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THE MYSTERIOUS IVORY BALL
OF WONG SHING LI
Chapter I
“YOU MUST LOSE $100,000.”
Jarth Kilgo, standing out in front of the big 3-story stone mansion on Fordyce Parkway, Chicago, this sunny early-June morning, proceeded to re-read, once more—and troubledly!—the telegram from his lawyers in Buffalo, New York. Before making the plunge that would, he gloomily realized, get him nowhere fast—on saving $100,000!
The wire in his hands, sent punctuated—and even paragraphed under the newest wiring regulations—without apparently any thought of costs, ran:
JARTH KILGO,
PALMER HOUSE,
CHICAGO.
UNLESS YOU CAN PROVE LEGALLY—AND WITHIN 13 DAYS—THAT THE AMAZING NIGHT-CLUB ACT KNOWN AS “THE SPHERES OF SENG” IS A MONUMENTAL AND INGENIOUS FRAUD FROM START TO FINISH, YOU MUST LOSE $100,000.
JUDGE HEWSTON SOLFEDGE, NOW PRESIDING OVER PROBATE BENCH HERE, IS WILLING—SO LONG AS HE IS STILL ON THE BENCH—TO VOID, ON RECEIPT OF SUCH PROOF, THE WILL OF YOUR UNCLE, SIMON KILGO, LEAVING HIS $100,000 CASH ESTATE FOR “STUDY OF THE ‘OCCULT’ AND ‘THOUGHT-PROJECTING POWERS’ OF THE ‘SPHERES OF SENG’.” SUCH VOIDING COULD NOT BE CONTESTED, BECAUSE THERE ARE NO DIRECTORS NAMED TO CONDUCT SUCH STUDY AND WOULD RESULT IN YOUR INHERITING DIRECTLY, AS SIMON KILGO’S ONLY SURVIVING LEGAL HEIR.
THE NEXT PROBATE JUDGE COMING UP—JUDGE ELIPHALET GALANTHUS—IS KNOWN TO BE A RABID OCCULTIST, AND WOULD NEVER, NEVER VOID THAT WILL!
SO WHY NOT, SINCE YOU’RE IN CHICAGO THERE, LOOKING ABOUT FOR A POSSIBLE SITE FROM WHICH TO CONDUCT YOUR OWN WEIRD PROPOSED PROFESSION, CONTACT ONE, WONG SHING LI, LIVING AT 2440 FORDYCE PARKWAY, WHO VIRTUALLY CREATED THE ACT KNOWN AS “THE SPHERES OF SENG” 50 YEARS AGO, NOW TODAY—
“ ’Scuse me, boss—but is yo’ figahin’ to entah dat house?”
Jarth spun around about where he stood to face the propounder of this odd question. And saw, framed against the street, with its green strip down the middle, and its speeding motor cars, a tall and more or less ragged Negro, with a dirty red bandanna around his neck, and a soiled and green-stained grey felt hat without a brim atop his head; he wore a short-sleeved black shirt with many rips in it, and the frayed ends of his brown cotton trousers, held up by knotted twine suspenders, were of different lengths, hovering precariously above soiled tennis shoe on one foot, and a high Hopalong Cassidy buckled boot on the other!
“Enter that house?” repeated Jarth. “Well—maybe I am—maybe I’m not. Why did you even think I was?”
“Well,” said the tall Negro, quite confidently, “yo’ bein’ a salesman, Ah t’ought yo’ mebbe figahed to sell ’em some gimcrack at de fron’ do’; o’—”
“Whoa—Tilley! How do you know I’m—I mean—what makes you even think I’m a salesman?”
“Ho, dat easy! Yo’ is de co’plete pikter ob a salesman f’m A to Isaiah.”
“Complete picture of—of a salesman—listen, black boy—maybe I’ve missed my calling, and should be something other than what I am—so just lay it on the line—how I’m the complete picture of something—and maybe you’ll earn two bits. Shoot?”
“Will do! Well, yo’ is ’bout twenny-nine yeah ol’—yo’ weigh ‘bout 152—yo’ is neahly six foots tall—now wait—wait!—yo’ has grey eyes putty well space’ apaht in yo’ haid—w’ich mean yo’ kin size up prospeckses on whah dey is weak—yo’ has a chin whut kinda stick fo’wahd lak—meanin’ yo’ don’t take ‘no’ f’m nobody w’en yo’ gits yo’ foot in de do’—fac’ is, yo’ face is a face whut don’ b’lieve in no shenanagin’, o’—’sides, yo’ is weahin’ a so’te ob chaicked-lak suit—an’ dam’ well press’!—wid fancy woved tan leathah oxfo’ds, all shine’ up, too—an’ lavendah sof’ shuht wid green tie—an’ yo’ katy—Ah mean yo’ hat—yo’ light grey fedohah—it’s—it’s jaunty-lak, de way it sit on yo’ haid, an’ tuhn up at one side—”
“Whoa—Tilley! And so that spells ‘salesman’, heh? And here I thought I was—or was about to embark as—a designer of bungalows, freak, bizarre, and outré—satisfying the hungers of a great mass of people who are tired of the s.o.s. in 5 rooms and bath, and—wait!—what’s this about me not entering yon house back of me? A dog? Two dogs? Three dogs? Or—”
“No, boss. But dey’s a wicked ol’ Chin’man live dah. He ’uz a hatchetman in his day—fo’ tongs an’ sich—he’s done split mo’ skolls open in his day—an’ lef’ folks’ brains dribblin’ out on de sidewalks—dan yo’ kin shake two sticks at.”
“Old hatchetman, eh? Out of tong war days? Hm?”
“But dat ain’t all. He don’ wiel’ no hatchet t’day—’caze he too ol’, but he got a ibory ball wid w’ich he kin talk to de sperrits ob de daid—no foolin’!—wid it, he kin shine a light nobody kin see but himse’f into a safe whut’s th’ee inches t’ick, an’ see evvah t’ing in de—”
“All this—with an ivory ball?”
“Yeah, an’ dat ain’ all. Ef’n he don’ lak yo’, an’ tuhn dat ball to’ds yo’—yo’ is daid—d—a—y—e—d—daid.”
“Whew! This sounds bad. Old ex-hatchetman—now using an ivory ball instead of a hatchet? Well, I’ll watch my step. Here!” Fumbling in his pocket, Jarth had extracted a bright quarter. Tossed it to the Negro, who caught it like a trained monkey.
And the Negro was off, with a genial salute, though with a somewhat fearful, backward, terrified glance at that house now directly in back of Jarth, as though the devils of hell might shortly pour out of it.
And so Jarth finished the long telegram which was advising him to call at this house—and upon no less than the “wicked old Chinaman” he had just been warned against.