The Bullwhip Breed (8 page)

“Madam Darcel’s honest, Calamity,” he told the girl. “She wouldn’t allow a pickpocket in her place—not for long anyway.”

“That one sure didn’t stop,” agreed Calamity. “Say, that Jacqueline was one tough kid. Was them kicks she gave me that
sa—savate
, or whatever you call it?”

“It was. I’ve seen Jacqueline at Duval’s and at the
ChevalD’Or
, she’s good, very good.”

Putting a hand to her nose, Calamity winced slightly. “I’ll take your word for it.”

Not until the cab circled the edge of City Park did either Calamity or St. Andre mention the murder. However, while listening to Calamity’s discourse on the subject of Jacqueline’s fighting prowess, an idea began to form in St. Andre’s head. No matter how hard he tried to force the thoughts down, they kept recurring, nagging at him, yet he did not put them into words.

“What happened about the gal who got killed?” Calamity asked, glancing out of the cab’s window.

“I’m on the case now. Caiman has gone down with a convenient bout of fever and the Chief of Police put me in charge.”

“You’re a real lucky feller.”

“I wouldn’t say so. Both the
Picayune
and the
Intelligencer
, are after somebody’s blood over the failure to trap the Strangler. Unless he is caught soon, I fear my head will roll.”

“Which same’d be a right shame,” remarked Calamity. “We’d best start to think how we’ll lay hands on him.”

Although he relapsed into silence, St. Andre thought only indirectly about trapping the Strangler. On a visit to the
Cheval D’Or
, he had seen Jacqueline meet and defeat another skilled
savate
fighter. Knowing more than a little about foot-boxing himself, St. Andre could figure how rough tangling with Jacqueline was likely to be. Yet Calamity did tangle and defeated the slim girl. St. Andre already knew how tough and capable Calamity could act. Such a girl might—he let the rest of the thought trail off unused. Such a thing had never been done before, the risks were too great for him even to suggest his idea.

St. Andre moved restlessly and gave a low grunt of pain as his sore body protested.

“Aching a mite?” asked Calamity turning to look at him.

“I’ll be as stiff as a plank in the morning.”

“Got me a real good cure for that, happened you’d like to try it.”

“
Cherie
, I would try anything. It is not good for a lawman to be stiff.”

“You can say that again,” grinned Calamity.

So St. Andre found himself once more in Calamity’s room, seated on her bed and watching her bring a small bottle full of an oily-looking liquid from her medicine bag. Drawing the cork with her teeth and spitting it aside, she walked towards the detective.

“This’s something an old Pawnee witch-woman whomped up for me,” she said. “Take off your jacket, vest, shirt and that fancy undershirt I bet you wear.”

While St. Andre did not lead the life of a Trappist monk, he felt slightly embarrassed by the girl’s calm request that he stripped to the waist.

“You mean now?” he gasped.

“Naw, in a week, after I’ve gone backup-river. You don’t drink this stuff. It gets rubbed on the hurt part and I can’t do that with jour clothes on. And don’t get all modest, I’ve seen a feller’s hairy chest afore today.”

Deciding he may as well give in, St. Andre stripped to the waist. Without any blushing, simpering, or showing any more than casual interest in the muscular exposed torso, Calamity sat him on the bed. Pouring some of the liquid into the palm of her hand, she carefully applied it to the bruised skin. Whatever the liquid might be—and St. Andre feared to ask—it worked fast, soothing and cooling the ache from his bones and flesh.

“You’re a wonder, Calam,” he said when she finished.

“Why sure,” she agreed, then flexing her arms. “Whooee, I’m sore.”

Was there a hint of challenge in her voice, St. Andre wondered.

“Miss Canary’s soothing syrup did me good,” he remarked.

“It’s sure hell to put on yourself,” she answered. “Hell, my clothes are wet. I’ve got to get out of them.”

Rising, she peeled off the shirt and vest, standing with her back to him. Even so, a mottling of bruises showed on her ribs as she dropped the clothes on to a chair.

“Calam—,” St. Andre began. “Can we talk?”

“Know for sure I can, and I’ve heard you doing it all fancy and nice.”

“Then sit by me, I’ll put some of that stuff on for you and we’ll talk.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

DAYLIGHT streamed through the window as St. Andre drew the curtains. Stepping to one side, he flexed his arms and marvelled at the ease with which he could move. By all fair means he ought to be so stiff and sore that even the smallest movement caused agony, yet he felt relaxed and almost his normal self. Behind him the bed creaked and he turned to study Calamity’s sleep twisted face showing over the blankets.

“How are your injuries,
cherie
?” he asked, crossing to sit by her. Hooking a hand behind his neck, Calamity drew his face down and kissed him. “Shucks, don’t feel a thing,” she answered when they parted. “What’d you want to talk about last night?”

Looking down at the girl as she lay so innocently on the bed, St. Andre did not answer for several seconds. Last night while applying Miss Canary’s soothing syrup to Calamity’s injuries he had thought of making use of the girl’s undoubted courage and unusual talents to trap the Strangler. Now in the cold light of dawn, and after a night which proved beyond any doubt that Calamity was all woman, the idea no longer seemed possible. His plan would be too dangerous for any woman to risk her life trying it out.

Seeing the girl’s lips tighten in a way he guessed meant she aimed to have the question answered, St. Andre forced himself to think fast.

“I was thinking about your suggestion that your friend tries to track the Strangler,” he answered, using the first lie to come into his head.

His attempt at a bluff missed by a good country mile. Looking the detective over with calculating eyes, Calamity grinned and said, “What’d you do if I called you a liar?”

“Why not try it and see?” he challenged.

Calamity tried it; and saw.

Half an hour later, as he finished dressing, St. Andre felt even more certain that he could never put his plan into operation and risk Calamity’s life. Hoping to evade the issue, he felt at the stubble on his cheeks and remarked that he needed a shave.

“Go down and get some breakfast,” Calamity told him. “The boys’ll be in the dining-room by now and one of ‘em’ll loan you his razor.”

Although he did not feel sure of what kind of reception he would receive from the members of Killem’s freight outfit, St. Andre followed the girl’s advice and headed for the dining-room. Inside he found the members of the outfit sat around the clean, well-stocked table. All eyes turned towards him as he entered the room; but, much to his surprise, he found grins, not indignation or fury on the freighters’ faces.

The way Killem and his men looked at the present situation was that none of them had the right to censure Calamity’s morals. Even the married members of the outfit took female company when away from home on a trip, so none of them expected Calamity to sit alone and nun-like while they whooped things up. She did not throw herself at every man who came along, and the old Pawnee medicine woman had fixed up something which enabled Calamity to make sure that nothing permanent happened as a result of her friendship. In the final reckoning, the freighters allowed any man who became that friendly with their Calamity-gal must be all he-cat and well worth knowing—even if he be a town-dwelling, fancy-dressing and talking French-Creole aristocrat and a lawman to boot.

“Bring on another breakfast, maw!” called Dobe Killem as the owner of the apartment house looked in. “This young feller done stayed the night with us and he looks a mite hungry.”

While St. Andre was not used to having four eggs and a pile of ham placed before him at breakfast, he tucked in and demolished the lot; which brought broad grins and friendly chaff from the freighters.

“Never did see a feller as could eat so much,” remarked Killem.

“They do say it makes a man real hungry,” Tombes went on.

“I missed dinner last night,” St. Andre explained.

At that moment Calamity entered and St. Andre thrust back his chair to come to his feet. Much to his surprise none of the other men broke into ill-mannered comment on his show of etiquette. While they might be a mite long on the social graces themselves, Killem’s outfit never mocked anybody whose early training gave him polite manners and habits.

“Morning, boys, hi Sherry,” greeted Calamity innocently. “Say, did you come back here last night?”

“Reckon he must have,” grinned the owner of the house guessing the girl’s words had been aimed in her direction. “You ready for breakfast?”

“Ready, willing and all set to eat it, maw,” agreed Calamity, then turned to Tombes. “Hey, Tophet, happen you can see two inch afore your nose, Sherry here wants you to help trail that Strangler cuss.”

“And we got them hosses to tend to,” Killem went on. “I’ll loan you my razor when you’re through, Sherry.”

By the time he had washed, shaved and tidied up his appearance as well as possible, St. Andre found he possessed a new name. It stuck and for the rest of his life St. Andre’s friends called him ‘Sherry’.

Calamity made no reference to the question she knew hovered around in St. Andre’s head and which he fought down each time before speaking. Figuring the detective would get around to asking in his own good time, Calamity shared a cab with St. Andre and a silent, morose-looking Tombes, and rode to City Park. After St. Andre paid off the cab, the trio strolled through the Park. In daylight it looked different; innocent, friendly, not the kind of area one would associate with a brutal murder.

A couple of policemen stood guard on the place where the body had lain. Both of them exchanged glances as they watched St. Andre’s party approaching.

“There’s a feller whose job I’d hate to have,” remarked one of the officers.

“And me,” replied the other. “Anyway, he’s got plenty of money and don’t need this lot to live on.”

Saluting St. Andre, the two policemen fell back, wondering why he had brought that mean-looking cuss and a gal wearing men’s clothing along to the scene of the crime. Not that they objected in Calamity’s case, she sure filled out that pair of blue jeans a treat. Neither officer wasted any time in asking questions, but stood back and awaited orders.

“What do we do now?” the detective asked.

“Just stand right back and don’t get under-foot,” grunted Tombes, never too amiable first thing in a morning, and less so when recovering from the previous night’s celebration. “I sure hope your fellers haven’t been tromping every damned which ways down here.”

“I left orders for them to stay on the path.”

After making a check on the ground at the left of the track, Tombes returned to the detective and nodded. “They done what you telled ‘em. Ain’t nothing aged right on that side. I’ll look on the other.”

St. Andre had never seen a human tracker in action and looked on with mingled interest and disbelief as the lean Westerner advanced towards the right side of the track and bent forward so as to study the grass. Possibly they would learn nothing through the scout’s efforts, but St. Andre knew Calamity had not been joking when she made the suggestion.

A low grunt left Tombes’ lips as he came to a halt, bent closer to the ground and examined something which caught his eye. Then he stood erect and turned to face Calamity and St. Andre.

“Feller come along the path with the gal.”

“Could you tell me how you know, so I can write it in my report,” St. Andre answered.

“Easy enough,” grunted the scout. “There’s a set of tracks that’s the right age comes off the path here. Just the one set. Happen she’d come along the path alone, he’d’ve left sign in the bushes where he waited for her and walked out to stop her. After he’d killed her, he walked off into the bushes over there.”

“Couldn’t both the Strangler and the girl have come from the bushes?” St. Andre inquired.

“Nope. There’s only the one set of tracks, going on to the grass and through the bushes.”

“And you say he walked away?”

“Sure, Sherry. It’s easy enough to tell the difference. Come here and take a look at his sign.”

Bending forward, the scout pointed to the grass. Only by careful study could St. Andre see anything different from the spot at which Tombes pointed and the surrounding area. Even when seeing that a small oval-shaped patch of grass had been crushed down, he could not decide how Tombes knew the Strangler made the indentation when walking away from his victim. Seeing the detective’s puzzled expression, and knowing how little chance the average city-dweller had of watching a visual tracker at work, Tombes explained his findings.

“Look at the shape of the mark,” he said. “When a man walks, he puts his heel down first, brings the rest of his foot down. But when he runs, he lands on the toe. With walking you get a bigger mark than when he’s running. The amount the crushed grass’s come up tells me how long ago the sign was made.”

“I’ll take your word for that,” St. Andre answered admiringly.

“You can sure do that,” Calamity put in, conscious of the two patrolmen studying her shape with anything but official interest.

“Ole Tophet can track a man across rock by the marks his shadow left on it. Mind though, it has to be fairly soft rock—and a real sunny day.”

“What would you do if I called you a liar,
cherie
?” smiled St. Andre.

“Nothing right now. I reckon you’ve got all kinds of laws against doing that in the open. Let’s leave it until later and get after ole Tophet.”

“What the hell’s all this about, Mike?” one of the patrolmen asked in a low voice as they watched Tombes, then Calamity and St. Andre move away.

“Don’t ask me,” grunted the other. “Say, I wonder who worked St. Andre over?”

“That girl’s got a mouse under her eye. Maybe it was her.”

“Naw. St. Andre charms ‘em, he don’t beat ‘em until they’re ready for it. I reckon we’d best tag along and see what happens.”

“Be as well. If we stay here we’ll be in the wrong, and if we follow it’ll be the same, but at least we might learn something.”

Moving slowly, his eyes scanning the ground ahead of him, Tombes led the others through the bushes. Calamity kept her attention on the route they took, noticing that the Strangler’s direction was such that it never came into plain view of a path but made a looping half-circle in cover. Just as she was about to remark on the matter, Tombes halted and looked back at St. Andre.

“Feller’s around five foot ten tall, slim build, wears city shoes,” the scout stated.

“How do you know?” asked the detective.

“Easy enough. Length of his stride, amount he crushed down the grass, shape of a couple of real clear tracks he left. Which same don’t help you much, I reckon.”

“At least it eliminates a lot of people. Where did he go from here?”

All the time they walked St. Andre had been studying the direction they took and noting it in his memory. If they ever caught the Strangler after a killing, it might be possible to shock a confession from him by describing the route he took from one of his victims.

After following the tracks for another fifty yards, Tombes came to a halt. He stood at the edge of a clump of bushes, looking around him. On joining the scout, Calamity and St. Andre found themselves overlooking a piece of track and the girl particularly developed an uneasy feeling she knew the place which lay before them.

“What is it?” asked St. Andre, now convinced that Tombes had done all Calamity promised.

“Feller stood here for a fair spell, looking towards the path,” Tombes answered. “I’ll cross over and see what’s on the other aide. He went this ways, come on to the path here.” However, after crossing the path and searching around, the scout returned to the others. “That’s as far as we go. Feller didn’t cross the track on to the other side and I can’t trail him on this hard ground.”

Interested though they had been up to that point, Calamity and St. Andre hardly heard a word Tombes said. Both stood staring at the bullet-holed top hat which lay on the ground ahead of them. Then they turned and their eyes met.

“He must’ve been stood here last night, watching us,” Calamity breathed.

“If the newspapers hear of this,” replied St. Andre. “I’m finished as a policeman.”

“Can’t see why,” the girl answered. “Hell, who’d’ve expected the Strangler to come here and stand watching us? You couldn’t have known about him.”

“My dear child,” said St. Andre gently. “The
Intelligencer
has never approved of the police, or my rise through its ranks. They will be only too pleased to make capital of this incident.”

“Why don’t you go along to their office, ask the boss to walk out into the alley and talk some sense to him with that there
savate
?” asked the practical Miss Canary.

“It is not as easy as that,
cherie
,” the detective answered a touch regretfully. “You see the
Intelligencer
is a protector of the rights of the down-trodden, under-privileged mankind, and its owners have a very stout idea of how to gain full protection from the law for their actions.”

Before St. Andre could enlarge on the working of a newspaper like the
Intelligencer
, Tombes returned to them and jerked his thumb towards the track.

“I’ve been down both sides and he didn’t go off again near at hand. Reckon from the way he come off the grass, he was headed down that ways.”

“Towards the better part of town,” answered St. Andre. “Of course he would hardly, come the other way. We’d just gone along there. Well, that’s all we can do for now.”

“Hope I helped some,” Tombes replied.

“You’ve given us a little more than we already knew,” St. Andre said. “I’m grateful for your help. Let’s go back to town.”

“What’s your next move?” Calamity inquired, after collecting the discarded top hat.

“We wait,” St. Andre told her.

“Just wait?”

“That’s all we can do.”

“Hell!” spat the girl. “He might kill again.”

“He might,” admitted St. Andre, “but until we have something to go on, we can’t think of catching him.”

“Do you know who the girl was?” asked Calamity.

“Not even that. People in her way of business avoid the law as I told you last night—.”

“That feller acts like a stock-killing cougar,” Tombes interrupted. “Ain’t but two ways of hunting down one of them. Run him down with a pack of hounds, or stake out a bait and lure him to your gun.”

“Now there’s a right smart idea, Sherry.” Calamity put in. “Get a gal to act as bait for you.”

For a few seconds St. Andre did not reply. He walked along between Tombes and Calamity, the patrolmen following on his heels, his head sunk forward and thoughts racing through his mind. At last he shrugged and looked at the girl.

“We have three police matrons at Headquarters, but I doubt if they would be of any use as bait. All the Strangler’s victims were shapely and good-looking girls, at least we assume they were good looking, their distorted faces give little clue of that. Our matrons are all bigger, and not so handsome as Dobe Killem.”

“Shucks,” answered Calamity, not looking at the detective. “I’m a mite smaller and a whole heap prettier than ole Dobe. Why not let me be your bait?”

“You?” asked St. Andre, trying to sound as if the idea had not been beating around in his head for the past few hours.

“G’wan!” grinned Calamity. “You’ve been fixing to ask me to do it ever since last night.”

St. Andre slammed to a halt, turning and staring at the girl with dismay on his face. Seeing the grin on her face, a smile fought its way to his features, then died off once more.

“It could be very dangerous,
cherie
,” he warned.