The Race (Isaac Bell 4)

Bell heard the unmistakably authoritative roar of a six-cylinder Curtiss. Baronet Eddison-Sydney-Martin’s bright blue headless pusher, which Bell had last seen floating in New York Harbor, sailed overhead, making a beeline for Albany.

“That man,” said Andy, “has nine lives.”

Josephine dropped the wrench and jumped aboard her Celere.

The boys stopped running and stood stock-still, staring at the sky. Two yellow monoplanes on the ground had seemed the epitome of excitement. But the sight of a flying machine actually in the air was more remarkable, and less likely than July Fourth at Christmas.

“Spin her over!” Josephine shouted.

Her Antoinette howled. The wing runners turned her around into the wind, and she raced across the cut hay and into the sky. Isaac Bell was right behind her, one step ahead of the welcoming committee.

BELL FOUND ALBANY’S ALTAMONT Fairground buzzing with rumors of sabotage. The mechanicians tending the machines in the racecourse infield were debating whether the wings of Sir Eddison-Sydney-Martin’s headless Curtiss Pusher had been deliberately weakened. Bell went looking for the Englishman. He found him and his wife, Abby, at a party in a yellow tent that had been pitched beside Preston Whiteway’s private railroad car.

The newspaper publisher intercepted Bell and whispered urgently, “I don’t like these rumors. Strange as it may seem, they suggest the presence of a second lunatic, someone other than Harry Frost. I want you to investigate whether there is a murderer among us, or if Frost is lashing out at everyone.”

“I’ve already started,” said Bell.

“I want constant reports, Bell. Constant reports.”

Bell glanced around for something to distract Whiteway. “Who is that handsome Frenchman talking to Josephine?”

“Frenchman? Which Frenchman?”

“The dashing one.”

Whiteway plowed through his guests to plant himself proprietorially next to Josephine and glower at the Blériot driver, Renee Chevalier, who had gotten her to smile despite her poor showing.

Bell joined Eddison-Sydney-Martin, congratulated him on his survival, and asked how his headless pusher had come to fall in the harbor.

“One of my chaps claims he found a hole drilled clean through the strut that snapped, causing the wing to collapse.”

“Sabotage?”

“Rubbish.”

“Why do you say rubbish?”

“I say it was a knothole in a timber selected poorly by the builder, though they’ll never admit to it.”

“Could I see it?”

“I’m afraid it floated off while she was extricated from the water. We lost several pieces plucking her onto the barge.”

Bell located the mechanician working on the blue pusher, an American from the Curtiss Company, who scoffed at the knot explanation.

“If it wasn’t a knot,” Bell asked, “could someone have accidentally drilled a hole and covered it over to hide the mistake?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“No flying-machine maker would take the chance. They’d own up to their mistake and replace the part even if it came out of their own pocket. Look, Mr. Bell, say a house carpenter mistakenly bores a hole in a board. He can plug it up, caulk it, paint it over, and no one’s the wiser. But a flying-machine strut is a whole ’nother story. We all know that if something breaks up there, down she goes.”

“Down she went,” said Bell.

“Could have been murder. The Englishman’s darned lucky they fished him out of the drink in one piece.”

“Why do you suppose he insists it was a knothole?”