The Steel Box

by Max Brand

  “Your Honor,” said Craven to the judge, “may I take this witness off the stand and put on another, at this point?” He added: “I want to ask Doctor Eustace Layman what he was doing in San Pedro buying a sailor’s outfit, under the name of Fennel.”

  XXXVI

  So the blow had fallen. And, to a man, the people of the courtroom arose.

  They saw Sheriff Herbert Moon rising at the side of Eustace Layman, and they saw that in the hand of the sheriff there was a man-size revolver that was pressed into the ribs of the doctor.

  “Layman? Layman?” exclaimed the judge, bewildered. And then, with a vast effort, he re-gathered the official dignity and calm—which, of course, never can be disturbed.

  Dr. Layman was entirely calm. “Do I understand that I am invited to take the witness stand?” he asked.

  “That’s what you can understand,” said the sheriff. “With your permission, Your Honor, I’ll search this gentleman, first.”

  “By what right do you presume to search me?” said the doctor as calmly as before.

  “By the right of arrest,” answered the sheriff, his manner equally polite, but firm.

  “And for what crime am I arrested?” asked Layman.

  “For the murders of Oliver Wilton and Peter Lang,” said the sheriff.

  And then, out of the throat of Sherry, tormented with wonder, burst the cry: “Fennel! That is Fennel!”

  For now he saw as with an inspired vision that the strangely shaped head of Fennel might well be the doctor’s, that towering forehead masked with a wig of matted hair. He saw that vision. To attempt to understand how the doctor could have played the double role was beyond him. He waited, tense and wondering.

  The sheriff was fanning Layman, and producing a stub-nosed revolver from a hip pocket, and from beneath his left armpit a long, slender gun with a peculiar attachment at the end of the muzzle—the veritable type of the .22-caliber revolver with the silencer that had destroyed Oliver Wilton and poor Peter Lang. There was a gasping intake of breath around the courtroom as this detail was noted. Even the judge sat rigid in his chair, and Eustace Layman grew pale and set of face.

  Bud Arthur was taken from the stand. Layman replaced him.

  The district attorney made a quick turn up and down the space before his chair and slumped heavily down into it. Plainly he was taken totally aback.

  The preliminaries of identification were quickly ended.

  “Mister Layman,” said Craven, “fifteen days ago, did you or did you not go to the store of Wendell in San Pedro and buy the outfit that afterward appeared in the possession of the so-called Fennel in this town?”

  The doctor gathered himself, hesitated. “I cannot answer,” he said, “without advice of counsel.”

  “Did you or did you not,” roared Craven, apparently suddenly furious, “several months ago, talk with the Chinese cook when you met him one evening in the woods back of the Wilton house, and did he tell you at that time that he had seen Oliver Wilton thrust his brother, Everett Wilton, over the edge of the cliff to fall down into the rush of the water below?”

  “I believe,” said the doctor as cool as ever, “that you are trying to put a statement into my mouth. I decline to answer.”

  “Is it not true,” said the eager young lawyer, “that you used this knowledge to blackmail Oliver Wilton, forcing him to admit you into his house, to place you constantly with his niece, and to encourage her engagement to you?”

  Layman said not a word.

  Everyone in the courtroom was leaning forward except Beatrice Wilton, who sat stunned and helpless with the shock of these strange new charges.

  “Your Honor,” said Craven, “we are going to attempt to demonstrate these charges. From the first, Sheriff Moon has suspected the truth about this case, but he has done all that he could to give no sign of his suspicions, for fear lest the bird fly from the cage. He has waited to the last moment, collecting proofs. And the last proof has been furnished by the arrival of Arthur and his friend from San Pedro.

  “I hope that we have already offered sufficient testimony to make it necessary to reopen this case. After that, I shall demonstrate that the sheriff’s suspicions were absolutely correct. I am going to show by witnesses and by every reasonable inference that Doctor Eustace Layman is an adventurer. I am going to show you that there are other crimes in his past, though none as heinous as these. I am going to prove to you that he first forced himself upon Miss Wilton and made himself useful to her after the death of her father, until she permitted herself to be engaged to him. That he was contented with the arrangement only so long as he thought it would make him heir to the fortune of Everett Wilton . . . that when he learned that the control of this fortune was about to pass into the hands of Oliver Wilton, he determined to do away with that man, and succeeded. That when Sherry and Lang, two brave and devoted men . . .”

  A rushing murmur, like the sound of a storm, swept through the court, and then a loud roar of applause deafened Sherry. He looked about him, bewildered. Shining eyes were turned toward him. Hands smote his broad back. Words of approval and cheer greeted him.

  Craven took more heart. The judge, as stunned as any witness in the case, could only stare and let the torrent of words flow on. Even the district attorney was helpless.

  “When these two heroic men,” went on Craven, “enlisted themselves in the service of Miss Wilton after the murder of her uncle, at first Doctor Layman was pleased enough to have their assistance. But then he discovered that Mister Sherry was pushing close to a discovery of the true identity of the supposed Fennel. When he began to fear this, he determined to do away with Mister Sherry. We are going to prove through the testimony of the notorious Fannie Slade, now in the hands of Sheriff Moon and held until this proper moment for testimony, that that man was hired by Layman to come to Clayrock and, together with his attendant bullies, hunt down and murder Sherry. We all know how that plot was foiled by the extraordinary daring of Mister Sherry himself . . .”

  Applause again. A thunderclap of rejoicing!

  “Throughout, you will see that Mister Sherry, always, was the block upon which the well-devised schemes of the doctor were wrecked. The sheriff was the first to realize this, dimly in the beginning. He continued to throw forward all possible evidence against Miss Wilton . . . it was the bait that kept in Clayrock this detestable murderer.”

  Craven paused. Dead silence followed his last words. Baleful eyes glared at the doctor, and he, his pale face unmoved, looked grimly back at everyone without flinching.

  “Then came the time,” said Craven, “when Lang himself discovered that Fennel and the doctor were one. At last, he guessed it very strongly. He consulted the sheriff. The sheriff begged him to say nothing . . . to wait for a more opportune time. And in that manner, to the great grief of the sheriff and of all honest men, poor Lang became a martyr to the cause to which he and his friend had given themselves so freely. What are we to say, Your Honor, of men like these two, who fought for the sake of justice to a helpless girl?”

  Now Beatrice Wilton had borne up against all the assaults of her apparent enemies, but at this public touch of sympathy, she melted into tears.

  The judge himself was moved.

  “Still,” went on Craven, “it appeared that the doctor was going to have a fair chance of winning. He could not know the mind of the sheriff. He could not know of the trip that the two sailors had taken to San Pedro. He could not know that Wendell himself, responding to a telegram, has actually started from San Pedro, and will be in this courtroom at any moment to identify Eustace Layman as the false Fennel. This masquerader, this murderer with silent guns, this detestable scoundrel, to defend himself in case of need, actually suggested to Miss Wilton that she use the weapon and train herself with it as for her own defense at the time when the murder of her father enabled him to persuade her that her own life probably stood in great danger.

  “That was his plan, and that was the plan that would have succeeded if
it had not been for the combined efforts of our sheriff, and of Lewis Sherry. The woman Eustace Layman was engaged to marry was, in case the law came down too hard upon his heels, to bear the danger of the charge. He did not want to lose her. But better that her life should be ruined than that his precious neck should be stretched! And then, having murdered Lang before that man could tell Sherry of his suspicions as to the real identity of the murderer, he attempted again, in the person of his proper self, to persuade Sherry to keep the pearls . . . of which you are to hear more later and in greater detail . . . and use them in hiring more efficient lawyers for the defense of Miss Wilton.

  “Because he began to see, now, that it was unlikely that he could get his hands upon the Wilton fortune. The sheriff had blocked him there. From the very first, with apparent tyranny, he had managed to prevent Miss Wilton from seeing the doctor, or from conveying to the outside a single scrap of writing by means of which she could bestow upon him the right to draw checks on the bank in her name. Had that power been so conferred, you need have no doubt that the admirable doctor would soon have gathered in the entire estate, and then departed for other lands.”

  He paused for breath, and then added: “That, Your Honor, is the case which we will now attempt to prove. As for the clumsy defense which I have hitherto made for Miss Wilton, I ask her pardon and yours. My hands were tied. The terrible strain she has passed through has been the price that she had to pay for the sake of attempting to bring justice home to this double villain. A strain so terrible that she has been tempted to destroy herself, being in total despair. No amends can be made to her, really. But the first short step will be, of course, to ask the jury to reconsider their verdict, and to declare her blameless, as she has been in every way from the first. And then justice on this cold-faced and secret murderer!

  “I am going to tell to you, also, the story of an unfortunate man, Oliver Wilton . . . a good man who committed one crime, that spectacular raid upon the pearl fishery in the far-off Sulus. And because of that he was driven from evil to evil. He was forced to take the life of his brother, who was beginning to learn the truth about the loss of the Princess Marie. He was forced to make for himself a steel-lined room, because he knew that danger was on his heels. But one wise step he took, and that was to employ the man who could not save his own forfeited life, but who could bring justice down upon the arch criminal of all.”

  XXXVII

  How many typewriters purred furiously, writing down pages of copy; how many telegraphers clicked out the long columns of news; how many cameras snapped every detail over again—the courthouse, the courtroom, the judge, the jury—smiling broadly, all twelve, the young lawyer, the cold face of Eustace Layman, ever calmly self-contained, the furious excitement of the crowd, Beatrice Wilton’s wide eyes as she listened to the words that spelled her safety, the portrait of brave Peter Lang, murdered, repeated with a black border, and views of how the strong men of Clayrock rose in their might and seized upon Lewis Sherry, and heaved him upon their shoulders in all his unwieldy bulk, and bore him protesting and struggling from the courtroom, and paraded him through the streets of Clayrock, and elected him with a universal acclaim to that small brotherhood of honest men and heroes who can fight for a lost cause without hope of a reward.

  But Sherry himself, a lonely man, sat at last in a room in the hotel, and gazed moodily out the window. He felt that he had been drenched in death and tragedy. Capper, Everett Wilton, Oliver Wilton, Peter Lang, had all been destroyed. And now, perhaps, the doctor’s life would pay the final forfeit. And yet not the sense of gloomy tragedy alone was sufficient to give him this feeling of an empty heart.

  A tap came at the door. The sheriff stood before him. They clasped hands and looked long and gravely upon one another.

  “I came to tell you that the last step has been taken,” said the sheriff.

  “Has he confessed?”

  “By implication. Layman is dead.”

  “He killed himself?”

  “He had resolution. You’ll find a peculiar contempt for life among some doctors. This fellow found a long splinter of stone in his cell in the jail. He drove it into his temple and died instantly. The best way, I have no doubt. And yet, rather a foolish thing. There was only one really important clue, one fact against him . . . that he had bought the clothes in San Pedro that afterward appeared in the sea chest of Fennel.”

  Sherry sank again into thought. Now that the tangle is cleared away,” he said finally, “I want to ask you why it is that you never attempted to arrest me for the killing of Capper?”

  “Because I knew that you were not guilty.”

  “You knew that?”

  “I’ll show you the proof.”

  He took Sherry down to the room where, on that first memorable evening that had finally involved the cowpuncher in all this train of drama, he and Capper had been dragged, senseless. In the baseboard that ran around the room, he pointed out a deep hole.

  “If you had shot Capper in a struggle, and the bullet had driven on through his head, it would have entered the wall at the height of a man. But, as a matter of fact, the bullet entered this baseboard.”

  “That is what Wilton told me, that I deliberately murdered the man in his sleep.”

  “Did he tell you that? Of course, to get you under his thumb. You were the sort of a man he needed. Very well, but see the angle of this hole.” He placed a pencil in it. “To what does it point?”

  “Toward the window.”

  “From the window came that shot. Mark the cunning of Wilton. He had stolen your revolver. He waited there outside the window for a time when you were rapidly regaining consciousness, because your bulk enabled you to throw off more quickly the effects of the drug that he, Wilton, had placed in your drink. As you rose to your knees, he fired through the window and killed Capper, and then he threw the revolver so that it landed at your own feet.”

  Sherry stared. “And then, Sheriff, why didn’t you arrest Wilton?”

  “Because if I had, it would have ended my chance of dipping a good deal deeper into an important mystery. I could guess that Wilton wanted to get rid of Capper. Then it appeared that he needed a bodyguard against other dangers. What were those dangers? What had Wilton done? I was fumbling in the dark. And lives have been lost on account of my delay, I know. But there is only one that I regret . . . Lang. The memory of that man will never be out of my head. As for the others . . . Everett Wilton was killed before I so much as suspected the murderer. Oliver Wilton, Layman-Fennel, Capper, were all rascals, of course. I’d like to use a gentler name for Oliver Wilton. But, after all, he was a murderer. And as for Lang, I have one consolation . . . that he died doing his duty, like a brave man. We don’t sorrow a great deal for men who die on battlefields for their country, Sherry. Why should we feel differently about the heroes of peace, who haven’t brass bands to urge them on and medals to reward them?”

  “You’ve done a great thing in this case,” said Sherry.

  “I was a man standing in the dark, waiting for a light,” replied the sheriff. “You brought me the light, old man, when you sent that pair of sailors to San Pedro. Miss Wilton has given them so much money that they won’t be sober the rest of their lives . . . and, when they’ve spent it, they know that they can come back to her for more. What a woman, Sherry! What a heart, and what a soul.”

  “Is she steadier?” asked Sherry.

  “As steady as a rock. She wants to see you.”

  “I’m starting back for the range,” said Sherry hastily.

  “Why?”

  “Where I can find enough fresh air to blow this trouble out of my brain.”

  “Are you starting at once?”

  “Yes.”

  “Without even seeing her, man.?”

  “I’ll send her a note,” said Sherry.

  “You won’t have to do that.”

  “No?”

  “Because,” said the sheriff, “I had an idea that you would be exactly such a f
ool as this. And I suggested that she’d better come down here to the hotel to find you.”

  Sherry started up. “The dickens you did,” he said.

  And here came a light, light tap at the door.

  The sheriff opened it. He said: “I was right. The young fool was about to run away. Perhaps you can talk him into better sense. I’m going down to get a drink. I think I need one.”

  “But . . . wait one instant . . . Sheriff . . .” stammered Beatrice Wilton.

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” said the sheriff, and resolutely closed the door behind him. And then they heard the lock click.

  Sherry strode to it and shook the knob. “Confound him,” he hissed. “He’s locked the door.”

  She hurried to the window and looked anxiously down, almost as though she were contemplating an escape in that direction.

  Then they turned and slowly faced one another.

  “You were leaving Clayrock?” she asked with a sort of cold politeness.

  “I was,” answered Sherry bluntly.

  “Without giving me a chance to see you?”

  “I know,” said Sherry. “You wanted to thank me, of course. But . . . to tell you the truth, I didn’t want thanks.” He let a ring of emotion get into a part of that sentence, and bit his lip afterward, ashamed of it.

  “There’s the business side of it, then,” said the girl.

  “Yes?”

  “I mean to say, that my uncle had offered you a thousand dollars a day. For ten days. And now there’s no reason under the sun why you shouldn’t take the money.”

  “Money?” said Sherry, half choked. “Money? For me?” Then, as she looked at him, half frightened, he added: “There’s Lang. He has an invalid brother somewhere. You could pay that money to him.”

  “I shall do it. And take care of the poor man, besides. Poor Peter Lang . . .” Then she added: “Is there simply nothing that you’ll let me do for you?”