Mary Higgins did not smile back but thrust the clipping across the table. “Read this.”

Bell glanced at the headline and handed it back.

“I read it last night,” he said and recited the last paragraph from memory:

“It is understood that a great amount of evidence of the Coal Trust’s existence, and proof that the railroads are large owners in the coal mines, and that they combine to regulate the price of coal to the seaboard and in every important city not only by setting carrying charges but also by naming the price at which retailers shall put the coal on the market, is in possession of Jim Higgins, president of the Strike Committee. Higgins will probably be called upon by the attorney general in the course of the investigations to be commenced.”

Mary was staring at him.

Bell said, “I have a photographic memory.”

“I thought so. I have one, too. I always wondered if my eyes move while I’m remembering. Now I know.”

“How did your brother become president of the Strike Committee?”

“By having the guts to stand up for it.”

“How did he get ahold of the evidence?”

“He carried it out the back door of a Denver union hall while the Pinkertons were breaking in the front door.”

“How did that evidence get all the way to Denver?”

“They moved it from Pittsburgh and Chicago to keep it safe.”

“Well, I guess that didn’t work . . . Does your brother realize the danger he’s in holding that stuff?”

“He doesn’t think about it.”

“But you do,” said Bell, guessing what was coming next.

Mary said, “It will get him murdered. They will kill him and burn the evidence before the attorney general gets around to calling him. Unless . . .”

“Unless?”

“Unless he is protected by a detective who claims to believe that the innocent are sacred.”

Bell nodded eagerly. It was as he had supposed and hoped. Safeguarding Jim Higgins would be an opportunity for a closer, inside look at the unions and their top organizers. That might shed light on the identity of the provocateur if he happened to be a former labor organizer. But that meant that Bell would need more men in his squad.

“We better go see the Boss.”

•   •   •

UPSTAIRS IN HIS OFFICE, Joseph Van Dorn listened to Mary Higgins’s request. He questioned her closely about the documents and elicited that Jim, too, had been born with a powerful memory and that even if the evidence was locked in a safe the fact that it resided complete in his mind put him at great risk of being murdered to prevent him from testifying. He asked if Mary had read the documents.

“Jim wouldn’t let me.”

“Of course not,” Van Dorn nodded. “Was this your sole reason for coming to New York City?”

She hesitated only a heartbeat. “Yes.”