_The Gangsters_
Gramont left the covert and walked forward.
He was thinking about that odd mention of Jachin Fell--had Chacherre
lied in saying he had come here on his master's business? Perhaps. The
man had come in Fell's car, and would not hesitate to lie about using
the car. For the moment, Gramont put away the circumstance, but did not
forget it.
He walked openly toward the Gumberts buildings, thinking that he would
have time for a good look around the place before dusk fell; he would
then get off for Houma, and attend to Hammond's defence.
As for the place before him, he was convinced that it was abandoned. Had
any one, other than Chacherre and his two friends, been about the
buildings, the late excitement would have brought out the fact. No one
had appeared, and the buildings seemed vacant.
Gramont's intent was simple and straightforward. In case he found, as he
expected to find, any evidence of illegal occupation about the place--as
the sheriff seemed to have discovered to his cost--he would lay
Chacherre and the other two men by the heels that night in Houma. He
would then go on to New Orleans and have Gumberts arrested, although he
had no expectation that the master crook could be held on the
murder-accessory charge. If this place were used for the lotteries,
even, he was fairly certain that Memphis Izzy would have his own tracks
covered. The men higher up always did.
He walked straight in upon the barn. It loomed before him, closed, lurid
in the level rays of the westering sun. The doors in front had been only
loosely swung together and Gramont found them unlocked. He stood in the
opening, and surprise gripped him. He was held motionless, gazing with
astonished wonder at the sight confronting him.
Directly before him was a small roadster, one which he remembered to
have seen Jachin Fell using; in this car, doubtless, Ben Chacherre had
driven from the city. He recalled the fact later, with poignant regret
for a lost opportunity. But, at the present moment, he was lost in
amazement at the great number of other cars presenting themselves to his
view.
They were lined up as deep as the barn would hold them, crammed into
every available foot of space; well over a dozen cars, he reckoned
swiftly. What was more, all were cars of the highest class, with the
exception of Fell's roadster. Directly before him were two which he was
well aware must have cost close upon ten thousand each. What did this
mean? Certainly no one man or one group of men, in this back-country
spot, could expect to use such an accumulation of expensive cars!
Gramont glanced around, but found no trace of machinery in the barn.
Remembering the motor that he had heard, he turned from the doorway in
frowning perplexity. He strode on toward the long shed which stood
closer to the house. At the end of this shed was a door, and when he
tried it, Gramont found it unlocked. It swung open to his hand, and he
stepped inside.
At first he paused, confused by the vague objects around, for it was
quite dark in here. A moment, and his eyes grew accustomed to the
gloomier lighting. Details came to him: all around were cars and
fragments of cars, chassis and bodies in all stages of dismemberment.
Still more cars!
He slowly advanced to a long bench that ran the length of the shop
beneath the windows. A shop, indeed--a shop, he quickly perceived,
fitted with every tool and machine necessary to the most complete
automobile repair establishment! Even an air-brush outfit, at one end,
together with a drying compartment, spoke of repaint jobs.
Comprehension was slowly dawning upon the mind of Gramont; a moment
later it became certainty, when he came to a stop before an automobile
engine lying on the bench. He found it to be the engine from a
Stutz--the latest multi-valve type adopted by that make of car, and this
particular bit of machinery looked like new.
Gramont inspected it, and he saw that the men had done their work well.
The original engine number had been carefully dug out, and the place as
carefully filled and levelled with metal. Beside it a new number had
been stamped. A glance at the electrical equipment around showed that
these workers had every appliance with which to turn out the most
finished of jobs.
As he straightened up from the engine Gramont's eyes fell upon a typed
sheet of paper affixed to the wall above the bench. His gaze widened as
he inspected it by the failing light. Upon that paper was a list of
cars. After each car was a series of numbers plainly comprising the
original numbers of the engine, body, radiator, and other component
parts, followed by another series of new numbers to be inserted. That
sheet of paper showed brains, organizing ability, care, and attention to
the last detail!
Here was the most carefully planned and thorough system of automobile
thievery that Gramont had ever heard of. He stood motionless, knowing
that this typed sheet of paper in itself was damning evidence against
the whole gang of workers. What was more to the point, that paper could
be traced; the typewriting could be traced to the man higher
up--doubtless Memphis Izzy himself! These men ran in cars by the
wholesale, probably from states adjacent to Louisiana. Here, at this
secluded point on the bayou, they changed the cars completely about, in
number, paint, style of body, and then probably got rid of the new
product in New Orleans.
Gramont stood motionless. Surprise had taken hold of him, and even a
feeling of slight dismay. This was not at all what he had hoped to find
there. He had thought to come upon some traces of the lottery game----
"Seen all you want, bo?" said a voice behind him.
Gramont turned. He found himself gazing directly into an automatic
pistol over which glittered a pair of blazing eyes. The man was a
stranger to him. The place had not been deserted, after all. He was
caught.
"Who are you?" demanded Gramont, quietly.
"Me?" The stranger was unsmiling, deadly. In those glittering eyes
Gramont read the ferocity of an animal at bay. "I s'pose you would like
to know that, huh? I guess you know enough right now to get all that's
comin' to you, bo! Got any particular business here? Speak up quick!"
Gramont was silent. The other sneered at him, viciously.
"Hurry up! Turn over the name and address, and I'll notify the survivin'
relatives. Name, please?"
"Henry Gramont," was the calm response. "Don't get hasty, my friend.
Didn't you see me here a little while ago with Chacherre and the other
boys?"
"What's that?" The glittering eyes flamed up with suspicion and
distrust. "Here--with them? No, I didn't. I been away fishing all
afternoon. What the hell you doing around this joint?"
"Your best scheme," said Gramont, coldly, "is to change your style of
tone, and to do it in a hurry! If you don't know what's happened here
this afternoon, don't ask me; you'll find out soon enough when the other
boys get back. You'd better tell them I'm going to get in touch with
Memphis Izzy the minute I get back to the city, and that the less
talking they do----"
"What the hell's all this?" demanded the other again, but with a
softening of accent. The moniker of Gumberts had its effect, and seemed
to shake the man instantly. Gramont smiled as he perceived that the game
was won.
"I never heard of no Gramont," went on the other, quickly. "What you
doin' here?"
"You're due to learn a good many things, I imagine," said Gramont,
carelessly. "As for me, I happened on the place largely by accident. I
happen to be in partnership with a man named Jachin Fell, and I came out
here on business----"
To Gramont's astonishment the pistol was lowered instantly. It was well
that he ceased speaking, for what he had just said proved to be open to
misconstruction, and if he had said any more he would have spoiled it.
For the man facing him was staring at him in mingled disgust and
surprise.
"You're in partnership with _the boss_!" came the astounding words.
"Well, why in hell didn't you say all that in the first place, instead
o' beefin' around? That's no way to butt in, and me thinking you was
some dick on the job! Got anything to prove that you ain't pullin'
something cute on me?"
"Do you know Fell's writing?" asked Gramont, with difficulty forcing
himself to meet the situation coherently. Jachin Fell--the boss!
"I know his mitt, all right."
From his pocket Gramont produced a paper--the memorandum or agreement
which he had drawn up with Fell on the previous afternoon, relating to
the oil company. The other man took it and switched on an electric light
bulb overhead. In this glare he was revealed as a ratty little
individual with open mouth and teeth hanging out--an adenoidal type, and
certainly a criminal type.
It crossed the mind of Gramont that one blow would do the work--but he
stood motionless. No sudden game would help him here. The discovery that
Fell was "the boss" paralyzed him completely. He had never dreamed of
such a contingency. Fell, of all men!
Jachin Fell the "boss" of this establishment! Jachin Fell the man higher
up--the brains behind this criminal organization! It was a perfect
thunderbolt to Gramont. Now he understood why Chacherre was in the
employ of Fell--why no arrest of the man had been possible! Now he
perceived that Chacherre must have told the truth about coming here on
business for Fell. Reaching farther back, he saw that Fell must have
received the loot of the Midnight Masquer, must have turned it over to
Lucie Ledanois----
Did _she_ know?
"All right, Mr. Gramont." The ratty little man turned to him with
evident change of front. "We ain't takin' no chances here, y'understand.
Got quite a shipment of cars comin' in from Texas, and we're tryin' to
get some o' these boats cleaned out to make room. Bring out any orders?"
Gramont's brain worked fast.
By overcoming this guttersnipe he might have the whole place at his
mercy--but that was not what he wanted. He suddenly realized that he had
other and more important fish to fry in New Orleans. Gumberts was there.
Fell was there. What he must do demanded time, and his best play was to
gain all the time possible, and to prevent this gang from suspecting him
in any way.
"Did you see Ben Chacherre?" he countered.
"Uh-huh--seen him just after he come. Gumberts will be out day after
to-morrow, he said. The boss is framin' some sort of deal on a guy that
he wants laid away--some guy name o' Hammond. Chacherre is running it.
He figgers on gettin' Hammond on account of some car that's bein' hunted
up----"
Gramont laughed suddenly, for there was a grim humour about the thing.
So Jachin Fell wanted to "get something" on poor Hammond! And Chacherre
had seized the golden opportunity that presented itself this
afternoon--instead of "getting" Hammond for the theft of a car,
Chacherre had coolly fastened murder upon him!
"Ben is one smart man; I expect he thinks the gods are working for him,"
said Gramont, thinly. "So you don't know what happened to-day, eh? Well,
it's great news, but I've got no time to talk about it. They'll tell you
when they get back----"
"Where'd they go?" demanded the other.
"Houma. Now listen close! Chacherre did not know that I was in
partnership with the boss, get me? I didn't want to tell all the crowd
in front of him. Between you and me, the boss isn't any too sure about
Ben----"
"Say, I get you there!" broke in the other, sagely. "I tells him six
months ago to watch out for that Creole guy!"
"Exactly. You can tell the boys about me when they come back--I don't
suppose Ben will be with them. Now, I've been looking over that place
next door----"
"Oh!" exclaimed the other, suddenly. "Sure! The boss said that one of
his friends would be down to----"
"I'm the one--or one of them," and Gramont chuckled as he reflected on
the ludicrous aspects of the whole affair. "I'm going to Houma now, and
then back to the city. My car's over next door. Mr. Fell wanted me to
warn you to lay low on the lottery business. He's got a notion that
someone's been talking."
"You go tell the boss," retorted the other in an aggrieved tone, "to
keep his eye on the guys that _can_ talk! Who'd we talk to here?
Besides, we're workin' our heads off on these here boats. Memphis Izzy
is attending to the lottery--he's got the whole layout up to the house,
and we ain't touching it, see? Tell the boss all that."
"Tell him yourself," Gramont laughed, good-humouredly. "Gumberts is
coming out day after to-morrow, is he? That'll be Friday. Hm! I think
that I'd better bring Fell out here the same day, if I can make it. I
probably won't see Gumberts until then--I'm not working in with him and
he doesn't know me yet--but I'll try and get out here on Friday with
Fell. Now, I'll have to beat it in a hurry. Any message to send?"
"Not me," was the answer.
Gramont scarcely knew how he departed, until he found himself scrambling
back through the underbrush of the Ledanois place.
He rushed into the house, found the fire had died down beyond all
danger, and swiftly removed the few things they had taken from the car.
Carrying these, he stumbled back to where he had hidden the automobile.
He scarcely dared to think, scarcely dared to congratulate himself on
the luck that had befallen him, until he found himself in his own car
once more, and with open throttle sweeping out through the twilight
toward Paradis and Houma beyond. A whirlwind of mad exultation was
seething within him--exultation as sudden and tremendous as the past
weeks had been uneventful and dragging!
Gramont, in common with many others, had heard much indefinite rumour of
an underground lottery game that was being worked among the negroes of
the state and the Chinese villages along the Gulf coast. And now he knew
definitely.
Lotteries have never died out in Louisiana since the brave old days of
the government-ordained gambles, laws and ordinances to the contrary. No
laws can make the yellow man and the black man forego the get-rich-quick
heritage of their fathers. On the Pacific coast lotteries obtain and
will obtain wherever there is a Chinatown. In Louisiana the days of the
grand lottery have never been forgotten. The last two years of high
wages had made every Negro wealthy, comparatively speaking. The lottery
mongers would naturally find them a ripe harvest for the picking. And
who would gravitate to this harvest field if not the great Gumberts, the
uncaught Memphis Izzy, the promoter who had never been "mugged!"
Here, at one stroke, stumbling on the thing by sheer blind accident,
Gramont had located the nucleus of the whole business!
Gradually his brain cooled to the realization of what work lay before
him. He was through Paradis, almost without seeing the town, and
switched on his lights as he took the highway to Houma. Sober reflection
seized him. Not only was this crowd of crooks working a lottery, but
they were also managing a stupendous thievery of automobiles, in which
cars were looted by wholesale! And the man at the head of it all, the
man above Memphis Izzy and his crooks, was Jachin Fell of New Orleans.
Did Lucie Ledanois dream such a thing? No. Gramont dismissed the
question at once. Fell was not an unusual type of man. There were many
Jachin Fells throughout the country, he reflected. Men who applied their
brains to crooked work, who kept themselves above any actual share in
the work, and who profited hugely by tribute money from every crook in
every crime.
To the communities in which they lived such men were patterns of all
that wealthy gentlemen should be. Seldom, except perhaps in gossip of
the underworld, was their connection with crime ever suspected.
And--this thought was sobering to Gramont--never did they come within
danger of retribution at the hands of the law. Their ramifications
extended too far into politics; and the governors of some southern
states have unlimited powers of pardon.
"This is a big day!" reflected Gramont, dismissing the sinister
suggestion of this last thought. "A big day! What it will lead to, I
don't know. Not the least of it is the financial end of it--the oil
seepage! That little iridescent trickle of oil on the water means that
money worries are over, both for me and for Lucie. I'm sorry that I am
mixed up with Fell; I've enough money of my own to drill at least one
good well, and one is all we'll need to bring in oil on that place.
Well, we'll see what turns up! My first job is to make sure Hammond is
safe, and to relieve his mind. I'll have to leave him in jail, I
suppose----"
Why did Fell want to "get something" on Hammond? To this there was no
answer.
He drove into Houma to find the town abuzz with excitement, for the news
of the sheriff's murder had stirred the place wildly. Proceeding
straight to the court house, Gramont encountered Ben Chacherre as he was
leaving the car.
"Hello, there!" he exclaimed. "Lost my road. Where's Hammond?"
Chacherre jerked his head toward the court house.
"In yonder. Say, are you going back to the city to-night?"
"Yes." Gramont regarded him. "Why?"
"Take me back, will you? I've missed the last up train, and if you're
goin' back anyhow I won't have to hire a car. I can drive for you, and
we'll make it in a couple of hours, before midnight sure."
"Hop in," said Gramont, nodding toward the car. "I'll be back as soon as
I've had a word with Hammond. No danger of his getting lynched, I hope?"
"Not a chance," said the other, conclusively. "Six deputies up there
now, and quite a bunch of ex-soldiers comin' to stand guard. You goin'
to fight the case?"
"No," said Gramont. "Can't fight a sure thing, can you? I'm sorry for
him, though."
Chacherre shrugged his shoulders and got into the car.
Gramont was much relieved to find that there was no danger of lynching,
which had been his one fear. It was only with much persuasion that he
got past the guard and into the court house, where he was received by a
number of deputies in charge of the situation.
After conferring with them at some length, he was grudgingly taken to
the cell occupied by Hammond. The latter received him with a wide grin,
and gave no signs of the gruelling ordeal through which he had passed.
"Listen, old man," said Gramont, earnestly. "Will you play out the game
hard to the end? I'll have to leave you here for two days. At the end of
that time you'll be free."
The listening deputies sniffed, but Hammond merely grinned again and put
a hand through the bars.
"Whatever you say, cap'n," he rejoined. "It sure looks bad----"
"Don't you think it," said Gramont, cheerfully. "A lot of things have
happened since I saw you last! I've got the real murderer right where I
want him--but I can't have him arrested yet."
"It's a gang," said Hammond. "You watch out, cap'n, I heard 'em say
somethin' about Memphis Izzy--remember the guy I told you about one day?
Well, this is no piker's game! We're up against somethin' solid----"
"I know it," and Gramont nodded. He turned to the deputies. "Gentlemen,
you have my address if you wish to communicate with me. I shall be back
here day after to-morrow--at least, before midnight of that day. I warn
you, that if anything happens to this man in the meantime, you shall be
held personally responsible. He is innocent."
"Looks like we'd better hold you, too," said one of the men. "You seem
to know a lot!"
Gramont looked at him a moment.
"I know enough to tell you where to head in if you try any funny work
here," he said, evenly. "Gentlemen, thank you for permitting the
interview! I'll see you later."
The coroner's jury had already adjudged Hammond guilty of the murder.
Returning to the car, Gramont had Ben Chacherre drive to a restaurant,
where they got a bite to eat. Twenty minutes later they were on their
way to New Orleans--and Gramont learned for the first time of Joseph
Maillard's murder by the Midnight Masquer, and of the arrest of Bob
Maillard for the crime.