The Chinese Orange Mystery

The door stood ajar. He poked his head through, held his breath, heard nothing, and slipped into the room shutting the door behind him.

“Not so bad after all,” he said to himself, grinning in the darkness. “Maybe I’ve neglected a natural talent for house-breaking. Now where the deuce is that switch?”

He groped around in the jumpy quarter-light, straining his eyes. “Ah, there you are,” he grunted aloud, and extended his hand to the wall.

And his hand froze in midair. An instantaneous prickle climbed up his spine. A hundred thoughts raced through his head all at once. But he did not move, did not breathe.

Some one had opened the front door. There could be no mistake. He had heard the telltale squeak of the unoiled bolt.

Then movement surged back in a wave, and his arm dropped, and he whirled on the balls of his feet and sped toward a Japanese-silk screen which he had dimly perceived a moment before during his hunt for the switch. He reached its shelter and crouched low behind it, holding his breath.

It seemed an eternity before he heard the cautious metallic rasp of the bedroom knob being turned. He heard a scraping, too, as of a shoe over the sill of the door. And then the unmistakable panting intake of a human breath. The metallic sound occurred again; the prowler had closed the door behind him.

Ellery strained his eyes through a crack between two of the leaves of the Japanese screen. Oddly, his nose became sensible of a faraway odor which made him think of the perfumed flesh of a woman. But then he realized that the odor had been there before the prowler, before himself; it was the odor of Irene Sewell . . . . His pupils, enlarged by immersion in the darkness, began to make out a human form. It was the figure of a man, so muffled that not even the skin of his face glimmered in the pulsating dusk of the room. The man was moving about swiftly and yet nervously, jerking his head from side to side, breathing in hoarse gulps, almost sobbing.

And then he pounced upon a low vanity built along modern lines and began pulling drawers open with wild swoops of his arms, apparently careless of the clatter he was making.

Ellery tiptoed from behind the screen and made his way noiselessly across the thick Chinese rug to the wall near the door.

With his arm raised he said in a pleasant unhurried voice: “Hello, there,” and in the same instant pressed the switch.

The prowler whirled about like a tiger, blinking and silent. In the brilliant light Ellery made out his features clearly as the upturned lapels of the man’s coat dropped stiffly back.

It was Donald Kirk.

* * *

They measured each other for an eon, as if they could not tear their eyes away, as if they could not believe what their eyes saw. They were both shocked into silence by surprise.

“Well, well,” said Ellery at last, drawing a grateful breath and advancing toward the tall motionless young man. “You do get about, don’t you, Kirk? And what’s the meaning of this horribly trite nocturnal visit?”

Donald relaxed completely all of a sudden, as if he could not bear the tension an instant longer. He sank into a nearby white plush chair and with trembling fingers pulled out a cigaret-case and lit a cigaret.

“Well,” he said with a short despairing laugh, “here I am. Caught red-handed, Queen¯and by you, of all people.”

“Fate,” murmured Ellery. “And a kind fate for you, my careening young bucko. A more vigorous operative might have¯what’s the phrase? ah, yes-plugged you first and asked questions afterward. Fortunately, having a sensitive stomach, I don’t carry firearms . . . . Fearfully bad habit, Kirk, prowling about ladies’ bedrooms at this time of night. Get you into trouble.”

And Ellery seated himself comfortably on a zibelline chaise-longue opposite the plush chair and produced his own cigaret-case and selected a cigaret with dreamy abstraction and lit it.

They smoked thoughtfully and in silence for some time, regarding each other without once lowering their eyes.

Then Ellery swallowed a mouthful of smoke and said: “I suffer a bit from insomnia, too. What do you do for it, old boy?”

Kirk sighed. “Go on. Say it.”

Ellery drawled: “Care to talk?”

The young man forced a grin. “Curiously enough, I’m not in a conversational mood at the moment.”

“Curiously enough, I am. Peaceful atmosphere, two intelligent young men alone, smoking¯perfect background for small talk, Kirk. I’ve always said¯a most original observation, of course¯that what America needs is not so much a good five-cent cigar as the civilizing influence of inconsequential conversation. Don’t you want to be civilized, you heathen?”

The publisher let smoke dribble out of his nostrils. Then he leaned forward suddenly, elbows on his knees. “You’re playing with me, Queen. What d’ye want?”

“I might ask you,” said Ellery dryly, “substantially the same question.”

“Don’t get you.”

“Well, since I must be specific: What were you looking for so strenuously in Miss Irene Sewell’s vanity a few moments ago?”