Dead water - Barbara Hambly [76]
“When did Weems leave dinner?” asked January softly, leaning down to where Hannibal sat at the other side of the table.
“Almost before the pudding was served.” The fiddler scratched a corner of his gray-flecked mustache. “And he was fidgeting throughout it like a fly in a tar-box. Mrs. Fischer was most insistent that I stay and play for them—one would almost think she'd forgotten about swearing out a warrant for my arrest in Natchez. She was overpoweringly gracious, and exerted her charms on every man at table, I think, to get them to stay on as well. I didn't think much of it at the time—well, in fact I suspected she'd had a falling-out with Weems—but now I realize she must have been trying to keep as many people as possible in the Saloon while Weems searched their staterooms.”
“That's what it sounds like.” January turned his head at the drawling whine of Ned Gleet's voice.
“I was here till about two, weren't we, Jubal?” The two slave-dealers had taken Souter's place in front of Davis's table. “Us and Byrne . . .” Gleet nodded in the direction of the gambler, who was dealing a game of whist for Roberson, Lockhart, and Dodd, none of whom had apparently learned his lesson yet about playing with the so-called “dry-goods importer,” who invariably seemed to win.
“Davis played until one,” supplied Hannibal in an undervoice. “Gleet proposed the game—he usually does—and as usual insisted that I play. As usual I dumped most of the liquor he plied me with into the spittoon. After several hours heaving at a capstan, I assure you it was not easy, but the last thing you'd need after the day you had yesterday was to wake up this morning and be told I'd lost you to Gleet at vingt-et-un.”
“Thank you,” said January dryly.
“They played vingt-et-un, all-fours, short whist and ecarte, turn and turn about—Byrne won most of the money but not so much as to be pointed at. Si possis recte, si non, quicumque modo rem. Gleet and Cain left together twice to check on their slaves, and were together the whole of that time. The rest of us played short whist in their absence. Roberson, Lockhart, and Davis left once apiece, to piss over the side—at least that's what they said they were going to do, and they were back quickly enough to have done no more unless they were very speedy murderers indeed. Molloy came in about twelve-thirty for a drink and a hand of whist, then left, presumably, for the perfumed delights of Miss Skippen's bower—that was just before one. Davis played another hand and left just after one, and I left just after that.”
A tremendous flash of lightning illuminated the windows; rain pounded down as if the Silver Moon were passing under a waterfall. In the door of the Saloon Souter rubbed his hands together and reported, “Plenty of water now!” in a pleased voice, and trotted down the hall and outside, presumably to observe the effects of the rise on every sand-bar and point within view.
“What I'm curious about,” went on Hannibal, “is what Weems was searching for in everyone's staterooms. A hundred thousand dollars in gold—not to mention Bank of Pennsylvania notes and all the rest of it—isn't something you tuck in the back of your glove drawer. Even if the trunks that contained it were stolen and hidden somewhere during the upheaval with the luggage, surely a glance through the stateroom window would have sufficed to tell him whether they were in the room or not. None of those bunks is big enough to conceal a hatbox under, let alone a trunk.”
“Which means the specie was taken out of the trunk,” said January. “Was there time for that?”
“Oh, I think so.” The fiddler's eyes narrowed as he mentally reviewed the events of the previous afternoon. “But probably only just. When the boat hung up on Horsehead Bar, there was about an hour of driving and heaving as Molloy tried to bull through, when anyone on board could see that we were going to have to unload and spar over. Afterwards Molloy turned the pilot-house over to poor Souter, and directed the deck-hands to start unloading. But he had plenty of time to come and go from the hold,