The Titanic Secret (Isaac Bell 11)

Bell had the morbid t

hought of how someone could mark their progress from Aberdeen southward by following the trail of headstones.

Believing that Gly’s advertisement had run in Birmingham’s newspapers and that a segment of its population was on the lookout for the convoy, Bell decided it was time to dump the Leylands and find another mode of transport. His first thought was consigning the crates of ore on the railway and shipping them to Southampton.

On the outskirts of the manufacturing city of seven hundred thousand, Bell hid one of the lorries behind an abandoned cotton mill. The stream that had once provided power to the looms and other machines had become a silted-over quagmire that stank of chemicals and decay. It was a victim of the Industrial Revolution’s second phase, wherein coal and steam and, increasingly, electricity took over from streams and rivers. Beyond the mill were modern factories studded with chimneys that seemed oddly idle even though it was a weekend night.

They off-loaded Bell’s truck, and he told the two men he was leaving and promised to return sometime after dawn with food, water, and news. Before he left, Bell was encouraged to see Vern Hall tossing and turning a bit in his sleep. It was a sign he was struggling to breach the surface of consciousness again.

Bell found the New Street Station about two hours before sunup. He parked the truck a good distance away and approached on foot. The building, like all rail terminals in major cities, was huge and never fully quiet even on a Sunday. At the front doors were porters and drivers making arrangements for the day. Vendors were arriving to provide breakfast for early passengers on their way to London or Bristol. The great hall was smartly lit, and already a few ticket booths were open. Beyond, covering over a dozen platforms, was one of the largest arched roof spans on earth. The sound of steam under pressure echoed along it, punctuated by whistles, horns, and the raised shouts of conductors readying the trains.

Bell used a few coins to purchase a cup of tea—he would have preferred coffee, but this was England after all—and an early-edition newspaper. It headlined news of a coal miners’ strike entering its third week, which was crippling industry and explained the quiet factories he’d noted outside the city. The only other item that caught his eye was continued coverage of the death of polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott some weeks earlier. Everything else was the local stuff found in any hometown paper.

What he didn’t find was any mention of the Aberdeen railroad heist or any advertisements offering rewards for the apprehension of those responsible.

He wasn’t sure what this meant or if it was significant at all. Had Gly only targeted Newcastle? Or had he been so certain of it working quickly that he’d only paid for a single day’s advertisement in multiple papers? Given the depth of Gly’s resources, Bell imagined him throwing as wide a net as possible and keeping it out until he’d caught his fish. There was meaning to this, Bell felt certain, but he didn’t know what exactly it was.

He was certain about something else as well. He wasn’t the only person staking out Birmingham’s principal rail terminal. He spotted four definites and three possibles. Two of the definites were a couple sitting on a distant bench. The man’s head swiveled as he scanned faces and doorways and anything else he could see. The woman’s head was on his shoulder, and Bell knew from experience that she would have told him to hold still if she was really trying to get some rest but that she was just a bit of cover. The other two definites were a couple of men pacing the perimeter of the station like they were soldiers on patrol. Bored walking while waiting for a train wasn’t that unusual. The fact that they studied—as in leered uncomfortably close to—anyone they crossed gave them away. Not bored but on alert. The three possibles were single men, each waiting contentedly, like Bell, with the paper and a cup of tea. Two appeared legit but the third spent an inordinate amount of time looking about.

There was no way he and the others were going to wheel a thousand pounds of rock through the station without drawing attention. And once aboard the train, they were trapped. Gly’s men could watch them until a moment of his choosing to strike, probably down the line a ways when additional men could be brought in to better the odds.

Bell found the telephone exchange office as it was just opening. He gave a deposit and had them open a line to London. He hoped to get an update from Joel Wallace, or at least some news from his assistant, Miss Davida Bryer. Bell let the telephone ring a dozen times, hoping it would wake whoever was watching the office. He finally canceled the call on the fifteenth unanswered ring.

There would be no help from that quarter until they reached Southampton Dock, and only then if Miss Bryer did her job. Bell had his doubts.

If the rails were out, they would have to switch vehicles, and now that they were down to just four men, Bell had an idea of how they could blend in a little better.

“Mind if I wait with you, ami?” It was the passenger Bell had singled out earlier as a possible lookout. The Frenchman had approached on Bell’s blind side and had taken him unawares.

Bell knew the man was putting out feelers about who he was and why he was at the station so early. Rather than get drawn into a conversation, Bell uttered a sting of angry, consonant-heavy syllables that sounded like some Slavic language. He then plastered a scowl to his face.

“I’m sorry?”

Bell repeated the performance, pointing to himself and repeating the name Korczynski.

The Frenchman held up his hands, retreating. “My mistake. Thought you might enjoy some company while you waited.”

Bell watched him go, glaring like a statue of a Chinese dragon in case he turned back. When the Frenchman went in to use the restroom, Bell dumped the rest of his tea and stuffed the newspaper in a wastebasket. He was out of the station door and gone moments later.

He drove the city until he found what he needed and bought some food and several thermoses of tea and returned to the abandoned mill. Brewster and Warry appeared especially gray in the early light of day. Both looked like they hadn’t slept in weeks. Warry had developed a muscle tic that made his wrist flinch every few seconds. Both complained of nausea but managed to eat some of the bread and sausage and mashed-up fried potatoes he’d bought on the outskirts of Birmingham. The tea seemed to settle their stomachs.

“How’s Vernon doing?” Bell asked while they ate. Hall remained in the back of the other lorry under a mound of blankets.

“Better,” Brewster said. “He’s muttering in his sleep. I take that as a good sign.”

“I agree.” Bell inspected the crates they’d off-loaded from his truck. The men had knocked them together back in the mine. Much of the wood had been repurposed from larger crates of drilling equipment, blasting caps and fuses, and explosives. Bell saw they could be taken apart and reassembled with relative ease.

Once they had finished breakfast, he said, “We’ve got three days to make our two o’clock sailing from Berth 26 on Wednesday. That’s plenty of time, as we’re about a hundred and fifty miles north of the port. Our problem comes every time we get near a city. Gly has people out looking for a couple of trucks carrying heavy crates.”

“Not much we can do about that, is there?” Warry remarked.

“There is. We’re going to hide the ore in plain sight. We just have to make it through Birmingham and we’ll be okay.” Bell didn’t lay out the rest of his plan just yet. Instead, they unloaded the second truck and mounded dirt around the cache of boxes.

“Why aren’t we taking them with us?” Brewster asked, sweating heavily even though the morning remained chilly.

“Gly has the train station staked out, so he has to suspect we’ll come through the city. In case there’s trouble, we can ditch the trucks easily enough and not lose the byzanium ore.”

“Makes sense.” Warry looked little better than Brewster. His mouth was surrounded by weeping sores, the inside awash with cankers.