Maddie Hatter and the Deadly Diamond (21 page)
That explained that. Maddie looked at Obie. “How do I get out of this one?”
“Once your dorm is confirmed clean, I’ll have you searched and leave you there. We’ll repeat the process with Miss . . . Lady . . .” He shrugged. “Sarah. Then I’ll report to Mrs. Midas-White that you’re both innocent of the mask’s theft. Did Muster really go off the balcony?”
“Oh yes. TD and TC captured it all. But we can’t use them to prove Muster was the villain.”
“That we can’t.” Obie understood without her explaining: they could not expose Madame’s lovely little birds with all their secret skills. “Unless . . . I might be able to rig something plausible about a hidden security camera ordered installed by Muster as his excuse for going to her quarters while she was out. Assuming the gorgon leaves that stateroom long enough for me to put one there.”
“That’s you fixed,” said Sarah with sudden fierceness. “But she’ll have me in chains before she’s through. The jewels from Cairo are in my luggage. If she claims I stole those, who will believe me that she owes that much and more? I can’t fight her in court. I don’t have a Steamlord papa to make it all go away, Lady Madeleine.”
Obie’s eyes opened wide. “You
told
her?”
“She guessed, when I demanded my cards back.”
Sarah bit her lip. “I hate to do this after you saved my life today, but since you’ve got a friend on board and I don’t, you’re both going to help me out of this mess or I’m going to tell the world where Lord Main-Bearing’s missing daughter is.”
“Obie?”
“Up to you,” he said. “If you want me to help her, I will.”
They’d barely settled on a makeshift plan when the two officers returned to the hallway. One shrugged, holding up empty hands. Obie gave Maddie a nudge toward her quarters. “You’ll stay there until the inquiry is concluded. Miss. I’ll make sure you’re let out and no mark on your record.”
He escorted her inside, and Maddie slipped TD to him. Then she opened the ventilator above the door as wide as it would go, sat down on her bunk, and waited for the little bird to come back with news.
Why had she acquiesced so readily to helping Lady Sarah escape? The woman had threatened all her freedom and financial security.
But it was only too plausible that Mrs. Midas-White refused to pay Sarah for her time because the results had not been profitable. She had refused to pay Hercule Hornblower, too. And Sarah had been ready to deal reasonably with Maddie over the false ID. And, when it came down to it, she had returned to draw Colonel Muster off Maddie when she could have cleaned out the safe and run away, leaving Maddie to be murdered. Whereas Maddie’s vengeful article and image in yesterday’s news had led Colonel Muster straight to Sarah, and put them both in peril of their lives. Yes, Sarah was owed some consideration.
If
she gave up those visiting cards and never mentioned Maddie’s name again.
It seemed hours had passed, but it was not quite lunchtime when TD fluttered in the ventilator. “Speak,” she told him.
Obie’s voice said, “Retrieved your cards from Lady Sarah’s stateroom. The images came out great. I’ll leave one with the ship for evidence of Muster’s death and keep the rest for your articles. They’re bound to be sensational. The gorgon will be in the cockpit during mooring. She likes to watch the approach to any port, likely to make sure they’re not wasting fuel. I’ll fix a recorder above her balcony then and fly Sarah away on the messenger craft that Muster left ready. She can’t carry much so can you go pack up the rest of her gear and bring it off with yours once the ship is moored? Hiram’s cousin will come to let you out soon. Once you’re in port, he’ll bring you safe to a rooming house run by his aunt, and then we can worry about our next jobs. Because I doubt the White Sky Line will take either of us back. See you in the Big Apple, Maddie!”
There was a scraping of key in lock then. She stuffed TD into her pocket and stood up, smoothing her apron, ready to resume for these last few hours her role as Maggie Hatley, airship parlourmaid.
EVIL EYE STRIKES! HORROR IN THE SKIES!
The cunning murderer of Baron Bodmin met a terrible fate off the shores of America yesterday. Our intrepid investigative reporter, W.Y. Knott, has been on his trail for weeks and witnessed his horrifying end.
While stealing a legendary diamond from a passenger’s safe, disgraced Colonel Bilious Muster fell to his death from a White Sky Line airship en route to New York City. During the theft, the colonel violently assaulted a maid and a passenger who came to her aid.
A close friend to Baron Bodmin, Muster was the first person to learn of his success at tracking the Nubian mask known as the Eye of Africa. This mask’s third eye is a large diamond, reputed to glow red when touched by evil, and some scholars claim the black face was streaked with the blood of murderers to enhance its power.
With his reputation and finances in chaos, Muster first absconded to Cornwall to greet his victorious friend. There, by devious means, he lured the exhausted explorer aboard his own airship and killed him. However, finding the mask was not aboard, he threw the baron and all evidence of his successful quest into the sea before escaping the vessel himself. The
Jules Verne
was found adrift off Cornwall a few days later, and brought in by the Coast Guard.
Muster then hid out at Bodmin Manor, searching for the mask. His unfruitful hunt was interrupted when the body came ashore and the baron’s heir and investors arrived to claim their due. One of the latter found the mask and smuggled it out of England on a trans-oceanic White Sky Liner.
Muster may have overheard plans for the export of the mask, or simply hoped to evade the noose. However it came about, he talked his way into a position on the same ship, and departed England for America.
Waiting on opportunity, the erstwhile high-altitude scout set up a daring aerial escape route and, as the coast of the continent approached, assailed the safe that held the Eye of Africa.
Circumstance brought a maid into the room during his robbery. Although brutally flung about and half throttled, she was able to scream and a passerby rushed in to draw off her attacker. Muster turned his rage onto the newcomer and the maid, recovering her senses, rescued the unfortunate Good Samaritan.
In the struggle, Colonel Muster retrieved the mask and ran to his getaway craft. By then this reporter was on the scene and what follows is an exact accounting of the murderer’s demise:
Colonel Muster carried the mask in one scratched and bleeding hand as he climbed onto his craft’s wing. The diamond glowed red, faintly at first and then with a blinding heat. Muster flung up a hand to shield his face and lost his grip on the aircraft. He staggered and fell toward the sea, a thousand feet and more below.
The mask fell with him and is presumed lost to history. This reporter has no explanation for the red glow of the Eye, and must allow the images here shown to stand as surety for the truth of this account.
Jayne Barnard is best known in Steampunk circles as the twisted mind behind Parasol Dueling. Her award-winning short fiction spans past, present, and alternate futures in mystery, history, and tales for children.
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