“And serve rations,” Florence finished for him with a laugh.
Florence was a good cook. Tum was a good eater, and, if the truth must be told, so was Florence. The quantities of food consumed there by the fire was nothing short of scandalous. But then, who was there to complain?
“Well—” Florence settled back in her big chair at last. “The enemy marched on us tonight. Tomorrow we shall march on the enemy. I’ll hunt up Patrick Moriarity. He’ll call in a police squad. We’ll raid Madame Zaran’s place. Yes, and we’ll call on the voodoo priestess as well.”
“The voodoo priestess and Madame Zaran—are they friends?” Tum asked in surprise.
“Far from that.” Florence sat up in her chair. “They’re the bitterest enemies. You see, they’re both engaged in the same crooked game. Each hoped to reap a rich harvest from June Travis’ innocence.”
“How did you find out all that?” Tum stared at her with frank admiration.
“I’ve guessed it for some time. Two days ago I proved it.” Florence was away with a good story. “I felt quite sure that the voodoo priestess was reared in Chicago, not in the Black Republic of Haiti. To prove this was very simple.” She laughed. “You see, Haiti used to be a French colony. Even today everyone down there speaks French. So, too, would a real voodoo priestess from that island. On my last visit to her I took along a friend who speaks French fluently. I had instructed her to talk French to me in this black woman’s presence. More than that, she was to say things like this: ‘She’s a humbug. She is a big black impostor!’”
“That,” said Tum, “must have got a rise out of her.”
“Not a bit of it.” Florence laughed again. “She got mad, but not at what we said. She objected to the way we said it. She couldn’t understand a word of French, that’s sure, for we had hardly started when she turned on us, her eyes bulging with anger as she said, ‘Here, you! Don’t you dare speak none of that ugly foreign stuff in dis place! De spirit of de big black Emperor, he objects!’
“And to think!” Florence exclaimed, “French was probably the only language her big black Emperor ever spoke.