This did require an answer, and Bell said, “The Great White Fleet is about to make landfall at San Francisco. Scully was tracking the spy, or his agents, to San Francisco. Thanks to Scully, I very likely have him in my sights.”
“What do you suppose he intends to do?”
“I don’t know yet. But it must involve the fleet, and I am going to stop him before he does it.”
Van Dorn remained silent for a long minute. Bell said nothing. Finally the boss said, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Isaac.”
“He will not pack his bags and go home after Newport. He will attack the fleet.”
Van Dorn said, “All right. I’ll alert Bronson in San Francisco.”
“I already have.”
He went back to the luggage room. Van Dorns reported that Herr Shafer and the Chinese traveling with Arnold Bennett had transferred to the Overland Limited to San Francisco, as their tickets had indicated. “Their train’s leaving, Isaac. If you’re going with ’em, you gotta go.”
“I’m going.”
TWO STRONG HORSES PULLED an ice wagon modified with carriage springs and pneumatic tires instead of hard rubber, which made its ride unusually smooth on the rough cobbled streets that slanted down to Newport’s waterfront. No one took note in the dim light of the thinly scattered gas lamps that the driver clutching the brake handle cut too slight and boyish a figure to heave hundred-pound blocks of ice onto a fishing dock. And if anyone thought it odd that the driver was singing to her horses,
“You can’t remember
what I can’t forget,”
in a soft soprano, they kept their opinions to themselves. The seamen of Newport had been smuggling rum, tobacco, slaves, and opium for three hundred years. If a girl wanted to entertain her horses while delivering ice to a boat in the dark, that was her business.
The boat was a rugged, broad-beamed, thirty-foot catboat with a stubby mast ahead of a low coach roof. With its gaff-rigged sail that was nearly square, and a centerboard instead of a fixed keel, it was faster than it looked and equally at home in shallow bays and off the coast. A gang of men in slickers and wool watch caps climbed out of the cabin.
While the girl stood watch with her hands buried in her pockets, the men drew the canvas off the ice wagon’s cargo, inclined a ramp of planks between the wagon and dock, and gently slid four seventeen-foot-long, cigar-shaped metal tubes down the ramp one by one. They shifted the ramp and slid all four into the boat, and lashed them securely to a cushioned bed of canvas sails.
When they were done, the wide wooden hull squatted low in the water. All but one of the men climbed into the wagon and drove away. The man who stayed raised the sail and untied the mooring lines.
The girl took the tiller and sailed the boat skillfully off the dock and into the night.
THAT SAME NIGHT—the westbound Overland Limited’s first night out of Chicago—reports waiting for Bell at Rock Island, Illinois, confirmed that the gem merchant Riker had indeed boarded the California Limited to San Diego. Still disliking coincidences, Bell wired Horace Bronson, head of the San Francisco office, asking him to assign James Dashwood, a young operative who had proven himself on the Wrecker case, to intercept the California Limited at Los Angeles. Dashwood should see whether Riker actually continued on to San Diego to purchase pink tourmaline gems or changed trains to San Francisco. Regardless, the young detective would trail Riker and observe his subsequent actions. Bell warned Bronson that Riker was traveling with a bodyguard named Plimpton, who would be watching his back.
Then he wired Research back in New York, asking for more information on the death of Riker’s father in South Africa and urging Grady Forrer to step up the hunt for information about his ward.
Laurence Rosania’s disappearance upon arrival had set off a frantic manhunt. But when Bell reached Des Moines, Iowa, the information was waiting that the retired thief—after giving his Van Dorn shadows the slip out of habit or professional pride—had been written up in the Chicago Tribune marriage announcements and was scheduled to steam toward a San Francisco honeymoon in his bride’s private car. So much for admonishing youth that crime did not pay, noted the Chicago Van Dorn headquarters.
Herr Shafer, Arnold Bennett, and Bennett’s Chinese companions had transferred to the Overland Limited to San Francisco, and it was with them that Bell continued on the journey west, hoping to pick up additional information from Research at the station stops along with what he could detect in their presence.
Then New York wired that Shafer was definitely a German spy.
“Herr Shafer” was an active cavalry officer, still serving as a major in the German Army. His real name was Cornelius Von Nyren. And Von Nyren was expert in land tactics and the use of quickly laid narrow-gauge railroads to supply an army’s front lines. Whatever he was spying on in America had nothing to do with Hull 44.
“Formidable on land,” Archie wrote. “But wouldn’t know a dreadnought from a birch-bark canoe.”
37
CHINESE TO THE BACK OF THE LINE!”
It was the second morning out of Chicago, the Overland Limited drawing near Cheyenne, Wyoming, and something was wrong with the dining car. The corridor in the Pullman behind it backed up with hungry people in line for a breakfast already an hour late.
“You heard me! Chinks, Mongolians, and Asiatics to the back!”
“Stay where you are,” Isaac Bell said to the divinity students.
Arnold Bennett was whirling to their defense. Bell stopped him. “I’ll deal with this.” At last a chance to get to know Arnold Bennett’s charges, Harold and Louis. He turned around and faced the bigot who had shouted. The cold anger in Bell’s blue eyes, and the unmistakable impression that it was barely contained, caused the man to back away.
“Don’t mind him,” the tall detective told the divinity students. “People get testy when they’re hungry. What’s your name, young fellow,” he asked, thrusting his hand out. “I’m Isaac Bell.”
“Harold, Misser Bell. Thank you.”
“Harold what?”
“Harold Wing.”
“And you?”
“Louis Loh.”
“L-e-w Lewis or L-o-u Louis?”
“L-o-u.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
“Little wonder that unpleasant chap is hungry,” growled Arnold Bennett, who was standing first in line. “The breakfasting accommodation of this particular unit of the Overland Limited was not designed on the same scale as its bedroom accommodation.”
Isaac Bell winked at Louis and Harold, who looked bewildered by Bennett’s densely circuitous English. “Mr. Arnold means that there are more sleeping berths in the Pullmans than chairs in the diner.”
The students nodded with vague smiles.
“They had better open that dining car,” Bennett muttered. “Before it’s put to the sack by ravening hordes.”
“Did you sleep well?” Bell asked Harold and Louis. “Are you getting used to the motion?”
“Very well, sir,” said Louis.
“Despite,” said Bennett, “my warning about jerky trains.”
The dining car finally opened for breakfast, and Bell sat with them. The Chinese were silent as sphinxes no matter what Bell said to draw them into conversation while the writer was happy to talk nonstop about everything he saw, read, or overheard. Wing took a small Bible from his coat and read quietly. Loh stared out the window at a land growing green in the spring and speckled with cattle.
ISAAC BELL LAY IN WAIT for Louis Loh in the corridor outside Arnold Bennett’s staterooms.
West of Rawlins, Wyoming, the Overland Limited was increasing speed across the high plateau. The locomotive fireman was pouring on the coal, and at eighty miles an hour the train swayed hard. When Bell saw the Chinese divinity student coming down the corridor, he let the careening train throw him against the smaller man.
“Sorry!”
He steadied himself by holding Loh’s lapel. “Did they issue your pocket pist
ol at the seminary?”
“What?”
“This bulge is not a Bible.”
The Chinese student appeared to shrivel with embarrassment. “Oh, no, sir. You are right. It is a gun. It is just that I am afraid. In the West, there is much hatred of Chinese. You saw at the breakfasting car. They think we’re all opium addicts or tong gangsters.”
“Do you know how to use that thing?”
They were standing inches apart, Bell leaning close, still holding his lapel, the youth unable to back away. Louis lowered his dark eyes. “Not really, sir. I guess just point it and pull the trigger—but it is the threat that is important. I would never shoot it.”
“May I see it, please?” Bell asked, extending his open hand.
Louis looked around, confirmed they were still alone, and gingerly drew the pistol from his pocket. Bell took it. “Top-quality firearm,” he said, surprised that the student had found himself a Colt Pocket Hammerless that looked fresh out of the box. “Where did you get it?”
“I bought it in New York City.”
“You bought a good one. Where in New York City?”
“A shop near the police headquarters. Downtown.”
Bell made sure the manual safety was on and handed it back. “You can get hurt waving a gun around you don’t know how to use. You might shoot yourself by mistake. Or someone will take it away and do it for you—and get off by claiming self-defense. I would rest easier if you would promise to put it in your suitcase and leave it there.”
“Yes, sir, Misser Bell.”
“If anyone else on the train gives you trouble, just come to me.”
“Please don’t tell Mr. Bennett. He wouldn’t understand.”
“Why not?”
“He is kind man. He has no idea how cruel people are.”
“Put it in your suitcase, and I won’t tell him a thing.”
Louis seized Bell’s hand in both of his. “Thank you, sir. Thank you for understanding.”
Bell’s face was a mask. “Go put it in your suitcase,” he repeated. The Chinese man hurried down the corridor and through the vestibule to the next car, where Bennett had his adjoining staterooms. Louis turned and waved another grateful thank-you. Bell nodded back as if thinking, What a pious young fellow.
In truth, he was speculating that the boyish-looking missionary students could be tong gangsters. And if that were so, he had to marvel at John Scully’s clairvoyance.
No other detective in the Van Dorn Agency could wander alone into Chinatown and two weeks later connect a pair of tong gangsters to the Hull 44 spy ring. He was tempted to clamp cuffs on Louis Loh and Harold Wing and lock them in the baggage car. Except he doubted that Louis and Harold were ringleaders if gangsters at all—and if they were henchmen, he could trail them to their boss.
That the spy recruited tong Chinese was typical of his international reach. It was hard to imagine someone like Abbington-Westlake even thinking about it. That the spy had tricked a famous English novelist into providing cover for his operatives indicated an imagination as intricate as it was diabolical.
“BET’S TO YOU, WHITMARK. In or out?”
Ted Whitmark knew full well that he should never stay in a hand of seven-card stud trying to fill an inside straight. The odds were ridiculous. He needed a four. There were only four fours in the deck, one heart, one diamond, one spade, one club. And the four of clubs had already been dealt to a hand across the table, and that man had bet when it fell, suggesting another four hidden in his hole cards. Four fours in a deck, one clearly missing, another likely. The odds were less than ridiculous, they were impossible.
But he had dropped a ton of money into the pot already and he had a feeling his luck was about to change. It had to. His losing streak had started weeks ago in New York, and it was tearing him down. He had lost more on the train to San Francisco, and since he had arrived he had lost nearly every night. One four gone. One or even two likely gone. Sometimes you had to take the bull by the horns and be brave.
“Bet’s to you, Whitmark. In or out?”
No more “Mr.” Whitmark, Ted noticed. Mr. had gone by the boards when he borrowed his third five thousand early in the evening. Sometimes you had to be brave.
“In.”
“It’s eight thousand.”
Whitmark shoved his chips in the pot. “Here’s three. And here’s my marker.”
“You sure?”
“Deal the cards.”
The man dealing looked across the table not at Ted Whitmark but at the scarred-face owner of the Barbary Coast casino who had been approving the loans. The owner frowned. For a moment, Whitmark felt saved. He could not call if he didn’t have the money. He would fold. He could go back to his hotel, sleep, and tomorrow work out a schedule to pay his losses from money the Navy would owe him after he delivered the goods to the Great White Fleet. Or Great White “Eat,” as one of his rivals had noted approvingly. Fourteen thousand sailors ate a lot of food.
The casino owner nodded.
“Deal the cards.”
The guy with the four caught another four. Whitmark got a nine of clubs, about as ugly a card as he had ever seen. Somebody bet. Somebody called. The fours raised the pot. Ted Whitmark folded.
“You mind showing me your last card after the hand?” he asked of the man to his left.
When it was over and three fours across the table had won, the man to Ted’s left, who had received the card Ted would have if he had stayed in, said, “It was a four. Bet you would have liked that,” he called across the table to the trip fours. You would have had four fours.”
“I would have liked it, too,” said Ted, and he stumbled to the bar. Before he could raise a glass, the man who owned the casino walked up and said, “I have a message for you from Tommy Thompson in New York.”
Ted shrank from the man’s cold gaze. “Don’t worry,” he mumbled. “I’ll pay you first, soon as I can.”
“Tommy says to pay me. I bought your marker.”
“On top of what I owe you? You’re taking a hell of chance.”
“You’ll pay. One way or another.”
“I make a lot of money. I’ll get it to you, soon.”
“It’s not money I need, Mr. Whitmark. I need a little help, and you’re the man to give it to me.”
“IF ME AND YOU was half as smart as we think we are we’d have tumbled to it a month ago!” John Scully’s words thundered through a dream about the Frye Boys.
Isaac Bell shot awake from his first full night’s sleep since he had left New York. The berth was tilted forward, and he did not have to look out his stateroom window to know that they had crested the Sierra Nevada and were beginning the descent to the Sacramento Valley. Five hours to San Francisco. He got up and dressed quickly.
Had he missed a bet?
“Days ago,” he muttered to himself.
He had not once questioned the novelist Arnold Bennett’s role as Harold’s and Louis’s protector. What if the opposite had occurred? What if the writer was also a British spy? Like Abbington-Westlake, hiding behind a scrim of upper-crust, above-it-all mannerisms and a witty tongue?
The train pulled into Sacramento. Bell bolted to the telegraph office and sent a wire to New York. Was Bennett the one who recruited the tong hatchet men and dressed them up as divinity students? Talk about hiding in plain sight. For all he knew, Bell realized, Arnold Bennett was the spy himself, the leader of the ring.
KATHERINE DEE cursed aloud.
Like a sailor, she laughed, giddy on little sleep and lots of dust. Cursing like a sailor. Wind and spray were playing hell with the cocaine she was sniffing from an ivory vial to stay awake on the final night of her voyage from Newport. She could not see the coast, but the thunder of the surf told her she had she veered too close.
She had sailed the heavily laden catboat down the southern coast of Long Island, timing her passage from Montauk Point to enter Fire Island Inlet at first light. She steered, unseen except by some fishermen, through the
opening in the barrier beach. Once inside, out of the ocean swells, she followed a channel marked with stakes and watched for her landmark on the Long Island shore five miles across the bay. When she spotted it, she crossed the choppy waters of the Great South Bay steering for a white mansion with a red roof. Stakes marked the mouth of a newly dredged creek bulkheaded with creosoted wood.
The catboat glided up the glassy creek.
The boathouse was clad in new cedar shingles. The roof was tall, the opening high enough to accommodate the low mast. Katherine Dee lowered her sail and let the boat drift. She had timed it just right. It stopped close enough for her to toss a looped line around a piling. Pulling on the line, directing her strength with economy, she eased the heavily laden boat stern first into the shadows under the roof.
A man appeared through the back door that opened to the land.
“Where’s Jake?”
“He tried to kiss me,” she answered in a distant voice.
“Yeah?” he said, as if to say, You’re a girl, what do expect alone on a boat in the middle of the ocean? “So where is he?”
She looked him full in the face. “A shark jumped into the boat and ate him.”
He considered the way her smile stiffened her mouth, the iceberg grimness in her eyes, and the people she knew, and decided that Jake had gotten what he deserved, and he was not at all interested in how it had happened. He held up a wicker basket. “I brought you supper.”
“Thank you.”
“I brought enough for two. Not knowing that—”
“Good. I’m starving.”
She ate alone. Then she spread her sleeping bag on the canvas cushioning her cargo and slept secure in the thought that Brian O’Shay would be proud of her. The explosion at the torpedo factory had masked the theft of four experimental electric torpedoes that had been imported from England for research. Armed with TNT by the brilliant Ron Wheeler, they were ten times more powerful than the English had made them. And no one at the Newport Naval Torpedo Station realized that they had not been blown to smithereens.