The Striker (Isaac Bell 6)

Mary Higgins pressed her fingers to her temples. “Oh, my poor head. This was a terrible idea.”

“What do you mean?”

“I need coffee. I need gallons of coffee.” She sprang to her feet, swayed a little, and said, “Come on, I’ll make some at my place.”

They rode down on the incline and then took a horse cab across the Smithfield Bridge to her latest temporary digs. It was a small furnished apartment, more expensive than a rooming house but worth it for the extra privacy. She had begged the rent from her brother’s strike fund. She brewed strong coffee in the tiny kitchen and brought it to Clay in the sitting room. She was betting that the combination of the whiskey she had persuaded him to drink and the strong, heavily sugared coffee would mask the taste of the chloral hydrate.

Not only did Clay not notice the knockout drops, he asked for a second cup, half of which he spilled on his trousers when he suddenly passed out with a mildly incredulous expression on his face.

She searched his billfold and his pockets but found absolutely no clue about the man who paid him to provoke violence so the owners and the government could destroy the union. In disappointment and disbelief, she went through everything again. Again, nothing. She riffled through his business cards, thinking maybe he had slipped one he had been given among his own.

She found a sheet of paper that had been folded over and over until it fit between the cards. She unfolded it. It was a private-wire telegram to his John Claggart alias from a New York broker. She slammed it down on the couch. Every word of it was in cipher. Useless.

She could go to New York to the broker. But then what? Persuade them to decipher it for her? If they knew who he was, they would not tell.

Clay’s hand closed around her boot.

She looked down. He had awakened and was watching her through slitted eyes.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Searching your pockets,” she said. What could she say, with his billfold sitting in her lap and his private wire next to her?

“Why?”

“Because you still won’t tell me who is paying for everything. Did he send you this telegram?”

“Why do you care so much?”

“Because he is trying to destroy us.”

Clay mumbled, “Oh, Mary, for God’s sake,” and that was when she realized that the knockout drops had put him in a half-delirious state.

She sat on the floor beside him and took his hand in both of hers.

“What is his name?”

“You don’t understand.”

“I’m trying to.”

She looked into his strange eyes. The chloral had turned him inside out. The pharmacist had warned her. Reactions varied. The drug could put a man to sleep, or make him delirious, or writhing in agony. Did Clay know he was awake? Did he know his own name? He knew her. He stared, his mouth working. “Mary, when I’m done, perhaps you and I… I would fund progressive impulses.”

“What do you mean?”

“Important men, men of means, do that for their wives…” His voice drifted.

Mary said, “What for their wives?” She had to keep him talking.

“Reformers’ husbands pay the bills. When I am done, I will do that.”

“Done with what?”

“Mary. I’m doing something very important.”

“Yes, yes, I know.”

“I want you to understand that.”