LOUIS, I THOUGHT WE AGREED THAT YOU WOULD KEEP that in your suitcase.”

Harold was behind Louis, drawing a weapon from his coat.

“You disappoint me, too, Harold. That is not a Bible. Not even a traditional tong hatchet but a firearm any self-respecting, modern American criminal thug would be proud to carry.”

Louis’s English was suddenly accentless, his manner superior.

“Step to the edge of the platform, Mr. Bell, and turn your back to us. Do not draw the pistol you conceal in your shoulder holster. Do not try for the derringer in your hat. Do not consider reaching for the knife in your boot.”

Bell glanced past them through the vestibule door. At the front of the coach, the false Arnold Bennett was holding forth with broad gestures that were having his desired effect of distracting the few people in the car. The wheels were clattering too loudly for Bell to hear their laughter.

“You’re unusually observant of sidearms for a divinity student, Louis. But have you considered that witnesses will hear you shoot me?”

“We’ll shoot you if you force us to. Then we will shoot the witnesses. I’m sure you’ve heard that we Asiatics and Mongolians have no regard for human life. Turn around!”

Bell looked over his shoulder. The railing was low. The roadbed was disappearing behind the train at fifty miles an hour, a blur of steel rails, iron spikes, stone ballast, and wooden ties. When he turned, they would crack his skull with a gun barrel or plunge a knife in his back and dump him over the railing.

He opened his hand.

The telegrams scattered, twisting and twirling in the buffeting slipstream, and flew in Louis’s face like demented finches.

Bell thrust his arms straight up, grabbed the edge of the roof awning, tucked his knees, and kicked a boot at Harold’s head. Harold jumped left where Bell wanted him to, clearing a path to the red wooden handle of the train’s emergency brake.

Any doubt that they were not divinity students vanished when Bell’s hand was an inch from the emergency brake. Louis smashed his gun against Bell’s wrist, slamming it away from the brake pull. Unable to bring the train to a crashing halt, Bell ignored the searing pain in his right wrist and punched with his left. It landed with satisfying force, hard enough on Louis’s forehead to buckle his knees.