Padraic Riley, the elderly butler who had managed the Bell home since before Isaac was born, opened the polished front door. They greeted each other warmly.
“Your father is at table,” said Riley. “He thought you might enjoy a late supper.”
“I’m famished,” Bell admitted. “How is he?”
“Very much himself,” said Riley, discreet as ever.
Bell paused in the drawing room.
“Wish me luck,” he muttered to his mother’s portrait. Then he squared his shoulders and went through to the dining room, where the tall, spare figure of his father unfolded storklike from his chair at the head of the table.
They searched each other’s faces.
Riley, hovering at the door, held his breath. Ebenezer Bell, he thought with a twinge of envy, seemed ageless. His hair had gone gray, of course, but he had kept it all, unlike him. And his Civil War veteran’s beard was nearly white. But he still possessed the lean frame and erect stance of the Union Army officer who had fought the bloody conflict four decades ago.
In the butler’s opinion, the man that his master’s son had grown into should make any father proud. Isaac’s steady blue-eyed gaze mirrored his father‘s, tinged with the violet bequeathed by his mother. So much alike, thought Riley. Maybe too much alike.
“How can I help you, Isaac?” Ebenezer asked stiffly.
“I’m not sure why Andrew Rubenoff sent me here,” Isaac replied just as stiffly.
Riley shifted his attention to the older man. If there was to be reconciliation, it was up to Ebenezer to make it stick. But all he said was a terse, “Rubenoff is a family man.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He was doing me a kindness… It’s in his nature.”
“Thank you for inviting me to stay the night,” Isaac replied.
“You are welcome here,” the father said. And then, to Riley’s great relief, Ebenezer rose gallantly to the opportunity his son had presented him by agreeing to stay, which he had not in times past. In fact, thought the butler, the stern old Protestant sounded almost effusive. “You look well, son. I believe that your work agrees with you.”
Both men extended their hands.
“Dinner,” said Riley, “is served.”
OVER A WELSH RAREBIT and a cold poached salmon, Isaac Bell’s father confirmed what Marion suggested and he suspected. “Railroad magnates are not as all-powerful as they appear. They control their lines by wielding small minority interests of stock. But if their bankers lose faith, if investors demand their money, they find themselves suddenly on a lee shore.” A smile twitched Ebenezer Bell’s lips. “Forgive my mixing shipping metaphors, but they get in trouble when they must raise capital to prevent rivals from taking them over just as their stock plummets. The New England Railroad you rode here today is about to be swallowed whole by the New York, New Haven and Hartford. And not a moment too soon-little wonder the NE is known as the ‘Narrow Escape.’ Point is, the New England suddenly has no say in the matter.”
“I know that,” Bell protested. “But Osgood Hennessy has gobbled up every railroad that ever crossed his path. He is too intelligent and too well established to be overstretched. He admits that he will run out of credit for the Cascades expansion if the Wrecker stalls it. That would be a terrible loss, but he claims that he has plenty of credit to operate the rest of his lines.”
“Consider how many lines Hennessy has combined, how many more he is allied with . . .”
“Exactly. He owns the mightiest combine in the country.”
“Or a house of cards.”
“But everyone agrees that Osgood Hennessy is secure. Morgan’s man used the word impregnable.”
“Not according to my sources.” Ebenezer Bell smiled.
In that moment, Isaac Bell saw his father in a different light. He knew, of course, that as a young officer Ebenezer had distinguished himself in U.S. Army intelligence. He had the medals to prove it. But a strange idea stuck Isaac. It was one that he had never thought of before. Had his father too once longed to be more than a banker?
“Father. Are you saying that if the Wrecker were in a position to buy, if the Southern Pacific Company tottered under the weight of its failed Cascades expansion, he could end up owning it?”
“Not only the Southern Pacific, Isaac.”
44
“EVERY RAILROAD IN THE COUNTRY,” SAID ISAAC BELL.
Complete understanding dawned at last.
The Wrecker’s crimes were driven by a purpose as bold as they were evil.
“At last,” said Isaac, “I know what he wants. His motive makes twisted sense. He is too ambitious for anything less. Monstrous crimes to serve a mastermind’s dream. But how could he enjoy his victory? The instant he seizes the railroads, we will hunt him mercilessly from one end of the continent to the other.”
“On the contrary,” said Ebenezer Bell, “he will enjoy his victory in private splendor.”
“How?”
“He has shielded himself from being identified, much less investigated. Who do you hunt? In what country? A criminal as resourceful as you’ve described would model his ‘retirement,’ shall we say, on the European munitions dealers. Or the opium cartels. I know of speculators and profiteers and stock frauds who have plied their illegal trade unmolested for thirty years.”
“How?” Isaac demanded, though he was beginning to get the picture.
“If I were the Wrecker,” Ebenezer answered, “I would go abroad. I would establish a maze of foreign holding companies shielded by corrupt governments. My shell corporations would bribe the authorities to turn a blind eye. A war minister, a treasury secretary. The European chancellories are infamous.”
“And in America,” Isaac said quietly, “a member of the United States Senate.”
“The corporations bribe senators. Why wouldn’t a criminal? Do you have a senator in mind?”
“Charles Kincaid.”
“Hennessy’s man. Although I must say that I’ve always thought of Kincaid as even more of a buffoon than most who sit in that august chamber.”
“So he seems. But I have had a terrible suspicion about him for quite a while now. What you suggest would explain why. He could be the Wrecker’s agent.”
“With unfettered access to government officials anxious to please. And not only the Wrecker’s agent in the United States but also the Wrecker’s spy inside Hennessy’s inner circle. That would be diabolical, wouldn’t it, son?”
“Effective!” said Isaac. “If the Wrecker has shown himself to be anything more than cold-bloodedly ruthless, it is effective… But there is one problem with this theory: Charles Kincaid appears to be angling to be nominated for the presidency.”
“You don’t say!”
“Preston Whiteway is backing a run. It’s hard to imagine a politician who wants to be president risking getting caught taking bribes from a murderer.”
Ebenezer Bell said quietly, “He would not be the first politician sufficiently arrogant to convince himself no one can catch him.”
Padraic Riley interrupted to say that he had laid out brandy and coffee in the library and would be going to bed if nothing else was required. He turned on his heel and disappeared before anything was.
He had also left a coal fire glowing in the grate. While Ebenezer Bell splashed generous dollops of brandy in two coffee cups, Isaac Bell stared into the flames, thinking hard. It could have been Kincaid who hired the prizefighters to kill him in Rawlins.
“I bumped into Kenny Bloom on the Overland Limited,” he said.
“How is the scamp?”
“About sixty pounds plumper than your average scamp and richer than ever. Father, how would the Wrecker raise the capital to buy the Southern Pacific?”
Ebenezer answered without hesitation. “From the richest bankers in the world.”
“Morgan?”
“No. As I understand it, Morgan is stretched tight. He couldn’t touch Hennessy’s roads. Nor could Vanderbilt or Harriman or Hill, even if they combined. Does Van Dorn have offices overseas?”