"You were lucky this time to have met Sheriff Henry. Otherwise, you all would have been taken," William Vanderbilt said, his voice grave. "From now on, your servants will be chosen only from those our family has raised since childhood. You cannot be so willful again."
"But Paul was an exception," Consuelo said, her voice filled with disappointment. "He had a good life with us. I don't understand why he would betray us."
"You cannot trust the lower classes," William admonished his favorite granddaughter. "Their lives are precarious, their loyalties fickle. You must learn this lesson."
"I know," Consuelo said, the memory of the attack still fresh in her mind. "We were so lucky to have met Henry. Grandfather, if you had seen the bodies of the outlaws, you would have been just as shocked as I was."
"The James and Younger gangs were like infants in his hands. By the end, Jesse and Frank didn't even dare to negotiate with him."
"I am very curious about this young man," William said with a smile. "Your great-grandfather and I both know how difficult those gangs are to deal with. To think they were so easily dispatched by him."
"He is the god of war, Ares, come to life," Consuelo said, her eyes shining as she began to recount the tales she had heard.
She had only just begun when a private investigator in a tailored suit and bowler hat approached and handed William a file.
"Have a seat, Tom," William said, gesturing to a nearby sofa as he opened the file.
After a long silence, William looked up. "You believe it's highly probable that Henry attacked the Raven Brotherhood clubhouse? He couldn't have done that alone. Who were his partners?"
The investigator, a man named Tom with the unassuming face of a friendly neighbor, leaned forward. "That, sir, is the interesting part. I believe he may have acted alone, though I have no idea how he could have accomplished it."
"But then, no one would have believed he could annihilate the James and Younger gangs by himself if they hadn't seen it with their own eyes."
"If you analyze his actions over the past two weeks, you see a pattern. He has repeatedly faced overwhelming odds and achieved a total victory."
"Therefore, I am making a bold guess: the Raven Brotherhood was his work. If you analyze the motive, the beneficiary, and the timing, you arrive at this one, seemingly impossible, conclusion."
"The black market put a ten-thousand-dollar bounty on his head. The night he left the mountains, the Denver black market was destroyed. The morning he arrived in New York, the New York black market was destroyed."
"I would even venture to say," Tom added, his voice low, "that if the black market continues to maintain this bounty, and if Henry happens to get off the train when he passes through Chicago on his way back… then their headquarters will be in danger as well."
William suddenly felt as if he were holding not an intelligence report, but a ledger of death. He was a man who had seen much and done much, but the sheer scale of the numbers was staggering.
"However," Tom continued, "I believe this was a warning. He spared the three subsidiary buildings belonging to the Brotherhood. He is not a man who kills without reason. I suspect that the men who were tailing him this morning angered him, and he decided to make a statement."
"The black market headquarters in Chicago is likely too blinded by their own power to see this. But I believe someone will warn them soon enough. What they choose to do next will determine their fate."
William was silent for a long time. "Continue to monitor the situation," he finally said. "And find Paul. I want to know who was behind this."
"Yes, sir." Tom stood, gave a slight bow, and left.
The Mayor noticed his granddaughter's expectant gaze and handed her the file. "Here. If you are to be friends, you should know who you are dealing with."
"Thank you, Grandfather."
As Consuelo began to read, William's own mind was racing. He was the second generation of the Vanderbilt dynasty, and in the five years since he had taken the reins, he had nearly doubled the family's railroad empire. But the family was now suffering from a lack of talent. None of his own generation, and none of the next, were capable of taking his place. And his own health was failing.
If this Henry was truly as powerful as the reports suggested, he could be a vital ally for the Vanderbilt family. He decided he would use Consuelo's eighteenth birthday party as an opportunity to take the young man's measure.
In one of the Astor family's two Manhattan mansions, Kaylee's mother, Caroline, listened to her daughter's harrowing account of the train robbery.
"Your father is never home," she said with a sigh. "If anything had happened to you, we would never have been able to find him in time to help."
"Is he on his yacht again?" Kaylee asked.
"No, he's in France. You did well, my dear, arranging for Henry to stay at the Astor House. I hope he is satisfied with the service." She rang a bell for the butler.
"Jerry, I want you to arrange for a Brougham carriage and our driver, Leon, to be placed at Mr. Bruce's exclusive disposal," she ordered.
"Yes, madam," the butler said, and left to make the arrangements.
"Now," Caroline said, "tell me more about this Henry. Is he truly as formidable as the papers say?"
Kaylee began to eagerly retell the stories she had heard from Pete.
After lunch, Henry returned to his room, changed into the suit William had given him, and prepared a gift box with a bottle of fine whiskey and a box of Punch cigars. He then went downstairs.
The hotel manager and a driver, a man named Leon, were waiting for him.
"Mr. Bruce," the manager said, "are you heading out? This is Leon. Mrs. Caroline Astor has arranged for this Brougham carriage to be at your service."
"Yes, thank you," Henry said with a nod.