Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s

by Leslie S. Klinger

  “Sounds reasonable,” admitted John Quincy.

  “Mostly so,” Chan averred. “Enumerate with me the clues we must consider. A guest book devoid of one page. A glove button. A message on the cable. Story of Egan, partly told. Fragment of Corsican cigarette. This newspaper ripped maybe in anger. Watch on living wrist, numeral 2 undistinct.”

  “Quite a little collection,” commented John Quincy.

  “Most interesting,” admitted the Chinaman. “One by one, we explore. Some cause us to arrive at nowhere. One, maybe two, will not be so unkind. I am believer in Scotland Yard method—follow only essential clue. But it are not the method here. I must follow all, entire.”

  “The essential clue,” repeated John Quincy.

  “Sure.” Chan scowled at the waiter, for his more hygienic sector had not appeared. “Too early to say here. But I have fondness for the guest book with page omitted. Watch also claims my attention. Odd enough, when we enumerate clues this morning, we pass over watch. Foolish. Very good-looking clue. One large fault, we do not possess it. However, my eyes are sharp to apprehend it.”

  “I understand,” John Quincy said, “that you’ve been rather successful as a detective.”

  Chan grinned broadly. “You are educated, maybe you know,” he said. “Chinese most psychic people in the world. Sensitives, like film in camera. A look, a laugh, a gesture perhaps. Something go click.”

  John Quincy was aware of a sudden disturbance at the door of the All American Restaurant. Bowker, the steward, gloriously drunk, was making a noisy entrance. He plunged into the room, followed by a dark, anxious-looking youth.

  Embarrassed, John Quincy turned away his face, but to no avail. Bowker was bearing down upon him, waving his arms.

  “Well, well, well, well!” he bellowed. “My o’ college chum. See you through the window.” He leaned heavily on the table. “How you been, o’ fellow?”

  “I’m all right, thanks,” John Quincy said.

  The dark young man came up. He was, from his dress, a shore acquaintance of Bowker’s. “Look here, Ted,” he said. “You’ve got to be getting along—”

  “Jush a minute,” cried Bowker. “I want y’ to meet Mr. Quincy from Boston. One best fellows God ever made. Mushual friend o’ Tim’s—you’ve heard me speak of Tim—”

  “Yes—come along,” urged the dark young man.

  “Not yet. Gotta buy shish boy a lil’ drink. What you having, Quincy, o’ man?”

  “Not a thing,” smiled John Quincy. “You warned me against these Island drinks yourself.”

  “Who—me?” Bowker was hurt. “You’re wrong that time, o’ man. Don’ like to conter—conterdict, but it mush have been somebody else. Not me. Never said a word—”

  The young man took his arm. “Come on—you’re due on the ship—”

  Bowker wrenched away. “Don’ paw me,” he cried. “Keep your hands off. I’m my own mashter, ain’t I? I can speak to an o’ friend, can’t I? Now, Quincy, o’ man—what’s yours?”

  “I’m sorry,” said John Quincy. “Some other time.”

  Bowker’s companion took his arm in a firmer grasp. “You can’t buy anything here,” he said. “This is a restaurant. You come with me—I know a place—”

  “Awright,” agreed Bowker. “Now you’re talking. Quincy, o’ man, you come along—”

  “Some other time,” John Quincy repeated.

  Bowker assumed a look of offended dignity. “Jush as you say,” he replied. “Some other time. In Boston, hey? At Tim’s place. Only Tim’s place is gone.” A great grief assailed him. “Tim’s gone—dropped out—as though the earth swallowed him up—”

  “Yes, yes,” said the young man soothingly. “That’s too bad. But you come with me.”

  Submitting at last, Bowker permitted his companion to pilot him to the street. John Quincy looked across at Chan.

  “My steward on the President Tyler,” he explained. “The worse for wear, isn’t he?”

  The waiter set a fresh piece of pie before the Chinaman.

  “Ah,” remarked Chan, “this has a more perfect appearance.” He tasted it. “Appearance,” he added with a grimace, “are a hellish liar. If you are quite ready to depart—”

  In the street Chan halted. “Excuse abrupt departure,” he said. “Most honored to work with you. The results will be fascinating, I am sure. For now, good evening.”

  John Quincy was alone again in that strange town. A sudden homesickness engulfed him. Walking along, he came to a newscart that was as well supplied with literature as his club reading room. A brisk young man in a cap was in charge.

  “Have you the latest Atlantic?”86 inquired John Quincy.

  The young man put a dark brown periodical into his hand. “No,” said John Quincy. “This is the June issue. I’ve seen it.”

  “July ain’t in. I’ll save you one, if you say so.”

  “I wish you would,” John Quincy replied. “The name is Winterslip.”

  He went on to the corner, regretting that July wasn’t in. A copy of the Atlantic would have been a sort of link with home, a reminder that Boston still stood. And he felt the need of a link, a reminder.

  A trolley-car marked “Waikiki” was approaching. John Quincy hailed it and hopped aboard. Three giggling Japanese girls in bright kimonos drew in their tiny sandaled feet and he slipped past them to a seat.

  76.Andrews defines the word as “[a] difficulty; a hindrance; a perilous situation; extreme danger, as in distress.”

  77.The Boston Evening Transcript was a daily afternoon newspaper published in Boston from 1830 to 1941. Had Minerva talked to editors? Or perhaps she simply meant that while she had talked to Transcript reporters in the past, it had been on the telephone.

  78.By the mid-1920s, the bathing costumes were alluring—far more so than the Puritanical outfits of the nineteenth century. Although (short) bathing-skirts had been fashionable in the previous decade, the suits of the 1920s were not that different from one-piece suits featured in the distant future of the 2010s. However, the height of women’s bathing suits above the knee was strictly regulated on many mainland beaches.

  A mainland police officer checking the length of a bathing suit.

  A beach party in the mid-1920s.

  79.And sure enough, June 16 was a Monday in 1924 (and also in 1919, but that long predates the publication of Adams’s book—see note 55). The two leading Hawaiian newspapers were the Honolulu Advertiser (a morning newspaper) and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (afternoon—the “evening” paper to which Minerva undoubtedly refers).

  80.A common racist catchphrase, it became the title of a popular song in 1924.

  A 1920s Ford Model T roadster

  81.The most famous stanza of Rudyard Kipling’s much-anthologized “The Ballad of East and West” (1889) is:

  “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

  “Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment seat;

  “But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

  “When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!”

  82.A substantial downtown hotel, on Bishop Street between King Street and Hotel Street.

  Advertisement for the Alexander Young Hotel.

  83.The establishment is not listed in Polk-Husted Directory Co.’s Directory of the City of Honolulu and Territory of Hawaii for 1924.

  84.John Quincy didn’t take his rebuke at the post office to heart, apparently, nor did he recall the stories about the congressman or the senator; of course, everyone in the place is American, including Chan. John Quincy means he’s the only white person in the restaurant.

  85.Japanese expansion in the Pacific region, the influx of Japanese nationals into Hawaii, and the fear that Japan would attempt to make Hawaii its own was clearly an important factor in the annexation of Hawaii by the United States. In addition, China and Japan had a fractious relationship for centuries. In 1915, J
apan made demands on the Chinese government that it was forced to accept, ceding rights formerly controlled by the Germans, and this humiliation ultimately led to the Mukden incident in 1931, leading to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and the outbreak of war between the nations in 1937. Chan’s disparagement of the Japanese cuisine is in character, then, with these simmering hostilities.

  86.The Atlantic Monthly, a “magazine of literature, art, and politics,” was founded in 1857 and, until 2005, was published in Boston.

  CHAPTER XI

  The Tree of Jewels

  Two hours later, John Quincy rose from the table where he and his aunt had dined together.

  “Just to show you how quick I am to learn a new language,” he remarked, “I’m quite pau. Now I’m going makai to sit on the lanai, there to forget the pilikia of the day.”

  Miss Minerva smiled and rose too. “I expect Amos shortly,” she said as they crossed the hall. “A family conference seemed advisable, so I’ve asked him to come over.”

  “Strange you had to send for him,” said John Quincy, lighting a cigarette.

  “Not at all,” she answered. She explained about the long feud between the brothers.

  “Didn’t think old Amos had that much fire in him,” commented John Quincy, as they found chairs on the lanai. “A rather anemic specimen, judging by the look I had at him this morning. But then, the Winterslips always were good haters.”

  For a moment they sat in silence. Outside the darkness was deepening rapidly, the tropic darkness that had brought tragedy the night before. John Quincy pointed to a small lizard on the screen.

  “Pleasant little beast,” he said.

  “Oh, they’re quite harmless,” Miss Minerva told him. “And they eat the mosquitos.”

  “They do, eh?” The boy slapped his ankle savagely. “Well, there’s no accounting for tastes.”

  Amos arrived presently, looking unusually pale in the half-light. “You asked me to come over, Minerva,” he said, as he sat down gingerly on one of Dan Winterslip’s Hong-Kong chairs.

  “I did. Smoke if you like.” Amos lighted a cigarette, which seemed oddly out of place between his thin lips. “I’m sure,” Miss Minerva continued, “that we are all determined to bring to justice the person who did this ghastly thing.”

  “Naturally,” said Amos.

  “The only drawback,” she went on, “is that in the course of the investigation some rather unpleasant facts about Dan’s past are likely to be revealed.”

  “They’re bound to be,” remarked Amos coldly.

  “For Barbara’s sake,” Miss Minerva said, “I’m intent on seeing that nothing is revealed that is not absolutely essential to the discovery of the murderer. For that reason, I haven’t taken the police completely into my confidence.”

  “What!” cried Amos.

  John Quincy stood up. “Now look here, Aunt Minerva—”

  “Sit down,” snapped his aunt. “Amos, to go back to a talk we had at your house when I was there, Dan was somewhat involved with this woman down the beach. Arlene Compton, I believe she calls herself.”

  Amos nodded. “Yes, and a worthless lot she is. But Dan wouldn’t see it, though I understand his friends pointed it out to him. He talked of marrying her.”

  “You knew a good deal about Dan, even if you never spoke to him,” Miss Minerva went on. “Just what was his status with this woman at the time of his murder—only last night, but it seems ages ago.”

  “I can’t quite tell you that,” Amos replied. “I do know that for the past month a malihini named Leatherbee—the black sheep of a good family in Philadelphia, they tell me—has been hanging around the Compton woman, and that Dan resented his presence.”

  “Humph.” Miss Minerva handed to Amos an odd old brooch, a tree of jewels against an onyx background. “Ever see that before, Amos?”

  He took it, and nodded. “It’s part of a little collection of jewelry Dan brought back from the South Seas in the ’eighties. There were earrings and a bracelet, too. He acted rather queerly about those trinkets—never let Barbara’s mother or any one else wear them. But he must have got over that idea recently. For I saw this only a few weeks ago.”

  “Where?” asked Miss Minerva.

  “Our office has the renting of the cottage down the beach occupied at present by the Compton woman. She came in not long ago to pay her rent, and she was wearing this brooch.” He looked suddenly at Miss Minerva. “Where did you get it?” he demanded.

  “Kamaikui gave it to me early this morning,” Miss Minerva explained. “She picked it up from the floor of the lanai before the police came.”

  John Quincy leaped to his feet. “You’re all wrong, Aunt Minerva,” he cried. “You can’t do this sort of thing. You ask the help of the police, and you aren’t on the level with them. I’m ashamed of you—”

  “Please wait a moment,” said his aunt.

  “Wait nothing!” he answered. “Give me that brooch. I’m going to turn it over to Chan at once. I couldn’t look him in the eye if I didn’t.”

  “We’ll turn it over to Chan,” said Miss Minerva calmly, “if it seems important. But there is no reason in the world why we should not investigate a bit ourselves before we do so. The woman may have a perfectly logical explanation—”

  “Rot!” interrupted John Quincy. “The trouble with you is, you think you’re Sherlock Holmes.”

  “What is your opinion, Amos?” inquired Miss Minerva.

  “I’m inclined to agree with John Quincy,” Amos said. “You are hardly fair to Captain Hallet. And as for keeping anything dark on account of Barbara—or on anybody’s account—that won’t be possible, I’m afraid. No getting round it, Minerva, Dan’s indiscretions are going to be dragged into the open at last.”

  She caught the note of satisfaction in his tone, and was nettled by it. “Perhaps. At the same time, it isn’t going to do any harm for some member of the family to have a talk with this woman before we consult the police. If she should have a perfectly sincere and genuine explanation—”

  “Oh, yes,” cut in John Quincy. “She wouldn’t have any other kind.”

  “It won’t be so much what she says,” persisted Miss Minerva. “It will be the manner in which she says it. Any intelligent person can see through deceit and falsehood. The only question is, which of us is the intelligent person best fitted to examine her.”

  “Count me out,” said Amos promptly.

  “John Quincy?”

  The boy considered. He had asked for the privilege of working with Chan, and here, perhaps, was an opportunity to win the Chinaman’s respect. But this sounded rather like a woman who would be too much for him.

  “No, thanks,” he said.

  “Very good,” replied Miss Minerva, rising. “I’ll go myself.”

  “Oh, no,” cried John Quincy, shocked.

  “Why not? If none of the men in the family are up to it. As a matter of fact, I welcome the opportunity—”

  Amos shook his head. “She’ll twist you round her little finger,” he predicted.

  Miss Minerva smiled grimly. “I should like to see her do it. Will you wait here?”

  John Quincy went over and took the brooch from Amos’s hand. “Sit down, Aunt Minerva,” he said. “I’ll see this woman. But I warn you that immediately afterward I shall send for Chan.”

  “That,” his aunt told him, “will be decided at another conference. I’m not so sure, John Quincy, that you are the proper person to go. After all, what experience have you had with women of this type?”

  John Quincy was offended. He was a man, and he felt that he could meet and outwit a woman of any type. He said as much.

  Amos described the woman’s house as a small cottage several hundred yards down the beach, and directed the boy how to get there. John Quincy set out.

  Night had fallen over the Island when he reached Kalia Road, a bright silvery night, for the Kona weather was over and the moon traveled a cloudless sky. The scent of plumeria and g
inger stole out to him through hedges of flaming hibiscus; the trade winds, blowing across a thousand miles of warm water, still managed a cool touch on his cheek. As he approached what he judged must be the neighborhood of the woman’s house, a flock of Indian myna birds in a spreading algaroba screamed loudly, their harsh voices the only note of discord in that peaceful scene.

  He had some difficulty locating the cottage, which was almost completely hidden under masses of flowering alamander, its blossoms pale yellow in the moonlight. Before the door, a dark fragrant spot under a heavily laden trellis, he paused uncertainly. A rather delicate errand, this was. But he summoned his courage and knocked.

  Only the myna birds replied. John Quincy stood there, growing momentarily more hostile to the Widow of Waikiki. Some huge coarse creature, no doubt, a man’s woman, a good fellow at a party—that kind. Then the door opened and the boy got a shock. For the figure outlined against the light was young and slender, and the face, dimly seen, suggested fragile loveliness.

  “Is this Mrs. Compton?” he inquired.

  “Yeah—I’m Mrs. Compton. What do you want?” John Quincy was sorry she had spoken. For she was, obviously, one of those beauties so prevalent nowadays, the sort whom speech betrays. Her voice recalled the myna birds.

  “My name is John Quincy Winterslip.” He saw her start. “May I speak with you for a moment?”

  “Sure you can. Come in.” She led the way along a low narrow passage into a tiny living-room. A pasty-faced young man with stooped shoulders stood by a table, fondling a cocktail shaker.

  “Steve,” said the woman, “this is Mr. Winterslip. Mr. Leatherbee.”

  Mr. Leatherbee grunted. “Just in time for a little snifter,” he remarked.

  “No, thanks,” John Quincy said. He saw Mrs. Compton take a smoking cigarette from an ash tray, start to convey it to her lips, then, evidently thinking better of it, crush it on the tray.