Once Upon a Midnight Eerie: Book #2 (Misadventures of Edgar/Allan) by Gordon McAlpine Read Free Book Online Page B

and rolled their eyes.
    “Great,” Em said. “What we need is Sherlock Holmes, and what we get is Hamlet, prince of indecision.”
    The Poe twins were impressed by the literary reference, even if it was intended as a put-down.
    For a while, they all sat silently on the rooftop, reviewing the facts.
    This much was true:
    Clarence and Genevieve Du Valier had shared all they knew of how things worked with the dead. Of course, the Du Valiers didn’t know much, since they’d never moved from here to the next world. Most dead move right along; but, because the Du Valiers’ double murder in 1814 had been neither solved nor avenged, they remained earthbound, pining for justice.
    Naturally, they
wanted
to move on. But they needed help.
    Clarence and Genevieve had explained that in the autumn of 1814, their little inn, the Wet Whistle, had been visited by the most famous brothers in all of Louisiana, the pirates Jean and Pierre Lafitte. Jean lived up to his nickname “the Gentleman Pirate.” But Pierre was no gentleman at all.
    Now Milly began typing on her phone.
    The Poe twins had never seen anyone so adept with her thumbs.
    “What are you doing?” Edgar asked.
    “I’m writing a draft post for my blog,” she answered, without looking up. “To take the story public!”
    The Poe twins looked over her shoulder:
    One night in New Orleans, 1814, the famous Jean Lafitte left his brother Pierre and their pirate friends at the Wet Whistle. At closing time, the drunken Pierre accidentally handed the innkeeper, Clarence Du Valier, a handwritten note instead of cash. Naturally, Clarence read the note, which was just an odd-sounding poem. He returned to Pierre to explain the mistake, but the pirate leaped from his chair in outrage.

    “That note was for no one’s eyes save my brother’s and mine own!” Pierre shouted, snatching the slip of paper. “Did you read it, swine?”
    Clarence nodded, unable to lie.
    Furious, the drunken pirate demanded that Clarence step outside to settle the matter “honorably.”
    In those days, that meant a duel with swords.
    What Pierre Lafitte didn’t know was that as a young man, Clarence had served the king of France and was an expert swordsman. In the alley behind the inn, Clarence held his own.
    But it was to be no fair duel.
    When Clarence’s foil scratched Pierre’s cheek, the pirate’s henchmen grabbed the innkeeper by his arms, stripping him of his weapon. Then Pierre ran him through the heart. When Genevieve darted into the alley to help, he ran her through too.
    “I will make my confession to my personal diary,” Pierre declared, dropping his foil to the ground beside the dying Du Valiers. “So you two innkeepers needn’t worry about my soul.” Then he instructed his henchmen to behead the Du Valiers with sabers.
    Pierre never answered for the crime.

     
    Milly’s thumbs stopped.
    Em wiped at a tear. “Well written, sister.”
    “Isn’t it strange,” Allan commented, “that we think the Du Valiers haunt New Orleans, when it’s really New Orleans that haunts them?”
    “While a wax figure stands in the museum celebrating Pierre Lafitte as a hero,” Edgar added.
    Milly indicated the phone. “Soon it’ll be online for the world to read.”
    “We’ll still need
proof
,” Em countered. “And the only proof would be Pierre’s diary. His ‘confession,’ right?”
    Milly and the Poe twins nodded.
    It was commonly believed that Pierre’s diary had been buried along with the Lafitte brothers’ loot, which for two centuries no treasure hunter had located. However, no one had ever been provided with the clue that Clarence had offered the Poe and Dickinson twins in his account of the murder.
    Now Em recited from memory the contents of Pierre’s note—his poem:
    “Thrice concealed in the following prose
    The place where only a true Lafitte goes,
    The name of the spot walled by hallowed gates
    Where our treasure abides and safely awaits.
    ‘I’ll make a wise