Around the World in 100 Days (6 page)

Johnny stopped sucking on his burned fingers long enough to reply, “My tools.”

“Those can be replaced. We saved the
Flash
; that's the important thing. And you, of course. Do you have any idea how it started?”

Johnny shrugged. “Oily rags?”

“Something had to set them off. You weren't using the acetylene torch?”

“No.”

“And you weren't smoking your pipe?”

“No.”

Harry stared at the smoldering ruin. “Wait a moment. I know who
was s
moking—Sullivan. When he arrived, he had a cigar. I don't recall seeing it when he left.”

“You think he did it a-purpose?”

“There's no way of knowing. He and Hardiman seemed surprised that the
Flash
was so well built; perhaps they realized we might actually win, and decided to destroy our chances by destroying the car. However ...” Harry paused to think. “It is possible that the culprit may have been someone else altogether. Did you see anyone skulking around after I left?”

Johnny shook his head.

“Did you leave the shed at all?”

“I went to the privy.”

“That might have given him enough time.”

“Who?”

“As I was heading up Baker Street earlier, I thought I caught a glimpse of someone I know. Or, more accurately, someone my father knows. Someone who hates my father—and by extension, our whole family—so much that I suspect he'd jump at any chance to strike back at us.”

“Who?” repeated Johnny.

“His name is Andrew Stuart.”

SIX
In which

T
he cabman returned with Harry's supplies and drove him home. Harry had meant to have it out with his father over this “impartial observer” business. But, though the boy's temper could flare up quickly, it died down almost as quickly. There was really no point in arguing the matter, anyway. Once Phileas Fogg made up his mind about something, he was like the
Flash
with its gears engaged—immovable.

His mother tended to his burned hands, smearing them carefully with salve and binding them with gauze. “Now perhaps you will call off this trip of yours,” she said.

“Of course not. Why would I?”

“Because it is dangerous!” she said, so sharply that Harry blinked in surprise. “You might have been killed!”

“The fire was an accident, Mother.” Well, it
could
have been an accident. There was no proof that it had been set deliberately. “It had nothing to do with the trip.”

“Well, in any case, how will you drive a motorcar with your hands like this?”

Harry shrugged. “I'll manage. I'll wear heavy gloves. Besides, Johnny can do some of the driving.”

“Why do you not hire a driver, as your father suggested—someone more experienced?”

“Motorcars are such a new invention, I'm afraid no one has much experience driving them. Besides, with Johnny and Charles Hardiman aboard, we'd scarcely have room for another person.”

“You do not mind taking the Hardiman boy?”

“I'm not thrilled by the prospect. He's rather a cold fish.”

“I hope you two will get along. He was here with his father. He seems a pleasant enough boy, and very well mannered. Perhaps it will do you good to spend some time with him.”

“Maybe some of his fine manners will rub off on me, you mean?”

Aouda gave a wry smile. “I would not mind if they did. Nor, I suspect, would your father. However, the real reason he agreed to let Charles Hardiman go along was to avoid any misunderstanding as to whether or not the rules were followed.”

Harry threw up his hands, then winced at the pain it caused. “So Father thinks I'm going to cheat as well?”

“Of course not. He only wants to be certain that you will not be accused of it.”

“Why don't those men trust me? I agreed to their rules. We shook hands on it. Father always says that an English gentleman's word is his bond, but it doesn't seem to be good enough for them.”

“I think that perhaps . . . perhaps they do not quite consider you an English gentleman.”

Harry laughed. “Why? Because I couldn't make the grade at Eton? Because I have dirt under my fingernails? Because I'm not a Little Lord Fauntleroy, like Charles Hardiman?”

“Those things may be a part of it. But I believe that the main reason is your heritage.”

“You mean . . . because I'm half Indian?”

She nodded.

The notion took Harry by surprise. Not that he was any stranger to prejudice. In his younger years, he had thrashed at least half a dozen boys for calling him or his mother a “wog.” That was one reason he took to playing with the working-class lads. They didn't know much about his background, and didn't particularly care, as long as he could kick a football. At Eton, he had not bothered to mention that his mother came from India, and his skin was light enough that no one was likely to guess.

After years of fitting in, of feeling no different from any other well-bred English lad, it was something of a shock to find that, in the eyes of the people he considered his peers, he was still somehow inferior, and not to be trusted.

It suddenly occurred to him that his mother must face that same attitude each time she left her house, and had no doubt done so ever since her arrival in England twenty years before. He had always wondered why she went out so little, why she had so few friends—only a half-dozen artists and musicians who were considered too Bohemian for polite society.

Aside from Mr. Gandhi, a law student who was a distant relation and who sometimes took dinner with them, she made little effort to associate with London's sizable Indian population. In fact, she seemed at times to be deliberately avoiding her countrymen. Harry supposed that this was her way of trying to protect him; she was fiercely determined that he should be as English as possible.

“You know,” said Aouda, “that I am unhappy about your making this trip.”

“Yes, but—”

She held up a hand to silence him. “However, I have not told you the true reason.” And she did not tell him now. After a pause, she said, “Have you decided what route you will take?”

“We'll land in New York, drive the most direct route to San Francisco, then take a steamer to Asia.”

“And then?”

“Well, Mr. Hardiman said we would cut a thousand miles off the journey if we drove across southern China and northern India.”

Aouda nodded solemnly. “That is what I feared.”

“Feared? What is there to fear about it?”

“Your father told me that, when he was traveling around the world, the newspapers all printed reports of his progress. Will the same happen with your trip?”

“I suppose so. It's the first time anyone's tried to take a motorcar around the world, after all.”

“Then people in India will read about it, in the English papers.”

“So?”

She sighed heavily. “I have never spoken of this to anyone but your father. Now I suppose I must. You know that I grew up in Bombay.”

“Yes.”

“When I was little older than you, my parents died and my cousin arranged a marriage for me, to a wealthy prince from the province of Bundelkund. This may not sound like such an awful fate, but the man was three times my age. He died within a year and, to make certain I would inherit none of his fortune, his family conspired to be rid of me.

“Traditionally, when a Hindu man died and was cremated, his widow was burned alongside him, a practice called
sati
. My husband's family attempted to revive the practice; they drugged me with opium and I would have perished on the funeral pyre had your father and Passepartout not rescued me.

“According to my cousin, who now lives in Europe, the prince's relatives have never forgiven me for escaping their clutches.” She smiled wanly. “Apparently they fear, even now, that I might return to claim my inheritance and wreak vengeance upon them. My cousin has never gone back to India; because we are related, the prince's family might try to harm him, or perhaps kidnap him in order to have some hold over me. They are a fanatical lot, and I would put nothing past them.” She laid her hand gently on Harry's bandaged ones. “You see now why I do not wish you to go. If they were to learn that my son is passing through India ...”

Harry patted her hand reassuringly. “You needn't worry, Mother. If they did try to abduct me, they'd have a deuce of a time doing it. The
Flash
can outrun the fastest horse. And even if they were to catch me, I can handle myself. Besides, I'll have Johnny along for reinforcement, and you know how strong he is. It's possible that the Hardiman brat may even be of some use; we're taking firearms with us, and I assume he knows how to shoot.”

Aouda was silent for a moment, gazing so intently at him that he felt uncomfortable. Finally she said, “I can see that you are determined to go, and that nothing I say will deter you.”

“I'm afraid not.”

To Harry's surprise, her mouth formed a slight, wry smile. “I wish you truly
were
afraid. I know that I am.” She gave a sigh of resignation. “But I also fear what will happen if you remain here, drifting aimlessly along as you have been. If this will give you some sense of direction, perhaps it is for the best.”

Harry laughed. “I hope I have
some
sense of direction, Mother, or I may not make it as far as Liverpool.”

 

After dinner, Harry excused himself, saying, “There are still a number of items I need to purchase for the trip.” That was true. His actual destination, however, was not Fortnum & Mason's but the blacksmith shop. Armed with an old carbine that had belonged to Johnny's father, he kept watch over the motorcar for several hours while Johnny caught some sleep. At eleven, Harry went home, leaving his friend to stand guard through the night.

They repeated this ritual the following night, and the night after. Every hour of daylight was spent getting the
Flash
in shape for the long, grueling journey—well, in truth, not
every
hour, for the press had now gotten wind of the wager, and reporters from the
Times
, the
Standard
, the
Morning Post
, the
Daily News
, the
Daily Telegraph
, and the
Illustrated London News
descended upon them, demanding details about the motorcar and its drivers.

Johnny sullenly ignored the newspaper men and women. It was up to Harry to satisfy them and their readers—not that he really minded. He had always relished being the center of attention, perhaps because he received so little from his father. Despite his dismal academic record, he had been something of a celebrity at Eton. He was driven to excel at everything—as long as it did not involve studying or memorizing—and had often been carried off the cricket field or rugby pitch on the shoulders of his teammates for bowling the final out or kicking the winning drop goal. For the past year he had been out of the limelight altogether; it was good to be back.

His enthusiasm quickly faded when he realized that the reporters were less interested in him and his motorcar than in comparing his journey to the one made by Phileas Fogg. He was asked the same few questions over and over: “Will you try to beat your father's record?” “Do you think you'll be attacked by wild Indians, as your father was?” “How does your father feel about motorcars?” Harry was tempted to reply, “Why don't you ask
him
?” But of course his father would never consent to be interviewed by a newspaper.

Only the reporter from the
Standard
, a brash fellow too young to remember Phileas Fogg's famous feat, had a fresh question: “Have the New Luddites come by to harass you yet?”

“Luddites? Are they still around?” Though Harry's knowledge of history was no better than his command of math, he had heard of the Luddites, a group of fanatics bent on destroying all sorts of machinery because, they said, it put people out of work. The movement had died out around 1815, after a dozen of its members were hanged.

“Well, it's a different set of them, of course. Only now they're not interested in breaking up knitting machines; they're after bigger game: locomotives and printing presses and electric lighting—and, of course, motorcars.”

“Why? None of those is a threat to people's livelihood.”

“Ah, but they're destroying the world, or so say the New Luddites. Locomotives and motorcars foul the air and jangle the nerves; electric lights blot out the stars; newspapers devour the trees and litter the streets.”

“The same could be said of books and of gaslights—and when it comes to fouling the air and littering the streets, horses are the worst offenders.”

“Well, this lot apparently have no objection to horse droppings; that's part of nature, you see. So I gather they haven't bothered you yet?”

“The horse droppings?” said Harry.

The reporter laughed. “I meant the Luddites.”

“No.”

“Well, keep an eye out for them. They can be nasty. They broke into the press room at the
Standard
last week—knocked one of our men unconscious and flung hot lead from the linotype machine all over. You're sure it wasn't them who burned down your shed?”

“I don't think so.”

“Any damage to the car?”

“No. She's in splendid shape.”

The reporter nodded at Harry's bandaged hands. “I suppose you'll wait for those to heal before you set off?”