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Title: Behind That Curtain (1928)
Author: Earl Derr Biggers
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eBook No.:  0200691.txt
Language:  English
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Title:      Behind That Curtain (1928)
Author:     Earl Derr Biggers





CHAPTER I



The Man from Scotland Yard



BILL RANKIN sat motionless before his typewriter, grimly seeking a lead
for the interview he was about to write. A black shadow shot past his
elbow and materialized with a soft thud on his desk. Bill's heart leaped
into his throat and choked him.

But it was only Egbert, the office cat. Pretty lonesome round here,
seemed to be Egbert's idea. How about a bit of play? Rankin glared at the
cat with deep disgust. Absurd to be so upset by a mere Egbert, but when
one has been talking with a great man for over an hour and the subject of
the talk has been murder, one is apt to be a trifle jumpy.

He reached out and pushed Egbert to the floor. "Go away," he said. "What
do you mean, scaring me out of a year's growth? Can't you see I'm busy?"

His dignity offended, Egbert stalked off through the desert of typewriter
tables and empty chairs. Bill Rankin watched him disappear at last
through the door leading into the hallway. The hour was five thirty; the
street ten stories below was filled with homegoing throngs, but up here
in the city room of the Globe a momentary quiet reigned. Alone of all the
green-shaded lamps in the room, the one above Rankin's typewriter was
alight, shedding a ghastly radiance on the blank sheet of paper in his
machine. Even the copy desk was deserted. In his cubby-hole at the rear
sat the Globe's city editor, the only other human thing in sight. And he
was not, if you believed the young men who worked for him, so very human
at that.

Bill Rankin turned back to his interview. For a brief moment he sat
wrapped in thought; then his long, capable fingers sought the keys. He
wrote:

"The flights of genius and miracles of science which solve most of the
crimes in detective stories have no real part in detective work. This is
the verdict of Sir Frederic Bruce, former head of the Criminal
Investigation Department at Scotland Yard.

"Sir Frederic, who is stopping over for two weeks in San Francisco during
the course of a trip around the world, is qualified to give an expert
opinion. For nearly seventeen years he acted as Deputy-Commissioner at
the head of the most famous detective organization in existence, and
though he has now retired, his interest in crime detection is as keen as
ever. Sir Frederic is a big man, with a kindly twinkle in his gray eyes,
but occasionally those eyes have a steely look that made this reporter
nervous. If we had killed the old Earl of Featherstonehaugh on his rare
Persian rug, we would not care to have Sir Frederic on our trail. For the
great detective is that type of Scotchman who is a stranger to defeat. He
would never abandon the scent.

"'I read a great deal of detective fiction,' Sir Frederic said. 'It
amuses me, but there is usually nothing for a detective to learn from it.
Except for the fingerprint system and work in the chemical laboratory on
stains, scientific research has furnished little assistance to crime
detection. Murder mysteries and other difficult criminal cases are solved
by intelligence, hard work and luck, with little help from the delicate
scientific devices so dear to the authors of--'"

Suddenly Bill Rankin stopped writing and sat erect in his uncomfortable
chair. There was a familiar ring to the ideas he was setting down on
paper; he had heard them before, and recently. Opinions identical with
these, expressed not in the polished English of Sir Frederic, but in a
quite different idiom---Ah yes. He smiled, recalling that pudgy little
man he had interviewed three days ago in the lobby of the Stewart Hotel.

The reporter rose from his chair and, lighting a cigarette, began to pace
the floor. He spoke aloud: "Of course---and I never thought of it. A
corking feature story staring me right in the face, and I was blind--
blind. I must be losing my grip." He looked anxiously at the clock,
tossed aside his cigarette and resumed his chair. Completing the sentence
which he had interrupted midway, he continued:

"Sir Frederic was asked what he considered the greatest piece of
detective work within his knowledge.

"'I can not answer that because of the important part played by chance,'
he replied. 'As I have just said, most criminal cases are solved by
varying proportions of hard work, intelligence and luck, and I am sorry I
must add that of these three, luck is the greatest by far.

"'Hard, methodical work, however, has brought results in many instances.
For example, it unraveled the famous Crippen mystery. The first
intimation we had of something wrong in that case came when we heard that
the woman treasurer of a music-hall--'"

Bill Rankin wrote on, with lightning speed now, for he was eager to
finish. The thing he was doing had suddenly become a minor matter. A far
better story was running through his head. His fingers flew over the
keys; when he paused, at rare intervals, it was to turn an inquiring gaze
on the clock.

He ripped the final sheet of paper from his machine, snatched up the
story, and hurried toward the city editor's nook. The lone man in charge
of the Copy desk, just returned from a bitter argument with the
composing-room foreman, watched him sourly as he passed, and grimly
sharpened a blue pencil.

"Wha's 'at?" inquired the city editor, as Bill Rankin threw the story
down before him.

"Interview with Sir Frederic Bruce," Bill reminded him.

"Oh, you found him, did you?"

"We all found him. The room was full of reporters."

"Where was he?"

"He's putting up at Barry Kirk's bungalow. Kirk knew his son in London. I
tried the hotels until my feet ached."

The editor snorted. "The more fool you. No Englishman ever stops at a
hotel if he can wangle board and room from somebody. You've been sent out
to find enough lecturing British authors to know that."

"The interview's blah," said Rankin. "Every paper in town will have it.
But while I was writing it, an idea for a feature hit me hard. It'll be a
humdinger---if I can only put it over on Sir Frederic. I thought I'd go
back up there and see what I can do."

"A feature?" The editor frowned. "If you happen on a bit of news in the
course of your literary work, you'll let me know, won't you? Here I am,
trying to get out a newspaper, and all I get from you fellows is an
avalanche of pretty little essays. I suspect you're all hoping that some
day you'll be tapped for the Atlantic Monthly."

"But this feature's good," Rankin protested. "I must hurry along--"

"Just a minute. I'm only your editor, of course. I don't want to pry into
your plans--"

Rankin laughed. He was an able man, and privileged. "I'm sorry, sir, but
I can't stop to explain now. Some one may beat me to it yet. Gleason of
the Herald was up there to-day and he'll get the same hunch as sure as
fate. So if you don't mind--"

The editor shrugged. "All right---go to it. Hurry up to the Kirk
Building. And don't let this sudden attack of energy die there. Hurry
back, too."

"Yes, sir," agreed the reporter. "Of course, I'll need a bit of dinner--"

"I never eat," growled his charming employer.

Bill Rankin sped across the city room. His fellow reporters were drifting
in now from their afternoon assignments, and the place was coming to
life. Near the door, Egbert, black as the night from pole to pole,
crossed Rankin's path with haughty, aloof manner and dignified stride.

Descending to the street, the reporter stood for a moment undecided. The
Kirk Building was not far away; he could walk there---but time was
precious. Suppose he arrived to be met by the news that Sir Frederic was
dressing for dinner. With this famous and correct Englishman, the act
would be a sacred rite not to be lightly interrupted by panting pressmen.
No, he must reach Sir Frederic before the detective reached for his black
pearl studs. He hailed a passing taxi.

As the car drew up to the curb, a red-cheeked boy, one of the Globe's
younger reporters, emerged from the crowd and with a deep bow, held open
the taxi door.

"To the Royal Opera, my good man," he shouted, "and an extra gold
sovereign for you if we pass the Duke's car on the way."

Rankin pushed the facetious one aside. "Don't interfere with your
betters, my lad," he remarked, and added, to the driver: "The Kirk
Building, on California Street."

The taxi swung out into Market Street, followed the intricate car tracks
for a few blocks, and turned off into Montgomery. In another moment they
were in the financial district of San Francisco, now wrapped in its
accustomed evening calm. The huge buildings of trust companies,
investment houses and banks stood solemn and solid in the dusk; across
the doorways of many, forbidding bronze gates were already shut. Gilded
signs met Rankin's eye---"The Yokohama Bank"; on another window, "The
Shanghai Trading Company"; one may not forget the Orient in the city by
the Gate. Presently the taxi drew up before a twenty-story office
building, and Rankin alighted.

The Kirk Building was architecturally perfect, in the excellent taste
that had marked the family ever since the first Dawson Kirk had made his
millions and gone his way. Now it was the particular hobby of young Barry
Kirk, who lived in bachelor splendor in the spacious but breezy bungalow
on its roof. Its pure white lobby was immaculate; its elevator girls trim
and pretty in neat uniforms; its elevator starter resplendent as an
Admiral of the Fleet. At this hour the fever of the day was ended and
cleaning women knelt reverently on the marble floor. One elevator was
still running, and into this Bill Rankin stepped.

"All the way," he said to the girl.

He alighted at the twentieth floor, the final stop. A narrow stair led to
Barry Kirk's bungalow, and the reporter ascended two steps at a time.
Pausing before an imposing door, he rang. The door opened and Paradise,
Kirk's English butler, stood like a bishop barring Rankin's path.

"Ah---er---I'm back," panted Rankin.

"So I see, sir." Very like a bishop indeed, with that great shock of
snow-white hair. His manner was not cordial. Earlier that day he had
admitted many reporters, but with misgivings.

"I must see Sir Frederic at once. Is he in?"

"Sir Frederic is in the offices, on the floor below. I fancy he is busy,
but I will announce you--"

"No---please don't trouble," said Rankin quickly. Running down to the
twentieth floor, he noted a door with Barry Kirk's name on the frosted
glass. As he moved toward it, it opened suddenly, and a young woman came
out.

Rankin stopped in his tracks. A remarkably pretty young woman---that much
was obvious even in the dim light on the twentieth floor. One of those
greatly preferred blonds, with a slender figure trim in a green dress of
some knitted material. Not precisely tall, but--

What was this? The young woman was weeping. Silently, without fuss, but
indubitably weeping. Tears not alone of grief, but, if Rankin was any
judge, of anger and exasperation, too. With a startled glance at the
reporter, she hastily crossed the hall and disappeared through a door
that bore the sign "Calcutta Importers, Inc."

Bill Rankin pushed on into Barry Kirk's office. He entered a sort of
reception-room, but a door beyond stood open, and the newspaper man went
confidently forward. In the second room, Sir Frederic Bruce, former head
of the C.I.D., sat at a big, flat-topped desk. He swung around, and his
gray eyes were stern and dangerous.

"Oh," he said. "It's you."

"I must apologize for intruding on you again, Sir Frederic," Bill Rankin
began. "But---I---er---may I sit down?"

"Certainly." The great detective slowly gathered up some papers on the
desk.

"The fact is--" Rankin's confidence was ebbing. An inner voice told him
that this was not the genial gentleman of the afternoon interview in the
bungalow up-stairs. Not the gracious visitor to San Francisco, but Sir
Frederic Bruce of Scotland Yard, unbending, cold and awe-inspiring. "The
fact is," continued the reporter lamely, "an idea has struck me."

"Really?" Those eyes---they looked right through you.

"What you told us this afternoon, Sir Frederic---Your opinion of the
value of scientific devices in the detection of crime, as against luck
and hard work--" Rankin paused. He seemed unable to finish his sentences.
"I was reminded, when I came to write my story, that oddly enough I had
heard that same opinion only a few days ago."

"Yes? Well, I made no claim to originality." Sir Frederic threw his
papers into a drawer.

"Oh, I haven't come to complain about it," smiled Rankin, regaining a
trace of his jaunty spirit. "Under ordinary conditions, it wouldn't mean
anything, but I heard your ideas from the lips of a rather unusual man,
Sir Frederic. A humble worker in your own field, a detective who has
evolved his theories far from Scotland Yard. I heard them from
Detective-Sergeant Charlie Chan, of the Honolulu police."

Sir Frederic's bushy eyebrows rose. "Really? Then I must applaud the
judgment of Sergeant Chan---whoever he may be."

"Chan is a detective who has done some good work in the islands. He
happens to be in San Francisco at the moment, on his way home. Came to
the mainland on a simple errand, which developed into quite a case before
he had finished with it. I believe he acquitted himself with credit. He's
not very impressive to look at, but--"

Sir Frederic interrupted. "A Chinese, I take it?"

"Yes, sir."

The great man nodded. "And why not? A Chinese should make an excellent
detective. The patience of the East, you know."

"Precisely," agreed Bill Rankin. "He's got that. And modesty--"

Sir Frederic shook his head. "Not such a valuable asset, modesty.
Self-assurance, a deep faith in one's self---they help. But Sergeant Chan
is modest?"

"Is he? 'Falling hurts least those who fly low'---that's the way he put
it to me. And Sergeant Chan flies so low he skims the daisies."

Sir Frederic rose and stepped to the window. He gazed down at the spatter
of lights flung like a handful of stars over the darkening town. For a
moment he said nothing. Then he turned to the reporter.

"A modest detective," he said, with a grim smile. "That's a novelty, at
any rate. I should like very much to meet this Sergeant Chan."

Bill Rankin sighed with relief. His task was unbelievably easy, after
all.

"That's exactly what I came here to suggest," he said briskly. "I'd like
to bring you and Charlie Chan together---hear you go over your methods
and experiences---you know, just a real good talk. I was wondering if you
would do us the great honor to join Mr. Chan and me at lunch to-morrow?"

The former head of the C.I.D. hesitated. "Thank you very much. But I am
more or less in Mr. Kirk's hands. He is giving a dinner to-morrow night,
and I believe he said something about luncheon to-morrow, too. Much as I
should like to accept at once, decidedly we must consult Mr. Kirk."

"Well, let's find him. Where is he?" Bill Rankin was all business.

"I fancy he is up in the bungalow." Sir Frederic turned and, swinging
shut the door of a big wall safe, swiftly twirled the knob.

"You did that just like an American business man, Sir Frederic," Rankin
smiled.

The detective nodded. "Mr. Kirk has kindly allowed me to use his office
while I am his guest."

"Ah---then you're not altogether on a pleasure trip," said Bill Rankin
quickly.

The gray eyes hardened. "Absolutely---a pleasure trip. But there are
certain matters---private business---I am writing my Memoirs--"

"Ah yes---of course," apologized the reporter.

The door opened, and a cleaning woman entered. Sir Frederic turned to
her. "Good evening," he said. "You understand that no papers on this desk
--or in it---are to be interfered with in any way?"

"Oh, yes, sir," the woman answered.

"Very good. Now, Mr.---er---Mr.--"

"Rankin, Sir Frederic."

"Of course. There is a stairs in this rear room leading up to the
bungalow. If you will come with me--"

They entered the third and last room of the office suite, and Bill Rankin
followed the huge figure of the Englishman aloft. The stairs ended in a
dark passageway on the floor above. Throwing open the nearest door, Sir
Frederic flooded the place with light, and Bill Rankin stepped into the
great living-room of the bungalow. Paradise was alone in the room; he
received the reporter with cold disdain. Barry Kirk, it appeared, was
dressing for dinner, and the butler went reluctantly to inform him of the
newspaper man's unseemly presence.

Kirk appeared at once, in his shirt-sleeves and with the ends of a white
tie dangling about his neck. He was a handsome, lean young man in the
late twenties, whose manner spoke of sophistication, and spoke true. For
he had traveled to the far corners of the earth seeking to discover what
the Kirk fortune would purchase there, and life held no surprises for him
any more.

"Ah yes---Mr. Rankin of the Globe," he said pleasantly. "What can I do
for you?"

Paradise hastened forward to officiate with the tie, and over the
servant's shoulder Bill Rankin explained his mission. Kirk nodded.

"A bully idea," he remarked. "I have a lot of friends in Honolulu, and
I've heard about Charlie Chan. I'd like to meet him myself."

"Very happy to have you join us," said the reporter.

"Can't be done. You must join me."

"But---the suggestion of the lunch was mine--" began Rankin
uncomfortably.

Kirk waved a hand in the airy manner of the rich in such a situation. "My
dear fellow---I've already arranged a luncheon for to-morrow. Some chap
in the district attorney's office wrote me a letter. He's interested in
criminology and wants to meet Sir Frederic. As I explained to Sir
Frederic, I couldn't very well ignore it. We never know when we'll need a
friend in the district attorney's office, these days."

"One of the deputies?" inquired Rankin.

"Yes. A fellow named Morrow---J. V. Morrow. Perhaps you know him?"

Rankin nodded. "I do," he said.

"Well, that's the scenario," went on Kirk. "We're to meet this lad at the
St. Francis to-morrow at one. The topic of the day will be murder, and
I'm sure your friend from Honolulu will fit in admirably. You must pick
up Mr. Chan and join us."

"Thank you very much," said Rankin. "You're extremely kind. We'll be
there. I---I won't keep you any longer."

Paradise came forward with alacrity to let him out. At the foot of the
stairs on the twentieth floor he met his old rival, Gleason of the
Herald. He chuckled with delight.

"Turn right around," he said. "You're too late. I thought of it first."

"Thought of what?" asked Gleason, with assumed innocence.

"I'm getting Sir Frederic and Charlie Chan together, and the idea's
copyrighted. Lay off."

Gloomily Mr. Gleason turned about, and accompanied Bill Rankin to the
elevators. As they waited for the car, the girl in the green dress
emerged from the office of the Calcutta Importers and joined them. They
rode down together. The girl's tears had vanished, and had happily left
no trace. Blue eyes---that completed the picture. A charming picture. Mr.
Gleason was also showing signs of interest.

In the street Gleason spoke. "I never thought of it until dinner," he
said sourly.

"With me, my career comes first," Rankin responded. "Did you finish your
dinner?"

"I did, worse luck. Well, I hope you get a whale of a story---a
knock-out, a classic."

"Thanks, old man."

"And I hope you can't print one damn word of it." Rankin did not reply as
his friend hurried off into the dusk. He was watching the girl in the
green dress disappear up California Street. Why had she left the presence
of Sir Frederick Bruce to weep outside that office door? What had Sir
Frederic said to her? Might ask Sir Frederic about it to-morrow. He
laughed mirthlessly. He saw himself---or any other man---prying into the
private affairs of Sir Frederic Bruce.





CHAPTER II



What Happened to Eve Durand?



THE next day at one Sir Frederic Bruce stood in the lobby of the St.
Francis, a commanding figure in a gray tweed suit. By his side, as
immaculate as his guest, stood Barry Kirk, looking out on the busy scene
with the amused tolerance befitting a young man of vast leisure and not a
care in the world. Kirk hung his stick on his arm, and took a letter from
his pocket.

"By the way, I had this note from J. V. Morrow in the morning's mail," he
said. "Thanks me very politely for my invitation, and says that I'll know
him when he shows up because he'll be wearing a green hat. One of those
green plush hats, I suppose. Hardly the sort of thing I'd put on my head
if I were a deputy district attorney."

Sir Frederic did not reply. He was watching Bill Rankin approach rapidly
across the floor. At the reporter's side walked, surprisingly light of
step, an unimpressive little man with a bulging waistband and a very
earnest expression on his chubby face.

"Here we are," Rankin said. "Sir Frederic Bruce---may I present
Detective-Sergeant Chan, of the Honolulu police?"

Charlie Chan bent quickly like a jack-knife. "The honor," he said, "is
unbelievably immense. In Sir Frederic's reflected glory I am happy to
bask. The tiger has condescended to the fly."

Somewhat at a loss, the Englishman caressed his mustache and smiled down
on the detective from Hawaii. As a keen judge of men, already he saw
something in those black restless eyes that held his attention.

"I'm happy to know you, Sergeant Chan," he said. "It seems we think alike
on certain important points. We should get on well together."

Rankin introduced Chan to the host, who greeted the little Chinese with
obvious approval. "Good of you to come," he said.

"A four-horse chariot could not have dragged me in an opposite
direction," Chan assured him.

Kirk looked at his watch. "All here but J. V. Morrow," he remarked. "He
wrote me this morning that he's coming in at the Post Street entrance. If
you'll excuse me, I'll have a look around."

He strolled down the corridor toward Post Street. Near the door, on a
velvet davenport, sat a strikingly attractive young woman. No other seat
was available, and with an interested glance at the girl Kirk also
dropped down on the davenport. "If you don't mind--" he murmured.

"Not at all," she replied, in a voice that somehow suited her.

They sat in silence. Presently Kirk was aware that she was looking at
him. He glanced up, to meet her smile.

"People are always late," he ventured.

"Aren't they?"

"No reason for it, usually. Just too inefficient to make the grade.
Nothing annoys me more."

"I feel the same way," the girl nodded.

Another silence. The girl was still smiling at him.

"Go out of your way to invite somebody you don't know to lunch," Kirk
continued, "and he isn't even courteous enough to arrive on time."

"Abominable," she agreed. "You have all my sympathy---Mr. Kirk."

He started. "Oh---you know me?"

She nodded. "Somebody once pointed you out to me---at a charity bazaar,"
she explained.

"Well," he sighed, "their charity didn't extend to me. Nobody pointed you
out." He looked at his watch.

"This person you're expecting--" began the girl.

"A lawyer," he answered. "I hate all lawyers. They're always telling you
something you'd rather not know."

"Yes---aren't they?"

"Messing around with other people's troubles. What a life."

"Frightful." Another silence. "You say you don't know this lawyer?" A
rather unkempt young man came in and hurried past. "How do you expect to
recognize him?"

"He wrote me he'd be wearing a green hat. Imagine! Why not a rose behind
his ear?"

"A green hat." The girl's smile grew even brighter. Charming, thought
Kirk. Suddenly he stared at her in amazement. "Good lord---you're wearing
a green hat!" he cried.

"I'm afraid I am."

"Don't tell me--"

"Yes---it's true. I'm the lawyer. And you hate all lawyers. What a pity."

"But I didn't dream--"

"J. V. Morrow," she went on. "The first name is June."

"And I thought it was Jim," he cried. "Please forgive me."

"You'd never have invited me if you'd known---would you?"

"On the contrary---I wouldn't have invited anybody else. But come along.
There are a lot of murder experts in the lobby dying to meet you."

They rose, and walked rapidly down the corridor. "You're interested in
murder?" Kirk inquired.

"Among other things," she smiled.

"Must take it up myself," Kirk murmured.

Men turned to look at her a second time, he noticed. There was an
alertness in her dark eyes that resembled the look in Chan's, her manner
was brisk and businesslike, but for all that she was feminine, alluring.

He introduced her to the surprised Sir Frederic, then to Charlie Chan.
The expression on the face of the little Chinese did not alter. He bowed
low.

"The moment has charm," he remarked.

Kirk turned to Rankin. "And all the time," he accused, "you knew who J.
V. Morrow was."

The reporter shrugged. "I thought I'd let you find it out for yourself.
Life holds so few pleasant surprises."

"It never held a pleasanter one for me," Kirk answered. They went in to
the table he had engaged, which stood in a secluded corner.

When they were seated, the girl turned to her host. "This was so good of
you. And of Sir Frederic, too. I know how busy he must be."

The Englishman bowed. "A fortunate moment for me," he smiled, "when I
decided I was not too busy to meet J. V. Morrow. I had heard that in the
States young women were emancipated--"

"Of course, you don't approve," she said.

"Oh---but I do," he murmured.

"And Mr. Chan. I'm sure Mr. Chan disapproves of me."

Chan regarded her blankly. "Does the elephant disapprove of the
butterfly? And who cares?"

"No answer at all," smiled the girl. "You are returning to Honolulu soon,
Mr. Chan?"

A delighted expression appeared on the blank face. "To-morrow at noon the
Maui receives my humble person. We churn over to Hawaii together."

"I see you are eager to go," said the girl.

"The brightest eyes are sometimes blind," replied Chan. "Not true in your
case. It is now three weeks since I arrived on the mainland, thinking to
taste the joys of holiday. Before I am aware events engulf me, and like
the postman who has day of rest I foolishly set out on long, tiresome
walk. Happy to say that walk are ended now. With beating heart I turn
toward little home on Punchbowl Hill."

"I know how you feel," said Miss Morrow.

"Humbly begging pardon to mention it, you do not. I have hesitation in
adding to your ear that one thing calls me home with unbearable force. I
am soon to be happy father."

"For the first time?" asked Barry Kirk.

"The eleventh occasion of the kind," Chan answered.

"Must be sort of an old story by now," Bill Rankin suggested.

"That is one story which does not get aged," Chan replied. "You will
learn. But my trivial affairs have no place here. We are met to honor a
distinguished guest." He looked toward Sir Frederic.

Bill Rankin thought of his coming story. "I was moved to get you two
together," he said, "because I found you think alike. Sir Frederic is
also scornful of science as an aid to crime detection."

"I have formed that view from my experience," remarked Sir Frederic.

"A great pleasure," Chan beamed, "to hear that huge mind like Sir
Frederic's moves in same groove as my poor head-piece. Intricate
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, greed, revenge, need to make silent the slain one. Study
human people at all times."

"Precisely," agreed Sir Frederic. "The human element---that is what
counts. I have had no luck with scientific devices. Take the dictaphone--
it has been a complete washout at the Yard." He talked on, while the
luncheon progressed. Finally he turned to Chan. "And what have your
methods gained you, Sergeant? You have been successful, I hear."

Chan shrugged. "Luck---always happy luck."

"You're too modest," said Rankin. "That won't get you anywhere."

"The question now arises---where do I want to go?"

"But surely you're ambitious?" Miss Morrow suggested.

Chan turned to her gravely. "Coarse food to eat, water to drink, and the
bended arm for a pillow---that is an old definition of happiness in my
country. What is ambition? A canker that eats at the heart of the white
man, denying him the joys of contentment. Is it also attacking the heart
of white woman? I hope not." The girl looked away. "I fear I am victim of
crude philosophy from Orient. Man---what is he? Merely one link in a
great chain binding the past with the future. All times I remember I am
link. Unsignificant link joining those ancestors whose bones repose on
far distant hillsides with the ten children---it may now be eleven---in
my house on Punchbowl Hill."

"A comforting creed," Barry Kirk commented.

"So, waiting the end, I do my duty as it rises. I tread the path that
opens." He turned to Sir Frederic. "On one point, from my reading, I am
curious. In your work at Scotland Yard, you follow only one clue. What
you call the essential clue."

Sir Frederic nodded, "Such is usually our custom. When we fail, our
critics ascribe it to that. They say for example, that our obsession over
the essential clue is the reason why we never solved the famous Ely Place
murder."

They all sat up with interest. Bill Rankin beamed. Now things were
getting somewhere. "I'm afraid we never heard of the Ely Place murder,
Sir Frederic," he hinted.

"I sincerely wish I never had," the Englishman replied. "It was the first
serious case that came to me when I took charge of the C.I.D. over
sixteen years ago. I am chagrined to say I have never been able to fathom
it."

He finished his salad, and pushed away the plate. "Since I have gone so
far, I perceive I must go farther. Hilary Galt was the senior partner in
the firm of Pennock and Galt, solicitors, with offices in Ely Place,
Holborn. The business this firm carried on for more than a generation was
unique of its kind. Troubled people in the highest ranks of society went
to them for shrewd professional advice and Mr. Hilary Galt and his
father-in-law, Pennock, who died some twenty years ago, were entrusted
with more numerous and romantic secrets than any other firm of solicitors
in London. They knew the hidden history of every rascal in Europe, and
they rescued many persons from the clutches of blackmailers. It was their
boast that they never kept records of any sort."

Dessert was brought, and after this interruption, Sir Frederic continued.

"One foggy January night sixteen years ago, a caretaker entered Mr.
Hilary Galt's private office, presumably deserted for the day. The gas
lights were ablaze, the windows shut and locked; there was no sign of any
disturbance. But on the floor lay Hilary Galt, with a bullet in his
brain.

"There was just one clue, and over that we puzzled for many weary months
at the Yard. Hilary Galt was a meticulous dresser, his attire was
perfect, always. It was perfect on this occasion---with one striking
exception. His highly polished boots---I presume you call them shoes over
here---were removed and standing on a pile of papers on top of his desk.
And on his feet he wore a pair of velvet slippers, embellished with a
curious design.

"These, of course, seemed to the Yard the essential clue, and we set to
work. We traced those slippers to the Chinese Legation in Portland Place.
Mr. Galt had been of some trifling service to the Chinese minister, and
early on the day of his murder the slippers had arrived as a gift from
that gentleman. Galt had shown them to his office staff, and they were
last seen wrapped loosely in their covering near his hat and stick. That
was as far as we got.

"For sixteen years I have puzzled over those slippers. Why did Mr. Hilary
Galt remove his boots, don the slippers, and prepare himself as though
for some extraordinary adventure? I don't know to this day. The slippers
still haunt me. When I resigned from the Yard, I rescued them from the
Black Museum and took them with me as a souvenir of my first case---an
unhappy souvenir of failure. I should like to show them to you, Miss
Morrow."

"Thrilling," said the girl.

"Annoying," corrected Sir Frederic grimly.

Bill Rankin looked at Charlie Chan. "What's your reaction to that case,
Sergeant?" he inquired.

Chan's eyes narrowed in thought. "Humbly begging pardon to inquire," he
said, "have you the custom, Sir Frederic, to put yourself in place of
murderer?"

"It's a good idea," the Englishman answered, "if you can do it. You mean
-"

"A man who has killed---a very clever man---he knows that Scotland Yard
has fiercely fixed idea about essential clue. His wits accompany him. He
furnishes gladly one essential clue which has no meaning and leads no
place at all."

Sir Frederic regarded him keenly. "Excellent," he remarked. "And it has
one great virtue---from your point of view. It completely exonerates your
countrymen at the Chinese Legation."

"It might do more than that," suggested Barry Kirk.

Sir Frederic thoughtfully ate his dessert. No one spoke for some moments.
But Bill Rankin was eager for more material.

"A very interesting case, Sir Frederic," he remarked. "You must have a
lot like it up your sleeve. Murders that ended more successfully for
Scotland Yard--"

"Hundreds," nodded the detective. "But none that still holds its interest
for me like the crime in Ely Place. As a matter of fact, I have never
found murder so fascinating as some other things. The murder case came
and went and, with a rare exception such as this I have mentioned, was
quickly forgotten. But there is one mystery that to me has always been
the most exciting in the world."

"And what is that?" asked Rankin, while they waited with deep interest.

"The mystery of the missing," Sir Frederic replied. "The man or woman who
steps quietly out of the picture and is never seen again. Hilary Galt,
dead in his office, presents a puzzle, of course; still, there is
something to get hold of, something tangible, a body on the floor. But if
Hilary Galt had disappeared into the fog that gloomy night, leaving no
trace---that would have been another story.

"For years I have been enthralled by the stories of the missing," the
detective went on. "Even when they were outside my province, I followed
many of them. Often the solution was simple, or sordid, but that could
never detract from the thrill of the ones that remained unsolved. And of
all those unsolved cases, there is one that I have never ceased to think
about. Sometimes in the night I wake up and ask myself---what happened to
Eve Durand?"

"Eve Durand," repeated Rankin eagerly.

"That was her name. As a matter of fact, I had nothing to do with the
case. It happened outside my bailiwick---very far outside. But I followed
it with intense interest from the first. There are others, too, who have
never forgotten---just before I left England I clipped from a British
periodical a brief reference to the matter---I have it here." He removed
a bit of paper from his purse. "Miss Morrow---will you be kind enough to
read this aloud?"

The girl took the clipping. She began to read, in a low, clear voice:



"A gay crowd of Anglo-Indians gathered one night fifteen years ago on a
hill outside Peshawar to watch the moon rise over that isolated frontier
town. Among the company were Captain Eric Durand and his wife, just out
from home. Eve Durand was young, pretty and well-born---a Miss Mannering,
of Devonshire. Some one proposed a game of hide-and-seek before the ride
back to Peshawar. The game was never finished. They are still looking for
Eve Durand. Eventually all India was enlisted in the game. Jungle and
bazaar, walled city and teak forest, were fine-combed for her. Through
all the subterranean channels of that no-white-man's land of native life
the search was carried by the famous secret service. After five years her
husband retired to a life of seclusion in England, and Eve Durand became
a legend---a horror tale to be told by ayahs to naughty children, along
with the ghost stories of that north country."



The girl ceased reading, and looked at Sir Frederic, wide-eyed. There
followed a moment of tense silence.

Bill Rankin broke the spell. "Some little game of hide-and-seek," he
said.

"Can you wonder," asked Sir Frederic, "that for fifteen years the
disappearance of Eve Durand, like Hilary Galt's slippers, has haunted me?
A notably beautiful woman---a child, really---she was but eighteen that
mysterious night at Peshawar. A blonde, blue-eyed, helpless child, lost
in the dark of those dangerous hills. Where did she go? What became of
her? Was she murdered? What happened to Eve Durand?"

"I'd rather like to know myself," remarked Barry Kirk softly.

"All India, as the clipping says, was enlisted in the game. By telegraph
and by messenger, inquiries went forward. Her heart-broken, frantic
husband was given leave, and at the risk of his life he scoured that wild
country. The secret service did its utmost. Nothing happened. No word
ever came back to Peshawar.

"It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and in time, for most
people, the game lost its thrill. The hue and cry died down. All save a
few forgot.

"When I retired from the Yard and set out on this trip around the world,
India was of course on my itinerary. Though it was far off my track, I
resolved to visit Peshawar. I went down to Ripple Court in Devonshire and
had a chat with Sir George Mannering, the uncle of Eve Durand. Poor man,
he is old before his time. He gave me what information he could---it was
pitifully meager. I promised I would try to take up the threads of this
old mystery when I reached India."

"And you did?" Rankin inquired.

"I tried---but, my dear fellow, have you ever seen Peshawar? When I
reached there the hopelessness of my quest struck me, as Mr. Chan might
say, with an unbearable force. The Paris of the Pathans, they call it,
and its filthy alleys teem with every race in the East. It isn't a city,
it's a caravansary, and its population is constantly shifting. The
English garrison is changed frequently, and I could find scarcely any one
who was there in the time of Eve Durand.

"As I say, Peshawar appalled me. Anything could happen there. A wicked
town---its sins are the sins of opium and hemp and jealousy and intrigue,
of battle, murder and sudden death, of gambling and strange
intoxications, the lust of revenge. Who can explain the deviltry that
gets into men's blood in certain latitudes? I walked the Street of the
Story Tellers and wondered in vain over the story of Eve Durand. What a
place to bring a woman like that, delicately reared, young,
inexperienced."

"You learned nothing?" inquired Barry Kirk.

"What could you expect?" Sir Frederic dropped a small lump of sugar into
his coffee. "Fifteen years since that little picnic party rode back to
Peshawar, back to the compound of the lonely garrison, leading behind
them the riderless pony of Eve Durand. And fifteen years, I may tell you,
make a very heavy curtain on India's frontier."

Again Bill Rankin turned to Charlie Chan. "What do you say, Sergeant?" he
asked.

Chan considered. "The town named Peshawar stands with great proximity to
the Khyber Pass, leading into wilds of Afghanistan," he said.

Sir Frederic nodded. "It does. But every foot of the pass is guarded
night and day by British troops, and no European is permitted to leave by
that route, save under very special conditions. No, Eve Durand could
never have left India by way of the Khyber Pass. The thing would have
been impossible. Grant the impossible, and she could not have lived a day
among the wild hill men over the border."

Chan gravely regarded the man from Scotland Yard. "It is not to be amazed
at," he said, "that you have felt such deep interest. Speaking humbly for
myself, I desire with unlimited yearning to look behind that curtain of
which you speak."

"That is the curse of our business, Sergeant," Sir Frederic replied. "No
matter what our record of successes, there must always remain those
curtains behind which we long with unlimited yearning to look---and never
do."

Barry Kirk paid the check, and they rose from the table. In the lobby,
during the course of the good-bye, the party broke up momentarily into
two groups. Rankin, Kirk and the girl went to the door, and after a
hurried expression of thanks, the reporter dashed out to the street.

"Mr. Kirk---it was wonderful," Miss Morrow said. "Why are all Englishmen
so fascinating? Tell me that."

"Oh---are they?" He shrugged. "You tell me. You girls always fall for
them, I notice."

"Well---they have an air about them. An atmosphere. They're not
provincial, like a Rotarian who wants to tell you about the water-works.
He took us traveling, didn't he? London and Peshawar---I could listen to
him for hours. Sorry I have to run."

"Wait. You can do something for me."

"After what you've done for me," she smiled, "anything you ask."

"Good. This Chinese---Chan---he strikes me as a gentleman, and a mighty
interesting one. I believe he would go big at my dinner to-night. I'd
like to ask him, but that would throw my table out of gear. I need
another woman. How about it? Will old man Blackstone let you off for the
evening?"

"He might."

"Just a small party---my grandmother, and some people Sir Frederic has
asked me to invite. And since you find Englishmen so fascinating,
there'll be Colonel John Beetham, the famous Asiatic explorer. He's going
to show us some movies he took in Tibet---which is the first intimation
I've had that anything ever moved in Tibet."

"That will be splendid. I've seen Colonel Beetham's picture in the
papers."

"I know---the women are all crazy about him, too. Even poor grandmother--
she's thinking of putting up money for his next expedition to the Gobi
Desert. You'll come then? Seven thirty."

"I'd love to---but it does seem presumptuous. After what you said about
lawyers--"

"Yes---that was careless of me. I'll have to live it down. Give me a
chance. My bungalow---you know where it is--"

She laughed. "Thanks. I'll come. Good-by---until tonight."

Meanwhile Sir Frederic Bruce had led Charlie Chan to a sofa in the lobby.
"I was eager to meet you, Sergeant," he said, "for many reasons. Tell me,
are you familiar with San Francisco's Chinatown?"

"I have slight acquaintance with same," Chan admitted. "My cousin, Chan
Kee Lim, is an honored resident of Waverly Place."

"Have you, by any chance, heard of a Chinese down there---a stranger, a
tourist---named Li Gung?"

"No doubt there are many so named. I do not know the one you bring up."

"This man is a guest of relatives on Jackson Street. You could do me a
great service, Sergeant."

"It would remain," said Chan, "a golden item on the scroll of memory."

"Li Gung has certain information and I want it. I have tried to interview
him myself, but naturally with no success."

"Light begins to dawn."

"If you could strike up an acquaintance with him---get into his
confidence--"

"Humbly asking pardon, I do not spy on my own race with no good reason."

"The reasons in this case are excellent."

"Only a fool could doubt it. But what you hint would demand a
considerable interval of time. My humble affairs have rightly no interest
for you, so you have properly overlooked my situation. To-morrow at noon
I hasten to my home."

"You could stay over a week. I would make it greatly worth your while."

A stubborn look came into the little eyes. "One path only is worth my
while now. The path to my home on Punchbowl Hill."

"I mean I would pay--"

"Again asking pardon---I have food, I have clothes which cover even the
vast area I possess. Beyond that, what is money?"

"Very good. It was only a suggestion."

"I am desolated by acute pain," replied Chan. "But I must refuse."

Barry Kirk joined them. "Mr. Chan, I'm going to ask you to do something
for me," he began.

Chan sought to keep concern from his face, and succeeded. But what next,
he wondered. "I am eagerly at attention," he said. "You are my host."

"I've just invited Miss Morrow to dinner to-night and I need another man.
Will you come?"

"Your requests are high honors, which only an ungrate would refuse. But I
am now already in your debt. More is going to embarrass me."

"Never mind that. I'll expect you at seven thirty---my bungalow on the
Kirk Building."

"Splendid," said Sir Frederic. "We'll have another talk then, Sergeant.
My requests are not precisely honors, but I may yet persuade you."

"The Chinese are funny people," remarked Chan. "They say no, no is what
they mean. They say yes, and they are glued to same. With regard to
dinner, I say yes, greatly pleased."

"Good," said Barry Kirk.

"Where's that reporter?" Sir Frederic asked.

"He hurried away," Kirk explained. "Anxious to get to his story, I
imagine."

"What story?" asked the Englishman blankly.

"Why---the story of our luncheon. Your meeting with Sergeant Chan."

A startled expression crossed the detective's face. "Good lord---you
don't mean he's going to put that into print?"

"Why naturally. I supposed you knew--"

"I'm afraid I'm woefully ignorant of American customs. I thought that was
merely a social function. I didn't dream--"

"You mean you don't want him to print it?" asked Barry Kirk, surprised.

Sir Frederic turned quickly to Charlie. "Good-by, Sergeant. This has been
a real pleasure. I shall see you tonight--"

He hastily shook hands with Chan, and dragged the dazed Barry Kirk to the
street. There he motioned for a taxi. "What paper was that young
scoundrel representing?" he inquired.

"The Globe," Kirk told him.

"The Globe office---and quickly, please," Sir Frederic ordered.

The two got in, and for a moment rode in silence.

"You are curious, perhaps," said Sir Frederic at last.

"I hope you won't think it's unnatural of me," smiled Kirk.

"I know I can rely on your discretion, my boy. I told only a small part
of the story of Eve Durand at luncheon, but even that must not reach
print just yet. Not here---not now--"

"Great Scott. Do you mean--"

"I mean I am near the end of a long trail. Eve Durand was not murdered in
India. She ran away. I know why she ran away. I even suspect the peculiar
method of her going. More than that--"

"Yes?" cried Kirk eagerly.

"More than that I can not tell you at present." The journey was continued
in silence, and presently they drew up before the office of the Globe.

In the city editor's cubby-hole, Bill Rankin was talking exultantly to
his chief. "It's going to be a corking good feature," he was saying, when
he felt a grip of steel on his arm. Turning, he looked into the face of
Sir Frederic Bruce. "Why---why---hello," he stammered.

"There has been a slight mistake," said the detective.

"Let me explain," suggested Barry Kirk. He shook hands with the editor
and introduced Sir Frederic, who merely nodded, not relaxing his grip on
the reporter's paralyzed arm. "Rankin, this is unfortunate," Kirk
continued, "but it can't be helped. Sir Frederic is unfamiliar with the
ways of the American press, and he did not understand that you were
gathering a story at lunch. He thought it a purely social affair. So we
have come to ask that you print nothing of the conversation you heard
this noon."

Rankin's face fell. "Not print it? Oh---I say--"

"We appeal to you both," added Kirk to the editor.

"My answer must depend on your reason for making the request," said that
gentleman.

"My reason would be respected in England," Sir Frederic told him. "Here,
I don't know your custom. But I may tell you that if you print any of
that conversation, you will seriously impede the course of justice."

The editor bowed. "Very well. We shall print nothing without your
permission, Sir Frederic," he said.

"Thank you," replied the detective, releasing Rankin's arm. "That
concludes our business here, I fancy." And wheeling, he went out. Having
added his own thanks, Kirk followed.

"Well, of all the rotten luck," cried Rankin, sinking into a chair.

Sir Frederic strode on across the city room. A cat may look at a king,
and Egbert stood staring with interest at the former head of the C.I.D.
Just in front of the door, the Englishman paused. It was either that or a
collision with Egbert, moving slowly like a dark shadow across his path.





CHAPTER III



The Bungalow in the Sky



BARRY KIRK stepped from his living-room through French windows leading
into the tiny garden that graced his bungalow in the sky---"my front
yard," he called it. He moved over to the rail and stood looking out on a
view such as few front yards have ever offered. Twenty stories below lay
the alternate glare and gloom of the city; far in the distance the lights
of the ferry-boats plodded across the harbor like weary fireflies.

The stars were bright and clear and amazingly close above his head, but
he heard the tolling of the fog bell over by Belvedere, and he knew that
the sea mist was drifting in through the Gate. By midnight it would whirl
and eddy about his lofty home, shutting him off from the world like a
veil of filmy tulle. He loved the fog. Heavy with the scent of distant
gardens, salt with the breath of the Pacific, it was the trade-mark of
his town.

He went back inside, closing the window carefully behind him. For a
moment he stood looking about his living-room, which wealth and good
taste had combined to furnish charmingly. A huge, deep sofa, many
comfortable chairs, a half-dozen floor lamps shedding their warm yellow
glow, a brisk fire crackling on a wide hearth---no matter how loudly the
wind rattled at the casements, here were comfort and good cheer.

Kirk went on into his dining-room. Paradise was lighting the candles on
the big table. The flowers, the snowy linen, the old silver, made a
perfect picture, forecasting a perfect dinner. Kirk inspected the ten
place cards. He smiled.

"Everything seems to be O.K.," he said. "It's got to be to-night.
Grandmother's coming, and you know what she thinks about a man who lives
alone. To hear her tell it, every home needs a woman's touch."

"We shall disillusion her once again, sir," Paradise remarked.

"Such is my aim. Not that it will do any good. When she's made up her
mind, that's that."

The door-bell rang, and Paradise moved off with slow, majestic step to
answer it. Entering the living-room, Barry Kirk stood for a moment
fascinated by the picture he saw there. The deputy district attorney had
paused just inside the door leading from the hallway; she wore a simple,
orange-colored dinner gown, her dark eyes were smiling.

"Miss Morrow," Kirk came forward eagerly. "If you don't mind my saying
so, you don't look much like a lawyer to-night."

"I presume that's intended for a compliment," she answered. Chan appeared
at her back. "Here's Mr. Chan. We rode up together in the elevator.
Heavens---don't tell me we're the first."

"When I was a boy," smiled Kirk, "I always started in by eating the
frosting off my cake. Which is just to tell you that with me, the best is
always first. Good evening, Mr. Chan."

Chan bowed. "I am deeply touched by your kindness. One grand item is
added to my mainland memories tonight." He wore a somewhat rusty dinner
coat, but his linen gleamed and his manners shone.

Paradise followed with their wraps on his arm, and disappeared through a
distant doorway. Another door opened. Sir Frederic Bruce stood on the
threshold.

"Good evening, Miss Morrow," he said. "My word---you look charming. And
Mr. Chan. This is luck---you're the first. You know I promised to show
you a souvenir of my dark past."

He turned and reentered his room. Kirk led his guests over to the blazing
fire.

"Sit down---do," he said. "People are always asking how I can endure the
famous San Francisco zephyrs up here." He waved a hand toward the
fireplace. "This is one of my answers."

Sir Frederic rejoined them, a distinguished figure in his evening
clothes. He carried a pair of slippers. Their tops were of cut velvet,
dark red like old Burgundy, and each bore as decoration a Chinese
character surrounded by a design of pomegranate blossoms. He handed one
to the girl, and the other to Charlie Chan.

"Beautiful," cried Miss Morrow. "And what a history! The essential clue."

"Not any too essential, as it turned out," shrugged the great detective.

"You know, I venture to presume, the meaning of the character inscribed
on velvet?" Chan inquired.

"Yes," said Sir Frederic. "Not any too appropriate, in this case, I
believe. I was told it signifies 'Long life and happiness.'"

"Precisely." Chan turned the slipper slowly in his hand. "There exist one
hundred and one varieties of this character---one hundred for the people,
one reserved for the Emperor. A charming gift. The footwear of a
mandarin, fitting only for one high-placed and wealthy."

"Well, they were on Hilary Galt's feet when we found him, murdered on the
door," Sir Frederic said. "'Walk softly, my best of friends'---that was
what the Chinese minister wrote in the letter he sent with them. Hilary
Galt was walking softly that night---but he never walked again." The
Englishman took the slippers. "By the way---I hesitate to ask it---but
I'd rather you didn't mention this matter to-night at dinner."

"Why, of course," remarked the girl, surprised.

"And that affair of Eve Durand. Ah---er---I fear I was a little
indiscreet this noon. Now that I'm no longer at the Yard, I allow myself
too much rope. You understand, Sergeant?"

Chan's little eyes were on him with a keenness that made Sir Frederic
slightly uncomfortable. "Getting immodest for a minute," the Chinese
said, "I am A-1 honor student in school of discretion."

"I'm sure of that," the great man smiled.

"No impulse to mention these matters would assail me, I am certain," Chan
went on. "You bright man, Sir Frederic---you know Chinese are psychic
people."

"Really?"

"Undubitably. Something has told me--"

"Ah yes---we needn't go into that," Sir Frederic put in hastily. "I have
a moment's business in the offices below. If you will excuse me--"

He disappeared with the slippers into his room. Miss Morrow turned in
amazement to Kirk.

"What in the world did he mean? Surely Eve Durand--"

"Mr. Chan is psychic," Kirk suggested. "Maybe he can explain it."

Chan grinned. "Sometimes psychic feelings lead positively nowhere," he
remarked.

Paradise escorted two more guests through the outer hall into the
living-room. A little, bird-like woman was on tiptoe, kissing Barry Kirk.

"Barry, you bad boy. I haven't seen you for ages. Don't tell me you've
forgot your poor old grandmother."

"I couldn't do that," he laughed.

"Not while I have my health and strength," she returned. She came toward
the fireplace. "How cozy you are--"

"Grandmother---this is Miss Morrow," Kirk said. "Mrs. Dawson Kirk."

The old lady took both the girl's hands. "My dear, I'm happy to know you
-"

"Miss Morrow is a lawyer," Kirk added.

"Lawyer fiddlesticks," his grandmother cried. "She couldn't be---and look
like this."

"Just what I said," nodded Kirk.

The old lady regarded the girl for a brief moment. "Youth and beauty,"
she remarked. "If I had those, my child, I wouldn't waste time over musty
law books." She turned toward Chan. "And this is--"

"Sergeant Chan, of the Honolulu police," Kirk told her.

The old lady gave Charlie a surprisingly warm handclasp. "Know all about
you," she said. "I like you very much."

"Flattered and overwhelmed," gasped Chan.

"Needn't be," she answered.

The woman who had accompanied Mrs. Kirk stood rather neglected in the
background. Kirk hurried forward to present her. She was, it seemed, Mrs.
Tupper-Brock, Mrs. Kirk's secretary and companion. Her manner was cold
and distant. Chan gave her a penetrating look and then bowed low before
her.

"Paradise will show you into one of the guest rooms," said Kirk to the
women. "You'll find a pair of military brushes and every book on football
Walter Camp ever wrote. If there's anything else you want, try and get
it."

They followed the butler out. The bell rang, and going to the door
himself, Kirk admitted another couple. Mr. Carrick Enderby, who was
employed in the San Francisco office of Thomas Cook and Sons, was a big,
slow, blond man with a monocle and nothing much behind it. All the family
brilliance seemed to be monopolized by his wife, Eileen, a dark, dashing
woman of thirty-five or so, who came in breezily. She joined the women,
and the three men stood in the ill-at-ease silence that marks a dinner
party in its initial stages.

"We're in for a bit of fog, I fancy," Enderby drawled.

"No doubt of it," Kirk answered.

When the women reappeared, Mrs. Dawson Kirk came at once to Chan's side.

"Sally Jordan of Honolulu is an old friend of mine," she told him. "A
very good friend. We're both living beyond our time, and there's nothing
cements friendship like that. I believe you were once---er---attached--"

Chan bowed. "One of the great honors of my poor life. I was her
house-boy, and memories of her kindness will survive while life hangs
out."

"Well, she told me how you repaid that kindness recently. A
thousand-fold, she put it."

Chan shrugged. "My old employer has only one weakness. She exaggerates
stupendously."

"Oh, don't be modest," said Mrs. Kirk. "Gone out of fashion, long ago.
These young people will accuse you of something terrible if you try that
tune. However, I like you for it."

A diversion at the door interrupted her. Colonel John Beetham entered the
living-room. John Beetham the explorer, whose feet had stood in many dark
and lonely places, who knew Tibet and Turkestan, Tsaidam and southern
Mongolia. He had lived a year in a house-boat on the largest river in the
heart of Asia, had survived two heart-breaking, death-strewn retreats
across the snowy plateau of Tibet, had walked amid the ruins of ancient
desert cities that had flourished long before Christ was born.

For once, here was a man who looked the part. Lean, tall, bronzed, there
was a living flame in his gray eyes. But like Charlie Chan, he came of a
modest race, and his manner was shy and aloof as he acknowledged the
introductions.

"So glad," he muttered. "So glad." A mere formula.

Suddenly Sir Frederic Bruce was again in the room. He seized Colonel
Beetham's hand.

"I met you several years ago," he said. "You wouldn't recall it. You were
the lion of the hour, and I a humble spectator. I was present at the
dinner of the Royal Geographical Society in London when they gave you
that enormous gold doodad---the Founders' Medal---wasn't that it?"

"Ah yes---of course. To be sure," murmured Colonel Beetham.

His eyes bright as buttons in the subdued light, Charlie Chan watched Sir
Frederic being presented to the ladies---to Mrs. Tupper-Brock and Eileen
Enderby. Paradise arrived with something on a tray.

"All here except Miss Garland," Kirk announced. "We'll wait just a
moment." The bell rang, and he motioned to his servant that he would go.

When Kirk returned, he was accompanied by a handsome woman whose face was
flushed and who carried some burden in her jeweled hands. She hurried to
a table, and deposited there a number of loose pearls.

"I had the most ridiculous accident on the stairs," she explained. "The
string of my necklace broke, and I simply shed pearls right and left. I
do hope I haven't lost any."

One of the pearls rolled to the floor, and Kirk retrieved it. The woman
began counting them off into a gold mesh handbag. Finally she stopped.

"Got them all?" Barry Kirk inquired.

"I---I think so. I never can remember the number. And now---you really
must forgive my silly entrance. It would be rather effective on the
stage, I fancy, but I'm not on the stage now. In real life, I'm afraid it
was rather rude."

Paradise took her cloak, and Kirk introduced her. Charlie Chan studied
her long and carefully. She was no longer young, but her beauty was still
triumphant. It would have to be, for her profession was the stage, and
she was well-beloved in the Australian theaters.

At the table, Charlie found himself at Mrs. Kirk's right, with June
Morrow on his other side. If he was a bit awed by the company in which he
had landed, he gave no sign. He listened to several anecdotes of Sally
Jordan's past from Mrs. Kirk, then turned to the girl beside him. Her
eyes were shining.

"I'm thrilled to the depths," she whispered. "Sir Frederic and that
marvelous Beetham man all in one evening---and you, too."

Chan smiled. "I am pretty lonely fly in this menagerie of lions," he
admitted.

"Tell me---that about being psychic. You don't really think Sir Frederic
has found Eve Durand?"

Chan shrugged. "For one word a man may be adjudged wise, and for one word
he may be adjudged foolish."

"Oh, please don't be so Oriental. Just think---Eve Durand may be at this
table to-night."

"Strange events permit themselves the luxury of occurring," Chan
conceded. His eyes traveled slowly about the board, they rested on Mrs.
Tupper-Brock silent and aloof, on the vivacious Eileen Enderby, longest
of all on the handsome Gloria Garland, now completely recovered from her
excitement over the scattered pearls.

"Tell me, Sir Frederic," remarked Mrs. Kirk. "How are you making out here
in Barry's womanless Eden?"

"Splendidly," smiled the detective. "Mr. Kirk has been very kind. I not
only have the run of this charming bungalow, but he has also installed me
in the offices below." He looked at Kirk. "Which reminds me---I'm afraid
I quite forgot to close the safe downstairs."

"Paradise can attend to it," suggested Kirk.

"Oh, no," said Sir Frederic. "Please don't trouble. It doesn't matter--
as far as I am concerned."

Carrick Enderby spoke in a loud, booming voice. "I say, Colonel Beetham.
I've just read your book you know."

"Ah, yes---er---which one?" inquired Beetham blandly.

"Don't be a fool, Carry," said Eileen Enderby rather warmly. "Colonel
Beetham has written many books. And he's not going to be impressed by the
fact that, knowing you were to meet him here to-night, you hastily ran
through one of them."

"But it wasn't hastily," protested Enderby. "I gave it my best attention.
The Life, I mean, you know. All your adventures---and by jove, they were
thrilling. Of course, I can't understand you, sir. For me, the cheery old
whisky and soda in the comfortable chair by the warm fire. But you---how
you do yearn for the desolate places, my word."

Beetham smiled. "It's the white spots---the white spots on the map. They
call to me. I---I long to walk there, where no man has walked before. It
is an odd idea, isn't it?"

"Well, of course, getting home must be exciting," Enderby admitted. "The
Kings and the Presidents pinning decorations on you, and the great
dinners, and the eulogies--"

"Quite the most terrible part of it, I assure you," said Beetham.

"Nevertheless, I'd take it in preference to your jolly old deserts,"
continued Enderby. "That time you were lost on the---er---the--"

"The desert of Takla-makan," finished Beetham. "I was in a bit of a jam,
wasn't I? But I wasn't lost, my dear fellow. I had simply embarked on the
crossing with insufficient water and supplies."

Mrs. Kirk spoke. "I was enthralled by that entry you quoted from your
diary. What you thought was the last entry you would ever make. I know it
by heart. 'Halted on a high dune, where the camels fell exhausted. We
examined the East through the field-glasses; mountains of sand in all
directions; not a straw, no life. All, men as well as camels, are
extremely weak. God help us.'"

"But it wasn't my last entry, you know," Beetham reminded her. "The next
night, in a dying condition, I crept along on my hands and knees until I
reached a forest, the bed of a dry river---a pool. Water. I came out much
better than I deserved."

"Pardon me if I make slight inquiry," said Charlie Chan. "What of old
superstition, Colonel? Mention was made of it by Marco Polo six hundred
fifty years ago. When a traveler is moving across desert by night, he
hears strange voices calling his name. In bewitched state, he follows
ghostly voices to his early doom."

"It is quite obvious," returned Beetham, "that I followed no voices. In
fact, I heard none."

Eileen Enderby shuddered. "Well, I never could do it," she said. "I'm
frightfully afraid of the dark. It drives me almost insane with fear."

Sir Frederic Bruce looked at her keenly. For the first time in some
moments he spoke. "I fancy many women are like that," he said. He turned
suddenly to Mrs. Kirk's companion. "What has been your experience, Mrs.
Tupper-Brock?"

"I do not mind the dark," said that lady, in a cool, even tone.

"Miss Garland?" His piercing eyes turned on the actress.

She seemed a little embarrassed. "Why---I---really, I much prefer the
spotlight. No, I can't say I fancy darkness."

"Nonsense," said Mrs. Dawson Kirk. "Things are the same in the dark as in
the light. I never minded it."

Beetham spoke slowly. "Why not ask the gentlemen, Sir Frederic? Fear of
the dark is not alone a woman's weakness. Were you to ask me, I should
have to make a confession."

Sir Frederic turned on him in amazement. "You, Colonel?"

Beetham nodded. "When I was a little shaver, my life was made miserable
by my horror of the dark. Every evening when I was left alone in my room,
I died a thousand deaths."

"By jove," cried Enderby. "And yet you grew up to spend your life in the
dark places of the world."

"You conquered that early fear, no doubt?" Sir Frederic suggested.

Beetham shrugged. "Does one ever quite conquer a thing like that? But
really---there is too much about me. Mr. Kirk has asked me to let you
see, after dinner, some pictures I took last year in Tibet. I fear I
shall bore you by becoming, as you Americans say, the whole show."

Again they chatted by two and two. Miss Morrow leaned over to Chan.

"Imagine," she said, "that picture of the great explorer, as a little
boy, frightened of the dark. It's quite the most charming and human thing
I ever heard."

He nodded gravely his eyes on Eileen Enderby. "The dark drives me almost
insane with fear," she had said. How dark it must have been that night in
the hills outside Peshawar.

After he had served coffee in the living-room, Paradise appeared with a
white, glittering screen which, under the Colonel's direction, he stood
on a low table against a Flemish tapestry. Barry Kirk helped Beetham
carry in from the hallway a heavy motion-picture projector and several
boxes of films.

"Lucky we didn't overlook this," the young man laughed. "A rather
embarrassing thing for you if you had to go home without being invited to
perform. Like the man who tried to slip away from an evening party with a
harp that he hadn't been asked to play." The machine was finally ready,
and the company took their places in comfortable chairs facing the
screen.

"We shall want, of course, complete darkness," Beetham said. "Mr. Kirk,
if you will be so kind--"

"Surely." Barry Kirk turned off the lights, and drew thick curtains over
doors and windows. "Is it all right now?"

"The light in the hallway," Beetham suggested.

Kirk also extinguished that. There was a moment of tense silence.

"Heavens---this is creepy," spoke Eileen Enderby out of the blackness.
There was a slight note of hysteria in her voice.

Beetham was placing a roll of film in the machine. "On the expedition I
am about to describe," he began, "we set out from Darjeeling. As you no
doubt know, Darjeeling is a little hill station on the extreme northern
frontier of India--"

Sir Frederic interrupted. "You have been in India a great deal, Colonel?"

"Frequently---between journeys--"

"Ah yes---pardon me for breaking in--"

"Not at all." The film began to unwind. "These first pictures are of
Darjeeling, where I engaged my men, rounded up supplies, and--" The
Colonel was off on his interesting but rather lengthy story.

Time passed, and his voice droned on in the intense darkness. The air was
thick with the smoke of cigarettes; now and then there was the stir of
some one moving, walking about in the rear, occasionally a curtain parted
at a window. But Colonel Beetham gave no heed. He was living again on the
high plateau of Tibet; the old fervor to go on had returned; he trekked
through snowy passes, leaving men and mules dead in the wasteland,
fighting like a fanatic on toward his goal.

A weird feeling of oppression settled down over Charlie Chan, a feeling
he attributed to the thick atmosphere of the room. He rose and dodged
guiltily out into the roof-top garden. Barry Kirk was standing there, a
dim figure in the mist, smoking a cigarette. For it was misty now, the
fog bell was tolling its warning, and the roof was wrapped in clouds.

"Hello," said Kirk in a low voice. "Want a bit of air, too, eh? I hope
he's not boring my poor guests to death. Exploring's a big business now,
and he's trying to persuade grandmother to put up a lot of money for a
little picnic he's planning. An interesting man, isn't he?"

"Most interesting," Chan admitted.

"But a hard one," added Kirk. "He leaves the dead behind with never so
much as a look over his shoulder. I suppose that's the scientific type of
mind---what's a few dead men when you're wiping out one of those white
spots on the map? However, it's not my style. That's my silly American
sentimentality."

"It is undubitably the style of Colonel Beetham," Chan returned. "I read
same in his eyes."

He went back into the big living-room, and walked about in the rear. A
slight sound in the hallway interested him, and he went out there. A man
had just entered by the door that led to the floor below. Before he
closed it the light outside fell on the blond hair of Carrick Enderby.

"Just having a cigarette on the stairs," he explained in a hoarse
whisper. "Didn't want to add any more smoke to the air in there. A bit
thick, what?"

He stole back into the living-room, and Chan, following, found a chair. A
clatter of dishes sounded from the distant pantry, competing with the
noise of the unwinding film and the steady stream of Beetham's story. The
tireless man was starting on a new reel.

"Voice is getting a bit weary," the Colonel admitted. "I'll just run this
one off without comment. It requires none." He fell back from the dim
light by the machine, into the shadows.

In ten minutes the reel had unwound its length, and the indomitable
Beetham was on hand. He was preparing to start on what he announced as
the final reel, when the curtains over one of the French windows parted
suddenly, and the white figure of a woman came into the room. She stood
there like a wraith in the misty light at her back.

"Oh, stop it!" she cried. "Stop it and turn up the lights. Quickly!
Quickly---please!" There was a real hysteria in Eileen Enderby's voice
now.

Barry Kirk leaped to the light switch, and flooded the room. Mrs. Enderby
stood, pale and swaying slightly, clutching at her throat. "What is it?"
Kirk asked. "What's the trouble?"

"A man," she panted. "I couldn't stand the dark---it was driving me mad--
I stepped out into the garden. I was standing close to the railing when I
saw a man leap from a lighted window on the floor below, out onto the
fire-escape. He ran down it into the fog."

"My offices are below," Kirk said quietly. "We had better look into this.
Sir Frederic--" His eyes turned from one to the other. "Why---where is
Sir Frederic?" he asked.

Paradise had entered from the pantry. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said.
"Sir Frederic went down to the offices some ten minutes ago."

"Down to the offices? Why?"

"The burglar alarm by your bed was buzzing, sir. The one connected up
down-stairs. Just as I discovered it, Sir Frederic entered your room. 'I
will investigate this, Paradise,' he said. 'Don't disturb the others.'"

Kirk turned to Charlie Chan. "Sergeant, will you come with me, please?"

Silently Charlie followed him to the stairs, and together they went
below. The offices were ablaze with light. The rear room, into which the
stairs led, was quite empty. They advanced into the middle room.

A window was open as far as it would go, and in the mist outside Chan
noted the iron gratings of a fire-escape. This room too seemed empty. But
beyond the desk Barry Kirk, in advance, gave a little cry and dropped to
his knees.

Chan stepped around the desk. He was not surprised by what he saw, but he
was genuinely sorry. Sir Frederic Bruce lay on the floor, shot cleanly
through the heart. By his side lay a thin little volume, bound in bright
yellow cloth.

Kirk stood up, dazed. "In my office," he said slowly, as though that were
important. "It's---it's horrible. Good God---look!"

He pointed to Sir Frederic. On the detective's feet were black silk
stockings---and nothing else. He wore no shoes.

Paradise had followed. He stood for a moment staring at the dead man on
the floor, and then turned to Barry Kirk.

"When Sir Frederic came down-stairs," he said, "he was wearing a pair of
velvet slippers. Sort of heathen-looking slippers they were, sir."





CHAPTER IV



The Reckoning of Heaven



BARRY KIRK stood looking about his office; he found it difficult to
believe that into this common-place, familiar room, tragedy had found its
way. Yet there was that silent figure on the floor, a few moments before
so full of life and energy.

"Poor Sir Frederic," he said. "Only to-day he told me he was near the end
of a long trail. Nearer than he dreamed, it appears." He stopped. "A long
trail, Sergeant,---only a few of us know how far back into the past this
thing must reach."

Chan nodded. He had been consulting a huge gold watch; now he snapped
shut the case and restored it to his pocket. "Death is the reckoning of
heaven," he remarked. "On this occasion, a most complicated reckoning."

"Well, what shall we do?" Kirk asked helplessly. "The police, I suppose.
But good lord---this is a case beyond any policeman I ever met. Any
uniformed man, I mean." He paused, and a grim smile flashed across his
face. "It looks very much to me, Mr. Chan, as though you would have to
take charge and--"

A stubborn light leaped into the little black eyes. "Miss Morrow is
above," said Chan. "What a happy chance, since she is from the district
attorney's office. If I may humbly suggest--"

"Oh, I never thought of that." Kirk turned to his servant. "Paradise, ask
Miss Morrow to come here. Make my excuses to my guests, and ask them to
wait."

"Very good, sir," replied Paradise, and departed.

Kirk walked slowly about the room. The drawers of the big desk were open
and their contents jumbled. "Somebody's been on a frantic search here,"
he said. He paused before the safe; its door was slightly ajar.

"Safe stands open," suggested Chan.

"Odd about that," said Kirk. "This afternoon Sir Frederic asked me to
take out anything of value and move it upstairs. I did so. He didn't
explain."

"Of course," nodded Chan. "And at the dinner table he makes uncalled-for
reference to fact that he has not locked safe. The matter struck me at
the time. One thing becomes clear---Sir Frederic desired to set a trap. A
safe unlocked to tempt marauders." He nodded to the small volume that lay
at the dead man's side. "We must disturb nothing. Do not touch, but
kindly regard book and tell me where last reposing."

Kirk leaned over. "That? Why, it's the year-book of the Cosmopolitan
Club. It was usually in that revolving case on which the telephone
stands. It can't mean anything."

"Maybe not. Maybe"---Chan's little eyes narrowed---"a hint from beyond
the unknown."

"I wonder," mused Kirk.

"Sir Frederic was guest of Cosmopolitan Club?"

"Yes---I gave him a two weeks' card. He wrote a lot of his letters there.
But---but---I can't see--"

"He was clever man. Even in moment of passing, his dying hand would seek
to leave behind essential clue."

"Speaking of that," said Kirk, "how about those velvet slippers? Where
are they?"

Chan shrugged. "Slippers were essential clue in one case, long ago. What
did they lead to? Positively nothing. If I am suiting my own taste, this
time I look elsewhere."

Miss Morrow entered the room. Her face was usually full of color---an
authentic color that is the gift of the fog to San Francisco's daughters.
Now it was deathly pale. Without speaking, she stepped beyond the desk
and looked down. For a moment she swayed, and Barry Kirk leaped forward.

"No, no," cried the girl.

"But I thought--" he began.

"You thought I was going to faint. Absurd. This is my work---it has come
to me and I shall do it. You believe I can't--"

"Not at all," protested Kirk.

"Oh, yes you do. Everybody will. I'll show them. You've called the
police, of course."

"Not yet," Kirk answered.

She sat down resolutely at the desk, and took up the telephone.
"Davenport 20," she said. "The Hall of Justice?... Captain Flannery,
please... Hello---Captain? Miss Morrow of the district attorney's office
speaking. There has been a murder in Mr. Kirk's office on the top floor
of the Kirk Building. You had better come yourself... Thank you... Yes--
I'll attend to that."

She got up, and, going round the desk, bent over Sir Frederic. She noted
the book, and her eyes strayed wonderingly to the stocking feet.
Inquiringly she turned to Chan.

"The slippers of Hilary Galt," he nodded. "Souvenir of that unhappy case,
they adorned his feet when he came down. Here is Paradise---he will
explain to you."

The butler had returned, and Miss Morrow faced him. "Tell us what you
know, please," she said.

"I was busy in the pantry," Paradise said. "I thought I heard the buzz of
the burglar alarm by Mr. Kirk's bed---the one connected with the windows
and safe in this room. I hastened to make sure, but Sir Frederic was just
behind. It was almost as though he had been expecting it. I don't know
how I got that impression---I'm odd that way--"

"Go on," said the girl. "Sir Frederic followed you into Mr. Kirk's room?"

"Yes, Miss. 'There's some one below, sir,' I said. 'Some one who doesn't
belong there.' Sir Frederic looked back into the pitch dark living-room.
'I fancy so, Paradise,' he said. He was smiling. 'I will attend to it. No
need to disturb Mr. Kirk or his guests.' I followed him into his room. He
tossed off his patent leather pumps. 'The stairs are a bit soiled, I
fear, sir,' I reminded him. He laughed. 'Ah, yes,' he said. 'But I have
the very thing.' The velvet slippers were lying near his bed. He put them
on. 'I shall walk softly in these, Paradise,' he told me. At the head of
the stairs, I stopped him. A sort of fear was in my heart---I am given to
that---to having premonitions--"

"You stopped him," Kirk cut in.

"I did, sir. Respectfully, of course. 'Are you armed, Sir Frederic?' I
made bold to inquire. He shook his head. 'No need, Paradise,' he
answered. 'I fancy our visitor is of the weaker sex.' And then he went
down, sir---to his death."

They were silent for a moment, pondering the servant's story.

"We had better go," said the girl, "and tell the others. Some one must
stay here. If it's not asking too much, Mr. Chan--"

"I am torn with grief to disagree," Chan answered. "Please pardon me. But
for myself, I have keen eagerness to note how this news is taken in the
room above."

"Ah, yes. Naturally."

"I shall be glad to stay, Miss," Paradise said.

"Very well," the girl answered. "Please let me know as soon as Captain
Flannery arrives." She led the way above, and Kirk and the little
detective from Honolulu followed.

Barry Kirk's guests were seated, silent and expectant, in the now
brightly lighted living-room. They looked up inquiringly as the three
from below entered. Kirk faced them, at a loss how to begin.

"I have dreadful news for you," he said. "An accident---a terrible
accident." Chan's eyes moved rapidly about the group and, making their
choice, rested finally on the white, drawn face of Eileen Enderby. "Sir
Frederic Bruce has been murdered in my office," Kirk finished.

There was a moment's breathless silence, and then Mrs. Enderby got to her
feet. "It's the dark," she cried in a harsh, shrill voice. "I knew it. I
knew something would happen when the lights were turned off. I knew it, I
tell you--"

Her husband stepped to her side to quiet her, and Chan stood staring not
at her, but at Colonel John Beetham. For one brief instant he thought the
mask had dropped from those weary, disillusioned eyes. For one instant
only.

They all began to speak at once. Gradually Miss Morrow made herself heard
above the din. "We must take this coolly," she said, and Barry Kirk
admired her composure. "Naturally, we are all under suspicion. We--"

"What? I like that!" Mrs. Dawson Kirk was speaking. "Under suspicion,
indeed--"

"The room was in complete darkness," Miss Morrow went on. "There was
considerable moving about. I don't like to stress my official position
here, but perhaps you would prefer my methods to those of a police
captain. How many of you left this room during the showing of Colonel
Beetham's pictures?"

An embarrassed silence fell. Mrs. Kirk broke it. "I thought the pictures
intensely interesting," she said. "True, I did step into the kitchen for
a moment--"

"Just to keep an eye on my domestic arrangements," suggested Barry Kirk.

"Nothing of the sort. My throat was dry. I wanted a glass of water."

"You saw nothing wrong?" inquired Miss Morrow.

"Aside from the very wasteful methods that seemed to be in vogue in the
kitchen---nothing," replied Mrs. Kirk firmly.

"Mrs. Tupper-Brock?" said Miss Morrow.

"I was on the sofa with Miss Garland," replied that lady. "Neither of us
moved from there at any time." Her voice was cool and steady.

"That's quite true," the actress added.

Another silence. Kirk spoke up. "I'm sure none of us intended a
discourtesy to the Colonel," he said. "The entertainment he gave us was
delightful, and it was gracious of him to honor us. I myself---er---I was
in the room constantly---except for one brief moment in the garden. I saw
no one there---save--"

Chan stepped forward. "Speaking for myself, I found huge delight in the
pictures. A moment I wish to be alone, in order that I may digest great
events flashed before me on silvery screen. So I also invade the garden,
and meet Mr. Kirk. For a time we marvel at the distinguished Colonel
Beetham---his indomitable courage, his deep resource, his service to
humanity. Then we rush back, that we may miss no more." He paused.
"Before I again recline in sitting posture, noise in hallway offend me. I
hurry out there in shushing mood, and behold--"

"Ah---er---the pictures were marvelous," said Carrick Enderby. "I enjoyed
them immensely. True enough, I stepped out on the stairs for a cigarette
-"

"Carry, you fool," his wife cried. "You would do that."

"But I say---why not? I saw nothing. There was nothing to see. The floor
below was quite deserted." He turned to Miss Morrow. "Whoever did this
horrible thing left by way of the fire-escape. You've already learned
that--"

"Ah, yes," cut in Chan. "We have learned it indeed---from your wife." He
glanced at Miss Morrow and their eyes met.

"From my wife---yes," repeated Enderby. "Look here---what do you mean by
that? I--"

"No matter," put in Miss Morrow. "Colonel Beetham---you were occupied at
the picture machine. Except for one interval of about ten minutes, when
you allowed it to run itself."

"Ah, yes," said the Colonel evenly. "I did not leave the room, Miss
Morrow."

Eileen Enderby rose. "Mr. Kirk---we really must be going. Your dinner was
charming---how terrible to have it end in such a tragic way. I--"

"Just a moment," said June Morrow. "I can not let you go until the
captain of police releases you."

"What's that?" the woman cried. "Outrageous. You mean we are prisoners
here--"

"Oh---but, Eileen--" protested her husband.

"I'm very sorry," said the girl. "I shall protect you as much as possible
from the annoyance of further questioning. But you really must wait."

Mrs. Enderby flung angrily away, and a filmy scarf she was wearing
dropped from one shoulder and trailed after her. Chan reached out to
rescue it. The woman took another step, and he stood with the scarf in
his hand. She swung about. The detective's little eyes, she noticed, were
fixed with keen interest on the front of her pale blue gown, and
following his gaze, she looked down.

"So sorry," said Chan. "So very sorry. I trust your beautiful garment is
not a complete ruin."

"Give me that scarf," she cried, and snatched it rudely from him.

Paradise appeared in the doorway. "Miss Morrow, please," he said.
"Captain Flannery is below."

"You will kindly wait here," said the girl. "All of you. I shall arrange
for your release at the earliest possible moment."

With Kirk and Charlie Chan, she returned to the twentieth floor. In the
central room they found Captain Flannery, a gray-haired, energetic
policeman of about fifty. With him were two patrolmen and a police
doctor.

"Hello, Miss Morrow," said the Captain. "This is a he---I mean, a
terrible thing. Sir Frederic Bruce of Scotland Yard---we're up against it
now. If we don't make good quick we'll have the whole Yard on our necks."

"I'm afraid we shall," admitted Miss Morrow. "Captain Flannery---this is
Mr. Kirk. And this---Detective-Sergeant Charlie Chan, of Honolulu."

The Captain looked his fellow detective over slowly. "How are you,
Sergeant? I've been reading about you in the paper. You got on this job
mighty quick."

Chan shrugged. "Not my job, thank you," he replied. "All yours, and very
welcome. I am here in society role, as guest of kind Mr. Kirk."

"Is that so?" The Captain appeared relieved. "Now, Miss Morrow, what have
you found out?"

"Very little. Mr. Kirk was giving a dinner up-stairs." She ran over the
list of the guests, the showing of the pictures in the dark, and the
butler's story of Sir Frederic's descent to the floor below, wearing the
velvet slippers. "There are other aspects of the affair that I will take
up with you later," she added.

"All right. I guess the D.A. will want to get busy on this himself."

The girl flushed. "Perhaps. He is out of town tonight. I hope he will
leave the matter in my hands--"

"Great Scott, Miss Morrow---this is important," said the Captain,
oblivious of his rudeness. "You're holding those people up-stairs?"

"Naturally."

"Good. I'll look 'em over later. I ordered the night-watchman to lock the
front door and bring everybody in the building here. Now, we better fix
the time of this. How long's he been dead, Doctor?"

"Not more than half an hour," replied the doctor.

"Humbly begging pardon to intrude," said Chan. "The homicide occurred
presumably at ten twenty."

"Sure of that?"

"I have not the habit of light speaking. At ten twenty-five we find body,
just five minutes after lady on floor above rush in with news of man
escaping from this room by fire-escape."

"Huh. The room seems to have been searched." Flannery turned to Barry
Kirk. "Anything missing?"

"I haven't had time to investigate," said Kirk. "If anything has been
taken, I fancy it was Sir Frederic's property."

"This is your office, isn't it?"

"Yes. But I had made room here for Sir Frederic. He had various papers
and that sort of thing."

"Papers? What was he doing? I thought he'd retired."

"It seems he was still interested in certain cases, Captain," Miss Morrow
said. "That is one of the points I shall take up with you later."

"Again interfering with regret," remarked Chan, "if we do not know what
was taken, all same we know what was hunted."

"You don't say." Flannery looked at Chan coldly. "What was that?"

"Sir Frederic English detective, and great one. All English detectives
make exhausting records of every case. No question that records of
certain case, in which murderer was hotly interested, were sought here."

"Maybe," admitted the Captain. "We'll go over the room later." He turned
to the patrolmen. "You boys take a look at the fire-escape." They climbed
out into the fog. At that moment the door leading from the reception-room
into the hallway opened, and an odd little group came in. A stout,
middle-aged man led the procession; he was Mr. Cuttle, the
night-watchman.

"Here they are, Captain," he said. "I've rounded up everybody in the
building, except a few cleaning women who have nothing to do with this
floor. You can see 'em later, if you like. This is Mrs. Dyke, who takes
care of the two top floors."

Mrs. Dyke, very frightened, said that she had finished with Kirk's office
at seven and gone out, leaving the burglar alarm in working order, as was
her custom. She had not been back since. She had seen no one about the
building whom she did not recognize.

"And who is this?" inquired the Captain, turning to a pale, sandy-haired
young man who appeared extremely nervous.

"I am employed by Brace and Davis, Certified Public Accountants, on the
second floor," said the young man. "My name is Samuel Smith. I was
working to-night to catch up---I have been ill---when Mr. Cuttle informed
me I was wanted up here. I know nothing of this horrible affair."

Flannery turned to the fourth and last member of the party, a young woman
whose uniform marked her as an operator of one of the elevators. "What's
your name?" he asked.

"Grace Lane, sir," she told him.

"Run the elevator, eh?"

"Yes, sir. Mr. Kirk had sent word that one of us must work overtime
to-night. On account of the party."

"How many people have you brought up since the close of business?"

"I didn't keep count. Quite a few---ladies and gentlemen---Mr. Kirk's
guests, of course."

"Don't remember anybody who looked like an outsider?"

"No, sir."

"This is a big building," said Flannery. "There must have been others
working here to-night besides this fellow Smith. Remember anybody?"

The girl hesitated. "There---there was one other, sir."

"Yes? Who was that?"

"A girl who is employed in the office of the Calcutta Importers, on this
floor. Her name is Miss Lila Barr."

"Working here to-night, eh? On this floor. She's not here now?"

"No, sir. She left some time ago."

"How long ago?"

"I can't say exactly, sir. Half an hour---perhaps a little more than
that."

"Humph." The Captain took down their names and addresses, and dismissed
them. As they went out, the two patrolmen entered from the fire-escape,
and, leaving them in charge, Flannery asked to be directed up-stairs.

The dinner guests were sitting with rather weary patience in a semicircle
in the living-room. Into their midst strode the Captain, with an air of
confidence he was far from feeling. He stood looking them over.

"I guess you know what I'm doing here," he said. "Miss Morrow tells me
she's had a talk with you, and I won't double back over her tracks.
However, I want the name and address of every one of you." He turned to
Mrs. Kirk. "I'll start with you."

She stiffened at his tone. "You're very flattering, I'm sure. I am Mrs.
Dawson Kirk." She added her address.

"You." Flannery turned to the explorer.

"Colonel John Beetham. I am a visitor in the city, stopping at the
Fairmont."

Flannery went on down the list. When he had finished, he added:

"Any one got any light to throw on this affair? If you have, better give
it to me now. Things'll be a lot pleasanter all round than if I dig it up
for myself later." No one spoke. "Some lady saw a man running down the
fire-escape," he prompted.

"Oh---I did," said Eileen Enderby. "I've been all over that with Miss
Morrow. I had gone out into the garden-" Again she related her
experience.

"What'd this man look like?" demanded Flannery.

"I couldn't say. A very dim figure in the fog."

"All right. You can all go now. I may want to see some of you later."
Flannery strode past them into the garden.

One by one they said their strained farewells and departed---Mrs. Kirk
and her companion, Miss Gloria Garland, then the Enderbys, and finally
the explorer. Charlie Chan also got his hat and coat, while Miss Morrow
watched him inquiringly.

"Until dark deed shaded the feast," said Chan, "the evening was an
unquestioned joy. Mr. Kirk--"

"Oh, but you're not leaving," cried Miss Morrow. "Please. I want to have
a talk with you."

"To-morrow I am sea-going man," Chan reminded her. "The experience
weakens me considerably. I have need of sleep, and relaxing--"

"I'll keep you only a moment," she pleaded, and Chan nodded.

Captain Flannery appeared from the garden. "Dark out there," he
announced. "But if I'm not mistaken, any one could have reached the floor
below by way of the fire-escape. Is that right?"

"Undoubtedly," replied Kirk.

"An important discovery," approved Chan. "On the gown of one of the lady
guests were iron rust stains, which might have been suffered by---But who
am I to speak thus to keen man like the Captain? You made note of the
fact, of course?"

Flannery reddened. "I---I can't say I did. Which lady?"

"That Mrs. Enderby, who witnessed fleeing man. Do not mention it, sir. So
happy to be of slightest service."

"Let's go back down-stairs," growled Flannery. On the floor below, he
stood for a long moment, looking about. "Well, I got to get busy here."

"I will say farewell," remarked Chan.

"Going, eh?" said Flannery, with marked enthusiasm.

"Going far," smiled Chan. "To-morrow I am directed toward Honolulu. I
leave you to the largest problem of your life, Captain. I suffer no envy
for you."

"Oh, I'll pull through," replied Flannery.

"Only the witless could doubt it. But you will travel a long road.
Consider. Who is great man silent now on couch? A famous detective with a
glorious record. The meaning of that? A thousand victories---and a
thousand enemies. All over broad world are scattered men who would do him
into death with happy hearts. A long road for you, Captain. You have my
warmest wishes for bright outcome. May you emerge in the shining garments
of success."

"Thanks," said Flannery.

"One last point. You will pardon me if I put in final oar." He took up
from the table a little yellow book, and held it out. "Same was at the
dead man's elbow when he fell."

Flannery nodded. "I know. The Cosmopolitan Club book. It can't mean a
damn thing."

"Maybe. I am stupid Chinese from tiny island. I know nothing. But if this
was my case I would think about book, Captain Flannery. I would arouse in
the night to think about it. Good-by, and all good wishes already
mentioned."

He made a deep bow, and went through the reception-room into the hall.
Kirk and the girl followed swiftly. The latter put her hand on Chan's
arm.

"Sergeant---you mustn't," she cried despairingly. "You can't desert me
now. I need you."

"You rip my heart to fragments," he replied. "However, plans are set."

"But poor Captain Flannery---all this is far beyond him. You know more
about the case than he does. Stay, and I'll see that you're given every
facility--"

"That's what I say," put in Barry Kirk. "Surely you can't go now. Good
lord, man, have you no curiosity?"

"The bluest hills are those farthest away," Chan said. "Bluest of all is
Punchbowl Hill, where my little family is gathered, waiting for me--"

"But I was depending on you," pleaded the girl. "I must succeed---I
simply must. If you would stay--"

Chan drew away from her. "I am so sorry. Postman on his holiday, they
tell me, takes long walk. I have taken same, and I am weary. So very
sorry---but I return to Honolulu to-morrow." The elevator door was open.
Chan bowed low. "The happiest pleasure to know you both. May we meet
again. Good-by."

Like a grim, relentless Buddha he disappeared below. Kirk and the girl
reentered the office, Captain Flannery was eagerly on the hunt.

Chan walked briskly through the fog to the Stewart Hotel. At the desk the
clerk handed him a cable, which he read with beaming face. He was still
smiling when, in his room, the telephone rang. It was Kirk.

"Look here," Kirk said. "We made the most astonishing discovery in the
office after you left."

"Pleased to hear it," Chan replied.

"Under the desk---a pearl from Gloria Garland's necklace!"

"Opening up," said Chan, "a new field of wonderment. Hearty
congratulations."

"But see here," Kirk cried, "aren't you interested? Won't you stay and
help us get at the bottom of this?"

Again that stubborn look in Charlie's eyes. "Not possible. Only a few
minutes back I have a cable that calls me home with unbearable force.
Nothing holds me on the mainland now."

"A cable? From whom?"

"From my wife. Glorious news. We are now in receipt of our eleventh child
--a boy."





CHAPTER V



The Voice in the Next Room



CHARLIE CHAN rose at eight the next morning, and as he scraped the
stubble of black beard from his cheeks, he grinned happily at his
reflection in the glass. He was thinking of the small, helpless boy-child
who no doubt at this moment lay in the battered old crib on Punchbowl
Hill. In a few days, the detective promised himself, he would stand
beside that crib, and the latest Chan would look up to see, at last, his
father's welcoming smile.

He watched a beetle-browed porter wheel his inexpensive little trunk off
on the first leg of its journey to the Matson docks, and then neatly
placed his toilet articles in his suitcase. With jaunty step he went down
to breakfast.

The first page of the morning paper carried the tragic tale of Sir
Frederic's passing, and for a moment Chan's eyes narrowed. A complicated
mystery, to be sure. Interesting to go to the bottom of it---but that was
the difficult task of others. Had it been his duty, he would have
approached it gallantly, but, from his point of view, the thing did not
concern him. Home---that alone concerned him now.

He laid the paper down, and his thoughts flew back to the little boy in
Honolulu. An American citizen, a future boy scout under the American
flag, he should have an American name. Chan had felt himself greatly
attracted to his genial host of the night before. Barry Chan---what was
the matter with that?

As he was finishing his tea, he saw in the dining-room door the thin,
nervous figure of Bill Rankin, the reporter. He signed his check, left a
generous tip, and joined Rankin in the lobby.

"Hello," said the reporter. "Well, that was some little affair up at the
Kirk Building last night."

"Most distressing," Chan replied. They sat down on a broad sofa, and
Rankin lighted a cigarette.

"I've got a bit of information I believe you should have," the newspaper
man continued.

"Begging pardon, I think you labor under natural delusion," Chan said.

"Why---what do you mean?"

"I am not concerned with case," Chan calmly informed him.

"You don't mean to say--"

"In three hours I exit through Golden Gate."

Rankin gasped. "Good lord. I knew you'd planned to go, of course, but I
supposed. Why, man alive, this is the biggest thing that's broke round
here since the fire. Sir Frederic Bruce---it's an international
catastrophe. I should think you'd leap at it."

"I am not," smiled Charlie, "a leaping kind of man. Personal affairs call
me to Hawaii. The postman refuses to take another walk. Very interesting
case, but as I have heard my slanging cousin Willie say, I am not taking
any of it."

"I know," said Rankin. "The calm, cool Oriental. Never been excited in
your life, I suppose?"

"What could I have gained by that? I have watched the American citizen.
His temples throb. His heart pounds. The fibers of his body vibrate. With
what result? A year subtracted from his life."

"Well, you're beyond me," said Rankin, leaning back and seeking to relax
a bit himself. "I hope I won't be boring you if I go on talking about Sir
Frederic. I've been all over our luncheon at the St. Francis in my mind,
and do you know what I think?"

"I should be pleased to learn," returned Chan.

"Fifteen years make a very heavy curtain on the Indian frontier, Sir
Frederic said. If you ask me, I'd say that in order to solve the mystery
of his murder last night, we must look behind that curtain."

"Easy said, but hard to do," suggested Chan.

"Very hard, and that's why you---Oh, well, go on and take your boat ride.
But the disappearance of Eve Durand is mixed up in this somehow. So,
perhaps, is the murder of Hilary Galt."

"You have reason for thinking this?"

"I certainly have. Just as I was about to sit down and write a nice
feature story about that luncheon, Sir Frederic rushed into the Globe
office and demanded I hush it all up. Why should he do that? I ask you."

"And I pause for your reply."

"You'll get it. Sir Frederic was still working on one, or maybe both, of
those cases. More than that, he was getting somewhere. That visit to
Peshawar may not have been as lacking in results as he made out. Eve
Durand may be in San Francisco now. Some one connected with one of those
cases is certainly here---some one who pulled that trigger last night.
For myself, I would cherchez la femme. That's French--"

"I know," nodded Chan. "You would hunt the woman. Excellent plan. So
would I."

"Aha---I knew it. And that's why this information I have is vital. The
other night I went up to the Kirk Building to see Sir Frederic. Paradise
told me he was in the office. Just as I was approaching the office door,
it opened, and a young woman--"

"One moment," Chan cut in. "Begging pardon to interrupt, you should go at
once with your story to Miss June Morrow. I am not connected."

Rankin stood up. "All right. But you're certainly beyond me. The man of
stone. I wish you a pleasant journey. And if this case is ever solved, I
hope you never hear about it."

Chan grinned broadly. "Your kind wishes greatly appreciated. Good-by, and
all luck possible."

He watched the reporter as he dashed from the lobby into the street, then
going above, he completed his packing. A glance at his watch told him he
had plenty of time, so he went to say good-by to his relative in
Chinatown. When he returned to the hotel to get his bags, Miss Morrow was
waiting for him.

"What happy luck," he said. "Once again I am rewarded by a sight of your
most interesting face."

"You certainly are," she replied. "I simply had to see you again. The
district attorney has put this whole affair in my hands, and it's my big
chance. You are still determined to go home?"

"More than usual." He led her to a sofa. "Last night I have joyous cable
-"

"I know. I was there when Mr. Kirk telephoned you. A boy, I think he
said."

"Heaven's finest gift," nodded Chan.

Miss Morrow sighed. "If it had only been a girl," she said.

"Good luck," Chan told her, "dogs me in such matters. Of eleven
opportunities, I am disappointed but three times."

"You're to be congratulated. However, girls are a necessary evil."

"You are unduly harsh. Necessary, of course. In your case, no evil
whatever."

Barry Kirk came into the lobby and joined them. "Good morning, father,"
he smiled. "Well, we're all here to speed the parting guest."

Chan consulted his watch. Miss Morrow smiled. "You've quite a lot of
time," she said. "At least give me the benefit of your advice before you
leave."

"Happy to do so," agreed Chan. "It is worthless, but you are welcome."

"Captain Flannery is completely stumped, though of course he won't admit
it. I told him all about Hilary Galt and Eve Durand, and he just opened
his mouth and forgot to close it."

"Better men than the Captain might also pause in yawning doubt."

"Yes---I admit that." Miss Morrow's white forehead wrinkled in
perplexity. "It's all so scattered---San Francisco and London and
Peshawar---it almost looks as though whoever solved it must make a trip
around the world."

Chan shook his head. "Many strings reach back, but solution will lie in
San Francisco. Accept my advice, and take heart bravely."

The girl still puzzled. "We know that Hilary Galt was killed sixteen
years ago. A long time, but Sir Frederic was the sort who would never
abandon a trail. We also know that Sir Frederic was keenly interested in
the disappearance of Eve Durand from Peshawar. That might have been a
natural curiosity---but if it was, why should he rush to the newspaper
office and demand that nothing be printed about it? No---it was more than
curiosity. He was on the trail of something."

"And near the end of it," put in Kirk. "He told me that much."

Miss Morrow nodded. "Near the end---what did that mean? Had he found Eve
Durand? Was he on the point of exposing her identity? And was there some
one---Eve Durand or some one else---who was determined he should never do
so? So determined, in fact, that he---or she---would not stop short of
murder to silence him?"

"All expressed most clearly," approved Chan.

"Oh---but it isn't clear at all. Was Hilary Galt's murder connected
somehow with the disappearance of that young girl from Peshawar? The
velvet slippers---where are they now? Did the murderer of Sir Frederic
take them? And if so---why?"

"Many questions arise," admitted Chan. "All in good time you get the
answers."

"We'll never get them," sighed the girl, "without your help."

Chan smiled. "How sweet your flattery sounds." He considered. "I made no
search of the office last night. But Captain Flannery did. What was
found? Records? A case-book?"

"Nothing," said Kirk, "that had any bearing on the matter. Nothing that
mentioned Hilary Galt or Eve Durand."

Chan frowned. "Yet without question of doubt, Sir Frederic kept records.
Were those records the prize for which the killer made frantic search?
Doubtless so. Did he---or she---then, find them? That would seem to be
true, unless--"

"Unless what?" asked the girl quickly.

"Unless Sir Frederic had removed same to safe and distant place. On face
of things, he expected marauder. He may have baited trap with pointless
paper. You have hunted his personal effects, in bedroom?"

"Everything," Kirk assured him. "Nothing was found. In the desk
down-stairs were some newspaper clippings---accounts of the disappearance
of other women who walked off into the night. Sir Frederic evidently made
such cases his hobby."

"Other women?" Chan was thoughtful.

"Yes. But Flannery thought those clippings meant nothing, and I believe
he was right."

"And the cutting about Eve Durand remained in Sir Frederic's purse?"
continued Chan.

"By gad!" Kirk looked at the girl. "I never thought of that. The clipping
was gone!"

Miss Morrow's dark eyes were filled with dismay. "Oh---how stupid," she
cried. "It was gone, and the fact made no impression on me at all. I'm
afraid I'm just a poor, weak woman."

"Calm your distress," said Chan soothingly. "It is a matter to note, that
is all. It proves that the quest of Eve Durand held important place in
murderer's mind. You must, then, cherchez la femme. You understand?"

"Hunt the woman," said Miss Morrow.

"You have it. And in such an event, a huntress will be far better than a
hunter. Let us think of guests at party. Mr. Kirk, you have said a
portion of these people are there because Sir Frederic requested their
presence. Which?"

"The Enderbys," replied Kirk promptly. "I didn't know them. But Sir
Frederic wanted them to come."

"That has deep interest. The Enderbys. Mrs. Enderby approached state of
hysteria all evening. Fear of dark might mean fear of something else. Is
it beyond belief that Eve Durand, with new name, marries again into
bigamy?"

"But Eve Durand was a blonde," Miss Morrow reminded him.

"Ah, yes. And Eileen Enderby has hair like night. It is, I am told, a
matter that is easily arranged. Color of hair may be altered, but color
of eyes---that is different. And Mrs. Enderby's eyes are blue, matching
oddly raven locks."

"Never miss a trick, do you?" smiled Kirk.

"Mrs. Enderby goes to garden, sees man on fire-escape. So she informs us.
But does she? Or does she know her husband, smoking cigarette on stairs,
has not been so idly occupied? Is man on fire-escape a myth of her
invention, to protect her husband? Why are stains on her gown? From
leaning with too much hot excitement against garden rail, damp with the
fog of night? Or from climbing herself onto fire-escape---you apprehend
my drift? What other guests did Sir Frederic request?"

Kirk thought. "He asked me to invite Gloria Garland," the young man
announced.

Chan nodded. "I expected it. Gloria Garland---such is not a name likely
to fall to human lot. Sounds like a manufacture. And Australia is so
placed on map it might be appropriate end of journey from Peshawar.
Blonde, blue-eyed, she breaks necklace on the stair. Yet you discover a
pearl beneath the office desk."

Miss Morrow nodded. "Yes---Miss Garland certainly is a possibility."

"There remains," continued Chan, "Mrs. Tupper-Brock. A somewhat dark lady
--but who knows? Sir Frederic did not ask her presence?"

"No---I don't think he knew she existed," said Kirk.

"Yes? But it is wise in our work, Miss Morrow, that even the smallest
improbabilities be studied. Men stumble over pebbles, never over
mountains. Tell me, Mr. Kirk---was Colonel John Beetham the idea of Sir
Frederic, too?"

"Not at all. And now that I remember, Sir Frederic seemed a bit taken
aback when he heard Beetham was coming. But he said nothing."

"We have now traversed the ground. You have, Miss Morrow, three ladies to
receive your most attentive study---Mrs. Enderby, Miss Garland, Mrs.
Tupper-Brock. All of proper age, so near as a humble man can guess it in
this day of beauty rooms with their appalling tricks. These only of the
dinner party--"

"And one outside the dinner party," added the girl, to Chan's surprise.

"Ah---on that point I have only ignorance," he said blankly.

"You remember the elevator operator spoke of a girl employed by the
Calcutta Importers, on the twentieth floor? A Miss Lila Barr. She was at
work in her office there last night."

"Ah, yes," nodded Chan.

"Well, a newspaper man, Rankin of the Globe, came to see me a few minutes
ago. He said that the other evening---night before last---he went to call
on Sir Frederic in Mr. Kirk's office, rather late. Just as he approached
the door, a girl came out. She was crying. Rankin saw her dab at her eyes
and disappear into the room of the Calcutta Importers. A blonde girl, he
said."

Chan's face was grave. "A fourth lady to require your kind attention. The
matter broadens. So much to be done---and you in the midst of it all,
like a pearl in a muddy pool." He stood up. "I am sorry. But the Maui
must even now be straining at her moorings--"

"One other thing," put in the girl. "You made quite a point of that
Cosmopolitan Club year-book lying beside Sir Frederic. You thought it
important?"

Chan shrugged. "I fear I was in teasing mood. I believed it hardest
puzzle of the lot. Therefore I am mean enough to press it on Captain
Flannery's mind. What it meant, I can not guess. Poor Captain Flannery
will never do so."

He looked at his watch. The girl rose. "I won't keep you longer," she
sighed. "I'm very busy, but somehow I can't let you go. I'm trailing
along to the dock with you, if you don't mind. Perhaps I'll think of
something else on the way."

"Who am I," smiled Chan, "to win such overwhelming honor? You behold me
speechless with delight, Mr. Kirk."

"Oh, I'm going along," said Kirk. "Always like to see a boat pull out.
The Lord meant me for a traveling salesman."

Chan got his bag, paid his bill, and the three of them entered Kirk's
car, parked round the corner.

"Now that the moment arrives," said Chan, "I withdrew from this teeming
mainland with some regret. Fates have been in smiling mood with me here."

"Why go?" suggested Kirk.

"Long experience," replied Chan, "whispers not to strain fates too far.
Their smile might fade."

"Want to stop anywhere on the way?" Kirk asked. "You've got thirty
minutes until sailing time."

"I am grateful, but all my farewells are said. Only this morning I have
visited Chinatown--" He stopped. "So fortunate you still hang on," he
added to the girl. "I was forgetting most important information for you.
Still another path down which you must travel."

"Oh, dear," she sighed. "I'm dizzy now. What next?"

"You must at once inflict this information on Captain Flannery. He is to
find a Chinese, a stranger here, stopping with relatives on Jackson
Street. The name, Li Gung."

"Who is Li Gung?" asked Miss Morrow.

"Yesterday, when delicious lunch was ended, I hear of Li Gung from Sir
Frederic." He repeated his conversation with the great man. "Li Gung had
information much wanted by Sir Frederic. That alone I can say. Captain
Flannery must extract this information from Li!"

"He'll never get it," replied the girl pessimistically. "Now you,
Sergeant--"

Chan drew a deep breath. "I am quite overcome," he remarked, "by the
bright loveliness of this morning on which I say farewell to the
mainland."

They rode on in silence, while the girl thought hard. If only she could
find some way of reaching this stolid man by her side, some appeal that
would not roll off like water from a duck's back. She hastily went over
in her mind all she had ever read of the Chinese character.

Kirk drove his smart roadster onto the pier, a few feet from the Maui's
gang-plank. The big white ship was gay with the color of women's hats and
frocks. Taxis were sweeping up, travelers were alighting, white-jacketed
stewards stood in a bored line ready for another sailing. Good-bys and
final admonitions filled the air.

A steward stepped forward and took Chan's bag. "Hello, Sergeant," he
said. "Going home, eh? What room, please?"

Chan told him, then turned to the young people at his side. "At thought
of your kindness," he remarked, "I am choking. Words escape me. I can
only say---good-by."

"Give my regards to the youngest Chan," said Kirk. "Perhaps I'll see him
some day."

"Reminding me," returned Chan, "that only this morning I scour my brain
to name him. With your kind permission, I will denote him Barry Chan."

"I'm very much flattered," Kirk answered gravely. "Wish to heaven I had
something to send him---er---a mug---or a what-you-may-call-it. You'll
hear from me later."

"I only trust," Chan said, "he grows up worthy of his name. Miss Morrow--
I am leaving on this dock my heartiest good wishes--"

She looked at him oddly. "Thank you," she remarked in a cool voice. "I
wish you could have stayed, Mr. Chan. But of course I realize your point
of view. The case was too difficult. For once, Charlie Chan is running
away. I'm afraid the famous Sergeant of the Honolulu police has lost face
to-day."

A startled expression crossed that usually bland countenance. For a long
moment Chan looked at her with serious eyes, then he bowed, very stiffly.
"I wish you good-by," he said, and walked with offended dignity up the
gang-plank.

Kirk was staring at the girl in amazement. "Don't look at me like that,"
she cried ruefully. "It was cruel, but it was my last chance. I'd tried
everything else. Well, it didn't work. Shall we go?"

"Oh---let's wait," pleaded Kirk. "They're sailing in a minute. I always
get a thrill out of it. Look---up there on the top deck." He nodded
toward a pretty girl in gray, with a cluster of orchids pinned to her
shoulder. "A bride, if you ask me. And I suppose that vacant-faced idiot
at her side is the lucky man."

Miss Morrow looked, without interest.

"A great place for a honeymoon, Hawaii," went on Kirk. "I've often
thought---I hope I'm not boring you?"

"Not much," she said.

"I know. Brides leave you cold. I suppose divorce is more in your line.
You and Blackstone. Well, you shan't blast my romantic young nature." He
took out a handkerchief and waved it toward the girl on the top deck. "So
long, my dear," he called. "All the luck in the world."

"I don't see Mr. Chan," said the young woman from the district attorney's
office.

Mr. Chan was sitting thoughtfully on the edge of the berth in his
stateroom, far below. The great happiness of his long anticipated
departure for home had received a rude jolt. Running away---was that it?
Afraid of a difficult case? Did Miss Morrow really think that? If she
did, then he had lost face indeed.

His gloomy reactions were interrupted by a voice in the next stateroom--
a voice he had heard before. His heart stood still as he listened.

"I fancy that's all, Li," said the familiar voice. "You have your
passport, your money. You are simply to wait for me in Honolulu. Better
lie low there."

"I will do so," replied a high-pitched, singsong voice.

"And if any one asks any questions, you know nothing. Understand?"

"Yes-s-s. I am silent. I understand."

"Very good. You're a wonderful servant, Li Gung. I don't like to flatter
you, you grinning beggar, but I couldn't do without you. Good-by---and a
pleasant journey."

Chan was on his feet now, peering out into the dim passageway along which
opened the rooms on the lowest deck. In that faint light he saw a
familiar figure emerge from the room next door, and disappear in the
distance.

The detective stood for a moment, undecided. Of all the guests at Barry
Kirk's party, one had interested him beyond all others---almost to the
exclusion of the others. The tall, grim, silent man who had made his
camps throughout the wastelands of the world, who had left a trail of the
dead but who had always moved on, relentlessly, toward his goal. Colonel
John Beetham, whom he had just seen emerging from the stateroom next to
his with a last word of farewell to Li Gung.

Chan looked at his watch. It was never his habit to hurry, but he must
hurry now. He sighed a great sigh that rattled the glasses in their
rings, and snatched up his bag. On the saloon deck he met the purser.

"Homeward bound, Charlie?" inquired that gentleman breezily.

"So I thought," replied Chan, "but it seems I was mistaken. At the last
moment, I am rudely wrenched ashore. Yet I have ticket good only on this
boat."

"Oh, they'll fix that up for you at the office. They all know you,
Charlie."

"Thanks for the suggestion. My trunk is already loaded. Will you kindly
deliver same to my oldest son, who will call for it when you have docked
at Honolulu?"

"Sure." The "visitors ashore" call was sounding for the last time. "Don't
you linger too long on this wicked mainland, Charlie," the purser
admonished.

"One week only," called Chan, over his shoulder. "Until the next boat. I
swear it."

On the dock, Miss Morrow seized Kirk's arm. "Look. Coming down the
gang-plank. Colonel Beetham. What's he doing here?"

"Beetham---sure enough," said Kirk. "Shall I offer him a lift? No---he's
got a taxi. Let him go. He's a cold proposition---I like him not." He
watched the Colonel enter a cab and ride off.

When he turned back to the Maui, two husky sailors were about to draw up
the plank. Suddenly between them appeared a chubby little figure, one
hand clutching a suitcase. Miss Morrow gave a cry of delight.

"It's Chan," Kirk said. "He's coming ashore."

And ashore Charlie came, while they lifted the plank at his heels. He
stood before the two young people, ill at ease.

"Moment of gentle embarrassment for me," he said. "The traveler who said
good-by is back before he goes."

"Mr. Chan," the girl cried, "you dear! You're going to help us, after
all."

Chan nodded. "To the extent of my very slight ability, I am with you to
finish, bitter or sweet."

On the top deck of the Maui the band began to play---Aloha, that most
touching of farewells. Long streamers of bright-colored paper filled the
air. The last good-bye, the final admonitions---a loud voice calling
"Don't forget to write." Charlie Chan watched, a mist before his eyes.
Slowly the boat drew away from the pier. The crowd ran along beside it,
waving frantically. Charlie's frame shook with another ponderous sigh.

"Poor little Barry Chan," he said. "He would have been happy to see me.
Captain Flannery will not be so happy. Let us ride away into the face of
our problems."





CHAPTER VI



The Guest Detective



BARRY KIRK tossed Chan's suitcase into the luggage compartment of his
roadster, and the trio crowded again onto its single seat. The car swung
about in the pier shed and emerged into the bright sunlight of the
Embarcadero.

"You are partially consumed with wonder at my return?" suggested Chan.

The girl shrugged. "You're back. That's enough for me."

"All the same, I will confess my shame. It seems I have circulated so
long with mainland Americans I have now, by contagion, acquired one of
their worst faults. I too suffer curiosity. Event comes off on boat which
reveals, like heavenly flash, my hidden weakness."

"Something happened on the boat?" Miss Morrow inquired.

"You may believe it did. On my supposed farewell ride through city, I
inform you of Li Gung. I tell you he must be questioned. He can not be
questioned now."

"No? Why not?"

"Because he is on Maui, churning away. It is not unprobable that shortly
he will experience a feeling of acute disfavor in that seat of all
wisdom, the stomach."

"Li Gung on the Maui?" repeated the girl. Her eyes were wide. "What can
that mean?"

"A question," admitted Chan, "which causes the mind to itch. Not only is
Li Gung on Maui, but he was warmly encouraged away from here by a friend
of ours." He repeated the brief conversation he had overheard in the
adjoining cabin.

Barry Kirk was the first to speak. "Colonel Beetham, eh?" he said. "Well,
I'm not surprised."

"Nonsense," cried Miss Morrow warmly. "Surely he isn't involved? A fine
man like that--"

"A fine man," Chan conceded, "and a hard one. Look in his eyes and
behold; they are cold and gleaming, like the tiger's. Nothing stands in
the way when such eyes are fixed on the goal of large success---stands
there long---alive."

The girl did not seem to be convinced. "I won't believe it. But shouldn't
we have taken Li Gung off the boat?"

Chan shrugged. "Too late. The opportunity wore rapid wings."

"Then we'll have him questioned in Honolulu," Miss Morrow said.

Chan shook his head. "Pardon me if I say, not that. Chinese character too
well known to me. Questioning would yield no result---save one. It would
serve to advise Colonel Beetham that we look on him with icy eye. I
shudder at the thought---this Colonel clever man. Difficult enough to
shadow if he does not suspect. Impossible if he leaps on guard."

"Then what do you suggest?" asked the girl.

"Let Li Gung, unknowing, be watched. If he seeks to proceed beyond
Honolulu, rough hands will restrain him. Otherwise we permit him to lie,
like winter overcoat in closet during heated term." Chan turned to Barry
Kirk. "You are taking me back to hotel?"

"I am not," smiled Kirk. "No more hotel for you. If you're going to look
into this little puzzle, the place for you is the Kirk Building, where
the matter originated. Don't you say so, Miss Morrow?"

"That's awfully kind of you," said the girl.

"Not at all. It's painfully lonesome up where the fog begins without at
least one guest. I'm all out of visitors at the moment---er---ah---I mean
Mr. Chan will be doing me a real favor." He turned to Charlie. "You shall
have Sir Frederic's room," he added.

Chan shrugged. "I can never repay such goodness. Why attempt it?"

"Let's go to my office, first of all," Miss Morrow said. "I want the
district attorney to meet Mr. Chan. We must all be friends---at the
start, anyhow."

"Anywhere you say," Kirk agreed, and headed the car up Market Street, to
Kearny. He remained in the roadster, while the girl and Charlie went up
to the district attorney's offices. When they entered that gentleman's
private room, they found Captain Flannery already on the scene.

"Mr. Trant---I've good news for you," the girl began. "Oh---good morning,
Captain."

Flannery's Irish eyes were not precisely smiling as they rested on
Charlie Chan. "What's this, Sergeant?" he growled. "I thought you were
off for Honolulu at twelve?"

Chan grinned. "You will be delighted to learn that my plans are changed.
Miss Morrow has persuaded me to remain here and add my minute brain power
to your famous capacity in same line."

"Is that so?" mumbled Flannery.

"Yes---isn't it splendid?" cried the girl. "Mr. Chan is going to help
us." She turned to her chief. "You must give him a temporary appointment
as a sort of guest detective connected with this office."

Trant smiled. "Wouldn't that be a bit irregular?" he asked.

"Impossible," said Flannery firmly.

"Not at all," persisted the girl. "It's a very difficult case, and we
shall need all the help we can get. Sergeant Chan will not interfere with
you, Captain--"

"I'll say he won't," Flannery replied warmly.

"He can act in a sort of advisory capacity. You're a big enough man to
take advice, I know."

"When it's any good," the Captain added. The girl looked appealingly at
Trant.

"You are on leave of absence from the Honolulu force, Sergeant?" inquired
the district attorney.

"One which stretches out like an elastic," nodded Chan.

"Very well. Since Miss Morrow wishes it, I see no reason why you
shouldn't lend her your no doubt very useful aid. Remembering, of course,
that neither one of you is to interfere with Captain Flannery in any
way."

"Better say that again," Flannery told him. He turned to Chan. "That
means you're not to butt in and spoil things."

Chan shrugged. "It was the wise K'ung-fu-tsze who said, 'he who is out of
office should not meddle with the government.' The labor is all yours. I
will merely haunt the background, thinking tensely."

"That suits me," Flannery agreed. "I'll make all the inquiries." He
turned to the district attorney. "I'm going to get after that Garland
woman right away. The pearl she dropped under Sir Frederic's desk---I
want to know all about it."

"Please don't think I'm interfering," Miss Morrow said sweetly. "But as
regards the women involved in this case, I feel that perhaps I can get
more out of them than you can. Being a woman myself, you know. Will you
let me have Miss Garland, please?"

"I can't see it," said Flannery stubbornly.

"I can," remarked Trant, decisively. "Miss Morrow is a clever girl,
Captain. Leave the women to her. You take the men."

"What men?" protested Flannery. "It's all women, in this affair."

"Thank you so much," smiled Miss Morrow, assuming his unproffered
consent. "I will look up Miss Garland, then. There's another woman who
must be questioned at once---a Miss Lila Barr. I shall have a talk with
her at the first possible moment. Of course, I'll keep you advised of all
I do."

Flannery threw up his hands. "All right---tell me about it---after it's
over