Isaac Bell addressed his German companions-Erhard Riker, who seemed so English, even American, and Herr Shafer, who was as Teutonic as Wagnerian opera. “In the company of not one but two of the Kaiser’s subjects, I must ask about the talk of war in Europe.”

“Germany and England are competitors, not enemies,” Riker answered.

“Our nations are evenly balanced,” Shafer added quickly. “England has more battleships. We have by far the greater Army-the most modern and advanced, the strongest in the world.”

“Only in those parts of the world that your Army can march to,” Arnold Bennett called from the next table.

“What is that, sir?”

“Our American hosts’ Admiral Mahan put it most aptly: ‘The nation that rules the seas, rules the world.’ Your Army is worth spit in a bucket if it can’t get to where the fight is.”

Shafer turned purple. Veins bulged on his forehead.

Riker cautioned him with a gesture, and answered, “There is no fight. The talk of war is just talk.”

“Then why do you keep building more warships?” the English writer shot back.

“Why does England?” Riker retorted mildy.

The Chicagoans and the Chinese seminary students swiveled eyeballs between the Germans and the English like spectators at a tennis match. To Isaac Bell’s surprise, one of the silent Chinese answered before the writer could.

“England is an island. The English see no choice.”

“Thank you, Louis,” Arnold Bennett said. “I could not have put it better myself.”

Louis’s dark almond eyes grew wide, and he looked down as if embarrassed to have spoken up.

“By that logic,” said Riker, “Germany has no choice either. German industry and German trade demand a vast fleet of merchant ships to sail our goods across every sea. We must protect our fleet. But, frankly, it is my instinct that sensible businessmen will never go to war.”

Herr Shafer scoffed, “My countryman is gullible. Businessmen will have no say in it. Britain and Russia conspire to obstruct German growth. France will side with England, too. Thank Gott for the Imperial German Army and our Prussian officers.”

“Prussians?” shouted a Chicagoan. “Prussian officers made my grandfather emigrate to America.”

“Mine, too,” called another, red in the face. “Thank ‘Gott’ they took us out of that hellhole.”

“Socialists,” Shafer commented.

“Socialists? I’ll show you a Socialist.”

The Chicagoan’s friends restrained him.

Shafer took no notice. “We are besieged by England and England’s lackeys.”

Arnold Bennett leaped up, spread his legs in a burly stance, and said, “I don’t at all care for your tone, sir.”

Half the observation car was on their feet by now, gesticulating and shouting. Isaac Bell glanced at Riker who looked back, eyes alight with amusement. “I guess that answers your question, Mr. Bell. Good night, sir, I’m going to bed ahead of the riot.”

Before he could rise from his chair, Shafer shouted, “Besieged from without and undermined within by Socialists and Jews.”

Isaac Bell turned cold eyes on Shafer. The German drew back, mumbling, “Wait. When they finish us off, they’ll go after you.”

Isaac Bell drew a deep breath, reminded himself why he was on the train, and answered in a voice that carried through the car. “After Admiral Mahan demonstrated that sea powers rule the world, he said something to a bigot that I’ve always admired: ‘Jesus Christ was a Jew. That makes them good enough for me.’”

The shouting stopped. A man laughed. Another said, “Say, that’s a good one. ‘Good enough for me,’ ” and the car erupted in laughter.

Shafer clicked his heels. “Good night, gentlemen.”

Riker watched the cavalryman retreat toward the nearest steward and demand schnapps. “For a moment there,” he said quietly, “I thought you were going to floor Herr Shafer.”

Bell looked at the gem merchant. “You don’t miss much, Mr. Riker.”

“I told you. My father taught me every trick in the book. What got you so riled?”

“I will not abide hatred.”

Riker shrugged. “To answer your question-truthfully-Europe wants a war. Monarchists, democrats, merchants, soldiers, and sailors have been at peace too long to know what they’re in for.”

“That is too cynical for my taste,” said Isaac Bell.

Riker smiled blandly. “I’m not a cynic. I’m a realist.”

“What about those sensible businessmen you were talking about?’

“Some will see the profit in war. The rest will be ignored.”

THE SPY WATCHED Isaac Bell watching his “suspects”:

The detective cannot know whether I am here in this very car.

Or already asleep in my bed.

Or even on the train at all.

Nor can he know who on this train belongs to me.

Get some sleep, Mr. Bell. You’re going to need it. Bad news in the morning.

36

YOUR SHAD ROE AND SCRAMBLED EGGS, MR. BELL,” announced the diner steward with a broad smile that faded as he saw the expression on Bell’s face change from pleasurable anticipation to rage. Two hours from its destination, the 20th Century Limited had picked up Chicago morning newspapers left by an eastbound express. A crisp edition folded at each place setting greeted the passengers at breakfast.

EXPLOSION IN U.S. NAVY TORPEDO

STATION AT NEWPORT

TWO OFFICERS BLOWN TO ATOMS

NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND, MAY 15TH.-An explosion that caused death and destruction occurred in the Naval Torpedo Station at Newport. It killed two naval officers and wrecked a production line.

Isaac Bell was stunned. Had he gone in the wrong direction?

“Good morning, Bell! You haven’t touched your roe. Has it turned?”

“Morning, Riker. No, it smells fine. Bad news in the paper.”

Riker opened his as he sat. “Good Lord. What caused it?”

“It doesn’t say. Excuse me.” Bell went back to his stateroom.

If not an accident but sabotage, then the spy’s reach was as broad as it was vicious. In the course of a single day his ring had executed a traitor in Washington, murdered a detective hot on his trail in New York, and blown up a heavily guarded naval station on the Rhode Island coast.

ISAAC BELL SET UP temporary headquarters in the back of the LaSalle Station luggage room within minutes of the 20th Century steaming into Chicago. Van Dorn detectives from the Palmer House head office had already blanketed the railroad station. They followed his suspects as they scattered.

Larry Rosania promptly vanished. A veteran Chicago detective was reporting embarrassedly when another rushed in. “Isaac! The Old Man says to telephone long-distance from the stationmaster’s private office. And make sure you’re alone.”

Bell did so.

Van Dorn asked, “Are you alone?”

“Yes, sir. Was either of the officers killed Ron Wheeler?”

“No.”

Bell breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“Wheeler snuck off to spend the night with a woman. If he hadn’t, he’d be dead, too. It was his people who were killed.”

“Thank the Lord he wasn’t. Captain Falconer says he’s irreplaceable.”

“Well, here is something else irreplaceable,” Van Dorn growled. Six hundred miles of copper telephone wire between Chicago and Washington did not diminish the sound of his anger. “This is not in the newspapers, and it won’t ever be-are you still alone there, Isaac?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Listen to me. The Navy has suffered a terrible loss. The explosion started a fire. The fire destroyed their entire arsenal of experimental electric torpedoes that had been imported from England. Wheeler’s people had apparently improved their range and accuracy vastly. More important-much more important-Wheeler’s people figured out a way to arm the warheads with dynamite. The Navy Secretary told me this morning. He is distraught. So much so, he is threatening to offer the President his resignation. Apparently the use of TNT would have given U.S. torpedoes ten times more power underwater.”