CHAPTER I
Peril in Paradise

In the tropical, jungle-like garden behind the hotel, a man stood absolutely motionless. The broad trunk of the coconut palm tree behind which he lurked protected him from being seen by anyone on the hotel’s wide, sweeping porch.

The tense set of the man’s features showed his growing impatience.

The broad porch ran around all four sides of the white, sprawling Royal Poinciana Hotel on Waikiki Beach, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The porch was called the “deck,” and it had been designed to resemble the promenade deck of an ocean liner. It was an open porch, or deck, with brightly colored floral-patterned umbrellas spreading welcome shade. The deck was spotted with lounge and captain’s chairs, and its teak-wood floor was marked off at regular intervals with shuffleboard courts.

The fore deck, that part of the porch running across the front of the hotel, overlooked the beautiful beach and its rolling, coiling breakers. Chairs and tables scattered on it were occupied by people waiting for the noon meal. On the rear deck, overlooking the carefully planned, luxuriant jungle-garden, only one couple could be seen.

“Will they never leave?” the man muttered to himself. He looked at his watch, then carefully peered around the tree, looking up at the deck jutting out from the hotel’s second floor.

Just as he did so, the couple got up from their chairs and walked leisurely away, heading for the other side. The man waited until they rounded a corner and were out of sight. Then he moved swiftly.

His linen-clad figure was a white flash against broad green leaves as he dashed for the steps leading up to the now unoccupied porch. Once on the deck, he moved casually, as though he were just another tourist. He walked softly on crepe-soled shoes, making not a sound.

Nearing the center of the porch, the man pressed his back against the white-painted wall, almost blending into it except for his dark, swarthy face. Now he moved sidewise, crab-like, until he reached a partly opened latticed door. He stopped, pressing his head against the slight crack where the door was hinged.

Moments passed. Then he heard the sharp jangling sound of a telephone ringing from within the room beyond. Next he heard the soft pad of feet on thick piled carpet as the room’s occupant crossed the floor to take the call.

Now the prowler abandoned his extreme caution. He looked through the partly opened door. He saw the back of a man sitting at a telephone table. The prowler carefully pulled the door open and slipped into the room. Its occupant had the phone’s receiver to his ear.

“On your call to Mr. Thomas Brewster in Indianapolis, Indiana, sir,” the operator was saying, “they are ringing that number now.”

The prowler crept closer until he was within an arm’s length of the seated man.

“Yes,” the man said into the telephone. “I’ll hold the line.” With his free hand he pulled a well-used pipe from his jacket pocket and stuck it in his mouth. Then he patted the table for matches. He opened a drawer and felt in it.

The prowler watched his prey anxiously. He was an old man, with shaggy white hair hanging down almost to his collar.

Unable to find a match, the old man had just started to turn when the operator spoke again.

“This is Honolulu, Hawaii, calling Mr. Thomas Brewster,” she said. A few seconds passed. “Here’s your party, sir.”

The prowler stood there, arms raised, the fingers of his cupped hands spread like talons just over the old man’s shoulders.

CHAPTER II
A Disturbing Call

“I’ll get it! I’ll get it!”

It was the voice of eleven-year-old Monica Brewster.

“You always do,” grumbled her twin brother Ted. “I never do get to answer the telephone. Not when you’re in the house.”

Monica wasn’t listening. She was flying into the kitchen to answer the steady ring before her mother could lift the phone from its cradle. Mr. Brewster’s study was nearer, and there was a telephone in there, too. But Monica knew that her father was in the study, talking to her older brother Biff. She was sure the call was from her friend Betsy, because Betsy generally called her about five o’clock in the afternoon. Monica didn’t want her father interrupting her talk with Betts. Daddy didn’t approve of long phone gabs.

Moments later, Monica came bursting through the living room. Her excitement was at a pitch as high as her voice.

“Daddy! Daddy! The call’s from Honolulu! Someone’s calling you from Honolulu!”

“Take it easy, sis, or you’ll explode.” Biff grinned as he saw the eagerness on his sister’s flushed face.

Thomas Brewster picked up the telephone. He listened briefly, then cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and spoke to his older son.

“Close the door, Biff. Behind your sister.”

Biff got up from his chair and gently ushered Monica, protesting, out of the study. When he turned back, he was startled to see that an expression of worry clouded his father’s face.

“Yes, Johann, I agree.” Mr. Brewster gave the name its Germanic pronunciation, “Yohann.”

Biff could only distinguish a mumble of words coming from nearly four thousand miles away.

“Well, Johann, don’t you take any chances yourself,” Mr. Brewster continued. “Wait until I get there… Danger? There’s always danger when the stakes are as high as those we’re playing for… What!” Thomas Brewster’s frown deepened. “Perez Soto? You say Perez Soto is there? I don’t like that one little bit. The letter, though, you have that safely hidden?”

Again the speaker at the other end took over the conversation. Biff could hear only a scramble of sounds coming from the telephone. He saw his father nod his head absently. His brows knitted into deeper thought.

“You think your room was searched?” he exclaimed. “Had you hidden the letter?”

Biff watched his father intently. Mr. Brewster listened attentively to a long reply. At last he said, “That’s bad, Johann. Very bad. We’ll have to make the best of it, though. All right, Johann… Yes, leaving here tomorrow … Northwest Airlines… Take off from Seattle early the next morning, Wednesday, at five A.M. Be in Hawaii about eight o’clock your time… You’re stopping at the Royal Poinciana, aren’t you?.. Hello … hello … Johann?” Thomas Brewster waited a few moments. “Hello…” Then he hung up and turned to Biff. “That’s funny. He didn’t answer. Maybe we were cut off.”

“Maybe the three minutes were up,” Biff suggested with a smile.

“That’s not as funny as you think, my boy,” his father chuckled. “Dr. Weber’s a peculiar man about some things having to do with money. A call from Honolulu to Indianapolis means nothing to him. But if the operator told him his three minutes were up, he’d hang up quickly. He obeys what he thinks are the rules.”

Biff laughed. “Isn’t Dr. Weber the famous scientist? I’m sure I’ve heard you speak of him.”

“That’s right, Biff. He’s a staff consultant for Ajax. I’ve worked with him before.”

Biff nodded his head. “I thought so.”

Thomas Brewster was the chief field engineer for the Ajax Mining Company, headquarters Indianapolis, Indiana. His job took him all over the world, to many of the strangest and least known spots on the globe. Whenever it was possible, he took sixteen-year-old Biff along.

“One of my reasons for going to Hawaii is to meet Dr. Weber,” Biff’s father continued now.

“You mean the Engineers’ Conference isn’t the main reason?” Biff asked.

Thomas Brewster shook his head. “No. Oh, the meeting is important, all right. But I doubt if I would have gone out there for that alone. Dr. Weber wrote me over a month ago. Said he wanted to meet with me and Jim Huntington. He said it was very important. But he didn’t go into details. I imagine he didn’t want to put too much information on paper. Afraid it might be seen by eyes other than my own.”

Biff was thinking. “It seems to me, Dad, that I’ve heard you mention this Mr. Huntington before, too. Am I right?”

“Probably. I hadn’t heard from Huntington for a long, long time. But he did some work for me in the past.”

“What’s going on, Dad? And what was all that about a letter?”

Thomas Brewster sighed. “Oh, the letter. Forget you ever heard about it. Dr. Weber told me Jim Huntington was lost at sea sailing up to Hawaii from New Zealand. Got caught in a terrific storm, and his sloop sank. He was able to send a radio signal of his position, but Weber said a sea and air search has failed, so far, to discover any trace of Huntington or his sloop.”

“Gee, that’s really too bad. Do you know why he wanted to see you and Dr. Weber?” Biff asked.

“I have an idea. And if what I think is true, then Jim Huntington’s loss is a very real one for the whole world.”

“I heard you mention there might be danger – ” Biff stopped. A spark of excitement flashed across his face. His blue eyes lighted up.

“Danger, Biff? Well, we’ve been in tight spots before. You, in China, and with me in Brazil.” Tom Brewster paused, then said slowly, “There’s always an element of danger in the work we do for Ajax.”

Biff, his face serious, nodded his head. He was thinking of Hawaii, our fiftieth state. What danger could there be there?

The telephone operator at the Royal Poinciana Hotel on Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, looked up as her luncheon relief came into her small room.

“Hi. Am I ever glad to see you! I’m just about starved. I’m on a diet. Not for much longer, though. Hey, something funny’s going on. That old gent in suite 210. Made a stateside call just now and didn’t hang up when he finished. Imagine! He left the phone off the hook. I’ll tell a bellboy to hop up there when I go out.”

CHAPTER III
Worried Twins

Although he didn’t want to show it, eleven-year-old Ted Brewster was just as excited as his sister over the call from Honolulu. He slipped quietly over to the door of the study. He wanted to know what the call was all about. He got there just in time to see Monica ushered firmly out as Biff closed the door behind her.

“Who was it, sis?” Ted demanded.

“Don’t know.” Monica shook her head. “It was just the operator saying she had a call from Honolulu for Mr. Thomas Brewster.”

“You’d better go out and hang up the phone in the kitchen,” Ted ordered.

Monica left the room and returned almost immediately.

“You didn’t listen in?” Ted asked suspiciously.

“Course not! I have very excellent manners. No lady would listen in.”

“Ha,” Ted sneered. “You, a lady? A ’leven-year-old-lady!”

“I’m older than you,” Monica replied.

“Ten minutes older. Call that older? I don’t. And don’t tell me you never listen in. How ’bout yesterday? When I was talking to Peteso? I suppose you didn’t try to listen in then.”

“That’s different. You’re only a kid.”

“A kid!” This was too much. “And what about you? You think you’re so grown up.”

The twins glared at one another. Then, without any reason, glares suddenly turned to smiles, followed by unexplained, uncontrolled laughter. Neither one of the twins could stay angry very long. When their giggles died away, they strained their ears toward the study door.

“Sure is a long call,” Ted said. “Hope nothing’s gone wrong.”

“Gone wrong? What could go wrong, Ted?” Monica’s voice showed her concern.

“I don’t know. But I sure hope that call doesn’t mean we’re not going to Hawaii.”

Now Monica was really worried. “Golly, I just couldn’t bear it. Not to go!”

“Me, too. Biff gets to go everywhere. When do I get to go anywhere?”

“Or me?”