19

THERE APPEARED TO BE A COMMOTION UP BROADWAY when Isaac Bell and Marion Morgan stepped out of Rector’s. They heard clanging fire bells and police whistles and saw crowds of people milling in every direction and decided the best way to Marion’s ferry was to take the subway.

Uptown in twenty minutes, they walked to the pier holding hands. Bell escorted her aboard the boat and lingered on the gangway. The whistle blew.

“Thank you for dinner, darling. It was lovely to see you.”

“Shall I come across with you?”

“I have to get up so early. So do you. Give me a kiss.”

After a while, a deckhand bawled, “Break it up, lovebirds. All ashore that’s goin’ ashore.”

Bell stepped off, and called as the water widened between the boat and dock, “They say it may shower on Friday.”

“I’ll do a rain dance.”

He rode the subway downtown and stopped at the Knickerbocker to check in with the Van Dorn night watch, who asked, “Did you hear about the snake?”

“Lachesis muta.”

“He escaped.”

“From the Cumberland?”

“They think he made it down to the sewer.”

“Bite anybody?”

“Not yet,” said the nightman.

“How’d he get loose?”

“I’ve heard fourteen versions of that since I came on tonight. The best one is they dropped his box. It was made of glass.” He shook his head and laughed, “Only in New York.”

“Anything I should know before morning?”

The nightman handed him a stack of messages.

On top was a cablegram from Bell’s best friend, Detective Archie Abbott, who, in return for an extended European-honeymoon leave, was making contacts in London, Paris, and Berlin to establish Van Dorn field offices overseas. Socially prominent and married to America’s wealthiest heiress, the blue-blooded Archibald Angell Abbott IV was welcome in every embassy and country estate in Europe. Bell had already cabled him with instructions to use that unique access to get an inside perspective on the dreadnought race. Now Archie was coming home. Did Bell prefer he take the British Lusitania or the German Kaiser Wilhem der Grosse?

“Rolling Billy,” Bell cabled back, using the popular name for the grand but lubberly German liner. Archie and his beautiful bride would spend their Atlantic crossing in the first-class lounges, charming high-ranking officers, diplomats, and industrialists into speaking freely on the subjects of war, espionage, and the naval race. Neither the stiffest Prussian officer nor the worldliest Kaiser’s courtier would stand a chance when Lillian started batting her eyes. While Archie, a confirmed bachelor until he had fallen head over heels for Lillian, was no slouch in the wife-beguiling business.

John Scully had left an enigmatic note: “The PS boys are babysitting Kent. I got a mind to nose around Chinatown.” Bell tossed it in the wastebasket. In other words, he’d hear from the detective when Scully felt like it.

Reports from the Van Dorn agents in Westchester and Bethlehem offered no new news about the climbing accident and the steel mill explosion. Neither had gotten a line on their possible suspects, the “Irish” girl or the “German” mill worker. But the agent in Bethlehem warned against jumping to conclusions. It seemed that no one who knew Chad Gordon was surprised by the accident. The victim was an impatient, hard-driving man, casual about the safety rules and known to take terrible risks.

There was disturbing news from Newport, Rhode Island. The Protection Services agent assigned to Wheeler at the Naval Torpedo Station reported chasing off, but failing to capture, two men who tried to break into the torpedo expert’s cottage. Bell ordered up extra PS boys, fearing it had not been an ordinary burglary attempt. He also wired Captain Falconer recommending that Wheeler be instructed to sleep in the well-guarded torpedo station barracks instead of his own place.

The middle telephone, the one marked with a chorus girl’s rouge, rang, and the nightman snapped it up. “Yes, sir, Mr. Van Dorn!… As a matter of fact, he’s right here.” The nightman passed Bell the telephone, mouthing: Long-distance from Washington.

Bell pressed the earpiece to his ear and leaned into the mouthpiece. “You’re working late.”

“Setting an example,” Van Dorn growled. “Anything I should know before I turn in?”

“Archie’s coming home.”

“About time. Longest honeymoon I ever heard of.”

Bell filled him in on the rest. Then he asked, “How did you make out with your pal at the State Department?”

“That’s why I’m telephoning,” Van Dorn said. “Canning crossed off most of our list’s foreigners and added a couple he’s got suspicions about. One that catches my eye is some kind of visiting art curator at the Smithsonian Institution. Named Yamamoto Kenta. Japanese. Just like Falconer says. Might be worth getting a line on him.”

“Have you got someone down there you can send to the Smithsonian?”

Van Dorn said he did, and they rang off.

Bell stifled a yawn as he shrugged into his coat. It was well past midnight.

“Watch your step passing sewers,” said the nightman.

“I imagine by now Mr. Snake is swimming in the Hudson River.”

THE MEN’S CLUBS ON West 44th Street shared the block between Sixth and Fifth avenues with stables and parking garages, and Isaac Bell was too busy sidestepping manure and dodging town cars to worry about snakes. But when he arrived at the limestone-and-brick, eleven-story Yale Club of New York City, he found the entrance blocked by three ruddy-faced, middle-aged men, considerably worse for wear from a night on the town, swaying arm in arm on the front steps.

Clad in blazers and Class of ’83 reunion scarves, the Old Blues were singing “Bright College Years” at the top of their lungs. Isaac Bell lent a sleepy baritone to the chorus and tried to get around them.

“We’re taller than the Harvard Club,” they cried, gesticulating derisively at a squat clubhouse across the street.

“Come up to the roof with us!”

“We’ll hurl bouquets down upon the Crimsons.”

The doorman came out and cleared a path for the tall detective. “Out-of-town members,” he marveled.

“Thanks for the escort, Matthew. Never would have made it inside without you.”

“Good night, Mr. Bell.”

There was more Yalesian song coming from the Grill Room in back, though not as loud as the revelers out front. Bell took the stairs instead of the elevator. The grand, two-story lounge was typically empty this late at night. He lived on the third floor, which contained twelve spartan bachelor rooms, six on each side of the hall, with the bathroom at the end. A steamer trunk sat in the hall, partly blocking his door.

Apparently a member had just got off the ship from Europe.

Yawning sleepily, Bell reached to push the trunk out of his way as he stepped around it. He was surprised it felt light-already empty. The staff usually cleared trunks the instant they were unpacked. He gave it a closer, second look. It was a battered old trunk, with faded labels from the Hotel Ritz in Barcelona and Brown’s of London and the Cunard liner Servia. He could not recall the last time he had seen that name; the ship had probably been out of service since the turn of the century. Among the faded luggage check labels, a bright new one caught his eye. The Cumberland Hotel, New York.

Funny coincidence, last-known residence of Mr. Snake. He wondered why a member of the Yale Club of New York would stay at the Cumberland before moving to the private but austere bachelor quarters. Most likely a decision to stay long-term in New York, as the rates were considerably lower at the club, even counting the cost of dues.

He unlocked his door and took a step into his room. An odd odor tweaked his nostrils. It was so faint, it was almost indiscernible. He paused, his hand already outstretched, feeling for the wall switch to turn on the overhead light. He tried to identify the gamy aroma. Almost like a sweaty pigskin fencing suit. But his was around the corner on 45th Street, hanging in his locker with his foils and saber at the Fencers Club.