much luck with money. I’ve made enough by lecturing and writing—scads of money, enough for a fine house in Hartford, European journeys, the best of everything for my family. I’ve given away more money to friends in need—some who did little enough to deserve it—than some people save in a lifetime of hard work. But I’ve never learned how to keep money—let alone invest it. You could take all my investments over the years, and not a single one of them has ever been worth spitting at. It would be comical if it weren’t so damned painful—a smart man could have made his fortune ten times over by looking at my investments and betting the opposite way.
“Back in ’77, I could have bought stock in Bell’s telephone company at five hundred dollars a bushel, and I passed it up. Instead, I invested in a steam pulley that pulled thousands of dollars straight out of my pocket, I set up a subscription publishing company that had the greatest, most successful book ever published in America—General Grant’s memoirs—and lost every cent because I put a self-important ignoramus who didn’t know the first thing about literature in charge of it. But my biggest mistake of all was Paige’s typesetting machine—I was convinced that we could sell it to every publisher in the world. It looked like a license to print greenbacks—and it would have been, too, if the damned machine had ever worked right. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back—and Sam Clemens’s back, as well. I lost close to a quarter-million dollars, a lot of it borrowed, with not a chance in Hell of ever seeing it back.”
I murmured some conventional phrase of sympathy, but Mr. Clemens waved his hand as if to dismiss it. “There’s nothing to be said, Wentworth. I’m descended from a long line of the improvident and unlucky, and heredity finally caught up with me. I thought I was safe from ever again having to go to work, and here I am back on the road, counting the house as anxiously as in the days when I was an utter unknown. A writer’s personal honor is his only stock in trade, and I’m determined to pay off every cent I owe, if I have to go to China, set up the stage myself, and do the Royal Nonesuch.
“But even honor has a price. A man needs money to make money, and I’m lucky to have found a man to back me. I owe a lot to Henry Rogers, whatever people say about him. He’s bankrolling this whole lecture tour, keeping my creditors at bay, making sure poor Livy and the girls have enough to live comfortably while I work off my debts. He’s even paying your salary, Wentworth. He’s been an absolute angel to me, at the very time I need it most—but I just found out the price I have to pay.
“When I called Rogers this morning, I expected that he would pull some strings and get that blasted detective off my back. There’s not a man in America, Carnegie and Rockefeller included, who has more real power than Rogers when he decides to apply it. Well, now I find out just where I rank in his scheme of things. This business with the murder and the notes came to his ear, and now he’s worried that somebody’s looking to kill me. It was at his insistence that Berrigan was sent to follow me, to make sure nothing happens to his investment.
“So now I learn that my dear friend Rogers—and he has been a friend to me, make no mistake of that—thinks I have to be protected like a champion racehorse. And my opinion of the matter don’t signify, no more than the horse’s. Detective Berrigan is under orders to stick with me until the murder’s solved—or until I die, which seems just as likely.”
Having vented his ire, Mr. Clemens spent the rest of the morning dictating letters, on various details of business with which I will not bore the reader. I wrote them up and posted them; then, after we enjoyed a hearty luncheon, he gave me my liberty for the afternoon, and I spent a pleasant few hours investigating the sights of a city new to me. The second city of our nation, Chicago is distinguished by a number of tall buildings, referred to by the locals under the picturesque name of “sky-scrapers.” Our hotel, the Great Northern, stands an impressive sixteen stories high, and there are several buildings in the city even taller. Perhaps the most striking is the huge Masonic Temple, a short walk from our hotel, and a remarkable twenty-one stories in height. It being a clear day, I paid twenty-five cents to ascend the elevator to the temple’s roof, from which a visitor obtains a stunning panoramic view of the city and the adjoining lake. It was startling to look downward at the backs of soaring birds, or at the antlike creatures scurrying about below them—which my eye at first refused to recognize as full-grown human beings.
After seeing the wonders of human ingenuity, I decided to take a closer look at Lake Michigan. A walk to the waterfront park gave me a close look at a broad harbor, with the open lake beyond a stone breakwater. To the south, I could make out some of the buildings of the Columbian Exposition that were still standing. Much of their grandeur endured despite the fire that had ravaged the site not long before; a large crane hung over them, ready to remove what was left of the ruins. The surface of the lake showed only a light chop (although I was assured that it gets fierce enough in a storm). It is not the ocean, but it is impressive enough.
I returned to the hotel and joined Mr. Clemens for dinner, to find him in a much better mood. “I’ve got the answer to all my problems,” he told me over the customary pre-meal libations. “If the murder is solved, Berrigan goes back to New York—taking the killer with him. And we can go ahead with our other mission in Arkansas.”
“That seems reasonable to me,” I said. “So you’re going to tell Mr. Berrigan the whole story, and cooperate with his investigation.”
“Not on your life, Wentworth. I’m going to solve the damned thing myself. I wouldn’t trust Berrigan to figure this thing out even if I thought I could trust him not to sell us out. And once we get to Memphis, we’re practically next door to the treasure in Arkansas. So I’ve got to identify the murderer, convince Berrigan’s boss I’ve got the right man, and send them packing before we leave Memphis.”
“How, pray tell, do you intend to do that?” I asked, intrigued.
“For openers, I’m the only one here who’s met Farmer Jack Hubbard in the flesh. So I stand the best chance of spotting him—even after all those years, and without the disguise. Funny I never noticed the phony beard—of course, I was a good bit greener then. But if he shows up, I’ll spot him soon enough. I’d lay odds I’ll know him the minute he opens his mouth.”
I wasn’t entirely persuaded by this plan. “And then what will you do?”
“If I’m convinced he’s the man, I’ll turn him over to Berrigan.” He puffed on one of his corncob pipes, then continued: “Or maybe I’ll talk to him first.”
I was appalled. “What, talk to a murderer?”
“If he’s after the money, he won’t find it with me dead,” said Mr. Clemens, confidently. “I want you to know I take great comfort in that, Wentworth.”
While I found his cheerful determination to take affairs in his own hands preferable to his earlier bitterness, I was dubious of his ability to carry out his intentions. For the moment, though, I had no clear idea what to do about things.
We took a cab to the auditorium, which I had noticed on my walk to the park that afternoon. It was an impressive building, with over four thousand seats, and it had a first-class hotel attached to it. A light shower had begun, so we took along an umbrella. I carried Mr. Clemens’s bag with his “lecture suit” to his dressing room. After stowing the umbrella in a corner, I hung our hats on two pegs, made sure he had everything he needed to prepare for the lecture, and then went out front—I was beginning to pick up a smattering of theater jargon already—to get a seat while he changed for the performance. The large modern auditorium was already nearly full, and there was a decided holiday spirit among the audience.
This was the second time I had seen my employer take the stage, and I was curious to see if I could make any more sense of the performance than the first time. At the appointed
