The Chinese Orange Mystery

“And, my chief of the Baker Street Division,” said Ellery, eying the smiling face of the dummy thoughtfully, “how. You’re hereby appointed First Special Laboratory Assistant, young man. We’re alone, there are no prying eyes and ears¯” He fixed a stern eye on Djuna. “You take your oath as a Romany gentleman that what passes between us this night is henceforth and forever a secret, writ in words of blood? Cross your heart and hope to die?”

Djuna crossed his heart hastily and hoped to die.

“Settled! Now, first.” Ellery sucked his thumb. “Ah, yes! That small mat from the storage-closet, Djuna.”

“Mat?” Djuna’s eyes opened wide. “Yes, sir.” And he sped away, to return a moment later with the commandeered mat.

“Next,” said Ellery, crossing the room and gazing up at the wall above the fireplace, “the step-ladder.”

Djuna brought the step-ladder. Ellery mounted it and with the solemnity and dignity of a high priest performing a sacred rite unhooked the somewhat dusty long swords from their brackets on the wall and brought them down. These he placed beside the rolled mat and smote his palms together, chuckling.

“We progress, Djuna. Finally, a commission.”

“Com¯”

“An errand. Don your legate’s robes, O Assistant.”

Djuna frowned a moment, and then grinned and vanished and reappeared in hat and coat. “Where to?”

“The hardware store on St. Nicholas Avenue. That monstrous emporium.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ellery handed him a bill. “Procure, O Assistant, a small roll of every kind of cord and twine in the establishment.”

“Yep.”

“And,” added Ellery, frowning, “also thin pliable wire¯a few lengths. We must overlook no possibility in our quest for the Holy Grail in which truth lies enshrined. Comprends?”

Djuna ran.

“A moment, young limb. Perhaps you’d better buy us a new broom, too.”

“Why?”

“I might say platitudinously because it sweeps clean, but that would be aborting the facts. Rest content, my friend, with the bare wording of the commission.”

Djuna shook his head stubbornly. “But we got a new broom.”

“We must have another. Nothing’s happened to our saw, Djuna, I trust?”

“It’s in the tool-chest in the storage-closet.”

“Superb. The brooms may serve if the swords fail us. Alors, avaunt, then, my fine churl; science waits upon the vigor of your musclesl”

Djuna set his small mouth in desperate lines, stuck out his thin chest, and scudded out of the apartment. Ellery sat down and stretched his legs.

Then Djuna popped his head back. “You won’t do nothin’ till I get back, will you, Mr. El?” he asked anxiously.

“My dear Djuna,” said Ellery in a reproachful voice. And then Djuna was gone again, and Ellery leaned back and closed his eyes and laughed aloud.

* * *

At 11:15, when Inspector Queen tramped wearily into the apartment, he found Djuna and Ellery in excited discussion before the fire¯a discussion which ended abruptly with his entrance. The dummy was packed in his coffin and laid out in the center of the room. The mat, the assorted rolls of twine, and the brooms were not in evidence. Even the long swords had found their way back to their accustomed places above the fireplace.

“Well, what’s the whispering about?” grunted the old man, flinging his hat and coat down and coming to the fire to chafe his hands.

“We found a¯” Djuna began hotly, when Ellery clapped his hands over the boy’s mouth.

“Is that the way, O Assistant,” he said severely, “you keep to your sacred oath? Dad, I beg to report¯we beg to report¯success. Complete, utter, final success.”

“ ‘Zat so?” said the Inspector dryly.

“You don’t seem immoderately elated.”

“I’m worn out.”

“I’m sorry.” There was a little silence. Djuna, sensing intrafamilial trouble, slipped off to his bedroom. “I mean it, though.”

“Glad to hear it.” The Inspector sat down, groaning. He cast a long side-wise glance at the coffin-like crate in the middle of the room. “I see you got the dummy all right.”

“Oh, yes. Thanks loads.” There was another silence. Ellery’s spirits seemed dampened; he rose and went to the mantelpiece and rather nervously fingered one of the iron candlesticks on it. “How did your Forty-fifth Street tramp come out?”

“With a slug in her belly,” sniffed the Inspector. “It’s all right, though. We got the guy who plugged her. Dippy MacGuire, the coke. That ends one spectacular career.”

And again a silence. “Aren’t you going to ask me,” said Ellery at last in a plaintive tone, “what success means in terms of Queenian syllables?”

“I kind of figured,” drawled the Inspector, dipping into his snuff-box, “that if you were over your fit of hush-mouth, you’d tell without my asking.”

“It’s solved, you know,” said Ellery bashfully.

“Congrats.”

“I know the whole story now, you see. All the essential things. Except the little chap’s name, and that’s not important. But who murdered him, why, and how it was done¯especially how it was done¯they’re quite settled in my mind.”

The Inspector said nothing; he placed his small hands behind his head and gazed gloomily into the fire.