"I'm not in that sort of business. I stole those papers, not to use them for blackmail, but to get information. By the way, get that tin box out of my trunk, will you? I want to take my stock certificates with me in the morning, and must not forget them."

Hammond disappeared into the adjoining room.

Gramont sat gazing at the boxes before him. Despite his words to Hammond, there was a fund of puzzled displeasure in his eyes, sheer dissatisfaction. He shook his head gloomily, and his eyes clouded.

"All wasted--the whole effort!" he murmured. "I thought it might lead to something, but all it has given me is the reward of saving myself and possibly retrieving Lucie. As for the larger game, the bigger quarry--it's all wasted. I haven't unravelled a single thread; the first real clue came to me to-night, purely by accident. Memphis Izzy Gumberts! That's the lead to follow! I'll get rid of this Midnight Masquer foolishness and go after the real game."

Gramont was to discover that it is not nearly so easy to be rid of folly as it is to don the jester's cap and bells; a fact which one Simplicissimus had discovered to his sorrow three hundred years earlier. But, as Gramont was not versed in this line of literature, he yet had the discovery ahead of him.

Hammond reentered the room with the tin box, from which Gramont took his stock certificates issued by Bob Maillard's oil company. He pocketed the shares.

"Does this here Miss Ledanois," asked Hammond, "play in with you in the game? Young Maillard's related to her, ain't he?"

"She's quite aware of his drawbacks, I think," answered Gramont, drily.

"I see." Hammond rubbed his chin, and inspected his employer with a twinkle denoting perfect comprehension. "Well, how d'you expect to come out on top of the heap?"

"I want to get my own money back," explained Gramont. "You see, young Maillard thinks that he's cleaned me up fine. I've invested heavily in his company, which has a couple of small wells already going. As I conceive the probable scheme, this company is scheduled to fail, and another company will take over the stock at next to nothing. Maillard will be the other company; his present a.s.sociates will be the suckers! It's that, or some similar trick. I'm no longer interested in the affair."

"Why not, if you got money in it?"

"My son, to-morrow is Monday. Proteus will arrive out of the sea to-morrow, and the Proteus ball comes off to-morrow night. In spite of these distractions, the banks are open in the morning. Savvy?

"I'll go to Maillard the banker--Joseph Maillard--first thing in the morning, and offer him my stock. He'll be mighty glad to get it at a discount, knowing that it is in his son's company. You see, the son doesn't confide in the old man particularly. I'll let the father win a little money on the deal with me, and by doing this I'll manage to save the greater part of my investment----"

"Holy mackerel!" Hammond exploded in a burst of laughter as he caught the idea. "Say, if this ain't the richest thing ever pulled! When the crash comes, the fancy kid will be stinging his dad good and hard, eh?"

"Exactly; and I think his dad can afford to be stung much better than I can," agreed Gramont, cheerfully. "Also, now that I'm certain Bob Maillard is the one who was behind the fleecing of Miss Ledanois, I'll first get clear of him, then I'll start to give him his deserts. I may form an oil company of my own."

"Do it," advised Hammond, still chuckling.

"Now," and Gramont rose, "let's take those packages and stow them away in the luggage compartment of the car. I'm getting nervous at the thought of having them around here, and they'll be perfectly safe there overnight--safer there than here, in fact. To-morrow, you can take the car out of town and send the packages by parcels post from some small town.

"In that way they ought to be delivered here on Wednesday. You'd better wear one of my suits, leaving your chauffeur's outfit here, and don't halt the car in front of the postoffice where you mail the packages----"

"I get you," a.s.sented Hammond, sagely. "I'll leave the car outside town, and hoof it in with the boxes, so that n.o.body will notice the car or connect it with the packages, eh? But what about them aviator's clothes?"

"Take them with you--better get them wrapped up here and now. You can toss them into a ditch anywhere."

Hammond obeyed.

Ten minutes afterward the two men left the room, carrying the packages of loot and the bundle containing the aviator's uniform. They descended to the courtyard in the rear of the house. Here was a small garden, with a fountain in its centre. Behind this were the stables, which had long been disused as such, and which were now occupied only by the car of Gramont.

It was with undisguised relief that Gramont now saw the stuff actually out of the house. Within the last few hours he had become intensely afraid of Jachin Fell. Concentrating himself upon the man, picking up information guardedly, he had that day a.s.similated many small items which increased his sense of peril from that quarter. Straws, no more, but quite significant straws. Gramont realized clearly that if the police ever searched his rooms and found this loot, he would be lost. There could be no excuse that would hold water for a minute against such evidence.

In the garage, Hammond switched on the lights of the car. By the glow they disposed their burdens in the luggage compartment of the tonneau, which held them neatly. The car was a large twelve-cylinder, four-pa.s.senger Nonpareil, which Gramont had picked up in the used-car market. Hammond had tinkered it into magnificent shape, and loved the piece of mechanism as the very apple of his eye.

The luggage compartment closed and locked, they returned into the house and dismissed the affair as settled.

Upon the following morning Gramont, who usually breakfasted en pension with his hostess, had barely seated himself at the table when he perceived the figure of Hammond at the rear entrance of the dining room. The chauffeur beckoned him hastily.

"Come out here, cap'n!" Hammond was breathing heavily, and seemed to be in some agitation. "Want to show you somethin'!"

"Is there anything important?" Gramont hesitated. The other regarded him with a baleful countenance.

"Important? Worse'n that!"

Gramont rose and followed Hammond out to the garage, much to his amazement. The chauffeur halted beside the car and extended him a key, pointing to the luggage compartment.

"Here's the key--you open her!"

"What's the matter, man?"

"The stuff's gone!"

Gramont seized the key and opened the compartment. It proved empty indeed. He stared up into the face of Hammond who was watching in dogged silence.

"I knew you'd suspect me," broke out the chauffeur, but Gramont interrupted him curtly.

"Don't be a fool; nothing of the sort. Was the garage locked?"

"Yes, and the compartment, too! I came out to look over that cut tire, and thought I'd make sure the stuff was safe----"

"We're up against it, that's all." Gramont compressed his lips for a moment. Then he straightened up and clapped the other on the shoulder. "Buck up! I never thought of suspecting you, old fellow. Someone must have been watching us last night, eh?"

"The guy that trailed you yesterday, most like," agreed Hammond, dourly. "It ain't hard to break into this place, and any one could open that compartment with a hairpin."

"Well, you're saved a trip into the country."

"You think they got us, cap'n? What can we do?"

"Do?" Gramont shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "Nothing except to wait and see what happens next! If you want to run, I'll give you enough money to land you in New York or Frisco----"

"Run--h.e.l.l!" Hammond sniffed in scorn. "What d'you think I am--a boche? I'll stick."

"Good boy." Gramont turned toward the house. "Come along in and get breakfast, and don't touch that compartment door. I want to examine it later."

Hammond gazed admiringly after him as he crossed the garden. "If you ain't a cool hand, I'm a Dutchman!" he murmured, and followed his master.

CHAPTER VI.

Chacherre.

At ten o'clock that Monday morning Gramont's car approached Ca.n.a.l Street, and halted a block distant. For any car to gain Ca.n.a.l, much less to follow it, was impossible. From curb to curb the wide avenue was thronged with carnival folk, who would hold their own until Proteus came ash.o.r.e to manage his own parade and his own section of the festivities.

Gramont left the car, and turned to speak with Hammond.

"I've made out at least two fingerprints on the luggage compartment," he said, quietly. "Drive around to police headquarters and enter a complaint in my name to a robbery of the compartment; say that the thief got away with some valuable packages I had been about to mail. They have a process of transferring fingerprints such as these; get it done. Perhaps they can identify the thief, for it must have been some clever picklock to get into the compartment without leaving a scratch. Take your time about it and come home when you've finished."

Hammond listened stolidly. "If it was the bulls done it, cap'n, going to them will get us pinched sure----"

"If they had done it," said Gramont, "we'd have been pinched long before this! It was someone sent by that devil Jachin Fell, and I'll land him if I can!"

"Then Fell will land us if he's got the stuff!"

"Let him! How can he prove anything, unless he had brought the police to open up that compartment? Get along with you!"

Hammond grinned, saluted, and drove away.

Slowly Gramont edged his way through the eddying crowds to Ca.n.a.l Street, and presently gained the imposing portals of the Exeter National Bank. Entering the building, he sent his card to the private office of the president; a moment later he was ushered in, and was closeted with Joseph Maillard.

The interior of the Exeter National reflected the stern personality that ruled it. The bank was dark, old fashioned, conservative, guarded with much effrontery of iron grills and bars against the evil doer.

The window men greeted their customers with infrequent smiles, with caution and reserve so great that it was positively chilly. Suspicion seemed in the air. The bank's reputation for guarding the sanct.i.ty of wealth seemed to rest heavily upon each pair of bowed shoulders. Even the stenographers were unhandsome women, weary-eyed, drearily efficient, and obviously respectable.

As befitted so old and conservative a New Orleans inst.i.tution, much of its business was transacted in French.

The business customers of this bank found their affairs handled coldly, efficiently, with an inhuman precision that was admirable. It was good for business, and they liked it. There were no mistakes.

People who were accustomed to dealing with bankers of cordial smile and courteous word, people who liked to walk into a bank and to be met with a personal greeting, did not come here, nor were they wanted here. The Exeter National was a place for business, not for courtesy. It was absolutely precise, cold, inhuman, and spelled business from the ground up. Its oldest customer could not buy a draft on Paris or London or other of the bank's correspondents without paying the required fee. The wealthiest depositor could not expect to overdraw his checking account one dollar without being required to settle up before the next day was gone. Loans were made hesitatingly, grudgingly, and of necessity, always on security and never on character.

Such was the Exeter National. Its character was reflected in the cold faces at its windows, and the chance customers who entered its sacred portals were duly cowed and put in their proper place. Most of them were, that is. Occasionally some intrepid soul appeared who seemed impervious to the gloomy chill, who seemed even to resent it. One of these persons was now standing in the lobby and staring around with a cool impudence which drew unfavourable glances from the clerks.

He was a decently dressed fellow, obviously no customer of this sacrosanct place, obviously a stranger to its interior. Beneath a rakishly c.o.c.ked soft hat beamed a countenance that bore a look of self-a.s.sured impertinent deviltry. After one look at that countenance the a.s.sistant cashier crooked a hasty finger at the floor guard, who nodded and walked over to the intruder with a polite query.

"Can I help you, sir?"

The intruder turned, favoured the guard with a cool stare, then broke into a laugh and a flood of Creole dialect.

"Why, if it isn't old Lacroix from Carencro! And look at the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons--diable! You must own this place, hein? la tche chatte pousse avec temps--the cat's tail grows in time, I see! You remember me?"

"Ben Chacherre!" exclaimed the guard, losing his dignity for an instant. "Why--you vaurien, you! You who disappeared from the parish and became a vagrant----"

"So you turn up your sanctified nose at Ben Chacherre, do you?" exclaimed that person jauntily. He thrust his hat a bit farther over one ear, and proceeded to snap his fingers under the nose of Lacroix.

"A vaurien, am I? Old peac.o.c.k! Lead me to the man who cashes checks, lackey, bra.s.s b.u.t.tons that you are! Come, obey me, or I'll have you thrown into the street!"

"You--you wish to cash a check?" The guard was overcome by confusion, for the loud tones of Chacherre penetrated the entire inst.i.tution. "But you are not known here----"

"Bah, insolent one! Macaque dan caleba.s.se--monkey in the calabash that you are! Do you not know me?"

"Heaven preserve me! I will not answer for your accursed checks."

"Go to the devil, then," snapped Chacherre, and turned away.

His roving eyes had already found the correct window by means of the other persons seeking it, and now he stepped into the small queue that had formed. When it came his turn, he slid his check across the marble slab, tucked his thumbs into the armholes of his vest, and impudently stared into the questioning, coldly repellent eyes of the teller.

"Well?" he exclaimed, as the teller examined the check. "Do you wish to eat it, that you sniff so hard?"

The teller gave him a glance. "This is for a thousand dollars----"

"Can I not read?" said Chacherre, with an impudent gesture. "Am I an ignorant 'Cajun? Have I not eyes in my head? If you wish to start an argument, say that the check is for a hundred dollars. Then, by heaven, I will argue something with you!"

"You are Ben Chacherre, eh? Does any one here know you?"

Chacherre exploded in a violent oath. "Dolt that you are, do I have to be known when the check is endorsed under my signature? Who taught you business, monkey?"

"True," answered the teller, sulkily. "Yet the amount----"

"Oh, bah!" Chacherre snapped his fingers. "Go and telephone Jachin Fell, you old woman! Go and tell him you do not know his signature--well, who are you looking at? Am I a telephone, then? You are not hired to look but to act! Get about it."

The enraged and scandalized teller beckoned a confrere. Jachin Fell was telephoned. Presumably his response was rea.s.suring, for Chacherre was presently handed a thousand dollars in small bills, as he requested. He insisted upon counting over the money at the window with insolent a.s.siduity, flung a final compliment at the teller, and swaggered across the lobby. He was still standing by the entrance when Henry Gramont left the private office of the president and pa.s.sed him by without a look.

Gramont was smiling to himself as he left the bank, and Ben Chacherre was whistling gaily as he also left and plunged into the whirling vortex of the carnival crowds.

Toward noon Gramont arrived afoot at his pension. Finding the rooms empty, he went on and pa.s.sed through the garden. Behind the garage, in the alley, he discovered Hammond busily at work cleaning and polishing the engine of the car.

"h.e.l.lo!" he exclaimed, cheerily. "What luck?"

"Pretty good, cap'n." Hammond glanced up, then paused.

A stranger was strolling toward them along the alleyway, a jaunty individual who was gaily whistling and who seemed entirely carefree and happy. He appeared to have no interest whatever in them, and Hammond concluded that he was innocuous.

"They got them prints fine, cap'n. What's more, they think they've located the fellow that made 'em."

"Ah, good work!" exclaimed Gramont. "Some criminal?"

Hammond frowned. The stranger had come to a halt a few feet distant, flung them a jerky, careless nod, and was beginning to roll a cigarette. He surveyed the car with a knowing and appreciative eye. Hammond turned his back on the man disdainfully.

"Yep--a sneak thief they'd pinched a couple of years back; didn't know where he was, but the prints seemed to fit him. They'll come up and look things over sometime to-day, then go after him and land him."

Gramont gave the stranger a glance, but the other was still surveying the car with evident admiration. If he heard their words he gave them no attention.

"Who was the man, then?" asked Gramont.

"A guy with a queer name--Ben Chacherre." Hammond p.r.o.nounced it as he deemed correct--as the name was spelled. "Only they didn't call him that. Here, I wrote it down."

He fished in his pocket and produced a paper. Gramont glanced at it and laughed.

"Oh, Chacherre!" He gave the name the Creole p.r.o.nunciation.