The Floating Outfit 34

by J. T. Edson

  Apparently that hope had been justified. The local newspapers had not announced that the two murders had been discovered. Nor had there been any mention of Brunei’s part in the destruction of the Prairie Belle, which appeared to be dismissed as another riverboat disaster. So de Bracy was under the opinion that the Frenchman had been alarmed for nothing. Or perhaps he was motivated by a desire to lessen the share of the honors and acclaim to be gained in the success of whatever was planned in Shreveport.

  De Bracy’s thought-train was interrupted by the sight of a carriage halted at the edge of the sidewalk. Turning from where she had been crouching over a huddled shape seated against the front wheel, a slender, shapely, fashionably dressed young woman approached him. In a rougher part of the city, on such a deserted street, de Bracy might have been more alert and cautious. However, the woman’s appearance and the respectable aspect of the neighborhood, lulled him into a sense of false security.

  ‘Can I help you, ma’am?’ de Bracy inquired, doffing his hat.

  ‘Why I just hope you can, sir,’ the woman replied, her voice cultured and well-educated. ‘My coachman has fallen asleep and I do believe he’s been drinking. Could you help me rouse him?’

  ‘I think I can,’ de Bracy confirmed and went to kick the seated figure with his toe. ‘Wake up, damn—’

  The Creole had not replaced his hat, which proved to have been a regrettable oversight on his part. Belle Boyd produced a short rubber billy from her vanity bag, took aim, and swung it. Caught at the base of the skull, de Bracy’s knees buckled and he sprawled unconscious across Darren’s legs.

  ‘I hope this is him, Belle,’ Darren remarked, rolling the limp body from his legs and rising to his feet.

  ‘It is,’ the girl replied. ‘Willie knows him from delivering the message and signaled when he came out. Here’s Willie now. Let’s get de Bracy into the carriage. This isn’t the best neighborhood in which to carry out a kidnapping.’

  Having left Belle to do what she could for the stricken, dying woman, Darren had gone to fetch a doctor and the police. Lucienne had known that she had no hope of remaining alive, so she had been determined to help Belle locate her attackers. Showing how every word was taking an effort of will and causing her untold agony, she had told the girl where she had concealed her reports on the Brotherhood For Southron Freedom. She had, however, lapsed into unconsciousness before she could describe her assailants.

  Without waiting for Darren to return, Belle had removed the knob from the left upper bed post and extracted the papers it held. With Lucienne on her way to a hospital, although the doctor had stated there was no hope of saving her life, the agents had left the police in charge of the shop. Leaving Darren to return and report to General Handiman, Belle had followed the ambulance. While waiting in the hope that her friend might recover and give more details, Belle had read the reports.

  There had been little new added to the girl’s sum of knowledge. Lucienne had listed the names of several members, but warned that—to the best of her knowledge—they were not the leaders of the Brotherhood. There was a comment on the organization’s activities and a note that there would be a meeting of a different, more significant nature, held in Shreveport. Wise in her work, Lucienne had been alert to the possibility of the reports falling into the wrong hands. So she had avoided leaving any clue to the identity of her informer. Belle had guessed that the name would have been passed on to her verbally when she and Lucienne had come together.

  Lucienne had died without recovering consciousness. However, Lieutenant St. Andre—who had been assigned to the case—had promised every cooperation in locating the men responsible for her death. He had also promised to keep the story out of the newspapers and had succeeded in doing so. However, he had pointed out the difficulties in finding the three men. To the best of his knowledge, none of them had criminal records. That would make his work doubly difficult. He had known de Bracy, but not intimately. Using the Creole as a starting point, St. Andre had commenced his investigations. He would, he had warned, be working under the handicap of the necessity to prevent any warning of his Department’s interest being passed to de Bracy.

  Appreciating the difficulties faced by the police, Belle had been relieved to find another means of locating de Bracy.

  In some way, which he described scantily as ‘having got the word’, Willie had learned of Lucienne’s death and where to find Belle. Already he had started a widespread and capable net moving in search of Brunel, but without results. Given another name to work on, he had promised to do what he could.

  Being employed in various capacities at all levels of society, Negroes were almost ubiquitous in New Orleans. They became party to their employers’ affairs and frequently were in possession of what should have been stoutly and strictly kept secrets. What one Negro knew, he would usually pass on to another.

  By eight o’clock on the evening after Lucienne’s death, Willie had not only known where de Bracy was in hiding, but had learned a number of personal and confidential details about his private life. On hearing about his association with an actress, Marie Larondel, Belle had selected a means by which they might induce him to leave the house and fall into their hands. She wished to capture him without his host—who was on Lucienne’s list of the Brotherhood, being aware of his predicament. So she, Willie and Darren had made their arrangements. The Negro had delivered the fake message, not only to lure de Bracy out but to make certain they collected the right man.

  Lifting the unconscious Creole between them, Willie and Darren thrust him aboard the carriage. Then the Negro clambered on to the box, while Belle and Darren climbed inside. To make sure that de Bracy did not recover and create a disturbance, Belle had brought along a bottle of chloroform. By using it when he showed signs of returning to consciousness, she kept him silent during the journey to the place she had selected for his interrogation.

  Aided by cold water dashed into his face, and the acrid, biting fumes of the smelling-salts which Belle held under his nose, de Bracy recovered from the effects of the blow and the chloroform. Moaning, he tried to sit up. Finding himself unable to do so, he twisted and tugged at the ropes which bound his wrists and ankles.

  Conscious thought returned through his throbbing head and despite the nausea caused by the chloroform. He realized that he was lying on a bed and bound, with a gag in his mouth, in the same way they had treated Madame Lucienne.

  Exactly in the same way!

  Throwing his head from side to side in his struggles to free himself, he caught sight of his naked body in the dressing table’s mirror. Not only was he bound identically, but he was in Madame Lucienne’s bedroom.

  And he was not alone!

  Standing at the foot of the bed, looking as mean as all hell, the Negro who had delivered the message from Marie glowered at de Bracy with loathing.

  To the prisoner’s right, looking a mite pale but grimly determined, was a tall young white man.

  At the left of the bed, a slender, beautiful girl dressed in unconventionally male attire, opened and closed the jaws of a pair of powerful pincers. With a shudder, de Bracy identified them as the identical implements used by the Frenchman. They had been hurled aside and forgotten when he had stabbed Lucienne.

  ‘He’s awake, Belle,’ Darren remarked. ‘Can you understand me, de Bracy? Nod your head if you can.’

  ‘Take the gag out,’ Belle ordered, after the prisoner had given his assent to being able to understand. ‘Now he knows how Lucienne must have felt, we’ll make a start.’

  ‘Our people are controlling the street,’ Darren commented, crossing to look out of the window. ‘They’re signaling that everything’s clear and we don’t need to worry about his screams being heard.’

  Watching the shock and fright displayed by de Bracy, Belle knew that they would make him answer their questions. That was the reason for bringing him to Madame Lucienne’s room, where he had seen the woman tortured and would better recollect how she had suffered. Causin
g him to be stripped naked was a part of the process, as the conversation had been. Sweat poured down his face as Willie inserted the point of the Ames knife and severed the handkerchief gag.

  ‘Wha-What do you want?’ de Bracy demanded, trying to sound a whole lot braver than he felt.

  ‘Information,’ Belle answered, clicking the jaws of the pincers in an anticipatory manner. ‘About Brunel, the Frenchman and the Brotherhood For Southron Freedom.’

  ‘I—I don’t know what you me—’

  Before de Bracy could go further, cold steel was thrust against the inside of his right thigh. Even as he realized what was going to happen, and tried to jerk his limb away, the pincers closed upon his flesh. Sudden, searing, numbing pain ripped into him. It was. so shocking in its intensity that he could not as much as cry out in agony. In vain he tried to wrench himself free, but the ropes held him immobile.

  After what had seemed like an eternity to the suffering man, although it was only a few seconds, the girl relaxed her hold.

  ‘That’s not true,’ Belle chided. ‘Lucienne was still alive when we found her and she named you.’

  ‘I told the Frenchman to fin—!’ de Bracy began.

  ‘Go on!’ Belle ordered.

  ‘You’ll never make me talk!’ de Bracy screeched. ‘So do your—Agh!’

  Again he felt the steel jaws take hold of him. This time it was closer to his groin and the pain increased in severity. A moan of anguish burbled from his lips and perspiration flooded from his pores until his whole body glistened with moisture.

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ Belle drawled as she removed the pincers.

  ‘I don’t know, Belle,’ Darren put in, looking shaken but remembering his cue and prearranged speech. ‘They must have been sure we couldn’t break him, or they wouldn’t have let us know where he was.’

  ‘They expected us to kill him,’ Belle corrected. ‘Not to take him prisoner. The letter said that he was armed and a dead shot.’

  ‘Wha—How—What letter?’ de Bracy gasped, drawing the required conclusions.

  ‘The letter telling us where to find you,’ Darren explained. ‘Your good and loyal friends sold you out.’

  ‘The-They wouldn’t!’ the prisoner stated, but his voice lacked conviction.

  ‘Who else could have told us where to find you?’ Belle demanded. ‘And about Marie Larondel?’

  That was the point which de Bracy had been considering ever since he had recovered. Apart from Brunel, the Frenchman and the people with whom he had been hiding, his whereabouts had been a secret. Yet the Secret Service agents—he assumed correctly that was the status of his captors—had not only found him, but had known of a means by which to lure him from the safety of the house. Such information could only have come from another member of the Brotherhood.

  ‘They even said that it was you who tortured and knifed Lucienne,’ Belle commented, watching de Bracy’s every emotion. ‘That was to make sure we’d hate you enough to kill you on sight.’

  ‘That’s what they wanted,’ Darren continued, while the prisoner showed increasing signs of anger and strain. ‘They knew we’d never rest until we caught whoever was responsible, so they decided to make you a sacrifice. After all, you’d brought all this trouble on them by killing—’

  ‘I didn’t kill her!’ de Bracy screeched. ‘That was the Frenchman. He cut the maid’s throat, too.’

  ‘We’ll need more than your word for that,’ Belle remarked. ‘Where is he, so that we can learn the truth?’

  ‘He—He’s left for Shreveport,’ de Bracy answered despondently. ‘But Brunel’s in town. At the Hotel de Grace, calling himself “Browning”.’

  ‘And the Frenchman’s gone to Shreveport?’ Belle drawled, working the jaws of the pincers briskly.

  ‘Ye-Yes!’ de Bracy yelled, fear of further torment causing him to struggle violently. ‘There’s an important meeting there! It’s true! I swear it’s—’

  Suddenly, in the heat of his tirade, the prisoner’s face contorted and his body jerked as if in violent agony. His words ended in an incoherent gobble and blood gushed from his mouth. Not only blood. A lump of flesh spat from between his lips and landed on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Wha-What ?’ Darren gasped.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Belle ejaculated. ‘He’s bitten through his tongue!’

  Fourteen – I Just Couldn’t Hold Back

  Everything was quiet and peaceful as Belle Boyd, Lieutenant St. Andre and Willie entered the Hotel de Grace. A modestly priced establishment, it catered mainly for the family trade and people of a staid, sober nature. By twelve o’clock any night, the majority of its patrons were already in bed and the building silent.

  Protesting that there ‘wasn’t nobody about to let rooms’, a Negro porter had opened the front door to St. Andre’s knock. Studying the detective’s badge of office—for he was not wearing uniform—the porter had allowed the party to enter. The reception desk had no attendant, so Belle crossed to it and obtained the required information from the register.

  ‘Number thirteen,’ she told the handsome, smartly dressed young peace officer. ‘That’s unlucky for somebody.’

  ‘Let’s hope it ain’t for none of us,’ Willie commented, fingering the hilt of Jim Bludso’s Ames knife.

  Knowing that there would be no hope of obtaining further information from de Bracy that night, if at all, Belle had decided not to waste time on him. She had left him in Darren’s and Willie’s care, to be dressed and to be given such medical aid as they could manage, while she had gone out to make arrangements for his removal to a hospital. On her return, she had suggested that Darren continued to watch over de Bracy, leaving the arrest of Brunel to herself. It said much for the respect in which Darren now held the Rebel Spy that he had agreed; with one reservation. She must not make the attempt alone. Willie had insisted that he should accompany Belle. She had agreed, but had declared that they must also have official backing.

  Finding Lieutenant St. Andre at his bachelor apartment, after inquiring after him at Police Headquarters, Belle had been entirely frank about her activities of the night. She had been pleasantly surprised at his response to her story. Already aware of the gravity of the situation—and having known, respected and liked Madame Lucienne for many years—he had merely commented that he hoped the Secret Service would not make a habit of such behavior in his jurisdictional area. Then he had asked how he could help his visitors.

  General Handiman had ordered Belle and Darren to handle the affair without—if it was possible—allowing word of it to become known to the public. If it could be done, he wanted to end the Brotherhood For Southron Freedom quietly. That way, he would avoid presenting the South with martyrs and reminders of the past; or providing material which Northern radicals could use as propaganda against the ex-Confederate States.

  Belle had requested that St. Andre alone of the police should accompany her and Willie to the Hotel de Grace. A very smart peace officer, the lieutenant had understood, and approved of, General Handiman’s motives. So he had agreed to handle things as Belle had required.

  ‘How do we take him?’ Belle whispered, as they stopped at the door of Room Thirteen.

  ‘Burst in and shove a gun against his head before he’s fully awake,’ St. Andre suggested, drawing a Colt Peacemaker from under his jacket. ‘He wouldn’t open the door, or give up without a fight, if we give him the chance to do otherwise.’

  ‘Let me get rid of this skirt,’ Belle requested, unfastening the garment which she had donned before leaving Madame Lucienne’s apartment. She stepped out of it, leaving her paletot jacket on. Then she drew the pick from its sheath and went on, ‘I may be able to open the lock.’

  Inserting the end of the pick, Belle felt it come into contact with an obstruction. She pushed gingerly, causing the key to move through the lock. It fell out and clinked softly as it hit the floor. Instantly Belle froze, alert for any hint that the sound had disturbed the man sleeping in the room. Nothing happen
ed and she assumed that the faint noise had been insufficient to waken Brunel. So she tested for and located the master-lever.

  ’You’d make a good hotel thief,’ St. Andre praised sotto voce, as the lock clicked. ‘Now it’s my turn.’

  Although she was wearing the gunbelt and the Dance rode in its low cavalry-twist draw holster, Belle did not argue the point. From the way he handled the Colt, St. Andre was more than competent in its use. So she stepped aside, leaving him unimpeded as he took her place at the door.

  Cocking his Colt, St. Andre turned the handle. Flinging the door wide open, he sprang into the un-illuminated room—and came very close to getting killed.

  Always a light sleeper, Brunel had been even more so since his escape from the levee at the Baton Royale Glide. He had known that the Secret Service and the police were hunting for him, which had not tended to lend itself to a deep, untroubled slumber.

  When the key had fallen, its collision with the floor had wakened him. He had not stirred, but his every faculty had been working to assess the danger. From the other faint noises, including the unmistakable ‘click-click-click’ of a Colt’s hammer being drawn to full cock, he had concluded that somebody was planning to enter his room. It might be no more than a thief, but Brunel felt disinclined to take the chance that it was anything so innocuous. Unlike de Bracy, he had not been misled by the lack of comment in the newspapers. The police and the Secret Service would be using every means available to them in an effort to trace him. Once they had found him, they would be unwilling to risk letting him escape or make a fight. Besides which, there was no reason why a thief would cock a gun at his door. If a robbery was planned, the thief would have tried a more easily accessible room and have held his weapon ready for use ever since entering the building.