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Previously in Murder on the Aerial Express:

Reimund caught Isabelle sneaking out of the owner’s suite and confronted her in the late Beechcraft’s cabin. He seems interested in the contents of the man’s safe and swears that — despite their admittedly contentious relationship — his cousin could never have killed the man. However, he refuses to tell Isabelle the secret to which Heinrich alluded in the overheard conversation. After Isabelle calls him an idiot, he tricks her into believing they’re about to be discovered. She storms off, runs into Mrs. Darling, and promises to meet her in the dining room. In the meantime, she breaks into her chaperone’s room, where she discovers that the fabric found near Beechcraft’s bed definitely came from Mrs. Darling’s dress.

Isabelle toyed with the scrap of fabric from Mrs. Darling’s dress. She didn’t know what it meant — was it a sign of her chaperone’s guilt? — But something about the ordinariness of the object comforted as much as it unsettled. She’d always been a tactile person, and the slight abrasion of the wool against her fingers grounded her. 

A server showed her to a table for four, where Mrs. Darling waited with two strangers. Isabelle avoided the chaperone’s eyes as she introduced their assigned companions for the evening, the Macons.

For once, new acquaintances were a welcome distraction, but her enthusiasm for them dimmed. Mr. Macon was a rotund man with a flushed complexion suggesting frequent intoxication. He said little, and that only about his food. Isabelle still preferred him to his slender wife, Mrs. Macon. The lady viewed the world under a pinched forehead. She monitored her husband’s intake but barely ate, which, sadly, left her free to carry the conversation. Within moments of Isabelle’s arrival, she started dissecting their fellow passengers with greedy disapproval. 

Had they met the German baron yet? “My husband insists that the man is a scientific genius, but they dress so shabbily I can’t take them seriously.” 

Mrs. Darling murmured that there was no shame in falling on hard times, a more diplomatic response than Isabelle could manage. 

After the first course of fried prawns, she tried to relax. It wasn’t as if Mrs. Darling would poison her over dinner. Still, the Macons made her miss their earlier companions.

Her eyes drifted to where Reimund and his cousin dined. Their party included Mrs. Jones and an unknown couple with an attractive daughter. The girl’s cheeks pinked in response to something Reimund said. On the other side of the room, Isabelle stabbed her lamb before remembering that she didn’t care.

The other table claimed everyone’s attention as Mrs. Jones let out a carrying peal of laughter. Mrs. Macon shuddered. “I despise Americans. Terribly blunt and boisterous people. They have no conversation.” 

“I don’t consider sniping about people behind their backs good conversation.”

Mrs. Darling shot Isabelle a scolding glance, but the insult sailed over Mrs. Macon’s head, leaving her undamaged. Her husband snorted without moving from his hunch over the plate.

By the time the apricot and frangipane tarts arrived, Mrs. Macon had finished with the first-class passengers and descended to the second-class compartments. “I hear we have a noted journalist below. I don’t usually associate with such persons, but they say he’s published a novel. Not at all respectable, of course, but intriguing.”

After finishing his tart, Mr. Macon inched his fork toward his wife’s, but the woman pushed it out of reach.

“What is the writer’s name?” Mrs. Darling asked.

“Ulysses Aitkin,” Mrs. Macon said, never neglecting the defense of her plate.

Isabelle swallowed her bite too soon, the pastry scratching her throat. “Aitkin?”

“You’ve heard of him?”

“I read his debut novel, The Ironworks.” Isabelle appreciated the man’s mission, if not his heavy-handed prose. “I’m surprised to hear of his presence. He is — or was — one of Beechcraft’s most vocal critics. I believe he lost a friend at Rosefield.”

In addition to articles about the tragedy, Aitkin had authored the piece on the late magnate’s — and Mrs. Darling’s — home village, Edgemonton.

“Rosefield, yes, that business people were complaining about by the station.” Mrs. Macon registered the others’ distaste at her dismissal of mass death as “that business.” “Not that the accident wasn’t dreadful.”

In revenge, Mrs. Darling offered Mr. Macon her untouched plate. “I’m not one for sweets.”

(It had been two decades since Mrs. Darling learned to fade into the background. The intervening years taught her quieter pleasures, such as stirring the pot with an invisible hand.)

Mr. Macon studied both tart and chaperone, uncertain what to do with either. His wife removed the problem. She pushed the offered dish back across the table. “Thank you, no. We’re banters, really, though we loosen the restraints on vacation.”

Isabelle doubted Mr. Macon considered himself a “banter.” William Banting was an undertaker turned dietician, and his diet emphasized low-carbohydrate meals. When her friend’s parents began following the faddish regulations, Pippa responded by learning to bake. She applied all her engineering skills to a series of specialized ovens. The most successful looked like a wide-brimmed hat and cradled custards in a perfect steam bath.

After the meal, Isabelle tried to escape, but Mrs. Darling — so absent during the day — now proved hard to shake. She accompanied the trio to the observatory, though she couldn’t remember accepting an invitation. 

Mrs. Macon prattled about previous dirigible voyages as they walked, lavishing them with advice. Mrs. Darling seized the pretext of involving her charge in the conversation to suggest Isabelle’s far greater experience as a world traveler. This shut the woman’s mouth, and the chaperone glowed (quietly, of course) with satisfaction.

They reached the observatory. Glass enclosed the room but let in every passing draft, and Isabelle’s skin pebbled under her sleeves. Through the windows, she noticed the man she’d seen with Tess earlier, the new head engineer. He spoke to someone, their form obscured by an overhang, punctuating his monologue with jerky gestures. His audience shifted, and long skirts inched into view. A woman. Isabelle frowned and hoped it wasn’t Tess.

The observatory’s telescope resembled a brass cannon more than a spyglass. Mrs. Darling gestured for Isabelle to take the first look. She peered through the eyepiece, losing her breath. The stars sparkled, and the dimpled moon smirked down at her.

She ceded her place to Mrs. Macon, whose hand spread against her breastbone. Even her husband seemed less bilious in the night’s gentle glow.

Isabelle thought she might bring a blanket up here one night and sprawl on a leather couch, staring up at the cosmos. She’d never done so before, and she wondered why. The sight would be magical. For some reason, Reimund crept into her imagined scene, and she frowned.

Their party broke up, stranding Isabelle with Mrs. Darling. Her concerns about the chaperone had felt silly during dinner, but moonlight sent them racing through her blood. She excused herself on the pretense of needing the facilities and walked off. Her chaperone’s gaze tickled between her shoulder bones.

Isabelle needed to pace, but the confines of Tess’s office didn’t permit it, so she bounced her knees until her friend kicked her. The faint rattling noise died as her leg stopped vibrating against the workstation. She shoved her palms against her thighs, pressing her feet into the floor. 

Tess slid from her chair to pry the top of a box in the corner behind her. She withdrew a small kettle of water, a burner, and a tea tin before clearing space on the desk. The proximity to maps and charts made Isabelle nervous, but she offered Pippa’s lighter. 

Tess flicked it open. The flame burning, she stared at the contraption. “Does she realize how much money she could make with these?”

Isabelle doubted Pippa thought about money. “What do you mean?”

Tess rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath. “Rich people.”

Growing up outside of England, Isabelle never gained the habit of drinking tea, preferring coffee, but she wrapped her hands around the cup when it was ready and breathed in the steam. Her heart slowed.

Beside her, Tess examined her tea with a connoisseur’s displeasure. “I didn’t get the timing right.”

Isabelle took a sip and shrugged. It tasted like water and dead leaves to her.

“Well.” Tess shooed aside her disappointment with a flick of her wrist. “Are you ready to tell me what has you in a lather?”

“I’m worried my chaperone played a role in Beechcraft’s murder.”

“Because she knows the man’s secretary?”

Isabelle pulled the folded scrap of fabric from her pocket. “It’s more than that.”

The teacup clinked as Tess set it down, her movements gentle. She accepted the wool and stretched it between her fingers. 

“That’s from the dress Mrs. Darling wore yesterday. I found it in Beechcraft’s room.”

The material disappeared into Tess’s fist. “What were you doing in Beechcraft’s room?”

“I won’t let people accuse the captain of murder without trying to help.” Isabelle avoided Tess’s eyes. “I searched the suite.”

“Since when do I need to lecture you about impulsivity?”

So long as the rules didn’t inconvenience Isabelle, she didn’t care enough to flout them. She proved herself willing to try anything not explicitly forbidden by the captain, whom Tess worshipped since joining his ship at age twelve.

Beechcraft’s murder endangered more than Miro. Isabelle feared for her friend. In his sphere, Tess had meaningful work and power. Anyone else would judge her too young and too female for her position.

She directed Tess’s attention back to the fabric. “Mrs. Darling was with me this morning after the murder, but she never ventured farther than a couple steps into Beechcraft’s room, and I don’t know how she could have torn her dress then.” 

“Oh, this didn’t rip.” Tess traced her index finger along the scrap. “I work with cloth, and this was cut. The edges are straight, and there’s little fraying.”

“Why would anyone cut a random piece from the hem?”

“To make a patch?”

The thrum of the engines seemed loud in the contemplative silence.

Isabelle arrived in the corridor outside their cabins at the same time as her chaperone. Talking with Tess, she’d committed to this course of action. She took a moment to fill her lungs with oxygen, hoping resolve would accompany it.

“Mrs. Darling, please join me in my room.” She didn’t wait for a response but led the way inside. Isabelle turned the knob below the nearest sconce, and a pool of gaslight interrupted the gloom. She lit a second lamp at the opposite end of the room. The two women took seats facing one another, each in their circle of light.

“Isabelle?” Mrs. Darling’s chest inched forward as she contracted her stomach muscles as if expecting a blow.

She hesitated. Drifting clouds made uneasy shadows while she considered where to begin. She withdrew the article from her pocket. Mrs. Darling was not in easy passing distance, and Isabelle lunged, half out of her chair until her chaperone accepted the piece of paper.

“That clipping was on Julius Beechcraft’s coffee table this morning.”

“What?” Mrs. Darling unfolded it and squinted at the title. “The Price of Progress: Julius Beechcraft’s Iron Grip Strangles the Village of Edgemonton.” She skimmed the rest of the article. “I’m not sure why you think I’d be interested in this. All England knows the man was ruthless.”

“But most of England didn’t grow up in Edgemonton.”

Mrs. Darling quickly realized how Isabelle learned her birthplace. “You listened when the captain interviewed me.”

“Yes.” On this account, she was past shame.

“But how did you come to have this? You say it was in Beechcraft’s room?”

“Not when I retrieved it. I found it among the belongings of your old friend, Mr. Notti.”

“My old friend?” The echo was instinctive, not confused.

“Beechcraft’s secretary.” Isabelle cleared her throat. “The man with the best access to the sleeping victim.”

Mrs. Darling’s chin snapped up, the hand clutching the paper falling into her lap. “You can’t think Paul killed his employer.”

Isabelle said nothing, letting Mrs. Darling interpret her expression as she would.

The woman broke. Tears spilled over her lower lids. “Oh, that evil man. No good has ever come from Julius Beechcraft.” She shut her eyes tight, shoulders shaking.

After the long day, Isabelle craved answers, but she gave her chaperone a moment to grieve or vent or simply exist alongside her ghosts.

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

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