Mignon

Chapter 7

I went up to my suite, took a sheet of the tablet paper, printed something on it in pencil, then tore it into pieces the size of the scraps I’d seen in the basket. I put them in an envelope, tucked it into my pocket. I loaded my Moore & Pond and strapped it on. It was a gun I’d carried on pay day for my father’s labor, keeping it on me as I went around with my satchel of cash. Originally, wanting it to be seen, I’d worn it in the usual belt holster. But one day as I was forming the men into line, an Italian grabbed it off me, threw me down, and made a dive for the cash. A colored blacksmith clipped him one on the jaw, so no great harm was done, but then I began wondering if a gun hanging out in the breeze was quite the idea I’d thought it was. So I had an armpit holster made, and that’s what I put on now. A Moore & Pond is .36-caliber and nothing much for looks, being short and stubby. But it shoots a brass shell instead of paper cartridges and caps, which makes it handy. I buckled the straps in place, buttoned my coat high to hide them. The rain had stopped outside, so I hung my oilskin up and got my overcoat out. Then, at six, I went to dinner. I ate in the Orleans House, a saloon across the street from the hotel so situated that by sitting next to the window I could see down Common Street. What I had I don’t recollect, as I had my mind on the cab line down at the City Hotel. Pretty soon a victoria pulled out and came trotting up toward St. Charles. As it turned I glimpsed Burke. I strangled down the rest of my dinner, paid, and walked down to the City. The clerk spoke, and I went up to 303. It was identical to 301 but, with the twilight settling down, looked indescribably gloomy, or shabby, or bleak, or something unpleasant. I tried my skeleton key in its lock, and it worked beautifully. I took off my coat and hat and stepped out to reconnoiter. Then I remembered: If I should be surprised, I had to look as though I’d just come in off the street. I went back, put on my coat and hat again, and strolled to 346. Inside, I could hear a man humming. I came back, hung up my things again and looked at my watch. It said 6:45. I closed my eyes, said the Lord’s Prayer, the Twenty-third Psalm, and some Beatitudes, and counted to a hundred. When I looked again it was 6:48. But at last it came to seven o’clock, and nothing happened next door. I cursed myself for a sucker, to think that twenty dollars would buy such a date and that such a dumb scheme would work — all the time watching the minute hand as it crept to 7:01, 7:02, 7:03, 7:04. At 7:05, a key clicked in 301’s door, and on the other side of the partition someone was moving around. Then, on my door, came a scratch. I opened and a girl was there, in dark gray dress with black braid darts on the jacket, black hat, black shawl, and black veil. I invited her in, so nervous my voice shook, thanked her for being so punctual, and asked her name. “Alors, perhaps you can guess,” she said, lifting the veil.

“Marie!” I exclaimed.

“You did not know me, petit?”

“Well, you were wearing that veil, and—”

Actually, she seemed pleased at having fooled me, and pretty soon asked: “And our pigeon — he is in?”

“Yes. I just now checked.”

“He is alone?”

“He’s singing — must be to himself.”

“Bon. Now I prepare me.”

She ducked into the next room and was gone a couple of minutes. She came back looking half-boiled, her ringlets askew, her jacket off, her camisole mussed, so she looked terribly exciting. “One shall appear séduisante,” she whispered.

“There should be a law against it.”

She laughed and stretched out on the bed. “It is not yet time,” she said. “One must wait for the gaz in the hall, which the night maid shall light. One should not encounter her, when she comes.”

“My God, I should say not.”

“If we watch, the transom will tell.”

She beckoned and I sat beside her, but she moved over for me to lie, and I lay. She snuggled against me, then felt the gun. She took it out, set it on the night table. I said: “I’m sorry, but to be safe, I thought—”

“But oui. I too.”

She opened her pocketbook, and even in the murk I could see the brass sheen of a derringer. “One takes precautions,” she said, “but your pistolet hurts!”

With the gun out of the way, she practically wrapped herself around me, her skirt slipping up and most of her froufrou with it, so bare skin was touching me in all sorts of intimate places. She lined my lips with the tip of her tongue, then gave me a long, wet kiss. “One is not always femme sérieuse,” she whispered, “or grande dame. Sometimes I amuse me.”

“To say nothing of me,” I whispered.

“How long will you be? In that room?”

“Why — no more than five minutes, I’m sure.”

“Alors? Then we shall have the evening?”

“... Ah — yes. Of course.”

“We may dine? You like Antoine’s?”

“I’ve never been to Antoine’s. Sounds fine.”

“Then theater? At the Variétés are vaudevilles.”

“You can’t beat vaudevilles.”

“And then? We come here?”

“If you want to, Marie, that’s fine.”

“Or chez vous, perhaps? Where do you live, Guillaume?”

“... At the St. Charles, for the time being.”

“I think better chez moi.”

“You have a very beautiful place.”

She snuggled close, then rolled over on top of me and covered my face with little kisses. “It shall be chez moi,” she whispered.

Light showed through the transom and she got up, even more rumpled than before. She asked: “Have I the appearance of some poor helpless one, who has brandy, for example, a bottle in her room, and no way to extract the cork?”

“Have you the booze is the question?”

“Oh I brought. Fear not.”

“Then the appearance is overwhelming.”

She said: “When you return from the recherche, please drop your stick on the floor, to claquer, as signal to me. I shall send him for glasses, then come to you here vite, and together we disappear.” I said that would be perfect, and she put the gun back in my holster, helped me into my coat, and gave me my hat, saying: “You shall be ready to leave in one coup — I shall dress me as we go down.” She stood, soft, sloppy, and mussed, then kissed me quick and went. While I watched, holding the door on a crack, she drifted down the hall and flitted around the angle. I heard a knock, then voices — hers and a man’s, talking French. Then here she came back with Pierre, walking unsteadily, holding onto his arm. He was giggling, and carried a corkscrew in one hand. They went in 301, and when the door closed I tiptoed out.

I floated down the hall, turned the angle, stopped at 346, and got out my skeleton key. But when I put it in the hole and twisted, nothing happened. I twisted two or three times, and still the thing stuck. Then in kind of a panic, I twisted both ways, back and forth. On forth the thing turned. Then I realized the door was open — Pierre hadn’t locked it when he went down the hall with Marie. I went in, found everything as it had been, except that a gaslight was on over the desk. The basket, when I picked it up, had all kinds of stuff in it, a newspaper, a crumpled-up cardboard box, some string, maybe papers, I don’t recollect. But in the bottom were the same old scraps I’d come for. I took everything out and dumped them out on the rug. I sprinkled my own scraps in their place, put everything back as it had been, set the basket in its place. Then, on my knees, I gathered them up, two or three at a time, and dropped them into my envelope. How long it took I don’t know, but it seemed at least an hour. I pocketed the envelope, opened the desk drawer, made sure the tablet was there, as well as a package of envelopes of the kind the note had been mailed in. I stepped to the door, got out my skeleton key to lock it, then remembered not to. I tiptoed back to 303.

I listened, and laughing came through the partition — Marie’s laugh, and Pierre’s, everything quite gay. I poised my stick on the strip of bare boards between the rug and the wall. I was all set to let it drop, when I thought to myself: Why? You signal her, and you know what’s going to happen, as you like her, plenty. I thought: Are you, after doing all this for one woman, going to ruin it by hopping in bed with another? I thought: How can you be such a rat, after the help you’ve been given by this brave, saucy little thing, as to leave her now in the lurch, without even telling her thanks? I thought: Rat or not, that’s what you have to do! I shoved the stick under one arm, opened my wallet. I got out two twenties, dropped them on the bed. I put the wallet away, went to the bare boards, poised my stick again, and dropped it to make a clatter. Then I snatched it up, tiptoed quick to the hall, closed the door softly, and sneaked down the stairs, listening as I went.

On the second floor I sensed something.

I wheeled, and looking at me was another man with a stick, who had also apparently been listening. Suddenly I remembered him: Marie’s guard, the one I’d seen on the high stool in her gambling room. I saw he remembered me, and went plunging down to the lobby and on out to the street. I tried to tell myself I needn’t feel like a rat any more, that if this man had been brought to act as emergency guard that took all the danger out. I felt still more like a rat, a rat that had been caught.