“Most mothers,” Van Dorn retorted astringently, “and all daughters profess disbelief when their sons or fathers engage in criminal acts.”

“Something about that sample of his handwriting struck her oddly.”

“How’d you happen to find the suicide note?”

“The Navy had no clue how to proceed. So they left everything in place except the body and padlocked the door to keep the cops out.”

“How’d you get in?”

“It was an old Polhem.”

Van Dorn nodded. Bell had a way with locks. “Well, I’m not surprised the Navy had no clue how to proceed. In fact, I imagine they’re paralyzed with fear. They may have President Roosevelt hell-bent on building forty-eight new battleships, but there are plenty in Congress scheming to rein them in.”

Bell said, “I hate to leave John Scully in a lurch, but can you keep me off the Frye Boys case while I look into this?”

“A lurch is where Detective Scully likes to be,” Van Dorn growled.

“The man is too independent for my taste.”

“And yet, a clairvoyant investigator,” Bell defended his colleague. Scully, an operative not famous for reporting in regularly, was trailing a trio of violent bank robbers across the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. They had made a name for themselves by leaving notes written in the blood of their victims: “Fear the Frye Boys.” They had robbed their first bank a year ago in New Jersey, fled west, robbing many more, then laid low for the winter. Now they were rampaging east from Illinois in a string of bloody assaults on small-town banks. As innovative as they were vicious, they employed stolen automobiles to cross state lines, leaving local sheriffs in the dust.

“You will remain in charge of the Frye case, Isaac,” Van Dorn said sternly. “Until Congress gets around to funding some sort of national investigation bureau, the Justice Department will continue to pay us handsomely to capture criminals who cross state lines, and I don’t intend to let a maverick like Scully disappoint them.”

“As you wish, sir,” Bell replied formally. “But you did promise Miss Langner the full support of the agency.”

“All right! I’ll shift a couple of men Scully’s way—briefly. But you’re still in charge, and it should not take you long to confirm the veracity of Langner’s suicide note.”

“Can your friend the Navy Secretary get me a yard pass? I want to powwow with the Marines.”

“What for?” the boss smiled. “A rematch?”

Bell grinned back but sobered quickly.

“If Mr. Langner did not kill himself, someone went to a lot of trouble to murder him and besmirch his reputation. The Marines guard the gates of the navy yard. They must have seen that someone leave the night before.”

3

MORE LIMESTONE!” YELLED CHAD GORDON. GREEDILY watching his newest torrent of molten iron gush like liquid fire from the taphole into its ladle, the Naval Ordnance Bureau metallurgist muttered a triumphant, “Hull 44, here we come!”

“All canvas and no hull” was a charge regularly leveled at Chad Gordon for running risks with three-thousand-degree molten metal that no sane man would.