The Inventor's Son

Chapter 3: In Which a Plot Most Foul Comes to Light

Liam finally spoke. "What in blazes is a heli-something?"

The question made Ethan snap back to life. "The Personal Helicopter prototype? It's in the workshop shed in our garden. Father's right. I have to get it out of London. Its design is such that Uncle Malcolm could easily adapt it for the foulest of purposes."

"Can we get it out of here?" Liam asked.

"Come with me, Inspector Huntington." Ethan and Sam led Liam out of the drawing room, through the back door, and into Sophia's garden. Ethan shielded his eyes from the sun that now reflected off the shed. Ethan pulled the doors open and announced, "Here it is! You're the first person outside of my household who has lain eyes on it, although, somehow, my uncle knew about it, didn't he?"

"And just how are we supposed to get that thing onto the back of a carriage, lad?" Liam asked.

"Don't worry. My father thought of that." Ethan set to work immediately. He pulled the fabric off the swirling propellers.

"You're going to take it apart? What if you want to put it back together?" Liam asked.

Ethan stopped what he was doing for one moment and brought a paper to Liam. "See this? Even if I forget exactly which piece went with which, I'd still be able to follow this picture to reassemble it."

"Well now, there's something you don't see every day. Your father's a genius, that's for certain," Liam commented.

"Actually, the original design came from Leonardo da Vinci. People who have seen his famous drawing have attempted to build the helicopter from it, but no one, until my father, has made one that actually flies."

"Does it really fly?" Liam asked doubtfully.

"Needless to say, it runs on steam power, but it needs a bigger engine. And frankly, it needs bigger propellers. At this point, it can lift off and hover. That's about all we managed to accomplish before Christmas holiday. After that, I fell ill, and we hadn't been able to work much on it, until maybe today. But it looks like that may not be happening, doesn't it?" Ethan methodically unlocked one pipe after another, as though he'd done it a thousand times before.

Ethan now noticed that Liam was starting to take account of all the gadgets that Marcus had managed to devise over the years. "A lot of these things look like weapons," Liam commented.

"They are weapons. See that hanging from the nail, the small one? That's called a Stagger, which could stun someone with electrical impulses just enough to make them, well, stagger, away from the shed, should they dare to come too close," Ethan told him. "My father wanted to put an alarm on the shed, but he could not seem to come up with anything less deafening than a fog horn activated by motion."

"Oh, I bet the neighbors would have loved that," Liam laughed.

"Ha! They've already threatened to have the shed shut down for lesser reasons than that! They've cited the unsightliness of such a structure as this on their dear little street! Rather than risk their wrath any further, Father decided to instead reinforce the shed with the steel. Which wasn't all that bad an idea. After all, if we should have ever had any sort of unfortunate explosion in here, I suppose the steel beams would have kept it contained, would they not? Besides, shouldn't it be enough to just be able to lock the place up at night?"

"I suppose you might be correct," Liam answered.

"Good sir! You are an inspector with the Met Police! Surely you have an opinion about this issue!" Ethan gasped.

Liam burst out laughing. "You're speaking to the wrong sort of inspector, young man!"

"Oh, I suppose you are correct. Father can be...overly cautious sometimes," Ethan sighed.