The Mardi Gras Mystery/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
The Masquer Unmasks
IN NEW ORLEANS one may find pensions in the old quarter—the quarter which is still instinct with the pulse of old-world life. These pensions do not advertise. The average tourist knows nothing of them. Even if he knew, indeed, he might have some difficulty in obtaining accommodations, for it is not nearly enough to have the money; one must also have the introductions, come well recommended, and be under the tongue of good repute.
Gramont had obtained a small apartment en pension—a quiet and severely retired house in Burgundy Street, maintained by a very proud old lady whose ancestors had come out of Canada with the Sieur d'Iberville. Here Gramont lived with Hammond, quite on a basis of equality, and they were very comfortable.
The two men sat smoking their pipes before the fireplace, in which blazed a small fire—more for good cheer than through necessity. It was Sunday evening. Between Gramont and Hammond had arisen a discussion regarding their relations—a discussion which was perhaps justified by Gramont's quixotic laying down of the law.
"It's all very well, Hammond," he mused, "to follow custom and precedent, to present to the world a front which will not shock its proprieties, its sense of tradition and fitness. In the world's eye you are my chauffeur. But when we're alone together—nonsense!"
"That's all right, cap'n," said Hammond, shrewdly. To him, Gramont was always "cap'n" and nothing else. "But you know's well as I do it can't go on forever. I'm workin' for you, and that's the size of it. I ain't got the education to stack up alongside of you. I don't want you to get the notion that I'm figuring on takin' advantage of you"
"Bosh! I suppose some day I'll be wealthy, married, and bound in the chains of social usage and custom," said Gramont, energetically. "But that day isn't here yet. If you think I'll accept deference and servility from any man who has endured the same hunger and cold and wounds that I endured in France—then guess again! We're friends in a democracy of Americans. You're just as good a man as I am, and vice versa. Besides, aren't we fellow criminals?"
Hammond grinned at this. There was no lack of shrewd intelligence in his broad and powerful features, which were crowned by a rim of reddish hair.
"All that line o' bull sounds good, cap'n, only it's away off," he returned. "Trouble with you is, you ain't forgot the war yet."
"I never will," said Gramont, his face darkening.
"Sure you will! We all will. And you ain't as used to this country as I am, either. I've seen too much of it. You ain't seen enough."
"I've seen enough to know that it's my country."
"Right. But I ain't as good a man as you are, not by a long shot!" said Hammond, cheerfully. "You proved that the night you caught me comin' into the window at the Lavergne house. You licked me without half tryin', cap'n!
"Anyhow," pursued Hammond, "America ain't a democracy, unless you're runnin' for Congress. It sounds good to the farmers, but wait till you've been here long enough to get out of your fine notions! Limousines and money ain't got much use for democracy. The men who have brains, like you, always will give orders, I reckon."
"Bosh!" said Gramont again. "It isn't a question of having brains. It's a question of knowing what to do with them. All men are born free and equal"
"Not much!" retorted the other with conviction. "All men were born free, but mighty few were born equal, cap'n. That sort o' talk sounds good in the newspapers, but it don't go very far with the guy at the bottom, nor the top, either!"
Gramont stared into the flickering fire and sucked at his pipe. He realized that in a sense Hammond was quite correct in his argument; nonetheless, he looked on the other man as a comrade, and always would do so. It was true that he had not forgotten the war. Suddenly he roused himself and shot a glance at Hammond.
"Sergeant! You seem to have a pretty good recollection of that night at the Lavergne house, when I found you entering and jumped on you."
"You bet I have!" Hammond chuckled. "When you'd knocked the goggles off me and we recognized each other—hell! I felt like a boob."
Gramont smiled. "How many places had you robbed up to then? Three, wasn't it?"
"Three is right, cap'n," was the unashamed response.
"We haven't referred to it very often, but now things have happened." Gramont's face took on harsh lines of determination. "Do you know, it was a lucky thing that you had no chance to dispose of the jewels and money you obtained? But I suppose you didn't call it good luck at the time."
"No chance?" snorted the other. "No chance is right, cap'n! And I was sore, too. Say, they got a ring of crooks around this town you couldn't bust into with grenades! I couldn't figure it out for a while, but only the other day I got the answer. Listen here, and I'll tell you something big."
Hammond leaned forward, lowered his voice, and tamped at his pipe.
"When I was a young fellow I lived in a little town up North—I ain't sayin' where. My old man had a livery stable there, see? Well, one night a guy come along and got the old man out of bed, and slips him fifteen hundred for a rig and a team, see? I drove the guy ten miles through the hills, and set him on a road he wanted to find.
"Now, that guy was the biggest crook in the country in them days—still is, I guess. He was on the dead run that night, to keep out o' Leavenworth. He kep' out, all right, and he's settin' in the game to this minute. Nobody never pinched him yet, and never will."
Gramont's face had tensed oddly as he listened. Now he shot out a single word:
"Why?"
"Because his gang runs back to politicians and rich guys all over the country. You ask anybody on the inside if they ever heard of Memphis Izzy Gumberts! Well, cap'n, I seen that very identical guy on the street the other day—I never could forget his ugly mug! And where he is, no outside crooks can get in, you believe me!"
"Hm! Memphis Izzy Gumberts, eh? What kind of a crook is he, sergeant?"
"The big kind. You remember them Chicago lotteries? But you don't, o' course. Well, that's his game—lotteries and such like."
Gramont's lips clenched for a minute, then he spoke with slow distinctness:
"Sergeant, I'd have given five hundred dollars for that information a week ago!"
"Why?" Hammond stared at him suddenly. Gramont shook his head.
"Never mind. Forget it! Now, this stunt of yours was clever. You showed brains when you got yourself up as an aviator and pulled that stuff, sergeant. But you handled it brutally—terribly brutally."
"It was a little raw, I guess," conceded Hammond. "I was up against it, that's all—I figured they'd pinch me sooner or later, but I didn't care, and that's the truth! I was out for the coin.
"When you took over the costume and began to get across with the Raffles stuff—why, it was a pipe for you, cap'n! Look what we've done in a month. Six jobs, every one running off smooth as glass! Your notion of going to parties ready dressed with some kind of loose robe over the flyin' duds was a scream! And then me running that motor with the cutout on—all them birds that never heard an airplane think you come and go by air, for certain! I will say that I ain't on to why you're doing it; just the same, you've got them all fooled, and I ain't worried a particle about the cops or the crooks, either one. But watch out for the Gumberts crowd! They're liable to show us up to the bulls, simply because we ain't in with 'em. Nobody else will ever find us out."
Gramont nodded thoughtfully.
"Yes? But, sergeant, how about the quiet little man who came along last night at the Maillard house and asked about the car? Perhaps he had discovered you had been running the engine."
"Him?" Hammond sniffed in scorn. "He wasn't no dick."
"Well, I was followed to-day; at least, I think I was. I could spot nobody after me, but I felt certain of it. And let me tell you something about that same quiet little man! His name is Jachin Fell."
"Heluva name," commented Hammond, and wrinkled up his brow. "Jachin, huh? Seems like I've heard the name before. Out o' the Bible, ain't it? Something about Jachin and Boaz?"
"I imagine so." Gramont smiled as he replied. "Fell is a lawyer, but he never practises law. He's rich, he's a very fine chess player—and probably the smartest man in New Orleans, sergeant. Just what he does I don't know; no one does. I imagine that he's one of those quiet men who stay in the backgrounds of city politics and pull the strings. You know, one administration has been in power here for nearly twenty years—it's something to make a man stop and think!
"This chap Fell is sharp, confoundedly sharp!" went on Gramont, while the chauffeur listened with frowning intentness. "He's altogether too sharp to be a criminal—or I'd suspect that he was using his knowledge of the law to beat the law. Well, I think that he is on to me, and is trying to get the goods on me."
"Oh!" said Hammond. "And someone was trailin' you? Think he's put the bulls wise?"
Gramont shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. He almost caught me last night. We'll have to get rid of that aviator's suit at once, and of the loot also. I suppose you've reconciled yourself to returning the stuff?"
Hammond stirred uneasily, and laid down his pipe.
"Look here, cap'n," he said, earnestly. "I wasn't runnin' a holdup game because I liked it, and I wasn't doing it for the fun of the thing, like you are. I was dead broke, I hadn't any hope left, and I didn't care a damn whether I lived or died—that's on the dead! Right there, you come along and picked me up.
"You give me a job. What's more, you've treated me white, cap'n. I guess you seen that I was just a man with the devil at his heels, and you chased the devil off. You've given me something decent to live for—to make good because you got some faith in me! Why, when you went out on that first job of ours, d'you know it like to broke me up? It did. Only, when we got home that night and you said it was all a joke, and you'd send back the loot later on, then I begun to feel better about it. Even if you'd gone into it as a reg'lar business, I'd have stuck with you—but I was darned glad about its bein' a joke!"
Gramont nodded in comprehension of the other's feeling.
"It's not been altogether a joke, sergeant," he said, gravely. "To tell the truth, I did start it as a joke, but soon afterward I learned something that led me to keep it up. I kept it up until I could hit the Maillard house. It was my intention to turn up at the Comus ball, on Tuesday night, and there make public restitution of the stuff—but that's impossible now. I dare not risk it! That man Fell is too smart."
"You're not goin' to pull the trick again, then?" queried Hammond, eagerly.
"No. I'm through. I've got what I wanted. Still, I don't wish to return the stuff before Wednesday—Ash Wednesday, the end of the carnival season. Suppose you get out the loot and find me some boxes. And be sure they have no name on them or any store labels."
Hammond leaped up and vanished in the room adjoining. Presently he returned, bearing several cardboard boxes which he dumped on the centre table. Gramont examined them closely, and laid aside a number that were best suited to his purpose. Meantime, the chauffeur was opening a steamer trunk which he pulled from under the bed.
"I'm blamed glad you're done, believe me!" he uttered, fervently, glancing up at Gramont. "Far's I'm concerned I don't care much, but I'd sure hate to see the bulls turn in a guy like you, cap'n. You couldn't ever persuade anybody that it was all a joke, neither, once they nabbed you. They're a bad bunch o' bulls in this town—it ain't like Chi or other places, where you can stand in right and do a bit o' fixing."
"You seem to know the game pretty well," and Gramont smiled amusedly.
"Ain't I been a chauffeur and garage man?" retorted Hammond, as though this explained much. "If there's anything us guys don't run up against, you can't name it! Here we are. Want me to keep each bunch separate, don't you?"
"Sure. I'll be writing some notes to go inside."
Gramont went to a buhl writing desk in the corner of the room, and sat down. He took out his notebook, tore off several sheets, and from his pocket produced a pencil having an extremely hard lead. He wrote a number of notes, which, except for the addresses, were identical in content:
Dear Sir:
I enclose herewith certain jewellery and articles, also currency, recently obtained by me under your kind auspices.
I trust that you will assume the responsibility of returning these things to the various guests who lost them while under your roof. I regret any discomfort occasioned by my taking them as a loan, which I now return. Please convey to the several owners my profound esteem and my assurance that I shall not in future appear to trouble any one, the carnival season having come to an end, and with it my little jest.
The Midnight Masquer.
Gathering up these notes in his hand, Gramont went to the fireplace. He tossed the pencil into the fire, following it with the notebook.
"Can't take chances with that man Fell," he explained. "All ready, sergeant. Let's go down the list one by one."
From the trunk Hammond produced ticketed packages, which he placed on the table. Gramont selected one, opened it, carefully packed the contents in one of the boxes, placed the proper addressed note on top, and handed it to the chauffeur.
"Wrap it up and address it. Give the return address of John Smith, Bayou Teche."
One by one they went through the packages of loot in the same manner. Before them on the table, as they worked, glittered little heaps of rings, brooches, watches, currency; jewels that flashed garishly with coloured fires, historic and famous jewels plucked from the aristocratic heart of the southland, heirlooms of a past generation side by side with platinum crudities of the present fashion.
There had been heartburnings in the loss of these things, Gramont knew. He could picture to himself something of what had followed his robberies: family quarrels, new purchases in the gem marts, bitter reproaches, fresh mortgages on old heritages, vexations of wealthy dowagers, shrugs of unconcern by the nouveaux riches; perchance lives altered—deaths—divorces
"There's a lot of human life behind these baubles, sergeant," he reflected aloud, a cold smile upon his lips as he worked. "When they come back to their owners, I'd like to be hovering around in an invisible mantle to watch results! Could we only know it, we're probably affecting the lives of a great many people—for good and ill. These things stand for money; and there's nothing like money, or the lack of it, to guide the destinies of people."
"You said it," and Hammond grinned. "I'm here to prove it, ain't I? I ain't pulling no more gunplay, now I got me a steady job."
"And a steady friend, old man," added Gramont. "Did it occur to you that maybe I was as much in need of a friend as you were?"
He had come to the last box now, that which must go to Joseph Maillard. On top of the money and scarfpins which he placed in the box he laid a thin packet of papers. He tapped them with his finger.
"Those papers, sergeant! To get them, I've been playing the whole game. To get them and not to let their owner suspect that I was after them! Now they're going back to their owner."
"Who's he?" demanded Hammond.
"Young Maillard—son of the banker. He roped me into an oil company; caught me, like a sucker, almost the first week I was here. I put pretty near my whole wad into that company of his."
"You mean he stung you?"
"Not yet." Gramont smiled coldly, harshly. "That was his intention; he thought I was a Frenchman who would fall for any sort of game. I fell right enough—but I'll come out on top of the heap."
The other frowned. "I don't get you, cap'n. Some kind o' stock deal?"
"Yes, and no." Gramont paused, and seemed to choose his words with care. "Miss Ledanois, the lady who was driving with us this afternoon, is an old friend of mine. I've known for some time that somebody was fleecing her. I suspected that it was Maillard the elder, for he has had the handling of her affairs for some time past. Now, however, those papers have given me the truth. He was straight enough with her; his son was the man.
"The young fool imagines that by trickery and juggling he is playing the game of high finance! He worked on his father, made his father sell land owned by Miss Ledanois, and he himself reaped the profits. There are notes and stock issues among those papers that give his whole game away, to my eyes. Not legal evidence, as I had hoped, but evidence enough to show me the truth of things—to show me that he's a scoundrel! Further, they bear on my own case, and I'm satisfied now that I'd be ruined if I stayed with him."
"Well, that's easy settled," said Hammond. "Just hold him up with them papers—make him come across!"
"I'm not in that sort of business. I stole those papers, not to use them for blackmail, but to get information. By the way, get that tin box out of my trunk, will you? I want to take my stock certificates with me in the morning, and must not forget them."
Hammond disappeared into the adjoining room.
Gramont sat gazing at the boxes before him. Despite his words to Hammond, there was a fund of puzzled displeasure in his eyes, sheer dissatisfaction. He shook his head gloomily, and his eyes clouded.
"All wasted—the whole effort!" he murmured. "I thought it might lead to something, but all it has given me is the reward of saving myself and possibly retrieving Lucie. As for the larger game, the bigger quarry—it's all wasted. I haven't unravelled a single thread; the first real clue came to me to-night, purely by accident. Memphis Izzy Gumberts! That's the lead to follow! I'll get rid of this Midnight Masquer foolishness and go after the real game."
Gramont was to discover that it is not nearly so easy to be rid of folly as it is to don the jester's cap and bells; a fact which one Simplicissimus had discovered to his sorrow three hundred years earlier. But, as Gramont was not versed in this line of literature, he yet had the discovery ahead of him.
Hammond reëntered the room with the tin box, from which Gramont took his stock certificates issued by Bob Maillard's oil company. He pocketed the shares.
"Does this here Miss Ledanois," asked Hammond, "play in with you in the game? Young Maillard's related to her, ain't he?"
"She's quite aware of his drawbacks, I think," answered Gramont, drily.
"I see." Hammond rubbed his chin, and inspected his employer with a twinkle denoting perfect comprehension. "Well, how d'you expect to come out on top of the heap?"
"I want to get my own money back," explained Gramont. "You see, young Maillard thinks that he's cleaned me up fine. I've invested heavily in his company, which has a couple of small wells already going. As I conceive the probable scheme, this company is scheduled to fail, and another company will take over the stock at next to nothing. Maillard will be the other company; his present associates will be the suckers! It's that, or some similar trick. I'm no longer interested in the affair."
"Why not, if you got money in it?"
"My son, to-morrow is Monday. Proteus will arrive out of the sea to-morrow, and the Proteus ball comes off to-morrow night. In spite of these distractions, the banks are open in the morning. Savvy?
"I'll go to Maillard the banker—Joseph Maillard—first thing in the morning, and offer him my stock. He'll be mighty glad to get it at a discount, knowing that it is in his son's company. You see, the son doesn't confide in the old man particularly. I'll let the father win a little money on the deal with me, and by doing this I'll manage to save the greater part of my investment"
"Holy mackerel!" Hammond exploded in a burst of laughter as he caught the idea. "Say, if this ain't the richest thing ever pulled! When the crash comes, the fancy kid will be stinging his dad good and hard, eh?"
"Exactly; and I think his dad can afford to be stung much better than I can," agreed Gramont, cheerfully. "Also, now that I'm certain Bob Maillard is the one who was behind the fleecing of Miss Ledanois, I'll first get clear of him, then I'll start to give him his deserts. I may form an oil company of my own."
"Do it," advised Hammond, still chuckling.
"Now," and Gramont rose, "let's take those packages and stow them away in the luggage compartment of the car. I'm getting nervous at the thought of having them around here, and they'll be perfectly safe there overnight—safer there than here, in fact. To-morrow, you can take the car out of town and send the packages by parcels post from some small town.
"In that way they ought to be delivered here on Wednesday. You'd better wear one of my suits, leaving your chauffeur's outfit here, and don't halt the car in front of the postoffice where you mail the packages"
"I get you," assented Hammond, sagely. "I'll leave the car outside town, and hoof it in with the boxes, so that nobody will notice the car or connect it with the packages, eh? But what about them aviator's clothes?"
"Take them with you—better get them wrapped up here and now. You can toss them into a ditch anywhere."
Hammond obeyed.
Ten minutes afterward the two men left the room, carrying the packages of loot and the bundle containing the aviator's uniform. They descended to the courtyard in the rear of the house. Here was a small garden, with a fountain in its centre. Behind this were the stables, which had long been disused as such, and which were now occupied only by the car of Gramont.
It was with undisguised relief that Gramont now saw the stuff actually out of the house. Within the last few hours he had become intensely afraid of Jachin Fell. Concentrating himself upon the man, picking up information guardedly, he had that day assimilated many small items which increased his sense of peril from that quarter. Straws, no more, but quite significant straws. Gramont realized clearly that if the police ever searched his rooms and found this loot, he would be lost. There could be no excuse that would hold water for a minute against such evidence.
In the garage, Hammond switched on the lights of the car. By the glow they disposed their burdens in the luggage compartment of the tonneau, which held them neatly. The car was a large twelve-cylinder, four-passenger Nonpareil, which Gramont had picked up in the used-car market. Hammond had tinkered it into magnificent shape, and loved the piece of mechanism as the very apple of his eye.
The luggage compartment closed and locked, they returned into the house and dismissed the affair as settled.
Upon the following morning Gramont, who usually breakfasted en pension with his hostess, had barely seated himself at the table when he perceived the figure of Hammond at the rear entrance of the dining room. The chauffeur beckoned him hastily.
"Come out here, cap'n!" Hammond was breathing heavily, and seemed to be in some agitation. "Want to show you somethin'!"
"Is there anything important?" Gramont hesitated. The other regarded him with a baleful countenance.
"Important? Worse'n that!"
Gramont rose and followed Hammond out to the garage, much to his amazement. The chauffeur halted beside the car and extended him a key, pointing to the luggage compartment.
"Here's the key—you open her!"
"What's the matter, man?"
"The stuff's gone!"
Gramont seized the key and opened the compartment. It proved empty indeed. He stared up into the face of Hammond who was watching in dogged silence.
"I knew you'd suspect me," broke out the chauffeur, but Gramont interrupted him curtly.
"Don't be a fool; nothing of the sort. Was the garage locked?"
"Yes, and the compartment, too! I came out to look over that cut tire, and thought I'd make sure the stuff was safe"
"We're up against it, that's all." Gramont compressed his lips for a moment. Then he straightened up and clapped the other on the shoulder. "Buck up! I never thought of suspecting you, old fellow. Someone must have been watching us last night, eh?"
"The guy that trailed you yesterday, most like," agreed Hammond, dourly. "It ain't hard to break into this place, and any one could open that compartment with a hairpin."
"Well, you're saved a trip into the country."
"You think they got us, cap'n? What can we do?"
"Do?" Gramont shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "Nothing except to wait and see what happens next! If you want to run, I'll give you enough money to land you in New York or Frisco"
"Run—hell!" Hammond sniffed in scorn. "What d'you think I am—a boche? I'll stick."
"Good boy." Gramont turned toward the house. "Come along in and get breakfast, and don't touch that compartment door. I want to examine it later."
Hammond gazed admiringly after him as he crossed the garden. "If you ain't a cool hand, I'm a Dutchman!" he murmured, and followed his master.