The Thief

“I’m betting she’s ready to make something big.”

Irina Viorets looked at Semmler sitting in the shadows. The German general was a strange one up to stranger things, but he often had good ideas. He knew what he was up to in the moving picture business. The Iron Horse, Imperial’s history of the western railroads, would be an ambitious two- or three-reeler. Marion Morgan would bring a topical filmmaker’s sensibility to the story and all the skills necessary to take pictures of real events out-of-doors.

“I’ll telephone her long-distance. I just hope she hasn’t engaged with Preston Whiteway already.”

“Tell her if she’ll leave Whiteway she can have a fleet of locomotives at her disposal. Promise her you’ll put Theda Bara, King Baggot, and Florence Lawrence under contract.”

“She’s not the type to walk out on her contract.”

“Tell her she can tie Billy Bitzer and his camera to the front of a locomotive if that will make her happy. Just get her here! Immediately.”

“I’ll telephone San Francisco.”

“And then you get busy writing a scenario that features handsome German-Americans working on the railroad.”

“That much,” said Viorets, “I had already figured out.”

Semmler barred the door when she left.

For a man who was supposed to be a wealthy insurance executive, Isaac Bell had, too many times, appeared at exactly the wrong moment with a gun in his hand. Now he was pretending to be a movie extra — in an Imperial film, no less.

Semmler had already wondered about Bell. Transmitting on the Los Angeles German vice-consul’s private wire, he had ordered the New York consul general to investigate Dagget, Staples & Hitchcock. The Hartford insurance company was genuine, the consul general had reported back, and Isaac Bell was listed as a partner.

Semmler was not convinced. The Leipzig Organ & Piano Company appeared genuine, too. And who was more “one of the boys” than Leipzig’s well-liked American sales representative, Fritz Wunderlich?

Isaac Bell had stopped him from kidnapping Lynds and Professor Beiderbecke from the Mauretania. Isaac Bell had stopped him from taking Lynds off the Golden State Limited. And now a man who looked very much like Isaac Bell was pretending to be a moving picture stunt performer. He would find out whether it was Bell.

But until he knew for sure, General Major Christian Semmler wanted Isaac Bell’s wife in easy reach.

At the sound of the Brakemen unlocking their caboose door, Pauline snatched a blanket and scrambled up the ladder, out the hatch, and onto the roof just as they burst in complaining about the cold. The wind of the speeding train’s passage hit her like a fist. It smelled of coal smoke and rain. Across the forests and farmland, black clouds blacker than the locomotive’s smoke filled the sky. She crouched behind the cupola, seeking shelter.

What would they do when saw her tea mug and the jam jar?

The train was moving too fast to jump off, and the roof was too high even if it weren’t moving.

She looked back. The sky was gray.

She looked ahead. Under lowering clouds, the train looked like a long dark snake. Sparks flew from the distant locomotive. It was the fastest yet that she’d ridden on. In the dull morning light seeping from the storm clouds, she saw why. It was a military train. Flat cars bore either a single long ca

What was the best?

Hope? A hope that they would assume tramps had broken in to steal food. How did the tramps leave through locked doors? The cupola hatch? Hope was the best she could conjure, hope that the brakemen did not read Sherlock Holmes.

Bolts of lightning pierced the clouds. She felt an icy breath of cold wind. She tugged the blanket she had taken around her shoulders and prayed for a miracle. But, answering her worst fear, the hatch began to rise. A brakeman was climbing up to look to see if a tramp was hiding on the roof.

Suddenly thunder shook the caboose, and rain pelted down.

The hatch slammed shut.

A bolt of lightning struck the locomotive. The thunder crashed again and again as if Donar himself had noticed the train and didn’t like it. But she was the luckiest girl alive: the thunder god had saved her from the brakeman.

Another bolt of lightning struck, blanketing the locomotive with blue fire. It slowed abruptly, and the train clanged to a stop with a crash of banging couplers.

Balls of electric fire spewed from the locomotive’s wheels and leaped to a tree beside the tracks. The tree flew to splinters when its sap exploded in a burst of superheated steam. Pauline saw green fire race toward her along the boxcar roofs, and she felt the incipient tingle of electrical shock. Clutching her precious rucksack, she scrambled down the ladder and ran into the woods.

Isaac Bell caught Marion in his arms as she stepped off the Coast Line Limited from San Francisco. They kissed, and they kissed again. Bell seized her bag and gave the porter her trunk check, the name of their hotel, and a large tip.

“Mighty generous, sir.”

“I am happy to see my beautiful wife.”

“Hard to imagine you wouldn’t be, sir.”

They kissed once more. “Andrew found us a house to rent near his place on Bunker Hill,” Bell told Marion. “Until it’s ready, I booked rooms at the Van Nuys.” They walked hand in hand off the platform.

Bell asked, “What was your first thought when Irina telephoned and offered you this job?”

“Joy. I’d get to see you.”

“And then?”

“I thought that The Iron Horse would be very challenging. It’s a big story to pack into three reels, and I thought right away that maybe I can persuade Irina to take a chance on four.”

“And your next thought?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s somewhat technical, but I was thinking I want to revive the old-fashioned ‘traveling pictures’ they used to take years ago, where the camera moves alongside the action. They’ve fallen out of favor. Everyone is in love with presenting close-up figures. But with handcars available to glide the camera on a smooth track, and the fact that I want to start the scenario before the western railroads with galloping Pony Express riders and stagecoaches— You see what I mean, it’s technical, but that’s what I was thinking.”

“Did you wonder why Irina hired you?”

“No.”

“You weren’t at all surprised?”

“There are many women in the movie business, but more men, and I’ve found that women do like to work with women. Also, she knows that I’ve made topical films, so I’m comfortable taking pictures on the fly. Why do you ask?”

Bell smiled. “I believe you know my feelings about coincidences.”

“You dislike them, intensely.”

“Irina works for a firm that has caught my interest in the Talking Pictures case.”

“Imperial. Where you have Clyde set up.”

“But Imperial turns out to be something of an enigma. They’re spending a lot more money than they earn. No one knows where they get the money. They’ve raised an army of private detectives who are driving the Edison bulls out of Los Angeles.”

“That’s wonderful!”

“They seem to be doing it to court the independents.”

“That’s a brilliant way to ensure plenty of fresh product.”

“And suddenly they’re offering my wife a job. I have to wonder.”

“Oh. Well, put your mind to rest on that score. Irina didn’t telephone to offer me the job.”

“She didn’t?”

“She telephoned wondering when I might be coming to Los Angeles and to say hello and to ask my recommendation for someone to take pictures for The Iron Horse. I mentioned a few people who I thought would be up to it — Christina Bialobrzesky, for one. You remember her?”