Waring's Peril Part 12

CHAPTER XI.

The sunshine of an exquisite April morning was shimmering over the Louisiana lowlands as Battery "X" was "hitching in," and Mrs. Cram's pretty pony-phaeton came flashing through the garrison gate and reined up in front of the guns. A proud and happy woman was Mrs. Cram, and daintily she gathered the spotless, cream-colored reins and slanted her long English driving-whip at the exact angle prescribed by the vogue of the day. By her side, reclining luxuriously on his pillows, was Sam Waring, now senior first lieutenant of the battery, taking his first airing since his strange illness. Pallid and thin though he was, that young gentleman was evidently capable of appreciating to the fullest extent the devoted attentions of which he had been the object ever since his return. Stanch friend and fervent champion of her husband's most distinguished officer at any time, Mrs. Cram had thrown herself into his cause with a zeal that challenged the admiration even of the men whom she mercilessly snubbed because they had accepted the general verdict that Lascelles had died by Waring's hand. Had they met in the duello as practised in the South in those days, sword to sword, or armed with pistol at twelve paces, she would have shuddered, but maintained that as a soldier and gentleman Waring could not have refused his opponent's challenge, inexcusable though such challenge might have been. But that he could have stooped to vulgar, unregulated fracas, without seconds or the formality of the cartel, first with fists and those women's weapons, nails, then knives or stilettoes, as though he was some low dago or Sicilian,--why, that was simply and utterly incredible. None the less she was relieved and rejoiced, as were all Waring's friends, when the full purport of poor Doyle's dying confession was noised abroad. Even those who were sceptical were now silenced. For four days her comfort and relief had been inexpressible; and then came the hour when, with woe and trouble in his face, her husband returned to her from Waring's bedside with the incomprehensible tidings that he had utterly repudiated Doyle's confession,--had, indeed, said that which could probably only serve to renew the suspicion of his own guilt, or else justify the theory that he was demented.

Though Cram and the doctor warned Waring not to talk, talk he would, to Pierce, to Ferry, to Ananias; and though these three were pledged by Cram to reveal to no one what Waring said, it plunged them in an agony of doubt and misgiving. Day after day had the patient told and re-told the story, and never could cross-questioning shake him in the least.

Cram sent for Reynolds and took him into their confidence, and Reynolds heard the story and added his questions, but to no effect. From first to last he remembered every incident up to his parting with Lascelles at his own gateway. After that--nothing.

His story, in brief, was as follows. He was both surprised and concerned, while smoking and chatting with Mr. Allerton in the rotunda of the St. Charles, to see Lascelles with a friend, evidently watching an opportunity of speaking with him. He had noticed about a week previous a marked difference in the old Frenchman's manner, and three days before the tragedy, when calling on his way from town to see Madame and Nin Nin, was informed that they were not at home, and Monsieur himself was the informant; nor did he, as heretofore, invite Waring to enter. Sam was a fellow who detested misunderstanding.

Courteously, but positively, he demanded explanation. Lascelles shrugged his shoulders, but gave it. He had heard too much of Monsieur's attentions to Madame his wife, and desired their immediate discontinuance. He must request Monsieur's a.s.surance that he would not again visit Beau Rivage, or else the reparation due a man of honor, etc.

"Whereupon," said Waring, "I didn't propose to be outdone in civility, and therefore replied, in the best French I could command, 'Permit me to tender Monsieur--both. Monsieur's friends will find me at the barracks.'"

"All the same," said Waring, "when I found Madame and Nin Nin stuck in the mud I did what I considered the proper thing, and drove them, _coram publico_, to 'bonne maman's,' never letting them see, of course, that there was any row on tap, and so when I saw the old fellow with a keen-looking party alongside I felt sure it meant mischief. I was utterly surprised, therefore, when Lascelles came up with hat off and hand extended, bowing low, praying pardon for the intrusion, but saying he could not defer another instant the desire to express his grat.i.tude the most profound for my extreme courtesy to Madame and his beloved child. He had heard the whole story, and, to my confusion, insisted on going over all the details before Allerton, even to my heroism, as he called it, in knocking down that big bully of a cabman. I was confused, yet couldn't shake him off. He was persistent. He was abject. He begged to meet my friend, to present his, to open champagne and drink eternal friendship. He would change the name of his _chateau_--the rotten old rookery--from Beau Rivage to Belle Alliance. He would make this day a _fete_ in the calendar of the Lascelles family. And then it began to dawn on me that he had been drinking champagne before he came. I did not catch the name of the other gentleman, a much younger man. He was very ceremonious and polite, but distant. Then, in some way, came up the fact that I had been trying to get a cab to take me back to barracks, and then Lascelles declared that nothing could be more opportune. He had secured a carriage and was just going down with Monsieur. They had _des affaires_ to transact at once. He took me aside and said, 'In proof that you accept my _amende_, and in order that I may make to you my personal apologies, you must accept my invitation.' So go with them I did. I was all the time thinking of Cram's mysterious note bidding me return at taps. I couldn't imagine what was up, but I made my best endeavors to get a cab. None was to be had, so I was really thankful for this opportunity. All the way down Lascelles overwhelmed me with civilities, and I could only murmur and protest, and the other party only murmured approbation. He hardly spoke English at all. Then Lascelles insisted on a stop at the Pelican and on b.u.mpers of champagne, and there, as luck would have it, was Doyle,--drunk, as usual, and determined to join the party; and though I endeavored to put him aside, Lascelles would not have it. He insisted on being presented to the comrade of his gallant friend, and in the private room where we went he overwhelmed Doyle with details of our grand reconciliation and with b.u.mper after b.u.mper of Krug. This enabled me to fight shy of the wine, but in ten minutes Doyle was fighting drunk, Lascelles tipsy. The driver came in for his pay, saying he would go no further. They had a row. Lascelles wouldn't pay; called him an Irish thief, and all that. I slipped my last V into the driver's hand and got him out somehow. Monsieur Philippes, or whatever his name was, said he would go out,--he'd get a cab in the neighborhood; and the next thing I knew, Lascelles and Doyle were in a fury of a row.

Lascelles said all the Irish were knaves and blackguards and swindlers, and Doyle stumbled around after him. Out came a pistol! Out came a knife! I tripped Doyle and got him into a chair, and was so intent on pacifying him and telling him not to make a fool of himself that I didn't notice anything else. I handled him good-naturedly, got the knife away, and then was amazed to find that he had my own pet paper-cutter. I made them shake hands and make up. It was all a mistake, said Lascelles.

But what made it a worse mistake, the old man _would_ order more wine, and, with it, brandy. He insisted on celebrating this second grand reconciliation, and then both got drunker, but the tall Frenchman had Lascelles's pistol and I had the knife, and then a cab came, and, though it was storming beastly and I had Ferry's duds on and Larkin's best tile and Pierce's umbrella, we bundled in somehow and drove on down the levee, leaving Doyle in the hands of that Amazon of a wife of his and a couple of doughboys who happened to be around there. Now Lascelles was all hilarity, singing, joking, confidential. Nothing would do but we must stop and call on a lovely woman, a _belle amie_. He could rely on our discretion, he said, laying his finger on his nose, and looking sly and coquettish, for all the world like some old _roue_ of a Frenchman.

He must stop and see her and take her some wine. 'Indeed,' he said, mysteriously, 'it is a rendezvous.' Well, I was their guest; I had no money. What could I do? It was then after eleven, I should judge.

Monsieur Philippes, or whatever his name was, gave orders to the driver.

We pulled up, and then, to my surprise, I found we were at Doyle's. That ended it. I told them they must excuse me. They protested, but of course I couldn't go in there. So they took a couple of bottles apiece and went in the gate, and I settled myself for a nap and got it. I don't know how long I slept, but I was aroused by the devil's own tumult. A shot had been fired. Men and women both were screaming and swearing. Some one suddenly burst into the cab beside me, really pushed from behind, and then away we went through the mud and the rain; and the lightning was flashing now, and presently I could recognize Lascelles, raging.

'Infame!' 'Coquin!' 'a.s.sa.s.sin!' were the mildest terms he was volleying at somebody; and then, recognizing me, he burst into maudlin tears, swore I was his only friend. He had been insulted, abused, denied reparation. Was he hurt? I inquired, and instinctively felt for my knife. It was still there where I'd hid it in the inside pocket of my overcoat. No hurt; not a blow. Did I suppose that he, a Frenchman, would pardon that or leave the spot until satisfaction had been exacted? Then I begged him to be calm and listen to me for a moment. I told him my plight,--that I had given my word to be at barracks that evening; that I had no money left, but I could go no further. Instantly he forgot his woes and became absorbed in my affairs. _'Parole d'honneur!_' he would see that mine was never unsullied. He himself would escort me to the _maison de_ Capitaine Cram. He would rejoice to say to that brave ennemi, Behold! here is thy lieutenant, of honor the most unsullied, of courage the most admirable, of heart the most magnanimous. The Lord only knows what he wouldn't have done had we not pulled up at his gate. There I helped him out on the banquette. He was steadied by his row, whatever it had been. He would not let me expose myself--even under Pierce's umbrella. He would not permit me to suffer 'from times so of the dog.'

'You will drive Monsieur to his home and return here for me at once,' he ordered cabby, grasped both my hands with fervent good-night and the explanation that he had much haste, implored pardon for leaving me,--on the morrow he would call and explain everything,--then darted into the gate. We never could have parted on more friendly terms. I stood a moment to see that he safely reached his door, for a light was dimly burning in the hall, then turned to jump into the cab, but it wasn't there. Nothing was there. I jumped from the banquette into a berth aboard some steamer out at sea. They tell me the first thing I asked for was Pierce's umbrella and Larkin's hat."

And this was the story that Waring maintained from first to last.

"Pills" ventured a query as to whether the amount of Krug and Clicquot consumed might not have overthrown his mental equipoise. No, Sam declared, he drank very little. "The only baccha.n.a.lian thing I did was to join in a jovial chorus from a new French opera which Lascelles's friend piped up and I had heard in the North:

Oui, buvons, buvons encore!

S'il est un vin qu'on adore De Paris a Macao, C'est le Clicquot, c'est le Clicquot."

Asked if he had formed any conjecture as to the ident.i.ty of the stranger, Sam said no. The name sounded like "Philippes," but he couldn't be sure. But when told that there were rumors to the effect that Lascelles's younger brother had been seen with him twice or thrice of late, and that he had been in exile because, if anything, of a hopeless pa.s.sion for Madame his sister-in-law, and that his name was Philippe, Waring looked dazed. Then a sudden light, as of newer, fresher memory, flashed up in his eyes. He seemed about to speak, but as suddenly controlled himself and turned his face to the wall. From that time on he was determinedly dumb about the stranger. What roused him to lively interest and conjecture, however, was Cram's query as to whether he had not recognized in the cabman, called in by the stranger, the very one whom he had "knocked endwise" and who had tried to shoot him that morning. "No," said Waring: "the man did not speak at all, that I noticed, and I did not once see his face, he was so bundled up against the storm." But if it was the same party, suggested he, it seemed hardly necessary to look any further in explanation of his own disappearance.

Cabby had simply squared matters by knocking him senseless, helping himself to his watch and ring, and turning out his pockets, then hammering him until frightened off, and then, to cover his tracks, setting him afloat in Anatole's boat.

"Perhaps cabby took a hand in the murder, too," suggested Sam, with eager interest. "You say he had disappeared,--gone with his plunder.

Now, who else could have taken my knife?"

Then Reynolds had something to tell him: that the "lady" who wrote the anonymous letters, the _belle amie_ whom Lascelles proposed to visit, the occupant of the upper floor of "the dove-cot," was none other than the blighted floweret who had appealed to him for aid and sympathy, for fifty dollars at first and later for more, the first year of his army service in the South, "for the sake of the old home." Then Waring grew even more excited and interested. "Pills" put a stop to further developments for a few days. He feared a relapse. But, in spite of "Pills," the developments, like other maladies, throve. The little detective came down again. He was oddly inquisitive about that _chanson a boire_ from "_Fleur de The_." Would Mr. Waring hum it for him? And Sam, now sitting up in his parlor, turned to his piano, and with long, slender, fragile-looking fingers rattled a lively prelude and then faintly quavered the rollicking words.

"Odd," said Mr. Pepper, as they had grown to call him, "I heard that sung by a fellow up in Chartres Street two nights hand-running before this thing happened,--a merry cuss, too, with a rather loose hand on his shekels. Lots of people may know it, though, mayn't they?"

"No, indeed, not down here," said Sam. "It only came out in New York within the last four months, and hasn't been South or West at all, that I know of. What did he look like?"

"Well, what did the feller that was with you look like?"

But here Sam's description grew vague. So Pepper went up to have a beer by himself at the _cafe chantant_ on Chartres Street, and didn't return for nearly a week.

Meantime came this exquisite April morning and Sam's appearance in the pony-phaeton in front of Battery "X." Even the horses seemed to p.r.i.c.k up their ears and be glad to see him. Grim old war sergeants rode up to touch their caps and express the hope that they'd soon have the lieutenant in command of the right section again,--"not but what Loot'n't Ferry's doing first-rate, sir,"--and for a few minutes, as his fair charioteer drove him around the battery, in his weak, languid voice, Waring indulged in a little of his own characteristic chaffing:

"I expect you to bring this section up to top notch, Mr. Ferry, as I am const.i.tutionally opposed to any work on my own account. I beg to call your attention, sir, to the fact that it's very bad form to appear with full-dress _schabraque_ on your horse when the battery is in fatigue.

The red blanket, sir, the red blanket only should be used. Be good enough to stretch your traces there, right caisson. Yes, I thought so, swing trace is twisted. Carelessness, Mr. Ferry, and indifference to duty are things I won't tolerate. Your cheek-strap, too, sir, is an inch too long. Your bit will fall through that horse's mouth. This won't do, sir, not in my section, sir. I'll fine you a box of Partagas if it occurs again."

But the blare of the bugle sounding "attention" announced the presence of the battery commander. Nell whipped up in an instant and whisked her invalid out of the way.

"Good-morning, Captain Cram," said he, as he pa.s.sed his smiling chief.

"I regret to observe, sir, that things have been allowed to run down somewhat in my absence."

"Oh, out with you, you combination of cheek and incapacity, or I'll run you down with the whole battery. Oh! Waring, some gentlemen in a carriage have just stopped at your quarters, all in black, too. Ah, here's the orderly now."

And the card, black-bordered, handed into the phaeton, bore a name which blanched Waring's face:

+--------------------------------+ _M. Philippe Lascelles_, _N'lle Orleans_. +--------------------------------+

"Why, what is it, Waring?" asked Cram, anxiously, bending down from his saddle.

For a moment Waring was silent. Mrs. Cram felt her own hand trembling.

"Can you turn the battery over to Ferry and come with me?" asked the lieutenant.

"Certainly.--Bugler, report to Lieutenant Ferry and tell him I shall have to be absent for a while.--Drive on, Nell."

When, five minutes later, Waring was a.s.sisted up the stair-way, Cram towering on his right, the little party came upon a group of strangers,--three gentlemen, one of whom stepped courteously forward, raising his hat in a black-gloved hand. He was of medium height, slender, erect, and soldierly in bearing; his face was dark and oval, his eyes large, deep, and full of light. He spoke mainly in English, but with marked accent, and the voice was soft and melodious:

"I fear I have intrude. Have I the honor to address Lieutenant Waring? I am Philippe Lascelles."

For a moment Waring was too amazed to speak. At last, with brightening face and holding forth his hand, he said,--

"I am most glad to meet you,--to know that it was not you who drove down with us that night."

"Alas, no! I left Armand but that very morning, returning to Havana, thence going to Santiago. It was not until five days ago the news reached me. It is of that stranger I come to ask."

It was an odd council gathered there in Waring's room in the old barracks that April morning while Ferry was drilling the battery to his heart's content and the infantry companies were wearily going over the manual or bayonet exercise. Old Brax had been sent for, and came.

Monsieur Lascelles's friends, both, like himself, soldiers of the South, were presented, and for their information Waring's story was again told, with only most delicate allusion to certain incidents which might be considered as reflecting on the character and dignity of the elder brother. And then Philippe told his. True, there had been certain transactions between Armand and himself. He had fully trusted his brother, a man of affairs, with the management of the little inheritance which he, a soldier, had no idea how to handle, and Armand's business had suffered greatly by the war. It was touching to see how in every word the younger strove to conceal the fact that the elder had misapplied the securities and had been practically faithless to his trust. Everything, he declared, had been finally settled as between them that very morning before his return to Havana. Armand had brought to him early all papers remaining in his possession and had paid him what was justly due. He knew, however, that Armand was now greatly embarra.s.sed in his affairs. They had parted with fond embrace, the most affectionate of brothers. But Philippe had been seeing and hearing enough to make him gravely apprehensive as to Armand's future, to know that his business was rapidly going down-hill, that he had been raising money in various ways, speculating, and had fallen into the hands of sharpers, and yet Armand would not admit it, would not consent to accept help or to use his younger brother's property in any way. "The lawyer," said Philippe, "informed me that Beau Rivage was heavily mortgaged, and it is feared that there will be nothing left for Madame and Nin Nin, though, for that matter, they shall never want." What he had also urged, and he spoke with reluctance here, and owned it only because the detectives told him it was now well known, was that Armand had of late been playing the _role_ of _galant homme_, and that the woman in the case had fled. Of all this he felt, he said, bound to speak fully, because in coming here with his witnesses to meet Lieutenant Waring and his friends he had two objects in view. The first was to admit that he had accepted as fact the published reports that Lieutenant Waring was probably his brother's slayer; had hastened back to New Orleans to demand justice or obtain revenge; had here learned from the lawyers and police that there were now other and much more probable theories, having heard only one of which he had cried "Enough," and had come to pray the forgiveness of Mr.

Waring for having believed an officer and a gentleman guilty of so foul a crime. Second, he had come to invoke his aid in running down the murderer. Philippe was affected almost to tears.

"There is one question I must beg to ask Monsieur," said Waring, as the two clasped hands. "Is there not still a member of your family who entertains the idea that it was I who killed Armand Lascelles?"

And Philippe was deeply embarra.s.sed.

"Ah, monsieur," he answered, "I could not venture to intrude myself upon a grief so sacred. I have not seen Madame, and who is there who could--who would--tell her of Armand's----" And Philippe broke off abruptly, with despairing shrug, and outward wave of his slender hand.

"Let us try to see that she never does know," said Waring. "These are the men we need to find: the driver of the cab, the stranger whose name sounded so like yours, a tall, swarthy, black-haired, black-eyed fellow with pointed moustache----"

"_C'est lui! c'est bien lui!_" exclaimed Lascelles,--"the very man who insisted on entering the private office where, Armand and I, we close our affairs that morning. His whispered words make my brother all of pale, and yet he go off humming to himself."

"Oh, we'll nail him," said Cram. "Two of the best detectives in the South are on his trail now."