Clive Cussler - The Wrecker

Isaac Bell turned on his heel and went to talk to the railroad dicks, who were watching sullenly. “Ever seen a hook like that before?”

“Hunk of boat anchor.”

“That’s what I thought.” He opened a gold cigarette case and passed it around. When the cinder dicks had smokes going and Bell had established their names, Tom Griggs and Ed Bottomley, he asked, “If that fellow in the tree happened not to wreck the Limited, how do you think the real wrecker got away after he ditched the train?”

The railway cops exchanged glances.

Ed said, “That hook bought him plenty of time.”

Then Tom said, “We found a track-inspection vehicle tipped over the side in Glendale. Got a report someone stole it from the freight depot at Burbank.”

“O.K. But if he got to Glendale by handcar, it must have been three or four in the morning,” Bell mused. “How do you suppose he got away from Glendale? Streetcars don’t run that late.”

“Could have had a automobile waiting for him.”

“Think so?”

“Well, you could ask Jack Douglas, except he’s dead. He was watching Glendale. Someone killed him last night. Ran him straight through like a stuck pig.”

“First I heard,” said Bell.

“Well, maybe you ain’t been talking to the right people,” replied the cinder dick, with a scornful glance at the dandified Sanders waiting nearby.

Isaac Bell returned a thin smile. “What did you mean by ‘ran through’? Stabbed?”

“Stabbed?” asked Ed. “When’s the last time you saw a stabbing dust both sides of a fellow’s coat? The man who killed him was either one strong son of a bitch or used a sword.”

“A sword?” Bell repeated. “Why do you say a sword?”

“Even if he were strong enough to stick him in one side and out the other with a bowie knife, he’d have a heck of a time trying to pull it out. That’s why folks leave knives in bodies. Damned things get stuck. So I’m thinking a long, thin blade, like a sword.”

“That is very interesting,” said Bell. “A very interesting idea . . . Anything else I should know?”

The cinder dicks thought on that for a long moment. Bell waited patiently, looking both in the eye. Superintendent Jethro Watt’s “orders from on high” to cooperate did not automatically percolate down to the cops in the field, particularly when they ran up against a supercilious Van Dorn agent like Larry Sanders. Abruptly, Tom Griggs came to a decision. “Found this in Jack’s hand.” He pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper and smoothed it with his grimy fin gers. Black lettering stood starkly in the sun.

ARISE!

FAN THE FLAMES OF DISCONTENT

DESTROY THE FAVORED FEW

So WORKINGMEN MAY LIVE!

“I don’t suppose it was Jack‘s,” said Tom. “That old man weren’t the sort to turn radical.”

“Looks like,” explained Ed, “Jack grabbed hold of it in their struggle.”

Tom said, “Would have done better to grab his gun.”

“So it would appear,” said Isaac Bell.

“Strange thing is why he didn’t.”

“What do you mean?” asked Bell.

Tom said, “I mean you could make a mistake thinking that because Jack Douglas was ninety-two years old that he was asleep at the switch. Just last year, a couple of city boys came out to Glendale looking for easy pickings. Drew guns on Jack. He drilled one through the shoulder with that old hogleg of his and the other in the backside.”

Ed chuckled. “Jack told me he was getting soft. In the old days, he would have killed them both and scalped them. I said, ‘You didn’t miss by much, Jack. You plugged one in the shoulder and the other in the rear.’ But Jack said, ‘I said soft, not afflicted. I didn’t miss. I hit ’em right where I aimed. Shows I’m turning kindly in my old age.‘ So whoever got the drop on Jack last night knew how to handle himself.”

“Particularly,” Tom added, “if all he had on him was a sword. Jack would have seen that coming a mile away. I mean, how does a man with a sword get the jump on a man with a gun?”

“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” said Bell. “Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you very much.” He took out two of his cards and gave one to each. “If you ever need anything from the Van Dorn Agency, get in touch with me.”

“I WAS RIGHT,” BELL told Joseph Van Dorn when Van Dorn summoned him to San Francisco. “But not right enough. He’s thinking even bigger than I imagined.”

“Sounds like he knows his business,” said Van Dorn, grimly echoing the Southern Pacific maintenance director. “At least, enough to run circles around us. But how does he get around? Freight trains?”

Bell answered, “I’ve sent operatives to question the hobos in every jungle in the West. And we’re asking every stationmaster and ticket clerk in every station he might have been near who bought a ticket on a long-distance flyer.”

Van Dorn groaned. “The ticket clerks are even a longer shot than the hobos. How many passengers did Hennessy say the Southern Pacific carries per year?”

“One hundred million,” Bell admitted.

WHEN ISAAC BELL TELEPHONED MARION MORGAN TO TELL her he had one hour free in San Francisco before he caught his train to Sacramento and could she possibly get off work early, Marion replied, “Meet me at the clock!”

The Great Magneta Clock, the first master clock west of the Mississippi, which had come around the Horn by steamship, was famous already, even though it had been installed in the St. Francis Hotel only the week before. Dominating the Powell Street lobby of the St. Francis, the ornately carved Viennese timepiece resembled a very large grandfather clock and looked somewhat old-fashioned in the European mode. But it was, in fact, electrically powered, and it automatically controlled all the clocks in the vast hotel that towered over Union Square.

The lobby was furnished with suites of chairs and couches arranged on oriental carpets. Parchment- and glass-shaded electric lamps cast a warm glow, which was reflected and multiplied in gilt mirrors. The air smelled sweetly of sawn wood and fresh paint. Eighteen months after the fires ignited by the Great Earthquake had gutted its interior, San Francisco’s newest and grandest hotel was open for business with four hundred eighty rooms, and a new wing planned for the following spring. It had instantly become the most popular hotel in the city. Most of the chairs and couches were occupied by paying guests reading newspapers. The headlines blared the latest rumors about the labor agitators and foreign radicals who had ditched the Coast Line Limited.

Marion swept into the lobby first, so excited to see Isaac that she was oblivious to the open stares of admiration she drew from various gentlemen as they watched her pace before the clock. She wore her straw-blond hair high on her head, a fashionable style that drew attention to her long, graceful neck and the beauty of her face. Her waist was narrow, her hands delicate, and, judging how she seemed to flow across the carpet, the legs beneath her full skirt were long.

Her coral-sea green eyes flashed toward the clock as the minute hand inched upright and the Great Magneta struck three mighty gongs that resounded so much like the bells of a cathedral that they seemed to shake the walls.

One minute later, Isaac strode into the lobby, tall and ruggedly handsome in a cream-colored woolen sack suit, crisp blue fold-collar shirt, and the gold-striped necktie she had given him that matched his flaxen hair and mustache. She was so delighted by the sight of him that all she could think to say was, “I’ve never seen you late before.”