The Black Camel

by The Black Camel [lit]

  "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 beach-comber'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 valleys 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 to-night, Dad?" he inquired.

  "If I ever wanted it, to-night 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 br
ought 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 was 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."

  "Thank you so much," Charlie said, bowing. "That is all." He turned on Robert Fyfe a speculative eye. "Will you come with me, please?"

  He led the way down into the auditorium, thinking deeply as he did so. Shelah Fane was seen alive at eight-twelve. Robert Fyfe was in the wings of the theater, ready to go on, at eight-twenty. Just eight minutes - no one could possibly travel the distance from Waikiki to town in that time. Fyfe's alibi was perfect. And yet -

  In the darkened foyer back of the last row Charlie paused, and the two leaned on the rail.

  "I am still wondering, Mr. Fyfe," the detective remarked, "why you made false confession that you killed Shelah Fane."

  "I'm inclined to wonder a bit myself, Inspector."

  "Obviously you did not kill her."

  "I'm afraid you must think me a fool," Fyfe said.

  "Other way about, I think you very smart man."

  "Do you, really? That's flattering, I'm sure."

  "There was reason for that confession, Mr. Fyfe."

  "If there was, it has quite escaped my memory at this time, Inspector."

  "Much better you tell me. Otherwise you place obstacle in path of justice."

  "I must be the judge of that, Mr. Chan. I do not wish to hinder you. On the contrary I am eager for your success."

  "Under such a circumstance, I find that difficult to believe." Chan was silent for a moment. "You have seen our friend the beach-comber this morning?"

  Fyfe hesitated. He regretted more than ever the public nature of his meeting with Smith. Then he threw back his head and laughed - a laugh too long delayed, as Charlie noted.

  "I certainly have," the actor admitted. "He called on me almost before I was up."

  "For what purpose?"

  "To get money, of course. I imagine he is making the rounds of the people he met last night. He seemed to think that the mere meeting gave him a sort of claim on us all."

  "You are too busy with plural words," Chan protested. "His claim, I think, was on you alone." The actor said nothing. "You gave him money?" Charlie persisted.

  "Why - yes - a few dollars. I was rather sorry for him. He is not a bad painter -" Fyfe stopped suddenly.

  "How do you know he is not a bad painter?" Chan was quick to ask.

  "Well - he - he left a canvas with me -"

  "This canvas?" Charlie stepped down the aisle, and picked up something from a vacant seat. "I noted it as we came back here together," he explained. "If you do not mind, I will take it to light and examine it."

  "By all means," the actor agreed.

  Charlie walked to the door, and pushing it open, gazed for a moment at the painting. The eyes of that girl, posed against green shrubbery, seemed strangely alive. He came back to Fyfe's side.

  "You are correct," he remarked, dropping the canvas into one of the chairs. "The man has talent. Pity such a one must resort to - blackmail."

  "Who said it was blackmail?" demanded Fyfe.

  "I say so. Mr. Fyfe, I could place you beneath arrest -"

  "Isn't my alibi satisfactory?"

  "Quite. But you hamper my work. For the last time - what was it Smith, the beach-comber, heard your ex-wife say to you?"

  The stage manager came to the footlights, and called.

  "I'm so sorry," said Fyfe, "but I'm keeping the company. I really must go along -"

  Chan shrugged. "The inquiry is young, as yet. Before I am through, I will know, Mr. Fyfe."

  "Drop in any time," said Fyfe blandly, holding out his hand. "Too bad I must leave you now, but an actor's life, you know -"

  Chan gravely shook han
ds, and the actor hurried up the aisle. As he returned to the bright street, Charlie wore a puzzled frown. He knew that behind Fyfe's suave manner there lurked something of vital importance - something that might, indeed, solve his problem. Yet he would never get it from Fyfe. The beachcomber - ah, perhaps. He made a mental note of the beach-comber.

  Climbing back into his flivver, Chan drove over to King Street and turned in the direction of Waikiki. As he passed the public library, set well back from the street amid great trees, he was tempted to stop. It occurred to him that he ought to read, in a Los Angeles paper, the story of Denny Mayo's murder. Buried in the yellowed columns describing that spectacular moment in the movie colony's history, he might discover a line that would at once put him on the true scent in his search for Shelah Fane's assailant.