Jewel of the Pacific

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  She admitted she did, and he went on, “I wonder how Candace is going to take this?” He looked toward the mantelpiece to the clock. “Anyway, that’s all I can say now. I’m going over to the hotel to talk to Rafe. Then I’ll pick up Nora. Then we’ll come by for you this evening for the ball. Oh—I’d better bring my dinner clothes. I’ll change at Rafe’s.”

  Later that evening while Eden prepared herself for the elaborate ball at Iolani Palace her concerns were mounting over Silas. She had an impression that he was aware of trouble and was worried. Zachary must have information that would diminish him in Ainsworth’s eyes.

  Candace had come to Eden’s room to help arrange her hair and to share her pearls to match Eden’s exquisite gown. Candace got on fairly well with Silas. Eden turned in the chair at the vanity table and looked at her thoughtfully.

  “Do you think Silas is behaving—well, sort of strange recently?”

  Eden dared ask, knowing that such a discussion could lead to more trouble.

  Candace paused with comb in hand obviously surprised.

  “Strange? Suspicious! Well, I can’t say I’ve noticed anything as bizarre as all that. Why?”

  Eden drummed her fingers on the table looking at herself in the round mirror. “Perhaps it’s my imagination. I’ve thought him pensive and rather worried about something recently. I’ve tried to get him to talk, but he merely smiles at me, as if I’m a little girl in pigtails.”

  Candace laughed. “He’s a lone wolf all right. I noticed that since the time he arrived. I do think he’s beginning to mellow a wee bit, though. I know he does talk a lot with Ambrose.”

  That caught her interest and brought some hope to her heart. “Oh? How do you know that?”

  “I’ve seen them together walking around the mission church, or on the road to Hawaiiana. I admit, like you, I’m rather taken aback. Silas is such a cynic I wouldn’t have thought a man like Ambrose would fit his mindset. But I do see them together.”

  Eden found the news encouraging. She knew well enough what a praying man Ambrose was, and she admired him for it. Everyone was busy doing, but few spent time in the warfare of intercession to God—including herself. She sighed.

  “I’m happy to hear it,” Eden said as Candace went back to work on her hair. “Ambrose must be answering Silas’s questions about God. Silas is so unhappy.”

  “I don’t know why he should be. He is getting more opportunity from Grandfather than Zachary. He’s almost in the place of a son rather than grandson. After what happened with Townsend I think Grandfather is overreacting to the loss.

  “I wouldn’t mind Grandfather making Silas a son, if—”

  “If what?” Candace formed the last steps of the popular upsweep, making sure several fashionable curls remained near Eden’s neck and temples.

  “If I were confident Silas was as loyal to Grandfather as everyone assumes he is.”

  Candace watched her thoughtfully. “Now that’s a strange thing to say, Eden. Why wouldn’t Silas be loyal to his own grandfather? Look at all Grandfather’s done for him.”

  Eden did not want to pursue the topic too far. She said simply, “Well he does have some mysterious friends, or maybe I should call them associates, or acquaintances.”

  She was thinking of the strange couple she had heard Silas speaking with months earlier in the garden. She hadn’t given much, if any, thought to the matter with so many other concerns in her heart. But it was surfacing in her mind once more. Was there anything to it?

  “I cannot say I’ve noticed anything unusual,” Candace said. “However, don’t pay too much attention to my ignorance. You know how absorbed I’ve become with the wedding next month.”

  “Oh that’s quite understandable.” She looked at her curiously. “Candace, you’ve never told me your views on the annexation issue. Made up your mind yet?”

  “Well, I wasn’t invited to the queen’s ball,” Candace said wryly. “That should tell you how the royalists think of me.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. Like grandfather, like favorite granddaughter,” and Eden smiled.

  Candace laid the comb down, finished with Eden’s hair. “I wish you and Zachary wouldn’t keep suggesting I’m the favored one. I am not. I am merely the only child of Grandfather’s firstborn son and it’s cultural to—” She stopped, and her mouth curved into an ironic smile.

  Eden laughed. “It is cultural to favor a firstborn grandchild perhaps?”

  “Well—it’s not my fault. And anything Grandfather leaves to me, I’ll gladly share with you and Zachary.”

  “Oh you silly thing.” Eden was on her feet and hugging her, smiling. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. I am not a bit jealous. You’ve always been generous. Why even tonight, look at the pearls you’ve brought me—and this gown. Even when I lived in the bungalow with Ambrose and Noelani you were generous.”

  “Oh I wish it had never happened. It was wrong! Plain sinful, if you want my opinion on how you were treated. You were always a Derrington, and you had every right to share in the family blessings as Zachary and I did. When I was younger I should have done more for you. I should have spoken up and made an issue of it with Grandfather and Great-aunt Nora—but I did not. I’m ashamed of it.”

  Eden grew serious. She thought of the times as a young girl when she had watched Candace in the role of Grandfather Ainsworth’s favorite. Back then, with Eden longing for her father, Jerome, and believing Rebecca dead, she would have given almost anything to exchange places with Candace—just to bask in the approval she had seen Grandfather Ainsworth shower on Candace.

  Eden no longer desired that favored position, nor did she need Grandfather’s or Dr. Jerome’s approval in order to feel whole. She had learned, both on Molokai and in Honolulu that her relationship with her Father God through Christ the Son fulfilled the longing in her heart for acceptance and security. She was a member of the “household of God,” as Scripture said, and “accepted in the beloved.” She could now reach out to her father and grandfather with love and not expect, or need, their applause. She was content with being who she was—and who the Lord intended to make her in His family of the redeemed.

  “Dear Candace, don’t feel guilty,” Eden told her. “There’s no reason. I can look back now and see that God ordered my steps. I thought I was the forgotten one, but He remembered me all along. If it had not been for Ambrose and his knowledge of Christ, I may not have come to God as I did. He’s always been an earthly father to me. And now, why, you’re like a sister to me.”

  Candace hugged her. “I feel the same. And yes. There is much to what you say about God’s leading in our lives. We do not always see the good that God is working. I wish now, that I’d had more time with Ambrose and Noelani.”

  Eden looked at the clock. “Oh! We have to hurry. Zachary will be here soon with Nora.”

  Eden finished dressing for the ball in full attire of satin trimmed with pearls. The dress was stunning, with the finest silvery hue that lightened the pale intermingling colors of blue and green. She sighed when Candace had first brought it into her bedroom. She had never seen such a color before and it went perfectly with her own eyes, hair, and fair complexion.

  She was not unaware that she had been born with beauty, but she had always been careful to not flaunt, something Bernice did with great fanfare.

  Eden had been taught restraint and dignity. “Better the female heart is adorned with purity and faithfulness. If you want a man to respect you, then you must respect your own body as important, as having value,” Noelani had said during Eden’s teen years. “Don’t grant a young man liberties he doesn’t deserve. Only your husband, who has committed himself to you, should enjoy them. Never think you can keep a man by surrendering what belongs to your marriage alone. If he will not consider marriage to you, then he’s not worth your time—he is a taker and not a giver of the honor of bearing his name. Nothing would sting worse than trading your value for promises from an uncommitted man. Let him go now, and keep
yourself for the man the Lord has for you.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  A Spy Among Us

  In his suite at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Rafe dressed for the queen’s ball. He slipped into the pristine white shirt Ling had handed to him. Ling then picked up the dinner jacket, inspecting it for lint. Finding none, he passed it to Rafe who watched him ruefully.

  “You know, Ling, I really can dress on my own. My mother even taught me to tie my own shoes.”

  “Go to see the queen. Must look very good.”

  Rafe sighed. “If I must. Ah, for the good old days of my youth.”

  Ling laughed. “You ancient fellow, right?”

  “You should have seen how I dressed aboard the Minoa, then you would have something to complain about.”

  “Prob’ly holes in trousers. Shirt torn.”

  Rafe hadn’t intended to go to the affair at Iolani Palace, preferring a quiet evening in the hotel with newspapers and books to read. He would enjoy the Royal Hawaiian Band—but even then, he preferred classical music, which always made Keno groan, since he liked his ukulele.

  “You like to stay home because you lazy fellow,” Ling jested.

  “You want to keep from people. You still mad at Miss Green Eyes.”

  Rafe gave him a hard look. “Now where did you pick up that name?”

  “Keno say you always call her that—”

  “Forget what Keno says. Take my word for it; since all he thinks about is his marriage, his mind is twisted. I don’t want to hear about green or blue eyes.” He took the tie from Ling’s hand. “I’ll put it on.”

  “You bad mood tonight. I leave you put own shoes on, too!”

  “Thank you,” Rafe said wryly, when someone rapped on the door. He glanced toward the front room. “Answer it, will you? I’m expecting Zach.”

  “What am I—butler too?”

  “Throw in ‘cook,’ when the dining room is closed. That reminds me. Order more coffee beans from Hanalei. We’re out.”

  Ling covered a smile and went to the door mumbling, “I send for coffee beans two day ago. See what good servant I am? You lucky I not go back to Shanghai.”

  Rafe caught up his dinner jacket and smiled.

  He thought of the evening ahead. He was attending the queen’s ball for the legislature for two reasons. First, Eden would be there. He had asked Great-aunt Nora to bring her and keep his request under lock and key. He could have gone to Kea Lani before now, but he’d decided against it. She had probably expected him to go there after that cynical fiasco at Hawaiiana.

  Then, there was the surprising news that Oliver Hunnewell was in Honolulu, and would be there tonight. That was curious. With his father, Thaddeus, one of the most dedicated of the men hoping for the removal of the monarchy, why would his son be invited to the queen’s festivity? Neither Ainsworth nor Hunnewell senior were invited. Rafe held a seat in the legislature, which accounted for his presence, but why Oliver?

  He frowned. Just whose interests was Oliver serving—the British, Liliuokalani, or his father Thaddeus Hunnewell?

  Zachary burst into the room carrying his dinner clothes over his arm. He dropped them on the chair and turned to Rafe. Something more important than clothing churned in his troubled mind. Rafe took one look at his tense features and knew it would be a rough evening.

  “I’ve been the clever hound on the trail of the fox.”

  Rafe tried not to smile since Zach was so profoundly serious. The fox could be none other than Silas.

  “This time I’ve got the information on him,” Zach went on. “And I’m going to use it. Right in the Gazette.” He held up last week’s edition and tapped a headline that seemed unrelated to anything that could trouble him.

  “Sounds interesting,” Rafe said smoothly. “Lay it all on the table.”

  Zachary’s eyes fairly glimmered as he glanced toward the other door as though cautious that someone—Silas himself?—might have an ear at a keyhole.

  “Witchcraft,” Zach stated bluntly, but in a low voice.

  This was so unexpected that Rafe just stared at him. Zach must have thought he didn’t believe him because he nodded his sleek blond head. “Yes, you heard me. Witchcraft. That’s what it boils down to in the political pot.”

  “Witchcraft,” Rafe said. He folded his arms.

  “Exactly.”

  “Silas practices witchcraft,” Rafe said slowly. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  “He might. He wouldn’t need to, though. But he might.”

  Rafe straightened, hands on hips. “Zach—sit down. Start from the beginning. Ling? Bring us whatever you have in the kitchen, will you?”

  Ling was gaping at Zachary.

  Rafe sighed. “Ling?”

  “Tea,” Ling announced. “I have tea in kitchen. Bring from Chinatown.”

  “On second thought, better order coffee from the café.”

  Ling started off, but loitered at the door, until he noticed Rafe watching him. Then he went to order the coffee from the café at the hotel garden.

  Zach had drawn a wicker chair to the table near the lanai. Leaning toward Rafe he said in a low voice, “I’ve got the story that will put the Gazette at the top of the Honolulu papers.”

  Rafe had heard this before. “Not without Nora’s approval, and Ainsworth won’t appreciate an attack on the Derringtons.”

  “I’ll need to convince Nora to let me flame the headlines. If anything will help the sales and save the Gazette, the scandal being operated in Iolani Palace should do the trick.”

  Rafe already knew Silas was involved with the gambling cartel. Silas had admitted as much several months back. But what had this to do with Iolani Palace? Maybe Zach had stumbled onto something.

  Concerning Silas and the gamblers from Louisiana, Rafe had kept the knowledge quiet for only one reason—to give Ambrose time to try and win Silas away from the cartel to bow the knee to Christ the Redeemer. Not only was the cartel corrupt, but it could also be a danger to Silas, who probably knew enough to put others at risk of being unmasked for their involvement. Was this what Zach was trying to explain? What any of this might have to do with witchcraft, however, was a puzzle.

  “We know the syndicate is involved with members of the legislature,” Rafe said. “Maybe with Liliuokalani. Thurston is sure of it, though I’m not convinced yet. The syndicate wants both gambling and opium bills introduced, passed, and handed over by a cabinet member for her signature before she dismisses the legislature in September.”

  “That’s it, all right,” Zach said eagerly. “Several men are here in Honolulu from Louisiana. Silas is working with them. And they’re working with the Chinese kingpin.”

  “How do you know that?” Rafe pressed.

  Zach looked sheepish. “I’ve followed Silas a few times since we returned from San Francisco.”

  “And what did you discover—that he went to a Chinese gambling house in Iwilei?”

  “Right. Or Rat Alley, as some call the area. It was the same house I trailed him to in the past. That night, for instance, when I was bashed in the head in Hunnewell’s garden, I’d followed him there. There were several men representing the cartel. They all had the same Southern accent Silas has. I even heard one of them mention New Orleans and some place called Gretna, Lu-ze-an-a, was the way he pronounced it.”

  “Interesting, Zach, and good work on your part,” Rafe said, though he knew of the men and the kingpin’s gambling joint.

  “Spying on the men from Louisiana is one thing, but the home turf of the opium kingpin is another. It’s a risky undertaking—too risky. We think Sen Fong was the number two man in the opium smuggling. He became a follower of Christ and was murdered to keep the cartel undercover. We found him with a knife through his heart in the garden at Hawaiiana. I still believe he came there to inform on the big kahunas calling the orders.”

  “You’re right,” Zach admitted. “The marshal hasn’t been able to bring anyone to trial for the murder either.”

>   “There’s a strong chance he won’t, or can’t. The Chinese cartel operates undercover as a law among themselves.”

  Zachary gave a shake of his head. “The more I dig into the gambling and opium trade, the deeper the tunnel gets.”

  “I suspect it leads all the way to China,” Rafe said. “Even San Francisco. That tunnel is well connected. The cartels are as intertwined as two snakes. I suspect the lottery representatives from Louisiana came here either to expand in the Islands, or to take over from those already here. It’s my guess they’d rather strike a compromise with the Chinese opium kingpin, and keep the lucrative business of the casinos for themselves.”

  Zach’s eyes glimmered. “And that isn’t all. One time when I followed Silas I had better luck seeing the person he went there to meet. It was Oliver Hunnewell.”

  The connection to Oliver captured Rafe’s interest; it made sense to him. If Oliver was working to get the lottery signed into law, then the timing was right for him to show up in Honolulu on the verge of the queen pushing underhandedly to get the bill through the legislature.

  This might be the connection he’d been looking for. He must move with caution, though.

  “The cartel has a witch on their payroll,” Zach said with a smirk. “I haven’t been able to dig up much on her, however.”

  “A fortune-teller, though they all hatch from the same egg. I can tell you a little about her.”

  “You know?” Zach asked surprised.

  “I’ve been suspicious for months. I first saw her here in the hotel lobby with a man. Whether he’s her husband or an associate is unclear. I inquired about her at the hotel office, and her name is Wolf. She’s a wolf all right, in sheep’s clothing, pulling the wool over Liliuokalani’s eyes with her trickery.”

  “And Silas knows about her,” Zach insisted. “Oliver mentioned her to him. I heard him speak of ‘the witch.’”

  “I’m sure he was just being sarcastic. She claims to be a tarot card reader. But whether she calls herself a fortune-teller, soothsayer, or kahuna, it’s all the same where the Scriptures come down. It’s an evil deception, and forbidden.”