“Why don’t you shoot me now and get it over with?” Cromwell asked, his composed arrogance coming back on keel.

“A mere slap on the hand for your crimes,” Bell said caustically. “Better you have plenty of time to think about the hangman’s noose tightening around your murdering neck.”

Bronson came from around the rear of the Pullman car, his Smith & Wesson double-action .44 revolver drawn and pointed at Cromwell’s chest. “Nice going, Isaac. You nabbed our friend here before he could commit another crime.”

Bell handed Bronson a pair of Tower nickel-plated, double-lock handcuffs. The agent wasted no time in snapping them on Cromwell’s wrists. Then he gave the bandit a thorough search and found the .38 Colt automatic.

“The weapon you used to commit three dozen murders,” Bronson said with a cold voice.

“Where did you come from?” Cromwell demanded at seeing Bronson and knowing with certainty that these men would not hesitate to shoot him if he gave the slightest indication of trying to escape.

“Isaac drove us from San Francisco in his automobile,” he answered as if it were an everyday event.

“Impossible!” snorted Cromwell.

“I thought so, too,” said Bronson, leading Cromwell up the steps into the Pullman car, where he took his own handcuffs, placed them around Cromwell’s ankles, and roughly shoved him onto a couch.

Bell walked back up the track and stared sadly at the mauled Locomobile. A barrel-chested man carrying an oil can in the coveralls and denim striped hat of a locomotive engineer came up behind him and stared dumbly at the automobile.

“How in God’s name did that derelict come to be on the tracks in front of my engine?”

“It’s a long story,” said Bell wearily.

“What’s going to happen to it?”

Bell spoke quietly, almost reverently: “It’s going to be shipped back to the factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where it will be rebuilt until it is as good as new.”

“Fix this wreck?” said the engineer, shaking his head. “Why bother?”

Bell looked at the Locomobile with a loving expression in his eyes and said, “Because she deserves it.”

34

“YOU’RE A FOOL IF YOU THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY with kidnapping me,”

Cromwell stated contemptuously. “You have no authority to arrest me without a warrant. As soon as we get back to San Francisco, my attorneys will demand my release. After making fools of the Van Dorn Detective Agency, I shall walk free as a bird. Then I’ll launch a series of lawsuits that will break your agency and drown it in a sea of scandal.”