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

by Peter J. Heck

  “Yes, these things are always hardest on the poor women,” said Mr. Clemens, shaking his head. “Young Babson was as sorry a specimen as I’ve seen, yet even he had a mother to grieve for him. Well, maybe he’ll turn up yet, though I wouldn’t bet on it.”

  “I’m not a betting man, but I’ll agree with you on that, sir,” said Harrison. He looked in my bedroom; then, satisfied that we were not concealing Robert Babson, he went on his way to search another cabin.

  When we finished our day’s work and went to the smoking lounge before dinner, there was still no word of Babson. The crew had reportedly searched every inch of the ship without finding him. The prevailing opinion was that he had gone on deck and fallen overboard in the night; given his intoxication at the concert, it was easy to believe. He could not have survived very long in such rough seas. The gentlemen in the lounge shook their heads and tut-tutted over their drinks, but I saw very little evidence that any of them particularly regretted the loss of Babson’s company.

  Not surprisingly, neither the mother nor the sister of the missing man were at dinner that evening, although his father was present, sitting next to Mr. Mercer at the Philadelphians’ table. Robert Babson’s usual table was quiet as a church, and the somber mood was contagious; conversation all around the dining room was conducted in respectful whispers. The wine seemed to flow less freely, too. Even Mr. Clemens kept his witticisms under wraps for an evening, speaking in a calm voice and limiting himself to subjects calculated to give as little offense as possible.

  At the end of the meal, the captain rose to his feet and announced that the evening’s scheduled entertainment—a comic skit put on by the ship’s officers and crew—had been canceled. Instead, the Reverend Mr. Smythe would preside at a memorial service for poor Robert Babson, now officially “missing and presumed lost at sea.” All passengers were urged to pay their last respects.

  “I would think it’s rather premature to hold services,” said Mrs. Kipling, a skeptical look on her face. “It would serve them right if he stumbled in, half drunk, right in the middle of the eulogy.”

  “Yes, wouldn’t it?” said Mr. Kipling, grinning. “If it really happened, it would make it worthwhile to go to the service just to see everyone’s faces. It would make a first-rate story—though Clemens has already put his stamp on it, I fear. Even if I told it as true, nobody would believe I hadn’t stolen it from Tom Sawyer.”

  “Truth is stranger than fiction,” commented Colonel Fitzwilliam. “I can’t say I had much use for the Babson boy, but I suppose I will go to the services. They’re not so much for him as for the family, and they seem a decent lot.”

  The rest of the passengers evidently shared the colonel’s feelings; the Grand Saloon was full. Even Signor Rubbia, who might have considered himself well delivered of an affliction, was present. Perhaps the tour guide thought that Mr. Mercer, in whose good graces it was to his advantage to remain, would take offense at his absence from the service. In any case, Rubbia did his best to keep an appropriately mournful expression, whatever his personal sentiments regarding Robert Babson. Except for the Kiplings, who evidently made it a habit to avoid such large public gatherings, the only person conspicuously not in attendance was Prinz Karl von Ruckgarten, and I for one was not surprised, considering how obnoxiously the young man had treated him. Indeed, his presence might have caused more comment than his discreet absence.

  The service was neither unseemly brief nor oppressively long. The Reverend Mr. Smythe did not go on at length about Robert Babson’s merits, whatever they might have been. Instead, he directed our attention to the untimely loss sustained by his family and friends and to the hope of a reunion in a better world. We sang two or three appropriate hymns, recited the 23rd Psalm, and all in all gave the deceased a valediction far more tasteful than most of his living actions that had come to my attention. I arose from my seat at the service’s end with a certain sense of completion; while I might not feel much genuine grief at Babson’s demise, it surely did no harm to mark his departure from the Earth in a dignified manner.

  Babson’s family sat in the front row. His mother wept constantly, poor woman. It was touching to see Rebecca Babson lean over to whisper words of consolation in her mother’s ear, or to help her wipe away the tears. For his part, Mr. Babson sat stiff as a rod, his posture conveying stoic determination—and perhaps a certain degree of anger at the injustice of his son’s premature demise. Next to the Babsons sat Mr. Mercer and his family—including his daughter Theresa, the deceased’s betrothed, who was clearly devastated by his disappearance. She was the most visibly distraught of anyone other than the mother of the departed. I could not help feeling sorry for her, or for young Babson’s other friends, who sat in a row directly behind the family. It was the quietest I had ever seen them.

  At the end of the service, everyone lined up to pay their respects to the bereaved family. This process did not take long, considering that few of us knew Robert Babson well, and fewer still were likely to have much good to say of him. (I would not have been surprised if Signor Rubbia’s first impulse upon hearing of the death had been to dance a jig upon the foredeck.) I mumbled a few words of dubious solace to Rebecca Babson, feeling like a great hypocrite. But her brave little smile more than repaid me for the effort, and I left the memorial service with a sense that something had been accomplished after all.

  Coming out, Mr. Clemens turned to me with raised eyebrows. “Trouble’s brewing, or I don’t know the smell of it,” he muttered, cocking his head to the right. I followed his gesture and saw Mr. Mercer and Mr. Babson over to the side, locked in deep conversation with the captain. All three had very grave looks on their faces, and I wondered what they might be discussing that seemed so important. Were there complications following young Babson’s presumed death—some sort of paperwork or other formalities? Or did Mr. Babson have some notion of holding the steamship line liable for the young man’s accident? If the latter, I doubted he had much of a case, considering his evident intoxication on the night of his disappearance. In any case, I doubted it would have much effect on either me or my employer.

  It did not take long for me to find out how wrong I was.

  16

  After the memorial service for Robert Babson, Mr. Clemens and I headed for the smoking lounge. Since many of the passengers had been to the service, the lounge was less crowded than usual as we arrived. But Prinz Karl sat there calmly, reading a book and puffing on an old meerschaum pipe. He had placed himself next to Mr. Clemens’s favorite corner seat—almost certainly by design, I thought. He looked up as we entered, an eager expression on his face.

  Mr. Clemens glanced at me, and I shrugged, not knowing what to make of the situation. We had not spoken to the prince since he had disappeared just before the meeting we’d invited him to, hoping to resolve the question of his origins. Not that we had gone out of our way to avoid him; rather, it was he who had seemed to dodge us at every chance encounter. Something must have changed.

  Mr. Clemens was not one to evade such an obvious effort to meet him. “Hello, Prinz Karl,” he said, walking over and plopping himself on the couch. I followed, taking a chair adjacent to my employer.

  “I am glad to see you, Mark Twain,” said the prince, putting his book facedown on his lap. The title, I saw, was in German, embossed in old fashioned Black-letter script: Also Sprach Zarathustra, followed by F. Nietzsche, which I presumed was the author’s name. “I am sorry to have missed our meeting two days ago,” the prince continued. “Is it possible we can make the opportunity for a meeting tonight?”

  “Well, I don’t see why not,” said Mr. Clemens. He somehow managed to look as if the prince’s overture was exactly what he had expected; I am not certain I was as successful at concealing my surprise. “I’d like Kipling to join us, though. Why don’t we wait a few minutes for him? He decided to skip the shindig tonight, but I reckon he’ll come out for a smoke before it gets too late. If he doesn’t come, I’ll send Wentworth to get him. T
hen we can all go to my cabin for a little more privacy.”

  “Yes, of course,” said the prince, looking somewhat relieved at the reception he had gotten. “He should be included in the group, by all means.”

  “Good, then we’ll wait for him,” said Mr. Clemens. He took his own pipe out of his pocket, an old-fashioned corncob with a simple stem. I could not help thinking how sharply it contrasted with Prinz Karl’s meerschaum, the bowl of which was elaborately carved into a turbaned Moor’s head, slowly turning a rich golden color with long years of use. It was almost the same color as the amber stem. If such a pipe tasted as good as it looked, I could almost be tempted to take up smoking. But though I took no exception to others smoking, I had long ago learned that tobacco agreed with neither my palate nor my stomach.

  We sat in a silence that might have been awkward, but Mr. Clemens temporized by fiddling with his pipe, and Prinz Karl was sufficiently master of his composure not to show any sign of impatience. I wondered what the prince expected to accomplish by talking to us now; perhaps after explaining himself to the ship’s officers, he hoped to return himself to Mr. Clemens’s good graces. But what could explain his claim to come from a nonexistent place? It would have to be a good story to satisfy my employer; in my experience, he was not easily misled by impostors.

  Mr. Clemens had just finished packing his pipe with tobacco, and was reaching for a match, when the door to the smoking lounge opened to admit Mr. Babson, Captain Mortimer, and another officer I did not recognize: a tall, athletic-looking man with cool gray eyes. The three of them strode briskly in our direction, determination on their faces. “Damnation.” said Mr. Clemens, although his voice gave no particular sign of annoyance. “That’s the master-at-arms. I reckon we’re about to be interrupted.”

  “Excuse me, gentlemen,” said the captain, stopping directly in front of Mr. Clemens and the prince. “Prinz von Ruckgarten, I must ask you to come with me. Mr. Jennings and I have some important questions we would like you to answer.” He kept his voice low, but every ear in the room was cocked to hear him.

  “What sort of questions?” said the prince, looking up with a calm expression. “I will answer you right here, if you do not mind.”

  “I think you may prefer to talk to us in private—” began the captain, but Julius Babson cut him short.

  “Questions concerning your whereabouts and activities last night,” said Mr. Babson in a harsh voice. “I should warn you that anything you say may be held against you.”

  “Held against me?” said the prince, rising to his feet. “What you refer to, I do not understand. What do you have to hold against me?”

  The captain’s face was grim. “As you probably know, Mr. Babson’s son disappeared last night, and we believe he fell overboard . . .”

  “Not fell, but was pushed!” said Mr. Babson, in a voice that echoed in the smoking lounge. If anyone had not been looking in our direction before, they certainly were now. “And you are the one who did it, Ruckgarten—or whatever your name is: I expect we will learn that soon enough. Last night, you fought with my son. He bested you, and you threatened, in everyone’s hearing, that you would take your revenge in due time. You did not wait very long; you found him on the deck not long afterwards, and pushed him overboard. Captain, I accuse this man of premeditated murder!”

  The effect of Babson’s accusation was like a thunderbolt. The prince stood transfixed, shaking his head as if in disbelief. The lounge was dead silent as Captain Mortimer signaled the master-at-arms to escort Prinz Karl out of the room.

  “It’ll be best if you come along quietly, sir,” said Mr. Jennings, in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “I had nothing to do with young Babson’s disappearance,” said Prinz Karl, looking at the captain. “It has to have been an accident, nothing more. But I will give you no trouble. An innocent man has nothing to fear from a few questions.” He stepped forward, and Mr. Jennings put his hand lightly on his shoulder, although the intention was as clear as if he had placed him in handcuffs.

  Then, before anyone else moved, Mr. Clemens rose to his feet, and put his hand on the officer’s shoulder. “One moment, if you don’t mind. I’d like to ask this fellow just one question.”

  “The man is a murder suspect,” said Mr. Babson, his voice rising in pitch. “If anyone’s to question him, it should be the proper authorities.” He had turned to face Mr. Clemens; his face was red, and his posture belligerent. For the first time, I realized that Robert Babson might have learned his hostility from his father—if he had not in fact inherited it directly.

  “Looks to me as if the authorities are right here, and last I heard, you were just another passenger,” said Mr. Clemens, giving Babson an annoyed look. Then he turned slightly, facing the captain. “I’m going to ask my question, and Prinz Karl can answer it—or not—however he sees fit, and the authorities are here to take notes, if they want to. They can make whatever they damn well please of the answer. I’m not about to stop them from listening.”

  “Ask away, Mr. Clemens,” said the captain. “Prinz Karl has the right to remain silent, of course.”

  “A useful right,” said Mr. Clemens. “We’d all be better off if more people would make use of it. But I only have one question, and then the authorities can go wherever they want and ask their own questions.” He turned to the prince. Silence reigned in the lounge; games and conversations were forgotten as everyone turned to stare in fascination at the scene unfolding in the bright glare of the electric lights. Seeing a fellow passenger accused of murder could hardly be a commonplace occurrence in the first-class lounge, I thought.

  Mr. Clemens stroked his mustache a moment before speaking. “Prinz Karl, we were going to reschedule our meeting, and I guess we won’t have a chance to, now. So here’s what I wanted to find out. You say you’re from Ruckgarten, in Germany. Well, I’ve been to Germany; I lived a few months in Heidelberg, and in Munich, and in Berlin. I even spent the better part of a month in Bohemia, and never in all that time heard of a place called Ruckgarten. Neither has Kipling, whom I consider a pretty well-informed man. When I asked you about it the other morning, I thought you were trying to dodge the question. So I had my secretary look for it on a map of Germany.”

  “I see,” said the prince thoughtfully. He smiled at me, almost apologetically. “I think I know what you found, young man.”

  “I could not find Ruckgarten on the map,” I said, conscious of everyone in the lounge listening to my implied accusation. “Does it have some other name?”

  “No, because there is no such place,” said the prince, still smiling. Then he straightened his back and raised his chin. “Nonetheless, I am a prince of the royal blood.”

  “He’s lying!” said Mr. Babson triumphantly. “The fellow is an impostor, from start to finish! Take him away, before he insults us with any more of his nonsense.”

  “We were going to do that in any case, Mr. Babson,” said the captain coldly. “But I’ll ask you to remember who’s giving the orders here. You may be an important man in Philadelphia, and I am aware that you have just lost your son. But as Mr. Clemens pointed out, aboard my ship you are just another passenger. Mr. Jennings, would you escort Herr von Ruckgarten to my office, so we may continue in private?”

  “Aye aye, sir,” said the master-at-arms, and without another word, the two officers marched the prisoner out of the room, with Mr. Babson trailing behind them like a boy intent on following a parade despite being forbidden to do so by his parents.

  There was dead silence in the room for a moment as the prince was taken away for questioning. Then everyone seemed to begin talking at once. “My God, did you ever see the like of that?” said one of the cribbage players. “Who’d believe a murder on the high seas?”

  “Murder, my eye,” said the other. “That boy was drunk as a lord ever since we sailed. I’m surprised he didn’t fall overboard a lot sooner.”

  “I wonder if he’s even dead,” said the first player, a gap-toothed fe
llow in an appalling checked blazer. “In my opinion, it was premature to hold a memorial service. They’ve hardly had time to do a proper search. I’ll wager the rascal’s still sleeping it off somewhere. Won’t they be embarrassed if he turns up tomorrow morning?”

  “Well, they searched my cabin pretty thoroughly,” said the other cribbage player, a balding man with half-glasses. “The steward even opened up my steamer trunk. I don’t see how he could have crawled in there, no matter how drunk he was.”

  The buzz of excited conversation continued, but even now some of the passengers were starting to return to their card games or picking up their magazines again. Apparently not even the shock of a murder accusation could ruffle the atmosphere of the smoking lounge for very long. Mr. Clemens and I sat back down, glad that we were no longer the focus of attention. “I suppose Mr. Babson has the right of it,” I said quietly. “The prince has been lying to us from the beginning.”

  Mr. Clemens picked up his still-unlit pipe and found another match. There was a moment’s pause while he lit it; when he finally had the pipe going to his satisfaction, he looked up at me and said, “Well, he didn’t try to bluff when I asked him about Ruckgarten, and he had as good an excuse to lie as he’ll ever need.” He looked around the room, as if to make sure nobody was listening too closely to our conversation, then continued in a lower voice. “I reckon a lot of the passengers are ready to believe he threw that boy overboard, and most of the rest of the ship will believe it by morning. He might have averted some of the suspicion by dodging my question about Ruckgarten, even if he knew he’d be found out later. The man has his share of courage, even if he’s short on common sense.”

  “I’d question whether he has either courage or common sense, if he really did murder Babson,” I said.

  Mr. Clemens gave me a look that made me wish I’d held my tongue. “I don’t know a damn thing about the murder, yet. I don’t even know whether there was a murder, and unless you’re letting that Philadelphia lawyer do your thinking for you, neither do you. At least the father has a reason to be upset. It’s natural for him to look for somebody to blame for his loss. Grief will cloud a man’s judgment, especially grief at the sudden death of a family member.” He paused, and I recalled that he had lost his own brother in a steamboat explosion.