Venn seized the belt himself and started fastening it to the drive wheel. “I will demonstrate the ease of installation.”
Nell moved to block him. “The engine is still coupled.”
“It is not running.”
“Those gears are under stored tension.”
Venn pushed past her. His sleeve caught briefly on the rough buckle of the belt. The wheel shifted as he pulled it into place. Its movement was small, but it drew his coat cuff toward the exposed jaws of the press. He snatched his hand back just before the teeth caught the fabric.
Nell did not congratulate him on escaping injury. She stepped to the coupling and disengaged it completely, then lifted the belt off the wheel. “That is why we fit a guard before testing,” she said.
For the first time, Venn had no immediate answer. His mechanic stared at the ground. Fiske watched silently as Nell laid the detached belt on the wagon. The near accident had not been dramatic enough for a story told in a drawing room. No one had fallen. Nothing had exploded. Yet the ordinary closeness of it was more convincing than a dozen speeches.
Alden asked what it would take to make the carriage safe. Daniel answered by describing work, not promises: remove the improvised support, fit the proper bushings, build a separate brake on each side, keep the attendants outside the fall line, train them to disengage the drive. Nell added that the equipment syndicate should not control the design of a machine it would not have to operate.
“How long?” Fiske asked.
“Two days for the parts if the forge has fuel,” Daniel said. “Longer if the timber arrives green.”
“Then two days,” Fiske said.
Venn protested that he could not authorize a delay. Fiske looked at him with sudden, exhausted clarity. “You did not authorize this inspection,” he said. “I did.”
After the visitors left, Daniel remained in the yard beside the dismantled press. The danger had not passed merely because Venn had been humiliated. He still possessed influence, money, and access to men willing to obey without asking where their work led. But he had been denied the opportunity to force a hurried demonstration while everybody stood nearby.
Ruth joined Daniel as the afternoon light lengthened. “If Fiske had agreed to run that machine, would you have stopped him?” she asked.
“I would have tried.”
“And if Alden punished us?”
“Then we would have decided together what happened next.”
She studied the exposed gears, now motionless beneath Nell’s hands. “That sounds less certain than one brave man pulling a rope.”
“It is,” Daniel said. “That is why it might last longer.”
They heard voices near the gate. Venn had returned alone and was arguing with Catherine, who had intercepted him before he reached the great house. Daniel did not catch every word, but he heard Venn threaten to make Alden’s debts unbearable unless the loan closed that evening. Catherine stood in the road, shoulders square.
