The second man slowly worked his way back along the row, stepped onto the path and headed for the watcher at the boathouse. The two men spoke briefly and disappeared around the building.
My legs were beginning to protest against my heel-squatting position. I lowered myself to the ground and tried to massage some circulation back into them. Fifteen minutes went by and the pair didn’t reappear. I cursed the wind break that hid the narrow beach from my gaze. Farther down the beach, two husky Orientals in bathing trunks and carrying fishing spears, with goggles dangling from their necks, crossed a sandy spit going away from me. They would have had to pass the boathouse. I wondered if they had seen my field workers. Then it dawned on me. They were the two field workers! The windbreak had screened their departure and the difference of attire had almost fooled me. I could have kicked myself. I should have been able to tell that they were phony field workers when they were right under my nose. It was a small thing but it was the kind of mistake I get paid for not making. It was simply that their backs were too straight and they carried themselves with an arrogance that was not natural to the older and eternally weary field worker. I waited to be sure. Nobody appeared and I had the vast expanse all to myself.
I found the two coolie outfits, plus a .38 Smith & Wesson and a shiny Yale padlock key, stuffed in the hollow trunk of an ancient hau tree. The heavy padlock yielded easily. I swung open the wide door of the boathouse, slipped inside and lowered the patented latch. The dark interior smelled strongly of brine and creosote. A pile of dry-rotting throw-nets were heaped in a corner near the door. An inverted dinghy hung under the darkened rafters, its paint and seams in good condition. A pair of collapsible aluminum oars leaned in one rear corner, there was a barrel with a lid on it in the other. I lifted the lid and discovered an outboard motor inside. Its tank was full of gas and it was ready to go. I pulled the pile of rotting throw-nets out of the corner. Nothing was concealed either in or under them.
I got down on my hands and knees and worked my way across the slatted floor. My bruised knees began crying for mercy almost immediately, but it wasn’t until I reached the rear corner with the barrel in it that I found what I was looking for. I rolled the barrel aside, slipped my fingers through the slats and heaved. The corner section of the floor came up easily. Instead of an expanse of sand that one might normally expect to find beneath the flooring of a boathouse, there was a zinc-covered trap door about a foot beneath the floor level. I lifted the rope handle and looked down into a square concrete well. I could not tell how deep this pseudo well was because from wall to wall to within a couple of feet of the surface were duplicates of the little sealed tin that had been planted in my cottage.
I had what I wanted. At current market prices there was at least half a million dollars’ worth of heroin in the cache. I wiped the nervous sweat off my face onto my coat sleeve, let the trap door fall, put back the floor section and rolled the barrel back in the corner. I arranged the throw-nets in their original position and took a last look around. I lifted the latch, slid outside and made the padlock fast. Back at the hau tree, I put the key back in the dungarees, replaced everything as I remembered it, covered my traces as well as I could and headed for my car. Except for making an accurate mileage check back to the township limits of Kaneohe, the ride to Honolulu was uneventful and my mind was free to speculate.
Anne Seccombe wasn’t in evidence when I got back to The Bookshop. I asked the little clerk if Walter Kent was around.
“Yes,” she smiled. “He just came in.” She went back to his office, knocked and went inside. She came out in a moment and beckoned me in.
Kent’s lean flushed face had a drawn look but his smile was affable enough. He waved me to a chair. “I hear you came to see me this morning. Sorry I wasn’t in.”
I nodded slowly, examining his face.
“Well,” he raised his eyes quizzically, “what did you want to see me about?”
“You know I’m working on a job for Allan Norris, don’t you?”
“So Norris said last night.”
“There are some things about the job that have turned out to be pretty screwy,” I said, “and I need some help. Naturally, since I can’t tell you anything about the ease, I couldn’t blame you for refusing to answer questions. I hope you will answer them, though.”
Kent’s eyes narrowed and his face grew thoughtful. “Ask the questions and then we’ll talk about the answers,” he said.
“What were you and the lawyer. Carter MacDonald, doing at Norris’ house last night?”
He smiled slightly. “It was a minor business matter of no concern to anybody but Norris and myself. It couldn’t possibly have any bearing on your investigation. Unless, of course,” he grinned, “you’re investigating my credit standing?”
I shook my head. “It’s funny though,” I mused out loud, “that you and Norris should...” I trailed off.
Kent’s face clouded over. “That Norris and I should be on speaking terms after my somewhat involved marital mix-ups with his daughter?”
I nodded. “Something like that.”
“Jennifer and I both were very strongly individualistic,” Kent said slowly, “and that’s about all we had in common.” He shrugged. “It would take a psychiatrist to tell you what was really wrong with Jennifer, but a lot of the blame can be laid at her father’s door. Norris is a swell person and high-minded as hell but, as you’ve probably noticed, he likes to be the one to give the orders. I wouldn’t say he wholeheartedly approves of me but he’s too intelligent to blame me strictly for the mess we made of our marriage. Or maybe I should say ‘marriages.’ ” He grinned.
I grinned with him and asked: “You still won’t tell me about the business matter you discussed with him?”
“Hell, yes. I’ll tell you.” Kent was irritated. “Norris owns some land. I want to buy it. Does that have anything to do with your investigation?”
“Where is the land?”
Kent continued to look exasperated. “All right, here’s the whole story: I own a little hideaway on the other side of the island. It’s surrounded by fertile taro fields which Norris owns and rents much too cheaply to small farmers. I want to buy it up, drain it and plant papayas. There’s a good market for canned papaya juice and it’s getting bigger all the time.”
I looked around. “You going to be a papaya farmer and run this place, too?”
“I want to give up the bookstore. I’ve done well with it in the past, but I believe that money is going to get tight in the next few years. When it does, the first thing people are going to stop buying is books.”
“Sounds logical.” I got up and wandered over to the sectional bookcases lining the side wall. They were glassed-in and each section had a separate lock. The titles of the books were innocuous enough and the subjects ranged from ballistics to sugar technology. But most of the books had dust jackets. I turned back to Kent. “I can see why you want to get out of such a precarious business as this.”