The Man with the Crimson Box

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  “I’m sorry to say,” said Miranovski, “that you can’t! At least—” And he chuckled. “If you do, my office girl will tell you I’m out of town. For I began a long-deferred vacation at noon today with those instructions to her. No,” he added, “I’m in a drugstore, and with a friend—a Dr. Alberti from another city—waiting outside in my car—”

  “Well listen then, Professor, I want very, very much to talk to you. Though on the wire will be plenty okay—so long as you’re ‘on holiday’! So will you hold the wire—just a minute?”

  “Gladly, Mr. Vann. Gladly.”

  And Vann, sliding open one of the larger drawers of his desk, dropped the phone gently in it, and closed it tightly on the connecting cord. And put that other phone to his ear.

  “What the goddamned hell, Vann!” came a voice, which Vann realized was Boss Hennerty, the political power of the city who made or unmade a man.

  “Awfully sorry, Chief,” he made hasty reply. “Just one of those confounded cases where two phones rang at the same time. I’ve slipped the other off, for the moment, into a drawer.”

  And Vann waited curiously.

  “Well, Vann,” said Hennerty, “you sure pulled the bonehead play of your whole State’s Attorneyship. I’m amazed.”

  “What—what do you mean, Chief?”

  “What? Why, good Christ, letting that evidence that could convict McGurk get snatched right out from under you.”

  “Well, Chief, I see you’ve read the story; in which case, however, you’ll know I had nothing to do—”

  “Oh, that’s no excuse, Vann! You shouldn’t have been employing a girl so dumb—let alone one so damned young, and likewise from way over on the other side of the globe, and therefore downright ignorant of American crimes and criminal matters—that she could have pulled a boner like she did. For that girl talked, Vann—whether she admits it or not. And allowed that skull, moreover, to lie two nights in an old—old tomato can. And she’s cost you your re-election.”

  “By which,” returned Vann spiritedly, “I may at least infer that if I were able to convict McGurk, you’d be renominating me?”

  “Why, of course! Convicting McGurk would be the one thing to catapult a candidate into office. And with you already in office and able to time that conviction, and that evidence in your mitt, we’d have had to renominate you. But—you up and lost the choicest piece of evidence you ever had. Or,” Hennerty reluctantly granted, “let your half-wit Klondike Building office force lose it for you.”

  “But see here, Chief, the evidence—well, the evidence came back into my hands—and is right in my desk here now—”

  “Oh, hell, Vann! I was just at the Cosmopolitan Club, and talking to Judge Kimball and Judge Weinheimer.”

  “Oh, Weinheimer—formerly of the Illinois Supreme Court?”

  “Of course. And they both tell me that if you don’t convict the man it was found on, of breaking into your safe and stealing it, it’s zero as evidence. In the McGurk case, that is. They say that’s not only good law, but that the Illinois Sup–”

  “Yes, I know,” Vann interrupted troubledly. “And when two such mighty fine judges, aided—” He was a bit sarcastic now, “—by the Illinois Supreme Court say so, I’ll accept it. In which case I’ll just have to convict this fellow I’ve got!”

  “Convict him? But he claims—according to the big story your brother had in the Despatch—that the skull isn’t the Chicago Chinaman at all. That it’s some Shanghai Chinaman. And that he himself has amnesia. Of some damfool kind. But nevertheless, amnesia. And—”

  “Oh come, come, Chief! It’s amazing to me how a shrewd politician can be so naive. Claims? You ought to know that everybody in a life-or-death game claims something. And—”

  “Well, maybe they do. But supposing that what this fellow claims is—is the McCoy? And supposing somebody, or even lots of people, seeing that story—and the stories the other papers, God help ’em, are rehashing from it!—know him—yes, the fellow—and can back his story in every detail. Inclu­ding his actually having had such a Chink skull prior to the theft of yours. Or even—Vann—not including his having had such a skull—on the supposition, by God, that that is just a wild and woolly fabrication of his, to try and account some­how, someway, for his having your property on him. Well, in either of such cases, the court will discharge your man. At least with respect to your indictment. Which no doubt by now you’ve got?” Vann nodded silently toward the speaking receiver. “For your indictment, Vann, isn’t one just claiming the fellow just stood on a street corner—and waxed facetious with somebody?”

  “No, that’s true,” admitted Vann. “And—but see here, Chief, hold your horses, will you? That trial hasn’t been held. And nobody’s called up this office to tell us we’re all wet! And good God, Chief, a man just can’t claim amnesia, willy-nilly, and get away with it in a hardheaded court of law. All the crooks would be doing that, you know, if they could. This fellow’s lawyer will have to substantiate that a dozen ways around. And—if he remembers anything whatsoever by which his lawyer can ‘substantiate’ that, it’ll be just too bad! For his lawyer will be forced on the stand hims—or, perhaps, herself, in this case. And made to state what the remembered item was. In which case, by God, the fellow will be guilty. For his amnesia will be proven to be phony. And I’ll convict him. And the evidence—in re McGurk—will be officially validated.”

  Hennerty was silent, evidently digesting this.

  “Well, I guess you know what you’re doing. Now, at last—anyway! And all I’ve really called you up about, Vann, is to tell you that the factor of this skull coming into your hands changes the whole setup as to not renominating you. For, with it validated as evidence, the renomination is yours. And so, Vann, if you want 4 more years in office there—you just better convict your man tonight.”

  “Let tonight take care of itself, Chief,” said Vann.

  Throwing as much of an air of confidence in his tones as possible. “And in the meantime you—you be drawing up those nomination papers! And notifying the committee. For my nomination is—is in the bag.”

  “Hope so,” Hennerty grunted, in a not-at-all convinced tone. And with a typical Hennertian grunt, hung up.

  As Vann likewise did. Mopping his brow. For he always felt uneasy when talking to Boss Hennerty. As who, in public office in Chicago, did not? And now he remembered that waiting phone in his drawer. And extricated it. “Still there, Professor Miranovski?” he asked.

  “Yes,” came Miranovski’s youthful and alert voice.

  “Waiting—like that fellow with the crimson box was doing today!”

  “Oh—you’re interested in that case, Professor? Because it putatively involves something in the field of hypnotism?”

  “Naturally! But for even further reasons. For I may claim—in a sense—to know your man.”

  A sudden ominous feeling crept into Vann. “You—know—him!”

  “Well, yes and no. No and yes! I saw him arrested today, near the Post Office. In fact I had just talked with him. About something of mutual interest to us both. For, as I say, I knew him to a certain degree. And I had just turned away. And walked off 15 feet or so. And, looking back, saw a squad car picking him up. And driving off with him.”

  “So you—you know him, eh? Well—did you have any idea what was in his crimson box?”

  “Good God no, Mr. Vann! No, indeed. And I merely surmised he was being picked up for loitering, or something like that. But after reading what I did, just a few minutes ago—the Despatch story, to be exact—I felt impelled to call you up at once and immediately.”

  “Well, I sure am mighty glad you did, Professor. For we haven’t any information on him. Not even his right name.”

  “Well, I can’t help you in that respect myself. You know him, evidently as John Doe. And so only do I. Let me just say that he was a visitor to my office a
bout 3 days ago. The same day, in short, that he struck Chicago. But late in the afternoon—and manifestly after the moment he presumably gazed into that revolving lamp on Van Buren and Dearborn Streets. He saw my window lettering from the street—‘hyp­notic therapeutist’—and came up to ask whether I treated migraine that way—and what my charges would be. For he had some premonitory symptoms that said a case of such was coming on him in a few days. Ocular flashes, I think. Of course I told him I treated all such things as that. And knowing that if and when he did come in, with an actual attack, he’d be in absolutely no condition whatsoever to give any kind of a case-history, I made out a card on him right off. And when he was reluctant to tell me who he was, for the card, I just laughingly said: ‘Well, we’ll put you down as John Doe.’ So I, you see, Mr. Vann, have nothing better, on that, than you have.”

  “But you both talked a few minutes—today I mean—there on that Post Office corner?” Vann queried. “And mutually recognized each other?”

  “Oh yes, yes, yes. We talked specifically about the matter of his migraine. For just a few minutes. Then I went off.”

  “Well, if he was in your office—though only 3 days ago—he must have told you something about himself?”

  “Well, yes. He told me he’d once traveled with a professional hypnotist, Max Königsberg, whom I knew—a mighty fine operator—anyway, he told me the identical story he evidently told you. Or the man who wrote that story. About the revolving lights. And how events which occurred between two such mesmerizations always became completely and irrevocably lost for him.”

  “Well, by gosh, Professor, I am mighty glad now to have you on the wire here. Twice before—because of the hooks you’ve written, and because of your impeccable reputation here in Chicago—I came near calling you in other cases as an expert witness for the State. But circumstances changed things. And so, by gosh, I may at that call you for the State. Depending, however, on—But first, a direct question: Is it possible, Professor, for a man to have this so-call ‘hypno-mesmeric amnesia’?”

  “Absolutely and unequivocally. Yes!”

  “And it will invariably encompass just the exact stretch of time between two given—well—‘gazings’—at something?”

  “Between any two events that have been suggested by a hypnotist who has developed power over the subject’s mind. Between two strokes of a bell. Or between two toots of a whistle! Or between, say, looking at a Mother Goose book cover and—say—hearing a zylophone trilled!”

  “Well, if you say it’s so, Professor—it probably is. Though his saying it is another thing entirely! However, will the lost events be recovered for such a—er—patient by sending him into another such period?”

  “Oh no, no, no. Such things have been tried. The lost events are just lost—for good—much like a bubble that breaks off from another bubble—in this case, the consciousness—and sails away entirely.”

  “Hm? You don’t suppose a damn good licking with rubber hoses and big fists might make a man recall those lost events?”

  “Heavens no, Mr. Vann! Not a chance.”

  “Well, could the lost events be recovered for such a man under hypnosis?”

  “Not if the original operator has specified that he only would have that power. Which, so your man told me, Königsburg always did. But alas for you, Königsburg is dead.”

  “Yeah! And so is absolutely everybody else this fellow uses for an ‘out.’ For—listen, Professor, without even having to ask you this—for I know your answer before you give it—I’ll wager you my next year’s salary that this fellow didn’t tell you a damn word about owning a Chinese skull, picked up in Shanghai, and all that?”

  “Quite true. Though we talked chiefly migraine—and not travels!”

  “To be sure. Did he even have the canvas carryall with him that he claims—the day he first called at your office?”

  “Oh yes. He had that. But I wouldn’t know what he had in it.”

  “Yet nary a word did he drop to you—about ever even being in China?”

  “‘Nary a word,’ as you put it! Of course, Mr. Vann, you surmise that Shanghai skull story is just something he’s temporarily using to explain away something he can’t account for.”

  “‘Can’t’ is good!” said Vann. “But go on!”

  “Well, I think the identical thing myself!”

  “Good! Then we both think the same. And the judge who tries him will be joining us!”

  Vann was silent for a minute. Then spoke.

  “Well, of course, Professor,” he now said, “I don’t need to tell you that in the opinion of this office, this fellow’s fakealoo is baloney of the purest ray serene. If—if you don’t mind my mixing my metaphors! And all of it fakealoo, I mean—and not just that Shanghai skull romance. My idea is that he undoubtedly had some hypnotic experience in the past. Maybe only from driving tent pegs for some hypnotist traveling in a tent show! Maybe for stooging and faking for him. And so knows the lingo of the game. But his mere claim that he has hypnotic amnesia wouldn’t sit for a single minute with any criminal judge. Because such a contention has no standing in law. And so I’m going to hand this bird the electric chair tonight. In a special trial he’s called for—and accepted. Before Judge Penworth. For 8 p.m. And thanks to convicting him, an thereby establishing the legal identity of what was found on him today, I expect to be your State’s Attorney for the next fou—” But Vann broke off. No need to emphasize things which would ultimately probably be known far and wide anyway.

  “Well, if, Mr. Vann,” inquired Miranovski, “as a pure hypothesis—a pure hypothesis, understand me, Mr. Vann—this fellow did have hypnotic amnesia—or let me be absolutely specific, and say hypno-mesmeric amnesia—what then, I should like to ask, would the situation be for him?”

  “Well,” declared Vann grimly, “it’d be just too bad, I guess. For he couldn’t prove it—and nobody else, so far as that goes, could prove it—for you can’t establish the identity of a lost and broken soap bubble—and so he’d go to the chair, just the same, for safe-cracking and murder, and I’d have my evidence legally certified for a far more important case.”

  “But I guess I didn’t make myself clear,” Miranovski put in. “What if he did have hypno-mesmeric amnesia? And could prove it? And could prove, moreover, that he hadn’t robbed your safe, or killed your night watchman, or anything?”

  “Well,” laughed Vann, “in that case, Professor, I’m emboldened to say that I’d have to scare up a private practice or something quick. For I’d have on my hands then a piece of evidence which the Supreme Court says would no longer be evidence. And would be out from even bringing to trial the juiciest case this office ever had. Let alone giving an unhung rascal about a tenth of his just deserts.”

  “Well it rather seems to me,” pronounced Miranovski, sticking evidently to the scientific end of things, rather than the moral aspects, “that your captive has proved—definitely and conclusively—that he has hypno-mesmeric amnesia! Or rather—with respect to the proof per se—just amnesia—without the trappings!”

  “Well if he could prove amnesia,” laughed Vann, “we’d be glad to let his lawyers tack the ‘hypno-mesmeric’ adjective on it. And—but you say he’s proved it. How, how in God’s name, Professor, has he proven it?”

  “How? Well I’ll tell you how. Last night, Mr. Vann, I was in my office in the Columbus Memorial Building, working on the proofs of my forthcoming book. With Dr. Alberti, in fact. Who came here from another city to help me get it on press. Anyway, I was there—and Dr. Alberti with me—from around 7 o’clock last evening till around 8 this morning. And one of my patients came in. Around 8 o’clock, that is. This patient’s name was Robert Williams. He had a case of trifacial neuralgia. Plainly of neural or psychic origin. But a most frightful sort of thing—whether psychic or whether an infection. Williams knew, however, from past experience—as even your man Doe knew in
his migraine cases—that hypnotism would dispel the pain attacks. So I put Williams into a hypnotic sleep. During which he lay on the office couch there, whilst Dr. Alberti and I worked on the proofs of my book. When we got ready to leave, which was around 7 this morning, I brought the patient out from the sleep. The terrible trifacial neuralgia, incidentally, had gone. And I even dropped the patient off from my car, near Water Tower Park, at Chicago Avenue and the Drive. And—”

  “But—so what, Professor?” asked Vann impatiently. “Can this patient Williams cast any light on our John Doe’s amnesia?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes he can. But getting back, Mr. Vann, to the point under discussion, it seems to me that the fact that your prisoner called for a quick trial—hoping that newspaper publicity would bring forth countless alibi wit­nesses for him—instead of taking the shortcut and naming those witnesses himself, is proof of his hypnotic amnesia. Q. E. D.!”

  “Only,” retorted Vann, “he doesn’t have any alibi witnes­ses. And the so-called ‘proof,’ therefore, is a sophistry—to the n-th degree!”

  “Well, maybe, Mr. Vann,” said Miranovski, undecidedly. “Only I’m sorry to have to tell you that the patient whom I just tentatively called ‘Robert Williams’—and whom I put into the hypnotic sleep, from 8 o’clock last evening till 7 this morning—is your John Doe, who was picked up today at the Post Office. A fact! And ’twas, of course, his migraine—and not trifacial neuralgia—that the hypnotic sleep was banishing. And by not naming me, Mr. Vann—and Dr. Alberti of course—he has proved conclusively his hypnotic amnesia; and, in conjunction with his complete alibi, proves—I rather think—that the whole rest of his story may be true. Though regard­less of whether you personally accepted the rest of his story to account for his possession of something looking like your evidence—or whether you didn’t—or whether the court did—or whether it didn’t—the fact remains, Mr. Vann, that your prisoner can’t be convicted of murder or robbery last night.”