twenty-four-hour surveillance.”
“That means their every movement outside their palace on Nob Hill,” added Bronson.
One agent held up a hand. “Sir, we’ll need photos for identification, since most of us have no idea of what they look like.”
Bronson picked up a bulky file on the table. “Photographs of them were taken while they were out and about town.”
“Who took them?” asked Bell.
Bronson smiled and nodded at one of his agents across the table. “Dick Crawford here is an ace photographer.”
“Didn’t the Cromwells get suspicious about a photographer following them around, shooting their picture?” asked Carter.
Bronson nodded at Crawford. “Dick, tell everyone how you pulled it off without them getting wise.”
Crawford had a narrow saturnine face with a small jaw and bushy eyebrows beneath a bald head. A serious man, he did not show any humorous disposition. “I wore coveralls and carried a toolbox with a small hole cut out in one end for the camera lens. All I had to do was reach into the box to adjust the focus and shoot their picture. They didn’t have a clue and never so much as gave me a glance.” He then set a small camera on the table and explained its application. “What you see is a Kodak Quick Focus box camera that takes postcard-sized images.”
As Crawford talked, Bronson passed out photos of Jacob and Margaret Cromwell.
“You will note that the photos are remarkably sharp and distinct,” Crawford continued. “The unique feature of the camera is that, unlike other cameras with a set focus, I could set the distance using the small wheel you see on the side. Then all I had to do was press a button and the front of the lens would pop out to the correct distance for exposure.”
Everyone studied the photos. They showed the Cromwells, individually or together, walking down the street, coming out of stores and restaurants. Several photos were of Jacob Cromwell entering and exiting his bank. Two showed him speaking at the opening of his sanitarium for the elderly. Crawford even followed them to Lafayette Park and shot them walking along a path. Bell was particularly interested in the pictures showing Margaret behind the wheel of an exotic-looking car.
“A Mercedes Simplex,” he said admiringly. “The Cromwells have good taste in automobiles.”
Bronson examined the photos showing the car. “It looks expensive. How fast will it go?”
“At least seventy, maybe eighty, miles an hour,” replied Bell.
“I doubt if there is a car in San Francisco that could catch it in a chase,” said a bushy-haired agent at the end of the table.
“There is now,” Bell said, his lips spread in a grin. “It was unloaded from a freight car this morning.” He looked at Curtis. “Am I correct, Arthur?”
Curtis nodded. “Your automobile is sitting in the Southern Pacific freight warehouse. I hired a boy who works in the railyard to clean it up.”
“You sent a car here from…”
“Chicago,” Bell finished.
“I’m curious,” said Bronson. “What automobile is so special that you’d have it shipped all the way from Chicago?”
“A fast motorcar can come in handy. Besides, as it turns out, it’s more than a match for Cromwell’s Mercedes Simplex, should it come to a pursuit.”
“What make is it?” asked Crawford.
“A Locomobile,” answered Bell. “It was driven by Joe Tracy, who drove it to third place in the 1905 Vanderbilt Cup road race on Long Island.”
“How fast is it?” inquired Bronson.
“She’ll get up to a hundred and five miles an hour on a straight stretch.”
There came a hushed silence. Everyone around the table was astounded and disbelieving.
They had never seen or heard of anything that could go so fast. Professional auto races with competing factory cars had not come to the West Coast yet.
“Incredible,” said Bronson in awe. “I can’t imagine anything traveling a hundred miles an hour.”
“Can you drive it on the street?” asked Curtis.
Bell nodded. “I had fenders and headlamps installed and the transmission modified for street traffic.”
“You’ve got to give me a ride in it,” said Bronson.
Bell laughed. “I think it can be arranged.”
Bronson turned his interest back to the photos of the Cromwells. “Any thoughts on what the bandit will do next?”
“After Telluride,” said Curtis, “I would bet his days of robbery and murder have ended.”
“Sounds logical if he knows we’re onto him,” agreed Bronson.
“We can’t be sure of that if he thinks all witnesses to the fiasco in Telluride are dead, including me,” said Bell. “He is a crazy man, driven to rob and kill. I don’t believe he can ever stop cold. Cromwell believes his criminal acts can never be traced. He simply does not fit the mold of Black Bart, the James Gang, the Daltons, or Butch Cassidy. Compared to Cromwell, they were crude, backwoods amateurs.”
