The Riddle of the Yellow Zuri

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  CHAPTER IV

  A GIRL WITH BROWN EYES

  THE little house out on St. Giles Lane was in a district that was sparsely built up — indeed, no other house lay within a city block of it.

  It stood alone on a sort of prairie, neatly painted, an old house made new by vines and care; and lovingly hemmed in on all four sides by a neatly cut, but low, English hedge. Yet little built up as the region was with habitations, the street in front of the house — St. Giles Lane itself — was paved, fire plugs were in it, and subdivision signs were visible in various directions. Indeed, real estate at this point was less salable on account of the long, interminable ride to the city than lots would be in Henry Desmond’s Outer Ravenswood tract, the latter domain very much farther away from the city in actual lineal distance, but nearer it in time, now that one strand of that great web, the Rapid Transit System, had connected it to the city with roaring, speeding express trains.

  The girl who came to the door was a little thing — scarcely shoulder-high to Carson himself. In age she appeared to be about twenty. So black was her hair it seemed almost tinged with blue. Delicate shadows played about deep brown eyes which reflected from their depths a brooding sadness — rather, perhaps, the suggestion of one who worked perilously close to the limit of endurance of mind and body, of one who was beset with cares that should have fallen upon a stronger and more active brother’s shoulders — better, a father’s shoulders. Her skin was a trifle pale — and the red, red lips were as a crimson splash across the face with its two velvet pools of soft light. Her suit was a little blue serge one-piece affair, with a white lace collar. In one or two places the material had been mended very neatly, yet beyond the possibility of concealment. Carson took her in his arms, and for a moment reveled in the intoxication of holding that slim little body against his own more muscular, bulky build.

  “Well, honey-girl,” he said, as soon as he had released her, “I’ve seen Mr. Ramsey Gordon, the new legal advisor to that equally new department of mine, and he’s given me his opinion too about your father’s case with respect to Smock. Also, by the way, Mr. Jake Jennings, whom you sent to me, duly called this morning.”

  She smiled at his final statement and led the way to a little parlor. Just such an old-fashioned little parlor it was, too, as suggested all the Grandfather Desmonds in the world! For an archaic piano with music, standing in one corner, vied with an ancient radio in the opposite one — a radio from those far-gone days when such were composed of three clumsy sections — tube box, batteries and loud speaker! But books in a case in one corner, a couple of graceful marble statuettes, elfinesque in posture; a few odd prints and water colors on the walls, rich in unanalyzable color values, all made the room both delightfully cozy and tasteful in spite of the fact that it was a room of another day and that not much money was involved in its adornments. The girl pressed Carson down in a big armchair, and took up a seat close by him on its capacious arm.

  “Now tell me, Cliff,” she asked eagerly, “what did Mr. Gordon say? Did he think we should let the quitclaim go — and sell father out for two thousand dollars — if he’s alive?”

  “Yes, Marcia, he did. He figures your father is dead. He thinks you should take whatever you can obtain from Smock — to cash in, in other words, on the fact that Whitlock, Spayne, Critchley and Evans have a proposition so huge that, unlike any small purchaser, they can afford to pay one hundred thousand dollars for ninety thousand dollars’ worth of footage.”

  She nodded slowly. “Well, Cliff, that is exactly the way I feel about it. I would not injure Papa, but I do not believe he is alive. I am sure he would have seen the publicity in the papers that exonerated him from that terrible crime, if not the advertisements we inserted all over at that date. If I had the least belief that he were not dead, I would protect his interests at all costs; but considering matters as they are, I feel that Cary and I should get even that meagre one thousand dollars apiece before we lose all chances of getting anything. When next Friday comes, Smock can laugh at us. He owns it all then.” She paused. “And now I will tell you why, up to today, I was still in doubt as to what to do. I got a night-letter cablegram from Grandfather this morning.”

  “From Grandfather!” he exclaimed. “How is Grandfather anyway — and what on earth is he doing in Havana?”

  “I will tell you. Grandfather read in the morning paper the other day that an American mechanical engineer, living in Cuba, was stricken with aphasia and was lying in a hospital in Havana. The article said that the only clue to the man’s identity was his approximate age of about forty-five years and the initials ‘L. P.’ tattooed on his arm. Somehow — remembering how Father had the initials of the London Polytechnic tattooed on his arm from days when he was a freshman there, and realizing that his age would be close upon forty-five today — we could not help but feel that perhaps Father had at last been located. Same initials — same age appreciably — same profession, for Father, if he lived, a clever mechanician and mechanical expert such as he was, must undoubtedly have continued as an engineer under some other name.”

  “And so, you poor kid, working on the disagreeable night trick at the telephone exchange in order to make an extra three dollars a week, you went and raised money to have Grandfather go to Havana in the belief that this was your Father?”

  She nodded. “I couldn’t go myself, Cliff. Until we are married, I am the biggest part of the support of this household. And we had to take care of the matter mighty quickly, considering that the probate court is to pass down the certificate of Father’s legal death next Friday morning. If Smock, by the aid of Cary’s and my quitclaim of Father’s, was to sell to Whitlock, Spayne, Critchley and Evans before tomorrow noon, it was up to us to settle this Havana matter quickly if we were to do it at all. So between the three of us, Cary, Grandfather and myself, we raised the money for Grandfather’s expenses.” She paused. “It was a case of going by air, of course.” She sighed. “Poor Grandfather! He still distrusts our modern age! He literally shook with fear when he climbed aboard that big tri-motored plane at the Municipal Air Field — the plane which goes to Cuba three times a week without a stop between. But he was courageous — he waved a shaky hand as they took off, and tried to smile. Of course we couldn’t afford to bring him back by air — so he’ll come back the slow way, by boat to New Orleans, then here by train.”

  Carson’s face held a peculiar look in it. “Honey-girl, I don’t want to be inquisitive, but will you tell me just how much each of you contributed towards this trip that Grandfather had to take?”

  She looked curiously at him. “I will be frank with the man I love and to whom I am going to be married. I put in ninety-seven dollars — which I have been saving for nearly a year. Grandfather put in what was left of his last quarterly pension. Cary — Cary — ” She stopped.

  “Yes, how much did Cary put in?” Carson’s thoughts were hard as they centered upon Cary Desmond, reckless, spendthrift, always-broke, easy-going Cary Desmond who allowed his little sister to take care of her Grandfather and an eight-room house and Cary’s own frequently tangled affairs in the bargain.

  “Cary put in eight dollars,” she said, with a little reluctant smile. “He said he was absolutely ‘stony-broke.’ But he claimed he had some mysterious financial prospects, and might be able to repay the entire cost of the trip later.”

  “I see,” Carson nodded. He felt inwardly that it was about time that Cary Desmond received a verbal lacing of some sort, but he said nothing. Then he thought of her statement of the night-letter cablegram. “But what of the cablegram?” he asked eagerly. “Grandfather, I take it, has arrived in Havana, and has seen this American engineer? What was the result?”

  The girl took from a single pocket in her little blue serge suit a folded yellow sheet. She handed it to him. “Read it for yourself, Cliff,” she directed.

  He unfolded it hurriedly and read its brief and disappointing message. It ran:

  American engineer not papa at a
ll. Has already been identified by his wife. Is a New Yorker, and the initials on his arm stand for his name, Louis Porter, and not London Polytechnic at all. Leave here Friday. Arrive New Orleans Saturday. Home Sunday night.

  Grandfather.

  Carson read the night-letter cablegram twice. Then he handed it back to her. “Thus perishes a lone possibility,” was his only comment. He thought for a moment. “It’s too bad, Marcia. Well, I guess there’s nothing to be done but to follow Mr. Gordon’s advice — get what we can out of the property while the chance is offered us. Do you wish me to call Smock’s attorney this afternoon and arrange for you and Cary to deliver the quitclaim tomorrow morning?”

  “If you will, Cliff,” was her answer. A pause followed in which both of them were lost in their own reflections. Then, of a sudden, Carson remembered the visitor who had called at his office that morning prior to his visit to Ramsey Gordon’s. He spoke quickly. “Now about this fellow Jennings from the West. He was in this morning about eleven o’clock with the proposition which he had evidently been outlining to you out here. I talked with him at considerable length. Personally I don’t like the man. Looks like a grafter or gambler or swindler of some kind. But at least one thing is certain, Marcia. If he’s willing to pay one thousand dollars cold cash for a snake such as he describes, and he wants a zoologist as his agent to save him from publicity — notoriety — whatever it is — it’s nothing to you and to me or to Grandfather either. I confess I can’t fathom his game at all. I feel convinced, though, that the snake belongs to him; if it belonged to anyone else, I can’t see that he’d dare to advertise openly for it. That seems to me to be the proof. Beyond that I can’t figure out what is back of his plan. Granting, however, that he’s playing a game of some sort — it’s directed against someone or something other than us.”

  She nodded. Thinking a minute, she asked a question. “Could it be, Cliff, that such a snake might be very valuable — worth thousands of dollars?”

  He shook his head slowly. “No, the Zuri, or tiger snake of India, is described in the encyclopedia as being one of the very common varieties over there. Probably there’s not another one such as he describes within a hundred miles of this place; but that doesn’t make them valuable. If they were worth anything at all, some enterprising importer could bring over a thousand in a huge box from India at a cost which would give him a neat profit if he could sell them at five or ten dollars apiece. No, the snake is not worth much — unless it is either an object of sentiment, or a lucky fetich of some sort. As to the former, I don’t think for a minute that Mr. Jake Jennings is a sentimentalist. As for the latter, Mr. Jennings appears too much the man of the world to hold any superstitions with regards to the goddess chance.”

  “And what do you advise?” she asked, looking down at him.

  “I’ll say let’s make a try for his two hundred and fifty dollars. He’s willing to pay that if we regain the snake. If we don’t get it, someone else will. Heavens knows you and Grandfather need it, after chipping in for this expensive and luckless trip to Havana. We’re not doing anything illegal — so why worry? We’ll use Grandfather’s name as per Mr. Jennings’ proposition — and when he gets back from Havana we’ll tender him the two hundred and fifty dollars providing we have any luck. If Grandfather wants to donate the difference between the two hundred and fifty dollars and the costs of his trip to us as a wedding present, which is something along the lines of the honorable Mr. Jennings’ suggestion, well — we’ll let him do so. What do you say?”

  She thought. “I’m quite agreeable to the idea, Cliff. My only worry is the fact that I shall be all alone here until Grandfather’s return next Sunday. In addition to that, I shall be sleeping every day up till around two in the afternoon. Now about any inquiries concerning this snake, or any callers who might think they have it? Also, any reporters? I shan’t be able to take care of these things, considering my eight hours at the Kildare exchange and my eight hours sleeping.”

  “Of course you can’t,” he agreed. “But it was my idea that I’d just hop into the affair, and lend you a little of my own time and energy to help you earn this money. In other words, I would first see to it that any telephonic inquiries or personal callers come only between the hours of 3 and 6 P.M. Secondly, I would be here myself during those hours for the next few days. The little old Bureau for the Investigation of Fraudulent Mining Stocks — alleged and otherwise! — isn’t sufficiently under way yet to keep me overly busy. Now how does my arrangement sound?”

  “That would be just fine, Cliff,” she said. “I would be ever so grateful. I hated so much to lose that two hundred and fifty dollars — yet I didn’t like to accede definitely to Mr. Jennings’ proposition without consulting you first.”

  “Good enough,” was his answer. “We’ll hop to it at once then.”

  He rose and stepped out into the tiny hallway of the cottage where he riffled through the directory which hung next to the telephone. Finding the number of the National Hotel on Van Buren Street, he lost no time in dialing it. Getting the clerk’s brusque reply, he asked for Mr. Jake Jennings, and in a moment that familiar, breezy voice was on the wire.

  “Mr. Jennings, this is Clifford Carson with whom you talked this morning. Miss Desmond and I have decided to accept your proposition as you outlined it. We will act as your agents, but will use, so far as the advertising goes, the name of her grandfather, Professor Angus Desmond, whom you will recall is in Havana. You can settle with us, and we in turn will settle with him for the use of his name. All right for that. Now about the advertising copy you wished inserted. I can insert it and have it charged to this telephone. Likewise, the same on the WXOY broadcast. If you will tell me now in what papers you wish it placed, and for what issues, also the copy, I’ll take care of it as soon as we hang up. A word also about the two hundred and fifty dollars fee. I’ll expect this promptly without any argument if we secure your goods for you. Likewise, I’ll expect you to pay over at the same time one thousand dollars additional in cash or a certified check so that we can make good on Professor Desmond’s published advertisement. This providing we phone you in due course that we have the Zuri snake in our possession.”

  “Of course,” boomed Mr. Jennings, after a slightly protracted pause which suggested that he had been doing some hard thinking. “Of course. That’s hunky-dory with me. I’ll pay over every cent without any delay just so long as we regain my snake — the right snake. I’ve enough pointers on the blamed reptile to identify him if we get him, let alone the fact that he’s shy his poison glands. As for that point neither you nor me can check up on this — but Jehosephat, man, there’s not more than one of those fellows crawling around loose.” Mr. Jennings paused, as though to find a fact which had been sidetracked by the vehemence of his own confidence. “Oh yes, before we forget it. Let’s also get this thing clear. It’s about the reporters. If any of those birds who like to hover around the classified ads looking for some kind of a story come ‘round the Desmond house, tell the little lady to give ‘em nothing. And you do likewise, my friend. Damn snoopin’ ravens that they are. Always pokin’ their noses in what doesn’t concern ‘em. But I don’t think they’ll bother you, seeing that our ad is just a professor advertising for a lost specimen. Quite a natural thing you know. Well — is this all clear about the reporters?”

  “Quite,” assented Carson. “And now for the copy itself.”

  “I’ve got it all written out,” said Mr. Jennings. “Let me get it off my bureau.” He was away from the telephone for a moment, and then returned. “Insert it in the last editions of tonight’s News, Post, Times and American, and tomorrow morning’s Tribune and Herald-Examiner. Better arrange for three consecutive insertions in each paper, with leave to cancel the ad at any time and secure refund. It’ll go in the lost-and-found columns, of course, but better have it set off top and bottom by two blank slugs so it’ll stick out a bit more prominently. This’ll cost a bit, I guess, but it ought to give the ad first posi
tion in its column in each of the papers. And do everything you can to get it on the air tonight, will you? All right. Now for the copy. All set? Let’s go.” He read off slowly, while Carson, with a pencil flying over a pad which stood on the tiny telephone stand, took down his words, the following copy:

  LOST OR STRAYED: A ZURI SNAKE, KNOWN ALSO AS the Indian Tiger snake. Color of body yellow, with narrow jet black rings running around body from head to tip of tail. Lost Monday or thereabouts, probably in railroad yards of Union Station. If you find this snake it is not poisonous because its glands have been removed. For this particular specimen which has been lost, $1000 reward in cash will be paid for its return either dead or alive to Professor Angus Desmond, former professor of zoology, 5720 St. Giles Lane, Chicago.

  Mr. Jennings paused, after reading the last word of his carefully prepared copy. “Seems to me that covers everything, I guess.”

  “Everything but the phone number and one or two items about our hours here,” said Carson looking over it. “And I’ll tack those on myself. Very well, Mr. Jennings. I’ll have this inserted at once, and I’ll have the total amount of the advertising bill when I get back to my office at about four o’clock today. I’ll expect you to run over there before I leave tonight, and reimburse me. What time shall I look for you?”

  He thought he heard Mr. Jennings swallow a bit on the other end of the wire. But the latter’s answer came very promptly. “Five-thirty, young man. I’ll be there. Just have your total ready.” With which assurance, each of them said good-bye and hung up.

  Still sitting at the telephone table, Carson took his pencil and altered the last lines of the ad copy so that they now read: