[Mark Twain Mysteries 03] - The Prince and the Prosecutor

by Peter J. Heck

  Prinz Karl seemed to be making himself scarce, as well. He did not appear for the evening meal, and I wondered whether something had come of my employer’s visit to the master-at-arms—although I could not imagine what it might be. Mr. Clemens had reported that the officer had listened with interest and promised to look into the matter, without promising anything in particular. Perhaps, despite his claim that the ocean did not affect him, the prince was suffering from seasickness.

  Another who appeared to be staying in her cabin was Rebecca Babson. I did see her at dinner, although we were seated at different tables and thus unable to talk. But she did not appear on deck, nor did I encounter her in the ship’s corridors. Once I even peeked into the library, thinking that she might be there, but I saw only Mrs. Tremont, busily arranging books on the shelves. Miss Babson did not seem to be avoiding me; she smiled and said “Hello” as we were leaving the dining room after dinner. But she was with her parents, and as they did not stop to speak, neither did she.

  I saw far more of her brother, since he was a frequent habitué of the smoking lounge—almost always drinking and playing cards with a constantly shifting cast of opponents. As far as I could tell without paying close attention, Robert Babson was more often the loser than a winner. For the moment, at least, he had apparently forgotten his petty quarrel with me over the spilled wine. Perhaps, after the failure of his attempt to get me in trouble with Gallagher, he’d decided to pretend that the episode had never occurred. Whatever the reason, I was just as glad not to be the object of his notice.

  Equally, I was relieved to no longer be the object of Mr. Gallagher’s particular notice, although I did see him once or twice on deck. We said nothing to one another, though he favored me with a wry half-grin as we passed. As for my Yale friends, Bertie and the DeWitt brothers, whom he was presumably still trying to prevent trespassing on the first-class deck, I saw nothing of them, though I kept hoping to. Having met them, I realized that however much I enjoyed my employer’s company, I missed talking to friends of my own age. I would have to make another sally below decks and seek them out. Bertie would be infinitely amused by the tale of my encounter with Gallagher, not to mention my near-jailing.

  And so I adapted comfortably to the life of the ship. Even Mr. Clemens was less demanding than usual, although my work for him had never been onerous. With no telephone office and no daily mail delivery, no constant changing of hotels and restaurants, my duties boiled down to a bit of filing and taking dictation, and running an occasional errand to the library. I began to think I could very easily come to appreciate this sort of travel—especially with someone else footing the bills.

  Not that everything went smoothly or without incident. Far from it. As predicted, the weather continued to grow stormy. At the evening meal, the soup in my bowl and the wine in my glass sloshed visibly back and forth, and at a nearby table one unfortunate waiter was caught off-balance by a sudden movement of the ship, spilling gravy onto the sleeve of a gentleman he was serving. Of course, the head steward came rushing up and promised to have the garment cleaned in time for the next meal. The gentleman took it all good-naturedly, especially after the steward brought an especially fine bottle of red wine to the table “compliments of the captain.” But it was an unmistakable sign that we were in for a bout of rough sailing.

  Not all the passengers responded to the heavy seas with the same equanimity as the gentleman whose sleeve was stained. At my dinner table, Lady Fitzwilliam and Dr. Gillman were both “off their feed,” and attendance was noticeably down at the next morning’s breakfast table. It became something of an exercise in navigation to move from one side of a room to the other, since the path might begin as an uphill climb and switch midway to a downhill slide. While I managed easily enough, it was clearly a bit of a hazard to some of the older passengers, who were less steady on their feet, even when the deck was fairly level. I began to discern the full meaning of the expression “getting one’s sea legs.”

  Inevitably, the more difficult conditions took a toll on the passengers’ dispositions. Mr. Clemens could be irascible in the best of circumstances, particularly first thing in the morning. Shaving was a great trial for his temper, and I had grown accustomed to hearing him fire off a reverberating volley of red-hot curses every time he nicked himself. But with the ship pitching every which way, it became worrisome to be in the same room with him as he shaved. I began to fear that the Deity would decide to put an end to my employer’s blasphemies with a bolt of lightning, and blow me to flinders along with him, innocent bystander though I was. It took a heavy weight off my mind when, on the second morning of rough weather, he went to the barbershop for his shave.

  I had learned that Mr. Clemens’s temper was like New England weather, apt to change every five minutes. I did not take it any more personally than I would a sudden shower on a summer day. Besides, his spurts of anger were far less frequent than his usual good humor and joking. But when half the passengers seemed out of sorts, it was never quite certain whether a social occasion would proceed as planned or degenerate into a petty spat. That became apparent on the first night of bad weather.

  I had gone to hear Signor Rubbia lecture on modern French art. Despite Mr. Clemens’s mockery of the artist-turned-tour-guide, I was intrigued by some of the Italian’s comments on art that I had overheard. While I would not be able to accompany him and the Philadelphians on their tour of European museums, I expected some day to visit many of the same galleries on my own. It made sense to learn from Rubbia’s knowledge and experience.

  The lecture was held in the Grand Saloon, and the room was packed. All the Philadelphians had come to hear the lecture, most of them crowding into the front row chairs and saving them for their friends and family members. I had a seat to begin with, but gave it up to Mrs. Gillman when she arrived to find all the chairs taken. By the time the talk began, half a dozen other men had joined me where I stood in the back. Signor Rubbia’s smile grew broader by the minute as he saw the seats filling up, and when at last Mrs. Tremont introduced him as “Maestro Giorgio Rubbia, the celebrated Italian authority on the fine arts,” he stepped up to the podium almost visibly swelling with pride.

  Robert Babson, who sat toward the back of the room with a pack of his cronies, was highly amused by Signor Rubbia’s self-important mien. I could hear him laughing and making rude comments from where I stood. From the front of the room, Signor Rubbia was aware of the noise, but not of its origin or substance. He stood at the podium staring around the audience, waiting for quiet, and growing increasingly impatient. He was not the only one impatient with the delay; Mr. Mercer, who was de facto leader of the Philadelphia contingent, turned and glared directly at young Babson, then uttered a loud “Shhhh!” that quieted the disturbance momentarily.

  I wondered why Robert Babson had even bothered to attend the lecture; he had made it amply clear he had little interest in art, and no respect at all for Signor Rubbia. Perhaps Babson’s parents had insisted on his attendance, hoping he would learn something. That outcome did not seem very likely to me; I remembered all too well the reception some of my Yale classmates had given unpopular speakers whose lectures they were compelled to attend. I had hissed at a few dull speakers in my own days as an undergraduate, emboldened by the example of my peers and the anonymity a large audience provides.

  With quiet established, Signor Rubbia began his talk. “Some people say that painting is dead,” he said, with a sweeping gesture. “The cameras are supposed to have killed it. I tell you that is not so. No, because now that we have the cameras, we can understand better than ever before what painting is truly about. To paint is not to make copies of what we see, but to make us see something new. And the best way to learn this is to go to Paris.”

  “We’re certainly never going to understand it listening to you,” came a voice from the back of the room. It was Robert Babson, of course.

  Rubbia glared—he knew perfectly well who had made the remark—then decided to ignore t
he interruption. “The new painters who create the most exciting art are exhibiting in Paris,” he went on. “You will not yet see them very much in the salons and galleries, but on the streets and in the cafés and restaurants, they are easy to spot.”

  “Dead drunk on the floor, no doubt,” came Babson’s heckling voice again, followed by a chorus of scattered giggles.

  “I think the drunk person is here, not in Paris,” said Rubbia, his face turning red. He came around to the front of the lectern, pointing in Babson’s direction. “I do not come here to have you make a fool of me.”

  Several people in the audience had turned around to shush the interruption, and Mr. Mercer had stood up to glower at the younger Babson. In the front row, Rebecca Babson seemed to sink lower in her chair, as if to avoid association with her brother.

  Evidently Robert Babson was drunk, because he laughed out loud and said, “I can’t make you any bigger fool than you already are, old fellow.”

  At this, Rubbia let loose a volley of rapid Italian, which it was probably just as well none of the audience understood. But his meaning was clear, as he began to stalk determinedly toward his tormentor. “I show you who the fool is,” he muttered, his fists clenched.

  Robert Babson slouched back in his seat, grinning at his friends. “Good, this’ll be amusing for a change,” he said. “What do you think you’re going to do with me, eh?”

  “Robert, that will be quite enough,” said Mrs. Babson, in a high-pitched voice that wavered on the edge of panic. She had risen to her feet along with half the front-row audience. “You are embarrassing your mother.”

  By this time Signor Rubbia had come almost to the back of the room. Vincent Mercer had followed close behind him, and when Rubbia stopped opposite Babson’s seat, the banker put a hand on his arm, speaking quietly into his ear. Rubbia nodded and drew back a step. Still, there was mayhem in his eyes. “Robert,” said Mr. Mercer, “I believe it would be better if you sought your diversion elsewhere.”

  “Oh, bother,” said Robert Babson, but then he sat up straight and looked at his cronies. “I guess Mercer’s right, fellows. Who’s up for whist?”

  Two of his friends nodded their assent, and together they stood up and made their exit, with Rubbia glaring at them the whole way out. His anger was dampened for the moment, but I wondered how long it would be before another incident set it blazing again.

  13

  After Robert Babson’s ejection, Signor Rubbia’s art lecture went rather well, although it took a while for the artist to regain his composure. At the conclusion, I went to the smoking lounge to join Mr. Clemens, who had wisely decided to spend his evening swapping stories with Mr. Kipling, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and some of the other passengers rather than sitting through a lecture. “Wisely” in contrast to Robert Babson, who after his departure from the Grand Saloon sat with a group of his fellows playing whist—without much luck on his side, to judge from his expression.

  I gave Babson a wide berth when I entered the lounge, not wanting to provide him a fresh target, but he still took no notice of me. Two or three other gentlemen who had been present at the lecture also steered clear of him as they entered the room. It reminded me of pedestrians crossing the street to avoid passing a yard that housed an ill-tempered dog. For my part, I found a seat near Mr. Clemens, who was in the midst of a harrowing story of a mining cabin infested with huge spiders.

  The other veteran travelers chimed in with their own tales of the vermin that inhabit strange countries—Colonel Fitzwilliam with a tale of a man who fell into a nest of the beautiful but deadly cobras of India, and somehow survived to tell about it. But Mr. Kipling took the prize for sheer terror with a tale of a man pursued by a pack of wild dogs who escaped by leaping over a cliff into deep water—the cliff being home to huge colonies of bees, which forced the poor fellow to keep ducking under water to escape their enraged stings. It was a gripping story, and I told him he ought to put it in a book. “Oh, I already have,” he said, smiling quietly.

  Just about that time, I looked up to see Mr. Mercer and Mr. Babson enter the room, their faces grim. They made straight for Robert Babson’s group of card players, and I saw Mr. Mercer lay a peremptory hand on his shoulder. Young Babson looked up in annoyance, but a worried look crossed his face when he saw that it was his father and his prospective father-in-law who summoned him. Then he turned back to his whist partners, with a blasé expression, and excused himself. Pushing his chair back, he rose from the card table and followed his apprehensive father and the stern-faced Mr. Mercer out of the room. That fellow’s in for a scolding he won’t soon forget, I thought. In spite of all he had done, I felt a twinge of sympathy for him. Nonetheless, I was pleased to note that he did not return to the smoking lounge that evening.

  Mr. Clemens also saw the incident, and shot a questioning glance in my direction as he watched the three men leave the room. But he said nothing about it until the end of the evening. Back in our cabin, he kicked his shoes off, loosened his tie, and plopped himself in a chair to sip on a nightcap. Seeing him settled for the evening, I was about to retire to my bunk when he stopped me with a raised hand. “One last question before you turn in, Wentworth. What’s the story behind Mercer and Babson coming in like bailiffs and hauling off that young scamp? You looked as if you knew what was going on.”

  I briefly described Babson’s expulsion from the lecture, and my employer nodded. “Now I’m even gladder I decided to spend the evening with a good cigar instead of going to hear that silly artist,” he said. “I’d have been tempted to take a few potshots at Rubbia myself, and like as not I’d have ruined my digestion trying to keep from doing it. A man like Mercer doesn’t like to hear that his pet artist is a humbug, especially in front of an audience. I reckon he’ll give the Babson boy a first-class cussing-out.”

  “A well-earned one, in my opinion,” I commented. “Perhaps it’ll teach Babson to think a little more before he speaks.”

  “Oh, I doubt it,” said Mr. Clemens. “More likely it’ll just teach him to pick his targets more carefully. If Bobby Babson had been slanging socialism and free silver instead of poking fun at Rubbia, the banker would think he was a prime wit. It ain’t what you say that makes most people think you’re smart, it’s how well you agree with their opinions.” He sighed. “I think Rubbia’s a pompous fool, though a harmless one. But that Babson boy’s a bully, and that’s a damn shame.”

  “Well, I certainly hope he won’t decide that I’m a safer target than Rubbia,” I said. “I’ve had all the unpleasantness I need from that quarter.”

  “If that young fellow thinks you’re a safe target, he’ll learn better pretty fast,” said Mr. Clemens, with a wicked grin. “The cussing-out he got from old Mercer is just a homeopathic dose compared to what he’ll get if he crosses Sam Clemens. Normally, I’d be ashamed to waste my time on such a pitiful opponent. But if he tries to play any more games with you, I’ll put aside what few scruples I have and fry him good and crisp.”

  “I appreciate your concern,” I said, somewhat testily. “But I can take care of my own problems.”

  “I guess you can,” said Mr. Clemens, looking me up and down. “But if you decide that pitching the no-good son of a lawyer overboard is too much work, I’ll be glad to skewer him for you. In fact, I’ll positively enjoy it.”

  The ship’s rolling and pitching had noticeably increased by the next morning, and a glance out the porthole showed a hard driving rain washing down the decks. It was something of a challenge to keep one’s balance while performing such ordinary tasks as putting on trousers. And on the way to the dining room, both Mr. Clemens and I had to keep one hand against the wall to guard against being thrown about by sudden movements of the ship. I saw one poor woman take a heavy fall when she was caught off-guard by the ship’s rolling.

  There were quite a few empty seats at breakfast. Rebecca Babson was among those who did not appear, and I feared that her absence was due to seasickness. Her brother Robert was also
among the missing. It struck me that if Bertie Parsons’s theory that drinking was the best way to avoid seasickness, Babson had surely taken on enough liquor to realize whatever preventative effect it might have. Perhaps his sister would know; if I had the chance to speak to Rebecca Babson, I would make it a point to inquire after her brother’s health.

  Because of the weather, many of the activities that would ordinarily take place on-deck were either moved inside or canceled entirely. The shuffleboard tournament was postponed, and the horse races were held in the dining room after lunch. Robert Babson had made his appearance by then, and while he looked a bit peaked, he ate his lunch with a good enough appetite, although he was drinking his wine diluted with soda water. Whether he chose this beverage because of a delicate stomach or because his father and Mr. Mercer had warned him to moderate his consumption of alcohol, I hoped it would make him a more congenial traveling companion. I should not have been so optimistic.

  I spent much of the day helping Mr. Clemens proofread the manuscript he was delivering to England, a task that sent me to the library two or three times to verify spellings or matters of fact. I kept hoping that Rebecca Babson might be there, but she was evidently occupied elsewhere. Of course, my work would not have left me much time for conversation. Still, every time I saw a young woman with blond hair, I felt an undeniable anticipation, until closer examination proved me wrong. I finally admonished myself not to build up my expectations, but to let things work out however the fates decreed. I had no evidence that her interest in me was motivated by anything other than a desire to warn an innocent person of her brother’s malice.