OFFICE. Bell stopped the car, leaped to the ground, and stepped inside.

Several clerks were busily working on the paperwork to dispatch trains and none looked up as Bell entered. “Where can I find the chief dispatcher?” he asked a harried clerk.

The clerk nodded toward a door. “In there.”

Bell found the dispatcher writing numbers on a huge blackboard that displayed the tracks leading to and from the railyard. The sign on the desk read MORTON

GOULD. He was a short man with a recessed chin and hawklike beak for a nose. The board showed over thirty different trains dispatched over track that spread from the railyard like a spiderweb. Bell could not help but wonder which one included Cromwell’s boxcar.

“Mr. Gould?”

Gould turned and saw a man who looked as though he’d walked from one side of hell to the other. “Can’t you see I’m busy? If you want to catch a train out of the city, you’ll have to go to the Southern Pacific depot—or what’s left of it.”

“My name is Bell. I’m with the Van Dorn Detective Agency. I’m looking for a boxcar with the serial number 16455.”

Gould motioned toward the board. “Southern Pacific is moving heaven and earth transporting thousands of homeless out of the city on our fleet of ferryboats and tugs over to Oakland, where we’ve assembled passenger trains waiting to evacuate them from the area. Over fourteen hundred relief cars are coming in from all over the country. Cars—passenger and freight—on this side of the bay, all three hundred of them, are being routed around the lower part of the state. How do you expect me to keep track of just one car?”

Bell studied Gould’s eyes. “This particular car belonged to Jacob Cromwell.”

It was there, a barely perceivable indication of recognition. “I don’t know any Jacob Cromwell.” Gould paused to stare apprehensively at Bell. “What’s this all about?”

“You dispatched a locomotive to pull his private freight car.”

“You’re crazy. I wouldn’t dispatch private trains during an emergency such as this.”

“How much did he pay you?”

The dispatcher lifted his hands. “I couldn’t be paid by a man I don’t know. It’s ridiculous.”

Bell ignored Gould’s lie. “Where was the destination of Cromwell’s train?”

“Now, look here,” Gould said, fear growing in his eyes. “I want you out of here, Van Dorn cop or no Van Dorn cop.”