SCENE THIRTY SEVEN Singer's Mirandahl, outside Raleigh, NC the same night, March 1st-2cnd, 1873
"You really should not have come here, Remy." A voice Gideon Boudin almost knew better than his own whispered from the far corner of the first hidden room he'd come to in the cellars of Singer's Mirandahl. The place was dark as a tomb, Boudin considered, the only source of light the lantern he'd taken from a kitchen storage closet. "You truly should have stayed in Atlanta, or Rio, or on Capri, or down in Port au Prince, rather than coming out to Mirandahl, tonight."
"Well, be that as it may, you shouldn't be anywhere at all, my dear old friend, not anywhere in the living world. You passed to your reward more than three weeks ago, Jimmy. So go on back down to hell, old man. I don't have time just now for any more of your games!" Boudin insisted. " I came down here to … to speak with someone else entirely, on a matter which is no concern of yours. None. So, begone, dear ghost."
"I've passed away?" Jimmy Randolph's soft Virginia Tidewater and Kentucky bourbon slurred, world weary voice asked.
"I have, truly? Well, that might explain a few things that have been purely puzzlin' me for a little while now. And
you haven't time for my games? Remy, whatever are you talking about this time? What games do you think I'm here for?"
"Your damnable slippery as electric eels mastery games, Jimmy. Who in the very devil do you think I learned them from,
if not from you?" Boudin scoffed.
"Oh, I suppose I credited your ol' Daddy to some degree, Remy. And then you did learn a great deal from your dearest, dearest ol' Miss Helene… " The still unseen ghost answered.
"If you dast speak my Lady Mother's name, you old reprobate, you will at least do so with the most profound respect!" The Georgian growled.
"I'm sorry, Remy." Jimmy seemed to chortle. "Did… did you just say I should speak your mother's name with profound respect? Did you really?"
" I did. Her memory deserves nothing less!" Boudin insisted.
"Well, I s'pose that's one of the areas you and I are always gonna haveta agree to disagree, Remy. And as far as respect
is concerned, you're not exactly bein' very respectful yourself, tonight. You interrupted me, old friend. I was sayin' you shouldn't have come to Mirandahl, Remy, no matter who brought you, no matter how politely you were welcomed. And you shouldn't ever have barged in and troubled my sister's son, my poor, sad, sick Torry the way you did tonight, either. I'm dreadfully disappointed in you, for doin' that to Jessy-Anne's boy. I truly am, now. So, I say again, you shouldn't have come here tonight." Randolph's familiar 'District Attorney charging a jury' manner and phrasing rang out.
"And being as you're nearly a month dead and buried, Jimmy, just what do you imagine you can do about that, old man?"
Boudin demanded to be told.
''Well, for starters, just for starters, Remy, I imagined I'd have to be doin' somethin pretty much like THIS!'' Randolph's voice called out and somehow, as strongly, sternly and solidly as if Randolph were really with him, Boudin suddenly felt the older man's hand striking his face, with all the force of a born horseman's strong left hand. That force was enough, as it had been throughout their long acquaintance, to stagger Gideon Boudin and drop him to his knees on the rough floorboards of the cellar.
'' Why, Jimmy, what a temper you still have!' Boudin hissed, shaking with anger and not a little shock, getting back to his feet. ''And what a strong hand you've got, for the ghost of a drunken, lunatic, licentious old fool!"
'' I have and always did have all the strength I'll ever need to knock you flat on your precious-spoiled-rotten-wannabe- blue-blooded-Texas ass, Remy. And I thought it was about time you recalled that fact! And now you've gone and done to
my only survivin' sister's only survivin boy again, the one thing you knew I purely wouldn't tolerate! You've tried another of your damnable confusions on the boy, again, Remy! You've made yet another try at cutting Torry off from all those who truly love him. The boy's almost on his last legs as it is, Remy and yet you tried again to turn his mind! And that Gideon Alexander Remiel, that I will no longer tolerate from you. Do I, have I made myself quite clear now, Remy? Do we, can we finally have that clear?''
''No, Jimmy.'' Boudin insisted, and got the reward he'd half hoped for, in another blow to his face, this one hard enough to drop him to his hands and knees.
''And now?'' Randolph demanded.
''No, Jimmy, I don't understand you at all. You told me numerous times that you blamed Steven West for your sister's tragic death, because they quarreled that night and she went up early, too despondent and too worn out to take note of her danger before it was too late. You said on many, many occasions after that horrible night that your brother in law was staunchly refusing his wife's natural desire to give him another child, and that her despondency was founded in his stubborn stance on that issue.
You told me more than once that your whole family was stifling your spirit and your life, holding your ambitions back, to
fit their backwater town and their suffocating Tidewater class. You said you wanted my help, years and years ago, Jimmy to remake your world and your life the way you truly wished it could be. You said you were surely born to be in the Senate from Virginia, to be her Governor or even to take the White House, someday! And all those notions were not dreams at all but things you meant to have, before you grew too old to even try your hand. Well, I did all I could to help you, Jimmy.
Are you enraged with me now because I helped you, or because I didn't manage to help you enough?"
Another blow to his jaw came just as Boudin reached his feet again and the Georgian felt almost drunk, dizzy and elated
to have this quarrel out, even if it was only with the ghosts in his own mind. Somehow he was being angrily, violently haunted. But Boudin considered that if his ghostly visitor was the shade of Jimmy Randolph, especially Jimmy in one of his finer Black Irish fits of temper, it was well worth any cost to him. The Georgian would certainly choose Randolph's angry 'shade' over the chilling presence of Stephan Aynsley he'd sensed upstairs.
"You will listen to me now, Gideon Alexander Remiel Boudin, and you will heed every single word I say in absolute silence until I am done sayin' it." Jimmy Randolph's fiery voice said, before the Georgian could even form a response. "When you first knew me, Remy, I was as much of an arrogant young fool as a few hundred thousand men and boys our age throughout the old South. I was spoiled, over proud, selfish and touchy as a broody mare where I thought, WHEREEVER I THOUGHT my honor and my family's honor could possibly be concerned. And I believed the Southron culture we lived in then of tainted power and corrupt privilege, of influence and intoxicatin' prestige would live and thrive another hundred years at the very least! And I thought I knew how to make that world live on well past that two century mark. And when I thought all those things, nine tenth's of the time I was drunk as a lord!
And I was so fantastically wrong in all those assumptions that my only recourse for the next thirty years was to drink myself to death by the inches. So whatever you now insist on recalling of my bitterness, my envy and my most painful diatribes against all I truly cherished in this life, I wish had never passed my lips! And I would take it as a great kindness, based upon our long ago friendship, Remy, if you would expunge all that lyin', hatefilled bilge I spouted back down to the sewers and sinks of Perdition it surely came from!
I am profoundly saddened and ashamed by the things I said and thought and believed and sometimes even acted upon back in those awful days. I am repulsed and I am sickened by what I percieve as the way you took my confidences and my attitudes to build a foundation of poisonous, violent betrayal as high as the walls of Windsor Castle, or the dome that is still in the works on our nation's Capital hill. I will have you tear that down, now, Remy. I will have you uncreate what you have made, and at once! D' you hear me, Remy? You will destroy that nightmare edifice immediately and leave it in ruins for as long as you may live."
"No, no, Jimmy, I won't. I refuse to obey you when you are plainly, dead or alive more inebriated and thus more confused than I have ever known you to be. Jimmy, I've said once more that I will neither heed nor comply with your demands." Boudin insisted, and waited for another blow. But just when the Georgian was feeling almost eager for the older man's punishment, Jimmy's voice changed astonishingly from being full of rage to being full of tears.
"Remy, you have hated me so long now that you've almost forgotten what friends we were, in a time that now seems an eon ago at least. And I have rejected, denied and discounted all your accusations against me, accusations that clearly led you deeper and deeper into the madness you directed against my sister's only son. Well, if that or anything like it will satisfy the quarrel between us now, Remy, I will recant. I will confess the wrongs I've done you. I only ask that once more you will hear me out. You will hear me out once more, before I return to my own corner of Perdition, won't you, Remy?"
"Jimmy, you astonish me by even asking. Naturally I will listen to your … statement as regards our old quarrel. Naturally,
I am quite interested, even fascinated to hear what you will finally admit on this question." The Georgian nodded, wishing he could see the older man's face to know if he was being gulled once more. And somehow he couldn't seem to keep from putting that wish into words. "But Jimmy, let me see you once more, my dear old friend. It would hearten me greatly, since I was barred from … from your home at the time …"
"And besides, you wish to be sure I am not lyin' to you now, isn't that so, Remy?" Randolph's voice sounding familiarly world weary asked.
"Well, yes, of course, old friend. You have been a gifted trial attorney for some thirty years and more. That means, from one perspective that you have, shall we say… quite well developed theatrical skills." Boudin laughed. And then he gasped as Randolph walked out from exactly the opposite direction he'd heard his old friend's voice. The older man was somewhat pale, and his customary well tailored suit seemed slightly rumpled. Otherwise Jimmy looked as he had for fifteen or twenty years, Boudin thought. His once strawberry blond hair was far more grey than red now. His once bright green eyes were rheumy and full of pain. And his hands were an old man's hands, the left shaking as it held the cane, the right planted on Jimmy's hip, clearly ready to give out another blow.
"Well, here I am, Remy." the older man said, walking to within two yards of Boudin with the help of a stout walking stick.
"Now, I assume I can continue with what I have finally decided to say?"
"Jimmy, I don't understand! You…your voice was coming from my right, patently from my right just now, and here you are on my left. And why … Jimmy, why if you are done with this mortal vale of tears at last, do you still require that old walnut walking stick I gave you, thirty years ago?" The Georgian asked.
"Well, to answer the second part first, from what I hear, Remy, even the Master of Perdition still walks with a bit of a limp. He took quite a bad spill, several eons ago, you see. I on the other hand find it somewhat ironically soothing to retain some of my worldly deficits, including a constant, terrible thirst and a broken, twisted, badly reset left hip. As for the other, I can only assume that the darkness down here confused you more than you thought, old friend. For here I am facing you on your left. Is that all, Remy? Shall I answer to your old charges now?" Jimmy Randolph's 'shade' asked.
"Yes, surely, Jimmy. As I said, I will be exceedingly interested to hear you on the matter at hand." Boudin agreed.
"Well, it's quite simple, really. I lied to you Remy. I lied on numerous occassions. But to keep to the earliest days we
knew one another, I lied to you on a fairly regular basis. You were, after all barely thirteen that year, where I was nearly
three years older, give or take a month. You were a prodigy, simply by the fact of acquiring entry to that advanced
student program. I was merely another spoiled rich man's son, wasting a year or two there in Williamsburg.
And I lied to you. I lied when I told you there was certainly a place for a young would-be aristocrat from Georgia in that bastion of Tidewater snobbery. I lied when I told you the creole son of a Haitian father and a supposed French émigré would be welcomed with open arms by our classmates at William and Mary's college. And I lied when later that year I insisted I was never once moved by your youthful enthusiasm, your boyish courage in staying there, or your striking young face and form. Sadly, Remy, none of those things was true."
"There was no place for a boy from what they deemed the backwoods of Georgia." Boudin nodded, numbly. "There was no welcome for a student however wrongly said to be of mixed blood. And you … Jimmy, you were …fond of me, you were fond of me, just as I have long since insisted, when we met, that year."
"Well you were quite the handsome yearling in those days, Remy." Jimmy chuckled. "And you know I always had a fine eye … for good conformation, a high-strung spirit and a certain mettlesome demeanor."
"But at the end of that horrid year, Beatrice Terese arrived to drag me home to Atlanta, no, no, it was worse than that! We were in Augusta all that next year! Beatrice arrived and all your … interest moved directly from me, Jimmy to her. That is the truth of that time, Jimmy. The core truth and no lie. So do not bother to deny it, now." Boudin demanded.
"I do not deny it, Remy. I fell in love with Bea. I still feel she loved me just as much. And I nearly proposed marriage to her. But as I was not yet seventeen when that year ended, I could not do so without my father's consent. And as always, my father and I bitterly disagreed on the choices each of us made for MY life. He had me all but betrothed to Sarah Elisabeth Kuenle, a second cousin twice removed and so well within the allowable degrees of separation. And he only bought my assent to that marriage with the promise of at least one term in the House of Burgesses, back in Williamsburg. And once there I began to drink in earnest, hating that bargain, and hating myself." Jimmy Randolph angrily sighed.
"And you wanted that political career, so very much in those days." Gideon Boudin nodded reluctantly. "So in your mind,
I say in your mind, Jimmy, a well made marriage of convenience, and a total rejection of any other …dalliances, was not that hard to swallow, really, being so very well suited to your own ambitious plans. And in that, my dear old friend, you were lying, but to yourself! The Golden Age of Greece, Jimmy, the time of Pericles, Plato and Socrates, the time of Thermopylae, the 300 Spartans there, and the Sacred Theban band all stand as proof that a man of politics, a man of affairs need not give up, if he's discreet … his private proclivites, his own hidden needs, as he rises to power!"
Randolph's ghost seemed to shake his head and chuckle, albeit sadly. "Remy, listen to yourself and the examples you give, will you? Pericles had what amounts to a harem, and was ruled himself by the cleverest courtesan in Athens, not some big eyed wine carrier! Socrates was legally murdered in that same Golden City, because of his perhaps not so very discreet friendships with the young men he taught. The 300 Spartans … well, they all died, however heroically, at Thermopylae, didn't they? And the Sacred Band of Thebes was ultimately smashed, men and boys alike, by the inexorable rush to power of Phillip of Macedon and his son, Alexander the Great.
And all that, all those events, all those men, even the ones we're fairly sure truly did exist? Remy they existed three thousand years ago, their like I promise you, never to be seen again. A man of affairs in this diminished modern age must be capable, clever and a little cold hearted. And he must, in this Victorian era of ours, also be as far as his constitutents know, morally beyond reproach in his private life."
"So you admit you could not make the choice you wished to, all for the sake of your political life, the life your father laid down for you, Jimmy, from the moment your older brothers all died in the same dreadful cholera outbreak. You could not retain our special friendship from those days at William and Mary if you were ever going to be a political figure of power in Virginia and Washington's City! But I say you are still lying to me, Jimmy and to yourself." Boudin scoffed.
"And I say you are tryin' to rewrite not only my history and your own now, Remy, but that of the world we live in." Jimmy chortled. "My political ambitions were cut off in the bud, not encouraged, when my brothers and sisters, all but one died in that one year. The prouder, more public life I dreamt of, in regional, or national politics, in the Army or both was shunted to one side, and left to wither. I was doomed to taking over the breeding business my dear old Daddy took over from his dear old Daddy, and so forth, and so on.
My youthful dreams were left to die out, untended, Remy, until I met a young man from Texas named Stephen Arthur West. If not for that meeting at a thoroughbred auction near Louisvile, my young man's dreams would have been forever doomed. I was doomed myself, doomed, old friend, until Stephen West came home with me, and fell madly in love with our Jessy-Anne. Then and only then, my dreams revived and I could breathe again!"
Now Boudin almost laughed. "No, Jimmy, I think you are the one who's rewriting history here. And it's quite fascinating, really. But it's a lie you've clearly come to believe as the truth, old friend. I know that because you must have told me
a thousand times that Stephen West was your opposite number in all ways. A silent, stiff necked Texas born stick in the mud, you called him. Except for breeding horses and caring for your dearest sister, you two had nothing in common, Jimmy, nothing! And certainly he was never the husband you wanted for your only surviving sister, anymore than …"
"Anymore than I was ever the husband you envisioned for Bea? Is that what you were going to say just then, Remy?" Jimmy interjected. "Remy, you're memory is still fairly sharp. But you can have no memory of events that occurred hundreds if not thousands of miles away from your usual haunts. And it hardly matters now, with Stephen and Jessy-Anne happily reunited in Glory once again, and with this old dreary soul of mine, relegated to Hell, just as we both knew I always would be."
"Jimmy, if the past which formed us both to such a great degree matters nothing in the present. Then can you tell me whatever could matter in the broken, maimed and despairing world we're forced to live in now?" Boudin demanded, frowning at his old mentor and adversary.
"Those we will leave behind us, Remy. They are all that matters. You have 'nephews and nieces', as well as scores
of 'adopted children' all through north and east Georgia, all through Haiti, Naples, Capri, Rio and Nassau, as I recall .
I have three children and seven grandchildren in Virginia and yes, one nephew here, but only one. I have a number of children in Puerto Rico and Cuba, and I think some grandchildren who've relocated to New Orleans in the past few years,
as well.
Those precious souls, Remy, those who will inherit the world we leave them, and see the future we can never know, they are all that matters. Even you should know that, with your great pride in lineages, inheritances and being Miss Helene's Heir Apparent. Who now is your Heir Apparent, Remy? It grieves me deeply to say it can't possibly be Torry now. The boy is worn to a nub and has little chance of surviving this latest siege by his poor, damaged heart."
"Oh, now I begin to take your meaning, Jimmy, and your reason for the rage you displayed earlier on. You were incensed because I made my way up to Torry's sick room, on hearing how badly off the dear boy is. You were angered when I attempted to make some friendly, cheering, civilized conversation with the lad, having not seen Torry for many months now. Or else you were enraged because I was quite unable to drive that bitterly envious crew of Torry's so called friends from his side for even a moment, most of all that I failed to dislodge that insidious Hebe-Actor and …"
"No!" Randolph called out, his voice thrumming with something very like the crackle of lightning in it. "No, Remy I will
not hear that claptrap from you again! You've turned Miss Helene's obsession with painfully petty biases and egregriously exaggerated prejudices into the worst stumbling blocks of your long life and business career, old friend!
None of those people, not Artemus Gordon, not Thomas Macquillan, not Signora or Senor El Doctor de Cervantes, not
Pike or Harper, not D'egilsier or Hoynes or any of their younger colleagues are my concern now, Remy, nor should they
be occupying your time, either. I'll add that the Singers, the Morrisseys, the Kuenles and Munroes and all the rest of
the Randolph's extended families are NOT MY PROBLEM OR YOURS. Nor have they been for some time now. In short,
you've been wasting your time and energy and resources in all the wrong directions, Remy. And I am truly at a
loss to know WHY YOU CANNOT GET THAT SIMPLE POINT THROUGH YOUR THICK AS RED GEORGIA CLAY SKULL!"
"Jimmy, now, really, Jimmy I truly don't find that called for in the least." Boudin protested. "I am, after a True Born Southron of the Highest Order. And therefore I am naturally repulsed by the invincible ignorance and tasteless demeanor of …" The Georgian frowned and peered at Randolph as if he'd only now heard the last part of his complaint. "Where is it exactly you think I should be expending my efforts, Jimmy? I'm quite at a loss myself to grasp the point of your … little sermon."
"Sermon, my little sermon?" Randolph repeated, apparently losing his own temper again. "My friend, if I had wished to deliver a sermon at this late stage, the text would have been on the pure absurdity of seeking after the transient glories
of this earthly realm and forgetting the plain truth that an eternity of one kind or another lies at the end for all of us,
none of us, including you and your Lady Mother, Remy, being immortal. However…"
"Jimmy, I have asked, you over and over not to denigrate Miss Helene's fair name and truly glorious nature. I've hardly asked for anything more than a decent respect for the woman who gave me life and …"
"Shared all her most rancorous ideas and malevolent ideals with you, Remy?" Randolph's ghost asked, but seemingly from the opposite corner of the room.
Boudin turned around, turning his head from one side of the cellar to the other, as Jimmy literally seemed to move invisibly about this hidden chamber, ending up first in one corner and the opposite one. "What … what in the very devil?' The Georgian exclaimed, almost stammering. "What…What goes on here?"
"Whatever are you yammering on about, Remy-boy?" Randolph's ghost demanded. "Why can't you keep your attention on me now? I said, I will have you pay strict heed to me, Remy, if I'm going to take the trouble to leave my comfortable corner of Perdition just to issue a proper warning to an old protégé!
"Com…comfortable… old man have you finally gone completely mad?" Boudin demanded. "And just how am I to pay strict heed, Jimmy, when you insist on leaping from one end of this chamber to another in that odd fashion?"
"Mad? You think me mad?" The ghost chuckled, but from his original position. "Remy, I'm not the one who's seeing quite impossible things happening here. I'm over here, you imbecile. Why are you staring at the opposite wall in that particularly dumbfounded way?"
"Jimmy, you are simply playing tricks of some idiotic kind on me, now. Indeed, I believe you are trying to pull one of your old sleight of hand gimics, that worked so much to your advantage with one trial jury after the other. Well, they never worked with me, old man. And I don't like your attempts anymore now than I did in the old days." The Georgian scoffed.
"Ah, now that was a completely pointless and I have to say disappointingly transparent lie, Remy-boy." Randolph's shade answered, having switched corners again. "In the old days you drew quite a lot of amusement from my skills at trompe d'oeuil, shifting perspectives and other means of …umm, shall we say, persuation? Have you lost your sense of humor entirely, along with that nonchalant, shy, sad little self-deprecating smile and the way you had of slumping those broad shoulders of yours to appear not quite so inordinately tall, old friend?"
"I have no wish these days to alter my appearance in anyway whatever, old friend. Nor do I find much worth smiling at,
let alone much humor in this wretched modern post-Conflict world. You once said you hated as much as I do, what became of the world we loved and lost. You once said you would gladly make common cause with our old friend Stephan and myself, and a handful of others, intent on righting the egregious wrongs done to those who love the Southron people and cheer the Southron Cause. Will you once more deny making that very statement, will you again repudiate our long-shared intentions, our mutual Great Work?" Gideon Boudin called out, losing patience and losing control.
"Well speaking as one officer of the court to another, old friend, do you have that alleged statement of mine in writing, over my signature somewhere? Did I perhaps note it down in correspondence, in a journal or better still, from your perspective, in a duly notarized legally binding agreement of some sort? Because, if you don't Remy, I would have to
admit that this failing old memory of mine holds no recollection of it, none whatsoever." Randolph shrugged, back where he started.
"You dastard! You damnable, despicable liar! You utter coward! You know very well I've been ten times more careful than you, sir, of records I kept my whole life long to prevent just the type of boondoggle you'd like me to step into now! You're only here in my imagination, Jimmy Randolph. You no longer have the least temporal existence. And you never had the least scrap of evidence on any trumped up charges against me which your nephew and his friends would now like very
much to make! Do I look like a lamb, bound for the slaughter to your rheumy old eyes, Jimmy? Do I look like an Isaac ready to lay down his head before his own father's sword?" The Georgian shouted, waving his long arms and gesturing theatrically.
"Oh very good, very well done, very well recited, old friend!" Jimmy's ghost laughed aloud and even seemed to applaud, from across the room. "I'm flattered, deeply flattered, that you would have committed to memory my own particular favorite closing argument, with of course the necessary amendments, here and there. Now calm that temper of yours, my boy, you're about to blow a gasket down here. And as far as I can seek there's no help to be readily had for you, if that unhappy event takes place."
"I AM NOT YOUR BOY, SIR, NO, NOR ANYONE ELSE'S BOY! NOR HAVE I BEEN ANY SUCH THING AT ANY POINT OF MY LIFE!
SO I WILL THANK YOU NOT TO USE SUCH AN OFFENSIVE APPELATION IN MY REGARD EVER, EVER AGAIN!" Boudin screamed.
"Well, amnesia has at times proved a useful defense, Remy. So, I suppose it may help you out of the boondoggle you're already up to your belt buckle in. Unfortunately, having expired I am not available to take up your defense." Randolph said calmly, rubbing his chin.
"But perhaps what your defense attorneys should try is a combination of ploys, one part amnesia, another part the well worked, often successful injured innocence strategy, and they might possibly succeed by adding a large serving of the forged documents I KNOW you still have, fully and damningly implicating myself, Stephan Aynsley, and numerous other bystanders in your failed Courier-plot. Yes, no doubt, Remy that's what I would advise.
Sadly, I'm afraid your case is lost even before it can begin. You see, I did keep my correspondence, my business ledgers,
my journals, and naturally any legal documents I ever had regarding our long association and sometime friendship, Remy-lad. Every effort you made to bind me to a violent conspiracy against the government of these United States, is noted in those papers. And they are noted with my sworn, notarized testimony that every one of your efforts to make me part of your damnable schemes miserably failed.
Every appeal you made to me for funds in that cause is recorded in those ledgers, including the times I sent funds to you for other endeavors entirely. And every attempt you made to blackmail me, or threaten me or otherwise coerce some asssitance from me, Gideon Alexander Remiel Boudin is archived there. And as of sometime in mid January, every scrap, every jot, and every tittle of those went into a Federal prosecutor's hands. No, Remy, don't bother to lose your temper with me at this late stage. Angry accusations of slander or worse, perjured testimony are no match for the facts in this case."
"You amaze me, sir. You surely do." Boudin said, in a surprisingly calm tone of voice. "You did this now? You handed over such absolutely perjured documents at this late stage? You gave over these supposedly damning papers … When, Jimmy,
a week or two before you expired? You did this, only when nothing whatever can be held against you, yourself. You betrayed the Work and the One, or so you hoped to do, only when you cannot be charged, much less prosecuted in this matter at all. You gave our enemies the very fodder they've been scratching and scrapping every sewer and every empty barrel between Baltimore and Atlanta to find!
You put my head in the noose. You put my legs over the trap. No doubt if you still owned corporeal existence, you'd put
your hand on the gallows' lever with great glee! And yet you've failed to understand anything at all. These damned Federal fools, Jimmy, they will still use what you handed over to blacken your family's great name! They will still
condemn you for not giving these same materials up years ago! They will still attaint you post mortem, James Torrance Kieran Randolph, you, for the part you had, small or large as it may have been in this … wearisome case. Jimmy they
will accuse, try and convict you in absentia for conspiracy to commit what those same Federal imbeciles WILL INSIST on labeling TREASON! And how it could be treason, when none of us, myself most of all do not and did not recognize for an instant their authority, their suzerainty or their governance whatsoever is beyond comprehension.
But you're still lying and you really shouldn't lie Jimmy, not now, not to me. At least in this confidential meeting, you truly should own up to the part you took. You had it out for Torry's father. That is the truth. The lie is this fantasy of being delighted when he won your cherished sister's heart and her hand. You blamed him for stealing her affection. You blamed him for preventing a proper Tidewater marriage for her and your clan! And later you even blamed him when the poor woman died. That is the truth. The lie is this imaginary affection, even friendship you bore that Texas bore!
And there is more to the story, to both stories, Jimmy. And you know it as well as I do. You joined in the Great Work, you
agreed that we should make a second Endeavor, when the Butcher preposterously took over General Washington's City and his place of power! You met with me, and with Aynsley. That is the truth. The lie is that you were asked, you were appealed to, you were begged to aid the Work, and you refused, time and again.
You actively hated Torry's father, Jimmy. That is the truth. The lie is all bound up in some supposed rapproachment you had, when Stephen West entered his last illness or some while before. You were ready and willing to use his son, your cherished sister's only progeny to forward the Work, if it would cause Stephen West to fear for his son's life or sanity or both, in the short term, or his son's bitter disgrace over time. That is the truth, Jimmy. The lie is a delusion of your own making that your devotion to your sister would never allow you to harm those she also loved.
You met with Stephan at my home near Atlanta. You met with both of us and some others at his temporary home in Newport News. You discussed various alternative plans and procedures to accomplish our Glorious Task. You agreed with
us that the Butcher must be Butchered himself and at the hand of someone he had every reason in the world to trust with his life! That is the truth. The lie is that you knew us both, but never, ever what we meant to do…"
Gideon! Gideon Boudin! Gideon Alexander Remiel Boudin! A thunderous voice called out, stopping Boudin's words in his throat. Looking around in sudden shock, the Georgian was sure he saw his former colleague, Stephan Aynsley standing in the doorway of the next cellar chamber, frowning darkly at him.
Gideon, you are as of now incomprehensibly tardy for our meeting! Why are you delaying it for this inconsequential chatter with James? The man's terminally ill! The man's in fact, dying. He can be of no further use or interest to the Work! However you and I still have much to discuss, old friend ! Indeed we do! Therefore I suggest you leave the old man alone and meet with me in the Realm of the Dove! Do as I say, you worthless, wasteful, useless, spoiled dandy! Your old ties with Randolph are of no interest and no possible use or purpose to the Work at this point, if indeed they ever were! You will meet with me, sir, and at my discretion! However you have so enraged me, Gideon Alexander Remiel Boudin that you shall wait my next summons and then rush to meet with me!
"Stephan, Stephan, my old dear friend!" Boudin cried out, chilled to his core by the Viennese' evident outrage. "You really … you really must… that is, that is, I mean to say it would be of great help to me, old friend, if you could put off our… our… discussion … further, just … a little while further than you already thought to. I have some small, and as you say yourself inconsequential matters to complete with … our dear old Jimmy, here. You…you've been so entirely patient with me lately, that I'm moved to ask just this one … minute… miniscule further … delay…"
Take no more time on those matters than is absolutely required, Gideon. You and I have unsettled business, as you
very well know. But you have ignored, you have delayed, you have sought to turn aside my every attempt to resolve our remaining issues and take the Work forward to its proper end! The time is coming swiftly upon us now, old friend. We have a Day of Final Reckoning on it's way! Therefore do not put me off again. I will summon you whenever I choose to!
Finish your foolhardy reminiscences and wait my call! Aynsley's ghost shouted and vanished as if into thin air.
"What's the matter Remy-boy?" Jimmy asked, staring at the Georgian who was almost twitching he shook so hard. "What are you goin' on about, talkin' as if our old friend Stephan was somewhere about here? The man's deader than Methuselah by this time, isn't he, Remy?"
"Frankly, Jimmy, I'm hard pressed to say who's dead and who's living these days." Boudin muttered and then shook his head angrily, as if he could shake off the dread that had been building in him for months now. What could Stephan's ghost mean at this stage by 'unsettled buisness', 'remaining issues' or 'taking the Work to its proper end'? The same theme and the same phrases had been repeated in every bone freezing encounter they'd had since Boudin returned to Atlanta from time spent at home in Haiti.
But there was unsettled business to resolve with Randolph's spectre as well. And summoning his own hottest rage, The Georgian turned back to the older man with one final weapon in mind. "Never mind all that now. It doesn't signify one bit, now. We were talking of your involvement in the Great Work and its Ultimate Purpose, old friend. And whether you know enough or care enough to admit the facts of the matter, you did The Work one particularly remarkable service, old man!
Do I truly need to remind you of that, Jimmy? Very well I shall!
You provided us the last, most vital piece needed to make the thing work, Jimmy. You gave us the perfect, partially readied Courier-Assassin at one stroke. You told us with no little pride when Torry became not only an agent, but an advisor to the Butcher, Grant. And when the time came to create our Courier-assassin at long last, I made fine use of everything you'd ever told me about the boy, and everything I'd learned from Torry, myself. That is the truth of it all, old friend. Are you going to deny all of that at this late date? Are you even going to deny what you said, what you repeated time and again, mostly to plague our late friend Stephan Aynsley, are you?"
"Allowing for the fact that I was drunk in most cases and in all meetings I took over the last thirty five years and more?" Randolph's ghost asked. "Allowing for the fact that I never took myself or my political rantings seriously for an instant, Remy, not from the time I 'earned' that seat in the House of Burgesses, so many years ago? And allowing for my perception, however pleasingly altered by spiritous liquors, that no one else in all those meetings took me seriously, excepting for you? No, Remy, I'll not deny anything now."
"So you admit your part in the plans we made! You admit …" Boudin exclaimed only to be sternly cut off.
"I admit nothing, Remy, nothing at all. And I insist that you stop interrupting my narrative as of now! That's better.
Now listen to me, and listen very, very well to what I say next: You are lying, Remy. You would be guilty of perjury on a dozen counts if we stood in a courtroom, right now. You are lying about my assistance to your damnable plot, because at this late stage you desperately need someone else to blame for that conspiracy and for the way that it utterly failed!
Certainly I wasted an evening here and there when the Conflict was over, listening to you, or to Aynsley or to your other wild eyed conspirators. Yes, that much is true. And I found it entirely amusing, to be honest. Indeed, I found it entertaining as hell, Remy. Because I never for even one instant believed y'all would try carrying it out!
I would look at Aynsley, just as he was about to go off yet again about his skills, his tactics, his technology, or G-d help us all, his many, many degrees! I would look over at him, usually it was to be hoped, over a snifter of brandy, and say 'No Courier, no plot, Herr Professor Doctor. No Courier, no scheme, no Courier, no plan, no, Courier, no Great Work to take forward, backward, east, west or purely anywhere at all, Herr Professor Doctor. And I was right, I was entirely right.
Without that human element, or … nearly human element, the machine you two bastards tried for years to make out
of flesh and blood… there would be no Work, no Glory, no nothing to show for all the horrors you'd created by that time. That's what I said, in meetings, in letters, in discussions, even in wires, sometimes. Because you two bloody handed arrogant fools couldn't seem to grasp that there can be no assassination without an assassin, that there can be no coup d'etat without some poor fool standing ready for his coup d'grace!"
And you would always grow even more angry than the Good Professor did whenever I said that, Remy. You would invariably turn from me and call me all manner of traitor, all types of disgrace, and every other unpleasant epithet you could bring to your tongue. And I should have known in those very moments, I should have at least guessed what you were deciding to do! I should have KNOWN WHAT YOU ALWAYS WANTED TORRY TO DO: AND IT WAS TORRY HIMSELF, NEVER YOU, REMY WHO FINALLY HAD THE ROCK SOLID COURAGE TO TELL ME WHAT YOU MOST WANTED HIM TO DO!" Jimmy sighed and shook his head, remembering that moment in Richmond, in Antoinette's library vividly well.
" I should have known, I should surely have guessed, shouldn't I, old friend? I should surely have guessed you'd try to use Jessy-Anne's son against me, at last! What you wanted from my only nephew, from my sister's only survivin' child HAD NOTHIN' I SAY, NOTHIN' WHATEVER TO DO WITH SAM GRANT OR HIS YANKEE GOVERNMENT, NO NOTHIN' AT ALL! It was always that broken woman-child's two uncles who wanted a very political sort of revenge for their dead. It was always Stephan Aynsley and Reinhard-Peder Branoch who sought Grant's life in retribution for young Liesl's tragic descent into deplorable madness. You wanted something entirely separate. You wanted my only nephew to come to me, having been driven more than half mad by your games, your lies and your horrible, excreable deeds against him half of his life! You
only wanted Torry to come to me at some point after Aynsley's IMPOSSIBLE vengeance came to be, and for my nephew
to 'WIPE OUT MY GREAT SHAME, MY HORRID DISGRACE, AND ALL OF MY TREASONABLE FAILURES, IN HIS OWN LIFE'S BLOOD'!"
"The boy told you that?"Boudin demanded, finally sounding as if he were actually caught off guard. "Torry actually told you I said those words?"
"Why do you ask me that now, old friend? Why now? Have you somehow forgotten how often you used just such phrasing, just those words in fact when we used to talk of how the ancient worlds we revered might have been restored to life.
Nevertheless, I will answer you. Yes, my dearest sister's cherished only son told me that was precisely what you charged him with doing, nearly four years after your damnable plot against Grant finally crumbled and died. And as I say, I should have known all along what you meant to do to me through that boy! I should have known you would use my own flesh and blood to break this old heart. Well insofar as that oldest and cruelest wish of yours, you'll be delighted to know, Remy that you have entirely succeeded at long last." Jimmy replied, as quiet now as he'd been loud before.
"Have I, Jimmy? Have I finally returned favor for favor after nearly fifty three long years?" Boudin asked, almost in a whisper.
"That you have. I must congratulate you on your perseverance, old friend." Randolph whispered. "Now listen to me. Listen to me once more Remy, because I'm nearly done with you, now."
"Done with me now? Are you indeed, old man?" Boudin scoffed, only to find Jimmy standing up to glare at him eye to eye.
"You will grant me the kindness of a last few moment's full attention now, Gideon Boudin. You shall do that, or I shall certainly see you dead on this cellar floor before anyone above us can move or think or act to stop my old hand!" Jimmy snarled. Wide eyed at this display of vigor, Boudin only nodded his head.
" Very well. Very well. I am starting with something you just now said to me, something I knew in some dark corner and
hid from for a long time. I did not wish to acknowledge that I opened my life, my home and my family to your eternally questing, inexorably corrupting essential being. I did not wish to understand that I allowed your toxic presence to damage
a child I love as much as my own. And I surely never wanted to realize that someone I first knew as a seemingly innocent boy came to my own mother's home with his sole purpose being to tear it apart! But I know it now, for certain, Remy because of what you just said: And when the time came to create our Courier at long last, I made fine use of everything you'd ever told me about the boy.
And so you did, so you did. Whenever I reported one of Torry's accomplishments, you demanded to know every single detail. Whenever I boasted of his brightness, his resourceful courage, or his increasing influence in the places of power,
you insisted on hearing every iota I'd heard. And finally, Remy, when I shared the good news that my nephew had done
us all proud, taking on a special advisor's role to Sam Grant, you prodded and probed until you'd learned all there was to learn of his new posting.
But in all these years, Remy, in all this time, I hid the source of your interest from my weary old brain and my sad old
heart. So … when I told you about my nephew's life, when I shared the boy's sorrows and joys, when I spoke of the child's fondest dreams and great hopes, I NEVER ONCE UNDERSTOOD YOU WOULD TURN ALL THAT AGAINST HIM! I NEVER ONCE UNDERSTOOD THAT YOU HAD ALREADY USED THAT FRIENDLY, HAPPY, INNOCENT, LOVING CHILD AS SOME KIND OF …
No, no, no, Great G-d! I can't even think of that, much less say the words." Jimmy broke down in sobs, his face in his
long, weathered hands.
And now Boudin got yet another shock, as Jimmy Randolph seemed to walk out of the shadows across the room and stand next to himself, patting the sobbing man on his back, murmuring to him, and alternately, hugging him close. When the sitting, weeping man quieted somewhat and sat back down, the man standing up raised one hand to his face and slowly, astonishingly pulled off a full face theatrical mask and the grey wig he'd worn.
"What… Jim… Torry?" Boudin exclaimed, as Jim West revealed himself to the Georgian's astonished gaze. He wore no bandages across his eyes, he wore no green visor over his brow. He was dressed for the party in a dark green wool and
silk suit, a brocaded satin vest whose lighter shade of green made a fine compliment with his blind, bright green eyes, and
a cream colored shirt with a self-fabric ascot, all in the latest fashion.
"But, Torry, this can't be… you are… bedridden, you… could hardly sit up, you could hardly move…Why, you seemed about to expire in the next instant, dear boy!"
"We're all of us about to expire… some day. Aren't we, Remy?" Jim smiled sadly, and turned back to his uncle. "But not tonight. Not tonight. Tonight, I want you to leave immediately, in the company of my friend Captain Sean Oriel Liam Hoynes and my other friends Doctor Tobias Jeremy Pike and Major Benjamin Franklin Harper. Gentlemen, if you'll be
good enough to show the prisoner where you've been listening with me, to his confession to treason, please. And then
show him to the holding cell you've set up for just that purpose."
At this cue, Ori walked in from the hallway, while Jeremy and Frank walked out of the same corner Jim emerged from minutes ago. The three newcomers moved just close enough to Jim and his uncle to keep Boudin at arm's length from them, and just close enough to Boudin to trip him up if he tried to bolt.
"Torry, whatever are you referring to now?" Boudin demanded, but his tone and his manner was shaken. "What is this talk of prisoners and confessions, of treason or of cells? I can't quite grasp your meaning, my dearest boy."
"Stop lying! Just stop lying finally, can't you?" Jim snarled, still turned towards his uncle and away from Boudin. "Jimmy was right. He was purely right about you when he told me you'll actually lie when the truth would serve you much better. And my uncle Jimmy was right again when he told us you'd admit things in his hearing, you'd confess to past words and actions when you believed you were alone here with 'an old friend' that you'd never admit to, anywhere else!
And you did, even while you were trying to implicate Jimmy further in your damn all Courier conspiracy. And so I have to thank you for offering up so much straightforward information on this case, possibly for the first and only time in your whole life. But you and I have nothing more to say to each other, at least not till we're both in a Federal courtroom, old
man! And in case you really are that blind and heedless, I can't spare you any more time or attention right now. Jimmy needs me. He's not at all well."
"Torry, dearest boy, I greatly fear it's you who's unwell. Indeed, you seem to be seriously deluded. I regret pointing this out, but Jimmy's not truly here now. He's been dead for nearly a month. Indeed, in all likelihood I am only dreaming all of you, albeit rather vividly, just now." The Georgian insisted.
"You're having quite a lot of trouble discerning how people are tonight, aren't you. Remy?" Jim asked, with the ghost of
a smile on his face. "I'm not dying, not yet. And Jimmy's sitting right here beside me. And he's absolutely not dead. So I guess I need to clear a few more things up with you, after all. Ori, will you go on ahead and take Jimmy upstairs in the lift? Jacques and Ani and Jemmy are all up in the guest house by now, to keep an eye on him for awhile."
"Surely, Jim." Ori agreed, as Jim bent over his uncle's shoulder to speak privately.
"Jimmy, it seems like I need to have another chat with Remy right now, after all. You know how impatient the old bastard gets when he thinks he's being ignored. And this time he's perfectly correct. So, he just might blow that gasket you were worried about, before. And then where would the fun in all this be?"
"That's so, Torry. That's nothin' but true. The boy has no idea of how to keep a hold on his temper. None. It's somethin' I failed to impart to him, I suppose." Jimmy nodded. Then he looked up at Jim and sighed. "Torry, I suppose you know now just how badly I've let you down…"
"You never have, never onct." Jim insisted, and turned towards the doorway as Ori Hoynes stepped in. "I'm proud as hell to be your nephew, more than ever, right now. Ori, take this very dear, and very stubborn old gentleman up to the doctor-team. And don't let him try to fool you that he's okay now, cause he surely will."
"Must run in the family, then." Ori laughed. "Mr. Randolph, I'm glad to meet you again. But it looks like we have to leave this party for a time. Will you come with me, sir? My twins, Mac and Gordy, and their little sister Lissy are upstairs, dearly wishing to hear more of your stories."
"Why, I'd be delighted, Captain Hoynes, just delighted." Jimmy agreed. "But who… Torry, you're not seriously considering staying down here on your lonesome with that old Georgia water-moccasin now?"
"Even if he was that reckless, Mr. Randolph." Frank Harper said, "we wouldn't allow it. We've learned our lesson, you see, where Jim's love of grandstanding is concerned."
"Oh, great. Great. Thanks, fellows. Thanks a lot." Jim complained, but with a definite light tone of voice.
"Oh no problem, friend." Jeremy laughed. "No problem at all. Don't mention it, Jim."
"Don't worry. I won't." Jim grimaced. "I'll … well, I'll talk with you soon as I can, Uncle. You did really a superb job down here tonight. You did fine."
"Well, thank you for that, nephew. Just you take care." Jimmy said and leaning on Ori's strong right arm, he walked out of the room.
"I will. I promise." Jim said and turned back towards the last place he'd heard Boudin's voice.
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"Well, as I indicated, Torry, I had quite another impression of your health and well being, just a short time ago." Boudin noted, and started to move towards the door. "And in fact, I was told there was a good chance of improvement in your vision. However, the latter seems to have been yet another… unfortunate misapprehension on my part.
"You can stop that right now, Remy. I'm still stone blind. But on the other hand, I'm still not deaf." Jim shrugged. "And if
I were, Jere or Frank here could still drop you faster than you could say, BobbieLee-JEB-Stuart-and-StonewallJackson-all-out-on-a-tear."
"Well your disrespect for our Beloved Southron Heros has certainly not diminished with time, has it, my boy?" The Georgian replied.
"You forgot to call them Our Gloriously Honored, Tragically Martyred Confederate Dead." Jim answered. "What's wrong, Remy, are you just worn down or are you finally used up?"
"Nothing of the kind, dearest boy. In fact I'm feeling quite restored at the sight of you looking so well. Indeed, I can hardly credit why Jimmy would have said you were 'almost on your last legs'." Boudin said.
"Maybe because it suited my purpose for awhile tonight to have you think just that. Remy, hasn't it ever occured to you that I might have learned some of your mental games after all these years?" Jim asked. Well, that's not very flattering to me, now is it? I wasn't last in my class at the Point, after all. That was George Custer, I was twelfth out of forty five."
"Yes, yes, of course. And then, can I happily assume there is in fact, nothing the matter with your young heart?"Boudin asked in turn.
"Well, no actually that part is … partly true. I've had a heart murmur since I was … oh, eight and a half, following a bout of rheumatic fever, following a bad bout of scarlet fever that spring. And after that I worked twice as hard to be healthy… So, I can't say that it's ever given me much trouble… Well, there have been a few incidents of discomfort… That only seems to happen when I'm worn out." Jim answered. This statement raised a pair of polite coughs from his partners, at which Jim grinned and shrugged once more.
"Torry, as I said, it's quite delightful to see you so well. However, if you have no further need of me just now, I should really be on my way." The Georgian suggested.
"No, no, you really shouldn't." Jim shook his head with a taut smile. "You really should wait here with the rest of us, at least a while longer."
"And why would you suggest waiting in this dreary place?" Boudin asked, not hiding his distaste.
"Well, that would probably be for the same reason you first came down here, yourself, Boudin." Jeremy answered. "We were, as you might say, invited."
"Now you're simply being absurd, Mr. Pike, in some vague hope of causing me some dim concern." The Georgian insisted, while he suppressed a shudder. He'd come down here, after all on the 'invitation' of Stephan Johannes Sebastian Aynsley, or of his immortal spirit. "And in future I would much prefer it if you would address me as Mr. Boudin, or 'sir', or in some way that connotes the proper degree of respect for the differences in our age and social station."
Jeremy broke up laughing and Jim was soon chortling right along with him, albeit a little hysterically. It was already a long night for them all. Frank managed to hold back his natural urge to guffaw loudly at the Georgia elitist and simply rolled his eyes.
"Mr. Boudin, sir." Frank replied, when he was sure he could maintain some kind of decorum. "In future I'd much prefer it sir, if you would address my friend and partner as Doctor Pike, or 'Doctor', since he worked pretty hard to get those two little letters after his name."
"Oh, indeed?" Boudin scoffed. "Did he apprentice with a barber surgeon somewhere out on the prairies, or learn his trade like so many others seem to have done, in a butcher's shop, perchance?"
"Gideon, Gideon, old friend, is that still your true opinion of all physicians?" A vibrant, powerful, Austrian accented voice asked, from the open doorway of the next chamber. "I would have hoped you'd finally had enough experience of my fellows to give us higher marks, as a group."
Boudin turned, and went rigid, emitting something very much like a squeak. Framed in that doorway less than three yards away the speaker was a man of middle years, with thick, collar length dark hair, streaked through with silver, aristocratic, even aquiline features, a heavy brow arching over a pair of wide, clear dark eyes, a strong neck, and powerful shoulders. He wore a linen duster similar to what many physicians and researchers in Europe had adopted, over an elegant silk shirt and cashmere suit.
"This… this… this… is merely … merely… another… another… rather unpleasantly … vivid dream!" Boudin shakily announced. "You … You … you and Jimmy are both quite, quite dead."
'' You're lying, Gideon. Or you are the one who's seriously deluded here. And knowing you, old friend, the chance of either possibility being true is really quite high. However, I am certainly alive, and so is James. We just now exchanged the pleasantries of long time friends, as he entered the lift." The newcomer who very much resembled Stephan Johannes Aynsley calmly replied.
"Long time friends? You are an utter dolt! Jimmy told me not half an hour since that he still considers you to be a great fool!"Boudin shouted, not seeming to grasp that he'd just contradicted himself.
"Gideon, not half an hour… My old friend, are you saying that you were speaking with James Randolph less than half an hour ago? Well that is remarkable indeed. My information was that the old gentleman recently expired after a long siege with cancer of the liver. And I thought you had only just said…" The apparent native of Vienna contradicted himself, only to be cut off.
"Jimmy is alive and well in my memory, Stephan, old friend. Indeed it was you I thought dead and gone, some four years ago. It was you I thought took your own life, when your theories, your methods and your damnable patternings all were disproved, once and for all. Wherever have you been keeping yourself?" The Georgian asked, looking more confused by the moment.
'' Various places, Gideon. Various places, just here and there." the man Boudin called Stephan Aynsley responded with a shrug. "And you used to be so much better at keeping track of your friends, not to mention those who had been your friends. How is it you had no idea I survived the fire at my home?"
"Perchance because merely by surveying the scene afterwards I knew no living being could have escaped from that blaze, much less from the lethal explosions that emanated from your attic laboratory, my old friend! No, no, you are either a fraud, perpetrated by the interference of these damned Yankee fools, in which case they've done quite a bad job. Anyone who got out of those explosions alive would be both crippled and scarred. And if you are not a Unionist Tool, then surely you are as incorporeal as your dear, departed demented niece!" Boudin scoffed.
"Ooops! Crippled AND scarred? Well, I'd say he's got us on that one, friends. Sorry, James, m'boy, it was worth a shot." The man in the doorway laughed, with no accent at all. Then he pulled off a mask similar to the one Jim West discarded, revealing himself to be Artemus Gordon, in the flesh.
"Figure we shouldn't have tried two in one night, huh, Artie?" Jim shrugged. "Oh, no, no, we had three altogether, or was it four? Guess we did have ol' Remy dangling pretty well there for a while, didn't we?"
"Oh, we had him badly shaken, I can tell you that. And the full count, let me see, now… There was good ol' Doc Rutledge from up to Charleston, there was Jemmy downstairs with that bothersome green visor, and then you upstairs with that scene from Camille AND bandages as thick as my thumb on both eyes." Artie chortled.
"Oh, and of course there was me… if that was me, upstairs, spoiling for a fight with Boudin here, and you down here again, complete with a mask to look just like your uncle, at least in the light of a single lantern. That's five, with my bad audition as Aynsley making number six. Well, you can't win them all, as my Aunt Miri would always say."
"Guess you don't look that much like Stephan, after all, Partner." Jim sympathized. "I surely thought you had his accent down cold."
"You are all mad as hatters! All of you, mad!" Boudin shouted, and made a rush for the other door. Unfortunately for him, Frank Harper was precisely as a good a shot with his old Navy Colt as Jim had predicted, and shot the Georgian in his long, thin right leg.
"G-d! G-d help me, I am murdered! I am murdered in this horrible dungeon!" Boudin cried out, as he sprawled on the floor.
Jeremy hurried over and with Frank's aid, turned their prisoner over, face up. "I'm murdered, I tell you! I am assassinated, with out so much as an arraignment or discussion of bail, without any indictment brought against me, not even a Grand Jury empanelled to hear my case!"
"Well, no, actually, you're not." Jeremy disagreed. "You've got Frank's shot that went clean through your right shinbone, that's all. Maybe next time you'll listen when Jim West calls someone else a good shot. And besides, I'm one heck of a fine doctor, whether you believe that or not."
"Yeah he is. All the same, maybe you shouldn't tell him you were one of the doctors on the search for John Wilkes Booth a few years back, Jere." Artie quipped.
"Hush, those wild stories have nothing to do with what really happened." Jeremy chuckled in turn. "Well, friends, I think we should get Mr. Boudin to a cleaner, quieter place so I can treat his leg, even though he never did anything like that for poor wretches he kept locked up, some of them ten years or more up in Lord Baltimore's City."
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