A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court: The Mark Twain Mysteries #2. Peter J. Heck
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say whatever she has to say.”
I was surprised by Bolden’s response, but I decided to reserve judgment until I had met the woman in question. “Do you think she means to help us?”
He laughed nervously. “If she didn’t, you think she’d bother to talk to you? I don’t know what she has in mind, but I don’t think she’d be wasting people’s time if she wasn’t going to help out Leonard. And that’s all any of us want, ain’t it?”
“I suppose so,” I said. “Well, I’ll tell Mr. Clemens, and he’ll decide what to do.” Then, seeing that he still appeared somewhat anxious, I changed the subject, pointing to his little suitcase sitting on the floor. “Are you traveling somewhere?”
He grinned. “No, man, that’s my comet case. There’s a dance at Odd Fellows Hall tonight, and I’m in the band.”
“Oh, that’s right. Charley Galloway said something about your comet yesterday. I thought it was a joke.”
“Well, it was, but it ain’t no joke when I play it. Charley’s in the band, too—guitar player and singer.”
“I see. Well, it sounds like good fun,” I said.
He laughed again, this time without a trace of nervousness or self-consciousness. “That ain’t the half of it. By the time the dance is over, I’ll have four or five pretty girls want to help me carry that little comet case home.” He finished his drink in one gulp, picked up the case, and stood. “Thank Mr. Twain for me. I sure do appreciate the taste of his whisky. Now I got to go. We been working on a couple of new tunes, and Charley’s having trouble learning them, so we set up an extra rehearsal before the dance. You tell Mr. Twain what I said, and go see ’Lalie. I guarantee you, we’ll get Leonard out of that jail if it takes all next week and a couple more days, too.”
“I hope it doesn’t take that long,” I said, and shook his hand. “I’m sure Leonard doesn’t want to stay there another day if he can help it.”
“Amen to that,” said Bolden, and I walked him down the stairs. As I let him out through the wrought iron door leading from the courtyard to the street, I had the feeling that unseen eyes were boring into my back. I closed the gate behind him and turned to find Mme. Bechet peering out at me through the curtains of her apartment, disapproval plainly written on her face.
Sometime after six o’clock, I went out to eat, Mr. Clemens not yet being back from the Garden District. Having seen a number of little restaurants in our walk down Decatur Street, I resolved to give them a try. The first place I walked into was full of Italians, and recalling Mr. Cable’s stories of the Mafia and knife fights, I was about to leave, but the aroma of the food changed my mind. I ended up having a succulent chicken dish, cooked with tomato sauce and herbs, with thin noodles in the same sauce on the side, and a quite passable bottle of red wine. A pair of young men, with a guitar and a mandolin, began playing about halfway through my meal, and so I was fed and entertained quite adequately. It was nearly dark by the time I returned to Royal Street to find Mr. Clemens just alighting from a carriage, driven, much to my astonishment, by none other than Henry Dodds, who tipped his hat and sang out, “How d’ye do, Sherlock!” when he spotted me.
“Good evening, Wentworth,” said my employer. “I reckon you’ve eaten. Have you heard from our friends out on First Street?”
“Yes, we have,” I said, returning the coachman’s salute. “Come on inside, and I’ll tell you the whole story.”
“Good. I have news of my own; we can swap stories,” said Mr. Clemens. He tossed the fare up to Henry Dodds, and we went upstairs.
Up in Mr. Clemens’s room, he insisted on my pouring us each a glass of whisky and soda, although I could have done without and I suspect he could have as well. Then he listened as I told him Bolden’s message from Eulalie Echo. He only interrupted once, to say “Good man!” when I mentioned giving Galloway’s neighbor a drink of whisky. When I had finished, he said, “Well, I guess we’ll have to pay Eulalie a visit. We may be spending more time out in the Garden District than here, by the time this is done. If I’d known that, I’d have had you get us rooms out there instead of down here by the river.”
“You may have to,” I said. “From the look Mme. Bechet gave me when I let Bolden out, she appears to consider me some sort of carpetbagger, or worse.”
“Sticking her nose into our business is the quickest way for her to lose it,” said Mr. Clemens. Then, seeing my expression: “Our business, Wentworth, not her nose. But let me tell you what I learned today. The Lafayette Literary Society luncheon was midway between a bore and a farce, as these things usually are. Why people who’ve never been to the moon insist on writing poetry about it is beyond me, but the woods are full of ’em. I suppose it would be too much of a challenge to them to write about something down-to-earth.
“Anyway, I met our pigeon, Mrs. Maria Holt Staunton, and a cute little bird she is, if a bit flighty. If her sister’s anything like her, I doubt she can concentrate on one thing long enough to be a credible murder suspect. One minute she’d be talking about literature, the next about spiritualism, the next about the terrible murder in her family, and the next about who knows what? I think she almost welcomed the death, in a sense, because it gives her an excuse to dress up in black and go about with a mournful expression, which becomes her more than most, although it was never my taste.
“But I screwed my courage up, and sat next to her for the better part of an hour, playing the eminent literary gentleman and managing not to laugh inappropriately. For that alone I deserve this drink, Wentworth. And by careful attention, and not especially broad hints, I managed to get us a dinner invitation for Monday night. I had to represent you as a learned gentleman and a budding literary lion in your own right, but she’ll never know the difference.”
“Excellent,” I said. “With any luck, we can parlay this into a chance to meet the entire family.”
“Oh, I expect they’ll be there,” said Mr. Clemens, taking a cigar out of his pocket. “I’ve never known a literary lady who could pass up a chance to impress her whole family when she hooks a genuine author as a dinner guest. Maria Staunton has probably spent half her life being mocked as a bookworm and bluestocking. This is her chance to prove she was right all along, Wentworth.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I said. “Meanwhile, when shall we plan on visiting Eulalie Echo?”
“We can decide that in the morning,” he said. He snipped the end of the cigar and fished around in his pockets for a match. “Aunt Tillie may have spoken to the Robinson’s butler, Arthur, by then. Possibly we can kill three birds with one stone and see them all on the same day. If not, perhaps we’ll go out and visit Eulalie Echo tomorrow.”
“There’s something strange about visiting a hoodoo woman on the sabbath, don’t you think?” I said.
Mr. Clemens found a match and struck it, then held the flame to the cigar until the pungent smoke came. When it was lit to his satisfaction, he looked up at me. “If you ask me, Wentworth, there’s something mighty strange about visiting her at all. But anybody who can get Cable’s back up the way it was the other night is someone worth meeting. If nothing else, I’ll be able to pull his leg with hoodoo stories for as long as he lives. George is one of the best writers alive, and a fine man to sit at the dinner table with, but sometimes he needs the wind taken out of his sails.” My employer chuckled. “I get the feeling that solving this murder case will be rewarding in more ways than one.”
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