The Way of the Mississippi/Chapter 1

PALE blue shanty boat eddied down Muskrat Bend and drifted the mud  against the mud bar just below Mendova. There it was held by the bottom for a day before any one noticed. Then the Sneak, a semicruiser belonging to the city police department swung down into the eddy, and Tappan, at the wheel, noticed that the shanty boat was neither moored to stakes nor anchored offshore.

When he entered the boat, as he did after hailing it, and not receiving an answer, he found lying on the bunk a dead man. The body was stark and cold, for murder had been done. Some one had shot the victim while he was sound asleep, apparently, through a window opposite the bunk.

Tappan knew the Mississippi as well as any one. He not only had the river police experience, but he had been third mate on a river steamer for years, and previous to that, he had been a rafter and towboat hand, and as a boy and young man he had lived on shanty boats with his father, an old river storeboater and fur buyer. He knew the river signs with any of them.

With his whistle, Tappan summoned Policeman Daker, who patrolled Front Street, from the near side of which Mendova Wharf was paved down to the current, and part of the paving was covered by the advancing mud bar of the point above town. Daker came running across the baked mud and with Tappan, made as close an examination of the shanty boat premises as possible, in order to learn what they could about the circumstances and also to ascertain the identity of the victim. Evidently everything had been taken which would help serve this purpose, indicating a robbery motive.

There was nothing in the boat to disclose any secrets. There was no scrap of new paper, not a bit of pencil writing on walls or in notebook, no photographs of girls or men. But a banjo standing in a corner was interesting. It was a small instrument, yet beautiful in make and tone, as Tappan found when he picked a bar of "Trip Me Down the River," finding the strings almost in perfect tune.

Tappen examined the fingers of the corpse, but there was no least mark on the tips to show that the victim was the banjo player. This fact led Tappan to scrutinize the instrument much more closely—but no name was written on the head, nor scratched on the rim or neck.

The victim of the murder was five feet, eight inches tall, with dark, wavy hair, dark complexion, dark brown eyes, of slender build and with no mark of real labor in his appearance. His clothes were all good, his coat and waistcoat hanging on a hook over the hunk, his trousers lying on a. chair, neatly folded to preserve the creases, and a shirt that must have cost at least twelve dollars was lying over the back of the chair.

In the waistcoat pocket was a thin, expensive watch: in the trouser pocket was some small change; two or three manicure tools were in a case, and the whole boat was permeated with a rather strong perfume, like musk in its weight, but floral rather than animal in its composition. Tappan sniffed this perfume over and over again, and added it to his memories.

The dead truck was sent for, and the body removed to the morgue: The evening Battle-Ax voiced the general impression that  this was one of the unsolvable mysteries that are the peculiar type of the Mississippi from Cairo to the Passess—a river mystery which the Father of Waters would avenge in its own way.

Tappan, being a mere policeman, resigned the case to the city detective force, and finger-print experts photographed the stove lid handle, the pearl pocket knife blade, and a dozen other features that might show something on comparison with the collection of finger prints in the Bertillon Laboratory. But these revealed only prints of the victim's own fingers and thumbs.

There was in the kitchen, or galley, of the little boat plenty of material for the microscopic and photomicrography amusement and practice of the various department experts. It was noticeable that the man had black tea, as well as a fifty-five cent grade of coffee: he was stocked up with supplies for a long trip down the river, including a sack of flour in a moisture-proof tin can, good quality bacon and ham, a jar of sugar, jug of sorghum, and various things to eat. The detectives told what a lot of things they deduced from the various edibles and the appearance of the host. Tappan was not quoted at all.

But Tappan knew a good many things which his up-the-bank detective associates had overlooked. The hickory nuts in the bow hold were from the Columbus hickories; the boat was a beautifully built craft, with planed stringers., tongue-and~groove planking, roofing with matched board lining. and five by five inch timber for oar pins and mooring heads. The long sweeps for rowing the boat were beautifully balanced. and the hull, which was twenty-four feet long and seven feet wide, rowed like a skiff.

The shanty boat was such a one as an old shanty boater would be apt to build. It had been carefully constructed, and there was not a drop of water in the hull, and the cabin was almost perfectly dust-tight—it could lie down the lee of a mile-long sand bar and the wind of a norther would hardly blow puffs of dirt through any crack or seam.

For several days the detectives worked up and down the water front and had Tappan take them up the river for miles, trying to find some one who had seen the boat, but the shanty boaters, fishermen, drifters and others up the bends and along the banks all denied any knowledge whatever of the boat. Two or three hundred people went to the morgue and viewed the victim. but not one betrayed any personal interest in the matter.

The autopsy revealed what post mortem operation usually do reveal in such affairs: the bullet had taken a certain course through sundry and divers wonderfully named parts, organs and cavities, and had lodged under the skin in the back, showing, as the coroner said, that the murderer had evidently stood over his victim and fired straight down into the sleeping man, but because the coroner and doctors said this, Tappan began to wonder if it were true.

The pale blue shanty boat was towed by the Sneak up into Fox River, and moored in the Wild Goose Nest, so called. This was a bend of Fox River, opposite Runway Street, where some willows and brush grew along the bank. Here many shanty boaters of a particular type landed in and pulled out from time to time. Few places were of more evil repute from the Missouri River forks to the Gulf of Mexico than the Wild Goose Nest. Above Ferry Street landing, however, was the Duck’s Nest, where perfectly reputable shanty boaters and sporting river trippers landed in.

The police department, having learned all there was to be found out about the shanty boat, which was absolutely nothing, and having photographed, measured and scrutinized it, turned the craft over to the custodian of city property, and about the time the body was turned over to the medical students the boat was offered for sale, since it was a nuisance to take care of it and an expense to have it watched. The ferryman, Jim Purple, consented to be the boat’s guardian, provided he didn’t have to touch it, or go aboard it

For nearly a month the Battle-Ax carried an advertisement that read;

No price was fixed, for it was felt that any price would be acceptable, though in ordinary circumstances the craft would have been worth five hundred to five hundred and fifty dollars, considering the outfit, supplies and all. But there was no bidder till after the story of the murder mystery had ceased to appear in even the Police Hints, where four lines was the maximum length.

Tappan continued to listen on the shanty boats for some stray river rumor that might help him. He would go to the boats of newcomers, and with the casual, uninquiring river manner, discourse on the stage of the water and the luck of the hunters—all the other things that are unleading questions for any one to speak about, and because he was a river man himself Tappan had many friends among the river people, and the pirates, river rats, and even some kinds of fugitives knew that he demanded only strict observance of Mendova's ordinances along the river front, but no one added anything to the things which he already knew about the dead man.

Then he had an interesting fact to report to the custodian of city property. Happening to be on Fox River at the ferry one day he found a young man standing on Pixie's float, looking up and down with wide-eyed interest. Tappan landed against the float, quite as though that had been his intention, and seeing his uniform, the young man walked up to him eagerly, asking:

"Isn’t the life in these house boats wonderful?"

"Yes, sir," Tappan replied, gravely and with sincerity. "There’s nothing more wonderful down thisaway than shanty boating."

"That’s just what I thought! My name is Toskin—Jerald Toskin. I am from New York, but this winter I said to myself that I would not endure the cold. My art course is ended, and I am coming down the Mississippi. I—ah—do you happen to know whether it is possible to purchase a house boat down here?"

"Why, yes—sometimes!" Tappan nodded, and his eyes turned down the bank of the Fox to where he saw the pale blue boat. "There’s one for sale now. It’s a nice tight boat, not too large, but just right for comfort."

"That blue boat is for sale?" Toskin cried eagerly. "Really? Why, it’s a perfect beauty! Did you ever see anything so appropriate for such a river bank as that house boat?"

"It kind of fits into the sceneries, for a fact," Tappan said.

"Who’d sell it?"

"Why—er—it’s city property; it belonged to a man who—well, he's through with it, and the city custodian has it in charge now."

"Where'll I find the city custodian?"

"I'm his representative, in a way; this is my beat—Fox River, and the Mendova water front; that's the police launch."

"Well, I want that boat. How much is it?"

"It didn't cost less than five hundred and fifty dollars to build and outfit it; it's for sale for seventy-five dollars cash."

"I'll take it! I'll pay you now?"

"Yes, sir—I'll give you a receipt, too," Tappan answered.

Toskin drew a billfold and handed Tappan a fifty, a twenty, and a five dollar bill. Tappan wrote out a receipt, and then took the young man and his suit case down to the boat. Tappan unlocked the door and they entered. The cabin, despite all that had been on board and the investigations, still was permeated with the perfume.

"Why, that's blended attars!" Toskin sniffed. "Isn't it lovely! Did it—was it a woman's?"

"Not as anybody knows of." Tappan shook his head. "Just some shanty boater who dropped in, and—and got his."

"It's just what I've been dreaming about!" Toskin cried. "I'm delighted! You see, Mr. Tappan, I've just finished an art course in New York. For years and years I've longed for the day when I should be able to float with the current down the Mississippi River. There are possibilities down here for an artist—there's an atmosphere, a spirit, which if I could only catch and fix it—um-m! I've been, mostly, an illustrator. I earned considerable in the advertising fields. Now—a dream I've had is come true!"

"Yes, sir, I expect." Tappan nodded. "It's a nice boat!"

"I have some things at the Union Station, and I'll have them brought down here—"

"I'll get them for you," Tappan said, "if they're checked—"

"That 'd be very kind! Here they are—sir."

Tappan left the man on the shanty boat and went to the landing, where he telephoned to the Union Station, giving the numbers of the checks, and within twenty minutes an express truck arrived with three trunks. Tappan was unusually generous in the matter; the fact was, he didn't want Toskin hiring a darky express drayman to bring trunks to that shanty boat, around which there had already grown up a tradition.

Putting the trunks onto the Sneak, he dropped down to the boat and handed them onto the stern deck. Toskin dragged them through the galley into the main cabin easily, despite their weight. He was a slender, graceful young man, with a pallid countenance, nervous energy and gray-green eyes of large and emerald luster. Tappan observed the strong reaction of the trunks to the energetic grip—here was a healthy youth, as well as a temperamental one.

Tappan showed the boat's fine points with river pride. There was as well found a galley-kitchen-pantry as ever floated old Mississip', he explained, and he showed the oil stove, the stores of supplies, the tableware and the built-in sleeping car berth, or bunk. From this had been removed all the bedding, but otherwise, Tappan said, it was the finest kind of an outfit

"Probably they took the bedding for something or other," Tappan remarked, and Toskin said it didn't matter, for he very much preferred to supply his own bedding. He went with Tappan uptown, bought a mattress, sheets, blankets, and everything he needed, including fresh food supplies.

Within three hours of his arrival at Ferry Street, Jerald Toskin was housed and equipped, and so great was his joy that he cast off the lines and floated slowly down Fox River toward the Mississippi, with the Sneak a little way behind, and Tappan scowling and making covert gestures toward the shanty boaters of both the Duck's Nest and Wild Goose Nest localities, who had come forth to see Policeman Tappan's sale of that murder boat to the softpaw who had three trunks with him!

And they saw the little craft emerge from the bayou river into the broad Mississippi, turn half around in the swirl and then edge out into the main current where Tappan held back, leaving the stranger to row with his sweeps down into the long, lonely bends of the Delta land.

"Ho, law! I wouldn't be in that theh softpaw’s shoes, not fo' seven millyun dollars!” Jim Purple voiced the river sentiment, tentatively, when Tappan returned up Fox to hear what people would say.

"He'll get to know old Mississip'—that's what he wants!" Tappan grinned.