Bell hung his head, the picture of embarrassment, if not guilt. She was sharp-eyed and sharp-eared, so he was not exactly astonished that she had picked out flaws in his disguise. She would make a canny detective. But having noticed her probing gaze, he had already prepared a defense, determined to stay in disguise as long as he could. Stick to your story, Wish Clarke had taught him, illustrating the lesson with a sip from his flask. Show folks you’re a harmless drunkard. Polish the edges, but keep the frame. Nearer the truth, the less to defend.

Bell said, “I’ll start with who I am. Yes, I was born to privilege. You’re absolutely right. But my father lost everything in the Panic of ’93. My mother died. My father shot himself—out of shame or grief, I know not which. All I’ve known since are hard times. But I am proud to say that I have made my way, on my own, by the labor of my own hands.”

Mary Higgins cast a sharp look at his hands, and the young detective was glad of the shovel blisters that had hardened to callus.

“Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade?” she quoted Goldsmith with an eyebrow raised inquiringly.

“A breath can make them, as a breath has made,” Bell quoted back.

“You would have me believe that you were visiting my brother out of the kindness of your heart?”

“That’s about all I have to offer him.”

“Something is agley with your story, Mr. Bell. Don’t try to fool a workman’s daughter.”

“I thought he owned a saloon.”

“That was for the benefit of an honest cup of coffee,” she said, revealing an ability equal to Bell’s to bend the truth for a good cause. “Maybe you’ve lost your mansions, but your environment and your whole life keep you from even seeing, much less understanding, the conflict of the capitalist class and the working class.”

“Not quite my whole life.”

“The war for justice is simply expressed: There can be no peace without justice—no justice without equality.”

“That is eloquently put,” said Bell. “I never quite thought of it in such terms.”

“I don’t intend to be ‘eloquent,’ Mr. Bell. Eloquence is folderol. Like the gimcrackery that decorated your mansion.”

“Your brother’s hopes are more modest. He told me, ‘All we’re asking is to live like human beings, feed our families, and send our kids to school.’”

“My brother is a gentle dreamer. He needs to understand that we won’t win the war for justice until the working class and the capitalist class become one, and the worker owns the capital he produces.”

“He needs a lawyer first. A smart one who can convince the judge that Jim cannot be blamed for failing to throw the derailer switch. The company assigned him to a second job, oiling the winch engine, which took him too far from his post at the switch to derail the runaway. When they arrested him, he said it was because they learned he was a union organizer and trumped up the charges to sideline him.”