He sensed someone walking toward him and knew who it was even before he smelled her perfume.
“My darling,” he called without turning his bleak gaze from the water, “I’m up against a mastermind.”
“A ‘Napoleon of crime’?” Marion Morgan asked.
“That’s what Archie calls him. And he’s right.”
“Napoleon had to pay his soldiers.”
“I know,” Bell said bleakly. “Think like a banker. That hasn’t gotten me very far.”
“There is something else to remember,” said Marion. “Napoleon may have been a mastermind, but in the end he lost.”
Bell turned around to look at her. Half expecting a sympathetic smile, he saw instead a big grin filled with hope and belief. She was incredibly beautiful, her eyes alight, her hair shining as if she had bathed in sunlight. He could not help but smile back at her. Suddenly, his smile exploded into a grin as broad at hers.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Thank you for reminding me that Napoleon lost.”
She had set his mind churning again. He scooped her exuberantly into his arms, winced from the lingering pain of Philip Dow’s bullet to his right arm, and shifted her smoothly into his unscathed left.
“Once again I have to leave you right after you arrive. But this time it’s your fault because you really made me think.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going back to New York to interrogate every banker in the railroad business. If there’s an answer to the riddle of why he is attacking this railroad, it will come from Wall Street.”
“Isaac?” Marion took his hand, “Why don’t you go to Boston?”
“The biggest banks are in New York. Hennessy and Joe Van Dorn can pull strings. I’ll start with J. P. Morgan and work my way down.”
“The American States Bank is in Boston.”
“No.”
“Isaac, why not ask your father? He is vastly experienced in finance. When I worked in banking, he was a legend.”
Bell shook his head. “I’ve told you that my father was not happy that I became a detective. In truth, he was heartbroken. Men who are legends hope their sons will continue building on the foundations that they laid. I do not regret going my own way. But I have no right to ask him to forgive me.”
Bell hurried to Osgood Hennessy’s private car to ask him to make arrangements in New York. He found him in a gloomy state of worry and defeat. Franklin Mowery was with him. Both men appeared shattered. And they seemed to reinforce each other’s pessimism.
“Ninety percent of my cutoff is on the far side of the bridge,” the railroad president mourned. “All in place for the final push. Track, coal, ties, creosote plant, roundhouse, locomotives, machine shops. All on the wrong side of a bridge that won’t hold a wheelbarrow. I’m whipped.”
Even the normally cheerful Mrs. Comden seemed defeated. Still, she tried to buck him up, saying sympathetically, “Perhaps it is time to let Nature take her course. Winter is coming. You can start fresh next year. Start over in the spring.”
“I’ll be dead by spring.”
Lillian Hennessy’s eyes flashed angrily. She exchanged a grim look with Isaac Bell. Then she sat down at the telegraph table and perched her fingers on the key.
“Father,” she said, “I better wire the Sacramento shop.”
“Sacramento?” Hennessy asked distractedly. “What for?”
“They’ve finished fabricating truss rods for the Cascade Canyon Bridge. So they have time to build a pair of rocking chairs.”
“Rocking chairs? What the devil for?”
“For retirement. For two of the sorriest geezers I ever saw in my life. Let’s build a porch on the roundhouse you can rock on.”
“Now, hold on, Lillian.”
“You’re giving up, just like the Wrecker wants.”
Hennessy turned to Mowery and asked him, with little hope in his voice, “Is there any chance of shoring up those piers?”
“Winter’s closing in,” Mowery muttered. “We’ve got Pacific storms bearing down on us, water’s already rising.”
“Mr. Mowery?” Lillian purred through clenched teeth. “What color would you like your rocking chair painted?”
“You don’t understand, little lady!”
“I understand the difference between giving up and fighting back.”
Mowery stared at the carpet.
“Answer my father!” Lillian demanded. “Is there any chance of shoring those piers before they collapse?”
Mowery blinked. He tugged a sail-sized handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his eyes.
“We could try building flow deflectors,” he said.
“How?”
“Spur dikes off the bank. Harden the bank with riprap. And riprap upstream and downstream of the piers. The same riprapping that double-crossing little bas—was supposed to install properly. We might try collar plates, I suppose.” He picked up a pencil and half heartedly drew a sketch of flow deflectors steering the river currents around the piers.
“But that’s only short-term,” Hennessy countered gloomily. “‘Til the first flood. What about long-term?”
“Long-term, we would somehow have to try to extend the depth of the pier footings. Straight to bedrock, if we can locate it. But at least below the depth of streambed scour.”
“But the piers are already in place,” groaned Hennessy.
“I know.” Mowery looked over at Lillian. “You see, Miss Lillian, we’d have to sink all new caissons for the sandhogs to excavate”—he drew a picture showing the base of the piers surrounded by watertight chambers in which men could work beneath the river—“but before we could even start sinking caissons we’d have to erect coffer dams, temporary protection around the piers to keep the river out, here and here. See? We haven’t the time.”
He dropped the pencil and reached for his walking stick.
Before Mowery could stand, Bell leaned over him and put his fin ger firmly on the sketch.
“These coffer dams look like those collar plates. Could coffer dams deflect flow?”
“Of course!” Mowery snapped. “But the point—”
The old engineer’s voice trailed off midsentence. He stared. Then his eyes began to gleam. He pushed his walking stick aside and snapped up a pencil.
Isaac Bell shoved a fresh sheet of paper toward him.
Mowery scribbled frantically.
“Look here, Osgood! To the devil with short-term. We’ll build the caissons straight off. Shape their coffer dams to function as flow deflectors, too. Better than collar plates, when you think about it.”
“How long?” asked Hennessy.
“At least two weeks, round-the-clock, to put the coffer dams in place. Maybe three.”
“Weather’s getting worse.”
“I’ll need every hand you can spare.”
“I’ve got a thousand in the yard with nothing to do.”
“We’ll riprap here and here, harden the bank.”
“Just pray we don’t get a flood.”
“Extend this spur deflector . . .”
Neither the bridge builder nor the railroad president noticed when Isaac Bell and Lillian Hennessy retreated silently from what had blossomed into a full-fledged engineering conference.
“Nice work, Lillian,” Bell said. “You stirred them up.”
“I realized I had better insure my financial future if I’m going to be courted by a penniless detective.”
“Would you like that?”
“I think I would, Isaac.”
“More than a candidate for president.”
“Something tells me it would be more exciting.”
“In that case, I’ve got good news for you: I’ve wired Archie to come take over for me.”
“Archie’s coming here?” She seized Bell’s hands in hers. “Oh, Isaac, thank you. That’s wonderful.”
Bell’s golden mustache fanned open with his first carefree smile since they discovere
d the catastrophe of the sabotaged piers.
“You must promise not to distract him too much. We still haven’t caught the Wrecker.”
“But if Archie is taking over here, where are you going?”
“Wall Street.”
43
ISAAC BELL RACED ACROSS THE CONTINENT IN FOUR AND A HALF days. He took limited flyers when he could and chartered specials when the trains ran slow. He made the final eighteen-hour dash on the Broadway Limited, proudly named for the broad, four-tracked roadbed between Chicago and New York.
On the ferry to Manhattan, he saw how quickly Jersey City and the railroads were repairing the damage from the Wrecker’s dynamite explosion. The station roof was already replaced, and a new pier was rising where less than three weeks ago he had seen the blackened stumps of pilings submerged by the tide. The wrecked ships were gone, and while many windows were still covered with raw boards many more gleamed with new glass. The sight filled him with hope at first, reminding him that back in the Oregon Cascades Hennessy and Mowery were driving round-the-clock work gangs to save the Cascade Canyon Bridge. But, he admitted soberly, their task was vastly more difficult, if not downright impossible. The bridge’s very foundations were sabotaged. And the Wrecker was still at large, determined to wreak more damage.
Bell disembarked at Liberty Street and walked quickly to nearby Wall Street. On the corner of Broad stood the white marble headquarters of J. P. Morgan & Company.
“Isaac Bell to see Mr. Morgan.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
Bell opened his gold watch. “Mr. Joseph Van Dorn arranged our meeting for ten this morning. Your clock is slow.”
“Oh yes, of course, Mr. Bell. Sadly, however, Mr. Morgan had an abrupt change of plans. He is on the boat to England.”
“Who did he leave in his place?”
“Well, no one can take his place, but there is a gentleman who might be able to help you. Mr. Brooks.”
A messenger boy led Bell into the bowels of the building. He sat for nearly an hour in Brooks’s waiting room, which offered a view of a nickel-clad, steel-barred vault guarded by two armed men. He passed the time by working out the details of two foolproof robberies, a day job and a night job. Finally, he was ushered into Brooks’s office.
Brooks was short, compact, and curt. He greeted Bell irritably, without apology for keeping him waiting.
“Your meeting with Mr. Morgan was arranged without my knowledge. I’ve been instructed to answer your queries. I am a very busy man, and I cannot imagine what information I can impart to a detective.”
“I have one simple question,” said Bell. “Who would gain if the Southern Pacific Railroad Company went bankrupt?”
Brooks’s eyes gleamed with predatory interest.
“Do you have information to support that inference?”
“I infer nothing,” Bell retorted sternly before inadvertently injecting a fresh element into the endless battle to consolidate the railroads, and undermining Hennessy’s reputation in the marketplace. “I am asking who would gain if that event were to occur?”
“Let me get this straight, Detective. You have no information that Osgood Hennessy is in a weakened position?”
“Absolutely none.”
The interest slid out of Brooks’s eyes.
“Of course not,” he said sullenly. “Hennessy has been impregnable for thirty years.”
“If he were not—”
“If! If! If! Banking is not a business of ifs, Mr.”—he pretended to glance at Bell’s card as if to jog his memory—“Bell. Banking is a business of facts. Bankers do not speculate. Bankers act upon certainties. Hennessy speculates. Hennessy blunders ahead.”
“And yet,” Bell said mildly, “you say that Hennessy is impregnable.”
“He is crafty.”
Bell saw he was wasting his time. Closemouthed, and angling for profit, bankers like this one would give nothing to a stranger.
Brooks stood up abruptly. He stared down his nose at Bell, and said, “Frankly, I don’t understand why Mr. Morgan would waste his time answering a detective’s questions. I suppose it is another example of his overly kind nature.”
“Mr. Morgan is not kind,” Bell said, containing his anger as he rose to his full height. “Mr. Morgan is intelligent. He knows that he can learn valuable information by listening to another man’s questions. Which is why Mr. Morgan is your boss and you are his flunky.”
“Well! How dare—”
“Good day!”
Bell stalked out of J. P. Morgan’s building and across the street to his next meeting.
Half an hour later, he stalked out of that one, too, and if another banker had rubbed him the wrong way at that exact moment, he would have punched him in the mouth or simply shot him with his derringer. The thought provoked a rueful grin, and he stopped in the middle of the crowded sidewalk to consider if it would even be worth it to keep his next appointment.
“You look perplexed.”
Standing before him—gazing up with a warm, impish smile—was a handsome, dark-haired man in his early forties. He wore an expensive coat with a fur collar and on his head a yarmulka—a small, round disk of a velvet hat that bespoke the Hebrew faith.
“I am perplexed,” said Bell. “Who are you, sir?”
“I am Andrew Rubenoff.” He thrust out his hand. “And you are Isaac Bell.”
Astonished, Bell asked, “How did you know?”
“Sheer coincidence. Not coincidence that I recognize you. Just coincidence that I saw you standing here. Looking perplexed.”
“How did you recognize me?”
“Your photograph.”
Bell made a point of avoiding photographers. As he had reminded Marion, a detective had no use for a famous face.
Rubenoff smiled his understanding. “Not to worry. I have only seen your photograph on your father’s desk.”
“Ah. You’ve done business with my father.”
Rubenoff waggled his hand in a yes-and-no gesture. “On occasion, we consult.”
“You’re a banker?”
“So I am told,” he said. “In truth, when I arrived from Russia, I was not impressed by New York’s Lower East Side, so I took a train across the country. In San Francisco, I opened a saloon. Eventually, I met a pretty girl whose father owned a bank, and the rest is a very pleasant history.”
“Would you have time to join me at lunch?” said Isaac Bell. “I need to talk to a banker.”
“I am already spoken for lunch. But we can have tea in my offices.”
Rubenoff’s offices were around the corner on Rector Street, which the police had blocked off so a grand piano could be hoisted safely from an electric GMC moving van up to the fifth story, where a window had been removed. The open window belonged to Rubenoff, who ignored the commotion as he ushered Bell in. Through the gaping hole in his wall poured first a cold Hudson River wind, then the swaying black piano accompanied by the shouts of the movers. A matronly secretary brought tea in tall glasses.
Bell explained his mission.
“So,” said Rubenoff. “It’s not at all a coincidence. You would have found me eventually after others showed you the door. That I recognized you saves time and trouble.”
“I’m grateful for your help,” said Bell. “I got nowhere at Morgan. The boss was away.”
“Bankers are clannish,” said Rubenoff. “They band together, even though they dislike and distrust one another. The elegant bankers of Boston dislike the brash New Yorkers. The Protestants distrust the German Jews. The German Jews dislike Russian Jews like me. Dislike and distrust make the world go round. But enough philosophy. What precisely do you want to know?”
“Everyone agrees that Osgood Hennessy is impregnable. Is he?”
“Ask your father.”
“I beg your pardon, sir.”
“You heard me,” he said sternly. “Don’t ignore the finest advice you could get in New York City. Ask your father. Give him my regards. And that i
s all you will hear from Andrew Rubenoff on the subject. I don’t know if Hennessy is impregnable. Up until last year, I would have known, but I have gotten out of railroads. I put my money into automobiles and moving pictures. Good day, Isaac.”
He stood up and went to the piano. “I will play you out.”
Bell did not want to travel to Boston to ask his father. He wanted his answers here and now from Rubenoff, whom he suspected knew more than he admitted. He said, “The movers just left. Don’t you need to tune it first?”
In answer, Rubenoff’s hands flew at the keys, and four chords boomed in perfect harmony.
“Mr. Mason and Mr. Hamlin build pianos you can ride over Niagara Falls before you have to tune them... Your father, young Isaac. Go talk to your father.”
Bell caught the subway to Grand Central Terminal, wired his father that he was coming, and boarded the New England Railroad’s famous “White Train” flyer. He remembered it well from his student days, riding it down to New Haven. They had called the gleaming express the Ghost Train.
Six hours later, he disembarked at Boston’s new South Station, a gigantic, pink-hued stone temple to railroad power. He took an elevator five stories to the station’s top floor and checked in with Van Dorn’s Boston office. His father had wired back: “I hope you can stay with me.” By the time he made his way to his father’s Greek Revival town house on Louisburg Square, it was after nine.
Padraic Riley, the elderly butler who had managed the Bell home since before Isaac was born, opened the polished front door. They greeted each other warmly.
“Your father is at table,” said Riley. “He thought you might enjoy a late supper.”
“I’m famished,” Bell admitted. “How is he?”
“Very much himself,” said Riley, discreet as ever.
Bell paused in the drawing room.
“Wish me luck,” he muttered to his mother’s portrait. Then he squared his shoulders and went through to the dining room, where the tall, spare figure of his father unfolded storklike from his chair at the head of the table.