2

Sebastien could no more travel unescorted than could a respectable woman, although in his case the difficulty was of well-being rather than social standing. They retired separately; Jack slept in the bottom bunk, closer to the curtained doorway. Sebastien did not sleep, but lay listening to the Hans Glücker’s deep silences, the creak and strain of her superstructure, the muted breathing of the nearest passengers. Both men would have preferred a room with a door–even a door of spruce splints and doped cloth–but there was no such luxury to be had aboard the dirigible.

So when someone pounded with a nervous fist against the aluminum doorframe beside the curtain, the wall rattled against the bunk, waking Jack with a start. Sebastien was already sitting upright in the filtered gloom when his companion rolled out of bed. “Coming,” Jack called.

Sebastien slipped from the top bunk and withdrew into the room’s most shadowed corner, shrugging his dressing-gown over his nightshirt. Jack checked that he was halfway presentable before flicking the curtain aside.

“Detective! You are needed! Madame Pontchartrain is gone!” A crewman’s voice, by the coarse German accent. Jack glanced over his own shoulder at Sebastien. “A mystery,” Sebastien said, with an impatient turn of his hand. “How quaint.”

Jack turned back to the crewman and let the curtain fall wide while Sebastien stepped forward to stand at his shoulder. Jack’s German was better than the crewman’s English, so he spoke in that language. “You wish to speak to the detective?”

“The captain does,” the crewman said, his cap clutched to his breast. His eyes flicked around the dark cabin, taking in the blacked-out light, the two rumpled beds. He swallowed.

“Excellent.” Sebastien drew his dressing gown closed across his chest, as if he felt a chill. “I’ll meet him in the salon in half an hour.”

He reached over Jack’s shoulder and flipped the curtain shut in the surprised crewman’s face. Jack waited until he heard footsteps and stepped back, pressing his shoulder to Sebastien’s arm. “No holiday for you,” he said.

Sebastien, turning away, paused to tousle Jack’s hair. “Pull your trousers on, there’s a good lad, and go and check the salon for me, would you?”

“Already done,” Jack said, crouching by his trunk. “Use the center stair. I looked last night. It’s away from any windows.”

Sebastien flipped his valet case open and searched compartments for his cufflinks. “And get yourself some breakfast,” he said without raising his chin. “You’re pale.”

#

The cabins, lounge, and dining room were on the main deck, in the belly of the seven-hundred-foot-long airship. The promenades lined that same deck, their isinglass windows angled down, following the curve of the dirigible’s body, and showed the passing earth and sea below; direct sunlight would not be a problem except at sunset and dawn.

There was a second promenade one flight up, and the lower deck, while mostly crew quarters, also contained the galley, the washrooms, the smoking room–with its asbestos ceiling and tin floor–and the salon.

Which was empty but for Mrs. Smith when they entered. Barely twenty minutes had elapsed; Sebastien could be ready very quickly when he chose.

The salon was a pleasant room, windowless and in the center of the lower deck as a courtesy to passengers of delicate disposition who might find the Hans Glücker’s altitude or motion unsettling, and thus it was very well suited to Sebastien’s needs. The steady drone of the zeppelin’s motors was a constant accompaniment as he collected a china cup of tea from the small banquet laid along one wall, then chose a leather wing-backed chair beside the door. Meanwhile, Jack piled jam on scones to suit an adolescent’s appetite.

Mrs. Smith was already seated on the divan, applying a silver fork to the pastry on her canary-yellow Meissen cake plate. She had acknowledged Sebastien earlier. Now, he touched the teacup to his lips before he set it, and its saucer, on the side table. “Mrs. Smith,” he said. “You seem very calm.”

Her eyebrows rose over the frame of her spectacles. “I’m screaming inside,” she said, and laid the fork down beside her plate. “But that’s no reason not to eat.”

“Did you hear anything last night?”

“I thought you’d ask how I learned of the mystery.”

“Actually,” he said, “I’m curious how you knew to be in this room. As my message was for the captain alone, I believe.”

She sipped her own tea. “I eavesdropped.” She smiled. “My German is excellent.”

The door at the base of the stair swung open. It was a fragile thing, fabric stretched over a wooden frame, closed by a wooden latch for lightness of structure. Sebastien and Jack stood as Captain Hoak entered the salon alone, his hat pinned against his side by his left elbow. Mrs. Smith remained seated, as was proper, but set her teacup down.

“Mrs. Smith,” the Captain said, in English. “Good morning. And guten Morgen, Don Sebastien, Master Jack. Is Mrs. Smith–” He wavered, uncertain as to whom he should be addressing.

“Mrs. Smith is just leaving,” the authoress said. She abandoned her cup and plate and made sure of her reticule before standing. “I shall be in the observation lounge if I am required. Thank you for the excellence of your company, Don Sebastien.” She offered her gloved hand. He took it and bowed over it lightly. “Master Jack,” she concluded, with a teasing smile that sent high color across the young man’s face, and swept past the Captain with a little gracious nod.

The Captain turned to watch her go. He was a tall man, blond hair graying, and he carried the beginnings of a small, hard paunch. He sighed lightly as the door latch clicked and went to fetch his own coffee. “How much have you been informed, Don Sebastien?”

Sebastien reclaimed his chair as the Captain sat. He lifted his cooling tea and blew across the saucer. Jack, who had already finished two scones and was toying with the crumbs on his plate, sat as well. Sebastien expected a steward would be along to tidy when their conference was done. “Only that Madame Pontchartrain is… gone, I believe the word was. Not dead, I take it then?”

“Vanished,” the Captain said. “Dead, perhaps. If she fell, certainly, but there’s no evidence she did. No breach in the hull, and the passenger doors are sealed–and she did not enter the control cabin.”

“Have you searched the lifting body?” Sebastien’s hand rose, an extended finger indicating the ceiling and the giant framework of aluminum beyond it. Within the streamlined lifting body were thirteen donut-shaped gas containers filled with hydrogen and harnessed by netting within the dirigible’s frame.

“We are searching it now,” Captain Hoak said. “But there has been no sign of her there. And of course, even if a woman of her… dignity could be expected to be clambering up ladders, the hatchways are kept locked.”

Sebastien picked up his cup and saucer and stood smoothly, without reliance upon the arms of the chair. “By all means,” he said. “Let us examine the lady’s cabin.”

#

Madame Pontchartrain’s cabin was no different from Sebastien’s, except in that women’s clothing–a dozen or so dresses, half of them rich with velvet and silk, and cut for a more generous figure than the plainer muslins and wools–and two nightgowns–hung from the bar at the foot of the bunks, and the upper bunk had been tidied. Sebastien and Jack searched the cabin thoroughly, to the Captain’s stiff-lipped dismay, and found little of note. The lower bed lay as it had been left, the covers smoothed roughly over a bottom sheet that was rumpled but not creased; hardly typical of what Sebastien had observed of the chambermaids’ military efficiency. There was no blood, and no sign of a struggle, although Madame Pontchartrain’s papers seemed to be in some disarray inside her portfolio, and her cabin bag was less neatly packed than one might expect.

“Dear boy,” Sebastien said, while the Captain posed rigidly beyond the door, erect as a hungry hawk upon a glove, “do you suppose a woman of Madame Pontchartrain’s age and breeding is inclined to creep from her bed at night–to any purpose–without smoothing the sheets respectably?”

“Perhaps if she were very ill,” Jack said uncertainly. He stood a little closer to Sebastien than decorum warranted, but the Captain seemed disinclined to comment. “And very much in a hurry.”

“Captain,” Sebastien said. “I believe we must examine the ladies’ washroom.”

#

The ladies’ was innocent of any sign of violence, and like Mademoiselle LeClere, the attendant had heard nothing. After their inspection, Sebastien accompanied Jack to the dining room for an early luncheon, switching plates discreetly when Jack finished his own steak and salad and began eyeing Sebastien’s poached salmon. He was halfway across the serving and eating methodically when his fork hesitated in midair and his chin came up, blue eyes catching the filtered light.

Sebastien, who was sitting with his back to the windows so he would not be dazzled by even indirect sunlight, saw their bright shapes reflected in Jack’s irises.

“Ah,” he said, observing the deepening furrow between Jack’s eyebrows. “The nightgowns.”

“Two nightgowns,” Jack agreed. “Hanging, and one unrumpled. Madame Pontchartrain never went to bed last night.”

“Indeed she didn’t,” Sebastien said, holding his wine under his nose before tilting the glass, and flicking his tongue out to collect just a drop on the tip, for tasting’s sake. “So the question remains, who rumpled her bunk?”

“And why did Mademoiselle LeClere lie?” Chewing a last bite of salmon, Jack laid his fork across his plate–more yellow Meissen, with cabbage roses and gilt edges. The tablecloths were eyelet linen, white and fine. “Speaking of which, there’s the young lady herself. With Miss Lillian Meadows, no less.”

Sebastien lifted his knife and turned it so the silver blade reflected the dining room behind him. He saw two blonde heads bent close together as the ladies were seated, Miss Meadows tight-trousered and drawing sidelong glances–admiring or censorious–and Mlle. LeClere scandalous with her shawl wound about her neck like a scarf rather than covering the white expanse of her bosom. “While the duenna’s away–” Sebastien began, but then his eyes were drawn to the white cloth twisted around Mlle. LeClere’s long pale throat.

Jack cleared his throat. “I know where you were last night.”

“Indeed.” Sebastien laid the knife crisply across Jack’s plate, abruptly grateful that he could not blush. “So do I. And also I think it’s time for a stroll. Do you not agree?”

Silently, Jack rose, folding his napkin. And together they left the table.

To be Continued…

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