The Detroit Electric Scheme Read Online Free PDF

who could have done this?”
    â€œNo.” Her mouth opened and closed, like she was rehearsing a response. “Why would anyone want to kill John?” She sat up and looked at me again. “Thank you, Will. I appreciate you telling me.”
    Though she was acting strangely, I was encouraged by her lack ofenmity. I reached out again to take her hand. This time she let me. “I’m so sorry, Elizabeth. For John, for everything. But there’s something else. He called me last night. He said you were in trouble.”
    With no inflection, she said, “Trouble?”
    â€œWhy would he say that?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    It was obvious she was lying. “Please. Let me help you.”
    She pulled her hand from my grasp and stood. “You should go.”
    â€œBut, Elizabeth—”
    â€œWill, go.”
    â€œI think you may be in danger. Please.”
    She turned and began to walk from the room, each step slow and careful.
    â€œI’ll go.” I stood. “But please, let me help. God knows I owe you.”
    She stopped at the doorway and looked back at me. The faintest trace of a smile crossed her lips. “I know. But I don’t need your help. Just go.”
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    I drove the Victoria to the Detroit Electric garage. A canary yellow extension brougham pulled out from the overhead door in front of me, a white-gloved “chaser” at the helm. That would be Mrs. Capewell’s automobile, the first stretch Detroit Electric sold and certainly the only time canary yellow had ever been special-ordered. When the brougham passed, I pulled into the garage and drove back to the elevator, exchanging greetings with the chasers. This was everyday life and a welcome respite. The events of the past ten hours faded from scarlet to black-and-white.
    Mr. Billings, the day manager, shouted over the commotion, “Ford! Mrs. Ford!”
    The first “Ford!” made me jump. I glanced around, but no one seemed to have noticed.
    A chaser grabbed the keys off the board and ran to Mrs. Ford’s green Model C coupé, an elegant automobile that to all appearances was anopera coach without the horses. He removed the charging cables, started it up, and pulled out of the garage.
    It had been one of my father’s first big successes in the automobile industry to sell Henry Ford an electric for his wife. She had many reasons to drive a gasoline car, not the least of which was Mr. Ford’s temperament, but it was humorous to think of Clara Ford starting a Model T, or any gasoline automobile for that matter—engaging the hand brake, setting the spark and throttle, hand-cranking the engine until it started, hoping it wouldn’t kick back and break a wrist (or, in a twist of irony, cause “Ford elbow”), then racing back into the auto to reset the spark and fuel before the engine stalled. Few women would even consider performing such unladylike activities.
    I eased the Victoria onto the elevator, rode with it to the second level, and pulled off to the side. The garage was loud—metal banging on metal, shouted conversations, the grinding hum of the air compressor. Detroit Electrics in various states of repair filled most of this floor, and mechanics were at work on a number of them. I nodded at one of the men while turning the corner into the rotten-egg stink of the battery room, the realm of Elwood Crane, Anderson Carriage Company’s battery expert. Never was a man so aptly named. He was nearly six feet tall and perhaps 120 pounds, nothing but two arms, two legs, and a grin.
    Elwood, wearing a welder’s mask and thick rubber gloves, was leaning over the acid tank against the back wall and didn’t see me come in. I waited for him to finish pouring a bottle of sulfuric acid into the tank. “Elwood, I’ve got the Vicky for you.”
    He pulled off his mask. “Does your head hurt as much as mine does?”
    I nodded. He had no