Ch.16b Hebert House

[Philulhu]

Friday March 13th, 1931 4.30pm
Hebert House, Middle Ridge Road, Johnson Bayou, Cameron Parish, Louisiana

Mr Halpert’s butler, Richard had been good enough to drop Alex and Ivy back at Mrs Hebert’s house, where they found Lawrence and William sat in her lounge, a tastefully-decorated room with an upright piano tucked into the corner, away from the large picture window that looked out onto the fields behind her house.

A steaming pot of coffee and a plate of cookies sat on a low table in front of the settee where Lawrence and William were sat. Mrs Hebert fetched two more cups for Alex and Ivy and left them, saying that dinner would be served at 5.30pm.

[Silver Priest]

"Good evening gentleman," Alex says, taking a cookie. "How did your expedition go?"

He lowers his voice. "Our own discovered little. There's tension between the townsfolk and oil workers, but nothing truly strange seems to have been noticed by them."

[jp1885]

"The oil company foreman was particularly unhelpful," huffs Ivy. "I lay our singular lack of success in accessing the site squarely at his feet. He has clashed with local landowner Halpert, who was helpful enough, if somewhat vain and not a little irascible with his staff."

"He has an English butler, Richard, who seems efficient, and there is a preacher called Litton: an excitable, nay, puritanical figure who ministers to Halpert's cotton pickers."

"While Halpert and Litton both pledged their assistance, I doubt they will be of much use. We detected no trace of serpent-worship, nor anything else out of the ordinary."

She jams a cookie into her mouth and masticates furiously.

[Mr. Handy]

"We've found some intriguing leads," says William, "but no solid proof yet. We talked to one of the sharecroppers, a man named Jacob, and asked him about the locals. Halpert gives them a lot of work and pays them for it, but I get the sense that not everything is happy there. The system they've got set up here seems like slavery under another name. Nobody else will hire Halpert's employees, especially with jobs scarce these days, and they have nowhere else to go. We asked him to arrange a meeting with Preacher Litton. Nashoba was every bit as interesting as I thought he'd be. We bought him lunch, or maybe brunch, and got him to open up about the plight of his people. They're still planning to fight back against the injustices, and he has a clever plan, but he wouldn't tell us or accept my offer of assistance. The only hint he gave us was to wait until it gets dark. We followed him discreetly back to his home, so we know where that is now."

[Silver Priest]

"Mr. Happert seems as sadly prejudiced as many of his kin," Alex admits. "I don't imagine the workers are all that well treated. Which may make them prime targets for recruitment. Did Nashoba offer to meet with you again, or did he just indicate something would happen tonight? I confess I'm a bit alarmed by his words-- if he's planning something, the fact that he's doing it now could mean he's in cahoots with Nyatanga."

[Mr. Handy]

"No, he didn't offer, he just left," says William. "He did say that we'll see soon enough, and that everyone will be talking about the damage the oilmen are doing. If Lawrence and I show up at his home this evening, he'll recognize us, but he hasn't met the two of you yet."

[Bullfrog]

"I don't know if it was a warning or a threat, but it reminded me of the first time this happened- I'm not really sure what he's doing, but it's about the same time, at a similar enough place, for the very same reason. The time is an important thing, I remember, because the stars have to be right; I learned that from Nyatanga himself." Lawrence vaguely remarks, gazing into the dark surface of a slowly-cooling cup of coffee; he is reminded of the night sky, of blood in his eyes, and thick smoke rising over an isolated road as somebody burns. God, just one more time.
"Some of us are going to have to go to church this evening, and some of us are going to have to make a social call. I don't want to leave either of these things untended to."

[Silver Priest]

The detective frowns."If you feel reasonably certain that Nashoba is in on this and he's trying to conduct the same ritual you saw before, I don't think we can waste time with anything else. It seems clear he's planning something tonight. And I'm not about to let one of these rituals be conducted again. We saw what happened back in France when we failed to stop them."

"I think we need to interrogate Nashoba at once and put all our cards on the table. Mention Nyatanga and determine if he knows him and is working with him. We can send a quick message to the church apologizing for missing the service in lieu of following up another lead, but I don't think we can risk a split in our party at present."

[Mr. Handy]

"But I can't be reasonably certain," says William. "I couldn't prove it in a court of law. We may need to split our forces just in case, and Nashoba has already seen Lawrence and me. Of course, so have Nyatanga's followers, so if they show up at the church tonight, they'll see us there too unless we hide in the vestry."

[jp1885]

“We know something is wrong at the church with some certainty.” says Ivy. “That snake carving definitely moved under my touch.”

“Can you be as certain about Nashoba? This plan of his could simply be some sort of protest. Is this a case of a bird in the hand being worse two in the bush?”

[Mr. Handy]

"I can't," says William. "We need to cover both leads."

[Silver Priest]

"There's only four of us," Alex argues. "What if we surveil Nashoba and determine he is planning some sort of ritual this evening? We may be unable to stop him if we split up, and there may be no time to summon additional help. Is there really any reason to think the church will reveal anything to us tonight? It strikes me as unlikely that anything will occur there on this particular evening. Perhaps we could ask Father Ortega to keep an eye out for whomever is sitting in that spot."

"I have to admit however that ideally we'd be able to find this out for ourselves and investigate the suspect further. Perhaps the best option would be to send one person to the church while the rest of us surveil Nashoba. I don't feel good about splitting our group at all, but I'd rather we have more eyes on the chief. His words strike me as rather ominous.

"However, we're a democracy. If the rest of you want an even split I will concede."

[Mr. Handy]

"I also don't like the idea of anyone going anywhere alone, not with Nyatanga and his followers afoot," says William. "If we're going to split up, it should be in pairs. It also may not be enough for the priests to tell us who sits on that seat. There's no substitute for seeing someone for yourself - not to mention following him to see where he goes."

[jp1885]

"I certainly have no intention of striking off alone again," says Ivy, her hand involuntarily touching her head. "On reflection, perhaps we should focus our attention on Nashoba. If he's mixed up with Nyatanga and going to try something, it's likely whoever carved that snake will be with him, not at church. If not, we might miss them at church, but there will be other services and perhaps a church social or somesuch might draw them out?"

[Philulhu]

So, what’s your plan?

[Mr. Handy]

"But what if the delay should prove fatal?" asks William. "The next services at the church are on Sunday, but we might not have two days to wait. We need to follow all the leads we have now. I think our best plan is for you and Alex to follow up on Nashoba. Even if he becomes suspicious of you, Lawrence and I are not associated with you, and he may still see us as sympathetic to him. We don't want to alienate him at this point whether he's working with Nyatanga or not. The two of us can attend church tonight and see who sits there."

[Silver Priest]

"We appear to be at an impasse. Lawrence, what are your thoughts?"

[Bullfrog]

"Hell, I'm not a smart man. I work on a damn farm when I'm not doing this." Lawrence admits. "I don't know much about how these things work, but I know more-" He shudders, briefly glassy-eyed. "More than any of you do, and it isn't good. Maybe, just maybe, we can time this. Service is at six thirty- I think if Nashoba gets up to anything, it's going to be later than that. So, me and William can go to church--and God knows I need it--and our married couple can go see the chief. Once us churchgoers get a good look at our carver, we can leave and keep an eye on Ivy and Reynolds from a distance to make sure that they don't get into any trouble. Does this work?"

[jp1885]

Ivy nods “That’s an excellent compromise.”

“It might seem a little suspicious: another pair of strangers turning up so soon after the first pair, but if confronted we could say we bumped into you and, as journalists, were naturally intrigued by your account of the earlier meeting.”

[Philulhu]

Alex & Ivy go here: Night Moves

Lawrence & William go here: The House of God