seen a man of action when he saved her from the cops. And now she had just observed a vicious streak, brutalizing the masher, who would think twice about molesting other women. And she had to admit that Claggart’s reaction could have been inflamed by the fact that he was falling for her.
She wondered what she would think and what she would do if the bank robbers were suddenly caught by the police. If they turned out to be ordinary criminals, then Mr. Claggart would have a lot of explaining to do. Until then, she resolved to keep her wits about her and watch him closely.
26
Isaac Bell found Wish Clarke drunk in little’s exchange. He walked him out of the saloon, heaved him into a hansom cab, and gave the driver an enormous five-dollar tip to deliver him to the inexpensive hotel around the corner from the Palmer House, where Van Dorns rented rooms in Chicago.
Wish grabbed his arm as Bell tried to shut the cab’s door. “No jewels of note aboard the Pennshulvania Speshule.”
“I’ll check the Twentieth Century messengers at Black’s.”
“Shorry I let you down, Ishick. It cashes up wish me now and again.”
“Make me a promise, Aloysius.”
“Anythin’.”
“Go straight to bed. I’ll need you in the morning.”
The driver flicked his reins and the cab clattered off.
Bell hurried on foot down Clarke, over the rail yards on Harrison Street, and waited for a tall-masted schooner to pass before he could cross the South Branch of the Chicago River on an ancient cast-iron jackknife bridge. It took a long time to creak back down, and he recalled that when he apprenticed in Chicago there were cries to replace it with a modern bascule bridge. But Chicago’s corrupt aldermen could not agree who would do the work and who would pay for it.
Black’s Social, like Little’s Exchange, was a cut above the ordinary workingman’s saloon, being near the LaSalle Street terminus for New York Central passenger trains. Drinks were not cheap, and the free lunch was correspondingly lavish, served by a chef in white who presided over the newest of innovations, a stainless steel steam table. The customers were businessmen, clerks, and drummers dressed in sack suits and sporting vests, watch chains, and a variety of head- and neckwear.
The express messengers were easy to spot if you knew what to look for. While dressed like businessmen or clerks or drummers, they had the steadier gaze of men who worked at a profession with a high mortality rate. Protecting gold, cash, bearer bonds, and jewels locked in their fortified express cars, they routinely encountered masked robbers whose methods of attack ranged from derailing trains to blasting open cars with dynamite and shooting the survivors. They were famous for shooting back.
Bell, like every Van Dorn, often caught free train rides in their express cars as the messengers enjoyed the company of gun-toting detectives who knew their business. He greeted some he knew, bought drinks, and established who was currently working on the 20th Century Limited, the New York Central train most likely patronized by passengers who could afford fifteen-carat diamonds.
Bell had been at it several hours when Wish walked in in a clean suit and went straight to the coffee urn at the lunch table. He downed a cup black, poured another, and wandered over to join Bell. “How are we doing?”
“The Twentieth Century is running five consists,” Bell answered, meaning that five separate trains carried the
“Tip-top,” said Wish, observing the crowded saloon through slitted eyes. He was swaying slightly on his feet but looked otherwise indestructible. “There’s your fellow walking in now. Ben Lent. I’ve ridden with him. He’s all right.”
Ben Lent was short and powerfully built. The scars on his cheeks looked more likely from bullets than fists. He greeted Wish warmly, kidded him about the coffee cup, “Where a glass ought to be,” and shook hands hello with Bell. And with Ben Lent, just off the last train of the day, they hit the jackpot. Bell described the necklace that Laurence Rosania was supposedly intending to steal.
“Mrs. Stambaugh.”
Isaac Bell and Wish Clarke exchanged glances.
“Mrs.
“
“The lady herself. And still quite a looker, I don’t mind saying. She stopped personally in the car to ask me to keep a special eye on it.”
Wish grinned at Isaac Bell. “Doubt your Society page Furrier would have tumbled to Mrs. Stambaugh.”
Bell agreed. Mrs. Stambaugh’s jewelry-shopping expedition to New York would never make the Society pages of either city. She could easily afford the expensive necklace that attracted Rosania, but her vast fortune was neither inherited nor earned in the conventional manner, as Rose Stambaugh had been for forty years the greatly admired proprietress of the finest brothel in Chicago.
“That must be some necklace for Rosania to risk a lynching if he’s caught,” said Wish. “Everyone loves Mrs. Stambaugh — cops, judges, politicians, even the Cardinal. You remember, Isaac. I took you to meet her once.”
“I sure do.” Bell recalled a shapely little blonde of uncertain years with an hourglass figure, an arresting smile, and a welcoming glint in her fiery blue eyes.
“When was this?” Bell asked Lent.
“Last week.”
Bell said to Wish Clarke, “There’s a charity ball for the news boys tomorrow night at the Palmer House. Do you think the bluenoses will let her into that?”
“They’ll take her money anywhere since she retired.”
“Does she still live on Dearborn?”
“Moved to a mansion on the North Shore.”
The two detectives rented a Baker Electric Runabout and found the new Stambaugh mansion just as night fell. It was enormous, fenced by heavy wrought iron on three sides and open to Lake Michigan on the fourth. Golden light streamed from many windows, and music wafted on the wind blowing off the lake. They parked the Baker on the darkest stretch of the street in a space between an Aultman Steamer and a long five-passenger Apperson Tonneau and watched from the shadows of the leather top. Every half hour, one of them took a walk around the neighborhood.
A policeman came along and peered in the car.
“Van Dorn,” Wish told him and slipped him three dollars.
Buggies clip-clopped past, and occasionally a grand carriage rolled behind a team of four. Another cop stopped and peered in. Wish gave him three dollars. More carriages passed, stopping at parties at other mansions along the street. Wish expressed the concern that Rose Stambaugh was wearing her new necklace to host a party, but Bell assured him, judging by the Aultman and the Apperson, that her gathering tonight was not big enough to rate the display and it would be locked in her safe, awaiting Rosania.
“She’ll save it for the Palmer House.”
A third cop came along. Wish gave him three dollars. Bell worried that the bribe seekers would scare Rosania off. When a fourth appeared soon after, he said, “I’ll do this one.” He plunged his hand deep in his pocket, sprang from the Baker.
“What do we have here?” asked the cop, a tall, jowly man with a walrus mustache hung like a Christmas ornament on a bad-tempered face.
“A twenty-dollar gold piece,” said Isaac Bell, holding it up. “What’s your name?”
“Muldoon,” the cop lied.
