The Amazing Web

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  When she spoke it was in words so low that they carried barely to the lawyers’ table.

  “My — my — my name is Lindell Trent.”

  Crosby, his head thrown forward to catch every movement of her dear face and every inflexion of her voice, rapt as he was, could see the staggered look which swept over Ballmeier’s face.

  “Please alter the witness’s name to Lindell Trent,” he said suddenly, inclining his roly-poly head towards the court clerk. “This office has evidently made a clerical error in entering up the witness’s name.” Ballmeier stared, puzzled, towards his second witness.

  “Where do you live, Miss — Miss — er — Miss Trent?”

  “At 24 West Huron Street,” came the reply, a reply so low that there was an irritated stirring on the part of the spectators in the back of the court-room.

  “Miss Trent, will you be kind enough to tell in your own words, and briefly, to the gentlemen comprising the jury in this murder trial what you saw occur Tuesday morning, day before yesterday?”

  The girl’s eyes rested on Crosby, hungrily, as though loath to tear themselves away; then they turned wearily in the direction of the jury, and she spoke, clearly, convincingly.

  “Day before yesterday,” she said, “I was in severe financial straits due to a friend and employer having left Chicago suddenly without having fully taken care of certain money due me. So early that day I went to North 60th Court at the north-western outskirts of the city, where an opportunity had presented itself by which some money could be earned. Starting back to the city in an Irving Park car about nine in the morning, I dismounted from the car at Marmora Avenue because of its being jammed from end to end with rowdies who were fighting and scuffling and indulging in horseplay, determined to walk on to Broadway even though I was encumbered with an empty suitcase.

  “It was at Parkside Avenue, out in this sparsely built-up district, where the incident occurred which the State’s attorney has asked me to relate in this court. A gentleman, very well-dressed and of middle age, each hand carrying a gold-headed cane, went out to the street-car tracks, walking as though his legs were partially paralysed or weak, and gazed westward with an angry, puzzled expression on his face.

  “I was coming along the sidewalk, perhaps a quarter block this side of him, when a beautiful black limousine stopped short on the street in front of him with a jerk, and the chauffeur hopped out and peered under the hood to see what was the matter with the engine. A man with white hair and dressed in clerical garments — the garments of an episcopal Bishop — peered out through the open window of the limousine, and I was not twenty feet away when he ventured a friendly remark to the man with the two canes. The man in the beautiful black car smiled a smile that seemed to be that of brotherly love and I was just passing the point where this was taking place when he flung open the door and said, ‘Then ride down town with me, Mr. Carrington, won’t you please? I am Bishop Hereford of the Episcopal Church of Chicago.’

  “The man with the two gold-headed canes looked dubiously at the street-car tracks and then stepped with some difficulty up into the car. ‘I hope you won’t mind having your man drive very cautiously, Bishop,’ he requested, sinking down on the upholstered seat next to the ecclesiastic. ‘I am deathly afraid of automobiles ever since I had a bad accident in one.’

  “I was a little bit too far ahead of them now,” continued the girl on the witness-stand, “to get what the Bishop said to his chauffeur, but he evidently instructed the latter to drive moderately towards Broadway or some other main thoroughfare, for when they rolled past me the car was proceeding at a very cautious speed. And as I watched it, and it got down the street perhaps a block and a half ahead of me, something very peculiar happened.”

  “You were about the only spectator in those outlying blocks at this moment?” prompted Ballmeier.

  The girl nodded. “Yes, sir.” She paused. “The car stopped once more, and again the chauffeur hopped out, but this time instead of examining the engine he came clear to the side door. He flung it open hastily and climbed in. I could hear what seemed to be the faintest sound of a stifled cry, and I could see the chauffeur’s body swaying back and forth on the running-board. Once I fancied I saw through the tiny rear window of the car the face of someone struggling, and once a hand, but I was not certain. Then the chauffeur climbed down on the pavement again and, springing like lightning into the front seat, shot the car forward at a furious rate. Instead of going on eastward, however, it wheeled sharply to the left and dashed northward along a new street which was occupied only by empty lots. Inside of a minute there was nothing whatever to be seen of it.”

  The girl gazed about her in the court-room for a minute. Then she concluded her brief story.

  “I trudged on to Broadway, where I had some business to transact, reaching it a full three hours later. But going down town in a State street-car to the public library next morning to look up some facts, I overheard two men in the seat back of me talking about a murder case — this murder case — and I overheard one of them say: ‘It’s plain that if it hadn’t been for John Carrington’s testimony in that first trial, Archibald Chalmers would have gone free.’

  “The repetition of the name Carrington,” the girl concluded, “after the little conversation which took place at Parkside and Irving Park, seemed more than a mere coincidence, with the result that I went to the police — rather late, to be sure — and related what I had seen Tuesday morning around nine-thirty. They sent me over to the State’s attorney’s office, who took down my story and subpœnaed me to appear in this trial.” She paused. “That — that is all.”

  A long pause followed the girl’s clean, straightforward story, uncoached as it was by the State’s attorney. And Ballmeier, gazing directly at the jury, spoke:

  “Archibald Chalmers and his lawyer are out to get an acquittal at all costs. But I am sure” — Ballmeier turned to Judge Lockhart — “I am sure your honour will reconsider your decision of this morning and allow those telegrams, together with this eyewitness’s story, to be made part of the records of this trial. John Carrington has disappeared. And it is John Carrington who, if my office had not dug up new evidence, would have prevented an acquittal.” He turned to the girl. “You are excused to the defence.”

  She paused on the stand, gazing helplessly towards Crosby. But Judge Lockhart, drawing forth a gold watch from his portly paunch, interrupted.

  “As it is now noontime, I shall dismiss court. Furthermore, I shall suspend court for the balance of the day. I wish to consult certain authorities, and promptly at to-morrow morning’s opening I shall give an opinion as to whether this second witness’s story and the telegrams will be admitted. So the attorney for the defence might prepare himself to cross-examine Miss Trent to-morrow morning.”

  “Thank you, your honour,” replied Ballmeier with a bow. He appeared relieved. He had “got across “an impression to the jury, and it was quite probable that he cared not one whit now whether the judge ruled his evidence out or in.

  His honour bowed his head curtly to the bailiff. The bailiff dismissed court. Crosby gave but one fleeting look at the cowed defendant at his side.

  “I’ll see you in your cell this afternoon, Chalmers.” And then the deputy, hungry for his noontime repast, nodded to the prisoner and prepared to take him through the door which led to the “Bridge of Sighs.”

  And silent, immovable, Crosby sat, chin in hand, his eyes riveted on one person in that court-room, as one by one the spectators and attached melted away. At last they were alone — these two. He rose and came over to her, and in the great vaulted, high-ceilinged room, musty with tradition, he dropped down in the seat next to her and closed his hand over hers.

  “Lindell — Lindell,” he said unbelievingly. “Oh — Lindell, what an injustice was done to you! Zelina Miles confessed all. You were innocent. And you were gone from me. Oh, Lindell, how I have suffered in these five years!”

  She riveted her big dark eyes on his
face, and an odd expression crept into them.

  “David, I can’t believe my own eyes — that it is you, really you, a successful lawyer in a big city court-room. I — did not dream that I would come face to face with you, of all persons. They did not mention your name in the State attorney’s office, but they spoke of you as — as — they called you a bitter, bitter fighter. Oh, David — you, a bitter fighter for your client!”

  He flushed from his neck to the tips of his ears at her ingenuous admission of her lack of credence that David Crosby of Brossville could ever rise to such gladiatorial heights as to fight for his client. And as he opened his lips to pour forth a veritable flood of questions to her, a shadow fell across them both and a hand touched his shoulder. He looked up.

  Two men, both strongly built and impassive in expression, one with close-cropped moustache and the other without, stood there. He knew them by sight — Bailey and Shea, detectives on the Chicago detective bureau and right-hand men of George Krenway, chief of that division. Bailey spoke.

  “Your stenographer said we’d find you over here in Judge Lockhart’s court, Crosby, so over we came.” He paused. “Sorry, but I’ll have to ask you to come over to the chief’s office. There’s three detective officials from St. Paul, Minnesota, and a man from a town in Wisconsin — Winniston — want to have a talk with you.”

  Crosby shook his head irritatedly. “Sorry, but I can’t come now, Bailey. Tell Krenway I’ll drop in later in the afternoon.” He turned to the girl. “And now, Lindell — ”

  But Bailey’s voice broke in on his words. “Sorry, Crosby, but you’ll have to come, and come now. We have a warrant for your arrest, and under arrest you’ll have to consider yourself.”

  “Under arrest!” echoed Crosby. “Under arrest — for what, please?”

  Bailey gave a fleeting glance at the girl at Crosby’s side and then shrugged his shoulders. “For grand larceny,” he said abruptly, “to the extent of 150,000 dollars. They say, Crosby, that you got the Lord Masefield Octet that was stolen in the Rosecrantz hold-up at St. Paul!”

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE TANGLE OF TANGLES

  CROSBY stared up speechlessly at the two men. His eyes held an angry light, and then his gaze travelled to the dark, quiet eyes of the girl at his side.

  “Lindell, something appears to have come up which takes me from you at the very moment I wanted to talk with you. Consequently I am going to ask if you can come to my office in the Otis Building at — say — six o’clock to-night without fail. You will come?”

  She nodded, the momentary bewildered look in her deep brown eyes giving way to a happy one. She thrust out her little gloved hand to him. “I will be there, David.”

  He nodded, and closed his hand tightly upon hers. Then he rose and took up his hat. “All right, Bailey and Shea, I’ll be with you now.”

  Together the three men left the court-room, and Crosby’s head, in a whirl from the rapid sequence of surprising developments, began to get calm again. Lindell Trent was found, and thus perished his long-fostered scheme of searching the volcanic islands of the South Seas for the skeletons of Cape Town Eddy Courney and Jeff Whittlesbee, and her meshbag of silver sixpences. All for her — to find the name she had taken, to find her location in Australia — he had gone blindly into a murder case, agreeing to defend Chalmers without asking him a question, agreeing not to put his client on the stand, fortified only by his own conviction that Chalmers was innocent.

  He turned to Bailey. “Bailey, you don’t begrudge a man ten minutes in his office, do you, to attend to a matter that has to be seen to immediately? Remember, I’m handling a case for a client.”

  “How long?” grunted he of the close-cropped moustache, looking at his watch.

  Crosby looked at his own watch. “You can give me fifteen minutes? After that I’m willing to give you boys the rest of the afternoon if you need it.”

  “All right as far as I’m concerned,” said Bailey.

  “O.K. with me,” seconded his partner.

  So, instead of going straight to the detective bureau at the mouth of the La Salle Street tunnel, they turned their footsteps in the direction of the Otis Building. Reaching there, Bailey, after a cautious glance out of Crosby’s inner office window, which looked down a dizzying drop to the court below, left the younger man alone at his request in the inside office, and dropped down with Shea on the bench in the ante-room, which they proceeded to fill with thick smoke from their cigars.

  Inside his private office with the door closed, Crosby lost no time in getting to work. Unlocking the steel-lock drawer of his desk, he took from it the cloth-lined legal envelope in which, on the seventh of September, just fifteen days ago he had placed the ragged pieces of paper comprising Chalmers’ note to Al Lipke, which the latter had tossed into his waste-paper basket after reading. It was a comparatively easy matter to fit them, odd and irregular in shape as they were, together, and piece by piece there grew, in the typing of the little portable machine which Chalmers was allowed to keep in his cell, a letter. And bit by bit there grew in Crosby’s mind the dazing realisation that Archibald Chalmers, his client, had resorted to crime to break the chain of testimony against him. The message ran:

  A.L.

  This letter will be handed to you in person by a man whose profession and identity will make it unnecessary for me to sign my name. Now I am going to talk money to you, and money on a big scale.

  It is necessary that at a certain coming trial, the picking of the jury which begins on Monday, September the 19th, and which should open about Wednesday or Thursday of the week, a certain man does not appear to give his testimony. This man is John Carrington of 4062 Parkside Avenue, Chicago. If, however, he should disappear before the trial is opened, the State will obtain an adjournment. Not only must he vanish after the the trial is opened, but he must not reappear until a verdict for the defence is secured. This man is wealthy in his own right. He cannot be bribed. He does not drink. He is a member of the church.

  No trace whatever must exist of the method of his disappearance; no clue nor witness that will serve to show anything other than that he has left Chicago on private business. And one more thing: there must be no murder — anything but that.

  Now, my friend with the talents and the brains and the acquaintance in the Underworld, here’s a big job that needs a big man like yourself to handle it. And for such a man there’s big money at stake. How much? I’ll tell you how much: 25,300 dollars in cold cash for expenses if required; 25,000 dollars in cold cash for yourself. And you are to handle the entire funds. I’m crossing your palm with a cheque made out to “cash “for 2,000 dollars — all I’ve got in the world until the 15th of September when I receive a bequest from another city. What’s the answer?

  Make it plain “yes “or “no “and give that and no more to the man who hands you this note. Likewise agree upon some name between him and you by which you can communicate with him, and therefore with me, instead of by your own name. And I need not caution you to destroy this little communication.

  There was no signature. Indeed, none was needed. But there had been a cheque in the letter, for Crosby remembered distinctly seeing Lipke fold up the pink crisp slip.

  Again he read the letter through from beginning to end, and then, with a heart like lead, he swept the fragments together, placed them on the little brass ash-tray which stood on his desk and touched a match to the pile. What to do now was something that he must determine, and determine before many more hours.

  He appeared in the doorway, and nodding to Bailey and Shea, led the way in silence to the street. There the three men threaded their way together along La Salle Street till they reached the old grey building at the foot of the tunnel, and without a word went inside. The hands of Crosby’s watch were exactly at one.

  As Crosby, a few feet back of Bailey, entered the office of George Krenway, with whom he had had such a sharp, acrimonious tilt at the first Chalmers trial, he was conscious first of seeing
a face in an arm-chair near Krenway’s desk which he had once seen before; then he became conscious of the pronounced lull in the conversation that marked his entrance. It was broken by Krenway himself, his thin-lipped countenance with its iron-grey hair as sour-looking as ever.

  “Crosby,” said Krenway, leaning back in his swivel chair, “to your left is Mr. Matthew Barr, president of the bank of Winniston, Wisconsin. I think you’ve met once before. The other two men at your left are from St. Paul, Mr. Curt Kelly and Mr. Gon Wynans, associated with the gentleman to your right.” He made a gesture towards the oxlike man with the cold eyes and the wiry eyelashes. “And this is Mr. Victor Considine, chief of the Considine Detective Agency of the Twin Cities. He wants to talk to you about this Lord Masefield Octet that was lifted in the Rosecrantz stick-up at St. Paul.”

  “Glad to meet Mr. Considine, I’m sure,” said Crosby dryly. But he did not proffer his hand when Considine made no move either to rise or to extend his own hand.

  “Crosby,” began Krenway, “you were engaged — weren’t you, to defend Samuel Viggman, temporarily of Winniston, Wisconsin, in connection with his participation in the Rosecrantz hold-up at St. Paul?”

  Crosby stroked his chin. “I was engaged by Viggman by wire,” he corrected, “to look out for his interests in connection with certain accusations made as to his alleged participation in this hold-up.”

  “Did you know whether he was guilty or not?”

  “Now come, Krenway,” Crosby retorted angrily. “You don’t think for a minute, do you, that I can violate any confidences a client puts in me? Haven’t you been dealing with lawyers long enough to know that?”

  Mr. Victor Considine broke in at this point, opening a typewritten sheet of paper and thrusting it forward to Crosby. “Crosby, this is your letter to Viggman when he was in the lock-up at Winniston, isn’t it?”