“What is Hull 44?” Bell asked.

Kent looked away. “Hull 44?”

“Alasdair MacDonald implied that it was important.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“He spoke freely about Arthur Langner and Ron Wheeler and Chad Gordon. And about you, Mr. Kent. Clearly, you five men worked closely. I am sure you know what Hull 44 means.”

“I told you. I do not know what you are talking about.”

Bell regarded him coldly. Kent looked away from his stern face.

“ ‘Hull 44,’ ” the detective said, “were your friend’s dying words. He would have told me what it meant if he had not died. Now it’s up to you.”

“I can’t—I don’t know.”

Bell’s features hardened until they looked like they had been cut from stone. “That powerful man held my hand like a child and tried to tell me why he was murdered. He could not get the words out. You can. Tell me! ”

Kent bolted into the hallway and yelled loudly for the sentries.

Six U.S. Marines escorted Bell out the gates, their sergeant polite but unmoved by Bell’s pass. “I recommend, sir, that you telephone for an appointment with the commandant of the yard.”

Scully was waiting in the lunchroom. “Have yourself some supper. It’s a swell grub station. I’ll watch for Kent.”

“I’ll spell you in fifteen minutes.”

Bell could not remember when he had last eaten. He was just raising a sandwich from his plate when Scully dashed back and motioned him to the door. “Kent broke from the gate like the favorite at the Kentucky Derby. Heading east on Sand. Wearing a tall-crowned black derby and a tan topcoat.”

“I see him.”

“That’s the direction of the Hotel St. George. Looks like the lady’s back in town. I’ll cut over to the St. George on Nassau in case you lose him.” Without waiting for Bell’s response, the independent Scully disappeared around the corner.

Bell followed Kent. He lay back half a block, screened by the crowds pouring in and out of the saloons and eateries, and passengers hopping on and off streetcars. The naval architect’s tall bowler was easy to track in a neighborhood where most men wore cloth caps. His tan coat stood out among dark coats and pea jackets.

Sand Street passed through a district of factories and storehouses on its route between the navy yard and the Brooklyn Bridge. The damp evening chill carried the scents of chocolate, roasting coffee, coal smoke, harbor salt, and the sharp, pungent aroma of electrical shorts sparking from the trolley wires. Bell saw enough saloons and gambling halls to rival San Francisco’s “Barbary Coast.”

Kent surprised him at the enormous Sand Street Station where streetcars, elevated railway trains, and a trolley line under construction converged on the Brooklyn Bridge. Instead of passing under the station and continuing on to the Heights and the Hotel St. George, the naval architect suddenly darted through an opening in the stone wall that supported a ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge and hurried up the stairs. Bell dodged a trolley and tore after him. Hordes of people were streaming down the steps, blocking his view. He pushed his way to the top. There he caught sight of Farley Kent walking toward Manhattan on the wooden promenade in the center of the bridge. So much for a lady at the Hotel St. George.