“You were out of the room earlier, Clay. You didn’t hear me charge your boss with murdering a young woman in 1902.”

“Are you crazy, Bell?”

“I wish I were,” Isaac Bell answered sadly. “I would give anything to be wrong. But she died a horrible death right here in this office.”

“Mary died in Pittsburgh.”

“Mary Higgins was found in Pittsburgh. Many were led to believe that Mary was scalded to death helping you blow up the militia’s steamboat.”

Clay shook his head. “Mary didn’t help me. I had no idea she was aboard. She must have used that boy disguise she used in Denver.”

“She was never aboard the Vulcan King. Not alive. She died here, in New York. Mary’s brother swore that she could not have been in Pittsburgh because Mary wrote him that she was going to New York to confront the saboteur’s boss—your boss. No one believed Jim Higgins. But why would he say it unless he was addled with grief or telling the truth? So I asked questions. Turns out, I was not the only man sweet on her.”

Clay was listening closely.

Bell said, “I’ll bet you boasted to her, hoping to impress her— She was the kind of girl a fellow would do most anything to impress. You did brag, didn’t you? Bragged how you had partnered up with the most powerful man in Wall Street.”

“I didn’t brag.”

“Maybe you got puddingheaded when she slipped you the knockout drops.”

“How do you know about that?”

“Give Van Dorns some credit. The pharmacist she bought the chloral from told me. You gave Mary Congdon’s name, didn’t you?”

“I must have.”

“You signed her death warrant.”

Clay looked at Congdon, who was slumped behind his desk. “Did you hurt her?”

Congdon said, “It’s a trick, you idiot.”

Clay looked to Bell. The color of Bell’s eyes had darkened to a steely blue. He directed them straight at the rogue detective. “We never give up,” he said softly. “You know that better than anybody. It was Mr. Van Dorn’s motto from the beginning, wasn’t it?”

Clay stared. Then he lowered his eyes and nodded agreement. “Yes, from the beginning.”

Isaac Bell said, “It took me ten years to trace her steps from Pittsburgh to New York, to Wall Street, to this building, to this office. You know your business, Clay, you know how it works. A word here, a hint there, a memory, a glimpse. It’s easier when it’s a pretty girl who struck the eye. Ticket agents. Train conductors. Landladies. A unionist finally out of prison. Bits. Pieces. Bits of nothing. Suddenly, you get lucky with a clerk who makes change for the El. Right around the corner. A hundred feet from this building. Then back to bits of nothing. Finally, a stroke of luck.”

Bell turned to Congdon.