4

IT WAS A CHINAMAN,” SAID MARINE LANCE CORPORAL Black, puffing smoke from a two-dollar cigar.

“If you believe the Gramps Patrol,” puffed Private Little.

“He means the night watchmen.”

Isaac Bell indicated that he understood that the “Gramps Patrol” were the pensioners employed as night watchmen to guard the navy yard inside the gates, while the Marines manned the gates themselves.

He and the husky young leathernecks were seated at a round table in O’Leary’s Saloon on E Street. They had been generous sports about their previous encounter, offering Bell grudging respect for his fighting skills and forgiving black eyes and loosened teeth after only one round of drinks. At Bell’s urging they had polished off a lunch of steaks, potatoes, and apple pie. Now, with whiskey glasses at hand and Bell’s Havanas blueing the air, they were primed to be talkative.

Their commandant had ordered a list of everyone who had passed through the gates the night that Arthur Langner had died, they told him. No names had aroused any suspicion. Bell would get Joe Van Dorn to wangle a peek at that list to confirm the commandant’s judgment.

A night watchman had reported an intruder. The report had apparently not even reached the commandant, rising no higher up the chain of command than the sergeant of the gate guard, who had deemed it nonsense.

Bell asked, “If it were true, what the Gramps Patrol reported, why do you suppose a Chinaman would break into the navy yard?”

“Looking to steal something.”

“Or after the girls.”

“What girls?”

“The officers’ daughters. The ones who live in the yard.”

Private Little looked around to make sure no one was listening. The only patron close enough was curled up on the floor, snoring in the sawdust. “Commandant’s got a couple of lovelies I wouldn’t mind getting to know better.”

“I see,” said Bell, suppressing a smile. The idea of an amorous Chinese infiltrating an American Navy base by scaling a ten-foot wall guarded by Marines at every gate and watchmen inside did not suggest a productive path of investigation. But, he reminded himself, while a detective had always to be skeptical, the wise skeptic dismissed no possibility without first considering it. “Who,” he asked, “was this old night watchman who told you this?”

“He didn’t tell us. He told the sergeant.”

“His name is Eddison,” said Black.

“Big John Eddison,” Little added.

“How old is he?”

“Looks a hundred.”

“Big old man. Nearly as tall you, Mr. Bell.”

“Where would I find him?”

“There’s a rooming house where the salts hang out.”

Bell found Eddison’s rooming house on F Street within a short walk of the navy yard. It had a front porch filled with rocking chairs, empty this cold afternoon. He went in and introduced himself to the landlady, who was laying her long table for supper. She had a thick Southern accent, and a face still pretty despite the lines acquired in years of hard work.

“Mr. Eddison?” she drawled. “He’s a good old man. Never a bit of trouble like certain of his shipmates I could name.”

“Is he in?”

“Mr. Eddison sleeps late, being as how he works at night.”

“Would you mind if I waited?” Bell asked with a smile that flashed his even teeth and lighted his blue eyes.

The landlady brushed a wisp of gray hair from her cheek and smiled back. “I’ll bring you a cup of coffee.”

“Don’t trouble yourself.”

“No trouble, Mr. Bell. You’re in the South now. My mother would spin in her grave if she heard I let a gentleman sit in my parlor without a cup of coffee.”

Fifteen minutes later, Bell was able to say without stretching the truth too far, “This is the finest coffee I have had since my mother took me to a pastry shop in Vienna, Austria, when I was only knee-high to a grasshopper.”

“Well, you know what I’ve a mind to do? I’ll put on a fresh pot and ask Mr. Eddison if he’d like to have a cup with you.”

John Eddison would have been even taller than Bell, the detective saw, had age not bent his back. He had big hands and long arms that must have been powerful in his day, a shock of white hair, pale runny eyes, the enormous nose that old men often grew, and a firm mouth set in sagging jowls.

Bell extended his hand. “I’m Isaac Bell, Van Dorn investigator.”

“You don’t say,” Eddison grinned, and Bell saw that the slow movement of age masked a sprightly manner. “Well, I didn’t do it. Though I might have when I was younger. How can I help you, sonny?”

“I was speaking with Lance Corporal Black and Private Little of the Marine guard, and-”

“You know what we said about the Marines in the Navy?” Eddison interrupted.

“No, sir.”

“A sailor had to accidentally bang his head four times on a low beam to demonstrate that he was qualified to join the Marines.”

Bell laughed. “They told me that you reported you had surprised a prowler in the navy yard.”

“Aye. But he got away. They didn’t believe me.”

“A Chinese?”

“Not a Chinaman.”

“No? I wonder where Black and Little got the idea the prowler was Chinese?”

“I warned you about the Marines,” Eddison chuckled. “You laughed.”

“What sort of man did the prowler look like?”

“Like a Jap.”

“Japanese?”

“I told those fools’ sergeant. Sounds like their sergeant had Chinamen on the brain. But like I said, I don’t think the sergeant believed I saw anyone at all-Chinaman, Jap-he didn’t believe me, period. Thought I was a stupid old man having visions. The sergeant asked me if I was drinking. Hell, I haven’t had a drink in forty years.”

Bell couched his next question carefully. He had met very few Americans who could distinguish Japanese from Chinese. “Did you get a close look at him?”

“Aye.”

“I was under the impression it was dark.”

“The moon shone square in his face.”

“How near were you to him?”

Eddison held up his large, wrinkled hand. “Any closer, I’d have wrapped these fingers around his throat.”

“What was there about him that seemed Japanese?”

“His eyes, his mouth, his nose, his lips, his hair,” the old man fired back.

Again, Bell framed his skepticism cautiously. “Some people say they have trouble telling the two races apart.”

“Some people ain’t been to Japan.”

“And you have?”

Eddison straightened up in his chair. “I sailed into Uraga Harbor with Commodore Matthew Perry when he opened Japan to American trade.”

“That’s sixty years ago!” If this wasn’t an ancient mariner’s tall tale, Eddison was even older than he looked.

“’Fifty-seven. I was a main topman on Perry’s steam frigate Susquehanna. And I pulled an oar in the commodore’s launch. Rowed the Old Man into Yokosuka. We had Japs coming out of our ears.”

Bell smiled. “It does sound as if you are qualified to distinguish Japanese from Chinese.”

“As I said.”

“Could you tell me where you caught the prowler?”

“Almost caught him.”

“Do you recall how far that was from the Gun Factory?”

Eddison shrugged. “Thousand yards.”

“Half a mile,” Bell mused.

“Half a sea mile,” Eddison corrected.

“Even farther.”

“Sonny, I’ll bet you’re speculating if the Jap had something to do with the explosion in Mr. Langner’s design loft.”

“Do you think he did?”

“No way of knowing. Like I say, the Jap I saw was a full thousand yards from the Gun Factory.”

“How big is the navy yard?” Bell asked.

The old sailor stroked his chin and looked into the middle distance. “I’d imagine that between the walls and river, the yard must take up a hundred acres.”

“One hundred acres.” Nearly as big as a northeastern dairy farm.

“Chockful of mills, foundries, parade grounds. Plus,” he added with a meaningful look, “mansions and gardens-where I intercepted him prowling.”