Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Backward Mule

She said, “You know Horace Farnsworth, Terry. He was like an uncle to Cynthia. He simply worshiped the ground she walked on. He was worried about the way Cynthia tossed money around and he wanted to have her take care of it. He said that inside of five years she’d have gone through the fortune she inherited and be absolutely broke.”

“So Cynthia turned it over to him?”

“Certainly not. Cynthia is wildly impulsive and unconventional, but she wouldn’t put all of her financial eggs in one basket. She gave him five thousand to invest and then later on another five thousand.”

“Did she keep a close check on where he was making her investments?”

“No. She considered this to be only a drop in the bucket. She gave it to Horace and then forgot about it. She wanted it for a nest egg. And Horace wanted to run it up to a million dollars and surprise her. I think he took some chances with it on that account.”

“Go ahead. What happened?”

“Well, after you left for China and told Cynthia you wanted her to be free and that you were going on a dangerous mission and all that... Well, the poor child was completely heartbroken for a while and then Edward Harold came along. He was just what she needed to cheer her up. He was as scatterbrained as Cynthia in some ways, and conservative in others. He’s strong for the underdog. He appealed to her.”

Terry kept his eyes on the tip of the fork with which he was making designs on the table cloth. “Were they engaged?” he asked.

“Don’t be silly,” Alma said. “Cynthia was waiting. But she liked Edward and they went places together and he became just absolutely utterly infatuated with her . He just worshiped the ground she walked on.”

“And became jealous of Horace Farnsworth?”

For a moment there was a long silence, then Alma said, “I don’t know.”

“You never were very good at lying,” Clane said.

She met his eyes then.

“Yes, he was intensely jealous.”

“Go on.”

“Well, Edward Harold kept wanting Cynthia to get her money back from Horace Farnsworth, or to have him make a detailed accounting. And Cynthia laughed at him and told him Horace was absolutely dependable and honest and skillful. Well, you know how those things build up.”

“So Harold went to Farnsworth?”

She said, “Edward Harold did a little investigating. You remember that I wrote you that Horace had gone into partnership with Stacey Nevis, Ricardo Taonon and George Gloster?”

Clane nodded.

“It was an unfortunate association,” she said. “Terry, I distrust that Ricardo more man I can tell you. He gives me the creeps. There’s something devious and mysterious about the man.”

Clane smiled. “He’s a Eurasian,” he said. “He is sensitive. He feels his mixed blood. Has enough of the Oriental in him to make him retire within himself when he gets hurt. He’s like a cat that wants to crawl away by itself when it’s sick. A dog will seek human companionship, but a cat wants only to get away from everything and everybody.”

“I know. I try to make allowances for that. But nevertheless the man is a... Terry, he’s evil.”

“Well, we’ll pass that for a minute. Tell me what happened. Did Horace Farnsworth put Cynthia’s money in the partnership?”

“No. He put it in oil — and it didn’t pan out.”

The waiter drew aside the green curtain and, with something of a flourish, deposited two dry martinis and a bowl of green olives.

Clane said, “I think you can duplicate these martinis in about five minutes. Okay, Alma, that’s enough for now. We quit talking about the case and talk about something else.”

They clicked the tips of their glasses together, sipped the drink. Then Clane said, “There’s one more question. Has it ever occurred to you that Cynthia might have gone to... friends of mine?”

“Chinese?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve thought of that.”

“All right,” Clane said. “Try not to think of it. The police have ways of reading your mind. And refuse to take any lie-detector test in case they ask you if you’re willing to do so. Tell them your nerves are too unstrung. And now let’s eat.”

Where San Francisco’s Chinatown separates itself from the rest of the city, the line of demarcation is sharp. It is as though the Chinese, mindful of the fact that a Western author had observed that East was East and West was West and never the twain might meet, had endeavored to offer visible proof of the logic of that statement.

Terry Clane, emerging from the Stockton Street tunnel, found himself surrounded by the atmosphere of the Orient as effectively as though he had stepped from a ship to the wharf at Hong Kong.

Here were expensive shops, beginning to show once more in the windows those objects of Oriental patience which are so inconceivable to the Western mind. Here was a sampan carved from ivory beginning to turn with age, a sampan loaded heavily with sacks of merchandise, peopled with miniature ivory figures bent with the toil of a lifetime of labor, so cunningly fashioned they were complete even to the smallest detail. One could see the wrinkles about the tired eyes of the stooped man who worked the sculling oar back and forth by the aid of a rope so arranged that it kept the blade of the oar turned at just the right angle to yield greatest efficiency. This ivory masterpiece had taken years of work by a clever craftsman. It was so marvelously complete that the observer looking at it might well have felt he was standing on a dock at the Whangpoo, looking through the wrong end of a telescope at one of the typical sampans passing by. Yet the price at which it was to be sold was such that an affluent Westerner could well buy it, place it carelessly on top of the mantel as an ornament and forget about it, little realizing that in the capacity for taking such infinite pains over such a long period of time lay the key to China’s indestructibility.

Over these stores were offices, apartments, lodge rooms where the various tongs held their meetings, and down the side streets one could catch glimpses of figures moving silently along the line of shops where merchandise was sold by Orientals only to Orientals; Chinese drugstores where one might find weird remedies concocted from various animals and reptiles; grocery stores where one might find Chinese delicacies, birds’ nests for soup, son keou tow with its peculiar pungent, inimitable flavor that is like nothing else on earth, “petrified eggs” which had been buried in mud until they had solidified into a dark jelly with a flavor that few Occidental palates could appreciate.

Terry Clane moved through these side streets, opened a plain, unmarked door which disclosed a flight of grimy stairs lighted by a dispirited bulb which seemed about ready to give up its inadequate struggle against the dark shadows that were forever closing in upon it.

Terry Clane closed the door behind him, walked with swift sure steps up the dusty stair treads. He came to an upper hallway where his feet echoed from uncarpeted boards, where lines of solid wooden doors remained closed, somber and silent, masking whatever might lie behind them with the inscrutable secretiveness of the Orient.

Terry climbed another flight of stairs, moved down another corridor, paused at a door so old that the varnish on it had turned dark and had granulated, a door which with age had collected all of the grime and dirt of a big city.

Uninitiated fingers could never have found the bell button which was to one side of the door, concealed in the shadows. Clane pressed the button, twice. There was no sound of a signal from within.

Clane waited patiently. The noise of the city did not penetrate to this corridor. So far as any audible evidence was concerned, the building might have been entirely vacant, holding its breath, waiting for a victim to walk into its sinister embrace.