that he had no chance of surviving the long voyage to Arkansas to recover it. And so he died without ever laying eyes on it.”
“Ten thousand dollars! What a story!”
Clemens nodded. “Just before Ritter died, he told me the location, and made a dying man’s last request, which I promised to honor. He begged me to retrieve the gold and send it to the thumbless man’s boy, if he proved at all deserving, as a final means of assuaging his burden of guilt. I traced the boy to an address in Germany, and (watching him from a distance, and making discreet inquiries) satisfied myself that he deserved the gold; and so, a couple of years afterwards, I took a journey down the Mississippi, on a boat called the Gold Dust, under the guise of researching a book. I did in fact end up writing that book, but my real purpose was to visit a certain town in Arkansas and find a fortune I had promised a dying man to send to a young German boy I had never met.”
“And did you find it? This is a truly astonishing chain of events.” In truth, I had never before heard anything like it. I had dreamt of the romance of travel all my life, and read more than one wild tale of hidden treasure and dark doings, but I had hardly expected to find myself in the midst of such an adventure.
He rubbed his chin meditatively, staring out the window toward the evening sun. Finally he looked at me and resumed his tale. “No, I didn’t. The fact is, I became aware that someone was following me, someone who knew the story somehow—perhaps the thumbless man had told it more than once—and that if I recovered the money my own life would be in danger. So I did not even land in the town where the money was hidden, and cooked up a cock-and-bull tale to relate the experience, with the names and events changed just enough to keep anyone who didn’t know the truth from guessing it. If you’d read my book, you’d know that upon my arrival in Arkansas, I found that Napoleon, Arkansas had been washed away, many years ago, by the river. Sometimes it’s to your advantage to have a reputation as a humorist: most readers seem to have taken the story as I intended, as a tall tale with a preposterous ending. But the treasure is real, and it was never even in Napoleon—it was in another town altogether.”
“And the money is still there.”
“As far as I know, yes.”
“And you intend to get it this time.”
“That I do.” Mr. Clemens eyed me critically. “And I fully intend to send it to that young man, who does not even know that it exists. Do you understand, Wentworth?”
“I had no notion that you would do anything else with it.”
“Bosh. You don’t know me well enough to be certain of that. I tell you nonetheless that it is my intent to fulfill that promise. The soldier’s son is alive and well, working hard to support his family. The years have proven him more than worthy of it.
“The stinger is, I figured it was finally safe to go back for the gold when I heard that the larcenous old buzzard I’d suspected of tailing me was dead—he was a gambler and con man named George Devol, and you’d rather find a copperhead in your boot than tangle with him in his prime. But I don’t like it that Hubbard’s turned up—dead or alive—just as I’m about to go look for it again. Farmer Jack Hubbard and Slippery Ed McPhee were Devol’s main sidekicks in the old days—part of his gambling crew on the riverboats. For all I know, he managed to tip them both off to the German soldier’s gold before he died. So this little boat ride and lecture tour could turn out to be more dangerous than you had any right to believe—especially if McPhee shows up, with the idea of getting the gold for himself. It wouldn’t be fair not to let you know what you’re getting into if you go with me. Are you game?”
“Sir, you can rely on me.” I meant it as earnestly as I have ever meant anything, and Clemens nodded his approval.
“Good then, we’re a team.” We raised our glasses to seal the pact, and took a ritual sip. “Drink up now, Wentworth,” said Clemens. “We’ll see what sort of fare the cook has in store for us tonight, and I’ll tell you some of the other stories you’ve missed by not reading my books. What a pleasure to have a fresh audience for the old yarns!”
Early the next morning, Mr. Clemens sent me to buy newspapers, while he went to the telephone office. When I joined him there, he was just finishing an animated phone conversation. He extracted a promise from the other party to keep him informed, promised to feed him the best steak in New York for his trouble, and ended the connection. He took a few moments to chat with the “hello girls,” who operated the phones and who were clearly excited to have such a celebrity in their midst. He paid for the call, and we made our way to the breakfast table to fortify ourselves for the first leg of our trip. Our breakfast consisted of a thick, juicy beefsteak and hot coffee. In between bites, he told me what he had learned: mostly nothing. The source—evidently someone high on the police force—knew nothing more about the death of Hubbard, but confirmed that there was a Detective Berrigan assigned to the case. On the other hand, he (whoever he was) had heard nothing of the supposed connection to Mr. Clemens before the telephone call.
“This should put to rest your doubts about Detective Berrigan,” I said.
“You assume that the fellow we saw really is Berrigan,” said Mr. Clemens. “Easy enough to find the name of a real officer if you mean to impersonate one. Or to bribe one—which is even easier, if you get right down to it.”
“But why go to all the trouble? I can’t see what anyone’s gained by the charade, if such a thing it is.”
He frowned, took a sip of coffee, and shrugged. “You’re probably right. I suppose I’ll never be so old that I don’t get a little spooked when somebody I knew on the river is murdered. It’s the timing and the fact that he was looking for me that same day that really bother me. If I’d come home early, I’d probably have seen the poor old villain. He really could play billiards.”
“Who is this McPhee fellow you mentioned?”
“A no-good son of a rattlesnake. Has been, for as long as I can remember. He’s another one I met on the river, right after I became a pilot. He tried to swindle me out of the little bit I had, more or less for the principle of the thing, I suppose. Later that same trip, I saw him jump overboard to get away from a fellow who caught him with a couple of extra cards in his hand. He showed up on our next trip upriver, and acted as if nothing funny had happened, but the boys wouldn’t let him off that easily. They started calling him Slippery Ed, and the name stuck, although there’s few that remember how he got it.”
“How does he manage to continue his career if he’s a known cheater? Surely the authorities would be aware of him by now.”
“You might be surprised how many people will look the other way if you make it worth their while. There were plenty of riverboat captains who took in more in bribes than in salary. The better the gamblers did, the better the captain and crew did by turning a blind eye.”
“I’m afraid I’ve never understood the appeal of games of chance.”
“Ah, there’s the mistake everyone makes,” said Mr. Clemens. “The minute a professional gets involved, there’s no such thing as a game of chance. The professional is there to earn a living. I recall a court case in Nevada, where a miner was arrested for playing a game of chance on the Sabbath and defended himself by claiming that he was playing Red Dog, which was not a game of chance but of skill. The judge picked a jury of six chance men and six skill men, and sent ’em off with a deck of cards to determine
