The Yazoo Mystery Part 10

"There is a barrel of filings the agent told me to sell for junk. He says a foundry can use it to melt up. It's been kicking around here for years. It weighs seven hundred pounds net; give me a cent a pound and you can have it," said he, walking over to one side of the dock, a sort of warehouse, and giving an old dingy barrel, lying on its bilge, a shove with his foot.

Mechanically I did the same, and wondered why filings were packed in that kind of a barrel. I leaned over to examine it more closely, and noted the word "Filings" marked on each head. Then I suddenly recalled that very day I had been asked to look inside of a storage place nearby, the same being suspected of contraband operations, and this would offer a genuine excuse. I examined the barrel more closely. It was very strong, and old, scarred, mysterious. I planned to send it to a certain suspected warehouse, and later would go there to draw a sample, thereby gaining admittance without revealing my real mission.

"Will you deliver it, Hiram?"

"Yes, deliver anywhere you want; will put it on the back of that cart right now," he replied, with a bantering smile.

"All right; here is your money; give me a receipted bill as the railroad's agent," I said, walking around the barrel.

Hiram grabbed the money from my hand, and after a parting injunction to the laborers went to his little office in the corner. I gave the heavy barrel a shove with my foot and rolled it over. I wet my finger, pressed it close to the chimes on a slight sifting that might be sand, but when I brought my finger away it had turned black at the point of contact and violet at the edges where the contact was less firm.

I was examining it critically when Hiram returned with the change and a receipted bill. After giving the dray directions where to take the barrel, and saying that he would be there soon to get the warehouse receipt, Hiram intimated that he was through for the day.

"Wait until I change my clothes and I will go with you," he said, hurrying to the little office.

"You see, this is a great system," he began to explain enthusiastically, when he returned in his street attire. "These tracks hold a train of refrigerator cars containing meat that comes in every morning on pa.s.senger trains. The packing-house agents get it out first thing in the morning while it is cool, for the early market. Then, you see, fruit steamers from Gulf and South American ports come alongside the wharf, load bananas, oranges, and so on, into the same cars. The refrigerator system keeps them cool in the summer and prevents freezing in the winter. Then they return north as special, fast, perishable. The packing-house centers at Memphis, Chicago, Kansas City, and Missouri and Mississippi River points get fresh fruit each twenty-four to thirty hours. The train has got to be out of here before three p. m., after which I'm through. Looks pretty nice when it's all cleaned up," he enthused, waving his arm about the wide dock about eight hundred feet long, paralleling the river, now swept and clean.

A refreshing breeze came from Algiers across the wonderful Mississippi, now literally jammed with ocean-going and river vessels.

"I imagine it is very interesting work, but will require great care and diligence," I suggested, as we walked out to Ca.n.a.l street and started uptown.

"Yes, but not so hard. The fruit is easy, but the meat comes in with three seals--a Government seal, the shippers' seal, and the railroad seal. Three of us open the cars. A Government inspector breaks the Government seal, I break our seal and the packing-house agent breaks their seal. Then the car is checked on the spot. You see, there is not much chance for error that way; besides, meat is all billed 'Shipper's weight and count,' but the freight agent--you know I am under the New Orleans freight agent--has cautioned me to be very careful. From the way he acts and talks I think my predecessor got into some kind of trouble, but no more trouble for your Uncle Dudley. What could be worse than sitting on a case of dynamite every day and scratching matches on it?"

We had now turned off Ca.n.a.l Street, and arrived at the warehouse where the barrel was sent. I was given a regular receipt, and we resumed our way uptown.

"Hiram, there's something else in that barrel--it's not iron filings; it's something that may be worth much more, and now I'm going to take you in as a partner on it. Give me three-fifty, half what I paid, and we will go fifty-fifty," I said, with little apparent concern.

Hiram stopped still and looked at me keenly, then gave me the money.

"Ben, if you were to tell me to jump in the river I would, knowing I would get out and get something for it--after that deal at Quarrytown. I started to say what Anna Bell said about you in connection----" He was abruptly interrupted by our meeting a man from the Department who wanted me at once, so I told Hiram I would see him later.

CHAPTER XII

THE next day I returned to the warehouse, and with great formality drew samples from both ends of the barrel into small manila envelopes and, as antic.i.p.ated, this resulted in quite a talk with the owner of the place, whom I interrogated closely, for I wanted to learn just what kind of a business he was doing, although it seemed legitimate enough. The Department said it was worth seven dollars to get that information, and I intended to return Hiram's money.

The presumption was that some frugal machinist had saved his bench filings until he had a barrel full and sold it as junk. But how did it get there without an address marking?

The big interrogation point was up on everything at that time, owing to the acute stage of the war. Steel filings were not soluble and would not blacken my finger. The stuff looked more like rifle powder. I finally decided to mail a sample to a chemist in New York for a.n.a.lysis.

The whirligig of events took me out of New Orleans the next day to various Gulf ports and along the coast as far north as New York. In his first communication Hiram said he was doing fine, and the remainder of a six-page letter was a laudation of the charms of Anna Bell Morgan. There in New Orleans she was realizing her lifelong ambition, and taking a course, but he did not say what kind. Soon after I heard from him again and he hinted at trouble, but finished with a lengthy encomium of the Quarrytown young woman.

The third letter was unmistakably a storm signal, a cry for relief he was sure I could give were I there; not a wail, but a courageous man's request for suitable weapons with which to battle. "When did I expect to get back?" Directly or indirectly he asked this question several times in his communication, but did not mention Anna Bell Morgan, and by which token I concluded his trouble lay in that quarter. When we did meet again there was no mistaking his concern about his troubles, and his esteem of my ability to aid him.

Three months had worked a most remarkable change. There was no doubt that his buoyant optimism and sense of humor had received a shock.

About his up-curving, laughing, clean-chiseled mouth had crept a curious drooping tendency. Fear, corroding, soul-destroying fear, had found a footing there. His eyes had retreated under a shelf and his black brows moved down, while his remarkably straight nose appeared more prominent; his upstanding, wavy raven hair evidenced neglect, and instead of a resounding whack on my back came the firm, sure, hearty grip of a man.

He would not let me look over my hat full of mail, much of which bore many redirections and additional post-office stamps. I had retained my room adjoining his while away, and it was there we were now seated.

"You know, Ben," he began, after leaning his chair back against the window sill--there was a sort of dogged intensity in the manner he raised both his feet to the corner of the table--"the general freight agent hinted at trouble down on the wharf when I went there. I didn't pay much attention because I knew I could do the work, and, being on the level, why should I care what had happened previously?

"Well, for a month or more everything went on splendidly. Then I became aware that my work was being scrutinized closely. I learned by accident that all my records were checked and double checked, which was altogether unusual. I seemed to be getting under a cloud, and the cloud kept getting darker all the time. The specials came nosing about, first from the consigning packing houses, then the railroad and finally the Government inspectors from the Bureau of Animal Industry, under whose supervision all meat is shipped interstate. I paid no attention except to be more careful. If I did my work right, why should I care if the packing-house agents and meat inspectors that break the seals on the cars with me in the morning began looking at me as though I had horns and a forked tail concealed about me?

"I lived quietly--in fact I had to. When you get out at three-thirty in the morning, you've got to be in bed before nine; besides, the old life doesn't appeal to me any more. In fact, I experience loathing and actual nausea when I happen to think of it. And then, while my salary is pretty good now, I had no money to spend when trying to save every cent. It is true that for a long time I had my dinners with Anna Bell--you know she is here--but lately I don't even do that.

"Now the losses run up into the thousands--and--and I am suspected--suspected of being a thief, Ben----"

"How do you know you are?" I asked abruptly.

"Well, after a lot of this mysterious stuff, the agent, Mr. Powell--who appears to be a pretty nice fellow--came over to my office and let it out. He said he believed in me and had decided to tell me, but I think it was just a smooth plan to trap me--to make me the goat. I was shy and chary of him, and am yet.

"He told me that since I came the meat cars were checking up short, and in one instance fresh hams were short ten or fifteen tons, and the packing-house people, the Government, and the road's inspectors, who have been working on it for months, were stumped.

"No, he didn't accuse me--he asked me to see if I couldn't help find some clew to the crimes. But, Ben, maybe you can't quite see how much alone I feel. You were away, I don't see Anna Bell any more, and I haven't a soul to talk with about it."

"Where is Anna--Miss Morgan--now?"

"Oh, she's right here, and that is the devil of it. I was getting along fine and so was she, and she promised, after she got a little further advanced and I had saved a little money on which to start, we were to be married. But, after this infernal thing came up, I not only stopped all plans, but quit going to see her. I made up my mind not to go near her as long as I was suspected of being a thief."

"Maybe you are going too far--are you sure she could not----"

"This is no youthful escapade, to make young women smile and older ones nudge each other and the Gold-Beater pull his check book with a half hearted protest. This is a felony, a penitentiary offense. I may be railroaded up against bars and perhaps stripes.

"Anna Bell Morgan is as pure as she is beautiful, and if I don't get out of this clean, I love her so much that I don't want it known that she ever knew me. It would be the act of a dog, and a downright coward--and, I am not a coward." He ended by glaring at me with burning eyes, as though I might have been the author of his troubles.

"But, Hiram--it may be you are somewhat morbid, and magnify the gravity of the matter--there is always a way out for clean hands--pinch and kick yourself into a normal condition and answer a few questions as though it were another man's trouble."

"Well, I will admit at the sight of you I do feel better," he said, still keeping his feet almost as high as his head, on the corner of my table. "I am on the rack--go ahead with your third degree stuff," he said, with a trace of a smile as though daring me, and pulling out a plebeian pipe, began filling it.

"When did you see Miss Morgan last?"

"Five weeks ago to-morrow."

"Have you written or telephoned?"

"Neither, I tell you----"

"All right," I said, raising my hand in tolerant good humor; "you feel certain there were shortages before your time on the wharf?"

"Yes, I know it--that's why my predecessor lost his job."

"But you don't know just what has been done?" I asked, idly fingering my mail before me.

"No, I don't; but Mr. Powell, the agent, said the packing-house and railroad specials were at a standstill, and the government was so short of men they could not do anything just now. He also said that he had personally asked the local office of the Department of Justice to take it up, and while it was something outside of their line, they promised to cooperate as soon as they had men available. Hang it!" he exclaimed, pa.s.sing his fingers through his hair, "it ought not to be so hard to smoke 'em out."

"Hiram, I will see what can be done to-morrow. In the meantime lose that 'going-to-h.e.l.l-sure' long face, and cheer up. I've been living at Barns & Sheds for three months, taking Greek insolence and grease at Greek restaurants until I feel polluted inside, and want one of those----"