Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Backward Mule

Chu Kee escorted his guest over toward the row of ceremonial seats which graced the wall of the room, then suddenly smiled and said, “Perhaps you would be more comfortable in the cushioned chair?”

Terry Clane shook his head. “I have learned to enjoy the things of China,” he said and permitted himself to be seated in one of the straight-backed, inlaid chairs, chairs which to the average white man would have been unendurably hard and uncomfortable.

“Really,” Clane went on, “when you get accustomed to them, they’re much better than the cushioned chairs. You’re sitting upright in these chairs and with your back straight, not slouched down on the end of your spine. You are well, my Teacher?”

“Life has given this unworthy one health,” Chu Kee agreed. “And you, my son?”

“Never better.”

The servant brought tea in Chinese cups that were more like covered bowls nestling in doughnutlike saucers.

“You have accomplished that which you set out to do?” Chu Kee asked blandly.

“I am hopeful that my trip was a success.”

“Others thought it so?”

“Yes.”

“That is well.”

There was a period of silence during which they sipped their tea, then Chu Kee said abruptly, “Your friend, the Painter Woman, where is she?”

Clane looked at him with startled surprise. “You don’t know?”

“I do not know,” Chu Kee said gravely.

“But I thought... well, in a jam like that, I thought she’d come to you.”

“I too thought she would come to me,” Chu Kee said. “As one who is close to you, she also is close to me. That which is mine is at the disposal of a friend of yours.”

Terry Clane sat in silence, digesting that information.

“You have not heard from her? There has been no message?”

“There has been no message.”

“There will be one,” Chu Kee said in a tone of quiet assurance. “She knows what boat you were on?”

“Yes.”

“She will read that it has arrived and will get some word to you.”

“That would be exceedingly dangerous,” Clane said. “The police are looking for that very thing to happen. They will try to intercept any message she sends.”

“The Painter Woman is clever,” Chu Kee said, as though that effectively dismissed the possibility of police intercepting her message.

They were silent for the space of several seconds. Then Chu Kee, picking up his cup of tea, held it in his clasped hands, letting the heat of the liquid warm his long, sensitive fingers. “There is gossip,” he said at length.

“About what?”

“The Eastern Art Import and Trading Company.”

“And what is the gossip?”

“I do not hear it all, but evidently there has been much loss and much profit. These men play at politics in the Orient.”

“I have heard they are interested in the Philippines,” Clane said.

“One hears many things,” Chu Kee murmured.

“This was supposed to be authentic.”

“Many profits and many losses,” Chu Kee went on almost dreamily. “First there was a great loss, then there was a period of recovery, and of late there has been a big, a very big, profit. These men are becoming powerful because one of them is shrewd.”

“One of them, my Instructor in Wisdom?”

“This Ricardo Taonon, the Eurasian,” Chu Kee answered obliquely after the Chinese custom, “is a man of great wile. His mouth says that he is a great friend of China.”

“Empty words?” Terry Clane asked.

“Words, certainly,” Chu Kee said gravely. “The significance of those words is not yet known. I have men who are investigating. They are shrewd men — and they are puzzled. The man is deep. He plays a game which does not appear on the surface.”

After that there was a period when there was no talk. Silence enveloped them in an aura of friendship where each drew strength and pleasure from the presence of the other, sitting there in a row on straight-backed cushionless chairs sipping the hot pale amber of tea which is only for the palate of the connoisseur.

This tea had been grown at a certain elevation above sea level. A hundred feet higher or lower produced tea of a different quality. Only leaves of a certain tenderness were picked at a very particular time, gathered by the most attractive maidens in the village who selected each leaf with the care that a diamond merchant would bestow in choosing a stock of gems, inspecting each carefully for flaws and blemishes. To drink such tea rapidly is a crime against good taste. Such tea is to be sipped carefully in small quantities so that the delicate aroma penetrates to the nostrils. The flavor is nectar to the tongue.

The silence endured for three minutes, for five, for ten.

Clane finished his cup of tea. Sou Ha made a motion toward the teacup to refill his cup but Clane bowed and smiled. “It is enough, Sou Ha. I have work to do.”

“There will be a message,” Chu Kee said confidently.

“And in a message is danger.”

“This Ricardo Taonon,” Chu Kee cautioned. “You knew him in China?”

“I met him in Hong Kong, yes.”

“Did you learn, perhaps, anything of his connections?”

“No. He seems to know everyone, but he has no close friends. Apparently he’s on friendly terms with everyone, particularly the influential people, and there it ends.”

Chu Kee said, “My own men found him very difficult to appraise in Hong Kong. He is an interesting man. You will walk very carefully, my son, and keep to the middle of the street.”

Clane bowed his leave-taking, gently shook hands with himself after the Chinese custom. “I will walk slowly and carefully,” he said, “and keep to the middle of the road.”

Sou Ha showed him out, her soft, pliable hand resting on his arm. “It is better,” she said, “that you leave by another door than the one through which you entered.”

Clane nodded acquiescence.

She led him along soft Oriental carpets, rooms which flanked the long corridor, whose perpetually closed doors were merely a front of poverty to conceal the luxury of that which lay behind. “You will be careful, First-Born?” she asked.

“As careful as can be, yes.”

“My father thinks you are in danger.”

“Why?”

“He does not always confide in his daughter. Tell me, you have no idea where the Painter Woman is?”

“No.”

“Then she is with this man who has escaped,” Sou Ha said. “She has decided to live with him so long as he lives and to die with him when he is... I am so sorry, my friend, have I hurt you?”

“No.”

“You still love her?”

“I gave her her freedom when duty called on me to return to the paths of danger, paths that would take me far from civilization, far from the contact of mail.”

“And did she desire this freedom which you gave her so lightly?”

“I explained to her that it was out of the question for her to come with me, that I would be gone for years.”

“Oh, you explained ,” Sou Ha said and then laughed musically.

Clane looked at her.

She guided him to a door. “In my country,” she said, “there are many very wise men. You have studied under these men, First-Born. You have learned to concentrate, you have acquired much knowledge. And by meditation you have ripened that knowledge into wisdom.”

Clane looked down at her, his eyes questioning.

“Go on,” he said.

“But these wise men,” Sou Ha went on, “steeped in the lore of their wisdom, know nothing of women. Therefore, they can teach nothing of women.”

She pressed a button. An electric mechanism shot back steel bolts on the inside of the door.

“And how does one go about acquiring this knowledge of women?” Terry Clane asked.