A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court: The Mark Twain Mysteries #2. Peter J. Heck
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a touch of the African or Indian, too. George probably has as much real affection for them and their way of life as any man alive. But when he published his books about the old times in New Orleans, some of the leading Creoles thought he was mocking them—the stiff-necked fools! And so, between them and the damned lily-white bigots, George found himself surrounded by enemies in his own hometown. Finally, a few years ago, his friends convinced him to move to Massachusetts, where his opinions were less likely to bring armed men to his door.”
“Ah, I thought he still made his home in Louisiana. Why on Earth has he come back, then, if he has so many enemies here?”
“The same thing that brings me back: writing a book. A man can only trust his memory so far, Wentworth. There comes a time when you have to set foot on the ground you’re writing about, even if it costs you a certain amount of pain. Despite all that’s happened to him, George still loves this place. I can understand why. If you’d spent the first part of your life eating meals like that one tonight, could you live out your days in New England, knowing you were condemning yourself never to taste pompano again? For a plate of fish cooked like that, and an evening of talk like that, I’d make a dinner date with the devil himself, even if the table was set by the hottest furnace in Hell.”
I wasn’t certain I’d go to quite that length, but I had to admit that, barring the local predilection for excessive spice, I could easily grow accustomed to the food in New Orleans. And, after Mr. Cable’s extravagant praise of Leonard Galloway’s prowess in the kitchen, I found myself almost wishing that Mr. Clemens would decide to help the poor fellow, if only so I could sample his cooking.
3
Mr. Clemens spent the next morning catching up on his writing and correspondence, which despite our best efforts, he had fallen behind in during our journey down the Mississippi on the steamboat Horace Greeley. He dictated a number of business letters to me, and once again, I regretted that Yale had not offered courses in shorthand, although I had gotten the knack of quickly jotting down his intention, if not his exact words. Later, I would turn my notes into finished letters while he took care of matters that required his personal attention. As usual, he devoted much of his time to a long letter to his wife and daughters, whom he had sent to Europe, where they could live more cheaply than at home, while he worked to liquidate his debts.
Toward that end, he had boarded up his home in Hartford, Connecticut, and, with the backing of Mr. Henry H. Rogers, the oil millionaire, embarked on the steamboat cruise and lecture tour down the Mississippi on which I had served as his secretary. (While I was responsible only to Mr. Clemens, I had learned that Mr. Rogers was actually the one who paid my salary, as well as Mr. Clemens’s traveling expenses.) At the same time, he had begun a book describing our journey, with plentiful observations on the customs, the history, and the life of the great American waterway. We were scheduled to give two final lectures here in New Orleans; meanwhile, Mr. Clemens worked on his newest book.
It was already after noon when a knock announced the arrival of Mr. Cable. Mr. Clemens greeted him enthusiastically, but his expression changed when Mr. Cable asked, “Have you looked into the Galloway case?”
“Damnation! I meant to, but I got involved in business, and it completely slipped out of my mind,” said my employer, slumping back into his overstuffed chair. I was somewhat embarrassed, also having completely forgotten his promise to investigate the cook’s arrest for poisoning his master.
“I wish you wouldn’t swear, Sam,” said Mr. Cable, a stem expression on his face. “I’m disappointed in you. You told me last night that you wanted to find out the facts before deciding whether to help poor Leonard Galloway, and the facts aren’t going to walk up to your door and knock.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Mr. Clemens admitted. “I’ll work on it this afternoon, if I get the chance.”
Mr. Cable gave my employer an indulgent look. “Sam Clemens, I know you better than that. You have the best intentions in the world, but you’re lazy as an old dog on a hot summer day. Well, I’m here to see that you don’t have any more excuse to put off fulfilling your promise.”
“Promise? I don’t remember promising to help the fellow.”
“No,” said Mr. Cable. “You promised to find out the facts—first thing this morning. Well, here it is after noon, and you don’t know any more than you did last night. Luckily for you, I still have a few friends in New Orleans, and one of them has offered to meet us for lunch and talk about the Galloway case. The facts may not come knocking, but if you’re willing to walk two or three blocks with me—and you’d better be, Sam!—I can promise you’ll find out some things that didn’t get into the newspapers.”
“It doesn’t look as if I have much choice,” said Mr. Clemens, standing up. “Come along, Wentworth, we might as well find out what George has up his sleeve. At worst, we’ll get another good meal out of it.”
We walked down to Saint Peter Street, where at a table in the courtyard of a little café, smoking a dark-colored cheroot, sat a rotund man of medium stature, meticulously dressed, and sporting a dark mustache waxed to sharp points. Mr. Cable introduced him as Richard LeJeune, a detective with the New Orleans Police Department, whom Cable had met when he was a writer for the New Orleans newspapers.
LeJeune stood and shook hands with Mr. Cable and Mr. Clemens. “I’ve heard about that business on the riverboat, where you caught that murderer, Mr. Clemens. A good piece of detective work,” he said. “A lot of policemen don’t like it when outsiders do their work for them. Me, I’m thankful for any kind of help we can get.”
“Well, I appreciate the compliment, although I don’t expect to make a habit of solving murders,” said Mr. Clemens. “It’s more work than I’m accustomed to, for one thing. But it was more or less in the line of self-preservation, and that’s a pretty good antidote to indolence.”
After the introductions, Mr. Clemens and Mr. Cable seated themselves on either side of the detective, and I took the fourth chair at the table. We ordered drinks, and when the waiter had gone to fetch them, Mr. Cable told my employer, “Richard is one of the few honest policemen still left in New Orleans. He’s assigned to the Robinson murder, and he’s agreed to tell us something about the case. So where would you like to begin?”
“Well, all I really know is what that newspaper said yesterday: that Robinson was poisoned and that the police have arrested his cook for it,” said Mr. Clemens, looking at the detective. “That seems straightforward enough, but I was a reporter long enough to know that no newspaper ever gets the whole story. Why don’t you start with the main facts. How did Robinson die, and how did the police decide it was a murder?”
The detective looked at Mr. Clemens intently for a moment, as if sizing him up. “Well, Mr. Clemens, Robinson died of jimsonweed poisoning. Now, jimsonweed is powerful stuff. The whole plant is poison, and most people around here know it. There’s not much chance Robinson would have took it by accident. For one thing, it has a pretty rank smell. The country folks call it stinkweed, and it’s hard to mistake for much else. We found some of it growing in a vacant lot near where the cook lives, and the cook admits that he fixed Robinson’s last meal.”
“How long was that before he died?”
“The coroner says four hours at least—maybe a lot longer. Sometimes the poison takes twelve, fifteen hours to kill a man. Split the difference and say eight or ten. We figure the poison was in his food at supper the evening before he died, disguised somehow so he wouldn’t smell or taste it—most likely in some kind of spicy sauce. He was the only one who ate the meal, on account of his wife was out of town to visit family. Later that evening, Robinson saw his brother-in-law, and complained of a headache and blurry vision. The servants say he went to bed early. The next day—this was Friday, nearly two weeks ago—his wife arrived home late in the morning and got worried when she learned he hadn’t come down for breakfast. She went into his room and found him. Old Doc Soupape was suspicious right away and asked for an autopsy.”