The Thief ib-5 Read online

  “Of course, of course. You’re right, of course.” Professor Beiderbecke turned embarrassedly to Bell. “Forgive me, sir. Despite my age, I am not a man of the world. My brilliant young protégé has persuaded me that I am too trusting. Obviously, you’re a gentleman. Obviously, you sprang to our defense while never pausing to consider your own safety. On the other hand, it behooves me to remember that we have been sorely used by others who appeared to be gentlemen.”

  “And who tried to yank the fillings from our teeth,” grinned Lynds. “Sorry, Mr. Bell. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you? Not that we’re not grateful for you charging to the rescue.”

  Isaac Bell returned what could be judged a friendly smile.

  “Your gratitude does not have to take the form of giving away an important secret.” His mild answer disguised curiosity that would be best satisfied by biding his time. As Archie had noted, for the next four and half days on the high seas no one was going anywhere. “But I am concerned for your safety,” he added. “These munitions people mounted an audacious campaign with military precision to kidnap you from a British liner putting to sea. What makes you think they won’t try again?”

  “Not on a British liner,” Lynds fired back. “On a German ship we’d worry about the crew. That’s why we took a British ship.”

  “You mean they tried before?”

  “In Bremen.”

  “How did you happen to give them the slip?”

  “Got lucky,” said Lynds. “We saw them coming, so we made a big show of booking passage on the Prinz Wilhelm. Then we ran like heck the other way, to Rotterdam, and caught a steamer to Hull. By the time they figured out we hadn’t sailed on the Wilhelm, we were on the train to London.”

  Bell had many more questions, but they were forestalled by the arrival of the ship’s doctor. When the chief officer bustled in right behind the doctor, Bell emptied his whiskey glass into a spittoon before the officer could see and conspicuously poured another from the bottle.

  The chief officer listened with an increasingly skeptical expression as the Professor and Lynds described an attack by three men who subsequently fell overboard. Then, while the doctor examined Beiderbecke’s cut lip and Lynds’s swelling eye, the officer said quietly to Bell, with a significant glance at the whiskey in his hand, “One cannot help but wonder whether those two gentlemen had a falling out and covered it up with a tall tale of, shall we say, ‘piracy in Liverpool Bay’?”

  Isaac Bell sipped his whiskey. He intended to get to the bottom of the bizarre attack, as well as the nature of Beiderbecke and Lynds’s self-described secret invention, which had provoked it. But the kidnappers had drowned in the night, miles behind the ship. The Austrian and the American-raised German-Swede were the only sources of information available. And the Mauretania’s officers were even less qualified than a small town police force to investigate the motive for the attack. They would only get in his way.

  “I say…” the chief officer went on. He had begun politely, almost diffidently, the model of the smooth company man unfazed by the peccadillos of wealthy passengers. Now he fixed Bell with a flinty eye practiced at terrorizing junior officers: “As no one jumped, fell, or was thrown overboard, I am curious how they induced you, Mr. Bell, to embroider their story.”

  “Sympathy,” Isaac Bell smiled. He touched the whiskey to his lips. “Poor chaps were so embarrassed by their behavior… and I had had a drink or two.” He peered into his glass. “Seemed like a good idea at the time…” He looked the officer full in the face and grinned sheepishly. “It felt jolly good to be a hero, even for a moment…”

  “I appreciate your candor, Mr. Bell. I am sure that you will agree that as soon as the surgeon has done his work it will be best if we all turn in for the night and let sleeping dogs lie.”

  * * *

  “Krieg Rüstungswerk GMBH?” echoed Archie Abbott, who had traveled regularly back and forth to Europe his whole life. Most recently, in the course of an extended honeymoon, he had laid the groundwork for overseas Van Dorn field offices. “They’re a private munitions outfit with strong Army connections. As you’d expect of a cannon manufacturer gearing up for a European war.”

  Isaac Bell had joined him in the dining saloon moments after the breakfast bugle had blown. The Mauretania was steaming past Malin Head on the northern tip of Ireland, and as she left the Irish Sea in her wake, the liner had begun lifting her bow into unusually tall Atlantic swells, churning rumors in the elevators and vestibules of rough weather ahead.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Do you recall the motorboat you could not hear last night?”

  “If I couldn’t hear it, how could I recall it?”

  Bell told him what had happened. Archie was crestfallen. “Of all the darned times to go to bed early. All three overboard?”

  “The one who tried to stab me, the one who got tossed by his boss. And the boss under his own steam.”

  “You have all the fun, Isaac.”

  “What sort of lunatic drowns himself?”

  Archie smiled. “Is it possible he was afraid of a fellow who had already floored two of his gang and was suddenly waving a gun?”

  Bell shook his head. “A man afraid would not have taken the time to throw his accomplice overboard. No, he made sure there was no one left to confess. Not even himself. Lunacy.”

  “Are you sure he didn’t jump into a lifeboat?”

  “Positive. I went back and looked later. He was along that open stretch in the middle where there aren’t any boats. Ten yards at least from the nearest one.”

  Archie forked down several bites of kippered herring. “I’d say less lunatic than fanatic. Krieg Rüstungswerk operates hand in glove with the Imperial German Army. So if Krieg Rüstungswerk wants the Professor’s ‘secret invention’ it must be some sort of war machine, right?”

  “Undoubtedly a war machine.”

  “Then Krieg might well recruit German Army officers to snatch it. They’re fanatical on the subject of ‘Der Tag’—‘the Day’—to kick off Kaiser Wilhelm’s ‘Will to deeds.’ And we all know what ‘Will to deeds’ means.”

  “Shorthand for ‘Start a war,’” said Bell. “Though I keep hoping that the European war talk is just talk.”

  “So do I,” said Archie. “But Great Britain is paranoid about German dreadnoughts, and Imperial Germany is ambitious. The kaiser loves his Army, and the Army rules society — just like in old Prussia. Everyone’s drafted for three years, and the bourgeoisie are so nuts for uniforms they take reserve commissions just so they can dress up like soldiers.”

  “Soldiers didn’t build German industry. Civilians did.”

  “No doubt millions of hardworking Germans would rather get rich and send their kids to school than fight a war. The question is, can the kaiser stampede them into battle— But enough small talk about war and secret weapons! Dare I ask — has Marion said yes again?”

  “Haven’t braced her yet.”

  “Too busy tossing miscreants overboard? Hey, where are you going? You haven’t finished your breakfast.”

  “I am marconigraphing the Berlin office before we steam out of range. Get Art Curtis cracking on Lynds, Beiderbecke, and Krieg Rüstungswerk.”

  “Good luck. Art’s only a one-man office, and he just got there.”

  “Art Curtis is quicker than a mongoose and smart as a whip — plus he speaks fluent German. Why do you think Mr. Van Dorn gave him Berlin?”

  “I’ll meet you in the smoking room. We have to talk about you taking your beautiful bull by her horns— Say, Isaac? What happened to the rope he threw at you?”

  “The rope was gone when I went back to look.”

  “A crewman must have scooped it up.”

  “Or an accomplice.”

  * * *

  Bell picked up a blank from the purser’s desk and filled out his message. Rather than pass it before inquiring eyes, he carried the form directly to the Marconi house on the top deck of the ship between
Funnels 2 and 3.

  A window curtain, gray with coal smoke, flapped in the wind as Bell walked into the radio room extending a British pound sterling note — five dollars, two days’ pay — to derail ahead of time any suggestion that he send his message through the purser. Nor did the operator, who was not a member of the Mauretania’s crew but employed by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, remark that Bell’s message looked like gibberish, as it was written out in cipher.

  Bell stood by as the operator dispatched his message by Morse code to a shore station at Malin Head. From there it would be relayed overland by telegraph and under the Irish Sea and English Channel by cable and back onto telegraph wires across the continent to the Van Dorn field office in Berlin. Depending how far at sea the Mauretania had preceded, Arthur Curtis’s reply would be transmitted from Ireland or relayed by other ships.

  * * *

  “Just in time for the bloviating,” Archie greeted Isaac Bell when the tall detective joined him in the smoking saloon. Midmorning, the male haven was crowded with gents smoking cigars, pipes, and cigarettes, playing chess and solitaire, and reading the ship’s newspaper. Thin northern daylight, filtered through stained glass and tobacco smoke, shone upon settees, tables, and armchairs grouped on a pale green carpet. Two ruddy-faced middle-aged men were arguing in raised voices. Bell cocked an ear. In smokers and club cars, even the judicious sank to braggadocio, spilling priceless information by the boatload.

  “Who’s the large gent in tents of tweed?” he asked Archie.

  “Earl of Strone, retired British Army.”

  “Who’s that Strone’s squaring off against?”

  “Karl Schultz, a Pan-Germanist coal-mining magnate known not so affectionately by the Ruhr Valley laboring classes as the ‘Chimney Baron.’ Before they get any louder, let me imbue you with courage. I implore you, my friend, moor the fair Marion before she drifts off.”

  “Midnight tonight,” said Isaac Bell. “Every detail lined up. Champagne and music for the kickoff.”

  “You can’t go wrong with champagne. But where will you get an orchestra at midnight? Even the steward who bugles goes to bed after he blows ‘Sunset.’”

  “I’m going to surprise her with a gramophone.”

  “Won’t a gramophone horn flaring from your dinner jacket spoil the surprise?”

  “The horn is made of cardboard. The whole thing folds flat in a little box no bigger than a camera case.”

  Archie looked at him with genuine admiration. “You are relentlessly strategic, Isaac.”

  “Lillian’s pacing outside the door. You can give her the thumbs-up. It’s in the bag.”

  “Is it too early in the morning to drink to your success?”

  Bell had already caught the steward’s eye. “Two McEwan’s Exports, please.”

  “I’ll be darned,” said Archie, rising to his feet and waving. “That’s Hermann Wagner, the banker. He hosted a dinner for us on our honeymoon in Berlin. Herr Wagner!”

  Wagner came over, smiling. Bell noticed the air of the sophisticated Berliner about him, the elegant inverse of his coarse-grained countryman Chimney Baron Karl Schultz. While exchanging passenger chitchat about the rumored rough weather and agreeing that the Mauretania was already pitching heavily for such a long vessel, they were suddenly interrupted by the Earl of Strone heard across the saloon.

  “What possible need has Germany for more dreadnoughts?”

  “Because now strikes the hour of Germany’s rising power,” replied Schultz, as loudly.

  Conversation ceased. Every man in the smoker waited for Lord Strone’s response.

  The Briton tugged a watch from his vest. He thumbed it open, peered at the face, and announced to laughter, “The hour, by my timepiece, appears to be half-eleven.”

  “I refer to Germany’s achievements,” Karl Schultz replied proudly. “We have surpassed England in the production of coal and steel, and our scientists are dominant in chemicals and electricity. We produce half the world’s electrical equipment. And we have a superior culture of music, poetry, and philosophy.”

  Archie’s friend Hermann Wagner interrupted in a gentle voice. “‘Superior’ is perhaps a strong word among shipmates. From strength comes humility.”

  “Humility is for fools,” Schultz growled. “We are neither despots like the Russians nor weakling democrats like the French. Our achievements give Germany the right, the duty, the lofty duty, to seek more colonies.”

  “Good God, man, you’ve got German East Africa and German South-West Africa. You’ve even got a sliver of Togoland, as I recall. What more do you need?”

  “Leopold, king of minuscule Belgium, has the entire Congo. Germany demands her rightful share of Africa. And South America, and the Pacific, and China. England has had too much for too long.”

  The earl’s lips tightened, and he started to rise to his feet.

  Hermann Wagner intervened, placating him with smiles and pleasantries. Strone settled back down in his chair, harrumphing like an indignant mastiff, “The colonies are already spoken for.”

  “Strone’s a darned good actor,” Isaac Bell told Archie.

  “Actor? What do you mean?”

  “Ten-to-one he’s British Military Intelligence.”

  Archie Abbott looked more closely.

  “And twenty-to-one,” Bell added, “he’s not retired.”

  Archie, who himself would have become an actor if his mother had not forbidden such a leap from society’s bosom, nodded agreement. “No bet.”

  The Briton said to the German, “You want war in hopes of grasping the spoils of war.”

  “Those powers that try to impede German ascendancy will eventually recover from the weakening we mete out and accept their place in the new order.”

  Lord Strone rounded suddenly on Isaac Bell. “You, sir, you look like an American.”

  “I have that honor.”

  “Will the United States accept the ‘new order’?”

  Bell answered diplomatically. “Britain’s navy rules the seas, and the German Army is the largest in the world. We have every hope that you will work out your differences. In fact,” he added sternly, “we expect you to work out your differences.”

  “Not likely so long as Germany keeps building dreadnoughts,” said the earl.

  Schultz’s cheeks flushed crimson. “I quote Kaiser Wilhelm: ‘Our armor must be without flaw.’”

  Hermann Wagner intervened again, smiling polite apologies for his countryman’s florid aggressiveness. “But if — God forbid — Great Britain and the German Empire are on a collision course, on which side will America stand?”

  “On the far side of the Atlantic Ocean,” drawled Archie Abbott, sparking laughter around the room.

  The Berliner laughed with them and even the Chimney Baron smiled. But Lord Strone replied gravely, “We are sailing in a four-day ship, sir. Mauretania steams to New York at twenty-six knots. The world is closer than Americans think.”

  “Not so close we won’t see it coming,” said Isaac Bell.

  The men laughed again, sipped their drinks, and drew on cigarettes and cigars.

  Hermann Wagner broke the silence, and Isaac Bell wondered why he persisted so. “But if America had to choose, was forced to choose, to whom would you gravitate?”

  “Germany,” Schultz answered. “More Germans have emigrated to the United States than from any other nation.”

  “Americans and Englishmen share blood and centuries of tradition,” countered the Earl of Strone. “We are brothers.”

  “But Americans fought their brothers in the Civil War.”

  A grim glance flickered between Isaac Bell and Archie Abbott. It sounded as if the German Empire and the British Empire would fight sooner than later. God knows if France, Russia, Italy, and Austria would pile on. But the two detectives had no doubt that the United States of America should steer clear of Europe’s chaotic politics.

  Isaac Bell stood to his full height and looked the certainly not re
tired military intelligence officer in the eye. The Briton, at least, ought to know that the days of romantic cavalry charges were long dead. Then he widened his commanding gaze to encompass the Germans and said to all, “Before you resort to war, I recommend you observe closely the effects of up-to-date machine guns. If you gents can’t sort out your differences, you’ll turn Europe into a slaughterhouse.”

  “Are you in the arms trade, Mr. Bell?” asked Wagner.

  “Insurance.”

  “Oh, really? May I ask what firm?”

  “Dagget, Staples and Hitchcock.”

  “Venerable firm,” Lord Strone rumbled. “My solicitors engage them for my American holdings. But tell me, old chap, is it common for insurance men to observe the effects of modern machine guns?”

  “We number among our clients Connecticut and Massachusetts arms factories,” Bell answered smoothly. “And by extension, factories with whom they conduct business abroad. Vickers, of course, in England,” he said to Strone, and to Schultz, “Krieg Rüstungswerk in Germany. Are you familiar with Krieg?”

  “Only by reputation,” Hermann Wagner answered, as the Chimney Baron glanced aside.

  “What is Krieg’s reputation?”

  “Innovative,” Hermann Wagner interrupted, again. “Full of get-up-and-go, as Americans would say.”

  3

  Arthur Curtis, who manned the Van Dorn Detective Agency’s one-room Berlin field office, was a short, rotund Coloradan. With a quick, sunny smile, a friendly glint in his blue eyes, and a potbelly straining his vest, Art Curtis looked less like a first-class private investigator than a prosperous liquor salesman.

  He got busy on Beiderbecke and Lynds the instant he received Bell’s marconigram. It was in his nature to get right to it, but in the case of Isaac Bell, he would never forget that when his old partner Glenn Irvine was killed by the Butcher Bandit, it had been Bell, shot twice in that gun battle, who paid from his own pocket to look after the dead detective’s aged mother.