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“Maybe they’re close-lipped in these parts,” Bell joked.
“That was where the flash flood took out the phone and telegraph lines.”
“We’ll contact your counterpart in the Los Angeles office when we stop for gas again.”
The road flattened out and appeared well maintained for the next ninety miles. Bell, with his ear tuned to any miss of the brawny engine’s cylinders, let the Locomobile run as fast as he dared over the dirt-and-gravel road, thankful there were no sharp turns, and especially happy the tires held without going flat.
Finally, his luck ran out when he hit a stretch of the road that was rock infested but worn smooth by eons of rain. He slowed to save the tires, but one became embedded with a sharp stone and hissed flat within a hundred yards. One of the spares was quickly thrown on the axle and, with Bronson patching the tube once again, Bell continued his mad dash toward Los Angeles.
San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria came and went. Then they dropped down in altitude as the road ran along the Pacific Coast. The ocean glittered blue under the sky, turning white as the breakers rolled onto the white sandy beach that was flecked with black rocks.
Outside of Santa Barbara, they became airborne over a large hump in the road, crashing down on the other side with an impact that knocked the wind out of Bronson, who was amazed that the sturdy car held together without flying to pieces.
They entered Santa Barbara, where they refueled, filled the radiator with water,
and installed the spare tire. A quick stop was made at the railroad depot, where Bronson sent a wire to his fellow agent Bob Harrington asking him to meet them at the Los Angeles railroad terminal.
Instead of taking the treacherous winding road called the Grapevine over Tejon Pass before plunging down into Los Angeles, Bronson directed Bell to run the Locomobile along the railroad tracks that were laid with far more gradual turns. The rough ride strained the automobile’s chassis as it rolled through the narrow pass below the 4,183-foot summit, but it held together until they reached the long slope leading down into the San Fernando Valley.
At last, the worst was behind them. Now they were in the homestretch, and the Locomobile was pressing hard and gaining on Cromwell’s private train with every mile. According to Bronson’s time estimate, they were only fifteen minutes behind. With luck, they just might reach the Los Angeles railroad terminal ahead of the Butcher Bandit.
Most cheering was the sight of tall buildings in the far distance. As they neared the outskirts of the city, the traffic began to build. Bronson marveled at Bell’s physical endurance. His blue eyes, hard and unblinking, never left the road. The man was born to sit behind the wheel of a fast car, Bronson thought. He looked at his watch. The hands on the dial read four-twelve. They had averaged over sixty miles an hour for the four-hundred-mile run.
Traffic thickened the closer they came to the main part of the city and Bell began his now accustomed routine of swerving around horse-drawn wagons and buggies and automobiles. He was vastly relieved when the dirt road finally became paved with bricks. He raced in and around big red trolley cars that rode tracks down the center of the street. He was surprised by the number of automobiles he rushed past, unaware that there were over two thousand of them traveling the streets of the mushrooming city of one hundred twenty thousand.
Bell found the thoroughfares of the City of Angels were considerably wider than those of San Francisco, and he made good time with more room to negotiate around the traffic. They passed through downtown, heads turning in awe at the speed of the red Locomobile. A police officer blew his whistle and became angered when Bell ignored it and sped on. The policeman jumped on his bicycle and took up the chase but was soon left far behind, until the automobile was completely out of sight.
The big train depot came into view as Bell rounded a corner on two wheels. A man in a brown suit and wide-brimmed hat was standing on the curb at the entrance frantically waving his arms. Bell braked to a stop in front of Bob Harrington, the Van Dorn agent in charge of Southern California operations. At first, Harrington didn’t recognize Bronson. The man in the mud-encrusted leather coat and helmet looked like an apparition until the goggles were raised.
“My God, Horace, I didn’t recognize you,” said the intense man with a tanned face and sharp features. At six foot five inches, Harrington towered over Bell and Bronson.
Bronson stiffly stepped to the pavement and stretched his aching muscles. “I doubt if my own mother would know me.” He turned and pointed at Bell, still sitting exhausted behind the wheel. “Bob, this is Isaac Bell. Isaac, Bob Harrington.”
Bell pulled off his driving glove and shook Harrington’s hand. “Good to meet you, Bob.”
“I heard a lot about your exploits, Isaac. It’s an honor to meet you.”
Bell wasted no more time in pleasantries “What’s the status of Cromwell’s private train? Are we in time to stop it?”
Harrington slowly shook his head. “Sorry to have to tell you, but the regularly scheduled passenger train pulled off on a siding in Ventura and let it go through. When it came to Los Angeles, it bypassed the depot and took the express track south to San Diego. By doing that, it cut off nearly half an hour.”
“How long ago?” asked Bell, his hopes dashed.
“About twenty minutes.”
“We would have beat it by ten minutes,” Bronson observed morosely.
Bell looked at the tired Locomobile, wondering if there was enough left in her for the final dash. He knew, without looking in a mirror, that he was more exhausted than the automobile.
Harrington studied the worn-out men. “I can have my agents in San Diego apprehend Cromwell when his special train stops at the San Diego depot.”
“He’s too smart to get off at the depot,” said Bell. “He’ll stop the train outside of town and enter in one of his many disguises.”
“Where do you think he’s headed?”
“One of the local banks.”
“Which one?” queried Harrington. “There are at least ten.”
