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"Executor?" Shandy's stomach went cold. "Is he - is Sebastian Chandagnac dead?"
"You did not know? I am sorry. Yes, he committed suicide some time Wednesday night. His - "
"This last Wednesday?" Shandy interrupted, fighting to keep from shouting. "Three days ago?"
"Yes. His body was found on Thursday morning by the housekeeper." The clerk shrugged. "Business reversals, it seems. They say he had to sell everything, and still left behind many debts."
Shandy's face felt numb, as if he'd had too much to drink. "I ... heard that he was a ... speculator."
"Exactly, m'sieu'."
"This executor. Where would I find him?"
"At this hour he will probably be having brandy on the terrace below Vigneron's. He is a small man, somewhat bucktoothed. His name is Lapin, Georges Lapin."
Shandy found Mr. Lapin at a table overlooking the crowded harbor, and from the number of saucers in front of him he guessed he'd been there quite awhile.
The smaller man started violently when he saw him, then apologized and accepted Shandy's offer to buy him another brandy.
"You are the executor, I understand, of the Chandagnac estate," began Shandy when he'd pulled out a chair for himself and sat down. "Uh, two brandies, please," he added to the steward who had half-suspiciously followed him to Lapin's table.
"You are of Sebastian's family," said Lapin with certainty.
" ... Yes," Shandy admitted.
"There is resemblance - for one instant I thought you were him." He sighed. "Executor, yes, that is me. Though as it happens there is nothing to execute - eh? - and all I am doing is pointing various creditors at one another so that they may fight. Unknown to any of us his friends, Sebastian had destituted himself." He picked up his brandy as soon as the steward set it down, and he drained it at a gulp as if in illustration of Sebastian Chandagnac's profligacy.
"One more for Mr. Lapin, please," Shandy told the steward. Turning back to Lapin he asked, "And he's dead? Certainly?"
"I saw the body myself, M'sieur Chandagnac. How odd it is to call someone else that! He had no other surviving family here, you know. Yes, he primed a blunderbuss pistol and then loaded it with all his remaining gold and jewelry." Lapin held out his two hands cupped together. "Not much as a fortune, but as a load of shot it was kingly. And then he raised the gun so that the bell muzzle was a foot away from his face, took one last look, we may suppose, at what remained of his fortune, and then sent that fortune into his brain! Ah, it was poetical, in a way. Though messy in a pragmatic sense, of course - virtually the entirety of his head wound up in the garden below his bedchamber window. Poor Sebastian! - I am certain the local gendarmerie made off with most of the ... ammunition."
Then Shandy remembered where he'd heard the name Lapin - Skank had said that the big dealers with pirates on Haiti were "Lapin and Shander-knack." And you're right, Skank, Shandy thought now - he does look like a rabbit.
"I suppose I can see why they made it look like suicide," Shandy said ruminatively.
"I beg your pardon," said Lapin - "Look like? There was no question - "
"No no," said Shandy hastily, "keep thinking precisely that, I certainly don't mean to tell you anything you don't need to know. You're in no danger. I'm sure you never had any dealings with," he leaned forward and spoke quietly over the brandies, "pirates."
Lapin's plump face actually turned pale in the evening light. "Pirates?"
Shandy nodded. "An English governor has been sent out to New Providence Island, which is the pirates' home base. Now the pirates are killing off all the respectable merchants they once had dealings with - so as to leave no one to," Shandy winked, "testify." Shandy almost started laughing at the idea of the New Providence pirates being methodical about anything, but he forced himself to maintain a mournful expression.
Lapin swallowed. "Kill the merchants?"
"That's right. The pirates are just waiting for each merchant to establish contact. As soon as one of their old customers gets in touch with them, or consents to see them if they approach him," Shandy shrugged, "that man is as dead as Sebastian."
"Mon Dieu!" Lapin got hastily to his feet, spilling his brandy. He cast a fearful look at the harbor, as if expecting brigands to rush ashore even now. "It is - later than I had thought. It has been pleasant talking to you, M'sieur Chandagnac, but I am afraid I must bid adieu."
Shandy didn't get up, but raised his glass. "To your very good and continuing health, Monsieur Lapin."
But after Lapin bumbled away, Shandy's momentarily raised spirits fell. His uncle was dead and penniless. There would be no revenge and no ship. He rented a room for the night and then in the morning hitched a ride back out to L'Arcahaye and the waiting Jenny.
For the next two weeks he led the Jenny on a frantic roundabout tour of the Caribbean, but though he checked at every port registry, even the English ones where he was a wanted man, there was no record of any Vociferous Carmichael or even Charlotte Bailey having been seen anywhere since the first of August, when, after having magically picked up Shandy and dropped him over the side, Benjamin Hurwood had got his corpse-crew in motion and sailed away.
At the end of the two weeks of fruitless search his crew was on the verge of mutiny and the deadline for taking the King's Pardon was only two days away, so Shandy ordered his men to turn the old sloop toward New Providence Island.
They arrived in the midafternoon of Tuesday, the fifth of September, and when Shandy stepped off the Jenny he didn't look back; Venner could captain her from now on, and take her to Hell or the Heavenly Kingdom for all he cared. Once ashore, Shandy had time to go to the fort, officially take the pardon from Governor Rogers, and still be back on the beach in time to cook up a vast dinner. And, in what was to become a tradition through the next three months, he ate nearly none of it himself, contenting himself instead with huge quantities of drink.
