The Riddle of the Yellow Zuri

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  Till late in the night the two sat there and discussed the strange revelation with its material help that had literally come out of the sky in the nick of time. At last, when the hands of Carson’s clock pointed nearly to midnight, Cary Desmond arose.

  “Cliff, I feel like a condemned murderer who has had his sentence commuted. I’m going to stop off here in a taxicab, if it’s all right with you, promptly at a quarter to nine in the morning and with my cab waiting downstairs, I’m going to get this bill. Then I’m going to be on hand promptly at the opening of bank hours — 9 A.M. — at the Continental Trust — isn’t that the bank where you keep your money on check?” Carson nodded. “Anyway, I know several of the tellers there. I’m going to crack this bill into two ten-thousand dollar bills. I’m going to deposit one in your checking account, and then hop it in the same taxicab to the Mid-West Trust. I can get there by a quarter after nine. The examiner can’t have gotten anywhere by that time. On the plea of fixing up an account before I go on my vacation, I’m going to insert this bill somehow among my cash on hand — maybe call their attention to a blank envelope in which I have filed it. I’ll handle it somehow. Then I’ll go away with a free heart. I’m going to spend the balance of the week clearing up my engagements here in town, get the benefit of the paid-up rent of my apartment, and next Monday, Cliff, I’m going to pack up and go back to the little house on St. Giles Lane and stay where I belong.”

  “That is what I hoped you’d say, Cary. This gay, feverish life you’ve been leading is no life for a man who handles money. Everything has broken well for us today — and everything will end even better. Now that I can square myself with Mrs. Galioto, I feel like a reprieved man myself. I’ll delay my own departure in the morning so as to be waiting for you with the bill. In fact, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea if you get up at dawn tomorrow, ride out to St. Giles Lane, meet Marcia when she comes off her night trick and tell her the good news. But that’s up to you. Now be off. I’m worn out. And so are you.”

  When Cary Desmond left, Carson undressed with a feeling of extreme light-heartedness, tempered only by the mystery that attended Henry Desmond’s message and its valuable enclosure. But he was tired out, and soon after his head struck the pillow he was asleep. Indeed he did not awaken until a knocking on the door, and the sun pouring in his window, apprised him of the fact that Cary Desmond was now on hand to play an extremely rapid game of commercial chess with opening banks and taxicabs! True enough, it was that young man, and downstairs a yellow cab stood ticking away. So Carson passed over the precious bill, and watched the cab draw away. Several times in the next few hours he wondered uneasily whether Cary was succeeding in the most difficult part of his undertaking — the changing of his cash on hand at the Mid-West Trust. And finally the welcome message for which he was waiting came to him, for when he had been back in his office by some hour and a half, opening up his eleven o’clock mail, his telephone bell rang and he recognized the voice of Marcia on the wire — the tired, worried tones entirely gone from it.

  “Cary was just here, Cliff,” she said delightedly, “and he told me all. Everything! He said to tell you that everything went on smooth wheels — he got the ten thousand dollars deposited in your checking account at the Continental Trust, and I’ve got the deposit receipt right here, Cliff, waiting for you. And he said also to tell you he managed to get the other ten thousand dollars inserted back into his cash at the Mid-West Trust which makes him four hundred dollars over. Oh, Cliff — wasn’t it terrible? — and yet wasn’t it wonderful that everything came right? And, Cliff, to know that Daddy is alive has been like a powerful tonic to me. Do you think we will locate him soon, Cliff?”

  “I am sure of it,” Carson assured her. “Just how soon depends upon what report this Wiswell makes Thursday.”

  “I will be eagerly waiting that report,” she said. “Now another thing, Cliff. Those advertisements in last night’s and this morning’s Chicago papers have been bringing results.”

  “Advertisements?” queried Carson perplexedly. “Oh — the Zuri snake ads!” In the excitement of bigger things he had almost forgotten the matter of the $250 fee which he and Marcia, by the use of Grandfather Desmond’s name, were attempting to earn.

  “Yes, Cliff. Four people called up between eight and nine this morning. Each one of them quite disregarded the stipulation in the advertisement saying that they should ring this number only between 3 and 6 P.M. At any rate, each one believed he might have the snake which was advertised for. Each one, too, Cliff, wanted to come out at once, but I was so wearied from my short day’s sleep yesterday that I had to enjoin them to call between four and five this afternoon.”

  “Well you did quite right, honey-girl. Jennings’ petty two hundred and fifty dollar fee doesn’t mean so much to us now, does it? But we’ll have to see it through so long as we’ve embarked on the job. Well, sweetheart, suppose you look for me today around four or slightly before, and I’ll interview these people. And get to bed now and get a good sleep.”

  And receiving her promise that she would go to bed at once to recuperate from her night’s work, he told her goodbye and they both hung up.

  So now everything was all right!

  His bank account held in it ten thousand dollars — which it had not held at this time yesterday, and Marcia even had the deposit receipt. And Cary’s note, therefore, for the misapplied stock, was paid. All had ended well, it seemed. And as he took out that young man’s printed and written evidence of what was yesterday a hopeless indebtedness and marked it across its face in red ink, “Paid in full, Clifford Carson,” inscribing at the same time a stamped envelope with Cary’s Oak Street address, he fell to musing on his forthcoming transaction with Mrs. Galioto. Indeed, he wondered now, as he sealed up this missive of good cheer and placed it in the wire basket which contained his other outgoing mail, whether he ought to give Mrs. Galioto some explanation of having mislaid her stock certificate, and pay her off — and the ten thousand dollars was what she had originally wanted, or of offering her a stock certificate in Texas Helium Inc. of like denomination with the one she had owned. It might even be at that, he mused, that he could unearth the location of the very stock and buy it in at the market quotation. And so that he might know just what he could do in the matter, he drew over his telephone, and looking up the house number of one, Mr. Abe Licky, dialed it. As might be partly expected under the circumstances, Mr. Licky himself appeared to be sojourning today in his own home, for he came on the phone a second later, speaking in a high, nasal, oily voice, the typical bucketeer, or better now, ex-bucketeer!

  “Mr. Licky,” Carson said peremptorily, “did you sell a one hundred share stock certificate of Tex Helium Gas preferred the other day on the curb?”

  “I did.”

  “I understand that you don’t know the identity of the trader who bought it in. Have you since then gotten any more information as to who he was?”

  Mr. Licky, being in a state of involuntary bankruptcy, appeared to be quite willing to answer any and all questions concerning his past activities.

  “I have. His name is Max Hieronymus. He has been doing some trading on the New York Curb and just started in here a few days ago under the name of the A. B. C. Trading Company. My trader had some subsequent dealings with him, requiring his signature. He’s located in a little office in the Westminster Building. And his phone” — Mr. Licky evidently collected all information dealing with his own line of business — ”his phone number is Wabash 0396.”

  “Thanks,” said Carson brusquely. With which he closed the distasteful conversation.

  A moment later he was ringing, with considerable curiosity, Wabash 0396. If he couldn’t find his man in, he knew he could go over to the curb market and locate him by the monocle and short yellow beard by which Licky had first described him to Cary Desmond. But Mr. Hieronymus, for some reason, was not on ‘change today, for the thick German voice that answered the wire acknowledged to that name itself.

&
nbsp; “Hieronymus speaking. Max Hieronymus.”

  “The A. B. C. Trading Company?” asked Carson cautiously, so as not to waste time talking with an underling.

  “Dissolved,” said Mr. Hieronymus succinctly. “Oud of business. Not running any longer. Me, I vas der ?. ?. C. Company. I am today leaving for Germany. Vot can I do for you?”

  “Oh — ” Carson wrinkled up his brows. Then he spoke. “Well, Mr. Hieronymus, do you care to sell that Tex Helium Gas stock certificate you bought the other day? Carson is my name.”

  Mr. Hieronymus laughed scornfully. “My goot sir, I haf been buying up Tex Helium certificates now for vun mont’. You vill haf to been more specivic.”

  “This was a one hundred share, preferred, offered on the curb Friday morning by Licky and Greenburg.”

  “Oh, yes. Der vun hundred share. Shure. I remember dot vun. Sorry I can’t obliged. Der certifficate iss on his vay to Chermany by Kronzprinz Wilhelm steamer. I ship him Friday via air mail.”

  “Oh — sent to Germany, eh? Somebody over there trying to corner Tex Helium?” Carson paused. This was no way to elicit any information of that sort from a trader. There was a shorter and surer method. “Care to buy fifty shares of Tex Helium, Mr. Hieronymus?”

  “Nein.” The speaker was frankly bored like a man who had been cabled to make no further purchases in such stock. “I am nod by der market, not for even ten share.”

  “I see. That means that your superiors have now acquired control. Mr. Hieronymus, do you object to saying for whom you have been buying?”

  “Nod at all, sir. He iss no secret — nod now, particularly as I haf hat my New York confrere change der recort of ownership of der certificate on der stock pooks of der company Saddurday morning before mailing it to Chermany on der afternoon boat.”

  “Oh yes — I understand. The Texas Helium company is incorporated in New York. I remember now. Well then — May I ask in whose name is the certificate now recorded, or the new certificate 347?”

  “Der Gesellschaft Zep uff Berlin.”

  “I see. Trying to control the costs of helium gas for their proposed fleet of transatlantic airships. All right. Fair enough, I guess.” Carson paused undecidedly. “Then that particular stock certificate is in the middle of the Atlantic ocean now, and re-recorded in the bargain. Well, I would have liked to buy it in if you’d have sold it for par or close to par.”

  Mr. Hieronymus, even on the very eve of departure, was not averse to pocketing a few dollars that could be changed into marks when he got back home. “I can pick you up quick plenty uff ten shares preffered — and lots von common — der common hass no woting power — and — and ten tens equal von hundert, you know.”

  “Well — I guess that would hardly do. At least in this case. I’ll think it over. When will you be leaving, Mr. Hieronymus — in case I would call you back?”

  “I am leafing in vun hour. I am all packed. I sail home on der Deutschland day after tomorrow. Call Himmel und Blaufuss if you vant quick action on stocks in airships, auxiliaries und supplies.”

  “All right. Thanks. Bon voyage, Mr. Hieronymus.” And Carson hung up.

  Well, that settled it very definitely so far as Mrs. Galioto and certificate No. 347 went. The big German air-transportation company had probably for a long time been quietly buying in shares on the Texas Helium supply, and it was more than possible that that final one hundred shares had thrown them nicely over the required fifty-one percent majority ownership. He drew over the morning newspaper. Tex Helium was still quoted at a tenth of a point under par in the preferred shares. The common, though, he saw was well up compared with last week. But such as it was, with certificate No. 347 bouncing on the blue waves, he would have to tell Mrs. Galioto that her money was waiting for her — or a preferred stock certificate of the same denomination — but not the precise one she had brought in. Which was all right, anyway. Except that it meant for explanations, dubious and trying. And thinking about the lady in question whose single visit to that office had caused him enough anxiety to cover his next year’s salary, there came nobody but her lawyer himself, five minutes later, for the card brought in by Carson’s stenographer read:

  Mr. Joe Allenuza was a shrewd-faced fellow of about forty-five. Very sallow in face, with glistening black hair parted in the middle, he bulged like a sausage in a very tight-fitting and tightly buttoned grey suit. Liver spots a-plenty there were on his face, but that face bore an ingratiating smile. He was unfolding, even as he sat down in the visitor’s chair, a printed receipt which Carson recognized as the one he had issued, and on its reverse side he saw that some sort of an order had been typed out which had evidently been signed by Mrs. Galioto herself. He frowned uneasily; yet his frown faded, for he felt peculiarly glad, now at this moment, in the presence of Mr. Joe Allenuza, that in his checking account reposed ten thousand round dollars to square up the Galioto family.

  “You have come, I presume,” Carson said genially, “concerning Mrs. Galioto’s Texas Helium Gas stock?”

  Mr. Allenuza nodded. He spoke very good English with only the trace of an accent. “Yessir. I have. Mrs. Galioto’s son talked to her by long-distance phone to Milwaukee last night — and she in turn called me on the phone and gave me certain instructions.” He pointed to the typewritten words on the back of the receipt. “I dictated to her Milwaukee notary what to write out and have her sign, and she sent this down to me by the night train.”

  “Very well. The value of that one hundred share certificate is quoted at just a 10th of a point under par. That makes it worth nine thousand nine hundred and ninety dollars. I suppose an even $10,000 will square it. I have decided to buy it, according to Mrs. Galioto’s original wishes.”

  Joe Allenuza raised an arresting hand as Carson reached for his checkbook. “Mrs. Galioto,” he said quietly, “would not sell that stock certificate for anything on earth, Mr. Carson. And she weesh that you return it to me now, at once. Look — I have legal order on you here.”

  “Not sell it?” exclaimed Carson, his face frowning. “But, my dear fellow, she brought it in here originally under the misapprehension that we were brokers — and she wanted to sell. May I ask why she does not now wish to sell it?”

  “Because.” said Mr. Allenuza, with not even the trace of a smile on his swarthy features, “Mrs. Galioto had a dream night before last in which Mr. Galioto came to her holding a staff, and cautioning her not to sell, under any conditions, for five years, something on which were the numbers four and three and seven, and which was green in color: that in time to come it would be worth — oh, worth a great deal more. And he commanded her to keep it. And, Mr. Carson, those are the three digits on that stock certificate — No. 347 it was, I believe — and it was green, if you’ll remember. Mrs. Galioto was very worried by her dream. She went immediately to a — ”

  “To a spiritualist, I presume?” said Carson wearily.

  Mr. Allenuza shook his head firmly. “No. A fortune teller. A mystic who has had very remarkable results in Milwaukee in forecasting the fortunes of Mrs. Galioto’s Milwaukee relatives. The fortune teller fully corroborated what Mr. Galioto told her in her dream — that her birthday and type made the number 347, or any combination of those digits, very lucky for her — and that the green color particularly intensified their luck because the letter ‘g’ in ‘green,’ combined with the double ‘ee,’ tallied numeralogically with the sum of those digits, which equals 14. So Mrs. Galioto, having had her dream perfectly corroborated, would not now part, with that certificate for anything on earth.”

  Carson sighed deeply, a sigh that emanated from the depths of his very soul. Of all the beastly complications — after everything had been perfectly ironed out. He spoke, wearily. “Doesn’t all this seem like a lot of rank foolishness to you, Mr. Allenuza?”

  Mr. Allenuza made an airy gesture with his hands. “It is not for me to say, Mr. Carson. I did all of Mr. Galioto’s legal business — as I now do all of Mrs. Galioto’s — and that of all of her r
elatives. However, I am not so certain as you that her views are foolish. I believe that in our dreams we are given disteenct glimpses into the unknown, even into the future. I believe the advice we receive in our dreams, from those who are dead, is advice to be heeded.”

  Carson tapped the toe of his foot gently on the floor. He was facing foreign ignorance — superstition — and that one stock certificate of all stock certificates was riding toward Berlin on the mid-ocean, already legally transferred to a German company. He had about as much chance of ever securing title, recorded or unrecorded, of Certificate No. 347 as a white man, attending a negro race grievance meeting in Chicago’s Black Belt, would have of escaping intact with all his clothes still on his back.

  “Mr. Allenuza,” he began, “this is all nonsense. This — ”

  Mr. Allenuza leaned forward. He was no longer the suave Sicilian lawyer. His tones took on a snarl. He pounded on Carson’s desk with his clenched fist as he spoke.

  “Have you or have you not got that certeeficate? Weel you or weel you not return it to me in exchange for this receipt and this order?”

  “Suppose I don’t answer either question,” said Carson, his own voice belligerent, “considering that I don’t know who you are. Does your white card make you Mr. Joe Allenuza? Remember, Mrs. Galioto and her son are the only people in this affair with whom I have dealt, or whom I know. That order on the back of my receipt might be a forgery for all I know.”

  “But I weell answer you,” the Sicilian lawyer shot back viciously. He pointed a forefinger at Carson. “Onless you reply to both questions satisfactorily to me, I shall at once wire the Committee of Mining Stock Investigation at Washington that you, as agent for this department, are stealing goods weech belong to my client.”