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“Looked more to me like the man rode the cushions,” said Hatfield, using the hobo expression for buying a ticket for a parlor car. “Doubt he hit the rails ’til the last hundred miles.”
“Exactly,” said Bell, who had ridden many a freight train while investigating in disguise. “He’s not dirty enough.”
“Ah suppose some lonely ranch wife might have sluiced him off in her horse trough.”
“Might have.”
Texas Walt rolled a cigarette, exhaled blue smoke, and remarked, “Can’t help wonderin’ what Miss Josephine is gonna think. Suppose she’d have agreed to marry Whiteway if she had known Celere was alive?”
“I guess that depends on what they meant to each other,” answered Bell.
“What do we do with him, boss?”
“Let’s see what he’s up to,” answered Bell, wondering whether in Marco Celere’s miraculous return lay the explanation for Harry Frost’s angry You don’t know what they were up to.
MARCO CELERE EMERGED from Bell’s hangar car bathed, shaved, and brilliantined. His black hair gleamed, his cheeks were smooth, his mustache curled at the tips. Bell’s own mustache twitched in the thinnest of smiles when Texas Walt glanced his way. The sharp-eyed Texan had noticed, as had he, that Celere’s clean-shaven cheeks were slightly paler in color than his nose and chin. The difference was almost imperceptible, but they were looking for false notes, and there it was, an indication that he had until recently worn a beard.
Josephine expressed astonishment that Celere was alive. She said she had never given up hope that he had somehow survived. She took his hand and said, “Oh, you poor thing,” when he told his story. She seemed happy to see him, Bell thought, but she turned quickly to the business of the race.
“You couldn’t have come at a better time, Marco. I need help keeping the aeroplane running. It’s getting pretty worn down. I’ll have my husband put you on the payroll.”
“There is no need for that,” Celere replied gallantly, “I will work gratis. After all, it is in my interest, too, that my machine win the race.”
“Then you better get to work,” said Bell. “Weather’s clearing. Weiner of Accounting just announced we’re taking off for Palm Springs.”
MINDFUL THAT ISAAC BELL was watching him like a hawk, Marco Celere waited patiently to have a private conversation with Josephine. He made sure he was never alone with her until after she arrived at Palm Springs. Only the next morning, while they fueled the machine for the short flight to Los Angeles, did he dare to chance speaking. They were alone, pouring gasoline into the overhead gravity tank, while the mechanicians joined the police in clearing spectators from the field.
Josephine spoke first. “Who died in the fire?”
“I found a body in the hobo jungle. Now Platov doesn’t exist.”
“Dead already?”
“Of course. A poor old man. They die all the time. What did you think?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“Maybe married life confuses you.”
“What do you mean?”
“What is it like?” Marco teased. “Being Mrs. Preston Whiteway?”
“I postponed my ‘honeymoon’ until after the race. You know that. I told you I would.”
Marco shrugged. “This is like opera buffa.”
“I don’t know anything about opera.”
“Opera buffa is the funny kind. Like vaudeville comics.”
“This is not funny to me, Marco.”
“To me, it’s worth getting shot.”
“How? Why?”
“It’s just that if something were to happen to Preston Whiteway, you would inherit his newspaper empire.”
