Bell drove to the Garden City Hotel to meet Marion, who was arriving from San Francisco that afternoon. The instant he walked into the hotel he knew that Marion was there ahead of him. Gentlemen seated in the lobby were staring over the tops of unread newspapers, bellboys eager to be summoned were lined up like tin soldiers, and the Palm Court maître d’ was personally pouring Marion’s tea.
Bell paused a moment to gaze upon the tall, willowy blond beauty of thirty who had taken his heart. She was still in her traveling clothes, an ankle-length pleated mauve skirt with a matching vest and high-collared blouse cinched at her narrow waist and a stylish hat with a high crown and down-swept brim. Her coral-sea green eyes outshone the emerald engagement ring on her finger.
Bell swept her into his arms and kissed her. “I have never seen you looking lovelier.”
“Fisticuffs?” she inquired of the bandage.
“My first flying lesson. I discovered an aeronautical phenomenon called ground effect, which made bringing the Eagle back down to earth something of a challenge. Andy and his helper will be up half the night fixing the wheels.”
“Was your instructor put out?”
Bell squared his broad shoulders. “Actually,” he admitted, “I taught myself.”
Marion raised one exquisite eyebrow and regarded him with the collected gaze of a woman who had graduated with the first class at Stanford Law School and worked in banking before flourishing in the new trade of moving pictures. She said, “I understand that Orville and Wilbur Wright learned the same way. Of course, they were busy inventing the aeroplane.”
“I had the advantage of advice from seasoned aviators. . You are regarding me with a strange look.”
“Your eyes are as bright as I’ve ever seen them, and you’re grinning ear to ear. You look like you’re still flying.”
Isaac Bell laughed. “I suppose I am. I suppose I always will be. Though what you’re seeing at the moment is also the effect of being so very happy to see you.”
“I am overjoyed to see you, too, my dear, and glad of a ‘love effect.’ It’s been too long.” She stood up from her chair.
“What are you doing?”
“I am standing up to kiss you again.”
Bell kissed her back until she said, “The house detective will be coming over to ask what we’re doing in public.”
“No worry there,” said Bell. “The Garden City Hotel just signed a contract with Van Dorn Protective Services. Our man took over house detective duties this very morning.”
“So,” she said, sitting back down, “tell me about the bump on your noggin. And this ‘ground effect.’”
“Ground effect prevents you from alighting when a cushion of air develops between your wings and the ground. Air turns out to be strong – stronger than you’d imagine. Essentially, the machine does not want to stop flying, and you have to somehow persuade it – like when a horse takes the bit in its teeth.”
“A flying horse,” Marion remarked.
“Apparently the effect is strongest on a monoplane because-”
“You must tell me,” Marion interrupted, “what did you see when you were up there?”
“Speed looks different in the air. The land didn’t appear to blur as it does beside a train or my Locomobile. It seemed to flow under me, more slowly the higher I went.”
“How high did you go?”
“High enough to see the Hudson River. When I saw it, I knew I had to fly to it.”
Marion’s beautiful eyes widened. “You flew all the way to the Hudson River?”
Bell laughed. “It seemed safer than flying over the ocean – I could see that, too.”
Marion marveled, “At the same time you saw the Hudson River, you saw the Atlantic Ocean? Then surely you saw the skyscrapers of New York.”
“Like spikes in the smoke.”
“You must take me up to shoot moving pictures.”
“You will love it,” Bell answered. “I saw a giant sturgeon swimming on the bottom of the river.”
“When are we going?” she asked as excitement rose in her voice.
“Well, umm, flying is perfectly safe, of course. But not yet safe with me.”
Isaac Bell was reminded that his beloved could be as single-minded as Josephine when she asked with a challenging smile, “I wonder if Preston Whiteway would hire an aviator to take me up?”
“Let me practice first. By the end of the race I’ll have the hang of it.”
“Wonderful! We’ll do it over San Francisco. I can’t wait! But you will be careful while you learn?”
“Promise,” said Bell.
“I refuse to worry about gun battles and knife fights. But flying? You’re out of your element.”
“Not for long. Next time I see the wind has shifted, I’ll land accordingly.”
“How could you tell the direction of the wind when you yourself were in it? Did you see a flag blowing?”
“I watched the cows.”
“Cows?”
“There are dairy farms around the park, and Josephine taught me that cows always graze facing upwind. They point true as a weather vane and are easier to see from above.”
“What else has America’s Sweetheart of the Air taught you?”
“Keep an eye peeled for emergency landing spaces. But steer clear of bright green fields. They’re too wet to land on.” Bell left out Josephine’s warning to avoid extreme movements that would cause his wings to collapse. Neither would he repeat Eddison-Sydney-Martin’s dry “I’d avoid blundering into flat spins if I were you, old chap,” or Joe Mudd’s blunt “Don’t get fancy before you know your business.”
Marion said, “By all accounts, including Preston’s fulsome praise of her, Josephine sounds like an interesting character.”
“Josephine’s a character, all right, and I could use your help reading her. In the meantime, I would not mind another kiss. Shall I instruct the house detective to erect a barricade of Chinese screens and potted palms?”
“I have a better idea. By now, the maids have unpacked my bags. Let me get out of my traveling things and into a bath. And perhaps you’ll come up and join me for supper, or something.”
“Shall I order champagne?”
“I already have.”
“SERIOUSLY, DARLING, why did you decide not to take flying lessons?” Marion asked later upstairs. Bathed, perfumed, and arrayed in a long emerald green peignoir, she patted the chaise longue. Bell brought their glasses and sat beside her.
“No time. The race starts next week, and I’ve got my hands full, with Harry Frost trying to murder Josephine and a saboteur wrecking flying machines.”
“I thought Archie shot Frost.”
“Three times, with that little German pistol he insisted on carrying.” Bell shook his head in dismay. “I thought I shot Frost, too. He’s wounded but definitely not out of action. A Cincinnati banker reported that Frost’s jaw was swollen and that he was slurring his speech, but otherwise he was healthy, which hardly sounds like a man carrying a bunch of lead in him.”
“Maybe you missed?”
“Not with my Browning. It doesn’t miss. And I know I saw Archie pepper him point-blank. He couldn’t have missed. But Frost is a big man. If the slugs missed his vitals, who knows? Still, it’s something of a mystery.”
It was Isaac Bell’s habit to discuss his cases with Marion. She was an educated woman, with a quick and insightful mind, and always brought a new perspective to a problem. He said, “Speaking of mysterious misses, Frost himself apparently missed one of his shots at Marco Celere. An easy shot no hunter would fluff. I discovered that the rifle he probably used had a damaged telescopic sight. Yet another reason why I want to see Celere’s remains.”