The Titanic Secret (Isaac Bell 11)

“I never gave any of this much thought. Amazing how many parts must work together to keep ships at sea.”

Bell pulled his pocket watch by its chain and checked the time. He had ten more minutes before the note he’d passed Brewster said to meet in the men’s washroom. Though he had plenty of time, Bell got to his feet. He wanted to reconnoiter the lavatory. “I’m sorry to cut you short, monsieur. However, I don’t know what level of paranoia I’m dealing with, so it’s best I get into position now.”

“Oh, bien sûr. I understand completely.” Far from the dour functionary Bell had greeted just moments earlier, Duchamp seemed pleased to be able to help. Securing quick cooperation from people was among Bell’s many talents, one that Marion was forever suspicious of, as she too often found herself doing things Bell suggested.

“La salle de bain?”

“À droite. To the right.”

Bell saw himself out of Duchamp’s office. None of the workers in the outer space paid him the slightest interest. He moved along the wall of doors until he came to one with the proper words on the door versus a person’s name. He swung open the door and was stupefied. There was just a sink and toilet. He’d expected to be able to hide in one of several stalls. He fully expected Gly or Massard to escort Brewster to the men’s room because that’s what he would have done had their roles been reversed.

Though there were dozens of workers, the bath’s small size was just one more dehumanizing aspect of this office. Bell poked his head around the door and saw that behind it was a closet. He stepped into the bathroom and let the door close behind him. The closet handle didn’t lock, but above it was a dead bolt. Bell dropped to his knees and fished out his lockpicks.

The lock was a sloppy old thing that his slender picks had difficulty engaging. The problem was having too fine of instruments for the job at hand. He’d be better off with a couple of straightened hairpins. Again and again he tried the picks to no avail, pulling them free before another fresh attempt. He was more than aware of time getting away from him. He stood and fished his hotel key from his pocket. The peaks along the top crenellation weren’t optimal for what he had in mind, but they weren’t terrible either. He unlaced his shoe. Befitting the Eastern European doctor he was imitating, it had a solid thick heel as tough as stone.

He positioned the heavy brass key just outside the lock’s slot and wacked it with the shoe at the same time he twisted it. The force of the blow, called a bump in the vernacular of lockpicking, was enough to move the lock’s driver pins and create a momentary gap around the shear line. His quick wrist twist had been timed, through countless hours of practice, to exploit this momentary lapse, and the lock snicked open.

“Do not complain again.” Bell heard Gly’s raised Scottish voice just outside the bathroom. “I am checking it first.”

With failure not an option, Bell opened the closet door. The space was smaller than a phone booth and packed with mops, brooms, and other cleaning supplies. He backed in, trying not to jostle anything, and pulled the door closed. The air reeked of ammonia, and in just seconds his nose burned. The bathroom door squealed open. Bell groped for the dead bolt lock only to discover that there wasn’t a toggle on the inside. He couldn’t lock the door.

He grabbed the regular door handle loosely. If Gly checked, the knob needed to turn freely because it was a simple passage set without a lock. But once Gly tried to tug on the door, Bell had to grip it like iron and pray that the Scotsman didn’t put his considerable strength behind the move.

“Empty bathroom, Gly.” Even muffled by the door, Brewster’s voice was pitched higher than expected.

“Hold up,” Gly retorted.

Bell felt the sweat-slick knob suddenly turn in his hand. As soon as it stopped rotating, he crushed it with both fists and tensed the muscles of his arms, shoulders, stomach, and back. He held on so fiercely that it made the door feel as solidly locked as if it had been nailed in place.

“Be quick,” Gly said threateningly as he left.

Brewster locked the bathroom and then knocked on the closet door. “He’s gone.”

Bell stepped out. He stood a full head taller than the miner and had at least fifty pounds on him. For being such a legend of the hard rocks outside of Denver and beyond, Brewster just wasn’t at all as expected. He was weak-chinned, with wispy hair, and had such deep wrinkles around his eyes that it was hard to believe the man wasn’t yet thirty-five years old. He looked a worn-out sixty.

All except for the eyes themselves. Bell had to admit he had a hard time meeting Brewster’s gaze. It was like looking at the sun, painful, and yet he felt compelled to keep glancing back as if to verify that what he was seeing was real. Brewster’s look was part madman and part confidence man. Someone daring you to trust him while all the time warning you that you must not.

Bell moved to the sink before speaking and turned on the water. In the small mirror over the basin he saw his face was flushed from the effort of holding the door in position, while his eyes were red from the ammonia burn. He gestured Brewster over to the far corner of the small bath and shook hands. Their conversation was held to a whisper with heads almost touching.

“Mr. Brewster, my name is Isaac Bell. I’m a private detective working with Colonel Gregg Patmore. I’ve followed you from Central City to Paris with an urgent warning. Gly and Massard are going to kill you and your men as soon as you recover the

byzanium ore.”

Brewster didn’t even blink. “That was obvious from the beginning. You think I trust any of these frog-eaters?”

Bell was taken aback. “You knew and you’re going anyway? Are you”—Bell was about to say “crazy,” but he suspected Brewster just might be—“sure that’s wise?”

“Gregg and I figured he’d have something sussed out before we’re finished tearing into Bednaya Mountain. If not, well, Gly and Massard won’t have the element of surprise. Soon as we suspect something, we’ll jump them sonsabitches. Say, Gly told us the other Massard got killed. You do that?”

With the world still atilt under his feet, Bell said, “Ah, no. Gly actually shot him to keep him from talking to me.” Realizing he’d just made a potentially fatal mistake, he seized the smaller man by the shoulders. “You can’t let on that you know that.”

“I was born at night, Mr. Bell. Just not last night. I know how this works. ’Twas me that set it all in motion when I realized the Société des Mines had lied about the ore I’d found and I went to Patmore.”

“Okay. Let me start again. I know you suspect Gly will try to kill you. Patmore told me that. What you don’t know is, Gly is aware that someone—me—is onto him.”

“Now I get why he’s been on edge. He’s cagey on a normal day but hell-bent since we left Denver. I thought it was over Marc’s death, yet even Yves isn’t taking it all that badly. Marc wasn’t a natural-born killer like the other two.”

Bell nodded. “I’ve spoken with his wife. Do they still think you’ll need until June to get the ore?”