The Case of the Backward Mule

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  “Well, of course, I intended to notify the authorities. But before I did so, I looked around for the gun with which he’d killed himself and … well, there wasn’t any gun. It took a minute or two for it to dawn on me what that meant. And then I realized I was in a spot. I’d gone around the house and got in the back door. That would take a lot of explaining… . I had an overpowering desire to get away. It was a blind urge to run. I grabbed up the image and got out of there. Of course, I was foolish, which is bad and I was also unlucky, which is worse. People saw me leaving … there was blood on my trousers. I’ve been dunking afterwards that mere may have been a spatter of blood on the image… . I returned it to Cynthia later and was too rattled to look and see. You just can’t explain the things I did so that sound logical. Anyway, I took the easy way out and that was that.”

  “Do you have any idea who murdered him?”

  “Of course not. If I had, I’d have done something about it.”

  “Any enemies?”

  “I don’t know of any. He was a good egg.”

  “Look here, when you went into the kitchen, what did you find?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You went in through the back door?”

  “That second trip I made, yes.”

  “And when you entered the kitchen, did you notice a pot of water on the stove?”

  Harold thought for a moment. “I remember that at the trial mere was evidence of a tea-kettle boiling on the stove. My best recollection is that the tea-kettle was on the stove but was not boiling when I entered the kitchen.”

  “You’re certain the tea-kettle was on the stove?”

  “Yes. And I suppose the wrist-watch must have been in the oven. Of course I didn’t look to see. I just walked on in through the kitchen. I’ve tried a hundred times to figure out why Farnsworth would have put on that water and put his wrist-watch in the oven to dry out. The only explanation for the water, of course, is that Farnsworth wanted to steam open the flap of an envelope. As soon as I left, he went out to fill the kettle and was so nervous he must have got his wrist under the tap. That got water in his watch, so he turned on the oven to dry it out while he was waiting for the water to heat.”

  Clane nodded thoughtfully. “No idea of what that envelope could have contained—the one he wanted to steam open?”

  “No,” Harold said, curtly.

  Clane waited, but Harold relapsed once more into silence.

  Abruptly Clane broke the silence. “What happened down there at the warehouse?” he asked.

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “Is there any reason why you shouldn’t?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t betray the person who helped me.”

  “Don’t mention that person. Just tell me what happened.”

  “I was being given sanctuary there in that warehouse. There was every reason to believe that it was a safe place, that no one would come there. I had been assured that things would … well, that that”d be arranged so that I’d have the place all to myself.”

  “Then out of a clear sky something happened. I heard a motor-car drive up, a key in the door, and someone was coming in. I couldn’t get out through the door. I ran to the window and jumped out and ran. The lights came on just as I was climbing out of the window. I looked back and saw Gloster standing there in the doorway. He was absolutely flabbergasted. I think, he saw and recognized me. I don’t know.”

  “And he walked over to telephone?”

  “I don’t know what he did. I didn’t stop to find out. I got out of there.”

  “What time was this?

  “A little after ten, about ten minutes after ten I think it was.”

  “And you went directly to that restaurant and telephoned?”

  “Yes.”

  “To whom did you telephone?”

  “That is something I’m not going to answer.”

  “Someone came and got you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Try and find out.”

  “The police know.”

  “Then you’d better ask the police. They can tell you I can’t.”

  “You mean you won’t.”

  “All right, It’s the same thing.”

  “Gloster wasn’t one of the persons who helped your escape when you were taken from the motocar?”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Was Bill Hendrum one of the…”

  “Damn it, Clane, don’t go flinging names around that way. Leave Bill out of this.”

  Clane said “You had quite a stock of groceries there. Who bought those for you? The same person who established you in the warehouse in the first place?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I’m trying to find out what to think.”

  “Find out someplace else then.”

  Clane was starting to say something when he heard the sound of echoing steps in the corridor. A key rattled in the lock. A burly, thick-necked man said “Which one is Terry Clane?”

  “I am,” Clane said, stepping forward.

  “Out,” the man said.

  “I knew they’d spring you,” Harold said. “You haven’t any hard luck.”

  Clane extended his hand. “Good luck,” he said. “I’m probably merely being transferred. But here’s luck.”

  After a moment Edward Harold reached out and took Clane’s hand. Clane noticed that the fingers which circled his hand, the palm which pressed against his, were wet with perspiration.

  “If you see God’s blue sky again,” Edward Harold said, “tell it hello for me,” and then deliberately turned his back on Clane and the turnkey.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “WHAT IS IT?” CLANE ASKED as they walked down the corridor.

  “You are being sprung,” the turnkey said.

  “How?”

  “Some Chinese girl and a lawyer. That’s one thing about the Chinese. When they get lawyers, they get good ones. Long as I’ve been here, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Chink show up with a cheap lawyer. He either has none at all, or else he gets the best, regardless of what it costs. Don’t ever kid yourself the Chinese ain’t shrewd. Cripes! I’ve seen lots of fellows that thought they were wise guys show up with mouthpieces that we knew all about. Damn ambulance chasers. The guys were just throwing their money away, falling for a line of bull some cheap shyster passed out. But you take the Chinks. Boy, when they show up, they really have lawyers. And you’ve got one this time that’s the best.”

  “Who?” Clane asked.

  “Carl Marcell.”

  “Never heard of him,” Clane said.

  “Where you been the last few years, buddy?”

  “I’ve been in the Orient.”

  “I guess that accounts for it. Right this way.”

  The turnkey unlocked the door at the end of the corridor, flung back the heavy steel casement and Clane found himself in a waiting-room near the entrance corridor of the jail. Chu Kee and Sou Ha were there, and a tall impressive man with a profile of granite, and silver-grey hair which swept back in well-kept waves from his forehead.

  “Clane?” the man asked.

  Terry nodded.

  Chu Kee beamed at Clane.

  The tall man put out his hand, enveloped Clane’s in a muscular grip. “I’m Carl Marcell,” he said. “I’ve been retained to act for you. I’ve threatened a writ of habeas corpus, and they’ve turned you loose rather than put a charge against you.”

  “And how about Sou Ha?”

  “I sprang her an hour ago,” Marcell said. “I had a little more trouble with you. They tried to hang on to you until the last minute. They really hated to let you go.”

  A door opened. Inspector Malloy appeared, his face positively beaming. “Well, well, well. You’re leaving us, Mr Clane. That’s fine. That’s really splendid, I’m sorry we had to detain you. It was just one of those things. But you have Mr Marcell in your camp, and he’l
l take care of you. Yes, indeed, Mr Clane, he’ll take care of you.”

  “No hard feelings,” Clane said, smiling.

  Carl Marcell said “You were only holding him. There was no charge booked against him. You had no right to put him in a cell with a convicted felon.”

  “Well, now, of course,” Malloy beamed, “accommodations are pretty hard to get in even the best hotels. And you take a hotel such as we run, on short notice that way it’s sometimes difficult to provide just the accommodations we want. But It’s all right now. We didn’t intend to keep your client too long.”

  “No longer than it took a lawyer to threaten you with a habeas corpus.”

  Malloy merely grinned.

  The jail doors swung open and the little party debouched into the night, meeting the stares of some curious pedestrians who gazed first casually then with eager curiosity as someone pointed out the tall figure of Marcell, the famous criminal lawyer, flanked by the Chinese man and woman on the one side and a Caucasian on the other.

  Clane heard one of the men say in a low voice “Probably opium. He …” And then Sou Ha was opening the door of Chu Kee”s big limousine and Clane was helping her into the car, then getting in beside her.

  Carl Marcell gravely shook hands.

  “You’re not coming with us?” Clane asked.

  “No,” the lawyer said, “I have my own car. I don’t think you’ll have any more trouble, Mr Clane if you do, call me. Here’s a card which has my office number on it, and that number up in the right-hand corner is my night number, a private phone where you can get me at any hour of the day or night. Just don’t give it out to anyone. It’s a number I reserve for my important clients.”

  “And your fees?” Clane asked.

  Chu Kee said in Chinese “What has been done is a matter of friendship.”

  Marcell was more explicit. “I don’t suppose your friend cares about telling you all of the details, but … well, there is no charge.”

  Sou Ha added by way of explanation “Father keeps Mr Marcell retained by the year.”

  Clane showed his surprise.

  “For situations of just this sort,” Sou Ha said.

  Then Marcell was moving back towards his car, walking with the grace of a man whose business it is to impress spectators and Sou Ha, behind the wheel of the limousine, was warming up the motor. A moment later that glided smoothly away from the kerb and out to the traffic of the city and Terry Clane, watching the life flowing past him, could not but contrast his lot with the plight of the man whom he had left in the jail cell to be subjected to the final indignity of being stripped of his outer clothing and pushed into a small circular chamber in which presently there would be the hiss of escaping gas.

  Clane’s thoughts were interrupted by Sou Ha’s penitent voice. “I am clumsy, O First-Born. I am so slow in my mind as to be unworthy or your teachings. I failed to outwit this police person.”

  “That police person,” Clane said, “is plenty hard to outwit. Just what happened?”

  “I do not know when he first became suspicious,” Sou Ha said. “Perhaps it was almost immediately. But he took me to where I wished to go. It was only as I was getting out of the car that he suggested he had better inspect the bundle. To have protested would have made him only the more suspicious so I pretended that it was only the outside of the bundle he wished to see, and I held it for his inspection, then pushed his hand against it so that he could see that only clothes were on the inside. I said “Dirty clothes. Me wash.” But it didn’t fool him. He said “Well, let’s take a look at the dirty clothes,” and right then I knew the jig was up.”

  “Was it bad?” Clane asked.

  “Not bad. Only they wouldn’t let me telephone unless I talked in English.”

  “Wouldn’t that let you phone your father?”

  “I suppose so, but that I dared not do because of the Painter Woman. The officer was smart enough to know that I must have taken the place of the Painter Woman.”

  “Then how did your father know where you were?” Clane asked.

  Sou Ha said “When the hours passed and I did not return, my father communicated with the lawyer.”

  Chu Kee sat with his hands folded in his lap, beaming out through the windshield, his alert little eyes missing no detail of the traffic, his ears taking in the conversation. But there was nothing in the expression of his countenance to indicate that he understood what was being said.

  “And what about Cynthia Renton?” Clane asked.

  “The Painter Woman is safe.”

  “Has she been able to communicate with her sister?”

  “A messenger has told her sister she is all right.”

  Clane settled back against the cushions.

  Chu Kee said blandly, as though merely pointing out a bit of scenery “A car follows us.”

  “Did you think I hadn’t noticed that?” Sou Ha asked, almost petulantly.

  Chu Kee said in Chinese “It is an ambitious fountain that seeks to be higher than the stream which feeds it.”

  Sou Ha said contritely and also in Chinese “I am sorry, Father. The words slipped past my tongue.”

  “The wise man develops a slow tongue.”

  “I am afraid that today I am not wise. But,” she added, artfully, “I did not want you to think your daughter was unworthy of you. I expected of course we would be followed, and remember that I have the benefit of the rear-view mirror.”

  Then were several moments of silence. “Are you going to try to ditch the following car?” Clane asked, seeing that Sou Ha was driving directly towards Chinatown with no attempt whatever to take advantage of traffic signals or crowded intersections.

  “To ditch them would but make them suspicious that we had something to conceal,” Sou Ha said. “We will be so innocent that we flaunt our virtues in their faces.” And then she laughed.

  “But we must not take them to Cynthia”s place of concealment,” Clane said.

  “We won’t,” Sou Ha told him, and men almost angrily said “I know I have done everything wrong today, but at least give me credit for some sense.”

  Chu Kee shifted his eyes in silent rebuke to his daughter’s petulance, then turned his attention back to grave contemplation of the road.

  “Where we are going,” Sou Ha said hastily, attempting to atone for her fault, “is to see the wife of Ricardo Taonon.”

  “You know where she is?” Clane asked in surprise. “The police have tried to locate her without success.”

  “She made the mistake of going to Chinatown,” Sou Ha said.

  “Why a mistake?” Clane asked.

  “My father,” Sou Ha said with pride, “knows everything which goes on in Chinatown.”

  “Pride,” Chu Kee said, “is the club by which Misfortune beats the virtuous into submission.”

  “I speak but the truth,” Sou Ha pointed out.

  “Ever the truth is humble,” Chu Kee retorted.

  “What is Mrs Taonon doing?” Clane asked, anxious to save Sou Ha from further rebuke.

  “She is attempting to hide.”

  “From the police?”

  “From the police and others.”

  “What others?”

  “That remains to be ascertained,” Sou Ha said. “My father thought you would like to ask the questions.”

  Clane bowed his head in acknowledgment of the compliment.

  Sou Ha deftly piloted the car through the traffic, entered the streets of Chinatown, turned with no attempt at concealment into a side street, and stopped the car, switched off the lights, and turned off the motor.

  Another car paused at the corner to disgorge two men who seemed particularly naive tourists, desiring to explore the streets of Chinatown.

  Sou Ha did not even deign to glance at them. She stepped forward and opened the door of a small Chinese store.

  A man who was seated behind the counter glanced up and men lowered his eyes to the book in which he was writing Chinese characters with a camel-hair
brush held rigidly perpendicular between thumb and forefinger.

  Sou Ha led the way. Her father followed, and Clane brought up the rear.

  There was an arched doorway near the rear of the store. Two faded green curtains hung down to shield this doorway. Sou Ha parted the curtains and went through. They moved down a narrow passageway, came to a large room where a dozen Chinese were grouped around a circular table, playing Chinese dominoes. They did not even glance up as the little party filed through the room and entered another passageway, then a smaller room, where there was furniture stored—apparently merely a storeroom for odds and ends, though shrewd eyes would have noticed that this furniture collected no dust, and that there were no cobwebs.

  Sou Ha’s fingers pressed a hidden catch, a panel of wood slid smoothly back, operated by an electrical mechanism which betrayed its presence only by a faint whirring noise. The moment Clane had stepped through the sliding panel it closed behind them and they, were in darkness. A small torch in Sou Ha’s hands disclosed steps which went down into a passageway where there was the smell of dampness. The followed this passageway for some fifty yards, then dipped down another flight of stairs, and Clane knew that were going beneath a street. Another hundred feet and that were climbing again and once more came to what seemed to be a solid wall. Again Sou Ha pressed a catch and a door opened. Another passageway led them into a small Chinese apothecary shop which fronted on a dimly lit side street.

  Sou Ha glanced questioningly at her father. Chu Kee stepped forward and opened a door near the back of the store which disclosed a short corridor.

  “At the end of this corridor,” he said in Chinese, “there is a place, the sign on the street proclaiming it to be the Green Dragon Hotel. It rents rooms to people who sign names which are fictitious upon the register. The woman you wish is in room twenty-three. We will go there without letting her know that we come.”

  From here on Chu Kee took the lead, marching through the door at the end of the corridor into a narrow, dingy room which was large enough to hold half a dozen chairs and a small partitioned-off space in which were a desk, a rack for keys, a small telephone switchboard and an emaciated Chinese clerk.