The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1942-03-27


III smoothly, ''that you are lying"
81 don't know, SIR"
"You posted this entry?"
eyes, I did,"
well, did you pay out this mon
ey?"
mo, sir; Mr.. Wayne always ham
died that item himself"
always? What do you mean by
| that?" IA ls8
Wong fell silent; but now Dick
Wayne knew where to look for what
he wanted. Hurriedly he checked
back through the books for previous
years. Every year for seventeen
years that same vague item was to
be found, sometimes small, some
times enormous, according to the
way the year had gone. Over that
period of seventeen years almost
5000, stood against that single
vague phrase Old Debts" A curl
Gus thing in q way; for, as far as
Dicks perfunctory survey of the rec
ords could make out, there had new
err been any old debts at all, other
than those meticulously funded and
otherwise disposed.
For the space of minute Tonga
Dick stared hard at Charles Wong;
and was able to convince himself
that the Chinese knew no more than
he did-and perhaps considerably
less.
Dick dismissed Wong and planted
himself at his uncle's desk. He or
dered coffee, and while Tsura was
getting it for him he sat for time
thinking hard, his eyes covered by
his hands. BY the time his coffee APP
peared he had made up his mind.
"Bring my brothers here" he told
the Japanese girl.
Tsura looked at him in a startled
way. His brothers were his elders,
and senior to him in the control Of
Alakoa; but he had commanded that
they appear in the same curt tone
that he had ordered coffee.
eyes, Mister Dick" She whisked
out of the room. Perhaps the Japa-
nese girl was little afraid Of the
room itself, since the death Of James
Wayne; judging it to be an appropri-
ate hangout for devils. VI
Dick was finishing second cup Of
coffee before his brothers came.
"Good Of you to show up" Ernest
Wayne said sardonically.
81 understand said Willard
| Wayne, "that through your generous
courtesy, Miss Waterson has been a
house guest herein fact slept here
the night Uncle Jim died."
"True," Tonga Dick agreed.
::'Tsura, bring two more coffee
cups"
'We don't want any Coffee" Err
nest said for them both.
Bring them anyway. Sit down,
you two" Assa
Willard, who had started to lower
himself into q chair, hesitated in
some annoyance, but gave in. Some
where, early in their childhood,
there must have been time when
the two elder brothers had domi-
mated Dick by main force of age and
size; and although Dick could not
even remember that time, Ernest
and Willard had never been able to
accustom themselves to the change
in their relationship. He would al
ways seem to them an unjustifiable
rebel, scandalous in manner, and
wrong-headed in his pursuits.
Ernest, who was shivering lit
tie, maintained his self assertion by
remaining on his feet. II would GER
tainly like to know" he said with
asperity, what your purpose was in
bringing that-that woman here"
mo purpose at ALL" Dick grum-
bled.
They looked at each other mean
ingfully, and Dick noticed again the
extreme nervous irritability which
he had seen in them whenever they
had met since his return to Hawaii.
That nervousness looked compatible
enough in the tail, thin Ernest, who
never seemed to feel entirely well;
but it was incongruous in the thick
set Willard Wayne, with his smooth,
firmly padded cheeks and his slow
moving eyes; for this nervousness
was that Of men haunted by an in
escapable fear.
| Dick knew that he had enough
dynamite in his hands to blow their
whole situation apart, and he had
decided that he was willing to ac-
cept the cost to himself Of using it.
But there was something else he
wanted TO find out first. There was
shadow Of wicked mischief in his
mood now as he set out to prod it out
Of them.
mo BE- coNTnUEDl