[Mark Twain Mysteries 03] - The Prince and the Prosecutor
Page 12
I mustered what dignity I could, and said, “Mr. Gallagher, I am a first-class passenger, and I can prove it. If you will only allow me to go to my employer’s cabin, just a short way down this corridor, he is there right now and he will vouch for me.”
“Aye, a likely story,” said Gallagher, sneering. “But I’ll not have anyone claiming Patrick Gallagher clapped him in the brig without a fair show. Let’s go see this employer of yours. Keep a firm grip on him, Watts.”
We made our way down the corridor past staring passengers, and soon arrived at the door to the cabin I shared with Mr. Clemens. Gallagher knocked on the dark mahogany door, while the two crewmen held my arms and I held my breath. To my dismay, there was no answer to the knock. “Try again,” I said after a moment that seemed to last several hours. Where could Mr. Clemens be? Had he changed his plans without notifying me?
Gallagher favored me with a smirk, then turned and knocked again, more loudly. Still no answer within. “Well,” he said, “I think we know how much this fellow’s story’s worth. Watts, Jones, bring him along.”
“Wait just a little longer,” I pleaded. “He was supposed to come here directly from lunch—he must have been detained.”
“Aye, and so will you be,” said Gallagher. “You’ll have a chance to send a message, but we’ve got better things to do with our time than wait around for someone who might not show up for hours. We’ve already spent long enough chasing you. Let’s go, lads.”
“Aha, I see you’ve finally captured that dreadful upstart,” said a nearby voice. I turned to see Robert Babson, with two of his gambling companions, standing in the corridor with smug expressions. “He’s been sneaking into the lounge and pestering the passengers. I was going to report the fellow, but I see you’ve caught up with him.”
“He’s lying,” I shouted. “Mr. Babson, this is a shabby trick!”
“Do you call me a liar?” said Babson, with an angry expression. “Have a care how you speak to your betters, you impudent rascal. If you persist in your misbehavior, you will find yourself in even more serious trouble.”
I was dumbfounded at Babson’s false accusation, but I had no ready defense other than to call him a liar back. That seemed unlikely to accomplish anything useful. His sister had warned me that he might take some kind of petty revenge for my accidental spilling of his drink, but I had hardly imagined anything of this sort. Before I could think of any reply, Gallagher nodded to Babson and said, “I guess that’s all we need to know, mister. If you have any specific complaints against him, let us know—we’ll see that he gets what he deserves.”
Babson had opened his mouth, undoubtedly to spout some other malicious falsehood, when Prinz Karl came into view down the corridor. He took in the scene and his eyebrows rose. He pushed past Babson and asked, “What is the matter, Mr. Cabot? What has been going on?”
Suddenly I realized that Prinz Karl could corroborate my story. My captors might well have second thoughts if a respectable-looking older gentleman vouched for me. I knew that even if I were taken off to detention, Mr. Clemens would soon obtain my release. But I was angry at Babson, and did not want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me hauled away, and so I said, “Prinz Karl, Mr. Gallagher here is under the false impression that I am an impostor. And this other fellow has been slandering me, claiming I am a steerage passenger who has been sneaking onto the first-class decks, when he knows perfectly well that I have as much right to be here as he does.” I nodded at Babson, who had been edging away as he realized that his lie was about to be exposed. Gallagher and his men now looked confused, although Watts and Jones did not loosen their grip on my arms.
“This is an outrage,” said the prince. “I know both these young men, and I will vouch for Mr. Cabot without hesitation. As for this other one”—he gestured toward the scowling Robert Babson, whose two companions had begun to shrink back from him—“he is a liar and a scoundrel and I say so to his face!” He rapped his cane loudly on the deck, and stood defiantly.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” said Gallagher, suddenly deferential. “This young man told us his employer was staying in this very cabin. I knocked twice, and nobody has answered. Then the other gentleman came, and told us he was bothering the passengers. I don’t want to contradict you, sir, but right now I’m not sure which story to believe.”
“Well, I am here to meet this young man’s patron, Mr. Mark Twain,” said the prince. “He will come here in a few minutes, I think. But we should be able to settle the matter before then. Mr. Cabot, do you not have a key to this door?”
Of course I did. I felt like an idiot for not having thought of it myself. “Yes, right here in my pocket.”
“Why do you not let go his arms so he may show you?” suggested the prince. The two crewmen looked at Gallagher, who nodded, and they released my arms. I took the key from my pocket, and slipped it into the brass lock. It turned easily, and the door opened. “So!” said the prince. “It looks as if this other fellow has not been telling you the truth.”
All of us turned together to see what Robert Babson would have to say now that his accusations were proven false; but while I had been getting out the key, he had evidently made his escape. I looked both ways down the corridor, and saw neither him nor his companions.
Now that he was convinced that I was a legitimate first-class passenger, Mr. Gallagher (who I now learned was first mate of the City of Baltimore) was quick to apologize to me for offering to lock me in the brig. “I hope there’s no hard feelings, young fellow—you’ll have no more trouble from me, now that I know you. But that lying rogue who told us you were sneaking into the smoker and bothering people had best steer clear of me,” he added with a significant grimace. “If he thinks he can play Patrick Gallagher for a fool, he’s asking to learn a hard lesson.”
“Perhaps he’s already learned it,” I said. “I feel foolish for not remembering I had a key to the stateroom, to tell you the truth. But all’s well that ends well.” I shook hands with Gallagher and his two crewmen, and they went off to resume whatever their normal duties were. The half-dozen passengers who had stood around watching began to disperse, as well.
Mr. Clemens and Mr. Kipling strolled up to the door just as the first mate was leaving. My employer looked at the departing seamen and the remaining onlookers and raised his eyebrows. “It looks as if we’ve missed the whole circus,” he said. “What’s been going on, Wentworth?”
“You’d have saved me a good deal of worry if you’d been in the room when I got here,” I said. I held the door open and let him and Mr. Kipling in, and they sat down on the couch.
Mr. Clemens took out his pipe and tobacco pouch, then looked up at me. “Well, I’m sorry for the worry. I’d have been here a while ago, except the ship’s librarian grabbed me as I was on my way down, and talked me into giving a lecture on the weekend. Then she took me down to the library to autograph three of my books, and while I was there I took a moment to look over that map you were telling me about,” he said. “I ran into Kipling on the way up, and here we are. What were those crewmen doing here? Did you forget your key to the cabin?”
“In a manner of speaking,” I replied, and began to relate the entire incident. At first, Mr. Clemens reacted with amusement. “I’m not surprised they took you for some sort of stowaway, Wentworth,” he said, grinning broadly. “There’s mischief written all over that face. Don’t you think so, Kipling?” But when I told him of Prinz Karl’s role in helping me refute Robert Babson’s lies, his expression turned serious.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he remarked. “The fellow’s acted like a prince, whatever he really is. Where is he, by the way?”
“Why, that’s odd—he was right here, a moment ago,” I said, surprised that I hadn’t noticed his absence. I went to the door and looked around in the now nearly-empty hallway. But like Robert Babson, the prince had evidently vanished. “He seems to have gone somewhere,” I reported, feeling foolish at making such an obvious comment. “
I distinctly heard him tell Gallagher that he was here to meet Mark Twain. What could have made him change his mind?”
“I suppose he divined what we were going to ask him, and dodged out,” said Mr. Kipling, with a stern expression. “I think we shall have to report Prinz Karl to the master-at-arms, and let him decide how to proceed.”
Mr. Clemens put down his half-filled pipe and tobacco pouch on the table in front of him, frowning. He stood up and paced a few steps, then turned and said, “Maybe you’re right, Kipling, but I’m confused. The fellow just got Wentworth out of a pickle, and I feel that puts me in his debt. We still don’t have anything crooked to pin on him, except maybe using a false name. But I’m confounded if I know what to make of him skipping out of the meeting.”
“Perhaps he went to try to find Babson,” I suggested, feeling indebted to Prinz Karl myself. “He isn’t that late, yet. Why don’t we give him a few minutes to keep the appointment?”
“That’s a good point,” agreed Mr. Clemens. “Maybe he just had to talk to a man about a horse. We’ll give him a chance to show up and explain himself before we turn him in to the management. Hell, I feel like a schoolboy telling tales on his classmates.”
“We haven’t told any tales yet,” said Mr. Kipling. “In any case, we’ll just be reporting our suspicions to the authorities, who will make their own decision what to do. How would you feel if we kept mum, and then he swindled someone?”
“Terrible, of course,” said Mr. Clemens, shaking his head. “Still, I think we owe him a few minutes to show up and answer our questions.” He walked over to the table and picked up the corncob pipe again, and resumed the task of filling it with tobacco.
“I wonder if the fellow’s some sort of remittance man,” said Kipling, rubbing his chin. “Perfectly respectable origins, perhaps, but with no title and no inheritance to speak of. So he covers it up by playing the prince.”
“Remittance man?” I said, puzzled. “I’m afraid I’ve never heard the term.”
“A sort of involuntary exile,” Kipling explained. “Usually a man who’s caused some scandal at home, and who can’t handle large sums of money. The family sends him a regular remittance to live on from one month to the next, on condition that he stays abroad and keeps out of serious trouble. I knew of quite a few fellows on that regime in India.”
“Ah, that might explain the business with the bad check that I saw at the dock,” I said. Mr. Kipling looked puzzled, so I told him the story of my first encounter with Prinz Karl.
“That fits the pattern exactly,” he said, nodding slowly. “He’d probably gone through one payment, and had to live as cheaply as possible till the next one arrived. He must have been gambling that the shipping line wouldn’t try to cash his check until he’d gotten his next payment. It looks as if he lost that gamble, but when his remittance finally came in, he went down to the dock to try to put the best face he could on the situation.”
“Yes, I suppose that would explain it,” I said. “But I still think we should wait for him to answer our questions.”
But though we waited close to an hour, the prince never did come back.
12
After Prinz Karl’s failure to appear for the meeting, Mr. Clemens and Mr. Kipling came to the conclusion that the only way to resolve their suspicions of Prinz Karl was to turn the matter over to the master-at-arms and let him decide whether there was any ground for action. I would have joined them, but after a moment’s consultation, they decided that if the two of them could not convince the authorities to look into the prince’s identity, my testimony was unlikely to tip the balance. And so I was left on my own for the rest of the afternoon. I promised to join the other two gentlemen in time for a drink before dinner, and went out on deck to see the horse races that had been announced at lunch.
As I approached the foredeck, where the races were to be held, I became aware of an enthusiastic crowd of my fellow-passengers gathered in anticipation of the event. I made my way close enough to see over the front ranks of spectators, my curiosity considerably heightened. Bringing horses on deck was obviously an absurd notion; on the other hand, something exciting was clearly taking place.
I could see a booth set up to take bets on the first race, and a good number of passengers eagerly offering their money to Mr. Leslie, the purser, who was acting as bookmaker. Not surprisingly, Robert Babson and his companions were prominent among the bettors. Their wagers were surprisingly high; I saw Babson peel a twenty-dollar bill out of his wallet and place it on “Number five.”
Then came the announcement, “The horses are at the starting gate. Ladies and gentlemen, place your final bets. Pl-l-lace your bets!” At this, I saw an open space on the deck, marked off in a sort of elongated gridiron. At the far end of the deck there were six wooden stands, of the sort that might support a small signboard, topped with carved wooden hobby-horse’s heads, each bearing a number. So these must be the contestants! But how were they going to run?
After a final flurry of betting, the spectators lined both sides of the “track,” and Mr. Leslie signaled to an assistant, who stepped over to a stand supporting something that resembled a birdcage, with an attached crank. He gave the crank a couple of spins, and I realized that the cage contained a number of dice. The cage stopped, and the assistant cried, “And they’re off! Number one breaks cleanly with two lengths. Number three steps out one length!” As he called out the results, a second assistant moved the wooden horses. Now I understood it; it was no more than a dice game, with the hobby-horses representing the rolls of the dice in the cage. One might as well bet on Pachisi, a simple board game with which I and my childhood friends had sometimes whiled away a rainy afternoon.
In spite of myself, I burst out laughing. It was one of the silliest sights I had seen in a long time: grown men and women standing on the deck of an ocean liner, miles from land, all playing a children’s game! I had no desire to bet on the races, but I had to admit I found the sight highly diverting.
The bettors were wildly enthusiastic, urging on their favorites with every turn of the cage. Robert Babson let out a whoop of glee each time “Number five” advanced a space, and his companions were equally vocal in support of their choices, as if the wooden horses could actually hear them and be inspired to run faster. The entire race took perhaps five minutes, with fanciful descriptions of the action from the assistant who twirled the dice-cage, and loud cheers from the crowd. At last “Number three” prevailed, coming from behind to nip “Number five” at the finish line, and the lucky bettors went to collect their winnings.
Robert Babson smacked his fist into his palm, then pulled out his wallet and went to bet another twenty on the second race. This time, “Number two” led the way from start to finish, and Colonel Fitzwilliam clapped his hands and went to collect his winnings. Babson had lost again. Finally I turned away, grinning and shaking my head at one of the most preposterous spectacles I had ever witnessed.
As I headed back aft, away from the “races,” I noticed that the western sky had begun to cloud over, while the waves were noticeably rougher than they had been in the morning. The seasoned travelers’ predictions of bad weather were evidently about to come true. I decided that if the weather was going to deteriorate, I might as well enjoy the sun while it shone, and so I spent most of the afternoon strolling the deck or leaning against the rail to scan the horizon. From time to time I would exchange a few words with one of the other passengers, but for the most part everyone on deck was more interested in the vast reaches of the ocean than in small talk.
Late in the day we overtook an eastbound clipper ship, flying American colors; when we came close, I saw she was the Mary Grace, out of Boston. She was making fine headway under full sail, taking advantage of a brisk tail wind. I doffed my hat and waved it to her as we came abreast her mainmast, and several of the men on her deck returned my salute. I heard them cheer us, and (straining my ears) I thought I could even detect the snap of the clipper’s canvas and the
steady lapping of the waves against her handsomely raked bow. I wondered what cargo the Mary Grace carried, and to what ports she was bound. She and her kind were a dying breed, and I thought how romantic it would be to see the world from the deck of a clipper ship. For that sort of adventure, I would readily agree to give up first-class accommodations on a modern steamer. But that adventure would have to wait for another time. At the moment, I was thoroughly enjoying myself, and I saw no reason to regret my circumstances.
Having been aboard the City of Baltimore over twenty-four hours, I had already begun to fall into the routine of shipboard life. There was little opportunity for boredom. Some activity or another was going on at almost every hour of the day, and there were enough choices to fit almost any taste. Those who were not inclined to watch and wager on the horse races could try their skill at shuffleboard, sign up for a tug of war, or merely watch the waves and sky. In the evening, there was a schedule of lectures, musicales, and other cultural events varied enough to make the ship a veritable floating Chautauqua. Of course, there was a constant succession of card games and plenty of stimulating conversation to be had in the smoking lounges—and, I assumed, in the ladies’ lounges as well. And for those content to sit and lose themselves in the pages of a book, the library served the purpose admirably.
Meals—especially the formal dinners—were the only occasions when the entire company sat down together at once. There was music from the ship’s little orchestra, a spirited round of toasts, and uniformly excellent food. Mr. Clemens was especially pleased with the cuisine on board, comparing it to his early voyages when even the richest passengers had to sit on long wooden benches, contenting themselves with such uninspiring fare as boiled beef, codfish, potatoes, “dog in a blanket,” and plum duff. I, for one, had no complaints about the food aboard this ship—and I had tasted New Orleans cooking at its finest.
I was somewhat surprised to learn that many of my fellow passengers were quite familiar with the writings of Mr. Kipling. I had read one of his books a few months earlier, at the recommendation of Mr. Clemens, and found his tales of life in the British military barracks of India colorful and well-told, if perhaps too exotic for the general American public. But Colonel Fitzwilliam was far from the only passenger who recognized Kipling, and showed some awareness of his work. In contrast to Mr. Clemens, who very much enjoyed life in the public view, Mr. Kipling seemed jealous of his privacy. He was clearly uncomfortable at the extent to which he was recognized and sought out by others on board, and Mrs. Kipling often took it upon herself to bluntly inform those she saw as intrusive that their attentions were unwelcome. By our second day aboard I noticed that the couple had begun spending more time in their cabin—presumably so that Mr. Kipling could write or read—than in the public areas, at least during daylight hours.