“Let’s start from the beginning,” said Mr. Clemens. “You two have been following us downriver ever since St. Paul. Nobody’s laid eyes on you aboard the boat until this morning, so I figure you’ve been riding the trains.” Billy Throckmorton nodded, but said nothing. “So why, all of a sudden, did you get back on the boat? You must have known there’d be trouble if Charlie Snipes caught you.”
Al Throckmorton cursed. “That backstabbin’ snake,” he said. “Snipes better hope me and Billy don’t catch him on shore. If it hadn’t been for him, we could have rid the boat the whole way, ’stead of sneaking on in Cairo.”
“If it hadn’t been for you two pushing my secretary into the river, you mean,” said Mr. Clemens. “Maybe it’s just a little rough fun to you fellows, but Charlie sees it as his bread and butter you’re messing with, and you shouldn’t be surprised if he takes it seriously. Besides, it may be a little less convenient to ride the trains than to be on board with McPhee, but you’re ending up in the same places, after all. Why change the routine in Cairo? There are plenty of trains from Cairo to Memphis.”
“Yeah, but they every one of ’em go through Kentucky,” said Billy Throckmorton.
“Kentucky? I’d think so; it’s more or less in the way.” Mr. Clemens stopped and looked at the Throckmorton brothers. “I take it you boys have some reason to avoid Kentucky.”
“You could put it that way,” said Al Throckmorton. “A little mix-up a couple of years back. Ed was dealing monte on the Illinois Central, headed for New Orleans, and there was this conductor that took it all wrong.”
“I see. By any chance did you try to change the conductor’s mind?”
Billy Throckmorton grinned. “Ed tried. He always tries—I got to give him credit. But some folks just won’t listen to sense, even when you want to give ’em good money for keeping their nose out of other folks’ business. This fellow kept on making a stink until we pulled into Clinton, and me and Al decided to bushwhack him. He got off’n the train and went to the toilet, you know? So the two of us made sure he didn’t get back on the train. Nothin’ too rough, just putting him on ice for a while so’s Ed could run his game without no interference. We didn’t even steal nothing from him.”
His brother nodded. “You’d a’thunk a mail train would have better things to do than wait around for some monkey in a blue suit, but they just set there and set there waiting for him, until somebody thought to go look in the toilet and find Mr. Conductor tied up with his own belt. So he sent out the hue and cry, and me and Billy and Ed had to skedaddle. We got out so fast I lost a carpetbag and a nearly full jug of good corn liquor.”
“I see,” said Mr. Clemens. “It must have been pretty serious to abandon good whisky.”
“Well, we hadn’t done all that big a thing, but some folks just don’t understand a fellow trying to make some room for himself to make a living,” said Billy Throckmorton. “That conductor didn’t have no call to sic the yard bulls on us, let alone the deputy sheriff, all of ’em waving guns. But me and Al can take a hint. We jumped right off that train, and got out of town double fast, you better believe it. We’ve been sort of touchy about Kentucky ever since. That’s how it goes—one little town doesn’t treat you right, sometimes you just get a bad feeling about the whole state, you know?”
Mr. Clemens nodded gravely. “I know just what you mean; I once ended up leaving Nevada in a hurry, on account of some shooting, and the law just didn’t want to hear my side of it—but don’t let me interrupt you, Billy.”
Billy Throckmorton gave Mr. Clemens a surprised look, then picked up his narrative with something like respect in his voice. “Well, to make a long story short, last night we were in Cairo station with our tickets and everything, all ready to get on the train to Memphis, and damn if Al don’t look down the track and see that same stiff-necked conductor standing there, twice as mean as ever. And he’s looking straight at me and Al, or I’m a skinned muskrat.”
“So we naturally didn’t wait around to see what he had on his mind,” said Al, picking up the story. “We’d have been damn fools to try to get on that train with him right there giving us the eye. We didn’t have no choice, when you get right down to it. So I says to Billy, ‘Let’s sneak on the boat and just stay hid until we hit Memphis, and nobody has to be the wiser,’ and he says, That’s just what we’ll do.’ Lucky for us, I’d kept the key to the cabin we were in before that no-good Charlie Snipes kicked us off, and there still wasn’t nobody in it. So we bought a jug and a couple of sandwiches and waited for dark, and then we come aboard while everybody was down at the lecture.”
“And you stayed in your cabin,” said Mr. Clemens. “You didn’t see or hear anything unusual late last night, did you? No kind of noise or commotion?”
Al managed to look thoughtful, but after a moment he shrugged and shook his head. “Well, not really. We was pretty tired by the time we snuck on board, and it was sort of hot and close in the cabin, so we had a couple of drinks and just lay down and dozed off early. There’s always some kind of noise on a boat, so we didn’t pay it much mind. What were we supposed to do—run out and tell folks to be quiet?”
Mr. Clemens laughed and slapped his knee. “I reckon not! So you didn’t tell Ed McPhee you were on board, then?”
“Hell, no! Ed would have walloped the two of us, after he went and gave us money to ride the train. We figured if he don’t know about it, everybody’s better off. You won’t tell him we was on board, will you?” Billy Throckmorton’s face took on a worried expression, and his brother gave Mr. Clemens a nervous look.
“I’m afraid he knows already,” said Mr. Clemens. “In fact, the whole boat must have known about it by the time the captain got you boys hidden away down here. If you’d just taken your medicine quietly when they caught you, we might have been able to keep it under wraps. After all, it wasn’t to anybody’s advantage to let out that you two were on board, was it now? But once some of the passengers knew it, there wasn’t much the captain could do to hide it. There’s nothing travels faster than a secret, once it’s out of the bag.”
“Guess you got that one right,” said Al Throckmorton with a resigned expression. “Well, we’ll just have to grin and bear it once we get on shore. You don’t think the captain’s really going to give us to the sheriff, do you? It’s going to be bad enough having Ed mad at us. Besides, that old cabin was going to be empty whether or not we slept in it, no matter what Mr. Charlie Snipes thinks.”
“Well, it wasn’t going to be empty while you boys slept in it,” said Mr. Clemens, grinning, and (to my surprise) the Throckmorton brothers laughed. “But if all you did was take up a cabin nobody else was using and sleep the night in it, and didn’t break up any furniture, maybe Ed can smooth things over with a couple of bucks in the right place. There’s not much the captain can hold against you. I can’t speak for my man Cabot here, though. He might not take it so lightly, being knocked down and choked, and I can’t say I blame him.”
“I guess Billy’s got to speak for himself about that,” said Al Throckmorton, looking significantly at his brother. “You can’t rightly hold it against a man if he tries to defend himself when somebody runs him down, but maybe he didn’t have to push it quite so far. I suspect he’s sorry for it now, ain’t you, Billy?”
To my astonishment, Billy Throckmorton stood up and extended a hamlike paw in my direction. “I guess maybe I am sorry,” he said. “It weren’t nothing personal, you know. I heard that no-good clerk talk about jail, and hanging, and I just decided to skip out. If I’d kept my wits about me, I’d have known it was nothing but wind he was blowing. I’m not the man to hold a grudge, if you ain’t. No hard feelings?”
Sensing that I had gotten as much apology I was ever going to get from the likes of Billy Throckmorton, I managed to take his hand and shake it; he tried a bone-crusher grip, but I was ready for it, and gave him back as good as he gave. After a moment, he grinned at me and disengaged his hand. I gave him a perfunctory smi
le in return, although I had the distinct feeling that the handshake was far from the end of things between us. Mr. Clemens watched the encounter closely, and when Billy and I had stepped back from one another, he nodded.
“Good, good,” he said. “You’ve played square with me, and I’ll tell Captain Mike just that. If there’s anything else you think of about last night, tell Tommy outside to send for me, and I’ll come down directly and listen to what you have to say. I’ll put in the best word I can for you, don’t worry.”
“We sure appreciate it, Mister Sam,” said Alligator Throckmorton.
“I appreciate your help, boys,” said Mr. Clemens. “I won’t forget it.” He knocked on the door, and after a moment it opened; Tiny Williams glowered at the Throckmortons as Mr. Clemens and I walked out, and then the mate shot the bar home again. “Well, that’s done with,” said Mr. Clemens. “Thanks for keeping watch, Tiny—it was a relief to know you were just within earshot if anything had happened.”
Williams looked relieved to see us safely out of the room. “They didn’t try anything, did they?”
“No,” I said. “I’m just as glad they didn’t—that Billy is a rough customer, as I’ve found out already.”
“Let me give you one piece of advice,” said the mate. “You get in a fight with a fellow with a great big beer belly like that, don’t never try to rassle him. He’ll just fall down on top of you, and then it’s his game and your pain. And don’t go trying to punch him in the face, neither—you got to reach up to hit him, you don’t get no force behind it, and he’ll just grab you and laugh. But you hit him solid in the belly a few times, he’ll get tired of it right fast.” He gave me a light tap with his fist just above the navel, by way of illustration.
“I’ll remember that,” I promised, glad that he hadn’t felt the need for more vigorous demonstration of what he meant. We shook hands, and this time he left me with a bit more feeling in my fingers than the last time we’d compared grips. For some reason, all these westerners seemed to consider handshaking a contest of strength.
“I’ll hope he won’t need that advice,” said Mr. Clemens, shaking hands with the mate with no visible sign of discomfort. “But I suspect you know what you’re talking about, Tiny, if anybody does. Now, Wentworth, we should go find the captain and tell him what we’ve learned.” He turned and headed for the passageway to the upper decks, and I followed, trying to decide exactly what it was we’d learned from the Throckmortons.
22
Mr. Clemens and I came up the stairway to discover a small crowd of passengers milling about and talking excitedly; we stood for a moment trying to assess the situation, before they noticed our presence. “There’s Mark Twain,” said one man, pointing at my employer. “He’ll tell us what’s going on.”
We were quickly surrounded, several of the crowd shouting out questions at once, so that it was impossible to understand them. “Wait a minute,” said Mr. Clemens. “One at a time—I can’t make heads or tails of what you’re saying. Now, what’s the matter here?”
One portly man with a top hat and full beard took it upon himself to speak for the group. He struck a belligerent pose, pointing a finger at Mr. Clemens’s chest, and said, “We demand to know the truth about what happened last night. The captain flatly refuses to talk to us, and the crew is obviously under orders not to answer questions. I’ve paid good money for this vacation, and I won’t be lied to. If my wife and I aren’t safe aboard the ship, I will insist on a complete and total refund of my passage.”
“Safe? Of course you’re safe,” said Mr. Clemens. “This boat is in perfect running order, and Elmer Parks is as good a pilot as you’ll find on the river. Why would you think it’s not safe?”
“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it,” the man bellowed. “I hear there were two men murdered in cold blood last night, and a knife fight on deck this morning—your secretary was cut nearly to pieces. Everybody saw it.”
“Why, here’s my secretary right here. Step forward, Cabot, and let them see you.” Mr. Clemens gestured to me, and I did as he said. “Does this look like a man who’s been cut to pieces in a knife fight?” The crowd was quiet for a moment, then began a buzzing conversation as they took in my presence.
“Who saw this knife fight? Did you see it?” said Mr. Clemens, staring at the bearded man. The fellow removed his hat and wiped his bald head with a large white handkerchief, looking around for someone to corroborate his statement. “I thought as much,” Mr. Clemens said, glaring at the crowd. A few voices murmured, but nobody spoke up. For a moment I thought the disturbance was over.
Then a little white-haired lady in a plain black dress and an old-fashioned bonnet stepped forward. “I saw this young man last night,” she said, and I recognized her as the woman from the cabin next to Berrigan’s. She came up to me and looked in my face, then turned back to address the crowd.
“It was very late, and there was a loud argument in the cabin next to mine,” she said. “It woke me up, and I came out on deck to look for help. I was afraid someone was hurt. This young man knocked on the door, and when there was no answer, he went to find the captain. When the captain came, he told me to stay in my cabin. But I could hear them talking—the captain and some other men. There’s something wrong, and I want to know the truth.” She raised her chin and fixed her eye on me. “You tell me the truth, young man. What really happened in that cabin?”
“I don’t really know,” I said, looking to Mr. Clemens for help.
“You do know,” she said, shaking a finger at me. “You know, too,” she said, turning to Mr. Clemens. “I heard your voice in there last night. I don’t like being lied to. I expected better of you, Mr. Twain.” The crowd rumbled in chorus, adding its assent to her indignation.
“Everything’s under control,” said Mr. Clemens, raising his hands to silence the crowd. “There was some trouble, but the men who caused it are safely locked up, and there’s no reason to worry about them.”
“Are they the killers?” said the bearded man, stepping forward again. “I don’t want some sort of whitewash, Mr. Twain. You say there’s no danger, but do you really know?”
“Yes, what do you really know?” said a familiar voice. Andrew Dunbar, the New York reporter, stepped forward, his pencil and notebook poised. “Why are you and the captain covering up the murders? There were more than one, weren’t there. And your man was in a fight this morning—I’ve spoken to witnesses.”
“Yes, there was a fight,” said Mr. Clemens with the air of a man willing to tell the whole story. “Two stowaways got on board last night—a couple of rough customers. They’d had a few drinks, and they got into a fight with a passenger, and I’m afraid it turned ugly. Thanks to the lady in the next cabin, it was reported very quickly. Mr. Cabot happened to be on deck, and he informed the captain—but the disturbance was over by then. The crew searched the boat, and they found the stowaways first thing this morning; Mr. Cabot helped catch one of them who tried to escape. I tell you there’s no further danger, and I know what I’m talking about.”
But Dunbar wasn’t to be put off so easily. He swayed back and forth on his heels, and said, pointing to me, “If there’s no danger, why are you traveling with a bodyguard? This fellow’s obviously not any kind of secretary—I’ve talked to a few people, and I happen to know that he spent more time on the football field than in the classrooms at Yale.” I bristled at the calumny on my education, and was about to respond, but Mr. Clemens laid a hand on my arm. The reporter continued his harangue.
“And where’s good old Paul Berrigan this morning? The New York police wouldn’t send a detective all the way out here unless there’s something important at stake. Don’t try to tell me he’s here on vacation. Everybody on board has seen him skulking around, asking questions and taking notes. Will you confirm or deny that he’s here to investigate a murder?”
“I’m not authorized to speak for the police. Why don’t you ask Berrigan?” said Mr. Clemens.
“I think I’ll do just that,” said Dunbar. He scribbled a few lines in his notebook, flipped it closed, and put it in his pocket as he strode away.
With the reporter gone, Mr. Clemens turned back to the crowd. “Well, that’s the whole story, folks,” he said. “A brawl on board, started by a couple of drunken stowaways! We wouldn’t have thought much of it in the old days—why, I remember trips when there were knife fights and gunfire just about every night, and nobody even bothered to turn around to watch a mere fistfight. It just goes to show you how the river has changed, and I guess it’s for the better, even if it’s not colorful enough for some folks. But the excitement’s over. The captain and crew did their jobs, and the troublemakers are locked up where they can’t bother anyone. We’ll be turning them over to the police when we dock in Memphis, and then it’ll be up to the law to decide what becomes of them.
“There’s plenty to see today, if you’ll settle for some diversion short of bloodshed. This is one of the most historic sections of the river. We’ll be passing Chickasaw Bluff before long—some of you may remember that’s the site of the terrible Fort Pillow massacre during the war. Off to the east is Reelfoot Lake, created eighty years ago, when the New Madrid earthquake made the river run backwards. Pull out your guidebooks and enjoy the scenery—it’s a mighty fine day for it.”
He stepped forward, and the crowd parted to let him through. With me close behind him, we made our way up the stairway to the next deck. The passengers murmured uneasily behind us; among them I made out Claude Dexter’s voice lamenting that there hadn’t been an authentic bowie knife fight on deck. But I sensed that while Mr. Clemens had allayed the crowd’s fears for the moment, they weren’t entirely satisfied. I felt especially bad about not having been honest with the woman who’d confronted me. Perhaps, with the Throckmortons in custody, the danger was now behind us. But somehow, I wasn’t convinced of that.
[Mark Twain Mysteries 01] - Death on the Mississippi Page 22