The Washington Square Enigma

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  But the red-haired man raised a hand. “This little, old, wizened fellow,” he queried, “asked for an envelope that wouldn’t fall to pieces before it reached Chicago?”

  Harling nodded.

  “And so you looked up every person by the name of Bond in the new Chicago City Directory and phone directory, too?”

  Again Harling nodded.

  Saunders leaned forward with a slight smile on his lips. “Say,” he asked, “did you ever stop to think that everybody from Chicago speaks of this whole general town, including Oak Park, Beverly Hills, Austin, Lyons, Riverside, and a dozen more suburbs as Chicago? Did you know that this burg is known as the London of the West? Did you wake up to the fact that the new city directory of Chicago — and the phone directory too — includes corporate-Chicago proper, and not these towns that lie all around it, on the very edge?”

  He paused, and as Harling made no reply he continued: “Of course you didn’t. Why, man alive, when this old gray-haired fellow you spoke of asked for an envelope that would hold out till Chicago was reached, he was just using sarcasm. He’d been up against cheap envelopes, that’s all. But here you’ve been searching Chi from end to end for an S. P. Bond, senior — using a Chicago city directory as a Baedeker, and I’ll bet you never once peeped into — say — an Evanston directory. Or a suburban Telephone Directory. Now did you?”

  Harling, taken aback by the suggestion, shook his head. “No. I — I never thought of that. I didn’t know that the suburbs were included in the name Chicago. I — I guess I’ve been asleep on the job after all.”

  “And — how!” returned Saunders sardonically. A distant church bell struck two. The drab grayness of the sky seemed more that of late afternoon. Harling’s red-haired companion pricked up his ears at the sound of the bell: “Now listen, infant; I’m going to give you a piece of advice. You beat it straight to one of the big department stores or the Public Library, and get a half-nelson on all the suburban directories. And, above all, don’t overlook Evanston, with its 200,000 inhabitants — the home or the highbrows. And of Culture — with a big C! Then you turn straight to the Bonds. And if you don’t finally find the exact party you’re looking for I’ll eat this old, crumpled brown lid of mine.”

  He rose suddenly. “I got to beat it now,” he added. “I hear two bells striking. But I’ll be back here later on. And for that tip I just handed you, infant, I want to learn how you came out with your hunt.” He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his frayed trousers. “I’ll see you again around the square, will I?”

  Harling nodded, still bewildered by the force of the suggestion that the red-haired man had put forth. Here, for weeks, he had been frantically searching Chicago for the man whose name was S. P. Bond, senior, utterly ignorant of a strange city custom of including the whole city and its clustering suburbs under one name in casual conversation. Perhaps this was the key to the whole hopeless search.

  Indeed, a host of possibilities had been opened up by the red-haired man’s explanation, and, on top of this, the twelve-star nickel in his pocket and the advertisement from the mysterious Rafferty, who was paying five dollars for the loan of such nickels for thirty days, meant another whole week’s leeway against impending starvation. So he looked up at Saunders and thrust out his hand.

  “Say!’ he exclaimed exuberantly. “It may be that you’ve saved the day for me. And I was ready to slink home — licked. Why, if this pans out for me, I’ll be around this square on the jump till I find you. And when I do we’ll eat a square meal in the Blackstone Hotel, and make the firm I worked for in Frisco pay the bill by telegraph. You’re right, Red Saunders; I guess I’m a babe in the woods.”

  The other shook his head sagely. “I reckon you are,” he said roughly, “or else you’re just a stranger in a strange land.” He glanced off across the park; then hitched up his trousers. “So long for the present. I’m on my way somewhere — and I’ll see you later.” He turned abruptly on his heel, and quickened his pace down the long, diagonal walk that led through the square.

  Harling sat where he was for a few minutes, staring down unseeingly at the cracked cement walk. Now that the other had gone, he found himself wishing, with a feeling of shame, that he had asked the red-haired man if by any chance he had a nickel in his clothes. With that — plus the two cents in his own clothes — and an explanation, he could have boarded a car for the Sangamon Street address and thus turned the precious twelve-star nickel in his possession into five dollars in cash. Then to the nearest Evanston and suburban directories.

  Most likely, though, judging from the frayed condition of the red-haired man’s clothes and the fact that he was shuffling around Washington Square while the rest of the world was working, he probably didn’t have a copper cent on him. But Harling realized, with a sense of irritation, that he might at least have asked.

  As he sat where he was, pondering again over the peculiar and quite unexplained fact that a man named Rafferty was willing to pay five dollars for the thirty-day use of a coin which, according to his own statement that could be easily proved, was worth only thirty cents, and over the still more startling fact that his last nickel had turned out, after all, to be worth a five-dollar bill, providing he could devise a way to cover the eight miles between himself and No. 7440 South Sangamon Street, a crowd of small boys with dirty faces trailed, half running, half walking, through the square, the leader lugging an old, twisted, bent, dirty, brass chandelier, apparently picked from some ash barrel.

  “Hey, Bill!” called one of the boys as he tagged at the leader’s heels. “Give us a cent outa what you git fer it, will ya, Bill? Come on, Bill, you know me.”

  As the boys ran on out of sight, pushing and tripping each other, the words of the urchin who had lagged behind the leader gave Harling a startling and somewhat discomposing idea. That they had found the chandelier and were hurrying to the nearest junk dealer’s to turn it into a little money was evident. Likewise on Delaware Place, across the park from where Harling sat, and facing the green, tree-covered square, stood a row of old, four-story brick houses, dilapidated, weather-beaten, the front steps sagging desperately, the windows boarded up, yet not one, for some mysterious reason, bearing a “For Sale” sign in its front yard.

  At some former day, no doubt, they had been prosperous boarding houses, but now they were as the other occupants of Washington Square — ruins of what had once been something of value; foundered wrecks facing a fleet of derelicts.

  In some room of one of those houses, Harling reflected shamefacedly, he could beyond doubt find a brass chandelier or a piece of gas jet. Something, perhaps, long since converted by concealed wires into an electrical fixture. Or perhaps even an electrical fixture itself. But whatever such fixtures might be, no gas being on the place, nor electrical current either, he could snap it off and sell it to the nearest junk dealer for a nickel. That nickel and the two pennies would get him to No. 7440 South Sangamon Street. He wrestled for quite a few minutes with the idea, and finally, unsuccessful in ousting it from his consciousness, he rose determinedly.

  He made his way down the long, diagonal path that led through the square and along the quiet, paved street to the east, searching for the entrance of an alleyway that would bring him to the rear of the deserted row of houses. But alley opening there was none.

  Clear to Chestnut Street, the first street north of the park — he went, and there he cast his eyes along that narrow thoroughfare in the endeavor to find an opening that might run to a blind alley in the rear. Midway in the block of low cottages, he suddenly saw what he was searching for — a narrow court which appeared to lead back in the general direction of the deserted houses that faced the square.

  He paused momentarily at the opening, guiltily looking about him to see whether anyone was observing him. But the short side street was quite deserted. Across the way from him stood a low garage, and back in the half-light of the garage entrance, two men, clad in overalls and wielding wrenches, were busily engaged
in tinkering with a shiny, spick-and-span coupé, the regal purple hue of whose rich finish showed even from the street.

  Harling slipped through the court, and in short order found himself back in a blind alley that ran along a row of cluttered back yards. And the cluttered yards, he saw as he looked up, were those of the deserted and crumbling houses that faced Washington Square.

  He stooped through an opening in the fence, and, stumbling along the bricks, found that each of the basement windows had been securely boarded up to keep out any intruders. One, however, proved to be in such bad condition that the boards which barred the window had all fallen off, and the pane-less sash presented an inviting means of entrance.

  For a bare second, Harling peered behind him, and, seeing that the coast was quite clear, he stepped in over the sill and down to the floor, finding himself in a cobwebby room with a most pronounced moldy smell.

  He made his way up a creaking stairway to the first floor, and there turned into a large front room. An old wooden table covered with dust, stood near the loosely boarded window, not far from a closet door that was partly open. A rickety wooden chair stood out from the table a short distance. The plaster of the ceiling had long since fallen off, and had been swept into a corner of the room with an old, stubby broom.

  Most of the lathes, too, were gone. Likewise, for some peculiar reason which Harling could not fathom, at the time, most of the flooring of the room directly above seemed to be missing, for his momentary glance upward for a chandelier or electric fixture gave him a glimpse of the second floor room through the parallel rafters.

  But lying on the floor at the foot of a chair was something which quite took Harling’s breath away and caused him to stop, stock-still, in his tracks, rubbing his eyes to convince himself that he was not the victim of a gruesome illusion. It was the body of a man, dressed in an expensive tweed suit, his hands covered with tan gloves and a massive, ornate gold watch chain across his broad vest. He lay with his face gazing unseeingly up at the rafters of the room, and it could be seen that he was an elderly man, for the mustache that graced the clean-shaven white features, was white itself. As Harling stepped forward and stood staring down in utter amazement at the body on the floor, he became conscious of a peculiar thing.

  The two eyes of the body were open and stared upward with an unseeing stare, but protruding from the right orb, at least a full inch, was the stout, steel shaft of an ordinary, ornamental hat pin — an item of purely feminine accouterment from which, however, the ornamental head had evidently been snapped off in the struggle.

  CHAPTER III

  CORNERED

  A SLIGHT shiver running along his spine, Harling stood looking down at the body. Then, with a jerk, he collected himself, and knelt down by the dead man, scrutinizing him closely; but, with the exception of a great, purple bruise near the temple, there was little more to be seen than at the first stupefied glance — the expensive clothing, the white face, the massive watch chain and the dangerous-looking steel shaft of the hat pin protruding from the right eyeball.

  Which pin, undoubtedly, was lodged well and definitely within the dead man’s brain. Four to five inches those modern, useless, but ornamental, hat pins ran. Here, one inch, or thereabouts, stuck out. Another inch and a half must lie within the eyeball, and back of the eye socket. Which left another inch and a half, to two and a half inches, in the dead man’s brain. Harling shook his head grimly.

  What had occurred in this deserted house that had brought this man to his death, Harling wondered dumbly. Beyond all doubt there had been a struggle, but why should it have taken place here? And the head of the long ornamental pin — where had that gone to? He shook his head, puzzled. He had stumbled upon something which would cause a huge sensation when it was disclosed.

  He was careful to avoid touching the body. But as he knelt where he was, his eyes roving about the dusty room to the rafters of the floor above, oddly covered here and there with a few loose boards, to the dusty table, to the rickety wooden chair near it, then to the dead man in front of him, a peculiar glint caught his eye on the crude wooden floor by the side of the body. Reaching one hand gingerly down, he picked up a tiny cone of green substance — somewhat like jade, and covered with tiny filigree work of silver.

  The thing was hardly more than a half-inch in length. Harling fingered the slender piece, studying it, examining it, turning it this way and that in the light which came through the great cracks and gaps in the boarded windows, and then, as if by a sudden instinct, slipped the cone into his pocket. He arose unsteadily, and looking down at the body for a second, passed through a doorway into an adjoining empty room. There he stepped over to its boarded windows and peeped out on the back yard filled with ashes, rusty tin cans and boxes and trash of all description.

  The shock of his discovery had quite driven from his mind the errand which had brought him to this empty house. A sudden determination had momentarily come to him to get out of there at once and notify the police, but a shred of reason told him that for one Ford Harling, penniless and friendless in a big city, by far the best thing to do would be to get out of the house by the same basement window he had come in, and leave the discovery and notification of the police to others.

  He remained only a moment looking out on the rear yard. Then he returned to the front room again, and, stepping around the body, opened the closet door that stood slightly ajar. He peered, blinking, into its dark interior, but only an empty space rewarded his gaze, except for an old piece of dirty carpet lying on the floor. So he pushed the door gently to and moved over to the boarded windows, where he peered through the gaps.

  Across the street lay Washington Square, and over on the long, diagonal walk of the square itself, he could make out the figures of the down-and-outers slumped onto the benches. Even as he peered forth, he could see Red Saunders slouching along, his brown felt hat pulled down over his forehead, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his face indistinguishable at this distance, glancing down at each and every bench that he passed.

  Harling went back finally to the body on the floor, where he stared for a long time. At length, with a sigh, he turned from it with the intention of slipping downstairs to the basement and out by the window, from which point of egress he would get as far away from the place as possible.

  But as he stood where he was, he heard voices that seemed to filter in through the boarded windows of the empty back parlor. Like a flash he tiptoed to the adjoining room and over to the window again, where he peered out as before. Then he stiffened up. Two blue-coated police officers were standing at the back of the house, pointing up to it and conversing in loud tones.

  A sudden panic seized Harling. He knew full well the police methods of the larger cities, and he knew, also, that his would be no enviable or pleasant position — found in a deserted house with the body of an obviously murdered man. So with great strides, on tiptoe, he crossed the room, back into the one containing the body, clear around the body itself and over to the front windows, where he glanced out quickly to make sure that the coast was clear before he slipped to the basement and out through the rotten door below.

  But there something met his eyes that made him gasp. A bright yellow police car was drawn up to the curbing in front of the house, and three policemen — one in uniform but the other two obviously and indubitably plainclothesmen — were just marching up the rickety steps toward the front door. And in the space of two seconds Harling realized with a sense of terror that his escape was cut off both front and rear.

  CHAPTER IV

  AN UNEXPECTED TRIP

  THAT his position was a ticklish one, Harling knew well. On the spur of the moment he found himself unable to think of any explanation as to why the police were suddenly swooping down on the place, other than that someone had seen him step stealthily in through the rear window. But in the sudden emergency which confronted him, there was obviously only one thing to do: to get off the floor on which the dead man lay, even though circums
tances seemed to prevent all possibility of his leaving the house for the present.

  The squeaking of the front hall door as it swung suddenly open on its rusty hinges, showed that it was, or had been, left unlocked; it also pointed indubitably to the fact that Harling could not slip upstairs to the upper floors, since the hall staircase was in direct line with the front door, and even now the front hall was full of police. There remained still the rickety rear stairway which led to the junction of the front and back parlors — the stairway by which Harling had walked into his unfortunate position.

  Down the stairway, its old steps creaking at every step, he went on tiptoe, three steps at a time. At the bottom, on the rotten basement floor, he looked longingly at the window which had served as his means of entrance, but the picture of the two bluecoats in the back yard was still vivid in his mind.

  As he stood undecided for a moment, listening to the heavy footsteps on the floor above, his heart pounding so forcibly against his ribs that he could feel it in every part of his body, he glimpsed a lean, gray Maltese cat slinking in over the crumbling sill. She crept along till she reached the sagging door of what must have once been a kitchen pantry. Then she disappeared into the dark.

  This gave Harling an idea. Across the room he tiptoed, and into the interior where he could hear the faint mews of what must have been a litter of tiny kittens. Above him, the tramp of many feet continued; also emphatic voices and arguments; and now and then the sound of the chair or table roughly moving across the floor as someone’s heavy body knocked against it.

  As he waited tremulously, he detected the footsteps of a man evidently ascending to the upper stories; a second later he heard the footsteps of a man obviously coming down to the basement. At length, someone came into the basement room but appeared to stand still, as if convinced that searching the old, moldy basement was a waste of time.