Charlie Chan [4] The Black Camel

by Earl Derr Biggers

  He left his key at the desk and strode toward the door, Smith struggling to keep up with him. They walked in silence. Finally the actor turned.

  “Why be so indiscreet?” he inquired. “You could have telephoned me and I’d have met you.”

  Smith shrugged. “Telephoning costs money,” he replied. “And I haven’t much money - yet.”

  There was a world of meaning in that last word. Fyfe led the way from the more modern quarter of the city into the oriental district. They moved on past shops crammed with silks, linens, embroideries, jade and porcelains. Bales and baskets filled with the foodstuffs of the orient encroached upon the sidewalk.

  “I take it you expect to have money soon?” Fyfe said at last.

  Smith smiled. “Why not? Last night I did you a favor. Oh - I’m nobody’s fool. I know why you made that fake confession. You were afraid I was going to repeat what I heard when I was standing outside that window. Weren’t you?”

  “Just what did you overhear?”

  “Enough, believe me. I heard that woman - the woman somebody killed later on - I heard her tell you that she -“

  “Never mind!” The actor looked nervously about. Nothing but flat expressionless faces, dark eyes that avoided his.

  “I think I fell in with your plan very neatly,” Smith reminded him. “When that Chinese detective, after he’d punctured your confession, asked me again what I’d heard - well, I said what you wanted me to, didn’t I? I backed up what you’d been saying. I could have exploded a bomb right then and there - but I didn’t. Please remember that.”

  “I do remember it. And I rather expected you’d be around this morning to blackmail me -“

  “My dear sir” - Smith raised a thin freckled hand - “you might have spared me that. I have some shreds of respectability left, and - er - what you said is scarcely in my line. It just occurred to me that as an intelligent man, a practitioner of one of the allied arts, you might possibly be interested in my work.” He indicated the canvas. “I happen to have a sample with me,” he added brightly.

  Fyfe laughed. “You’re a rather subtle person, Mr. Smith. Suppose I did buy one of your paintings - what would you do with the money?”

  Smith licked his lips. “I’d get out of this place for ever. I’m fed up here. For the past year I’ve been thinking about going home - to my folks in Cleveland. I don’t know whether they’d be glad to see me - if I had decent clothes and a bit of money in my pocket - that might help.”

  “How did you get here in the first place?” the actor inquired.

  “I went down to the South Seas to paint. Might be a good place for some people - but for me - well, the first thing I knew I was on the beach. After a long time, my people sent me money to come home. I managed to get aboard a boat, but unfortunately it stopped for a day at this port. And - have you tried any of the okolehau they call a drink in this paradise?”

  Fyfe smiled. “I understand. You forgot to go back to your ship.”

  “My dear sir,” Smith shrugged, “I forgot the world. When I woke up, my boat was two days out. Oddly enough, my father seemed annoyed. A rather impatient man.”

  They reached the river and, crossing a narrow stone bridge, entered Aala Park where, because of its convenient location, the dregs of the town congregate. Fyfe indicated a bench. They sat down together, and Smith handed over his canvas.

  The actor glanced at it, and a look of surprise crossed his face. “By jove,” he cried, “that’s damned good.”

  “Glad to hear you say so,” beamed Smith. “A bit unexpected, too, eh? I’m not what you’d call a born salesman, but I can’t help pointing out that the thing might be valuable some day. There’s just a chance. Think of the pride you could take in saying to your friends: ‘Ah, yes - but I recognized his talent long ago. I was his first patron.’”

  “Is this your real name - down here in the corner?”

  The beachcomber hung his head. “My real name - yes,” he replied.

  Fyfe laid the canvas on his knee. “Just - what is the price?” he inquired.

  “What am I offered?” Smith countered.

  “If you’re really sincere about wanting to go home,” said the actor, “I’ll be happy to arrange it for you. Not now, of course - the police wouldn’t let you go at present. But when this has blown over a bit, I’ll buy you a ticket - and give you something besides. In return for this canvas, you know.”

  “How much besides?”

  “Two hundred dollars.”

  “Well, I don’t know -“

  “Make it two fifty. Look here, you’re not dealing with a millionaire. I’m an actor on a salary, and it’s none too big. I’ve had a long engagement in Honolulu, and I’ve saved a bit. I’m offering you about all I’ve got. If it’s not enough, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s enough,” said the beachcomber slowly. “I don’t mean to be hard on you. I’m not very proud of this, you know. But it’s my chance - my chance to get away - lord, I’ve got to take it. We’ll call it a bargain - a ticket to the mainland as soon as they’ll let me go, and two fifty in my jeans. But say - how about meantime - I need a small advance now.”

  “For okolehau, eh?”

  Smith hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said frankly. “I hope not. I don’t want to touch it. I might talk, and spoil everything. I’m not thinking so much of you - spoil everything for myself, I mean.” He stood up. “I won’t touch it,” he cried suddenly. “I’ll fight, and I’ll win. I give you my word of honor as a gentleman.”

  Fyfe looked him over, wondering what that was worth. He took out his wallet.

  “I’ll have to trust you, I suppose. I’ll give you fifty now.” Smith’s eyes gleamed. “It’s all I’ve got on me. Wait a minute!” He pushed away the beachcomber’s eager hand. “Remember - you must be careful. If the police find that you’ve suddenly got money, they’re bound to look into it.”

  “I was thinking of some new clothes,” returned Smith wistfully.

  “Not now,” Fyfe warned. “Before you sail, yes - we’ll attend to that. But now - just as you are for a while - and lie low.” The actor was standing too, and he stared hard into the other’s face. “I’m depending on you. A man who can paint as you can - don’t be a fool. Go straight.”

  “By heaven, I will!” Smith cried, and hurried off across the park. For a moment Fyfe looked after him, then, with his recent purchase under his arm, walked slowly in the direction of the theater.

  Smith went on to Beretania Street, and entered a small low-ceilinged room through a doorway that bore above it the faint sign: “Nippon Hotel.” Behind the narrow desk stood a polite little Japanese. On the wall at his back hung the picture of a great liner cleaving the waves, under the words: “Nippon Yusen Kaisha.”

  “Hello, Nada,” Smith said jauntily. “My old room vacant?”

  “So sorry,” hissed the Jap.

  Smith threw a bill on to the counter. “Here’s ten in advance,” he remarked.

  “So sorry you stay away such long time,” hastily amended the clerk. “Room all ready - yes-s.”

  “I’ll go and brush up a bit,” Smith told him. “My baggage will be along later.”

  “You have money from home, I think,” Nada smiled.

  “Money from home, nothing,” Smith responded airily. “I’ve sold a picture, Nada. You know, that’s more than Corot ever did.” He leaned across the counter confidentially. “Poor old Corot, Nada, never got on to himself. It’s all in being outside the right window at the right time.”

  “Mebbe so,” agreed Nada. “Much better you go along now. Room numba seven, like always.”

  “It’s great to be home,” Smith answered, and went out, whistling a merry tune.

  Chapter XIII

  BREAKFAST WITH THE CHANS

  An hour after Smith took his morning swim, Charlie Chan rose and, stepping to his bedroom window, looked down on the bright panorama of town and sea. From Punchbowl Hill the view was one to stir the heart with beauty: green val
leys and gleaming water, at this season the crimson umbrellas of the poinciana, golden shower trees blooming in generous profusion, here and there a brick-red bougainvillea vine. Charlie’s lot was cast in a pleasant setting, and he loved to stand thus on a morning and reflect on his good fortune.

  To-day, however, he preferred to reflect on the problem that lay before him. Insoluble it had appeared when he went to bed, but he had slept soundly in the knowledge that what is to be will be, and now he felt a new energy stirring within him. Was he, then, a mainland policeman to be stumped and helpless in the face of a question that had, no doubt, some simple answer? It was a matter, however, that called for prompt and intelligent action on his part. He thought of the crane who, waiting for the sea to disappear and leave him dry fish to eat, died of starvation. Chan had no intention of emulating that stupid bird.

  It was a far from silent house that lay about him. Eleven children in one family make of early morning something of a bedlam. He heard their voices here, there and all about, shouting, expostulating, laughing and, in one case at least, weeping bitterly. With a comfortable feeling that the day had begun as usual, he prepared himself for his tasks.

  In the dining-room he found that his three eldest children were lingering about the table, and as he entered, he saw them regarding him with a keen interest he had not aroused in that quarter for a long time. They all spoke at once, and he realized the cause of their interest. One of their heroines, according to the morning paper, was murdered, and they were going to see the miscreant punished or know the reason why.

  “Quiet!” Charlie cried. “Can a man think beneath a tree filled with myna birds?” He turned to his oldest son, Henry, dapper in college-cut clothes and engaged in lighting a cigarette. “You should be at the store.”

  “Going right along, Dad,” Henry replied. “But say - what’s all this about Shelah Fane?”

  “You have read it in the paper. Some one most unkindly stabbed her. Now, get on to your work.”

  “Who did it?” said Rose, the oldest girl. “That’s what we want to know.”

  “A few others languish in same fix,” her father admitted.

  “You’re on the case, aren’t you, Dad?” Henry inquired.

  Charlie looked at him. “In Honolulu, who else would be summoned?” he asked blandly.

  “Well, what’s the dope?” went on Henry, who had been Americanized to a rather painful extent. “When do you grab the guilty party, and what’s his name?”

  Charlie again looked at him, and sighed. These children were his link with the future - what sort of future, he often wondered.

  “As I have frequent reason to point out, your language is sadly lacking in dignity,” he reproved. “I have not yet apprehended the wrong-doer, and as a consequence, I do not know his name.”

  “But you will, won’t you, Dad?” Rose put in. “You’re not going to fall down on it, are you?”

  “When have I ever so much as stumbled?” he wanted to know.

  She was smiling at him mischievously. “Now, Dad -“

  “When I was youthful,” Chan broke in hastily, “it was regarded deadly sin to question all-pervading wisdom of father. He was honored and respected by children. Such a hint of failure as you have just offered would have been impossible.”

  She got up and came round to him, still smiling. “Times have changed. You’re not going to fail, of course. We all know that. But this is one case your family is really interested in. So move fast, won’t you? Don’t take too much time out for oriental meditation.”

  “Should I pause to think deeply,” he replied, “I would be plenty lonesome man in this new world.”

  Rose kissed him and went out on her way to the bank where she was employed during the summer vacation. Henry stood up languidly.

  “Will you be wanting the car tonight, Dad?” he inquired.

  “If I ever wanted it, tonight will be the time,” his father answered.

  Henry frowned. “I guess I’ll have to buy one,” he said. “I can get a good second-hand bus on the installment plan -“

  Charlie shook his head. “Work - and pay your way as you go,” he advised. “Then you need fear no midnight knock upon the door.”

  “Old stuff,” replied Henry, and made a leisurely exit.

  Chan shrugged, and attacked his breakfast. Evelyn, aged fifteen, was addressing him. “Gee - I thought Shelah Fane was swell. I saw her in some swell parts.”

  “Enough!” cried Charlie. “Vast English language is spread out before you, and you select for your use the lowliest words. I am discouraged.”

  His wife appeared with his oatmeal and the tea. She was a jolly-looking woman, nearly as broad as Chan, with a placid smiling face. If her children and her husband had far outdistanced her in the matter of adjustment to a new land, she was, judging from her calm eyes, not at all distressed. “Heah about Shelah Fane,” she remarked. “Plitty tellible thing.”

  “What do you know about Shelah Fane?” Charlie asked, surprised.

  “All time chillun make talk, Shelah Fane, Shelah Fane,” his wife said. “I think mus’ be velly fine woman. I want you catch bad man plenty quick.”

  Chan choked on his hot tea. “If I do not, I perceive I am expelled from my own household. May I respectfully ask that you give me time. Much work to be done on this case.”

  “Mebbe you have moah tea,” his wife suggested.

  He drank a second cup, and then rose from the table. Evelyn brought his hat; they all seemed eager to speed him on his way. At the door he barely avoided falling over a round-faced little boy with keen black eyes that recalled those of his father. “Ah - the small Barry.” He lifted the child and gave him an affectionate kiss. “Every day you grow more handsome, like fine namesake, Mr. Barry Kirk. Be good boy, now, and do not eat the plaster.”

  He went out and got his car, and as he drove down the hill he thought about his children. He had always been proud of the fact that they were all American citizens. But, perhaps because of this very fact, they seemed to be growing away from him - the gulf widened daily. They made no effort to remember the precepts and the odes; they spoke the English language in a manner that grated on Charlie’s sensitive ear.

  He passed the Chinese cemetery, with its odd headstones scattered down the sloping hillside. There lay his mother, whom he had brought from China to spend her last years in the house on Punchbowl Hill. What would she think if she could see her descendants now: see Henry in his dapper clothes; see Rose, brisk and efficient, planning to go to a university on the mainland in the autumn; hear Evelyn speaking that shabby, out-moded slang she picked up on the school grounds? His mother would not have approved, Charlie knew. She would have mourned for the old ways, the old customs. He mourned for them himself - but there was nothing he could do about it.

  Reaching the business district of the city, he turned his attention to the tasks that lay before him. These were many, and he planned in what order he should attack them. Robert Fyfe was uppermost in his thoughts, so he drove at once to the Waioli Hotel.

  Mr. Fyfe, the clerk said, had gone out with a man. What man? The description left no doubt as to the identity of Fyfe’s caller, and Charlie frowned. What did Smith want of the actor? What had he overheard when he stood outside that pavilion window? Why had Fyfe confessed to a crime he had not committed? He couldn’t have committed it, obviously. Not if his story of his actions on the previous night was correct - ah, yes, Charlie reflected, he must look into that.

  “I think I heard Mr. Fyfe say he was going to the theater,” the clerk remarked.

  Chan was not up on the drama. “What theater, please?” he inquired.

  “The Royal,” the clerk told him, and Charlie went there.

  He entered from the street, passing from a tiled lobby into the dark auditorium. On the stage the members of the stock company were rehearsing next week’s piece. A few old kitchen chairs represented exits and entrances, and the players stood about, waiting for their cues. At the moment Fyfe w
as delivering a long speech; he gave it languidly, as though it were something with which he had no personal concern.

  Charlie walked down the dim aisle. A man with a green velour hat pulled low over his eyes, who sat at a small table on the stage with the play script in his hand, looked down at the detective with evident annoyance. “What do you want?” he barked.

  “Just one word, please, with Mr. Fyfe,” Chan replied.

  The actor stepped forward and, shading his eyes from the glare of the footlights, peered into the auditorium.

  “Oh, yes - Inspector Chan,” he said. “Won’t you come up, please?”

  Panting from the effort, Charlie boosted his heavy bulk on to the stage.

  Fyfe was smiling and cordial. “What can I do for you this morning, Inspector?” he inquired.

  Charlie regarded him through half-shut eyes. “Not much, I fear, unless maybe mood has altered overnight. You will recall I arranged for you, somewhat against your wish, a very nice alibi. I am here now to verify myself. A mere matter of form.”

  “Surely,” nodded Fyfe. “Oh, Wayne,” he called. Reluctantly the man in the green hat got up and came over to them. “This is Mr. Wayne, our stage manager - Inspector Chan, of the Honolulu police. The Inspector is here regarding that affair last night. Wayne - what time was it when you rang up last evening?”

  “Eight-twenty,” growled Wayne. “Five minutes late.”

  “I was standing beside you when you rang up?”

  “Yes - you were. Though where you were when we were hammering on your door, I’m damned if I know.”

  “The Inspector, however, does,” Fyfe returned. “Was that all you wanted, Mr. Chan?”

  “One other thing.” Chan addressed the stage manager. “In play which you perform this present week, does Mr. Fyfe in actor capacity indulge in use of knife?”

  “A knife?” repeated Wayne. “Why, no - there’s no knife in this play. It’s a polite drawing-room comedy.”