“You’d never be a waste of space, J,” Thaddeus said, but the boy had already moved on.
“Anyways, I was struggling with like what you said — how this thing flies,” he said, waving at the airship. “Far as I could make out from the pictures, it needed some big jewel to power it. For a while I thought the pictures meant it needed one of those diamonds that you and Rémy took out of Abernathy’s place. Cos if that were the case, I’d be well and truly scuppered, wouldn’t I? But then, couple o’ nights ago, Rémy came home with that big old ruby on her finger, and it all came together.”
“What did?” Thaddeus asked, trying not to remember what had happened when he’d seen that ring for the first time. The thought of it was still bitter.
“Watch,” said J with another grin. He went to the hatch in the side of the vessel and pulled a wooden lever in the side to open it. The hatch eased down, slowly, to reveal a small flight of wooden steps built on the inner side. Once fully open and braced against the workshop floor, the steps led up into the ship. Thaddeus made to follow J as he went up them, but the boy waved him back.
“No,” he said. “You stay there and watch. You’s got to see this from the outside.”
Thaddeus stepped back and waited. A couple of minutes went by, and nothing happened.
“J?” he called. “I can’t see anything.”
“Hold your horse feathers, why don’t yer!” came back a muffled cry from inside the great contraption. “Give an airship ’alf a chance!”
Then, slowly, something began to happen. There was a hissing sound, faint at first but then louder. A moment later, something began to rise from the top of the ship. At first Thaddeus couldn’t work out what it was — it seemed to be a sail that had been packed away somewhere out of sight — but then he realized. It was a balloon. A great oval balloon was slowly rising above the roof of the airship. It was bigger than the ship itself, and as Thaddeus watched, it eventually began to press against the workshop’s ceiling.
“There,” said J, appearing beside Thaddeus and looking up at the swelling balloon with his hands on his hips. “Pretty amazin’, huh?”
“It really is,” agreed Thaddeus. “But —”
“Hang on a mo. I’ll just stop that there balloon filling for a bit so it don’t get caught on them rafters, like.” The boy was about to disappear into the airship’s interior when he turned to wink at the policeman. “About time you saw inside, don’t you fink?”
Thaddeus didn’t need a second invitation. He climbed the narrow wooden steps, ducking to avoid bashing his head on the low lintel at the top. Inside, the curved walls enclosed a space that seemed far smaller than had been suggested from outside. Thaddeus found that he couldn’t stand up straight except for in the very center of the room, or else his head would press against the wood. The craft was rounded in all directions, although the bottom curve of the structure was hidden from his view by a floor, pieced together from mismatched wooden planks. Thaddeus spied pine, oak and bits of beech among the uneven lengths — there was even some mahogany, as well as many others, all lovingly polished to a high shine.
At one end of the airship were four narrow bunks, two on each side, one above the other. Each had a thin straw mattress, and one of the lower ones had obviously already been claimed by J, as it also had a pillow and a crumpled blanket atop it. At the other end of the airship was the window that Thaddeus had seen from outside. Set in front of this viewpoint, reaching up from the floor and to about halfway up this window, was a cabinet overlaid by and riveted together with brass. It was semicircular in shape and tilted at an angle like a writing desk. Into its golden surface were set various knobs, levers and handles, all currently being manned by J. The boy sat in front of the controls on a small wooden chair that had been connected to a spindle so that it could pivot in a circle. He was busily whirling a handle. The hissing that had filled the cabin slowed and then eventually stopped.
“There,” said J with a sigh of a relief and a beam of pride as the chair swung around to face the policeman. “Well?” he asked. “What do you fink?”
Thaddeus continued to look around. There were basic wooden cabinets for storage, small oil lamps for light, and a barrel three-quarters full of water. The walls were bare, apart from the portholes and, on one side, a stepladder leading up to another hatch that would open onto the roof. Then he spotted something else.
“J,” he said uncertainly. “There are three pigeons in here, did you know that?”
“Oh, yeah,” said the boy, jumping up from his seat and coming to stand beside him. They watched the three birds pecking their way merrily around the floor. “They were here when I found it. I’ve tried shooing them away, but they always come back. I fink they were the Professor’s pets. ’E even built them a roosting place up there, look.”
J pointed to the ceiling at the rear of the ship. Sure enough, Thaddeus could see a small coop with three separate compartments wedged into the narrow space where the wall met the curving roof. Stranger still, each segment of this coop seemed to have a small circular device hanging below it, attached by a hook. With difficulty, Thaddeus reached up and unhooked one for a closer look. The device was set into a pocket watch casing, but the dial had been altered and in the center was a blue faceted stone.
“Don’t ask me what that is,” said J, “cos I ain’t got a clue. I’ve looked for a hint in the Professor’s book, and there’s none. I don’t fink ’e had a chance to write it down, whatever ’e was playing at wiv ’em.”
One of the pigeons waddled over, cooing gently. It reached Thaddeus’s shoe and tapped it with its beak. The policeman bent down and picked it up.
“Friendly beggars, ain’t they?” said J.
“It’s wearing a collar,” said Thaddeus. “Look.”
“Well, I’ll be,” exclaimed J, peering at the little leather contraption. “I ain’t never noticed that before, but then I ain’t never picked one up, neither.”
The policeman ran his fingers along the strip of leather. Embedded into it was a blue stone that matched the device he’d taken from the bird’s roosting box. What were you up to here, Professor? Thaddeus thought. You always did love your surprises, didn’t you?
“In the end I let ’em stay,” said J, as Thaddeus put the pigeon down. “They’re no trouble. Quite good company too, sometimes. Soothing, like. Anyway, enough chin-wagging. What do you reckon? Shall we make for France?”
Thaddeus shook his head. “All of this is amazing, J. But I’m sorry — even with that great balloon, I can’t see this thing ever lifting off. It’s so heavy.”
“Ah,” said the boy, holding up a finger. “But you see, that balloon ain’t just filled with air.”
“It isn’t?”
“Nope. That’s where the ruby comes in, see?”
Thaddeus shook his head. “You’ve lost me, J.”
J headed back toward the control panel and then knelt on the floor in front of it. “You know what the old Professor was like. He had that thing about precious stones, didn’t he?” said the boy as he heaved up another hatch, this one set in the floor. “He believed they had powers. Like the ones Abernathy was trying to use for himself, right? Well, I remembered that, you see, which was just as well, because not all of ’is notes were as clear as they might ’ave been, to tell the truth. Take a look,” he advised, shuffling back to make room.
Thaddeus knelt and stuck his head into the hole. There was just enough light for him to see a complicated tangle of glass tubes and copper wires. They led to and from a central apparatus — a larger glass canister full of a filigree of copper, enclosed at one end and open at the other with another glass pipe connected to it at the midpoint. Above its open end hovered a clamp, and held by the clamp was Rémy’s ruby ring.
“Watch this,” said J, standing up and reaching for the ship’s controls. He pulled one lever and then wound the circular handle he�
�d undone just moments before.
Thaddeus watched as the connections aligned. The ring lowered slowly, pushing into the glass canister until it was only millimeters from the copper filaments. The filaments began to vibrate, faster and faster, until they were moving so fast that Thaddeus could hardly see them. The ruby began to glow, and then, as if by magic, a reaction occurred in the canister. Pale green smoke, almost too thin to see at first, began to coalesce against the glass. It filled the canister and began to billow up the connecting pipe before disappearing in the tangle of tubes.
The hissing returned, growing louder and more insistent as the ruby glowed even brighter.
“And there you ’ave it,” said J, shutting down the reaction again. The ruby retracted on its tiny winch, its bright cherry glow fading slowly. “It ain’t air in that balloon at all. It’s stuff that came straight out of the Professor’s brain, and that’s good enough for me.”
{Chapter 12}
TREADING AIR
Thaddeus stood up as J closed the hatch back over the ruby’s encasement. He shook his head. “This whole contraption is astonishing, J. But we’re inside a workshop. Even if you did trust it to fly, how would you ever get it out of the room?”
J grinned, heading for the hatch and leaping down the steps to the floor in one bound. “Ain’t you learned yet? The Professor thought of everything, so he did.”
Thaddeus followed as J disappeared around the airship to the other side of the room. There came the sound of metal being forced against metal, and rope crossing over rope — another winch, bigger this time. There was a moment of silence, and then, from far above them, came a long, slow, creak.
“I could do wiv a bit of a hand here, Thaddeus,” came J’s voice, breathless from exertion.
Thaddeus ducked under the ship’s hull and saw J turning a huge wooden handle that was housed against the far wall. He gripped the opposite side and together they heaved. The creaking continued.
“That’s it,” yelled J. “She’s working — she’s working!”
Suddenly Thaddeus felt a draft. Then it was more than a draft — it was a wave, the cold night air crashing over his shoulders. He looked up to see a gap in the ceiling, open to the night skies wide enough to see the North Star.
“What in God’s name —” And then he saw it — he saw one of the roof panels flop back on itself, just like the wall had done. The whole roof was folding back, ready to let the airship take off.
“Brilliant, ain’t it?” yelled J over the slow squeak and squeal of the moving roof. “Now, just a little more, like . . .”
The final panel fell back with a whump, and J’s bedroom-come-private-workshop was entirely open to the air.
“Well, I’ll be . . .” muttered Thaddeus, turning around below the festival of stars he could now see through the dissipating London smog.
“See? The old Professor, he thought of everything. There’s even a switch I can throw to shut it behind us again once we’re out and about. Right, then. Ready to go, are yer?”
Thaddeus looked at the boy. “Now? Right now, just like that?”
J shrugged. “Why not? How else are we going to get there? Come on now — quick sharp! We’d best get going, before some smart Joe outside comes to see what all the noise is about. Don’t want to cause more of a kerfuffle than we needs to, do we?”
“But —”
J disappeared around the hull, Thaddeus following as he made his way up the airship’s short gangplank.
“J, wait,” Thaddeus began, as the boy turned the handle that would inflate the balloon with the ruby’s mysterious gas. The sound of hissing returned. It seemed even louder than before, and this time, somehow more insistent. “J, now just hold on a minute . . .”
J turned to him with both eyebrows raised. “What’s the matter? Didn’t bring enough spare undies? I did tell you to be prepared, didn’t I?”
“Yes, J, you did, but . . .”
“Oops,” said J, as the ship shuddered slightly. “Hey, look — the pigeons ’ave got the right idea!”
As they watched, all three birds flew up to their roosting place, settling into their hutch.
“Before you do the same, Thaddeus, I’m going to need your help. You saw the ropes tying us down, right?”
The airship gave another judder, this time rising a few inches off the ground. Thaddeus reached for the wall to brace himself. “What, outside?”
“Yeah. They need cutting. Do the honors could yer?” J pointed to a small axe secured against the wall by wooden pegs. “No need to be dainty or nuffin’. Just chop ’em off, and we’ll be ready to go, like.”
“Hold on,” said Thaddeus, “If I’m outside when we cast off, how do I get back in? Can you stop the ship from rising?”
“Ah,” said J, “I don’t think so, no.”
“You don’t think so?”
“It’ll be fine,” yelled J over the hissing gas. “Just be quick, and you’ll make it to the gangplank, no problem. Just pretend you’s apprehending a criminal, like. Better do it now, though,” prompted the boy, as the ship lurched and bounced, “cos she’s fair raring to go!”
Thaddeus shook his head and grabbed the axe before heading for the gangplank. The wooden stairs were already a few inches off the ground, and he hesitated before taking a deep breath and jumping to the floor. He ran for the aft tethers first, striking the rising rope close to the floor, where it was pulling hard against its restraints. The axe was sharp and sliced through with just one strike. The airship immediately pulled upward, its nose still tethered to the ground, but the stern swinging upward to the open roof.
“That’s the stuff,” yelled J’s muffled voice from inside the ship. “Quick now — gotta cut the other one before she does ’erself a mischief!”
The airship was lurching from one side to the other, knocking into the crowded walls of the workshop. There was a crashing, clattering noise as he ran for the other rope — one of the ship’s fins had caught the edge of an over-piled shelf, sending its contents smashing to the floor. He chopped at the second rope, but missed as the ship slewed away from him.
“Hold it steady, J,” he shouted.
“I’m trying!” came J’s voice back again. “Hurry up!”
Thaddeus’s second blow missed again, but the third was enough. The rope broke with a twang and the ship immediately lifted off, so fast that Thaddeus had no time to make it to the gangplank. He grabbed for the rope instead, clinging on for dear life as the airship made a bid for freedom through the open ceiling.
“Thaddeus!” J shouted from within. “Where are you?”
“Put her down, J!” Thaddeus yelled, as the airship continued to rise. Every second took him higher, and he looked down to see he was already several feet from the ground.
“I can’t do that!” said J. “The ruby will be all used up if I do! It’d take hours for it to charge again!”
Thaddeus looked around wildly, trying to work out what to do. The gangplank was still hanging open, moving slightly as the ship bumped its way skyward. They were almost out of the workshop now, the balloon already fully clear and the airship’s hull rising fast behind it. Thaddeus twisted on the rope to look over his shoulder and saw the edge of the open roof looming nearer. He swung toward it, his weight enough to jerk the airship.
“Watch it!” J cried as the nose dipped, but Thaddeus ignored him. He swung the rope again toward the roof. His feet connected with it, just long enough for him to brace against the edge and spring away. The leverage gave him enough momentum to reach the gangplank. Thaddeus crashed against it, letting go of the rope to cling to the wood, feeling it creak and groan beneath his weight.
“J!” he shouted, “I really need some help!”
The airship lifted ever higher as Thaddeus held on for dear life.
“Bleedin’ ’eck,” J proclaimed as Thaddeus appeared in
the doorway. He turned away for a moment, grabbing a rope and throwing one end of it to the policeman. “There’s a hook,” he shouted over the roar of the air around them. “It’s on the end of the hatch. It’ll be somewhere under your belly right now. Loop this through it and throw the end back. Come on, Thaddeus, you can do it!”
It took the young policeman a moment to gather the strength. The air around them was astonishingly cold, and they were still rising. From the corner of his eye Thaddeus could see Limehouse spiraling away beneath them at an alarming speed. Then he rolled sideways, letting one arm take all the weight as he grabbed J’s rope and did as he was told.
“Good man!” shouted J as the rope came back to him. He threaded it through another hook and pulled on it. Thaddeus, hanging helplessly on the gangplank like a fish being landed, saw the boy dangling all his weight on the rope, drawing the walkway up, bit by bit.
Eventually Thaddeus tipped down it, rolling untidily into the airship’s hold to lie, gasping, on the patchwork wooden floor.
“Blimey,” puffed J, bent double to catch his breath. “That were a close one.”
{Chapter 13}
SUSPICIONS
The train was less crowded than Rémy had expected, and so she and Yannick were able to find an empty carriage to make their own. This seemed the height of luxury to the trapeze artist, who was used to traveling at best in rickety caravans, at worst on foot for hours on end. She was more than happy to relax against soft, comfortable cushions as they steamed through the countryside. Yannick, however, seemed distracted. Several times he checked his watch and then glanced out of their carriage into the corridor.
“What’s the matter, Yannick?” she asked. “Expecting someone?”
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