Part 12 (2/2)
He carried his head erect, his stride was sure and determined, but he had a glitter that indicated a tumult inside, with an att.i.tude of suspicious aloofness. The erstwhile mirthful smile on his lips was now supplanted by one of sarcastic severity, but a smile that evidently meant much. I would have given the world just then to know what.
However, all he would say was: ”Ben, this is a devil of a mess and I am in the center of it.”
CHAPTER XIV
AFTER leaving the sworn records with Hiram I started for my temporary offices uptown. I wanted him to have time to thoroughly digest them.
At that time we had not been at war long and the public mind of New Orleans was in a very excited condition. The big interrogation point was raised on every person whose acts did not bear instant a.n.a.lysis.
Pacifists and enemy aliens were promptly and vigorously coerced into outward decency at least. No trifling was permitted.
These continued thefts from the railroad might mean much more than a risky enterprise for profit. I was given to understand that while time enough would be allowed, definite results were expected soon.
When I reached my office, my clerk, Miss Bascom, seemed to be expecting me. Her greeting, though intended to be casual, was so gladsome I wondered if she was trying to practice on me the same brand of coquetry she used on the chief clerk--Burrell--or was it to be a wheedling process? Surely I was justified in expecting something and I awaited the onset with great interest, convinced that she was playing a role. One of Miss Bascom's duties was to prepare for me each day a record of every car that arrived on Hiram's wharf or departed therefrom.
The first sheets of outbound records of the day were of cars from Becker & Co. to Becker & Co., Becker's Landing, Louisiana, and the time of departure was marked 3:30. I began to wonder if it was purely accidental that they were on the top; then came an exciting moment when I recalled that a car of sausages arrived at 2:30. But the insuperable difficulty of making the transfer, replacing the seals, and the like, rea.s.sured me.
I gave Miss Bascom the two slips and requested her to get me a memo of the contents of those two cars. As she went about the errand I wondered how such a refined looking young woman could ally herself with that carca.s.s of rancid tallow whose very clothing emitted an odor which advertised his business.
Miss Bascom returned in a few moments and laid the two slips before me without comment, hesitating at the end of my desk, indicating interest and willingness to be of further a.s.sistance. On the bottom of each slip was delicately penciled ”Soap Grease.” I knew that plebeian soap grease was worth more than prime lard had been a short time ago, but why the precaution of s.h.i.+pping in refrigerator cars?
”Do you happen to know this s.h.i.+pper--Becker & Co.?” I decided to venture, uncertain whether Miss Bascom knew I had seen them together in the hall.
Miss Bascom backed to the end of my desk and laid a very pretty elbow on top, the better to display her figure--palpable acting, so it seemed to me. Her speech had a Southern accent which lends itself to dissimulation. ”Yes,” she replied, ”he is an important patron of the road, and is about the office considerably. Everybody knows him.” She did not meet my eye, but looked at the door leading to the hall expectantly. At that moment a boy burst into the room wholly unannounced, laid a telegram addressed to me on my desk, and was gone as quickly as he came.
”I wonder why they s.h.i.+p that kind of freight in refrigerator cars--the rate is much higher,” I said, shoving the telegram back unopened.
”I think I heard him tell Mr. Burrell one day he could afford to pay extra in order to receive his freight the same day,” she replied with a navete difficult to simulate.
”Miss Bascom, stop the work you are now on and prepare an abstract from these records of all freight sent by refrigerator cars to Becker & Co.
during the last twelve months,” I requested after weighing the chance that she might be working with Becker and Chief Clerk Burrell and the disadvantage of their knowing through her that an investigation was proceeding along those lines.
Miss Bascom seemed unwilling to think the interview ended or perhaps was disappointed it had yielded so little, but finally removed her elbow, and, nonplussed, pa.s.sed her small white hand over her eyes and hair, so unusually bronze that one might suspect that it was ”chemically pure.”
As she slowly pa.s.sed behind me to her desk she half murmured to herself, ”I wish I were a man.”
”I suppose you would be wearing a soldier's uniform if you were,” said I, a.s.suming a semi-preoccupied att.i.tude.
”That's on the basis that a uniform makes a dull person look intelligent,” she rejoined, looking seriously out of the window over her desk.
I was reading my telegram and was too much astonished at its contents to reply. It was from the chemist in New York to whom I had sent a larger sample from the partners.h.i.+p barrel Hiram and I had in storage.
CHAPTER XV
THE dispatch was very interesting indeed. I was about to go down and show the telegram to Hiram, the contents of which would astonish him more than it did me, at least cheer him up a bit, but when I reached the street something happened to intensify my interest in Becker & Co. I ran into a man I very much wanted to talk with.
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