The Man with the Wooden Spectacles

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  “Mayor Sweeney?” ejaculated Vann, plainly surprised. “Is he ill?”

  “I very much doubt it,” declared Graham dryly. “My guess, right off the bat, is that it’s something due to his eating all the rich dinners, at all the banquets he’s attended and spoken at in recent weeks. Particularly, that 18-course dinner at the Moderne Club where he gave that ringing talk on Traction. But his family physician—my friend—is one of those Mayo-Clinic trained men, who want everything checked from A to Izzard. I’ll warrant I’ll bump into 2 or 3 one-line men there today. My job, of course, will be to see that the Mayor’s headaches—no doubt from billiousness—aren’t from nose polyps—or from the inside of his skull!”

  “Oh, I trust,” murmured Vann, “that it won’t be that latter. That’s a bad place to have trouble.”

  “Well,” said Graham, with the disinterested sangfroid of the true doctor, “if it were, you might some day be mayor. For Sweeney came up himself, did he not, from your office?”

  “Not mine exactly—but nearly so. From being First Assis­tant State’s Attorney years ago. Oh—a dozen years ago at least. Yes,” Vann added, with a little envy showing in his voice, “Gardiner Sweeney was wise—shook himself out of this rut—jumped into county politics—and look where he is today?”

  “I don’t need to look,” laughed Graham, “judging from the one symptom I’m called in on—and his gustatory case history! For I know where he is. Flat on his back with a torpid liver, and an aching head, and a heart slugging along from too much acetanilid and headache remedies.”

  He was withdrawing from his pocket, now, his shiny mirror with hole in it and a headband, which latter he slipped over his head, and drawn moreover way down so that his eye gazed through the hole in it. Vann, plainly seeing that matters were waiting on him, hastily lighted the desk lamp, tilted it for­ward, and then jumped up and pulled down the shades. Returning to his chair.

  Graham now took up the skull. Revolving it about a bit—focusing the light that fell on his mirror into the skull’s nose.

  And nodded, emphatically.

  Seeing that surgical work had indeed been done—and surgical work in his own very field. For the right turbinal bone had been cleanly amputated—clearly by the usual wire snare; the removal of that turbinal bone had given surgical access, therefore, to the ethmoid cell region, which cells had been exenterated and their original supports scraped clean. And, peering far back now at what this ethmoidal cell “box” would have otherwise blocked—both visually and operatively —Graham saw what he expected to see: that the sphenoid sinus—that small cavern under the brain, with its inadequate opening—had been opened beautifully—and by the chisel blow that had not, here, as so often was the case, split bone and optic nerve. He looked up.

  “Well—this is the skull of a patient who was in a nose operation, of course. Either there was an expert operator—or, mayhap, a dead patient!”

  “Why do you say that, Doctor?”

  “Well, because the operation is difficult—and here it has been performed very expeditely and cleanly and completely. What specifically has been done, however, is first: amputation of the patient’s right turbinal bone—a sort of shingle-like appendage which hangs down in every one, from the roof of the nose. The unremoved turbinate, in fact, can be seen still on the skull’s left side. The removal of this turbinate has made it possible, in turn, for the operator to reach the so-call ethmoidal cell box—on the right side, I mean—and those curious bony-walled air-cells have been cleanly scraped out, and, being thus out of the way, the right sphenoid sinus has had its opening enlarged—made wider—see?”

  “What would that be done for, Doctor?”

  “For—what?” Graham, a little nonplussed, felt at this juncture, for the first time, that Louis Vann was questioning him in reality in the exact manner the State’s Attorney pro­posed to follow in some criminal case—and not at all as a man who did not plainly know the only possible reason why an enclosed bony cavern would have to have its outlet enlarged. “Well,” the surgeon said, “it would be done—this enlarging of that opening—for pus in the sphenoid sinus only. The enlarged opening, and removal of the general blockage, would give it opportunity to drain automatically—and thereby heal.”

  “Is that a very common operation, Doctor?” Vann’s questions were coming with businesslike directness and swiftness.

  “We-ell—not as common as appendectomy, Mr. Vann, no—nor as rare, either, as resection of the lower intestine!”

  “I see. But you do state that this operation is difficult?”

  “Well—yes—though of course it all depends—on circum­stances. For an unpracticed operator, there is always danger of severing the patient’s optic nerve—in the particular ‘splitting operation’ that has to be done on the sphenoid wall—with hammer and chisel. With resultant blindness, of course, in the patient. On that side only, however! Again, I might say the operation is not difficult—to a really exper­ienced operator—if the patient is in a frame of mind to—well—stand the gaff. But difficult, yes, if the operator has never done more in his practice than, perhaps, amputate a few turbinal bones to give ethmoidal drainage. Again—less diffi­cult if the patient is under complete anaesthesia than under local. And highly dif­ficult for a general practitioner—under any condition—if not downright impossible, I would say. Continuing along the same lines, the operation is less difficult if it can be done in several steps—and more difficult if done all at one sitting.” Dr. Purvis Graham gave a helpless gesture with his hands. “It’s so hard, Mr. Vann, to answer such a question. To a man who could do a laminectomy for exposure of the spinal cord—one of the hardest operations in the world!—this little operation would be highly difficult. Really! While to a man who does nose work—and much of it—it’s not so difficult. No! Have I—answered your question?”

  “I think you have—okay. Except—yes—what would be the reason, Dr. Graham, for extirpating those cells and going way back—and opening that sphenoid?—oh, I mean really—what kind and degree of suffering would drive a patient to undergo it?”

  “Well,” was Graham’s prompt reply, “in the first place, the patient—as a rule—wouldn’t know the difficulties—nor the dangers in it! In the second place, pus walled up in that little cavern under the brain and back of the eye would cause in­tractable pain through pressure on the nerve branch governing the superior oblique muscle of the eye on that side. Causing a cyclophoria between both eyes—a feeling, on the part of the patient, as though both of his eyes were literally twisted out of his head. So much suffering, indeed, that even patients who are given to understand the gravity of the operation will, more often than not, take a chance on it—to get relief.”

  Vann now drew forth from under a paperweight a large card, carrying handwriting, and which Graham saw was printed, on its top, in heavy black type, HISTORY CARD. The State’s Attorney asked another question, however, without looking at the card.

  “Have you any further details, Dr. Graham, you could give me—about this particular operation? Anything? I want everything you can give me.”

  “Hm?” Dr. Graham gazed once more inside the skull’s nose. Then he looked up.

  “We-ell—this operation was, manifestly, done under a general anaesthetic—ether—gas—evertin—etc—if that’s of any utility?”

  “Indeed? How do you know that, Doctor?”

  “How? Because the operator plainly had plenty of time—the patient, in other words, wasn’t squirming under cocaine and terror! The job done here is neat and complete—the patient’s head doubtlessly locked tightly in a towel-padded headrest—with nurses in attendance.”

  Vann nodded with satisfaction. Now he did look at the card marked HISTORY CARD.

  “Do—do—rather, did!—you know Dr. Hancoast Bradley?”

  “Oh—Hancoast Bradley? Indeed, yes! He was head of the eye and nose department of the old Inglesi
de Hospital, situated years ago on 63rd Street. Long burned down, of course—the hospital. Dr. Bradley used to do the intricate and difficult operations himself. This isn’t, by any chance is it, some of his work?”

  “It is, Doctor Graham—yes.”

  “Well—well.” Doctor Graham gazed more reverently than hithereto he had, at the nose aperture. “Well—that’s one statement I could hardly doubt. For he was a man who knew how to get those ethmoid cells out—without breaking into the eye orbit—as a certain famous Philadelphia nose surgeon—I shan’t mention any names!—once did!”

  He shook his head deprecatingly. “Well—well—Dr. Bradley’s work, eh? Poor Hancoast! Dead for some 6 years now, I think.”

  “Yes. Indeed, Doctor, because of his being dead—expect—ahem!—to see yourself called in a case concerning this skull.”

  “Oh!” Dr. Graham was a bit taken aback. He had the practicing specialist’s ethical dislike of publicity—but remembered also that he was no longer practicing. “Well—”

  Vann was querying him again.

  “You have then, I take it, Dr. Graham, told me all you possibly can—pro tempore—about this skull? I.e. the operation? The conditions? And the operator?”

  “Well—you have told me the operator, which confirmed my rough Sherlockholmesian deductions. But I can tell you definitely one further thing, Mr. Vann, which, however, may be of no interest whatsoever to you.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that, Doctor! What is it?”

  “Well—” Dr. Graham turned the light from his reflector once more into the nasal aperture, and gazed at the exceedingly clean-cut edges of all the cut bone surfaces. He nodded, as he surveyed every millimeter where chisel or wire snare or forceps had passed or sliced. Then he looked up.

  “Well, Mr. Vann—simply this: This patient died, I can tell you definitely, within no more than 8 days after this operation was performed.”

  Vann, apparently thunderstruck, was leaning forward in his swivel chair. “Doctor! You—you don’t say? You know that? How—”

  “Easily, Mr. Vann. And positively—to boot! As follows:

  The edges of the cut bone are sharply delineated. At every point—bar none. Not rounded off at all yet, by Nature, those edges, see? They are pristine sharp yet. The patient had, no doubt, by the time he died, restored over them the mucous membrane that would naturally shroud them—but the slower bone changes which nature imposes had not yet taken place. I myself, Mr. Vann, once made a long study of that subject on cadavers which had died at various lengths of time after nose operations. And I definitely know, Mr. Vann, that on the 10th day after operation—if the patient lived—the cut bone edges commenced suddenly to take on a change which is indisputable. These edges, however, are what we call ‘sub-10.’ Unmistakable—in the light of my extensive studies. And all of which are incorporated, incidentally, in a published thesis in the John Crerar medical library called, ‘Post-Operative Bone Changes a Function of Time-plus-10 Days.’ ”

  “And,” said Vann, tensely, “you can definitely say, then, that this patient died within 8 days after this operation?”

  “Within 8 days—yes. Perhaps the 8th day—or less. Possibly the 9th maybe. But absolutely nothing, Mr. Vann, like a week and a half after—or two weeks or more. 8 days plus a day or so either way, yes.”

  “Ah, that is a beam of light indeed!” said the State’s Attorney cryptically. “Well, Doctor, will you be an expert witness for me tonight—in a murder case?”

  “Tonight?” ejaculated Graham, staggered. “Why—yes—of course. Indeed, you’d subpoena me if I didn’t! However, you won’t have to do that. ’Twill be better—than sitting in a club.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. That is good of you. I’ll give you all the details, however, now that you’ve spoken in the dark—and no subpoena. Dr. Graham, you have established here this afternoon something, hitherto not known, in connection with one of the most famous local kidnaping cases of all Chicago history.”

  “Famous local kidnap—say—this isn’t the skull—of Wah Lee?”

  “It is, Doctor, yes.”

  “Well—for heaven’s sake—and this is the poor Chinese boy’s skull?” Dr. Graham picked it up and looked commis­eratingly at it.

  “Yes, Doctor,” Vann said. “Dug up—at long last!—near where the body was. Which body as you recall, was spuriously and criminally identified as another body! And which identification is now out. And—how! But, Doctor, do you know what you’ve proved?”

  “I—I fear I don’t. What have I proved?”

  “Well, Doctor, it was always presumed, you know, that the kidnapers of Wah Lee were on the square—with respect, I mean, to returning him eventually to his father—since they got the ransom. It was presumed they held him a long time here in Chicago—to make probable a certain story they’d given to his father that he had been aboard a boat bound for South America, and had had to be brought back—at least to St. Louis. For the heading of a St. Louis newspaper—of date October 30, of that kidnap year,—was unearthed in the luggage of the man who eventually went to the penitentiary for, at least, the extortion—with brushmade Chinese charac­ters reading ‘Wah Lee’—and which the Chinese boy’s father at least thought—and believed—in fact was certain—had been made by his son. So it was deemed Wah Lee had been held 27 or 28 days. And that, during that inordinately long captivity, the boy managed to get a slant either that he was being held in the Schlitzheim Brewery—or that, on or about October 31st, he affected a near-escape. And that, in the excitement of the moment, they slew him. In spite of the fact that his father had kicked in, long before, with 50,000 good dollars. But, Doctor, Wah Lee was operated on—here’s his history card—on the 27th day of September, that year; and on the 3rd day of October he was snatched. Figure it out—”

  “Hm! Why—that’s only seven days, of course. Then—”

  “Right! They killed him immediately—and at once! And the brushmade characters on that October 30th St. Louis paper were spurious—and were made by a Chicago Japanese rascal, after all. They killed Wah Lee at once, knowing that never would he or could he be liberated. And which means simply that—”

  “That—what?”

  “That, Doctor, he would have been able to tell the police exactly and concretely and unmistakably to whom—either working legitimately in the hospital—or else visiting there—he had confided, either on the evening of October 2nd, when he first knew himself he was to be discharged next day, or early in the afternoon of October 3rd, his proposed trip to the Japanese Bridge in Jackson Park; someone who phoned or sent that information straight to the gang. Wah Lee’s being killed, therefore, immediately on being brought to the brewery —as shown by your figures—indicates that never could he have been liberated—in the face of what he knew! It knocks out all that crazy theory about the tapped wires—and the possible ‘Chinese-speaking white transient’ who might have picked up the conversation between the boy and his father. It establishes definitely the existence of the individual to whom Wah Lee himself confided his movements. The individual—”

  “The supposed possible ‘finger-man’ in the case?” supplied Graham.

  “Right! In short, Doctor, that man, if Wah Lee were ever returned to his father, would be nabbed—and the whole gang would thereby be tripped up. So—they killed Wah Lee at once!”

  “And the secret,” Dr. Graham said, shaking his head, “is locked forever—in the brain—that once filled this skull?” Again he shook his head.

  “Not completely locked—no,” pronounced Vann bitterly. “For after I win a certain case tonight—to which I’ve just asked you to come and add your expert testimony—it will mean that I will have the legal evidence with which to send a certain convict, now in Moundsville Penitentiary, to the electric chair. And if I know anything about convicts—much less about him!—he’ll name the man higher up—before he goes. Two men, rather—the ‘
finger-man’ in the Wah Lee kidnaping—and the man who was ‘wire.’ In short, Doctor, after I win this case tonight—and quite regardless of whether I win it through the court handing the defendant 20 years, life, or execution!—the verdict will mean that not only this convict I speak of—but two more persons altogether—will also go to the chair. Not one man—but three!”

  “In other words,” declared Dr. Graham, with a faint grave smile, “a three-bagger?”

  “Yes,” declared Vann fervently. “A three-bagger—no less!”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  A Call to Chinatown

  For the 5th time, Elsa Colby, seated in her tiny office, raised her receiver and swiftly dialed the number Chinatown 9887. Only to receive the empty buzz of an empty line.

  Her face grew serious. Here it was 5:30 o’clock!—and this idiot—charming idiot, to be sure!—and murderer—well, not actually legally proven yet to be a murderer, no!—over there in that incommunicado cell, with his insouciant air, due to go to trial in 2½ hours. And not a single witness—character, alibi or otherwise—to produce.

  Except one! And that one—at best and at most!—only a character witness. Heavens! One—solitary—witness! The party whose name was written on the inside of that envelope ‘Doe’ had sealed up. Truly, the man was—

  Off to one side of Elsa, face upward, lay the third carbon of the brief indictment—Indictment No. 42,666!—for burglary and murder, which had been voted against John Doe that afternoon. While now entirely gone from behind Elsa was the frame-held quilt-cover on which she had been working that afternoon, its wooden sides now stacked vertically in one corner of the quite closetless room, and its quilt-cover, hastily rolled up ever since the moment Judge Penworth had hung up on her that day, now lying across the top shelf of her open bookshelf.