[Mark Twain Mysteries 02] - A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court Read online

  “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.”

  8

  The next morning was Sunday. Having spent most of the previous month and a half on board a steamboat, I took advantage of our being in a fixed location and went to church. Heads turned to see the stranger in a back pew, and the minister seemed to peer in my particular direction every time he made a salient point in his sermon. But the congregation sang some of my favorite hymns, and the service followed the familiar pattern. I returned to our pension feeling refreshed and glad that I would be able to report this attendance in my next letter home.

  Mr. Clemens, who had stayed behind to read, was dressed and eager to be out and about his business. “You’re back. Good!” He shut the book he’d been reading and stood. “We’re going to see Eulalie Echo, and then Aunt Tillie. Come along. We can talk as we walk.”

  “It’s still early,” I pointed out to him. “They may not expect visitors. Besides, you told me when I left that you were going to organize your notes for the new book.” I realized even as I said it that I was not at all enthusiastic about a visit to a hoodoo woman, who Mr. Cable’s comments had led me to believe was a practitioner of some sort of heathen rites, this soon after visiting my own church.

  But Mr. Clemens brushed aside my objections. “Sunday just after church is the best possible time to find people at home,” he said. “Come on, Wentworth, we’ll go down to Jackson Square and see if Henry Dodds wants to drive us out to the Garden District again.” I picked my hat back up, and we headed downstairs.

  “I’ve been working on the book all morning, copying over my notes and jotting down things from the last few days,” he said, as we came out onto Royal Street and made a right turn toward Saint Philip. “I need a break to let the ideas ferment a little and to take my mind off my own troubles. Thinking about that poor cook sitting in Parish Prison makes me feel like the master of my own fate, in comparison. I’m more and more convinced he didn’t kill Robinson. If I don’t try to do my best to prove he didn’t, and they hang him, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  We made our way down to Jackson Square, where the cathedral was just letting out worshipers from one of the services. Here was New Orleans at its most respectable and on its best behavior, and the square was full of bright dresses and well-cut suits. Young couples strolled arm in arm through the park, while their parents gathered in knots for conversati
on, and children ran after birds or each other. The few carriage drivers working today had their pick of fares. To Mr. Clemens’s disappointment, Henry Dodds was nowhere to be seen. “Either he’s got a fare, or he doesn’t work Sundays,” he said. “We can either go have coffee and beignets and wait to see if he shows up, or find another driver to take us out to Fourth and Howard. I want to talk to Eulalie Echo. Did you find out what her house number is?”

  I suddenly realized that I had completely forgotten to ask Bolden this important question. “We’ll have to find out before we can go visit her. Perhaps we should go to Aunt Tillie’s first, and see if she knows.”

  Mr. Clemens laughed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you didn’t want to meet this hoodoo woman. But we’ll manage. Maybe the driver will know, or one of the neighbors. I do want to see her before Aunt Tillie.” He sent me to look for a driver while he sat down to light his pipe. Soon I found one who was free, and signaled to Mr. Clemens. The driver, a thin fellow with a big nose, which had once been broken, and long, stringy blond hair starting to turn gray, looked down and favored me with a grin more professional than sincere. “You don’t mind my askin’, that’s a funny neighborhood for a couple of white fellows to go to. Nothing in the way of entertainment, if you get my drift.”

  “I get your drift,” said Mr. Clemens, who had just come up. “Maybe our idea of entertainment is different from yours. Will you take us there or not?”

  The driver shrugged, although the fixed grin never left his mouth. “I think your money’s as good as the next man’s,” he said. “Climb aboard.”

  Once aboard, it was easy to figure out why the driver had been willing to take the fare when all his fellows were busy. His cab badly needed a painting, the upholstery on the seats was badly worn, and there was a broken spring sticking through at one point. One of the wheels creaked annoyingly, as well, and wobbled more than I would have considered safe, had it been my rig. As for his horse, the swaybacked nag looked as if he was long overdue to be turned out to pasture, although I feared the poor creature was more likely to end up at the knacker’s.

  The driver took us across the broad expanse of Canal Street and out Saint Charles Avenue as far as Lee Circle before he spoke again. “Where exactly did you say you wanted to be set down, mister?”

  “I didn’t, because I don’t exactly know,” said my employer. “We’re going to meet a woman named Eulalie Echo. We know she’s at Fourth and Howard, but we forgot to find out which house she lives in. Do you know?”

  “You best ask somebody when you get out there,” said the driver. “I don’t know nothing about that hoodoo woman.” He turned pointedly to his driving, giving the reins a snap and clicking his tongue to tell the horse to pick up his speed.

  Mr. Clemens laughed. “If you don’t know anything about her, how do you know she’s a hoodoo woman? But that’s all right. I guess you don’t know anything that would help us, anyway.” He leaned back and puffed on his pipe again.

  The driver pulled his horse to the side as the streetcar came past, then sped up again. He looked back at us over his left shoulder, still grinning rigidly, but the twinkle was back in his eye. He said, “I guess maybe I know more than some folks, but I know when to keep quiet, too.”

  “Would this help you remember things?” Mr. Clemens held up a fifty-cent piece.

  The grin got wider. “Why sure, boss, that’s just the thing to put my mind in order. I’ve heard things to make your hair turn white, if it wasn’t already.” By now, the horse had slowed to a walk again. The reins were slack in the driver’s hands.

  “Well, I guess I’ve come by these white hairs honestly,” said Mr. Clemens. “I’ve seen plenty of strange things in my own time. But hoodoo is a new one on me. Is that different from regular magic or just some kind of Louisiana word?”

  The driver looked around to both sides, then crossed himself. “Hoodoo . . . voodoo . . . gris-gris . . . people call it lots of things. It’s African devil worship, is what it is. The slaves done brung it with ’em. Some of ’em claimed to be good church people, and I reckon a lot of ’em was, but a few of ’em still kept up the old ways. And some of ’em still do. Marie Laveau was one of the voodoos. I seen her once, when I was just a tad. She went walking down the street, and more than one white man stepped off the banquette and let her pass. She was the queen of voodoo, my old daddy told me.”

  The driver’s voice had fallen until it was barely audible over the sounds of the street, and both Mr. Clemens and I leaned forward to hear him as he continued. “She was a hundred years old, and couldn’t nobody touch her. She wanted something done, she’d go to the mayor, or the judge, or the chief of police, and tell them to do it, and they did—no back talk. She would make policemen get down on all fours and bark like a dog, if they was crazy enough to bother her. There’s a tombstone for her in old Saint Louis Cemetery, but there’s plenty that’ll tell you she never died.” By now, all the driver’s air of bluster had departed. He was clearly sincere in his statements, although I found them hard to credit. But his face showed a mixture of fear, and awe, and respect as he spoke of the mysterious voodoo queen. He glanced around as if someone might overhear him, even in a moving cab on a busy street in the middle of a modern city.

  “That mostly tallies with the stories I’ve heard George tell,” Mr. Clemens said to me. “And what about Eulalie Echo?” He locked eyes with the driver, who crossed himself again.

  The horse turned right onto Fourth Street, and the driver continued. “I hear she’s mighty strong, but not as strong as Marie. And some say she ain’t evil like Marie, but I don’t know ’bout that. Devils is devils, and ain’t none of ’em any good, if you ask me.” And with that, the driver shut his mouth again, and said not another word until he dropped us at the corner of Fourth and Howard. When Mr. Clemens paid him and added a twenty-five-cent tip, his grin flashed again, but it was obvious that he was glad to be rid of us. He gee’ed up his horse and was headed back toward Saint Charles Avenue almost as soon as our feet were on the banquette.

  Mr. Clemens and I found ourselves at a street corner much like the others we had passed in this neighborhood. The houses were low and of wooden construction, and while many of them sported window boxes full of flowers and other decorative touches, the overall impression of the neighborhood was a far cry from the French Quarter, let alone the millionaires’ rows south of Saint Charles Avenue. The building we were directly in front of housed a small grocery store, which was of course closed for Sunday.

  “Well, we still don’t know which house we’re going to. I suppose we’d better ask somebody,” said Mr. Clemens, looking around. As I followed his gaze, it became obvious that all the faces on the street around us were black, and that most of them were turning a wary eye on the two well-dressed white men who had just been set down in their territory. I suddenly felt very uncomfortable and out of place.

  The nearest of the locals were three rough-looking youths lounging on and around a bench outside the closed store, smoking cigarettes. They had been talking loudly when we arrived, but now they were silent. Two of them had knives out, ostentatiously whittling on scraps of wood and pretending to ignore us, but one of them, a big fellow with his shirt unbuttoned nearly to the waist to display a bright red undershirt, was staring directly at us. Mr. Clemens spotted them, and before I could say anything in the way of warning, walked right over to them.

  “Howdy, fellows,” he said.

  “I think you done come to the wrong part of town, mister,” said the tough. “You best leave ’fore things get nasty. There be some mighty bad folks ’round here.” He shifted in his seat.

  One of the whittlers giggled. “Yeah, and we be some of ’em.”

  They all laughed in a very ominous way, exchanging meaningful glances. I found their manner disconcerting. I looked around, realizing that there was a silence on the street that hadn’t been there a moment earlier. What had been a busy corner had come to a stop, and all eyes seemed to be turne
d our way. I stepped up into a protective position at Mr. Clemens’s side, wondering what I would do if the situation turned violent. About all I could really hope for was to delay them while Mr. Clemens got to safety, and if the knives came into action, there would be hell to pay.

  “Oh, look, mister got hisself a big friend. Now we better play nice,” said the giggler. He looked up at me, a crooked smile on his face. The knife took a very long, very thin shaving off the wood.

  “Shut up, Diggy,” said the big one. He stood up, and I saw that he was nearly my height, with a stocky build that bespoke hard muscles. He was very young, but that would not necessarily make him an easy opponent if it came to blows, even assuming the other two didn’t interfere. He glanced at me, then, apparently deciding that Mr. Clemens was in charge, looked my employer straight in the eye. “We ain’t looking for trouble,” he said.

  “That’s mighty good, because neither are we,” said Mr. Clemens. “We just want to know where Eulalie Echo lives.”

  “ ’Lalie!” said the whittler, in a half-whisper. Now all of the youths turned to look directly at us.

  “You don’t look like cops to me,” said the red-shirted one, eyeing us suspiciously. “What you want with her?”

  “That’s my business, Joe Jackson,” said a new voice—a woman’s voice—from behind me. I turned to see a tall, slim woman with light brown skin standing by a doorway I hadn’t previously noticed. She could have been almost any age; her face was unwrinkled and her hair dark and full, but there was a hint of vast experience in her eyes. She wore a simple white dress with no jewelry, but from the way she stood on the banquette, stock-still with her hands on her hips, looking coolly at the gang of toughs, she could have been a queen. “ ’Lalie!” said another voice, this time just barely audible.