Page:The Black Camel (IA blackcamel0000earl).djvu/170

Eleven children in one family make of early morning something of a bedlam. He heard their voices here, there and all about, shouting, expostulating, laughing and, in one case at least, weeping bitterly. With a comfortable feeling that the day had begun as usual, he prepared himself for his tasks.

In the dining-room he found that his three eldest children were lingering about the table, and as he entered, he saw them regarding him with a keen interest he had not aroused in that quarter for a long time. They all spoke at once, and he realized the cause of their interest. One of their heroines, according to the morning paper, was murdered, and they were going to see the miscreant punished or know the reason why.

“Quiet!” Charlie cried. “Can a man think beneath a tree filled with myna birds?” He turned to his oldest son, Henry, dapper in college-cut clothes and engaged in lighting a cigarette. “You should be at the store.”

“Going right along, Dad,” Henry replied. “But say—what’s all this about Shelah Fane?”

“You have read it in the paper. Some one most unkindly stabbed her. Now, get on to your work.”

“Who did it?” said Rose, the oldest girl. “That’s what we want to know.”

“A few others languish in same fix,” her father admitted.

“You're on the case, aren’t you, Dad?” Henry inquired.

Charlie looked at him. “In Honolulu, who else would be summoned?” he asked blandly.

“Well, what’s the dope?” went on Henry, who had