“It’s Rockefeller’s fault for cheating the poor man,” Nellie shot back.
“Father must have had a nervous breakdown,” said Edna. “It all comes back to Rockefeller driving him mad.”
“I’m sorry, Edna, Nellie, but what he did in Germany was much worse than ‘blowing up in anger.’”
“Would you accept him being placed in an asylum?”
“Locked in an asylum.”
“Where they would treat him,” Nellie said eagerly. “With doctors. And medicine.”
“Maybe lawyers could convince a judge and jury to see it that way,” said Bell, “particularly if he were to turn himself in. Do you know where he is?”
They shook their heads, and Nellie said, “No. We honestly don’t know.”
“Has he been here?”
“We don’t think so,” said Nellie.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s nothing of his in the car. We searched every closet and cabinet. Nothing.”
“How do you happen to be here?”
“We’re using Father’s car for headquarters,” said Nellie.
“Headquarters?”
“For the New Woman’s Flyover. Don’t you remember? I chartered a locomotive to move us to North Tarrytown in the morning.” And suddenly she was talking a mile a minute. The balloons, she said, were arriving from near and far. They were gathering in a hayfield she had rented from the owner of the Sleepy Hollow Roadhouse.
“For a dollar, Isaac, can you believe it?”
“I’ve met him,” said Bell. “I can believe it.”
She barely heard him. “Right next to Pocantico Hills! He hates Rockefeller. And he loves the idea of us soaring over his estate. He even persuaded the new village trustees to pipe gas out to the site—so we don’t have to generate our own, which is wonderful, it’s so much faster to inflate from mains—and he’s invited the women to pitch tents, and he’s opened the roadhouse baths to all of us. It’s a delightfully civilized campground. Excep
t for this infernal heat. But we’ll rise above the heat, won’t we?”
It was understandable, thought Bell, and a good thing, that she was hurling herself into the Flyover scheme to escape from facing her father’s grim future. “How about you, Edna? Are you ballooning, too?”
Nellie answered for her. “Edna got a job reporting on the Flyover for the Sun. The editor was thrilled by her Baku story.”
“How did you happen to find the car?”
“Easy as pie,” Nellie said. “This siding is one of Father’s favorites. It’s very pretty in the daylight and quiet. There’s never much traffic on the Putnam Division. He calls it his cottage in the country.”
“And you found no sign at all of your father?”
“None. Poke around, if you like. But look what we did find.”
Edna asked, “Do you remember when we were talking about my brother joining the Army?”
“Of course.”
“Look what we found,” said Nellie.
Edna said, “I was flabbergasted when Nellie showed me.”