Mississippi Raider
Page 9
“But surely you can give me just a hint where to start looking?”
“Not so much as the start of a hint, I’m afraid. If I were you, Belle, I would put the whole idea from my mind and find some other way of serving the South.”
“And forget what Tollinger and Barmain did to Momma and Poppa?”
“I know you can never forget that,” Raines stated gently. “But it would be a waste of a useful young life for you to spend it trying for something you’ll never manage to achieve. I think you would be far better advised to go home and set about rebuilding Baton Royale Mansion and keep cotton flowing to help our cause.”
“I suppose that is the only thing for me to do,” Belle replied with a sigh. “Well, I thank you for your time and advice, sir. May I wish you every success with the regiment you receive.”
“Only, my advice is what you most definitely are not going to take,” Raines said silently to himself as he watched the girl walk from his office. ‘There’s too much of Electra and Vincent Boyd in you for that. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that if anybody could run down Tollinger and Barmain, you’d be the one to do so. It’s a pity in some ways that you won’t ever be given the chance.”
~*~
“Stand still and keep your hands well clear of your sides!” Belle Boyd ordered, having turned up the flame of the night-light on the bedside table with her left hand. “If you make a hostile move, or try to escape, I’ll shoot you in the stomach, and don’t think for a moment I couldn’t do it.”
As the girl was increasing the illumination to investigate the slight noises that had disturbed her thoughts while lying in bed trying to get to sleep after another abortive evening’s activities, her right thumb deftly cocked the Colt Model of 1851 revolver she had bought to replace the lighter-caliber weapon brought from her bedroom by Mattie Jonias on the night her parents were murdered. An instant later, so excellently attuned was her coordination that she was pointing its three-inch-long octagonal barrel—the original length of seven and a half inches having been cut down, in accordance with her instructions, by the gunsmith from whom she purchased it, thereby obviating the need to return it to the company’s factory for the modification she required in the interests of permitting greater ease of concealment—steadily at the masculine figure who had woken her while forcing open the window and climbing through into the second-floor room she was occupying at the Sandford Hotel.
Four weeks had elapsed since the girl had had her meeting with Colonel Myles Raines. While it had proved to be unproductive otherwise, it had taught her one thing. She had realized that if she could not obtain assistance from a man who had been a good friend of her parents, she was unlikely to achieve more positive results with strangers or even such casual acquaintances who were in positions of much greater authority even than a colonel awaiting command of a Cavalry regiment. She had quickly learned the truth of her assumption. Although she had managed to obtain interviews with a few highly placed members of the military and civilian politicians, the results were invariably the same. From some, she was received with politeness and had been allowed to say something of what she hoped to receive, then was turned away with much the same arguments used by Raines. Others merely stated that such matters were not for a beautiful young woman to attempt and dismissed her with a suggestion of having matters of great importance demanding their attention.
Although dissatisfied with the outcome of her efforts to obtain some form of official assistance and sanction, the girl was enough of a realist to understand the attitude behind the refusals. In every case, the man with whom she spoke had been raised in the tradition that a Southern woman—especially a young one from her stratum of society—should confine her activities to the home and considered what she wanted to do was beyond the pale, regardless of how good her motives. Deciding she must do something positive on her own account, she had set about trying to achieve her purpose in a way she hoped would bring her to the favorable attention of the members of the Confederate States Secret Service she felt certain were engaged in seeking to counter their Yankee opposite numbers in Richmond.
Having had a good education in formal as well as unconventional subjects, under the firm control of her mother, Belle had always been allowed to make the most use of her initiative instead of constantly seeking guidance from her elders. She had put all these traits to use in seeking to attain her ends. Having anticipated that the need might arise, she had brought the attire appropriate to the various functions to which her standing in the social circles of Baton Bayou Parish made her welcome. At each, she had sought out such officers as she had thought might lead her where she wanted to go and flirted with each in the hope of gaining the information.
In addition, when not engaged in such a fashion, she had put to use her ability at acting and a basic skill in disguise to seeking sources at a lower level of the city’s population. Dressed in a suitable fashion in garments she had purchased in stores catering to women with less affluent means than her own, she presented herself in a fitting manner for the different types of company she was joining. She had been helped by having frequently achieved acclaim for the way in which she played the part of serving girls in amateur dramatics and remembering the attitudes and modes of speech used by the women at the gambling house run by Anatol de-Farge.
Such was the skill Belle had displayed that she was confident she had aroused no suspicions as she went around the places where noncommissioned officers and enlisted men found diversions, she hoped to meet someone who could lead her in the direction she wanted. However, as was the case with her efforts at a higher stratum of society, she had been compelled to admit to herself that she was not meeting with any greater success where achieving her purpose was concerned. On the other hand, she had not concluded that her efforts were entirely wasted. The lessons she learned while carrying out the pose of being a girl from a working-class background could prove to be of use if she should attract the attention of and be accepted as a member of the Secret Service.
That evening the girl had returned to the Sandford Hotel earlier than she anticipated, due to the need to avoid possible arrest by the authorities following her having been compelled to use her skill at savate to dissuade the hostile intentions of a woman in a tavern who took exception to her presence and interest in a sergeant in the Artillery. Deciding against trying at a more exalted level that night, although she had been invited to attend a soiree where some officers she had not yet met would be among the guests and might provide what she wanted, she elected to go to bed and catch up on some sleep. The latter had not come when she heard the sounds that led her to make ready for the intruder.
~*~
“Take hit easy, missis!” a startled voice with an accent strange to Belle Boyd’s ear requested hastily. “I hain’t going to move, nor get ’ostile neither.”
Standing by the window he had contrived to reach and open despite the room’s being on the second floor of the building, the speaker was neither impressive nor menacing in appearance. Not more than five feet six at most, clad in a tightly fitting black woolen turtleneck sweater and matching trousers, and with light rubber-soled boots such as were often worn by savate boxers on his feet, he was slender and wiry in build. Although his manner of speech did not strike the girl as being of any Gallic variety with which she had come into contact, he had a French-style black beret on his head. Although covered by the kind of black cork white performers in minstrel shows often used, his sharp features reminded her of a weasel due to the alert way in which he was darting glances about him. She did not believe he would prove dangerous unless she gave him cause to become that way.
“Come over here,” Belle commanded, contriving to slip from the bed without for a moment allowing the Colt to turn from its alignment.
“Whatever you say,” the man answered, pronouncing the last word as “sie” and starting to obey. “I’m catched dead to rights. But Hi’ve got a wife ’n’ seven little children and no way to kept ’em fe—!”
“His that your mum ’n’ dad, missi—miss!” the intruder asked, continuing to add an H as he had done before, while also leaving off other letters, and pointed in a dramatic fashion to the framed tintype portrait of the girl’s parents that was standing on the bedside table.
“It is,” Belle confirmed, but she did not relax her vigilance. She guessed what was implied by the question and thought it could be a ruse to divert her attention long enough for some kind of action to be taken.
“Then might Hi be struck dahn dead on the bleeding spot!” the man declared with vehemence. “Hand I deserve it for trying to rob Vincent Boyd’s daughter.”
“You knew Pop—my father?”
“We only hever met the once, miss, but Hi’ll never forget what ’e done for me.”
“And what was that?”
“’E catched me out doing a climb after the family jewels what des Boys Gilbert was allus a-boastin’ abart,” the man explained. “Hi’s had it propped up for me good ’n’ proper by somebody’s’d never steered me wrong in the past ’n’ Hi was counting on making the big tickle. Which’s what hus in my line of work calls what you’ve maybe ’eard of’s a real valuable amarnt of loot.”
“So you are the one!” Belle asserted, remembering having heard her father speak of the incident after she had worked out who had been meant by the way in which the intruder pronounced the name of Roger de Bois Gilbert.
“Hi says to meself, Hi says, ‘Halfred ’Iggins, you’ve been ’n’ gone ’n’ copped your lot good ’n’ proper this time’ when your dad come in on me like what he done. ‘You should never ’ave left good old London tahn.’”
“Did you tell him about your wife and seven children?” Belle inquired with a smile, and allowed the Colt’s muzzle to lower toward the floor, ready to bring it up again should the need arise.
“Hi was just going to spin him the fanny, Hi’ll hadmit,” Alfred Higgins replied in what the girl was to come to know was the broad Cockney accent of one born within the sound of Bow Bells in the capital of England. “Only, ’e said I should scarper the way Hi’d come in’s Monsewer bleeding des Boys Gilbert wasn’t noted for being all kind ’n’ gentle wiv them’s crossed ’im, ’n’ the best Hi could hope for would be getting thrashed wivin a ninch of me life afore being throwed art for the dawgs to tear to pieces. So Hi took stoppo’s fast’s Hi could shinny dahn to the ground. But Hi’ve never forgot what your dad did for me that night ’n’ never will.”
“I’m going to hold you to that!” Belle warned, knowing de Bois Gilbert was notorious for his savage mistreatment of those who crossed him, and that her father had only been paying the visit to oblige an old friend. “You could be just what I want.”
“Hin what way, miss?” Higgins inquired, tearing his eyes from where the nipples of Belle’s well-developed bosom were standing out in bold relief from the flimsy material that snuggled as closely as a second skin about them and the rest of her far-from-straight figure. Then, starting to turn around slowly and with his hands still held clear of his sides, he went on, “’Cept I’d be obliged if you’d put somefing a bit ficker on. Hit’s awful bleeding hard to concentrate wiv you looking like you do.”
“What would your wife and seven children think if they heard you saying such a thing, for shame,” Belle inquired, still smiling and continuing to keep a watch on the man in case he should be intending treachery. She placed the revolver on the bed’s coverlet so she could gather up and don a more substantial dressing gown. Then she became serious and went on, “Have you heard what happened to Momma and Poppa?”
“No, miss,” Higgins replied. Having been told, he responded with what started as a flood of profanity and turned to an apology for its use. “If you’re your dad’s daughter hand Hi fink you are, Hi’m betting’s ’ow you’ll be after the bleeders who done him and your mum in.”
“I am,” the girl confirmed with a chilling sincerity. “That’s why I’ve come to Richmond, but I can’t get any help to do it.”
“You’ve got whatever ’elp Hi can give you,” the Cockney declared. “And, from what you just nah said, Hi fink you’ve got somefing in mind for me to do.”
“I have,” Belle asserted, and explained what she wanted. “Can you do it?”
“Hi’ll teach you everyfink Hi can, which’s a fair amount hif Hi might make do bold’s to say it meself,” Higgins promised. “And when you says the word, Hi’ll help you pull hit orf no matter who hit’ll be done ag’inst.” xi
Chapter Ten – You’re a Bleeding Natural Miss Boyd
“’Ere we are, Miss Boyd,” Alfred Higgins said quietly yet not without a faint suggestion of a dramatic timbre, looking at the ten-foot-high wall surrounding the grounds of the medium-size mansion that was currently being used as the home and headquarters for General Wilberforce Crumley of the Confederate Army’s Quartermaster Corps. “Everything’s all gay, but are you sure you want to go through with it?”
“I’m sure,” the girl replied, her sotto voce tone showing not the slightest hesitancy. During their short acquaintance, she had learned among a number of other things pertaining to what they were planning to do that, in the argot of the criminal circles of London, England, where her companion had been born and raised, the words “all gay” meant there was nobody in the vicinity to see what was intended. “But you don’t need to come with me.”
“Oh yes I do!” the little Cockney burglar stated, in a manner that implied he would brook no objections. “I’ve managed to teach you a lot in the time you’ve been me ’prentice. ’Fact, I’ve never had a better, but you might still need a bit more know-how afore you can call yourself a regular crib-cracker.”
A wry smile twisted at Belle Boyd’s lips at the last part of the declaration made by Higgins.
When deciding to try to join the South’s Secret Service as part of her quest to find and take revenge upon Alfred Tollinger and George Barmain, the girl had never imagined she would need to employ the method she was intending to use as a means of being brought to their attention.
Nor, Belle told herself, had she envisaged that she would find herself clad in attire similar to that now worn by Higgins when, after having climbed from the street up the outside of the building—acting upon information that he had acquired suggesting there was a quantity of valuable jewelry and money there and the occupant would be absent—he had broken into her room on the second floor of the Sanford Hotel. As an added precaution against being noticed and later recognized, she had her now short-cropped black hair beneath a dark beret and her beautiful face covered with black burned cork.
But then, the girl told herself wryly, she had not anticipated how taking the precaution of learning the tricks of the professional duelist would culminate in her being stripped to the waist in front of a number of men—some of whom would have recognized her without the cloth mask she had on and an alteration in the color and style of her hair—while she was pretending to fight with the Englishwoman called Roxanne Smethers-Fortescue.
In fact, Belle mused, her whole life had changed drastically since the night her parents were murdered and her home burned to the ground.
Even before she had set out upon her mission of revenge, the girl had accepted that such was certain to prove the case.
However, Belle could not avoid having momentary qualms over the means she was intending to use that night under the faint light of a three-quarters moon.
But in spite of her feelings, the girl refused to allow herself to be deterred from the course she had adopted.
Without realizing it, the curvaceously slender Southron beauty was continuing to demonstrate the beginnings of the resolve that would allow her
to earn and deserve the sobriquet Rebel Spy.
Belle Boyd could not complain that time had passed slowly, or been wasted, since the night three weeks earlier when she had met Alfred Higgins. As was the case before the destruction of her home and way of life, rising early regardless of how late she had returned or how late she had been up at one of the functions for which Baton Royale Manor had been famous, she had commenced each morning by doing the exercises that helped to keep her in excellent physical condition for whatever arduous tasks might lie ahead. After breakfast, contriving to leave the Sandford Hotel dressed in a manner suitable for the less affluent area of Richmond where she had gone to visit the Cockney, she had spent her time learning such tricks of his illicit main occupation as she believed might prove of use if she achieved her ambition to be admitted into the Secret Service of the Confederate States.
To prevent the police from thinking he was a gentleman of leisure, as he put it—although not in those exact words—Higgins ran a small, never very busy, and far-from-lucrative shop specializing in the locksmith’s trade on the fringes of the better part of town. Except on the rare occasions when the business of the establishment had demanded his attention, he had instructed Belle in the ways access to buildings of various kinds could be gained and things inside opened by using one from a set of what he termed “twirls,” but were more generally known as “picklocks” and would eventually be described as “skeleton keys.”
Having a keen brain and a possibly inherited manual dexterity, which her parents had encouraged to flourish instead of trying to crush it, as would have been the case with many wealthy Southern families, the girl had quickly acquired an affinity toward manipulating twirls. This had led the little Cockney to exclaim on more than one occasion, “You’re a bleeding natural, Miss Boyd!” He had claimed that, as a result of his guidance and her own ability, she showed a similar aptitude for other aspects of the housebreaking trade. Furthermore, he had said that if the need arose, he felt sure she would prove capable of effecting an entry at above ground level in the fashion that was his own specialty. In fact, he was so satisfied by her progress that he had agreed without demur to let her put the training into effect in a way of bringing herself to the attention of the people she was seeking.