The Man with the Wooden Spectacles

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  “Yes, ten days—under the laws of last year. And you can’t stay it unless an appeal bond is filed—covering all the initial costs of transcripts of evidence and all.”

  “Rich man’s law, eh?” he said bitterly.

  “I didn’t pass it,” she replied hastily. “Well, we’ll get back to cases. You asked me a moment ago whether I thought you thought the Archbishop was another man. Yes, to be frank, I naturally do.”

  “All right then. What next?”

  “All right, then. Well, did you think he was one of the Parson Gang?”

  “The Parson Gang?” His face did not move. Whether it was blank ignorance—or a mask—she simply could not determine.

  “Yes, the Parson Gang, a gang which operated here around 13—14—years ago. And up, I guess, to some few years later. Yes, I know I was an infant back in those days; but I’ve picked up—from a source I won’t mention!—a little about the old Chicago criminal history of those days—and about a certain famous local case, as well, which plainly is connected with—with your predicament. So—did you think the Archbishop was a member of that old Parson Gang—or rather, some present existing remnant of it? For they all used to wear, as I understand it—however, what does it matter. You thought, when he approached you in that garb, that you were talking to somebody supposed to contact you that way.”

  “Why do you think that?” he asked with, plainly, honest curiosity.

  “Because you wouldn’t have drenched a dignified ecclesiastic with, a flood of crook lingo if you hadn’t. But never mind. My business is to try like the devil to ameliorate your position.” Elsa paused flounderingly. “Well, you’ll at least admit to me, John, won’t you—that you knew that Mr. Vann’s safe had been robbed—a man killed—and that the thing taken had been the skull of a certain Chinese boy?”

  “I’ll deny on the witness stand that I knew any of that,” he declared arrogantly.

  “Well then,” she persisted patiently, “we’ll leave the killing part out of it. You’ll at least admit, then, that you knew that Mr. Vann’s safe had been robbed—and a Chinese boy’s skull taken in that robbery?”

  “I’ll deny on the stand that I knew that—likewise,” he retorted.

  “You will?” she returned, quite flabbergasted. “Well, how then,” she inquired, a bit caustically, “will you explain to—say—the Court—being able to convey all the facts of that crime—and so early as half-past noon today, which as I understand it, was the approximate hour of your arrest—when the facts themselves weren’t of public record till 2:30 today—in a Despatch story that was a scoop handled by the State’s Attorney’s own brother, its details guarded like nobody’s business?”

  “Well, I said,” he retorted, changing his position uneasily, “that I’ll deny knowing those facts altogether. And I take it that my denial would rule out any further question as to how I might have known them.” He nodded sagely. “Yes, of course. For certainly I’ll deny that I knew Mr. Vann’s safe had been robbed, as well as that I knew a Chinese boy’s skull had been taken in the robbery That is—if it was!”

  Elsa stared at him.

  “So you’ll just deny them, eh’ Just—like that? Good Lord, John, do you think for a single minute that any court in the land will accept it as a coincidence that you just jollily and brightly said you’d cracked a certain man’s pete—when that man’s pete already had been cracked!—and that you had, in your box, the identical thing stolen from that pete?”

  “We-ell, no—I suppose no court would just offhand accept a coincidence like that. No.”

  “Then why on earth expect me to—” Elsa broke off. “Listen, John, your trial lies less than 4 hours away. Do you realize that the longer you play cats and dogs with me in this cell here, the less time I’ve got to frame any kind of a defense for you? Insanity—or heavens knows what? I—”

  “But lady, lady,” he expostulated, “you come at me—slam-bang—asking me what I was doing with thus-and-so in my possession—without even being decent enough to ask me first whether I did have thus-and-so in my possession, So naturally—”

  “All right. I get you. It happens, unfortunately, that the skull you had in your possession is that of Wah Lee, a kidnaped Chinese boy. One hundred per cent corroboratable, as such. But, adhering to the technicalities of fair language, whose skull was it—according to your knowledge?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No. But whoever’s sconce it was, it certainly wasn’t that of any Chink youth—that, I’m willing to wager my life on.”

  “Willing? Well, you’re wagering your life in this game—whether you’re ‘willing’ or not! And—well then—who gave you the skull?”

  “Nobody gave it—as you put it—to me.”

  “Nobody? In heaven’s name, John, how do you suppose I can—” She broke off. And realized that she looked exceedingly downcast at that moment.

  And he seemed to sense her oppression, and to want—or at least half-want, anyway—to help her; for he spoke to her—a bit uncertainly, to be sure—and for the first time there was a sort of half-warm kindliness in his tones.

  “Girl,” he said, “I’m sorry—because you’ve got your information to get, of course, and I—but I can’t give you any answers to your questions. First, where I got the skull. Wah Lee’s—so you claim it is—nor second, why I told the big churchman—well—what I did tell him, yes, including that I presumably had the skull of a Chinese boy who I certainly didn’t know was figuring in any famous—”

  “You—you—you dare to even claim, John,” she said aghast, “that you didn’t even know that Wah Lee was the central figure of a big kidnaping, murder and extortion case?”

  “No. I gathered today, when the S.A. was down here—rather, before even that—when a gink who called himself ‘Leo Kilgallon’ and openly admitted he was the S.A.’s assistant, was down here—that all that Wah Lee stuff broke way back 13 and 10 years ago respectively. At times when I was out of touch with the world. For in all of the 13th year back, I was in Brazil. Back in the very jungles. And in the 10th year back, in a South African hospital with a draining abscessed appendix—or place where the appendix had been.”

  “Well then,” she said half helpfully, “somebody who got you into all this obviously informed you that the skull was Wah Lee’s. Did they not?”

  “What do you think?” he retorted, again falling back to his invariable defense.

  Elsa was more than irritated. She was close to being infuri­ated. She had a powerful impulse to rise and stamp her little foot and scream at him to quit his asinine poker-playing. She knew, however, that if she did, he would only smile sar­donically at her exhibition of weakness. But she could not control the vehemence in her tones.

  “What do I think?” she almost cried. “I—I think I would like to hit you on the nose—you fool idiot! Here you are, literally standing on the edge of the electric chair—and I your only hope—and to everything I ask you, you answer—’what do I think!”

  “Well—why not?” he retorted, with almost genuine sincerity. “I like to know what you think. You’re a damned sweet kid—such a one as I’ve been looking for all my life, and—”

  “Lis—ten,” she said, sarcastically, “is—is this, by any chance—a proposal of marriage?”

  “What do you—”

  “Enough!” she said, raising her hand. “Now listen here, you—you John Doe. You may as well make up your mind. You’re going to have to explain to me, here and now, what you’re going to have to explain to the Court, whether or no. Why you were at that spot. Why you had Wah Lee’s skull in that box. And why oh why oh why oh why you actually told a man you had it—and that you’d cracked the State’s Attorney’s safe to get it. You’ve either got to explain it all here and now, or else—”

  “Or else—what?” His voice was implacably cool.


  “What? Well, I’ll tell you what! I won’t take your case.”

  “Okay then,” he replied quietly, and a bit sardonically.

  “It looks as though you won’t take my case. And I really regret that—for you’re a smart kid—and a pretty kid and—”

  “So I’m pretty, eh?” she commented, and there was more than mere sarcasm in her tones now—there was downright bitterness. “Now I do know,” she added, “that you’ll baldly swear to any lie.”

  “That’s not a lie,” he retorted roughly. “And I’m not being gallant. You are a pretty kid—with the kind of hair I ought to have had, but didn’t get. Swell all-red hair! And a cute freckle on your upturned nose. And—but let it pass. I’ll not answer those questions.”

  “All—right!” said Elsa, grimly. “And I’ll be leaving and—” And she rose. And reached for the electric button which would summon the lockup keeper, and which button she knew had been turned on during the while she would be closeted with her client. But, with an uneasy laugh, she sat abruptly down again.

  “A reversal like that,” commented her client, “really deserves some sort of an answer. The best it’ll be, however, is that I shan’t claim here—or in court—that anybody ‘gave’ the skull to me—nor told me it was Wah Lee’s. Nor will I even admit here—or in court—that I ever heard of the kidnap case either, nor of the Parson Gang. If, that is,” he qualified, smilingly, “whatever attorney defends me takes the proper stand and insists that such pre-knowledge, or lack of such pre-knowledge, is absolutely irrelevant to the question at issue!”

  She faced him helplessly.

  “Well, all I can say, you fool John, is that if you won’t—er—can’t claim that somebody passed the skull to you—then you’re guilty yourself of stealing it. In which case—listen—are you, John, protecting somebody else?”

  “I’ve nobody to protect. But John Doe.”

  “And you’re protecting him,” Elsa commented mirthlessly, “like—like a general who gives the soldiers in his front line trenches felt hats instead of iron hats.”

  He smiled. Though not a cheerful smile.

  “What made you change your mind, just now,” he asked, “about sticking with me?”

  “What? I’ll tell you what! I’ve been informed by the judge that I’m disbarred if I don’t take your case. And try your case. And to which case, I’ll admit, I wasn’t warm when it was offered me.”

  “Well, what do you care,” he queried, “if you are disbarred? You’ll be marrying eventually—if not much, much sooner—a swell kid like you never goes unplucked from the garden of life—and so why not check out now?”

  “You’re quite a gallant,” she retorted coolly. “And it’s plain to be seen that you’ve had lots to do with many women. But I don’t intend to get disbarred. Because nobody is going to want a dried-up woman lawyer for a wife. And if I wait for that—however, there’s plenty other reasons also why I don’t care to be disbarred.” She paused.

  “John, let’s get down to brass tacks. You’re awfully cocky—for a man who may get strapped into the chair. Have you an alibi—corroboratable by people of reputable standing—for the hour of that murder last night?”

  “What was the hour of the murder?”

  “What was the hour of—” Elsa paused. “Well—since you told the Archbishop you cracked the safe—you ought to know! But it was committed at 10:43. And provable 3 ways, as I understand matters. Practically 4 ways—if we include Inspector Scott’s skilled estimate as to the time the—the victim’s body had been dead.”

  “I have no alibi—corroboratable by people of reputable standing—” It was plain he was mimicking her.”—for 10:43 last night. Nor, the same, for many hours before—nor many hours after.”

  “Then by God, John—and I’m cussing now, and with no reservations—why don’t you plead guilty—and take 20 years? I—yes—I think I might be able to drive a bargain with the judge in chambers before the trial—and get you that. In which case, no trial, maybe, technically would have been held and—”

  “Wait, redhead! That’s out! Serve 20 years—when I’m innocent? What do you take me for? Eat beans and java and stew inside a 2-by-4 cell—for 20 long years? Listen—you have a hot proposition. Nothing—doing, Miss Colby.”

  “Well—you are exorcised! For in your own excitement you forgot and actually called me Miss Colby!” She paused.

  “Well, am I to understand then, John, that you’re going to tell me quite nothing?”

  “Quite,” he said firmly. “Nothing more than what I just have. And which, in essence, is nothing. And which, perhaps, is far more than I should have. For you see, charming child, I realize that you were sent down here by the S.A. to find out everything you could on me, and—”

  “Me?” she ejaculated, just getting the drift of his words, and quite aghast. “Sent down here—by the S.A.? Well, I—like—that, John! Must I go upstairs and bring down some credentials? If so, I’ll have to—”

  He waved away the credentials which had not yet even been presented to him!

  “I wouldn’t believe a bushel basket of alleged credentials which you might bring down,” he said contemptuously.

  “And now, Elsa girl, go back to Mr. Vann—and tell him that I’ve enjoyed my visit with his charming messenger—and tell him also that I compliment him on his ability to read human nature—and to know exactly the exact type of sweet girl-child to send down here to do expert fishing in me!—and I really mean that about you, Elsa girl—but tell him I’ve nothing to send up to him. And—”

  “John—John—John,” Elsa broke in reprovingly. “I am your lawyer! I positively am. And what can I do—to make you believe that?”

  He was studiedly reflective, for a moment, as though he were not one hundred per cent sure of his own surmise.

  “Well—I’ll tell you,” he declared briefly. “If—when Court opens tonight, with the clerk rapping for order, and saying ‘Hear ye, hear ye, etcetera’—you’re stationed there at my elbow, named by the clerk as defense counsel—and you get up in court, following the State’s Attorney’s introduction of himself as prosecutor, and introduce yourself officially in the records as defense counsel, then I’ll know at last that you are my lawyer.”

  “And that moment,” she said bitterly, “will be a hell of a time to prepare any kind of a defense whatsoever!”

  CHAPTER XIV

  Signed—On the Dotted Line!

  State’s Attorney Vann, seated in his swivel chair—but turned a full 180 degrees from its regular position facing his desk!—stared curiously at the odd-looking prisoner who had just been sent over to him by Captain Matt Congreve of the Detective Bureau. In back of Vann, on the desk now standing behind him, lay a typewritten document headed, in capitals, PRISONER’S CONFESSION, two of whose three stapled foolscap sheets were turned back, and the remaining sheet of which carried a somewhat trembly, uncertain signature. Cap­tain Congreve’s special emissary, Big Art Kelgrave—who, rather coincidentally, was a member of Vann’s under-cover investigative staff delegated to report secretly on conditions in the police department—sat off to one side, his 260 pounds of weight firmly holding down an ornate armchair, his clean-shaven face showing—at this late hour of the afternoon—blue-black around the chin and hair areas, and the handcuff by which he had brought his prisoner over still dangling from his own wrist. While Leo Kilgallon, Vann’s youthful yet own personal assistant in the regular State’s Attorneyship work, stood off against the same wall, straight­ening his black bow tie, and staring as curiously, through jet-black eyes, toward the prisoner as even did Vann.

  As for the prisoner, he was a slight little fellow of about 25, with fragile eyeglasses perched on a well-shaped nose, yet appended safely to his vest by a broad black ribbon. He wore a black Windsor tie, and his cheeks were—of all things—rouged! He was gazing somewhat moodily towards his own shoe-tips.
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  “Come, come, Wainwright,” Vann was saying, “speak up. For your confession, I tell you, just won’t hold water!

  Two of my own investigators were at that party all last night where you were—though on a different matter—and one of them was right at your elbow all through the very hour of Reibach’s murder. Why did you do this thing?”

  The little fellow said nothing.

  “I’m rather thinking,” Vann said dryly, “that if Captain Congreve had known that that invitation he unearthed in the lining of your coat referred to Buford van der Zook the younger—and without a phone!—instead of to Buford van der Zook Senior—of South Shore Drive—and with a phone—he’d have been booting you out of his office by this time instead of shoving you over here in my lap. But alack and alas—two van der Zooks—both artists—and your beautiful alibi remained hidden! And—but come, come—why did you do it?”

  The little fellow remained silent.

  “Well,” persisted Vann, “why then, did you call me up from over there in Captain Congreve’s office, and pretend to be Dr. Gregor Miranovski, the hypnotic specialist?”

  “How—how could I do that?” said the little fellow.

  “How? Well, my two investigators at that party last night said you rendered some mighty fine imitations. And the min­ute you spoke here, a few minutes back, I caught the unmistakable tones I’d just heard over the phone ten minutes before. So—why did you do it?”

  “I didn’t.”

  Kelgrave spoke up—and harshly. “See here, Wainwright, as sure as I’m the head of Captain Congreve’s Narcotic Squad—and as sure as I was called in by him to size you up, and okay you as not being a hophead—I’ll make you tell us who you did call up there in Cap’s triple-glass booth.

  And—” He turned to Vann. “He made it a condition that he wouldn’t finish putting his name on this confession unless he could hold a confab with his lawyer. And so—” He rose menacingly from his chair toward the captive. “And we let you talk in there for 5 full minutes. Now you say who you called up, or—”