The Assassin

“This is her sister,” said Bell, “E. M. Hock . . . May I present my good friend Archibald Angell Abbott IV?”

The redheaded, blue-blooded Archie whisked his bowler off his head and beamed a smile famous in New York for quickening the heartbeats of New York heiresses and their social climbing mothers and arousing the suspicions of their newly wealthy fathers. “A pleasure, Miss Hock. And may I say that rumors I have heard among journalists that you are a woman are borne out splendidly.”

Bell could not help but compare the chilly response when he uttered a similar compliment to the warm smile Archie received from Edna.

“How’d you happen to get here so quickly?” Archie asked her. “The fire is still smoldering.”

“I was passing by on my way back from Indian Territory.”

Archie stared at the buckboard. “In that?”

“Reporting on ‘oil fever’ takes me places the trains don’t visit.”

“I salute your enterprise and your bravery. Speaking of oil fever, Isaac—I’m sure you’ve heard this already, Miss Hock—the wildcatters are blaming Standard Oil for the fire.”

“Did you interview any witnesses who presented evidence to support their contention?” asked Bell.

“Mostly, like you said, they heard that somebody saw Straub, somewhere—that’s Big Pete Straub, Miss Hock, a Standard—”

“Mr. Straub was just promoted to refinery police superintendent,” Edna interrupted.

“Which means he travels anywhere he pleases,” said Bell. “Go on, Archie.”

“I did find one guy who claimed to see Mr. Straub renting a horse in Fort Scott.”

“Did he see the horse?”

“Said it was tall as a Clydesdale.”

“The one I saw was a mighty lean Clydesdale. Are your witnesses suggesting Standard Oil’s motive for setting the fire?”

“One school of rumor says Standard Oil wants to shut down Kansas production to raise the price of oil by limiting the product reaching market.”

Bell looked to see Edna’s reaction. She said, “The Standard is still heavily invested in the Pe

“What else, Archie?”

“Another rumor, a doozy, claims that Standard Oil is laying pipe lines straight through Kansas to tap richer fields in Oklahoma. After they co

Bell looked again to Edna Matters.

The newspaperwoman laughed. “When you grow up with a father in the oil business, you learn that rumors about Standard Oil are always true. And JDR hears them first.”

“What about this one?” asked Bell.

“The Kansas part fits their pattern. Indian Territory and Oklahoma appear rich in new strikes. But the Standard’s pattern does not include shooting people and setting fires.”

“Exactly what Spike Hopewell told me.”

Edna Matters said, “Clearly, Mr. Hopewell was murdered. But there’s no evidence of the cause of the fire.”

“Yet,” said Bell. He conceded that the only crime that he knew for sure had occurred was the sniper killing of Spike Hopewell. If anyone could determine the cause of the fire, it was Detective Wally Kisley. But to get the best work out of Wally, he had to stay out of his way until he asked for a hand.

Archie asked, “How does John D. Rockefeller hear the rumors first?”

“When two men shake hands, JDR knows the terms of their deal before they report to their front offices.”

“How?” asked Bell.

“He pays spies to keep him ahead of every detail in business and politics. Refiners, distributors, drillers, railroad men, politicians. He calls them correspondents.”

“Does he pay newspaper reporters?”

Edna Matters Hock smiled at the tall detective. “He’s been known to ask reporters.”

“What do they say?”

“I can’t report on other reporters. There are confidences involved. Among friends.”

“Do you have any personal experience in what reporters say?” Archie asked, his most eligible bachelor in New York smile working overtime.

Edna smiled back. “Personally? I quoted my father’s old partner, poor Mr. Hopewell.”

“What did Hopewell say?”

“Why don’t you ask Mr. Bell? He was the last to speak with him.”

Bell said, “He told Rockefeller to go to blazes.”

“Actually,” Edna corrected, “he was paraphrasing. What he originally said, at least according to my father, was, ‘I’d join Satan first.’”

“How did Rockefeller respond to your preference for Satan?”

“I haven’t a clue. JDR does not ask in person. He sends people who ask for him.”

“He’s a famous negotiator. Did they come back with a counteroffer?”

Edna Matters answered Bell seriously. “They asked me to reconsider. So I did. JDR never gives interviews. I said, All right, I’ll fill you in on some things I learn if, in return, Mr. Rockefeller will sit down with me and my questions for a full day interview.”

“What happened?”

“I never heard back.”

“But it’s interesting,” said Bell. “That he doesn’t seem to hold your writing against your father. I understand he is a member of the i

“My father is a valuable man, and JDR appreciates valuable men.”

“Even valuable men whose daughters are a thorn in his side? He can’t love your articles. You’ve exposed all sorts of behavior, both underhanded and outright illegal.”

Edna asked, “Doesn’t his willingness not to hold me against my father speak rather highly of Mr. Rockefeller?”

Wally Kisley hurried up, grease-smudged and reeking of smoke. He tipped his derby to Edna. “Isaac, when you have a moment . . .”

Bell said, “Be right there. Come along, Archie.”

They followed Wally toward the tank that had exploded first.

“Extraordinary!” said Archie. “A journalist who doesn’t reek of booze and cigars.”

“Hands off,” said Bell. “I saw her first.”

“If I weren’t almost engaged to a couple of ladies due to inherit steel mills, I would give you a run for your money.”

Bell said, “Keep in mind the sooner we arrest the marksman who shot Spike Hopewell, the sooner you can go back to catching your jewel thief.”

“What does that have to do with Miss E. M. Hock?”

“It means go find witnesses. I’ll deal with Wally.”

Archie made a beeline for the caboose saloon. Bell caught up with Wally Kisley at a heap of ash and warped metal where the crude storage tank had folded up like a crumpled paper bag.

Wally said, “It blew when you were down by the creek, right?”

Bell pointed. “Past that bend.”

“By any chance did you hear a second shot fired?”

“Not down there.”

“How about behind you? Back at the oil field.”

“I heard something. I don’t know if it was a shot.”

“Could it have been?”

“It could have been. There was a heck of a racket all at once. Why?”

“I found this,” said Wally. He was holding an oddly shaped, rounded piece of cast iron by a square bracket attached to the top. “Careful, it’s still hot. Take my glove.” He passed Bell his left glove and Bell held the metal in it.

“Heavy.”

He examined it closely. It was six inches high. On one side, the entire surface was pocked with minute indentations, as if a blacksmith had peened it with a hammer. “It’s shaped like an upside-down duck.”

“I thought the same thing, at first.”

Bell upended it and held it with the bracket under it. “It is a duck.”

“Shaped like a duck.”

“You know what this is?” said Bell.

“You tell me.”

Bell had apprenticed under Wally and his ofttimes partner, Mack Fulton, years ago, and one of the many things he had learned from the veteran investigators was not to voice an opinion until a second brain had an opportunity to observe without being influenced by the first.