“Now,” Bronson continued, “it seems furthermore ‘e lived with a valay and a ‘ousekeeper in a flat. The flat were in a new bachelor buildin’ that ‘ad a peculiar sort o’ closets hoff the masters’ bedrooms, with swingin’ casement doors w’at opened on the rear courts. But it seems that the firescape — the back firescape w’at connected Mr. Chalmers’ flat with the one below and the two habove — run right past these ‘ere casement doors to the closets. And it seems likewise that the flat beneath ‘is was vacated. An’ these two fac’s bein’ so, ‘e’d constructed a plan after a good deal o’ thinkin’ by w’ich ‘e’d be able to pull hoff ‘is ‘igh-life job — a job o’ burglary, it was — w’ich ‘e outlined to the last detail, offerin’ me 500 dollars in Hamerican gold, a ticket to Philadelphia and a passage to Liverpool if I’d help ‘im pl’y the gyme through.
“Some years back, so ‘e says, ‘e’d been mighty good friends with some high-life chap — a toff by the nyme o’ van Slyke — so much so that w’en they was out of college they heven went around the world together. Now they was on the houts, ready to fly at each other’s throats, account o’ some private matters ‘e wouldn’t explain. This toff, this ‘ere van Slyke, ‘ad somethin’ that Mr. Chalmers wanted; somethin’ o’ no value hexcept to certain people — no money or nothing. But the toff wouldn’t give it up, an’ worse, was goin’ to do something with it — well, I couldn’t get it clear in me ‘ead, because Mr. Chalmers wouldn’t explain the details. Anyway, Mr. Chalmers ‘ad a pretty good idea — in fact ‘e knew — that this ‘igh-life chap, van Slyke, kept this thing in a big Chinee syfe in ‘is library, a ‘eavy wooden thing w’at ‘e’d bought in an old curiosity shop hin Canton years before when they two was tourin’ the world, a thing made o’ ‘eavy teakwood an’ tougher than hiron. And as Mr. Chalmers says, ‘e knew this van Slyke kept all ‘is pypers an’ valybles in this ‘ere Chinee syfe.
“ ‘But,’ say Hi, ‘grantin’ that you can get hup to this bloke’s library by the helm tree in the rear, an’ grantin’ that ‘e keeps that window always up a few hinches, and grantin’ that this toff van Slyke is goin’ to tyke part in a pl’y on the North Shore the night o’ the twenty-first, ‘ow is this goin’ to let you hinto ‘is Chinee syfe?’
“And that there was th’ joke, Mr. Chalmers says. Seems that this ‘ere Chinee syfe ‘ad a Chinee combination lock — not one o’ these ‘ere sets o’ dials, but somethin’ like a Chinky would invent. It consisted o’ three hivory drawsticks with ten marks an’ Chinky characters on each one, wot you ‘as to pull hout each on its mark all together before th’ syfe door will open.”
At this juncture Ballmeier raised his pudgy hand as a signal for Bronson to cease for a moment. The prosecutor addressed himself to the judge. “I now wish, your honour, to enter as the first exhibit for the State the precise Chinese safe, a genuine ‘Cheng’ antique, it is authoritatively said, from the workshop of Cheng Lo Tsang of Canton, China, and a couple of centuries old. This is the curio which belonged to Rupert van Slyke, and which with all his other possessions, personal and otherwise, passed on to his cousin by adoption, Mr. Leslie van Slyke, at his death. It has been completely cleared of Mr. Leslie van Slyke’s personal belongings and locked by him, in order that my test here with Mr. Bronson may be made.” Ballmeier nodded to the clerk of the court. “All right, clerk.”
It was evident that the State was going to resort to some definite action, rather than hearsay, to further substantiate the damning story being told by this red-haired dock labourer. And the ponderous strong-box, mounted on a small piano mover’s platform which in turn rode on rubber-tyred ball-bearing castors, that the clerk, aided by a husky bailiff, proceeded to wheel in from the chamber adjoining his desk, furthered this supposition. Slowly the two men guided the heavy antique on its rolling platform around the clerk’s desk and in front thereof, where they placed it so that it would indeed be an exhibit which every eye in the court-room could see. Protruding from the stout frame of wood surrounding the door, and just to the left of where a lock normally appears on modern safes, were three heavy ivory drawsticks, each about an inch and a half in height, each with a hole in its outer end, and all suggesting somehow the slide rules which draughtsmen use, except that the graduations were marked by brilliant red Chinese characters instead of logarithmic decimals. The door itself carried a great dragon, partly hand-carved and partly made of simple inlays, even to its long scaly tail.
The top, as well as the bottom, of the old strong-box was obviously a single square block of solid wood, six inches thick, and the two blocks might easily have been hewn from the circular cross-section of some ancient tree, ancient even centuries back when the thing was fashioned. These solid bulwarks appeared to be joined to each other by four vertical columns between which ran thick wooden walls. On each side of the solid top and bottom had been carved a humorous dragon’s face, with eyes of inlaid coloured stone and round, cylindrical noses which, gargoyle-like, stood out pugnaciously as though defying entrance.
Ballmeier now turned to his witness.
“Have you ever seen this thing before, Bronson?”
“Never,” said Bronson.
“But you’ve heard the defendant in this murder case describe it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I wish you now, Bronson, for the benefit of the court, actually to follow the precise line of action which the defendant described in confidence to you, and to substantiate the facts which you are relating here to-day.”
With which order Bronson rose sheepishly, climbed down out of the witness-box, and stepped somewhat diffidently across the space in front of the reporters’ and the lawyers’ table to the powerful safe. Feeling gingerly, yet with a surety born of actual description, he crooked his finger in the hole of the ivory drawstick at the top and drew it forth, counting out loud from A to J, as each graduation came into view. The next stick he drew out only until its first graduation became visible, and this he lined up with the edges of the slot in which it operated. The lower stick he drew forth again, counting out aloud, “A — B — C — D — E — F — G — ” And even as the Chinese character came into line, the door, with a loud click, pressed out against his knee as he stooped. And, as he rose to his feet and stood aside, the door swung entirely forth, revealing an empty cabinet whose back and sides, together with the powerful carved blocks comprising the top and bottom, presented an open repository whose interior could be seen to be decorated something like the front, with weird birds in addition — birds whose like were never to be found on land or sea. Red Bronson looked about him. Then with an undecided glance at the prosecutor, he thrust in the drawsticks and swung the door to. A loud click — and the safe once more presented a closed locked box. Ballmeier nodded towards the witness-box. Bronson returned to it and climbed back into the chair.
“You may now finish your testimony,” said the prosecutor calmly.
“Well,” said Bronson apologetically, “there Mr. Chalmers was. ‘E knew th’ combination o’ them sticks, bein’ as ‘ow ‘e ‘imself ‘ad first suggested to van Slyke turnin’ it into English letters. An’ van Slyke knew that Mr. Chalmers was the only person in Chicago — m’ybe even in America — ’oo knew th’ key. It’s plain if van Slyke come back from tykin’ ‘is part in the pl’y and found that thing gone what ‘e knew Chalmers was tryin’ to get, ‘e would raise some commotion and accuse Chalmers o’ enterin’ ‘is rooms — probably ‘ave ‘im arrested. So Mr. Chalmers wanted to be ible to account f’r every minute of ‘is time durin’ the few d’ys before an’ after ‘e did this thing, particularly th’ night w’en van Slyke was tykin’ ‘is part in the pl’y on the North Shore. ‘E wanted ‘is lawyers to be ible to stop van Slyke if ‘e started anything in the police courts. And that was w’y ‘e needed a halibi from nine to eleven the night o’ the twenty-first. ‘E — ”
“Excuse me for interrupting your story, Mr. Bronson,” interrupted Ballmeier from his place at the lawyers’ table, “but before going on t
o the events of the night of the twenty-first, will you mention your discussion with Mr. Chalmers as to why he couldn’t find an actual facial double who could take his place in his rooms that night?”
“Yes,” said the red-haired witness, “I awsked ‘im w’y ‘e couldn’t locate a double. Sez ‘e: ‘Doubles don’t grow on hevery bush, my man. But so far as your question goes, Hi actually ‘ave got a double in this city, a young fellow by th’ nyme o’ Jordan Jones. But ‘e’s me double honly in th’ fyce an’ figger; ‘is ‘air ain’t red like mine — it’s as black as coal! ‘E’s a former soldier, an’ ‘e lost ‘is foot over in the Argonne forest. ‘E’s a clerk in the post orfice ‘ere, and right now ‘e’s in the Garfield Park ‘orspital recoverin’ from an hoperation f’r appendicitis.’ “
Bronson paused a minute, and at a slight nod from the State’s lawyer went on with his story.
“I sees Mr. Chalmers several times more, workin’ out every detail of our simple little plan. The last d’y — the d’y before the twenty-first, ‘e brings me an electric pocket lantern, a nickel plyted watch, a diagram o’ the hempty flat beneath ‘is flat, an’ a key to the front door o’ that flat what ‘e’d ‘ad made on the sly from the janitor’s key, w’ich syme ‘e borrowed. Promptly at eight o’clock th’ night o’ the twenty-first I lets meself into the flat, with a bundle ‘e’d give me containin’ a brown an’ green wool bathrobe, a pair o’ green silk pyjamas, a rubber fyce mask, a pair o’ red an’ purple felt slippers an’ a box o’ special fags such as e’ smokes. I examines the swingin’ casement doors o’ the closet hoff the bedroom, notin’ as ‘ow they locks an’ unlocks from the inside. I finds in the closet a ‘ole outfit o’ togs even to an overcoat, w’ich syme I knew Mr. Chalmers ‘ad ‘ung there that d’y. Then I undresses an’ gets into the green silk pyjamas, the brown an’ green wool bathrobe an’ the red an’ purple felt slippers. By the bawthroom mirror I straps the rubber fyce mask hover me fyce, an’ ‘avin’ ‘ad a neat ‘aircut, directed by Mr. Chalmers’ isself, found I looked ‘alf like a bloomin’ toff meself w’en me phiz was covered over.
“Well, at nine-fifteen comes the signal we’d agreed on — tink-tink-tink — the sound of ‘im knockin’ out the ashes of ‘is pipe on the radiator in the room above me. I throws off me overcoat, sails through the closet and out the swingin’ doors, up the firescape till I reaches the landing one floor above. There Hi tries these swingin’ doors, passes gently in, an’ finds meself in a big dark closet filled with togs from one end to the other. I waits m’ybe three minutes next the wall, an’ then the door w’at leads into the room opens part w’y, a crack o’ light comes into the closet, and in walks a figure dressed exactly like meself — brown an’ green wool bathrobe, green silk pyjamas, red an’ purple felt slippers, an’ a rubber fyce mask on ‘is fyce. ‘E gives me a friendly squeeze on the arm as ‘e passes me, and with me package o’ fags in me ‘and I marches on into the brightly lighted room, closin’ the door be’ind me.
“Hi don’t ‘ardly give a look around, catchin’ a glimpse of just w’at Mr. Chalmers told me I’d see — a sick chap lyin’ on a cot near a fireplace — a nice warm-as-toast fire cracklin’ aw’y — a bureau with rich things on it. There was an old lydy sittin’ in a rocker in a room next to this one, sewin’ aw’y and ‘ummin’ a little chune. I plops down on the bed, pickin’ up the book which was lyin’ houtspread on the coverlid, an’ lightin’ a fag with some matches on a little stand close by me helbow. The nyme o’ the book was somethin’ about a mystery o’ some Ashes, by a chap nymed Tony Wynne, an’ I turns the pages habout one a minute. The old lydy an’ the sick chap on the cot back of me ‘ead seems to understand, as Mr. Chalmers ‘ad told me, that their master wasn’t supposed to talk none with ‘is complexion mask on an’ them fyce muscles all contractin’ with th’ doc’s liquid.”
Red Bronson paused a second, and then proceeded towards the conclusion of his unusual narrative.
“It was about a quarter to eleven w’en I ‘ears a long low w’istle in the back o’ the buildin’, and begins to get ready; and about eleven w’en I ‘ears a sharp rap on the steam pipe. I wytes three more minutes an’ then, sniffin’ at a fag like as if I didn’t like the tobacco in it no more, l’ys the book down, jumps up an’ goes into the closet like as if I was tryin’ to find somethin’ different to smoke in one o’ me pockets. In the closet me ‘and touches Mr. Chalmers, all fixed back in ‘is bathrobe, pyjamas an’ slippers. I gives ‘im the ‘igh sign — a squeeze on the arm signifyin’ everything went perfect — and I waits an’ sees ‘im walk back into the room before I pushes on through the swingin’ doors. Down the fire-escape I climbs, an’ through the closet o’ the flat below, w’ere I finds the little pocket light burnin’ away cheerful like. It’s a bit low now, gents, but not so low that I can’t dress back into me own togs, and not so low that I can’t find in my breast pocket a henvelope containin’ twenty-five 20-dollar bills, a ticket to Philadelphia an’ a passage on the Haquitania, sailin’ at noon, the second day followin’. I suppose ‘e’d ‘ad the envelope ‘id som’eres in the flat all the time.” Bronson paused and then finished: “As soon as I got dressed, I pulled hout, keepin’ the watch and dumpin’ the bundle o’ bedroom togs an’ pocket light into the Chicago River at Madison Street. I puts up that night in the Evenin’ Sun lodgin’ ‘ouse, orderin’ a call for five in the mornin’. And at six sharp I’m on a train bound for Phily.”
The man with the bright red hair stopped, and it was the ever-watchful Ballmeier who had to help him on to the end of his testimony.
“What happened that you did not board the Aquitania at Philadelphia?”
Bronson hesitated a bit embarrassedly. “I — well — I’d been in Phily before, the time I come over on the freighter. I ‘appened to know a joint on th’ water front — Nigger ‘Oskins plyce, they call it — where you can get a skinful o’ booze if you can p’y for it. Next d’y I was drunk all right, but not too drunk to myke me boat. Only me ticket was gone — vanished! I puts hoff me trip, thinkin’ I’d find me ticket — or else Nigger ‘Oskins would give it back — an’ I’d change it lyter for another boat. But no ticket. Well, I carn’t tell about all them there months. I drank an’ I drank — I was ‘alf soused for three months on bootleg. Hafter me 500 dollars gives out, Nigger ‘Oskins threw me out. I been without a shillin’ for months. Then last week it was that I finds me ticket, where it went down me breast pocket in a ‘ole in the linin’, and was all the time in me coat.”
“What brought you into contact with the Chicago State’s attorney’s office?” queried Ballmeier.
“The police o’ Phily,” was Bronson’s sullen reply. “I was trying to cash in me second-class ticket to Liverpool for money, thinkin’ I’d buy me a steerage passage hacross, and ‘ave a few crowns over. But the steamship agents was suspicious of a passage eight months old, and turned me over to a bobby. ‘E tykes me to the stytion, and there they mykes me tell what I’m doin’ with a ticket that old, an’ tryin’ to ryse money on it, and I ‘as to up and tell ‘em the truth to syve me own skin. Then a few days lyter a deputy comes from Chicago, serves some kind of a pyper on me, and lugs me back to Chicago.”
“Receive any fee or promise of any fee for testifying as you did to-day?”
Bronson shook his head. “I ‘ates to go back on the man I mykes a bargain with, but when I learns there was murder done that night, I’m willin’ — I got to — talk. I never dreamed ‘e were goin’ to kill the toff, van Slyke. I got no fee, sir, nor no promise of any fee, sir, other than my expenses w’ile I’m a witness for the Styte, and mileage from Philadelphia.”
Ballmeier gazed reflectively down at his own feet for a moment. Then he looked up.
“Witness excused to the defence,” he said quietly.
Crosby, during this pause which marked the end of Ballmeier’s examination of the witness, had lowered his head close to that of his client.
“Quick, Chalmers! True or not true, this fellow’s story?”
“All true,” said Chalmers in a low whisper that carried barely to his lawyer’s ear.
Crosby was on his feet as Ballmeier dropped back into his own chair.
“The defence excuses the witness for the present,” he announced quietly. He sighed, and for the first time in the long, bitterly contested case a wave of discouragement — of despair itself — seemed to engulf him. He found himself unable for the present to marshal his thoughts upon this bombshell of fact which Archibald Chalmers had known all along existed, a potential destroyer of their entire case.
Red Bronson climbed down from the stand, and Ballmeier rose. He examined some papers in his portfolio.
“Now that we have seen the complete demolishment of the Chalmers alibi, we may be prepared for further developments. For the present I wish to put upon the stand a witness whose very brief story, coupled with the testimony ruled out by his honour this morning, will result in that testimony being made a part of this case, showing fraud, criminality and conspiracy on the part of the defence.” He nodded to a bailiff. “Bring in Anne Wentworth, please.”
And while the clerk was officially mumbling out the name of this new witness, Crosby, watching like a hawk the tiny door from which a short while before Red Bronson had been brought, started to his feet, even as the veiled woman in the front row of the spectators half rose from her own seat and gave a startled gasp which carried clear over to the lawyers’ table.
The State’s second witness was Lindell Trent — Lindell Trent who by Crosby’s own carelessness had been sent to prison from Brossville, Kansas, five years before — the girl for whom his heart had ached ceaselessly during five weary years.
CHAPTER XX
THE NOOSE SLOWLY TIGHTENS
LINDELL TRENT! No longer was Crosby conscious of the court-room about him. All he knew, all he saw, was the slim girlish form with her great dark eyes and black hair which dropped in ringlets over her white temples — the girl whom David Crosby, pompous ex-farmhand, oozing sanctimony and self-sufficiency, had stood up in a country court to defend five years before, with a defence that consisted only of a cringing plea to the jury!
The Amazing Web Page 21
