"It has to do with those two brief-cases of his. You know, the ones he was so particular about all the way down here?"

Val nodded. Those bulging brief-cases had apparently contained the dearest of his roving brother's possessions, judging from the way Rupert had fussed if they were a second out of his sight.

"This morning when I came downstairs," Ricky continued, "he was sneaking them into that little side room off the dining-room corridor, the one which used to be the old plantation office. And when he came out and saw me standing there, he deliberately turned around and locked the door!"

"Whew!" Val commented.

"Yes, I felt that way too. So I simply asked him what he was doing and he made some silly remark about Bluebeard's chamber. He means to keep his old secret, too, 'cause he put the key on his key-ring when he didn't know I was watching him."

"This is not the place for a rest cure," her brother observed as he started to sc.r.a.pe and stack the dishes. "First someone unknown leaves his handkerchief for a calling card and then Rupert goes Fu Manchu on us. To say nothing of the rugged and unfriendly son of the soil whom I found b.u.mping around the garden where he had no business to be."

"What was he like anyway?" asked his sister as she dipped soap flakes into the dish-water with a liberal hand.

"Oh, thin, and awfully brown. But not bad looking if it weren't for his mouth and that scowl of his. And he very distinctly doesn't like us.

About my build, but quicker on his feet, tough looking. I wouldn't care to try to stop him doing anything he wanted to do."

"My dear, are you describing Clark Gable or someone you met in our garden this morning?" she demanded sweetly.

"Very well," Val retorted huffily into the depths of the oatmeal pan he was wiping, "you catch him next time."

"I will," was her serene answer as she wrung out the dish-cloth.

They went on to the upstairs work and Val received his first lesson in the art of bed-making under his sister's extremely critical tuition. It seemed that corners must be square and that dreadful things were likely to happen when wrinkles were not smoothed out. This exercise led them naturally to unpacking the remainder of the hand baggage and putting things away. It was after ten before Val came downstairs crab-fashion, wiping off each step behind him as he came with one of Ricky's three dust-cloths.

He paused on the landing to pull back the tapestry curtain and open the windows above the alcove seat, letting in the freshness of the morning to rout some of the dank chill of the hall. Kneeling there, he watched Rupert come around the house. Rupert had shed his coat and his sleeves were rolled up almost to his shoulders. There was a streak of black across his cheek and a large rip almost separated the collar from his shirt. Although he looked hot, cross, and tired, more like a day-laborer than a gentleman plantation owner whose ancestors had always "planted from the saddle," his stride had a certain buoyancy which it had lacked the day before.

With an idea of escaping Ricky by joining his brother, Val hurried downstairs and headed kitchenward. But his sister was there before him looking over a collection of knives of various lengths.

"Preparing for a little murder or two?" Val asked casually.

She jumped and dropped a paring knife.

"Val, don't do that! I wish you'd whistle or something while you're walking around in those tennis shoes. I can't hear you move. I'm looking for something to cut flowers with. There don't seem to be any scissors except mine and I'm not going to use those."

"Take dat, Miss 'Chanda." A fat black hand motioned toward the paring knife.

Just within the kitchen door stood a wide, a very wide, Negro woman. Her neat print dress was stiff with starch from a recent washing, and round gold hoops swung proudly from her ears. Her black hair, straightened by main force of arm, had been set again in stiff, corrugated waves of extreme fashion, but her broad placid face was both kind and serene.

"I'se Lucy," she stated, thoroughly at her ease. "An' dis," she reached an arm behind her, pulling forth a girl at least ten shades lighter and thirty-five shades thinner, "is mah sistah's onliest gal-chil', Letty-Lou. Mak' yo' mannahs, Letty. Does yo' wan' Miss 'Chanda to think yo' is a know-nothin' outa de swamp?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_I'se Lucy," she stated, thoroughly at her ease. "An'

dis is Letty-Lou._"]

Thus sternly admonished, Letty-Lou ducked her head shyly and murmured something in a die-away voice.

"Letty-Lou," announced her aunt, "is com' to do fo' yo'all, Miss 'Chanda. I'se larn'd her good how to do fo' ladies. She is good at scrubbin' an' cleanin' an sich. Ah done train'd her mahse'f."

Letty-Lou looked at the floor and twisted her thin hands behind her back.

"But," protested Ricky, "we're not planning to have anyone do for us, Lucy."

"Dat's all right, Miss 'Chanda. Yo'all's not gittin' a know-nothin'.

Letty-Lou, she knows her work. She kin cook right good."

"We can't take her," Val backed up Ricky. "You must understand, Lucy, that we don't have much money and we can't pay for--"

"Pay fo'!" Lucy's indignant sniff reduced him to his extremely unimportant place. "We's not talkin' 'bout pay workin', Mistuh Ralestone. Letty-Lou don' git no pay but her eatments. 'Co'se, effen Miss 'Chanda wanna give her some ole clo's now an' den, she kin tak'

dem. Letty-Lou, she don' hav' to git her a pay-work job, her pappy mak's him a good livin'. But Miss 'Chanda ain' a-goin' to tak' keer dis big hous' all by herself wit' her lil' han's dere. We's Ralestone folks.

Letty-Lou, yo' gits on youah ap'on an' gits to work."

"But we can't let her," Ricky raised her last protest.

"Miss 'Chanda, we's Ralestone folks. Mah gran' pappy Bob was own man to Ma.s.sa Miles Ralestone. He fit in de wah longside o' Ma.s.sa Miles. An' wen de wah was done finish'd, dem two com' home to-gethah. Den Ma.s.sa Miles, he call mah gran'pappy in an' say, 'Bob, yo'all is free an' I'se a ruinated man. Heah is fiv' dollahs gol' money an' yo' kin hav' youah hoss.' An' Bob, he say, 'Cap'n Miles, dese heah Yankees done said I'se free but dey ain't done said dat I ain't a Ralestone man. W'at time does yo'all wan' breakfas' in de mornin'?' An' wen Ma.s.sa Miles wen' no'th to mak' his fo'tune, he told Bob, 'Bob, I'se leavin' dis heah hous' in youah keer.' An', Miss 'Chanda, we done look aftah Pirate's Haven evah since, mah gran'pappy, mah pappy, Sam an' me."

Ricky held out her hand. "I'm sorry, Lucy. You see, we don't understand very well, we've been away so long."

Lucy touched Ricky's hand and then, for all her weight, bobbed a curtsy.

"Dat's all right, Miss 'Chanda, yo' is ouah folks."

Letty-Lou stayed.

CHAPTER IV

PISTOLS FOR TWO--COFFEE FOR ONE

Val braced himself against the back of the roadster's seat and struggled to hold the car to a road which was hardly more than a cart track. Twice since Ricky and he had left Pirate's Haven they had narrowly escaped being bogged in the mud which had worked up through the thin crust of gravel on the surface.

To the south lay the old cypress swamps, dark glens of rotting wood and sprawling vines. A spur of this unsavory no-man's land ran close along the road, and looking into it one could almost believe, fancied Val, in the legends told by the early French explorers concerning the giant monsters who were supposed to haunt the swamps and wild lands at the mouth of the Mississippi. He would not have been surprised to see a brontosaurus peeking coyly down at him from twenty feet or so of neck.

It was just the sort of place any self-respecting brontosaurus would have wallowed in.

But at last they won free from that place of cold and dank odors.

Pa.s.sing through Chalmette, they struck the main highway. From then on it was simple enough. St. Bernard Highway led into St. Claude Avenue and that melted into North Rampart street, one of the boundaries of the old French city.

"Can't we go slower?" complained Ricky. "I'd like to see some of the city without getting a crick in my neck from looking over my shoulder.

Watch out for St. Anne Street. That's one corner of Beauregarde Square, the old Congo Square--"

"Where the slaves used to dance on Sundays before the war. I know; I've read just as many guide-books as you have. But there is such a thing as obstructing traffic. Also we have about a million and one things to do this afternoon. We can explore later. Here we are; Bienville Avenue. No, I will _not_ stop so that you can see that antique store. Six blocks to the right," Val reminded himself.

"Val, that was the Absinthe House we just pa.s.sed!"

"Yes? Well, it would have been better for a certain ancestor of ours if he had pa.s.sed it, too. That was Jean Lafitte's headquarters at one time.

Exchange Street--the next is ours."

They turned into Chartres Street and pulled up in the next block at the corner of Iberville. A four-story house coated with grayish plaster, its windows framed with faded green shutters and its door painted the same misty color, confronted them. There was a tiny shop on the first floor.