passengers’ friends and relatives, crackerjack vendors, newspaper reporters, and moving picture operators. But it was six Hell’s Kitchen gangsters who had caught Bell’s attention.
“Gophers!” said Archie.
The Gophers, pronounced “goofers,” were snappy dressers, favoring tight suits, pearl gray bowler hats, fancy shoes, and colorful hose.
“Who the heck gave them pier passes?”
“It’s possible they know someone in Tammany Hall,” Bell said, drily. In New York, politicians, builders, priests, cops, and gangsters shared the spoils, a system derailed only occasionally by the reformers. “Do you see who they brought with them?”
“Molls,” said Archie, focusing on a cluster of extravagantly coiffed women in towering hats and elaborate dresses.
“Not a good sign.”
The Police Department had been cracking down on firearms lately. Faced with arrest if caught in possession, the gangsters had taken to stashing their pistols in their girlfriends’ hats and bustles.
“Loaded for bear. Who do you suppose they came to meet?”
Bell took back the field glasses. The gangsters were glowering at the back of the ship, where the Second Class passengers would go ashore. In a sight that would be comic if it didn’t mean someone was going to get badly hurt, a burly Gopher raked the Second Class embarkation port with dainty mother-of-pearl opera glasses he had stolen from somewhere.
“Archie, do you recognize the thug with the opera glasses?”
Archie, whose pride in New York extended even to the superior ferocity of its street gangs, took a look. “Might be Blinky Armstrong.”
“Is he a boss?”
“Not yet, that I’ve heard.”
“It looks like he’s running that crew. Soon as the switchboard’s hooked up, telephone the office. Tell Harry Warren to bring his gang squad.”
“Why?”
“I have an unpleasant feeling.”
The Mauretania ’s private-branch telephone system switchboard would plug into the New York City exchanges the moment the ship docked. The Van Dorn New York field office was in the Knickerbocker Hotel on 42nd Street, and while the streets would be clogged with traffic, the magic carpet of the Ninth Avenue Elevated Express could speed Detective Harry Warren and his gang specialists downtown in a flash.
“Harry’ll know if it’s Blinky.”
With the tugboats almost overwhelmed by her tonnage and the wind, it was fully half an hour before they had Mauretania enough inside the slip for her seamen to throw lightweight messenger lines. Longshoremen used them to drag her heavy hawsers ashore.
At last, the bugle blew to announce they were fast to the pier. Engines stopped.
The First Class gangway was hoisted from the cavernous waiting room. First ashore, stiffly ignoring each other, were Lord Strone and Karl Schultz. The Chimney Baron was greeted by a brace of pretty girls, granddaughters, Bell guessed, by the joyful way they took his hands and spirited him, laughing, through the crowds and out the doors to West Street. Strone stepped off alone and discreetly followed a young man, whom Bell supposed was from the British consulate, to the stairs to the lower deck, where the steam yacht Ringer out of Greenwich—which had trailed the ship from Quarantine—would whisk him to his American estate in Connecticut.
Explosions of photographers’ flashlights at the foot of the gangway told Bell that the newspaper reporters had caught sight of Marion and Lillian disembarking, and he could imagine from experience the shouted queries. Had Miss Morgan come back to New York to take new moving pictures? Was it true Miss Morgan had been married to an insurance executive? Had the ceremony actually been performed by the captain of the Mauretania ? What did Mrs. Abbott think of the new fashions in London? Was there truth to the rumors that her father had secretly amassed a controlling interest in the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe?
The Second Class gangway would rise as soon as First Class had
“Gophers!” said Archie.
The Gophers, pronounced “goofers,” were snappy dressers, favoring tight suits, pearl gray bowler hats, fancy shoes, and colorful hose.
“Who the heck gave them pier passes?”
“It’s possible they know someone in Tammany Hall,” Bell said, drily. In New York, politicians, builders, priests, cops, and gangsters shared the spoils, a system derailed only occasionally by the reformers. “Do you see who they brought with them?”
“Molls,” said Archie, focusing on a cluster of extravagantly coiffed women in towering hats and elaborate dresses.
“Not a good sign.”
The Police Department had been cracking down on firearms lately. Faced with arrest if caught in possession, the gangsters had taken to stashing their pistols in their girlfriends’ hats and bustles.
“Loaded for bear. Who do you suppose they came to meet?”
Bell took back the field glasses. The gangsters were glowering at the back of the ship, where the Second Class passengers would go ashore. In a sight that would be comic if it didn’t mean someone was going to get badly hurt, a burly Gopher raked the Second Class embarkation port with dainty mother-of-pearl opera glasses he had stolen from somewhere.
“Archie, do you recognize the thug with the opera glasses?”
Archie, whose pride in New York extended even to the superior ferocity of its street gangs, took a look. “Might be Blinky Armstrong.”
“Is he a boss?”
“Not yet, that I’ve heard.”
“It looks like he’s running that crew. Soon as the switchboard’s hooked up, telephone the office. Tell Harry Warren to bring his gang squad.”
“Why?”
“I have an unpleasant feeling.”
The Mauretania ’s private-branch telephone system switchboard would plug into the New York City exchanges the moment the ship docked. The Van Dorn New York field office was in the Knickerbocker Hotel on 42nd Street, and while the streets would be clogged with traffic, the magic carpet of the Ninth Avenue Elevated Express could speed Detective Harry Warren and his gang specialists downtown in a flash.
“Harry’ll know if it’s Blinky.”
With the tugboats almost overwhelmed by her tonnage and the wind, it was fully half an hour before they had Mauretania enough inside the slip for her seamen to throw lightweight messenger lines. Longshoremen used them to drag her heavy hawsers ashore.
At last, the bugle blew to announce they were fast to the pier. Engines stopped.
The First Class gangway was hoisted from the cavernous waiting room. First ashore, stiffly ignoring each other, were Lord Strone and Karl Schultz. The Chimney Baron was greeted by a brace of pretty girls, granddaughters, Bell guessed, by the joyful way they took his hands and spirited him, laughing, through the crowds and out the doors to West Street. Strone stepped off alone and discreetly followed a young man, whom Bell supposed was from the British consulate, to the stairs to the lower deck, where the steam yacht Ringer out of Greenwich—which had trailed the ship from Quarantine—would whisk him to his American estate in Connecticut.
Explosions of photographers’ flashlights at the foot of the gangway told Bell that the newspaper reporters had caught sight of Marion and Lillian disembarking, and he could imagine from experience the shouted queries. Had Miss Morgan come back to New York to take new moving pictures? Was it true Miss Morgan had been married to an insurance executive? Had the ceremony actually been performed by the captain of the Mauretania ? What did Mrs. Abbott think of the new fashions in London? Was there truth to the rumors that her father had secretly amassed a controlling interest in the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe?
The Second Class gangway would rise as soon as First Class had
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