Behind That Curtain (14 page)

He entered the lobby and studied the letter boxes. Henry Li, he discovered, lived on the second floor. Ignoring the push buttons, he tried the door. It was unlocked, and he went inside. He climbed to the third floor, walking softly as he passed the apartment occupied by Henry Li. For a moment he stood at the head of the stairs, then started down. He had proceeded about half-way to the floor below, when suddenly he appeared to lose his footing, and descended with a terrific clatter to the second-floor landing. The door of Henry Li's apartment opened, and a fat little Chinese in a business suit peered out.

“You are concerned in an accident?” he inquired solicitously.

“Haie!” cried Chan, picking himself up, “the evil spirits pursue me. I have lost my footing on these slippery stairs.” He tried to walk, but limped painfully. “I fear I have given my ankle a bad turn. If I could sit quietly for a moment—”

The little man threw wide his door. “Condescend to enter my contemptible house. My chairs are plain and uncomfortable, but you must try one.”

Profuse in thanks, Chan followed him into an astonishing living-room. Hang-chau silk hangings and a few pieces of teakwood mingled with blatant plush furniture from some department store.
A small boy, about thirteen, was seated at a radio, which ground out dance music. He wore the khaki uniform of a boy scout, with a bright yellow handkerchief about his throat.

“Please sit here,” invited Henry Li, indicating a huge chair of green plush. “I trust the pain is not very acute.”

“It begins to subside,” Chan told him. “You are most kind.”

The boy had shut off the radio, and was standing before Charlie Chan with keen interest in his bright eyes.

“A most regrettable thing,” explained his father. “The gentleman has turned his ankle on our detestable stairs.”

“So sorry,” the boy announced. His eyes grew even brighter. “All Boy Scouts know how to make bandages. I will get my first-aid kit—”

“No, no,” protested Chan hastily. “Do not trouble yourself. The injury is not serious.”

“It would be no trouble at all,” the boy assured him. With some difficulty Charlie dissuaded him, and to the detective's great relief, the boy disappeared.

“I will sit and rest for a moment,” Chan said to Henry Li. “I trust I am no great obstacle here. The accident overwhelmed me when I was on the search for an old friend of mine—Li Gung by name.”

Henry Li's little eyes rested for a moment on the picture of a middle-aged Chinese in a silver frame on the mantel. “You are a friend of Li Gung?” he inquired.

The moment had been enough for Chan. “I am—and I see his photograph above there, tastefully framed. Is it true, then, that he is stopping here? Has my search ended so fortunately after all?”

“He was here,” Li replied, “but only this morning he walked his way.”

“Gone!” Chan's face fell. “Alas, then I am too late. Would you be so kind as to tell me where he went?”

Henry Li became discreet. “He disappeared on business of his own, with which I have no concern.”

“Of course. But it is a great pity. A friend of mine, an American gentleman who goes on a long, hazardous journey, required his services. The recompense would have been of generous amount.”

Li shook his head. “The matter would have held no interest for Gung. He is otherwise occupied.”

“Ah, yes. He still remains in the employ of Colonel John Beetham?”

“No doubt he does.”

“Still, the reward in this other matter would have been great. But it may be that he is very loyal to Colonel Beetham. A loyalty cemented through many years. I am trying to figure, but I can not. How long is it your honorable cousin is in Colonel Beetham's service?”

“Long enough to cement loyalty as you say,” returned Li, noncommitally.

“Fifteen years, perhaps?” hazarded Chan.

“It might be.”

“Or even longer?”

“As to that, I do not know.”

Chan nodded. “When you know, to know that you know, and when you do not know, to know that you do not know—that is true knowledge, as the master said.” He moved his foot, and a spasm of pain spread over his fat face. “A great man, Colonel Beetham. A most remarkable man. Li Gung has been fortunate. With Colonel Beetham he has seen Tibet, Persia—even India. He has told you, perhaps, of his visits to India with Colonel Beetham?”

In the slanting eyes of the host a stubborn expression was evident. “He says little, my cousin,” Henry Li remarked.

“Which point of character no doubt increases his value to a man like the Colonel,” suggested Chan. “I am very sorry he has gone. While I would no doubt have failed, owing to his feeling of loyalty for his present employer, I would nevertheless have liked to try. I promised my friend—”

The outer door opened, and the active little Boy Scout burst into the room. After him came a serious, prematurely bearded young American with a small black case.

“I have brought a physician,” cried Willie Li triumphantly.

Chan gave the ambitious boy a savage look.

“An accident, eh?” said the doctor briskly. “Well—which one of you—”

Henry Li nodded toward Chan. “This gentleman's ankle,” he said.

The white man went at once to Chan's side. “Let's have a look at it.”

“It is nothing,” Chan protested. “Nothing at all.”

He held out his foot, and the doctor ripped off shoe and stocking. He made a quick examination with his fingers, turned the foot this way and that, and studied it thoughtfully for a moment. Then he stood up.

“What are you trying to do—kid me?” he said with disgust. “Nothing wrong there.”

“I remarked the injury was of the slightest,” Chan said.

He looked at Henry Li. An expression of complete understanding lighted the basket merchant's face.

“Five dollars, please,” said the doctor sternly.

Chan produced his purse, and counted out the money. With an effort he refrained from looking in the boy's direction.

The white man left abruptly. Chan drew on his stocking, slipped into his shoe, and stood up. His dignity requiring that he still maintain the fiction, he limped elaborately.

“These white devil doctors,” he remarked glumly. “All they know is five dollars, please.”

Henry Li was looking at him keenly. “I recall,” he said, “there was one other who came to ask questions about Li Gung. An Englishman—a large man. They are clever and cool, the English, like a
thief amid the fire. Was it not his death I read about in the morning paper?”

“I know nothing of the matter,” responded Chan stiffly.

“Of course.” Henry Li followed to the door. “If you will accept advice offered in humble spirit,” he added, “you will walk softly. What a pity if you encountered a really serious accident.”

Mumbling a good-by, Chan went out. By the door he passed young Willie Li who was grinning broadly. The event had come to an unexpected ending, but none the less the lad was happy. He was a Boy Scout, and he had done his good turn for the day.

Chan returned to the street, thoroughly upset. Rarely had any of his little deceptions ended so disastrously. His usefulness on the trail of Li Gung was no doubt over for all time. He consigned all Boy Scouts to limbo with one muttered imprecation.

Entering a drug store, he purchased a quantity of lamp black and a camel's hair brush. Then he went on to the Kirk Building. The night watchman took him up to the bungalow, and he let himself in with the key Kirk had given him. The place was dark and silent. He switched on the lights, and made a round of the rooms. No one seemed to be about.

He unlocked the compartment in Kirk's desk, and carefully removed the sheet of paper that had arrived in the envelope from Scotland Yard. With satisfaction he noted the paper was of a cheap variety, highly glazed. Along the lines where it had been folded, someone's fingers must have pressed hard.

Seated at the desk, with a floor lamp glowing brightly at his side, he cautiously sprinkled the black powder in the most likely place. Then he carefully dusted it with his brush. He was rewarded by the outline of a massive thumb—the thumb of a big man. He considered. Carrick Enderby was a big man. He was employed at Cook's. In some way he must procure impressions of Enderby's thumb.

He returned the paper to the compartment, and with it the tools
of his investigation. Turning over ways and means in his mind, he sat down in a comfortable chair, took up Colonel John Beetham's story of his life, and began to read.

About an hour later Paradise came in from outside. He was absent for a moment in the pantry. Then, entering the living-room with his inevitable silver platter, he removed a few letters and laid them on Kirk's desk.

“The last mail is in, sir,” he announced. “There is, I believe, a picture post-card for you.”

He carried card and tray negligently at his side, as though to express his contempt for picture post-cards. Chan looked up in surprise; he had telephoned the hotel to forward any mail to him here, and this was quick work. Paradise offered the tray, and Chan daintily took up the card.

It was from his youngest girl, designed to catch him just before he left. “Hurry home, honorable father,” she wrote. “We miss you all the time. There is Kona weather here now, and we have ninety degrees of climate every day. Wishing to see you soon. Your loving daughter, Anna.”

Chan turned over the card. He saw a picture of Waikiki, the surf boards riding the waves, Diamond Head beyond. He sighed with homesickness, and sat for a long moment immobile in his chair.

But as Paradise left the room, the little detective leaped nimbly to his feet and returned to the desk. For Paradise had glued the post-card to his tray with one large, moist thumb, a thumb which had fortunately rested on the light blue of Hawaii's lovely sky.

Quickly Chan applied lamp black and brush. Then he removed the blank paper from the compartment and with the aid of a reading glass, studied the impressions.

He leaned back in his chair with a puzzled frown. He knew now that he need not investigate the fingerprints of Carrick Enderby. The thumb-print of Paradise was on the post-card, and the same
print was on the blank sheet of paper that had arrived in the envelope from Scotland Yard. It was Paradise, then, who had tampered with Sir Frederic's mail.

Thursday morning dawned bright and fair. Stepping briskly from his bed to the window, Chan saw the sunlight sparkling cheerily on the waters of the harbor. It was a clear, cool world he looked upon, and the sight was invigorating. Nor for ever would he wander amid his present dark doubts and perplexities; one of these days he would see the murderer of Sir Frederic as plainly as he now saw the distant towers of Oakland. After that—the Pacific, the lighthouse on Makapuu Point, Diamond Head and a palm-fringed shore, and finally his beloved town of Honolulu nestling in the emerald cup of the hills.

Calm and unhurried, he prepared himself for another day, and left his bedroom. Barry Kirk, himself immaculate and unperturbed, was seated at the breakfast table reading the morning paper. Chan smiled at thought of the bomb he was about to toss at his gracious host. For he had not seen Kirk the previous night after his discovery. Though he had waited until midnight, the young man had not returned, and Chan had gone sleepily to bed.

“Good morning,” Kirk said. “How's the famous sleuth today?”

“Doing as well as could be predicted,” Chan replied. “You are tip-top yourself. I see it without the formal inquiring.”

“True enough,” Kirk answered. “I am full of vim, vigor and ambition, and ready for a new day's discoveries. By the way, I called Miss Morrow last night and gave her my grandmother's story about Eileen Enderby. She's going to arrange an interview with the lady, and you're invited. I hope I won't be left out of the party, either. If I am, it won't be my fault.”

Chan nodded. “Interview is certainly indicated,” he agreed.

Paradise entered, haughty and dignified as always, and after he had bestowed on each a suave good morning, placed orange juice before them. Kirk lifted his glass.

“Your very good health,” he said, “in the wine of the country. California orange juice—of course you read our advertisements. Cures anything from insomnia to a broken heart. How did you spend last evening?”

“Me?” Chan shrugged. “I made slight sally into Chinatown.”

“On Li Gung's trail, eh? What luck?”

“The poorest,” returned Chan, grimacing at the memory. “I encounter Chinese Boy Scout panting to do good turn, and he does me one of the worst I ever suffered.” He recounted his adventure, to Kirk's amusement.

“Tough luck,” laughed the young man. “However, you probably got all you could, at that.”

“Later,” continued Chan, “the luck betters itself.” Paradise came in with the cereal, and Chan watched him in silence. When the butler had gone, he added: “Last night in living-room out there I make astonishing discovery.”

“You did? What was that?”

“How much you know about this perfect servant of yours?”

Kirk started. “Paradise? Good lord! You don't mean—”

“He came with references?”

“King George couldn't have brought better. Dukes and earls
spoke of him in glowing terms. And why not? He's the best servant in the world.”

“Too bad,” commented Chan.

“What do you mean, too bad?”

“Too bad best servant in world has weakness for steaming open letters—” He stopped suddenly, for Paradise was entering with bacon and eggs. When he had gone out, Kirk leaned over and spoke in a low tense voice.

“Paradise opened that letter from Scotland Yard? How do you know?”

Briefly Charlie told him, and Kirk's face grew gloomy at the tale.

“I suppose I should have been prepared,” he sighed. “The butler is always mixed up in a thing like this. But Paradise! My paragon of all the virtues. Oh well—'twas ever thus. ‘I never loved a young gazelle—' What's the rest of it? What shall I do? Fire him?”