The Man with the Wooden Spectacles

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  “To marvel, eh?” he said dryly. “At the unexpected nature of my reaction! Which I can tell you, however—here and now—and in advance—will be a loud whoop of joy, and—but since you are such a great psychologist, just what do you think you will see—when I receive those glad tidings which, my girl, will be the sweetest tidings I shall ever have heard? Just what—does the great psychologist, E. Colby, expect to see?”

  “Heaven only knows,” said Elsa truthfully, knowing that the psychology of such things as she had described was the one big unseen fact in life. “But I only hope I am there—to see it—that’s all.”

  “Well, perhaps,” he said sarcastically, “heaven will be good to you. And will even let you have a box sea—but see here, Elsa, you say you actually heard that viper call me a rat, and—”

  “Godamnittohell!” Elsa screamed. “Will—will you stop it—or—or am I to become a babbling idiot in court tonight—instead of a lawyer?”

  His only answer, however, was to sit amusingly and pleasedly stroking his chin, radiating satisfaction at the picture Elsa had pointedly drawn, and thinking no doubt of that happy, happy day when he should learn that his first-born was no more—or at least on the sure way thereto.

  CHAPTER XXI

  Round 3. Colby Leading—Moffit Parrying—

  Elsa hoped devoutly the subject was stopped now, even as fortunately today the practically identical line of thought and talk emanating from Saul had been stopped by the arrival of the streetcar. But no—Silas Moffit returned to the subject of his son—which seemed utterly to fascinate him.

  “I hope also,” he said amiably, “that you are present, the day after the day you refer to, when I pile all that filthy goddam—all right, pipe down!—don’t get hysterical—pile all his damnfool spectacles on a fire, and burn ’em, bag and baggage!”

  “Why, Uncle, you’d—you’d burn up an actual collection?”

  “And—how!” he said exultantly. “And my only regret would be that that goddam—all right, pipe down!—that he wouldn’t be there—to see ’em go up in smoke.”

  “So that’s the way you feel?” said Elsa, her own redhaired gorge rising. “Well, you’ll never succeed in doing that—for I definitely know he’s willed ’em to some museum—and that you’ll never get a red penny of his esta—”

  “Estate—hah!” he snapped. “He has none! And he’ll never get a red cent of mine. For he’s a—”

  “And suppose,” Elsa went on, still angry, “that I told you right now where there’s a pair of historic specs”—and Elsa was thinking once more of those strange square-framed wooden monstrosities made by the French Bluebeard—“that, now that you talk so blithely about bonfires, Saul is going to hear about from me—and that’ll probably wind up in his collec—”

  “Where—where are they?” Silas Moffit asked eagerly.

  “Gee—wouldn’tcha like to know? Then you’d go over and buy ’em—and have your little bonfire—with just one pair of specs—and one invite—and that one for Saul.”

  “Oh—oh, nonsense,” he said. “Where are those spec—”

  “And now,” said Elsa to herself, “I’ve started a new wheel rolling.” And to end that, she said wearily: “Oh, I was only referring to a pair of gold specs belonging once to a slave of Robert E. Lee. But Saul has ’em now—he was just picking ’em up when I met him last—so it wouldn’t do you any good even if you knew where they were.” Elsa paused. “But we’re sort of running off the track, aren’t we? We were talking, I think, about your talking on the phone to Lou Vann. Which you admitted. And then wanted to know what I was doing over there in your building. Well, I came over there—” to Elsa this was an easy lie. “—to give some advice to my cousin which later, by chance, I was able to give him on the street.”

  “What—what was the advice?” Silas Moffit demanded.

  “Why—to call on Lou Vann, of course—and try to get that rackets-assistantship.”

  He laughed contentedly. Almost purred! “I’m happy to say that Mr. Vann told me, more or less incidentally in that phone talk today, that that appointment was, by pre-arrangement, totally Mayor Sweeney’s—the moment Holoday died. Your dear dear cousin, it seems, had no chance of getting that.”

  “Well,” Elsa retorted, “one thing is certain: you didn’t boost him any for the job. For—but again we’re getting off the path that we were on originally. ‘Way originally. I said I thought you had something to do with my getting this chilled steel nut to crack—this case, of course—whether you got it via Lou Vann, or via Manny—and I still think so.”

  “And I have once told you,” he said, with now completely regained dignity, “that that is an unwarranted and unkindly accusation. For—but first, did I understand you to say that the case with which you are confronted is somewhat difficult?”

  “Listen,” she said, “if you had the job of proving that Moses wasn’t a Jew, would you call that a tough job?”

  He looked at her cunningly. “We-ell—” and gave a curious gesture with his two hands that, she knew, he had picked up solely from his son-in-law, Manny Levinstein. “Well,” he went on, “that is, of course, too bad, Elsa girl. It’s—”

  “—too damned lousy tootin’ bad,” Elsa said mirthlessly, “in view of the clause in that paper I once gave you. Yes, dear Uncle, I could conceivably lose this case tonight! In which event the Chicago Title and Trust Company will find more than a serious cloud existing on my title to Father’s property. They’ll find, in short, that I’ve quitcl—”

  “Oh,” he interrupted, waving his hand, “I wouldn’t use that clause against you.”

  “You’re sure of that?” asked Elsa, half hopefully.

  “Quite,” he nodded. But gazed at his shoetops.

  “Well, why on earth—once more, Uncle Silas,” Elsa asked helplessly—for she really did wonder if he were the financial wolf in sheep’s clothing that circumstances seemed to proclaim him to be—or just the benignant, well-meaning old uncle he always seemed to be—benignant, that is, when he was not off on that particularly crazy tangent which was his with respect to Saul just as much as it was Saul’s with respect to him, “why, Uncle Silas, did you ever originally permit me to sign a paper that held such a clause as that?”

  She waited, yet optimistically.

  “Why? I told you why long ago, and—” He broke off irritatedly, as a person guilty of something. “ ’Twas to give you your first—and most valuable—lesson in your proposed profession. To put you on your toes, as it were, after you should get out of college. For you see, Elsa, many years ago, when I was a boy, we boys owned—jointly—a swimming hole; and we—”

  “Yes,” Elsa interrupted, “I’ve heard the analogy—several times before. Though it never, however, seemed to me to fit this case at all.”

  “It didn’t? Well, I thought it—but anyway, I inserted that clause in that paper to give you your first baptism in the matter of legal documents. To cause you, after you should graduate, to read, study, and analyze every phrase in a document. And I take it you’re a much better lawyer today—for that very incident. And that you’d sign nothing, today, without reading it at least three times. That’s—that’s how much I thought of you. And now you—”

  “Well,” she said, extremely bewildered, “that—that was quite thoughtful of you to—to look so far ahead. Yes. And—but you do say, don’t you, Uncle Silas, that nothing on earth would ever cause you to take advantage of that clause?”

  His eyes dropped again, momentarily, to his shoetops.

  “No, nothing. Nothing, that is, except—”

  “Except?” Elsa stiffened in her chair. “Except—what?”

  “Except just, Elsa, that if—well this is purely hypothetical, you must understand—but supposing—”

  “Yeah—supposing’“ Elsa’s voice was hard.

  “Supposing—ahem—you forfeited your title
to the Nugget—or, rather, your 9/10ths in it, on a technicality, and that, before we could correct that forfeiture, a sudden opportunity came up by which Colby’s Nugget would have to be sold then or never, and—”

  “Just—a—minute, Uncle! There’s no such thing as that the Nugget never could be sold. For—”

  “No, no, no,” he said, testily. “Of course not. But there are deals and deals, you know—some involving cash, and some time-payments, and some what-not. And—but as I started to say, if a sudden possible deal came up, that very minute, in which the Nugget could be—and ought to be—sold, I would have to—for your sake and mine—go ahead and take advantage of it. And—”

  “And?”

  “And at some later date think how best to adjust matters with respect to the general idea—ahem—of your father’s, that when you should be 30 you would have—um—a compete—”

  “I see,” Elsa said darkly. “Yes. I see.” She paused, still really perplexed. “Uncle Silas,” she remarked suddenly, “I’m due, as you seem quite well to know, to go into court tonight;—no, I wasn’t even able to refuse, because I’d have been disbarred, and that clause would have been effective immediately—but as I just started to say, I’m due to go into court tonight, and with that clause in that paper, my title is frightfully jeopardized; and I’m going to make a suggestion to you. Which I’m sure you’ll assent to. I’ve learned my legal lesson now—don’t fear. And so I’m going to ask you if you’ll immediately return me that original contract between us, marked ‘Canceled,’ so that I can send it right over to the County Building, and put it of record as canc—”

  “Why, Elsa!” her uncle exclaimed. “Where’s your legal knowledge? That paper can’t be canceled, because it deals with other matters. It’s—it’s my only security for my loan to you.”

  “Oh yes—of course,” she nodded. “That is true! Well, would you here and now—if I quickly type it out on my electric typewriter yonder—sign a wai—”

  “Those are remarkable things, aren’t they?” he put in energetically. “Manny has one, you know: it cost him $200 new—and it’s a real delight to use it. And curious thing, now, Elsa, when I graduated from Davetown University, Iowa in the year of—well, anyway there was a chap in my graduating class who had the weird idea of making a typewriter operate electrically with no finger-pressure. Think of it, Elsa! And this chap—but where—and when—did you get your machine, Elsa? And how?”

  “Ho-ho!” said Elsa to herself. “So we’re going to talk typewriters now, are we—instead of waivers? And if that gets detracked, we’re going to talk Davetown University maybe!” And aloud she said: “At an unclaimed goods auction. One month back. $15. Through a friend. The electric cord at Sears Rosebuck’s basement. Price: 40 cents. Length, 14 feet.”

  His eyes were staring wide at her, as she continued:

  “Yes, the machine can write 6 times as fast as an ordinary one. Or conversely, its owner can do a legal brief on it in 1/6th the ordinary time. That is, if she has one to do! Also the machine is only 10 years old. And its name is Old Mr. Million-Words-a-Minute. And now we’ve exhausted electric typewriters. Mine, anyway. And about the guy in your graduating class, at Davetown U., who had the odd idea of making typewriters eventually operate with no finger-pressure—he eventually did! For you’ve forgotten you’ve told me six times in the distant past of the little spectacled wizened chap Wilkus Luke, that you big brutes—of that era—tossed into the campus pond of an icy night. And this machine is patented by one Wilkus Luke. So I know the end of that story. And as I was asking, before you levered me off the—that is, before we slithered off the track—will you, Uncle—if I quickly type it on Old Mr. Million-Words—sign a waiver of that pernicious clause in my old assignment to you, which waiver I could send over and put of record, and—”

  “Unfortunately,” he interrupted her harshly, “I put that contract up with a financier of sorts, in Ft. Wayne, Indiana—as security for a loan to myself—and under the law passed by the Indiana State Legislature last year I would be subject to a 5-year penitentiary sentence—and huge damages—did I waive a single clause or punctuation mark in it.” He gazed benignly on his niece.

  She stared at him. “You?” she commented. “You—who loan money—put the paper up for a loan? Why, Uncle, it doesn’t seem possible. It—”

  “Well, it is possible,” he said peevishly. “My own loans are all frozen up—for the time being. And I was able to get this money for 1 per cent less than I can re-loan it out, here in Chicago. And so I did. And put the contract up with this man for security. And I have his receipt, moreover, for it.”

  “You ha—well—well, would you let me see it?”

  “Let you see it?” he repeated. “Gladly I would—except—ahem—it’s in my safety box—in old Phineas Jackson’s Safety Vaults—and which vaults, since they aren’t a day and night affair, are closed now.”

  “Why, Uncle! You—you always hated Mr. Phineas Jackson like nobody’s bus—Well, Uncle, if you’ve taken a box in his place, the millenn—well, I’m beaten so far as further arguing goes. And—but would you let me see your box receipt?”

  He grew angry. “See here, young lady, I—however, to end this argument, I left the receipt on the window sill of one of my empty houses—one on Ravenswood Avenue—and the house burned overnight, and the receipt with it.

  So—” He broke off, giving a curious shrug of his shoulders Elsa knew now, for a certainty, that he was lying—and clumsily at that.

  “Well,” she retorted, angry herself, “you wouldn’t mind, I’m sure, since my juvenile mind is troubled—and since I’ve got to concentrate tonight untroubledly—telling me the number of the burned house?—so that I could at least check it with the fire department and thus—”

  “By—by Godfrey, Elsa,” he burst out, “for two cents I’d—I’d walk out of your office. Here I come in, like a thoughtful proud uncle, to—but no, I positively won’t allow our family to use the fire department to thresh out its family spats. And I won’t be letting you see the safety box key on my ring either, for the simple reason that I accidentally left the key in one of my other safety boxes. And—”

  “Left it—in one of your other safety boxes?” Elsa shook her red head bitterly. “All right. You win! It’s more than obvious that you wouldn’t nullify that damned clause for me—if it was the last thing you ever did. And if I had any doubts, thus far, Uncle Silas, about the whole set-up—I haven’t now! You’re going to use that clause against me—in case my client gets convicted tonight. And all I can say, therefore,” she added fiercely, “is that if only—so help me, dear, dear God!—if only—so—so help me also Confucius, Buddha, Mohammed and the Virgin Mary!—if only—” she drove wildly on, “—so help me even Mumbo Jumbo, ol’ King of Voodooism!—I could get my mitts between now and then on some valuable real-estate paper of yours that you haven’t yet put of record—well—what I’d do to that paper—God bless himself, in that case, and Mumbo Jumbo the same to boot!—oh!—baby!”

  And right in front of her uncle’s amazed eyes Elsa emphasized exactly what she would do in such impossible event, by drawing an imaginary match across an imaginary matchcase, and holding it to an imaginary paper while imaginary smoke wafted up between her and Mr. Silas Moffit!

  CHAPTER XXII

  Round 4—Stiff Uppercut By E. Colby

  Silas Moffit appeared to be amused by Elsa’s violent outburst, and her fervent calling on all the gods—of all the religions! He even chuckled.

  “I don’t think,” he said dryly, “that God feels especially flattered just now to have been coupled up with Mumbo Jumbo! Nor Mumbo Jumbo—if such person ever existed, and really exists somewhere, disembodied, now—with God! But I can only humbly say that I hope the flame of the match which you touch to my valuable real-estate document that you haven’t got, is as hot as the fiery red; in your hair!” He sighed. “Really, Elsa, it’s too—too bad
, Here, I come up to congratulate you on a first court case—and your most important case—and become accused of—”

  “—of having profound plans, yes, of conveying my estate away from me if I lose that case tonight, and my quitclaim becomes valid. And of then giving me some cock-and-bull story that ’twas for my best good. Yes, I accuse you of all of that, Uncle Silas. And I’m also telling you that I’m very busy—if I’m even to try to clear the murderer who has been dumped into my professional lap. So—if you’ll run on—you can read all about the matter in the papers tomorrow, and–”

  “Read?” he pronounced exultantly. “Why—I’m going to be there—at your trial—in person. Do you think that my only niece, who used my money to go through college, could have her baptismal fire without me being in the very front row? No indeed, Elsa. The very moment I heard the news, I arranged—by pulling a—ahem—friendly legal wire—to be there. And shall be there.”