The Mardi Gras Mystery/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
The Impregnability of Mr. Fell
JACHIN FELL glanced at his watch.
"Lucie will be here at any minute now," he observed. "I suppose your sense of duty will force you to disclose everything to her?"
Gramont merely nodded, tight-lipped. A knock at the door, and one of his men entered with the sack of mail they had taken as evidence.
"A lady is coming here at any moment," said Gramont. "Allow her to enter."
The other saluted and departed.
"A sense of duty is a terrible thing," and Jachin Fell sighed. "What about the oil company? Are you going to let Miss Ledanois' fortunes go to wrack and ruin?"
"Better that," said Gramont, "than to have her profit come through criminal money and means. She'd be the first to say so, herself. But I'll tell you this: I'm convinced that there is oil under the land of hers! If she'll agree, I'll put up what money I have against her land; we'll be able to have one well drilled at least, on the chance!"
"If it's dry," said Fell, "you'll be broke."
"I can always get work," and Gramont laughed harshly.
Fell regarded him in silence a moment. Then: "I think Lucie loves you, Gramont."
A trembling seized Gramont; a furious impulse to shoot the man down as he sat. Did he have the baseness to try and save himself through Lucie? Something of his stifled anger must have shone in his eyes, for Jachin Fell laid down his cigar and continued quickly:
"Don't misunderstand. I say that I think she cares for you; it is merely surmise on my part. Lucie is one person for whom I'd do anything. I stand and have stood in the place of a parent to her. She is very dear to me. I have a special reason for intruding on your personal affairs in this manner, and some right to ask you in regard to your intentions."
"I don't recognize any right whatever on your part," said Gramont, steadily.
Fell smiled. "Ah! Then you are in love. Well, youth must be served!"
"I'd like to know one thing," struck in Gramont. "That is, why you were so cursed anxious to get something on my man Hammond! And why you held the Midnight Masquer affair over me as a threat. Did you suspect my business?"
Fell threw back his head and laughed in a hearty amusement that was quite unrestrained.
"That," he responded, "is really humorous! Do you know, I honestly thought you a fortune-hunter from Europe? When I suspected you of being the Midnight Masquer, and afterward, I was convinced that you, and very likely Hammond as well, were very clever swindlers of some kind. There, I confess, I made a grave error. My friend Gumberts never forgets faces, and he said to me, one day, that Hammond's face was vaguely familiar to him, but he could not place the man. That led me to think"
"Ah!" exclaimed Gramont. "Gumberts saw Hammond years ago, when he was escaping from the law—and to think he remembered! Hammond told me about it."
"That's why I wanted you and Hammond in my gang," said Fell. "I thought it would be very well to get you into the organization for my own purposes."
"Thanks," answered Gramont, drily. "I got in, didn't I?"
Without a knock the door opened and Lucie Ledanois entered.
"Good evening, stockholders!" she exclaimed. "Do you know there's a crowd down in the street—policemen and automobiles and a lot of excitement?"
"Allow me," said Gramont, taking her coat and placing a chair for her. "Oh, yes, we've had quite a strenuous evening, Miss Ledanois."
"Your hand! Why, what has happened?"
"One of Mr. Fell's friends tried to shoot me. Will you sit down, please? You remember that I warned you regarding a shock that would come; and now I must explain." Gramont gravely handed her his commission from the governor, and resumed his seat. "When I say that I have come here, not to attend a meeting of our oil company, but to arrest Mr. Fell, you will understand. I am very sorry, Lucie, to have to tell you all this, for I know your attachment to him."
"Arrest—you, Uncle Jachin?" The girl glanced from the paper to Fell, who nodded. "And you, Henry—a special officer of the governor's? Why—this isn't a joke of some kind?"
"None whatever, my dear," said Fell, quietly. "Mr. Gramont is to be congratulated. He has discovered that I was the head of a large organization of criminals. He has there, under the table, a sack of mail which proves that my organization was conducting a lottery throughout several states; we are now expecting the arrival of Federal agents, to whom Gramont intends to turn me over as a prisoner."
"Oh!" The girl stared at him, wide-eyed. Her voice broke. "It—it can't be true"
"It is quite true, my dear," and Jachin Fell smiled. "But don't let it distress you in the least, I beg. Here, if I mistake not, are your Department of Justice friends, Gramont."
A knock at the door, and it opened to admit one of Gramont's men.
"Here they are, sir—the chief agent and a deputy. Shall I let them in?"
Gramont nodded. Two men entered the room, and Gramont dismissed his own man with a gesture. He saw that the agents both nodded to Fell.
"Do you gentlemen know this man?" he demanded, rising.
"Yes," said one of them, regarding him keenly. "Who sent for us?"
"I did." Gramont gave his name, and handed them his commission. "I have been investigating a lottery which has been conducted in this state for a long time by an organization of very clever criminals. Jachin Fell is the man at the head of this organization. To-day I rounded up the entire gang, and procured all the evidence necessary. Under that table is a sack of mail proving that the lottery has been extended to other states, and that part of its operations have been conducted by means of the United States mails.
"The lesser members of the gang are in custody. The police department will not arrest this man Fell; his influence and that of his gang is extensive in political fields and elsewhere. I have called up the governor, and have been told not to arrest him. I have disregarded these facts, and I now call upon you to hold him in custody as a Federal prisoner. He has boasted to me that you will not touch him—and if you don't, there's going to be a shakeup that will make history! Now go to it."
The chief agent laid Gramont's commission on the table and looked at Jachin Fell. For an instant there was a dead silence. Then, when the Federal man spoke, Gramont was paralyzed.
"I'm very sorry, Mr. Gramont, to have to refuse"
"What!" cried Gramont, incredulously. "Do you dare stand there and"
"One moment please," said Fell, his quiet voice breaking in. "It is quite true that I have organized all the criminals possible, Mr. Gramont, and have put the underground lottery into a systematized form. I have done this by the authority of the United States, in order to apprehend Memphis Izzy Gumberts and other men at one crack. These gentlemen will tell you that I am a special agent of the Department of Justice, employed in that capacity through the efforts of Judge Forester and Senator Flaxman. I regret that this had to be held so secret that not even the governor himself was aware of it until this evening. The conflict was quite unavoidable. Not a member of that gang must become aware of my real identity."
Fell turned to the two agents, who were smiling.
"I would suggest that you take this sack of mail, and arrange with the chief of police in regard to the prisoners," he said. "The chief, of course, must suspect nothing."
Gramont sank into his chair, the automatic dropping from his hand. He was suddenly dazed, thunderstruck. Yet he had to believe. He was dimly aware that Lucie had gone to Jachin Fell, her arms about his neck. He stared from unseeing eyes.
Realization smote him like a blow, numbing his brain. He saw now why the governor had conferred with Judge Forester and the senator, why he had been ordered off the trail. He saw now why Fell had preserved secrecy so great that even to the chief of police his impregnable position was supposedly due to influence higher up.
He saw how Fell must have been working month after month, silently and terribly, to form one compact organization of the most talented criminals within reach—headed by Memphis Izzy, the man who had laughed at the government for years! And he saw himself, furious, raging like a madman
Gramont dropped his head into his hands. The pain of his forgotten wounded arm stabbed him like a knife. He jerked his head sharply up, and was aware that the agents had departed. He was alone with Lucie and Fell, and the latter was rising and holding out his hand, smiling.
"Gramont, you got ahead of me in this deal, and I congratulate you with all my heart!" said Fell, earnestly. "Neither of us suspected the part played by the other man; but you've done the work and done it well. Will you shake hands?"
Gramont confusedly took the hand extended to him.
"I've been a fool," he said, slowly. "I might have guessed that something unusual was"
"No; how could you guess?" said Fell. "There are three men in Baton Rouge who know the truth, and three persons in this room. That's all, outside of the regular government men. I had not told even Lucie, here! I dared not. And I dare say nothing even now. To the underworld at large I will be known as the crook whom not even the government could touch; in days to come I may be of untold service to my country."
"I'm so glad!" Lucie took Gramont's hand as Jachin Fell dropped it, and Gramont looked down to meet her brimming eyes. "For a moment I thought that all the world had gone mad—but now"
Jachin Fell regarded them for an instant, then he quietly went to the door.
"If you will excuse me one moment," he said, "I shall speak with your men who are on guard, Gramont. I—ah—I will be back in a moment, as Eliza said when she crossed the ice; and we may then discuss business. If you agree, I think that your company may proceed upon the original lines, and we shall set to work drilling for oil without delay"
Gramont scarcely heard the words, nor did he hear the door close. He was still looking into the eyes of Lucie Ledanois, and wondering if the message they held were really meant for him.