Sing Sing Nights

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  A silence fell, while Eastwood’s remarkable proposition filtered into the minds of his hearers.

  Then it was broken by McCaigh, the Iron Man. “Eureka!” he cried. “A contest that is a gentlemen’s contest.”

  “A game,” said Krenwicz,” a splendid, absorbing game for three gentlemen on their last night on earth. A contest of wits, brilliancy, invention.” He turned and surveyed the other two with a half-smile. “And if Eastwood, McCaigh and Krenwicz stick like cobblers to their lasts, it will be a strange joust that will be tilted out in the arena of a prison guard’s mind — the Knights of Romance, of Mystery, of Love, of Fantasy, struggling to down each other!” He paused again. “Agreed, gentlemen? A fictional pantechnicon it shall be for — Shanahan?”

  “Agreed,” said the two others in unison. “The decision shall rest with Shanahan.”

  No sooner had they spoken than the burly prison guard himself inserted his key into the lock and entered. He carefully locked the door behind him, and looked puzzledly around the room. Krenwicz had already arisen and had placed the pardon in the drawer of the table.

  “Shanahan,” he said slowly, twirling the decanter of whiskey about on its base,” this — this is our last night. The governor has so decreed. And we have decided to entertain each other, if not Mr. Shanahan, by the subtle art of the fictionist. Get me, Shanahan? And to settle a little something between ourselves, we want you at dawn to announce which of the three has told what seems to you the most engaging story. Will you do it?”

  “Will I do ut?” grunted Shanahan. “That will I, byes. An’ ’tis glad I am that yeze byes is goin’ to spind your last night so calm. Yeze is dead game.”

  A pause followed. Each man stepped to the table in turn and poured himself out a small drink of the fiery liquid. Eastwood looked at Shanahan as he sank into the nearest chair.

  “Will you select the first story-teller, Shanahan?” He looked at the others curiously. “The best story, gentlemen — think of it! It means love — happiness — lights — life. How — how our art must exert itself to-night!”

  Shanahan gazed embarrassedly about him. “Well, Misther McCaigh, sippose you till us the first yarn.”

  McCaigh, the American, bit his lips, then smiled gamely. He surveyed Shanahan carefully from head to foot. “Shanahan,” he said slowly, “I think I can tickle your fancy, and even mystify you a bit as well. At least I shall try my best to do so. “Just what shall be the title of my tale in this peculiar Sing Sing nights entertainment I do not know, for it is a story that will never have to be named for an editor; and so I shall call it just ‘The Strange Adventure of the Giant Moth.’” An attentive silence fell upon the little group. “And if you will now step forth with me to a quiet uptown corner in Chicago, far from the roar and clamour of its business section, I shall take the liberty of introducing you to one to whom I would hesitate ordinarily to introduce any gentleman — a quaint blade of half-Chinese parentage, by name ‘Moon-face ‘Eddy Chang, who will play an amusing part, if not an important one, in my little tale.” Whereupon McCaigh, with that inscrutable smile of his, began:

  “THE STRANGE ADVENTURE OF THE GIANT MOTH”

  CHAPTER II

  IN WHICH WE MEET MR. CHANG

  “MOONFACE” EDDY CHANG, attired immaculately and twirling his cane with all the blasé composure of the typical idle youth about town, stopped short in his languid progress across the marble-tiled foyer of the Plaza Hotel. At the same moment his breath left him in a short gasp, and across his squat, semi-Chinese face flashed the look of the hunted. From where he stood rooted to the spot he studied carefully the corpulent, strongly-built man, obviously the house detective, who stood leaning on one elbow talking to the clerk.

  Moonface always had possessed a more than keen recollection of human physiognomies. That face, that figure, his tingling memory warned him, belonged to no other than a former member of the Chicago police force. He paused no longer, but spun on the heel of his cloth-topped shoe and moved out of the hotel precipitately towards quiet Clark Street, filled at this point with unobtrusive shops.

  Outside, in the street, he tucked his cane under his arm and mopped his forehead with a decidedly plebeian motion. “Damn!” he ejaculated. “Who’d expect to see one of the old-time bulls holding down the soft job of house detective in a hostelry ‘way up here on the quiet North Side?” He ruminated on the matter, breaking into a brisk walk. “It’s a small world, all right, all right.”

  By this time he was round the corner. Another entrance to the Plaza Hotel — a side entrance this time — loomed up. Across the way Lincoln Park gleamed vividly green in the morning sunlight; foliage waved in the breeze; children bounced gleefully on the soft turf. Moon face hesitated a moment, and then strolled towards the side entrance, looking warily inside from the corner of his eye.

  Here, however, was visible only the polished brass gate of an elevator shaft, and a velvet couch for those who might wait for the car. The clerk’s desk and the foyer containing that unpleasant-looking corpulent figure was around a bend in the corridor, and hence not in sight. Moonface paused but a second; then, stifling an artificial yawn, he turned in quickly through the side entrance just in time to pop into the elevator car, piloted by a grey-clad conductor, as it reached the first floor to let out a handsomely gowned woman, flashing in silks and jewels.

  As the car rose from the dangerous first floor, an inaudible sigh of relief oozed from Moonface, and he quickly consulted a slip of paper in his pocket. “Fifth floor,” he said languidly, tucking away the paper in the pocket of his smart cut-away coat.

  He strolled from the car at the fifth floor and threaded his way along the rich damask carpet, through gloomy halls until he came to a white enamelled door bearing the number 555. Here he paused a moment, then knocked a peculiar knock: first a sharp blow and a wait, then two in succession, then a pause and another sharp blow.

  The sound of a figure stirring from a chair inside was audible. The white-enamelled door swung back. In the opening stood a big pink-cheeked man dressed in fashionable clothes of brown, but just now in his shirt-sleeves only. A rich stick-pin gleamed in his silk tie. His age might have been around forty, although about him was a youthful air of alertness, springiness, wariness. His big blue eyes were cool and calculating. His neck was just a little thick and bullish. He was a handsome man, in spite of the fact that in his face lurked the suggestion that with him material ends justified all and any means whatsoever.

  His countenance filled with a wolfish light as he beheld Moonface standing in the doorway. Silently he motioned back towards the interior of the splendidly-furnished room, with its striped upholstered pieces, its white-covered chiffonier gleaming with silver toilet articles, its windows looking out over the green, luxuriant park.

  “Sit down, Chang. I see my note to your old hang-out reached you.”

  Moonface nodded. “What’s the game? I knew when I got your note that you had something good up your sleeve. Come out with it, Gryce! Spit it out! What’s the trick?”

  The big man drew his chair close to that occupied by his visitor, and lowered his voice till it could hardly reach beyond the edge of the rug.

  “Moonface, it’s absolutely the best thing ever. I’m thinking that the Fates have been kind to me — and you.” He paused. “But here’s the dope. First, before I go ahead, you’ve heard of Rufus Eldredge, the La Salle Street broker?”

  Moonface wrinkled up his forehead. He pondered. “Yeah — I guess I have. Down on Chicago’s Wall Street somewhere. The name has a familiar tang to it. But go ahead. What about Eldredge? Know him, do you?”

  The big man nodded, smiling. “Know him? I rather think I do. Know him, his son, and his lovely daughter. Know the people they mix with. Been in their home. I’m in their set. Of course all this doesn’t interest you — but — ” He paused. “Moonface, there’s absolutely the richest pickings of a lifetime waiting for me — and you. Moonface, there’s a man in this big, roaring city of Chi who
has something of a most peculiar nature that to him is worth absolutely nothing — but that to me is worth just a hundred thousand dollars in cold cash. Never mind what his name is. He knows it’s worth a lot to me — and he wants hard cash for it. He — ”

  “What is it?” interrupted Moonface hurriedly.

  The big man’s face clouded up. He coughed nervously. He ignored the question. “As I say, Eddy, he wants cash — hard cash only. And if I can get it from him I can turn it over for a hundred thousand cold in twenty-four hours. But he wants an even ten thousand dollars for it. There you are.”

  “Rats!” put in Moonface contemptuously. “Lift it from him.” He reflected a second. “But, after all, why don’t you buy it from him outright if you really can make nine hundred per cent.?”

  “As to your first question,” said the man across from him, “he’s smart enough to hide it. In all likelihood it’s in a downtown safety box. Perhaps not. But you know, and I know, one can’t steal anything when one doesn’t know where it is. As to the second question — ” He fumbled down in his hip pocket and withdrew a leather bill fold. Opening it up, he displayed a number of crisp yellow bills. He counted them quickly over, some of them hundreds, in front of Moonface’s avaricious eyes. “Three hundred — four hundred — five hundred — and — and sixty-three dollars, Moonface. That’s all that’s left of that consular trick we pulled off in Buenos Aires. Now, is it plain why I don’t buy it from him?”

  Moonface was silent. A glint of suspicion wavered in his eyes; then it disappeared. “Go on,” he said at length.

  “So there stands the situation,” the big man resumed. “To make ninety thousand clear I have to raise ten thousand. And heavens only knows how I can do it — that is, until last night. Now, though, everything is changed. Moonface, come out of your dreams, man. You’re just sitting down to a banquet where, if you handle your knife and fork right, there’s going to be a hundred-thousand-dollar feast.”

  He rose from his chair and proceeded over to a writing-desk, where he reached into a pigeon-hole for something. When he returned to his seat his fingers held an envelope, crisp, bond, rich.

  Moonface, quite fascinated by now, leaned forward in his own chair and watched the performance. On the wall a mahogany clock ticked ominously.

  CHAPTER III

  THE CAT’S-PAW SMILES

  THE big man reached in the bond envelope and took from it two square bond cards. One he laid on Moonface’s left knee; and other on Moonface’s right knee. Each was a duplicate of the other. Each was expensively engraved. Each bore a coat-of-arms in its left-hand upper corner. Each read:

  YOUR PRESENCE IS REQUESTED

  EN MASQUE

  AT A PRIVATE BALL

  TO BE GIVEN AT THE HOME OF

  MISS SHIRLEY ELDREDGE

  ON HER TWENTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY

  FRIDAY EVENING, JUNE SEVENTH

  1400 LAKE SHORE DRIVE

  This card, signed by bearer, to be left at doorway.

  Moonface stared from one card to the other, puzzled. Then he looked up. “Two cards,” he echoed faintly. “Two cards — ”

  “Two cards instead of one. Two cards in my envelope instead of one, by mistake,” went on the other sharply.

  “Eddy, Miss Shirley Eldredge has spoken of this mask ball to me as far back as several weeks ago. Old man Eldredge is a millionaire — got a splendid ballroom in his residence. According to what she has already let drop, there is going to be over three hundred people present. You can guess the kind of females that’ll be there in full regalia; and last but not least “ — his face took on a peculiar look — ”Shirley Eldredge herself with the diamond necklace that belonged to old man Eldredge’s wife. I’ve seen it two or three times; I’ve touched it when I’ve been dancing with her. And it’s worth fifty thousand dollars, Moonface, if it’s worth a red cent! And you, the boy with the cleverest pair of fingers in America or Australia, are to be there in a clown suit, with that phiz of yours smeared up thick with coloured grease paints, and before the evening is over you’re going to lift something that we can turn over to the nearest fence for ten thousand, buy in the thing I’ve broached to you, and which I’ll tell you more about after we get the money to buy it in, and we split fifty thousand apiece. Now, Moonface, do you grasp the beautiful working of fate?”

  Moonface was now all agog, sitting clear forward on the edge of his chair, his eyes agleam, his long, narrow fingers twitching at imaginary sparklers.

  “Wait,” he said eagerly, “I’m the man for the job, Gryce. Once I get in that hall and dancing around, I’ll strip some fat dame of her rocks or forget that I’ve the cleverest pair of fingers this side o’ Melbourne. But — ” He pointed down at the engraved invitation. “But it says here it is to be signed and left at the doorway. Where does little Eddy Chang get off on that?”

  The big man smiled. “Easy. Suppose you get away with the stunt all right, whether it’s Shirley Eldredge’s string or some fat dowager’s. Suppose an alarm goes up. There’s two explanations: either the jewels are lost or stolen. The first thing they do is to examine all the cards at the door, scrutinising every name written on them. Suppose they find that every name signed there is a bona-fide acquaintance of the family — an invited guest? Do you think for a minute, Moonface, they can afford to unmask and search every one of those three hundred guests? Certainly not. Can’t be done. The notoriety and the confusion would be too great.

  “So our big problem, therefore, is to provide a name for that card — a name which won’t be duplicated and which at the same time will be one of the intimates of the family. Then an examination of the cards at the door will reveal only the fact that whatever is missing has not been stolen but is probably lost, since no wolves are in among the lambs.”

  Moonface, tense, absorbed, nodded. “You’ve hit the problem all right, Gryce. The crucial moment is when they examine those cards at the door just after the alarm is given.”

  “Now, there are two people who are very close to the Eldredge family circle,” went on the big man imperturbably,” and to whom, at the same time, I have been introduced. So close, in fact, are both, that from what Shirley Eldredge has let drop in my presence, both are certainly on the invitation list. One is Jack Hennly, the millionaire polo player, a sort of idle bachelor who lives like a butterfly. The other is Niccolo di Paoli, the famous violinist, who has been among the gatherings in the library numerous times when I’ve been there. So there are two people, you see, who are undoubtedly to be on the guest list of this masquerade ball. Suppose either the first or the second were not to be present? And suppose he had sent in written regrets? What would you think of that, Moonface?”

  The slim figure stirred in the chair. “That would be too fine to be true,” he commented uneasily. “But how do we know for sure that they both are on the guest list? And how do we know that either one isn’t going to be there?”

  The big man clapped his hands gleefully. “Well, I just got back to Chicago yesterday after being out of town on a hunting trip at an estate out near Elgin. Found the card — rather the two cards — waiting for me. After sending for you to talk things over, I began to concentrate my own wits on the thing. By morning I had doped out the tentative solution I’ve already given. First I called Jack Hennly’s quarters — but no answer. The beggar probably sleeps all day and roams the white lights all night. If I’d got him I intended to impersonate Rufus Eldredge himself. However, to the story. Then I called the quarters of di Paoli. He answered the ‘phone himself. I told him that I was Mr. Eldredge and asked him if he were coming to my daughter’s mask ball to-morrow night.

  “To my delight,” the big man went on, “he apologised profusely — I could even see his hands waving over the ‘phone — and told me that a sudden telegram coming in just that morning would make it necessary for him to leave within a few hours to stay over Sunday; and he asked the privilege of extending his verbal regrets to me in person instead of writing them to Miss Shirley. That was enough
, Moonface. The Fates are with us, You, to-morrow night, are Niccolo di Paoli, appreciably the same build, weight, and height — but for heaven’s sake cover up that squat face of yours with seven layers of thick grease paint.” He paused. “Now, what’s the answer?”

  Moonface pocketed one of the engraved cards eagerly, almost as if he feared the donor might regret the rash gift. “Only one answer,” he said eagerly, “and that is, I’m on! It looks to me to be the neatest thing that’s come my direction within a year. It’s the hand o’ fate all right, Gryce. As Moonface Eddy Chang I’d have as much chance to stroll into one of those society diamond exhibitions as a snowball would have of existence down in Father Pluto’s region — but, believe me, old man, once I get in there and dance with the ladies — and I’m some glider — we’ll come out richer than we went in.”