“But if all this sabotage is in aid of a crime of profit, your provocateur theory falls into a cocked hat.”

“Except for one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“You told me not to take sides.”

“I meant between the operators and the union.”

“Your same advice could apply to evidence this early in my case.”

Chapter 19

19

THERE’S A LADY TO SEE YOU, ISAAC.”

“Lady?” Bell yawned. He looked up blearily from a fresh stack of newspaper cuttings. “What kind of lady?”

Grady Forrer removed his spectacles, polished them on his shirtfront, and considered. “I would characterize her as the beautiful kind of lady with a snowy complexion and glossy black locks.”

Isaac Bell jumped to his feet. “Gray eyes?”

“Like pearls in moonlight.”

“Send her in— No, wait! I better see her in the main office. Where is she now?”

“Reception room.”

Bell buttoned his coat over his shoulder holster, smoothed his mustache, and rushed into the main offices. Off-duty detectives were jostling for turns at the peephole that afforded an advance look at customers waiting in the reception room. Bell burst through the door.

Mary Higgins turned from the window. A sunbeam slanted through her eyes.

Diamond dust and diamond flakes, thought Isaac Bell. I’m a goner.

Her voice was even prettier than he remembered.

“I will not apologize for slapping you.”

“The first slap or the second?”

“Both,” she said. “I’m not sorry for either.”

“My jaw’s still sore,” said Bell. “But I’m not.”

“Why not?”

“I deserved it. I misled you.”

“You surely did.”

“I apologize.”

Mary looked him in the eye. “No. That is not necessary. You were doing the job your bosses demanded and you got stuck in it.”

“I insist,” said Bell. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want your apology. I won’t accept it.”

“What would you accept?”

“We could try again for tea,” she smiled.

“How about breakfast? Which we missed last time.”

“Breakfast would be appropriate.”

“I hear the restaurant downstairs is a good one. Do you mind eating with capitalists?”

“I will take it as an opportunity.”

“For what?”

“To observe the enemy up close,” she replied.

“You’re smiling,” said Bell. “But I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

“Not while miners walk the Monongahela Valley.”

“You were there?”

Mary nodded. “Their spirits are high. But rain is forecast.”

The Cadillac Hotel’s breakfast room was packed with out-of-town buyers. A bribe to the headwaiter got them the last table. Mary noticed the money pass hands and said, after they were seated and she had spread her napkin on her lap, “Do I assume correctly that, in truth, your father did not lose his mansion in the Panic of ’93?”

“He did not. Nor is it in the Back Bay. I was born in Louisburg Square.”

Mary took a folded newspaper page from her purse, laid it beside her.

“That would make you a Bell of the American States Bank.”