The Spy (Isaac Bell 3)

“Anyone living there?”

“No smoke before they drove up.”

Bell nodded, satisfied that no innocents would be caught in a cross fire. Scully passed him the field glasses. He studied the house and the automobile. “Is that the Marmon they stole in Ohio?”

“Could be another. They’re partial to Marmons.”

“How’d you get a line on them?”

“Played your hunch about their first job. Their real name is Williard, and if me and you was half as smart as we think we are, we’d have tumbled to it a month ago.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Bell admitted. “Why don’t we start things off by putting their auto out of action.”

“We’ll never hit it from here with these scatter guns.”

Bell pulled from the golf bag an ancient.50 caliber Sharps buffalo gun. John Scully’s eyes gleamed like ball bearings. “Where’d you get the cannon?”

“Our Knickerbocker house dick separated it from a Pawnee Bill Wild West Show cowboy who got drunk in Times Square.” Bell levered open the breech, loaded a black-powder cartridge, and aimed the heavy rifle at the Marmon.

“Try not to set it on fire,” Scully cautioned. “It’s full of their loot.”

“I’ll just make it hard to start.”

“Hold it, what’s that coming?”

A six-cylinder K Ford was bouncing up the lane that lead to the farmhouse. It had a searchlight mounted on the radiator.

“Hell’s bells,” said Scully. “That’s Cousin Constable.”

Two men with sheriff stars on their coats climbed out of the Ford carrying baskets. Scully studied them through the glasses. “Bringing them supper. Two more makes five.”

“Got room in your milk truck?”

“If we stack ’em close.”

“What do you say we give them time to get distracted filling their bellies?”

“It’s a plan,” said Scully, continuing to observe the house.

Bell watched the lane to the house and turned around repeatedly to be sure that no more relatives came up the back road he had taken.

He was wondering where Dorothy Langner got the money to buy her father a piano when Bell remembered that she had given it to him only recently.

Scully got uncharacteristically talkative. “You know, Isaac,” he said, gesturing toward the farmhouse below and the two automobiles, “for jobs like this wouldn’t it be nice if somebody invented a machine gun light enough to tote around with you?”

“A ‘sub’ machine gun?”

“Exactly. A submachine gun. But how would you lug all that water to cool the barrel?”

“You wouldn’t have to if it fired pistol ammunition.”

Scully nodded thoughtfully. “A drum magazine would keep it compact.”

“Shall we start the show?” Bell asked, hefting the Sharps. Both detectives glanced at the woods near the house where the Frye Boys would run when Bell disabled their autos.

“Let me flank ’em first,” said Scully. Putting words to action, he waddled down the hill, looking, Bell thought, like a bricklayer hurrying to work. He waved when he was in place.

Bell braced his elbows on the crest, thumbed the hammer to full cock, and sighted the Sharps on the Marmon’s motor cowling. He gently squeezed the trigger. The heavy slug rocked the Marmon on its tires. The rifle’s report echoed like artillery, and a cloud of black smoke spewed from the muzzle and tumbled down the hill. Bell reloaded and fired again. Again the Marmon jumped, and a front tire went flat. He turned his attention to the police car.