Charlie Chan in the Pawns of Death

by Earl Derr Biggers;Bill Pronzini

  Contentedly, Chan changed into a pair of silk pajamas, hand-dyed in blue-and-gold batik, and slipped between the sheets. The linen was crisp and cool, and Chan leaned back against the pillows, a large but not overly plump Buddha-like figure. It was only then that he allowed himself to think of the events of the past two days.

  Chan’s mind, always concerned with the human condition, brooded over the volatile words exchanged that afternoon and late evening. Although as a man of intellect he put little faith in premonitions, he had a strange feeling that a tragedy of some kind was soon to mar the Transcon tournament; harsh emotions such as those which had been displayed could all too easily erupt into violence. Sprague’s words had hardly helped, nor had the argument later.

  Sighing, Chan reached up over the headboard to switch off the chandelier. He lay in the darkness, trying to place his mind at ease so that he could sleep; but the premonition of disaster still lingered. Time passed, and finally he felt himself slipping warmly into slumber.

  The sudden explosive sound which woke him and brought him sitting up in bed was muffled, and Chan was not immediately sure what it had been. Massaging sleep from his eyes, he listened intently - and the feeling of tragedy was once again strong inside him.

  At first there was only silence, but then from the hallway there came the sound of excited, querulous voices. The Honolulu detective clicked on the chandelier, quickly got out of bed, and put on his robe. Then he opened the door and stepped out into the dimly lit hall.

  At the far end, four rooms from his own a small knot of people was clustered before one of the doors. Hurrying down there, Charlie Chan recognized Grant and Laura Powell, Tony Sprague, and Melvin Randolph; and as he reached them, Clive Kettridge and Roger Mountbatten appeared around the corridor well beyond.

  “It was a shot, a gunshot!” Laura Powell was saying urgently. “Grant and I heard it clearly!”

  “I thought this was your room, Mrs. Powell,” Sprague said. “It’s the one you and your husband have occupied since you arrived.”

  “That’s right,” Powell told “him, “but Laura and I switched rooms with Ray Balfour just before dinner.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because of all the damned trouble Kettridge and Mountbatten have been making over the chess match,” Powell snapped angrily, glaring at the two Britishers. “People kept bothering Laura and me, and we got tired of it. There are no other rooms available, and so we simply switched with Ray to get some rest.”

  While he was listening to this exchange, Chan tried the doorknob and found the door locked. He bent, peering into the latch opening, and saw that the key was in the lock on the inside. There was no sound at all from the room.

  Chan turned and said to Sprague, “Please, will you go downstairs and summon the concierge? This door is locked and we must have the key.”

  “Right, Mr. Chan,” the reporter agreed, and hurried off toward the elevators.

  “What could have happened?” Laura Powell questioned uneasily. “That was a gunshot we heard!”

  “No doubt of that,” Kettridge said in a somewhat subdued tone of voice. “I heard it clearly.”

  “So did I,” Mountbatten concurred.

  “Did Mr. Balfour have a weapon, that you know about?” Chan asked Grant Powell.

  “No, I doubt it. Why would he have a gun? He certainly wouldn’t need it here.”

  Chan looked at the others. “Do any of you possess weapons here in the hotel?”

  Everyone denied it in low voices. Charlie Chan nodded once; and since this was his element, the type of situation he had handled so many times in the past, he said authoritatively, “Please stand back from the door, but stay here in the hallway until the room has been opened.”

  Then he turned and hurried back to his own room. Removing one of the wire hangers from his wardrobe, he bent the loop of the hanger until it was straight. Then he returned quickly to Balfour’s locked door, inserted the wire into the latch, and probed carefully. A moment later, he managed to dislodge the key and there was a soft thumping sound as it fell to the carpet inside.

  VII

  FROM DOWN the corridor, there was the sound of the elevator doors opening; Sprague and the concierge, who looked perplexed and upset, emerged into view. When they reached the group, Chan said, “Have you brought the key?”

  “Oui, M’sieur Chan,” the concierge answered, mopping his brow and extending a master key to the Chinese detective. “This key opens all chambers in the Frontenac.”

  Chan used the key on the door. The others crowded in close behind him. The room was shrouded in darkness, but Chan detected the unmistakable odor of spent gunpowder. His fingers moved along the wall inside, found the light switch, and the room was abruptly bathed in soft light.

  “Oh!” Laura Powell gasped. She clutched her breast and turned her face against her husband’s shoulder.

  “Good God!” Melvin Randolph exclaimed.

  Raymond Balfour lay sprawled in the middle of the room’s double bed, the bedclothes concealing the lower half of his body. The upper half was drenched in blood, and a gaping wound was visible in his chest. One arm was flung lifelessly over the side of the mattress, the other bent and curled around the pillow.

  Balfour’s face was contorted in an expression of agony, and Chan grimly surmised that the bullet which had struck him had not brought instantaneous death. There had obviously been a few pain-wracked seconds, although not enough for Balfour to have moved from his position on the bed.

  “But how… how could it have happened?” Mountbatten whispered, his voice shocked. No one answered.

  Chan turned to the concierge, who was standing in horrified rigidity inside the door. “I suggest you place an immediate call to Prefect DeBevre. Little doubt exists that the sudden demise of Raymond Balfour falls within his jurisdiction.”

  The concierge swallowed, blinked, and then nodded. He left the room with the palm of one hand pressed against his forehead in a Gallic sign of distress, muttering, “Oh, that such a thing could happen at the Frontenac!”

  “Do you… think it was murder, Mr. Chan?” Kettridge asked.

  “It is not the opinion of Charlie Chan which matters,” the Honolulu detective stated with his customary modesty. “However, all indications point to murder. This room is identical to mine; also, I believe, to all rooms on the third floor. The single set of windows, as can be seen, are latched securely. The single door was also locked from the inside, with the key in the latch, indicating the victim secured it while alone in the room.

  “Also, Raymond Balfour was in bed with the lights off, apparently thinking of sleep and not of death. The weapon which was used to inflict the fatal wound is not to be seen, and the upper chest is hardly the place which a suicide would select.”

  “But who would want to kill Ray Balfour?” Powell asked with incredulity.

  “Maybe Balfour wasn’t the intended victim,” Sprague said, his eyes bright. “You told us a couple of minutes ago in the hall that you switched rooms with him tonight; did you tell anyone about that switch?”

  “No,” Powell answered, frowning. “We didn’t.”

  “Then maybe the killer didn’t know about it, and somehow Balfour took a bullet intended for you!”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Of course it is,” Laura Powell agreed. “No one would want to kill Grant or Ray Balfour. Oh, this is horrible, horrible!”

  “What I should like to know,” Mountbatten said, “is how anyone could have gotten in or out of this room if the door and the windows were locked from the inside. I say, it’s not only puzzling but a bit eerie as well.”

  “That’s not all it is,” Sprague said excitedly. “It’s also the story of the year. Oh man, will this be a scoop to set the world on its ear! Excuse me, I’ve got to make a telephone call. I’ll be in my room if anybody wants me.”

  “It is perhaps a wise idea if everyone now returns to his own room,” Chan suggested. His voice was soft b
ut imperious - and he didn’t add that if there were clues to be found in the murder chamber, the less likely it was that they would disappear or be obliterated if people were not allowed to mill about.

  When the others, murmuring among themselves, had departed, Chan closed the door and began a slow and methodical examination of the room. Confirming his earlier observation, he went to the window. It was securely locked. He opened the wardrobe and dresser, looked under the bed, checked the adjoining bathroom; the murder weapon was nowhere to be found. There was no indication of how Raymond Balfour had been shot.

  Twenty minutes had passed when a sleepy, shocked Claude DeBevre arrived with a retinue of Parisian gendarmes and laboratory technicians.

  “Mon Dieu!” he exclaimed when Chan had finished outlining what had happened. “This is terrible, monstrous! Murder in a hotel such as the Frontenac, murder in the midst of a chess tournament upon which world-wide attention is focused! Ah, I was afraid of something like this after all the bad feelings and savage attacks of the past two days.”

  “Evil, like venom from a poisonous snake, may find its way into the heart of a prince as well as a peasant,” Charlie Chan observed. “And once sown, the seeds of murder may bear bitter fruit any time, any place.”

  DeBevre sighed. “That is all too true, Charlie. But how could M’sieur Balfour have been killed in a locked room? Where could the murderer have gone, and where is the murder weapon?”

  “Too many pieces are still missing for us to be able to put the puzzle together just yet,” Chan responded.

  “Charlie, you have had much experience in matters such as this,” the Prefect said. “I know you are on holiday, but I would be indebted if you would assist in this investigation. If anyone can solve this crime quickly, it is you.”

  “If it is your wish, the assistance of Charlie Chan may be counted upon.”

  “Bien, that is good to hear.” DeBevre said.

  The doctor who had accompanied DeBevre and the others from the Paris Prefecture finished his examination of the body, and joined Chan and the Prefect. He spoke rapidly in French, then handed DeBevre a small, bloody object on a piece of tissue.

  DeBevre stared at the object for a moment, and then turned widened eyes on the Chinese detective. “Incroyable!” he said. “The doctor found this imbedded in the mattress beneath M’sieur Balfour’s body, Charlie. It is what killed him, surely, traveling completely through the upper torso in the region of the heart. If I did not see it with my own eyes, I would scarcely believe it.”

  He opened his palm, and Chan looked at the object which the doctor had given DeBevre. It was not a bullet, or anything resembling a bullet; perfectly round, silver-colored beneath splotches of blood, it was a piece of solid steel.

  A ball bearing!

  VIII

  CHARLIE CHAN’S inscrutable eyes studied the tiny object for a long moment. “A most incredible tool of murder,” he said finally, a frown creasing his smooth Oriental brow.

  “But why such a thing as this, and not a bullet?” DeBevre wondered. “It does not make sense.”

  “Perhaps the nature of the weapon, when discovered, will explain the riddle,” Chan said. He looked around the hotel room once again. “But if the weapon is still in this chamber, my eyes simply cannot perceive same.”

  DeBevre, scowling, followed his gaze. “Nor can mine. But my men are thorough, and possibly they may discover the secret yet - if it is still here to be found.”

  “We may hope so,” Chan said. “Meanwhile, it would seem our presence is not required. I suggest that we question the involved parties, one or more of whom may have knowledge which will shed some light on this matter.”

  “Oui, an excellent idea,” DeBevre agreed. “I believe we should begin with M’sieur and Madame Powell, n’est ce pas?”

  Chan nodded, and the two detectives left the room and went next door. Grant Powell answered DeBevre’s knock and admitted them silently, his face harried, his eyes troubled. On the double bed, his wife rested with a thin coverlet over her.

  “I still can’t believe it,” Powell said, more subdued than usual in the face of the tragedy. “I know Ray is dead, but I simply can’t believe it.”

  “A terrible shock, I am sure, M’sieur,” DeBevre said. He glanced at the bed. “How is your wife?”

  “I… I’m feeling a little better now,” Laura Powell replied. Her face, like her husband’s, was drawn. “What can we do for you, Prefect DeBevre, Mr. Chan?”

  “To begin,” DeBevre told the Powells, “I wish to know more about your exchange of rooms with M’sieur Balfour.”

  Grant Powell slumped into the room’s easy chair. “There’s really very little to tell about it. As I said earlier, we switched because Laura and I were being bothered by reporters and curiosity seekers and the like.”

  “It was accomplished with no one except yourselves, M’sieur Balfour, and the concierge being told of it?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Then it is conceivable that you - or perhaps even your wife - was the intended victim, and not M’sieur Balfour.”

  “As I told Mr. Chan and the others, that’s ridiculous,” Powell snapped. “Neither Laura nor myself could possibly have enemies who would hate us enough to commit murder!”

  “The extent of hatred is often a most well-guarded secret,” Chan remarked quietly.

  “Maybe so,” Powell said stubbornly, “but I refuse to believe it where Laura and I are concerned.”

  “You know of no one who might have wished Mr. Balfour dead?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Were there not many strong feelings over the chess tournament?” DeBevre asked. “Arguments, threats?”

  “Oh sure, there were words, but there usually are at events such as the Transcon. You can’t think Mountbatten or Kettridge or any of the others would kill Ray Balfour over a chess match! That’s quite ridiculous.”

  “Nevertheless,” Chan reminded him, “Mr. Balfour is at the moment dead in a very strange manner, by an equally strange weapon.”

  “You’ve found out how Ray was killed?”

  “We have,” DeBevre said. “He was shot with a ball bearing,”

  “A what?”

  “Mais oui, a round pellet far more damaging than a pointed bullet.”

  “A ball bearing,” Laura Powell said, and shuddered. “How grotesque!”

  “Quite so,” Charlie Chan agreed. “The nature of the lethal object demonstrates that whoever killed Raymond Balfour is clever. And a clever murderer, having struck once, would not hesitate to strike again.”

  “Are we back to that again?” Powell demanded, a disdainful look on his face.

  “We are,” DeBevre told him. “We cannot rule out the possibility that you or Madame Powell was to be the target of the deadly attack, simply because you do not believe it. It would be a good idea to post a guard to protect you both until this matter has been cleared up.”

  Powell glared at him with stubborn petulance. “I won’t have it!” he snapped. “Neither Laura nor I care to have a policeman constantly underfoot. And besides, nothing more is going to happen - not so far as I’m concerned.”

  “Madame Powell, do you agree with your husband?”

  “Yes, I do,” she replied. “We’re in no danger, I’m sure of that. But we’ll be very careful, of course, and will keep our door locked at all times.”

  “Raymond Balfour also kept his door locked,” Chan reminded her pointedly.

  “Well, that’s true, of course, but I still don’t think Grant or I have anything to fear.”

  DeBevre sighed. “As you wish. But you are to be very careful until the murderer of M’sieur Balfour has been apprehended.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Powell told him with conviction.

  The two detectives left the Powells’ room and knocked on the door of the chamber across the hall, where Tony Sprague - having somehow managed to obtain a room on the same floor as the chess principals - was quartered. Th
e reporter answered immediately, his eyes still bright with excitement.

  “Anything to report on Balfour’s murder?” he asked, admitting Chan and the Prefect.

  DeBevre explained about the ball bearing, and Sprague’s eyes widened. “So now you’ve got a locked-room murder and a damned unusual weapon to boot. This has to be the biggest story of the year!”

  “A violent death is hardly cause for rejoicing,” Chan pointed out mildly.

  “True enough,” Sprague agreed. “But from what I knew of Balfour, I don’t think his death is any great loss.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He had a reputation as a ladies’ man - quite a reputation. Didn’t you know that?”

  DeBevre frowned. “No, I did not.”

  “Well, it’s true, all right. There was something of a scandal back in the States not too long ago, where Balfour was caught fooling around with another man’s wife. I also have it on pretty good authority that he’s been trying to move in on Jennifer Kettridge. I don’t think she fell for his line, but I’m not sure.

  “Anyway, I know old man Kettridge didn’t like the idea much. He warned Balfour about it. I happened to overhear their conversation a couple of days ago.”

  “Most interesting,” Chan said encouragingly.

  “I suppose so,” Sprague said, “but the way it seems, with that room switch and all, it was Powell who was the intended victim and not Balfour. Murderer still could be Kettridge, though; the two of them obviously dislike one another to the point of hatred. Same thing with Mountbatten. And, after that little talk the two of you heard in the lounge this afternoon, I’d say Melvin Randolph might be a suspect too.”

  The Chinese detective chose to change the subject. “You were awakened by the shot tonight?”

  “Hell, yes,” Sprague answered. “It sounded like a cannon going off. Have you got any idea how that ball bearing was fired; from what kind of gun or weapon?”

  “Not as yet,” DeBevre replied. “When you entered the hallway, M’sieur, had anyone else appeared?”