The Chinese Orange Mystery

long criminal record?wouldn’t stand for an instant against mine if I should testify that I found these papers in your possession. And Kirk, knowing you no longer possess them, will be willing to testify in his turn that you blackmailed him. So?”

“Oh,” smiled the woman, rising and stretching her long white arms, “but he won’t, d’ye see, Mr. Queen.”

“Resistance stretches. I apologize for the accusation of stupidity. You mean, I presume, that with or without the papers in your possession, Kirk’s only concern is to keep you silent, and that if it came to a matter of arrest and trial he couldn’t prevent your telling the story in open court?”

“How clever you are, Mr. Queen.”

“Now, now, no flattery. But let me point out in rebuttal,” said Ellery dryly, “that if it does come to a showdown in court, the story must come out anyway. And since it must come out and Kirk will be powerless to prevent its coming out, he’ll testify against you with a grim and enthusiastic vengeance, my dear, that will put that fetching body of yours behind bars?ugly American bars?for years and years and years. And what do you say to that, Irene?”

“Am I to understand,” she murmured, coming closer to him, “that you’re proposing an entente, a conspiracy of silence, Mr. Queen? That you won’t prosecute in return for my silence?”

Ellery bowed. “I beg forgiveness again; I underestimated the acuteness of your perceptions. Precisely what I’m proposing . . . . And please don’t come any nearer, my dear, because while I can exercise stern self-control on occasion, this is not one of the occasions. I’m still human. At two o’clock in the morning my moral resistance is at its lowest ebb.”

“I could like you?very much, Mr. Queen.”

Ellery sighed and hastily retreated a step. “Ah, the Mae West influence. Dear, dear! And I’ve always said that the Hammetts and the Whitfields are wrong in their demonstrated belief that a detective has countless opportunities for indulging his sex appeal. Another credo blasted . . . . Then it’s agreed, Miss Llewes?”

She regarded him coolly. “Agreed. And I have been a fool.”

“A fascinating fool, at any rate. Poor Kirk! He must have had the very devil of a time with you. By the way,” murmured Ellery, and his eyes belied the smile on his lips, “how well did you know that man?”

“What man?”

“The Parisian.”

“Oh!” Her mask slipped on. “Not very well.”

“Did you ever meet him?”

“Once. But he was unshaven?wore a beard, in fact. And he was foully drunk when he sold me the letters. I met him only when the letters and money changed hands. For an instant. All previous negotiations had been conducted by letter.”

“Hmm. You saw the face of the corpse, Miss Llewes, upstairs the other day.” Ellery paused. Then he continued slowly: “Could the man from Paris have been the man murdered upstairs?”

She stepped back, dazed. “You mean?that little . . . Good heavens!”

“Well?”

“I don’t know,” she said hurriedly, biting her lips. “I don’t know. It’s so hard to say. Without the beard . . . It was a bushy beard that concealed most of his features. And he was horribly seedy and dirty, a wreck. But it’s possible . . . .”

“Ah,” frowned Ellery. “I’d hoped for a surer identification. You can’t be certain?”

. “No,” she murmured in a thoughtful tone, “I can’t be certain, Mr. Queen.”

‘Then I’ll bid you good night and pleasant dreams.” Ellery snatched up his coat and wriggled into it. The woman was still thoughtful, standing in the middle of the room lilce a draped tree. “Oh, yes! I knew I’d forgotten something.”

“Forgotten something?”

Ellery walked over to the chaise-longue and picked up the brown-paper package. “Donald Kirk’s precious antiques. Dear, dear! It would have been a beastly oversight to leave without them.”

The color ebbed out of her face. “Do you mean to say,” she demanded in a furious voice, “that you’re taking those, too? You?you brigand!”

“Lovely, my dear. Anger becomes you. But surely you didn’t think I’d leave them in your care?”

“But then I have nothing left?nothing!” She was almost sobbing in her rage. “All these weeks, months. The expense . . . I’ll tell the whole story! I’ll call in the press! I’ll splatter that story all over the worldl”

“And spend the best part of the remainder of your life behind cold gray walls, in a narrow cell, and with coarse?I assure you it’s unreasonably coarse?cotton underwear next to your skin?” Ellery shook his head sadly. “I think not. You’re about thirty-five now, I should say?”

“Thirty-one, you beast!”

“I beg your pardon. Thirty-one. When you’re out you’ll be?let’s see?Well, in your case, considering the plenitude of your dossier, you should get?”

She flung herself on the chaise-longue, panting. “Oh, get out of here!” she screamed. “Get out! Or I’ll tear your eyes out!”

“Heavens, you’ll wake the neighbors,” said Ellery with horror; and then he smiled and bowed and went away with the package under his arm.

* * *

He startled the night-clerk at the desk in the lobby of the Chancellor by reaching for one of the house- telephones.

“Here, man!” cried the night-clerk. “What do you think you’re doing? Don’t you know it’s almost half-past two?”

“Police,” said Ellery portentously, and the man fell back, gaping. Ellery murmured to the hotel operator: “Ring Mr. Donald Kirk on the twenty-second, please. Yes, important.” He waited, whistling a merry tune. “Who’s this? Oh, Hubbell. This is Ellery Queen . . . . Yes, yes, man; Queen! Is Donald Kirk in? . . . Well, get him out of bed, then! . . . Ah, Kirk . . . . No, no, nothing’s the matter. Actually, I’ve rousing good news for you. You’ll be glad I woke you up at this obscene hour. I’ve something for you?call it a little engagement gift . . . . No, no. I’ll leave it for you at the desk. And let me tell you, Kirk, that your troubles are over. About M., I mean . . . . Yes! Well, don’t shout my ears off, old chap. And, as far as I. L. is concerned, her claws are permanently trimmed. She won’t bother you again. Stay away from her like a good little boy and devote yourself?you lucky devil!?to the lady known as Jo. Night!”

And, chuckling, Ellery deposited the package with the clerk and marched out of the Chancellor, reeling a little from sheer fatigue but glowing with the consciousness of a good deed exceedingly well done.

Ellery astounded his father and Djuna by appearing at the Inspector’s breakfast table at the Inspector’s usual breakfast hour, which was an early hour indeed.

“Well, look who’s here,” said the old gentleman a little brokenly, because his mouth was full of eggy toast. “Sick, El? Must be something wrong to get you up this early.”

“Something right,” yawned Ellery, rubbing red-rimmed eyes. He sank into a chair with a groan.

“What time did you get in?”

“About three . . . . Djuna, the royal oofs, if you please.”

“Oofs?” said Djuna suspiciously. “What’s them?”

“What are those, my lad; this association with the youth of 87th Street is contaminating you. Oofs, Djuna, is a sort of bastardized French for eggs. I could stomach a right good egg at the moment. Turn ‘em over and slap ‘em in the behind; you know?the usual style.”

Djuna grinned and vanished into the kitchen. The Inspector grunted: “Well?”

“You may well say well,” murmured Ellery, reaching for the cigarets. “I am happy to report unmitigated success.”

“Hmm. If you’ll tell me what you’re talking about, maybe I’ll understand you.”

“The situation is briefly this,” said Ellery, leaning back and blowing smoke. “I asked you to get the Llewes woman?fascinating wench!?out of the way so that I could pursue a little hunch of mine. It was obvious that she had a hold on Kirk?something she was waving over his head which was keeping that harassed young idiot quiet and