The Yazoo Mystery Part 26

When it was over, just before midnight, and I led Miss Bascom out of the hotel to a cab, her st.u.r.dy body seemed a wreck. She leaned heavily on me and seemed to have aged greatly. As she was about to enter the vehicle, she looked back into the building, horrified, as though reason was unseated by wild imaginations that she was pursued by a legion of dreaded devils. She did not utter a word until she was seated inside, when she reached her hand, delicate and soft, for mine, and with gentle pressure, exclaimed as though waking from a terrible nightmare:

"Mr. Taylor, I have lived a hundred years in the last six hours--but--but"--she hesitated, gasping for breath--"I have done what I--we--what you wanted me to do."

Of course, when Becker first came the overture was drink; it always is.

Having full control of that through the waiter we saw that the first ones had more punch than he expected, but we gave her a mere counterfeit of what he thought she was drinking. The sumptuous food he ordered was carefully served. Later we had to weaken his potions so that his mad desire would run at its height, waiting on neither discretion nor reason. I heard every word, every sound. Her acting was perfection. The indignities she suffered were terrible and could not have been endured except for the reason that they were fortified by a deep, enduring, sacrificial tendency to be loyal. This conclusion forced itself upon me.

His protestations were repeated over and over and merged into a plea for sympathy.

Her generals.h.i.+p was superb. He promised her everything. She patiently, cautiously led him to the point where she told him, that by reason of her position in the office she knew he had been _led_ into certain transactions that might lead to her disgrace, in view of the alliance he proposed.

"But that is all stopped," he reiterated a dozen times.

Then, with wonderful ac.u.men, she let him understand that she knew of the existence of various stamps and seals, finally that their very existence was a menace and she could not feel any security in his promise until she knew they were destroyed.

"I will put them at the bottom of the river to-morrow morning."

"But if you are really in earnest and mean well, you will do that now, this very night--let me see you do it, or bring them to me," she coaxed, wheedled, insinuated.

And then finally with the blood fired by alcohol and that quality that makes men putty in the hands of beauty and s.e.x lure, he ordered a cab and in an incredibly short time returned with quite a large package wrapped carefully in burlap. He left the room for a moment in his preparations for the antic.i.p.ated night. I opened the door between the rooms, admitted her with the package, about all she could carry, and he never saw her again. The mad, inflamed bull was stalled with a ring in his nose.

This blazed the trail to Kansas City, where I started on the next train, and did not return for more than a week.

CHAPTER x.x.x

AS soon as I saw Hiram I knew he was a different man. It was not necessary for me to tell him. Details were published in every daily paper. He had gone back to Anna Bell Morgan clean, unsullied, unbesmirched--his conception of what a man should be, and prosperous beyond dreams. A solid, forceful man, ambitious without limit, he was much interested in the brief information I gave him of how I had successfully uncovered and apprehended in Kansas City all the others involved in the crime, who evidenced a power of organization which, if directed in legitimate channels, would have made them rich.

He had rented and furnished offices, where I found him at work.

"Had to have headquarters, Ben--just one room, with an adjoining one for you--let me introduce you to it," he said, putting his hand affectionately on my shoulder, leading through a connecting door into a big, well-lighted, expensively furnished office.

"Sit down and see how it seems to have a home of your own," he went on, pus.h.i.+ng me into a big leather chair and throwing up the top of a commodious mahogany desk. Everywhere showed evidence of the feminine touch.

"You see, Ben, I could not have done so well. This is Anna Bell's idea and selection--I have told her so much of you she feels, in fact acts, as though she knew you as well as I do, but you will meet her soon and she will tell you about that herself. I never would have thought of the carpet, but she said carpet, and there was carpet," he mused reminiscently, as he pulled up a chair and sat down near me where he could look out of the window.

"I've got to leave to-night again on the _Fearsome_ and there is so much to tell you--something I want to ask you about."

I was too astonished and delighted with the enterprise and zeal of the fellow to know what to say.

"Ben, why don't you say something--don't you like this?" he asked solicitously, leaning toward me and scanning my face. He was the boy again.

"Hiram, give me a little time--I was wondering how you managed so quickly to do all this----"

"There--that's better," said he, a relieved smile creeping about the upturned corners of his mouth. "I told you I didn't--I couldn't--have done it alone--you see, Ben, I am making three trips a week to Gulf port instead of two, and carrying enough general merchandise back to pay expenses," and then turning his chair so as to look squarely at me, he continued. "It is pouring prosperity, though we are making a willing, patriotic sacrifice while doing it, and we must hustle like sixty until the rain is over."

I looked at him more astonished, as I felt sure something bigger was coming. Was there no limit?

"We are making money pretty fast now, but this won't last--I know now the logs in the river will disappear soon after we get at them again, and you know we have got to look ahead. I can buy a tract of timber up there at Gulfport--cheap--enough timber to keep us sawing for years. Now don't look so alarmed--it will take a lot of money, but we've got to do it if it is possible. I've opened a bank account here and talked to the president about it--but everything now is going into Liberty bonds and you can't blame them--but it's got to be done, Ben," he repeated in a tense undertone, bringing his hard hand down on my knee with a loud slap.

Looking at him in wonder for a moment, I finally asked,

"How much will it take, Hiram?"

"Now don't fall over when I tell you--that's why I got a big chair with a soft cus.h.i.+on, so that you could sustain a shock once in a while without injury. Ben, it will take about a hundred thousand dollars to get it, but it's got to come," he ended, pa.s.sing his hand rapidly over his chin as though glad it was out.

"You have not forgotten, Hiram, that you must settle with the railroad for the engine in the _Fearsome_ and the sawmill, too?"

"I know we have, but I've got enough in the bank for that and more besides," he replied quickly. "What do you think, is it possible?" he asked, making me feel he was not to be resisted.

"I don't know, Hiram; you are placing a pretty big order--we'll see--I don't believe I told you just how much I sold that barrel for, did I?"

turning to him with an affected smile of derision.

"Yes, I know you will have the laugh on me as long as you live about that barrel; in fact, I will laugh myself every time I think of it even if I am at a funeral, but that couldn't happen again in a million years," he replied, getting up and pacing the room, finally halting in the opposite corner, where he catapulted a question as though he might be coming along with it.

"How much did you get for it, Ben?"

"It was as you say, Hiram, a thousand-to-one shot that could not have happened and never will happen again--I don't claim any credit, except in discovering it was not junk, by a little leakage through the chimes which discolored my fingers."

"I know--I know--you never claim anything," he interrupted.

"You see, we had to pay something like twenty thousand to clear the _Fearsome_."

"Yes, I know that."

"Well, I think there is a balance in the bank of something about forty thousand more----"

"You are joking again, Ben," he interrupted, charging over toward me, incredulous, as I took from my wallet a credit slip which he grasped and began to cavort and cut capers on the expensive carpet, much the same as he acted at the first signs of good luck, months before.

"Ben, you are a mascot--you have been one to me, anyhow--now in another month--before this deal can be closed--I can pay the railroad claim for the motor and the sawmill, and every other stiver we owe. And we'll have at least ten thousand more to bring our balance up to fifty thousand.

Now, how can we raise fifty thousand more?" he asked, fairly excited--he p.r.o.nounced _fifty thousand_ as though he was used to dealing in those figures all his life--as though it was no more than the price of one of those famous beefsteaks he liked so well. He must have inherited it from the Gold-Beater--as he did the love for new, clean lumber and the lumber business. Hiram admitted he knew so little of his father that he was unaware I knew he was a Lumber King.

I took out cigars, thinking hard, and offered him one.

"No, thank you, I prefer a pipe," said he producing one at once as something he had overlooked.

"Hiram, give me a little time--you say you leave this afternoon?"

"Yes, I ought to be on the dock now," said he, blowing a cloud of smoke and scanning me as though to learn just what I was thinking. "I will be back day after to-morrow," he added, antic.i.p.ating the question.

"I'll see"--I said, moving back a little in my big chair and contemplating the end of my cigar--"perhaps when you get back I may have something--maybe there is a way----"

"Don't say maybe--say you will do it," he prodded.

"Hiram, I still say _maybe_," I answered firmly, wondering whether the Gold-Beater was still down the river shooting ducks, and if I could get into touch with him before Hiram returned.

Early on the morning he was due back, a messenger came to say I was wanted on the telephone by some one at Lake Borgne Locks. I knew it was Hiram--he had probably been calling Anna Bell Morgan to tell her of his arrival and knew he would catch me in my room.