“But on such an indictment,” Elsa put in triumphantly, toward Louis Vann, “you will never try my client again. For having once been in jeopardy for the specific crimes in question: which consisted of (a) opening your safe, and (b) killing Adolph Reibach to ‘prevent apprehension therein’—he can never be placed in jeopardy again on those particular crimes. And when you exclude those crimes—you have nothing left. And so he can’t be tried again!”
“And that is correct too, Mr. Vann,” Penworth nodded. He seemed lost in deep thought for a few seconds. “Though quite aside from those sheer legal aspects of this case, Mr. Vann, I myself am rapidly coming now to the ineluctable—though quite personal, of course—conclusion that since the mathematical chance of a skull, bearing the identical operation, and on the identical side, as Wah Lee’s, yet not Wah Lee’s, being found under the very dirt floor of the hide-out where we virtually know Wah Lee was held and doubtlessly murdered, is one in a very, very, very huge number, then the skull received by your secretary from Moses Klump, and subsequently put into your safe, must have been Wah Lee’s. And since this one on Mr. Mullins’ table has been proven tonight by Miss Colby not to be Wah Lee’s—then the defendant here must be actually innocent of the crime set forth in your indictment, i.e. burglarizing your safe—as he legally is, as has been conclusively adduced by Miss Colby.” He raised his hand sharply towards Vane to stay the efflux of words which plainly, at this point, were about to pour forth from the prosecutor. “Let me say in advance, however, Mr. Vann, that my ruling in this case tonight will not be made upon any such personal deductions, assumptions, presumptions, or so-called ‘analysis’ which I may have just made—but will be based purely and solely upon the stout rock of the definite and incontrovertible legal point set forth by Miss Colby. Yes!” He glanced back over his shoulder at the clock, whose hands now stood at ten minutes of three in the morning. Then back to the court, while he gazed about him wearily. “Well—this trial is over—as far as this Court is concerned. Miss Colby has waived her final address. And you, Mr. Vann, waived yours. And so I’m now going to render my verdict. But I want no one to lea—” He was glancing, frowningly, from the corner of his eye, at the newspapermen who were storing their notebooks away in their side coat pockets. “But I want no one,” he repeated sternly, “to leave this room after I do render my verdict. Because—but come to think of it—” he swung his gaze leftward of himself in a wide arc “—you, Inspector Scott, still have the key, haven’t you? Please continue, then, to hold that key. Yes—thanks.” He swung his gaze back again toward those fidgeting newspapermen. “For reasons which I shall now set forth, I want no commotion, or disturbance, anywhere in this room after my verdict is given. No talking. No getting up. For court will still be in session—all remember—and will be until Mr. Mullins there raps its adjournment. And anybody—of the Press or otherwise—raising commotion I shall have to fine for contempt of—All right. I shall now give my verdict. And immediately after I have done so, I shall want to question this defendant as to why, when he positively did not have the skull stolen in that burglary, and therefore obviously did not commit the burglary, he yet lied to the Court. For my hope is that after I have given that verdict—and his counsel has confirmed, for him, that because of it he can never be placed in jeopardy again on the crimes adduced, he may finally tell the truth—i.e. why he lied.”
He turned toward the defendant.
“Defendant, rise,” he ordered quietly.
Amidst some clanking of the chain which held him to Mullarky, who remained seated, John Doe arose. Again Penworth gazed about the room. “It is the verdict of this court,” he said slowly, “that the Defendant, John Doe, on trial in this court under Cook County Indictment No. 42,666, is not guilty of the charges set forth in that particular indictment. And cannot, moreover, be again tried for any of the crimes set forth in that indictment. Defendant discharged!”
He turned to the standing reddish-haired John Doe, still linked to the sitting Mullarky. “You are free, Doe. And forever—so far as any of the crimes set forth in this case are concerned. And—this being so, are you willing now to tell the Court why you lied, as you did tonight, on the witness stand?”
“Yes,” said John Doe, “I am. And I will tell!”
CHAPTER XXI
“As to Who I Am,” Said the Defendant, “I Am—”
“Since, however,” the defendant asked suddenly, “I am freed from the charges against me—and further from all jeopardy in connection therewith—may I now have my—my shackles unlocked!”
“Unlock them, Officer Mullarky,” Penworth ordered. “And—but here, here—” He had swung his gaze forward, as talking became audible at several different points in the courtroom. “—This court, as I think once before I said, is still in session. Mr. Mullins, write down the names of any persons talking or in any way whatsoever disturbing courtroom decorum. And I promise that before court’s finally adjourned—owoo!” he broke off, as some particular twinge twisted him inside—“there’ll be some fines paid. And they’ll be substantial too,” he added savagely, rubbing his knee.
Now, indeed, the room became again a model of quietness, during which the newspapermen settled back in their chairs with quizzical glances at one another. In fact, from the intent looks on the faces of several, it was plain that some even wanted to “stick tight” and get the final element of this strange courtroom drama: the identity of the debonair liar who had been beautifully cleared—but by no help from himself!
Mullarky, n the meanwhile, having separated himself physically from his former captive, swept the three seats in question—the two chairs, and his own stool—against the wall with but a couple of motions, seemingly, of his ham-like hands, nodding towards both Elsa and John Doe to sit down, and dropping down himself. Elsa dropped quickly back into her chair against the wall, where the stern gaze of Mullins, now to her left, no longer bored through and upon her; and where she now sat, a mere spectator, instead of a defense attorney gazing down a table at a prosecuting attorney, her client to her right and two chairs removed from her now—and Mullarky squatting between them like—like—like a dour chaperon. Like a blue toad with a red—
But her peculiar—and very tired—reflections were broken into by Penworth.
“Come—come, Doe! Speak up! We’re waiting. On you. With court yet in session, please note, so that—”
“So that what Your Honor?” the former J. Doe queried, puzzledly raising his eyebrows. “So that what? I said I’d give the real facts concerning myself now.”
“I know you did,” Penworth grunted. “And when you’re done, I may have to—ow!” he broke off suddenly, as some particularly vicious pain probably must have surged through that foot “—when you’re done,” he added savagely, “I shall probably have to give you a year in jail—plus $1,000 fine.”
“A year in jail? And—and a thousand dollars fine?” The defendant’s voice trailed off. “For—for what, Your Honor?”
“For contempt of court, of course,” replied Penworth savagely. “For in case you lie again—and I consider you are lying—I’ll most certainly hand you such a penalty. And if, on the other hand, you do give the truth—yet it looks like an insult to the dignity of the court, I’ll—I’ll still give you that sentence.”
“Ow!” And one would almost have thought that J. Doe was imitating Penworth, except for the pained expression on his face. “Why, Your Honor, that’s—that’s—all right, Your Honor,” he broke off hastily. “I’ll talk. And hope that—yes, I’ll talk.”
And scratching his chin with marked unease, he commenced to do that very thing. “I had myself arrested today,” John Doe stated slowly, “—and under the precise circumstances in which I was arrested—in the perhaps banal, and doubtlessly naïve, conviction that only by the assemblage of all those witnesses yonder—” and he tossed his reddish-thatched head sharply towar
d that battery of thirty-four faces all of whom, bar none, were staring at him “—and under the particular circumstances in which they have been assembled—could the real criminal back of the Wah Lee murder and kidnapping—who obviously must have been back of that safe burglary last night, as well—brought to justice, and the famous Wah Lee case closed for all time to come. If I have been over-optimistic in this conviction which I held—well, it appears that I will have at least a year in jail to think it over—omitting for the moment the also troublesome factor of a certain thousand dollars! And I will, even more, have to—but before dilating on my naïve hopes with respect to bringing to justice that person back of the criminal Gus McGurk, and back, therefore, of Wah Lee’s murder—I should like to say a brief word about the misguided chap who sometime today, evidently, confessed to the crimes for which I myself virtually allowed myself today to be arrested. And who evidently also claimed, from all I heard in this courtroom tonight, to be the author of the asinine feature known in the world of radio as Uncle Griffy’s Bedtime Animal Tales for Tiny Tots. But anyway, that chap who confessed today is not the author of that drivel at all. He is, as I happen to know, a first-class writer—Grade A—of things several and various. But things with at least a modicum of intelligence to them. And he doesn’t know, moreover, who has been sitting in the defendant’s chair tonight here; and doesn’t even know it now—wherever Mr. Vann may have him temporarily locked up. But the real author of that stuff he so generously claimed as his own—the real and little-known P. Wainwright—the man without a first name—is myself. I—I am P. Wainright, who up to now has had to write that puerile drivel—when he knew he could do stuff a million times better. As for this Piffington Wainright who so obligingly confessed that Klondike Building crime today, and, as it appears, got my damnable contract broken for me, he is my cousin, and his first name—Piffington—is his by baptism and not, as mine, by adoption! Yet no sissy name that: Piffington—for he was named after one of our mutual ancestors, General Simon Piffington, who commanded the famous Yankee Suicide Platoon at the Battle of Bull Frog Run—in which every Yankee in it was cut to ribbons—killed—including General Simon Piffington himself. And no sissy, Piffington Wainright himself either, for—but I won’t take up the valuable time of this court to try to give public tribute to a one hundred per cent right guy and genius combined—except to say that, if he were ever put into a novel, the editor and the readers would say he could not exist! And that is all I have to say about and for Piffington Wainright—except that, Piffington old boy, wherever you’re sitting now, waiting for Mr. Vann to set you free, God bless you for what you did today—when you busted my contract skyhigh, and sent it yelping over the Western hills like a—”
“Just a minute, brother,” put in the pudgy, thick-lensed Canfield of the Herald-Examiner. “Since now you’re ladling out the McCoy at last—so, anyway, we all hope—you’ll no doubt want your facts to be twenty-four carat! And so I’m sorry to have to hand you the interesting info that you’re still lock, stock and barrel with the New York firm of Adlai, Collerman and Grimshawster as writer of bedtime animal stories—and they’ve even announced to the Press and Public that the feature—and via your pen!—will shortly be expanded to include more evenings a week, since—”
“Still—still with them?” the reddish-haired man asked, aghast. His face actually paled. “What—what do you mean?”
“Simply,” said the other, “that just before I stepped into my car to hop over here tonight, I saw a last-minute ticker type news despatch that came into our offices—the Herald Examiner—from New York. It was something released by that firm I refer to, after Mr. Vann’s demolition of your cousin’s confession—plus the latter’s repudiation of it, to boot—was carried into New York on the news wires, and the firm in question interviewed. Adlai, Collerman and Grimshawster, through Angus Grimshawster, repudiated completely that earlier announcement by Sam Collerman that you were no longer with that firm—repudiated it just as swiftly as your cousin this evening repudiated his confession, and they even asserted—”
“Wait—wait!” Parks Wainright, as it seemed he called himself, passed a hand over his brow. “How—how could they repudiate what, I understand, from a remark Mr. Vann there dropped tonight, they gave out over their own signat—”
“How? Well, the story says that they can establish that Sam Collerman had been officially ousted from the firm early that morning, under certain optional provisions, by Sanford Adlai, the head of it—through Adlai’s New York attorney. And was alone in the offices tonight, packing up the things in his desk, when the newspapermen surged in with the news of Piffington Wainright confessing here in Chicago. And so he passed out those signed press handouts—after calling in a steno from across the hall—thinking that because of a quick-thinking act like that, so beneficial to the standing of the firm, Adlai would reverse his decision and take him, Collerman, back into the firm. As a matter of fact he was out—is still out—his press hand-outs, signed or unsigned have no validity—are n.g.—and you, according to Grimshawster, are still with ’em. And every radio firm, movie producer, magazine editor, and book publisher in New York is being notified tonight that you have no legal power whatsoever to contract to write anything, of any kind, for any of them.”
Parks Wainright flung up both his hands in a helpless gesture that said, plainer than any words: “What’s the use?” And the gesture was interrupted by Penworth.
“Well, see here. Wainright, is there a connection—or isn’t there?—between your being in this courtroom tonight, allegedly trying to help the Commonwealth clear up the old Wah Lee case, and your being under contract, perpetual or otherwise, with Adlai, Collerman and Grimshawster to write animal tales for nodding children?”
“Very much so, Your Honor, would say.”
“All right, then. It seems we’re not hopelessly running off the track. Well then—hm—since you say it’s all connected up together—just how did you come to sign a contract such as you describe?”
“How, Your Honor? Well, it was because of a woman who, virtually, had been my mother. Actually the mother of my cousin, Piffington Wainright. When I learned from Piffington, here in Chicago, that Aunt Sophia had to have a delicate and difficult operation to save her life, I had to do my part. I had an employing firm, who were using the stuff I turned out. And which was pulling like the devil—thousands of kids listening in—though I didn’t know it at the time. And when I approached them for a thousand dollars advance, they knocked me for—for a row. By consenting to give it to me. Not as a bonus, however. But as an advance—to be subtracted at the modest rate of one dollar for each of my next one thousand effusions. Also, moreover, they arranged a contract tying me exclusively to them for twenty years. Well, I didn’t dream, at that time, that I had either talents or proclivities for doing the sensational, highly dramatic stuff like–”
“Like you ran off there tonight—in that witness chair?” interrupted Penworth, frowning.
“No less,” assented Parks Wainright debonairly. “And so I signed up. Glad to do my little bit to help the finest woman who ever lived.”
“And you succeeded?”
“The operation, Your Honor,” said Parks Wainright unsmilingly, “was a success—but the patient died! After seven weeks of hospitalization. And so there I was. Piffington owed me—so he claimed—I didn’t—one thousand dollars. While I owed Sanford Adlai—for he is, after all, the firm which has me—twenty years’ peonage.”
“Well, did you try to induce Adlai to relinquish the contract?”
“Did I! I’ll say—Your Honor! By mail—that is. For whenever I went through Pittsburgh, where he sits, with his toothpaste factory and his safety-razor factory to boot—and whatnot else—he seemed to be in Miami, Florida. All I ever got—via mail—were the bland assurances that nobody who could writ such good bedtime stories for children could possibly do the standard and typical G-man and crime-s
tory stuff.”
“The fate of being too good a cobbler,” said Penworth ironically. “As no doubt good lawyers have told you.”
“Yes, several. My contract was last in Piffington’s hands. Who said there was one A No. 1 and a third contract specialist in Chicago whom he was going to consult—probably pretending to be me, so as to get more direct and personal information—and that that man’s verdict as to whether the contract could be smashed would be final. And since Piffington, consummate actor that he is, could better simulate myself, held as I am in the tight clutches of those three Simon Legrees, than I could myself—and since I’ve not heard from him since I sent the contract to him—the verdict was doubtlessly the same as those I had received.”
“Doubtlessly. And the attorney in question was probably Rutgers Alstyne. And you’re sitting still in a chair in which you can still get a heavy contempt-of-court sentence. So let’s carry on. You say you heard from your cousin? Where? We know your name. But what is your town?”
“I have never had a fixed place of residence, Your Honor. I have lived in New York—and points west. In Chicago also. The longest of my several stays in cities was in Minneapolis, which I love. I’ve used, however, as a mailing address the last few months, the trailer in which Piffington now lives, in a vacant lot on North State and Superior Streets—this city. And it is that which obviously made his ‘confession’ today sound valid to my employers. For they themselves had been sending their communications to me there.”
“Well, how did you happen to be in Chicago—yet not living with your cousin—in fact, your cousin not even knowing that you were on trial tonight for your life?”
The Case of the Lavender Gripsack Page 17
