The Black Camel

by The Black Camel [lit]

  Chan sighed. "Maybe I should put my eleven children on this case."

  "Maybe you should," she laughed. "A little American pep might work wonders."

  "That is true. I am only stupid old Oriental -"

  "Who says you are? I never did. But Dad, if you love me, please hurry."

  "I will speed," he answered. "If I do not, I perceive I can not come home to-night."

  He hung up the receiver and went to a near-by restaurant, where he ate a generous dinner.

  Refreshed and fortified, he was presently strolling down King Street toward Aala Park. Dusk was falling over that littered stretch of ground, the campus of the undergraduates in the hard school of experience. They lolled about on the benches, some of them glancing up at Charlie with hostile eyes under discreetly lowered lids. There was muttering as he passed, an occasional curse from the lips of some one who had met the detective under circumstances none too pleasant. He paid no attention to any of them - he was seeking a man in a velvet coat and duck trousers that had once been white.

  The Park yielded nothing. He crossed to a street of mean shops and shabby business. Above his head, on a fragile balcony, an enormous Filipino woman in a faded kimono puffed on an after-dinner cigar. Charlie moved along into a section of Honolulu quite unknown to tourists who breathed the pure air of the beach and raved about the beauty of these islands.

  There was no beauty in the River District, only squalor and poverty; seven races jumbled together in an international slum. He heard voices raised in bitter argument, the weeping of children, the clatter of sandals, and, even here, the soft whine of Hawaiian music. The Song of the Islands floated lazily on the fetid air. Over a doorway that led to a dark and dirty stair, he saw the sign: "Oriental Cabaret."

  He paused for a moment in the glare of the lights that formed this sign. A girl was approaching, dark-skinned, slender, graceful. He stood aside to let her pass, and saw her face. The tropics, lonely islands lost in vast southern seas - a lovely head against a background of cool green. Quickly he followed her up the stairs.

  He came into a bare room with a sagging roof. There were many tables with blue and white checkered cloths; painted girls were eating at the rear. A suave little proprietor came forward, rubbing his hands with outward calm, but somewhat disturbed inside.

  "What you want, Inspector?"

  Charlie pushed him aside and followed the girl he had seen below. She had taken off her hat and hung it on a nail; evidently she worked here.

  "Begging your pardon," Chan began.

  She looked at him, fear and defiance mingling in her smoldering eyes. "What you want?"

  "You are acquainted with haole - white man - Smith, the beach-comber?"

  "Maybe."

  "He painted your portrait - I have seen it. A beautiful thing."

  The girl shrugged. "Yes, he come here, sometimes. I let him make the picture. What of it?"

  "Have you seen Mr. Smith lately?"

  "Not for long time - no."

  "Where does he live?"

  "On the beach, I think."

  "But when he has money - where then?"

  The girl did not reply. The proprietor came forward. "You tell him, Leonora. Tell Inspector what he asks you to."

  "Oh, well. Sometimes he live at Nippon Hotel, on Beretania Street."

  Chan bowed. "Thank you so much." He wasted no time in that odorous cluttered room, but hastened down the dark stair. In a few moments he entered the Nippon Hotel. The sleek little Japanese behind the desk greeted him with a cordiality Chan knew was rankly insincere.

  "Inspector, you honor my house."

  "Such is not my purpose. Haole named Smith - he stops here?"

  The clerk took a register from beneath the desk. "I look see -"

  Charlie reached out and took the book from his slightly resisting hands. "I will see. Your eyes are notably bad. Archie Smith, room seven. Lead me there."

  "Mr. Smith out, I think."

  "We will discover if he is. Please make haste."

  Reluctantly the Japanese led him across an open courtyard, filled with a neglected tangle of plants and flowers. The Nippon Hotel was a cluster of shabby sheds, antiquated outbuildings. They stepped on to a lanai; a Japanese woman porter, bent low under a heavy tin trunk, staggered by. The clerk moved on into a musty hallway, and pointed to a door. The numeral seven - or what was left of it - hung by one nail on the panel.

  "In there," said the Jap, and with a hostile look, disappeared.

  Chan opened the door of number seven, and entered a dim low-ceilinged room. One dirty bulb was burning over a pine table, and at that table sat Smith, the beach-comber, with a canvas on his knees. He looked up, startled.

  "Oh," he said. "So it's you?"

  Chan regarded him sleepily. "Where you been all day?"

  Smith indicated the canvas. "The evidence is right here, Inspector. I've been sitting in my palatial studio painting that courtyard outside. Glad you dropped in - it's been a bit dull since I finished." He leaned back in his chair and critically surveyed his work. "Come and look at this, Inspector. Do you know, I believe I've got something into it - a certain miasmic quality. Did you ever realize before that flowers can look mean and sinister? Well, they can - in the courtyard of the Nippon Hotel."

  Chan glanced at the painting and nodded. "Yes, plenty good, but I have no time to be critic now. Get your hat and come with me."

  "Where are we going - to dinner? I know a place on the Boulevard St. Germain -"

  "We go to the station house," Charlie replied.

  "Wherever you say," nodded Smith, and putting aside the canvas, picked up his hat.

  They crossed Aala Park to King Street. Chan regarded the derelict with an almost affectionate gaze. Before he and Smith parted company again, the beach-comber was going to tell him much - enough, perhaps, to solve his problem and put an end to all his worries.

  The Chief was alone in the detectives' room. At sight of Charlie's companion, he brightened visibly. "Ah, you got him. I thought you would."

  "What's it all about?" Smith asked jauntily. "I'm flattered, of course, by all these attentions, but -"

  "Sit down," said the Chief. "Take off that hat." Thank heaven, here was some one who needn't be handled any too gently. "Look at me. A woman was killed last night at Waikiki, in a separate building on the grounds of her home. What were you doing in the room where she was killed?"

  Beneath the yellow beard, Smith's face paled. He wet his lips with his tongue. "I was never in that room, Chief."

  "You lie! We found your finger-prints on the window-sill. Look at me. What were you doing in that room?"

  "I - I -"

  "Come on, brace up. You're in a tight place. Tell the truth, or you'll swing for this. What were you doing -"

  "All right," said Smith in a low voice. "I'll tell you about it. Give me a chance. I didn't kill anybody. It's true, I was in that room - in a way."

  "In a way?"

  "Yes. I opened the window and climbed up on the sill. You see -"

  "Kindly start at beginning," Chan cut in. "We know you arrived at window of pavilion to hear man and woman talking inside. What was said we pass over for the minute. You heard the man leaving the room -"

  "Yes - and I went after him. I wanted to see him - but he got into a car and drove away down the avenue. I couldn't catch him. So I ambled back and sat down on the beach. Pretty soon I heard a cry - a woman's cry - from that pavilion. I didn't know what to do. I waited a while, and then I went over and looked through the window. The curtain was down, but it flapped about. Everything was quiet - I thought the place was empty. And then - well, really - I'm a little embarrassed about this. I'd never done such a thing before. But I was desperate - strapped - and when you're that way you get the feeling, somehow, that the world owes you a living -"

  "Get on with it," barked the Chief.

  "Well, just inside the window I caught a glimpse of - of a diamond pin. I thought there was no one inside, so I pushed up the
screen and climbed on to the sill. I stooped over and picked up the pin - and then I saw her - the woman - lying over there by the table - stabbed, dead. Well, of course I realized at once that was no place for me. I lowered the screen, hid the pin in a little secret safety-deposit box of mine on the beach, and strolled as casually as I could to the avenue. I was still moving when that cop picked me up, an hour later."

  "Is pin still on beach?" Chan inquired.

  "No - I got it this morning." Smith reached into his trousers pocket and produced it. "Take it quick - I don't want it - don't let me ever see it again. I must have been crazy, I guess. But as I say - when you're down and out -" Charlie was studying the pin. It was a delicate affair, a row of fine diamonds set in platinum. He turned it over. The pin itself was broken midway, and the end of it was lost.

  The Chief was looking sternly at the beach-comber. "Well," he said, "you know what this means. We'll have to lock you up -"

  "One moment, please," broke in Charlie. "Finding of pretty pin is good enough, but it is not vital to us. Vital matter is, what did this man hear Shelah Fane and Robert Fyfe saying to each other while he lingered outside pavilion window? Something of great importance - something Mr. Fyfe made false confession to quiet - something he has paid Mr. Smith nice sum to conceal. But now Mr. Smith changes mind. He will not conceal it any longer."

  "Oh, yes, I will," cried Smith. "I mean - it was nothing - nothing -"

  "We hold you for theft," cut in Charlie. "Do you enjoy prisons? I think not. Neither does territory enjoy supporting you there. Under a certain circumstance, memory of theft might fade from our minds for ever. Am I speaking correctly, Chief?"

  The Chief was dubious. "You think it's as important as that, Charlie?"

  "It is of vast importance," Chan replied.

  "All right." He turned to the beach-comber. "Tell us the truth of what you heard last night, and you can go. I won't press the charge. But - it's got to be the truth, this time."

  Smith hesitated. His rosy dream of the mainland, decent clothes, respectability, was dying hard. But he shuddered at the thought of Oahu Prison.

  "All right," he said at last. "I'll tell you. I hate to do it, but - oh, well - there's Cleveland. My father - a punctilious man. Easily annoyed - growing old, you know. I've got to get out of this jam for his sake, if not for my own. When I came up to that window, Inspector -"

  Chan raised his hand. "A moment, please, I have keen desire to see Robert Fyfe in this room when you tell the story." He looked at his watch. "I can reach him at hotel, I think. Excuse me." He took up the telephone and summoned Fyfe. Then he went over and sat down in a chair at the beach-comber's side. "Now we will rest as comfortable as may be. You, Smith, explore your mind and arrange story in advance. Kindly remember - the truth."

  The beach-comber nodded. "You're on, Inspector. The truth this time." He looked down at his battered shoes. "I knew it was too good to last. Got a cigarette? No? Neither have I. Oh, well, life's like that."

  Chapter XXII

  WHAT THE BEACH-COMBER HEARD

  They sat in silence, and the minutes dragged by. Smith's pale gray eyes stared hopelessly into the future, a future where he walked for ever, broke and forlorn, along a curving beach. Lighting a big cigar, the Chief picked up the evening paper. Charlie Chan took the diamond bar pin from his pocket and studied it, deep in thought.

  Ten minutes passed, and then Robert Fyfe entered the room. He came in as though he were stepping on to a stage: suave, smiling, sure of himself. But as his gaze fell upon Smith the smile faded suddenly, and a frown replaced it.

  "Good evening," the actor said. "I can give you about twenty minutes, Mr. Chan, and then I must run. It wouldn't do to be late at the theater again to-night."

  "Twenty minutes will be ample plenty," nodded Charlie. "Mr. Smith and yourself have met before. Over here sits my Chief."

  Fyfe bowed. "Ah, yes. I take it you have called me here for some important reason, Inspector?"

  "Seems important to us," Chan answered. "I will squander no words. Last night you hold famous conversation with ex-wife in beach pavilion. The true contents of that talk have not yet been revealed. First when matter is discussed, you confess to crime you did not do, in order to change subject. Then, this morning, you discover yourself sudden lover of art, and buy picture from Smith, hoping to keep him quiet." He looked fixedly at the actor. "I rejoice you got nice painting, Mr. Fyfe. Because that will be all you get. Smith can not longer keep quiet. Smith is about to speak."

  A look of distress crossed the actor's face, and was succeeded by one of anger. He wheeled about and faced the beach-comber. "You contemptible -"

  Smith raised a protesting hand. "I know - I know. What a broken reed I've turned out to be. I'm as sorry about this as you are, old man. But these keen lads here have got something on me - something rather serious - it means prison unless I ditch you. And I've slept in the pure open air so much - somehow a prison cot doesn't appeal to me. Frightfully sorry, as I said, but I'm going to throw you over. By the way, have you got a cigarette?"

  Fyfe glared at him for a moment, and then, shrugging his shoulders, opened a silver case and held it out. Smith helped himself.

  "Thanks. It's a wretched affair, Mr. Fyfe, and - no, that's all right, I've got a match - the sooner we get it over with, the better." He lighted the cigarette, and took a long pull at it. "To return to our favorite subject - last night on the beach - I went up to that pavilion window and they were in there together - this man and Shelah Fane. She was doing most of the talking - got a look at her - lovely, even more so than in the films. I'd rather like to have painted her - wearing that cream-colored gown -"

  "Come, come," cried the Chief. "Get on with it."

  "That's what I'm trying to do. I just wanted to point out how beautiful she was - a woman like that ought to be allowed at least one - shot."

  Chan stood up. "What is your meaning now?"

  "I mean she'd taken it, anyhow. She was telling Mr. Fyfe all about it - how three years ago, in Hollywood, she killed a man -"

  With a groan Fyfe sank into a chair, and covered his face with his hands.

  "Killed what man?" the Chief demanded.

  "Ah, yes - the name." Smith hesitated. "Denny, I think she called him. Yes, that was it - Denny Mayo."

  There was a moment's tense silence, and then Fyfe leaped to his feet. "Let me tell this," he cried. "It will sound dreadful, if he tells it. Let me explain about Shelah - she was emotional, impetuous. I'll try to make you understand -"

  "I don't care who tells it," said the Chief. "But I want it told, and quick."

  Fyfe turned to Chan. "You heard, Inspector, how she called me at the theater - a distracted, pitiful call - and said she must see me at once. I answered that I'd come after the show, but she said no, that might be too late. If I'd ever loved her, I must come at once. She had something to tell me, she wanted my advice, she was desperate. So - I went.

  "I met her on the lawn; she seemed overwhelmed with anxiety and fear. We went to the pavilion and she burst at once into her story. Some years after our divorce, she told me, she met this Denny Mayo - she fell madly in love with him - I could picture it. I knew how Shelah loved. Wildly, unreasonably. Mayo seemed to care for her; he had a wife in London, a dancer in musical comedies, but he promised to divorce her and marry Shelah. For a time Shelah was happy - and then one night Mayo asked her to come to his house.

  "That was three years ago - a night in June. She went to his place at the hour he had suggested. He told her that he was through; that his wife had had an accident and was unable to work any longer; that he believed he owed a duty to this woman - at any rate he was going to write her to join him in Hollywood. Poor Shelah went a little mad then. Quite out of her senses. There was a revolver in the drawer of Mayo's desk, she got it, pointed it at him, threatened to kill him and herself. I have seen her in such moments; she was not responsible, I know. They struggled over the weapon, it went off in her hand. She stood looking d
own at Mayo, dead at her feet.

  "She came to her senses then, I fancy. At any rate, she took her handkerchief and removed her fingerprints from the gun. She stole out of the house and went home unobserved. She was safe. Not once did the investigation point to her. Safe - but never happy again. From that day she lived in torment.

  "A few weeks ago, in Tahiti, she met Alan Jaynes. She wanted to marry him, but she was haunted by that memory of the past. She'd fallen into the habit of consulting this fellow Tarneverro about everything; he had impressed her deeply with his cleverness. She sent for him to meet her here, and yesterday morning she went to his apartment.

  "When she went there, she had no intention of telling him anything about Denny Mayo. She merely wanted him to read her future, to advise her as to whether a marriage with Jaynes would turn out happily. But he - he seemed to exert some mysterious power over her. Perhaps he hypnotized her. In any case, the first thing she knew, she found herself confessing the whole terrible story to the fortune-teller -"