The Chase (30 page)

Bell came to his feet again, his eyes cold and fixed on Bronson. “Horace, I need an automobile. I can't waste hours hiking the part of the city that's not in flames.”

“Where are you going?”

“First, I have to find Marion and make certain she's safe,” Bell answered. “Then I'm heading for the railyard and the dispatcher. If Cromwell hired, or stole, a train to take him out of the city, there has to be a record at the dispatcher's office.”

Bronson grinned like a fox. “Will a Ford Model K do?”

Bell looked at him in surprise. “The new Model K has a six-cylinder engine and can churn out forty horsepower. Do you have one?”

“I borrowed it from a rich grocery store owner. It's yours, if you promise to have it back by noon tomorrow.”

“I owe you, Horace.”

Bronson placed his hands on Bell's shoulders. “You can pay me back by seizing Cromwell and his evil sister.”

M
ARION SLEPT FOR SIX HOURS
. W
HEN SHE AWOKE
, she found the tent inhabited by five other single women. One was sitting on her cot, weeping. Two looked dazed and lost, while the others showed their strength by volunteering to help feed the suffering at the kitchen facilities that were being set up in the park. Marion rose from her cot, straightened her clothes, and marched with her new friends to several large tents that had been erected by the army as emergency hospitals.

She was immediately instructed by a doctor to treat and bandage wounds that did not require the services of doctors, who were busy in surgery helping to save the lives of the badly injured. Marion lost track of time. She shrugged off sleep and exhaustion by working in a shelter for children. Many were so brave it tore her heart. After tending the cuts and bruises of a little three-year-old girl who had lost her family, she turned away in tears when the girl thanked her in a tiny voice.

She moved to the next cot and knelt beside a boy brought in from surgery after having his broken leg set. As she tucked him in a blanket, she felt a presence behind her. Then came a familiar voice.

“Pardon me, nurse, but my arm fell off. Can you mend it?”

Marion spun around and threw herself into the open arms of Isaac Bell.

“Oh, Isaac, thank God you're all right. I was worried about you.”

Bell smiled broadly through the grime on his face. “A little the worse for wear, but still standing.”

“How did you ever find me?”

“I'm a detective, remember? The emergency hospital was the first place I looked. I knew you'd be following in the footsteps of Florence Nightingale, your heart is too big not to help those in need, especially children.” He squeezed her and whispered in her ear. “I'm proud of you, Mrs. Bell.”

She pushed herself back and stared up into his eyes in confusion. “Mrs. Bell?”

Bell's smile remained fixed. “Not exactly a romantic time or place to propose, but will you marry me?”

“Isaac Bell,” she cried, “how dare you do this to me.” Then she softened, pulled his head down, and kissed him. When she released him, she said slyly, “Of course I will marry you. It's the best offer I've had all day.”

His smile faded, his lips tightened, and his voice harshened. “I can't stay but a minute. Cromwell and Margaret are fleeing San Francisco. As long as there's a breath in me, I can't let a murdering scum like Cromwell go free.”

His fervor frightened her, but she embraced him fiercely. “It isn't every day a girl is proposed to by her lover who then runs away.” She kissed him again. “You come back, you hear?”

“As soon as I can.”

“I'll be waiting here. I don't expect any of us will be leaving our shantytown soon.”

Bell held up her hands and kissed them both. Then he turned and disappeared from the hospital tent.

 

B
ELL DID
not consider returning to the Cromwell mansion on Nob Hill to see if Margaret had flown. He was certain she had fled with her brother.

The palace houses of the rich and powerful were great blazing bonfires. From every part of town came the roaring of the flames, the rumble of crashing walls, and the explosions of dynamite.

The Model K Ford was light and fast. And it was durable. It climbed over the rubble in the streets like a mountain goat. Unknowingly, Bell took nearly the same route as Cromwell and Abner, skirting along the northern waterfront away from the fire. Barely half an hour had passed since he had left Marion when he stopped the car on the ramp at Cromwell's warehouse, satisfying himself that the boxcar was indeed missing.

Switch engines were coupling cars to passenger trains in order to evacuate refugees to the southern part of the state, which still had open tracks, while freight cars were being dispatched to transport food supplies and medicine from Los Angeles. He drove the Ford into the railyard along the tracks until he reached a wooden building with a sign above the roof advertising it as the
DISPATCH OFFICE
. Bell stopped the car, leaped to the ground, and stepped inside.

Several clerks were busily working on the paperwork to dispatch trains and none looked up as Bell entered. “Where can I find the chief dispatcher?” he asked a harried clerk.

The clerk nodded toward a door. “In there.”

Bell found the dispatcher writing numbers on a huge blackboard that displayed the tracks leading to and from the railyard. The sign on the desk read
MORTON GOULD
. He was a short man with a recessed chin and hawklike beak for a nose. The board showed over thirty different trains dispatched over track that spread from the railyard like a spiderweb. Bell could not help but wonder which one included Cromwell's boxcar.

“Mr. Gould?”

Gould turned and saw a man who looked as though he'd walked from one side of hell to the other. “Can't you see I'm busy? If you want to catch a train out of the city, you'll have to go to the Southern Pacific depot—or what's left of it.”

“My name is Bell. I'm with the Van Dorn Detective Agency. I'm looking for a boxcar with the serial number 16455.”

Gould motioned toward the board. “Southern Pacific is moving heaven and earth transporting thousands of homeless out of the city on our fleet of ferryboats and tugs over to Oakland, where we've assembled passenger trains waiting to evacuate them from the area. Over fourteen hundred relief cars are coming in from all over the country. Cars—passenger and freight—on this side of the bay, all three hundred of them, are being routed around the lower part of the state. How do you expect me to keep track of just one car?”

Bell studied Gould's eyes. “This particular car belonged to Jacob Cromwell.”

It was there, a barely perceivable indication of recognition. “I don't know any Jacob Cromwell.” Gould paused to stare apprehensively at Bell. “What's this all about?”

“You dispatched a locomotive to pull his private freight car.”

“You're crazy. I wouldn't dispatch private trains during an emergency such as this.”

“How much did he pay you?”

The dispatcher lifted his hands. “I couldn't be paid by a man I don't know. It's ridiculous.”

Bell ignored Gould's lie. “Where was the destination of Cromwell's train?”

“Now, look here,” Gould said, fear growing in his eyes. “I want you out of here, Van Dorn cop or no Van Dorn cop.”

Bell removed his hat and made a motion as if cleaning the inside band. The next thing the dispatcher knew, he was staring into the business end of a derringer. Bell pressed the twin barrels against the side of Gould's left eye socket. “Unless you tell the truth in the next sixty seconds, I will shoot and the bullet will horribly disfigure your face besides blasting away both of your eyes. Do you wish to spend the rest your life as a mutilated blind man?”

The hypnotic grip of terror crossed Gould's face. “You're mad.”

“You have fifty seconds left before you see nothing.”

“You can't!”

“I can and I will, unless you tell me what I want to know.”

The cold expression, along with the icy voice, was enough for Gould to believe the Van Dorn detective was not bluffing. He looked around wildly, as if there was a way to escape, but Bell continued remorselessly.

“Thirty seconds,” he said, pulling back the hammer of the derringer.

Gould's shoulders collapsed, his eyes filled with terror. “No, please,” he murmured.

“Tell me!”

“All right,” Gould said in a low tone. “Cromwell was here. He paid me ten thousand dollars in cash to hook his car up to a fast locomotive and direct the train onto a track heading south.”

Bell's eyes partially closed in incomprehension. “South?”

“It's the only way out of the city,” replied Gould. “All the train ferries are being used to transport people over to Oakland and the relief trains back. There was no other way he could go.”

“How was he routed?”

“Down to San Jose, then around the bay to the north until his train turned east on the main line over the mountains and across Nevada to Salt Lake City.”

“How long ago did he leave the railyard?” Bell demanded.

“About four hours.”

Bell continued the pressure. “When is he scheduled to reach Salt Lake City?”

Gould shook his head in quick spasms. “Can't say. His engineer will have to spend a lot of time on sidetracks so the relief trains can fireball through. If he's lucky, his train will reach Salt Lake by late tomorrow afternoon.”

“What type of engine did you assign to pull Cromwell's private freight car?”

Gould leaned over a desk and examined the notations in large ledger. “I gave him number 3025, a 4-6-2 Pacific, built by Baldwin.”

“A fast engine?”

Gould nodded. “We have a few that are faster.”

“When will one be available?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I want the fastest engine you've got,” answered Bell, menacing Gould with the derringer. “This is a vital emergency. I have to catch Cromwell's train.”

Gould consulted his big board. “I have number 3455, a 4-4-2 Baldwin Atlantic. She's faster than a Pacific. But she's in the Oakland yard for repairs.”

“How long before she's ready to run?”

“The repair shop should have her ready to go in another three hours.”

“I'll take her,” Bell said without hesitation. “See that Van Dorn is charged for the time it's in use.”

Gould looked as if he was going to protest and argue with Bell, but, staring at the derringer, he thought better of it. “If you report me, I could lose my job and go to jail.”

“Just give me that engine and route me around San Jose toward Salt Lake City and I'll say nothing.”

Gould sighed thankfully and began making out the paperwork to charter and dispatch a route for the locomotive under the Van Dorn Detective Agency. When he was finished, Bell took the papers and studied them for a moment. Satisfied, he left the office without another word, climbed in the Ford, and drove toward the Ferry Building.

N
EARING THE
F
ERRY
B
UILDING
, B
ELL THREW A BLANKET
over his head as he drove through a shower of cinders. He could see that Chinatown was gone, leaving little more than hundreds of piles of charred, smoldering ruins. The Ferry Building had survived with only minor damage to its clock tower. Bell noted that the clock had stopped at 5:12, the time the earthquake struck.

The streets and sidewalks around the Ferry Building looked like a vast mob scene. Thousands were fleeing, believing the entire city would be destroyed. There was pandemonium and bedlam in the jumbled mass of people, some wrapped in blankets and loaded down with what possessions they were able to carry onto the ferryboat. Some pushed baby buggies or toy wagons, and yet, amid the nightmare, everyone was gracious, courteous, and considerate toward others.

Bell stopped beside a young man who seemed to be merely standing around and watching the fire across the street from the wharfs. He held up a twenty-dollar gold piece. “If you know how to drive a car, take this one to the Customs House and turn it over to Horace Bronson of the Van Dorn Detective Agency and this is yours.”

The young man's eyes widened in anticipation, not so much from the money but the chance to drive an automobile. “Yes, sir,” he said brightly. “I know how to drive my uncle's Maxwell.”

Bell watched with amusement as the boy clashed the gears and drove off down the crowded street. Then he turned and joined the mass of humanity that was escaping the destruction of the city.

Within three days, over two hundred twenty-five thousand people left the peninsula where San Francisco stood, all carried free of charge by the Southern Pacific Railroad to wherever they wished to travel. Within twenty-four hours of the quake, overloaded ferryboats were departing San Francisco for Oakland every hour.

Bell showed his Van Dorn credentials and boarded a ferry called the
Buena Vista.
He found an open place to sit above the paddle wheels and turned back to watch the flames shooting hundreds of feet into the air, with the smoke rising over a thousand feet. It looked as if the whole city was one vast bonfire.

Once he stepped off the Mole in Oakland, a railroad official directed him to the repair shop where his locomotive was sitting. The mammoth steel monster was a grand sight up close. It was painted black from the cowcatcher to the rear of its coal tender. Bell guessed the cab's roof was at least fifteen feet above the rails. The big drive wheels were eighty-one inches in diameter. In its time, the Atlantic-type locomotive was a masterwork of mechanical power.

To Bell, it looked mean and ugly. The number 3455 was painted in small white letters on the side of the cab;
SOUTHERN PACIFIC
, in larger type, ran across the side of the tender, which fueled the boiler with coal and water. Bell walked up to a man wearing the traditional striped engineer's coveralls and striped cap with brim. The man held a big oil can with a long spout and looked to be oiling the bearings on the connecting rods running from the piston cylinder to the drive wheels.

“A mighty fine locomotive,” said Bell admiringly.

The engineer looked up. He was shorter than Bell, with strands of salt-and-pepper hair straying from under his cap. The face was craggy from years of leaning out a cab window into the full wind stream from a speeding engine. The eyebrows over a pair of sky blue eyes were curved and bushy. Bell judged he was younger than he looked.

“None better than
Adeline,
” the engineer answered.

“Adeline?”

“Easier to remember than her four-figured number. Most locomotives are given a woman's name.”

“
Adeline
looks very powerful,” said Bell admiringly.

“She's built for heavy passenger service. Came out of the Baldwin Works no more than five months ago.”

“How fast will she go?” asked Bell.

“Depends on how many cars she's hauling.”

“Let's say none.”

The engineer thought a moment. “On a long, straight stretch of open, empty track, she'd top a hundred miles an hour.”

“My name is Bell.” He handed the engineer the paperwork. “I've chartered your engine for a special job.”

The engineer studied the papers. “Van Dorn detective outfit, huh. What's so special?”

“Ever hear of the Butcher Bandit?”

“Who hasn't? I've read in the newspapers he's about as deadly as they come.”

Bell wasted no detailed explanation. “We're going after him. He chartered a Pacific-type locomotive to haul his special private car. He's steaming to Salt Lake City before heading north for the Canadian border. I reckon he has a five-hour head start.”

“More like six, by the time we take on coal and get a load of steam up.”

“I was told there were repairs. Are they completed?”

The engineer nodded. “The shop replaced a faulty bearing in one of the truck wheels.”

“The sooner we get going, the better.” Bell paused to extend his hand. “By the way, my name is Isaac Bell.”

The engineer's shake was vigorous. “Nils Lofgren. My fireman is Marvin Long.”

Bell pulled his watch from its pocket and checked the time. “I'll see you in forty-five minutes.”

“We'll be at the coal-loading dock just up the track.”

Bell hurried toward the Oakland terminal until he came to a wooden building that housed the Western Union office. The wire chief told him that only one wire was open to Salt Lake City and it was hours behind getting messages through. Bell explained his mission and the chief was most cooperative.

“What's your message?” he asked. “I'll see that it's sent straightaway to our office in Salt Lake.”

Bell's wire read:

He waited until the telegrapher tapped out the message before leaving the office and walking to where Lofgren and Long were taking on coal and water. He climbed up into the cab and was introduced to Long, a heavy, broad-shouldered man with large muscles stretching the sleeves of his denim shirt. He wore no hat and his red hair almost matched the flames inside the door to the firebox. He pulled off a leather glove and shook Bell's hand with a hand that was hard and callused from long hours wielding a coal shovel.

“Ready whenever you are,” announced Lofgren.

“Let's do it,” answered Bell.

As Long stoked the fire, Lofgren took his seat on the right side of the cab, locked the reverser Johnson bar into place, opened the cylinder cocks, and pulled the rope above his head down twice, causing the steam whistle to scream an about-to-move-forward warning. Then he gripped the long throttle lever and pulled it back.
Adeline
began to move and slowly gather speed.

Ten minutes later, Lofgren was signaled to switch onto the main track east. He eased the throttle back and the big Atlantic began to move forward. Slowly, the train wound through the yard. Long began maintaining his fire, light, level, and bright. In the five years he'd stoked locomotive fires, he'd developed a technique that kept the fire from burning too thin or too thick. Lofgren yanked on the throttle, the drive wheels churned amid a loud blast of steam, and black smoke spewed out the top of the stack.

Bell took the seat on the left side of the cab, feeling vastly relieved that he was at last on what he felt certain was the final chase to catch Cromwell and hand him over to the authorities in Chicago, dead or alive.

He found the vibration of the locomotive over the rails as soothing as floating in a rubber raft on a mountain lake, the chug of the steam propelling the drive wheels and the warm heat from the firebox positively restful for a man on a mission. Before they reached Sacramento and swung east across the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Bell slid down in his seat, yawned, and closed his eyes. Within a minute, he was in a sound sleep, amid the clangor of the speeding locomotive, as
Adeline
aimed her big cowcatcher toward the Sierra Nevada and Donner Pass.