“—just that,” she finished audibly, for his benefit, “that—that I’m always a—a bit flustered—when I have an audience around me.”
“Don’t be, my dear—with me,” he said soothingly. “For we’re uncle and nie—well, well, well, well,” he broke in suddenly, as he opened out his paper to, apparently, its page 3, “if they’re not going to widen and put through Congress Street at last! Well what do you think of that, Elsa?” And contentedly he loosened the buttons on his black coat.
“All this gal can think about,” said Elsa to herself only, “is you planking yourself in my office at the high spot of my whole career—my first court case—and with a hundred thousand dollars hanging on it to boot. Quite all this gal can think about. Quite!”
The phone rang sharply. She hesitated—then answered it because it must be answered. But it was a wrong number. She hung up. And it brought forcibly to her the untenable situation in which she sat, literally compressed.
“Of all the—the lousy complications!” she said to herself. “My God! Bandolph going to call up here—Sun Chew Moy the same—and Cohenstein to be talked with—when Cohenstein calls up—around 7! And—and Uncle Silas Wolf Moffit there! Reading real estate news with his eyes. And listening with ears a mile deep. And a dirty doublecrosser, say I, if ever God made one. Certainly yes—with a hundred-thousand-dollar reason to double-cross. Well, of all the—”
And she stopped dead in her ruminations.
For a brilliant idea—one that was ten times more brilliant than the red of her hair!—had surged into the small neat head which supported that hair.
And quickly, she spoke.
“Okay, Uncle,” she said quietly. “Yes—about your staying here. On second thought, I’m happy to have you. For after all, you know, you are my uncle. So make yourself at home. Take off your hat. Lay up your umbrella. And stay—till we start for court!”
CHAPTER XXV
—And Elsa Develops a Little “Idea”!
She saw Silas Moffit look up from his paper suddenly—and regard her suspiciously. But she remained bland and genial—even though she was seething inside. She even added to her invitation by rising from her chair and saying:
“In fact, Unc1e, you can take my swivel chair here—which I’m sure will be more comfortable.”
“But won’t you need your chair for work—but you’re not going out, are you? I gathered from your conversation that you have several important calls coming in. You shouldn’t lea—”
“That’s true—about some calls coming in. Yes. Though—they’re not important at all. I assure you. Anyway, they’re not due to come in for quite a while. In the meanwhile, I’m going to skip over to Monroe Street—to a dress shop called Francine de Loux, just off State—and snatch myself up something to wear in court tonight. I’ll hop the new Dearborn Street ‘shuttle car’ downstairs, and be at Monroe in 5 minutes. Will be back, in fact, before you’ve finished your Real Estate News. Which I note is unusually thick this week.”
“All right,” he said grudgingly, “I will take the swivel chair then—and gladly. This lone chair you’ve got here for visitors—minus handles, and with a crossbar in the back that cuts into a man’s very spine!—is the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever sat in.”
And, Real Estate News in one hand—and umbrella, rescued from the wall where he’d been sitting, in the other, its crab-apple bulge and its miniature of alcohol bulge now uppermost—he promptly vacated the chair in question, and while Elsa was taking down a soft-knitted black tam-o-shanter cap from a hook near the door, he dropped down with an expectant sigh into the far more comfortable-looking swivel chair. Only to—
“O-oof!” he ejaculated. As under his heavier weight it surged way, way back. “Why—why on earth,” he said, righting himself hastily by flinging his torso—and therefore his center of gravity—far, far forward, “don’t you tighten the spring—of this damned thing?”
And disgruntledly—and very cautiously, lest, no doubt, its very loss would again disturb his precariously attained balance, he gingerly deposited his umbrella—crab-apple and miniature alcohol bulges now on the visible edge!—across Elsa’s desk, back out of the way of things. He continued, however, successfully to hold his erect position. And now teetered experimentally, feet however, firm on floor. “Why,” he demanded again, “don’t you tighten the spring of this damn thing?”
“For two very good reasons,” Elsa told him coldly. “One being that I weigh only 90 pounds—and don’t need much of a spring. And the other being that the chair is second-handed—and the spring worn out anyway.”
“Well,” he said cheerfully, planting a foot firmly on each side of the chair, well back of its front legs—a thing he could easily do, thanks to the fact that Elsa had made it low for her own short legs—and with the result that he could now rock with complete safety, “you’ll get a hundred dollars just for merely appearing in court tonight. And can thereby refurbish this entire office.”
“And,” Elsa said grimly to herself, “be likewise out, at the same time, by that same ‘mere appearing in court’ by only $99,900! Wurra—wurra—wot a bargain! How in billy-hell, I wonder, can a court trial—where everybody in it but the defense lawyer is just aching to go ahead—be derailed? Aye—how?”
She had her hand on the doorknob now. And, paper in hand, he was looking queryingly at her.
“Do you mind, Elsa—locking the door after you? As I note it hasn’t a springlock?”
“Why no—no—but why?—the scrubwomen don’t pour in here till around 10.”
“Perhaps not, but I don’t want to waste words with every Tom, Dick and Harry of a life insurance agent—book agent—and whatnot else—who tries to comb this building on his supper-coffee.”
“Well,” she admitted, “they do, I will admit, work office buildings assiduously after supper these days. But not, Uncle, because of their supper-coffee; but because of the supper-coffee drunk by their prospects!”
“Well, I drank none,” he said. “And so want no confab. Lock me in. And they can rap their fists off outside.”
“Okay!” Elsa assented. And in view of that certain plan for getting her office vacated—which, if it took place before she returned, would leave her typewriter at the mercy of any sneak-thief, she didn’t know but that her uncle’s idea was a good one. For her, anyway!
“But in case,” she warned him mockingly, taking out the key from a pocket in her gray knit dress, “there’s a fire—well, have you got a rope, Uncle, inside your handy umbrella there, that will drop 10 floors to the street? For there be nary fire escape on this particular window—nor the two on either side of it!”
“I have no rope,” he returned unsmilingly. “But I’ve a heavy-soled shoe with which, at the first smell of smoke, I’ll neatly kick through your frosted glass door—after which I’ll step through into the arms of the firemen. So be off—so that—ahem—you can get back.”
“We’re off, then!” she said. And stepped outside. Closing and locking the door.
Now of course, she could not see him, thanks to the exceeding thickness of the brightly lighted frosted glass which bore her name, but knew at least that he was not prowling. At least—not yet! For she could hear him creaking comfortably to and fro in her chair. The rusty spring giving forth a peculiar singsong that seemed to go “e-eeka—onka—e-eeka—onka—”
And, satisfied thus that he was as yet in no mischief, she strode grimly toward the elevators.
CHAPTER XXVI
“Completion” of the “Zoo”!
But before taking the elevator downward, to go over to the Monroe Street shop, Elsa took the stairway that lay just to the side of the elevator shaft—and went one flight up! On a quite important errand! Since it devolved about the perfect and complete ousting of one Mr. Silas Moffit, from the offices of one Miss Elsa Colby, Attorney-at-Law!
That is to say, howe
ver, she went about 14/15ths of a flight up. For at this point her ascension by foot was arrested by the greeting of a blue-coated special-delivery boy with a leather sack under his arm, who was coming down and had already descended the top 15th of the flight.
“Just a minute, Miss Colby!” he said—and considerably to her surprise. “I’m on my way down to your office—with a special.” And he held out to her a small square envelope.
“Well, I’m ‘Miss Colby’ all right,” she agreed, taking the envelope and seeing, by even the light that came from the upper head of the stairs, that it was typewritten in very tiny type, with her name, room number, and building complete. “But you?—aren’t you on the wrong floor?”
“No’m,” he said. “I had an airmail-special for the Western Novelty Company up on the top fl—the 12th floor. And delivered that first, and walked down.”
“I see,” she nodded, as he riffled over some sheets on his receipt book. “But how—how did you know me?”
He grinned. “I—I can’t say, ma’am.”
She was signing for the special now. The metal-backed receipt book teetering on the palm of her hand.
“Come on,” she demanded. “You’d better say—or—”
“Well—I delivered you a special about three weeks ago and—and well, I never forgot you.”
“Such a ravishing beauty, hey? Come on, boy–come clean.”
He grinned.
“All right then, Miss Colby—since you invite me to. You see, I got a sister what I always thought had the reddest hair in 20 counties, and was the freckledest girl I ever—”
“I get it!” said Elsa dryly. “There’s your receipt.”
And the boy, still grinning, hastily fled up a part of the flight he’d already descended, and disappeared around the elevator shaft, while Elsa plodded on to the top, and paused under the light to read the missive—or whatever it was.
She heard the delivery boy, in fact, board the down-going elevator and go down as she tore the small envelope open.
“Little wretch!” she said grimly. “I’d like to wring his—”
The envelope contained a single large cheap card.
But a most weird and unusual card!
A card such as would have been printed up only by a weird and unusual being.
For the face of it, confronting Elsa under the light at the top of the stairway, read:
“Great—heavens!” was all Elsa said, realizing she was now viewing the identical card which she had nearly received from Saul Moffit’s hands that afternoon, hours before.
Bewilderedly, she turned it over. And found, typewritten on its back—and signed also, on the machine!—a message in the same tiny type that was on the envelope.
And even a date—or rather, hour heading—which showed that it had been typed off, and dropped into a mailbox—she glanced now at the envelope—its date stamp was but 10 minutes after that on the card—oh, what a postal system in Chicago proper!—almost 3 hours to get from Niggertown to the Loop!—well, anyway, she saw, it had been written but a few minutes after she had parted company with its owner that afternoon, eras, æons ago! For it read:
3:59 p.m.
Dear Elsa:
I’m just on my way home to my palatial apartment now to sleep till time to go on bookkeeping duty tonight—
“Duty my blooming eye!” Elsa commented shrewdly.
“To see that woman—who’s dressed him up like—like a plush horse!” And she went on.
—but I’ve darted into a Negro real-estate office near where we parted, to hammer off this brief warning to you and put it immediately into the mailbox. It is as follows, Elsa:
In case you meet up with that damn skunk whom we were discussing—
“And now,” Elsa sighed, shaking her head, “are the beasts of the field complete! ‘Viper’ he called his father—and ‘cockroach of hell’—and ‘old rat’—and ‘Grand Llama of whelpdom’—well—the zoo is now open to the public!”
And she went on:
—under no conditions tell him about my having thus far lost 4 different pairs of historic spectacles, much less my having been unable to figure out even where I’d left them. For I have profound reason to believe he has it in the back of his head—
“Poor alcoholic paranoiac!” Elsa said, shaking her head again. “Though at that, I wouldn’t put it beyond Uncle Silas to do anything to Sau—” She went on.
—to try and have me committed to an insane asylum, and that one fact—on which he MIGHT subpoena you—might give him the exact leverage to do so. WATCH THIS, Elsa!
S. Moffit.
Elsa gave an uneasy laugh. “At that,” she commented, “I darn near did spill it! Well—if ever Silas Moffit subpœnas me—on an insanity hearing against Saul—I’ll shoot the works on the whole Moffit family!”
With which she tore card and envelope into fine bits, threw them into a huge cuspidor which stood just off near the head of the stairs, and proceeded to do what she had come up to this floor to do!
CHAPTER XXVII
THE PERFECT “UNCLE-OUSTERING” IDEA OF ONE E. COLBY!
First, however, Elsa made her way down the soft, woodfloored hallway, passed several dark doors, to where a door panel was brightly lighted like her own on the floor below.
Except that—unlike her own—above this door hung a lighted red globe bearing on it black letters reading FIRE ESCAPE HERE! And—unlike her own—this door faced in such manner that its windows must look down over narrow Plymouth Court, constituting the rear of the old Ulysses S. Grant Building. On the lighted panel itself were the letters
DAILY COURTS CALENDAR
Keene Larborough, publisher
Elsa hurriedly turned the knob and walked in. The room was a large square one, and the fire escape—promised by the lighted globe outside—loomed dark and rust-red through both of its two windows. The walls were covered with photographs evidently of judges and lawyers—for many wore black gowns. A man seated in a wheelchair worked alone at a large table covered with proofs, paste pots, takes and whatnot. His fingerjoints were huge with arthritis, indicating plainly why his typewriter, nearby, was an electric one, and plugged into the wall. He was about 50, and had black curly hair, now well shot with gray, and black eyes set well apart in his head. He seemed to have about him the air of someone who had been something in the courts of law years ago. Which was exactly what Keene Larborough had been, for two decades ago he had been one of Chicago’s foremost trial lawyers. Till, unable to go into court any longer because of the streetcar accident that paralyzed his legs—he had become a “case-preparer” in the office of other attorneys. And then, subsequently, when the settlement he had received from his legs was gone, and arthritic changes in his hands—plus a little too much drinking on the side!—had made it impossible for him to do protracted or intensive inside work, he had fallen to publishing this tiny polygraphed leaflet from material gathered for him daily, at the close of the courts, by a part-time office boy, and getting it nightly into the mail for all lawyers, and everybody else connected with the courts, to have on their desks next morning.
The Daily Courts Calendar!
A simple, easy, puttering job to keep alive a body which once held a fine brain.
“Well, well, Elsa Colby,” he said, looking up, “it looks as though I shall never be able to put your name in spaced caps.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Larb—”
“Keene to everybody, Infant!”
“Well, just what do you mean, Keene?”
“Just,” he laughed, “that I allus puts a lawyer’s name in spaced caps—with a double line under it—when ’tis his first appearance in court. It gives ye subscribers a grin, you know! But you—you’re stealing a march on me! For tonight’s D.C.C. covers tomorrow’s courts—not tonight’s! And by tomorrow, it seems that your first appearance befor
e Hizzoner —et alia!—will be over!”
“That’s true,” she assented dolorously. “Too—true! For—but where did you learn, Keene, that I was to make my ‘debut’ tonight?”
“Chief Justice Mike Shurley’s secretary is a good friend of mine, and slipped my wandering peripatetic—i.e. my errand boy—a third carbon of the special form he filled out covering tonight’s trial at Penworth’s home. There’s nothing in the papers—nor will be—for I queried the Herald City Editor while I was getting some dope on another matter—and he tells me all the Chicago sheets have passed their word to Lou Vann to print nothing about the trial—till it’s over and done—in exchange for representation, in the limited space available, of one man each.
And thus curiosity seekers, you see, are to be kept from milling around Hizzoner’s house!”
“I see,” Elsa nodded. Feeling oddly embittered, somehow, that, even when she had manfully shouldered a trial that was probably due to cost her everything in the world—even when the trial in question was an important trial on an important matter—Press and State had yet neatly combined to keep even a scintilla of publicity for herself out of her slender lap. But she dismissed her bitterness. “Well, Keene,” she explained, “what I just popped up here for was to ask you a small favor. I’ve—I’ve had a most awful infliction just worked on me. By Fate. Rather, by design, I think! And I’ve less than two hours—as you know, anyway!—to work up, on that awful case, what—whatever I expect to work up, God help me! Yet be it what it be, I expect to be talking confidentially on the wire in about an hour with one—two—three different parties. Who will be calling me up. And a man, Keene, whom I don’t trust any more than I would a green slimy snake, has just planked himself in my office. Determined to stay there.”
“Well,” Larborough said cheerfully, “use my phone here—to call your three parties. I’ll even roll myself out—while you do.”
The Man with the Wooden Spectacles Page 28
