The man sitting in the midst of this rather unappetizing enclave was in his early forties, Durand's senior by no more than two or three years. His hair was sand colored, and still copious, save for an indented recession over each temple, which heightened his brow and gave his face somewhat of a leonine look. He was, uncommonly enough for his age in life, totally clean-shaven, even on the upper lip. And paradoxically, instead of lending an added youth, this idiosyncrasy on the contrary seemed to increase his look of maturity, so strong were the basic lines of his face and particularly of his mouth. His eyes were blue, and on the surface there was something kindly and humane about them. Yet deeper within there was an occasional glint of something to be caught at times, some tiny blue spark, that hinted at fanaticism. They were at any rate the steadiest Durand had ever met. They were sure of themselves and attentive as those of a judge.
"Am I speaking to Mr. Downs?" he heard Bertha say.
"You are, madam," he rumbled.
There was nothing ingratiating about his manner. Intentionally so, that is. It was as if he were withholding himself from commitment, to see whether the clients met with his approval, rather than he with theirs.
And so Durand was looking for the first time at Walter Downs. Out of a hundred lives that cross a particular one, during its single span, ninety-nine leave no trace, beyond the momentary swirl of their passing. And yet a hundredth may come that will turn it aside, deflect it from its course, alter it so, like a powerful cross-current, that where it was going before and where it goes thereafter are no longer recognizably the same direction.
"There is a chair, madam." He had not risen.
She sat down. Durand remained standing, breaking his posture with a shoulder occasionally against the wall to ease himself.
"I am Bertha Russell and this is Mr. Louis Durand."
He gave Durand a curt nod, no more.
"We have come to you about a matter that concerns both of us."
"Which one of you will speak, then ?"
"You speak for the two of us, Mr. Durand. That will be easiest, I think."
Durand, looking down at the floor as if reading the words from it, took a moment to begin. But Downs, who had now altered the position of his head to direct his gaze upon him exclusively, showed no impatience.
The story seemed so old already, so often told. He kept his voice low, left all emphasis out of it.
"I corresponded with this lady's sister, from New Orleans, where I was, to here, where she was. I offered marriage, she accepted. She left here to join me, on May the eighteenth last. Her sister saw her off. She never arrived. Another person altogether joined me in New Orleans when the boat arrived, managed to convince me that she was Miss Russell's sister in spite of the difference in their appearances, and we were married. She stole upward of fifty thousand dollars from me, and disappeared in turn. The police down there inform me that they cannot do anything about it for lack of proof that the original person I proposed marriage to was done away with. The impersonation and the theft are not punishable by law."
Downs said only three words.
"And you want?"
"We want you to obtain proof that a murder was committed. We want you to obtain proof of the murder that we both know must have been committed. We want you to trace and apprehend this woman who was a chief participant in it." He took a deep, hot breath. "We want it punished."
Downs nodded dourly. He looked thoughtfully.
They waited. He remained silent for so long that at last Durand, almost feeling he had forgotten that they were present, cleared his throat as a reminder.
"Will you take this case?"
"I have taken it already," Downs answered with an impatient offgesture of his hand, as if to say: Don't interrupt me.
Durand and Bertha Russell looked at one another.
"I made up my mind to take it while you were still telling me of it," he went on presently. "It is the kind of a case I like. You are both honest people. As far as you are concerned, sir--" He raised his eyes suddenly to Durand; "You must be. Only an honest man could have been such a fool as you appear to have been."
Durand flushed, but didn't answer.
"And I am a fool, too. I have not had a client in here for over a week before you came to me today. But if I had not liked the case, nevertheless I would not have taken it."
Something about him made Durand believe that.
"I cannot promise you I will succeed in solving it. I can promise you one thing and one only: I will never quit it again until I do solve it."
Durand reached for his money-fold. "If you will be good enough to tell me what the customary--"
"Pay me whatever you care to, to be put down against expenses," Downs said almost indifferently. "When they outrun whatever it is, if they should, I'll let you know."
"Just a moment." Bertha Russell interrupted Durand, opening her purse.
"No, please--I beg you-- It's my obligation," he protested.
"This is no matter of parlor gentility!" she said to him almost fiercely. "She was my sister. I am entitled to the right of sharing the expense with you. I demand it. You shall not take that from me."
Downs looked at them both. "I see I was not mistaken," he murmured. "This is a fitting case."
He picked up a copy of that morning's newspaper, first shook it to spread it full, then narrowed it once more to the span of a single perpendicular column. He traced his finger down this, a row of paid commercial advertisements.
"This boat she sailed on from here," he said, "was which one?"
"The City of New Orleans," Durand and Bertha Russell said in unison.
"By a coincidence," he said, "here it is down again, for the company's next sailing. Its turn has come about once more, it leaves frqm here tomorrow, at nine o'clock in the forenoon."
He put the paper down.
"Do you propose remaining here, Mr. Durand?"
"I'm returning to New Orleans at once, now that I've put this matter in your hands," Durand said. Then he added wryly, "My business is there."
"Good," Downs remarked, rising and reaching for his hat. "Then we'll both be sailing together, for I'm going down there now and get my ticket. We will begin by retracing her steps, making the same journey she did, on the same boat, with the same captain and the same crew. Someone may have seen something, someone may remember. Someone must."
29
The cabins of the City of New Orleans were small, little better than shoeboxes ranged side by side along the shelves of a shop. The one they shared together seemed even smaller than the rest, perhaps because they were both in it at once. Even to move about and hang their things, they had continually to flatten themselves and swerve aside to avoid grazing and knocking into one another at every step.
Outside in the failing light two soiled ribbons, the lower gray, the upper tan, could be seen unrolling through the window; the Mississippi's bosom and its shore.
"I will help in any way I can," Durand offered. "Just tell me what to do and how to go about it."
"The passengers will not be the same on this trip as on that other," Downs told him. "That would be too much to hope for. Those who will be, are those whose job it is to run the boat and tend it. We will share them between us, from the captain down to the stokers. And if we find out nothing, we are no worse off than before. And if we find out something, no matter what, we are that much better off. So don't be discouraged. This may take months and years, and we are just at the very beginning of it."
"And what is it you--we-try to find out, now, for a beginning?"
"We try to find a witness who saw them both together; and by that I do not necessarily mean in one another's company: the true Julia and the false. I mean, both alive and on the boat during one and the same trip, at one and the same time. For the sister is a witness that the true one left on it, and you are a witness that the false one arrived on it. What I am trying to arrive at, by a process of elimination, is when was the true one last seen, when the false one first? I mark that off, as closely as I can get it, against that out there-" he gestured toward the two ribbons, "and that gives me, roughly, the point during the voyage at which it happened, the State whose jurisdiction it falls within, and the area in which to devote myself to searching for the only evidence, if any, there will ever be."