New Toulouse

Mystery Digit
A severed finger found in a Gloryville alley has given the police a puzzle that is being investigated by local sleuths.

Choosy Looter
A Woodget Street couple returned home Saturday night to find their valuables piled in a heap on the parlor floor. The only thing missing was a bottle of apricot brandy.

Vehicular Adversity
An elderly lady was struck by a streetcar today on Bayou Street near Laveau Square when she walked into the street to go around a Mardi Gras float that had been left on the pavement. The woman is without injury, but the streetcar was sent to the shop for repairs.

Peeping Jenny
A mysterious woman has stricken terror in two households in New Toulouse by suddenly appearing at the window and fixing each person with a piercing gaze before gliding away slowly. “Peeping Jenny” has snow-white hair and a pale, drawn countenance, and she is believed to be a maniac. Women and children of the neighborhood she infests are keeping close indoors after nightfall and the men admit that they are not feeling any too cheerful over her visits.

Quagmire Canoodling
A man and woman necking on the romantic west bayou ferry dock were advised by locals to sit on another portion of the dock, as the part they were on is notorious for splinters.

Unreal Reptile
On Monday a Triceratops definitely did not arrive in town by riverboat, get hit by a streetcar, or take a ferry across the river, because the herbivorous dinosaur became extinct 66 million years ago.

Odd Socks
Police are advising New Toulouse residents to lock their sock drawers following a series of baffling incidents in which a single unfamiliar sock has been added to a person’s sock collection. The mystery socks are of different sizes, styles, and states of wear, and they offer no clue as to the identity of the culprit.

Mischief Maker
Last Wednesday a woman began erecting a house on a bayou property without a permit. When her ill-conceived construction sank into the swamp, she entered a home and began to move in furniture. A parish officer asked her to leave the private residence, but the woman ignored the request and was promptly escorted outside the parish and told never to return.

Travel Trouble
Several persons appeared disoriented after visiting a travel agency on Shotgun Row, complaining of flashing lights and claiming to have the abiility to turn the sky “to midnight.” Police searched the establishment but found no sign of illegal drugs or paraphernalia. It is speculated that the cause was a bad batch of egg-salad sandwiches on Mars.

Unclothed Vacationer
A Bayou resident returned home Monday to find a strange woman in her underthings posing for photographs on the bed. The homeowner offered a her a copy of the New Toulouse directory of public places, and the stranger excused herself and went out the door, without stopping to put on more clothing.

Critter Caution
Do not approach the hippopotamuses grazing on water hyacinth in the bayou. “Lake cows” may look docile, but they can easily turn violent.

A strange dancing malady broke out in New Toulouse last night. The exact number of residents affected is unknown, but three cases were reported.

I was one of those cases.

Mayor Henri offered up his old family cure-all, “Potion 99,” in hopes that it would stop the shaking. Although the cure helped some people, it didn’t appear to help all, and after taking way more than the recommended dose, I was still afflicted.

Miss Niki suggested that perhaps it was a food allergy, or a reaction to eating tainted mushrooms.  Considering that I did not eat the mushrooms, that doesn’t seem to be plausible in my case.

Spirit possession was also offered as an explanation, but in my experience, one doesn’t recall the events of a spirit possession, especially as they’re taking place.

I went out into town, searching for others who might be afflicted, and even though not all were, the bug did seem to descend upon a few visitors. One woman, upon arrival, started twitching and moving around so badly that she jumped right back on the ferry and demanded to go home.

I became delirious and tired, and apparently I passed out, eventually waking up on the docks, cold, wet, and covered in swamp grass. Fortunately, the dancing sickness seems to have passed.

I, for one, am blaming aliens.

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Even though Arijah loves the bayou, she feels that swamp grass doesn’t make a very good fashion statement. 

The mysterious radio transmissions have been solved, thanks to the agile mind of Mr. DJ Gamaliel, who received the mayor’s L$2,500 reward and shared his method.

First I gathered the full code published in the paper and wrote it down, broken up by the breaks. I figured it would be a hard nut to crack, but trust me, there is nothing too hard to crack. I’m from Chicago, after all, and I have seen it all. First I thought it was weather code—five letters, two of which were repeated, so my first thought was FLOOD, but nothing after that made sense. I even tried converting it to a cryptogram in letter form, seeing if there were any leads. But again nothing made sense. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks.
 
I remembered my old friend Bugsy, rest his soul, who was a great guy that got a bad rap helping out his local community. A real “people person” Bugsy was. But I remembered something he showed me. We were in Tennessee, at a joint called High Point, heading to Chicago from Florida, where we … well, that’s not important, and I am getting off topic now. But I remembered him showing me a piece of paper with numbers on it. But it wasn’t like the numbers from the paper; these numbers were split in twos.
 
So where you had 1, 40, 50, 50, 4, using Bugsy’s method it became 14, 05, 05, 04. So I broke it up like that and got a string of two-digit numbers. First I assigned the two-digit numbers to letters, like this: 01=A, 02=B, 03=C, all the way to 25=Y and 26=Z.
 
Then you have your string that you need to break down. First 1, 40, 50, 50, 4, which becomes 14, 05, 05, 04, which translates to the word NEED, using the above cipher.
 
I did this with the rest of the numbers and got NEED ASSISTANCE, PLEASE HELP for the first string of numbers. For the second I got ATTEMPT NO LANDING HERE. Probably some military pilot code or something that came in on the crystal set. Those wires do cross. Amazing how that works too. Just amazing.

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DJ Gamaliel is the husband of Shotgun Row’s newest resident, Arijah Ankh Khalid-Zyn. He is no stranger to radio.

From the Office of the Mayor
Saturday, May 10

Dear Tattler,
 
Sorry about the fishwrapper comment.
 
We still don’t know what all of this number stuff on the radio means.
 
You will recall Miss Theriot discovered that the mysterious numbers on the radio had changed, and thinking it had something to do with coded messages, she sent us both number sequences. I asked for help in decoding them. So far no one has made any progress in decoding either sequence.
 
Maybe we’re missing something, so let’s try again. Here are the numbers from Miss Theriot’s notes, with the strange double zeros and pauses and all.

The first message:
1, 40, 50, 50, 4 … 0, 11, 91, 90, 91, 92, 00, 11, 40, 30, 5 … 1, 61, 20, 50, 11, 90, 5 … 0, 80, 51, 21, 6 (long pause, repeat)
 
The second message:
0, 12, 02, 00, 51, 31, 62, 0 … 1, 41, 5 … 1, 20, 11, 40, 40, 91, 40, 7 … 0, 80, 51, 80, 5 (long pause, repeat)
 
Miss Theriot thought the long pause was the end of the sequence. Maybe the other pauses are the ends of words?
 
Please help if you can. I’ll pay L$2,500 to the first person who can decode both of them, or half of that if someone decodes one.
 
—Henri

In a flurry of industriousness no doubt brought on by temporary Lenten sobriety, New Toulouse saw a number of renovations, relocations, and new businesses in recent weeks. One “coincidence” that a less-observant colleague (I’m looking at you, Jack Mondieu) might have missed is two new detective agencies opening within three days of each other. Sensing a story (or several), I sat down with both to get the scoop.

Part 2: Trolley Trollop at TNT Detective Agency

At TNT Detective Agency, in Red Drum Place adjacent to the cemetery, Ms. Trolley Trollop ushered me into the comfortable office and immediately began the southern tradition of making guests feel at home by offering them copious amounts of food. I turned down the meat pie (I’m vegetarian) and the chocolate cake, because I’m already bursting the seams of my mesh skirts, but what reporter could resist a cocktail? 

Before I’d swallowed my first delicious sip, Ms. Trollop was already talking about her highest priority case, finding a murderer she calls “Tunnel Man.” Ms. Trollop, who said she graduated from the Frederick Walker School of Detection in New York City, came to New Toulouse because her sources indicated that this Tunnel Man was here.

I asked her to start from the beginning, in case any of our readers haven’t been following the story. “Tunnel Man was working in the tunnel, and he didn’t have anything to eat, and nobody came to save him,” she said. “So he kinda turned into something not even his mama could love, and started taking young girls to be his bride. Well, one thing led to another, and Tunnel Man heard about work in New Toulouse and got himself here on a big old freighter. Been here ever since. I think.” She added, “But I ain’t got the proof. Yet.”

Her informant’s letters, she said, seemed to involve a particular building. “The one place that keeps being mentioned in the letters of those poor dead girls is Mrs. Varnish’s rooming house. Tarantula Arms. You know anything about it?”

When I told her that I had lived at the Tarantula Arms until the building got condemned, Ms. Trollop asked if I had ever seen anybody go missing there. I had, in fact—pretty much every time rent was due.

She handed me a letter she said was from a Euphemia Johns who had lived at the Tarantula Arms. I hadn’t met her, but quite a few people at the boarding house kept to themselves.
“You read that letter,” she said. “You’ll see why we are pledged to find those poor girls. Bring them home. Bury them decent in St. Louis Cemetery.”

Were city officials taking her concerns seriously? “I got to say that Mr. Mayor doesn’t seem to be taking a real active interest in doing anything about Tunnel Man.” She had more positive things to say about the local police. “I have your sheriff’s assurances that he takes it real serious. Put out extra patrols during Mardi Gras. And he noticed right off that Tunnel Man seems to favor young women with dark hair. Doesn’t seem to have a taste for blondes.”

I asked if she and her second-in-command at TNT, Mr. Al Terego, were focused exclusively on the Tunnel Man. “We is here for anybody that needs our services. Women in particular. You know, I think there’s a place for a woman to be helping other women with faithless lovers and philandering  husbands and sweethearts. Matters like that … well, we just ain’t gonna talk to a man about our female troubles. But we take anybody as a client. Dead people, vampires, living folks. We don’t discriminate. We are just a little business, but I think there’s lots of work for us. And if there isn’t, well, we’ll just keep putting out meat pies and being friendly to folks.”

As for Mr. Ramsey, she hopes they “become good friends and we can help each other,” adding, “If Mr. Ed has more business than he can say grace over, we’d be much obliged if he’d pass it on. I’m just a poor little gal from South Alabama trying to make my way. I ain’t gonna ever win the Miss Alabama contest now, so I got to start making my living with my brains.” Unlike her fellow detective, Ms. Trollop is less interested in cases involving the paranormal. “I think I had best get some practice in solving crimes of the flesh before I go after the haints,” she said.

And how close is she to solving the case of the Tunnel Man? She crossed herself and said, “I think I smelled him late one night.”

I asked her what he smelled like, expecting an answer like swamp gas or fire and brimstone or Jack Mondieu’s morning breath. “It was real strange,” she replied. “Smelled of lavender water.”

A man who lives in a muddy tunnel under a swamp smells like lavender water?

“Well, he is British.” 

At that point I made the mistake of joking that since Mr. Ramsey is British, I should sniff him next time I pass him on the steps of Spiegel Hall. (The fact that he’s easy on the eyes is entirely irrelevant.) Ms. Trollop started to fan herself and nearly fell out of her chair.

“Oh my god! You think maybe Mr. Ramsey is Tunnel Man in disguise? Oh my god!”

Imagining having to explain to my neighbor how I accidentally sent a pitchfork-armed posse to his doorstep, I answered with an emphatic no. She seemed disappointed.

Still, Ms. Trollop does believe that the mystery will be solved in New Toulouse—with or without the mayor’s help. “We many never find Tunnel Man, but I just feel in my bones that we can find whatever’s left of them poor dead girls and we can bring ’em home and have a fine jazz procession to Number 32 at the cemetery. Let them girls have a resting place.” She expects that her agency will have help locating the so-far-elusive tunnels, and not just for the sake of justice and community spirit. “I think Dr. Avalon wants to get Tunnel Man real bad so she can use him in her experiments,” she said. “Might even cure him and turn him into a productive member of the community. He might even run for mayor one day!”
 

After finishing my chat with Ms. Trollop—and at least a couple of her delicious cocktails—I went to the police department to see what Pazzo Pestana thought about all these detective agencies opening up.
 
“I’d say that the advent of the Tunnel Man mystery presented an opportunity for investigative minds to set up shop and begin to offer their services to the community,” he said. “The police have been cautious in their investigation, having found a dearth of tunnels in the city.”

He did hint that a discovery “centered around the hospital” has caused them to intensify their efforts and ask the mayor for support. “In the meanwhile, an APB for all muddy men carrying mining tools has been sent out.”
 
TNT Detective Agency is at #2 Red Drum Place. (All photos courtesy Ms. Trolley Trollop.)

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Jane Moreaux keeps all four eyes on New Toulouse—six, after she’s had a few cocktails.

In a flurry of industriousness no doubt brought on by temporary Lenten sobriety, New Toulouse saw a number of renovations, relocations, and new businesses in recent weeks. One “coincidence” that a less-observant colleague (I’m looking at you, Jack Mondieu) might have missed is two new detective agencies opening within three days of each other. Sensing a story (or several), I sat down with both to get the scoop.

Part 1: Edward Ramsey, Private Detective

First I spoke with Edward Ramsey, whose office is closest to the Tattler. Because his office is also right underneath my apartment in Spiegel Hall, I knew exactly when he came to work.*

Mr. Ramsey’s office is all business, without any frivolous decorations. It’s full of well-organized clutter, file cabinets stuffed with research, and furniture that’s seen better days. He spoke to me from his desk, informing me in his disarming accent that he’s originally from London and that he worked briefly in New York before settling in New Toulouse, where he is raising his nephew, Gaetano. Given that he has lived here for two years, I asked him why now seemed like the time to open a detective agency.

“Quite a lot of unexplained things happen in New Toulouse, and it has always been an interest of mine to study unusual phenomena,” he said. “It is arguably one of the most haunted cities I have been in, if you believe in that sort of thing.”

I asked him if he did, in fact, believe in that sort of thing. “I try to keep an open mind to such possibilities,” he said, in keeping with the classified ad he recently placed in the Tattler, promising to take all stories seriously, no matter how strange. “It is a fact that almost all paranormal phenomena have root in human activities and strong human emotions,” he explained. “So to be fair and thorough, I would say rather that I am interested in people and the troubles that surround them. The more one understands about what is going on with the people of the city, the better understanding one has of the recent history, and it can better lead to a whole picture. I am not exclusively focused on things like ghosts, vampires, witches, magic, no. But do these stories intrigue me? Absolutely. But my office is not just there to gather that information, I hope I can help people.”

I asked him what he knew about TNT Detective Agency, which opened only a few days after he did. Mr. Ramsey said he was familiar with the owner from her letters to the editor, but he had not yet spoken with her personally. He chalked up their near-simultaneous opening to a coincidence, perhaps even a lucky one for the community.

“Maybe it is just in time, and one [detective agency] is not enough for all there is to do here in the city,” he speculated. “Nonetheless, I expect that we could collaborate if there comes a need. I’d be glad to help out. I don’t see our agencies so much in competition as in complement to the other.”

When I asked if he thought the sudden need for two detective agencies said anything about local police services, he said, “The police in New Toulouse are very business-oriented, but no doubt having a detective on your side could help where police are not as focused on personal issues.”

As Tattler readers are probably aware, some residents, including the detectives at TNT, believe there is a murderer at large who has managed to tunnel under the mud in New Toulouse and take several unfortunate young women to their deaths. I asked Mr. Ramsey his opinion on the plausibility of the “Tunnel Man.” Here, his diplomatic skills soared to new heights.

“You know, it is often true that there are scoundrels in a port like this one, violent criminals who would seek to harm women—or anyone, for that matter—for their own gain or to answer some deficiency in their own depraved minds. Whether or not there is a Tunnel Man, there is always the possibility of a Tunnel Man, and one should try to be vigilant and make good choices, to guard one’s well-being—and one’s pocketbook.”

Another local mystery has captured his interest: the bad investment a certain Tattler reporter made in buying the old Dame de Pique gambling house on the bayou. “I believe the activity there could be a menace worthy of further examination,” he said, alluding to persistent rumors that the place is haunted. “It is shrouded in a mist on the riverbank that never seems to lift. The wind behaves unnaturally, and there is a problem with the lights. Images appeared inexplicably on the inside of windows while the doors were locked and the place was empty, and a ghostly apparition can sometimes be glimpsed in the mirror downstairs. There is quite a story there, I am sure.”

There is definitely a story about why I was gullible enough to buy the property in the first place, so I changed the subject and asked Mr. Ramsey about his hours.

“I am here quite often, available in my office, though if a client should come whilst I am away, or prefer to remain anonymous, they may leave a letter about their case in my letterbox.”

Edward Ramsey, private detective, is located at #1 Spiegel Hall.

*Note to potential clients of Mr. Ramsey: The walls and floors in Spiegel Hall are very thick. Clients should be assured that their business is confidential and that in no way can a reporter from the Tattler overhear any of their private business. At least not when she isn’t home.

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Jane Moreaux keeps all four eyes on New Toulouse and one ear to the floor of her apartment.

Dear Citizens,

I recently received the following letter from Miss Eugenie Theriot:

April 14
New Toulouse
General Delivery
Mayor Henri Godenot

Dear Mr. Henri,

I’m hoping this letter finds you well. Actually, I hope this letter finds you at all. You see, I have a bad feeling about this radio thing.

I think there is some kind of message in those numbers. I’ve asked the math department here at school, and they don’t know what it is. Maybe you could check the broadcast, and see if it is the same?

The first message:
1, 40, 50, 50, 4, 0, 11, 91, 90, 91, 92, 00, 11, 40, 30, 5, 1, 61, 20, 50, 11, 90, 5, 0, 80, 51, 21, 6

The second message:
0, 12, 02, 00, 51, 31, 62, 0, 1, 41, 5, 1, 20, 11, 40, 40, 91, 40, 7, 0, 80, 51, 80, 5

With gravest concern,
Eugenie Theriot

You will recall that Miss Theriot discovered something strange about the radio station, and the daily fishwrapper published a story about it on March 28.

If Miss Theriot is concerned, I’m concerned. I asked her parents to check the broadcast, and they can’t make Miss Theriot’s crystal set work. I checked with a few citizens who had radios, and they report that the broadcast is the same as Miss Eugenie’s second message.

Your assistance would be appreciated. If anyone can decode these mysterious numeric messages, we may be able to get to the bottom of this. I will pay L$2,500 to the first person able to decode these messages, or half that if they can decode one of them.

Sincerely,

Henri Godenot

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Henri Godenot is the mayor of New Toulouse.

New Toulouse’s very own Eugenie Theriot has discovered something strange about the bayou radio station. While testing her crystal set, Miss Theriot found that the station had changed its broadcast.

“I don’t ever listen to our station anymore,” Miss Theriot said. “It’s just the same old sequence of numbers, repeating endlessly. Always exactly the same, except when it is not. You see, it’s changed.”

The station broadcasts a series of numbers, which Miss Theriot wrote down last year, “after the first fifty-seven times I heard it,” she said. “Because how many times do you really want to hear ‘Forty, fifty, fifty, four … zero, eleven, ninety-one, ninety, ninety-one, ninety-two, zero, eleven, forty, thirty, five … one, sixty-one, twenty, fifty, eleven, ninety, five … zero, eighty, fifty-one, twenty-one, six’? That’s all it ever played, repeated endlessly.”

Hearing the broadcast over the crystal set she built, she had written down the numbers. “I thought the man reciting those numbers might be counting something, or that it had something to do with the weather report, or the strange lights in the bayou, but they never changed. And he always sounded so worried.”

Miss Theriot showed me her notes. She had printed the sequence of numbers in a fine, clear hand. Then she connected the battery terminals to her little radio, and the rich sound of a woman’s voice filled the air: “Zero, eighty, fifty-one, eighty, five.” It was a woman’s voice, very calm, very deliberate.

“See, that’s the long pause, the end of the sequence. Now it will restart!” said Miss Theriot.

Over the radio, the woman’s voice continued: “Zero, twelve, two, zero, fifty-one, thirty-one, sixty-two, zero … one, forty-one, five … one, twenty, eleven, forty, forty, ninety-one, forty, seven … zero, eighty, fifty-one, eighty, five. Zero, twelve, two, zero, fifty-one, thirty-one, sixty-two, zero … one, forty-one, five … one, twenty, eleven, forty, forty, ninety-one, forty, seven … zero, eighty, fifty-one, eighty, five. Zero, twelve, two, zero, fifty-one, thirty-one, sixty-two, zero … one, forty-one, five … one, twenty, eleven, forty, forty, ninety-one, forty, seven … zero, eighty, fifty-one, eighty, five.”

Miss Theriot played it a few times and then turned it off. “Nobody knows what this is all about, or why New Toulouse even has a radio station. And that thing has really high power, too. Why? Who is going to listen to it for more than a couple minutes? Who built that thing? Have you ever even seen anyone in the station?”

She handed me a copy of her notes and pointed to her suitcase. “I’m taking the next boat out,” she said, “I’ll see you next year. If you’re still here.”

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Gigi Lapin lives in New Toulouse Bayou with her pet crawfish, Jimbo.