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“And you?”
“There is no question that the Japanese are practiced at spying. I learned that, before the Russo-Japanese War, they thoroughly infiltrated the Russian Far East Fleet with spies who pretended to be Manchurian servants and laborers. When the fighting started, the Japanese knew more about Russian Navy tactics than the Russians did. But I’m keeping an open mind. It really could be any one of them.”
“A tall, handsome detective once told me that skepticism was his most valuable asset,” Marion agreed.
“It’s a big case that keeps getting bigger. And because the dreadnought program is so large and widespread, the scope of the case-the links-might have gone unnoticed quite a while longer if it weren’t for Langner’s daughter insisting that her father didn’t kill himself. Even then, if she hadn’t managed to get to Joe Van Dorn through her old school chum, then I would not have personally witnessed poor Alasdair’s murder. His death would have been written off as a saloon brawl, and who knows how many more they might have killed before anyone got wise.”
Bell shook his head. “Enough talk. Here come the oysters, and we’ve both got early starts tomorrow.”
“Look at the size of these!” Marion tipped an enormous oyster off its shell into her mouth, let it slide down her throat, and asked with a smile, “Is Miss Langner as beautiful as they say?”
“Who says?”
“Mademoiselle Duvall met her in Washington. Apparently there isn’t a man on the East Coast over nineteen who hasn’t fallen for her.”
“She is beautiful,” said Bell. “With the most extraordinary eyes. And I imagine were she not grieving she probably would be even lovelier.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for her, too.”
“My falling days are over,” Bell grinned.
“Do you miss them?”
“If love was gravity, I would be in free fall. What was Mademoiselle Duvall doing in Washington?”
“Seducing an Assistant Secretary of the Navy into hiring her to shoot movies of the Great White Fleet steaming through the Golden Gate into San Francisco. At least, that’s how she got the job filming the fleet’s departure from Hampton Roads last winter, so I assume she’s using the same tactics. Why do you ask?”
“This is strictly between us,” Bell replied seriously. “But Mademoiselle Duvall has had a long affair with a French Navy captain.”
“Oh, of course! Sometimes when she’s being very eye-battingly mysterious she’ll hint about ‘Mon Capitaine.’”
“Mon Capitaine happens to specialize in dreadnought research-which is to say, the Frenchman is a spy, and she is likely working for him.”
“A spy? She’s such a flibbertigibbet.”
“The Navy Secretary gave Joe Van Dorn a list of twenty foreigners who’ve been poking around Washington and New York on behalf of France, England, Germany, Italy, and Russia. Most look like flibbertigibbets, but we’ve got to investigate each of them.”
“No Japanese?”
“Plenty. Two from their embassy-a naval officer and a military attaché. And a tea importer who lives in San Francisco.”
“But what could Mademoiselle Duvall possibly film for the French Navy that the rest of us can’t?”
“Filming could be her excuse to get close to American Navy officers who might talk too much to an attractive woman. What did you mean, ‘the rest of us.’ Are you filming the Fleet, too?”
“Preston Whiteway just got in touch.”
Bell’s eyes narrowed slightly. The wealthy Whiteway had inherited several California newspapers. He had expanded them into a powerful chain of the yellowest yellow journalism type, and a movie newsreel company that Marion had started up for him before she came east to make moving pictures.
“Preston asked me to shoot the Fleet arriving in San Francisco for Picture World.”
“Preston’s newspapers are predicting war with Japan within the week.”
“He’ll print anything to sell a newspaper.”
“Is this a one-time job?”
“I would not be working for him as an employee, you can be sure, but as a highly paid contractor. I could squeeze it in between the movies I’m shooting here. What do you think?”
