The Steampunk Detective Read Online Free PDF

green.
    “I will release the mooring cables,” Mr Doyle said. “First the front. Now the rear.”
    The cables fell away and the Lion’s Mane gently started forward. Within moments it had drifted away from the roof of the building and away from Bee Street. Jack gripped one of the hand rails tightly.
    Jack’s heart pounded with excitement. His face felt flushed. “I’ve never flown before,” he said. “Not in an airship, anyway.”
    He noticed Scarlet’s startled expression.
    “It’s a long story,” he said.
     

Chapter Five
    The airship rose higher above the city.
    “I had to apply for a pilot’s licence,” Mr Doyle explained. “I’m now fully qualified to fly a flying boat containing up to sixteen passengers. Any more than that and I would have to upgrade my license.”
    “You’re a man of many talents,” Scarlet said, looking at Mr Doyle with new respect.
    A sudden thought occurred to Jack. Looking out at the city below, he asked, “Were you in the war, Mr Doyle?”
    “I was.”
    “And what did you do?”
    Mr Doyle did not answer him for so long that Jack thought he must not have heard. He turned away from the view and looked into the older man’s face. He saw a frozen expression, as if the detective were staring into the past.
    “I commanded a regiment in France,” he said. “Many men served under me. Young good men.” He said the words stiffly as if struggling to put the sentences together. “We fought many battles together. Some we won. Others we lost.” Mr Doyle looked embarrassed. He looked down and tapped his leg. “That’s where this happened. A piece of shrapnel, courtesy of the Kaiser. Still in there.”
    Jack looked at Scarlet and noticed her looking at him with a slight frown on her face. He was unsure why she was giving him such a severe expression. “Do you have any medals, Mr Doyle?” Jack continued.
    “There is a time and a place for everything,” Mr Doyle said evenly. “This is neither.”
    “London is changing,” Scarlet suddenly said.
    I’m an idiot , Jack thought. The older girl had been quicker in realising Mr Doyle felt uncomfortable in discussing the war and now she was rapidly changing the subject.
    “The city is growing all the time,” she continued. “The old buildings are being torn down and being replaced by the new.”
    “The invention of Milverton’s bacteria has changed everything,” Mr Doyle said.
    Jack frowned. Who was Milverton? Wasn’t he the chap at the Olympics? But what was this business about his bacteria?
    “Ah yes,” Jack said. “Milverton’s bacteria. Good old Milverton. Where would we be without it. Er, him.”
    He suddenly realised both Scarlet and Mr Doyle were looking at him.
    “Alright,” Jack shrugged. “I give up. What does it do?”
    “It was discovered by Darwinist, James Milverton,” Mr Doyle explained. “Engineered in a lab in Surrey, it has a strength two hundred times that of steel. The compound can still be used to coat individual bricks, stonework and other materials to build structures far larger than anything ever thought possible.”
    With those words the airship rose up above the buildings of the West End and the entire horizon of London lay before them. The new mega structures, all built since the war, lay before them – the new Parliament House, the British Art Museum and New Buckingham palace. All three buildings climbed over two hundred stories in height – but what drew the eye was the piece de resistance of British engineering.
    The London metrotower.
    “Milverton’s Bacteria is changing the world,” Mr Doyle said. “We wouldn’t have the metrotower without it.”
    They seated themselves around the small bridge and travelled in silence for a time as they continued to ascend. The landscape of London lay beneath them, smoke and steam rising up from it, blanketing the city in a shifting grey cloud. Mr Doyle manoeuvred the Lion’s Mane in the same direction as other airships departing the city.