“Of course,” Terry pointed out, “now that I’ve handled it, my fingerprints would be on it anyway, but you might have been able to identify it by...”
“No,” Malloy interrupted, “there weren’t any fingerprints on it, not a one. It had been wiped clean, and...”
The district attorney said sternly, “That’s all right, Inspector, I’ll handle it.”
Malloy lapsed into silence. Dixon turned to Clane.
“You haven’t any idea when, how, or by whom this weapon was taken from your collection, Mr. Clane?”
“No, I haven’t. I can’t, of course, say whether it did or did not come from my collection.”
“I believe the glass door of your curio case was locked when you discovered the sleeve gun was missing?”
“Yes.”
“When you tried to open that door Malloy tells me you simply twisted the knob and seemed rather surprised the door didn’t open.”
“That’s true.”
“Then you hadn’t expected to find the door locked?”
“No.”
“Therefore, someone else must have locked it?”
“Of course,” Clane pointed out, “memory is a tricky thing at best, and whether that door was locked or unlocked would ordinarily be a matter so trivial...”
“No need to apologize,” the district attorney interrupted. “We understand the circumstances perfectly. You’re giving us your best recollection.”
“My best recollection is that the door was unlocked the last time I had occasion to look into the cabinet.”
“You carry a key to it on your key ring?”
“Yes.”
“Who else has a key to it?”
“Yat Toy, my servant.”
“How long has he been with you?”
“Three years.”
“He was with you in China?”
“Yes.”
“Has he changed his name since leaving China?”
Clane smiled and said, “If you’re referring to the name on his papers, don’t think he’s traveling under an alias. Yat T’oy is something of a nickname. It means ‘Little One’ ”
“Do you know if he knew Jacob Mandra?”
“No, I would have no way of knowing.”
“You didn’t take him with you when you went to call on Mandra?”
“No, I would hardly take a servant with me.”
“Isn’t he more than a servant? Isn’t he a friend?”
“In a way, yes.”
“And you can’t give us any more help with this sleeve gun?”
“I can’t positively identify it, if that’s what you’re referring to.”
“That’s what I’m referring to.”
“No.”
“Look here, Clane, you’re morally certain that’s your gun.”
“I think it is my gun, yes.”
“Then, why not identify it?”
“Because I can’t... May I ask where you found it?”
As soon as he had asked the question, Clane realized that it was the question for which these men had been waiting. Dixon slowly pushed back his chair, got to his feet, strode to the overstuffed leather chair which Terry had occupied on the occasion of his first visit, extended a dramatic, rigidly pointing forefinger, and said solemnly, “Mr. Clane, that sleeve gun was discovered about half an hour ago by Inspector Malloy. It had been shoved down between the cushions of this chair.”
“You have no means of knowing just when it had been inserted in those cushions?” Terry asked.
“It might have been placed there at any time after the murder,” Dixon said.
“Am I to understand,” Clane asked, “that you feel it’s possible I might have had the gun in my possession when I was calling on you this morning and surreptitiously inserted it in the cushions of the chair?”
“It is quite possible.”
“Well,” Terry retorted, “I didn’t put it there.”
“Have you any idea who did?”
“No.”
Inspector Mallory exchanged a significant glance with the district attorney.
“Very well,” Dixon said with cold formality, “that will be all, Mr. Clane. Please don’t leave town without first getting permission from me.”
“I’m to consider myself in custody?” Clane asked.
“Not at all,” Inspector Malloy interposed hastily. “You’re a witness, Mr. Clane. And you’re in a position to co-operate with us.”
“And,” the district attorney added dryly, “we want to be assured of your continued co-operation, Mr. Clane.”
6
Terry stopped twice on the way back to his apartment to call the number of Vera Matthews’s studio. Neither call was answered. As he left the second of the call boxes and returned to his waiting cab, he said to the driver, “Wait here for a minute,” and settled back against the cushions.
The driver stared at him curiously. “You mean you want me to wait right here at the curb?”
“Yes.”
“Shall I shut off the motor?”
“No.”
Terry focused his eyes upon the glittering metal bracket which held the rear-view mirror in place over the windshield, and sought to apply the lessons in concentration he had learned in the Orient.
To his chagrin, he was momentarily unable to overcome the distraction of his surroundings. The throbbing vibrations of the cab, the pounding heels of streaming pedestrians, the raucous blast of horns, the shrill of traffic whistles, all impinged upon his consciousness. And, when he sought to focus his mind into a narrow beam of concentration which he could turn at will upon the various subjects which he wished to consider, he found those distractions sufficiently insistent to split his attention into the minor foci which his Oriental teacher had warned him to avoid as a mental plague.
His consciousness jumped unbidden back to the surroundings of the monastery, the forbidding bleak walls, the barren snow-capped mountains in the distance, the rushing cataracts... the interior of his cell... the monotonous diet of rice and dried fish... the little Russian girl whose laughing eyes and red lips haunted his memory with the illusive vagueness of incense smoke wafted by a sudden draught.
Then his thoughts ran through the whole gamut of memories, the treasure of the old city, the journey to the monastery, the bandits, the strange personality of the master: the calmly serene forehead, the steady eyes, the aura of power which clung to him as the misty clouds hung of a morning to the snow-capped mountain peaks. Terry recalled the teachings this man had expounded in the calm monotone of one who relies upon a logic so powerful that he needs no trick of expression to drive his statements home... “The mind is a good servant, but a poor master. Undisciplined, it is like a child who has never been taught obedience. Memory should be the servant of the consciousness. Too often it becomes the master. The undisciplined mind refuses to focus upon any one thing, but splits itself into hundreds of minor foci. These foci are fed by observation and memory, sapping from the reason a part of its latent power, just as irrigation ditches take water from rivers. Any man past forty, who lives in the environment of modem civilization, has acquired so many parasitic thought foci that he cannot concentrate with more than thirty per cent of his conscious attention. Anxiety over business, the memories of domestic inharmonies are thin trickles of wasted mental energy which sap the power from his mind.”
Terry had never been able to penetrate the past of this mysterious Master. Nor had he ever learned the man’s age. The man could speak faultless English when he chose, and could converse with equal fluency in several of the Chinese dialects. He apparently had experienced and learned to scorn the environment of civilization. He spent his days, serenely tranquil, in the mountain fastness, teaching such pupils as were sufficiently earnest in their pursuit of knowledge to make the long and difficult pilgrimage to the monastery.