“It would help if we knew for certain,” Bronson said wearily. He looked at Irvine. “You say your search to backtrack the stolen currency went nowhere.”
“A bust,” Irvine acknowledged. “The trail was too cold and there was no way to trace the bills before they were recirculated.”
“The banks had no record of who turned them in?” asked Bronson.
Irvine shook his head. “The tellers have no way of knowing because they don’t list the serial numbers. That’s done later by the bank’s bookkeepers. By the time we made a connection, it was too late. Whoever traded in the bills was long gone and forgotten.”
Bronson turned to Curtis. “And your search for the boxcar?”
Curtis looked as if he had just lost the family dog. “It disappeared,” he replied helplessly. “A search of the railyard turned up no sign of it.”
“Maybe it was sent out on a freight train that left the city,” Bell offered.
“Southern Pacific freight trains that left on scheduled runs in the last week show no manifest that includes a freight car owned by the O’Brian Furniture Company.”
“You’re saying it never left the railyard?”
“Exactly.”
“Then why can’t it be found?” inquired Bronson. “It couldn’t have vanished into thin air.”
Curtis threw up his hands. “What can I say? Two of your agents and I searched the railyard from top to bottom. The car is not there.”
“Did the Southern Pacific’s dispatchers know where the car was switched after it arrived?” asked Bell.
“It was switched to a siding next to the loading dock of a deserted warehouse. We checked it out. It wasn’t there.”
Irvine lit a cigar and puffed out a cloud of smoke. “Could it have been coupled to a train without the dispatcher knowing about it?”
“Can’t happen,” Curtis came back. “They would know if a car was covertly added to their train. The brakemen use a form to list the serial numbers on a train in the sequence the cars are coupled together. When the boxcars arrive at their designated destination, they can easily be switched from the rear of the train before it continues on its run.”
“Perhaps the bandit figured the car had outlived its usefulness and he had it scrapped and destroyed,” said Bronson.
“I don’t think so,” Bell said thoughtfully. “My guess is that he simply had it repainted with a new serial number and changed the name to another fictitious company.”
“Won’t make any difference,” said Curtis. “He couldn’t use it anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Bell asked.
“Only the Rio Grande Southern Railroad runs into Telluride.”
“So what’s stopping him from repainting that railroad’s insignia over one advertising the Southern Pacific?”
“Nothing. Except it would be a waste of time. The Rio Grande Southern runs on a narrow-gauge track. The Southern Pacific trains run on standard gauge, nearly a foot wider. There’s no way the track can accommodate the bandit’s boxcar.”
“How stupid of me,” muttered Bell. “I forgot that only narrow-gauge railroads run through the Rocky Mountains.”
“Don’t feel bad,” said Bronson. “I never thought of it either.”
Irvine struck the table with his fist in frustration. “He’ll never bite the hook, knowing that he can’t escape in his private freight car.”
Bell smiled tightly. “He has his strengths, but he also has his weaknesses. I’m counting on his greed and his ego, his sense of invincibility. I’m certain he will take the bait and attempt to rob the bank in Telluride. The challenge is too mighty for him to ignore.”
“I wish you the best of luck,” said Bronson. “If anybody can catch the Butcher, you can.”
“What about you, Horace? Any luck on tracing the bandit’s gun?”
“Nothing encouraging,” Bronson said soberly. “New firearm purchases don’t have to be registered. All any buyer has to do is lay down the money and walk out with the gun. We’ve drawn a blank with dealers. Even if they remember who they sold a Colt thirty-eight automatic to, they won’t give out any names.”
Irvine stared at a wall without seeing it. “It would seem, gentlemen, that all our hard-earned leads have turned into blind alleys.”
“Setbacks, yes,” Bell muttered softly. “But the game isn’t over—not yet. We still have a chance to make the final score.”
22
CROMWELL SAT AT THE TABLE, EATING HIS BREAKFAST and reading the morning paper. He folded the first section on a front-page article and passed it across the table to Margaret without comment.
She read it, her eyes squinting as the story hit home, then she looked up quizzically. “Do you intend on going for it?”
“I find it very tempting,” he replied. “It’s as though a gauntlet was thrown at my feet.”
“What do you know about Telluride?”
“Only what I’ve read. It lies in a box canyon. Has an extensive red-light district, and Butch Cassidy robbed the San Miguel Valley Bank there in 1889.”
“Was he successful?”
Cromwell nodded. “He and his gang got away with over twenty thousand dollars.”
“I suppose you’re thinking if he could do it, you could do it.”
“Cassidy conducted an amateur holdup and rode away on horses,” Cromwell said pompously. “My methods are more scientific.”
“If Telluride is in a box canyon, there is only one way in and one way out. A posse would have time to stop a train and search the cars.”
“I can’t use my boxcar anyway. It will have to be left behind.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The railroad running in and from Telluride is the Rio Grande Southern. The tracks are narrow gauge, the rails too closely spiked for my Southern Pacific car. I’ll just have to find another means of leaving town without the threat of capture.”
Margaret scrutinized the story again. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
“I don’t consider feelings. I work with hard facts, and I play it safe by taking into account every contingency, no matter how small.”
She watched him across the table as he poured another cup of coffee. “You’ll need help with this job.”
He looked over his cup. “What have you got in mind?”
“I’ll come with you.”
“What about your little journey to Juneau, Alaska?”
“I’ll simply postpone it.”
Cromwell considered that for a few moments. “I can’t put you at risk.”
“You haven’t failed yet,” Margaret admonished him. “But, this time, you may need me.”
He was quiet for a while. Then he smiled. “I do believe you’d come along if I ordered you not to.”
She laughed. “Have I ever bowed to your demands yet?”
“Not even when we were children,” he said, remembering. “Though you were two years younger, I could never get the upper hand.”
She patted a napkin against her red lips. “It’s settled, then. We’re in this job together.”
He sighed. “You win. But I hope I won’t be sorry I didn’t put you on the boat to Alaska.”
“What do you want me to do?”
He stared down at the table, as if seeing an abstract image, while he circled his fork on the tablecloth. “Take a train to Colorado tomorrow and then make a connection to Telluride.”
She stared at him. “You want me to leave before you?”
He nodded. “I’ll deviate from my usual routine. Instead of my spending time mingling with the locals and studying the bank operation, you can do it. As a woman, you can conduct a close scrutiny without arousing suspicion.”
“A woman in Telluride?” she mused. “I’ll have to pass myself off as a prostitute.”
“Better yet, claim that you’re an abandoned wife whose husband left her to strike it rich in the mines and disappeared. That way no one will be suspicious of you asking questions and snooping around
.”
“But in order to live and eat, I have to find work in a bordello.”
“Have it your own way,” he said, resigning himself as always to his sister’s whimsical ways.
“And you?”
“I’ll come a few days later, after I’ve checked out the shipment and firmed up my plans for the robbery and our getaway.” He paused and gazed at her with a look of brotherly love. “I must be mad for involving you in such a risky venture.”
“I’m mad, too.” She laughed a lilting laugh. “Insane with excitement and a growing rage for adventure.” She threw him the feminine expression of a cat about to leap on a mouse. “Of course, the thought of acting like a prostitute is an attraction I find delicious.”
“Spare me the details.”
Then she suddenly became serious. “What about Isaac Bell?”
He shrugged. “What about him?”
“He seems to show up everywhere, maybe even Telluride.”
“The thought crossed my mind, but, once I verify the currency shipment, I believe that pretty much eliminates him. He’s too busy chasing ghosts all over San Francisco to show up out of the blue in Telluride.”
“I don’t trust him any more than I can throw this house.”
He laughed. “Cheer up, sister dear. This will be a walk in the park just like the other robberies. You’ll see.”
23
THE SPRING DAY WAS COOL AND BRISK AS BELL DEPARTED the train at the town depot and walked to the corner of Aspen Street and Colorado Avenue, where he found a three-story wooden building with a sign out front that read MAMIE TUBBS BOARDINGHOUSE. He carried a battered valise and wore a worn wool coat with a vest and flannel shirt underneath. His pants were heavy cotton with almost the consistency of canvas. Boots that looked as if they had walked five thousand miles protected his feet while a rumpled old Stetson sat solidly on his head. The fabricated image was embellished with a Dublin-style bent pipe wedged between his teeth. Bell also walked with a pronounced limp as if his left leg was stiff.
He stepped into the parlor of the boardinghouse and was greeted by Mamie Tubbs, a jolly woman as round as a huge pear. Her gray hair hung down her back in two braids, and she had a face that looked like a large saucer with a nose.
“Greetings, stranger,” she said in a voice as deep as a man’s. “Looking for a place to stay?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Bell politely. “I’m new in town.”
“Seven dollars a week including meals, providing you’re at the table when I dish up.”
He reached into a pocket, brought out a few folded bills, and counted out seven dollars. “Here’s your money, in advance. “I don’t have much, but enough to tide me over for a while.”
She had noticed his limp when he came into the parlor. “You lookin’ to work in the mines?”
Bell tapped a hand against his leg. “My mining days ended when I was injured by a badly laid stick of dynamite.”
She eyed him suspiciously, beginning to wonder where any future rent was going to come from. “Where do you expect to find a job?”
“A friend found me work as a cleanup man at the New Sheridan Hotel.”
She smiled. “They couldn’t find you a room in the basement?”
“All beds in the basement were taken by miners,” Bell lied. He had no idea if miners slept in the basement.
The impression of a crippled miner, he knew, would satisfy Mamie Tubbs enough so she wouldn’t gossip around town about her new boarder. She showed him to his room, where he unpacked his valise. He removed a towel wrapped around a Colt Browning model 1905 .45 caliber automatic pistol with a custom twenty-shot magazine and shoulder stock that fit in a slot behind the grip. He slipped the weapon under the bed but kept his trusty Remington derringer inside his Stetson. He retightened the wrapping around his knee so it hindered normal movement.
After a beef stew dinner in Mamie’s dining room, he met the other people who were staying at the boardinghouse. Most were miners, but there were a few store clerks, and a husband and wife who were opening a restaurant. After dinner, Bell strolled up Pacific Avenue and studied the layout of the town.
Telluride—the name supposedly came from the saying “to hell you ride”—was launched after gold was discovered in the San Miguel River. The gold, along with silver-bearing ore, found high in the San Juan Mountains, quickly attracted an army of prospectors and miners over the next fifty years. By 1906, more millionaires per capita lived in Telluride than in New York City.
The miners eventually dug three hundred fifty miles of tunnels that honeycombed the surrounding mountains, some as high as twelve thousand feet above sea level. The population soared to over five thousand, and the rip-roaring town soon overflowed with wild and crazy living mixed with a healthy dose of corruption. There were three dozen saloons and one hundred eighty prostitutes to keep the army of miners in a good mood after long twelve-hour shifts in the Silver Bell, Smuggler-Union, and Liberty Bell mines at three dollars a day.
When the sun dropped behind the mountains and darkness came, a blaze of lights flashed on up and down the streets. In 1892, mine owner L. L. Nunn had hired the electrical wizard Nikola Tesla to build the world’s first alternating-current power plant to move ore on cables down the mountain and miners up from town. After running lines from the power plant into town, Telluride became the first town in history to have electric streetlamps.
Bell walked past the notorious cribs where the scarlet women plied their trade. The upper-class houses were called the Senate and the Silver Belle. Music could be heard through the windows out on the street as a piano player pounded out the “Dill Pickles Rag” and other ragtime tunes. The street was called Popcorn Alley, its name coming from the constant opening and closing of doors all night.
He moved up to the main section of town on Colorado Avenue and looked through the windows of the Telluride First National Bank. Tomorrow, he would meet with the town sheriff and the bank manager to plan a reception for the Butcher Bandit, should he swallow the bait and make an attempt to rob the bank. He passed the old San Miguel Valley Bank that Butch Cassidy had robbed seventeen years previously.
The evening air had turned cold, once the sun took its heat beyond the mountain peaks. Bell noticed that the nine-thousand-foot altitude caused him to take deeper breaths. He ignored the main street saloons and headed for the New Sheridan Hotel.
Bell stepped inside the lobby and asked the desk clerk to see the manager. In a minute, a short man with a florid face and bald head came out of the office with quick, hurried steps, like a mouse running from a hole in the wall. He smiled an official smile, but not too warmly, as he sized up Bell’s rather dowdy appearance.
“I’m sorry, all our rooms are taken. The Sheridan is full up.”
“I don’t want a room,” said Bell. “Are you Mr. Marshall Buckman?”
The smile straightened and the eyes narrowed. “Yes, I’m Buckman.”
“I’m Isaac Bell with the Van Dorn Detective Agency.”
Buckman eye’s widened again and he bowed. “Mr. Bell. I received your telegram. Permit me to say the Sheridan will cooperate in every way.”
“The most important thing,” explained Bell, “is to confirm to anyone who asks that I work here as a janitor.”
“Yes, of course,” Buckman said in a patronizing manner. “You can count on me.”
“Thank you, Mr. Buckman. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I will enjoy the best whiskey in your bar.”
“We serve only superior whiskey from the finest distillers. No local rotgut is tolerated at the Sheridan.”
Bell nodded and then turned his back on Buckman and stepped toward the bar. He paused and read a plaque listing rules for the hotel patrons.
Don’t shoot the pianist, he’s doing his damndest.
No horses above the first floor.
No more than 5 in a bed.
Funerals on the house.
Beds 50 cents, with sheets 75 cents.
At the doorway,
he stood aside as a blond lady whose face was hidden under a wide-brimmed hat stepped past him. All he saw was that she had a fine figure.
Conversely, she paid no attention to the limping man who walked by her as she headed for the carpeted stairway leading to her room.
Much later, Bell cursed himself for not recognizing the blonde just as Margaret blamed herself for not identifying the limping man until it was too late.
24
BELL EXPLAINED THE SITUATION TO SHERIFF HENRY Pardee and the bank manager, Murray Oxnard. The three men sat around a table eating a breakfast served by the sheriff’s wife. Pardee’s house sat directly behind his office and the jail. He walked to the door, made sure it was locked, and drew the curtains so nobody could see inside.
Bell was impressed with the sheriff. One wall of the parlor had bookshelves from floor to ceiling stacked with works by Shakespeare, Plato, Voltaire, Bacon, and Emerson, along with several volumes in Latin. Bell had never met a peace officer in a small town who was so well read.
Pardee ran a hand through a thick mane of graying hair and tugged at a shaggy mustache. “What you’re saying, Mr. Bell, is that you think the Butcher Bandit is going to hit our town bank.”
“I can’t say for certain,” Bell replied. “But if he’s true to form, he’ll be lured by the large payroll that is being shipped to the bank from the First National Bank of Denver.”
“I know of no such payroll shipment,” said Murray Oxnard. He was a tall, quiet man with broad shoulders and narrow hips. He seldom smiled, and his face was always fixed with a dour expression.
“There is no shipment,” explained Bell. “It is a ruse to smoke out the bandit.”
Pardee rapped the fingers of one hand on the table. “If he is as smart as I’ve read, he’ll dig into the true facts and find it’s all a sham.”
Bell shook his head. “No, sir, the directors of the bank in Denver are primed to go along with the story.”