The Yazoo Mystery Part 11

"Real porterhouse steaks," he interrupted, laughing as though they had become only a memory.

"Give me a few moments to glance over this mail before we go--here, this ought to interest you, Hiram," I said, discovering one from the chemist to whom I had sent a sample from our partnership barrel in storage.

"Why--how?" he asked, looking sharp as though expecting a joke.

I tore open the letter, first noticing it was nearly three months old.

The chemist had replied promptly. I read aloud:

"Your sample suffered a little in the mail and is too small. Will you oblige me by forwarding a larger one by parcel post? If my guess is right, the market is particularly bare of this cla.s.s of goods, and I can a.s.sure a prompt sale at fancy prices."

"You mean that old barrel of junk--those filings you made me pay three-fifty for a half interest in your foolishness?" he asked, with an incredulous smile.

"Hiram," I began jestingly, "that barrel will make us rich some day; but seriously, I do know it is not castings nor junk. However, this letter is now three months old, and perhaps our best chance has gone."

That night I wired a certain person a code message to the effect that I was willing to handle the New Orleans case. It was either that or some day I'd miss being made best man at Anna Bell's wedding.

CHAPTER XIII

THERE was little trouble getting the a.s.signment; in fact, the authorities were glad some one was willing to tackle the case, for it had become a nightmare and a stench, but it was a case of "don't begin unless you can finish it." Others had given it up, perhaps because of the press of other work. I was amply warned that it was a hard nut to crack, and I had a fair chance of making a failure of it. Yes, the railroad and packing-house people would cooperate and do all they could.

I was told to go over and see Mr. Powell, the New Orleans agent, who all but went crazy over it, and work out a plan with him.

Before night I was on the payroll of the Yazoo, with a private office and a sub-t.i.tle of some sort under the auditor, having decided to begin on the perishable freight records, or rather it was necessary for me to have them under my hand, as they were set down each day, though with little confidence that they would yield results.

"I don't know what kind of a clerk I can give you, for the whole system is short of help, but I will do the best I can," Mr. Powell a.s.sured me, placing at my disposal the voluminous reports on the cases settled, and those that were still pending, unsettled, with the shippers.

There was hardly room for the female clerk and myself to move about in the room after the perishable records were all in there--big volumes of yellow tissue made it look like a storehouse, though they only extended back to the time of the first loss.

In addition to this arrangement it was generally given out that the night business on the wharf tracks had been so largely increased by the heavy movement of fruit that an extra man was to be put on to work opposite Hiram, who went on at four a. m., and came off at three p. m.

As the general office was uptown, more than a mile from the dock tracks, it was unlikely that I would be noticed working in the dual capacity of night clerk on the wharf and something or other under the auditor in the general offices. But in this we soon found we had miscalculated.

When Hiram learned the arrangement he was jubilant. In an incredibly short time he had come to look on my capacity to clear up a mystery as unlimited. The joy of antic.i.p.ation supplanted fear, but he did not fully recover his old, buoyant, optimistic self.

He never mentioned Anna Bell Morgan, but I was sure he thought of her about all the time he was not busy.

"Ben," he began one night, laughing, "did you send your friend in New York another sample of those steel filings on which we are paying storage? I believe you will soon graduate into the 'Prince of conmen,'

or a second-story worker. I tell you it takes a pretty good man to stop me in the middle of the street and subtract three-fifty from my jeans for a half-interest in a barrel of junk."

"No, not yet, but I expect to soon."

But after I had been working in the dual role of wharf night clerk and a.s.sistant auditor for a week and nothing happened, he began to get uneasy, but somehow did not doubt the final outcome.

We usually ate dinner together, then we would come down to his little office in the corner of the wharf and he would stay with me until his early bed-time.

"How long are you going to stand this night-and-day business? I don't see when you get any sleep?" he asked, evidently edging over for some information, not volunteered.

"One doesn't need much sleep on a loafing job like this. You see, there is little to do here nights, and less in the day time, so I manage pretty well." I had told him little about my office work.

"Why can't I stay here every other night for you, so that you can get more sleep? I can stand it."

"I don't look as though I was getting thin, do I? By the way, who is that fat party I notice about here occasionally, who seems to be interested in loading for Becker & Co.?"

"You mean that fellow whose face looks like over-ripe cow's liver, and waddles, and whose clothes are smelly?"

"Yes, I think that is the man," I replied, smiling.

"That is Becker himself. He buys all the rejects of the city's provision inspectors and almost anything that's got grease or fertilizer in it. He used to load that stuff during the day, but they got to making a fuss about his taking it through the street and made him handle it at night, when graveyards hold their noses. Gad, I always hate to see him coming."

"Becker & Co., fertilizer works?"

"Yes, somewhere up the river."

The next morning I was late and was hurrying into the building occupied by the auditor, in which I had my office. It contained more than four stories, was about two hundred feet long, with a wide hall through the center of each floor. The room a.s.signed to me was on the third floor, and was reached by narrow stairs.

When I pa.s.sed the second floor I saw Becker at the far end of the hall talking to a young woman clerk, and I was sure I saw him pinch her cheek, and furthermore, I was absolutely certain that the object of his frolicsome caress was my clerk, who entered the office immediately after me. She appeared to be somewhat fl.u.s.tered, and her cheeks flamed with color.

The incident was not particularly significant, but enough to make me want to know all about Mr. Becker, of Becker & Co., fertilizer manufacturers, and also about the young woman who compiled my data and wrote my letters.

I recalled that our a.s.sociation had been so perfunctory that I failed to remember her name. She took dictation well, was a good typist and her records were neat. Withal she worked hard. Like good oil on bearings, she made the wheels go round without attracting my attention.

Ideal office a.s.sistants try to make themselves into humanized machines.

Miss Bascom had accomplished this so well that I had to inquire about her name even after a week's service.

My desk was near the hall entrance, while hers was over near the window, partially obscured by stacks of records. She was, on closer inspection, more than comely, and the way she punched the keys of the typewriter indicated she was purposeful--not an accident. That she could allow a greasy, uncouth man like Becker to make up to her seemed absurd. More to amuse Hiram, I mentioned the matter to him that night.

"My Heavens," said he, holding his nose between finger and thumb, "it would take a pretty strong stomach to stand for that fellow--but you can't tell! Maybe there are enough dollar signs on his face to make up for his smelly clothes and age. But, even in my palmiest days of riot, the 'beauty and beast' idea was a shock--too much 'bargain and sale' to suit me"--and I believe he was wondering if Anna Bell Morgan would ever succ.u.mb to such a love for the sake of money.

"Hiram, I don't quite sympathize with your att.i.tude toward Miss Morgan.

Are you sure you are doing the right thing?"

"Perhaps not," he replied, thoughtfully, as we walked down the wharf.

"It may be the pendulum has swung the other way and I am at the farthest point away from her. But after all, that is something one must settle for himself. She promised to wait in absolute silence until I had the matter straightened. And again, perhaps you don't understand--they have a different code here."

I waited for him to continue, looking westward across the shipping in the river at the setting sun, now enlarged into a great ball of dull red fire. Another moment and it would perish from sight behind the waters of the Gulf.

"You see, Ben, down here they have a way of making a man feel he is either something or nothing. If something, he respects women, and must protect them. Women are either good or bad. If good they receive every consideration; it is expected--demanded. The ways of New York would not be tolerated here, and it is perfectly right they should not be.

"Mormonism, and other degeneracy, usually dubbed 'Bohemianism,' doesn't go here. Fathers, big brothers, or next of male kin stand guard for the women of the South. When they put a bullet through a licentious scoundrel the judge shakes hands with them. And it's the same way about honor. If a man's honesty is in question he has no business to compromise a good woman's name by forcing his attentions upon her. When he has cleared himself it is time enough to straighten things out. So, if our love will not stand the strain of waiting it's no good--not love, at all."

The next day at the noon hour I saw my female clerk in a certain situation that led me into all sorts of information. Miss Bascom of the golden locks was openly dangling her feminine charms before Chief Clerk Burrell.

I had only to glance through an open door from the hall on my floor into a long room occupied by a lot of clerks of which he had charge as chief.

Evidently he was a married man, and of a species easily susceptible.

I would have continued to think it was a case of old-fashioned man hunting to win free board and a little credit at the stores, had it not been reported by a man detailed at my request to see just what kind of smoke Mr. Becker was making during his stay in New Orleans. There was a lengthy conference that night between Burrell and Becker, of Becker & Company, with liberal quant.i.ties of gin fizz on the side, in a private room back of a prominent hotel bar.