The Assassin by Clive Cussler (epub ebook reader .txt) 📕

slowly and carefully, tracing drawings with a blunt finger.

“What’s he up to?” asked Bell.

“I think the guy is designing an exploding bullet.”

“Like an artillery shell?”

“In principle. But a heck of a lot smaller. I mean, this could be chambered in a .303.” He glanced up at Bell. “Like this Savage . . .”

“Do you think it will work?”

“If he’s able to execute what he’s drawn, yes. Judging by his quality work on this”—McCoart assembled the Savage’s chamber and barrel with a flick of his wrist and broke it down as swiftly—“the man is very, very good.”

He scanned the drawings again.

“Grisly imagination. A near miss with one of these would not be a miss. As for a ‘flesh wound,’ call the gravediggers.”

“More likely, the assassin’s imagination.”

“Did he happen to say how far he’s gotten with it?”

“He’s dead. His lathe grabbed his tie. Broke his neck.”

“Damned fool wearing a tie around a lathe.”

“He meant to kill himself.”

“There’s loyalty, for you,” said McCoart. He handed Bell back the notebook. “Well, at least he’s not going to finish this awful thing.”

“I reckon he already has.”

“Did you find any fulminate of mercury?”

“Plenty.”

“Did you find any cartridges?”

“There are none in the shop.”

“Hopefully, he was still experimenting.”

“I’m not counting on that,” said Isaac Bell.

“Did he say anything?”

“He said he was in love.”

“In love? And he killed himself? Are you going to talk to her?”

“I couldn’t hear her name.”

—

Like most upper-crust brothels, Miss Dee’s ten-dollar parlor house on North Wichita Street was a hangout for politicians and prosperous business men. Compared to New York or Chicago, its setting was less than glamorous, on a street bordered by a lumberyard, a blacksmith, a foundry, gas storage tanks, and tenements.

Wichita, thought Archie, where expectations were modest.

“Come right in,” the madam greeted him warmly. Wealthily dressed men made good customers. Handsome, wealthy customers with exquisite manners were a rare treasure. She remarked that she had not seen him before. Archie said he was not from Kansas. She said that she was not surprised and asked what in particular she could do for him.

“Would it be possible to make the acquaintance of a young lady named Jane?”

“Very possible, we have several Janes.”

Archie drew on Mack and Wally’s description. “Jane of hair as red as mine and eyes like lapis lazuli.”

“That Jane.”

“Is she still here?”

“Still here,” the madam said grimly.

“You don’t sound pleased,” said Archie.

“She’s tough on the business. The old geezers fall hard for her. One of these days, fisticuffs in my parlor will end in a heart attack.”

“I hope I’ll be immune,” said Archie.

“Frankly,” said the madam, “I hope you fall so hard, you take her home with you . . .”

—

Archie popped the question on the train to Chicago, a city that the round and bright-eyed Jane told him she had always wanted to visit. Archie had promised a paid vacation and a shopping trip (at Van Dorn expense). If Mr. Van Dorn balked, he would hit Isaac up for the dough. Any luck, Jane’s gratitude would materialize as the name of her dead admirer’s blackmail victim. Best of all, while in Chicago he could sink his teeth back into the Rosania case.

Archie waited until they were highballing out of St. Louis before he asked about Reed Riggs. Jane’s lapis lazuli eyes darkened, turning a sad, stony blue.

“Reed was a good man. A gent like you, Archie. Not fancy like you, but a gent in his heart. That’s why he couldn’t follow through. He was no blackmailer. It just seemed like a good idea to save his refinery, but when push came to shove he couldn’t do it.”

“Did he ever actually approach the victim?”

“He told me he went to New York and talked to him.”

“At 26 Broadway?” Archie asked casually.

Jane laid a plump hand on the back of Archie’s. “Stay a gent, Archie. Don’t try to trick me.”

Archie said, “I understand that you would never dishonor Reed Riggs’ memory by betraying the name of the man he decided not to blackmail. But what if I told you that the man we think it was just tried to kill John D. Rockefeller?”

Jane said, “Most people would think he had a pretty good idea.”

“And if I told you that we suspect he killed Mr. Riggs?”

“Reed died in an accident.”

“It is possible it was not an accident.”

“Can you prove that?”

“I cannot prove it was murder,” Archie admitted, “though we have a pretty good idea how the killer did it.”

Jane looked out the window. Her beautiful eyes had recovered their natural color and her spirits had risen. It was cheerfulness that the geezers fell for, Archie guessed, as much as her round shape. “Archie, what you just said rings true. When Reed died, he left me the only thing he possessed. His decency. I hate to think of the poor man dying in fear. When they told me he fell under the train, I decided he had fainted.”

Archie said, “If he was killed the way we believe he was, he never knew what hit him, or even saw it coming. One moment he was alive, the next he was not.”

“How can you know that?”

Archie described in detail the assassin’s shooting perch that he and Isaac Bell had discovered in a Fort Scott train yard.

Jane turned from the window and touched Archie’s cheek. The conductor passing through the car noted their red hair and his stern face broke into a smile as he wondered, mother and son off to Chicago? More likely, maiden aunt and her favorite nephew.

“I will speak one name aloud,” said Archie. “Only one. Can you please nod if he’s the man Reed changed his mind about blackmailing?”

“Part of me wants to cover my ears.”

“No need,” said Archie. “I won’t say his name until you agree.”

“I still want to cover them.”

“I will say this. If it is who I think it is, then I can guarantee that Reed died just as I described and never felt a thing.”

She looked at him and believed him and Archie exulted. Jackpot!

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