“What?”
“Ted Whitmark tried to kill himself. She grabbed the gun. She saved his life.”
Harry Warren had wise, old eyes. “Tell me why he tried to kill himself, Isaac.”
“He’s a traitor. He just confessed to me that he’s been passing information to the spy.”
Harry Warren looked Bell full in the face, and said, “It appears that Miss Langner saved the louse’s life.”
The Hotel Knickerbocker’s house doctor rushed in with his bag trailed by bellhops lugging a stretcher. “Stand back, everybody. Please stand back.”
Bell led Dorothy to his desk. “Sit down.” He beckoned an apprentice. “Please bring the lady a glass of water.”
“Why did you do that?” Dorothy whispered.
“I would not have if you had succeeded in murdering him. But since you didn’t, I think you’ve been through enough without adding police charges to your misery.”
“Will the police believe it?”
“If Ted goes along with it. And I imagine he will. Now, tell me everything he told you.”
“He lost a lot of money gambling last fall in Washington. Someone in the game offered to lend him money. In exchange, he talked to Yamamoto.” She shook her head in anger and bitterness. “He still doesn’t realize that that man must have set him up to lose.”
“He told me it was bad luck,” said Bell. “Go on.”
“The same thing happened this spring in New York and then out in San Francisco. Now it’s happened again. This time, he finally realized the enormity of what he was doing. Or so he claimed. I think he was trying to get me to come back. I told him we were through. He found out about someone I’ve been seeing.”
“Farley Kent.”
“Of course you know,” she said wearily. “Van Dorns never give up. When Ted found out about Farley, I think he realized that nothing in his entire life had any truth to it. He got religion. He was probably hoping I’d be waiting when he got out of jail. Or weeping when they hung him for treason.”
“Shooting him must have disabused him of that notion,” Bell observed.
She smiled. “I’m not sure how I feel right now about not killing him. I meant to. I can’t believe I missed. I was so close.”
“In my experience,” said Bell, “people who miss a sure shot wanted to miss. Murder does not come easily to most.”
“I wish I had killed him.”
“You would hang for it.”
“I wouldn’t care.”
“Where would that leave Farley Kent?”
“Farley would-” she started to say but stopped abruptly.
Bell smiled gently. “You were about to say that Farley would understand, but you realize that is not so.”
She hung her head. “Farley would be devastated.”
“I’ve seen Farley at work. He strikes me as your sort of man. He loves his work. Do you love him?”
“Yes, I do.”
“May I have a man escort you to the Brooklyn Navy Yard?” She stood up. “Thank you. I know the way.”
Bell walked her to the door. “You made this case, Dorothy, when you vowed to clear your father’s name. No one has done more to save his and Farley’s work on Hull 44. Thanks to you, we discovered the spy, and you can rest assured we will get him.”