Mississippi Raider (13 page)

In addition, when not engaged
in such a fashion, she had put to use her ability at acting and a
basic skill in disguise to seeking sources at a lower level of the
city
’s
population. Dressed in a suitable fashion in garments she had
purchased in stores catering to women with less affluent means than
her own, she presented herself in a fitting manner for the
different types of company she was joining. She had been helped by
having frequently achieved acclaim for the way in which she played
the part of serving girls in amateur dramatics and remembering the
attitudes and modes of speech used by the women at the gambling
house run by Anatol de-Farge.

Such was the skill Belle had displayed that
she was confident she had aroused no suspicions as she went around
the places where noncommissioned officers and enlisted men found
diversions, she hoped to meet someone who could lead her in the
direction she wanted. However, as was the case with her efforts at
a higher stratum of society, she had been compelled to admit to
herself that she was not meeting with any greater success where
achieving her purpose was concerned. On the other hand, she had not
concluded that her efforts were entirely wasted. The lessons she
learned while carrying out the pose of being a girl from a
working-class background could prove to be of use if she should
attract the attention of and be accepted as a member of the Secret
Service.

That evening the girl had returned to the
Sandford Hotel earlier than she anticipated, due to the need to
avoid possible arrest by the authorities following her having been
compelled to use her skill at savate to dissuade the hostile
intentions of a woman in a tavern who took exception to her
presence and interest in a sergeant in the Artillery. Deciding
against trying at a more exalted level that night, although she had
been invited to attend a soiree where some officers she had not yet
met would be among the guests and might provide what she wanted,
she elected to go to bed and catch up on some sleep. The latter had
not come when she heard the sounds that led her to make ready for
the intruder.

~*~

“
Take
hit easy, missis!” a startled voice with an accent strange to Belle
Boyd’s ear requested hastily. “I hain’t going to move, nor get
’ostile neither.”

Standing by the window he had
contrived to reach and open despite the room
’s being on the second floor of
the building, the speaker was neither impressive nor menacing in
appearance. Not more than five feet six at most, clad in a tightly
fitting black woolen turtleneck sweater and matching trousers, and
with light rubber-soled boots such as were often worn by savate
boxers on his feet, he was slender and wiry in build. Although his
manner of speech did not strike the girl as being of any Gallic
variety with which she had come into contact, he had a French-style
black beret on his head. Although covered by the kind of black cork
white performers in minstrel shows often used, his sharp features
reminded her of a weasel due to the alert way in which he was
darting glances about him. She did not believe he would prove
dangerous unless she gave him cause to become that way.

“
Come
over here,” Belle commanded, contriving to slip from the bed
without for a moment allowing the Colt to turn from its
alignment.

“
Whatever you say,” the man answered, pronouncing the last
word as “sie” and starting to obey. “I’m catched dead to rights.
But Hi’ve got a wife ’n’ seven little children and no way to kept
’em fe—!”

“
What’s wrong?” Belle asked as the words came to an abrupt
end and the man, whose gaze had been running over her willowy
curvaceous figure in the white diaphanous nightgown, which was all
she had on, and who displayed a frank interest not in accord with
his declaration regarding the possession of a wife and family,
stared fixedly by her.

“
His
that your mum ’n’ dad, missi—
miss!”
the intruder asked, continuing to add an
H
as he had done
before, while also leaving off other letters, and pointed in a
dramatic fashion to the framed tintype portrait of the girl’s
parents that was standing on the bedside table.

“
It
is,” Belle confirmed, but she did not relax her vigilance. She
guessed what was implied by the question and thought it could be a
ruse to divert her attention long enough for some kind of action to
be taken.

“
Then
might Hi be struck dahn dead on the bleeding spot!” the man
declared with vehemence. “Hand I deserve it for trying to rob
Vincent Boyd’s daughter.”

“
You
knew Pop—my father?”

“
We
only hever met the once, miss, but Hi’ll
never
forget what ’e done for me.”

“
And
what was that?”

“’
E
catched me out doing a climb after the family jewels what des Boys
Gilbert was allus a-boastin’ abart,” the man explained. “Hi’s had
it propped up for me good ’n’ proper by somebody’s’d never steered
me wrong in the past ’n’ Hi was counting on making the big tickle.
Which’s what hus in my line of work calls what you’ve maybe ’eard
of’s a real valuable amarnt of loot.”

“
So
you
are the one!” Belle asserted, remembering having heard her
father speak of the incident after she had worked out who had been
meant by the way in which the intruder pronounced the name of Roger
de Bois Gilbert.

“
Hi
says to meself, Hi says, ‘Halfred ’Iggins, you’ve been ’n’ gone ’n’
copped your lot good ’n’ proper this time’ when your dad come in on
me like what he done. ‘You should never ’ave left good old London
tahn.’”

“
Did
you tell him about your wife and seven children?” Belle inquired
with a smile, and allowed the Colt’s muzzle to lower toward the
floor, ready to bring it up again should the need arise.

“
Hi
was just going to spin him the fanny, Hi’ll hadmit,” Alfred Higgins
replied in what the girl was to come to know was the broad Cockney
accent of one born within the sound of Bow Bells in the capital of
England. “Only, ’e said I should scarper the way Hi’d come in’s
Monsewer bleeding des Boys Gilbert wasn’t noted for being all kind
’n’ gentle wiv them’s crossed ’im, ’n’ the best Hi could hope for
would be getting thrashed wivin a ninch of me life afore being
throwed art for the dawgs to tear to pieces. So Hi took stoppo’s
fast’s Hi could shinny dahn to the ground. But Hi’ve
never
forgot what your
dad did for me that night ’n’ never will.”

“
I’m
going to hold you to that!” Belle warned, knowing de Bois Gilbert
was notorious for his savage mistreatment of those who crossed him,
and that her father had only been paying the visit to oblige an old
friend. “You could be just what I want.”

“
Hin
what way, miss?” Higgins inquired, tearing his eyes from where the
nipples of Belle’s well-developed bosom were standing out in bold
relief from the flimsy material that snuggled as closely as a
second skin about them and the rest of her far-from-straight
figure. Then, starting to turn around slowly and with his hands
still held clear of his sides, he went on, “’Cept I’d be obliged if
you’d put somefing a bit ficker on. Hit’s awful bleeding hard to
concentrate wiv you looking like you do.”

“
What
would your wife and seven children think if they heard you saying
such a thing, for shame,” Belle inquired, still smiling and
continuing to keep a watch on the man in case he should be
intending treachery. She placed the revolver on the bed’s coverlet
so she could gather up and don a more substantial dressing gown.
Then she became serious and went on, “Have you heard what happened
to Momma and Poppa?”

“
No,
miss,” Higgins replied. Having been told, he responded with what
started as a flood of profanity and turned to an apology for its
use. “If you’re your dad’s daughter hand Hi fink you are, Hi’m
betting’s ’ow you’ll be after the bleeders who done him and your
mum in.”

“
I
am,” the girl confirmed with a chilling sincerity. “That’s why I’ve
come to Richmond, but I can’t get any help to do it.”

“
You’ve got whatever ’elp Hi can give you,” the Cockney
declared. “And, from what you just nah said, Hi fink you’ve got
somefing in mind for me to do.”

“
I
have,” Belle asserted, and explained what she wanted. “Can you do
it?”

“
Hi’ll
teach you everyfink Hi can, which’s a fair amount hif Hi might make
do bold’s to say it meself,” Higgins promised. “And when you says
the word, Hi’ll help you pull hit orf no matter who hit’ll be done
ag’inst.”
^xi

“’
E
re we are, Miss Boyd,” Alfred Higgins said quietly yet not
without a faint suggestion of a dramatic timbre, looking at the
ten-foot-high wall surrounding the grounds of the medium-size
mansion that was currently being used as the home and headquarters
for General Wilberforce Crumley of the Confederate Army’s
Quartermaster Corps. “Everything’s all gay, but are you
sure
you want to go
through with it?”

“
I’m
sure,” the girl replied, her sotto voce tone showing not the
slightest hesitancy. During their short acquaintance, she had
learned among a number of other things pertaining to what they were
planning to do that, in the argot of the criminal circles of
London, England, where her companion had been born and raised, the
words “all gay” meant there was nobody in the vicinity to see what
was intended. “But you don’t need to come with me.”

“
Oh
yes I do!” the little Cockney burglar stated, in a manner that
implied he would brook no objections. “I’ve managed to teach you a
lot in the time you’ve been me ’prentice. ’Fact, I’ve never had a
better, but you might still need a bit more know-how afore you can
call yourself a regular crib-cracker.”

A wry smile twisted at Belle
Boyd
’s lips
at the last part of the declaration made by Higgins.

When deciding to try to join
the South
’s
Secret Service as part of her quest to find and take revenge upon
Alfred Tollinger and George Barmain, the girl had never imagined
she would need to employ the method she was intending to use as a
means of being brought to their attention.

Nor, Belle told herself, had
she envisaged that she would find herself clad in attire similar to
that now worn by Higgins when, after having climbed from the street
up the outside of the building—acting upon information that he had
acquired suggesting there was a quantity of valuable jewelry and
money
there
and the occupant would be absent—he had broken into her room on the
second floor of the Sanford Hotel. As an added precaution against
being noticed and later recognized, she had her now short-cropped
black hair beneath a dark beret and her beautiful face covered with
black burned cork.

But then, the girl told herself wryly, she
had not anticipated how taking the precaution of learning the
tricks of the professional duelist would culminate in her being
stripped to the waist in front of a number of men—some of whom
would have recognized her without the cloth mask she had on and an
alteration in the color and style of her hair—while she was
pretending to fight with the Englishwoman called Roxanne
Smethers-Fortescue.

In fact, Belle mused, her whole life had
changed drastically since the night her parents were murdered and
her home burned to the ground.

Even before she had set out upon her mission
of revenge, the girl had accepted that such was certain to prove
the case.

However, Belle could not avoid having
momentary qualms over the means she was intending to use that night
under the faint light of a three-quarters moon.

But in spite of her feelings, the girl
refused to allow herself to be deterred from the course she had
adopted.

Without realizing it, the curvaceously
slender Southron beauty was continuing to demonstrate the
beginnings of the resolve that would allow her to earn and deserve
the sobriquet Rebel Spy.

Belle Boyd could not complain
that time had passed slowly, or been wasted, since the night three
weeks earlier when she had met Alfred Higgins. As was the case
before the destruction of her home and way of life, rising early
regardless of how late she had returned or how late she had been up
at one of the functions for which Baton Royale Manor had been
famous, she had commenced each morning by doing the exercises that
helped to keep her in excellent physical condition for whatever
arduous tasks might lie ahead. After breakfast, contriving to leave
the Sandford Hotel dressed in a manner suitable for the less
affluent area of Richmond where she had gone to visit the
Cockney, she had
spent her time learning such tricks of his illicit main occupation
as she believed might prove of use if she achieved her ambition to
be admitted into the Secret Service of the Confederate
States.