Chinese Orange Mystery Part 9

"Backwards? Well ... But then they're not really tangerines, Mr. Queen. Oranges in China are much larger than tangerines, much more varied, much more delicious, than here." She sighed a little. "Goodness! You've never eaten an orange, really, until you've sunk your teeth into one of those big, luscious, juicy, sweet ..." She sang out a word suddenly that made Ellery almost drop his gla.s.ses.

"What's that?" he said sharply.

She repeated the word in a sort of nasal sing-song. It did sound remarkably like "tanger-" something. "That's one of the dialect words for orange. There are-oh, scores, I guess. Each variety has a different name, and each name differs according to the section of China you're in. Those honey-oranges, now-"

But Ellery was not listening. He was ma.s.saging his lean jaw and gazing at the wall. "Tell me," he said with shocking abruptness. "Why did you step into Don Kirk's office yesterday, Miss Temple?"

For a moment she did not reply. Then she folded her hands again and smiled faintly. "You do jump about, don't you, Mr. Queen? Nothing serious, I a.s.sure you. I'd just happened to think about it, and I'm a very impulsive person, so I popped out after dressing for dinner to see Don-to see Mr. Kirk about it."

"About what?"

"Why, the Chinese artist."

"Chinese artist!" Ellery leaped to his feet. "Chinese artist! What Chinese artist?"

"Mr. Queen, whatever's the matter with you?"

He seized her tiny shoulder. "What Chinese artist, Miss Temple?"

She turned a little pale. "Yueng," she said in a small voice. "A friend of mine. He's been studying at Columbia University, as so many Chinese in this city do. He's the son of one of Canton's richest native importers. And he has a perfectly remarkable water-color genius. We'd been looking for someone to do the jacket ill.u.s.tration for my book-the one Mr. Kirk is publis.h.i.+ng-and I just happened at that moment to think of Yueng. So I dashed in-"

"Yes, yes," said Ellery. "I see. And where is this Yueng, Miss Temple? Where can I locate him?"

"On the Pacific."

"Eh?"

"When I found that Donald-that Mr. Kirk wasn't in, I went back to the suite here and telephoned the University." She sighed. "But they told me he had suddenly decided to return to China a week and a half ago-I think his father died, and that would be an unspoken command, of course, to return. The Chinese take their fathers very seriously, you know. So I suppose poor Yueng's on the high seas now."

Ellery's face fell. "Well," he muttered, "there couldn't be anything in that direction, anyway. Although ..." When he spoke again he was smiling. "By the way, didn't I hear you say yesterday that your father's in the American diplomatic service?"

"Was," she said quietly. "He died last year."

"Oh! I'm sorry. You were, I suppose, raised in a Western home?"

"Not at all. Father observed the Western customs for official purposes, but I had a Chinese nurse and I was brought up in almost a pure Chinese atmosphere. My mother died, you see, when I was a child; and father was so busy ..." She rose, and despite her tininess she gave an impression of height. "And is that all, Mr. Queen?"

Ellery picked up his hat. "You've really been very helpful, Miss Temple. My undying grat.i.tude, and all that. I've learned-"

"That I'm the person involved in this affair," she said in a soft voice, "who expresses backwardness, as it were, more clearly than any one else?"

"Oh, but I didn't say that-"

"Because I've been brought up in a country in which backwardness, from the Western point of view, is the rule, Mr. Queen?"

Ellery flushed. "There are some things, Miss Temple, that are forced upon a man when he's investigating-"

"I suppose you realize what nonsense this all is?"

"I'm afraid," said Ellery ruefully, "that you don't like me today as much as you did yesterday, Miss Temple."

"Sensible woman," said a curt voice, and they both turned quickly to find Felix Berne surveying them coolly from the archway of the foyer. Donald Kirk was behind him.

Donald looked as if he had slept in his clothes. It was the same dowdy tweed, and it was fearfully crumpled, and his necktie was askew and his hair drooped over his eyes and his eyes were rimmed with red circles and he was badly in need of a shave. Berne's slight figure was immaculate, but there was a faint unsteadiness in the pose of his head.

"h.e.l.lo," said Ellery, picking up his stick. "I was just going."

"Seems to be a habit with you," said Berne with a mirthless grin. He regarded Ellery with calm bitter eyes.

Ellery started to say something, then saw the look in Donald Kirk's eye and refrained.

"Shut up, will you, Felix," said Donald hoa.r.s.ely, coming forward. "Glad I found you, Queen. Gives me the opportunity to apologize for father's rotten manners last light."

"Nonsense," said Ellery quickly. "Not another word. I daresay I got what I deserved."

"Each man to his own reward," drawled Berne. "One good feature about you, Queen, at any rate." He turned deliberately to Jo. "I stopped in, Miss Temple, to discuss the t.i.tle of your book with you. It seems that Donald here has some obscene notion of aping the Buck t.i.tles and employing something like Second Cousins or Half-Brothers or The Good Grandfather. Now I-"

"Now I," said Jo evenly, "think that you're being despicable, Mr. Berne."

A brown tide began to spread under Berne's skin. "Look here, you-"

"You know perfectly well that Mr. Kirk had no such idea. And certainly it was furthest from my mind. You've been abominably uncivil since I met you, Mr. Berne. If it isn't possible for you to be reasonably a gentleman, I'll be forced to refuse to discuss my book with you at all!"

"Jo," cried Kirk. He glared at his partner. "I can't understand what in the name of G.o.d's come over you, Felix!"

"d.a.m.ned impertinence," said Berne thickly.

"There's no compulsion on the part of The Mandarin Press, you know," continued Jo in the same even, unhurried voice, "to publish my book. I'm perfectly willing to tear up my contract, Mr. Berne. Is that what you want?"

The man stood absolutely still; only his chest rose, and the whites of his eyes showed blankly. There was something deadly and implacable in his glare; and when he spoke it was in a voice like congealed syrup. "What I want ... If Donald chooses to publish any one barely out of diapers intellectually and with some half-baked ma.n.u.script that's a poor imitation of a great work, it's all right with me. That's why The Mandarin is so close to-" He stopped. Then he said with a spitting snarl: "I've looked over that magnificent opus of yours, Miss Temple, having wasted a perfectly good night's sleep to do it. And I think it stinks."

She turned her back on him and walked to the window. Ellery stood quietly watching. Kirk's brown hands opened and closed, and he took a step toward Berne and said in a thickened voice: "You'd better beat it, Felix. You're drunk. I'll settle with you at the office."

Berne licked his lips. Ellery said: "Just a moment, gentlemen, before the physical part of the drama begins. Berne, why were you late last night?"

The publisher did not take his eyes off his partner.

"I asked you, Berne," said Ellery, "why you were late last night."

The man turned his dark head slowly at that, regarding Ellery with an absent, almost insulting vacuity. "Go to h.e.l.l," he said.

And it was at that moment, with Jo trembling with indignation at the window, Donald clenching his fists impotently, and Berne and Ellery measuring each other with their eyes, that a cracked old voice howled from somewhere in the bowels of the apartment: "Help! I've been robbed! Help!"

Ellery sped through the dining-room, past a startled Hubbell, through a pair of bedrooms into the study of Dr. Kirk. Jo and Donald ran at his heels. Berne had disappeared.

Dr. Kirk was hopping up and down in the center of his disarranged study, one hand on the back of his wheelchair to steady himself, the other clutching at his bristly white hair. He bellowed: "You! You Queen fellow! I've been robbed!"

"Of what?" panted Ellery, glancing swiftly about.

"Father!" cried Donald, springing to the old man's side. "Sit down; you'll exhaust yourself. What's the matter? What's been stolen? Who robbed you?"

"My books!" roared the septuagenarian, his face purple. "My books! Oh, if I find that thieving scoundrel ..." He subsided suddenly with a groan in the wheelchair.

Miss Diversey, white-faced, stole into the study from the corridor, looking frightened. She flung one quick glance at her charge's face and flew to his side. He pushed her away with such force that she staggered and almost fell.

"Get away, you harpy," he screamed. "I'm sick of you, you and your exercises and your precious Dr. Angini. d.a.m.n all doctors and nurses! Well, Queen, well, well, well! Don't stand there gaping like an aborigine! Find the rascal who stole my books!"

"I'm not gaping," said Ellery with a sour smile, "I'm waiting for calmness and reason, my dear Doctor. If you'll turn off the violence, perhaps we can get a rational statement out of you. I a.s.sume by this time that some books of yours are missing. How do you know they've been stolen?"

"Detective," snorted the old gentleman. "Imbecile! See that shelf?" He pointed a long bent forefinger at one of the built-in shelves, more than half of which was empty.

"Oh, I've observed that and made the complex deduction that that was the abiding-place of your precious volumes. Suppose you stop being unintelligible, Doctor, and answer my question."

"How do I know they've been stolen?" groaned Dr. Kirk, swaying his craggy head from side to side like a python. "Oh, good Lord preserve us from idiots! They're gone, aren't they?"

"Not necessarily the same thing, Doctor. When did you miss them? When did you see them last?"

"An hour ago. Immediately after my breakfast. Then I went into my bedroom to dress and have this-this female Aesculapius," he glared at Miss Diversey, who was standing pale and subdued at the farthest wall, "pull and tug and s...o...b..r over me, and by the time I got back here a moment ago they were gone."

"Where were you, Miss Diversey?" said Ellery sharply.

The nurse said in a tearful voice: "He-he chased me out, sir. I went to the office-I mean, to talk to some one with a little human feeling ..."

"I see. Doctor, didn't you hear anything going on in this room while you dressed next door?"

"Hear? Hear? No, nothing!"

"He's a little deaf," muttered Donald Kirk. "And rather sensitive about it."

"Stop that confounded whispering, Donald! Well, well, Queen?"

Ellery shrugged. "I've never laid claim to pretensions of clairvoyance, Dr. Kirk. Just what books have been taken?"

"My Pentateuchal commentaries!"

"Your what?"

"Ignoramus," growled the old gentleman. "Hebrew books, idiot, Hebrew books! I've devoted the last five years of my life to a research into the rabbinical writings on the theory that-"

"Hebrew books," said Ellery slowly. "You mean books written in Hebrew?"

"Well, of course, of course!"

"And nothing else?"

"No. Thank heaven they spared my Chinese ma.n.u.scripts, the vandals. I should feel utterly lost-"

"Ah," said Ellery. "Chinese ma.n.u.scripts? You're familiar with the language of the ideographs, of course. I remember now. Yes, yes, your philological fame has reached even these mortal ears, Doctor. Well, well. ... Quite vanished, eh?" Ellery went to the shelf and looked down. But his eyes were not on the empty boards. They were drawn within themselves and s.h.i.+ning with a distant light.

"I can't understand why any one should want to steal those books," said Donald with a weary shake of his head. "Lord, cataclysms come in pairs! What the devil do you make of it, Queen?"

Ellery turned slowly. "I make a good deal of it, old fellow, mostly fog. By the way, Doctor, these books of yours are valuable?"

"Bah! They're worthless to any one but a scholar."

"Very interesting. ... You see, Kirk, there's one really remarkable thing about Hebrew books."

Dr. Kirk stared, interested despite himself. Jo Temple watched quietly the set of Ellery's lips-quietly and yet with a sort of controlled apprehension, as if she were afraid of what they might say.

"Remarkable?" said Kirk, bewildered.

"Quite. For Hebrew is an unorthodox language. Chirographically and typographically. It is written backwards."

"Backwards?" gasped Miss Diversey. "Oh, sir, that's-"

"It is written," muttered Ellery, "backwards. It's read backwards. It's printed backwards. Everything about it is precisely the reverse of the Romance languages. Is that correct, Doctor?"

"Certainly it's correct!" snarled the old gentleman. "And why restrict its difference to the Romance? And why in the name of the seven bulls of Bashan should that startle you?"

"Well," said Ellery apologetically, "the crime was backwards, you see."

"Oh, heaven protect the lowly scholar," groaned Dr. Kirk. "And what the devil of it? I want my books back. You and your backwardnesses!" He paused, and a fiery gleam sprang into his dried-out eyes. "Look here, idiot, are you accusing me of that inconsequential little homicide?"

"I'm accusing no one," said Ellery. "But you can't deny that it's very odd under the circ.u.mstances."

"So's your hat," snarled Dr. Kirk. "Get my books back!"

Ellery sighed and grasped his stick firmly. "I'm sorry, Doctor, but at the moment I can see no way of restoring your volumes. You might telephone my father-Inspector Queen-at Police Headquarters and inform him of this latest development. ... Miss Temple."

She started. "Yes, Mr. Queen?"

"I'm sure we'll be excused for a moment." They were stared at as Ellery drew the tiny woman out into the corridor and closed the door securely behind them. "Why didn't you mention it before, O Lotus Blossom?"

"Mention what, Mr. Queen?"

"I've just recalled it myself. Why didn't you mention the fact that one of the outstanding examples of backwardness in the whole Chinese gamut is-the Chinese language?"

"Language? Oh!" She smiled faintly. "You're such a suspicious person, Mr. Queen. I just didn't think of it. You mean of course that, aside from Hebrew, Chinese is probably the only language in the world which is printed backwards; and it's written from top to bottom instead of from side to side, besides. But what of it?"

"Nothing-except that," murmured Ellery, "you failed to mention it."

She stamped her foot. "Oh, you're as bad as the others! Is there something in the air here that makes people silly? Every one except Donald Kirk seems afflicted with a mild insanity; and even he-And suppose I didn't mention it? You can't say it has any significance here, anyway. You notice that the thief didn't steal Dr. Kirk's Chinese books!"

"That," said Ellery with a frown, "is what's bothering me. Why? An oversight with cosmic implications. Or perhaps I'm making a mountain out of the well-known molehill. At any rate, this thing needs the application of thought. ... China, China, China! I'm beginning to wish I had a Charlie Chan on the scene to clarify these esoteric mysteries of Orientalism. I'm completely bewildered. Nothing makes sense, nothing at all. This is the world's most mystifying crime."

"I wish," said Jo with lowered eyes, "I could help you, indeed I do."

"Hmm," said Ellery. "Well, thank you, Miss Temple." He seized her hand and pumped it. "Things could always be worse. And perhaps they will be. For G.o.d knows what will turn out backwards tomorrow!"