“You new in town, Mr. Bell?” asked O’Leery, a big, brawny Irishman.
“Yes, I arrived on the six-thirty train from Phoenix.”
“Business or pleasure?” O’Leery probed.
“Business. I’m an agent with the Van Dorn Detective Agency.”
They all looked up from their cards and stared at Bell with inquisitive interest.
“Let me guess,” said Crum, folding his hands over a rotund belly. “You’re looking into the bank robbery and murders that took place four months ago.”
Bell nodded as he fanned his hand and examined his cards. “You are correct, sir.”
Latour spoke in a French accent as he lit a cigar. “A little late, aren’t you? The trail is cold.”
“No colder than it was five minutes after the crime,” Bell countered. “I’ll take two cards.”
Calloway dealt as the players called out the number of cards they hoped would give them a winning hand. “A mystery, that one,” he said. “No trace of the bandit was ever found.”
“Uncanny,” O’Leery said as he inspected his hand, his expression revealing he had nothing worth betting on. “I fold.” His eyes briefly met Bell’s. “Uncanny that he could escape into thin air.”
“The sheriff found no sign of his trail,” muttered Crum. “The posse returned to town looking as if their wives had run off with a band of traveling salesmen.” He paused. “I’ll bet two dollars.”
“I’ll raise you three dollars,” offered Calloway.
Latour threw his hand toward the dealer. “I’m out.”
“And you, Mr. Bell,” inquired Calloway, “are you still in?”
Bell was amused that the stakes were not high, but not penny-ante either. “I’ll call.”
“Two queens,” announced Crum.
“Two tens,” said Calloway. “You beat me.” He turned. “Mr. Bell?”
“Two eights,” Bell said, passing his cards facedown to Calloway. Bell had not lost. He held three jacks, but he thought that losing would bring him closer to the other men’s confidence. “Was there any clue to how the robber escaped?”
“Nothing I ever heard of,” replied O’Leery. “Last time I talked to the sheriff, he was baffled.”
“That would be Sheriff Hunter?” Bell inquired, recalling what he read in the agency report.
“Joe Hunter died from a bad heart two months after the murders,” answered Latour. “The new sheriff is Stan Murphy, who was Hunter’s chief deputy. He knows what went on as well as anybody.”
“As nice as they come, if he likes you,” Crum said. “But get on his bad side and he’ll chew you to bits.”
“I’d like to talk with him, but I doubt if he’ll be in his office on the Sabbath,” said Bell, not mentioning the discouraging comments of Murphy’s deputy. “Where might I find him?”
“We had a bad flood through town two weeks ago,” replied Calloway. “His house was badly damaged. I suspect you’ll find him up to his neck in repairs.”
“Can you give me directions to his house?”
O’Leery waved a hand toward the north. “Just go up to the end of Howland Street and take the stairs. The house is painted green and has a small grove of orange trees alongside.”
The talk moved to politics and whether Teddy Roosevelt could run for a third term in 1908 and, if not, whom he would pick as his successor. Bell lost three hands for every hand he won, easily putting the other men at ease as they realized the stranger was no gambling cardsharp. He swung the conversation back to the bank murders.
“Seems strange that no one saw the robber leaving the bank or riding out of town,” said Bell idly as he played his cards.
“Nobody came forward,” said O’Leery.
“And none saw the bandit enter or leave the bank,” Latour added.
“There was an old drunken miner that hung around across the street from the bank,” answered Calloway, “but he disappeared soon afterward.”
“Sheriff Hunter did not consider him a suspect?”
Latour had no luck. He folded for the fifth time since Bell sat down at the table. “An old miner who was all played out and looked like he wasn’t long for this world? He was the last one the townspeople thought had anything to do with the crime.”
“More than once, I saw him sprawled on a sidewalk, drunk out of his mind,” said O’Leery. “He couldn’t have robbed a bank and murdered three people any more than I could become governor. I still think it was an inside job pulled off by someone we all know.”
“It might have been a stranger,” Bell said.
Calloway shrugged negatively. “Bisbee has twenty thousand inhabitants. Who’s to recognize a stranger?”
“What about that fellow on a motorcycle?” Crum asked no one in particular.
“There was a motorcycle in town?” asked Bell, his interest aroused.
“Jack Carson said he saw a dandy riding one.” Crum threw down a winning hand with a flush.
