Barbara Hambly - Dead water

Climbing overboard in sightless night and fog and swimming for an unknown shore in the dark was beginning to make more and more sense.

“Even if she'd bought all those clothes and Weems had paid cash for three plantations and the slaves to run them,” January replied wearily, “it wouldn't have gone unnoticed. No, the money was on board and Molloy did something with it—or with some important portion of it. For that matter, Fischer and Weems had several days to remove the loot from their trunks themselves. We've been able to keep an eye on the stern doorway down into the hold, but they—or Molloy—could slip in at the bow end. . . .”

“And the deck-hands wouldn't have gossiped about it?”

January spread his hands helplessly. “It wouldn't take much for them to disguise themselves as German or Irish deck-passengers. Gold and securities could be brought up a little at a time and concealed under his stateroom floor between the joists. The same applies to the flooring of the hold.”

And, when Hannibal looked startled, he added, “We did that all the time at Bellefleur—the adult slaves did, I was too young. They'd steal things—food, mostly, or things that could be sold to the river-traders for food—and bury them under the cabin floors. That's why most planters build slave cabins up off the ground, no matter what they like to say about proper air circulation. It's to make it harder for the slaves to bury things under the floor.”

“The things I missed by not being born an American.” Hannibal eased himself down stiffly between the wood-piles. “Dear gods, I'm tired. I have the distressing suspicion I would not have made a particularly good slave.” And he unstoppered his flask for a quick drink.

Privately suppressing his certainty that as a slave his friend would have died of overwork and consumption long before the age of forty, January said bracingly, “Of course you would have. You'd have been promoted to butler and be running the plantation. The way you turned Molloy's attempt to push you into a duel into an opportunity to finally search the trunks—”

“Which got us exactly nothing.”

“Nonsense. It was a Socratic exercise in finding out what we do not know, clearing the way to look for Truth.”

Under his graying mustache, the fiddler's mouth twitched in a smile.

“Weems must have suspected some kind of jiggery-pokery with the luggage the moment it started being off-loaded to spar over Horsehead Bar,” went on January. “He ran to check it the moment he could get himself clear of the work-gang. If he found a substantial portion of the gold or securities gone, of course he'd begin searching staterooms the moment it grew dark—”

“At which activity Molloy surprised him and threw him overboard while miraculously making it appear that he was in the pilot-house with Mr. Souter,” finished Hannibal. “Unless Souter was lying, but I can't for the life of me see why he would be.”

He shut his eyes, and leaned his head back against the wall of the 'tween-decks. The sun was nearly down, long shadows reaching out over the water and bringing a merciful degree of coolness. With the clanging of its bell softened by distance, the Wellington appeared around the bend, heading down-river in mid-channel. Voices shouted across the water—the wood-detail was forgotten as deck-hands hastened to lower the skiff and row out to exchange New Orleans newspapers for those of Memphis, St. Louis, and Louisville. January watched the small Wellington idly, blithe in its disregard even for low water, barreling southward with the rest of the torn-off branches and floating debris.

“That may be,” he told Hannibal, “only because we don't know much about Souter. Or Lundy. Or Byrne. Or Davis, for that matter—if Weems was blackmailing one man on this boat to get bribe-money to have pursuers shaken off his tail, there may have been others. If we can . . .”

A flash of blue and pink skirts appeared on the stair over their heads, and a moment later Rose came around the wood-piles. “La Pécheresse has gone to the Ladies' Parlor to slander Hannibal until dinner,” she reported cheerfully. “Having spent the entire morning doing so to Sophie, who now believes him to be the Devil incarnate.”

“Just what I needed to complete my happiness.” The fiddler opened his eyes. “I shall give her my mother's address so they can correspond on the subject.”

“I've promised I'll help her—Sophie, I mean. Mrs. Roberson's elder daughter, Emily, is still in mourning for her husband, and offered to lend her some blacks until the boat reaches Memphis. . . .”

“Emily, who's all of four feet tall and as big around as my arm?” asked Hannibal interestedly, getting painfully to his feet. “You dwarf, you minimus . . . you bead, you acorn . . .”

“Even the very same. Sophie has been cutting and fitting most of the afternoon, as Mrs. Fischer wants to be properly in mourning for dinner. I've offered to help her—a measure of my dedication to the purposes of justice, as I cannot sew a stitch and detest the exercise.”

“Then let me strengthen your fingers by an invigorating kiss.” January took her hand and pressed his lips gently to every long, slender finger. “Am I included in the incarnation of evil? Or would you ladies like a little gallant company while you gossip?”

She gave him her quickflash smile. “I came out for that very reason. Only remember you're as puzzled by Hannibal's infamous conduct as anyone—you have no idea whether he's telling the truth or not.”

“I'll just run along, shall I?” suggested Hannibal. “Perhaps before supper I can catch the Tredgold children and tear out and devour their hearts.”

Rose said, “You do that and Cissy will be forever your friend.”

As Hannibal turned to go, and Rose disappeared up the stair once more, January laid a staying hand on the fiddler's frayed sleeve. “I hesitate to keep you from slaughtering the Tredgold children,” he said, “but if you're not too tired, you might idle your way up to the pilot-house instead and have a chat with Mr. Souter. I have no reason to think Mr. Lundy would have killed Weems—or that he could have, for that matter—but with both Fischer and Molloy trying to get us off the boat dead or alive, I think it's time we started checking on everyone aboard who wasn't somewhere at midnight last night.”

Sophie glanced up quickly as January's tall form blotted the last twilight from the open door. January creased his brow in a look of deepest concern and said, “Miss Rose, I'm glad I found you—good evenin', Miss Sophie. Miss Rose, what in the name of Heaven's goin' on around here? Michie Hannibal givin' me a tongue-lashin', that gold he's been talkin' about since we left New Orleans not bein' where he said it was. . . .” He shook his head in helpless bafflement. “An' now they're talkin' accusin' me of harmin' Mr. Weems. I swear”—he turned to Sophie appealingly—“I didn't know nuthin' about the man, 'cept what Michie Hannibal said. 'Cept I don't think anybody can be as sly an' sneaky as Michie Hannibal says he was.”

“Well, Mr. Weems was no saint with a halo on his head,” said Sophie primly, her needle flying in the neat, tight stitches that Ayasha would have approved of and that Rose couldn't have produced at gunpoint. “And I know that what he and Madame did was wrong. But her husband used her cruelly. . . .”

January realized that Sophie was referring to the Seventh Commandment, not the Eighth.

“. . . forcing her to flee from his house one night in a rainstorm, taking nothing but the clothes on her back and her jewelry. Surely she can be forgiven for running from such a man as that. How she has suffered! And poor Mr. Weems was very good to me, giving me a little extra money—for my inconvenience, he said, wasn't that sweet?—every time I had to sleep on the deck, and making sure that I had a good blanket, and fruit from dinner. I had only known him three months—since I came into Mrs. Fischer's house—but he was always so kind. Oh, how could you have done what you did, Ben? Cut him up, like a . . . like an animal? My poor mistress wept and wept. . . .”