“You should have seen her eyes light up when I told her that if she wins inventors will give her aeroplanes. I don’t think she ever thought of that before. It’s like she doesn’t think very far ahead. She’ll do anything she has to to keep herself in flying machines. Including marrying Preston. But only for the machines. She’s not the kind of girl who wants a bunch of kids, jewels, and houses.”

“Which reminds me,” asked Isaac Bell, taking Marion in his arms, “when are you going to marry me?”

Marion looked at the emerald on her finger. Then she smiled into his eyes. She traced his golden mustache with the tip of her finger and kissed him firmly on his lips. “The moment you absolutely insist. You know I would do anything for you. But until then, I am very, very happy and totally content to be your fiancée.”

THE KANSAN WIND howled all that day and through the night and into the next morning.

With no one flying anywhere, Andy Moser took the opportunity to completely disassemble Bell’s Gnome and put it back together, cleaned, polished, tuned, and tweaked.

Joe Mudd’s bricklayers, masons, plasterers, and locomotive firemen tore the Liberator’s engine down into small pieces and finally isolated the cracked copper tube that was the source of the oil leak which kept turning the red machine black.

Russian Dmitri Platov directed Steve Stevens’s mechanicians in another futile effort to permanently synchronize the biplane’s twin motors. When Stevens complained rudely and threatened to dock everyone’s salary, the usually easygoing thermo engine inventor stalked away to help Josephine take the head off her Antoinette to replace a leaky gasket.

Isaac Bell watched them. Platov kept talking to her in an urgent, low voice. Bell wondered whether she was discussing Whiteway’s proposal with the Russian—an odd thought, but their conversation seemed so intense. Whenever he drifted close to overhear, they stopped talking.

“ WHY IS DETECTIVE BELL LURKING?” asked Marco Celere, giving Bell a friendly wave with his Dmitri Platov slide rule.

“He’s looking out for me.”

“Surely he is not afraid for your safety in the presence of kindly Platov?”

“I doubt he’s afraid of anything,” said Josephine.

Celere began chiseling the old head gasket off Josephine’s engine block. “You are somewhat prickly today, my dear.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“Starting with Mr. Whiteway’s proposal?”

“What do you think?” she retorted sullenly.

“I think you should marry him.”

“Marco!”

“I’m serious.”

“Marco, that’s disgusting. How could you want me to marry another man?”

“He’s more than ‘another man.’ He’s the richest newspaper publisher in America. He, and his money, could be very helpful to you. And me.”

“What good will it do us if I’m married to him?”

“You would leave him for me, when the time is right.”