Right then I heard a noise at the door. A cracking, smashing noise. I withdrew far back of the screen. And crouched low. The door opened. Then closed. And the lights came on. My eye, at the moment, was but a few inches from the one small hole which pierced through the thickly painted burlap. I moved it quickly in line with the hole. And I saw that a janitor stood there in the room. For he wore a striped jumper. And had a bunch of keys at his waist. One hand held a wooden toolbox, and the other a jimmy. Though both hands were encased in loose leather gloves. I recognised him immediately as a German janitor I talked with not long ago in the lobby of that same building. I could not grasp why he had jimmied a door to which he had keys. Now of course I know. He set everything down on the floor, except his gloves. And came over to the phone on Vann’s desk. He was now no more than 4 feet from me. Though looking markedly away from me. He dialed a number. And proceeded to talk low to somebody he continually called “Chief.” Except in one instance when, excited, he forgot himself and addressed his hearer by name. The man at the phone near me talked, however, without a single trace of the German accent he had when last I talked with him. And that is why everything he said—every name he uttered—was unmistakable to me. His first words were: “‘Actor’ Rickbauer talking, Chief.” (Rickbauer is positively the name he uttered, for once again later in his conversation he repeated it. The spelling is mine, though it could be Rickbower or Rücbauer.) Then he said: “Well Chief, you’re just about to cash in now for all the years you’ve had me casing the S.A.’s home-joint. For I’m in it now—and did a good job on the door!” The man on the other end must have asked him whether he had done anything on the safe yet, for the man on my end answered—as closely as I can reconstruct it: “Not yet, Chief, no—but I’ll have Wah Lee’s skull out of the pete in 5 minutes, and grinning the way the yellow bastard was the morning you wandered into his hospital room—looking for a ‘Mr. Smith’—and talked art with him—and found he was going that day to Jackson Pa—okay, Chief, I’ll chop it—though this is an automatic connection, don’t forget.” I was bowled over, to say the least, for the opening words of the man Rickbauer’s answer had shown me that he was talking not only to the higher-up of that old Parson Gang—but was, in addition, talking to the actual so-called “fingerman” in the Wah Lee Kidnap Case. I strained my ears. Though I did not in the least need to do so. For in response to something said on the wire, and apparently calling him down, Rickbauer said—and excitedly: “But I tell you, it’s in the bag—” And right there it was he clearly uttered a name—the name of the man he was talking to. Before I could even begin to digest this surprising development, there was more talking, and then the man near me said: “Yes, if you don’t hear from me in 15 minutes, the pete is cracked okay.” Then there was more talking which I could not get. Then the man near me said: “Yes, I understand—and of course, with all the heat that’ll be on, I wouldn’t come near you myself. The meet will be at Old Post Office—Corner N. E.—tomorrow at noon—and my 2 grand cut will be in centuries so I can count it off before I pass the sconce.” There was more talk from the other end. Then he said: “No, the heat is just as bad for me as it is for you—the dicks may be tailing me from early tomorrow morning on. So I’m cutting in a brother of mine on that meat; his name is Gottfried Rickbauer, and he’s just in from South Africa where he’s been doing a rap of 10 on the Breakwater as a lemon man. And so’s you’ll know he’s the McCoy, we’ll have the sconce in a colored shoebox.” And then, after a minute’s talking on the other end, he said: “Yes, I get the high-sign, Chief. Though I doubt very much it’ll be made by this 24-karat right-hand bower of yours—yes, this Quickchange Nat—if he’s only due to get out of stir tomorrow a.m. But whether or no—and whoever he is—your man will say: ‘I’m the Reverend Johnson,’ and then, ‘Where’s the Merchandise Mart?’ All okay, Chief.” And he hung up.
“Good—Godfrey!” was all Elsa could say. “It’s—it’s like a nightmare, that’s what! Reibach himself—a part of the gang. And was my own client—outside the door?—helping Rei—” She shook her head violently as only one does who really is trying to jerk out of a nightmare. For she was practically convinced by now that she was home in bed, or had dropped off in her office. And was dreaming it all. Yet, alas, she found herself talking to herself—asleep though she manifestly was! “Of all the—but where and how does Saul enter this thing? God grant it may yet be all a delirious delusion of his, and—”
But the next paragraph seemed almost to have been placed to blow that comforting idea completely out of Elsa’s red head. For it read:
And now a word to you, you KING OF SKUNKS.
Am I delivering the facts coherently! Do you think you can establish insanity against this letter—in court? Try it, you KING SKUNK OF ALL KINGS OF SKUNKS.
Elsa manfully swallowed some air, and went on reading:
But going back now to the affair in Lou Vann’s office, scarcely breathing, I proceeded to watch the man Rickbauer. He took out a short sledge from the tool box. And with one smash, he knocked the dial off of the safe. Then he stood the sledge against one wall, well away from the safe, and in back of where he had stood. And kneeled down at the safe itself. And worked the door somehow open. Taking out a paper-wrapped roundish package. Which he apparently tore open a little with his fingers.
And it was at that moment, fool that perhaps I was, that I saw a chance to make two thousand easy dollars. By entering the crime myself. By killing Rickbauer, that is. Silencing his lips. And myself impersonating the unknown brother from South Africa. At the right spot. And the right hour. And catching the money that would be waiting in the hands of this newly released convict, Quickchange Nat, whoever he was—or, if not he, whoever else it was that would be used to pass it. For I knew absolutely that you, Lou Vann, would cover up that killing for hours and hours, if not all of today, in order to get a huge dragnet thrown out over the entire city. And so, the gang of which this Rickbauer was a member, would never even know. And Rickbauer’s two thousand fee would be mine, all mine, if I dared to play in. If I dared, in short, to upset Justice, and kill all chances that you, Congreve and Brittman, would ever have to catch—rather, let me put it, convict the higher-up in that Parson Gang—the man Rickbauer called “Chief”—the high man in the Wah Lee case—the man whose name I heard with both my ears. I had no illusions at that moment, Vann—and I have none now—that, with Rickbauer dead, you can ever convict anybody whose mere name is given you by someone who “allegedly” heard it on a telephone wire. No! The only possible chance thereof lay in my staying right where I was—behind that screen—letting Rickbauer depart—calling you—who would then have Rickbauer followed—his phone calls tapped—his brother found—the meet covered—the man, “Quickchange Nat,” or whoever else, in clerical costume, completed that meet, trailed—and, at long last, when that skull passed straight and direct to the Higher-Up himself, would the latter be trapped dead to rights. Whereas, if I silenced Rickbauer—and stole the meet myself—the last possible chance to convict that Higher-Up—both on possession of stolen property and an entire nabbed gang turning State’s Evidence—was killed.
I made my decision, Mess’rs. Vann, Congreve, and Brittman. To play—for myself. And not for your much-touted Law. For I tiptoed out from back of the screen. Rickbauer never heard me—on the soft rug as I was. He was still kneeling, examining that package, when I took up that sledge. In my bare hands. And thanks to doing which—and the present location of that sledge, which I shall reveal—this letter may be completely confirmed.
“Oh no, no, no,” Elsa said suddenly, and actually aloud. “That—that sledge has got to be got—and—and dropped into the river—by Uncle Silas and me. Because—oh dear! Elsa Colby—accessory after the fact. Oh dear, oh dear!” And she drove desperately on.
I came down with the sledge on Rickbauer’s head like—But the German must have had the head of an ox. For he rose. And came at me snarling. His eyes crossed horribly.
I—
“Oh—my goodness!” said Elsa faintly, her stomach rising and falling gently within her body. “Now—now I do know—at last—that this never came out of. a disordered brain. Eyes—crossed! From a blow on the head! Only—only a brain specialist—and Elsa Colby—with her two weeks’ experience helping enter those records in that brain lesion ward at the State Hospital—would know that. Oh dear! Now I do know–” Poor Elsa, for the second, had forgotten utterly that this paper had already confirmed itself by its writer’s knowledge of the back of that burlap screen—and of the hole which Vann himself had driven therein. “Oh dear,” she repeated. “Now I do know—I’m getting facts. And that—” She shook herself violently together. And pressed on.
I wasn’t prepared for a second swing. And got him only on the forearm. But drove him back against the clock. He got his balance somehow. And came at me again. I really think he was blind now. For he seemed to look far beyond me. And his arms flailed like the arms of a windmill. I came down on his head squarely. And heard the sledge’s nose crush bone. He was dead.
There, to be sure, I made my second mistake. For myself, that is. For I should have rung the police. I should have rung you, Vann—or tried to. Or you, Congreve. Or you, Brittman. And, suppressing all the details of that phone conversation I’d overheard, told you what I’d done. And gotten, therefore, city-wide praise. For the killing of a burglar, masquerading as a janitor, right under the very nose of you, Lou Vann. But I failed. And instead, I rolled the partly torn-open skull into a sheet of newspaper that lay in the waste-basket, and snapped a rubber band around it. (The newspaper is now in my flat, on the shelf of my closet. It is a copy of the Indianapolis Ti—
“Must—must burn that paper,” Elsa said faintly. “Uncle Silas and me. For—but oh dear—Elsa Colby and her uncle—accessories after the fact. What, oh what—” And she drove desperately on.
—a copy of the Indianapolis Times, with a notice of the coming marriage of some girl named Sybil Burlinghame marked in ink.) I tossed—
“The—the sister, of course—of that office girl called Beryl,” Elsa said faintly—more than heartsick at the way this document was tying facts together—even mentioning persons who had not been mentioned at all in the Despatch’s big exclusive story today, nor any of the subsequent stories to boot. And all Elsa needed just now to completely complete her misery of soul was the knowledge that Sybil Burlinghame had been married, this very afternoon in Indianapolis, Indiana! But she went on desperately querying herself. “And where in God’s name is the sledge—”
But she stopped short futilely querying herself. And, instead, drove desperately on.
I tossed the sledge and the jimmy into the open carpenter’s box. And jerked off the loose gloves from Rickbauer’s hands and tossed them in, too. And snapping the catch of the box, took it, and the package, both up. And pushed off the lights, using my elbow only to depress the button. And closed the door, taking the handle only through the corner of my coat. And I see you now, you KING OF SKUNKS, sitting in the courtroom where you are trying to set aside the transference of my policy to my woman, your ugly yellow teeth bared in a snarl of frustration, as Barlow James reads this letter before a jury and shows that only a sane man could have written it, let alone acted as I acted. Was that—my using my elbow—you KING OF SKUNKS, the act of a man with his brains defective? Was my taking that doorknob through my coat the act of a man with no brains? I see you now, within 10 more minutes or so, as the honorable jury declares I am sane, slinking from the courtroom cursing. And—but where was I? Oh yes. I went down the stairway, And out onto the street.
I took a Madison Street car to the first street east of Halsted. Where I boarded a Checker cab which I took only to 1 block of my flat. And so that the cab may be immediately located, I will say that its driver was a young Japanese, and he told me that not less than four Checker cabs in Chicago were driven nights by Japanese university students. This cab, however, had a number composed of 4 digits, all alike, though I do not recall what they were. But the foregoing data will narrow it down to 9 possible cabs and 4 possible drivers, and locate it immediately. I told the driver I was a carpenter out on a late “job.” And how do you like the perfect punctuation in this letter, you KING OF SKUNKS? And the coherent way I set forth the facts? Insane, am I? Mad as a March hare, eh? Rambling, am I? Cracked? Well, the jury will tell YOU a thing or two about that, you KING OF ALL KINGS OF ALL KINGS OF SKUNKS.
“Oh, come—come—Saul!” Elsa said faintly. “No—no more personalities. The facts are—are terrible enough.” And on, on she drove.
There was nobody on Cleveland Avenue at that hour—or even in the halls of the building—to observe my entrance into my flat. Or to question me. For the only person in my flat was a guest. A business guest, that is. And he was asleep. On 10 grains of veronal I had given him that day.
And this is the man, Lou Vann, who is locked tonight in your lockup. Going gaily to trial for murder.
His name is Richard St. George. He—
“Jumping—guns!” Elsa ejaculated. “Richard—St. George! And—and my client—isn’t a crook!” Her spirits suddenly started to ascend with the speed of a diver who has suddenly kicked off his lead shoes—except that, unfortunately for poor Elsa, the long slimy clammy tentacle of a huge octopus at that moment reached up from the sea bottom and took tight hold of Mr. Diver, the tentacle consisting of the ineluctable fact that by this very letter Saul Moffit must—would—sit in the chair on whose handle, anyway, Richard St. George was now sitting. Either that, or—But Elsa’s brain was whirling too fast at this moment to analyze pulls being made on her soul from opposite directions! “And—and so my client,” she was repeating, “isn’t—a crook? Instead, he’s a—a genius? An all-round writing genius! And—and he said I—I was a sweet kid! And—and that he’d been looking for me for years—but never met me till today. And—and if I know anything at all about men—or red-heads—he meant it. He—oh dear!”—and now she felt the octopus’ tentacle—“the minute one gets a little sunshine in one’s life, a—a cloud has to bust! Poor Saul! Oh dear!” And with a sigh she went on.
He claims to be an all-round magazine writer. And is. For I have seen his name tacked to all sorts of material. He showed me, however, in a certain one of a stack of old Forums that he saw piled up under my table, his picture and his name. Confirming his identity completely. At any rate, he rang my bell yesterday afternoon—about two hours after I had returned from the Associated Life Companies Corporation, and about an hour before I went back downtown again on several various errands, and all of which wound up—as I have explained—at the office of you, Lou Vann. To end, as I have already explained, with my killing Rickbauer. Anyway, this St. George rang my bell. I asked him in. After he established who he was, he said that he had heard of me, and was certain that a good magazine article could be written on me and my specialty. He—
“Of—of course,” Elsa said dazedly. “And with photos in it of all those historic spectacles, it would be a humding—oh dear!” And, again drawn to the bottom of the sea, she went hopelessly on.
He said he knew exactly where he could get $250 for such an article. And would split the money equally. He said, however, that it would require several days of close interviewing to do it. To “dig out of me the real high spots, the most odd angles,” as he put it. And that he was stony broke—without means to eat, or a place to sleep. He said he had just come into Chicago from Omaha. Where he had been lying in a hospital for 6 months. (A hospital called St. Stephen’s on the Hill.) After an unknown hit-and-run driver had struck him, All of the money on his person, he said, had been grabbed by the hospital. And he had even had to thumb his way to Chicago. Am I rambling yet, KING OF SKUNKS? Once in Chicago, St. George said, he had immediately called on a famous safecracker, in Cicero, whose identity he had learned while working an some underworld article. He had hoped, he said, to make a deal by which he could write this man�
��s criminal biography in a single article. And I only trust, KING OF SKUNKS, that my woman spits fully in your face as the insanity trial is over. The safecracker, however, was laid up with rheumatism, and refused, moreover, to play in. So St. George decided, he said, to try two other men, also known to him as safecrackers. Does an insane man, KING OF SKUNKS, know how to place commas in his own death letter? But while taking leave of the Cicero man, some local detective, wearing a star, had descended on them, evidently to make sure the safecracker in question was laid up. And had looked St. George over suspiciously. And so St. George had gotten out. And was afraid to pursue any further the safecracking angle. And so tried me.
I was glad to play in with him for a share amounting to $125. And agreed to put him up. But I did not want him to prowl my place. And so, when he asked for permission to go to bed, and for a cup of hot milk, I put 10 grains of veronal I had in it.
And so he was dead to the world when I got in last night, around midnight. I removed from the wooden box my skull package, and placed the box, containing the fingerprinted and bloody-nosed sledge, under the davenport in my parlor, where it is at this moment. And—
“But from where it’s gonna be removed damn pront—” began Elsa resolutely. And then: “But—but—if Uncle and I do that, then—oh dear!” And on, on she drove.
—and went to my own own bedroom. And to bed. After unwrapping and examining my precious $2000 piece of human bone. My nerves, strangely, were cool. Much much cooler than yours, KING OF SKUNKS, as you sit there in the courtroom waiting to hear the jury decide whether I am insane or sane. My nerves, as I say, gentlemen of the psychological jury, were cool. For I had only killed a criminal, anyway.
The Man with the Wooden Spectacles Page 33
