“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.”
One of the agents stared with growing admiration at Bell. “So you think he will strike again.”
“I do.”
“You may have suckered him with your story about Telluride,” said Bronson. “But if he is as smart as you say he is, Cromwell won’t make the same mistake twice and step into another trap.”
Bell shook his head. “There is little hope of that, I’m afraid. For the moment, all we can do is try to outguess him, and, failing that, we keep gathering evidence until we can convict him.”
“At least we know he isn’t infallible.”
Bronson grunted. “He’s about as close as you can come.”
Bell poured himself a cup of coffee from a pot sitting on the conference table. “Our edge is that he doesn’t know his every move is being watched. You will have to be very careful and not make him or his sister wary. If we can stay on his tail the next time he leaves town for a robbery, we have a chance of bringing his crime wave to a halt.”
Bronson looked around the table at his agents. “It looks like we have our job cut out for us, gentlemen. I’ll let you work out your surveillance shifts among yourselves. I received a telegram from Mr. Van Dorn. He said to pull out all the stops. He wants the Butcher Bandit caught, whatever the cost, whatever the effort.”
Bell said to Bronson, “I wonder if you could do me a favor.”
“You have but to name it.”
“Call Cromwell’s office and ask for Marion Morgan. Tell her you’re calling in the strictest confidence and she is to say nothing to no one, including her boss. Tell her to meet you at the northeast corner of Montgomery and Sutter Streets, a block from the Cromwell Bank, during her lunch hour.”
“And if she asks me the purpose?”
Bell made a crooked smile. “Just be vague and tell her it’s urgent.”
Bronson laughed. “I’ll do my best to sound official.”
AFTER THE CONFERENCE, Bell and Carter took a cab to the Southern Pacific freight warehouse. They checked in with the superintendent, looked over the car for damage, and, finding none, signed off the necessary transport paperwork.
“She’s a beauty,” Curtis said admiringly, gazing at the bright red–painted automobile with its gleaming brass radiator topped by a custom-sculpted bronze eagle with wings outspread and a temperature gauge in its chest. Behind the radiator was a barn-roof-cut hood. A big cylindrical gas tank sat mounted behind the two seats. The narrow tires were moored to huge wooden spoked wheels that had sped over the twisting roads of Long Island during the Vanderbilt Cup race.
Bell climbed into the seat behind the big steering wheel, mounted on its long shaft, turned the ignition switch on the wooden dashboard, set the throttle lever on the steering wheel, and moved the spark lever to retard. Next, he took a hand pump and pressurized the fuel tank, forcing gas to the carburetor. Only then did he walk to the front of the car, grip the big crank with his right hand, and heave vigorously. The engine coughed and kicked over on the second try, with a thunderous roar from the exhaust pipe.
Then Bell, joined by Carter, sat in the red leather driver’s seat and advanced the spark as he eased the throttle to an idle position. After releasing the brass hand brake, he pushed in the clutch and pulled the shift lever into first gear. Next, he
