The House Without a Key

by Earl Der Biggers

  As he walked down the deserted street on his way to the corner to wait for his trolley, he heard quick footsteps on his trail again. Who now? He was sore and weary, a bit fed up with fighting for one evening. He quickened his pace. The steps quickened too. He went even faster. So did his pursuer. Oh, well, might as well stop and face him.

  John Quincy turned. A young man rushed up, a lean young man in a cap.

  “Mr. Winterslip, ain’t it?” He thrust a dark brown object into John Quincy’s hand. “Your July Atlantic, sir. Came in on the Maui this morning.”

  “Oh,” said John Quincy limply. “Well, I’ll take it. My aunt might like to look at it. Keep the change.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said the newsman, touching his cap.

  John Quincy rode out to Waikiki on the last seat of the car. His face was swollen and cut, every muscle ached. Under his arm, clasped tightly, he held the July Atlantic. But he didn’t so much as look at the table of contents. “We move, we advance,” he told himself exultantly. For he had seen the watch with the illuminated dial—the dial on which the numeral two was very dim.

  Chapter 20

  The Story of Lau Ho

  Early Sunday morning John Quincy was awakened by a sharp knock on his door. Rising sleepily and donning dressing-gown and slippers, he opened it to admit his Aunt Minerva. She had a worried air.

  “Are you all right, John Quincy?” she inquired.

  “Surely. That is, I would be if I hadn’t been dragged out of bed a full hour before I intended to get up.”

  “I’m sorry, but I had to have a look at you.” She took a newspaper from under her arm and handed it to him. “What’s all this?”

  An eight-column head on the first page caught even John Quincy’s sleepy eye. “Boston Man has Strange Adventure on Water-Front.” Smaller heads announced that Mr. John Quincy Winterslip had been rescued from an unwelcome trip to China, “in the nick of time” by three midshipmen from the Oregon. Poor Pete Mayberry! He had been the real hero of the affair, but his own paper would not come out again until Monday evening, and rivals had beaten him to the story.

  John Quincy yawned. “All true, my dear,” he said. “I was on the verge of leaving you when the navy saved me. Life, you perceive, has become a musical comedy.”

  “But why should any one want to shanghai you?” cried Miss Minerva.

  “Ah, I hoped you’d ask me that. It happens that your nephew has a brain. His keen analytical work as a detective is getting some one’s goat. He admitted as much in a letter he sent me the night he took a few shots at my head.”

  “Someone shot at you!” gasped Miss Minerva.

  “I’ll say so. You rather fancy yourself as a sleuth, but is anybody taking aim at you from behind bushes? Answer me that.”

  Miss Minerva sat down weakly on a chair. “You’re going home on the next boat,” she announced.

  He laughed. “About two weeks ago I made that suggestion to you. And what was your reply? Ah, my dear, the tables are turned. I’m not going home on the next boat. I may never go home. This gay, care-free, sudden country begins to appeal to me. Let me read about myself.”

  He returned to the paper. “The clock was turned back thirty years on the Honolulu waterfront last night,” began the somewhat imaginative account. It closed with the news that the tramp steamer Mary S. Allison had left port before the police could board her. Evidently she’d had steam up and papers ready, and was only awaiting the return of the red-haired man and his victim. John Quincy handed the newspaper back to his aunt.

  “Too bad,” he remarked. “They slipped through Hallet’s fingers.”

  “Of course they did,” she snapped. “Everybody does. I’d like a talk with Captain Hallet. If I could only tell him what I think of him, I’d feel better.”

  “Save that paper,” John Quincy said. “I want to send it to mother.”

  She stared at him. “Are you mad? Poor Grace—she’d have a nervous breakdown. I only hope she doesn’t hear of this until you’re back in Boston safe and sound.”

  “Oh, yes—Boston,” laughed John Quincy. “Quaint old town, they tell me. I must visit there some day. Now if you’ll leave me a minute, I’ll prepare to join you at breakfast and relate the story of my adventurous life.”

  “Very well,” agreed Miss Minerva, rising. She paused at the door. “A little witch-hazel might help your face.”

  “The scars of honorable battle,” said her nephew. “Why remove them?”

  “Honorable fiddlesticks,” Miss Minerva answered. “After all, the Back Bay has its good points.” But in the hall outside she smiled a delighted little smile.

  When John Quincy and his aunt were leaving the dining-room after breakfast, Kamaikui, stiff and dignified in a freshly-laundered holoku, approached the boy.

  “So very happy to see you safe this morning,” she announced.

  “Why, thank you, Kamaikui,” he answered. He wondered. Was Kaohla responsible for his troubles, and if so, did this huge silent woman know of her grandson’s activities?

  “Poor thing,” Miss Minerva said as they entered the living-room. “She’s been quite downcast since Dan went. I’m sorry for her. I’ve always liked her.”

  “Naturally,” smiled John Quincy. “There’s a bond between you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Two vanishing races, yours and hers. The Boston Brahman and the pure Hawaiian.”

  Later in the morning Carlotta Egan telephoned him, greatly excited. She had just seen the Sunday paper.

  “All true,” he admitted. “While you were dancing your heart out, I was struggling to sidestep a Cook’s tour of the Orient.”

  “I shouldn’t have had a happy moment if I’d known.”

  “Then I’m glad you didn’t. Big party, I suppose?”

  “Yes. You know, I’ve been terribly worried about you ever since that night on the avenue. I want to talk with you. Will you come to see me?”

  “Will I? I’m on my way already.”

  He hung up the receiver and hastened down the beach. Carlotta was sitting on the white sand not far from the Reef and Palm, all in white herself. A serious wide-eyed Carlotta quite different from the gay girl who had been hurrying to a party the night before.

  John Quincy dropped down beside her, and for a time they talked of the dance and of his adventure. Suddenly she turned to him.

  “I have no right to ask it, I know, but—I want you to do something for me.”

  “It will make me very happy—anything you ask.”

  “Go back to Boston.”

  “What! Not that. I was wrong—that wouldn’t make me happy.”

  “Yes, it would. You don’t think so now, perhaps. You’re dazzled by the sun out here, but this isn’t your kind of place. We’re not your kind of people. You think you like us, but you’d soon forget. Back among your own sort—the sort who are interested in the things that interest you. Please go.”

  “It would be retreating under fire,” he objected.

  “But you proved your courage, last night. I’m afraid for you. Some one out here has a terrible grudge against you. I’d never forgive Hawaii if—if anything happened to you.”

  “That’s sweet of you.” He moved closer. But—confound it—there was Agatha. Bound to Agatha by all the ties of honor. He edged away again. “I’ll think about it,” he agreed.

  “I’m leaving Honolulu too, you know,” she reminded him.

  “I know. You’ll have a wonderful time in England.”

  She shook her head. “Oh, I dread the whole idea. Dad’s heart is set on it, and I shall go to please him. But I shan’t enjoy it. I’m not up to England.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m unsophisticated—crude, really—just a girl of the Islands.”

  “But you wouldn’t care to stay here all your life?”

  “No, indeed. It’s a beautiful spot—to loll about in. But I’ve too much northern blood to be satisfied with that. One of these days I wa
nt Dad to sell and we’ll go to the mainland. I could get some sort of work—”

  “Any particular place on the mainland?”

  “Well, I haven’t been about much, of course. But all the time I was at school I kept thinking I’d rather live in San Francisco than anywhere else in the world—”

  “Good,” John Quincy cried. “That’s my choice too. You remember that morning on the ferry, how you held out your hand to me and said: ‘Welcome to your city—’”

  “But you corrected me at once. You said you belonged in Boston.”

  “I see my error now.”

  She shook her head. “A moment’s madness, but you’ll recover. You’re an Easterner, and you could never be happy anywhere else.”

  “Oh, yes, I could,” he assured her. “I’m a Winterslip, a wandering Winterslip. Any old place we hang our hats—” This time he did lean rather close. “I could be happy anywhere—” he began. He wanted to add “with you.” But Agatha’s slim patrician hand was on his shoulder. “Anywhere,” he repeated, with a different inflection. A gong sounded from the Reef and Palm.

  Carlotta rose. “That’s lunch.” John Quincy stood too. “It’s beside the point—where you go,” she went on. “I asked you to do something for me.”

  “I know. If you’d asked anything else in the world, I’d be up to my neck in it now. But what you suggest would take a bit of doing. To leave Hawaii—and say good-by to you—”

  “I meant to be very firm about it,” she broke in.

  “But I must have a little time to consider. Will you wait?”

  She smiled up at him. “You’re so much wiser than I am,” she said. “Yes—I’ll wait.”

  He went slowly along the beach. Unsophisticated, yes—and charming. “You’re so much wiser than I am.” Where on the mainland could one encounter a girl nowadays who’d say that? He had quite forgotten that she smiled when she said it.

  In the afternoon, John Quincy visited the police station. Hallet was in his room in rather a grouchy mood. Chan was out somewhere hunting the watch. No, they hadn’t found it yet.

  John Quincy was mildly reproving. “Well, you saw it, didn’t you?” growled Hallet. “Why in Sam Hill didn’t you grab it?”

  “Because they tied my hands,” John Quincy reminded him. “I’ve narrowed the search down for you to the taxi drivers of Honolulu.”

  “Hundreds of them, my boy.”

  “More than that, I’ve given you the first two numbers on the license plate of the car. If you’re any good at all, you ought to be able to land that watch now.”

  “Oh, we’ll land it,” Hallet said. “Give us time.”

  Time was just what John Quincy had to give them. Monday came and went. Miss Minerva was bitterly sarcastic.

  “Patience are a very lovely virtue,” John Quincy told her. “I got that from Charlie.”

  “At any rate,” she snapped, “it are a virtue very much needed with Captain Hallet in charge.”

  In another direction, too, John Quincy was called upon to exercise patience. Agatha Parker was unaccountably silent regarding that short peremptory cable he had sent on his big night in town. Was she offended? The Parkers were notoriously not a family who accepted dictation. But in such a vital matter as this, a girl should be willing to listen to reason.

  Late Tuesday afternoon Chan telephoned from the station-house—unquestionably Chan this time. Would John Quincy do him the great honor to join him for an early dinner at the Alexander Young cafe?

  “Something doing, Charlie?” cried the boy eagerly.

  “Maybe it might be,” answered Chan, “and maybe also not. At six o’clock in hotel lobby, if you will so far condescend.”

  “I’ll be there,” John Quincy promised, and he was.

  He greeted Chan with anxious, inquiring eyes, but Chan was suave and entirely non-committal. He led John Quincy to the dining-room and carefully selected a table by a front window.

  “Do me the great favor to recline,” he suggested.

  John Quincy reclined. “Charlie, don’t keep me in suspense,” he pleaded.

  Chan smiled. “Let us not shade the feast with gloomy murder talk,” he replied. “This are social meeting. Is it that you are in the mood to dry up plate of soup?”

  “Why, yes, of course,” John Quincy answered. Politeness, he saw, dictated that he hide his curiosity.

  “Two of the soup,” ordered Chan of a white-jacketed waiter. A car drew up to the door of the Alexander Young. Chan half rose, staring at it keenly. He dropped back to his seat. “It is my high delight to entertain you thus humbly before you are restored to Boston. Converse at some length of Boston. I feel interested.”

  “Really?” smiled the boy.

  “Undubitably. Gentleman I meet once say Boston are like China. The future of both, he say, lies in graveyards where repose useless bodies of honored guests on high. I am fogged as to meaning.”

  “He meant both places live in the past,” John Quincy explained. “And he was right, in a way. Boston, like China, boasts a glorious history. But that’s not saying the Boston of to-day isn’t progressive. Why, do you know—”

  He talked eloquently of his native city. Chan listened, rapt.

  “Always,” he sighed, when John Quincy finished, “I have unlimited yearning for travel.” He paused to watch another car draw up before the hotel. “But it are unavailable. I am policeman on small remuneration. In my youth, rambling on evening hillside or by moonly ocean, I dream of more lofty position. Not so now. But that other American citizen, my eldest son, he are dreaming too. Maybe for him dreams eventuate. Perhaps he become second Baby Ruth, home run emperor, applause of thousands making him deaf. Who knows it?”

  The dinner passed, unshaded by gloomy talk, and they went outside. Chan proffered a cigar of which he spoke in the most belittling fashion. He suggested that they stand for a time before the hotel door.

  “Waiting for somebody?” inquired John Quincy, unable longer to dissemble.

  “Precisely the fact. Barely dare to mention it, however. Great disappointment may drive up here any minute now.”

  An open car stopped before the hotel entrance. John Quincy’s eyes sought the license plate, and he got an immediate thrill. The first two figures were 33.

  A party of tourists, a man and two women, alighted. The doorman ran forward and busied himself with luggage. Chan casually strolled across the walk, and as the Japanese driver shifted his gears preparatory to driving away, put a restraining hand on the car door.

  “One moment, please.” The driver turned, fright in his eyes. “You are Okuda, from auto stand across way?”

  “Yes-s,” hissed the driver.

  “You are now returned from exploring island with party of tourists? You leave this spot early Sunday morning?”

  “Yes-s.”

  “Is it possible that you wear wristwatch, please?”

  “Yes-s.”

  “Deign to reveal face of same.”

  The Jap hesitated. Chan leaned far over into the car and thrust aside the man’s coat sleeve. He came back, a pleased light in his eyes, and held open the rear door. “Kindly embark into tonneau, Mr. Winterslip.” Obediently John Quincy got in. Chan took his place by the driver’s side. “The police station, if you will be so kind.” The car leaped forward.

  The essential clue! They had it at last. John Quincy’s heart beat fast there in the rear of the car where, only a few nights before, he had been bound and gagged.

  Captain Hallet’s grim face relaxed into happy lines when he met them at the door of his room. “You got him, eh? Good work.” He glanced at the prisoner’s wrist. “Rip that watch off him, Charlie.”

  Charlie obeyed. He examined the watch for a moment, then handed it to his chief.

  “Inexpensive time-piece of noted brand,” he announced. “Numeral two faint and far away. One other fact emerge into light. This Japanese man have small wrist. Yet worn place on strap convey impression of being worn by man with wrist of vastly larger
circumference.”

  Hallet nodded. “Yes, that’s right. Some other man has owned this watch. He had a big wrist—but most men in Honolulu have, you know. Sit down, Okuda. I want to hear from you. You understand what it means to lie to me?”

  “I do not lie, sir.”

  “No, you bet your sweet life you don’t. First, tell me who engaged your car last Saturday night.”

  “Saturday night?”

  “That’s what I said!”

  “Ah, yes. Two sailors from ship. Engage for evening paying large cash at once. I drive to shop on River Street, wait long time. Then off we go to dock with extra passenger in back.”

  “Know the names of those sailors?”

  “Could not say.”

  “What ship were they from?”

  “How can I know? Not told.”

  “All right I’m coming to the important thing. Understand? The truth—that’s what I want! Where did you get this watch?”

  Chan and John Quincy leaned forward eagerly. “I buy him,” said the Jap.

  “You bought him? Where?”

  “At jewel store of Chinese Lau Ho on Maunakea Street.”

  Hallet turned to Chan. “Know the place, Charlie?”

  Chan nodded. “Yes, indeed.”

  “Open now?”

  “Open until hour of ten, maybe more.”

  “Good,” said Hallet. “Come along, Okuda. You can drive us there.”

  Lau Ho, a little wizened Chinese man, sat back of his work bench with a loupe screwed into one dim old eye. The four men who entered his tiny store filled it to overflowing, but he gave them barely a glance.

  “Come on, Ho—wake up,” Hallet cried. “I want to talk to you.”

  With the utmost deliberation Lau Ho descended from his stool and approached the counter. He regarded Hallet with a hostile eye. The captain laid the wristwatch on top of a showcase in which reposed many trays of jade.

  “Ever see that before?” he inquired.

  Lau Ho regarded it casually. Slowly he raised his eyes. “Maybe so. Can not say,” he replied in a high squeaky voice.