The Titanic Secret Read online

  And still the freight train kept moving faster and faster. The clack of the wheels on the rails became as frantic as the staccato clatter of a typewriter. In a minute, Bell was level with the leading flatbed and pulling ahead with every yard of track they covered. He stayed to the far side of the locomotive cab and crouched. Out the window opposite, he saw the gears and pinions of the crane. The men tried to crank it over again, trying to wedge the dangling rail into the big drive wheels like a spiteful child might do with a length of pipe through a rival’s bicycle spokes.

  Bell judged his timing and yanked his .45 free of its holster. He moved cautiously and took careful aim and fired off three shots. He wasn’t trying to hit anyone, wanting instead to cause enough confusion for the second part of his plan. As it was, he hit one man in the throat, and the spray of blood as he corkscrewed to the deck was all the distraction that was needed.

  Bell thrust the flensing knife out the cab’s glassless window, leaning as far as he could, his arm quivering with the strain. The weapon was more than long enough and, more importantly, sharp enough. The blade was no match for the braided steel cable that wound around the crane’s main take-up drum, but it sliced cleanly through the hemp sling that let the rail dangle from the hook.

  The rail hit the tracks in front of Massard’s train with a clang like an out-of-tune bell. It rolled and rattled for a few seconds before wedging under the flatcar’s front wheels. Friction built quickly, as did the crescendo of noise that was so high-pitched it was painful. The engineer back in the shunting engine must have understood what had happened, and no amount of threatening by the man Gly left with him could get him to maintain the pursuit. The train began a swift deceleration, the engineer fearing the wedged length of metal would get under the wheels and derail the first car and likely the entire little train.

  Bell allowed himself a single nod to celebrate his feat and at that very moment the world echoed with the scream of a massive steam whistle. Bell hadn’t been paying the slightest attention to what was ahead of the dueling locomotives and so he never saw the train barreling down the same track as Massard and his men.

  Wreathed in steam and smoke, the train was pulling a long string of coal hoppers headed north to keep the people of Aberdeen warm and their factories churning. It was so heavy, it required two locomotives, even though the run from Glasgow was relatively level. Its horn continued to wail. Its driver slammed closed his throttles and engaged full brake.

  Bell had time to see Massard’s men leaping from the flatbed like rats abandoning a sinking schooner. What he didn’t see was Massard himself making it off. Just before Bell’s view was blocked, he spotted the Frenchman propped up against some rail ties on the flatbed, his jacket off and his shirt pulled open. Bell’s imagination added the bloodstained skin. Apparently, he had also hit Massard with his three-shot barrage.

  And then came the impact. The two flatcars folded like hinges to the point where they coupled together and were suddenly thrust thirty feet in the air and then tossed aside. They were followed immediately by the small locomotive. It plowed into the ballast stones, rolling and shedding piping, so it was soon hidden amid jets of billowing steam. Steel wheels still screeching, the big coal train remained on the track.

  Bell eased back on the throttle of the train and finally turned to check Caldwell and Hall. The teenager was dead. There was a dent in the back of his head the size of an orange. His blue eyes were wide and unblinking. Vern Hall was still alive but comatose. He had a contusion on his forehead that looked as though he’d been struck with an iron skillet, but other than that he was unmarked. Bell took down a lantern left by the engineer’s seat and raised the flame. He checked Hall’s eyes by lifting his lids. The pupils constricted normally, but he gave no conscious sign he was aware of Bell. Bell laid him out a bit more comfortably and draped him with an old coat that had been hanging on the bulkhead next to the bolt cutter.

  Alvin Coulter had ended up dead and tossed from the train like dregs from an old cup of coffee. Bell gave the cab his critical consideration, trying to determine a logical sequence of events. There was little in the way of clues, as the cab was made of steel formed in hard edges and sharp corners. He did find blood on a steam line control knob that was the right size for the dent in Caldwell’s head. There was no way of knowing if he’d tripped, been pushed intentionally, or was pushing in an act of self-defense.

  Bell asked himself if he’d been wrong dismissing any misgivings about Coulter because he’d volunteered to run the train. Had he tried to stop the engine as soon as Bell was otherwise occupied? Had Hall or Caldwell tried to stop him? Or did one of them kill the driver in order to slow the train and allow the French to claim the prize? Vern Hall was Joshua Hayes Brewster’s best friend and nominal second-in-command of the expedition. It didn’t follow that he’d be the turncoat, but Johnny Caldwell was young and impressionable. The French had had plenty of time to find one of the miners with a weakness and exploit it to turn him into a saboteur and ultimately a murderer.

  Bell recalled finding a small silver picture frame in Caldwell’s room back in Central City. One without a photograph in it. He wondered if it had held a snapshot of a sweetheart. Love was a powerful motivator. Bell had seen men do incredibly brave things, as well as incredibly stupid, while in its thrall. He found Caldwell’s wallet in his back pocket and inside, among some American dollars and French francs, Bell found a photograph of a sloe-eyed woman. The photo was smaller than the frame Bell remembered, but when he flipped it over he could tell by the way the name had been cut off—all that remained was the final tia—that it had been cropped.

  He shook his head at the wastefulness of it all but could understand why Caldwell would consider taking the French up on their offer to be their man on the inside, as it were.

  He replaced the picture and stood, not sure what to think anymore. For the time being, none of the other stuff mattered, including the deaths of Tom Price, Johnny Caldwell, and Alvin Coulter. Getting the ore onto a ship bound for New York was the priority. The authorities would be rightly enraged about the theft of two trains and the ensuing deadly wreck. Bell needed to abandon the locomotive as soon as possible, but the quiet towns they passed through were so sleepy and rural that he knew he’d never find the right kind of truck to replace it. His best bet was the outskirts of Glasgow.

  Seeing the steam pressure falling, Bell went to start shoveling coal into the hot mouth of the firebox. He had finished up when he heard a clatter above him. Bell looked up just as Yves Massard leapt from the coal tender and crashed into him. Both men fell to the steel decking.

  34

  Bell’s mind was reeling even as his body took a boot to the ribs. But Massard was prepared and had executed the move with total surprise. He recovered quickly and went berserk, kicking and shouting about his brother. It was all Bell could do to protect himself from the savage attack. Remaining curled up on the floor wasn’t an option. Massard wasn’t going to stop until Bell was battered beyond recognition. Bell launched himself from the floor, taking a kick to the stomach that drove the air from his lungs, but he was free of the initial onslaught.

  “He was my twin,” Massard screamed. “And you killed him.”

  Bell was unable to go for his gun as Massard charged him again. Bell had to bring up both hands to ward off the next punishing round of blows.

  “Gly killed him,” Bell said as they were chest to chest, grappling to get an advantage and room enough to throw an effective punch. “He was weak, Massard. He wasn’t like you.”

  “But he was still my brother.”

  “He surrendered to me outside the Little Angel Mine. I had my gun drawn on him, and he just quit. Gly couldn’t risk him talking, so he shot him at long range in the back. It’s true. You know your brother and you know Gly. I didn’t kill him.”

  “Foss did it?”

  Bell had hoped the revelation would take some of the fight o
ut of the Frenchman, and for a second it looked like it would work.

  “No!” Massard screeched. Instead, it sent him into an even greater rage.

  Bell had perhaps perpetrated a heinous act against Massard’s family or he’d borne witness to its greatest betrayal. For either crime, Bell had to be destroyed. Spittle flew from Massard’s lips like a rabid animal’s, his eyes glazed with hatred, as he tried to get at Bell with fingers curled into claws.

  Massard managed to hook a foot around the back of Bell’s leg and trip him and he fell. The Frenchman tried to dive onto his prone form, but Bell levered his legs at the last second and landed the soles of his boots against Massard’s chest.

  “In case you went looking for it,” Bell snarled as he had Massard defenseless for a moment, “Marc’s widow did have the money. I made sure she hid it.”

  Massard wasn’t a small man, but Bell’s legs were strong, and when he uncoiled them with an immense grunt of exertion, Massard was thrown across the cab. His head and torso flew out the open window, but his legs caught on the sill, and he flipped in the air as he fell. He landed so that his head and chest hit the rail a fraction of a second before the locomotive tender’s leading wheel cut across him as cleanly as a guillotine.

  Bell was left panting.

  Massard wanted revenge against the wrong man for his brother’s death. Bell didn’t want vengeance, but he had more than enough reasons to see the real murderer, Foster Gly, dead.

  Thirty minutes later, the train reached the outskirts of Glasgow. Bell let it ease slowly past tall brick factories and warehouses until it was approaching a spur off the main line. He stopped and ran ahead to lever the switch to the secondary branch. By the time he got back to the locomotive, the boxcar door had been rolled open and four owl-eyed men were peering out.

  “What’s happening, Bell?” Brewster called.

  “I’ll explain in a minute.” He pointed up the track to the switching lever. “Someone throw that back to the main line after we’re clear.”

  He climbed up into the cab while Charlie Widney jumped down from the boxcar and ran ahead to wait by the switch. Once the stolen train was safely on the spur, Widney muscled the lever to its original position and trotted after the slow-moving train.

  Bell drove the locomotive as deep into the industrial park as he could. The engine’s front bumpers finally kissed buffer stops at the end of the line, and he opened valves to vent steam from the boiler. He was exhausted from the twin duties of driving the engine and feeding its boilers. His hands were raw with split blisters, his clothes were stained through with sweat and shimmered with ingrained coal dust.

  He climbed down for a final time. The Coloradans got out of the boxcar but protectively stayed close to it. Bell joined them. His throat was raw with thirst.

  “Where’s Vern and the others?” the impish Irishman, Warner O’Deming, asked.

  “Vern Hall’s badly injured. Head wound. He’s unconscious. Caldwell and Coulter are dead. Johnny’s body is in the cab. Alvin either fell or was most likely thrown from the train.”

  That sobering statement ended any bit of satisfaction they felt for putting the French opponents behind them once and for all. Bell’s next statement left them rethinking everything they thought they knew. “Either Vern or Johnny killed Alvin and is likely the murderer of Jake Hobart too.”

  In the silence that followed, a train whistle could be heard in the distance coming from the direction of Aberdeen. The rail authorities were in pursuit of the stolen engine and boxcar and were gaining on their quarry.

  Bell said, “That’s our cue to keep moving. We can talk about all of this when we’re very far from here. Walt, Warry, go find us some transportation. There’s bound to be some trucks around here. Make sure they’ve got fuel. Charlie, give me a hand. We’ll put Johnny’s body in the boxcar with Tom Price’s and get ready to transfer Vern to the truck.”

  The men went into motion, leaving Josh Brewster standing alone, his eyes glazed and his mouth working but no words coming from his lips. The very idea that his best friend could have betrayed them all was too horrible to contemplate. His mind had gone blank.

  Seeing him so utterly distraught, Bell muttered as he walked past on his way to the locomotive, “Circumstance points to young Johnny Caldwell, not Vern Hall. I’ll explain later.”

  Brewster stopped jawing and gave Bell what passed for a smile. “Are you sure?”

  “Not court-of-law certain, but close enough to inform my opinion.”

  Bell couldn’t bring himself to simply abandon the bodies. He opened the small travel bag of essentials Captain Fyrie had fetched from his cabin and tore a blank sheet of paper from his journal. On it he wrote the names of the two men as well as the approximate location of Alvin Coulter’s remains. He didn’t have any pound banknotes, so he pulled the last hundred-dollar bill from his wallet with instructions that each man be given a proper burial.

  The miners were unmarried and had died far from where they were thought to have, so marking their graves was of no real import to the world, but Bell felt it was the right thing to do for men who had sacrificed so much and ended as heroes.

  Moments later, two Leyland trucks rumbled into view from around one of the warehouses. Warner and Walt had more than succeeded. The men were all exhausted and yet wanted to be on their way, so moving the crates from the train to the lorries took little time and was done with a minimum of conversation. They placed the unconscious Vern Hall onto the bed of the truck with Josh Brewster, his back against a crate, holding Vern’s head in his lap to protect him from the worst of the bumps they were going to encounter.

  “We should take him to a hospital,” Charlie Widney suggested.

  “Like hell we will,” Brewster fired back, cradling his friend. “He’s staying with us.”

  Bell didn’t want to abandon him in Glasgow. The authorities would eventually check hospitals for survivors of the train theft once the locomotive was discovered. Upon regaining consciousness, Hall would surely be arrested and questioned intensely, cutting the odds of the rest of them making it out of the country.

  “All they’d do in a hospital is exactly what we’re doing, which is nothing,” Brewster added. “They can’t treat a head wound like this. Either he wakes up or he don’t.”

  That wasn’t far from the truth either, Bell conceded. An X-ray would show the severity of the skull fracture, but there were no surgical fixes. Bed rest was certainly preferable to rattling around in the back of a truck, yet, as Brewster had said, it was up to Hall alone. He’d either regain consciousness or he wouldn’t.

  It was the early-morning hours of April the fifth. Bell needed to get the men away from Glasgow before police were able to cordon off the city. Once he was past their dragnet, his next step was to get them out of Scotland. Only then would he worry about making contact with the London branch of the Van Dorn Agency. And no matter what arrangements Wallace had made, Bell knew he had an option of his own, but one that entailed performing an utterly unforgivable act.

  Best not come to that, he thought as he led the two-vehicle caravan out of the factory complex. The gate watchman was tasked with monitoring people entering the sprawling facility, so he gave no thought to men leaving on what looked to be a delivery.

  Hours later, when workers arriving for the Friday shift reported the abandoned train and its grim contents, the guard was able to retain his job by giving the police a fair description of the vehicles and men.

  35

  The next twelve hours for Bell and his few men were spent on the grueling drive to Newcastle upon Tyne, a soot-covered coastal city on the English Channel. They stopped only for fuel for the trucks and made do with hastily bought food from whatever pub was nearest the garage that had petrol to sell. For cash, they used the proceeds from the sale of a gold coin Bell had stopped and offered to a jeweler in one of the larger towns they’d sped throu
gh. The man paid only half its value because he could tell Bell was desperate and in a hurry.

  In a country steeped in history dating back to the days of the Roman Empire, the roads were surprisingly bad—rural, rutted, and in some places so muddy that the men had to unload the trucks and carry the crates by hand to get them to dry ground. To Bell, so used to living in America’s burgeoning cities, it was like stepping back a hundred years.

  It was nearing dark when they came to a village several miles north of the industrial center of Newcastle. There was a garage with a full gas storage tank on a tall trestle to refill the trucks and the couple of cans they’d bought. There was also a small inn with a large barn in back out past an open plot planted as a vegetable garden. Bell wasn’t much interested in the amenities offered by the inn, except that it had a private telephone. The owner rented them three rooms and let them store the trucks in his barn. They snuck Vern Hall into a ground-floor room when the proprietor and his wife were in the kitchen preparing a meal for the men.

  There was a single, shared washroom. Bell let the others go first, as he wanted to use the phone. His call to London went through remarkably quickly and he was soon speaking with one Davida Bryer, an East End girl, who explained that Joel Wallace hired her from time to time when he had need of a secretary. He’d left with strict instructions that she wait by the phone for a call, especially one from Isaac Bell.

  “He speaks very highly of you, Mr. Bell,” Davida Bryer cooed. “I do hope I have the chance to meet you.”

  She was trying to sound sophisticated but couldn’t hide the impoverished roots in her accent. Bell said, “Probably not this trip, Mrs. Bryer.”