The Man with the Crimson Box

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  Vann’s face was troubled. “But Rufus—remember the Daley case?—where the hands of just such a watch were set, for an alibi? And the murd—”

  “Yes, Louis. I well remember. But wait till I give you the whole setup. This is a triple time alignment—and not a single one like the Daley case.” Scott paused. “You see, Reibach kept a nightly report sheet downstairs in the engine room, showing the hour and minute he started out on each of his regular tours of exploration and inspection, as well as the time he returned. He was very pernickety on this, it seems, for his job, more or less depended on that sheet. Anyway, his last ‘out’ entry on the sheet was 10:10 p.m. His next ‘in’ report would—had it ever been set down!—have been approximately 10:50. Based on the average time of his regular trips. While his next trip would have been at 11:20. One hour and 10 minutes apart, you see? However, he never reported in from the last 10:10 trip.”

  “Well,” admitted Vann, “that backs up the 10:43—but only to the extent that Adolph’s death took place between 10:10 and 11:20. Or, we’ll concede, between 10:10 and 10:50. Yes! But this further confirmation of the exact minute, Rufus? What—”

  “I’m coming to that. And that’s what also indicates that Reibach’s murderer got back of the door as Reibach came in. And hence worked alone.” Scott paused. “Reibach, Louis, was struck at three times, by the fellow with the sledge. Yes, a fact! The first time, on the forearm. Which of course didn’t kill him. In fact, he obviously pulled himself together and threw himself, like a tiger—at the peterman. Who was ready for him this time—with a better blow. And came down atop Reibach’s head. Yes, Louis, an octagonal discolored area in Reibach’s scalp, practically atop his head, shows that he caught a heavy sledge-blow there—and plainly dropped unconscious from it. But, Louis—the murderer smashed him again—well to the side of that. After Reibach lay there unconscious. And that blow, Louis, bashed in Reibach’s very skull”

  “The dirty dog!” ejaculated Vann, referring, of course, to the safe-cracker.

  “And that,” pronounced Scott, “is where I postulate that the peterman had some degree of distinctive appearance, which, if described to us, the police—or to you, the S. A.—by Reibach—if Reibach recovered, that is—might help in eventually picking up the peterman. Even convicting him, perhaps. Yes! Some degree—of distinctive appearance. Yes!”

  “As—what?” queried Vann, his ears wide open.

  “Heaven knows! He might have been a red-haired man. That strikes me, Louis, as most possible. Again, he might have had a drooping eye. Or two eyes of different color. Or he might have been a man of peculiar stature—under-sized—or extremely large. Anyway, he didn’t have to make that last blow. For Reibach must have been unconscious. And, making it, he did it so that Reibach would never recover—and help to get him captured—or better, convicted.”

  “Red-haired man?” Vann was musing, fingertips together. “That would be my guess, too. For anybody knows, Rufus, that descriptions of build and height mean absolutely nothing in courts of law. However—red-haired man!” He gave a helpless gesture of his hands. “Go on, Rufus?”

  “I will. Well about that first blow, ’twas delivered, as I stated, from approximately back of the door. I base that, Louis, on the direction Reibach staggered—when he caught it. Yes! For I happen to know in exactly which direction—and how far—Reibach staggered. For, seeing the blow coming, he raised his forearm—as also I have stated—and caught the blow on the forearm. And lost his balance plainly. And staggered backward a number of steps. Clear to that glassed-in pendulum clock you’ve got there, on the north wall. And his head struck the lower corner of the clock’s boxlike frame and knocked the whole clock awry. Awry by at least thirty degrees. So that it stopped dead. At 10:43—10:43, that is, plus practically no appreciable fraction of a minute, as nearly as one can read its dial and its hands.”

  “The devil you say!” ejaculated Vann, light dawning on him. “And that clock can’t be reset—with its glass door locked? And me—with the only key!” And withdrawing from his pocket his bunch of keys, he held aloft silently a small but very intricate Yale-like key.

  “I rather fancied,” commented Scott, “that you hadn’t noticed that clock. Particularly since you scarcely crossed the threshold.”

  “God—no!” retorted Vann. “I’m lucky to have noticed as much as I did. And viewing the scene from the doorway only, as I did, the fact of the clock being awry practically wouldn’t have shown to me. For the side projection of the wooden clock case wouldn’t be much different in one position than another. So-o! It was awry—and stopped! And that clock, Rufus—well, it’s one real time-keeper! I’ve never had to reset it over once in ten days—and then by only a minute at most. And so—it corroborated Adolph’s smashed wristwatch?”

  “To a T,” pronounced the other. “And I noticed, right off, that it was not only a locked clock, but had a decidedly intricate lock. And I cured that you doubtlessly had its key. But after I got done in there, I stepped across the hall, into a room of some Scotchman—by name Angus MacIntosh—who’s set down on his office door as an appraiser of old books, coins and stamps—and I asked him whether there was a clock anywhere at all in the building by which I could get the time—correct to the minute. I figured, Louis, that a Scotchman would never use up 4-cent calls on his phone to correct his watch or his movements—much less wear out his shoe leather by going unnecessary distances—but would know the unequivocal nearest whereabouts of such a clock! Which it seems he did. For he told me that, right across the hall—in ‘Louis Vann’s office’—I could get the time, correct to the split second, off the pendulum wall clock there. And that—well, that was all I wanted to know.”

  Vann nodded. “Well, now I’m quite satisfied on that 10:43 murder hour. A triple alignment, all right. And tying precisely with Adolph’s murd—though, Rufus, you haven’t told me yet how you know, as definitely as you appear to, that Adolph staggered against the clock, and knocked it awry? Has—”

  “By the fact, Louis,” explained Scott, “that a half dozen of Reibach’s yellow hairs were stuck on the lower corner of the clock case. And that there was a small gash in Reibach’s scalp on that side. I examined the hairs—and some from his head—under my portable microscope; and they tell the story, Louis, beyond any doubt. And I have ’em all here, moreover, safely sealed in an envelope.” And reaching down for his square black carrying case, Scott opened it and brought forth a sealed cloth envelope across the flap of which he had plainly written his initials. Which envelope the State’s Attorney took promptly.

  “I only wish,” Vann commented ruefully, “that you had some of the murderer’s hairs instead. Red as they probably—or maybe only possibly!—are. For hairs are something to achieve a conviction on—sometimes! However, I’m glad we’ve at least the hour of the blow. Thanks to my poor old glassed-in clock being in the picture. ’Twas a clock owned by my mother, Rufus, and she gave it to me for my first office, and I had that special lock put on its door because, before I could even afford $14 for a second-hand safe, I used to keep small change and papers inside the glass case.”

  “A peterman being unable,” said Scott dryly—and sardonically, “to get through a pane of glass?”

  “No!” retorted Van. “A peterman being unable to dream that a poor lawyer—would have anything inside his clock!” He paused. “Well I think there’s only one more thing now, Rufus, that I’m a bit in the dark on yet. And it’s this: What is your basis for deeming this peterman already in my safe—when Reibach came in on him?”

  “There wasn’t the sign of a hair, blood, nor hair oil,” said the other promptly, “on any parts of the broken knob, or fragments of the dial, or the safe door—as there assuredly would have been had he used that sledge again—even swung it—after bashing Reibach’s skull in. No, that sledge—after that death blow—went pronto into the waiting open violin case. Which showed that the peterman had already cracked the
pete. Not, now, that it makes any material difference.”

  “True enough,” agreed Vann. “Other, perhaps, than that it helps to establish that he emerged from those doors downstairs at no later than—”

  “10:45—plus or minus a fraction of a minute,” put in Scott. “For all he had to do after knocking Reibach into kingdom come was close his violin case—click out the lights—draw the door to—and wind his way swiftly down those 7 flights to the street door. Which, as you yourself know, locks only with an inside spring latch. I timed myself—on the way down. z minutes, it takes. No more. 10:45 precisely, he stepped forth into the street. Stowing his leather gloves away, now that he was free of all locks and knobs. And yes, I see the question in your eyes, Louis. But both stores downstairs report they were closed at that hour.”

  Now the two men were silent.

  “And that is all you can give me,” asked Vann, as one man trying to urge another gently on, “on this peteman’s probable appearance?”

  “All,” said the other laconically. “Unless I let my imagination go riot. Which I’ve learned, to my own sorrow, never to do. Sure I know, Louis, that you’re in a position to throw a huge dragnet over this city—but only providing you know a what find of fish to seine in! But I can’t help you there. Concrete clews to his appearance there are none—only the purely deductive ones I’ve stated.”

  “Exactly as in 41 per cent of all homicides,” mused Vann, “and 68 per cent of all burglaries.” He gave a short, hard laugh. “This fellow wasn’t a pulp-paper magazine burglar, eh, Rufus?”

  “I fear not,” Scott agreed. “He may not have been even a killer—except in this one unexpected instance.”

  A deep silence fell between the two men.

  “Going—hrmph!—to—hrmph!—cover the place, Louis?”

  “I get you, Rufus!” said Vann, dryly. “‘Lock-the-Stable-Door-Vann!’ Yes, I may possibly. Though on purely general principles. Lock-the-stable-door principles, that is. I won’t cover it, however, unless I can get hold of Portfolio Smith—down at your bureau there—who has a nose with its tip actually stuck in the 4th dimension.”

  “Meaning what, Louis?”

  “Oh, just meaning that Portfolio can actually smell when people aren’t the—well, the McCoy! A fact. However, he’s unlocatable just now. Not on duty. And recently moved besides.”

  “I see. Well, one other point, Louis. When the news photographers rush in that office later today or tonight, for pictures, they’ll play billy-hell with—”

  “They won’t be in there at all,” Vann said. “My kid brother, Hugh Vann, of the Despatch, photographed that whole office a week ago, with the idea of later making a feature story on it. Since I gave him exclusive rights on those pics—they’re still his—and exclusive.”

  “That’s good,” Scott said. “Better a herd of buffalo trampling over the scene of a crime than a troop of news photographers.”

  A deep silence again fell on both men.

  Which Scott, this time, seemingly, took as a hint that the other wanted to terminate the interview.

  For he rose, promptly.

  “I know you’re a busy man, Louis,” he said, “and with this thing busting under your nose—you’re going to be busier yet. ’Tis my off day—as you learned when you rang the Bureau—and I’ll be painting my bungalow all day. Though I will, of course, print up the several camera shots I took—the open safe, you know?—the tilted clock?—and so forth—in my lunch hour, and paste them up in the proper spots in my book of notes so that wherever things get disturbed at the inquest—and everything will—we’ll have the absolutely prior record of it all. And though I’ll go back on my painting job after lunch, I’ll nevertheless be ready to spring in my car, and come downtown and testify, the moment you decide to call the coroner and dish the case to the press.”

  “Thanks, Rufus,” responded Vann, also rising. “I’ll call you down, all right, the very moment I decide to dish it. Though at this specific moment I can’t say at what hour today that will be. If, though, on your way down, you catch a flash of it in the Despatch, that won’t mean it leaked—for the kid brother, you see, who’s been for years on a downstate sheet, is now, as I told you, on the Despatch, and I’ll be slipping him the highlights thirty minutes ahead of the others so that he gets off on a good foot here in Chicago’s newspaperdom. But I can’t say just now what hour this will all be. Some time towards evening, I think—unless some unexpected development takes place before then. My right-hand bower, Leo Kilgallon—” Vann glanced impatiently at his watch, “—is due on here in 30 minutes—and I want to go over the situation pro and con with him. Thank Heavens, at least, for the law that the State’s Attorney can hold back, from the police, a report on a crime, for 12 hours—provided he himself has been notified!”

  “Which you certainly were,” commented Scott dryly. “Walking right in on it!” He took up his hat. “I’ll be going. And I hope you get your man, Louis.”

  “Thanks, Rufus,” said the other. “Indeed, old man, for expressing hopes like that—in this particular case—I should tender you my no less than a million thanks: for, Rufus, unless I get my man—and my stolen goods—I’m finis—in the State’s Attorneyship. Yes, a fact, Rufus. Straight from Boss Sean Hennerty! No renomination next week—unless I’ve the goods on hand right now for a good spectacular conviction next spring. And this—well, this was it! The evidence for the case of all cases. And so far as getting my man goes—let alone my stolen goods—I very, very much doubt, to be downright frank with you, that I will get him. A fact! For this peterman—whether professional, or whether amateur—was sent out by some existing remnant of Big Gus McGurk’s gang. Or the one-time Parson Gang—in case you recall that name better—the gang, remember, where all the members used to have ecclesiastical suits?—and made their meets openly dressed that way? True,” Vann added, catching Scott’s slow nod, “I haven’t yet established the exact linkage between this job—and that gang—but I will, all right all right, and before the day is out—by the time, in fact, that a certain party now on the way to Indianapolis reaches there—and I can get her on the wire. And—but the point is this: And this is the reason why I haven’t got that place covered this very instant—and perhaps won’t be covering it this time at all. For the peterman in this case, Rufus, having been sent out by a remnant of a once well organized gang of professional crooks is—well, you can bet your bottom dollar, Rufus, that at this moment he and my stolen goods are safe in some hideout—and a hideout, moreover, of a kind that has no chance whatsoever of being raided, on general suspicion, by our office. And in which hideout he’ll lie snugly up—till this thing has blown over. Yes! Thanks a million, Rufus, for your splendid and speedy co-operation—but I firmly believe this to be a case of ‘chalk one up for The Gang McGurk’!”

  CHAPTER XII

  At the Inn of the Golden Dragon

  Wah Lung, owner and proprietor of the famous Inn of the Golden Dragon, on Chicago’s Rialto, sat at a small table far in the rear of his de luxe restaurant, one of the most beautiful ones in Chicago, checking over his daily accounts-payable. It was but 10 in the morning; there would not be a customer before the noon luncheon trade, and now and then the squat kindly faced, bald-headed Chinese looked up to see that his many workers were arranging carefully the interior of the restaurant for the busy throng that, by noontime, would be dining on the pick of Chinese viands.

  It would have been thought that Wah Lung, owner of this magnificent eating place with its great, life-size hand-hammered bronze dragon—plated however, with actual solid gold!—standing up front near the doors, its jade-green plush carpets an inch thick, its fountain with cunningly illumined waters playing ever softly, its outlying tables arranged in ingeniously terraced nooks, each like tiny gardens, with other tables overhanging them, its curved “Ming” bar near the entrance door, its wonderful system of soft indirect tinted lighting, and its four great
circular windows, wreathed with Chinese carvings, and gazing out onto busy Randolph Street, would have been very happy. But happy Wah Lung was not; because upstairs—in those regal living quarters which lay above the restaurant—there was no son, no wife. The hun­dreds of Chinese books—the imported teakwood furniture—the 9 rare Chinese bric-a-brac of the Ming period—lay up there for the use of but one man: a lonely bitter broken man who lived now but to make money—to do nothing with—and to forget.

  And thus he sat this morning, as heavy of heart as he had been 10 years before when, after having trustingly paid $50,000 ransom money to the white criminal Big Gus, the body of his son, Wah Lee, had turned up beneath the floor of the old Schlitzheim Brewery. True, lying witnesses of that white gang skulking in the back of Big Gus had proven that Wah Lee had been alive in San Francisco, long after that abduction; that the headless body was that of somebody else—but Wah Lung had known better. Even as had, in all probability, the weak and vacillating prosecuting attorney of that day. Not to omit mentioning a considerable part of the public who read the case. And today—childless now as he had been for 10 years—he, Wah Lung, knew even more than then that the body had, indeed, been that of Wah Lee.

  And as he sat, chin sometimes in one hand, sometimes in the other, scarcely seeing his bills for meat, and noodles, and wines, and the imported preserves, nor his great triple checkbook, nor the black onyx fountain pen holder, one of his tuxedo-clad waiters glided over to him, and stood waiting deferentially, as wishing to ask a question.

  Wah Lung looked up. And spoke, kindly, in Chinese. “Yes, Foy? And what might it be?”

  “Mr. Hugh Vann, Master—a reporter on the Chicago Despatch—wishes to speak with you?”

  “Vann?” ejaculated Wah Lung. “Hugh?—Vann? The same blood—of a surety—as that of the present attorney for the State. Show him back here, Foy.”