The Mardi Gras Mystery Part 9

"From the evidence, I am forced against my will to believe it," he said at last. "Of course, he'll be able to prove that he was not the Masquer on previous occasions; his alibis will take care of that. Up to the point of the murder, his story is all right. And, my friend, there is a chance--a very slim, tenuous chance--that his entire story is true. In that case, another person must have appeared as the Masquer which seems unlikely----"

"Or else," put in Ben Chacherre, smoothly, "the real original Masquer showed up!"

There was an instant of silence. Jachin Fell regarded his henchman with steady gray eyes. Ben Chacherre met the look with almost a trace of defiance. The chief frowned darkly.

"Yes," said the chief. "That's the size of it, Fell. You're keepin' quiet about the name of the real Masquer; why?"

"Because," said Fell, calmly, "I happen to know that he was in the auditorium at the time of the murder."

Again silence. Ben Chacherre stared at Fell, with amazement and admiration in his gaze. "When the master lies, he lies magnificently!" he murmured in French.

"Well," and the chief gestured despairingly, "I guess that lets out the real Masquer, eh?"

"Exactly," a.s.sented Fell. "No use dragging his name into it. I'll keep at work on this, chief, and if anything turns up to clear young Maillard, I'll be very glad."

"All right," grunted the chief, and rose. "I'll be on my way."

He departed. Neither Fell nor Chacherre moved or spoke for a s.p.a.ce. When at length the clang of the elevator door resounded through the deserted corridors Ben Chacherre slipped from his chair and went to the outer door. He glanced out into the hall, closed the door, and with a nod returned to his chair.

"Well?" Jachin Fell regarded him with intent, searching eyes. "Have you any light to throw on the occasion?"

Chacherre's usual air of cool impudence was never in evidence when he talked with Mr. Fell.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "Hammond worked on the car until about nine o'clock, then beat it to bed, I guess. I quit the job at ten, and his light had been out some time. Well, master, this is a queer affair! There's no doubt that Gramont pulled it, eh?"

"You think so?" asked Fell.

Chacherre made a gesture of a.s.sent. "Quand bois tombe, cabri monte--when the tree falls, the kid can climb it! Any fool can see that Gramont was the man. Don't you think so yourself, master?"

Jachin Fell nodded.

"Yes. But we've no evidence--everything lies against young Maillard. Early in the morning Gramont goes to Paradis to examine that land of Miss Ledanois' along the bayou. He'll probably say nothing of this murder to Hammond, and the chauffeur may not find out about it until a day or two--they get few newspapers down there.

"Drive down to Paradis in the morning, Ben; get into touch with Hammond, and discover what time Gramont got home to-night. Write me what you find out. Then take charge of things at the Gumberts place. Make sure that every car is handled right. A headquarters man from Mobile will be here to-morrow to trace the Nonpareil Twelve that Gramont now owns."

Chacherre whistled under his breath. "What?"

Jachin Fell smiled slightly and nodded. "Yes. If Gramont remains at Paradis, I may send him on down there--I'm not sure yet. I intend to get something on that man Hammond."

"But you can't land him that way, master! He bought the car----"

"And who sold the car to the garage people? They bought it innocently." A peculiar smile twisted Fell's lips awry. "In fact, they bought it from a man named Hammond, as the evidence will show very clearly."

Ben Chacherre started, since he had sold that car himself. Then a slow grin came into his thin features--a grin that widened into a noiseless laugh.

"Master, you are magnificent!" he said, and rose. "Well, if there is nothing further on hand, I shall go to bed."

"An excellent programme," said Jachin Fell, and took his hat from the desk. "I must get some sleep myself."

They left the office and the building together.

Three hours afterward the dawn had set in--a cold, gray, and dismal dawn that rose upon a city littered with the aftermath of carnival. "Lean Wednesday" it was, in sober fact. Thus far, the city in general was ignorant of the tragedy which had taken place at the very conclusion of its gayest carnival season. Within a few hours business and social circles would be swept by the fact of Joseph Maillard's murder, but at this early point of the day the city slept. The morning papers, which to-day carried a news story that promised to shock and stun the entire community, were not yet distributed.

Rising before daylight, Henry Gramont and Hammond breakfasted early and were off by six in the car. They were well outside town and sweeping on their way to Terrebonne Parish and the town of Paradis before they realized that the day was not going to brighten appreciably. Instead, it remained very cloudy and gloomy, with a chill threat of rain in the air.

Weather mattered little to Gramont. When finally the excellent highway was left behind, and they started on the last lap of their seventy-mile ride, they found the parish roads execrable and the going slow. Thus, noon was at hand when they at length pulled into Paradis, the town closest to Lucie Ledanois' bayou land. The rain was still holding off.

"Too cold to rain," observed Gramont. "Let's. .h.i.t for the hotel and get something to eat. I'll have to locate the land, which is somewhere near town."

They discovered the hotel to be an ancient structure, and boasting prices worthy of Lafitte and his buccaneers. As in many small towns of Louisiana, however, the food proved fit for a king. After a light luncheon of quail, crayfish bisque, and probably illegal venison, Gramont sighed regret that he could eat no more, and set about inquiring where the Ledanois farm lay.

There was very little, indeed, to Paradis, which lay on the bayou but well away from the railroad. It was a desolate spot, unpainted and unkept. The parish seat of Houma had robbed it of all life and growth on the one hand; on the other, the new oil and gas district had not yet touched it.

Southward lay the swamp--fully forty miles of it, merging by degrees into the Gulf. Forty miles of cypress marsh and winding bayou, uncharted, unexplored save by occasional hunters or semi-occasional sheriffs. No man knew who or what might be in those swamps, and no one cared to know. The man who brought in fish or oysters in his skiff might be a bayou fisherman, and he might be a murderer wanted in ten states. Curiosity was apt to prove extremely unhealthy. Like the Atchafalaya, where chance travellers find themselves abruptly ordered elsewhere, the Terrebonne swamps have their own secrets and know how to keep them.

Gramont had no difficulty in locating the Ledanois land, and he found that it was by no means in the swamp. A part of it, lying closer to Houma, had been sold and was now included in the new oil district; it was this portion which Joseph Maillard had sold off.

The remainder, and the largest portion, lay north of Paradis and ran along the west bank of the bayou for half a mile. A long-abandoned farm, it was high ground, with the timber well cleared off and excellently located; but tenants were hard to get and shiftless when obtained, so that the place had not been farmed for the last five years or more. After getting these facts, Gramont consulted with Hammond.

"We'd better buy some grub here in town and arrange to stay a couple of nights on the farm, if necessary," he said. "There are some buildings there, so we'll find shelter. Along the bayou are summer cottages--I believe some of them are rather pretentious places--and we ought to find the road pretty decent. It's only three or four miles out of town."

With some provisions piled in the car, they set forth. The road wound along the bayou side, past ancient 'Cajun farms and the squat homes of fishermen. Here and there had been placed camps and summer cottages, nestling amid groups of huge oaks and cypress, whose fronds of silver-gray moss hung in drooping cl.u.s.ters like pale and ghostly shrouds.

Watching the road closely, Gramont suddenly found the landmarks that had been described to him, and ordered Hammond to stop and turn in at a gap in the fence which had once been an entrance gate.

"Here we are! Those are the buildings off to the right. Whew! I should say it had been abandoned! Nothing much left but ruins. Go ahead!"

Before them, as they drove in from the road by a gra.s.s-covered drive, showed a house, shed, and barn amid a cl.u.s.ter of towering trees. Indeed, trees were everywhere about the farm, which had grown up in a regular sapling forest. The buildings were in a ruinous state--clapboards hanging loosely, roofs dotted by gaping holes, doors and windows long since gone.

Leaving the car, Gramont, followed by the chauffeur, went to the front doorway and surveyed the wreckage inside.

"What do you say, Hammond? Think we can stop here, or go back to the hotel? It's not much of a run to town----"

Hammond pointed to a wide fireplace facing them.

"I can get this shack cleaned out in about half an hour--this one room, anyhow. When we get a fire goin' in there, and board up the windows and doors, we ought to be comfortable enough. But suit yourself, cap'n! It's your funeral."

Gramont laughed. "All right. Go ahead and clean up, then, and if rain comes down we can camp here. Be sure and look for snakes and vermin. The floor seems sound, and if there's plenty of moss on the trees, we can make up comfortable beds. Too bad you're not a fisherman, or we might get a fresh fish out of the bayou----"

"I got some tackle in town," and Hammond grinned widely.

"Good work! Then make yourself at home and go to it. We've most of the afternoon before us."

Gramont left the house, and headed down toward the bayou sh.o.r.e.

He took a letter from his pocket, opened it, and glanced over it anew. It was an old letter, one written him nearly two years previously by Lucie Ledanois. It had been written merely in the endeavour to distract the thoughts of a wounded soldier, to bring his mind to Louisiana, away from the stricken fields of France. In the letter Lucie had described some of the more interesting features of Bayou Terrebonne--the oyster and shrimp fleets, the Chinese and Filipino villages along the Gulf, the far-spread cypress swamps; the bubbling fountains, natural curiosities, that broke up through the streams and bayous of the whole wide parish--fountains that were caused by gas seeping up from the earth's interior, and breaking through.

Gramont knew that plans were already afoot to tap this field of natural gas and pipe it to New Orleans. Oil had been found, too, and all the state was now oil-mad. Fortunes were being made daily, and other fortunes were being lost daily by those who dealt with oil-stocks instead of with oil.

"Those gas-fountains did the work!" reflected Gramont. "And according to this letter, there's one of those fountains here in the bayou, close to her property. 'Just opposite the dock,' she says. The first thing is to find the dock, then the fountain. After that, we'll decide if it's true mineral gas. If it is, then the work's done--for I'll sure take a chance on finding oil near it!"

Gramont came to the bayou and began searching his way along the thick and high fringe of bushes and saplings that girded the water's edge. Presently he came upon the ruined evidences of what had once been a small boat shed. Not far from this he found the dock referred to in the letter; nothing was left of it except a few spiles protruding from the surface of the water. But he had no need to look farther. Directly before him, he saw that which he was seeking.

A dozen feet out from sh.o.r.e the water was rising and falling in a continuous dome or fountain of highly charged bubbles that rose a foot above the surface. Gramont stared at it, motionless. He watched it for a s.p.a.ce--then, abruptly, he started. It was a violent start, a start of sheer amazement and incredulity.

He leaned forward, staring no longer at the gas dome, but at the water closer insh.o.r.e. For a moment he thought that his senses had deceived him, then he saw that the thing was there indeed, there beyond any doubt--a very faint trace of iridescent light that played over the surface of the water.

"It can't be possible!" he muttered, bending farther over. "Such a thing happens too rarely----"

His heart pounded violently; excitement sent the blood rushing to his brain in blinding swirls. He was gripped by the gold fever that comes upon a man when he makes the astounding discovery of untold wealth lying at his feet, pa.s.sed over and disregarded by other and less-discerning men for days and years!

It was oil, no question about it. An extremely slight quant.i.ty, true; so slight a quant.i.ty that there was no film on the water, no discernible taste to the water. Gramont brought it to his mouth and rose, shaking his head.

Where did it come from? It had no connection with the gas bubbles--at least, it did not come from the dome of water and gas. How long he stood there staring Gramont did not know. His brain was afire with the possibilities. At length he stirred into action and started up the bayou bank, from time to time halting to search the water below him, to make sure that he could still discern the faint iridescence.

He followed it rod by rod, and found that it rapidly increased in strength. It must come from some very tiny surface seepage close at hand, that was lost in the bayou almost as rapidly as it came from the earth-depths. Only accidentally would a man see it--not unless he were searching the water close to the bank, and even then only by the grace of chance.

Suddenly Gramont saw that he had lost the sign. He halted.

No, not lost, either! Just ahead of him was a patch of reeds, and a recession of the sh.o.r.e. He advanced again. Inside the reeds he found the oily smear, still so faint that he could only detect it at certain angles. Glancing up, he could see a fence at a little distance, evidently the boundary fence of the Ledanois land; the bushes and trees thinned out here, and on ahead was cleared ground. He saw, through the bushes, glimpses of buildings.

Violent disappointment seized him. Was he to lose this discovery, after all? Was he to find that the seepage came from ground belonging to someone else? No--he stepped back hastily, barely in time to avoid stumbling into a tiny trickle of water, a rivulet that ran down into the bayou, a tributary so insignificant that it was invisible ten feet distant! And on the surface a faint iridescence.

Excitement rising anew within him, Gramont turned and followed this rivulet, his eyes aflame with eagerness. It led him for twenty feet, and ceased abruptly, in a bubbling spring that welled from a patch of low, tree-enclosed land. Gramont felt his feet sinking in gra.s.s, and saw that there was a dip in the ground hereabouts, a swampy little section all to itself. He picked a dry spot and lay down on his face, searching the water with his eyes.

Moment after moment he lay there, watching. Presently he found the slight trickle of oil again--a trickle so faint and slim that even here, on the surface of the tiny rivulet, it could be discerned only with great difficulty. A very thin seepage, concluded Gramont; a thin oil, of course. So faint a little thing, to mean so much!

It came from the Ledanois land, no doubt of it. What did that matter, though? His eyes widened with flaming thoughts as he gazed down at the slender thread of water. No matter at all where this came from--the main point was proven by it! There was oil here for the finding, oil down in the thousands of feet below, oil so thick and abundant that it forced itself up through the earth fissures to find an outlet!

"Instead of going down five or six thousand feet," he thought, exultantly, "we may have to go down only as many hundred. But first we must get an option or a lease on all the land roundabout--all we can secure! There will be a tremendous boom the minute this news breaks. If we get those options, we can sell them over again at a million per cent. profit, and even if we don't strike oil in paying quant.i.ties, we'll regain the cost of our drilling! And to think of the years this has been here, waiting for someone----"

Suddenly he started violently. An abrupt crashing of feet among the bushes, an outbreak of voices, had sounded not far away--just the other side of the boundary fence. He was wakened from his dreams, and started to rise. Then he relaxed his muscles and lay quiet, astonishment seizing him; for he heard his own name mentioned in a voice that was strange to him.

CHAPTER X.

Murder.

The voice was strange to Gramont, yet he had a vague recollection of having at some time heard it before. It was a jaunty and impudent voice, very self-a.s.sured--yet it bore a startled and uneasy note, as though the speaker had just come unaware upon the man whom he addressed.

"Howdy, sheriff!" it said. "Didn't see you in there--what you doin' so far away from Houma, eh?"

"Why, I've been looking over the place around here," responded another voice, which was dry and grim. "I know you, Ben Chacherre, and I think I'll take you along with me. Just come from New Orleans, did you?"

"Me? Take me?" The voice of Chacherre shrilled up suddenly in alarm. "Look here, sheriff, it wasn't me done it! It was Gramont----"

There came silence. Not a sound broke the stillness of the late afternoon.

Gramont, listening, lay bewildered and breathless. Ben Chacherre, the sneak thief--how had Chacherre come here? Gramont knew nothing of any tie between Jachin Fell and Chacherre; he could only lie in the gra.s.s and wonder at the man's presence. What "place" was it that the sheriff of Houma had been looking over? And what was it that he, Gramont, was supposed to have done?

Confused and wondering, Gramont waited. And, as he waited, he caught a soft sound from the marshy ground beside him--a faint "plop" as though some object had fallen close by on the wet gra.s.s. At the moment he paid no heed to this sound, for again the uncanny silence had fallen.

Listening, Gramont fancied that he caught slow, stealthy footsteps amid the undergrowth, but derided the fancy as sheer imagination. His brain was busy with this new problem. Houma, he knew, was the seat of the parish or county. This Ben Chacherre appeared to have suddenly and unexpectedly encountered the sheriff, to his obvious alarm, and the sheriff had for some reason decided to arrest him; so much was clear.

Chacherre had something to do with the "place"--did that mean the adjacent property, or the Ledanois farm? In his puzzled bewilderment over this imbroglio Gramont for the moment quite forgot the trickle of oil at his feet.

But now the deep silence became unnatural and sinister. What had happened? Surely, Ben Chacherre had not been arrested and taken away in such silence! Why had the voices so abruptly ceased? Vaguely uneasy, startled by the prolongation of that intense stillness, Gramont rose to his feet and peered among the trees.

The two speakers seemed to have departed; he could descry n.o.body in sight. A step to one side gave Gramont a view of the land adjoining the Ledanois place. This was cleared of all brush, and under some immense oaks to the far left he had a glimpse of a large summer cottage, boarded up and apparently deserted. Nearer at hand, however, he saw other buildings, and these drew his attention. He heard the throbbing pound of a motor at work, and as there was no power line along here, the place evidently had its own electrical plant. He scrutinized the scene before him appraisingly.

There were two large buildings here. One seemed to be a large barn, closed, the other was a long, low shed which was too large to be a garage. The door of this was open, and before the opening Gramont saw three men standing in talk; he recognized none of them. Two of the talkers were clad in greasy overalls, and the third figure showed the flash of a collar. The sheriff, Ben Chacherre, and some other man, thought Gramont. He would not have known Chacherre had he encountered him face to face. To him, the man was a name only.

The mention of his own name by Chacherre impelled him to go forward and demand some explanation. Then it occurred to him that perhaps he had made a mistake; it would have been very easy, for he was not certain that Chacherre had referred to him. There could be other Gramonts, or other men whose name would have much the same sound in a Creole mouth.

"I'd better attend to my own business," thought Gramont, and turned away. He noticed that the motor had ceased its work. "Wonder what rich chap can be down here at his summer cottage this time of year? May be only a caretaker, though. I'd better give all my attention to this oil, and let other things alone."

He retraced his steps to the bayou bank and turned back toward the house. As he did so, Hammond appeared coming toward him, knife in hand.

"I'm going to cut me a pole and land a couple o' fish for supper," announced the chauffeur, grinning. "Got things cleaned up fine, cap'n! You won't know the old shack."

"Good enough," said Gramont. "Here, step over this way! I want to show you something."

He led Hammond to the rivulet and pointed out the thin film of oil on the surface.

"There's our golden fortune, sergeant! Oil actually coming out of the ground! It doesn't happen very often, but it does happen--and this is one of the times. I'll not bother to look around any farther."

"Glory be!" said Hammond, staring at the rivulet. "Want to hit back for town?"

"No; we couldn't get back until sometime to-night, and the roads aren't very good for night work. I'm going to get some leases around here--perhaps I can do it right away, and we'll start back in the morning. Go ahead and get your fish."

Regaining the house, he saw that Hammond had indeed cleaned up in great style, and had the main room looking clean as a pin, with a fire popping on the hearth. He did not pause here, but went to the car, got in, and started it. He drove back to the road, and followed this toward town for a few rods, turning in at a large and very decent-looking farmhouse that he had observed while pa.s.sing it on the way out.

He found the owner, an intelligent-appearing Creole, driving in some cows for milking, and was a little startled to realize that the afternoon was so late. When he addressed the farmer in French, he received a cordial reply, and discovered that this man owned the land across the road from the Ledanois place--that his farm, in fact, covered several hundred acres.

"Who owns the land next to the Ledanois place?" inquired Gramont.

"I sold that off my land a couple of years ago," replied the other. "A man from New Orleans wanted it for a summer place--a business man there, Isidore Gumberts."

Gumberts--"Memphis Izzy" Gumberts! The name flashed to Gramont's mind, and brought the recollection of a conversation with Hammond. Why, Gumberts was the famous crook of whom Hammond had spoken.

"I saw the sheriff awhile ago, heading up the road," observed the Creole. "Did you meet him?"