The Man with the Crimson Box

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  “If you ask me, Mr. Vann, I’d say you won’t. And, in case I’m right on that, then our skull—as found on him—isn’t legal evidence. In re, I mean, State of Illinois Versus Gus McGurk. For though you and I know it to be the one that was put, wrapped, in your safe by Beryl—and passed to her, wrapped, by the Negro—it still isn’t legally ‘identifiable’ as that one—unless we cinch it as having been taken from your safe by the defendant. Through conviction of him. Have you considered at all, Chief, that the case of this lug is similar to the Bothwell case, down at Ottawa?”

  “Now, now, Leo,” Vann chided, “you think you’re delivering news to your doddering old chief, don’t you, boy? So what would you say if I told you that on the way back from South Chicago I compared the two cases in my mind, element by element, and found that they’re not just similar, Leo; they’re identical.”

  “You—you did?” For some reason not known to Vann, Leo Kilgallon appeared a bit staggered. “Well, then,” he asked, helplessly, “in view of the Supreme Court decision today on the Both—”

  “Leo!” Vann’s voice was dumbfounded. “You don’t mean to say—”

  “Listen, boss—have you read any papers today since the morning paper?”

  “Devil, no, Leo! I’ve been busier today than the armless paperhanger with the seven-year itch. And—”

  “Well,” put in Leo helplessly, “they ruled today—on the famous Filched Attested Evidence Case.”

  Vann was silent. Then—

  “Negatively, eh?”

  “Right!”

  “Well—I’ll be damned!” was all Vann said. “It was said to be 50-50—yet I was betting on the wrong fifty. Well—I’ll—be!”

  “And so there,” Leo pressed on, “you are. Big Gus—as you told me—gets out Friday. Day after tomorrow. All right. Then I certainly don’t need to point out to you now, Chief, that if you try to take that skull before the grand jury tomorrow, to get an indictment against Big Gus his attorney will easily prove it isn’t evidence for an indictment, since it isn’t evidence for a trial—at least, can t be until this reddish-haired peterman we’ve got is convicted. And will quote that Illinois Supreme Court decision.”

  There was a long pause. Vann was perturbed, for he knew full well that Leo Kilgallon spoke the truth. “Well, what you say,” he declared at length, “is true, of course—only too true. I was quite carried away, I’ll admit, by the fact that we’d recovered the goods—and had witnesses to an admission on the part of the boxman. However, Leo,” he added, “the warden down there at Moundsville wouldn’t let Gus go out Friday, I’m thinking, if—”

  “Mandamus, chief! You know it. And I know it! And Big Gus would walk out. I’ll bet my month’s salary on that. Why, Chief, Big Gus has a million ways to get info out of that pen to his ‘mouthpiece.’ It’s even my humble belief, moreover, that Fleming Wiles—who, I understand, handled the old case so slick for McGurk—will come forward of his own volition, and front for Big Gus. For after all, Chief, it’s only by Wiles’ pulling slick—but easy—ones like that—yes, a mandamus!—that he holds his criminal trade. And if Gus’s written record there at Moundsville shows ‘good behavior’ and his time with ‘time off’ is up—well, you’ll never hold him. The warden, who’s a down-state man, will say it’s Chicago’s problem—not his.”

  “Oh yeah? Well we can nab Big Gus at the gates on some phoney charge.”

  “Oh sure, Chief—sure. But a charge that will be blown up by a habeas corpus inside of 24 hours. While this reddish-haired fellow’s case, if it follows customary procedure—with his ‘mouthpiece’ figuring every way to beat his rap—will be 3—maybe even 6—months coming to trial. After which—where would Big Gus be?”

  Vann scratched his chin troubledly.

  “It sure always did take you, Leo,” he said disgruntledly, “to find flaws—in everything.”

  “And that,” said Leo Kilgallon boldly, “is why, I trust, you keep me on—as your assistant! And—but where shall I report now? Back to you—or to that Rogers Park matter?”

  “You’d better go on to Rogers Park, boy. And get that deposition. Yes. For McMinster is going to New York by plane at 6—and not returning.”

  “Okay, Chief. I’ll be back as promptly as I can make it.” And they hung up together.

  And Vann sat chin in hand. His thin scrawny woman-secretary entered, diffidently.

  He looked up. “Miss Jason,” he said suddenly, “hold the fort here—please. For I’m leaving. But will be back in—oh, thirty minutes at most.”

  “Yes, Mr. Vann. But where—in case something important breaks—could I get you?”

  “Where? Why, on the unlisted number—Dearborn 999—which is that of the lockup keeper in our incommunicado cells in the sub-basement. Yes—the State’s Attorney’s special lockup. For I’m going downstairs, Miss Jason, to interview one of the most important captures this department has ever made. The Man with the Crimson Box. Yes—that’s exactly what I’m going to do!”

  CHAPTER XX

  The Case of the $100,000 Joker

  Allstyn smiled faintly at the naive incredulity of his visitor, Mr. Piffington Wainwright, about a person signing a contract without even reading it!

  “In the first place,” he said, “let me say that I have of record—in my own legal experiences here alone—1476 cases where contracts were signed without being read. And at least half of those cases, roughly, were special contracts—and not standard printed ones with fine small-type clauses which apparently nobody—but lawyers!—ever do read. A fact! But you’re interested, of course, in this particular case—because one of the contracting parties is a lawyer.

  “To be quite honest with you, however,” he continued, “this ‘lawyer’ was only a potential lawyer when all this happened. And was raising money, through the contract I refer to, on which to go to college—and thence later to law school. Raising it on a valuable inheritance. But since she had firmly in her mind to become a lawyer—she should, we will concede, have exercised in her signing of papers all the sagaciousness of a lawyer.”

  “She should indeed,” affirmed Mr. Wainwright critically. “And I don’t yet see how—”

  “Well this girl, Elsa Co—but here, I should not mention actual names—hardly!—and so—”

  “Be assured. I beg of you,” declared Mr. Wainwright, “that I shall forget entirely Miss Coe’s identity.”

  “Good!” said Allstyn, with the faintest of smiles. “Well—having accidentally named her, I’ll continue anyway to call her Elsa—yes!—Elsa was only a few months over 18 when she signed this particular contract. For this, you see, was 6 years ago. And because 18 years—plus some months—old, she was of legal age, therefore, to make any contract she signed binding. And she was of sufficient years, moreover, you might say, that she should have known better. Today, of course, she does—and very much so! For she’s one of the cutest and brightest little girls—at least so I think!—ever to shoulder her way into a badly underpaid profession—the law, let alone criminal law, which starve to death 95 per cent of those who practice it exclusively. No raving beauty, Elsa—no! No Hollywood screen vampire, Elsa—hardly! Nor—but anyway, be that as it may, the other contracting party was her uncle, a man named Silas Mof—ahem—what on earth is wrong with me today?—for here I am again giving actual names!”

  “The name of Mr. Cyrus Muff,” said Mr. Wainwright with extreme dignity, “I shall proceed to forget as though I never heard it.”

  “Good! Well, he—yes, Mr. Cyrus Muff!—slipped a joker in on her. Yes—Elsa. Nothing—as he afterward privately told her—but without witnesses to hear him say it—that he intended—or would even think of—enforcing! No! Something putatively intended—as he hypocritically put it—and also, of course, without witnesses—to teach her a valuable lesson in law—her new proposed profession—that she would never forget. And which, as I think I have said, did
prove the lesson supreme. For Elsa. For I am sure that she would not today sign a check in her own checkbook—that is, if she had enough legal business, poor child, to sport a checking account. But as I just started to say, Elsa wouldn’t today sign a check in her own checkbook without first reading every one of the printed words. For her uncle, as I just stated, slipped this joker into that contract. And since the contract had to be recorded against a certain highly valuable piece of real estate—”

  “Why?” asked Mr. Wainwright, businesslike. “I ask this for the reason that this joker, I take it, contained perhaps only 50 words or so?—and, at $100,000, that would have made it a piece of writing potentially worth—hm—yes, $2000 per word. So much more than I get per word that—that—that I am interested.”

  Allstyn smiled.

  “Well, it was just that when Elsa’s father died—when she was 17—he left, as his only estate, a great square block of vacant land on the northwest side, worth conservatively—at least today—around $130,000; and known as Co—ahem—yes—Coe’s Nugget! ‘Nugget’ because, perhaps, the district around it is well built up with modern apartment buildings—and many builders have eyed it covetously; or ‘Nugget’ because Dan Co—um—Dan Coe—had held on to the thing from the time he’d inherited it from his own father. Anyway, he left it, with its taxes paid up for at least 15 full years in advance, to—”

  “Pardon me,” said Mr. Wainwright, frowning so terrifically that his eyeglasses tilted precariously forward on his patrician nose, “but if that was all Mr. Coe had to leave, how could he pay the taxes on it up that far ahead? And why should he?”

  “Did you ever own a judgment against the City of Chicago?” asked Allstyn. “One gained from, say, the condemnation of a piece of your property?”

  “I never did,” pronounced Mr. Wainwright. “And never expect to! I am fortunate in that I own my own typewriter!”

  “Well, this man did,” explained Allstyn. “He got it for the condemnation of a small lot on the West Side, the lot lying fortunately in the direct line of some proposed new Chicago thoroughfare. And it—the judgment—was quite non-collectable! And likewise consequently unsalable. So Dan Coe just turned it in to the city against taxes not yet accrued on his—his Nugget. Now is it clear?”

  “It is—yes. But I am anxious to know about this joker. Because the very, very few clauses in my contract have turned out to be—all jokers! They have indeed. And—but this gentleman, Mr. Coe, left this property, you say, to Miss Coe—”

  “To Miss Coe—yes; and to Mr. Muff—yes. That is, it was left to them jointly, in the proportions of 1/10 interest to her uncle—and 9/10 to her. Dan Coe did not, however, wish the property sold at the frightfully low values then prevailing in the real estate doldrums of the mid-30’s—he wanted it held unsold till around 1945, when it would not only have recovered its rightful value, but would have become, perhaps, considerably aggrandized; and when, moreover, his daughter would have reached enough maturity of mind that a large sum of money, gained through a real estate transaction, wouldn’t trickle through her fingers. And so, in a will which he wrote up himself, and without the help of an attorney, he provided, in a series of ingenious legal restrictions and provisions, into which, Mr. Wainwright, I shall not endeavor to go—since manifestly you are considerable of a layman in real-estate matters—he provided that his property could not be sold, mortgaged, nor partitioned as long as his daughter Elsa was part owner in it—up to, that is, her 30th birthday. After which—but any questions, perhaps!”

  “One,” replied Mr. Piffington Wainwright, succinctly. And continued:

  “While, truly, I am not legally minded, Mr. Allstyn, I confess that I do not see how, under those particular restrictions you have just stated, she—Miss Coe—could very well have ceased being part owner in the—er—Nugget?”

  “How? Why, by her death, of course. And her heir coming in on her share. Or by—but wait—and you shall see.”

  “Well, Elsa,” the lawyer continued, after a pause, “decided, shortly after she was 18, that she wanted to go to college and then law school—a project involving tuition and living expenses for 6 long years—or at least $5000. So since she was prevented, through her father’s legal restrictions, from raising the money by mortgaging her interest in her inheritance, she proposed to her uncle that if he would pay her the sum of $5000 cash—which she could put in a bank to use for her education—she would sign a contract assigning to him $15,000 of the receipts of her eventual sale of her 9/10 share of the property, taking place when she was 30, and would agree moreover to join with him, in selling it, within not more than 3 years after that date. Well, he grabbed at the deal, of course, for it constituted a gilt edged loan providing virtually 13 per cent interest per year. And without violating the Illinois usury laws.

  “So he drew up the contract. Which, by consummation, would give him his 1/10 interest in the Nugget and a full interest in exactly $15,000 of Elsa’s eventual receipts out of her 9/10 interest—and leave her a round $100,000 or so monetary interest in the Nugget. And she signed the contract, receiving from her uncle a certified check for $5000. And it was thus, you see, that the contract had—of necessity—to be recorded against this piece of real estate; and thus, you see, that the joker in it naturally becomes likewise recorded against the piece. But the joker—alas!—was of such deadly nature that it could have cost Elsa her whole $100,000 ownership in the property. If either of two certain contingencies—either of which were quite possible—even probable—ever arose in the future.”

  “And—and she signed it!” Mr. Wainwright half groaned. And passed a small hand over his forehead. “Signing a contract—without reading it—I just can’t underst—”

  “Neither can I,” added Allstyn brusquely. “But my 1476 cases of record prove otherwise. And in Elsa’s case there was, perhaps, more justification than in the whole other 1475 cases! For one thing, she had no idea whatsoever that her own dead father’s half-brother would even dream of doing her a legal and monetary harm—particularly since the contract in question was an extremely lucrative one for him. And for the other thing, she was having a love affair with a boy—her first love affair I guess—she was just over 18, you see—and was rushing off to a dance where he was to be. Anyway, her uncle, with whom she was temporarily living, sprung this contract on her just as she was in a mighty pother to be off; she took it in to his bedroom to read while she hurriedly powdered her nose and rouged her—ahem—you know!—fixed herself up—and the contract—well—it got second place—to her petite freckled nose! For when she emerged—to rush off to the dance—she hadn’t bothered to read a word of it. And signed it—lock, stock and barrel—before witnesses.”

  “And you set it aside—for her?” asked Mr. Wainwright eagerly. With tense eagerness. “On that very score? For of course I noted, Mr. Allstyn, when you first broached the young lady’s predicament, your use of the word ‘conceivably’ with respect to her eventual loss. And then—just now—your statement that this joker could have cost her $100,000.” He paused. “You set the contract aside—on the score that she had not read it?”

  “On the score—that she had not read it?” repeated Allstyn, amusedly. “No, I did not. She came to me later—yes—and after she no longer resided with her uncle—but I did nothing so foolish as you outline. For—for one thing—she had stated, remember, right in front of two witnesses—and in reference to her uncle’s pointed query as to whether she had read the paper faithfully, and knew what she was signing—that she had read it. Poor child—she confided to me later that she was frantic for fear her newly acquired boyfriend would be dancing with some other girl. ‘Some really pretty girl’—as she put it! And—”

  “Perhaps,” ventured Mr. Wainwright mildly, “her uncle set the clock ahead on his bureau—or perhaps over his whole house—to throw her into a mad rush?”

  “Bravo, Mr. Wainwright! For many years I wondered why Elsa had been in such
a pother to get to that dance—only to get there before it had even begun! You’ve solved it!”

  “But,” persisted Mr. Wainwright, who manifestly was far more interested in the cryptic “Elsa’s” contract than in “Elsa” herself, “you broke this contract?”

  “No,” declared the lawyer, “I did nothing so foolish as that. Rather—let me say—as attempting that. For with this contract she had, as it were—and as we state it in real estate law—‘clouded her title’ to that piece of property. And clouded it in such manner, moreover, that any lawsuit about the contract would have clouded it further. And result in but one thing, to wit: that even if Elsa didn’t eventually lose her 9/10 interest—or her 9/10 interest minus $15,000—in it through the arising of the one or the other of the contingencies outlined by that confounded joker, she would never be able to convey her interest—i. e. to turn it into cash. For builders, you see, don’t put up half million dollar apartment buildings on land that has been technically forfeited by the conveyor! And—”

  “But just how,” queried Mr. Wainwright—and somewhat plaintively, “would she have thus—forfeited her interests For the restrictions prevented her from even selling it!”

  “How?” repeated the lawyer. “By the exercise of the most devilish dynamite-laden thing in real-estate law: the quitclaim! In this case—the so-called ‘contingential quitclaim.’ For that joker clause, you see, provided that if either of those two certain contingencies arose in Elsa’s life—before, that is, she was 30—the contract was to constitute a quitclaim, to her uncle, for $5000 cash, of all her right, title and interest to the property! And the matter of ‘quitclaiming,’ you see, had been unfortunately overlooked by Elsa’s father in his various restrictive prohibitions. And to quitclaim—straight or contingentially—is something which, under the particular conditions existent, she had the inalienable right to do. Most definitely so—yes!—in the face of last year’s decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of the Idaho and Wyoming Oil Company versus Henry Barrows, owner of an estate partly in trust and partly not—and executor, by golly, of two quitclaims—one direct, and one contingential—and the latter hinging on nothing more than the amount of rainfall in a given county in a given period! Yes, the right of Elsa to quitclaim was one hundred per cent legal And a fully consummated quitclaiming, on her part, is something that would not merely give her uncle full ownership of the Nugget—but would make it possible for him immediately to sell—since her quitclaim, don’t you see, would make her no longer ‘part owner’ in it.” Allstyn paused. “And quitclaim is exactly what she did—if, that is, either of those two aforesaid contingencies ever arose.”