Y. Cheung Business Detective Read online

  Cheung laughed. “That used to be Harry’s pet joke. I always offered to let him have some of the shark meat my grandfather regularly sent—and become a math shark also—but he always vigorously refused. Not that I blame him! I couldn’t eat it myself—in fact, I always gave it to our dormitory keeper’s dog, though I fear Harry believes yet that I secretly ate it.” He turned toward the other who was grinning. “But shark meat or no shark meat, they were great old days, weren’t they, Harry—our days at Terre Haute, Indiana—though four years of tough grinding, at that?”

  Young Harven nodded. The older man beckoned to the room from which he had just come. “Step into the library, both of you. We can talk in privacy there.” He led the way to a splendidly furnished room at the end of the hall, the walls of which held innumerable bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes, and dark plaques containing stuffed deerheads; here and there, on a pedestal or on a ledge, stood a marble or bronze bust; and, on an ornately hand-carved library table in the center of the huge Persian rug, was a wrought or hammered silver electric lamp. Harven beckoned toward several leather armchairs and closed the door behind him.

  “We read your literature, Mr. Cheung,” he remarked, dropping into a near-by leather rocker. “And for certain reasons we were more than interested. I gathered at first that your work was something along the lines of efficiency—but, as I went further into it, I saw that it was—at that—something along the very lines of the problem that confronts us. Though our very peculiar problem isn’t a problem of stolen goods, please understand; it’s—well, I’m not sure whether it lies in your field or not. But it’s a business leak—and a strange one, let me tell you that.”

  Cheung dropped into a chair and leaned forward. Eagerly. “If it’s a business leak of any kind, Mr. Harven, be sure it interests me. And if an outsider with some experience—and considerable interest in that line—and who might be able to get more in focus with the situation than those who work in it every day—can possibly help you, then please command me.”

  “Well what, now, Mr. Cheung,” asked Milford Harven, “are some of the cases you’ve been up against so far—and solved—if you don’t mind telling me? You see, while your literature contained a number of references—such as for instance the Ghetto Hospital there in Chicago—there was nothing in the way of testimonials and so forth.”

  Cheung’s face clouded. “I regret to say that such clients as I have had have all refused to permit me to publish in any way the details of such work as I might do for them. My work might otherwise make a good magazine article, but—” He sighed. “However, I can give you but a hasty résumé of a few cases. The Ghetto Hospital?—well, morphine was being stolen regularly by one of several employees who had access to the place where it was kept. In the case of the Phoenix Department Store, cotton stockings were regularly disappearing from the stock room while the finer silk ones weren’t being touched. Again, in the case of the Associated Thousand-Stores Meat Market, the owner was having a steady loss of profits in spite of apparently making good profits. While, for instance, a certain small photographer on a north side street was continually having a photograph of a certain beautiful blonde girl, merely one of his clients, stolen from his sidewalk showcase.”

  “How interesting, Cheung,” put in Harry Harven. “Did you solve them all?”

  “With the help of considerable luck—yes,” Cheung replied modestly.

  “Well, do you mind telling us—what were the answers—and the solutions?”

  “Not at all, since this is a confidential talk between friends—and not printed publicity. In the case of the department store stock-room thefts, a study on my part of the private libraries owned by the various suspects revealed that one possessed a book called The Silkworm. Further investigation on my part elicited that particular individual to have a horror of worms. Such horror naturally extended even to the products of worms, such as silk. Just a phobia. An anaemic girl who really needed the services of a psychiatrist. And as to the Associated Thousand-Stores Meat Market. The owner—one of the finest men in the world—is, I regret to say, illiterate; he can neither read nor write. He believes he knows figures; but, unfortunately, his head bookkeeper was showing him trick figures. My mathematical experience showed me that a 7, regularly moved to the wrong column, made $100 a day for a certain—well—comptroller of finances! But no doubt you are both interested in the continuously stolen photograph. Which you would have a right to be, since the girl herself had plenty of them, and her sweetheart had at least three—and was tremendously proud of her to boot. Well, it seems that a chap who had once loved this girl but who had lost track of her, had moved into the neighborhood of that photographer—she did not know that, but her sweetheart did—and so, the sweetheart who apparently had no motive continuously to steal the photo, had the best motive in the world, namely to keep the successfully banished rival from finding the girl—and starting up a dead romance again.”

  “But Cheung,” put in Harry Harven, a bit disappointedly, “where, oh where, have you used some of that science we learned in Rose Polytech?”

  “Well, in the hospital case, Harry…you see I found that the morphine stood in a cabinet next to some highly radioactive salts. And by running an emano-meter, as it is called, over the bureau drawers and various private repositories of several trusted employees, I found that those of one were invariably radioactive. Very faintly so. Radioactive, you see, by second­hand, as it were—from the stolen morphine temporarily placed there. He confessed. He was a poor interne—and was selling it. So unpleasant, my work has been at times—where I’ve had to pin what amounts to actual crime on human beings. However—” He gave a helpless shrug of his shoulders. “What else can one honorably do when one is called to try his hand upon a problem which turns out to be a criminal problem? And—but now I’ve told you both of those 4 cases. And I hope—” He turned to Milford Harven, “—that I have not disqualified myself for your problem?”

  “I should say you haven’t,” put in Harry. He looked at his father. “This is your man, Dad. I tell you again, if you call in a private detective on the case, he’ll tip off the whole thing. And you yourself admit that the main thing is to get Mullock—if Mullock’s at the bottom of it. Put Cheung in—and not one of the four—nor Mullock to boot—can ever suspect but that he’s a regular construction man working legitimately in the office.”

  Harven nodded. “I think Harry’s right at that, Mr. Cheung. He’s convinced me, at least, that it’s not a case for a regular private detective.” He paused. “But as to my outlining the peculiar situation, I am presuming that, if we can’t come to terms, the whole thing remains a personal matter between us all?”

  Cheung nodded. “By all means, Mr. Harven. Of course. Though I see no reason why we can’t come to terms. For you can set those terms. To be frank, trying to build up a new kind of a profession as I am, I would be willing to tackle this problem without any conditions of financial recompense—for nothing less than your testimonial, were I to succeed.”

  Harven shook his head. “While that,” he said, a bit stiffly, “as I think I told Harry to tell you, is quite impossible. You see, Mr. Cheung, I gave a long interview to the press, sometime back—”

  Cheung nodded sadly. “Harry did explain all about that.”

  “Well, then,” Harven said firmly. “I am willing to come to any logical financial arrangements for your time, but it is absolutely impossible—in case you do succeed in throwing any light on our problem—my setting forth publicly anything other than that I myself uncovered the trickery.”

  “I quite understand,” said Cheung, sadly, and indeed he did understand only too well the note of absolute definiteness in Harven’s voice, “And to settle the matter then, Mr. Harven, let us say that anything I may turn up for you, you are to assume full credit therefor. And secondly, that you yourself may set any fee that strikes you right—when I leave Indianapolis. For as my grandfather used to say—”

  “And how on earth
is your grandfather, Cheung,” put in Harry Harven.

  “He is dead,” said the young Chinese. “Four days ago—and his body is already en route back to China.”

  “You don’t say?” ejaculated Harry. “Then you have come on here, I take it, all the way from Frisco? Where you attended his funeral?”

  Cheung shook his head. “No, I was not notified of his death till this morning, just before leaving Chicago. You see, I had moved my little 8 by 10 office—with its one desk and its one chair!—from the ancient Caxton Building to the—well—equally ancient Ditto Building there in Chicago, and the change caused a four-day delay in finding me.” He sighed.

  “Well, Cheung,” commented the blonde youth, “I am truly sorry to hear that you have lost your only relative. In fact, I’m surprised that you felt able to come on here, under the circumstances.”

  “Oh, I had known for months,” Cheung explained, “that Grandfather Cheung Hi would pass away within a year. My cousin Soo and I were both informed by the doctor there that Grandfather had a fatal condition. His death simply occurred sooner than I had anticipated. And I was really prepared for it. But as for my feelings, Harry, I truly believe that after the grief I experienced at the age of 12 when I lost my father—”

  “Your father—oh yes, he had the same name as you, I believe,” Harry Harven put in. Then added, “But forgive me for interrupting with such a trivial comment.”

  “Not at all, Harry. Yes, his entire name was identical with mine. But, as I was going to say, after I lost him, I became, I think, immunized against any further great grief for the rest of my days.”

  It was evident, by Harry Harven’s next query, that the conversation was verging upon too doleful subjects.

  “Your grandfather was a rather well-to-do commission merchant there in Frisco, was he not?”

  “Well-to-do, yes—though he had not been an active merchant for years. And as for his being well-to-do, he was worth something over $100,000.”

  “You—don’t say?” inquired Milford Harven, suddenly brightening up. “Did he leave you anything?”

  Cheung was silent. “I think I can, with great finality, say no, to that. Yes—with complete finality! In view of an answer to a wire I sent to Frisco after I got settled here today in Indianapolis. Yes.” He looked from one of his hearers to the other. “Did you folks, by any chance, read, about three months ago, of a chap named Cheung—same family name as mine—and why not, since he is my cousin?—winning a $25,000 sweepstakes prize—”

  “Oh,” put in the senior Harven. “I read of that! Only it was the runover of a front-page story that fell just below a political one that I was reading on an inside page. And I evidently didn’t read its front-page segment—even see it. All I recall was that this Chinese who won the prize claimed that he had selected the winning ticket by some kind of divination—yes, lily-bulb divination—invented by some grandfather. And—so he was your cousin?”

  “Yes,” nodded Cheung.

  “Well, did he really, do you think, use the lily-bulb divination—to select the number?”

  “I think I can be confidential with you two. When I last saw my cousin Soo in Frisco, he told me—and these were his exact words: ‘The poor old gent and his lily-bulb divination—he’s as cuckoo as they make ’em, isn’t he, Y. C.?’”

  Harven smiled. “Then his story was just a story to the reporters?”

  “Yes,” nodded Cheung. “And which set him forth in a thousand or more newspapers—and advanced our family name of Cheung. Something, alas, which also our respective fathers quite failed to do!”

  “What do you mean by that?” inquired Harven.

  Cheung was silent a bare moment. “Just,” he explained, “that Grandfather Cheung believed that his two sons—both of whom were born here in America—would do great things—would become world-famous; but that, I am sorry to say, they quite failed to do. In spite of the fact that he gave them both college educations. And so he fixed upon their sons—that is, my cousin Soo and myself—to do what his own sons had not done. Soo was given an education at Harvard. And I, of course, at Rose Polytech. But neither of us has done any better than our fathers. Except that—”

  “—that Soo inherits the estate?” said Harven.

  “So I found today,” assented Cheung, “in a lengthy telegram which a boy standing on the Canal bridge at 9th Street, and peering both ways, was trying to deliver to me.”

  “Standing—on the Canal bridge?” queried Harven puzzled. “What do you mean, Mr. Cheung?”

  “I mean that I am living on the Canal.”

  “Living—on the—Canal?” ejaculated Harry Harven. “What—where are you living, Cheung?”

  “At Mrs. Moses Tubbs’ Furnished Rooms for Persons of Color, does one go by the faded gold on that wooden sign above the door—at West 9th and the Canal.”

  “Good God, Cheung,” burst out the younger man. “Why on earth are you living in that rotten district? Why—oh-oh!—the old color line bucked you here in Indianapolis, eh?”

  “Yes,” nodded Cheung. “Strange as it may sound, the three hours via the Monon’s streamlined Blizzard between Chicago and Indianapolis has literally hurled me from America’s North to America’s South. For I am sure you yourselves have heard your city characterized as a Southern City—situated in the North? Yes? But anyway, I tried three hotels downtown at noon today when I got here—and was politely told in each case ‘all full’—only to see other travelers come up with luggage, and secure booking. Finally, in a hotel across from Court House Square, a friendly bellboy took me to one side and told me that all color was ‘Negro’ in this city—and about Mrs. Tubbs’ place—which, at least, I’ve found is a very respectable place, even if it is in the Black District.”

  “But—but confound it,” began Harry Harven, “it—” He broke off hopelessly. “Well, I suppose there’s no use of our apologizing for our lack of hotel hospitality, to you, a college man. For you quite understand the situation, it seems. That Indianapolis is, all right, a Northern-Southern city—and even Southerners, it’s said, marvel as to exactly how it ever got above the Mason and Dixon Line.” He paused. “Then you don’t have this sort of trouble, Cheung, in Chicago?”

  “No, I am fortunate to say. There are infinite rooming houses there, situated on very nice streets, which freely accept Filipinos and members of the Oriental races. And apartment buildings, as well, where such as I can live—if by chance I were married. Though of course, marriage for such a one as I, is as yet a highly problematic affair. In view of the fact that there are 20 Chinese men in America to every Chinese girl. And experience has demonstrated that such white girls as would marry a Chinese either cheat on him—or leave him eventually for a white man. And that—but I am digressing this time! Merely in answering your question to the effect that, single or married, I can, in Chicago, reside in a very nice neighborhood.”

  An embarrassing pause ensued. Which no one appeared willing to break. And, to break it, Cheung himself put in a question. “Harry tells me, Mr. Harven, that at some recent time you owned the famous ‘Death Manuscript’ of André Marceau, into which he presumably cryptified in some manner the rationale of his anticipated death?”

  CHAPTER III

  Concerning a Certain Famous Manuscript

  Milford Harven nodded at Cheung’s direct question.

  “Yes,” he admitted, “I did. Though I can say positively that Marceau did not at all code the ‘mechanics of his death’ into his fiction story in the manner that was proclaimed by the British detective, X. Jones, who—but are you familiar, Mr. Cheung, with the famous Marceau Case?”1

  “Oh, yes,” Cheung nodded. “Yes, indeed. The Marceau Case received plenty of space in our Chinese papers, for the reason, no doubt, that Marceau obviously had an antipathy against us Chinese people. I first encountered the man Jones’ analysis—or report—in the form of a mere summation of it in our Chinese papers there in Frisco, where, at the time, it was released, I was home with my grandfath
er. Indeed, the date of its release—February 24th, 1937—quite some years back now!—is one of our family dates—no less than my cousin Soo’s birthday! Later on, however, I was fortunate to obtain, from a San Francisco detective agency, a much thumbed copy of Jones’ full and entire report. Which, as a matter of fact, I have back at my lodgings here in Indianapolis, even now, in one of the pockets of my portmanteau, for the simple reason that—well, you both surely know the old saying, ‘A Chinaman wastes not so much as a mustard seed!’—anyway, about 6 months ago, I used the backs of its foolscap sheets on which to paste up a number of condensed maps of different cities—and among such, of course, was Indianapolis, where yesterday at least I knew I was coming. And I—but you say, Mr. Harven, that Mr. Jones’ decoding of the Marceau Death Script was all wrong?”

  “Yes,” declared Milford Harven; “at least as it appeared in the American newspaper versions of his report. It was not wrong in the British newspaper versions—some of which I have seen—for the simple reason that his decoding of the Death Script did not appear there at all!”

  “Well—I am surprised,” commented Cheung. “At both of those facts. For Mr. Jones’ analysis was, I thought, masterly. The manner in which he took that bizarre and unsolvable problem; the plainly asphyxiated André Marceau, lying in the midst of his newly rolled lawn, with the ring of apparent strangulation about his neck, the Lilliputian footprints running to, and away from his body, and the autogiro which crossed the lawn twice that night—and displaced them all, variously in Space-Time, and separately accounted for each—was one of the few real instances of pure analysis that detective work ever provides. And that Mr. Jones should have been in error on any phase is almost unthinkable to me. And—”

  “Well,” explained Harven, “let me amend my statement by saying that Jones’ decoding of the script was not really wrong, so much as—as based on a presumption which Harry and I today definitely know to be erroneous. The three strange picture cards, you know?—a copy of which, after all, was all Jones had?”