The Chase Part 22

"Mr. Cromwell!" she exclaimed as her mood altered from compa.s.sion to alarm. "I don't understand."

"He's the man who shot me and killed a Van Dorn agent who was my friend."

"You can't be serious."

"Like it or not, Jacob Cromwell is the Butcher Bandit who has held up over twenty banks in the past twelve years and killed nearly forty innocent people."

"That's crazy!" Marion bit her lower lip. She looked as if she was lost and had nowhere to turn. "He couldn't have done what you say."

"What I said is true," Bell said with a sudden gentleness. "We have evidence. Maybe not enough to convict, but it falls at Cromwell's doorstep."

"But he's helped so many people in need," she protested.

"A front," said Bell icily. "He's built a wall around his empire, guarded by an army of good citizens who believe he and Margaret are generous people who want to help the poor out of the goodness of their hearts. It's an act. Cromwell could care less about those who are dest.i.tute. He uses them to promote his own purposes. In the eyes of the city's crooked politicians, he can do no wrong so long as he supports them with secret donations."

Confused, Marion sipped at her tea, her hand noticeably trembling. "I simply refuse to believe it," she murmured.

Bell reached across the table and took both her hands in his. "Believe me, Marion, it's true. I looked into his eyes and recognized him the instant he shot me at the bank in Telluride."

She pulled her hands back and clasped them together tightly. "Oh, Isaac, it's all too fantastic. Why would Jacob rob banks when he already owns the second-largest bank in San Francisco? The thought is too absurd to be real."

"I can't give you an answer, Marion. In the beginning, he took the money to build his own bank. But when he became rich, the robbery and killings became an obsession. I've seen many cases like Cromwell's. The robberies and the murders are like a narcotic for him. He can't help himself, and will go on killing until I stop him."

She looked up into his sensitive violet eyes across the table. They had turned dark and cold. "You, Isaac? Does it have to be you?"

"I can't let him go on murdering people." Bell spoke the words in a monotone, as if he were reading an accusation in a courtroom. "I am not going to let him thumb his nose at the law and continue to run around free, living the life of a wealthy Santa Claus." Then he added, "And that goes for his sister, Margaret. She's buried in his evil operations up to her pretty neck."

Marion dipped her head in utter confusion as her hat covered her eyes. "I've known Jacob and Margaret for years and yet I didn't know them."

"It's hard," Bell said softly, "but you'll have to accept it."

She tilted her head back and the forward brim of her wide flowered hat rose until he could look directly into her coralsea green eyes. "What can I do?" she asked softly.

"For one thing, you must go on as if you know nothing. Continue your duties as his loyal secretary. Our agents will have both brother and sister under constant surveillance. All you have to do is report anything suspicious or unusual regarding Jacob's actions."

"You mean, of course, report to you you."

He nodded. "Yes."

She suddenly had the feeling she was being used, that Bell's interest in her was purely as an informer. She turned away so he couldn't see the tears welling up in her eyes.

Bell immediately sensed what was whirling in her mind. He moved his chair around the table until he was sitting close enough to put his arm around her shoulders. "I know what you're thinking, Marion, and it's not true. I know I am asking you to commit a devious act, but lives hang in the balance. Yet there is much more. It goes far beyond a request for your help." He paused to build up his courage. "I'm in love with you, Marion. I can't explain why it happened so suddenly, but it did. You must believe me."

Marion looked into his face and saw only affection and fondness. Her fears vanished in an instant as she leaned forward and kissed him solidly on the lips. When she pulled back, she smiled wickedly. "You must think I'm a brazen hussy."

He laughed at seeing her blush. "Not at all. I enjoyed it."

Then her eyes turned soft. "I have to admit I felt something when I looked up and saw you standing there in the office."

This time, he he kissed her. kissed her.

After a long moment, he pulled back and grinned. "Perhaps we should order before they ask us to leave for disorderly conduct."

30.

AS SOON AS MARION RETURNED FROM HER LUNCH WITH Bell and was in the midst of typing a letter, Cromwell called her into his office. She concealed her nervousness by not looking him in the face as he spoke. "Marion, I'm going to attend the National Conference for Community Banks. It is being held in Los Angeles this year on March twenty-eighth to March thirtieth. Could you please make the necessary travel arrangements, and book me a room at the Fremont Hotel downtown?"

"To be in Los Angeles by the twenty-eighth, you'd have to leave tomorrow," said Marion. "That's awfully short notice."

"I know," Cromwell said with an offhand shrug. "I wasn't going to attend, but I changed my mind."

"Will you wish to charter a private car?"

"No. I'll leave private cars to the presidents of the Crocker and Wells Fargo banks. When I go on bank business, I'll travel as a simple pa.s.senger so my depositors will know I have their best interest at heart and am not squandering their money."

Marion rose to her feet with a rustle of her skirts. "I'll see to it."

As soon as she returned to her desk, she picked up her telephone and in a low voice, nearly that of a whisper, asked the operator for the Van Dorn Detective Agency. When Marion gave the receptionist her name, she was immediately put through to Bell.

"Isaac?"

"Marion? I was just going to call and ask you out for dinner and a play."

She felt pleased that he was happy to hear her voice. "I have some information for you," she said seriously. "Jacob is going out of town."

"Do you know where?"

"Los Angeles," she answered. "He's going to attend the National Conference for Community Banks. It's a forum for bankers, to exchange the latest in banking operations."

"When does it take place?"

"The twenty-eighth to the thirtieth of this month."

Bell thought a moment. "He'd have to be on a train tomorrow if he was going to make Los Angeles by the twenty-eighth."

"Yes, that's right," said Marion. "As soon as I ring off, I have to make his reservations. He's traveling in a coach, as an ordinary pa.s.senger."

"Not like your boss to save a buck."

"He claimed it would impress Cromwell depositors by not squandering the bank's a.s.sets."

"What do you think, Marion? Is this trip legitimate?"

She did not hesitate in answering. "I do know there really is a National Conference for Community Banks on those dates in the City of Angels."

"I'll see that one of our agents is with him all the way."

"I feel soiled going behind his back," she said remorsefully.

"Do not regret it, sweetheart," Bell replied tenderly. "Jacob Cromwell is an evil man."

"What time should I expect you?" Marion asked, happy to get off the subject of Cromwell.

"I'll pick you up at six so we can have an early dinner before making the play."

"Are we going in your red racer?"

"Do you mind?"

"No, I enjoy the exhilaration of speed."

He laughed. "I knew there was something about you that attracted me."

Marion hung up the phone, surprised to find her heart beating at a rapid rate.

ON GUT INSTINCT, and the knowledge that Bell and his agent Irvine had been nosing around before he killed them, Cromwell made elaborate plans to cover his tracks even more thoroughly. He was certain that with the loss of two of his agents, Van Dorn would add fuel to the investigation by probing ever deeper into every lead. He could expect more agents to come around asking more questions about the stolen money that had been dispersed through merchants and other banks around the city.

Just to be on the safe side, Cromwell called the chief dispatcher of the Southern Pacific and informed him that he was sending in a written request to move his disguised freight car, now serial number 16455, sitting at the abandoned warehouse, to a new location across the bay in Oakland. Within minutes, the order was received by the yardmaster, who sent a switch engine that was coupled to the car and pulled it onto a boxcar ferry.

Cromwell also ordered a special train, a private Pullman car pulled by an engine and tender; destination: San Diego. The order went through the O'Brian Furniture Company of Denver, which had a long-standing account and was a respected customer of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company.

Only then did he sit back in his chair, light an expensive cigar, and relax, totally self-a.s.sured that he was once again ten steps ahead of any remote suspicion that might be held by Van Dorn or any other law enforcement agency.

He would have been even more smug if he had known that before Bronson could send an agent to keep an eye out for anyone approaching the freight car, it had been switched onto the ferry and transported to a siding in the Southern Pacific railyard in Oakland.

31.

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, CROMWELL BID MARGARET good-bye and stepped into his Rolls-Royce limousine. Abner smoothly steered the car through the city traffic to the Southern Pacific pa.s.senger station for trains running directly north or south that did not have to cross the bay. Stopping at the station entrance, he opened the car door and handed Cromwell a valise.

As the Rolls pulled away from the curb, Cromwell casually walked into the station, showed his ticket to the gatekeeper, and joined the other pa.s.sengers moving along the platform. He climbed the steps to the third coach and boarded the train.

A Van Dorn agent watched him board and then loitered until the train began to move, making sure that Cromwell did not step back on the platform, in case he had missed the train. Only then did the agent swing aboard the last car and begin walking through the pa.s.senger cars until he reached the one Cromwell had entered. To his amazement, Cromwell was nowhere to be seen. Alarmed, the agent rushed through the remaining cars, searching until he reached the locked door to the baggage car. Still no Cromwell. Then he hurried to the back of the train, entertaining the possibility that he had missed the banker, but Cromwell was still nowhere to be found.

Unseen, Cromwell had departed the pa.s.senger car by the opposite door and stepped down and crossed the tracks to another platform, where the special train he had chartered was waiting. He climbed aboard his private car, where he relaxed in the luxury and glamour of what was a veritable yacht on wheels. He removed his coat, sat back casually in an overstuffed velvet chair, and opened the morning paper. A steward served him breakfast that had been specially prepared by the car's private chef. He was leisurely reading the San Francisco Chronicle San Francisco Chronicle when the train pulled away from the station and onto the main track for the run to Los Angeles, just fifteen minutes behind the regularly scheduled pa.s.senger train on which Marion had booked him a seat. when the train pulled away from the station and onto the main track for the run to Los Angeles, just fifteen minutes behind the regularly scheduled pa.s.senger train on which Marion had booked him a seat.

"NO WORD from my agent, so I can safely a.s.sume Cromwell is on his way to Los Angeles," said Bronson.

Bell looked up from a map depicting San Francisco and its neighboring big city to the south. "His train is scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles at four-thirty this evening. I'm told he's staying at the Fremont Hotel."

"I was lucky. I managed to wire Bob Harrington, who heads up the Southern California Van Dorn office, before the flash flood somewhere to the south took out the line. He's going to have a man disguised as a cabbie pick up Cromwell and take him to his hotel. My agent on the train will point him out. From there, Harrington's agents can keep a tight rein on him."

"His trip sounds innocent enough," Bell said slowly. "But I don't trust him. He's up to something. I feel it in my bones."

"He won't get far if he tries anything," Bronson said confidently. "Should he make even a tiny false move, a dozen agents will land on him like a ton of bricks."

Bell walked back to an empty office and rang up Marion over at the bank. "Did you survive last night?" he asked lovingly.

"I had a wonderful time, thank you. The meal was scrumptious and the play was delightful."

"Now that the cat is away, how about the mouse coming out and play-say, for lunch?"

"I'm game."

"I'll pick you up in front of the bank."

"I'll meet you where we met before," she said without hesitation. "I don't want our relations.h.i.+p to be obvious. If any of the employees see me getting in your flashy red car, they're liable to talk, and it will get back to Jacob."

"Same time, same place," he said before he hung up.

Later that morning, a Western Union messenger came running into the office. "I have an urgent message for a Mr. Horace Bronson," he said to the receptionist, gasping because of his dash from the Western Union office.

Bronson, who was coming back from the bathroom down the hall, said, "I'm Bronson. I'll take it." He flipped the messenger a coin and tore open the envelope. As he read the message, his lips tightened and his forehead turned into a hard frown. He rushed through the office until he came to Bell.

"We're in trouble," he announced.

Bell looked at him questioningly. "Trouble?"

"My man lost Cromwell."

Bell faltered, taken completely off balance. "How could he lose him on a train?"

"Cromwell must have gotten on the train and immediately jumped off the opposite side without being seen."

"Your agent should have alerted us sooner," Bell snapped, anger flaring.