Sing Sing Nights

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  “You is leavin’ ‘arly, sah?”

  “Yes, Mose; got to go in a hurry,” explained Casperson. “Sudden message. Unexpected. Will ‘phone in my regrets to-morrow.” He hurried down the stone steps into the night air; within a minute he was passing through the ornamental iron gateway at the end of the curved drive.

  Outside, under an arc light, he consulted the card again. “Ernst Court,” he repeated wonderingly. “It’s somewhere over in that tangle around Walton Place and Delaware Place, but just where I can’t — ”

  A Lincoln Park policeman passing him at that moment suggested possible information. So he stopped the blue-coat. “Officer, just where on the North Side is Ernst Court?” He shifted his suit-case in his hand.

  The latter peered curiously at him in the street-light illumination. “Follow Lake Shore Drive clear around the bend of Oak Street up to Walton Place; turn west on Walton Place and follow that a half block till you come to a short, narrow street with one arc lamp at the mouth of it. That’s Ernst Court.”

  Casperson thanked him and hurried on. Around the bend of Lake Shore Drive and past many handsome residences he wended his way. Turning at Walton Place, he found himself in a more plebeian neighbourhood with wooden and brick houses instead of brownstone mansions. He hurried along Walton Place and presently stopped. He was at Ernst Court.

  The latter thoroughfare, scarcely twelve feet wide, resembled nothing so much as a picture of a street in old London. One arc light, posted at the mouth of it, cast a sickly green illumination down its length, showing faintly its other opening on the street to the south. Low houses of old make fronted both sides of it, in the nearest of which white “for-sale” and “for-rent” signs showed plainly even from the mouth of the court. It was paved with old-fashioned cobble stones, but a modern blue-enamelled sign riveted to the arc-light pole proclaimed “Ernst Court.”

  Casperson, pondering a moment, threaded his way down the narrow passage. The illuminated transom of a house showed the number 916. He trudged on a few steps farther. Odd locality to take a room, he reflected, thinking of Sennet’s change of quarters made that day. He stopped before an old red brick, two-storey house, with wooden steps. Both the windows of the first floor and those of the second were ablaze with light; the number, 912, showed plainly. This was undoubtedly the place. Up the steps he went. He pressed the bell button, and heard the ring. Quickly the door was opened. A blue-coated policeman stood in the doorway. Casperson drew his brows together into a puzzled frown. He paused a moment, then said: “I’m looking for a Mr. Arthur Sennet. This is 912, isn’t it?”

  “This is 912, Ernst Court,” the policeman growled; “but I guess it’s nobody here you’re lookin’ for. If you are, he’s lyin’ upstairs dead. Go down to Chicago Avenue police station if you want any more information.” And he closed the door softly in the inquirer’s face, leaving him standing alone in the cool night air.

  Casperson passed a hand feebly over his forehead. He stood on the porch, wondering. He had stumbled on the wrong house and fallen into the thick of some tragedy? And yet — 912, Ernst Court! That was the number on the card. “If you are, he’s lyin’ upstairs dead.” The bluecoat’s words buzzed in his ears. Who was dead? Could it be? That was hardly possible.

  His ruminations were interrupted by the sound of gruff, masculine voices within; then the door was opened suddenly again and a man thrust his head outside. Casperson, standing in the blaze of light from the interior of the house, blinked his eyes, riveting them first on the room back of the door — a space fitted up like a reception room with wooden benches, chairs, and a huge flat-top desk covered with a glass panel. Gradually his eyes took in the red thatch of the plain-clothes man who stood peering out at him — his steely blue eyes, his hard, brisk face — a typical policeman’s physiognomy. The officer continued to stare out for the fraction of a minute. Then his keen face broke into a broad smile of welcome.

  “Come in, Casp — old Casp of the Morning Sun. You’re the first of the newspaper boys to get here. And it’s some dirty job, all right, all right. He was one of the biggest moth collectors in the country. And he’s sitting up there now among all his moths, with a bullet through the spine, stone dead!”

  CHAPTER VIII

  A TANGLE IN THE THREADS

  CASPERSON, standing on the low porch, gave a short, uneasy laugh. He felt, somehow, that this was all some strange dream. Here was he, ex-reporter of the Morning Sun, advertising man for the last three years, standing on the steps of a house to which he had come to see Arthur Sennet in response to the latter’s note, facing Sandy MacTavish of the old Chicago Avenue police station; and the officer was telling him that “it’s some dirty job, all right.” And on top of that came something about moths. Moth! And he, Casperson, had himself been a yellow moth that evening.

  He paused but a moment, giving up the puzzle as too bewildering, then passed inside like a man in a daze. MacTavish, smiling grimly, led the way up a narrow-carpeted stairway to a huge room at the top floor, evidently made by removing all the walls of that storey.

  Casperson stood in the doorway on a narrow Persian rug, staring at the scene unfolded to his eyes.

  Around the interior, from ceiling to floor, were glass boxes containing moths — grey, black, orange, purple, spotted, vari-coloured; huge moths whose wings spanned five inches; tiny moths that were even smaller than the “millers” which swoop around gas-jets in city houses on summer nights. Under each specimen, fastened by a thumb tack to its layer of cork, was a tiny white card bearing letters painstakingly stamped in red ink with rubber type. And in each case those letters constituted some ponderous Latin name. Along one side of the room was a long counter, filled with pins and thumb tacks, bottles, sheets of cork, empty boxes, white cards, and narrow strips of thin white tissue paper. And in a straight-backed armchair at the counter, close to a desk ‘phone, slumped a man’s lifeless body, the head of which hung over to one side. Below the chair on the polished hardwood floor was a puddle of sticky liquid. A mirror, fastened to the wall at the rear of the counter, reflected the face to the two men standing in the doorway on the Persian rug; and it was the face of a man in the sixties, with tousled grey hair, seamed, wrinkled skin, and a strange tumourous growth on the waxen left hand.

  MacTavish looked at his companion. “What station did you come out from, Casperson? Had an idea you’d left the newspaper game long ago.” He flicked his finger toward the ugly sight in the chair. “Got here just about ten or fifteen minutes ago after the old boy ‘phoned he’d been shot. But he was dead as a doornail when we hit the place.”

  Casperson paused a moment before answering. “Sandy MacTavish,” he said “maybe I’m dreaming, but I stumbled in here to-night in response to a note from a friend of mine, one Arthur Sennet. It gave this number, Ernst Court. I had been half expecting some such call — and I was at a masquerade ball when it arrived. And here I am — and — well, what is it all about? I’m not with the Morning Sun any more — been in the advertising game for the last three years.”

  The detective scratched his chin. “You don’t know this old fellow in the chair at all, then?”

  Casperson shook his head. “Never saw him in my life. Who is he?”

  MacTavish frowned. “Then you’re in the wrong place, Casp; that’s all. Here’s all there is to it. Got a ‘phone message at Chicago Avenue station less than three-quarters of an hour ago. The voice speaking was so faint that the sergeant could hardly hear him. Says the voice: ‘Send somebody to 912, Ernst Court at once — Professor Silvester — I’ve been shot by a burglar — bleeding to death.” And that was all the information. We jumped into the flivver, Murphy and I, and came here. The downstairs door was unlocked. We came upstairs. The old boy was dead. Didn’t probably live a quarter of an hour after the shot entered his back.” He pointed at the cloth back of the chair where a black round hole was visible; then at the pool of blood, which showed that the vital fluid had leaked from the man’s back and down the hind legs
of the chair in which he had been sitting.

  Judging from the position of things, Casperson could easily deduce that the victim had never left his chair, even to telephone, for the instrument stood right at his elbow. Casperson’s eyes roved from the ugly sight to the hundreds of glass boxes containing furry-headed moths that covered the walls.

  “I’m certainly in the wrong place, MacTavish,” he said, “for I don’t know this man — nor his house — nor his moths. But, Great Scott! this is a night of coincidences. MacTavish, what would you say if I told you that I was masquerading as a moth myself to-night? On top of that I stumbled into the wrong house — and I meet you, old Sandy MacTavish of the old days.” He shook his head. “And what are you going to do?”

  MacTavish was scratching his chin. He gazed once toward the telephone. Already he had out a notebook and a pencil. “The first thing I’m going to do is to call the station and tell ‘em it ain’t no hoax like we thought it was at first. We know a little already about Silvester and his moths. Got acquainted with him when some sneak thief broke into this joint a few months ago.” He paused. “As for you, Casp, you can help me out if you will. Will you go down the court and rout out some neighbour of this fellow? Then send him or bring him over here? I’ve got to get a little more light on things somehow.” He turned to the ‘phone.

  Casperson turned toward the doorway. “I’ll do it at once — gladly,” he said, pleased at the opportunity of getting out of the place with its musty odour. With a parting look at the back of the dead man in the chair, and his white face reflected in the mirror in from of him. Casperson stumbled down the stairs and out into the night of Ernst Court, as the blue-coated policeman opened the door. The last he heard was MacTavish rattling the hook of the telephone.

  He lost no time walking up the court to the house which had the illuminated transom. He rang the bell, and after a protracted pause a man in pyjamas answered the door. “Will you kindly step down the court to Number 912?” said Casperson. “There’s been a murder there, and the police are trying to get some line on the mystery.” And as the man’s face stared bewilderedly out a him, he added: “Do you happen to known if there’s any boarding-house in Ernst Court?”

  “A murder!” ejaculated the other. “A murder — in 912! Old Professor Silvester, I’ll bet. Great guns! I’ll be — wait — I’ll be over at once.” Leaving the door wide open, he turned toward an inner bedroom. He stopped, evidently realising that Casperson had asked a second question. “Boarding-house?” he added. “No. This is the only house on Ernst Court, except old Silvester’s, which is tenanted. Ain’t no boarding-house around here. Only me and my wife and the professor in the row.”

  He disappeared, then came back in a surprisingly short time clad in trousers, coat, and leather slippers. Casperson accompanied him to the house of death, and, as MacTavish stuck his head out of the second-storey window at the sound of their footsteps, he spoke:

  “Here’s a neighbour, Mac — the only one on Ernst Court. I guess he’ll give you some facts.”

  “Come upstairs, both of you,” called down MacTavish, and he lowered the window. Presently Casperson, with his new companion, was standing once more in the room lined with glass boxes. He waited curiously, as did MacTavish, while the newcomer stared, horror-stricken, around the room. Then a low whistle escaped him.

  “That’s — that’s him, all right. That’s old Silvester.”

  MacTavish evidently had been consulting the telephone directory in the meantime, for it lay open on the wooden counter. His next question bore out that probability. “We know a little of this man at the station on account of his complaint some time ago that this place was broken into. But can you tell me one thing: there’s two entries in the ‘phone book; has he also got a place on St. Clair Street, a few blocks from here?”

  The half-clad neighbour of the dead man nodded, still staring at the body huddled in the chair. “It’s the old professor all right. Yes; he’s got a home near on the North Side. Supposed to be one of the biggest specialists in the world on moths.” His eyes roved over the glass boxes covering the walls. “At least, so the Jap has told me.”

  “The Jap!” broke in MacTavish. “What Jap?”

  “Ushi, the Jap, he hired to live here and take care o’ this laboratory. I’ve met him dozens o’ times goin’ up and down the court from the grocery store in Walton Place. He lives in the little back room on the first floor, and cooks his own meals.”

  “What’s the Jap’s full name? “broke in MacTavish quickly.

  “Ushi — so far as I knew him. Ushi Yatsura, so my boy tells me, what works in the grocery store where he buys his provisions.”

  “Ushi Yatsura,” snapped MacTavish. His eyes widened oddly. A look of keen satisfaction crept over his face. “Ushi Yatsura, eh? That’s good.” He paused. “Tell us all you know about Silvester. Then you can go. We won’t bother you again till to-morrow.”

  The neighbour cleared his throat. “All I know is, as I says, that the professor’s supposed to one o’ the biggest specialists in the world on moths — not butterflies, but just moths. I got that straight from Ushi, the Jap. The Jap said the collection here is supposed to be worth a good many thousand dollars, but the old man’s daughter over in St. Clair Street refused to have ‘em in the same house with her. He ain’t got no wife, Ushi says.”

  “I see,” said MacTavish. He thought a moment. “That’s all you know, eh?” The visitor nodded dazedly. “And your name, please?”

  “Dolan. I live two numbers up Ernst Court from here.”

  “All right, Dolan. You can go. We’ll want to see you to-morrow.”

  The man reluctantly turned in the doorway. A moment later he was thumping down the stairway and out to Ernst Court.

  MacTavish turned to Casperson. “Now we’ll go downstairs, Casp, and see the cage that held the flown Jap bird. I’ve been browsing around since you went out, and I’ve stumbled on something. Come!” He turned to the stairway.

  Casperson followed the plain-clothes man down the stairway. Murphy, on guard at the door, watched his superior silently. MacTavish strode to the back of another large room that looked as though it were intended to seat many persons — perhaps for a discussion, possibly for a lecture — and tried the handle of a narrow door. It opened easily, and he stepped inside, snapping on the single electric bulb that lighted it. The space was occupied by a single iron bed, a two-hole gas plate, a cupboard full of cheap dishes, a tiny ice-box, and a cheap bureau. The drawers of the bureau had been pulled out as though their contents had been removed in a hurry, and that this was true was substantiated by the fact that they were quite empty. Two or three quaint Japanese water-colours on the wall, and a small motto or inscription of some sort made of Japanese characters, testified that this was the room where Ushi, the caretaker, had slept and cooked his meals. But beyond this there was no sign of Ushi.

  MacTavish gazed again about the room. “Of course he’s gone,” he said, turning to his companion. “Casp, do you recall the old murder case where millionaire Jameson managed to typewrite the name of his murderer before he slid off into the great Hereafter? You and I worked on that case together.”

  “Indeed, I do,” said Casperson.

  “Then come back upstairs,” said MacTavish quietly. “Professor Silvester has gone the Jameson case one better!”

  CHAPTER IX

  “FIND USHI — HE KNOWS”

  CASPERSON stared at the detective, and MacTavish smiled an inscrutable smile. “Come,” he said, “and I’ll show you something to arouse your old-time newspaper blood.” And he led the way upstairs again to the room containing the lifeless man.

  “Now,” MacTavish began quietly, “I’m telling you this because you say you’re no longer a reporter. I’m thinking this had better stay quiet for another twelve hours — till headquarters cashes in on it. I discovered it while you were up the court getting the fellow Dolan.” He inclined his head down at the dead body, then pointed at several white card
s bearing red rubber-stamped Latin names lying on a ledge, drying. “See those cards the old boy had been preparing when the shot took him?”

  Casperson nodded. “But how do you know — ” he began, when the other interrupted him.

  “Look down on the floor.”

  From the Persian rug in the doorway Casperson had seen only the pool of blood where it had spread over to the lighted part of the polished hardwood floor, but now, in the deep shadow of the work counter, almost at the dead man’s feet, he saw an overturned, flat, pasteboard box whose interior had been divided into small compartments by rows of intersecting slips of pasteboard, and a scattered heap of tiny bits of dark material. He leaned over and picked up two. He saw at once that they were rubber type from a fount of stamping type, and obviously from the set that had been used to mark the cards for new moth specimens. He glanced toward MacTavish; then, stooping over again, picked up one of the several fine strips of very thin, almost gauzy, tissue paper, each perhaps half-inch wide and several inches long.

  “Rubber type all right,” he commented. “But these things — what are they?”

  MacTavish pointed to a specimen of a medium-sized purple moth in an open box. An odour as of alcohol and formaldehyde seemed to emanate from it. It was apparently being dried into place, for over each outstretched, delicately coloured wing was drawn tight a strip of fine, gauzy tissue paper, pinned at each end. “Those strips,” said the detective. “you can see for yourself, are used to hold down the wings till they dry in shape, the tissue paper being so soft that it don’t hurt the fine colouring of the wings.” He paused and reached over to a shelf of the wall and took down a tissue-paper strip similar to the one Casperson had just picked up. Then he went on talking: