Magnificent Devices 07 - A Lady of Integrity (19 page)

“Why not tonight, if you’re going to go?” Alice demanded. “Does anyone want to see the captain imprisoned for even a single night—and poor Jake for more?”

“No, but it is possible that she will get in to see the Minister of Justice tomorrow,” Claire said slowly. “I should think it likely he keeps bankers’ hours. We can do no more tonight, other than allow them to think they have outwitted us. In the meantime, I believe we have an airship to recover, do we not?”

“We do,” Alice said. “Though the timing might be tricky. It’s one thing to liberate the
Lass
. It’s another thing altogether to be floating around in the sky waiting for the rescue of my navigator without being spotted or even shot down.”

“Alice is right,” Andrew said thoughtfully. “Any rescue must happen concurrently with the flight of the
Lass
and the lifting of
Athena
with all its occupants safely on board.”

“I don’t see a problem with the airships,” Tigg said. “But the rescue has us back at square one. We are no better off than when we first arrived—in fact, our situation is twice as bad.”

“At least we know what the gearworks look like,” Maggie told him. “We didn’t know that before.”

“And there is more,” Claire said slowly. Now was the time to speak, before they all lost hope and sank under the weight of the impossible. “I believe there may be a way to launch a rescue attempt, once we know whether or not Captain Hollys will be sent out to the gearworks. And Gloria, I believe you must be a part of it.”

“I?” Gloria’s eyebrows rose right up under the wispy fringe that framed her eyes. “How can I be of any help? You all sound so dashing and determined … and I’ve been sitting here like a bump on a log all afternoon wondering how it’s possible for anyone to be so brave. I was quite serious before—please let me help steal the airship back.” Her voice took on a note of pleading. “I’m quite willing to get dirty, you know, and I can run like a deer. I took all the ribbons at school.”

“You may be called upon to demonstrate both those qualities,” Claire told her with a smile. “But perhaps not on the beaches of the Lido. No … Gloria … what I propose is that you steal not an airship, but one of your father’s undersea dirigibles.”

*

The profound silence that met this extraordinary suggestion told Alice that the stress had knocked Claire clean off her keel once and for all. And no wonder. Alice knew from hard experience that sometimes hope was all that kept you going—and when that was finally taken away, the mind did its best to stave off the inevitable conclusion that you weren’t going to win by substituting all kinds of crazy plans.

Which was clearly what was happening here.

No one had told Claire this yet, though, and Alice wasn’t going to be the one to do it. Other than bombing the whole prison to kingdom come and knocking the entire city into the ocean, Alice didn’t see how on earth they were going to succeed. But there had to be a way. Because the only other point on which nobody could concede was that Ian and Jake had to be rescued. And, she supposed, they would stay right here in this awful place until somebody figured out a way to do it or they died of old age, whichever came first.

“Steal … a dirigible,” Gloria repeated, as if she couldn’t possibly have heard correctly. “One of Father’s, out there in the Adriatic.”

“Yes,” Claire said, clearly pleased that the girl was following. “We will liberate the
Stalwart Lass
, to be sure. But before we do that, we send a message to the dirigible fleet saying that your father has requested you have the use of one—the smallest one—for maneuverability around the gearworks. Then you tell its captain that you wish to see the gearworks from the bridge of his vessel. While you do that, Andrew and I will come out of concealment and swim to Jake’s and Ian’s rescue.”

She smiled at them all, like a gambler who has just laid down a royal flush and is about to rake in the pot.

“Swim?” Andrew repeated. “From the dirigible, under how many feet of water?”

“Not more than a hundred,” his fiancée told him. “We will do as you proposed in the beginning, Andrew, and use the glass breathing globes and our rocket rucksacks. We free our friends and swim to safety, where Alice will collect us.”

Andrew stared at her as if she had gone mad. “Darling, I realize you have spent some amount of time thinking this through, but I must tell you that there are one or two tiny holes in your plan.”

“One big enough to swim a kraken through, begging your pardon, Lady,” Tigg said.

“But you said yourself that it appears the kraken have been trained to attack escapees at the surface. We shall effect our rescue in the depths, and return secretly to the Meriwether-Astor dirigible.”

“But we will be the only two with a breathing apparatus,” Andrew said. “How will Jake and Ian manage?”

“We will of course return to the dirigible as fast as our rucksacks can take us,” Claire assured him. “One can hold one’s breath for thirty seconds, if necessary.”

“And what happens afterward?” he asked. “With five on board where there should only be three?”

“We shall conceal our friends, and even if we are taken out to sea, the
Lass
can rescue us as we rescued Maggie in the English Channel not so long ago. I am sure Gloria would assist us there, as well.”

“Certainly,” Gloria said with no little irony. “I could say my friends were doing a little sea-bathing and of course the crew would believe me.” She crossed the room to Claire. “The kraken aside, dear heart, how are you going to locate your friends in the first place? You saw the size and the extent of the gearworks. There must be miles of cogs and track and moving parts.”

For the first time Claire seemed to hesitate. “I have not quite worked that out yet. But you do agree that it could be possible? You are, at the very least, willing to try?”

“Of course I’m willing to try,” Gloria told her, but not until a few tense moments had passed.

Alice found with some surprise that her chest was tight, as though she’d been holding her breath waiting for the answer. She exhaled, and it was like releasing her despair. When she drew in her next breath, it seemed to come fortified with new hope. With determination. And clarity.

“I think it could work,” she said, and even Maggie looked surprised. “We would need to coordinate the timing carefully—and needless to say, we can’t do it at night. If you’re going undersea bathing, you need to be able to see. The water is unusually clear, but we still need light—especially when you surface.”

“How will we do that?” Lizzie asked. “How can we send one another messages if some are in the air and some under the water and some goodness knows where else?”

“I can modify the pigeons.” Tigg released her and took a piece of paper from the sideboard. He began to sketch as he spoke. “They don’t need to be as big as they are. Just the bare minimum of gears, and short-range propulsion rather than the usual long-range. If I remove the container, all we would need is some means of securing a message to its structure.”

“Not a pigeon, then,” Maggie said, coming over to look. “A hummingbird.”

“Exactly,” Tigg told her with a smile.

Alice’s gaze met that of Gloria, whose face had gone a little pale at the thought of what she’d just agreed to do, but whose eyes had regained their sparkle. “Looks like our friends’ lives might just depend on you,” she said.

She should be glad they had even a whisper of a chance thanks to this girl. And even then, Alice wasn’t completely sure Gloria wouldn’t blab to her pa about exactly who she was keeping company with, and what they were up to. But worst of all was the prospect of Captain Hollys owing his gratitude to her, after she’d made no secret of her pleasure in hanging on his arm and dancing with him. That fact most of all was what stuck in Alice’s craw.

Which made her so annoyed with herself that it was all she could do to be civil when supper came.

20

Gloria and her father were staying at a different hotel, much closer to the Piazza San Marco and consequently much more expensive. When Gloria came down the steps in her most elaborate walking costume yet, Lizzie heard Maggie sigh with envy. Gloria had brains, it was clear. If a lady were going to a gaol to inquire after a gentleman, Lizzie mused, it was best to look as dainty and harmless as possible.

The yellow skirt was split up the back and trimmed with big black bows that held the two halves together. Spilling out from underneath was a modest fishtail train—just enough to sway attractively with her motion but not enough for people to step on. Her matching yellow jacket sported a black silk bow across the bosom, and her black hat was trimmed with a profusion of yellow and blue and green ribbon.

“Some day I’m going to dress like that,” Maggie whispered after Gloria had gone inside the forbidding doors of the Ministry.

“You’ll have to fall in love with a rich man, then,” Lizzie told her. They were concealed under an arch next to a church because Lizzie wasn’t going any closer to that building than she could help. All they needed was to run into the same guardsman and have him recognize her.

Maggie made a rude noise, softly. “I shall be rich myself, and not depend upon a man to buy my things for me. I shall be like the Lady.”

Lizzie had to admit this was probably the wiser course. While Mr. Andrew was famous the world over in engineering circles, it could not be said that he was rolling in gold guineas. After all, he still lived above his laboratory, and Lizzie knew for a fact that, while comfortable, his quarters were not posh.

Not like Carrick House, which the Lady had inherited, lost, and bought again with her own money, firmly tied down with legal documents prepared by her solicitor, so that no one would be able to take it from her ever again.

Gloria had not seen the girls as they trailed her to the Ministry, nor did she notice them fall in behind her when she came out half an hour later. It was just short of eleven o’clock in the morning and the bridges had all just settled into their places again when it became clear she was going straight to their hotel.

Lizzie and Maggie joined her as she was mounting the front steps. “Good morning, girls.” She smiled at them on either side of her. “Did you enjoy your morning constitutional?”

“Yes, we did, thank you.” Maggie smiled back, innocent as a rose.

“I have news. I assume everyone is in Claire’s suite?”

Indeed they were, watching with varying degrees of tension as the three of them came in. Wordlessly, the Lady offered Gloria tea and watched her like a hen watches a bee until she had drained half the cup.

“The Minister of Justice was unable to see me,” she said at last, “but he referred me to our friend the Master of Prisons, who was only too delighted to entertain me in his office.”

“Dear me,” Claire said faintly. “I hope it was not too onerous.”

“Onerous enough. I haven’t flirted and fluttered so much since my come-out ball in Philadelphia, and that was some time ago. But in the end I did what any woman would do who was not getting what she wanted.”

“What was that?” Alice asked, rather tersely.

“I burst into tears.”

“Well done, Gloria,” Claire said with approval. “Did it work?”

“It always does, you know,” Gloria confided. “Even with Father, who should be wise to my tricks by now. In any case, Signore de Luca finally spat up the one fact I wanted, which is that Captain Hollys is
not
being housed in the dry cells. He is being treated, not like a gentleman, but like any common criminal off the streets.”

Lizzie and Maggie looked at one another, eyes widening in horror.

Gloria went on, “I was there ostensibly as the captain’s intended—and the odious man told me with a show of crocodile tears as good as my own that the captain and Jake have been assigned to the same work crew, since it was clear they knew each other. And since Jake has been … difficult … their assignment is in the lowest levels of the gearworks. Where somehow their duties involve … skeletons … and the cleaning of dead creatures out of the works.”

Maggie’s face crumpled in a grimace of distaste. Lizzie’s stomach rolled uncomfortably.

“His intended?” Alice asked, but no one seemed to notice.

“Gloria,” the Lady said, “you are a true friend, to endure such a man in such a place.”

The girl blushed, and her color deepend further as she said, “I want to see them freed. Captain Hollys has been lovely to me, and Jake—well, I still want my chance to shake his hand and say thank you. In order to do that, I must throw
my
hand in where it is needed.”

“And we are grateful,” Mr. Malvern told her warmly, but the poor girl couldn’t get any redder, so she merely sat on the sofa next to Maggie, dipping her head so that the ribbons and plumes concealed much of her face.

“Our course seems to be clear, then,” the Lady said. “Andrew, how soon can you have the breathing globes prepared?”

“I understand there is an island in the lagoon that specializes in glass. I shall take the specifications and hopefully have what I need this afternoon. Then, I will join Tigg on
Athena
and while he modifies the pigeons, I will build the breathing apparatus. We should be able to launch our effort shortly after sunrise tomorrow.”

Lizzie knew in her bones that the Lady’s next words would relegate her and Maggie to the role of assistants on
Athena
, handing the gentlemen wrenches and staying out of the way. But even as Claire opened her mouth, Alice said, “If Gloria is going with Claire and Andrew, I’m going to need help at the impound yard—help that comes with sharp ears and sharp eyes. Lizzie or Maggie, I’d like one of you to come with me.”

Lizzie could have hugged her. Instead, she concealed her excitement and she and her cousin looked to the Lady, wordlessly asking permission.

“If Alice needs one of you, then I believe Maggie ought to go,” she said, and Maggie straightened in surprise. “Though you must do exactly as she instructs you. I will not have any more of the people I care for sent to prison on the bottom of the lagoon to pick through skeletons, of that you may be sure.”