The Man with the Crimson Box

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  “Yes, I did. A short one. There were 3 murders in it—a desperate struggle between a heavyweight prize fighter and a half gorilla, half chimpanzee—and a brilliant battle of wits between a criminal posing as a G-man, and a G-man posing as a criminal, and—”

  “Did he deign to read it?”

  “For a miracle—yes. And he wrote that someday—perhaps around 1950—1951—after the public was saturated with crime and action stories, he might put on the air a burlesque of such. And to hold on to my script, And they would accept it then, in lieu of my regular contribution for the Xmas week broadcast, when sponsors won’t pay for a kid broadcast because kids won’t listen to their radios!”

  “Well, he has long-distance ideas, anyway! But now one last question. Why did you come to me, in reality? The fundamental reason now.”

  “Why? Well—I figured you could break my contract for me. I would gladly mortgage my future earnings in the crime-action-story field to get it brok—”

  Allstyn raised his hand to stem the explanation. And shoved the contract across his desk back to his client. “Piffington,” he said slowly and kindly, “would you be surprised to know that your contract can’t be broken?”

  “It can’t?” The other’s face fell.

  “No,” Allstyn said firmly, “it can’t.”

  But Piffington Wainwright Esquire was not one, it seems, who accepted expert opinion.

  “That contract,” he said fiercely, “can be broken, Mr. Allstyn. And you undoubtedly know the one way. Only, for some reason, you dare not tell me. Now I’ve paid my money, Mr. Allstyn—and you took it. And I want—nay, I demand—that you tell me that way.”

  CHAPTER XXIV

  Wherein a Judge is Willing to Help

  Judge Hilford Penworth, lying on his comfortable bed, in his blue dressing gown, his portable telephone in hand, his gouty foot bound in yards of lint, and his arthritic knee bandaged carefully, had listened in amazement to the briefly condensed story just related to him on the wire by Louis Vann, the State’s Attorney. His afternoon cup of milk stood untouched, close by his elbow, atop the old Richard Lionshead and Company safe, with its lion’s head cast in deep relief on the door, and its drab silk scarf lying over its top, which graced the small 3rd-floor room where the Judge spent practically most of his time; and so engrossed was he by Vann’s carefully elucidated story that when his eyes did stray vacantly out the one window of the room, leading as it did onto a great drab prairie of uncleared broken bricks and torn timbers, caused by the gradual tearing down of old Prairie Avenue by the wreckers—and due in turn to too high taxes leveled against archaic landmarks—Judge Penworth saw nothing. Now and then he stroked his short white goatee with his free hand, and knew that his unusually immobile and stolid face was—for once—alight with interest.

  And Vann was at last finished.

  “Most amazing—I must say,” was Hilford Penworth’s comment. “And the fellow has a record here, I presume?”

  “Not in Chicago, no, Judge. He was obviously imported in here to do the job. Though from what city I would have no idea whatsoever. Particularly in view of the fact that 90 per cent of all the large cities of U. S. A. are now within 4 hours of Chicago—by air. Imported in yesterday, he was, however—beyond any doubt.”

  “But why, Mr. Vann, do you so definitely postulate yesterday?”

  “Well, I feel, Judge, that if he’d been imported in the day before, he would have done the job—the day before. Yes! Besides—the skull only went into my safe night before last, and it naturally took some time for the news of my custodianship of it to travel to the underworld.”

  “I daresay. But how do you imagine it leaked?”

  “As to that, Judge, I am almost certain now that I know. From something I learned in talking with the landlady of my office girl. The office girl herself, however, is in Indianapolis—and I’m having the devil of a time to get in touch by wire with her. A matter of a wedding party, you know—and a whole troop of young folks gallivanting off somewhere in cars.”

  “I see,” Penworth replied, though he did not at all see. “Hm? Well I suppose you urged your prisoner to plead guilty?”

  “Oh yes, yes, Judge. Of course. But he religiously maintained the ridiculous role of one unjustly accused. And—”

  “Unjustly accused? Hm? Well have you any lead at all as to what type of defense he’s going to offer?”

  “Very much so—yes. Through my—through another party. Amnesia! Amnesia as to the whole occurrence. As to his whole movements in Chicago.”

  “Amnesia? Hm? That would require some rather unique proof, I’d say. And it would—but on what basis will he endeavor to explain his possession of your—”

  “—my skull? Purloined—in a far city—out of a dead nose specialist’s office—and otherwise embellished—by people now dead!”

  “Well—well—well! But I suppose you’d be surprised as the devil if he proved those things?”

  “Surprised, Judge? Why, I—but of course you’re kidding me?”

  “Well, maybe I was. Partly. However, Vann, you’ve got to keep always in mind that only a half-wit would think of offering a defense that he couldn’t at least partly prove. And I take it this fellow’s no half-wit.”

  Vann was thoughtful—and silent. But came back to himself.

  “Well, Judge—the point now is—are you going to help me out! That’s the question! Chief Criminal Justice Shurley has just this minute told me on the phone that he’ll gladly assign the case to you—if you’ll be so kind as to act. And this fellow downstairs in my lockup seems to be in absolute readiness to sign all jury waivers and whatnot—everything, in fact, permitting a trial in front of you; and all because—as he puts it—you have an ‘ultra-legal mind’!”

  “Which,” said Judge Penworth a bit miffed, “I trust I have.”

  “Oh yes, yes, Judge—no offense meant. But the point is, that while this fellow has this bug about ‘ultra-legalism’ in his mind, I want to take advantage of it. And by one fell swoop, as it were, convict him—and get the evidence by which to give Gus McGurk, out there in Moundsville, what he should have had 10 years ago.”

  “Well—speaking as one with an ‘ultra-legal mind,’ Vann,” said Penworth coolly, “I think, Mr. Vann, that—before I’d endeavor to indicate to a possible judge the nature of his decision—that I’d wait till he rendered it!”

  “Yes, yes, Judge. Of course. Yes. I—I was speaking only in an academic sense. Of course, as prosecutor, there’s no doubt in my mind what you’ll give him. It will be the chair. But I want you to know that I do realize you have yet to make a decision—in a legal sense. Indeed yes. Well—the point is, Judge, that this isn’t just a case of knocking in my safe—and killing a poor German. It’s a case of clearing off the dockets the most dastardly kidnaping and murder ever pulled off in Chicago. It—”

  “Very much so!” declared the man, who had just heard himself characterized as one with an “ultra-legal mind.”

  “For if this fellow you’ve got, Vann, were—by some chance—not guilty, then that skull wouldn’t be legal evidence against McGurk.”

  “Do I know it?” said Vann. “So help me God—I do! And, even more than that, I—but I take it that you, too, Judge, have just learned of the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision in the Filched Attested Evidence case.”

  “No, I haven’t,” was Penworth’s reply. “I didn’t even know they’d reached a decision. Certainly, there was nothing in the morning papers to that effect.”

  “No, Judge. The story came out around noon. And what you’ve just stated—as a more or less ex officio ruling!—the Supreme Court today officially decreed.”

  “It seems then,” said Penworth dryly, “that both the Supreme Court and I—have ultra-legal minds!”

  “Now, Judge,” returned Vann, “you’re either ribbing me—or chiding me. But the point is—an
d still remains—are you going to help me out? I know you haven’t gone downtown for months—for a half-year—but—”

  “Well,” put in Penworth, “could you go to trial—as quickly as tonight?”

  “My Lord, yes, Judge. Everyone of my witnesses can be gotten by phone. Not one requires even a subpoena. I was just talking on the phone, moreover, to one who would be the very chief one—to make sure that he was in town. I refer to Wah Lung, the bereaved fath—”

  “Oh, yes,” put in Penworth. “Wah and I have had a number of chats, up in my bedroom here. He’s called on me—let’s see?—three times, I think. I met him at the time of his trouble. It was thought, you know, that McGurk’s attorney, Fleming Wiles, was going to come before me for a habeas corpus for McGurk—and Wah came to me—quite naively, I must admit!—to ask me in advance if I were going to issue the habeas. I fancied he was maybe going to try to kill McGurk in my courtroom—and so did not let him know what I already knew—which judge the petition was to be brought before. As things happened, however, the whole mess was compromised.”

  “Yes,” acknowledged Vann. “And what a compromise! That gangster, and murderer, McGurk, living on the fat of the land out there in Moundsville for 10 years now—seeing motion picture shows twice a week—reading magazines—when he should have been made a lesson to all kidnapers the world over. However, will you play in—Judge? By holding this trial? Any large room in your house—and, believe me, I know those Prairie Avenue houses, for my wife came from one!—any large downstairs room there could serve to accommodate such people as we’ll need tonight. I’ll—I’ll limit the Press to one man on each sheet. And absolutely all you’ll need to do, Judge, is to appoint a lawyer for this bird—who can represent him.”

  Judge Penworth was silent over a long number of seconds. He knew he was going to accede, and hold this trial. But figured that it would do no harm, in a disciplinary manner, to let the State’s Attorney hang in mid-air a moment or two anyway.

  “All—right,” he said at length. “I’ll hold it, Mr. Vann. And I’m definitely setting it, moreover, for 8 p.m. tonight. Yes—8 p.m. exactly. My court clerk and bailiff will be, of course, Mullins, who served me so well when I was downtown there—and who has been God’s own help to me out here during the last 6 months. Yes—at 8 o’clock he will lock the doors here—providing all your people are here—and will become court clerk, as of former days. Of course, I’m leaving it to you to have your witnesses—and stenographers—and everything. I can’t be bothered with further than what I’m granting. And—but one last warning, Mr. Vann.”

  “Yes, Judge? Thanks a million for helping out. Some day maybe I can help you some way, and—but this warning?”

  “Just this, Mr. Vann. I want to warn you that I’m going to exercise that ‘ultra-legal mind’ you referred to. In short, there’s to be no conviction—much less acquittal—before the trial. And no railroading—during it. In short, you’ll have to establish all your claims.”

  “Okay, Judge! I get it all—perfectly. I have no doubt about the outcome—with you sitting. Nor do I—but will you appoint a lawyer for the defendant, yourself, by phone?”

  “Yes, surely. At once.”

  “And do you mind telling me whom you might have in mi—”

  “No. Not at all. I have a hundred, off-hand, in mind, 95 of whom can probably use the hundred dollars State fee. But I’ll get in touch with Humphrey Humphries.”

  “Oh, yes, I know him. There’s no better criminal attorney today. And I’ll enjoy making Humphries squirm. Moreover, he’ll be absolutely red-headed at being forced to act as defense council—even though he’ll need the hundred dollars like nobody’s business. And—but forgive me, will you, Judge, for talking out of school? Now can I do anything to facilitate things at your end?”

  “Not a thing, Mr. Vann. You fix your case. I’ll have Mullins arrange all the spare chairs in the house, down there in my big drawing room—the room back of my parlor, you understand?—and such several tables, too, as will naturally be required. I’ll have him even hook a loudspeaker onto the telephone circuit. Just in case, you know? You just arrange your end—the courtroom will be ready.”

  “Ah—that’s fine, Judge. Thanks a million.” And saying good-by, Vann hung up.

  While Hilford Penworth, shaking his gray head, laid the phone across its cradle-base standing atop the old safe near his bed.

  And no more than 5 seconds later, a big man—a man at least 6 feet and 1 inch in height—with big nose and bluish veins in that nose, entered the room, a cut-glass pitcher of ice water clinking in his hand.

  “Fred,” said Penworth, turning about on the bed, “you’ve helped me hear many strange trials, haven’t you, since the day, long long ago, that I appointed you to be my court clerk?”

  “I’ll say!” agreed the other laconically, demonstrating by his words the easy familiarity that can come between two individuals through nearly a decade’s association.

  “Well, Fred,” went on Penworth, “I want you to get every chair in the house—and set them up in the drawing room downstairs. Together with two small tables—to serve as adjuncts to the big table already there. And—”

  “Every—every chair—in the place? What—why—”

  “We are going to hold a trial tonight,” said Penworth, calmly. “And right in the house here—for a change! A trial, Fred, for the murder of one Adolph Reibach—and the theft of the skull of one, Wah Lee!”

  CHAPTER XXV

  The Desperate Clown!

  Allstyn, facing his client, the berouged Piffington Wainwright, shook his head at the other’s fierce demand to point out the way—subterranean or otherwise!—by which the latter could break his radio-writing contract.

  “I know no way,” Allstyn said gruffly.

  “But there—there must be a way to break it,” insisted the other.

  “Well, there isn’t. By law, you understand. And why on earth,” Allstyn went on, “you folks who come to me—and have—during the years—with open-and-shut contracts, correctly drawn up, with considerations paid, and all that, expecting that your contract can just be set aside—just like that!”—And Allstyn gave a light snap of his fingers “—willy-nilly, as it were—for no more than the implied wish to do so, I can’t, for the life of me, understand. I can sympathize with you all—yes—for you all have motives for wanting ‘out.’ But understand your case I can’t. For, Piffington, a contract is, essentially, an agreement which is set down in writing and signed in order that it can’t later be broken. Broken, that is, at the whim of one or the other party. That is what a contract is! An unbreakable agreement. Not a breakable one. You can’t set such things aside—much less get any court in the land to do so—when they’ve been signed with eyes open on all sides, by people of legal age and adult minds, and with considerations passed, and whatnot. The best that can ever he done in such cases is perhaps to negotiate an adjudication where a comma is, by accident, in the wrong place—and some sentence holds diametrically opposite meanings. Or negotiate a compromise where one clause conflicts in meaning with another clause. But in your contract, Piffington, there aren’t even enough clauses to create inter-clause conflict. Your contract is open-and-shut. It—”

  “But—but it’s peonage!” almost shouted Piffington.

  “Not at all,” Allstyn rebuked him. “Peonage is quite and indeed another thing entirely—when you look into it. No, sale of exclusive services, for any length of time, is as legal as—as buying that brass Buddha paperweight of mine over there. Yes! Your contract is square and aboveboard. Cutthroat perhaps, yes. Irritating—yes. And all that. But legal. Now you wanted me to be honest, you know? So I’m going to show you how honest I really am. Here—” He removed the brass paperweight from the $10 bill, lying in front of him, and slid the bill over to the other. “Here is your money back. For I don’t really need money, to be candid. And here, also, is your full legal
opinion: Your contract cannot be broken—and any lawyer who tells you so will only be trying to get litigation fees out of you.”

  Piffington Wainwright sat dolefully in his chair.

  “Coming from you,” was all he said, bitterly, “I’ve—well—I’ve got to accept such a verdict.” But now, returning to earth, he was restoring—with alacrity—the returned $10 bill to his well-stuffed wallet. One who, Allstyn saw amusedly, did not allow Opportunity to thunder at his door. But Allstyn liked the other’s utter directness—no hypocrisy—with long arguments about why the $10 should not be returned.

  “I’m afraid you will have to accept such verdict,” affirmed Allstyn. “For my opinion is an honest opinion, For I like to break downright faulty contracts—such as, for instance, where somebody has tried to write his own legal paper, and succeeded only in creating something so full of contradictions that the profiting party is glad, before I get done with him, to tear up the paper. Yes, I like to break such contracts—and make large fees. But I can’t break this. No! But enough on that score, however. Piffington, you are a fool! You have a connection which, as you gave me to understand a few minutes back, is now worth 3 scripts a week to you—or $45 a week. You can live where you want to, I take it, sending in your stuff by mail—” Piffington Wainwright nodded. “And you have the ability to sustain your connection almost indefinitely, for you have a God-given talent for doing something that kids literally eat up. Yet you want to—”

  “Oh,” said Piffington Wainwright with a disdainful wave of his hand, “I can do that junk—forever and forever—before even my morning cup of tea is drunk each morning; do it, moreover, with one hand tied behind my hack. It’s the dramatic crime-stuff that I want to do. It’s—”

  “Dramatic crime-stuff? Well, what groundwork—occupational groundwork, let me amplify that—do you have for doing it? For instance—have you ever done private investigative work? But I see you haven’t—by the emphatic shake of your head. Well, have you ever—but just what were you doing, in New York, at the time you discovered you could supplement your income by writing bedtime tales?”