principle as the hot drink, you see?and a wet napkin to wipe himself dry of perspiration. It’s infernally hot there, you know.”
“Imagine!”
“Of course, they keep to the left side of the road, not the right?but that’s not exclusively Oriental; so do most Europeans. Let’s see, now. They place a low wall before their front doors as a barrier to evil spirits, since their demons can travel only in a straight line. So all approaches to front doors are winding paths around the wall, thus effectively keeping out the evil ones.”
“How naive!”
“How logical,” she retorted. “I see you’ve the beastly Occidental patronizing air where Orientals are concerned. The white man’s burden sort of thing?”
Ellery blushed. “Touche. Anything else?”
She frowned. “Oh, there must be thousands of things . . . . Well, the women wear trousers and the men wear robes which give the effect of skirts. Then Chinese students study aloud in classrooms?”
“For heaven’s sake, why?”
She grinned. “So that the instructor may be sure they’re really studying. Then, too, a Chinese is one year old when he’s born, since it’s taken for granted that life begins at conception, not at emergence from the womb. And, for that matter, a Chinese celebrates his birthday only at New Year’s, no matter in what part of the year he may have been born.”
“Good lord! That makes it simple, doesn’t it?”
“Not so simple,” she said grimly. “Because the Chinese New Year’s Day is as variable as a fishwife’s tongue. It’s not constant, since it is figured on the basis of a rather capricious thirteen-month year. Then, too, my friends pay their bills only twice a year?at the fifth moon and at New Year’s; which makes it very cosy for debtors, since they simply go into hiding when the time comes round and the poor creditor goes poking through the streets in broad daylight with a lighted lantern looking for his dun.”
Ellery stared. “Why the lighted lantern?”
“Well, if it’s the day after New Year’s the very fact that the creditor carries a lighted lantern shows that it isn’t the day after New Year’s at all, you see, but still the night before! How do you like that?”
“Love it,” chuckled Ellery. “I see I’ve been heinously backward myself. There’s an idea that could be appropriated by the Western World with profit. How about the Chinese theatre? Anything backwards there?”
“Not really. Of course, there are no stage properties, Mr. Queen?sort of Elizabethan in that respect. Then, too, their music is all in one scale, and the minor at that; and all Chinese sing in falsetto; and they pick out their coffins and select their funerary attire before they die; and their barbers cut your hair and shave you not in shops but in the street; and the greatest revenge your enemy can wreak on your head is to kill himself on your doorstep?”
She stopped very abruptly, biting her lips. And she gave him a swift sharp look from under her remarkable lashes and then looked down at her hands.
“Indeed?” said Ellery gently. “That’s most interesting, Miss Temple. Good of you to recall it. And what’s the brilliant notion behind that little ceremony, may I ask?”
She murmured: “It bares to all the world the secret of your enemy’s culpability, and marks him eternally with public shame.”
“But you’re-uh-dead?”
“But you’re dead, yes.”
“Remarkable philosophy.” Ellery studied the ceiling thoughtfully. “Quite remarkable, in fact. Sort of Japanese hara-kiri with variations.”
“But that couldn’t have anything to do with this?with this murder, Mr. Queen,” she said breathlessly.
“Eh? Oh, I daresay not. No, surely not.” Ellery took off his pince-nez and began to scrub the shining lenses with his handkerchief. “And how about Chinese oranges, Miss Temple?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Chinese oranges. You know?tangerines. Anything backwards in that connection?”.
“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 glasses.
“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 massaging his lean jaw and gazing at the wall. “Tell me,” he said with shocking abruptness. “Why did you stop 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 assure 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 illustration for my book?the one Mr. Kirk is publishing?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 gratitude, and all that. I’ve learned?”
“That I’m the person involved in this affair,” she said in a soft
