No Good Deed 72

Daylight came as a shock as we stepped outside, even though it was still only four in the afternoon. The uninspiring repast had seemed long in the eating indeed. Ishmael lay prone on the sidewalk afront “Johns”. His legs were crossed at the ankle and his head lay on the carpetbag. Snores quite incompatible with his diminutive stature issued from a mouth deficient in teeth to an alarming degree. Around his torso lay almost all of the miniature bottles from the whiskey-drummer's sample case that had been in the carpet-bag since I had acquired it. The tiny corks all over his chest rose and fell in time with his breathing. One rolled down his rib cage and stopped at the toe of my boot. The remaining bottle was still clenched in a fist as though he had passed out before he could open it.

I roused him with a swift kick to his ribs.

'S'matter? T'aint time fer the dog-watch alreddy?'

Another kick persuaded him that it most certainly was time to be up and about. I picked up the bag and withdrew the notebook. Eileen allowed me to draw away from her, but she was not disposed to conceal the handgun in the street. I held up the oilskin package containing the book,

'Is this what you want?'

The woman gave a sigh and waved her pistol airily,

'No.'

As I shook the book from its crude wrapping, John Mudsill's warrant floated to the ground,

'This then, surely?'

'You damned fool!'

Her snarl made her all the more attractive, although I kept a weather eye on her ridiculous weapon. As a last resort I handed her a flimsy onionskin: the facsimile government bond, purportedly found on the mysterious John Mudsill, whoever he had been. It was less easy to extract from its hiding place in the book than Mudsill's warrant had been.

Her pistol did not waver as she cast an eye over the thin paper,

'I knew it,' she spat. 'Damn' him!'

'Knew what?' I asked.

This time the pistol's barrel-mouth jerked crazily as she exhibited a display of temper as fearsome as it was attractive.

'The turncoat, that renegade, that traitor, the miserable apostate.'

The combination of foot-stamping and brandishment of the pistol by turns at myself, Ishmael and the sky was most diverting. I chose that moment to enquire about whom she spoke.

'Northrop, you double-damned fool.'

It was clear to me at last that there had been so much more to the late Mr Northrop than I could ever have imagined. I almost regretted the taking of his life, in more sense than one.

However, life was much too short for regrets such as these, particularly since there was some prospect that it might be shorter still, if I could not wrest the tiny pistol from the incandescent Miss Pardoner, as was. Picking up the carpet-bag, I forced the hideous material against the pistol barrel with my one hand, whilst seizing the woman's wrist in a firm grip with the other. The gun was discharged with a meagre sound and no shot or pellet penetrated the bag.

'Ellen, Ellen, let us stop this dissembling, call me Moffat. I am sick of this Northrop fellow. Why, he is such a will o'the wisp, he might be anyone at all!'

The woman laughed bitterly,

'Even you. Moffat, even you.'

Ishmael, looking fascinated and puzzled in equal measure, lay yet prone on the mud. The threat of a kick proved sufficient to bring him to his feet and I gave him a dollar to find the three of us some means of transport out of the city. Miss Pardoner asked where we were bound.

'Molasses, my dear one, Molasses.'

Her look of surprise was worth any amount of boredom awaiting me at the plantation of the preposterously named Campion Garroway.