Charlie Chan [4] The Black Camel

by Earl Derr Biggers

Fyfe looked him over casually. “You must pardon me,” he said, “if I do not at once grasp your position here -“

  Nonchalantly Charlie pushed back the left side of his coat, revealing his badge of office. It was a gesture of which an actor could approve - business, not words.

  “I am in charge,” Chan said. “You were, you say, at one time husband of Miss Shelah Fane. You have not seen her for many years. How many?”

  Fyfe considered. “It was nine years ago, in April, when we parted. We were both playing in New York - Miss Fane in a Ziegfeld revue at the New Amsterdam, and I was doing a mystery play at the Astor. She came home one night and told me she had a splendid offer to go to Hollywood for a picture - she was so excited, so keen for the idea, that I hadn’t the heart to oppose her. A week later, on an April evening, I said good-by to her at the Grand Central Station, wondering how long I could hold her love. Not very long, as it turned out. Within a year she went to Reno, and it was all quite painless - for her, I fancy. Not quite so painless for me - although I had felt it coming, that night at the station. Something had told me then that I was seeing her for the last time.”

  “You no doubt appeared in Los Angeles in later years,” Chan suggested, “at moments when Miss Fane was in Hollywood?”

  “Oh, yes - of course. But we never met.”

  “Do you happen to recall - were you playing in Los Angeles three years ago, in June?”

  Charlie was struck by the look that came into the actor’s eyes. Was it, perhaps, a look of understanding? “No,” said Fyfe firmly. “I was not.”

  “You are plenty positive,” Chan commented.

  “I happen to be - yes,” Fyfe replied. “Three years ago I was touring with a company that did not reach the coast.”

  “It is a matter that can easily be verified,” the detective reminded him slowly.

  “Certainly,” agreed Fyfe. “Go ahead and verify it.”

  “Then you assert,” Chan continued, “that you have not seen Shelah Fane since that moment in New York station, nine years ago?”

  “I do.”

  “You did not see her in Honolulu to-day?”

  “No.”

  “Or tonight?”

  A pause. “No.”

  Julie entered. “The coffee is ready,” she announced. “Please, all come into the dining-room.”

  “I make haste to endorse that suggestion,” Chan put in.

  Reluctantly they filed out, assuring one another that they could eat nothing, that the idea was unthinkable, but that perhaps a cup of coffee - Their voices trailed away beyond the curtains. Of the dinner guests, only the fortune-teller lingered.

  “Please go, Mr. Tarneverro,” Chan said. “Small stimulant will increase action of that fine brain on which I lean so heavily.”

  Tarneverro bowed. “For a moment only,” he replied, and left the room.

  Charlie turned to Kashimo. “As for you, I suggest you travel out to lanai sit upon a chair and think about your sins. When you appeared a moment ago like Jack of the box, you scattered precious evidence to the winds.”

  “So sorry,” Kashimo hissed.

  “Please be sorry on the lanai,” Charlie advised, and hurrying him out, closed the windows after him. Turning, he came back to Robert Fyfe. “I am happy to be alone with you,” he began. “Though you may not have guessed, you are most interesting figure who has yet popped into this affair.”

  “Really?” The actor dropped into a chair and sat there, a striking figure in his ambassadorial costume. His manner was calm, unperturbed, and seemingly he was in the frankest of moods.

  “Very interesting indeed,” Charlie continued. “I gaze at you, and I ask myself - why is he lying to me?”

  Fyfe half rose from his chair. “Look here. What do you mean?”

  Chan shrugged. “My dear sir - what is the use? When you visit lawn pavilions to call on ex-wives, how careless to flaunt distinctive red ribbon on chest. It might even be mistaken by excitable young women for - blood. Matter of fact - it was.”

  “Oh,” said Fyfe grimly. “I see.”

  “The truth - for a change,” went on Chan gently.

  The actor sat for a moment with his head in his hands. Finally he looked up.

  “Gladly,” he answered. “Though the truth is a bit - unusual. I hadn’t seen Shelah Fane since that night in the station - until tonight. This morning I heard she was in town. It was quite startling - what the news did to me. You did not know Miss Fane, Mr. - er - Mr. -“

  “Inspector Chan,” Charlie informed him. “No, I had not the pleasure.”

  “It was really that - a pleasure.” Fyfe half smiled. “She was a remarkable girl, aflame with life. I’d once been very fond of her and - I never got over it. No other woman ever meant anything to me after Shelah left. I couldn’t hold her - I don’t blame her for that - no man could hold her long. She wanted romance, excitement. Well, as I say, I learned this morning she was in town, and the news thrilled me - it was as though I heard her voice again after nine years’ silence. I sent her flowers, with a message - love from some one you have forgotten. Have I said she was impetuous? Wild, unreasoning, sudden - and irresistible. My flowers had barely reached this house when she called me on the telephone. She caught me at the theater, made up, ready to go on. ‘Bob,’ she said, ‘you must come at once. You must. I want so much to see you. I am waiting.’”

  He glanced at Chan, and shrugged. “Any other woman, and I would have answered: ‘After the show.’ Somehow, that was never the way one replied to Shelah. ‘Coming’ - that was always the answer when Shelah spoke.

  “It was a rather mad idea, but possible. I had arrived at the theater early, I needn’t go on for forty-five minutes. I had a car and could drive out here, if I rushed it a bit, in fifteen minutes each way. So, at seven-thirty, I went into my dressing-room on the ground floor of the building, locked the door on the inside, and stepped through a window into the alley that runs along beside the theater.

  “Shelah had told me about the pavilion, she said she was giving a dinner party, but that I needn’t meet any of the guests - my make-up, you know, and all that. She wanted to see me alone, anyhow. I reached here about seven-forty-five. Shelah met me on the lawn, and we went to the pavilion. She looked at me in a strange way - I wondered if she still cared for me. I was shocked at the change in her - when I knew her she was fresh and lovely and so very gay. Hollywood had altered her greatly. Oh, well - none of us grows younger, I suppose. We wasted precious time in reminiscences, living over the past - somehow, it seemed to make her happy, just to remember. I was nervous about the time - I kept looking at my watch. Finally I said that I must go.”

  He was silent. “And then -” Chan prompted.

  “Well, it was odd,” Fyfe continued. “I’d got the impression over the telephone, and even more so after I saw her, that she wanted my advice about some terribly pressing matter. But when I told her I was going, she only stared at me in a sort of pitiful way. ‘Bob,’ she said, ‘you still care for me a little, don’t you?’ She was standing close to me, and I took her in my arms. ‘I adore you,’ I cried, and - but I needn’t go into that. I had that moment - no one can take it from me. Thoughts of the happy past came back - I was torn between my love for Shelah and that damn watch ticking in my very brain. I told her hurriedly that I would return after the play, that I would see her daily during her stay here, that we would swim together - I had a wild idea that perhaps I could win her all over again. And perhaps I could have done it - but now - now -” His voice broke. “Poor Shelah! Poor girl!”

  Chan nodded gravely. “It has been well said, those who live too conspicuously tempt the notice of Fate.”

  “And I suppose no one ever lived more conspicuously than Shelah,” Fyfe added. He gave Charlie a quick penetrating glance. “Look here, Inspector - you mustn’t fail me. You must find out who has done this awful thing.”

  “Such is my aim,” Chan assured him. “You departed at once?”

  “Yes, I left
her standing there - standing there smiling, alive and well. Smiling, and crying too. I dashed out of the pavilion -“

  “It was now what time?”

  “I know only too well - it was four minutes past eight. I rushed down the drive, found my car where I’d left it before the house, and motored back to town as quickly as I could. When I stepped through the window of my dressing-room, they were hammering like wild men on my door. I opened it, said I’d been having a nap, and went out with the stage manager to the wings. I was five minutes late - the stage manager showed me his watch - eight-twenty. But that wasn’t serious - I went on and played my role - and I was just coming off after the first act when some young man telephoned me the terrible news.”

  He stood up. “That, Inspector Chan, is my story. My visit out here tonight may prove embarrassing for me, but I don’t regret it. I saw Shelah again - I held her in my arms - and for that privilege I stand ready to pay any price you can name. Is there anything more I can tell you?”

  Chan shook his head. “For the present, no. I ask that you remain on scene a brief time. Other matters may arise later.”

  “Of course,” nodded Fyfe.

  The bell rang, and Charlie himself went to the door. Peering into the night, he beheld a burly dark-skinned man in the khaki uniform of the Honolulu police.

  “Ah, it is Spencer,” he said. “I am very glad to have you here.”

  The officer came into the hall, dragging after him a figure that, anywhere save on a tropic beach, would have been quite unbelievable.

  “I picked this up on Kalakaua Avenue,” the policeman explained. “I thought you might like to see him. He’s a little mixed on what he’s been doing tonight.”

  The man to whom he referred shook off the officer’s grip and stepped toward Charlie. “I trust we’re not too late for dinner,” he remarked. He stood for a moment looking about the hall and then, as though prompted by old memories, removed from his head a limp and tattered hat of straw. “My chauffeur is really rather stupid. He lost his way.”

  His manner was jaunty and debonair, no mean triumph considering his costume. Aside from the hat, which he now clutched in a thin freckled hand, that costume consisted of a badly soiled pair of white duck trousers, a blue shirt open at the throat, a disreputable velvet coat that had once been the color of Burgundy and the remnants of a pair of shoes, through the holes of which peered the white of his naked feet.

  The buzz of conversation from the dining-room had died, the group in there appeared to be listening, and Charlie hastily held open the curtains to the living-room. “Come in here, please,” he said, and they entered to find Fyfe waiting there alone. For a moment the man in the velvet coat stared at the actor, and under the yellow ragged beard that had not known barber’s scissors for a month, a slow smile appeared.

  “Now,” Chan said. “Who are you? Where do you live?”

  The man shrugged. “The name,” he replied, “might be Smith.”

  “It might also be Jones,” Charlie suggested.

  “A mere matter of taste. Personally, I prefer Smith.”

  “And you live -“

  Mr. Smith hesitated. “To put it crudely, officer, I’m afraid I’m on the beach.”

  Charlie smiled. “Ah, you uphold noble tradition. What would Waikiki be without beachcomber?” He went to the window that led to the lanai and summoned Kashimo. “Kindly search this gentleman,” he directed.

  “By all means,” the beachcomber agreed. “And if you find anything that looks like money, in heaven’s name let me know about it at once.”

  Kashimo’s search revealed little - a piece of string, a comb, a rusty pocket-knife, and an object which at first glance looked like a coin, but which turned out to be a medal. Charlie took this and studied it.

  “Temple bronze medal, Third Prize, Landscapes in oils,” he read. “The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.” He looked inquiringly at Smith.

  The beachcomber shrugged. “Yes,” he said. “I see I shall have to confess it all now - I’m a painter. Not much of a one at that - the third prize only, you will observe. The first medal was of gold - it might have come in handy of late, if I’d won it. But I didn’t.” He came a bit nearer. “If it’s not asking too much - just what is the reason for this unwarranted intrusion into my affairs? Can’t a gentleman go about his business in this town without being pawed by a fat policeman, and searched by a thin one?”

  “We are sorry to inconvenience you, Mr. Smith,” Charlie replied politely. “But tell me - have you been on the beach tonight?”

  “I have not. I’ve been in town. I walked out - for reasons which we needn’t take up now. I was going along Kalakaua when this cop -“

  “Where downtown have you been?”

  “In Aala Park.”

  “You talked with some one there?”

  “I did. The company was not select, but I made it do.”

  “Not on the beach tonight.” Chan was staring at the man’s feet. “Kashimo, you and Spencer will kindly escort this gentleman out to spot below window where you discovered footprints, and make careful comparison.”

  “I know,” cried the Japanese eagerly. He went out with the other policeman and the beachcomber.

  Chan turned to Fyfe. “Long arduous task,” he commented. “But man, without work, becomes - what? A Mr. Smith. Will you be seated at your ease?”

  The others entered from the dining-room, and to them also Charlie offered chairs, which most of them accepted with poor grace. Alan Jaynes was consulting his watch. Eleven o’clock - he sought Chan’s eyes. But the detective looked innocently the other way.

  Tarneverro came close to Charlie. “Anything new?” he inquired, under his breath.

  “The inquiry widens,” Chan answered.

  “I’d rather it narrowed down,” replied the fortune-teller.

  The two policemen and the beachcomber returned through the lanai. Spencer again had the latter firmly in his grip.

  “O.K., Charlie,” said the uniformed man. “The footprints under the window could have been made by only one pair of shoes in Honolulu.” He pointed at the beachcomber’s battered footwear. “Those shoes,” he added.

  Smith looked down, smiling whimsically. “They are a shocking bad pair, aren’t they?” he inquired. “But Hawaii you know, seems to have no appreciation of art. If you’ve noticed the paintings they buy to hang in their parlors - the wooden waves put on canvas by the local Rembrandts - I may be a third-rater, but I couldn’t bring myself to do stuff like that. Not even for a new pair of -“

  “Come here!” cut in Charlie sharply. “You lied to me.”

  Smith shrugged. “You put things bluntly for one of your race, officer. It may be that I distorted the situation slightly in the interests of -“

  “The interests of what?”

  “The interests of Smith. I observe that there is something wrong here, and I much prefer to keep out of it -“

  “You are in it now. Tell me - did you enter that beach house tonight?”

  “I did not - I’ll swear to that. True, I stood beneath the window for a few minutes.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “I was planning to make the sand in the shelter of the pavilion my lodging for the night. It’s a favorite place of mine -“

  “Go back to beginning,” cut in Chan. “The truth this time.”

  “I hadn’t been out to the beach for three days and nights,” the man told him. “I got a little money, and I’ve been stopping downtown. When I was out here last, this house was unoccupied. To-day my money was gone - I’m expecting a check - it hasn’t come.” He paused. “Rotten mail service out here. If I could only get back to the mainland -“

  “Your money was gone,” Charlie interrupted.

  “Yes - so I was forced back to my old couch under the palm trees. I walked out from town, and got to the beach -“

  “At what time?”

  “My dear sir, - you embarrass me. If you will take a stroll along Hotel
Street, you will see my watch hanging in a certain window. I often go and look at it myself.”

  “No matter. You got to the beach.”

  “I did. It’s public, you know - this one out here. It belongs to everybody. I was surprised to see a light in the pavilion. Somebody’s rented the house, I thought. The curtain of that window was down, but it was flapping in the wind. I heard voices inside - a man’s and a woman’s - I wondered whether it was such a good place to sleep, after all.”

  He paused. Charlie’s eyes were on Robert Fyfe. The actor was leaning forward with a fierce intensity, staring at the beachcomber, his hands clenched until the knuckles showed white.

  “I just stood there,” Smith continued. “The curtain flopped about - and I got a good look at the man.”

  “Ah, yes,” Charlie nodded. “What man?”

  “Why, that fellow there,” Smith said. He pointed at Fyfe. “The chap with the red ribbon across his shirtfront. I haven’t seen one of those ribbons since the time when I was studying at Julien’s, in Paris, and our ambassador invited me round for dinner. It’s a fact. He came from my town - an old friend of my father -“

  “No matter,” Charlie cut in. “You stood there, peeping beneath the curtain -“

  “What do you mean?” cried the beachcomber. “Don’t judge a man by his clothes, please. I wasn’t spying. If I caught a glimpse, as I did, it was unavoidable. They were talking fast, those two - this man, and the woman.”

  “Yes. And perhaps - equally unavoidable, do not misunderstand me - you heard what they said?”

  Smith hesitated. “Well - as a matter of fact - I did. I heard her tell him -“

  With a little cry, Robert Fyfe leaped forward. He pushed the beachcomber aside and stood before Charlie. His face was deathly pale, but his eyes did not falter.

  “Drop it,” he said hoarsely. “I can put an end to your investigation here and now. I killed Shelah Fane, and I’m willing to pay for it.”

  A shocked silence greeted his words. Calm, unmoved, quite motionless, Chan stared into the man’s face.

  “You killed Miss Fane?”

  “I did.”

  “For what reason?”