Bell absorbed this with a certain amount of amazement. He liked young people and routinely took apprentice detectives under his wing, but he could not recall speaking with any twenty-year-old who sounded more clear and more certain than did this dairy farmer’s daughter from the wilds of the North Country.

“I’ve never heard it put so simply.”

But she had shed no light so far on her husband’s habits. When he queried her further, he developed the impression that she had known little about Harry Frost before she married him, and all she had learned since was to fear him. He noticed that her eyes kept darting to the other airships rolling about the infield and climbing into the sky. Whatever confusion or youthful ignorance had led Josephine into marriage with a man like Harry Frost, the vulnerable, naive girl on the ground became a confident woman in the air.

“Having taught yourself, did you then learn a lot more from your friend Marco?”

Josephine sighed. “I could not understand his Italian, and he spoke very little English and was always working on the machines.” She brightened. “But he did teach me one thing. It took me quite a while to understand what he was trying to say in English. But I finally pried it out of him. He said, ‘A good flying machine has to fly—it wants to fly.’ Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Is it true?” asked Isaac Bell.

“Absolutely.” She laid a firm hand on the machine again. “So if you will excuse me, Mr. Bell, if you have no more questions, I hope that this one wants to fly. But it is going to take a while to find out for sure.”

“Do you miss Marco Celere?”

Her eyes did not fill, as Archie had reported, but Josephine did admit that she missed the inventor very much. “He was kind and gentle. Not at all like my husband. I miss him very much.”

“Then it must be a comfort to be flying his latest machine.”

“Thanks to Mr. Whiteway’s kindness and generosity. He bought it from Marco’s creditors, you know.” She glanced sidelong at Bell. “It puts me deep in his debt.”

“I imagine you’ll more than pay it back by making a strong pull for the Whiteway Cup.”

“I have to make more than a strong pull. I have to win the Whiteway Cup. I have no money of my own. I was completely dependent on Harry, and now I’m dependent on Mr. Whiteway.”

“I’m sure he will be grateful if you win the race.”

“Not if, Mr. Bell.” Her gaze fixed on the sky where a parchment-colored Blériot was rising, and when she looked back at Bell her eyes had turned opaque. “I will win, Mr. Bell. But not to make him grateful. I will win because I will do my best, and because Marco built the best flying machine in the race.”