The Case of the Lavender Gripsack

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  “Just a minute, Rebecca. Was that tube completely empty!”

  “Oh yas—indeed it wuz. Fo’ he had fus’ hol’ it up to de light, an’ p’int dat fac’ out. Fo’ he seem to unnahstan’ all dat wuz fo’ coht witnessin’ puhpuses. An’ so once de powdah was all in—fo’ he keep knockin’ it downwuhd—he brek off de funnel paht wid his fingahs, an’ pass de open end ob de tube th’ough a blue flame. Whut sealed it up. An’ den he gib it to me. And say, ‘Dat’s all.’”

  “And you’ve had that tube on your person ever since?”

  “Yassum.” Rebecca Cohenstein opened her purse and took out just such an object as was suggested by her story. “Heah it is.”

  Elsa made no move, however, to take the peculiar item from her witness.

  “Now one last question, Rebecca. You have followed the contents of that tube from the point in space and time where they reposed in that skull over yonder, till they lay in that tube now in your fingers?”

  “Whut yo’ mean by dat, Miss Co’by? P’int in space an’ time?”

  “Well, you saw the tooth actually drawn from the skull? And heard Mr. Vann say it was the skull found today on that red-headed man arrested outside of Old Post-office?”

  “Oh yas, yas, yes!”

  “And you had the tooth on your own person only? Except for such time as you left it inside Dr. Sun’s quarters, under lock and key?”

  “Yas, indeed, Miss Co’by.”

  “And you saw the tooth ground up to powder before your very eyes? That is, you saw the grinder being turned and saw nothing come out—then saw the tooth dropped in—then saw it come out as a powder—and saw the powder dropped into a tube, and the tube sealed; and the tube given to you.”

  “Yas, Miss Co’by. Ebery bit same lak you say.”

  “You are excused now, Rebecca. Except for any question Mr. Vann may want to ask. But when you step down, kindly hand the glass tube to Mr. Mullins.”

  And Elsa turned to Mullins.

  “I will want the tube marked, Mr. Mullins, Defense Exhihit A.” Elsa turned to Vann. “Cross-examine!”

  “None,” replied Vann insouciantly. He rose, and faced Judge Penworth. “Your Honor,” he said dignifiedly, “I think that after this trial is over this attorney ought to be disbarred. Sending spies into my office to filch bits of evide—”

  “But unfortunately, Mr. Vann,” decreed Penworth, “from a point of sheer law, the bit of evidence described here tonight wasn’t stolen! You voluntarily gave it, you know, to the black woman. Who went to your office, so it appears, be­cause of literally interpreting a more or less hopeless wish casually expressed by Miss Colby. And—but I can’t see what difference all this can make anyway, Mr. Vann. Chemically, all teeth are teeth. So—but at any rate, I can’t issue any disbarment of Miss Colby on the facts—as they are. You might bring action later against the black woman if you want to—but, of course, if she takes a jury, they’ll only find against you on the facts. That you know.”

  “Very likely—yes,” acquiesced Vann. He turned to Elsa “No cross-examination—as I think I told you once.” He gazed at her almost sadly. “The State doesn’t know, Miss Colby, just what you’re driving at right now—but, since it’s based on a conversion of yourself back to Doe’s story of being in Minneapolis last night at the hour of that murder—far be it from the State to—” He shook his head. “No, carry on. Tighten the old noose yourself! Cross-examination none—indeed!”

  “All right, Rebecca,” Elsa said. “You can go back to your seat. But don’t forget to give Mr. Mullins the tube.”

  Miss Cohenstein stepped down, and amidst great silence rounded the lawyers’ table and handed the tube to Mullins; who, in turn, unable obviously to find any spot on such sub­stance as glass on which to write, much less to tie anything, laid the cryptic object atop a tag he had already apparently made out. And as Miss Cohenstein crossed in front of the spectators and repaired back to her seat in the back row, Elsa raised from the table the folded ochre paper she had laid out.

  “I now wish,” she said quietly, “to enter an affidavit as defense Exhibit B. But—but I will read it first. It is written upon the letterhead of Dr. Sun Chew Moy of Westworth Avenue, Chicago. But, as will be obvious from its wording, it was typed out by him in the office of the American Physical Research Laboratories—in that same Associated Laboratories Building back of us here on Cermak Road and State—except on the tenth floor, instead of the floor where Rebecca Cohenstein went.”

  And amidst the unending silence Elsa read aloud:

  October 23,

  7.25 p.m.

  Affirming herewith that I tonight delivered in person to Mr. Dudley Bandolf, of the American Physical Research Laboratories, a tooth which I extracted last evening from a pure-blooded Chinese, by name Kong Lung, both of whose parents, Mr. Kong Wah Fa and Mrs.

  Tsura Loy Kong, are living, and are known to me, and who also are native-born Chinese, from Hangchau, China.

  I have personally watched this tooth sterilized, comminuted into powder, and the powder in turn sealed in a sterilized glass tube, which, for purposes of more ready identification, was slightly heated after being filled and sealed, and bent into a ring.

  My understanding is that the powder from this tooth is to be used as a ‘control’ only, in some sort of an exceedingly important and critical experiment, and that because of its functioning only as a control, and not as legal evidence in any matter, my affidavit concerning the above details will be sufficient.

  Sun Chew Moy, D.D.S.

  “The document,” Elsa now said—though to nobody in particular, “bears on the bottom the attestation of a notary—a clerk in this laboratory, by name Helen Wesserman—who evidently knows Dr. Sun personally. In fact, as I understand it, Dr. Sun frequently has some of his gold amalgams tested at this laboratory; anyway—” she handed the paper to Mul­lins “—Exhibit B, Mr. Mullins.”

  Mullins grumpily marked the ochre document somewhere on its face.

  “And now,” Elsa said, “a companion affidavit; which, as before, I’ll read.” She took up her folded grey sheet of paper. “This, as may be surmised by the contents, is on the stationery of the American Physical Research Laboratories, and is signed by Mr. Dudley Randolph. And attested to—as in the case of the other one—by the same Miss Wesserman.” And Elsa read off her brief paper:

  October 23,

  7.25 p.m.

  Affirming herewith that I tonight comminuted, into fine powder, in a sterilized Handley-Berkson Comminu­tion Machine, a tooth brought to me by Dr. Sun Chew May, sealing this powder—but without handling—in a glass tube, which in turn I heated slightly and bent into a ring for purposes of more ready identification. This tube I then sealed in one of our cloth so-called ‘legal specimen’ envelopes, with our official wax seal across the flap, holding same for personal delivery to Miss Elsa Colby. My understanding is that the powder in the tube is to be used as a ‘control’ only, in an experiment, and that my personal delivery of the envelope in question to Miss Colby, and my affidavit as to the preparation of the powder, is all that is necessary for the validity of the said experiment.

  Dudley Bandolf, Associate A.P.R.L.

  Elsa handed the grey paper to Mullins.

  “C,” she said curtly.

  And while he was, grumpily as before, marking it, she withdrew from her portfolio what evidently was the identical envelope described in the affidavit just entered. Of cloth. With square machine-deposited black seals at each junction of cloth with cloth. And bearing one irregularly sprawling seal at the main flap.

  “I don’t know,” Elsa said, “whether I am supposed to take the witness stand and affirm that I received this envelope from Mr. Bandolf’s own hands tonight, on my way to court here; but whether or no, I did—and want my statement thereto to become of record. Anyway—” she turned to Mullins “—envelope and contents, Mr. Mulli
ns, Exhibits D and D1. And I’d prefer that you yourself open the former.”

  And she handed the cloth envelope to Mullins. He inspected it, each side, sourly, then tore the main flap away, with a crackling of sealing wax. And gingerly, with big fingers, withdrew a glass ring inside, which, in this case, had been made from a thin and long glass tube—for the ring was about two and a half inches in diameter.

  With an undeniable sigh, Mullins proceeded to mark the envelope, after first laying the fragile ring atop another tag.

  Louis Vann continued to sit with arms folded, apparently waiting, obviously waiting—just saying nothing.

  But while Mullins, however, was doing these things, Elsa was opening her lavender carpetbag, and from it lifting its contents, which consisted of a japanned tin affair, about a foot square, resembling nothing so much as an old-fashioned magic lantern. For it had a single, nozzlelike aperture, various openings with supported tin roofs, obviously to allow intense heat to escape, and a long flexible green electric cord, bearing an electric plug on one end, which contained enough coils to comprise twenty feet. She set the device on the table, and replaced the carpet bag once more on the floor, where it flopped hungrily to. “I will now wish,” she said quietly, “as my next and final witness—” she turned toward the battery of curious eyes facing her “—Professor Clark S. W. Adgate. Yes, Professor—if you don’t mind?”

  CHAPTER XIX

  Expert Witness

  The man whom Elsa had called to the witness stand was, of course, the highly intellectual and intelligent-looking individ­ual of forty-seven or so, who had been seated all evening in the second row of chairs, just behind Inspector Rufus Scott, and who had at times leaned forward and ex­changed a few low words with his colleague in criminology. He was, indeed, no less than the man who had testified many hours before as to his earlier microscopic examination of the yellow-greyish hairs which Scott that morning had plucked from the corner of the pendulum clock, and had decreed to be hairs from the head of the dead Adolph Reibach.

  During Elsa’s peculiar examination of Rebecca Cohen­stein, the man Adgate had leaned forward in his chair, a most puz­zled, perplexed, bewildered half-frown on his pale ascetic face, his keen steel-grey eyes narrowed behind the rimless eyeglasses he wore. And now, called to the stand, he rose, still looking profoundly puzzled. Elsa faced her witness.

  “Professor Adgate, you are, I believe, head of the Crime Detection Laboratory, affiliated here in Chicago with Mid­West University?”

  “I am.” He had been an extremely laconic man in his first session on the stand, and was manifestly proving the same again.

  “You qualified here tonight, did you not—for the State—as an expert witness in the science of Criminology?”

  “I should prefer,” he said unsmilingly, “that the State should affirm that.”

  “Well,” Elsa laughed uneasily, “it has! As the records will show.” She surveyed the book in her hands. “Professor Avi­gate, you are the author, are you not, of a new work in criminology entitled ‘Ultra-Violet Light in Criminology?’ Dealing, among other things, with such phenomena as socalled ultra-violet, or invisible, light showing where cheques and documents have been altered and written over; and spots where bloodstains have been washed from cloth­ing; and glue substituted in illicitly opened envelopes; and so forth?”

  “I am,” he said.

  Elsa opened the book to a page whose corner she had, late that afternoon, turned down. “Did you make a statement, on Page 186 of your book, that the ground-up tooth or aveolar process of the Caucasian, the Chinese, and the Negro, all luminesce with different colors—under ultraviolet light?”

  “I did,” the Professor said unhesitatingly.

  “Did you specifically state, moreover, that under ultraviolet light Caucasian aveolar or tooth process invariably luminesced green; Chinese, yellow; and Negro, red?”

  “I did.” Persistently laconic was Professor Adgate.

  “Well, now that the facts are on record—by an expert witness—” And Elsa closed the book, and replaced it on the table. “—What might the reason be—if I might ask—for anything to luminesce visibly when bathed only in light which is itself invisible to the human eye?”

  “Oh—” Professor Adgate seemed like a scientist, irritated at having to discuss science with a mere neophyte. “Nothing, bathed in invisible light rays, can turn those impinging rays into visible ones. All anything can give off, under such circumstances, is light due to atomic vibration set up in it by the impact of the short invisible rays. That is all.”

  “Well, why,” Elsa asked almost plaintively, “do objects and materials, when thus releasing their own set-up light, release it in different tints and colors?”

  “Why? Why, I suppose because molecularly they are different—and therefore their very substance forms different microscopic screens or filters through which their own re­leased light passes off. The field of ultra-violet light, Miss Colby, is to some extent a terra incognita yet—and many of the phenomena in it are empirical only.”

  “So I gathered from your book. But I am particularly interested in teeth! As you can gather! Now might I ask why, in the case of human tooth material, which beyond any doubt has the same molecular structure regardless of its racial deri­vation, material of three different basic races gives off such markedly differently colored luminescences?”

  “Well, I should,” Professor Adgate qualified reluctantly, “have stated that such filtration of the absorbed light given off would be due, in reality, to the atomic pattern of the material giving it off. Rather, even more, the pattern of the electronic arrangement within the atoms. Teeth are teeth—the world over—yes; and chemically and microscopically are identical. But Chinese certainly are not Negroes—and Negroes are not white people. And I don’t mean by that such crude dis­tinctions as that one race has oblique eyes, and another black skin, and so forth. For if we carry the three men of different races back to the very sperms from which they grew—we have there, in the sperms, no oblique eyes or black skin. We have, in those sperms, only molecules—atoms—electrons. And since there is no chemical difference at that specific state—the very difference of race must lie undoubtedly in the electronic configuration in the atoms of the molecules. For where else could it lie? It—but take it or leave it,” Adgate said. “The fact about the ground-up teeth of these three races luminescing differently in ultra-violet light is a fact—an empirical fact—and anybody is at liberty to write his or her own ticket in explanation therefore.”

  “Yes. Well, might I now ask why you proffered nothing tonight, Professor—when you were on the stand for the State—about such a fact—i.e. that there was a test now in existence that would confirm yonder skull as being Chinese?”

  “For three reasons,” replied Adgate, with some asperity. “One: Mr. Vann did not ask me. Two: I am not in the habit of ballyhooing forth publicly such new scientific facts as my profession necessitates my announcing preferably to the scientific world only, and still more preferably also in my signed writings only, especially at the very moment when an expensive book of mine is just due to come on the market! And three: that defendant over yonder is a liar of the first water, as Judge Penworth has shown by what I, at least, know was perfect mathematical analysis. I may say, however, that I perceived that defendant to be a liar from the moment he first started to talk tonight; liar he subsequently proved to be, moreover, by being unable to confirm a single detail of his weird story; and liar Judge Penworth proved him to be by mathemat—”

  “But wait, Professor Adgate! Would you still call him a liar if—but here’s the point. He claimed in his story that that skull was the skull of one ‘Blinky,’ a Swedish gigolo. And, I may say, has since re-convinced me of that even.” Elsa paused. “Now if the ground-up tooth which Rebecca Cohen­stein saw drawn by Mr. Vann from yonder skull, and herself followed every step till it became a powder, sealed in a glass tu
be, over there in Mr. Mullins’ hands—well, if that specific powder were to luminesce greenish under ultra-violet light, would you then believe that skull to be that of one, ‘Blinky,’ a Swedish gigolo? Or, let me just put it, Professor Adgate—a white man?”

  “In such case I’d know—and not merely believe—it to be the skull of a white man. Only I happen also to know that that eventuality you refer to could never take place, simply because that fellow over there is a consummate liar who has even taken in his own poor attorney with his lying—”

  “Wait, Professor Adgate! Before Mr. Vann over yonder starts to work with your word ‘know,’ and tries to force you to change it to merely ‘believe,’ may I ask you if you are willing, Professor, to state on oath here—for you are still on oath from your previous testimony—and on your reputa­tion—that what you have personally found has been scientifically ‘proved’—and that the ground-up tooth of a white man fluoresces, under ultra-violet light, greenish; a Chinese, yellowish; and a Negro, reddish?”

  “It is. And I do. Though kindly note that I do not affirm explanations for the phenomena in question; nor do I even take oath to my own previously recorded explanation. The mere fact is all I will swear to.”

  “That is enough. And now just one more question, Professor. From your work in ultra-violet light phenomena, can you identify this—this contraption I have on the table here? Which was delivered to me, just before I left my office tonight, by the Central Scientific Appliance Company in the Monadnock Building, on Clark and Van Buren Streets. Shall I hand it up to you?”

  “You don’t need to,” said the professor quickly. “It is an Ogleman-Kleindorf Ultra-Violet Lamp, Type 2-B, in which the actual lamp inside is made of quartz, which, unlike ordinary glass, lets ultra-violet rays pass through it. Its actual light-producing mechanism contains mercury gas which, when electrically activated, sends out a light rich in ultra-violet rays. The device you have there has a filter in its—well, its beam projector, which absorbs all other rays coming out of the mercury gas. The device, when connected to any electrical circuit, will pour ultra-violet light—or ultraviolet rays—from that nozzle now pointing at your—ahem—stomach.”