Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s

by Leslie S. Klinger

  “Of course.” She followed him to the door. “You’re altogether too kind. Shall you be in Honolulu long?”

  “That depends,” John Quincy said. “I’ve made up my mind to one thing. I shan’t stir from here until this mystery about Cousin Dan is solved. And I’m going to do everything in my power to help in solving it.”

  “I’m sure you’re very clever, too,” she told him.

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t say that. But I intend to make the effort of my life. I’ve got a lot of incentives for seeing this affair through.” Something else trembled on his tongue. Better not say it. Oh, lord, he was saying it. “You’re one of them,” he added, and clattered down the stairs.

  “Do be careful,” called the girl. “Those steps are even worse than they were when I left. Just another thing to be repaired—some day—when our ship comes in.”

  He left her smiling wistfully in the doorway and hurrying through the garden, stepped out on Kalakaua Avenue. The blazing sun beat down on his defenseless head. Gorgeous trees flaunted scarlet banners along his path, tall cocoanut palms swayed above him at the touch of the friendly trades, not far away rainbow-tinted waters lapped a snowy beach. A sweet land—all of that.

  Did he wish that Agatha Parker were there to see it with him? Pursuing the truth further, as Charlie Chan would put it, he did not.

  72.The phrase “tum-tum” here is a placeholder—John Quincy cannot remember the word but remembers the rhythm of the line. In fact, the missing word is “sunset,” and the two lines of poetry quoted by Minerva are the conclusion of the poem “Waikiki” by Rollin Mallory Daggett, first published in 1882. Daggett served in Congress for a single term from 1879 to 1881. He became the United States Minister Resident to the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1882 and remained in that post until 1885. Daggett edited The Legends and Myths of Hawaii by King Kalākaua, first published in 1888.

  73.According to Andrews, “kamaaina” is a word compounded of “kama” (child) and “aina” (land), meaning “a child of the land” or native “born in any place and continuing to live in that place.” Chan is exaggerating—he is not native-born, but a long-time resident.

  74.Likely the Honolulu Advertiser, the leading morning newspaper of the islands.

  75.As stated at note 8, above, the Portuguese were the second-largest population of Hawaii, according to the 1920 Census.

  CHAPTER X

  A Newspaper Ripped in Anger

  When John Quincy got back to the living-room he found Miss Minerva pacing up and down with the light of battle in her eyes. He selected a large, comfortablelooking chair and sank into it.

  “Anything the matter?” he inquired. “You seem disturbed.”

  “I’ve just been having a lot of pilikia,”76 she announced.

  “What’s that—another native drink?” he said with interest. “Could I have some too?”

  “Pilikia means trouble,” she translated. “Several reporters have been here, and you’d hardly credit the questions they asked.”

  “About Cousin Dan, eh?” John Quincy nodded. “I can imagine.”

  “However, they got nothing out of me. I took good care of that.”

  “Go easy,” advised John Quincy. “A fellow back home who had a divorce case in his family was telling me that if you’re not polite to the newspaper boys they just plain break your heart.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Miss Minerva. “I was diplomatic, of course. I think I handled them rather well, under the circumstances. They were the first reporters I’d ever met—though I’ve had the pleasure of talking with gentlemen from the Transcript.77 What happened at the Reef and Palm Hotel?”

  John Quincy told her—in part.

  “Well, I shouldn’t be surprised if Egan turned out to be guilty,” she commented. “I’ve made a few inquiries about him this morning, and he doesn’t appear to amount to much. A sort of glorified beach-comber.”

  “Nonsense,” objected John Quincy. “Egan’s a gentleman. Just because he doesn’t happen to have prospered is no reason for condemning him without a hearing.”

  “He’s had a hearing,” snapped Miss Minerva. “And it seems he’s been mixed up in something he’s not precisely proud of. There, I’ve gone and ended a sentence with a preposition. Probably all this has upset me more than I realize.”

  John Quincy smiled. “Cousin Dan,” he reminded her, “was also mixed up in a few affairs he could hardly have looked back on with pride. No, Aunt Minerva, I feel Hallet is on the wrong trail there. It’s just as Egan’s daughter said—”

  She glanced at him quickly. “Oh—so Egan has a daughter?”

  “Yes, and a mighty attractive girl. It’s a confounded shame to put this thing on her.”

  “Humph,” said Miss Minerva.

  John Quincy glanced at his watch. “Good lord—it’s only ten o’clock!” A great calm had settled over the house, there was no sound save the soft lapping of waves on the beach outside. “What, in heaven’s name, do you do out here?”

  “Oh, you’ll become accustomed to it shortly,” Miss Minerva answered. “At first, you just sit and think. After a time, you just sit.”

  “Sounds fascinating,” said John Quincy sarcastically.

  “That’s the odd part of it,” his aunt replied, “it is. One of the things you think about, at first, is going home. When you stop thinking, that naturally slips your mind.”

  “We gathered that,” John Quincy told her.

  “You’ll meet a man on the beach,” said Miss Minerva, “who stopped over between boats to have his laundry done. That was twenty years ago, and he’s still here.”

  “Probably they haven’t finished his laundry,” suggested John Quincy, yawning openly. “Ho, hum. I’m going up to my room to change, and after that I believe I’ll write a few letters.” He rose with an effort and went to the door. “How’s Barbara?” he asked.

  Miss Minerva shook her head. “Dan was all the poor child had,” she said. “She’s taken it rather hard. You won’t see her for some time, and when you do—the least said about all this, the better.”

  “Dan was all the poor child had,” she said. “She’s taken it rather hard.” From The House Without a Key, illustration by William Liepse (The Saturday Evening Post, February 7, 1925)

  “Why, naturally,” agreed John Quincy, and went up-stairs.

  After he had bathed and put on his whitest, thinnest clothes, he explored the desk that stood near his bed and found it well supplied with note paper. Languidly laying out a sheet, he began to write.

  “DEAR AGATHA: Here I am in Honolulu and outside my window I can hear the lazy swish of waters lapping the famous beach of—”

  Lazy, indeed. John Quincy had a feeling for words. He stopped and stared at an agile little cloud flitting swiftly through the sky—got up from his chair to watch it disappear over Diamond Head. On his way back to the desk he had to pass the bed. What inviting beds they had out here! He lifted the mosquito netting and dropped down for a moment—

  Haku hammered on the door at one o’clock, and that was how John Quincy happened to be present at lunch. His aunt was already at the table when he staggered in.

  “Cheer up,” she smiled. “You’ll become acclimated soon. Of course, even then you’ll want your nap just after lunch every day.”

  “I will not,” he answered, but there was no conviction in his tone.

  “Barbara asked me to tell you how sorry she is not to be with you. She’s a sweet girl, John Quincy.”

  “She’s all of that. Give her my love, won’t you?”

  “Your love?” His aunt looked at him. “Do you mean that? Barbara’s only a second cousin—”

  He laughed. “Don’t waste your time match-making, Aunt Minerva. Some one has already spoken for Barbara.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “Jennison. He seems like a fine fellow, too.”

  “Handsome, at any rate,” Miss Minerva admitted. They ate in silence for a time. “The coroner and his friends were here t
his morning,” said Miss Minerva presently.

  “That so?” replied John Quincy. “Any verdict?”

  “Not yet. I believe they’re to settle on that later. By the way, I’m going downtown immediately after lunch to do some shopping for Barbara. Care to come along?”

  “No, thanks,” John Quincy said. “I must go up-stairs and finish my letters.”

  But when he left the luncheon table, he decided the letters could wait. He took a heavy volume with a South Sea title from Dan’s library, and went out on to the lanai. Presently Miss Minerva appeared, smartly dressed in white linen.

  “I’ll return as soon as I’m pau,” she announced.

  “What is this pau?” John Quincy inquired.

  “Pau means finished—through.”

  “Good lord,” John Quincy said. “Aren’t there enough words in the English language for you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she answered, “a little Hawaiian sprinkled in makes a pleasant change. And when one reaches my age, John Quincy, one is eager for a change. Good-by.”

  She left him to his book and the somnolent atmosphere of Dan’s lanai. Sometimes he read, colorful tales of other islands farther south. Sometimes he sat and thought. Sometimes he just sat. The blazing afternoon wore on; presently the beach beyond Dan’s garden was gay with bathers, sunburned men and girls, pretty girls in brief and alluring costumes.78 Their cries as they dared the surf were exultant, happy. John Quincy was keen to try these notable waters, but it didn’t seem quite the thing—not just yet, with Dan Winterslip lying in that room up-stairs.

  Miss Minerva reappeared about five, flushed and—though she well knew it was not the thing for one of her standing in the Back Bay—perspiring. She carried an evening paper in her hand.

  “Any news?” inquired John Quincy.

  She sat down. “Nothing but the coroner’s verdict. The usual thing—person or persons unknown. But as I was reading the paper in the car, I had a sudden inspiration.”

  “Good for you. What was it?”

  Haku appeared at the door leading to the living-room. “You ring, miss?” he said.

  “I did. Haku, what becomes of the old newspapers in this house?”

  “Take and put in a closet beside kitchen,” the man told her.

  “See if you can find me—no, never mind. I’ll look myself.”

  She followed Haku into the living-room. In a few minutes she returned alone, a newspaper in her hand.

  “I have it,” she announced triumphantly. “The evening paper of Monday, June sixteenth79—the one Dan was reading the night he wrote that letter to Roger. And look, John Quincy—one corner has been torn from the shipping page!”

  “Might have been accidental,” suggested John Quincy languidly.

  “Nonsense!” she said sharply. “It’s a clue, that’s what it is. The item that disturbed Dan was on that missing corner of the page.”

  “Might have been, at that,” he admitted. “What are you going to do—”

  “You’re the one that’s going to do it,” she cut in. “Pull yourself together and go into town. It’s two hours until dinner. Give this paper to Captain Hallet—or better still, to Charlie Chan. I am impressed by Mr. Chan’s intelligence.”

  John Quincy laughed. “Damned clever, these Chinese!” he quoted.80 “You don’t mean to say you’ve fallen for that bunk. They seem clever because they’re so different.”

  “We’ll see about that. The chauffeur’s gone on an errand for Barbara, but there’s a roadster in the garage—”

  “Trolley’s good enough for me,” said John Quincy. “Here, give me the paper.”

  She explained to him how he was to reach the city, and he got his hat and went. Presently he was on a trolley-car surrounded by representatives of a dozen different races. The melting pot of the Pacific, Carlota Egan had called Honolulu, and the appellation seemed to be correct. John Quincy began to feel a fresh energy, a new interest in life.

  The trolley swept over the low swampy land between Waikiki and Honolulu, past rice fields where quaint figures toiled patiently in water to their knees, past taro patches, and finally turned on to King Street. Every few moments it paused to take aboard immigrants, Japs, Chinamen, Hawaiians, Portuguese, Philippinos, Koreans, all colors and all creeds. On it went. John Quincy saw great houses set in blooming groves, a Japanese theater flaunting weird posters not far from a Ford service station, then a huge building he recognized as the palace of the monarchy. Finally it entered a district of modern office buildings.

  Mr. Kipling was wrong, the boy reflected, East and West could meet.81 They had.

  This impression was confirmed when he left the car at Fort Street and for a moment walked about, a stranger in a strange land. A dusky policeman was directing traffic on the corner, officers of the United States army and navy in spotless duck strolled by, and on the shady side of the street Chinese girls, slim and immaculate in freshly laundered trousers and jackets, were window shopping in the cool of the evening.

  “I’m looking for the police station,” John Quincy informed a big American with a friendly face.

  “Get back on to King Street,” the man said. “Go to your right until you come to Bethel, then turn makai—”

  “Turn what?”

  The man smiled. “A malihini, I take it. Makai means toward the sea. The other direction is mauka—toward the mountains. The police station is at the foot of Bethel, in Kalakaua Hale.”

  John Quincy thanked him and went on his way. He passed the post-office and was amazed to see that all the lock boxes opened on the street. After a time, he reached the station. A sergeant lounging behind the desk told him that Charlie Chan was at dinner. He suggested the Alexander Young Hotel82 or possibly the All American Restaurant83 on King Street.

  The hotel sounded easiest, so John Quincy went there first. In the dim lobby a Chinese house boy wandered aimlessly about with broom and dust pan, a few guests were writing the inevitable post-cards, a Chinese clerk was on duty at the desk. But there was no sign of Chan, either in the lobby or in the dining-room at the left. As John Quincy turned from an inspection of the latter, the elevator door opened and a Britisher in mufti came hurriedly forth. He was followed by a Cockney servant carrying luggage.

  “Captain Cope,” called John Quincy.

  The captain paused. “Hello,” he said. “Oh—Mr. Winterslip—how are you?” He turned to the servant. “Buy me an evening paper and an armful of the less offensive-looking magazines.” The man hurried off, and Cope again addressed John Quincy. “Delighted to see you, but I’m in a frightful rush. Off to the Fanning Islands in twenty minutes.”

  “When did you get in?” inquired John Quincy. Not that he really cared.

  “Yesterday at noon,” said Captain Cope. “Been on the wing ever since. I trust you are enjoying your stop here—but I was forgetting. Fearful news about Dan Winterslip.”

  “Yes,” said John Quincy coolly. Judging by the conversation in that San Francisco club, the blow had not been a severe one for Captain Cope. The servant returned.

  “Sorry to run,” continued the captain. “But I must be off. The service is a stern taskmaster. My regards to your aunt. Best of luck, my boy.”

  He disappeared through the wide door, followed by his man. John Quincy reached the street in time to see him rolling off in a big car toward the docks.

  Noting the cable office near by, the boy entered and sent two messages, one to his mother and the other to Agatha Parker. He addressed them to Boston, Mass. U.S.A., and was accorded a withering look by the young woman in charge as she crossed out the last three letters. There were only two words in each message, but he returned to the street with the comfortable feeling that his correspondence was now attended to for some time to come.

  A few moments later he encountered the All American Restaurant and going inside, found himself the only American in the place.84 Charlie Chan was seated alone at a table, and as John Quincy approached, he rose and bowed.

  “A
very great honor,” said the Chinaman. “Is it possible that I can prevail upon you to accept some of this terrible provision?”

  “No, thanks,” answered John Quincy. “I’m to dine later at the house. I’ll sit down for a moment, if I may.”

  “Quite overwhelmed,” bobbed Charlie. He resumed his seat and scowled at something on the plate before him. “Waiter,” he said. “Be kind enough to summon the proprietor of this establishment.”

  The proprietor, a suave little Jap, came gliding. He bowed from the waist.

  “Is it that you serve here insanitary food?” inquired Chan.

  “Please deign to state your complaint,” said the Jap.

  “This piece of pie are covered with finger-marks,” rebuked Chan. “The sight is most disgusting. Kindly remove it and bring me a more hygienic sector.”

  The Jap picked up the offending pastry and carried it away.

  “Japanese,” remarked Chan, spreading his hands in an eloquent gesture.85 “Is it proper for me to infer that you come on business connected with the homicide?”

  John Quincy smiled. “I do,” he said. He took the newspaper from his pocket, pointed out the date and the missing corner. “My aunt felt it might be important,” he explained.

  “The woman has a brain,” said Chan. “I will procure an unmutilated specimen of this issue and compare. The import may be vast.”

  “You know,” remarked John Quincy, “I’d like to work with you on this case, if you’ll let me.”

  “I have only delight,” Chan answered. “You arrive from Boston, a city most cultivated, where much more English words are put to employment than are accustomed here. I thrill when you speak. Greatest privilege for me, I would say.”

  “Have you formed any theory about the crime?” John Quincy asked.

  Chan shook his head. “Too early now.”

  “You have no finger-prints to go on, you said.”

  Chan shrugged his shoulders. “Does not matter. Finger-prints and other mechanics good in books, in real life not so much so. My experience tell me to think deep about human people. Human passions. Back of murder, what, always? Hate, revenge, need to make silent the slain one. Greed for money, maybe. Study human people at all times.”