“Something—er—like that,” admitted Hugh Vann. He looked at his watch. His story of the Klondike Building murder was, he knew, on the linotypes right now. If not being locked up. And he must phone in, soon, the full facts of the arrest of this man, the damning circumstances thereto, and whatever else could be squeezed out of that arrest—all to be run in a concise several-hundred-word bold-face news bulletin at the top of that story.
“Well old man,” he said genially, “I’m coming back later today of course for a good long heart-to-heart talk; but, for the immediate moment, now, it’s necessary for me to know who you are—and what defense, if any, you have in mind to offer to this charge. Please understand—I want, just now, only the pivot of what defense—if any—you think you have to offer. So first—who are you?”
“John Doe, Esquire!” said the other, dryly. “Does one have to drag in his whole family in a criminal affair!”
“Not at all,” declared Hugh Vann. “John Doe let it be! And now, old man, in view of the way they’re rushing you to trial—what’s to be your defense? Alibi? What!”
The defendant was contemplatively silent.
“Well,” he said at length, “since you are my attorney, I suppose I’ll have to come clean with you.” He paused. “My defense will naturally have to be that I have hypno-mesmeric amnesia as to the whole occurrence in which I’m alleged to have figured!”
“Hypno—mesmeric—amnesia? What—what do you mean?” And Hugh Vann leaned forward puzzledly. “Just what I said,” returned the other coolly. “Complete amnesia—over a certain fixed period of time marked off by specific mesmeric phenomena—and all caused by oft-repeated hypnotic suggestions.”
Hugh Vann wondered dully if he were being spoofed. “You—you know the lingo of the science of hypnotism, don’t you?”
“God, I ought to!” the other said cryptically.
“Well, what—what is the period of time,” Hugh Vann now inquired gently, “over which you—er—have no recollection?”
“It extends,” said the other coolly, “from precisely the moment I struck Chicago—which date I do happen to know was October 20th—3 days ago that is, isn’t it?—you see I landed here on a freight, coming from Galveston, Texas, where I came into America on a freighter—anyway, the period of my amnesia extends from the afternoon I came into Chicago, up until the moment I was hustled by those dicks into some door somewhere up there on the street that leads down into this lockup.”
“It—would!” said Hugh Vann dryly to himself. “It—would!” But aloud he said only: “I do wish old man, you’d—you’d explain this?”
“I will gladly. Would have to in court, anyway, so far as that goes. But this is the how of it: I’m a drifter—and always have been. My family name is my own. So that’s that. During the last few years, however, I’ve been traveling, in South America, with Königsberg—now dead—and—”
“He would be—whoever he was,” said Hugh Vann to himself. Aloud he said: “Who was Königsberg?”
“Königsberg? Why—why, he was the famous stage hypnotist, of course, and I was one of his several professional subjects. Anyway, to boil matters short, he always put me into hypnosis for the evening performance by mesmerizing me first, and—”
“Mesmerizing you? I—I thought mesmerization and hypnotization were all one thing.”
“Good God, no! He always mesmerized me first by making me gaze into the receding reflections of a revolving lamp, placed at the focus of some inclined mirrors. You know—”
“Oh—something,” Hugh Vann inquired, “like that gadget in the window of the Revolving Lamp Drug Store—on Van Buren and Dearborn Streets?”
“The very identical thing,” said the other easily. And went on. “Well, Königsberg always suggested to me—as I happen to know—that when I would come out from my evening hypnosis, I would have no recollection whatever of what had happened between two gazings into his revolving lamp.”
“That is,” asked Hugh Vann, “he used the same revolving lamp—with mirrors and all?—to draw you out of your—your hypnosis?”
“Exactly,” said the other, easily and smoothly. “And then came one day when I had to have a minor surgical operation that was due to cause me lots of pain and mental agony. I would have had Königsberg hypnotize me just before the operation, except that he himself was due to be two hundred miles away. A series of special performances—at special high rates. But he suggested that I gaze on the revolving lamp—he had a duplicate, you see, to leave me—before going into the hospital. Which I did. And beyond that—I don’t know anything. For Königsberg returned some days after my travail was over. And put the lamp on me again. And the only recollection I had of all my suffering—and I understand I had such—was gazing at a revolving lamp. At the focus of some inclined mirrors. Which was, in reality, two revolving lamps fused. I had no recollection, you see, about the period of time between the two gazings. Or mesmerizations—as they call such kind of gazings.”
Hugh Vann stared. He felt now he was being spoofed by an expert.
“And later,” went on John Doe, “Königsberg, curious, and ever experimental, tried to restore, by hypnosis, my memory of that hospital period. But it would not come back. It was simply separated psychically—that’s the way he put it, anyway—and floating like a broken-off bubble in the—the subconscious.”
Hugh Vann looked helpless—and he knew he looked helpless. “Go on,” was all he said.
“Well, Königsberg finally died. If you consult the available newspaper files, you’ll find he died in Rio de Janeiro three months ago. And I drifted. And finally came on here to America. And to Chicago, as I told you. And on that day, October 20th—I definitely remember the date well—I was gazing in that revolving lamp—or the mirrors in back of it, if you want me to be precise—of that Revolving Lamp Drugstore. Yes—the one on Van Buren and Dearborn Streets. And—”
“And—” Hugh Vann leaned forward. This was moonshine of the purest ray serene.
“And I remember nothing further than finding myself, in the hands of several police captors, still gazing apparently into the same revolving lamp—except that the lamp and mirror was now in the window of some tiny drugstore which apparently lies right jam-up next the door where I was dragged downstairs here—that is, from what I gathered, the store gives both on the street and inside the City Hall foyer.”
“Whadda alibi!” said Hugh Vann to himself. “Complete coverage!” Aloud he said gently: “Well—your story is consistent anyway! For the owner of that store is cousin to our mayor—and did succeed in wedging a ten-foot-wide offspring of itself right in the City Hall here! On the technicality that medical emergencies demanded a drugstore in and on the City Hall.” He was silent. And then asked: “Come in on that freighter—as a passenger?”
“Hell—no! As a worker. And jumped ship.”
“I see. And the freighter—what was its name?”
“The Sao Fillipe,” replied the other promptly. “And you can wire down to the capt—”
“The Sao—Fillipe,” Hugh Vann was echoing. “Why, good Lord, man—that’s the boat that nearly caused an international incident, day before yesterday. Picked up a cargo of Revolutionary war materials there in Galveston—and shoved off for somewhere in South America—nobody knows where—and left all its wireless equipment openly on the dock—so’s there’d be no contention later by the United States Government that it had wirelessed the ship, and the ship had failed to heave to and return to port.”
The red-haired man’s jaw fell open.
“It’s—it’s left port?”
“And—how! But ’twas in all the papers. Why man, we couldn’t even wireless that vessel. And check your statement. But you couldn’t have muffed that story, It was front-page stuff.”
John Doe gave a half-hearted doleful laugh.
“I doubt that I did. But—but the amnesia, plain
ly, has wiped out whatever I may have read on it.”
The other regarded him curiously.
“Well then,” Hugh Vann said, “excepting the fact that you’ve had complete hypnotically suggested amnesia during that 3-day period between—between your eyes falling on those two revolving lamp gadgets, why, isn’t it yet possible that because of criminal relations you entered into with—with God knows whom, you broke into Mr. Vann’s—ahem—safe and—er—bumped off—”
“Because,” declared the other promptly, and supremely confidently, “I couldn’t do that. I’m not a burglar, Or crib-cracker. Sure—I know the lingo of that sort of thing—from drifting around. But that’s all I am—a drifter. No crook! And just because a man develops amnesia over a certain period doesn’t mean he has an utter change of personality during that period. Königsberg would confirm me on that. I never in my life pulled anything criminal—and so I didn’t during that period that’s now lost to me. In short, whatever I did while in that lost period, I certainly didn’t bust any safes open.”
“But see here,” expostulated Hugh Vann, “you were caught, after all, with a skull on your person. So you must have—”
“Just a minute. Some Chinaman’s skull, wasn’t it, who—”
“Some Chinaman is right! Yes. And with its jawbone fastened to it with white surgical tape—just as it was when it was deposited in the State’s Attorney’s safe. And—”
“Yes—but from something dropped by a fellow named Kilgallon who was down here, I gather that the deposited skull wasn’t viewed by anybody when it was put in deposit? Is that right?”
“Well, no, or yes. Anyway, that is—”
“Anyway, the deposited skull, as I was informed, had a bullet hole through the back of its dome, didn’t it? As did the one found on me!”
“Yes and—”
“And it had some surgical work done inside its nose aperture, didn’t it?”
“I’ll say! And—”
“And it had some initials, ‘M. K.’ lettered on its back, didn’t it?”
“Yes. And believe me, my dear client, you—”
“Well, just hold all that! The skull found on me was my own property.”
“Your—own—property? Why—where did you get it?”
“I swiped it—out of a Chinese nose-surgeon’s office—in Shanghai, China. Where I’d been knocking around a few weeks. And just preparatory, inc’dentally, to shoving off—in a freighter—for South America. Where subs’quently I met up with Königsberg. Anyway, the skull was the skull of a Chinese coolie named I Ling—’twas a name a guy could never forget—who had been one of this surgeon’s operative cases, but who’d later been stabbed to death on the docks. And the surgeon had somehow—at least so he told me—got I Ling’s sconce. For office purposes.”
“So—it’s something you ‘swiped,’ eh? But I thought you said you weren’t a croo—”
“No, I’m not. And certainly wasn’t that day. For this damned lousy chink specialist offered to give me an examination—I had, and still have today, migraine attacks with terrific pain in the bridge of the nose—anyway, he offered to give me an examination and diagnosis for 5 yi. I gave him a 10-yi note. And, a while later, he refused to give me any change. So, while he was out of the office for a few minutes, I walked out with the Chink’s sconce—to keep as a good-luck fetish. And always carried it ever after.”
“Hm!” Hugh Vann passed a hand over his forehead. “Are there any customs records anywhere—of your fetching such a skull into America? Or into South America!”
“Hell—no! From China I went to South America on a freighter. And came back here the same way. ‘Sailors,’ jumping ship, don’t go through customs.”
“No. Well, who—who was this Chinese surgeon?”
“He was a Dr. Yat Yut—and there’s another name not easy to forget. The only nose-surgeon, then, in Shanghai. He’s dead now.”
“Yes,” said Hugh Vann dryly, “I rather thought he would be! Dead, eh?” His voice dripped irony.
“Oh yes. Quite dead! But you may have read of his death yourself and forgot it. He was killed in his office at—at 51 Tunsin Road. By some Chink patient whose tonsils he’d taken out—and who later killed him, thinking the lost tonsils prevented his—the patient—joining up with his ancestors.”
“No,” said Hugh Vann slowly, “I didn’t just happen to read that story. Though it’s plain you did. Since—ahem—you can cite it so fluently to me. Well—” He paused. “How’d the bullethole get into your skull?”
“Oh, I fired that in. In Buenos Aires. To try and determine an argument I’d had with Königsberg. And when I found the bullet would go clear through—well—I forget the argument! For I was on the wrong side.”
“I—see. And all this—is to be part of your story to the judge tonight? But see here—those initials? ‘M. K.’? Where and how did they come one!”
“Those? Those are Königsberg’s. Max Königsberg. He told me jokingly that I’d have no real luck with my fetish without them. And lettered them on—half jokingly, yes—and half seriously too. A considerable egotist, Königsberg.”
Hugh Vann sighed. And pitied, from the bottom of his heart, this fellow’s real lawyer. But he pressed on. For he was getting a wow of a newspaper story.
“Was that skull—on your person—when you were gazing into that revolving mirror? That first revolving mirror?”
“Oh yes! Though in a canvas carryall—you know what I mean?—a large square of canvas, looped around some things, and tied at the neck?—like hoboes carry?—fact is, I came on here from Texas as a ‘bindle stiff’—anyway, to get back to your question, the skull was in a canvas carryall, in my hand, and in with it was an extra shirt or so, a suit of b.v.d.’s, and a tie or two.”
“But the skull only—though now in a crimson box—was in the hands of some detectives, I take it, when you found yourself gazing in that second revolving lamp mirror? And being hustled downstairs?”
“Right! As I saw when they dumped it out downstairs. Only, of course, it’s rather apparent that considerable things must have happened between the two times I looked into those revolving lamp mirrors.”
“Rather!” declared Hugh Vann dryly. “Well, just how do you account for somebody having evidently induced you to place your precious stage prop—or luck-piece—or whatever it was!—in a crimsonized box, and—and stand there on the corner with it?”
“I don’t think anybody did! It must have been some idea of mine. Plenty logical enough—if only we knew the motives.”
“Yes—if! Well then, how do you account for your saying, to Archbishop Pell, when he asked you what was in your box: ‘Wah Lee’s skull; I cracked Vann’s pete’?”
“If I said that,” pronounced Doe thoughtfully, “—though I’m not at all convinced that I did, considering what I know about Archbishops—I—I must have been kidding, that’s all.”
“Some kidding, all right. But how would you have known that Mr. Vann’s safe had been broken into? And just such an item stolen? For I happen to know that that information wasn’t known to anybody.”
“It wasn’t, eh? How about the guy who did the job?”
“Oh sure, yes. But you mean to imply—”
“I mean to imply nothing,” the other said crossly. “The information just must have leaked, that’s all. To me. And I must have kidded the Archbishop, that’s all.”
“Well, do you think that the party who conveyed such information to you will come forward later, and admit it to the State’s Attorney?”
“Hell—no!” said the red-haired man. “And get beaten up—by the State’s Attorney’s men—on the theory that he, or she, or whoever it was, was in on the crime?”
“The State’s Attorney here no longer beats up—however, you’ve already learned that. Well, what do you hope for—by going pell-mell to trial?”
“Why—that somebody who can establish definitely that I couldn’t have been in on that crime—which I understand took place between to and n last night—will come forward, once my trial is set, and publicity about it launched, and get me freed. For since I’m amnesiacal concerning my whole stay in Chicago, I can’t help myself. I—I’ve got to depend on my publicity doing it for me.”
Hugh Vann rose suddenly. “I’ll—I’ll be going,” he said hurriedly. “And will return at 4 o’clock—to work this all out in detail.” And hastily he rang far the jailer. And was soon out.
Up out of the lockup, by one of the stairs to the main foyer, he called up his paper. And dictated a concise yet comprehensive story which, he noted, was being grabbed by re-write men as fast as he dictated it. Then he called his brother. And told him laughingly of the defendant’s words.
“About the wildest yarn I ever heard spun,” Louis Vann declared. “A—a desperate bird’s desperate claim.
Amnesia? Good God! But I’m glad it’s baloney, Hugh. And something that can never, under any circumstances, be confirmed. The amnesia part, I mean. For of course his claim to have owned a Chinese sconce, swiped from a dead nose-specialist’s office in Shanghai, is just an attempt on his part to clear up the anomalous situation he ‘putatively’ got into—in the ‘putative’ amnesia! Which amnesia, as I say, I’m glad is pure baloney. For if that alone were true—confirmable, you understand—it would mean with absolute certainty that I couldn’t send McGurk to the chair.”
“It would, Louis? Why—how is that?”
“Why, because in that case this fellow John Doe would be minus the recollection of who passed the box and the skull to him—and why—and how—and long before he ever reached trial, the fellow who did pull the job would have scattered and vanished. Would, in fact, immediately your newsstory breaks. And by the Illinois Supreme Court ruling of today, Hugh, unless the chain of passage of the evidence is complete, and re-established—i.e. the identity of the man who takes the evidence, and the man who receives it, and any between—the skull isn’t evidence. But you don’t need to put that in the story when you phone it in.”
The Man with the Crimson Box Page 18
