Storer, red in the face, half rose from his chair, then sat down again. “I will not allow the insinuation,” he spluttered. “True, a few weeks later, Mansford was robbed of a piece of presentation gold plate—”
“Ah!” interrupted the other, delightedly, “I thought so. Why, I know your Wayridge, and I know your Hanlon! The Society of the Flail did exist, but I’ll swear that neither Wayridge nor Hanlon ever had anything to do with it. They are a couple of gilt-edged crooks, working together; a couple of so-called gentlemen thieves, who have edged themselves into decent society! You may take it as absolutely certain that they managed to get an invitation to Sir Hugo Parly’s with the intention of stealing Lady Parly’s pearl necklace. Wayridge went downstairs and opened the safe. Probably Hanlon was with him; but, if so, Hanlon contrived to get out before the interruption. Wayridge’s tale of finding a burglar there was pure invention. The only thieves in the house that night were himself and Hanlon. He really was caught in the act of jewel lifting by Sir Hugo Parly and the rest, and he deserved the two years he got for it. He invented the burglar part of the story, and he invented the yarn about his being threatened by The Society of the Flail, with a view to making you and your friends, met together in Room 333, believe that he was an innocent man. He arranged that scene, he and Hanlon. They acted it to the very life, apparently. Why? Because he wanted to get into a good set again, he wanted the substantial collection you raised for him, and future opportunities of robbing you. Listen! I met both of them not so very long ago, at the gaming tables at Monte Carlo. Perhaps they were playing with the proceeds of your friend Mansford’s piece of gold plate! A couple of crooks of the first magnitude. A couple of deep-swimming sharks!”
He looked at them triumphantly.
The loud hum of sensation which rose from the excited listeners was cut short by Storer banging his fist upon the table.
“Dammit, sir, you have spoiled a good story!” he shouted.
“Dammit, sir,” beamed the other, “I have made it!”
There Are No Snakes in Hawaii
by Juanita Sheridan
Few of us are fortunate enough to travel extensively, and even fewer have the good luck to visit, let alone live for a time in, the Hawaiian Islands. Well, we can’t give you an all-expense-paid trip to that paradise of the Pacific — but, believe it or not, we can offer you the the next best thing! For we now bring you a suspense novelette — the tale of the inexorable events leading up to tragedy — set against the background, of the real Hawaii, the Hawaii that tourists never see. It is a beautifully written story, by a mature writer who lived in Hawaii for seven years, and knows whereof she speaks. You will, vicariously, see the travel-folder sights — Kilauea volcano, the Waikiki beach curving out toward Diamond Head, the Kanaka surf; but you will also — and a good notch above the vicarious — experience the color, the sound, the feel, the smell, even the taste of true Hawaiian hospitality and customs.
For the space of a novelette you will live among jagged mountains and legendary canyons, in valleys like Gardens of Eden, in a land of thundering waterfalls where “rainbows tilted from Manoa into the sea”; you will see the hulas, smell the leis, hear the alohas; you will have the thrill of spearing fish at night with Kukui torches; you will eat laulaus — salt salmon, butterfish, and pork wrapped in ti leaves; you will witness the courtship dance — a dance no tourist ever sees; you will attend that wonderful feast, a luau — tropical fruit surrounded by fern fronds and hibiscus blossoms, and pigs roasted in the imu with red yams and breadfruit and crayfish and... but why keep you from the next-to-the-best thing? If your mouth does not already water, if your mind is not already whetted, if your curiosity is not already piqued, then even the suspense and crime and fascinating characters in Juanita Sheridan s fine story will not help.
“Johnie” Sheridan is, in her own words, “one-half domestic fowl and the other half adventuress.” We hope fervently to have other stories by her, and when these come through we will tell you more about Juanita Sheridan’s real-life escapades, especially her pioneering in — of all places! — Rockland County, New York. She is the author of among other books, THE KAHUNA KILLER, THE MAMO MURDERS, and most recently, THE WAIKIKI WIDOW — all splendid detective novels about one of her favorite spots on earth, the happy (and on occasion homicidal) Hawaiian Islands.
If you are ever fortunate enough to go to Hawaii, one of the first stories you’ll hear, from island hosts, your tour conductor, or perhaps another malihini on the beach, is about the man who stopped off ten years ago to have his laundry done — and who is still there. The laundry story is told in terms of demobilized service men, schoolteachers, a bored executive, or the prim secretary who found her inhibitions dissolved in the sun and silky waters. There are infinite versions — and in Hawaii you accept them all.
This is especially true if you happen to belong to that unshockable, curiosity-ridden tribe of human oddities known as writers. Then you become a sort of perambulating storage vault of stories, many of them unprintable. Some are cackled into your ear at cocktail parties, others you may hear in a whispered voice, harsh with the relief of telling.
A few of the unprintables concern those unlucky souls who did not find paradise in the Pacific. Generally they are individuals to whom the discarding of social posturings means the exposure of spirits as flabby as the physical nakedness they shrink from uncovering. When for some reason they are forced to remain in our sundrenched latitudes, their puny rebellion manifests itself in sharpened voices, tight mouths, and personalities gone sour.
But there are certain heliophobes of more stubborn fibre. If the relaxed life of a tropical island is a threat to them, then adjustment is impossible. Resentment and vindictiveness seethe in their hearts like fury rumbling in the vitals of Kilauea, gathering force which must ultimately erupt and destroy — as the dreaded lava sears the soil.
Today an eruption of Kilauea is a big attraction; it looks terrific in Technicolor. The human analogy is something else again, not mentioned by the Hawaii Tourist Bureau. But if you stay in the Islands long enough you will hear about it. You may even see it happen — as we saw it happen to the Purcells.
Surely I do not have to point out that the roots of murder, like the soil-probing roots of a tree destined to bear fruit, are nourished deep in human personality. The beginning of the Purcells’ tragedy must be surmised. Only two people know its real ending. Anne was involved partly because of Leila Morgan — Anne is my wife. And I, John Ellis, was the unwitting catalyst.
Our participation dated from a day in January when the mailman brought letters from the mainland. Anne and I were in the garden; I was reading the second draft of a story while Anne was lacquering her toenails. At the scrape of our mailbox I tensed and put down the yellow paper. Anne dipped her brush, raised her other foot in one graceful motion, and went on painting.
“Walk, do not run,” she said. “We’ve paid off the mortgage, remember?”
“So we have.” I got up and started around the side of the house.
By the time we’re married eight more years, perhaps I’ll have achieved some measure of Anne’s wisdom and serenity. From the day we met, a week before I was due to leave Hawaii with nothing in my pocket except a filled notebook and the last two hundred bucks of my terminal leave pay, through the first eighteen months when I finally sold a book which earned $523.42, after a few published stories and two more tepidly unsuccessful novels, Anne was unwaveringly certain that I was the world’s best writer, ours was the most wonderful marriage, and everything was going to be all right.