The Chinese Orange Mystery

long and empty and nerve-racking.

The Inspector watched without change of expression. He was accustomed to these interludes and from years of experience had developed a patience with anticipated events which was, to Ellery, little short of marvelous.

Once they caught sight of Sergeant Velie. The giant was on the balcony on the east wall of the Upper Level, his hard eyes fixed on the scene below. He was either sitting or crouching, for from the floor where they stood he did not seem a big man.

The minutes slogged past. Hundreds of people came and went. Hagstrom had vanished from the information booth; apparently he felt that it was unwise to linger too long. But his place was instantly taken by Detective Piggott, also a veteran member of the Inspector’s personal squad.

The boy waited.

Porters scurried by. There was an amusing interlude: a woman carrying a fat sleepy dog became involved in an altercation with a porter. Once a celebrity arrived: a diminutive woman decked in fresh orchids and surrounded by clamoring reporters and cameramen. She posed at the gate to Track 24. She smiled. There were blue streaks from flashbulbs. She disappeared; the crowd disappeared.

Still the boy waited.

By this time Detective Piggott was gone from the round booth, and Detective Ritter?burly and positive, smoking a cigar?was demanding information in a loud voice from one of the gray-haired attendants.

Quiet Detective Johnson sauntered over and consulted a time-table.

And still the boy waited. Ellery, gnawing his fingernails, consulted the clock for the hundredth time.

When two and a half hours had elapsed with no result the Inspector crooked his finger at Sergeant Velie on the balcony, shrugged philosophically, and without a word stalked across the marble floor to the information desk. The boy was sitting on the valise now in an attitude of hopeless resignation; the canvass was crushed beneath his slight weight. He looked up eagerly at the approach of Sergeant Velie.

“Get off that,” rumbled the Sergeant, and he shoved the boy gently aside and lifted the bag and joined the Inspector and the group of men who had miraculously materialized from all parts of the terminal.

“Well, Thomas,” said the Inspector with a wry grin, “it’s no dice, I guess. Scared our man off.” He eyed the bag with interest.

“Guess so,” said the Sergeant gloomily. “But how the hell he got wise I don’t know. We didn’t slip anywhere, did we?”

“Well, you handled it, Thomas,” murmured the old man. “However, there’s no sense in crying over spilt milk.”

“It’s probably infantile enough,” said Ellery, frowning. “He suspected a trap at once. At the source.”

“How could he, Mr. Queen?” protested Velie.

“It’s easy to be clever after the event. It occurred to me two hours ago that the person who sent the five- dollar bill and the note with instructions was taking excellent care indeed to keep himself invisibly in the background.”

“So?” said the Inspector.

“So,” drawled Ellery, “what do you think he’d do? Leave matters to chance?”

“Don’t get you.”

“Well, good heavens, dad,” said Ellery impatiently, “you’re obviously not dealing with an imbecilel Wouldn’t it have been extraordinarily simple for him to have been lounging about the lobby of the Chancellor keeping an eye on the checkroom while the messenger was presenting the baggage-check?”

Sergeant Velie went crimson. “By crap,” he said hoarsely, “I never thought of that.”

The Inspector stared at Ellery with a solemn conviction mounting in his marbly little eyes. “That sure sounds kosher to me,” he said in a rueful voice.

“Disgusting,” said Ellery bitterly. “I didn’t think of it, either, until it was too late. Golden opportunity. And yet I don’t see how else . . . . Of course he’d be on the alert. Just to make sure nothing went wrong. He was safe there?”

“Especially,” muttered Velie, “if he lived there.”

“Or normally had business there. But that’s beside the point. His plan patently was to watch the boy pick up the bag in the Chancellor and then t follow him to Grand Central. In that way he’d be absolutely sure everything was all right.”

“So he saw the clerk call Nye and Brummer, saw Thomas, saw the boys . . . “ The Inspector shrugged. “Well, that’s that. At least we’ve got the valise. We’ll go back to Headquarters and give it the once-over. Wasn’t a total loss, anyway.”

* * *

It was on the journey downtown that Ellery suddenly exclaimed: “I’m witless! I’m the world’s biggest idiot! I should have my head examined!”

“Granting,” said the Inspector dryly, “the truth of all that, what’s eating you now? You hop around inside that head of yours like a flea.”

“The bag, dad. It’s just struck me. My mental processes seem to have slowed down with the years. Hardening of the cerebrum. I remember the time when a thought like that would have been instantaneous with the event . . . . It was perfectly logical of you to conjure up a possible bag from the fact that the victim doesn’t seem to have been a native of New York. And so to institute a search for it. But,” frowned Ellery, “why does the murderer want it?”

“You are running down,” snorted the Inspector. “Why d’ye suppose? I’ll admit I hadn’t foreseen that eventuality myself, but still it’s easy enough to explain when you think of it. This killer took every precaution against our finding out the identity of the dead man, didn’t he? So if the dead man’s valise is floating around and liable to be picked up by the police, do you think the killer’s going to sit back and let it be picked up? Not if he can help it! He’s afraid, or else he positively knows, that there’s something in that bag that will establish the dead man’s identity!”

“Oh, that,” said Ellery, eying the bag at their feet with suspicion.

“So what are you yelping about? I’m surprised at you, asking a question like that!”

“Rhetorical question purely,” murmured Ellery, his eyes still on the bag. “The mere existence of the brass check is enough to point to the answer. He found the Chancellor check on the victim’s body after the murder when he was cleaning out the little fellow’s pockets. The check tells its own story. The murderer took it away with him. But why hasn’t he picked up the bag before this? WTiy has he waited so long; eh?”

“Afraid,” said the Inspector contemptuously. “No guts. Scared to take the chance. Especially since the bag was checked at the Chancellor. It’s that fact itself that convinces me our man has some connection with the hotel, El. I mean he’s known there. He knew damn’ well that we have the Chancellor under observation. If he were an outsider altogether he wouldn’t have had any hesitation in making a play for the valise. But if we knew him he’d be scared.”

“I suppose so.” Ellery sighed. “I’m itching to get my claws inside that thing. Lord knows what we’ll find.”

“Well, it won’t be long now,” said the Inspector placidly. “I’ve got the funniest feeling that even if we did miss out in our chance to collar the killer, this bag is going to tell a sweet story.”

“I sincerely,” muttered Ellery, “hope so.”

* * *

There was a solemn moment in Inspector Queen’s office before the valise, so shabbily innocent-appearing from the outside, was opened. The door was shut, their coats and hats were flung helter-skelter in a corner, and the Inspector, Ellery, and Sergeant Velie stared at the bag on the Inspector’s desk with varying expressions of emotion.

“Well,” said the Inspector in a rather hushed voice, at last, “here goes.”

He picked up the valise and examined its worn, grimy canvas exterior carefully. It bore no labels of any kind. Its metal hasps were rather rusty. The canvas was eaten away in the creases. There were no initials or insignia.

Sergeant Velie growled: “Sure has seen service.”

“Sure has,” murmured the Inspector. “Thomas, hand me those keys.”