The Case of the Backward Mule

Eighteen

“What is it?” Clane asked as they walked down the corridor.

“You are being sprung,” the turnkey said.

“How?”

“Some Chinese girl and a lawyer. That’s one thing about the Chinese. When they get lawyers, they get good ones. Long as I’ve been here, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Chink show up with a cheap lawyer. He either has none at all, or else he gets the best, regardless of what it costs. Don’t ever kid yourself the Chinese ain’t shrewd. Cripes! I’ve seen lots of fellows that thought they were wise guys show up with mouthpieces that we knew all about. Damn ambulance chasers. The guys were just throwing their money away, falling for a line of bull some cheap shyster passed out. But you take the Chinks. Boy, when they show up, they really have lawyers. And you’ve got one this time that’s the best.”

“Who?” Clane asked.

“Carl Marcell.”

“Never heard of him,” Clane said.

“Where you been the last few years, buddy?”

“I’ve been in the Orient.”

“I guess that accounts for it. Right this way.”

The turnkey unlocked the door at the end of the corridor, flung back the heavy steel casement, and Clane found himself in a waiting room near the entrance corridor of the jail. Chu Kee and Sou Ha were there, and a tall impressive man with a profile of granite, and silver-gray hair which swept back in well-kept waves from a high forehead.

“Clane?” the man asked.

Terry nodded.

Chu Kee beamed at Clane.

The tall man put out his hand, enveloped Clane’s in a muscular grip. “I’m Carl Marcell,” he said. “I’ve been retained to act for you. I’ve threatened a writ of habeas corpus, and they’ve turned you loose rather than put a charge against you.”

“And how about Sou Ha?”

“I sprang her an hour ago,” Marcell said. “I had a little more trouble with you. They tried to hang on to you until the last minute. They really hated to let you go.”

A door opened. Inspector Malloy appeared, his face positively beaming. “Well, well, well. You’re leaving us, Mr. Clane. That’s fine. That’s really splendid. I’m sorry we had to detain you. It was just one of those things. But you have Mr. Marcell in your camp, and he’ll take care of you. Yes, indeed, Mr. Clane, he’ll take care of you.”

“No hard feelings,” Clane said, smiling.

Carl Marcell said, “You were only holding him. There was no charge booked against him. You had no right to put him in a cell with a convicted felon.”

“Well, now, of course,” Malloy beamed, “accommodations are pretty hard to get in even the best hotels. And you take a hotel such as we run, on short notice that way it’s sometimes difficult to provide just the accommodations we want. But it’s all right now. We didn’t intend to keep your client too long.”

“No longer than it took a lawyer to threaten you with a habeas corpus.”

Malloy merely grinned.

The jail doors swung open and the little party debouched into the night, meeting the stares of some curious pedestrians who gazed first casually then with eager curiosity as someone pointed out the tall figure of Marcell, the famous criminal lawyer, flanked by the Chinese man and woman on the one side and a Caucasian on the other.

Clane heard one of the men say in a low voice, “Probably opium. He...” And then Sou Ha was opening the door of Chu Kee’s big limousine and Clane was helping her into the car, then getting in beside her.

Carl Marcell gravely shook hands.

“You’re not coming with us?” Clane asked.

“No,” the lawyer said, “I have my own car. I don’t think you’ll have any more trouble, Mr. Clane; if you do, call me. Here’s a card which has my office number on it, and that number up in the right-hand corner is my night number, a private phone where you can get me at any hour of the day or night. Just don’t give it out to anyone. It’s a number I reserve for my important clients.”

“And your fees?” Clane asked.

Chu Kee said in Chinese, “What has been done is a matter of friendship.”

Marcell was more explicit. “I don’t suppose your friend cares about telling you all of the details, but... well, there is no charge.”

Sou Ha added by way of explanation, “Father keeps Mr. Marcell retained by the year.”

Clane showed his surprise.

“For situations of just this sort,” Sou Ha said.

Then Marcell was moving back toward his car, walking with the grace of a man whose business it is to impress spectators; and Sou Ha, behind the wheel of the limousine, was warming up the motor. A moment later they glided smoothly away from the curb and out into the traffic of the city; and Terry Clane, watching the life flowing past him, could not but contrast his lot with the plight of the man whom he had left in the jail cell to be subjected to the final indignity of being stripped of his outer clothing and pushed into a small circular chamber in which presently there would be the hiss of escaping gas.

Clane’s thoughts were interrupted by Sou Ha’s penitent voice. “I am clumsy, O First-Born. I am so slow in my mind as to be unworthy of your teachings. I failed to outwit this police person.”

“That police person,” Clane said, “is plenty hard to outwit. Just what happened?”

“I do not know when he first became suspicious,” Sou Ha said. “Perhaps it was almost immediately. But he took me to where I wished to go. It was only as I was getting out of the car that he suggested he had better inspect the bundle. To have protested would have made him only the more suspicious so I pretended that it was only the outside of the bundle he wished to see, and I held it for his inspection, then pushed his hand against it so that he could see that only clothes were on the inside. I said, ‘Dirty clothes. Me wash.’ But it didn’t fool him. He said, ‘Well, let’s take a look at the dirty clothes,’ and right then I knew the jig was up.”

“Was it bad?” Clane asked.

“Not bad. Only they wouldn’t let me telephone unless I talked in English.”

“Wouldn’t they let you phone your father?”

“I suppose so, but that I dared not do because of the Painter Woman. The officer was smart enough to know that I must have taken the place of the Painter Woman.”

“Then how did your father know where you were?” Clane asked.

Sou Ha said, “When the hours passed and I did not return, my father communicated with the lawyer.”

Chu Kee sat with his hands folded in his lap, beaming out through the windshield, his alert little eyes missing no detail of the traffic, his ears taking in the conversation. But there was nothing in the expression of his countenance to indicate that he understood what was being said.

“And what about Cynthia Renton?” Clane asked.

“The Painter Woman is safe.”

“Has she been able to communicate with her sister?”

“A messenger has told her sister she is all right.”

Clane settled back against the cushions.

Chu Kee said blandly, as though merely pointing out a bit of scenery, “A car follows us.”

“Did you think I hadn’t noticed that?” Sou Ha asked, almost petulantly.

Chu Kee said in Chinese, “It is an ambitious fountain that seeks to be higher than the stream which feeds it.”

Sou Ha said contritely and also in Chinese, “I am sorry, Father. The words slipped past my tongue.”

“The wise man develops a slow tongue.”

“I am afraid that today I am not wise. But,” she added artfully, “I did not want you to think your daughter was unworthy of you. I expected of course we would be followed, and remember that I have the benefit of the rear-view mirror.”

There were several moments of silence. “Are you going to try to ditch the following car?” Clane asked, seeing that Sou Ha was driving directly toward Chinatown with no attempt whatever to take advantage of traffic signals or crowded intersections.

“To ditch them would but make them suspicious that we had something to conceal,” Sou Ha said. “We will be so innocent that we flaunt our virtue in their faces.” And then she laughed.

“But we must not take them to Cynthia’s place of concealment,” Clane said.

“We won’t,” Sou Ha told him, and then almost angrily said, “I know I have done everything wrong today, but at least give me credit for some sense.”

Chu Kee shifted his eyes in silent rebuke to his daughter’s petulance, then turned his attention back to grave contemplation of the road.

“Where we are going,” Sou Ha said hastily, attempting to atone for her fault, “is to see the wife of Ricardo Taonon.”

“You know where she is?” Clane asked in surprise. “The police have tried to locate her without success.”

“She made the mistake of going to Chinatown,” Sou Ha said.

“Why a mistake?” Clane asked.

“My father,” Sou Ha said with pride, “knows everything which goes on in Chinatown.”

“Pride,” Chu Kee said, “is the club by which Misfortune beats the virtuous into submission.”

“I speak but the truth,” Sou Ha pointed out.

“Ever the truth is humble,” Chu Kee retorted.

“What is Mrs. Taonon doing?” Clane asked.

“She is attempting to hide.”

“From the police?”

“From the police and others.”

“What others?”

“That remains to be ascertained,” Sou Ha said. “My father thought you would like to ask the questions.”

Clane bowed his head in acknowledgment of the compliment.

Sou Ha deftly piloted the car through the traffic, entered the streets of Chinatown, turned with no attempt at concealment into a side street, and stopped the car, switched off the lights, and turned off the motor.

Another car paused at the corner to disgorge two men who seemed particularly naive tourists, desiring to explore the streets of Chinatown.

Sou Ha did not even deign to glance at them. She stepped forward and opened the door of a small Chinese store.

A man who was seated behind the counter glanced up and then lowered his eyes to the book in which he was writing Chinese characters with a camel’s hair brush held rigidly perpendicular between thumb and forefinger.

Sou Ha led the way. Her father followed, and Clane brought up the rear.

There was an arched doorway near the rear of the store. Two faded green curtains hung down to shield this doorway. Sou Ha parted the curtains and went through. They moved down a narrow passageway, came to a large room where a dozen Chinese were grouped around a circular table, playing Chinese dominoes. They did not even glance up as the little party filed through the room and entered another passageway, then a smaller room, where there was furniture stored — apparently merely a storeroom for odds and ends, though shrewd eyes would have noticed that this furniture collected no dust, and that there were no cobwebs.

Sou Ha’s fingers pressed a hidden catch, a panel of wood slid smoothly back, operated by an electrical mechanism which betrayed its presence only by a faint whirring noise. The moment Clane had stepped through the sliding panel it closed behind them and they were in darkness. A small flashlight in Sou Ha’s hands disclosed steps which went down into a passageway where there was the smell of dampness. They followed this passageway for some fifty yards, then dipped down another flight of stairs, and Clane knew they were going beneath a street. Another hundred feet and they were climbing again and once more came to what seemed to be a solid wall. Again Sou Ha pressed a catch and a door opened. Another passageway led them into a small Chinese apothecary shop on a dimly lit side street.

Sou Ha glanced questioningly at her father. Chu Kee stepped forward and opened a door near the back of the store which disclosed a short corridor.

“At the end of this corridor,” he said in Chinese, “there is a place, the sign on the street proclaiming it to be the Green Dragon Hotel. It rents rooms to people who sign names which are fictitious upon the register. The woman you wish is in room twenty-three. We will go there without letting her know that we come.”

From here on Chu Kee took the lead, marching through the door at the end of the corridor into a narrow, dingy room which was large enough to hold half a dozen chairs and a small partitioned-off space in which were a desk, a rack for keys, a small telephone switchboard and an emaciated Chinese clerk.

The clerk barely glanced up, gave an all but imperceptible nod, then returned to a perusal of the columns of a Chinese newspaper.

Chu Kee led the way upstairs.

There were sounds of revelry in the first room at the head of the stairs, the laughter of a woman, too loud, too shrill and too harsh, a man’s blatant, boastful voice... The stealthy, shadowy figure of a Chinese moved noiselessly through the dim shadows near the end of the corridor, opened a door, entered a room and quietly closed the door behind him. Another door opened. A woman dressed for the street flashed past them, leaving behind her a smell of perfume so heavy that it reminded Clane of the banked flowers at a funeral. She was still young, but her face beneath the veneer of makeup was hard the eyes had the look of brazen defiance which is born of an inner fear. She glanced at Clane, started to smile, then saw Sou Ha and walked on past them.

Chu Kee seemed not even to notice.

The room they sought was near the end of the corridor. Chu Kee glanced questioningly at Clane.

Clane nodded and Chu Kee tapped gently on the door.

There was no sound from within.

Chu Kee knocked again, then tried the knob of the door. It was locked.

A woman’s voice from behind the door called out, “Whatdyawant?”

Chu Kee signified by a sign that Sou Ha was to answer.

“I wish to talk with you,” Sou Ha said politely.

The words which came from behind the door were slurred together with a coarse, careless diction. “I ain’t dressed and I don’t wanna talk to anybody. Get out.”

“It is on account of the register,” Sou Ha said, her voice subtly accenting the peculiar lilt which branded her unmistakably as being Chinese. “The last name cannot be read. It is necessary that it be written legibly so that the police will not question.”

“The name’s Brown. Write it any way you damn please.”

“But it is necessary that you should write it, otherwise sometimes there is trouble.”

“You got the book with you?”

“Yes.”

The room gave forth the sounds of motion. A bolt shot back, the door opened a crack.

Clane put his weight against the door.

“Say, what the hell is this?” the woman demanded.

Clane pushed his way into the room. Chu Kee and Sou Ha followed.

Clane gently closed the door.

The woman who stood in the middle of the floor was barefooted. She was wearing a slip and apparently nothing else. Her blonde hair was uncombed. A cigarette dangled from her lower lip and her face had the sullen expression of surly defiance which comes to those who have refused to conform to the conventions of life and mask their doubts behind a pose.

On the dilapidated dresser with its cheap mirror which gave a distorted reflection of the room was a square bottle of gin half full. A streaked water tumbler on the dresser was partially filled with gin and an empty gin bottle lay on its side near the edge of the dresser.

“Say listen,” the woman said, “I’m respectable. I come here when I want to go on a bat. My old man don’t like me to hit the booze. I’ve paid my rent and I’m living alone and liking it. All I want is a chance to finish off this bottle of gin, twelve hours’ sleep, and then I’ll walk out of here and go back to listening to his line of chatter and washing dishes and ironing his shirts. Now what the hell do you want?”

Clane noticed that, while the room itself was impregnated with the odor of gin, the smell of alcohol was that of fresh liquor, not the stale smell which comes from the breath of a heavy drinker.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Taonon,” he said, “but in this particular instance, the disguise won’t work.”

Her eyes were quick with startled fear.

“So,” Clane said, “we may as well dispense with the alcoholic subterfuge and get down to brass tacks.”

For a moment she regarded him dubiously, then her eyes shifted to Sou Ha and Chu Kee. They were shrewd, calculating eyes now which studied facial expressions with quick appraisal.

Abruptly she crossed to a closet, took out a smart, well-tailored dress, slipped it on over her head, opened a drawer, took out wells made, expensive alligator shoes and nylon stockings. She put on both shoes and stockings, opened her handbag, took out a comb, and combed back the tangled mass of her hair. Abruptly she had transformed herself from a blowsy blonde into a smartly tailored, quick-thinking, dangerous antagonist.

“Won’t you sit down?” she asked. “I think there aren’t any bugs. That’s about all I can say for the place. Two of you will have to sit on the bed. The girl can take the rocking chair. I wouldn’t advise that straight-backed chair. It’s treacherous. Now what is it you want?”

“What are you running away from?” Clane asked.

“From people who want to ask me questions — perhaps.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m tired of answering questions.”

“Whose questions?”

“Yours, for one. Suppose we start with you. Let’s find out who you are. What authority do you have to question me?”

“I’m looking for information.”

“So I gathered,” she said somewhat scornfully.

She was calm, poised, and wary — very much in command of herself and rapidly ready to assume command of the situation.

“I’m Terry Clane. I know your husband.”

“Oh, so you’re Terry Clane.”

“Right.”

“And who are these people?”

“Friends of mine.”

“And why should you ask questions?”

“Because I’m trying to clear up a mystery. Because if you don’t choose to answer my questions, I’ll ring up a friend. Inspector Malloy, tell him where you are and let him ask the questions.”

That shot told. She said, “Go ahead and ask your questions.”

“What are you running away from?”

“I’m afraid.”

“Of what?”

“It might be any number of things.”

“Such as what?”

“My husband, perhaps.”

“What have you done that would make you afraid of him?”

“Nothing.”

“Where is he now?”

“You’ll have to ask him.”

“Where were you last night?”

“Looking for someone.”

“Who?”

“Perhaps it was my husband.”

“Was it?”

“I’m not saying.”

“Where did you go?”

“Places.”

Clane sighed. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. I guess we’ll have to let the police do the questioning.”

Once more she showed fear. “Tell me specifically what you want to know. I’ll answer.”

“Do you know Edward Harold?”

She hesitated, then said, “Yes.”

“You met him last night. Did your husband ask you to meet him?”

“What makes you think I saw Edward Harold last night?”

“A witness says you did, a waitress in a restaurant.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“Are you hiding from the police or from your husband?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know. I’m asking because I want to find out.”

She faced him, took a quick breath, then said, “All right, if you’re going to drag it out of me, here it is. So far as Edward Harold is concerned, he means nothing to me. He’s friendly with my husband. We were both sorry to hear of his arrest for murder and I for one was glad to hear of his escape.

“But there’s another matter where Ricardo and I aren’t so... well, there’s another man, a business associate of my husband’s. He thinks he’s in love with me, and he wants to have a showdown with Ricardo... I’m in the clear. I’ve done nothing. But Ricardo is insanely jealous at times. I don’t know how much he thinks he knows or what he’d do. And he’s disappeared and I’m hiding out until I see what’s happened — or whether anything’s going to happen. I’m scared.”

“Who is this business associate of your husband who is infatuated with you? Is it Nevis?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Was it Gloster?”

“Now aren’t you smart!”

Clane said, “Your husband carries quite a bit of insurance. It’s payable to you. Your husband is dead.”

She stiffened into frozen attention. “Ricardo dead?”

“You know he is.”

“Then if you know that, you must know why he was hiding.”

Clane said nothing.

“And why I was hiding,” she added.

“You were hiding for the same reason he was?”

“Of course. He got me on the phone, told me to get under cover where I couldn’t be traced. The fat was in the fire.”

“Do you mean,” Clane asked, “that he had murdered Gloster?”

She said, “If you know so much, why don’t you know more?”

“I’m asking you.”

“Ricardo is dead?”

“So I understand from the police.”

“How?”

“I don’t know the details. A police inspector inadvertently let the cat out of the bag.”

“That Ricardo was dead?”

“Yes.”

“When did he die?”

“I don’t know.”

For a long moment she studied him with thought-narrowed eyes. Then she said suddenly, “That’s different. Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Back home.”

Clane said, “You don’t seem to show any grief.”

Her manner was scornful. “I thought I was dealing with someone of intelligence. You know as well as I do there’s no use showing any grief over something that has happened. Furthermore, the women who have hysterics and sob and shriek and whoop and want to be comforted are the ones who are putting on an act. I know the way I feel and that’s all that counts.”

Clane said dryly, “The position of the police is that you stand to profit by your husband’s death. You can’t expect them to overlook that.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Surely you can put two and two together?”

“Meaning that I killed him?”

Clane met her eyes. “You could hardly expect the police to overlook the obvious.”

She took the half-filled glass of gin, poured it into the slopjar, took a hat out of the closet, adjusted it in front of the cheap wavy mirror, put on her coat, and said, “Let’s go.”

“After all,” Clane said, “before you...”

“Let’s go. Let’s face the police. Let’s get it over with. Surely you weren’t bluffing, Mr. Clane?”

Chu Kee blandly held the door open. Clane stood to one side to let the women precede him.

Her head held high, Mrs. Ricardo Taonon sailed through the door and marched down the corridor, no longer the blowsy blonde who had retired for a gin binge in a cheap Chinese hotel, but a trim, smartly clothed woman, keeping her own counsel and playing her own cards.

“I think,” Clane said, “we’ll call Inspector Malloy first.”

“Call anyone you damn please,” Mrs. Ricardo Taonon snapped at him. “I’m going home. And if you don’t call the police, I will.”