“So far nothing’s turned up,” said Bell. “The difficulty is, even though we’re watching the German consulates like hawks, his private contacts, German businessmen or commercial travelers, could have chartered it for him.”

“So the long and short is that General Major Christian Semmler, Imperial German Army, Military Intelligence, could be sleeping upstairs in one of the Knickerbocker’s palatial suites directly over our heads.”

“I would not rule that out,” Bell admitted. “He is a guerrilla fighter—a behind-the-lines operator. But we can hardly roust every guest in the hotel without management taking notice and terminating our lease.”

“You are remarkably flippant for a detective who has no idea where his quarry is.”

“He is either in New York or still on his way to New York, and he’s going to board a ship to Europe.”

“You sound awfully sure for a detective with no facts.”

“I have more irons in the fire.”

“Other than the obvious advice to keep an eye peeled for doctors, I saw no talk about ‘more irons’ when I read your wires.”

“Not everyone talks by electricity,” said Bell. He reached for his hat.

“What does that mean? Isaac, where in hell are you going?”

“Harlem.”

THE MONARCH LODGE OF THE IMPROVED Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks offered a home away from home on West 135th Street to Pullman porters laying over in New York. A man could get a decent meal and sleep on a clean cot. Or he could smoke in a comfortable chair in a big parlor and swap tales, both true and fanciful, with friends from all across the United States who served on the trains. It was true that the white Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks was suing the Negro Elks to stop them from using a similar name, but the Monarch Lodge remained, for the moment, a sanctuary. No one there would shout “George” to demand service, as if a black man didn’t have his own name. In fact, a white man crossing the Negro Elks’ threshold was extremely unlikely, which was why everyone looked up when a tall white man in a white suit knocked at the door, took his hat off as he stepped inside, and said, politely, “Excuse me for interrupting, gentlemen. I’m Isaac Bell.”

Heads swiveled. Many stood to get a better view of him. They knew the name. Who didn’t? One dark night—the story went—when the Overland Limited was highballing across Wyoming at eighty miles per hour, a passenger named Isaac Bell who had won a big hand in a poker game had tipped a porter one thousand dollars. The Pullman porter might be the highest-paid man in his neighborhood, but he still had to work two years for a thousand dollars, and few in the Elks parlor had believed the tale until they saw him standing there.