by Parry, Owen
Twas a negro, black as a cat and graven with service. He wore an antique livery so faded even the darkness paid it no compliments. Guiding me down, as if he knew me well, he might have been helping a matron in a ballgown.
As soon as my two feet were in the muck, the fellow released my arm, stepping back politely. His eyes evaded mine, just as the servants in India showed us humility. Whether they felt it or not.
We caused more than a creak as we climbed to the porch. Planks begged to be retired. If the proprietor of the house had not been awake, our arrival would have roused him.
We might have been expected all along, the way the double doors flew open to greet us. A pair of negro servants—ancient twins they looked—stood to either side in Regency liveries. They even wore gray wigs tied back, although the mops looked overdue for replacement.
The instant I got a look inside, I stopped myself in wonder.
Never had I seen a man so fat. Not that I wish to speak rudely of any Christian, but a wonder it was that any device for sitting could support him. Or that the floor did not collapse at once. But sit he did, beneath a chandelier, in the center of the room beyond the entry hall. He was so wide the archway barely framed him.
Broad as a young man’s hopes he was, with a jolly face whose plumpness masked his age. He wore old-fashioned breeches and a smoking coat whose fabric might have rigged a Yankee clipper. Chuckling in delight at our appearance, he let his tongue’s tip peek between his teeth. An antique excess of white hair, suited to the fashion of our grandfathers, waved as his body jiggled.
He consumed a good deal of the room he sat in, hardly leaving space for a scatter of chairs and a pair of service tables. The pictures on the walls showed well by candlelight, as portraits and women will.
“Mr. B.!” he cried fervently, “I hardly recognized you, skinny as y’all done got! You’re wastin’ away, cher. Folks going to think you’ve taken the consumption. Where you feeding these days?”
Mr. Barnaby bowed with the grace of a dancing master. Our host tilted his head and as much of his body as agreed to follow, peering around the bulk of my companion to gain himself a better look at me.
“Brought us a new visitor, I see.” Mirthful, he shivered like a splendid jelly. “And if I don’t mistake me, it’s that spite-the-devil Yankee I been hearing talk about. The one sent down to ask us about that New York gal who washed up dead on Louis Fortune’s levee.” He favored me with a grin as wide as the New Orleans waterfront. “Major Abel Jones, if I’m not misinformed?”
I was nonplussed. Our authorities had assured me that the fate of Miss Susan Peabody remained a secret from the general public. Nor had my mission been broadcast on the exchange.
“Come right on in here now!” the fellow insisted. “You look like you just found out your daddy was in the circus. Don’t be so surprised, cher. If I didn’t know who you were, I’d swear off sugar-coffee for a week.” He canted his head, reducing his laugh to a smile. “Mr. B., just bring that dashing Yankee right on in here and we’ll have ourselves a brandy with our macaroons.”
I declined the brandy, of course. In its place, I was provided with coffee so delicious it partly appeased my alarm at learning that my purpose was common knowledge. Nor did our host restrict himself to brandy. He took his own coffee in a cup the size of a chamberpot.
Sly and wicked, my toothache sneaked into hiding. As if it knew I would indulge myself, after which it might ambush me without mercy.
“Yes, sir, yes, sir!” Our host smacked his lips. “Heresy it may be to some, but I myself have been more than content to sacrifice the romance of our glorious cause for a good cup of coffee. Never saw this city so glum, as when your blockade cut down on our coffee supply. No, sir. Our dear General Beauregard hadn’t reckoned on that.”
Tutting over the breadth of mankind’s foibles, he told us, “Young man, now, he likes a little excitement before he settles down. And a war tends to sound like just the thing to those who haven’t been in one. That’s all it’s about, tell the truth. High spirits and stupidity. The rest is just pompous bluster. One cause’ll do as well as another, for a young man, Major Jones. They were all just looking for a scrap. And now they’ve got more of a scrap than they reckoned on. Yes, sir. My family’s seen the French and the Spanish come and go, then come and go again. Then the Americans came courting, and they wouldn’t take no for an answer. But one master’s good as another. Hardly matters, say what people will.”
He laughed. “All this fuss over whether it’s folks up in Washington or over in Richmond who pretend they’re governing us. Or in Paris, for that matter. Doesn’t make a spit of difference, except in the quality of the provisions. No, sir. I measure the success of a government by the quality of the coffee beans on offer.”
The entire room seemed to vibrate along with his jollity. “Tell you a little secret, Major Jones. Tiny picayune of a secret. Folks in this city never were happier than while your General Butler was strutting amongst us last year, favoring us with his follies. Especially our ladies. Oh, I don’t doubt that you’ve heard to the contrary. You’ll hear more. But the fact is that nothing makes a denizen of this lovely city happier, more positively joyous, than having somebody they can hate with an unrestrained passion. No, cher. Spoons Butler gave us somebody to blame for the sunshine or the rain in equal parts. He’ll be missed for years to come.”
I began to see that our host’s merriment had inflections, that it changed like the light on a field of rye on a cloudy, windswept day. A bit of shadow crept upon us now.
“But your General Banks, cher. He has been a terrible disappointment. Too much of a gentleman. We’re having trouble finding something we can hate about him and make stick. We like our Yankees rude and larcenous, thank you. But my fellow citoyens feel as if they ought to almost like General Banks. I dread to think what’s to become of us, if he doesn’t hurry up and excite our outrage. It’s been building up inside us, ever since General Butler’s recall. I fear to think of the explosion that’s on the way.”
He gobbled a biscuit of the sort they call a macaroon, a confection of sugar and coconut. Tasty affairs, those served to us were of a quality that would not have disgraced my dear wife’s kitchen. I fear I ate too many, which was rude. And foolish, too. The sweetness would carry a penalty, as the many forms of sweetness often do.
“I have to wonder, Major Jones,” our host resumed, as he licked the crumbs from the landscape surrounding his mouth, “why you didn’t come to call on me before this? Most folks passing through come on by to say hello. You’ve been a guest among us how long now? Week? Two? Almost unfriendly, I’m inclined to judge it. But I suppose you’ve been busy with your Miss Peabody.” As he spoke, one eyebrow had been rising, while the flesh around the other eye congealed. “Water downriver now. Consider yourself forgiven. But there’s one thing I have to ask you, pardon my forwardness.”
I was just draining my coffee cup and had not time to reply before he continued.
“Why on this here earth of ours did you go chasing Marie Venin halfway down Chartres Street, only to get yourself shut up in an old slave pen? Starting a fire, too. My system of intelligence must be failing me, cher. I didn’t know you and Madame Venin were acquainted. Or you and Petit Jean, for that matter.”
During the conversation, Mr. Barnaby had been as silent and respectful as a son, but he alerted when he heard our host speak of my chasing this Mrs. Venin. Twas clear that he knew little of events, for he looked at me as if I had just emerged from Fingal’s Cave.
He even clattered his cup on his saucer, which my Mary Myfanwy has taught me is bad manners.
“The woman with the snake?” I asked.
The old man nodded. “So I hear tell. What on earth set you running after our second-most-accomplished voudouienne, Major Jones? And you waving your stick at her?”
“She violated the Ursuline convent,” I told him. “And appeared up to no good.”
My host smiled mildly. “I suppose there might be
something in that. Always suspected there was a bit more violating among the good sisters than a fellow’s intended to believe. I take it, then, your action was … spontaneous? That you didn’t know who you were chasing?”
Looked at through another’s eyes, the vigor of my pursuit did seem excessive. But, then, I was a sergeant for some years, in my John Company days, and such always suspect that others are guilty of something.
I shook my head in admission of my ignorance.
“Well, well, well,” Mr. Champlain said. “Mr. B. here could tell you that your course of action … may not have been well advised. I do not know, Major Jones, how deeply you are acquainted with the language of civilization and the arts, but in my family’s native tongue, ‘venin,’ as in Marie Venin, means ‘venom.’ Madame Venin made her reputation through her knowledge of various poisons. Concoctions even more dangerous than those forced down our throats by our doctors of medicine.” He tutted. “It’s said she can stir up a potion to make a man do most anything she wishes.” He looked at me, one eyebrow up, the other eye narrowed again. “Now … what do you think Madame Venin might wish to do to you? After your … escapade?”
I thought of the hours that I had spent unconscious in the power of mine enemies. Time enough there had been to force a concoction down my throat, or to apply some devious lotion to my flesh.
Encouraged, I asked, “So you would say that this woman’s abilities lie in her chemical skills? And not in the power of Satan?”
The old fellow laughed heartily. “At my age, cher, I would find it a great inconvenience to believe in Satan, given his reputation for excessive hospitality toward sinners. On the other hand, I’m wary enough of our human vanity not to assume that I know all there is to know. I’m content to sit right here and let the world entertain me. Without feeling compelled to sit in judgment on its morals or its meanings. As for voodoo … I never was drawn to such things myself. But I do wonder if somebody with a different temperament than mine … might not be able to make a superstition at least halfway real just by believing in it hard enough.”
He grinned, then cupped a hand around one of his body’s folds. “I’m inclined to wonder just how much of a person is this sullied flesh … and how much is the mind’s talent for believing. I suspect that some of the things folks come to believe grow more real to ’em than anything you’re likely to see on the corner of Bourbon and Toulouse. No, sir, if mankind has any one talent that distinguishes us from the beasts of the field, it’s not our over-advertised sense of morality—which always strikes me as particular, rather than general—but our ability to believe in things we can’t see. Whether we take God, Satan or our Glorious Southern Cause as an example.”
He refreshed his smile, but did not force it to fullness. “Of course, I’m speaking in hypothetical terms, not as a Christian who already hears uninvited footsteps in his bedchamber. Not, sad to say, those of a pleasant-minded young woman …”
“Do you believe this creature wants to kill me?” I asked bluntly.
He shook his head decisively, without dropping his smile. “Not in the least, cher. At least, not in this particular instance. See here, now. From what I hear of the past day’s events, you might have been killed a half-dozen times, then three more for good measure, if anybody really wanted you dead.”
His voice grew almost serious. “If I may presume, Major Jones, I’ll put myself in your place—although I fear I wouldn’t fit in my entirety. If I were you, cher ami, I likely would be asking myself just why it is I’m sitting here, gay as can be, drinking sugar-coffee and eating macaroons, as alive as ever I was. Look at things that way, it strikes me that folks wanted to give you a right-good scaring. Nothing more. If they wanted you dead … well, opportunities were not lacking.”
“But then …”
“Why frighten you half to death, then leave you alive to help yourself to another one of Auntie Ottilie’s macaroons? Do help yourself, please. I should be insulted, otherwise. See here, now. You can figure out the answer yourself in another swallow or two. If your reputation is to be believed.”
Twas Mr. Barnaby, not myself, who blurted out the solution. “Dear me,” he said, “they know who Major Jones is and why ’e’s come amongst us! And they ’ave something to ’ide, they does, something ’e’s been sent ’ere to find out. But it’s better for them to ’ave Major Jones in plain view, but made careful of ’is actions, than to ’ave another secret agent sent, or maybe ’alf a dozen, and them not knowing where to look for the next one. You might say ’e’s the devil they already know …”
“Mr. Barnaby,” our host declared, “you have the penetrating mind of a scholar within that emaciated frame.”
It is not the most appealing situation for a confidential agent to find himself in conditions where everyone around him knows more about his lot than he does himself.
The only thing that saved me from a black-dog sorrow was the arrival of a tray of hot, sugared buns. I did not wish to spurn my host by refusing to eat my share. And the truth is that I was hungry, since I had not taken a bite since the forenoon.
Still, I did not let our host’s generosity deflect me from my purpose.
“Mr. Champlain—”
“‘Papa,’ please. Just suits my ears better.”
How on earth could I call such a fellow “Papa”?
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Now, given the extent of your knowledge of local doings … I must ask what else you have heard about Miss Peabody’s murder.”
“Was it murder?” he asked quickly. Resurrecting his smile, he reached one hand behind himself—not without some exertion—to scratch unseen parts. “Oh, I expect so. In one form or another. Even if a plain woman—you’ll forgive me that honesty, in regard to Miss Peabody—if a plain woman were to drown herself … over an unrequited love, say … I suppose even that might be murder in a sense. With the guilt accruing to her beloved for his failure to appreciate the depth of her emotions …”
He paused for a sip of sugar-coffee, which he drank nearly without cease.
“Of course, the way I hear tell,” he resumed, “love of that nature was not the most evident of Miss Peabody’s emotions. Although still waters run deep, as they say. But let us assume that Miss Peabody’s final immersion wasn’t the result of an affaire d’amour of the sort that leads young ladies to threaten to drown themselves—though few actually do so, since it spoils the complexion. I still have to wonder if her tragic fate didn’t have something to do with desire, if not with love. Understand, cher, I don’t cast even the tiniest stone at Miss Peabody’s reputation. Indeed, I hear tell the young woman was virtuous with a fury. In that sense.”
I had to wait for him to consume a hot fluff of dough crowned with a snow of sugar.
“Man requires a beignet or two this time of the evening,” our host said, “to save his stomach unnecessary suffering before dinner. Now, I don’t pretend to be a philosopher, Major Jones. Although I do spend a fair amount of time sitting and thinking these days—at least sitting. But I tend to see the entirety of human actions explained by our desires. Whether we’re speaking of your own desire for another of those little delicacies of ours—do have one while they’re still hot—or the desire to reform the world. You’ll forgive me, but I never can quite see the difference, in quality or merit, between one desire and another. They all seem to me to come from the same source, from that merciless—merciless—hunger within our poor souls. One man desires a fair woman, another desires gold. A third desires to be worthy of whatever deity he’s chosen to scare himself with. Although I do suspect the latter of being the least worthy. Nuzzling up to God the way a dog licks his master, no pride at all. But be that as it may. Desire for the object of a great passion, or for earthly renown … or for a new malacca cane … I just don’t see how folks tell one form of desire apart from another.”
He lubricated his throat with a gulp of brandy. “See here, now. Only difference between one desire and the next is whether it’s opportune. Stri
kes me that most folks who get themselves murdered, here or in China, probably were the victims of inopportune desires. Whether on the part of the murderer or the poor unfortunate.” His sugar-dusted lips pursed to mock the world. “Tell me what a dead man or woman truly desired, and I’ll lay you better than riverboat odds the desire’s what killed them.”
He recalled his welcoming smile. “But I’m monopolizing the conversation, which Aunt Calpurnia taught me a gentleman must not do. So I’ll make an end to all my speechifying by summing things up. Young woman washes up dead—and in deshabille—on a levee. It’s either a case of her being the object of an inopportune desire on the part of the killer—which I’m led to believe may not apply in this affair—or a case of her own desires having become inopportune to the person or persons who took her life. Lord, I do believe this is the first time my guests and I ever have exhausted the household supply of fresh beignets at one sitting. You will accuse me of inadequate hospitality. But entrenous, cher, I believe that all you have to do is to discover—or uncover—what it is your Miss Peabody desired above all else. The rest will be clear as a transaction in the front room of a bank.”
His gaze pierced the swollen mounds of his cheeks. “Find out what she wanted and couldn’t have. And you’ll find out who wanted her death, Major Jones. But I do hope you and Mr. B. will be kind enough to join me over dinner? Although I fear we aren’t as well prepared as—”
“Why,” I demanded, surprising myself with my insolence, “would you tell me any of this, Mr. Champlain? Why should I believe you want to help me find Miss Peabody’s killer? Among your own people?”
I was tired and cranky, of course. Most likely, he understood. No trace of anger appeared in his face. Instead, he smiled handsomely.
“Why,” he said, “I believe it would entertain me, cher. It’s not the most exciting of fates to sit here night after night, no matter the quality of the board or the amusing nature of my callers. But how is it you’re certain the killer is one of ‘my’ people? Whoever they may be? Fact is, I’m the one sitting here wondering why this Miss Peabody, a young woman of notoriously uninspiring virtues, matters so much to your own people in the midst of a bloody war? I’m simply amusing myself. But what about you? Why does she matter to you?”
