Transcriber's note
Minor punctuation inconsistencies have been repaired. Variable spelling
has been retained. A list of the changes made can be found at the end
of the book.
Mark-up: _italics_
THE YAZOO MYSTERY
THE
YAZOO MYSTERY
A Novel
BY
IRVING CRADDOCK
BRITTON PUBLISHING COMPANY
NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
BRITTON PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.
MADE IN U.S.A.
_All Rights Reserved_
TO THOSE WHO LOVE ADVENTURE
The Yazoo Mystery
CHAPTER I
THE harbor-master entered briskly but dubiously the room of the ship's
first officer.
"What about the five men for the _Domus_?" he bellowed.
"All ready to sign, sir," assured the manager of the employment agency,
pointing toward two saddle colored negroes, a Spaniard, and a limp
figure half asleep, slouching in the corner on a narrow bench, one hand
clutching an expensive leather bag.
"It is the best I could do on such short notice," assured the agency man
in an undertone, noticing that the first officer's inventory was not
very encouraging.
"Get them up here to sign. We're anchored in the stream, losing two
thousand dollars every hour we stay here. We need five more
firemen--anything that looks human," he added impatiently, spreading
the ship's articles on the counter that reached across the smelly
water-front den.
"Come on and sign up, boys," said the agency man with assumed good
nature.
While the two negroes and the Spaniard were signing, the ship's first
officer went to the sleeping figure in the corner, took up his free hand
and felt of the palm, then dropped it disgustedly as he took the man by
the shoulders and shook him vigorously.
"Come on and sign up, Strong," he shouted into his ear.
Strong labored with himself, still holding to his bag, half staggered to
the counter and signed on the line indicated--"Hiram Strong, Jr."
The signature was plain and businesslike. Evidently the Candidate had
known better days.
"He's been kicked out or disowned," muttered the first officer to me
while he was signing up. "He won't be worth a cuss. Look--those hands
never did a lick of work--but he will fill the list," he added, walking
about nervously and sizing me up with apparent approbation.
The agency man came up at once and held the pen towards me, and without
hesitation I signed "Ben Taylor" on the line beneath. While I was thus
engaged Hiram leaned against the counter weak and listless, his bag
between his feet. We had both signed as firemen or stokers on the
steamship _Domus_ for a round trip to an unnamed Gulf, or Mexican port.
Although pretty well awake by this time Strong did not resent my taking
his arm and helping him a bit. He made no comment at first, but after he
got used to the lively walk along the dock, he began to show signs of
saying something.
"Old pal," he began, without turning his head, "I--I've got a
headache--top's coming off--and my stomach is all jelly. It shakes as I
walk and makes me sick," he ended under his breath.
"You'll be all right after you get some sleep."
"Y-e-s--I think--I h-h-ope so----I've had an awful time--an awful time,
pardee--but this is my last--this is my last," he added, more to
himself.
His bloodless face and lips, pink lids and bloodshot eyes indicated a
disordered system urgently rebelling against recent abuses.
After we got aboard the harbor-master's tug, although very weak, he
refused to sit down. Noting that I had found a seat, he lurched over to
me.
"Old pal, everything looks yellow to me, even the sun looks yellow--sort
of faded. Does it look yellow to you?" he asked, blinking at the clear
setting sun, and although his power to realize was at low ebb, he picked
me out evidently as being different from the others. By that act he
exercised a discrimination that predestined an exciting and almost
unbelievable career.
"The sun looks all right to me," I told him, smiling up in sympathy.
"I guess it's me--it's terrible--but this is the last--I'm going to work
now. Little Hiram is going to work for the balance of his life--I got
to, that's all," he ended, with a dogged determination that I hoped
would survive after he recovered from his unsettled and polluted
condition. I steadied him a little when climbing the ladder from the tug
to the ship, which attention he seemed to appreciate.
"Old pal, I must go to bed. If I don't I will die," said he as we went
forward to the firemen's sleeping quarters. There he tumbled into a
lower bunk, not stopping to remove even the cheap cap he wore. In an
incredibly short time he was "dead to the world" and snoring at a lively
clip.
Upon returning to the deck I heard a loud grunt from the Siren and at
once the ship began to swing out into the stream, heading toward the
Statue of Liberty and that great sea beyond the Narrows.
The captain still leaned over the bridge, taking stock of his
nondescript crew of firemen that loitered about, forward. His bulk
evidenced a growing appetite and his almond shaped eyes suggested the
prenatal influence of a Chinaman. It was hard to understand how so much
tallow and bone, in a florid lumpy skin, ever became master of a big
ship. Such luggage as Hiram Strong, Jr. and I had brought aboard might
have told him a story, but he didn't care; all he wanted was thirty-five
human machines, capable of shoveling coal--in four-hour shifts--in a
temperature of a hundred and twenty-five degrees. He knew that his ship
was marked as a "hell," and that no fireman would ship for a second
trip.
While standing beside the rail and studying the retreating outlines of
Battery Park and its wonderful skyline, I was approached by the
firemen's mess steward, who wore a dirty white jacket and apron.
"I don't suppose that young feller will want anything to eat?"
"No--I guess sleep is better now," I replied, interpreting in his round
greasy face evident good-will.
"The firemen are eating and you had better go in," he said, but
seemingly in no hurry for me to tear myself away. The tip seemed a good
one, so I made an opening for a better acquaintance.
"Where are we bound, steward?"
"We're bound out and back to this port, but at how many places we will
call, God knows. I don't! When we start, lately, we never know when
we'll get back. Sometimes we call at Key West, and usually at Galveston
or New Orleans. Don't you know what you signed for?" he asked, without
surprise, but grinning significantly.
"Yes," I replied, hesitating somewhat. I wondered why he continued to
grin. Then he again asked:
"Are you coming down to mess yourself?"
"Yes, I will come right down."
Following him below, I crowded over on one of the nondescript crew to a
seat on the end of a bench at a narrow, bare table, and received from
the steward a half-gallon of thick soup dished up in an enameled pan
from a galvanized-iron wash-tub. Later I was supplied from the same
laundry utensil a liberal portion of what was intended for a meat stew,
and a war allowance of bread. I was wondering how Hiram Strong, Jr.,
accustomed to uptown dining, would relish this atmosphere with its
filthy service and coarse food. The men along the bench beside me
consumed the soup noisily, like Bowery bums, and bit from chunks of meat
on the ends of their forks like swine with their forefeet in a trough.
Sitting at one end, I was able to size up my fellow-firemen, twenty-five
of whom were devouring food with great relish as they chattered like
magpies, mostly in a foreign tongue. Negroes of all shades, Mexicans,
Poles, Italians, Greeks, all sweated out, thin and bleached to the shade
of a cadaver. I speculated again as to how young Strong would mix with
this motley crew, and why he had allowed himself to choose stoking as a
means of livelihood.
After eating I went below, but Strong had not moved and it seemed that
his thin white hands and expensive footwear were more out of place than
ever. I wondered if he had any money left. Usually were to be found some
light-fingered gentry among tramp-steamer firemen, so I took a small
chain and padlock from my bag and chained his grip with mine to a bunk
stanchion.
Returning to the deck, it was something of a shock to note the ship in
complete darkness, no light visible save the red and green signals on
either side. Later I learned that the globes were removed from the
passenger cabins to prevent even a flash from the rooms of any one
disinclined to obey "Lights out" at seven p. m. by order of the Naval
authorities.
After clearing Sandy Hook and rounding Scotland lightship, by locating
the North Star I saw that the skipper was heading a little east of south
against a sharp, cold wind, close in to the Jersey coast, where lights
were plainly visible. I was rather astonished to see all lifeboats
lowered from their davits to the level of the steerage deck, and by
edging down that way, saw they were provisioned with water, biscuits,
lanterns and all necessary equipment for immediate use. Then I realized
that young Strong had not only chosen an unusual occupation but a
rather unpropitious time in which to sign up for duty on the high seas.
But with visions of four o'clock in the morning, the hour assigned us to
begin our work, I returned to the bunkroom to go to bed.
Hiram Strong had moved neither hand nor foot, but his breathing was more
normal. A dark blue light was the only illumination in the place, giving
to everything a mere shadowy appearance. I was glad to notice that the
place was well ventilated, fairly clean, and likely to be free from
vermin.
At three-thirty in the morning a heavy hand was laid on us, and we were
told to roll out to go on watch. To my surprise, young Strong responded
at once, with much yawning and stretching. Now and then he would sigh
deeply, ending in a sort of dismal moan, hard to tell whether from
resignation or abandon. He spoke for the first time after I had tumbled
out and had begun pulling on my shoes. He seemed to recognize me in the
uncertain light.
"Do we get anything to eat before we go to work?" he asked, leaning
against his bunk dressed in the correct street attire in which he had
slept.
"Yes, I think by going aft to the ship's kitchen we can get something;
coffee, anyhow," I replied, stripping down to my underwear.
"Is that the way you go to work?" he asked, quickly noticing my
matter-of-fact preparations.
"Yes."
"Why?" he asked, surprised.
"Well, it's pretty hot down there; and besides, it's very dirty," I
replied, pleasantly but convincingly. "Shoes, pants and undershirt are
about all you can stand," I added.
I had to wait a while for him to remove all but those needful garments
before starting for the kitchen, there to find good hot coffee and a
dish of that same thick soup.
He followed my lead again, silently, deliberately drinking two cups of
coffee and eating the soup. Then it was time for us to go.
He negotiated the several narrow iron stairs leading down to the
boiler-room like a cat avoiding water, and looked ruefully at his hands
blackened by contact with the greasy handrail. A pink silk undershirt
and polished shoes contrasted strangely with the coarse, black pull-on's
and dingy brogans of those at work. He must have noticed the contrast.
Stripped, he showed a compact figure, with good lung capacity and likely
a good heart, that being an absolute necessity in order to tolerate the
extreme heat of a boiler-room.
The engineer on watch asked me if I had ever fired, as though expecting
an affirmative.
"Yes," I replied.
"But this young fellow is a 'greeny'?"
"Yes--I think so."
"You and him take the two end boilers on the left--they are as cool as
any--and give him a few tips, will you, till he gets his hand in? Two
hundred and eighty pounds on the gauge," he added, as a hint to keep the
dial at that notch. He then told Strong I would show him what to do.
As we moved down over the piles of coal between a battery of boilers
facing the rather narrow corridor between them, Strong remarked to me,
"I'll do the best I can, sir!"
It did not seem so very hot when we first went in, but I noticed there
was only one ventilator, which came down about midway.
Strong followed me over to the end and watched me with interest when I
took the twelve-foot poker--a one-inch steel bar with a big eye bent on
one end and spatula shaped at the other--for the purpose of freeing the
clinkers from the grates before shaking them down into the ash pan.
"I will clean your fire for you this time and you can see how it's
done," I suggested, and proceeded to do so. "You know, the first thing
you do when going on watch is to clean the fire, but it must be done
quickly to keep the steam from going down too much." He listened
attentively and good-naturedly, but still silent, as one about to be
initiated into a college fraternity and was waiting for something to
happen.
I handed him a scoop and told him to put in a half dozen scoop-loads at
a time and to be sure and get it well back on the grates. I then
proceeded to clean my own grate.
Taking up the scoop, he filled it brimful, and started for the furnace
door like a girl shoveling snow. He missed the narrow opening and the
coal fell off into the ashes. He did not swear as I had expected but
glanced sheepishly at me, then about him, to see if others noticed it,
but we were all too busy with our own back-breaking jobs to pay heed to
his worries.
Determined to be successful, he walked close to the furnace door,
exposing his face and hands to the glaring fire, and succeeded in
getting the next shovelful pretty well back on the grates. After
repeating this a half dozen times his face took on a "Turkey red" and he
puffed like a lizard.
After a few more trials and a little more instruction the novelty of
doing it well seemed to interest him, and two hours wore away. He soon
learned to watch the steam gauge above him and kept it pointing at the
requisite two hundred and eighty.
At the end of the shift he leaned heavily against the bulkhead next to
his furnace, panting like a race-horse. The perspiration rolled off of
him until even his well-tailored trousers were wet and his pink silk
undershirt a sight to behold. His face was the shade of pickled beets
mixed with coal dust, and his hands the color of the lobsters he was
accustomed to eat after midnight, his palms blistered and sore, from the
friction of the shovel handle.
His neat black shoes, now grimy and rough, were full of water and
pinched his feet. I did not give him the extra pair of soft cotton
flannel gloves I had brought along for him until he asked me where I had
got mine. Then I showed him how to cool off by standing under the
ventilator, for which he seemed very grateful. He looked curiously at
me, evidently discovering that he and I were the only ones down in the
furnace room not of a hardened class. He seemed inclined to stay under
the refreshing ventilator, and I noted the hands of his steam gauge drop
back to two hundred and seventy, so I opened the door, cleaned the
grates and spread over a fresh bed of coal.
He came over while I was doing this, and I gave him some little tricks
on how to spread the fuel and not expose his hands and face to the heat.
He seemed to appreciate this and surprised me by his cleverness in
making use of my tips. For a time he revived and I thought he was going
to pull through his first watch all right, but at the end of another
hour he became shaky on his legs, and his arms scarcely supported the
empty shovel. The intense heat and effort had a telling effect on him
and it did not surprise me when he toppled over on the coal pile in a
dead faint.