Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s Read online

  He stood for a moment at his bedroom window, gazing down at the torchlight procession of the streets through this amazing city. He was a little dazed. That soft warm presence close by his side in the car—pleasant, very pleasant. Remarkable girls out here. Different!

  Beyond shone the harbor lights. That other girl—wonderful eyes she had. Just because she had laughed at him, his treasured hat box floated now forlorn on those dark waters. He yawned again. Better be careful. Mustn’t be so easily influenced. No telling where it would end.

  27.The Ferry Building, at the foot of Market Street, was the transportation terminus for San Francisco until the construction of the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge in the 1930s. Before those bridges opened, allowing automobiles to travel to San Francisco, persons traveling there arrived by train or ferry from the East Bay.

  The San Francisco Ferry Building, ca. 1925

  28.This too in later editions was changed to “Chinese man.” Other changes include alterations of some of the pidgin expressions of various Japanese and Chinese persons, but those have not been noted.

  29.We may deduce that Roger last saw Cope before Cope met Minerva. Minerva describes herself as “well over fifty,” and she first visited Honolulu at the age of nineteen. If she were fifty-nine, making her nineteen forty years ago, she would have thought of herself as “almost sixty.” And of course it is likely Cope would have mentioned to Roger “more than 40 years ago” that he had met Roger’s cousin.

  30.Fanning’s Group is the northern portion of a group of islands collectively known as the Line Islands, in the central Pacific Ocean south of Hawaii, and today is referred to more commonly as the Northern Line Islands. The constituents are the tiny Kingman Reef and Palmyra Atoll (no residents), the 10-sq.-km. Teraina (formerly Washington Island), Tabuaeran (Fanning Island), about 33 sq. km., and Kiritimati (formerly Christmas Island), the largest of the group at about 390 sq. km. (less than a tenth the size of Rhode Island). The latter three islands have a current population of about 8,800 people. They were British colonies at the time of The House Without a Key but are now part of the Republic of Kiribati, which gained its independence in 1979 and has a total population of about 110,000.

  31.Annexed to the British Empire in 1888, Fanning Island had been a cable station before World War I but was shelled and invaded by the Germans during the war. For a long time, it was a regular port of call for ships cruising from Hawaii (though this was to fulfill a legal requirement to stop at a foreign port rather than to take on coal); however, a change of the legal environment badly crippled Tabuaeran’s economy, and it is only slowing regaining the volume of visits from cruise ships that had been a significant part of its post-colonial economy.

  32.There were three ships named Reliance in the Royal Navy, but none fit this description, and none were in service in the 1880s. Cope may be misremembering the name of his ship: in 1889, there was a standoff in Samoa between American, German, and British forces all attempting to seize control of the port. The confrontation ended when a tropical storm sank all of the American and German ships. HMS Calliope, the lone British ship, narrowly avoided being damaged by the storm and, after returning to the Samoan port to try to effect rescue operations, sailed to Australia, not to Hawaii. Its captain received honors for what a historian termed “one of the most famous episodes of seamanship in the 19th century.” Calliope was iron-hulled but was cased with timber, as were the wooden ships—this could be the source of Cope’s “wooden” description. And of course the events were at least thirty-five years previous.

  HMS Calliope in port

  33.The Columbia Theatre was at 70 Eddy Street.

  34.Metrosideros polymorpha, commonly known as ohia lehua, is a species of flowering evergreen tree commonly found in the Hawaiian Islands.

  35.An ambiguously worded message, like “not at home”—they were unlikely to have worked out a cipher in advance.

  36.Tait’s at the Beach had an office at 760 Market.

  37.Burlingame is a suburb of San Francisco located on the San Francisco Peninsula; it was founded in 1908 and now is home to many of the affluent who work in Silicon Valley.

  38.Pete’s Grill was at 893 Mission.

  CHAPTER IV

  A Friend of Tim’s

  It was another of those mornings on which the fog maybe did not come. Roger and his guests were in the limousine again; it seemed to John Quincy that they had left it only a few minutes before. So it must have seemed to the chauffeur too as, sleepy-eyed, he hurried them toward the water-front.

  “By the way, John Quincy,” Roger said, “you’ll want to change your money before you go aboard.”

  John Quincy gathered his wandering thoughts. “Oh, yes, of course,” he answered.

  Roger smiled. “Just what sort of money would you like to change it for?” he inquired.

  “Why—” began John Quincy. He stopped. “Why, I always thought—”

  “Don’t pay any attention to Roger,” Barbara laughed. “He’s spoofing you.” She was fresh and blooming, a little matter like three A. M. made no difference to her. “Only about one person out of a thousand in this country knows that Hawaii is a part of the United States,39 and the fact annoys us deeply over in the Islands. Dear old Roger was trying to get you in wrong with me by enrolling you among the nine hundred and ninety-nine.”

  “Almost did it, too,” chuckled Roger.

  “Nonsense,” said Barbara. “John Quincy is too intelligent. He’s not like that congressman who wrote a letter to ‘the American Consul at Honolulu’.”40

  “Did one of them do that?” smiled John Quincy.

  “He certainly did. We almost gave up the struggle after that. Then there was the senator who came out on a junket, and began a speech with: ‘When I get home to my country—’ Some one in the audience shouted: ‘You’re there now, you big stiff!’ It wasn’t elegant, of course, but it expressed our feeling perfectly. Oh, we’re touchy, John Quincy.”

  “Don’t blame you a bit,” he told her. “I’ll be very careful what I say.”

  They had reached the Embarcadero, and the car halted before one of the piers. The chauffeur descended and began to gather up the baggage. Roger and John Quincy took a share of it, and they traversed the pier-shed to the gangplank.

  “Get along to your office, Roger,” Barbara said.

  “No hurry,” he answered. “I’ll go aboard with you, of course.”

  Amid the confusion of the deck, a party of girls swept down on Barbara, pretty lively girls of the California brand. John Quincy learned with some regret that they were there only to see Barbara off. A big broad-shouldered man in white pushed his way through the crowd.

  “Hello there!” he called to Barbara.

  “Hello, Harry,” she answered. “You know Roger, don’t you? John Quincy, this is an old friend of mine, Harry Jennison.”

  Mr. Jennison was extremely good-looking, his face was deeply tanned by the Island sun, his hair blond and wavy, his gray eyes amused and cynical. Altogether, he was the type of man women look at twice and never forget; John Quincy felt himself at once supplanted in the eyes of Barbara’s friends.

  Jennison seized the boy’s hand in a firm grip. “Sailing too, Mr. Winterslip?” he inquired. “That’s good. Between us we ought to be able to keep this young woman entertained.”

  The shore call sounded, and the confusion increased. Along the deck came a little old lady, followed by a Chinese woman servant. They walked briskly, and the crowd gave way before them.

  “Between us we ought to be able to keep this young woman entertained,” Jennison had said. Well, John Quincy reflected, his portion of the entertainment promised to be small. From The House Without a Key, illustration by William Liepse (The Saturday Evening Post, January 31, 1925).

  “Hello—this is luck,” cried Roger. “Madame Maynard—just a moment. I want you to meet a cousin of mine from Boston.” He introduced John Quincy. “I give him into your charge. Couldn’t find a better guide, philos
opher and friend for him if I combed the Islands.”

  The old lady glanced at John Quincy. Her black eyes snapped. “Another Winterslip, eh?” she said. “Hawaii’s all cluttered up with ’em now. Well, the more the merrier. I know your aunt.”

  “Stick close to her, John Quincy,” Roger admonished.

  She shook her head. “I’m a million years old,” she protested. “The boys don’t stick so close any more. They like ’em younger. However, I’ll keep my eye on him. My good eye. Well, Roger, run over some time.” And she moved away.

  “A grand soul,” said Roger, smiling after her. “You’ll like her. Old missionary family, and her word’s law over there.”

  “Who’s this Jennison?” asked John Quincy.

  “Him?” Roger glanced over to where Mr. Jennison stood, the center of an admiring feminine group. “Oh, he’s Dan’s lawyer. One of the leading citizens of Honolulu, I believe. John J. Adonis himself, isn’t he?” An officer appeared, herding the reluctant throng toward the gangplank. “I’ll have to leave you, John Quincy. A pleasant journey. When you come through on your way home, give me a few more days to try to convince you on my San Francisco offer.”

  John Quincy laughed. “You’ve been mighty kind.”

  “Not at all.” Roger shook his hand warmly. “Take care of yourself over there. Hawaii’s a little too much like Heaven to be altogether safe. So long, my boy, so long.”

  He moved away. John Quincy saw him kiss Barbara affectionately and with her friends join the slow procession ashore.

  The young man from Boston stepped to the rail. Several hundred voices were calling admonitions, promises, farewells. With that holiday spirit so alien to John Quincy’s experience, those ashore were throwing confetti. The streamers grew in number, making a tangle of color, a last frail bond with the land. The gangplank was taken up; clumsily the President Tyler began to draw away from the pier. On the topmost deck a band was playing—Aloha -oe, the sweetest, most melancholy song of good-by ever written. John Quincy was amazed to feel a lump rising in his throat.

  The frail, gay-colored bond was breaking now. A thin veined hand at John Quincy’s side waved a handkerchief. He turned to find Mrs. Maynard. There were tears on her cheeks.

  “Silly old woman,” she said. “Sailed away from this town a hundred and twenty-eight times. Actual count—I keep a diary. Cried every time. What about? I don’t know.”

  The ship was well out in the harbor now. Barbara came along, Jennison trailing her. The girl’s eyes were wet.

  “An emotional lot, we Islanders,” said the old lady. She put her arm about the girl’s slim waist. “Here’s another one of ’em. Living way off the way we do, any good-by at all—it saddens us.” She and Barbara moved on down the deck.

  Jennison stopped. His eyes were quite dry. “First trip out?” he inquired.

  “Oh, yes,” replied John Quincy.

  “Hope you’ll like us,” Jennison said. “Not Massachusetts, of course, but we’ll do our best to make you feel at home. It’s a way we have with strangers.”

  “I’m sure I shall have a bully time,” John Quincy remarked. But he felt somewhat depressed. Three thousand miles from Beacon Street—and moving on! He waved to some one he fancied might be Roger on the dock, and went to find his stateroom.

  He learned that he was to share his cabin with two missionaries.41 One was a tall, gloomy old man with a lemon-colored face—an honored veteran of the foreign field named Upton. The other was a ruddy-cheeked boy whose martyrdom was still before him. John Quincy suggested drawing lots for a choice of berths, but even this mild form of gambling appeared distasteful to those emissaries of the church.

  “You boys take the berths,” said Upton. “Leave me the couch. I don’t sleep well anyhow.” His tone was that of one who prefers to suffer.

  John Quincy politely objected. After further discussion it was settled that he was to have the upper berth, the old man the lower, and the boy the couch. The Reverend Mr. Upton seemed disappointed. He had played the role of martyr so long he resented seeing any one else in the part.

  The Pacific was behaving in a most unfriendly manner, tossing the great ship about as though it were a piece of driftwood. John Quincy decided to dispense with lunch, and spent the afternoon reading in his berth. By evening he felt better, and under the watchful and somewhat disapproving eyes of the missionaries, arrayed himself carefully for dinner.

  His name being Winterslip, he had been invited to sit at the captain’s table. He found Madame Maynard, serene and twinkling, at the captain’s right, Barbara at his left, and Jennison at Barbara’s side. It appeared that oddly enough there was an aristocracy of the Islands, and John Quincy, while he thought it quaint there should be such distinctions in an outpost like Hawaii, took his proper place as a matter of course.

  Mrs. Maynard chatted brightly of her many trips over this route. Suddenly she turned to Barbara. “How does it happen, my dear,” she asked, “that you’re not on the college boat?”

  “All booked up,” Barbara explained.

  “Nonsense,” said the frank old lady. “You could have got on. But then”—she looked meaningly toward Jennison—“I presume this ship was not without its attractions.”

  The girl flushed slightly and made no reply.

  “What,” John Quincy inquired, “is the college boat?”

  “So many children from Hawaii at school on the mainland,” the old lady explained, “that every June around this time they practically fill a ship. We call it the college boat. This year it’s the Matsonia.42 She left San Francisco to-day at noon.”

  “I’ve got a lot of friends aboard her,” Barbara said. “I do wish we could beat her in. Captain, what are the chances?”

  “Well, that depends,” replied the captain cautiously.

  “She isn’t due until Tuesday morning,” Barbara persisted. “Wouldn’t it be a lark if you could land us the night before? As a favor to me, Captain.”43

  “When you look at me like that,” smiled the officer, “I can only say that I’ll make a supreme effort. I’m just as eager as you to make port on Monday—it would mean I could get off to the Orient that much sooner.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Barbara beamed.

  “It’s settled that we’ll try,” he said. “Of course, if I speed up there’s always the chance I may arrive off Honolulu after sundown, and be compelled to lay by until morning. That would be torture for you.”

  “I’ll risk it,” Barbara smiled. “Wouldn’t dear old dad be pleased if I should burst upon his vision Monday evening?”

  “My dear girl,” the captain said gallantly, “any man would be pleased to have you burst upon his vision any time.”

  There was, John Quincy reflected, much in what the captain said. Up to that moment there had been little of the romantic in his relations with girls; he was accustomed to look upon them merely as tennis or golf opponents or a fourth at bridge. Barbara would demand a different classification. There was an enticing gleam in her blue eyes, a hint of the eternal feminine in everything she did or said, and John Quincy was no wooden man. He was glad that when he left the dinner table, she accompanied him.

  They went on deck and stood by the rail. Night had fallen, there was no moon, and it seemed to John Quincy that the Pacific was the blackest, angriest ocean he had ever seen. He stood gazing at it gloomily.

  “Homesick, John Quincy?” Barbara asked. One of his hands was resting on the rail. She laid her own upon it.

  He nodded. “It’s a funny thing. I’ve been abroad a lot, but I never felt like this. When the ship left port this morning, I nearly wept.”

  “It’s not so very funny,” she said gently. “This is an alien world you’re entering now. Not Boston, John Quincy, nor any other old, civilized place. Not the kind of place where the mind rules. Out here it’s the heart that charts our course. People you’re fond of do the wildest, most unreasonable things, simply because their minds are sleeping and their hearts are beating fast. J
ust—just remember, please, John Quincy.”

  There was an odd note of wistfulness in her voice. Suddenly at their side appeared the white-clad figure of Harry Jennison.

  “Coming for a stroll, Barbara?” he inquired.

  For a moment she did not reply. Then she nodded. “Yes,” she said. And called over her shoulder as she went: “Cheer up, John Quincy.”

  He watched her go, reluctantly. She might have stayed to assuage his loneliness. But there she walked along the dim deck, close to Jennison’s side.

  After a time, he sought the smoking-room. It was deserted, but on one of the tables lay a copy of the Boston Transcript. Delighted, John Quincy pounced upon it, as Robinson Crusoe might have pounced on news from home.

  The issue was ten days old, but no matter. He turned at once to the financial pages. There it was, like the face of a well-beloved friend, the record of one day’s trading on the Stock Exchange. And up in one corner, the advertisement of his own banking house, offering an issue of preferred stock in a Berkshire cotton mill. He read eagerly, but with an odd detached feeling. He was gone, gone from that world, away out here on a black ocean bound for picture-book islands. Islands where, not so long ago, brown tribes had battled, brown kings ruled. There seemed no link with that world back home, those gay-colored streamers of confetti breaking so readily had been a symbol. He was adrift. What sort of port would claim him in the end?

  New York Stock Exchange, ca. 1929.

  He threw the paper down. The Reverend Mr. Upton entered the smoking-room.

  “I left my newspaper here,” he explained. “Ah—did you care to look at it?”

  “Thank you, I have,” John Quincy told him.

  The old man picked it up in a great bony hand. “I always buy a Transcript when I get the chance,” he said. “It carries me back. You know, I was born in Salem, over seventy years ago.”