“That’s right,” I said. “Their names were on the original list, then crossed off.”
“Hmm—I’d better take a closer look at that list, then,” said Mr. Clemens. “Berrigan did say that his clue came from the passenger list, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” I said. “Although he phrased it oddly—Something on the passenger list tipped me off was how he put it. But it was just a list of names and addresses. What could he have meant, I wonder.”
“I don’t know. It may not be important. Right now, I’m interested in a couple of things that may be easier to figure out, especially with Tommy’s help.” Mr. Clemens stared out at the riverbank again, then down at Tommy Hazelwood. “The murder last night was on the hurricane deck. The cabin door was locked when we got there, and at first we just assumed it was locked from the inside. But after thinking about it, I’m pretty sure the dead man didn’t get up and lock the door after the killer left. Do you have any idea how the killer might have gotten a key to that cabin?”
Tommy’s face was a study in concentration. Finally he said, “No, sir. Mr. Snipes is mighty partic’lar about the keys—when he gives one out for some reason, he wants it right back in his hand, as soon as you’re done with it, and if you don’t bring it back fast enough, he’ll chase you down, and give you the dickens too.”
“Could somebody have ‘borrowed’ a key out of the office while nobody was looking? Is the office ever left open or unguarded late at night?”
Tommy shook his head. “You don’t know Mr. Snipes. He locks the door behind him every time he leaves the office empty, and I do the same if I’m working there alone. That’s his first rule—always lock up behind you. The only way anybody could get in to steal a key is if they already had one. And then they wouldn’t need one, if you see what I mean.”
I had a sudden inspiration. “I wonder . . . if one of the cleaning crew lost a key, or had it stolen, would they be afraid to report it to Mr. Snipes?”
“Sure, but he’d find out in the end. They’d need the key to clean the rooms, and if the rooms weren’t clean, they’d get in trouble. The passengers would gripe when their beds weren’t made, and Mr. Snipes wouldn’t let that slide.”
“There’s something we ought to look into,” I said. “If any of the other passengers on Berrigan’s level complained about their cabins not being cleaned, that would tell us right away if there’s a stolen key.”
“Good point, Wentworth,” said Mr. Clemens. “Why don’t you look around that deck and ask the passengers, and let me know before the meeting. Meanwhile, I want to grab an hour or so to look over that passenger list, and maybe find the time to talk with Major Demayne about his poetry, too. Maybe he has some of the answers I need.” He looked down at the apprentice clerk and smiled. “Thanks for talking to us, Tommy—you’ve been a big help. We’ll see you this afternoon; the captain’s called a meeting for three o’clock, and I want you to be there. I think we can catch the murderer before we dock in Memphis. Don’t be surprised if I ask you to come on stage and answer a few questions for the people.”
“Me? A witness in a murder case?” The boy was obviously thrilled. “Why, I wouldn’t miss it for anything!” He skipped off in the direction of the clerk’s office, excited as only a young boy can be. Mr. Clemens watched him with a wistful expression.
“I wish I was still that young and full of fire,” he said when the boy was gone. “It’s a shame how soon we lose our enthusiasm for the world. Why, even old sourpuss Charlie Snipes used to be like that, back when he was mud clerk on the Gold Dust. I remember how he used to follow me, listening to me tell stories, same as Tommy here, and like to got himself fired. I wonder if he ever looks at Tommy and remembers how he used to be.”
I spent nearly an hour on the hurricane deck asking passengers if their beds had been made, but came up empty; in fact, the cleaning crew was going about its business even as I asked, as if to quiet my speculation by its very presence. Unfortunately, my attempts to get the maids to talk about missing keys were even less fruitful—too many people knew about the trouble with the stowaways, and the maids unanimously refused to talk about anything that might connect them to the incident. At length, I gave up and wandered down to the main deck for a bite of luncheon before the meeting.
I had just finished eating when Martha Patterson came through the doors, wearing the pink dress I had seen her in when first we met. She looked around, and her face broke into a smile as her eyes lit on me. Tired as I was, it gave me a welcome lift to see her stride purposefully over to my table. “May I join you?” she asked. I returned her smile and waved her to the chair opposite me.
“Make yourself at home,” I told her. “I was up till past midnight searching a dead man’s belongings, and spent the first part of the day wrestling a man who tried to strangle me. After that, it’s good to see a friendly face.”
Her mouth fell open in surprise. “My goodness! What on earth have you been doing?”
I gave her an account of all that had happened since we had last spoken, omitting only the more grisly details of the murder. “But we’ll soon know all the answers. Mr. Clemens asked the captain to call a special meeting at three o’clock today, at which he’ll unmask the killer,” I said in conclusion.
“I heard about the meeting, but not the reason for its being called. Isn’t it exciting? Has Mr. Clemens told you who the culprit is?”
“No, but the prime suspect has to be McPhee. When we woke him up this morning for questioning, he claimed he’d been at the card table all night. But I don’t trust the scoundrel one bit—his alibi looks good for now, but while he sat there cheating the other players, the Throckmortons could have been doing the dirty business under his orders. What else were those two doing on board?”
She looked puzzled. “But what motive would he have? Mr. McPhee is a gambler, not a criminal—he’d have no reason to kill anyone.”
“I don’t know; isn’t it enough that he’s of poor character?” I tried to think of some reason for McPhee to kill Berrigan; his general iniquity was so obvious that it annoyed me to have to deal with a distraction like motive.
“That may be, and yet it’s no reason to convict him of murder,” said Miss Patterson. “Surely if Mr. Clemens means to accuse him, he has some better explanation than poor character.”
“I suppose he does,” I admitted. “The fellow is a gambler, with no real occupation; perhaps there’s money involved.”
“What about the other players—he doesn’t play alone, you know. Why isn’t everyone who gambles a suspect, as well as Mr. McPhee? Or is it merely the lack of conventional employment that makes him suspect?” Her eyes flashed, and I felt ashamed of my shoddy logic.
“Mr. Clemens hasn’t told me his conclusions, but I’m confident he’ll tell us everything at the meeting,” I said.
“I certainly hope so,” said Miss Patterson. “I’ll be very curious to learn what has happened. And until then, I shall look at every passenger and wonder if perhaps I’m seeing a murderer!”
“We’ll know soon enough,” I agreed. “Perhaps we can get together afterwards and compare notes.”
“We’ll see,” she said, smiling. “Who knows—Mr. Clemens may identify you or me as the murderer.”
“I am quite confident that you are no murderer,” I told her, returning her smile.
“Why, Mr. Cabot,” she said, with a pretty little laugh and a toss of her head. “I do appreciate your confidence—after all, we hardly know each other. I could be almost anything—and so could you!”
“Well, we’ll find out at three o’clock, won’t we.” I was pleased that her annoyance at my accusing McPhee had passed so easily.
“Indeed we shall,” she agreed. “I think there’ll be quite a few surprises in store for us.”
24
The Horace Greeley’s auditorium was full, almost as if for one of Mr. Clemens’s lectures. But this audience was made up entirely of the passengers and crew, with no townspeople in their Sun
day best crowding aboard, and the atmosphere was a good bit more somber. There was nonetheless an air of expectation, thanks to the stories that had circulated among the passengers all day. Likewise, everyone’s interest was piqued by the unusual convocation, which Captain Fowler had made it clear was mandatory—although Elmer Parks was conspicuously absent, presumably up in the pilothouse, tending his wheel; and I supposed that Frenchy Devereaux and his stokers were down below feeding the boilers.
Mr. Clemens and Captain Fowler stood quietly together on the stage while the passengers took their seats. Mr. Clemens was puffing on one of his corncob pipes, the first time I had seen him smoke on stage. And he had on his white summer suit instead of the formal evening dress he wore for lectures. But, as he told me before we let the audience in, this was no routine performance. “Anything can happen here, Wentworth—there’s no predicting how our man will react when I name him as the killer. Let’s hope he doesn’t do anything too foolish.”
Mr. Clemens had stationed me at the right front corner of the stage and Tiny Williams at the other corner, where we each had a good view of the crowd. Several of Mr. Williams’s roustabouts were unostentatiously placed around the audience, in seats near the exits. The captain had made it clear to us that our primary duty was to protect the passengers; the person whom we hoped to unmask had already murdered Berrigan, and might not hesitate to use his knife again if cornered. I hoped the captain was wrong about that, but held myself ready to do whatever might be necessary.
When everyone was seated, the captain stepped to the front of the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, Mark Twain has asked me to call you here for some important business, and I hope we can get it done without much trouble. Some of you saw the little skirmish on deck this morning, and I guess you’ve heard a bunch of rumors since then. Well, I’ve brought you all here to get to the bottom of things, not to gloss anything over. The long and short of it, I’m sorry to say, is there’s been a murder on board. . . .”
For the first time in my life, I understood the meaning of the word “pandemonium.” Half the crowd began talking and gesturing wildly, and many of them rose to their feet and tried to call out questions to the stage; the reporter, Andrew Dunbar, pulled out his notebook and began shuffling toward the front of the room, scribbling wildly. The rest of the audience, passengers and crew alike, seemed stunned. The captain let the hubbub go on for a few moments, then raised his hands to quiet it. “We’ll answer all your questions soon enough, I hope—but let us do it in the right order and it’ll all go smoother.”
“Is it true there were two murders?” shouted Dunbar.
“Yes, and the two were connected,” said Mr. Clemens, somewhat to my surprise; I myself had abandoned that line of speculation. The noise began to build again, but Mr. Clemens cut it off. “You won’t learn anything from your neighbors, and you’ll be more comfortable if you all sit down,” he said, raising his voice slightly. “Let the captain finish what he has to say, and you’ll learn the truth that much sooner,” he said. The crowd fell quiet.
Captain Fowler looked at the audience, then back at Mr. Clemens. “Why don’t you just go ahead and tell ’em, Sam? I was never much of a speechifier, anyways.”
“Thank you, Mike,” said Mr. Clemens, tamping out his pipe and moving to the front of the stage. “If you’ll indulge me, I’ll begin a few weeks ago, in New York City, although the story’s roots go deeper than that. I was making final arrangements for this trip when a New York police detective, Paul Berrigan, came to my hotel. There’d been a murder nearby, and the victim had my name and address in his pocket. Naturally, the police suspected some connection. So did the people who are financing this lecture tour. They had Berrigan detailed to come on this cruise, to act as a guard for me as well as to sniff around for clues to the murder.
“Berrigan had the theory that the murderer might be following me, not just because of the note, but because at first we thought the victim was a gambler named Farmer Jack Hubbard, whom I’d met thirty years ago—although later we learned it was a different man entirely, another gambler named Lee Russell. But as it happened, Hubbard had sent me a note that same day, trying to arrange a meeting. So there was a speck of logic in the idea that something in my past might be the key to the New York murder case. That got me to thinking about what the connection might be, and it took me back to the last time I’d taken a steamboat trip down the Mississippi.”
Mr. Clemens shook his head. “That was a dozen years ago,” he said. “I could spin the yarn out right through suppertime, but I’ve told it once already today, and don’t feel like going over it all again. Those of you who have copies of my book Life on the Mississippi can read the story there, in chapter thirty-one. It’s a story of murder, hidden treasure, and revenge, ending when the treasure is washed away in a flood. Most people assume that the story is pure fiction, with a long buildup to a deliberate anticlimax, and that’s the way I wanted people to read it. But I’ll tell you now—it really happened, just the way I tell it in the book!”
There was a stir in the audience, presumably among those who had read the story. From my vantage point to the right of the stage, I saw Slippery Ed McPhee sit up straight in his seat, a look of wonder on his face. “Sam, you old fox!” he said, shaking his head.
Mr Clemens continued. “My trip down the river, back in ’82, was partly for research on Life on the Mississippi, but I also meant to recover the hidden gold and forward it to its rightful owner. I made the mistake of talking about my errand, and the wrong people overheard me. Someone on board that boat made plans to follow me to the treasure, and steal it. When I learned of this, I changed my story, claimed the treasure had been washed away, and told it in such a way that most people would take it as a fabrication. The ruse seemed to work, but I had to put off recovering the gold. I meant to return and do it, but time got away from me—as it has a habit of doing.” There was muted laughter from the audience at this. “Finally, when I set up this cruise, I thought I could return and complete my long-postponed mission.
“But the New York murder threw me off stride, although for a while I wasn’t sure whether it had anything to do with my treasure hunt. In one sense I was annoyed that the New York detective was snooping around, and in another I was glad that he was here. He was following his clues, trying to put two and two together, and mostly staying out of my way, although he had a run-in or two with Cabot, my secretary. Finally, just yesterday, Berrigan told Cabot he’d identified the murderer, although he didn’t say who it was. And then—well, why don’t we ask Mr. Cabot to tell you what happened next.”
I was not at all prepared to talk, but somehow I found my way to center stage. There, with a little gentle coaching from Mr. Clemens, I recounted my late-night walk on deck and my meeting the lady who complained of a disturbance in the cabin next to hers. I had just gotten to the point of knocking on the cabin door when a white-haired woman stood up in the audience; I recognized her as the very one who’d accosted me on deck the night before.
“I knew there was something wrong!” she said, shaking her finger at me with an air of accusation. “You tried to put me off, and told me to stay in my cabin, but I knew there was something fishy going on! That man was dead, wasn’t he.”
“Yes, he was, ma’am,” said Mr. Clemens. “Would you like to come up front and tell everybody what you heard? It could help us get to the bottom of these terrible murders. You’re the closest we have to an eyewitness—or an ear-witness, to be precise.”
The woman walked briskly to the stage, with an assurance that reminded me of my mother’s Sunday morning progress down the aisle of our church toward her seat in the family pew. Mr. Clemens, on his most courtly behavior, gave her a hand up the stairs, then asked, “Now, if you’d be so kind as to tell everyone what you heard last night—and perhaps it would help if we knew your name, Miss . . . ?”
“I am Caroline Fairbanks, of Albany, New York, traveling in cabin thirty-nine on the third deck. Last night, after midnight,
I woke up to hear two men arguing in the cabin next door.”
“Number forty-one, that would be?” Mr. Clemens prompted.
“Yes. The argument was loud enough to keep me from getting back to sleep. I tapped on the wall to let them know they were disturbing me, but they must not have heard. They were shouting at one another, and they sounded very angry.”
“Do you remember what they were arguing about?”
“I didn’t hear enough to make it out. One of them did say something about gold, and the other said it was too much, and I’m afraid there was a lot of bad language used between them.”
“German, no doubt,” said Mr. Clemens, surprisingly calm despite the mention of gold.
“Excuse me?” said Miss Fairbanks, giving him a puzzled look, but he merely gestured for her to go on, and she continued. “There was a sound as of a struggle, very loud, as if someone had crashed into the wall, and then someone cried out. That was when I decided to get help. I got out of bed, threw on my robe, and went out on deck, where I found that young man and asked him to help me.”
“This is very important now. Did you recognize either of the voices? Could you identify either of the men who were in that cabin?”
“No, I’m afraid not. My hearing isn’t what it used to be, and there was a wall between us, after all. Putting two and two together, I assume one of them must have been that poor Mr. Berrigan. But I have no idea who the other person was.”
“A shame,” said Mr. Clemens. “It would have made things so much easier.” He paused briefly, as if thinking about what the woman had said. “But that’s not going to stop me. Before this meeting’s over, I intend to be able to tell you all just who the killer is.”
25
Once again, the crowd noise rose to a hubbub of excited speculation, and Captain Fowler had to call for quiet. Andrew Dunbar was on his feet again, trying to call out a question over the noise, but Mr. Clemens waved him off. “There’ll be time enough for questions later. First let’s establish the facts; then you can all misinterpret them however you please.” The reporter turned red and sat back down. Mr. Clemens looked out at the audience again, and said, “While we’re calling up possible witnesses, would the passenger who was in cabin number forty-three last night please come up front?”
[Mark Twain Mysteries 01] - Death on the Mississippi Page 24