AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I am by occupation a schoolteacher. I graduated from the Girls’ Latin School.”
“So you were born in Boston.”
“No. My parents moved us there so my brother and I could attend the Latin Schools. Father found work as a tugboat captain and we lived on the boat.” She smiled. “Yes, I know what you’re thinking. The saloon was another time in another city. Father was always changing jobs.”
“A jack-of-all-trades?”
“He could master anything. Except people. He was like Jim. It broke his heart when he couldn’t deny that evil people exist. That’s when he gave up on the tugboat.”
“What changed his mind?”
“Too many deckhands shanghaied by knockout drops.”
“But tug captains must be used to freighters kidnapping able seamen. And no experienced deckhand would be surprised to wake up miles from land with a splitting headache. Spiked booze mans ships.”
“Father was surprised.”
The coffee arrived. Bell sought her eyes over their cups and asked, “What’s in that newspaper?”
“The reason I’m here.”
“I thought you came to not apologize.”
Mary Higgins did not smile back but thrust the clipping across the table. “Read this.”
Bell glanced at the headline and handed it back.
“I read it last night,” he said and recited the last paragraph from memory:
“It is understood that a great amount of evidence of the Coal Trust’s existence, and proof that the railroads are large owners in the coal mines, and that they combine to regulate the price of coal to the seaboard and in every important city not only by setting carrying charges but also by naming the price at which retailers shall put the coal on the market, is in possession of Jim Higgins, president of the Strike Committee. Higgins will probably be called upon by the attorney general in the course of the investigations to be commenced.”
Mary was staring at him.
Bell said, “I have a photographic memory.”
“I thought so. I have one, too. I always wondered if my eyes move while I’m remembering. Now I know.”
“How did your brother become president of the Strike Committee?”
“By having the guts to stand up for it.”
“How did he get ahold of the evidence?”
“He carried it out the back door of a Denver union hall while the Pinkertons were breaking in the front door.”
“How did that evidence get all the way to Denver?”
“They moved it from Pittsburgh and Chicago to keep it safe.”
“Well, I guess that didn’t work… Does your brother realize the danger he’s in holding that stuff?”
“He doesn’t think about it.”
“But you do,” said Bell, guessing what was coming next.
Mary said, “It will get him murdered. They will kill him and burn the evidence before the attorney general gets around to calling him. Unless…”
“Unless?”
