Clint Adams, Detective

by J. R. Roberts

  Clint studied the man for a few moments, then figured he’d gotten as much as he could from him. He stood up.

  “Are you going to keep Mr. Twain from comin’ here and keepin’ his speaking engagement tomorrow?” Dent asked.

  “I’m going to report my findings, Chief,” Clint said. “It’ll be up to others to make that decision. Good day.”

  As Clint walked through the front lobby and out the front door, the young policeman was talking fervently to three or four other uniformed men, pointing at Clint as he left. If he’d accomplished nothing else, he’d let the entire police department of Hannibal, Missouri, know that he was in town.

  Clint went back to his hotel and checked with the desk clerk for messages.

  “Sorry, sir,” the young man said. “Were you expecting something?”

  “No, that’s fine,” Clint said. “I’ll be in my room for a while if someone asks for me.”

  “Uh, sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is it true that you’re the Gunsmith?”

  “Why?” Clint asked. “Would that impress you?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  “Then I never heard of him,” Clint said, and went upstairs.

  After Clint Adams left the police station, Chief Dent sent for a man named Sergeant Ben McCloud.

  “Close the door.”

  McCloud did so, then stood at attention.

  “Relax, damn it. Sit down, Ben.”

  McCloud did as he was told.

  “Clint Adams, the Gunsmith, was just in here.”

  “So I heard. What did he want?”

  “He says he’s advance security for Mark Twain, and he was asking a lot of questions about John Taylor.”

  McCloud, a broad-shouldered, deep-chested man in his late thirties, frowned and asked, “What’s one got to do with the other?”

  Dent leaned forward and said, “That, Sergeant, is what I want you to find out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We don’t want Adams to ruin anything, do we?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Pick out a man you can rely on and have him watch Adams. Meanwhile, you find out what the hell he is doin’ in Hannibal.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When McCloud didn’t move, Dent shouted, “Do it now!”

  SEVEN

  When a knock came at Clint’s door, he half expected to see Mark Twain standing there. Only half because Twain was a famous man and probably could not have walked through the streets of Hannibal without being noticed, and mobbed. So when he opened it and saw Augustus Honeywell standing there, he was not surprised.

  “Hello, Gus.”

  Honeywell almost cringed as Clint holstered his gun. Twain or not, he wasn’t about to answer the door empty-handed.

  “Mr. Adams.”

  “Come on in,” Clint said. “It’s safe. I won’t shoot you.”

  “N-no, of course you won’t.”

  Honeywell entered and stood in the center of the small room, adjusting his glasses.

  “Is Sam in town?” Clint asked.

  “He is. He’d like you to have dinner with him, tonight.”

  “Where?”

  “His mother’s house, down by the river. He can’t go to a restaurant. He’ll be recognized.”

  “Of course.”

  Mentally, Clint figured that if Clemens was in his fifties, his mother was probably in her seventies.

  “Will his mother be cooking?”

  “I—I don’t know,” Honeywell said. “I’m not privy to that information. I was just told to invite you to her house.”

  “Well, all right. Give me the address and tell me what time and I’ll be there,” Clint promised.

  “Uh, Mr. Twain would like me to come and get you when it’s time,” Honeywell said.

  “And what time will that be, Gus?”

  “Seven, sharp.”

  “Seven to be at his house, or seven when you’ll be here to fetch me?”

  “I will be here at seven to . . . to fetch you,” Honeywell said.

  “Should I bring anything?”

  Honeywell frowned. “Like what?”

  “Flowers? A bottle of wine?”

  “I believe Mrs. Clemens will have all of that,” the little man said.

  “Fine,” Clint said. “I was just trying to be polite. I’ll see you at seven o’clock, Gus . . . sharp.”

  “Yes, sir,” the man said. “I’ll be here.”

  Honeywell almost bowed and then left the room. Clint went to his saddlebags to see what he had in the way of clean clothes, afraid that he already knew the answer. Sure enough, he was going to have to go out and buy some.

  When Clint opened his door at seven sharp, Augustus Honeywell couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “Mr. Adams?”

  “Right on time, Gus. How do you like my new duds?”

  “You, uh, look very different.”

  “I know,” Clint said. “A bath, some new clothes, I clean up real well. Shall we go?”

  Clint stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him.

  “Uh, are you wearing your gun?”

  “I’m wearing a gun,” Clint said. He didn’t show Honeywell, but he had his little Colt New Line tucked into his belt at the small of his back. His new jacket covered it quite well.

  Abruptly, Honeywell looked down at Clint’s boots. They were scuffed and worn and did not go well with the new jacket and pants.

  “Hey, I only had a few hours,” Clint said. “I’m not a miracle worker. Besides, these boots are just getting broken in.”

  “I see,” Honeywell said. “Well, I have a buggy outside.”

  “Good,” Clint said. “I’m pretty hungry. Lead the way.”

  Augustus Honeywell did—down the stairs, through the lobby, and out to the waiting buggy.

  “Sam?”

  “Yes, Ma?”

  “What will your friend like to eat?”

  “Everything you cooked, Ma,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I just want him to be comfortable,” she said. “You don’t bring your friends around very much.”

  “I’m not around very much myself, Ma,” he said. “I know that, and I’m sorry.”

  “No need to apologize, Sam,” she said. “I know you’re a famous man now. You got responsibilities.”

  “Yes, I do, Ma,” he said. “I got responsibilities.”

  She went into the kitchen and he followed her. He watched as she puttered around the kitchen, checking the different pots and the oven.

  “I miss your cookin’, Ma,” he said.

  “Well, I made enough to feed an army, so you and your friend can eat till you bust.”

  “We might just do that, Ma.”

  There was a knock on the front door at that point.

  “Go and let your friend in, Sam.”

  Mark Twain did as his mother told him.

  EIGHT

  Sam Clemens looked older to Clint as the man opened the door of his mother’s house, but then he hadn’t seen him in some time. Honeywell had left him at the door and retreated back to the buggy. Obviously, the young man had not been invited to dinner.

  “Clint Adams,” Clemens said, extending his hand. “Welcome, and thanks for comin’.”

  “Sam,” Clint said, shaking hands with the white-haired man. He’d already decided that he would continue to think of “Twain” as Sam Clemens, until he was told to do different.

  “Come on in,” Clemens said. He pulled Clint into the house with surprising strength for someone who looked frail in his white pants and shirt.

  As Clint entered, the smells from the kitchen hit him. Home cooking. As good as the food might have been in restaurants and cafés around the country, there was nothing like home cooking.

  “Ma’s been workin’ all day,” Clemens said. “When I told her you were comin’, she got all excited.”

  “That’s flattering.”

  Clemens touched Clint’s arm and lower
ed his voice.

  “She doesn’t know who you are, mind you, just that you’re a friend of mine. I’d prefer to keep your . . . celebrity a secret from her.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Clint said. “You’ve got enough celebrity for any mother to deal with.”

  “Yes, well . . .”

  The house was small and modestly furnished, and once again, Clemens seemed to be reading Clint’s mind.

  “She won’t let me buy her a larger house,” he said. “Won’t leave the house where I grew up.”

  “It seems fine for a woman living alone.”

  “I’d like to take better care of her, have someone come in, clean and cook, but she won’t have that, either. Come and meet her.”

  They left the small, comfortably warm living and went into the even hotter kitchen.

  Clemens’s mother was a small, sturdily built woman with gray hair gathered in a bun. She greeted Clint warmly and said she was happy to meet a friend of her son’s; then she shooed them out of the room and back into the main part of the house, which acted as both living room and dining area.

  Clemens offered Clint a whiskey and the two men sat at the sturdy wooden table—obviously handmade—sipped their whiskey, and waited for dinner.

  “We’ll talk after we’ve eaten and Ma goes to bed,” Clemens told Clint. “Cigars on the porch.”

  “Sounds fine, Sam,” Clint said. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  Dinner was pleasant, with the old woman rambling on about Clemens’s childhood, to her son’s embarrassment. Clint was surprised to see how quiet Clemens was during the entire meal.

  Afterward she served them pie and coffee and then excused herself for the night. Clint and Clemens decided to take their pie and coffee out to the porch, where they would follow them with a cigar.

  Once they were settled into two comfortable wooden chairs, Clemens got to the point.

  “You’re wonderin’ why I asked you to come here,” he said. “I saw you in Keokuk and couldn’t believe my good fortune.”

  Clint remained silent, just letting Clemens tell it at his own pace.

  “I don’t know if you know about the trial that’s goin’ on in town.”

  “I’ve heard,” Clint said. “It’s kind of hard not to notice the lynch mob tension in town.”

  “I’m glad you said that,” Clemens said. “The fact that you feel it justifies my request that you come here.”

  “What is it you want me to do, Sam?”

  Clemens leaned forward, handed Clint a cigar, and provided a light. That done, he sat back and lit a corncob pipe rather than partake in a cigar. When he had the pipe going the way he wanted, he leaned forward and used the stem to make his point. He pointed it right at Clint.

  “I want you to prove John Taylor innocent.”

  Clint was taken aback.

  “What makes you think I can do that, Sam?” he finally asked.

  “To be honest? I don’t know.” He sat back in his chair. “I saw you in the audience and I impetuously sent someone out to find you and invite you here. By the way, I’ll be paying your hotel bill and all your expenses while you’re here.”

  “Whoa, whoa, Sam,” Clint said. “I haven’t agreed to anything. I’m not a detective, you know.”

  “You’re smart, honest, and fair,” Clemens said. “That’s good enough for me.”

  “All right,” Clint said. “Before I agree, let me ask a few questions.”

  “Fire away.”

  “What makes you think Taylor is innocent?”

  “I know the boy,” Clemens said, sucking on his pipe stem. The pipe had gone out, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”

  “The boy’s father was a good friend of mine,” Clemens said. “He’s gone now, and the boy has no family. I want to help him. It’s as simple as that.”

  “And what if I find out he’s guilty?”

  “If he’s guilty, there’s nothin’ I can do to save him,” Clemens said. “But I don’t think he is.” He leaned forward again. “What do you say? I’m not askin’ for a favor. I’ll hire you.”

  “I told you, I’m not a detective,” Clint said.

  “I didn’t mean to offend—”

  “You haven’t offended me,” Clint said. “What do you know about the local police?”

  “Corrupt. Why?”

  “I had a talk with the chief of police.”

  “Dent,” Clemens said, with distaste. “How did you meet him?”

  “I went to see him.”

  “Why?”

  “I was curious about the trial.”

  Excitedly, Clemens asked, “So you’re already interested?”

  “I was just curious.”

  Suddenly, there was a twinkle in the eye of the great writer.

  “I see that look in your eyes, Sam,” Clint said. “We don’t know each other that well, but you think you’ve got me.”

  “Think?” Clemens asked. “There’s no think about it, Clint Adams. Your own curiosity has got you.”

  Clint opened his mouth to argue, but couldn’t.

  “Fact is,” Clint said, “I don’t like that chief of police one bit. He’s too eager to pin this on John Taylor.”

  “Then you’ll do it?”

  “I need one thing first.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It depends on what kind of pull you’ve got in his town.”

  “I think I can get you what you want,” Clemens said, without qualification.

  “I want to talk to John Taylor,” Clint said. “I want to look in his eyes myself when I ask him if he did it.”

  “That’s a tall order.”

  “Too tall for the great Mark Twain?”

  “Maybe,” Clemens said, “but not too tall for the great Mark Twain and the great Gunsmith combined.”

  NINE

  Clint did not expect to be going back to the Hannibal police station so soon. Thankfully, there was a different policeman on the front desk, but he gave Clint much the same look the first one had given him the day before. By now everybody in the building probably knew who he was.

  There was another man waiting for Clint in the lobby of the police station. He was tall and slender, wearing a light gray suit with a black string tie. As Clint approached, the man extended his hand, looking very serious.

  “Mr. Adams?”

  “That’s right. You Wainwright?”

  “Yes,” the man said, “Edward Wainwright, attorney at law representing John Taylor.”

  “Any problem with me getting in to see him?”

  “Yes, there were some,” the lawyer said. “I finally just told them that you are working for me as an investigator in this matter, and they couldn’t stop you from seeing him.”

  “Good thinking,” Clint said, “as long as we’re all clear on the fact that I’m not working for anyone just yet.”

  “Sam explained it all to me,” Wainwright said. “I’m sure you’ll find what you want.”

  Wainwright went up to the desk to talk to the policeman.After a moment another one came to lead them down to the cells.

  “This way,” Wainwright said to Clint, allowing him to precede him.

  They went down a steep flight of steps to the basement and walked along a cell block until they came to one that was occupied. Clint found it odd that only one cell had a resident.

  “Call me when you’re ready to leave,” the policeman said.

  “We will,” the lawyer said.

  The policeman started to walk away, then muttered something under his breath and came back.

  “I’m gonna need your gun, mister,” he said to Clint. “You’ll get it back when you leave.”

  Clint was sure the man was supposed to have relieved him of his gun upstairs and had forgotten. It was probably a new rule—about a day old.

  He undid his gunbelt and handed the whole rig to the policeman.

  “Uh, thanks.”

  The man turn
ed and returned upstairs, carrying Clint’s gun.

  “John,” Wainwright called.

  Inside the cell a man lay on his back on a cot, one arm lying across his face. Clint could tell he wasn’t asleep.

  “John Taylor,” Wainwright said again, “this is Clint Adams. Mr. Clemens sent him here to talk to you.”

  Slowly, the man’s arm came down. He turned his head to look at the two men outside the bars.

  “Are you another lawyer?” John Taylor asked in perfect English.

  “No, I’m not a lawyer.”

  “Then what good can you do me?”

  “I don’t know if I can do you any good, Mr. Taylor,” Clint said. “I just promised Sam Clemens that I’d come and talk to you.”

  Taylor hesitated, then said, “Mr. Clemens is a good man.”

  “Yes, he is,” Clint said.

  “Probably the best man I know,” the black man went on.

  “And he thinks I may be able to help you,” Clint said. “So why don’t you show me the courtesy of standing up and looking me in the eyes?”

  There was a long moment when nothing happened, and then John Taylor sat up, stood up, and approached the bars. He was a tall man, perhaps six two. His clothes were worn, the shirt missing a couple of buttons, so that a hairless, muscular chest showed. He was powerfully built without being muscle-bound. Wouldn’t have been hard for him to kill someone with his bare hands.

  “I’ve got one question to ask you, Mr. Taylor,” Clint said, “and I want to look you in the eye when I ask it.”

  “Go ahead, ask.”

  “Did you kill Eliza Johnson?”

  “No,” John Taylor said, without hesitation, “I didn’t. I never touched her. I liked her.”

  Clint believed him immediately and without reservation.

  “If you want me to,” he said, “I’ll try to prove that for you.”

  “You think you can do it before they hang me?”

  “Even if they convict you tomorrow, they wouldn’t hang you for a while. They’d have to build a scaffold, arrange for a hangman—”

  “I don’t need all the details, sir.”