by Mark Twain
Tom Driscoll was not happy over these things; they sunk deep, and hurt all the way down. He hated the one twin for kicking him, and the other one for being the kicker’s brother.
Now and then the people wondered why nothing was heard of the raider, or of the stolen knife or the other plunder, but nobody was able to throw any light on that matter. Nearly a week had drifted by, and still the thing remained a vexed mystery.
On Saturday Constable Blake and Pudd‘nhead Wilson met on the street, and Tom Driscoll joined them in time to open their conversation for them. He said to Blake: ‘You are not looking well, Blake; you seem to be annoyed about something. Has anything gone wrong in the detective business? I believe you fairly and justifiably claim to have a pretty good reputation in that line, isn’t it so?‘—which made Blake feel good, and look it; but Tom added, ‘for a country detective’—which made Blake feel the other way, and not only look it, but betray it in his voice.
‘Yes, sir, I have got a reputation; and it’s as good as anybody’s in the profession, too, country or no country.’
‘Oh, I beg pardon; I didn’t mean any offence. What I started out to ask was only about the old woman that raided the town—the stoop-shouldered old woman, you know, that you said you were going to catch; and I knew you would, too, because you have the reputation of never boasting, and—well, you—you’ve caught the old woman?’
‘D—the old woman!’
‘Why, sho! you don’t mean to say you haven’t caught her?’
‘No; I haven’t caught her. If anybody could have caught her, I could; but nobody couldn’t. I don’t care who he is.’
‘I am sorry, real sorry—for your sake; because when it gets around that a detective has expressed himself so confidently, and then—’
‘Don’t you worry, that’s all—don’t you worry; and as for the town, the town needn’t worry either. She’s my meat—make yourself easy about that. I’m on her track; I’ve got clues that—’
‘That’s good! Now if you could get an old veteran detective down from St. Louis to help you find out what the clues mean, and where they lead to, and then—’
‘I’m plenty veteran enough myself, and I don’t need anybody’s help. I’ll have her inside of a we—inside of a month. That I’ll swear to!’
Tom said carelessly:
‘I suppose that will answer—yes, that will answer. But I reckon she is pretty old, and old people don’t often outlive the cautious pace of the professional detective when he has got his clues together and is out on his still-hunt.’
Blake’s dull face flushed under this gibe, but before he could set his retort in order Tom had turned to Wilson, and was saying, with placid indifference of manner and voice:
‘Who got the reward, Pudd’nhead?’
Wilson winced slightly, and saw that his own turn was come.
‘What reward?’
‘Why, the reward for the thief, and the other one for the knife.’
Wilson answered—and rather uncomfortably, to judge by his hesitating fashion of delivering himself:
‘Well, the—well, in fact, nobody has claimed it yet.’
Tom seemed surprised.
‘Why, is that so?’
Wilson showed a trifle of irritation when he replied:
‘Yes, it’s so. And what of it?’
‘Oh, nothing. Only I thought you had struck out a new idea, and invented a scheme that was going to revolutionise the time-worn and ineffectual methods of the—’ He stopped, and turned to Blake, who was happy now that another had taken his place on the grid-iron : ‘Blake, didn’t you understand him to intimate that it wouldn’t be necessary for you to hunt the old woman down?’
‘B’George, he said he’d have thief and swag both inside of three days—he did, by hokey! and that’s just about a week ago. Why, I said at the time that no thief and no thief ’s pal was going to try to pawn or sell a thing where he knowed the pawnbroker could get both rewards by taking him into camp with the swag. It was the blessedest idea that ever I struck!’
‘You’d change your mind,’ said Wilson, with irritated bluntness, ‘if you knew the entire scheme instead of only part of it.’
‘Well,’ said the constable, pensively, ‘I had the idea that it wouldn’t work, and up to now I’m right, anyway.’
‘Very well, then, let it stand at that, and give it a further show. It has worked at least as well as your own methods, you perceive.’
The constable hadn’t anything handy to hit back with, so he discharged a discontented sniff, and said nothing.
After the night that Wilson had partly revealed his scheme at his house, Tom had tried for several days to guess out the secret of the rest of it, but had failed. Then it occurred to him to give Roxana’s smarter head a chance at it. He made a supposititious case, and laid it before her. She thought it over, and delivered her verdict upon it. Tom said to himself, ‘She’s hit it, sure!’ He thought he would test that verdict, now, and watch Wilson’s face; so he said reflectively:
‘Wilson, you’re not a fool—a fact of recent discovery. Whatever your scheme was, it had sense in it, Blake’s opinion to the contrary notwithstanding. I don’t ask you to reveal it, but I will suppose a case—a case which will answer as a starting-point for the real thing I am going to come at, and that’s all I want. You offered five hundred dollars for the knife, and five hundred for the thief We will suppose, for argument’s sake, that the first reward is advertised, and the second offered by private letter to pawnbrokers and—’
Blake slapped his thigh, and cried out:
‘By Jackson, he’s got you, Pudd’nhead! Now why couldn’t I or any fool have thought of that?’
Wilson said to himself, Anybody with a reasonably good head would have thought of it. I am not surprised that Blake didn’t detect it; I am only surprised that Tom did. There is more to him than I supposed.’ He said nothing, aloud, and Tom went on:
‘Very well. The thief would not suspect that there was a trap, and he would bring or send the knife, and say he bought it for a song, or found it in the road, or something like that, and try to collect the reward, and be arrested—wouldn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ said Wilson.
‘I think so,’ said Tom. ‘There can’t be any doubt of it. Have you ever seen that knife?’
‘No.’
‘Has any friend of yours?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Well, I begin to think I understand why your scheme failed.’
‘What do you mean, Tom? What are you driving at?’ asked Wilson, with a dawning sense of discomfort.
‘Why, that there isn’t any such knife.’
‘Look here, Wilson,’ said Blake, ‘Tom Driscoll’s right, for a thousand dollars—if I had it.’
Wilson’s blood warmed a little, and he wondered if he had been played upon by those strangers; it certainly had something of that look. But what could they gain by it? He threw out that suggestion. Tom replied:
‘Gain? Oh, nothing that you would value, maybe. But they are strangers making their way in a new community. Is it nothing to them to appear as pets of an Oriental prince—at no expense? Is it nothing to them to be able to dazzle this poor little town with thousand-dollar rewards—at no expense? Wilson, there isn’t any such knife, or your scheme would have fetched it to light. Or if there is any such knife, they’ve got it yet. I believe, myself, that they’ve seen such a knife, for Angelo pictured it out with his pencil too swiftly and handily for him to have been inventing it, and of course I can’t swear that they’ve never had it; but this I’ll go bail for—if they had it when they came to this town, they’ve got it yet.’
Blake said:
‘It looks mighty reasonable, the way Tom puts it; it most certainly does.’
Tom responded, turning to leave:
‘You find the old woman, Blake, and if she can’t furnish the knife, go and search the twins!’
Tom sauntered away. Wilson felt a good deal depressed.
He hardly knew what to think. He was loth to withdraw his faith from the twins, and was resolved not to do it on the present indecisive evidence; but—well, he would think, and then decide how to act.
‘Blake, what do you think of this matter?’
‘Well, Pudd’nhead, I’m bound to say I put it up the way Tom does. They hadn’t the knife; or if they had it, they’ve got it yet.’
The men parted. Wilson said to himself:
‘I believe they had it; if it had been stolen, the scheme would have restored it, that is certain. And so I believe they’ve got it yet.’
Tom had no purpose in his mind when he encountered those two men. When he began his talk he hoped to be able to gall them a little and get a trifle of malicious entertainment out of it. But when he left, he left in great spirits, for he perceived that just by pure luck and no troublesome labour he had accomplished several delightful things: he had touched both men on a raw spot and seen them squirm; he had modified Wilson’s sweetness for the twins with one small bitter taste that he wouldn’t be able to get out of his mouth right away; and, best of all, he had taken the hated twins down a peg with the community; for Blake would gossip around freely, after the manner of detectives, and within a week the town would be laughing at them in its sleeve for offering a gaudy reward for a bauble which they either never possessed or hadn’t lost. Tom was very well satisfied with himself.
Tom’s behaviour at home had been perfect during the entire week. His uncle and aunt had seen nothing like it before. They could find no fault with him anywhere.
Saturday evening he said to the Judge:
‘I’ve had something preying on my mind, uncle, and as I am going away, and might never see you again, I can’t bear it any longer. I made you believe I was afraid to fight that Italian adventurer. I had to get out of it on some pretext or other, and maybe I chose badly, being taken unawares, but no honourable person could consent to meet him in the field, knowing what I knew about him.’
‘Indeed. What was that?’
‘Count Luigi is a confessed assassin.’
‘Incredible!’
‘It is perfectly true. Wilson detected it in his hand, by palmistry, and charged him with it, and cornered him up so close that he had to confess; but both twins begged us on their knees to keep the secret, and swore they would lead straight lives here; and it was all so pitiful that we gave our word of honour never to expose them while they kept that promise. You would have done it yourself, uncle.’
‘You are right, my boy, I would. A man’s secret is still his own property, and sacred, when it has been surprised out of him like that. You did well, and I am proud of you.’ Then he added mournfully: ‘But I wish I could have been saved the shame of meeting an assassin on the field of honour.’
‘It couldn’t be helped, uncle. If I had known you were going to challenge him I should have felt obliged to sacrifice my pledged word in order to stop it, but Wilson couldn’t be expected to do otherwise than keep silent.’
‘Oh no; Wilson did right, and is in no way to blame. Tom, Tom, you have lifted a heavy load from my heart; I was stung to the very soul when I seemed to have discovered that I had a coward in my family.’
‘You may imagine what it cost me to assume such a part, uncle.’
‘Oh, I know it, poor boy, I know it. And I can understand how much it has cost you to remain under that unjust stigma to this time. But it is all right now, and no harm is done. You have restored my comfort of mind, and with it your own; and both of us had suffered enough.’
The old man sat awhile plunged in thought; then he looked up with a satisfied light in his eye, and said: ‘That this assassin should have put the affront upon me of letting me meet him on the field of honour as if he were a gentleman is a matter which I will presently settle—but not now. I will not shoot him until after election. I see a way to ruin them both before; I will attend to that first. Neither of them shall be elected, that I promise. You are sure that the fact that he is an assassin has not got abroad?’
‘Perfectly certain of it, sir.’
‘It will be a good card. I will fling a hint at it from the stump on the polling-day. It will sweep the ground from under both of them.’
‘There’s not a doubt of it. It will finish them.’
‘That and outside work among the voters will, to a certainty. I want you to come down here by-and-by and work privately among the rag-tag and bob-tail. You shall spend money among them; I will furnish it.’
Another point scored against the detested twins! Really it was a great day for Tom. He was encouraged to chance a parting shot, now, at the same target, and did it.
‘You know that wonderful Indian knife that the twins have been making such a to-do about? Well, there’s no track or trace of it yet; so the town is beginning to sneer and gossip and laugh. Half the people believe they never had any such knife, the other half believe they had it and have got it still. I’ve heard twenty people talking like that to-day.’
Yes, Tom’s blemishless week had restored him to the favour of his aunt and uncle.
His mother was satisfied with him, too. Privately, she believed she was coming to love him, but she did not say so. She told him to go along to St. Louis, now, and she would get ready and follow. Then she smashed her whisky bottle and said:
‘Dah now! I’s a-gwyne to make you walk as straight as a string, Chambers, en so I’s bown’ you ain’t gwyne to git no bad example out o’ yo’ mammy I tole you you couldn’t go into no bad comp’ny. Well, you’s gwyne into my comp‘ny, en I’s gwyne to fill de bill. Now, den, trot along, trot along!’
Tom went aboard one of the big transient boats that night with his heavy satchel of miscellaneous plunder, and slept the sleep of the unjust, which is serener and sounder than the other kind, as we know by the hanging-eve history of a million rascals. But when he got up in the morning, luck was against him again: a brother-thief had robbed him while he slept, and gone ashore at some intermediate landing.
CHAPTER 16
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.—Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar
We know all about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of the bee, but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster. It seems almost certain that we have been choosing the wrong time for studying the oyster.—Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar
When Roxana arrived, she found her son in such despair and misery that her heart was touched and her motherhood rose up strong in her. He was ruined past hope now; his destruction would be immediate and sure, and he would be an outcast and friendless. That was reason enough for a mother to love a child; so she loved him, and told him so. It made him wince, secretly—for she was a ‘nigger’. That he was one himself was far from reconciling him to that despised race.
Roxana poured out endearments upon him, to which he responded uncomfortably, but as well as he could. And she tried to comfort him, but that was not possible. These intimacies quickly became horrible to him, and within the hour he began to try to get up courage enough to tell her so, and require that they be discontinued or very considerably modified. But he was afraid of her; and besides, there came a lull, now, for she had begun to think. She was trying to invent a saving plan. Finally she started up, and said she had found a way out. Tom was almost suffocated by the joy of this sudden good news. Roxana said:
‘Here is de plan, en she’ll win, sure. I’s a nigger, en nobody ain’t gwyne to doubt it dat hears me talk. I’s wuth six hund’d dollahs. Take en sell me, en pay off dese gamblers.’
Tom was dazed. He was not sure he had heard aright. He was dumb for a moment; then he said:
‘Do you mean that you would be sold into slavery to save me?’
‘Ain’t you my chile? En does you know anything dat a mother won’t do for her chile? Dey ain’t nothin’ a white mother won’t do for her chile. Who made ’em so? De Lord don
e it. En who made de niggers? De Lord made‘em. In de inside, mothers is all de same. De good Lord he made ’em so. I’s gwyne to be sole into slavery, en in a year you’s gwyne to buy yo’ ole mammy free ag‘in. I’ll show you how. Dat’s de plan.’
Tom’s hopes began to rise, and his spirits along with them. He said:
‘It’s lovely of you, mammy—it’s just—’
‘Say it ag’in! En keep on sayin’ it! It’s all de pay a body kin want in dis worl‘, en it’s mo den enough. Laws bless you, honey, when I’s slavin’ aroun’, en dey‘buses me, if I knows you’s a-sayin’ dat,’way off yonder somers, it’ll heal up all de sore places, en I kin stan’ ‘em.’
‘I do say it again, mammy, and I’ll keep on saying it, too. But how am I going to sell you? You’re free, you know.’
‘Much diff ’rence dat make! White folks ain’t partic‘lar. De law kin sell me now if dey tell me to leave de State in six months en I don’t go.7 You draw up a paper—bill o’ sale—en put it ’way off yonder, down in de middle o’ Kaintuck somers, en sign some names to it, en say you’ll sell me cheap ‘ca’se you’s hard up; you’ll fine you ain’t gwyne to have no trouble. You take me up de country a piece, en sell me on a farm; dem people ain’t gwyne to ask no questions if I’s a bargain.’
Tom forged a bill of sale and sold his mother to an Arkansas cotton-planter for a trifle over six hundred dollars. He did not want to commit this treachery, but luck threw the man in his way, and this saved him the necessity of going up country to hunt up a purchaser, with the added risk of having to answer a lot of questions, whereas this planter was so pleased with Roxy that he asked next to none at all. Besides, the planter insisted that Roxy wouldn’t know where she was at first, and that by the time she found out she would already have become contented. And Tom argued with himself that it was an immense advantage for Roxy to have a master who was so pleased with her, as this planter manifestly was. In almost no time his flowing reasonings carried him to the point of even half believing he was doing Roxy a splendid surreptitious service in selling her ‘down the river’. And then he kept diligently saying to himself all the time: ‘It’s for only a year. In a year I buy her free again; she’ll keep that in mind, and it’ll reconcile her.’ Yes; the little deception could do no harm, and everything would come out right and pleasant in the end, anyway. By agreement, the conversation in Roxy’s presence was all about the man’s ‘up-country’ farm, and how pleasant a place it was, and how happy the slaves were there; so poor Roxy was entirely deceived, and easily, for she was not dreaming that her own son could be guilty of treason to a mother who, by voluntarily going into slavery—slavery of any kind, mild or severe, or of any duration, brief or long—was making a sacrifice for him compared with which death would have been a poor and commonplace one. She lavished tears and loving caresses upon him privately, and then went away with her owner—went away broken-hearted, and yet proud of what she was doing, and glad that it was in her power to do it.