Джеймс Кейн - Mignon

“Nothing, of course, Captain.”

“Did you know he tried to kill Cresap?”

“Not until Cresap mentioned it.”

“That your man shot at him?”

“That someone did, he didn’t know who. I twigged’t.”

That covered, in a way I had to admire, my failure to identify Pierre, so nothing had been joggled in a way I would have to explain. But I put in, on my own, that I’d only seen this Pierre once, for the barest glance, in New Orleans, and wouldn’t have known him from Adam. Burke asked: “Who made the identification, if I may make so bold as to inquire?” Hager told him: “Two sutlers and a cook at the Ice House Hotel.” Burke nodded and said: “That explains’t — Pierre always bought our food.” Then Hager got back to the point, and asked Burke very sharp: “Did you send this man to kill Cresap?”

“God forbid! Why should I?”

“Did you send him to kill Powell?”

“No... You think he killed Powell?”

“ We know he killed Powell .”

Hager was murderously cold, and walked over to where Burke sat by the piano to stare down at him, hard. But Burke was strangely unfussed. “I may say it doesn’t surprise me,” he said in a quiet way, as if hearing gossip of an interesting kind.

“... Why not?” asked Hager, caught off balance.

“The bad blood between ’em,” said Burke.

“Bad blood? Between Powell? And — this man?”

“I don’t care for that remark,” roared Burke, with a snarl. “It seems to imply, Captain, that as between a fine gentleman such as Powell and a midge such as Pierre, bad blood couldn’t exist, as the officer wouldn’t deign and the varlet wouldn’t dare. Know then, the gentleman did deign, in a vulgar, ungentlemanly way, and the varlet did dare, in a way even you might respect. He had his pride, he was a man.”

“And when was all this, Burke?”

“Last summer. Last June.”

“And where?”

“Bagdad, Mexico.”

Hager, whose reaction to surprise had been to rip at Burke, was now set back on his heels even worse than before, and to cover up, pretended disgust. Returning to his place on the settee, he said in a lofty way: “Let’s get back to Cresap.”

“Let’s not,” said Burke.

Then he got up and went over, so he could stare down at Hager. “At the Hotel DeGlobe in Bagdad,” he rumbled slowly, “Pierre had got’m a job, after his discharge from the Berthollet, serving drinks in the bar. And there every night came Powell. He was on the Itasca then, the steam schooner on blockade duty, and would come ashore at night, to inquire about cotton shipments — and to drink. To swill booze, carouse, and quarrel with Pierre in the bar, holding the boy up to ridicule, taunting’m, plaguing’m, mocking’m. It got to the point where to head off something dreadful, I took a hand with Pierre, and brought’m to Matamoros by diligencia one day. And then, in me growing affection for’m, I hired’m on as boy, as valet, as gippo.” His voice had risen a little, and he turned suddenly on Ball. “Am I right, Lieutenant?” he asked. “Isn’t it true? Every word that I’ve said?”

“I’ve never been to Mexico.”

“You’ve been to the Ice House Hotel — you followed Powell on that duty, right here in Alexandria. How did he conduct himself in that bar?”

“In exemplary fashion, sir.”

“Then he reformed himself, I may say.”

How much of it was true, I didn’t of course know, though some of it had to be, especially the Itasca part, or Ball would have contradicted. But true or false, it was a mile away from himself and any motive he might have had for ordering Powell killed, and though I hated myself for it, I had to be on his side, as I had sicked him on. He smelled advantage, and in a reasonable tone resumed: “Or in other words, Captain—”

“Never mind the other words,” snapped Hager. “Let’s get back to you. Why, in the light of all that, didn’t you once open your mouth when Lieutenant Powell was killed?”

“I? Inform on me own gippo?”

“If you knew he’d committed a crime?”

“Captain! I didn’t know it!”

“Don’t quibble! You knew about the grudge!”

“I knew of twenty thousand grudges.”

“... What do you mean by that?”

“Your own among the rest!”

“ My grudge, Burke? My grudge? ”

“Aye — you bore’m a grudge, you bear’m a grudge as you sit there, as this whole Army does, against the Mississippi Squadron of the United States Navy, for the rape of the cotton last week — you hate the Navy’s guts, so don’t single me out for failing to open me mouth on a matter that could have involved every man in this town — except the boys afloat! Who didn ’ t bear ’ m a grudge? Tell me who didn’t, and I’ll tell him , not you, why I didn’t speak up!”

Clammy silence settled down, and it was some moments before Hager asked: “Why would this man try to kill Cresap?”

“I don’t know, he didn’t discuss’t with me.”

“What would be your conjecture?”

“Why don’t you ask Cresap?”

“We did. He didn’t know. I’m asking you.”

“Why wouldn’t he try to kill Cresap? A man who blackened his character, did infamous things to him, only last month in New Orleans? Who attempted to make it appear the boy deserted his post in my rooms at the City Hotel, so a pretended search could be made and evidence discovered which ’twas said that I manufactured against a friend and mentor and partner, who sits here in front of your eyes, Adolphe Landry, no other, and who can throw the lie in me teeth, if I wander one inch from the truth! When all the time ’twas himself, this same clever Cresap, who forged the documents up, in the hope of discrediting me, and in that way enriching himself!” He came over and smiled in my face, so I knew what to expect, if the forged receipt came out — by hook, crook, or trick, it would be hung on me. He turned to Hager again and went on, very pious: “Pierre was plain, rude, and ignorant, and no doubt given to violence, as such boys usually are. But false to a duty he was not — he never deserted a post! And perhaps he brooded a bit at me own troubled spirit, when I returned to the house last night.”

“What troubled your spirit, if any?”

Hager was quite sarcastic, but didn’t ask about New Orleans, which told me he knew what had happened there, and if it told me it told Burke, he not being dumb on such things. “His rapacious demands,” he answered.

“Cresap’s, you mean?”

“For’s fee.”

“What fee?”

“That I promised’m, two hundred and fifty dollars. To free Adolphe.”

“Well? He freed him, didn’t he?”

“Aye, but look what he did to me! Got me accused, unjustly, so I spent a night confined, as a common thug, in a cell! I refused to pay’m a cent, and last night he renewed his demands — Lieutenant Ball will bear witness for me, how he called me aside in the hotel, wanting payment, and your guard will corroborate that he ordered me, on the street, to report here today, else bear the consequence — he made threats against me.”

“What threats?”

“He questioned me passes, Captain.”

It all matched up, it didn’t sound collusive, and it concealed real motive. It was a masterly job of lying, and I had to get in step. When Hager turned to me, I said: “I doubted, and still doubt, if this man has proper permission to be here — he came when the Reb Army was here, and a Reb permit isn’t valid, it means nothing to a Union marshal. However, that’s not for me to decide. As to what he says in general, allowing for distortion, self-pity, and overpraise of the gentle Pierre, I would say he’s pretty well covered the ground. Now that I know who I killed, I admit he had grounds to dislike me.”