“A Communist uprising took place in a district through which he traveled and it was surmised he had been murdered, since no ransom demands were made. Four months ago he appeared in Hong Kong, giving only a sketchy account of his wanderings. He shipped by the Dollar Line steamer President Hoover, disembarked in San Francisco, looked up a few of his closest friends, maintained a marked reticence about his Chinese adventures. Keeps a bank balance of something less than a thousand dollars in the main branch of the Bank of America at Number One Powell Street, but seems to be free from financial worries. Has a host of Chinese friends in the local district. At night sometimes goes to Chinatown, enters stores, disappears through back doors, and upon such occasions fails to return to his apartment until shortly before dawn.
“Is an adventurer, described by some of his intimates as a bit wild. Is noted in his circle of acquaintances for a scorn of conventions, yet lives a life which is for the most part above reproach.
“Investigation in China indicates that during the period he was missing he had entered a Chinese monastery, posing as a neophyte in order to gain access to ancient temple ruins where gold and gems had been stored. The teachers regarded him as an apt pupil. He is reported to have completed his training when some incident forced him to flee for the treaty ports.”
The district attorney turned the sheet, started to read from a second page, then checked himself and said,
“I think I have read enough to illustrate my point.”
“Sounds rather bizarre,” Terry commented.
“I have every reason to believe it’s absolutely accurate, Mr. Clane.”
Terry shook his head. His eyes showed quiet amusement.
“I never completed my training,” he said. “I remained a mere neophyte. Four and a half seconds of concentration was the best I was ever able to accomplish. The masters...”
“Four and a half seconds!” the district attorney exclaimed. “Surely you mean hours. Frequently, Mr. Clane, I myself become so absorbed in concentrating upon a legal problem I lose all track of time.”
Terry noticed the trace of irritation in the district attorney’s voice. It was quite evident that he wanted to get back to the matter in hand, equally evident that he prided himself upon his ability to concentrate. Resenting the fact that he had so easily given the district attorney the verbal opening which had enabled him to produce a typewritten report, read just enough from it to make him vaguely uneasy as to what might be in the balance of the document, Terry whipped a pencil from his pocket, held the point against the top of the desk.
“You thought you were concentrating,” Clane said. “As a matter of fact, you were bringing only a small portion of your mental powers into focus. For instance, concentrate on the point of that pencil for just two seconds.”
Dixon started to say something, then frowned and stared at the point of the pencil. “Now I presume,” he said, as Terry put the pencil back in his pocket, “you want me to describe the point of the pencil. Very well, the lead is somewhat softer than the ordinary grain of lead. There’s a small place near the point where...”
“Pardon me,” Terry interrupted, “but what did I do with my left hand while you were concentrating on the pencil held in my right?”
“You kept it in your left coat pocket,” Dixon said positively.
Terry smiled.
“In China,” he said gently, “one who concentrated upon the point of a pencil would be expected to focus all of his mental faculties on the point of the pencil. I can assure you, Mr. Dixon, that it isn’t easy to do.”
Dixon’s voice showed irritation.
“I didn’t send for you to discuss elemental psychology,” he snapped.
Terry seemed to be enjoying himself. Obviously, the interview wasn’t going just as Dixon had planned it.
“Perhaps,” he suggested, “since your report is so complete, you might like to add to it the real reason I was expelled from the monastery.”
The district attorney raised inquiring eyebrows.
“It was,” Clane said, “a matter of legs, or, if you are at all old-fashioned, limbs. I am personally very partial to good-looking... er...” He broke off to study the facial expression
of the district attorney and then, with a smile which just missed being patronizing, said, “I think, under the circumstances, ‘limbs’ would be the proper word.”
From the fleeting expression of annoyance which clouded the district attorney’s eyes, Clane knew that his shot had told, but he went urbanely on:
“This little Russian girl had drifted in from God knows where. She was a beauty; she was clever as the very devil, and she interfered with my studies. The estimable gentlemen who watched over my progress were quite right in assuming that one who permitted himself to be so easily distracted lacked the moral stamina to put the outer world completely from his thoughts. They suggested that I should return to my native land, or, at least, to the treaty ports. I may state, in passing, that subsequent events have convinced me that their judgment in this, as in other matters, was flawless.”
The unmistakable frown of annoyance on the district attorney’s face showed his irritation at Clane’s facetious manner.
“Had that statement been included in my report,” Dixon said, “I might then have agreed with you in your characterization of it as bizarre.”
“Not,” Clane pointed out, “if you’d known the Russian.”
Dixon ostentatiously dropped the typewritten sheets into a drawer of his desk, suddenly raised his eyes to stare at Terry Clane with what might have been intended as disconcerting steadiness. “I think, Mr. Clane,” he said, “we’ll dispense with these friendly informalities and remember that this interview is official.
“Last night you attended an informal dinner-dance at the home of B. Stanley Rayborne.” He waited only for Clane’s nod before going on: “Miss Alma Renton was also there. You were Miss Renton’s escort. You left the Rayborne residence about twelve-thirty A.M., did you not?”
“I can’t tell you the exact hour,” Clane said, his voice and manner stiffly formal.
The district attorney opened another drawer in his desk, took from it a small square of lace-bordered linen.
“Do you recognize this?” he asked.
“No,” Clane said promptly, almost before the question had left the district attorney’s lips.
Parker Dixon frowned. For a moment his lips were as hard as his eyes.
“No, no, don’t be in a hurry. Take it in your hands, smell the perfume, look at it.”
He leaned across the desk, handed the handkerchief to Clane, who examined it, smelled it, handed it back, and said casually, “Surely you don’t attach great importance to a handkerchief?”
“Why not?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s such a conventional thing. On the stage and in books, women are always leaving handkerchiefs behind. One would think that a person of ordinary intelligence who has attended no more than half a dozen mystery plays would certainly be above dropping a handkerchief, unless, of course, she were someone who wished to implicate the owner.”
“For one who doesn’t recognize a handkerchief,” Dixon said dryly, “you’re making rather an obvious effort to defend its owner, and, incidentally, I haven’t intimated this handkerchief was connected with any crime.”
Terry Clane sighed, a sigh which seemed but a degree removed from a yawn. “When a district attorney,” he observed, “has me routed from bed and whisked to his office to examine a handkerchief, I assume that his interest is official.”
Dixon smiled, not the automatic lip smile he customarily used to disguise the fact that his every move led towards some definite object, but rather the conciliatory smile of one conceding a point because it does not at the moment suit his convenience to argue over it.