The Thief (Isaac Bell 5)

“I bumped into a Webley-Fosbery.”

Strone stopped walking and looked at Archie. “Hmmm. You never mentioned that on the boat.”

“Automatic revolvers never make for wedding small talk.”

“I say, are you in the insurance trade like your friend Bell?”

“Isaac Bell and I will remain in the insurance trade as long as you remain ‘retired.’”

A smile twitched Strone’s red cheeks and gray mustache.

“One does not step out of retirement willy-nilly.”

“What if I gave you a good reason?”

“I pride myself as a man open to reason. Though one man’s reason could be another man’s poison.”

“Then I won’t give you a reason. I’ll give you a name.”

“A name?”

“Semmler,” said Archie, who observed nothing on Strone’s face move except his pupils, which narrowed momentarily.

“Can’t say it rings a bell, old boy,” Strone lied.

“Christian Semmler.”

“No. I don’t believe—”

“Colonel Christian Semmler. The rank he held when you were stationed in South Africa.”

“Where did you get the notion that I was stationed in South Africa?”

“Oberst Christian Semmler, as our German friends addressed him.”

“I don’t have German friends.”

“Lately,” said Archie, “I’ve been dropping mine. Semmler has been promoted several times since the South African War. He is currently a general major.”

Strone abruptly dropped all pretense of ignorance. “Yes, I know.”

“He is plotting in America.”

“Plotting what?”

“We don’t know.”

Strone’s jaw tightened. “He is a slippery, nervy bastard. He was as cold-blooded an operator as an

y we encountered, harassing our columns, sniping our pickets. And God help the scouts he waylaid. He made the Boers seem sweet as schoolboys.”

“Would you recognize him if you saw him?”

“I only saw him once. And only through a glass at a great distance.”

“Lillian?” said Archie.

Lillian pulled a notebook from her long duster and opened it to the sketch of Fritz Wunderlich.