The Riddle of the Yellow Zuri

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  “The int’lest by fus’ change of moon is one sixtly-nin’ palt,” he instructed. “And the int’lest by secon’ change of moon — w’ich is fi’st moon of Ko, is one folty-two palt. And by secon’ moon of Ko is one thlutty-tlee palt. An’ by — ”

  “Yes, I know,” Mr. Jennings said impatiently. “And if I redeem by the sixth change of the moon it’ll be fifty bucks and seventeen cents interest, cash of the realm. So let’s go on with the rites, Ong.”

  “Velly well.” Ong Jin put down his clicking abacus board. And again he commenced speaking, the money still held back from his customer, his words uttered mechanically as though part of a legal or ethical formality through which both men must pass.

  “I now loan to you, Honol’ble Buckman, the sum you so fully desiah. It is mos’ I can loan. I do so with unn’astanding that if you’ deal of gleat magnitude does not come to fluition, even as the Li-Tew tlee of China sometimes fail to bea’ its annual blossom, and the six’ moon flom now pass, then will the gol’ ling of Seven-an’-Sev’nty Sons be the plopelty of Ong Jin and his childlen unto the thousand’ genelation. You accep’?”

  “Your understanding is all to the rosy, Ong,” was Mr. Jennings’ now cheerful reply. “Even if ‘tis buried in three tons of flowery language. The same old cer’mony! I’ve heard it all before in many a burg. I accept the terms. And now give me the two hundred and fifty. For my deal is already under way!”

  CHAPTER II

  THE “MAN-TRAP”

  TAKE one millionaire fifty times over; his wife, a former member of the Follies; an Italian baritone; and plenty of bitterness. Mix them up in the divorce courts at a time when news is so scarce that even such prosaic stories as the establishment of a Federal Bureau for the Investigation of Fraudulent Mining Stocks is being featured on the front page, and you get some highly sensational reading, particularly when photographs galore are used.

  The millionaire in the case was Reggie van Twillingham. He was forty years of age, handsome and aristocratic. He lived on fashionable Astor Street, Chicago.

  The lady in the case was Dolly van Twillingham. She was golden-haired and twenty-three. She too lived on Astor Street, in the van Twillingham mansion.

  The Italian baritone was Leon Spanginelli. He had limpid brown eyes, black hair which he combed back from his forehead, and a jet-black mustache with waxed ends.

  Reggie van Twillingham’s charges were sensational enough, Heaven knows, but the counter-charges of Dolly van Twillingham against her spouse were even more so.

  Reggie charged Dolly with holding rendezvous at various times with the fascinating Spanginelli, and furthermore incorporated in his bill of divorce copies of various alleged business letters from firms dealing in such things as vacuum cleaners, fourteen-tube radios, Rolls-Royces, fur coats and other articles of interest only to the lady of the house. He charged, in fact, that these letterheads had been secured through devious means by the fascinating Spanginelli, and that the apparently harmless and businesslike communications typed beneath them were nothing more than code messages in which, when the typewritten letters comprising the prosaic words “Dear Madam,” or “Dear Mrs. van Twillingham,” were meticulously spaced out from each other upon the machine, always conveyed the important tidings “Be ready to see me at the usual place, the usual hour”; and in which, when the typewritten letters comprising the equally prosaic signatures, “American Vacuum Cleaner Co.,” “Television Electric Company,” “Maskowski and Company, Furriers,” so on and et cetera, were likewise meticulously spaced out from each other, invariably meant, “I cannot be at the appointed place. Watch for next communication.”

  Dolly’s lawyers, however, made even more sensational charges against Reggie than that of receiving code messages through spaced-out typewritten words in letters from attractive members of the opposite sex. On top of charging that Reggie was possessed of incipient paranoiacal delusions, their specific citation was that he had rigged up in his library, on the pretext of catching a burglar, a most fiendish apparatus. This apparatus consisted of a sawed-off shotgun, affixed by wire to one of the upper corners of the tall mahogany bookcase, and pointing directly at the front of the safe. This sawed-off shotgun, with hammer cocked, was intended to be discharged by the springing together of the jaws of a small opened steel fox-trap screwed to its wooden stock, and wired to its trigger, which trap in turn was to be sprung by the impingement of any human foot against any of several threads stretched tightly across the room, a few inches from the floor. The fiendish nature of the device was effectively demonstrated by the manner in which it shot the boudoir cap neatly off of Dolly’s curl-papered head when she went downstairs in the night to get from the family safe her valuable bottle of imported French wrinkle-eradicator. In fact, Dolly’s lawyers claimed that Reggie van Twillingham’s alleged “man-trap” was nothing else but a diabolic device to rid himself of Dolly.

  Thus, from the badly scrambled affairs of the van Twillingham’s, Reggie and Dolly, arose a new term in yellow journalism, namely — “Man-Trap” — signifying a device which should mean hasty extermination to any enterprising cracksman who might endeavor to repeat the twice successful operation of cracking Reggie van Twillingham’s library safe.

  All of which would appear to have little or no connection with Clifford Carson whom we last left journeying to the offices of his attorney, Ramsey Gordon, nor with his problem involving a man who once wore on his prison jacket the number 9317, much less any connection with one Mr. J. Jennings who, by pawning in Chinatown his Ring of the Seven-and-Seventy Sons for twice as much as any white man in the world would loan him on it, was inaugurating a truly efficient search about Chicago’s highways and byways for an Indian tiger-snake.

  But life is much like the plot of a novel, and so we shall see what we shall see!

  CHAPTER III

  “SURVIVOR TAKES ALL,” SAYS MATTHIAS SMOCK

  RAMSEY GORDON’S suite of offices in the First National Bank Building were, so Carson found, the offices of an obviously prosperous attorney who by knowing thoroughly the law with which he dealt had built up the foundation for legal success. Green velvety carpets vied with neat mahogany furniture, polished to a high degree of radiance. A stenographer tapped away at a bright typewriter in the anteroom, and a studious-looking law clerk — the typical apprentice of a big successful man — scrawled away at a further desk on a set of legal briefs.

  Ramsey Gordon was in, and proved to be a well-kept gentlemanly man of about fifty, with slightly grey hair, pink cheeks and roseate skin kept so by attendance at his athletic club, faultlessly attired and tailored, wearing rimless eyeglasses through which looked a pair of bland, frank, yet keen grey eyes.

  “I’m very glad to meet you, Mr. Carson,” he said as soon as greetings were over, and he had closed the door of his private office. “I’m sorry that we couldn’t have made acquaintanceship immediately you were started in on this new job, but my London trip of course prevented that. In fact, I just got back late last night.” He nodded to a chair, and as soon as his visitor dropped into it, took up his own. “The Government has done a mighty sensible thing in instituting this special Bureau of Investigation of which you are the first agent to be appointed. There isn’t a doubt in the world that it will grow, and have agents in every part of the country.

  The public has been mulcted far too badly in past years by fraudulent and nearly worthless mining stocks.”

  “Yes,” the younger man agreed. “The chance of getting rich by buying shares in putative pockets of the earth’s hidden metals and minerals seems to constitute a most fascinating lure to thousands of people. I honestly think the new Bureau is ten years late in arriving. Whether or not, considering the startlingly many new uses of different metals in the radio industry, particularly platinum and iridium, and the resultant speculation in shares, the new Bureau is none too early, I can tell you that.”

  “It is too bad, though,” Ramsey Gordon commented with a frown, “that they had to write you down
at one dollar salary for the first year.” He paused. “However, I don’t presume that worries you much if you can finance yourself, considering the six thousand dollars a year that’s coming to you thereafter — and that nicely rising scale tacked onto that. You’re really sitting more nicely than the Congressmen and Senators who created your office — for their terms will eventually expire; yours need never expire, since you’ve got seniority. That is, it need never expire, except for malfeasance in office for which they could impeach you. And even then you’d get a fair hearing.” The lawyer smiled reassuringly. “However, there’s nothing you could do in your line of work, I believe, that could constitute malfeasance.”

  “I believe not,” Carson smiled back. “And as to all the cheerful aspects of my position which you’ve just outlined, I was myself reflecting on them only a little while ago.”

  “I have just been looking over the newspapers,” put in the lawyer, “trying to Americanize myself, as it were, and I find that they gave a very nice write-up on the new Bureau in one of last week’s editions, not to mention a good bit of space devoted to yourself and your picture. This is just the publicity the Bureau needs of course, so that the public will know whom to go to for information.”

  Carson nodded. “Yes, the article was given prominence enough all right. And a number of radio broadcasting chains had me talk over them about the Bureau as well. Even the local foreign-language newspapers carried the story, although a bit garbled, I believe, for a Sicilian woman, wife of a well-to-do Sicilian importer who recently died in Little Sicily — an ex-president, in fact, of the Unione Siciliano — and who found a ten thousand dollar preferred stock certificate of Texas Helium, Incorporated, among her husband’s effects, brought it in to me.”

  “Good Lord!” said Gordon. “I was reading aboard ship going over, in the Literary Digest, how they’re making all the neon gas for neon tubes and signs out of helium now, by some new sort of simple molecular or electronic process. And with all the Zeppelin building going on, as well, and the trans-Atlantic air travel, it doesn’t seem as though anybody in the world wouldn’t know that Tex Helium, the only commercial source of helium gas in the world, is absolutely gilt-edged and par in the preferred shares, even though it sold at a song some years ago. So she came to you for a report, eh, on whether it was good or worthless?”

  “To tell you the truth,” laughed Carson, “I couldn’t make head nor tail out of her story, she talked so brokenly. The certificate was made out to some unpronounceable Polish name, and made negotiable by being endorsed in blank on the back, which showed obviously that the Sicilian had picked it up somewhere himself on the curb market, probably for a pretty cheap price, back sometime ago when Tex Helium was a wild shot. Anyway, I thought she wanted a regular report. I gave her an official receipt for her stock certificate, which I had to promptly put in safekeeping outside of the office — the Government, you see, hasn’t given me even completely equipped offices so far, for our vault isn’t fully installed yet — and told her to send a relative or somebody around who could talk English. She went away very happy. Her son, just a kid of twelve or so, came around later. He spoke pretty good English. He told me his mother had gotten the idea from the story in the Sicilian Daily News that I was a broker — sold stocks for anybody and everybody — an official broker for the people of the United States of America! — and wanted me to sell it for her. So, as soon as the lady herself comes in and gives me back my receipt — she went up to Milwaukee it appears — I shall have to return her helium stock and enter into a more amplified explanation of our very precise duties toward and with the public.” Carson paused. “From that little incident alone you’ll perceive that we have truly gotten publicity a-plenty, in all languages, in all tongues, in all mediums, in all wave lengths. Indeed, considering the space the newspapers devoted to myself, as well as the number of ether waves, I couldn’t help but feel last week that I and the Reggie van Twillinghams had the center of publicity.”

  “Isn’t it ridiculous, that van Twillingham case?” said Ramsey Gordon, grinning, and taking off his eyeglasses which he held on one finger. “An old associate of mine is handling one side of the van Twillingham divorce action. He tells me that it is really nothing more than the annual hair-pulling match, as he terms it. He says emphatically that no divorce will ever result, but that Reggie and Dolly will be in the courts on and off for the rest of their lives. Let’s see — what are the charges this time?”

  “Reggie charges Dolly,” Carson replied, “with receiving innocent-looking typewritten business letters which were in reality code letters from Spanginelli, the baritone, in which the spacing out of her formal name at the top meant, ‘Be ready to see me at the usual place, the usual hour,’ and the spacing out of the letters in the formal firm names at the bottom meant, ‘I cannot be at the appointed place. Watch for next communication.’ How he secured this alleged evidence, or whether it is simply a delusion of Reggie’s, I don’t know, but heaven knows the ever-hungry newspapers are playing it up to the limit.”

  “And Dolly charges Reggie with trying to make way with her by his so-called ‘man-trap,’ “ Ramsey Gordon put in, his hands folded over his vest. “Rather a serious charge, I’m inclined to think, and one which Reggie van Twillingham will not live down so easily in case their affairs are patched up. It practically amounts to a charge of attempted murder.”

  “Yes,” agreed Carson, “but there is probably some truth to Reggie’s denial of this charge, as the van Twillingham safe has been blown twice. I personally incline to the belief that Reggie van Twillingham really was trying to rig up some device to trap cracksmen. It was simply unfortunate, no more, that Dolly got nearly shot by the ‘man-trap’ when she came down to the library in the night.”

  Both men smiled reminiscently at the case which then was occupying the center of space in the newspapers. A short pause followed. At length Ramsey Gordon spoke.

  “But I believe you remarked over the phone, Mr. Carson, that you had a little puzzle of some sort along my line. I have an appointment today for one-thirty; so if you care to state it now I’ll be very glad to advise you to the best of my ability.” He glanced at his watch and replaced it in his vest pocket.

  “And I’ll be very indebted to you for your opinion,” Carson replied. “I can give you the facts in three hundred words.” He sat back in his chair thinking. Silence reigned for a moment. Then he spoke.

  “A girl who means very much in my life is facing a peculiar dilemma,” he said slowly. “Her name is Marcia Desmond. She lives in Chicago here. The dilemma in which she must make some sort of decision, and that within twenty-four hours, appears to be almost a gambler’s choice. But to make it quite clear I must give you the facts where they first began — at which time I understand you were practising in San Francisco. And that beginning concerns her father, Henry Desmond.”

  Carson paused. The lawyer was all attention. The younger man resumed.

  “Fifteen years ago, Mr. Gordon, I was a boy, homeless, heartsick, alone on the streets, in a land entirely strange to me. My parents, who had owned a little shop in East India Dock Road, London, had sold it out and on the receipts of that sale had come to America — to Chicago, in fact, bringing me with them, a boy of nine. In the space of two short weeks after arriving in Chicago they were both carried off by an epidemic. They died, both of them, in the County Hospital here. I was adopted by a man who proved, after he got me, to be a fraudulent beggar, and who made me lead him all day long about the streets, and who beat me and starved me at nights. In desperation I ran away from him, only to find that trying to make a living for myself was a veritable dog’s life.

  “I shined shoes,” Carson continued, sadly reminiscent, “and sold newspapers in the daytimes, and slept in a packing box in a vacant lot at night. I had a hard, hard time. I couldn’t, for one thing, understand the Americanisms of the other boys. And they browbeat me as much as my fists would let them, and poked fun at my Stepney Briticisms. However, by the Go
d of luck that governs homeless boys, I got by somehow. And this unfortunate life I led until one day when a chance customer for a shoe-shine, a Mr. Henry Desmond, an Englishman who hailed originally from Liverpool and who lived here in the States, detecting in my speech that I was from far across the seas, talked with me, gave me a bit of cross-examining and finally trotted me off home with him as his ward. In the years that followed, that man put me through grammar school and high school — literally took care of me as though I were his own child. Naturally I would be more than grateful today. But when you consider that Henry Desmond had a little motherless pair of kids of his own, as well as an aged father, to support, you will realize that ‘grateful’ is not the expression for my feeling toward him. I look upon that man — if he is living today — as my best friend on earth.

  “But as I say, Mr. Gordon, we do not know today whether he is living or dead. And as a result of this his daughter, who is shortly to become my wife, must make within twenty-four hours a most momentous decision with respect to her father.

  “Why we know nothing of Henry Desmond the following will make clear. He was a mechanical engineer — a good one — and some nine years ago he was appointed by the city of Chicago to investigate and audit the city expenditures in the mechanical field. Among the doubtful books to be gone over were those of the notorious Finn Crayshaw, then Commissioner of Public Works, who controlled the spending of millions of the taxpayers’ money. One day Henry Desmond left Crayshaw’s office after an apparently friendly chat, when two policeman came abreast of him and put him under arrest on the charge of stealing twelve thousand dollars in bills that had been lying on Crayshaw’s desk. My foster-father readily submitted to a search. But the bills in question were found in his overcoat, neatly concealed back of the lining. He was indicted, tried — in a regime during which Crayshaw’s nefarious influence extended even to the courts. Indeed, the judge was indubitably prejudiced in his legal interpretations to the jury of facts and law. It was later found that he was sufficiently entangled with the general tangle of which Crayshaw was a part, that he had to throw the weight of the bench for the ruling political crowd. As for the jury, they must have regarded the affair as some sort of graft double-crossing, and as the entire city was sick of the whole subject of graft, jurors included, they just up and handed Henry Desmond ten years in the Joliet penitentiary on the charge of grand larceny. He appealed it, of course, although he couldn’t get bail at all during his appeal. And the case was sufficiently academically error-proof that the upper courts wouldn’t set aside the verdict.”