“I thought so, too,” said Bronson, leading Cromwell up the steps into the Pullman car, where he took his own handcuffs, placed them around Cromwell’s ankles, and roughly shoved him onto a couch.
Bell walked back up the track and stared sadly at the mauled Locomobile. A barrel-chested man carrying an oil can in the coveralls and denim striped hat of a locomotive engineer came up behind him and stared dumbly at the automobile.
“How in God’s name did that derelict come to be on the tracks in front of my engine?”
“It’s a long story,” said Bell wearily.
“What’s going to happen to it?”
Bell spoke quietly, almost reverently: “It’s going to be shipped back to the factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where it will be rebuilt until it is as good as new.”
“Fix this wreck?” said the engineer, shaking his head. “Why bother?”
Bell looked at the Locomobile with a loving expression in his eyes and said, “Because she deserves it.”
34
“YOU’RE A FOOL IF YOU THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY with kidnapping me,” Cromwell stated contemptuously. “You have no authority to arrest me without a warrant. As soon as we get back to San Francisco, my attorneys will demand my release. After making fools of the Van Dorn Detective Agency, I shall walk free as a bird. Then I’ll launch a series of lawsuits that will break your agency and drown it in a sea of scandal.”
Cromwell sat manacled to a large couch in the center of the parlor car. His wrists, legs, and even his neck were encased in steel bands that were chained to tie-down rings on the floor of the forward baggage section of the car. No chances were taken. Four heavily armed Van Dorn agents from the Los Angeles office sat in the car less than ten feet from the bandit, sawed-off shotguns, loaded and cocked, laid across their knees.
“You may have a chance to demonstrate your arrogant ego with your pals in city hall, my friend,” said
Bell. “But you’ll walk free only as far as a pig to a butcher shop.”
“I am an innocent man,” said Cromwell matter-of-factly. “I can prove I was nowhere near the bank robberies you accuse me of. Where is your evidence? Where are your witnesses?”
“I’m a witness,” Bell answered. “I saw through your disguise as a woman in Telluride before you shot me.”
“You, Mr. Bell? What jury in San Francisco would buy your testimony? The trial will be a farce. You have nothing to bring an indictment, much less conviction.”
Bell gave Cromwell a foxlike smile. “I am not the only witness. There are other people in the towns where you committed your murders who can identify you.”
“Really.” Cromwell leaned back in the couch as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “From what I read of the Butcher Bandit, he always used disguises during his crimes. How can he be identified?”
“You’ll have to wait and see.”
“I have great influence in San Francisco,” Cromwell said with total conviction. “I have contributed heavily to the election of every superior and federal court judge on the bench. They owe me. Same with the good citizens of San Francisco. Even if you could bring me to trial, no jury of my peers will convict me, not when they take into account the many thousands of dollars I’ve spent on their behalf.”
“You’re betting your hand before you see it,” said Bell. “A federal judge will be sent out from Washington to hear your case and the venue will be moved elsewhere, where you’re not the city’s darling.”
“I can afford the finest attorneys in the country,” Cromwell continued haughtily. “No jury, regardless of what judge sits on the bench, will ever sentence me for crimes with so little evidence, certainly not with my reputation as a man who is beloved by the poor and homeless of San Francisco.”
Bronson’s face was clouded with disgust. It took all his willpower not to plant his fist in Cromwell’s face. “Tell that to the families of the victims you shot down in cold blood. Tell them how the money you stole went to give you a lavish lifestyle as a banker in a mansion on Nob Hill.”
Cromwell smiled brazenly and said nothing.
The train began to slow. Bronson stepped over to a window and peered out. “We’re coming into Santa Barbara. The engineer will probably stop to take on water.”
“I’d like to get off at the depot,” said Bell. “There’s a little matter I’d like to take care of.”
As soon as the train came to a stop, Bell jumped down the stairs to the platform and quickly disappeared into the depot. Ten minutes later, as the engineer tooted the whistle warning that he was going to engage the drive wheels, Bell trotted out and climbed back aboard the Pullman car.
“What was that all about?” asked Bronson.
Cromwell immediately suspected something that was not to his liking. He shifted in his chair and leaned forward to listen.
“The phone lines have been repaired over the ravine where the flash flood went though,” Bell answered Bronson. Then he looked down at Cromwell with a sardonic grin. “I put a call through to the Van Dorn office and instructed our agents to take your sister into custody as an accomplice.”