Weeks reckoned that with a bullet hole in his shoulder, a box made of thick glass big enough to hold a four-foot-long poisonous snake would be too heavy for him to carry alone. And if he dropped it trying to carry it under one arm and the glass broke, look out! A bum shoulder would be the least of his problems. He needed help. But the boys he could trust to lend a hand were both dead—shot by the blazing-fast Van Dorn dick.

If he tried to recruit anyone to carry the glass box, the word would flash to Tommy Thompson that Iceman Weeks was back in town. Might as well tie his own hands behind his back and jump in the river. Save Tommy the trouble. Because you didn’t have to be a brain to figure out that Eyes O’Shay would order the Commodore to kill the man who’d been spotted by a Van Dorn dick while doing the killing Eyes had paid for. Weeks could swear until he was blue in the face that he would never squeal. O’Shay and Tommy would kill him anyway. Just to be on the safe side.

At least Tommy had written back that he approved of him killing Isaac Bell. Of course he didn’t offer to help. And it went without saying that if Tommy and Eyes saw a chance to kill him first, they wouldn’t wait for him to take a crack at Bell.

Wiltse bunted in the ninth and Bridwell doubled. When the inning ended New York had two more runs, Brooklyn did not, and Weeks was leading the rush for the Fifth Avenue Elevated with a fair notion of how to transport the snake to the Yale Club.

He needed a suit of “college man” clothes, a steamer trunk, a pane of glass, a bellboy with a luggage cart, and directions to the fuse box.

16

WHO IS THAT OFFICER?” ISAAC BELL DEMANDED OF THE Protection Services operative assigned to guard Farley Kent’s drawing loft in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

“I don’t know, Mr. Bell.”

“How did he get in here?”

“He knew the password.”

Van Dorn Protection Services had issued passwords for each of the Hull 44 dreadnought men it was guarding. After getting past the Marines guarding the gates, a visitor still had to prove he was expected by the individual he claimed to be visiting.

“Where is Mr. Kent?”

“They’re all in the test chamber working on that cage-mast model,” the Protection Services operative answered, pointing across the drawing loft at a closed door that led to the laboratory. “Is there something wrong, Mr. Bell?”

“Three things,” Bell answered tersely. “Farley Kent is not here, so he does not seem to have expected that officer to visit. The officer has been studying Kent’s drawing board since I walked in. And in case you haven’t noticed, he is wearing the uniform of the Czar’s Navy.”

“Them blue uniforms look all the same,” the operative replied, reminding Bell that few PS boys possessed the brains and moxie to climb the ladder to full-fledged Van Dorn detective. “Besides, he’s carrying them rolled-up drawings like they all do. You want I should question him, Mr. Bell?”