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THE NEWARK, New Jersey, auto patrol tried to catch Isaac Bell in a Packard

His 1906 gasoline-powered Locoine red He had ordered the color fro hiet out of the way But the color, and the Locomobile’s thunderous exhaust, did tend to draw the attention of the police

Before he reached East Orange he had left the Newark cops in the dust

In Elizabeth they caht of thebefore Roselle And now the countryside was opening up

The Locomobile had been built for the speedway and heldhad tamed it not at all In the hands of a man with nerves of steel, a passion for speed, and the reflexes of a cat, the big sixteen-liter machine cut a fantastic pace on New Jersey’s farh sleepy towns like a meteor

Clad boot to chin in a long linen duster, his eyes shielded by goggles, his head bare so he could hear every nuance of the four-cylinder engine’s thunder, Bell worked the shifter, clutch, and horn in relentless tande farh He would have enjoyed himself immensely were he not so worried about John Scully He had left the lone-wolf detective in a lurch The fact that Scully had fallen into the lurch on his ownafter his people

He drove with his big hands low on the spoked steering wheel When he had to slow in towns, it took both hands to lever the massive beast into turns But when he poured on the speed on the farh, as he repeatedly reached out to pump up the fuel pressure and blow the horn He rarely touched the brakes There was little point The e-port, Connecticut, who built the Loco the chain shafts-a halfhearted afterthought a to little more than no brakes at all Isaac Bell didn’t care

As he roared out of Woodbridge, a one-twenty-horsepower Mercedes GP roadster tried to give him a run for his money Bell pressed the Locomobile’s accelerator pedal to the floor and kept the road to himself

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WHAT’S THIS?” ASKED COMMODORE TOMMY THOMPSON

“He says he got a proposition fer yer”

Tohters who hadclose on either side of a refined gentleman they had escorted into his backroom office

In cold silence, Toenuine Fifth Avenue swell He was a ht, expensive gold-headed cane, expensive long black coat with a velvet collar, costly fur hat, kid gloves Heat was pouring froloves, revealing a heavy ring studded with jewels, and unbuttoned his coat Under his coat, the Gopher Gang leader could see a solid-gold watch chain thick enough to hold a brewery horse and a dark blue broadcloth suit of clothes Toirls for a week in Atlantic City for what the swell had paid for his boots

The swell said not a word He stood utterly still after re his coat, except for when he lifted a hand to smooth the tip of his narrow mustache with his thumb, which he then hooked in his vest pocket

A cool customer, Commodore Tommy decided He also decided that if all the cops in New York chipped in they still could not afford to disguise a detective in such an outfit Even if they could raise the dough, there wasn’t a cop in the city w