by J. T. Edson
Jerking the cord hurriedly from his throat, St. Andre sucked in a deep breath before he nodded and replied, “I—I think so. Do you know of any way one can break the grip of the cord, Captain?”
“None. The thuggi always tries to take his victim by surprise. Once the noose falls and is drawn tight, there is no escape.”
“That’s what I thought,” St. Andre said quietly and turned to Calamity. “I’ve decided—.”
“And so have I!” Calamity interrupted. “I’m still going through with it. So you’d best try that trick on me, Cap’n, and let me get the feel of it.”
“On you?” gasped Holgate.
“On me. I’m the one the Strangler’ll be doing it on.”
Throwing an appealing glance at St. Andre, Holgate hoped for moral support in his refusal; but did not get it.
“When Calamity makes up her mind, we poor men might just as well give up and let her have her way,” the detective stated. “She’s seen enough to know how to make a thuggi cord, and she’s stubborn enough to find help in practicing escaping from it. So we might as well help her.”
“You might just as well,” agreed Calamity, laying her cigar in the ashtray on St. Andre’s desk.
Coming to her feet, Calamity stepped forward and took St. Andre’s place before Holgate. After throwing another imploring glance at St. Andre, the captain took up his cord and stepped into position behind the girl. Calamity waited, tense and ready, watching for the cord to pass before her eyes. While watching the demonstration on St. Andre, she had seen what might be a way of breaking the hold and wanted to try it.
Down came the noose and instantly Calamity brought up her hands, palms outwards, sliding her fingers under the cord in an attempt at stopping it drawing tight on her. The try failed miserably. She felt the cord jerk tight as Holgate turned, and the leverage slammed her hands back into her throat, the knuckles sinking into her flesh. A sudden feeling of panic hit the girl at the way her breath was chopped off and she tried to jerk forward; which only made the grip on her throat tighten. Then the cord slackened and she staggered forward, tearing it from her neck.
St. Andre sprang forward and caught the girl in his arms, while Holgate spung around, concern showing plain on his face.
“Are you all right, cherie?” asked St. Andre, for he had seen the momentary panic on her face.
“Did I hurt you?” Holgate went on before Calamity could reply.
The concern for her welfare shown by St. Andre and Holgate jolted Calamity back to her normal self and she managed a weak grin.
“Yes for you, Sherry, and no to the Cap’n. Only I know one way I can’t chance using now.”
Yet while she fought to hide it, Calamity felt very worried. Holgate had moved slowly and with care, she had been ready and waiting for the noose too, yet he still managed to snap her hands back against her throat and prevent her from pulling the cord even a little free. Of course the leverage on the cord as it passed over Holgate’s shoulder accounted for the strength of its grip, but the same would apply just as much when the Strangler wielded the noose. Another point to be remembered was that the Strangler would move neither as slowly nor gently as did Holgate when applying his killing cord.
Never one to avoid facing the truth, Calamity reviewed the situation in the light of what she now knew. One thing stood out clear and simple. If she hoped to stay alive long enough for the protective police screen to arrive and save her, she must find some way of breaking the hold of the cord around her neck. There now only remained one problem to be solved, the most important matter of all—how to do the breaking.
Taking off her bandana, Calamity spread it out flat, then folded it lengthways instead of re-rolling it. Carefully she wrapped the bandana around her neck to act as some slight protection against the cut of the cord. Giving a weak grin, she looked at the two men.
“Try again, Cap—Nope, you’d best let Sherry handle the rope this time, ‘cause I’m going to try like hell to get free, and he’s paid to take the lumps.”
“Thank you for your concern, cherie,” said the detective. “But let the Captain do it once more while I watch. I may be able to see some way of breaking the hold while watching.”
On the first attempt, Calamity tried lashing with her right foot. She missed her mark, lost her balance and only the fact that Holgate instantly released the cord saved Calamity from obtaining a too thorough idea of how the cord worked. Without her hands on the cord, Calamity learned the purpose of the three knots. The lump of the central knot pressed on her adam’s apple, the other two closing in from the sides so as to effectively clamp shut her wind-pipe. Even through the folds of the bandana she could feel the pressure of the knots, and guessed at the sensation caused when they bit into naked flesh.
A shudder ran through Calamity as the noose slackened, but she fought down her fears. Thinking fast, she came up with a possible solution.
“Kicking won’t work,” she said. “Try again.”
On the next try Calamity made an attempt at stepping to one side. She hoped to pull the cord from Holgate’s shoulder. However, she made a mistake by stepping to her right and this only drew the cord tighter.
“That won’t work,” St. Andre warned as the cord slackened.
“I kinda figured that myself,” admitted Calamity.
“Try stepping to your left next time. It might pull the cords off his shoulder.”
“Let me catch my breath first. Then we’ll try it your way, Sherry.”
An expression of admiration came to Holgate’s face as he coiled the cord and watched Calamity pick up her cigar.
“If you don’t mind me saying so, Calamity,” he said. “You’re the bravest woman I’ve ever seen or met.”
“Feel free to say it any time,” she replied, hoping she was not blushing at the praise. “Only I’m not being brave. I’m just a half-smart lil country gal trying to act all smart and save her fool neck.”
“If you’re a half-smart country girl,” St. Andre put in, “I’d hate to come across a smart one.”
“Or I,” Holgate went on. “Any time you need a job, come and see me. I could use you as mate on my ship.”
“Let’s make another stab at escaping,” Calamity put in hurriedly and knew she was blushing now.
Even stepping to the left did not provide the necessary solution to the problem, for the cord would not slide off of Holgate’s shoulder and only drew tighter. Calamity let out an exasperated snort when released.
“Say, do you have that itty-bitty stingy gun with you, Sherry?” she asked.
“Of course,” St. Andre answered, taking out his Smith & Wesson.
“Unload it. Let’s try something else. Maybe if I’d a gun in my reticule, I could get it out and use it.”
“It’s worth a try,” the detective admitted. “I’ve got the dead girl’s reticule in my desk, seeing that you didn’t bring one along.”
“It don’t go with pants and a shirt,” explained the fashion-conscious Miss Canary and looked at Holgate. “You’ll have to hold the cord a mite longer this time.”
After St. Andre unloaded his revolver, he took the reticule from the desk’s drawer, handing weapon and bag to the girl. Calamity double-checked on the empty condition of the gun, a safety precaution St. Andre approved of, then placed the revolver into the bag and drew tight the draw-strings which closed the neck of the reticule.
“Let’s go,” she said, standing with the reticule swinging by its strings from her left wrist.
Once more the noose dropped into place and even as it did, Calamity grabbed for the reticule with her right hand. She tried to move fast, but not fumble, yet for all that she barely slid her hand into the reticule before the cord around her throat drew tight. She found that the sudden cutting off of her breath, even though she expected it, induced a state of near-panic which prevented her thinking. Desperately she began to struggle against the choking of the cord.
“Let loose!” St. Andre yelled.
Hol
gate obeyed instantly and Calamity sank to her knees, hands jerking the cord and bandana from her throat. Both men moved to her side and gentle hands lifted her to a chair. The roaring in her head subsided and she saw two worried faces before her.
“That’s all, cherie,” St. Andre announced grimly.
“I just didn’t move fast enough,” she objected.
“And the Strangler will be moving much faster than I did,” Holgate pointed out. “Surely there’s some other way. Can’t your men stick closer to her?”
“Not as close as they’d have to be to make it safe, or the Strangler would see them, especially in the Park.”
“How well can Raoul Redon and the other boys shoot?” asked Calamity.
“Fairly well,” answered St. Andre.
“Well enough to pick the Strangler off me from thirty yards at least on a moonlight night?”
“Sacre blue!” gasped the detective. “I doubt it. Hey, how about one of your friends with the freight outfit?”
For a moment loyalty to her friends warred with common sense and in the end common sense won. While Calamity hated to admit it, she doubted if even Dobe Killem could handle a revolver that well. A rifle maybe; but one did not see folks walking around in New Orleans with a rifle tucked under an arm. To have one of the boys do so would attract too much attention.
“None of ‘em could do it. There’s none of the boys can handle a gun that good.”
“Or my men,” St. Andre admitted.
“It’s a pity you don’t have one of those Western gunfighters here,” Holgate remarked.
“Somebody like Dusty Fog, you m—.”
St. Andre’s sentence never ended. Giving a whoop like a drunk Pawnee coming to a pow wow, Calamity sprang forward, grabbed him by the shoulders and gave him a resounding kiss.
“That’s it, Sherry!” she whooped. “If there’s any way of getting out of the cord, old Dusty’ll be the one to know it.”
“Dusty Fog is not in New Orleans,” St. Andre pointed out.
“Some detective,” sniffed Calamity. “Don’t they have a telegraph office in this fancy big city?”
“It’s a chance,” St. Andre admitted. “Captain Fog knows that strange way of fighting. He might be able to come up with the answer. We’ll get off a message to him right away. But if he doesn’t come up with the answer, we’ll call off the whole thing.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Miss Canary Attracts Attention
ST. ANDRE turned to Calamity as they left the telegraph office after dispatching the request for advice to Dusty Fog in the Rio Hondo country of Texas.
“That is that, cherie,” he said. “The answer will be sent over to my office as soon as it arrives.”
“If Dusty’s at the OD Connected, we’ll get an answer right soon,” Calamity replied. “What’re you going to do now?”
“Make another tour of the Latour Street district and see if I can find anybody ready to talk about a missing girl. And you?”
“There’s no use in my going with you. Happen the Strangler should see us together in daylight, he might be able to recognise me later, even through that blonde hair and paint.”
“You could take up Captain Holgate’s offer of a tour of inspection of the China Star,” St. Andre suggested, for the captain had made the offer before leaving Headquarters to rejoin his ship.
“Sure I could. Might do that later. Only right now I’ve a hankering to see what kind of hosses the Army brought us down here to collect.”
“Then I’ll see you—.”
“Tonight, same as last,” Calamity finished for him. “We’ll just have to play ‘em as they fall until we get word from Dusty.”
Seeing there was no chance of changing Calamity’s mind, and knowing she would probably be stubborn enough to go without an escort, St. Andre surrendered. He hailed a passing cab and handed the girl into it, then gave the driver instructions where to take her.
“Until tonight then, cherie,” St. Andre finished, taking the girl’s hand and kissing it.
“Yep,” agreed Calamity. “Hooray wah! Hey, what do you know, I talk French now.”
Standing on the sidewalk, St. Andre watched the cab pull away. Maybe Miss Martha Jane Canary lacked most of the social graces, but there would never be another girl like her. With that thought St. Andre turned and looked for transportation to take him on what his instincts told him would be another dud quest to learn the identity of the Strangler’s victims.
The cab carried Calamity towards the waterfront area. Cattle and other livestock came into New Orleans and an open section of the docks had been given over to pens. Leaving the cab, Calamity walked towards the largest of the pens and as she drew close, the wind wafted the smell of horses to her nostrils. Calamity sucked in the aroma as eagerly as a bluetick hound hitting hot cougar scent. In her imagination, she was carried back to her beloved West. Suddenly Calamity felt homesick for the rolling Great Plains country. She longed to feel leather in her hands as she handled the ribbons of her big Conestoga wagon’s team, feel the sun on her head, the wind or rain in her face. The big city was not for Calamity Jane and never would be. She hated the never-ending rush and bustle of New Orleans, where folks hardly had time to stop and talk a spell. Out on the Great Plains everything seemed calmer, more friendly, cleaner. Even death came openly on the Plains, from bullet, arrow, knife or war-lance, not sneaking, unseen, silent and cowardly as the Strangler’s whipcord noose.
“Now easy there, Calam gal,” she told herself. “You’ve had some fun here too.”
A young cavalry lieutenant, far more tidy and glittering than the junior officers Calamity had met on the Plains, stood by Dobe Killem’s side at the largest of the coral-like pens. Turning from their study of the forty or so horses in the pen, both men looked in Calamity’s direction and Killem raised his hand in greeting.
“Hi there, Calam gal,” he said. “Come on up and get acquainted with Lootenant Bristow.”
Trying not to stare too pointedly at Calamity’s shapely figure and unorthodox dress style, Bristow bowed as taught at West Point.
“My pleasure, ma’am,” he said.
“Reckon it is,” grinned the girl and thrust out her right hand. Hurriedly Bristow jerked off his right gauntlet and accepted the girl’s hand. With the formalities tended to, Calamity turned and swung up on the pen’s top rail to study the horses.
“What do you think of them, Miss Canary?” Bristow inquired.
“They look a mite small to me. Can’t see one as goes fifteen hands even.”
“We didn’t buy them for great size, but for their hooves.”
Ducking between the rails, Calamity entered the corral. Unlike Western horses, the animals in the pen showed no desire to avoid human beings, allowing Calamity to approach them. Although the girl had not worn her gunbelt that morning, the bullwhip was thrust into her waist belt. Pulling the whip out, she made a loop of part of its lash and dropped it over the head of the nearest horse. Holding the animal, Calamity glanced down, then bent to take a closer look at its hooves.
Full of male superiority, Bristow joined Calamity in the pen and pointed down at what interested the girl.
“That’s why the Army bought these horses,” he explained. “They’re called muck-ponies and bred between here and Florida. See the sizes of the hooves?”
“I’d be hard put not to.”
“Despite the size, the foot is light, yet, tough,” Bristow went on, lifting the horse’s near fore leg to emphasise his point. “See the small size of the frog? It leaves a deep hollow into which mud can pack tight enough to support the horse’s weight when crossing ground into which an animal with a normal hoof would sink belly deep. Why, I’ve seen muck ponies canter across swampy ground and quicksands that would mire down any other horse, and carrying weight too.”
“That’d be real useful,” answered Calamity, “in swampy country. Only we’re a mite long on swamps on the Great Plains.”
“You have snow there.”
“Yep, reckon we do. It gets real de—Hey, you mean that the army figures using these hosses for a winter campaign again the Injuns?”
“Something like that,” Bristow agreed. “You know as well as I do that the campaign against the Indians is almost brought to a halt with the snows of winter?”
“Reckon it is,” the girl admitted, releasing the horse.
“We hope the muck ponies will enable us to carry on the offensive through the winter. That’s why we bought them.”
“Now me,” grinned Calamity, “I thought that some general’d bred too many hosses and wanted to sell ‘em fast.”
Bristow eyed Calamity coldly and stiffened slightly, for he was still fresh enough from West Point to take himself and life very seriously. Before he could think up a sufficiently chilling response to her remark, he saw something which made him let the matter slide. A two-horse carriage driven by a grizzled infantry sergeant approached, in it sat a tall, slim major-general, a plump, motherly-looking woman and a pretty girl dressed to the height of fashion.
“Excuse me, Miss Canary,” Bristow said stiffly, then turned and left the pen. Watching him go, Calamity coiled her whip and thrust it into her waist band. “Damn fool gal!” she told herself. “That big mouth of your’n’ll get you hung one of these days.”
Following Bristow from the corral, Calamity leaned on the rail and watched the young officer march smartly to the carriage and throw a parade-ground salute to the general.
“At ease, Douglas,” the general said. “We came down to see that horse I had shipped in for Aileen’s birthday.”
“Mr. Killem cut it out for me, sir. I had it put in the smaller, empty pen.”
“Good horse?”
“A fine animal, sir, but a touch high spirited.”
“How about the others, Dobe?” asked the general, turning to the freighter.
