"Mr. Winterslip, we pursue similar paths. The honor of your company in my humble vehicle would pleasure me deeply." Once in the car on the deserted street, the Chinaman spoke again. "The page ripped from guest book, the brooch lying silent on floor. Both are now followed into presence of immovable stone wall. We sway about, looking for other path."
"Then you think those two were telling the truth?" John Quincy asked.
"As to that, I do not venture to remark," Chan replied.
"How about those psychic powers?" inquired John Quincy.
Chan smiled. "Psychic powers somewhat drowsy just now," he admitted. "Need prodding into wakefulness."
"Look here," said John Quincy, "there's no need for you to take me out to Waikiki. Just drop me on King Street, and I'll get a trolley."
"Making humble suggestion," Chan replied, "is it not possible you will accompany me to newspaper rooms, where we set out on different path?"
John Quincy looked at his watch; it was ten minutes past eleven. "I'll be glad to, Charlie," he said.
Chan beamed with pleasure. "Greatly honored by your friendly manner," he remarked. He turned into a side street. "Newspaper of this nature burst out at evening, very quiet now. Somebody may loiter in rooms, if we have happy luck."
They had just that, for the building of the evening journal was open, and in the city room an elderly man with a green shade over his eyes hammered on a typewriter.
"Hello, Charlie," he said cordially.
"Hello, Pete. Mr. Winterslip of Boston, I have all the honor to present this Pete Mayberry. For many years he explore water-front ferreting for whatever news are hiding there."
The elderly man rose and removed his eye-shade, revealing a pleasant twinkle. He was evidently interested to meet a Winterslip.
"We pursue," continued Chan, "one copy of paper marked June sixteen, present year. If you have no inclination for objecting."
Mayberry laughed. "Go to it, Charlie. You know where the files are."
Chan bowed and disappeared. "Your first appearance out here, Mr. Winterslip?" inquired the newspaper man.
John Quincy nodded. "I've only just got here," he said, "but I can see it's a rather intriguing place."
"You've said it," smiled Mayberry. "Forty-six years ago I came out from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to visit relatives. I've been in the newspaper game here ever since—most of the time on the water-front. There's a life-work for you!"
"You must have seen some changes," remarked John Quincy inanely.
Mayberry nodded. "For the worse. I knew Honolulu in the glamourous days of its isolation, and I've watched it fade into an eighth carbon copy of Babbittville, U. S. A. The water-front's just a water-front now—but once, my boy! Once it oozed romance at every pore."
Chan returned, carrying a paper. "Much to be thankful for," he said to Mayberry. "Your kindness are quite overwhelming—"
"Anything doing?" asked Mayberry eagerly.
Chan shook his head. "Presently speaking, no. Our motions just now must be blackly clouded in secrecy."
"Well," said the reporter, "when it comes time to roll them clouds away, don't forget me."
"Impossibility," protested Chan. "Good night."
They left Mayberry bending over his typewriter, and at Chan's suggestion went to the All American Restaurant, where the Chinaman ordered two cups of "your inspeakable coffee." While they waited to be served, he spread out on the table his complete copy of the newspaper, and laying the torn page on its counterpart, carefully removed the upper right-hand corner.
"The missing fragment," he explained. For a time he studied it thoughtfully, and finally shook his head. "I apprehend nothing to startle," he admitted. He handed it across the table. "If you will condescend greatly—"
John Quincy took the bit of newspaper. On one side was the advertisement of a Japanese dealer in shirtings who wrote his own publicity. Any one might carry off, he said, six yards for the price of five. And in case the buyer cried loudly in amaze, how can do, it was a matter he was happy to explain. John Quincy laughed aloud.
"Ah," said Chan, "you are by rights mirthful. Kiku-chi, purveyor of shirting cloth, seize on grand English language and make it into idiotic jumble. On that side are nothing to detain us. But humbly hinting you reverse the fragment—"
John Ouincy reversed it. The other side was a part of the shipping page. He read it carefully, news of sailings and arrivals, there would be places for five passengers to the Orient on the Shinyo Maru, leaving Wednesday, the Wilhelmina was six hundred and forty miles east of Makupuu Point, the brig Mary Jane from the Treaty Ports——
John Quincy started, and caught his breath. A small item in tiny print had met his eye.
"Among the passengers who will arrive here on the Sonoma from Australia a week from Saturday are: Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Macan Brade, of Calcutta—"
John Quincy sat staring at the unwashed window of the All American Restaurant. His mind went back to the deck of the President Tyler, to a lean old missionary telling a tale of a bright morning on Apiang, a grave under a palm tree. "Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Macan Brade, of Calcutta." He heard again the missionary's high-pitched voice. "A callous brute, a pirate and adventurer. Tom Brade, the blackbirder."
But Brade had been buried in a long pine box on Apiang. Even at the Crossroads of the Pacific, his path and that of Dan Winterslip could hardly have crossed again.
The waiter brought the coffee. Chan said nothing, watching John Quincy closely. Finally the Chinaman spoke: "You have much to tell me."
John Quincy looked around quickly, he had forgotten Chan's presence.
His dilemma was acute. Must he here in this soiled restaurant in a far town reveal to a Chinaman that ancient blot on the Winterslip name? What would Aunt Minerva say? Well, only a short time ago she had remarked that she was resolved to have no more secrets from the police. However, there was family pride—
John Quincy's eye fell on the Japanese waiter. What were those lines from The Mikado? "But family pride must be denied and mortified and set aside."
The boy smiled. "Yes, Charlie," he admitted, "I have much to tell you." And over the inspeakable coffee of the All American Restaurant he repeated to the detective the story the Reverend Frank Upton had told on the President Tyler.
Chan beamed. "Now," he cried, "we arrive in the neighborhood of something! Brade the blackbirder, master Maid of Shiloh boat, on which Mr. Dan Winterslip are first officer—"
"But Brade was buried on Apiang," protested John Quincy.
"Yes, indeed. And who saw him, pardon me? Was it then an unsealed box? Oh, no!" Chan's eyes were dancing. "Please recollect something more. The strong box of ohia wood. Initials on it are T. M. B. Mysteries yet, but we move, we advance!"
"I guess we do," admitted John Quincy.
"This much we grasp," Chan continued. "Dan
