Compulsion

by Meyer Levin

Two large men entered. Obviously they were not entirely at ease in this imposing house. Their hands hung stiffly.

  “Who is Judah Steiner, Jr.?”

  Judd arose. Let Artie see he could handle it. After all, he had been through it once; Artie hadn’t.

  “What can I do for you gentlemen?” Judd said.

  “The state’s attorney wants to talk to you, Mr. Steiner. We’ll take you downtown.”

  “Is this about the Kessler case?” he said blandly, watching their faces. One of them reacted as though he had been handed a confession.

  The other looked suspicious. “Huh?” he said.

  “Well, I’d be glad to tell the State’s Attorney all I know about it, although I already talked to Captain Cleary out in the South Chicago station last Saturday.”

  “Captain Cleary?” They exchanged glances.

  “Yes,” Judd said. “Out there where the poor kid was found. I go birding out there, and the captain asked me if I could help out, give him any ideas as to who might habitually visit the swamp out there.”

  The impassive look came back over their faces.

  Then this was more. This time it must be the spectacles. The second detective said, “We don’t know about all that. We’re just supposed to-”

  “-bring me in,” Judd said easily, and they all chuckled. “Sure, let’s go.”

  He glanced toward Artie. All kinds of things were on Artie’s face. It was almost the way Artie looked when playing drunk, pretending he didn’t quite know what was happening, and wasn’t really taking part. “Artie,” Judd said, “would you tell my folks, should they want to know my whereabouts?” Then he introduced the cops. “This is Artie Straus, a friend of mine, Mr.-”

  “McNamara,” the first one introduced himself. The other said his name was Peterson.

  A third dick was at the wheel of the car. Judd sat in the rear with McNamara. He offered cigarettes. No conversation started, so he tried the Carpentier fight as an opener. The cop thought the Frenchman would win. He hoped he could get there, but he might be busy.

  “This case is keeping you on the go, I’ll bet.”

  “You said it.”

  “Perhaps it will be solved by then.”

  The dick said nothing.

  This was more serious than last Saturday, Judd felt sure. But assume they did have the glasses traced to him. Or suppose it was something that hadn’t been thought of at all? Fingerprints? Anything. The telltale atoms in the universe. Each atom left its trace.

  But apparently they still had nothing on Artie. Artie should stay out unless caught. There was the wish for Attie to be with him, and a sly kind of counterwish, to be alone, to suffer punishment that would make him worthy of Ruth.

  No, no sentiment. It was his mistake. The glasses in his pocket where they could fall out.

  He was a stoic. He knew that all in the end was fated badly. A man should combat the putridity of life to the limit. Therefore he would go through everything without changing, without breaking. He would show himself consistent in his beliefs. Even to the execution.

  But not Artie. Not Artie, dead. A wave of emotion returned as from some far distance, engulfing and washing out everything Judd might have felt for Ruth, his silly puppy love of the last few days, making him ashamed of the moment a few nights ago, after the whorehouse, when he had loathed Artie’s face. He saw Artie now, the laughing, easy college guy whom everyone loved – Artie standing at Judd Steiner’s execution, watching, talking with clever pity about the poor Judd he had known, a deranged genius. With the old quick pleasure, Judd saw himself on a scaffold, his hands tied behind him – on the scaffold as on a platform where slaves were sold in ancient times, sold or executed. Multitudes stood below, and great, immortal words of parting came from him, his legacy to mankind.

  Ruth would weep.

  Crap. He would not be defeated, not by such clods as were beside him. Now was the real test; now he would outwit everyone. Now was the chance to prove to himself that he was of another mental calibre, of another orbit entirely.

  When the car stopped in front of the La Salle Hotel, Judd was surprised. The men escorted him through the lobby. “We’ve got a suite here,” Peterson offered. “The State’s Attorney don’t want to expose people, you know, if the papers get hold of it.”

  It was a dead giveaway, then. They didn’t have anything for sure. The outcome depended on himself.

  It was not only to protect innocent people from publicity that Horn had moved over to the hotel. There had been no such consideration for other suspects during the previous week. But after that frustrating, killing week, here was at last a hard clue. And Horn was simply at nerves’ end. His staff was exhausted. He didn’t want any distraction while he dealt with this one good lead. Because if this one petered out, the case seemed hopeless.

  It would be conventional to suggest political importance. But I doubt if the State’s Attorney, any more than we reporters, thought predominantly of an effect on elections. All of us, including the police, were much more deeply embroiled. We were struggling with the first and lifelong problem of man – to find out how things happen.

  Now, from the optician Horn had three names. Only three pairs of glasses of this prescription, encased in this new, expensive brand of frame, had been sold in Chicago.

  Those three names could bring only bafflement and dismay to the prosecutor. One was a middle-aged lady piano teacher, who lived on the North Side. The other was a fairly prominent accountant. The third was the son of a millionaire, living in the Kessler neighbourhood.

  The piano teacher was quickly eliminated. Her glasses were on her nose. The accountant had been out of town for the past three weeks. He had his glasses with him, he wired, and would be glad to show them to anyone designated by the authorities. That left Judah Steiner, Jr.

  In the inner room of the suite, Horn gave his instructions. With his characteristic, choppy motion of the elbows, he emphasized that this had to be it. He wouldn’t have a trick remain untried even if the youth were the son of the mayor himself. Horn left the preliminaries to Joe Padua.

  Padua had a liquid voice and liquid eyes, a touch of Rudy Valentino in the fluid way he moved. He was a tripper, because he could go along, polite and soft-toned, and then, in the conventional manner of a stage prosecutor, suddenly turn cold and murderous, a gun.

  So Judd was brought up in the lift and into the suite. Joe Padua introduced himself, and his handshake was affable. His antagonist, Judd surmised, was in his thirties and probably a graduate of John Marshall or one of those downtown diploma mills. At once, Judd told of his interview with Captain Cleary. Padua, too, he saw, had known nothing of it. Glibly, Judd repeated how he frequently took his birding classes to that very area. He was sure he felt his opponent’s hostility shrinking.

  Nevertheless, Padua tried. “We just wanted to ask you, Mr. Steiner, you do wear glasses?”

  “Well, as I told Captain Cleary – in fact, I left a statement in writing with him – I did wear glasses for a while, when I was boning.” He put on a you-know-how-it-is smile. “I’m studying law, and this is quite interesting to me, my first practical contact; but as I was saying, the reading can get pretty heavy.”

  “Don’t I know.” Padua gave him back the smile.

  “I was getting headaches, so I had reading glasses prescribed, but the condition disappeared a few months ago.”

  “You stopped boning?”

  Judd chuckled. “Well, it’s curious, I still read just as much, but in any case the headaches ceased, so I don’t believe I’ve made use of the glasses in two or three months.”

  “I see.” Padua picked up the glasses from the table and handed them to Judd. “Are these yours?”

  Judd felt them against his hand, with that sense of natural contact given by a familiar possession. He put them on. “Well,” he said, “I would say they were mine, if I weren’t sure that mine are at home right now.” He laughed shortly. “That is, unless someone swiped them, though I can’t im
agine why.”

  If it went that far he could suggest a whole flood of possibilities. He might have left his glasses at the university, or anywhere; the murderer could have picked them up. He was certainly safe if he played it right, because with this bit of evidence alone – and it was clear it was all they had – they wouldn’t dare go to court. Not against a son of Judah Steiner!

  “You say your glasses are at home?”

  “Why, yes. As I haven’t worn them for months.” He turned to McNamara, who was sitting by the door. “If you’d have mentioned it at my house, I’d have produced them for you.”

  “Well” – Padua smiled – “it won’t take long to pick them up.”

  McNamara arose from the chair.

  Judd placed the glasses on the desk. “I believe mine are a very common prescription,” he said, and then checked himself. Could it be possible that they had called in everyone in town with glasses of that prescription? No, that would have meant thousands. There must have been some other factor leading to him. What could it be?

  He smiled at his questioner, and made an abortive gesture to shake hands on leaving. But Padua didn’t stand up, didn’t reach out his hand. As he left with McNamara, Judd felt that he had not exactly won the first round.

  He thought over the interview. It was a little disturbing that his antagonist had been so brief. Why hadn’t they asked for his alibi? Or perhaps that was on the good side. As for the glasses, perhaps Almer Coe had recognized them in some way as their product.

  Would Artie still be in the house? Perhaps he had fled. Artie could run up to Charlevoix, take his boat, and hide out on one of those little islands, as he had so often dreamed of doing. Perhaps they should both have beat it up there, and they would be living there together now, hermits bound together for the rest of their lives.

  Max had just come home; he was dressing to take his fiancée to the theatre. Judd explained curtly, annoyed with Max for being there, “These men are from the state’s attorney’s office. It seems the glasses found in the Kessler case are similar to mine. They’ve been checking all the people who have similar glasses.”

  Max blinked once or twice, as though uncertain whether to take an insulted attitude toward the authorities or make a gag of it. “I’m just going to get my glasses and show them,” Judd said. “They’re in my room.”

  But McNamara and Peterson followed him upstairs. On entering the room, the detective was startled. “What’s this, a museum?”

  Judd explained that he was an ornithologist. But he felt instantly that the room had made a point against him. He was now someone queer. Trying to recover, he made an effort to impress the detective, telling him this was the most complete collection in the Midwest, and that he had a special permit to shoot specimens, even in the city parks. The man’s dumb-animal stare altered. A glint of respect had come into it.

  Meanwhile Judd made a show of looking among his papers, on his desk. Then he opened a few drawers. “I haven’t used them for such a long time-” At the second drawer he said, “Oh, here!” He picked up the spectacle case, then held it in his hand with a puzzled look.

  McNamara took the empty case from him.

  “I can’t imagine-” Judd frowned. “They must be around here somewhere.” He poked aside a pile of books.

  The maid had come to the door. “Have you seen my glasses anywhere?” he asked. “I haven’t used them for some time.”

  “Why, no,” she said. “Did you look downstairs in the library?”

  He never read in the library. The last one who read there had been his mother; not a book had been added since. Frowning, Judd started downstairs, to make a show of it. “There was a mob in here yesterday; we had an engagement party,” he remarked. “A lot of our friends got tight and turned the house upside down.”

  McNamara nodded but did not at once follow him to the stairs. It swept through Judd’s mind that they would search his room. In that moment he tried to visualize everything that was in his desk, every scrap of paper. The ransom letter had been typed on stationery bought outside. The envelope was not from his stock, either. And yet he felt uneasy. If they started to search, should he demand a warrant? Or would that be bad, arousing suspicion? But McNamara turned away from the desk and came downstairs. The other one, Peterson, still stood there.

  Judd made a big show of searching the library, the living room, irked as they followed him from room to room. Peterson had come down, finally; he remained aloof, but McNamara seemed to want to be helpful, picking up a magazine here and there as if expecting to find the glasses underneath. Or was he a cagey brute, using this means to rub it in? Judd said, “Well, I really can’t explain it. I must have lost them somewhere without realizing it.”

  Max, all dressed up, ready to leave, appeared in the hallway. “Look, kid, what’s this all about?”

  “Can’t you see!” Judd snapped. “I’m looking for my glasses.”

  “Well, so you lost your glasses, so what?” And to the detectives Max said, “This is ridiculous.” But he checked himself. “Of course, I realize you have to go through with it and make a thorough checkup. But-”

  “I’ll have to go downtown with them again,” Judd said, “and explain.”

  “Say-” Max half laughed at the idea of even having to make such a statement, but he told the detectives, “anyone you want to vouch for the kid here – why, Judge Wagner is a friend of my father’s. I understand, I’ve read in the papers, the Judge has been very helpful to the Kessler family. Now, Judge Wagner’s known Judd since he was a kid. Why don’t you give him a ring?”

  “Well, that would depend on them downtown,” McNamara said.

  “Do you want me to come along, Judd?” Max offered.

  “Why, no! What for?” Judd was smiling again, but his hostility to his brother was rising in him, stronger than ever.

  “Well, give Judge Wagner a buzz if there’s any complication,” Max repeated.

  Now on the drive downtown the silence was ominous. Whatever he thought of saying might be interpreted the wrong way. Judd remarked only that he hoped his carelessness wasn’t going to keep them working very late. It was all right, they said; they were used to it.

  McNamara asked about the birds, and Judd started to talk enthusiastically. “A kind of hobby?” the policeman inquired.

  “Well, it’s more than that.” And he gave them examples of puzzling things about migration and mating. Perhaps all this would show them he was unworried.

  The hotel room looked messier. The men had had sandwiches and coffee sent up; plates and cups were scattered on desks and chairs. McNamara handed the empty spectacles case to Padua. “He couldn’t find the glasses,” he said.

  Padua picked up the horn-rimmed spectacles from his desk, slipped them into the case. He made nothing special of the little action, but, gesturing with the same hand, introduced Judd to an older man.

  “This is Mr. Horn, the State’s Attorney,” Padua said.

  On first sight, Horn had a way of confusing people. He was not so much ugly as odd-looking; his face was exactly half-moon in shape, with a tiny, almost caved-in nose. His torso was bulky, his legs were very short, his movement was abrupt. And his voice had a shrill, rather feminine pitch.

  Horn’s presence had intensity. There was never anything relaxed about him. He had an intensity, I suppose, beyond his capacity; otherwise he would have become a very important man. The drive was there.

  “Do you want to admit now that these are your glasses?” he demanded in his shrill voice.

  Judd retained his schoolboy smile. “I don’t want to admit any thing I’m not sure is so,” he said.

  Horn went in again. “You know this looks serious, Mr. Steiner.”

  “Indeed I do,” Judd said. “It’s quite embarrassing. They may even be my glasses. But after all, my family is quite well known. Judge Wagner is a friend of the Kesslers and he knows me quite well-”

  “Do you want to talk to Judge Wagner?” Horn said.

 
“Well, he could tell you something about me.”

  “All right.” Horn tilted his head to Padua. “Let’s get Judge Wagner on the line.”

  They all subsided into a kind of neutrality while Padua tried the Judge’s home, and finally reached him at the Kesslers. Padua handed the phone to Judd.

  “Judge Wagner,” he began, “this is Judah Steiner, Jr… Yes, fine, thank you. I’m calling you in rather unusual circumstances, from the State’s Attorney’s office, or rather his suite at the La Salle Hotel. They are investigating persons whose glasses resemble those found in the Kessler case, and mine happen to fit. Well, I thought, or my brother Max thought, you might want to say a word-” Smiling, he handed the phone to Horn. The least it could do, Judd told himself, was to keep them from pulling any rough stuff. If they didn’t lay hands on him, he was sure he could ride it through.

  Charles Kessler leaned close in to Judge Wagner, listening. Their faces had the same expression, troubled, disappointed and yet persistent. Of all they had hoped for, when the glasses would be identified, only this had come.

  Judge Wagner repeated that Judd was a brilliant boy, a Phi Beta Kappa at seventeen, a law student, and the son of one of the most respected men in Hyde Park. “Still, you have your investigation to make,” he said. “Let justice take its course.”

  Sighing as he hung up, he said to Kessler, “No, this is really impossible. Some kind of accidental coincidence.”

  Horn replaced the receiver, musing. Padua turned to Judd, as with a new thought. “Tell us this, Mr. Steiner – Judah-”

  “My friends call me Judd.”

  “Well, Judd, if I may – you say you’ve been out to Hegewisch?”

  “I should say a couple of hundred times. As I told Captain Cleary, I was out there quite recently, the Sunday before this awful event. I even remembered running across the mouth of the culvert there. I was trying to get a shot at a species of crane, and I tripped.”

  “You tripped?”

  They were all staring at him. “Why yes, I recall it distinctly.” He waited for one of them to make the connection, and Padua obliged.