“Come on, Eva,” said Terry with a grin, seizing Eva’s arm. “The old razorback’ll charge you with lifting his leather if you don’t get out of here quick!”
18
“Chow’s on me,” said Terry Ring as they stood on the sidewalk before the Centre Street Building. He was in high spirits. “Come on, I’ll take you all over to Fung’s. There’s one Chink that knows how to make egg-roll.”
“I’ll go anywhere,” said Eva. She inhaled deeply and with rare enjoyment, as if she had never realized how sweet free air, even in New York, could be.
“How about you, Doc?”
“Can’t eat the stuff,” said Dr. MacClure absently.
“Then we’ll go somewhere else—”
“No.” He kissed Eva. “Run along, honey. Forget everything. You will, won’t you?”
“Yes,” said Eva, but she knew she would not, and she knew he knew she would not. “Oh, come along with us, Daddy! We’ll go—”
“A walk will do me worlds of good.” He paused, and then suddenly said: “Don’t ever call me anything else, Eva,” and swung off up the street. They watched him in silence as his tall, bulky figure marched off toward the police academy on the next block.
“Swell guy,” said Terry. “How about you, Queen? Haven’t you got anywhere to go, either? I’ll bet you’re tired.”
“I’m hungry,” said Ellery.
Terry looked disappointed for an instant. Then he yelled: “Hey, taxi!” and Eva found herself faintly smiling.
He chattered incessantly on the short jolting trip to Chinatown, paid off the driver with a bill, said: “Keep the change, sucker,” and steered them across the narrow Pell Street sidewalk to what looked like the entrance to a cellar.
“Don’t mind the looks of this joint. It’s the real McCoy. All the Chinks eat here themselves. Hello, Fung.” A broad-cheeked Chinese smiled and bobbed in the basement restaurant. The place was empty except for three old Orientals wearing black hats and drinking rice wine out of beer bottles. “Never mind, Fung. I’ll pick my own table. It’s the one the cockroaches keep away from.”
He led them to a corner, held a chair gallantly for Eva. “The cockroaches,” he said, “were a gag.” She smiled again. “The walls are a poisonous green, and plenty dirty, but the kitchen’s spotless. Want to see it?”
“No, thank you.”
“That’s it! You’ve got a dimple near your mouth that you ought to show more often. Hey, Queen! Cheer up. You still seeing snakes?” He chuckled.
“Shut up,” said Ellery irritably. “What on earth do you eat in a place like this?”
“Leave it to Uncle Oscar. Wei!” A little Chinese with an apron tied around his waist and no necktie scuttled over. “Big-big Wan-Tan. Egg-roll, three portions. Shrimp chop-suey. Chow mein, Canton style. Heavy on the rice. Wine. Tea. Shove off!”
“That sounds like an awful lot,” said Eva. “I’ll just have some chow mein and tea.”
“You’ll have what I give you.” Terry chucked his hat carelessly over his shoulder and, by a miracle, it stuck to a peg on the wall. “Take your coat off if you’re hot, Queen. Fung won’t mind.”
“Miss MacClure might.”
“Oh, I don’t!”
“Say, you’re all right, gorgeous! Feel better?”
“You haven’t given me a chance to feel anything,” said Eva. “Where is my mother, Terry?”
Terry glanced away. Through the swinging kitchen doors Wei was emerging, like Atlas, bearing an enormous tray. “I don’t know.”
“But you said—”
“I know what I said.” He turned back and took her hand, feeling her fingers absently. “That’s some sparkler, isn’t it? I had to say something, kid. I thought maybe the old boy would fall for it. Stalling, that’s all.”
“Then you don’t know!” cried Eva. “Nobody knows anything!”
“Take it easy, Eva. Don’t think. Remember what your old man said. He’s right. Forget it. It’ll all come out in the wash.”
Wei arrived and set a huge tureen before them with a slip-slopping bang. “Wan-tan,” he announced, and shuffled off.
It was clear Chinese soup choked with doughy masses and floating thick chunks of pork, like chips on the river. The steam smelled savory. “Ah,” said Terry, rubbing his hands. “Here, kid, give me your plate. Chinese knishes, those are. Know what a knish is? I used to buy “em on the cuff off old Finkelstein down in Cherry Street when I was a kid peddling papers. He had a little wagon that pushed—”
To Ellery, listening as Terry rattled on, not giving Eva time to think, making her smile, making her talk, everything looked extremely bleak. As he attacked the soup it occurred to him that for all this breeziness and lack of polish Mr. Terence Ring was an extraordinarily subtle young man. You never knew, he reflected, what Mr. Ring was really thinking.
“Soup’s delicious,” said Ellery. “Now excuse me for interrupting the autobiographical details, but it seems to me, Terry, you’re suspiciously like a man whistling in the dark.”
“You here yet?” groaned Terry.
“What am I going to do?” said Eva in dismay. “You’re right, Mr. Queen. It’s no good pretending.”
“Have some of this egg-roll,” said Terry.
“You’re sweet, Terry, but it’s really useless. I’m in this up to my ears. And you know it.”
Terry glared at Ellery. “Well, you know your old man. What’s he going to do now?”
“Look for the missing half of the scissors. You’re sure you didn’t see it anywhere, Eva?”
“Positive.”
“It wasn’t there,” snapped Terry. “Whoever pulled this job took it away with him. Your old man knows that, too. His men went over those premises with a vacuum-cleaner. Cellar, grounds, house inside and out—”
Ellery shook his head. “I wish I knew what to suggest. But I don’t — completely at sea. I’ve never seen a case so fruity in appearance and with so little actually to chew on.”
“I’m glad of one thing,” said Eva, pecking at the egg-roll. “Mother couldn’t — have done it. Not with that door bolted from inside Karen’s bedroom.”
“Well, we have a breathing-spell, anyway. Until dad finds out about that bedroom door, we’re all right,” said Ellery.
“How’s he ever going to find out? The only way he will is if one of us spills.” Terry scowled. “There’s one who might.”
“Who?” But Eva, flushing, knew whom he meant.
“The guy who gave you that diamond. This Scott. What the hell ever made you fall for him? Have some of this chop-suey.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk about Dick that way! He’s upset — why shouldn’t he be? It’s not easy for him, with a fiancée on the verge of being arrested for murder.”
“Well, it’s no easier for you, is it? Listen, kid, he’s a heel. Give him his walking papers.”
“Please!”
“If I may interrupt this romantic interlude,” said Ellery, putting down the chopsticks with which he had been vainly trying to snare a piece of shrimp, and groping for a fork, “I think I’ve thought of something.”
They cried together: “What?”
Ellery put the paper napkin to his lips. “Eva, where were you standing when friend Terry went over to the bedroom door — I mean the one going to the attic — and discovered it was bolted?”
Terry’s eyes contracted. “What difference does that make?”
“Possibly a great deal. Well, Eva?”
She was staring from him to Terry and back again. “I think I was against Karen’s desk. Watching. Why?”