Charlie Chan [6] The Keeper of the Keys

by Earl Derr Biggers

  In its earlier stages, the dinner seemed a trifle strained, despite the urbane chatter of the host. Charlie alone knew why he was there; the others seemed inclined to silent speculation. Evidently Ward was not yet ready to enlighten them. As Ah Sing moved along with the main course, Charlie said a few words to him in Cantonese, and got a brief answer in the same dialect.

  “Pardon, please,” Chan bowed to his host. “I take the liberty of asking Ah Sing his age. His reply is not altogether clear.”

  Ward smiled. “I don’t suppose the old boy really knows. In the late seventies, I fancy - a long life, and most of it spent in our service. I know it’s not the thing to talk about one’s servants - but Ah Sing years ago passed out of that category. He’s been one of the family for as long as I can remember.”

  “I have heard, my heart bursting with pride,” Chan said, “of the loyalty and devotion of old Chinese servants in this state.”

  Ryder spoke suddenly. “Everything you have heard is true,” he said. He turned to Ward. “I remember when we were kids, Dudley. Great Scott, how good Sing was to us in those days. The stuff he used to cook for us - grumbling all the time. Huge bowls of rice with meat gravy - I dream of them yet. He’d been with you ages then, hadn’t he?”

  “My grandfather picked him up in Nevada,” Ward replied. “He came to our house when I was just three years old. I remember, because I had a birthday party that day on the lawn, and Sing was serving - his first day. There were a lot of bees down in the meadow and I imagine they were attracted by Sing’s cooking, just as we kids were. Anyhow, I remember Sing - a young man then - marching toward us proudly bearing the cake, when a bee suddenly stung him on the leg. He dropped the cake, let out a yell and looked at my mother accusingly. ‘Melican buttahfly too damn hot,’ he complained. If I were to write my memoirs, I think I should have to begin with that - my first conscious recollection.”

  “I guess I missed that party,” Ryder said. “It came a couple of years too soon for me. But I remember many a later one, in Sing’s kitchen. Always a friend in need to us boys, Sing was.”

  Ward’s face was serious. “They’re dying out,” he remarked. “The ones like Sing. Somebody ought to put up a statue in Golden Gate Park - or at least a tablet somewhere on one of the famous trails - to the best friends Californians ever had.”

  Sing came in at that moment, and the subject was dropped. A long silence ensued. Romano and Swan seemed to be getting rather impatient over the long delay in reaching the real business of the evening. Since the discussion that had broken out on their first entrance, Ellen Landini had not been so much as mentioned. Romano’s cheeks were flushed, his white hands fluttered nervously over his plate, he fidgeted in his chair. Swan also showed various signs of restlessness.

  Coffee was finally brought, and then a tray of cut-glass decanters was set before Dudley Ward.

  “I have here, gentlemen,” he remarked, “some Benedictine, creme de menthe, peach brandy. Also, some port wine. All pre-prohibition - you break no law in my house. What will you have? Just a moment - Sing! Where the devil is that boy?” He rang the bell, and the old Chinese hurriedly returned. “Sing - take the gentlemen’s orders - and fill them. And now -“

  He paused, and they all looked at him expectantly. “Now, gentlemen, you are wondering why you are here. You are wondering why Inspector Chan, of the Honolulu Police, is here. I have kept you waiting an intolerably long time, I know, but the truth is, I am loath to bring this matter up. To introduce it properly I shall have to go into a subject that I had hoped was for ever dead and forgotten - my life with Ellen Landini.”

  He pushed his chair back from the table, and crossed his legs. “Sing - you haven’t overlooked the cigars? Ah, yes - gentlemen, help yourselves. I - I married Ellen Landini nearly twenty years ago, in San Francisco. She had just come to town from the islands, a young girl of eighteen, with a voice - even then it was magical. But she had more than the voice, she had a freshness, a vivacity, a beauty - however, I needn’t go into her charm, surely not in this company. She gave a little concert, I saw her, heard her sing. The courtship was brief. We were married, and went to Paris on our honeymoon.

  “That year in Paris - I shall never forget it. I want to be fair. She was wonderful - then. She studied with the best teacher in Europe, and what he told her about her voice made her supremely happy. It made me happy, too - for a time.

  “Only gradually did I come to see that this wonderful year had wrecked my dreams - my hopes for a home, for children. Domestic life was now impossible for us. She was determined to become a professional singer. I saw myself, the prima donna’s husband, carrying a dog about Europe, waiting at stage doors, enduring for ever an artistic temperament. The career did not appeal to me. I said so.

  “Perhaps I was unreasonable. I want, as I have said, to be fair to her. Men were not so complacent about careers for their wives in those days. At any rate, there began a series of endless quarrels. I brought her home from Paris, to San Francisco, and thence, since it was spring, up to this house. I could see she would never be reconciled to the life I wanted.”

  He was silent for a moment. “I apologize humbly,” he went on, “for dragging you into affairs that should be private. I must add, however, that our quarrels became daily more bitter, that we began to say unforgivable things, to hate each other. I could see her hate in her eyes when she looked at me. One June day - in this very room - matters came to a climax and she left the house. She never returned.

  “I refused to divorce her, but when, nearly a year later, she applied for a divorce in some middle-western state, on a false charge of desertion, I did not contest the suit. I still loved her - or rather, the girl I thought I had married - but I realized she was lost to me for ever. I balanced the account and closed the books.”

  He turned to the doctor. “Doctor Swan - won’t you try that brandy again? Just help yourself, please. So far, gentlemen, you can see no reason for my story. But there is something more - and only within the past ten days have I come upon the trail of it.

  “I have been told, by some one who ought to know, that when Ellen Landini left my house she carried with her a secret which she had not seen fit to divulge to me. I have heard, from a source I believe reliable, that less than seven months after she left this place, she gave birth to a child, in a New York hospital. A son. Her son - and mine.”

  He did not go on for a moment. All the men about the table were looking at him, some with pity, some with amazement.

  “I have said,” Ward went on, “that Ellen hated me. Perhaps with reason - oh, I want to be just. She hated me so much, evidently, that she was determined I must never have the satisfaction of knowing about - my boy. Perhaps she feared it would start the old argument all over again. Perhaps it was just - hate. I - I think it was rather cruel.”

  “She was always cruel,” said Ryder harshly. He laid a sympathetic hand on Dudley Ward’s arm.

  “At any rate,” Ward went on, “she gave this child for adoption to some wealthy friends of hers. It wasn’t legal adoption, of course. But she agreed to give him up for ever, to let him be known by another name, never to try to see him. She could do that. Her career was everything.

  “That, gentlemen, ends my story. You can see my position. I am not - not so young as I was. My brother and sister are both dead, childless. Somewhere in this world, if the story is true, and the boy lived, I have a son, now nearly eighteen. All this - is his. I intend to find him.” His voice grew louder. “By heaven, I will find him. As far as Landini is concerned, bygones are bygones. I have no more hatred. But I want my boy.

  “That is why,” he continued in a lower tone, “I have sent for Inspector Chan. I shall back him to the limit in this search. I’ve had only ten days - I’ve only started -“

  “Who told you all this?” Ryder inquired.

  “Ah - that’s rather interesting,” Ward replied. “It was Ellen’s return to this part of the world that, indirectly, brought it out. It seems t
hat about eight years ago, when Ellen came to Nevada to divorce - er - Doctor Swan, she was, at the moment, interested in - you will pardon me, Doctor -“

  Swan smiled. “Oh, that’s perfectly all right. We’ve all been victims - we can speak freely here. She wanted to divorce me because she had fallen in love - or thought she had - with her chauffeur, a handsome boy named Michael Ireland. I came out to fight the divorce - but she got it anyhow. She didn’t, however, get Michael. It was one of her few defeats in that line. The day before her divorce, young Michael eloped with Ellen’s maid, a French girl named Cecile. The maid just took him away from her. It was rather amusing. Michael and his wife are still living in Reno, and the former is a pilot for a passenger airplane company over there.”

  “Precisely,” nodded Ward. “When I first came up here two weeks ago I sent to Reno for a couple of servants - a cook and an upstairs maid - and the latter happened to be Michael’s wife. It seems they’re not very prosperous, and she’d decided to go into service temporarily. She knew, of course, my connection with Ellen Landini when she came here, but for a time she said nothing. Naturally, I had never seen or heard of the woman before. But it appears that Ellen is doing a great deal of flying during her stay in Reno, and her favorite pilot is Michael Ireland. Cecile is wildly jealous, and that is no doubt what led her to come to me with the story about my son. She claims she went with Ellen as personal maid shortly before the baby was born, and that she had been sworn to eternal secrecy in the matter.”

  Ryder shook his head. “The story of a jealous woman,” he remarked. “I’m sorry, Dudley, but aren’t you building a bit too much on that? Not the best evidence, you know.”

  Ward nodded. “I know. Still, I can’t well ignore a thing as important as this. And as the woman told it, I must admit it had the ring of truth. Also, I recalled certain little things that had happened, things that Ellen had said during her last mad weeks in this house - it is quite possible the story is true. And I mean to find out whether it’s true or not.”

  “Have you questioned Landini?” asked Doctor Swan.

  “I have not,” replied Ward. “In the first excitement of the moment, I called her hotel in Reno, but before I got the connection, I had sense enough to ring off. Inspector Chan may have an interview with her later, if he sees fit, but I would expect nothing to come of it. I know her of old.

  “No, gentlemen, it is to you three that, at the beginning of this hunt, I have seen fit to pin my hopes. You have all, like myself, been married to Landini. I do not believe that she would ever have deliberately told any of you about this child, but even so - these things sometimes come out. A telegram opened by mistake, a telephone call in some strange city, a chance meeting - by one or another of these methods, one of you may have come upon her secret. I am not asking you to be disloyal in any way. But I do contend that if Ellen deceived me in this matter, it was a piece of unwarranted cruelty, and as man to man I ask you, if you can, to relieve me of this horrible suspense. Nothing shall happen to Landini, or to the boy, save to his advantage. But - you can see - I am in hell over this - and I must know - I must know.”

  His voice rose to an almost hysterical pitch as he looked appealingly about the table. John Ryder spoke first.

  “Dudley,” he said, “no one would be happier to help you now than I would be - if I could. God knows I have no wish to spare the feelings of Ellen Landini. But as you know, my life with her was of the briefest - and that was the only lucky break I ever got where she was concerned. So brief and so hectic that I never heard of this matter you have brought up tonight - never dreamed of it. I - I’m sorry.”

  Ward nodded. “I was afraid of that.” He looked toward Swan and Romano, and his expression changed. “Before we go any further, I may add that I am willing to pay handsomely - and I mean no offense - for any information that may be of help. Doctor Swan - you were married to Landini for several years -“

  Swan’s eyelids narrowed. He toyed with his coffee cup, took out his eye-glasses, put them on, restored them to his pocket.

  “Don’t misunderstand me,” he said slowly. “Landini means nothing to me, despite what I said earlier about her charm when I saw her again at the Tavern. It isn’t very pleasant to be thrown over for a chauffeur.” Across his usually pleasant face shot a look of malevolence that was startling and unexpected. “No,” he added harshly, “I have no wish to protect the woman - but I’m sorry to say that this is - well, it’s all news to me.”

  Ward’s face was gray and tired as he turned to Romano. The opera conductor shot his cuffs and spoke.

  “The figures - er - the figures of the amount you wish to pay, Mr. Ward - I leave them entirely to you. I rely on your reputation as a gentleman.”

  “I think you may safely do so,” replied Ward grimly.

  “Landini - she is still my wife - but what does she mean to me? In New York were drawn up terms of settlement by which I was to release her for this new divorce. Has she made the initial payment? She has not. I must live - is it not so? Once I had a career of my own - I was aimed high for success - all gone now. She has done that to me. She has wrecked my life - and now she casts me off.” He clenched his fist that lay on the table, and a sudden fire gleamed in his dark eyes.

  “You were going to tell me -” suggested Ward.

  “There was, sir, a telegram opened by mistake. I opened it. It held some news of that son of hers. She told me little, but enough. There was a son. That much I can say. I have, of course, no recollection of the signature on the telegram.”

  “But - the town from which it was sent?” Ward cried.

  Romano looked at him - the sly anxious look of a man who needs money - needs it badly enough to lie for it, perhaps.

  “The town I do not now remember,” Romano said. “But I will think - I will think hard - and it will come to me, I am sure.”

  Ward looked hopelessly at Charlie Chan. He sighed. At that instant, from the big room beyond the passage came the slamming of a door, and then, sharp and clear, the bark of a dog.

  The four guests of Dudley Ward looked up in amazement, as though they found something sinister and disquieting in that bark. Sing came shuffling in and, leaning over the chair of the host, spoke in a low tone. Ward nodded, and gave a direction. Then, an ironical smile on his face, he rose to his feet.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “I hope you will not be too much annoyed by my peculiar sense of humor. I have acted on impulse - and I may have been wrong. But it came to me when Doctor Swan spoke of his encounter at the Tavern - there was just one person lacking to make our party complete. And since she was so near -“

  “Landini,” cried Ryder. “You have invited Landini here?”

  “For a very brief call - I have.”

  “I won’t see her,” Ryder protested. “I swore years ago I’d never see her again -“

  “Oh, come on, John,” Ward said. “Be modern. Landini will regard it as a lark - I didn’t tell her you were all here, but I know she won’t care. Doctor Swan has already seen her. Mr. Romano has no objections -“

  “Me?” cried Romano. “I want to talk to her!”

  “Precisely. I am willing to forget the past. Come on, John.”

  Ryder’s eyes were on the table. “All right,” he agreed.

  Dudley Ward smiled. “Gentlemen,” he said, “shall we join the lady?”

  Chapter III

  THE FALLEN FLOWER

  But when they stepped through the passage into the living-room the lady was not there. Two men were warming themselves before the fire: one, a round, cheery, red-faced little man, the other a pale youth with black curly hair and a weak but handsome face. The older of the two stepped forward.

  “Hello, Dudley,” he said. “This is like old times, isn’t it? Ellen back at the old house again and - er - ah - and all that.”

  “Hello, Jim,” Ward replied. He introduced his guests to Jim, who was, it appeared, Mr. Dinsdale, manager of the Tavern. When he had finished, the hotel man turned to th
e boy who accompanied him.

  “This is Mr. Hugh Beaton,” he announced. “Ellen and Mr. Beaton’s sister have gone upstairs to leave their wraps, and -“

  Mr. Romano had leaped to the boy’s side and was shaking his hand. “Ah, Mr. Beaton,” he cried, “I have wanted to see you. There is so much I must say.”

  “Y-yes,” replied the boy with a startled air.

  “Indeed - yes. You are taking over a very great responsibility. You, a musician, need not be told that. The talent - the genius - of Ellen Landini - it is something to guard, to watch over, to encourage. That is your duty in the name of Art. How does she behave with the pastries?”

  “The - the what?” stammered the boy.

  “The pastries? She has a wild passion for them. And it must be curbed. It is no easy matter, but she must be held back with a strong hand. Otherwise she will - she will expand - she will grow gross. And cigarettes. How many cigarettes do you permit her each day?”

  “I permit her?” Beaton stared at Romano as at a madman. “Why - that’s no affair of mine.”

  Romano looked toward high heaven.

  “Ah - it is as I feared. You are too young to understand. Too young for this huge task. No affair of yours? My dear sir, in that case she is lost. She will smoke her voice into eternal silence. She will wreck her great career for ever -“

  He was interrupted by a commotion at the head of the stairs, and Ellen Landini began to descend. The long stairway against one side of the room afforded her an excellent entrance. Of this she was not unaware; indeed, she had just sent her companion back on a trivial errand in order that she might have the stage to herself. Which of itself was a good description of Ellen Landini, once young and lovely and innocent, but now a bit too plump, a bit too blonde, and a bit too wise in the tricks of the trade.