The Yazoo Mystery Part 14

"MORGENSTEIN & BRUN."

"Then it's not steel filings--you never told me," he said finally, laughingly grasping my shoulders.

"You insisted it was filings, your railroad insisted it was junk, and you sold it for junk as instructed, so why the argument?"

"No argument at all, Ben; the Morgan Line steamer sails to-morrow. Sell the stuff and buy a boat. I've saved some money, but boats are scarce and high. I haven't enough--what d'ye say, eh?"

"You haven't found a boat to buy yet, and maybe you will not need one--besides, if Morgenstein & Brun offer a dollar a pound and are in a hurry, it may be worth more--I only asked them for an a.n.a.lysis to know for certain what it was. I didn't ask for a market," I insisted formally.

"But you may miss the only chance--and--we need the money. We've got to have a boat," he said, visibly disappointed.

"So far we are out less than a ten-dollar bill and can afford to take a chance--as I say, we must first decide definitely that a boat is necessary, and then the hardest part comes--everything from a row-boat up is working overtime now."

"Maybe you are right, but if it was up to me I would sell it so infernally quick it would make 'em dizzy," he replied, manifestly consumed with the single idea of releasing himself from suspicion.

"Don't resign, Hiram," I said, hesitating, before going out of the room to dine, "until I have had a chance to speak to the Super to-morrow. I think I will be able to arrange it so that you can be released to devote all of your time to clearing up this matter and remain in the employ of the company. You will see the decided advantage of the plan, later."

"All right, Ben--but bear in mind that as soon as I get out of this I am going to quit 'em for good; there's something else for me to do in this town. The railroad game is too strenuous at best for the returns. It's good drill and I'm glad to get the experience and discipline, but the returns are a minus quant.i.ty."

During the meal he mentioned his father several times, to whom he always referred as "the Gold-Beater," but he more frequently mentioned Anna Bell Morgan. In fact, had I not purposely changed the subject he would have talked of her constantly. I could not tell him I thought it a great error for him to completely suspend communication with her. A big city offers enticements that a country-bred girl does not always understand at first. I could see he writhed under the stigma of being thought a member of a gang of crooks, and was most powerfully propelled by two most laudable motives. He wanted to redeem himself in his father's eyes, but most compelling was his desire to be able to go back to Anna Bell Morgan with clean hands. His affection for her was deep and sincere, a mighty thing to him, accounted for in his prominent, broad, round chin, but difficult to harmonize with his conduct during his first score of years.

He seemed to sense my perplexity.

"Ben," he began, with every evidence of chastened bigness, "I have been trying to discover one single good reason why I should impose my personal affairs on you, unless it is because you let me. So far, I have been unable to reciprocate in a single instance. I feel at times as though I am a great care and trial to you--a responsibility the Gold-Beater would a.s.sume if things were right. I feel as though I were on my way but with some one else at the wheel and compa.s.s, with a disturbing and perhaps ungrateful feeling that the navigator is on uncharted waters, and is himself in doubt. I think I must have a yellow streak up my back as broad as the moral law."

At this I chose to a.s.sume a lighter att.i.tude. Scanning him smilingly, I replied, "Can't you see that just now, at least, my professional reputation is at stake?"

"That's so, Ben. You take to investigation as a duck to water and I believe you are much better suited for that than sea life. But, my dear fellow, you move so maddeningly slow and deliberate," said he; but I made no reply. I could have said:

"Real genius and cleverness apparently do move so slow and deliberate that most any one would feel as though he could do much better." But I merely laughed as we arose to leave the little French restaurant where we had dined.

There was no difficulty in arranging for Hiram's release and also for transportation good on any pa.s.senger, freight or work train of the entire system, in order to work out a solution of the robberies that had spread over the entire system from Kansas City and St. Louis to Chicago, where the consignments originated.

His first suggestion was that he should take a look at Becker & Co.'s plant, and he purposely boarded a train that had a car for delivery to them.

After he left I went to my office in the main building to find both an extended report and a short one from a man a.s.signed to watch Becker's movements while in New Orleans, and as I began to read I could feel my hair rigidly standing on end.

My clerk, Miss Bascom, had met Becker in a private room, known to but few, back of the bar of a prominent hotel. For the purpose of detecting enemy aliens many dictaphones had been installed by the Government in such places and with a certainty, almost uncanny, the Government possessed itself of information that could not have been gained in any other way.

As soon as I reached Miss Bascom's name in the report I stopped short and looked at her at work over by the window, less than twenty feet away. If she was conscious of my undisguised wonder she gave no sign of it. She worked so fast and dexterously as to give the impression that she fully lived up to the axiom promulgated by well governed corporations:

"If you never do more than you are paid for, you will never get paid for more than you do."

As I looked upon her I decided that although Becker was exceedingly ambitious, his taste was discriminating, indeed. Miss Bascom in a good light revealed a velvety skin and a neck, rising column-like from her plump chest and shoulders as though chiseled from rare white marble. A tiny ear peeped from under a plethora of wonderful hair, tastefully arranged, and I noticed that her nose, chin and lips were perfect. I wondered why I had overlooked these points of feminine charm when she first came to me. Seemingly oblivious to everything but the work she was doing, I wondered how she could maintain the att.i.tude after such an affair as had occurred the night before. There was no evidence of fatigue or loss of sleep, or over-indulgence of any kind. I was astounded that a woman of her general charm could fall for the Becker type, and I shuddered at the knowledge that she had gone with him to such a place. My next thought was that she might have given out some very confidential information. There was but one thing to do, and at once--find out how she came to be sent to me.

I rushed through the several pages of close typing, then began again for detail and a.n.a.lysis.

She drank nothing intoxicating according to the report. His brutal proposal, that came in due course, she met with astonishing diplomacy and succeeded in staving off time and place. But the details, recorded minutely, indicated that she was compelled to submit to his embrace. The record revealed that the young woman had exclaimed, "Don't--don't, Mr.

Becker," indicating that the fossilized degenerate of fifty years was trying to caress her. It required little tax on the imagination to know that his big, greasy hands were drawing her tightly to his huge frame.

Why had she laid herself liable to his advances? What kind of a game was she playing? I was on the point of calling her over and demanding an explanation, but there was the second report to a.n.a.lyze--concerning Burrell, the chief clerk. I decided to wait.

When Miss Bascom left Becker the night before at the side door of the hotel, he entered the lobby and joined Burrell in a pretty wet dinner, spending several hours thereafter at a questionable resort. Evidently Miss Bascom knew something of their whereabouts, for here she was standing at Burrell's desk in close conversation with him, occasionally laughing as though recalling some ludicrous incident. There was nothing to do but await events. She was up to something and I determined I would lose no time in arriving at the facts.

CHAPTER XVII

WHEN Hiram returned late that night he looked as disreputable as a bull dog that had been out all night in the rain and mud, defending his t.i.tle as a neighborhood boss. He had evidenced some cleverness in preparing for such a trip, but when he got through he looked as though he had overdone it. An unbecoming cap of Bolshevik origin, nine cents pre-war push-cart cost, flannel shirt, open at the neck, and covered with mud from head to foot, he reminded me of a smuggler or bootlegger who had taken to the swamps to avoid capture. But his enthusiasm seemed to blind him to his appearance and to the fact that he had not eaten since morning.

"Well," he began, "I believe I am right--not so much on account of what I saw to-day, but of what I didn't see."

"Yep," said I. "Go on with it."

"Their plant is on an island except at very low stages of the river and then it's swamp on one side. It is a big place but mostly one-story.

Their switch, of course, is on a trestle built by them, and some one has to come out and unlock a high gate before a car can be set in. The man at the gate stated that they do this so that there will always be a man there to warn the train crew that the trestle is not strong enough to support the engine." He looked at me somewhat knowingly while filling his pipe.

"Well, I went inside on the car we had for them and saw all there was to see--which wasn't much. Their black help live in cabins on the island.

Becker is building a big addition--the car we set in contained cement for that purpose, presumably. All of the train-men believe that the place is phony.

"We saw a packet coming down the river and the train boy slowed up a trifle to let me off near a landing, but I made a bad jump, rolled over twice in soft mud and came out like a cray-fish, but I made the packet coming to town and just arrived."

"Fine, go on," I encouraged.

"The fertilizer plant shows nothing from the river but a floating wharf.

On the way down we pa.s.sed Becker's boat going up. It isn't much of a craft, and the packet captain said it wouldn't carry five tons and has hardly power enough to beat the five-mile current of the river, even when empty. A boat, Ben!--a boat is all we need to catch that fellow, and he's the boy we're after. If some one would offer to carry all the material he will need for that new construction he will fall for it--and say, I believe I am on track of one."

"But you are not sure of anything yet."

"Yes--I am sure they got the two refrigerator cars that sat alongside the car that was robbed of fifteen tons of sausage, and that they use anything that contains grease. Of that I am as certain as any one can be without being able to prove it, and we've got to get him, and we can't get him until we get inside of the plant," he insisted, his jaws coming together with a snap.

"He has a regular castle--moat and all," Hiram continued, "and we can't storm it. His people are all black and speak only Creole."

"What about this boat you are on track of--but wait, Hiram, don't you want something to eat?"

"Yes, I'm hungry as a wolf. I've seen the time I would give ten dollars for the appet.i.te I now have--but wait till I tell you about the boat.

For some time past there has been an old fellow coming down to the wharf to pick up bananas, those that break from the bunches when they come out of a ship on the carriers. After a while I noticed that he talked good English, Creole, Spanish, French, in fact he seemed to be able to talk with almost any of the rats that work on the fruit steamers. After I had talked with him I asked what he did with the bananas. He said he kept them until ripe and ate them. Later he told me he lived on a boat as caretaker and had not seen his boss lately.

Evidently he has run out of money. He hinted that if he could get his back wages he did not care what became of the boat. I saw him again to-day and he says he has starved long enough, and I am going to see the boat in the morning. It is not in the river, but is in the ca.n.a.l just above the Yazoo station. And say, I've got another scheme to make all the money we want after this matter is settled," said he, coming to his feet as though unloosed by a steel spring.

"What is it, Hiram?" I asked, amused.

"Wait until I clean up a bit. Then I want you to come out with me and watch a real hungry man eat. I have a long story, and a good scheme.

Your blood will be on my hands if you say it isn't. How much is a thousand feet of lumber?" he called to me through the communicating door, just after I heard his wet, muddy shoes go down like a cord of wood on the floor.

"A thousand feet of lumber is a thousand square feet an inch thick. In boards a foot wide and an inch thick they would reach a thousand feet,"

I explained.