The Man with the Wooden Spectacles

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  Before Elsa, on the desk, covers upward, lay the tattered torn copy of Famous Crime Story Magazine, which, on her way back to her office, she had picked up at Moxie’s Back Magazine Store on Van Buren Street close to the Ulysses S. Grant Building—close, in fact, to legless Gummy Joe’s famous chewing-gum stand—and on which magazine was featured, in bright outlined yellow letters, “The Wah Lee Kidnaping.” Lucky, Elsa reflected, that Moxie had such a huge and well-classified stock of back magazines—a better stock in magazines, indeed, than Gummy Joe’s stock had been in chewing gums, since Joe, amongst his 999 varieties, had had quite none put out from even so remote a spot as 24th and State Streets, let alone any that hadn’t been on the market for months!—anyway, Elsa again reflected, lucky that Moxie had had such a huge and well classified stock of back magazines, for, now that she had gotten from Aunt Linda the bare highlights of that famous case which had blazoned forth twice when she, Elsa, had been but in her teens, she felt now that she ought to know every angle of it. It was a well-developed and amplified version, this reconstruction in the magazine created by the poet Richard St. George—though no name whatsoever was given on or in the magazine as compiler!—and it was, moreover, replete with pictures, bearing credit lines of this, that or another news-photo bureau, and Elsa’s blue eyes, skipping not a single word, had been traveling over the article between the moments when she had been vainly trying to get that Chinatown 9987.

  But she did not pick up her magazine again after that last empty buzz. For the huge array of pictures had made her realize the stupendous battery of witnesses that would be involved should ever the murderer of Wah Lee himself ever go to trial. And that, in turn, made her realize sickeningly, as nothing else did, the number of witnesses which Louis Vann, as prosecutor, would be throwing on the stand tonight. While she—Elsa Colby, attorney for the defense—would have but one. At best. The name written in that envelope by that devil-may-care fool over there in the City Hall. Together—with where he could be found. “John Doe, S. A.’s Lockup, Chicago.” Himself! Oh the imbecile! Did he think, by any chance, that, after being caught with that stolen skull on his person?—and admitting it to have been that of Wah Lee?—and that, moreover, he had broken into Vann’s safe?—he could himself explain it away?

  She could see the sardonic smiles on the faces of the witnesses—spectators—should he so much as try that! And, likewise, the pitying smiles directed towards her—his youthful attorney. Elsa sighed deeply. Plainly, she saw, it was up to little Elsa Colby—if she desired to save her fortune—and, purely incidentally, that charming murderer—to do something, anything!

  And so, carefully shoving forward out of the way, for the moment, her precious copy of Famous Crime Story Magazine, the Wah Lee story in which she intended to finish if she had to do it on a streetcar or—or in that dressy shop!—she looked through the red telephone book under Chinese Groceries and found—by luck!—just what she wanted: The Grocery of one Mr. Hip Fat, who—according to his street number—must be directly underneath the living quarters and place of business of the man she was trying to locate.

  Hastily she dialed this new number.

  A second later her dialing was answered.

  “Ho-lo,” said a jovial voice.

  “Let me speak to Mr. Hip Fat,” Elsa said hurriedly.

  “He speaking.”

  “Mr. Fat—or, er, that is, Mr. Hip—this is Elsa Colby—a lawyer in the Ulysses S. Grant Building. Can you, possibly by any chance, tell me where, in Chinatown—or even elsewhere—Dr. Sun Chew Moy, whose office and living quarters are above your store, might be located in a hurry? That is, when he’s not in his officer’ As is the case right now?”

  Elsa’s precise query seemed suddenly to dawn on her Chinese auditor.

  “Ho—Docta Sun? He gone down to Splingfiel’, Ill’noy. We got big sign hea’ in sto’-window—nex’ to do’ what lead upstells—and it say—in Tsinese—‘please not to ascend—Docta he is not the’—he be back tonight by 8 o’clock shalp—please to retuln.’ An’—”

  “Back—by 8 o’clock! Oh—for heaven’s sake—and Dr. Sun’s presence right back there at his office is the only thing on earth that can help me—and maybe can’t at that. I—Mr. Fat, that is, Mr. Hip—surely you would know where in Springfield I could contact Dr. Sun by pho—but heavens, of course he’d be on the train right now. Oh heavens, heavens! I—”

  “Whassa matta, lady—you got pain?”

  “Yes—a pain in the neck. And how!”

  “Hm. You got bad pain? Well—you wait. I put my son on phone. Wait!” There was a pause. Then, in quite correct English: “Mr. Charles Ling speaking.”

  “Charles—Ling!” Elsa exclaimed. “Not—not Charlie Ling—my classmate at law school?”

  “Why—well—I have studied law—yes—at—but is this, by any chance, Carrot-Top Col—ahem—Elsa—”

  “Yes, Charlie, Elsa—Carrot-Top—Colby! But what—why—”

  “But why so surprised, Elsa? You knew my father owned a Chinese grocery.”

  “Yes. But the name—Hip Fat—”

  “Oh that, Elsa?” The young Chinese on the other end laughed embarrassedly. “Well, my correct name is Hip Fat Ling. Or Hip Fat Charles—translating that ‘Ling’ as closely as one can. Or Charlie Fat Hip—according to the reversed American nomenclature. But you can imagine, Elsa, how that name would sit in college—or professionalism. So I took the name Charles Ling—at the U. That’s all.”

  “Well, Charlie, what are you doing now?”

  “Clerking here in father’s grocery in Chinatown. Measuring out Chinese potatoes—and weighing up cabbages!”

  “But, Charlie—I thought you were going to New York, where you said practically all of your people were, and—”

  “—and practice law? Good God, Elsa—there wasn’t a law firm in New York City would take me in, as junior lawyer, or even law clerk. And if I’d hung out my shingle, I’d have starved. For my people, Elsa, don’t go to law. No! So I trotted right back home here to Chicago where Father; five years ago, opened this grocery store. And who—Buddha be praised!—will give me meals—and a place to sleep!” His choice grew bitter. “A Chinaman, Elsa, should never acquire an education. At least—not in law. No! And—but Elsa, just what did you want of Father?”

  “Well, Charlie, it’s this: I’m up against a tough, tough proposition. I’ve a client, Charlie, due to go to trial, who is licked—before he goes to bat. The idiot apparently doesn’t know it, however. And, moreover, he hasn’t even a witness. Character, alibi, or anything else. Won’t let me help him in any way—because he’s suspicious that I’m working in the interest of the State’s Attorney’s office. And because I don’t even know the darn fool’s identity, I can’t even dig up a witness or two on my own behalf. And my only chance at all to help him, so far as I can see, is one so—so slim, Charlie—that—well it’s positively silly—still, a chance is a chance—you know. And this one, such as it may be, hinges absolutely on my getting into immediate touch with Dr. Sun Moy. In fact—”

  “Well, wait, Elsa. Would, by any possibility, our Dr. Lung Wee, physician and surgeon, on West 22nd Street here—”

  “—do as well?” Elsa finished for him. “No, no, Charlie! Not in the least. No! Dr. Sun Moy—and nobody else!—is the very double pivot—and not single pivot, either I—of my lone chance. And which—darn it, Charlie!—hinges absolutely on the presence of Dr. Sun right here in Chicago—right there at his office, moreover—though, if I only had him on the phone right now, I might partly get around the complication of his not being actually here on the spot, and—” Elsa broke off, realizing how confusing her words must sound. “That is, Charlie, what would derive to my case if I were to put into execution a certain plan, which plan hinges in turn upon Dr. Sun Moy’s being right here—that is, right there, above your store—and not in Springfield or on a train!—would be dynamite—worse, trinitrotolue
ne!—against my client—if the latter were guilty. Which, by gosh, Charlie, he plainly is! Though, to be sure, Charlie, maybe he has only an oblique connection with the crime of which he’s charged—instead of a direct one. If you get me! Anyway, what I’d derive through Dr. Sun’s being personally here within—or maybe, only maybe, my getting him on a wire—well, ’twould plant my client right down in to the electric chair and—and pull the switch on him—if he—my client, I mean, and not Dr. Sun!—weren’t 101 per cent innocent and in the clear of what he’s charged with. And—”

  “Well, Elsa,” interrupted the young graduate attorney on the other end of the wire, “why oh why oh why, then, risk Dr. Sun Moy at all? If he’s a witness, that is? Though from the way you put things, I’m not altogether certain that it’s exactly in that capacity you’re considering him. But, anyway, why risk whatever ’tis that you can obtain through Dr. Sun’s presence here? It seems to me—”

  “Because, Charlie,” Elsa put in hurriedly, “what I can derive through Dr. Sun’s being here will also help my foo—yes, more than that, my damfool client!—if the idiot were, by the millionth chance, in the clear. In the clear, that is, Charlie, by a hundred per cent—and not a fraction less. And—but the real honest-to-God reason, Charlie, for my even considering —for even a second—the idea involving Dr. Sun, is that I haven’t a darn thing to shove forward in my fool client’s case. It’s a tough one, Charlie. Money is involved, as well as—as freedom. My—my own money. No, nothing I’ve advanced to the client, or anything. Too—too long a story to tell you. But now—wurra, wurra! Well I’ll have to ask your advice, I guess, as to how to get around this complication about Dr. Sun May’s not being back till—that is, you may be able to sugg—well, now let’s see, Charlie, your father says Dr. Sun is positively not due back at the office upstairs till 8 o’clock? And at 8 o’clock, God help Elsa Colby—with red, green, purple, or what-have-you hair!—she’s due to go into court, and—”

  “Oh, night session, eh? Yes—I see. Well, Elsa, I can modify Father’s information to you a wee bit. Dr. Moy isn’t coming back to his office at all.”

  “Not—coming back?” exclaimed Elsa. “Well, for the luvva—”

  “But wait, Elsa. I’m to meet him—in the old Ford!—on the corner of 55th Street and Harlem Avenue—City Limits, you know, just this edge of what’s called, now, Harlem Heights—at 6:30 sharp, with a 5-pound box of jung-wee candy which he’s having us make up for him.

  You know?—the Chinese confection, made up of squares of ginger, pineapple, or preserved fruit, and coated with frosting flavored with muikwuilo? The distillate of bamboo? For he’s going to call on a girl—Chinese—living near there, who happens to be leaving for San Francisco—in fact, for China, Elsa—at 11 o’clock tonight. And—that is, Elsa, the set-up is as follows: Dr. Sun Moy rang us from Bloomington, Illinois, a half hour ago. He told me he was on the road—in a Lincoln car he’d bought from a friend of his down in Springfield—coming in. And that he’d just talked by long-distance with his sweetie, and learned she was leaving for China at 11 tonight—and so wasn’t going to hold office hours tonight; wasn’t even coming all the way in, since her place is in Harlem Heights, and not far from the New Kaskaslaa Highway on which he’s coming in; and he told me I should have old Lung Jim, Father’s cook here, who fixes our special delicacies, make up the muikwuilo candy, and I should start out with it, in our Ford from here, at the right time to intercept him there at 6:30; and also to put up the other sign which we keep in readiness, and which reads: ‘Doctor regrets much severe illness makes impossible his carrying out professional duties, and will be honored if patients will return again some other day.’ Or, in English,” Charlie Ling added, “ ‘chase yourself!’ And all of which commission,” Charlie finished, “I’m fixing to do for Moy. For Lung Jim is pouring the coating on the candies now, and I figure to leave in the car about 6 o’clock.”

  And Charlie Ling stopped.

  “And all of which,” Elsa commented unsmilingly, “means that Dr. Sun Moy isn’t coming back to within 12 or 15 miles of his office tonight?”

  “Well—in rough, yes, Elsa. But what can we do for you? As for the doctor—well if there’s anything he can do, he’s one swell guy—and no foolin’. And as for me—what the devil can I do for you?”

  “Charlie,” said Elsa, “you can do lots for me—if you want to. And here it is: If ever you felt any professional bond with an old classmate, you can make Dr. Sun drive back in with you after you intercept him at 6:30. And, in case he absolutely refuses, to see that he rings me—before you yourself start back. In short, to let him know that it’s a matter of life and death for him to—that is, Charlie, you don’t need to suggest at all how—how damned slender anyway is the ‘life’ part of it, in view of the case facing my defen—well anyway, that it’s hypothetically anyway a matter of life and death if—if he, Dr. Sun Moy—can be on tap right there in his very office at and shortly after 7 o’clock, so that—listen, Charlie, will you do this—for me?”

  “Heck yes, Elsa! I’ll make the blighter park that Lincoln of his, and run him back bodily in the old Ford—if I have to sit on him all the way. I’ll see that he comes in. And in case he’s stronger in a wrestling match than I, I’ll at least not let loose of him till he rings you from some drugstore out there. So leave it to Charlie! And your number is—

  “Dearborn 8722, Charlie. I’m figuring to dive out in a few seconds to exchange the rag I’ve got on for something I can go into court with, but after that will be right here on tap, studying—in a pulp-paper magazine, of all things!—a famous case which touches on my very defendant’s own case—and I’ll be waiting to hear that you’ve intercepted Dr. Sun okay, and that he—” Elsa’s spirits fell suddenly.

  “Though dammit, Charlie, I don’t know but that maybe I should forget the whole move. For if my client’s guilty, I’d only be helping to strap him in the electric chai—”

  “And if he’s innocent you’d be helping to unstrap him out of it. No, Elsa, drop no possible move. As even my own Confucius said: ‘The cat who has an extra mousehole in range of its eye, is less likely to go hungry than the cat with its whiskers stuck patiently in one mousehole only.’ ”

  Elsa laughed, in spite of herself.

  “Confucius is right, at that, utters Nobody Colby, of Chicago, in this year of Our Lord. Anyway, Charlie, the situation lies now more or less in the gas in your car—and the tires on its wheels. And God be with it—and you! I’m leaning on you, therefore, and—”

  “—and neither Charlie Ling, nor O Ming Toy—that’s the Ford!—will fail you. Now you get back, Elsa, to your job. And confidently wait a ring from Dr. Sun—either out there—or, even better, from right upstairs.”

  And, together, they hung up.

  Elsa leaned back in her chair. Fingertips idly on phone. Thinking. Thinking about something upon which women, the world over, have, often and again, thought!

  Something to wear!

  For she hadn’t been exactly romancing when she had suggested to Charlie Ling that she was about to exchange the “rag” she had on for something appropriate to bigger things. And she was thinking now of that chic dress in the window of Francine de Loux. It seemed, truly, a presumptuous thing to do—so, she had to admit even to herself—to barge in, armed by that illiterate pencil-written note, asking Aunt Linda’s premium for lucky fortune-telling. However, this thing tonight was no penny-ante police-court hearing. This—this was a trial for life. And her own fortune involved. And—well, Aunt Linda had transferred to her morally, if not perhaps altogether legally, her rights to one dress. And Aunt Linda had a perfect right to trans—

  But Elsa, leaning back, and thinking of several things at one time, really, with the dress only as a fourth, started suddenly in her chair. As the feeling came to her that she was not alone in her tiny office. And, turning quickly, she found that she wasn’t. For, standing silently within the doorway, was
no other than a figure wearing black clothes and a black string tie. And, under his arm, a black cotton umbrella!

  “Why—Uncle Silas!” she commented, springing up in surprise, still startled. “When—when did you come in?”

  “Just this second,” he said. “You were just saying goodbye to somebody—as I closed the door behind me. Quietly, of course—so as not to disturb you in case you decided to talk further.”

  “Oh.” Elsa gazed at him suspiciously. “Well—sit down, Uncle Silas. Do. You—you startled me. Coming in so—so quietly, don’t you know?” She dropped back into her chair, still startled. “You—you must wear rubber soles.”

  “I do,” he declared amiably. ”I find them extremely comfortable.” He eased himself into Elsa’s lone visitor’s chair, his umbrella across his knee. “Well, Elsa,” he said blandly, “I happened to be across the street on a business matter—at old Sam Hollery’s in fact—and so took occasion to run up here, for I wanted to congratulate you on having your first court case. How fine! How thrilling! And to think that it should be tonight, of all nights—which happens to be Bella’s birthday. I am so proud, don’t you know. To think that you—” He wagged his head from side to side.

  “Yes, isn’t it thrilling, Uncle Silas?” Elsa commented dryly. “And incidentally, the case in question was shoved—down my very throat. It—but listen here, Uncle Silas, how did you know I had my first court case? And tonight, moreover? For my understanding—which I got from the State’s Attor­ney’s own personal assistant not 30 minutes ago—is that the fact of the case in question being assigned already to Judge Penworth for trial has been freely released to the newspapers for printing, and to radio stations as well, but that by agreement between the newspapers and the State’s Attorney’s office—who, don’t forget, is able to do the papers many or no favors!—the fact of the trial being held tonight—and the time and the place—are all suppressed, so that curiosity-seekers won’t be milling, by hundreds—or maybe even thousands, for all I know—around the house where—um, that is—around the—the place in question—yes—where the case is to be tried. So—” She fixed her gaze unswervingly on him. “How did you know I had my first court case? And that I was due to go into court tonight?”