Isaac Bell exchanged glances with Wish Clarke, who looked like he agreed that they had gotten all they were going to. “Thank you, Mr. Rosania. You’ve been very helpful.”

“My pleasure. And with that, I will bid you gentlemen good evening.”

Rosania started for the door. He stopped abruptly at the sound of two Van Dorns cocking firearms.

“Don’t forgot to empty your pockets.”

•   •   •

“LIKE COPS?” asked Wish as the detectives exited the Stambaugh mansion, having returned the lady’s necklace and been rewarded with snifters of forty-year-old brandy, memorable embraces, and an invitation to come back anytime they were in the neighborhood.

Wish drove. Bell was silent all the way into Chicago. They returned the auto to the stable where they had rented it and walked toward Black’s Social to get some late-night breakfast.

“Did you ever pretend to be a cop?” asked Bell, aware that Van Dorn regulations forbid it.

Wish shrugged. “Only when necessary.”

“What’s the trick?”

“In the words of the safecracker, act cocksure, swaggering, and arrogant.”

“Did you find it difficult?”

Wish grinned. “Would I be immodest to claim that arrogance did not come natural?”

“Otherwise you acted yourself?”

“I focused on cocksure. Any cop, good, bad, or indifferent, has to be cocksure to be taken seriously.”

“Like us,” said Bell.

“Except when we disguise ourselves as someone with a lower profile than a cop.”

“A detective,” said Bell.

“Beg pardon?”

“Ten-to-one, our provocateur is a private detective.”

“Why not a cop?”

“What cop could operate days apart in Gleasonburg, New York, and Chicago? Policemen can’t travel. They’re locked in their jurisdiction. But we can go anywhere in the country. That’s why Joe Van Dorn is opening field offices. Cops are stuck at home. We’re not, and neither is this guy. He’s a private detective.”

•   •   •

WISH CLARKE nodded thoughtfully. “Son, I keep saying you’re getting the hang of this detecting line and you keep proving me right. He could most certainly be a detective. In fact, I’d bet on it.”

Bell asked, “Have you noticed we have three fellows sticking close behind us?”

“If you’re referring to the short, fat, and tall gents in bowler hats, they latched onto us where we left the auto.”

“The short ugly one was hanging around Black’s.”

They started across the Harrison Street jackknife bridge. Wish pretended to admire the elaborate ironwork of the lift towers and glanced back. “The fat ugly one was stuffing his face at Little’s lunch.”

“Do you happen to have your coach gun in your bag?” Bell asked.

“Right on top.”

“How about you stop to tie your shoelace?”

Wish knelt and opened his carpetbag. “Move a hair behind me, Isaac. She spreads wide.”

“Cops,” said Bell.

Three in blue coats and tall helmets coming up behind the men following them. The tallest had a handlebar mustache.

Wish Clarke had worked Chicago long enough to ask, “Whose team?”