Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s

by Leslie S. Klinger

  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 wrist watch 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.118 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 viletasting 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.119

  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 back of his old adversary’s ear. The sailor staggered, but regained his 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 water-front 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 wrist watch 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.

  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 on 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.

  113.Are we to believe that in this temple of Chinese beauty, the Chans had hung a scroll on the wall that read “HAPPY NEW YEAR 1924!” or something similar in English? If it was in Chinese, how did John Quincy know what it said?

  114.This must be an idealized description: If Carlota’s hands were tanned (as mentioned earlier), her shoulders would have been, too. Women’s bathing suit styles, shown here as of 1920, left the shoulders bare.

  Women’s bathing beauty contest, 1920.

  115.The Moana Hotel was the first hotel built in Waikiki, opening in 1901. By 1924, it was operated by a company owned by hotelier Alexander Young; when the company failed in the Depression, the Matson Navigation Company took it over.

  116.The football stadium of Harvard University, built in 1903.

  117.Futurism was an art movement following Cubism, emphasizing speed and technology; its art featured cars, airplanes, and the industrialized city.

  118.The back seats of the automobile, usually covered.

  119.John Quincy did not know this, but all license plates issued by Honolulu County were in the form of x-xxxx; so either the number was 3-3xxx or this car had a plate issued by Maui County, which used the sequence 3x-xxxx.

  Hawaii license plate from 1922; later years were similar, with “Hawaii” and the year at the bottom.

  CHAPTER XX

  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.”

  “Some one 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 water-front 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 livingroom. “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 Carlota 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. Carlota was sitting on the white sand not far from the Reef and Palm, all in white herself. A serious wide-eyed Carlota 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.”

  John Quincy dropped down beside her. Suddenly she turned to him. “I have no right to ask, I know; but I want you to do something for me.” From The House Without a Key, illustration by William Liepse (The Saturday Evening Post, March 7, 1925)

  “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 want 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.

  Carlota 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 café?

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