Mississippi Raider (15 page)

“
Or
even one wearing this what you call clobber,” the girl supplemented
sotto voce, making a gesture toward her masculine
attire.

“
Well,
I haven’t had the time to learn you how to go on the climb, else I
bet you could have,” Higgins answered, and placed one of the items
from where it was suspended on his belt behind his back so it would
not be in the way while he was coming over the wall. “And you don’t
need
their
ladder with this.” Wanting to relieve any anxiety the girl
might be feeling, he continued, “I got the idea back home from
Charlie Peace. You won’t heard of him over here, I don’t suppose,
but he’s a real nasty little bleeder. Which’s why I steered clear
of him as much as possible, although he knows how and where to pull
a job.”

“
I
thought you said you always worked alone?” Belle queried, wanting
to quell the tension that was growing within her.

“
And I
allus did,” the Cockney confirmed, having told the girl some of the
more amusing parts of his career as a criminal in England. “And if
I’d ever wanted to go on a job two-handed, it wouldn’t’ve
been
him,
’cause I’m sure he’ll come to get topped one of these
days.”

On being removed and carefully
operated by Higgins while the brief whispered conversation was
taking place and achieving its purpose where quietening the
girl
’s
apprehensions was concerned, what had looked like a bundle of short
sticks proved to be a collapsible ladder. Under his manipulations,
it extended like lazy tongs upward so the hook at the top passed
over the edge of the balcony’s decorated protective wall. With it
in place, he climbed up swiftly and, on going over, checked the
security of the device before signaling for the girl to follow.
There was an admiring grin on his face as she made the ascent as
swiftly as he had done. Because no suitable height was available at
his place of legitimate business, she had been unable to practice
going up the device. However, she had claimed she would be able to
do so and had justified her confidence.

Having attained the place where
they wanted to be, neither Belle nor the Cockney wasted any time in
talking. A twist at
the handle of the French windows confirmed the story told
by Fanny: they opened to a push and gave access to the unused guest
room. Making use of the small bull’s-eye lamp that Higgins was also
carrying on his belt lit but with the cover over the front, they
crossed to the other door and, not unexpectedly, found that this
too was unlocked. Going through brought them into a wide passage
with several other doors; making use of the information Belle had
acquired while paying the visit as a guest at the soiree, she led
the way to one. This proved to be locked, the illumination
emanating from beneath the door provided by a lamp left burning for
the benefit of the couple on their return from the ball, but the
skill that the girl had acquired enabled her to open it with one of
the twirls made and presented to her by the Cockney.

“
Why
does he have his bleeding office up here?” Higgins inquired,
looking around with the aid of his bull’s-eye lantern at what had
apparently been converted from a fair-size bedroom into a place
where business could be conducted.

“
To
make more work for the servants, according to Fanny,” Belle
replied. “I’m sure we’ll find what we need here.”

Examining some of the bulky files and other
documents, the girl selected half a dozen that covered only the
most mundane military subjects and placed them into the sack she
had carried tucked in the back of her belt. While she was doing so,
the Cockney was standing at the door through which they had entered
and keeping watch along the passage. Pulling tight the drawstring,
she carried the far-from-valuable or-secret loot to join her
companion.

“
Well,
that is that,” the girl declared. “Now let’s get away, and tomorrow
I’ll see this gets back to him. Perhaps that will make them realize
I can be of use to the Secret Service.”

“
If it
don’t,” the irrepressible Cockney replied, “you can allus start
working two-handed with me.”

“
You
know something,
Miss Boyd?” Alfred Higgins said in the low tones they had employed
all through JL the successful robbery they had just committed, as
he and the slender, beautiful Southern girl were approaching the
point on the rear wall of the house where the padded sack lay
across its broken-glass-surmounted top. “I’ve heard Mrs. Crumb, as
you reckon the skivvy ’n’ corporal calls her behind her back, has
got some pretty good torn, none of it jar neither, and it’d make a
nice tickle for us if we start working two-handed.”

“
That’s a thoroughly immoral suggestion to make to a future
member of the Confederate States Secret Service, sir,” Belle Boyd
declared in mock horror. She had learned enough about the argot of
London’s criminals to be aware that a “nice tickle” referred to a
good quantity of loot, “torn” was an abbreviation of tomfoolery and
Cockney rhyming slang for jewelry, while “jar” meant the items were
made from a stone inferior to diamonds. “Anyway, as soon as he
hears what’s happened, which he will even though I’ll have returned
all we’re taking away, General Crumb will take precautions against
another robbery happening.”

“
He’s
just sneaky enough to do it,” Higgins admitted with what appeared
to be a heartfelt sigh and cast a glance redolent of disappointment
at the building. “But, same’s I said, it’d’ve been a bloody nice
tickle, just what me mum always wanted me to have when she sent me
off at night to go on the climb back home.”

“
I can
always make it worth your whi—!” the girl began.

“
Not
on your Nellie, Miss Boyd!” the Cockney refused, vehemently and yet
with a politeness that might have surprised some of his criminal
acquaintances. “Thank you for offering again. But, like what I said
before, what your dad done for me that night in des Boys Gilbert’s
place’s all the paying I’ll ever need for helping you.”

‘
Then
we might as well take stoppo,” Belle suggested, employing another
of the terms that had cropped up when she was listening to the
anecdotes her companion had told her about his illicit activities
before coming to America for reasons he had not disclosed nor had
she questioned.

“
Blimey, I hope
not!”
Higgins asserted. “That means we have to take our
bleeding hook doing a lively, ’cause we’ve been lumbered ’n’
they’re after us.”

“
Poppa
always use to tell me that America and England were two nations
divided by a common language,” the girl said with a smile, laying
down the bundle containing the items she was removing from the
headquarters of General Wilberforce-Crumley so she could play her
part in the scaling of the wall surrounding the property. “And I’ve
come to know just what he meant since meeting you.”

“
Be
fair, miss,” the Cockney protested, also grinning and thinking what
a great pity he would never have such a partner with whom he would
be willing to break his habit and work two-handed. “With all due
respect to your dad, it was
us
who invented the bleeding language.”

“
That’s why
we
got rid of you in ‘seventy-six,” Belle countered, and
placed her back against the wall with hands cupped, ready to help
her companion with the ascent.

Reaching the top of the wall
was accomplished with no greater difficulty than when the pair had
come over it on their arrival. Once Higgins was in position, Belle
threw the sack containing the documents from
Crumley
’s
office to him and he dropped them over the other side. On her
joining him, he assisted her in making the descent. Then, to remove
the last trace of their illicit visit, he grasped the inner edge of
the padded cover and, taking it with him, rolled from his perch.
Being skilled as what a later generation would refer to as a cat
burglar, a drop of the height he needed to make encumbered with the
protective covering was nothing to him. However, as he alighted by
the girl and she was picking up the sack, there was a nasty
surprise in store for them.

“
You
did that
real
well!” announced a masculine voice with a Southern accent
having a suggestion of a good education. “Now you can come along
with us!”

Leaving their places of concealment and
converging swiftly on the pair, the four men who appeared were clad
alike in dark-colored civilian clothing—even to their collarless
shirts— which in the available light gave no suggestion by its
quality and style of their stations in life. All were larger and
more powerfully built than the Cockney, but this did not make any
of them slow-moving or clumsy on their feet. The only slight
consolation Belle could draw—and she assumed Higgins felt the
same—was that none were holding weapons or worse badges of office
to indicate an official status.

“
Scarper, Miss B.!” the Cockney yelled while swiftly
discarding the once again folded collapsible ladder and bull’s-eye
lantern from his belt and, ducking his head, starting to charge at
the closest man. “Take
stoppo!”

“
The
hell
I will!” the girl spluttered, and let the sack fall from
her fingers.

Although considering the advice to be
justified, the sense of responsibility to others that had been
instilled into her since childhood would not allow Belle to take
it. To have done so would leave the friendly little Englishman who
had willingly helped her at the mercy of the approaching quartet.
Whoever they might be, that was a situation not to be contemplated
or accepted without helping him make the fight he was going to put
up so she might be able to escape.

Darting forward even faster than the
Cockney, the girl once more blessed the footwear she had on for the
ease of movement it permitted. Bending her feet into a
half-crouched position without slowing her pace on coming into what
she estimated to be the most effective range, she sprang into the
air. Straightening the limbs and bending them under her body as she
twisted it slightly, she propelled her feet forward with a
thrusting motion. Caught in the chest by the soles of the savate
boots, the man she had selected as her target went staggering back
a few steps. Glancing around at the moment of impact, she found
that Higgins had delivered the charge with rather less success: his
objective was taller and able to withstand the impact with it
failing to achieve its purpose.

Dropping to the ground, Belle saw the man
attacked by the Cockney swing a punch that sent him sprawling to
the ground in the flaccid way of one stunned by the blow. Then she
had troubles of her own. Caught around the arms from the rear, she
had them pinned to her sides with a strength against which she knew
she could achieve nothing by muscle power alone. Nor did having her
feet swung from the ground increase her chances of effecting an
escape. Nor, although she used them to fend off the third member of
the quartet as he came toward her, was the respite she gained of
sufficient length of time for her to try to effect an escape from
the bearlike hugging applied by her captor. Then the last of the
group came over from an angle where she was unable to reach him. He
had taken something from his jacket pocket that felt wet and had a
sweet sickly smell as it was clapped onto her face. Although
guessing what the liquid must be, as she had occasionally smelled
chloroform when helping her mother—who had always kept in touch
with the latest medical developments—use it while performing urgent
treatment in the absence of a doctor, she tried to hold her breath
and struggle. Neither proved to be of any avail, and she felt a
blackness descending upon her as she sank into an unconscious
state.

~*~

“
Where
am I?” Belle Boyd groaned as sentience returned to her.

“
How
do you feel?” inquired an unseen speaker with a feminine Southern
timbre suggestive of good breeding and education, the voice coming
from among the mists that seemed to be surrounding the
girl.

“
Terrible!” Belle croaked.

“
And
so you should,” the speaker asserted coldly. “Pulling a foolish
game like you were. Your momma and poppa would have been ashamed of
you.”

“
Where—?” the girl croaked, thinking the voice seemed
vaguely familiar as she began shaking her head and trying to sit
up. “What—?”

“
Lie
still, girl!” the speaker commanded in a less-than-solicitous
fashion. “The effects will wear off all the quicker if you
do.”

Taking the advice, Belle soon found it was
valid. As the mists began to clear, she found she was lying on a
settee in a luxuriously furnished room. Despite the means employed
to bring her there, she was not fastened up in any way. Nor, she
slowly became aware, were any of her captors present. However, as a
result of having been rendered unconscious by the application of
chloroform, she did not believe their absence made her position any
more safer. Regardless of who the apparently Southern-born woman
with whom she had spoken might be, although her hands and feet were
at liberty, she knew that she would be unable to take any kind of
positive action in her present enfeebled condition. At last, her
vision cleared sufficiently for her to make out even more of her
surroundings.