The Mardi Gras Mystery

by H. Bedford-Jones

  CHAPTER VI

  _Chacherre_

  At ten o'clock that Monday morning Gramont's car approached CanalStreet, and halted a block distant. For any car to gain Canal, much lessto follow it, was impossible. From curb to curb the wide avenue wasthronged with carnival folk, who would hold their own until Proteus cameashore to manage his own parade and his own section of the festivities.

  Gramont left the car, and turned to speak with Hammond.

  "I've made out at least two fingerprints on the luggage compartment," hesaid, quietly. "Drive around to police headquarters and enter acomplaint in my name to a robbery of the compartment; say that the thiefgot away with some valuable packages I had been about to mail. They havea process of transferring fingerprints such as these; get it done.Perhaps they can identify the thief, for it must have been some cleverpicklock to get into the compartment without leaving a scratch. Takeyour time about it and come home when you've finished."

  Hammond listened stolidly. "If it was the bulls done it, cap'n, going tothem will get us pinched sure----"

  "If they had done it," said Gramont, "we'd have been pinched long beforethis! It was someone sent by that devil Jachin Fell, and I'll land himif I can!"

  "Then Fell will land us if he's got the stuff!"

  "Let him! How can he prove anything, unless he had brought the police toopen up that compartment? Get along with you!"

  Hammond grinned, saluted, and drove away.

  Slowly Gramont edged his way through the eddying crowds to Canal Street,and presently gained the imposing portals of the Exeter National Bank.Entering the building, he sent his card to the private office of thepresident; a moment later he was ushered in, and was closeted withJoseph Maillard.

  The interior of the Exeter National reflected the stern personality thatruled it. The bank was dark, old fashioned, conservative, guarded withmuch effrontery of iron grills and bars against the evil doer.

  The window men greeted their customers with infrequent smiles, withcaution and reserve so great that it was positively chilly. Suspicionseemed in the air. The bank's reputation for guarding the sanctity ofwealth seemed to rest heavily upon each pair of bowed shoulders. Eventhe stenographers were unhandsome women, weary-eyed, drearily efficient,and obviously respectable.

  As befitted so old and conservative a New Orleans institution, much ofits business was transacted in French.

  The business customers of this bank found their affairs handled coldly,efficiently, with an inhuman precision that was admirable. It was goodfor business, and they liked it. There were no mistakes.

  People who were accustomed to dealing with bankers of cordial smile andcourteous word, people who liked to walk into a bank and to be met witha personal greeting, did not come here, nor were they wanted here. TheExeter National was a place for business, not for courtesy. It wasabsolutely precise, cold, inhuman, and spelled business from the groundup. Its oldest customer could not buy a draft on Paris or London orother of the bank's correspondents without paying the required fee. Thewealthiest depositor could not expect to overdraw his checking accountone dollar without being required to settle up before the next day wasgone. Loans were made hesitatingly, grudgingly, and of necessity, alwayson security and never on character.

  Such was the Exeter National. Its character was reflected in the coldfaces at its windows, and the chance customers who entered its sacredportals were duly cowed and put in their proper place. Most of themwere, that is. Occasionally some intrepid soul appeared who seemedimpervious to the gloomy chill, who seemed even to resent it. One ofthese persons was now standing in the lobby and staring around with acool impudence which drew unfavourable glances from the clerks.

  He was a decently dressed fellow, obviously no customer of thissacrosanct place, obviously a stranger to its interior. Beneath arakishly cocked soft hat beamed a countenance that bore a look ofself-assured impertinent deviltry. After one look at that countenancethe assistant cashier crooked a hasty finger at the floor guard, whonodded and walked over to the intruder with a polite query.

  "Can I help you, sir?"

  The intruder turned, favoured the guard with a cool stare, then brokeinto a laugh and a flood of Creole dialect.

  "Why, if it isn't old Lacroix from Carencro! And look at the brassbuttons--_diable_! You must own this place, hein? _la tche chatte pousseavec temps_--the cat's tail grows in time, I see! You remember me?"

  "Ben Chacherre!" exclaimed the guard, losing his dignity for an instant."Why--you _vaurien_, you! You who disappeared from the parish and becamea vagrant----"

  "So you turn up your sanctified nose at Ben Chacherre, do you?"exclaimed that person jauntily. He thrust his hat a bit farther over oneear, and proceeded to snap his fingers under the nose of Lacroix.

  "A _vaurien_, am I? Old peacock! Lead me to the man who cashes checks,lackey, brass buttons that you are! Come, obey me, or I'll have youthrown into the street!"

  "You--you wish to cash a check?" The guard was overcome by confusion,for the loud tones of Chacherre penetrated the entire institution. "Butyou are not known here----"

  "Bah, insolent one! _Macaque dan calebasse_--monkey in the calabash thatyou are! Do you not know me?"

  "Heaven preserve me! I will not answer for your accursed checks."

  "Go to the devil, then," snapped Chacherre, and turned away.

  His roving eyes had already found the correct window by means of theother persons seeking it, and now he stepped into the small queue thathad formed. When it came his turn, he slid his check across the marbleslab, tucked his thumbs into the armholes of his vest, and impudentlystared into the questioning, coldly repellent eyes of the teller.

  "Well?" he exclaimed, as the teller examined the check. "Do you wish toeat it, that you sniff so hard?"

  The teller gave him a glance. "This is for a thousand dollars----"

  "Can I not read?" said Chacherre, with an impudent gesture. "Am I anignorant 'Cajun? Have I not eyes in my head? If you wish to start anargument, say that the check is for a hundred dollars. Then, by heaven,I will argue something with you!"

  "You are Ben Chacherre, eh? Does any one here know you?"

  Chacherre exploded in a violent oath. "Dolt that you are, do I have tobe known when the check is endorsed under my signature? Who taught youbusiness, monkey?"

  "True," answered the teller, sulkily. "Yet the amount----"

  "Oh, bah!" Chacherre snapped his fingers. "Go and telephone Jachin Fell,you old woman! Go and tell him you do not know his signature--well, whoare you looking at? Am I a telephone, then? You are not hired to lookbut to act! Get about it."

  The enraged and scandalized teller beckoned a confrere. Jachin Fell wastelephoned. Presumably his response was reassuring, for Chacherre waspresently handed a thousand dollars in small bills, as he requested. Heinsisted upon counting over the money at the window with insolentassiduity, flung a final compliment at the teller, and swaggered acrossthe lobby. He was still standing by the entrance when Henry Gramont leftthe private office of the president and passed him by without a look.

  Gramont was smiling to himself as he left the bank, and Ben Chacherrewas whistling gaily as he also left and plunged into the whirling vortexof the carnival crowds.

  Toward noon Gramont arrived afoot at his pension. Finding the roomsempty, he went on and passed through the garden. Behind the garage, inthe alley, he discovered Hammond busily at work cleaning and polishingthe engine of the car.

  "Hello!" he exclaimed, cheerily. "What luck?"

  "Pretty good, cap'n." Hammond glanced up, then paused.

  A stranger was strolling toward them along the alleyway, a jauntyindividual who was gaily whistling and who seemed entirely carefree andhappy. He appeared to have no interest whatever in them, and Hammondconcluded that he was innocuous.

  "They got them prints fine, cap'n. What's more, they think they'velocated the fellow that made 'em."

  "Ah, good work!" exclaimed Gramont. "S
ome criminal?"

  Hammond frowned. The stranger had come to a halt a few feet distant,flung them a jerky, careless nod, and was beginning to roll a cigarette.He surveyed the car with a knowing and appreciative eye. Hammond turnedhis back on the man disdainfully.

  "Yep--a sneak thief they'd pinched a couple of years back; didn't knowwhere he was, but the prints seemed to fit him. They'll come up and lookthings over sometime to-day, then go after him and land him."

  Gramont gave the stranger a glance, but the other was still surveyingthe car with evident admiration. If he heard their words he gave them noattention.

  "Who was the man, then?" asked Gramont.

  "A guy with a queer name--Ben Chacherre." Hammond pronounced it as hedeemed correct--as the name was spelled. "Only they didn't call himthat. Here, I wrote it down."

  He fished in his pocket and produced a paper. Gramont glanced at it andlaughed.

  "Oh, Chacherre!" He gave the name the Creole pronunciation.

  "Yep, Sasherry. I expect they'll come any time now--said two bulls woulddrop in."

  "All right." Gramont nodded and turned away, with another glance at thestranger. "I'll not want the car to-day nor to-night that I know of. I'mnot going to the Proteus ball. So your time's your own until to-morrow;make the most of it!"

  He disappeared, and Hammond returned to his work. Then he straightenedup, for the jaunty stranger was bearing down upon him with evidentintent to speak.

  "Some car you got there, brother!" Ben Chacherre, who had overheard mostof the foregoing conversation, lighted his cigarette and grinnedfamiliarly. "Some car, eh?"

  "She's a boat, all right," conceded Hammond, grudgingly. He did not likethe other's looks, although praise of the car was sweet unto his soul."She sure steps some."

  "Yes. All she needs," drawled Chacherre, "is some good tires, a new coatof paint, a good steel chassis, and a new engine----"

  "Huh?" snorted Hammond. "Say, you 'bo, who sold you chips in this game?Move along!"

  Ben grinned anew and rested himself against a near-by telephone pole.

  "Free country, ain't it?" he inquired, lazily. "Or have you investedyour winnings and bought this here alley?"

  Hammond reddened with anger and took a step forward. The next words ofChacherre, however, jerked him sharply into self-control.

  "Seen anything of an aviator's helmet around here?"

  "Huh?" The chauffeur glared at his tormentor, yet with a sudden sickfeeling inside his bosom. He suddenly realized that the man's eyes weremeeting his squarely, with a bold and insolent directness. "Who youkiddin' now?"

  "Nobody. I was asking a question, that's all." Ben Chacherre flung awayhis cigarette, untangled himself from the telephone pole, and movedaway. "Only," he flung over his shoulder, "I was flyin' along here lastnight in my airplane, and I lost my helmet overboard. Thought maybeyou'd seen it. So long, brother!"

  Hammond stood staring after the swaggering figure; for once he wasspeechless. The jaunty words had sent terror thrilling into him. Hestarted impulsively to pursue that impudent accoster--then he checkedhimself. Had the man guessed something? Had the man known something? Orhad those words been only a bit of meaningless impertinence--a chanceshaft which had accidentally flown home?

  The last conjecture impressed itself on Hammond as being the truth, andhis momentary fright died out. He concluded that the incident was notworth mentioning to Gramont, who surely had troubles enough of his ownat this juncture. So he held his peace about it.

  As for Ben Chacherre, he sauntered from the alley, a careless whistleupon his lips. Once out of Hammond's sight, however, he quickened hispace. Turning into a side street, he directed his step toward that partof the old quarter which, in the days before prohibition, had been givenover to low cabarets and dives of various sorts. Most of these placeswere now boarded up, and presumably abandoned. Coming to one of them,which appeared more dirty and desolate than the rest, Chacherre opened aside door and vanished.

  He entered what had once been the Red Cat cabaret. At a table in thehalf-darkened main room sat two men. A slovenly waiter pored over anewspaper at another table in a far corner. The two in the centre noddedto Chacherre. One of them, who was the proprietor, jerked his chin in aninvitation to join them.

  A man famous in the underworld circles, a man whose renown rested oncurious feats and facts, this proprietor; few crooks in the country hadnot heard the name of Memphis Izzy Gumberts. He was a grizzled old bearnow; but in times past he had been the head of a far-flung organizationwhich, on each pay day, covered every army post in the country anddiverted into its own pockets about two thirds of Uncle Sam's payroll--afeat still related in criminal circles as the _ne plus ultra_ ofsuccess. Those palmy days were gone, but Memphis Izzy, who had neverbeen "mugged" in any gallery, sat in his deserted cabaret and still didnot lack for power and influence.

  The man at his side was apparently not anxious to linger, for he roseand made his farewells as Chacherre approached.

  "We have about eighteen cars left," he said to Gumberts. "Charley theGoog can attend to them, and the place is safe enough. They're up toyou. I'm drifting back to Chi."

  "Drift along," and Gumberts nodded, a leer in his eyes. His face wasbroad, heavy-jowled, filled with a keen and forceful craft. "It's acinch that nobody in this state is goin' to interfere with us. Aboutthem cars from Texas--any news?"

  "I've sent orders to bring 'em in next week."

  Gumberts nodded again, and the man departed. Into the chair which he hadvacated dropped Ben Chacherre, and took from his pocket the money whichhe had obtained at the bank. He laid it on the table before Gumberts.

  "There you are," he said. "Amounts you want and all. The boss says togimme a receipt."

  "Wouldn't trust you, eh?" jeered Gumberts. He took out pencil and paper,scrawled a word or two, and shoved the paper at Chacherre. Then hereached down to a small satchel which lay open on the floor beside hischair. "Why wouldn't the boss leave the money come out of the takin's,hey?"

  "Wanted to keep separate accounts," said Chacherre.

  Gumberts nodded and produced two large sealed envelopes, which he pushedacross the table.

  "There's rakeoff for week before last," he announced. "Last week will bethe big business, judgin' from early reports."

  Chacherre pocketed the envelopes, lighted a cigarette, and leanedforward.

  "Say, Izzy! You got to send a new man down to the Bayou Latouche rightaway. Lafarge was there, you know; a nigger shot him yesterday. Thenigger threatened to squeal unless he got his money back--Lafarge was afool and didn't know how to handle him. The lottery's goin' to get a badname around there----"

  Gumberts snapped his fingers. "Let it!" he said, calmly. "The big moneyfrom all that section is Chinese and Filipino, my friend. The niggersdon't matter."

  "Well, the boss says to shoot a new man down there. Also, he says, you'dbetter watch out about spreadin' the lottery into Texas and Alabama,account of the government rules."

  The heavy features of Gumberts closed in a scowl.

  "You tell your boss," he said, "that when it comes to steerin' clear offederal men, I don't want no instructions from nobody! We got every manin this state spotted. Every one that can be fixed is fixed--and thatgoes for the legislators and politicians clear up the line! Tell yourboss to handle the local gov'ment as well as I handle other things, andhe'll do all that's necessary. What he'd ought to attend to, for onething, is this here guy who calls himself the Midnight Masquer. I'vetold him before that this guy was playing hell with my system! ThisMasquer gets no protection, see? The quicker Fell goes after him, thebetter for all concerned----"

  Chacherre laughed, not without a swagger.

  "We've attended to all that, Izzy--we've dropped on him and settled him!The guy was doin' it for a carnival joke, that's all. His loot is allgoin' back to the owners to-day. It needn't worry you, anyhow! There wasnothin' much to it--jewellery that couldn't be disposed of, for the mostpart. We couldn't take chances on that sort o' junk."<
br />
  "I should say not." Gumbert regarded him with a scowl. "You've got thestuff?"

  "The boss has. Look here, Izzy, I want you to use a little influencewith headquarters on this deal--the boss doesn't want to show his handthere," and leaning forward, Ben Chacherre spoke in a low tone. Then,Gumberts heard him out, chuckled, and nodded assent.

  At two that afternoon Henry Gramont, who was writing letters in totaldisregard of the carnival parade downtown, was summoned to thetelephone. He was greeted by a voice which he did not recognize, butwhich announced itself promptly.

  "This is Mr. Gramont? Police headquarters speakin'. You laid a chargethis morning against a fellow named Chacherre?"

  "Yes," answered Gramont.

  "Must ha' been some mistake, then," came the response. "We thought theprints fitted, but found later they didn't. We looked up the Chacherreguy and found he was workin' steady and strictly O. K. What's more tothe point, he proved up a dead sure alibi for the other night."

  "Oh!" said Gramont. "Then there's nothing to be done?"

  "Not yet. We're workin' on it, and maybe we'll have some news later.Good-bye."

  Gramont hung up the receiver, a puzzled frown creasing his brow. But,after a minute, he laughed softly--a trace of anger in the laugh.

  "Ah!" he murmured. "I congratulate you on your efficiency, Mr. Fell! Butnow wait a little--and we'll meet again. I think I'm getting somewhereat last, and I'll have a surprise for you one of these days!"