Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s Page 7

  “Fine fellow,” Roger said, staring after him. “Frank and British, but a splendid chap.”

  “I wasn’t especially pleased,” John Quincy admitted, “by the way he spoke of Cousin Dan.”

  Roger laughed. “Better get used to it,” he advised. “Dan is not passionately beloved. He’s climbed high, you know, and he’s trampled down a few on his way up. By the way, he wants you to do an errand for him here in San Francisco.”

  “Me!” cried John Quincy. “An errand?”

  “Yes. You ought to feel flattered. Dan doesn’t trust everybody. However, it’s something that must wait until dark.”

  “Until dark,” repeated the puzzled young man from Boston.

  “Precisely. In the meantime I propose to show you about town.”

  “But—you’re busy. I couldn’t think of taking you away—”

  Roger laid his hand on John Quincy’s shoulder. “My boy, no westerner is ever too busy to show a man from the East about his city. I’ve been looking forward to this chance for weeks. And since you insist on sailing to-morrow at ten, we must make the most of our time.”

  Roger proved an adept at making the most of one’s time in San Francisco. After an exhilarating afternoon of motoring over the town and the surrounding country, he brought John Quincy back to the house at six, urging him to dress quickly for a dinner of which he apparently had great hopes.

  The boy’s trunk was in his room, and as he put on a dinner coat he looked forward with lively anticipation to a bit of San Francisco night life in Roger’s company. When he came down-stairs his host was waiting, a distinguished figure in his dinner clothes, and they set out blithely through the gathering dusk.

  “Little place I want you to try,” Roger explained as they sat down at a table in a restaurant that was outwardly of no special note. “Afterward we’ll look in on that musical show at the Columbia.”33

  The restaurant more than justified Roger’s hopes of it. John Quincy began to glow with a warm friendly feeling for all the world, particularly this city by the western gate. He did not think of himself as a stranger here. He wasn’t a stranger, anyhow. The sensation he had first experienced in the harbor returned to him. He had been here before, he was treading old familiar ground. In far, forgotten, happy times he had known the life of this city’s streets. Strange, but true. He spoke to Roger about it.

  Roger smiled. “A Winterslip, after all,” he said. “And they told me you were just a sort of—of Puritan survival. My father used to know that sensation you speak of, only he felt it whenever he entered a new town. Might be something in reincarnation, after all.”

  “Nonsense,” said John Quincy.

  “Probably. Just the blood of the roaming Winterslips in your veins.” He leaned across the table. “How would you like to come to San Francisco to live?”

  “Wha-what?” asked John Quincy, startled.

  “I’m getting along in years, and I’m all alone. Lots of financial details in my office—take you in there and let you look after them. Make it worth your while.”

  “No, no, thank you,” said John Quincy firmly. “I belong back east. Besides, I could never persuade Agatha to come out here.”

  “Agatha who?”

  “Agatha Parker—the girl I’m engaged to—in a way. Been sort of understood between us for several years. No,” he added, “I guess I’d better stay where I belong.”

  Roger Winterslip looked his disappointment. “Probably had,” he admitted. “I fancy no girl with that name would follow you here. Though a girl worth having will follow her man anywhere—but no matter.” He studied John Quincy keenly for a moment. “I must have been wrong about you, anyhow.”

  John Quincy felt a sudden resentment. “Just what do you mean by that?” he inquired.

  “In the old days,” Roger said, “Winterslips were the stuff of which pioneers are made. They didn’t cling to the apron-strings of civilization. They got up some fine morning and nonchalantly strolled off beyond the horizon. They lived—but there, you’re of another generation. You can’t understand.”

  “Why can’t I?” demanded John Quincy.

  “Because the same old rut has evidently been good enough for you. You’ve never known a thrill. Or have you? Have you ever forgot to go to bed because of some utterly silly reason—because, for example, you were young and the moon was shining on a beach lapped by southern seas? Have you ever lied like a gentleman to protect a woman not worth the trouble? Ever made love to the wrong girl?”

  “Of course not,” said John Quincy stiffly.

  “Ever run for your life through crooked streets in the rowdy quarter of a strange town? Ever fought with a ship’s officer—the old-fashioned kind with fists like flying hams? Ever gone out on a man hunt and when you got your quarry cornered, leaped upon him with no weapon but your bare hands? Have you ever—”

  “The type of person you describe,” John Quincy cut in, “is hardly admirable.”

  “Probably not,” Roger agreed. “And yet—those are incidents from my own past, my boy.” He regarded John Quincy sadly. “Yes, I must have been wrong about you. A Puritan survival after all.”

  John Quincy deigned no reply. There was an odd light in the older man’s eyes—was Roger secretly laughing at him? He appeared to be, and the boy resented it.

  But he forgot to be resentful at the revue, which proved to be witty and gay, and Roger and he emerged from the theater at eleven the best of friends again. As they stepped into Roger’s car, the older man gave the chauffeur an address on Russian Hill.

  “Dan’s San Francisco house,” he explained, as he climbed in after John Quincy. “He comes over about two months each year, and keeps a place here. Got more money than I have.”

  Dan’s San Francisco house? “Oh,” said John Quincy, “the errand you mentioned?”

  Roger nodded. “Yes.” He snapped on a light in the top of the limousine, and took an envelope from his pocket. “Read this letter. It was delivered to me two days ago by the Second Officer of the President Tyler.”

  John Quincy removed a sheet of note paper from the envelope. The message appeared to be rather hastily scrawled.

  “DEAR ROGER,” he read. “You can do me a great service—you and that discreet lad from Boston who is to stop over with you on his way out here. First of all, give John Quincy my regards and tell him that he must make my house his home while he is in the Islands. I’ll be delighted to have him.

  “About the errand. You have a key to my house on Russian Hill. Go up there—better go at night when the caretaker’s not likely to be around. The lights are off, but you’ll find candles in the pantry. In the store room on the top floor is an old brown trunk. Locked, probably—smash the lock if it is. In the lower section you’ll find a battered strong box made of ohia wood34 and bound with copper. Initials on it—T. M. B.

  “Wrap it up and take it away. It’s rather an armful, but you can manage it. Have John Quincy conceal it in his luggage and some dark night when the ship’s about half-way over, I want him to take it on deck and quietly drop it overboard. Tell him to be sure nobody sees him. That’s all. But send me a guarded cable35 when you get the box, and tell him to send me a radio when the Pacific has it at last. I’ll sleep better then.

  “Not a word, Roger. Not a word to any one. You’ll understand. Sometimes the dead past needs a bit of help in burying its dead.

  “YOUR COUSIN DAN.”

  Solemnly John Quincy handed the letter back into Roger’s keeping. The older man thoughtfully tore it to bits and tossed them through the car window open beside him. “Well,” said John Quincy. “Well—” A fitting comment eluded him.

  “Simple enough,” smiled Roger. “If we can help poor old Dan to sleep better as easily as that, we must do it, eh?”

  “I—I suppose so,” John Quincy agreed.

  They had climbed Russian Hill, and were speeding along a deserted avenue lined by imposing mansions. Roger leaned forward. “Go on to the corner,” he said to the
chauffeur. “We can walk back,” he explained to John Quincy. “Best not to leave the car before the house. Might excite suspicion.”

  Still John Quincy had no comment to make. They alighted at the corner and walked slowly back along the avenue. In front of a big stone house, Roger paused. He looked carefully in all directions, then ran with surprising speed up the steps. “Come on,” he called softly.

  John Quincy came. Roger unlocked the door and they stepped into a dark vestibule. Beyond that, darker still, was a huge hall, the dim suggestion of a grand staircase. Here and there an article of furniture, shrouded in white, stood like a ghost, marooned but patient. Roger took out a box of matches.

  “Meant to bring a flashlight,” he said, “but I clean forgot. Wait here—I’ll hunt those candles in the pantry.”

  He went off into the dark. John Quincy took a few cautious steps. He was about to sit down on a chair—but it was like sitting on the lap of a ghost. He changed his mind, stood in the middle of the floor, waited. Quiet, deathly quiet. The black had swallowed Roger, with not so much as a gurgle.

  After what seemed an age, Roger returned, bearing two lighted candles. One each, he explained. John Quincy took his, held it high. The flickering yellow flame accentuated the shadows, was really of small help.

  Roger led the way up the grand staircase, then up a narrower flight. At the foot of still another flight, in a stuffy passage on the third floor, he halted.

  “Here we are,” he said. “This leads to the storage room under the roof. By gad, I’m getting too old for this sort of thing. I meant to bring a chisel to use on that lock. I know where the tools are—I’ll be gone only a minute. You go on up and locate the trunk.”

  “All—all right,” answered John Quincy.

  Again Roger left him. John Quincy hesitated. Something about a deserted house at midnight to dismay the stoutest heart—but nonsense! He was a grown man. He smiled, and started up the narrow stair. High above his head the yellow light of the candle flickered on the brown rafters of the unfinished store room.

  He reached the top of the stairs, and paused. Gloom, gloom everywhere. Odd how floor boards will creak even when no one is moving over them. One was creaking back of him now.

  He was about to turn when a hand reached from behind and knocked the candle out of his grasp. It rolled on the floor, extinguished.

  This was downright rude! “See here,” cried John Quincy, “wh—who are you?”

  A bit of moonlight struggled in through a far window, and suddenly between John Quincy and that distant light there loomed the determined figure of a man. Something told the boy he had better get ready, but where he came from one had a moment or two for preparation. He had none here. A fist shot out and found his face, and John Quincy Winterslip of Boston went down amid the rubbish of a San Francisco attic. He heard, for a second, the crash of planets in collision, and then the clatter of large feet on the stairs. After that, he was alone with the debris.

  He got up, thoroughly angry, and began brushing off the dinner coat that had been his tailor’s pride. Roger arrived. “Who was that?” he demanded breathlessly. “Somebody went down the back stairs to the kitchen. Who was it?”

  “How should I know?” inquired John Quincy with pardonable peevishness. “He didn’t introduce himself to me.” His cheek was stinging; he put his handkerchief to it and noted in the light of Roger’s candle that it was red when it came away. “He wore a ring,” added John Quincy. “Damned bad taste!”

  “Hit you, eh?” inquired Roger.

  “I’ll say he did.”

  “Look!” Roger cried. He pointed. “The trunk-lock smashed.” He went over to investigate. “And the box is gone. Poor old Dan!”

  John Quincy continued to brush himself off. Poor old Dan’s plight gave him a vast pain, a pain which had nothing to do with his throbbing jaw. A fine nerve poor old Dan had to ask a complete stranger to offer his face for punishment in a dusty attic at midnight. What was it all about, anyhow?

  “Look!” Roger cried. He pointed. “The trunk–lock smashed!” He went over to investigate. “And the box is gone!” From The House Without a Key, illustration by William Liepse (The Saturday Evening Post, January 24, 1925).

  Roger continued his search. “No use,” he announced. “The box is gone, that’s plain. Come on, we’ll go down-stairs and look about. There’s your candle on the floor.”

  John Quincy picked up the candle and relighted it from Roger’s flame. Silently they went below. The outer door of the kitchen stood open. “Left that way,” said Roger. “And see”—he pointed to a window with a broken pane—“that’s where he came in.”

  “How about the police?” suggested John Quincy.

  Roger stared at him. “The police? I should say not! Where’s your discretion, my boy? This is not a police matter. I’ll have a new glass put in that window to-morrow. Come on—we might as well go home. We’ve failed.”

  The note of reproof in his voice angered John Quincy anew. They left the extinguished candles on a table in the hall, and returned to the street.

  “Well, I’ll have to cable Dan,” Roger said, as they walked toward the corner. “I’m afraid he’ll be terribly upset by this. It won’t tend to endear you to him, either.”

  “I can struggle along,” said John Quincy, “without his affection.”

  “If you could only have held that fellow till I came—”

  “Look here,” said John Quincy, “I was taken unawares. How could I know that I was going up against the heavyweight champion in that attic? He came at me out of the dark—and I’m not in condition—”

  “No offense, my boy,” Roger put in.

  “I see my mistake,” went on John Quincy. “I should have trained for this trip out here. A stiff course in a gymnasium. But don’t worry. The next lad that makes a pass at me will find a different target. I’ll do a daily three dozen and I’ll take boxing lessons. From now on until I get home, I’ll be expecting the worst.”

  Roger laughed. “That’s a nasty cut on your cheek,” he remarked. “We’d better stop at this drug store and have it dressed.”

  A solicitous drug clerk ministered to John Quincy with iodine, cotton and court plaster, and he reentered the limousine bearing honorably the scar of battle. The drive to Nob Hill was devoid of light chatter.

  Just inside the door of Roger’s house, a whirlwind in a gay gown descended upon them. “Barbara!” Roger said. “Where did you come from?”

  “Hello, old dear,” she cried, kissing him. “I motored up from Burlingame. Spending the night with you—I’m sailing on the President Tyler in the morning. Is this John Quincy?”

  “Cousin John,” smiled Roger. “He deserves a kiss, too. He’s had a bad evening.”

  The girl moved swiftly toward the defenseless John Quincy. Again he was unprepared, and this time it was his other cheek that suffered, though not unpleasantly. “Just by way of welcome,” Barbara laughed. She was blonde and slender. John Quincy thought he had never seen so much energy imprisoned in so slight a form. “I hear you’re bound for the Islands?” she said.

  “To-morrow,” John Quincy answered. “On your boat.”

  “Splendid!” she cried. “When did you get in?”

  “John Quincy came this morning,” Roger told her.

  “And he’s had a bad evening?” the girl said. “How lucky I came along. Where are you taking us, Roger?”

  John Quincy stared. Taking them? At this hour?

  “I’ll be getting along up-stairs,” he ventured.

  “Why, it’s just after twelve,” said Barbara. “Lots of places open. You dance, don’t you? Let me show you San Francisco. Roger’s a dear old thing—we’ll let him pay the checks.”

  “Well—I—I—” stammered John Quincy. His cheek was throbbing and he thought longingly of that bed in the room up-stairs. What a place, this West!

  “Come along!” The girl was humming a gay little tune. All vivacity, all life. Rather pleasant sort at that. John Qui
ncy took up his hat.

  Roger’s chauffeur had lingered a moment before the house to inspect his engine. When he saw them coming down the steps, he looked as though he rather wished he hadn’t. But escape was impossible; he climbed to his place behind the wheel.

  “Where to, Barbara?” Roger asked. “Tait’s?”36

  “Not Tait’s,” she answered. “I’ve just come from there.”

  “What! I thought you motored in from Burlingame?”37

  “So I did—at five. I’ve traveled a bit since then. How about some chop-suey for this Boston boy?”

  Good lord, John Quincy thought. Was there anything in the world he wanted less? No matter. Barbara took him among the Chinese.

  Was there anything in the world he wanted less? No matter. Barbara took him among the Chinese. From The House Without a Key, illustration by William Liepse (The Saturday Evening Post, January 24, 1925).

  He didn’t give a hang about the Chinese. Nor the Mexicans, whose restaurants interested the girl next. At the moment, he was unsympathetic toward Italy. And even toward France. But he struggled on the international round, affronting his digestion with queer dishes, and dancing thousands of miles with the slim Barbara in his arms. After scrambled eggs at a place called Pete’s Fashion,38 she consented to call it an evening.

  As John Quincy staggered into Roger’s house, the great clock in the hall was striking three. The girl was still alert and sparkling. John Quincy hastily concealed a yawn.

  “All wrong to come home so early,” she cried. “But we’ll have a dance or two on the boat. By the way, I’ve been wanting to ask. What does it mean? The injured cheek?”

  “Why—er—I—” John Quincy remarked. Over the girl’s shoulder he saw Roger violently shaking his head. “Oh, that,” said John Quincy, lightly touching the wound. “That’s where the West begins. Good night. I’ve had a bully time.” And at last he got up-stairs.