“What are you doing?” said Tom as I pulled the car straight and continued on.
“Driving on a flat tire,” I said, wincing at the sounds coming from under my car. “At least until we make it behind those trees.” I skated around another corner, more on three wheels than four, and brought the roadster to a halt. I reached for my handbag and pulled out my pistol. Enough was enough, and I had had it with that little bully Albie.
“You cannot start a shooting match against a rifle,” said Tom, eyeing my gun with some trepidation.
“No,” I said. “But I doubt he expects me. This should surprise him.” I climbed out of the roadster and stalked back down the road. “Shoot my car! Wait until I catch him.”
But Albie was gone. The van was still lying there on its side, but the man was nowhere to be seen. I heard the roar of an engine and spotted the Model T with a dented fender driving down the road. The driver looked like Albie’s big friend. Albie was in the passenger seat beside him.
I walked back to my car in an absolute steam. Albie was sure to reach Nova Malone or the doctor long before we could reach the hospital.
“Now what?” asked Tom.
“There’s a jack and a spare in the back,” I said. “I’m going to teach you how to change a tire. It’s something everyone should know.”
Tom looked over his pile of jumbled books in the backseat. He straightened them up as I pulled out the tools to change the tire. “I used to have time to read,” he mourned, but he accepted the lug wrench from me and began to loosen the wheel as directed. Together we managed to pull off the wheel and roll it out of the way. The spare took just a little tugging and pushing to get it into place. All in all, with Tom’s help, it was the fastest I had ever changed a tire.
“You have some amazing talents, Betsy Baxter,” Tom said to me after we secured the flat tire on the back.
“Thank you,” I said. “Henry insisted I learn how to change a tire. He said I couldn’t go driving all over Hollywood without knowing at least that much about cars.”
“Who’s Henry?” said Tom as we climbed back into the roadster.
“The man who takes care of my cars,” I said. “And how I’m going to face him, given the state of this car, I don’t know. Maybe Lonnie can do some repairs at the airfield.”
Driving on the spare, I kept our speed down as I wasn’t too sure of the tire.
By the time we reached the hospital, no visitors were allowed. Tom and I did our best, but the nurse at the front desk was firm that we had to wait until morning. We could not go into any patient’s room, no matter how urgent.
“But what will I tell my mother?” I finally wailed in desperation. “He’s quite her favorite son.”
“Who, dear?” asked the nurse.
“The pilot…” I burbled on Tom’s shoulder as he tried to look concerned and not puzzled by my antics.
“Who is she talking about?” asked the nurse again.
“The pilot, the one found on the cliff road,” Tom muttered. Of course, neither of us knew the names of the pilots, which made our inquiries quite suspicious. Even I wasn’t sure if this latest attempt at sliding by the nurse’s guard would work.
“Oh, why didn’t you say so immediately?” said the nurse. “Neither of those men are here. Nova Malone had them checked out hours ago.”
“Really?” I said, lifting my head off Tom’s shoulder and making as big a play as possible with the white handkerchief Tom stuffed into my hand. “Did she take them home? Mother will be so delighted.”
“Oh, no,” said the nurse. “They went to Bluff Mansion. The men were sent in an ambulance with all the proper attendants. Miss Malone took Dr Hughes in her fancy car. Everyone knows her car.”
I’m sure they did, I thought. The Rolls was hard to miss. Still, I was baffled by this seeming cooperation between Hughes and Malone. Who had the grimoire? Or were they sharing it?
“Was Albie driving?” asked Tom in a casual way.
“Oh, you know Albie,” said the nurse, revealing herself to be a local woman. “Yes, he was driving. He’d had an accident earlier, just some bruises and scrapes, but we patched Albie up here while Miss Malone made her arrangements with Dr Hughes. Then they all left together.”
Outside the hospital, Tom watched me pace back and forth by the roadster. “Where to next?” he said.
At that point, I was convinced the Deadly Grimoire was exactly what I needed to find Max. Which was foolish, as I had absolutely no idea how to use the thing. Still, I was tired of everyone stealing it and shooting at my car and causing general misery all around. I felt it was time to take the glittering book away from Nova Malone and the doctor. Eventually, when I cooled off, I might give it to Christine. Then I decided Christine would know exactly what to do with the grimoire.
With everything solved in my head, I still needed a plan of action as I told Tom. “I would go back to Bluff Mansion,” I said, “but I’ve already been to the sanitarium today, and Ezra Hughes might well question my sudden interest in the pilots. Besides, by now, either Nova or Ezra has the grimoire. If it’s Nova, she will keep it close. Perhaps a return trip to the Purple Cat would be wise.”
“Or perhaps we should find a garage,” said Tom. “Is the car supposed to be leaking like that?”
I looked down to see a spattering of oil drops on the ground. Bending further to look right under the car, I could see that my forays over rocks and other debris had done my poor roadster no good at all. “You are right,” I said. “I’m not even sure I should drive as far as a garage. Let’s find a phone and call for a tow.”
We arrived back at the airfield riding in the front seat of a tow truck with my roadster being dragged behind. Lonnie was the first to come running out.
“What have you done to your beautiful machine?” she cried to me.
“A few minor mishaps,” I said.
“We ran off the road after being shot,” Tom added.
Wini came strolling out onto the field with a grin. “Sounds like fun,” she said. “I should have gone with you.”
“If you had been driving,” Lonnie said as she directed the tow driver where to park my car, “there wouldn’t even have been a chassis left!”
“Can you repair it?” I asked Lonnie. “I am sorry to put you to this work so close to the show.”
“The planes are fine,” said Lonnie as she dived under my car to assess the vehicle’s condition. “Betsy Baxter! You cannot drive through fields in a lovely machine like this. Stick to the roads!” Her voice was a bit muffled from being halfway under the car, but her scolding was clear enough.
Tom pulled his stack of books out of the backseat. “I will add these to my luggage,” he said. “It will be nice to have something to read on the train trip back to Boston. Although Boston is going to seem very tame after all our adventures.”
More clanging and Lonnie’s annoyed shout could be heard from under the car. “Honestly, you shouldn’t be allowed to drive anywhere, not if you’re going to do this to a car!”
“Are you a menace on the roads now?” Wini asked with a grin.
“I’ll leave you to explain,” said Tom, walking off.
“Coward,” I muttered after him. But when I related our adventures to Wini, I gave him full credit for his help. “I’m not sure the nurse at the hospital would have even told us where the pilots were, except he kept batting those eyelashes at her and waving handkerchiefs at me. She asked me if he was married when we went back to call for the tow truck,” I said. “And then complimented me on having such a gentleman for a brother.”
“He’s a nice man,” said Wini. “The crew agrees. He’s also a whiz on the phones with the press.” She pulled a newspaper clipping from her pocket and displayed her smiling photo along with a large paragraph of text on the upcoming show. In bold headlines, it proclaimed “Read All About the Woman Without Fear Who Flirts with Death in Her Airplane.” The following story gave Wini’s height and weight and mentioned twice she had recently appeared in Hollywood, lending her talents to the movie studios and immortalizing her stunts on film.
Reading the article, I was struck by an idea. “You should show films of your flying along with the show. I can send you reels of our movie.”
Wini cocked her head at me. “How could we do that?”
“Set up a projector and a screen,” I said. “Lots of small towns just drape a sheet against a wall and set the chairs outside.”
“I think people come to see the actual flying,” said Wini. “Or to go up in a plane. That’s popular and why Bill does the short hops between my stunts. We were going to take people up, circle around Arkham, and then land back down here. On Sunday, we might even fly between Arkham and Innsmouth. There’s a little landing strip there used by the mail flyers.”
“Movies would be popular while people wait to go up in a plane or for the stunts to start,” I said. “We could even cut a special reel from the footage we took in Hollywood. Insert a few cards to explain what is happening.”
“Wouldn’t we need music?” Wini said. “To accompany it?”
“A wind-up phonograph works,” I said. “Or hire a local musician. If you have a talker in your group, have somebody narrate the stunts as they are shown on the screen.”
“Who needs a talker?” asked Tom, who returned without any books in his hands.
“Apparently I do,” said Wini, outlining my idea to him.
“Five cents for the movie,” said Tom, “and sell a pamphlet about your life to the crowd afterward. It’s a clever idea, Betsy, and sure to make money for the show.”
Wini looked at the pair of us. “I would have to hire somebody to run the projector as well as give the talk. Bill and I need to fly the planes.”
“Local crew,” I said. “Didn’t you tell me you hired a few in every town? This would be only a couple more.”
“Sounds interesting,” said Lonnie, coming out from under the car. “I wouldn’t mind having some cameras to tinker with as well. I had a thought about mounting them in the undercarriage of the plane.”
“Aerial footage of your stunts,” Tom said. “There’d be a market for that.”
Wini nodded. “Perhaps. I’ll have to think about it. You and Betsy do have good ideas.”
“Fantastic at publicity ideas,” said Lonnie, rummaging in her toolbox. “But useless around machines.”
“Tom helped me change a tire,” I said, feeling the need to defend our mechanical prowess.
“Anyone can change a tire,” said Lonnie, unimpressed. She pulled up the hood of the car and sighed. “This is a mess. Betsy, you’re a worse menace than Wini to cars.”
“Ah, you did make menace status with Lonnie,” said Wini with satisfaction. “I’m a bona fide menace to planes and automobiles, according to her. I think it is a compliment.”
“It is not!” retorted Lonnie’s muffled voice as she practically went upside down under the hood.
“I am not a reckless driver,” I muttered to Wini as we left Lonnie to her work. “It’s simply been an unusual day.”
“Those seem to happen around you,” Wini responded. “A car chase and a shoot-out. I’m sorry I missed the action!”
As I told her the story of our day, Wini agreed with me that it was too soon to return to Bluff Mansion. “Hughes may be in love with the sound of his own voice,” I finally concluded, “but he’s not completely unobservant. I’ve been a visitor to so many patients in the past few days they should fit me for a nurse’s uniform.”
Tom then made a sensible suggestion. “Visit the place when Hughes isn’t around. He seems to spend a good deal of time at the hospital, and doesn’t he teach at the university, too? Go when he’s not there.”
“I could,” I said, “but what if the grimoire isn’t at Bluff Mansion? What if Nova already has it at the Purple Cat?”
Wini nodded her head. “I think it is most likely that she has the grimoire now. I cannot see her moving her pilots to Hughes’s place and letting the book slip through her fingers. Didn’t your reporter friend say something about dance evenings at the Purple Cat? They must have a band on Friday nights. There will be a lot of people there, so we could slip in and look about for the grimoire.”
“Oh, I still have the membership card,” I said, digging into my purse for the numbered card we had found in the warehouse. “Do we use it to try for the other door that Darrell told us about?”
Wini grinned. “I’m game if you are.”
Tom groaned but said, “I have a dinner jacket and some decent shoes.”
“Shoes!” Wini said. “I have a pair of dancing shoes. Actually, they belong to Lonnie, but she always lets me borrow them. But I don’t have much in the way of party gear.”
“When do you think Lonnie will have the roadster repaired?” I asked.
Tilting her head at the clangs and bangs coming from my car, Wini shrugged. “It won’t take her long, knowing Lonnie.”
“I’ll take a taxi back to the hotel. Bring the roadster this evening, say nine or ten? We don’t want to get to the Purple Cat too early.” Then thinking about how far it was from Arkham. “Maybe you better come by eight.”
“It’s a full moon night,” noted Wini. “Good for flying or driving.”
“Or dancing at a bootlegger’s club,” I said. “You’re a bit taller than me, but if you don’t mind a scandalously short skirt, I can lend you a sparkly dress and some pearls.”
“Trying to turn me into a jazz baby?” laughed Wini.
“You’ll be stepping out with one,” I said.
“Whatever you can do, I can do better,” Wini said. “Bring on your pearls and fancy clothes, Betsy Baxter, and let’s go catch some bootleggers in action.”