Bell swept her into his arms and kissed her. “I have never seen you looking lovelier.”
“Fisticuffs?” she inquired of the bandage.
“My first flying lesson. I discovered an aeronautical phenomenon called ground effect, which made bringing the Eagle back down to earth something of a challenge. Andy and his helper will be up half the night fixing the wheels.”
“Was your instructor put out?”
Bell squared his broad shoulders. “Actually,” he admitted, “I taught myself.”
Marion raised one exquisite eyebrow and regarded him with the collected gaze of a woman who had graduated with the first class at Stanford Law School and worked in banking before flourishing in the new trade of moving pictures. She said, “I understand that Orville and Wilbur Wright learned the same way. Of course, they were busy inventing the aeroplane.”
“I had the advantage of advice from seasoned aviators . . . You are regarding me with a strange look.”
“Your eyes are as bright as I’ve ever seen them, and you’re grinning ear to ear. You look like you’re still flying.”
Isaac Bell laughed. “I suppose I am. I suppose I always will be. Though what you’re seeing at the moment is also the effect of being so very happy to see you.”
“I am overjoyed to see you, too, my dear, and glad of a ‘love effect.’ It’s been too long.” She stood up from her chair.
“What are you doing?”
“I am standing up to kiss you again.”
Bell kissed her back until she said, “The house detective will be coming over to ask what we’re doing in public.”
“No worry there,” said Bell. “The Garden City Hotel just signed a contract with Van Dorn Protective Services. Our man took over house detective duties this very morning.”
“So,” she said, sitting back down, “tell me about the bump on your noggin. And this ‘ground effect.’”
“Ground effect prevents you from alighting when a cushion of air develops between your wings and the ground. Air turns out to be strong—stronger than you’d imagine. Essentially, the machine does not want to stop flying, and you have to somehow persuade it—like when a horse takes the bit in its teeth.”
“A flying horse,” Marion remarked.
“Apparently the effect is strongest on a monoplane because—”
“You must tell me,” Marion interrupted, “what did you see when you were up there?”
“Speed looks different in the air. The land didn’t appear to blur as it does beside a train or my Locomobile. It seemed to flow under me, more slowly the higher I went.”
“How high did you go?”
“High enough to see the Hudson River. When I saw it, I knew I had to fly to it.”
Marion’s beautiful eyes widened. “You flew all the way to the Hudson River?”
Bell laughed. “It seemed safer than flying over the ocean—I could see that, too.”
Marion marveled, “At the same time you saw the Hudson River, you saw the Atlantic Ocean? Then surely you saw the skyscrapers of New York.”
“Like spikes in the smoke.”
“You must take me up to shoot moving pictures.”
“You will love it,” Bell answered. “I saw a giant sturgeon swimming on the bottom of the river.”
“When are we going?” she asked as excitement rose in her voice.
“Well, umm, flying is perfectly safe, of course. But not yet safe with me.”
Isaac Bell was reminded that his beloved could be as single-minded as Josephine when she asked with a challenging smile, “I wonder if Preston Whiteway would hire an aviator to take me up?”
“Let me practice first. By the end of the race I’ll have the hang of it.”
“Wonderful! We’ll do it over San Francisco. I can’t wait! But you will be careful while you learn?”
“Promise,” said Bell.
“I refuse to worry about gun battles and knife fights. But flying? You’re out of your element.”
“Not for long. Next time I see the wind has shifted, I’ll land accordingly.”
“How could you tell the direction of the wind when you yourself were in it? Did you see a flag blowing?”
“I watched the cows.”
“Cows?”
“There are dairy farms around the park, and Josephine taught me that cows always graze facing upwind. They point true as a weather vane and are easier to see from above.”
“What else has America’s Sweetheart of the Air taught you?”
“Keep an eye peeled for emergency landing spaces. But steer clear of bright green fields. They’re too wet to land on.” Bell left out Josephine’s warning to avoid extreme movements that would cause his wings to collapse. Neither would he repeat Eddison-Sydney-Martin’s dry “I’d avoid blundering into flat spins if I were you, old chap,” or Joe Mudd’s blunt “Don’t get fancy before you know your business.”
Marion said, “By all accounts, including Preston’s fulsome praise of her, Josephine sounds like an interesting character.”
“Josephine’s a character, all right, and I could use your help reading her. In the meantime, I would not mind another kiss. Shall I instruct the house detective to erect a barricade of Chinese screens and potted palms?”
“I have a better idea. By now, the maids have unpacked my bags. Let me get out of my traveling things and into a bath. And perhaps you’ll come up and join me for supper, or something.”
“Shall I order champagne?”
“I already have.”
“SERIOUSLY, DARLING, why did you decide not to take flying lessons?” Marion asked later upstairs. Bathed, perfumed, and arrayed in a long emerald green peignoir, she patted the chaise longue. Bell brought their glasses and sat beside her.
“No time. The race starts next week, and I’ve got my hands full, with Harry Frost trying to murder Josephine and a saboteur wrecking flying machines.”
“I thought Archie shot Frost.”
“Three times, with that little German pistol he insisted on carrying.” Bell shook his head in dismay. “I thought I shot Frost, too. He’s wounded but definitely not out of action. A Cincinnati banker reported that Frost’s jaw was swollen and that he was slurring his speech, but otherwise he was healthy, which hardly sounds like a man carrying a bunch of lead in him.”
“Maybe you missed?”
“Not with my Browning. It doesn’t miss. And I know I saw Archie pepper him point-blank. He couldn’t have missed. But Frost is a big man. If the slugs missed his vitals, who knows? Still, it’s something of a mystery.”
It was Isaac Bell’s habit to discuss his cases with Marion. She was an educated woman, with a quick and insightful mind, and always brought a new perspective to a problem. He said, “Speaking of mysterious misses, Frost himself apparently missed one of his shots at Marco Celere. An easy shot no hunter would fluff. I discovered that the rifle he probably used had a damaged telescopic sight. Yet another reason why I want to see Celere’s remains.”
“Could Harry Frost have worn some sort of armor when he attacked?”
“Armor won’t deflect bullets. That’s why gunpowder put the knights out of business.”
“Chain mail?”
“That’s an interesting thought because with modern alloy steel perhaps you could manufacture chain mail strong enough to stop a bullet. Lord knows what it would weigh. Some years ago the Army was testing so-called bulletproof vests. But they were too hot and heavy to be practical . . . Interesting thought, my dear. I’ll have Grady Forrer sic his Research boys on it first thing in the morning.”
Marion stretched luxuriously. “Are there any other mysteries I can solve for you?”
“Several.”
“Starting with?”
“Where is Marco Celere’s body?”
“Any others?”
“Why does the Italian lady I bought my aeroplane from insist that Marco Celere stole her father’s secrets while Josephine insists that Miss Di Vecchio’s father worked
for Celere and therefore had no secrets to steal?”
“What is Miss Di Vecchio like?”
“Startlingly attractive.”
“Really?”
“In fact, so attractive that it is hard to believe that Marco Celere, or any man, would turn his back on her.”
“How did you escape?”
Bell touched his glass to hers. “I’m immune.”
“Blind to beauty?” she teased.
“I am in love with Marion Morgan, and she has spoken for my heart.”
Marion returned his smile. “Maybe Marco had his eye on Josephine.”
“Josephine is cute as a button but hardly in Miss Di Vecchio’s class. She’s a pretty little thing, pert and flirtatious, but more farm girl than femme fatale.
“But ambitious? At least about flying,” Bell said, “and very skilled navigating flying machines. There are men who are drawn to accomplished women.”
“Well, love is strange, isn’t it?”
“If Marco and Josephine were lovers at all. Archie thinks she was in love with Marco’s flying machines. And as you know Archie has a pretty good eye for that sort of thing.”
Marion asked, “What does your eye tell you?”
“Frankly, I don’t know. Except she vehemently defends Marco on the question of who stole whose invention.”
“Could it be that Josephine is defending her flying machine more than she’s defending her lover?”
“That is very possible,” said Bell. “While Marco, I suspect, was in love with a girl who could afford to buy his flying machines.”
“Then everyone got what they wanted.”
“Except Harry Frost.” Bell’s eyes grew bleak, then hot with anger. “Poor Archie. Frost did such a terrible thing. How a man would load such monstrous ammunition into a weapon is beyond me.”
Marion took his hand. “I spoke with Lillian on the telephone. I’ll see her at the hospital tomorrow.”
“How did she sound?”
“Tired and hopeful. Poor thing. It’s a nightmare—both of our nightmares—only I’m older and have loved you longer, and I don’t worry in that same way. Lillian admitted to me that since Archie returned to work after their honeymoon, she was afraid every day until he came home safe. Darling, are you taking such chances learning to fly because you’re worried about Archie? Or trying to make up for what happened to him?”
“I’ve always been keen to fly.”
“But are you keen to fly for the wrong reasons? Isaac, you know I never trouble you with worrying about your safety. But this seems unusually risky. What can you possibly do up in the air if Frost shoots at her?”
“Shoot back, and finish Harry Frost once and for all.”
“Who will fly the aeroplane while you’re busy shooting?”
“I can drive it with one hand . . . Well, actually, to be perfectly honest,” he admitted with a rueful smile, “I will be able to drive with one hand soon. Today, I was hanging on tight with both.”
Marion extended her arms. “Can you demonstrate that?”
15
“WOULD YOU GIVE ME SOME ADVICE on that straightening-up-fast stunt just before you touch the ground?” Isaac Bell asked Josephine. The race was starting in three days, and he had scheduled a certification test to get an official pilot’s license from the Aero Club.
“Don’t!” Josephine grinned, “is the best advice I can give you. Practice blipping your magneto instead, and don’t try stunts your machine isn’t up to.”
“My alettoni are the same as yours.”
“No, they’re not,” she retorted, her grin fading.
“The wing bracing is the same.”
“Similar.”
“Just as strong.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” she said seriously.
The subject always turned her prickly, but Bell noticed that she no longer repeated her earlier assertion that Danielle’s father had worked for Marco Celere. It was almost as if she suspected that the opposite was true.
Gently he said, “Maybe you mean I’m not up to it.”
She smiled, as if grateful Bell had let her off the hook. “You will be. I’ve been watching you. You have the touch—that’s the important thing.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Bell. “I can’t fall too far behind you if I’m going to protect you.”
In fact, Bell had devised a defense in which he was only one element. Van Dorn riflemen would spell one another on the roof of the support car, easily climbing to their gun perch through a hatch in the roof. Two roadsters in a boxcar with a ramp would be ready to light out after her if for any reason Josephine strayed from the railroad tracks. And every day detectives would take their places in advance at the next scheduled stop.
A commotion broke out at the hangar door.
Bell glided in front of Josephine as he drew the Browning from his coat.
“Josephine! Josephine! Where is that woman?”
“Oh my God,” said Josephine. “It’s Preston Whiteway.”
“Josephine! Josephine!” Whiteway barreled in. “There you are! I bring good news! Great news!”
Bell holstered his weapon. The best news he could think of was that Van Dorns had arrested Harry Frost.
“My lawyers,” shouted Whiteway, “have persuaded the court to annul your marriage to Harry Frost on the grounds that the madman tried to kill you!”
“Annulled?”
“You are free . . . Free!”
Isaac Bell observed the meeting between Josephine and Whiteway long enough to form an opinion of its nature, then slipped out the door.
“Cut!” he heard Marion Morgan order sharply. Her camera operator—hunched over a large machine on a strong tripod—stopped cranking as if a hawk had swooped down and seized his arm. It was well known among Miss Morgan’s operators that Mr. Bell did not want his picture taken.
“My darling, how wonderful to see you.” He thought she looked lovely in her working outfit, a shirtwaist and long skirt, with her hair gathered high to be out of her way when she looked through the camera lens.
She explained that she and her crew had been trailing Preston Whiteway all morning to shoot scenes for the title card that would read
The Race Sponsor’s Arrival!!!!
Bell took her into his arms. “What a treat. Can we have lunch?”
“No, I’ve got to shoot all of this.” She lowered her voice. “How did Josephine take the news?”
“I got the impression she was trying to dampen Whiteway’s excitement over the prospect of her being ‘Free! Free!’”
“I imagine that Preston’s working around to asking her to marry him.”
“The signs are all there,” Bell agreed. “He’s beaming like bonfire. He’s wearing a fine new suit of clothes. And he shines like he’s been barbered within an inch of his life.”
MARION HAD HER CREW IN PLACE, cranking their camera, when Preston Whiteway lured the New York press to Josephine’s big yellow tent in the infield with the promise of an important change in the race. Bell kept a close eye on the gathering, accompanied by Harry Warren, Van Dorn’s New York gang expert, who Bell had asked to take over the Belmont Park squad for the wounded Archie.
Bell saw that Whiteway had gotten his fondest wish: other newspapers could no longer ignore the Whiteway Cup. The aerial race was the biggest story in the country. But his rivals did not love him for it, and the questioning, two days before the race was to start, was openly hostile. Forty newspapermen were shouting questions, egged on by Van Dorn detective Scudder Smith, who had once been an actual newspaper reporter, or so he said.
“If that detective has imbibed as excessively as it appears,” Isaac Bell told Harry Warren, “suspend him for a week, and dock his pay for a month.”
“Scudder’s O.K.,” Harry assured him. “That’s just part of his disguise.”
“Disguised as what?”
“A drunken newspaper reporter.”
“He’s fooling me.”
??
?Can you deny, Mr. Whiteway,” a reporter from the Telegram howled aggrievedly, “that the extremely short hop from Belmont Park to Empire City Race Track in Yonkers is a ploy to charge more paying spectators from New York City?”
“Is it not true that you could fly from Belmont Park to Yonkers in a glider?” shouted the man from the Tribune.
“Ten miles, Mr. Whiteway?” asked the Times. “Could not the aviators simply walk?”
“Or ride bicycles?” chimed in Detective Smith.
Bell had to admire how cleverly Whiteway let his rivals’ reporters have their fun before he fired back with both barrels. In fact, he suspected Whiteway had probably planned the change all along to draw the other papers into his trap.
“It is my pleasure to fulfill your expectation of some new sensation by announcing a last-minute change in the course. The first leg to Empire City Race Track in Yonkers will entail the competitors flying a full eighteen miles west from Belmont Park to the Statue of Liberty. Upon arriving at America’s symbol of freedom, the aviators competing for the gold Whiteway Cup will circle the statue, for hundreds of thousands to see from riverbanks and spectator vessels, and then steer their machines another twenty-two miles north to Yonkers, for a grand total the first day of forty miles. These brave fliers will use the opportunity to ‘work the kinks out’ while crossing two bodies of water—the treacherous East River and the broad Upper Bay—then fly up the middle of the wide Hudson River to alight safely, God willing, in the infield of the Empire City Race Track, where an excellent aviation field is offered by the racing course . . . Thank you, gentlemen. I am sure that your editors anxiously await your stories to put extras on the street ahead of the competition.”
He might have added that the Whiteway papers’ “EXTRA”s were already in the hands of every newsboy in the city. But he didn’t have to. The reporters were stampeding to the racetrack telephones, cursing that they had been hoodwinked and that the editors would take it out of their hides.