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 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 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."
"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.
"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 the Chinaman 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 Jap 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 wrist watch, 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 Jap here 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 Chinaman, sat back of his work bench with a
microscope 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 the Chinaman descended from his stool and
approached the counter. He regarded Hallet with a hostile eye. The
captain laid the wrist watch 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.
Hallet reddened. "Nonsense. You had it here in the store, and you sold
it to this Jap. 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. "Wrist
watch 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 Okuda 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 Jap. "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 José
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 José 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."