02x14 - The Alligator

[bunniefuu]

[knife thudding] ♪ Jim Bowie, Jim Bowie

♪ He was a bold adventurin' 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 adventurin' man ♪

- Well, that's the way your plates should be,

empty as Satan's promise.

Now I think we can open the presents.

Sister, if you'll pass these around.

Thank you.

I think I'll open this big one myself.

[children oohing]

Antoinette, you don't mind if I open

your present for you, do you?

- No.

- I'll bet you can't guess what's in it.

- I don't think I can.

- Well now, look at this.

Isn't she beautiful?

Is she a lovely doll, huh?

Hey, wait a minute.

Inside are my spare dresses.

[dramatic choir music]

[girls screaming]

What do you mean, you don't know what's inside, Mr. Hauser?

I'll tell you what's inside, an alligator,

a baby alligator's inside here,

just inside this little door here.

Listen, do you want to see it?

Almost ruined the birthday party.

- Obviously, there was a mistake, Mr. Bowie.

- Well what's going on here,

somebody trying to scare the life out of someone?

- Monsieur de Rivnac's request for the little door

on the doll was so unusual.

Then you in such a hurry, selecting an identical doll.

- Well how it happened is unimportant.

What I want to know is.

- Meddling American, and the bungling Austrian fool!

- Hey now!

- And now perhaps I can proceed with my purchase

without further tricks or deceptions.

Or do you two have other ways to annoy me?

- Now see here.

- You see here, Bowie!

Your nose may be long and unattractive,

but that gives you no right to thrust it into my business.

- I apologize, Monsieur, for what happened.

- The only apology acceptable from you, Hauser,

would be for your existence.

As for you, Bowie, you will forget this incident,

unless you prefer to have your remaining years abbreviated!

- Have my remaining years?

Did you hear that?

He threatened me, he threatened my life!

Who does he think he is, that no good stuck up cream puff?

- Armand de Rivnac is perhaps the most circumspect

of all the high born creoles in New Orleans.

He leads an exemplary life.

- Well there was nothing exemplary about

the way he behaved in the doll shop yesterday.

[Adolphe laughing]

- And you're still angry today!

Sit down, dear boy, and enjoy my hubble bubble.

It'll calm your nerves.

- How do you smoke this thing?

- Don't puff on it, take a breath, take a deep breath.

[inhaling]

[Jim coughing] [Adolphe laughing]

- That's not Turkish tobacco!

- It's tobacco root.

- Well, you Germans will try anything, won't you?

It smells good anyway.

You know, I'd have thought you'd smell a good story

in what I've just been telling you.

I have a notion he was up to something strange,

diabolic perhaps.

- Oh, James, any man with a wife as lovely

as Bernice de Rivnac is seldom diabolic, quite the contrary.

She was originally Bernice de Bergerac.

Enormously wealthy.

There's a rumor that she had some Seminole blood in her.

- Well let's stick to the point,

which is her husband Armand.

- Oh, yes, yes, I think you were away

when that tragedy overtook her brother, Edward.

Her brother was duck sh**ting up at their summer place.

He fell into the bayou,

and an alligator opened his enormous jaws and.

- Hey wait a minute, did you say alligator?

- Yes.

On her brother's death,

she became a semi-invalid for more than a year.

De Rivnac was in constant attendance.

I admire his devotion almost as much as I admire his wife.

- You know this thing gets more bizarre by the minute.

Why it's positively creepy.

Adolfe, where do they live, the de Rivnacs?

- In the Rue Dumain, that yellow house,

the big yellow house, number 34, I think.

Well surely, James, you're not thinking of going there now.

Sit down, dear boy,

and have a little coffee laced with cognac.

- Why, you don't think I'm gonna

let this thing drop, do you?

Why, if that man is as viscous as he is insulting,

there's no telling what he's capable of.

Well, thanks for the hubble bubble, my friend.

Delicious.

[Adolphe laughing]

[gentle choir music]

Why, excuse me, is this the de Rivnac residence?

- Yes, it is.

We were together only yesterday.

Heart, the doctor says.

She went just like that.

- This happened yesterday afternoon?

- Yes, Monsieur.

It happened just after Armand brought her

another lovely doll for her collection.

- Madame de Rivnac collected dolls?

- Yes, Monsieur, it was a little gift to amuse her.

- To amuse her?

- She and Armand were like children in their love.

- Excuse me.

[somber choir music]

I know how I'd be felling if I were you, de Rivnac.

Your wife was a very beautiful woman.

- Get out!

- And very rich too, I understand, wasn't she?

- I am warning you will regret this folly, Bowie.

- When she opened the little door

to admire the pretty doll's dresses,

that's all it needed, wasn't it?

- Must I call a constable?

- You know the Seminole superstition

that the alligator is bad luck, don't you?

- I have warned you, Bowie.

- Never m*rder by alligator, de Rivnac.

[dramatic choir music]

Well, Captian, what more do you want?

It's as simple a case as of

cold-blooded m*rder as you'll ever find

- I have assured him, Captain Ponet,

that his imagination overruns his judgment.

- As such I have a wide experience of m*rder,

m*rder by p*stol, by r*fle, by stiletto,

by [laughs] Bowie knife, by strangulation,

by drowning, by poisoning, by a hundred devious ways.

But to frighten a woman to death with a baby alligator,

[laughs] oh, no, no, that's too absurd.

- Absurd it may be, but that is exactly what happened.

[knocking]

- Excuse.

- James,

[groans] suppose we switch from m*rder to blackmail.

For I intend to blackmail you.

- Oh, you do huh?

Go right ahead.

- For a certain sum of money,

the exact amount to be determined at dinner this evening,

which you will pay for.

- Thank you.

- I promise not to reveal

to your many admirers in New Orleans,

how very close you are this moment

to making yourself the laughing stock of Louisiana.

- At this very moment I'm very close to.

- Gentleman, a m*rder has been committed.

The body was just discovered by a customer in the

shop on Conti Avenue, stabbed in the back,

Gustav Hauser the doll maker.

Would you care to ride with me in my carriage?

- To the house of Armand de Rivnac?

- Precisely.

- Well, Adolfe, who's gonna blackmail who, whom?

Now look, de Rivnac, you can't deny coming to my hotel

asking for the return of the doll with the alligator in it.

- Why should I deny it, Monsieur Bowie.

I asked you for a doll given to you in error.

You did give me the package I came to get,

did you not, Monsieur?

- Well now do you also deny returning to the doll shop

and trying to get back the doll with the alligator in it?

- Captain Ponet, I suggest we adjourn

to Hauser's doll shop at once,

and allow him to refute this fool's charges.

- Hauser's dead, de Rivnac, as you know very well.

- It can't be true.

- It's true, and either you did it

or it was done by your gargoyle here!

- I have been to Hauser's doll shop but once in my life,

upon the occasion of purchasing

a doll for my dear departed wife.

De Rivnac, you k*lled your dear departed wife,

just as surely as I'm standing here

you frightened her to death!

- That's enough!

Captain Ponet, I demand the arrest

of this madman for defamation of character!

I will not tolerate his company one more moment!

- Bowie, come, hmm.

- Jim, old boy, I thought you decided

to locate permanently in Texas.

- Oh, may heaven speed that day!

- All right, all right, so he talked his way out of it.

Now why do you think he k*lled Hauser?

'Cause Hauser knew the truth.

Who else knows the truth?

I do.

I'll wager that right now, this minute,

they're hatching a plot to get rid of me.

- Oh but it would appear to be your word against theirs,

Bowie, and that totals two to one.

- Ponet, are you trying to tell me that the case is closed?

- No, no m*rder case is ever closed

until after it is solved.

That's why I'm on my way now to Conti Street

to look into the m*rder of Gustav Hauser.

- I'm telling you the answer's right here at 34 Rue Dumaine.

- Bowie, I must warn you, there is such a thing

as interference with the law, and the penalty is severe.

- You know, if I didn't know you both and kinda like you,

I'd be on the point of losing my temper right now!

You two go on to Conti Street and I'll prove you wrong.

[gentle choir music]

- [Jim Voiceover] Sometimes a man has a sixth sense

that tells him when he's being followed,

tries to warn him of danger.

That night mine was working.

- When the Spaniards first came to this part of the world,

they thought the alligator was a large lizard,

so they called it el lagarto.

Any fool can see how el lagarto eventually became alligator,

I just thought I'd brush you up

on your natural history, de Rivnac!

[g*n thudding]

[chair sliding]

- Don't move a muscle, Bowie.

Now listen to what I have to say.

Because of human avarice,

a beautiful woman and a harmless old man

are no longer among the living.

And their assassin is honored for his false sorrow.

Soon he will be on his way to Paris with all her millions!

For reasons I do not care to reveal

I want him brought to the courts of law

to see him pay for his crimes.

- So do I.

- But how?

It would need a cunning to match his own.

Is there a way to do it?

- Well, for example.

[clattering]

[grunting]

Well, dog my cats, you!

- Yes, the gargoyle.

[dramatic choir music]

- [Jim Voiceover] Sunrises are sunrises

in most parts of the world,

but in Louisiana each and every one is an event.

This one, the second to shine upon

the grave of Berenice de Rivnac,

might light the way to justice for her m*rder*r.

[Armand screaming]

- Paul!

- What is it, master?

[Armand panting]

- Paul, in the name of all that's good and holy,

how did it get there?

- Could it be the one you brought master in the doll?

- No, no, no, I destroyed that one myself!

Someone must have entered this room.

- But they would have had to pass my room,

I would have seen them, master.

Master, your robe.

Cook has breakfast ready.

You can have it in the sun in the patio.

- Strange, very strange.

- There is an answer to everything, master.

We will find this one.

[Armand screaming]

Look, Paul!

Look! [dramatic choir music]

- It won't work, Jim, not with a man of his imagination.

- Oh, it'll work.

You scratch any man of imagination,

and underneath you'll fine superstitions.

I'm just betting on one thing you told me, Adolfe.

That she might have had Seminole blood.

Here he comes.

Come on.

[Armand shouting]

Well, do you think it's working?

- It's working.

- Let no one in the house.

Put servants on guard, front and rear.

[exhaling]

I must be calm, Paul.

think this out.

If Captain Ponet had not been so certain

that he had persuaded Bowie to be

on his way to Texas, then I'd suspect.

But still, not even Bowie could have scaled

the walls to my bedroom.

No, there are other factors to be dealt with,

and they shall not be my master.

Fetch me my p*stol case.

Utter nonsense, what he said about that Seminole prophecy.

- Of course, master.

- How are your nerves, Paul?

- Steady, master.

- Then just be calm as you observe this p*stol case.

Look, the lid is moving. [dramatic choir music]

[guard grunting]

- What now?

[shushing]

- Ah, master, I'm glad to see you

sitting there at your ease, calm at last.

- Those terrace drapers, a moment ago they moved.

- Master, I assure you Pierre is guarding the front,

and Jacques is still stationed at the rear.

Now, something on which to feast your eyes.

Pompano with your favorite cream sauce

and just a dash of sherry.

- Paul, do not remove that cover!

- Relax, master, you are still jumpy.

- I must tell you something, Paul.

She did have Seminole blood!

- Is that any reason to give way to terror?

Sit down, master.

If you refuse to eat, let me pour you some cognac

and get you one of your favorite cigars.

- Put that down!

- Master, I insist you get hold of yourself.

That pompano I saw cook prepare myself.

There is that and nothing else beneath that silver cover.

And now I ask you, could there be anything

in that box but your cigars?

- Do you deny the existence

of those alligators this morning?

And then the one in my carriage.

There have been others throughout the day,

even in the locked metal case that held her will!

Paul, this is supernatural!

- Master, you are ill.

Let me send for your physician.

- Bad luck, Bowie said.

He knows the legends of this area as no man alive.

I tell you, Paul, she has put a curse on me!

A Seminole curse!

Pompano, you say! [sobs]

Was that pompano?

And here do we have cigars?

Cigars, you say!

Pompano!

- Master, let me help you to your feet.

- Paul, your hands!

Get the police!

I must confess to both the murders!

- I believe you've heard enough, Captain.

- Yes, Bowie, but you have not,

until you hear my apology.

- So, it was all just a trick?

[dramatic choir music]

[thudding]

- Well, de Rivnac, I suppose my nose still offends you.

- The keys to every room in the house,

including the cabinet of his personal files.

- De Rivnac didn't know about those duplicate keys.

- I have been working for the family

of de Rivnac all my life.

Guilty as he was, I must confess I feel a Judas.

If I am free to go,

there is a boat for Louvre tonight,

I would like to be aboard her.

- We will not hold you, Paul.

But one question,

what made you decide de Rivnac should be brought to justice?

- I promised him that he wouldn't have to explain.

- Oh, very well, it is of no importance.

- The painting of his lady over the mantel,

there is no one would want it now.

Do you suppose I could take it with me?

- By all means.

And I thank you, Paul, for answering my question.

[gentle choir music]

- It was a peculiar kinda story, Adolfe.

A gargoyle in love.

See that you write it that way.

♪ Jim Bowie, Jim Bowie

♪ He was a fighter, a fearless and mighty adventurin' man ♪