The Thief

“I was told that Holian was shot four times.”

“Apparently it didn’t take. Flesh wounds.”

“Well, he had flesh to spare, last time I saw him. So they have the machine?” Van Dorn smiled and stroked his beard. “I think I can pull a wire or two in the Canal Zone and have that freighter held up.”

“No, sir,” said Bell.

“What do you mean, ‘No, sir’? Why not?”

“Clyde switched machines. He gave Semmler a contraption that will cause them no end of confusion. Better to let them take it to Germany.”

“Where’s the right one?”

“Burned up in the fire.”

“Destroyed,” Van Dorn said, gloomily.

“Except for the plans.”

“Which General Major Semmler has.”

“I’m afraid so.”

Van Dorn sighed. “What about that Russian woman, Isaac? Might she not be helping him?”

“She vanished. The Los Angeles office is hunting, but she’s nowhere to be found.”

“So she could be with him.”

“Highly unlikely. She betrayed him, hoping I would kill him.”

“A sentiment echoed warmly in this office, Isaac. Unfortunately, first you have to find him. I saw in the wires you exchanged at your train’s station stops that you think Semmler may have chartered a special.”

“So far nothing’s turned up,” said Bell. “The difficulty is, even though we’re watching the German consulates like hawks, his private contacts, German businessmen or commercial travelers, could have chartered it for him.”

“So the long and short is that General Major Christian Semmler, Imperial German Army, Military Intelligence, could be sleeping upstairs in one of the Knickerbocker’s palatial suites directly over our heads.”

“I would not rule that out,” Bell admitted. “He is a guerrilla fighter — a behind-the-lines operator. But we can hardly roust every guest in the hotel without management taking notice and terminating our lease.”

“You are remarkably flippant for a detective who has no idea where his quarry is.”

“He is either in New York or still on his way to New York, and he’s going to board a ship to Europe.”

“You sound awfully sure for a detective with no facts.”

“I have more irons in the fire.”

“Other than the obvious advice to keep an eye peeled for doctors, I saw no talk about ‘more irons’ when I read your wires.”

“Not everyone talks by electricity,” said Bell. He reached for his hat.

“What does that mean? Isaac, where in hell are you going?”

“Harlem.”

The Monarch Lodge of the improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks offered a home away from home on West 135th Street to Pullman porters laying over in New York. A man could get a decent meal and sleep on a clean cot. Or he could smoke in a comfortable chair in a big parlor and swap tales, both true and fanciful, with friends from all across the United States who served on the trains. It was true that the white Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks was suing the Negro Elks to stop them from using a similar name, but the Monarch Lodge remained, for the moment, a sanctuary. No one there would shout “George” to demand service, as if a black man didn’t have his own name. In fact, a white man crossing the Negro Elks’ threshold was extremely unlikely, which was why everyone looked up when a tall white man in a white suit knocked at the door, took his hat off as he stepped inside, and said, politely, “Excuse me for interrupting, gentlemen. I’m Isaac Bell.”

Heads swiveled. Many stood to get a better view of him. They knew the name. Who didn’t? One dark night — the story went — when the Overland Limited was highballing across Wyoming at eighty miles per hour, a passenger named Isaac Bell who had won a big hand in a poker game had tipped a porter one thousand dollars. The Pullman porter might be the highest-paid man in his neighborhood, but he still had to work two years for a thousand dollars, and few in the Elks parlor had believed the tale until they saw him standing there.

Bell said, “I wonder if I might speak with Mr. Clement Price— Oh, there you are, Mr. Price,” and when Clem stepped forward, Bell thrust out his hand and said, “Good to see you again. Did you have any luck?”

“Just walked in myself,” said Price, a fit young fellow with an eye for the ladies, whom the others were a little wary of. Clem kept talking about how everybody would be better off forming a labor union, which leveler heads feared would provoke the Pullman Company to fire every last one of them, as it had done numerous times in the past.

Price addressed the room. “Mr. Bell has his eye out for a yellow-haired, green-eyed gentleman riding to New York wearing a fresh bandage on his head or neck. Such a gentleman was seen in Denver and someone similar-looking might have passed through Kansas City, but no one I saw in Chicago had seen him when Mr. Bell asked me yesterday.”

“Bandage?” echoed a sharp-eyed older man, who looked Bell over carefully and asked with a smile, “Like he ran into something?”

“Me,” said Bell, to knowing winks and laughter.

“Is he riding in the open section or a stateroom?”

“Stateroom, almost certainly,” said Bell.

The men exchanged glances, shook heads, shrugged.

“Not that I’ve seen.”

“I just got off from D.C. Didn’t see him.”

“He’s traveling from the west,” said Bell. “Though he could be plying a circuitous route.”

“I just come in from Pittsburgh. Didn’t see him. Didn’t hear anyone mention him, either.”

“He would have stood out, aside from the bandage,” Bell answered. “He has unusually long arms. I was really hoping his appearance would have caused some talk. Long arms, heavy brow. And a bright smile that could sell you ice in Alaska. Here. Here’s a sketch.”

They passed it around, shaking their heads.

“Would have stood out, if folks had seen him,” the porter in from Pittsburgh ventured.

Bell said, “It is possible that he’s traveling with someone else. Possibly a doctor.”

“Doctor?”

“For his injury.”

“Well, fu

“How’s that?’ Bell asked, eagerly.

“I saw two men like you’re saying, but they weren’t on a Pullman. Least not a scheduled one.”

“He could have chartered a special.”

“It was a special I saw. Out in New Jersey, in the Elizabeth yards. They were walking by a special that had just pulled in. I thought they were tramps, but they could have got off the special. And the other fellow was carrying a little bag, that could have been a doctor’s bag.”

“Was he wearing a bandage?”

“I don’t know. But when you ask, I realize he had his collar turned up and his hat pulled low.”

“Yellow hair?”

“Hard to tell under that hat — big old slouch with a wide brim pulled down low.”

“Did you notice whose special it was?”

“I think she was private. I just wasn’t paying much mind.”

“I don’t suppose you saw the engine number?” said Bell.

“Sorry, Mr. Bell. Wish I had. Mr. Locomotive was pointed the other way.”

“It is strange,” Bell told Archie, “to think it was Semmler whom the porter saw in the Elizabeth yards. If he crossed the continent on a special, why did he get off way out in Elizabeth?”

Archie agreed. “You would think he would take his train closer to the steamship docks. Step from the privacy of a special train to the privacy of a First Class stateroom.”

“Once on the boat, he takes his meals in his room. No one sees him till he lands in England or France or Germany — First Class and private all the way from Los Angeles to Berlin.”

“So why did he get off in the Elizabeth yards?”

Bell pulled a regional map down from the ceiling of the Van Dorn library. “He could go anywhere from Elizabeth. Newark has a German community. The German steamers dock at Hoboken. Or he could catch the train or the tubes into Manhattan. Lots of choices.”