Bell said, “Congratulations, sir. That is wonderful news.”
He was fully aware of Van Dorn’s dream of expanding the Van Dorn Detective Agency from its Chicago base into a crack transcontinental outfit with field offices in every city and even, one day, the capitals of Europe. The Prince Henry job had come from working at it “eight days in the week, thirteen months in the year,” and the Boss was understandably excited.
“Report quickly, Isaac. I’m meeting with Pittsburgh’s police chief in an hour. They’ll be giving Prince Henry a big testimonial dinner right here in this club.”
Bell had to shift Van Dorn’s attention to get permission to investigate the accident for the sake of justice even though the agency was originally hired by the coal company. He said, “The proud Van Dorn motto — We never give up! Never! — is based on principles.”
“Of course it is. We never ignore crime. We never abandon innocents.”
“The first thing you taught me, sir. We were in Chicago, in Jimmy Armstrong’s Saloon, and you said, ‘The innocent are sacred and…’”
The younger man paused expectantly.
Joseph Van Dorn was obliged to complete the creed he drilled into his detectives: “… and it is the duty of the strong to protect them.”
“The boys killed in the mining accident were innocent, sir. The union man Jim Higgins is innocent of the murder charge. And the runaway train was notan accident.”
Van Dorn’s eyes gleamed, and Bell knew he had his attention. “Can you pinpoint the saboteurs who caused it?”
“It was not a saboteur.”
“What?”
“Not in the sense you mean. It was not union sabotage.”
“Then who?”
“Not a saboteur. A provocateur.”
“What the devil are you talking about? Are you mincing words? Sabotage is sabotage.”
“No it isn’t, sir. Not in the way you mean.”
“Stop telling me what I mean and tell me what youmean.”
“The broken chain that caused the accident was deliberately fractured, a fracture very likely caused, I believe, by a provocateur.”
“To what purpose?” Van Dorn demanded.
“To perpetrate a larger crime.”
“What larger crime?”
“I don’t know,” Bell admitted. “Although there have been incidents in labor disputes when provocateurs were employed by owners to fabricate excuses to arrest unionists. But I don’t think it is that.”
Van Dorn sat back and crossed his arms over his mighty chest. “I’m relieved to hear your logic. Wrecking his own coal mine is a mighty expensive method for Black Jack Gleason to arrest unionists.”
“I know. Which is why I wonder—”
“Where were youwhen he sabotaged the mine train? Didn’t I send you there to prevent such attacks?”
Isaac Bell said, “I’m sorry I let you down, sir.”
Van Dorn stared hard at him for a full twenty seconds. Finally, he spoke. “We’ll get to that later. What did you see?”
Bell reported what stoked his suspicions: the suicidal effect of underground sabotage; the mysterious chisel mark he found on the broken link; and the fact that by arresting Higgins, the coal company had undercut the union effort.
Joseph Van Dorn stared at Isaac Bell.
Bell met his gaze coolly. The Boss was a very ambitious man, but he was an honest man and a responsible man.
“Against my better judgment,” Van Dorn said at last, “I will give you permission to investigate this vague idea for one week. One week only.”
“Thank you, sir. May I draw on men to help me?”
“I can’t spare anyone to help you. This Prince Henry tour requires every hand. You’re on your own.”
There was a sudden ruckus on the far side of the richly decorated dining room. Black Jack Gleason’s party were swaggering in and sitting down for lunch. Gleason pounded his fist on the table and vowed in a loud voice, “I will destroy the mining unions once and for all.”
The older mineowners counseled caution, noting that in Pennsylvania the union was strong: Winter is coming, we can’t afford a strike.
“The nation won’t put up with millions freezing in their homes.”
“It’s already cost the anthracite operators two million to pay, feed, lodge, and arm five thousand Coal and Iron Police with revolvers and breech-loading-magazine rifles. Heck, if we increase the miners’ pay ten cents a day, it would cost less than five thousand armed policemen.”
Gleason hit the tablecloth again. Silver jumped. Waiters sprang to rescue crystal. “Gentlemen, I will say it again. I will destroy the mining unions once and for all.”
“But mightn’t we do better to give the miners a small raise and nip it in the bud?” asked an owner.
“Before that damned dictator President Roosevelt horns in,” warned another. “He’ll demand we recognize the union.”
Van Dorn said to Bell, “The fellows around TR told me that he would love nothing more than to settle a strike.”
Black Jack Gleason laughed at compromise. “If they strike, I’ll break their strike like I broke every strike before,” he boasted.
Bell said to Van Dorn, “I heard him in the bar. He wantsa strike if it will hurt his competitors.”
“Hard man,” said Van Dorn. “But very capable.” His manner toward Bell softened slightly. He himself was a hard man, but not the sort to hide his warm feelings for a young employee he admired. Isaac Bell had been his personal apprentice after graduating from Yale and was the immigrant Irishman’s favorite protégé.
“Be careful, Isaac. You heard Gleason. Labor and owners are scheming for every advantage in a high-stakes war. They’re digging in to fight to the death. Look out you don’t get caught between them.”
“I won’t, sir.”
“And whatever you do, don’t end up choosing sides.”
“I’ll be careful, sir. I promise.”
“I don’t believe you.”
The young man stiffened. “Sir, I’ve given you my word.”
“No,” said Van Dorn. “You will break that promise and do something reckless the moment you let your better instincts take command.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ve watched you operate. You have an eye for the downtrodden. Unlike most of your privileged class, you notice that they exist. That sets you miles apart, which is commendable probably. But don’t get yourself killed trying to upend the natural order of things.”
5
Isaac Bell changed into miner garb in his five-cent lodging house, paid the landlady to store his bags, and hurried back to the coalfields, traveling to Morgantown, West Virginia, in a B & O day coach and the final eight miles up a narrowing valley on the newly laid interurban Gleasonburg line. The trolley’s last stop was near the courthouse, a slapped-together wood-frame affair wedged between a steep hillside and the Monongahela River. It stood next to the bigger, more substantial yellow-brick Gleason company store and housed a justice of the peace, who was the highest legal authority in the coal-mining town, his courtroom, and, in a cellar under the building, the Gleasonburg jail.
Bell headed for the jail.
With only a week to prove his theory, or at least make enough of a case to keep the Boss interested, he had decided on the train that his most productive first step would be to persuade the jailers to let him visit Jim Higgins. The union man knew his business. He had laid the groundwork for a strike by learning who to trust among the miners, who to look out for among the police, who to cultivate among the bosses. Bell was anxious to test his theory on the labor organizer and pick his brain as to who the provocateur might be and what he wanted.
A crowd of miners and their wives and children were gathering around the entrance to the jail, a separate doorway beneath the courthouse steps. Bell glided through them, politely touching his cap to the ladies and sidestepping small fry. They were a somber crowd. Some of the women were red-eyed from weeping. They were the mothers, Bell realized, of the doorboys. How many, he wondered, were widowed like Sammy’s mother? How many of the boys had been their family’s sole breadwinner?