Hallet reddened. “Nonsense. You had it here in the store, and you sold it to this fellow. Now, didn’t you?”
Lau Ho dreamily regarded the taxi driver. “Maybe so. Can not say.”
“Damn it!” cried Hallet. “You know who I am?”
“Policeman, maybe.”
“Policeman maybe yes! And I want you to tell me about this watch. Now wake up and come across or by the Lord Harry—”
Chan laid a deferential hand on his chief’s arm. “Humbly suggest I attempt this,” he said.
Hallet nodded. “All right, he’s your meat, Charlie.” He drew back.
Chan bowed with a great show of politeness. He launched into a long story in Chinese. Lau Ho looked at him with slight interest. Presently he squeaked a brief reply. Chan resumed his flow of talk. Occasionally he paused, and Lau Ho spoke. In a few moments Chan turned beaming.
“Story are now completely extracted like aching tooth,” he said. “Wristwatch was brought to Lau Ho on Thursday, same week as murder. Offered him on sale by young man darkly colored with small knife scar marring cheek. Lau Ho buy and repair watch, interior works being in injured state. Saturday morning he sell at seemly profit to Japanese, presumably this Okoda here but Lau Ho will not swear. Saturday night dark young man appear much overwhelmed with excitement and demand watch again, please. Lau Ho say it is sold to Japanese. Which Japanese? Lau Ho is not aware of name, and can not describe, all Japanese faces being uninteresting outlook for him. Dark young man curse and fly. Appear frequently demanding any news, but Lau Ho is unable to oblige. Such are story of this jewel merchant here.”
They went out on the street. Hallet scowled at the Japanese man. “All right—run along. I’ll keep the watch.”
“Very thankful,” said the taxi driver, and leaped into his car.
Hallet turned to Chan. “A dark young man with a scar?” he queried.
“Clear enough to me,” Chan answered. “Same are the Spaniard Jose Cabrera, careless man about town with reputation not so savory. Mr. Winterslip, is it that you have forgotten him?”
John Quincy started. “Me? Did I ever see him?”
“Recall,” said Chan. “It are the night following murder. You and I linger in All American Restaurant engaged in debate regarding hygiene of pie. Door open, admitting Bowker, steward on President Tyler, joyously full of okolehau. With him are dark young man—this Jose Cabrera himself.”
“Oh, I remember now,” John Quincy answered.
“Well, the Spaniard’s easy to pick up,” said Hallet. “I’ll have him inside an hour—”
“One moment, please,” interposed Chan. “To-morrow morning at nine o’clock the President Tyler return from Orient. No gambler myself but will wager increditable sum Spaniard waits on dock for Mr. Bowker. If you present no fierce objection, I have a yearning to arrest him at that very moment.”
“Why, of course,” agreed Hallet. He looked keenly at Charlie Chan. “Charlie, you old rascal, you’ve got the scent at last.”
“Who—me?” grinned Chan. “With your gracious permission I would alter the picture. Stone walls are crumbling now like dust. Through many loopholes light stream in like rosy streaks of dawn.”
Chapter 21
The Stone Walls Crumble
The stone walls were crumbling and the light streaming through—but only for Chan. John Quincy was still groping in the dark, and his reflections were a little bitter as he returned to the house at Waikiki. Chan and he had worked together, but now that they approached the crisis of their efforts, the detective evidently preferred to push on alone, leaving his fellow-worker to follow if he could. Well, so be it—but John Quincy’s pride was touched.
He had suddenly a keen desire to show Chan that he could not be left behind like that. If only he could, by some inspirational flash of deductive reasoning, arrive at the solution of the mystery simultaneously with the detective. For the honor of Boston and the Winterslips.
Frowning deeply, he considered all the old discarded clues again. The people who had been under suspicion and then dropped—Egan, the Compton woman, Brade, Kaohla, Leatherbee, Saladine, Cope. He even considered several the investigation had not touched. Presently he came to Bowker. What did Bowker’s reappearance mean?
For the first time in two weeks he thought of the little-man with the fierce pompadour and the gold-rimmed eyeglasses. Bowker with his sorrowful talk of vanished bar-rooms and lost friends behind the bar. How was the steward on the President Tyler connected with the murder of Dan Winterslip? He had not done it himself, that was obvious, but in some way he was linked up with the crime. John Quincy spent a long and painful period seeking to join Bowker up with one or another of the suspects. It couldn’t be done.
All through that Tuesday evening the boy puzzled, so silent and distrait that Miss Minerva finally gave him up and retired to her room with a book. He awoke on Wednesday morning with the problem no nearer solution.
Barbara was due to arrive at ten o’clock from Kauai, and taking the small car, John Quincy went downtown to meet her. Pausing at the bank to cash a check, he encountered his old shipmate on the President Tyler, the sprightly Madame Maynard.
“I really shouldn’t speak to you,” she said. “You never come to see me.”
“I know,” he answered. “But I’ve been so very busy.”
“So I hear. Running round with policemen and their victims. I have no doubt you’ll go back to Boston and report we’re all criminals and cutthroats out here.”
“Oh, hardly that.”
“Yes, you will. You’re getting a very biased view of Honolulu. Why not stoop to associate with a respectable person now and then?”
“I’d enjoy it—if they’re all like you.”
“Like me? They’re much more intelligent and charming than I am. Some of them are dropping in at my house tonight for an informal little party. A bit of a chat, and then a moonlight swim. Won’t you come too?”
“I want to, of course,” John Quincy replied. “But there’s Cousin Dan—”
Her eyes flashed. “I’ll say it, even if he was your relative. Ten minutes of mourning for Cousin Dan is ample. I’ll be looking for you.”
John Quincy laughed. “I’ll come.”
“Do,” she answered. “And bring your Aunt Minerva. Tell her I said she might as well be dead as hog-tied by convention.”
John Quincy went out to the corner of Fort and King Streets, near which he had parked the car. As he was about to climb into it, he paused. A familiar figure was jauntily crossing the street. The figure of Bowker, the steward, and with him was Willie Chan, demon back-stopper of the Pacific.
“Hello, Bowker,” John Quincy called.
Mr. Bowker came blithely to join him. “Well, well, well. My old friend Mr. Winterslip. Shake hands with William Chan, the local Ty Cobb.”
“Mr. Chan and I have met before,” John Quincy told him.
“Know all the celebrities, eh? That’s good. Well, we missed you on the President Tyler.”
Bowker was evidently quite sober. “Just got in, I take it,” John Quincy remarked.
“A few minutes ago. How about joining us?” He came closer and lowered his voice. “This intelligent young man tells me he knows a taxi stand out near the beach where one may obtain a superior brand of fusel oil with a very pretty label on the bottle.”
“Sorry,” John Quincy answered. “My cousin’s coming in shortly on an Inter-Island boat, and I’m elected to meet her.”
“I’m sorry, too,” said the graduate of Dublin University. “If my strength holds out I’m aiming to stage quite a little party, and I’d like to have you in on it. Yes, a rather large affair—in memory of Tim, and as a last long lingering farewell to the seven seas.”
“What? You’re pau?”
“Pau it is. When I sail out of here to-night at nine on the old P.T. I’m through for ever. You don’t happen to know a good country newspaper that can be bought for—well, say ten grand.”
“This i
s rather sudden, isn’t it?” John Quincy inquired.
“This is sudden country out here, sir. Well, we must roll along. Sorry you can’t join us. If the going’s not too rough and I can find a nice smooth table top, I intend to turn down an empty glass. For poor old Tim. So long, sir—and happy days.”
He nodded to Willie Chan, and they went on down the street. John Quincy stood staring after them, a puzzled expression on his face.
Barbara seemed paler and thinner than ever, but she announced that her visit had been an enjoyable one, and on the ride to the beach appeared to be making a distinct effort to be gay and sprightly. When they reached the house, John Quincy repeated to his aunt Mrs. Maynard’s invitation.
“Better come along,” he urged.
“Perhaps I will,” she answered. “I’ll see.”
The day passed quietly, and it was not until evening that the monotony was broken. Leaving the dining-room with his aunt and Barbara, John Quincy was handed a cablegram. He hastily opened it. It had been sent from Boston; evidently Agatha Parker, overwhelmed by the crude impossibility of the West, had fled home again, and John Quincy’s brief “San Francisco or nothing” had followed her there. Hence the delay.
The cablegram said simply: “Nothing. Agatha.” John Quincy crushed it in his hand; he tried to suffer a little, but it was no use. He was a mighty happy man. The end of a romance—no. There had never been any nonsense of that kind between them—just an affectionate regard too slight to stand the strain of parting. Agatha was younger than he, she would marry some nice proper boy who had no desire to roam. And John Quincy Winterslip would read of her wedding—in the San Francisco papers.
He found Miss Minerva alone in the living-room. “It’s none of my business,” she said, “but I’m wondering what was in your cablegram.”
“Nothing,” he answered truthfully.
“All the same, you were very pleased to get it?”
He nodded. “Yes. I imagine nobody was ever so happy over nothing before.”
“Good heavens,” she cried. “Have you given up grammar, too?”
“I’m thinking of it. How about going down the beach with me?”
She shook her head. “Someone is coming to look at the house—a leading lawyer, I believe he is. He’s thinking of buying, and I feel I should be here to show him about. Barbara appears so listless and disinterested. Tell Sally Maynard I may drop in later.”
At a quarter to eight, John Quincy took his bathing suit and wandered down Kalia Road. It was another of those nights; a bright moon was riding high; from a bungalow buried under purple alamander came the soft croon of Hawaiian music. Through the hedges of flaming hibiscus he caught again the exquisite odors of this exotic island.
Mrs. Maynard’s big house was a particularly unlovely type of New England architecture, but a hundred flowering vines did much to conceal that fact. John Quincy found his hostess enthroned in her great airy drawing-room, surrounded by a handsome laughing group of the best people. Pleasant people, too; as she introduced him he began to wonder if he hadn’t been missing a great deal of congenial companionship.
“I dragged him here against his will,” the old lady explained. “I felt I owed it to Hawaii. He’s been associating with the riff-raff long enough.”
They insisted that he take an enormous chair, pressed cigarettes upon him, showered him with hospitable attentions. As he sat down and the chatter was resumed, he reflected that here was as civilized a company as Boston itself could offer. And why not? Most of these families came originally from New England, and had kept in their exile the old ideals of culture and caste.
“It might interest Beacon Street to know,” Mrs. Maynard said, “that long before the days of ’forty-nine the people of California were sending their children over here to be educated in the missionary schools. And importing their wheat from here, too.”
“Go on, tell him the other one, Aunt Sally,” laughed a pretty girl in blue. “That about the first printing press in San Francisco being brought over from Honolulu.”
Madame Maynard shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, what’s the use? We’re so far away, New England will never get us straight.”
John Quincy looked up to see Carlotta Egan in the doorway. A moment later Lieutenant Booth, of Richmond, appeared at her side. It occurred to the young man from Boston that the fleet was rather overdoing its stop at Honolulu.
Mrs. Maynard rose to greet the girl. “Come in, my dear. You know most of these people.” She turned to the others. “This is Miss Egan, a neighbor of mine on the beach.”
It was amusing to note that most of these people knew Carlotta too. John Quincy smiled—the British Admiralty and the soap business. It must have been rather an ordeal for the girl, but she saw it through with a sweet graciousness that led John Quincy to reflect that she would be at home in England—if she went there.
Carlotta sat down on a sofa, and while Lieutenant Booth was busily arranging a cushion at her back, John Quincy dropped down beside her. The sofa was, fortunately, too small for three.
“I rather expected to see you,” he said in a low voice. “I was brought here to meet the best people of Honolulu, and the way I see it, you’re the best of all.”
She smiled at him, and again the chatter of small talk filled the room. Presently the voice of a tall young man with glasses rose above the general hubbub.
“They got a cable from Joe Clark out at the Country Club this afternoon,” he announced.
The din ceased, and every one listened with interest. “Clark’s our professional,” explained the young man to John Quincy. “He went over a month ago to play in the British Open.”
“Did he win?” asked the girl in blue.
“He was put out by Hagen in the semi-finals,” the young man said. “But he had the distinction of driving the longest ball ever seen on the St. Andrews course.”
“Why shouldn’t he?” asked an older man. “He’s got the strongest wrists I ever saw on anybody!”
John Quincy sat up, suddenly interested. “How do you account for that?” he asked.
The older man smiled. “We’ve all got pretty big wrists out here,” he answered. “Surf-boarding—that’s what does it. Joe Clark was a champion at one time—body-surfing and board-surfing too. He used to disappear for hours in the rollers out by the reef. The result was a marvelous wrist development. I’ve seen him drive a golf ball three hundred and eighty yards. Yes, sir, I’ll bet he made those Englishmen sit up and take notice.”
While John Quincy was thinking this over, some one suggested that it was time for the swim, and confusion reigned. A Chinese servant led the way to the dressing-rooms, which opened off the lanai, and the young people trooped joyously after him.
“I’ll be waiting for you on the beach,” John Quincy said to Carlotta Egan.
“I came with Johnnie, you know,” she reminded him.
“I know all about it,” he answered. “But it was the week-end you promised to the navy. People who try to stretch their week-end through the following Wednesday night deserve all they get.”
She laughed. “I’ll look for you,” she agreed.
He donned his bathing suit hastily in a room filled with flying clothes and great waving brown arms. Lieutenant Booth, he noted with satisfaction, was proceeding at a leisurely pace. Hurrying through a door that opened directly on the beach, he waited under a near-by hau tree. Presently Carlotta came, slender and fragile-looking in the moonlight.
“Ah, here you are,” John Quincy cried. “The farthest float.”
“The farthest float it is,” she answered.
They dashed into the warm silvery water and swam gaily off. Five minutes later they sat on the float together. The light on Diamond Head was winking; the lanterns of sampans twinkled out beyond the reef; the shore line of Honolulu was outlined by a procession of blinking stars controlled by dynamos. In the bright heavens hung a lunar rainbow, one colorful end in the Pacific and the other tumbling into the foliage ashore.
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A gorgeous setting in which to be young and in love, and free to speak at last. John Quincy moved closer to the girl’s side.
“Great night, isn’t it?” he said.
“Wonderful,” she answered softly.
“Cary, I want to tell you something, and that’s why I brought you out here away from the others—”
“Somehow,” she interrupted, “it doesn’t seem quite fair to Johnnie.”
“Never mind him. Has it ever occurred to you that my name’s Johnnie, too.”
She laughed. “Oh, but it couldn’t be.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I simply couldn’t call you that. You’re too dignified and—and remote. John Quincy—I believe I could call you John Quincy—”
“Well, make up your mind. You’ll have to call me something, because I’m going to be hanging round pretty constantly in the future. Yes, my dear, I’ll probably turn out to be about the least remote person in the world. That is, if I can make you see the future the way I see it. Cary dearest—”
A gurgle sounded behind them, and they turned around. Lieutenant Booth was climbing on to the raft. “Swam the last fifty yards under water to surprise you,” he sputtered.
“Well, you succeeded,” said John Quincy without enthusiasm.
The lieutenant sat down with the manner of one booked to remain indefinitely. “I’ll tell the world it’s some night,” he offered.
“Speaking of the world, when do you fellows leave Honolulu?” asked John Quincy.
“I don’t know. To-morrow, I guess. Me, I don’t care if we never go. Hawaii’s not so easy to leave. Is it, Cary?”
She shook her head. “Hardest place I know of, Johnnie. I shall have to be sailing presently, and I know what a wrench it will be. Perhaps I’ll follow the example of Waioli the swimmer, and leave the boat when it passes Waikiki.”
They lolled for a moment in silence. Suddenly John Quincy sat up. “What was that you said?” he asked.
“About Waioli? Didn’t I ever tell you? He was one of our best swimmers, and for years they tried to get him to go to the mainland to take part in athletic meets, like Duke Kahanamoku. But he was a sentimentalist—he couldn’t bring himself to leave Hawaii. Finally they persuaded him, and one sunny morning he sailed on the Matsonia, with a very sad face. When the ship was opposite Waikiki he slipped overboard and swam ashore. And that was that. He never got on a ship again. You see—”
The House Without a Key Page 24