The Amazing Web

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  When he got back to his office in the Otis Building he closed the door in spite of the sultry breeze that played through, and looking in the telephone book found the saloon of Longinelli in short order. He rang it and asked to speak to Longinelli personally. A big booming voice transferred itself to the transmitter on the other end, the voice evidently of Longinelli, that mysterious civic anachronism — a saloon-keeper in days of prohibition — for it was rich in its suggestion of the Italian tongue.

  “This is David Crosby speaking,” said Crosby, “attorney in the Otis Building. I was formerly associated with Ernst Weidekamp. Have you any way of getting in touch with Al Lipke?”

  “I might see Leepke or I might nawt,” said Longinelli cautiously, with the cunning of the underworld.

  “Well, if you do or can see him,” ordered Crosby quickly, “tell him that there’s an important letter waiting for him in the office of David Crosby, Otis Building.”

  “I weel see w’at I kin do,” answered Longinelli very slowly.

  Evidently Longinelli lived with his finger almost on Lipke’s shoulder, for not an hour later the familiar figure of Al Lipke, whom Crosby as a mere clerk with Weidekamp, his tutor in criminal law, had seen several times in those years, ushered himself politely in the office. He was a strongly built man of about forty-five, pink-faced, a little shifty-eyed, his sleek black hair parted in the middle, his leonine form clad in a cloud-checked suit which, while it fitted him perfectly, smacked nevertheless of the underworld.

  “Well,” he said, glancing about the room, and dropping into a chair, “friend of mine said you had something for me.”

  “Yes,” replied Crosby, looking his visitor over. “I have. A client of mine in the county jail has sent you a message by me and wants an answer of yes or no.” He took from his pocket Chalmers’ letter and handed it to Lipke.

  “Do I know him?” queried the big man, twiddling the letter in his fingers. He crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair.

  “Archibald Chalmers.”

  “Chalmers!” The keen cold eyes of the check-suited man opened for a bare second. Then he rose suddenly.

  Over to the window he went, and there, with his back turned to Crosby, ripped open the sealed envelope. He read for the larger part of a minute, and then stared out of the window for about five minutes. At last he turned to Crosby. Abstracting from the typewritten page a narrow strip of pink crisp paper pinned to it, he tore the letter slowly up and tossed the pieces into the wire waste-basket in the corner of the room.

  “I think you can tell him yes,” he said slowly. Then he took up his hat.

  “Yes?” repeated Crosby. “And that’s all, is it?”

  Lipke paused on the threshold of the door smoothing back his sleek black hair with a broad, graceful and manicured hand.

  “Well, there’s a further point. Now in this private investigation he wants me to undertake, he asks that I hold all my communications through you, and to use some definite name between us so that I can wire or write you.” Lipke pondered deeply for a moment. At last he apparently found the solution he was searching for. “Here we are, my friend. We’ll settle on the name of — say — Mabel Mannering. Now if you get communications — particularly telegrams — signed Mabel Mannering, they’re from me regarding this work for Chalmers. All clear?”

  “I get you perfectly,” was Crosby’s reply. “Mabel Mannering. Anything further?”

  Lipke shook his head. Then with a flippant backward wave of his hand, he was gone.

  Crosby felt an overpowering desire to violate a confidence as his eyes turned to the waste-basket in which Lipke had tossed the torn pieces of Chalmers’ typewritten communication. For five minutes he sat, wrestling with overpowering curiosity, but at last he overcame it. Nevertheless, taking from his desk a large cloth-lined envelope, he picked from the wire waste-basket each and every piece of the communication tossed there by Lipke, and sealed them up. Then he placed on the envelope a single identifying mark, and unlocked the tiny steel-lock drawer on his desk.

  “I’d sure like to know the names of Chalmers’ three rats who he thinks can smash down Carrington’s story,” he said to himself. “But a contract is a contract, I guess.”

  And shaking his head, he safely deposited the sealed envelope in the metal drawer, for in him was the typical caution of his profession that told him the day might come when the knowledge of those contents would have to be in the possession of the lawyer for the defence.

  CHAPTER XIV

  SAMMY VIGGMAN HIRES A LAWYER

  A LIGHT cool September rain was falling on the afternoon that Crosby, clad in rubber raincoat and with valise packed for a flying trip, made his way up the steps of the county jail. It was the thirteenth day of the month, and but six more days remained before Archibald Chalmers must again step forth in court in the attempt to obtain, through the lips and brain of his attorney, his acquittal.

  Chalmers sat near the barred door of his cell, tilted back against the wall in the crude wooden chair, and smoking a cigarette. He puffed away in silence as Crosby, in his dripping rubber raincoat, stepped in through the open door as the turnkey unlocked it, and deposited his equally dripping valise in one dry corner of the cement enclosure.

  “Well,” Crosby said cheerfully, “my dealings with your friend Lipke have brought me a little business.”

  “How’s that?” asked Chalmers, with that eagerness to talk and be talked to which characterizes the individual shut off day and night from the outer world.

  “It seems that Longinelli kept my name in mind,” responded Crosby, “for this morning he telephoned me to come down to his saloon. I went, as much out of curiosity as anything. He told me that a friend of his, Sammy Viggman by name, was in trouble up in a town called Winniston, Wisconsin, and had telegraphed him one word which had been agreed upon between them as wanting Longinelli to hire a criminal lawyer.”

  “And so he hired you?” said Chalmers attentively.

  “I hardly know yet,” smiled Crosby. “Longinelli dug back into an old tin lock-box and got out a greasy envelope which I could see was marked ‘Viggman,’ tore it open and extracted 200 dollars in wrinkled, dirty bills. These he handed to me on the understanding that I was to take them for consultation and for expenses on a trip up in Wisconsin to see Viggman, who is under arrest there. So here I am all packed now to run up there and see what sort of a case it is.” Crosby fumbled in his pocket and withdrew from it a paper signed, witnessed, and sealed with a great red and gold seal. “Now about this power of attorney which you sent over to the Otis Building this morning. Let me get matters all clear. I’m to go to Omaha, take possession in your name of the stocks and bonds, which come over to you on the morning of the 15th, and sell them on either the Omaha or Chicago Stock Exchange at current market rates. I’m to hold the money I get for them until I receive word from Lipke, and then pay him the amount he asks. And I’m to fill in this blank receipt with your name on it, for my own files.”

  “Exactly,” nodded Chalmers energetically. “Whatever sum, up to the full amount, Lipke asks, you are to give him in cash without any questions or receipt on his part.”

  “Very well.” Crosby folded up the power of attorney and placed it in his vest pocket. “Well, I’m off. I intend to go from here to Winniston to interview this fellow Sammy Viggman, and see what sort of trouble he’s in; then from there “I’ll run south-west to Omaha, get the bonds and stocks from the Union Trust Company and then complete the last leg of the triangle home. So I’ll see you inside of about two days.”

  He picked up his satchel and after a few parting words left the county jail amid the warm pelting September rain.

  He arrived in Winniston at eleven o’clock at night. A full moon, as he made his way to the lone wooden hotel, showed him the town, a bit bigger yet not greatly unlike that tiny town of Brossville in which he had started what was proving to be a rather sensational legal career. A sleepy country landlord conducted him to his room, a stuffy lit
tle hole with great pink roses on the wallpaper and a husk mattress.

  Crosby was dog-tired, and was soon in the land of Nod, not wakening until the bright morning sunlight apprised him that the 14th of September was on him. He dressed and, after a breakfast of succulent country ham and eggs, made his way up the street straight toward where he knew he was wanted, the stolid chunky-looking concrete building near the post office with heavy iron bars on its window.

  “I’m representing one Viggman being held here,” he informed the grizzled middle-aged man, who appeared, from the bunch of keys on his waist and the star on his suspenders, to be in charge of the place.

  The man of the keys looked him over. “Then I reckon I can let ye see your client.” He unlocked the outer door and beckoned Crosby back to a barred corridor containing three stout cells, painstakingly locked the door of the corridor after him, and then in turn unlocked the door of the cell and nodded to Crosby to enter.

  Seated on a wooden chair near the barred window was a man of about forty-five, as near as one could determine. A several days’ growth of beard obscured his complexion, but two bright beady black eyes darted back and forth as Crosby, in his more stylish garments, was ushered into his cell.

  The marshal turned the lock in the door and was soon in turn locking his way out of the corridor. Crosby surveyed his ragged, dirty client with not a great deal of satisfaction.

  “Crosby is my name,” he began, seating himself on the cot. “David Crosby of Chicago. Mr. Longinelli engaged me to come down here and have a talk with you about your trouble.”

  “You mean I engaged you,” said Viggman brusquely. “That there 200 iron men I suppose he give you was left with him once by me in case o’ trouble f’r yours truly.” His face was long and dolorous. “Viggman’s my name, Sammy Viggman o’ St. Paul. At least that’s the name I’m usin’ now.”

  “Well, what’s the situation?”

  “ ‘Ere’s the situatin,” pronounced Viggman savagely. “Up in St. Paul, three nights ago, a jew’lry merchant by the name o’ Rosecrantz was held up an’ shot in the Ryan Building. Don’t suppose you follow th’ St. Paul papers, but I happened to read the full mornin’ accounts of it. There was stole off o’ him eight diamon’s worth about 150,000 bucks. He’d been gettin’ ‘em for a St. Paul millionaire, old man Dellison.”

  “Must have been some eight pretty large diamonds.” commented Crosby, “to be worth that much.”

  Viggman looked at him from under heavy, shaggy eyebrows. “Accordin’ to th’ papers, they was the Lord Masefield Oct — oc — oc — what you call eight things?”

  “Octet?” suggested the younger man.

  “Octet. That’s what it was. Th’ Lord Masefield Octet. Seems that there was a green diamon’, an’ a red one, a white one, a purple one, a blue one like those Wesselton stones, and sev’ral other shades amountin’ to actual different colours, an’ all cut th’ same shape and size.”

  “So Rosecrantz, the dealer, got them for a St. Paul millionaire?” asked Crosby interrogatively. “What were the facts connected with this?”

  “There was a lot in th’ St. Paul papers,” declared Viggman quietly, “about th’ facts long before old Rosecrantz returned to St. Paul from London. This ‘ere English lord or duke got hard up after the war, listed his oc — Octet in th’ diamon’ trade at 150,000 bucks, and finally agreed to sell ‘em to old Rosecrantz An’ Rosecrantz went across th’ pond an’ bought ‘em so as to sell ‘em again to Dellison, the millionaire, who wanted ‘em and was willin’ to pay 160,000 dollars for ‘em.”

  “I get you,” said the younger man. “Proceed with the story.”

  “Well,” went on Sammy Viggman, uncrossing his ragged legs, “three nights ago a lone wolf stuck up old Rosecrantz while he was alone in his shop with his young son, just after his clerk had gone home, an’ at th’ point of a gat forced him to open his safe and kick in with the junk — which happened to be this ‘ere Lord Masefield Octet.”

  “Was that all he got?”

  Viggman looked at his interlocutor cautiously. “Well, now you’re askin’ me what happened at some place where neither you nor me is supposed to ha’ been. But accordin’ to the newspapers, this lone stickup got only them eight stones, and’ he backed out with ‘em, still pointin’ his gat at Rosecrantz who was standin’ with hands upraised. The young lad, in th’ meantime, was whimperin’. Now it seems that Rosecrantz, seein’ that there octet o’ stones pullin’ out, was half-frantic, particul’y since it was his own coin he’d paid out for ‘em, an’ he reached back o’ the ledge o’ the vault for a gun.”

  “And then — according to the newspapers?” asked Crosby, adding the last part of the question after a short suggestive pause.

  Viggman smiled a crooked, leering smile. “Th’ lone stickup’s black mask had been slippin’ from over his nose as he backed out, and it was clear offen his face and hangin’ under his chin when he fired. He fired one shot.”

  “Who got it? Rosecrantz or the boy?”

  “Rosecrantz,” said Viggman. He paused, thinking upon something.

  “Go ahead,” urged Crosby after the good part of a minute had passed. “And then what?”

  “Well, the lone stickup beat it down th’ two flights o’ stairs of the Ryan Building, and walked right off in the crowds. An’ there was some hullabaloo in th’ mornin’ papers about it. Then it was that I got out o’ town.”

  “What did you do? Hit the road, I suppose.” Crosby looked meaningly at the tramp habiliments of his unsavoury client.

  Viggman nodded. “Yep. Didn’t have but a couple o’ dollars or so. Made a rattler out o’ town that afternoon, and kipped out in the jungle that night. An’ I was sailin’ past this here one-horse burg in a box-car early next mornin’, w’en the town marshal and some other guy lookin’ for ‘boes moseyed along that train o’ cars an’ yanked me out.”

  “What charge are you booked up here on?” asked Crosby. “Vagrancy?”

  “Booked up — nit!” retorted Viggman. “They give me sixty days as a vag quicker ‘n you can whistle. Nothin’ slow about this burg w’en it comes to passin’ sentence. But after I served one ‘o my sixty days they began talkin’ and pointin’ to me. ‘Wonder if this is the guy that held up that St. Paul joolry merchant two nights ago,’ I heard ‘em sayin’. Then it seems they telegraphed. And I finds out later there’s a reward o’ 10,000 bones out f’r capturin’ th’ lone stickup that pulled that job. An’ to boil a long story short, this town ain’t goin’ to give me up until they get a certified cheque f’r th’ reward. So they’ve invited Rosecrantz to run down here from St. Paul and give me the once over.”

  Crosby paused, thinking. “Another question, Viggman. What was in the papers as to Rosecrantz’s condition?”

  “Said he’d come out all right in a couple weeks or so. The bullet went through his right lung. He’s in Bethesda Hospital now.”

  Crosby nodded. “Well, now, Viggman, I suppose you want good frank advice based upon knowledge of previous cases of this kind. And I’m going to give it to you. But if you want me to handle your affairs in this thing, I want a straight square answer to a certain question. Are you ready?”

  “Shoot,” was Viggman’s sullen reply. He slumped down in his seat, the very picture of degradation.

  Crosby arose and looked out in the corridor. It was empty. He returned and drew his wooden chair close to that of the unshaven man with the ragged, unkempt hair.

  “Viggman, whatever you tell me is inviolate, of course. A criminal lawyer doesn’t disclose the confidences of his client.” He lowered his voice. “Were you the man that pulled this St. Paul holdup?”

  Viggman sat for a long, long time, staring at the stone floor of the cell.

  “I’m the man, Mr. Crosby.”

  “I see.” Crosby paused. “You cached the Lord Masefield Octet after the robbery?”

  Viggman nodded again.

  Crosby thought in silence for a long while. “Viggman, I don’t suppose
there’s any use whatever to tell you that crime never pays. And nobody seems to know it but the criminal lawyers.”

  Viggman nodded. “I know it.”

  “And that you haven’t any alibi whatever for your whereabouts that night, so much so that you got into a panic and hit the road?”

  Viggman nodded again.

  “Now for the advice. There’s only one chance for you, Viggman. Outside of that, your goose is cooked. The boy and the man — it will require the two of them probably — will identify that face of yours without any doubt. The penitentiary sentence in Minnesota for a crime like yours is from five to twenty years. A jury — and I know juries — will hand you the maximum sentence. In fact, you’re up against it, and your main chance now is for your attorney to go to Rosecrantz and induce him to waive prosecution on condition that you turn back to him the Lord Masefield Octet.”

  Viggman bit his lip. “Do you think he’ll do that?”

  “I’ve seen them do it again and again,” was Crosby’s sardonic reply. “So long as Rosecrantz is only temporarily injured, there’s no doubt in my mind that he would take his week or so in the hospital and call all bets off if he could get back his stolen gems.”

  “And s’pose I don’t give up the loot?” said Viggman.

  Crosby laughed a harsh laugh. “Then get ready for twenty years. You’re no young man, Viggman. You’d never come out of the pen alive. And as for giving up the loot — ” He laughed that keen, hard laugh again.

  “Ever hear of the Considine Detective Agency of St. Paul?”

  Viggman nodded.

  “Well, I thought you’d be likely to have heard of it,” said Crosby dryly. “Considering it’s chartered in the State of Minnesota and has a tight hold on all the private detective work in the Pacific North-West. Heard of Victor Considine, haven’t you?”

  Viggman’s face paled a bit. “Big Vic, eh? Yes — I’ve heard of him all right.”