Card games on steamboats plying the river were notorious for their cardsharp gamblers. Many passengers left steamboats poorer than when they boarded. At one table in the gambling room of the Saint Peter, in a quiet corner away from the main action, two men were enjoying a game of five-card stud.
At first glance, the scene looked like any other in the room, but a closer look revealed that no chips sat on the green felt table.
Joseph Van Dorn calmly studied his hand before laying down two cards. “A good thing we’re not in this for the money,” he said, smiling, “or I would owe you eight thousand dollars.”
Colonel Henry Danzler, director of the United States government’s Criminal Investigation Department, smiled in return. “If you cheated like I do, we’d be even.”
Van Dorn was a congenial man in his early forties. His cheeks and chin were buried under a magnificent red burnsides beard that matched what remained of the hair that circled his bald dome. His face was dominated by a Roman nose, and his brown eyes looked sad and melancholy, but his looks and manner were deceiving.
Irish-born, he bore a name known and respected throughout the country for tenacity in tracking down murderers, robbers, and other desperados. The criminal underworld of the time knew he would chase them to the ends of the earth. Founder and chief of the renowned Van Dorn Detective Agency, he and his agents had prevented political assassinations, hunted down many of the West’s most feared outlaws, and helped organize the country’s first secret service agency.
“You’d still deal yourself more aces than me,” he said affably.
Danzler was an enormous man, tall and mammoth in girth, weighing slightly over three hundred pounds, yet he could move as effortlessly as a tiger. His salt-and-pepper hair was immaculately trimmed and brushed, shining under the light that streamed in through the boat’s big windows. His blue-green eyes had a soft glow to them, yet they seemed to analyze and record everything going on about him.
A veteran and hero of the Spanish American War, he had charged up San Juan Hill with Captain John Pershing and his black “Buffalo Soldiers” of the Tenth Cavalry and had served with distinction in the Philippines against the Moros. When the government’s Criminal Investigation Department was authorized by Congress, President Roosevelt asked him to become its first director.
Danzler opened the lid of a large pocket watch and stared at the hands. “Your man is five minutes late.”
“Isaac Bell is my best agent. He always gets his man—and occasionally a woman, too. If he’s late, there’s a good reason.”
“You say he’s the one who apprehended the assassin Ramos Kelly before he could shoot President Roosevelt?”
Van Dorn nodded. “And he rounded up the Barton gang in Missouri. He shot and killed three of them before the other two surrendered to him.”
Danzler stared at the famous detective. “And you think he’s the man to stop our mass murderer and bank robber?”
“If anyone can stop the killer, Isaac can.”
“What is his family background?”
“Very wealthy,” answered Van Dorn. “His father and grandfather were bankers. You’ve heard of the American States Bank of Boston?”
Danzler nodded. “Indeed. I have an account there myself.”
“Isaac is very affluent. His grandfather left him five million dollars in his will, thinking Isaac would take his place as head of the bank one day. It never happened. Isaac preferred detective work to banking. I’m lucky to have him.”
Danzler caught a shadow on his arm. He looked up and found himself looking into soft blue eyes with a slight violet cast, eyes that had looked over horizons to see what was beyond. The effect was almost mesmerizing, as though they were searching deep into Danzler’s inner thoughts.
Danzler could size up a man as precisely as he could a horse. The intruder was tall and lean, stood well over six feet, and weighed no more than one hundred seventy-five pounds. A large flaxen mustache that covered his entire upper lip conformed with the thick mass of neatly barbered blond hair. His hands and fingers were long and nimble and hung loosely, almost casually, at his sides. There was a no-nonsense look about him. The colonel judged that this was a man who dealt with substance and did not endure fools or insignificant and phony candor. He had a determined set to the chin and lips that were spread in a friendly smile. Danzler guessed his age at about thirty.
He was dressed immaculately in a white linen suit without a wrinkle. A heavy gold chain dipped from a left vest pocket that was attached to a large gold watch inside the right pocket. A low-crowned hat with a wide brim sat squarely on his head. Danzler might have pegged him as a dandy, but the look of elegance was betrayed by a pair of worn leather boots that had seen many hours in stirrups. Bell carried a thin valise and set it down beside the table.
“Colonel Danzler,” said Van Dorn, “this is the man I told you about, Isaac Bell.”
Danzler offered his hand but did not rise from his chair. “Joe here tells me that you always get your man.”
Bell grinned slightly. “I’m afraid Mr. Van Dorn has exaggerated. I was ten minutes too late when Butch Cassidy and Harry Longabaugh sailed for Argentina three years ago from New York. Their boat pulled away from the dock before I could apprehend them.”
“How many agents or law enforcement officers were with you?”
Bell shrugged. “I intended to handle the matter on my own.”
“Wasn’t Longabaugh the Sundance Kid?” asked Danzler.
Bell nodded. “He got the nickname when he tried to steal a horse in Sundance, Wyoming. He was caught and spent eighteen months in jail.”
“Surely you didn’t expect to subdue them without a fight.”
“I think it is safe to say that they would have resisted,” said Bell, without explaining how he would have single-handedly captured the former members of the infamous Wild Bunch.
Van Dorn sat back in his chair, made no comment, and gave the colonel a smug look.
“Why don’t you sit down, Mr. Bell, and join our little game?”
Bell looked at the empty table quizzically and then at Danzler. “You appear to have no chips.”
“Just a friendly little game,” said Van Dorn, shuffling the deck of cards and dealing out three hands. “So far, I owe the colonel eight thousand dollars.”
Bell sat down, the quizzical look altered to one of understanding. The game was a pretense. His chief and the colonel were sitting in the corner away from the other gamblers and playing as if they were in a serious game. He laid his hat in his lap, picked up his cards, and acted as if he were deep in thought.
“Are you familiar with the swarm of bank robberies and murders that have occurred around the western states in the past two years?” Danzler inquired.