“You’re the second one to ask me that in the past couple of hours,” Bushell said, bemused. “I just said yes to Lieutenant-Colonel Crooke, but why you? I’d counted on your staying here to help Gordon Rhodes keep things running steady while Sir Horace is at the helm.”
“Sir, I’d be just as much spare baggage under Major Rhodes as you are under Lieutenant General Sir Horace Bragg.”
“I’m sorry, Sam, but that doesn’t strike me as reason enough,” Bushell said. “There’ll be plenty down here for you to do, and - forgive me - you’re not having your command taken away from you, as I am.”
“Oh, I understand all that, sir.” Stanley looked as miserable as Bushell had ever seen him. “I don’t really know how to explain the problem to you.”
“You’d better try. Forgive me again, but you’re not making much sense now.”
“I know, sir. Part of the trouble is, you and Sir Horace, you’ve been friends a long time, and you and I, we’ve been friends a long time, too. But it doesn’t follow from that - ” Samuel Stanley turned away.
“Forget I ever asked you, sir. I shouldn’t have come up here. I see that now.”
“No, wait - don’t go,” Bushell said. His adjutant halted with obvious reluctance. Bushell said, “It doesn’t follow that. . .” His voice trailed off, though not in the same way Stanley’s had. He’d just been thinking about classical allusions. Classical logic had its place, too. “It doesn’t follow from my being friends with you and Sir Horace both that you and he are friends with each other. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes, sir,” Stanley answered unhappily.
“Well, I can see that,” Bushell said. “His family used to be aristocrats some generations back, to hear him tell it, but he’s the first Bragg in a long time to amount to much. In his own fashion, I suppose, he’s been almost as driven to make good as old Tricky Dick. It never much bothered me, but I can see how it might set your teeth on edge. Is that what’s troubling you?”
“That’s - some of it, Chief.” When Samuel Stanley used the more familiar title, Bushell knew a good deal of relief. After a moment’s hesitation, Stanley added, “Most people now, they’ve let go of those plantation days. Sometimes I think Sir Horace wouldn’t mind seeing them back.”
“If he has a successful term as RAM commandant, he may end up with a patent of nobility to pass down to his eldest son.” Bushell had a sudden burst of insight. “That’s probably one of the reasons he’s so worried about this case. If The Two Georges is gone for good, he’ll never be a baronet, much less a baron.”
“As may be, Chief. But I wouldn’t be doing all I should for the case if I stayed here. A lot of people can fill in for me with Major Rhodes. You, Chief, you’re going to need all the help you can get.”
“God knows that’s true.” Bushell stabbed a forefinger out at his friend. “What will Phyllis have to say about your taking off for parts unknown for only heaven can guess how long?”
“Phyllis knows about the trouble I have with Sir Horace,” Stanley answered quietly. “She’ll understand why I need to do this.”
“Which is still more than I do,” Bushell said. Sam Stanley sounded very sure about his wife’s views, which surprised Bushell; his adjutant usually left work behind at the office. If he’d been talking about Bragg with Phyllis, the RAM commandant was indeed on his mind. Bushell threw his hands in the air. “All right, Sam, you’ve argued me down.”
“That’s first-rate, Chief,” Stanley said. “Now: details. Do you want to go by train or airship?”
“Airship’s faster, at least up to Wellesley on the Puget Sound,” Bushell answered. “I’ve been making inquiries, as you’ll gather. They won’t fly dirigibles north of the Puget Sound: the winds make safe passage too risky. We go by train up to Prince Rupert and then by ship across to Skidegate. There’s an airship leaving for Wellesley at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, so I’ll see you at the port then. I’ll call and book another stateroom for you.”
“Very good, Chief. That’d be the Empire Builder, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, it would.” Bushell paused and gave his adjutant a suspicious stare. “You’ve been checking up on this yourself.” He laughed at how accusatory he sounded.
“Guilty as charged,” Samuel Stanley said, laughing, too. He abruptly grew serious again. “You’re going to want us to go armed, aren’t you?”
“I’m damned glad you think straight, Sam,” Bushell said. “Felix Crooke gaped at me as if I’d just grown a second head when I suggested that he draw a pistol from the armorer. After he thought for a bit, he conceded the need, but he never would have seen it for himself.”
“Not an army man, then,” Stanley judged. “You get shot at once or twice, you don’t want the other fellow to have himself a gun when you’re without one. I wish I had a rifle to bring along; going up against a Nagant with a revolver isn’t my idea of a pleasant holiday, either.” He shrugged. “At a pinch, I suppose we can borrow longarms from the navy chaps.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that.” Bushell reached for the telephone. “Go on, get out of here now that you’ve had your way with me. I’ll book that stateroom - and I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Right you are, Chief.” Stanley closed the door behind him as he left. Bushell called Sunset Airships, Ltd., and confirmed a stateroom for Samuel Stanley. Then he leaned back in his seat, put his hands behind his head, and laced his fingers. He took a deep breath, let it out. Almost for the first time since The Two Georges was stolen, he had a moment to think of something else. After a few seconds, he sat up straight again and unlocked the upper right-hand drawer of his desk. He picked up the pint of Jameson, looked at it, and set it on the floor by the desk. Then he turned over the framed photograph of Irene.
Her black-and-white image smiled sunnily up at him: dark hair, light eyes, wide, happy mouth in a pleasantly plump face. Her hair was cut in the shingle bangs that had been the height of style ten years before, when the photograph was taken. Even after he came out to New Liverpool, he’d hung her portrait on the wall below the print of The Two Georges until, at last, he could bear to look at her no more.
“Why?” he asked the flat, blank, dead photo.
Getting no reply, he turned it facedown once more. He picked up the whiskey bottle, yanked out the stopper, and gulped down a long harsh swallow. Then he closed it and stuck it back in the drawer, which he locked. The whiskey burning in him, he went back to work.
The airship port was cool and foggy. The sun might not burn through for several hours yet. The rolling mist now revealed, now hid the dirigibles at the mooring towers. The leviathans of the air reminded Bushell of the great whales of the Pacific, yet were vaster by far than any creatures of mere flesh and blood.
He pushed the baggage cart he’d hired for a florin toward the Empire Builder, which, by luck, was moored at the tower closest to the garage where he’d parked his steamer. Men and women were already ascending the stairway to the passenger gondola. The airship would depart in less than a half an hour.
A Negro clerk carefully examined Bushell’s ticket and checked his name off on the passenger list.
“You’ll be in stateroom twelve, sir,” he said. “Stateroom twelve is on the starboard side. Turn right once you go up the stairs, then left at the first hallway. Your stateroom will be the third one on the left. Here is your key - yes, this is number twelve. I hope you have a pleasant flight.”
“Thank you,” Bushell said, smiling a little at the man’s fussy precision. He handed his bags to a muscular fellow with green eyes, carroty hair, and a face full of freckles.