The Assassin (Isaac Bell 8)

“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.