The House Without a Key

by Earl Der Biggers

  The Hawaiian boy moved rather diffidently toward the clerk. “Excuse me, please,” he said. “I come to see Mr. Brade. Mr. Thomas Brade.”

  “Mr. Brade not here,” replied the clerk.

  “Then I will wait till he comes.”

  The clerk frowned. “No good. Mr. Brade not in Honolulu now.”

  “Not in Honolulu!” The Hawaiian seemed startled by the news.

  “Mrs. Brade outside on the beach,” continued the clerk.

  “Oh, then Mr. Brade returns,” said the boy with evident relief. “I call again.”

  He turned away, moving rapidly now. The clerk addressed Mr. Saladine, who was hovering near the cigar case. “Yes, sir, please?”

  “Thigarettes,” said the bereft Mr. Saladine.

  The clerk evidently knew the brand desired, and handed over a box.

  “Juth put it on my bill,” said Saladine. He stood for a moment staring after the Hawaiian, who was disappearing through the front door. As he swung round his eyes encountered those of John Quincy. He looked quickly away and hurried out.

  The two policemen and the girl entered from the corridor. “Well, Mr. Winterslip,” said Hallet, “the bird has flown.”

  “So I understand,” John Quincy answered.

  “But we’ll find him,” continued Hallet. “I’ll go over these islands with a drag-net. First of all, I want a talk with his wife.” He turned to Carlotta Egan. “Get her in here,” he ordered. The girl looked at him. “Please,” he added.

  She motioned to the clerk, who went out the door.

  “By the way,” remarked John Quincy, “someone was just here asking for Brade.”

  “What’s that!” Hallet was interested.

  “A young Hawaiian, about twenty, I should say. Tall and slim. If you go to the door, you may catch a glimpse of him.”

  Hallet hurried over and glanced out into the garden. In a second he returned. “Humph,” he said. “I know him. Did he say he’d come again?”

  “He did.”

  Hallet considered. “I’ve changed my mind,” he announced. “I won’t question Mrs. Brade, after all. For the present, I don’t want her to know we’re looking for her husband. I’ll trust you to fix that up with your clerk,” he added to the girl. She nodded. “Lucky we left things as we found them in nineteen,” he went on. “Unless she misses that letter and the cigarettes, which isn’t likely, we’re all right. Now, Miss Egan, we three will go into your father’s office there behind the desk, and leave the door open. When Mrs. Brade comes in, I want you to question her about her husband’s absence. Get all you can out of her. I’ll be listening.”

  “I understand,” the girl said.

  Hallet, Chan and John Quincy went into Jim Egan’s sanctum. “You found nothing else in the room?” the latter inquired of the Chinese man.

  Chan shook his head. “Even so, fates are in smiling mood. What we have now are plentiful.”

  “Sh!” warned Hallet.

  “Mrs. Brade, a young man was just here inquiring for your husband.” It was Carlotta Egan’s voice.

  “Really?” The accent was unmistakably British.

  “He wanted to know where he could find him. We couldn’t say.”

  “No—of course not.”

  “Your husband has left town, Mrs. Brade?”

  “Yes. I fancy he has.”

  “You know when he will return, perhaps?”

  “I really couldn’t say. Is the mail in?”

  “Not yet. We expect it about one.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “Go to the door,” Hallet directed John Quincy.

  “She’s gone to her room,” announced the boy.

  The three of them emerged from Egan’s office.

  “Oh, Captain?” said the girl. “I’m afraid I wasn’t very successful.”

  “That’s all right,” replied Hallet. “I didn’t think you would be.” The clerk was again at his post behind the desk. Hallet turned to him. “Look here,” he said. “I understand someone was here a minute ago asking for Brade. It was Dick Kaohla, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes-s,” answered the clerk.

  “Had he been here before to see Brade?”

  “Yes-s. Sunday night. Mr. Brade and him have long talk on the beach.”

  Hallet nodded grimly. “Come on, Charlie,” he said. “We’ve got our work cut out for us. Wherever Brade is, we must find him.”

  John Quincy stepped forward. “Pardon me, Captain,” he remarked. “But if you don’t mind—just who is Dick Kaohla?”

  Hallet hesitated. “Kaohla’s father—he’s dead now—was a sort of confidential servant to Dan Winterslip. The boy’s just plain no good. And oh, yes—he’s the grandson of that woman who’s over at your place now. Kamaikui—is that her name?”

  Chapter 14

  What Kaohla Carried

  Several days slipped by so rapidly John Quincy scarcely noted their passing. Dan Winterslip was sleeping now under the royal palms of the lovely island where he had been born. Sun and moon shone brightly in turn on his last dwelling place, but those who sought the person he had encountered that Monday night on his lanai were still groping in the dark.

  Hallet had kept his word, he was combing the Islands for Brade. But Brade was nowhere. Ships paused at the crossroads and sailed again; the name of Thomas Macan Brade was on no sailing list. Through far settlements that were called villages but were nothing save clusters of Japanese huts, in lonely coves where the surf moaned dismally, over pineapple and sugar plantations, the emissaries of Hallet pursued their quest. Their efforts came to nothing.

  John Quincy drifted idly with the days. He knew now the glamour of Waikiki waters; he had felt their warm embrace. Every afternoon he experimented with a board in the malihini surf, and he was eager for the moment when he could dare the big rollers farther out. Boston seemed like a tale that is told, State Street and Beacon memories of another more active existence now abandoned. No longer was he at a loss to understand his aunt’s reluctance to depart these friendly shores.

  Early Friday afternoon Miss Minerva found him reading a book on the lanai. Something in the nonchalance of his manner irritated her. She had always been for action, and the urge was on her even in Hawaii.

  “Have you seen Mr. Chan lately?” she inquired.

  “Talked with him this morning. They’re doing their best to find Brade.”

  “Humph,” sniffed Miss Minerva. “Their best is none too good. I’d like to have a few Boston detectives on this case.”

  “Oh, give them time,” yawned John Quincy.

  “They’ve had three days,” she snapped. “Time enough. Brade never left this island of Oahu, that’s certain. And when you consider that you can drive across it in a motor in two hours, and around it in about six, Mr. Hallet’s brilliance does not impress. I’ll have to end by solving this thing myself.”

  John Quincy laughed. “Yes, maybe you will.”

  “Well, I’ve given them the two best clues they have. If they’d keep their eyes open the way I do—”

  “Charlie’s eyes are open,” protested John Quincy.

  “Think so? They look pretty sleepy to me.”

  Barbara appeared on the lanai, dressed for a drive. Her eyes were somewhat happier; a bit of color had come back to her cheeks. “What are you reading, John Quincy?” she asked.

  He held up the book. “The City by the Golden Gate,” he told her.

  “Oh, really? If you’re interested, I believe Dad had quite a library on San Francisco. I remember there was a history of the Stock Exchange—he wanted me to read it, but I couldn’t.”

  “You missed a good one,” John Quincy informed her. “I finished it this morning. I’ve read five other books on San Francisco since I came.”

  His aunt stared at him. “What for?” she asked.

  “Well—” he hesitated. “I’ve taken sort of a fancy to the town. I don’t know—sometimes I think I’d rather like to live there.”

  Miss Miner
va smiled grimly. “And they sent you out to take me back to Boston,” she remarked.

  “Boston’s all right,” said her nephew hastily. “It’s Winterslip headquarters—but its hold has never been strong enough to prevent an occasional Winterslip from hitting the trail. You know, when I came into San Francisco harbor, I had the oddest feeling.” He told them about it. “And the more I saw of the city, the better I liked it. There’s a snap and sparkle in the air, and the people seem to know how to get the most out of life.”

  Barbara smiled on him approvingly. “Follow that impulse, John Quincy,” she advised.

  “Maybe I will. All this reminds me—I must write a letter.” He rose and left the lanai.

  “Does he really intend to desert Boston?” Barbara asked.

  Miss Minerva shook her head. “Just a moment’s madness,” she explained. “I’m glad he’s going through it—he’ll be more human in the future. But as for leaving Boston! John Quincy! As well expect Bunker Hill Monument to emigrate to England.”

  In his room upstairs, however, John Quincy’s madness was persisting. He had never completed that letter to Agatha Parker, but he now plunged into his task with enthusiasm. San Francisco was his topic, and he wrote well. He pictured the city in words that glowed with life, and he wondered—just a suggestion—how she’d like to live there.

  Agatha was now, he recalled, on a ranch in Wyoming—her first encounter with the West—and that was providential. She had felt for herself the lure of the wide open spaces. Well, the farther you went the wider and opener they got. In California life was all color and light. Just a suggestion, of course.

  As he sealed the flap of the envelope, he seemed to glimpse Agatha’s thin patrician face, and his heart sank. Her gray eyes were cool, so different from Barbara’s, so very different from those of Carlotta Maria Egan.

  On Saturday afternoon John Quincy had an engagement to play golf with Harry Jennison. He drove up Nuuanu Valley in Barbara’s roadster—for Dan Winterslip’s will had been read and everything he possessed was Barbara’s now. In that sheltered spot a brisk rain was falling, as is usually the case, though the sun was shining brightly. John Quincy had grown accustomed to this phenomenon; “liquid sunshine” the people of Hawaii call such rain, and pay no attention to it. Half a dozen different rainbows added to the beauty of the Country Club links.

  Jennison was waiting on the veranda, a striking figure in white. He appeared genuinely glad to see his guest, and they set out on a round of golf that John Quincy would long remember. Never before had he played amid such beauty. The low hills stood on guard, their slopes bright with tropical colors—the yellow of kukui trees, the gray of ferns, the emerald of ohia and banana trees, here and there a splotch of brick-red earth. The course was a green velvet carpet beneath their feet; the showers came and went. Jennison was a proficient driver, but the boy was his superior on approaches, and at the end of the match John Quincy was four up. They putted through a rainbow and returned to the locker room.

  In the roadster going home, Jennison brought up the subject of Dan Winterslip’s murder. John Quincy was interested to get the reaction of a lawyer to the evidence.

  “I’ve kept more or less in touch with the case,” Jennison said. “Egan is still my choice.”

  Somehow, John Quincy resented this. A picture of Carlotta Egan’s lovely but unhappy face flashed through his mind. “How about Leatherbee and the Compton woman?” he asked.

  “Well, of course, I wasn’t present when they told their story,” Jennison replied. “But Hallet claims it sounded perfectly plausible. And it doesn’t seem likely that if he’d had anything to do with the murder, Leatherbee would have been fool enough to keep that page from the guest book.”

  “There’s Brade, too,” John Quincy suggested.

  “Yes—Brade complicates things. But when they run him down—if they do—I imagine the result will be nil.”

  “You know that Kamaikui’s grandson is mixed up somehow with Brade?”

  “So I understand. It’s a matter that wants looking into. But mark my words, when all these trails are followed to the end, everything will come back to Jim Egan.”

  “What have you against Egan?” inquired John Quincy, swerving to avoid another car.

  “I have nothing against Egan,” Jennison replied. “But I can’t forget the look on Dan Winterslip’s face that day he told me he was afraid of the man. Then there is the stub of the Corsican cigarette. Most important of all, Egan’s silence regarding his business with Winterslip. Men who are facing a charge of murder, my boy, talk, and talk fast. Unless it so happens that what they have to say would further incriminate them.”

  They drove on in silence into the heart of the city. “Hallet tells me you’re doing a little detective work yourself,” smiled Jennison.

  “I’ve tried, but I’m a duffer,” John Quincy admitted. “Just at present my efforts consist of a still hunt for that watch Aunt Minerva saw on the murderer’s wrist. Whenever I see a wristwatch I get as close to it as I can, and stare. But as most of my sleuthing is done in the day time, it isn’t so easy to determine whether the numeral two is bright or dim.”

  “Persistence,” urged Jennison. “That’s the secret of a good detective. Stick to the job and you may succeed yet.”

  The lawyer was to dine with the family at Waikiki. John Quincy set him down at his office, where he had a few letters to sign, and then drove him out to the beach. Barbara was gowned in white; she was slim and wistful and beautiful, and considering the events of the immediate past, the dinner was a cheerful one.

  They had coffee on the lanai. Presently Jennison rose and stood by Barbara’s chair. “We’ve something to tell you,” he announced. He looked down at the girl. “Is that right, my dear?”

  Barbara nodded.

  “Your cousin and I”—the lawyer turned to the two from Boston—“have been fond of each other for a long time. We shall be married very quietly in a week or so—”

  “Oh, Harry—not a week,” said Barbara.

  “Well, as you wish. But very soon.”

  “Yes, very soon,” she repeated.

  “And leave Honolulu for a time,” Jennison continued. “Naturally, Barbara feels she can not stay here for the present—so many memories—you both understand. She has authorized me to put this house up for sale—”

  “But, Harry,” Barbara protested, “you make me sound so inhospitable. Telling my guests that the house is for sale and I am leaving—”

  “Nonsense, my dear,” said Aunt Minerva. “John Quincy and I understand, quite. I sympathize with your desire to get away.” She rose.

  “I’m sorry,” said Jennison. “I did sound a little abrupt. But I’m naturally eager to take care of her now.”

  “Of course,” John Quincy agreed.

  Miss Minerva bent over and kissed the girl. “If your mother were here, dear child,” she said, “she couldn’t wish for your happiness any more keenly than I do.” Barbara reached up impulsively and put her arms about the older woman.

  John Quincy shook Jennison’s hand. “You’re mighty lucky.”

  “I think so,” Jennison answered.

  The boy went over to Barbara. “All—all good wishes,” he said. She nodded, but did not reply. He saw there were tears in her eyes.

  Presently Miss Minerva withdrew to the living-room, and John Quincy, feeling like a fifth wheel, made haste to leave the two together. He went out on the beach. The pale moon rode high amid the golden stars; romance whispered through the cocoanut palms. He thought of the scene he had witnessed that breathless night on the President Tyler—only two in the world, love quick and overwhelming—well, this was the setting for it. Here on this beach they had walked two and two since the beginning of time, whispering the same vows, making the same promises, whatever their color and creed. Suddenly the boy felt lonely.

  Barbara was a Winterslip, and not for him. Why then did he feel again that frustrated pang in his heart? She had chosen and her choice was
fitting; what affair was it of his?

  He found himself moving slowly toward the Reef and Palm Hotel. For a chat with Carlotta Egan? But why should he want to talk with this girl, whose outlook was so different from that of the world he knew? The girls at home were on a level with the men in brains—often, indeed, they were superior, seemed to be looking down from a great height. They discussed that article in the latest Atlantic, Shaw’s grim philosophy, the new Sargent at the Art Gallery. Wasn’t that the sort of talk he should be seeking here? Or was it? Under these palms on this romantic beach, with the moon riding high over Diamond Head?

  Carlotta Egan was seated behind the desk in the deserted lobby of the Reef and Palm, a worried frown on her face.

  “You’ve come at the psychological moment,” she cried, and smiled. “I’m having the most awful struggle.”

  “Arithmetic?” John Quincy inquired.

  “Compound fractions, it seems to me. I’m making out the Brades’ bill.”

  He came round the desk and stood at her side. “Let me help you.”

  “It’s so fearfully involved.” She looked up at him, and he wished they could do their sums on the beach. “Mr. Brade has been away since Tuesday morning, and we don’t charge for any absence of more than three days. So that comes out of it. Maybe you can figure it—I can’t.”

  “Charge him anyhow,” suggested John Quincy.

  “I’d like to—that would simplify everything. But it’s not Dad’s way.”

  John Quincy took up a pencil. “What rate are they paying?” he inquired. She told him, and he began to figure. It wasn’t a simple matter, even for a bond expert. John Quincy frowned too.

  Someone entered the front door of the Reef and Palm. Looking up, John Quincy beheld the Hawaiian boy, Dick Kaohla. He carried a bulky object, wrapped in newspapers.

  “Mr. Brade here now?” he asked.

  Carlota Egan shook her head. “No, he hasn’t returned.”

  “I will wait,” said the boy.

  “But we don’t know where he is, or when he will come back,” the girl protested.