Chapter Twenty-Two

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Previously in Murder on the Aerial Express:

Isabelle breaks into Dunlap’s room, where she finds letters from the late Paul Notti. The secretary initially refuses to participate in Dunlap’s plan to murder Beechcraft but ultimately succumbs to Dunlap’s cryptic threats against Mrs. Darling. She also finds the rest of Notti’s suicide note, which Dunlap intercepted. The torn fragment — just a general apology and his signature — was part of a longer message addressed to Mrs. Darling. In the note, he admitted to his part in the murder. He also reassured his love that her (unknown) secret is safe.

Dunlap returns while Isabelle searches the room, but Reimund distracts him just outside the door. Isabelle escapes through a window and makes her way about the ship’s exterior and into another entrance. The storm makes this both frightening and difficult. After her return, she and Reimund share a kiss.

They didn’t look at one another as they exited the staff quarters. She couldn’t speak for Reimund, but the kiss left Isabelle unsteady. Her pulse pounded as the world slipped around her. 

Isabelle had experienced attraction before, but she’d considered the pressure akin to indigestion — an uncomfortable sensation best ignored until it passed. 

This blend of chemistry and intimacy felt different — not an object in her sensory field but a full recalibration of it. Added to her discovery of Dunlap’s villainy, her narrow escape from his quarters, her walk through the storm, all the events of the past days… 

Isabelle was so off balance that she dismissed her unsteadiness as mental, but the storm stopped teasing the Aerial Express and arrived in full. The wind hammered at the walls and shrieked through any tiny crack. She stumbled and grabbed at the wall. Reimund reached for her, but he tripped, bumping into her body as it rebounded off the bulkhead. 

He winced an apology and set his hands on her shoulders, steadying them both. “Where are we going?” 

“Captain Miro’s office.” 

“So you found the papers in Dunlap’s room?”

She almost answered “yes,” then realized he meant documents from the safe. “No. Dunlap jettisoned them, but I found letters from the late Mr. Notti. Dunlap blackmailed his former friend into helping with Beechcraft’s murder.”

Reimund whistled.

“I also found the rest of the secretary’s suicide note. Mr. Notti tried to leave Mrs. Darling a letter when he killed himself, but Dunlap must have gotten to the body first. He ripped off the bottom — the apology and signature — and planted it by the fatal drink, but he removed the rest. Mr. Notti claimed partial responsibility for Beechcraft’s murder and identified Dunlap as the mastermind.”

“Did he explain?”

“In part.” Isabelle told him how the engineer threatened Mrs. Darling to control Notti. She didn’t fully understand the nature of that threat or Dunlap’s motive. Her suspicion that the missing papers did not absolve him of guilt for Rosefield wasn’t enough. Everything she’d read implied urgency and desperation, not the preservation of the status quo.

She frowned. The secretary should have cleared up all this uncertainty in his suicide note. To leave lingering questions was untidy.  

No one answered their knocks when they got to Miro’s office, and the corridors were empty. 

“Corrosion and corsets.” Isabelle thumped the door again in defeat. Of course, nobody was there. Every member of the crew would be busy fighting the storm while passengers hid in their cabins.

“Should we sit out the storm in our rooms? Dunlap is as trapped as we are while it rages. More so because of his duties.”

Maybe Isabelle’s adrenaline lied. Could they afford to wait? “What Dunlap he realizes I have Notti’s note?”

Lightning ripped the sky open. The closest gas lamp sputtered and died. 

Isabelle needed to do something. A new lurch tested her stomach, and the idea of airsickness brought Julia Beechcraft to mind. She might not trust the heiress, but Pippa idolized the woman, and that would have to be enough.

In theory, they could take a shortcut across the nearest deck to the first-class cabins, but another burst of light and sound shoved that thought from her head. Isabelle gestured back the way they’d come. 

(Not for the first time, Reimund wondered if Isabelle would be the literal death of him. Not for the last time, he decided it was worth it. For a man who lacked purpose, there was something intoxicating about a person so full she leaked it in every conversation.)

“Lead on.” 

They reached Julia’s room, where mutters answered their knock. The door opened to reveal Hugo Black’s scowling face. Behind him, Julia said, “Rusty hell, let them in.”

Hugo didn’t move his hand though he widened the gap, making them scoot under his arm. Even Reimund cleared the the tall man’s overhang with ease. Inside, Julia and Marie shared the sofa. The tiny woman clutched her armrest with white-knuckled intensity and whispered in an Eastern European tongue Isabelle couldn’t name. 

“Sit,” Julia commanded. “This is the worst storm I’ve seen. You’re fools to walk about. Beechcraft does its best to bolt or tie heavy objects in place, but something or someone always goes flying.”

Isabelle and Reimund took chairs, but Hugo maintained his place by the door, his bulk seeming to hold up the structure rather than vice versa. 

Lightning struck close, and they saw the veins twist through the air. The floor vibrated beneath Isabelle’s feet, and she tasted the sharp ozone. 

Marie moaned, and Julia soothed her. “Relax. The situation is not dire. We’ve developed a system using the plants coming out of the Congo. It grounds the lightning and protects sensitive equipment.” 

Another crash. The only lit lamp went out with a hiss, abandoning them to the thunderbolt-interrupted gloom. Isabelle’s eyes gradually adjusted to make out broad outlines, though details vanished in the gray.

Julia took a deep breath. “While we sit, our new arrivals can tell us why they’re blundering about a dirigible in an electrical storm.” Her serenity splintered as she neared the breaking point. 

(Recent tragedies followed months of tense plotting. And those months followed years of frustration as Julius Beechcraft racked his child between filial love and social responsibility.)

“We know who killed your father.”

Julia hissed, bending toward Isabelle.

“I’m sorry to say that Paul Notti was part of the scheme, but Alastair Dunlap masterminded it. He blackmailed Mr. Notti and drove him to suicide.”

From Hugo’s place by the door came a torrent of foul language.  

Isabelle continued. “He even intercepted Mr. Notti’s suicide note and confession, leaving behind only the fragment you found.” She retrieved the damning half-sheet of paper from her pocket and extended it toward Julia. It changed hands with a crinkle.

“You have also seen this letter?” Julia asked. The question was aimed at Reimund. 

“No,” he admitted. “After Isabelle found it, we tried the captain first, then came here.”

“‘After Isabelle found it’...my lady, exactly how did you find the letter?” 

Isabelle thanked the dark for hiding her skin’s hot flush. “I searched his quarters.”

A beat. “Ah.”

Marie paused her tense muttering to snicker in surprised amusement.

“Why would Alastair do such a thing?”

“It must have something to do with —” Isabelle began.

Julia’s understanding synced with the sky’s flash, literal and metaphorical illumination striking as one. “Rosefield.” 

“That lying drunkard,” Hugo growled. 

After a long minute of silence — or rather, lack of conversation amid the storm’s clamor — Reimund said, “I still don’t understand. Everyone already blames Dunlap for the factory disaster, and you’ve given him a job. Would he risk so much just to land a better one?”

Julia sighed. “It may have something to do with his wife. Dunlap’s disgrace landed when she was most fragile after the death of their son. It broke the woman. I found an establishment in the country where she might...rest, but she didn’t recover, not really, until she heard our intentions to oust my father and clear her husband’s name.”

Isabelle remembered the empty bottles in Dunlap’s room. She pitied a couple who lost their child, but if Dunlap orphaned other children through drink-sodden carelessness… She had no problem holding him accountable for his actions.

“What will you do?” Reimund asked.

A weight left Isabelle’s shoulders at the question. It was Julia’s turn to do things. Mrs. Darling would be freed. Captain Miro was clear of suspicion. The villain would be caught and punished. Her part in this horror could be over.

“I’ll turn Alastair over to the proper authorities.”

“You will not approach him alone,” Hugo said.

“Fine. You may accompany me to the engine room once it’s safe.” Julia twisted in her chair, relighting the lamp. 

The storm seemed to move further away. Increasing distance softened the lightning’s edges, and the thunder no longer obliterated the conversation with peals. Isabelle doubted they’d be ready to move about the still-pitching airship for half an hour, but she could see an end to the nightmare.

Later, Isabelle would blame herself for letting her guard down. 

No one would confuse the explosion below deck for thunder. It threw Julia back into her seat and pushed Isabelle from hers.

The airship shuddered and tipped, and Isabelle realized this trip might kill her yet.

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

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