“That’s crazy. The man was terrified of heights. We had him in our Black Crook. Remember, Joe? They couldn’t get him near the orchestra pit.”
“Something’s fishy. What was he doing on a fire escape?”
“Exiting a lady’s back door,” said Jackson Barrett, “pursued by a husband.”
ACT ONE
SPRING 1911 (SIX MONTHS LATER)
1
On the second floor of New York’s finest hotel, the Knickerbocker, at the corner of Broadway and 42nd Street, the Van Dorn Detective Agency’s Chief Investigator sized up a new client through the reception room spy hole. The Research Department had provided a snapshot dossier of a “stiff-necked, full-of-himself Waterbury Brass King worth fifty million.”
Isaac Bell reckoned they had their facts straight.
William Lathrop Pape looked newly rich. A broad-bellied man in his early fifties, he stood rock-still, gloved hands clamping a gold-headed cane. His suit and shoes were English, his hat Italian. He boasted a heavy watch chain thick enough to moor a steam yacht, and his cold gaze bored through the front desk man as if the young detective were a piece of furniture.
Research had not discovered why the industrialist needed private detectives, but whatever William Lathrop Pape’s troubles, he had pulled numerous wires for a personal introduction to Joseph Van Dorn, the founder of the agency. As Van Dorn was three thousand miles away in San Francisco, it had fallen to Isaac Bell to extend the favor requested by an old friend of the Boss.
“O.K. Bring him in.”
The apprentice hovering at Bell’s elbow raced off.
Bell stepped behind Van Dorn’s desk, cleared candlestick telephones and a graphophone diaphragm out of his way, and laid down his notebook and fountain pen. He was tall and about thirty years of age, built lean and hard, with thick golden hair, a proud mustache, and probing blue eyes. On this warm spring day, he wore a tailor-made white linen suit. The hat he had tossed on Van Dorn’s rack was white, too, with a broad brim and a low crown. His made-to-order boots were calfskin, well worn and well cared for. He looked like he might smile easily, but a no-nonsense gaze and a panther’s grace promised anything but a smile were he provoked.
The apprentice delivered Pape.
Isaac Bell offered his hand and invited him to sit.
Pape spoke before the apprentice was out the door. “I was informed that Van Dorn would make every effort to be here.”
“Sincere as Mr. Van Dorn’s efforts were, they could not free him from previous obligations in San Francisco. I am his Chief Investigator. What can the Van Dorn Detective Agency do for you?”
“It’s imperative that I locate a person who disappeared.”
Bell picked up his pen. “Tell me about the person.”
William Lathrop Pape stared, silent for so long that Bell wondered if he had not heard. “The person’s name?” he asked.
“Pape! Anna Genevieve Pape,” said Pape, and fell silent again.
“A member of your family?” Bell prompted. “Your wife?”
“Of course not.”
“Then who?”
“My daughter, for pity’s sake. My wife wouldn’t . . .” His voice trailed off.
Bell asked, “How old is your daughter, Mr. Pape?”
“Eighteen.”
“When did you last see Anna?”
“At breakfast on February twenty-seventh.”
“Did she often go away for long periods of time?”