The Green Mandarin Mystery Read online

  Chapter 4

  The Man in Black

  Ellis did not waste any time when he had heard Baine’s news. They both dressed quickly and hurried from the flat.

  “We’ll get the car out,” said Ellis. “Not much chance of finding a taxi at this time.”

  “Right!” said Baine. He sprinted away to the rear of the block where a number of private garages were situated. Ellis kept a fast saloon in readiness for use when he was in London. On arriving by helicopter in London a taxi had been the simplest means of leaving, but now his own car would come in handy if there was to be any speedy travel involved in the case.

  Ellis, following Baine more slowly, arrived at the lock-up as his assistant brought the car out and shut the doors. Then they were threading their way through the streets towards Scotland Yard once more.

  A worried-looking detective inspector met them and soon gave Ellis and Baine all the available facts regarding the recently reported disappearance of Professor Borring.

  What that information amounted to was this: Professor Borring, whom Ellis happened to know as a casual scientific acquaintance, was a leading member of a group established to advance the theories of nuclear fission. Ellis knew him to be a man of exceedingly sound common-sense and very cautious in reaching conclusions or making a definite move, without first of all probing a point to exhaustion. Yet this man with his clear thinking mind and acute sense of values, had disappeared from his home a few hours earlier for reasons which Ellis was determined to find.

  On the face of it those reasons were identical to the ones which had prompted others to answer the call of the Green Mandarin. Borring, like them, had left a note.

  It was the text of this note which puzzled Ellis, for it struck him as completely out of keeping with Borring’s normal character. He frowned as he read it, noting the neatly printed letters in the Professor’s handwriting.

  “Although my, disappearance may cause concern,” it read, “I feel I am doing what is best. The Green Mandarin needs my assistance as he has needed that of others. I am therefore answering his call for the good of future generations. The Green Mandarin represents our only hope of survival.”

  Baine grunted savagely as he read the note after Ellis.

  “Survival after what?” he demanded. “If that’s what a sensible man actually thinks then I’ll eat my hat! It’s pure mumbo-jumbo, Ray!”

  “Which is just what worries me,” answered Ellis a little grimly. “Borring is a man I happen to know slightly. He’d never wander off like this for such a nebulous reason as the possible salvation of civilisation. He simply isn’t the type.”

  Baine shrugged helplessly. “Well,” he mused, “in that case someone or something has pulled a mighty fast one and persuaded him into doing what isn’t logical. We shall have to find out what’s behind it!”

  “What does his wife have to say?” asked Ellis of the Scotland Yard man.

  “Only that he had dinner as usual at seven-thirty and then went into his study. Presently, at roughly nine, she heard the front door close. When she went to see who it was she discovered her husband missing and this note on his desk. His hat and coat were also gone.”

  “Nothing else to go on? “

  The detective hesitated momentarily. “Yes,” he said at length. “Professor Borring had a visitor a short time before dinner. He admitted the man himself and no one else saw him. They were together in the study for not more than fifteen minutes, and Mrs. Borring only knows it was a man because she happened to hear his voice through the door. Her husband often had visitors at odd times and she took no notice other than to hope that the man wasn’t going to stay for a meal. She and her husband were alone in the house that evening.”

  “I see,” murmured Ellis thoughtfully. “So we do have something to work on after all. Find the visitor and there may be a clue to be had from him. If he’s not involved he ought to come forward readily enough.”

  “I agree,” said the Scotland Yard man. “We’re putting out inquiries already. The radio and TV people have it for an early morning broadcast. I doubt if we’ll hear much till then. The trouble is that no one seems to have a description of the man who called on Borring.”

  “We’ll find him in the end,” said Ellis firmly. “When we do I’ve a hunch he’ll prove useful in unravelling this Green Mandarin business.”

  “Hope you’re right, sir,” said the detective dryly.

  Ellis turned to Baine. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll take a look round the vicinity of Borring’s place. It’s always possible that something may turn up unexpectedly.”

  Baine, glad of the opportunity of some action, drove swiftly as he and Ellis left Scotland Yard and made for the Hampstead district where Professor Borring lived.

  At this time of night the neighbourhood was almost deserted. Drawing up in front of the big house that stood in its own grounds, Baine got out and waited for Ellis. They studied the place before approaching it. There was a constable walking slowly up the road towards them.

  “Better tell him who we are,” said Ellis. They went to meet the constable.

  Baine made the introductions quickly. Ellis asked if there was anything fresh to report. The policeman shook his head and glanced at the house.

  “Not yet, sir,” he admitted. “Several other men are making inquiries round about. This is my normal beat, or I’d be doing the same.”

  “Your normal beat, is it?” mused Ellis. “Then surely you’d be likely to know who might catch a glimpse of this mysterious visitor the Professor had at about seven o’clock?” He paused. “I mean, there must be people in the district who’d always be around at that particular hour. One of them might have spotted a stranger coming or going to the house.”

  The constable did some rapid thinking. Then he snapped his fingers in an unofficial fashion and grinned.

  “Now why on earth didn’t I think of old Charlie before? He’d be certain to use his peepers!”

  Ellis smiled. “Take it easy and let us into the secret,” he said. “Who’s old Charlie for a start?”

  The constable immediately grew serious. “Sells newspapers, sir,” he said apologetically. “His pitch is just at the end of the street so that anyone passing him or entering or leaving these detached houses would be plainly visible from where he stands.”

  “Now that,” said Ellis, “is something! Where would old Charlie be now?”

  “In bed most likely,” said the policeman. “I’ll take you along to his address if you think it’ll help, sir. Have to ring the sergeant first though.”

  “Naturally,” agreed Ellis. “Let’s go!”

  Old Charlie, surprised and more than a little suspicious at first, proved a mine of information once they persuaded him there was nothing to worry about as far as he himself was concerned. He had heard nothing of Borring’s sudden disappearance. Had he done so he insisted, he would have been the first to tell what he knew.

  “Better late than never,” prompted Ellis with a grin. “Go ahead! Did you see any stranger either go to or leave the Professor’s house about seven o’clock last evening?”

  “Yus, I did!” asserted the wizen little Cockney paper seller. “An’ ’e ’ad a car, what’s more! Didn’t notice the number, o’ course, but then I didn’t ’ave no call ter, see? But it was a Daimler saloon, that I do know, guv’nor! An’ it drove orf fast when the bloke came out of the ’ouse. I seed ’im clear. Plain as I’m seein’ you! Tall feller, ’e was, dressed all in black ’cept for a yaller muffler rahnd ’is neck.”

  “Smartly dressed?” probed Ellis gently.

  “Not arf! Dress clothes, like. All black, with a top ’at as well.”

  “Was there only one man in the car, Charlie? “

  The old man nodded violently. “Yus!” he agreed. “I know that ’cos it went right past me. Only one bloke, an’ ’e was drivin’. Lean faced feller, clean-shaven.”

  “Would you know this man again if we ever asked you to identify him?” put in the po
liceman.

  Charlie hesitated, then gave a nod. “I reckon so,” he said. “You find ’im fust, cock!”

  “That’s just what we mean to do,” said Ellis grimly. “Thanks very much for what you’ve told us.”

  After being warned by the constable that he might be wanted for further evidence, Charlie retired to his humble fireside and lame tabby cat. Ellis and Baine, with the constable in attendance, returned to the car. The constable was dropped at the nearest police box and left to make his report. Then Ellis and his companion drove off again.

  “What now?” asked Baine. “At least there’s a little to work on, but where we start is a different matter!”

  “The police will probably trace that car,” said Ellis. “They may find the man in black. If they don’t then we’ll have to do it for them! There’s nothing we can do till the morning, so we might as well go back to bed.”

  Baine gave a grin and let in the clutch. “Puzzle, find the man in black!” he said. “Is he the Green Mandarin, I wonder?”

  “That’s what we have to find out,” said Ellis quietly. “Let’s go home.”

  Chapter 5

  “Watch Your Step, Ray Ellis!”

  Back at the flat, Baine put the car away and joined his chief for a drink in the lounge. They discussed a few relative points for a minute or two before Ellis said it was time to get some sleep. He rose and stretched his lanky frame. Baine watched him thoughtfully for a moment.

  Then the telephone shrilled for the second time that night.

  “I’ll take it,” said Ellis. “Listen in and carry out the usual drill, will you, Gerry?”

  His eyebrows raked up in an arch. Baine gave a curt nod and closed a switch near the phone. Ellis picked up the receiver and waited in silence till Baine was holding a duplicate set on the opposite side of the room.

  “Ray Ellis here,” said the detective in a sleepy voice. His eyes were on Baine as he spoke. They were bright and cautious.

  A cold, metallic voice answered him. There was a sinister note about it that made even Ellis shiver a little.

  “You are interfering in something which is no concern of yours,” said the voice. “This call is a warning which you will be wise to heed. If you wish to continue in a healthy state of mind and body you will withdraw from the case of the missing people who have joined the Green Mandarin. That is my warning, Ellis. Take heed and be wise before the event instead of regretting it afterwards. In fact— Watch your step, Ray Ellis!”

  Ellis, who had not interrupted once, gave a grim sort of smile as he glanced at Baine on the other side of the room. Baine was just releasing his finger tip from a press button mounted on the wall. By pressing that button, a gadget fitted up by Ellis some time before, any call to the flat was not only recorded but traced as well, the latter arrangement having been made with the exchange after a series of anonymous messages had been received in an earlier case on which Ellis had been engaged.

  Ellis said: “Thanks for telling me what you have. I take it that you are the man who visited Professor Borring? It’s you who should be careful, my friend! There are forces ranged against you which will eventually bring you down. Tell me, what’s behind this Green Mandarin stuff?”

  The man at the other end gave a short thin laugh. A humourless sound.

  “There are things it is best you should not know,” he said curtly. “Take my warning while there is still time.”

  The phone clicked into silence before Ellis could say another word. But immediately afterwards he was looking at Baine with a queer light of triumph in his eyes.

  “Find out where the call was made!” he snapped. “The man’s a bigger fool than I reckoned. And he must be worried or he wouldn’t bother to try to warn us off.”

  Baine was already calling the exchange. By a private arrangement he knew that shortly they would be told where the call had come from. His nerves were tingling as he waited.

  When the information came through a few seconds later both Ellis and Baine were surprised, for the call had originated in a public kiosk not fifty yards from the flat.

  “Be back in a minute!” snapped Baine. He ran from the room and slid to street level in the lift. Sprinting towards the main entrance of the block, he darted through the doors and stood staring down the street at where the call box was placed on the opposite side at a corner.

  Drawing away from the curb side and swiftly accelerating past the block was a big black Daimler saloon.

  Baine stepped back out of view and watched it pass. The registration number was imprinted on his mind long before the car disappeared. Only one dark figure had been visible inside the car. The man in black, thought Baine with a thrill of excitement.

  He turned on his heel and went back to the flat to make his report and ring up the police. Had he had a car on hand to use himself he would have given chase, but since it was in the garage the time lag in fetching it would have been too great.

  When he told Ellis what he had seen the detective promptly grabbed the phone and rang Scotland Yard.

  “We’ll find the car!” they assured him. “Now that there’s something definite to work on things will move. You’d better stick around and be ready to meet the squad cars the moment they contact the Daimler and apprehend the driver.”

  Ellis’s voice was suddenly grave. “You must on no account fail!” he said. “This is the first solid clue we have. Everything may depend on it, you understand? Treat it as a matter of the highest urgency.”

  The detective at the Yard was optimistic. “You bet we will, Mr. Ellis!” he answered. “There’s a call going out to all squad cars right now. Don’t worry about us losing track of the Daimler!”

  Ellis replaced the receiver gently. He wished he was feeling as sure of success as the Yard man, but something at the back of his mind warned him that things were not going to run as smoothly as he had hoped. The man in black was the kind to keep a number of tricks up his sleeve for use in emergency.

  “Nothing more we can do, Gerry,” said Ellis. “With all their resources the police are far better fitted to trace that car than we are. And until they find it we can’t start ourselves—not in the middle of the night at any rate.” He smiled thinly. “People don’t relish being questioned by private detectives at three in the morning! “

  Baine laughed. “Then with any luck we’ll get some sleep!” he said. “Third time lucky, eh?”

  Ellis smiled and nodded. “Maybe,” he said quietly. “Wake up early, Gerry. There’ll be plenty to do in the morning I’m thinking.”

  Baine grew serious once more. “Yes,” he agreed.

  “The odds are that the man who rung me up a while ago will stir up trouble when he finds that I don’t intend to be frightened off. Just how he’ll start I can’t imagine, but I certainly don’t mean to do as he tells me, so there’s bound to be something happening before very long. He may take his time about stopping us, Gerry, but he dare not leave it too late if he thinks we’re on to anything.”

  Baine nodded slowly. “I’ll drop that recording of his voice in at the Yard next time we pass,” he said. “It may come in useful.”

  “Have a duplicate made first of all,” suggested Ellis. “And play it back till you’re certain you’d recognise the voice if you heard it again. Never can tell when a trick like that may be vital.”

  Baine said nothing. He admired his chief’s novel ideas and gadgets, and realised that more than one of the cases they had handled had owed their success to the clever use made of something scientific. Ellis was rightly named a scientific detective, he thought. The flat was bristling with odds and ends of invention that would have bewildered most people had they known of their existence.

  “To bed then!” said Ellis. “I’m sleepy.” And this time they remained undisturbed till the sky slowly lightened to a dull grey dawn made thicker by the haze over London.

  Baine was up and about before Ellis. He busied himself in the kitchenette getting breakfast and waiting for Ellis to stir. Ther
e was no need, he decided, to wake the chief till presently. He looked round the kitchenette, grinned as his eyes fell on the array of electrical switches that controlled a number of Ellis’s favourite gadgets in various parts of the flat. There were switches for the phone recorder, concealed microphones in all rooms, hidden photo-cell detectors across doorways, burglar alarms of an advanced type. Ellis, he thought, had lavished considerable time and expense in fitting up the flat with his own inventions. Being a scientist, reflected Baine, had its advantages when the scientist was also engaged on crime detection. It was gratifying, too, to know that he himself had contributed in no small degree to the efficiency of most of the fittings.

  Ellis himself appeared at that moment. He looked cheerful and sniffed the air hungrily as Baine turned to meet him in the door of the kitchen.

  “Ah!” said Ellis with a smile. “You’re a useful asset, Gerry! As soon as we’ve eaten I’ll get you to bring the car round from the garage and check it over in case we have to do a lot of motoring in the near future.

  “You can also take that telephone recording along to the Yard. It’s sure to interest them there. While you’re out I’ll go through the files again and try to think things over. If the Yard has news of that car they’ll ring it through here.”

  Baine nodded understandingly. “Let’s hope they’ll have found it by now,” he said. “Or at least got a line on it. It shouldn’t be all that difficult.”

  Ellis shrugged. “Never can tell,” he grunted. “Now then, breakfast first. Then off you go!”

  They did not take long in having their meal. Baine, swallowing the last of his coffee as he went, left the flat in a hurry. Barging through the kitchen door on his way out he caught his sleeve on one of Ellis’s gadget switches. He swore mildly and disentangled himself, then was gone, leaving Ellis to busy himself in the lounge.

  Hardly had Baine departed before the phone rang and Ellis lifted the receiver.