Allstyn, reflecting, felt that he had asked about all the preliminary questions logical with respect to a new client. Excepting, perhaps, in this case—what this client now in front of him did for a living! But Allstyn went back to the subject in hand.
“Well, now that we have a fair and logical motive for an endeavor to obtain cancellation of a contract—” Allstyn did not use the same phrase the young man had used, namely, “breaking of a contract”—”namely, ‘improvement of one’s financial condition and one’s prestige’ may I ask, next—if you don’t mind telling me—why did you come to me?”
“Because, Mr. Allstyn, everybody knows that virtually any contract—taken to any lawyer—will result in a decision by that lawyer that the contract can be broken: 49 out of 50 will tell a client, who wishes to break a contract—any contract—that he has a case, to do so.”
“About 51 out of 50,” chuckled Allstyn, “might be better statistics. For how would we lawyers live—if we didn’t create strife—in the courts?”
“But,” declared the young man, “it is said, Mr. Allstyn—and in more places than one—that you are the one man in Chicago who will not advise a client to try to break a contract if that will only result in the client’s losing his case.”
“Someone, anyway, thinks well of me,” commented Allstyn. “Then you want, I take it, an honest opinion as to whether some certain contract—presumably one binding you—can be negotiated into a cancellation?”
“Gracious no, Mr. Allstyn! ‘Broken’ is what I said. Shattered—smashed! Chances of negotiating a cancellation are just nihil, because—but before asking you for this opinion which I desire, I want to say that I’m not Croesus. I was of the belief, as I called here today—and without even an appointment—that I could have you read this contract; and that for perhaps $10 you would tell me if or not—yes or no—there is any chance to break it.”
“How many words has your contract?” asked Allstyn. “For I am driving out of Chicago today—and on your very heels, moreover.”
“No more than 400 words,” said the newcomer.
“Well,” said Allstyn, “you seem to be a straight-appearing chap. And $10 will pay for my gasoline—and some besides! So—10 it is then—if you’re agreed.”
The other quickly opened a comfortable-looking billfold which, Allstyn saw, held at least a dozen crisp $10 bills and several fives, and slid over one of the 10’s.
Which Allstyn did not pocket for the moment, but laid underneath a small paperweight shaped like a brass Buddha.
“And now first,” said the attorney, “what is your name?”
“My name is Piffington Wainwright.”
“My God!” said Allstyn—but solely to himself. “Of all the first names in the world, it would be—Piffington! My God—Piffington!” But he maintained a serious face, as well as demeanor.
“Piffington?” he said musingly. “A distinctly individual name—to say the least. Do you mind tel—”
“Not at all. A family name, that’s all.” And no further illumination did Mr. Wainwright toss, on that point—at least at this juncture.
“Oh yes,” nodded Allstyn, “it does, at that, ring more like a last name than—than a first. Piffington Wainwright, eh?”
“Yes, Mr. Allstyn. In Chicago, in the Midwest here—yes!”
“In Chicago?—and the Midwest here? But—but—well, what might it be—elsewhere?”
“Well, in New York—and other places in the East—I call myself just ‘P. Wainwright.’ Everywhere. Even the people in New York with whom I have the contract in question do not know what that ‘P’ stands for.”
“I—see.” Though Allstyn—it is to be admitted!—did not see, any more than a blind mole reading 5-point type at noonday.
“But why,” he queried gently, “did you not wish the other contracting party to know your—er—first name?”
“Because it was none of their business, really; while it is yours, don’t you know.”
Allstyn scratched his head helplessly at this logic.
“But how did you handle them when they insisted—as they doubtlessly did—on knowing your full name?”
“Oh,” said Mr. Wainwright, blithely, “I just told them that I had been christened, by my parents, just ‘P’—in concurrence with the wishes of a certain grandfather who hoped that eventually I would voluntarily take his first name. Which also, you see, began with ‘P.’ And that, because of that legal christening, ‘P’ Wainwright was my legal name!”
Allstyn stroked his chin reflectively.
“And which,” Mr. Wainwright went on equally blithely, was the truth, you see. About my grandfather, you know. And my being christened just ‘P.’ For the ‘Piffington’ component of my name has been selected by me—a family name, Mr. Allstyn—only, taken by me from an English novel.”
Allstyn stared a bit helplessly at the young man who was legally, it seemed, one P. Wainwright; or, selectively, Piffington Wainwright!
“And what,” he asked gently, “might your brothers and sisters be named? ‘Q,’ ‘X,’ and ‘Y,’—or what?”
“I have no relatives,” said the young man briefly.
“I—see. Yes. Well, I guess we’ve talked enough about names, eh? And so now, what is your business, Mr. Wainwright?”
“I am a writer. A writer for radio. That is, I write certain scripts which—which are presented over the air by others.”
“Oh, indeed? That is interesting. For I am something of a radio fan. I don’t go for music, however, but often, often tune in, and thrill to the dramatic episodes of G-men chasing counterfeiters—and Chinese underground dramas—and criminals being brought to just—”
“Unfortunately,” said Mr. Piffington Wainwright, “I do not write those. I write the feature which has run now for some years—two nights a week—called ‘Uncle Griffy’s Bed-Time Animal Tales for Tiny Tots.’”
“Oh!” said Allstyn. And again “Oh! The Tiny Tot Tales? Oh—yes. I know about that feature. Can even tell you what it comes over—and who its sponsors are. It comes over the United-Evening Chain. From 7 to 7:15 each of the two evenings that it comes through. Am I right? And it’s sponsored by, jointly, the American Kiddy-Toy Products Corporation and the Housewives’ Comfort Dish-Drying Cloth Company. Right? You see I have a friend who has a little girl. About two years old. And several times we’ve sat and watched her, sitting on a stool in front of the radio, go fast asleep to the tale of how—”
“Yes, I know,” said the young man, and bitterness showed in his voice. “Of how the Big Gray Rabbit said to the Little Brown Mouse—” He broke off with a peculiar air of disgust in his voice. “What I write is not only moronic—but submoronic!”
“Oh—do you think so?” questioned Allstyn. “Of course, a moron is legally a person with a mind of one under 6 years of age. So I suppose you have a right, of course, to coin the word submoron for your—er—audiences. Yes. But what—well, what would you prefer to write—if I may ask?”
“The precise stuff you just described a few minutes back,” said Mr. Piffington Wainwright, promptly. “Crime-story stuff—for the radio audiences solely: thrilling swift-adventure stories about criminals and detectives, wild chases in the night along dark roads, dramatic clashes in old deserted houses, searches for objects which are the keys to wealth or happiness. In short—drama! And not mush-and-milk.”
Rutgers Allstyn stared at his client. The thought of the daintily mustached, fragilely eyeglassed, beflowered and—alas!—berouged—Mr. Wainwright writing the kind of red-blood things which he, Allstyn, listened to so frequently on his radio, nearly made Allstyn grin earwise: but again, as before, he held his face rigid with an effort. After all—every clown wanted to play Hamlet!
“Well, why,” he queried, “don’t you just write this super-hyper-dramatic material then? Rather—er—submit it?”
“Why?�
� said Mr. Wainwright. “My employers, in the radio entertainment field, won’t let me! Won’t even listen to the idea of my doing so. And my contract prevents my writing it for any other firm.”
“Oh—I’m beginning to get it faintly now. A mere slip of paper—standing in the way of full artistic fulfillment?”
“And also big money,” said Mr. Wainwright meaningfully. “For, quite aside from what you call ‘artistic fulfillment,’ which is, with me, the main thing—a tiny tot bedtime tale is worth, to its writer, exactly $15! And no more.”
“And the crime-story stuff—”
“—is worth fat money—to its writers.”
Allstyn nodded slowly.
“Well—let’s see this contract which seems to thwart you. I presume you read it—before you signed it?”
Mr. Wainwright was drawing from his breast pocket a folded document which, Allstyn perceived, even from a distance, comprised no more than one sheet of legal-size paper. But, through his dainty eyeglasses, Mr. Wainwright stared incredulously at the lawyer.
“Of course,” he said, “you—you are chafing me? For nobody, I realize ever in the history of the world, signed a contract—without reading it?”
“No? Well, I could take you right now over to the Ulysses—er—a—building—on the other edge of the Loop, and show you a practicing lawyer who signed a most vital contract without reading it. With a joker in it that can—conceivably—cost this lawyer, within but a few years, $100,000.”
“A lawyer! A lawyer—did that?”
“Yes. A practicing criminal lawyer. A girl, to be sure, but one of whom—so, at least, I think!—everyone will hear of, one of these fine days—though God knows just when!—in connection with some or another sensational criminal case. For I’m sure that the lesson learned by her, in that one supreme bull of her life, will assuredly come to the front in anything she ever does in court. For the reason that—but would you care to hear the circumstances?”
“I would indeed,” said Mr. Piffington Wainwright firmly and in a voice that—it is to be admitted—actually dripped with skepticism.
CHAPTER XIX
“No Talkee”
State’s Attorney Louis Vann, just back at his City Hall Suite by no more than to minutes from a speedy trip by auto to the South Chicago Police Station, raised the furthest of his four desk phones as it rang. For when that particular phone rang, Vann knew that important information was to come to him. Since only a few persons had that number.
And the call was important—for on the other end was no other than Leo Kilgallon, his special assistant.
“Leo speaking, Mr. Vann,” the youthful voice on the other end said.
“Oh yes, Leo. And where are you speaking from?”
“I’m right here in the same building with you, Mr. Vann. The public booth—in the corridor of our private lockup. But I thought I’d ring first—to see whether you were back yet.”
“Yes, I am, Leo. By—” Vann glanced from the tail of his eye at the small gilt clock facing him across his desk. “It’s 1:10 now—so I’m back from South Chicago by 10 full minutes at least. Of course that boxman, Pinky McHarg—with the inflamed optic—that Chief Scuttleman picked up out there was a dud. He was even in the Illinois Eye, Ear and Nose Hospital all last eight—and because of the very eye that caused his pickup! However, in view of what you phoned me, out there, the McHarg pickup was all wet, anyway. And—but enough of him. Have you interviewed this fellow yet—as I instructed you to do on the wire, when you caught me just as I was leaving South Chicago?”
“Yes, Mr. Vann, I have. And—but have you given the skull the once-over yet?”
“I’ll say I have! It’s Wah Lee’s of course—to a T—exactly as per the description in our deposition. White surgical tape—bullet hole—initials ‘M. K.’—surgical work inside nose. I’m no oral surgeon, of course, but I can at least see plainly that operative work’s been done inside on the nose’s right side. Moreover, I just talked, myself, to Daniel Kilgallon—that is, I should say, your father—and got a further confirmation of what he gave you on the phone: i. e. the real lowdown of what Morgan, of the squad car, tried to render you. More than that, Leo, I just talked to Archbishop Pell—over at St. Hubert’s Grill where he’d mentioned, before your father, he was going. And got, direct, the full of this pickup’s reply to the Archbishop’s question. Why-y—the fellow, Leo, he’s—but what name does he give you?”
“Just John Doe, Mr. Vann. Refuses to give his right name.”
“Reason enough. Well, what kind of a bird is he? Distinct crook type, I suppose?”
“Yes—well, that is, yes and no. That is, he’s got the debonair air of all hoods, but, on the other hand, he uses good English—quite correct English, moreover. A bit breezy, perhaps, here and there—yes. That is, Mr. Vann, he strikes me as a bird who’s at least been around in his day. Rubbing elbows all the way from gutter to palace! If you get me.”
“Yes. I do. Well, what does he say about having cracked my old cheesebox? He admits it, I hope?”
“No, Mr. Vann. Quite on the contrary. Says he did not.”
“Oh, he does, eh? Well—who, according to his sobstory, gave him that skull, then?”
“Nobody, he says.”
“Nobody? Well, good God—why did he tell Archbishop Pell—thinking he was some confederate—thinking, by God, Leo, that Pell was some member of the Parson Gang, now, beyond doubt, using the gang’s old clerical costume dodge—why did he tell Pell that he’d broken into my safe?”
“I asked him that. For my father, of course, had told me exactly what the Archbishop had told him this fellow had said. And so I asked him that—but by degrees, you understand. For first I asked him why he was ‘passing’ the skull of Wah Lee?”
“And he said—what!”
“He said, Mr. Vann, ‘Who the hell is Wah Lee?’”
“Oh, he did, eh? Well, what did you say then?”
“I said: ‘Well, why did you crack Mr. Vann’s safe?’”
“And what did he say?”
“He said: ‘Who the hell is Mr. Vann?’”
“That’s good! And you, Leo—what did you say?”
“I said: ‘Mr. Vann is the man who’ll send you to the chair.’”
“And he—?”
“Then I sprang it on him, out of the clear sky, that we had a witness to his words. Just one. I didn’t tell him, of course, about the other.”
“And what did he have the supreme gall to say?”
“He said, ‘I don’t like to contradict a member of the Church, but I’m—I’m quite certain, in my own mind, I said nothing of the kind!’”
“Oh—he did, eh? Does he know there was a further confirmatory witness there?”
“No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t dream that. If you ask me, he figures this is a case of one man’s word versus another’s. And therefore a perfect legal set-off. He ‘regrets,’ he says, that no witnesses were present to prove that he didn’t say all that.”
“Oh, he does, eh? Well, the man he thought was a deaf-and-dumb man will be present at this fellow’s trial. And will talk a-plenty.” Vann paused. “Well, what the devil does he say, Leo? About the whole set-up that caused him to be picked up?”
“Well, all he says, Mr. Vann, to my brief rehearsal of that, is that he’ll talk when he gets to court—and not before!”
“Oh, he will, eh? Well, that’s the kind of a bird I like,” added Vann. “How much money was on his person?”
“Not a dime. And literally—not figuratively, Mr. Vann. Not a dime.”
“Exactly the amount of money,” commented Vann, “that was always kept in my old safe across the street. Not a dime! Well—does he holler for a ‘mouthpiece’?”
“No. When I asked him—purely as a stall, of course—if he wanted a ‘mouthpiece’ right off, he said ‘no thanks’—he didn�
��t want any of the State’s attorney’s stool pigeons pumping him in his cell.”
“Oh he did, eh? Well that baby is just about the softest snap this office has every had. Or ever will have! why—we got him with the goods actually on his person—plus his own admission as to the identity of the goods, his knowledge as to the identity, and what he’d done to get ’em. All backed up by two witnesses who are absolutely unimpeachable. And last but not least—we’ve got the goods themselves! Say—he may as well plead guilty—take the rap—and call it a day!”
“That’s exactly what I told him. Naturally. And he said—well, he said: ‘Why should I take a rap for doing something I never did? And stealing something I never stole? And saying nothing I ever said? Nix! I’ll go to trial on it.
“Planning a legal battle, eh? Well, that’s our avocation around here, eh boy? We hand ’em legal battles aplenty, don’t we—when they want legal battles, eh?”
“Yes,” said the other. “But—”
“But? But—what?”
“Listen, Chief, have you stopped—to think?”
“No, Leo. I never think! If I ever had, I’d never have gotten to be State’s Attorney.”
“Oh come—Chief! I—I didn’t mean it that way. What I meant was this: This lug apparently intends to go to bat.”
“What for God’s sakes on?”
“Only God knows that, Mr. Vann. Maybe some clever cock-and-bull yarn that he hasn’t worked out yet in his own mind. But—”
“Well, cock-and-bull it sure will be!” commented Vann grimly. “And with plenty of accent on the last!”
“Well,” declared Leo, undecidedly, “be that as it may, he does, I’m certain, intend to go to bat. And so—have you stopped to figure that until he does—and until he’s actually convicted—that skull found on him isn’t legally the State’s property—isn’t even legal evidence by which to convict Big Gus?”
“That, my dear boy,” pronounced Vann confidently, “‘be’ a ‘werry’—a most ‘werry’—moot point! As yet, anyway. However, to answer your question, let me say I haven’t given a thought to fine legal distinctions—since the news came in from you that the fellow was nabbed 100 per cent dead to rights. I simply figured we’d have a signed confession before sundown.”
The Man with the Crimson Box Page 14
