with its two tiny bunks occupied by the slumped bodies of three naked, mumbling men and women in the lantern's jerking light, pinned his big body, smothering his stroke. January dodged the first ax blow, which buried the weapon's head in the doorjamb beside his shoulder. He ripped with the skinning knife, a deliberate blow, meaning to gut, meaning to kill. Roarke seized his arm, thrust him off. Water splashed up through the split bottom of the keelboat, around their knees and rising. January came at him fast, and Roarke fumbled in his belt, belatedly pulled out the pistol; January flinched aside and slapped water, hard, hurling it into the man's eyes. The shot went wild, like the clap of doom in the tiny cabin, and then Shaw said, "That'll be enough of that, Mr. Roarke," quietly, as if reprimanding a not-very-obstreperous drunk.
He was aiming a pistol; another was in his belt. Roarke flung himself at Shaw, dodging aside as the pistol roared, and bearing him down, his own knife leaping to his hand. January dragged him back and with a single hard blow to the jaw sent him spinning against the bulkhead. The last expression in Roarke's eyes, before he slumped unconscious, was furious, indignant surprise.
Chapter Sixteen
"Send for my lawyer," was all that Roarke would say. Gray light leaked through the breaking clouds outside as the little parry returned to the Cabildo. For the first time in what seemed like years cool air breathed through the open double-doors onto the Place d'Armes.
While Roarke was led out to the courtyard and up to the cells, the two elderly men and their middle-aged sister, whom January had barely been able to drag out of the sinking keelboat, were taken into a rear room, to be wrapped in blankets and plied with coffee. "They'll live," said January, drawing back the older man's eyelids and holding a candle close to the contracted pupil, then pressing the man's nails, and listening to his breath. "Barring pneumonia, they should take no hurt from it. Is there anything to tell us who they are?"
Shaw, who had come in behind him drying his hair, shook his head. "Couple of the boys went and had a look at St. Gertrude's, whilst we was fishin' in the Bayou. We been, as I said, interested in Mr. Roarkes' doin's for some little while, though slave stealin's a new lay for him. Since most of them poor folk that disappeared was taken out of their houses in their nightshirts there wasn't much to find-not even the nightshirts, mostly, and sure enough not a pin or a shoe or a piece of jewelry."
"Manon?" mumbled one of the men they'd rescued. "Manon?"
"Manon's here," said January reassuringly. "She's safe," He looked over at the woman. Her features were so similar to those of both men: emaciated, exhausted, her skin ashy gray with cold and fatigue. "Lousy, probably," he added, remembering conditions at St. Gertrude's, "but safe."
"Well," said Shaw, and spit into the corner. "They's worse things than lice."
January was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Did your men find a red dress at St. Gertrude's? Or a pair of black-and-red shoes with white laces?"
Shaw shook his head.
"And nothing of... nothing of the dress that Mademoiselle Vitrac had on when she left here Sunday evening?"
"Nuthin'." There was a curious gentleness in the policeman's voice as he added, "We're lookin'."
They came out to find a thin, black-mustachioed little man with coal-dark eyes waiting by Shaw's desk;
Shaw stopped in his tracks, as a man does who sees a snake in his path. "And what you doin' here this hour of the mornin', Loudermilk? All the debtors you chase asleep?"
"I understand you have my client illegally detained in your cells." The dark eyes flicked from Shaw to January, calculating.
"I don't know about that illegally," replied Shaw, and spit a few inches from the man's foot. "Kidnappin' or slave stealin', they's both crimes in this state."
"To be sure they are. But my client is a businessman, with dealings among other members of the business community here in this city. I don't think I need emphasize that any breath of allegation of either of those heinous crimes-of which he is entirely innocent-will result, not only in civil action against you and your Chief, but in all probability in a spontaneous demonstration of support from other businessmen along the levee and Tchapitoulas Street. May I speak to my client, please?"
Shaw slouched a little farther against his desk, like a pole