The Chinese Doll

Chapter 1

  Boone, Ill.

  Tuesday, P.M.

My Dearest Louise:

Louise, the damndest thing happened here about an hour ago.

I was killing time here in the office trying to keep warm; was pushed back in the old swivel chair with my feet on the desk as a matter of fact, when this husky stranger eased in.

For several minutes I had been trying to decide where to go for lunch, unable to choose between chasing across the street to Thompson’s or going over to Milkshake Mike’s on the other side of the Courthouse square.

But now I can’t eat anything.

When this big stranger walked in I stared at him in a professional, disinterested sort of way and was reminded of your Uncle Jeff living out in Utah. This man looked a good deal like your uncle except that he was barrel-chested and powerful where Uncle Jeff was a run-down, weazened little squirt. It would require two and a half Uncle Jeffs to fill the man’s shoes and there would still be enough left over to make a caricature.

You know the type; you undoubtedly meet men like him in your business. He was large in girth and latent power, large in pocketbook potential, perhaps, and large in ideas of how he wanted the world to revolve about him. If you or any other newspaper reporter met him you’d label him a capitalist, or maybe a powerful lobbyist-something like that. But I didn’t think so.

He made my office seem small by merely standing there in the doorway. In that first, cursory glance at him I noticed that, and took my feet off the desk. And then I looked again.

He had weight, visible and invisible. He was used to swinging that weight around, visible and invisible. Not that he seemed a professional politician — he didn’t. But he wore his hat, his expensive suit, and his quiet assurance of hidden power each with the same degree of confidence; he knew that each fitted him.

Yes, I removed my feet from the desk and sat up.

By this time the stranger had closed the office door behind him, but he hadn’t advanced into the room. Instead, and almost imperceptibly, he had moved sideways from the door so that the pane of frosted glass was no longer at his back. I couldn’t fail to notice that: it told me things about him. Exhaling slowly, he leaned against the paint-chipped wall and examined the office with calculating eyes.

As usual, the place was a wreck.

I had been doing some typing on my book on Lost Atlantis; seven chapters are finished and they were spread in seven separate stacks in a semicircle on the floor. The typewriter was before me and a blank sheet of paper rolled halfway in — I was just starting a letter to you. A dictionary, a thesaurus, and a couple of reference books on Atlantis I had borrowed from the library were piled beside the typewriter.

The morning’s mail, all unopened except for your latest letter, was atop the books. Your violin case was on the floor where you walked out and forgot it three years ago. I keep it there for sentimental reasons; there is no violin in it, of course, but I file your letters there. Those two individual parts of you go well together.

Everything in the office was as I had left it the night before-meaning the janitor hadn’t touched the room. I blew pipe ashes off the desk and looked at the stranger again.

“You’re Horne, aren’t you?” he asked. “Charles Horne?”

Of course I was Charles Home. I knew it and he knew it; he didn’t have to ask to make sure. That kind of a man always tried to make sure, beforehand. He was stalling for time, time to size me up and permit his breathing to return to normal. I’m on the second floor you know, the stairs may have winded him.

I didn’t believe he and I had ever met before and that was to be wondered at in a low-bracket city like Boone. I had supposed that in my five or six years in business here I had come to know everybody, including the editors of the labor paper that are changed every month. I was familiar with all of the City Hall crowd, knew every clerk and deputy in the Courthouse, and he didn’t belong in either place.

“My name is Evans,” he offered finally without putting out his hand. “Harry W. Evans. I’m from out of town.”

“That’s what I thought,” I said. There was a chair a few feet from where he stood against the wall. “I haven’t seen you around. Sit down.”

He shook his head, slowly. “I’ll stand.” And he did. He also kept his hat and coat on.

“I’ve only a few minutes.” He studied me intently. “Some of the boys tell me you can be relied upon. They said you were straight. Honest.” He also thought I was a skinny, dumb-looking creature who might pass for a private detective in a custard-pie comedy, but he didn’t say so with his lips.

“Tell the boys thanks,” I returned. “And I am, mostly. What boys?”

He hesitated a moment and breathed more evenly again. Finally he said, “Croyden.”

I nodded, not very surprised. Croyden is maybe forty, forty-five miles away. There are two railroads and a new bus line connecting Boone with Croyden and no little traffic of various and interesting 6orts plies back and forth. A lot of good stuff comes in here directly from the Croyden distilleries without benefit of a middleman. Like the cigarettes in North Carolina, I suppose. We also used to have a visiting delegation of girls each weekend until the Civic Pride League broke out their tomahawks and forced the police to close the district.

As one of the sidelines I’ve developed since you lit out for Capitol City and the political newsbeats again, I now handle investigations of policy applicants and sometimes accident claims for an insurance company over there.

I said to Evans, “I know Rothman and Liebscher, and a couple of other boys there.”

It was his turn to nod knowingly. “The boys said you were the man for the job.”

“What job?”

Swiftly then he reached into an inner pocket and brought out a handsome leather wallet. He could just as easily have pulled the gun I glimpsed under his armpit. The wallet was dark brown, not too new, and had some gold-leaf lettering on the interior flap. Above the lettering was a single symbol of some kind, also imprinted in gold leaf, but the whole movement was too fast to enable me to identify the symbol or whatever it was.

The wallet was bulging with long, green leaves.

He extracted five of them without counting, and advancing to the desk, tossed the bills in front of me. They made a lovely heap.

“Tomorrow,” he growled bitterly, “tomorrow, or the next day, I’m going to be in jail. It may be the day after that. I don’t really know. You get me out — if you can.”

“What’ll you be in jail for?” I’m naturally curious, as you well know, Louise. Maybe I have the makings of a reporter, too.

“I don’t know,” he replied frankly, almost musingly. He sounded as though he were patiently awaiting an expected surprise. “Actually, I don’t know.”

“Perhaps for carrying a gun?” I pointed out.

He nodded again, his eyes searching me. “I have a permit, of course, but that can conveniently become lost or stolen. It may be for spitting on the sidewalk.”

“Or perhaps for crossing the street against the light?” I suggested, beginning to grin.

He was in quick agreement. “Or parking in a safety zone. Or shoplifting. Or resisting an officer.”

I stood up. “You talk like a frame job.”

“Exactly!” he bit out explosively. “That is precisely what I am implying. That is why I don’t know the reason for my arrest. Sometime during the next few days I’ll do something I shouldn’t have done, according to some unheard-of ordinance, and I’ll be jailed.”

I put my thumb to my chin and found I hadn’t shaved.

That was a funny one, Louise. You are fairly familiar with Boone; it hasn’t changed so much in the last three years. The mayor is a decent old codger even though he has been a politician all his life. And he has the chief of police in the palm of his hand because the chief’s job is an appointive one. Topping that, one of the members of the Board of Police and Fire Commissioners is now the publisher of the Boone Democrat, a civic-pride and God-bless-our-green-little-city guy. The police chief isn’t any too well liked but that publisher certainly wouldn’t stand for monkey business in the police department, providing the mayor and the chief had so far forgotten themselves in the first place.

You know the mayor; old top-hat Yancey is still in office. With the exception of one term he’s been there ever since the First World War. The chief, a man by name of Tanner, used to be the sheriff of some downstate county before he drifted into Boone.

So I said to Evans dubiously, “I’ll have to take your word for that.” He glared at me.

“Do that!” he commanded. “I happen to know what I’m talking about. I’m not throwing this around” — pushed the heaped-up stack of hundred dollar bills nearer me — “for nothing! I will be arrested. Don’t ever doubt it.”

And the way he said it convinced me. If he had declared in the next moment that little men from Mars were perched in the snow out on my window sill, I would have turned to look, and they would have been there.

“All right. You will be. What do I do then?”

He handed me a little card from the wallet. On it was printed in fine English script the name and address of an attorney in Croyden. I had never heard of the attorney. The man’s telephone number was down in one corner.

“Get in touch with the party immediately. At once. Do you understand? Before you do anything else, call this number. If he isn’t in, the girl at the switchboard will find him for you when you mention my name.

“Tell him what has happened. Also tell him that I have retained you. But this is important: don’t tell him why I have retained you — what instructions I have given you. Merely let him know that I have been arrested and you know it. Is that clear?”

“It is. You’re in durance vile, shall we say. I’m wise to the game but I don’t know a thing if he tries to pump me.”

“Excellent. The boys said you were reliable.”

“And then...?” I inquired.

“And then come down and bail me out. If you can.”

“Now hold on a minute! They can’t hold you in jail for spitting on the sidewalk. Everybody does it.”

“No? Perhaps not. But they can for shoplifting. Or resisting an officer and attempting to commit bodily harm. Son, you should know cops, you’re in the business.”

“I do know cops. In this town I know them like you know the buttons on your shirt. And that’s why I don’t understand this. But go on, if it happens, what next?”

“If you can bail me out, do so. And stay right with me. That is also important. Don’t allow me to ‘commit’ a second offense; get a taxi and go with me to the railroad station. Put me on the first train for Croyden and stay with me until the train pulls out.

“Whatever you do, don’t leave me alone until I’m out of town. Do you fully understand those instructions? If I should ask you, or order you to do anything else, stay with me. Put me on that train!”

“Mister, I’ll stick to you like sap to a tree. But if I can’t bail you out?”

Evans smiled and I felt a kick in the teeth coming.

“In that event, Horne, you are to walk down the steps in front of the City Hall and spit on the sidewalk — or whatever it is. You are to do the same thing for which I was arrested. Do it before an officer and insist on being arrested.”

“Our city jail has but one cell,” I said in bemused reflection. That would put the two of us together. “Misery loves company.”

“I’ll need company! Son, I’m being framed; I want you in jail for the very same offense. I want to happen to you whatever happens to me. I want a witness.”

I could just picture that. I could see me spitting on the sidewalk, or dashing across the street in the face of a red light, or swiping bobby pins from the five-and-ten. Yes: it made a delightful, unbelievable picture.

“And that?” With a pointed forefinger I indicated the money on the desk.

“That,” he replied without emotion, “is yours. If you are forced to use it for bail, I’ll replace it. Have you any contacts in the City Hall? Trustworthy contacts that don’t wear blue?”

I said yes, there was the colored porter whom I remembered on his birthday and Christmas.

“All right.” He sounded as final as the act of getting up from a chair. “I’m staying at the Hotel Warth. I’m going there now. Keep your eyes open and don’t fail me. It may be at any time.” He reached behind him and pulled open the door.

His exit was as quiet as his entrance.

“Hey—!” I shouted after his vanishing figure. “Hey — aren’t you going to tell me what’s behind...”

The office door slammed in a sudden gust of wind and several sheets of paper from my stacks of manuscript skittered across the floor. I glowered at them darkly and listened to his barely heard footfalls descending the last few steps to the street. A remaining draft of cold, biting winter air swept across the office and played around my ankles. I walked to the window and put one foot up on the ledge, out of the draft.

There he went, Harry W. Evans, the gent who thoroughly believed our innocent gendarmery was an unscrupulous pack of rascals after his hide. That’s what big-city living does to a man. You distrust your neighbor, art a stranger to the man in the next block, and hate the cop on the corner. And he probably hates you because he has to look at you every day. Standing there, on one foot, I made a mental note to tell Yancey about Evans. Yancey likes jokes, old, new or incredible. Yancey is in Florida now for his annual winter vacation.

Harry Evans came out of my building and walked directly to the curb. Swift snowflakes pelted down on his hat and shoulders. They clung to his overcoat like a soft mantle and he would be well covered by the time he walked a few blocks to his hotel.

He stepped off the curb in front of the building and started across the street. The Studebaker sedan got him before he had taken half a dozen steps.

The snow was falling fast, already beginning to cover the tire tracks; twin, treaded tracks that showed no frantic skidding in an effort to stop. The sedan kept on going after knocking over Harry W. Evans.

Knocking him over and killing him deader than hell.

(“...I’ll do something I shouldn’t have done, according to some unheard-of ordinance...” He did. Boone has an ordinance prohibiting jaywalking.)

I called the attorney in Croyden a short while after that. In spite of the instructions (and after all, this hadn’t been covered in them) I first went downstairs to watch his body being put in the wagon.

The wallet had fallen from Evans’ inner pocket. I saw his name and the little golden symbol but it was so much Greek to me. It was not a fraternal emblem.

I walked across the street to Thompson’s for a cup of coffee. A little knot of gawkers stood in the window, watching the crowd in the street. The coffee tasted flat and lifeless; I said as much to Judy across the counter. She dismissed the complaint without batting a heavy eyelash.

“Same coffee we always have, dollink.”

Some of the people standing at the window began looking my way with silly questions written on their faces. I got out of there and went back to the office.

After a delay of several minutes the attorney came on the wire.

“It’s snowing here,” I said into the broken mouthpiece of the telephone after I had introduced myself by name and profession. In one brusque growl the attorney indicated he had never heard of me.

He snapped, “Are you spending money to tell me that? What of it? It’s also snowing here.”

“I’m not spending my money,” I informed him. “I’m spending yours. Didn’t the girl tell you I reversed the charges? Well, it’s snowing pretty hard here, but not enough to block vision. Not hard enough and fast enough to cover up the tire tracks before I saw them.”

“Are you crazy?” He was somewhat annoyed. “What tire tracks? What are you gibbering about?”

I pushed back in the chair and let him have it.

“I’m talking about the tracks of the tires of the car that killed Harry Evans a short while ago.”

That stopped his protestations like an abutment stops an automobile. I heard him suck in his breath and hold it, as a man does when he gets an unexpected blow around the belt.

When he spoke to me again it was in a vastly changed, curiously stark voice. He was frightened. Shocked, too, but frightened.

“Tell me about those tire tracks,” he said.

I did. “It’s snowing here,” I repeated for the effect and because he was paying the toll charges. “Evans left my office and started across the street in the middle of the block. It isn’t such a busy street, although it’s downtown. I think he was on his way back to the hotel.

“He didn’t get there. He had taken maybe five or six steps from the curb when this sedan smacked him down. A Studebaker sedan with a supercharger attachment on the hood. The sedan was traveling pretty fast for a snowy, downtown street. It didn’t try to stop before it hit him; it didn’t stop after it hit him.”

The attorney let out his breath. “Like that, eh?”

“Like that. After the car struck the body and had passed partly over it, the driver began to apply the brakes. Just began to apply them. A barest hesitation. And then the sedan picked up speed and disappeared. The tire marks told the story but the story isn’t there any more; it’s still snowing.”

“Do you think that... think that...?”

“Why not? It’s a reasonable guess. I’m sure.”

“You — are?”

“Yeah. Didn’t he tell you why he came to see me?”

“He did not. I didn’t know he had need of a detective. I knew only that he was there on business. I wondered how you knew to call me.”

“What is — I mean, what was his business?”

The attorney hesitated. Finally he said, “Stock and bonds, grains. He was an investment broker.”

“No doubt,” I shot back dryly. “And he gave me five hundred dollars to bail him out of jail because he was anticipating a market crash. What was his business?”

At first my only answer was a lengthy silence from the other end of the wire. I listened to see if the attorney was calling someone else, or had his hand over the mouthpiece, but he was still there, breathing into my ear. Finally I could hear him drumming on his desk, impatiently.

He said curtly, “I’m not at liberty to tell you.”

“All right. I’ll find out here.”

“Tell me,” he asked in an eager voice, “why did he hire you?”

I drummed on my desk and after a short pause said: “I’m not at liberty to tell you.” I wished I could have been watching his face, and at the same time I wondered if I had made a mistake in mentioning the bail and jail business.

He punctured the mutual silence with a, “Well?”

“Look, mister, I’ve got five hundred dollars I never had a chance to earn. It belongs to Evans. Do you want me to send it to you?”

“No.”

“I’m happy. Give me the word.”

“The word?”

“The go-ahead, certainly. You are his lawyer, aren’t you? You don’t want this glossed over and forgotten as just another hit-and-run case, do you? You do want me to look into it, don’t you?” High pressure salesmanship. I wanted to keep that five hundred.

“Oh... yes, yes. Certainly. By all means.” He ran the words together in a babbling effect. I wondered if he was hysterical. “Get right on it. Find out who did it. Find out—”

I cut in on him.

“Take it easy. I’ve already found out something. There was a little delay in getting through to you, so I checked with City Hall while I was waiting. The only thing they have so far is that it was a Studebaker sedan, driven by a girl.”

“A girl?”

“Girl. Female. Woman. The so-called weaker sex. You have one there in the office. It ties in, you see. Men often run away from accidents. Women, seldom if ever. They haven’t got the guts to run away from accidents. Ask your secretary what she would do if she ran a man down. She’d faint. This woman didn’t faint — she hit Evans and got the hell out of sight.”

He said slowly, “And that indicates—?”

“—that it was premeditated,” I finished for him. “It’s a murder, if the driver can be found and a confession obtained or satisfactory proof constructed. The inquest is tomorrow afternoon.”

Suddenly he was all businessman. “Attend that inquest. Notify me of further developments. I can advance more money should you need it.”

“I have enough to keep me,” I said aloud, and under my breath added, “for a while.”

“Call me back late tomorrow afternoon.”

“I can tell you now what the results will be, just in case you want to make a little bet. Death was caused by an automobile driven by a person or persons unknown—”

He cut me off, “Call me tomorrow.” And hung up.

I waited until the operator plugged into the line and gave her another Croyden number.

Pretty soon a voice said, “Hello, chum. It’s your nickel.”

“Hello, Liebscher. I was hoping to talk to Rothman. And it’s not my nickel, it’s my forty cents if I can complete this in three minutes. Where’s the boss?”

“Ah — it’s Charlie. How are you, chum?”

“Dammit, I’m wasting forty cents. I want Rothman. Look, Liebscher, give me a quick line on Harry W. Evans.”

“Evans? He was in here looking for a Daniel Boone. Get it? Boone. Good, huh? We gave him your name.”

“I know you did, and he dropped in on me. But give me a line on him.”

“Ain’t much to give, chum. He’s married but she’s fat, they tell me. You know how that is — guys don’t take fat wives out to have fun except to the opera and that ain’t fun and anyway Croyden ain’t got no opera. No children. You ain’t after the fat wife, are you chum?”

“To hell with you, Liebscher. Listen, Evans is dead. What? No, I said dead. Yeah — that’s right. Hit-and-run. Less than an hour ago. But meanwhile he hired me for a little job. I want everything you might have on him.”

“Seriously, Charlie, there isn’t a thing on him that I know of. He’s got an office here; stocks and bonds and that sort of stuff. I’ve never seen him actually work. And he never jilted a widow in his life, that I know of. He’s the slightly sentimental kind. If she’s pretty, he’ll give her her last five dollars back rather than keep it all.”

“How about a private love life?”

“Could be. Fat wife, you know. Want me to check into it?”

“Yes. If you find anything on him, wire it over. Now — what do you know about... about...” I had already forgotten the name of the attorney, and quickly searched my pockets for the card.

“About who, chum?” Liebscher prompted.

I found the card. “Ashley. An attorney named August Ashley.”

Liebscher didn’t answer but I heard him rapidly thumbing the pages of a book. Finally he offered, “He’s located in the same building as Evans.”

“That’s convenient. What else?”

“Nothing, chum. Don’t know him.”

“Liebscher, you’re slipping. Tell Rothman I called. I want to talk to him next time; he’s intelligent. If either of you pick up anything on Evans, wire it. Same goes for Ashley if it’s tied to Evans. So long, now.”

“So long, chum.” Liebscher rang off.

And that, Louise, is how I happen to have five hundred dollars in my desk drawer at the moment. Can you guess what I’d like to do with it? I’d like to take you to Florida or someplace and court you all over again. I wish you weren’t so stubborn. We’re over the hump — three of the five years have passed and I’ve demonstrated often that I can make a first-class husband and provider. Do we have to finish out the full five years? Can’t we bring this experiment to an end right now? We can have a lot of fun on that five hundred dollars.

You’ll get the brief facts of the hit-and-run over the wires in your city room, but I couldn’t resist adding what I know. Besides, the news story won’t mention my name. This town has maybe 35,000 inhabitants. And probably two thousand of them own automobiles. I wonder how many of those two thousand drive a Studebaker sedan with a supercharger attachment?

I intend to find out.