Death on the Mississippi: The Mark Twain Mysteries #1. Peter J. Heck

along—it was six o’clock before they got back, and then only two of them.”

      “Which two?” I asked.

      “The Throckmortons, and I could tell as soon as they came in they were in a hurry. They went straight upstairs, and were back again in less than ten minutes, with the luggage. All the luggage—the bellboy told me that, after they’d left. He also told me they’d come in a cab, and had it wait while they went upstairs.”

      “Listen to this story, Wentworth, and remember to tip all bellmen and porters,” Mr. Clemens said. “If McPhee had spent fifty cents two days ago, the fellow’s lips would’ve been sealed.”

      “Well, I can’t say I disagree,” said Berrigan; having apparently scraped the pipe sufficiently, he pulled out his tobacco pouch. “Of course, the story I told him might’ve been an influence. Once I’d informed the young lad that the four tightwads were planning to waylay and rob Mr. Mark Twain, he was cooperation personified. He was the one that told me where they’d gone when they left, too—he heard them tell the hack driver to take them to the train station on Harrison Street—the Grand Central, just like New York’s. They were in a hurry, too.”

      “Grand Central—some of the western trains leave from there,” I said, recalling my frantic study of Mr. Clemens’s lecture route before our departure.

      “Good guess, son,” said Detective Berrigan. He paused a moment to light his pipe. “I got a cab no more than two minutes after them, and went straight to Grand Central. Sure enough, I was in time to see them board a train, along with Mr. McPhee—and someone else.”

      “And what did he look like?” Mr. Clemens leaned forward, with an animated expression.

      “Well, there’s the devil of it,” said Berrigan. “It was a woman they were with.”

      “A woman!” There was a moment of stunned silence as Mr. Clemens tried to comprehend this revelation—I am certain I had no idea what to make of it. “Are you sure she was with them? What about the bearded man?”

      “Well, Billy Throckmorton carried her bag, unless his taste in luggage is fancier than in clothes; and McPhee gave her a hand as she mounted the step. She was with ’em all right. And there was nobody else with ’em that I saw.”

      “Damnation,” said Mr. Clemens. “You can paint me blue if this doesn’t blow all my ideas right up the chimney. I wish I’d been there to get a look at them!”

      “Well, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that,” said Berrigan. “That was the one other thing I learned. Our friends boarded the six twenty-eight Wisconsin Central, bound for Fond du Lac, Oshkosh, Chippewa Falls, and St. Paul—the same place we’re going. I think we’ll be seeing them again.”

      We had sat absorbing this information for several moments when the car door opened and Major Demayne made his way down the aisle, nodding in our direction as he noticed us and hurrying along in the direction of the coaches. “Who was that old fellow?” said Berrigan. “I saw you talking with him this morning.”

      “Oh, yes, I forgot him entirely,” I said. “His name is Major Demayne—he’s going to be one of the passengers on the riverboat. He told me he’s interested in poetry, and he’s written a poem about the Civil War. He’d seen me with Mr. Clemens, and he was asking about publishers.”

      “The hell you say!” Mr. Clemens virtually exploded. “I should have known it. The wretched boat will be so full of literary amateurs it’s even money to sink before we’re out of Minnesota, with every blasted one of them hauling a trunkful of unpublishable manuscripts—novels without a plot, soporific sermons, and improving essays dense enough to make a bishop sick. And poetry! I’d rather be locked in a tiger cage than sit through another amateur poet reading me the ungrammatical nonsense that passes for poetry these days!

      “Cabot, it’ll be worth your neck if that man reads me one single line of poetry. Keep him away from me—I’ll eat a skunk for breakfast before I listen to his stuff.”

      “But sir—” I began to protest. The Major was, after all, one of the paying customers who made the lecture tour possible, and I figured he might even be talented.

      Mr. Clemens shook his head vigorously. “No buts about it. I’ve got enough to worry about with Farmer Jack and Slippery Ed, let alone giving a lecture every night. If that fellow comes within ten feet of me with a piece of paper in his hand, I’ll pitch him overboard. And if you’re anywhere within sight, you’ll follow him directly, or my name isn’t Samuel L. Clemens.”