Dead water - Barbara Hambly [108]
“No!” said January, anger flaring in the aftermath of shock. “I didn't bet at all.”
“Pity. It might have made your search for your four thousand dollars superrogatory.” Hannibal shivered violently, clearly struggling to stay on his feet. He would have been easier to carry bodily—he weighed barely more than a hundred pounds—but he shook off January's offer to do so.
Cain, in the meantime, had gone with his little gang of slaves to the woods to cut saplings for a litter for the dead man, leaving, again, Davis alone beside the corpse. January bestowed Hannibal in the skiff and went back to kneel beside the Colonel in the mud.
“It was a splendid shot for a pistol.” Davis nodded down at the handkerchief he'd laid over Molloy's head. January lifted the big square of red-blotched white linen, looked down at the gaping crimson hole just beside the left eye. “In a similar situation I don't think I'd have had the resolution to aim for the head. It's far too easy to miss, even at twenty paces. Your master is a remarkable man.”
“He is indeed,” said January, thinking of what it had cost Hannibal, to stand out there and let an experienced marksman aim at him with a loaded gun.
“To be honest—if you will forgive my saying so—I did not think he had it in him.” Davis edged aside as January examined the wound. “I have commanded men, and am something of a judge of them. Mr. Sefton is not one I would have chosen for a mission requiring desperation or resolution.”
“He fools many people,” agreed January, sitting back a little on his heels. Then he leaned forward again, and with as matter-of-fact an air as he could muster, went on to press his hands to Molloy's chest and sides beneath his blue pea-jacket, to listen to Molloy's chest, and to extract the contents of Molloy's pockets. “Had Mr. Molloy near kin?” he asked, spreading out the temperance tract and rumpled copy of the Liberator that Molloy had clearly been tearing up for cigar-spills, and laying upon them the cigar-case, match-box, stateroom key, and thirty dollars in assorted coin and Bank of Louisiana banknotes that the pockets had yielded.
“Mr. Tredgold would know,” replied Davis, wrapping the items in the tracts and folding them together carefully. “He certainly never spoke of family, though of course I was not intimate with a person such as that.”
January felt around Molloy's waist and drew out a money-belt containing another five hundred dollars, a hundred of which was in the form of gold Spanish or Portuguese dollars. These were common currency on the river, of course . . . as were banknotes from the Bank of Louisiana, which was one of the largest establishments in New Orleans and was, of course, Molloy's own Bank. There was nothing else in the belt, nor in Molloy's pockets: no nails, no unexplained keys, no letters.
“There will be an inquiry, of course, in Mayersville.” Davis unfolded his lean form as Cain and his gang returned from the woods and began to lash together a makeshift bier. Interestingly—to January at any rate—violence and death seemed to have calmed the young Colonel's tic rather than exacerbated it. “I think there is ample evidence that it was Molloy who provoked the quarrel; perhaps sufficient reason to believe that had your master not accepted the challenge, Molloy might have resorted to less formal violence. You will not lose many days on your journey, and I assure you, I will debark also to testify to all that I have seen.”
“Sir,” said January, glancing across the water at the Silver Moon, “I appreciate that, and I thank you for all the help you have been. But I am almost certain now that the quarrel was engineered by others—by someone who sent messages to both Hannibal—my master,” he corrected himself quickly, “—to Miss Skippen, and to Mr. Molloy, with the intention of forcing a duel in order to get us, and Molloy, off the boat.”
“Surely you're not still claiming that