“Where?”
“Out west. Oregon. My territory.”
“Are you looking to buy a rifle?”
“I need a telescope mounted.”
Bell lifted his carpetbag onto the counter and opened it. He watched the gunsmith’s face as he pulled out the assassin’s Savage 99 and methodically inserted the barrel into the chamber.
The gunsmith was no actor. But not even the great Edwin Booth could hide his feelings if the blood drained out of his face as it did from Beitel’s, and Isaac Bell knew he had hit pay dirt at last.
—
“Are you all right, sir?” Bell asked solicitously. “You look pale.”
“It’s warm in here,” Beitel murmured.
“Warm subject,” said Bell.
The gunsmith took off his apron and folded it neatly on a chair. Bell extended the rifle. Beitel appeared to shrink before Bell’s eyes. But he took the gun, cradled it a moment, and laid it on the counter. Then he turned around as if Bell weren’t there and faced his lathe. He picked up a cutoff tool, fitted it to the tool rest, and pressed the bit to the stock turning on the machine. His hands were shaking. Sparks flew where the tool grooved the metal.
The motor whined as he adjusted a switch lever, gradually increasing the speed to two hundred revolutions per minute.
He looked up from the work and gazed slowly about the shop.
“I love this,” he said, addressing Bell over his shoulder.
Isaac Bell spoke very gently. “I cannot promise, but it is possible that this could work out in such a way that you could keep your shop. If you help me find the assassin for whom you altered this weapon.”
“The assassin?”
The gunsmith bent closer to the work as if seeking refuge in a familiar task. He seemed so rattled, he didn’t notice his loose necktie dangling close to the turning stock.
“Careful of your tie,” said Bell.
Beitel whispered, “I love h—”
“What did you say?”
“Go to hell!”
Isaac Bell vaulted over the counter. He was twelve inches from the man when Beitel deliberately let his tie touch the rapidly turning stock. It grabbed the cloth, which wrapped around it faster than the eye could see, and jerked him down hard on the lathe. His neck broke with a loud, dry snap.
Bell switched off the machine. He hung Beitel’s CLOSED sign in the window, lowered the front shades, and searched the shop thoroughly. When he was done, he telephoned the police. “It looks like there’s been an accident.”
—
“I’ve got a tough one for you, Grady,” Isaac Bell said when he telephoned Forrer long-distance from the Bridgeport tr
ain station.
“How tough?”
“The assassin’s telephone number.”
Beitel’s death had been no accident, and the assassin to whom Beitel had been so loyal that he had killed himself instead of betraying him had left no sign of his identity at Zimmerman & Brassard. But Beitel had not trusted his memory and had hidden on the back of a sheet of sandpaper a telephone number written so minutely that Bell needed a magnifying glass to read it.
Bell read it to Forrer. “The Bridgeport operators don’t know it. I don’t want to telephone until I know who will answer and where he is.”