The Case of the Backward Mule

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  The clerk barely glanced up, gave an all but imperceptible nod, then returned to a perusal of the columns of a Chinese newspaper.

  Chu Kee led the way upstairs.

  There were sounds of revelry in the first room at the head of the stairs, the laughter of a woman, too loud, too shrill and too harsh, a man’s blatant, boastful voice … The stealthy, shadowy figure of a Chinese moved noiselessly through the dim shadows near the end of the corridor, opened a door, entered a room and quietly closed the door behind him. Another door opened. A woman dressed for the street flashed past them, leaving behind her a smell of perfume so heavy that it reminded Clane of the banked flowers at a funeral. She was still young, but her face beneath the veneer of make-up was hard the eyes had the look of brazen defiance which is born of an inner fear. She glanced at Clane, started to smile, then saw Sou Ha and walked on past them.

  Chu Kee seemed not even to notice.

  The room they sought was near the end of the corridor. Chu Kee glanced questioningly at Clane.

  Clane nodded and Chu Kee tapped gently on the door.

  There was no sound from within.

  Chu Kee knocked again, then tried the knob of the door. It was locked. A woman”s voice from behind the door called out “What-dyawant?”

  Chu Kee signified by a sign that Sou Ha was to answer.

  “I wish to talk with you,” Sou Ha said politely.

  The words which came from behind the door were slurred together with a coarse, careless diction. “I ain’t dressed and I don’t wanna talk to anybody. Get out.”

  “It is on account of the register,” Sou Ha said, her voice subtly accenting the peculiar lilt which branded her unmistakably as being Chinese. “The last name cannot be read. It is necessary that it be written legibly so that the police will not question.”

  “The name’s Brown. Write it any way you damn please.”

  “But it is necessary that you should write it, otherwise sometimes there is trouble.”

  “You got the book with you?”

  “Yes.”

  The room gave forth the sounds of motion. A bolt shot back, the door opened a crack.

  Clane put his weight against the door.

  “Say, what the hell is this?” the woman demanded.

  Clane pushed his way into the room. Chu Kee and Sou Ha followed.

  Clane gently closed the door.

  The woman who stood in the middle of the floor was barefooted. She was wearing a slip and apparently nothing else. Her blonde hair was uncombed. A cigarette dangled from her lower lip and her face had the sullen expression of surly defiance which comes to those who have refused to conform to the conventions of life and mask their doubts behind a pose.

  On the dilapidated dresser with its cheap mirror which gave a distorted reflection of the room was a square bottle of gin half full. A streaked water-tumbler on the dresser was partially filled with gin and an empty gin bottle lay on its side near the edge of the dresser.

  “Say, listen,” the woman said, “I’m respectable. I come here when I want to go on a bat. My old man don’t like me to hit the booze. I’ve paid my rent and I’m living alone and liking it. All I want is a chance to finish off this bottle of gin, twelve hours’ sleep, and then I’ll walk out of here and go back to listening to his line of chatter and washing dishes and ironing his shirts. Now what the hell do you want?”

  Clane noticed that, while the room itself was impregnated with the odour of gin, the smell of alcohol was that of fresh liquor, not the stale smell which comes from the breath of a heavy drinker.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs Taonon,” he said, “but in this particular instance, the disguise won’t work.”

  Her eyes were quick with startled fear.

  “So,” Clane said, “we may as well dispense with the alcoholic subterfuge and get down to brass tacks.”

  For a moment she regarded him dubiously, then her eyes shifted to Sou Ha and Chu Kee. They were shrewd, calculating eyes now which studied facial expressions with quick appraisal.

  Abruptly she crossed to a closet, took out a smart, well-tailored dress, slipped it on over her head, opened a drawer, took out well-made, expensive alligator shoes and nylon stockings. She put on both shoes and stockings, opened her handbag, took out a comb, and combed back the tangled mass of her hair. Abruptly she had transformed herself from a blowsy blonde into a smartly tailored, quick-thinking, dangerous antagonist.

  “Won’t you sit down?” she asked. “I think there aren’t any bugs. That’s about all I can say for the place. Two of you will have to sit on the bed. The girl can take the rocking-chair. I wouldn’t advise that straight-backed chair. It’s treacherous. Now what is it you want?”

  “What are you running away from?” Clane asked.

  “From people who want to ask me questions—perhaps.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m tired of answering questions.”

  “Whose questions?”

  “Yours, for one. Suppose we start with you. Let’s find out who you are. What authority do you have to question me?”

  “I’m looking for information.”

  “So I gathered,” she said somewhat scornfully.

  She was calm, poised, and wary—very much in command of herself and rapidly ready to assume command of the situation.

  “I’m Terry Clane. I know your husband.”

  “Oh, so you’re Terry Clane.”

  “Right.”

  “And who are these people?”

  “Friends of mine.”

  “And why should you ask questions?”

  “Because I’m trying to clear up a mystery. Because if you don’t choose to answer my questions, I’ll ring up a friend, Inspector Malloy, tell him where you are, and let him ask the questions.”

  That shot told. She said “Go ahead and ask your questions.”

  “What are you running away from?”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “It might be any number of things.”

  “Such as what?”

  “My husband, perhaps.”

  “What have you done that would make you afraid of him?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “You’ll have to ask him.”

  “Where were you last night?”

  “Looking for someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Perhaps it was my husband.”

  “Was it?”

  “I’m not saying.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Places.”

  Clane sighed. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. I guess we’ll have to let the police do the questioning.”

  Once more she showed fear. “Tell me specifically what you want to know. I’ll answer.”

  “Do you know Edward Harold?”

  She hesitated, then said “Yes.”

  “You met him last night. Did your husband ask you to meet him?”

  “What makes you think I saw Edward Harold last night?”

  “A witness says you did, a waitress in a restaurant.”

  “That’s nonsense.”

  “Are you hiding from the police or from your husband?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I’m asking because I want to find out.”

  She faced him, took a quick breath, then said “All right, if You’re going to drag it out of me, here it is. So far as Edward Harold is concerned, he means nothing to me. He’s friendly with my husband. We were both sorry to hear of his arrest for murder, and I for one was glad to hear of his escape.

  “But there’s another matter where Ricardo and I aren’t so … well, there’s another man, a business associate of my husband’s. He thinks he’s in love with me, and he wants to have a showdown with Ricardo… . I’m in the clear. I’ve done nothing. But Ricardo is insanely jealous at times. I don’t know how much he thinks he knows or what he’d do. And he’s disappeared and I’m hiding out until
I see what’s happened—or whether anything’s going to happen. I’m scared.”

  “Who is this business associate of your husband who is infatuated with you? Is it Nevis?”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Was it Gloster?”

  “Now aren’t you smart!”

  Clane said “Your husband carries quite a bit of insurance. It’s payable to you. Your husband is dead.”

  She stiffened into frozen attention. “Ricardo dead?”

  “You know he is.”

  “Then if you know that, you must know why he was hiding.

  Clane said nothing.

  “And why I was hiding,” she added.

  “You were hiding for the same reason he was?”

  “Of course. He got me on the phone, told me to get under cover where I couldn’t be traced. The fat was in the fire.”

  “Do you mean,” Clane asked, “that he had murdered Gloster?”

  She said “If you know so much, why don’t you know more?”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “Ricardo is dead?”

  “So I understand from the police.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know the details. A police inspector inadvertently let the cat out of the bag.”

  “That Ricardo was dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did he die?”

  “I don’t know.”

  For a long moment she studied him with thought-narrowed eyes. Then she said suddenly “That’s different. Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “Back home.”

  Clane said “You don’t seem to show any grief.”

  Her manner was scornful. “I thought I was dealing with someone of intelligence. You know as well as I do there’s no use showing any grief over something that has happened. Furthermore, the women who have hysterics and sob and shriek and whoop and want to be comforted are the ones who are putting on an act. I know the way I feel, and that’s all that counts.”

  Clane said dryly “The position of the police is that you stand to profit by your husband’s death. You can’t expect them to overlook that.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Surely you can put two and two together?”

  “Meaning that I killed him?”

  Clane met her eyes. “You could hardly expect the police to overlook the obvious.”

  She took the half-filled glass of gin, poured it into the slop-jar, took a hat out of the closet, adjusted it in front of the cheap wavy mirror, put on her coat, and said “Let’s go.”

  “After all,” Clane said, “before you …”

  “Let’s go. Let’s face the police. Let’s get it over with. Surely you weren’t bluffing, Mr Clane?”

  Chu Kee blandly held the door open. Clane stood to one side to let the women precede him.

  Her head held high, Mrs Ricardo Taonon sailed through the door and marched down the corridor, no longer the blowsy blonde who had retired for a gin binge in a cheap Chinese hotel, but a trim, smartly clothed woman, keeping her own counsel and playing her own cards.

  “I think,” Clane said, “we’ll call Inspector Malloy first.”

  “Call anyone you damn please,” Mrs Ricardo Taonon snapped at him. “I’m going home. And if you don’t call the police, I will.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE EIGHT-ROOM APARTMENT of Ricardo Taonon was furnished with objects of Oriental art. Some of these were museum pieces, carved ivories and polished jades. The place might well have been the residence of a wealthy Hong Kong merchant. And in this setting Daphne Taonon assumed an assurance of manner which held just a trace of condescension. Apparently Inspector Malloy was impressed, despite himself.

  Mrs Taonon said to Inspector Malloy “Let’s understand each other right at the start. Mr Clane told me you were looking for me, that you wanted to question me.”

  “That’s right.”

  “He came to me and started to ask questions. These two friends of his, the Chinese man and, I understand, his daughter, were with him.”

  “Very interesting,” Malloy said. “How did he know where to find you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Malloy turned to Clane and raised his eyebrows.

  “Deductive reasoning,” Clane said.

  “Very, very interesting,” Inspector Malloy observed. “I’ll ask you more about that after a while. In the meantime, I want to talk with Mrs Taonon. By the way, did Mr Clane say what the police wanted to ask you about?”

  “My husband’s death.”

  “Well, well, well,” Malloy said. “And how did Mr Clane know that your husband was dead?”

  “I don’t know. He told me that my husband had been killed.”

  “Murdered?”

  “I gathered that was what he meant.”

  “Well now,” Malloy said, “perhaps that deductive reasoning of Mr Clane’s has gone a lot farther than I had thought at the time. You see, Mr Clane himself had been under suspicion, and we gave him a clean bill of health only a short time ago because we thought he”d told us all he knew. But it seems he knew that your husband had been murdered and he knew where to go to find you to tell you about it.”

  “Isn’t that the truth?”

  “What?”

  “About my husband?”

  “I wouldn’t know, ma”am. When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Last night.”

  “Perhaps you can fix it a little closer than that as to time?”

  “About ten o’clock. He was called to the telephone.”

  “Know who was talking?”

  “No.”

  “And what happened?”

  “My husband seemed very much excited, very much put out about something. He also seemed a little alarmed. He put on his hat and coat and went out.”

  “And didn’t come back?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “By the way, where were you?”

  “I went out.”

  “Where?”

  She said “A friend of my husband’s telephoned and was very anxious to see him. He asked me to drive him to a place where I thought my husband might be. I drove him there.”

  “Find your husband?”

  “No.”

  “Who was this friend of your husband”s?”

  “I prefer not to answer that question.”

  “Not some friend of yours?”

  “I said that he was a friend of my husband. His friendship for me was incidental.”

  “And how long were you gone?”

  “Well, after I left that friend, I did some things on my own.”

  “What?”

  She shook her head.

  “What time did you get back?”

  “Some time this morning.”

  “Left your car here and then you yourself left almost immediately?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “Where this gentleman found me.”

  “And where was that?”

  She met Inspector Malloy’s eyes. “It was in a cheap Chinese hotel,” she said. “I was registered under the name of Mrs George L. Brown, and I had used the best disguise I could on a moment’s notice. I tried to make myself look like one of the women who frequent places of that sort.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  Malloy said “You came back to this apartment in the morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how soon did you leave?”

  “Within five minutes.”

  “Not in your car?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I had no place to leave my car. I wanted to go where I couldn’t be traced.”

  “Again why?”

  “Because I tell you I was frightened.”

  “You weren’t frightened until you came back here and found your husband wasn�
��t here?”

  “Well… perhaps so, yes.”

  “How long was it after your husband left before you left?”

  “Not very long.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve got to know what frightened you,” Malloy said.

  “That is a personal matter.”

  “And it wasn’t until Mr Clane told you your husband was dead that you were willing to come back?”

  “I don’t see that that follows.”

  “But after you heard he was dead, you came back.”

  “You can, of course, put it that way if you want to.”

  Malloy turned back to Clane and said “Now every time I run into a blind alley, you seem to be lurking in the shadows. You and this Chinese girl. Now suppose you tell me…”

  The telephone rang.

  Mrs Taonon answered it. “It’s for you, Inspector.”

  Malloy sighed wearily, postponed his questioning, got up and lumbered across the room to the telephone, picked up the receiver, said “Yeah, this is Malloy.”

  He listened for several seconds while the party at the other end of the line apparently poured out a steady stream of conversation. Then Malloy said “Uh-huh,” and then after a moment asked “Where?”

  Again there was a period of silence, broken at length by Malloy, who said “All right, I’m up here. Bring your party up here… Yeah, I’ll do it here. G’bye.”

  He hung up the receiver, walked back to his chair, settled himself comfortably, bit the tip off the end of a cigar and said, quite casually “All of this stuff interests me. How Clane knew where he could go and find you right away. You any idea how he knew where you were, Mrs Taonon?”

  “No, I had never met him before. To the best of my know-ledge, I had never seen him in my life.”

  “Him and this Chinese girl,” Malloy said, shaking his head. “They certainly do get around.” Then he added, all in the same breath “That call was from police headquarters. They found your husband.”

  “His body?”

  “Your husband. Seems he was hiding too.”

  “Where?”

  “San Jose, in an auto court. You see, we thought we might find Edward Harold located in an auto court somewhere, so we put out a dragnet. And, because we thought your husband might have driven him down to the auto court, we broadcast a description of your husband. Your husband didn’t drive Harold down to an auto court.”

  “No?” she asked courteously.