Deadly Hall Page 8

  Penny readily agreed to go. Though Serena and Dave elected to stay aboard, Saylor would escort Kate Keith. They held a conference before the sightseers left.

  “Dave was saying something about the captain’s ball,” Jeff remarked. “Since we’re due in New Orleans tomorrow, do they hold that tonight?”

  “Either Dave misunderstood you,” said Serena, “or, as usual, he wasn’t thinking at all. This is a kind of cruise, you know; most passengers will return upriver. They won’t hold the captain’s ball until they’re almost back at Cincinnati. Have fun, you people!”

  If New Orleans might be called a mingling of elements, polyglot style, ancient Natchez seemed the Old South itself in every road, every house, every tree, from the slope that made it Natchez-under-the-Hill to the stately Greek Revival mansions beyond.

  Under a drowsing sun, warm but not too warm, their party of some dozen visitors was driven by motor coach to inspect several stately homes amid shaven lawns and gardens aflower. At the Garden Club, in itself a stately home, Jeff saw on the wall an oil painting of a woman, some bedizened beauty from the court of the second Charles, which he could have sworn was the work of Kneller.

  And more than once, from Penny, he caught a flash of that eager responsiveness she had shown before the change. If he did not understand, it contented him to accept. They were soon on their way back; and Penny, beside him in the bus, herself made a suggestion.

  “We’ve had so little opportunity to talk, have we? To talk by ourselves, I mean. Since this is our last night, couldn’t we talk this evening?”

  “On deck, by any chance?”

  “Yes, of course! On deck by all means, if you don’t mind. You won’t forget?”

  “The risk of my forgetting. Penny, would get you all kinds of odds at Lloyd’s.”

  He returned to the boat so buoyed up, so stimulated, that he hardly heard Saylor’s question; Saylor wanted to know who had engaged in the bloodiest duel ever fought below the Mason-Dixon Line.

  Again the paddle-wheel churned in foam and spray; once more they were off. Some time afterwards, when twilight had begun to smudge the sky, Jeff went up to wash before dinner. Still in his exalted mood, still hurrying, he ascended the outside stairs, threw open the door of his room, took one step over its raised doorsill, and stopped short as though he had almost trodden on a snake.

  What he had almost stepped on was only a small sheet of the boat’s notepaper, headed with a color picture of the craft itself, such as might be found at any writing-desk in the forward cabin lounge. Pushed under the door in his absence, it bore nothing more than a line and a half of small, neat typing done by some practised hand.

  At your convenience, try 701b Royal Street. Fear nothing, but remember the address.

  That was all. No greeting or signature; merely an address which had no meaning for him, with the equally mysterious injunction not to be afraid. Why should anybody be afraid of some given number in Royal Street: house, shop, whatever it might be?

  But there was something so unpleasantly furtive about that little note, so full of secret suggestion like a whisper, that Jeff didn’t like it at all. He picked it up, carried it to the nearer window, and tilted it against the light. He was still holding it when a tap at the door heralded the entrance of Dave Hobart, followed by Chuck Saylor, both in dark suits with ties of restrained color.

  Jeff showed them the note and told them where he had found it.

  “Royal Street?” demanded Saylor, alert at once. “Where’s Royal Street?”

  “If it means New Orleans, which presumably it does,” Dave answered, “Royal Street is a famous thoroughfare of the Vieux Carré.

  “Well, what’s Royal Street?”

  “As a shopping center,” replied Dave, “it’s been called our own Fifth Avenue. There’s a difference. You can buy the most expensive jewelry or antiques, and you can also buy the inexpensive confection known as pralines. Does the address ring any bell, Jeff?”

  “No. I seem vaguely to remember that, if you stand in Royal Street with your back to Canal Street, facing the direction of Esplanade Avenue, the even numbers are on the right-hand side of the street and the odd numbers on the left. Number 701, therefore …”

  “It says 701b!” Saylor pointed out.

  “Ordinarily,” explained Dave, “the ‘b’ for bis would mean two separate establishments, families or businesses, on different floors of the same premises. In our French quarter, at least, it doesn’t mean that: 701b will mean a separate building, next to 701 but occupied by somebody other than the tenant of 701.

  “Hold on, now!” he cried, suddenly clutching at his head. “I’m beginning to remember. I can’t tell you what’s at 701b. But I can tell you what’s very definitely at 700, and what used to be at 701 across the way.”

  “Well?” prompted Jeff.

  “It’s true about the even numbers being on the right-hand side. Number 700, at the northeast corner of Royal Street and St. Peter Street, is one of the celebrated sights of the town: the Labranche Building, sometimes called the lacework building, from the elaborate iron lacework, entwined oak leaves and acorns, on every gallery above the street. It bristles with ’em; it’s got more iron lacework than any other house in the district; you seldom pass the place when somebody’s not photographing it. Beginning to remember now, Jeff?”

  “Yes. And across the way …?”

  “Across the way, the red-brick building at 701 used to be a well-known bakery, Cadet Molon’s bakery, early in the nineteenth century. I can’t say who’s got it now, still less who or what may be at 70lb next door. I’m just nailing it down for you, in case you feel any overwhelming urge to go there and see.”

  “Yes,” Jeff held up the paper, “but what sort of joker would send a note like this? And, if it must be sent to somebody, why send it to me? It looks as though it’s been written on a portable typewriter.”

  “It does look like that,” Saylor agreed briskly. “The joker did it on your own machine, did he?”

  “I’m not carrying a typewriter; I don’t like portables.”

  “Well, I am and do. But it wasn’t written on my Corona; you’re welcome to look at mine and compare the type.” He appealed to Dave. “Jeff’s right, though. Whether it’s a joke or not, who sent it and why? Any ideas, Dave?”

  “No, nary an idea. Surely you have a suggestion, haven’t you?”

  “You couldn’t call it a suggestion, exactly. But I was just thinking …”

  “Yes, Hawkshaw?”

  “Isn’t there, or wasn’t there, a whole district of New Orleans where prostitution could be practiced within the law?”

  Dave struck an attitude.

  “Yes, my fount of no suggestion, there used to be. For thirty-eight blocks of the Vieux Carré, no less, the fancy women rode high, wide, and handsome, free from all interference provided they didn’t raise hell or rob anybody. It was the wisest move local government ever made; it operated with great success for twenty years, from 1897 to 1917. Then some damn bluenoses and Christers from Washington thought it might corrupt our holy servicemen in the war to end war, and got Storyville closed forever.”

  “All right, all right! But if at that address, for instance …?”

  “In Royal Street?” demanded Dave. “Royal Street, for God’s sake? Even in the free and easy days, take it from me, you’d no more have found any broad with a Royal Street crib than you’d have found the whole choir of angels twanging their harps at Tom Anderson’s saloon.

  “Now look here, George Horace Lorimer,” Dave pursued in a more reasonable tone. “I’ve told you I don’t know what Jeff will find at 701b. But I can tell you what he won’t find there, which is any joint of the kind you’ve got in mind. As for the note, I don’t think we’d better even mention it to the women. It’s hard to say what we could tell ’em if we did mention it. So, however great the temptation, just keep your lip buttoned and we’ll all stay quiet about the note. Agreed?”

  “Yes, agreed. We don’t
want to worry ’em.”

  “We certainly don’t, although that note’s got me worried enough as things stand. It’s got me worried and buffaloed, in fact, because it makes no sense. But then nothing in this whole blasted business makes any sense at all!”

  And so, after another long debate which established nothing, eventually they went down to dinner.

  At the dinner table Jeff devoted so much attention to Penny that it excluded other considerations from his mind. Though they said little to each other, Serena and Saylor doing most of the talking, they more than once exchanged a glance; he had not lost the sense of communication from that afternoon.

  Later their whole party drifted upstairs, and were waiting when the orchestra began. Saylor took the floor with Serena, Jeff with Penny, Dave with Kate. In addition to current dance numbers, the musicians sometimes whaled into tunes from several years gone, Down on the Farm, Barney Google, Nobody Lied, and even reached as far back as Dardanella. All the party had changed partners quite a few times, each returning to the partner with whom each began, when Jeff and Penny re-established communication at last.

  Penny, a vision in oyster-colored silk, more than once had begun to speak. Jeff began to speak, also in a kind of rush, at exactly the same moment, and then they both stopped.

  “What are they?” he asked now. “Shall I offer you a penny, Penny?”

  “No, don’t! They’re not worth it. I—I don’t really mean they’re not worth it! I mean—”

  “Care for a breath of air now?”

  “Yes, please; I’d love to!”

  As he guided Penny off the floor, Kate leaned past Dave’s shoulder.

  “Don’t be gone too long, you two! It doesn’t matter how long you’re gone, does it? Just remember,” Kate never avoided platitudes, no matter how often repeated, “don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

  “That’s unlikely, me dear,” Dave reminded her. “I will not be ungallant enough to enlarge on the theme, being the strong, silent man I am. Let me merely say …”

  The departing couple failed to hear what he would merely say. They went out into the open on the two-whistle side, Penny disdaining any scarf or handkerchief to keep her hair from blowing. But hardly a breath of wind stirred. As they ascended first to the texas deck and then to the sun deck, moving forward, the river stretched shadowy, mysterious, very faintly light-spangled under a strengthening moon.

  The same sense of expectancy seemed to touch them both. They were almost at the bow when Penny gestured towards her left.

  “There’s the calliope,” she said. “That’s the keyboard of the calliope, I mean; the valves that make it work are on the roof just above. The same side as your room, only forward instead of astern. I hope I’ve got those names right; Serena keeps correcting me.”

  “Serena keeps correcting everybody.”

  “On the river, she says, they don’t even call it a calliope; they call it the steam pie-anna. When we left Natchez this afternoon, remember, it played Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland? ”

  “An invitation hereby heartily endorsed. It’s a good deal like dreamland, Penny; it could be still more so.”

  “You must tell me how.” Penny raised her eyes. “First, though, may I make a request?”

  “Of course. Anything at all.”

  “Dave’s been at you already. When we get to New Orleans, Jeff, he doesn’t want you to stay with your uncle or at a hotel. He wants you to stay at the Hall. And you will stay at the Hall? You won’t be put off by any mad talk about haunted staircases or a killer force. You will stay at the Hall?”

  “Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Penny, if that’s your request. Have you any particular reason for requesting it?”

  “Well, yes. We—we’ve moved to our own summer place on the river, only a short distance above Delys Hall. You could meet me, and I could meet you, much more easily than if you were anywhere in town. Whether or not that’s an important consideration, of course …”

  “It’s a very important consideration to me. I didn’t think it could have any importance to you. Ever since Serena imparted certain information on Tuesday …”

  “Yes, Serena did say something. But I’ve told you it had nothing to do with you, not really. And, anyway, I should have told Serena at the time that I didn’t care, which I don’t. As for meeting you not being important to me,” the soft voice faltered, “oh, Jeff, if you knew how very important it is … !”

  They were standing near the forward railing of what at sea would have been the starboard side. Penny’s nearness, already intoxicating, tilted the balance as she wavered towards him. His left arm went around her shoulders, his right hand to her waist. Penny, unresisting and cooperative, had allowed herself to be drawn close when a small crash behind Jeff’s back made them spring apart as though they had been burnt.

  Somebody, little more than a stocky shape discernible by moonlight, stood there peering.

  “Well, well, well!” said a musing voice.

  The flame of a pocket lighter, its wheel spun by somebody’s thumb, rose up to illumine the blunt features and heavy moustache of the man called Minnoch, a cloth cap pulled down on his head.

  “Well, well, well!” he repeated. “Didn’t mean to butt in or startle you: accident. But—”

  Penny fled. As though blindly, uttering no word, she ran across the front of the deck and round the corner towards Room 339 on the other side. A door slammed; Jeff gritted his teeth and waited.

  “Didn’t mean to butt in or startle you, I say,” the newcomer resumed in his heavy voice. “And I’m sorry; I’m right sorry! Maybe I’d better introduce myself.”

  “Yes, undoubtedly you had. Some explanation of your actions also seems called for.”

  “It does, don’t it? Reckon some kind of an explanation’s just about due. My name is Minnoch, Harry Minnoch, Lieutenant Minnoch.—New Orleans Police,” he added. “I’m a cop.”

  “A cop?”

  “That’s right; you’ve got it. You’re Mr. Gilbert Bethune’s nephew, they tell me. Yes, I’m a cop; and I’m not such a bad guy when you get to know me.”

  “Most of us could forgo that pleasure. This explanation you mentioned …?”

  Lieutenant Minnoch lowered the lighter-flame to inspect something at his feet, then blew it out and straightened up.

  “Wouldn’t think, now,” he said agreeably, “a good cherrywood pipe would smash to pieces just falling on the floor? It’d gone out, though; no danger o’ fire. What I was saying …”

  “If you expect commiseration for a broken pipe, it’s addressed to the wrong man. You might explain why you’re shadowing us again.”

  “Well, now, I wouldn’t call it shadowing, exactly!”

  “Then what would you call it?”

  “Now, now, young fellow, don’t get your dander up! No offense was intended; would I insult the D.A.’s favorite nephew? Me and Fred Bull—he’s Sergeant Bull, see—were at Cincinnati on a professional job. I had some leave due; so had Fred; that’s why we’re here. We had to use some cop tactics to make everybody aboard this boat shut up about us being cops. Maybe we exceeded our authority; yes, I guess we did. If you think I’ve been pestering you, you could get me in all kinds o’ trouble just by complaining to your uncle.”

  “Any complaint, Lieutenant Minnoch, will be addressed to you alone. And it doesn’t matter about pestering me. But when you pester Miss Hobart and her brother, to say nothing of Miss Lynn tonight …”

  “For the love of the sweet Jesus, Mr. Caldwell,” Lieutenant Minnoch sounded a hoarse note of appeal, “will you just keep control of that temper and try to relax? Can’t we talk about this sensibly?”

  “We can’t seem to talk about it at all. Still, if you insist on a truce …”

  “That’s better. That’s much better!”

  “Do you suspect one of us, or all of us, of being concerned in some crime?”

  “Did I say I suspect anybody of anything? Leastways, of anything that’s ever likel
y to get into court? The answer is: I don’t, and that’s a fact.”

  Lieutenant Minnoch approached the railing along the side, leaned his elbows on it, and looked out over the water. Jeff did the same.

  “Howsoever,” Minnoch went on, “I’ve been wondering if I oughtn’t to speak to you. I’ve heard a good deal about you from your uncle; you’re the one who writes the books, and he thinks a lot of you. Mr. Bethune says I lack subtlety. Subtlety, is it? If I understand what he means, subtlety’s just about the last thing any cop ever needs or can use.

  “My idea of a good police officer has always been old Zack Trowbridge; they promoted me to his job when he retired. Now Zack’s smooth; he’s as smooth as all get-out. And he’s a great reader, too, though I finished high school and he didn’t. It was a writin’ fellow helped Zack with the most important job he ever tackled; he admits it. Not that I think you can help me; your uncle’s the man for funny business. All the same, I’ve been wondering …”

  “You’ve been wondering,” Jeff prompted, “if you oughtn’t to speak to me about what?”

  “Well, now, that’s the point. I can’t tell you much about it ’less Mr. Bethune does. But I can tell you this much. We’ve had information that could cause the biggest hullabaloo and uproar since that Axeman business at the end of the war. Somebody wants us to reopen what our informant swears is a still unsolved case of murder.”

  7

  THE BIG CAR, bound for Delys Hall, sped along the River Road outside New Orleans at just past six on that afternoon of Friday, April 22nd, with a Negro chauffeur at the wheel and three passengers in the back.

  Seated between Serena and Dave, Jeff found himself thinking back again as he talked.

  “For most of our journey,” he reminisced, “we sailed so much nearer the left bank than the right bank, or even mid-channel, that I felt sure I could get a look at the Hall as we passed.”

  “Nobody could have seen the Hall,” Serena reminded him, “even if anyone had cared to see it. Do I need to elaborate? That rain …”