escape for purposes of saving a life. It was quite another to labor to the top, exposing themselves to discovery—or gunfire.
“Wot about a diversion?” Maggie asked. “You c’d zap one of them cargo ships wiv the lightning rifle, and when everyone come out to put out the fire, we c’d go in.”
“You forget that our time here is limited to a few more days,” Andrew told her gently. “With the Margrethe disabled, the loss of one cargo ship could be devastating to the Dunsmuirs, the count’s crew, and the people who work here, once the snow flies.”
“Don’t care about the Dunsmuirs no more,” Lizzie grumbled. “They didn’t believe the Lady, and let those blokes ’urt our Alice’s dad.”
“We have no proof, Lizzie,” Claire said gently. “Without that, the Dunsmuirs cannot act except to delay and pray that calm heads will prevail. I wonder if anyone has checked the dressing room yet?”
“Let us hope n˜Lenfire.ot,” Andrew said. “It will not take a brilliant mind to conclude that you are behind their escape. I wonder where they’d put you?”
Somewhere without tunnels, that was certain. Or windows. A memory of a locked room in Resolution assailed her, and she set her teeth. She would not allow anyone to make her a prisoner again.
Lizzie touched her arm, her fingers cold. Claire was seized in the sudden grip of guilt. What was she thinking, bringing the girls along on such an errand? They should be tucked up in bed aboard the Lady Lucy, safe and warm, with Tigg and the other middies to look after them, not in danger of being made prisoners themselves.
She was a terrible guardian, Claire thought on a wave of despair.
But Lizzie did not seem to be much inclined to seek either safety or warmth. “Lady,” she whispered, “there’s that Alan again. See? By that wreck of a ship we visited wiv Alice. Where I found that other brass casing.”
“Those other two, they’re Bob an’ Joe. Alan is Joe’s brother,” Maggie explained.
Goodness. What a memory she had. Almost as good as Jake’s.
Huddled behind the sort of trunk that turned on one end to open into a traveling closet, they watched Bob and Joe pace in front of the nearly derelict cargo ship, from one end to the other, as if doing an inspection while they waited for Alan to come out of it.
“Does it not seem strange to you that that ship is the only one of the convoy that appears to have a proper guard?” Andrew asked. “Aside from our smoking friend behind us, of course.”
“I had not noticed before, but you are quite right.”
Alan rejoined his friends, and a brief conversation took place before they began to pace again, two heading down to the stern vanes, one to the bow, then reversing and crossing at the gangway in the middle of the gondola.
“And do you see how very large the doors are to the rear of the gondola? One could wheel a landau out of them if one had a ramp.”
“What I see is an engine so large and powerful it warrants its own gondola, there at the stern.” Andrew paused for a moment for them to see the truth of it. “Jake mentioned something Gloria Meriwether-Astor said to him and Alice, just before the explosion,” he went on. “Something about a steam cannon.”
“We are not looking for a cannon, Andrew. Those propelled bullets may have been large, but they were certainly not large enough to fill a cannon barrel.”
“Still … if a man transported a cannon secretly, disguised in an old trap of an airship that would be an unlikely target for sky pirates or tariff men, he might be just as likely to transport silent rifles and who knows what else along with it.”
“But that does not mean he would conceal a prisoner wl aes ith them.”
“Why waste guards?” Maggie put in. “If yer guardin’ yer guns, might as well put the prisoner there. That lot’ve been there all day. So it would make no nevermind to someone lookin’ on whether there was guns or trussed-up gentlemen inside.”
“You sound like Alice,” Lizzie said.
“And you make a sound point,” Andrew told her. “I say it’s worth a look.”
“I say we are outnumbered,” Claire reminded them softly. “Though I would put Lizzie up against a miscreant any day, I should not like to take the chance that she might be hurt.”
“Diversion,” Maggie singsonged softly, as if to remind them she had suggested this before.
“But what?” Claire’s legs were beginning