Cram relapsed into a brown study. Reynolds was poring over the note written to Braxton and comparing it with one he held in his hand,—an old one, and one that told an old, old story. "I know you'll say I have no right to ask this," it read, "but you're a gentleman, and I'm a friendless woman deserted by a worthless husband. My own people are ruined by the war, but even if they had money they wouldn't send any to me, for I offended them all by marrying a Yankee officer. God knows I am punished enough for that. But I was so young and innocent when he courted me. I ought to of left—I would of left him as soon as I found out how good-for-nothing he really was, only I was so much in love I couldn't. I was fastenated, I suppose. Now I've sold everything, but if you'll only lend me fifty dollars I'll work my fingers to the bone until I pay it. For the old home's sake, please do."

"It's the same hand,—the same woman, Cram, beyond a doubt. She bled Waring for the old home's sake the first winter he was in the South. He told me all about it two years ago in Washington, when we heard of her the second time. Now she's followed him over here, or got here first, tried the same game probably, met with a refusal, and this anonymous note is her revenge. The man she married was a crack-brained weakling who got into the army the fag end of the war, fell in love with her pretty face, married her, then they quarrelled, and he drank himself into a muddle-head. She ran him into debt; then he gambled away government funds, bolted, was caught, and would have been tried and sent to jail, but some powerful relative saved him that, and simply had him dropped;—never heard of him again. She was about a month grass-widowed when Waring came on his first duty there. He had an uncongenial lot of brother officers for a two-company post, and really had known of this girl and her people before the war, and she appealed to him, first for sympathy and help, then charity, then blackmail, I reckon, from which his fever saved him. Then she struck some quartermaster or other and lived off him for a while; drifted over here, and no sooner did he arrive, all ignorant of her presence in or around New Orleans, than she began pestering him again. When he turned a deaf ear, she probably threatened, and then came these anonymous missives to you and Braxton. Yours always came by mail, you say. The odd thing about the colonel's—this one, at least—is that it was with his mail, but never came through the post-office."

"That's all very interesting," said the little civilian, dryly, "but what we want is evidence to acquit him and convict somebody else of Lascelles's death. What has this to do with the other?"

"This much: This letter came to Braxton by hand, not by mail,—by hand, probably direct from her. What hand had access to the office the day when the whole command was out at review? Certainly no outsider. The mail is opened and distributed on its arrival at nine o'clock by the chief clerk, or by the sergeant-major, if he happens to be there, though he's generally at guard mount. On this occasion he was out at review. Leary, chief clerk, tells Colonel Braxton he opened and distributed the mail, putting the colonel's on his desk; Root was with him and helped. The third clerk came in later; had been out all night, drinking. His name is Dawson. Dawson goes out again and gets fuller, and when next brought home is put in hospital under a sentry. Then he hears of the murder, bolts, and isn't heard from since, except as the man who helped Mrs. Doyle to get her husband home. He is the fellow who brought that note. He knew something of its contents, for the murder terrified him, and he ran away. Find his trail, and you strike that of the woman who wrote these."

"By the Lord, lieutenant, if you'll quit the army and take my place you'll make a name and a fortune."

"And if you'll quit your place and take mine you'll get your coup de grace in some picayune Indian fight and be forgotten. So stay where you are; but find Dawson, find her, find what they know, and you'll be famous."



CHAPTER IX.

That night, or very early next morning, there was pandemonium at the barracks. It was clear, still, beautiful. A soft April wind was drifting up from the lower coast, laden with the perfume of sweet olive and orange blossoms. Mrs. Cram, with one or two lady friends and a party of officers, had been chatting in low tone upon their gallery until after eleven, but elsewhere about the moonlit quadrangle all was silence when the second relief was posted. Far at the rear of the walled enclosure, where, in deference to the manners and customs of war as observed in the good old days whereof our seniors tell, the sutler's establishment was planted within easy hailing-distance of the guard-house, there was still the sound of modified revelry by night, and poker and whiskey punch had gathered their devotees in the grimy parlors of Mr. Finkbein, and here the belated ones tarried until long after midnight, as most of them were bachelors and had no better halves, as had Doyle, to fetch them home "out of the wet." Cram and his lieutenants, with the exception of Doyle, were never known to patronize this establishment, whatsoever they might do outside. They had separated before midnight, and little Pierce, after his customary peep into Waring's preserves, had closed the door, gone to his own room, to bed and to sleep. Ferry, as battery officer of the day, had made the rounds of the stables and gun-shed about one o'clock, and had encountered Captain Kinsey, of the infantry, coming in from his long tramp through the dew-wet field, returning from the inspection of the sentry-post at the big magazine.

"No news of poor Sam yet, I suppose?" said Kinsey, sadly, as the two came strolling in together through the rear gate.

"Nothing whatever," was Ferry's answer. "We cannot even form a conjecture, unless he, too, has been murdered. Think of there being a warrant out for his arrest,—for him, Sam Waring!"

"Well," said Kinsey, "no other conclusion could he well arrived at, unless that poor brute Doyle did it in a drunken row. Pills says he never saw a man so terror-stricken as he seems to be. He's afraid to leave him, really, and Doyle's afraid to be alone,—thinks the old woman may get in."

"She has no excuse for coming, captain," said Ferry. "When she told Cram she must see her husband to-day, that she was out of money and starving, the captain surprised her by handing her fifty dollars, which is much more than she'd have got from Doyle. She took it, of course, but that isn't what she wanted. She wants to get at him. She has money enough."

"Yes, that woman's a terror, Ferry. Old Mrs. Murtagh, wife of my quartermaster sergeant, has been in the army twenty years, and says she knew her well,—knew all her people. She comes from a tough lot, and they had a bad reputation in Texas in the old days. Doyle's a totally different man since she turned up, Cram tells me. Hello! here's 'Pills the Less,'" he suddenly exclaimed, as they came opposite the west gate, leading to the hospital. "How's your patient, Doc?"

"Well, he's sleeping at last. He seems worn out. It's the first time I've left him, but I'm used up and want a few hours' sleep. There isn't anything to drink in the room, even if he should wake, and Jim is sleeping or lying there by him."

"Oh, he'll do all right now, I reckon," said the officer of the day, cheerfully. "Go and get your sleep. The old woman can't get at him unless she bribes my sentries or rides the air on a broomstick, like some other old witches I've read of. Ferry sleeps in the adjoining room, anyhow, so he can look out for her. Good-night, Doc." And so, on they went, glancing upward at the dim light just showing through the window-blinds in the gable end of Doyle's quarters, and halting at the foot of the stairs.

"Come over and have a pipe with me, Ferry," said the captain. "It's too beautiful a night to turn in. I want to talk to you about Waring, anyhow. This thing weighs on my mind."

"Done with you, for an hour, anyhow!" said Ferry. "Just wait a minute till I run up and get my baccy."

Presently down came the young fellow again, meerschaum in hand, the moonlight glinting on his slender figure, so trim and jaunty in the battery dress. Kinsey looked him over with a smile of soldierly approval and a whimsical comment on the contrast between the appearance of this young artillery sprig and that of his own stout personality, clad as he was in a bulging blue flannel sack-coat, only distinguishable in cut and style from civilian garb by its having brass buttons and a pair of tarnished old shoulder-straps. Ferry was a swell. His shell jacket fitted like wax. The Russian shoulder-knots of twisted gold were of the handsomest make. The riding-breeches, top-boots, and spurs were such that even Waring could not criticise. His sabre gleamed in the moonbeams, and Kinsey's old leather-covered sword looked dingy by contrast. His belt fitted trim and taut, and was polished as his boot-tops; Kinsey's sank down over the left hip, and was worn brown. The sash Ferry sported as battery officer of the day was draped, West Point fashion, over the shoulder and around the waist, and accurately knotted and looped; Kinsey's old war-worn crimson net was slung higgledy-piggledy over his broad chest.

"What swells you fellows are, Ferry!" he said, laughingly, as the youngster came dancing down. "Even old Doyle gets out here in his scarlet plume occasionally and puts us doughboys to shame. What's the use in trying to make such a rig as ours look soldierly? If it were not for the brass buttons our coats would make us look like parsons and our hats like monkeys. As for this undress, all that can be said in its favor is, you can't spoil it even by sleeping out on the levee in it, as I am sometimes tempted to do. Let's go out there now."

It was perhaps quarter of two when they took their seats on the wooden bench under the trees, and, lighting their pipes, gazed out over the broad sweeping flood of the Mississippi, gleaming like a silvered shield in the moonlight. Far across at the opposite shore the low line of orange-groves and plantation houses and quarters was merged in one long streak of gloom, relieved only at intervals by twinkling light. Farther up-stream, like dozing sea-dogs, the fleet of monitors lay moored along the bank, with the masts and roofs of Algiers dimly outlined against the crescent sweep of lights that marked the levee of the great Southern metropolis, still prostrate from the savage buffeting of the war, yet so soon to rouse from lethargy, resume her sway, and, stretching forth her arms, to draw once again to her bosom the wealth and tribute, tenfold augmented, of the very heart of the nation, until, mistress of the commerce of a score of States, she should rival even New York in the volume of her trade. Below them, away to the east towards English Turn, rolled the tawny flood, each ripple and eddy and swirling pool crested with silver,—the twinkling lights at Chalmette barely distinguishable from dim, low-hanging stars. Midway the black hulk of some big ocean voyager was forging slowly, steadily towards them, the red light of the port side already obscured, the white and green growing with every minute more and more distinct, and, save the faint rustle of the leaves overhead, murmuring under the touch of the soft, southerly night wind, the plash of wavelet against the wooden pier, and the measured footfall of the sentry on the flagstone walk in front of the sally-port, not a sound was to be heard.

For a while they smoked in silence, enjoying the beauty of the night, though each was thinking only of the storm that swept over the scene the Sunday previous and of the tragedy that was borne upon its wings. At last Kinsey shook himself together.

"Ferry, sometimes I come out here for a quiet smoke and think. Did it ever occur to you what a fearful force, what illimitable power, there is sweeping by us here night after night with never a sound?"

"Oh, you mean the Mississip," said Ferry, flippantly. "It would be a case of mops and brooms, I fancy, if she were to bust through the bank and sweep us out into the swamps."

"Exactly! that's in case she broke loose, as you say; but even when in the shafts, as she is now, between the levees, how long would it take her to sweep a fellow from here out into the gulf, providing nothing interposed to stop him?"

"Matter of simple mathematical calculation," said Ferry, practically. "They say it's an eight-mile current easy out there in the middle where she's booming. Look at that barrel scooting down yonder. Now, I'd lay a fiver I could cut loose from here at reveille and shoot the passes before taps and never pull a stroke. It's less than eighty miles down to the forts."

"Well, then, a skiff like that that old Anatole's blaspheming about losing wouldn't take very long to ride over that route, would it?" said Kinsey, reflectively.

"No, not if allowed to slide. But somebody'd be sure to put out and haul it in as a prize,—flotsam and what-you-may-call-'em. You see these old niggers all along here with their skiffs tacking on to every hit of drift-wood that's worth having."

"But, Ferry, do you think they'd venture out in such a storm as Sunday last?—think anything could live in it short of a decked ship?"

"No, probably not. Certainly not Anatole's boat."

"Well, that's just what I'm afraid of, and what Cram and Reynolds dread."

"Do they? Well, so far as that storm's concerned, it would have blown it down-stream until it came to the big bend below here to the east. Then, by rights, it ought to have blown against the left bank. But every inch of it has been scouted all the way to quarantine. The whole river was filled with drift, though, and it might have been wedged in a lot of logs and swept out anyhow. Splendid ship, that! Who is she, do you suppose?"

The great black hull with its lofty tracery of masts and spars was now just about opposite the barracks, slowly and majestically ascending the stream.

"One of those big British freight steamers that moor there below the French Market, I reckon. They seldom come up at night unless it's in the full of the moon, and even then they move with the utmost caution. See, she's slowing up now."

"Hello! Listen! What's that?" exclaimed Ferry, starting to his feet.

A distant, muffled cry. A distant shot. The sentry at the sally-port dashed through the echoing vault, then bang! came the loud roar of his piece, followed by the yell of—

"Fire! fire! The guard!"

With one spring Ferry was down the levee and darted like a deer across the road, Kinsey lumbering heavily after. Even as he sped through the stone-flagged way, the hoarse roar of the drum at the guard-house, followed instantly by the blare of the bugle from the battery quarters, sounded the stirring alarm. A shrill, agonized female voice was madly screaming for help. Guards and sentries were rushing to the scene, and flames were bursting from the front window of Doyle's quarters. Swift though Ferry ran, others were closer to the spot. Half a dozen active young soldiers, members of the infantry guard, had sprung to the rescue. When Ferry dashed up to the gallery he was just in time to stumble over a writhing and prostrate form, to help extinguish the blazing clothing of another, to seize his water-bucket and douse its contents over a third,—one yelling, the others stupefied by smoke—or something. In less time than it takes to tell it, daring fellows had ripped down the blazing shades and shutters, tossed them to the parade beneath, dumped a heap of soaked and smoking bedding out of the rear windows, splashed a few bucketfuls of water about the reeking room, and the fire was out. But the doctors were working their best to bring back the spark of life to two senseless forms, and to still the shrieks of agony that burst from the seared and blistered lips of Bridget Doyle.

While willing hands bore these scorched semblances of humanity to neighboring rooms and tender-hearted women hurried to add their ministering touch, and old Braxton ordered the excited garrison back to quarters and bed, he, with Cram and Kinsey and Ferry, made prompt examination of the premises. On the table two whiskey-bottles, one empty, one nearly full, that Dr. Potts declared were not there when he left at one. On the mantel a phial of chloroform, which was also not there before. But a towel soaked with the stifling contents lay on the floor by Jim's rude pallet, and a handkerchief half soaked, half consumed, was on the chair which had stood by the bedside, among the fragments of an overturned kerosene lamp.

A quick examination of the patients showed that Jim, the negro, had been chloroformed and was not burned at all, that Doyle was severely burned and had probably inhaled flames, and that the woman was crazed with drink, terror, and burns combined. It took the efforts of two or three men and the influence of powerful opiates to quiet her. Taxed with negligence or complicity on the part of the sentry, the sergeant of the guard repudiated the idea, and assured Colonel Braxton that it was an easy matter for any one to get either in or out of the garrison without encountering the sentry, and, taking his lantern, led the way out to the hospital grounds by a winding foot-path among the trees to a point in the high white picket fence where two slats had been shoved aside. Any one coming along the street without could pass far beyond the ken of the sentry at the west gate, and slip in with the utmost ease, and once inside, all that was necessary was to dodge possible reliefs and patrols. No sentry was posted at the gate through the wall that separated the garrison proper from the hospital grounds. Asked why he had not reported this, the sergeant smiled and said there were a dozen others just as convenient, so what was the use? He did not say, however, that he and his fellows had recourse to them night after night.

It was three o'clock when the officers' families fairly got settled down again and back to their beds, and the silence of night once more reigned over Jackson Barracks. One would suppose that such a scene of terror and excitement was enough, and that now the trembling, frightened women might be allowed to sleep in peace; but it was not to be. Hardly had one of their number closed her eyes, hardly had all the flickering lights, save those at the hospital and guard-house, been downed again, when the strained nerves of the occupants of the officers' quadrangle were jumped into mad jangling once more and all the barracks aroused a second time, and this, too, by a woman's shriek of horror.

Mrs. Conroy, a delicate, fragile little body, wife of a junior lieutenant of infantry occupying a set of quarters in the same building with, but at the opposite end from, Pierce and Waring, was found lying senseless at the head of the gallery stairs.

When revived, amid tears and tremblings and incoherent exclamations she declared that she had gone down to the big ice-chest on the ground-floor to get some milk for her nervous and frightened child and was hurrying noiselessly up the stairs again,—the only means of communication between the first and second floors,—when, face to face, in front of his door, she came upon Mr. Waring, or his ghost; that his eyes were fixed and glassy; that he did not seem to see her even when he spoke, for speak he did. His voice sounded like a moan of anguish, she said, but the words were distinct: "Where is my knife? Who has taken my knife?"

And then little Pierce, who had helped to raise and carry the stricken woman to her room, suddenly darted out on the gallery and ran along to the door he had closed four hours earlier. It was open. Striking a match, he hurried through into the chamber beyond, and there, face downward upon the bed, lay his friend and comrade Waring, moaning like one in the delirium of fever.



CHAPTER X.

Lieutenant Reynolds was seated at his desk at department head-quarters about nine o'clock that morning when an orderly in light-battery dress dismounted at the banquette and came up the stairs three at a jump. "Captain Cram's compliments, sir, and this is immediate," he reported, as he held forth a note. Reynolds tore it open, read it hastily through, then said, "Go and fetch me a cab quick as you can," and disappeared in the general's room. Half an hour later he was spinning down the levee towards the French Market, and before ten o'clock was seated in the captain's cabin of the big British steamer Ambassador, which had arrived at her moorings during the night. Cram and Kinsey were already there, and to them the skipper was telling his story.

Off the Tortugas, just about as they had shaped their course for the Belize, they were hailed by the little steamer Tampa, bound from New Orleans to Havana. The sea was calm, and a boat put off from the Tampa and came alongside, and presently a gentleman was assisted aboard. He seemed weak from illness, but explained that he was Lieutenant Waring, of the United States Artillery, had been accidentally carried off to sea, and the Ambassador was the first inward-bound ship they had sighted since crossing the bar. He would be most thankful for a passage back to New Orleans. Captain Baird had welcomed him with the heartiness of the British tar, and made him at home in his cabin. The lieutenant was evidently far from well, and seemed somewhat dazed and mentally distressed. He could give no account of his mishap other than that told him by the officers of the Tampa, which had lain to when overtaken by the gale on Saturday night, and on Sunday morning when they resumed their course down-stream they overhauled a light skiff and were surprised to find a man aboard, drenched and senseless. "The left side of his face was badly bruised and discolored, even when he came to us," said Baird, "and he must have been slugged and robbed, for his watch, his seal-ring, and what little money he had were all gone." The second officer of the Tampa had fitted him out with a clean shirt, and the steward dried his clothing as best he could, but the coat was stained and clotted with blood. Mr. Waring had slept heavily much of the way back until they passed Pilot Town. Then he was up and dressed Thursday afternoon, and seemingly in better spirits, when he picked up a copy of the New Orleans Picayune which the pilot had left aboard, and was reading that, when suddenly he started to his feet with an exclamation of amaze, and, when the captain turned to see what was the matter, Waring was ghastly pale and fearfully excited by something he had read. He hid the paper under his coat and sprang up on deck and paced nervously to and fro for hours, and began to grow so ill, apparently, that Captain Baird was much worried. At night he begged to be put ashore at the barracks instead of going on up to town, and Baird had become so troubled about him that he sent his second officer in the gig with him, landed him on the levee opposite the sally-port, and there, thanking them heartily, but declining further assistance, Waring had hurried through the entrance into the barrack square. Mr. Royce, the second officer, said there was considerable excitement, beating of drums and sounding of bugles, at the post, as they rowed towards the shore. He did not learn the cause. Captain Baird was most anxious to learn if the gentleman had safely reached his destination. Cram replied that he had, but in a state bordering on delirium and unable to give any coherent account of himself. He could tell he had been aboard the Ambassador and the Tampa, but that was about all.

And then they told Baird that what Waring probably saw was Wednesday's paper with the details of the inquest on the body of Lascelles and the chain of evidence pointing to himself as the murderer. This caused honest Captain Baird to lay ten to one he wasn't, and five to one he'd never heard of it till he got the paper above Pilot Town. Whereupon all three officers clapped the Briton on the back and shook him by the hand and begged his company to dinner at the barracks and at Moreau's; and then, while Reynolds sped to the police-office and Kinsey back to Colonel Braxton, whom he represented at the interview, Cram remounted, and, followed by the faithful Jeffers, trotted up Rampart Street and sent in his card to Madame Lascelles, and Madame's maid brought back reply that she was still too shocked and stricken to receive visitors. So also did Madame d'Hervilly deny herself, and Cram rode home to Nell.

"It is useless," he said. "She will not see me."

"Then she shall see me," said Mrs. Cram.

And so a second time did Jeffers make the trip to town that day, this time perched with folded arms in the rumble of the pony-phaeton.

And while she was gone, the junior doctor was having the liveliest experience of his few years of service. Scorched and burned though she was, Mrs. Doyle's faculties seemed to have returned with renewed acuteness and force. She demanded to be taken to her husband's side, but the doctor sternly refused. She demanded to be told his condition, and was informed that it was so critical he must not be disturbed, especially by her, who was practically responsible for all his trouble. Then she insisted on knowing whether he was conscious and whether he had asked for a priest, and when informed that Father Foley had already arrived, it required the strength of four men to hold her. She raved like a maniac, and her screams appalled the garrison. But screams and struggles were all in vain. "Pills the Less" sent for his senior, and "Pills the Pitiless" more than ever deserved his name. He sent for a straitjacket, saw her securely stowed away in that and borne over to a vacant room in the old hospital, set the steward's wife on watch and a sentry at the door, went back to Waring's bedside, where Sam lay tossing in burning fever, murmured his few words of caution to Pierce and Ferry, then hastened back to where poor Doyle was gasping in agony of mind and body, clinging to the hand of the gentle soldier of the cross, gazing piteously into his father confessor's eyes, drinking in his words of exhortation, yet unable to make articulate reply. The flames had done their cruel work. Only in desperate pain could he speak again.

It was nearly dark when Mrs. Cram came driving back to barracks, bringing Mr. Reynolds with her. Her eyes were dilated, her cheeks flushed with excitement, as she sprang from the low phaeton, and, with a murmured "Come to me as soon as you can" to her husband, she sped away up the stairs, leaving him to receive and entertain her passenger.

"I, too, went to see Madame Lascelles late this afternoon," said Reynolds. "I wished to show her this."

It was a copy of a despatch to the chief of police of New Orleans. It stated in effect that Philippe Lascelles had not been seen or heard of around Key West for over two weeks. It was believed that he had gone to Havana.

"Can you get word of this to our friend the detective?" asked Cram.

"I have wired already. He has gone to Georgia. What I hoped to do was to note the effect of this on Madame Lascelles; but she was too ill to see me. Luckily, Mrs. Cram was there, and I sent it up to her. She will tell you. Now I have to see Braxton."

And then came a messenger to ask Cram to join the doctor at Doyle's quarters at once: so he scurried up-stairs to see Nell first and learn her tidings.

"Did I not tell you?" she exclaimed, as he entered the parlor. "Philippe Lascelles was here that very night, and had been seen with his brother at the office on Royal Street twice before this thing happened, and they had trouble about money. Oh, I made her understand. I appealed to her as a woman to do what she could to right Mr. Waring, who was so generally believed to be the guilty man. I told her we had detectives tracing Philippe and would soon find how and when he reached New Orleans. Finally I showed her the despatch that Mr. Reynolds sent up, and at last she broke down, burst into tears, and said she, too, had learned since the inquest that Philippe was with her husband, and probably was the stranger referred to, that awful night. She even suspected it at the time, for she knew he came not to borrow but to demand money that was rightfully his, and also certain papers that Armand held and that now were gone. It was she who told me of Philippe's having been seen with Armand at the office, but she declared she could not believe that he would kill her husband. I pointed out the fact that Armand had fired two shots from his pistol, apparently, and that no bullet-marks had been found in the room where the quarrel took place, and that if his shots had taken effect on his antagonist he simply could not have been Waring, for though Waring had been bruised and beaten about the head, the doctor said there was no sign of bullet-mark about him anywhere. She recognized the truth of this, but still she said she believed that there was a quarrel or was to be a quarrel between her husband and Mr. Waring. Otherwise I believe her throughout. I believe that, no matter what romance there was about her nursing Philippe and his falling in love with her, she did not encourage him, did not call him here again, was true to her old husband. She is simply possessed with the idea that the quarrel which killed her husband was between himself and Mr. Waring, and that it occurred after Philippe had got his money and papers, and gone."

"W-e-e-ll, Philippe will have a heap to explain when he is found," was Cram's reply. "Now I have to go to Doyle's. He is making some confession, I expect, to the priest."

But Cram never dreamed for an instant what that was to be.

That night poor Doyle's spirit took its flight, and the story of misery he had to tell, partly by scrawling with a pencil, partly by gesture in reply to question, partly in painfully-gasped sentences, a few words at a time, was practically this. Lascelles and his party did indeed leave him at the Pelican when he was so drunk he only vaguely knew what was going on or what had happened in the bar-room where they were drinking, but his wife had told him the whole story. Lascelles wanted more drink,—champagne; the bar-tender wanted to close up. They bought several bottles, however, and had them put in the cab, and Lascelles was gay and singing, and, instead of going directly home, insisted on stopping to make a call on the lady who occupied the upper floor of the house Doyle rented on the levee. Doyle rarely saw her, but she sometimes wrote to Lascelles and got Bridget to take the letters to him. She was setting her cap for the old Frenchman. "We called her Mrs. Dawson." The cabman drove very slowly through the storm as Doyle walked home along with Bridget and some man who was helping, and when they reached the gate there was the cab and Waring in it. The cab-driver was standing by his horse, swearing at the delay and saying he would charge double fare. Doyle had had trouble with his wife for many years, and renewed trouble lately because of two visits Lascelles had paid there, and that evening when she sent for him he was drinking in Waring's room, had been drinking during the day; he dreaded more trouble, and 'twas he who took Waring's knife, and still had it, he said, when he entered the gate, and no sooner did he see Lascelles at his door than he ordered him to leave. Lascelles refused to go. Doyle knocked him down, and the Frenchman sprang up, swearing vengeance. Lascelles fired two shots, and Doyle struck once,—with the knife,—and there lay Lascelles, dead, before Doyle could know or realize what he was doing. In fact, Doyle never did know. It was what his wife had told him, and life had been a hell to him ever since that woman came back. She had blackmailed him, more or less, ever since he got his commission, because of an old trouble he'd had in Texas.

And this confession was written out for him, signed by Doyle on his dying bed, duly witnessed, and the civil authorities were promptly notified. Bridget Doyle was handed over to the police. Certain detectives out somewhere on the trail of somebody else were telegraphed to come in, and four days later, when the force of the fever was broken and Waring lay weak, languid, but returning to his senses, Cram and the doctor read the confession to their patient, and then started to their feet as he almost sprang from the bed.

"It's an infernal lie!" he weakly cried. "I took that knife from Doyle and kept it. I myself saw Lascelles to his gate, safe and sound."



CHAPTER XI.

The sunshine of an exquisite April morning was shimmering over the Louisiana lowlands as Battery "X" was "hitching in," and Mrs. Cram's pretty pony-phaeton came flashing through the garrison gate and reined up in front of the guns. A proud and happy woman was Mrs. Cram, and daintily she gathered the spotless, cream-colored reins and slanted her long English driving-whip at the exact angle prescribed by the vogue of the day. By her side, reclining luxuriously on his pillows, was Sam Waring, now senior first lieutenant of the battery, taking his first airing since his strange illness. Pallid and thin though he was, that young gentleman was evidently capable of appreciating to the fullest extent the devoted attentions of which he had been the object ever since his return. Stanch friend and fervent champion of her husband's most distinguished officer at any time, Mrs. Cram had thrown herself into his cause with a zeal that challenged the admiration even of the men whom she mercilessly snubbed because they had accepted the general verdict that Lascelles had died by Waring's hand. Had they met in the duello as practised in the South in those days, sword to sword, or armed with pistol at twelve paces, she would have shuddered, but maintained that as a soldier and gentleman Waring could not have refused his opponent's challenge, inexcusable though such challenge might have been. But that he could have stooped to vulgar, unregulated fracas, without seconds or the formality of the cartel, first with fists and those women's weapons, nails, then knives or stilettoes, as though he was some low dago or Sicilian,—why, that was simply and utterly incredible. None the less she was relieved and rejoiced, as were all Waring's friends, when the full purport of poor Doyle's dying confession was noised abroad. Even those who were sceptical were now silenced. For four days her comfort and relief had been inexpressible; and then came the hour when, with woe and trouble in his face, her husband returned to her from Waring's bedside with the incomprehensible tidings that he had utterly repudiated Doyle's confession,—had, indeed, said that which could probably only serve to renew the suspicion of his own guilt, or else justify the theory that he was demented.

Though Cram and the doctor warned Waring not to talk, talk he would, to Pierce, to Ferry, to Ananias; and though these three were pledged by Cram to reveal to no one what Waring said, it plunged them in an agony of doubt and misgiving. Day after day had the patient told and re-told the story, and never could cross-questioning shake him in the least. Cram sent for Reynolds and took him into their confidence, and Reynolds heard the story and added his questions, but to no effect. From first to last he remembered every incident up to his parting with Lascelles at his own gateway. After that—nothing.

His story, in brief, was as follows. He was both surprised and concerned, while smoking and chatting with Mr. Allerton in the rotunda of the St. Charles, to see Lascelles with a friend, evidently watching an opportunity of speaking with him. He had noticed about a week previous a marked difference in the old Frenchman's manner, and three days before the tragedy, when calling on his way from town to see Madame and Nin Nin, was informed that they were not at home, and Monsieur himself was the informant; nor did he, as heretofore, invite Waring to enter. Sam was a fellow who detested misunderstanding. Courteously, but positively, he demanded explanation. Lascelles shrugged his shoulders, but gave it. He had heard too much of Monsieur's attentions to Madame his wife, and desired their immediate discontinuance. He must request Monsieur's assurance that he would not again visit Beau Rivage, or else the reparation due a man of honor, etc. "Whereupon," said Waring, "I didn't propose to be outdone in civility, and therefore replied, in the best French I could command, 'Permit me to tender Monsieur—both. Monsieur's friends will find me at the barracks.'"

"All the same," said Waring, "when I found Madame and Nin Nin stuck in the mud I did what I considered the proper thing, and drove them, coram publico, to 'bonne maman's,' never letting them see, of course, that there was any row on tap, and so when I saw the old fellow with a keen-looking party alongside I felt sure it meant mischief. I was utterly surprised, therefore, when Lascelles came up with hat off and hand extended, bowing low, praying pardon for the intrusion, but saying he could not defer another instant the desire to express his gratitude the most profound for my extreme courtesy to Madame and his beloved child. He had heard the whole story, and, to my confusion, insisted on going over all the details before Allerton, even to my heroism, as he called it, in knocking down that big bully of a cabman. I was confused, yet couldn't shake him off. He was persistent. He was abject. He begged to meet my friend, to present his, to open champagne and drink eternal friendship. He would change the name of his chateau—the rotten old rookery—from Beau Rivage to Belle Alliance. He would make this day a fete in the calendar of the Lascelles family. And then it began to dawn on me that he had been drinking champagne before he came. I did not catch the name of the other gentleman, a much younger man. He was very ceremonious and polite, but distant. Then, in some way, came up the fact that I had been trying to get a cab to take me back to barracks, and then Lascelles declared that nothing could be more opportune. He had secured a carriage and was just going down with Monsieur. They had des affaires to transact at once. He took me aside and said, 'In proof that you accept my amende, and in order that I may make to you my personal apologies, you must accept my invitation.' So go with them I did. I was all the time thinking of Cram's mysterious note bidding me return at taps. I couldn't imagine what was up, but I made my best endeavors to get a cab. None was to be had, so I was really thankful for this opportunity. All the way down Lascelles overwhelmed me with civilities, and I could only murmur and protest, and the other party only murmured approbation. He hardly spoke English at all. Then Lascelles insisted on a stop at the Pelican and on bumpers of champagne, and there, as luck would have it, was Doyle,—drunk, as usual, and determined to join the party; and though I endeavored to put him aside, Lascelles would not have it. He insisted on being presented to the comrade of his gallant friend, and in the private room where we went he overwhelmed Doyle with details of our grand reconciliation and with bumper after bumper of Krug. This enabled me to fight shy of the wine, but in ten minutes Doyle was fighting drunk, Lascelles tipsy. The driver came in for his pay, saying he would go no further. They had a row. Lascelles wouldn't pay; called him an Irish thief, and all that. I slipped my last V into the driver's hand and got him out somehow. Monsieur Philippes, or whatever his name was, said he would go out,—he'd get a cab in the neighborhood; and the next thing I knew, Lascelles and Doyle were in a fury of a row. Lascelles said all the Irish were knaves and blackguards and swindlers, and Doyle stumbled around after him. Out came a pistol! Out came a knife! I tripped Doyle and got him into a chair, and was so intent on pacifying him and telling him not to make a fool of himself that I didn't notice anything else. I handled him good-naturedly, got the knife away, and then was amazed to find that he had my own pet paper-cutter. I made them shake hands and make up. It was all a mistake, said Lascelles. But what made it a worse mistake, the old man would order more wine, and, with it, brandy. He insisted on celebrating this second grand reconciliation, and then both got drunker, but the tall Frenchman had Lascelles's pistol and I had the knife, and then a cab came, and, though it was storming beastly and I had Ferry's duds on and Larkin's best tile and Pierce's umbrella, we bundled in somehow and drove on down the levee, leaving Doyle in the hands of that Amazon of a wife of his and a couple of doughboys who happened to be around there. Now Lascelles was all hilarity, singing, joking, confidential. Nothing would do but we must stop and call on a lovely woman, a belle amie. He could rely on our discretion, he said, laying his finger on his nose, and looking sly and coquettish, for all the world like some old roue of a Frenchman. He must stop and see her and take her some wine. 'Indeed,' he said, mysteriously, 'it is a rendezvous.' Well, I was their guest; I had no money. What could I do? It was then after eleven, I should judge. Monsieur Philippes, or whatever his name was, gave orders to the driver. We pulled up, and then, to my surprise, I found we were at Doyle's. That ended it. I told them they must excuse me. They protested, but of course I couldn't go in there. So they took a couple of bottles apiece and went in the gate, and I settled myself for a nap and got it. I don't know how long I slept, but I was aroused by the devil's own tumult. A shot had been fired. Men and women both were screaming and swearing. Some one suddenly burst into the cab beside me, really pushed from behind, and then away we went through the mud and the rain; and the lightning was flashing now, and presently I could recognize Lascelles, raging. 'Infame!' 'Coquin!' 'Assassin!' were the mildest terms he was volleying at somebody; and then, recognizing me, he burst into maudlin tears, swore I was his only friend. He had been insulted, abused, denied reparation. Was he hurt? I inquired, and instinctively felt for my knife. It was still there where I'd hid it in the inside pocket of my overcoat. No hurt; not a blow. Did I suppose that he, a Frenchman, would pardon that or leave the spot until satisfaction had been exacted? Then I begged him to be calm and listen to me for a moment. I told him my plight,—that I had given my word to be at barracks that evening; that I had no money left, but I could go no further. Instantly he forgot his woes and became absorbed in my affairs. 'Parole d'honneur!' he would see that mine was never unsullied. He himself would escort me to the maison de Capitaine Cram. He would rejoice to say to that brave ennemi, Behold! here is thy lieutenant, of honor the most unsullied, of courage the most admirable, of heart the most magnanimous. The Lord only knows what he wouldn't have done had we not pulled up at his gate. There I helped him out on the banquette. He was steadied by his row, whatever it had been. He would not let me expose myself—even under Pierce's umbrella. He would not permit me to suffer 'from times so of the dog.' 'You will drive Monsieur to his home and return here for me at once,' he ordered cabby, grasped both my hands with fervent good-night and the explanation that he had much haste, implored pardon for leaving me,—on the morrow he would call and explain everything,—then darted into the gate. We never could have parted on more friendly terms. I stood a moment to see that he safely reached his door, for a light was dimly burning in the hall, then turned to jump into the cab, but it wasn't there. Nothing was there. I jumped from the banquette into a berth aboard some steamer out at sea. They tell me the first thing I asked for was Pierce's umbrella and Larkin's hat."

And this was the story that Waring maintained from first to last. "Pills" ventured a query as to whether the amount of Krug and Clicquot consumed might not have overthrown his mental equipoise. No, Sam declared, he drank very little. "The only bacchanalian thing I did was to join in a jovial chorus from a new French opera which Lascelles's friend piped up and I had heard in the North:

Oui, buvons, buvons encore! S'il est un vin qu'on adore De Paris a Macao, C'est le Clicquot, c'est le Clicquot."

Asked if he had formed any conjecture as to the identity of the stranger, Sam said no. The name sounded like "Philippes," but he couldn't be sure. But when told that there were rumors to the effect that Lascelles's younger brother had been seen with him twice or thrice of late, and that he had been in exile because, if anything, of a hopeless passion for Madame his sister-in-law, and that his name was Philippe, Waring looked dazed. Then a sudden light, as of newer, fresher memory, flashed up in his eyes. He seemed about to speak, but as suddenly controlled himself and turned his face to the wall. From that time on he was determinedly dumb about the stranger. What roused him to lively interest and conjecture, however, was Cram's query as to whether he had not recognized in the cabman, called in by the stranger, the very one whom he had "knocked endwise" and who had tried to shoot him that morning. "No," said Waring: "the man did not speak at all, that I noticed, and I did not once see his face, he was so bundled up against the storm." But if it was the same party, suggested he, it seemed hardly necessary to look any further in explanation of his own disappearance. Cabby had simply squared matters by knocking him senseless, helping himself to his watch and ring, and turning out his pockets, then hammering him until frightened off, and then, to cover his tracks, setting him afloat in Anatole's boat.

"Perhaps cabby took a hand in the murder, too," suggested Sam, with eager interest. "You say he had disappeared,—gone with his plunder. Now, who else could have taken my knife?"

Then Reynolds had something to tell him: that the "lady" who wrote the anonymous letters, the belle amie whom Lascelles proposed to visit, the occupant of the upper floor of "the dove-cot," was none other than the blighted floweret who had appealed to him for aid and sympathy, for fifty dollars at first and later for more, the first year of his army service in the South, "for the sake of the old home." Then Waring grew even more excited and interested. "Pills" put a stop to further developments for a few days. He feared a relapse. But, in spite of "Pills," the developments, like other maladies, throve. The little detective came down again. He was oddly inquisitive about that chanson a boire from "Fleur de The." Would Mr. Waring hum it for him? And Sam, now sitting up in his parlor, turned to his piano, and with long, slender, fragile-looking fingers rattled a lively prelude and then faintly quavered the rollicking words.

"Odd," said Mr. Pepper, as they had grown to call him, "I heard that sung by a fellow up in Chartres Street two nights hand-running before this thing happened,—a merry cuss, too, with a rather loose hand on his shekels. Lots of people may know it, though, mayn't they?"

"No, indeed, not down here," said Sam. "It only came out in New York within the last four months, and hasn't been South or West at all, that I know of. What did he look like?"

"Well, what did the feller that was with you look like?"

But here Sam's description grew vague. So Pepper went up to have a beer by himself at the cafe chantant on Chartres Street, and didn't return for nearly a week.

Meantime came this exquisite April morning and Sam's appearance in the pony-phaeton in front of Battery "X." Even the horses seemed to prick up their ears and be glad to see him. Grim old war sergeants rode up to touch their caps and express the hope that they'd soon have the lieutenant in command of the right section again,—"not but what Loot'n't Ferry's doing first-rate, sir,"—and for a few minutes, as his fair charioteer drove him around the battery, in his weak, languid voice, Waring indulged in a little of his own characteristic chaffing:

"I expect you to bring this section up to top notch, Mr. Ferry, as I am constitutionally opposed to any work on my own account. I beg to call your attention, sir, to the fact that it's very bad form to appear with full-dress schabraque on your horse when the battery is in fatigue. The red blanket, sir, the red blanket only should be used. Be good enough to stretch your traces there, right caisson. Yes, I thought so, swing trace is twisted. Carelessness, Mr. Ferry, and indifference to duty are things I won't tolerate. Your cheek-strap, too, sir, is an inch too long. Your bit will fall through that horse's mouth. This won't do, sir, not in my section, sir. I'll fine you a box of Partagas if it occurs again."

But the blare of the bugle sounding "attention" announced the presence of the battery commander. Nell whipped up in an instant and whisked her invalid out of the way.

"Good-morning, Captain Cram," said he, as he passed his smiling chief. "I regret to observe, sir, that things have been allowed to run down somewhat in my absence."

"Oh, out with you, you combination of cheek and incapacity, or I'll run you down with the whole battery. Oh! Waring, some gentlemen in a carriage have just stopped at your quarters, all in black, too. Ah, here's the orderly now."

And the card, black-bordered, handed into the phaeton, bore a name which blanched Waring's face:

M. Philippe Lascelles, N'lle Orleans.

"Why, what is it, Waring?" asked Cram, anxiously, bending down from his saddle.

For a moment Waring was silent. Mrs. Cram felt her own hand trembling.

"Can you turn the battery over to Ferry and come with me?" asked the lieutenant.

"Certainly.—Bugler, report to Lieutenant Ferry and tell him I shall have to be absent for a while.—Drive on, Nell."

When, five minutes later, Waring was assisted up the stair-way, Cram towering on his right, the little party came upon a group of strangers,—three gentlemen, one of whom stepped courteously forward, raising his hat in a black-gloved hand. He was of medium height, slender, erect, and soldierly in bearing; his face was dark and oval, his eyes large, deep, and full of light. He spoke mainly in English, but with marked accent, and the voice was soft and melodious:

"I fear I have intrude. Have I the honor to address Lieutenant Waring? I am Philippe Lascelles."

For a moment Waring was too amazed to speak. At last, with brightening face and holding forth his hand, he said,—

"I am most glad to meet you,—to know that it was not you who drove down with us that night."

"Alas, no! I left Armand but that very morning, returning to Havana, thence going to Santiago. It was not until five days ago the news reached me. It is of that stranger I come to ask."

It was an odd council gathered there in Waring's room in the old barracks that April morning while Ferry was drilling the battery to his heart's content and the infantry companies were wearily going over the manual or bayonet exercise. Old Brax had been sent for, and came. Monsieur Lascelles's friends, both, like himself, soldiers of the South, were presented, and for their information Waring's story was again told, with only most delicate allusion to certain incidents which might be considered as reflecting on the character and dignity of the elder brother. And then Philippe told his. True, there had been certain transactions between Armand and himself. He had fully trusted his brother, a man of affairs, with the management of the little inheritance which he, a soldier, had no idea how to handle, and Armand's business had suffered greatly by the war. It was touching to see how in every word the younger strove to conceal the fact that the elder had misapplied the securities and had been practically faithless to his trust. Everything, he declared, had been finally settled as between them that very morning before his return to Havana. Armand had brought to him early all papers remaining in his possession and had paid him what was justly due. He knew, however, that Armand was now greatly embarrassed in his affairs. They had parted with fond embrace, the most affectionate of brothers. But Philippe had been seeing and hearing enough to make him gravely apprehensive as to Armand's future, to know that his business was rapidly going down-hill, that he had been raising money in various ways, speculating, and had fallen into the hands of sharpers, and yet Armand would not admit it, would not consent to accept help or to use his younger brother's property in any way. "The lawyer," said Philippe, "informed me that Beau Rivage was heavily mortgaged, and it is feared that there will be nothing left for Madame and Nin Nin, though, for that matter, they shall never want." What he had also urged, and he spoke with reluctance here, and owned it only because the detectives told him it was now well known, was that Armand had of late been playing the role of galant homme, and that the woman in the case had fled. Of all this he felt, he said, bound to speak fully, because in coming here with his witnesses to meet Lieutenant Waring and his friends he had two objects in view. The first was to admit that he had accepted as fact the published reports that Lieutenant Waring was probably his brother's slayer; had hastened back to New Orleans to demand justice or obtain revenge; had here learned from the lawyers and police that there were now other and much more probable theories, having heard only one of which he had cried "Enough," and had come to pray the forgiveness of Mr. Waring for having believed an officer and a gentleman guilty of so foul a crime. Second, he had come to invoke his aid in running down the murderer. Philippe was affected almost to tears.

"There is one question I must beg to ask Monsieur," said Waring, as the two clasped hands. "Is there not still a member of your family who entertains the idea that it was I who killed Armand Lascelles?"

And Philippe was deeply embarrassed.

"Ah, monsieur," he answered, "I could not venture to intrude myself upon a grief so sacred. I have not seen Madame, and who is there who could—who would—tell her of Armand's——" And Philippe broke off abruptly, with despairing shrug, and outward wave of his slender hand.

"Let us try to see that she never does know," said Waring. "These are the men we need to find: the driver of the cab, the stranger whose name sounded so like yours, a tall, swarthy, black-haired, black-eyed fellow with pointed moustache——"

"C'est lui! c'est bien lui!" exclaimed Lascelles,—"the very man who insisted on entering the private office where, Armand and I, we close our affairs that morning. His whispered words make my brother all of pale, and yet he go off humming to himself."

"Oh, we'll nail him," said Cram. "Two of the best detectives in the South are on his trail now."

And then came Ananias with a silver tray, champagne, and glasses (from Mrs. Cram), and the conference went on another hour before the guests went off.

"Bless my soul!" said Brax, whose diameter seemed in no wise increased by the quart of Roederer he had swallowed with such gusto,—"bless my soul! and to think I believed that we were going to have a duel with some of those fellows a fortnight or so ago!"

Then entered "Pills" and ordered Waring back to bed. He was sleeping placidly when, late that evening, Reynolds and Cram came tearing up the stair-way, full of great news; but the doctor said not to wake him.

Meantime, how fared it with that bruised reed, the lone widow of the late Lieutenant Doyle? Poor old Jim had been laid away with military honors under the flag at Chalmette, and his faithful Bridget was spending the days in the public calaboose. Drunk and disorderly was the charge on which she had been arraigned, and, though she declared herself abundantly able to pay her fine twice over, Mr. Pepper had warned the authorities to keep her under lock and key and out of liquor, as her testimony would be of vital importance, if for nothing better than to send her up for perjury. Now she was alternately wheedling, cursing, coaxing, bribing; all to no purpose. The agent of the Lemaitre property had swooped down on the dove-cot and found a beggarly array of empty bottles and a good deal of discarded feminine gear scattered about on both floors. One room in which certain detectives were vastly interested contained the unsavory relics of a late supper. Three or four empty champagne-bottles, some shattered glasses, and, what seemed most to attract them, various stubs of partially-consumed cigarettes, lay about the tables and floor. Adjoining this was the chamber which had been known as Mrs. Dawson's, and this, too, had been thoroughly explored. 'Louette, who had disappeared after Doyle's tragic death, was found not far away, and the police thought it but fair that Mrs. Doyle should not be deprived of the services of her maid. Then came other additions, though confined in other sections of the city. Mr. Pepper wired that the party known as Monsieur Philippes had been run to earth and would reach town with him by train about the same time that another of the force returned from Mobile by boat, bringing a young man known as Dawson and wanted as a deserter, and a very sprightly young lady who appeared to move in a higher sphere of life, but was unquestionably his wife, for the officer could prove their marriage in South Carolina in the spring of '65. As Mr. Pepper expressed it when he reported to Reynolds, "It's almost a full hand, but, for a fact, it's only a bobtail flush. We need that cabman to fill."

"How did you trace Philippes?" asked Reynolds.

"Him? Oh, he was too darned musical. It was—what do you call it?—Flure de Tay that did for him. Why, he's the fellow that raised all the money and most of the h—ll for this old man Lascelles. He'd been sharping him for years."

"Well, when can we bring this thing to a head?" asked the aide-de-camp.

"Poco tiempo! by Saturday, I reckon."

But it came sooner.

Waring was seated one lovely evening in a low reclining chair on Mrs. Cram's broad gallery, sipping contentedly at the cup of fragrant tea she had handed him. The band was playing, and a number of children were chasing about in noisy glee. The men were at supper, the officers, as a rule, at mess. For several minutes the semi-restored invalid had not spoken a word. In one of his customary day-dreams he had been calmly gazing at the shapely white hand of his hostess, "all queenly with its weight of rings."

"Will you permit me to examine those rings a moment?" he said.

"Why, certainly. No, you sit still, Mr. Waring," she replied, promptly rising, and, pulling them off her fingers, dropped them into his open palm. With the same dreamy expression on his clear-cut, pallid face, he turned them over and over, held them up to the light, finally selected one exquisite gem, and then, half rising, held forth the others. As she took them and still stood beside his chair as though patiently waiting, he glanced up.

"Oh, beg pardon. You want this, I suppose?" and, handing her the dainty teacup, he calmly slipped the ring into his waistcoat-pocket and languidly murmured, "Thanks."

"Well, I like that."

"Yes? So do I, rather better than the others."

"May I ask what you purpose doing with my ring?"

"I was just thinking. I've ordered a new Amidon for Larkin, a new ninety-dollar suit for Ferry, and I shall be decidedly poor this month, even if we recover Merton's watch."

"Oh, well, if it's only to pawn one, why not take a diamond?"

"But it isn't."

"What then, pray?"

"Well, again I was just thinking—whether I could find another to match this up in town, or send this one—to her."

"Mr. Waring! Really?" And now Mrs. Cram's bright eyes are dancing with eagerness and delight.

For all answer, though his own eyes begin to moisten and swim, he draws from an inner pocket a dainty letter, post-marked from a far, far city to the northeast.

"You dear fellow! How can I tell you how glad I am! I haven't dared to ask you of her since we met at Washington, but—oh, my heart has been just full of her since—since this trouble came."

"God bless the trouble! it was that that won her to me at last. I have loved her ever since I first saw her—long years ago."

"Oh! oh! OH! if Ned were only here! I'm wild to tell him. I may, mayn't I?"

"Yes, the moment he comes."

But Ned brought a crowd with him when he got back from town a little later. Reynolds was there, and Philippe Lascelles, and Mr. Pepper, and they had a tale to tell that must needs be condensed.

They had all been present by invitation of the civil authorities at a very dramatic affair during the late afternoon,—the final lifting of the veil that hid from public view the "strange, eventful history" of the Lascelles tragedy. Cram was the spokesman by common consent. "With the exception of the Dawsons," said he, "none of the parties implicated knew up to the hour of his or her examination that any one of the others was to appear." Mrs. Dawson, eager to save her own pretty neck, had told her story without reservation. Dawson knew nothing.

The story had been wrung from her piecemeal, but was finally told in full, and in the presence of the officers and civilians indicated. She had married in April, '65, to the scorn of her people, a young Yankee officer attached to the commissary department. She had starved all through the war. She longed for life, luxury, comforts. She had nothing but her beauty, he nothing but his pay. The extravagances of a month swamped him; the drink and desperation of the next ruined him. He maintained her in luxury at the best hotel only a few weeks, then all of his and much of Uncle Sam's money was gone. Inspection proved him a thief and embezzler. He fled, and she was abandoned to her own resources. She had none but her beauty and a gift of penmanship which covered the many sins of her orthography. She was given a clerkship, but wanted more money, and took it, blackmailing a quartermaster. She imposed on Waring, but he quickly found her out and absolutely refused afterwards to see her at all. She was piqued and angered, "a woman scorned," but not until he joined Battery "X" did opportunity present itself for revenge. She had secured a room under Mrs. Doyle's reputable roof, to be near the barracks, where she could support herself by writing for Mrs. Doyle and blackmailing those whom she lured, and where she could watch him, and, to her eager delight, she noted and prepared to make much of his attentions to Madame Lascelles. Incidentally, too, she might inveigle the susceptible Lascelles himself, on the principle that there's no fool like an old fool. Mrs. Doyle lent herself eagerly to the scheme. The letters began to pass to and fro again. Lascelles was fool enough to answer, and when, all on a sudden, Mrs. Doyle's "long-missing relative," as she called him, turned up, a pensioner on her charity, it was through the united efforts of the two women he got a situation as cab-driver at the stable up at the eastern skirt of the town. Dawson had enlisted to keep from starving, and, though she had no use for him as a husband, he would do to fetch and carry, and he dare not disobey. Twice when Doyle was battery officer of the day did this strangely-assorted pair of women entertain Lascelles at supper and fleece him out of what money he had. Then came Philippes with Lascelles in Mike's cab, as luck would have it, but they could not fleece Philippes. Old Lascelles was rapidly succumbing to Nita's fascinations when came the night of the terrible storm. Mike had got to drinking, and was laid low by the lieutenant. Mike and Bridget both vowed vengeance. But meantime Doyle himself had got wind of something that was going on, and he and his tyrant had a fearful row. He commanded her never to allow a man inside the premises when he was away, and, though brought home drunk that awful night, furiously ordered the Frenchman out, and might have assaulted them had not Bridget lassoed him with a chloroformed towel. That was the last he knew until another day. Lascelles, Philippes, and she, Mrs. Dawson, had already drunk a bottle of champagne when interrupted by Doyle's coming. Lascelles was tipsy, had snatched his pistol and fired a shot to frighten Doyle, but had only enraged him, and then he had to run for his cab. He was bundled in and Doyle disposed of. It was only three blocks down to Beau Rivage, and thither Mike drove them in all the storm. She did not know at the time of Waring's being in the cab. In less than fifteen minutes Mike was back and called excitedly for Bridget; had a hurried consultation with her; she seized a waterproof and ran out with him, but darted back and took the bottle of chloroform she had used on her husband, now lying limp and senseless on a sofa below, and then she disappeared. When half an hour passed and Lascelles failed to return with them, bringing certain papers of which he'd been speaking to Philippes, the latter declared there must be something wrong, and went out to reconnoitre despite the storm. He could see nothing. It was after midnight when Mrs. Doyle came rushing in, gasping, all out of breath "along of the storm," she said. She had been down the levee with Mike to find a cushion and lap-robe he dropped and couldn't afford to lose. They never could have found it at all "but for ould Lascelles lending them a lantern." He wanted Mike to bring down two bottles of champagne he'd left here, but it was storming so that he would not venture again, and Lieutenant Waring, she said, was going to spend the night with Lascelles at Beau Rivage: Mike couldn't drive any farther down towards the barracks. Lascelles sent word to Philippes that he'd bring up the papers first thing in the morning, if the storm lulled, and Philippes went out indignant at all the time lost, but Mike swore he'd not drive down again for a fortune. So the Frenchman got into the cab and went up with him to town. The moment he was gone Mrs. Doyle declared she was dead tired, used up, and drank huge goblets of the wine until she reeled off to her room, leaving an apron behind. Then Mrs. Dawson went to her own room, after putting out the lights, and when, two days later, she heard the awful news of the murder, knowing that investigation would follow and she and her sins be brought to light, she fled, for she had enough of his money in her possession, and poor demented Dawson, finding her gone, followed.

Philippes's story corroborated this in every particular. The last he saw of the cab or of the cabman was near the house of the hook-and-ladder company east of the French Market. The driver there said his horse was dead beat and could do no more, so Philippes went into the market, succeeded in getting another cab by paying a big price, slept at Cassidy's, waited all the morning about Lascelles's place, and finally, having to return to the Northeast at once, he took the evening train on the Jackson road and never heard of the murder until ten days after. He was amazed at his arrest.

And then came before his examiners a mere physical wreck,—the shadow of his former self,—caught at the high tide of a career of crime and debauchery, a much less bulky party than the truculent Jehu of Madame Lascelles's cab, yet no less important a witness than that same driver. He was accompanied by a priest. He had been brought hither in an ambulance from the Hotel-Dieu, where he had been traced several days before and found almost at death's door. His confession was most important of all. He had struck Lieutenant Waring as that officer turned away from Lascelles's gate, intending only to down and then kick and hammer him, but he had struck with a lead-loaded rubber club, and he was horrified to see him drop like one dead. Then he lost his nerve and drove furiously back for Bridget. Together they returned, and found Waring lying there as he had left him on the dripping banquette. "You've killed him, Mike. There's only one thing to do," she said: "take his watch and everything valuable he has, and we'll throw him over on the levee." She herself took the knife from his overcoat-pocket, lest he should recover suddenly, and then, said the driver, "even as we were bending over him there came a sudden flash of lightning, and there was Lascelles bending over us, demanding to know what it meant. Then like another flash he seemed to realize what was up, sprang back, and drew pistol. He had caught us in the act. There was nothing else to do; we both sprang upon him. He fired, and hit me, but only in the arm, and before he could pull trigger again we both grappled him. I seized his gun, Bridget his throat, but he screamed and fought like a tiger, then wilted all of a sudden. I was scared and helpless, but she had her wits about her, and told me what to do. The lieutenant began to gasp and revive just then, so she soaked the handkerchief in chloroform and placed it over his mouth, and together we lifted him into the cab. Then we raised Lascelles and carried him in and laid him on his sofa, for he had left the door open and the lamp on the table. Bridget had been there before, and knew all about the house. We set the pistol back in his hand, but couldn't make the fingers grasp it. We ransacked the desk and got what money there was, locked and bolted the doors, and climbed out of the side window, under which she dropped the knife among the bushes. 'They'll never suspect us in the world, Mike,' she said. 'It's the lieutenant's knife that did it, and, as he was going to fight him anyhow, he'll get the credit of it all.' Then we drove up the levee, put Waring in Anatole's boat, sculls and all, and shoved him off. 'I'll muzzle Jim,' she said. 'I'll make him believe 'twas he that did it when he was drunk.' She took most of the money, and the watch and ring. She said she could hide them until they'd be needed. Then I drove Philippes up to town until I began to get so sick and faint I could do no more. I turned the cab loose and got away to a house where I knew they'd take care of me, and from there, when my money was gone, they sent me to the hospital, thinking I was dying. I swear to God I never meant to more than get square with the lieutenant. I never struck Lascelles at all; 'twas she who drove the knife into his heart."

Then, exhausted, he was led into an adjoining room, and Mrs. Doyle was marched in, the picture of injured Irish innocence. For ten minutes, with wonderful effrontery and nerve, she denied all personal participation in the crime, and faced her inquisitors with brazen calm. Then the chief quietly turned and signalled. An officer led forward from one side the wreck of a cabman, supported by the priest; a door opened on the other, and, escorted by another policeman, Mrs. Dawson re-entered, holding in her hands outstretched a gingham apron on which were two deep stains the shape and size of a long, straight-bladed, two-edged knife. It was the apron that Bridget Doyle had worn that fatal night. One quick, furtive look at that, one glance at her trembling, shrinking, cowering kinsman, and, with an Irish howl of despair, a loud wail of "Mike, Mike, you've sworn your sister's life away!" she threw herself upon the floor, tearing madly at her hair. And so ended the mystery of Beau Rivage.

There was silence a moment in Cram's pretty parlor when the captain had finished his story. Waring was the first to speak:

"There is one point I wish they'd clear up."

"What's that?" said Cram.

"Who's got Merton's watch?"

"Oh, by Jove! I quite forgot. It's all right, Waring. Anatole's place was 'pulled' last night, and he had her valuables all done up in a box. 'To pay for his boat,' he said."

* * * * *

A quarter of a century has passed away since the scarlet plumes of Light Battery "X" were last seen dancing along the levee below New Orleans. Beau Rivage, old and moss-grown at the close of the war, fell into rapid decline after the tragedy of that April night. Heavily mortgaged, the property passed into other hands, but for years never found a tenant. Far and near the negroes spoke of the homestead as haunted, and none of their race could be induced to set foot within its gates. One night the sentry at the guard-house saw sudden light on the westward sky, and then a column of flame. Again the fire-alarm resounded among the echoing walls of the barracks; but when the soldiers reached the scene, a seething ruin was all that was left of the old Southern home. Somebody sent Cram a marked copy of a New Orleans paper, and in their cosey quarters at Fort Hamilton the captain read it aloud to his devoted Nell: "The old house has been vacant, an object of almost superstitious dread to the neighborhood," said the Times, "ever since the tragic death of Armand Lascelles in the spring of 1868. In police annals the affair was remarkable because of the extraordinary chain of circumstantial evidence which for a time seemed to fasten the murder upon an officer of the army then stationed at Jackson Barracks, but whose innocence was triumphantly established. Madame Lascelles, it is understood, is now educating her daughter in Paris, whither she removed immediately after her marriage a few months ago to Captain Philippe Lascelles, formerly of the Confederate army, a younger brother of her first husband."

"Well," said Cram, "I'll have to send that to Waring. They're in Vienna by this time, I suppose. Look here, Nell; how was it that when we fellows were fretting about Waring's attentions to Madame, you should have been so serenely superior to it all, even when, as I know, the stories reached you?"

"Ah, Ned, I knew a story worth two of those. He was in love with Natalie Maitland all the time."

THE END.