The Chinese Parrot

Alexander Eden stepped from the misty street into the great marble-pillared room where the firm of Meek and Eden offered its wares. Immediately, behind showcases gorgeous with precious stones or bright with silver, platinum, and gold, forty resplendent clerks stood at attention. Their morning coats were impeccable, lacking the slightest suspicion of a wrinkle, and in the left lapel of each was a pink carnation, as fresh and perfect as though it had grown there.

Eden nodded affably to right and left and went on his way, his heels clicking cheerily on the spotless tile floor. He was a small man, grey-haired and immaculate, with a quick, keen eye and the imperious manner that so well became his position. For the clan of Meek, having duly inherited the earth, had relinquished that inheritance and passed to the great beyond, leaving Alexander Eden the sole owner of the best-known jewellery store west of the Rockies.

Arriving at the rear of the shop, he ascended a brief stairway to the luxurious suite of offices on the mezzanine floor where he spent his days. In the anteroom of the suite he encountered his secretary.

“Ah, good morning, Miss Chase,” he said.

The girl answered with a smile. Eden’s eye for beauty, developed by long experience in the jewel trade, had not failed him when he picked Miss Chase. She was an ash blonde with violet eyes; her manners were exquisite; so was her gown. Bob Eden, reluctant heir to the business, had been heard to remark that entering his father’s office was like arriving for tea in a very exclusive drawing-room.

In about ten minutes the door of Wong Ching’s shop opened and a man came out. He stood looking cautiously up and down the dim street. A thin man in an overcoat which was buttoned close about him⁠—a chilly-seeming man. His hat was low over his eyes, and as a further means of deceit he wore dark spectacles. Charlie Chan permitted a faint flash of interest to cross his chubby face.

The chilly man walked briskly down the hill, and, stepping quickly from the doorway, Chan followed at a distance. They emerged into Grant Avenue; the dark-spectacled one turned to the right. Still Chan followed; this was child’s play for him. One block, two, three. They came to a cheap hotel, the Killarney, on one of Grant Avenue’s corners, and the man in the overcoat went inside.

Glancing at his watch, Chan decided to let his quarry escape, and turned in the direction of Union Square. His mind was troubled. “This much even a fool could grasp,” he thought. “We move toward a trap. But with eyes open⁠—with eyes keenly open.”

A horrible cry shattered the night. Bob Eden stood, frozen. Again the cry, and then a queer, choked voice: “Help! Help! Murder!” The cry. “Help! Put down that gun! Help! Help!”

Bob Eden ran out into the patio. As he did so he saw Thorn and Charlie Chan coming from the other side. Madden⁠—where was Madden? But again his suspicion proved incorrect⁠—Madden emerged from the living-room and joined them.

Again came the cry. And now Bob Eden saw, on a perch ten feet away, the source of the weird outburst. A little grey Australian parrot was hanging there uncertainly, screeching its head off.

“That damn bird,” cried Madden angrily. “I’m sorry, Mr. Eden⁠—I forgot to tell you about him. It’s only Tony, and he’s had a wild past, as you may imagine.”

The parrot stopped screaming and blinked solemnly at the little group before him. “One at a time, gentlemen, please,” he squawked.

Madden laughed. “That goes back to his barroom days,” he said. “Picked it up from some bartender, I suppose.”

A knock sounded suddenly on the door, loud and clear. Bob Eden felt a strange sinking of the heart. Out of the desert dark, out of the vast, uninhabited wastes of the world, someone spoke and demanded to come in.

“Who can that be?” Madden frowned.

“Police,” suggested Eden hopefully. “The joint is pinched.” No such luck, he reflected.

Thorn was dealing, and Madden himself went to the door and swung it open. From where he sat Eden had a clear view of the dark desert⁠—and of the man who stood in the light. A thin man in an overcoat, a man he had seen first in a San Francisco pier-shed, and later in front of the Desert Edge Hotel. Shaky Phil Maydorf himself, but now without the dark glasses hiding his eyes.

“Good evening,” said Maydorf, and his voice too was thin and cold. “This is Mr. Madden’s ranch, I believe?”

“I’m Madden. What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for an old friend of mine⁠—your secretary, Martin Thorn.”

Thorn rose and came round the table. “Oh, hello,” he said, with slight enthusiasm.

“You remember me, don’t you?” said the thin man. “McCallum⁠—Henry McCallum. I met you at a dinner in New York a year ago.”

“Yes, of course,” answered Thorn. “Come in, won’t you? This is Mr. Madden.”

“A great honour,” said Shaky Phil.

“And Mr. Eden, of San Francisco.”

Eden rose, and faced Shaky Phil Maydorf. The man’s eyes without the glasses were barbed and cruel, like the desert foliage. For a long moment he stared insolently at the boy.

There before them on the lonely desert, partly buried in the drifting sand, stood the remnant of a tramcar. It was tilted rakishly to one side, its windows were yellow with dust, but on the front, faintly decipherable still, was the legend “Market Street.”

At that familiar sight, Bob Eden felt a keen pang of nostalgia. He reined in his horse and sat staring at this symbol of the desert’s triumph over the proud schemes of man. Man had thought he could conquer, he had come with his engines and his dreams, and now an old battered tramcar stood alone as a warning and a threat.

“There’s your setting,” he said. “They drive out together and sit there on the steps, your lovers. What a background⁠—a car that once trundled from Twin Peaks to the Ferry, standing lonely and forlorn amid the cactus-plants!”

“Fine,” the girl answered. “I’m going to hire you to help me after this.”

They rode close to the car and dismounted. The girl unlimbered her camera and held it steady. “Don’t you want me in the picture?” Eden asked. “Just as a sample lover, you know.”

“No samples needed,” she laughed. The camera clicked. As it did so the two young people stood rooted to the desert in amazement. An old man had stepped suddenly from the interior of the car⁠—a bent old man with a coal-black beard.

Eden’s eyes sought those of the girl. “Last Wednesday night at Madden’s?” he inquired in a low voice.

She nodded. “The old prospector,” she replied.