THE MARDI GRAS
MYSTERY

"'You frightened me, holy man!' she cried gaily. 'Confess to you, indeed! Not I.'"

THE MARDI GRAS
MYSTERY

BY

H. BEDFORD-JONES

FRONTISPIECE

BY

JOHN NEWTON HOWITT

garden city, n. y., and toronto

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

1921

COPYRIGHT, 1920, 1921, BY

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION

INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

• Carnival 3
• Masquers 21
• The Bandit 38
• Callers 58
• The Masquer Unmasks 82
• Chacherre 107
• In the Open 125
• Comus 143
• On the Bayou 169
• Murder 190
• The Gangsters 209
• The Ultimatum 228
• The Coin Falls Heads 249
• Chacherre's Bundle 262
• When the Heavens Fall 280
• The Impregnability of Mr. Fell 299
• Mi-Carême 310

THE MARDI GRAS
MYSTERY

THE MARDI GRAS MYSTERY

CHAPTER I

Carnival

JACHIN FELL pushed aside the glass curtains between the voluminous over-draperies in the windows of the Chess and Checkers Club, and gazed out upon the riotous streets of New Orleans. Half an hour he had been waiting here in the lounge room for Dr. Cyril Ansley, a middle-aged bachelor who had practised in Opelousas for twenty years, and who had come to the city for the Mardi Gras festivities. Another man might have seemed irritated by the wait, but Jachin Fell was quite unruffled.

He had much the air of a clerk. His features were thin and unremarkable; his pale eyes constantly wore an expression of wondering aloofness, as though he saw around him much that he vainly tried to understand. In his entire manner was a shy reticence. He was no clerk, however, this was evident from his attire. He was garbed from head to foot in soberly blending shades of gray whose richness was notable only at close view. One fancied him a very precise sort of man, an old maid of the wrong sex.

Doctor Ansley, an Inverness flung over his evening clothes, entered the lounge room, and Fell turned to him with a dry, toneless chuckle.

"You're the limit! Did you forget we were going to the Maillards' to-night?"

Ansley appeared vexed and irritated. "Confound it, Fell!" he exclaimed. "I've been all over town looking for El Reys. Caught in a crowd—no El Reys yet!"

Again Fell uttered his toneless chuckle. His voice was absolutely level, unmarked by any change of inflection.

"My dear fellow, there are only three places in the city that can afford to carry El Reys in these parlous times! This club, however, happens to be one of the three. Here, sit down and forget your troubles