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YOUR CABLE FORWARDED PARIS.
I’M COVERING FOR BERLIN.
PAULINE SAILED YESTERDAY,
SS AQUITANIA,
CONNECTING NASSAU.
Isaac Bell laughed. So much for “request.”
“Fräulein Moxie” was off to the races—Cunard express liner Aquitania from Le Havre to New York; Havana Special, overnight train to Miami, Florida; and the new flying-boat service to Nassau. Pauline would be across the Atlantic and in The Bahamas in seven or eight days. While a war-weary, ten-knot tanker was still on the high seas, she would have time before it landed to establish a business front in Nassau with a Market Street import-export office under a shingle that read:
PAULINE GRANDZAU
LICENSED TO SELL
WHOLESALE SPIRITS & LIQUORS
• • •
THE WOLVERINE, the express train that connected with the 20th Century in Buffalo, brought photographs of Fern Hawley that Van Dorn Research had clipped from the New York society pages. That the one shot of the heiress gallivanting included Prince André doubled Bell’s suspicion that the Russian and Marat Zolner were the same man. His picture was out of focus, blurred by motion. It looked to Bell as if, caught by surprise climbing out of a limousine, he was trying to turn his face from the camera.
Bell wired Grady Forrer.
PRINCE ANDRE CAMERA SHY.
SHOW PICTURE TO LYNCH & HARDING MARINE.
Bell armed his detectives with Fern’s photographs and sent them to query desk clerks and managers at Detroit’s top hotels. In none of the fancier places where he would expect her to stay was the Connecticut heiress recognized. Nor was Prince André. They polled second-rate hotels, and garages that rented limousines, with no results.
The society reporters wrote, repeatedly, that she had served as a volunteer war nurse in France. Bell cabled Archie Abbott to inquire about her and Prince André.
At Michigan Central Station, Bell’s detectives found no evidence of her arriving recently on any of the extra-fare limited trains like The Detroiter or The Wolverine that a wealthy woman would ride. On the other hand, thought Bell, she was uncommonly wealthy. He went personally to the private sidings. New York Central Railroad detectives, always eager to help a Van Dorn executive in hopes of future employment, had no memory of Fern Hawley arriving by private car from New York.
“What about New Haven?”
A rail dick recalled that a car from Connecticut had parked for several days on a private siding. “Left yesterday at noon.”
Only hours after the machine-gun attack on Rosenthal.
“Where did it go?”
They questioned dispatchers. The private car had been coupled to a New York Central passenger train bound for Cincinnati that connected with the Southern Railway’s “Royal Palm” to Jacksonville, Florida.
With an idea forming of where she was headed, Bell asked, “What line does the Southern connect to in Jacksonville?”
“Florida East Coast Railway.”
Isaac Bell slipped him a double sawbuck and his card. “If you need something from the Van Dorns, drop me a line.”
The tall detective returned to the main passenger terminal and found a coin telephone to call James Dashwood at Fort Van Dorn.
“She’s gone to Miami! I’m booking you a through ticket on the Royal Palm. Get down to Florida and find out what she’s up to.”
“Is Zolner with her?”
“He can’t leave Detroit until he’s installed his replacement for Rosenthal and they finish that tunnel.”
