Sing Sing Nights

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  “And this, Casp, is exactly what happened: the old boy was sitting here with the rubber type, making out cards for some new moth specimens. He had laid them all out on the window-sill over there to dry. He had returned to his chair and was sitting here when came the shot in the back from the doorway. Why, Heaven knows. From my examination of his back while you were gone it’s plain that the bullet got him in the spine. That being the case, he was paralysed from the waist down. He was able to draw over the ‘phone that stood by his elbow and call for help. But while he was waiting for help, and didn’t know that he was bleeding to death rapidly, he wanted to write out a message in case he should drop into unconsciousness. You can see there isn’t pencil or paper or ink in sight; neither was I able to find paper or pencil in his pockets. What was there to write on or with? Nothing but one of these strips of white tissue paper, scattered all over the place, and the rubber type, and the stamping-pad there. Well, I am able to tell you that he typed out a brief message of fifteen letters, and that was the last thing he ever did except to tip over the whole set of type as he slumped back in his chair unconscious. And he bled to death while Murphy and I were cranking the stalled flivver over on Pearson Street. Now, you’re getting puzzled, eh? All right. I found his message on the floor right under the chair.” And with that statement he thrust out to Casperson the strip of tissue paper he had just removed from the wall shelf, and which he had been holding in his fingers as he talked.

  Casperson studied the strange-looking communication. On the paper, in a vertical column, were four words, rubber-stamped, the stamping ink having soaked through the fine tissue paper so that the letters were visible from both sides, reading backward on one, forward on the other. He studied the backward reading for several seconds before he perceived that the ink had soaked through; then he turned over the strip quickly. Now he could comprehend the significance of the words. They read briefly:

  FIND

  USHI

  HE

  KNOWS

  Casperson looked up from the paper. “And that settles the case nicely,” he commented dryly. “Particularly since the Jap has flown!” He read the four brief words again, and then handed the precious slip back to MacTavish. “Find Ushi — and you’ve solved what little mystery there is.”

  MacTavish nodded absently, and within a second was back at the ‘phone again, rattling the receiver hook. When he got his connection, he said hurriedly:

  “Sergeant, this is MacTavish. You’ve got the details, but something new has come up. Will give it to you as soon as I get relieved from here. First, however, send out the word to all stations and depots to look for a Jap, name Ushi Yatsura, who may be trying to make a train out by this time. I can definitely say he either pulled the stunt or is badly mixed up in it.”

  After saying good-bye he hung up and turned from the instrument, looking quizzically at the younger man. “Snappy work, eh, Casp? But why the devil did the Jap kill the old boy? That’s the question. Was it a row about something, I’m wondering?” He broke off, and gave an imitation of a detective thinking. Then he added:

  “And in a little while comes the hysterics, when yours truly will have to notify the daughter this fellow Dolan spoke about. That’s the part about these things I don’t enjoy a bit.”

  Casperson was silent a moment. “You’ve telephoned for detectives, haven’t you, Mac?” The latter nodded. “Then I’m thinking I’d better get out of here. I’m no longer a newspaper man, so I’m not supposed to have any business with this affair. I’ll have to call this the night of coincidences considering the way I stumbled in on things.” He turned in the doorway. “By morning I’ll manage to get in touch with my friend Sennet and find out how he balled these addresses up. And I may drop in on you at the station for a minute to-morrow. Good luck, old man. Find your Jap, and your case is closed. So long.”

  As he left the house a distant church-bell was chiming midnight. Down Walton Place a blue patrol wagon was lumbering along with a doleful clang toward Ernst Court. With his suit-case in hand, Casperson walked meditatively through the silent street to his Dearborn Avenue boarding-house, whose white stone steps, situated in an interminable row of similar ones, suggested somehow the ghost of a former aristocracy.

  He undressed and climbed into bed. For a long while he lay thinking, and then dropped off into an uneasy sleep in which the strange, waxy, white face of the lifeless man in the chair seemed to be flitting around in a huge ballroom where everyone was a fluttering moth with a shining pin stuck through the body.

  When he first opened his eyes in the morning he had the peculiar sensation that the whole chain of events of the night before were part of the dream. Stepping to the door of his room, he reached out and got his morning paper. Over the headings he ran his eyes, looking for the word “murder” or “Ernst Court.” Of a sudden his roving gaze stopped; his skin turned peculiarly cold; he stared and read and re-read. Then he passed a hand dazedly over his forehead. For the third time he read the article that had riveted his attention: then he sat back limp and speechless in his chair.

  The article was quite long, and had a big head on the first page. It told in detail of something that had occurred at a society function the night before. A fifty-thousand-dollar diamond necklace that had been worn by the young hostess, and which had belonged to her mother before her, had disappeared from her neck. Its absence had been discovered by the hostess’s father as he claimed the young lady for a dance. It was suspected immediately that there was a thief among the guests, and all the invitation cards given in at the door were examined, with the result that each one was found to bear the name of a bona-fide friend moving in the circle of this semi-exclusive family.

  Coincident with the disappearance of the string of jewels, the article went on, a guest, who had just danced with the young hostess, had himself departed from the place in a hurry, not assigning any reason for his departure or notifying either his hostess or her people. The fact of his departure was established by the testimony of a negro footman who had been stationed at the carriage entrance to take charge of the door while the butler was downstairs superintending the preparation of the refreshments.

  The necklace, it was stated further, had been seen on the young hostess’s neck just prior to her talking and dancing with the departed guest; after that it was missing! The master of the house, the hostess’s father, had gone immediately to the nearest police station to secure a warrant for the arrest of this guest, but had been informed there that he would have to appear before a magistrate in the morning in order to secure it. Whereupon he had altered his plans and had driven his machine away in the night toward the down-town section.

  All in all, the article was not only interesting, but stirring, particularly to the pyjama-clad reader. For the society function in question was the Eldredge mask ball, and the name of the departed guest, given out by the press, was Wilk Casperson, an advertising man.

  CHAPTER X

  “PAID IN FULL”

  CASPERSON turned the pages of the newspaper again, his fingers now trembling the least bit, and shortly he came upon the article which he had first made a search for. It was on an inside page, and told little more than had developed the night before. It described the finding of the body of the aged entomologist, Professor Aloysius Silvester, at his Ernst Court laboratory, directly following his faintly telephoned message for help. MacTavish, it appeared, had been unsuccessful in keeping the matter of the rubber-stamped dying message from the newspaper reporters, for the slip of tissue paper and its four words. “Find Ushi — he knows,” were described and elaborated in full. The article did, however, contain one new development; it was that Ushi Yatsura had been apprehended at the North-western depot at one o’clock that morning and was now locked up safely at the Detective Bureau.

  That was the extent of the information given out up to the time the morning papers went to press. Casperson read the story once more, then tossed the paper aside. They had caught the Jap, but the motive f
or the murder was still to be learned. The opening of the article drove his mind straight to the mystifying note he had received at the mask ball. Aloysius Silvester — Arthur Sennet! Initials in both cases “A. S.”! Now matters held a new significance. Was that note really from Arthur Sennet, or could it have been a strange crossing of the wires?”

  He rose from his chair quickly and crossed to the hanger where his coat was suspended. Fumbling in the pockets, he withdrew the white card. His face was a puzzle — a pitiable puzzle — as he gazed down at it, turning it this way and that, studying both sides. With the exception of the pencilled words in the corner, “Yellow Moth,” and one or two black finger-smudges made by the messenger boy who had delivered it, it was blank — on both sides!

  What in Heaven’s name did the whole thing indicate? Not a vestige of the original ink-written message to be found on it. Then but one thing loomed forth: whoever sent that card intended, through the use of some secret chemical, to have the last trace of its treacherous decoy message disappear from the sight of man.

  In ten minutes Casperson was dressed. Without thinking of breakfast, he seized his hat and went out into the bright morning air of Dearborn Avenue. He did not know it, but a man — a keen-faced fellow — who had been standing on the opposite sidewalk, strolled casually after him, keeping a block behind. And when, after his brisk walk, Casperson strode up to the polished iron gate that covered the front door of No. 1400, Lake Shore Drive, and rang the bell, the keen-faced fellow dropped on to a bench facing the lake and lighted a cigar.

  The door was opened by Brayley, his phlegmatic face showing pronounced traces of puzzlement.

  “Mr. Eldredge in?”

  “Come in, Casperson.” The invitation came from Malcolm Eldredge himself; Casperson could glimpse him back of Brayley, in the darkish hall.

  The visitor entered, his lips trembling with angry questions. As Brayley closed the door quietly, Malcolm beckoned Casperson toward the upper floor. “Up to my room,” he said. “Father has been expecting you. Wants to have it out up there.”

  He led the way upstairs to a cheery room on the second floor, in which stood a shining, massive brass bed; the walls were covered with photographs of college boys in rowing and track suits, as well as with tennis rackets and oars. There he motioned to a wicker chair, closed the door, and said.

  “Great Scott, old man, you’ve — you’ve read in the morning papers about it?” Casperson nodded grimly. “I — I don’t know what to say. The necklace has gone. It disappeared some time after you danced with sis. But I know you didn’t take it,” continued Malcolm. “And, Casperson, for Heaven’s sake don’t lose your temper with father and mention the money you lent me, or — or the money I — I took, will you?” He fumbled nervously in his pocket and drew forth a cheque which he had filled out. He tendered it to Casperson with a hand that shook a trifle, and Casperson took it curiously. It was made out for two hundred dollars and signed with the younger man’s name. “That — that squares me, Casperson. My brokers telephoned me twenty minutes ago that a deal on margins in British rubber shares came my way — and now I can be all clear with the world again. Whew! — what a narrow escape.” He paused, his hand on the door. “Casperson, you’ll remember that, won’t you? Please don’t lose your head and bring me into it. And mail me my note marked paid as soon as convenient. And — and don’t put the cheque through till late to-day.”

  He left the room. Casperson sat staring down at the cheque for two hundred dollars — the loan he had hardly dared hope would be repaid. So the boy had put over a deal in stocks and saved himself? Just as well, he reflected. He tucked the paper in his pocket and from his waistcoat drew a leather bill-fold from which he took a promissory note, signed “Malcolm Eldredge,” and bearing the figures “90 days” and “$200.”

  Moving over to a tiny mahogany desk at the side of the room, he felt through his clothing for his fountain-pen, but discovered that he had removed it last evening when he had packed his things in his suit-case to take to the ball. Running his eye over the pigeon-holes of the desk, he found another pen and hurriedly write across the note “Paid in full,” together with his name. Then he sealed the slip of paper in an envelope, which he withdrew from a pigeon hole full of blank envelopes, and, writing Malcolm’s name on it, placed it with its end just peeping out from the compartment.

  His operations were interrupted by footsteps on the threshold. He turned in his chair, and waited as the door opened.

  In the opening were Malcolm and an elderly man with silver-white, close-cropped hair, gold-rimmed eyeglasses on his nose, and belligerent, sharp, business-like face. And at his shoulder in turn was Shirley, her yellow-gold hair set off by a charming morning gown of pink silk. But under her eyes were dark circles which seemed to indicate that the events of the past night had been perturbing, to say the least.

  Rufus Eldredge stepped into the room, waited until the two younger people had followed him, then closed the door. He waited until Malcolm had seated himself on the bed, and the girl had dropped uneasily into a rocker. Then he stood with arms folded, he eyes riveted on Casperson. After some seconds of this ordeal for all concerned, he spoke:

  “Casperson, did you mean it as a joke?”

  The man accused gave a short, hard laugh. “Shirley’s necklace may be gone,” he said, “but it happens that I didn’t take it. Be assured of that. What evidence did you have against me that I should be made the victim of all that newspaper notoriety? And why didn’t you serve your warrant?”

  “Because,” snapped the broker in an obviously ugly mood, “I didn’t want to soil our name with arrests, and cast discredit on any other social functions we may have in the future; because I didn’t intend to give you a chance for a suit for false arrest; because I relied on your learning that you’ve been watched since three o’clock this morning, and that sooner or later you’re going to be tripped up with my property unless you came here to square matters.”

  “Mr. Eldredge, I told you I haven’t that necklace, and I will not sit here and be accused of stealing it.” He turned to the girl. “Shirley, you don’t think I took it, do you?”

  She shook her head slowly, wearily. “No, I do not. Father, I don’t care what the ugly circumstances may be — Wilk is not the one who stole it. I know — ”

  She stopped as Eldredge stepped to the wall and pressed a button. A pause ensued, and, presently, came a knock at the door. Eldredge himself opened it. Outside stood Brayley. “Get Mose, the footman, Brayley, and come upstairs, both of you.”

  The butler bowed and left. Within a minute he returned with the negro who had opened the carriage doors the night before. Eldredge admitted them both silently, then closed the door again.

  “Brayley, you saw Mr. Casperson arrive last night? At what time?”

  “He came, sir, roughly, around ten o’clock. I admitted him past the door, in his costume, not knowing him until he signed his name on the engraved card.”

  Eldredge turned to the negro. “Mose, you saw this same man leave here, did you? And he left in his street clothes, did he not?”

  “Yassuh,” returned the negro uneasily.

  “What time?”

  “Somethin’ around eleven o’clock, sah.”

  Eldredge turned to the accused. “Casperson, you were absolutely the only guest at this ball of Shirley’s to leave the place before it was over — let alone before the alarm was given. You danced that fifth number with Shirley — I’ve got her card myself — at around ten-fifteen. Those jewels were on her neck then — Malcolm remembers it — she herself remembers it — although now she’s trying to stick up for you by getting undecided in her recollections. She — ”

  “I was called from the ballroom by a legitimate summons,” returned Casperson, “and Shirley doesn’t need to lie for me. I, too, can say that she had on the necklace at the time we started the dance.”

  “Very well,” commented Rufus Eldredge. “She danced with you, with Malcolm, with Jack Hennly, wi
th Mr. Cawthorne, with Mr. Niccolo di Paoli, the violinist, then with me. The necklace was missing after I took Shirley out on the floor. I called her attention to it at once. We made a quick search; then an investigation. And you had left the place twenty minutes before, without even the courtesy of giving your hostess a reason for going so early.” He paused. “Casperson, I could have you locked up on the strength of those facts, but I have decided not to do so just yet. But mark my words: I’ll wait until six o’clock to-night for the necklace to come back to me by messenger or in any way that you decide to send it. And, if it doesn’t, I’ll see that the law takes its course.” He rose and threw open the door. “That’s all. You may go.”

  Casperson stood up. On his tongue trembled angry words, but a look at the girl sitting so miserably across the room silenced the burst of rage that was threatening to come from him. Instead, his next words were calm enough, but icy:

  “Thank you for the eight hours’ respite, Mr. Eldredge. I’m not alarmed at the thought of arrest, for the simple reason that it will be impossible to convict me of this theft. That’s more than certain.” He paused, and turned to the girl. “Shirley, this means that our marriage is off, unless my name can be cleared.” He turned back to Eldredge again, and his tongue grew bitter: “You didn’t want your little girl to become my wife because I happened to be the innocent means of interfering with your stock flotation. And now you’ve got your wish. I’m hit hard, but not in the way you think.”

  He glanced at the two younger people and at the phlegmatic butler and the negro, who fidgeted uncomfortably on their feet. “Good-bye,” he said, and strode from the room.

  CHAPTER XI

  USHI SPEAKS

  CASPERSON walked for a long while, quite unconscious of the fact that a square behind him a keen-faced man kept on his track. After he had partly worked off his internal discomfiture in this way, he turned eastward and was soon over in the tawdry region of the Chicago Avenue police station, which, strangely enough, covered both the district of Little Hell to the west and the Silk Stockinged area of the Lake Shore Drive to the east. He went up the same old steps which he had trod many a time in his newspaper days, and stepped over to the sergeant’s battered desk. A new face presided there, and in each direction he looked he saw new faces.