The Chinese Orange Mystery

He kept shifting his attention from the fidgety boy in blue to one of the four huge gilded clocks above the information booth. The minutes sucked by lazily. He had never realized before how long a minute could be; how 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.”