would call dangerous attention to them. So he turned the furniture and everything else movable around as well, diverting attention from the clothes and therefore from the collar?the whole thing a perfectly inspired logical chain of reasoning. And it very nearly worked.”
“But even so, even if you knew the victim was a priest?” began Donald.
“Where did it get me?” Ellery grimaced. “It’s true that merely knowing the victim was a priest, while it narrowed the field of search, was hardly vital. But then there was the business of the valise.”
“Valise?”
“Yes. I didn’t visualize baggage myself; Inspector Queen did, to his eternal credit. But the murderer knew all along what he was up against. When he emptied the priest’s pockets he found the baggage-check, bearing the inscription of the Hotel Chancellor itself. Since his main objective was to prevent identification of the victim, it was apparent that he had to get hold of the luggage held by the Chancellor checkroom to prevent its falling into the hands of the police. Yet he was afraid. The Chancellor was under close surveillance. He dilly-dallied, apprehensive, timid, worried, until it was too late. Then he conceived the scheme of gaining possession of the valise by way of the falsely signed note, the five-dollar bill, and the instructions to the Postal Telegraph office. As it happened, we caught the trail instantly; he was watching and saw the game was spoiled, made no effort to claim the bag in Grand Central, and the bag fell into our hands.
“Now observe what that fatal procrastination of the murderer led to. When the bag was opened we found the dead man’s clothing with Shanghai labels in them. Since the clothes were all fairly new those garments must have been purchased recently in China. I put this together with the fact that despite the most thorough search no trace of the man had been found in this country. Had the priest lived in the United States but was merely returning from a visit to China, I reasoned that some one in this country would have come forward to identify him?a friend, a relative. But no one did. So it was not at all improbable that he had been a permanent resident in the East. But if he was a Catholic priest from China, what did we have? There is only one great class of Christian men-of-God in the land of Buddhism and Taoism.”
“A missionary,” said Miss Temple slowly.
Ellery smiled. “Right again, Miss Temple. I felt convinced that our benevolent-appearing, soft-speaking little corpse with the breviary and religious tracts in his bag had been a Catholic missionary from China!”
* * *
Some one rapped thunderously on the door against which Inspector Queen’s slender shoulder-blades were resting, and the old man turned quickly and opened the door. The visitor was Sergeant Velie, hard-bitten and grim as usual.
Ellery murmured: “I beg your pardon,” and hurried to the door. They watched the three men conferring with open expressions of anxiety and apprehension. The Sergeant was rumbling something ominous-sounding, the Inspector was looking triumphant, and Ellery was nodding vigorously at every murmur. Then something passed from Velie’s beefy hand to Ellery’s, and Ellery turned his back and examined it, and turned and smiled and put what he was holding into his pocket. The Sergeant leaned back against the door, towering beside Inspector Queen.
“I’m sorry about the interruption,” said Ellery placidly, “but Sergeant Velie has made an epochal discovery. Where was I? Oh, yes. I knew then roughly who Donald Kirk’s visitor was. A little thought then convinced me that I had found the key to?as it were thecausus belli?to the direct motive which inspired the murderer. It was quite obvious that the priest himself, as a flesh-and-blood personality, was unknown to any one in this room. Yet he had come to visit Donald Kirk, asking for him by name. Only three classes of persons frequent Mr. Kirk’s office here: stamp people, gem people, and people on publishing business, chiefly authors. Yet the priest had refused to tell Mr. Osborne, Kirk’s confidential assistant, anything about his business; not even his name. This did not sound like a publishing contact, and it struck me that it was most probable the point of contact between Kirk and the priest was one of Kirk’s two hobbies: stamps or gems.
“Now I reasoned that, if this was true, the missionary had come either to sell stamps or jewels, or to buy them?the two all-inclusive classifications. The cheapness of the man’s attire, his vocation, the long journey he had made, convinced me that he was not a buyer. Then he was a seller. This fitted well, too, with his general air of secrecy. He had something in a stamp or jewel to sell Donald Kirk, something valuable, to judge from his reticent attitude. It was therefore evident that he must have been murdered for possession of the stamp or jewel he had come all the way from China to sell. It was even possible to infer that, since Kirk is a specialist on stamps of China, the missionary was probably the owner of a Chinese stamp rather than a jewel. This wasn’t certain, but it seemed the better possibility. Ergo, having solved the case in my own way, I instructed Sergeant Velie to ransack the premises of the murderer with an eye to finding this Chinese stamp; although I did tell him to look out for a jewel.” Ellery paused to light another cigaret. “I was right, and the Sergeant reports success. He has found the stamp.”
Some one gasped. But when Ellery searched their faces he met only stubbornly furtive stares.
He smiled and took from his pocket a long manilla envelope. From this envelope he took another, smaller envelope of queer foreign appearance, with an address (presumably) in Chinese and a cancelled stamp in one corner. “Messrs. Kirk and Macgowan.” The two men rose uncertainly. “We may as well call upon our two philatelists. What do you make of this?”
They came forward, reluctant but curious. Kirk took the envelope slowly, Macgowan peering over his shoulder. And then, simultaneously, they cried out and began to talk to each other excitedly in undertones.
“Well, gentlemen?” murmured Ellery. “We’re panting for enlightenment. What is it?”
The stamp on the envelope was a small rectangle of thin tough paper printed in a single color, bright orange. Within its rectangular border there was a conventionalized coiled dragon. Its denomination was five candarins. The printing of the stamp was crude, and the envelope itself was ragged and yellow with age. A message in Chinese?the letter?had been written on the inside of the envelope, which was of the old- fashioned type still used in Europe and elsewhere for both address and message, folding up neatly for postage.
“This,” muttered Donald, “is the most remarkable thing I’ve ever seen. To a China specialist it’s a find of monumental proportions. It’s the earliest official postage stamp of China, antedating by many years the accepted first-issue design which is in the standard catalogue. It was an experimental issue of extremely small quantity and was used postally only for a few days. No copy on cover, as we call it, which is to say on the envelope?or off, for that matter?has ever been found. God, what a beauty!”
“It’s not even listed in specialized Chinese catalogues,” said Macgowan hoarsely, eying the envelope with rapacity. “It’s barely mentioned in one old stamp treatise, rather affectionately referred to by color, just as philatelists refer to the first national authorized issue of Great Britain as the One-Penny Black. Lord, it’s beautiful.”
“Would you say,” drawled Ellery, “that this is a valuable piece of property?”
“Valuable!” cried Donald. “Why, man, this should be even more valuable philatelically than the British Guiana! That is, if it’s authentic. It would have to be expertized.”
“It looks genuine,” frowned Macgowan. “The fact that it’s on cover, and the cancellation is clear, and the message is written inside . . . “
“How valuable would you say?”
“Oh, anything. Anything at all. These things are worth what a collector will pay at top. The Guiana’s listed at fifty thousand.” Donald’s face darkened. “If I were stable financially, I’d probably pay as much as that for it myself. It would make top price for any stamp; but, lord, there’s nothing like this in the world!”
“Ah. Thank you, gentlemen.” Ellery returned the envelope to its manilla container and tucked it into his pocket. Kirk and Macgowan slowly went back to their seats. No one said anything for a long time. “This Chinese stamp, then,” resumed Ellery at last, “may be characterized as dens ex ma-china. It brought our friend the missionary all the way from China; I daresay he had made the find in some obscure place, visualized suddenly a wealth which would keep him in luxurious comfort for the rest of his days, lost his grip on the spiritual consolations of his profession, and resigned from the mission. Inquiry in
