The Yazoo Mystery Part 17

HIRAM suggested that he and the captain would get the motor out on the floor and test it in order to make sure that another crooked revolutionist had not met a crooked manufacturer.

While they were doing this I went to my office to get a better line on the traffic between that very interesting trio--Becker, Burrell and my clerk, Miss Bascom.

Captain Marianna helped Hiram, so they soon had the motor on skids, and 'phoned me to come down and try it out. The working test was satisfactory and after computing its horsepower, we decided it would drive the boat, and, possibly, at a fair speed. Before leaving the warehouse Hiram called my attention to a small portable sawmill outfit.

"If this works out, that's mine, too," he whispered, evidently still clinging to the idea of capturing logs in the river.

Hiram was right, nothing like the hull of the _Fearsome_ had ever been produced before. A hundred and fifty feet long, and over thirty foot beam, and with a bulwark not more than a foot high about the entire outside. It looked like an immense skimming dish. Hiram thought it came from the ca.n.a.ls of Mars, possibly a cup challenger there. Captain Marianna a.s.sured us, though she didn't look it now, she was very st.u.r.dy and seaworthy and she did not leak even a little since he had been on her. No doubt it had previously had gasoline power in it, for there were left intact the foundation beams. Hiram said that the captain, now penniless and almost starving, if given some cash and a good job, would likely be distinctly different from now on. I told him I thought the fellow was a fair bet, and left them at work getting the motor ready to move on board. The captain a.s.sured me the sale was to take place at nine the next morning. No one had been around to see it and I felt sure it would go for very little.

As I was up all night I did not see Hiram until the next morning. The sale looked as though it had been arranged for our benefit. The officer said the claims were nearly a thousand dollars, sold it promptly for that bid, got away as though in a hurry, and I attended to the details, leaving Hiram serious but jubilant.

It was late that night when he returned, tired and hungry but enthusiastic. He took little interest in a letter awaiting him until he told me all about his progress in moving the motor and getting it aboard the boat.

"We got the motor aboard late this evening and it fits as if made for the foundation beams, and it will connect with the propeller shaft and clutch with little trouble. But, say, the captain says we must have an air compressor for the whistle and an auxiliary gasoline tank,--and, say," he continued, while stripping down to wash--"I believe the captain is going to prove a jewel--he's all right."

"You still think him reliable?"

"Well, if he is as loyal to us as he was to his old employers he will be all right--and willing to turn his hand to anything."

"Did you see the letter that came for you?"

"Yes, I'm going to read it in a minute--it's nothing, for I don't know any one who would write to me. I've got something more important to do now than keeping up a line of correspondence," he said, as he finished his ablutions and b.u.t.toned his flannel shirt at the collar. Then he reached for the letter and as he opened it his face changed to astonished resentment.

"Say, who the devil can it be that is writing me these notes? This is the second one I have received, not dated or signed by any one. I don't understand this one at all," he added, handing it to me.

I took it and read from the same yellow paper and typed as the last one had been:

"Becker & Co. know of the Railroad's plan to ship slaughtered cattle from Illinois to their plant."

His astonishment was no greater than mine, for instantly I knew that only some one connected with the railroad and telegraph could learn anything regarding Superintendent Kitch.e.l.l's plan. I also recalled that I had not mentioned anything about the plan to Hiram, or any other important thing concerning the case. I wanted him to move uninfluenced by anything I knew or suspected.

After examining the note critically a few moments, I said:

"Hiram, these notes may come from a woman--they have such earmarks. Do you know--have you anything to do with a woman?" I asked, really alarmed at the moment, and scrutinizing him closely.

Hiram stood straight before me and looked me square in the eye with magnificent candor.

"Ben, I have scarcely a speaking acquaintance with any woman in New Orleans except Anna Bell Morgan--and I have not seen her or communicated with her since--well, you know how long--ever since this d.a.m.ned thing came up like a black fog from Hades, out of which it seems impossible to get--and----"

"The plan of getting into Becker's plant is yours. I mentioned it to Superintendent Kitch.e.l.l. Getting some slaughtered tubercular cattle from Illinois is Kitch.e.l.l's idea. He wired or wrote, or both, from his office and this is the result. Somebody inside, sure--somebody for them and somebody for you--who is it, Hiram?" I ended by demanding of him to speak only the truth.

"I haven't mentioned one word to a soul other than you," he stoutly insisted, his face as open as a printed page.

"Have you mentioned your boat scheme to any one?" I asked, fearful of the incaution of youth.

"Not a person knows of it from me but you and Captain Marianna, and he doesn't know much yet. But this is absolute evidence our finger is on the right spot," he observed shrewdly, then added, less confidently--"they must have some organization."

"Go ahead, Hiram, I still think your boat scheme a very good one, but be very discreet and see if you can think of any one who would send these notes to you," I added darkly, much puzzled and annoyed.

"He is building and must have lumber--he'll fall for some cheap stuff and the river is full of logs--and it's perfectly feasible to saw them----"

"Maybe so, Hiram--provided he doesn't keep on knowing what we have for breakfast. I will learn more in a day or two--go ahead as fast as you can about getting ready, but again I ask you to have an interrogation point in front of you all the time."

"Ben"--he began, walking about the room nervously, as though he felt his soul in danger--righteously angered, but as one who showed real bigness--"I am convinced that they have power enough, so that when they get ready they can for a time make me the goat. I was in sole charge of that wharf when the big thefts were pulled off; what would be easier than to link me up with some poor teamster and send the two of us to slaughter, and even by arrest plant an imputation that could be cited against me all my life? I could take this Becker and tear his purple tallow person into bits with my bare hands and throw the pieces into his own rendering tanks with pleasure!" he shouted, and he looked as though he could do it.

"Yes, Hiram, that possibility is present, but perhaps you magnify it."

Then believing his efficiency would be augmented by a little less fear, I told him, for the first time, that the provision market was flooded with spurious goods bearing a genuine government stamp as having been inspected and pa.s.sed, and that on this night I was going with a Federal party in a move against Becker for that.

"What are you going to do?" he asked quickly.

"Locate him as soon as he leaves his New Orleans office, then a safe expert, employed by the government in alien-enemy work, will open his safe for evidence, and possibly will find the stolen seals, stamps, and ink of the Department of Animal Industry."

"I have figured the case in just that way and supposed you had, and that is why we must get inside his plant. Opening his safe may help--finding the seals don't prove the larceny--suppose they should secrete those seals about the wharf, or worse still, put them inside, or under my desk, in the wharf office, what chance would I have to escape the implication?" he asked, still walking about the room looking at the floor.

"A dog having the bone will not prove he stole the ham," I suggested.

"But that won't save the dog's ribs when he's found with it," he retorted, relaxing.

"It is true, Hiram, their organization must begin in Kansas City--and is pretty well oiled--but perhaps not as efficient as you imagine; crooks always forget something with a certainty that suggests fatality."

"Let us hope so. But these notes--what makes you think they are from a woman?" He stopped and looked squarely at me. "I don't like it," he finished with a snap of his jaws.

"My reason just now is scarcely more than an impression, hardly more than 'because,'" I replied.

CHAPTER XXI

THAT night at dinner I asked Hiram how much he knew about gasoline engines, and he looked up at me sharply.

"Not very much; very little, in fact. The Gold-Beater gave me a car once--a pretty good one--and I was learning about motors fairly fast when something happened. I knew motors needed water, oil and gasoline, and that when I did certain things it went, and sometimes it moved pretty fast. That was the trouble--I met a bigger car and we both went over in a man's front yard. I lost two wheels and other things--I never saw it again. The Gold-Beater and the insurance company settled somehow.

"Do you know," he continued after a pause, "I don't blame the Gold-Beater much--two thousand was my share for putting an innocent pedestrian in the park on the bad side--I wonder he didn't get the marble heart sooner." As he said this his lips curled with self-criticism.

"How soon will you have the motor ready to start? I am going to be very busy to-morrow. Can you and the captain manage to start it alone?"

"To-morrow at noon we will have everything ready for a try-out and if I don't feel safe we will not attempt to start without you. Don't want to take any chances; there's too much at stake," he insisted with rare judgment.

"Everything is fair in love and war," is the libertine's comfort in the case of a love contest--and in war it depends on the kind of an enemy we have. In this war any means of obtaining evidence against our enemy was justified. That was my firm belief. That night Becker & Co.'s office was entered as planned and his safe opened. While there was plenty of evidence that he was trading illicitly and with the enemy, I was disappointed in finding no evidence of his thieving propensity, except a letter he had received that day from the captain of a Swedish ship, _Sparticide_, then in port, who in poor English explained that he had "received the sample and thought it would do, though the price was altogether too high. If he would pack in half barrels and deliver as suggested, he would take the lot for cash, delivered alongside."

This letter was carefully copied and replaced.

When I reached home just before daylight, Hiram, Jr., was fast asleep, but when I awakened later in the day he had gone.

I spent the greater part of the morning getting the five bales of waste paper that had been unloaded from Becker's boat on the steamship docks, into a private fireproof room in the storage warehouse where we had our barrel of "steel filings" stored, and secured an affidavit from the steamship company that they were received from Becker & Co.