THE LEGEND OF MARK TWAIN LIVES
in Peter J. Heck’s acclaimed mystery series . . .
Praise for Death on the Mississippi
“LOVERS OF HISTORICAL MYSTERIES SHOULD RUSH out for a copy of Death on the Mississippi, the delightfully droll debut of Wentworth Cabot, newly hired secretary to the celebrated author Mark Twain. Twain lights up the pages as he gives his lectures, mourns his impecunious state with disarming honesty, tells a fantastic tale of hidden gold to his young clerk, and generally suffers fools none too gladly. Cabot is alternately dismayed, baffled, and awestruck by his new boss’s behavior as they set out on a riverboat lecture series in the company of a New York cop and, most probably, the killer the cop seeks. There’s a good plot, a bevy of suspects, lots of Twain lore, and even a travelogue of life on the Mississippi in the 1890s. Death on the Mississippi is thoroughly entertaining.
—Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine
“ADVENTUROUS . . . Replete with genuine tall tales from the great man himself.”
——Mostly Murder
“EXCITING . . . deftly dovetails flavorsome riverboat lore, unobtrusive period detail, and a hidden treasure with an intricate mystery—all to give peppery, lovable Sam Clemens a starring role in a case worthy of the old inimitable.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A WELL-DONE HISTORICAL. This catchy adventure features a treasure hunt and showcases Clemens’s knowledge of the river as well as his legendary gift of gab . . . Recommended.”
—Library Journal
“A THOROUGHLY ENJOYABLE PERIOD MYSTERY with Clemens and Cabot forming an uneasy alliance that possesses elements of Holmes and Watson as well as Wolfe and Archie. A very pleasant debut that will have readers eagerly awaiting the next entry.”
—Booklist
THE MARK TWAIN MYSTERIES
Death on the Mississippi A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court The Prince and the Prosecutor The Guilty Abroad The Mysterious Strangler Tom’s Lawyer
A Connecticut Yankee In Criminal Court
A Mark Twain Mystery
Peter J. Heck
A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court
Copyright © 1995 by Peter J. Heck.
All rights reserved.
Published by Wildside Press LLC
To Jane, for more reasons than I can count.
Historical Note and Acknowledgments
Mark Twain never, to my knowledge, solved a murder mystery. As with Death on the Mississippi, the previous volume of this series, this novel assumes that Mark Twain went on a lecture tour in the mid-1890s, hoping to recoup his lost fortune, and ended up solving a murder case. Although my novel is based on historical research into Mark Twain’s character and times, and it makes an honest attempt to portray them as accurately as possible, it is of course a work of fiction. None of the events portrayed here actually happened.
A few characters other than Mark Twain are modeled on historical figures. George Washington Cable remains one of the most important writers to have come out of New Orleans. Buddy Bolden was the legendary founder of jazz, whose career was cut short by mental illness before the music became popular outside the Crescent City. Eulalie Echo was one of the many “hoodoo women” who followed in the footsteps of Marie Laveau, and she was the godmother of Jelly Roll Morton. Tom Anderson was the “Mayor of Storyville,” although the New Orleans vice district had not acquired that name at the time this story takes place. Charley Galloway was a band leader and guitarist who gave Bolden some of his early jobs, and Judge J. J. Fogarty has been immortalized in one line of Morton’s recording of “Buddy Bolden’s Blues.” I have treated all these characters, as well as the mysterious Widow Paris, as best suited my fictional needs, although I have done what I could to make them plausible within the context of my story. Any historical or factual errors are strictly my own responsibility.
Anyone who has visited New Orleans will recognize many of the places mentioned. However, many of my settings, such as the old Parish Prison (located in today’s Louis Armstrong Park), no longer exist. The Henry Clay monument has been moved from the center of Canal Street to Lafayette Square. A number of street names have been changed, especially in the upper Garden District where Buddy Bolden and Eulalie Echo lived. I hope that my portrayal of old New Orleans at one of the most colorful moments in its history does justice to this wonderful city, one of my favorite places to visit. Despite Mr. Clemens’s baiting of George Cable, it really is almost impossible to eat a bad meal there.
My special thanks to my agent, Martha Millard; to my editor, Laura Anne Gilman; and to all the great New Orleans musicians whose music and spirit have filled my life with joy for many years.
My instructors at Yale always spoke confidently of preparing their students for life. I believe that, in general, they did their job well. Upon my graduation, I felt I had learned many things, both practical and theoretical, and had gone out to confront the world confident of my abilities and my training. But as I soon realized, nothing could have prepared me for the position of traveling secretary to Mr. Samuel L. Clemens—or, to use the name by which most of the world appeared to know him and his writings, Mark Twain.
What could have prepared me for a lecture tour that began with a murder in New York City and reached its climax (although not its conclusion) with the recovery of ten thousand dollars in buried gold? Along the way, I had survived a dunking in the Mississippi, tested my wits and skill against riverboat gamblers, and fought two strenuous battles with a backwoods bully. Somehow, through it all, I had also managed to perform my secretarial duties to Mr. Clemens’s satisfaction, and after traveling nearly the whole length of the river, we came at last to New Orleans.
Mr. Clemens had known New Orleans well in his days as a steamboat pilot but, since then, the great national upheavals of the Civil War and Reconstruction had altered many things in the city. He himself was now a world-famous author, lecturer, and traveler who had seen the great cities of Europe as well as traveled extensively throughout America, and his face was apparently as familiar to the man in the street as that of the President of the United States. But despite these far-reaching alterations in himself and in New Orleans, Mr. Clemens claimed that it remained the most singular city in the world.
It was our first morning in the city. We were waiting in the Café du Monde, an establishment that sits open to the sidewalk in the old section of the city, also known as the French Quarter. Our waiter had just brought us a plate of beignets (a sweet local pastry), and I was sipping one of the best cups of coffee I had ever tasted. George Washington Cable, a local writer with whom Mr. Clemens had shared a lecture tour some years before, was to join us for breakfast and an informal tour of the city.
Mr. Clemens puffed on a cigar and scanned the bustling crowds in nearby Jackson Square, beyond which I could see the impressive Roman Catholic cathedral. I sat there in silence, trying to absorb the sights, sounds, and smells of a city that might as well have been on some other continent. Even the light seemed to have a different quality from that of my hometown of New London, Connecticut. From down the way came the sounds of a thriving market, with vendors calling out their wares in French patois, Italian, and an English more melodious and liquid than any I had encountered in my travels