The Case of the Backward Mule

Fourteen

Terry Clane, emerging from the apartment house where he had been in conference with Bill Hendrum, noticed a police car turn the corner and park.

Moving instinctively, Clane walked rapidly down the steep sidewalk and entered the first open door he found, that of a small neighborhood grocery store of the type so frequent in San Francisco.

Walking directly back to the shelves in the rear, Clane looked over the merchandise as though trying to find some particular brand he wanted.

The door pushed open and Clane saw outlined against the outer daylight the familiar figure of Inspector Malloy.

Malloy stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders hulking over the counter, his eyes surveying the interior of the store. Resignedly Clane moved forward, but somewhat to his surprise saw Inspector Malloy turn to the proprietor and beckon him over to the counter.

Clane, thinking this was perhaps a trap, moved up to the fruit-juice section and selected two cans of pineapple juice.

Inspector Malloy had pushed a typewritten list across the counter toward the proprietor.

“Within the last few days have you sold that list of groceries or a substantial part of it to some one person?” he asked.

Clane veered off, but it was too late. Inspector Malloy cocked an eyebrow, then suddenly snapped to surprised attention. “Well, well, well,” he boomed. “If it isn’t Mr. Clane. And what are you doing here, Mr. Clane?”

“Oh, just picking up a couple of cans of fruit juice,” Clane said.

“Well, well, well. Now isn’t that interesting? Quite a way from your own flat, aren’t you?”

“Oh, not too far. Within walking distance.”

“And you do your shopping here, Mr. Clane?”

Clane said, “Oh, no, I...”

“You mean did we sell this entire order to some one person?” the proprietor demanded.

“Never mind that now,” Malloy said and, facing Clane, said, “Go right on, Mr. Clane, don’t let us interrupt you. You were mentioning something about buying some fruit juice here. May I ask why you didn’t select a nearer store?”

“Oh, I was just taking a walk and happened to remember I wanted some fruit juice.”

“Rather heavy,” Inspector Malloy said.

“Oh, I can carry them all right,” Clane said smiling.

“I didn’t mean that. I meant that it’s rather unusual for a man to carry canned fruit juices some eight or ten blocks. There are stores right in your block, aren’t there?”

“I suppose so. Yes. But I happened to think of it now as I was passing.”

Malloy whirled to the proprietor. “Take a good look at this man,” he invited. “Did you ever see him before?”

The proprietor shook his head.

“No, I haven’t seen him before,” the proprietor said. “And I didn’t sell anyone an order like this within the last two or three days.” And he indicated the typewritten list Malloy has pushed over the counter.

Malloy’s face showed he was disappointed. “All right,” he said, “if you’re sure. Say nothing about my having been here. Don’t mention it to any of your customers. Understand? Any of them.”

“Okay, I guess I can keep my lip buttoned up.”

“That’s fine.”

Malloy turned to Clane. “Now isn’t it remarkable,” he said, “that you should happen to be in this neighborhood doing your shopping?”

“I told you, I just happened to drop in.”

“Yes, I understand that. But what caused you to happen to drop in?”

“I wanted some fruit juice.”

Malloy sighed. “Well, I was just making a routine investigation. I thought I’d run up and have a little talk with you some time this morning. Since you’re here, we may just as well take a few minutes to chat. Tell you what I’ll do. Get in my car and I’ll deliver you and your fruit juice right to your own flat.”

“I’d prefer to walk,” Clane said. “I like the feeling of having dry land instead of the deck of a ship under me. I want to prowl around, looking in store windows where there is actually some merchandise and...”

“Yes, yes, I know. But you may just as well get in the car with me and we can kill two birds with one stone. Perhaps I’ll drive you away from the neighborhood and then after I’ve talked with you, you can go and take a walk somewhere else.”

“What’s the matter with the neighborhood?” Clane asked. “Is there smallpox in it?”

“Well, now that’s an idea,” Inspector Malloy said. “There may be. I’m intending to quarantine it.”

“To quarantine the whole neighborhood?”

Inspector Malloy’s deep chuckle showed he was enjoying the situation. He said, “That’s right, Clane. Sort of a quarantine. It’s unhealthful.”

“For whom?”

“For you.”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see why.”

“Well now, that’s one of the things we can’t always explain. But if you’ll just get in this car. Here, let me take the package. Two cans of pineapple juice, eh? Now isn’t that interesting? Right in the car here, if you will, Mr. Clane. Now don’t hesitate. I could make it formal and official, you know.”

Clane accompanied Inspector Malloy to the police automobile, climbed in beside the Inspector.

“Now then,” Malloy said sternly, “I want to give you a word of warning. It’s chaps like you, playing at cops and robbers, that make trouble.”

“Just what do you mean?” Clane asked.

“You know what I mean, snooping around these stores and trying to find out where Edward Harold bought the provisions that were in that hideout.”

Clane said, “I hadn’t asked a question in that store.”

“I know, you were laying the foundation for a casual inquiry by buying a couple of cans of fruit juice. Don’t try it, Mr. Clane. I know what I’m talking about. It just makes trouble. Leave all that stuff to the police.”

Clane, willing to let Inspector Malloy accept that excuse for his being in the neighborhood, said meekly, “Yes, I suppose so.”

Malloy drove the car slowly and conservatively. “This Cynthia Renton,” he said, “must be a very nice girl.”

“She is.”

“Now do I understand you haven’t seen her since you got back?”

Clane said, “I don’t see what that has to do with it.”

“Well, the police are sort of looking for her, want to ask her a few questions.”

“The police have my permission,” Clane said gravely.

Malloy shot him a swift glance, then moved his eyes back to the road. “She was engaged to Edward Harold. Everyone seems to think so.”

“I see.”

“If that’s the case, she must know where he is.”

“Or was,” Clane said.

“We know where he was. He was there in that warehouse and he was provisioned up for a regular siege. Someone bought quite a bunch of groceries, apparently all in one order. Took them down and stocked the place up so he could stay there for a month or so without ever needing to stick his head outdoors.”

“Did you think that person was Miss Renton?”

“In our business, we don’t do too much speculative thinking, Mr. Clane. We investigate. And when we investigate, we make it a point to cover all of the possibilities.”

“I see,” Clane said.

“Even,” Malloy went on, “including that poker-faced Chinese servant of yours, Yat T’oy.”

“I see.”

“One of these days, we’ll stumble on a live lead. That’s the way it is in police investigation.”

“Yes, I can imagine it takes what might be termed infinite patience.”

“Well, we don’t have too much time to be patient. We have to hit the high spots and get the job done. Now take in your own case, Mr. Clane. Are you certain you went down there last night in a taxicab?”

“Why?”

“Well now, I’m going to be frank with you. There’s some evidence that we haven’t given to the newspapers.”

“You mean in addition to Miss Renton’s purse?” Clane asked casually.

Malloy’s face became wooden. “We don’t always tell everything we know.”

Clane said, “I have been wondering if, perhaps, Gloster hadn’t found Miss Renton’s purse in the warehouse and that was what he wanted to see me about. Thought he could return the purse to her through me.”

“And what makes you think he had found the purse?”

“If Miss Renton had left it in the warehouse, Gloster might well have found it.”

Malloy slowed the car almost to a crawl, then as angry horns blared into a demand for the road to be cleared, Malloy swung over to the curb and parked in the open space directly in front of a fire hydrant. He shut off the motor and turned to Clane. “Now let’s get this straight,” he said. “Did Gloster say anything to you about having Miss Renton’s purse?”

“He didn’t say anything,” Clane said significantly.

“But you thought that’s what he wanted?”

“I’m wondering now, if... well, to tell you the truth, Inspector, I don’t know what he wanted.”

“But you were able to formulate an idea?”

“Only on what we might call a hunch, or perhaps mental telepathy.”

“We don’t go for mental telepathy,” Malloy said.

“If you knew more about it, you might.”

“Perhaps, but the Chief doesn’t like it.”

“I see.”

Malloy sat silent for several minutes. Then he said suddenly, “There’s one possibility.”

“What’s that?” Clane asked.

“I’ll tell you about that in about two minutes,” Malloy said, and, switching on the motor, he swung out into traffic.

This time there was no hesitancy, no crawling along. Now he switched on the official red police spotlight and started making time for Clane’s apartment.

“You seem to be in a hurry all of a sudden,” Clane said.

“Well, you know how it is, Mr. Clane. In this business ideas strike you, and when they do, you don’t have all day to think them over. I’ll take you right to your apartment and then start investigating another phase of the case.”

“Mind if I ask what that is?” Clane asked.

“No, not at all,” Malloy said, “not a-tall, Mr. Clane. In fact, I wanted to discuss it with you.”

“Go right ahead.”

Malloy said, “We sort of stole a march on you last night, Mr. Clane. We searched your flat.”

“The deuce you did.”

“Yes. One of our men posed as a gas man, searching for a leak in the line.”

“Find anything?” Clane asked.

“Not a thing, Mr. Clane. But on the other hand, it wasn’t what you’d call a thorough search. It was sort of an inspection. And we may have overlooked something. Your place has been under surveillance ever since, but... Well, I think, if you don’t mind, we’ll go look the place over again, and this time we’ll make a more thorough job of it.”

“And if I do mind?” Clane asked.

“In that case, I have a search warrant.”

“In that case, I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do about it if I do mind, is there?” Clane asked.

“Now that’s spoken like a true philosopher,” Malloy said. “You’re quite right, Mr. Clane, there isn’t a single damn thing you can do about it.”

Malloy made the run in swift time, parked his car in front of Clane’s flat and directly across the street.

Clane deliberately fumbled around with the car door, taking the longest possible time getting out of the car and praying that Yat T’oy would be watching from behind the curtains of the windows in the flat above.

“Come on, come on,” Malloy said impatiently. “After all, it’s like a cold shower. You have to do it and get it over with, and the quicker you jump in, the quicker it’s over.”

Clane glancing upward could see no faintest silhouette behind the lace curtains of the windows.

“I don’t think I’m going,” he said.

“Now, don’t be like that,” Malloy said. “After all, Mr. Clane, you’re in a rather precarious position. The police could be just a little tough with you, you know — if they wanted to be.”

Clane said, “If you have a warrant to search the place, go ahead and search it. I don’t have to be there.”

He turned and started to walk down the street.

Malloy was at his side before he had taken five steps. “If I have to get rough, Mr. Clane, I can do that too. You’re coming with me. Are you coming — shall we say, under your own power, or are you going to come in tow?”

Clane, feeling that this byplay was as far as he dared go and that the pantomime would convey to any watcher in the upper windows the knowledge that he was virtually under arrest, said sullenly, “Oh, if you put it that way, I’ll go.”

“I’m putting it that way,” Malloy said, and his big-knuckled hand rested on Clane’s shoulder, slid down the shoulder until the muscular fingers were digging into Clane’s arm. “Come on, Mr. Clane, let’s go.”

Clane accompanied Inspector Malloy back to the entrance to the flat, up the half-dozen cement stairs which led up from the sidewalk. “I think you have the key,” Malloy said.

Clane fumbled around getting the right key, then inserted it in the door and said politely, “You first, Inspector.”

Malloy laughed. “No, no, Mr. Clane, you have the wrong book of etiquette. In times like this, the host goes first and the guest comes along behind. Right up the stairs with you.”

Clane climbed the stairs slowly.

“And now the key to this door,” Malloy said.

Clane once more took as long as he dared getting the door open and then Malloy pushed past him into the apartment.

“Oh, Yat T’oy,” Clane called and added in Chinese, “the police search...”

“None of that,” Malloy interrupted him sharply. “We’ll talk English if you please, Mr. Clane.”

“My servant understands Chinese better.”

“That’s too bad, that’s really too bad. You should teach him to understand English because, you see, things are sort of in the balance here, Mr. Clane. And if you don’t talk English, you’re going to find yourself in something of a mess. To be perfectly frank with you, my instructions are to arrest you and charge you with the murder of George Gloster in case your actions are suspicious.”

“Charge me with the murder?” Clane said, raising his voice.

“Well, of course, I don’t make the formal charge, but I’d arrest you on suspicion of murder and — there’d be a few technicalities. The charge would probably be as an accessory after the fact or something of that sort. Come on, now let’s get this over with. We’ll discuss the other part later.”

There was no sign of Yat T’oy or of Sou Ha.

Clane walked from the living room through the dining room toward the kitchen, Malloy on his heels, his eyes darting around in lightningswift scrutiny, missing no detail.

“I can’t imagine where Yat T’oy is,” Clane said irritably.

“And I’d like to look in the bedrooms, if you don’t mind, Mr. Clane. And don’t try to smuggle anyone out through another door into the corridor. I warn you that this place is sewed up tighter than a flour sack.”

Clane said, “I’m not trying to get anybody out, I’m trying to find where my man is.”

He pushed open the door to the kitchen.

Yat T’oy was standing by the sink, wooden-faced in his stupidity, chopping onions with a large, sharp butcher knife, using that flexible wrist motion which is the sign of a professional cook and making the knife move so fast that the blade was little more than a blur, the point resting on the chopping board, the blade being elevated and lowered by the rapid wrist motion.

On her hands and knees, Sou Ha was scrubbing the linoleum of the kitchen floor, a bucket of dirty, soapy water at her left, her hands clasped over the back of a scrubbing brush as she swayed back and forth.

Her hair was loose and stringy, hanging down around her face. She was barefooted and her skirt was pulled down tightly between her legs and pinned in back. She didn’t even glance up as the two men entered the room.

Clane, taking in the situation, said angrily to Yat T’oy, “I told you not to have this woman around any more. She didn’t come the day she was supposed to. You’re fired,” Clane said turning angrily to Sou Ha.

She looked up at him with blank countenance.

“Alle same you go home, no come back,” Clane said. “My man say you no come work day you promise come.”

“I work now,” Sou Ha said in a flat expressionless voice.

“If you don’t mind my butting in, Clane,” Malloy said, “it might be well for you to remember that you’re not in the Orient any more. You can’t hardly get anyone to do housework at all, let alone...”

“I’m running this,” Clane interrupted angrily. “At least I guess the police will let me have charge of my own household. As a matter of fact, there’s nothing here that one man can’t do. But you know the Chinese — they like companionship and my bills show that Yat T’oy has been having this woman come in regularly.”

“Rather old for a Lothario,” Malloy said.

“You can’t tell about these Chinese,” Clane told him. “They’re deep, and the old men like the young girls.”

“Same as every place else,” Malloy said. “I want to look in the bedroom, Mr. Clane.”

“All right, we’ll go in the bedroom. Yat T’oy, you get that woman out of here. You savvy?”

“Me savvy. She nice woman. Make floor very clean.”

“You can make floor very clean,” Clane said. “This job one-man job. You savvy?”

“Me savvy,” Yat T’oy said angrily and slammed the butcher knife down on the chopping board. Then turning to Sou Ha he said angrily in Chinese, apparently addressing his remark entirely to her, “Have no fear of the bedrooms, they have been carefully gone over.”

Clane, with the manner of a man whose day has been subject to a series of exasperating annoyances, said to Malloy, “All right, let’s go look in the bedrooms. Gosh, how I wish I were back in China!”

Inspector Malloy’s manner showed that this search had been the result of some sudden idea which, while it semed good at the time, was, in view of recent developments, seeming less sound with each passing minute. He looked through the bedrooms in the more or less perfunctory manner of one who is convinced, even before a door is open, that the room is empty.

“All right, Clane,” he said, “just checking up, that’s all.”

“I hope you’re satisfied.”

“I am, and I’m sorry I disturbed you. No hard feelings, I hope?”

“No hard feelings,” Clane said. “Have a cigar. There are some Yat T’oy picked up through some of his Chinese connections. They’re very good.”

“Chinese cigars?”

“Heavens no, they’re a pure Havana cigar. Try one.”

“Thank you, I will. Been a little difficult to get any lately.”

Malloy took a cigar from the box Clane extended, smelled of the wrapper and his face instantly softened into a smile of approval.

“Put some in your pocket,” Clane urged. “I don’t smoke them myself. Just keep them for guests and Yat T’oy laid in a good supply.”

“Thank you, I will.”

“Yat T’oy,” Clane called, “get that woman out of here. If you’ll pardon me a moment,” he said to Inspector Malloy, “I’m going to break up this romance.”

“Don’t be such a spoilsport,” Malloy said chuckling.

“It’s the idea,” Clane said. “An old man and a young girl like that. I suppose if the truth were known, she’s his slave girl and he owns her just as you or I would own a dog. But just the same...”

Clane said in Chinese, “It is well that Sou Ha should leave at the moment Malloy leaves so that watchers will see them emerge from the door together.”

Yat T’oy answered from the other side of the door, “She is ready.”

“Well,” Clane said to Malloy, “I suppose you’re satisfied.”

“Entirely satisfied. I’m sorry having to be a little rough with you, Mr. Clane, but you will admit you do get around and get into peculiar situations now and then. Well, I’ll run along. It’s too bad I had to make a checkup on this place but... well, you know how it is, it’s all in a day’s work with me. No hard feelings.”

“No hard feelings,” Clane said and escorted Malloy to the door.

From the back entrance leading to the hallway, Sou Ha made a dispirited exit from the kitchen. She was carrying a bundle of laundry tied up in a sheet, a bundle which Clane knew contained her expensive shoes and stockings, and Cynthia Renton’s coat and hat. Sou Ha’s bare feet were thrust into a pair of oversized Chinese slippers which doubtless belonged to Yat T’oy. Her shoulders were stooped as befitted a young woman whose body had already been sold in the slave market and who could not, at this late date, increase the purchase price thereof nor benefit therefrom if she could. Her slow shuffling gait spoke of dreary hours spent in menial tasks with only the prospect of more dreary hours ahead wherever she was going.

Inspector Malloy said genially, “Well, I’ll be on my way, Clane. Try to be a little more discreet in the future. You’re getting mixed up in this thing pretty deep. Sorry about that search, no hard feelings.”

“No hard feelings,” Clane said and closed the door.

From the window he watched to see Sou Ha emerge on the sidewalk to make sure that she was not stopped or questioned.

Inspector Malloy was first out. Sou Ha followed him only a second or two later. She turned and started down the steep hill, keeping perfectly in character, walking with stiff-backed shuffling steps.

Clane nodded approvingly, then saw Inspector Malloy gain Sou Ha’s side in three or four swift steps. He was, Clane realized from his gestures, apparently offering her a lift.

Sou Ha shook her head, moved on. Inspector Malloy insisted, pointed to his automobile and then in the general direction of Chinatown. Sou Ha wearily turned and, with the air of one who is too tired to be grateful, climbed into Inspector Malloy’s automobile.

Clane, watching Malloy drive away, felt an uneasy disquiet as he noticed the manner in which the Inspector’s car gathered speed. There was something purposeful about the manner in which Malloy piloted the automobile on down the street. The Inspector was driving fast, shooting across the street intersections. It was as though he knew exactly where he was going and was in a hurry to get there.

Clane frowningly watched the car until it turned a corner in the direction of Chinatown.

Inspector Malloy could pump Sou Ha until the cows came home without getting anything out of her. He could deliver her to any address in Chinatown and she would blend into the background and promptly disappear as effectively as a young quail in a patch of dead leaves.

Nevertheless, Terry Clane was considerably concerned. There was, after all, a possibility Inspector Malloy had not been as innocent as he seemed and that, after all, Sou Ha was not being taken to Chinatown but to police headquarters.