Murphy sipped at his coffee. “I’ll give it a try.”
Bell thanked the sheriff and walked down the stairway. Three hours later, he was on a train back to Denver.
15
CROMWELL’S CHAUFFEUR DROVE THE 1906 ROLLS Royce Brougham, made by the London coach maker Barker, with its six-cylinder, thirty-horsepower engine, from the garage to the front of the palatial Nob Hill mansion Cromwell had designed himself and constructed from white marble blocks cut and hauled by railroad from a quarry in Colorado. The front end had the appearance of a Greek temple, with high fluted columns, while the rest of the house was more simply designed, with arched windows, and a cornice that crowned the walls.
While the chauffeur, Abner Weed, a stony-faced Irishman whom Cromwell hired more for his experience as a wrestler than his expertise behind the wheel of an automobile, stood patiently by the Rolls out front, Cromwell waited for his sister in his study, sprawled comfortably on a leather sofa, listening to Strauss waltzes on an Edison cylinder phonograph. He was conservatively dressed in a dark wool suit. After listening to “Voices of Spring,” he changed cylinders and played Tales from the Vienna Wood. The cylinders played two minutes of music each.
Cromwell glanced up from the machine as his sister came into the room wearing a doeskin dress that fell around her nicely curved calves.
“A bit risqué, aren’t we?” he said, eyeing her exposed flesh.
She spun around, swirling the skirt and showing off her legs up to midthigh. “Since we’re going slumming on the Barbary Coast, I thought I’d dress like a soiled dove.”
“Just be sure you don’t act like one.”
He rose from the sofa, turned off the phonograph, and held up her coat so she could slip into it. Even with his shoe lifts, he stood the same height as his sister. Then he followed her through the large, intricately carved front doors to the drive and the waiting Rolls-Royce. Abner, attired in his liveried uniform with shiny black boots, stood at attention, holding open the rear door. The Rolls was a town car, with an enclosed passenger compartment, the chauffeur in the open air with nothing but the windshield to protect him. As soon as Cromwell’s sister was settled, he instructed the driver where to go. Abner shifted gears and the big car rolled silently over the granite stones laid in the street.
“This is the first opportunity we’ve had to talk since I came home,” said Cromwell, secure in the knowledge that the driver could not hear their conversation through the divider window separating the front and rear seats.
“I know that your trip to Salt Lake City was successful. And our bank is another seven hundred thousand dollars richer.”
“You haven’t told me how you made out in Denver.”
“Your spies in the Van Dorn Agency were quite accurate in their assessment of the investigation. The Denver office has taken on the job of lead investigator in the hunt for the Butcher Bandit.”
“I hate being called that. I would have preferred something with more swank.”
“Like what, pray tell?” she asked, laughing.
“The Stylish Spirit.”
She rolled her eyes. “I doubt that newspaper editors would be enthused with that one.”
“What else did you find out?”
“The head of the Denver office, Nicholas Alexander, is an idiot. After I flashed a few of my charms, he couldn’t stop speaking about the hunt. He was angry he wasn’t put in charge of the investigation and had no reservations about revealing pertinent information concerning the methods they were going to use to catch the notorious bandit. Van Dorn himself named his top agent, Isaac Bell, to the case. A handsome and dashing devil, and very wealthy, I might add.”
“You saw him?”
“I met him, and, what’s more, I danced with him.” She pulled a small photograph from her purse. “I was waiting to give you this. Not the greatest likeness, but the photographer I hired was not very proficient at shooting photographs without setting them up in advance.”
Cromwell switched on the dome light of the car and examined the photo. The photo showed a tall man, with blond hair and mustache. “Should I be concerned about him?”
Her eyes took on an evasive expression. “I can’t say. He seemed more intelligent and sophisticated than our spies led me to believe. I had them check his background. He rarely if ever fails to find and apprehend his man. His record is quite admirable. Van Dorn thinks very highly of him.”
“If, as you say, he is affluent, why is he wasting his time as a simple detective?”
Margaret shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe, like you, he craves a challenge, too?” She hesitated as she adjusted an imaginary loose curl with her fingers.
“Where did he get his money?”
“Did I forget to mention that he comes from a family of bankers in Boston?”
Cromwell stiffened. “I know of the Bells. They own the American States Bank of Boston, one of the largest financial institutions in the country.”
“He’s a paradox,” she said slowly, recalling her few minutes with him in the Brown Palace Hotel. “But he can also be very dangerous. He’ll come after us like a fox chasing a rabbit.”
“A detective who knows the inner workings of banking procedures is not good,” Cromwell said, his tone low and icy. “We must be especially wary.”
“I agree.”
“You’re certain he had no clue to your true identity?”
“I covered my tracks well. As far as he and Alexander know, my name is Rose Manteca, from Los Angeles, where my father owns a large ranch.”
“If Bell is as smart as you suggest, he’ll check that out and prove Rose doesn’t exist.”
“So what?” she said impishly. “He’ll never know my name is Margaret Cromwell, sister of a respected banker who lives in a mansion on Nob Hill in San Francisco.”
“What other information did you pry out of Alexander?”
“Only that Bell’s investigation is not going well. They have no clues
