Death Devil's Bridge by Robin Paige Page B

dawn, Lawrence Quibbley was fagged. Understandably so, since Mr. Rolls had put him in charge of inflating the balloon and Sir Charles had made him responsible for the plant that was producing the gas—two not-inconsiderable tasks.
    Since yesterday, Lawrence and Thompson, the gardener, had tended the gas plant’s three retorts, fueling them in rotation. Every nine hours, they opened the iron door of one of the ten-foot-long brick chambers, stepping back from the flash of flame and the pop! of the remaining hydrogen and methane igniting in the air. The intense heat of the furnace had reduced the coal to a bright orange-red layer of coke, which they scooped with long-handled shovels into the combustion-chamber below. They reloaded the retort with fresh coal and closed the door, retreating to a cooler spot to wipe the sweat from their faces, Thompson complaining mightily that he had hired on to tend roses in the sunshine, not to stoke a gas-plant by moonlight. It had taken a half bottle of whisky to soothe the man’s ruffled spirit.
    Thompson hadn’t been Lawrence’s only problem. There had been one or two difficulties with the Daimler, which he’d been required to attend to. Then the balloon—that unfamiliar and rather unwieldy object—had caused him some concern when one of its seams had sprung a leak.
    But for all his bone-weariness, Lawrence was exhilarated. Looking up into the misty predawn sky, he could see that the balloon was already tugging at its mooring lines. By ten A.M., the scheduled time of ascent, the fog would have burned away, the balloon would have reached its functional capacity, fully capable of lifting its team of aeronauts into the heavens.
    On the other matter under his consideration, Lawrence was not quite so pleased. He had thought of several possible ways of persuading Lord Bradford to abandon his motorcar project, so that he would no longer require Lawrence’s services as a mechanic. The difficulty was, however, that each scheme Lawrence had come up with involved some sort of damage to the Daimler. This would not be difficult for him to execute, knowing every nut and bolt of the motorcar as he did. But if any mischance befell it, Lawrence himself would be the first to be blamed. More importantly, he was reluctant to damage the motorcar, for he had come to care for it in almost the same way that his father had cared for the family draft horse.
    But after hours of deliberation, a glimmer of an idea—not yet a full-blown scheme—had come to him. It did not solve the basic problem, of course, but it would get him past it, and allow him to fulfill both Amelia’s desires and meet his own obligation.
    As the dawn broke, Lawrence’s plan began to take a clearer and brighter form.
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    Lady Marsden’s letter arrived by the Saturday morning post. Kate, opening it, read the following:
    Nice, France, September 20, 1896
    My dear Lady Kathryn,
    I take up my pen as a concerned mother, to appeal to you. It has come to the attention of Lord Christopher and myself that Patsy has become unwisely involved in a dangerous liaison with a young man, a guest of my son’s at Marsden Manor, and that this reckless relationship has been supported, indeed, even furthered by you. I believe I need not say that my son has acted injudiciously in the extreme to bring such a person into close acquaintance with his sister, and that it was quite irresponsible of my husband’s aunt to allow the young man into my daughter’s company. I must ask you to withdraw your support of this foolish intimacy and persuade Patsy (who is, for all her cleverness, an inexperienced and headstrong young girl who can do much damage to herself and her family through unwise associations) to abandon her injurious friendship with this person. I am confident that now that you have been informed of the facts, you will do as I bid, and withdraw your unwise sponsorship of this