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."