[Mark Twain Mysteries 05] - The Mysterious Strangler Read online

  Table of Contents

  Praise

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments and Historical Note

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  MARK TWAIN LIVES

  in Peter J. Hecks

  acclaimed mystery series…

  Praise for

  The Guilty Abroad

  “An entirely different look to the wonderful Twain mysteries… Peter Heck introduces readers to the Twain family… providing] an incredible degree of freshness to the story line… pleasurable… an enjoyable historical mystery that will gamer him new fans as well as receiving accolades from old readers too.” —Midwest Book Reviews

  The Prince and the Prosecutor

  “Meaty fare for fans of the quasi-historical with nicely done period detail and atmosphere.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Very entertaining.”

  —Library Journal

  A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court

  “An enjoyable tour of I890's New Orleans… Twain can take a bow for his performance. Heck takes a colorful city (New Orleans) and a colorful character (Mark Twain), adds a murder, a duel, some voodoo, and period detail, and conjures up an entertaining sequel to Death on the Mississippi.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A period charmer… Against the background of this famous city with its colorful mix of characters, cultures, food, music, and religion, the famous author and his loyal side- kick worm their way into the heart of a scandalous murder.”

  —Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine

  “Packed with casual racists, unregenerate Civil War veterans. superstitious rationalists, and poseurs of every stripe— exactly the sort of colorful cast that brings its satiric hero’s famous talent for unmasking pretension into brilliant relief.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “This Crescent City mystery simmers.”—Booklist

  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 talc 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 1890’s. Death on the Mississippi is thoroughly entertaining.”

  —Alfred Hitchcock’s 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 Gemens 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

  Mysterious

  Strangler

  A Mark Twain Mystery

  Peter J. Heck

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are

  cither the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously,

  and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business

  establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGLER

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with

  the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime edition / October 2000

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright C 2000 by Peter J. Heck.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in pan.

  by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.

  For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Putnam Inc..

  375 Hudson Street. New York. New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

  http://www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 0-425-17704-1

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published

  by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street. New York. New York 10014.

  The name BERKELY PRIME CRIME and the BERKELY PRIME CRIME

  design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Acknowledgments and Historical Note

  Mark Twain had a remarkably varied career, from steamboat pilot to silver miner to newspaperman to lecturer to publisher—to mention just a few of the highlights. But at no point did he set up as a detective. The events (and most of the people and many of the places) I describe in this book are created for the purpose of telling an entertaining story. Still, there is a kernel of historical fact behind my fabrications, and readers may desire a general notion of which is which.

  Mark Twain’s extensive travels took him to Florence more than once, beginning with his visit as one of the Quaker City pilgrims and culminating in stays there in the 1890’s and early I900’s. I have housed the Clemens family in Villa Viviani, where they lived at about the time of this narrative, and where the author worked on Joan of Arc and Pudd’nhead Wilson. While I make use of several other authentic Florentine landmarks—Palazzo Pitti and the Protestant Cemetery—most of the specific locales of this story are invented, even Cafe Diabelli. And, except for Mr. Clemens and his family, all characters here are fictional— although a few (for instance the German maid) had real-life counterparts.

  In the nineteenth century, as now, Florence was one of the centers of the trade in fine arts, including an extensive trade in forgeries and frauds. Raphael (1483-1520), who had a studio in Florence in the early sixteenth century, was especially admired by Victorian art critics and collectors— and therefore his work, more than any other artist's, was copied and counterfeited. Given Mr. Clemens's own strong (and often heretical) opinions on the old masters, and my narrator Wentworth's strong interest in the arts, a newly discovered Raphael seemed an appropriate subject around which to build a Florentine mystery.

  As usual. I have taken the liberty of sprinkling the text with q
uips and anecdotes borrowed from Mark Twain's own writings and sayings; Twain aficionados will recognize many of them. I have also inserted a few playful allusions to the various incarnations of The Mysterious Strangler, one of Twain’s last and most problematical works, from which I have borrowed the title of this one. I have stretched out my borrowings with my own inventions and pastiches, which I hope are in the proper spirit.

  As always, my debts to Twain scholars are too numerous to list; the Mark Twain listserv has been an especially rich resource, for which anyone doing Twain research must be grateful. I have been steered toward useful bits of Twainiana from time to time by various friends, among them Trina King and David Honigsberg—to whom my thanks. And from my recently rediscovered cousin, Cliff Jewell, a professional actor and acting teacher who does a fine Mark Twain impersonation, I cribbed a nice bit of stage business after seeing a tape of one of his performances. (There must be something to this heredity business, after all.)

  Special thanks are due my wife, Jane Jewell, who has dedicated long hours to the reading and critiquing of this manuscript. I have benefited from her help at every turn. It should go without saying that any remaining errors of fact or other shortcomings of style or execution are strictly my own responsibility.

  To Paul. Ken. Bob. Jack. Marco

  —and in memory of Gerry:

  fellow explorers of the 64-squarc microcosm.

  1

  Cafe Diabelli was the finest place in all of Florence—or so it seemed on that sunny winter day in 189—, when I first happened upon it.

  I had come to Florence with my employer, Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, after a lecture tour in England. He had declared himself surfeited with rain and fog and cold, and almost the instant he had spoken the final syllable of his last scheduled lecture, had begun to pack for a warmer climate. So he and his family—and I, Wentworth Cabot, his secretary— found ourselves in sunny Italy. After my first day in the southern sun, I don’t think John D. Rockefeller could have paid me enough to go back to an English winter.

  Mr. Clemens had found a villa in Settignano, about five miles east of Florence. Fortress-like Villa Viviani had been rebuilt and refurbished several times in its long life, but the foundations were said to date back to the thirteenth century. And its view of Florence and the hills to the west was enthralling—set off by a sky so clear and blue that it made me feel as if my eyesight had improved. No wonder this country had nurtured so many eminent painters and sculptors!

  From the moment I heard we would be wintering near Florence. I vowed to seize every opportunity to see the profusion of art that city offers. I spent many spare hours planning trips to the various galleries. I doubt any general laid more extensive plans for an invasion than I did for my stay in Florence—unless my Baedeker neglected to mention it, I doubt there was any part of the city I left out of my plans.

  Knowing my interest in art. Mr. Clemens released me from my normal duties until the household was set up. “Go on and gawk at the pictures,” he said. “You’ll get your fill of ’em soon enough. I’ll get plenty of writing done without you in the daytime, and you can catch up with your part of things after supper.” That struck me as a fair proposition, and I took advantage of it without hesitation.

  I had spent my first morning in the city dazzled by the sheer number of paintings that could be crammed into a single gallery—and I began to understand Mr. Clemens’s offhand remark: ‘The best stuff is often hard to find.” The curators seemed to have taken perverse delight in hanging the pictures one was most anxious to see in obscure and ill-lit crannies. So it was with a mixture of awe and frustration that I gave heed to the call of my stomach, and went looking for someplace to eat—and stumbled upon Cafe Diabelli.

  Cafe Diabelli was unassuming from the outside, but the aroma of good food wafted out to the street and drew me in before I knew it. I went up a couple of steps to a double door, entered, and found myself in a large room full of laughter and animated conversation. In one comer, by a bay window, was a baldhcaded fellow with a round belly, a full beard, and the sort of profile one sees on ancient coins. The table in front of him had a stack of manuscripts on it. and around him were gathered a group whose clothes bespoke a bohemian lifestyle. He was pontificating upon some point, jabbing the air with a finger, and heads around him nodded as if hearing grave words of wisdom.

  Across the room was the chess players’ comer. As I entered, two young Italians were carrying on a fierce battle, while a couple of spectators stared at the action. One player was a short and stout dark-haired fellow, his opponent tall and blond with a thin countenance—opposites in every physical particular, like the black and white pieces of their wooden armies. Even as I glanced over at the scene, the blond fellow made a move, capturing a pawn, and the watchers murmured as his opponent scowled at the new position.

  Then my attention was drawn to the terrace, visible through a wide archway ahead of me. This seemed a pleasant place to sit and have a meal, and any indecision I may have had evaporated when I heard a voice with an accent that would not have raised an eyebrow in Back Bay. “Eddie, old man. isn't it about time you bought a round? A fellow could die of thirst waiting for you to finish that drink.”

  A burst of laughter followed this remark, and as I stepped out onto the terrace I saw them: a group of young men and women, mostly my age. sitting around two tables pushed together, sipping wine or coffee. While I was not so bold as to intrude upon a group of strangers (fellow Americans or not), the light and open air were enticing. I sat at a table a little distance away from them, with a good view of the street just below, with the river Amo down the hill.

  After a brief wait, a short man with a fringe of curly dark hair around his balding pate and a large black mustache came over to my table. “Ciao, signore.” he said. “Cosa prendete?”

  “Buongiorno. signore.” I said, pronouncing the words carefully. “Non parlo Italiano. Do you speak English?” Having nearly exhausted my stock of useful phrases in the local language, I hoped my last question would not be answered in the negative. I had been making efforts, with the help of a book aimed at travelers, to gain some useful knowledge of Italian, but Mr. Clemens’s daughters were already far ahead of me. And. as I had by this time discovered. many Italians knew English, although by no means all of them.

  “Yes, of course, signore” he said, with a broad smile. “I speak the very good English. What would you like today?” His accent was quite good. I thought, though a bit closer to the British than to the American. Working in a place with many English-speaking customers, he had both the opportunity and the incentive to improve his command of our language.

  I ordered red wine and, at the waiter's suggestion, a plate of noodles with tomato sauce and sausage, all of which went by some much more exotic-sounding Italian names Even in the few days we had been in Italy. I had learned to appreciate the local cooks’ ability to create subtle and tasty variations among these basic ingredients. The waiter soon returned with the wine, in a quaint little straw-covered flask, and filled a glass for me. I tasted it—a tangy. somewhat acidic red—and nodded my approval. He smiled again and left to attend to his other tasks, while I turned to watch the street scene.

  The American tourist may find his first sight of an Italian city street as strange and colorful as something out of the Thousand and One Nights. Nothing one sees in New York or even New Orleans could prepare him for the distinctions of dress and the extravagance of gesture one sees in an Italian city. Mr. Clemens used to declare that an Italian will say more with his hands in thirty seconds than a New Englander says with his voice in a couple of weeks. Perhaps he exaggerated—but not by much.

  That was nothing compared to the contrast between American and Italian dress! Here, it looked as if everyone were going to a masquerade. Red, yellow, green, blue, violet—every color of the rainbow swirled through the streets. Only the black that seemed to be the prescribed color for old women and for the numerous stem-faced Catholic priests was in accord wit
h my previous image (based wholly on history books) of Florence as a staid and sober city given to the pursuit of commerce and the arts—a sort of Italian Boston. Instead, every station in life seemed to have its distinctive uniform, from the respectable merchants right down to the outrageous ragamuffins who besieged every passerby with the incessant demand for alms.

  Just as I was about to lose myself in the scene, a voice nearby said. “You want to buy fotografia, signore?”

  I turned to see a thin, greasy-haired fellow leering up at me from the street below, waving a print of Michelangelo’s famous statue of David in one hand. It wasn’t a bad picture, although it lacked the majesty of the original—which I had already inspected in person. “No, thank you.” I said. “I am not interested.”

  “I have-a plenty more fotografia. signore,” he said, with a thick accent. He held up several more samples, all of statuary or buildings—some of which I recognized, though many were of unfamiliar subjects. “Here, see! I give-a you very good price, signore”

  “No, I am not interested,” I insisted. “I have no money to buy photographs.”

  “Ah. you have-a the money to buy the wine, and that will be gone in an hour. These are very fine fotografia. Signore” he said. “I take-a them all myself, and I give-a you my best-a price.”

  “His best price will be outright robbery,” said another voice at my elbow, a voice with an American accent. I turned to see a smiling woman of about my own age standing by my little table, her hand resting on the other chair. “Don’t buy anything from these rascals, unless you have money to throw away.”

  “Signore…” the photograph-vendor began, but the young woman cut him off.

  “Caro signore, sei noioso” she told him with considerable heat, and in what sounded to my ears like an excellent accent. “Va a Napoli!”

  The fellow flushed, and I thought he was about to answer her, but then the waiter reappeared, carrying a tray. The photograph-seller contented himself with a scowl and a gesture—a flick of his thumb against his upper teeth—that even I could recognize as rude. I stood up. ready to make him apologize, but he beat a hasty retreat, no doubt to harass some other tourist. The waiter sent a long hard stare after him. then shrugged and placed my food on the table. I nodded my thanks to him and he departed, then I turned to my rescuer.