The Mardi Gras Mystery - Henry Bedford-Jones (beginner reading books for adults TXT) 📗

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