[Mark Twain Mysteries 02] - A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court

by Peter J. Heck

  I was surprised. “Really? The majority of the company struck me as honest, unexceptional people. What motives do you impute to them?”

  “For most of them, I’d put my money on politics,” said Mr. Clemens. “Robinson was going to be a serious candidate for mayor next election, running on a reform platform. We’ll have to talk to George Cable about exactly what that means in New Orleans politics, but wherever there’s a reform candidate, there’s an establishment that stands to lose something if he’s elected. Staunton and Holt are from families with old money, and old money is usually dead set against reformers. So maybe that’s the direction we need to look in. Dr. Soupape and the lawyer, Dupree, could have political motives, too.”

  I frowned. “Do you really think that his death is a political assassination? I suppose I can’t deny the possibility, but even granting the assumption that some political rival is the killer, I’d suspect someone like that saloon owner Eulalie Echo mentioned, Tom Anderson, rather than these respectable citizens.”

  Mr. Clemens chuckled. “Poor Wentworth. I wish I had your faith in respectability, but when you’ve been around as many years as I have, you’ll put respectability and politics in separate categories. Even the reform candidates have to crawl into bed with the likes of Anderson if they want to win any elections. Of course, they don’t always want to win. Sometimes all they want to do is stand up and wave the flag for their principles and go down to defeat satisfied that they’ve fought the good fight. Southerners are particularly prone to that kind of noble futility. John David Robinson may have been one of that kind. Or he may have been a pragmatist, in which case you can bet he’d have swapped horses with the devil himself if it improved his chance to be elected mayor. He’d have made enemies either way. That’s what politics is all about. But you’re right. We may have to look beyond our dinner circle for possible suspects.”

  I was hardly pleased at this prospect, and I said so. “Why, if you cast a wide enough net, you’ll have half the grown men in New Orleans as possible murderers. We can’t quiz all of them.”

  “Not unless we want to spend Christmas in a warm climate,” he agreed, and took another long pull on his pipe. “So, first of all, we need to find out who was going to be hurt if Robinson actually managed to win the election. We need to know what promises he’d made and what political IOUs he’d left around town that somebody might have called in at an inconvenient moment. If Robinson was willing to undercut his own class to win the election, he could have made enemies even among his own in-laws. In fact, a lot of people consider their in-laws enemies just by virtue of the relationship . . .”

  I laughed. “I suppose you’re right,” I admitted. “So we need to find out as much as possible about Holt and Staunton.”

  “And everybody else,” said Mr. Clemens. He leaned back in his chair, puffing on the pipe. “Our two hot-headed southern gentlemen aren’t the only likely suspects, although they’re well up on the list. But for one thing, I’d think either of them would be more likely to take the direct approach if they were going to kill a man—a pistol, rather than poison. In a way, I wish the killer had shot Robinson. If it hadn’t been poison, they probably wouldn’t have arrested the cook for it.”

  “Who could it be, if not Holt or Staunton? None of the others seemed like murderers to me.” I tried to imagine the kindly old Dr. Soupape or the scholarly Professor Maddox as a cold-blooded killer and failed. Nor did bookish Maria Staunton seem a likely poisoner to me.

  Mr. Clemens stood up and paced around the room. “Don’t be so certain. You can’t expect the murderer to sneak around like the villain in some melodrama, Wentworth. Almost any of the people at that table could have had a motive to kill Robinson. It could be money, or some kind of insult, or a check to someone’s ambition, or infidelity. You never know what might send a person over the edge. The doctor would certainly know about poisons, for example, and the family lawyer might have a political ax to grind or a finger in his client’s business. And if, as Eulalie Echo hinted, the marriage wasn’t quite what it ought to have been, even our bookish Professor Maddox might have had a motive for doing away with Mr. Robinson. Suppose Maddox learned that Robinson had made unwelcome advances to Mrs. Maddox? Or conversely, suppose the professor and Mrs. Robinson were secret lovers?

  “The widow Robinson does nothing to allay suspicion by coming out into company two weeks after her husband’s untimely death, even though it is only a small dinner party at her sister’s home. LeJeune says she has an iron-clad alibi. Still, was she so lightly affected by her bereavement? Could it be that it wasn’t all that unwelcome an event?”

  “It seems a monstrous suggestion, but I suppose we have to consider it,” I admitted.

  “I’m afraid so,” said Mr. Clemens. “On the other hand, she’s not completely ignoring propriety. For one thing, I didn’t manage to wheedle an invitation to her house, as I’d hoped to. That’s a line of inquiry to follow up. It would have given me a chance to see the scene of the crime and possibly to talk to Arthur. Meanwhile, we need to explore other avenues into the Robinson’s circle. I think you should allow Mrs. Staunton to take you under her wing and foster your literary ambitions.”

  I was astonished at the suggestion. “Surely you don’t think she is a suspect!”

  “I don’t think she’s the main one, no,” said Mr. Clemens. He pointed the stem of his pipe at me. “That doesn’t mean I can’t imagine motives for her. Suppose Robinson was making advances to her? Suppose she knew him to be mistreating her sister? Suppose he was blackmailing her husband? Maria Staunton’s bluestocking facade could be hiding a warehouse full of long-held grudges and secret passions. Trust me, Wentworth, I’ve seen plenty of these would-be literary southern ladies before.”

  I thought back to Mrs. Staunton’s curious expression as she responded to my offhand remark about her husband stepping out of his picture. “Perhaps you’re right. Though it still seems a bit far-fetched to me.”

  “To tell you the truth, it does to me, too, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore the possibility,” he said. He took a sip of his whisky, then continued. “More likely, to my way of thinking, is the chance that she knows something about who killed Robinson, especially if her sister or her husband is the guilty party. And she just might let it slip. Even if she doesn’t, you’ll have a chance to see how she and her family act when they’re not on their best behavior for dinner—if what we saw this evening fits that description.”

  “I certainly hope not,” I said, shuddering. “Holt was bad enough, trying to fight the war all over again. I think he had more than his share to drink, as well.”

  “It’s not just the drink, Wentworth.” Mr. Clemens’s face took on a grave expression. “That man saw his share of terror at firsthand. I know what it’s like to fire a gun and see a man fall dead; to do it over and over for the whole course of the war must be far worse.”

  “You were in the war?” I asked. “I hadn’t known.”

  “I wasn’t in it for long. Part of a Confederate irregular company in Missouri—the Marion Raiders, we called ourselves. We spent a few weeks skulking in the woods and learned more about retreating than the man that invented the maneuver. Then about half of us deserted. There’s no way to paper over the bare truth of it. I lit out for Nevada with my brother and ended up becoming a writer. But before the company broke up, we shot down one fellow, some poor stranger who’d blundered into our territory. It was simple murder, nothing more. I was one of maybe a dozen who fired our rifles, so I can’t claim any credit for the kill, if such an absurd term applies to it, but I have as good a sense as anyone what it means to kill a man, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

  “Good Lord,” I said. “I had no idea.”

  “I don’t tell the story too often,” he said after a long pause. He took a sip of his whisky. “It’s hardly an asset to my reputation, especially considering my later support for the Union cause. But I got off easily in comparison with some. Holt stood with the
Washington Artillery at Fredericksburg, mowing down men whose only crime was following a damn fool’s orders to attack an impregnable position. So he knows better than I do what it’s like to deal out mass murder and see the victims fall dead in front of your eyes. What’s more, that detective told us that Holt was wounded and captured at Chancellorsville and spent half a year as a prisoner at Fort Delaware. I’ve heard a few stories from prisoners of war on both sides, and none of them are pretty; even the strongest man might break under that sort of distress.”

  “Poor fellow! I suppose one has to make allowance for his pain. It might have unbalanced him, don’t you think?”

  “Of course it might have,” said Mr. Clemens. “Murder isn’t the act of a balanced mind.” He stood looking out the window, and took a couple of puffs on his pipe, then turned to face me. “Then again, I doubt whether there’s a completely balanced mind among the entire dinner party.” He paused again, a little too long for my liking, then added, “Present company excluded, of course.”

  He winked at me, and made a shooing motion to indicate that our discussion was finished. I stood and bid my employer a good night, and went quickly out before he had a chance to think of another topic to explore.

  It occurred to me, as I closed the door to his rooms, that in spite of his initial reluctance to make himself part of this murder investigation, Mr. Clemens was enjoying the challenge immensely, even though it was a matter of life and death for poor Leonard Galloway. Then I smiled, as I realized that despite my exhaustion, I was having almost as much fun as he was.

  13

  The next morning I was sorely tempted to sleep late, but it was not to be. The sun came shining strongly through my curtain, accompanied by the crowing of a neighbor’s rooster. After the tenth or eleventh iteration of his morning cry, I began to think that perhaps this bird would be a proper subject for a trial of Eulalie Echo’s voodoo ritual for making the guilty confess. Then, just as he ceased his vocal exercises and a blissful silence fell, a large dray came down the street and stopped just opposite my window. I heard loud thumps and curses as two or three men proceeded to unload some dozen large barrels, which sounded as if they were full of tin and broken crockery. The driver cursed continually at the teamsters, and they swore back at him in viva voce. After about five minutes of this, a window went up on the floor below me and Mme. Bechet began a series of high-pitched imprecations in Creole, to which the driver, showing his versatility, replied in the same tongue.

  I tried to pull the pillow over my head and ignore them all, until Mr. Clemens threw up the window in the next room, and joined in the slanging contest. Mme. Bechet knew when she was in over her head, and presently I heard her cry “Merde!” and slam her window shut. The drivers tried to pay Mr. Clemens back in his own coin, but Mme. Bechet’s closed window allowed him to pretend that there were no ladies’ ears present to be offended, and he lit into the offending parties with added gusto. My employer had spent enough of his life aboard steamboats and on the wild frontier to have the advantage over any city-bred man. Still, it was several minutes more before the teamsters realized that they were up against a crackerjack in the art of invective, and abandoned the competition. By then, it was amply clear that I was not likely to get any more sleep that morning.

  I sat up and wiped the sleep out of my eyes. I was in better condition than I had any right to be, considering the amount of wine I’d drunk the night before—and, to judge from Mr. Clemens’s display of temper, far better off than he was. I listened to him stamp around for a few minutes, thinking he might go back to bed and leave me free to close my eyes a little longer. But soon enough I heard him tapping on the connecting door. “Wentworth! Are you up yet?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, and hastened over to open the door, revealing him standing there in his nightshirt.

  “Read this,” he said, and thrust a piece of paper at me. On the outside was his name and the address of our pension. I unfolded it and saw in neat writing, Come see me this evening. I have news. E. E.

  “Eulalie Echo,” I said, looking up at him. “When did it come?”

  “During the night, I suppose,” he said. “It was on the floor just inside the door, and as sure as my name’s Sam Clemens, it wasn’t there when we came in.”

  “I certainly didn’t see it,” I agreed. “Then again, I was tired enough when we got in that I won’t swear to my eyesight at the time. Could Mme. Bechet have delivered it while we were still sleeping?”

  He pointed toward the floor. “Did you hear her just now? That wasn’t the voice of a woman who’s been awake for any length of time. Those jackasses downstairs woke her up, or I’ll eat my hat. In any case, it looks as if I’ll have to go see our voodoo woman sooner than I had planned. I wonder what her news is.”

  “We shall learn this evening, I suppose.”

  “Yes, certainly,” he said, putting his hands behind his back and pacing back and forth a few steps, thinking. “But I’d also like you to call on Mrs. Staunton. You can talk about literary things—make something up, she won’t know the difference—and see what you can learn about the household and the family. With any luck, she’ll talk her head off when she has a budding author all to herself.”

  “Yes, but I should do that this afternoon and go with you this evening,” I protested. “Surely you don’t want to go to Eulalie Echo’s neighborhood by yourself, and after dark.” I remembered all too well that on our trip downriver, Mr. Clemens had been in need of my protection more than once. I was loath to let him wander off alone, especially in such a dubious neighborhood.

  “Oh, that’ll be no problem.” He dismissed my concern with a wave of his hand. “I’ll get Henry Dodds to drop me at her door. Don’t worry; she’s not going to cast any spells on me. And when I’m done, Eulalie will surely be able to whistle up some of the local boys to walk me over to Aunt Tillie’s. Then Henry can pick me up there, and I’ll pick you up at the Stauntons’. Besides, I have other plans for the afternoon, and I’ll want you with me for certain, where we’re going.”

  “And where’s that?” He was full of plans for a man who hadn’t even had his morning coffee.

  “We need to pay a visit to Tom Anderson’s café,” he said. “They say politics makes strange bedfellows. I want to find out who some of John David Robinson’s political bedfellows were; if there’s a political angle in this murder, that’s the place to find it out. George Cable tells me that Anderson’s café is where the dirty work is done. And from what I’ve read in the papers, Boss Tweed’s reign at Tammany Hall was a Sunday school picnic compared to what these Louisiana politicos do every day.”

  “You don’t make the place sound very attractive,” I said.

  Mr. Clemens turned a wry smile on me. “I suspect it’s attractive enough, to a certain sort of scoundrel. That’s exactly why I want you along. There are times when an exfootball player is a handy fellow to have at your side, and I reckon this might be one of them. Tom Anderson may be still a young man, but he comes with a reputation for dirty business I’d hate to drag around after me at my age.”

  He paused for a moment, looked toward the sunlight pouring through my window, and continued, “But let’s stop gabbing and get dressed.” He went back through the connecting door and began to rummage through his wardrobe. I saw his formal suit from the previous evening carefully folded over a chair near the window. “Damnation, I’ve only one good shirt left clean. We’ll have to remind Mme. Bechet to have our laundry done today.” He turned and looked through the open door at me, still standing there in my nightshirt, half-asleep.

  “Act alive, now, Wentworth! If you hurry up, I’ll have time to write a few pages of my book after breakfast.”

  In fact, Mr. Clemens wrote for the entire morning. I spent the time catching up on my secretarial duties. I started with a visit to the post office to dispatch his letters (to Henry Rogers, his backer in New York, and to his family in Vienna, Austria) and to pick up incoming mail being held for him. He also sent me to
the local typewriter dealer to find a ream of typing paper and a supply of the ribbons for his machine, on which he did all his writing meant for the press. After one last stop, just off Canal Street, at a newsstand that carried good Havana cigars and a selection of out-of-town newspapers, both hands of my watch were beginning to home in on the vertical. I walked back to our apartments on Royal Street, where Mr. Clemens was busily typing away. When he saw me enter with my arms full of paper and other supplies, he glanced at his own watch and declared it to be lunchtime.

  “I second the motion,” I said. “I’ve walked up enough of an appetite for both of us. Where shall we eat today?”

  He looked at his manuscript, raised a finger to indicate I should wait a moment, and typed a few more words before replying. “Well, if you’re up for a little more walking, I thought we’d kill two birds with one stone and take our lunch at Tom Anderson’s,” he said, looking at the page in his machine. “It’s supposed to have a pretty decent spread—at least, all the police and politicos eat there, and I suspect Anderson knows better than to skimp on the refreshments when he’s catering to that crowd. The cops can usually eat free of charge anywhere they want to. In New Orleans, that presents a real challenge to somebody who wants to keep their business.” He typed the end of his sentence, pulled the paper from the typewriter, and added it to the small stack growing on the table.

  “So perhaps we’ll get a decent meal as well as a few clues in our murder case,” I speculated.

  “I certainly hope so,” he said, standing up. “I’d hate to give my business to a low-class restaurant just to save some poor fellow from the hangman. Come along, Wentworth.”

  We walked up Saint Philip Street to North Rampart and made a left, heading toward Canal. Rampart was a broad street, but not a prosperous-looking one. Yet there were a number of colorfully dressed young ladies to be seen strolling about or standing in twos and threes on the street corners, talking. Several of them waved to us, smiling and calling out, and at first I thought they must recognize my employer. I was surprised, for nothing in their appearance suggested that they were of a class where one would ordinarily assume a familiarity with literature.