Chapter Fifteen

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Previously in Murder on the Aerial Express:

Isabelle interrupts a private moment between Mrs. Darling and Mr. Notti. Her chaperone admits to the relationship and to knowing that Beechcraft and Notti would be aboard, but swears everything else she told Isabelle was true. 

After a short nap, Isabelle confronts Reimund in his room. She again asks about the baron’s secret. His evasions lead her to conclude that his cousin’s stolen correspondence were part of a male-male love affair. Reimund is upset that she refused to leave the matter alone and asks her to leave.

Isabelle’s indignation drove her to Tess’s office. Instead of knocking, she tapped one fingernail against the glass. 

The navigator’s eyes slid from the logbook in front. Bright lamps warmed the room, making it harder to see through the deep gray outside. She squinted, and Isabelle leaned closer to the window. Recognizing her, Tess cocked her head in invitation.

The office was well-lit but neither warm nor snug. Wind whistled as it rushed through the cracks, and Tess pointed at a chest by the door with her pen and returned to her work. Isabelle rummaged, rejecting a toddler-sized quilt and a purple muffler before choosing a tan afghan. She clutched it around her and settled into the guest chair. The scent of cedar lingered in the wool, fighting the note of mildew.

At last, Tess punctuated her thought and dropped the pen in its well. She spun to face Isabelle. Strain tugged at the corners of her eyes and between her brows. 

She forgot her annoyance in concern. “Are you alright? You look dreadful.” 

“As always, you flatter me.”

“Is it the captain? Or Beechcraft’s death?” Confusing progress, but the biggest alchemical breakthroughs happened right when a girl was ready to tear her hair. Why shouldn’t it be the same for murder mysteries?

Tess swore. “Corrosion, I’d all but forgotten all that. Don’t give me that look. This storm has demanded all of my brain. Every time I think we’ve pulled ahead, it catches up, determined to tug the ship off course.”

“It’s that bad?” The atmosphere’s zing hadn’t worried her. The Aerial Express was the finest airship in the skies, a masterpiece of engineering steered by experts. Tess’s expression reminded her of the dirigible’s relative smallness in the never-ending sky.

Tess bobbed her head yes, the movement jerky and tense. It was a measure of trust that she admitted the danger, but Isabelle knew better than to alarm the passengers. 

“Should I leave you to wrestle in peace?”

“No.” She tapped her notes. “I can spare a few moments. Did you need something?”

Next to Tess’s struggle to keep them aloft, Isabelle’s hurt feelings seemed frivolous. 

“Tell me this isn’t about your foolish investigation.” She grimaced and spanned her temples with one hand, pressing on either side. “Forgive me. That was unjust. I know you worry about Miro.”

True, Isabelle wanted to help her friend, but that was no longer the whole of it. She felt as if someone had stolen into her bedroom and rearranged all her belongings. Things were out of place, and their wrongness prodded at her compulsive need to organize her universe. 

“It’s more about Reimund. I confronted him about his cousin’s secrets and Beechcraft’s blackmail.”

“Beechcraft was blackmailing the baron? I wish that surprised me.” 

“You knew about the man’s extortion?”

“Not specifically,” Tess said. “But he was ruthless. Think of Beechcraft’s determination to monopolize the skies. He didn’t care about the good men, like Captain Miro, that he drove out of business.”

Isabelle waited for her to ask for details. Shadows flickered, and a gust toppled an unseen object outside. At length, she volunteered, “The baron took a lover, a male lover.”

“Is that so?” She frowned. “Why are you telling me this? Is it because you know my preferences run against tradition?”

(Tess had confided in Isabelle a few years earlier, expecting rejection or fear. Instead, Isabelle secured her place in the girl’s heart. She’d considered the new information for a second, then said, “That must be hard for you sometimes.”)

“I wish you hadn’t told me, Isabelle. Secrets become less safe with every person who knows, and Germany is not a good country to live these days. Not for people like the baron. Not since its unification.” Tess broke off the stare and nudged a nearby dial with her pinkie finger. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I should focus.”

“I’ll go.” She took her time folding the afghan and replacing it inside the chest. She stood by the door. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t owe me an apology.” Tess’s attention snapped back to Isabelle like an overextended rubber band. “Unless you’ve spilled my secrets, too?” 

“I would never —”

Tess crinkled her nose in self-reproach. “I know you wouldn’t.” She smiled, tired but real, before hunching over her worktable.

Isabelle walked back to her cabin, cursing her loose lips, the oncoming storm, and the myriad idiocies that made society treacherous.

Mrs. Darling and Isabelle entered the dining room to find Mrs. Jones waiting with the Germans. She waved them to the table. 

Isabelle dragged her feet, but her chaperone either didn’t notice her reluctance or ignored it. Was this revenge for the earlier interruption?

(Yes, it was. Mrs. Darling would have been surprised that Isabelle recognized the subtle vengeance.)

“Thank heavens you two appeared. Our group was lopsided — and in the wrong direction. For the sake of conversation, it’s always better to have too many females.” Mrs. Jones winked. “Not that I couldn’t manage the gentlemen.”

“My dear Mrs. Jones,” Baron Hoffman said, “we only hope the other ladies will have a civilizing effect on you.” He raised his glass to the American, who laughed in delight.

Reimund greeted Isabelle with a chilly nod, ignoring her apologetic smile. 

The baron controlled the night’s initial conversation. He beamed at Mrs. Darling and proceeded to entertain the rest with the pair’s misadventures at shuffleboard. The lady insisted his only mistake was burdening himself with the wrong partner.

Mrs. Jones pouted over missing the fun. She’d lazed away the hours with a book. She didn’t mention her interactions with Dr. Chakraborty. Nor did Isabelle raise the subject. She was too wary of inspiring a catalog of Mr. Jones’s medical woes and home remedies.

The waiter removed their vichyssoise, setting down dishes of curried lobster with rice. 

Isabelle turned to the baron, and Reimund’s jaw tightened. His fork clattered onto his plate, a morsel of food still caught in its tines.

Her spine went rigid. The idiot boy couldn’t believe that she’d expose his cousin’s private affairs over dinner. Stiff, she said, “Baron Hoffman, I hear you are a noted inventor.”

He crinkled his forehead. “You’re kind to say so. I would call myself more of a hobbyist.”

Despite his discomfort with the interaction, Reimund wouldn’t let his cousin dismiss his accomplishments. “Nonsense, Heinrich. No other designs come close to your process of lignite extraction.”

The baron shrugged, but he took pride in his achievements. He sipped his wine, the deep color tinting the corner of his mouth. “The secret is in the drying. For lignite to serve as an efficient source of energy, it needs to be dry. Most fields put their product through extensive — and expensive — treatments post-extraction. My father first had the idea of harnessing sun and wind power to burn off some of the water we remove with the pumps.”

Isabelle interrogated him about his mines’ solar components until the others fidgeted with boredom. Hoffman’s initial replies were vague and polite, but he grew animated as her questions revealed genuine interest. Even Reimund relaxed, and his eyes softened with fondness at his cousin’s enthusiasm.

When she leaned back, Isabelle realized how close she’d come to dipping her chains in sauce. Scientific curiosity had pulled her forward over her plate. While the staff attended to their plates, she scanned the room.

Most groups picked at their meals, their moods somber. No longer distracted by the tournament, they thought of Beechcraft’s death, interrupted plans, and ominous weather. Even the insufferable Mrs. Macon held her tongue as she sliced her portion into smaller and smaller pieces.

Not thinking, Isabelle said, “Now that Julius Beechcraft is dead, I hope your schematics will find the recognition they deserve.”

In her opinion, everyone overreacted to this innocent observation. Mrs. Darling choked, Mrs. Jones stilled, Reimund scowled, and the baron stopped breathing.

Hoffman cleared his throat. “Perhaps. One never knows.”

Mrs. Jones tried to resurrect the conversation, but it stayed buried under isolating thoughts. The Grand Marnier soufflé deserved better than anyone could muster, and the servers whisked away full ramekins.

When they returned from dinner, Isabelle and Mrs. Darling found Captain Miro waiting outside their doors, accompanied by a heavyset porter she didn’t recognize. The captain fixed a grim gaze on the chaperone, who stumbled, her mind telling her feet to flee too late. Instead, she walked forward, eyes wide as she stopped in front of Miro.

Miro addressed Isabelle first. “I’m afraid we must search your companion’s rooms.”

“Why?”

“I received a tip a little while earlier. Someone suggested that I look for the missing murder weapon — the dagger that killed Julius Beechcraft — in Mrs. Darling’s wardrobe.”

“You won’t find it.” Isabelle knew this for a fact. Only the day before, she’d rifled through its drawers. So why did she feel uneasy?

Captain Miro’s voice was gentle. “Indeed, I hope not.”

“I want to be present.”

He paused, hand on the knob. “Isabelle, you can’t think I would tamper with her belongings?”

As Isabelle scrambled for an excuse, the porter’s features stretched, a smile hugging his crooked nose. “I, too, promise to behave, my lady.”

“Better that I should accompany the captain. As someone who has been in the room, I might notice if anything has been disturbed.”

Miro cracked his neck before pushing the door open, gesturing inside with self-conscious patience. “Fine.” He ordered the porter. “The two of you stay out here.”

The man nodded, and Mrs. Darling squeezed her eyes closed, one hand against the wall.

No one had pulled out the bed yet. Miro didn’t speak as he rotated the switches beneath the room’s lamps. The soft hiss of gas preceded a spectral glow. Isabelle perched on the chair to watch, rubbing the back of her neck.

Miro opened the wardrobe. He brushed through Mrs. Darling’s hanging garments, patting the pieces and feeling for pockets, then went to the narrow set of drawers. He tugged at each pull with two fingers.

The dagger was in the second-to-last drawer.

The captain crouched, his derriere bumping the sofa, and Isabelle rose to hover over him. Miro leaned to his right, meeting her eyes over his shoulder and tapping. A blade poked out from a stack of handkerchiefs, the metal interrupting crisp white pleats. 

Captain Miro withdrew the knife. 

Drawn by their activity, Mrs. Darling gasped in the entrance. 

Isabelle touched the folded blade dangling from her necklace. The dagger was a different sort of object. No one could mistake it for a simple tool. Miro held it to the light, which flitted across the wicked edge and down the ebony hilt. A crossguard separated the two, its sole purpose to protect the hand as it stabbed and slashed. The perpendicular bar would impede less violent tasks. 

She chewed the inside of her mouth. Where was the dagger’s sheath? No one would carry such a thing unprotected.

It hadn’t been there yesterday. Mrs. Darling could have placed it since, but where would she have hidden the weapon before? Someone must have planted the dagger while the woman was out. Locks, Isabelle knew, were not infallible.

She asked, “What will you do now?”

Captain Miro used his free hand to steal a square of white linen. He shook out the folds and draped it with care, concealing the knife from onlookers. “The ship has a brig, though we mostly use it for storage. Your chaperone will spend the rest of the trip there. In Venice, we will relinquish her to the constables.”

“Why not confine her here, in her cabin?” 

The captain’s glance was incredulous, and he struggled to moderate his tone. “I’m not leaving a suspected murderer in the room connecting yours, Isabelle.”

She grimaced but conceded the point. “You will make Mrs. Darling comfortable?” 

Miro turned toward the pale chaperone. “My word on it. Mrs. Darling, the staff will see to your needs. You may bring a small bag, though I should check the contents.”

The woman swayed but remained standing, saying nothing. “I didn’t…dear heaven….” Her eyes grabbed at her charge. “Isabelle…I don’t understand.” 

“Relax. I’m sure everything will clear up soon.”

Mrs. Darling laughed bitterly at the lie.

“Why don’t I pack for you?” When no response came, Isabelle did just that. She placed a robe, toiletries, and clean undergarments in a satchel as the others waited. There was enough space left for a book, and she retrieved a novel from the nightstand.

Miro approved the bag. “Mrs. Darling, I assume we don’t need to force you to accompany us.” 

The porter took the woman’s arm, more for support than restraint.

“I will come with you and see her settled.”

“No,” the captain said, ignoring her glower. “The hour is late. You may check on her in the morning.”

The men shepherded their sleepwalking charge down the corridor as a handful of passengers watched.

Fingers clumsy, Isabelle unlocked her door and slipped inside to hide from gossip and questions. The wood was solid at her back, and she leaned against it for a long moment. 

Isabelle needed to tell Paul Notti about Mrs. Darling’s predicament. She wasn’t sure she trusted the man, but he seemed to care for the woman. He might know what to do. 

When she judged the coast clear, she left, passing the main entrance to the owner’s suite. The next door should belong to the secretary’s tiny compartment. 

Isabelle knocked. Her chest felt tight, and she drew in some air. There was no answer, so she knocked again.

The area between her shoulders prickled, and she instructed her nerves to stop misfiring.

Still, no one answered. Could Isabelle have misremembered the location of the secretary’s room? She backtracked and raised her arm to rap at the first door, hoping Mr. Notti would hear.

A sliver of shadow traced the jamb. The door was ajar. She let her hand fall against it in a push rather than a knock, and it swung open. 

Isabelle gaped, trying to make sense of the figures in front of her, but the sheer absurdity of the situation defeated her.

Mrs. Jones looked up as the corridor’s light struck her. She blinked before returning her focus to the body. 

Isabelle had found Mr. Notti. He lay on the floor of his employer’s suite, dead or unconscious, the American widow crouching over him.

Corrosion and bloody corsets.

That’s it for this chapter! See you next week.

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