I felt as if I ought to shrink through the deck, but Mr. Clemens kept talking, in a voice that stung without ever getting loud enough for anyone to overhear. “I do know what I saw last night, which was a drunken bully throwing punches at an older man. Robert Babson picked the fight, and he threw the first punch at a man who wasn’t expecting it. He probably figured he could do it with impunity. After all, he had what every bully dreams of—a high-powered lawyer for a father, to defend him against anybody who tries to hold him accountable for the harm he does.”
“You’re right, of course,” I said. “But the lawyer must have convinced the captain to take his accusation seriously. It does look bad for Prinz Karl. But they would need something beyond the fight last night to incriminate the prince, don’t you think? He was hardly the only one who tangled with Robert Babson. The fellow picked fights with everyone. Why, I had a run-in with him myself, and so did Signor Rubbia. Do you think we all joined up to push him overboard?”
“Maybe you did,” said Mr. Clemens, leaning back on the sofa. “I wouldn’t put it past the bunch of you to heave his drunken carcass over the rail, then shake hands on a job well done.” He chuckled at his own gallows humor; then his manner turned serious again. “I reckon the father knows how to argue a case against somebody—that’s a prosecutor’s bread and butter. And you have to remember, the captain isn’t an expert on the law—he might hold a man on grounds a regular judge would throw out like last night’s dishwater.”
“I suppose so,” I said. “But once he gets to England, the captain will just turn things over to the regular police, won’t he? Then a real judge will decide whether there’s been a murder, and who the likely suspect is.”
“That makes sense to me,” said Mr. Clemens. “Can’t say I’ve ever been on board an ocean liner where someone’s been murdered on the high seas. Not that I haven’t been tempted to pitch a few people over the rail, myself. I might even have done it, if I hadn’t been afraid of getting caught.”
“Hallo, who are we throwing overboard?” said Mr. Kipling, who had come in while we were talking. He took a seat on the couch next to Mr. Clemens. “I could name a few candidates, if nominations are still open.”
“The prime candidate’s already gone into the drink,” said Mr. Clemens. “That’s old news. The part you haven’t heard is that our friend Prinz Karl has been accused of helping him over the rail. They’re questioning the prince right now.”
“You don’t say! I’d never have made him out a killer,” said Kipling. He took out a cigar and clipped off the end.
“Nor would I,” Mr. Clemens agreed, frowning. “That young bully rode him pretty hard, though. Not everybody could have taken as much as he did without trying to get back. But I wouldn’t have expected him to shove the boy into the ocean. It doesn’t seem much like the prince’s style, to me.”
“You never know what’ll drive a fellow to murder,” said Mr. Kipling. “We used to see things in India—some little mouse of a clerk would take years of abuse from his supervisor, never saying a word, until one morning he’d pull out a razor and slit the fellow’s throat. Or a silly incident no sane man would remember for five minutes would turn into a shooting match. The sahibs would blame it on the heat, or on being so far from home and civilization. But that’s another story.”
“Sounds like the mining camps in Nevada,” said Mr. Clemens. “We didn’t blink an eye at half a dozen killings a week in Virginia City. But that’s not my point. If Babson was murdered—and from what I’ve heard, I’m not convinced he was—there’s no proof it was the prince who did it. I don’t think he’s strong enough to have overpowered the boy, no matter how drunk he was. And it doesn’t jibe with his character.”
“Why not?” said Kipling. “The fellow is a patent fraud. We gave him a chance to lay his cards on the table, and he didn’t bother to come to the meeting. That’s as good as admitting he wasn’t what he claimed to be. More to the point, young Babson tormented him mercilessly. Better men than he have snapped under that sort of abuse.”
Mr. Clemens sat silently for a moment, puffing on his pipe. At last he said, “He may be a fraud—he as much as admitted it, just before the captain hauled him off. But if being a fraud makes a man a murderer, we’re all destined for the gallows, Kipling. I make my living by telling lies, and so do you. That Signor Rubbia gets people to pay him for showing them how to see things they can’t see for themselves. Come to think of it, Babson took a few verbal potshots at Rubbia, too. Why isn’t he being put to the question?”
“The short answer is that he’s one of the Philadelphia party, and our so-called prince isn’t,” said Mr. Kipling. “But I take your point, Clemens. I wouldn’t lose any sleep about it, if I were in your shoes. If the fellow didn’t kill Babson, the captain will let him go for lack of evidence. And if he can’t prove his innocence to the captain, he’ll still have his day in court when we dock in England.” He blew a cloud of cigar smoke and looked around the room. “Are all the waiters helping out with the inquisition, or can a fellow get a drink this time of night?”
“Sure, a fellow can get a drink,” said Mr. Clemens. He stood up. “In fact, if you’ll come down to my cabin, I’ve got a bottle of better stuff than they give you here. Better yet, we’ll be away from people who don’t need to hear what we’re talking about.”
“Why should we worry about that?” said Kipling, looking up at Mr. Clemens in surprise. “I’ve barely started this cigar.”
“Stub it out; you can relight it in my cabin,” said Mr. Clemens. “I don’t think there’s been any murder here, just a young fellow who got drunk and fell overboard in a storm. But because Babson was a hothead who rubbed everybody the wrong way, and because his lawyer father wants to hold somebody accountable for his loss, people have lost sight of the facts. Well, I know the difference between an accident and a murder, if nobody else does. I’m going to find out the truth, and you two are going to help me. Come along, Wentworth. What are you waiting for, Kipling?” I had to jump to my feet and scurry to catch up with him before he reached the door.
17
The door of the smoking lounge had barely closed behind us when Mr. Kipling called out to my employer, who was forging ahead with a determined air. “I say, Clemens! Wait a moment, will you?”
“What the hell for?” said Mr. Clemens, but he stopped and turned around.
“I think we’d best hold this little conference in my cabin,” said Mr. Kipling. “If we’re really going to try to help this fellow, I want Carrie to be in on the planning. She’s got as good a head on her shoulders as any man aboard, and better than most.”
“Hmm—you’re right, Kipling. She gave us good advice the last time we were about to go off half-cocked. Tell you what—Wentworth can fetch that whisky for us, and we’ll go spring the news on your wife.”
I thought this a good plan, having been impressed with Mrs. Kipling’s common sense. So I went to our cabin, fetched the whisky bottle, and took it to the Kiplings’ cabin. There I found Mr. Kipling sitting on a couch next to his wife and puffing on his cigar. Mr. Clemens poured whisky and soda for us three men. When he handed out the glasses, Mr. Kipling raised his in salute. “Here’s mud in your eye,” he said, and we all took a sip. “Now, Clemens, why don’t you explain to me v/hy Prinz Karl needs our help—or anybody’s—to prove he didn’t murder young Babson? Captain Mortimer’s no fool. And if he doesn’t know how to weigh the evidence, the masterat-arms surely does—it’s his job. It won’t take them long to learn whether or not there’s reason to believe the father’s accusation.”
“Yes, please do,” said Mrs. Kipling. “I don’t think the captain would hold a fellow without proof of foul play. Even Mr. Babson will have to relent if he can’t get real proof. No prosecutor wants to go to trial without a sound case. And if he does have a sound case against Prinz Karl, why should we want to take the man’s side?”
Mr. Clemens set down his glass, clasped his hands behind him, and paced few steps befor
e answering. “You two weren’t there to see them haul the prince off for questioning. Babson was busy stacking the deck against him—he wants to hold the prince responsible for his son’s death. Some of the passengers were already judging him guilty. If that lawyer has his way, the whole ship will believe the prince killed that boy. Well, that ain’t my idea of fair, Kipling. Prinz Karl deserves a better show than that, and I mean to see that he gets it.”
“And how do you intend to do that?” said Mr. Kipling, wrinkling his high forehead. “Do you have some reasonable plan, or are you just going to rush in half-cocked? You’re a man of many talents, but you’re certainly not a barrister.”
“Thank God for that!” said Mr. Clemens. “Why, if the prince went to trial in England, I’d have to put on one of those silly wigs, and nobody would ever take me seriously again.” He struck a pose, with his arms crossed and a stern look on his face, and for a moment I could imagine him as a pompous barrister in robes and full-bottomed wig.
“I’m rarely sure whether to take you seriously as it is,” said Mrs. Kipling, smiling at Mr. Clemens’s antics. “The fact remains that Prinz Karl hasn’t been formally charged with anything, and hasn’t even asked you to help him. You have no standing—you’re just one passenger among several hundred, even if you are the most famous person aboard.”
Mr. Clemens cocked a finger at the Kiplings. “Ah, but I’ve got a few advantages not every passenger has. Because I’m a famous writer, people will talk to me. You know as well as I do, Kipling: People are flattered when a famous writer takes an interest in them. You’ve got to make an active effort to keep them from talking to you.”
“I know it all too well,” said Mr. Kipling, with a shudder. “Not all of us enjoy living on center stage as thoroughly as you do, Clemens. But I take your point.”
Mr. Clemens rubbed his hands together, warming to his subject. “Now, I reckon Robert Babson’s disappearance is going to be the talk of the ship, all the rest of the way to England. So it’ll seem natural enough for me to draw people into conversation about it. And because I’ve got a reputation as a funny fellow, they won’t guard their tongues around me, because they won’t realize I’ve got a serious purpose in talking to them. They’ll tell me stuff they certainly wouldn’t tell a ship’s officer or a prosecutor—some of them will tell me things they wouldn’t tell their own mothers.”
“The bulk of it lies, most likely,” said Kipling. “You’ll be lucky to get any two to tell you the same story. Even if they do, you’ll never know how much of it to believe.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” said Mr. Clemens. “I’ve met most of the foremost liars of the century: mediums and millionaires, congressmen and card sharks, inventors and phrenologists, jackleg preachers, snake-oil salesmen, stagecoach drivers, riverboat pilots—and my share of murderers, as you might recall. There’s not a lie worth hearing that I haven’t heard, usually in five or six dozen dialects and local variations. By now, I can usually tell the difference between the straight truth and a shameless lie—and most of the fine gradations between the two, as well. Why, if I thought I could make money at it, I’d consider setting up as a detective.”
“You and half the boys in England and America,” said Mr. Kipling, with an indulgent smile. “But I guess if anyone could make a go of it, you could—at least, to judge from those two cases you told me about.”
“That’s all very well,” said his wife. “But what if nobody’s seen anything worth talking about? Robert Babson disappeared at night. A dark and stormy night, at that—he and the officer who reported seeing him may have been the only ones on deck.”
Mr. Kipling had taken off his glasses and wiped them on his pocket handkerchief. He held them up to the light, then, evidently satisfied with his inspection, put them on and looked at Mr. Clemens, then back at his wife. “If that’s the sum of the evidence, the captain will surely let Prinz Karl go free. The father can make all the accusations he wants, but with no witnesses and no proof, there’s really no case against the prince.”
Mr. Clemens nodded. “True enough,” he agreed. “But the suspicion remains. Even if the captain lets him go for lack of evidence, unrefuted accusations can hurt a man as much as a conviction. Half the passengers will look at him and see the mark of Cain on his brow. That’s why I want to see if we can clear the prince entirely. I got the idea he was about to come clean with us about the Ruckgarten business—and I suspect the story of why he wouldn’t name his real home country is mighty interesting in its own right. What’s worse, I think we have jumped the gun when we reported our suspicions that he’s an impostor. That probably made the captain more willing to take Babson’s accusations seriously. That’s why we owe it to the prince to find out the truth—and make sure everybody knows it.”
“I wonder why the captain called him away in front of a whole room full of passengers?” mused Mr. Kipling. “You’d think he’d want to keep it discreet, if he doesn’t have anything solid.”
Mr. Clemens nodded, swirling his drink. “I think he did want to keep it quiet, but Babson’s father blasted out his accusation for the whole ship to hear. Now that I think about it, I wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted them to hear. The master-at-arms looked mighty uncomfortable. He knows it’s worth his skin to bring a false accusation against an important passenger—if that’s what the prince turns out to be.”
“And if it turns out he’s guilty after all?” said Mrs. Kipling. Mr. Clemens stopped in his pacing and looked down at the other writer’s wife where she sat on the couch.
“Carrie’s right, you know,” said Mr. Kipling, sitting up straight. “We can’t shy away from that possibility, whatever we want to believe.” The challenge in his voice was unmistakable.
“If we find evidence that says he’s guilty, I’ll deliver it to the captain myself,” said Mr. Clemens. He turned and looked out the porthole for a moment, then continued. “What I bet we’ll find is that Robert Babson fell over the rail with no help from anybody—if he could hold his liquor, I never saw any evidence of it. He was a damned nuisance at best, and not many except his family are going to miss him. But if the prince is a killer, none of us are safe. I’ll turn him in, no question about it. And if somebody else murdered the brat, I want to find him and turn him in, as well.”
“Good,” said Mr. Kipling, slapping his hand on the arm of the couch. “Then we’re with you. Let’s get down to work.”
After talking it over, we arrived at a strategy. Our goals were to find anyone who had seen Robert Babson after the fight with Prinz Karl, and to learn how many people other than the prince might have had grudges against Babson. Mr. Kipling was to make inquiries of the officers and crew of the City of Baltimore; his wife would see what she could glean from the ladies’ conversations in the Grand Saloon; I was to talk to the younger passengers, who were likely to be most comfortable with me; and Mr. Clemens would turn his attention to the rest of the passengers. We decided to meet briefly to exchange information three times a day: just before the lunch hour, before dinner, and before retiring in the evening. This way each of us would know whatever the others had learned during the day, and possibly use the information to direct our own inquiries more effectively. If the storm had not delayed our passage, we had a little more than two days to find the murderer—or prove the death an accident.
I told my employer and the Kiplings the one bit of news I had learned earlier today, that being my friends’ report of Robert Babson’s visit to steerage in search of a card game and drinks. “Bertie told me the fellow drank up all their whiskey, but he made up for it by losing a good amount of money to them.”
“Now, there’s something worth knowing,” said Mr. Clemens, smiling broadly. “For all we know, Babson’s gambling was what made somebody do him in.”
I had my doubts as to that theory. “Every time I saw him, he was losing money,” I said. “That’s not a reason for anyone to kill him. More likely, they’d keep him alive so he could lose more money to them.”<
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Mr. Clemens waved away my objection. “Maybe he was cheating, to try to get his losses back. If he was playing crooked and somebody caught him, there’s no telling what they might have done. The same thing if he accused somebody else of cheating—I’ve seen Bowie-knife fights because some miner thought he saw a city fellow stacking the deck against him.”
“We certainly can’t rule it out, but I doubt any of those Philadelphia society lads he’s been playing with are going to pull out a Bowie knife,” said Mr. Kipling. “If they thought a fellow was cheating, they’d likely take him aside and give him a good talking to, or at worst banish him from their games. Besides, as much as Babson usually drank, I doubt his hands were sure enough to hold his cards properly—let alone do anything very clever with them.”
“Still, that doesn’t rule out his accusing somebody else of trying to cheat, rightly or wrongly,” said Mr. Clemens. He looked my way. “Just keep it in mind as a possibility when you talk to his gambling friends, Wentworth. Be ready to follow up any hints that there was something funny about one of the games, or that Babson thought there was.”
“I’ll keep my eyes open, but I doubt it’s a very strong possibility,” I said. “To my mind, Signor Rubbia would be a more likely suspect than any of the card players. Babson insulted him at every opportunity.” I didn’t think my old friends were likely to be cheats (let alone murderers), although I had to admit that I hadn’t spent much time at the card table with them. It would be bad practice to exclude my friends as suspects just because I’d known them in college.
[Mark Twain Mysteries 03] - The Prince and the Prosecutor Page 17
