one should not cross a bridge before one comes to it. In China we say that the wise man does not follow the road which is known to be infested with bandits. In both instances it is a case of looking ahead. We consider it a wisdom, you consider it a vice.”

Clane said, “But there is a difference between following a road on which there are bandits and following one on which there is a bridge. One should not cross the bridge before one comes to it.”

“Is it not unwise to follow a road where a bridge is out?”

Clane nodded.

“And unless one looks ahead far enough to see if the bridge is there, how is one to know when it is not there?”

Clane smiled.

“No, no, First-Born, do not smile. We are talking of Chinese proverbs, but what we have in the back of our minds goes far deeper.”

Clane said, “Look here, Sou Ha, this is no ordinary matter. This is a murder. And yet, it is much more than a murder. A man has been convicted of murder and he has escaped. Those who aid him in that escape are guilty of a very serious crime.”

“I know no man who has been convicted of murder,” Sou Ha said with a wooden face. “I know only that I have lent my coat and hat to a friend.”

“Try telling the police that in case you’re caught at it,” Clane said.

She looked at him, wooden-faced. “I will.”

“And probably get away with it at that,” Clane said. “Look here, Sou Ha, you can’t leave here now. You’ve got to wait until it gets warmer. Then you can carry your coat over your arm and... and we’ll just pray they don’t notice the discrepancy about the hat.”

“I am in no hurry.”

“But in the meantime, I have to go out.”

“I will be happy here with Yat T’oy. He and I will converse about the Chinese classics. He thinks that I am deplorably lacking in the knowledge of my fathers. How long will you be gone?”

“Perhaps an hour.”

She said, musingly, “The police will think the apartment is vacant. They have seen a man and a young woman enter. They have seen a man and a young woman leave. Now then, when you leave...”

“They will know that Yat T’oy is here.”

“Very well,” she said. “I will wait.”

“You will, of course, keep away from the windows.”

“Am I a fool?” she asked. “Or have you grown accustomed to women who lack responsibility?”