Chapter Seven
"Sir, it is getting late," George whispered as he and William ducked into their compartment to hone their conspiracy. "Since the lounge theoretically closes at twelve midnight, why not just wait until everyone clears out to make your switch? Unless those four plan to commandeer the salon and stay up until morning,"
"Occupying the car until then is exactly what they are planning to do. I believe they will be staying there until this train arrives at Grand Central Station." William answered.
"The engine refuels and gets water in Syracuse just before the bar closes. The porter told me it only lays over for sixteen minutes total," George marveled. "Imagine, only sixteen minutes!"
William was disappointed the stop was so short, albeit not surprised at the efficiency of the train schedule. "That should be barely enough time for me to get off the train and into the baggage car, find and open the crate, sketch the device, then get back on board to figure out how to make a substitute."
"The next refueling in Albany is slightly longer because that city is the state's capital and there is more to exchange." George nodded thoughtfully. "Will you have enough time to use that stop to board the car again, secure the secret device and place the fake one in the original crate?"
William did not answer, busy visualizing how he was going to accomplish that. "I may not need to limit myself to the stop. If I need more time, I can ride the car to New York City and hopefully get off before I am noticed." This was the most likely scenario as he thought about the problem George pointed out. "The real difficulty is how am I going to get the necessary materials and supplies? I suppose I must be willing to cannibalize from the train itself, but then I have to get all of it into the baggage car without being observed."
George was silent, thinking it through. "Sir, if you wish to be unseen, perhaps there is a way. A way to get, um…material out of the car without going out through the exits."
William was a little annoyed at his companion's coyness. "And that is?"
"The toilets, sir! Essentially all they are is a hole in the floor of the train. You could drop things through." He brightened excitedly. "Or even yourself sir?" George saw the expression on the detective's face and quickly reached out both arms. "Well, sir, perhaps your well-built shoulders are too big," he gestured as if he were measuring. "And of course my waistline precludes me undertaking it myself, although in my youth of course, as a chimney sweep I could shimmy…."
"George! Helpful suggestions, please," William hissed.
"I suggest Henry, who is very slender you understand. If he puts his hand up above his head he might be able to fit down…."
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
"Miss Plummer, you win again! Although I know better, my pride wishes I could say you are cheating." Malthus Owen said this ruefully as he counted his points. "I seldom get the opportunity to play cards with the fairer sex; it seems you are schooling me in the fine art of feminine mesmerism. What else shall I learn?"
He smiled broadly at Margaret who merely simpered in return. "Mr. Owens, thank you for vouchsafing my honesty. However, if I told you my secret then I'd lose the perceived advantage." She accepted the cards to shuffle and deal.
Owens leaned in. "Ah…so there is a secret skill."
Beside her, her husband snorted. "Luck is not a skill, Owens. She is the lady we are each playing against, and lady luck is favouring Miss Plummer tonight." Thomas observed mildly after taking a sip of his scotch.
"Luck, Mr. Phelps?" she fluttered her lashes as the cards were cut, compelled to tweak her husband. Serves him right for thinking he was going to leave me behind again to worry, thinking I was of no use. He'd be lost without me. "I think not. Whist is a game of concentration and calculation." For her part, Margaret was having the time of her life. She found it absolutely thrilling to adopt a disguise: no longer a homemaker, wife or mother, but a vibrant, daring and independent person. She felt glorious! Twenty years younger and ready to take on the world.
"I notice you win the game as often as not, even when you do not win the bid for the kitty," Owens persisted.
Margaret placed each card in precise piles and smiled as enigmatically as she could, remembering how she and Thomas first met. "Indeed, gentlemen." She was not going to breathe a word of her strategy. If those two men could not see she was getting them to bid up and compete against each other—effectively neutralizing one another—then she was not about to let on.
Brackenreid let go of a belly laugh. He was enjoying the adventure despite himself. In the moment, it was easy to forget that an aristocratic, treasonous tosspot sat at his elbow, a concubine was in the corner seducing Higgins, and two foreign agents, one of whom was a purported assassin were holding hands with Murdoch's wife. I shudder to imagine how Murdoch would react if he knew. Good thing he is otherwise occupied. Margaret, at his other elbow and full of surprises, was making his own head spin. Her colour was high and to him there was a certain come-hither sparkle in her eyes, or at least he thought there was: too bad it seemed to focus equally on that bastard, Owens.
Throughout the evening the compartment door had slid open and closed as other gentlemen came in for a smoke or left for their beds. It was hard to hear over the piano din, but this time a rattling noise entered. Brackenreid looked up to see Crabtree pushing a cart. He had white gloves on and a linen towel folded over his arm as if he were a steward. After placing the cart by the bar, he approached their table and coughed politely. "Excuse me, sir. The conductor has a telegram for you." Crabtree handed him an envelope then proceeded to clear off used glassware and empty ashtrays as if he was readying the car for closing. Brackenreid opened his note as Crabtree moved off to another table. The contents mimicked a genuine telegraph. Not bad, he thought of the paper; Not good, of the contents.
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
Henry stopped singing long enough to wet his whistle and cool down a bit with a half glass of champagne. The warmth he was feeling was not entirely due to his performance. Honore's attentions were driving him to distraction, making it harder and harder to resist her. In his fantasy, she was waiting for the moment she would take him to a dim corner and have her way with him. He imagined that as the favourite of an exotic sultan she was skilled in multiple methods of pleasuring a man, the thoughts of which brought a silly smile to his face; and more heat elsewhere. He tried to keep his sweetheart Ruth's face front and center, but it was a losing battle. So lost in his daydream, he was not aware of any new arrivals until she nudged him and inclined her head towards the bar, murmuring that she wanted more champagne. He swiveled around on the piano bench to view George, who was over there straightening up. Grin in place, Henry took their empty wine bottles up to exchange for a new one and more ice.
"More champagne, my good man, for my lady and me." Henry said jovially, gesturing grandly around the room.
George had seen how forward Mlle. De la Roach was, and how much Henry was relishing his role. His friend's face was flushed and his eyes were shiny—scary shiny in George's worried opinion, and the giggle was outright disturbing. I hope he is not overly intoxicated. "Don't bury yourself in the part," he cautioned under his breath.
"What?" Henry responded, caught off guard.
"I said opening champagne is an art," George's repeated loudly, his Newfoundland "a" in the word 'art' quite obvious. "Let me prepare that for you, sir." He gestured for Henry to come closer, barely whispering. "It's in the last baggage car. You need to be ready…"
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
William had the wooden crate apart in less than two minutes—careful not to damage the sides or leave tool marks. Added to the six minutes it took him from exiting out a gangway, breaking into the car and finding the crate, he only had seven more left to remove the device and decipher what the machine did before needing to get out of the car and back on the train. His first impression was that it was a tangle of disparate parts, a Braun tube perhaps, with Zennneck's modification for an oscillograph. It was set up as a measuring instrument of some kind in a wooden box, powered by electricity. Brushing off all the wood wool, he appreciated a Nipkow rasterizing disc, a series of Edison bulbs, a nest of wires, knobs, what appeared to be copper cooling tubes and a kite-like receiver. In his mind's eye, he was trying to see what is was going to be used for. This really is marvelous… When the time on his watch finally caught his attention.
He shut his eyes. No, I don't need to know that now, I just need to know what it looks like and how the components fit together. William took measurements and made a sketch of the machine's parts from all sides, barely stashing the original device in one of his own crates and getting out of the car in time as it slowly started to move. He trotted along the side of the train, stumbling on a rail tie. That was all it took for him to lose momentum. The train was pulling away and going to leave him behind!
Stupid, stupid! I never should have taken that long, never should have cut it so close!
Feeling desperate, he grabbed onto the outside of the gangway and hoisted himself up, shoulder muscles bunching and straining the seams in his jacket. In the night, his black suit and dark hair provided some camouflage so that he was not immediately spotted from the caboose. Being on the train was good. Being stuck on the outside was not. The metal under his feet was slick and the rail underneath his fingers was cold. His suit did not provide much protection from the elements as he weighed his options.
He could hear music still coming from inside the lounge. Listening a moment, for the life of him he could have sworn it was Henry Higgins singing. He shook his head at such absurdity. Never mind. As long as the car was occupied he could not go back in that way. He was not looking forward to clinging to the side of a moving train for the next one-hundred and fifty miles either.
William craned his neck down the side of the train. He could see nothing in the darkness—no indication of the landscape. No knowledge of an upcoming bridge, tunnel or obstruction. How on earth will I get beyond the lounge car and inside? A jog in the tracks and a gust of wind slammed his back against the car with a whomp. Clearly, remaining out here was not an option. He wrapped his right hand on a piece of metal railing and reached out with his left foot for a toe hold. His shoes refused to grip, sending him dangling and his heart racing. Ouch! The jolt to his shoulders knifed sharply.
After several attempts, he gave up trying to get to the end of the car: The only way was up.
He inspected his perch on the side of the train for inspiration. If he could get to the roof of the car, he could (theoretically) make his way forward and reenter the train. William eyed the angles. Trying to jump was unwise. Instead he made the sign of the cross and muttered a heart-felt prayer, placed a foot on a protrusion to boost himself up, then pulled with his upper body to drag himself up and over the edge of the car roof where the wind buffeted him even more. He had no idea if anyone inside the car noticed a bang coming from above.
He sincerely, desperately, hoped not.
Apparently right below him inside the car was the piano—he could almost feel the vibrations considering his ear was plastered against the roof. Whoever was playing, it sounded as if the whole car was engaged in a raucous sing-along. William tried to stand up, getting on all fours then rising on shaky arms and legs. The wind tried to make a sail out of his body, forcing him back down, instinctively keeping low. He was definitely alarmed, wondering if his luck was going to run out. The consequences of failing loomed darker than the night. Treason. Needing to destroy the device-train car and all, inevitably causing needless deaths.
Courage, William. He sent another prayer this time to God and St. Christopher, gesturing another blessing, because luck was going to have nothing to do with this.
Below him, the piano rhythm pounded—something about taking a trip on an airship, accompanied by the incessant Clack, Clack, Click-clack…Clack, Clack, Click-clack, of the rails.
Trying to keep the beat, he stayed low and made one footfall after the other in what he hoped was rhythm to the faint tune. This was going to be the longest fifty feet of his life.
God help me, it better work.