“A dumdum bullet?”
“No. Not a hollow-point. A bullet that detonates on impact.”
“Like an artillery shell?”
“Precisely. A miniature artillery shell.”
“It’s hard to imagine stuffing an impact fuse and explosive into such a small projectile.”
“But you have a wonderful imagination.”
“I am intrigued,” said the gunsmith. “You are as stimulating as ever.”
17
Back from Pocantico Hills, Isaac Bell wired Joseph Van Dorn in agency cipher:
BAKU VIA CLEVELAND.
And with very little time to set the murder and Corporations Commission investigations in productive motion before he was stuck incommunicado on the high seas, he fired off three more telegrams.
To Detective Archie Abbott in Washington:
WHY PERSIA? ON THE JUMP.
To Detective Wally Kisley and Detective Mack Fulton still in Kansas:
HOPEWELL TRICKS UP SLEEVE? ON THE JUMP.
To Detective Aloysius “Wish” Clarke, who was about to receive the plummiest assignment of his checkered career:
COME NEW YORK. ON THE JUMP.
Bell himself went to the Sage Gun Company on West 43rd Street.
He walked in carrying a carpetbag and shook hands with Dave McCoart, a hard-muscled gunsmith with long, thin fingers and a ruddy Irish complexion.
“I was just thinking about you,” McCoart greeted him. “Are you familiar with the FN outfit in Belgium?”
“Fabrique Nationale. Firearms manufacturer in the Liège district.”
“Mr. Browning gave FN a contract to manufacture a 9mm variant of a new design. I am told it’s a beautiful pistol. I’m thinking I can modify it with a chamber bushing to fire an American .380 caliber cartridge. It would be considerably lighter than that brick in your shoulder holster.”
“I like my gun’s stopping power. It’s served me well.”
“What the Number 2 lacks in stopping power — and you are right to be concerned — will be made up with outstanding accuracy.”
“How outstanding?”
“Compared to your Colt? Like a rifle.”
“O.K., make me one. Now, I have a question. Have you ever seen a breakdown model of a Savage 99?”
“No.”
“Could you convert a factory piece to a breakdown?”
“I could.”
“How many gunsmiths could do such a conversion?”
McCoart grinned. “That depends on whether the accuracy of the weapon is high on your list of expectations.”
“At the top.”
“Then I would shop very carefully to get the right man. Look for one who has a top-notch machine shop and several pints of artist in his bloodstream.”
“How many such men do you know?”
“With a top-notch machine shop?”
“Or access to one.”
“… A few, I suppose.”
“How many more would be out there that you don’t know personally?”
“Around the country? Quite a few.”
“How many would be known to gunsmiths who you know?”
“There are cities where the best congregate. They settle near where they learned the craft and can turn to each other to make specialty items. Around the Winchester works in New Haven, Connecticut, or Savage’s factory upstate in Utica. Springfield in Springfield, Massachusetts. Remington in Bridgeport, Colt in Hartford. Do you mind me asking what the rifle is used for?”
“I was about to warn you. It’s being used for murder.”
“Reckoned as much.”
“So ask carefully. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of this guy.”
McCoart asked, “Do you suppose the smith knows what his customer is up to?”
It was a good question, and Bell thought on it before he answered. “The smith could believe his customer is a target shooter.”
Dave McCoart shot a hole in that theory. “He wouldn’t think it long if the guy weren’t actively competing. He would want to know how his gun did.”
Bell opened his carpetbag. “What do you think of this one?”
McCoart weighed the parts in his big hands, examined them in the light, then screwed them together. “Nice. Very, very nice work. The barrel and chamber lock like they’re welded.”
“Recognize it?”
“No. Other than it narrows the field considerably. There aren’t that many smiths of this caliber. Like I said, an artist. Did you shoot it?”
“I hit a fence post at a quarter mile twice and winged it twice.”
“Could have been the wind. Could have been the loads. Could have been knocked around since it was last sighted in. Would you like me to bench-sight it?”
“And load me some cartridges.”
“Where’s the telescope?”
“It wasn’t on it.”
“Why do you suppose he left such a beautiful piece behind?”
“To throw me off the scent.”
“Saving money on the telescope. Good ones don’t come cheap.”
“Or,” said Bell, seeing another way to backtrack the assassin, “maybe the telescope is even rarer than the gun.”
“What are your prospects, Mr. Bell?” Bill Matters asked bluntly when Isaac Bell called at Matters’ Gramercy Park town house.
Bell reckoned he should not be surprised by how young, vigorous, and tough Edna and Nellie’s father was. “Hard as adamantine,” Spike Hopewell had dubbed him. “Choirboys don’t last in the oil business.”
Still, he had expected a smoother company man version of Spike Hopewell. Instead, he found a man fifteen years younger than Spike. He had a hard mouth, and harder eyes, and seemed inordinately protective of his accomplished, independent daughters.
“Father,” said Nellie before Bell could answer, “Mr. Bell just walked in the door,” and Edna, who had descended the stairs with Nellie and was now seated beside her on a green silk-covered settee that highlighted the color of their eyes, said, “This role of vigilant father, Father, does not become you.”
Matters did not smile. Nor would he be derailed. “I want to know what his prospects are if he’s calling on my daughters. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
Edna started to protest.
Bell interrupted.
“Thank you, ladies. I will speak for myself. To answer your question, sir, I enjoyed steady advancement in the Van Dorn Detective Agency. Now I’m striking out on my own. I intend to start my own firm, and I will work hard to make a go of it.”
“How much will you earn?”
“Sufficient for my needs.”
“Sufficient to support a family?”
“Pregnancy,” said Nellie, “has not come under discussion. Yet.”
Matters glowered.
Edna said, “I believe that Mr. Bell is a Boston Bell, Father. The bankers. He does not need to ‘marry well.’”
“American States Bank? Is that true, Bell?”
Bell looked from Edna to Nellie and addressed his answer to their father’s questions to both of them. “I would rather marry happily than ‘well.’”
Bill Matters barked a laugh that did nothing to soften his eyes. “Hear! Hear! Well said! O.K., you won’t be a detective for long. Take over the bank when your old man retires.”
“I will remain a detective,” said Bell. He did not elaborate upon the deep contestation with his father on that issue, nor that his grandfather had interceded with a legacy that made him financially independent. Neither was Matters’ business, beautiful daughters notwithstanding.