The Titanic Secret Read online

  “Thanks for the tip. I guess this was a bust. Sorry if I gave you a scare, Mr. Bell.”

  Isaac touched the bulge under his arm that was his .45. “Likewise.”

  Gibbs took off in the direction of Central City’s train depot, while Bell and Wickersham returned to their hotel for the night.

  5

  The following morning dawned clear but very cold. Shaving in the communal bathroom down the hall from his room, Isaac Bell shuddered at the prospect of diving into the icy water that continued to gush from the mouth of the Little Angel Mine. He hoped that his instructions to Alex Hecht, his friend in San Francisco who built rebreathers, had been detailed enough for some extra gear to be sent along with the dive pack.

  After their breakfast, Bell and Wickersham made a few stops for provisions before climbing into his new chain-drive REO Model H Power Wagon truck. The vehicle was little more than a flat platform atop a chassis with high sides so cargo wouldn’t fall out. It had a gate at the back and a high bench seat for the driver and one passenger. The engine, a nine-horsepower one-cylinder affair, was mounted under the drive compartment. Usually, there was an open-sided canvas cover over the cab to protect the occupants from the elements, but conditions were so harsh up in the Colorado mountains that the minimal protection it afforded wasn’t worth the effort of deploying it. The wheels were wood-spoked and sprung on heavy metal leaves, but Bell knew from countless hours behind the wheel of all manner of vehicles that no one other than Rolls and Royce in England had yet developed a smooth-riding suspension.

  Tony straddled the steering wheel that rose out of the cab’s floor and manipulated the controls springing from the steering shaft. Bell stood in front of the truck, and when the young Englishman nodded, he thrust down on the engine crank. The engine fired immediately and within seconds was running as smoothly as any motor Bell had ever heard.

  “Fine piece of machinery,” he commented, climbing in next to Wickersham.

  “It belongs to Mr. Bloeser, but I’m the only one that uses it. I inspect all the properties he’s invested in and investigate others of interest. She’s rated to carry fifteen hundred pounds, but in these hills I won’t load more than a half ton.”

  “Still, that’s impressive.”

  “Mr. Olds knows what he’s doing.”

  “Olds, as in Oldsmobile?”

  “Yes. He sold that company and started REO. Stands for Ransom E. Olds.”

  “Learn something new every day.”

  They raced out of Central City at the truck’s top speed of twenty-five miles per hour but soon slowed as the streets became rutted tracks that climbed into the foothills surrounding the old mining town. As they passed, Tony pointed out various abandoned mines. Most were boarded-up portals, with heavy timber lintels, with mounds of waste tailings running down the mountainsides where they had been dumped. He seemed to know the history of each and told Bell how much gold had been pulled from which mines and which mines had turned out to be busts. A few were still actively being worked. Those had a small tent village for the workers, usually with one tent that had smoke coming from a tin chimney, meaning it was the mess hall. The men working the surface stood at impressive machines that utilized water coming down through pipes laid high in the mountains for motivating power to operate the crushing and stamping mills. The crushings were then put through sluice boxes to extract the fine particles of gold from the quartz-veined granite. The higher they climbed into the mountains, the cooler the air and the thicker the patches of snow that lay upon the ground. It wouldn’t be long before everything became a sea of white when winter unleashed its full fury.

  The Little Angel was an hour outside of town. It differed from the others because the boards once blocking its entrance had been removed, but there was no tent village, just a couple of small two- or three-man canvas structures and an open fire pit with a metal grille that was designed to hold various pots and pans above the flame. The other noticeable difference was the foot-deep gush of water that spewed from the mine’s entrance, cutting a deep rut into the sloping hillside and winding down past a mine below.

  Wickersham saw the direction of Bell’s gaze. “That’s Bill Mahoney’s workings, the Satan Mine. He’s the one that’s demanding we cap the entrance up here. Looking at it now, I can’t say I blame him. Hell, I think if I were in his shoes, I would’ve dynamited the Little Angel days ago.”

  The artificial stream cut right through the Satan Mine, and some of the water even flowed back into its mouth and had to be extracted using a surface-mounted steam pump. Its rocking arms were seesawing away while white smoke and some steam escaped from the boiler. One man stood by in attendance, with cord upon cord of split wood at the ready.

  “I think as a sign of goodwill, your Mr. Bloeser should offer to pay Mr. Mahoney something for his troubles.”

  Wickersham reached into an inside jacket pocket and withdrew a soft felt bag. It jangled with the sound of heavy coins. “Ahead of you on that one, Mr. Bell. Mr. Bloeser said to use my judgment.”

  Bell searched the camp while Wickersham settled things with the other mine owner. He found nothing of interest in any of the tents. It was clear that since the accident, men had come up and scavenged the site, leaving only the tents behind, as their theft would have been too brazen and obvious. He even dug around under the tents to see if anything had been hidden there, as well as beneath the cold ashes of the fire pit. Nothing of value was found.

  Bell had a fire going and had coffee brewing in the time it took Tony to trudge the half mile up from the Satan Mine. There was no milk, but he had brought dark crystals of rock sugar to help ward off the cold. He also added a dash of Irish whiskey to further fortify the insulating effects of the brew.

  Finished with his coffee, Bell stood, muttered, “Good a time as any,” and began to strip off the overalls he’d bought that morning at a dry goods store. Below, he wore knee-length flannel drawers and a tight flannel shirt that ended at his thickened biceps. Wickersham watched with curiosity, as he had no idea what the detective had planned. Bell then removed his shirt, exposing his skin to the cold wind blowing through the Rockies. He was well muscled yet lean, with just a hint of a summer tan still remaining to give him some color.

  Wickersham goggled when Bell opened a jar of lard he’d inexplicably purchased that morning and began smearing the white animal grease across his chest and under his shoulders on his back. “Um?” he said by way of questioning Bell’s actions.

  “Just read about a bloke who swam the English Channel last September named Burgess. First person to do it since 1875. To keep the water from sapping too much heat from around his heart and vital organs, he smeared on a layer of lard. I plan on exploring the mine for as deep as I can right now, and this should allow me to stay in the water longer.”

  To protect his feet, Bell slipped on a cheap pair of shoes he’d also purchased that morning. He fetched a D cell–powered flashlight. To help waterproof the cardboard tube, he’d wrapped it with rubberized strips like those used by electricians. The filament was of the new tungsten design, so the light was almost painfully bright when he flicked it on for a test.

  “Keep the fire high and the coffee hot. I’ll be back in a bit.” With that, Bell turned and hiked the last twenty or so feet along the bank of the stream up to the mouth of the Little Angel Mine.

  Isaac Bell wasn’t a superstitious man nor one to give credence to omens or portents, but he couldn’t shake a heavy feeling of dread as he looked into the Stygian mine shaft. He suspected that there were no dead men within whose souls were looking for release. And yet he felt that something of importance had taken place there, something that cast ripples in the fabric of the darkness, amplifying until they could become crushing waves.

  All those thoughts ran through his head in an instant and were then cast aside as he flicked the light on again and stepped into the stream without pause. The water was icy col
d and it lanced right through to his shins and seemingly made brittle the fine bones of his feet so that with each step he imagined they would shatter like crystal. The current was strong, but only a foot deep, so he wasn’t yet offering its flow much resistance. As he went deeper, the going would become considerably slower. His second purpose for making this early foray into the mine was to test whether it would be possible to plumb its depth while lugging the bulky rebreather.

  The shaft was roughly square, and along the floor ran parallel train tracks no more than two feet apart. The ties were thin lengths of timber bolted directly into the stone. Bell established a rhythm for walking atop the ties and not slamming his toes into their edges. He felt around with his feet occasionally to detect if anything had been left on the floor, but so far he had turned up nothing. Any light debris would have been swept out with the current, and he couldn’t imagine anything heavy being left behind along the rails. The light revealed nothing but bare stone that had been worked with pick, hammer, drill, and explosives.

  The downward slope was gentle, but it took only a few minutes of walking for the water to be up around Bell’s waist. The cold was so raw that he could picture how blood flowing up from his legs was physically colder than the rest of his circulatory system. His legs moved by effort of sheer will alone. When the water reached the level of his lowest ribs, he felt like he was trudging through the deepest snow these mountains had to offer. It helped a little to turn edge-on to the flow and stick close to one side of the tunnel. Bell knew his lips were blue, and his teeth chattered so hard he had to clamp his jaw shut so his vision remained steady. The lard was protecting his core to a degree, but the agony of being immersed in such icy conditions was sapping both his strength and his considerable will. He forced himself to keep going, vowing only to turn back once he was neck-deep in the numbing water.

  His fortunes changed somewhat when he found wires had been bolted into the wall just above head height. They ended at a shattered insulator, and Isaac imagined that scavengers had yanked out the section of the electrical system nearest the surface for its scrap value. It was a telling reminder that life here was a hardscrabble existence and nothing was ever allowed to go to waste. He managed to use his free hand to help pull himself against the current and held on tightly when he needed to rest his failing body.

  He had maybe ten more feet of tunnel before the water became too deep when he kicked something under the glittering surface. He groped down for it but he couldn’t reach it. Submerging his head was a gamble because he would lose a vast amount of core heat that was already dangerously low, but Bell knew his body, trusted his abilities, and before he could come up with an excuse that was true he plunged below the surface, feeling along the rocky floor until he grasped the object. He burst out of the water with a primal roar of agony, the cold drilling into his temples like railroad spikes.

  His makeshift waterproofing had protected his flashlight from the occasional splash, but its full immersion had shorted the circuits. It didn’t matter. In the utter blackness he could tell he’d found a miner’s pick. He braced the head of the pick against the wall to keep himself from being thrown against it and let the current undo in moments what it had taken him fifteen minutes to gain. He had to start plodding again when the water level was back down around his hips, but going with the current needed much less effort. Moments later, he was back out in the weak sunlight, cold, exhausted, but pleased with his effort.

  Tony Wickersham saw him emerge from the inky mine and rushed up with a blanket to toss around Bell’s shoulders and helped guide the detective down to their small camp. Bell shook, and his face was so numb he couldn’t form words.

  The Englishman parked him on a log as close to the fire as he dared and mounded more blankets over his shoulders. Isaac couldn’t hold a coffee mug, so Tony held it for him and gave him sips like one would give bouillon to a sick child. It took ten minutes before Bell could even acknowledge the help he was being given and then it was just a weak smile and a tightening of his eyes. Another ten minutes would pass before he could hold the mug, though his hands still trembled.

  “Worth it?” Tony asked finally.

  “Totally,” Bell stammered. “I needed further proof that I’m certifiable.”

  A half hour later, Bell was dressed properly again and, with a full belly and a couple of pulls at the whiskey, was feeling himself again. “Tell me about this pick I found.”

  Wickersham grabbed up the miner’s tool. He had a deftness in handling the pick that told Bell the young Englishman was more than familiar at using the awkward, top-heavy implement.

  “It’s a pickax. What do you want to know? This is a fairly large one, more common here than the smaller ones used to chip away inside coal mines. The handle’s probably ash and the head is steel, a little rusted, but that’s to be expected. And . . . Well, well, well. Interesting.”

  “What?” Bell asked, hopeful that his freezing sojourn hadn’t been for naught.

  He showed Isaac the top of the tool where the handle slotted in through a hole in the metal pick itself.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “See the two nails that have been driven into the wood?” Wickersham asked.

  “Yes. And . . . ?”

  “It’s an old trick to add more tension between the head and the shaft of the pick so the head stays on better. The thing is, you only need to do that with inferior or worn-out tools. This is an old pick.”

  Bell understood the implication immediately. “And Joshua Brewster was noted for always using the latest and finest equipment.”

  “The pick was window dressing in case anyone came looking around,” Wickersham completed the thought.

  “A clever ruse, and one that would doubtless work if we weren’t already suspicious about the details of the accident.” Bell was more anxious than ever to dive the mine properly and put an end to this mystery. If it turned out that the men had faked their own deaths, it would be up to Hans Bloeser to continue the investigation with Charles Post, Van Dorn’s man in Denver, and whoever brings the diving equipment from San Francisco.

  6

  While awaiting the delivery from California, Bell helped Tony Wickersham prepare the Little Angel Mine for its curtain call. They were going to rig the mouth of the shaft with explosives and collapse the tunnel deeply enough to stanch the flow of water. They’d also hired a couple of Bill Mahoney’s men to help drill into the rock to maximize the TNT’s effect. They purposely left out the booster charges so there would be no accidental detonations until Bell’s explorations were complete.

  With just enough time to reach the train from Denver, Bell borrowed Wickersham’s REO truck and drove back to Central City to meet his fellow Van Dorn detective.

  The narrow-gauge locomotive and its shabby cars were just pulling into the depot when Bell finally reached town. He’d shaved time from the trip up into the foothills but had paid the price of a battered body from the uneven trails. The dirt streets of Central City felt like freshly laid tar-bound macadam compared to the mountain roads. Bell spotted a young man being assisted by a porter to retrieve a large steamer trunk from the cargo compartment of one of the carriages and place it on a wheeled trolley. He didn’t recognize the agent, but the trunk was adorned with the logo of Hecht Marine, an octopus clutching Poseidon’s trident.

  Bell parked the REO as close to the platform as he could and jumped out, his back stiff and aching from the punishing ride. “Hello. I’m Isaac Bell.”

  The porter regarded him blankly, but the agent turned quickly and rushed toward him, his hand outstretched like the bowsprit on a schooner. “Mr. Bell. I’m Colin Rhodes. It is an honor to meet you.”

  Young Master Rhodes must have been an intern because he didn’t look a day over eighteen, with a shaggy mop of hair peeking out from under a cap and oversize feet like some overeager puppy not yet grown into its body.

  Bell
shook the lad’s hand, fully expecting him to start wriggling in pleasure at meeting his hero. “And what exactly do you do for Van Dorn?” He tipped the porter a couple of dollars for his continued assistance in loading the trunk from the dolly to the pickup truck.

  “I’m the new office boy. I help out with whatever the fellas need. Get coffee, bring in paperwork from lawyers’ offices. Take stuff to guys on stakeouts.”

  “You do a lot of fetching.” Bell was irked that one of his requests was handled so cavalierly and entrusted to young Fido in a cheap suit.

  “I guess you could say that. They sent me because everyone else is working a major kidnapping case.”

  “I wasn’t aware . . .”

  “It’s a Chinese lady. She was to be married to the son of a Chinatown big shot, but some rival gang grabbed her from her hotel the night before your request came in. The mayor himself is keeping tabs on our investigation because he’s afraid this will turn into a tongue war.”

  “Tong war,” Bell corrected. “A ‘tong’ is a Chinese gang. This has ‘underworld’ written all over it. The city is only now rebuilding from the quake. The last thing anyone needs is Chinese thugs gutting each other across half of downtown.”

  Bell had fresh instructions to give Rhodes before sending him on his way. They finally manhandled the trunk into the rear of the truck. It was balky and weighed over a hundred pounds.

  “Okay, here’s your next assignment.”

  “I’m not working with you?” It came out as a whine as pathetic as any dog’s.

  “No. I need you back in Denver working with Charles Post. You know where his office is?” Colin Rhodes showed Bell his copy of the Van Dorn handbook, which had numbers and addresses for every Van Dorn office, including the ones in Europe. “I want you and Charles to talk to all the mine tool vendors and foundries and find out if they had any large orders in the past few months for a Joshua Hayes Brewster. Write that name down. Or any orders at all that would lead a reasonable person to believe that a small mine was being opened for the very first time, one that is very remote and difficult to reach.”