Charlie Chan [4] The Black Camel Read online

  THE BLACK CAMEL

  by Earl Derr Biggers

  Published 1929.

  CONTENTS

  I MORNING AT THE CROSSROADS

  II THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH

  III FLOWERS FOR SHELAH FANE

  IV THE CAMEL AT THE GATE

  V THE MAN IN THE OVERCOAT

  VI FIREWORKS IN THE RAIN

  VII THE ALIBI OF THE WATCH

  VIII THE BEACHCOMBER’S SHOES

  IX EIGHTEEN IMPORTANT MINUTES

  X “SHELAH FROM DENNY”

  XI MIDNIGHT IN HONOLULU

  XII NOBODY’S FOOL

  XIII BREAKFAST WITH THE CHANS

  XIV THE PAVILION WINDOW

  XV “TWO JUICES OF THE ORANGE”

  XVI A WORD OF WARNING

  XVII HOW DENNY MAYO DIED

  XVIII THE BELL-MAN’S STORY

  XIX TARNEVERRO’S HELPING HAND

  XX ONE CORNER OF THE VEIL

  XXI THE KING OF MYSTERY

  XXII WHAT THE BEACHCOMBER HEARD

  XXIII THE FATEFUL CHAIR

  XXIV THE VEIL IS LIFTED

  Chapter I

  MORNING AT THE CROSSROADS

  The Pacific is the loneliest of oceans, and travelers across that rolling desert begin to feel that their ship is lost in an eternity of sky and water. But if they are journeying from the atolls of the South Seas to the California coast, they come quite suddenly upon a half-way house. So those aboard the Oceanic had come upon it shortly after dawn this silent July morning. Brown misty peaks rose from the ocean floor, incredible, unreal. But they grew more probable with each moment of approach, until finally the watchers at the rail were thrilled to distinguish the bright green island of Oahu, streaked with darker folds where lurk the valley rains.

  The Oceanic swung about to the channel entrance. There stood Diamond Head, like a great lion - if you want the time-worn simile - crouched to spring. A crouching lion, yes; the figure is plausible up to that point; but as for springing - well, there has never been the slightest chance of that. Diamond Head is a kamaaina of the islands, and has long ago sensed the futility of acting on impulse - of acting, as a matter of fact, at all.

  A woman traveler stood by the starboard rail on the boat deck, gazing at the curved beach of Waikiki and, up ahead, the white walls of Honolulu half hidden in the foliage behind the Aloha Tower. A handsome woman in her early thirties, she had been a source of unending interest to her fellow passengers throughout that hot monotonous voyage from Tahiti. No matter in what remote corner of the world you have been hiding, you would have recognized her at once, for she was Shelah Fane of the pictures, and hers was a fame equal to that of any president or king.

  “A great piece of property,” film salesmen had called her for eight years or more, but now they had begun to shake their heads. “Not so good. She’s slipping.” Golden lads and lasses must, like chimney-sweepers, come to dust, which is something the film stars think about when they can not sleep of nights. Shelah had not been sleeping well of late, and her eyes, as they rested on peaceful Tantalus with its halo of fleecy cloud, were sad and a little wistful.

  She heard a familiar step on the deck behind her and turned. A broad, powerful, keen-looking man was smiling down at her.

  “Oh - Alan,” she said. “How are you this morning?”

  “A bit anxious,” he replied. He joined her at the rail. His was a face that had never known Klieg lights and makeup; it was deeply lined and bronzed by tropic suns. “Journey’s end, Shelah - for you at least,” he added, laying his hand over hers. “Are you sorry?”

  She hesitated a moment. “Rather sorry - yes. I shouldn’t have cared if we had just sailed on and on.”

  “Nor I.” He stared at Honolulu with the bright look of interest that comes naturally to British eyes at sight of a new port, a new anchorage. The ship had come to a stop at the channel entrance, and a launch bearing the customs men and the doctor was speeding toward it.

  “You haven’t forgotten?” The Britisher turned back to Shelah Fane. “This isn’t journey’s end for me. You know I’m leaving you behind here tonight. Sailing out at midnight on this same ship - and I must have your answer before I go.”

  She nodded. “You shall have it before you go. I promise.”

  For a brief moment he studied her face. A marked change had crept over her at the sight of land. She had come back from the little world of the ship to the great world whose adoration she expected and thrived on. No longer calm, languorous, at peace, her eyes were alight with a restless flame, her small foot tapped nervously on the deck. A sudden fear overwhelmed him, a fear that the woman he had known and worshipped these past few weeks was slipping from him for ever.

  “Why must you wait?” he cried. “Give me your answer now.”

  “No, no,” she protested. “Not now. Later to-day.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Were there reporters on the launch, I wonder?”

  A tall, handsome, hatless youth with a mop of blond hair waving in the breeze rushed up to her. His energy was a challenge to the climate.

  “Hello, Miss Fane. Remember me? Met you when you went through here on your way south. Jim Bradshaw, of the Tourist Bureau, press-agent of beauty, contact man for Paradise. Our best aloha - and here’s a lei to prove it.” He hung a fragrant garland about her neck, while the man she had called Alan moved quietly away.

  “You’re awfully kind,” Shelah Fane told him. “Of course I remember you. You seemed so glad to see me. You do now.”

  He grinned. “I am - and besides, that’s my job. I’m the door-mat on the threshold of Hawaii, with ‘welcome’ written all over me. Island hospitality - I have to make sure that my advertisements all came true. But in your case, I - well, believe me, it isn’t any strain.” He saw that she looked expectantly beyond him. “Say, I’m sorry, but all the newspaper men seem to be lingering in the arms of Morpheus. However, you can’t blame them. Lulled as they are by the whisper of the soft invigorating trade-winds in the coco-palms - I’ll finish that later. Just tell me what’s doing, and I’ll see that it gets into the papers. Did you complete the big South Sea picture down in Tahiti?”

  “Not quite,” she answered. “We left a few sequences to be shot in Honolulu. We can live here so much more comfortably, and the backgrounds, you know, are every bit as beautiful -“

  “Do I know it?” the boy cried. “Ask me. Exotic flowers, blossoming trees, verdant green hills, blue sunny skies with billowy white clouds - the whole a dream of the unchanging tropics with the feel of spring. How’s that? I wrote it yesterday.”

  “Sounds pretty good to me,” Shelah laughed.

  “You’ll be some time in Honolulu, Miss Fane?”

  She nodded. “I’ve sent for my servants,” she told him. “They’ve taken a house for me on the beach. I stifle in hotels - and then, too, people are always staring at me. I hope it’s a large house -“

  “It is,” Bradshaw cut in. “I was out there yesterday. They’re all set and waiting for you. I saw your butler - and your secretary, Julie O’Neill. Speaking of that, some day I’d like to ask you where you find secretaries like her.”

  Shelah smiled. “Oh, Julie’s much more than a secretary. Sort of a daughter - almost. Though of course that’s absurd to say, for we’re nearly the same age.”

  “Is that so?” said the boy - to himself.

  “Julie’s mother was a dear friend of mine, and when she died four years ago, I took the child in. One must do a good deed occasionally,” she added, modestly looking down at the deck.

  “Sure,” agreed Bradshaw. “If we don’t we’s never be tapped for the Boy Scouts. Julie was telling me how kind you’ve been -“

  “I’ve
been amply repaid,” the star assured him. “Julie is a darling.”

  “Isn’t she?” replied the boy heartily. “If I had my rhyming dictionary along, I’d give you a good description of the girl right here and now.”

  Shelah Fane looked at him suddenly. “But Julie got in only two days ago -“

  “Yes - and so did I. Made a flying trip to Los Angeles, and came back on the same boat with her. The best crossing I ever had. You know - moonlight, silver seas, a pretty girl -“

  “I must look into this,” said Shelah Fane.

  Two of the passengers joined them: a weary, disillusioned-looking man whose costume suggested Hollywood Boulevard, and a dashing girl of twenty. Shelah yielded to the inevitable. “Mr. Bradshaw, of the Tourist Bureau,” she explained. “This is Miss Diana Dixon, who is in my new picture, and Huntley Van Horn, my leading man.”

  Miss Dixon lost no time. She sparkled instantly. “Honolulu is an adorable place. I’m always so thrilled to come here - such beauty -“

  “Never mind,” cut in the star. “Mr. Bradshaw knows all that. None better.”

  “Always happy to have my ideas confirmed,” bowed the boy. “Especially from such a charming source.” He turned to the man. “Mr. Van Horn - I’ve seen you in the films.”

  Van Horn smiled cynically. “So, I believe, have the natives of Borneo. Has Shelah told you anything about our latest epic?”

  “Very little,” Bradshaw replied. “Got a good part?”

  “It always has been a good part,” Van Horn said. “I trust my rendering of the role will not impair its future usefulness. If it does, many of our leading studios will have to close. I’m a beachcomber, you see, and I’ve sunk lower and lower -“

  “You would,” nodded the star.

  “I’m wallowing in the depths, and quite comfortable, thank you,” went on Van Horn, “when - if you can believe it - I’m saved. Absolutely rehabilitated, you know, through the love of this primitive, brown-skinned child.”

  “Which child?” asked Bradshaw blankly. “Oh, you mean Miss Fane. Well, it sounds like a great plot - but don’t tell me, don’t tell me.” He turned to the star. “I’m glad you’re going to take a few shots in Honolulu. That sort of thing makes us very happy at the Tourist Bureau. I must run along - one or two other celebrities on the ship. Fellow named Alan Jaynes - very wealthy -“

  “I was talking with him when you came up,” Shelah said.

  “Thanks. I’ll go after him. Diamond mines - South Africa - he sounds good. We’re strong for the arts in Hawaii, you know, but as for money - well, when that appears in the harbor, then we really get out the flags. See you all later.”

  He disappeared down the deck, and the three picture people moved over to the rail.

  “Here comes Val,” said Huntley Van Horn, “looking like the man who wrote the tropics.”

  He referred to Val Martino, director of Shelah’s latest picture, who was rapidly approaching along the deck. He was a short, stocky, gray-haired man, dressed in a suit of immaculate white silk. Above a flaming red tie loomed his broad heavy face. It was almost the same shade as the tie, suggesting that Mr. Martino had never concerned himself with such trivial matters as blood pressure and diet.

  “Hello,” he said. “Well, here we are. Thank heaven, Tahiti has been attended to. From this on, I’ll take my tropics after they’ve been ruined by American plumbing. Was that a newspaper man you were talking with, Shelah?”

  “Not precisely. A boy from the Tourist Bureau.”

  “I hope you laid it on thick about the new picture,” he continued. “You know, well need all the publicity we can get.”

  “Oh, let’s forget the picture,” returned the star a bit wearily.

  The Oceanic was drawing slowly up to the pier, on which a surprisingly meager crowd was waiting. Shelah Fane gazed at the group with interest and some disappointment. She had rather hoped for a vast throng of schoolgirls in white, bearing triumphal leis. But this had happened when she went through before; she could not expect history to repeat itself - and it was, too, only seven in the morning.

  “There’s Julie,” she cried suddenly. “There - near the end of the pier. See - she’s waving.” She returned Julie’s signal.

  “Who’s that beside her?” Van Horn inquired. “Good lord - it looks like Tarneverro.”

  “It is Tarneverro,” Miss Dixon said.

  “What’s he doing here?” the leading man wondered.

  “Perhaps he’s here because I sent for him,” said Shelah Fane.

  A quiet black-garbed maid stood at her side. “What is it, Anna?”

  “The customs men, madam. They’re going through everything. You’d better come. They want talking to, it seems.”

  “I’ll talk to them,” said the star firmly, and followed the maid into her suite.

  “Well, what do you know about that?” Van Horn remarked. “She’s sent for that phony fortune-teller to come all the way from Hollywood -“

  “What do you mean, phony?” cut in Miss Dixon. “Tarneverro is simply wonderful. He’s told me the most amazing things about my past - and about my future, too. I never take a step without consulting him - and neither does Shelah.”

  Martino shook his great head impatiently. “It’s a rotten scandal,” he cried, “the way most of you Hollywood women have gone mad over voodoo men. Telling them all your secrets - some day one of them will publish his memoirs, and then where will you be? A few of us try to lift the industry to a dignified plane - but, oh, lord - what’s the use?”

  “No use, my dear fellow,” said Van Horn. He looked across the intervening stretch of water at the tall lean figure of the fortune-teller. “Poor Shelah - there’s something rather touching in such faith as this. I presume she wants to ask Tarneverro whether or not she shall marry Alan Jaynes.”

  “Of course she does,” Miss Dixon nodded. “She wants to know if she’ll be happy with him. She cabled Tarneverro the day after Jaynes proposed. Why not? Marriage is a serious step.”

  Martino shrugged. “If she’d only ask me, I’d read her future quick enough. She’s nearly through in pictures, and she ought to know it. Her contract expires in six months, and I happen to know - in strict confidence, you understand - it won’t be renewed. I can see her taking a long journey by water then - going abroad to make a picture - the beginning of the end. She’d better grab this diamond king quick before he changes his mind. But no - she’s fooling round with a back-parlor crystal-gazer. However, that’s like you people. You won’t grow up.” He walked away.

  The formalities of the port were quickly ended, and the Oceanic docked. Shelah Fane was the first down the plank, to be received by the eager arms of her secretary. Julie was young, impetuous, unspoiled; her joy was genuine.

  “The house is all ready, Shelah. It’s a knockout. Jessop is there, and we’ve found a Chinese cook who’s a magician. The car’s waiting.”

  “Really, dear?”

  The star looked up into the dark deep-set eyes of the man at Julie’s side. “Tarneverro - what a relief to see you here. But I knew I could depend on you.”

  “Always,” said the fortune-teller gravely.

  What the crowd lacked in numbers, it made up in noise and confusion. Anna, the maid, was overwhelmed with boxes and bags, and seeing this, Tarneverro went to help her. There was no condescension in his manner; he treated her with the same courtly grace he would have shown the star.

  Alan Jaynes and Bradshaw appeared on the scene. The latter went over to greet Julie with as much warmth as though he had just arrived after a long hard voyage from some distant port. Jaynes stepped quickly to Shelah’s side.

  “I shall be damnably anxious,” he said. “This afternoon - may I come then?”

  “Of course,” she nodded. “Oh - this is Julie - you’ve heard about her. Julie, please tell him the number of our house. We’re just beyond the Grand Hotel, on Kalakaua Avenue.”

  Julie told him, and he turned back to Shelah. “I shan’t keep you -”
he began.

  “Just a moment,” said the star. “I want to introduce an old friend from Hollywood. Tarneverro - will you come here, please?”

  The fortune-teller handed a couple of bags to Shelah’s chauffeur, and came at once. Jaynes looked at him with some surprise.

  “Tarneverro - I want you to meet Alan Jaynes,” the star said.

  They shook hands. “Glad to know you,” remarked the Britisher. As he gazed into the other man’s face, he experienced a sudden sensation of deep dislike. Here was power; not the power of muscle, which he had himself and could understand; but something more subtle, something uncanny, inexplicable and oddly disturbing. “Sorry, but I must dash along now,” he added.

  He disappeared into the crowd, and Julie led them to the waiting car. Tarneverro, it appeared, was stopping at the Grand, and Shelah offered to drop him there.

  Presently they were bowling along through Honolulu’s streets, under a flaming blue sky. The town was waking to another leisurely day. Men of many races languidly bestirred themselves; at the corner of King Street a boy offered the morning paper, and a fat brown-skinned policeman lazily turned a stop-go sign to let them pass. Shelah Fane, like all passengers newly descended from a ship at this port, felt rather dazzled by the brightness and the color.

  “Oh, I shall enjoy this,” she cried. “I’ve never stayed here longer than one day before. What a relief to be out of the South Seas.”

  “But they’re romantic, aren’t they?” Julie asked.

  “The illusions of youth,” the star shrugged. “I shan’t destroy them. Only don’t mention Tahiti to me again as long as I live.”

  “Not quite like the books,” Tarneverro nodded. He sat, mysterious even in that bright world, at Shelah’s side. “I discovered that for myself, long ago. You’re staying here for some time, I take it?”

  “A month, I hope,” the star answered. “A couple of weeks still to go on the picture, and then, I trust, a fortnight’s rest. I want it badly, Tarneverro. I’m tired - tired.”

  “You need not tell me that,” he said. “I have eyes.”

  He had, indeed, eyes; eyes that were cold and piercing and rather disquieting. The car sped on past the old royal palace and the judiciary building, and turned off into Kalakaua Avenue.