Death Devil's Bridge (7 page)

“ 'Tis not as simple as that,” Lawrence said testily. Lord Bradford had invested a substantial sum in his training at the Daimler Works and would not happily let him go. Nor did Lawrence feel that he could ask it.

“I still don't un‘erstand why ye won't tell Lord Bradford ye'r not goin‘,” Amelia said now, pouring herself another cup of tea. “It's not like ye'r a slave, y‘know, Lawrence. Ye'r free to work where ye want.” She thumped the teapot onto the table with a stormy look. “Where we want. Mark me, Lawrence Quibbley, I will
not
leave me cottage an' me duties as ‘ousekeeper to live in Lon'on.”

Lawrence sighed. He loved Amelia, but she had a certain independence of spirit that sometimes made it difficult to deal with her. In this instance, her protective instincts toward home and hearth—a woman's deepest and truest instincts—were reasonable, and hardly to be denied. And yet, on the other hand, his employer's request was reasonable as well, indeed, many would say, more than reasonable. He had but to tell his wife to pack their belongings, and that would be the end of the matter.

Poor Lawrence. His happy and simple life had become wretchedly muddled, and he could not think how to un-muddle it.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a fierce debate raged over whether gasoline, steam, or electricity was the most efficient motive force for the automobile. It is d¡ff¡cult to say precisely why the gasoline-powered spark ignition engine, with all the engineering problems it posed, became the engine of choice, especially when one acknowledges that it offered no clear intrinsic advantage over steam or electricity. It is likely that many agents other than efficiency—social, political, and economic factors—were responsible for the primacy of the gasoline engine.

—IRA PISTON, JR.
The History of the Infernal Combustion Engine

 

 

 

I
t was a pleasant Friday morning, the day before the Harvest Fete and the motorcar exhibition, and Kate was seated at her Royal typewriter in the sunlit library at Bishop's Keep, trying to keep her attention focused on Beryl Bardwell's current fiction. She was having a hard time of it, though, for she was distracted by the memory of an encounter that morning with Amelia. Her new housekeeper, it appeared, might be compelled to follow her husband to London, which would be a great pity.

“I
told
'im I wudn't go,” Amelia had said dramatically, twisting her hands, “but I fear the worst.”

Kate put down Amelia's list of household linen replacements. “Would you like me to speak to Sir Charles about a permanent position for Lawrence? I count on you for so much, Amelia. And now that you're settled in the cottage—”

“The blessed cottage!” Amelia cried, clasping her hands at her breast. “Oh, the cottage, wi' all its roses! ‘Tis the dearest thing in my life, besides you, mum, an' this post—an' Lawrence, o'course.” This proclamation heralded more tears. “But it's not Sir Charles ‘oo must be spoke to, yer ladyship,” Amelia managed at last, wiping her eyes. “It's Lord Bradford. 'E's the one 'oo's determined as we'll go to London.”

Kate said nothing to Amelia, but she determined to speak to Bradford on the subject. And to Charles, too. When the exhibit and the balloon chase were over, she would corner both men and see what could be done.

Having concluded this much, Kate felt better, and went back to her typewriter. Her current story featured two intrepid women who adventured around the world by motorcar and balloon, solving various mysteries en route. This ambitious narrative was to be climaxed with a display of forensic virtuosity in which a certain evil genius was discovered through the use of fingerprints.

Beryl Bardwell, however, had a tendency to create plots that demanded more technical knowledge than the author herself possessed. In the matter of fingerprints, Kate thought she had found a way to test Beryl's assumptions. But where balloons were concerned, she needed help. She turned to her husband, who was seated in the leather chair beside the window, reading the
Times.

“Charles,” she said, “I need some information.”

Charles scowled. “The Kurds are killing the Armenians again,” he muttered, “with the connivance of the Turkish authorities. What a bloody corner of the world!”

“I need your advice about a
balloon,
Charles,” Kate said. “Can you tell me how big it is? What it is made of? How it is controlled?”

Charles spoke in a lecturish tone. “The aeronaut uses bouyancy to ascend or descend until he locates an air current that will take him in the direction he wishes to Sy.” He put down his paper and looked at her. “Why are you asking?”

“She,” Kate said.

Charles was blank. “I beg pardon?”

“Beryl is working on a new story, and her character is an aeronautess.
She
uses bouyancy to etcetera etcetera.”

“Of course,” Charles said, a smile hidden in his brown beard. “What a dunce I am.” He went back to his paper.

As he read, Kate studied his face. The close-cropped brown beard, rising to the high cheekbones. The well-shaped nose, the broad forehead, the nearly invisible scar on the temple. The laughter-lines at the corners of the firm mouth, the droop of the brown mustache, the questioning quirk of the eyebrow. It was a face she had come to love, although she had not plumbed all the mysteries behind it.

There was a rattle of gravel in the drive outside. Charles looked up, caught her eye, and smiled. “As to size and fabrication,” he said, standing and going to the window, “come and see for yourself, Kate. Charlie Rolls has arrived, and brought a balloon.”

A freight wagon pulled by a team of horses had stopped outside. The wagon was covered by a canvas tarp and topped with what looked like a giant-sized wicker picnic basket, turned upside-down. Charlie Rolls, nattily attired in tweeds and a golf cap, was dismounting from a horse.

“That basket is the gondola,” Charles said, pointing. “That's where your aeronautess will ride.”

Kate frowned, thinking that it looked very small and fragile. Tomorrow, Charles would be shooting thousands of feet into the air in that flimsy thing, with nothing to break his fall should the balloon spring a leak and the whole contraption fall to the ground—as had on occasion occurred, and recently too. But that was not something she cared to think about. She spoke instead of Rolls.

“That young man,” she said. “I wish I knew him better. There's something about him—”

“He's a charming chap, but rather a daredevil,” Charles said. “Knows no limits.” He frowned. “I saw him driving that Peugeot of his at something close to fifteen miles an hour.”

“The villagers think he frightened Old Jessup to death with his careless driving,” Kate said. “And Lady Marsden would certainly accuse him of behaving recklessly with her daughter.” She smiled. “Although to give the devil her due, Patsy is equally reckless. And neither Great-aunt Marsden nor Squire Thornton can do a thing about it.” Patsy's great aunt was of virtually no use as a chaperon. Patsy did exactly as she pleased, without regard to her aunt's objections.

“Roger Thornton?” Charles asked in surprise. “What does he have to do with Patsy Marsden?”

Kate raised her eyebrows. “Why, didn't you know, Charles? The Marsdens have virtually promised Patsy to him.” It had to be the antiquity of the Thornton line and the extent of the Thornton lands—and perhaps the reputation of the Thornton stables—that made the squire a suitable son-in-law. It certainly was not his person, or his personality. A sterner man Kate had never met, nor one so prone to sudden ire.

“But Thornton is twice the girl's age,” Charles objected. “And a man of violent temperament.”

“And jealous, into the bargain,” Kate said. “I saw him last Sunday at church, positively glowering at Rolls, who was down from Cambridge for the weekend and had escorted Patsy to the service. I can't think what Lady Henrietta will say when Squire Thornton tells her that her daughter has lost her heart to an itinerant balloonist.” She had spoken lightly, but sobered as she added: “He will, too. He is the sort to carry tales.”

Charles smiled. “Throughout all my life, Kate, I have missed these little nuances of human behavior that you notice so readily.”

“It's Beryl Bardwell,” Kate replied modestly. “She notices things like that.”

Charles laughed and held out his hand, his sherry-brown eyes warm. “Shall we give Beryl something to do besides worrying about Patsy Marsden and her suitors? Rolls's balloon is about to be unpacked and inflated. Perhaps Beryl would like to observe.”

“More than observe,” Kate said. “She intends to
fly.”

“Truly
^?
” Charles asked, and when Kate nodded, he smiled. “That's my brave wife!” he said approvingly. “We shall arrange a flight for you.”

Outside, Kate watched while Charles and Rolls directed the men to lift the gondola from the wagon and pull back the tarpaulin, revealing a neatly packed silk envelope striped red, yellow, and blue. They carried the silk bundle to the croquet lawn adjacent to the back garden, where Charles's gas-generating plant was located. When the balloon was laid out in its web of hemp rope, they connected it to a canvas tube, in turn connected to Charles's plant, and began the long process of filling it. Nearby lay the rest of the apparatus: the metal ring that would support the gondola, the ballast bags, the mooring lines and trailing rope.

Kate was on her way back to the library when she heard a great clatter of motorcars and turned to see a parade of them—four, she counted—coming up the lane. They stopped, and the drivers alighted and came toward her, led by Bradford Marsden.

“Ah, Kate!” he exclaimed. “I should like you to meet the drivers for tomorrow's chase. Gentlemen,” he said to the accompanying men, who were pulling off their motoring caps and goggles, “your hostess, Lady Kathryn Sheridan.”

Hostess?
thought Kate in surprise. When she had agreed to holding the motorcar exhibition at Bishop's Keep on the same weekend as the Harvest Fete, she had not considered that she might have additional duties as a hostess. Charles had already invited one guest—a Mr. Henry Royce, who was expected to offer some ideas on the electrical system—and they were planning a Saturday night dinner to which the drivers were invited. Now, it seemed that today's luncheon must be provided, as well. Oh, dear, she thought to herself, wondering how Mrs. Pratt would take the news.

But it was of no use to worry about Mrs. Pratt. Kate put on a gracious smile and was led down the line of waiting motorcars, polished and gleaming and ready for the grand day.

First was Bradford's familiar gasoline-powered Daimler, to be driven by a tall blond German named Wilhelm Albrecht, who wore a handsome Kaiser mustache and a monocle. The German clicked his heels and bowed over Kate's hand with a smile of supreme self-confidence. Kate wondered why, if the competition were so important, Bradford wasn't driving his own car. The arrangement seemed rather peculiar to her, and so did the mocking glance that Albrecht bestowed on the rest of the drivers. The man obviously felt himself much superior to the others.

Second in line was an elegant-looking Benz, with a Union Jack fluttering from a staff fixed to the side. It was to be driven by its owner, Mr. Frank Ponsonby, an excitable-looking man in motoring garb—khaki dust coat, goggles, and knee-high boots—with a cigar, a high, white forehead, and almost no hair. Bradford and Mr. Ponsonby did not appear on friendly terms, and Kate remembered the talk she had heard about the fierce competition between proponents of different automobiles. Perhaps there was more at stake in this event than she had realized.

The third automobile looked to Kate rather like a high-wheeled gig. In the back, barely visible above the rear axle, was a boiler, topped by a short smokestack. The vehicle was a French steam car called a Serpollet. The driver was Mr. Arthur Dickson, a very tall, painfully thin man with a delicate air, from Sheffield. “I am here to prove that steam is the best propellant,” he said, with a disdainful glance at the other cars. “And I shall do it, I promise you, or die in the attempt.”

Frank Ponsonby gave an unpleasant laugh. “Just see to it that nobody else gets killed when that flash boiler of yours explodes, Dickson, old chap.”

A vein began to throb in Dickson's temple but when he spoke, it was with only mild scorn. “The tubes are over three-eighths of an inch thick, engineered to withstand several times the operating pressure. They cannot possibly rupture. And as you well know, Ponsonby, where there is no accumulation of steam, there is no possibility of an explosion.”

But Ponsonby was not to be put off. He bestowed an ingratiating smile on Kate. “You are wearying our hostess, Dickson. Ladies hardly care to hear technical details. It wearies their intellects.”

“My intellect,” Kate replied loftily, “is not at all wearied.” She smiled at Dickson. “You believe the steam car to be superior to the petrol-powered vehicle, then, Mr. Dickson?”

Dickson spoke fervently. “Oh,
absolutely
superior, Lady Kathryn! The engine generates far more torque at low speeds, and hence there is no need for a transmission system. What's more, speed control is accomplished by this single lever.” He pointed. “In a gas-explosion car, one must simultaneously regulate the throttle, fuel mixture, spark advance, and gearing—a task for a four-armed genius.” He glanced at a glowering Ponsonby. “That surface carburetor of yours, Ponsonby—has it caught fire yet?”

Bradford took Kate's arm and steered her to the fourth motor car. “May I present Mr. Arnold Bateman, and his Bateman Electric?”