The Chinese Doll

Chapter 7

“Well I’ll be damned!”

Joquel Kennedy flashed me a pleased grin. He held open the door and stood aside to give me a better view.

“You like my studio?”

Did I like it? Louise, I was confounded. It was a second-floor back bedroom at 6636½, converted into what he was pleased to call his studio. To me it looked like bedlam.

Directly before my eyes hung something from the ceiling that resembled a round, full moon. It was. Complete with painted-in craters, dead-sea shadings and meteor pits. There was even a long, straight wall standing out on a plain that I remembered from school. A perfect imitation of the moon as one would see it through a telescope on a clear night.

Scattered elsewhere across the ceiling at various levels were eight planets and their attending satellites. Some were large, some small. Some were brilliantly painted and some dull. Foil rings circled one large globe.

It was a replica of the solar system.

“Okay, mister,” I said, getting my wind. “I’m ready. Do they explode, spin, light up and bingo, or what?”

Kennedy flipped a wall switch. The moon glowed with an inner illumination, bringing into sharp relief the crevices and craters. It seemed realistic enough. Some of the planets took on a dull glow but I couldn’t determine whether or not it was reflected from the center moon.

“Ninety per cent scientifically correct,” Kennedy explained. “Just imagine that you are outside on a summer night. Providing your eyesight was equal to the task, you would see in the skies almost this exact scene. It required the better part of last winter to complete this much. This winter I’m going to add the ninth planet and try to find a way to cause the rings of Saturn to revolve. They do, you know.”

“They do what?”

“Revolve.”

“Who does?”

“Saturn’s rings.”

“In clockwise,” I inquired gently, “or counter-clockwise motion?”

He didn’t mind. “You’re pulling my leg. Come on in and sit down.”

I did. At least I tried to. I walked across the studio, ducked under the low-hanging moon and pulled up the most comfortable looking chair. Kennedy jumped at me.

“Look out!”

It was my turn to jump. “What’s the matter?”

“You almost sat on my szopelka.” He rescued it from the chair seat. The thing looked like an oboe to me. Kennedy and his studio and his szopelka began to arouse the smallest suspicion in me. Eccentricity has reasonable limits.

I sat down and stared at the opposite wall. There was a funny picture there, staring at me. A colossal hand was holding aloft a frightened, kicking woman. Gross, brutal fingers of gigantic size were wrapped about her slim waist. The tiny woman seemed to be looking into my eyes, pleading for help.

“What is that?”

“An artist’s original. The picture illustrates a story I sold to an adventure magazine. It concerned giants. I knew the artist and he made me a present of it. As well as this one.” He turned to point to a large watercolor hanging on my left.

The watercolor was astounding, Louise. Something vaguely resembling the creatures people are supposed to see when they’ve had too much to drink. And I don’t mean pink elephants.

“Did you write that one, too?”

“Oh, no. I meant that the same artist gave it to me.”

“It must have some explanation behind it!”

“It’s a man from Mars.”

“How do you know?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“How do you know what a man from Mars is like?”

Kennedy pulled up a chair and sat down beside me. “That is a hypothetical man from Mars. It is based on all known scientific facts about the planet. The probable temperature, gravity, age, air and water conditions, flora and fauna, and the like. You undoubtedly know that the FBI men can construct a reasonably accurate facsimile of a criminal when they have nothing more to work on than a footprint, and perhaps the imprint of his teeth in an apple?”

“I heard of them doing it.”

“We don’t have that much, so to speak. All we have is a fairly comprehensive knowledge of the conditions on the surface of the planet. Assuming that life does exist there, in a form similar to man, this is his most probable appearance. The huge chest, the oversize feet and elephantine ears are all necessary to exist on Mars. Every detail of his appearance checks with scientific fact.”

The more I studied the alien gentleman the more it was brought home to me that I was losing time.

“Look, Kennedy, these magazines that Evans published. I want to see them. I want to have a look at that Chinese poem.”

He caught that one quick, “Does that fit into the background you mentioned?”

“I’m beginning to think so. If I can tie a still-missing something else into it.”

He got up and walked over to a high, narrow bookcase lined with four rows of identical black, ring, bookbinders. Each binder had a name inked in white on the spine.

He selected four of the binders and piled them in my lap. I picked up the first one and read the title Le Zombie on the spine.

“That’s my magazine,” Kennedy stated. “These belong to Harry.” He indicated the two binders on the bottom bearing the name Rosebud. “That’s the name of a sled in an Orson Welles picture, you may remember. Harry was struck by it. The term also has a slangy connotation among the membership.”

I didn’t dare ask what the connotation was for fear he would tell me. He possessed a wonderful ability to wander away from the subject I most wanted to discuss.

Flipping open the cover and a buffer sheet, I found a stack of nicely mimeographed magazines punched and fastened to the rings. I also found something looking up at me from the cover of the top magazine.

A copy of the odd symbol I had seen imprinted on Evans’ wallet; the symbol that I knew wasn’t a lodge emblem.

I called Kennedy’s attention to it.

“That was Harry’s trade-mark, you might say. You’ll find it on the cover of every magazine.”

I flipped through them. “But what is it?”

“I believe it’s a Chinese word — at least, I think it’s a word. It means ‘Fidelity and Friendship.’ ”

“Any particular reason why he used it?”

“I believe he once said he greatly admired the mental attitudes of the Chinese. As I understand it, they have a memory comparable to that old saw about the elephant.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Harry said they never forget a friend, never forgive a hurt. If they like you, you’re in solid — if you will pardon the slang. On the other hand...”

“If they don’t like you, stay away from them?”

“Yes. Something like that.”

I ran my eyes down the printed page. A title said: “A Refutation of the Escape-velocity Theory as Applied to Initial Thrust.” It was followed by six or eight pages of practically solid type broken only by some mathematical equations that couldn’t be made on a typewriter. I asked, “What’s this?”

“An essay.”

“No, I mean this escape-velocity. Escape from what?”

“The earth. It concerns a long held theory, now outdated due to war rockets and the discovery of atomic power, that rocket projectiles must start out with a speed of seven miles per second to escape the gravitational pull of the earth. The essay points out that the projectile may begin at a comparably slower speed enroute to interplanetary space.”

“You think rockets can do that?”

“German war rockets have done that. Our own army experiments will prove it within a few years.”

“I didn’t see anything about it in the papers.”

He told me about censorship and the wartime “thou shall not” order. I’d heard the rumor before.

All of which was interesting no end to a scientist and a newspaper editor. I was looking for poetry, and said as much. He removed the binders from my lap, leafed through one without success and was perhaps three-quarters through the second one when he found it. He passed the binder to me.

Louise: you probably remember the time you had occasion to state your opinions concerning my taste and judgment of poetry. I’ve grown no better with the years. Unless it’s something simple like “Hiawatha,” it leaves me cold. In spite of my disinterest in the stuff, I found myself liking what I was reading.

Kennedy later told me it was good poetry. I could quite believe him.

Harry Evans had called it: “For Leonore — A China Doll.” It was sentimental, and that’s an understatement.

I turned to Kennedy. “I thought you said Evans had a daughter named Eleanor?”

“I did. I’ve never met her of course, but he spoke of an Eleanor in one or two letters, and I assumed it was his daughter.” He looked over my shoulder. “That is Leonore.”

“Take the e off the end and put it in front, and it’s about the same thing.”

He smiled. “Do all detectives suspect every thing they see?”

I didn’t answer him. I was remembering a china doll. Not so very many hours ago I had looked into her eyes and dreamed of them across a breakfast table. And later I had looked into the same eyes, now glassy, on an undertaker’s table.

I wound up later by modestly mentioning a subject very close to my heart.

“I’m writing a book on Lost Atlantis.” And for the first time that night I was properly thankful for his slight touch of eccentricity. He displayed keen interest.

“You are!”

“Well — I only have seven chapters done. I expect to finish it someday.”

“Will you do me a favor?”

“Gladly. If I can. You’ve done me a big one.”

“Will you let me read the seven chapters?”

“Now you’re pulling my leg.”

“I’m not. I want to read it. If it is worthwhile I’d like to publish it. I’m running some work on ancient Egypt now, written by a young Egyptotogist in Los Angeles. I’d like very much to publish your book. A chapter at a time.”

“Well, I sort of wanted it in book form.”

“Oh, my publishing it in serial form won’t prevent that. You are protected by common law right, you know. Our organization has limited membership. None of our magazines are sold. Your material is absolutely your own until it is distributed through commercial or non-organizational channels. Then, of course, a regular copyright protects it. Will you do me that favor?”

I have an ego. I gave in with very little coaxing. I promised to send him the chapters in a day or so.

Kennedy walked with me to the 63rd Street car line. Our friend the robot had knocked off for the night and the drugstore was dark.

The amateur publisher asked if I were returning to Boone that night and I said I was. I mentioned that a train left the Twelfth Street station at around 2:20. He first extracted a promise from me that I keep him up to date on any developments in Evans’ death, and then gave me the fastest route to the station. I stood on the rear platform of the streetcar and watched him wave me out of sight.

Kennedy is a pretty good egg.

I had been hanging around the station for about ten minutes when a couple of slick gents closed up on each side of me. They gave me a turn until I recognized the professional touch.

One of them said, “Got a good reason for carrying that rod mister?” In the rush of packing and getting to the station I had forgotten to take off the gun. They were plainclothes men.

We all had a laugh over it — that is, after I showed them my badge but not the outdated license. The guy who had tackled me bought a round of coffee and we shot the breeze until my train time. I spent most of the trip sleeping.

There were early editions of some of the Chicago papers in the car, and one of the papers carried an AP story on the body found in the lake. The caption writer had suggested suicide because the girl “was believed to be pregnant.”

Boone hadn’t changed much in the twelve hours I had been gone.

The wind was sharper, or maybe it was just the magnified memory of the Chicago winds. Snow had piled up deeply in those places where it was necessary to walk. Only a few dim street lights and a couple of outside station lights were lit; the town goes to bed well before midnight, just after the last popular radio show has left the air, and anyone found roaming the streets after that hour is a rounder or a suspicious character.

Up near the front of the train a mail truck had backed up to the open door of the mail and baggage car and the dirty gray sacks were flying. Someone in coveralls wielding a long-snouted oilcan was fussing around the locomotive. The station agent had already darkened the interior of the station and was preparing to lock up.

I saw a blacked-out coupe sitting at the far end of the parking lot but there were no cabs waiting. It was roughly a mile across town to the rooming house; my feet were tired.

As I turned away and started towards the street someone sitting in the coupe tooted the horn twice.

The interior of the car was too dark to reveal the someone and the station lights didn’t penetrate that far. Behind me on the platform there were only a young couple standing by the steps of a coach. They paid no heed to the horn. Neither did I.

The wooden platform ended abruptly and I stepped down into the street, sinking up to my ankles in drifted snow. The middle of the street made the best walking. I didn’t hear the coupe start up nor see it until it slid alongside of me, matching my pace.

After leaving the parking lot it had had to swing around behind the station, cross a little-used spur track and emerge into the street. I was surprised it had made the swing so quickly.

I kept walking, my right hand swinging free.

Suddenly the door nearest me was impatiently pushed open and a girl sitting behind the wheel called out, beckoning with a gloved hand. I had started to swing sideways, but stopped the movement.

Instead, I answered despairingly, “Please — not that again!”

The coupe stopped, throwing snow with the rear wheels.

A bare head popped out the door and the wind caught up the brown hair to whip it around. It was the nurse I had seen in the undertaker’s basement room.

“Don’t be silly!” she half screamed at me. “Get in here; it’s cold out there.”

I said yes mam and got in. It was warmer inside. She started up.

“Hello,” I offered feebly by way of opening a conversation the proper way.

“What did you mean by what you just said?” she countered.

“ ‘Not again?’ Lady, I’ve stopped trusting strange women who invite me into their automobiles.”

“I’m not strange. Call me Beth.”

“My name is—”

She cut it off. “I know. Mr. Thompson told me. But what do they call you? Your friends I mean?”

“Chuck. Or Horny. I prefer Chuck. What were you doing at the train?”

She neatly ignored the question by asking one.

“All right, Chuck. What’s what in Chicago?”

“And who mentioned Chicago?”

“That train makes no stops between Chicago and Boone. I suspect you’re nosing into something.”

“I am?” And a repeat of the question, “Why were you at the train?”

“You am.” And a repeated ignoring of the question. “Your interest in the autopsy yesterday wasn’t as casual as you pretended. Want to tell me?”

“Sorry. Professional confidence and stuff.”

“Bunko, Chuck. We’re a couple of professionals.”

“Nurses don’t count. At least, not until you take an office and go into business.”

“I have an office, smarty. Just across the hall from yours. I spoke to the rental agency this afternoon. And I’m not a nurse.”

“That office? That’s an old doctor’s office.”

“The new doctor is moving in.”

“You—?” My voice changed in the middle of the word.

“And why not? What did you suppose I was doing at the autopsy?”

“I thought you were... a nurse, or something.”

She laughed, a gleeful, silvery sound. It was like soft organ music playing bells at a far distance. Soft bells.

“Dr. Elizabeth Saari,” she introduced herself, “at your call. Have a card. They’re in my purse on the seat.”

I just sat there.

“Why don’t you say something? Make conversation?”

“Wait until I get my breath. I don’t like surprises. But I seem to be getting them all the time.”

She suggested artfully, “You’re still evading my question. Why the sudden Chicago trip?”

I turned so that I could look at her face, barely illuminated now by the light of the dash. It was quite pleasing to look upon. She hung onto the wheel and kept her eyes on the street. The loaded mail truck overtook us and passed in a cloud of churned-up snow.

And she was accusing me of evading the question!

“You may be a doctor,” I replied, “but first you’re a woman.”

“Why, Chuck! This is an odd place to launch a proposal. But then I’ve been proposed to in odder places. You can imagine a medical school. Oh — perhaps you aren’t proposing?”

It was good needlework. “I am not proposing!” Searching for something with a sting to hurl back at her, the best I could find was, “I’m accusing you of being nosey.”

“Like you, Chuck,” she snapped back. “There was the autopsy yesterday. And now — Chicago?”

I gave in. I’ve run into many a woman like that before, Louise, including you. They won’t let you win.

“I was in Chicago,” I told her as patiently as was possible, “looking for a link between that Chinese girl and Harry W. Evans.”

“O...h.” But she didn’t say it quite like that. It was more of a long drawn out, speculative “oh.” The kind where you try to fill in the gaps yourself as you are saying it. She added, “I’m not up on the Evans business. Only the newspaper story.”

“The hit-and-run driver was a woman.”

“I know that. And the automobile has been found.”

“And so has the driver.”

She jerked her head around to study my face.

“O...h.” It required a longer time to fill in the gaps. She was silent for several moments. And then, “Proof?”

“Practically none. That’s the stumbling block. Evans had a hobby — publishing an amateur magazine for a hobby society. For that magazine he wrote poetry, sentimental poetry. About his love for a girl named Leonore. He called it ‘For Leonore — A China Doll.’ ”

“And you think...?”

“I suspect his china doll and my china doll are the one and the same.”

“That’s pretty thin suspecting.”

“A thousand thin slices make a fat inch. That’s the only way to get anywhere in this business.”

“I take it you have other slices?” She put the coupe around a corner and we were headed downtown.

“I have. The hit-and-run was premeditated. The driver was a girl. A Chinese girl turns up dead, and in an interesting condition. I’ve been told most Chinese love and hate the hard way. It appears that Evans had a Chinese sweetheart. The automobile was ditched because it was too hot. There is one other slice that fits perfectly but I can’t tell you about it — it does involve a confidence.” I was thinking about the last time a girl had picked me up on the street and taken me for a ride. “Now what do you think?”

Dr. Saari drove the coupe into a parking space near Milkshake Mike’s place and shut off the motor. We sat there, unmoving. She was thinking hard about something and I was wondering if she’d come up with the outstanding fact I had neglected to mention. One that she knew.

She did. “The Chinese girl couldn’t have left the automobile in the ditch that far away, come back, and jumped into the lake.”

I grinned in admiration. “Doctor, you should be in my business. It’s obvious that she didn’t.”

“Then there’s someone else...?”

“There is. Someone who ditched the car for her.”

She pulled the keys from the ignition and shoved her knees toward me. “Hop out, Sherlock. Let’s eat.”

“As you suggest, Watson.”

She caught the unintended humor of that before I realized it myself.

When we walked into Mike’s place there was Mike with a cheerful smile on his face, standing over the waffle irons. A night patrolman was sitting at the counter, waiting for the waffles.

“Ah — Charlee!” Mike shouted. “How’s t’ings in the beeg city, Charlee?”

Elizabeth threw me a satisfied smirk over her shoulder. “You see! Everyone in Boone knows about you, Chuck.”

I growled. “Put on two more, Mike.”