The Chinese Orange Mystery

Unknown Quantities

Perhaps the most precise development in the science of policing is the uncanny ability of the modern detective to trace the movements and establish the identities of so-called unknown persons. Since he is not infallible his score is imperfect; but his percentage of successes is remarkably high, considering the Minotaur’s maze of difficulties. The whole complicated mechanism of the police chain hums along on oiled bearings.

And yet, in the case of the mysterious little man who was murdered in the Hotel Chancellor, the police encountered no success whatever. Even in instances of the normal failures something is found — a clue, a trace, a wisp of connection, some last movement which has left its imprint on a casual mind. But here there was nothing but the darkness of space. It was as if the little man had dropped to earth from another planet, accompanied by the chill mysteries of the void.

Inspector Queen, in whose hands — since he was in charge of the murder investigation — the threads of identification refused to assemble, clung to his task with the tenacity of a leech. He refused to concede failure even after the regular channels were drained: the publicized photographs of the dead man, the descriptions and pleas sent to police officials of other cities, the tireless check-up with the records of the Identification Bureau, the unceasing search by plainclothesmen for the last trail of the dead man, the pumping of underworld informers on the theory that the victim might have had criminal affiliations.

The Inspector gritted his teeth and flung more men into the search. The reports of — Nothing. No Trace. Unknown Here. No Fingerprints — continued to pour in. All lines of investigation ended in a cul-de-sac. The blank wall of mystery leered down, apparently insurmountable.

The Missing Persons Bureau, experts in searches of this kind, formed the inevitable theory. Since all the routine investigations had met with no success, it was not untenable, they said, that the victim was not a New Yorker at all; indeed, perhaps not even an American.

Inspector Queen had shaken his head. “I’m ready to try anything,” he said to the weary-eyed official in charge of the Bureau, “but I tell you it’s not that. There’s something awfully screwy about this business... He may have been a foreigner as you claim, but I doubt it, John. He didn’t look foreign. And the people who spoke to him before he died — this woman Mrs. Shane and this man Osborne, and even that nurse on duty at the Kirk place who heard him say a few words — they all insist that he didn’t have a foreign accent of any kind, just a funny sort o’ soft voice. And that was probably just a speech defect, or a habit.” Then he set his little jaw. “However, it won’t hurt to try; so go to it, John.”

And so the enormous task of notifying the police departments of all the major cities of the world, which had been begun tentatively before, was pushed ahead with thoroughness and dispatch. Full description and fingerprints were forwarded, with due emphasis on the soft-voice characteristic. The dead man’s photograph was exhibited to employees of air lines, of Atlantic Ocean liners, of coast steamers, of railroads. And the reports came bouncing back with the hopeless inevitability of a rubber ball: No Identification. Man Unknown. No Recollection of Appearance on This Line. Nothing.

It was three days after Miss Temple’s confession of ownership of the Foochow stamp that Inspector Queen growled to Ellery: “It may be that we’re up against a situation that hits us on the snoot every once in a while. I’ve found from experience that periodically these transportation people go into a fit of the doldrums if doldrums have fits — and can’t remember anything further back than their last yawn. Because we’ve met with failure along this angle so far doesn’t mean that bird — damn his soul! — didn’t use a liner, or a train, or a ’plane. Darn it all, he must have got to New York some way!”

“If he got to New York at all,” said Ellery. “I mean — if he hasn’t been in New York all the time.”

“There are a lot of ‘ifs’ in this business, my son. I’m not claiming anything. May’ve been born and brought up in the city here and never left the Bronx once, for all I know. Or this may have been his first visit to New York. But I’m betting he wasn’t a New Yorker.”

“Probably not,” drawled Ellery. “I just made the point to get it on the record. I think you’re right, myself.”

“Oh, you do?” snapped the Inspector. “When you use that tone of voice I get suspicious. Come on — what d’ye know?”

“Nothing that you don’t know,” laughed Ellery. “I’ve told you every little thing that’s happened so far when you weren’t around. Can’t I agree with you once in a while without being jumped like a horse-thief?”

The Inspector tapped his snuff-box absently, and for some time there was no sound but the shrill whistle of the uniformed officer two floors below who was addicted to The Sidewalks of New York out of loyalty to the administration. Ellery stared gloomily through the bars on his father’s office-window.

And then something brought his eyes around, and he gaped at his father, who was glaring at him with the mania of discovery. As he watched, the old gentleman leaped out of his swivel-chair and almost fell over trying to press one of his push-buttons.

“Of course!” he cried in a strangled voice. “What a dope, what a dope I am... Billy,” he howled at the deskman who ran in, “is Thomas out there?” The desk-man vanished and a moment later Sergeant Velie barged in.

The Inspector inhaled snuff, muttering to himself. “Sure, sure, that’s the ticket... ’Lo, Thomas. Why didn’t I think of it before? Sit down.”

“What is this?” demanded Ellery. “What’s the brainstorm?”

The Inspector ignored him elaborately and sat down at his desk, chuckling and rubbing his hands. “How you doin’ on the stamp and jewelry lead, Thomas?”

“Not so good,” rumbled the Sergeant lugubriously.

“Nothing, hey?”

“Not a smell. They don’t know him, any of ’em. I’m sure of that now.”

“Curious,” murmured Ellery, frowning. “There’s something else that baffles me.”

“Go baffle a buffalo,” said the Inspector jovially. “This is hot. Listen, Thomas. Did you get the last full report on the hotels?”

“Sure. He wasn’t registered at any hotel in the city. Dead sure now.”

“Hmm. Well, listen here, Thomas, my boy. And you too, son, if you aren’t too busy with those grand bafflements of yours. Let’s say the little guy wasn’t a New Yorker. We’re all convinced of that?”

“I think he comes from Mars or some place,” grumbled Velie.

“I’m not convinced,” drawled Ellery, “but it’s probably so.”

“All right. If he wasn’t a New Yorker — and the signs all point to the fact that he didn’t come from any of the suburbs, because we’ve checked all that — then what’s the situation?” The Inspector leaned forward. “Then he comes from some outlying spot. American or foreign, but at least outlying. Right so far?”

“Dismally so,” said Ellery, nevertheless watching his father intently. “Alors?”

“A lor’ yourself,” retorted the Inspector, in rare good-humor. He tapped his desk with a little click of his finger-nail. “A lor’, my son, he was a visitor to New York. A lor’, my son, he must have had baggage!”

Ellery’s eyes widened. The Sergeant’s mouth fell open. Then Ellery sprang from the chair. “Dad, that’s positively brilliant; that’s genius! How on earth could such a simple conclusion have escaped me? Of course! You’re perfectly right. Baggage... I bow this proud head in shame. It takes experienced brains, these things. Baggage!”

“Sounds like a good hunch, Inspector,” said the Sergeant thoughtfully, stroking his mastodonic jaw.

“You see?” The Inspector spread his hands, grinning. “Nothing to it. Nothing up my sleeve but muscle and hair. I’d bet right now...” Then his face fell. “Well, maybe we’d better not count any chickens. The point is he didn’t register at a hotel anywhere. And when he walked out of the elevator on the twenty-second floor of the Chancellor he wasn’t carrying anything. Yet he must have had baggage. So what?”

“So he must ’a’ checked it somewhere,” muttered the Sergeant.

“So you’re damned right, Thomas. Here’s what I want you to do, Carnera, me lad. Put every available man — get the Missing Persons to lend a hand — on a canvass of all the checkrooms in the city, right from the Battery to Vanderveer Park. Everything — hotels, terminals, department stores; the whole shooting-match. Don’t forget the airfields, by the way; see that Curtiss Field, Roosevelt, Floyd Bennett — all of ’em are covered. And the Customs House. Get a line on everything that was checked on the afternoon of the murder and that’s still uncalled for. And keep in touch with me every hour.”

The Sergeant grinned and took himself off.

“Smart,” said Ellery, lighting a cigaret. “Intuition tells me that you’ve finally got your talons into something, Inspector dear.”

“Well,” sighed the old gentleman, “if that fails I’ll be about ready to give up, El. It does beat—”

The deskman came in and flipped an envelope on the Inspector’s desk.

“What’s that?” demanded Ellery, cigaret suspended in air.

The Inspector seized the envelope. “Ah. Answer from the Yard to my cable!” He read the message quickly and then tossed it to Ellery. “Well,” he said in a quieter tone, “seems you were right, El. Seems you were right.”

“About what?”

“That woman.”

“Indeed!” Ellery reached for the cablegram.

“How’d you guess?”

Ellery grinned, a little woefully. “I never guess; you know that. It was that backwards business, you see.”

“Backwards!”

“Of course,” sighed Ellery. “It struck me the woman was off-color somewhere; that’s why I suggested asking Scotland Yard about a possible dossier. But the name—” He shrugged. “When I wrote the name Sewell down on that piece of paper for you, it was because I’d applied the backwards test to the name of Llewes — inevitable, I suppose, my mind being the tortuous organ it is. And then it was too much to ask that Llewes should be Sewell backwards without its also being the woman’s alias, you see.

“Special weakness for jewels,” murmured Ellery, putting down the cable. “And there’s such an alluring honey-pot in the Kirk direction... Have you been able to find out anything about her, dad?”

“Some. She came from England a couple of months ago and put up at the Chancellor in great style.”

“Alone?”

“Except for a maid — Cockney. Looks funny to me. Anyway, Irene struck up an acquaintance with Donald Kirk — don’t know just how she managed it, but she did it in short order — and they got pretty chummy. She posed as a sort of globe-trotter who’d had plenty of experiences in queer places—”

“Scarcely a pose, I should judge from Trench’s cable.”

“I guess not,” said the Inspector grimly. “Anyway, the gag seems to have been that she had had a lot of experiences that were just crying to be put into print-travel stuff in faraway places, reminiscences of pretty famous people — she’d spent a lot of time in Geneva, for instance — something like that. So she was thinking of writing a book about it all. Well, you know these young publishers. Kirk’s got a sound head on his shoulders and all that, from what I hear, but this dame is beautiful and she has a smooth line, and — well, I guess he fell for it.”

“Or her,” suggested Ellery.

“It’s a toss-up which one. I’d say not, judging from the googoo eyes he’s been making at this Temple girl.”

“But Jo Temple unfortunately came after Miss Llewes,” murmured Ellery. “By that time, perhaps, the damage — if there is any — was done. Go on; you excite me strangely.”

“Anyway, they began to talk this ‘book’ over. Kirk began to have ‘conferences’ with her at odd hours.”

“Where?”

“In her suite at the Chancellor.”

“Unchaperoned?”

“Pul-ease, Mr. Queen!” The Inspector grinned lasciviously. “What d’ye think this is, Old Home Week? Sure! And that maid — she’s the one that gave Thomas all the dope — is ready to testify to goings-on.”

Ellery raised his eyebrows. “Goings-on? Kirk and the Llewes wench?”

“Put your own construction to it,” snickered the Inspector. “I’m a pure-minded old cuss who always believes the best of everybody. But at night with a raving beauty in the kind of clothes she wears, or rather doesn’t wear...” He shook his head. “And, after all, this Kirk lad is young and he looks normally lusty to me. He began to take her around to parties and he introduced her to all his friends and to his family — regular tea-party, it was. Then came the dawn.”

“Meaning?”

“The dawn,” repeated the Inspector dreamily. “He woke up, I guess. Got tired of playing tiddledywinks, or whatever the hell it was he was playing. Anyway, he started to try to avoid her. Well, fawncy that. What d’ye think happened? The usual thing. She hung on with that damn’ smile of hers. I’ll bet she hangs pretty!”

“It’s not difficult to see what must have happened,” said Ellery thoughtfully, “and I suppose you yourself could see it if you’d stop playing the vicarious satyr — which is sheerest pose, my dear pater, as only I can know — and get back to normal. When Jo Temple appeared on the scene young Donald must have suffered a complete change of heart. From the tender and slightly unorthodox love-scene I inadvertently blundered into with Macgowan three days ago he fell in love with her on the spot. Naturally, exit Miss Llewes as far as young Lothario is concerned. And Miss Llewes — who’s playing a deep and dirty game — pleasantly refuses to exit. Result — Mr. Kirk has headaches and goes about with a Help! — the-tigress-is-after-me sort of look on his honest young pan.”

“This Sewell woman has a hold on him, I’m positive,” said the Inspector. “A hold he can’t wriggle out of. He’s in a tough spot. And then if she’s trying to bleed him... Say, he is in a tough spot! Or do you think he’s strapped financially because he’s been paying her heavy sugar for blackmail?”

“It’s possible that that may have contributed, dad, although I feel sure his financial troubles antedated the advent of Miss Llewes. I know one thing, however, which was dark mystery before.”

“Well?”

“The secret of that scribbled message Glenn Macgowan left for Kirk the evening of the murder. Remember what it said? ‘I know now. You’re dealing with a dangerous character. Go easy until I can talk to you aside. Don, watch your step.’”

“Maybe,” grumbled the Inspector. “I was half-hoping Macgowan was referring to our fat little corp-us.”

“No, no, I’m sure that’s not the case. Macgowan obviously was suspicious of the Llewes woman from the beginning — he’s a shrewd chap, Macgowan, and with his strong streak of moral rectitude would probably have been suspicious of such a dazzling worldly creature under any circumstances...”

“Macgowan?” said the Inspector dubiously. “Never struck me that way. I thought he’s sort of a regular guy.”

“Oh, he’s regular enough; but there are some things one can’t live down, and one of them is a moral streak. His family burned witches in Salem Town. I don’t mean that Macgowan’s above affairs of the flesh, to put it politely; but he is above — or below — the notoriety and scandal that sometimes result from them. It’s a pragmatic morality.”

“All right, all right; I give up. So what?”

“He must have looked the Llewes wench up quietly and discovered something about her the very afternoon of the murder. I suspect his source of information may have been identical with Velie’s — the woman’s maid. At any rate, he felt that he had to warn Kirk against her at the earliest opportunity — ergo, the note. Yes, yes, I’m sure that’s it.”

“Sounds plausible,” admitted the Inspector grudgingly.

“Shows you that it never pays to use strong-arm methods, father dear. You’ve been reading too much Hammett. I’ve always said that if there’s one class who should be excluded from the reading of contemporary blood-and-thunder of the so-called realistic school of fiction it’s our worthy police force. Breeds shocking illusions of grandeur... Where was I? Yes; here we’ve solved a mystery without so much as a suspicion in the minds of the principals that we know where the body is — er — buried.”

“Don’t you think Donald Kirk has discovered his note from Macgowan is missing?” grinned the Inspector.

Ellery murmured: “I doubt it. He was in a terrific stew that night. And even if he has discovered it’s missing, he must think he lost it somewhere. Certainly he doesn’t suspect me of burglarious methods. That’s one advantage of looking scholarly.”

“He hasn’t acted funny towards you?”

“That’s precisely why I made that really scintillant assertion.”

“Hmm.” The Inspector watched Ellery struggle into his coat. “I have the funny notion something’s due to break on this case.”

“Baggage?”

“You wait,” said the Inspector slyly, “and see.”

Ellery had not long to wait. He was lounging comfortably before his fire that evening reading aloud to Djuna — who looked fiercely bored — the Mock Turtle’s oration when the Inspector burst into their apartment.

“El! What d’ye think?” The old gentleman flung his hat down and thrust his jaw at Ellery.

Ellery put the book down and Djuna, with a huge sigh of relief, slipped away. “It’s broken?”

“It’s broken. Busted wide open, my son. Wide open!” The Inspector strutted up and down in his coat like some latter-day Napoleon. “We searched the Sewell woman’s rooms at the Chancellor this afternoon.”

“Do tell!”

“I’m giving it to you. She was out somewhere and we worked fast. What d’ye think we found?”

“I haven’t the remotest idea.”

“Jewelry!”

“Ah.”

The Inspector sneezed cheerfully over his snuff. “Well, it was a plain figure. Trench cables that the woman’s got a yen for jewels; and here we find a slew of the stuff hidden in her apartment. Damned good stuff, too; no junk. So we assumed it wasn’t hers and I sent the boys hot on the trail to try and trace the ice. Know what we found?”

Ellery sighed. “I suppose this is vengeance. Am I as exasperating to you at times as you are to me now? No! What?”

“We hit the regular jewelry trade and found that the ice is unique. Old pieces in rare settings with histories attached to ’em. Collectors’ items.”

“Good lord!” exclaimed Ellery. “Don’t tell me the fool stole them!”

“As to that,” murmured the Inspector, “I wouldn’t know, y’see. But one thing I do know.” He yanked at Ellery’s lapel. “Get out of that chair; we’re going places. One thing I do know... The trade to a man told us who’s supposed to own that stuff. Matter of common knowledge, they said.”

“Not—” Ellery began slowly.

“Sure. To a piece, they all come from the jewelry-collection of Donald Kirk!”