“Can’t tell from the look of her now,” said Kaufman. “She might have been a beautiful woman.”

“Yes, she was that,” said Bell softly. “A beautiful woman full of life but veiled in evil.” He turned away saddened but his eyes dry of tears.

SHORTLY BEFORE midnight, the salvage barge tied up at the old railroad dock in Rollins. Bell made arrangements with Kaufman to see that the bodies were taken care of by the nearest mortuary and the next of kin of Hunt and Carr notified. He recognized Joseph Van Dorn standing on the dock surrounded by four of his agents and was not surprised to see him.

Van Dorn was in his eighties but stood straight, with a full head of gray hair and eyes that never lost their gleam. Although his two sons now ran the detective agency from offices in Washington, D.C., he still worked out of his old office in Chicago and consulted on the cases that had never been solved.

Bell walked up and shook Van Dorn’s hand. “Good to see you, Joseph. It’s been a long time.”

Van Dorn smiled broadly. “My work isn’t as interesting since you retired.”

“Nothing could stop me from coming back on this case.”

Van Dorn stared at the freight car. Under the dim lights on the dock, it looked like some odious monster from the depths. “Was it there?” he asked.

“The money?”

Bell merely nodded.

“And Cromwell?”

“Both he and his sister, Margaret.”

Van Dorn sighed heavily. “Then at long last it’s over. We can write finish to the legend of the Butcher Bandit.”

“Not many of the Cromwell Bank’s depositors,” Bell said slowly, “will still be alive to receive their money.”

“No, but their descendants will be notified of their windfall.”

“I promised Kaufman and his crew a fat finder’s fee.”

“I’ll see that they get it,” Van Dorn promised. He placed a hand on Bell’s shoulder.

“Nice work, Isaac. A pity we couldn’t have found the train fifty years ago.”

“The lake is two hundred seventy feet where the train sank,” explained Bell. “The salvage company that was hired by the San Francisco banking commissioners dragged the lake but couldn’t find it back in 1907.”

“How could they have missed it?”

“It had fallen in a depression in the lake bed and the drag lines passed over it.”

Van Dorn turned and nodded toward a car parked by the dock. “I guess you’ll be heading home.”

Bell nodded. “My wife is waiting. We’ll be driving back to California.”

“San Francisco?”

“I fell in love with the town during the investigation and decided to remain after the earthquake and make my home there. We live in Cromwell’s old mansion on Nob Hill.”

Bell left Van Dorn and walked across the dock to the parked car. The blue metallic paint of the 1950 Custom Super 8 convertible Packard gleamed under the dock lights. Although the night air was chilly, the top was down.