Dixie's Land Chapter Seven

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SEVEN

“I told you this was a bad idea,” McGee said to Grant the next morning. The Irishman waited, with ill-disguised impatience, while the turnkey played with the lock of Grant’s cell. Beside him, Sherman smiled grimly. Grant could only guess at what was going through his friend’s mind.

“I wouldn’t call it a complete disaster,” Grant said.

“Why, because you weren’t shot?” Sherman snapped. “Good God, Grant, what sort of foot-pad did you think you were?” He turned on the guard. “Dammit, man, are you palsied? Get that cell open!”

“Ease up on him, Sherman,” Grant said. “The poor man’s just trying to do his job.”

“And what made you think that this stunt of yours was your job?” Sherman scratched furiously at his beard. “I should have been the one to do this.”

“For God’s sake, gentlemen, hold your tongues.” D’Arcy McGee looked around him, as though he expected to find others listening besides the obviously interested turnkey. “Let this wait until we’re in Captain Gale’s office.”

“May I at least thank you two for arranging this?” Grant said. He tried to smile, though in truth he didn’t feel all that happy, either with the state of the world or with himself. “I wouldn’t have liked to spend any more time in here.”

He’d been locked up in an unlit cell in the basement of the Cabildo, once New Orleans’s city hall and now the official winter residence of the governor-general. The prison hadn’t been removed when the city government decamped. It hadn’t been improved, either. The stone walls were perpetually slick with foul-smelling moisture, and a stink of mold had lodged itself in his nostrils and refused to vacate the premises. The straw pallet that was supposed to be his bed didn’t smell any better, so Grant had spent the night sitting in the driest corner of the cell and hoping for rescue. At one point he had decided that he’d plead guilty to any charge so long as the sentence was carried out anywhere but the Cabildo.

After a bit more fumbling, the turnkey released Grant and escorted him and his friends up and out of the cells to a small ante-room at the back of the ground floor. “So why,” McGee asked as the door closed, “did you think that it wasn’t entirely a wasted excursion? I’d have thought it a right disaster myself.”

“I learned a few things I hadn’t known before,” Grant said. “That’ll help me when it comes time for the rematch with Macartey. That there will be a rematch I don’t doubt, because that’s one of the things I learned. Macartey’s up to something, all right. He wouldn’t have been on the watch for me if he hadn’t something to hide.”

“That remains to be seen,” Sherman said. “But you didn’t answer my question. Why did you take this on yourself, and not even tell me about it?”

“Sherman, you’re a respected banker here. I couldn’t have you doing the sorts of things I was doing. If you’d been caught the way I was, the scandal would have ruined you.”

“And it isn’t going to ruin you?”

“My career has been in ruins for months,” Grant said. “I’m just too stubborn to admit it and quit.”

“And what else did you learn?” McGee leaned forward, eyes fixed on Grant.

“Yes, I’d like to know that, too.” A new voice entered the conversation. Grant hadn’t even heard the door opening behind him. He got to his feet.

“Captain Gale, I suppose,” he said, extending his hand.

The Canadian did not take it. “Correct,” he said. “Before I shake your hand, Captain Grant, I’d like you to explain to me just what the hell a captain in the United States Army was doing breaking into Mr. Macartey’s warehouse.”

“If I had known it was his warehouse I wouldn’t have followed him in,” Grant said. He hadn’t learned that unfortunate fact until Macartey and his friend the watch captain were laughing at his back as he was led away. “I am investigating a matter of some delicacy for the legation. Mr. Macartey seems to feature strongly in this matter. I intended to learn something of his illegal activities by following him.”

“Instead of which you committed illegalities of your own.”

“I was of the belief that a crime was being committed,” Grant said. “My purpose in entering the warehouse was to prevent that. I’ve seen what fire does to cotton warehouses.”

Gale grimaced. “It’s true that a lot of the fires that happen along the river have suspicious origins. But you’ve put me in a hell of a fix, captain.” He gave Grant a calculating look. “Did you know that I can’t charge you? I can’t imagine you willingly spending a night in my little dungeon.” Grant was surprised at this, and his surprise must have been obvious, because Gale grinned sourly. “’Diplomatic immunity’ is what it’s called, Captain Grant. You can’t be charged with any crime, nor can you be sued in a civil court.”

This was an aspect of diplomacy that hadn’t been explained to Grant, and he cursed his superiors for not telling him. He’d have been a lot less nervous last night, not to mention not having to spend a night in that damned uncomfortable cell.

“The privilege comes with responsibilities, though,” Gale continued. “You are bound not to create a disturbance of the peace, and clearly you did that last night. By rights I could expel you from the kingdom for activities unbefitting your status.”

“I’d rather you didn’t do that, sir,” Grant said. “I assure you, I meant no disturbance. I can’t give you details right now, but believe me when I say that my investigations are in both of our nations’ interests.”

“Knowing what I do of James Macartey and the Garda, I’m willing to listen to you,” Gale said. “Can you tell me what he’s up to?”

“Not fully, I’m afraid.” Because I don’t know yet myself. “But if you’ll promise to keep confidential what I’m about to say, I’ll tell you a little. I think that the New Orleans Garda—or at least someone in the Garda—is conspiring with agents of another power. The government of Britain—or Canada—is the target.”

“That’s rather short on detail,” Gale said.

“I will admit to being handicapped a bit by a lack of knowledge,” Grant said. “Specifically, knowledge of the Garda. My run-in with the watch was a direct result of my trying to obtain information.”

“We’d be less likely to go breaking and entering,” Sherman said caustically, “if we knew a bit more about Macartey and his friends.”

Gale looked at the others. Unlike Grant—I must smell pretty ripe, he thought—McGee and Sherman were perfectly dressed to support the image of prosperous, responsible citizens. I owe you thanks, Grant said silently to them. “I am supposed to be obtaining information from you, not giving it to you,” Gale said. “However, I understand that sometimes one must expend capital in order to make capital. Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Sherman?” Sherman nodded, eyes suddenly bright.

“Very well.” Gale walked around behind his desk and sat down. “The Garda is a secret society that, at its core, intends to make Ireland independent of Great Britain. As such, its activities are of great interest to His Majesty’s government.

“However, most of what the Garda does in New Orleans is of a financial, not a political nature. My informants tell me that the primary purpose of the New Orleans Garda—like that of its sister organizations in New York, Philadelphia, and Mobile—is to raise money for the cause. This is supposed to be done by levy from the Irish population, and by dues from members.”

“I’m willing to bet that there are other sources of income,” Sherman said.

“You’d be right, at least in New Orleans.” Gale opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a sheaf of papers, bound in red ribbon. Loosening the ribbon, he searched a moment before drawing a sheet of paper. “Doctor Meighan is, so far as I’ve been able to determine, an honest man. I don’t agree at all with what he believes, but I’ve no evidence he’s ever broken the King’s laws. Mr. Macartey, on the other hand, is as bent as the Mississippi.”

“I suspected as much,” Grant said.

“On account of his being a lawyer,” Sherman said with a smile. “No offense intended,” he said to McGee.

“We suspect him of involvement with money-lending, extortion, blackmail, and arson,” Gale said, apparently reading from his sheet. “The problem is, we’ve never been able to arrest him. He seems not to indulge in anything criminal himself, but rather uses members of the Garda. We’ve caught a few of these, but Macartey never has trouble recruiting new members. And while there have been attempts to have the Garda banned, nothing’s come of it. It’s already on shaky legal ground as it is, and that hasn’t stopped Meighan from raising money or Macartey from raising hell.”

“Do you have any of Macartey’s fellows in prison right now?” Grant asked. “It might prove useful if I could talk to one of them.”

“We had what we think is his closest lieutenant in the cells until just last week,” Gale said. “Buidhe McConnell by name. But he escaped. I am amazed at how easy it was for him.”

“’Boy’ McConnell?” Sherman said. “Sounds like a nigger name, like a hand on a plantation in Calhoun Country.”

“It’s a Gaelic name,” McGee said, frostily. He spelled the name for Grant, who was interested to see Gale hurriedly writing down the proper spelling. “If I were you, Mr. Sherman, I’d be very careful about comparing Irishmen with negroes. That doesn’t go down too well with my people, who already feel they’re persecuted enough.”

“Let’s get back to the subject, please,” Grant said. “Do you employ many Irish watchmen, Captain Gale?”

“Pah. I’d as soon have Frogs in the Watch.” Gale tilted his head up and thought a moment. “There are three or four, I think. It’s a relatively new thing. No offense to you, Mr. McGee, but I’ve encountered few trustworthy Irishmen who were prepared to put on a watchman’s coat. We were told to hire a couple, to make it a bit easier to police the Irish Channel and the area around Ponsonby Street.” Gale paused. “Where are you going with this, Captain Grant?”

“The watchman who arrested me had an Irish accent,” Grant said. “And when I was brought out of Macartey’s building, I saw Macartey himself standing there, laughing at me, and beside him was a captain of the Watch.

“You asked me earlier what I’d learned,” Grant said, turning to McGee and Sherman. “The main thing I learned is that Macartey knows we’re investigating him, that he knew I was following, and that he set me up to be arrested—and that he has friends in the Watch.”

He turned back to Captain Gale.

“Perhaps Buidhe McConnell had such an easy time of escaping because he had help.”

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