The Cutthroat

They had one wall plastered with wanted posters — including a copy of the imaginatively aged one of himself that had riveted his eye in the red-light district. The sharp-eyed young detective, working in vest and shirtsleeves, had a pistol in a shoulder holster. He jumped up from his desk with an eager-to-help smile.

“Hello there. What can I do for you?”

“I’m supposed to check your meter.”

The detective opened a door to the cellar stairs. “Give a shout if you need anything.”

“Thank you.” The Cutthroat paused on the steps to look at the wall of posters. “Do you think you’ll catch all those guys?”

“That’s our job.”

“Do you?”

“What?”

“Catch them all?”

“We never give up.”

“Never?”

The Cutthroat studied his poster. He recognized the hand of a newspaper illustrator back in London. A decent artist, but the likeness wasn’t specific. He was tempted to stand beside it, yank off his walrus mustache, and ask, “Look familiar?”

* * *

He could use every tool in his box. Theater lights were all electric now, but he had learned gas fitting back in his apprentice days when footlights, wing lights, and border lights burned “town gas.” Here in Cincinnati, it was the new and abundant and more potent “natural,” taken from the ground instead of manufactured from coal.

He found the live-gas inlet pipe, found the master cock, and closed it. He removed the meter from the inlet and outlet pipes. The inlet and outlet holes were supposed to be tightly corked to keep air away from the residual gas inside the meter. Instead, he left them open and laid the meter on the cellar floor, directly under the service pipe, which would get you sacked in a flash by any supervisor who noticed. Then he bridged the inlet and outlet pipes with a prethreaded length of lead pipe, in which he had drilled a microscopic pinhole. He opened the master cock. The gas that leaked slowly through the pinhole would gather in the cellar.

Air entering the uncorked meter would form a highly volatile mix with the gas inside it. He slipped the end of a long length of slow-burning fuse in one of the holes, uncoiled it along the cellar wall, and lit the fuse. When the slowly smouldering flame finally ignited the air — gas mix in the meter, that small explosion would set off the rest of the accumulated gas as powerfully as a blasting cap exploded dynamite.

He climbed the stairs and closed the door.

“What’s that I smell?” asked the detective.

The Cutthroat plucked the blowtorch from his box. “I had to sweat a pipe.”

“Hope you didn’t fire that thing up to look for a leak,” the detective joked.

The Cutthroat laughed along with him. “Believe it or not, no matter how often we warn the public not to, people still light a match when they smell gas in the dark. Sorry about the stink, it will dissipate before you know it.”

* * *

Isaac Bell tipped his hat to Isabella Cook.

The actress was drinking tea in a wicker peacock chair in the Palace Hotel’s Palm Court. Other ladies were wearing wide-brimmed, flower-and-feather-heaped Merry Widow hats that were getting tangled in the high-back chairs. Miss Cook sat, unentangled and stylish, in the latest Paris fashion: a Paul Poiret turban hat. Instead of merely framing her lovely face, the close-fitting turban made it all the more beautiful by allowing her eyes, her bow lips, and her aquiline nose to emphasize themselves.

“I have been looking everywhere for you, Miss Cook.”

“Purchasing a ticket will bring you near for three more nights at the Clark Theatre. After that, you may enjoy repeat performances in St. Louis, Denver, and San Francisco.”

Bell said, “I can’t risk shouting my proposal in the theater. The audience would lynch me for interrupting your performance.”

She looked him up and down with a small smile and a shrewd eye. “It looks to me like they’ll have their hands full if they try. Who are you, sir?”

Bell swept his hat off his head. “Isaac Bell. May I sit with you?”

“What do you want, Mr. Bell?”

“I have a proposal that will make you rich and happy.”

“I fell for that line when I married.”

Bell said, “I offer my condolences. I know you were widowed last fall.”

She ignored his condolences, and asked, “Is yours a financial proposal?”

“It is.”

“Sit down, Mr. Bell.” She beckoned a waiter, and Bell ordered tea. They shared small talk about Cincinnati and the pleasures and tribulations of traveling, she on the stage, Bell selling insurance to banks and railroads and timber barons. She asked where he lived when he wasn’t traveling.

He answered truthfully as it meshed with his Dagget, Staples & Hitchcock insurance cover. “My wife and I have a house in San Francisco.”

“New-built since the earthquake?”

“One of the few that survived on Nob Hill.”

She looked suitably impressed by Nob Hob, and Bell said, “I read in the Chicago papers that you are close friends with Mr. Barrett and Mr. Buchanan.”

“We’ve worked together in the past. And we’re having a fine time at present. The Boys are serious businessmen and spectacular showmen — a rare combination in the theater.”

“Where are they from?”