The Thief (17 page)

“Prince Henry of Prussia was touring the country,” Van Dorn explained in a rich voice softened by the faintest of Irish accents. “After all the assassinations in Europe, who knew if some anarchist or homicidal crank might take a potshot at him? The Germans had battalions of their own agents, of course, plus the Secret Service on loan from the Treasury Department, but they hired us, along with local cops, rail dicks to guard his trains, and some of the lesser private agencies. Turned into a regular Chinese fire drill: thirteen varieties of detectives were covering Henry, most blissfully unaware of one another’s identity. He was lucky to get home alive before some sorry Pinkerton shot him by mistake.”

“What did you mean the Germans’ ‘own agents’?”

“Foreign consulates import their secret police to shadow their countrymen who live or travel in America, keeping an eye on criminals and anarchists who might go back to Europe and make trouble.”

Isaac Bell said, “I understand that German consulates also field spies disguised as legitimate military and commercial attachés.”

“As do the British, French, Austrians, Italians, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese. Why did you ask about the contract?”

“Do they also have dealings with local criminals?”

“Ah, that’s where you’re headed… I wouldn’t read a lot into ‘dealings with local criminals.’ The consuls and vice-consuls stationed in the field are not what the Germans call
hoffähig—
gents, to the manner born—compared to the aristo diplomats in the Washington embassies. Consuls and vice-consuls mix it up with businessmen and cops and all sorts of troublemakers that traveling foreigners run into.”

Bell seemed to change the subject. “I received several cables from Art Curtis.”

Van Dorn frowned. “At your instigation, Curtis is pestering me to authorize hefty expenditures for information about the inner workings of Krieg Rüstungswerk GmbH. Information about something that no one has seen fit to inform me of yet,” Van Dorn added tartly. “Leaving the proprietor of this detective agency to speculate whether he will be the last to know what’s going on, and whether it has anything to do with that fire on the
Mauretania
, or that shootout on Pier 54, or the rumor that two or three people fell off the ship you happened to be sailing in, Isaac.”

“Art Curtis’s information is gold,” said Bell. “Pure gold. He turned up a disgruntled Krieg employee, a company executive, who claims that in New York and Los Angeles Krieg pays commissions to German consulate staff to act as unofficial sales representatives.”

“Gold?” Van Dorn scoffed. “Foreign consuls are
supposed
to grease the wheels of commerce. That’s their main job. Trade. Introductions. Selling.”

“Except these consular staff don’t sell anything. Nor do they arrange introductions. Nor do they court American customers. But they get paid commissions as if they do. In other words, Krieg is paying German consuls under the table. Don’t you wonder what kind of favors consulate staff grant in return?”

Isaac Bell was gratified to see that the boss had stopped laughing. In fact, he wasn’t even smiling. But his eyes were on fire, like a grizzly sniffing prey.

“That is interesting.”

“Art Curtis is the best,” said Bell. “I don’t know another man who could get so deep inside so quickly. But suborning a highly placed informant costs a lot of money. In other words, this executive Art turned up is accustomed to first-class remuneration.”

Van Dorn stood up from his desk and lumbered to the windows, where his second-floor corner office let him view people approaching the Willard’s front and side entrances. Then he wandered to the interior wall and inspected the reception room through a peephole drilled through the eye of Ben Franklin, whose portrait greeted visitors to the detective agency.

Bell sat still as ice, patient and silent.

At last, the boss faced him inquiringly. “Is this why you traveled all the way to Washington instead of telephoning me long-distance?”

“No. I came to tell you something
more
interesting.”

H
ANS
R
EUTER
—A
RTHUR
C
URTIS’S
painstakingly cultivated informant inside the Krieg Rüstungswerk munitions combine—refused to meet in a beer garden anymore. “Too many people,” he kept saying. “Too many people are seeing us together.”

Had they been speaking face-to-face instead of on the telephone, Arthur would have folded his hands calmly over his potbelly and listened with a sympathetic expression. All he had on the phone was a soothing voice and simple logic. “They don’t know what we talk about. They don’t know that I pay you money.”

“I was followed last time.”

“Are you sure?” Arthur Curtis asked more casually than he felt. The fact was, after their last meeting, when Reuter dropped the bombshell that Krieg had German consuls in America on its payroll, Curtis had wondered whether he was being followed and had returned to the office by a circuitous route, after going to great lengths to shake the shadow, if indeed there had been a shadow. Now it sounded like there had been, and a very stealthy one at that. He had to hand it to Krieg. It hadn’t taken long to catch on to him. He knew he had to do something to end the threat. The trouble was, his frightened informant still had a lot of good information bubbling in his embittered mind, although he was doling it out very slowly.

“I am deadly sure,” Reuter replied. “For all we know, they are listening in on this telephone wire.”

“They would have to be soothsayers to listen in on telephone kiosks in post offices on opposite sides of Berlin.”

“I would not be surprised if they were.”

“I have an idea,” said Arthur Curtis.

“No more ideas,” said Hans Reuter, and broke the connection.

Arthur Curtis worked his way slowly back to the office. Redoubling ordinary habits of caution, watching reflections in shop windows, changing trams repeatedly, stepping in and out of bakeries and cafes, he did not enter his building until he was one hundred percent sure that he was not being observed.

Pauline was sitting behind his desk, reading his mail.

“You should be home in bed. It’s late.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Don’t you have school tomorrow?”

“My mother’s friend is visiting. He’ll be gone at midnight.”

“Have you had your supper?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Here.” He handed Pauline a sweet bun he had picked up just in case and watched her tear into it like a timber wolf taking down a mule deer. And then the darnedest thing happened. Art Curtis was suddenly scared. Not for himself but for her, the silly kid hanging around. What if they did catch up with him and she was here? What would they do to her when they got done doing him?

“‘F
LICKERS’ HAVE BEEN AROUND
for years,” Joseph Van Dorn protested.

Issac Bell had just concluded the story of Beiderbecke and Clyde Lynds and their Talking Pictures machine with the recommendation that the Van Dorn agency take up the job of protecting Lynds while he built a new machine in exchange for a share of the profits.

“Moving pictures won’t be mere ‘flickers’ anymore when sound makes them so visceral, they play on the emotions. The Talking Pictures machine is revolutionary.”

Van Dorn shrugged. “I attended a talking picture once in Cincinnati. They called it a ‘Kinetophone’ or some such, and the advertisement claimed that the songs followed in perfect unison the movements of the actors’ lips. But in fact the lips and words were at sixes and sevens, making it impossible to follow the story.”

“Synchronization is the crux of the problem.”

“Besides, there was the usual unnatural and discordant mechanical grate you hear from talking machines.”

“Amplification is another problem Lynds and Beiderbecke claim to have solved.”

“I’ll say it’s a problem. I attempted to hear an Actologue troupe in Detroit. One poor player had a feeble voice that was unable to penetrate the picture screen. Every word he uttered disappeared straight up into the fly loft.”

“You bought tickets,” said Bell. “You paid money to see these various attempts at talking pictures. That proves there’s a demand for this kind of attraction. But the way they’re going about is too expensive. Marion says a typical Actologue company consists of at least eight people, including the machine operator, piano player, singers, manager, and actors to imitate the parts behind the screen. That same film shown by Lynds’s Talking Pictures machines could be distributed to a thousand theaters at once. Film reels don’t eat, don’t sleep, and don’t demand a salary. It would be like a frying pan factory that doesn’t need to pay workmen because machines make frying pans automatically.”

Van Dorn, as hard-nosed and tightfisted a businessman as Bell had ever met, smiled at the thought of not having to pay labor. “You are very persuasive, Isaac. When you put it that way, you make me think he’s got something worth protecting.”

The savvy founder of the detective agency stroked his chin, ruminated silently, and fiddled absently with his candlestick telephone and his speaking tube. “But Professor Beiderbecke is dead. Can Clyde Lynds reproduce Talking Pictures without him?”

“Beiderbecke claimed Clyde is smart as a whip. The German Army believes he can. So do the German consuls.”

“I find it hard to believe the kaiser’s army is fighting this hard just for the money.”

“I agree,” said Bell. “They’re not businessmen. They’re soldiers. There’s something more to this.”

Van Dorn nodded vigorously. “Find out what,” he ordered. “Continue to watch developments at the New York consulate. I’ll nose around here in Washington.”

“Why not invite the German ambassador to lunch at the Cosmos Club?”

“I’ll do it tomorrow. But don’t get your hopes up. His Excellency is not likely to be informed of such a vicious operation, particularly if it’s a military scheme.”

“Will you give Art a free hand in Berlin?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Van Dorn growled, reluctantly.

“I’d rather he didn’t waste time clearing each payment through you.”

Van Dorn grimaced. “O.K., dammit. You’re authorized to spend what you need.”

“Don’t worry. Art won’t squander a penny.”

“Just remember that while you’re trying to figure out what the Germans are up to, our valuable young genius is already in their crosshairs. Keep him safe— Where is he right now?”

“Lipsher’s got him.”

“Who’s Lipsher?”

“The PS boy who guarded Block on the ship. Turned out to be a good man in a pinch.” Bell stood up. “If you will clear it with Dagget’s managing director, I’ll continue under my insurance executive guise and spread the word that Dagget, Staples and Hitchcock is investing in Lynds’s invention. That such a staid old firm is interested ought to burnish its appeal.”

“Dagget, Staples and Hitchcock consorting with moving picture people?” Van Dorn laughed. “The founders will be spinning in their graves. But you’re right. Keep us out of it as long as you can. Best to not show our hand till we know who’s across the table.”

“And what he wants,” said Isaac Bell, grabbing his hat and charging out the door.

“Where you headed?”

“Union Station. I’m meeting Clyde in West Orange, New Jersey.”

“Thomas Edison’s laboratory? Hang on to the fillings in your teeth.”