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

by Peter J. Heck

  “Ah, yes, Bobby Babson,” said Smythe in a calm voice. “Well, I’m sad for his parents, and poor dear Tess, of course, but I can’t help feeling that he brought it on himself.”

  I looked in both directions as if to see whether anyone was paying attention to us, then said in a lower voice. “Maybe not. I’ve heard talk that Babson didn’t fall overboard by himself. Some say he was pushed—in fact, they’re questioning that German prince about it. Though I can’t see why they think he would have done it.”

  “Any more than another person, hey?” said Smythe. The smile he turned my way was smug. “I’ve heard you had a brush with him yourself.”

  “Well, I can’t deny that I did,” I said. “But I certainly don’t like your implication.” Involuntarily I straightened up before I realized what I was doing and relaxed, at least mentally. Being an amateur detective did have that unpleasant side to it—if one goes around casting suspicion, one must be prepared to be accused in one’s own turn.

  Smythe waved his hand dismissively. “Nothing personal intended, Mr. Cabot. All I meant is that Bobby wasn’t a pleasant person. I’ve never understood what Tess saw in him.”

  He turned toward the door leading out onto the deck, and I moved to follow him. “I suppose you had your quarrels with him as well,” I said. “Or did you manage to avoid his notice?”

  Smythe gave me an appraising look, then shrugged. “Half of Philadelphia knows my story, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t. Why don’t we talk about it out in the air, at least?” he suggested. I nodded, and followed him out the door.

  There was a touch of chill in the air, but the sun was bright on the wave-tops. We walked forward a bit, so as to be out of the immediate vicinity of the doorway, and then Wilfred Smythe turned and put both hands on the polished brass rail, peering out into the ocean. I stopped beside him and looked over the water. There must have been another steamboat off to the south, for I could just make out a wisp of smoke at the farthest reach of my vision, though no vessel was in sight.

  After a moment Smythe turned to me and said, “It’s funny you should ask whether I managed to avoid Bobby’s notice. In a sense, that describes the whole of our relation. Rather, I should say that he invariably treated me as beneath his notice.”

  “I can understand that,” I said. I moved to the rail next to him, and leaned my back against it. “Once he learned I work for Mr. Clemens, he insisted on treating me as if I were a servant.”

  “Yes, that’s Bobby’s style precisely,” agreed Smythe, with a wry smile. “Bobby treated me as just another worker in the bank, no better than one of the tellers. It doesn’t matter that Mr. Mercer takes me into his confidence on many important matters, or that he has twice promoted me in just under two years. It doesn’t matter that the Babsons and Mercers all worship in my father’s church, and that Father has been a guest in both their homes. No, to Bobby I was an underling to be snubbed. It would have been almost a sign of favor if he’d taken an actual personal dislike to me.” His lips quirked again in that wry smile, and I began to think I could grow to like this minister’s son.

  I listened sympathetically. The description of Babson tallied with my experience. Yet there had to be more to the story, I thought. “I guess I’m one of the favored few, then,” I said. “He did go out of his way to make trouble for me. But that’s water under the bridge. You said half Philadelphia knows your story, and what you’ve said so far is hardly a story at all. There’s something more, isn’t there? Some actual incident you were referring to.” I might like Wilfred Smythe personally, but it was still my business to find out the facts.

  He turned to look at me, suspicion written on his face. For a moment I feared that I’d exhausted his supply of frankness. But then he shrugged and said, “What difference does it make now? Bobby’s gone, and I have a chance at a fresh start with Tess. She and I were sweethearts for a while—I had dared hope that it would blossom into something more. Mr. Mercer knew from my work in the bank that I was a steady, reliable person. And he certainly knew the family I come from. I think he would have looked favorably upon a proposal from me. But Bobby had money, and fine clothes, and an air of excitement about him, and all that turned Tess’s head. I saw it happening, and I didn’t know what to do. The next thing I knew, he’d asked for her hand, and I was out in the cold. I think I could have killed myself the day I realized what had happened.”

  Suddenly I found myself paying very close attention. Mr. Clemens had speculated about a jilted suitor having killed Babson, and here I was, face to face with someone who admitted that he and Babson had been rivals for Theresa Mercer’s affections. Could Wilfred Smythe have taken matters in his own hands, hoping to regain his lost love by removing a hated rival from the field? It didn’t seem quite in character, but who could tell what might be seething underneath the surface? Even more to the point: If Miss Mercer stood to inherit a large sum of money, Smythe had another strong motive in addition to jealousy. A minister’s son, even one working in a bank, was unlikely to have many prospects of wealth. But although standing next to him and looking at a beautiful seascape made it hard to think ill of him, I knew full well that my feelings had little to do with the question of his innocence or guilt.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I told him. “As you say, Robert Babson didn’t give anyone many reasons to like him, but you seem to have gotten a worse deal than most.”

  “Perhaps I did,” said Smythe. He turned and looked out toward the distant plume of smoke, then fixed his gaze on me again. His face was grave as he continued. “But we should find another topic. Nothing’s to be gained by holding grudges, now that he’s gone to meet his maker—as my father tells me.”

  “A good policy, I think,” I said, although I’d hoped that playing on his feeling of being wronged would prompt him to tell me more. I couldn’t tell whether he was genuinely unwilling to speak ill of the dead, or whether my prompting had made him wary of saying too much. We stood at the rail a while longer, looking out over the ocean. We chatted about our plans for London; it turned out that Smythe was as interested in art as I was, and enthusiastic about visiting the museums and galleries. After a while, a comfortable silence fell, and we stood watching the waves until he looked at his watch, claimed an appointment with Mr. Mercer, and went on his way.

  After my conversation with Smythe, I looked into the smoking lounge, expecting to find Mr. Clemens there, but he was not in his usual place. However, several of the young fellows who used to gamble with Robert Babson were on hand, for once not sitting at the card table, but gathered in a small group and conversing. Mr. Clemens had asked me to scout them out and see whether any of them might have seen Babson the night of his death—or, possibly, have had a motive for doing him in. There was no better time than the present, so I walked over to join the group.

  “Good morning,” I said. “I’m Wentworth Cabot. Seeing that we’re shipmates, I thought I’d take the opportunity to get acquainted with you fellows before we land in England.” I smiled and held out my hand to the nearest of the group.

  “Hullo, Cabot,” he said, reaching up to shake hands. He was a lanky fellow with stringy blond hair falling in his eyes. “I’m Alan Mercer—glad to meet you. Why don’t you pull up a seat?”

  “Ah, your father must be the banker,” I said, taking a chair from one of the card tables and joining the circle. “I saw you on deck before, but didn’t make the connection between you two.”

  “I’m not surprised,” said Mercer, grinning sheepishly. “I do my best to keep my distance from Papa.”

  I chuckled softly, and said, “You should try traveling without your parents—it makes it a lot easier to do as you please without accounting to anyone.”

  “Al’s afraid the old man will put him to work,” said one of his companions. This was a sandy-haired young man with a round face and a budding mustache that looked as if it meant to be red when it finally came in. “I’m Harry Williams,” he added, almost as an afterthought. At thi
s, the rest of the group introduced themselves and shook hands, as well: Jimmy Archer and Leon Trombauer, both from Philadelphia, and Jack Holtzman, who turned out to be a Princeton man.

  “You played football at Yale, didn’t you?” asked Holtzman, looking at me with evident curiosity. He had bushy brown hair that made his forehead look unusually low. “I spent one of the coldest afternoons I can remember watching you fellows beat the stuffing out of our team three years ago, when I was a freshman.”

  I remembered the game rather well, because I’d blocked a punt, and one of our boys had run the ball in for our fifth touchdown of the game. It had been one of the highlights of my football career. “Yes, it was a nasty day. I suspect it was a bit colder on the loser’s side of the field, though.” I smiled again and shook his hand, and he laughed.

  “Well, you can’t have lost too often with that team,” said Holtzman. “You were a damn fine football player, and I ought to buy you a drink even if you did go to Yale.”

  “Well, thanks for the compliment,” I said, dodging the offer of a drink. It was barely ten in the morning, but there were half-empty wineglasses on the low table in front of them. If this was the crowd Robert Babson associated with, his heavy drinking must not have seemed unusual to them. “I’m surprised you fellows aren’t at the card table,” I remarked, hoping to steer the conversation around to the subject I was interested in. “The main reason I didn’t introduce myself before now is not wanting to interrupt the games.”

  “Well, I guess the games are broken up for good now,” said Trombauer, shaking his head. He was a big, complacent-looking fellow, wearing an expensively cut woolen suit in a checked pattern that made him look even bigger than he was. “It’s not the same without Bobby taking a hand.” He turned to look at me and asked, “Did you know him?”

  I saw Archer elbow him in the ribs, but I smiled and said, “Not really well. I guess we got off on the wrong foot, and I never got the chance to make up with him, more’s the pity. He didn’t seem a bad sort, all in all.”

  “Best fellow in the world,” said Trombauer. “He was always looking for some sort of fun—just the kind of fellow for an ocean voyage like this, you know. Damn shame about him going overboard—terrible accident.”

  “Well, that’s not the story old man Babson’s telling,” said Harry Williams. He picked up his wineglass and drained it, then glanced around the circle of young men. “You saw how hot under the collar Bobby got when that old charlatan, Prince what’s-his-name, started flirting with Tess after the music. Bobby gave the rascal a good licking, and the fellow swore he’d get back. They think the prince waylaid him on deck after the fight and forced him overboard.”

  “I’ll bet poor Bobby was leaning over the rail, then,” said Trombauer. “Lord knows, he’d had enough to drink.”

  “Hardly gave him a sporting chance, if that’s how it went,” said Holtzman, picking up the wine bottle. “I hope they hang that damned prince, if it’s true. Here, Harry, give me your glass.” He filled Williams’s glass, and then his own. He seemed to have forgotten his offer of a drink to me.

  “You’d think a sturdy fellow like Babson could defend himself against a fat old man, drunk or sober,” I remarked. “You boys must have talked to him after the fight. Did he take the prince’s threats seriously?”

  “Not a bit,” said Williams. “If you’d known Bobby, you wouldn’t have to ask. He was laughing about it, not ten minutes later. Said he’d lick the prince and his whole army, if they had the guts to face him.”

  “That was Bobby’s style, for sure,” said Trombauer, nodding vigorously. “Same as at the card table—I never saw him back down from anybody, whether he had the cards in his hand or not.”

  “He’d have been better off if he had backed off, sometimes,” said Holtzman, fingering his wineglass. “Poor Bobby owed me close to four hundred dollars, not that I’ll ever see it.”

  “Nor will any of us,” said Jimmy Archer, with a shrug. “He owed me more than that. But I’d forgive every penny Bobby owes me just to see him come through that door and sit down at the card table again. He was a damn fine fellow, as good a friend as you’ll ever see. Sooner or later, he’d have paid us every cent without one cross word. Bad luck, and no two ways about it.”

  I was frankly surprised to hear these glowing testimonials to Robert Babson’s character. I found them hard to reconcile with Wilfred Smythe’s bitter allusions to his snobbery, or with my own experience of him, for that matter. But I supposed that few of us would recognize our own portraits if they were painted from descriptions provided by our enemies. Then I remembered something else that Wilfred Smythe had said. “What, did Babson owe you all money? I thought his father was quite well off.”

  The group was quiet for a moment, evidently embarrassed by the mention of money. Then Harry Williams cleared his throat, and looked around as if to see whether anyone objected, and said, “Bobby’s father had been pulling on the reins lately—not giving him everything he asked for. I don’t think he was really short of money—Bobby would have told us if he was. I think he was just trying to make Bobby pay attention to how much he spent. When Bobby was flush, he’d never let anyone buy him a drink without standing the next round. If he was a little short these last few days, we all knew he’d be good for it in due time.”

  Alan Mercer sneered. “You don’t know half the story, Harry. Old man Babson’s up for re-election as District Attorney in the spring, and that’s why he’s been keeping a death grip on the purse strings. He needs every red cent he can scrape together.” Young Mercer rubbed his hands together and leaned forward, drawing the group in to listen closely as he continued in a conspiratorial whisper. “Papa says Babson’s in a real scrap this time, and spending like a drunken sailor, trying to get votes. He’s borrowed a fair amount from the bank, I think. Some of the party regulars are backing the other fellow—that old stick Martin Fleetwood, who’s been raising hell about graft and corruption. From what I hear, the old man was ready to cancel this trip to Europe, until he found out he couldn’t get a refund. That changed his mind pretty quickly.”

  “Really,” said Trombauer. “Even so, Bobby would have been good for what he owed us, once he’d married your sister. That would have solved all his problems—all his money problems, anyway.”

  “I guess you’re right,” said Alan Mercer. “Papa would’ve taken good care of Tess’s husband, even if he thought Bobby was a bit too easygoing. Papa’s got old-fashioned notions—early to bed and early to rise; a penny saved is a penny earned, and all that silly cant from old Colonial times. I suppose that’s fine advice for a fellow who doesn’t have anything and wants to make some money. What Papa doesn’t grasp is that a fellow who’s already got his money doesn’t have to live that way.”

  “I hope to God not,” said Trombauer, with a loud laugh. “We’d be in a sorry state then, wouldn’t we?”

  “They’d be in mourning at Princeton,” said Jack Holtzman, grinning. “At Yale too, I guess—what d’you say, Cabot?” His voice was slurred, and I thought he’d already had enough to drink for the middle of the morning.

  “Well, there’s the difference between Yale and Princeton,” I said, returning the grin. “We figure that a fellow’s got to decide what he wants, then do whatever it takes to get it. I’d never have set foot on this boat if I’d had to depend on my parents to pay for my passage. But here I am, going to Europe all the same.”

  “Good old New England self-reliance,” said Mercer, looking at me through narrowed eyes. “Well, if it works for you, I guess it’s all right. I don’t mind work, as long as somebody else does it.”

  Everyone laughed at Mercer’s joke, and I joined in, although I wasn’t sure whether he was making fun of me or not. But before the laughter had fairly died away, a different voice from behind me said, in a sharp tone, “That’s what’s wrong with the lot of you, if you ask me.”

  I turned to see Julius Babson, Robert’s father. He had a thin leather briefcase under one
arm, and a frown on his face. “If you boys had set a better example for Robert, there’s a good chance he’d still be here today,” the attorney said. He looked from face to face, and I could see all of them hanging their heads contritely.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Babson—” said Alan Mercer, but Babson cut him off.

  “Well you should be,” he said, shaking his finger like a scolding schoolmaster. “I know as well as anyone that Robert had a touch of mischief about him, but he was a good boy. If you hadn’t egged him on, and laughed at his impertinent pranks, he might have settled down before now. I thought the responsibility of supporting a wife would give him a fresh start, a chance to show his true worth. Now he’ll never have the chance, and every one of you will have to live with the knowledge that you kept him from being what he could have been.”

  “We’re all sorry, Mr. Babson,” said Harry Williams, in a quiet voice. “But nobody could have known what was going to happen. You can’t blame us for an accident.”

  “Accident?” Babson drew himself up to his full height, and gave Williams a look that would have withered an oasis. “It was no accident, and I mean to prove it. The vicious monster that murdered my son will hang—and I will take the greatest of pleasure in bringing ironclad proof of his crime before the court that condemns him.”

  He paused, looking around the circle of young men with a sneer, before turning his back and stalking off. Halfway to the door, he looked back over his shoulder and said in a scornful tone, “Enjoy your wine, gentlemen. I have work to do!”