“Now you have piqued my curiosity,” responded Charlotte. “What rattling of skeletons has caught your ear?”
“I would rather not say, so as to avoid further poisoning your thinking.” Her friend rose abruptly. “Why don’t we go listen to Lady Kirkwall’s presentation and then see what your opinion is?”
* * *
“Now that we are finally alone, I need to tell you about my visit to Mr. Hedley’s laboratory,” announced Peregrine as he took a seat on the schoolroom rug and beckoned for Raven and Hawk to join him. After watching the military maneuvers at the Horse Guards parade ground, they had joined the dowager for supper at her townhouse and had just returned to the privacy of their eyrie.
“Let me guess—you learned how to add a gear-and-spring movement to your mechanical hound.” Raven flopped down beside him. “So that it can outrace Harper to the platter of ginger biscuits, ha, ha, ha!”
“No, it’s something far more important than my hound.” Peregrine glanced around to make sure the door was firmly shut. “It has to do with building an oceangoing steamship.” Seeing that he now had their full attention, he hurriedly added, “What with the arson at Maudslay’s laboratory and the incident at the King’s Dockyard, we suspect that Lord Wrexford and m’lady think some dark mischief is going on among the inventors trying to make the first workable prototype, right?”
Raven and Hawk nodded.
“Well, I happened to hear something suspicious—”
“Were you eavesdropping?” demanded Raven.
“Well, um, yes,” admitted Peregrine. “Though not deliberately,” he added hastily, “Andnoton Lord Wrexford or m’lady.”
“Good,” said Hawk solemnly. “That’s only allowed in the most dire of circumstances—”
“Let’s leave parsing through the moral implications for later,” cut in Raven. “Tell us what you heard, Falcon.”
“I asked Mr. Hedley some questions about marine propulsion systems, and he gave me a book to look at . . .” Peregrine then recounted what he had inadvertently overheard in the reading room.
Hawk scrunched his face in thought. “There’s something I still don’t understand. There are steam-powered boats navigating the waters here in Britain . . . so why is the idea of ocean travel considered so revolutionary?”
Raven, who was much more interested in the nuances of mechanical devices than his brother, made a rude sound. “Steamboats can travel up and down rivers and canals, but the open sea is too demanding on the current paddle wheel designs. They are vulnerable to breaking apart in storms and high waves.”
“Then if it’s not possible—” began Hawk.
“We didn’t say it wasn’t possible,” corrected Peregrine. “It’s just that as Mr. Hedley pointed out, nobody has yet figured out a workable design.”
“However, you think the gentlemen you overheard are claiming to have done so, but that it’s a lie—”
They all started at a sudden sound outside the door. However, it was followed by a lowwoof, which made them all relax.
“Don’t startle us like that when we are having a Fledgling council of war,” chided Hawk as he rose and let Harper into the room.
The hound circled a spot on the rug and flopped down with a canine sigh after seeing no platter of biscuits on the floor.
“I don’t know if it’s a lie,” said Peregrine in answer to Hawk’s question. “I just had a bad feeling about the conversation.” He frowned. “The man with the baritone voice had a very oily laugh.”
“M’lady believes that you should listen to your intuition,” pointed out Hawk.
“Oiy, but Wrex says it’s also important to have facts, not just feelings,” countered Raven.
“Well, the fact is, as I left the reading room, I saw the two gentlemen talking with Mr. Hedley in the corridor, and it turns out that Baritone Voice is Lord Taviot!” said Peregrine. “And he’s the head of one of the groups that is involved in the race to building an oceangoing steamship.”
“You’re getting very good at sleuthing, Falcon.” Fixing his brother with an expectant look, Hawk asked, “You think that Lord Taviot is behind all the dark mischief?”
“It’s possible.” Raven made a face. “But rather than keep chewing over this ourselves . . .”
Harper pricked up his ears at the wordchewing.
Raven looked at Peregrine. “I say that come morning, we go and tell Wrex and m’lady exactly what you overheard and let them decide what to do about it.”
Hawk looked a little surprised. “So we do nothing?”
