The Spy (Isaac Bell 3)

“No need, old boy,” Abbington-Westlake replied in plummy aristocratic tones. “Besides, how would we get the film?”

Bell snapped their picture anyway. “Should I use one of your cameras? You have a lot of them,” Bell said affably.

Suspicion hardened Fiona Abbington-Westlake’s attractive features. “I say!” she exclaimed in an accent that managed to sound clipped and drawled at the same time. “I’ve seen you before, somewhere. Quite recently, as a matter of fact. Never forget a face.”

“And in a similar setting,” Isaac Bell replied. “Last week at New York Ship in Camden, New Jersey.”

Lady Fiona and her husband exchanged glances. The major grew watchful.

Bell said, “And today we ‘observe’ the New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn. These reversed names must be confusing to tourists.” He raised his camera again. “Let’s see if I can get all of you in the picture with the navy yard right behind you-the way you were snapping it.”

It was Abbington-Westlake’s turn to blurt, “I say!,” and he did arrogantly. “Who the devil do you think you are? Move along, sir. Move along!”

Bell threw a hard look at “retired major” Sutherland. “Drilling for oil in Brooklyn?”

Sutherland allowed himself the abashed smile of a man who’d been caught. But not Abbington-Westlake. The Naval Attaché charged past his companions and blustered at Isaac Bell, “You’ll move along if you know what’s good for you. Or I’ll call a constable.”

Bell answered quietly. “A constable is the last person you want to see you here at this moment, Commander. Meet me in the basement bar of the Knickerbocker at six o’clock. Take the entrance from the subway.”

Flummoxed by Bell’s use of his rank, Abbington-Westlake transformed himself from arrogant aristocratic naval officer to a type that Bell had known at college-the young man eager to act old and stuffy before his time. “I’m afraid I don’t use the subway, old chap. Rather a plebeian form of transport, don’t you think?”

“The subway entrance will let you meet me for a cocktail without the upper crust noticing, ‘old chap.’ Six o’clock sharp. Leave your wife and Sutherland. Come alone.”

“And if I don’t appear?” Abbington-Westlake huffed.

“I’ll come looking for you at the British Embassy.”

The Naval Attaché turned white. Research had assured Bell that he would, because Great Britain’s Foreign Office, Military Intelligence, and Naval Intelligence were all highly mistrustful of one another. “Hold on, sir!” he whispered. “The game just isn’t played that way. One doesn’t blunder into one’s adversary’s embassy shouting secrets.”

“I didn’t know there were rules.”

“Gentlemen’s rules,” Abbington-Westlake replied with a studied friendly wink. “You know the drill. Do what we please. But set a good example for the servants and don’t frighten the horses.”

Isaac Bell handed him his card. “I don’t follow spy rules. I’m a private detective.”

“A detective?” Abbington-Westlake echoed disdainfully.

“We have our own rules. We collar criminals and turn them in to the police.”

“What the devil do-”

“On rare occasion we give criminals a break-but only when they help us collar criminals much, much worse than they are. Six o’clock. And don’t forget to bring me something.”

“What?”

“A spy worse than you are,” Isaac Bell smiled coldly. “Much worse.”

He turned on his heel and walked back toward Manhattan, certain that Abbington-Westlake would report at six as ordered. Descending the stairs from the Brooklyn Bridge walkway, he failed to take note of a one-eyed slum urchin disguised as a newsboy hawking the afternoon Herald.

BELL GOT AS FAR AS the subway steps when a sixth sense told him he was being watched.

He passed the subway entrance, crossed Broadway, and turned down the thoroughfare, which was jam-packed with delivery trucks and wagons, buses and streetcars. He paused repeatedly, studied reflections in shopwindows, ducked around moving vehicles, and popped in and out of stores. Did Abbington-Westlake have men backing him up, who had taken up his trail? Or the so-called major? He wouldn’t put it past the major. Sutherland looked competent, like a man who’d been in the wars. And it would be wise to remember that the bombastic, vaguely silly demeanor Abbington-Westlake affected should not obscure his espionage successes.

Bell jumped onto a trolley on busy Fulton Street and looked back. No one. He rode the trolley to the river, got off as if heading for the ferry, but suddenly reversed course and boarded the westbound trolley. He disembarked as quickly and swerved into Gold Street. He saw no one. But he still had an intense feeling that he was being stalked.

He entered a crowded oyster house and slipped a dollar to a waiter to let him out the kitchen door into an alley that led him to Platt Street. When he still saw no one following but still sensed it, he plunged deep into the ancient lanes of lower Manhattan-Pearl, Fletcher, Pine, and Nassau.

Try as he might, Bell saw no one following.