"You're quite right," and Gramont smiled. "I borrowed this from Bob Maillard only a moment ago. Its hardness surprised me."
"Oh!" said Jachin Fell, mildly. "By the way, aren't you the Prince de Gramont? When we met this evening, you were introduced as plain Mr. Gramont, but it seems to me that I had heard something——"
"Quite a mistake, Mr. Fell. I'm no prince; simply Henry Gramont, and nothing more. Also, an American citizen. Some of these New Orleans people can't forget the prince business, most unfortunately."
"Ah, yes," agreed Fell, shyly. "Do you know, a most curious thing——"
"Yes?" prompted Gramont, his eyes intent upon the little gray man.
"That paper you brought us—the paper which you found pinned to the library door," said Fell, apologetically. "Do you know, Mr. Gramont, that oddly enough there were no pin holes in that paper?"
Gramont smiled faintly, as though he were inwardly amused over the remark.
"Not at all curious," he said, his voice level. "It was pinned rather stoutly—I tore off the portion bearing the message. I'll wager that you'll find the end of the paper still on the door downstairs. You might make certain that its torn edge fits that of the paper in your pocket; if it did not, then the factwouldbe curious! I am most happy to have met you, Mr. Fell. I trust that we shall meet again, often."
With a smile, he extended his hand, which Mr. Fell shook cordially.
As Jachin Fell descended the wide staircase his face was red—quite red. One would have said that he had just been worsted in some encounter, and that the sense of defeat still rankled within him.
Upon gaining the lower hall he glanced at the door of the library. There, still pinned to the wood where it had been unregarded by the passersby, was a small scrap of paper. Mr. Fell glanced at it again, then shook his head and slowly turned away, as though resisting a temptation.
"No," he muttered. "No. It would besure to fit the paper in my pocket. It would be sure to fit, confound him!"
A little later he left the house and walked along the line of cars that were waiting parked in the drive and in the street outside. Before one of the cars he came to a halt, examining it closely. The sleepy chauffeur got out and touched his cap in a military salute; he was a sturdy young fellow, his face very square and blunt.
"A very handsome car. May I ask whose it is?" inquired Fell, mildly.
"Mr. Gramont's, sir," answered the chauffeur.
"Ah, thank you. A very handsome car indeed. Good-night!"
Mr. Fell walked away, striding briskly down the avenue. When he approached the first street light he came to a pause, and began softly to pat his person as though searching for something.
"I told you that you'd pay for knowing too much about me, young man!" he said, softly. "What's this, now—what's this?"
A slight rustle of paper, as he walked along, had attracted his attention. He passed his hands over the loose, open dominothat cloaked him; he detected a scrap of paper pinned to it in the rear. He loosened the paper, and under the street light managed to decipher the writing which it bore.
A faint smile crept to his lips as he read the pencilled words:
I do not love you, Jachin Fell,The reason why I cannot tell;But this I know, and know full well,I do not love you, Jachin Fell!
I do not love you, Jachin Fell,The reason why I cannot tell;But this I know, and know full well,I do not love you, Jachin Fell!
"Certainly the fellow has wit, if not originality," muttered Mr. Fell, as he carefully stowed away the paper. The writing upon it was in the hand of the Midnight Masquer.
Callers
THE house in which Lucie Ledanois lived had been her mother's; the furniture and other things in it had been her mother's; the two negro servants, who spoke only the Creole French patois, had been her mother's. It was a small house, but very beautiful inside. The exterior betrayed a lack of paint or the money with which to have painting done.
The Ledanois family, although distantly connected with others such as the Maillards, had sent forth its final bud of fruition in the girl Lucie. Her mother had died while she was yet an infant, and through the years she had companioned her father, an invalid during the latter days. He had never been a man to count dollars or costs, and to a large extent he had outworn himself and the family fortunes in a vain search for health.
With Lucie he had been in Europe at theoutbreak of war, and had come home to America only to die shortly afterward. Once deprived of his fine recklessness, the girl had found her affairs in a bad tangle. Under the guardianship of Maillard the tangle had been somewhat resolved and simplified, but even Maillard would appear to have made mistakes, and of late Lucie had against her will suspected something amiss in the matter of these mistakes.
It was natural, then, that she should take Jachin Fell into her confidence. Maillard had been her guardian, but it was to Fell that she had always come with her girlish cares and troubles, during even the lifetime of her father. She had known Fell all her life; she had met him in strange places, both at home and abroad. She entertained a well-grounded suspicion that Jachin Fell had loved her mother, and this one fact lay between them, never mentioned but always there, like a bond of faith and kindliness.
At precisely three o'clock of the Sunday afternoon Jachin Fell rang the doorbell and Lucie herself admitted him. She ushered him into the parlour that was restful with its quiet brasses and old rosewood.
"Tell me quickly, Uncle Jachin!" eagerly exclaimed the girl. "Did you actually see the Midnight Masquer last night? I didn't know until afterward that he had really been downstairs and had robbed——"
"I saw him, my dear," and the little gray man smiled. There was more warmth to his smile than usual just now. Perhaps it was a reflection from the eager vitality which so shone in the eyes of Lucie. "I saw him, yes."
A restful face was hers—not beautiful at first glance; a little too strong for beauty one would say. The deep gray eyes were level and quiet and wide apart, and on most occasions were quite inscrutable. They were now filled with a quick eagerness as they rested upon Jachin Fell. Lucie called him uncle, but not as she called Joseph Maillard uncle; here was no relationship, no formal affectation of relationship, but a purely abiding trust and friendship.
Jachin Fell had done more for Lucie than she herself knew or would know; without her knowledge he had quietly taken care of her finances to an appreciable extent. Between them lay an affection that was very real.Lucie, better than most, knew the extraordinary capabilities of this little gray man; yet not even Lucie guessed a tenth of the character that lay beneath his surface. To her he was never reserved or secretive. Nonetheless, she touched sometimes an impenetrable wall that seemed ever present within him.
"You saw him?" repeated the girl, quickly. "What was he like? Do you know who he is?"
"Certainly I know," replied Fell, still smiling at her.
"Oh! Then who is he?"
"Softly, softly, young lady! I know him, but even to you I dare not breathe his name until I obtain some direct evidence. Let us call him Mr. X., after the approved methods of romance, and I shall expound what I know."
He groped in his vest pocket. Lucie sprang up, bringing a smoking stand from the corner of the room to his chair. She held a match to his El Rey, and then curled up on a Napoleon bed and watched him intently while he spoke.
"The bandit did not enter the house during the evening, nor did he leave, nor was he found in the house afterward," he said, tonelessly."So, incredible as it may appear, he was one of the guests. This Mr. X. came to the dance wearing the aviator's costume, or most of it, underneath his masquerade costume. When he was ready to act, he doffed his outer costume, appeared as the Midnight Masquer, effected his purpose, then calmly donned his outer costume again and resumed his place among the guests. You understand?
"Well, then! Maillard yesterday received a note from the Masquer, brazenly stating that he intended to call during the evening. I have that note. It was written with an extremely hard lead pencil, such as few men carry, because it does not easily make very legible writing. Last night I asked Mr. X. for a pencil, and he produced one with an extra hard lead—mentioning that he had borrowed it from Bob Maillard, as indeed he had."
"What! Surely, you don't mean——"
"Of course I don't. Mr. X. is very clever, that's all. Here is what took place last night. Mr. X. brought us another note from the Masquer, saying that he had found it pinned to the library door. As a matter of fact,he had written it on a leaf torn from his notebook. I took the note from him, observing at the time that the paper had no pin holes. Probably, Mr. X. saw that there was something amiss; he presently went back downstairs, took the remainder of the torn leaf from his notebook, and pinned it to the door. A little later, I met him and mentioned the lack of pin holes; he calmly referred me to the piece on the door, saying that he had merely torn off the note without removing the pins. You follow me?"
"Of course," murmured the girl, her eyes wide in fascinated interest. "And he knew that you guessed him to be the Masquer?"
"He suspected me, I think," said Fell, mildly. "It is understood that you will not go about tracing these little clues? I do not wish to disclose his identity, even to your very discreet brain——"
"Don't be silly, Uncle Jachin!" she broke in. "You know I'll do nothing of the sort. Go on, please! Did you find the airplane?"
"Yes." Jachin Fell smiled drily. "I was thinking of that as I left the house and came to the line of waiting automobiles. A word with one of the outside detectives showed methat one of the cars in the street had been testing its engine about midnight. I found that the car belonged to Mr. X.
"How simple, Lucie, and how very clever! The chauffeur worked a powerful motor with a muffler cutout at about the time Mr. X., inside the house, was making his appearance. It scarcely sounded like an airplane motor, yet frightened and startled, people would imagine that it did. Thus arose the legend that the Midnight Masquer came and departed by means of airplane—a theory aided ingeniously by his costume. Well, that is all I know or suspect, my dear Lucie! And now——"
"Now, I suppose," said the girl, thoughtfully, "you'll put that awful Creole of yours on the track of Mr. X.? Ben Chacherre is a good chauffeur, and he's amusing enough—but he's a bloodhound! I don't wonder that he used to be a criminal. Even if you have rescued him from a life of crime, you haven't improved his looks."
"Exactly—Ben is at work," assented Jachin Fell. "The gentleman under suspicion is very prominent. To accuse him without proof would be utter folly. To catch himin flagrante delictowill be difficult. So, I am in no haste. He will not disappear, believe me, and something may turn up at any moment to undo him. Besides, I can as yet discover no motive for his crimes, since he is quite well off financially."
"Gambling," suggested the girl.
"I cannot find that he has lost any considerable sums. Well, no matter! Now that I have fully unbosomed myself, my dear, it is your turn."
"All right, Uncle Jachin." Lucie took a large morocco case from the chair beside her, and extended it. "You lent me these things to wear last night, and I——"
"No, no," intervened Fell. "I gave them to you, my dear—in fact, I bought them for you two years ago, and kept them until now! You have worn them; they are yours, and you become them better than even did poor Queen Hortense! So say no more. I trust that Mrs. Maillard was righteous and envious?"
"She was disagreeable," said Lucie. She leaned forward and imprinted a kiss upon the cheek of the little gray man. "There! that is all the thanks I can give you, dearuncle; the gift makes me very happy, and I'll not pretend otherwise. Only, I feel as though I had no right to wear them—they're so wonderful!"
"Nonsense! You can do anything you want to, as Eliza said when she crossed the ice. But all this isn't why you summoned me here, you bundle of mystery! What bothered you last night, or rather, who?"
Lucie laughed. "There was a Franciscan who tried to be very mysterious, and to read my mind. He talked about oil, about a grasping, hard man, and mentioned you as my friend. Then he warned me against a proposal that Bob might make; and sure enough, Bob did propose to buy what land is left to me on Bayou Terrebonne, saying he'd persuade his oil company that there was oil on it, and that they'd buy or lease it. I told him no. The Franciscan, afterward, proved to be Henry Gramont; I wondered if you had mentioned——"
"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Mr. Fell, piously. "I never even met Gramont until last night! Do you like him?"
"Very much." The girl's eyes met his frankly. "Do you?"
"Very much," said Jachin Fell.
Lucie's gray eyes narrowed, searched his face. "I'm almost able to tell when you're lying," she observed, calmly. "You said that a trifle too hastily, Uncle Jachin. Why don't you like him?"
Fell laughed, amused. "Perhaps I have a prejudice against foreign nobles, Lucie. Our own aristocracy is bad enough, but——"
"He's discarded all that. He was never French except in name."
"You speak as though you'd known him for some time. Have you had secrets from me?"
"I have!" laughter dimpled in the girl's face. "For years and years! When I was in New York with father, before the war, we met him; he was visiting in Newport with college friends. Then, you know that father and I were in France when the war broke out—father was ill and almost helpless at the time, you remember. Gramont came to Paris to serve with his regiment, and met us there. He helped us get away, procured real money for us, got us passage to New York. He knows lots of our friends, and I've always been deeply grateful to him for his assistance then.
"We've corresponded quite frequently during the war," she pursued. "I mentioned him several times after we got home from France, but you probably failed to notice the name. It's only since he came to New Orleans that I really kept any secrets from you; this time, I wanted to find out if you liked him."
Jachin Fell nodded slowly. His face was quite innocent of expression.
"Yes, yes," he said. "Yes—of course. He's a geologist or engineer, I think?"
"Both, and a good one. He's a stockholder in Bob Maillard's oil company, and I think he's come here to stay. Well, about last night—he probably guessed at some of my private affairs; I've written or spoken rather frankly, perhaps. Also, Bob may have blabbed to him. Bob still drinks—prohibition has not hithimvery hard!"
"No," agreed Fell, gravely. "Unfortunately, no. Lucie, I've discovered a most important fact. Joseph Maillard did not own any stock in the Bayou Oil Company at the time your land was sold them by him, and he had no interest at all in the real estate concern that bought your St. Landry swamplandsand made a fortune off them. We have really blamed him most unjustly."
For a moment there was silence between them.
"We need not mince matters," pursued Fell, slowly. "Maillard has no scruples and no compassion; all the same, I am forced to the belief that he has maintained your interest uprightly, and that his mistakes were only errors. I do not believe that he has profited in the least from you. Two small fortunes were swept out of your grip when he sold those lands; yet they had been worthless, and he had good offers for them. His investments in the companies concerned were made afterward, and I am certain he sold the lands innocently."
Lucie drew a deep breath.
"I am glad you have said this," she returned, simply. "It's been hard for me to think that Uncle Joseph had taken advantage of me; I simply couldn't make myself believe it. I think that he honestly likes me, as far as he permits himself to like any one."
"He'd not loan you money on it," said Fell. "Friendship isn't a tangible securitywith him. And a girl is never secure, as Eliza said when she crossed the ice."
"Well, who really did profit by my loss? Any one?"
Fell's pale gray eyes twinkled, then cleared in their usually wide innocence.
"My dear Lucie, is there one person in this world to whose faults Joseph Maillard is deliberately blind—one person to whose influence he is ever open—one person to whom he would refuse nothing, in whom he would pardon everything, of whom he would never believe any evil report?"
"You mean——" Lucie drew a quick breath, "Bob?"
"Yes, I mean Bob. That he has profited by your loss I am not yet in a position to say; but I suspect it. He has his father's cupidity without his father's sense of honour to restrain him. When I have finished with the Masquer, I shall take up his trail."
Jachin Fell rose. "Now I must be off, my dear. By the way, if I have need of you in running down the Masquer, may I call upon your services?"
"Certainly! I'd love to help, Uncle Jachin! We'd be real detectives?"
"Almost." Jachin Fell smiled slightly. "Will you dine with us to-morrow evening, Lucie? My mother commanded me to bring you as soon as possible——"
"Oh, your mother!" exclaimed the girl, contritely. "I was so absorbed in the Masquer that I forgot to ask after her. How is she?"
"Quite as usual, thank you. I presume that you'll attend Comus with the Maillards?"
"Yes. I'll come to-morrow night gladly, Uncle Jachin."
"And we'll take a look at the Proteus ball afterward, if you like. I'll send Ben Chacherre for you with the car, if you're not afraid of him."
Lucie looked gravely into the smiling eyes of Fell.
"I'm not exactly afraid of him," she responded, soberly, "but there is something about him that I can't like. I'm sorry that you're trying to regenerate him, in a way."
Fell shrugged lightly. "All life is an effort, little one! Well, good-bye."
Jachin Fell left the house at three-forty. Twenty minutes later the bell rang again.Lucie sent one of the servants to admit Henry Gramont; she kept him waiting a full fifteen minutes before she appeared, and then she made no apologies whatever for the delay.
Not that Gramont minded waiting; he deemed it a privilege to linger in this house! He loved to study the place, so reflective of its owner. He loved the white Colonial mantel that surrounded the fireplace, perpetually alight, with its gleaming sheen of old brasses, and the glittering fire-set to one side. The very air of the place, the atmosphere that it breathed, was sweet to him.
The Napoleon bed that filled the bow window, with its pillows and soft coverings; the inlaid walnut cabinet made by Sheraton, with its quaintly curved glasses that reflected the old-time curios within; the tilt tables, the rosewood chairs, the rugs, bought before the oriental rug market was flooded with machine-made Senna knots—about everything here had an air of comfort, of long use, of restfulness. It was not the sort of place built up, raw item by raw item, by the colour-frenzied hands of decorators. It was the sort of place that decorators strive desperately to imitate, and cannot.
When Lucie made her appearance, Gramont bent over her hand and addressed her in French.
"You are charming as ever, Shining One! And in years to come you will be still more charming. That is the beauty of having a name taken direct from the classics and bestowed as a good fairy's gift——"
"Thank you, monsieur—but you have translated my name at least twenty times, and I am weary of hearing it," responded Lucie, laughingly.
"Poor taste, mademoiselle, to grow weary of such beauty!"
"Not of the name, but of your exegesis upon it. Why should I not be displeased? Last night you were positively rude, and now you decry my taste! Did you leave all your manners in France, M. le prince?"
"Some of them, yes—and all that prince stuff with them." Smiling as he dropped into English, Gramont glanced about the room, and his eyes softened.
"This is a lovey and loveable home of yours, Lucie!" he exclaimed, gravely. "So few homes are worthy the name; so few have in them the intimate air of use and friendliness—whyare so many furnished from bargain sales? This place is touched with repose and sweetness; to come and sit here is a privilege. It is like being in another world, after all the money striving and the dollar madness of the city."
"Oh!" The girl's gaze searched him curiously. "I hope you're not going to take the fine artistic pose that it is a crime to make money?"
Gramont laughed.
"Not much! I want to make money myself; that's one reason I'm in New Orleans. Still, you cannot deny that there is a craze about the eternal clutching after dollars. I can't make the dollar sign the big thing in life, Lucie. You couldn't, either."
She frowned a little.
"You seem to have the European notion that all Americans are dollar chasers!"
He shrugged his shoulders slightly. His harshly lined face was very strong; one sensed that its harshness had come from the outside—from hunger, from hardship and privations, from suffering strongly borne. He had not gone through the war unscathed, this young man who had tossed away aprincely "de" in order to become plain Henry Gramont, American citizen.
"In a sense, yes; why not?" he answered. "I am an American. I am a dollar chaser, and not ashamed of it. I am going into business here. Once it is a success, I shall go on; I shall see America, I shall come to know this whole country of mine, all of it! I have been a month in New Orleans—do you know, a strange thing happened to me only a few days after I arrived here!"
With her eyes she urged him on, and he continued gravely:
"In France I met a man, an American sergeant named Hammond. It was just at the close of things. We had adjoining cots at Nice——"
"Ah!" she exclaimed, quickly. "I remember, you wrote about him—the man who had been wounded in both legs! Did he get well? You never said."
"I never knew until I came here," answered Gramont. "One night, not long after I had got established in my pension on Burgundy Street, a man tried to rob me. It was this same man, Hammond; we recognized each other almost at once.
"I took him home with me and learned his story. He had come back to America only to find his wife dead from influenza, his home broken up, his future destroyed. He drifted to New Orleans, careless of what happened to him. He flung himself desperately into a career of burglary and pillage. Well, I gave Hammond a job; he is my chauffeur. You would never recognize him as the same man now! I am very proud of his friendship."
"That was well said." Lucie nodded her head quickly. "I shan't call you M. Le prince any more—unless you offend again."
He smiled, reading her thought. "I try not to be a snob, eh? Well, what I'm driving at is this: I want to know this country of mine, to see it with clear, unprejudiced eyes. We hide our real shames and exalt our false ones. Why should we be ashamed of chasing the dollar? So long as that is a means to the end of happiness, it's all right. But there are some men who see it as an end alone, who can set nofinisto their work except the dollar dropping into their pouch. Such a man is your relative, Joseph Maillard—I say it without offence."
Lucie nodded, realizing that he was drivingat some deeper thing, and held her peace.
"You realize the fact, eh?" Gramont smiled faintly. "I do not wish to offend you, and I shall therefore refrain from saying all that is in my mind. But you have not hesitated to intimate very frankly that you are not wealthy. Some time ago, if you recall, you wrote me how you had just missed wealth through having sold some land. I have taken the liberty of looking up that deal to some extent, and I have suspected that your uncle had some interest in putting the sale through——"
The gray eyes of the girl flashed suddenly.
"Henry Gramont! Are my family affairs to be an open book to the world?" A slight flush, perhaps of anger, perhaps of some other emotion, rose in the girl's cheeks. "Do you realize that you are intruding most unwarrantably into my private matters?"
"Unwarrantably?" Gramont's eyes held her gaze steadily. "Do you really mean to use that word?"
"I do, most certainly!" answered Lucie with spirit. "I don't think you realize just what the whole thing tends toward——"
"Oh, yes I do! Quite clearly." Gramont's cool, level tone conquered her indignation. "I see that you are orphaned, and that your uncle was your guardian, and executed questionable deals which lost money for you. Come, that's brutally frank—but it's true! We are friends of long standing; not intimate friends, perhaps, and yet I think very good friends. I am most certainly not ashamed to say that when I had the occasion to look out for your interests I was very glad of the chance."
Gramont paused, but she did not speak. He continued after a moment:
"You had intimated to me, perhaps without meaning to do so, something of the situation. I came here to New Orleans and became involved in some dealings with your cousin, Bob Maillard. I believed, and I believe now, that in your heart you have some suspicion of your uncle in regard to those transactions in land. Therefore, I took the trouble to look into the thing to a slight extent. Shall I tell you what I have discovered?"
Lucie Ledanois gazed at him, her lips compressed. She liked this new manner of his, this firm and resolute gravity, this harshness.It brought out his underlying character very well.
"If you please, Henry," she murmured very meekly. "Since you have thrust yourself into my private affairs, I think I should at least get whatever benefit I can!"
"Exactly. Why not?" He made a grave gesture of assent. "Well, then, I have discovered that your uncle appears to be honestly at fault in the matter——"
"Thanks for this approval of my family," she murmured.
"And," continued Gramont, imperturbably, "that your suspicions of him were groundless. But, on the other hand, something new has turned up about which I wish to speak—but about which I must speak delicately."
"Be frank, my dear Henry—even brutal! Speak, by all means."
"Very well. Has Bob Maillard offered to buy your remaining land on the Bayou Terrebonne?"
She started slightly. So it was to this that he had been leading up all the while!
"He broached the subject last night," she answered. "I dismissed it for the time."
"Good!" he exclaimed with boyish vigour."Good! I warned you in time, then! If you will permit me, I must advise you not to part with that land—not even for a good offer. This week, immediately Mardi Gras is over, I am going to inspect that land for the company; it is Bob Maillard's company, you know.
"If there's any chance of finding oil there, I shall first see you, then advise the company. You can hold out for your fair share of the mineral rights, instead of selling the whole thing. You'll get it! Landowners around here are not yet wise to the oil game, but they'll soon learn."
"You would betray your business associates to help me?" she asked, curious to hear his reply. A slow flush crept into his cheeks.
"Certainly not! But I would not betray you to help my business friends. Is my unwarrantable intrusion forgiven?"
She nodded brightly. "You are put on probation, sir. You're in Bob's company?"
"Yes." Gramont frowned. "I invested perhaps too hastily—but no matter now. I have the car outside, Lucie; may I have the pleasure of taking you driving?"
"Did you bring that chauffeur?"
"Yes," and he laughed at her eagerness.
"Good! I accept—because I must see that famous soldier-bandit-chauffeur. If you'll wait, I'll be ready in a minute."
She hurried from the room, a snatch of song on her lips. Gramont smiled as he waited.
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 apartmenten 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 beforethe 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 servilityfrom 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 prettygood 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 whereheis, 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'tknow. 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—butI 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 themclosely, 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, andfrom 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.
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, carefullypacked 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 thenouveaux 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 behovering 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. Heroped 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, andhe 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 denotingperfect 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 dealwith 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 breakfasteden pensionwith his hostess, had barely seated himself at the table when he perceived the figure ofHammond 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.