"Cal," said Eddring, quietly, "did you ever stop to think that there is quite a similar sound in those three names, Loise, and Loisson, and Ellison?"
Blount threw out his hands before him. "Oh, go on away, man," said he. "You've got me half-crazy now. I don't know where I'm standing, nor where I've been standing. I don't feel safe in my own home — I haven't been safe. My whole place has gone to ruin, and all on account of this business. It's nigh about done me up, that's what it has. And now here you come making it worse and worse all the time."
"But we've got to see it through together."
"Oh, I reckon so. Yes, of course we must."
"Well, now, let's just look over the matter once more," said Eddring. "Let us suppose that Decherd has stumbled on this knowledge of the unclaimed Loisson estate. He works every possible string to get hold of it. He tries to get tax title — and that is where he uncovers his own hand. Meanwhile, he tries the still safer plan of finding a legal heir. We will suppose he has two claimants. From this letter here we may suppose that Delphine was one of them, his first one. He seems to have learned from this Indian lawsuit, whether or not he was concerned other than as counsel in that lawsuit — and the record does not show whether or not he was — that Delphine, or his claimant, whoever that was — we'll say Delphine, for we don't know Delphine's real name, perhaps — could and did stick on the pay-rolls of an Indian tribe. That meant that she was Loise, and not Loisson. The United States Court records hold that absolute evidence, res adjudicata — stare decisis; which means, in plain English, that ends it. It also means that that Indian claimant could not inherit the Loisson estate!
"Now here is an unknown woman, whom we will call Delphine, begging Decherd not to forsake her. There would seem to have been a failure on this line of the Decherd investigation. Perhaps the result of the test case didn't please Decherd very much, although he was on the winning side. At least, it marked the Loise claimant off the Loisson slate. So much for claimant number one. So much for Delphine, we'll say.
"But now, at some time or other, Miss Lady and Mrs. Ellison appeared on the scene. I don't know, any more than you do, how these three happened to know each other, or why Decherd happened to appear so steadily at your place, after you had so eagerly taken his suggestion and employed Mrs. Ellison as your household supervisor. But now, we will say, Decherd takes a great notion to Miss Lady. All the time Delphine is there watching him. She puts on a heap more airs than a colored mistress. Along about the time of the train wreck, she begins to charge him with faithlessness. She refers vaguely, as you see in the letter, to his interest in this other woman. Now, can that be our Miss Lady?
"We don't know. None of us can tell, as yet, who that mysterious other person is. Mrs. Ellison might tell us, if we could find her, or if we cared to find her."
"No, you don't," said Blount. "That woman stays off the map. The only one of the three we want to find is Miss Lady."
"Yes," said Eddring, "if we had Miss Lady, and if we could get Mrs. Ellison and Henry Decherd to tell the truth as Miss Lady would, then we would learn easily a great many things which perhaps it will cost us a great deal of trouble to uncover."
"Well," said Blount, sighing, as he walked moodily across the room, "my own little world seems to be pretty much turned upside down. I can't say you make me any happier by all this. The only thing I can see clear is that you've got to get to New Orleans as soon as you can. There's reasons plenty for you to go."
The two men looked at each other for a moment, but said nothing. "Give me my little book," said Eddring, finally. "I fancy Mr. Henry Decherd would be glad enough to have that back in his own hands again. There's his evidence. This is the key to his plans, whatever they are."
Blount groaned as he swung about on his heel. "Good God! man," he said, "don't! To hell with your lawsuit! What do we care about mixed names, or all this underhanded work? Never mind about me and my affairs — I'll take care of that. Man, it's Miss Lady we want. We don't know what has happened to her. The rest don't make any difference."
"Yes," said John Eddring, "it's Miss Lady. The rest makes little difference."
"Go on, then," said Blount, fiercely, smiting on the table. "Now, find out about this Louise Loisson. Maybe then you'll hear something, somewhere, that'll give you track of our Miss Lady. Start to New Orleans at once — I'm going down home, to watch that end of the line. We're going after those levee-cutters. As I said, we may want you, and if I send for you, get to my place as fast as you can. Never mind how you get there, but come. And man! if we could only get Miss Lady back! If she — "
"If we could!" said John Eddring, reverently.
Chapter IV. THE RELIGION OF JULES
Eddring made his journey to New Orleans, as he had promised. On the morning following his arrival he took his breakfast at one of the quaint cafes of the city, a place with sanded floors and clustered tables, and a frank view of a kitchen in full though deliberate operation. One Jules, duck-footed, solemn and deliberate, served him, and was constituted general philosopher and friend, as had for some time been Eddring's custom in his frequent visits to this place.
"Jules," said he, tapping the newspaper in his hand, "how about this? It seems you have a new dancer at the Odeon, very beautiful, very mysterious, very interesting!"
"Ah, Monsieur, all the young gentlemen they grow crezzy, that is now four, five month, Monsieur."
"Who is she, then, Jules, and what? Is she indeed very beautiful?"
"It is establish', Monsieur. No one has ever seen her face. As to her grace and youth, it is not to doubt. She dance always in the domino, and no man may say in truth he has pass' word with Louise Loisson. She is the idol, the nouvelle sensation of the city."
"Goes masked, eh? Young, beautiful, eh? Well, I should say that's not bad advertising, at least."
"Monsieur," said Jules, earnestly, "do not say it at the club. It would provoke discussion, and the young gentlemen might have anger. Mademoiselle Louise is worship' in this town. At first, non! It was thought as you say. But soon this feeling of the young men it has shange'. It has go into devotion. Now it is religion!"
"Well, that is a pretty state of affairs, isn't it?"
"But I say to you that this Louise Loisson, she dance not like the othair femmes du ballet — absolument non." Jules became excited, spreading out his hands and letting fall his napkin.
"It is different, the quality of the dance of mademoiselle," said he. "It is quelque chose, I do not know what. It is not to describe. It make you think, thass all. As I say, she has come to be a religion."
"But where does this divine creature live, Jules? Who is she? Come, now? you ought to tell me that much,"
Jules went on polishing a glass. "Ah, Monsieur, why you h'ask?" said he. "I may say so much, like this; she live with a lady in the French town — very fine, very quiet, very secret. It is the house of old family which was bought by Madame Delchasse. Madame, you have know, perhaps? She was long time the bes' cook in New Orleans. She make plenty money. When Mademoiselle Louise she first come here, she is very poor, she have no friend. Somehow she is found by this Madame Delchasse. Monsieur and Madame Delchasse, they have once together the res'traw. Monsieur is very fond of the escargot a la Bourgogne, and one day he eat too many escargot. Madame, she run the res'traw, sell great many meal to the dam-yankees; sell the cook-book to the dam- yankees aussi. Thus she get rich — very rich, and buy the house on l'Esplanade. But madame is lonely. She is not receive' by the old French familles. Monsieur Delchasse is dead, her shildren are dead — she is alone. She take Louise Loisson home to live. My faith! she is watch her like the cat."
"But how about this