The Scent of Betrayal (23 page)

‘Why the club?’ asked Harry, who’d attended many a bareknuckle contest in his time.

‘The rules are rather lax but they are not allowed to kill each other, Captain. That would only cause more trouble. So Bernard, if they don’t stop when he rings, gives them a little tap on the head.’

‘Do they have a prize of any kind?’

‘They fight for what they own, Monsieur. Their boats.’

There was a sudden round of clapping as the other competitor appeared. He was a big man too, scarred and tough, though not as large as his opponent. His black hair was cut so short as to make him appear near bald. Kavanagh was a good three inches taller and a lot broader, but that didn’t seem to frighten him at all. He held up his hands and silence fell.

‘Well, ladies and gentlemen. I’ve been waiting to do this for
years. Over yonder is the unsightly countenance of King Kavanagh, who reckons he can scrap.’

Suddenly he spat into the gas flame in a most derisory way. That produced a hiss from the fire and a simian growl from his opponent. Many of the audience clapped.

‘He certainly has a way with the crowd,’ said James.

Hyacinthe smiled in a way that spoke volumes. ‘He has that, Monsieur. And not only crowds.’

‘It’s a good way to unbalance your opponent, I think,’ said Harry, a remark which earned him a dazzling smile of agreement from Hyacinthe.

‘And he’s been traipsing round the frontier,’ Tucker continued, ‘telling all and sundry that he’s the best, while taking care to make sure that he and I have never been in the same place, at the same time.’

‘Damn it, I’m here now, Tucker,’ Kavanagh shouted, a great spray of spittle emerging from his mouth, ‘and I hope you’re thankful!’

Too far away to be affected, Tucker still pretended he’d been hit, slowly dragging a finger across one eye. This killed any humour in Kavanagh’s pun on his nickname. The crowd laughed uproariously as two servants arrived to remove the table. Harry and James stood up and prepared to follow their hostess.

‘I think I’ll stay down here for a better view, your honour,’ said Pender.

Harry smiled, then stepped smartly in front of James so that it was him who was following Hyacinthe Feraud up the narrow, steep staircase. He could see her hips swaying beneath the pink silk dress, almost pick out each muscle as it moved. And he was in the wake of her perfume, which, acting on the warmth of her body, was so close to his nose that he had to turn away. By the time they reached the balcony rail the two contestants were in the middle of the floor. Tucker had a whiskey jug in his hand, and he was offering it to Kavanagh.

‘Now I won’t get the chance to tell you after I’ve licked you, Kavanagh, that there ain’t no hard feelings. So I will drink with you now.’

‘Like hell, Tucker.’

‘Now that ain’t the act of a gentleman, Kavanagh,’ said Tucker, spinning round to appeal to the crowd. Someone started a slow clap, shouting the word ‘drink.’ Taken up quickly by those watching it soon became a cry that shook the rafters. Harry could see that people were crowding in from the streets. Clearly the news of the fight had got around and customers were pouring in from other taverns, noisily ordering drinks and shoving money at the overworked servitors.

‘This appears to be good for business,’ shouted Harry.

Hyacinthe, leaning on the balustrade, nodded happily. Harry leant beside her, letting his hand brush the silky skin of her bare arm. The effect was a sudden, tingling sensation that ran right through him. But what pleased him was the feeling that it had affected her too, since she turned and smiled in a slightly surprised, but very inviting way.

‘Stand by to board,’ said James, in his ear. Then he gasped slightly as Harry’s elbow dug into his ribs.

The cry of ‘drink’ was repeated until Kavanagh relented. He took the jug off Tucker, crooked it over his arm, and took a great swig. Harry could see his throat working to take in the liquid. Having drunk whiskey in the past he knew it to be a fiery spirit indeed, and the frontier variety was said to be rougher than the Scottish brew that his brother-in-law, Lord Drumdryan, had pressed him to taste. That made Kavanagh’s feat as impressive as it was stupid, since a gut full of alcohol would do nothing for his ability to fight. Tucker then took the jug and crooked it in the same fashion. But Harry saw that while he held it at his lips for quite a while, his throat didn’t move.

Then Tucker passed the jug to a spectator. Immediately it was removed from his hand he swung round and hit Kavanagh in the
stomach. A rush of air left the taller man’s mouth. He bent slightly but recovered, hauling his head up to glare defiantly at Tucker. That’s when his opponent spat the whiskey, which he’d secreted in his mouth, right into Kavanagh’s eyes. Blinded, the best bareknuckle west of the Ohio was easy meat. Tucker hit him time and again, at his leisure, driving him back across the small dance floor. Each punch was carefully timed for maximum effect, producing spouts of blood from Kavanagh’s mouth and nose. Every blow to the belly would fold him in half, just as every uppercut sent his head flying upright. Tucker was relentless, inflicting cuts above his eyes with short telling jabs that turned the crowd delirious with joy. They cheered Tucker on as he slowly reduced his bigger opponent to a hulk. If Kavanagh’s eyes had cleared he’d taken too much punishment to regain the initiative. Finally, after Tucker boxed his ears a half dozen times, the big man dropped to his knees. As Bernard rang the bell, Tucker stepped forward and gave him an uppercut to the jaw that sent him flying. Harry was sure, even above the noise of the spectators, that he heard the bone go.

Harry touched Hyacinthe’s arm again, feeling once more that delicious thrill. It was as if his blood was trying to ooze out of his body.

‘I see that as you indicated the rules are rather lax.’

She turned to face him. He could see her breasts heaving with the excitement of having watched one man destroy another. At one and the same time, that sight elated and upset him. Somehow she had diminished herself in his mind. Had Tucker won fairly he would have seen the attraction as an understandable response. But he hadn’t. Even if there were no rules, he had cheated.

‘To win, Captain Ludlow. That is the one and only rule.’

IT WAS AMAZING
how quickly the Hôtel de la Porte d’Orléans was back to normal. Inside two minutes it was as though no fight had taken place. Kavanagh had been carried out still dripping blood, the tables had been replaced, the band had struck up a tune, and the dancers returned to the floor. Hyacinthe led them back to her reconstituted table. Wine appeared in a flash, with their hostess proposing a toast to Thankful Tucker. Harry only hesitated for a moment, putting aside any idea of questioning the victory. He reminded himself of why he’d come in the first place, which had nothing to doing with bareknuckle fighting or beautiful Creoles.

‘I was told that you entertain the men from Barataria Bay as well as those from the riverboats.’

The dark eyes flashed, showing just a hint of the temperament that lurked beneath Hyacinthe’s civilized veneer. ‘The one thing I never ask a man who comes in here is how he makes his way in the world, Captain.’

‘What would you say if I told you that one of your customers might hold a clue to the whereabouts of two hundred thousand Spanish dollars?’

The eyebrows flicked slightly, and she smiled, before putting her hand on his. ‘Then I would want you to identify him, Captain. There is a card room upstairs in which he would be most welcome.’

Harry felt the squeeze that was meant to convey that she knew, as well as he did, where de Carondelet’s ingots had gone.

‘Unfortunately, the money doesn’t belong to him.’

‘Money is treated in the same way as my clients. Where it comes from is of no account.’

Harry was about to ask how someone who worked for a senior member of the Spanish administration could say that, but he did not get the chance.

‘What money?’

Harry spun round to find Thankful Tucker, now fully dressed, standing right behind him. For reasons he didn’t quite understand, that made him stand up abruptly. Close too, Harry could see the scars on his face that marked him out as a fighter. His hands, always a good indicator of a bruiser, were big and knobbled, showing red at the knuckles where he used them to pound Kavanagh. But his clothes were well cut and his linen clean, in sharp contrast to most of his fellow boatmen, who wore buckskins. In fact, despite the red-spotted bandanna at his neck there was just a touch of the dandy about the man. Hyacinthe Feraud made a swift introduction and, much to Harry’s chagrin, invited Tucker to join them.

‘Are you the poor souls that are sitting under Spanish guns?’ asked Tucker.

‘We are,’ Harry replied.

‘Well, you’re better off than poor Charpentier. He’s probably stretched out on the rack by now. If they do the same to you the Governor will make you give back his gold, eh!’

James, seeing Harry frown, cut in. ‘That was quite a neat display, sir. But I’m curious. Could you have beaten Kavanagh without subterfuge?’

Tucker grinned, declined to take wine, and asked Bernard to fetch some whiskey. ‘I reckon so, Mr Ludlow, otherwise I would never have fought him. But without that little trick with the raw spirit I don’t suppose I’d be sitting here now talking to you in such an easy manner.’

‘No,’ said Hyacinthe. ‘You would be upstairs again, occupying one of the beds for a week.’

‘With a brute like Kavanagh, a week would scarce be enough,’
he replied. Then he put his huge hand over Hyacinthe’s. ‘But it would be worth it just to have these pretty little things bathe my bruises, one more time.’

‘So you have acquired a boat,’ said Harry abruptly, as Hyacinthe Feraud gave Tucker a dazzling smile.

‘I have. Though it’s a damned keelboat and of little use to me. If Kavanagh’s got any money, or goods to trade, I’ll let him buy it back. Otherwise it will be broken up for the wood and go towards the building of some local worthy’s house.’

‘So this isn’t the first time you’ve won such a bout?’ asked James.

‘My word, no. I’ve been fighting people for all manner of things, including their boats, ever since I first took to the river, and that wasn’t yesterday. Fighting all the way from Pittsburgh to the Gulf.’

‘Have you ever lost your own boat, Captain Tucker?’ asked Harry.

‘Captain!’ Tucker threw back his head and laughed. ‘I’ve been called a lot of things, friend, but it’s an age since anyone addressed me as Captain.’

‘I dare say Kavanagh, when his jaw has healed, will have the odd unflattering epithet to add to the list.’

Tucker stopped laughing and looked at Harry hard. ‘The only thing I ever lost a boat to was the river. Even if I’ve been on it for years it’s damned unpredictable. No man has yet come close to matching the Mississippi, sir, and nor do I expect them to.’

‘It is bound to happen one day.’

Tucker’s eyes had narrowed, and the glass he was about to drink from stopped just short of his lips. ‘Do you have anyone in mind to take the crown, Ludlow?’

‘Captain Ludlow and his brother are strangers here,’ said Hyacinthe quickly. ‘They don’t know you, Thankful, or have knowledge of your reputation.’

Tucker grunted and emptied his glass. Hyacinthe turned the
conversation round by leaning across the table to address Harry, which forced him to exchange the glare he had been giving Tucker, for a smile to match her own.

‘We were talking about a lot of money. Two hundred thousand dollars. Some say it’s all the coin in Louisiana.’

‘Let us by all means remember why we are here,’ said James.

Tucker whistled and rolled his eyes towards his hostess.

‘Now that is real scratch. Enough to buy a plantation house fit for a princess like you. I can just see you, Hyacinthe, in an open coach, driving up the avenue of live oaks to the house. We will paint it yellow, so that it stands out from the surrounding trees. Would you care for white horses, or black?’

‘Rumours are flying about the town, Captain Ludlow,’ said Hyacinthe, ‘that the money was stolen by you. That is why you are under the great guns.’

‘It wasn’t, I’m afraid.’

‘Do you expect to be believed?’ asked Tucker.

Harry replied sharply. ‘Yes, sir, I do. Especially since not even Governor de Carondelet thinks us the culprits.’

Hyacinthe cut in, to provide information which had doubtless come to her through the rumour mill, this to reprise the view that he and James were the guilty parties. These rumours were now common currency, while the truth was still locked in the breasts of one of those they’d dined with that very evening. Certainly Hyacinthe’s employer hadn’t included what had transpired in his explanation about their potential visit. And Harry didn’t feel inclined to tell them that his superior had just robbed them of even more money, quite convinced that if such a thing became widely known it would do nothing to help him get it back. But he did tell them about the dinner and some of what had taken place. Finished speaking, he was unsure as to whether he’d convinced her of their innocence, since she had listened to him with a knowing smile. Tucker, on the other hand, thought the whole thing a huge joke.

‘Why, damn me, Ludlow, if old
Cochon du lait
has gone and
lost that much it’ll make his eyes pop right out of his skull. No wonder he asked you to help him get it back.’

‘Perhaps if we explain precisely what happened,’ said James, addressing their hostess, ‘you will be able to point us in a direction that might help us recover it.’

‘Why in hell’s name should you want to recover Spanish money?’ demanded Tucker. ‘Has
Cochon du lait
offered you a reward?’

Harry ignored that question, and, for what seemed like the tenth time, albeit with some careful filleting, he related the events that surrounded the sinking of the
Gauchos
. Following that he went on to mention de Barrameda’s raid on Barataria Bay, plus the opinion, unattributed, that it might not have been the success he claimed.

‘Pirates wouldn’t have tried to sink her,’ said Tucker, emphatically, long before he’d actually finished.

‘How can you be so sure?’ asked James.

‘Because a ship is worth money round here, even if only for the wood. And the one thing that would puff their pride would be a real sailing ship with guns. Charpentier is a handsome fellow, I’ll grant you, with a wicked wit to go with his looks. But he’s an exception. Those scum that hang out in Barataria Bay ain’t no Morgans or Kidds. In the main they’re verminous cowards who use shallow-draft boats to attack the coastal trade and never, if they can avoid it, go far out to sea. Which is just as well given the leaky tubs they use. If this
Gauchos
was, as you say, a caravel, soundly built and in good order, he could have outrun them under topsails.’

Harry was clearly reluctant to engage Tucker in conversation, but he seemed so knowledgeable that he had no choice.

‘Are they easily recognisable?’

‘They certainly are. You can tell them by the way their ribs stick out. Half the time they can’t afford the price of loaf of bread, nor a drink. The idea of such a crew in sight of that kind of scratch makes me laugh. The sight of one of those ingots would have led
to murder right there and then, with each one killing the other.’

‘I meant their boats,’ said Harry, tersely.

‘I wouldn’t know then, ’cause I never go beyond New Orleans. But if I was to sail out through the delta, I reckon it would take me no more’n a day to get a sketch drawing of every one of them. And I know that half a day south of Fort Balize they’d cease to be a worry.’

‘Mademoiselle Feraud.’ Hyacinthe looked up, then extended her hand as the plump figure of Monsieur Saraille bent over it. ‘Might I be permitted to join you?’

She hesitated for less than a second, her face fixed in an insincere smile. ‘Of course, if these gentlemen have no objection.’

‘I have a confession to make, Mademoiselle. It is a terrible thing to say to such a beautiful creature, but it is them I have come to see.’

‘I suspected as much,’ she replied, not apparently in the least put out.

‘But then, only one such as you would have such fascinating guests.’

‘I don’t suppose you’d favour me with a dance, Hyacinthe?’ said Tucker.

‘No, I would not,’ she said with a most affecting pout. ‘You dance like a jungle ape.’

Tucker laughed. ‘I can’t deny that I get carried away.’

‘Perhaps you have other matters to attend to,’ said Saraille.

Hyacinthe stood up immediately. ‘You may have my guests for ten minutes, no more. Come, Tucker, and I will try, once more, to instruct you in the proper way to control your feet.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ the riverboatman cried, jumping up.

‘One fiendish whoop, Tucker, I warn you, and I will have Bernard throw you out into the street.’

They moved onto the floor and were swallowed up by the crowd. Saraille watched them depart before he turned to face the brothers. His round pink face held a beaming, insincere smile. But
he only had James’s attention. Harry was still looking at the point where the dancers had disappeared.

‘Well, Messieurs, I was sorry to hear that you have had to make good the “pig’s” losses from your own funds. The invitation to find his own must seem like an insult.’

That got Harry’s attention, though he answered carefully. ‘You know about that?’

‘It is my business to know, Captain Ludlow. How can I tell the good people of New Orleans what new lies the Spanish are concocting unless I keep my ear to the ground?’

‘I’m curious as to how you found out,’ said James.

‘And I fear you must remain so, Monsieur. To tell you of my sources would be to risk them being exposed. But no one else in this room is aware of these developments.’

‘Did you know that gold and silver was being shipped out on the
Gauchos
?’ said Harry, softly. The pale blue eyes didn’t even flicker, but Harry had the feeling that he’d struck home. ‘Because if you did, then it multiplies the number of people who might have stolen it.’

‘The addition of one is hardly a multiplication.’

‘That would depend on who else was told, either by you or your source.’

Saraille shrugged. ‘I haven’t even said that I knew.’

‘We were discussing pirates just before you arrived.’

That made him laugh. His large frame shook heartily. ‘Not pirates. You would be deluding yourself if you thought it was them. I grant you they like to be mythologised into heroes and bandits. But at heart they are petty criminals.’

‘Do you know who it was?’

‘Let us say I know whom I would suspect.’

Harry locked eyes with him. ‘And why do you think that the good Barón was shipping all that money to Charleston?’

That made him sit forward eagerly. ‘You’re sure that was the destination?’

‘No,’ Harry replied, sitting back and smiling. ‘In fact I know it wasn’t the destination.’

‘Monsieur Saraille,’ said James, ‘it is, no doubt, part of your profession to pretend you have more knowledge than you truly possess.’

The editor of the
Moniteur
wasn’t offended. ‘I confess that is true. Just as I confess that I am willing to pay to find the real destination of that ship.’

‘We don’t want money,’ said Harry.

‘That does surprise me. I have been informed that the chest de Carondelet removed from your ship today contained a great deal of that commodity. And I have not noticed him giving it back.’

‘A little bit of truth, right now, will go much further than money.’

‘You are not seriously searching for his ingots, are you?’

‘As of this moment, yes. But we’re seeing de Carondelet tomorrow, and I hope that any further enquiries will be unnecessary.’

‘Who would you suspect?’ asked James.

‘A Spaniard. It has to involve one of the men who knew de Carondelet was shipping out the bullion on that particular ship.’

‘That could be a lot of Spaniards.’

‘You had dinner tonight with a group of people who only ever congregate in church. De Carondelet usually keeps them apart. That must mean that they would be the ones to know. Unless it was the ship’s Captain.’

‘Rodrigo didn’t know.’

Saraille’s thin eyebrows went up a fraction. ‘That is interesting. Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ Harry replied emphatically. ‘But did you?’