The Man with the Crimson Box

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  And not more than 6 seconds later, a young alert-looking man of about 30, clad in tweed suit, came up to the table, soft black fedora hat in hand.

  “Hugh Vann, Mr. Wah,” he said. “Of the Despatch.” Wah Lung had arisen courteously. “You are related, perhaps—to Mr. Louis Vann—our Attorney for the State?”

  “I’m his brother, Mr. Wah. His kid brother! And, thanks to being just that—I’m over here—to get a word from you.”

  “I see,” said Wah Lung. “That is—to be truthful—I do not at all see! But will you not come upstairs,” he invited, “to my quarters? I can have tea—or a cocktail, from the bar up front there—brought upstairs.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Wah, but not today. For I’ve lots to do. I’m comparatively a new man on your Despatch here—and I’m taking time off from an important assignment to write up another story—and have it all written, ready to spring—but which will require, to really complete it—an expression from you.”

  “A story? Meaning, of course, an account of news that has transpired? Yes. And requiring—an expression from me? Well, if I can do anything, I shall be most happy. Please to be seated then—if you will.”

  “Are we quite alone here!” asked Hugh Vann, gazing about him a bit troubledly.

  “We will be—I assure you,” pronounced Wah Lung, “from this moment on.” And leaning over, he inserted into the nub of the black onyx fountain pen holder a bright scarlet pen which had hitherto lain on its side. “That is a little signal I have devised to indicate to my many workers that I do not wish to be disturbed—by anyone!”

  “Good,” said Hugh Vann. And dropped down into the chair which stood across from the checkbook. Ignoring a convenient hat rest, and depositing his soft hat carelessly on the floor. While Wah Lung curiously took up his own chair again, shoving the huge checkbook to one side.

  And waited expectantly.

  “Now first, Mr. Wah,” said Hugh Vann, “a Chinese—as I know from much downstate experience with your race—is very honorable. And will—if he agrees—keep one tight mouth! Now this story I’m fixing to spring is a red-hot exclusive—laid right in my mitts by the big brother—and will mean, if nobody comes out with it ahead of my sheet, my standing ace high with my new employers. So—will what I tell you now be kept absolutely confidential?”

  “I might say to you,” said Wah Lung slowly, “that of all the Chicago papers, I favor, greatly, the Despatch—because it is the only one which frankly and openly refuses to attribute all violence, amongst my own race, to tong strife. However, I perceive, Mr. Vann, that expression, on my part, of mere favoritism, will not carry the weight that my word will. And so let me say that you have my absolute assurance that anything you tell me will not be conveyed by me to anyone connected with a news organ, or to anyone—white or Chinese—who will—or even can—convey it to such person. Or to such news organ.”

  “Hunky-dory—squared!” said Hugh Vann. “The word of a Chinese, Mr. Wah, I have found always to be a hundred per cent good. But the word of one who is an ace-high citizen here in Chi, as you are—we-ell!—it’s 150 per cent good, if that’s at all possible.” He paused. “However I’m holding you on that only so far as 2:30 p.m. today goes. Yes! For the story, Mr. Wah, will land on the Loop newsstands at 2:30 sharp—in the first edition of the Despatch off for today. You understand, do you not, that the Despatch doesn’t come out prior to that—like the other sheets?”

  “I do,” nodded Wah. “And my understanding is that it compensates for its loss of the noonday editions by publishing editions on till midnight, whereas the other evening papers stop publishing around 10 p.m.”

  “Right-o, Mr. Wah! A little innovation cooked up by the Despatch Powers-That-Be—back when Hector was a pup! Well, this story will pop out on the newsstands on the 2:30 Despatch drop—and will probably be blazoned forth on every other sheet about 45 minutes later. Or as soon as the newshounds can rush to the big brother’s office—and the linotypers on the sheets can dash off a few hundred ems of lead—and the matrix men can pound out a stereotype. Another reason, however, for this 2:30 p.m. release, Mr. Wah—quite aside from the interests of the little brother here!—is that big brother figures he may possibly get in Dutch if he holds back the facts any further. As he has been doing—since shortly after 8 bells this morning. He figures however, that he’s justified in holding till 2 bells, or thereabouts, for the reason that he wants to order a routine police pickup, all over Chi, of all odd-looking grifters and hoods—bad guys, see, Mr. Wah?—but such as have a plus “z” on their Bertillon—meaning, that is, red hair or a bum glim, or a game peg, etc.—and a rough checkup on where they claim to have been at a certain hour last night; but he realizes that any lug of that type that he hasn’t got hold of by 2:30, he isn’t going to get hold of! Simply because—but do you follow me okay?”

  “I am sure that I do,” said Wah, nodding. “It all sums up that I am not to say anything to anyone that can reach any press before 2:30. Which again, be positively assured—I will not.”

  “I’m sure of that. All right then, Mr. Wah. Get ready first, if you will—to take it on the chin.”

  “Take it—on the—oh yes—you wish to deliver me depressing news?”

  “Yes, Mr. Wah. And here it is: Your son’s head—that is, his skull—has turned up!”

  Chinese are said to be imperturbable, in the face of the greatest crises, but not so with Wah Lung. He half rose from his chair. Fortunately, not a waiter was in the restaurant proper at the moment.

  “My son’s—skull—” he ejaculated, “has—has turned up—at last? His—”

  “Yes, Mr. Wah. But pull yourself together, please. And sit down. The skull—well—it’s gone again.”

  Wah Lung sat down. Weakly. “Please—please—to tell me all,” he begged.

  “I will—and will boil it mighty close,” said Hugh Vann.

  “His skull was uncovered at that old brewery, Mr. Wah, a couple of weeks ago, by a coon laborer. Working, at the time, all alone. And it was uncovered, moreover, within the necessary legal number of feet of where the headless body was disinterred years back, for it to be prima facie evidence of belonging to that body. Which, of course, was that of your son. It—now brace yourself, for you’ll have to learn all this sooner or later anyway!—a bullet, Mr. Wah, had been sent squarely through the back of your son’s head, and had come right out of his left eye, shattering the back of the eye orbit. Yes, I know how this goes through you—like a knife. But you’d be learning it anyway within 5—6 hours. Well, the coon—he was a bachelor, by the way, and kipped all by his lonesome—took the skull—and the loose lower jawbone which naturally he found with it—home. And cleaned them up by boiling and scraping and whatnot. And he fastened the lower jaw onto the head—yes, I know this is hell for you, Mr. Wah, but I’ll be done with this part in a jiffy—he fastened the jaw to the head with a long strip of white surgical tape going—” Hugh Vann made a demonstrative gesture that was more like a Sicilian cutting his own throat, than the description of a strip of tape winding from cheekbone under chin to other cheekbone, but it evidently illuminated his statement, “—going thus. Yes. And he kept the—the thing for—for a luck fetish. You know coons? And then, long after, he learned from another coon about that famous kidnap case. And went home. And looked up into your son’s—well—his skull’s nose aperture. And saw plainly where bone had been obviously cut away on the right side. The surgery, of course, that was done on your kid prior to the snatch. And so this coon printed his initials—M. K.—standing for Moses Klump—in black India ink on the back of the skull, near the bullet hole—and took it down to my brother’s office. All wrapped and tied up, of course. Louis, however, was in St. Louis. And his girl—without even unwrapping the thing—that is, of course, she tore it open just a mite at one point to make sure it was a skull, yes—his girl put the package into my brother’s old safe. All this taking place, I ought to perhaps exp
lain, in his own old office in the old Klondike Building. But she took a complete deposition from the coon—I’ve read it, Mr. Wah, and it’s a beaut—it establishes that skull as corpus delicti—and how! That is, only, of course, if the skull itself is present—which now, b’God, it isn’t! Lucky, in one sense, that she took the deposition—for the coon was killed in a building demolition accident yesterday. But, unlucky is the fact that somebody last night cracked my brother’s pete—”

  “Cracked—cracked your brother’s—your brother’s—Pete?” queried Wah Lung, passing a hand wearily over his forehead. “I do not—I do not underst—”

  “Just broke into his safe,” explained Hugh Vann with extreme patience. “By means of a sledge. Knocking off the knob. And the combo dials. At 10:43 p.m.—last night. The 10:43 being absolutely known, Mr. Wah. And it’s the hour on which any suspicious-looking hoods are going to be questioned—and checked up on. For the job, Mr. Wah, was murder. A fact! For the safe-cracker killed the night watchman. Yes. A fellow named Reibach. Who obviously came in on him. And because of the ensuing fracas—and a matter of clocks, watches and time sheets—the hour of the murder is nicely known.”

  “And of course he—the murderer—the—the pete-cracker—got away—with the wrapped package—containing—” But Wah Lung could not say it.

  “Yes. Got away with it. Not with the deposition—no!—for it, fortunately, was locked elsewhere—but got away with the thing that gives the deposition validity. Yes, got away with the one vital thing—beautifully initialed with the coon’s ‘M.K.’—and a thing provable, moreover, as never having gone out of that safe since its deposit there. A thing one hundred per cent evidence by which—this time—Big Gus McGurk, down in Moundsville Penitentiary, would be sent to the chair.”

  “Whereas,” said Wah Lung bitterly, “Big Gus McGurk will be free—in a few months—to do, with his old gang, to others as he did to me?”

  “His old gang,” declared Hugh Vann, “—The Parson Gang as it was called then, thanks to its members using ecclesi­astical costumes so often—is more or less broken up today, Mr. Wah. Some of its known members serving The Book—and others shoving up daisies with their toes. However, a phone message out to Moundsville Pen a few minutes ago reveals that Big Gus will be out—thanks to good-behavior time-off—Friday. That is, Mr. Wah, unless the guy who made the box is nabbed—and reveals the whereabouts of the skull. In which case, of course, Big Gus will walk forth into the arms of half a dozen deputy sheriffs from my brother’s staff—with an arrest order, based on an indictment secured in the meantime. However, all this latter is quite academic, I fear—dealing with events which haven’t happened yet. And probably—yes—won’t happen!”

  “How—how,” asked Wah Lung, “did the news get—to the underworld—that my son’s—my son’s head—had been found?”

  “We presume the coon talked. We may, though, before the day is out, have a brand-new angle on that. As so often happens.”

  Wah made a helpless tired gesture with his two hands.

  “Well—what can a Chinese restaurant proprietor do—against the cunning forces of white gangdom? Nothing!” He paused and sighed deeply. “And so—my poor son’s head came forth out of the unknown—and then went, again, like—like a butterfly pausing on a mulberry leaf. Well, I am sorry, indeed. In most things, I endeavor to be a Christian—and a Confucianist. Which happens to be the same thing. But here is one matter in which, frankly, I cannot be that. I am bitter that Lee’s skull was successfully’ stolen. Because in it—in my son’s skull only—lies justice for the one worst member of that one-time gang. And—but has your brother any chances, do you think, of picking up the man—who did the crime?”

  “None at all, he believes,” said Hugh Vann promptly. “For the fellow, realizing that a job done on the S. A.’s own box is sheer dynamite!—will be cert to lie up in a damned good hideout. And even if he did get picked up, Mr. Wah—well—that’s no sign that the skull itself would ever be forthcoming. To get man and skull both would be—thinks Louis—a miracle.”

  “But if,” queried Wah Lung bewilderedly, “your brother did get the man—though not my son’s—um—the skull—would your brother have evidence of print-finger nature by which to convict—”

  “None,” replied Hugh Vann, cutting off any useless trains of thought in Wah Lung’s head along that line. “The fellow who did the job used gloves—leather—but plenty efficient for the purpose!—and so left no f. p.’s—print-fingers to you.”

  “Very bad,” commented Wah Lung, “for the ends of justice, I mean. Very good, of course, for the malefactor! Well—” He thought. “Well, has your brother some clue—as to the general appearance or type of man who opened the safe?”

  “No, he hasn’t. At least nothing definite. He deduces, Mr. Wah, that the man had some slight distinctive appearance that would have greatly narrowed down a huge pickup order. For we know definitely the cracksman bumped off the night watchman after he’d knocked the latter into slumberland. Neither does my brother know, moreover, whether the boxman was a professional, or just—just a man with a sledge, instructed to ‘knock the knob,’ as the term is known in the underworld. No, we know nothing of him. For the one person who might tell us something—is dead. And lies this moment in a darkened, locked office—without even the coroner to soothe his fevered brow.”

  “To soothe his fev—but you say he is dead—oh, yes, persiflage. Yes. I understand. Well—I have long wondered whether the day were ever to come when I was to sit in court and tell—and for the last time, I hoped—those sad, sad events leading up to my son’s disappearance. But it appears indeed—that I am not to do so.”

  “I fear myself, Mr. Wah, that it’s only the newssheets who are going to get anything printable out of the uncovering of your son’s skull. And that—” Hugh Vann broke off, and looked at his watch. “Whooie! I’ve got to hop forth on that regular assignment of mine—the while I cook up in my brain the lead and windup of this yarn. In fact, that’s what I’ve come to you for, Mr. Wah. The story’s windup! In other words, a statement from you! A fully quotable statement, moreover—covering the whole affair. A statement without which my yarn would not be complete. For the whole city, Mr. Wah, reading that story, will ask—as one man: ‘What on earth does Mr. Wah, the bereaved and despoiled father, think of this?’ And so, Mr. Wah, will you oblige me now with a comprehensive statement—comment—what you will?”

  “Of a surety,” said Wah Lung, slowly. “If it will be of help to you—and yours.”

  He sat for a long minute, drumming with his fingertips on the table. And thinking. And at last he spoke.

  “Well—just quote me then, Mr. Vann, in either of the two following ways—” Hugh Vann already had a small notebook out, and even a pencil poised above one of its leaves. “Quote me,” went on Wah Lung, “as follows: If I knew where my son’s skull was at this moment—or will be, at least, by tonight—I would know the man who was the higher-up in that kidnap gang or:—”

  “The famous ‘inside wire?’ “ nodded Hugh Vann, looking up momentarily from the pothooks strewn over the top half of his notebook page. “But I think I heard you just use the word ‘or,’ did I not?”

  “Yes,” admitted Wah Lung. “You did. For I was just about to add a further statement, prefaced by the four words ‘or quote me conversely.’ Yes. As follows: If I knew with absolute certitude who the man is who was the higher-up in that gang, I not only would have my son’s skull—but the evidence by which to convict that man—and McGurk as well—for the crime of kidnaping and murder. That—yes—that is all.”

  “Well, now—let’s see,” commented Hugh Vann, gazing at his notebook leaf. “From your words I have down here, Mr. Wah, you’ve given me leave to quote you one way—or the other. But the two statements are, after all, appreciably different. Yes, indeed they are. And so which, Mr. Wah, of your two statements, shall stand—as your comment?”

>   Wah Lung gave a mirthless laugh.

  “Was it not Confucius,” he queried, “who once said that Truth is exactly like the sleeve of a coat—insofar as that when it is turned inside-out, it is still Truth? Yes. So, of my two statements—just take your choice!”

  CHAPTER XIII

  When the “Church” Offered to Help the “Law”

  Officer “Limp” Kilgallon—christened Daniel, but carrying the name of “Limp” today due to a very slight physical defect left by a fleeing gunman’s bullet—had noticed the man with the crimson box twice, as, on his own daytime downtown beat, he had passed the Dearborn and Adams Street corner of the Old Post Office—first at five minutes to noon—and now at ten minutes after. The man stood on the curbing—as though waiting for an east-going car, the box—a pasteboard shoebox-sized affair with lid held snugly to box proper by a tight and broad rubber band—of a brilliant crimson color and with holes punched in either end as though to give air to something alive within it—under his left arm. And on the top of which—as he presumably waited for his car—he worked methodically with a stub of a pencil poised above a scrap of paper.

  The man was about—so Officer Limp Kilgallon figured—35; though of course appearances in such things were deceptive, for was not he, Limp Kilgallon, full 46?—with an actual grown boy working in the State’s Attorney’s office?—yet looking no more than 40? And was he not—however, the man on the corner was about 35 anyway, with brown eyes, and handsome devil-may-care face—and a deeply reddish cast to his hair which, had it not been for the presence of that vividly crimson box, would have seemed decidedly redder. He was dressed in quite unobstrusive dark blue clothes, a slight bit rumpled, to be sure, but clean; on his head was a close-fitting blue-black cap, and his soft shirt was held together at the neck by a black tie. Decidedly all-American looking, moreover, in every respect, and belying quite the brief answer he had given to Limp when the officer passing him just now the second time—and long after the patient waiter should have found his car—and questioned him friendlily and courteously. And which answer had been: “No—spik—Inglize—Mist—er.”