Murder in the Works: Matthew and Martha Mysteries, #3

By T.R. Rankin

When an explosion aboard a top-secret test boat kills a young naval officer and severely injures Matthew Reynolds, Martha and his friends are forced to investigate. How could such a thing have happened? Murphy discovers the cause and when secret plans also go missing, sabotage is confirmed. But who and why? The investigation goes beyond the Naval Torpedo Station in Newport, RI and threatens to cause an international incident.

 

Meanwhile, the success of Matthew's new shop disrupts the newly wedded couple's domestic bliss, and while George Evans builds a new boat of his own, Connie Worcester returns to Newport in poverty. She and Martha end up kidnapped while snooping where they shouldn't, but show their true mettle after a high-speed torpedo boat chase and some marvelous heroics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gaia House Books
• Release date: Sep 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215095645

T.R. Rankin

T.R. Rankin lives and writes in East Greenwich, Rhode Island

Book preview

Chapter One

The one thing Martha Reynolds, nee Dickinson, did not expect when she married Matthew was that she would see so little of him. It was partly her own fault, she realized as she fussed about the house trying to contain her impatience. The deal was that they would stay in Newport, and she would keep her job at the library. But he would also be free to occupy himself as he chose, which meant opening a new branch of his machine shop business in Newport. The main business would remain under the control of his eldest son, Matthew, in East Greenwich, while he himself took over some of the local Navy business and worked on his own experimental projects.

What she didn’t realize was that he would become so obsessed with it! Of course, setting up and starting the business took time: finding a suitable building, buying and moving in machines, hiring workers, getting them trained, etc. She had expected an initial period of intensity. But he had started the process last November and now here it was May, and he was late for dinner again, the third night in a row.

Normally, it would not be such a problem. They were neither of them dewy-eyed young lovers who pined at the least absence. They were both widowed, she in her mid-forties, he in his early sixties, and while there was certainly romance in their lives (more than she had expected, actually, she was pleased to discover), it was not so all consuming as would make a poet sing. There were other things in their lives as well. Many of them. Like her women’s suffragist club meeting tonight, for which she would have to leave very soon, whether Matthew showed up for dinner or not!

And by this point, dinner would be nearly cold anyway. She was about to call down for Mrs. McGuire to make up a plate for him and put it in the oven, when she heard him on the stairs.

I know, I know, he said hurrying in to kiss her, you have your meeting tonight and I’m late! I’m sorry. I got caught up in paperwork, and then Lawrence wanted to go over the details for tomorrow’s speed trial again, and, well, I’m late. But he said it not as an apology, but as a fact, something inalienable that could neither be altered nor accused. It simply was, like, ‘it’s dark,’ ‘it’s raining,’ or ‘it’s dead.’

It’s not just tonight, she said, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. It’s every night lately. I shouldn’t be surprised to find you were keeping a mistress down there!

A what? he exclaimed, then laughed. I must say I’m flattered, if you think that at nearly 62 years of age I can keep up with a hot young wife, start a business, and keep a mistress!

A hot young wife? she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Very! he said and reached for her again. But she dodged him.

Well, just sit down then and let’s eat. Pulling the bell rope, she headed into the dining room. Barbara will be here any minute and I’m starving!

Ah, and how ravaging you are when ravenous, my love! he leered, following her.

Oh, shush! she said. You won’t get out of trouble that easily! But she could not help but smile.

THEY had barely finished eating when the bell rang below and the heavy clump, clump of steps on the stair indicated that George Evans had accompanied his wife Barbara. He was a large man to begin with, and also limped from an old war wound, so his cane made his tread very distinctive. Matthew and Martha both grabbed their coats and met them on the landing.

Sorry we’re a bit late! said Barbara. She and Martha had worked together for several years at the Redwood Library in town but had become very close over the past year after helping investigate the murder of an old Navy acquaintance of Matthew and George. A large woman herself, but blooming with good health, Barbara was of an age with Martha – as George was with Matthew – and like her, was a former widow, just recently remarried. In fact, the two couples had celebrated their nuptials together in a dual ceremony just after Christmas.

Us, too, said Martha. We’re just now getting up from dinner, so no need to apologize! We’d have kept you otherwise.

Their meeting was of the Newport Ladies Society at Channing Memorial Church on Pelham Street, just beside Touro Park and the old Stone Mill. As it was a lovely spring evening, the two couples walked to the church, where Matthew and George left them and continued on along Bellevue and down Bath Street to Michael Kearney’s Pub on Thames. They settled themselves comfortably in a booth by the open front windows where a gentle breeze wafted in from the harbor, cooling the crowded bar and keeping the cigar and pipe smoke at bay.

Tis rare to get you out for an evening these days, said George, wiping foam from his huge mustaches. I haven’t even seen you this past month or more.

Ah, I know, said Matthew. "Martha has been on me about it, too. But I’ve just been so busy! It’s surprising, George. I’ve been in the machine shop business all my life; apprenticed with my father as a boy, then took over when I got out of the Navy, but I never really had to start the business. I ran it, expanded it, built a new building, bought new machines, hired men and trained ‘em, but I never had to do it all at once! It’s been quite the circus, I tell you! If I’d known what I was getting into, I might have thought twice."

Why the big hurry?

Well, that’s just it, there is no big hurry – except for Lawrence Hoyle wanting to do his speed trials, of course. He’s going like a house afire, that lad! No, it’s just that when things get going, they just seem to pick up speed all by themselves. It’s like a boy’s hoop rolling down hill: you find yourself running along behind for all your worth, just trying to keep up! It seems like everything needs to be done before something else, and it all has to be done right away!

Well, you’re looking trim and fit from it, I must say. And I salute you for your gumption, said George, raising his mug and draining about half of it. But what are these ‘speed trials’ you mentioned?

"Ah! Very interesting little project, that. This young fellow Lawrence Hoyle – Lieutenant Hoyle he is, with the Navy Torpedo Squadron, and a very bright lad – came into the shop just after I opened in December and said he had heard about my hot oil compression engine – he called it my ‘diesel’, for God’s sake; everybody is calling them ‘diesels’ now! If I’d gotten a patent quicker, they’d be ‘Reynolds’! Anyway, he said he had some ideas for better injection on a marine petrol engine and some high-speed propeller designs he wanted to try: said he wanted to outdo Turbinia."

"Turbinia?"

You’ve not heard about the new steam turbine in England? Ah, you river pilots! Matthew laughed. You know every snag and sand bar in the river, but have no idea what’s going on in the world! George was originally from Cairo, Illinois and had spent his life as a pilot on the Mississippi, only coming to Newport the previous summer where he had been smitten by the lovely widow Barbara Helmstead. Let me get us another round said Matthew, rising, and I’ll tell you about it. It’s pretty interesting.

With two fresh mugs before them, Matthew continued, "So, you’ve never heard of Charles Parsons and Turbinia? Well, he’s a British engineer: invented the steam turbine in 1884 and started a company in 1893 to make marine versions that can turn the drive shaft much faster than a reciprocating engine; we’re talking really fast, 2,000 rpm and more."

Two thousand! Wow.

"Yes. So Parsons tried to get the Admiralty interested, but being the hide bound, conservative bunch they are, they declined. So Parsons built a little ship, Turbinia, to demonstrate his turbine and when the British Navy had a huge fleet review for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in June of ’97, Parsons gave them the shock of their lives. Here’s the British fleet, most of the German high seas fleet, a bunch of the French fleet, and I don’t know who all – hundreds and hundreds of ships – all riding at anchor at Spithead with flags flying. Row upon row of huge battle ships and cruisers, you name it. And while the Prince of Wales is being ferried around on the royal yacht doing his inspection, all of a sudden, here comes Parsons driving little Turbinia, racing up and down and around the fleet doing 35 knots! All the Queen’s torpedo boats are trying to catch her, but nobody can even come close! It was the publicity stunt of the age! Needless to say, that got Admiralty’s attention and they’ve now got two destroyers, Viper and Cobra running with turbines and more in the works."

So, this young lieutenant wants to build one of these steam turbines?

"No, no, Hoyle thinks he’s got a better idea. Several of them, in fact. You see, the problem with turbines is they work best when they run really fast. But propellers work best when they run more slowly. When you run a propeller too fast, a phenomenon called cavitation happens. It’s not completely understood yet, but when a propeller is spinning too fast, it vibrates like mad, creates all kinds of bubbles, and loses thrust. The bubbles will even erode the propeller blades away!

Bubbles erode metal?

"Yes, I’ve seen it myself. As I say, we don’t completely understand it yet. But that’s the problem Parsons ran into with Turbinia. At first, his prop lost so much thrust he could only get the boat up to twenty knots or so, about what our torpedo boats can do. That would not have impressed the Admiralty! So he thought, ‘hmmmm, big prop, big cavitation; maybe smaller prop, less cavitation.’ So he ended up doing putting three shafts on Turbinia, each with three small propellers. That got him the speed, but from what I understand, the set-up is not at all efficient.

So anyway, young Hoyle comes to me and says he’s designed a propeller that will minimize cavitation; a high-speed propeller. He wants to run it off a petrol engine using a modification of the injection system I came up with for my oil compression engine. And he wants to throw a high-speed gear box into the mix to increase RPM. So that’s what we’ve done. We re-powered an old steam launch with a 50 horsepower Union gasoline engine and Hoyle’s fancy propeller, and tomorrow morning we’re going out to see how it works!

Do you think you’ll outdo that British fellow?

Oh, no, not even close! Matthew said, raising his hands in denial. For that we’d need a lot more horsepower than we’ve got, and we’d need a flatter hull shape that would allow the boat to rise up out of the water and plane along the top.

So what are you hoping to prove?

"Reduced propellor vibration at high RPM is what we’re really looking for at this stage. I know we can get about 1800 RPM out of the gear box, we’ve done that. So, how the prop behaves – whether it shakes the boat apart – is the question. As for how fast it will push the boat, well, we’ll just have to see.

Young master Hoyle has also come up with a thing he calls a ‘vibrometer’ to measure the vibration. It’s basically a spring-loaded rod with a pencil and a scroll of paper at the top. When we get to the various revolutions we want to check, I engage the rod and crank the paper under the pencil to record the vibration. Works pretty good!

Well, I congratulate you, sir! Here I was all excited to tell you about my new venture, and you’ve gone and blown me out of the water!

What’s this, George? I didn’t mean to steal your thunder!

No, no, not to worry. It’s nothing that spectacular. It’s just that I’ve also bought myself a steam launch, a thirty-five-footer, and had a little cabin and pilot house built on her so Barbara and I can go puttering around the bay.

That’s wonderful, George! What did you name her?

"Why, the Barbara E, of course."

Well, congratulations then! I was wondering how an old river rat like you would take to being hauled out on the hard after all these years.

Ha! George laughed, I’ve been wandering around the streets like a caged beast, casting longing looks at the sea; that’s how I’ve been doing!

Now you can get back to your element. When does she launch?

Oh, she’s in. Launched her last week. In fact, one reason I came along tonight was to see if I could entice you away from you shop for a little shakedown cruise. Barbara is off to Boston in the morning for a Library conference. But I see now you are otherwise occupied.

"Happy to take a rain check, George. You’re also welcome to come sailing on Mary Ellen. I’ve had her hauled and her bottom cleaned, and Murphy is working on her brightwork now. She’ll be ready to sail as soon the varnish is dry! But how is married life treating you?"

Couldn’t be better. You?

The same... when I’m not late for dinner! But speaking of late, we’d best get back. If the ladies have been talking about voting rights again tonight, they’re liable to be quite militant if we’re not timely.

THE ladies’