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Back from Pocantico Hills, Isaac Bell wired Joseph Van Dorn in agency cipher:
BAKU VIA CLEVELAND.
And with very little time to set the murder and Corporations Commission investigations in productive motion before he was stuck incommunicado on the high seas, he fired off three more telegrams.
To Detective Archie Abbott in Washington:
WHY PERSIA? ON THE JUMP.
To Detective Wally Kisley and Detective Mack Fulton still in Kansas:
HOPEWELL TRICKS UP SLEEVE? ON THE JUMP.
To Detective Aloysius “Wish” Clarke, who was about to receive the plummiest assignment of his checkered career:
COME NEW YORK. ON THE JUMP.
Bell himself went to the Sage Gun Company on West 43rd Street.
He walked in carrying a carpetbag and shook hands with Dave McCoart, a hard-muscled gunsmith with long, thin fingers and a ruddy Irish complexion.
“I was just thinking about you,” McCoart greeted him. “Are you familiar with the FN outfit in Belgium?”
“Fabrique Nationale. Firearms manufacturer in the Liège district.”
“Mr. Browning gave FN a contract to manufacture a 9mm variant of a new design. I am told it’s a beautiful pistol. I’m thinking I can modify it with a chamber bushing to fire an American .380 caliber cartridge. It would be considerably lighter than that brick in your shoulder holster.”
“I like my gun’s stopping power. It’s served me well.”
“What the Number 2 lacks in stopping power—and you are right to be concerned—will be made up with outstanding accuracy.”
“How outstanding?”
“Compared to your Colt? Like a rifle.”
“O.K., make me one. Now, I have a question. Have you ever seen a breakdown model of a Savage 99?”
“No.”
“Could you convert a factory piece to a breakdown?”
“I could.”
“How many gunsmiths could do such a conversion?”
McCoart grinned. “That depends on whether the accuracy of the weapon is high on your list of expectations.”
“At the top.”
“Then I would shop very carefully to get the right man. Look for one who has a top-notch machine shop and several pints of artist in his bloodstream.”
“How many such men do you know?”
“With a top-notch machine shop?”
“Or access to one.”
“. . . A few, I suppose.”
