Chapter Sixteen

(Scroll down for MotAE.) This week’s bookish theme is strong-but-imperfect heroines. Get ready for…

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Previously in Murder on the Aerial Express:

Isabelle visits Tess who is preoccupied by the storm. She then dines with Mrs. Jones, Baron Hoffman, Reimund, and Mrs. Darling. Reimund is cold to her, and she enters into a scientific conversation with the baron. 

She and Mrs. Darling return from dinner to find the captain waiting for them. He’s been tipped off that the missing murder weapon is in the chaperone’s room. Isabelle knows it wasn’t there when she went through Mrs. Darling’s belongings earlier but watches as the captain discovers a stiletto in one drawer. He escorts a shaken Mrs. Darling to the brig as she protests her innocence.

Isabelle knocks on Mr. Notti’s door to inform him of his lover’s predicament, but he doesn’t answer. She worries that she has the wrong door and tries the main entrance to the owner’s suite, which is ajar. She pushes it open to find Mrs. Jones kneeling over a dead Mr. Notti.

This was the second corpse Isabelle had encountered in the owner’s suite of the Aerial Express. The first had alarmed her, but it was also thrilling. Mr. Notti’s body lacked whatever charm novelty could lend to horror.

She supposed she ought to check if the secretary was dead. Unless…should she run? From Mrs. Jones?

“Er, Mrs. Jones?”  

“Lady Isabelle.” The topography of Mrs. Jones’s forehead changed, furrows deepening to ravines. Her knee cracked as she stood.

There was another woman in the room, several steps away, fist to her mouth, attention fixed on the body. She’d glanced up at Isabelle’s entrance, but only for a second. Taller and younger than Mrs. Jones, the brunette possessed handsome rather than pretty features, and something in her face pulled at a tangled thread of memory. 

Isabelle asked, “Is he…” The four-letter word dead got stuck between mind and mouth. 

Once, Pippa devised a mechanical mouse, a wind-up toy for a classmate who enjoyed playing with the school stable’s cats. Another girl contributed a bit of fur to cover the clockwork, and a third sculpted a tiny head, resulting in a shockingly realistic result. But the proper word was lifelike, not alive, and when Pippa tested it on the common room floor, the automaton zipped around until it met an ottoman. Then it stalled, gears whirring as they tried to move through the solid mass. Isabelle related.

It was an unfortunate time for mental tangents about corpses, automata, and various malfunctions. She regretted her distraction too late.

Mrs. Jones’s gaze drifted to the left, where muscular arms appeared, their owner concealed in the shadows. They grabbed her before she could react, and then there was a moment of sugary sweet suffocation. Before the world went dark, Isabelle thought the word ether, a recognition that helped her not at all.

The strangest fantasy played in her dream. Her best friend sat under a tree. Dense branches and leaves created a natural alcove, and Pippa rested against the trunk, staring at a little ball in her hand. “Was that necessary?”

To Isabelle’s sleepy alarm, the nut replied, its fuzzy casing splitting to suggest a mouth. “He panicked, and I can’t blame him.” It was a female nut, judging by the voice. 

Pippa-but-not-Pippa sighed. “I suppose.”

“Hugo barely gave her a whiff before you stopped him. She should wake soon.”

The dream dimmed, and Isabelle felt leather under her cheek. Did she fall asleep in the dormitory common room? Her eyelids fought their own weight, opening. 

Mrs. Jones loomed over her with a concerned expression.

Isabelle tried gathering her wits, but they’d taken her unconsciousness as a chance to flee. Sensible of them. She’d like to do the same.

“My lady,” Mrs. Jones said in not-Pippa-but-actually-Mrs.-Jones’s voice. “What are you doing here?” Something in her tone struck Isabelle as strange.

She said, “Ermph.”

“Give her a second.”

Isabelle turned her head a few degrees toward the other voice. One lamp tried to illuminate the space but gave up before reaching her. She could tell she was in the owner’s suite with two other women — Mrs. Jones and a dark shape occupying an armchair. The hulking figure who’d grabbed her had left. 

She flexed the fingers of her hand against the cool sofa, pushing next to her hair, but couldn’t lever herself upright. The air weighed heavy on her limbs, and she decided conversation could wait.

Mrs. Jones retreated from Isabelle’s side. “Why did Hugo still have the ether with him?” 

“I don’t know.” The stranger’s dress rustled against the chair as she shifted further into the pool of light. She was not a nut, at least not botanically.

Isabelle lingered in semi-consciousness until she fell awake, the gravity of her situation at last yanking her from sleepy unconcern.

Mrs. Jones noticed her tension. “My lady, you’re quite safe. This is my friend, Miss Turner. No one means you harm.”

“Mr. Notti…” Isabelle broke off and took in her environment. Yes. The secretary still lay on the floor.

“Paul is dead.” Pain and snot thickened Miss Turner’s words.

Mrs. Jones added, “But not at our hands. Why did you come?”

“Mrs. Darling.” They seemed to want more. She tried again. “My chaperone was Mr. Notti’s sweetheart.”

Miss Turner said, “I didn’t even know Paul was seeing someone.”

“I came to tell him that the captain has taken her to the brig.”

“What?” Mrs. Jones gasped. She and Isabelle stared at one another with the confusion of two people living in different stories that have collided.

“Captain Miro believes Mrs. Darling killed Julius Beechcraft.” 

“Did she?” Miss Turner clenched her hands into fists.

Mrs. Jones shook her head, dazed. “What do you mean? We know otherwise.”

“I refuse to credit the idea that Paul murdered him.”

“Julia, he left a note.”

Isabelle managed to shove herself onto one arm and into a seated position. At the movement, her insides lurched, ether-sick. She stumbled to her feet, waving off the help of an alarmed Mrs. Jones. She bumped into several dark-hidden objects as she navigated to the washroom. There, her stomach expressed its displeasure. Twice.

The women followed Isabelle, Mrs. Jones pausing to light another lamp. After a glance at the vomiting girl, Miss Turner went into the dead magnate’s closet, returning with a silk handkerchief. She ran water over the accessory and handed it to Isabelle. “Here. Use this to dab at your forehead.”

She nodded in thanks — albeit reluctant and indignant thanks. She hadn’t forgotten the reason for her sickness. Kneeling on the tiles, she pressed the cloth against her flushed face. “Shouldn’t we get someone, some help for Mr. Notti?”

Miss Turner said, “I’ll alert the staff, but it’s too late to save Paul. Another few minutes won’t make a difference.” 

“How did he die?”

Mrs. Jones cleared her throat. “It appears that he killed himself. He drank something toxic. The guilt overwhelmed him.”

Could a raspberry sound be solemn? If so, that was the noise Miss Turner made, blowing air through her lips, scoffing gravely. “I still don’t accept that.”

“The note—”

“It only said, I’m sorry. Nothing more.”

“What else would make him take his life?” 

Miss Turner rested against the washroom’s basin and glared at Mrs. Jones. She waved at Isabelle. “Maybe he felt bad that his lover murdered a man.”

There was a lot of information swirled about the room, and she was still groggy. She tried to sort facts, opinions, and wild guesses. 

Could Mr. Notti have framed Mrs. Darling but regretted his actions? Or had they worked together, only to fall out after the fact? Isabelle found that unlikely, given the tender scene she’d interrupted before dinner. 

Corrosion. Isabelle would need to inform her chaperone of her lover’s death.

“May I examine the note?” Seeing the women’s raised eyebrows, she added, “I’d like to tell Mrs. Darling of its contents. First hand.”

Mrs. Jones rounded and straightened her shoulders. “I don’t know why not. Can you leave the toilet?’

Isabelle consulted her stomach. It was grumpy but no longer in revolt. Mrs. Jones fetched a glass of water from a pitcher in the parlor, and she rinsed the worst of the taste from her mouth. 

Miss Turner and Isabelle retook their seats while Mrs. Jones retrieved the paper from Notti’s room. 

On her return, Mrs. Jones observed, “My lady, you still look unsteady.”

Miss Turner sighed. “Where’s the red handkerchief I gave you?”

Isabelle examined the square of silk. Forest green leaves covered it in an ornate pattern. Coppery veins threaded through the foliage, giving it a faint tint. She held it out, uncertain.

Miss Turner swiped the cloth and approached the bar in one corner of the room. She opened a bottle filled with clear alcohol, sprinkling some on the fabric. “Put this on your head. It works better than the water.” Her path took her closer to the body, where her eyes snagged. She blinked twice.

Isabelle accepted the green handkerchief again. The sharp scent helped her focus, and the evaporating liquid prickled on her skin. She bent over the note Mrs. Jones placed on the coffee table. 

“This was in his personal quarters?”

Miss Turner rubbed one of her temples in slow circles, eyes closing. “Yes. We found Paul where you see him. He must have staggered in here after taking…whatever he took. The paper sat next to an empty glass.”

The writer had ripped the page to leave only the bottom half of a larger piece. Isabelle frowned. A suicide note is a significant piece of communication. Wouldn’t a person use a fresh sheet? She’d seen stationery among Mr. Notti’s belongings — to say nothing of the ample supplies accessible in Beechcraft’s office.

She’d thought the women exaggerated the brevity of the note, but no. It said only, I’m sorry. And then the secretary scrawled his full name below. Paul Notti.

“Odd,” Isabelle switched tracks. “Mrs. Jones, what are you and Miss Turner doing here?”

Mrs. Jones’s formidable bosom rose and fell. “I start to wonder.”

“You started this,” Miss Turner protested.

“This? No, Julia. I wanted only to hold Julius Beechcraft accountable for murdering my daughter.”

Isabelle swallowed her multiplying questions, determined not to interrupt. She realized why Mrs. Jones sounded odd to her. Her American accent was mostly gone. Traces remained in the occasional word, but the broad Yankee tones had crisped into British English.

(Mrs. Jones, who was not Mrs. Jones, was too tired to perform. She’d played Cleopatra at Covent Garden, dying once a night for three months. But this was the most draining role of her career.)

“He didn’t murder your daughter,” Miss Turner said.

“As good as.”

“Many — far too many — people died at Rosefield, but you can’t call the tragedy murder.”

“I can call it whatever I like,” Mrs. Jones asserted.

Miss Turner remembered their audience and cleared her throat. “To answer your question, my lady, Paul is an old friend of mine. Margaret…” she nodded to Mrs. Jones… “and I stopped by to collect him for conversation and a nightcap. He should have expected us, but he never responded to our knock. We became concerned and found the door unlocked. I opened it and saw that the connection was also open. We entered and…” Her eyes drifted back to the corpse.

Isabelle might have believed this story. If men weren’t dead. If she hadn’t spied people searching the dead man’s quarters last night. If Mrs. Darling weren’t in the brig. If the suddenly British Mrs. Jones hadn’t mentioned Rosefield. If the Aerial Express didn’t employ Rosefield’s disgraced inventor. If she and Reimund hadn’t seen the disgruntled Hugo Black arguing with Mr. Notti. 

Hugo Black…he was present when she arrived.

Oh yes, she might have believed the tale if they hadn’t attacked her.

Or if she were an idiot, but she preferred not to be, so she kept silent about her doubts. She didn’t want the women to conclude they should drug her again…or worse.

“Are you well enough to return to your room, my lady?” Mrs. Jones asked. 

Isabelle nodded. She doubted they would tell her more and would feel better about the world with a locked door between her and it.

To Miss Turner, Mrs. Jones said, “You should go, too. I’ll fetch one of the staff to see to Paul, and you shouldn’t be here.”

Isabelle stood. She held the handkerchief, which she started to return. Eyes on its green forest pattern, she froze, several ideas snapping together in her brain.

She remembered how casually Miss Turner retrieved the accessory from Julius Beechcraft’s closet. Miss Turner, with the familiar features, whom Mrs. Jones called Julia. The dream of Pippa talking to a nut under a tree, trying to draw Isabelle’s attention to something she couldn’t reach when conscious.

A beech nut beneath a beech tree. 

Caution lost in the thrill of discovery, Isabelle said, “I think you should let your friend handle the staff, Mrs. Jones.” She locked eyes with the so-called Miss Turner. “After all, Miss Beechcraft, the ship now belongs to you, does it not?”

“Rusty hell,” Julia Beechcraft said.

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

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