“Well—then I ambled on foot over to State Street—though first stopping in a couple or so shops that clustered near the depot—though for but a second or so each—and once at a newsstand, also close to the depot, to look at a news headline—and, reaching State Street, studied that old building where the Shanghai Chop Suey Restaurant was for so many years—and failed up—its owner is a retired lawyer, you know, and he thinks he wants a loan on it to modernize it!—anyway, from there I took a State Street car to Chicago Avenue—got off—walked over west—and was in front of the building where MacLeish MacPherson practices. And across the way, likewise, from Bush Bourse.”
“And absolutely nobody was with you, Popp’n’law, from the LaSalle Street depot point—to the Bush Bourse point!”
“No, nobody, at that hour of night. If it had been in the daytime, then of course somebody would more than likely have fallen in with me, and—”
“Yes. And now about them different shops you say you stopped in at. Did you know the proprietors?—or they you!—however, come to think of it, Popp’n’law, that don’t make no nevermind—for they was all in around Van Buren and LaSalle I take it, right where we’re starting out at?”
“Correct.”
“Well now, Popp’n’law, ain’t you possibly mixing in—sort of speaking—that Bush Bourse corner examination, with last night’s movements? For if I know anything at all, I know that if you was in front of the LaSalle Street depot—which we can say definitely to be LaSalle and Van Buren Streets—at 10:01 last night, you’d abs’lutely have strolled north on Wells Street—I mean, of course, after stepping into them several shops you stepped in right around there—well anyway, you’d abs’lutely have strolled north on Wells Street, and given a complete once-over to that old Blivens Building, on Wells near Washington, what only late yesterday struck us for a third mortgage loan.”
“In a pig’s eye I would ha—well yes yes of course,” Silas Moffit modified his words, “one always at least looks into all the loan requests. But go ahead?”
“Well, after you looked it well over, and counted the windows, and sized up the real depth, and all that, you were finally satisfied it was n. g. for a ‘first,’ let alone a ‘third,’ and so rounded the corner of Washington and Wells, to go down Washington to Clark—and catch a Clark Street car for home. Or rather, of course, to be exact, for Fullerton Avenue—where you’d be hopping off in front of that new cigar store, the Tobacco Box—and walking west to home. Now surely you remem—”
“Say listen—Manny.”
“Yes?”
“I’ve just come—at least a while ago—from a cigar store where I left my lucky umbrella. And—no, no, ’twasn’t today at all I left it there, no; ’twas—that’s right. And the store is the Whistling Jim, on—oh you know where it is, eh? Well, I caught the proprietor who happened to be on duty at the time I was in there—as the clerk told me this morning when I barged in there to recover it. It was his day off today—yes, the proprietor’s—but I caught him as he came to pick up a traveling bag. To run down to some sister or something in Kankakee. And, Manny, the dirty bastard lies up and down and says I didn’t leave it there! Now the fact is, of course, that being a tobacconist, he just grabbed it because he saw a chance to make an unusual pipe out of its handle, which was made out of—anyway, I want you to go over there tomorrow at noon—when he gets back, and takes over—and present your card, and say that I’ve filed a replevin suit through you: and then maybe the crooked son of a bitch will disgorge my prop—”
“But—but Popp’n’law—if he says you didn’t leave it there, then maybe you didn’t. For—for you know how you—how both you and Saul, in fact—are about—about losing things, and not knowing—”
“Stop it! This is one case where I positively know what I did do. If for no other reason than that a certain pavement hawker smiled directly at me. And proved thereby he wasn’t blind. And proved by that, in turn, that I was then without any umbrella at all. And which establishes, thereby, that it wasn’t under my arm when I came out of this Whistling Jim’s. So go down there tomorrow noon sure, and—”
“All right—all right. But don’t forget, Popp’n’law, last time you came in my place with your face almost purple, commanding me to file a replevin suit for your lucky umbrella against that cheese store, you—you had the very umbrella in your hand—and were waving it like—like a windmill.”
“That’ll do! I—I thought that the one in my hand was still another one. Because I’d forgotten entirely about recovering it at the—anyway, you do tomorrow exactly what I tell you to do. For—”
“All right—all right. But we’re—we’re way off the track again. The point just now is that surely you remember what I just related a minute back? About, I mean, getting your homebound Clark Street car—in the Loop?”
“Remember that?” Silas Moffit repeated cautiously. “We-ell—” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “We-ell—yes, now that I think of it, Manny, I naturally did—hrmph!—since the Blivens Building was offering 9 per cent interest—however, you were saying?”
“What I’ve been saying, Popp’n’law, is only what you’ll naturally have to testify to tonight, after that trial is under way—and you’ve gotten your first look at that defendant.
For he is—that is, must be!—the same guy, Popp’n’law, whom you seen coming toward you, and away from the entrance of the Klondike Building, at just about 10:45 by your watch—and with a violin case in his hand. You know—sledge? Yes. Now think hard, Popp’n’law. It’s so easy to get building inspection trips mixed up—and to think that one went out on one particular one one night, when one really—”
“Yes, yes—I don’t need to think. It does all come back to me now. ’Twas the night before last that I sized up the building across from Bush Bourse. Last night I was on Washington Street. Yes! Because of strolling down to that Blivens Building from LaSalle and Van Buren Streets where I positively was at 10:01 o’clock. I was going east—yes—to reach Clark Street, and take a car home. And was crossing LaSalle at a few minutes after that killing is known to have taken place. Though ’twasn’t at 10:45, Manny. ’Twas at 10:46! Yes, by my watch. And also by the big bronze clock hanging out from the 33 North LaSalle Building. For I—I checked one against the other, see? Yes, and this man I saw did carry a violin case. And, up to now, I just supposed he was some musician—going to work in some west side night club. And—well by godfrey, Manny, if he is the same man as this defendant tonight, I’ll—”
“You’ll take the State’s Attorney off to one side, before the trial opens—tell him what you have discovered—and be called, amongst all the prosecution witnesses, as a witness for the State!”
“Why, of course, of course, Manny. I could scarcely do less! And that’ll write finis to any wild cock-and-bull stories the Doe fellow might even expect to spi—but all right, Manny-boy. You’re a fine bright boy, Manny, and if now and then I get a little short-tempered with you, just overlook it. It’s—it’s my liver. Yes. And it’s well that you refreshed my mind, as you have, on what I really was doing last night. For I would have sworn I went over to Bush Bourse, and—but see you later, Manny-boy, and—but oh, yes—what is the other thing I can do? To—er—nullify that black bitch’s stinking conjure—in which, of course, I have no belief whatsoever!”
“No, of course not,” Manny admitted dryly. And added grumpily: “And I was wondering whether you were going to have confidence enough in me at least to ask me what the other thing was! Well—here’s the other thing. And plenty important, too. And if you’ve got even a one third of one per cent belief in that black wench’s voodooism, Popp’n’law, you’d better do it! But here it is. You must go straight back, Popp’n’law, to Elsa’s office, plump yourself down in it, and not stir out of it till shortly before time for you both to go to cour—”
“Wait! Why?”
“Why, so’s to get her end of all telephone
conversations. It seems you got plenty out of what you listened in on this evening—just from her end alone! And you’re bound to pick up something—something!—from some of her conversations, if, as it seems, she has irons in the fire—that we can slip to the State’s Attorney, even if anonymously—”
“Wait! She’ll be plenty peeved—if I plank myself down in her office. She—”
“Well, suppose she is? She can’t boost you out—not with her 90 skinny pounds. All hell can’t get you out of there, Popp’n’law—if you set yourself down and say you’re going to stay! Just give her some applesauce. Tell her—tell her that a long-distance New York call, supposed to come in to you on my wire here, has had to be switched to hers. And I’ll not answer this phone for a full two hours, in case she checks up on the yarn. Though you can get me any time on Abe’s—across the hall. Just take along a newspaper and tell her you’ll sit quietly and read your paper and be too busy to see, speak or hear. Oh come, Popp’n’law, you aren’t afraid of her skinny freckled fists, are you?”
“That—gnat? If she so much as tried anything like that I’d—I’d knock her cold. Hm? Yes, by God, Manny, you’re right. She will be having calls, in connection with whatever she’s trying to do in this case—and something—something—is bound to be derived therefrom. Which I can phone to you. And you can phone to Louis Vann. Yes, I’ll go straight back there. For—for goddamn it, Manny, I—I—I am leery, somehow—of the powers—possible powers, anyway, of that black wench. Because after all, you know, the Supreme Power that transcends our physical laws has been known, in the past, to be vested in ignorant people as well as educated ones. And in people of all colors. And in that one instance, anyway, she practically prove—anyway, I’ll go straight back. And all hell, Manny, won’t budge me out of that little spitfire’s office. See you later, boy. And good-bye.”
And the connection was terminated.
But of all this, Elsa, of course, heard nothing. As neither did “Central”—since the telephone connection was an automatic one. Nor did anyone else hear—in view of the singleness of that wire, and the tripleness of the glass walls in that telephone booth. And it was just as well for Elsa, at least, that she didn’t hear any of it. Considering that she just might have been rash enough to make up her mind to try to oust her uncle bodily. And considering, moreover—with respect to certain testimony he was now in full readiness to give tonight—that she could not disprove a single word of that testimony even had she known in advance what it was going to be!
CHAPTER XXIV
Mr. Silas Moffit “Moves In—Bag and Baggage”
Elsa, at the moment her uncle returned, and stepped within the room, was talking on the phone to one Mr. Dudley Bandolph.
“But at least, Mr. Bandolph,” she was saying troubledly, “you will be in—at your place?—all evening? That is—up to 8 o’clock?”
“Yes indeed, Miss Colby,” was Mr. D. Bandolph’s reply. “That’s positive! I’ll be here steadily except, of course, for about one hour—commencing now!—during which I’ll be at one of the many cafés clustering around Wabash and Cermak Road. For this out-of-town chemist I speak of—yes, Dr. Runwead Rodgers—whom I’m taking over there for dinner, has to make a 7:15 train out tonight. After which, I’ll be all in readiness to go into your matter further.”
“That is fine, Mr. Bandolph—and I’ll not hold you another second since Dr. Rodgers is there now, and you’re both leaving. Will you ring me as soon as you return to your office?”
“I’ll ring you the very minute Dr. Rodgers goes on downtown, Miss Colby. Though from a café booth. For there’s something wrong with this phone—its receiver—and there has been all day—and it’s a most—most damnable nerve strain to try to get anything on it. Yes, I’ll ring you the moment we’re done dinner, and Dr. Rodgers has gone on—and then and there we’ll fix up the matter in question, and dependent of course, on how you come out—with the other party.”
And Mr. D. Bandolph was referring, as at least Elsa knew, to one Dr. Sun Chew Moy!
“I’ll wait your call,” Elsa said. And hung up. Only to swing about in her swivel chair, and to see her uncle once more inside the door.
“What—back again, Uncle?” she said in surprise. “Forget something? ’Tisn’t your umbrell—for you have it there under your arm. And ’tisn’t your valuable South Chicago deed—for you buckled it into your vest packet with not less than 2 tons of bulk wastepaper and assorted envelopes. And ’tisn’t your head—for it’s right there atop your shoulders. So—what?”
“I’ve come back,” he said urbanely—and, for some unaccountable reason, apparently not at all irritated because of her jibe about his head!—dropping down at the same time into her uncomfortable visitors’ chair, leaning his umbrella against the wall, and taking from his pocket a rolled-up newspaper, “to sort of camp on you, for a couple of hours, more or less, if you don’t mind. Though I know you won’t.” And, calmly, he opened his paper. Revealing it thereby to be a Weekly Real Estate News which was, Elsa knew, published tonight, and was available from any newsboy along Dearborn Street downstairs.
And Elsa, digesting his cool announcement, now found her tongue. Or part of it anyway!
“But—but I do mi—good heavens, Uncle, haven’t you any business around tow—”
“Yes, I have business—yes—but it happens to be right here.” He cleared his throat. “You see, I just talked on the phone downstairs to Manny, who’s been waiting an important long-distance call for me. From New York. A—a syndicate—there, which is to say yes or to say no, sometime between—between 4 and 8 this evening—to taking that 79th and Stoney Island Avenue triangular tip I foreclosed on six years ago. Anyway, Manny has to leave. Immediately. His—his second cousin, Meyer, was hur—ahem—was reported hurt in an auto accident. In—in Gary. So rather than wend my way across the Loop to Manny’s office—only perhaps to have the call come in whilst I was on the way—I immediately arranged with his operator to have it put on your number—when it comes. For I knew you wouldn’t object. And so here I am. And I promise to be as quiet as a mou—”
“But see here, Uncle, I’m—I’m working on a matter of an important trial and—”
“Of course you are, my dear,” he said soothingly. “And therefore, don’t forget, may need some wise suggestions—here and anon. Suggestions which an older person like myself may be able to render. Now—hrmph—this man Bandolph you were just talking to—that name sounds strangely familiar to me—but anyway, I note that already you’re beginning to run into complications of some sort. So why not ask my advice when you’re stuck, and—” He smiled expansively. “—and make me thus pay—for using your office—and wire!”
“Oh—yeah?” said Elsa, not in the least impressed by his smooth arguments. “And, after learning all I had in mind, you’d decide to forego your New York call—and off you’d trot to Lou Vann’s.”
“Why—Elsa?” he said reprovingly. “You should be ashamed—to talk like that. If I were to get tired of waiting—to forego my call—I most certainly would not go to Mr. Vann with anything I learned in this off—but—ahem—are your dealings with this Mr. Bandolph something—something which Mr. Vann would very much like to know?”
“Oh no, no, no, no, no,” Elsa said hurriedly. And nervously. “He’s—he’s just a man—who—but see here, Uncle, since this New York Syndicate is only to say yes or to say no—wouldn’t their letter, or their wire, to you be just as illuminat—”
“I happen to wish,” he put in coldly, “to know the outcome tonight.”
“But confound it, Uncle, this office is so—so darned small, you know—”
“Of course. But I shall remain quite out of your elbow reach, my dear. So—”
“But damn it, Uncle,” Elsa exploded desperately—and quite frankly, “I don’t think you—or even anybody else in the entire city—should be camping in my office at a time when I’m dealing w
ith a man’s life—holding phone consultations with various pers—”
“Why—Elsa?” His face was pursed up as though he were going to cry. But he didn’t convince Elsa in the least. “You—you don’t trust me, do you?” he said plaintively.
“Don’t cry,” she returned sarcastically. “I do trust you. Almost as far as I can see you! But the fact is—”
“The fact is,” he said harshly, “that when a blood uncle—or practically that, anyway—can’t sit unobtrusively in his own niece’s office—to get an important telephone call—it’s a sad state of affairs. And I frankly—” And now he commenced to get a little choleric—and Elsa could see that this, at any rate, was genuine. “In fact, Elsa, if you want to take that attitude—and demand that I leave—and leave I shall, if you demand it!—then I see no reason whatsoever why I shouldn’t be just as cold-blooded. In short, to take full and unmitigated and immediate advantage of your technical quitclaim after you’ve lost your case tonight. As—ahumph—you most certainly will. And—”
“Hold it,” she said wearily. “I’m—I’m not ordering you out. It’s just that—”
And to herself only did she finish that sentence.
“—this is one fine kettle of fish!”
Which was what it was! For Elsa expected no less than three calls to come in tonight, roughly around and about 7 o’clock, all connected in a sense with each other, and two of which she could not even intercept. All of those calls would involve hurried yet detailed instructions, and arrangements. Open discussion, in fact, of certain things she wanted done. And she had very few doubts that when those conversations were over, Silas Moffit would immediately lose interest in his “New York call” and lumber forth.
Only to call up Lou Vann on some outside wire. Whereas, if she ordered him out now—he had a supreme, and beautiful, and perfect, and final excuse to do the unavuncular thing of taking advantage of her quitclaim.
The Man with the Wooden Spectacles Page 27
