The Chinese Orange Mystery

He went to the door leading to the adjoining office, opened it, vanished, and an instant later reappeared with the paper-thin Indian mat which had lain in front of the door on the office side. This he deposited carefully over the threshold, one-third in the anteroom and the other two-thirds in the office. Then he got to his feet, took from his right pocket a coil of thin tough-looking cord, and held it up for their inspection. He nodded, smiled at them, and proceeded to measure off one-third the length of the cord. He then wound the cord at that point about the protruding metal knob of the bolt on the anteroom side of the door. The cord now dangled from the knob¯a short length and a long length, held to the metal protrusion by the single winding. There was no knot of any kind, as he demonstrated in pantomime. Ellery took up the short end and passed it through the crack under the door, over the mat into the office beyond. He closed the door without touching the knob. It was shut but unbolted.

They were watching him like children at a puppet-show, wide-eyed, eager, puzzled. No one spoke, and all that could be heard were the soft sounds of Ellery’s movements and the heavy uneven breathing.

Ellery continued his demonstration in the same pregnant silence. He stepped back and surveyed the two sections of bookcase which flanked the doorway. He studied them for a moment, and then sprang forward and began to tug at the case to his right as he faced the door. He pulled the case back along the right-hand wall about four feet. He returned and began to move the bookcase on the left of the doorway, as they saw it. He tugged and shoved until he had it jutting out into the room¯pulled toward the door until its left side at the rear touched the hinges of the door, its right side swung outward into the room a short way, the whole bookcase forming an acute angle with the door. Then he stepped back with a nod of satisfaction.

“You will observe,” he said briskly in the silence, “that both bookcases are now exactly as we found them when the body was discovered.”

As if this were a signal, Sergeant Velie stooped and lifted the dummy out of the crate. Despite its weight he earned it as he might have borne a child. They saw now that the dummy was dressed in the dead man’s garments, and that they were on backwards. Ellery said something to the Sergeant in a low voice and Velie set the body upright on its feet. He balanced it erect, grotesquely, with one huge splayed finger.

“Let go, Sergeant,” drawled Ellery.

They stared. Velie withdrew his finger and the body collapsed, sinking vertically until it lay in a heap on the floor where an instant before it had been standing.

“The muscleless inertia of the very dead,” said Ellery cheerfully. “Good work, Sergeant. We assume that rigor mortis has not yet set in. Our demonstration has proved it. Now for the second stage.”

Velie lifted the dummy and Ellery went to the crate and came up with the two Impi spears which had been found on the body. These he thrust up the dummy’s trouser-legs and under the coat until they emerged from behind the head, their wicked blades far above the papier-mache skull. Then the Sergeant carried the dummy over and propped it up in the angle made by the door and the left-hand bookcase, facing toward the right. It stood erect very stiffly, the two spearheads jutting like horns from the coat. The feet barely rested on the edge of the Indian mat.

Sergeant Velie stepped back with a hard grin on his lips.

Then Ellery proceeded about a curious business. He took the dangling end of the cord¯the long end¯and began carefully to wind it about the haft of the spear nearer the door, just below the blade. He wound it about the spear twice. They saw then that there was a slight slack in the length leading from the spear to the bolt of the door¯a graceful dip in the suspended cord.

“Observe, please, that there is no knot or noose in the cord about the spear,” said Ellery. Then he stooped and pushed the remaining end now dangling from the spear¯pushed it, as he had pushed the short end some time before¯through the crack between the mat on the threshold and the bottom of the door until its end vanished into the office.

“Don’t move, any one,” snapped Ellery, rising. “Just keep your eyes on that dummy and the door.”

He reached over, grasped the knob, and gently pulled the door to him. As he pulled, the slack in the cord grew looser. When the door was sufficiently ajar, Ellery very cautiously stooped, wriggled under the cord, and squeezed through the narrow opening, disappearing from view. Then the door softly clicked back¯shut but unbolted.

They watched.

For thirty seconds nothing happened.

And then the mat under the door moved. It was being jerked out of the anteroom into the office beyond the door.