Clive Cussler's "The Chase" Pt. 4 Quiz

Answer: take Cromwell's sister into custody

When Cromwell's private Pullman pulled into San Jose for water and coal, Bell went into the dispatcher's office and sent a wire to take Margaret Cromwell into custody as an accomplice. Cromwell was not too pleased and exploded at Bell for doing this. In his rant, he nearly incriminated himself.

Answer: San Quentin

Cromwell was loaded onto an ambulance with a bag over his head as to not have people recognize him in the corrupt city of San Francisco. He was then taken to San Quentin where a friend of Bronson's, Richard Webber was the warden. Bronson was certain Cromwell would not find a way to escape since Webber supposedly could not be bribed.However, he would be proven wrong.

Answer: $50,000

Cromwell asked the warden if anyone had ever escaped from San Quentin before and Webber said no. Cromwell then offered the warden $50,000 if Webber would personally deliver Cromwell to City Hall for the proper paperwork. Unfortunately, Webber gave in and helped Cromwell escape from San Quinton.

Answer: warden's wife

Cromwell was led into Webber's office where Webber gave him his wife's dress, shawl and shoes. This disguise helped Webber get Cromwell out through the gates of San Quentin without Van Dorn's detectives knowing a thing.

Answer: pot roast

Bell was staying at Ms. Morgan's place the night the earthquake hit. He was sitting in front of a fire and had asked about what was for dinner. Marian was hopeful he liked pot roast and told him it would be about ten minutes or so because she was waiting for the potatoes to soften a bit.

Answer: Montreal

Bell and Marian were both trying to figure out where Cromwell was heading next. After being arrested in San Diego, Cromwell was liable to leave the country and start a new empire. All of a sudden, Marian figured out that they would leave and go to Montreal. Canada would have been the last place detectives would have expected, since most criminals went to Mexico when they wanted to flee.

Answer: in the vault

Marian stated that Cromwell spent most of his time in the vault. She wasn't sure what he was doing, but Bell had the instinct that Cromwell was packing up the loose currency for his flight out of the country. On one of Cromwell's trips to the vault, Marian saw the word "Montreal" scribbled on a pad next to Cromwell's phone.

She also saw bank drafts and telegrams on Cromwell's desk, showing he had wired several transactions to other banks in Montreal.

Answer: 5:12 AM

At around 5:12 AM on the morning of April 18, 1906, one of the worst earthquakes struck in San Francisco. Bell and Marian were both in bed when the quake struck, but managed to get themselves to a door frame within seconds of nearly getting crushed by a falling chimney. Marian had a piano which belonged to her late mother and it rolled across the floor and crashed into the street after the front wall disappeared to her apartment building.

After getting dressed, Bell used a couch to break open the jammed door so they could escape to safety.

Answer: Curtis

When Bell arrived at the Call Building, he noticed the building would have to eventually be demolished. He went upstairs and found Bronson and a couple of other detectives, but Arthur Curtis was missing. Bronson said that Curtis was feared to be dead, possibly crushed under fallen debris while making his way to the building.

However, Curtis must have eventually shown up, because he was later at a meeting mentioned in the book "The Wrecker".

Answer: 1000

As the earthquake was happening, Margaret came stumbling into Cromwell's bedroom/scared to death that the house might fall on them. As she talked, a couple of the chimneys fell. But they fell outward since they were built mostly on the outside. Cromwell boasted that both buildings would stand a thousand years and it is partially due to the fact that both are made of a rigid, quarried stone.

Answer: $4,000,000

Bell, because he had to walk all over San Francisco, ended up missing Cromwell by several minutes. Bell took about an hour to save a little boy nearly crushed in the remains of a collapsed hotel. Bell went to the vault and saw that Cromwell took all paper currency, nothing smaller than $50 notes. Bell surmised that Cromwell packed up about $4,000,000 or $5,000,000.

Answer: Customs House

Since the Call building was pretty much destroyed in the earthquake, Bronson and the others gathered up what papers they could and set up shop in the Customs House. At this point, there was fire all around, but the building was temporarily safe. It only suffered damage to the upper floors. The lower floors were safe.

Answer: Ford Model K

Bell was exhausted from walking blocks around the city that wasn't already lit up with fire and smoke. He felt sure that Cromwell would leave the country if he didn't hurry. He asked Bronson for a car and Bronson let him borrow a Ford Model K. Bell was impressed because the Model K had a 6-cylinder engine, and had been known to do speeds of close to 80 mph. Bronson said he borrowed it from a grocery store owner, and that Bell had to have it returned by noon the next day.

Answer: Baldwin Pacific 4-6-2

For a bribe of $10,000, the dispatcher gave Cromwell a Baldwin Pacific 4-6-2. The 4-6-2 was named because of the four wheeled truck in the front, the 6 drive wheels and then the 2 wheel truck under the cab. The cab's number was 3025. After some persuasion, Bell had the dispatcher give him Engine 3445 which was a Baldwin Atlantic 4-4-2. Bell found that the repairs had been made to it and that it was ready to go.

Answer: Adaline

When Bell arrived to commandeer the engine and crew, he found out the engine was called Adaline. The engineer said they call it that because it is easier to remember than the four numbers on the side of the cab.

Answer: 6 hours

By the time Cromwell received his engine and took off for Salt Lake City, he had roughly a 6 hour head start. By the time Bell got rolling and passed through the same track as Cromwell, Bell was about 5 1/2 hours behind.

Answer: Sierra-Nevadas

Both trains made it through the Sierra-Nevadas where several years past a wagon train called the Donner Party had tried to come through, with only half of them surviving. Bell's crew made the better time over the mountains, and beat their own record by some eight minutes.

Answer: 2 hours

At each station, Bell was asking about Cromwell's train. He found out in Reno, when they stopped for coal and water, that Cromwell's train was delayed by a little over 2 hours. This was because they not only had to take on coal and water themselves, but go off on a siding to allow express trains to San Francisco to bull through.

Answer: Ogden

In Ogden, The Southern Pacific tracks ran north into Montana, just near Flathead Lake. They switched in Ogden rather than Salt lake City as Bell thought.

Answer: Wood's Bay

In Mesula, there was a spur which Cromwell took his train onto. When Shay, part of Bell's crew, asked the switchman, the switchman said Cromwell's train passed through twenty minutes before. Bell was catching up. They had 80 miles to catch up 20 minutes. The spur ended in the lumber town of Wood's Bay.