Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Backward Mule

“I don’t think I’m going,” he said.

“Now, don’t be like that,” Malloy said. “After all, Mr. Clane, you’re in a rather precarious position. The police could be just a little tough with you, you know — if they wanted to be.”

Clane said, “If you have a warrant to search the place, go ahead and search it. I don’t have to be there.”

He turned and started to walk down the street.

Malloy was at his side before he had taken five steps. “If I have to get rough, Mr. Clane, I can do that too. You’re coming with me. Are you coming — shall we say, under your own power, or are you going to come in tow?”

Clane, feeling that this byplay was as far as he dared go and that the pantomime would convey to any watcher in the upper windows the knowledge that he was virtually under arrest, said sullenly, “Oh, if you put it that way, I’ll go.”

“I’m putting it that way,” Malloy said, and his big-knuckled hand rested on Clane’s shoulder, slid down the shoulder until the muscular fingers were digging into Clane’s arm. “Come on, Mr. Clane, let’s go.”

Clane accompanied Inspector Malloy back to the entrance to the flat, up the half-dozen cement stairs which led up from the sidewalk. “I think you have the key,” Malloy said.

Clane fumbled around getting the right key, then inserted it in the door and said politely, “You first, Inspector.”

Malloy laughed. “No, no, Mr. Clane, you have the wrong book of etiquette. In times like this, the host goes first and the guest comes along behind. Right up the stairs with you.”

Clane climbed the stairs slowly.

“And now the key to this door,” Malloy said.

Clane once more took as long as he dared getting the door open and then Malloy pushed past him into the apartment.

“Oh, Yat T’oy,” Clane called and added in Chinese, “the police search...”

“None of that,” Malloy interrupted him sharply. “We’ll talk English if you please, Mr. Clane.”

“My servant understands Chinese better.”

“That’s too bad, that’s really too bad. You should teach him to understand English because, you see, things are sort of in the balance here, Mr. Clane. And if you don’t talk English, you’re going to find yourself in something of a mess. To be perfectly frank with you, my instructions are to arrest you and charge you with the murder of George Gloster in case your actions are suspicious.”

“Charge me with the murder?” Clane said, raising his voice.

“Well, of course, I don’t make the formal charge, but I’d arrest you on suspicion of murder and — there’d be a few technicalities. The charge would probably be as an accessory after the fact or something of that sort. Come on, now let’s get this over with. We’ll discuss the other part later.”

There was no sign of Yat T’oy or of Sou Ha.

Clane walked from the living room through the dining room toward the kitchen, Malloy on his heels, his eyes darting around in lightningswift scrutiny, missing no detail.

“I can’t imagine where Yat T’oy is,” Clane said irritably.

“And I’d like to look in the bedrooms, if you don’t mind, Mr. Clane. And don’t try to smuggle anyone out through another door into the corridor. I warn you that this place is sewed up tighter than a flour sack.”

Clane said, “I’m not trying to get anybody out, I’m trying to find where my man is.”

He pushed open the door to the kitchen.

Yat T’oy was standing by the sink, wooden-faced in his stupidity, chopping onions with a large, sharp butcher knife, using that flexible wrist motion which is the sign of a professional cook and making the knife move so fast that the blade was little more than a blur, the point resting on the chopping board, the blade being elevated and lowered by the rapid wrist motion.

On her hands and knees, Sou Ha was scrubbing the linoleum of the kitchen floor, a bucket of dirty, soapy water at her left, her hands clasped over the back of a scrubbing brush as she swayed back and forth.

Her hair was loose and stringy, hanging down around her face. She was barefooted and her skirt was pulled down tightly between her legs and pinned in back. She didn’t even glance up as the two men entered the room.

Clane, taking in the situation, said angrily to Yat T’oy, “I told you not to have this woman around any more. She didn’t come the day she was supposed to. You’re fired,” Clane said turning angrily to Sou Ha.

She looked up at him with blank countenance.

“Alle same you go home, no come back,” Clane said. “My man say you no come work day you promise come.”

“I work now,” Sou Ha said in a flat expressionless voice.

“If you don’t mind my butting in, Clane,” Malloy said, “it might be well for you to remember that you’re not in the Orient any more. You can’t hardly get anyone to do housework at all, let alone...”

“I’m running this,” Clane interrupted angrily. “At least I guess the police will let me have charge of my own household. As a matter of fact, there’s nothing here that one man can’t do. But you know the Chinese — they like companionship and my bills show that Yat T’oy has been having this woman come in regularly.”

“Rather old for a Lothario,” Malloy said.

“You can’t tell about these Chinese,” Clane told him. “They’re deep, and the old men like the young girls.”

“Same as every place else,” Malloy said. “I want to look in the bedroom, Mr. Clane.”

“All right, we’ll go in the bedroom. Yat T’oy, you get that woman out of here. You savvy?”

“Me savvy. She nice woman. Make floor very clean.”

“You can make floor very clean,” Clane said. “This job one-man job. You savvy?”

“Me savvy,” Yat T’oy said angrily and slammed the butcher knife down on the chopping board. Then turning to Sou Ha he said angrily in Chinese, apparently addressing his remark entirely to her, “Have no fear of the bedrooms, they have been carefully gone over.”

Clane, with the manner of a man whose day has been subject to a series of exasperating annoyances, said to Malloy, “All right, let’s go look in the bedrooms. Gosh, how I wish I were back in China!”

Inspector Malloy’s manner showed that this search had been the result of some sudden idea which, while it semed good at the time, was, in view of recent developments, seeming less sound with each passing minute. He looked through the bedrooms in the more or less perfunctory manner of one who is convinced, even before a door is open, that the room is empty.

“All right, Clane,” he said, “just checking up, that’s all.”

“I hope you’re satisfied.”

“I am, and I’m sorry I disturbed you. No hard feelings, I hope?”

“No hard feelings,” Clane said. “Have a cigar. There are some Yat T’oy picked up through some of his Chinese connections. They’re very good.”

“Chinese cigars?”

“Heavens no, they’re a pure Havana cigar. Try one.”

“Thank you, I will. Been a little difficult to get any lately.”

Malloy took a cigar from the box Clane extended, smelled of the wrapper and his face instantly softened into a smile of approval.

“Put some in your pocket,” Clane urged. “I don’t smoke them myself. Just keep them for guests and Yat T’oy laid in a good supply.”

“Thank you, I will.”

“Yat T’oy,” Clane called, “get that woman out of here. If you’ll pardon me a moment,” he said to Inspector Malloy, “I’m going to break up this romance.”

“Don’t be such a spoilsport,” Malloy said chuckling.

“It’s the idea,” Clane said. “An old man and a young girl like that. I suppose if the truth were known, she’s his slave girl and he owns her just as you or I would own a dog. But just the same...”