The Chinese Orange Mystery

“Good morning, dear children. What’s this? Are my eyes deceiving me, or am I back at the Morgue again? Why the gloom?”

“Oh, Doc,” said the Inspector eagerly. Ellery waved an absent hand. “What’s the verdict?”

The Assistant Medical Examiner seated himself with a sigh and stretched his gawky legs. “Death by violence at the hands of person or persons unknown.”

“Gah-h-h!” snarled the Inspector. “Quit kidding. This is serious. Did you find anything?”

“Not a solitary thing. Not one little single solitary thing.”

“Well, well?”

“He has,” drawled Dr. Prouty, “a small hairy protuberance, known vulgarly as a mole, two inches below and to the right of his navel. An item of identification, I daresay, useless for your purposes unless you discover a loving¯er¯wife. His corporeal remains represent genus homo, sex male. Age approximately fifty-five¯perhaps sixty; he’s well-preserved¯with a weight in life of one-fifty-three, a height of five feet four and one-half inches, and I should say an immoderate appetite, since he’s got a belly like a bloated frog. Blue-gray eyes, dark blond hair turned gray¯what there is of it¯”

“Appetite,” muttered Ellery.

“Eh? I hadn’t finished. No scars or surgical incisions. Very shiny and whole, his dermis, like an egg. Corns on his toes, though.” Dr. Prouty sucked thoughtfully on his dead cigar. “He died, unquestionably, as a direct result of a strong blow on his skull. He never knew what hit him. And Queen, my lad, I’m happy to report that despite all the fearsome tests capable of demonstration in my well-known laboratory alembics, there’s not a trace of poison in his system.”

“You and your alembics!” shouted the Inspector. “What’s got into you, Doc? Everybody’s crazy today. Can’t you talk like a human being? Is that all?”

“We now,” continued Dr. Prouty imperturbably, “return to the aforementioned appetite which seems to have caught the fancy of young Mr. Queen there. Despite the visible evidences of gluttony, our friend the corpse ate very lightly yesterday. He evacuated early as well. In his stomach and oesophagus was to be found nothing but¯and here we come to you, my dear Queen¯the half-digested remains of an orange.”

“Ah,” said Ellery with a queer sigh. “I was waiting for that. Tangerine?”

“How the devil should I know? You can’t make such fine distinctions, young man, when you’re messing about the contents of a strong digestive system after the gastric juices have had their innings and the peristaltic action . . . Here, herel I wander. But since you found the rind of a tangerine in the room, I should be inclined in my Holmesian way to guess in the affirmative. With which I pay my respects and bid you both a pleasant good morning. Goods to be held until called for? Very good¯”

“Hold on, Doctor,” murmured Ellery; the Inspector was apoplectic with suppressed wrath. “Would you say the tangerine had been eaten in that room?”

“From the comparative times involved? But certainly, mon ami. Ta-ta,” and, chuckling, Dr. Prouty swung off with a jaunty stride.

* * *

“Ass!” hissed the Inspector springing to his feet and slamming the door behind the Assistant Medical Examiner. “Makes a cheap vaudeville house out of my office. Don’t know what’s come over that man. He used to be¯”

“Tut, tut. You’re not especially yourself this morning, either, you know. Dr. Prouty, permit me to inform you, has just contributed one of the most brain-tickling developments of the case.”

“Bah!”

“Bah yourself. I refer to the tangerine. We had to be sure that our little man ate it in that room. That room . . . . Everything about that room is important. And the tangerine¯Of course you see the essential point.”

“See? See? God Almighty!”

“What,” asked Ellery abstractedly, “is a tangerine?”

The old gentleman stared with baleful eyes. “Asking me riddles now! An orange, you idiot.”

“Precisely. And what kind of orange, please?”

“What ki¯How should I know and what difference does it make, anyway?”

“But you do know,” said Ellery earnestly. “You know. I know. Every one knows. And I’m beginning to believe the murderer knows, as well . . . . A tangerine is known familiarly as a Chinese orangel”

The Inspector deliberately circled his desk and raised his hands to the theoretical heavens. “My son,” he said in a stern voice, “this is the last straw. This bird went into a strange room to wait for somebody. While he waited he spied a bowl of fruit on a table. He was hungry¯Doc said so himself. So he picked himself out a nice juicy tangerine and ate it. Then somebody came in and bashed him one. What in the name of all that’s sane and sensible is wrong with that?”

Ellery bit his lip. “I wish I knew. Chinese orange . . . . Oh, hell, I can’t explain it. It’s not the orange part of it¯” He rose and reached for his coat.