The conference room stretched nearly thirty feet and flowed fifteen feet to the side. A long pine table, stained dark and with a polished surface, sat beneath two massive, circular chandeliers. Eighteen leather captain’s chairs were spaced evenly around it. The room was paneled in pine that matched the table, the floor carpeted with deep red pile. High windows rose on one wall, allowing the early-afternoon sunlight to illuminate every corner of the room.
“Very nice,” said Bell, impressed. “Very nice.”
“Yes,” said Alexander with pride showing in his bloodhound eyes. “I use it frequently for meetings with politicians and influential people in the city. It gives the Van Dorn Detective Agency significant respect and an image of importance.”
“It will do nicely,” Bell said matter-of-factly. “I’ll work in here.”
Alexander looked directly at Bell, a fiery look in his eyes that suddenly glowed with anger. “That’s not possible. I won’t permit it.”
“Where is the nearest telegraph office?”
Alexander seemed taken back. “Two blocks south on Sixteenth Street and Champa. Why?”
“I’ll send a message to Mr. Van Dorn requesting the use of your conference room as an operations center. Considering the importance of the case, I’m sure he will give it his blessing.”
Alexander knew when he was licked. “I wish you well, Mr. Bell,” he conceded. “I will cooperate with you any way I can.” He then turned and left Bell to return to his suite in the corner. He paused in the doorway. “Oh, by the way, I’ve reserved a room for you at the Albany Hotel.”
Bell smiled. “That won’t be necessary. I’ve booked a suite at the Brown Palace.”
Alexander appeared confused. “I can’t believe Mr. Van Dorn would allow that on your expense account.”
“He didn’t. I’m paying for it out of my own funds.”
Not aware of Bell’s prosperous situation, the superintendent of the western states looked completely bewildered. Unable to comprehend, but not wanting to ask questions, he returned to his office in a daze and closed the door, utterly defeated.
Bell smiled again and began spreading out the papers he’d carried in the valise on the conference table. Then he stepped into the anteroom and approached Agnes Murphy. “Agnes, could you let me know when Curtis and Irvine show up?”
“I don’t expect them back until tomorrow morning. They went up to Boulder on a bank fraud case.”
“All right, then. And would you call the building maintenance superintendent and have him come up? I have some alterations to make in the conference room.”
She looked at him questioningly. “Did you say the conference room? Mr. Alexander seldom allows the help to step inside. He keeps it mostly to entertain the town bigwigs.”
“While I’m here, it will be my office.”
Agnes looked at Bell with newly found respect. “Will you be staying at the Albany Hotel? That’s where most all visiting agents stay.”
“No, the Brown Palace.”
“Mr. Alexander consented to the extra expenditure?” she asked warily.
“He had no say in the matter.”
Agnes Murphy stared after him as if she had just seen the Messiah.
Isaac Bell returned to his office and rearranged the chairs to the conference table so he could have a large work space at one end. After a few minutes, the building superintendent arrived. Bell explained the alterations he wished to make in the room. The end wall was to have a layer of soft material so a map of the western states and towns the killer had hit could be pinned to it. Another layer was to be installed on the inside wall for information, photos, and drawings. The superintendent, after Bell had offered him a twenty-dollar gold piece, promised to have the installation accomplished by noon the next day.
Bell spent the rest of the afternoon organizing and planning his hunt for the bank killer.
At precisely five o’clock, Alexander stuck his head in the door on his way home. “Are you settling in all right?” he asked icily.
Bell did not bother to look up. “Yes, thank you.” He finally looked into Alexander’s angry eyes. “By the way, I’m making some changes in the room. I hope you don’t mind. I promise to put it back exactly the way it was when the case is closed.”
“Please see that you do.” Alexander swung his head in a gesture of dismissal and left the office.
Bell was not happy that things were not going well between Alexander and him. He had not planned to get in a game of quarrelsome loggerheads with the head of the agency’s office, but if he hadn’t gone on the attack he knew that Alexander would have walked all over him.
5
BUILT IN 1892 BY HENRY C. BROWN ON THE SPOT where he used to pasture his cow before he struck it rich, the hotel was fittingly named the Brown Palace, for the “Queen City of the Plains,” as Denver was called. Constructed of red granite and sandstone, the building was in the shape of a ship’s bow. The men who made their fortunes in gold and silver stayed there with their wives, who took afternoon tea, and their daughters, who danced away the nights at opulent balls. Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt had stayed there, as well as a few emperors and kings and other members of foreign royalty, not to mention the celebrities of the time, particularly famous stage
