“I also met Captain Fog, during the War when I rode with the Greyson Daredevils. He was a fine soldier and correct about a lawman’s duty.”
“Old Dusty gets right about more things than any two fellas I know,” answered Calamity. “Say, did you ever see the fancy way he fist-fights? That’s sure something to see.”
“You are right,” agreed St. Andre. “He uses a unique method. I wish I knew half as much. Of course I know
savate
—.”
“What the hell’s that?” asked the girl, packing away her medicines in the buckskin bag.
“
Savate
? French foot-fighting. It was brought to perfection by a man called Michel in Paris, France. I learned at Duval’s academy and he studied in Paris under Charles Lecour, Michel’s star pupil.”
“Must be real fancy, taking all that learning,” Calamity said dryly. “I can kick real good and never took a lesson in my sinful young life.”
“Ah,
cherie
, there is kicking and—
la savate
. Perhaps during your stay in our fair city I might be permitted to take you to Duval’s and show you how
savate
is learned.”
“Allus willing to learn something,” the girl replied and took the bag to her small trunk.
Although she did not know it, Calamity was due for a lesson in the noble art of
savate
a whole heap sooner than she expected. Her main thought-line at the moment of stowing away the medicine bag was that she would be seeing that fancy-talking, handsome young feller again. Now that might be
real
interesting.
Reaching up his hand, St. Andre touched the cut over his left eye. The blood, assisted by the gum, had congealed and the groove felt much smaller than when he previously examined it. One thing brought relief to the detective. Although the vision was blurred, he could still see and the damage to the eye appeared to be only to the lids and surrounding area. He wondered if a doctor could have handled his injuries any more efficiently than had the girl.
“How’d you like me to see if I can raise a cup of coffee?” Calamity asked as she returned from the box.
It was a tempting prospect for St. Andre, as he had not yet thrown off all the effects of the beating. However he wished to make a start on the hunt for his attackers before his injuries began to stiffen up. He knew that the longer it took him to start, the harder commencing would be. So, although his body craved to stay relaxed on the comfortable bed, he declined the offer.
“Perhaps another time,
cherie
,” he replied, rising from the bed and reaching for his coat. “Now I must go down town and start work.”
“Reckon I’d rather have a snort of red-eye myself;” Calamity admitted. “How do I find the ‘Shovel Door’?”
“It is on Latour Street. As a matter of fact, I intend to start my inquiries from the Latour Street station house. If you wish, I’ll ride over there with you. We can hire a carriage.”
“You know the range and I don’t. Hey, aren’t you forgetting something?”
Having put on his jacket, St. Andre started to walk towards the door of the room, but the girl’s last words brought him to a halt. He turned and looked at her, but her eyes were not on him. Following Calamity’s gaze, he saw his gun lying where the girl laid it aside.
“Oh that,” he said. “I suppose I’d better take it with me.” A frown creased Calamity’s face as she watched St. Andre drop the Smith & Wesson into his jacket pocket. No Western lawman would have left his weapon behind. One might forget his hat, or possibly his pants, but never his gun. Come to that, no Western peace officer would straddle himself with such a puny, feeble revolver as a .22 calibre Smith & Wesson. While that handsome young cuss might be real smart in some ways, it was Calamity’s considered opinion that he had a lot to learn about being a lawman.
Not wishing to create dissension, Calamity did not mention her thoughts. She drew on her buckskin jacket, decided that she would not need her bull whip again that night and went to blow out the lamp. Then she left the room on St. Andre’s arm, acting for all the world like a for-real New Orleans’ lady. Or as near one as wearing man’s clothing and with a Navy Colt hung at her right hip would allow.
oooOooo
1. Dusty Fog’s adventures are told in J. T. Edson’s Floating Outfit novels.
2. Calamity’s meetings with Mark Counter are recorded in
THE WILDCATS
and
TROUBLED RANGE
.
CHAPTER THREE
WHILE Calamity never felt really comfortable riding in a vehicle with somebody else at the ribbons, she found the one-horse carriage they hired to take them to Latour Street had its advantages. Sitting inside, without the worry of keeping the horse going, Calamity relaxed and St. Andre pointed out various places of interest as they rode. At last they came alongside the large, open space known as the City Park, and the detective waved his hand towards it.
“Latour Street is on the other side of the Park. But we will have to go around it to reach the
Cheval D’Or
.”
A saloon girl who Calamity once fought with, beat, then befriended, had come from New Orleans and in the course of a conversation mentioned taking walks in City Park. From what the girl said, walking there had a special appeal and Calamity decided she might as well give it a whirl while so close.
“Reckon I’ll save the horses some sweat,” she remarked, “Tell the feller up there to stop and I’ll walk across.”
“You mean you wish to walk through the Park alone, and at night?” asked St. Andre, staring at the girl.
“Won’t be going to the ‘Shovel Door’ in the morning, so it’ll have to be tonight. Only I don’t reckon you’re feeling like walking, so I’ll be alone.”
“
Mon Dieu!
Haven’t you heard of the Strangler?”
“Nope. Who’s he?”
“I wish we knew. All we know is that he has killed seven girls in the Park.”
If St. Andre hoped to frighten or shock Calamity, he appeared to fail badly. Not by a flicker of her face did she show any fear or concern. However, her right hand dropped under the side of her jacket and touched the butt of the Navy Colt.
“I’m dressed,” she said quietly. “Stop the carriage, Sherry, and I’ll take me a walk.”
St. Andre did not understand the connotation behind a Westerner’s statement about being dressed. It had nothing to do with the fact that the speaker wore all his, or her, clothing, but implied that the one who made the statement carried the most important article of West-country property, a gun.
One thing St. Andre did not know, even after a short acquaintance; once Calamity made up her mind, very little under the sun would cause her to change it. However he could not allow a girl, even one so competent as Calamity, to chance walking alone in the park after dark, even on a bright moon-light night.
“If you are determined,” he said, “I’ll walk with you. And a lady does not call a gentleman ‘
cherie
’.”
“So who’s a lady?” grinned Calamity. “Reckon you can stand up to the walk?”
“I’ll try my best,” St. Andre answered and tapped on the roof of the cab.
Dismounting and helping Calamity down, St. Andre paid off the driver. Then he took Calamity’s arm and they walked through the big, wrought iron gates into City Park. Even in the early 1870’s New Orleans possessed a really fine park, although under the present conditions various senior police officials wished that the area had been built over instead of used as a recreation spot.
The Park might have been designed with the needs of the Strangler in mind, St. Andre decided, not for the first time, as he and Calamity strolled along. Winding paths ran through clumps of bushes which effectively hid one from the next. Scattered little wooden shelters offered places where courting couples could rest and do the kind of things they had done since men threw away clubs in favour of more gentle and pleasant methods of snaring a pretty young maiden. In that tangle, a man-made jungle-like maze, the Strangler could stalk his prey, slip his killing cord around a slim, delicate female throat and silently add another victim to his growing list, then be gone before the body was found.
So thought Philippe St. Andre, detective lieutenant, as he walked along keeping to the grass verge alongside the path. He hated to make a noise as he walked and so always tried to stay somewhere that muffled his footsteps. At his side, Calamity’s moccasins fell silently on the path. Neither spoke as they walked, each busy on his or her line of thought.
In Calamity’s case, the thoughts ran to the fun she would soon be having with the boys and wondering what a big city saloon offered in comparison with a similar place out West. She also wondered if the city detective meant his invitation to visit the savate academy. If so, how much further would their friendship develop? Calamity had no objections to the friendship blossoming, for, from what she heard, those French-Creole fellers were sure something at handing out the things a girl dreamed about on the long, dark, cold and lonely winter nights.
While passing across a joining with another path, Calamity saw something from the corner of her eye. Even at such a moment, the girl’s instincts were to keep alert, so she turned her head to look more carefully at what attracted her. What she saw brought her to a halt and made her tighten her grip on the detective’s sleeve.
“Don’t make a sound!” she hissed. “Down there!”
The very intensity with which Calamity spoke forced St. Andre to obey in silence. Turning to look in the direction Calamity pointed, St. Andre felt as if his eyes would pop out of his head at the sight before him. If the sight meant what he believed it did, St. Andre figured himself to be having more luck than even the youngest and most handsome lieutenant of the New Orleans Police Department rated.
In pre-Strangler days the sight of a man standing behind a girl in the City Park would have attracted no attention. Yet seeing such a sight now aroused any right-thinking policeman’s suspicions. The man stood with his back to Calamity and St. Andre, was medium sized, portly, wearing a top hat, stylishly-cut broadcloth coat, white trousers, the new-fangled spats that had become all the rage, and shiny shoes. Ahead of him, also with her back to the watching couple, stood a buxom, blonde, flashily-dressed girl who most probably was not his lady wife, and likely could not even claim to be a lady. Such a sight had never been so rare in the Park as to attract more than a glance, a cynical grin and some conjecture about how much the girl would make—until the Strangler started operations. Since the killings began however, the sight of a man standing behind a girl and dropping something over her head demanded not only a second glance, but instant action.
Despite his injuries, St. Andre found that he could still think fast. Even as the portly man’s hands came level with the girl’s throat, the detective let out a yell.
“Police here! Let go and stand still!”
Jerking his head around, the portly man gave a startled squawk. Thrusting the girl aside, he started to run away as fast as his legs would carry him. Ahead lay a corner and once round it he could disappear in any of a dozen directions, or hide in the bushes.
St Andre knew that as did the fleeing man, so sprang forward in pursuit, ignoring the screeching blonde who had landed on hands and knees at the side of the path.
Even as St. Andre leapt forward, Calamity also acted and showed a classic example of the difference between Eastern and Western thought on how to deal with such a problem. St. Andre hoped to run the man down in a foot-race, or at least keep him in sight until reinforcements arrived and cut off his escape. Although the detective carried a fully loaded revolver—even if only a tiny .22 Smith & Wesson—he did not give the weapon a thought, regarding it only as a means of extreme self-defence.
Not so Calamity. Raised on the Western plains, friend of numerous fast and handy gun-fighting gentlemen, she knew the value of a revolver in the present situation. Once around that corner, the man might escape and, if he should be the Strangler, stay free to kill again.
Twisting the palm of her right hand outwards, Calamity curled her fingers around the butt of the Navy Colt and brought it out fairly fast. By Western standards ‘fast’ meant to be able to draw a gun and shoot in at most three-quarters of a second and Calamity took a quarter of a second longer than that to bring her Colt into action. However, to draw and shoot in a second still licked the ‘be-jeesus’ out of running when it came to halting a fleeing criminal. Taking careful aim, for she had heard that these civilised areas did not take kindly to having dead owlhoots scattered about the scenery, Calamity fired. On the crack of the shot, the man’s tophat somersaulted from his head and bounced on the path ahead of him, although it must be stated that Calamity did not intend to come that close.
Never one to look a gift horse—or a real lucky shot—in the mouth, Calamity acted just like she always hit her mark in so spectacular fashion.
“Hold it!” she yelled. “Stop, or the next one goes clear through you.”
Which, with a touch of dramatics—Calamity could never resist a chance to play the grandstand a mite, even though she had never heard of the term—brought about the desired result. However, for a moment Calamity thought a second shot, this time for effect, might be needed. Then the man skidded to a halt, turned and jerked his hands into the air.
“D—Don’t shoot!” he quavered. “I—I—only have a few dollars and my watch on me.’
“Well dog—my—cats!” Calamity growled, thumb-cocking her Colt. “He’s trying to make out like he thinks we’re fixing to rob him.”
“Or he really thinks so,” St. Andre answered, for he could not see the Strangler, with only the gallows waiting, surrendering so easily. “Holster your gun, Calam, we won’t need it any more.”
Figuring that a man who forgot to put his weapon into a pocket before leaving a room could hardly set himself up as an authority on when a gun would be needed, Calamity retained hold of the Colt and kept it from leather.
“I’ll believe that when I’m sure of it,” she answered.
“Hey!” yelped the gaudily-dressed girl, struggling to her feet and clapping a hand to her throat. “You fellers wouldn’t ta—My pearls!” The last two words came in a wild screech. “They must have bust when he pushed me. You lousy bastards made me lose my pearls!”
At the same moment the portly man came forward on shaking legs. He reached under his jacket, causing Calamity to prepare to shoot. However, she held her hand for something told her the man was harmless. In fact from the front he showed what would normally be a florid, pompous face, yet which now held a pale, terrified expression as befitted a very respectable member of society believing himself to be under a threat to his life and wellbeing. Nothing more dangerous than a well-filled wallet came from his jacket front and he held it forward timidly.
“H—Here!” he squeaked. “T—Take my wallet—.”
“You yeller crumb!” screeched the girl. “Do something! They made me lose the pearls you just gave me.”
“All right!” snapped St. Andre, walking by Calamity. “I’m a police lieutenant. Let’s be quiet and talk this out.”
While the detective’s cold, authoritative voice chopped off the girl’s indignation, it brought a change of attitude in the portly man. The fear went and he thrust away his wallet with an angry gesture. Righteous anger came to his pompous features as he pointed at St. Andre and Calamity.
“Police!” he snorted. “Then why did you shoot at me?” Without giving either the detective or Calamity a chance to answer, he went on, “I’ll have you know that I’m a personal friend of the Mayor and the Chief of Police—.”
“Your sort allus are,” sniffed Calamity, setting the Colt’s hammer on a safety notch between two cap-nipples and twirling the gun into leather with a fancy flourish.
“What did you say?” boomed the now fully indignant citizen. “I’ll have you know, my good man—.”
“I ain’t good, I for certain ain’t your’n, and I sure as hell ain’t no man, mister!” growled Calamity, listening to the sound of heavy, official feet pounding along a path towards them. “We saw you stood behind that gal and tossing something over her head—.”
“It was a string of pearls!” howled the blonde, down on her hands and knees and scrabbling around with her fingers. “Light a match, one of you and get down to help me find ‘em. They cost him a hundred bucks and he gave them to me instead of paying.”
Which cleared in a most satisfactory manner the matter of why the man stood behind the girl and acted as he did; although St. Andre knew enough about tax-paying citizens of the portly man’s type to doubt if the pompous one would be pleased to hear somebody took him for the Strangler. There would be stormy times ahead unless St. Andre handled the business just right, and the blonde’s words offered him a reasonably good way of dealing with the pompous man.
“Hum!” said St. Andre, nudging Calamity in the ribs gently as a warning for her to let him handle the matter. “A hundred dollar pearl necklace lost. That’s a serious affair, sir. I’ll have to ask you to come along to the nearest station house and make a full statement.”
At that moment a couple of burly policemen came into sight, skidding to a halt and studying the group before them. Then one of the patrolmen recognised St. Andre and threw up a salute.
“Heard a shot down here, lootenant,” he said.
“Er—Lieutenant,” the portly man put in, his voice no longer pompous or indignant as he considered his position in the light of St. Andre’s words. “Do we have to go on with this?”
“With the loss of a hundred dollar necklace, on top of your being shot at?” answered St. Andre. “I think we must.”
Gulping down something which seemed to be blocking his throat, the portly man held out a hand. “I—I understand that you and this—this—you misjudged my intentions. The whole affair was no more than a regrettable error and should be forgotten, don’t you think?”
“And the pearls, sir?”
“The—They were not that valuable, lieutenant. You look like a man of the world—.”
“What was their true value?” interrupted St. Andre coldly.
“A—Two dollars fifty. They were freshwater pearls.”
“
What!
” screeched the girl, coming to her feet with fury showing on her face. “Why, you cheap, mealy-mouthed—.”
Now you just quieten it down, Sally,” put in one of the patrolmen.
“Me?” yelped the girl. “And what about him? He gave me them to—.”
“Likely,” said the patrolman. “You’d—.”
“That’s it!” the blonde screamed. “Side him! It’s like Browne Crossman is always saying, you lousy police are just tools of the rich and—.”
At which point Miss Martha Jane Canary decided it was time she took a hand. Not having received the benefit of a college education, Calamity felt respect and admiration for most lawmen, knowing the thankless job they did. So she disliked seeing folks call down a peace officer without having a damned good reason.
Shooting out a hand, Calamity gripped the other girl’s dress, sliding fingers between the valley of the girl’s breasts and taking a firm hold of the material. With a sudden jerk, she hauled the blonde up close and thrust an angry face within inches of the other girl’s startled features.
“Now shut your god-damned mouth and listen to me, you cathouse cull!” yelled Calamity and when that girl raised her voice, man you could hear it for a good country mile. “We saw you in what we reckoned looked like danger of winding up wolf-bait, so we jumped in and saved you. Only it come out you didn’t need saving after all. And if you’re so damned dumb that you fall for an old-as-the-hills trick like the pearl game, you’ve got no cause, nor right, to complain.”
While Calamity never followed the other girl’s profession, she possessed a number of good friends who did, so knew enough about it to talk to the blonde in terms they both could understand. Her angry tirade stopped the blonde’s speech describing Browne Crossman’s views on the position of law officers as tools of the idle rich and oppressors of the poor.
Anger glowed in the blonde’s eyes at first, then died again. The two patrolmen knew something of the girl’s temper and expected her to tie into the red-head in a hair-yanking, nail-clawing brawl. In this expectation they did the blonde an injustice. Full of righteous indignation she might be; a rough girl in a tough trade she most certainly was; but she had enough sense to think before acting. Taking note of Calamity’s free hand and seeing it folded into a useful-looking fist, remembering the strength behind the other girl’s pull, and figuring that anybody who knew enough about her work to mention the ‘pearl game’ must also know other basic essentials like self-defence, the blonde decided not to take the matter further. If she tangled with that girl in men’s clothing, her every instinct warned her she might regret the decision. There was too much competition for customers without operating under the added disadvantage of sporting a fight-battered face. So the girl relapsed into sullen silence, contenting herself with throwing a malevolent glare at the portly man.
Watching Calamity release the blonde, St. Andre fought to hold down a grin. It seemed the young lady from the West had good answers to most of the world’s problems. However, there was the matter on hand to be attended to before he could compliment Calamity on her numerous talents.
“Do you want to take the matter further, sir?” asked St. Andre, eyeing the portly man in his most chilling and authoritative manner.
Under other conditions the man might have liked to show his tax-paying superiority over the three public-servants whose salary he helped pay. But not when he could be taken to the police station house and maybe word of his escapade get out. Unfortunately for him, ‘making an investigation for social reasons’ had not yet been invented as an excuse for his proposed conduct—and anyhow his wife would never have believed it—so he decided to keep quiet and get away while the getting be good and still open.
“No. I realise it was all a simple mistake,” he said magnanimously. “If you don’t mind, gentlemen, I think I’ll be on my way.”
Turning, the man scuttled off at a fair speed, ignoring his bullet-holed tophat which still lay where it fell. The blonde watched him go, then gave an explosive and angry snort.
“Why that—!” she began.
“Call it one of the hazards of your trade, my pet,” St. Andre interrupted. They stood listening to the rapidly departing patter of the man’s feet for a moment, then the detective went on, “But I wouldn’t advise you to go into the Park with strange men in future.”
Strange as it may seem, the blonde had never thought about the Strangler when she accepted the portly man’s invitation to take a walk in the Park prior to visiting her room and getting down to business. Nor could she think of a single good reason why she should not take advantage of the civic amenities to put her clients in a romantic mood which tended to make them open their pocket-books all the wider when paying for her services.
“Why not?” she asked.
Before any answer could be made, a horror-filled male scream rang out from the direction in which the portly man took his hurried departure. It rang out loud, drowning the faint, but ever-present noise of merry-making from Latour Street. So hideous and shocking was the sound that it froze the three men and two girls for an instant. Calamity recovered first, or maybe the drawing of the Navy Colt was no more than reflex action. All three policemen stared in the direction of the sound and the blonde’s face lost its colour as her mouth dropped open.