The Titanic Secret (Isaac Bell 11)

“I read in the papers that the mine was completely flooded. How deep is the water?”

“Depth isn’t the issue. The Little Angel Mine isn’t a vertical shaft dug straight down but rather a gently sloping tunnel drilled into the side of the mountain that’s shaped like a flattened V. The very deepest part of the mine is only about thirty feet lower than the adit.”

“Adit?”

“Sorry. I’ve spent too much time around my brother. The adit is the mine’s entrance. After the deepest point, the floor of the mine slopes up again. All told, it’s a little over a mile long, with a dozen or so smaller side passages dug into what looked like promising quartz veins.”

“I see. Can the mine simply be pumped dry?”

“It’s possible, but even now water under pressure is still running out of the entrance at a depth of at least a foot. My brother and his mining people tell me this means there is a lot of water still flowing into the mine. It can’t be drained until the flow stops. That could be weeks or months, but there’s another problem with that. There are some workings down below the Little Angel that are getting inundated with the outflow and they’re demanding my brother seal off the tunnel completely. He hasn’t agreed yet, but he will eventually.”

Bell pictured the scene in his mind. The mouth of the Little Angel perched halfway up a hillside with a slow river of water pouring from it, the water then flowing down and washing through some other mining camps on the lower slopes. He could well imagine that if Bloeser’s brother didn’t seal the tunnel, the other miners would mete out some frontier justice and do it themselves, consequences be damned.

“As with all investigations,” Bell told the banker, “time is always of the essence. I want to see where each of the men lived before they went into that mine. Unfortunately, I suspect many were at boardinghouses. Once news of their deaths reached the lodge owners, it isn’t much of a stretch to see that their belongings were sorted through for valuables and the rest discarded.”

Bloeser nodded at this grim but practical assessment.

Bell continued. “There is one more avenue to pursue and that is breaching the mine itself.”

“But I just explained that it’s flooded.”

“I understand, but what if I told you that I can breathe underwater?”

“I’d say you’d had one whiskey too many.”

Bell smiled at that. “Possibly, but that isn’t the source of my boast. Have you ever heard of the Severn Tunnel?”

“In England. Right?”

“Wales, actually. It’s a railroad tunnel that was driven beneath the Severn Estuary. In 1880, it had flooded so badly that a diver needed to be sent down to close some watertight doors. He went over a thousand feet into the tunnel and breathed air just as you and I are doing right now.”

Bloeser was still trying to process the impossibility of what Bell described when the detective got to his feet. “I need to make some arrangements. How does one get to Central City?”

“The CC,” Bloeser said. “The Colorado Central Railroad. It’s an old narrow-gauge line that runs right up into the mountains. Not sure of its schedule, but the hotel’s deskman should know.”

“I will probably need someone up there to help with equipment and who knows the Little Angel Mine.”

“Ahead of you on that one. My brother uses an engineer-slash-inspector whenever he invests in a new project. The man’s name is Tony Wickersham. He’s English and came here as a teenager looking to find his fortune. He has a good head on his shoulders. Ernst trusts him completely.”

“Okay. I need you to get word to him that I’m coming tomorrow. What’s a good hotel in Central City?”

“The Teller House,” Bloeser said without hesitation. “One of the few buildings to survive the fire of 1874. It’s a brick four-story place on Eureka Street. You can’t miss it. Wickersham is staying there too.”

“Excellent.”

“I still don’t understand how you’re going to get into the mine. That much hose to feed a dive helmet would weigh tons. And it would tear on all the sharp rocks.”

Bell held out a hand to say his good-bye. “Mr. Bloeser, I myself don’t believe how far technology has advanced in the past decade or two. When I first arrived in New York, there were so many horses it reminded me of a rodeo. Now, just a few years later, the Model T Ford is well on its way to replacing them all. We live in amazing times.” Bell shrugged off a rare moment of idle contemplation and shook Bloeser’s hand. “Our man here will call upon your office tomorrow to sign a contract and discuss the finer details of remuneration. Good night.”

3

The locomotive to take Bell higher into the Rocky Mountain foothills wasn’t the original from when the tracks were laid in the 1860s at the height of the Pikes Peak Gold Rush, as it had been known, but it hadn’t been shipped in until much later. The boiler was oft-patched, and steam hissed from every joint and coupling. It sported an old-fashioned cowcatcher that looked as deadly as a mechanical scythe, and a fluted stack that was shot through with holes. The engineer and his stoker were busy moving around the 2-4-2 engine with oilcans and tins of thick packing grease. Another worker was filling a sand hopper that would dump grit in front of the drive wheels as needed for more traction.

The two carriages behind the coal car were painted in mismatched colors, and Bell could see where the names of their former lines had been crudely painted over with the letters CC. The windows were dirty, and clinker burns marred much of the woodwork. Adding the fact that the tracks were only three feet wide, Bell’s overall impression was that this resembled a poorly maintained child’s toy rather than a working iron horse.

Around him several larger trains, with ornate carriages and occasional private cars, could be seen. One train had just arrived, and passengers were coming down the steps, women in long coats and warm boas, men in suits and sporting homburgs or derby hats. A few children gaped at the size of the sprawling Union Station and its tall central clock tower. Everything smelled of coal smoke and echoed with the sound of industrialization.

Bell handed up his single valise to the conductor and mounted the iron steps to gain access to the compartment of the lead carriage. The seats were worn through in places, the floor gritty, and the few lamps remained unlit even though the day was overcast and the interior gloomy. Unlike on the day before, a fresh chill sharpened the air. Bell suspected that Indian summer was well and truly over and Colorado’s notoriously brutal winter was about to set in. He was thankful he’d offered to stay only a couple of days. He had heard stories of travelers stuck in these mountains for weeks on end.