The House Without a Key

by Earl Der Biggers

  On Saturday morning he was awakened early by the whir of aeroplanes above the house. The American fleet was in the offing, and the little brothers of the air service hastened out to hover overhead in friendly welcome. That day a spirit of carnival prevailed in Honolulu, flags floated from every masthead, and the streets bloomed, as Barbara had predicted, with handsome boys in spotless uniforms. They were everywhere, swarming in the souvenir stores, besieging the soda fountains, skylarking on the trolley-cars. Evening brought a great ball at the beach hotel, and John Quincy, out for a walk, saw that every spic-and-span uniform moved toward Waikiki, accompanied by a fair young thing who was only too happy to serve as sweetheart in that particular port.

  John Quincy felt, suddenly, rather out of things. Each pretty girl he saw recalled Carlotta Egan. He turned his wandering footsteps toward the Reef and Palm, and oddly enough, his pace quickened at once.

  The proprietor himself was behind the desk, his eyes calm and untroubled now.

  “Good evening, Mr. Egan—or should I say Mr. Cope,” remarked John Quincy.

  “Oh, we’ll stick to the Egan, I guess,” the man replied. “Sort of got out of the hang of the other. Mr. Winterslip, I’m happy to see you. Cary will be down in a moment.”

  John Quincy gazed about the big public room. It was a scene of confusion, spattered ladders, buckets of paint, rolls of new wallpaper. “What’s going on?” he inquired.

  “Freshening things up a bit,” Egan answered. “You know, we’re in society now.” He laughed. “Yes, sir, the old Reef and Palm has been standing here a long time without so much as a glance from the better element of Honolulu. But now they know I’m related to the British Admiralty, they’ve suddenly discovered it’s a quaint and interesting place. They’re dropping in for tea. Just fancy. But that’s Honolulu.”

  “That’s Boston, too,” John Quincy assured him.

  “Yes—and precisely the sort of thing I ran away from England to escape, a good many years ago. I’d tell them all to go to the devil—but there’s Cary. Somehow, women feel differently about those things. It will warm her heart a bit to have these dowagers smile upon her. And they’re smiling—you know, they’ve even dug up the fact that my Cousin George has been knighted for making a particularly efficient brand of soap.” He grimaced. “It’s nothing I’d have mentioned myself—a family skeleton, as I see it. But society has odd standards. And I mustn’t be hard on poor old George. As Arthur says, making soap is good clean fun.”

  “Is your brother still with you?”

  “No. He’s gone back to finish his job in the Fanning Group. When he returns, I’m sending Cary to England for a long stop. Yes, that’s right—I’m sending her,” he added quickly. “I’m paying for these repairs, too. You see, I’ve been able to add a second mortgage to the one already on the poor tottering Reef and Palm. That’s another outcome of my new-found connection with the British Admiralty and the silly old soap business. Here’s Cary now.”

  John Quincy turned. And he was glad he had, for he would not willingly have missed the picture of Carlotta on the stairs. Carlotta in an evening gown of some shimmering material, her dark hair dressed in a new and amazingly effective way, her white shoulders gleaming, her eyes happy at last. As she came quickly toward him he caught his breath—never had he seen her look so beautiful. She must have heard his voice in the office, he reflected, and with surprising speed arrayed herself thus to greet him. He was deeply grateful as he took her hand.

  “Stranger,” she rebuked. “We thought you’d deserted us.”

  “I’d never do that,” he answered. “But I’ve been rather busy—”

  A step sounded behind him. He turned, and there stood one of those ubiquitous navy boys, a tall, blond Adonis who held his cap in his hand and smiled in a devastating way.

  “Hello, Johnnie,” Carlotta said. “Mr. Winterslip, of Boston, this is Lieutenant Booth, of Richmond, Virginia.”

  “How are you,” nodded the boy, without removing his eyes from the girl’s face. Just one of the guests, this Winterslip, no account at all—such was obviously the lieutenant’s idea. “All ready, Cary? The car’s outside.”

  “I’m frightfully sorry, Mr. Winterslip,” said the girl, “but we’re off to the dance. This week-end belongs to the navy, you know. You’ll come again, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” John Quincy replied. “Don’t let me keep you.”

  She smiled at him and fled with Johnnie at her side. Looking after them, John Quincy felt his heart sink to his boots, an unaccountable sensation of age and helplessness. Youth, youth was going through that door, and he was left behind.

  “A great pity she had to run,” said Egan in a kindly voice.

  “Why, that’s all right,” John Quincy assured him. “Old friend of the family, this Lieutenant Booth?”

  “Not at all. Just a lad Cary met at parties in San Francisco. Won’t you sit down and have a smoke with me?”

  “Some other time, thanks,” John Quincy said wearily. “I must hurry back to the house.”

  He wanted to escape, to get out into the calm lovely night, the night that was ruined for him now. He walked along the beach, savagely kicking his toes into the white sand. “Johnnie!” She had called him Johnnie. And the way she had looked at him, too! Again John Quincy felt that sharp pang in his heart. Foolish, foolish; better go back to Boston and forget. Peaceful old Boston, that was where he belonged. He was an old man out here—thirty, nearly. Better go away and leave these children to love and the moonlit beach.

  Miss Minerva had gone in the big car to call on friends, and the house was quiet as the tomb. John Quincy wandered aimlessly about the rooms, gloomy and bereft. Down at the Moana an Hawaiian orchestra was playing and Lieutenant Booth, of Richmond, was holding Carlotta close in the intimate manner affected these days by the young. Bah! If he hadn’t been ordered to leave Hawaii, by gad, he’d go to-morrow.

  The telephone rang. None of the servants appeared to answer it, so John Quincy went himself.

  “Charlie Chan speaking,” said a voice. “That is you, Mr. Winterslip? Good. Big events will come to pass very quick. Meet me drug and grocery emporium of Liu Yin, number 927 River Street, soon as you can do so. You savvy locality?”

  “I’ll find it,” cried John Quincy, delighted.

  “By bank of stream. I will await. Good-by.”

  Action—action at last! John Quincy’s heart beat fast. Action was what he wanted to-night. As usually happens in a crisis, there was no automobile available; the roadster was at a garage undergoing repairs, and the other car was in use. He hastened over to Kalakaua Avenue intending to rent a machine, but a trolley approaching at the moment altered his plans and he swung aboard.

  Never had a trolley moved at so reluctant a pace. When they reached the corner of Fort Street in the center of the city, he left it and proceeded on foot. The hour was still fairly early, but the scene was one of somnolent calm. A couple of tourists drifted aimlessly by. About the bright doorway of a shooting gallery loitered a group of soldiers from the fort, with a sprinkling of enlisted navy men. John Quincy hurried on down King Street, past Chinese noodle cafes and pawn shops, and turned presently off into River Street.

  On his left was the river, on his right an array of shabby stores. He paused at the door of number 927, the establishment of Liu Yin. Inside, seated behind a screen that revealed only their heads, a number of Chinese were engrossed in a friendly little game. John Quincy opened the door; a bell tinkled, and he stepped into an odor of must and decay. Curious sights met his quick eye, dried roots and herbs, jars of sea-horse skeletons, dejected ducks flattened out and varnished to tempt the palate, gobbets of pork. An old Chinese man rose and came forward.

  “I’m looking for Mr. Charlie Chan,” said John Quincy.

  The old man nodded and led the way to a red curtain across the rear of the shop. He lifted it, and indicated that John Quincy was to pass. The boy did so, and came into a bare room furnished with a cot, a table o
n which an oil lamp burned dimly behind a smoky chimney, and a couple of chairs. A man who had been sitting on one of the chairs rose suddenly; a huge red-haired man with the smell of the sea about him.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Is Mr. Chan here?” John Quincy inquired.

  “Not yet. He’ll be along in a minute. What say to a drink while we’re waiting. Hey, Liu, a couple glasses that rotten rice wine!”

  The Chinese man withdrew. “Sit down,” said the man. John Quincy obeyed; the sailor sat too. One of his eyelids drooped wickedly; he rested his hands on the table—enormous hairy hands. “Charlie’ll be here pretty quick,” he said. “Then I got a little story to tell the two of you.”

  “Yes?” John Quincy replied. He glanced about the little vile-smelling room. There was a door, a closed door, at the back. He looked again at the red-haired man. He wondered how he was going to get out of there.

  For he knew now that Charlie Chan had not called him on the telephone. It came to him belatedly that the voice was never Charlie’s. “You savvy locality?” the voice had said. A clumsy attempt at Chan’s style, but Chan was a student of English; he dragged his words painfully from the poets; he was careful to use nothing that savored of “pidgin.” No, the detective had not telephoned; he was no doubt at home now bending over his chess-board, and here was John Quincy shut up in a little room on the fringe of the River District with a husky sailorman who leered at him knowingly.

  The old Chinese man returned with two small glasses into which the liquor had already been poured. He set them on the table. The red-haired man lifted one of them. “Your health, sir,” he said.

  John Quincy took up the other glass and raised it to his lips. There was a suspicious eagerness in the sailor’s one good eye. John Quincy put the glass back on the table. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t want a drink, thank you.”

  The great face with its stubble of red beard leaned close to his. “Y’mean you won’t drink with me?” said the red-haired man belligerently.

  “That’s just what I mean,” John Quincy answered. Might as well get it over with, he felt; anything was better than this suspense. He stood up. “I’ll be going along,” he announced.

  He took a step toward the red curtain. The sailor, evidently a fellow of few words, rose and got in his way. John Quincy, himself feeling the futility of talk, said nothing, but struck the man in the face. The sailor struck back with efficiency and promptness. In another second the room was full of battle, and John Quincy saw red everywhere, red curtain, red hair, red lamp flame, great red hairy hands cunningly seeking his face. What was it Roger had said? “Ever fought with a ship’s officer—the old-fashioned kind with fists like flying hams?” No, he hadn’t up to then, but that sweet experience was his now, and it came to John Quincy pleasantly that he was doing rather well at his new trade.

  This was better than the attic; here he was prepared and had a chance. Time and again he got his hands on the red curtain, only to be dragged back and subjected to a new attack. The sailor was seeking to knock him out, and though many of his blows went home, that happy result—from the standpoint of the red-haired man—was unaccountably delayed. John Quincy had a similar aim in life; they lunged noisily about the room, while the surprising Orientals in the front of the shop continued their quiet game.

  John Quincy felt himself growing weary; his breath came painfully; he realized that his adversary had not yet begun to fight. Standing with his back to the table in an idle moment while the red-haired man made plans for the future, the boy hit on a plan of his own. He overturned the table; the lamp crashed down; darkness fell over the world. In the final glimmer of light he saw the big man coming for him and dropping to his knees he tackled in the approved manner of Soldiers’ Field, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Culture prevailed; the sailor went on his head with a resounding thump; John Quincy let go of him and sought the nearest exit. It happened to be the door at the rear, and it was unlocked.

  He passed hurriedly through a cluttered back yard and climbing a fence, found himself in the neighborhood known as the River District. There in crazy alleys that have no names, no sidewalks, no beginning and no end, five races live together in the dark. Some houses were above the walk level, some below, all were out of alignment. John Quincy felt he had wandered into a futurist drawing. As he paused he heard the whine and clatter of Chinese music, the clicking of a typewriter, the rasp of a cheap phonograph playing American jazz, the distant scream of an auto horn, a child wailing Japanese lamentations. Footsteps in the yard beyond the fence roused him, and he fled.

  He must get out of this mystic maze of mean alleys, and at once. Odd painted faces loomed in the dusk; pasty-white faces with just a suggestion of queer costumes beneath. A babel of tongues, queer eyes that glittered, once a lean hand on his arm. A group of moon-faced Chinese children under a lamp who scattered at his approach. And when he paused again, out of breath, the patter of many feet, bare feet, sandaled feet, the clatter of wooden clogs, the squeak of cheap shoes made in his own Massachusetts. Then suddenly the thump of large feet such as might belong to a husky sailor. He moved on.

  Presently he came into the comparative quiet of River Street, and realized that he had traveled in a circle, for there was Liu Yin’s shop again. As he hurried on toward King Street, he saw, over his shoulder, that the red-haired man still followed. A big touring car, with curtains drawn, waited by the curb. John Quincy leaped in beside the driver.

  “Get out of here, quick!” he panted.

  A sleepy Japanese face looked at him through the gloom. “Busy now.”

  “I don’t care if you are—” began John Quincy, and glanced down at one of the man’s arms resting on the wheel. His heart stood still. In the dusk he saw a wristwatch with an illuminated dial, and the numeral two was very dim.

  Even as he looked, strong hands seized him by the collar and dragged him into the dark tonneau. At the same instant, the red-haired man arrived.

  “Got him, Mike? Say, that’s luck!” He leaped into the rear of the car. Quick able work went forward, John Quincy’s hands were bound behind his back, a vile-tasting gag was put in his mouth. “Damned if this bird didn’t land me one in the eye,” said the red-haired man. “I’ll pay him for it when we get aboard. Hey you—Pier 78. Show us some speed!”

  The car leaped forward. John Quincy lay on the dusty floor, bound and helpless. To the docks? But he wasn’t thinking of that, he was thinking of the watch on the driver’s wrist.

  A brief run, and they halted in the shadow of a pier-shed. John Quincy was lifted and propelled none too gently from the car. His cheek was jammed against one of the buttons holding the side curtain, and he had sufficient presence of mind to catch the gag on it and loosen it. As they left the car he tried to get a glimpse of its license plate, but he was able to ascertain only the first two figures—33—before it sped away.

  His two huge chaperons hurried him along the dock. Some distance off he saw a little group of men, three in white uniforms, one in a darker garb. The latter was smoking a pipe. John Quincy’s heart leaped. He maneuvered the loosened gag with his teeth, so that it dropped about his collar. “Good-by, Pete!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, and launched at once into a terrific struggle to break away from his startled captors.

  There was a moment’s delay, and then the clatter of feet along the dock. A stocky boy in a white uniform began an enthusiastic debate with Mike, and the other two were prompt to claim the attention of the red-haired man. Pete Mayberry was at John Quincy’s back, cutting the rope on his wrists.

  “Well, I’ll be damned, Mr. Winterslip,” he cried.

  “Same here,” laughed John Quincy. “Shanghaied in another minute but for you.” He leaped forward to join the battle, but the red-haired man and his friend had already succumbed to youth and superior forces, and were in full retreat. John Quincy followed joyously along the dock, and planted his fist to the back of his old adversary’s ear. The sailor staggered, but regained h
is balance and went on.

  John Quincy returned to his rescuers. “The last blow is the sweetest,” he remarked.

  “I can place those guys,” said Mayberry. “They’re off that tramp steamer that’s been lying out in the harbor the past week. An opium runner, I’ll gamble on it. You go to the police station right away—”

  “Yes,” said John Quincy, “I must. But I want to thank you, Mr. Mayberry. And”—he turned to the white uniforms—“you fellows too.”

  The stocky lad was picking up his cap. “Why, that’s all right,” he said. “A real pleasure, if you ask me. But look here, old timer,” he added, addressing Mayberry, “how about your Honolulu waterfront and its lost romance? You go tell that to the marines.”

  As John Quincy hurried away Pete Mayberry was busily explaining that the thing was unheard of—not in twenty years—maybe more than that—his voice died in the distance.

  Hallet was in his room, and John Quincy detailed his evening’s adventure. The captain was incredulous, but when the boy came to the wristwatch on the driver of the car, he sat up and took notice.

  “Now you’re talking,” he cried. “I’ll start the force after that car to-night. First two figures 33, you say. I’ll send somebody aboard that tramp, too. They can’t get away with stuff like that around here.”

  “Oh, never mind them,” said John Quincy magnanimously. “Concentrate on the watch.”

  Back in the quiet town he walked with his head up, his heart full of the joy of battle. And while he thought of it, he stepped into the cable office. The message he sent was addressed to Agatha Parker on that Wyoming ranch. “San Francisco or nothing,” was all it said.