The Chinese Parrot Page 2

  “But, Father,” said the girl, “it’s quite true that I’d like to wear it this winter—”

  She stopped. P. J. Madden’s crimson face had gone purple, and he was tossing his great head. It was a quaint habit he had when opposed, the newspapers said. “The necklace will be delivered to me in New York,” he remarked to Eden, ignoring his daughter and Thorn. “I’ll be in the South for some time—got a place in Pasadena and a ranch on the desert, four miles from Eldorado. Haven’t been down there for quite a while, and unless you look in on these caretakers occasionally they get slack. As soon as I’m back in New York I’ll wire you, and you can deliver the necklace at my office. You’ll have my cheque for the balance within thirty days.”

  “That’s perfectly agreeable to me,” Eden said. “If you’ll wait just a moment I’ll have a bill of sale drawn, outlining the terms. Business is business—as you of all men understand.”

  “Of course,” nodded Madden. The jeweller went out.

  Evelyn Madden rose. “I’ll meet you downstairs, Father. I want to look over their stock of jade.” She turned to Madame Jordan. “You know, one finds better jade in San Francisco than anywhere else.”

  “Yes, indeed,” smiled the older woman. She rose and took the girl’s hands. “Such a lovely throat, my dear—I was saying just before you came—the Phillimore pearls need youth. Well, they’re to have it at last. I hope you will wear them through many happy years.”

  “Why—why, thank you,” said the girl, and went.

  Madden glanced at his secretary. “Wait for me in the car,” he ordered. Alone with Madame Jordan, he looked at her grimly. “You never saw me before, did you?” he inquired.

  “I’m so sorry. Have I?”

  “No—I suppose not. But I saw you. Oh, we’re well along in years now, and it does no harm to speak of these things. I want you to know it will be a great satisfaction to me to own that necklace. A deep wound and an old one is healed this morning.”

  She stared at him. “I don’t understand.”

  “No, of course you don’t. But in the eighties you used to come from the Islands with your family and stop at the Palace Hotel. And I—I was a bell-hop at that same hotel. I often saw you there—I saw you once when you were wearing that famous necklace. I thought you were the most beautiful girl in the world—oh, why not—we’re both—er—”

  “We’re both old now,” she said softly.

  “Yes—that’s what I mean. I worshipped you, but I— I was a bell-hop—you looked through me—you never saw me. A bit of furniture, that’s all I was to you. Oh, I tell you, it hurt my pride—a deep wound, as I said. I swore I’d get on—I knew it, even then. I’d marry you. We can both smile at that now. It didn’t work out—even some of my schemes never worked out. But to-day I own your pearls— they’ll hang about my daughter’s neck. It’s the next best thing. I’ve bought you out. A deep wound in my pride, but healed at last.”

  She looked at him, and shook her head. Once she might have resented this, but not now. “You’re a strange man,” she said.

  “I am what I am,” he answered. “I had to tell you. Otherwise the triumph would not have been complete.”

  Eden came in. “Here you are, Mr Madden. If you’ll sign this—thank you.”

  “You’ll get a wire,” said Madden. “In New York, remember, and nowhere else. Good day.” He turned to Madame Jordan and held out his hand.

  She took it, smiling. “Good-bye. I’m not looking through you now. I see you at last.”

  “And what do you see?”

  “A terribly vain man. But a likable one.”

  “Thank you. I’ll remember that. Good-bye.”

  He left them. Eden sank wearily into a chair. “Well, that’s that. He rather wears one out. I wanted to stick for a higher figure, but it looked hopeless. Somehow I knew he always wins.”

  “Yes,” said Madame Jordan, “he always wins.”

  “By the way, Sally, I didn’t want you to tell that secretary who was bringing the pearls. But you’d better tell me.”

  “Why, of course. Charlie’s bringing them.”

  “Charlie?”

  “Detective-Sergeant Chan, of the Honolulu police. Long ago, in the big house on the beach, he was our number-one boy.”

  “Chan. A Chinese?”

  “Yes. Charlie left us to join the police force, and he’s made a fine record there. He’s always wanted to come to the mainland, so I’ve had it all arranged—his leave of absence, his status as a citizen, everything. And he’s coming with the pearls. Where could I have found a better messenger? Why—I’d trust Charlie with my life—no, that isn’t very precious any more. I’d trust him with the life of the one I loved dearest in the world.”

  “He’s leaving to-night, you said.”

  “Yes—on the President Pierce. It’s due late next Thursday afternoon.”

  The door opened, and a good-looking young man stood on the threshold. His face was lean and tanned, his manner poised and confident, and his smile had just left Miss Chase daydreaming in the outer office. “Oh, I’m sorry, Dad— if you’re busy. Why—look who’s here!”

  “Bob,” cried Madame Jordan. “You rascal—I was hoping to see you. How are you?”

  “Just waking into glorious life,” he told her. “How are you, and all the other young folks out your way?”

  “Fine, thanks. By the way, you dawdled too long over breakfast. Just missed meeting a very pretty girl.”

  “No, I didn’t. Not if you mean Evelyn Madden. Saw her downstairs as I came in—she was talking to one of those exiled Grand Dukes we employ to wait on the customers. I didn’t linger—she’s an old story now. Been seeing her everywhere I went for the past week.”

  “I thought her very charming,” Madame Jordan said.

  “But an iceberg,” objected the boy. “B-r-r—how the wintry winds do blow in her vicinity! However, I guess she comes by it honestly. I passed the great P. J. himself on the stairs.”

  “Nonsense. Have you ever tried that smile of yours on her?”

  “In a way. Nothing special—just the old trade smile. But look here—I’m on to you. You want to interest me in the obsolete institution of marriage.”

  “It’s what you need. It’s what all young men need.”

  “What for?”

  “As an incentive. Something to spur you on to get the most out of life.”

  Bob Eden laughed. “Listen, my dear. When the fog begins to drift in through the Gate, and the lights begin to twinkle on O’Farrell Street—well, I don’t want to be hampered by no incentive, lady. Besides, the girls aren’t what they were when you were breaking hearts.”

  “Rot,” she answered. “They’re very much nicer. The young men are growing silly. Alec, I’ll go along.”

  “I’ll get in touch with you next Thursday,” the elder Eden said. “By the way—I’m sorry it wasn’t more, for your sake.”

  “It was an amazing lot,” she replied. “I’m very happy.” Her eyes filled. “Dear Dad—he’s taking care of me still,” she added, and went quickly out.

  Eden turned to his son. “I judge you haven’t taken a newspaper job yet?”

  “Not yet.” The boy lighted a cigarette. “Of course, the editors are all after me. But I’ve been fighting them off.”

  “Well, fight them off a little longer. I want you to be free for the next two or three weeks. I’ve a little job for you myself.”

  “Why, of course, Dad.” He tossed a match into a priceless K’ang-Hsi vase. “What sort of job? What do I do?”

  “First of all, you meet the President Pierce late next Thursday afternoon.”

  “Sounds promising. I presume a young woman, heavily veiled, comes ashore—”

  “No. A Chinese comes ashore.”

  “A what?”

  “A Chinese detective from Honolulu, carrying in his pocket a pearl necklace worth over a quarter of a million dollars.”

  Bob Eden nodded. “Yes. And after that—”

 
; “After that,” said Alexander Eden thoughtfully, “who can say? That may be only the beginning.”

  Chapter II

  The Detective from Hawaii

  At six o’clock on the following Thursday evening Alexander Eden drove to the Stewart Hotel. All day a February rain had spattered over the town, bringing an early dusk. For a moment Eden stood in the doorway of the hotel, staring at the parade of bobbing umbrellas and at the lights along Geary Street, glowing a dim yellow in the dripping mist. In San Francisco age does not matter—much, and he felt like a boy again as he rode up in the elevator to Sally Jordan’s suite.

  She was waiting for him in the doorway of her sitting-room, lovely as a girl in a soft, clinging dinner-gown of grey. Caste tells, particularly when one has reached the sixties, Eden thought as he took her hand.

  “Ah, Alec,” she smiled. “Come in. You remember Victor?”

  Victor stepped forward eagerly, and Eden looked at him with interest. He had not seen Sally Jordan’s son for some years, and he noted that, at thirty-five, Victor began to show the strain of his giddy career as man about town. His brown eyes were tired, as though they had looked at the bright lights too long, his face a little puffy, his waistline far too generous. But his attire was perfection; evidently his tailor had yet to hear of the failing Phillimore fortunes.

  “Come in, come in,” said Victor gaily. His heart was light, for he saw important money in the offing. “As I understand it, to-night’s the night.”

  “And I’m glad it is,” Sally Jordan added, “I shall be happy to get that necklace off my mind. Too great a burden at my age.”

  Eden sat down, “Bob’s gone to the dock to meet the President Pierce,” he remarked. “I told him to come here at once with your Chinese friend.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Sally Jordan.

  “Have a cocktail,” suggested Victor.

  “No, thanks,” Eden replied. Abruptly he rose and strode about the room.

  Mrs Jordan regarded him with concern. “Has anything happened?” she inquired.

  The jeweller returned to his chair. “Well, yes—something has happened,” he admitted. “Something—well, something rather odd.”

  “About the necklace, you mean?” asked Victor, with interest.

  “Yes,” said Eden. He turned to Sally Jordan. “You remember what Madden told us, Sally? Almost his last words. ‘New York, and nowhere else.’”

  “Why, yes—I remember,” she replied.

  “Well, he’s changed his mind,” frowned the jeweller. “Somehow, it doesn’t seem like Madden. He called me up this morning from his ranch down on the desert, and he wants the necklace delivered there.”

  “On the desert?” she repeated, amazed.

  “Precisely. Naturally, I was surprised. But his instructions were emphatic, and you know the sort of man he is. One doesn’t argue with him. I listened to what he had to say, and agreed. But after he had rung off I got to thinking. What he had said that morning at my office, you know. I asked myself—was it really Madden talking? The voice had an authentic ring—but even so—well, I determined to take no chances.”

  “Quite right, too,” nodded Sally Jordan.

  “So I called him back. I had a devil of a time finding his number, but I finally got it from a business associate of his here in town. Eldorado seven six. I asked for P. J. Madden and I got him. Oh, it was Madden right enough.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He commended me for my caution, but his orders were even more emphatic than before. He said he had heard certain things that made him think it risky to take the necklace to New York at this time. He didn’t explain what he meant by that. But he added that he’d come to the conclusion that the desert was an ideal place for a transaction of this sort. The last place in the world anyone would come looking for a chance to steal a quarter of a million dollar necklace. Of course, he didn’t say all that over the wire, but that was what I gathered.”

  “He’s absolutely right, too,” said Victor.

  “Well, yes—in a way, he is. I’ve spent a lot of time on the desert myself. In spite of the story-writers, it’s the most law-abiding place in America to-day. Nobody ever locks a door, or so much as thinks of thieves. Ask the average rancher about police protection, and he’ll look surprised and murmur something about a sheriff several hundred miles away. But for all that—”

  Eden got up again and walked anxiously about the room. “For all that—or rather, for those very reasons, I don’t like the idea at all. Suppose somebody did want to play a crooked game—what a setting for it! Away out there on that ocean of sand, with only the Joshua-trees for neighbours. Suppose I send Bob down there with your necklace, and he walks into a trap. Madden may not be at that lonely ranch. He may have gone East. He may even, by the time Bob gets there, have gone West—as they said in the War. Lying out on the desert, with a bullet in him—”

  Victor laughed derisively. “Look here, your imagination is running away with you,” he cried.

  Eden smiled. “Maybe it is,” he admitted. “Begins to look as though I were growing old, eh, Sally?” He took out his watch. “But where’s Bob? Ought to be here by now. If you don’t mind, I’ll use your telephone.”

  He called the dock, and came away from the ’phone with a still more worried look. “The President Pierce got in a full forty-five minutes ago,” he announced. “Half an hour should bring them here.”

  “Traffic’s rather thick at this hour,” Victor reminded him.

  “Yes—that’s right too,” Eden agreed. “Well, Sally, I’ve told you the situation. What do you think?”

  “What should she think?” Victor cut in. “Madden’s bought the necklace and wants it delivered on the desert. It isn’t up to us to question his orders. If we do he may get annoyed and call the whole deal off. No, our job is to deliver the pearls, get his receipt, and wait for his cheque.” His puffy white hands twitched eagerly.

  Eden turned to his old friend. “Is that your opinion, Sally?”

  “Why, yes, Alec,” she said. “I fancy Victor is right.” She looked at her son proudly. Eden also looked at him, but with a vastly different expression.

  “Very good,” he answered. “Then there is no time to be lost. Madden is in a great hurry, as he wants to start for New York very soon. I shall send Bob with the necklace at eleven o’clock to-night—but I absolutely refuse to send him alone.”

  “I’ll go along,” Victor offered.

  Eden shook his head. “No,” he objected, “I prefer a policeman, even though he does belong to a force as far away as Honolulu. This Charlie Chan—do you think, Sally, that you could persuade him to go with Bob?”

  She nodded. “I’m sure of it. Charlie would do anything for me.”

  “All right—that’s settled. But where the devil are they? I tell you, I’m worried—”

  The telephone interrupted him, and Madame Jordan went to answer it. “Oh—hello, Charlie,” she said. “Come right up. We’re on the fourth floor—number four nine two. Yes. Are you alone?” She hung up the receiver and turned back into the room. “He says he is alone,” she announced.

  “Alone,” repeated Eden. “Why—I don’t understand that—” He sank weakly into a chair.

  A moment later he looked up with interest at the chubby little man his hostess and her son were greeting warmly at the door. The detective from Honolulu stepped farther into the room, an undistinguished figure in his Western clothes. He had round fat cheeks, an ivory skin, but the thing about him that caught Eden’s attention was the expression in his eyes, a look of keen brightness that made the pupils gleam like black buttons in the yellow light.

  “Alec,” said Sally Jordan, “this is my old friend Charlie Chan. Charlie—Mr Eden.”

  Chan bowed low. “Honours crowd close on this mainland,” he said. “First I am Miss Sally’s old friend, and now I meet Mr Eden.”

  Eden rose. “How do you do?” he said.

  “Have a good crossing, Charlie?” Victor a
sked.

  Chan shrugged. “All time big Pacific Ocean suffer sharp pain down below, and toss about to prove it. Maybe from sympathy, I am in same fix.”

  Eden came forward. “Pardon me if I’m a little abrupt—but my son—he was to meet your ship—”

  “So sorry,” Chan said, regarding him gravely. “The fault must indubitably be mine. Kindly overlook my stupidity, but there was no meeting at dock.”

  “I can’t understand it,” Eden complained again.

  “For some few minutes I linger round gang-board,” Chan continued. “No one ventures to approach out of rainy night. Therefore I engage taxi and hurry to this spot.”

  “You’ve got the necklace?” Victor demanded.

  “Beyond any question,” Chan replied. “Already I have procured room in this hotel, partly disrobing to remove same from money-belt about waist.” He tossed an innocent-looking string of beads down upon the table. “Regard the Phillimore pearls at journey’s end,” he grinned. “And now a great burden drops from my shoulders with a most delectable thud.”

  Eden, the jeweller, stepped forward and lifted the string in his hands. “Beautiful,” he murmured, “beautiful. Sally, we should never have let Madden have them at the price. They’re perfectly matched—I don’t know that I ever saw—” He stared for a moment into the rosy glow of the pearls, then laid them again on the table. “But Bob—where is Bob?”

  “Oh, he’ll be along,” remarked Victor, taking up the necklace. “Just a case of missing each other.”

  “I am the faulty one,” insisted Chan. “Shamed by my blunder—”

  “Maybe,” said Eden. “But—now that you have the pearls, Sally, I’ll tell you something else. I didn’t want to worry you before. This afternoon at four o’clock some one called me—Madden again, he said. But something in his voice—anyhow, I was wary. Pearls were coming on the President Pierce, were they? Yes. And the name of the messenger? Why should I tell him that, I inquired. Well, he had just got hold of some inside facts that made him feel the string was in danger, and he didn’t want anything to happen. He was in a position to help in the matter. He insisted, so I finally said: ‘Very good, Mr Madden. Hang up your receiver and I’ll call you back in ten minutes with the information you want.’ There was a pause, then I heard him hang up. But I didn’t ’phone the desert. Instead I had that call traced, and I found it came from a pay-station in a cigar-store at the corner of Sutter and Kearny Streets.”