“I have other uses for my car,” Cromwell said loftily. He spoke through the speaking tube: “Continue on to the bank, Abner.”

The policeman pulled out his revolver and pointed the muzzle at Abner. “I’m personally commandeering this car and seeing that you go directly to the pavilion or I’ll blow your driver’s head off and turn the car over to someone with decency.”

Cromwell was not impressed. “A pretty speech, Officer, but the car stays with me.”

The policeman’s face flushed with anger. He waved his revolver. “I’m not going to warn you again—”

The policeman reeled back in shock, his eyes wide, as a bullet from Cromwell’s Colt

.38 ripped into his chest. He stood for a moment, bewildered, until his heart stopped and he crumpled to the pavement.

There was no hesitation, no concern, no remorse. Abner quickly slid from behind the wheel, snatched up the body as if it were a dummy, and set it on the front seat. Then he resumed his position behind the wheel, shifted into first gear, and drove away.

There was so much pandemonium on the streets—people shouting, the occasional thunder of another building collapsing, and the shriek of the fire equipment—that no one noticed the murder of the policeman. The few people who saw him fall to the ground thought he was injured and being picked up by a driver using his automobile as an ambulance.

“You’ll dispose of him?” Cromwell asked, as if suggesting that a servant throw a dead cockroach in the trash.

Abner spoke into his speaking tube: “I’ll take care of the matter.”

“When you’re finished, drive into the freight-and-service entrance at the rear of the bank. Let yourself in the back door—you have the key. I’ll need you to help carry several trunks to the automobile.”

“Yes, sir.”

As the Rolls-Royce reached the corner of Sutter and Market Streets and Cromwell saw the approaching inferno and the magnitude of the destruction, he began to feel apprehensive about what he would find when they drove up to his bank. His growing fear quickly turned to elation when the building came into view.

The Cromwell National Bank had withstood the earthquake nearly unscathed. The unyielding stone structure had lived up to Cromwell’s boast that it would last a thousand years. None of the walls or the great fluted columns had fallen. The only apparent damage was the shattered stained-glass windows, whose shards turned the sidewalk around the bank into a kaleidoscope of colors.

Abner pulled the Rolls to a stop and opened the rear door. Several bank employees were milling around the front entrance, having come to work out of habit, not knowing how else to deal with the tragic interruption of their lives. Cromwell got out and was only halfway up the steps when they surrounded him, all talking at once, bombarding him with questions. He held up his hands for silence and reassured them: “Please, please, go home and stay with your families. You can do nothing here. I promise your salaries will continue to be paid until this terrible calamity has ended and normal business can resume.”