I let my vision blur; the map went hazy before my eyes. From deep in my memory came the roar of voices, the tinkle of water falling, and George Smith’s voice: The transept was offset to accommodate the trees that were on the site. The building isn’t completely symmetrical. As I refocused my gaze on the lopsided cross drawn on the paper, I saw the lines turn into corridors and the squares into fantastic displays of art and machinery surrounded by chattering crowds. The column set on an oval became a glass fountain that weighed four tons.
“It’s the Crystal Palace!” I cried. “The Great Exhibition. In London. That’s where Niall Kavanagh plans to demonstrate his weapon!”
39
“The Great Exhibition is the ideal site for Kavanagh’s demonstration,” Slade said.
“Thousands of people attend every day,” I said, “and many prominent citizens.”
“Politicians, courtiers, foreign royalty and dignitaries. Kavanagh couldn’t hope to find a bigger or more illustrious audience anywhere else.”
I felt sick as I contemplated the scope of the impending disaster. “They’ll scatter to their homes all over England, Europe, and America. They’ll spread the disease everywhere.”
“Kavanagh must have visited the Great Exhibition before he left England,” Slade said. “These spots he marked on the floor plan must be the places he’s decided to plant his bombs.”
Stieber snatched the map of the Crystal Palace from my hand, folded it, and tucked it in his pocket. “We must hurry to London. Friedrich, escort our prisoners outside.”
Friedrich hesitated. “What if they are wrong? What if the Great Exhibition is not where Dr. Kavanagh is going?”
“It has to be,” Slade said. I nodded, convinced by my intuition as well as by the fact that we’d found no evidence to indicate otherwise.
We hastened out of the chateau in single file, Slade leading, Friedrich close behind with the pistol aimed at his back, Stieber next, and Wagner guarding me. Outside the gates, a carriage, horses, and driver waited. Stieber said, “Take us to the ferry dock as fast as you can.”
The journey back to England was frightful, the ocean rough. Despite my state of starvation, I ate and drank little because I was seasick. The next morning we reached Portsmouth. As Friedrich and Wagner walked Slade and me down the gangplank, my sickness abated, but I trembled with anxiety. If we found Niall Kavanagh before he staged his demonstration, what further purpose would we serve for Stieber? If we didn’t, the Crystal Palace would become the starting point of the worst catastrophe in history. Either way, Slade and I hadn’t long to live.
At the railway station, we found a huge, noisy crowd in the waiting area. Trains stood motionless by the platforms. People sat on benches, trunks, bundles, and boxes. Women rocked crying babies and scolded fractious children. Men flocked around the ticket booths; they shouted questions, argued, and threw up their hands in vexation. Stieber elbowed his way toward a ticket booth while his men watched Slade and me. A railway guard stood near us, and Slade called to him, “Excuse me-what’s the problem?”
“There’s been a wreck on the track,” the guard said. “There won’t be any trains moving from here toward London until it’s cleared.”
A little boy ran about the room, spinning a toy top. He bumped into Friedrich’s leg. Friedrich lost his balance and staggered, away from Slade. Wagner turned from me to catch his comrade. While the two Prussians were distracted, Slade grabbed my hand and we ran.
Friedrich and Wagner yelled, “Stop!”
Slade towed me through the station, pushing people aside. I heard Friedrich and Wagner calling Stieber. I saw Stieber among the crowd, fighting his way toward us. We reached the front door, but a group of travelers entering the station blocked our exit. We turned. Friedrich, Wagner, and Stieber came charging after us as Slade and I raced for the rear door. We burst out the door onto the platform. More people waited there. We wove between them to a train and rushed up its steps. In the empty compartment, Slade flung open the door on the other side. We jumped down to the tracks. As we ran across them, a spike caught my hem. Before Slade and I could tear my skirt free, our pursuers arrived. Friedrich and Wagner pointed their pistols at us. Stieber demanded, “Where do you think you are going?”
He’d deduced what I hadn’t realized until now-that Slade had fled for another reason besides escaping Stieber. Slade had a destination in mind, a plan for getting us to London. Stieber had read Slade’s thoughts even though I hadn’t. Perhaps enemies were even more attuned to one another than lovers were.
Slade hesitated, torn between his reluctance to tip his hand and the knowledge that Stieber wouldn’t let us get away again and we could go nowhere without the man. He said reluctantly, “I’ve a friend who can take us to London. He lives nearby.”
Friedrich and Wagner looked skeptical. Stieber considered: he suspected a trick, but he had a choice between cooling his heels in Portsmouth or gambling on Slade. He said, “Take us there.”
We traveled in a hired carriage a few miles to the countryside, and arrived at a gray-brick mansion three stories high, capped by a mansard roof, that stood amid spacious grounds. When we disembarked on the driveway, the sound of voices and laughter and the roar of machinery greeted us, although I saw no one. Black smoke wafted over the treetops, from the back of the house. Slade led the way there. We came upon a crowd gathered on a lawn that extended toward open fields. The women were dressed in long smocks and hats with veils, the men in coveralls. Chattering and excited, they faced the end of the lawn. At first I thought we’d interrupted a strange sort of garden party. Then my gaze followed theirs, and I realized what Slade’s plan was.
“Dear God,” I said.
There was a gigantic, inflated balloon, made from panels of gray cloth, shaped like a fat sausage that tapered to a point at each end, more than a hundred feet long. A net of ropes encased the balloon. Some tethered the balloon to pegs in the ground. Others suspended a pole horizontally below and parallel to its long axis. From the pole hung a large wicker basket that contained a bulky machine with a huge propeller. Three men worked on the contraption. One stood in the basket, tinkering with a triangular cloth that resembled a sail and was attached to the ropes below the balloon. A second shoveled coal into the machine, which belched smoke and roared. The third man adjusted the boiler, which puffed clouds of steam.
It was an airship, similar to the model I’d seen at the Crystal Palace.
Stieber, Friedrich, and Wagner were as stunned as I. “We are going to London in that?” Stieber said.
“Unless you have a better idea,” Slade said.
Hot air balloons had been invented long ago, and they were common enough that I’d seen them at fairs, but the steam-powered airship was a recent innovation. The one based on the model at the Crystal Palace had never yet flown. I could hardly believe that I might get a ride in this one. My heart fluttered with excitement, then quailed. Would it not be dangerous?
We approached the airship. Stieber and his men stopped me a few paces from it. He told Slade, “We’ll wait here.” While they held me hostage to his good behavior, Slade moved forward and called to the man in the basket, “Dr. Crick!”
The man wore a helmet over gray, frizzled hair. His lean, stooped figure was clad in a blue coverall. He peered at us through dark-tinted spectacles perched on his beaked nose. “Hello?”
“I don’t know if you remember me,” Slade said, “but I’m-”
“John Slade. Of course.” The man had a toothy grin and a fluty, cultured accent. “I never forget a face, even though I haven’t seen yours since you attended my class in physics at Cambridge. Wasn’t it you who demonstrated Newton’s principles of gravity by dropping an apple and a bathtub off Magdalen Tower?”
Slade laughed. “It was, I’m sorry to say.”
“Boys will be boys,” Dr. Crick fluted. “To what do I owe your sudden reappearance?”
“I ran into a former classmate some time ago. He told me you’d retired from teaching and made great progress in developing a steam-powered airship.”
“Voila!” Dr. Crick spread his arms, made an exaggerated bow, and said, “I’m giving rides. Would you like one?”
“Yes, and so would my friends,” Slade said, indicating Stieber, the soldiers, and me.
