01x31 - The Pearl and the Crown

[bunniefuu]

♪ Jim Bowie, Jim Bowie

♪ He was a bold adventuring man ♪

♪ Jim Bowie, Jim Bowie

♪ Battled for right with a powerful hand ♪

♪ His blade was tempered and so was he ♪

♪ Indestructible steel was he

♪ Jim Bowie, Jim Bowie.

♪ He was a fighter, a fearless and mighty adventuring man ♪

- [Jim] When the United States

bought Lousiana from Napoleon,

America Got a big dividend.

Some of the finest restaurants in the world.

The Pearl and Crown was a new one on me,

but my newspaper friend Justinian Tebbs,

claimed that it's oysters Lebec

was the finest dish in all New Orleans.

I was soon to discover,

that there were other attractions.

- Oh Justin [speaks foreign language] where have you been?

- Well I, oh, Annette

I'd like you to meet Jim Bowie.

- Oh Mr. Jim Bowie.

- And Jim, this is, Mademoiselle Lebec.

- How do you do?

[speaks foreign language] Mademoiselle.

Thank you.

We came here for the oysters?

- Justin, when you promised to bring important people

I did not dream it would be the famous Jim Bowie.

Come your table.

- I see, I've just been invited here

to build you up for the young lady huh?

- Build me up?

I think I'm already built up as you say,

you notice the greeting I got?

- Yeah.

- Oh, there's my boss Monsieur Matin, at the back table.

- [Jim] Did you send him here too?

- Naturally.

- Hm mm.

[suspenseful music]

[g*nsh*t bangs]

[woman shrieks]

[Justin grunts]

- Oh Justin, [speaks foreign language],

Are you alright Justin?

- Well what was he after?

Who was he sh**ting at?

- At me no doubt.

And my thanks Mr. Bowie to you and your knife.

- But why at you Monsieur?

- If a newspaper editor doesn't get shot at

from time to time, he does not deserve the title.

- No, no, monsieur, I think that he was after this.

- What you got in there?

- My pearls.

[dramatic music]

- Well, this has been very pleasant

but I must be getting back to my office.

Thank you again Mr. Bowie.

- My pleasure Mr. Matin.

- Perhaps you better take a day off Tebbs

and recover from the excitement.

- Poor Justin, he fell down and he bumped his head.

- I didn't fall down Annette, I was pushed

and my head's fine.

- It will feel better for a day's vacation.

Gentleman.

- Good night.

- Good night Pierre.

[Pierre speaks foreign language]

- Did you like our oysters Lebec monsieur?

- The finest oysters I ever ate.

Now tell me about those pearls.

Oh sit down, Lebec, sit down.

Tell me about those pearls of yours.

They really come from our own Louisiana oysters?

- [speaks foreign language], it is a law of nature.

If one opens enough oysters, one is sure to find pearls.

- Well they're tasty and they give pearls beside.

It's amazing.

- But that is not all it gives, the oyster.

- No, well what else does it give?

- Show them Annette.

- The buttons monsieur.

- Oh, the buttons.

- Finest mother of pearl.

- Made from our own Louisiana oyster like I serve you.

- You made these?

- My father's trade, button making in Marseilles.

- Well this has distinct possibilities.

Do you think you could turn out a lot of these buttons,

I mean a whole lot?

[Pierre speaks French]

Then why don't you go in the button business.

- Oh the capital monsieur.

The machines, factory, salesmen.

- Well, maybe I could raise the capital.

I mean if you're interested,

I think there could be real money in this.

Let me think about it huh?

- You brought us good luck monsieur, I am sure of it.

- Oh no, no, Annette,

[Pierre and Annette speak foreign language]

[expectant music]

- Gentleman.

Gentleman may I, [glass clinking]

May I have your attention please gentlemen.

Thank you.

Now I'm sure we've all enjoyed the excellent

and the celebrated cuisine of Monsiur Pierre Lebec.

- Hear! Hear! - Wonderful dinner monsieur.

Thank you very much.

And now we'll come to the,

well the business part of our evening.

I have invited you all here to make you an offer

of an opportunity for the chance to participate

in a little enterprise.

In front of each one of you you'll see one of these shells.

It's a common, ordinary oyster shell.

Now I draw your particular attention

to the holes drilled in it.

For it's in these holes gentleman that you see

what may well be the start of a great new industry

in our fair city.

The manufacture of pearl buttons.

[group chuckling]

Annette would you mind coming here please.

Now gentlemen if you can manage

to focus your attention on Mademoiselle Lebec,

I'd like you to take a good look at her buttons.

See these buttons here?

Each one of these is made from the shell

of our own Louisiana oysters.

[men laughing]

Gentlemen, what's so funny, what's the joke?

- I guess you haven't seen the latest Courier Jim?

- No I haven't Captain Gunderson.

- Do you have a copy Commissioner?

- Oh yes, I do, right here.

There you are.

- There's a poem on the front page Jim.

It's entitled: The Ballad of Bowie's Buttons.

- Let me see that.

- [Commissioner] Now why don't you read it for us Captain?

[group applauds]

- Forgive us dear reader, but we must relate

the tale of an oyster that Jim Bowie ate.

This succulent bivalve gave Jim the weird notion

of riches to wrest from the deep of the ocean.

We'll save all the oyster shells emptied by gluttons

and fabricate plenty of pretty pearl buttons.

[group laughing]

- Very funny.

- There's another stanza.

- Well good, good.

Captain, by all means read that too.

- But Jim's sudden fancy for mother of pearl

could it be for romancing a saucy young girl.

Before you invest in his savory shellfish

ask Jim if his motives are purely unselfish.

If you must use his oyster shell what-you-ma-call-its

we'd suggest that you button the flaps on your wallet.

[group laughing]

- By the Poet Laureate of Desire Street.

Why that's Justinian Tebbs.

The coward, he wouldn't even sign his own name.

- Good night Jim.

Fine party.

[men chuckling]

- This is the tale of an oyster that Jim Bowie ate.

The succulent bivalve--

- Great evening Jim.

- Commissioner Devereau sir,

aren't you gonna do something about this?

I mean as a commissioner of police.

- Do what?

- Well something.

I mean this is libel isn't it.

The Ballad of Bowie's Buttons.

- It's a civil matter.

We have a free press Jim.

There's nothing the police can do about it.

- Well there's something I can do about it.

- Like what?

- Take the hide off that Poet Laureate of Desire Street.

- [chuckles] Well don't do anything you'll regret Jim.

Good night.

Good night miss.

[foreboding music]

- Stand right where you are my friend.

Now then, perhaps you'll explain what you're doing here.

Get over there.

I see.

[expl*si*n booms]

[somber music]

- He's coming around commissioner.

- How do you feel?

- Well, not too good.

How's Mr. Matin?

- He's dead Jim.

- He's dead?

- Commissioner.

Look at this.

It was in his hand.

- That's from the Pearl and Crown, from Pierre Lebec.

- Yes.

Yes I'm afraid it is.

There are times when I'd rather be anything else

than a policeman.

- Wait a minute!

You don't think I'm responsible for this?

- What else can I think Jim?

- Commissioner.

- You were very angry in that cafe.

- Why sure I was angry, but not angry enough

to blow up a newspaper and k*ll the editor.

- You didn't make threats against The Courier?

I heard them, so did Captain Gunderson.

- They weren't against The Courier, they were against

the Poet Laureate of Desire Street.

- Against me?

- Yeah, but not to k*ll you.

Just to make you eat that poem.

- Look Jim, what happened when you got here.

Will you tell us?

- Well I came in the door and there was--

- Jim, Jim.

If I were you I'd save my story for the court.

- For the court?

- You leave me no choice Jim, you're under arrest.

- Arrest?

For what?

- For m*rder.

Take him away.

- You and your poems.

[dramatic music]

- Well what now Jim?

- Well I don't know, a bath, some clean clothes,

get the smell of jail off of me.

- Well, I have to get to work.

- Sure.

Thanks for raising my bail Justin.

- Oh it was the least I could do.

- Forget it.

- Jim.

I've been wondering.

Who would want to have you charged with m*rder and why?

- I've been wondering that too, myself.

And I aim to find out.

- Why don't you come down to The Courier after a while

and we'll talk about it.

- Alright I will.

See you later.

- Well, press wasn't damaged.

We can get out the next issue.

What's that?

- A list of the guests I had for dinner last night

at the Pearl and Crown.

It's got to be one of these men

for that drilled out oyster shell to have been here.

- Let's see.

Joplin, Hastings, Borday.

These are the most prominent men in New Orleans Jim.

Commissioner of Police Devereau,

Brusseau, Captain Gunderson.

Any of these man have anything against you?

- Not a one, that I know of.

- Well, you're trying to figure out

who would want to implicate you,

but maybe that was just incidental.

- Look, I'm charged with m*rder,

what's incidental about that?

- I know.

But Monsieur Matin is dead

and it was The Courier that was blown up.

Now maybe that was the primary motive, to get rid of him.

- Matin?

- And maybe that incident at The Pearl and Crown last week

was the first attempt

and now they've finished what they've started.

- You mean, something he printed?

- Maybe.

The last issue.

Let's see, interesting letter.

- Steamboat traffic on increase.

[Justin mumbles]

Intellectual training of the young.

- Wait a minute!

Maybe it wasn't something Matin had printed,

maybe it was something he was about to print.

Look at that.

- The Courier has unearthed a series

of shocking developments in our municipal life.

As soon as our facts are verified,

possibly by press time of our next edition,

we will publish the entire sordid story.

- Well?

- Yeah, it could be it.

To stop The Courier from printing the story.

What were they?

- How do I know?

- Well you work here, you're on the staff.

- Matin didn't tell me.

- The readers don't know that, do they?

- Don't know what?

- That Matin didn't disclose the story to anyone.

No they'll expect to read it in the next edition.

- Yeah I guess they figure somebody else will write it.

- But the m*rder*r won't will he,

'cause he'll think he's safe now that Matin's dead.

- Yes.

- Alright then.

Suppose The Courier brings out a special edition tonight

promising that Matin's story will be printed anyway

in the next regular edition, that's Saturday.

What'll that do?

- Well it might smoke the m*rder*r out.

- [Jim] Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Begin it this way, The Courier intends--

- Thank you Jim, I'll write the story.

- Oh.

You know Justi, this is a very important article,

don't you think you ought to sign your name to it?

- Well naturally I'll sign my name Justinian Tebbs.

Acting Editor.

- Fine, fine.

- Well, I have a start.

Listen.

The evil b*mb m*rder*r who tried to silence

the clarion voice of The Courier by k*lling its editor

and planting an infernal machine in our press

is doomed to bitter disappointment.

- It's great, it's great!

- As acting editor, I promise our readers and the m*rder*r

that our next regular edition of The Courier,

which goes to press tomorrow night, will positively contain

the sensational disclosures which Claude Matin was k*lled...

- Well what's the matter?

- A very unpleasant notion just crossed my mind.

- What's that?

- This m*rder*r who silenced the editor,

suppose he should employ the same tactics

on the acting editor and with the same finality.

- Isn't that just what we want him to do, to try?

- Depends on your point of view.

[expectant music]

- [Jim] The extra was printed that night, Thursday.

It caused a sensation.

Justi called it his death notice.

We made sure all my dinner guests had copies.

Then we settled down to wait.

All day Friday.

It was almost dark now and still nothing had happened.

Nobody had made a suspicious move.

- Oh!

Oh, Mr. Devereau.

I'm certainly glad it was you.

- Yes I had some business down river today

and when I got back to my office a little while ago.

I saw this.

It made me curious.

- Oh yes, the extra.

Actually ît was Jim Bowie's idea.

- Oh.

- Well, we hoped that maybe the m*rder*r

of Monsieur Matin would try again.

- To stop publication of the disclosures?

Where is Mr. Bowie?

- I don't know.

We had an arrangement that he was supposed to be

right nearby in case the m*rder*r tried to, k*ll me.

- I see.

- However fortunately, or unfortunately, as the case may be,

I guess our trap didn't work.

- Well that's not quite correct Justi.

You see, unfortunately for you, your trap did work.

- Mr. Devereau, you?

- Yes.

My identity was a surprise to Mr. Matin too.

It's regrettable.

- But what about Jim Bowie?

I mean, why did you implicate him?

- Oh, that was purely spontaneous.

If it hadn't been for your poetic endeavors,

I could never have found such a convenient scapegoat.

- My ballad.

- Oh believe me Justi, I'd hoped that silencing

Matin would be enough, I never thought--

- Mr. Devereau, I've been offered a job on a New York paper

and I could develop a very bad memory.

- But I could develop a very good one.

[g*nsh*t bangs]

- Where've you been?

- Keeping out of sight.

I didn't want to scare our friend here away.

- Frankly gentleman,

it would have been better for you both, if you had.

Right Captain!

- Aargh!

[yelling]

[punch thuds]

- Jim, the b*mb!

[dramatic music]

- Why should Monsieur Devereau do this bad thing?

After all, he was the police commissioner.

- Well, Devereau had a unique method

of enforcing our Indian trade laws.

He used to look the other way

while Gunderson was shipping in contraband.

They were both getting rich.

- Then when Matin found out, they protected

our free press by trying to blow it sky high.

- And now Monsieur Bowie,

perhaps you can get back to the buttons?

- Yes, perhaps we can.

- Oh come now Jim, you've got about as much chance

of making money out of buttons

as I have of eating an oyster...

[expectant music]

and finding a pearl.

♪ Jim Bowie, Jim Bowie

♪ He was a fighter

♪ A fearless and mighty adventurer ♪