Fifty Candles (7 page)

“But before you arrest him,” pleaded Drew, “there are so many matters still unaccounted for!”

The voice of Barnes was very cool and unfriendly.

“I recognize your interest,” he said. “If there is any clue I have not considered—any matter you think I should investigate further—”

Mrs. MacShane came into the room, bearing a tray of steaming coffee cups. She placed her burden on a table.

“I—I hardly know,” stammered Drew. “I'm not criticizing you, Sergeant, but ... there are the fifty candles. Yes—by heaven—the fifty candles! There's mystery in them. Whose birthday is this?”

Mrs. MacShane suddenly lifted her head and came over into the center of the group.

“I know whose birthday it is,” she said.

“You know?” cried Drew. “Then in heaven's name, tell us!”

“Your father explained it to me tonight,” the old woman went on. “He come into my kitchen with the fifty little pink candles in his hands, an’ he asked me to put them on the cake. ‘If I may make so bold, sir,’ I says to him, ‘whose birthday is it today?’ An’ he says to me, ‘It's the Chinaman's,’ he says. ‘It's Hung Chin-chung's.'”

“The Chinaman's!” Mark Drew cried.

“But why should my husband give a birthday party for Hung Chin-chung?” asked Carlotta Drew, amazed.

“Just what I asks myself, ma'am,” Mrs. MacShane went on, “but Mr. Drew didn't tell me. He just repeated that it was Hung's birthday. ‘Yes, Mrs. MacShane,’ he says to me, ‘Hung was born fifty years ago today in a little house near some queen's yard in Honolulu—out on that beach—what is it now, the one there's all the songs about? Oh, to be sure! ‘out on the beach at Waikiki.'”

The beach at Waikiki! Mrs. MacShane's unexpected bit of evidence had a fantastic ring. I had never been to Honolulu, but instantly I heard the tinkle of ukeleles, the murmur of breakers pouring in over a coral reef. I saw coconut palms outlined against a vivid sky, the brown boys riding in, erect and slender, on their surf-boards. By what stretch of the imagination could all this be connected with the murder of Henry Drew?

I looked about that strange little group gathered in the gloomy room of the house on Nob Hill. Evidently they were all asking themselves the same question. Carlotta Drew and Doctor Parker exchanged a glance of surprise. In Mary Will's eyes, I saw the light of romantic memory; stopping off on her way to China, she had known Waikiki Beach in the moonlight when the Southern Cross hung low. Detective Barnes stood blinking at Mrs. MacShane with what was, for him, a rather stupid expression. Suddenly Mark Drew leaped to his feet and began excitedly to pace the floor. Barnes turned toward him.

“Well, Mr. Drew—and where does this get us?” he inquired.

“I don't know,” said Drew. “But it may get us quite a distance before we're finished.”

“I can't follow you,” the detective replied. “Though it is a rather startling bit of news, I'll admit that. The birthday of Hung Chin-chung! Born fifty years ago in Honolulu. Your father thinks so much of him he decides to give him a birthday party. He goes to a lot of trouble to get candles, and—say, how long was the Chinaman with your family?'’

“Twenty years,” said Mark Drew.

“That explains it,” Barnes replied. “Twenty years! If we could keep a servant twenty years, we wouldn't stop at a birthday party. We'd give him a deed to our house and lot. Well, Mr. Drew gives the Chinaman a party; an eccentric thing to do, but then, he always was—er—different. And what of it? We can't argue that Hung picked this occasion to kill his master. Unless he was dissatisfied with the thickness of the frosting on the cake or peeved because Mr. Drew made a mistake about his age.” The hour was late, and Sergeant Barnes seemed a bit peeved himself. He turned again to me. “No,” he said firmly, “it all comes back to this young man. He had a grievance not only against Henry Drew, but against the other murdered man, Doctor Su Yen Hun. His knife has been found. He was caught running away in the fog.”

Mary Will was on her feet facing the detective, her eyes flashing, her cheeks aflame.

“How dare you!” she cried. “How dare you insinuate that Mr. Winthrop is capable of killing a man! You should know better.”

“How should I?” asked Barnes.

“Why—just by looking at him,” said Mary Will.

Barnes smiled.

“My dear young lady, I'm mighty sorry for you,” he said, “but all the evidence—”

“Once more,” put in Mark Drew, “I'm going to ask you to wait.”

Barnes said nothing, but turned and stared at him with annoyance plainly written on his face. Mary Will sat down again, and I gave her hand a grateful squeeze. Mark Drew went over to his father's wife.

“As you know,” he said, “I have been out of touch with my family for the past five years. During that time what should you say was the nature of the relations between Hung and my father? Were they as friendly as ever?”

Carlotta Drew stared at him coldly. She had not forgotten his recent snub of her; she never would.

“Your father and Hung were master and servant,” she said. “That's all I know. I made no effort to pry into your father's private affairs. I felt that the details would be too—unsavory.”

“Mr. Winthrop?” Drew turned to me “You said a while ago that there were only two men who bad access to your luggage in the stateroom of the China boat—my father and Doctor Parker. On second thought—wasn't there one other?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “It had not occurred to me before, but Chin-chung was frequently there. He spent the morning there today, packing your father's bags.”

“Nonsense!” said Detective Barnes decisively. “This birthday party is a false lead. If it means anything at all, it means that Mr. Drew was fond of the Chinaman. And it must mean, too, that the Chinaman was fond of the old man.”

“Fond of him?” repeated Mark Drew. “He ought to be, that's sure. My father saved his life!”

The detective stared at Mark Drew in surprise.

“Saved his life? When? Where?”

“Twenty years ago in Honolulu. Let's see—this is the fifth of December ... yes, of course, twenty years ago to a day!”

Barnes sank wearily into a chair.

“Well, if you can make it short and snappy—I suppose I ought to hear about it,” he said. “Though if the old man saved Hung's life, it doesn't stand to reason that the Chinaman would—oh, well, go ahead.”

Mark Drew leaned against a table and folded his arms.

“I'll try to be brief,” he began. “As I say, it happened twenty years ago, in December, 1898. I was a kid of twelve then. I'd gone to the Islands with my father aboard his bark, the
Edna-May
; he owned a fleet of sailing vessels that made Honolulu from this port. Every detail of that trip stands out in my memory, clear-cut to this day. And no wonder, for I was an imaginative boy, a great reader, and I was standing for the first time on the threshold of the South Seas.

“The day of which I speak was to be our last in port. Late in the morning my father invited me to go ashore with him for lunch. We went from the dock to King Street, and I was all eyes, drinking in Honolulu for the last time. Even in those days it was the melting-pot of the Pacific; a dozen races mingled on the pavement. But you don't want a description of the town. However, the picture returns and thrills me even now. We turned off King Street, into Fort. In front of a building that housed the United States District Court, we met a man named Harry Childs coming out. Childs was a lawyer out there, somewhat shady I imagine, but useful to my father, who traveled much in the shade himself—I make no secret of it. Childs carried a few law books under his arm, as I recall, and he looked warm and depressed and rather sullen.

“'Well, Harry,’ my father said, ‘how did your case come out?’

“'Lost it, of course,’ said Childs. ‘That man Smith has it in for me. Oh, well, it's all in the day's work. But I'm sorry for poor Chang See. Shipped back to China—they'll put him on the
Nile
tonight. It's his death sentence, Mr. Drew!’

“'Too bad,’ my father said. ‘As I told you, I could have used him. Hung Chin-chung died on the way over—there's all his clothes waiting for someone to wear them—and his name too. I could have landed your man in San Francisco with no trouble at all. Too bad.’

“Childs looked at my father in a queer way.

“'When are you sailing?’ he asked.

“'About six,’ my father said.

“'The
Nile
sails for China about dusk,’ Childs said. ‘If I were you I'd wait until it goes out. I'd wait—about an hour—or as long as may be necessary.’

“'I'll do that, Harry,’ said my father. He smiled.

“'You might have a visitor,’ Childs said and went on his way down the hot street. My father and I went to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and had lunch.

“Of course, at the time I had no idea what this conversation between Childs and my father meant. I remember standing that evening at the rail of the
Edna May
just before we sailed. The quick tropic dusk had fallen; Tantalus and Punch Bowl Hill were blotted out. From the row of shacks along the water-front came yellow light and laughter and the voices of men singing. My father happened along and ordered me to bed. He was robbing me of those last precious moments in port, and I resented it, but I dared not disobey. I went to his cabin and climbed to the upper berth, which was mine. In about half an hour the
Edna May
got under way. My wonderful journey was entering its final stage—”

“Please,” broke in Detective Barnes, glancing at his watch.

“I know,” said Mark Drew, smiling. “I'll hurry on. Pretty soon my father came to the cabin, sat down at his table and began to look over some papers. I dozed off—and woke up with a start. A lean, solemn Chinaman was standing just inside the cabin door. It was my first sight of the man whose birthday my father was celebrating here tonight.

“'You are Chang See,’ said my father, ‘and the
Nile
sailed without you.'”

“The Chinaman bowed, and something resembling a smile flitted across his impassive face.

“'I see you've got dry things,’ my father went on. ‘Hung's clothes suit you all right, eh?’ Again the Chinaman bowed. ‘Well—listen to me,’ said my father. ‘I have called you Chang See for the last time. From now on you are Hung Chin-chung , the same servant I took with me when I left the Gate.’

“'I understand,’ said Hung—I may as well call him that, for I have never known him by any other name. He spoke good English, even then. ‘You have saved my worthless life,’ he went on and drifted off into a flowery sentence intended as an expression of gratitude. My father cut him short.

“'Yes,’ he said, ‘I've saved your life. And I expect something in return.’ Of course he did. I was only twelve, but I knew he would, even then.

“'Anything you ask—’ began the Chinaman.

“'I want a confidential servant—one I can trust absolutely,’ my father told him. ‘A man who will stick by me day and night, make my interests his, guard my safety. There are certain matters ... my life has been threatened. Lie down, Mark, and go to sleep!’ he added sharply, for I was leaning over the side of my bunk, wide-eyed. ‘I've given you your life,’ he finished to the Chinaman. ‘Now I ask that you devote it to me.’

“Hung—or whatever his name was—thought for a moment. To his Oriental mind a promise was a promise and not to be lightly given, even under such extraordinary circumstances. I am trying to be brief, Sergeant Barnes. I'll sum up the discussion that followed in a few words. Hung was willing to serve my father—but for how long? He said something about returning to China to spend his last days there. There should be a limit, he thought. After a time they set it at twenty years. This was the fifth of December, the anniversary of Hung's birth at Waikiki thirty years before.

From that moment on to his fiftieth birthday, he agreed to do as my father wished.

“I was once again pretending to be asleep. My father came over and shook me. ‘Wake up, Mark,’ he said. ‘This is Hung Chin-chung. He has agreed to act as my servant for the next twenty years, if we both live that long. My friends will be his friends, my enemies his enemies; he will guard my life as his own, and every request I make of him, no matter how trivial, he will comply with. Is that right, Hung?'”

“Hung promised on his honor and the sacred honor of his ancestors.”

“'When he reaches his fiftieth birthday, I will release him from his promise,’ my father said. ‘You are a witness, Mark. Don't forget.’ He turned to the Chinaman. ‘Now, go to your bunk. I'll have a talk with you in the morning.’

“How well Hung kept his word I know probably best of all. He became my father's shadow. Into what unsavory paths his devotion led him, I don't know. My father's activities were many—there was talk of the opium trade in those days. No doubt Hung was a useful go-between. Twice he saved my father's life when it was attempted by revengeful members of Hung's own race.

“Today, on his fiftieth birthday, as you can see, his long period of slavery—there is no other word—was ended. I know my father had grown very fond of Hung, and there was in his nature an odd sentimental streak that no doubt led him to hit on the birthday party as a fitting climax to all those years of devotion. Probably it was not so much to honor Hung that he lit the fifty candles on the cake; he wanted to call the attention of the world to the remarkable loyalty that he had inspired and, in honoring Hung, honor himself.” Mark Drew paused. “That's all, Sergeant. I'm afraid I haven't helped you much, at that.”

“Very interesting, Mr. Drew,” said the detective. “But it gets us nowhere—nowhere at all. It establishes beyond question that Hung was under an obligation to your father, that he was always very devoted to him—”

“Yes,” said Mark Drew sharply. “But you forget that the obligation has been paid. Today Hung was released from his promise—he was a free man again. What has been going on in his mind these twenty years? You and I don't know—we can't know. What white man could?”

“You mean to say,” Doctor Parker put in, with what seemed to me a quite hopeful look in his eyes, “that you think Hung's first act as a free man was to murder his benefactor?”

“There's a bare chance of it,” Drew replied. He turned again to the detective. “After all, there is a very thin line dividing gratitude and hate. If you saved my life tonight I should be grateful. Tomorrow, next week, possibly next year, I should still be grateful. But after twenty years—if you had reminded me of it every day—isn't it quite likely—”