28
JAMES DASHWOOD CAUGHT UP with Isaac Bell one hundred and seventy miles west of Chicago in a rail yard near the Peoria Fairgrounds on the bank of the Illinois River. It was a sweltering, humid evening – typical of the Midwestern states, Bell informed the young Californian – and the smell of coal smoke and steam, creosote ties, and the mechanicians’ suppers frying, hung heavy in the air.
The support trains were parked cheek by jowl on parallel sidings reserved for the race. Bell’s was nearest the main line but for one other, a four-car special, varnished green and trimmed with gold, owned by a timber magnate who had invested in the Vanderbilt syndicate and had announced that he saw no reason not to ride along with the rolling party just because his entry smashed into a signal tower. After all, Billy Thomas was recuperating nicely, and was a true sportsman who would insist the show go on without him.
Whiteway’s yellow six-car Josephine Special was on the other side of the Eagle Special, and Bell had had his engineer stop his train so that the two flying-machine support cars stood next to each other. Both had their auto ramps down for their roadsters, which were off foraging for parts in Peoria hardware stores or scouting the route ahead. Laughter and the ring of crystal could be heard from a dinner party that Preston Whiteway was hosting.
Dashwood found Bell poring over large-scale topographic maps of the terrain across Illinois and Missouri to Kansas City, which he had rolled down from his hangar-car ceiling.
“What have you got, Dash?”
“I found a marine zoology book called Report on the Cephalopods. Squid and octopuses are cephalopods.”
“So I recall,” said Bell. “What do they have in common?”
“Propulsion.”
Bell whirled from the map. “Of course. They both move by spurting water in the opposite direction.”
“Squid more than octopus, who tend more toward walking and oozing.”
“They jet along.”
“But what sort of motor would my fishermen be comparing them to?”
“Platov’s thermo engine. He used the word ‘jet.’” Bell thought on that. “So your fishermen overheard Di Vecchio accuse Celere of a being a gigolo because he took money from a woman to buy some sort of engine at a Paris air meet. A jet motor. Sounds like Platov’s thermo engine.”
A heavy hand knocked on the side of the hangar car, and a man stood perspiring copiously at the top of the ramp. “Chief Investigator Bell? I’m Asbury, Central Illinois contract man.”
“Yes, of course. Come on in, Asbury.” The contractor was a retired peace officer who covered the Peoria region on a part-time basis, usually for bank robbery cases. Bell offered his hand, introduced “Detective Dashwood from San Francisco,” then asked Asbury, “What have you got?”
“Well. .” Asbury mopped his dripping face with a red handkerchief as he composed his answer. “The race has brought a slew of strangers into town. But I’ve seen none the size of Harry Frost.”
“Did any pique your interest?” Bell asked patiently. As he moved west with the race, he expected to encounter private detectives and law officers so laconic that they would judge the closemouthed Constable Hodge of North River to be recklessly loquacious.
“There’s a big-shot gambler from New York. Has a couple of toughs with him. Made me out to be the Law right off.”
“Broad-in-the-beam middle-aged fellow in a checkerboard suit? Smells like a barbershop?”
“I’ll say. Flies were swarming his perfume like bats at sunset.”
“Johnny Musto, out of Brooklyn.”
“What’s he doing all the way to Peoria?”
“I doubt he came for the waters. Thank you, Asbury. If you go to the galley car on Mr. Whiteway’s train, tell them I said to rustle up some supper for you. . Dash, go size up Musto. Any luck, he won’t make you for a Van Dorn. You not being from New York,” Bell added, although in fact Dashwood’s best disguise was his altar boy innocence. “Give me your revolver. He’ll spot the bulge in your coat.”
Bell shoved the long-barreled Colt in his desk drawer. His hand flickered to his hat and descended holding his two-shot derringer. “Stick this in your pocket.”
“That’s O.K., Mr. Bell,” Dashwood grinned. He flexed his wrist in a jerky motion that caused a shiny new derringer to spit from his sleeve into his fingers.
Isaac Bell was impressed. “Pretty slick, Dash. Nice little gun, too.”
“Birthday present.”
“From your mother, I presume?”
“No, I met a girl who plays cards. Picked up the habit from her father. He plays cards, too.”
Bell nodded, glad the altar boy was stepping out. “Meet me back here when you’re done with Musto,” he said, and went looking for Dmitri Platov.
He found the Russian strolling down the ramp from Joe Mudd’s hangar car, wiping grease from his fingers with a gasoline-soaked rag.
“Good evening, Mr. Platov.”
“Good evening, Mr. Bell. Is hot in Peoria.”
“May I ask, sir, did you sell a thermo engine in Paris?”
Platov smiled. “May I asking why you asking?”
“I understand that an Italian flying-machine inventor named Prestogiacomo may have bought some sort of a ‘jet’ engine at the Paris air meet.”
“Not from me.”
“He might have been using a different name. He might have called himself Celere.”
“Again, not buying from me.”
“Did you ever meet Prestogiacomo?”
“No. In fact, I am never hearing of Prestogiacomo.”
“He must have made something of a splash. He sold a monoplane to the Italian Army.”
“I am not knowing Italians. Except one.”
“Marco Celere?”
“I am not knowing Celere.”
“But you know who I mean?”
“Of course, the Italian making Josephine’s machine and the big one I am working for Steve Stevens.”
Bell shifted gears deliberately. “What do you think of the Stevens machine?”
“It would not be fair for me discussing it.”
“Why not?”
“As you working for Josephine.”
“I protect Josephine. I don’t work for her. I only ask if you can tell me anything that might help me protect her.”
“I am not seeing what Stevens’s machine is doing with that.”
Bell changed tactics again, asking, “Did you ever encounter a Russian in Paris named Sikorsky?”
A huge smile separated Platov’s mutton-chop whiskers. “Countryman genius.”
“I understand vibration is a serious problem with more than one motor. Might Sikorsky want your thermo engine for his machines?”
“Maybe one day. Are excusing me, please? Duty calling.”
“Of course. Sorry to take so much of your time. . Oh, Mr. Platov? May I ask one other question?”
“Yes?”
“Who was the one Italian you did know in Paris?”
“The professor. Di Vecchio. Great man. Not practical man, but great ideas. Couldn’t make real, but great ideas.”
“My Di Vecchio monoplane is a highflier,” said Bell, wondering why Danielle said she didn’t know of Platov. “I would call it an idea made real.”
Platov shrugged enigmatically.
“Did you know Di Vecchio well?”
“Not at all. Only listening to lecture.” Suddenly he looked around, as if confirming they were alone, and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial mutter. “About Stevens’s two-motor biplane? You are correct. Two-motor vibrations very rattling. Shaking to pieces. Excusing now, please.”
Isaac Bell watched the Russian parade across the infield, bowing to the ladies and kissing their hands. Platov, the tall detective thought, you are smoother than your thermo engine.