Dead and Buried

by Barbara Hambly

  Stuart tilted his head, asked, ‘Are you sure it’s he?’

  ‘Fairly.’ Shaw brought from the pockets of his frayed and greasy coat the things they’d removed from the body: silver card-case, hip flask, penknife. A duelling pistol – Manton’s, the best in England, and loaded. A woman’s pink silk garter. A memorandum-book bound in expensive Morocco-leather, and a handful of gambling vowels. These he laid on the gold-mounted black marble of the parlor tabletop, and with a repetitive deliberation very unlike him, he began to take all three men through discursive explanations and queries, while January and the hotel manager stepped very quietly back through the parlor door and into the hall.

  ‘Which room first?’ Regnier held out his keys. All four chambers communicated not only within the suite, but with the corridor alongside.

  ‘Stuart’s. Then Droudge’s.’

  January knew Shaw capable of spinning out explanations and reiterations until doomsday, particularly with men who considered themselves smarter than he was. Had it not been for Hannibal’s silent grief at seeing the face of his old friend, the matter would have been of only academic interest to him: he could not demand of one of the trio of Englishmen what had been done with Rameses Ramilles’s body until he knew which to accuse of the greater crime. Beyond that, he really did not care.

  But in the four years he had known the fiddler, he had never heard Hannibal speak of the friends he had left behind. He knew he had had them: for all his wastrel ways, Hannibal was a loyal friend and had saved January’s life more than once, at the risk of his own.

  According to Rose, the fiddler had begun playing in the saloons and ballrooms of New Orleans some five years ago, while he – January – was still in Paris, still married to the beautiful Berber woman whose death of the cholera had driven him back to the city of his childhood – the city he had hoped never to live in again. Hannibal himself never mentioned home or family, or how he had arrived in New Orleans, though when he was drunk his speech would become very Irish. He played like an opium-soused angel, and January knew enough about music to recognize where his violin had come from and the probable cost of such an instrument. His boots, too, scarred and stained with the gutter-mud of God knew which cities, had been made by Hoby of St James.

  And Patrick Derryhick had been his friend.

  So he searched Diogenes Stuart’s room with efficient thoroughness, noting the ceremonial dagger and the large collection of pocket flasks wrought in the gold-work of India, Turkey, and Persia. Volumes of feverish pornography were tucked away beneath his shirts and drawers in the armoire; the garments gave off the characteristic spicy reek of the Orient, even after months of travel. On the desk, a locked silver box, shaken, gave off the dry rattle of papers inside.

  The room of the business manager, Caius Droudge – separated from the rest of the suite by Diogenes Stuart’s trunk-crammed dressing-room – was even less communicative: the chamber of a man who prides himself on the smallness of his life. The shipping news lay folded on the bureau, along with a Bible and an almanac. Ink pot, seal, stationery, pens. A businesslike portable strongbox beneath the bed, iron and manufactured in London. A memorandum-book containing long columns of numbers in the back, lists in the front: the number of trunks and portmanteaux; the date of departure from Queenstown, of arrival – Monday, 3 October – in New Orleans. Furious calculations of the cost of the less expensive chambers upstairs covered pages, as did the relative rates of dollars to pounds from the different banks in the city, and of dollars to dollars between the various private banks. Comparison of dinner prices at the hotel, at the Verrandah Hotel nearby, and at several cafés along Rue Royale. A meticulous tallying-up of how many shirts comprised his own meagre luggage, and the difference in cost between the hotel’s laundress and Lucille Chabot, whom January knew did his mother’s laundry.

  A half-written letter to Mayor Prieur demanded to know why an establishment where deceased and rotting bodies were stored was permitted to continue within fifty feet of a respectable hotel.

  Nothing seemed out of place.

  The first thing that caught January’s attention when he softly entered the Viscount Foxford’s room was that the rug was missing. In the former two chambers, finely-woven straw-mats had made ovals of pale yellow beside the beds, smooth to the feet in the mornings and bright against the scrubbed reddish cypress-wood of the floors. In this, the handsomest room of the four, one would expect accommodation at least as good, in keeping with the gilt on the mirror-frame and the size of the armoire . . .

  Yet there was none. Turning back the counterpane, January noted that one of the bed pillows was fresh, the sham rigid with starch, the other nearly so. The sheets also bore the appearance of having been slept in only once, and that briefly, the folds in most places still bright. Yet – he had heard his mother lecture her servant on the subject – beneath the counterpane, the bed had been clumsily made, with nothing of the taut care with which the chambermaids had renewed those in the other rooms. The dressing table contained a set of sterling silver ‘gentlemen’s furnishings’ – brush, comb, toothbrush and powder, clothes brushes, and another bejewelled ceremonial dagger.

  He tiptoed to the door that communicated with the parlor. Shaw was saying, ‘Now, are you tellin’ me this Aunt Elodie wa’n’t allowed to leave her money where she chose?’

  ‘My dear Abishag – may I call you Abishag? Such an American name! – when one reaches the more elevated levels of good society – in Britain, at least – the disposal of one’s own property, however acquired, becomes very much the business of The Family . . .’

  They sounded settled for some time yet. Soft-footed for so large a man, January knelt to look beneath the bed. As he put his face close to the floor he smelled, in the still pocket of air trapped by the hanging counterpane, the whiff of blood, a smell unmistakable after years of working in the night clinic of Paris’s Hôtel Dieu. There was something under there that looked like a man’s watch, but he knew Shaw would find it. Knew, too, that the item’s position would communicate information to the policeman if left in situ. So, curious though he was, he lowered the counterpane again and crossed the bedroom to the door that opened into another dressing-room, and thence into the room of the murdered man.

  As January passed between the neat shelves and piled luggage, he wondered how the travelers had come to the arrangement that they had. The two bedrooms adjoining the parlor were the handsome ones, clearly intended for the more important members of the party. Those on either end of the suite, though nearly as elegant in their appointments, were smaller and distinctly poky.

  Had young Foxford requested Derryhick – who was, after all, paying for the suite – as a neighbor? Had Derryhick loathed – or mistrusted – both Droudge and Stuart to the extent that he’d choose to take a smaller room rather than lodge in one that either had access to?

  Curious.

  Derryhick’s room boasted the same oval of braided straw beside the bed that had graced Droudge’s and Stuart’s. His pillows and sheets, like theirs, though clearly smoothed and readjusted by expert chambermaids, had been slept on several nights. Along with the usual brushes and toiletries there was another Indian dagger on the bureau, and a third tucked in the handkerchief drawer, beside a box of bullets for a pistol.

  A curiously well-armed company. On the other hand, when January had lived in France, every single one of his friends there had been convinced that America was a place where one had to fight Indians every morning just to get to the outhouse.

  He crossed back through the dressing room and the Viscount’s room and out to where Regnier waited in the hall. ‘Servants?’

  ‘Separate chambers on the fourth floor,’ the manager replied. January guessed that ‘fourth floor’ was the polite way of saying ‘attic’. ‘M’sieu Reeve refused to share a room with “Jones”, as they call him, and who can blame the man? M’sieu Droudge,’ he added drily, ‘was all for dismissing Reeve for his refusal, which would cost the party an extra fifty ce
nts per day, or alternately taking the extra room charge from his salary, but M’sieu Derryhick insisted on paying. M’sieu Reeve looked after him as well as His Lordship.’

  ‘Do you happen to know where they were last night?’

  ‘I’ll find out,’ said Regnier. ‘I expect they were in the day room up there, playing cards. It’s where the bells ring for the rooms.’

  Up under the roof must be a jolly place to be stationed, at the end of a suffocating day. ‘Who heard the quarrel?’

  ‘Brun – the night-porter – and a woman named Liffard, a maid in one of the rooms above this one. Brun was on this floor but not close enough to hear more than the sound of shouting; the Liffard girl also heard only the raised voices. I myself was in the lobby when Mr Derryhick came through and went up the stairs two at a time. He was clearly beside himself with anger.’

  ‘Any idea where he’d been?’

  Regnier shook his head. ‘He and M’sieu le Vicomte had been out together earlier that evening, at the gambling-halls along Rue Royale: Davis’s, Hoban’s, Lafrènniére’s. I understand that M’sieu Derryhick could also be found on occasion at Madame Cléopâtre’s on the Court of the Tritons –’ he named one of the most elegant whorehouses in the American section of town – ‘or the Countess Mazzini’s on Prytania Street.’

  ‘Could he indeed?’ January walked back into the Viscount’s room. From the parlor he heard the business-manager’s sharp, nasal tones, complaining about something, broken now and then by Shaw, expertly leading him on.

  ‘And was M’sieu le Vicomte in the hotel when M’sieu Derryhick returned in such a rage?’

  ‘Of a certainty. At least his key was gone from the board, as was that of M’sieu Droudge. The uncle was out, I believe . . .’

  ‘But the rooms connect,’ said January. ‘And the keys are all the same, are they not?’

  ‘Oh, quite. Any one of them could have borrowed another’s key. One can only guess, at a hotel.’

  While at Quennell’s shop, January had ascertained the dimensions of the courtyard that lay behind the back parlor and the fact that all nine of the Blue Suite’s windows overlooked the roof of the stable where the undertaker’s four black carriage-horses were housed. Looking up from the undertaker’s yard – the gate of which bolted from the inside, but bore no lock – he had thought that there might have been an alley between the hotel’s rear wall and the wall of the stable, but looking down from the window he saw that this was not the case. The stable backed directly against the hotel. A body lowered from the window of any of the Blue Suite’s rooms via a sheet would come to rest directly on the sloping roof, and even the most casual glance through the windows would serve to show the location of the undertaker’s handcart at one side of the yard.

  When January stepped unobtrusively back into the parlor, the vulturine Mr Droudge was still carping. ‘I can’t say I’m the slightest bit surprised. Since our arrival at the beginning of the week the man has been forever in and out of gaming parlors. Of a piece with his behavior all of his life, of course: pitched out of one college for God knows what excesses, and bringing ruin upon everything he touched. And drawing others into his way of life.’ He shook a skinny finger at Shaw, but his glance cut sidelong at the Viscount, standing again beside the windows, gazing out into the feverish sunlight.

  Impatiently, Foxford said, ‘Sir, Patrick never—’

  ‘Are you saying your cousin couldn’t wait to turn libertine on his own?’ demanded Mr Stuart mournfully. ‘Thank you, dear boy, thank you very much.’

  ‘Uncle, you know I didn’t mean that—’

  ‘What happened to my son was Derryhick’s doing.’ The elderly diplomat’s eyes glittered dangerously. ‘Left to his own devices, Theo would never have come to the end that he did. Nor would—’

  ‘Is he over there now, Mr Shaw?’ Foxford broke in deliberately on his uncle’s words. ‘That is – you said he had been taken to an undertaker’s . . .’

  ‘He’s over there.’ Shaw glanced at January, then began to gather up the small impedimenta from the table with swift deftness that belied his earlier deliberation. ‘Mr Quennell lays ’em out right pretty, an’ for a fair price.’

  ‘That remains to be seen.’ Droudge sniffed and rose to fetch his extremely old-fashioned hat. ‘My understanding has been that everything in the French Town costs between ten and forty percent more than the identical goods and services available in the American sector – identical – simply for the “cach-et”, as they call it –’ he mispronounced ‘cachet’ – ‘of being French! And this Mr Quennell had better not believe that, just because you deposited his body there temporarily, I will not have Mr Derryhick’s remains moved to another establishment if I find one less exorbitant. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen – though I suppose it’s too much to expect that Mr Derryhick will have left so much as twenty shillings in the desk . . .’

  ‘’Scuse me,’ said Shaw, intercepting the business manager on his way to the connecting door without the slightest appearance of hurry. ‘But ’fore we goes, the Maestro here –’ he nodded to January – ‘an’ I would like to have a look at Mr Derryhick’s room.’

  ‘Whatever for?’ Stuart made a move as if to place himself in the doorway that opened from the parlor into his chamber, then stopped himself. ‘It’s clear as daylight what happened. Poor Patrick returned to his room and encountered a thief there.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ snapped Droudge. ‘He quarreled with the man – I heard him. At least, I heard someone on the floor shouting—’

  ‘An’ you was here?’

  ‘I was in my room – trying to get some sleep.’ Droudge glared at the other two with weak, pale-blue eyes. ‘I sleep most poorly, Lieutenant, and I must admit that with cotton wool stuffed into my ears – an habitual precaution in places of public resort – it wasn’t easy to tell who was making such a ruckus, or where.’

  ‘Patrick would quarrel with any stranger he found in his room!’ added Stuart peevishly. ‘He was a damned shanty Irishman and would quarrel with anyone when in his cups.’

  ‘Uncle, that isn’t tr—’

  ‘Don’t you contradict me, Gerry, you know it is. And furthermore, you know it’s he who spoiled my poor son’s temper with drink and God knows what else, until he’d react to the smallest provocation in the same way.’

  ‘That’s as may be,’ remarked Shaw. ‘’Ceptin’ that wouldn’t explain why he went dashin’ up the stairs yelling “I’m gonna kill that bastard”.’

  ‘Good Lord, I assume he’d just learned about another of old Droudge’s damned “economies,” like his attempt to sell my poor valet—!’

  ‘Really, sir!’ protested the business manager. ‘A good Negro brings fifteen hundred dollars in this town, and I resent your implication that Mr Derryhick would use such language to me.’

  ‘So he comes up here half-drunk, in a deuce of a temper, finds old Droudge asleep and some total stranger in his room . . .’

  ‘Then if’n that stranger left his callin’ card on the floor, accidental like, now’s the time to find it.’

  Droudge led Shaw to the connecting door of the Viscount’s room, glancing at him sidelong as if he fully expected him to scoop up any loose money or stray gold stickpins in the process. As they passed through into Derryhick’s room, January heard him say, ‘I trust you will give me a proper receipt . . .’

  Behind him in the parlor, January heard the almost soundless rustle of Mr Stuart stepping back – light-moving for all his bulk – to catch the Viscount by the arm. Droudge’s exclamation, ‘Good Lord! What on earth—?’ covered whatever soft-voiced words passed between uncle and nephew, but the Viscount cried, ‘Stop it, for God’s sake! Is that all you can think about?’

  ‘It’s what you should be thinking about, my dear boy. And it’s no more than justice. He killed your father, and he killed my son, not to speak of robbing you into the bargain for all these years. So I think he owed us something.’

  The young man said quietl
y, ‘You are despicable,’ and the next moment the corridor door slammed.

  FOUR

  Rose asked, ‘What are they doing in New Orleans in the first place?’

  January handed her a cup of tafia – cheap rum cut with lemonade – and perched on the gallery railing of what had once been cook’s quarters above the kitchen. The two rooms that opened off the gallery behind them – one of them Rose’s chemical laboratory, the other scoured and fitted with makeshift chairs and school desks – were the only two in the house not currently crowded with neighbors, friends, and semi-strangers, talking quietly, uneasily, angrily.

  Hannibal had been quite right to wonder if two women who detested each other as did January’s mother and sister Olympe could manage to avoid one another at the wake until morning.

  At least the food was plentiful and good.

  ‘It’s a thought that’s crossed my mind as well, my nightingale. Why would anyone in their right mind come to New Orleans at this time of year?’

  After the burial, under ordinary circumstances the procession would return – joyful, dancing, waving handkerchiefs and scarves like flags – to the home of the dead man’s family, or in this case to the home of the friend best able to host the night-long wake. Death was not invited to the party. January frequently suspected that his recent election as the newest member of the FTFCMBS board had as much to do with the size of the ramshackle Spanish house he and Rose had bought on the Rue Esplanade as with his willingness to be of service.

  The house had sprung from Rose’s ambition – realized last winter – to re-establish her school, which had been destroyed a few years previously by a combination of the cholera epidemic and the enmity of a socially prominent French Creole matron.* But in this slack infernal tail-end of the hot season, before the heat broke and the wealthy returned to town, January was glad he could open his doors for those who lived in rooms, for those whose families had been destroyed in the cholera or had left the town for good . . . for friends who otherwise might have had no one to give, on their behalf, a final party whose guest of honor could not attend.