REGARDING LOUISE LOISSON
"Come out and eat with me, Cal," said Eddring. "I've some other
matters to put before you. A great many things have been so confused
in my mind that I have hardly known where to begin to straighten them
out."
"I reckon you've got some new lawsuit or other on your hands," said
Blount.
"You're right. At least it may be a lawsuit, and it certainly bids
fair to be a puzzling study, lawsuit or not."
After they were seated at table in an adjoining cafe, Eddring tossed
over to his friend a late copy of a New Orleans newspaper. "You see
that headline?" said he. "It's all about a dancer, Miss Louise
Loisson. You ever hear that name before?"
"Why, no, I don't seem to remember it, if I ever did."
"Well, that name is bothering me mightily just now. You know
something of the history of those old Y. V. damage judgments, after I
left the road?"
"Yes, I reckon I heard something about it. Some one seems to have got
hold of the list of claims, and pushed them for all they were worth.
Of course, I know you hadn't anything to do with that."
"It was an odd sort of thing," said Eddring, "and it has led up to a
number of other things still more strange. Now, no one knows how that
information regarding the claims got out. I told you that I found
that complete list of the claims in the valise of the mysterious man,
Mr. Thompson, who was killed in the train wreck at your place. Of
course I turned over all this material to the company at once. But
there must have been a duplicate list out somewhere. I had my own
suspicions. I knew, or thought I knew, why the dogs ran that trail
right up to your house. Here's one reason I had for that." He threw
on the table before Blount a soiled and wrinkled bit of linen, the
same mysterious handkerchief which he had put in his pocket at the
train wreck long ago.
"Did you ever see that before?" asked he. Blount sat up straighter
and looked closely at the object, but shook his head.
"It might be Delphine's," said Eddring. At this the other man shut
his mouth hard and his face grew suddenly serious.
"Now, I say I had suspicions," resumed Eddring. "That list of claims
was never written out by that traveling man, Thompson. It might have
been done by Henry Decherd, might it not?"
"What makes you think so?"
"Nothing, except that I believe those papers were in Henry Decherd's
valise. In fact, I know it. He did not want to claim the valise when
he saw that I had it. This letter might very possibly have been
written by Delphine to Decherd. See here." He placed before Blount
the unsigned letter which he had preserved ever since the time of its
discovery. Blount read it through in silence, flushing a bit to see
his own name mentioned by a servant in such connection; but without
comment he looked quietly at Eddring, now eager in the instinct of
the chase.
"I'll tell you frankly, Cal," said the latter, "I guessed all along
that these two were concerned in all this business, but I couldn't
speak. I didn't dare tell my suspicions when I had no better proof
than was possible to get at that time. I didn't want to tell the
sheriff. I didn't dare tell even you what I thought. Now there was
something else in that valise which I did not turn over to the
company, because I did not think it was their property."
He took from his pocket the mysterious little volume, the same which
had so strangely appeared at different times and in the hands of
different parties, not all of whom were at that time known to
himself. Blount turned it over curiously in his hand.
"Funny sort of book for a traveling man to have in his valise," said
he. "You reckon he was some sort of book collector?"
"Well, I don't reckon that Thompson was. Upon the other hand, Henry
Decherd might have been, for certain reasons. Let's see.
"Now, here is this little French book. It tells about a certain
journey made from America to France in the year 1825 by several
Indian chieftains. They went with one Paul Loise, interpreter. With
them was a young girl, Louise Loisson--don't you see the name?--and
she is carefully described as a descendant, not of Paul Loise, but of
the Comte de Loisson, a nobleman who came to St. Louis shortly before
1825."
Blount sat up still straighter in his chair. "This here is mighty
strange," said he. "Names sound right near alike."
"Yes," said Eddring. "But that Louise Loisson must have been dead,
buried and forgotten half a hundred years ago. If so, what is she
doing dancing down at New Orleans to-day? As soon as I saw that name
in the newspaper, I looked it up again in my little book. Then I put
together my suspicions about the letter, and the list, and the
valise. If I hadn't seen the name in the newspaper, I might never
have been so much interested in it; and certainly I should never have
put the matter before you."
"I am mighty glad you did. There may be a heap under all this that I
want to know about."
"There is. And now I want you to follow me closely; because this very
same thing has come to me from another direction.
"You know that in my work I have to examine papers in all sorts of
claim cases. Now, within the year, I ran across a United States
Supreme Court brief, a case which came up from the Indian Nations,
and which was decided not long ago. It seems that the plaintiff used
to be on the Omaha pay-rolls. Some one in the tribe, apparently as a
test case, covering certain other claims, objected that the claimant
was not all Indian, indeed not Indian at all, and hence not entitled
to be on the rolls; although you know Uncle Sam recognizes Indian
blood to the one-two-hundred-and-fiftieth part.
"I might never have taken much interest in that suit, which I
happened to be going over for other reasons, if I hadn't caught
sight, in the testimony, of the names of Loise and Loisson, and if I
hadn't found the name of Henry Decherd among counsel for the
plaintiff!"
"Well, by jinks, _that's_ mighty curious!" said Blount. "I didn't know
he was a lawyer."
"Yes. He was a lawyer; so much the more dangerous, as I'll show you.
Now Paul Loise was official interpreter for the United States
government at St. Louis in 1825. He was of absolutely no kinship to
the Comte de Loisson, the similarity of names being a mere
coincidence, though one which has made much trouble in the records
since that time, as I have discovered. The confusion of these two
names was one of the most singular legal blunders ever known in the
South. It was this entanglement of the records that gave Henry
Decherd his chance.
"The Comte de Loisson was a widower, and he brought with him from
France a young daughter. He pushed on up the Missouri River in search
of adventures, but he left this daughter, as nearly as can now be
learned, in charge of the half-breed interpreter, Paul Loise, perhaps
with the understanding that the latter was to obtain suitable care
for her from officials in the government employ. That was about the
time the Redhead Chief--Clark, of Lewis and Clark, you know--was
Indian commissioner at St. Louis.
"Now Paul Loise, at that time engaged in the government treaty work
with the tribes, was moving about from tribe to tribe, and he seems
to have had an Indian wife in pretty much every one of them. He also
had a white wife, or one nearly white, whom he left at his
headquarters in St. Louis; and it was with this woman, white or
partly white, that the young daughter of the Comte de Loisson was
left, at least for a time. Paul Loise himself on one journey went up
the river to the place where the Omaha tribe then lived. Whether he
took this white child with him, or whether he left her in charge of
his white wife at St. Louis, is something now very difficult to
prove. This United States Supreme Court case hinges very largely on
that same question; and hence it is of great interest to us, as I
will show you after a while."
"Well, now, couldn't this dancer down at New Orleans--some sort of
Creole like enough--have been a descendant of this Loise family of
St. Louis?" asked Blount.
"That we can't tell," replied Eddring. "As I said, the similarity of
the names set me looking up the whole matter as soon as I could."
"Well, didn't the French girl's father ever come back after her?"
"Wait. We'll come to that. The one thing certain is that he never
came back down the Missouri River. He disappeared absolutely, no
doubt killed somewhere by the Indians. His daughter grew up as best
she might. She went to France, as our book shows. After a time Paul
Loise, her erstwhile protector, died also. Here Louise Loisson
disappears from view. She left behind her a very pretty legal
question for others to solve, and a mightily mixed set of records to
aid in the solution.
"Out of the uncertainty regarding the descendants of Paul Loise there
arose a great deal of litigation. This lawsuit, which I have
mentioned, no doubt originated by reason of that very confusion. Now,
the attorneys in that suit had a knowledge of the existence of this
very book which you have in your hand. They stated in this brief that
there was but one copy of this book existing in America, that in the
Congressional Library at Washington. They won their case by means of
this book as evidence; for here is full proof, printed in Paris in
1825, that these Indians went to Paris, accompanied by Paul Loise,
and by one Louise Loisson, a white girl, noble, and _not_ his
daughter; which meant that he had a mixed-blood daughter elsewhere,
from whom the claimant had descent.
"How this book got into the possession of Henry Decherd--of course it
did not belong to the man Thompson-is something I can't tell. He no
doubt intended to use it for his own purposes, as I will try to show
you after a while. As to this Supreme Court case from the Indian
Nations, it simply proves that the claimant did have a status on the
pay-rolls; and it stops at that. The case is irrefutable evidence on
the Paul Loise descent question. Perhaps Decherd, for reasons which
we shall possibly find out, was not willing to let the matter rest
quite there.
"As to our little book, it is a gay one enough. It says that the
chieftains from America were received with distinguished honors in
the city of Paris. They had so much champagne that three of them
died. A titled woman of France fell in love with one of them, and
there were all sorts of high jinks. As to the young girl--_La Belle
Americaine_ they called her--it seems that Paris could not have
enough of her. She was all the rage. She taught them the dances of
the _'sauvages.' 'Tres interessantes'_ the Frenchmen thought
these dances, it seems. That's all we know of her--she danced. Well,
if Mademoiselle Louise Loisson, down at New Orleans to-day, is as
successful with her line of dancing as her possible mamma or
grandmamma was in Paris years ago, it would certainly seem she has no
reason for complaint."
Blount sank back in his chair with a deep sigh. "You were right,"
said he. "It is a little hard to understand all this at first, but
I'm beginning to see. And unless I'm mistaken, this thing is going to
come home mighty close to us. Decherd has surely been mixed up in
this, if this was really his book, or in his valise, as you think.
Delphine is in it, too, if that letter to him means anything. But
now, what was Decherd after?"
"I'll tell you," said Eddring, "or at least, I'll show you what I
have discovered so far, and you can guess at the rest.
"When I got thus far along I was pretty deeply interested, as you
see, and I followed it on out, just for the love of the mystery. Now
I have unearthed the fact that the Comte de Loisson did leave some
property when he died. Soon after his arrival in the neighborhood of
St. Louis, he bought a good-sized tract of land, down in what is now
St. Francois County, below St. Louis. The lands at that time were
thought valueless, but perhaps the Comte de Loisson had more
scientific knowledge than most of the inhabitants of St. Louis at
that time. Perhaps he intended to develop his lands after he returned
from his adventures up the Missouri River. He never did return, and
the lands seem to have lain untouched for a generation or more, still
for the most part considered valueless.
"Now, when I had got _that_ far along, I took the trouble to look up
the numbers of the sections of this land. Cal, I want to tell you that
that land to-day is in the middle of the St. Francois lead region,
which is full of this new disseminated lead ore, which everybody for a
time thought was only flint!"
"On Jordan's _strand_--" began Blount, suddenly bursting into song.
"I don't blame you for being disturbed," said Eddring, himself
smiling. "As you see, there is something under all this. Maybe Mr.
Decherd is a bigger man than we gave him credit for being. Maybe this
little book is a bigger book than we thought it was.
"Now, you know, the entail has been abolished in the state of
Missouri. So we come directly to the question of the descent of these
lead lands under a certain name. Of course, a single heir in each of
three generations would carry the title down clear till to-day;
provided, of course, that there was no escheat to the government--
that all the taxes had been kept up. Very well. That means that it is
at least a legal _possibility_ for a living heir to-day to have
title to those Loisson lead mines, which are very valuable. Cal--"
and here Eddring rose, tapping with his finger on the table in front
of him, "the Louise Loisson who went to France in 1825 was the owner
of those lead mines! Now I have looked up the tax record. The taxes
on these lands for several years back have been paid by Henry
Decherd!"
Blount himself rose and stood back, hands in pockets, looking at the
speaker. "--I'll _take_ my stand!" he continued with his hymn.
"For a long time," went on Eddring, "these lands, not supposed to be
worth anything, were not listed by any assessor, and hence did not
appear upon the tax-rolls. Thus they were not forfeited by the
original purchaser, who must have had his title pretty nearly direct
from Uncle Sam himself. Louise Loisson, the first, the French
noblewoman dancer, owned those lead mines. If this dancer at New
Orleans be a relative of hers, a daughter or granddaughter, she won't
have to dance unless she feels like it. For I am here to tell you, as
a lawyer, her claim to this tract can be proved, just as readily as
the claim to a place on the Omaha pay-rolls for a descendant of Paul
Loise was proved in the United States Court five years ago, by means
of this same book on the table there before you!"
"Well now, my son, that's what an ignorant fellow like me would call
a mighty pretty lawsuit," said Blount, turning over the curious
little red-bound volume in his hand.
"It's more than pretty," said Eddring, "it's deep, and it's
important--important to you and me, for more reasons than one. There
has been a heap of trouble down in the Delta, and there has been a
head to all this trouble-making. We are now entitled to our guess as
to whether or not we have in this curious way located the head. If we
are right, we have at least connected Henry Decherd with an attempt
to secure, either for himself or some one else, the title to these
lands.
"Now, whether the rightful heir, if there be any heir, knows of the
existence of these lands, or ever heard of this book, or ever heard
of that Indian lawsuit, is something which we don't know. There may
not be any living descendant of the Loisson family. All we know is
that there _is_ some one using the Loisson name; and that there _is_
some one else who is after the Loisson estates. Now, just why this
latter has had certain associates, or just why he has done certain
other acts, you and I can't say at this time. But we'll know some
time."
"The first thing to do, of course, is to go to New Orleans to see
that dancer woman."
"Of course," said Eddring. "I shall start tomorrow. As for you,
Blount, you've got hint enough about what's going on in your own
neighborhood. You'd better watch that girl Delphine. What are you
letting her stay around there for, anyway?"
"Because I've got to eat," said Blount, "and because I've got to have
some one to run that place. As I told you, I haven't been there much
of the time till lately. I reckon she's been boss, about as much as
anybody. You know there wasn't a white woman on the place, not since
Miss Lady left. I couldn't ever bear to try to get anybody else in
there. I just let things go."
"What became of Mrs. Ellison, after she left your place?"
"I don't know; don't ask me. I was an awful fool ever to get caught
in any such a way. I heard Mrs. Ellison went to St. Louis, but I
don't know. As I look at it now, I believe Decherd was more than half
willing to make up to Miss Lady. I reckon maybe Mrs. Ellison didn't
like that, though why she should care I don't know. Don't ask me
about all these things--I've had too much trouble to want to think
about it. All I know is that the girl was as fine a one as ever
lived. _She_ was good--now I know that, and that's all I do know. I
always thought she was Mrs. Ellison's daughter; but when the break-up
came, they allowed it wasn't that way. I never did try to figure it
all out. When Miss Lady disappeared, and we-all couldn't find her
nowhere, I just marked the whole thing off the slate, and went out
hunting."
"Cal," said Eddring, quietly, "did you ever stop to think that there
is quite a similar sound in those three names, Loise, and Loisson,
and Ellison?"
Blount threw out his hands before him. "Oh, go on _away,_ man,"
said he. "You've got me half-crazy now. I don't know where I'm
standing, nor where I've been standing. I don't feel safe in my own
home--I _haven't_ been safe. My whole place has gone to ruin, and
all on account of this business. It's nigh about done me up, that's
what it has. And now here you come making it worse and worse all the
time."
"But we've got to see it through together."
"Oh, I reckon so. Yes, of course we must."
"Well, now, let's just look over the matter once more," said Eddring.
"Let us suppose that Decherd has stumbled on this knowledge of the
unclaimed Loisson estate. He works every possible string to get hold
of it. He tries to get tax title--and that is where he uncovers his
own hand. Meanwhile, he tries the still safer plan of finding a legal
heir. We will suppose he has two claimants. From this letter here we
may suppose that Delphine was one of them, his first one. He seems to
have learned from this Indian lawsuit, whether or not he was
concerned other than as counsel in that lawsuit--and the record does
not show whether or not he was--that Delphine, or his claimant,
whoever that was--we'll say Delphine, for we don't know Delphine's
real name, perhaps--could and did stick on the pay-rolls of an Indian
tribe. That meant that she was Loise, and not Loisson. The United
States Court records hold that absolute evidence, _res adjudicata--
stare decisis;_ which means, in plain English, that ends it. It
also means that that Indian claimant could _not_ inherit the
Loisson estate!
"Now here is an unknown woman, whom we will call Delphine, begging
Decherd not to forsake her. There would seem to have been a failure
on this line of the Decherd investigation. Perhaps the result of the
test case didn't please Decherd very much, although he was on the
winning side. At least, it marked the Loise claimant off the Loisson
slate. So much for claimant number one. So much for Delphine, we'll
say.
"But now, at some time or other, Miss Lady and Mrs. Ellison appeared
on the scene. I don't know, any more than you do, how these three
happened to know each other, or why Decherd happened to appear so
steadily at your place, after you had so eagerly taken his suggestion
and employed Mrs. Ellison as your household supervisor. But now, we
will say, Decherd takes a great notion to Miss Lady. All the time
Delphine is there watching him. She puts on a heap more airs than a
colored mistress. Along about the time of the train wreck, she begins
to charge him with faithlessness. She refers vaguely, as you see in
the letter, to his interest in this other woman. Now, can that be our
Miss Lady?
"We don't know. None of us can tell, as yet, who that mysterious
other person is. Mrs. Ellison might tell us, if we could find her, or
if we cared to find her."
"No, you don't," said Blount. "That woman stays off the map. The only
one of the three we want to find is Miss Lady."
"Yes," said Eddring, "if we had Miss Lady, and if we could get Mrs.
Ellison and Henry Decherd to tell the truth as Miss Lady would, then
we would learn easily a great many things which perhaps it will cost
us a great deal of trouble to uncover."
"Well," said Blount, sighing, as he walked moodily across the room,
"my own little world seems to be pretty much turned upside down. I
can't say you make me any happier by all this. The only thing I can
see clear is that you've got to get to New Orleans as soon as you
can. There's reasons plenty for you to go."
The two men looked at each other for a moment, but said nothing.
"Give me my little book," said Eddring, finally. "I fancy Mr. Henry
Decherd would be glad enough to have that back in his own hands
again. There's his evidence. This is the key to his plans, whatever
they are."
Blount groaned as he swung about on his heel. "Good God! man," he
said, "don't! To hell with your lawsuit! What do we care about mixed
names, or all this underhanded work? Never _mind_ about me and my
affairs--I'll take care of that. Man, it's _Miss Lady_ we want. We
don't know what has happened to her. The rest don't make any
difference."
"Yes," said John Eddring, "it's Miss Lady. The rest makes little
difference."
"Go on, then," said Blount, fiercely, smiting on the table. "Now,
find out about this Louise Loisson. Maybe then you'll hear something,
somewhere, that'll give you track of our Miss Lady. Start to New
Orleans at once--I'm going down home, to watch that end of the line.
We're going after those levee-cutters. As I said, we may want you,
and if I send for you, get to my place as fast as you can. Never mind
how you get there, but come. And man! if we could only get Miss Lady
back! If she--"
"If we could!" said John Eddring, reverently.