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“The wing bracing is the same.”
“Similar.”
“Just as strong.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” she said seriously.
The subject always turned her prickly, but Bell noticed that she no longer repeated her earlier assertion that Danielle’s father had worked for Marco Celere. It was almost as if she suspected that the opposite was true.
Gently he said, “Maybe you mean I’m not up to it.”
She smiled, as if grateful Bell had let her off the hook. “You will be. I’ve been watching you. You have the touch – that’s the important thing.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Bell. “I can’t fall too far behind you if I’m going to protect you.”
In fact, Bell had devised a defense in which he was only one element. Van Dorn riflemen would spell one another on the roof of the support car, easily climbing to their gun perch through a hatch in the roof. Two roadsters in a boxcar with a ramp would be ready to light out after her if for any reason Josephine strayed from the railroad tracks. And every day detectives would take their places in advance at the next scheduled stop.
A commotion broke out at the hangar door.
Bell glided in front of Josephine as he drew the Browning from his coat.
“Josephine! Josephine! Where is that woman?”
“Oh my God,” said Josephine. “It’s Preston Whiteway.”
“Josephine! Josephine!” Whiteway barreled in. “There you are! I bring good news! Great news!”
Bell holstered his weapon. The best news he could think of was that Van Dorns had arrested Harry Frost.
“My lawyers,” shouted Whiteway, “have persuaded the court to annul your marriage to Harry Frost on the grounds that the madman tried to kill you!”
“Annulled?”
“You are f
ree. . Free!”
Isaac Bell observed the meeting between Josephine and Whiteway long enough to form an opinion of its nature, then slipped out the door.
“Cut!” he heard Marion Morgan order sharply. Her camera operator – hunched over a large machine on a strong tripod – stopped cranking as if a hawk had swooped down and seized his arm. It was well known among Miss Morgan’s operators that Mr. Bell did not want his picture taken.
“My darling, how wonderful to see you.” He thought she looked lovely in her working outfit, a shirtwaist and long skirt, with her hair gathered high to be out of her way when she looked through the camera lens.
She explained that she and her crew had been trailing Preston Whiteway all morning to shoot scenes for the title card that would read
The Race Sponsor’s Arrival!!!!
Bell took her into his arms. “What a treat. Can we have lunch?”
“No, I’ve got to shoot all of this.” She lowered her voice. “How did Josephine take the news?”
“I got the impression she was trying to dampen Whiteway’s excitement over the prospect of her being ‘Free! Free!’”
“I imagine that Preston’s working around to asking her to marry him.”
“The signs are all there,” Bell agreed. “He’s beaming like bonfire. He’s wearing a fine new suit of clothes. And he shines like he’s been barbered within an inch of his life.”
MARION HAD HER CREW IN PLACE, cranking their camera, when Preston Whiteway lured the New York press to Josephine’s big yellow tent in the infield with the promise of an important change in the race. Bell kept a close eye on the gathering, accompanied by Harry Warren, Van Dorn’s New York gang expert, who Bell had asked to take over the Belmont Park squad for the wounded Archie.
