CHAPTER XXIII

Silas Moffit’s Second Prescribes “One Horseshoe” For Each Glove

“You really mean,” Silas Moffit repeated weakly, “that that wench of hell cooked up one of her filthy conj—”

“Of—course!” Elsa repeated. “Didn’t I say so? And she cooked it specifically to clear my man. Or rather—in a far wider sense yet, Uncle—to make me win out tonight—hands down!—on all fronts!”

And at that moment, strangely enough, Elsa—the skeptic profound on such things as conjures—Elsa, who was only utilizing the fact of Aunt Linda’s “conjur” to harry Silas Moffit a bit—swung suddenly forward 10,000 years m Time and Space—to a day where Man understood the real mechanism, in the Plan of Life, of things “occult”—rather, the whole benign Web of Equi-Realities which, 20,000 long years back of that point—even 10,000 years back, in the very Age of Science—was being called “Facts” and “Superstition.” And in that bare second in which Elsa hung motionless at the furthest end of her long cosmic swing, there was given to her intuitively—and in a flash—the full understanding of Aunt Linda’s faith—of her “conjur”—how it would—must—had to operate. For it had to work not because it smelled of dead fingers—scorching stinking powders—but because of the fact that—

That she, Elsa, had told—was now telling—of its existence to one Silas Moffit, who believed therein!

And whom the knowledge of the “conjur” must, in turn, transform. Had, in fact, already obviously done so. For he now presented the appearance of one who—to say the very least—was utterly disconcerted. And was, therefore, a man now in whom new motivations—new traits of character—new impulses—new determinations—were surging, boiling, to the top. And solely because of those new traits—new impulses—new determinations—was the whole implacable “Plan of the Fixed Future” being somehow changed—altered—disrupted—wrenched—twisted—

In short, Karma! The theory of changing Destiny at its very Source. The theory of—

But Elsa knew no further. For she had swung back. Dizzily back, across the 20,000 years through which she had been momentarily projected. To the Today! Where philosophy—mysticism—superstition—are still mixed—where any inside into the Divine Plan of Things was either senseless intuition—a plain “hunch”—or downright insan—

But Elsa had retained just enough from that mere “flash” she’d gotten at the further end of that great forward swing to press blindly on.

“The ‘conjur’ Aunt Linda made up, Uncle,” she said quietly, “was of the identical kind as the one she put on the fire that day she knocked out your luscious Olive Hill Cemetery deal—except that in this one she put the ne plus ultra of all conjurs—the Zenith of Voodoo Power—the left big toe-nail of a negro murdered in the light of the full moon!”

Silas Moffit gazed at Elsa so forlornly, that she would have laughed aloud—only she was too bitter to laugh.

“What—what for,” he inquired bleakly, “what for did you go to—to Aunt Linda—in this matter?”

“What for? Why, because I always tell Aunt Linda everything. She’s the best ‘out-of-court’ legal advisor any attorney could have. And she’s even more, for, as I’ve just conveyed to you, she’s able to add voodoo to her advice. Has—in this instance.”

“Voodoo!” was all he said. “Voodoo? Ri—ridic—ridiculous supersti—” He broke off. “I must go,” he said quickly. “Good-bye,” he added hurriedly. And was out of the door, casting back, as he went rapidly out, one last bewildered helpless glance toward Elsa.

And had Elsa been able to see through Space—as just now she had “felt” she had somehow “seen” through Time—after he had left, and to hear therethrough as well, she would have—within exactly 1 minute!—heard him talking excitedly in the telephone booth in the foyer of the old building next to the Ulysses S. Grant and saying:

“No, no, Manny, everything isn’t all right, I tell you. That goddamned old nigger bitch went and brewed a conjure!”

“A—a conjure?” the voice on the other end was saying. “What—what the hell for Popp’n’law?”

“To insure Elsa’s clearing that crook, you fool—what do you suppose for?”

“Well—well—I’ll—I’ll be damned. She—but what of it, Popp’n’law? She’s just an old ignorant black coon, and—”

“Yeah? Well, you know what happened in your house that day my Olive Hill Cemetery deal blew up?”

A dead silence followed. And then—

“Yes, I know. And of course I remember, too, the explanation that Indian mystic gave for the power of those voodoo women. But we only got Linda’s own statement, Popp’n’law, that she’s a gen-u-ine voo—um?—now if only it hadn’t been for that Olive Hill deal blowing up the very minute she stirred up that conj—listen, Popp’n’law, would you like to see that crook—Elsa’s client, I mean, of course—go to the electric chair?”

“Why shouldn’t I, you fool? Since he’s plainly guilty. And the confession of that other bird is all bunk—listen you haven’t seen any of the after-5 papers, have you?”

“No. I’ve been working here alone—for a full hour. Is there some new development—in that case?”

“Yes. Only it’s something that doesn’t mean anything. I have inside info on it, which I just picked up in Elsa’s office by overhearing her end of a confidential conversation she had with somebody else. And so when you read this new development, just forget it! And keep your mouth shut. But getting back to your question about the fellow they have indicted, of course I want to see him go to the chair. Since he’s guilty. And he’s going, moreover, means that we take over Colby’s Nugget—to hold and to have! And that goddamned little redheaded cat—”

“Yes, I know, Popp’n’law—I know! But as to the fellow’s landing in that chair, there are lots of funny last-minute slips take place in law. Though I will admit, his goose looks no less than 99.999 per cent cooked, and all Elsa can do—at best—is to play for a life sentence for him instead of the chair. Which for us, Popp’n’law, is every bit just as good as the chair, except—but, listen, did you get any inkling at all out of Elsa, whether she has anything at all in her mitt—even to try? For—”

“No! Or—or yes. I don’t know. She was talking on the phone when I came in. Just ending a conversation. And she was saying ‘the situation lies now more or less in the gas in your car—and the tires on its wheels. And God be with it—and you! I’m leaning on you, therefore, and—’ And that,” Silas Moffit broke off, “was all that was said after that, on her end of the line—of that particular conversation.”

“Hm? Sounds to me, Popp’n’law, like she’s dug up some possible alibi evidence—no actual alibi witness, no!—but something ‘evidential’—something to do with the amount of gas in the tank of some car. And maybe the wear and tear on some set of tires—new or otherwise. Some car this fellow might have started out in from—”

“And I think,” declared Silas Moffit, “that she has reference to a car that somebody is to start out in at once, and reach somewhere or somebody in—in all probability, as I figure it, some possible professional underworld perjurer who will cold-bloodedly try tonight to place that fellow Doe far and away from Chicago at the hour of that killing. For she’s been doing that ‘consulting only’ stuff just long enough now to have doubtlessly a line or two to various people in the underworld—maybe even has something on one or another. But anyway, Manny, the point’s the same. That she has something in—as you put it—’her mitt.’ And is figuring to spring it—unbe­knownst to even her own client.”

“Yes. She has. And is. That’s plain. Well, all I can say, Popp’n’law, is that even if her client’s goose does seem to be cooked, he may fool you—me—and everybody else—and leap into the clear.”

“In which event,” declared Silas Moffit grimly, “there’ll be no building, by your father, on the Nugget—and you and Bella won’t be taking that trip around the world. And I—”

“Listen, Popp’n’law—hold it! Conjures are strange things—I don’t understand how they work, but work they sometimes appear to do! But slips in law are stranger things yet. Take it from me—who’s fooled around plenty with accident suits! And so, Popp’n’law, there’s two things you got to do now to prevent any such slip.”

“Two things? What single one thing can I do? I—”

“You’d be surprised, Popp’n’law! However, there really are two things you can do. And, I think—will! For—but now, first, about this fellow they nabbed today near Old Post Office. Now when it really comes right down to things, he ain’t got any defense whatsoever, at best, but some cock-and-bull story such as that he picked up that Wah Lee’s skull somewhere, and that he never said—as the story of his arrest claims he did—to any witness or witnesses that it was Wah Lee’s skull, and that he’d broken into the State’s Attorney’s safe to get it. And that he was 2 miles—10 miles—maybe even 500 miles—if there’s ‘auto-tires’ and ‘auto-gas’ involved in this thing!—away, at 10:43 last night, when that German night watchman was killed.

But you, Popp’n’law, can knock out even that cock-and-bull defense completely—and put him in that electric chair where, after all, you know goddamned well he belongs. And then we can quick make that transf—”

“Now you hold it, you half-wit! What the hell can I do! I’ve no connection with that case. And have been lucky even to be able to be a spectator at that trial tonight, since—”

“But you ain’t gonna be that tonight, Popp’n’law. Not altogether, no. For you’re going to be a witness also! In short—but here’s the point exactly: Where were you last night at around, say, 10:45?”

“At 10:45? Well, I happen to know exactly where I was at that hour. If the clock on Bush Bourse—on the near-North Side—is at all correct. And I’ve never yet known it to be wrong! I was waiting there for a Clark Street car, to go North—and home—after looking over that godawful old building there where that well-to-do nose surgeon, Doctor MacLeish MacPherson practices—and also those Dove Brothers, Dentists, who racketeer on pyorrhea—the building that wants a second mort—”

“Yes, I know. But don’t let us mind the building itself now, Popp’n’law. You were on the southeast corner then—so you think?”

“So I think? Why, you damned little whel—”

“Now wait, Popp’n’law! Wait. I ain’t Saul, y’know! And there’s method back of my—my madness! And besides, you got to admit that you and Saul have got a loose scr—um—deficiency, when it comes to remembering even where you’ve bee—now hold it, Popp’n’law, for I know what I’m driving at now—anyway, here’s the point: was anybody with you there last night? Like, I mean, to help you appraise that old shack?”

“Say—listen you—when the day comes that I can’t appraise an old shack like that for myself, I’ll—but evidently you do know what you’re driving at, so—no, nobody was with me.”

“Good! Well, exactly what, Popp’n’law, was your movements—that is, as you recall ’em!—between 10 and 11 last night?”

“As I recall them? Well, by godfrey, if this is some sort of a subtle campaign of insults, I’m going to tell you—listen, don’t you toss out any more hot shots against my mentality—and second, don’t you ever again couple me, in any way whatsoever, with that—that—that goddamned—”

“All right—I won’t! I won’t. Now what was your movements last night between 10 and 11? Rather,—to be exactly exact—from 10:01 to 10:59—inclusive!”

“From 10:01—to 10:59 inclusive? Well, just what in hell you’re trying to cook up, I can’t fathom, but—well, at 10:01 last night, I was standing on the sidewalk, in front of the LaSalle Street depot—”

“Okey-dokey! You’d know that from the big clock above the entrance to the LaSalle Street depot reading 9:01 railroad time, if not by the big crowds pouring out of the entrance from that streamline train that comes in nightly from Detroit at exactly 10 sharp, Daylight Saving time. For I happen to know there ain’t any other incoming trains all the way from 8:45 to 11:30. All right, station clock—and crowds. And then—Popp’n’law?”

“Well—then I ambled on foot over to State Street—though first stopping in a couple or so shops that clustered near the depot—though for but a second or so each—and once at a newsstand, also close to the depot, to look at a news headline—and, reaching State Street, studied that old building where the Shanghai Chop Suey Restaurant was for so many years—and failed up—its owner is a retired lawyer, you know, and he thinks he wants a loan on it to modernize it!—anyway, from there I took a State Street car to Chicago Avenue—got off—walked over west—and was in front of the building where MacLeish MacPherson practices. And across the way, likewise, from Bush Bourse.”

“And absolutely nobody was with you, Popp’n’law, from the LaSalle Street depot point—to the Bush Bourse point!”

“No, nobody, at that hour of night. If it had been in the daytime, then of course somebody would more than likely have fallen in with me, and—”

“Yes. And now about them different shops you say you stopped in at. Did you know the proprietors?—or they you!—however, come to think of it, Popp’n’law, that don’t make no nevermind—for they was all in around Van Buren and LaSalle I take it, right where we’re starting out at?”

“Correct.”

“Well now, Popp’n’law, ain’t you possibly mixing in—sort of speaking—that Bush Bourse corner examination, with last night’s movements? For if I know anything at all, I know that if you was in front of the LaSalle Street depot—which we can say definitely to be LaSalle and Van Buren Streets—at 10:01 last night, you’d abs’lutely have strolled north on Wells Street—I mean, of course, after stepping into them several shops you stepped in right around there—well anyway, you’d abs’lutely have strolled north on Wells Street, and given a complete once-over to that old Blivens Building, on Wells near Washington, what only late yesterday struck us for a third mortgage loan.”

“In a pig’s eye I would ha—well yes yes of course,” Silas Moffit modified his words, “one always at least looks into all the loan requests. But go ahead?”

“Well, after you looked it well over, and counted the windows, and sized up the real depth, and all that, you were finally satisfied it was n. g. for a ‘first,’ let alone a ‘third,’ and so rounded the corner of Washington and Wells, to go down Washington to Clark—and catch a Clark Street car for home. Or rather, of course, to be exact, for Fullerton Avenue—where you’d be hopping off in front of that new cigar store, the Tobacco Box—and walking west to home. Now surely you remem—”

“Say listen—Manny.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve just come—at least a while ago—from a cigar store where I left my lucky umbrella. And—no, no, ’twasn’t today at all I left it there, no; ’twas—that’s right. And the store is the Whistling Jim, on—oh you know where it is, eh? Well, I caught the proprietor who happened to be on duty at the time I was in there—as the clerk told me this morning when I barged in there to recover it. It was his day off today—yes, the proprietor’s—but I caught him as he came to pick up a traveling bag. To run down to some sister or something in Kankakee. And, Manny, the dirty bastard lies up and down and says I didn’t leave it there! Now the fact is, of course, that being a tobacconist, he just grabbed it because he saw a chance to make an unusual pipe out of its handle, which was made out of—anyway, I want you to go over there tomorrow at noon—when he gets back, and takes over—and present your card, and say that I’ve filed a replevin suit through you: and then maybe the crooked son of a bitch will disgorge my prop—”

“But—but Popp’n’law—if he says you didn’t leave it there, then maybe you didn’t. For—for you know how you—how both you and Saul, in fact—are about—about losing things, and not knowing—”

“Stop it! This is one case where I positively know what I did do. If for no other reason than that a certain pavement hawker smiled directly at me. And proved thereby he wasn’t blind. And proved by that, in turn, that I was then without any umbrella at all. And which establishes, thereby, that it wasn’t under my arm when I came out of this Whistling Jim’s. So go down there tomorrow noon sure, and—”

“All right—all right. But don’t forget, Popp’n’law, last time you came in my place with your face almost purple, commanding me to file a replevin suit for your lucky umbrella against that cheese store, you—you had the very umbrella in your hand—and were waving it like—like a windmill.”

“That’ll do! I—I thought that the one in my hand was still another one. Because I’d forgotten entirely about recovering it at the—anyway, you do tomorrow exactly what I tell you to do. For—”

“All right—all right. But we’re—we’re way off the track again. The point just now is that surely you remember what I just related a minute back? About, I mean, getting your homebound Clark Street car—in the Loop?”

“Remember that?” Silas Moffit repeated cautiously. “We-ell—” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “We-ell—yes, now that I think of it, Manny, I naturally did—hrmph!—since the Blivens Building was offering 9 per cent interest—however, you were saying?”

“What I’ve been saying, Popp’n’law, is only what you’ll naturally have to testify to tonight, after that trial is under way—and you’ve gotten your first look at that defendant.

For he is—that is, must be!—the same guy, Popp’n’law, whom you seen coming toward you, and away from the entrance of the Klondike Building, at just about 10:45 by your watch—and with a violin case in his hand. You know—sledge? Yes. Now think hard, Popp’n’law. It’s so easy to get building inspection trips mixed up—and to think that one went out on one particular one one night, when one really—”

“Yes, yes—I don’t need to think. It does all come back to me now. ’Twas the night before last that I sized up the building across from Bush Bourse. Last night I was on Washington Street. Yes! Because of strolling down to that Blivens Building from LaSalle and Van Buren Streets where I positively was at 10:01 o’clock. I was going east—yes—to reach Clark Street, and take a car home. And was crossing LaSalle at a few minutes after that killing is known to have taken place. Though ’twasn’t at 10:45, Manny. ’Twas at 10:46! Yes, by my watch. And also by the big bronze clock hanging out from the 33 North LaSalle Building. For I—I checked one against the other, see? Yes, and this man I saw did carry a violin case. And, up to now, I just supposed he was some musician—going to work in some west side night club. And—well by godfrey, Manny, if he is the same man as this defendant tonight, I’ll—”

“You’ll take the State’s Attorney off to one side, before the trial opens—tell him what you have discovered—and be called, amongst all the prosecution witnesses, as a witness for the State!”

“Why, of course, of course, Manny. I could scarcely do less! And that’ll write finis to any wild cock-and-bull stories the Doe fellow might even expect to spi—but all right, Manny-boy. You’re a fine bright boy, Manny, and if now and then I get a little short-tempered with you, just overlook it. It’s—it’s my liver. Yes. And it’s well that you refreshed my mind, as you have, on what I really was doing last night. For I would have sworn I went over to Bush Bourse, and—but see you later, Manny-boy, and—but oh, yes—what is the other thing I can do? To—er—nullify that black bitch’s stinking conjure—in which, of course, I have no belief whatsoever!”

“No, of course not,” Manny admitted dryly. And added grumpily: “And I was wondering whether you were going to have confidence enough in me at least to ask me what the other thing was! Well—here’s the other thing. And plenty important, too. And if you’ve got even a one third of one per cent belief in that black wench’s voodooism, Popp’n’law, you’d better do it! But here it is. You must go straight back, Popp’n’law, to Elsa’s office, plump yourself down in it, and not stir out of it till shortly before time for you both to go to cour—”

“Wait! Why?”

“Why, so’s to get her end of all telephone conversations. It seems you got plenty out of what you listened in on this evening—just from her end alone! And you’re bound to pick up something—something!—from some of her conversations, if, as it seems, she has irons in the fire—that we can slip to the State’s Attorney, even if anonymously—”

“Wait! She’ll be plenty peeved—if I plank myself down in her office. She—”

“Well, suppose she is? She can’t boost you out—not with her 90 skinny pounds. All hell can’t get you out of there, Popp’n’law—if you set yourself down and say you’re going to stay! Just give her some applesauce. Tell her—tell her that a long-distance New York call, supposed to come in to you on my wire here, has had to be switched to hers. And I’ll not answer this phone for a full two hours, in case she checks up on the yarn. Though you can get me any time on Abe’s—across the hall. Just take along a newspaper and tell her you’ll sit quietly and read your paper and be too busy to see, speak or hear. Oh come, Popp’n’law, you aren’t afraid of her skinny freckled fists, are you?”

“That—gnat? If she so much as tried anything like that I’d—I’d knock her cold. Hm? Yes, by God, Manny, you’re right. She will be having calls, in connection with whatever she’s trying to do in this case—and something—something—is bound to be derived therefrom. Which I can phone to you. And you can phone to Louis Vann. Yes, I’ll go straight back there. For—for goddamn it, Manny, I—I—I am leery, somehow—of the powers—possible powers, anyway, of that black wench. Because after all, you know, the Supreme Power that transcends our physical laws has been known, in the past, to be vested in ignorant people as well as educated ones. And in people of all colors. And in that one instance, anyway, she practically prove—anyway, I’ll go straight back. And all hell, Manny, won’t budge me out of that little spitfire’s office. See you later, boy. And good-bye.”

And the connection was terminated.

But of all this, Elsa, of course, heard nothing. As neither did “Central”—since the telephone connection was an automatic one. Nor did anyone else hear—in view of the singleness of that wire, and the tripleness of the glass walls in that telephone booth. And it was just as well for Elsa, at least, that she didn’t hear any of it. Considering that she just might have been rash enough to make up her mind to try to oust her uncle bodily. And considering, moreover—with respect to certain testimony he was now in full readiness to give tonight—that she could not disprove a single word of that testimony even had she known in advance what it was going to be!