“I cooked up some eggs for the sailors,” Mrs. Fortescue said, “but they didn’t seem to have any appetite. All they wanted was coffee. I suggested we leave, so we’d be at the courthouse by eight o’clock.”
“We were wearing civilian clothes,” Massie explained, “and I had a chauffeur’s cap and dark glasses on, as a disguise. I gave Lord the .45—he was going to watch the back entrance—and he and Jones and I got in the rented Buick and drove to the courthouse. Mrs. Fortescue followed in her roadster.”
“I parked in front of the courthouse,” she said. “Why not? I had nothing to conceal. Tommie parked in front of the post office, nearby; the two sailors got out, Tommie staying behind the wheel of the parked sedan. I left my car and gave Jones the picture of the native I’d cut from the paper; he already had the sham summons. Jones went to the main entrance, to await our man, and I returned to my car. Mrs. Whitmore noticed me and stopped and we had a friendly little chat.”
“Perhaps a minute after Mrs. Whitmore went inside,” Massie said, picking it up, “we saw two natives crossin’ the courthouse grounds. One of them was a little guy, but the other one was big, heavy—Kahahawai, wearin’ a blue shirt and a brown cap. I pulled up the sedan alongside the curb just as Lord was approachin’ the two natives. He showed Kahahawai the summons, and Kahahawai wanted the other fella to come along, but Jones grabs him and says, ‘Just you,’ and shoves Kahahawai in back of the car. Jones got in after him and we headed out King Street, toward Waikiki.”
“I saw Lord coming around the side of the courthouse,” Mrs. Fortescue said. “The sedan was already out of sight when I picked him up and…”
“Excuse me for interrupting,” Darrow said. “But I need to back things up a tad, to ask Tommie here a few pertinent questions.”
Why was Darrow cutting in, just when it was getting good? Just when we were about to find out what had happened behind the closed doors of the house on Kolowalu Street that resulted in Joseph Kahahawai’s demise, courtesy of a .32 slug under the left nipple?
“Your mother-in-law indicates,” Darrow was saying to Massie, “that you suffered a mental strain due not only to the heinous crime committed upon your sweet wife, but to these foul rumors flying about.”
Massie didn’t understand this interruption, either. There was confusion in his voice as he said, “Yes, sir.”
“Did you seek any medical help? For your restlessness, your insomnia…”
“I talked to several doctors, who seemed concerned about my physical state.”
“And your mental state?”
“Well, I was advised by Dr. Porter to take Thalia and leave the islands, for both our sakes…but I was adamant that my wife’s honor be cleared, and that flight from this island would be seen as an admission that these slanders were of substance….”
Darrow, behind a tent of his hands, was nodding, eyes narrowed.
“If I might continue,” Massie said, clearly wanting to get on with his story and get it out of the way, “we arrived at the house on Kolowalu Street and—”
“Details, at this point, won’t be necessary,” Darrow said, with a wave of the hand.
I looked at Leisure and he looked back at me; I wonder which of us had the more startled expression.
“Why bother, right now, with the sordid particulars—I think we all know what happened within that house,” Darrow said. “I think it’s obvious whose hand held the weapon that took Joseph Kahahawai’s life.”
“It is?” Massie said, with a puzzled frown.
“Well, it can’t be this lovely lady,” Darrow said with a gracious gesture. “She is too refined, too dignified, too much a picture of motherhood touched by tragedy. And it could not have been either of those two sailor boys, because after all, that would be murder, plain and simple, wouldn’t it?”
“It would?” Massie asked.
“It most certainly would. We’re very fortunate that neither of them pulled the trigger, because you, as an officer, enlisting their aid, well, that would amount to incitement.”
Mrs. Fortescue wasn’t following any of this. Massie, however, had turned even paler. Whiter than milk, though not nearly so healthy.
Darrow was smiling, but it was a smile that frowned. “Only one person could possibly have pulled that trigger —the man with the motive, the man whose wife’s good name had been defiled even as had she herself been so woefully defiled.”
Massie squinted. “What…what do you think happened in that house?”
“What I would imagine happened,” Darrow said, “was that Joseph Kahahawai, confronted by the righteousness of the man he had wronged, blurted a confession, and in so doing, sparked an inevitable reaction from that righteous wronged man, in fact provoked an insane act…”
“You’re not suggesting I construct a story…” Massie began.
Darrow’s eyes flared. “Certainly not! If you don’t remember shooting Kahahawai, in fact if everything is a sort of haze, that would only make sense, under these circumstances.”
Darrow clapped his hands together, and we all jumped a little.
“Well, now,” he said, “I certainly don’t mean to put words in your mouth…. Why don’t we come back to the events within that house, at a later date…tomorrow, let’s say, after you’ve had a chance to collect your thoughts… and perhaps speak with Mrs. Fortescue, and your two sailor friends, and compare your recollections—not to come up with a unified story, of course, but rather to see if, among you, your collective memory might be jogged.”
Massie was nodding. Mrs. Fortescue was quietly smiling; she got it—now, she got it.
“Now,” Darrow said, rising, “let’s go meet those sailor boys, shall we? Let’s just get acquainted. I don’t think I’ll want to question them about the incident…not just yet. Then perhaps we can have a bite of late lunch in the mess hall, Mrs. Fortescue, and if you’re up to it, you can relate your adventures with the police.”
