The Chinese Doll полностью

“I would like to see the bracelet found on the body of that Chinese girl, if I may?” She backed up the request with a contrasty, white smile.

“Sure thing, Doc. It’s around here somewheres.” He turned his back on us to rustle through a stack of junk on his desk. “Here it is. We ain’t never identified her yet, Doc.”

Elizabeth removed the bracelet from the large manila envelope and turned the underside up. Engraved on the smooth undercurve of the bracelet was the “good luck” symbol. I nudged the doctor and she replaced it in the envelope.

“Thank you very much.”

“That’s all right, Doc. Drop in any time.”

We got out of there in a rush. I stopped outside on the steps to suck in a deep lungful of air. She was doing the same.

“Promise me something?” she asked between gulps.

“Anything, doctor. Anything. Well, almost anything.”

“Don’t ever call me ‘Doc.’ Call me anything you wish, anything at all, but never ‘Doc.’ ”

“It’s a promise. And thank you very kindly.”

“For what?” We had started back up the street.

“For what you just did. Come on — I’m hungry, now. Let’s go back and have another waffle.”

She grabbed my arm savagely and spun me around.

“What’s the matter?”

“Charles Horne, up to a certain point you are a very nice young man to know. You have just reached that point! Don’t go over it: give — or else!”

“The bracelet, you mean?”

“The bracelet, I mean! That meant something to you.”

“I’ll say it did. In Chinese, I’m told, that symbol means Fidelity and Friendship.”

“O...h?”

“Oh. And the last two places I saw Fidelity and Friendship, other than on that bracelet, was on the cover of Harry Evans’ amateur magazine and stamped in gold on the inside of Harry Evans’ wallet.”

“O...h.”

Good morning, Louise. And thank you for the letters.

  Boone, Ill.

  Thursday, P.M.

My Dearest Louise:

Louise, I feel that I must apologize for what I’ve just done, without first taking the time to consult you. It affects some property jointly owned by us. There wasn’t sufficient time to ask your permission, really, because the funeral was this noon.

The funeral of the Chinese girl; Leonore, or Eleanor, or whatever her correct name might be. (Evans’ body has been returned to his widow in Croyden.)

Coming downtown this morning after writing you, I ran across Don Thompson. He mentioned in passing that the Chinese girl was to be buried this afternoon in potter’s field. That reminded me of what I had developed on her identity and I told him what little I knew, requesting that he pass it along to the police department. He appreciated that — he’s the only officeholder in the county of the opposite political party, and enjoys trumping them.

I’ve been doing a lot of moping about the Chinese doll. Perhaps it’s lack of sleep or perhaps it was the way she appealed to me the night she drove me out to the barn; it might even be my conscience dwelling on Harry Evans’ retainer of five hundred dollars. I’m unprepared to say.

But I telephoned the undertaker, determined the cost of a funeral, drew enough money out of the bank, and buried the girl. In the cemetery plot you and I own.

I hope you won’t object, darling. In your letter yesterday you said I was doing right in wanting to do something to earn that retainer, even though I could probably do nothing to help Evans. I think this was helping him. I think he had an especial interest in the Chinese girl, and I believe that what I did was giving him his money’s worth. I’m not sorry that I did. I hope you will feel the same way.

After climbing the stairs again to my office this afternoon, I found Dr. Elizabeth Saari standing in the corridor, superintending the installation of her office equipment. She was wearing a white smock over her dress and there were goose pimples on her bare arms. It was chilly in the corridor.

“Hello, Chuck,” she greeted me lightly. “Wipe off that face. You act as if you had been to a funeral.”

“I have.”

Instantly her behavior sobered and she seemed embarrassed.

“I am sorry,” she said sincerely. “An example of my misplaced humor. A relative, perhaps?”

“The doll.”

“Doll?”

“The Chinese girl. Fidelity and Friendship.”

“But Dr. Burbee said she was to be buried sometime this afternoon.”

“I changed that.”

“You changed...” She folded her arms and studied me. The examination made me uncomfortable; she has the damndest knack of causing that. Her eyes were half-shut and seemed to be saying “Softy!”

But the lips said, “You couldn’t afford that.”

“How do you know what I can afford?”

“I’ve spent the last hour in your office, waiting for my furniture to arrive. Pardon me, my friend, but that office doesn’t give the impression of belonging to a moneyed man.”

“It really wasn’t my money. It was Evans’ fee. Can you think of a better way to spend it?”

She rubbed the back of her neck with a smudged hand. A locket on a chain tinkled under her dress. Abruptly she turned on her heel and vanished into her office.

I pushed open the door and entered mine.