Waring's Peril Part 8

"My man Jeffers left him on Ca.n.a.l Street just after dark last night. He was then going to dine with friends at the St. Charles."

"The Allertons?"

"Yes."

"Then wait till I see the chief, and I'll go with you. Say nothing about this matter yet."

Reynolds was gone but a moment. A little later Cram and the aide were at the St. Charles rotunda, their cards sent up to the Allertons' rooms.

Presently down came the bell-boy. Would the gentleman walk up to the parlor? This was awkward. They wanted to see Allerton himself, and Cram felt morally confident that Miss Flora Gwendolen would be on hand to welcome and chat with so distinguished a looking fellow as Reynolds.

There was no help for it, however. It would be possible to draw off the head of the family after a brief call upon the ladies. Just as they were leaving the marble-floored rotunda, a short, swarthy man in "pepper-and-salt" business suit touched Cram on the arm, begged a word, and handed him a card.

"A detective,--already?" asked Cram, in surprise.

"I was with the chief when Lieutenant Pierce came in to report the matter," was the brief response, "and I came here to see your man. He is reluctant to tell what he knows without your consent. Could you have him leave the horses with your orderly below and come up here a moment?"

"Why, certainly, if you wish; but I can't see why," said Cram, surprised.

"You will see, sir, in a moment."

And then Jeffers, with white, troubled face, appeared, and twisted his wet hat-brim in nervous worriment.

"Now what do you want of him?" asked Cram.

"Ask him, sir, who was the man who slipped a greenback into his hand at the ladies' entrance last evening. What did he want of him?"

Jeffers turned a greenish yellow. His every impulse was to lie, and the detective saw it.

"You need not lie, Jeffers," he said, very quietly. "It will do no good.

I saw the men. I can tell your master who one of them was, and possibly lay my hands on the second when he is wanted; but I want you to tell and to explain what that greenback meant."

Then Jeffers broke down and merely blubbered.

"Hi meant no 'arm, sir. Hi never dreamed there was hanythink wrong.

'Twas Mr. Lascelles, sir. 'E said 'e came to thank me for 'elping 'is lady, sir. Then 'e wanted to see Mr. Warink, sir."

"Why didn't you tell me of this before?" demanded the captain, sternly.

"You know what happened this morning."

"Hi didn't want to 'ave Mr. Warink suspected, sir," was poor Jeffers's half-tearful explanation, as Mr. Allerton suddenly entered the little hall-way room.

The grave, troubled faces caught his eye at once.

"Is anything wrong?" he inquired, anxiously. "I hope Waring is all right. I tried to induce him not to start, but he said he had promised and must go."

"What time did he leave you, Mr. Allerton?" asked Cram, controlling as much as possible the tremor of his voice.

"Soon after the storm broke,--about nine-thirty, I should say. He tried to get a cab earlier, but the drivers wouldn't agree to go down for anything less than a small fortune. Luckily, his Creole friends had a carriage."

"His what?"

"His friends from near the barracks. They were here when we came down into the rotunda to smoke after dinner."

Cram felt his legs and feet grow cold and a chill run up his spine.

"Who were they? Did you catch their names?"

"Only one. I was introduced only as they were about to drive away. A little old fellow with elaborate manners,--a Monsieur Lascelles."

"And Waring drove away with him?"

"Yes, with him and one other. Seemed to be a friend of Lascelles. Drove off in a closed carriage with a driver all done up in rubber and oil-skin who said he perfectly knew the road. Why, what's gone amiss?"

CHAPTER VI.

And all day long the storm beat upon the substantial buildings of the old barracks and flooded the low ground about the sheds and stables.

Drills for the infantry were necessarily suspended, several sentries, even, being taken off their posts. The men cl.u.s.tered in the squad-rooms and listened with more or less credulity to the theories and confirmatory statements of fact as related by the imaginative or loquacious of their number. The majority of the officers gathered under the flaring lamp-lights at the sutler's store and occupied themselves pretty much as did their inferiors in grade, though poker and punch--specialties of Mr. Finkbein, the sutler--lent additional color to the stories in circulation.

From this congress the better element of the commissioned force was absent, the names, nationalities, and idiomatic peculiarities of speech of the individual members being identical in most instances with those of their comrades in arms in the ranks. "Brax" had summoned Minor, Lawrence, Kinsey, and Dryden to hear what the post surgeon had to say on his return, but cautioned them to keep quiet. As a result of this precaution, the mystery of the situation became redoubled by one o'clock, and was intensified by two, when it was announced that Private Dawson had attempted to break away out of the hospital after a visit from the same doctor in his professional capacity. People were tempted out on their galleries in the driving storm, and colored servants flitted from kitchen to kitchen to gather or dispense new rumors, but n.o.body knew what to make of it when, soon after two, an orderly rode in from town dripping with mud and wet, delivered a note to the colonel, and took one from him to Mr. Ferry, now sole representative of the officers of Battery "X" present for duty. Ferry in return sent the bedraggled horseman on to the battery quarters with an order to the first sergeant, and in about fifteen minutes a sergeant and two men, mounted and each leading a spare horse, appeared under Ferry's gallery, and that officer proceeded to occupy one of the vacant saddles, and, followed by his party, went clattering out of the sally-port and splas.h.i.+ng over to the levee. Stable-call sounded as usual at four o'clock, and, for the first time in the record of that disciplined organization since the devastating hand of Yellow Jack was laid upon it the previous year, no officer appeared to supervise the grooming and feeding. Two of them were at the post, however. Mr. Doyle, in arrest on charge of absence without leave, was escorted to his quarters about four-fifteen, and was promptly visited by sympathizing and inquisitive comrades from the Hotel Finkbein, while Mr. Ferry, who had effected the arrest, was detained making his report to the post commander. Night came on apace, the wind began to die away with the going down of the sun, the rain ceased to fall, a pallid moon began peering at odd intervals through rifts in the cloudy veil, when Cram rode splas.h.i.+ng into barracks, worn with anxiety and care, at eleven o'clock, and, stopping only for a moment to take his wife in his arms and kiss her anxious face and shake his head in response to her eager query for news of Waring, he hurried down-stairs again and over to Doyle's quarters. All was darkness there, but he never hesitated. Tramping loudly over the gallery, he banged at the door, then, turning the k.n.o.b, intending to burst right in, as was the way in the rough old days, was surprised to find the bolt set.

"Doyle, open. I want to see you at once."

All silence within.

"Doyle, open, or, if you are too drunk to get up, I'll kick in the door."

A groan, a whispered colloquy, then the rattle of bolt and chain. The door opened about an inch, and an oily Irish voice inquired,--

"Hwat's wanted, capt'in?"

"You here?" exclaimed Cram, in disgust. "What business have you in this garrison? If the colonel knew it, you'd be driven out at the point of the bayonet."

"Sure where should wife be but at her husband's side whin he's sick and sufferin'? Didn't they root him out of bed and comfort this day and ride him down like a felon in all the storm? Sure it was the doughboys'

orders, sir. I told Doyle the capt'in niver would have----"

"Oh, be quiet: I must see Doyle, and at once."

"Sure he's not able, capt'in. You know how it is wid him: he's that sinsitive he couldn't bear to talk of the disgrace he's bringin' on the capt'in and the batthery, and I knowed he'd been dhrinkin', sir, and I came back to look for him, but he'd got started, capt'in, and it's----"

"Stop this talk! He wasn't drinking at all until you came back here to hound him. Open that door, or a file of the guard will."

"Och! thin wait till I'm dressed, fur dacency's sake, capt'in. Sure I'll thry and wake him."

And then more whispering, the clink of gla.s.s, maudlin protestation in Doyle's thick tones. Cram banged at the door and demanded instant obedience. Admitted at last, he strode to the side of an ordinary hospital cot, over which the mosquito-bar was now ostentatiously drawn, and upon which was stretched the bulky frame of the big Irishman, his red, blear-eyed, bloated face half covered in his arms. The close air reeked with the fumes of whiskey. In her distress lest Jim should take too much, the claimant of his name and protection had evidently been sequestrating a large share for herself.