HISTORY CRIMINAL—HISTORY HISTRIONIC!
“But back to Actor Hart,” the particular Mr. Topkins represented by threadlike lines on that now almost hidden wax cylinder was saying.
“A more than just-interesting criminal, to say the least.
“For it seems that, as actor alone, he’s veteran of hundreds of difficult parts. Including several difficult ones played only off the boards. Either to save his life! Or to advance his criminality. Viz—the time he got the entire layout and workings of a Western country bank while atop a soap box out in front of it, in an Indian wig and frock coat—no, no, not at all purporting to be an Indian, but merely a simulator of an Indian—if you folks get the subtlety of that histrionicism!—in shorter words, selling some claptrap Indian remedy and using a medical spiel for it that was far better than its own originator—one old Doc Humbleberry—who, subsequent to the successful bank robbery which took place that night—was found tied and gagged in the woods near by.
“Or viz—when Hart was actually caught once, in an automobile, with burglar tools, garbed as a crude rural hick, with peroxided hair and tight-fitting clothes—he actually succeeded in talking two town marshals into letting his car go, convincing them that the tools which they found in his car had been dropped into it on its way through the town. And not until they checked his supposed destination—and found that it didn’t exist—not till, in fact, following him, he shot one through the intestines—no, the man didn’t die—did they know that their naïve-looking yaller-haired ‘hick’ was a hard and dangerous criminal;—was, as they were to know still much later, the hardest and most dangerous criminal in the Midwest and Far West.
“Or still again—as an aftermath of that same killing—when Hart was closely questioned up in Canada, by Mounties, where he was camping on some turbulent river with an Indian guide—those Mounties suspecting that the mild gold-spectacled ‘Dr. Glenwood Jamison’ of Oxford, England with his perfect Oxonian accent, who was learning to fish, and to ride rapids in canoe, and do the things that a red-blooded Englishman might want to learn to do, might be some American criminal hiding till the ‘heat was off.’ And he convinced those red-coated lads, who’d never been out of Canada in their lives, that he was the gen-uine McCoy! Enough, at least, to get rid of them—to send them back to their lonely outpost—where they could radio Toronto for more complete confirmation. Though, alas, before they did—before they ever returned—he’d shot the rapids out of his camp—leaving his Injun behind—and, incidentally, unpaid!—and was gone; and that was the time, my friends who read magazines, that the Mounties didn’t get their man!
“The foregoing but a few of ‘Actor’ Hart’s parts—adopted for expediency, pure and simple.
“While, again, considering Hart as to his actual stage parts, they’ve been too numerous to list. He’s played, and effectively, it seems, such parts as Count Dracula—in Dracula; of Lord Essex—in an early version of Queen Elizabeth’s life called Her Majesty; of Lord Arthur Dilling—in The Last of Mrs. Cheyney; of Slim, the Lineman, in Strike; of a hundred more.
“And how, it may be asked, did a man who subsequently was destined to be a criminal and bank robber ever become an actor—and an effective one?
“Well, he was born, my friends—this Hart—of an actor and an actress—and virtually on a prop trunk. Destined—by very Fate itself!—to be the actor, for a brother, born from the same genes and chromosomes—but at a time when père and mère were ‘resting’—a naïve euphonicism, that, known only to Thespians!—and left, said brother, because of some fragility of corporeal structure, with some aunt in the Far West, became eventually an honest carpenter. Bearing Aunt’s honest name. So, at least, relates even Hart himself. Both of Hart’s progenitors are now dead for many, many years, and fortunately never lived to see what they had spawned. And I refer now to Hart—and not the honest carpenter, wherever he may now be nailing nails into planks—even if he knows of his now-famous relative ‘Actor’ Hart. And so, referring again to Hart’s parents, mayhap George Jean Hathan, over there at Table 9—that is, if, as I suspect, the gentleman there whose back is to me is George Jean Hathan!—has something on them, in his voluminous files of the American Theatre. For they were Lionel Hart—and Henrietta Hart. Veteran troopers—both. Al, as he grew up, played child parts in the cheap traveling companies in which his parents then traveled—for a while, even, played Little Eva—in a skirt and wig. Until the death of both of his parents in a railroad wreck outside of Des Moines—and the refusal of the Far-Western aunt to take on any more boys to rear up—resulted in the Des Moines probate court placing Al, then 5, in a monastery just outside of the city run by the Brothers of the Holy Grail.
“There, over the ensuing 10 years, he was given a fine general and even scientific education—under the Brothers. And was, moreover, a fine student—though of the type which shines more because of a parrot-like retentive memory for facts than a real absorption thereof. The innate actor, no doubt! But one fine day, it seems, he left the monastery—taking with him over a thousand dollars from the Father Superior’s safe—the entire receipts of the grape crop grown on part of the Order’s estate.
“Then followed a period of petty thievery in Omaha—the nearest big city. And arrest. And commitment to the Omaha Reform School. Where Hart remained till he was 21.
“At 21 he walked out—free. Having distinguished himself in the school in the boys’ amateur theatricals—and having had a heavy lesson about the inefficiency of crime!—it was natural that he would wind up on the stage. And, by good luck, he connected with no less than Captain Billy Turkins’ famous repertoire troupe—one of the most famous traveling troupes in the West—for it carried with it, and was able to handle, more stock plays than any troupe that has ever traveled.
“It was here Hart distinguished himself as an able character actor—taking any part given him—often, two and three parts in a single evening—since Captain Billy, it seems, had a trick of often splitting the company in two and playing two adjoining cities in the same night. It has been estimated that, during the next 5 years, Hart took more character parts than any actor has ever taken in an equal period. Even women’s parts.
“He was, it seems, liked by his audiences—for, on the boards, he successfully simulated urbanity, geniality, cheer and good personality; but he was, it also seems, heartily disliked by his Thespian confreres—for, off the boards, he was little—mean—cunning—and cruel.
“It was because of those characteristics, no doubt, that he eventually and finally concluded there was no future in acting—at least in road repertoire—for, at the end of the 5-year period I speak of, he departed the professional stage for good and all!—taking with him a thousand dollars from Captain Billy’s strong-box—the receipts of several nights successful playing, of two companies, in two prosperous towns.
“And through connections Hart had evidently made when a boy—when on the loose in Omaha—before he went to the reform school—he evidently quickly got back into the underworld. And now opened up—as a bank robber! With himself invariably doing all the advance ‘casing’ work—the ‘shoestring and court-plaster work,’ as it’s known in yeggdom. And here, of course, is where his ability to play a part came in: for he could walk into a town, under one of his many effective guises, and get all the information of every kind he needed.
“Nor was he shy on nerve—when it came to the actual job. For he was always in on it—directing the work—and the shooting—if shooting there must be.
“To follow, for you all, his career during the subsequent years—even the high spots of it—I cannot, for the simple reason that my time on the long-distance phone with Warden Kittredge of Folsom was drawing to a close—by virtue of my having to appear uptown here at the Eclat Club. I asked Warden Kittredge for just a few high spots—for you, my listeners—interesting high spots—for I knew I had a story that could well be embellished with a fuller character picture.
“So I give you, in closing Hart’s history, but four of his jobs. Jobs which, in our Eastern papers here, probably almost certainly got no more than a few sticks of fine type—if any at all; and which such of you as read them will remember, at best, only as the job—and not the criminal involved. Yet these four jobs are the most interesting four in what I consider an interesting criminal’s career. Comprising, as they do, his last recorded one—the one which placed him in Folsom—for life. And the one, before that, which caused the huge reward that is posted on him today as an escaped convict to be thus posted. And one in the earlier part of his crime career that, curiously and oddly, wrecked and ruined an entire tiny American town! And, far from least in importance, that one just ahead of it where he came his first cropper—since it brought him his first penitentiary imprisonment—one year—and therefore his first fingerprinting, and his first Bertillon recording—both of which were to catch up with him later and, ultimately, so to speak, tie his history together!
“That first ‘cropper’—to dispose of it completely here—was an aborted bank robbery—and not a bank robbery at all. It was an attempt to rob the bank of Ned, Wyoming. Hart and a companion drove up in a car to, plainly, stick up the bank—found suspicious men posted around it—drove off pell-mell—and were captured a mile out of town. Though Hart had failed to divest himself of identification which branded him as an ex-actor, Al Hart, the two men, however, so successfully ‘ditched their artillery’—as the expression goes—that, when the town went to try them, Hart, pleading his and his companion’s own case, showed that there had technically been neither robbery nor attempt thereat. With the result that the county judge, who apparently was legal-minded, found himself unable to give them each more than 1 year—and that solely on the charge of vagabondage.
“And now Hart’s other cropper. That was the bank of Ultima, California. With two other men—who, however, escaped—Hart killed the cashier. And was captured. And was so broke, in spite of all his successful robberies—for he is, it seems, an inveterate gambler, and has lost everything he ever gained—that he had to take a ‘public defender.’ And got life in Folsom. And it was while in Folsom, of course, that he lived with Andy Glover—in the same cell. And it was in the big Folsom ‘crushout’ of which I’m sure you all read—that ‘crushout’ of several months ago, in which 30 men got out—that Al Hart also got out. And was never recaptured.
“And now the job that placed on his head, if recaptured, the reward that is now on it.
“That was the job of Beggins Bank’s Creek—in Texas. Where he used the girl cashier of the bank as a shield. In the getaway. Holding her on the running board of his car. And when he had outdistanced his pursuers, instead of letting her free, he shot her wantonly—through the stomach and spine. So that she had to live paralyzed—till she died, some months later. His only reason for such unnecessary crime was—as she later told it—her answer of ‘no’ when he said to her ‘How’s-about coming along as my woman, babe?’ For, when she said no, he said, ‘Eat dust then, girlie—and like it!’ And shot her wantonly and cruelly.
“And it was this girl’s father, one Andrew Scogg, who, when Hart subsequently escaped from Folsom, placed in a trust fund in an Austin, Texas, bank the sum of $22,500—to be paid to those who should ultimately put ‘Actor’ Hart back behind the bars of Folsom. Death, so I understand Scogg is said to have said, was too good for Hart; so Scogg made his reward payable solely on the basis of Hart’s going back alive—to suffer—and to pay! $2500 for the slightest initial tip—if tip were to be involved—which should set the law on the right track—$20,000 to the man or men who took Hart—and delivered him onto the long road which ended at Folsom’s gates.
“And now for that other highlight—and then, I fancy, from the subsidence of the rain on the roof above us, that the orchestra and your next two entertainers will be filing back—and I will be signing off. Well, that job, which was done within but a month after Hart completed serving that first year’s sentence for vagabondage!—and in which, incidentally, being still a beginner at bank robbery, he left enough data in a hotel room to give Uncle Sam the first intimation Uncle ever had that Al Hart, former actor, born at Lime Ridge, North Dakota, etc., etc., and recently released from a Wyoming jail, was on the warpath!—that job, as I started to say, was the job of Eureka, Oklahoma—in the Oklahoma panhandle, in fact—a town which lay across a railroad track from one of the lowest sinks of iniquity in all America—the town of Little Hell, Oklahoma. Some of you may have heard of Little Hell—though probably not. A long bitter feud had existed between the inhabitants of Little Hell—who were all thieves, drunken rustlers, prostitutes, and God knows what—and the people of Eureka, who were decent God-fearing people. And Hart’s robbery of that Eureka Bank—his share of the proceeds of which are now known to have vanished entirely on the tracks of Tia Juana, Mexico—completely broke the town of Eureka. Many of the inhabitants were ruined and had to move. And Eureka, within a few months, died—as a town. And the people of Little Hell—across the tracks—worthless renegades and scum—won their feud, in a manner of speaking, through the act of a crook quite unknown to them. Or known to them, at best, only through Uncle Sam’s locally publicized investigations as to Hart, his source, and his career—as at least it was up to that time—of, respectively, child actor, reform-school inmate, repertoire actor, and beginning bank robber. It was facetiously said—so, at least, the warden of Folsom tells me—that when Little Hell’s hated enemy, Eureka, folded up, thanks to that bank robbery, the inhabitants considered erecting a golden plate to Mr. Al Hart on their ‘City Hall Square’—which was an ash-strewn lot, containing a rickety shack!—but that there wasn’t, unfortunately, enough money in Little Hell to buy even a plate of tin! Be that as it may—
“But now I fear it’s time for me to si—yes, Alfonse?—excuse me, folks!—you don’t say?—well, well, folks—hear that?—the worst cloudburst that New York has ever had is now thundering down outside—and Hal Struthers, your estimable orchestra leader—so Alfonse tells me—has just phoned in that he’s quite given up hope of getting the orchestra and your next two entertainers back here by foot—and so has ordered a chartered bus from uptown—to bring ’em back a-wheel! And that, while that bus comes down to get them, I’m to pinch-hit for the gang—the which I’m werry, werry happy to do—though I shall, folks, have to continue with the only thing I know anything about today—yesterday’s subjects being dead, dead, dead!—and today’s subject being—in case I’ve put any of you to sleep thus far!—Al Hart, actor, bank robber, and ex-convict. But because, if you aren’t asleep, you may all be getting a little tired of me up here at the mike—I’m going to ring in you folks now, without restraint!—the moment I expatiate on any further aspects or angles of ‘Actor’ Hart on which you may be qualified to speak. For I recognize many of you who are dining here today—and don’t forget, there’s also Alfonse, our estimable head-waiter here, to tip me off to who’s who—in the whole place. And so—continuing with the interesting subject of Mr. Hart, of the Midwest and Far West—yes, Alfonse—unreel all three of the portable mikes—far enough so that they’ll reach any table. Yes!
“All right, folks—and take it easy!—everybody has to have his first time on the radio, you know!
“Is a man like Al Hart a genius or a degenerate?
“His psych is a ripe subject for discussion, in view of that fact that at this moment he’s a free man—and may continue to remain so! For, forecasting one possible outcome to this unusual situation in which 4 men, most unknown to each other, are sweeping down Big River in a huge boat—this boat may yet, because of cross-whirls and further steering trouble, be deviated off into the swamplands of the west shore—the four men may disband—and Hart will be a free man! To doff, at the first deserted half-inundated dwelling place, whatever he’s now wearing and don anything he can pick up—perhaps to doff even that, later, and don something further still later—and to reappear, only at best, when he does reappear—in some big city as a character whom the police will never suspect. As, for instance, a beggar or a priest; as an itinerant juggler—for, the warden of Folsom tells me, Hart can actually juggle—or as a wandering violinist—for, it seems, he even plays well. But what is of chief importance is that he may vanish from the lower Big River—and with the diamond pin. True, he evidently was not armed when he went to the island—figuring to get the pin by being first there. While the Sheriff is armed. But Hart, the warden tells me, is a demon of a poker player—the shrewdest and cunningest and most unguessable of the kind who ever entered Folsom. The other convicts, the warden said, indeed all finally refused to play with Hart for cigarettes—in the exercise yard—because Hart was, as they put it, ‘unfigureable.’ He is the kind of player—the warden says—who, when patently, palpably bluffing—yet holds four aces; the kind, even more, who facing an opponent with a palpably weak hand, deliberately tosses away two aces out of four—to draw to apparently a low pair. And, as such, he is unpredictable—unguessable. And so, possessed of such supreme poker-cunning, Hart may pull a swift one on the Sheriff after the party disbands—if it disbands in the swamplands—and get the pin. May even kill the Sheriff—and toss him into some quicksand. Oh, there are plenty of outcomes, my friends, to that situation of 4 men in a boat—that may make news late today.
“So, is Hart a genius—or is he a degenerate?
“If he’s fundamentally the latter—he would have some of the stigmata of the true degenerate.
“Well—it seems he has!
“For he is, the warden of Folsom tells me, a liar of the first water. And I have the authority of no less than Dr. Westober Koomere, of this city—in one of my previous news-story cases—that any liar who qualifies as a ‘liar of the first water’ is no less than a so-called ‘pathological liar’. Like all pathological liars, moreover, Hart keeps his to a limited locale; but, unlike most pathological liars who usually center their remarkable tales about a single setting—or a single era—Hart utilizes two quite disparate locales for his lying genius—and knowledge of which locales he has obtained, as has been conclusively found out by the Folsom prison psychiatrist, from extensive reading about them—both technical and fictive.
“One of Hart’s locales is that of a steel mill—the electrical department thereof. Such locale probably evolved, as a site for his lying, due to the fact of his successful presentation, years back, of the character of Slim the Lineman in the repertoire production of Strike—though, as some of you will remember, who a few years ago saw the all-star revival of that famous play right here on Broadway, the entire play was played out on the outside of a steel mill—on the outside, even of a steel town!—and, beyond the matter of some occasional jargon about conditions in the mill and in the town, dealt purely with sociological matters. Be that as it may, Hart’s history shows that in the various hotels, boarding houses, tourist camps, and so forth, in which he’s sojourned, he has more times than not—when not simulating some specific character—posed as an electrical inspector—a labor organizer—a mill-works superintendent—or a high-tension equipment salesman—for steel mills—telling the most coordinated and organized and objective yarns as to his connections with—and his past relations with—this or that steel mill—this or that job. His yarns have erred not at all on the point of credibility, but on the point of being, my friends, too—too darned credible! So much so that at Folsom, where Hart attempted to foist some such story of some such past connection down the throat of the prison psychiatrist, Dr. Felix von Elzner—who thoroughly checks and tests all stories of all prisoners, no matter how convincing the stories sound—it was ascertained that on certain subtle but relevant points of steel-mill interiors and high-tension practice, Hart was more ignorant than a babe is of algebra! And having trapped himself conclusively, to boot, as having read the standard classical technical work known as Tzincher’s Steel Mill Electrical Practice—the deduction became inevitable therefore, on the part of Dr. von Elzner, that Hart spins his fantasies using but a parrotlike knowledge of this work as a basis.
“His other locale—for his other pathological lying—happens to be, as could be guess—but I see, yonder—and just across the open dance floor from me—no other than Mr. Hugh Coramy, President of the American Steel Company of South Chicago, Illinois, who is talking rather excitedly to his dinner companion, at the same time indicating me with a gesture of his hand—and at the same time shaking his head most, most emphatically!—and so, since Mr. Coramy disagrees with some aspect of something I’ve said—yes, Felipe, place that portable microphone on Table 12—yes—in front of the gentleman with the iron-gray hair.
“Mr. Coramy is—and I say this whilst Felipe is carrying over one of the portable mikes to Mr. Coramy’s table—Mr. Coramy is not just merely a president of one of the largest steel companies in the world—but is a man who climbed up to that position on a pair of lineman’s spurs, starting in the mills as a line-gang helper—then later going up the poles—later becoming chief electrical maintenance inspector—still later, electrical construction superintendent—and finally and eventually becoming head of a hundred-million-dollar corporation. And if Mr. Coramy has something of interest to say about perhaps this particular aspect of ‘Actor’ Hart, it will be authoritative to the nth degree—Mr. Coramy, will you favor us with a few words, on whatever point it was that seemed to—”
“Thank you, Mr. Topkins—and ladies and gentlemen of the Eclat Club—but I do fear that I allowed myself to become a little too agitated a few minutes back when I heard mention of this crook being liar enough to frame a story about himself, or events in a steel mill, or in the high-tension electrical side thereof, to possess any real conclusiveness or cunningness whatsoever. For, as Mr. Topkins here says, I started in such a place—on the ground—borrowing a pair of climbers to take my first few dizzy steps up a pole—my stomach virtually in my mouth. And nobody who has never gone up a pole with nothing but two tiny sharpened points in his heels—and the flat palms of his hands—between himself and a broken back—knows the sensations. I’ve seen aviators who could loop the loop in a plane—yet went sick at trying to climb a pole. And here’s a riddle—for those of you here who are interested—to figure on! On a sleety day, with the pole covered one side with ice—which side of it does the lineman go up? If he goes up the dry side—his palms lie on the slippery icy side. But if he goes up the icy side in order to get his palms on dry wood—then his spurs may not go through the ice. The answer—which nobody, who has never worked at such things, will ever know—is, of course, that the lineman goes up with the ice on one side of him only! Again, for instance—but the point I’m really trying to make is that there are so many thousands of tiny details about life in a steel mill, that a liar—pathological or otherwise!—who had obtained his material solely from a technical book would quite fail to get them in. Such as, for instance, why a man never walks between two rows of cold ingots standing in the yards. Why? Because they may have cooled only on the outside. They may be radiating, from white-hot interiors, heat waves so terrific that before such man can escape to the end of the row—his flesh will be seared. No technical book will ever speak of that! Again—but again the point I am trying to make is that I doubt very very much whether this man Hart, if he stood before anybody who had ever only just seen a mill—or smelt one—or even lived near one—could give any account of his own connection with one that would ring any more true than a 39-cent tinny alarm clock. Oh yes, he might blend together some jabber about a pair of wire-cutters—a bit of smoke—some references to voltages—or phases—but it wouldn’t ring any more true than would a lead half-dollar on a marble slab. And the proof of what I say lies in the fact that—”
“Oh, do you mind, Mr. Coramy, since you’ve introduced the very point yourself—do you mind letting the gentleman who sits alone at the second table from you—fronting you—the gentleman with the short gray beard—do you mind letting him momentarily take the mike? For he is—well, the point is I know that you are a broad man, willing always to see every side of a ques—”
“Not at all, Mr. Topkins. My own education, I hope, will stop only at my grave, though I still aver—yes, waiter, that’s quite all right—take it.”
“Well, folks, since you’re one and all of you interested in authoritative discussion, I give you now—with great satisfaction—Dr. Grayson A. Holbert, Professor of Psychiatry at New York University—and head of the Department of Abnormal Psychology at the Neurological Institute—upper Hudson. Professor Holbert, I take pleasure in—no, Felipe—not table 15—table 14!—place your portable mike on table 14—that’s right!—Professor Holbert, I take pleasure in putting to you that single point: Can a pathological liar simulate reality?”
“Mr. Topkins—ladies and gentlemen—the answer is, with all due respect to President Coramy two tables off: a pathological liar can! These cases, which possess no visible mental stigmata whatsoever but their lying—indeed, such people are super-smart, super-intelligent, rather than the opposite—these cases, as I started to say, come to us plentifully at the psychological clinic at New York-U—also at the abnormal psychology department at the Neurological Institute—and even more in the Matteawan State Hospital for the Insane where I am consulting neurologist—they arrive there, you see, because so often their lying involves them criminally some way—anyway, they come to us, these cases, with the most amazing stories of their past lives—or recital of protracted episodes therein—such as—say—their life on some Brazilian river—or a trip they recently made to Africa; and not until we have combed their whole life, and interviewed their relatives, do we find that the subjects got their tan at Coney Island—and their material out of travel books, and from maps. Why, I have had ex-Brazilian travelers, who were thoroughly up on the data of such locale, brand as genuine the story of a pathological liar—who claimed to have lived 10 years in Brazil. And therein, of course, lies the key to the real ‘why’ of the pathological liar.”
“The key—to the ‘why’? That sounds interesting, Professor. Would you mind elucidating that?”
“Not at all. I mean, by that, that the pathological liar—the ‘p.l.’ as we call him in the psychological laboratory—is, fundamentally, a man who feels himself, in some degree, to be inferior to the rest of the world. Whether he really is inferior or not is beside the point; most of them, I say, are actually superior beings mentally, anyway. But the point is that the p.l. feels he is inferior. And so, every time he successfully ‘puts it over’—as we may express it!—by a beautifully spun lie in a field, or a locale, not personally known to him, he elevates his ego. When, however, he ‘puts it over’ an actual expert in the field in which he is lying, he literally—er—lifts himself up by his own bootstraps! Eventually, of course, as would be expected—his lying commences to wear out—with respect, I mean, to its power to raise his ego. Whereupon—to save his ego—the p.l. commences to master a new field—or a new locale—or both. Much as—as certain successful authors, who have become tired of writing bestsellers, have been known to break up their typewriters, and become poor artists, making their first crude daubs. Or certain successful business men, who have sold out their lucrative businesses—and gone to writing short stories. The psychic mechanism is the same—but beautifully objectified in the p.l. Indeed, a remarkable example of the actual evolution of a p.l. was given us today by Mr. Topkins, in his description of the articles which were found in that Shelby’s Bluff attic: viz, the two books, one on optics—and one on chemistry; and viz also this man Hart’s letter to his friend ‘complaining’ that the books he had had on those subjects were too ‘elementary’ for him. Here is a case of a man who is losing his ego-satisfaction in his present field of pathological lying—and is now in the process of mastering a couple of new ones—to eventually serve him in a few years. Indeed, I can predict with absolute safety that should Hart escape the river—and become a free man again—the day will eventually arrive when he will be, to some tentative hearer, a ‘pharmaceutical chemist’ say—or—say—a ‘telescope lens’ maker. These two stages are not at hand yet—not till, in most probability, he’s read a dozen books on each subject; they are in the making—they are symbolized by a couple of well-thumbed, dog-eared books—carefully checked, each, as to chemical equation—to optical diagram! I can even further predict that should Hart, escaping the river, put up tomorrow—or in the next few days—with a family in which there was one member who had worked in a steel mill—or lived in Chicago—and that family were downright suspicious of him—Hart would use one of those fields, or locales, to establish an identity—and not the lesser known ones in which he is apparently dipping. For his ego is slipping—viz his very study of new fields. And a slipping ego means he will use, in a pinch, such lie as will put his lying ability to the most acid test. And right there is a very odd thing. For, generally speaking, curiously, the only person likely to see through the tale of a pathological liar is the layman who knows quite nothing of the locale—or subject—with which the p.l. is treating!”
“Indeed, Professor? That—that is interesting. Do you mind explicating that?”
“Not at all. The facts which the pathological liar gives are, as a rule, immutably correct. The brains of such persons are such as practically never to err in that respect. The trouble is, however, that they insert, in their stories, more—well, what should I call it?—color?—atmosphere?—than a real and bona fide narrator would logically insert. This becomes lost to the expert who is combing such a tale for sheer facts—but it becomes apparent to the layman—oh, most laymen anyway—because, outside of artfully written fiction stories, which themselves fall rather into the category of ‘commercial pathological lying’!—laymen do not encounter stories of this ilk—this—this colorful, rich, over-adorned, over-detailed, and over-objectified ilk. I would say that were President Coramy—President of American Steel, of South Chicago, Illinois!—to talk to this fellow Hart—without, of course, President Coramy knowing him to be Hart—and Hart, in turn, were to draw the long bow with respect to some past or present alleged connection of himself with a steel mill, the electrical department thereof, President Coramy would fall completely for Hart’s story because of the sheer battery of facts it would contain—plus all the ‘thousand and one details’ it should possess, and which would also be there. For the locale and subject of pathological lying are always sufficient of a complex to the pathological liar that he reads everything he gets his hands on—and adds to his lying armentarium! Mr. ‘Actor’ Hart has, it may be considered assured, read all of the novels laid in steel mills, and involving at the same time line-work, and electrical distribution, and high-tension current, and so forth. Mr. Coramy, being a man deeply versed in facts, would fall for Mr. Hart’s story—if the latter has been declared to be a genuine pathological liar by Dr. von Elzner of Folsom. For Dr. von Elzner is an expert in criminal psychology and psychopathology. Yes, Mr. Coramy would fall for Mr. ‘Actor’ Hart’s story. While Felipe here—my estimable waiter!—would more likely as not smell such a story to be utterly false—because it would contain more color than Felipe has probably ever heard in his life in any story!”
“Thank you, Professor—yes, Felipe—remove the mike from Professor’s table and place it back on President Cor-amy’s table—he wasn’t finished when we took it from him. President Coramy?”
“Well—I have been interested, of course, Mr. Topkins—ladies and gentlemen—in Professor Holbert’s words—and I stand corrected, in one degree anyway, since Professor Holbert knows his pathological liars—and I know only my steel-making and my electrical maintenance thereof! But I want to correct Professor Holbert mildly on one thing. As follows: Mr. ‘Actor’ Hart has not read any novels laid within the interiors of steel mills and dealing with the electrical construction and maintenance angle thereof—with which to fortify his fantasy-spinning ability—for the simple reason that there are none! And since I am on this microphone—and there may be publishers, editors, authors, listening in—indeed, right here in the club now is one of the largest publishers in New York: Mr. John Macrae Senior, of E. P. Dutton and Company!—anyway, as I started out to say, I want to take occasion to express my utter amazement that no author has ever seemingly glimpsed the myriad possibilities for drama which lie within the confines of a great steel mill—such drama, for instance, as might pivot upon no more than the single fact of the necessity of the mill’s electrical arterial life-blood flowing every minute of the 24 hours in the day; drama which would involve, as characters, those very, very human—and stupendously diversified—human beings: the men who man the lines! For those lines are, of course, the steel mill itself—just as the human nervous system is the man! A man could not think nor feel nor move were it not for the finely branching and ever rebranching network of nerves within his body. And a steel mill, were it not for just such a practically identical network—and just so finely branching—would be but a great hulking ruin of smoke-blackened steel columns and gaunt roof-trusses—dead—silent—lifeless—paralyzed! I have looked long and eagerly, in my day, for a novel laid upon this particular stage of an industry which provides the most important commodity, bar none, in the entire world—steel!—but have never encountered one, and no longer dare to hope for one—for the simple reason, doubtlessly, that authors are too wily to utilize a field in which they cannot present that fine detail which makes for verisimilitude to life. Perhaps ‘wily’ is an unfair word; perhaps ‘honesty’ is the word—‘artistically honest.’ As honest, beyond doubt, the authors, as are those fine fellows who man those electrical lines in blackest night or brightest day—in storm—sleet—wind or hail—or in sun that beats down into the inferno which most steel mills become on a summer’s day. Both classes honest—but, unfortunately, the one not the other. And hence—no steel-mill lineman novels. In short, the lineman puts in too long a tough apprenticeship at being a lineman to be also an author—while the author puts in too long an apprenticeship at being an author—to be able also to master the world of the electrical line in addition. With the result, anyway, that Mr. Al Hart, who borrows so freely and facilely from a field of which it seems he knows absolutely nothing, will—if he escapes Big River—and the police there—will have to stick to the details and ‘color’ he finds in that deadly dull tome: Tzincher’s Steel Mill Electrical Practice—for he’ll not be able to toss in any objective coloration such as sights, sounds, smells, or what-has-one—gained from any novels on the subject. And I—I think that’s about all I have to say.”
“Well, Mr. Coramy, we thank you greatly for having condescended to give us even those few words. If it weren’t, now and then, for some of you celebrities, my poor broadcast, I fear, would occasionally fall by the wayside! To mere me, it seems almost inconceivable that the electrical aspect of a huge steel mill isn’t serving again and again as the stage of a novel, for I have a brother who is a safety-inspector of steel mills, and he alone tells me that—however, I am digressing. It may be, however, that the steel-mill line department has served as a stage for—in fact, since we do have Mr. John Macrae Senior, President of E. P. Dutton and Company, with us today, I see no reason why not to find out directly and conclusively whether—Alfonse, I want you to put that spare mike which is now standing on that empty table near you, on the table of Mr. Macr—now, now, Alfonse!—don’t look so blank!—surely you’re not going to make me point—with my arthritic finger?—I’ll tell you what, Alfonse: you’ve been head-waiter at the famous Cotton Club at Richmond, Virginia; so—you take that mike and just stroll around this entire place until you reach a typical Virginia gentleman, straight out of Virginia—and that’ll be Mr. John Macrae—so go to it, Alfonse, and let’s see whether, by gosh, you ever came from Virginia yourse—however, don’t start out yet—for Mr. Macrae just stepped into the telephone booth.
“But I was just about to speak of Al Hart’s other locale—for his unique pathological lying. That locale is—as Professor Holbert has guessed—and as might be surmised from that uncompleted note left by Hart to some unknown crook friend—the famous old Midwest city of Chicago. Where or why Hart ever fastened upon Chicago as a locale is not known. For Hart knows other colorful cities well—and really knows them—not just alone Omaha, as has been mentioned—but many others—quaint Indianapolis, for instance, where he hid for some weeks at one time—and, of course, New York, viz that letter we read—he has even lived in the City of Mexico, too, playing the horses. He has twice taken a full course of the baths at famous little sunny blue-skied Hot Springs, Arkansas, nestling between the Ozarks—a tiny city which even a non-pathological liar could faithfully memorize in 24 hours! And again, speaking of small cities—rather towns—Hart definitely once lived in Bad Axe, Michigan, ‘casing’ a bank there. So—why he fastened on Chicago as a locale must lie in Dr. Holbert’s theory of the pathological liar seeking an obstacle to overcome; at least, Dr. von Elzner of Folsom, who tested Hart out on the subject of Chicago, after Hart spun some part of his checkered past as having lain in that city—found that he’d positively never even been in it, didn’t even know such simple things as that there is a street in Chicago—Halsted Street!—that is not only the longest in the world, but has every nationality, bar none, living along it. Or a square called Bug-House Square where anarchists are allowed openly to advocate even more than ‘burning the king’—as I understand they do in Hyde Park, London. Yet, oddly enough, when arrested once in Abilene, Kansas, by a local chief of police who knew Al Hart was in the town—was probably in the very hotel where Hart was staying—Hart simulated a German accent and told such a convincing story of being of and from ‘Meelvawkee Af-noo,’ Chicago, the famous diagonal German street, that the chief—who had once served in Chicago as a policeman—right on Milwaukee Avenue, in fact!—let him go. Chicago, God knows, has its slums—its criminal world—but having passed through the city once on my way to Hollywood—and having gone all over it, during the course of a few days, in a dozen or so different rubberneck wagons—I claim that, by taking Chicago as a site for his alibis and whatnot else, Hart is maligning a fine old unique cit—but I say!—if that isn’t Duke Cogwell, world-traveler, over there at table 36—I’d never have known it if he hadn’t just changed his position from where his back was to me—well—well—Duke Cogwell!—who’s said to have lived in every city on the face of Mother Earth and, moreover, collated all the sayings on that city uttered by everybody who was worth while—Duke?—do you mind saying a few words?—yes, Felipe—rush that mike to table 36—do you mind saying a few words, Duke?—if it’s only to tell us a few of the amusing encomiums you doubtlessly have in your—er—‘bibliography’ on Chicago—or if ’tis only, maybe, that you had to come to New York to be bored to death by Tommy Topkins?”
“We-ell—Mr. Topkins—and—and ladies and gentlemen of the Eclat Club—I am rather taken unawares, don’t you kn—”
* * * *
The words coming off the wax cylinder had ceased suddenly as the young German inventor, standing by, reached forth and twisted a thumbscrew protruding from the box, which evidently only raised the needle from the wax disc, since the purring sound of the thing revolving was still audible.
“Vell, I ditt mage a leedle mistage all right, Misder Topkins,” he was saying. “Apout vere I t’ought I vass dropping dot needle! Unt—how! But now I do know vere ve are on der vax—unt vere iss eferyding. Unt iss enough, I dink, dot you haf hear chust der opening vorts uf dot vorlt-traffeler, Duke Cogwell, apout Chy-cago—chust so you know how de deeferent woices dey recort on diss machine—unt now I gif you two werry striking woices to try out—der woice uf dot New York boople-isher, yah, who, mit his sohn, ditt come on der mike leedle bit later. Now—leesten—”
A twist of the thumbscrew, and the apparatus must have properly connected together again. For words resumed:
“—atives. Why? I give up?”
“Well maybe, Duke, Mr. Macrae Senior—of Dutton’s—may have some light to throw on that mystery. For he is now back at his table. Yes, Alfonse, you got the right table—and you do know your Virginia gentlemen! And Duke—in presenting, for our amusement here today, all those sizzling verdicts on the famous Windy City, didn’t you quite forget Oscar Wilde’s characterization of the town: ‘A City Whose Women are Wonderfully Clever in Concealing their Parents’? I thought so! But getting back to the mystery of why Chicago persistently gets passed by, by authors, I fancy that Mr. Macrae there can throw some light on it anyway. Mr. Macrae, you have issued in your day, I believe, thousands and thousands of fiction books—they tell me you have been with Duttons—are, in fact, Duttons!—for nearly a half-century—do you mind giving us a word or two as to why Chicago has been passed up—or has it?”
“It has indeed, Mr. Topkins—and ladies and gentlemen of the Eclat Club. Though why, is something that I cannot explain. For Duttons have published not merely thousands of books—but tens of thousands—and, as I can well aver, books written by authors who live all around and about Chicago—in St. Paul to the northwest—in Madison, Wisconsin, and Stevens Point, Wisconsin, close to Chicago—even Milwaukee, a hundred miles up the lake. But, as Mr. Cogwell says—they blissfully pass up the stage that lies at their own feet. Perhaps it is because, as Mr. Cogwell there has emphasized, that everybody who goes to Chicago issues a blisteringly violent denunciation of the town—with the result that perhaps its own native writers get inferiority complexes—or something! When I was there last myself, I really wondered where on earth Victor Henshell obtained his ‘Chicago—a City of Dreadful Night and Still more Dreadful Day.’ I saw nothing of this—at least from the windows of the Stevens Hotel where I stayed. Though perhaps had I taken that brief taxi-cab ride that Mr. Cogwell speaks of—I might have! But Mr. Cogwell has not played fair with us today—he hasn’t given us all that he has on the fair city of Chicago. For going enthusiastically this morning over his manuscript entitled What the World Says About your Town—and which was sent to me yesterday by Mr. Cogwell’s agent, unknown to Mr. Cogwell!—and which I am going to publish!—Mr. Cogwell has omitted one characterization which very much amused me: i.e. Franklin Harmsworth’s. Who called Chicago a ‘Sprawling Ink-Blot of an Overgrown Village Which is Bursting its Breeches with a Population of 6,000,000 people, 1,500,000 of Whom Have Not a Cent in Bank, 1,500,000 of Whom Live from Hand to Mouth, 1,500,000 of Whom Cannot Write a Sentence of English, 1,500,000 of Whom Do not Know Where Today’s Dinner is Coming From, and 400 Constituting a Society Which is Built on the Blood of the Bull and the Tallow of the Hog.’ Or Patterson Gilfoil’s ‘21 Years Ago I descended into Hell—That is, I Came to Chicago,’ or—but what was that one of Edgar Lee Masters’, Elliott, in Mr. Cogwell’s manuscript?—the one that tickled you so? Yes—you take the mike.”
“Why, Father, Masters said:—of Chicago, of course, ‘A City of Exquisite Torture. I Dislike it so Actively that it Acts as an Irritant. To Escape Chicago, I seek Refuge in my Work. I am Hopelessly Lonely there. Continually Irritated. Chicago is an Amorphous Mass with Content but no Form. It Sprawls and Falls over Everything.’”
“Oh, yes—yes—that was worthy of being in the Spoon River Anthology itself! But, as I was saying, it must be because of all the uncomplimentary references—and the no complimentary ones!—that Chicago doesn’t get used more as a site for fiction. Though, to be sure, it does now and again—and hence isn’t a pristine stage when it is. But, when it comes to the general subject of pristine stages, and pristine untouched locales, let me say that Dutton’s is open for a novel—any novel—that will contain the sights and sounds of steel-making—providing it deals with human characters and human motives in conflict. For steelmaking has been more deplorably passed up, as a subject, than has Chicago as a stage. And that—that is about all I have to say.”
“Thank you, Mr. Macrae. And—since we have a publisher before us now—may I ask an academic question? And here it is: If, Mr. Macrae, a man like Hart were to some day submit you a novel through an agent—or, say, directly from back in prison where he belongs—a novel which you knew to be written by Hart himself—a novel laid in a steel mill which he has never seen—and involving, say, optics—and chemistry, to boot—would you publish that novel?”
“If ’twere a piece of narrative art—yes. For the art and the artist are never to be confused. The function of literary art is to entertain readers—weary of the world as they find it. If Hart were ever to manifest a function like that, he would be doing some good, at last, in the world. Of course, Mr. Topkins, the chances of any man ever combining steel-mill practice and optics and chemistry all in one novel are pretty much nil—I would even say that an author, a steelworker, an optical specialist, and a chemist, all working together, could hardly sew the ingredients of their respective fields into one and the same plot. But the point at issue is whether we would publish a work by ‘Actor’ Hart. The answer is yes—if the work were worth while. And no—if we saw that its sales possibilities lay only in morbid curiosity.”
“Thank you again, Mr. Macrae. And Duke—have you anything further to add? To the subject on which you were expatiating—Chicago?”
“Nothing other than perhaps to express my appreciation to Mr. Macrae for his interest and enthusiasm for my poor boo—”
The words stopped suddenly as the young inventor raised the device from the revolving record.
“Dot shoot be enough to show dewice—unt how she vorks,” he said. “Unt are you sadisfied now—Mr. Topkins?”
“Having just heard, with mine own ears, words that mine own lips uttered eons ago today,” said Mr. T. Topkins, “I’m satisfied you have a new angle there which upsets the concept of Time itself as much as radio itself upsets Space. As satisfied indeed, by gosh, as I am that—that—well, that the subject of that Topkinsonian peroration your device just gave out—yes, Mr. Al Hart, Esquire!—rather, his body!—is right now being eaten up by hungry garfish—in lower Big River! And I’ll see my promoter friend about promoting it for various uses. See you later, old man.”