The Works of Andre Norton (12 books)

by Andre Norton

  "Right." The swamper turned on his heel and padded toward the French windows.

  "No, you don't!" the rival snarled as he moved into line between Jeems and his objective. "When we want that guy, we'll hunt him out ourselves. When we're good and ready!"

  "If you don't wish to see my brother, just why did you come?" Val asked feverishly. He must keep them talking there until he had time to think of some way of getting that slender blade of steel into hiding.

  "We're movin' in," Red answered casually for them all.

  "How interesting. I think that the police will enjoy hearing that," Val commented.

  "It's perfectly legal," bleated the lawyer. "We possess a court order to view the place with the purpose of appraising it for sale." He drew a stiff paper from the inside pocket of his coat and waved it toward the boy.

  "Bunk! I don't know much about the law but I do know that you could have obtained nothing of the kind without our being notified. And just which one of you has been selected to do the appraising?"

  "Him," answered Red laconically and jerked his thumb at the Boss.

  "So," Jeems stared at him, "since yo' couldn't git what yo' want by thievin' at night, yo're goin' to try and git it by day."

  "But what are you really after? I'm curious to know. You certainly don't want a sugar plantation which hasn't been paying its way since the Civil War. That just isn't reasonable. And you ought to know that we can't afford to buy you off. We must be living over a gold-mine that we haven't discovered. Come on, tell us where it is," Val prodded.

  "Cut the cackle," advised Red, "an' le's git down to it."

  "I would advise you to get back in your car and drive out." Val wondered if his face looked as stiff as it felt. "This visit isn't going to get you anywhere."

  "We ain't goin' any place, kid," remarked the rival. "You don't seem to understand. We're stayin' right here. I got rights and the judge has recognized them. I'm top guy here now."

  "Yeah. Yuh ain't so smart as yuh think yuh are," contributed Red, scowling at Val. "We ain't gonna leave."

  It wasn't Red's speech, however, that straightened the boy's back and made Jeems shift his position an inch or two. There was another car coming up the drive. And since their enemies were all gathered before them, they could only be receiving friends, or at the worst neutrals.

  But the car which came from between the live-oaks to park behind the first contained only two passengers. LeFleur and Creighton got out, stopped in surprise to view the party on the terrace, and then came up, shoving by Red.

  "Quite a party," Val observed. "But how did you manage to arrive so opportunely?"

  "We have made a discovery," panted the Creole lawyer; "a very important discovery. What are these men doing here?"

  "We got a court order to view this house for sale." The rival was truculent. "An' it's all legal. The mouthpiece says so," he indicated his counselor.

  "Perhaps," Creighton's cool tones cut through, "you had better introduce us." There was a decided change in his manner. Gone was his shy nervousness, his slightly hesitant reserve. It was a keen business man who stood there now.

  Val grinned. "You see before you the family skeleton. May I introduce Mr. Ralestone, who firmly believes that he is the Ralestone of Pirate's Haven? And three other--shall we say gentlemen--whom I myself have never met formally. Though I did have the pleasure, I believe," he addressed the Boss directly, "of blackening your eye."

  "Yeah, I'm Ralestone, and I'm gonna have my rights," stated the rival briskly.

  "You are a descendant of Roderick Ralestone?" asked LeFleur.

  "Yuh know I am. I got proofs!"

  "The man is a liar," Creighton said calmly.

  As they stared at him, LeFleur nodded. Val saw an ugly grin begin to curve Red's thick lips.

  "Yeah? An how do yuh know that, wise guy?" he asked.

  "Because there is only one Roderick Ralestone in this generation and he is standing right there. Permit me to introduce Roderick St. Jean Ralestone!"

  The person he turned to was Jeems!

  CHAPTER XVII

  THE RETURN OF RICK RALESTONE

  Val ventured to break the sudden silence which resulted from Creighton's astonishing statement.

  "But how--why--"

  "Yeah," the rival had collected a measure of his scattered wits, "whatta yuh mean, wise guy?"

  "Just this--" LeFleur drew himself up and faced the invaders sternly--"I have only this very morning deposited with the probate court certain documents making very plain the identity of this young man. Without the shadow of a doubt he is the only living descendant of Roderick Ralestone and his wife, Valerie St. Jean de Roche. I have also sworn out a complaint--"

  Then the Boss took a hand in the game. "The boy's a minor," he observed.

  "Through me," LeFleur returned, "Mr. Rupert Ralestone as nearest of kin has applied for guardianship and there will be no difficulty in the settlement of that matter."

  "Yeah!" The rival threw his gloves on the terrace and glared not at LeFleur but at his own backing. Having stared at the lawyer of his party until that unfortunate man lost all assurance, he attacked the Boss. "So, wise guy, what now? We ain't got such a snap as yuh said we were gonna have. We were gonna move right in and take over the joint, were we? We didn't have anything to worry about. For once we was playin' with the law. Yeah, we were. We are nothin' but a gang of mugs. Whatta we gonna do now, huh? You oughta know. Ain't yuh been doin' our thinkin' for us all along? We can't grab the land and run. We gotta camp right here if we're gonna git anything. And how are we gonna--"

  "Simpson!" the Boss's voice was sharp. "Be quiet! You are becoming wearisome. Gentlemen," he bowed slightly toward LeFleur and Creighton, "one cannot fight bad luck, and this time Fate smiles upon you. It was a good idea if it had worked," he added musingly. "Young Ralestone seems to have gathered all the aces into his hand. Even," the drawl became a sneer, "even the guardianship of the missing heir, which will mean a nice sum in the bank for the happy guardian, if all reports are true."

  "What _did_ you want here?" Val asked for the last time.

  The Boss smiled. "I shall leave that mystery for you to unravel, my wounded hero. It should occupy an idle moment or two. Doubtless all will be made clear in the fullness of time. As for you," he turned upon LeFleur, "there is no use in your entertaining any foolish idea of calling the police. For our invasion today we have a court order; unhappily it is no longer of use. But we did come here in good faith, as we are prepared to prove. And all other evidence of any lawbreaking upon our part rests, I believe, upon the word of two boys, evidence which might be twisted by a clever lawyer. You may prosecute Simpson for perjury, of course. But I think that Simpson will not be in this part of the country long. Yes," he looked about him once more at garden and house, "it was a very good idea. A pity it did not work. Well, I must be going before I begin to curse my luck. When a man does that, he sometimes loses it. You must have found yours, I think."

  "We did," Val answered, but the Boss did not hear him, for he had turned on his heel and was striding down the terrace. For a moment his followers hesitated uncertainly and then they were after him. Back into their sinister beetle-car went the invaders and then they were gone down the drive, leaving the Ralestones in possession of the victorious field.

  "Now," Val said plaintively, "will somebody please tell me just what this is all about? Who is Jeems, really?"

  "Just who I said," answered Creighton promptly. "Roderick St. Jean Ralestone, the only descendant of your pirate ancestor."

  "Bettah tell us the story," suggested the swamper quietly. "Yo' ain't foolin', are yo', Mistuh Creighton?"

  The New Yorker shook his head. "No, I'm not fooling. But you are not the first one to question my story." He smiled reminiscently. "Judge Henry Lane had to see every line of written proof this morning before he would admit that the tale might be true."

  "But where did you find this 'proof'?" Val demanded as Jeems pulled up chairs for the lawyer
and Creighton.

  "In that chest of Jeems' which you brought out of the swamp on the night of the storm," he replied promptly. "And, young man," he said to Jeems indignantly, "if you had let me see those papers of yours a month ago, instead of waiting until last week, we would have had this matter cleared up then--"

  "But then we might never have found the Luck!" Val protested.

  "Humph, that piece of steel is historically interesting, no doubt," conceded Creighton, "but hardly worth risking your life for."

  "No? Well, you heard what that man said just now--that we had found our luck. It's so; we have had good luck since. But I'm sorry; do get on with the story of Jeems' box."

  "Ah gave it to him Monday," said the swamper slowly. "But, Mistuh Creighton, there weren't nothin' in that chest but some books full of handwritin'--most in some funny foreign stuff--an' a French prayer-book."

  "Plenty to establish your right to the name and a quarter interest in the estate," snapped LeFleur. Val thought the lawyer rather resented the fact that it was Creighton and not he who had found the way out of their difficulties.

  "Two of those books were ships' logs, kept in the fashion of diaries, partly in Latin," explained the New Yorker. "The log of the ship _Annette Marie_ for the years 1814 and 1815 gave us what we wanted. The master was Captain Roderick Ralestone, although he concealed his name in a sort of an anagram. After his quarrel with his brother he apparently went to Lafitte and purchased the ship which he had once commanded for the smuggler. Then he sailed off into the Gulf to become a free-trader, with his headquarters first in Georgetown, British Guiana, then in Dutch Curaao, and finally at Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It was there that he met and fell in love with Valerie St. Jean de Roche, the only living child and heir of the Comte de Roche, who had survived the Terror of the French Revolution only to fall victim to the rebel slaves on his Haitian estates.

  "Horribly injured, the Comte de Roche had been saved from death by the devotion of his daughter and her nurse, a free woman of color. These two women not only saved his life, but managed to keep him and themselves alive through the dark years which followed the horrors of the black uprising and the overthrow of the French rule. The courage of that lady of France must have been very great. But she was near to the end of her strength when she met Roderick Ralestone.

  "Against the direct orders of the black despots in the land, young Ralestone got de Roche and his daughter away on his ship. Her maid chose to remain among her people. Ralestone hints that she was a sort of priestess of Voodoo and that it had been her dark powers which had protected the lives of those she loved.

  "Ralestone took the refugees to Curaao, but de Roche did not survive. He lived only long enough to see his daughter married to her rescuer and to persuade his son-in-law to legally adopt the name of St. Jean de Roche, that an old and honored family might not be forgotten. The Comte's only son had been killed by the blacks.

  "So it was as Roderick St. Jean--he dropped the 'de Roche' in time--that he returned here in 1830. His wife was dead, worn out while yet in her youth by the horrors of her girlhood. But Roderick brought with him a ten-year-old boy who had the right to both the name of Ralestone and that of de Roche.

  "Roderick himself was greatly changed. Years of free-trading, both in the Gulf and in the South Seas, had made him wholly sailor. A cutlass cut disfigured his face and altered the line of his mouth. Anyone who had known Roderick Ralestone would have little interest in Captain St. Jean, the merchant adventurer. He discusses this point at some length in his log, always concealing his real name.

  "For the space of a year or two he was content to live quietly. He even opened a small shop and dealt in luxuries from the south. Then the desire to wander, which must have been the key-note of his life, drove him out into the world again. He placed his son in the care of a certain priest, whom he trusted, and went south to become one of the visionary revolutionists who were fighting their way back and across South and Central America. In one bloody engagement he fell, as his son notes in the old logs which he was now using to record his own daily experiences."

  "Ricky said," Val mused, "that Roderick Ralestone never died in his bed. What became of the son?"

  "Father Justinian wanted him to enter the Church, but in spite of his strict training he had no vocation. The money his father had left with the priest was enough to establish him in a small coastwise trading venture, and later he developed a flatboat freight service running upriver to Nashville."

  "But didn't he ever try to get in touch with the Ralestones?" Val asked.

  "No. When Roderick Ralestone sailed from New Orleans he seems to have determined to cut himself off from the past entirely. As I said, he used an anagram to hide his name all the way through the log, and doubtless his son never knew that there was anything strange about his father's past. Laurent St. Jean, the son, prospered. Just before the outbreak of the Civil War he was reckoned one of the ten wealthiest men of his native city.

  "But that wealth vanished in the war when shipping no longer went forth from the port. I did come across one interesting fact in Laurent's notes covering those years. In 1861 Laurent St. Jean built a blockade-runner called the _Red Bird_. His backer in the venture was a Mr. Ralestone of Pirate's Haven. So once Ralestone did meet Ralestone without being aware of the fact.

  "Laurent St. Jean was imprisoned by 'Beast' Butler, along with other prominent men of the city, when the Yankees captured New Orleans. And he died in 1867 from a lingering illness contracted during his imprisonment. His son, Ren St. Jean, came home from war to find himself ruined. His father's shipping business existed on paper only. Having the grit and determination of his grandfather, he struggled along for almost ten years trying to get back on his feet. But those were dark years for the whole country.

  "In 1876 St. Jean gave up the struggle. With his Creole wife and their two sons he moved into the swamps. Working first as a guide and trapper and then as a hunter of birds, he managed to make a sparse living. His eldest son followed in his footsteps, but the younger took to the sea. Roderick St. Jean, the eldest son, died of yellow fever in 1890. He left one son to the guardianship of his brother who had come home from the sea. That son came to look upon his uncle as his father and the real relationship between them was half forgotten.

  "But Ren St. Jean the second was curious. He knew something of the world and he was interested in the past. It was his custom to do a great amount of reading, especially reading which concerned the history of his own state and city. And once he was inclined to get out the old sea chest which had been moved with the family for so many years. Then he must have discovered his relationship to the Ralestones; perhaps he solved the anagram or found the pasted pages in the prayer-book--

  "He was not ambitious for himself, but he wanted a better chance for his foster-son and nephew than the one he had had. So he endeavored to prove his claim to this property. Unfortunately, the lawyer he trusted was a shyster of the worst sort. He himself had no belief in his client's story and merely bled him for small sums each month without ever really looking into the matter."

  "Gran'pappy said he was tryin' to git his rights," broke in Jeems. "He nevah tol' mah pappy what he knowed. An' he wouldn't let anyone see into that chest--he kep' it undah his bed. Then aftah Pappy died of the fever--'long with mah mothah--Gran'pappy cotched it too. An' the doctah said that was what made him so fo'getful aftahwards. He stopped goin' in town; but he came heah--'huntin' his rights,' he said. An' he tol' me that our fortune was hidden heah. 'Course," Jeems looked at them apologetically, "it soun's sorta silly, but when Gran'pappy tol' yo' things yo' kinda believed 'em. So aftah he died Ah usta come huntin' heah too. An' then when Ah opened the chest and foun' these--" From his breast pocket he drew a wash-leather bag and opened it.

  He held out to Val a chain of gold mesh ending in a carnelian carved into a seal. "This is youah crest," he pointed to the seal. "Ah took it in town an' a man at the museum tol' me about it. An' this heah is Ralestone, too," he indicat
ed a small miniature painted on a slip of yellowed ivory. Val was looking at the face of the Ralestone rebel, as near like the water-color copy Charity had made of the museum portrait as one pea is to its pod-mate. Creighton took up the small painting.