The Case of the Backward Mule by Erle Stanley Gardner

Author:Erle Stanley Gardner [Gardner, Erle Stanley]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: detective
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

IN EXACTLY EIGHTEEN MINUTES after Terry Clane had telephoned, the buzzer on the apartment rang.

Clane waved Yat T’oy aside and opened the door.

Chu Kee stood on the threshold, his face bland and expressionless. He was wearing a light overcoat, his hat and gloves in his left hand. He shook hands with Terry Clane, American fashion.

A step behind him, Sou Ha was bundled up in a fur coat with a high collar which reached above her ears. She wore a brimless hat with a red feather trailing out at a jaunty angle. The hat was bright blue and the feather of vivid, conspicuous crimson.

“How I’m doing, Terry?” she asked.

“That’s fine,” he told her.

“I had to do a little mind-reading over the telephone.”

“You made a fine job of it. Come in.”

Cynthia Renton dropped a little curtsy to Chu Kee, then went over to give Sou Ha her hand. Yat T’oy, his aged eyes sparkling with pride in his race, took their hats and coats, brought in pots of hot tea, little plates of dried melon seed, cigarettes and shavings of fresh coconut boiled in sugar, and dun crisp wafers made from rice flour saw that cigarettes and ash-trays were in place, and then discreetly withdrew.

Clane got down to business at once. “Cynthia is wanted by the police,” he said.

“For what reason?” asked Chu Kee.

“They aren’t sure.”

“Ignorance breeds uncertainty,” Chu Kee remarked.

“The police,” Clane explained, “are investigating.”

“Only the lucky dare to hurry,” Chu Kee observed, his graceful fingers picking up a dried melon seed.

“Don’t beat around the bush, First-Born,” Sou Ha said. “You want her out of here and the place is watched, isn’t that right?”

Clane nodded.

Sou Ha said “I thought that was it. I wore a coat with a collar that conceals most of my face. The natural target for the police gaze would be the blue hat with the conspicuous red feather.”

“You mean I’m to dress in her clothes and go out?” Cynthia Renton asked.

Clane nodded.

“And then what?” Cynthia Renton asked.

Chu Kee spoke almost instantly, as though the speech had been rehearsed. “I am no longer young,” he said. “Some day I shall join my ancestors. Perhaps it will be sooner than I think. I desire that I leave behind some likeness of myself. I wish a portrait painted. You are the portrait-painter I have selected. Would it, perhaps, be possible for you to live in my humble dwelling for a time and paint the portrait which I desire?”

“Dark in tone,” Sou Ha said eagerly. “A rather dark back-ground and then my father’s face illuminated so that it. shows the expression of the eyes, the kindly lines about the mouth. You could make a wonderful portrait, Cynthia.”

Chu Kee regarded her with resignation. “Oh, that I might but capture the wisdom of youth,” he said.

Sou Ha abruptly became quiet.

Terry Clane said “It would have to be a good job, Cynthia. You’d have to make it convincing. It should be pretty well finished by the time anyone finds you long enough to ask questions.

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