Still holding my hands up, I walked with the policeman to the group huddled over Percival Staunton. Staunton lay flat on his back, his face a dreadful ashen hue. He was breathing very shallowly, and I thought I saw an occasional involuntary movement of his limbs. Dr. Soupape had his hand to Staunton’s wrist, counting his pulse. “What’s going on here?” said the policeman. “Is the fellow alive or dead?”
Dr. Soupape looked up with an irritated expression, then nodded when he saw the policeman. “I am a physician, officer. This man is in very serious condition. I cannot guarantee his life if he is not immediately hospitalized.”
The policeman leaned forward, curiosity apparent on his face. “Where’s the wound? I don’t see any blood.”
“There’s no blood because there’s no wound,” said the doctor. He rose to his feet, looking very weary. “I have every reason to believe that this man has been poisoned.”
“That settles it, then,” said the officer. He pointed to Reynold Holt and Marcus Keyes. “You two fellows pick him up and bring him along. We’ll see that he gets to a hospital directly.
“And you!” He whirled around to face me and slapped his billy club into his hand. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten you! You’re under arrest for dueling and firing a gun illegally. And don’t try any funny business, like running away when you think I’m not looking. You may have missed your man, but I don’t miss.
“And when we’ve got this fellow to the hospital, you’re all coming down to the station with me, and we’ll let the captain sort this mess out. I don’t know how this fellow managed to get himself poisoned, but I know a duel when I see one. Just in case you jaspers didn’t know it, you’ve broken about a dozen laws just by being here with weapons drawn. And your worst mistake was doing it on Terence McLaughlin’s beat!”
The policeman was remarkably efficient, all things considered. While Holt and Keyes struggled with Percival Staunton, who was little more than a dead weight, the officer commandeered a wagon, and with help from the doctor, they managed to lay Staunton on the wagon bed. Dr. Soupape threw his coat over Staunton and shook his head gravely. Then all of us climbed aboard, and the driver started up his mules. As we jarred our way along the ill-paved streets, I found it hard to take my eyes off the pathetic figure lying between us, occasionally gasping for breath. Could Dr. Soupape be right? Had Percival Staunton fallen victim to poison, just as his brother-in-law Robinson had?
Then it struck me. If Staunton and Robinson were poisoned in the same way, then Leonard Galloway, the cook, ought to be let out of prison. For while the police may have found both motive and opportunity for him to murder Robinson, there was no way a man stuck in the depths of Parish Prison could have poisoned Staunton. It was the best possible argument for setting Leonard free at once!
Somehow, that made the prospect of my own going to jail seem far less oppressive. In fact, once I got over Percival Staunton’s sudden collapse, a great flood of relief came over my mind. The duel was over, and I had escaped—not only alive, but unhurt! As for being arrested, I was sure the matter could be settled quickly. Perhaps a small fine for firing the weapon in a public place—a very sensible law. But that would hardly take the luster off what was beginning to look like a beautiful day. I hoped poor Staunton would live to see it.
When we reached the hospital, Dr. Soupape wanted to stay with Staunton. The policeman had other ideas. “The doctors here will do as much for him as you could,” he said. “As for you, you’re either an accomplice or a witness, and you’re coming with me to the station until I find out which.”
Dr. Soupape argued long and hard, and Reynold Holt urged the policeman to let the victim’s family doctor stay with him, but the officer was adamant, and had all the telling arguments on his side. At last, he permitted the doctor to pass on his own diagnosis and suggestions to the hospital staff; then we all climbed into the police wagon that had come to the hospital for us, and took seats on hard wooden benches for the short, bumpy ride to the nearby police station. In the dim light inside the Black Maria, Dr. Soupape looked drained. He kept shaking his head and saying, “I should have spotted the symptoms. Percival might have been saved if I’d done something sooner.”
“He’s not dead yet,” said Marcus Keyes, laying a hand on Dr. Soupape’s shoulder. “Don’t give him up just yet, Doctor. They may be able to pull him through.”
“Don’t bet on it,” said Reynold Holt in a loud voice. “If it’s the same stuff that killed John, he’s done for. What I’d like to know is how this damn Yankee managed to give it to him.”
“What?” I said, thoroughly confused. “Why on Earth would I have poisoned Mr. Staunton?”
“To avoid having to fight him,” said Holt, fixing me with an icy glare. “You knew you couldn’t outshoot Percy. You couldn’t hide anywhere in New Orleans where he wouldn’t find you, so you poisoned him. And damn me if I won’t see you hang for it.” Even in the dim wagon, I could see that he shook with fury.
“Leave him alone, Reynold,” said Dr. Soupape, lifting a hand in warning. “You’re grasping at straws. Better we should all pray for Percival’s safe recovery. He’ll need all the help we can give him. And blaming the innocent helps nobody.”
“You be quiet back there,” came a policeman’s voice from the driver’s seat. “Any more disturbance and we’ll find some more charges to bring against you.”
“I’ll be on my front porch sipping a julep before that impertinent monkey’s shift is over,” muttered Reynold Holt, but he said no more.
The driver finally brought his horses to a stop, and the doors of the van opened to let us out in front of an ugly brick building, evidently the police station. The officers herded us inside, where a uniformed police captain sat behind a desk. “Well, what do we have here?” he said, peering at us over a pair of spectacles. “A fine-looking group you’ve brought us, McLaughlin. What are the charges?”
“Suspicion of dueling, Captain. I was patrolling near City Park when I heard a pistol shot from the direction of the oaks. I went to investigate, and found these four, with another man down on the ground. The tall fellow there was holding this.” He took my pistol out of his pocket and put it on the captain’s desk. “And this one was on the ground near the fellow who was down.”
The captain picked up my pistol, sniffed it, then opened the mechanism and removed the empty cartridge. “One shot fired, and recently. Was the other party seriously wounded?” He looked up at Officer McLaughlin.
“Well, there’s the queer part,” said the arresting officer, rubbing his chin. “There wasn’t a scratch on him. The old fellow there claims he’s a doctor, and he thought the man had been poisoned. We took the victim to Touro Infirmary. They’ll keep us informed of his condition.”
The captain had meanwhile inspected Staunton’s pistol. “This one hasn’t been fired. Are you sure it was a duel, McLaughlin?”
McLaughlin held his hands apart, as if telling about a fish he’d caught. “Two men at the Oaks, about ten paces apart, both armed, and a bunch of others around to watch—and there was a white handkerchief on the ground about halfway between them.” He dug in his pocket again and pulled out Dr. Soupape’s handkerchief, placing it on the desk. “There must have been a couple of other seconds, but I guess they flew the coop when the fellow went down, since this is all I caught. It couldn’t have been more than a minute or two between when I heard the shot and when I got to the scene.”
“It sounds mighty like a duel to me,” agreed the captain. “Any other witnesses?” He motioned to a clerk, who had been working at a nearby desk and unashamedly eavesdropping. The clerk eagerly came over to the captain’s desk, bringing a pad of notepaper and a pencil.
“No, sir,” said McLaughlin. “We might be able to find somebody else who heard the gunshot, if we need to prove it.”
“We’ll deal with that if we need to,” said the captain. He turned to us. “What do you men have to say for yourselves?”
“This is all a mistake,
officer,” said Dr. Soupape. “I am Dr. Alphonse Soupape, a lifelong resident of Orleans Parish and a veteran of the War. I have a practice on Saint Charles Avenue, in the Garden District. I and my friends are respectable citizens, not common rowdies. I need to return to the hospital to see to the welfare of my patient, the gentleman who collapsed in the park.”
The captain turned a long-suffering look on the doctor. “Gee, Doc, I’d never have known I was dealing with quality. Of course, somebody of your class would never be out by the Oaks with drawn pistols, would they now? And even if they were, the poor benighted police shouldn’t interfere with rich folks having a little fun, should they?”
He paused, took a deep breath, and then shouted. “I don’t give a damn who you people are! You’ve broken at least one law in my jurisdiction, and maybe you’ve broken a whole bunch of ’em, and I’m going to do the job the city pays me for. Do you have anything to say besides how important you are and where you live? Because otherwise, I’ll lock you right up without any more hot air.”
“I will not have any statement until I see my lawyer,” said Marcus Keyes. “I hereby request the use of a telephone to inform him of my whereabouts.”
“You’ll have that opportunity,” said the captain. “What about the rest of you?”
“I also wish to see my attorney,” said Reynold Holt, turning his hostile stare toward the clerk, and Dr. Soupape voiced the same request.
“I am a stranger in town, so I don’t have a local attorney,” I said. “If I can send a message to my employer, he will arrange for representation.”
The captain sighed, then opened a large ledgerlike book on the counter beside him. “Very well. I’m going to book the tall fellow here on charges of dueling, discharging a firearm in public, and attempted murder. The rest of you—and that fellow in the hospital, too—are charged with dueling and accessory before the fact to attempted murder. The judge may think of a few other charges, but these will be enough to put you on ice for a while. I’ll need your names and addresses, and then you’ll have your chance to send for your lawyers.”
He reached for a pen, then looked at us over the top of his spectacles. “And you’d best hope that fellow in the hospital gets well, or we’ll be looking at murder charges for the lot of you.” He turned to the clerk. “Okay, Burghardt, book ’em!” And he walked away and began talking with another officer in a corner of the room. I had the feeling he had dismissed us as no longer worth his attention.
After giving our names and addresses—I listed the Royal Street pension where I was staying with Mr. Clemens—we handed over our valuables for safekeeping, including our watches, wallets, jewelry, and (to my surprise) our belts. Then we were taken to a large cell in back, where we were locked in with half a dozen other prisoners. Two of them were snoring loudly, most likely sleeping off the drink that had gotten them arrested to begin with. Another kept up a continual blasphemous rant against the police, the mayor, the government, and various other institutions he claimed were unjustly persecuting him. The rest sat sullenly or paced back and forth.
The cell was perhaps fifteen to twenty feet, with hard benches bolted to the back and side walls, and a sturdy iron grating on the front. There was no effort wasted on providing amenities for the prisoners; privacy and comfort were concepts that had never crossed the minds of the designers of the place. Neither, apparently had cleanliness. In the dim light filtering in through a heavily barred window, I could see insects scurrying across the floor, and my nose told me all I needed to know of the sanitary facilities.
There was a moment’s silence as we were locked in, and the other prisoners sized us up; then, the ones who had bothered to look at all turned back to their previous concerns. As we were a group, and respectably dressed, we were somewhat set apart from the usual jailhouse rabble. Once the door had shut behind us, Dr. Soupape, Reynold Holt, and Marcus Keyes began to confer about what they would do next. “Are we all going to use Dupree?” asked Keyes. “I reckon it’ll be quicker than sending for three different lawyers.”
“Yes, get Gordon, by all means,” said Dr. Soupape. “I have to get out quickly, so I can go back to Touro and do whatever I can for poor Percy. I wish to heaven we’d managed to talk him out of the duel, but now I understand why he wouldn’t listen to reason. It was the poison, of course. It attacks the mind first.”
“I’m afraid the poison would have gotten him whether he’d come out today or not,” said Keyes. “But I’ll agree he wasn’t acting like himself, not even last night when he asked me to second him. I put it down to the distress of finding his wife with somebody else. That can unsettle the strongest mind, I fear.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Alphonse,” said Reynold Holt. “Gordon will get us out, and then you’ll do what you can for Percy. He’s in good hands at Touro, but I’d be happier knowing you were looking after him, as well. And if he recovers, maybe we can figure out how this fellow gave him the poison.” He glared at me.
“I did not poison Mr. Staunton!” I protested. “You saw me fire my gun into the air; if I’d wanted to kill him, would I have done that?”
“Jesus, will you shut up and let a fellow sleep?” moaned one of the drunks on the nearby bench. He sat up and looked at us, his pathetic condition evident on his face, then rolled over to face the wall.
“Mr. Cabot has a point,” said the doctor, lowering his voice. “If he’d poisoned Percy to get out of the duel, why would he show up to risk being shot?”
“To divert suspicion,” said Holt. “He deloped to make us all believe he bore no grudge, knowing all the time that the poison would destroy Percy’s aim. You saw how much trouble he had holding the gun straight.” They had closed into a small circle, leaving me a few feet away and definitely on the outside. They spoke quietly, but made no particular effort to conceal what they were saying from me or anyone else in the cell.
“A hell of a risk to take in any event,” said Keyes. I thought he was going to say more, but an officer came to the cell door and called out, “All right, quiet down in there.” The other prisoners all turned to look at him; even one of the drunks sat up to see what was happening. When he had our attention, he pointed at our group. “You, the duelists. Now’s your chance to call your lawyers. One at a time. Who’s first?”
“You make the call, Alphonse,” said Reynold Holt. “Gordon should be up and about by now. Maybe he can get us out in time for luncheon.”
“He’d better be a mighty good shyster if you expect him to do that,” said the policeman in an ominous voice. “We just heard from Touro. That fellow you were with this morning died. You boys are in for murder charges, now.”
18
Murder charges or no, within an hour of Dr. Soupape’s call, Gordon Dupree had arrived at the police station with a writ of habeas corpus, securing the release of Reynold Holt, Marcus Keyes, and Dr. Alphonse Soupape. He had obtained their release on their own recognizance.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do the same service for you, Mr. Cabot,” he said, much to my surprise; I had no reason to expect him to have tried. “I did my best,” he continued, “but Judge Fogarty wouldn’t hear of it—not just on my word, at least. To put it baldly, you are a transient, without connections in the community, and you don’t own any property. The judge sees you as a poor risk—quite understandably, I’m afraid, especially with a possible capital charge against you. He wouldn’t even name a figure for bail, although he would probably change his mind if the inquest turns up a “natural causes” verdict. Failing that, Mr. Clemens might still be able to get you bail, though, having known you longer and being a man of some reputation in the community. Have you called him yet?”
“There’s not a phone where we’re staying; I left him a note this morning, saying where I was going, but he wouldn’t think to look for me here.”
Dupree waved a hand as if to dismiss the notion of difficulties. “Write a note to him. I’ll make certain that he gets it.” He opened his briefcase and gave me a sheet of p
aper and a pencil, which I gratefully accepted.
I wrote a brief note saying where I was—I had to ask Mr. Dupree for the exact address—then folded the paper and handed it to him. “I appreciate your helping me send this, although I fear I don’t know exactly where Mr. Clemens is; he left town unexpectedly, and asked me to wait for him at our pension. Unfortunately, he didn’t tell me where he was going.”
“I see,” said Dupree, scratching the back of his head. “I’m afraid that doesn’t bode well for a quick release. I can’t see how anyone but Mr. Clemens could get you out except on bail. I assume you don’t have access to ready money.”
“Nothing really, except the pocket change the police took from me. What little I’ve saved is in a bank back in Connecticut; I send it to my mother, and she deposits it for me. I’d hate to have to draw on it, although if Mr. Clemens doesn’t return quickly I may be forced to. But if you’ll just get the note to Mme. Bechet’s pension on Royal Street, just above Ursulines, I’d be much obliged,” I said. I shook hands with him and with Dr. Soupape, and then they left, and the jail door closed behind me.
Some of the other denizens of the cell had been released by now, as well. The drunks were taken out, as I learned, to appear before a magistrate and pay a small fine; they did not return. And a lawyer came with walking papers for two of the others, rough-looking men who’d sat together speaking quietly in what I thought was probably Italian. “What happens now?” I asked one of the policemen who came for the released prisoners.
“You’ll be took before the judge this afternoon, unless somebody can get you sprung. He’ll decide whether to hold you pending the inquest. If he does, they’ll probably run you over to Parish Prison until they have a verdict from the coroner. If the verdict is homicide, they hold you for trial.”
[Mark Twain Mysteries 02] - A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court Page 18
