The Man with the Wooden Spectacles

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  Everybody, seemingly anxious to help Vann, arose. But waited. Since the matter was, of course, not yet completely settled.

  While Vann unleashed his palm from the transmitting end of the phone, and brought the instrument to his lips and ear again.

  “Danielson? You on yet?”

  “Christ, yes, sure I’m on. But ready to get off. So—”

  “Wait, old man. Wait! Listen, Danielson, I guess I ‘done’ you guys wrong all right—in passing that handout out to Hugh only. But hellfire, man, didn’t you ever have a kid brother you wanted to help? No? Well, all right. Anyway, I stand ready now, Danielson, to make it up to you fellows—if you’ll call off your dogs. In short, Danielson, I haven’t said anything—but I’ve a bigger story, by far, than that burglary and murder, in my mitt here. And it’s exclusive for all you boys jointly—all of you, you understand, but the Despatch!—which plainly is the flea in your ointment!—if you’ll call it quits. How about it? Will you-all forget your grudge—on that basis?”

  “We-ell—hrmph! Say listen, you’d have to dish us up something pretty goddamned good to balance what you slipped the Despatch today.”

  “All right. From a newspaper standpoint, that’s just what I’ve got.”

  “Yeah? Well you’re an S.A.—and I’m a newspaperman. So what have you got!”

  “Just, Danielson, that I’ve the man who cracked my safe and killed Adolph Reibach.”

  “Says who? Some budding Sherlock Holmes on your staff!”

  “No! Says the prisoner’s whole confession, signed and sealed.”

  “The hell you say, Vann!” Already Danielson’s voice lost half of its ire. “So—but is it confirmed?”

  “As to that—but hold the wire a second.” And again Vann cupped the transmitter with his hand. “Art, have you any idea whether Congreve himself was going to confirm it—or leave it to me?”

  “As to that, I can’t say,” said Kelgrave. “For I shoved out with the prisoner. If Cap does confirm it, however, it’ll all be done without the confirmers knowing what the facts are. For he said, Mr. Vann, that this was your meat—and cautioned me about not letting it leak to a single newspaperman on the way over here.”

  “If you ask me, Boss,” Leo Kilgallon put in, “he’ll leave the confirmation to you. As he did in the last two cases.”

  “You think so, eh?” Vann mused, troubledly. “Though the key to my office is in his possession, since the inquest. And he would have sent it over here with the captive if—however, Leo, the minute things have settled down a bit here with us, be sure to ring him and warn him that—confirmation or no confirmation!—nix-nix, and double-nix, on any wires to the coast in re Philander Moriarity—unless Congreve maybe wants to find himself in the sticks. Oh, he’ll take the hint all right. And so—” And he turned back to the instrument again.

  “If you want to hold off for full confirmation, Danielson, it’ll delay you fellows’ story till everybody’s out of the Loop and homeward bound. But I’m willing to say that the confession—as given—will be 100 per cent confirmed. As to—that is—contributory details. That is, I may have to hold back a single name in it to be confirmed by actual arrest. But the whole rest of it will be 100 per cent ‘confirmed.’ So certain of it, in fact, am I, Danielson, that if it isn’t, I agree to give you, alone, all the news out of this office for the next 30 days.

  “It’s a sale! And as for the official confirmation, we’d want that for a later edition anyway. Well now, what kind of a fellow is this bird you snagged? Some professional cracksman?”

  “Decidedly not!”

  “No—no out-of-work actor, I hope, trying to get his name for a week on some marquee?”

  “Listen, Danielson, this fellow is so high-up—in his own profession, you understand!—that he has a 20-year contract with the outfit which employs him. But which contract is finis—as sure as my name’s Vann!—once this story breaks. Whether his confession were phoney or 24-karat, he’d be finis—because of the specific kind of work he does—forever, evermore.”

  “The hell you say? And we’ll be able to catch an interview with him—and some pics?”

  “No, Danielson. No. At least not for a couple of hours.”

  “Oh, I see. You’ve got him in the goldfish room, eh! Wasn’t his confession complete?”

  “Plenty! But there’s some angles have to be worked out further. At least his reasons for snitching that skull have nothing to do with the McGurk mob.”

  “The hell—you say?” Even Danielson was surprised, “Why—”

  “I told you, Danielson, that the story is a knockout. The motive for snitching the skull is a thousand miles from what you thought, and—”

  “And this reddish-haired captive you took—you’re going to quash the indictment against him, now, and—”

  “I am not! Hell—no! For he’s involved. As accessory, of sorts. In short, I’m going to try him just the same—in the hopes of making him crack wide open. For the confession indicates that the fellow I just got is covering him adroitly. And so—” Vann gazed at his clock. “All right, Danielson. What’s your answer?”

  “The answer is—we’ll call off the dogs! If, that is, the Despatch doesn’t flash out with the yarn—”

  “It won’t—unless you yourself leak. And—but do I have to confirm this deal with the other editors?”

  “No, you don’t. I was chairman and spokesman for that meeting. And delegated to speak for all. In fact, I’ll phone ’em all now—the minute you hang up. And our own men will be right over.”

  “All right, Danielson. Photostatic copies of the confession will be waiting for you. And I tell you it’s the story of the year!”

  And Vann hung up. And turned about in his swivel chair.

  “It’s a deal, folks! But it’s a good thing we’ve already indicted the man we’ve got. For this confession, on the streets could delay that precious and vital step—if our reddish-haired prisoner’s lawyer saw fit to go into the Grand Jury room and flash it. But—indicted he is! So that’s that! And so now up the stairs—all of you. While I await the Press!”

  CHAPTER XVI

  An Appeal—To J. Doe

  “And that moment,” Elsa Colby was saying bitterly to her reddish-haired client, in his incommunicado cell downstairs, “will be a hell of a time to prepare any kind of a defense whatsoever!”

  His reply, however, was coolly rebukeful.

  “Don’t swear, sweet child! Your dolls may accidentally pick up some of the words.”

  “Oh, you’re awfully blithe and gay,” she retorted, “for a man who’s been caught with the goods—and has admitted everything. And has no ali—listen, did you ever see a man get—get—get cooked in the electric chair?”

  “No. Did you?”

  “No. But I wish you had seen one.”

  “Why?”

  “Then you’d co-operate with your lawyer.”

  “With a sweet girl spy—a girl of the kind I’ve been looking for for years, but never met—sent up by Louis Vann,” he amended. “Unless, of course,” he added, less harshly, “when court opens up, you are sitting there by my side—my protector—my sweet and charming protector.”

  “A protector who can’t do a—a damned thing for you,” she protested, “but make a fool of herself and you by trying to shake worth-while and reputable witnesses who will establish the identity of that skull, and what you said, and everything else. In fact, John, it won’t hurt here and now to tell you that I got information a while ago to the effect that this ‘ultra-legal judge’ you’ve been so gosh-darned foolish as to try to get, is so—so darned ultra-legal that he won’t even stand for witnes­ses, who tell straight stories, to be badgered. As an attorney can do, you know—if that attorney wants to. Yes, I under­stand he puts the kibosh to that sort of thing—right off the bat.”

  He was studiedly silent.

/>   “Well—then I suppose you—that is, my rightful attorney—can’t badger ’em, then?”

  “Though little good it ever does anyway, at least for getting actual acquittal,” commented Elsa bitterly. “The difference between badgering decent straight-forward witnesses against you tonight, and letting them tell their stories with dignity, could easily mean, for you, the difference between the chair and life imprisonment.”

  “For me,” he declared unsmilingly, “there is no difference —between the chair and life imprisonment.”

  “Nor for me either,” said Elsa, cryptically—and she was referring now to her own circumstances—and not his. “For if you get either—you’re convicted. In which case—My God!” she added, as the realization of things swept over her. “Of all things! And you—you—would have to believe that I’m a State’s Attorney’s spy. And hence tell me nothing. Poor Elsa—her first case! And—”

  “Is this your first case?” he asked, frowning.

  “Yes,” she returned defiantly, “And what’re you going to do about it? You got yourself into this. But don’t worry. I’ve tried many cases in school—and acquitted myself with honor.”

  “I’ll bet you did, at that,” he said. “I even believe you are a graduate lawyer—maybe getting $50 a month from the State’s Attorney.”

  She made no retort to that, but surveyed him bitterly.

  “Poor—Elsa?” he was repeating puzzledly. “Now if you were on the up-and-up—and your being my lawyer was the McCoy—and this really was your first case—you’d be glowing like the live coal that a Kilkenny Irishman juggles out of the fireplace atop his pipe.”

  “Would I?” she said unsmilingly. “Well, I am glowing—only I’m doing it upstairs—in my thatch.” She stared at him. “Poor Elsa,” she went on musingly. “Her first case! A gilt-edge rap—and a fool for a client. For two cents I’d go out of here and—and shoot myself in the leg. And thus—” And she wondered whether, if she did shoot herself through the leg and thus escape service, that granite-miened judge would accept it as an excuse therefore—and rescind disbarment. She doubted it. Besides—she would probably cut an artery and bleed to death!

  “If you were to shoot yourself in the leg,” her client was saying dryly, “you’d only make a run in your stocking.”

  “Well, there’s two runs there already—on the sides you can’t see,” was her rejoinder. “And there’s—” She broke off. “My oh my—but this is all very gay right now, John, yes—but it won’t seem so gay when you get the chair—and get dumped into one of those death cells out in the County Jail on California Avenue—with no money to file the necessary appeal bond in 3 days—and then commence to tick off those 10 days till they lead you through the little green door.”

  He slumped appreciably, at her graphic description of things, on his bench. And looked worried.

  “Still nothing to say?” she asked, half hopefully.

  “Nothing,” he persisted. “For if I talk to Louis Vann’s minions—I am a goner!”

  She didn’t exactly grasp that.

  “Well, then here’s one,” she asked desperately. “Have you any witnesses you want called?”

  “You and Vann wouldn’t call ’em if I did,” he returned.

  “No? Well, you could make plenty squawk on that afterward—and nearly get an order for a new trial from an upper court. Except, to be sure, you haven’t any appeal money—so you’d never get so far as consideration by an upper court. But you could make plenty squawk, just the same.”

  “I suppose I could—yes,” he admitted solemnly. “That is—if I could establish I had witnesses—who should have been called. But you see, I—well—would I have to tell you what my witnesses would testify to?”

  “I couldn’t make you.”

  “Well, would I have to tell you where they were located?” There was a grim smile on his face now.

  “I couldn’t make you—but how would I locate them then?”

  “Oh, they might miraculously appear,” he said. “Or, again—one I have particularly in mind listens each night on the raddio.” Elsa winced at his gross mispronunciation of the word, yet half suspected it was purposeful and because he despised that vehicle of entertainment or else was a devout Al Smith Democrat. “—to Uncle Griffy’s Bedtime Story,” he continued. “Which comes on in Chicago, I believe, at—let’s see?—it comes on in New York from 8 to 8:15, doesn’t it?—then that would make it in Chi, here, from 7 to 7:15—so you could broadcast a ‘desprit’ raddio appeal for him to appear at such-and-such a courtroom, to help his red-headed friend with the anchor tattooed on his foot!”

  “Have you an anchor tattooed on your foot?”

  “No.”

  “Then why—”

  “Skip it!” he said abruptly. “Stranger things there be, you know, on land and sea, than aught you or I wot of.”

  “That,” she declared sternly, “is not from Shakespeare. For I know my Shakespeare forward and backward.”

  “I didn’t say it was from Shakespeare,” he retorted mildly. “Can’t I put together a few of his phrases—into a new Shakespeareanism?”

  “Oh, you can do whatever you want,” she answered weari­ly. “At least—during the coming 10 days or so.” She was silent. “Well, getting back to practical things then, have you that witness? Who could testify to—well, if necessary, you could, I suppose, at the last minute, in the very courtroom, tell me what on earth I’m supposed to elicit from him on the witness stand?”

  “So I could at that. Well, I’ve only one. Just—one.”

  “Well—” Elsa almost screamed it. “Dish out his name then! What is it? And where will I find him?”

  He gazed at the floor reflectively.

  “Got an empty envelope on you?” he asked suddenly.

  “Yes—for a wonder! It’s stamped and addressed—but not yet used.” And Elsa fumbled in her knit suit pocket, and withdrew the double-folded envelope that was to contain the postal order for her office rent. And which, indeed, had not been used! She held it forth curiously toward him. With a pencil.

  He took them both, and opening the envelope out so that it gaped widely, he wrote painstakingly within it, its rear side against the wall at his elbow. Finally he withdrew the pencil, and sealing the envelope, handed them both back to her.

  “That’s the only witness,” he said quietly, “that I would wish to be called to the stand.”

  “And where,” said Elsa, almost grabbing the envelope, “will I—”

  “The inscription inside will indicate clearly the obvious means by which he can be placed upon the stand.”

  “I ought to open it now,” she asserted, troubledly. “for—”

  “Oh—don’t!” he begged, a bit weary. “I’ve had a busy day, myself. And have given more than I should. It’ll be self-explanatory, anyway.”

  “Very well.” She folded the envelope quadruply, this time, and tucked it away. “You’re making it awfully hard for me, John.”

  “Yes?” he gazed at her troubledly. “Why? Lawyers don’t get worried because they lose cases. And 70 per cent, I take it, of young lawyers have lost their first case. Not that I want you—rather, let me say, an attorney honestly working far me and not for the S.A.!—to lose this case. Good Chri—er—hell-a’-mighty—no! Because if he—or she—loses, I lose! Not that—let me make it clear to you—I can’t take the hot-squat if I have to—and smile at the newspapermen. For I can! I’ve been through plenty—in the Brazilian jungles. But don’t think I want to sit in that 2200-volt seat. Nor go into the Big House. I’ll say not! And so—taking tentatively that you might be on the up-and-up, and not working in that snake pit upstairs, why—”

  “I’ll tell you why,” Elsa interrupted him bitterly. “Many years ago I si—well—” she broke off. Downright angry with herself that she was even essaying to tell this probable murderer and burg
lar her own private affairs. But he was waiting on her words. And so she went on. But changed her tactics. “I’ve a sister, John. Who—who has a 9/10ths interest—in a big tract of land. Worth—worth over a 100,000 dollars. Oh,” she added, airily, “I inherited too—I—I got the house that was on the land. And sold my share for an education. Anyway, my sister—to raise some money for—for medical care—she signed a paper with an uncle of ours, and it was an assignment, and he slipped a clause in it which provided that if I—my sister’s sister, you understand?—failed to acquit her—” And Elsa, having embarked on a slightly distorted version of her affair, finished the story as she had virtually told it to Aunt Linda a while ago.

  He listened in amazement.

  “My God—your sister—what—what an idiotic little fool—to sign such a paper? Why, girl, she made that paper practically a quitclaim. If—as—and when! And if this man—your mutual dear uncle—transfers that property one second after the quitclaim becomes legally effective—” He broke off. “We-ell—it’s rather obvious that if the Judge throws the Book at me tonight, your sister loses a hundred grand?”