The Chinese Orange Mystery

“Brava, Miss Temple. You’ve put your finger on the precise point. There was only one person in the case against whom concealment could have been effected by turning everything backwards. And that was the victim himself. In other words, instead of seeking a backwards significance involving the murderer, or a possible accomplice, or a possible witness to the crime, it was necessary to look for a backwards significance involving the victim.”

“That sounds pat when you say it fast, and all that,” said Berne, “but I fail to see¯”

“As Homer said,” murmured Ellery: “ ‘Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more.’ Classics to the classical, Mr. Berne . . . . The obvious question was: What could this backwards significance be which centers about the victim? Was it something backwards about him literally? Yes, from our theorem something backwards about the victim which the murderer wanted to conceal, to disguise, to cover up. That is to say, if the victim had something, some one thing, backwards about him, then the murderer by turning everything else about him backwards would conceal the backwardness of that one thing!¯would make it very difficult indeed to discern what that backwards element about the victim had been to begin with.”

A startled expression sprang into the publisher’s eye, and he sank back with compressed lips. Thereafter he studied Ellery in a new and faintly puzzled way.

“Once I had reached that stage of my cogitations,” continued Ellery with a quizzical look, “I knew I was on solid ground at last. I had something to work on¯the most tangible thing in the world: a positive clue. It at once confirmed everything that had gone before and dissipated the fog like magic. For I had merely to ask myself if there was any indication on the victim’s body that pointed to the possible nature of the original backwards phenomenon, the one that was meant to be concealed by the murderer’s turning everything else backwards. No sooner asked than answered. There was.”

“Clue?” muttered Macgowan.

“I saw the body myself,” began Donald Kirk in a wondering voice.

“Please, gentlemen. The hour ageth. What was this indication, this clue? The fact that there was no necktie on the man’s body or on the scene of the crimel”

If Ellery had uttered in a loud voice the word: “Abracadabra!” he could not have evoked a more general expression of dazed inquiry than flickered from the faces of his audience.

“No necktie?” gasped Donald. “But what¯”

“Our instinctive presumption,” said Ellery patiently, “was that the victim had worn a necktie, but that the murderer had taken it away because somehow it permitted identification of the victim or traceability. But it was evident to me now that there never was a necktie; that the victim had not worn a tie at all! Remember, when he spoke to Mrs. Shane, and to Mr. Osborne in the presence of Miss Diversey, he wore a scarf bundled closely about his neck. In other words, there was no tie for the murderer to take awayl”

“But at best,” protested Dr. Kirk, fascinated despite himself, “that was a pragmatic conclusion, Queen. It was a theory, but not necessarily the truth.”

“A theory, my dear Doctor, resulting inevitably from the argument that the backwards process had been employed to conceal something. But I agree that, as it stood, it was unsatisfactory. Fortunately, a fact existed which offered positive corroboration.” Ellery related briefly the incident of the canvas valise, and listed its contents. “For there were the necessary garments of the victim¯everything from a suit to shoes¯and yet the only familiar article of apparel missing from the bag was¯a necktie. I felt certain then that the reason it was missing was that the owner of the bag habitually did not wear neckties. You see?”

“Hmm,” muttered Dr. Kirk. “Corroboration indeed. A man who didn’t wear neckties . . . “

“The thing was child’s play after that,” Ellery shrugged, waving his cigaret about. “I asked myself: What type of man never wears a necktie with ordinary street-clothes?”

“A priest!” burst out Marcella. She sank back, blushing.

“Precisely, Miss Kirk. A Catholic priest¯or, to be accurate, either a Catholic priest or an Episcopalian clergyman. And then I remembered something else. All three of the witnesses who had seen and spoken with the victim remarked about the peculiar quality of his voice. It had a soft queer timbre, almost unctuous in its sugary tones. And while this was by no means conclusive, or for that matter even a good clue, it did fit with the character of a priest after I’d deduced one. And then there was the very worn breviary in the bag, and the religious tracts . . . I couldn’t doubt it any longer.