“I should have known those whiskers were a sham!” said Mr. Clemens, holding the disguise up to the light. “That’s just like Farmer Jack Hubbard’s beard, all right—ugliest thing I ever saw. Now I know why it never seemed to fit him. I’m tempted to go to the morgue and see what the old rascal looked like without it.”
“We could arrange that,” said Berrigan. “We still haven’t found anyone to identify the body for sure.”
“To be honest, cadavers never agreed with my digestion. But I doubt I could help you much in any case,” said Mr. Clemens. “I don’t know for certain that I ever did see Hubbard’s real face, and it’s been over ten years since I saw him at all.”
“We still may call you if we don’t find anybody. What do you think he wanted with you after all that time? Maybe it’ll give us a clue.” The detective had his notebook out again.
“I’m gathering material for a book about my early days working on the riverboats, and plan to talk to as many of the old-timers as I can find. That much has been in the papers; he probably saw my picture and read about the trip. I’d figure he wanted to talk about that, possibly touch me up for a few dollars—can’t imagine what else it could be. As I say, I haven’t laid eyes on him in years.”
“Any enemies, old-timers who might have a grudge against him?”
“None in particular,” said Mr. Clemens. “The boys those days were a pretty rough crowd, though. Every gambler in twenty states rode the boats, and some of them didn’t think twice at pulling out a razor when the cards went against them. Not that Jack was any good at cards—he lost more at Red Dog than he ever won at billiards. More likely somebody just tried to rob him.”
“We’ve ruled that out,” said Berrigan. “There was forty dollars gold in his pocket. I suppose you don’t know who his associates might be these days.”
“No idea. He used to run with a fast crowd in the old days, card mechanics and pool sharks, most of them. George Devol was pretty much the ringleader, but he’s dead, by all reports.”
“Who were some of the others?” asked the detective.
Mr. Clemens thought for a moment. “Wes Horton, Richie the Rat—I think his last name was Clark . . . a big German fellow name of Heinie Schussler . . . Ed McPhee, too. Can’t forget old Slippery Ed.”
Berrigan laughed. “Ah, Mr. Twain! A fine-sounding bunch! If any of them are in New York, I haven’t heard the names—and they’re the type I would have heard of. But we’ll keep an eye open, and if they’re here, we’ll find ’em. Will you let me know if you think of anything else that might help us?” Mr. Clemens promised, and the detective bade us a good evening.
“Well, what do you make of that?” said Clemens, after the door had closed.
“This is an outrage! I had heard that New York was a den of crime and depravity, but I hardly expected to see it demonstrated so clearly!”
“No, no, Cabot. There’s something about this that doesn’t smell right,” said Mr. Clemens. “Jack Hubbard never called me anything but Sam as long as I’ve known him. If he got formal, maybe he’d have called me Mr. Clemens, but nobody from the river ever called me by my pen name—I didn’t even make it up until years later. So whoever wrote that scrap of paper, I doubt it was Jack. I wonder who did write it; do you think it could be our friend the detective?”
I was dumbstruck by this suggestion. “But he showed me a badge!” I insisted.
“The badge could be false—don’t tell me you’ve studied the police badges of every city we’re likely to visit, because I won’t believe you. It could be stolen. Or Mr. Berrigan could be exactly what he appears to be . . . and even then, I’d lay you odds he’ll play the game however’s most to his advantage. Surely they teach you these things at Yale?”
Mr. Clemens looked at his watch, then waved a hand in the direction of a bottle of Scotch whisky and a siphon on the sideboard. “I took the liberty of ordering in some provisions. Make me one and help yourself, Wentworth.” I prepared a drink and handed it to him—my first act in my new capacity as his secretary. Mr. Clemens seemed lost in thought, and I had to clear my throat before he noticed the glass in my outstretched hand. He thanked me, then repeated, “Help yourself, Cabot. Go on—it’s one of the perquisites of the position.” He smiled, but I could see that his mind was elsewhere.
While I poured myself a dose, he walked to the window and stood with a distant expression, looking out at the street below, slowly sipping his whisky. Then, as if he had arrived at a decision, he downed his glass in one gulp, turned, and walked briskly back to me.
“Fill me up again,” he said. “We’ve time before dinner for you to hear a story. Talking’s thirsty work, and so’s listening, and a dead man’s serious business. There are things you need to know.” I stared at him, but held my curiosity in check while I followed his instructions and poured him another glass. When we had both taken a sip from our respective glasses, he began to pace the floor, as if collecting his thoughts. Finally he stopped and fixed me with a stare. “I want you to promise that you’ll keep what I’m about to tell you an absolute secret. It may be a question of life and death—hell, I know that men have already died because of it. This murder today may be another in the string.”
“Shouldn’t Berrigan know about it?”
“No. I don’t trust him—I don’t know for sure that he is a real policeman; and even if he is, that doesn’t make him trustworthy. But you need to know, because you may be putting yourself in danger, and I won’t expose a man to danger without his knowing it. Do you promise—on your honor as a Yale man—not to tell anyone what I’m about to say?”
I thought for a moment; it was clearly a serious matter. But I had cast my lot with Mr. Clemens, and I would not back out now. “Yes,” I told him. “On my word as a Yale man—and as a Cabot.”
“Good,” said Mr. Clemens. “We can save a good bit of time and strain on the old man’s memory if you’ve read a book I wrote about ten years ago called Life on the Mississippi,” he said. I shook my head, somewhat embarrassed to admit this deficiency. “No? Worth a try. Let’s see if I can still piece it together.
“This happened in Munich, a dozen years ago. I was there on an extended visit, and made friends with a man I called Karl Ritter in my book, although that wasn’t his real name. Poor Ritter was on his deathbed, and knew it—consumption. I did my best to give him a cheerful human presence to make his last days easier. As I soon discovered, he spoke perfect English and wanted to speak it with me. I realized, somewhat later, that having someone he could talk to without being understood by his neighbors took a burden off his mind—here was a foreigner who knew nothing about him except what he decided to reveal—and after some time of feeling me out, he told me his life story.
“You can read my book if you want to know everything Ritter told me—although I kept a few key details out, or changed them enough to keep readers from guessing the whole truth. At any rate, Ritter had moved to America around 1855—had a job in St. Louis making shoes, didn’t like it, and moved to a little farm in Arkansas, where he married a local girl. A few years later, the Civil War began, but he decided to stick it out on the farm. One night toward the end of the war, he woke from a sound sleep to find his home invaded by two masked men, who bound and gagged him. From the snatches of conversation he overheard, he realized that the pair were soldiers in disguise, and that they had been searching for something in the house. Eventually they were frightened off and he escaped from his bonds, only to find his wife and child murdered.”
“How terrible!,” I said. “Surely they were rebel soldiers, and not our own boys.”
Clemens shook his head. “These men were Union cavalry, from one of the Wisconsin regiments. Putting on a blue coat doesn’t reform a man if he’s rotten already, and there were plenty of scoundrels on both sides in the war.”
“Did