“Platov’s thermo engine,” said Archie. “A crazy Russian. He’s invented a new kind of aeroplane motor.”
Still watching the sky for Josephine, Bell let Archie lead him to a three hundred length of rail at the beginning of which perched a strange mechanism. Mechanicians were assembling a large white biplane beside it.
“There’s Platov.”
Women in long white summer dresses and elaborate Merry Widow hats were gazing spellbound upon the handsome Russian inventor, whose thick, curly dark hair, springy as a heap of steel shavings, spilled from a straw boater with a bright red hatband, and tumbled down his cheeks in equally curly mutton-chop whiskers.
“Seems to have a way with the ladies,” said Bell.
Archie explained that they were competitors’ wives, girlfriends, and mothers traveling aboard the support trains.
Platov was gesturing energetically with an engineering slide rule, and Bell noted the gleam in his dark eyes of the “mad scientist.” Though in Platov’s case, the Russian appeared less dangerous than eccentric, particularly as he was busy romancing his admirers.
“He’s prospecting for investors,” Archie said, “hoping some fliers will try it in the race. So far, no one’s ready to give up propellers. But his luck might have changed. That fat fellow in white is a Mississippi cotton farmer with more money than brains. He’s paying to test the motor on a real flying machine. Mr. Platov? Come tell my friend Mr. Bell how your contraption works.”
The inventor touched his lips to several of the ladies’ gloves, tipped his boater, and bustled over. He shook Bell’s hand, bowed, and clicked his heels. “Dmitri Platov. De idea is dat superior motor-powering fly machine Platov is demonstrating.”
Bell listened closely. The “thermo engine” used a small automobile motor to power a compressor. The compressor forced liquid kerosene through a nozzle. An electric spark ignited the volatile spray, creating thrust.
“Is making jet! Jet is pushing.”
Bell noticed that the voluble Russian appeared to be well liked. His fractured English provoked snickers among the grease-stained mechanicians who gathered to watch, but Bell overheard them discussing the new engine with respect. Just like mechanicians at an automobile race, they were tinkerers, always on the lookout for ways to make machines faster and stronger.
If it worked, they were saying, the thermo engine had a good chance of winning because it tackled head-on the three biggest problems holding back flying machines: excess weight, insufficient power, and the vibration that threatened to shake their flimsy frames to pieces. So far, it was tethered to a rail, down which it had “flown” repeatedly at a high rate of speed. The real test would come when the artificers finished assembling the cotton farmer’s airship.
“De idea is dat no pistons is shaking, no propeller is breaking.”
Again Bell overheard agreement among the gathering of flying-machine workmen. Platov’s engine could be, in theory at least, as smooth as a turbine, unlike most gasoline engines, which rattled an airman’s molars loose. Another mechanician ran up. “Mr. Platov! Mr. Platov! Could you please come quickly to our hangar car?”
Platov grabbed a leather tool bag and hurried after him.
“What was that about?” asked Bell.
“He’s a tip-top machinist,” said Archie. “Supports himself working freelance, fashioning parts. The hangar cars have lathes, drill presses, hones, and gear shapers. If all of a sudden they need a part, Platov can make it faster than the factory can ship it.”
“Here comes our girl!” said Isaac Bell.
“At last,” said Archie, clearly relieved despite his earlier assurances.
Bell watched the yellow speck that his sharp eyes had spotted on the horizon. It grew larger rapidly. Sooner than Bell expected, it was close enough to present the shape of a sleek monoplane. He could hear the motor make an authoritative smooth burble.
Archie said, “That’s the Celere that Preston Whiteway bought back from Marco’s creditors.”
Isaac Bell eyed it appreciatively. “Marco’s last effort makes most of these others look like box kites.”
“It’s a speedster, all right,” Archie agreed. “But the talk around the infield is it’s not as strongly constructed as the biplanes. And there are rumors that that’s how Marco went broke.”
“What rumors?”
“Back in Italy, they say, Marco sold a machine to the Italian Army, borrowed against future royalties, and immigrated to America and built a couple of standard biplanes he sold to Josephine’s husband. Then he borrowed more money to build that one she’s flying on now. Unfortunately, they say, back in Italy a wing fell off the one he sold to the Italian Army, and a general broke both legs in the smash. The Army canceled the contract, and Marco was however you say persona non grata in Italian. True story or not, the mechanicians agree that monoplanes aren’t as strong as biplanes.”
“But all that biplane strength comes at the expense of speed.”
“Maybe so, but the birdmen and mechanicians I talked to all say that just getting to San Francisco is going to be the hard part. Machines that strive only for speed can’t stay the whole race.”
Bell nodded. “The sixty-horsepower, four-cylinder Model 35 Thomas Flyer that won the New York–to–Paris automobile race probably wasn’t the fastest, but it was the strongest. Let’s hope that Preston didn’t buy our client a death trap.”
“Considering the flocks of telegrams Whiteway sends her every day, you can bet he had that machine examined from stem to stern before he bought it. Whiteway wouldn’t take chances with her life. The man’s in love.”
“What does Josephine think of Preston?” Bell asked.
It was not an idle question. If anyone knew her state of mind regarding Whiteway, it would be Archie. Before he became the most happily married detective in America, Archibald Angel Abbott IV had enjoyed many years as New York City’s most avidly pursued eligible bachelor.
“In my opinion,” Archie smiled knowingly, “Josephine admires the aeroplane that Preston bought her very much.”
“No one has ever accused Preston Whiteway of exercising intelligence in his personal affairs.”
“Didn’t he once carry a torch for Marion?”
“Blithely unaware that he was risking life and limb,” Bell said grimly. “My point exactly.”
He started toward the open section of infield where the machines
