Erle Stanley Gardner
Murder Up My Sleeve
To
KIT KING LOUIS
Ngoh gen pang yieu dak beit chung meng Sin Sahng
In memory of a rainy day at
the railroad station in Peiping
1
Terry Clane sat waiting in the outer office of the district attorney, and had no idea why he was waiting, nor for what.
In the background of his immediate memory was the recollection of peremptory knuckles on his door, of men pushing past Yat T’oy, his Chinese servant, and into his bedroom, waiting while he dressed, of being hustled into a police car, which with screaming siren clearing its way through traffic, had rushed him to the district attorney’s office.
Against the background of these hectic and scrambled memories, the irksome waiting in the district attorney’s outer office was a period of nerve strain which made the clacking of the wall clock seem a veritable tattoo of accusation.
The blonde young woman at the information desk from time to time made a surreptitious study of Terry Clane’s profile.
Keeping his eyes averted, yet conscious of her scrutiny, Terry wondered whether the district attorney had perhaps instructed her to observe and report upon his demeanor, or if her interest were purely gratuitous.
It was shortly before ten o’clock. Lawyers bustled importantly from the side doors flanking the long corridor, pushed open the swinging gate and strode across the outer office. As they walked they flung words over their shoulders to the girl who sat at the desk marked “Information.”
Terry Clane watched them with detached interest.
“Department Five, People vs Taylor,” a red-headed man said, and hurried out. “Judge Belter, preliminary in the Jackson case,” a thin, nervous individual snapped as he, too, lunged towards the outer door. “Argument on Motion to Quash, People vs Heinz,” remarked a fleshy young man whose perspiring hand clung to his leather briefcase as though he were afraid someone might try to snatch it from his grasp.
The young woman at the information desk made notes on a long sheet of paper containing a typewritten list of names. She checked these names off one at a time. A clock chimed the hour of ten. The frenzied activity of the office ceased. There were no more banging doors, no more hurried steps in the corridor.
The slightly wistful eyes of the young woman glanced once more at Terry Clane.
Clane, swiftly shifting his own eyes, caught and held hers.
“Do you think,” he asked, “that such haste actually makes for efficiency?”
“Certainly,” she said; then after a moment added, “it’s the modern pace.”
Clane’s nod was deferential, but he said casually, “Exactly, going in circles.”
She frowned. “Did you say circles or cycles?”
“Which,” he asked, extracting a carved ivory cigarette case from his pocket, “would you say?” And, while she was wrestling with that, inquired so casually that he seemed merely making conversation, “What did the district attorney wish to see me about?”
Instinctively she grasped at the understandable question.
“I think it’s something about...” She caught herself in mid-sentence.
Far from showing disappointment at his failure to elicit information, Clane calmly pre-empted the conversational lead as she hesitated, making it seem almost as though he had interrupted her.
“The modern pace,” he said calmly, selecting a cigarette from the case, “defeats its own ends; the public demands that tomorrow’s newspapers be on the street to-night, and so misses the real morning news; that fruit be picked green and softened on the fruit stands; that the Christmas numbers of magazines be on the stands the first of November... Tell me, wouldn’t you like some tree-ripened fruit for a change?”
Her nod was a trifle vague.
“Am I supposed to be a witness to something?” Clane went on smoothly, in the same casual tone, “or have I committed some major crime — a murder, perhaps?”
The dazed young woman was groping for a reply when the buzzer on the switchboard sounded. Her agile fingers clicked keys into place. She said into the transmitter, “Yes, Mr. Dixon.” Her finger snapped a key. As she raised her eyes and spoke to Terry Clane, her voice showed relief. “The district attorney will see you now, Mr. Clane — right through that gate, straight down the corridor to the double doors at the end.”
Terry Clane smiled his thanks, walked down the long corridor and pushed open the swinging doors. A secretary who sat very rigid behind a desk nodded towards a door marked “Private” and said, “Right through that door, Mr. Clane, please.”
Terry opened the door.
Parker Dixon, seated in a massive leather swivel-chair, was signing correspondence. He glanced up, said, “Good morning, Mr. Clane. Take that chair, please.” His eyes were back on the letters before he had finished speaking. His pen scrawled a signature. A young woman with tired eyes mechanically blotted that signature while the district attorney was making another. When the correspondence had all been signed, she deposited it gently in a wire basket and tiptoed from the office as though she feared to intrude upon sacred thoughts.
The district attorney looked up.
He was in his early fifties. His lips smiled with the readiness of a veteran politician. His eyes were watchful and did not smile. So completely convincing was his facial cordiality that few persons bothered to notice the cool appraisal of those eyes.
“I’m sorry that it was necessary to bother you, Mr. Clane,” Parker Dixon began without other preliminary, “but a matter of great importance makes it necessary to ask certain questions.”
“Just what,” Clane asked, “is the nature of this matter? Should I feel flattered or frightened?”
The district attorney continued to smile, but his greenish eyes were as watchful as those of a cat studying a caged bird.
“Suppose,” he said, “you let me ask my questions first? If you don’t mind, we’ll dispense with preliminaries. You see, I’ve already acquired complete information about your life. Therefore, I only want to ask you about certain specific events which took place within the last few hours.”
Clane’s eyebrows showed courteous surprise. “You’ve collected complete information about my life?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“May I ask when your interest in me reached the information-seeking stage?”
The probing eyes caught the reflection of light from a window and seemed to glitter.
“Since about four-thirty this morning. Does that mean anything to you, Mr. Clane?”
“Only that your information would, under those circumstances, be woefully incomplete.”
The district attorney said, “I’m afraid you underestimate the facilities which are at my disposal.”
Somewhat after the manner of a magician producing a rabbit from a hat, he picked up several closely typewritten sheets of paper from his desk; and Terry Clane, realizing that he had played into the other’s hand by saying exactly that which he had been expected to say, schooled himself against repeating his blunder.
The district attorney began reading in a low monotone:
“Terrance Clane, age twenty-nine, hair dark, wavy, complexion smooth olive, eyes blue, height five feet eleven, weight one hundred and eighty-five, graduated from the University of California, took law course and was admitted to the California Bar; went to China and then entered the diplomatic service, showed himself an apt student of Chinese language, philosophy and psychology; abruptly resigned from service, disappeared and was reputed to have started for the interior, accompanied by an old Chinese.