Dead water - Barbara Hambly [94]
“I was also treated to Lundy's complete biography, with speculative side-trips into the histories of the various boats Lundy—and three other fellows from whom Souter never could tell Lundy apart—ever piloted, plus what Henry Clay said when Lundy—or one of the other three fellows—accidentally swung the Aetna around a little too sharply coming away from the wharf in New Orleans and put the paddlewheel through the dining-room wall of the Desdemona.”
“What did he say?” asked Rose curiously, for she, like January, was a great admirer of the Kentucky politician.
“Something along the lines of ‘Get that thing out of here, we haven't had our coffee yet.' Souter's tales are definitely of the Parturient montes variety, though at the end of the birthing, one is lucky even to get a mouse.” Hannibal sighed, and sipped more sherry with a shaky hand. “On the other hand, I now know that Kelsey Lundy is fifty-one years old, that he was born in Kennebec, Maine—what appalling names Americans give their towns—where his three daughters, Elsie, Mary, and Margaret, still live with their assorted progeny, whose names I will spare you; that he goes to see them nearly every summer; that he came to New Orleans with Jackson's troops and that the first boat he piloted was the Volcano, to Louisville, in 1815. He is a teetotaler and an outspoken Abolitionist and once engaged in a duel with a man in New Orleans who was beating a slave in the street, a circumstance which gave him such a disgust for the town that after that, apparently, he seldom went ashore in New Orleans at all. Cutting to almost nil,” he added regretfully, “the occasions upon which he might have met Mr. Weems, unless they encountered one another by chance at an Abolitionist meeting in Boston.”
“Curious,” mused January, “that as badly advanced as Lundy's palsy is, he would still be in New Orleans at all, instead of returning to Maine and his daughters.”
“He returned to New Orleans the week before last, on the Sprite,” said Hannibal. “For his health, he said. . . .”
“In the summertime?” Rose and January spoke almost in chorus, and January added, “Nobody in his right mind goes to New Orleans in the summer for his health.”
“Regarding Mr. Lundy's mental condition, I have no data. And if you ask me to question Souter further on that or any other subject whatsoever, I shall throw myself overboard.” He capped the bottle regretfully and tucked it into his coat pocket.
“The Sprite came into New Orleans a week ago Saturday,” said Rose. “I saw the men still unloading the last of her cargo as we waited for you in the market. That means Lundy came into New Orleans—presumably to see a doctor—with the expectation of immediately turning around and piloting a boat up the river, in low water, in order to see another doctor in Lexington. . . . It doesn't make sense.”
“It makes sense,” said January grimly. “It's only we who can't see the rest of the pieces of the puzzle. Winslow,” he called, and the valet, who was just heading for the stair to be in his master's stateroom when Mr. Roberson returned from supper, turned back with an expression of friendly inquiry.
“We were just talking about poor Mr. Lundy here on board. . . .”
“The poor gentleman with the palsy?”
January nodded. “Now, my old master, who was a surgeon, spoke of a doctor at Transylvania University in Lexington who's done work with the palsy—who's had some remarkable cures—but for the life of me I can't remember his name. Since Mr. Roberson is at the University, too . . .”
Winslow's honest face creased for a moment with thought. Then he shook his head. “Your master musta heard wrong, Ben, or else you got it crossed up with some other university. I know most of the gentlemen in the medical faculty that come out to Mimosa to dinner with Mr. Roberson and there's none of 'em that's worked on the palsy.”