The box from japan, p.54
The Box from Japan, page 54
It was determinable now, though! Orski must be 59. And everything, in fact, was all too plain. An inheritance! An inheritance that was nothing but the blood money of a half-million yen! Halsey shook his head slowly, a grim smile on his face. Now, for the first time, his horror at the fate which had overtaken a business enemy of his, disappeared; and it seemed to him that in the results of that accident at the Englewood depot he was contemplating but the fractional part of the workings out of some sort of poetic justice.
He left the encyclopedia rack, and went into the huge card index file room, back of the call counter for books, its tall cases with their thousands of drawings filling, in fact, three consecutive chambers, and listing every book in the library. He searched carefully under nearly every word in the title “My Memories of the Liao Keng Ru.” There was nothing listed. He must get more information, however, if information was gettable, and he was very curious, too, to see a picture of the younger Orski—if such existed.
So up the tessellated marble hall to the south anteroom on that floor he went. There he found a telephone booth which, miracles of miracles, took nickels and not slugs. He entered it and, looking up a number in its hanging directory, rang up Randolph 55200. The number was that of Kroch’s Bookstore, that truly gigantic emporium of books ancient and new, technical and romantic, dispensing xylographic incunabula as well as mystery novels, its stock ranging downward from 10-volume autobiographies to ten-page opuscules, and upward from euchirideans to tomes, whose two wide windows gazed forth on North Michigan Boulevard, not so far from the library itself. He did not ask for any clerks, but for Mr. Kroch himself, that genial purveyor of pabulum to Chicago’s literary and fictive minded. He was fortunate today in getting through to his man.
“Mr. Kroch, this is Carr Halsey speaking. Sportfellow—of the Sun. Remember me?”
“Indeed I do,” boomed Mr. Kroch graciously, and the very intonations of his voice conveyed to Halsey that curious little boxlike niche at the very top of the big store where Mr. Kroch held forth, his broad massive polished mahogany desk with its capacious silver box of cork-tipped guest cigarettes surveyed ever, as it were, by the huge battery of framed photographs entirely covering one wall, and containing Howard Vincent O’Brien, with his belligerently thrust-forward shoulders, Henry Kitchell Webster and his aristocratic brow, and others of Chicago’s literati.
“You are not telling me, perhaps,” said Mr. Kroch, questioningly, “that you have at last written that great American book on sports? If so—”
“No, Mr. Kroch. I’ve got no further than talking over its selling possibilities with you. Too busy writing on perishable newsprint, I fear. But I shall do it, one of these days. Just now I need some information. Rather a book. Mr. Kroch, do you happen to know off hand whether you have in your store a book called My Memories of the Liao Keng Ru?”
“I do and I have not,” said Mr. Kroch quite definitely, and proceeded to demonstrate an amazing knowledge of his own huge stock. “That is, one of my buyers took six copies when it was published, which was very recently. I remember his saying that the publisher’s salesman was so grateful; that we were the only store in Chicago who stocked this particular book. It isn’t a type of book, you know, that has any popular call. But we do have a number of ex-military figures among our regular customers, and so my buyer figured—well, anyway, Mr. Halsey, we aim to have some copies, at least, of every book that is worth while.”
“Can I get one of those six copies then,” asked Halsey hastily, “if I come right over?”
“No, young man,” said Mr. Kroch. “I am sorry to say you cannot. They melted rather mysteriously away after the publisher’s small ad appeared in the Evening Star. I was downstairs, myself, in fact, two different times when messenger boys came in buying copies for unknown customers—and I think, in fact, I remember my head clerk mentioning a handsome gentleman with a black Vandyke beard buying two, at one time, for gifts. We have none in stock at present.”
“Well, I’ve got to get a copy,” said Halsey. “I want all the information I can get on that part of the Russo-Japanese war, and everyone in it.”
“Why not call the publishers then, young man? New Publishing Company of Chicago. Surely they can provide you with one.”
So Halsey, on the trail of something he knew not what, looked in the hanging telephone directory again, and found the company in question. It was located in Buzzard’s Roost; he recalled more than well the narrow staid-looking six-story ancient red brick building, at the very junction where Chicago’s one-time Loop had once touched shoulders with Chicago’s one-time Chinatown, a literal rookery, then, of tong headquarteirs, fantan joints and opium dens, today however completely refurbished and remodeled, with the exception of the extremely narrow winding stairway and corridors, into modern publishing and magazine offices; and the reason he recalled it so well was because he had once tried unsuccessfully to find, and interview, within its mazelike ghost-haunted corridors, the owner and remodeler of Buzzard’s Roost, A. J. Gontier himself, famous fly-caster, hunter and sportsman. He rang the number given in the phone book, and asked for the publisher himself.
He did not get his man so easily as all this, however; and had he been able to see across space, he would have observed at the other end of the wire a pompous, colored combination office and errand boy, with round scarlet billycock hat, held to his woolly head by a shiny patent leather chin strap, and encased in trig tailored scarlet coat with two rows of neat brass buttons down the front. And the colored boy was suspicious, to say the least:
“Is you-all wantin’ to make a printin’ est’mate?”
“No.”
“Or a engravah’s est’mate?”
“No, I want to speak to the man who produces your books.”
“Cain’t nobody speak to Mist’ New lessen he gibs his name and whah he libs. Mist’ New mos’ particulah.”
“Oh very well. Carr Halsey, 810½ Tower Court.”
“Is you de Mistah Halsen what does de bindin’?”
“No, no, no. H-A-L-S-E-Y. Got it?”
“Yessuh. Whah is Half-Towah Co’t, suh?”
“Listen, you black rascal, I’ve palavered long enough with you. That number is 810½. And the street is Tower Court. T-O-W-E-R. Got it? And I’m coming over there in a taxicab right off and turn you across my knee unless you give me somebody in authority.”
“Gonna do dat right now,” the boy mumbled. “Des’ followin’ ’structions laid down in dis office, dat’s all.”
A clicking, then a crisp business like voice:
“Ross K. New speaking.”
“Mr. New, did you publish a book called My Memories of the Liao Keng Ru?”
“I did.”
“Have you a copy available for sale?”
“I have not.”
“Why not?”
“Because I printed up only a small edition—250 copies, to be exact. The edition is disposed of.”
“Entirely?”
“Entirely.”
“Are you on press again with it?”
“No.”
“Why not, if I may presume to ask, Mr. New? I’m not trying to quiz you about your own business. I’m just a customer, that’s all, trying very hard to buy a copy of that book, first-hand—or second-hand.”
“I am not on press with it again because I broke up the type on it. I found it would be just as easy to reset it later, if necessary, as to make electro-plates.”
“Are there any of the original Russian copies extant in Chicago?”
“I doubt so.”
Mr. New, Halsey concluded at this point, was one of the most difficult men in the world to get information out of. But he pressed on with the extracting process:
“Why not?”
“Because I sent for mine—the one from which the translation was made—clear to Russia. I receive practically all the publisher’s lists in the world. In case you are investigating copyright, I may add that I obtained the American rights legally from the original Russian author at the same time I sent for the copy.”
“It was translated then, here?” asked Halsey half hopefully, although he did not know what he was hopeful about.
“It was. By a Russian poet living near Logan Square.”
“Did your edition contain the photographs that were in the original?”
“Halftone reproductions of them, yes, done in the same screen.”
“You placed, then, all— Excuse my persistence, Mr. New. I am the man who writes under the name Sportfellow, in the Morning Sun. I am not investigating copyright. Nor anything like that. I am just trying very hard to buy or steal a copy of that book.” He paused. “You placed, then, all of the copies you ran off?”
Mr. New now thawed out of his canniness a bit, perhaps at the proximity of the Press, that great institution which brings books to people and people to books.
“Yes—and no,” he replied. “That is, I had about a hundred copies left after filling orders from other cities. There were but six copies placed in Chicago. A gentleman came in while I was out of the city, a gentleman who told my assistant that he was from Denver, passing through, and that he was developing a premium proposition involving the sale of combination packets of military toys to the children of ex-American soldiers. He was a rather handsome though elderly man, with pointed black beard, I understand. He wanted to get some odd lots of military books, as premiums, to intrigue the older generation to buy the military toys for the children. This was all we had in that line, but he snapped them up at their usual 40 percent discount. My assistant had them wrapped up by February—”
“By February?” echoed Halsey. “But February—February isn’t here.”
“February is here,” stated Mr. New quite mirthlessly. “In my office. February is my colored boy. Born in March, 1926, the 18th day, but his mother forgot to pull the previous calendar leaf off and he was named February. Where were we, Mr. Halsey. Halsey is the name—is it not?”
“Well, February wrapped up the remaining copies of that book.”
“Yes. The customer took them away with him. Small book. Light package. I decided subsequently not to republish. The book was not a popular type of book.”
“Hm! So the gentleman who was developing the premium proposition wore a pointed black heard, and probably has it trimmed in Denver, a thousand miles away? Well, Mr. New, Denver being a long way off for me, you no doubt have your publisher’s record copy in your files—and the original Russian copy from which you made the translation?”
“I have not.” Mr. New was becoming once more pauciloquent.
“Why not?”
“Because they have disappeared from the open bookcases in my private office here.”
“Oh—I see. Did your assistant talk with this Denver premium man in your private office?”
“Naturally.”
“Did he—your assistant, that is—step out at any time while the premium man was sitting in the office?”
“Yes, she—my assistant—went out!”
“Isn’t it possible then, Mr. New, that the bearded customer just pocketed the two books in question, and raised his order to 102 copies?”
“Quite possible, but one cannot postulate that theorem with sufficient accuracy to render a specific accusation. There are, sir, such things as libel suits, you know.”
“So there are, Mr. New. So there are. Well, Mr. New, do you read the books you publish?”
“Naturally.”
“Was there anything in this book concerning a medal?”
“There was.”
“Will you tell me what—see here, Mr. New, I’d like to see a copy of that book.”
“See it? Or own it?”
“See it.”
“That’s different. You started out by saying you’d like to buy or steal a copy of it. If you wish to see it, you can go over to the Crerar Non-Lending Technical Library, across the street from the Public Library, and see their copy of it. They purchased it from us.”
“Why, I’m right across from there now. I’m in the Public Library in fact. I’ll skip across. And thanks! And oh by the way, Mr. New, did your assistant mention whether she told that gentleman from Denver—that the Crerar Library had one copy?”
“She did.”
“Thank you, Mr. New. I’ll say good-by.”
“A moment please. You are interested in material on the Russo-Japanese War? Or the Liao Keng Ru campaign. Which?”
“The latter.”
“Very well. I will call up some book jobbers about town and dig you up something. We do not relish disappointing potential customers.”
“Thank you, so much.”
“Not at all, sir. Good day.”
And Halsey found himself hurrying down the broad marble stairs, threading his way across the sunlighted traffic of Randolph Street, and into the tall narrow building which housed the Crerar Library from which no book was ever permitted to go out; in which no briefcase could be carried to a table; in which even coat pockets would have had to be checked at the checking counter had pockets been removable. But there were, nevertheless, in the Crerar Library, plenty of argus-eyed attendants.
Proceeding to the call counter he waited until one of its several servitors approached him. The seneschal to bookdom wore a pair of Oxfordian eyeglasses, hooked to his coat lapel by a long wide black ribbon.
“Have you a newly issued book on your shelves called My Memories of the Liao Keng Ru? A translation?”
The attendant consulted a bound typewritten index on the cover of which was printed “New Additions—Not Listed.” He nodded. “Yes sir. We have. Classified under ‘Military Technology.’ I’ll send down for it.” He filled out a call slip and sent it down the electrical conveyor.
Halsey dropped back on the long bench facing the call counter. It seemed an interminable time, but at last the thin little pocket-sized volume came up, bound in bright scarlet, bearing a title stamped in gold as well as the old-time Russian coat-of-arms consisting of two eagles, back to back, bearing together a single crown, one set of talons holding a scepter, the other a globe to which was tied a wooden crucifix.
With this very precious book—more precious, seemingly, the more it persistently eluded him—he repaired to a table in the inner room. He first glanced through it, skipping several pages at a time. The frontispiece was that of an intelligent-looking old Russian with a very white beard, who nevertheless resembled a mujik more than an aristocrat; a square-shouldered old gentleman, at least, but manifestly in the retrospective stage of advanced years. His name, as proclaimed on the title page was Nikolai Grusinskaia. The Chicago poet who had translated him was one Leonid Chetska. The book itself seemed to be a chatty account of intricate military operations, and here and there was punctuated by neatly drawn diagrams and tables of hours and dates, as well as what appeared to be reminiscences about once-upon-a-time well-known commanders in the halcyon days of golden Czaristic youth. It was provided with an index; so Halsey ran his eye down it. It stopped at the words: Kronkieneff—Pages 77, 78, 79.
On page 77 he came upon the first mention of Lieutenant Kronkieneff, a mere preliminary mention, however, at that point, that was all. But after it, in parenthesized italics, were the words: “A bust photograph of Lieutenant Kronkieneff at the age of 21, in civic dress, reproduced from a picture in Russian military archives, appears on the inserted folio facing this text page.” But, alas, there was no such insert in this volume! The page had been neatly extracted by the see-sawing motion of a previous reader, and only the narrow strip of yellowish paste on the inside left margin of the succeeding page showed where it had been originally “tipped” into the volume.
On page 78, however, Halsey came upon very interesting reading. The two pages, 78 and 79, ran:
The morning after the Japanese forces had crossed the Liao Keng Ru and flanked the Russians who were storming the Panzi Hill, it was a much discussed question among those captured and the injured in the hospital as to why Lieutenant Kronkieneff had held back his artillery fire until nearly five thousand Japs had effected the crossing. One wounded machine gunner lying next the writer’s own cot declared emphatically that his orders were not to fire before signal, in order that reenforcements lying back a half mile might be used to a still more brilliant advantage. But there had proved to be no reenforcements back of the lines, much less any guns trained down on the left bank from the low hills back of the Liao Keng Ru, and it was obvious to the most amateur soldier present that the holders of that bank of the river could never have hoped to cut off alone five thousand Japanese troops; that disaster had been deliberately courted. Even among those most seriously wounded, the topic was discussed that morning with great energy. And two days later it became common knowledge that our commander of that night, Lieutenant Feodor Kronkieneff, had sold out to the enemy for a half million yen. I may digress at this point to mention that after the close of the war, Kronkieneff himself never reappeared; neither was his name ever included in any official lists of the captured, wounded or killed.
The disaster of the Liao Keng Ru was what brought into existence the little-known Kronkieneff Society. The Kronkieneff Society was the natural outgrowth of the bitter state of mind of several hundred men who had not only seen their own companions fall in death, but who had suffered wounds of different degrees of seriousness themselves. It was logical that one powerful emotion should stir men who had passed through such a disastrous engagement—the desire to see Kronkieneff, the traitorous cause of it, killed if ever the opportunity arose.
