Tuesday Afternoon.
Half an hour
later.
Have been to see Mrs. Perkins. She approves. Therefore Mary goes to her friends tomorrow to remain till we return (excuse bad writing, for I am in a horse-car—it has stopped on a switch now) home, & George stays in the house; at present with the policeman (whom we will soon send away).
I sent for Mary awhile ago & took her evidence. Then sent for Lizzy & said “Littl “Lizzy, your friend slept with you the night he left this house so early in the morning.” She confessed.
She had lied so valiantly, [MS page 2] & carried her difficult part so well & with such excellent temper that I began to pity her, now, especially when she said she was lost irretrievably & her betrayer was manifestly never going to marry her.
I told her it was now of course necessary to discharge her at once & send her out of the house. She acknowledged that there could be no other course.
Then I laid a plan for her to follow during the next two hours, & tell nobody what it was. (I have been detective Simon Wheeler for 24 hours, now.)
[MS page 3]
Tuesday.
Midnight, July 17
Then I walked part way down town & got some information I needed. Walked home, g noted down some facts from Lizzy’s lips; gave wrote a note & gave it to her, to be delivered in case of necessity, but not otherwise. Then took that street car & went down to the Court House & paid a man to do a few minutes’ work for me (Do you follow these detective maunderings, “Jany?”)1
[MS page 4] Then went to barber shop & got shaved. Then took a hack in a pouring rain & drove to telegraph office; then to the bank; then to Chief of Police. Concerted a plan, & said I would send him a note & a hack inside of 30 minutes. Drove home. Where’s Lizzy? “Gone, 20 minutes ago, sir.” Perdition! “George, jump into the hack & fly! Take this note & give it to the Chifef of Police; take a detective, go to 575 Main street, & from [MS page 5] there get on Lizzy’s track & give her this other note. Beware—don’t [fail!” (Ah], what a Simon Wheeler I was getting to be!)
Then I went down town to take dinner with a friend (told George where I should be). Sat there with him ages & ages chaffing and joking about things, & watching the clock.
At six, sharp, enter George. George: “They’re on their way, by another conveyance; your [ri] hack’s at the door.”
Enter at the same [MS page 6] moment, a domestic. Domestic: “Dinner is on the table.”
I didn’t wait for dinner. I said “Keep co mine cool on a plate till I come.”
Gave George some directions & then rushed home in the [hack. W] Went to our N. E. room & watched, through the window, stroking & petting stray kit, but almost unconscious of it. One hack—another hack—a buggy—a grocer’s wagon—another [MS page 7] buggy, in the pouring rain. They all pass by. What in the nation is the matter? By & by a street car. [Good! No], it stops at Forest street—lets out a man. I curse that horse-car & think something has failed [somewhere. Now] comes a man walking up the yard. Good! Don’t know him, but any arrival promises something.
Enter Mary, excited: “They’re here! Where shall I put them?” I—“Put [MS page 8] them in the study—but let me get there first. You & George be within call.—but out of sight. If you are in the kitchen, come a-booming at 3 taps of the study bell.” They say they will be in the kitchen—(that was merely on account of the dramatic grandeur of those 3 bell-taps.)
“Where shall we put the other man?” I—“Put him in the library & leave the door open.”
[MS page 9] I stand in the study. Enter Lizzy, with a tall, muscular, handsome fellow of 35. “This is my friend, Willie Taylor, Mr. Clemens.”
I shake hands with a lying cordiality, shut the door, seat him, begin to talk; he ugly, wanting to quarrel, I sweet & calm, resolved beforehand that to lose my temper was to lose my game—& I had started in to win. He snarled; I looked him sweetly in the eye & [MS page 10] rebuked him to gentleness, almost; [fought] shy of the subject; I gently brought him back to it; he talked of a “put-up job;” I said he could not mean me. He begged pardon, & said he did not. I coaxed him, I argued, I pleaded, half an hour. I sprung a good joke on him. He had to laugh. I had a cigar in his hand & a lighted match under his nose before he was to the middle of his laugh. Lizzy had been [MS page 11] crying straight along; now she laughed; he laughed again; I pretended to laugh.—but I was deep in a serious business & it came hard. Four times I worked him almost up to the point I wanted him—made him choke & cry a little occasionally—& four times I failed & lost—but the fifth time he said, hesitatingly, “I - - I [believe] I’ll do it—yes,” I am willing, though—”
[MS page 12] He never finished that sentence. I sho snatched open the door rang three bells (& instantly enter George & Mary!; I snatched the door leading to Mother’s bath-room open & said “the Rev. Mr. Twichell will come [in.”]—here is the license”—‸(which I had procured in the afternoon.)‸2
Enter Joe & marries them, in presence of the witnesses—this [bridegroom] murmuring a moment later, “But it [MS page 13] was a put-up job.”
Lizzy cried through the service & the prayer, & then her husband put his arm about her neck & kissed her & shed a tear & said “Don’t cry.”
Enter George with champagne & glasses, deliv places his waiter first before Lizz & says, “Champagne if you please, Mrs. Taylor.” Whereat, general jollity.
Then I drank long life & health to the couple, [MS page 14] gave them a hundred dollars apiece trifle (for they’d only four dollars between them) told them to go to - - - anywhere that they could be happy, & then Joe & I marched back to his house & he ate dinner; but the strain was all over, now, & a dish of soup sufficed for me.
Then I read my play to Joe & Harmony (how like a Simon Wheeler I’ve been all day!) & then I came home & here I am in bed.3
[MS page 15] Do you see my plan? The man in the library was a detective in plain clothes. If persuasion had failed with Mr. Taylor, my purpose was to lock the door & say “You either leave this room a married man or you leave it a with an officer, & charged with being in this house at midnight in March with a dishonest intent—take your choice.”4
But I love you, Livy dear, [anyway].
Samℓ
Now I go to sleep.
[MS page 16] Mrs. Samℓ. L. Clemens [cancellations and insertions in another hand:] Elmira | N. Y. | ‸Care | H. Gridley Canandaigua N.Y‸ [postmarked:] hartford conn. july 18 11am [and] elmira n.y. jul 19 10am
