The Striker by Clive Cussler (scary books to read txt) 📗

voice that rose. “Rest assured, I do not believe that any of my detectives would deliberately precipitate the collapse of a city block, but I would hope that at future such events you would not stick around to allow the police to link the name of the Van Dorn Agency to a natural disaster.”

“I had to help some people out of the buildings.”

“You’re sure you’d seen this man before?”

“I’m not sure,” Bell said, because he was not yet able to explain, to the Boss’s satisfaction, his strange, dreamlike memory of the man with amber eyes who had to be the provocateur. “But I am convinced that he was looking for me. He lured me into that cellar.”

“Lured?” echoed Van Dorn. “Lured is what penny-dreadful villains do to unsuspecting maidens.”

“What I mean to say is, I feel like a darn fool.”

Van Dorn nodded agreement. “I think you could do with a night’s rest.”

“Yes, sir,” said Isaac Bell. But instead of going home to his room in the Yale Club, he went straight to a gunsmith that Wish Clarke patronized on Forty-third Street. It was after hours, but the gunsmith lived above his shop, and Wish’s name got Bell in the door.

He bought a two-shot derringer, a tiny one-shot, and a Colt Army to replace the weapons taken by the amber-eyed man. Then he described the man’s revolver to the smith.

“It was a .45. And I would have thought it was a Colt. But it had no front sight. And the hammer was much wider than this,” he added, hefting the gun. “I was wondering, do you know a smith who might modify a Colt that way?”

“Folks do all sorts of things to six-shooters. Did you notice the top strap?”

“It was flat,” said Bell. “Not beveled like this. And the hammer had a graceful little curl to it.”

“Was the front sight cut off or ground down?”

Bell considered for a moment. “No. There seemed to be a notch you could slip one into.”

“How long was the barrel?”

“Not so long it couldn’t come out of his holster real quick.”

“And it had a slot for the front sight? . . . Did you get a look at the trigger?”

“No. His finger was curled around it.”

“How big was the grip?”

“Let me think . . . The man had large hands, but I could see the butt— It was longer than most.”

“I think you were looking at a Bisley.”

“The target pistol?”

“Yes, that flat top is for mounting a rear windage sight. Fine, fine weapon. Very accurate.”

“It is, in my experience,” said Bell, remembering how close two pistol shots had come to killing him at extreme range in Gleasonburg.

“But it is more than a target pistol,” said the smith. “It makes an excellent close-in fighting gun with that long grip and wide hammer.”

“Do you have one?”

“I’d have to order it special.”

“Send it to the Van Dorn office at the Cadillac. They’ll forward to me.”

Bell paid for the guns, dropped the one-shot in his pocket, and put the Army in his shoulder holster. Then, as he started to slide the two-shot up his coat sleeve, he weighed it speculatively in his hand, wondering. Had the amber-eyed provocateur assumed or guessed he had a derringer in his sleeve? Or had he been sharp enough to spot that the sleeve was tailored extra-wide? Or had he just been covering all the places a man might hide a gun?

“I’d like another of these, please. But a lighter one, if you’ve got it.”

“I’ve got a real beaut I made myself. Weighs half that. Fires a .22 long. But it won’t pack quite the punch.”

“Some punch beats no punch,” said Bell. “I’ll take it.”

The gunsmith brought out a miniature two-shot over-under derringer. “Always happy to make a sale,” he said. “But you’re running out of places to put them.”

“Can you recommend a good hatmaker?”

•   •   •

THE HATMAKER was working late and eager to please the gunsmith, who was a source of clients who paid top dollar for custom-made. At midnight, Bell hurried back to the Cadillac Hotel to check for wires that had come in on the Van Dorn private telegraph.

Grady Forrer, who never seemed to sleep, said, “Excellent chapeau!”

Bell touched the wide brim in salute and looked for telegrams in his box.

Weber and Fields had not reported in, and he could only guess whether they were keeping tabs on the strikers heading for Pittsburgh or holed up in a saloon; he made a mental note to instruct Archie to report to him independently. But two wires had just come in from Chicago, both sent in the money-saving shorthand that the parsimonious Joseph Van Dorn demanded.

Wish Clarke reported,

R LAMING

LIKELY JOB.

In other words, Wish could not find Laurence Rosania in any of his usual haunts to question him about fellow experimenters with shaped explosives, but the detective had caught wind of rumors in the Chicago underworld that a wealthy dowager or an industrialist’s girlfriend was about to be separated from jewelry locked in her safe.

Bell sat up straight when he read the second wire. It was from Claiborne Hancock, who Joseph Van Dorn had coaxed out of early retirement to manage Protective Services.

CLIENT’S SISTER HERE

A LOOKER.

GLAD TO PROTECT TOO.

A looker and glad to equaled four excess words, but Hancock had done Van Dorn a favor and could take liberties.

Bell wired back.

UNTIL I ARRIVE.

24

YOU’RE LOOKING MIGHTY FULL OF YOURSELF,” SAID JAMES Congdon.

Henry Clay took dead aim at The Kiss and sailed his hat across Congdon’s office. “I have every right to,” he exulted. “Our coalfields’ war is exploding.”

“From what I read in the newspapers, it would be exploding regardless of your expensive efforts to shove a chunk under the corner.”

Clay was not to be denied his victory. His grand joust with Isaac Bell had been deeply satisfying. He had duped, disarmed, and humbled Joseph Van Dorn’s new young champion. Better yet, the fact that Bell had been shadowing Mary Higgins proved that Clay had chosen Mary brilliantly.