Chapter Twelve

 

“Don’t be a fool, George. It’s too soon.”

Miranda Stillwater’s voice grated on his ears like a missed gear. She placed a hand on his cheek and smiled at him, her teeth quite even except for her pointy little incisors which reminded him of a cat. He covered her hand and lifted it away with his own.

“Then how much longer?” he growled.

“Two or three months at least.” Miranda turned her hand in his and held tight. The strength of her grip surprised him. “Think about it, George. We have to be patient. We’ve been able to avoid any suspicion until Thompson’s wife started questioning his death. For anything to happen to Hiram right now would have the Pinks or the police, or both, sniffing around here. And neither of us wants that.”

Stiles dropped her hand and turned away from her. He’d always done a job and removed himself from the scene as fast as he could. Timing was everything, but another three months hanging around here? He wanted the money Miranda Stillwater promised him as much as he wanted to be done with her.

“I could get both of them with one loose nut in a two-seater. Planes crash all the time. No one would question that.”

Miranda gave him a scathing look. “Don’t you know Hiram has no head for heights? You’d never get him in a plane and we need Sir Hilary.”

“What for? You’ve got all his plans, or will have when your husband’s out of the way.”

“George, George.” Miranda shook her head and spoke softly as if she were speaking to a child. “You don’t know what Sir Hilary is working on, do you?”

A frown gouged Stiles’ face. “Some sort of design for the Stillbee to be converted so it can carry machine guns.”

“Yes, but do you understand what the problem is and why we need Sir Hilary to complete his project?”

Stiles’ shrug masked his sly amusement as he watched Miranda swallow her impatience.

“You should pay more attention, George.” She turned away from him in a cloud of lilac perfume. He wrinkled his nose. It didn’t matter how much of the stuff she put on, it still didn’t cover the sourness of her clothes and the body beneath. “The problem is with the fact that the Stillbee is a tractor model plane. Do you understand what that means?”

He shook his head and waited for her to continue.

“The engine and propeller are in front of the pilot, not at the back like a pusher model,” she explained. “If the gun is mounted in front of the pilot and fired from that position, there is every chance the bullets will hit the propeller blades. Do I need say more?”

“No, I get it. The plane will crash. How do you know all that stuff anyway?”

“I actually listen to a lot of what Hiram and Sir Hilary have to say and I read.” She picked up a sheaf of paper from a side table and shook it under his nose. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to do the same.”

“I’ve got no time for that.” Stiles pushed the fistful of papers away from his face.”And I’m done listening to that blathering English idiot.”

“He’s no idiot, and don’t you forget that.” Miranda spoke sharply. “I admit I had to change my opinion of him. He’s more comfortable thinking than talking. He’s working on some type of gear now to coordinate the gun’s firing mechanism with the revolutions of the propeller to make it safer. If he succeeds there is no doubt the Stillbee will be much more marketable.”

She let the word marketable roll off her tongue to emphasize it. Stiles continued to frown. Being no mechanic he understood only a little of what she told him. That there seemed to be no end in sight still frustrated him.

“So when do I get my money?”

“When the Stillbee has been perfected and is selling well.”

“But it’s selling now.”

“Yes, it is, but just imagine how many more machines we will sell in the future when it has this conversion capacity. It will be a double duty plane. But until I get full control of the company, George, I can only give you a few hundred dollars at a time.”

Frustrated, Stiles moved sulkily away from her. “You promised me thousands.”

“And that’s what you’ll get. But until Sir Hilary has perfected his design and we know it works, we need him. I told you at the start this would be a long term project. We just need to be patient.”

Miranda laid her hand on his arm, her eyes full of pleading and Stiles knew it wasn’t just for his understanding. He looked at her hand with distaste and shook his head.

“I’ve got to get back. There’s some goods coming in later this afternoon and I should check before they’re unloaded that they’re right this time.”

Her expression changed, tightened into something hard and unforgiving. She stepped back, folding her hands together in front of her into two tight little fists. Stiles picked up his hat and left her standing in the small living room.

He made his way back to the airfield along a narrow track made by deer and rabbits and other small creatures that inhabited the area. It was easy to take advantage of the undulating ground on this side of the property to avoid being seen. He’d spent a lot of time surveying the lie of the land and used every aspect of it to his advantage. He ducked under the fence at the rear of the first hangar and thought about Miranda Stillwater as he walked towards the building.

There was no doubt that Stillwater Aviation could have a bright future. But, did he still want to be around once Stillwater himself was out of the picture? He had no taste for playing second fiddle and only gone along this far because of the money Miranda promised him. He’d never had a partner, didn’t want one now or the permanency she hinted at. The fact she asked him no questions and did not know exactly how he’d achieved the ends she’d instigated meant nothing. He suspected she’d drop him at the earliest opportunity if it meant saving her own neck.

Stiles thought about the big plans she outlined for him, followed by bigger sales, especially if this war Stillwater predicted actually happened. What did he care about what happened elsewhere in the world? He usually made enough money between jobs to keep himself comfortably but the amount she’d paid him after the Hannett affair had tempted him and made him careless. He hadn’t bargained on bedding her as well, but what was a man to do when it was so freely offered? Now he knew her game and, money or not, he didn’t want to play anymore.

Mrs. Thompson it seemed had actually loved her husband and wouldn’t accept he’d committed suicide. He’d wanted out as soon as he heard she’d gone to the Pinkerton Agency, but Miranda insisted that would only raise suspicion. But staying proved a wrong move, too, when Montgomery turned up. Now the Buxtons were here. Would he ever be shot of all of them? A chill finger of premonition trailed its way into the pit of his stomach.

The sound of Blenkisop-Brown yelling jerked him out of his thoughts and he hurried in through the wide hangar door.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded. He wanted nothing more than to flatten the permanently bemused expression on Blenkisop-Brown’s face.

“J-just these fellows being careless with their cigarettes.” Blenkinsop-Brown indicated two mechanics who both looked at Stiles with wary expressions. “There’s too much oil around for it to be safe. I told them if they want to smoke they have to do it outside.”

For a moment Stiles had a vision of the hangar filled with smoke and bursting into flames. As head of security it was part of his job to make sure such an eventuality didn’t occur.

“Quite right,” he agreed. “From now on any man who wants a smoke break takes it outside. You got that?”

The mechanics nodded and ground out their butts on the edge of a workbench.

“Thank you for backing me up, Mr. Stiles,” Blenkinsop-Brown said as they exited the hangar together. “I can’t tell you how disastrous a fire would be.”

Stiles patted him on the shoulder in a friendly fashion. “Not a problem, Sir Hilary. I’ll see to getting some NO SMOKING signs put up and we’ll make sure there’s more fire-fighting equipment on hand than just a couple of buckets of sand.”

As he walked away he turned his conversation with Miranda over and over in his mind. What was it she had said about Stillwater not liking heights?

 

~*~*~*~

 

Bitterness rose in Miranda’s throat like bile. She watched Stiles until she could no longer see him.

It was all going horribly wrong. That he no longer even pretended to find her attractive became more obvious every time they met and his growing insistence that she pay more of what she had promised played heavily on her nerves. She bit her lip, uncertain of which fact dismayed her the most.

Couldn’t the silly man see the difficulty of her position? What she gave him now came out of her private funds, the funds left to her by her father and about which Hiram knew nothing, could know nothing. But those funds were running dangerously low. Every time she drew on them she had to endure a quizzical look from her banker, whom she trusted less and less after every visit. While the money sat in his bank, earning small but steady interest, he was happy to advance her a few hundred dollars at a time. But on the occasion when she wanted to withdraw one thousand dollars her request was almost refused. Thank goodness the miserable man finally believed her story of wanting to surprise Hiram with a wonderful gift for his birthday.

The sting of disappointment changed to a sigh of relief when the banker finally agreed to the withdrawal and the bills were delivered to her, crisp and fresh and safe in her purse. His suggestion that she might like to have her husband assist her to manage her banking arrangements she’d easily cast aside. Her dear papa, whose name was still beside hers on the account, would give her all the help she needed. She didn’t add that she would have to pray for that help, her papa being long deceased.

She threw herself down into a chair, despairing of the men in her life. Hiram and George. The one ignored her, the other despised her. If she had been pretty, like Serena Buxton, she may have been taken more seriously. If that were the case Hiram might have been a more attentive husband and they might have had a family. Instead, he’d married for the money he expected her to inherit, never once suspecting the sharp mind behind her plain face.

Having helped her father with his garage businesses she could have helped Hiram build his, could have entertained as easily as that Buxton woman. Maybe not a hundred people at a time, but she would have been able to hold her head up and be counted. Her lips pressed together into a thin, miserable line. Every cent initially sunk into Stillwater Aviation came from her. She had every right to reclaim it anyway she could.

With an exasperated sigh she got out of her chair. There was still an hour or more before Hiram drove out to the cottage to pick her up. It had been easy to convince him to rent this snug little house with its wrap-around veranda for her. It gave her a place where she could indulge in her talent for watercolor painting while he spent his time at the airfield. She removed her jacket which she draped over the back of a chair, then reached for a paint-splattered smock hanging from a hook behind the door.

She slipped the faded cotton garment on and walked to the easel beside the window. Last time she’d been here she’d completed a skyscape. She knew it was good. Just a few more and she’d have enough paintings to contemplate exhibiting them if Hiram was agreeable.

But if not, well she’d been patient so far. A little longer wouldn’t hurt. She hummed softly as she poured a little water from an old teapot kept especially for the purpose into a shallow glass dish. She removed the caps from pots of ultramarine blue, burnt ochre, sienna brown and cadmium red then selected a broad bristled brush and began to prepare her paper.

Once the paper was saturated, she dabbed away the excess water and began to work in swift, sure strokes. It was the mix of urgency to blend the colors before the paper dried and the resulting softness that she enjoyed so much. But there was no softness in her work today. Her brush strokes were strong and bold, each pass of the brush leaving an angry streak of color as she built a scene of heavy, swirling storm clouds.

When she finished she stood back to observe her work with a critical eye. It was raw and savage with nothing delicate about it, but she hadn’t intended that there should be. She heard a car pull up outside and Hiram impatiently call her name. She swapped her smock for her jacket, took one more look at her painting and nodded with satisfaction.

Pretty or not, she was no longer a woman to be ignored.