Down by the sea, down on Waikiki, there's a place for the tourists to sip mai tais after a day on the beach. It's called "The House Without a Key." It's on the beach at the Halekulani Hotel, and on warm breezy nights musicians and a hula dancer perform under an ancient kiawe tree.
Relax and swirl your mai tai. Look around. Diamond Head and the rolling Pacific surround you, but watch out someone may be watching. That someone may be the Honolulu Police Department's most famous detective, the immortal Chang Apana, better known as Charlie Chan.
The original Honolulu detective.
Before Jack Lord and "Hawaii Five-O" or Tom Selleck in "Magnum PI," American audiences were captivated by detective Charlie Chan, the creation of mystery writer Earl Derr Biggers, who wrote six Charlie Chan novels.
The first was "The House Without a Key," which was inspired by a newspaper account Biggers read while vacationing in Honolulu and, as word has it, frequenting a place called "Gray's-by-the-Sea" back in the small days of 1919. Today Gray's is now the resort know as the "House Befitting Heaven," the Halekulani Hotel.
Three Silent Charlie Chan movies came out in the 1920's, but from 1931 through 1938 Werner Oland starred in 16 very popular Chan's, and a further 22 Charlie Chan movies continued the series until 1947, followed by a diminished set of six over the next two years.
In addition to the movies, there was national radio program, and more books by other writers. Chan movies can be found on video and DVD and there always seems to be a Charlie Chan on cable TV.
Chang Apana, HPD
Bigger's real-life inspiration for Charlie Chan was Chang Apana, a Honolulu PD detective who spoke Chinese, English and Hawaiian and who was authorized to carry a bullwhip for a weapon.
Apana was born on the Big Island in 1871, and worked as a paniolo (a cowboy) in Waimea as a young man. That's where he learned to use the whip. He then spent 34 years at HPD before he retired in 1932.
Apana had a great record at HPD and was a natural detective. He moved easily among Waikiki's many ethnic communities and, though just over five feet tall, was a tough but fair officer.
The Charlie Chan books and movies blended many elements. The mysteries were clever. The Oriental-styled settings were then new to most of America. Chan was a trustowrthy, sagacious and very likeable man, whose children sometimes interferred too much in his work.
Chan was entertainment and widely popular, though few people ever knew that Charlie Chan was based on a real Waikiki detective. At the time, America only stretched from "sea to shining sea," and not many had heard of much about Hawaii, much less Waikiki.
"The Black Camel"
"The Black Camel" (1931) was Bigger's fourth Chan mystery book and actually filmed on Oahu. Chan (Werner Oland) investigates the murder of a beautiful movie star in Honolulu filming a movie, and Bela Lugusi plays a creepy psychic.
It was then that Chang Apana met Earl Derr Biggers, and perhaps they retired to Gray's-By-The-Sea, talked shop and watched the sunset over Waikiki. Maybe: We don't know. That was a long time ago, but you can swirl a mai tai on Waikiki and ponder the setting of the sun.
But be cautious, as Chan said, "Holiday mood like fickle girl: privileged to change mind." And Waikiki was his town.
• Charlie Chan and the Case of the Cop Who Inspired Him
