While the mechanicians poured gasoline, oil, and water in Josephine’s tanks, and gasoline and castor oil in Bell’s, they reported that even though Steve Stevens’s double Antoinette twin-propellered tractor biplane had turned in the best time from Belmont Park to Yonkers, the cotton planter was mad as hell at Dmitri Platov for helping Josephine fix her plane at the Statue of Liberty.

“De idea is dat,” they mimicked Platov affectionately, “every peoples racing together.”

“So Mr. Stevens yelled at poor Dmitri,” the mimics went on, switching to a Southern drawl, “Y’all is a socialist.”

Bell noticed that Josephine did not join in the laughter. Her face was tight with tension. He assumed that she was deeply upset to be so far behind this early in the race. Ordinarily polite and pleasant to everyone, she was railing at her mechanicians to “Hurry it up!” as they made further repairs to her whirlwind-damaged wing.

“Don’t worry,” Bell said gently, “you’ll catch up.”

The tall detective motioned one of the Van Dorns on her support train to join him. “Any idea why that flap fell off the wing?”

“She got caught in a pocket tornado.”

“I know that. But could the hinge have been weakened beforehand?”

“Sabotage? First thing I looked for, Mr. Bell. Fact is, that machine’s never been out of our sight on the ground. Mr. Abbott made that darned clear. We watched like hawks for sabotage. We slept next to it at Belmont. With one man always awake.”

Andy and his helper arrived in a Thomas Flyer via a ferry from the Palisades of New Jersey before Josephine’s mechanicians were finished. They drove it up the ramp into the American Eagle Special, and Bell sent the train ahead.

It was noon before Josephine could take to the sky.

She circled the grandstand for Weiner of Accounting’s deputy to record her departure time, climbed to a thousand feet, and headed north. Isaac Bell flew a little above and a quarter mile behind. His race map said it was a hundred and forty miles to Albany’s Altamont Fair Grounds. The route was easy to follow, the New York Central Railroad tracks hugging the east bank of the river, until, above the city of Hudson, he saw a number of short lines merge in from the east. At that confusing junction, the race stewards had marked the correct tracks to follow with long white canvas arrows.

The two monoplanes proceeded north without incident, eventually overtaking Bell’s white-roofed Eagle Special train, which was loafing along waiting for them to catch up. The fireman shoveled on a little more coal to keep pace with the flying machines.

Suddenly, ten miles short of Albany, Bell saw Josephine drop in a steep volplane.