“How long was the barrel?”
“Not so long it couldn’t come out of his holster real quick.”
“And it had a slot for the front sight?… Did you get a look at the trigger?”
“No. His finger was curled around it.”
“How big was the grip?”
“Let me think… The man had large hands, but I could see the butt— It was longer than most.”
“I think you were looking at a Bisley.”
“The target pistol?”
“Yes, that flat top is for mounting a rear windage sight. Fine, fine weapon. Very accurate.”
“It is, in my experience,” said Bell, remembering how close two pistol shots had come to killing him at extreme range in Gleasonburg.
“But it is more than a target pistol,” said the smith. “It makes an excellent close-in fighting gun with that long grip and wide hammer.”
“Do you have one?”
“I’d have to order it special.”
“Send it to the Van Dorn office at the Cadillac. They’ll forward to me.”
Bell paid for the guns, dropped the one-shot in his pocket, and put the Army in his shoulder holster. Then, as he started to slide the two-shot up his coat sleeve, he weighed it speculatively in his hand, wondering. Had the amber-eyed provocateur assumed or guessed he had a derringer in his sleeve? Or had he been sharp enough to spot that the sleeve was tailored extra-wide? Or had he just been covering all the places a man might hide a gun?
“I’d like another of these, please. But a lighter one, if you’ve got it.”
“I’ve got a real beaut I made myself. Weighs half that. Fires a .22 long. But it won’t pack quite the punch.”
“Some punch beats no punch,” said Bell. “I’ll take it.”
The gunsmith brought out a miniature two-shot over-under derringer. “Always happy to make a sale,” he said. “But you’re running out of places to put them.”
“Can you recommend a good hatmaker?”
The hatmaker was working late and eager to please the gunsmith, who was a source of clients who paid top dollar for custom-made. At midnight, Bell hurried back to the Cadillac Hotel to check for wires that had come in on the Van Dorn private telegraph.
Grady Forrer, who never seemed to sleep, said, “Excellent chapeau!”
Bell touched the wide brim in salute and looked for telegrams in his box.
Weber and Fields had not reported in, and he could only guess whether they were keeping tabs on the strikers heading for Pittsburgh or holed up in a saloon; he made a mental note to instruct Archie to report to him independently. But two wires had just come in from Chicago, both sent in the money-saving shorthand that the parsimonious Joseph Van Dorn demanded.
Wish Clarke reported,
R LAMING
LIKELY JOB.
In other words, Wish could not find Laurence Rosania in any of his usual haunts to question him about fellow experimenters with shaped explosives, but the detective had caught wind of rumors in the Chicago underworld that a wealthy dowager or an industrialist’s girlfriend was about to be separated from jewelry locked in her safe.
Bell sat up straight when he read the second wire. It was from Claiborne Hancock, who Joseph Van Dorn had coaxed out of early retirement to manage Protective Services.
CLIENT’S SISTER HERE
A LOOKER.
GLAD TO PROTECT TOO.
Bell wired back.
UNTIL I ARRIVE.
24
You’re looking mighty full of yourself,” said James Congdon.
Henry Clay took dead aim at
“From what I read in the newspapers, it would be exploding regardless of your expensive efforts to shove a chunk under the corner.”
Clay was not to be denied his victory. His grand joust with Isaac Bell had been deeply satisfying. He had duped, disarmed, and humbled Joseph Van Dorn’s new young champion. Better yet, the fact that Bell had been shadowing Mary Higgins proved that Clay had chosen Mary brilliantly. Bell — or, more likely, Van Dorn — suspected what Clay had already learned from his spies in the union about her derailing a train in Denver. Mary Higgins was a dangerous radical because she was imaginative and supremely capable. That Joe Van Dorn sensed her powers made Clay’s plans for the unionist even more gratifying.
“Don’t believe anything in the newspapers.”
“You promised me we’ll win this war in the newspapers,” Congdon shot back.
“We will win, I promise. The newspapers will destroy the unions when they convince their readers that only the owners can stop murderous agitators.”
“When, dammit? Winter’s coming, and the miners have struck. What are you waiting for?”
“An earthshaking event.”
“Earthshaking requires an earthquake.”
“I have recruited an earthquake.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Stop playing games with me, Clay. What kind of earthquake?”
Henry Clay smiled, supremely confident of Judge James Congdon’s approval. “A lovely earthquake. In fact,” he boasted, “an earthshakingly beautiful earthquake.”
“A
“A lovely woman with a big idea. And who happens to be smarter, braver, and tougher than any unionist in the country. Her only weakness is that she’s so dedicated to ‘the good fight’ that she can’t see straight.”
“I want to meet her,” said Congdon.
“I told you at the start,” Clay objected coldly, “the details are mine.”
“Tactics are yours. Strategy is mine. An earthquake falls in the category of strategy. I will meet her.”
Isaac Bell paid extra for the biggest private stateroom on the Pennsylvania Special and tipped the porter to bring his meals on a tray. The train to Chicago, which steamed from the ferry head in Jersey City, ran on a twenty-hour schedule, and he intended to use every waking hour teaching himself how to draw his derringer from his new hat.
There was a mirror on the door to his private bath. He faced his reflection. He raised his hands in the air as
