The Gangster Clive Cussler (mystery books to read .txt) đ
- Author: Clive Cussler
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Six hours later, when Grady had collapsed face-first on a cot and most of his young assistants had stumbled home, Marion suddenly whispered, âIâll be darned.â
âWhat?â asked Helen.
Marion looked up from a folder of ancient yellowed newspapers. âGrandfather Culp had an affair with a Quaker woman from Poughkeepsie.â
âThey printed that in the newspaper?â
âWell, they donât come out and say it, but itâs pretty clear reading between the lines . . .â She checked the date on the top of the page. âThis didnât come out until after the Civil War. Ravenâs Eyrie was a âstationâ on the Underground Railroad.â
âThe Culpâs were Abolitionists? That doesnât sound like the Culp we know and love.â
âHer name was Julia Reidhead. She was a member of the American Anti-Slavery Society. But according to this, the Hudson Valley was not Abolitionist. They still kept slaves into the early nineteenth century. Only a few Quaker strongholds were against slavery.â
âGrandpa Culp must have been a brave man to be a station master.â
âIt doesnât quite say that. According to this, Julia Reidhead talked him into building a secret entrance through the wall so they could help runaway slaves on their way to Canada. Sounds to me like he did it for love.â
âWas she J. B. Culpâs grandmother?â Helen asked.
âNo. She ended up marrying a missionary. They served in India.â
Helen read the story over Marionâs shoulder. âI hadnât realized the wall was that old.â
âFirst thing they built. It seems the Culps have never liked other people.â
Antonio Branco walked into J. B. Culpâs trophy room and calmly announced, âThe Italian Squad just arrested my assassin.â
âWhat? Can you bail him out?â
âThe Carabinieri confirmed heâs an anarchist. He will stay locked up until your government deports him.â
âHow could they confirm it so fast?â
âThe Italian Consul General keeps a Carabinieri officer on his staff for just such occasions,â Branco answered drily.
âWhat a mess! . . . Wait a minute. How did the police know he was yours?â
âThey donât. He was one of many caught in Petrosinoâs dragnet.â
âBloody Isaac Bell put Petrosino up to it.â
âOf course he did,â said Branco. âI would be surprised if he hadnât. Thanks to Bell, there isnât an Italian radical who isnât behind bars or in hiding this morning.â
âWeâre running out of time. Rooseveltâs going to be here in two days.â
Branco tugged his watch chain. âTwo days and six hours.â
âWell, dammit, youâll just have to give the job to your âgorillas.ââ
âNo.â
âWhy not? Theyâre killers, arenât they? All your talk about âun-plaguingâ me. Strikebreaking, getting rid of reformers, making enemies disappear?â
âGorillas are not the tool for this job.â
âWhy not?â
âThey would bungle it.â
âThen youâll have to kill him yourself.â
Branco shrugged his broad shoulders as if monumentally unconcerned. âI suspected it would come to this.â
Culp shook his head in disgust. âYou sound mighty cool about it. How will you do it?â
âIâve planned for it.â
âYouâll only get one chance. If you muddle it, youâll force Roosevelt to hide, and weâll never get a second shot at him.â
âI planned for it.â
âDo you mean you planned to pull the trigger all along?â
âI never planned to pull a triggerâ was Brancoâs enigmatic reply, and Culp knew him well enough by now to know he had heard all that Branco would spill on the subject. Instead, he said, âDid you get the Italian Consul General invited to the Presidentâs speech?â
Culp nodded. âWhy do you want him there?â
âHe will provide a distraction.â
âYou donât know yet how youâre going to do the job.â
âI have ideas,â said Branco.
Marion Morgan and Helen Millsâ report on the Underground Railroad entrance to Ravenâs Eyrie emphasized the strong pro-slavery sentiments in the preâCivil War Hudson Valley. So while the Black Hand Squad watched gates and boat landings, and undercover operatives kept an eye on the siphon tunnel, Isaac Bell and Archie Abbott climbed down from the top of Storm King Mountain. In theory, the Abolitionistsâ passage for fugitive slaves would have been more safely hidden in the uphill side of the estate wall rather than in view of the busy river.
Slipping and sliding on a thin coat of ice-crusted snow, the Van Dorns descended within yards of the wall, then scrambled alongside, just above it, clinging from tree to tree on the steep wooded slope. Culpâs estate workers had kept a mown path clear of brush, but the stones were laced with ancient vines of grape and bittersweet that in summertime would have blocked any hope of spotting a break in the eighty-year-old masonry. Now that the leaves had fallen, they had a marginal chance of spotting a long-abandoned opening put back in use by Antonio Branco.
âCunningly concealed,â Archie noted. âSeeing as how the neighbors would have loved to turn in Grandpa and his Quaker. Not to mention collecting the bounty on the poor slaves.â
Isaac Bell was optimistic. âNice thing about a wallâif we canât see in, they canât see us poking around outside.â He was right. The two-mile wall lacked the regularly spaced turrets of a true fortress. And while the main gatehouse overlooked some of the front sectionâand the service entrance tower and some of the south sideâneither was close enough to observe the back side.
âAre you forgetting that Mr. Van Dorn said donât set foot on Culpâs estate?â
âAs I recall,â said Bell, less worried about getting fired and more about the President being murdered, âMr. Van Dorn said, in effect, no Van Dorn detective is to scale the Ravenâs Eyrie wall again without his express permission. He didnât say I couldnât go through it. Or under it. Or lay a trap inside it to ambush Branco.â
âWeâve still got to find it.â
âWe have two days,â said Bell.
But his optimism proved futile. They probed the full half mile of the uphill wall before darkness closed in but found nothing. âThe Culps could have cemented it shut after the Civil War,â said Archie. âOr
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