[Mark Twain Mysteries 01] - Death on the Mississippi

by Peter J. Heck

  “Yes, sir. I’ve been to Newport several times, and I’ve been to Boston to visit family.”

  “Boston!” He looked at me with a curious gleam in his eye. “Are you one of those Boston Cabots?”

  “My grandfather was from Boston. The majority of my family still live there.”

  “And Howells tells me you went to Yale.”

  “I completed my studies just this June, sir.”

  He looked me up and down, like a man inspecting a horse he means to buy. “And still such an innocent,” he said at last. “Well, I’m glad of it in a way. Better to have a cub you can train than somebody who knows it all already. Listen here, Wentworth Cabot, I’ve half a mind to hire you in spite of everything. Could you be ready for a seven-week journey by Friday?” I told him that would be sufficient time; he named a figure for my salary, and I accepted without further ado.

  2

  I returned to New London on the next morning’s train, said my farewells to my friends and family (who gave my enterprise their reluctant blessings), and packed a trunk for the journey. Thursday, I returned on the early train to New York and checked into the Union Square Hotel, where Mr. Clemens was staying. I paid the driver, and soon found myself in a room adjacent to my employer. I opened the window to let in a breath of fresh air—while I have no general brief against smokers, the previous tenant had evidently been frugal in his choice of pipe tobacco, although far from sparing in its use. The summer sun shone brightly over the buildings on the west side of the little park, and the sound of urban industry and hustle-bustle rose from the street below, mixed with the cries of children at play.

  When I checked into my hotel room, the clerk had given me a message from Mr. Clemens: he had gone uptown to meet with his financial backers and a clerk from the steamboat company, and gave me my liberty for the rest of the day. I took a cab all the way uptown to the great Metropolitan Art Museum on Central Park, and spent a pleasant afternoon viewing the paintings of Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Rubens, and other European masters. Feeling that I was not entirely unsuited for my chosen profession as world traveler, I returned to the hotel mentally reviewing the stunning canvases I had seen, intending to spend the hour or so until supper jotting impressions of them in my notebook.

  When I stopped by the desk to retrieve my key, I asked if Mr. Clemens had returned yet. “Not yet, but there’s another man here to see him,” said the clerk. To my surprise, he indicated a solidly built, red-faced man in a cheap-looking suit and weather-beaten slouch hat. Upon my approach, he put aside his newspaper—The Police Gazette—and looked up at me. “Sure, and you’re not Mr. Clemens, are you?”

  “No, I’m his traveling secretary, Wentworth Cabot,” I said, smiling to myself at being mistaken for a man so much older. “Mr. Clemens had business uptown, but I expect him back shortly. How can I help you?”

  “Paul Berrigan, detective, New York City police,” he said, showing a badge. “I was pretty sure you weren’t him—a bit young, for one thing—but you might be trying to impersonate the fellow. You never know, in this business. Anyhow, that’s him yonder, so the question’s moot.” He gestured toward the desk, where Mr. Clemens had indeed come in and was talking to the clerk, who pointed in our direction.

  I caught his eye and waved him over. The plainclothes-man introduced himself again, and asked whether there was someplace private we could speak.

  “Come on up to my room,” said Mr. Clemens. “I assume you don’t mind if my secretary joins us.”

  Berrigan nodded. “Your room’s good as anyplace. I’d ask you to come by the station if you were a suspect,” he said to Mr. Clemens, “but I think we can be pretty sure Mr. Mark Twain doesn’t go around murdering people.”

  “Murder!” I said then looked around quickly to see if anyone in the lobby had noticed. If they had, they evidently had the good breeding not to make it obvious. Mr. Clemens gestured toward the elevator, and we rode up in silence to the room.

  Once there, Mr. Clemens lit one of his cigars, and Berrigan began his story. “One of our men found a fellow dead in an alleyway, a few blocks east of here; not quite the sort of neighborhood where you’d expect that sort of trouble. He’d been stabbed in the belly. Looked as if there’d been a struggle—there were cuts on his hands. This was just over an hour ago, and the body was still warm. We found this was in his pocket.”

  He handed us a smudged slip of paper with MR MARK TWAIN, Union Square Hotel written on it in lead pencil in a decidedly ill-bred hand. “Do you recognize the handwriting?”

  My employer looked at it casually; then his brow furrowed and he reached into his side pocket. He handed the detective another, cleaner slip of paper, which appeared to be hotel stationery. “This was waiting for me at the desk. See what you think of the match.”

  “Bejasus, it’s a dead ringer,” he said. I looked over his shoulder; even to my untrained eye, the slip was clearly in the same hand, although this note was in ink. It read: MR TWAIN: heard you was in town and waited here but you dint come back—Need to talk—come to 103 Mulberry St. tomorrow morning. Yr old buddy: JACK HUBBARD.

  The detective spread the two pieces of paper on the table. “So, now at least we have a name and address—dead center in the worst part of town. What can you tell me about this Hubbard?”

  My new employer thought for a moment. “I first met him when I was a river pilot—that’d make it over thirty years ago. He started off as a character actor on one of the old showboats, and he was a pretty good one, from what I hear. But he was making more money on the side at billiards, and after a while he left the stage and just played billiards.

  “He used to walk into a place wearing a farmer’s outfit: straw hat, dungarees and all. Farmer Jack, the boys called him—and he could talk about chicken feed and henhouses and eggs till you expected him to cackle, but it was all an act, to draw the suckers into a game. I’d bet you a nickel he never laid eyes on a chicken in his life, except on his dinner plate. If he’d stayed in the theater, he’d have been a wonder. But he was a wizard at billiards, too—once you put a cue in his hand, he was the best player I ever saw. Took six dollars of my money, before I learned who he was. But it was worth it, just to see him at the table.”

  “And what did he look like?”

  “Big heavyset fellow about his height,” Mr. Clemens said, pointing to me, “with squinty blue eyes and a bushy red beard, at least when I used to know him. None too clean a dresser. That was quite some time ago; he may have changed his act since.”

  Berrigan reached for a satchel he’d brought with him. “You’ve hit the nail on the head. The officer that found him went to shift the body, and this fell off.” He took out a tangled mass of dirty-looking red hair—a false beard, it became apparent when he held it up. He gave it a shake and handed it over.

  “I should have known those whiskers were a sham!” said Mr. Clemens, holding the disguise up to the light. “That’s just like Farmer Jack Hubbard’s beard, all right—ugliest thing I ever saw. Now I know why it never seemed to fit him. I’m tempted to go to the morgue and see what the old rascal looked like without it.”

  “We could arrange that,” said Berrigan. “We still haven’t found anyone to identify the body for sure.”

  “To be honest, cadavers never agreed with my digestion. But I doubt I could help you much in any case,” said Mr. Clemens. “I don’t know for certain that I ever did see Hubbard’s real face, and it’s been over ten years since I saw him at all.”

  “We still may call you if we don’t find anybody. What do you think he wanted with you after all that time? Maybe it’ll give us a clue.” The detective had his notebook out again.

  “I’m gathering material for a book about my early days working on the riverboats, and plan to talk to as many of the old-timers as I can find. That much has been in the papers; he probably saw my picture and read about the trip. I’d figure he wanted to talk about that, possibly touch me up for a few dollars—can’t imagine what else it could be. As I sa
y, I haven’t laid eyes on him in years.”

  “Any enemies, old-timers who might have a grudge against him?”

  “None in particular,” said Mr. Clemens. “The boys those days were a pretty rough crowd, though. Every gambler in twenty states rode the boats, and some of them didn’t think twice at pulling out a razor when the cards went against them. Not that Jack was any good at cards—he lost more at Red Dog than he ever won at billiards. More likely somebody just tried to rob him.”

  “We’ve ruled that out,” said Berrigan. “There was forty dollars gold in his pocket. I suppose you don’t know who his associates might be these days.”

  “No idea. He used to run with a fast crowd in the old days, card mechanics and pool sharks, most of them. George Devol was pretty much the ringleader, but he’s dead, by all reports.”

  “Who were some of the others?” asked the detective.

  Mr. Clemens thought for a moment. “Wes Horton, Richie the Rat—I think his last name was Clark . . . a big German fellow name of Heinie Schussler . . . Ed McPhee, too. Can’t forget old Slippery Ed.”

  Berrigan laughed. “Ah, Mr. Twain! A fine-sounding bunch! If any of them are in New York, I haven’t heard the names—and they’re the type I would have heard of. But we’ll keep an eye open, and if they’re here, we’ll find ’em. Will you let me know if you think of anything else that might help us?” Mr. Clemens promised, and the detective bade us a good evening.

  “Well, what do you make of that?” said Clemens, after the door had closed.

  “This is an outrage! I had heard that New York was a den of crime and depravity, but I hardly expected to see it demonstrated so clearly!”

  “No, no, Cabot. There’s something about this that doesn’t smell right,” said Mr. Clemens. “Jack Hubbard never called me anything but Sam as long as I’ve known him. If he got formal, maybe he’d have called me Mr. Clemens, but nobody from the river ever called me by my pen name—I didn’t even make it up until years later. So whoever wrote that scrap of paper, I doubt it was Jack. I wonder who did write it; do you think it could be our friend the detective?”

  I was dumbstruck by this suggestion. “But he showed me a badge!” I insisted.

  “The badge could be false—don’t tell me you’ve studied the police badges of every city we’re likely to visit, because I won’t believe you. It could be stolen. Or Mr. Berrigan could be exactly what he appears to be . . . and even then, I’d lay you odds he’ll play the game however’s most to his advantage. Surely they teach you these things at Yale?”

  Mr. Clemens looked at his watch, then waved a hand in the direction of a bottle of Scotch whisky and a siphon on the sideboard. “I took the liberty of ordering in some provisions. Make me one and help yourself, Wentworth.” I prepared a drink and handed it to him—my first act in my new capacity as his secretary. Mr. Clemens seemed lost in thought, and I had to clear my throat before he noticed the glass in my outstretched hand. He thanked me, then repeated, “Help yourself, Cabot. Go on—it’s one of the perquisites of the position.” He smiled, but I could see that his mind was elsewhere.

  While I poured myself a dose, he walked to the window and stood with a distant expression, looking out at the street below, slowly sipping his whisky. Then, as if he had arrived at a decision, he downed his glass in one gulp, turned, and walked briskly back to me.

  “Fill me up again,” he said. “We’ve time before dinner for you to hear a story. Talking’s thirsty work, and so’s listening, and a dead man’s serious business. There are things you need to know.” I stared at him, but held my curiosity in check while I followed his instructions and poured him another glass. When we had both taken a sip from our respective glasses, he began to pace the floor, as if collecting his thoughts. Finally he stopped and fixed me with a stare. “I want you to promise that you’ll keep what I’m about to tell you an absolute secret. It may be a question of life and death—hell, I know that men have already died because of it. This murder today may be another in the string.”

  “Shouldn’t Berrigan know about it?”

  “No. I don’t trust him—I don’t know for sure that he is a real policeman; and even if he is, that doesn’t make him trustworthy. But you need to know, because you may be putting yourself in danger, and I won’t expose a man to danger without his knowing it. Do you promise—on your honor as a Yale man—not to tell anyone what I’m about to say?”

  I thought for a moment; it was clearly a serious matter. But I had cast my lot with Mr. Clemens, and I would not back out now. “Yes,” I told him. “On my word as a Yale man—and as a Cabot.”

  “Good,” said Mr. Clemens. “We can save a good bit of time and strain on the old man’s memory if you’ve read a book I wrote about ten years ago called Life on the Mississippi,” he said. I shook my head, somewhat embarrassed to admit this deficiency. “No? Worth a try. Let’s see if I can still piece it together.

  “This happened in Munich, a dozen years ago. I was there on an extended visit, and made friends with a man I called Karl Ritter in my book, although that wasn’t his real name. Poor Ritter was on his deathbed, and knew it—consumption. I did my best to give him a cheerful human presence to make his last days easier. As I soon discovered, he spoke perfect English and wanted to speak it with me. I realized, somewhat later, that having someone he could talk to without being understood by his neighbors took a burden off his mind—here was a foreigner who knew nothing about him except what he decided to reveal—and after some time of feeling me out, he told me his life story.

  “You can read my book if you want to know everything Ritter told me—although I kept a few key details out, or changed them enough to keep readers from guessing the whole truth. At any rate, Ritter had moved to America around 1855—had a job in St. Louis making shoes, didn’t like it, and moved to a little farm in Arkansas, where he married a local girl. A few years later, the Civil War began, but he decided to stick it out on the farm. One night toward the end of the war, he woke from a sound sleep to find his home invaded by two masked men, who bound and gagged him. From the snatches of conversation he overheard, he realized that the pair were soldiers in disguise, and that they had been searching for something in the house. Eventually they were frightened off and he escaped from his bonds, only to find his wife and child murdered.”

  “How terrible!,” I said. “Surely they were rebel soldiers, and not our own boys.”

  Clemens shook his head. “These men were Union cavalry, from one of the Wisconsin regiments. Putting on a blue coat doesn’t reform a man if he’s rotten already, and there were plenty of scoundrels on both sides in the war.”

  “Did Ritter not apply to their superior officers for redress?”

  “That was never likely. First of all, he hadn’t seen their faces, and second of all, he was dealing with an occupying army in wartime—normal rules and habits don’t apply. More to the point, he meant to take his revenge in person, rather than rely on the state.”

  He saw that I was about to protest my outrage, and held up his hand to stop me. “Poor Ritter is beyond the jurisdiction of any human court, and I’m not about to play judge. He acted as he did, and I don’t know if I would have acted any differently in his shoes. But that’s not why I am telling you this story. Do you want to spout off some more nonsense, or do you want to hear the rest?” He glared at me for a moment; I bowed my head in acquiescence, and he continued.

  “Ritter managed to identify which outfit the killers had come from, but he bided his time while planning his revenge. After a time, the troop was transferred about a hundred miles north, to a town along the river—a town I referred to in my book as Napoleon, Arkansas, although that wasn’t its name. Ritter knew that soldiers are superstitious devils, so he followed them there, disguised as a fortune-teller. He was able to attach himself to the troop and get a close look at a lot of them under the pretext of telling their fortunes. It didn’t take him long to spot one of the pair—the fellow had lost a thumb, which made him pret
ty conspicuous—but he wasn’t the one Ritter wanted most, the man who’d done the actual killing. And he found out that the men he was after were both Germans—this was a Wisconsin outfit, and about a third of the men were of German ancestry.

  “Ritter had stumbled on another clue that, combined with his sham of fortune-telling, he expected to lead him to his man. The killer had left a thumbprint in blood on a piece of paper in Ritter’s house. Now, Ritter had a friend who had served as a prison guard, and from that man he’d learned that a thumbprint is unique—infallible identification of the man who made it. I’m working on a book right now that uses that fact. Anyhow, Ritter pretended that he could read a man’s fortune by dipping his thumb in ink and marking it on paper. What he really did was take the prints home at night and compare them to the print left by the killer—in his own dear wife’s blood. It took a long time, and interviews with dozens of the soldiers, but finally he found his man.”

  “Surely, that would have been the time to reveal all to the officers in charge,” I said, but Clemens waved me into silence.

  “Ritter’s long dead, Wentworth. None of us can go back and tell him what he ought to have done. What he in fact did required no small amount of courage, since he chose to confront the other, thumbless man, with his knowledge of the crime—although he concealed it behind the pretense of fortune-telling. His original intent was simply to confirm his suspicions with a confession, and that he got in full detail. But here is where the story becomes interesting. To Ritter’s surprise, the poor fellow fell on his knees and offered him a vast hidden treasure, if only he would advise him on how to avoid the terrible fate his ‘fortune’ had predicted.