The Cutthroat (Isaac Bell 10)

“Hope you didn’t fire that thing up to look for a leak,” the detective joked.

The Cutthroat laughed along with him. “Believe it or not, no matter how often we warn the public not to, people still light a match when they smell gas in the dark. Sorry about the stink, it will dissipate before you know it.”

Isaac Bell tipped his hat to Isabella Cook.

The actress was drinking tea in a wicker peacock chair in the Palace Hotel’s Palm Court. Other ladies were wearing wide-brimmed, flower-and-feather-heaped Merry Widow hats that were getting tangled in the high-back chairs. Miss Cook sat, unentangled and stylish, in the latest Paris fashion: a Paul Poiret turban hat. Instead of merely framing her lovely face, the close-fitting turban made it all the more beautiful by allowing her eyes, her bow lips, and her aquiline nose to emphasize themselves.

“I have been looking everywhere for you, Miss Cook.”

“Purchasing a ticket will bring you near for three more nights at the Clark Theatre. After that, you may enjoy repeat performances in St. Louis, Denver, and San Francisco.”

Bell said, “I can’t risk shouting my proposal in the theater. The audience would lynch me for interrupting your performance.”

She looked him up and down with a small smile and a shrewd eye. “It looks to me like they’ll have their hands full if they try. Who are you, sir?”

Bell swept his hat off his head. “Isaac Bell. May I sit with you?”

“What do you want, Mr. Bell?”

“I have a proposal that will make you rich and happy.”

“I fell for that line when I married.”

Bell said, “I offer my condolences. I know you were widowed last fall.”

She ignored his condolences, and asked, “Is yours a financial proposal?”

“It is.”

“Sit down, Mr. Bell.” She beckoned a waiter, and Bell ordered tea. They shared small talk about Cincinnati and the pleasures and tribulations of traveling, she on the stage, Bell selling insurance to banks and railroads and timber barons. She asked where he lived when he wasn’t traveling.

He answered truthfully as it meshed with his Dagget, Staples & Hitchcock insurance cover. “My wife

and I have a house in San Francisco.”

“New-built since the earthquake?”

“One of the few that survived on Nob Hill.”

She looked suitably impressed by Nob Hob, and Bell said, “I read in the Chicago papers that you are close friends with Mr. Barrett and Mr. Buchanan.”

“We’ve worked together in the past. And we’re having a fine time at present. The Boys are serious businessmen and spectacular showmen—a rare combination in the theater.”

“Where are they from?”

“The thee-ah-tore!” Miss Cook emoted with a devilish smile, and Bell, who had liked her immediately, liked her more. “Born in a properties trunk.”

“Both of them?” he asked, going along with her joke to steer her toward the mystery of where they were born.

“Where else would they be born, Mr. Bell? Some dreary inland city? Some soul-smothering small town bereft of art and theater?”

“I read in the magazines that you’re from a small town.”

“I know of what I speak. Though I confess, had I been born in a grand city, I might have aspired to no higher station than the youngest president of the Ladies Garden Improvement Society.”

“Certainly the most compelling,” said Bell.

“Are you flirting with me, Mr. Bell?”