The Portrait of Jirjohn Cobb, page 26
But even this was not the amazing thing. For in the pit—slumped gently down in a completely relaxed position—his dark and slightly high-cheek-boned face turned to the sky—breathing gently and regularly!—was a man—a man of no more than 30 years or age—and clad in the costume of an East Indian. For a yellow silk turban was about his head, and such of his long orange coat as could be seen from above had rich black braid down the front, and was cut, midway, by a green sash around the man’s middle. A peculiar boot, studded with colored stones, from under his slumped body. But what was most surprising was the dumfounding resemblance he bore to the Mexican—facially. They might have been both peas from the same pod. And it was easy—very easy—to see how one could have been completely mistaken for the other did one discount costumes!
And, also, it was easy to see why this sleeping Morpheus had not suffocated during the long hours in which he had deeply slumbered away, for a cunning pebble, lying atop one edge of the wood pit lining, showed how that flat stone had been raised just enough—at least on three sides—so that fresh air had seeped continuously down in.
But even as the Sheriff, lightning-like, drew his gun, the light from the sky—fog-diffused, yet nevertheless bright—falling squarely on the sleeper’s face—and, no doubt, the pronounced wave of fresh oxygen rolling in on that face—started to bring him out. His eyelids fluttered—opened wide—revealing deeply brown eyes. The definite difference—at least in full direct light—with the Mexican, whose eyes were jet-black.
And then the mouth of the man in the pit fell open—at what, quite plainly, he saw: A man peering in on him—a big gun pointed down and directly at him.
He struggled fearfully in his jammed position. Palms of hands against the walls of the pit. Started to lower his hands down under his body. When the Sheriff spoke.
“Hold it! Keep them hands up above yo’re body. Yo’re kivvered—and one false move to’rds yo’re gun—and I’ll shoot you right whar you be. Not that you ain’t going to die, anyway, like a dog—for you air. You shore air—like a dog. You—”
The other, hands arrested, gazed upward.
“Don’t—don’t shoot—for God’s sake!” he begged. “My name’s Hart—and I’m worth money to you—but alive only. They—they want me at Folsom—there’s a reward on me in Texas—I’m giving you the McCoy, because the star on your chest means you’ll get it anyway!—but that reward’s payable only if you take me ali—no, no, don’t shoot!—for I’m not gatted up. Don’t drill me—please. I’m Alfrederickabod Hart, known as—don’t drill me!—please.”
The two men, who a moment ago had been anchored on their haunches, some 5 feet off from where the slot was, were now at its open edge, gazing wide-eyed down in—while Hick, as well, peering on tiptoes from the further edge of the overturned island-marker, was taking in the conversation, at least, if not both of the parties thereto!
“Take both his hands,” ordered the Sheriff, of the two who were at the open slot. “And he’p him up—and out. And keep tight holt o’ them hands,” he added, “once he is out!”
The two hands that reached down to the raised hands pulled stoutly—the owner of those upraised hands came flailing out. Till he stood above ground—well to the right aide of the square opening—his arms locked in the grasp of the two eager helpers.
Almost immediately the Sheriff was patting the pockets in the Indian embroidered coat. And that silk turban. Then unloosening the jacket. And flinging it aside. On which, his eyes widened ironically. For, buttoned loosely outside of a peculiar embroidered black silk vestee or inner garment was a patented blow-up rubber waistcoat! With a pendant rubber tube and milled-edge valve, the tube long enough so that the wearer could blow the vest up himself. An unremoved price-sticker on it said: “$10. Marshall Field and Company, Chicago.”
“Aha,” said the Sheriff. “The on’y sensible river-traveler around these hyar parts! Whar’s the boat you come—” He broke off, and completed a really expert examination of the newcomer’s trousers pockets, and even his legs, finding that the man who was being searched was, indeed, not “gatted up.” “You kin let him free,” the Sheriff told the others. But, being the only armed man himself around there, the Sheriff drew conveniently off a few feet. And resumed his broken-off question. “Whar’s the boat you stole and come out hyar in?”
“Stole?” The captive appeared actually slapped in the face. “Stole?” he repeated. “I don’t have to travel in stolen boats! No less than a United States flood-control boat, leaving Boggtown at 8:16 this morning, took me out here free gratis—in fact, as its special guest!”
“As its special guest? That’s a lie, Hart, from start to fin—”
“Is it? Has the captain of the USFC-24 a blue eye and a brown one? Has the USFC-24 an original Greek statue on its bow for a mascot? Has—”
“A’right, then. But why in hell would the USFC-24 burn up a lot o’ good ile jest to fetch you out hyar? So’thin’ phoney, and—”
“Not at all. It left Boggtown at 8:16 this morning to transfer some medical supplies—in the outer channel—but just east of this island—to a boat coming out from the other shore. Some arrangement concluded by radio. That’s all I know. And I had myself set down here—at 8:46. Just as the night mists were commencing to dissolve in earnest.”
“Yeah—yeah—yeah,” protested the Sheriff stubbornly. “But the cap’ain would never a-left any man hyar to drown’d. He—”
“Of course not!” And the man in the East Indian costume gave a philosophic gesture which said, more plainly than words, that when one was in the hands of the armed—as well as silver-starred—Law, one might as well tell all—and without reservations! “The captain,” he continued imperturbably, “put me down out here expecting to make me confess later—and before his whole crew—that I was a stinking fraud! And is exactly how I managed to get myself brought out here—and put down here. For I’d intended originally to do a neat little bit of acting as one ‘Jagatt Yatt’ of ‘Bombay’—who needed to be—for some 10 or 15 minutes—alone ‘in space’—with a newly interred dead man—experiment!—in Indian psychism. But the minute I saw the short distance between Wort’s eyes—and the way his eyebrows angled up—I saw that there was a man who lived only to put the public squeeze on a fellow man—and before an audience. And so I put on a more subtle and difficult act. In short, I let him think I was a fraudulent Jagatt Yatt—in short, a white quack in East Indian costume—oh, yes—yes—I know that’s what I was—but what you don’t understand, Sheriff, is that it took a fine degree of acting to achieve that. Anyway, Wort, on learning what I wanted—and finding that I was protected by a patented blow-up vested, ‘Okay, Yogy,’ with a very nasty accent on the ‘Yogy,’ and put me off here at 8:46 with the most fiendish grin I’ve ever seen. I dodged into this cyclone slot here as soon as the USFC-24 drew off out of eye-range, in the still lingering mist, and stayed right there till it hove by again—about 20 minutes later—for it took Wort about 10 minutes to connect out there and transfer the supplies—and 10 to get back here. He was all set to stand by and say ‘Now, you goddamned fake, talk up—and say who you are—or stay here and drown, in the rising flood, like a rat!” But, alas for him, I was gone!—he could see that plainly when he got back—for the mists were all dissolved then—he undoubtedly figured I’d been picked up—perhaps by some Sheriff or something—so off he went, as I saw by peeping from under the trap—en route upstream all the way to Cooperstown, as I know his plans were. I expected, of course, to be picked up later today by some refugee boat—barring which, I expected to leave via blow-up vest! But, just as I heard the coughing roar of a launch or something far over the waters-devil knows whose it was!—except that it was a bright scarlet!—and I plumped quick down in the slot—I seemed to—to go out like a light—and never came to till you were covering me with your cannon.”
“Which scarlet launch,” the Sheriff commented sadly, “was mine—’ith me in it!” He sighed dolorously. “It’s on’y too bad, Hart, that you didn’t swaller that ‘aspirin’ tablet—which, be apprised, thanks to some fool mistake o’ some clerk in the ‘Kansas City Drugstores o’ K.C. and New York’—was a deadly sleep-producin’ tablet—Narcotine!—fur I found the box, later, whar you dropped it—not fur, in fact, from this slot—” The newcomer’s eyes widened as with a sudden great—and pained!—understanding. “Too bad,” the Sheriff repeated, “that you didn’t swaller that tablet on yo’re way out to this island—insti’d o’ jest afore goin’ down into that thar slot. Fur then, when I landed, I mought have found our sleepin’ beauty layin’ about above ground—’stid o’ plumb out of sight and vision below.” He shook his head helplessly. “Wall, that’s ’bout all the questions we’re goin’ to ask you before we rip off that fine blow-up vest o’ yo’rn—and dole it out to a man who has a better right to it—fur that scarlet launch ain’t no more hyar abouts—and in the face o’ sartin information we got—but wait!—how’d you know thar ’uz a cyclone slot on this island, ’ith a kivver—hinged or onhinged—to dodge into?”
“Heard it. In Chicago. From the lips of a sick man. A man named Cobb. Barnwell Cobb. Who talked—while he was delirious—while, in fact, he was dying.”
“You—you—you come hyar—from Chycago?”
“Where in hell did you suppose I came from?”
“You—you didn’t come hyar—from Shelby’s Bluff?”
“Hell no! I’ve been working—in Chicago—as an orderly—$25 a month and keep!—in Oakhaven Hospital—if you want to call up—and check it.”
“Don’t need to check that,” said the Sheriff dryly. “Fur the fact that you know the name o’ the hospital in question checks evah’thing.” He paused helplessly. “So—so then, Hart, you come out hyar—to steal that diamon’ butt’f1y pin?”
“Diamond—butterfly—pin?” The other’s face was helpless now. “No. I came out here to dig up some $25,000 in gold—that I had reason to believe was buried out here. At least, the man who was ill babbled of its being out here. Just as he did about the ‘slot’—‘slot’—‘slot’—ever a slot!—covered ‘with a stone.’ I figured to plant about 20 pounds of the gold on my person—in my pockets—for this blow-up vest will carry a 200-pound man, whereas I’m only 160!—and inter the rest in some place near the surface where I could relocate it later. I figured, in fact, to take off in this very vest. Trouble is, however, that I fell ill myself the night this Barnwell Cobb died—and never actually got to coming out here till yesterday. Though came—I finally did! Figuring that if there was a vault on this island, there would be landscaping; and where there’d be landscaping, there’d be shovels and spades.”
“But—but why—why that thar costume?”
“This costume? Well, it’s a bit of a story—but you asked for it! You see, I—” But here the speaker yawned—a stupendous yawn that seemed far more that of a man seeking a huge intake of oxygen than one merely weary. And, atop the huge yawn, he shook himself violently. The whole procedure seemed to revivify him. “Listen here,” he began, “how about you telling me something for a change? In short, how long has that damned tablet—which box of same, by the way, I got from—er—off of a client whom I was serving in this very costume—and not in K.C.!—how long has that tablet handed me the count? Is it 10 bells yet?”
“10—bells? Ha!” The Sheriff grimaced. “You ev’dently feel whar the sun is, right this minute, back o’ miles o’ fog—on’y, yo’ve got the merid’an on the wrong side o’ yo’re brain! Fur it’s as much atter noontime now, as you think it is befo’ noontime—so go on with yo’re facts.”
The man in the East Indian costume grimaced too. And then—with another fatalistic shrug of his shoulders—continued. “Well, about this costume. I was no longer with the Oakhaven Hospital when I decided to come out here to the island; they’d fired me when they traced a long-distance call I’d made to San Francisco, under the director’s name, to a man the papers had said got pinched out there, under suspicion of having lifted a poke with 10 grand in it—but later released—a man named Andy Glover. I thought sure he was a certain lug who’d been in stir with me, and thought to make a touch—however, skip it!—the point is that it was the wrong Andy Glover!—the call got traced to the phone in the hospital urinal room—and I got the bounce. And so I was down and out there in Chi, when I finally decided to come out here to the island—reading tea leaves in a joint called the Circus Tent Cafe on West Lake Street—oh, you’d not know anything about that, however, even by hearsay, since it’s a new joint and a new variation on the old racket—a joint that employs a dozen quack ‘psychists’ to read tea leaves—I did the Yogi end!—and in this identical costume, which the owners provided. However, yesterday, I just happened to read my own tea leaves—for a change! And they said: ‘Work fast—on the info you have—and you’ll cash in on it.’ So I—er—dropped two-bits worth of chloral I had on me in the tea of an old gentleman whose tea I was to read—an old gentleman passing through Chi from N.Y.C.—and when he passed out in one of the canvas-curtained booths where we did the readings, I—er—took some hundred bucks that were on him—also, God ’elp me, and goddam me to boot, that box of apocryphal and heterodox aspirins, any one of which, by God, was three times worse than the dose of chloral I gave him, since—anyway, armed with his hundred smackers, I loped—by train—and various combinations thereof—for Big River.”
“Wall—I’ll be goddanged!” The Sheriff’s voice was the voice of a man utterly disgusted with the falsity of the socalled Science of Criminology. Even disgusted—as his immediate next words were to convey—with the standardized procedure of criminal descryment set forth in every one—bar none!—of such detective and mystery stories he had read in his life. “Not on’y does this hull affair go cont’ry to the way things is done in book nov-els, since—why,” he snorted, “they ain’t even b’en a author, in the his’try o’ the world, so—so danged low-down orn’ry as to—to make his villain—who he’s assure evahbody is on the spot—an’ conseq’ently ’mongst the sospects!—invisible! Invisible—to all consarned. No, by God! He—” Again the Sheriff snorted. “Wall, hyar’s one true affair that’ll never be writ up in no book nov-el form fur no future gen’rations, ’caze ain’t no reader, in seven cantynents, ’ll ever ever stand fur invis’ble crim’nals.”
“Bot,” put in the Mexican excitedly—and sagely—and, it is to be admitted, giving a sterling defense to such luckless author as might some day elect to write up this strange case, “theez man no woz inveez’ble! He—he woz joos’ deesplace’ a few feet—in third—third di—well, w’at we call in Mex-i-can, dimensione—he woz joos’ deesplace’ a few feet in that third dimensione like as them peoples in them Am—Am—Amazeeng Stor-ees Mag’zine who git deesplace’ leetle way in fo’rth—or feefth—dimension, And eef theez woz a book-storee—and mebbe good detactive like Sharly Shan woz on island, Sharly wo’d say: ‘We know creem’nal eez on island—yet heem we don’t see; bot, as Confucy did say: “Flea what hide on top-side comforteeb’le haystack, he a goddam fool flea weeth all that good haystack onder heez belly”—therefore, creem’nal he is onder island!’—and so—”
“Yes, ’tis too bad,” commented the Sheriff laconically, “that Charlie Chan—’stid o’ pore stupid Luke Brister!—wan’t on this island—fur all the bright men on the island have b’en, fur some 5 hours or so, so danged busy lookin’ fur flaws in each other—’crost two o’ them dimensionies!—and fillin’ two o’ them demensionies full o’ dirty looks!—that none of ’em thunk to take a gander down’ard ’long that third di-mens-iony!” He shook his stocky shoulders again. “But even Charley Chan’d give a Chinee gulp at the set-up in this hyar case. Fur ab’slutely ever’thing as has been thunk in the case is—is all the bunk. This man comes hyar f’m Chy-cago—instid O’ Shelby’s Bluff; he comes hyar fur gold—instid o’ that pin; he bulls hisse’f out hyar as the actual fake he is—instid o’ the charackter he’s dressed up to be; he’s p’sumably to be tuk fightin’ ’ith guns in his hands—whereas he’s tuk, when he is tuk, sleepin’ like a babe—and pra’tically in the laps of evahbody who’s lookin’ fur him. ’Bout all I need to know—” He turned to the silent captive. “ ’Bout all I need, Hart, to know that nothin’ in crime or crim’nology ’r crim’nal case-his’tries is what it’s set down to be, is that yo’re right name ain’t really Al Hart.”
“Well—that’s correct too! For ‘Hart’ was only the stage name of my father and mother, who were troupers and known as Lionel and Henrietta Hart. Their real name, however, was Taylor. And so, by rights, I suppose I should call myself Al Taylor—just as my brother called himself Clarke Tay—”
“What? You—you mean—you mean yo’re the brother—o’ the greatest actor—in America?”
“I am the greatest actor,” said the other, drawing himself proudly up. “The brother only of the rankest actor! For I put him where he is today—” The speaker’s voice grew bitter “—with the bulk of my bank-robbery taking. I had his way bought past those Hollywood producing moguls—directors bribed—cameramen hired to sabotage shots against those who could have stolen Clark’s scenes—and film-cutters paid to destroy sections where he did his part like a ham. Yet, when I—the real artist!—the man who put a ham where he is today!—was in the pen, he, the dirty louse—knowing I wasn’t like himself, and wouldn’t peach on him—and claiming that the G took all his jack in excess income taxes—he—goddamn him!—wouldn’t even send me fag money.”
“W-wall, why,” demanded the Sheriff, frankly incredulous at this whole charge, “hain’t that ever come to light? His bein’ yo’re brother?”
“Oh, it will someday,” was the other man’s quite confident retort. “And not merely as the say-so of a returned Folsom convict. It’ll come to light—conclusively-when the inevitable film story is written about my life.,’ For those Hollywood plot-experts—looking for extra threads on which to hang their plot—will grab at the thread of that other brother in my life—the one left with sister of my mother’s—Aunt Lutetia Taylor—in Santa Fe, New Mexico. And tracing him up easily, through the screen research experts, find him to be no other than Hollywood’s own Clarke Taylor. And every columnist in the country will have it from his stooge inside the research department inside of 50 minutes. All of which is why—and precisely why!—if dear, dear Clarke himself has anything whatsoever to do or say about it, any story involving my life will be scotched in the budding—and how! To halt research on the Family Hart!”
