The Amazing Web

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  “Sure of the time?”

  “All I had to do was to watch that clock,” said the witness simply.

  “You were wakeful that night?”

  “Very. I slept no more after Mr. Chalmers came in and the lights were on in the room.”

  “Which was from — ”

  “From eight o’clock till eleven.”

  “What did Mr. Chalmers do after getting into his pyjamas and bathrobe?”

  “He made his toilet, cast a few remarks my way, and hunted through his chiffonier drawer for a copy of a book, a mystery story he seemed terribly engrossed in. Said he couldn’t wait all day to go on with it. The Mystery of the Ashes, by Anthony Wynne, he called it.”

  “You recall Mrs. Morely, the housekeeper, coming to the door of the bedroom and telling your employer that the tailor was outside with a bill?”

  “Indeed I do. That was at nine o’clock.”

  “You saw Mr. Chalmers sign a cheque for the amount?”

  “I did.”

  “Saw him hand it to Mrs. Morely to take out to Katzenberger?”

  “I did.”

  “What did he do and say after that?”

  “ ‘Will it disturb you, Oscar, if I lie here and read for a few hours?’ “

  “Your reply?”

  “I told him no, that I had slept all day and was restless.”

  “His words?”

  “ ‘All right, Oscar. This is some story. If you need any water or anything, or a tea-spoon, just holler.’ “

  “And from then?”

  “Mr. Chalmers lay down on the bed in his bathrobe, smoking cigarettes, sometimes getting up to get another cigarette or a match and reading along on his mystery novel.”

  “And he didn’t snap off the lights and go to bed until when?”

  “Some few minutes after eleven o’clock.”

  “He was in your view from the time he came into that flat, signed that cheque, undressed, lay on the bed and smoked, read, finished his book, and went to sleep?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What did he say when he closed his book and got ready for bed?”

  “He said: ‘I’m sorry to have you awake, Oscar. That story is some yarn to make one forget himself. Be sure to read it.’ “

  “Where was Mrs. Morely all this time?”

  “Mrs. Morely came in to the parlour with an armful of mending right after taking the cheque from Mr. Chalmers’ fingers, and sat there. The doors separating the two rooms were wide open, of course.”

  “With the result that Mrs. Morely could see him lying on the bed?”

  “Yes, sir. She could see the whole interior of the bedroom, and several times she looked in my direction and smiled.”

  “She entered the parlour right after taking Mr. Katzenberger’s cheque to him, you have told us. Now when did she turn out the parlour-lights and go to her own bedroom?”

  “After Mr. Chalmers closed his book and indicated he wanted to turn in, about 11.15.”

  “Two more questions and I’m finished. What did she say when she got up?”

  “She said: ‘Thank goodness, there’s a big job done. I’ve even darned all your socks for you, Oscar, for you’ll soon be up and around.’ “

  “Then Archibald Chalmers was in your sight and Mrs. Morely’s sight from the time he came home at eight o’clock till he went to bed after eleven o’clock?”.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The witness is excused to the prosecution,” said Crosby. He mopped off a few drops of perspiration that had sprung to his forehead. And why they had come, he didn’t even know.

  Rudolph Ballmeier stood up. In his eyes was the light of fight. He turned toward the witness, who regarded him with a curious, yet unafraid, look in his own blue eyes.

  “Okerburg, what was your temperature that night?”

  “I had a slight degree above normal,” was the valet’s slightly hesitant answer.

  “Did you have any delirium the day before?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you have any at any time in your sickness?”

  “Yes, in the early part of it.”

  “Has it occurred to you yet that you had a hallucination that night?”

  “Object!” shouted Crosby, springing to his feet.

  “Objection not sustained,” said Judge Lockhart.

  “I had no delirium that night.”

  “Okerburg,” said Ballmeier, “how do you know you didn’t drop off to sleep while all this happened?”

  “How do I know?” snorted the Swedish valet, nettled. “Because — because I know I didn’t. Because I slept all day. Because I was restless, wakeful.”

  “Did you keep your eyes on Chalmers the whole evening?”

  “I lay on my right side, where my gaze had to rest on him smoking on the bed and turning the leaves of his book.”

  “Okerburg, you say your wages are still being paid by the defendant in this case, although he’s in a county hotel now where he doesn’t need valets?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Has he made any promises to you regarding future employment if he succeeds in getting back into a position in life where he needs a valet?”

  Crosby’s violent objection was again waved away by the court.

  “Yes, sir. He stated that he expected to be out after this trial, and that he hoped that I would be with him for a long, long time.”

  “You would rather Chalmers were cleared than convicted?”

  Crosby’s objections were again over-ruled. Lockhart appeared to suspect perjury now for the first time, and seemed determined that all hidden motives should come out.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Advantage to work for Chalmers, isn’t it? Good pay, eh?”

  “He pays well, sir, and doesn’t require much work.”

  And so it went, Ballmeier driving, sparring, smashing, stabbing, trying with all his skill to tear down Okerburg’s story. Thus went the afternoon, the witness showing by his answers a loyalty to the young clubman that seemed at times almost in excess of an employee’s love for his employer, yet his story remained unchanged, devoid of a single conflicting statement. And when at four-thirty the prosecutor excused the witness, he had dragged forth motives galore that might well have induced Okerburg to commit perjury, but he had not been able to find the single hole in the supposedly perjured story which always exists if the cross-examiner can find it!

  Thus ended that day in court, and next morning Crosby, sitting once more at the lawyers’ table, all in readiness for his address to the jury if the trial should close suddenly, put on the stand his last witness.

  She was a little white-haired old lady, was Mrs. Morely, sweet-faced, rather simple and childish, with silver spectacles on her face and clad in a black silk dress of another day.

  Her story, told piece by piece in reply to Crosby’s pointed questions, Ballmeier all the while taking in every detail with his ear cupped in his hand, a houndlike look on his face, was one which the spectators had already heard. It was, in fact, the same as Okerburg’s. She had taken the damp cheque from Archibald Chalmers’ fingers at nine o’clock, given it out at the door, taken up a seat in the parlour near the open doors of the bedroom and there worked with her mending-basket until ‘way after eleven o’clock. She had heard Chalmers speak with his own voice, she had heard him tell her to apologize “to the little tailor “for him; she had seen him at intervals of every five minutes when she looked up from her mending. It was not until Crosby asked an additional question to the stereotyped ones he had prepared that the lake of her placidity became ruffled with the whitecaps of emotion. He had asked:

  “How do you make your own understanding of this case fit the testimony given by Mr. John Carrington that Mr. Chalmers was seen clear across Chicago at the hour of ten o’clock, when all the time he was in his own bedroom?”

  “John Carrington is taking out on the poor lad the hate he felt for the lad’s father,” she declared with startling vehemence. “I was
in old Mr. Chalmers’ house years back the night that John Carrington told him he’d make him pay and pay dearly for swindling him out of 100,000 dollars. And Mr. Chalmers wasn’t a swindler. The courts upheld him! But oh, I never, never thought it of John Carrington.” She paused, while the judge shook his head gravely at Ballmeier’s objections. “Even Oscar is certain that they’re trying — trying to send the master to the penitentiary for revenge. He told me so the first day we talked over the case.”

  Crosby bit his lip in irritation. He knew that that apparently insignificant phrase “talked it over “would receive some terrific broadsides from the prosecutor’s guns in the next few hours.

  “Did Mr. Chalmers appear to be labouring under any strain, such as a desire to kill another man?” he asked hurriedly.

  “No, sir. I — I couldn’t detect anything like that in him.”

  “Ever drop any remarks about having an enemy?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What were his habits?”

  “They were good. Archie is a good boy. He was always in early during the last months, spending most of his time reading, with now and then a night at the Sportsmen’s Club.”

  Crosby stood pondering for a moment. “The defence excuses the witness,” he said, and then suddenly added: “And if the prosecutor will finish his cross-examination the defence closes its case.”

  The little white-haired woman looked a bit fearfully at Ballmeier as he thrust himself in front of her, his hands in his pockets.

  “Mrs. Morely, your wages have been paid ever since Mr. Chalmers’ arrest?”

  “Y-yes, sir. So — so has the rent of the flat, also.”

  “Has he said anything about employing you as housekeeper at his Chicago quarters if he draws an acquittal out of this case?”

  “He said he hoped to have me with him for a long time.”

  “Got any other means to depend upon than working?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You’re an old woman?”

  “Yes, sir. Aged fifty-nine.”

  “If you’re thrown out of employment because Mr. Chalmers goes down to Joliet for life, you’re not likely to get another place like the one you’ve got, eh?”

  “No, indeed, sir.”

  “You’d like to see him acquitted?”

  “Yes, indeed, sir.”

  “Why didn’t you put in your testimony at the coroner’s inquest and the preliminary hearing of this man? Why are you in court with it now for the first time?”

  “Oh, sir, because early in the morning that Mr. Chalmers was taken from the house, a telegram came from my sick sister at Denver calling me to her side. When I got back to Chicago, the hearings were over and Mr. Chalmers was in jail without bail.”

  “Hmph! I see.” Ballmeier reflected sneeringly for a minute and then returned to the fray. “Say, what was that conversation, anyway, between you and Okerburg after you got back from Denver and found your meal ticket locked up in the county jail without bail?”

  “Oscar said: ‘Mrs. Morely, if what you say about John Carrington is true, then Mr. Chalmers must be freed. We are his only hope. There is a damnable plot against him.’ “

  “Oh, he said that, did he? and what did you say?”

  “Well, I just nodded.”

  “Meaning you were open for a suggestion, eh? And what did he say?”

  “He said: ‘You know as well as I do, Mrs. Morely, that Mr. Chalmers lay on that bed in front of our eyes all evening.’ “

  A crafty look came into Ballmeier’s eyes.

  “Mrs. Morely,” he asked with startling abruptness, “have you ever taken part in any hypnotic exhibitions, private or public?”

  “You mean, sir, that I was — ”

  “Will you answer that question, please.”

  The witness paused. She looked appealingly at the judge. He nodded down to her. “Answer the prosecutor, Mrs. Morely.”

  “Well — back some two years ago, I — I was hypnotized four or five times by a doctor who treated my neuralgia by — by — well, he called it suggestion.”

  Ballmeier laughed his throaty State’s attorney laugh, a derisive sort of cackle. Back and forth he questioned, back and forth he stabbed the old lady. Motive enough he adduced, as in the case of Okerburg, for her to want to see Chalmers acquitted; facts enough he dug up to prove that his acquittal meant everything to her in a financial way. And time and again he dwelt upon the wording of Okerburg’s statement when the valet had informed her that they had both seen Chalmers the whole evening in front of their eyes. The little old lady in the witness-chair seemed to grow littler, and tinier, more and more drooping; yet one could see that she was fighting grimly against this dazzling searchlight who called himself the State’s attorney — fighting for some reason, perhaps only justice, perhaps a hidden reason of her own, to save Archibald Chalmers from prison or the gallows.

  At length Ballmeier gave it up with another of his derisive laughs. He had failed to find the hole in her story on account of the beautiful simplicity of it, but he had done much toward discrediting her testimony. He turned to the judge.

  “Your honour, I have a list of fifty questions I have prepared which I wish to propound to this witness. I request that Oscar Okerburg, who testified along these lines yesterday, be excluded from this court-room while I put them to this woman.”

  “Is Oscar Okerburg in the court-room?” asked Lockhart.

  Ballmeier pointed to a bench in the section reserved for witnesses. “He is sitting there.”

  Lockhart nodded to a bailiff. “Conduct Mr. Okerburg into the ante-room of Judge Randall’s court-room at the other end of the building and keep him there until sent for.”

  The hard-jawed bailiff approached the young man, who straightway arose and accompanied him from the court-room. Whereupon Ballmeier, taking from his portfolio a long sheet of foolscap, proceeded to read off to Mrs. Morely one by one a series of questions dealing with such minutiae, such infinite details, such specific and exacting facts concerned with that night when Chalmers was said by her to have lain in his bed-chamber, that no room for doubt could have been left in the minds of the spectators that he was making one last crafty attempt to throw out the testimony of the two witnesses by showing up conflicting statements. One by one he put his fifty questions to her, one by one she answered them, and one by one he noted down her replies on his foolscap questionnaire as did likewise Crosby from his own side of the table. Then looking up from his paper, Ballmeier uttered the word which brought a flood of relief to her face.

  “Excused,” he said. And then ordered: “Call Oscar Okerburg in rebuttal.”

  A bailiff who had watched the Swedish valet’s transference from the court-room raised the receiver of the telephone on the clerk’s desk and called a number, evidently the ante-room of Judge Randall’s court-room down the hall. Inside of two minutes Okerburg returned with the bailiff who had taken him away, and on being told he had been again called as witness mounted the stand. Once more Ballmeier put the same fifty questions to Okerburg, his cunning fifty questions which dealt not with the salient colourful events in that evening but with the insignificant, scarcely noted details, and Okerburg answered each of them fearlessly, unafraid. At the end of the fifty, Ballmeier drew a line across the bottom of his sheet of foolscap and looked up.

  “The witness is excused,” he said. “And the State closes its case.”

  Crosby, looking at his own notes, saw that forty-two of the pairs of answers agreed perfectly, and the other eight differed only in the degree which must exist when two people attempt to recollect the same scene.

  Now both sides had closed their case. Now one side was in readiness to prove conclusively to the jury that the testimony was sufficient to convict Chalmers of murder; the other, in turn, that the testimony should acquit him. And Lockhart, glancing at the big clock, set that afternoon for the final addresses.

  CHAPTER XII

  TWELVE GOOD MEN AND TRUE

  RUDOLPH BALLMEI
ER’S address to the jury began slowly and conservatively, not a hint of oratory in his words — only the hard, mathematically damning facts emanating from him in a steel chain of logic. Bit by bit he reviewed the testimony of each of the State’s witnesses, and joining them together into an intricate pattern that fascinated the mind which contemplated it, proved that beyond all cavil Archibald Chalmers himself had been on the north side that night when Rupert van Slyke was shot to death. He dwelt for a long time on the defendant’s silence, both at the time of his arrest, the coroner’s inquest, the preliminary hearing and the trial itself. Upon the last two witnesses for the defence he cast all the scornful doubts that a keen speaker, working for a conviction, can cast.

  “And so,” proclaimed Ballmeier, drawing to the end of his talk, his tone becoming more vehement, “we have nothing else left for us to do with such facts before our eyes than to convict this man on strong circumstantial evidence, made even stronger yet by his own refusal to take the stand or to make any statement whatsoever. Remember, gentlemen, the significant testimony of the waiter, Joseph Smalley, who heard Chalmers say and who saw him say to van Slyke: ‘You ought to be killed, and for the price of a Mexican postage stamp I’d put a bullet through your skull.’

  “And does one of you hesitate about the existence of these threats which show the premeditation that marks first-degree murder? Then think back upon that letter which Chalmers wrote, promising death to his one-time friend unless the latter performed some deed doubtlessly wholly repugnant to the man.

  “Let us hold ever before us one of the most unshakable points established in this trial: the story of John Carrington, reputable manufacturer, churchgoer, who knew Archibald Chalmers all his life, whose testimony was furiously assailed by the attorney for the defence and never pierced an iota, never shaken. Add to that, as you add two and two to make four, the equally damning story of van Slyke’s servant, Edward Venson, with whom Chalmers, fleeing like a coward after the murder, bounding down the stairs toward liberty, grappled under the bright hall light. A mistaken identification of an elderly man, the defence will claim. Then, waiving aside certain vicious innuendoes which the defence put forth regarding our police officers, what explanation have we for the stickpin found in the gangway at the side of the house by Jerry Noonan directly after the murder, a stickpin which was Archibald Chalmers’, and which he bought from Billy Matthews, clerk at the Sportsmen’s Club? What was that stickpin doing on North Oakley Avenue? Funny, isn’t it, that the jewellery of this man who refuses to take the stand lest he place his own head in the noose, develops a penchant for wandering around?