Getting to the Crystal Palace was not easy. The wind buffeted the airship, sending us off course. Dr. Crick set the engine on full power. He and Slade and Stieber hauled on the rudder line, straining to turn the balloon. The basket swung violently while I hung on for dear life. Wagner clasped his hands, closed his eyes, and prayed aloud in German. Friedrich moaned. Somehow we managed to regain our course. The Crystal Palace grew larger as we approached. The rockets boomed louder, exploded closer. I could see streamers of smoke trailing the colored stars as they fell.
The engine clattered, coughed, and died. The propeller slowed, then ceased.
“We’ve lost power.” Dr. Crick tried to restart the engine, but couldn’t. “We have to land now, or I’m afraid we’ll be blown out over the ocean.”
He opened the vent on the balloon’s underside. Gas hissed out. The airship began to descend. We dropped through a dimly glowing, acrid veil of smoke. Then we were below it, above the great expanse of Hyde Park. There, people milled about; gaslights burned along roads full of carriages. The Crystal Palace glittered in the distance. Treetops rushed up to meet us. My heart was in my throat; my lungs constricted with fear.
“Pull!” Dr. Crick shouted.
Slade and Stieber heaved on the rudder line. We veered away from the trees, over a broad lawn. People below us spotted the airship descending. They scattered. When we were some ten feet above ground, a gust of wind rolled the balloon sideways. The basket tipped. We tumbled out, screaming. I landed so hard on my hands and knees that my teeth slammed together and my spectacles were knocked askew. I righted them and saw Wagner facedown beneath me. I heard Slade calling, “Charlotte! Are you all right?”
I struggled to my feet. “Yes.”
Slade was standing, too. But Friedrich lay groaning and clutching his thigh. “My leg is broken!” Wagner didn’t move; he was either unconscious or dead. Even though I disliked him, I was horrified to think I’d accidentally killed him. Stieber sat, dazed. He rubbed his head. People surrounded us, staring and exclaiming.
Dr. Crick knelt, his watch in his hand; he chortled with glee. “I flew the first steam-powered airship from Portsmouth to London in five hours and thirty-nine minutes! I’ve made history!” Then he looked up and said, “Oh, dear!”
Without passengers to weigh it down, the airship rose into the sky, just as the fireworks began their grand finale. Rocket after rocket launched. The balloon soared straight through the booming cascades of colored sparks. They burned through its fabric. The gas inside ignited with a cataclysmic blast.
A mass of orange flames shot through by the fireworks roiled over Hyde Park. It lit the sky as brightly as the sun. My horrified cry joined the uproar from the crowd. Burning cloth fragments flew apart. They glowed and fluttered, like fiery birds. The ropes curled like flaming snakes as they fell. The basket crashed to the earth, engulfed in fire, like Icarus’s chariot.
Dr. Crick burst into tears. “My airship!”
The crowds ran from the burning debris that drifted down from the sky. A police constable sped toward us. “Hey! You weren’t authorized to land a balloon here. This is quite a serious offense!”
Slade and I backed away. The constable fixed on Stieber, grabbed him by the collar, and said, “You’re under arrest.”
Slade caught up my hand. We bolted. I heard Stieber say, “Let me go!” and the constable say, “Ah, you’re a foreigner. What’s your name? Was this an attack on England?”
We ran through the crowds and the smoking wreckage of the airship, toward the Crystal Palace. So did many other people. To take shelter in a glass house might have seemed absurd, but the Crystal Palace was the only building nearby. Mobs jostled us, trampled on my feet. We joined a huge crush at the door. Elbows jabbed me as Slade muscled our way past a tight pack of angry men, crying women, and frightened children, through the odor of hot, sweaty flesh and the shrill of frantic voices. Inside the building, the Great Exhibition was even more crowded than it had been on the day I’d visited it with the Smith family, and night had transformed the place.
Thousands of burning lamps reflected in the glass walls and ceiling. The air smelled of gas fumes and shimmered with heat. Flickering shadows distorted the faces of the people that Slade and I passed as we fought our way along the main aisle down the transept. The Great Exhibition had become an inferno populated by ghouls.
“If Niall Kavanagh is here, how will we find him?” I asked.
“It’s too bad Stieber has the map,” Slade said. “Can you remember the places Kavanagh marked?”
“I’ll try.”
Guided by my faint memory of the map and the Great Exhibition, I led Slade down the west nave, where I thought I’d seen an X. We entered the display from Turkey. Beneath swags of red drapery, glass cases held hookahs, knives and swords with curved blades, and a camel saddle. A party of foreign gentlemen had taken refuge there. They spoke excitedly in French, discussing the explosion of the airship. But we didn’t see Niall Kavanagh.
Slade hurried me away, saying, “I remember an arrow pointing in the vicinity of that exhibit.”
It was the China Court, which contained ceramic vases, painted lanterns, embroidered screens, and jade figurines. These were surrounded by frightened, sobbing women-a church group from a country parish. Again we found no Niall Kavanagh and no bomb, but when we left the court, Stieber came striding down the aisle. He’d escaped the constable. He carried a pistol. Spying us, he broke into a run.
Slade and I turned and fled. Hand in hand, we ran past the towering zinc Amazon on horseback and a mob gathered around the Koh-i-noor, the biggest diamond in the world. We hid in the machinery exhibit, behind a cotton-spinning machine. Stieber did not reappear.
“I think we’ve shaken him off,” Slade said.
A man wandered down a nearby aisle. He was so nondescript that I might not have noticed him, except that he had with him a brown leather suitcase mounted on wheels, which he was pulling by a long handle. It was a clever invention, more useful than many items in the Great Exhibition. I took a second look at the man. He was short and slight, dressed in a long coat, its collar turned up; a cap hid his hair and face. He walked with a familiar, shuffling gait.
“There,” I whispered excitedly, and pointed. “It’s Dr. Kavanagh!”
As Slade and I started toward him, Kavanagh saw us. Alarm widened his eyes behind his spectacles. He pivoted, then scurried off.
“Stop!” Slade yelled.
Kavanagh sped through the crowd, bumping into people, his suitcase rolling over their feet. We lost sight of him, but we followed the protests he left in his wake. Veering around a corner, we found ourselves in the transept again. People were massed around the fountain, which gleamed orange as if the gaslight had alchemized its glass structure and its spilling water into molten fire. They gazed up at a dais covered with red velvet. There stood a small, dumpy woman resplendent in peacock-blue silk and a man in white breeches, shiny black boots, and a coat decorated with epaulets and brass buttons. Soldiers, ladies, and gentlemen flanked the dais. Niall Kavanagh skirted the audience, and we chased him while the woman spoke. I was too far away to get a good look at her, and the Crystal Palace echoed with noise, so I could only hear scattered phrases of what she said: “… my dear husband’s pride and joy… had to visit it again.. . can’t stay away…” But her voice was instantly recognizable.
“It’s Queen Victoria,” I said. “And Prince Albert.”
“What damnable bad luck!” Slade said. “They would have to pick tonight of all nights to drop in. We have to catch that madman before he blows them to kingdom come!”
As we gained on Kavanagh, I spied George Smith at the edge of the audience. Beside him was William Thackeray. They were drinking glasses of lemonade, smiling and making comments to each other as they watched the royal public appearance. Near them were George’s mother and Mr. Thackeray’s fair, buxom mistress. I was horrified to see my friends in danger.
“Stop!” I begged Slade.
He di
dn’t hear me. I wrenched my hand out of his. While he pursued Kavanagh, I hastened to my friends, calling, “Mr. Smith!”
George turned to me in surprise. “Charlotte?” A smile of pleasure brightened his handsome face. “What are you doing here?”
His mother stared at me with an annoyance so sudden that she couldn’t hide it. “I didn’t know you were back in London, Miss Bronte.”
“I must warn you,” I said, and fumbled for the words to tell them about Niall Kavanagh and the bomb.
“Well, if it isn’t Jane Eyre,” Mr. Thackeray said, all sly delight. He drew his mistress forward. “Do you remember Mrs. Brookfield?”
She murmured a polite greeting and looked askance at my disheveled clothes and hair. I was so distraught that all I could think of to say was, “You must leave at once!”
“Why?” George said, perplexed.
“But you just got here. The fun has only just begun,” Mr. Thackeray said. “Would you like some lemonade?” He offered me his glass.
“Something terrible is going to happen,” I said.
“What nonsense are you talking?” Mrs. Smith demanded.
I saw, beyond her to my left, Stieber rushing toward me. To my right I saw Slade tackle Kavanagh, who fell. With my attention split between those sights, I was unable to react to either. Then Stieber was upon me. He seized my arm.
“I beg your pardon,” Mr. Smith said indignantly. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Where is Slade?” Stieber demanded. “Where is Dr. Kavanagh?”
“Unhand the lady,” Mr. Thackeray ordered.
He put his hand on Stieber’s chest and shoved. Stieber lost his grip on me. He took a few steps backward, raised his pistol, and aimed it at Mr. Thackeray.
“He’s got a gun!” Mrs. Brookfield cried. “William, look out!”
I heard Kavanagh screaming. Stieber turned toward the sound. Slade hung onto Kavanagh’s leg with one hand and grabbed the suitcase with the other. Kavanagh clung to the suitcase’s handle. He kicked Slade in the chin, yanked the suitcase away from Slade, and went stumbling away.
“Dr. Kavanagh!” Stieber shouted. “Stop!” He pointed his gun up at the ceiling and fired.
There was a bang that reverberated through the Crystal Palace, then the sound of glass shattering. George flung his arm over my head to shield me; we ducked as splinters rained down. On the dais, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert looked around in confusion. The crowd dissolved into screaming, swirling chaos. People bleeding from cuts and hysterical with fright ran toward the exits at either end of the transept. The mob followed in a blind stampede. Soldiers hurried the Queen and Prince down from the dais. Pandemonium swallowed up the entire royal party. I heard the Queen shriek; I saw the diamond tiara she wore sink below the bobbing heads of the people in the fleeing crowd. I saw Kavanagh running.
Stieber ran after him, called, “Stop!” and fired another shot.
The bullet pinged off the floor near Kavanagh. He screamed, tripped, and fell. He twisted around to see who’d shot at him. His spectacles were crooked on his face, his mouth open. Slade picked himself up and started after Kavanagh.
“Don’t move!” Stieber swung the pistol around, aiming at Slade, at me, and the space cleared by the audience’s flight. “Everyone stay where you are, or I’ll shoot again!”
Crowds surged in both directions along the transept, ignoring Stieber, growing as other folks joined the rush from the Crystal Palace. Only a few people were left. George Smith had his arm protectively around me. Mr. Thackeray stood at my other side, clutching his glass of lemonade, the sardonic expression wiped off his face by shock. His mistress and George’s mother were gone, carried off by the crowd. But Queen Victoria sat in a tangle of her peacock-blue skirts, by the crystal fountain, where she’d fallen. Prince Albert knelt at her right. A lone gentleman from her entourage stood at her left. It was Lord Eastbourne.
I was alarmed to see him. He stared, equally alarmed, at me, Slade, and Dr. Kavanagh. Perverse fate had brought us all together!
The Queen spied me, and her face darkened with ire. “Miss Bronte. I might have known. Whenever there is trouble, you are right at its center.” She struggled to rise. Prince Albert gave her his hand and hauled her up. “Pray tell, what is going on here?”
I was dumbfounded and tongue-tied.
She observed Stieber holding the gun and said, “Who are you?”
Slade stepped forward and bowed. “Your Majesty, please allow me to introduce Wilhelm Stieber, chief spy to Tsar Nicholas.”
“Mr. Slade? Is that you?” Her mouth opened in amazement as she saw the gun that Stieber had slewed in her direction. Stieber’s expression went blank, so flabbergasted was he to meet the Queen of England under such circumstances. She quickly recovered her regal demeanor. “I can’t say I’m happy about making your acquaintance, Mr. Stieber, but I would like it much better if you would please not point your firearm at me.”
Confounded, Stieber aimed the gun at Niall Kavanagh instead. Kavanagh clutched his suitcase and gazed at the Queen, so awed by her presence that he’d forgotten to escape when he’d had his chance. The Queen said, “Mr. Slade. I am glad to see that you have risen from the dead. Perhaps you would be so good as to explain this.”
“Mr. Stieber has been plotting with the Tsar to arm Russia for a war against England,” Slade said. “He’s in London to capture a scientist who has invented a weapon that’s capable of killing millions of people.” Slade indicated Kavanagh. “This is Dr. Niall Kavanagh, the scientist. That suitcase contains his weapon. I came back from Russia to keep it, and him, out of Stieber’s hands.”
The Queen sputtered in bewilderment. Prince Albert said, “That is what Miss Bronte told us at Osborne House. Don’t you remember? It seems to be true.”
She glared at her husband, then at Slade and Stieber. “If it is true, then why bring this bad business here, of all places? How dare you disrupt our beloved Great Exhibition?”
“I beg your forgiveness, Your Majesty,” Slade said. “Dr. Kavanagh wants to demonstrate his bomb. This is the place he chose. Miss Bronte, Mr. Stieber, and I merely followed him here.”
Uncomprehending and irate, the Queen turned on Kavanagh. “Why would you do such a thing? Dr. Kavanagh, you are a British subject. If you have invented such a weapon, you should have presented it to me, through official channels, and let me be the judge of when and where to test it. Why did you not?”
Kavanagh wasn’t listening. He’d noticed Lord Eastbourne. Anger and hatred enflamed his bloodshot eyes. “We had a deal,” he said, lurching to his feet and pointing at Lord Eastbourne. Lord Eastbourne recoiled as if from a leper’s touch. “You agreed to help me build my weapon, but then you changed your mind. You called me a fraud. You cut me off.”
Slade said, “Perhaps Lord Eastbourne could answer Your Majesty’s questions.”
41
“Do you know Dr. Kavanagh?” the Queen asked Lord Eastbourne in surprise. “Is what he says true?”
“Your Majesty, I’ve never seen this man before,” Lord Eastbourne said calmly. “He’s lying.”
“You forbade me to tell anyone about our arrangement. You said that if I did, no one would believe me.” Kavanagh fixed an accusing stare on Lord Eastbourne. “You burned down my laboratory.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea what he’s talking about.” Lord Eastbourne’s face was a placid, urbane mask. “Pay him no attention, Your Majesty.”
I found my voice. “Lord Eastbourne did burn down the laboratory. Mr. Slade and I were there.” I moved out of George Smith’s embrace, to stand beside Slade. “We saw him.”
Slade nodded. “We were almost killed.”
Surprise jarred the mask of innocence off Lord Eastbourne’s face. As he turned to Slade and me, his lips pursed; then his features tightened with vexation. I knew what he was thinking: he hadn’t known we were at the laboratory; he’d believed there had been no witnesses to his act of arson; and he heartily wished we h
ad died.
“Miss Bronte is lying, too, Your Majesty,” Lord Eastbourne said. “She’s a murderess, and a fugitive. And Mr. Slade, well, Mr. Slade is a traitor.” His voice was unnaturally thin. “Don’t believe them. They’re trying to… to incriminate me to save their own skins.”
Neither the Queen nor the Prince was fooled. They regarded Lord Eastbourne with hurt, reproachful expressions. She clasped a hand to her chest as though his betrayal of her trust had pierced her heart and said, “Why?”
Lord Eastbourne seemed to realize that there was no use denying what he’d done, but he hurried to provide an explanation that put him in a good light. “I didn’t tell you about Dr. Kavanagh because I wasn’t sure that he could really deliver what he promised, a weapon with destructive powers such as the world has never known. But I felt duty-bound to investigate his claim, in case it had validity. I entered into a private arrangement with Dr. Kavanagh because I didn’t want to bother Your Majesty about a project that might come to nothing. I paid for his research myself, in order to spare your treasury the expense. As it turned out, my misgivings about Dr. Kavanagh were justified. He is a fraud.”
The Queen shook her head. Lord Eastbourne couldn’t hide his fear now, but he blustered on. “The laboratory was in a building that I had purchased. Dr. Kavanagh had left it in such bad condition that it was beyond repair. I was within my rights to burn it down. I didn’t know that Mr. Slade and Miss Bronte were there.”
“That’s not why you burned it down,” Niall Kavanagh said. “You wanted to get rid of anything that could connect me with you. You wanted to destroy me and my work. But here I am.” He bowed to the Queen, wobbled, and righted himself. “Your Majesty, I have the weapon here.”
He fumbled with the latches on the suitcase. He opened it and lifted out the bomb. It had appeared more impressive in the dungeon than it did here, surrounded by splendid inventions. Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, Lord Eastbourne, and Stieber gazed dubiously at the glass jars strapped to the canister of gunpowder, the limp fuse. “That is the weapon?” Stieber said.
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