“What can I do for you, Allstyn?”
Allstyn looked dubiously around the figures awaiting vouchers.
“Don’t mind these folks,” Congreve told him. “Unless, of course, you’ve something secret. In which case—” And he nodded toward a connecting room.
“Well—no,” Allstyn replied. “There can’t be anything very secret anyway about what I’ve got to say.” He paused. “Well, as you can surmise, Captain, I’ve run up to tell you something—a good deal, in fact—about this fellow Wainwright, who—”
“Oh, yes, yes, yes.” And Congreve slid open the top drawer of his desk, and withdrew a large square card, at least a foot square, which he slid over to Allstyn, turning it over face up as he did. “Write down, will you, what you can add there.”
Allstyn gazed unsmilingly at the card. It was a standard detective bureau card, such as were used to register criminals, and bore two freshly affixed photoprints of Piffington, taken front-view and side-view and, in its 10 numbered rectangles, his fingerprints. The blank space captioned “Information furnished by friends or relatives:” was glaringly empty. Allstyn noted, however, that the card had not yet been stamped with a serial registration number. And he was glad, at least, that he could save Piffington from resting, for the rest of his life, under the stigma of having once been “Booked.”
“No,” he said, shoving the card off, “I came up on the matter of the ridiculous rubbish that poor blighter confessed to you today.”
“Ru-rubbish?” stammered Congreve. And his color turned suddenly greenish. The rest of the men, who had shown unmistakable signs of departing in a body, stayed their departure as one man. “What—what do you mean, Allstyn?” Congreve asked.
“Simply, Captain,” Allstyn explained, “that this Piffington Wainwright was my client. In a purely civil matter, that is. And he came to me today to try to find out how to break a purely personal contract with those New York radio people. But when I read the contract, I had to tell him it was unbreakable, And—well I hate to confess this, Captain, but I sort of suggested that if—if he could make himself poison—you know?—to the radio people, they’d break it themselves. And sky-high.”
To Allstyn, at least, Captain Congreve looked, at that moment, like a great black gathering storm cloud.
“And so—and so,” Congreve said, gloweringly, “the rouge-plastered little pup utilized this department, eh, to bust it? With a phoney ‘sing’? Is—is that what I’m to gather, Allstyn?”
“Yes,” Allstyn admitted, already hating this job.
“Phony is the word all right—since I happen to know he’s got an ironclad alibi up his sleeve.” He paused. “Oh, I’m sort of—of to blame, I’m afraid, in view of the fact that—”
“Was it you—” and Congreve heaved a great sigh. “Was it you,” he repeated, “that he talked to—earlier today—in yonder booth—and cautioned not to reveal this—this alibi?”
“No, not I. For I left town almost immediately after, being with him. And—but did he claim he talked to me!”
“He did not, no. He pretended that ’twas his criminal attorney. That is, he balked when he had his John Hancock half down. And made it a condition that he wouldn’t put the other half down unless he could talk five minutes with his lawyer—on a private wire. So I let him have that booth. Where he did jabber with somebody. No I don’t know who; nor couldn’t hear a word through three thicknesses of glass. And besides, that booth’s on an outside wire. The fact is, it’s for just such bargainings, anyway.”
“Well, I rather think I can guess,” Allstyn said, nodding, “whom he talked with. It was either a certain man on South Shore Drive—or—or the latter’s personal man—or some certain guest, at a certain shindig—who could phone in and bust that confession sky-high. Just what he told the party in question, I of course have no idea. And—” Allstyn broke off—”Anyway, Wainwright, I’m sorry to say, has used your department—to break a contract. Though only 10 minutes ago, however, did I get to read the story. And know anything about it.” He paused. “Now I know how damned angry this sort of thing makes you, Captain. But you—you ought to be a good sport—so long as he was clever enough to put it over the way he did. And it seems to me he was clever, in the way in which he got that sledge-hammer out of the picture by dropping it to the bottom of the river. To the bottom of the bottom of the river, in fact, if I’m correctly informed as to the sludge down there! And in the way he manufactured a hypothetical watch that might hypothetically have been dropped at the scene of the crime—and ten finger impressions that he ‘thought’ he might have left! But unfortunately, as I say, Captain—and I’ve got to tell you for him, now that he’s being pushed about over there at the State’s Attorney’s offices—he was at a party all last night given by Buford van der Zook, the artist, on South Shore Drive. And whom, incidentally, I know myself. And which fact Wainwright—not dreaming at the time he mentioned it to me, of what he was going to pull—in fact, to be accurate, he thought I was going straight out of town—held back from you.”
Congreve looked, at that moment, to Allstyn, like a man so unutterably weary of being a detective bureau chief that Allstyn felt sorry at having to do what he was doing.
“Of course, Allstyn,” Congreve said, like a child trying to hold on to the tail of a beautiful but escaping kite, “you realize, don’t you, that in dissolving Wainwright’s confession this way, you’re knocking the State’s Attorney’s chances sky-high, of convicting Gus McGurk in the Wah Lee murder?”
“Well, I can’t help that, of cou—but how do you make that out, Captain?”
“How? Well—that skull is the only evidence to establish corpus delicti in that Wah Lee Case. Common sense alone would say that—however, the Supreme Court of Illinois today declared that in a case like that, anybody snitching evidence like that must be convicted of having snitched it. If the evidence is to remain evidence! The idea being to confirm the identity of the evidence. And establish the unbroken chain, don’t you know, of passage, from repository to crook—and crook back to police again. Now, goddamn it Allstyn, in busting Wainwright’s confession, you’ve busted one of the nicest uninterrupted movements of that evidence as—as could ever exist. For instance: Wainwright babbled that he took the stolen skull home—put it in a shoebox—then took it back downtown with him again—where he walked about with it trying to figure what to do—and, when he had so figured, lugged it back home again to where the red-haired guy had now returned; then took it—now in the crimsoned box—back downtown again—and the red-haired guy to boot; and there, near that southeast corner of Old Post Office Block, passed the box over to the red-haired guy; and watched the other—from off some distance—clear up till a squad car picked the latter up. And took legal possession, of course, of the sconce. An absolutely unbroken movement, you see? Which is essent—”
“But good God, Captain,” Allstyn put in, “I have to set the idiot right before he proceeds to put the State’s Attorney’s office, in turn, to a further lot of fool trouble. Though now that Wainwright’s contract is broken—he’ll repudiate his confession in short order. But aside from all that, I’m not hurting the State’s case against McGurk. You still have that red-haired man in custody. And besides—you’ve another suspect, haven’t you, that was hauled in by the detective Smith—at the scene of the crime?”
“Oh, yes,” said Congreve, unenthusiastically, “we have. Yes. A Malay—with six fingers on each yellow hand! I’ll fetch him up, if you’d care to see him.”
He dropped his chin to his hand, seemingly a weary man indeed.
“I’ve seen Malays,” said Allstyn, “and I’ve seen people with six fingers on their hands. So I’ve as good as seen your six-fingered Malay. And so you can do as you please, Captain, about making a special showup of him—for me alone.” He paused. “I don’t know, of course, why your Malay was carted in here—but there certainly must have been more reason than mere
ly that a Chinese skull was stolen—or that six fingers can spin a safe dial better than five can. But the point remains, Captain, that you’ve got two individuals now—yes, the Malay, and the red-haired man—through whom—and by conviction of either—or even confession of either—you can establish the full movements of that skull—its legal identity. So will you check the gilt-edged alibi I’ve handed in for Wainwright and—”
Allstyn gazed at his watch, and realized he must be getting started, “—and put him back on the streets, with or without a boot in the—the behind, as soon as possible?”
Congreve appeared still, however, a most aggrieved man. Particularly when his eyes fell on the voucher book whose triple banked vouchers he had just been filling out. “Well, well, well,” was all he said. And looked up. “See here, Allstyn, have you any idea of what expense a ‘confession’ like Wainwright’s costs a department like this? I’ve just, in fact, been signing the very vouchers. Which have to be paid, you know. Whether a confession is phony or not. Now take this chap Peter McKanstry here.” Congreve inclined his head toward the stocky little man at his left. “He’s a professional diver. Fortunately for us, he was working a half-block up the embankment today, on a River and Harbors Commission job and it only took a phone message over there to move him and his air machine a couple of hundred feet and make a single descent. At Piling 37, you know. Where Wainwright claimed he sunk his sledge. Hell! But, $10 that one descent cost us. And ’twould have been $25, Pete says, if we’d had to send out the full equipment special. And Mr. Horace Winterbottom, here, is an official ‘observer’ for cases like that. A technicality, you know, Allstyn, that has to be covered—so that if a diver brings up something, the defendant’s lawyer can’t later claim the diver took it down with him first! So—a regulation $5 fee to Horace—and I happen to know he needs it.” Congreve was grumpily silent. “Also, we phoned all over New York City for your man Buford van der Zook—yes, we found the invitation later inside Wainwright’s coat lining—but van der Zook had gone this morning to New York by air, and no servant on duty at his residence could tell us anything about his party—for the simple reason that they were given last night off—and van der Zook’s man, who had handled the party, had gone on to New York with van der Zook. In short, Allstyn, I used up $8 long-distance time being switched here, there, and all over New York. Again, Allstyn, I had to take Jeff Forsyth, here, off a most important fingerprint case, and send him scuttling over—with Don Gribbons, here, as official ‘observer’ again!—to that locked office, to dust the wall under that diploma. And search for f. p.’s. And under new regulations here I actually have to pay Forsooth’s department for his time—$8 I got off at. While Don Gribbons here—‘official observer’—gets $5. If only Vann had still held the key of the place, I might have charged those last items off to the State’s Attorney’s office—but the key had just been officially delivered to me—and so the place was technically in the hands of the Police Department. And—however, Allstyn, your client—and disregarding my time, since I’m on salary!—cost us 36 round dollars.”
“Well I realize he must have cost you something,” Allstyn said discomfitedly. “And because he was, after all, my client, and I’m partly responsible for putting fool ideas into his fool head, I’m going to ask the privilege of drawing you a check for—” He hurriedly drew out from his side coat pocket the folding pocket checkbook he always carried there, “—for that full 36 dollars!”
“No, no,” Congreve expostulated, “I don’t want your check.”
“I know, Captain—but it’s only right. It’ll be made payable to the department, and—”
“But I can’t take it, Allstyn.”
“But why not, Captain? In the face of the fact that I’ll be making it out direct to the department, the only possible reason that you can’t take it is that you—or the department you represent—or both—feel grateful to me, in some way; and certainly neither you nor the department has any cause to feel grateful to me; so—”
“No? Well—maybe the department—and I—have cause at that,” said Congreve, with evident reluctance. “For the demolishment of Wainwright’s confession by Rutgers Allstyn means the removal of a black, black blot from the escutcheon of a man with whom I not only have had professional relations, but whom I’ve additionally always considered my best friend. And so—”
“You mean, of course, that Wainright’s confession drags in, someway—though invidiously—the name of somebody known to you? Though, to save my life, I can’t recollec—”
“Oh,” said Congreve, “no paper would have printed his name and identity—at least during such time as the confession remained unconfirmed—or even till, perhaps, the confessor had been convicted—for the paragraph in which the name occurs is dynamite—libel!—and, in the event of something like this—yes, someone, I mean, like you, coming in, and knocking the confession sky-high—well—the printing of that name would be good for $20,000 damages, by the man in question, against every paper in town.”
“The devil you say! What is—was—the elided—or—er—edited paragraph?”
“Well, ’twould have been, of course—but here—I’ll read it to you,” said Congreve. “It’s even possible that, since this individual is of the political party opposed to State’s Attorney Vann, Vann stuck a piece of paper over part of the paragraph before he photostated the confession there in his department, and handed out copies to the newspapermen. For Lou Vann is of the type who doesn’t fight underhandedly. But I’ll read the paragraph in question—” Congreve was withdrawing from a drawer of his desk a thin sheaf of sheets which Allstyn could see were but carbon imprints. And riffling over several, Congreve read aloud, with marked asperity in his voice:
“So I importuned Red Melbourne to tell me the name of the man who had revealed himself in the hypnosis in Rio as having been a passer of information to this so-called Parson Gang. Telling him that if he had seen in the early morning paper which, unfortunately, he’d now thrown away, that the man had left Chicago late last night for parts unknown, I might be able to lend him some valuable suggestions. So he told me, a bit reluctantly, that it was Chicago’s present Chief of Police Philander Moriarity—”
“What—a—revenge!” broke in Allstyn, helplessly shaking his head. And hastily explained himself. “Moriarity, Captain, called Wainright ‘Gertrude’ one day on City Hall Block, and ordered him to move on. And though Wainright let out on him—and how!—it plainly continued to rankle in Wainwright’s soul. He even spoke of Moriarity to me as ‘a filthy oaf.’ But, until I told him who the man really was who had pushed him about, he never knew. ’Twas even I that told him that Moriarity’s departure, from Chicago, on last night’s Chicago-Frisco plane—with stop-off at Denver till the 3 p.m. plane today—was in this morning’s Trib; I even told him how the morning papers and early News gave Moriarity every possible destination for his vacation such as Asia—Australia—and Alaska! I did it, of course, as I saw by the look on his face that he was more likely than not to call Moriarity’s home and spill over again—only to get himself into a jam by a traced call. But the point is that ’twas I who told him that Moriarity had been in South America a couple of years back—hence Wainwright’s tie-up of him with Brazil; and ’twas even I that told Wainwright that Moriarity had, when Chief Inspector here at the Bureau years back, been the nemesis of the so-called Parson Gang; hence Wainwright’s dragging in of even that name. The original opportunist, Wainwright is—no less! And now I do understand, at least, your sentimental part-feeling of gratefulness to me that prevents your allowing me to draw my own check to defray the expenses you’ve been put to on this fellow Wainwright. Since I’ve cleared Philander Moriarity’s name—even Chicago’s name, in a sense. Only, Captain Congreve, forget it—please! And I’m going to fill out the check, here and now, for—”
“But what good,” objected Congreve, biting his lips, “will your check do me? For it seems you’ve gotten in and cleared
Philander Moriarity—a bit late. At least to save my official scalp—and his and my friendship. For on the basis of all this—yes, all this we’ve been discussing, Allstyn—I went and called the Denver Airport and found that he had boarded that Denver-Frisco plane all right—and then, God help me, went and wired the Frisco police department, thinking, again God help me, that poor Moriarity was running away from, maybe, that trial that was due to come oft tonight. And detectives are waiting now to take him into custody as he steps off that plane that’s due at Frisco Airport in 3 hours from now. My God, Allstyn—think of it—Chicago’s own Chief of Police—arrested solely because he got named in a phony confession—taken up to be held in high, high bonds supposedly against the day when Gus McGurk, convicted on that skull, sings out lustily the name of the real higher-up in that Wah Lee Kidnap Case—whoever such may really be. What a mess! And all due to stupid and obtuse me. Falling like a ton of bricks for a spurious romance by a romancer who was—all the time—giving smart-aleck imitations at Buford van der Zook’s all-night party.”
“Then—then,” put in Allstyn desperately, “I’m going to write out—print out, in huge capitals—in the lower front corner of the check—as evidence to save your scalp—that it’s for repayment to this department of expenses in this phoney confession which I myself precipitated and, inadvertently, made near-convincing in the bargain. So here goes—”
“But still I can’t take your check, explanatory addendum or no explanatory addendum,” grumbled Congreve.
“But why—why?” begged Allstyn.
“Well, because,” said Congreve helplessly, “because—well, you see, Allstyn, we located van der Zook finally in New York City—in the offices of my own old friend, Captain Gilrain of the New York Police Department—and van der Zook claims that though his invitations were worked out for him by a friend, nobody named Wainwright—or even remotely resembling Wainwright’s description—was at his party last night. Some error, no doubt, due to one man writing the invitations for another. Since after all, Wainwright assured you he—all right,” Congreve broke off. “Again, Pete here—yes, the diver—brought up a sledge—some sledge anyway, Allstyn, at Piling 37. In fact, there it is.” And Allstyn, turning his head slightly, to follow Congreve’s gesture, saw a mud-encrusted sledgehammer, with a huge, clean detective bureau tag tied to it, standing upright against one wall. “Something dropped off some river boat by somebody, no doubt,” said Congreve. And sighed. “But under the safe in that office—” He was opening the drawer of his desk again, and withdrawing something, “—Forsyth here—and Gribbons—found this!” And now Allstyn’s eyes popped out of his head. “Yes, a silver watch,” Congreve went on, “with ‘P. W.’ engraved on the back of it. Something, beyond any doubt, dropped yesterday—by some legitimate visitor in there. But—” And now Allstyn found himself staring at a damp paper roll, held tightly closed by a rubber band, which Congreve was tossing from the drawer onto the table top, “—but here’s a photograph, Allstyn, of 10 fingerprints—found on the wall under that diploma—by Jeff Forsyth here. And—and unfortunately they’re—they’re Wainwright’s!”
The Man with the Crimson Box Page 27
