Nearing the middle of the span, he gained a clear view of the Brooklyn Navy Yard immediately north of the bridge. He could see all the shipways, even a section of the northernmost that cradled the beginnings of Hull 44. All were open to the weather, markedly different from the closed sheds at New York Ship in Camden. Cantilevered bridge cranes trundled along elevated rails that allowed them to hover directly over the ships under construction. Switch engines moved freight cars laden with steel plate around the yard.

Away from the building area, horse-drawn wagons and auto trucks were delivering daily rations to the warships moored in slips beside the river. Long strings of sailors in white were carrying sacks up gangways. Bell saw a dry dock nearly eight hundred feet long and over a hundred wide. In the middle of the bay was an artificial island containing docks and ways and slips. A ferry shuttled between it and the mainland, and fishing boats and steam lighters moved slowly up and down a crowded channel that ran between the artificial island and a market on the shore.

The trio was still snapping photographs as Bell bore down on them. Emerging suddenly from the stream of Brooklyn-bound pedestrians, he flourished his 3A Folding Pocket Kodak and called out a friendly, “Say, would you like me to snap all three of you together?”

“No need, old boy,” Abbington-Westlake replied in plummy aristocratic tones. “Besides, how would we get the film?”

Bell snapped their picture anyway. “Should I use one of your cameras? You have a lot of them,” Bell said affably.

Suspicion hardened Fiona Abbington-Westlake’s attractive features. “I say!” she exclaimed in an accent that managed to sound clipped and drawled at the same time. “I’ve seen you before, somewhere. Quite recently, as a matter of fact. Never forget a face.”

“And in a similar setting,” Isaac Bell replied. “Last week at New York Ship in Camden, New Jersey.”

Lady Fiona and her husband exchanged glances. The major grew watchful.

Bell said, “And today we ‘observe’ the New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn. These reversed names must be confusing to tourists.” He raised his camera again. “Let’s see if I can get all of you in the picture with the navy yard right behind you—the way you were snapping it.”

It was Abbington-Westlake’s turn to blurt, “I say!,” and he did arrogantly. “Who the devil do you think you are? Move along, sir. Move along!”

Bell threw a hard look at “retired major” Sutherland. “Drilling for oil in Brooklyn?”

Sutherland allowed himself the abashed smile of a man who’d been caught. But not Abbington-Westlake. The Naval Attaché charged past his companions and blustered at Isaac Bell, “You’ll move along if you know what’s good for you. Or I’ll call a constable.”