The Case of the Lavender Gripsack

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  “That is easily explained, Your Honor. I came here night before last, from Minneapolis, to visit with—and consult the library of—a man who years ago paid my last year through college, when I, unfortunately, went broke at the end of my junior year there. And who never since allowed me to repay it. The college was Iowa State. I had, you see, known this man’s son, who was taking his own junior year there. And—”

  “And this man’s name is what? For if you are to clear yourself at all here tonight of the charge of contempt of court, you will have to give each and every name involved in this travesty that has been played out in my courtroom.”

  “Well, I am sure, Your Honor, that the man in question will not object to my giving his name. Since he is your own friend. And so I give it—gladly. His name is—Wah Lung!”

  CHAPTER XXII

  The “Why” of it All!

  Penworth swept his eyes puzzledly toward Wah Lung in the front row, who gave a half sheepish nod. Then back Pen­worth’s gaze swung to Parks Wainright.

  “Wah Lung, eh?” he repeated bewilderedly. “Well—well—” And he seemed truly like a man thrust between the fires of friendship and the call of duty—yet the forward set of his lower jaw indicated plainly that the former was not going to interfere with the latter.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Parks Wainright replied, “Wah Lung. And having visited Wah Lee in the long ago, and remem­bered his father’s vast library—including several rare books on Chinese animals and birds—I came to Chicago to see if I could not work into my confounded animal dithering some­thing, anything, new besides the confounded Big Grey Rab­bit! A whole set of Chinese animals, perhaps. Piffington did not even know I was in town. For I stayed with my good friend.

  “And I was in the library of his home, Your Honor, above the restaurant, when Mr. Wah came upstairs—directly after that interview which Mr. Hugh Vann, the journalist, had with him this morning. In which Mr. Wah learned—hours in advance of its actual exclusive release through the columns of the Despatch—how the skull of his son had at last turned up, and had in turn been stolen last night from Mr. Louis Vann’s safe—its entire description, in fact, since Hugh Vann had seen the actual Moses Klump deposition. And Mr. Wah, of course, repeated to me the bitter statement which he gave Hugh Vann as a fillip for the latter’s story; a remarkable ‘double’ statement which, as Mr. Wah said he told Hugh Vann, was exactly like the ‘sleeve of Truth’ referred to by Confucius—still a sleeve—still Truth—whether turned inside out or not. And which statement, Your Honor, ran—if, that is, the Despatch ran it: ‘If I knew where my son’s skull was at this moment—or will be, at least, by tonight—I would know the man who was the higher-up in that kidnap gang; or—’”

  “Yes,” Penworth nodded. “I read Mr. Wah’s alleged statement myself in the Despatch. And its corollary hypo­thesis ran something like this: ‘—Or if I knew with absolute certitude who was the higher-up in that gang, I not only would have my son’s skull, but the evidence by which to convict that man—and McGurk as well—for the crime of kidnapping and murder.’ An admirable piece of logic, yes—but impractical, so far as I can see, for Mr. Wah and the law to boot! Since there was assuredly no way, with five million people in Chicago, to hypothesize where or to whom the skull would fly.”

  “Well, there was enough of a hypothesis available anyway, Your Honor,” Parks Wainright expostulated, “based solely upon something which I had personally learned but the night before, for me to hastily work out the scheme which—well, which culminated in my arrest in Old Post-office block a couple of hours later.”

  “There was?” And Penworth’s gaze curiously swept the battery of thirty-four faces facing him from the back of the courtroom. “I faintly begin to see—though I see really noth­ing as yet. Your scheme, plainly, was to get yourself arrested for that burglary crime, and to attain a speedy trial by which a certain number of persons must inevitably be there as witnes­ses—and among which witnesses, in turn, as you’ve implied tonight, would assuredly be the higher-up back of that kidnap—” Penworth shook his head helplessly, as a man who is contemplating the most addle-pated plan ever conceived. “I don’t get the rationale of your scheme, and I doubt very much whether you do clearly yourself. But one thing I can say, from my own acquaintance with Mr. Wah. He is a conserva­tive man—and this scheme is plainly that of a hare-brained radio writer. And it will be up to you to show that it had some mighty rational basis, if you’re not to receive the fullest possible contempt-of-court sentence. All right. Some ques­tions. Why, for instance, could you not have asked for a trial downtown, and—”

  “That, Your Honor, can be answered very simply. It was, in brief, solely because of—of the matter of electric light, and its control, and—”

  “Electric light—and its control?” queried Penworth puzzledly. “Then obviously it is connected—at least in some wise—with the fact that the downtown Loop is all lighted with direct current only, and from one sub-station—while all the outlying districts of Chicago are lighted by alternating current, and from countless other sub-stations? Beyond which—it’s all too, too deep for me. Anyway, I take it, the only way you could get a trial held outside the Loop—and hence in the alternating-current district—hm?—was—”

  “—was, Your Honor,” Parks Wainright explained pa­tiently, “to ask for a Judge—though quite any Judge—who was temporarily unhorsed by illness—and would perforce have to hold such trial at his home. After some consideration of Judge Hardin of South Chicago, who was among several mentioned in this morning’s Sun as in or near Chicago, and who was convalescing from scarlet fever—and Judge Billi­man of Oak Park, whose two legs were knitting from an automobile accident, I fixed upon yourself—”

  “—upon my aching foot and my aching knee, you mean,” said Penworth grimly, “to create a travesty in the courts! So much for that. Well, it seems you got your witnesses assembled—there sit thirty-four of them, if we include newspapermen and a spectator or so—and—but going back to the scheme involving your arrest: a couple of questions: First, why the crimson box?”

  “The crimson box, Your Honor? That was to call attention to myself by the squad car or traffic-beat officer—and to the fact that I never took the streetcar I apparently was waiting for. To insure my being questioned—searched—arrested with­­in an hour. Archbishop Pell’s coming into the picture was a pure unexpected happenstance—allowing me to verily precipitate my own arrest—and which I later explained, I think, in a more than novel manner—if I do say it myself!”

  “You did—indeed! And where did you get the skull? Which your own attorney there proved later is a negro’s?”

  “That, Your Honor, was a skull which had had a practice operation on it identical with that done later on Wah Lee. It was among the paraphernalia in the eye, ear, nose and throat department of the old Ingleside Hospital. The hospital had loaned it to Wah Lee the day he came there for an initial examination, and it was determined he would have to have his right sphenoid cavern opened—to take home and show to his father who, because of something another doctor had said to Wah, could not divest the mind of the belief that the operation in question was some sort of a brain operation. But, as we all know, many things happened before Wah Lee ever came home. In fact, he never did come home! For he was kidnapped. Then the hospital burned down. Mr. Wah never ultimately returned the skull—since he didn’t know to whom it should be returned. He has, in fact, had it ever since. And all it required today was to have a hole drilled in the back of its brainpan with a brace and bit, which I did; the rear wall of its left eye shattered with an ice pick; a pair of inked initials, ‘M.K.’, put on the back—which also I did; and a strip of white adhesive tape put on to hold its lower jaw to the sconce proper, instead of the rubber band which was functioning that way.”

  “And your getting yourself arrested, you say, was based upon the theory that the real skull of Wah Lee must have flown straight to the hand
s of the—”

  “—the famous supposed ‘fingerman’ of the higher-up—and ‘wire’ as well—in the Wah Lee case, yes. But because that skull must inevitably be destroyed, or disposed of, I knew I must work my plan quickly if at all—and that is why I asked for a speedy and immediate trial. And one outside the Loop—because of those electrical considerations.”

  “I think I get that element of things now,” Penworth said sagely. “A signal of some sort? Via a substation switchboard! A momentary dimming of all lights in that area?”

  It appeared plain from the pained expression on Park Wainright’s face that Judge Penworth had put his finger firmly upon the crux of that odd electric lighting feature, but his answer showed why he refused in any way to confirm it. “Your Honor,” he said stoutly, “I may incriminate myself in anything, you know—but I can’t incriminate—”

  “A sub-station employee, ordered by his superintendent of distribution to send such a signal on request? Let alone a superintendent of D.C. or A.C. distribution who has facili­tated the possibility for such signal? Well, the element of this conspiracy is all clear as crystal. Why, in short, you could not put through this wild scheme in the Loop. For something like that—sending a signal over the lighting wires—was proposed once to old Hiland MacChesney, superintendent of Direct Current distribution here in Chicago—and the trier, Dan Carey, the race-track bookmaker, went to prison! Whereas, on the other hand, Albert Domaire, superintendent of Alternating Current distribution, is married to a Chinese girl, niece of the former Chinese consul. And he’s reachable easily—through Wah Lung yonder.” Penworth shook his head, and it was evident that his denunciations were bringing him inward misery. “But of what earthly utility, Wainright,” he went on, “would it be anyway, to summon here—and hold—some witness whom you merely suspec—But here—accepting technically your mere assumption that the so-called ‘fingerman’ in the Wah Lee kidnapping is also the so-called ‘wire,’ who tipped off the gang in those old days to many impending police moves, and is the higher-up, as well; just what reason do you even have for believing this particular witness is either—or both? And I request that you name him, moreover.”

  “But, Your Honor,” Parks Wainright expostulated, “you’re—you’re asking me to commit criminal libel—in an open courtroom! For pure libel my hypothesis will be—in view of the fact that I’ve produced quite nothing thus far to back it up. No, I can’t do that very well. But I can give my reasons for suspecting this individual might be the fingerman.”

  “All right. Give them.”

  “Well, Wah Lee, Your Honor—as was brought out here tonight in certain evidence given—talked to his father on the phone in Chinese the evening before he was discharged from the hospital—saying he was going to the Japanese Bridge next day in Jackson Park, to get some dope for an archi­tectural thesis he was doing. But talked solely in Chinese. It has always been thought that that conversation was picked up from Mr. Wah Lung’s wire—going past the window of a cheap hotel on Randolph Street. And by a mysterious fly-by-night guest, found later to have been in that hotel at that time in the identical room corresponding to that particular win­dow, if I’m not mistaken—a bronzed white man whose gen­eral appearance suggested he may possibly have come from the Orient—and might therefore possibly understand Chi­nese. Though whether or no, it has always been presumed that that conversation was picked up, if for no other reason, of course, than that Wah Lee left the hospital next day via the back door only—and via a circuitous route—to go over to Jackson Park. And yet was actually grabbed in Jackson Park—and right at the lonely isolated Japanese Bridge—by an outfit in a car who, at least so a small boy subsequently testified, had been plainly waiting for Wah Lee to put in an appearance. But as a matter of fact, Mr. Wah Lung yonder, long, long after he trustingly paid the ransom money to McGurk—and the entire case subsided—had reason to believe that the information concerning Wah Lee’s proposed movements might have leaked to the gang by another channel entirely.”

  “What other channel could there be?” Penworth queried, his forehead creased into lines of perplexity.

  “Well, it seems that—and Mr. Wah Lung learned all this, Your Honor, long, long after, and by a curious contretemps of Fate—which I will be glad to set forth a little later, or which Mr. Wah himself may set forth if you deem that more logical—anyway, it seems that after Wah Lee hung up, the day he held the telephone conversation with his father in Chinese, some party, who had rung Room 304 directly—which was the room Wah Lee had in the hospital—quizzed Wah Lee on the phone; claiming he was an expatient of the hospital who was figuring on re-entering, for a complete physical examination, and was very desirous of getting that identical room again, as he considered it lucky; and wished to know whether its present occupant expected to be vacating very soon. Wah Lee, who was, to say the least, a most courteous and obliging chap, said that he was checking out next day. Whereupon the party said that inasmuch as the matter of he himself checking out of his hotel at a certain hour was also involved, did Wah Lee expect to be out of there before six o’clock? And Wah Lee again, courteously, said that ’twould be well, well before six—as he had to get over to the Japanese Bridge in Jackson Park, on business, before dark should fall, which he figured would be about 4:30. The party thanked him and hung up. But while Wah Lee had been talking to the man, Central had come in on the connection and had said to the calling party: ‘Drop your nickel, please, Ivy one-nine-nine—’ And the rest—the rest, that is, of the number mentioned—was obliterated by the dropping of the nickel in question.”

  Penworth turned toward Wah Lung. “You never told me about this, Wah, old friend,” he said kindly. “Why—”

  “It was simply because, Hilford, I felt that you would scoff at me—if not deride me—for the wild surmise which I arrived at from the running down of seven of the ten total possible Ivy numbers which begin with the digits 1-9-9. At the surmise, that is, which I arrived at because of the particular one of the seven destinations at which my search of those seven numbers wound up. For—”

  “Wait, Wah! You say seven—of the ten possible numbers—Ivy numbers, that is, of course—beginning with 199? Now I haven’t yet been told even how this information concerning this mysterious querier finally reached you, but no doubt Wainright there is the official spokesman for you both—and will tell it. So all right. The point just now is—that seven? For had you carefully investigated a clew of that sort, you would—I take it—have investigated all ten numbers, would you not? So do you mean to imply that three were never investigated—or traced down. If so, which? And why—”

  “Well, if you pardon, Hilford, that I interrupt—and it is only to save your physical and nervous energies which I realize have been sorely tried tonight—the exchange ‘Ivy’ was, it seems, only a temporary exchange classification, covering a large group of miscellaneous telephone numbers all of which were being hooked up into new combinations and groups and being re-assigned to new subscribers. And was in actual use—that Ivy exchange—no more than a week. It never even became listed in the so-called ‘reversed directory’ of that year. And when I approached the Illinois Bell Telephone Company, at that time—years back, of course—to obtain the names of the ten parties who had had those ten Ivy numbers, the company of course refused this information to me on the plea that some of the subscribers may—were—unlisted subscribers. And so my only source to obtain that information became, therefore, a young Chinese clerk in their Records Department, who obtained them grad­ually for me—one and two a day. But he died—and he was the young man, Hilford—Dong Fu—to whom you’ve heard me refer once or twice.”

  “Oh yes. The fellow who got hit by ex-General O’Croarty’s Rolls-Royce, but whose people received not a cent of damages. Yes, we talked about the case.”

  “Well, when Dong Fu died, so suddenly, I had obtained the identities of but seven of the ten lessees of Ivy-199 numbers. I lacked—to be precise—the id
entities of the lessees of Ivy 1991, 1995, and 1999. And then, before I had a chance to pull other wires—as the procedure is so aptly put—there came that big fire in the Bell Telephone Company Records Warehouse, which destroyed thousands of cards—including all the temp­orary records on those temporary Ivy assignments—and forever.”

  Penworth stroked his white goatee troubledly.

  “Well, all I can say, Wah, at least at this juncture of things, is that it looks to me as though a serious error, not only of commission but of omission, has been perpetrated here tonight—in the acting upon, along whatever lines you and Wainright have acted only, but seven of those ten possible Ivy numbers. And—but be that as it may, since Dong Fu was dead—and the Record Warehouse as well, partly burned up—but you did have the identities of the temporary holders of at least seven of those Ivy-199 holders—why did you not tell the police of that conversation held by someone with your son—however on earth it subsequently reached you—and let them investigate at least the seven precious numbers you had succeeded in running down out of that total possible ten?”

  “It was only because, Hilford,” explained Wah Lung, “as I said way back, of the destinations at which the search of those Ivy numbers—rather, I should say, just one out of the total seven!—terminated. And I never told the police, during all the ensuing years, First, because I had, at best, a hypoth­esis only! And second, because I knew I was up against, in Lee’s case, a finely organized gang—or at least the remnants of one anyway—against which a Chinese, bringing sensa­tional charges, would only bring down the wrath of the whites against all his race in Chicago. The destruction—actual, or through legal chicanery—of my own restaurant, for one thing—though that would not have particularly mattered. But the presentation of my hypothesis to the police of your race could easily have brought down a race war against all Chinese in Chicago—an embargo against poor laundrymen who need business—and stink bombs and shattered windows in poor chop-suey eating houses. No, Hilford, I dared not tell the police, since that would have involved bringing such charges. And as for myself, I knew you would scoff at the wild surmise involved. I was tempted, to be sure, again and again, to speak to you about what I had discovered, and ask for advice—but I divulged the whole set-up finally and ultimately only to my younger and rasher friend here.”