“What do you recommend?”
Talbot called to the retreating waiter, “Juan, two rum and lime sodas, por favor.”
“Sí, Señor Talbot.”
“I’m here most Friday nights just to meet new people passing through the city,” the former Army Major explained. “Let me introduce you around. That lovely woman seated next to the luckiest man in the world is Mrs. Juliet Webb. Her husband is Whittier. Next to him is Felix Ramirez, and on the other side is Herr Ernst Leibinger-Holte of Zurich. And the last gentleman is Guillermo Acosta from Argentina.” Rather than reach awkwardly across the table to shake hands, Bell nodded to each person in turn. “It’s too bad you missed the famed aviator Robert Fowler, Isaac. He has just left Panama. Anyway, my friends, this is Isaac Bell, of the Van Dorn Detective Agency, and his charming wife, Marion. In case any of you don’t know, Isaac is the man who killed the fiend responsible for today’s tragedy.”
Bell noted that Talbot did not mention his tenuous connection to the bomber.
“Bravo, Mr. Bell,” Juliet said. She was raven-haired and maybe thirty years old, dressed in stylish clothes that gave no concession to the rain or mud. Her white skirt was long but amazingly unsullied. Her husband was a few years younger with a look Bell knew well. Whit Webb was the son of privilege. It was in the indolent way he held his mouth, to the hooded eyes, to the way he dismissed Bell as being nothing more than a tradesman.
Then he studied the man a little closer and realized he was a plaything for his wife. Bell noted he wore no class ring, so wherever he was schooled wasn’t worth bragging about. He was drinking a dark wine with fish, and his shoes, though a little muddy, lacked the underlying shine a gentleman would expect no matter what the circumstances. She was obviously well-off. Her diamond necklace alone cost as much as a Model T. But it was definitely her money, not his, and that would certainly be the dynamic of their relationship.
“You did Panama a service today, señor.” Felix Ramirez was as sleek as a cat, with slicked-back black hair and a thin mustache. His eyes flashed with both intelligence and cunning and were crinkled at the corners, which made him look over forty but not yet fifty. He was dressed well, though Bell could see where a button had been poorly resewn onto his shirt, and there was fraying around one jacket pocket. He wasn’t as successful as he wanted people to think he was. He smoked a cigar with his left hand while his right played absently with a gambling token with the dexterity of a street magician.
“A harrowing thing, I should imagine,” said the Swiss gentleman, Leibinger-Holte.
He sported a dark worsted suit that had wilted in the tropical heat, and his shirt was stained around the collar by the day’s sweat. He wore a severe expression, yet behind his wire-rimmed glasses his blue eyes were friendly. Bell sensed a conflict between who he presented himself as and who he really was. He was seated so there was no way to determine his height, but he had a slight build, with long, tapering fingers, and a network of veins on the back of each hand.
Bell guessed his age as fifty.
“Sorry I’m late, what?” a man said, coming up behind Bell. His accent was pure Eton and Oxford, with just enough of a country undertone to make one think of England’s charming villages and impart the impression his family likely had several on its estate.
“Tats,” Court Talbot said, smiling at the new arrival. “Finally back from the Colon? I mean from Colón. Too much Spanish in my English?”
Bell saw by the flush on Juliet Webb’s cheeks and the way she’d parted and moistened her lips that it meant the unseen man behind him was as handsome as his voice was cultured.
“Mr. and Mrs. Whittier Webb and Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Bell, may I present Lord Benedict Hamilton Macalister. Tats, you already know Felix and Ernst.”
“I do. Gentlemen, always a pleasure.” He grabbed a chair from a nearby table and wedged himself in with the group. “To have not one but two beautiful women gracing our presence gives some amount of pleasure on an otherwise dreadful day.”
“Why do they call you Tats?” Juliet Webb asked.
The Englishman gave a self-deprecating little chuckle that was as practiced as his story. “I made an unfortunate wager that I could beat Christ’s College’s fastest rower in the Wingfield Sculls race on the Thames. It turned out that I could not beat him, and, as a result, his winning time was tattooed in such a place that I preferred not to sit for a few days afterward. There were no others at Ox with such a decoration and so I was given my nickname.”
His tale got a round of laughter from the people at the table and a fresh flush on Juliet Webb’s face.
Macalister was in his mid-thirties but had the self-possession of a much older person, one who was making his way through life and finding success and joy at every turn. His hair was sandy blond and cut longer than fashionable so that a cowlick was always threatening to cover his long-lashed eyes. He was slender without being gaunt, and his white suit was impeccably tailored. Marion would have cast him in one of her movies the moment she laid eyes on him.
He was seated next to Bell, so they shook hands.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Bell.” Macalister indicated to the waiter that he wanted a rum and lime soda. “What brings you to Panama?”
Court Talbot answered before Bell could. “He happened to be with me and Senator Densmore of California when we were attacked by Viboras Rojas. Like today’s terrible event, Mr. Bell was there to save the day, as it were. So, it comes as little surprise he’s an investigator for the Van
