The Gangster (Isaac Bell 9)

“I am a widow.”

“I am terribly sorry,” he lied.

“Thank you. It has been two years.”

“I notice you still wear the ring.”

“The ring keeps the wrong type from getting the wrong idea.”

“May I sit down?”

“Why?”

Abbott grinned. “To see whether I’m the wrong type.”

Francesca smiled a smile that lit her eyes like limelight. “Only the wrong type would get the wrong idea.”

“Tell me about your accent, I don’t quite recognize it. I studied accents as an actor. Before my current line of work.”

“What is your line?”

“Insurance.”

“Sit down, Archibald,” said Francesca Kennedy. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

23

The gatehouse at Raven’s Eyrie looked like it had been built to repel anarchists and labor agitators. Sturdy as an armory, the two-story granite redoubt was flanked by high walls. The gate had bars thick as railroad track, and the driveway it blocked was so steep that no vehicle could get up enough speed to batter through it. But what riveted Isaac Bell’s attention were the shooting slits in the upper story, which would allow riflemen to pick off attackers at their leisure. J. B. Culp was not taking chances with anyone who had it in for the rich.

“Please inform Mr. Culp that Isaac Bell has come to accept the invitation he offered at Seawanhaka to view his ice yacht.”

“Have you an appointment, sir?”

The gatekeeper wore an immaculate uniform. He had cropped iron-gray hair and a rugged frame. His sidearm was the old Model 1873 .45 Colt the United States Marines had brought back into service for its stopping power in the Philippine Campaign.

Bell passed his card through the bars. “Mr. Culp invited me to drop by anytime.”

Five minutes later, Culp himself tore down the driveway in a six-cylinder, air-cooled Franklin—the same six-cylinder model that had just made a coast to coast run across the continent in a record-breaking fifteen days. “Welcome, Bell! How do you happen to be up here?”

“We’re underwriting some of the aqueduct contractors’ insurers. Hartford asked me to have a look at our interests.”

“Lucky you found me at home.”

“I suspected that phones and wires cut you loose from the city,” answered Bell, who had had an operative keeping tabs on Culp’s comings and goings since eliminating the other Cherry Grove suspects.

“Hop in! I’ll show you around.”

“I came especially to see your iceboat.”

Culp swung the auto onto a branch of the driveway that descended along the inside of the estate walls all the way down to the river, where crew barracks adjoined a boathouse. Yard workers were hauling sailboats up a marine railway. Inside the boathouse, his ice racer was suspended over the water, ready to be lowered when it froze. It had the broad stance of a waterspider, a lightweight contraption consisting of a strong triangular “hull”—two crossed spars of aluminum—with skate blades at the three corners.

“Entirely new, modern design,” Culp boasted. “Got the idea for aluminum from my Franklin. Strong and light.” It struck Bell that Culp sounded like a typical sportsman obsessed with making his yacht, or racehorse, or auto, or ice yacht a winner.

Bell marveled at the rig hanging from the rafters. “Monster sail.”

“Lateen rig. Beats the tried and true Hudson River gaff main and clubfooted jib. I cracked ninety knots last winter.”

“Ninety? You’ll beat the 20th Century.”