Chapter Three.The Hyde Park Plot.Two men sat in a big, handsome dining-room in one of the finest houses in Park Lane. One was Theodore Drost, dressed in his usual garb of a Dutch pastor. A look of satisfaction overspread his features as he raised his glass of choice Château Larose.Opposite him at the well-laid luncheon table sat his friend, Ernst Ortmann, alias Horton, alias Harberton, the super-spy whose hand was—if the truth be told—“The Hidden Hand” upon which the newspapers were ever commenting—that secret and subtle influence of Germany in our midst in war-time.Count Ernst von Ortmann was a very shrewd and elusive person. For a number of years he had been a trusted official in the entourage of the Kaiser, and having lived his early life in England, being educated at Oxford, he was now entrusted with the delicate task of directing the advance guard of the German army in this country.Two years before the war Mr Henry Harberton, a wealthy, middle-aged English merchant from Buenos Ayres, had suddenly arisen in the social firmament in the West End, had given smart dinners, and, as an eligible bachelor, had been smiled upon by many mothers with marriageable daughters. His luncheon-parties at the Savoy, the Ritz, and the Carlton were usually chronicled in the newspapers; he was financially interested in a popular revue at a certain West End theatre, and the rumour that he was immensely wealthy was confirmed when he purchased a fine house half-way up Park Lane—a house from which, quite unsuspected, radiated the myriad ramifications of Germany’s spy system.With Henry Harberton, whose father, it was said, had amassed a huge fortune in Argentina in the early days, and which he had inherited, money was of no account. The fine London mansion was sombre and impressive in its decoration. There was nothing flamboyant or out-of-place, nothing that jarred upon the senses: a quiet, calm, and restful residence, the double windows of which shut out the sound of the motor-’buses and taxis of that busy thoroughfare where dwelt London’s commercial princes. Surely that fine house was in strange contrast to the obscure eight-roomed one in a long, drab terrace in Park Road, Wandsworth Common, where dwelt the same mysterious person in very humble and even economical circumstances as Mr Horton, a retired tradesman from the New Cross Road.As Ortmann sat in that big dining-room in Park Lane, a plainly decorated apartment with dead white walls in the Adams style, and a few choice family portraits, his friend, Drost, with his strange triangular face, his square forehead and pointed grey beard, presented a picture of the true type of Dutch pastor, in his rather seedy clerical coat and his round horn-rimmed spectacles.The pair had been discussing certain schemes to the detriment of the English: schemes which, in the main, depended upon the crafty old Drost’s expert knowledge of high-explosives.“Ah! my dear Count!” exclaimed the wily old professor of chemistry in German, as he replaced his glass upon the table. “How marvellously clever is our Emperor! How he befooled and bamboozled these silly sheep of English. Listen to this!” and from his pocket-book he drew a large newspaper cutting—two columns of a London daily newspaper dated Wednesday, October 28, 1908.“What is that?” inquired the Kaiser’s arch-spy, his eyebrows narrowing.“The interview given by the Emperor to a British peer in order to throw dust into the eyes of our enemies against whom we were rapidly preparing. Listen to the Emperor’s clever reassurances in order to gain time.” Then, readjusting his big round spectacles, he glanced down the columns and read in English the following sentences that had fallen from the Kaiser’s lips: “You English are mad, mad, mad as English hares. What has come over you that you are so completely given over to suspicions unworthy of a great nation? What more can I do than I have done? My heart is set upon peace, and it is one of my dearest wishes to live on the best of terms with England. Have I ever been false to my word? Falsehood and prevarication are alien to my nature. My actions ought to speak for themselves, but you listen not to them, but to those who misinterpret and distort them. This is a personal insult, which I feel and resent!”Drost replaced the cutting upon the table, and both men burst into hilarious laughter.“Really, in the light of present events, those printed words must cause our dear friends, the English, considerable chagrin,” declared Ortmann.“Yes. They now see how cleverly we have tricked them,” said Drost with a grin. “That interview gave us an increased six years for preparation. Truly, our Emperor is great. He is invincible!”And both men raised their tall Bohemian glasses in honour of the Arch-Murderer of Europe.That little incident at table was significant of the feelings and intentions of the conspirators.“Your girl Ella is still very active, and that fellow Kennedy seems ever-watchful,” Ortmann remarked presently in a decidedly apprehensive tone. “I know, of course, that your daughter would do nothing to harm you personally; but remember that Kennedy is a British naval officer, and that he might—from patriotic motives—well—”“Kill his prospective father-in-law—eh?” chimed in the Dutch pastor, with a light laugh.The Count hesitated for a second. Then he said:“Well, perhaps not exactly kill you, but he might make things decidedly unpleasant for us both, if he got hold of anything tangible.”“Bah! Rest assured that he’ll never get hold of anything,” declared Drost. “I’ve had him out to Barnes to dinner once or twice lately, but he’s quite in the dark.”“Are you absolutely certain that he knows nothing of what is in progress in your laboratory upstairs!” queried Ortmann. “Are you absolutely certain that Ella has told him nothing?”“Quite—because she herself knows nothing.”“If she knows nothing, then why are we both watched so closely by Kennedy?” asked Ortmann dubiously.“Bah! Your fancy—mere fancy!” declared the professor of chemistry. “I know you’ve been unduly suspicious for a long time, but I tell you that Ella and her lover are far too much absorbed in their own affairs to trouble about our business.” Ortmann shrugged his shoulders. He did not tell his friend Drost the true extent of his knowledge, for it was one of his main principles never to confide serious truths to anybody. By that principle he had risen in his Emperor’s service to the high and responsible position he now occupied—the director of The Hidden Hand.As such, he commanded the services of many persons of both sexes in the United Kingdom. Some were persons who, having accepted German money or German favours in the pre-war days, were now called upon to dance as puppets of Germany while the Kaiser played the tune. Many of them, subjects of neutral countries, had been perfectly friendly to us, but since the war the relentless thumbscrew of blackmail had been placed upon them by Ernst von Ortmann, and they were compelled to do his bidding and act against the interests of Great Britain.Over the heads of most of them, men and women—especially the latter—the wily Ortmann and his well-organised staff held documentary evidence of such a damning character that, if handed to the proper quarter, would either have caused their arrest and punishment, or, in the case of the fair sex, cause their social ostracism. Hence Ortmann held his often unwilling agents together with an iron hand which was both unscrupulous and drastic. Woe betide either man or woman who, having accepted Germany’s good-will and favours before the war, now dared to refuse to do her dirty work.Truly, the Hidden Hand was that of the “mailed-fist” covered with velvet, full of double cunning and irresistible influence in quite unsuspected quarters.Old Theodore Drost was but a pawn in Germany’s dastardly attack upon England, but a very valuable one, from his intimate knowledge of explosives. Moreover, as an inventor of death-dealing devices, he certainly had no equal in Europe.In order to discuss in secret a daring and terrible plot, the pair had lunched in company at Park Lane.At that same hour, on that same day, Flight-Commander Seymour Kennedy, in his naval uniform with the “pilot’s wings,” was on leave from a certain air-station on the South-East coast, and was seated opposite Ella Drost in the Café Royal, in Regent Street, discussing a lobster saladtête-à-tête.It was one of the favourite luncheon places of Drost’s daughter.The revue in which she had been appearing and in which, by the way, Ortmann was financially interested in secret, had finished its season, and the theatre had closed its doors for the summer. Consequently Ella had taken a tiny riverside cottage near Shepperton-on-Thames, though she still kept open her pretty flat in Stamfordham Mansions, her faithful French maid, Mariette, being in charge.“You seem worried, darling,” Kennedy whispered, as he bent across the table to her. “What’s the matter?”“I’ve already told you.”“But you really don’t take it seriously, do you?” asked the well-known air-pilot. “Surely it’s only a mere suspicion.”“It is fortunate that I succeeded in obtaining for you an impression of the key of the laboratory,” was the girl’s reply.“Yes. It was. Your father never dreams that we know all that is in progress there. It’s a real good stunt of yours to keep in with him, and stay at Barnes sometimes.”“Well, I’ve told you what I ascertained the night before last. Ortmann was there with the others. There’s a bigcoupintended—a dastardly blow, as I have explained.”And in the girl’s eyes there showed a hard, serious expression, as she drew a long breath. It was quite plain to her lover that she was full of nervous apprehension, and that what she had related to him was a fact.Another deeply-laid plot was afoot, but one so subtle and so daring that Kennedy, with his cheerful optimism and his high spirits, could not yet fully realise its nature.Ella had, an hour before, told him a very remarkable story.At first, so extraordinary and improbable had it sounded, that he had been inclined to pooh-pooh the whole affair, but now, amid the clatter and bustle of that cosmopolitan restaurant, the same to-day as in the mid-Victorian days, he began to realise that the impression left upon his well-beloved, by the knowledge she had obtained, had been a distinctly sinister one.“Well, dearest,” he said, again leaning across the littletable-à-deux, “I’ll go into the matter at once if you wish it, and we’ll watch and wait.”“Yes, do, Seymour,” exclaimed the girl anxiously. “I’ll help you. There is a deeply-laid plot in progress. Of that I’m quite certain—more especially because Ortmann came to see dad yesterday morning and went to see him again to-day.”“You overheard some of their conversation—eh?”“I did,” was her open response. “And for that reason I am so full of fear.”At nine o’clock that same night, in accordance with an appointment, Ella Drost stood upon the whitewashed kerb in Belgrave Square, at the corner of West Halkin Street.Darkness had already fallen. The London streets were gloomy because of the lighting order, and hardly a light showed from any house in the Square.For fully ten minutes she waited until, at last, from out of Belgrave Place, a car came slowly along, and pulled up at the spot where she stood.In a moment Ella had mounted beside her lover who, next second, moved off in the direction of Knightsbridge.“It’s rather fortunate that we’ve met here, darling,” were his first words. “Since we were together this afternoon I have been followed continuously. Had I called at Stamfordham Mansions, Ortmann would have had his suspicions confirmed. But I’ve successfully eluded them, and here we are.”“I know—I feel sure that Ortmann suspects us. Why does he live as Mr Horton over at Wandsworth Common?”“Because he is so infernally clever,” laughed the air-pilot, in his cheery, nonchalant way.Neither of them knew, up to that moment, anything more of Mr Henry Harberton, of Park Lane, save reading in the papers of his social distinction. Neither Kennedy nor his charming well-beloved had dreamed that Ortmann, alias Horton, patriotic Britannia-rule-the-Waves Englishman, was identical with that meteoric planet in the social firmament of London, Mr Henry Harberton, whose wealth was such that even in war-time he could give two-guinea-a-head luncheons to his friends at one or other of the half-dozen or so London restaurants which cater for such clients.Seymour Kennedy was driving the car swiftly, but Ella, nestling beside him, took no heed of the direction in which they were travelling. The night-wind blew cold and he, solicitous of her welfare, bent over and with his left hand drew up the collar of her Burberry.They were leaving London ere she became aware of it, travelling westward, branching at Hounslow upon the old road to Bath, the road of Dick Turpin’s exploits in the good old days of cocked-hats, powder-and-patches, and three-bottle men.Passing through Slough, they crossed the river at Maidenhead and again at Henley, keeping on the ever ascending high-road over the Chilterns, to Nettlebed, until they ran rapidly down past Gould’s Grove through Benson, and past Shillingford where, a short distance beyond, he pulled up and, opening a gate, placed the car in a meadow grey with mist.Afterwards the pair, leaving the high-road, turned into a path which led through the fields down to the river. Reaching it at a point not far from Day’s Lock, they halted.Before them, between the pathway and the river’s brink, there showed a lighted window obscured by a yellow holland blind, the window of a corrugated iron bungalow of some river enthusiast, the room being apparently lit by a paraffin lamp.Carefully, and treading upon tiptoe, they crept forward without a sound, and, approaching the square, inartistic window, halted and strained their ears to listen to the conversation in progress within.Words in German were being spoken. Ella listened, and recognised her father’s voice. Ortmann was speaking, too, while other voices of strangers also sounded.What Seymour overheard through the thin wood-and-iron wall of the riverside bungalow quickly convinced him that Ella’s suspicions were only too well founded. A desperate conspiracy to commit outrage was certainly being formed—a plot as daring and as subtle as any ever formed by the Nihilists in Russia, or the Mafia in Italy.The Germans,par excellencethe scientists of Europe, were out to win the war by frightfulness, just as thousands of years ago the Chinese won their wars by assuming horrible disguises and pulling ugly faces to bring bad luck upon their superstitious enemies. The Great War Lord of Germany, in order to save his throne and substantiate his title of All-Highest, had set loose his sorry dogs of depravity, degeneracy, and desolation. And he had planted in our island a clever and unscrupulous crew, headed by Ortmann, whose mission was, if possible, to wreck the Ship of State of Great Britain.The air-pilot listened to the conversation in amazement. He realised then how Ella had exercised a shrewder watchfulness than he had ever done, although he had believed himself so clever.Therefore, when she whispered, “Let’s get away, dear, or we may be discovered,” he obeyed her, and crawled off over the strip of gravel to the grass, after which both made their way back to the footpath.“Well?” asked the popular actress, as they strode along hand in hand to where they had left the car. “What’s your opinion now—eh? Haven’t you been convinced?”“Yes, darling. I can now see quite plainly that there is a plot on foot which, if we are patriots, you and I, we must scotch, at all hazards.”“I agree entirely, Seymour,” was the girl’s instant reply. “I tried to warn you a month ago, but you were not convinced. To-day you are convinced—are you not? I am acting only for my dear dead mother’s country, for, strictly speaking, being the daughter of a German, I am an alien enemy.”About two o’clock one morning, about a week later, the dark figure of a man in a shabby serge suit and golf-cap, treading noiselessly in rubber-shoes, crossed Hammersmith Bridge in the direction of Barnes and, passing along that wide open thoroughfare, paused for a moment outside the house of the Dutch pastor, Mr Drost. Then, finding himself unobserved, he slipped into the front garden and, bending, concealed himself in some bushes.He had waited there for ten minutes or so, watching the dark, silent house, when, slowly and noiselessly, the front door opened, and next moment Kennedy and Ella were face to face. The latter wore a pretty pale-blue dressing-gown, for she had just risen from bed, she having spent the last two days at her father’s house.With a warning finger upon her lips, and with a small flash-lamp in her hand, she led her lover up three flights of stairs to the door of that locked room, which she silently opened with her duplicate key.“Father and the man Hans Rozelaar have been at work here nearly all day,” she whispered, when at last they halted before the long deal table upon which stood Drost’s chemical apparatus.Kennedy’s shrewd eyes were quick to notice what was in progress in secret.With some curiosity he took up a tube of tin about a foot long and four inches in diameter. On examining it he saw that through the centre was a second tin tube of about an inch in diameter. Holding it as a telescope towards the light he could see through the inner tubes and noticed that near one end of it a small steel catch was protruding. Further and minute examination revealed that to the catch could be attached a time-fuse already concealed between the inner and outer tubes.“This is evidently some ingenious form of hand grenade,” whispered Kennedy. “It’s all ready for filling. But why, I wonder, should a tube run through the middle in this way?”He was pondering with it in his hand, when his gaze suddenly fell upon something else which was lying close to the spot where he found the tin tube.It was a thin ash walking-stick. On Kennedy taking it up it presented a peculiar feature, for as he grasped it there sounded a sharp metallic click. Then, to his surprise, he discovered that he had inadvertently released a spring in the handle, this in turn releasing four small steel points half-way down the stick.“Curious!” he whispered to his well-beloved, for Drost was sleeping below entirely unconscious of the intruders in his secret laboratory. “What connection can the stick have with the grenade—if not for the purpose of throwing?”He therefore placed the inner tube over the little knob of the stick, and found that it just fitted, so that with plenty of play it slid down as far as the projecting points which, after striking the little steel catch which would be connected with the fuse, allowed it to pass over freely and leave the stick.“Ah! I’ve got it!” he whispered excitedly. “The grenade can be carried in the pocket with perfect safety, until when required it is placed over the handle of the stick and whirled off. As it passes the projections on the stick the time-fuse is set for so many seconds, and the grenade automatically becomes a live one. A very pretty contrivance indeed!—very pretty!” he added with a grin. “This, I must admit, does considerable credit to Ortmann, Drost and Company.”Ella, who had been standing by, holding the electric torch, stood in wonder at the discovery. Truly, some of her father’s inventions had been diabolical ones.Kennedy saw that the ash-stick had been finished and was in working order. All was complete, indeed, save the filling of the deadly grenade, the attaching of the fuse, and the painting of the bright tin.For fully five minutes the air-pilot stood in silence, deeply pondering.Then, as a sudden idea occurred to him, he said quickly:“I must take this stick, Ella. I’ll be back again by four o’clock, and will leave it just outside the front door. You take it in, and replace it exactly as we found it.”He lost no time. In five minutes he had crept from that dark house of mystery and death, and, carrying the stick, returned across Hammersmith Bridge.At ten minutes to four he was back again in Barnes and had left the suspicious-looking ash-stick against the front door, afterwards going to his rooms to snatch a few hours’ sleep.Next day happened to be Sunday, but at noon on Monday Mr Merton Mansfield, one of the most active members of the Cabinet, as well as one of the most popular of Cabinet Ministers, presided at the unveiling of a number of captured German guns which had been drawn up in Hyde Park in order that the public might be afforded an opportunity of seeing the trophies of war in Flanders won by British pertinacity and pluck.Accompanying Merton Mansfield, the people’s idol, the man in whom Great Britain trusted to see that all was well, and who was, at the same time, hated and feared by the Germans, were several other members of the Cabinet.The crowd outside the wire fence, within which stood the shrouded guns, was a large one, for some patriotic speeches were expected. Ella and Kennedy were among the spectators eagerly watching the movements of a thin-faced, well-dressed, middle-aged man, who wore an overcoat, in the left-hand pocket of which was something rather bulky, and who carried in his hand an ash-stick.The man’s name was Hans Rozelaar, known to his friends by the English name of Rose. By the fellow’s movements it was plain that he was quite unsuspicious of the presence of the daughter of his fellow-conspirator, Theodore Drost.Gradually he had worked himself through the crowd until he stood in the front row behind the wire which fenced off the guns with the Cabinet Ministers and their friends, and within ten yards or so of where stood Mr Merton Mansfield.Kennedy was beside Ella some distance away, watching breathlessly. It had been his first impulse to go to Scotland Yard and reveal what they had discovered, but after due consideration he saw that the best punishment for the conspirators was the one he had devised.But if it failed? What if that most deadly grenade was exploded in the group of Great Britain’s leaders—the men who were working night and day, and working with all their might and intelligence, to crush the Hun effectively, even though so slowly.A roar of applause rose from the crowd as Merton Mansfield removed his hat preparatory to speaking. The short, stout, round-faced Cabinet Minister who, in the days of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s Premiership, had been so unpopular with the working-class, yet who had now come to the forefront as the saviour of our dear old England, smiled with pleasure at his hearty reception.The little group of England’s greatest men, Cabinet Ministers and well-known politicians, with a sprinkling of men in khaki, clustered round him, as he commenced to address the assembly, to descant upon the heroic efforts of “French’s contemptible little Army,” of their great exploits, of their amazing achievements, and the staggering organisation of Lord Kitchener.“Here, before you, you have some small souvenirs—some small idea of the weapons which the unscrupulous fiends who are our enemies are using against our gallant troops. They, unfortunately, are not gallant soldiers, these Huns in modern clothing—they are pirates with the skull and crossbones borne upon the helmets of their crack regiments. Yet we shall win—I tell you that we shall win, be the time long or short, be the sacrifice great or small—we shall win because Right, Truth, and God’s justice are with us! And I will here give you a message from the Prime Minister—who would have been here, if it were not for the fact that he is at this moment having audience of His Majesty the King.”A great roar of applause greeted this announcement, when, suddenly, a loud explosion sounded, startling everyone and causing women to scream.The lovers, who had kept their eyes upon the man in the overcoat, saw a red flash, and saw him reel and fall to earth with his face blown away.They had seen how he had placed the grenade over his ash-stick, and how, a second later, he had sharply slung it across from right to left, intending the deadly bomb to land at Mr Merton Mansfield’s feet.Instead, with its fuse set by the little points of steel protruding from the stick, it had, nevertheless, failed to pass from the stick, because of the small piece of thin wire which Seymour Kennedy had driven through just above the ferrule, on that night when he had afterwards left the stick at old Drost’s front door. His quick intelligence had shown him that the empty grenade had already been tried upon the stick, and that when filled, and the fuse attached, it certainly would not be tested again.Hans Rozelaar had slung the grenade just as old Theodore Drost had instructed him, but it had remained fast at the end of the stick, and ere he could release it, it had exploded, blowing both his hands off and his features out of all recognition, though, very fortunately, injuring no one else.“Come, darling. We have surely seen enough!” whispered Seymour Kennedy softly to Ella, as they watched the great sensation caused by the self-destruction of the conspirator, and the hurry of the police towards the dead man. “The Ministers will very soon discover for themselves how narrowly they have escaped.”And as they both turned away, Ella, looking fondly into her lover’s face, remarked in a low voice: “Yes, indeed, Seymour. They certainly owe their safety to you!”
Two men sat in a big, handsome dining-room in one of the finest houses in Park Lane. One was Theodore Drost, dressed in his usual garb of a Dutch pastor. A look of satisfaction overspread his features as he raised his glass of choice Château Larose.
Opposite him at the well-laid luncheon table sat his friend, Ernst Ortmann, alias Horton, alias Harberton, the super-spy whose hand was—if the truth be told—“The Hidden Hand” upon which the newspapers were ever commenting—that secret and subtle influence of Germany in our midst in war-time.
Count Ernst von Ortmann was a very shrewd and elusive person. For a number of years he had been a trusted official in the entourage of the Kaiser, and having lived his early life in England, being educated at Oxford, he was now entrusted with the delicate task of directing the advance guard of the German army in this country.
Two years before the war Mr Henry Harberton, a wealthy, middle-aged English merchant from Buenos Ayres, had suddenly arisen in the social firmament in the West End, had given smart dinners, and, as an eligible bachelor, had been smiled upon by many mothers with marriageable daughters. His luncheon-parties at the Savoy, the Ritz, and the Carlton were usually chronicled in the newspapers; he was financially interested in a popular revue at a certain West End theatre, and the rumour that he was immensely wealthy was confirmed when he purchased a fine house half-way up Park Lane—a house from which, quite unsuspected, radiated the myriad ramifications of Germany’s spy system.
With Henry Harberton, whose father, it was said, had amassed a huge fortune in Argentina in the early days, and which he had inherited, money was of no account. The fine London mansion was sombre and impressive in its decoration. There was nothing flamboyant or out-of-place, nothing that jarred upon the senses: a quiet, calm, and restful residence, the double windows of which shut out the sound of the motor-’buses and taxis of that busy thoroughfare where dwelt London’s commercial princes. Surely that fine house was in strange contrast to the obscure eight-roomed one in a long, drab terrace in Park Road, Wandsworth Common, where dwelt the same mysterious person in very humble and even economical circumstances as Mr Horton, a retired tradesman from the New Cross Road.
As Ortmann sat in that big dining-room in Park Lane, a plainly decorated apartment with dead white walls in the Adams style, and a few choice family portraits, his friend, Drost, with his strange triangular face, his square forehead and pointed grey beard, presented a picture of the true type of Dutch pastor, in his rather seedy clerical coat and his round horn-rimmed spectacles.
The pair had been discussing certain schemes to the detriment of the English: schemes which, in the main, depended upon the crafty old Drost’s expert knowledge of high-explosives.
“Ah! my dear Count!” exclaimed the wily old professor of chemistry in German, as he replaced his glass upon the table. “How marvellously clever is our Emperor! How he befooled and bamboozled these silly sheep of English. Listen to this!” and from his pocket-book he drew a large newspaper cutting—two columns of a London daily newspaper dated Wednesday, October 28, 1908.
“What is that?” inquired the Kaiser’s arch-spy, his eyebrows narrowing.
“The interview given by the Emperor to a British peer in order to throw dust into the eyes of our enemies against whom we were rapidly preparing. Listen to the Emperor’s clever reassurances in order to gain time.” Then, readjusting his big round spectacles, he glanced down the columns and read in English the following sentences that had fallen from the Kaiser’s lips: “You English are mad, mad, mad as English hares. What has come over you that you are so completely given over to suspicions unworthy of a great nation? What more can I do than I have done? My heart is set upon peace, and it is one of my dearest wishes to live on the best of terms with England. Have I ever been false to my word? Falsehood and prevarication are alien to my nature. My actions ought to speak for themselves, but you listen not to them, but to those who misinterpret and distort them. This is a personal insult, which I feel and resent!”
Drost replaced the cutting upon the table, and both men burst into hilarious laughter.
“Really, in the light of present events, those printed words must cause our dear friends, the English, considerable chagrin,” declared Ortmann.
“Yes. They now see how cleverly we have tricked them,” said Drost with a grin. “That interview gave us an increased six years for preparation. Truly, our Emperor is great. He is invincible!”
And both men raised their tall Bohemian glasses in honour of the Arch-Murderer of Europe.
That little incident at table was significant of the feelings and intentions of the conspirators.
“Your girl Ella is still very active, and that fellow Kennedy seems ever-watchful,” Ortmann remarked presently in a decidedly apprehensive tone. “I know, of course, that your daughter would do nothing to harm you personally; but remember that Kennedy is a British naval officer, and that he might—from patriotic motives—well—”
“Kill his prospective father-in-law—eh?” chimed in the Dutch pastor, with a light laugh.
The Count hesitated for a second. Then he said:
“Well, perhaps not exactly kill you, but he might make things decidedly unpleasant for us both, if he got hold of anything tangible.”
“Bah! Rest assured that he’ll never get hold of anything,” declared Drost. “I’ve had him out to Barnes to dinner once or twice lately, but he’s quite in the dark.”
“Are you absolutely certain that he knows nothing of what is in progress in your laboratory upstairs!” queried Ortmann. “Are you absolutely certain that Ella has told him nothing?”
“Quite—because she herself knows nothing.”
“If she knows nothing, then why are we both watched so closely by Kennedy?” asked Ortmann dubiously.
“Bah! Your fancy—mere fancy!” declared the professor of chemistry. “I know you’ve been unduly suspicious for a long time, but I tell you that Ella and her lover are far too much absorbed in their own affairs to trouble about our business.” Ortmann shrugged his shoulders. He did not tell his friend Drost the true extent of his knowledge, for it was one of his main principles never to confide serious truths to anybody. By that principle he had risen in his Emperor’s service to the high and responsible position he now occupied—the director of The Hidden Hand.
As such, he commanded the services of many persons of both sexes in the United Kingdom. Some were persons who, having accepted German money or German favours in the pre-war days, were now called upon to dance as puppets of Germany while the Kaiser played the tune. Many of them, subjects of neutral countries, had been perfectly friendly to us, but since the war the relentless thumbscrew of blackmail had been placed upon them by Ernst von Ortmann, and they were compelled to do his bidding and act against the interests of Great Britain.
Over the heads of most of them, men and women—especially the latter—the wily Ortmann and his well-organised staff held documentary evidence of such a damning character that, if handed to the proper quarter, would either have caused their arrest and punishment, or, in the case of the fair sex, cause their social ostracism. Hence Ortmann held his often unwilling agents together with an iron hand which was both unscrupulous and drastic. Woe betide either man or woman who, having accepted Germany’s good-will and favours before the war, now dared to refuse to do her dirty work.
Truly, the Hidden Hand was that of the “mailed-fist” covered with velvet, full of double cunning and irresistible influence in quite unsuspected quarters.
Old Theodore Drost was but a pawn in Germany’s dastardly attack upon England, but a very valuable one, from his intimate knowledge of explosives. Moreover, as an inventor of death-dealing devices, he certainly had no equal in Europe.
In order to discuss in secret a daring and terrible plot, the pair had lunched in company at Park Lane.
At that same hour, on that same day, Flight-Commander Seymour Kennedy, in his naval uniform with the “pilot’s wings,” was on leave from a certain air-station on the South-East coast, and was seated opposite Ella Drost in the Café Royal, in Regent Street, discussing a lobster saladtête-à-tête.
It was one of the favourite luncheon places of Drost’s daughter.
The revue in which she had been appearing and in which, by the way, Ortmann was financially interested in secret, had finished its season, and the theatre had closed its doors for the summer. Consequently Ella had taken a tiny riverside cottage near Shepperton-on-Thames, though she still kept open her pretty flat in Stamfordham Mansions, her faithful French maid, Mariette, being in charge.
“You seem worried, darling,” Kennedy whispered, as he bent across the table to her. “What’s the matter?”
“I’ve already told you.”
“But you really don’t take it seriously, do you?” asked the well-known air-pilot. “Surely it’s only a mere suspicion.”
“It is fortunate that I succeeded in obtaining for you an impression of the key of the laboratory,” was the girl’s reply.
“Yes. It was. Your father never dreams that we know all that is in progress there. It’s a real good stunt of yours to keep in with him, and stay at Barnes sometimes.”
“Well, I’ve told you what I ascertained the night before last. Ortmann was there with the others. There’s a bigcoupintended—a dastardly blow, as I have explained.”
And in the girl’s eyes there showed a hard, serious expression, as she drew a long breath. It was quite plain to her lover that she was full of nervous apprehension, and that what she had related to him was a fact.
Another deeply-laid plot was afoot, but one so subtle and so daring that Kennedy, with his cheerful optimism and his high spirits, could not yet fully realise its nature.
Ella had, an hour before, told him a very remarkable story.
At first, so extraordinary and improbable had it sounded, that he had been inclined to pooh-pooh the whole affair, but now, amid the clatter and bustle of that cosmopolitan restaurant, the same to-day as in the mid-Victorian days, he began to realise that the impression left upon his well-beloved, by the knowledge she had obtained, had been a distinctly sinister one.
“Well, dearest,” he said, again leaning across the littletable-à-deux, “I’ll go into the matter at once if you wish it, and we’ll watch and wait.”
“Yes, do, Seymour,” exclaimed the girl anxiously. “I’ll help you. There is a deeply-laid plot in progress. Of that I’m quite certain—more especially because Ortmann came to see dad yesterday morning and went to see him again to-day.”
“You overheard some of their conversation—eh?”
“I did,” was her open response. “And for that reason I am so full of fear.”
At nine o’clock that same night, in accordance with an appointment, Ella Drost stood upon the whitewashed kerb in Belgrave Square, at the corner of West Halkin Street.
Darkness had already fallen. The London streets were gloomy because of the lighting order, and hardly a light showed from any house in the Square.
For fully ten minutes she waited until, at last, from out of Belgrave Place, a car came slowly along, and pulled up at the spot where she stood.
In a moment Ella had mounted beside her lover who, next second, moved off in the direction of Knightsbridge.
“It’s rather fortunate that we’ve met here, darling,” were his first words. “Since we were together this afternoon I have been followed continuously. Had I called at Stamfordham Mansions, Ortmann would have had his suspicions confirmed. But I’ve successfully eluded them, and here we are.”
“I know—I feel sure that Ortmann suspects us. Why does he live as Mr Horton over at Wandsworth Common?”
“Because he is so infernally clever,” laughed the air-pilot, in his cheery, nonchalant way.
Neither of them knew, up to that moment, anything more of Mr Henry Harberton, of Park Lane, save reading in the papers of his social distinction. Neither Kennedy nor his charming well-beloved had dreamed that Ortmann, alias Horton, patriotic Britannia-rule-the-Waves Englishman, was identical with that meteoric planet in the social firmament of London, Mr Henry Harberton, whose wealth was such that even in war-time he could give two-guinea-a-head luncheons to his friends at one or other of the half-dozen or so London restaurants which cater for such clients.
Seymour Kennedy was driving the car swiftly, but Ella, nestling beside him, took no heed of the direction in which they were travelling. The night-wind blew cold and he, solicitous of her welfare, bent over and with his left hand drew up the collar of her Burberry.
They were leaving London ere she became aware of it, travelling westward, branching at Hounslow upon the old road to Bath, the road of Dick Turpin’s exploits in the good old days of cocked-hats, powder-and-patches, and three-bottle men.
Passing through Slough, they crossed the river at Maidenhead and again at Henley, keeping on the ever ascending high-road over the Chilterns, to Nettlebed, until they ran rapidly down past Gould’s Grove through Benson, and past Shillingford where, a short distance beyond, he pulled up and, opening a gate, placed the car in a meadow grey with mist.
Afterwards the pair, leaving the high-road, turned into a path which led through the fields down to the river. Reaching it at a point not far from Day’s Lock, they halted.
Before them, between the pathway and the river’s brink, there showed a lighted window obscured by a yellow holland blind, the window of a corrugated iron bungalow of some river enthusiast, the room being apparently lit by a paraffin lamp.
Carefully, and treading upon tiptoe, they crept forward without a sound, and, approaching the square, inartistic window, halted and strained their ears to listen to the conversation in progress within.
Words in German were being spoken. Ella listened, and recognised her father’s voice. Ortmann was speaking, too, while other voices of strangers also sounded.
What Seymour overheard through the thin wood-and-iron wall of the riverside bungalow quickly convinced him that Ella’s suspicions were only too well founded. A desperate conspiracy to commit outrage was certainly being formed—a plot as daring and as subtle as any ever formed by the Nihilists in Russia, or the Mafia in Italy.
The Germans,par excellencethe scientists of Europe, were out to win the war by frightfulness, just as thousands of years ago the Chinese won their wars by assuming horrible disguises and pulling ugly faces to bring bad luck upon their superstitious enemies. The Great War Lord of Germany, in order to save his throne and substantiate his title of All-Highest, had set loose his sorry dogs of depravity, degeneracy, and desolation. And he had planted in our island a clever and unscrupulous crew, headed by Ortmann, whose mission was, if possible, to wreck the Ship of State of Great Britain.
The air-pilot listened to the conversation in amazement. He realised then how Ella had exercised a shrewder watchfulness than he had ever done, although he had believed himself so clever.
Therefore, when she whispered, “Let’s get away, dear, or we may be discovered,” he obeyed her, and crawled off over the strip of gravel to the grass, after which both made their way back to the footpath.
“Well?” asked the popular actress, as they strode along hand in hand to where they had left the car. “What’s your opinion now—eh? Haven’t you been convinced?”
“Yes, darling. I can now see quite plainly that there is a plot on foot which, if we are patriots, you and I, we must scotch, at all hazards.”
“I agree entirely, Seymour,” was the girl’s instant reply. “I tried to warn you a month ago, but you were not convinced. To-day you are convinced—are you not? I am acting only for my dear dead mother’s country, for, strictly speaking, being the daughter of a German, I am an alien enemy.”
About two o’clock one morning, about a week later, the dark figure of a man in a shabby serge suit and golf-cap, treading noiselessly in rubber-shoes, crossed Hammersmith Bridge in the direction of Barnes and, passing along that wide open thoroughfare, paused for a moment outside the house of the Dutch pastor, Mr Drost. Then, finding himself unobserved, he slipped into the front garden and, bending, concealed himself in some bushes.
He had waited there for ten minutes or so, watching the dark, silent house, when, slowly and noiselessly, the front door opened, and next moment Kennedy and Ella were face to face. The latter wore a pretty pale-blue dressing-gown, for she had just risen from bed, she having spent the last two days at her father’s house.
With a warning finger upon her lips, and with a small flash-lamp in her hand, she led her lover up three flights of stairs to the door of that locked room, which she silently opened with her duplicate key.
“Father and the man Hans Rozelaar have been at work here nearly all day,” she whispered, when at last they halted before the long deal table upon which stood Drost’s chemical apparatus.
Kennedy’s shrewd eyes were quick to notice what was in progress in secret.
With some curiosity he took up a tube of tin about a foot long and four inches in diameter. On examining it he saw that through the centre was a second tin tube of about an inch in diameter. Holding it as a telescope towards the light he could see through the inner tubes and noticed that near one end of it a small steel catch was protruding. Further and minute examination revealed that to the catch could be attached a time-fuse already concealed between the inner and outer tubes.
“This is evidently some ingenious form of hand grenade,” whispered Kennedy. “It’s all ready for filling. But why, I wonder, should a tube run through the middle in this way?”
He was pondering with it in his hand, when his gaze suddenly fell upon something else which was lying close to the spot where he found the tin tube.
It was a thin ash walking-stick. On Kennedy taking it up it presented a peculiar feature, for as he grasped it there sounded a sharp metallic click. Then, to his surprise, he discovered that he had inadvertently released a spring in the handle, this in turn releasing four small steel points half-way down the stick.
“Curious!” he whispered to his well-beloved, for Drost was sleeping below entirely unconscious of the intruders in his secret laboratory. “What connection can the stick have with the grenade—if not for the purpose of throwing?”
He therefore placed the inner tube over the little knob of the stick, and found that it just fitted, so that with plenty of play it slid down as far as the projecting points which, after striking the little steel catch which would be connected with the fuse, allowed it to pass over freely and leave the stick.
“Ah! I’ve got it!” he whispered excitedly. “The grenade can be carried in the pocket with perfect safety, until when required it is placed over the handle of the stick and whirled off. As it passes the projections on the stick the time-fuse is set for so many seconds, and the grenade automatically becomes a live one. A very pretty contrivance indeed!—very pretty!” he added with a grin. “This, I must admit, does considerable credit to Ortmann, Drost and Company.”
Ella, who had been standing by, holding the electric torch, stood in wonder at the discovery. Truly, some of her father’s inventions had been diabolical ones.
Kennedy saw that the ash-stick had been finished and was in working order. All was complete, indeed, save the filling of the deadly grenade, the attaching of the fuse, and the painting of the bright tin.
For fully five minutes the air-pilot stood in silence, deeply pondering.
Then, as a sudden idea occurred to him, he said quickly:
“I must take this stick, Ella. I’ll be back again by four o’clock, and will leave it just outside the front door. You take it in, and replace it exactly as we found it.”
He lost no time. In five minutes he had crept from that dark house of mystery and death, and, carrying the stick, returned across Hammersmith Bridge.
At ten minutes to four he was back again in Barnes and had left the suspicious-looking ash-stick against the front door, afterwards going to his rooms to snatch a few hours’ sleep.
Next day happened to be Sunday, but at noon on Monday Mr Merton Mansfield, one of the most active members of the Cabinet, as well as one of the most popular of Cabinet Ministers, presided at the unveiling of a number of captured German guns which had been drawn up in Hyde Park in order that the public might be afforded an opportunity of seeing the trophies of war in Flanders won by British pertinacity and pluck.
Accompanying Merton Mansfield, the people’s idol, the man in whom Great Britain trusted to see that all was well, and who was, at the same time, hated and feared by the Germans, were several other members of the Cabinet.
The crowd outside the wire fence, within which stood the shrouded guns, was a large one, for some patriotic speeches were expected. Ella and Kennedy were among the spectators eagerly watching the movements of a thin-faced, well-dressed, middle-aged man, who wore an overcoat, in the left-hand pocket of which was something rather bulky, and who carried in his hand an ash-stick.
The man’s name was Hans Rozelaar, known to his friends by the English name of Rose. By the fellow’s movements it was plain that he was quite unsuspicious of the presence of the daughter of his fellow-conspirator, Theodore Drost.
Gradually he had worked himself through the crowd until he stood in the front row behind the wire which fenced off the guns with the Cabinet Ministers and their friends, and within ten yards or so of where stood Mr Merton Mansfield.
Kennedy was beside Ella some distance away, watching breathlessly. It had been his first impulse to go to Scotland Yard and reveal what they had discovered, but after due consideration he saw that the best punishment for the conspirators was the one he had devised.
But if it failed? What if that most deadly grenade was exploded in the group of Great Britain’s leaders—the men who were working night and day, and working with all their might and intelligence, to crush the Hun effectively, even though so slowly.
A roar of applause rose from the crowd as Merton Mansfield removed his hat preparatory to speaking. The short, stout, round-faced Cabinet Minister who, in the days of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s Premiership, had been so unpopular with the working-class, yet who had now come to the forefront as the saviour of our dear old England, smiled with pleasure at his hearty reception.
The little group of England’s greatest men, Cabinet Ministers and well-known politicians, with a sprinkling of men in khaki, clustered round him, as he commenced to address the assembly, to descant upon the heroic efforts of “French’s contemptible little Army,” of their great exploits, of their amazing achievements, and the staggering organisation of Lord Kitchener.
“Here, before you, you have some small souvenirs—some small idea of the weapons which the unscrupulous fiends who are our enemies are using against our gallant troops. They, unfortunately, are not gallant soldiers, these Huns in modern clothing—they are pirates with the skull and crossbones borne upon the helmets of their crack regiments. Yet we shall win—I tell you that we shall win, be the time long or short, be the sacrifice great or small—we shall win because Right, Truth, and God’s justice are with us! And I will here give you a message from the Prime Minister—who would have been here, if it were not for the fact that he is at this moment having audience of His Majesty the King.”
A great roar of applause greeted this announcement, when, suddenly, a loud explosion sounded, startling everyone and causing women to scream.
The lovers, who had kept their eyes upon the man in the overcoat, saw a red flash, and saw him reel and fall to earth with his face blown away.
They had seen how he had placed the grenade over his ash-stick, and how, a second later, he had sharply slung it across from right to left, intending the deadly bomb to land at Mr Merton Mansfield’s feet.
Instead, with its fuse set by the little points of steel protruding from the stick, it had, nevertheless, failed to pass from the stick, because of the small piece of thin wire which Seymour Kennedy had driven through just above the ferrule, on that night when he had afterwards left the stick at old Drost’s front door. His quick intelligence had shown him that the empty grenade had already been tried upon the stick, and that when filled, and the fuse attached, it certainly would not be tested again.
Hans Rozelaar had slung the grenade just as old Theodore Drost had instructed him, but it had remained fast at the end of the stick, and ere he could release it, it had exploded, blowing both his hands off and his features out of all recognition, though, very fortunately, injuring no one else.
“Come, darling. We have surely seen enough!” whispered Seymour Kennedy softly to Ella, as they watched the great sensation caused by the self-destruction of the conspirator, and the hurry of the police towards the dead man. “The Ministers will very soon discover for themselves how narrowly they have escaped.”
And as they both turned away, Ella, looking fondly into her lover’s face, remarked in a low voice: “Yes, indeed, Seymour. They certainly owe their safety to you!”
Chapter Four.The Explosive Needle.“Then you suspect that another plot is in progress, Ella?”“I feel confident of it. The Count is furious at the failure of the conspiracy against Mr Merton Mansfield. He came to see father last night. I did not gather much, as I had to get away to the theatre, but I overheard him suggest that some other method should be tried,” replied Ella Drost.She was sitting in the dainty little drawing-room of the flat in Stamfordham Mansions, chatting with her airman lover.“Of course,” he said. “Ortmann and your father were well aware that Merton Mansfield is still the strongest man in the whole Government, a marvellous organiser, and the really great man upon whom Britain has pinned her faith.”“They mean to work some evil upon him,” the girl said apprehensively. “I’m quite certain of it! Cannot we warn him?”“I did so. I wrote to him, urging him to take precautions, and declaring that a plot was in progress,” said Kennedy. “I suppose his secretary had the letter and probably held it back in order not to disturb him. Secretaries have a habit of doing that.”Ella, whose cigarette he had just lit, blew a cloud of blue smoke from her lips, and replied:“Well, if that’s the case then it is exceedingly wrong. The greatest care should be taken of those who are leading us to victory. Ah! dearest,” she added with a sigh, “you do not know how bitter I feel when I reflect that my own father is a German and, moreover, a most deadly enemy.”“I know, darling, I know,” the man responded. “That’s the worst of it. To expose the organiser of these conspirators would be to send your own father to prison—perhaps to an ignominious end.”“Yes. All we can do is to watch closely and thwart their devilish designs, as far as we are able,” the girl said.“Unfortunately, I’ll have to go back to the air-station to-night, but I’ll try to come up again for the week-end.”Disappointment overspread the girl’s face, but a second later she declared:“In that case I shall go and stay with father over at Barnes, and endeavour to discover what is intended.”Therefore, that night, after her work at the theatre, she went to Theodore Drost’s house at Barnes, instead of returning to the flat at Kensington. As she always kept her room there and her visits seemed to delight old Drost, she was always able to keep in touch with Kennedy and so help to frustrate the evil machinations of her father.As the days passed she became more than ever confident that another deep-laid plot was in progress. Nor was she mistaken, for, truth to tell, Ortmann was having many long interviews with his clever catspaw, the man who posed as the plain and pious pastor of the Dutch Church, old Theodore Drost.An incident occurred about a week later which showed the trend of events. The old pastor called one day at that modest, dreary little house close by Wandsworth Common, where Count Ernst von Ortmann, the man who secretly directed the agents of Germany in England, lived as plain Mr Horton whenever he grew tired of his beautiful house in Park Lane. Leading, by the fact of his occupation a dual existence, it was necessary for his nefarious purposes that he should frequently disappear into South London, away from the fashionable friends who knew him as Mr Henry Harberton.The pair were seated together that evening, smoking and discussing the cause of the failure of Rozelaar and the reason of his death by his own bomb.“Ah! my dear Theodore,” exclaimed the Count, in German, throwing himself back in the old wicker armchair in that cheaply furnished room. “Your machine was too elaborate.”“No, you are mistaken, it was simplicity itself,” Drost declared.“Could anybody have tampered with it, do you think?”“Certainly not. Nobody knew—nobody saw it except ourselves and Rozelaar,” Drost said.“And we very nearly blew ourselves up with it during the test. Do you remember?” laughed Ortmann.“Remember! I rather think I do. It was, indeed, a narrow escape. We won’t repeat it. I’ll be more careful, I promise you!” Drost assured his paymaster. “Yet I cannot guess how Rozelaar lost his life.”“Well, we need not trouble. His was not exactly a precious life, Theodore, was it? The fellow knew a little too much, so, for us, it is perhaps best that the accident should have happened.”“It is not the first time that fatal accidents have happened to those who, having served Germany, are of no further use,” remarked Drost grimly.And at his remark the crafty Count—the man who directed the German octopus in Britain—smiled, but remained silent.Though Ella, still at Barnes, kept both eyes and ears open during the day—compelled, of course, to go to the theatre each evening—yet she could discover no solid fact which might lead her to find out what was in progress.The Count came very often over to Barnes, and on two or three occasions was accompanied by a fair-haired young man whose real name was Schrieber, but who had changed it to Sommer, and declared himself to be a Swiss. Indeed, he had forged papers just as old Drost possessed. The fabrication of identification-papers—with photographs attached—became quite an industry in Germany after war had broken out, while many American passports were purchased from American “crooks” and fresh photographs cleverly superimposed.One afternoon the young man Schrieber called, remained talking alone with Drost for about ten minutes, and then left. Presently the old man entered the drawing-room wherein his daughter was seated writing a letter. In his hand he carried a china vase about fourteen inches high, the dark-blue ornamentation being very similar to a “willow-pattern” plate. It was shaped something like a Greek amphora, and quite of ordinary quality.“Ella, dear,” said her father, handing her the vase, “I wish you could get one exactly like this. You’ll be able to get it quite easily at one of the big stores in the West End. A friend of mine has a pair, and has broken one.”“Certainly, dad,” was the girl’s reply. “I’m going out this afternoon, and I’ll take it with me.” That afternoon Ella Drost went to several shops until at last, at one in Oxford Street, she found the exact replica. They were in pairs, and she was compelled to buy both. Later on she took them to Barnes, but before doing so she called in at her own flat and there left the superfluous vase.Old Drost seemed highly delighted at securing the exact replica of the broken ornament.“Excellent!” he said. “Excellent! Really, my dear child, I thought that you would have had to get it made. And making things in war-time is such a very long process.”“I had a little trouble, but I at last got a clue to where they had been bought, and there, sure enough, they had one pair still in stock.”“Excellent! Excellent!” he grunted, and he carried off both the pattern vase and its companion to his little den where he usually did his writing.That same evening, while the taxi was at the door to take Ella to the theatre, the Count called.“Ah! Fräulein!” he cried, as he entered the dining-room where Ella stood ready dressed in her smart coat and hat, as became one who had been so successful in her profession and drew such a handsome salary, much to the envy of her less fortunate fellow-artistes. “Why—you’re quite a stranger—always away at the theatre whenever I call. I took some friends from the club to see you the night before last. That new waltz-song of yours is really most delightful—so catchy,” he added, speaking in German.“Do you like it?” asked the bright, athletic girl who led such a strange semi-Bohemian life, and was yet filled with constant suspicion concerning her father. “At first I did not like singing it, because I objected to some of the lines. But I see now that everyone seems attracted by it.”“No, Fraulein Ella!” exclaimed the Count, with his exquisite courtesy. “The public are not attracted by the song, but by your ownchicand charm.”“Now, really, Count,” exclaimed Ella, “this is too bad of you! If one of my stall-admirers had said so I would forgive him. But, surely, you know me too well to think that I care for flattery from you. I have been too long on the stage, I assure you. To me applause is merely part of the show. I expect it, and smile and bow when the house claps. It does not fill me with the least personal pride, I assure you. When I first went on the stage it certainly did. But to-day, after being all these years before the public—”“All these years!” echoed Ortmann, interrupting her. “Why, you are not much more than twenty now, Ella!”“And think, I’ve already been twelve years on the stage—a life hard enough, I can tell you!”“Yes, I know,” remarked the Count. “But you’ll forget all about your friend Commander Kennedy some day, I expect, and marry a wealthy man.”Ella’s eyebrows contracted for a few seconds.“Well—perhaps,” she said. “But I may yet marry Mr Kennedy, you know!”Count Ernst Ortmann smiled—a hard evil expression upon his heavy lips. He held Seymour Kennedy in distinct suspicion.Indeed, when Ella had gone and he was standing with old Drost in the dining-room, he remarked:“I still entertain very grave suspicions regarding that fellow Kennedy. Couldn’t you keep Ella away from him? Could not we part them somehow? While they are in love a distinct danger exists. He may learn something at any moment. My information is that he is particularly shrewd at investigations, and he may suspect. If so, then the game might very easily be up.”“Bah! Do not anticipate any suchcontretemps. He knows nothing—take that from me. We have nothing whatever to fear in that direction,” Drost assured him. “If I thought so I should very soon take steps to part them.”“How would you accomplish that?”Theodore Drost’s narrow face—broad at the brow and narrow at the chin—puckered in a smile.“It would not be at all difficult,” he said, with a mysterious expression. “I have something upstairs which would very soon effect our purpose and leave no trace—if it were necessary.”“But itisnecessary,” the Count declared.“One day it may be,” Drost said. “But not yet.”“Your girl is in love with him, and I suppose you think it a pity to—well, to spoil their romance, even in face of all that Germany has at stake!” remarked the Count, with an undisguised sneer. “Ah, my dear Drost! you pose as a Dutch pastor, but do you not remember our German motto:Der beste prediger ist der Zeit?” (Time is the best preacher.)“Yes, yes,” replied the old man with the scraggy beard. “But please rely upon my wits. My eyes are open, and I assure you there is nothing whatever at present to fear.”“Very well, Drost,” Answered the Count. “I submit to your wider knowledge. But now that the girl has gone, we may as well go upstairs—eh? You’ve, of course, seen in to-night’s paper that Merton Mansfield is to address the munition-makers in the Midlands in a fortnight’s time.”Old Drost again smiled mysteriously, and said:“I knew that quite a fortnight ago. Schrieber has been north. He returned only last Tuesday.”“Did you send him north?”“I did. He went upon a mission. As you know, I am generally well ahead with any plans I make.”“Plans! What are they? Really, my dear Theodore, you are a perfect marvel of clever inventiveness!”Ella’s father shrugged his shoulders, and in his deep guttural German replied:“I am only doing my duty as a good loyal son of our own Fatherland.”“Well spoken,” declared the Count. “There is a good and just reward awaiting you after the war, never fear! Our Emperor does not forget services rendered. Let us go upstairs—eh? I am anxious to learn what you suggest.”The pair ascended the stairs to the carefully locked room in the roof, that long, well-equipped laboratory wherein Theodore Drost spent so many hours daily experimenting in the latest discovered high-explosives. After Drost had switched on the light he carefully closed the door, and then, crossing to a long deal cupboard where hung several cotton overalls to protect his clothes against the splash of acids, he took out his military gas-masks—those hideous devices with rubber mouth-pieces and mica eye-holes, as used by our men at the front.“It is always best to take precautions,” Drost said, as he handed his companion and taskmaster a helmet. “You may find it a little stifling at first, but it is most necessary.”Both put on the masks, after which Drost handed the Count a pair of rubber gloves. These Ortmann put on, watching Drost, who did the same.“It is a good job, Count, that we are alone in the house, otherwise I could do no work. The gas is heavy, and any escaping from here will fall to the basement. One fourteen-thousandth part in air, and the result must be fatal. There is no known antidote. Ah!” he laughed, “these poor, too-confiding English little dream of our latter-day discoveries—scientific discoveries by which we hold all the honours in the game of war.”“Very well,” grunted the Count. “Let us hope that our science is better than that of our enemies. But I confess that to-day I have doubts. These British have made most wonderful strides—the most amazing progress in their munitions and devices.”While he spoke old Drost was, with expert hand, mixing certain compounds, grey and bright-green crystals, which he pounded in a mortar. Then, carefully weighing with his apothecary’s scales several grammes of a fine white powder, he added it and, while the Count, still wearing his ugly mask, watched, mixed a measured quantity of water and placed the whole into a big glass retort which was already in a holder warmed by the pale-blue flame of a spirit-lamp.Suddenly Drost made a gesture to his companion, and while the liquid in the retort was bubbling, he attached to the narrow end of the retort an arrangement of bent glass tube, and proceeded to distil the liquid he had produced.This product, which fell drop by drop into a long test-tube, was of a bright-blue colour. Drop by drop fell that fatal liquid—fatal because it gave off a poison-gas against which no human being could exist for more than five seconds.“This,” exclaimed Drost, his voice muffled by his mask, “is the most fatal of any gas that chemical science has yet discovered. It does not merely asphyxiate and leave bad symptoms afterwards, but it kills outright in a few seconds. It is absolutely deadly.”The room had by that time become filled by a curious orange-coloured vapour—bright-orange—which to Ortmann’s eyes was an extraordinary phenomenon. Had he not worn the protective mask he would have been instantly overwhelmed by an odour closely resembling that of cloves—a terribly fatal perfume, which would sweep away men like moths passing through the flame of a candle.“Well, my dear Drost,” said the Count, “I know you will never rest until you’ve devised a means of carrying out our plans for the downfall of Merton Mansfield, and certainly you seem to have adopted some measure—deadly though it may be—which is quite in accord with your ingenuity.” He also spoke in a low, stifled voice from within his ugly mask.Drost nodded, and then into the marble mortar, in which he had mixed his devilish compounds, he poured something from a long blue glass-stoppered bottle, whereupon the place instantly became filled with volumes of grey smoke which, when it cleared, left the atmosphere perfectly clear—so clear, indeed, that both men removed their masks, sniffing, however, at the faint odour of cloves still remaining.Afterwards the old chemist took from the cupboard a small cardboard box which, on opening, contained, carefully packed in cotton wool, a short, stout, but hollow needle. Attached to it at one end was a small steel box about two inches broad and the same high. The box was perforated at intervals.“This is the little contrivance of which I spoke,” said Drost gleefully, as he gazed upon it in admiration. “The explosive needle, when filled, and this little chamber, also properly charged, cannot fail to act.”“I take it, my dear friend, that it will be automatic—eh?” remarked the Count, examining it with interest.Old Drost smiled, nodded, and replaced his precious contrivance in its box, after which both men left the laboratory, Drost carefully locking the door before descending the stairs to follow his companion.Both of them took a taxi to the fine house in Park Lane where Ortmann assumed therôleof society man. At ten o’clock a visitor was ushered in, and proved to be the young man whose real name was Schrieber. Apparently he had just returned from a journey, and had come straight from the station in order to make some secret report to Ortmann.When the three were closeted together the young German, who passed as a Swiss, produced from his pocket three small photographs showing the interior of a room taken from different angles, but always showing the fireplace.“Excellent!” declared Drost, as he examined all three prints beneath the strong light. “You have done splendidly.”“Yes, all is in readiness. I have made friends with the maids, and when I return I shall be welcomed. No breath of suspicion will be aroused. We have now but to wait our time.”And the three conspirators—men who were working so secretly, yet with such dastardly intent in the enemy’s cause—laughed as they helped themselves to cigars from the big silver box.Nearly three weeks passed when, one day while Seymour Kennedy was sitting in Ella’s pretty little drawing-room, he accidentally noticed the artistic blue-and-white vase, and remarking how unusual was the shape, his beloved related how it had come into her possession.Kennedy reflected for a few seconds, his brows knit in deep thought.“Curious that your father desired to match a vase like this! With what object, I wonder?”“He told me that he wanted it for a friend.”“H’m! I wonder why his friend was so eager to match it?” was the air-pilot’s remark. “And, again, why did he send you to buy it, when his friend could surely have done so?”Ella was silent. That question had never occurred to her.“I wonder if your father is making some fresh experiment? Have you been to the laboratory lately?” he inquired.“No, dear.”“A secret visit there might be worth while,” he suggested. “Meanwhile, the question of this vase excites my curiosity considerably. I can’t help thinking that Ortmann is at the bottom of some other vile trickery. Their failure to kill Merton Mansfield has, no doubt, made them all the more determined to deal an effectivecoup.”Some five days later it was announced in the London papers that Mr Merton Mansfield, the man in whom Great Britain placed her principal trust in securing victory, would, on the following Thursday, address a mass meeting of the munition workers in the great Midland town of G—. The object of the meeting was to urge greater enthusiasm in the prosecution of the war, and to induce the workers, in the national cause, to forego their holidays and thus keep up the output of heavy shells and high-explosives.Seymour Kennedy, who was in the mess at the time, read the paragraph, and then sat pondering.Next day he induced his commanding officer to give him leave, and he was soon in London making active inquiries. He found that Mr Merton Mansfield had been compelled to decline the invitation of Lord Heatherdale, and had arranged to stay the night at the Central Station Hotel at G—, as he would have to return to London by the first train next morning.Mr Merton Mansfield was an extremely busy man. No member of the Cabinet held greater responsibility upon his shoulders, and certainly no man held higher and stronger views of British patriotism. Any words from his lips were listened to eagerly, and carefully weighed, not only here, but in neutral countries also. Hence, at this great meeting he was expected to reveal one or two matters of paramount interest, and also make a further declaration of British policy.On the Tuesday night—two days before the meeting—Flight-Commander Kennedy slept at the Central Hotel in G— and next morning returned to London.Next night—or rather at early morning—Ella silently opened the front door of her father’s house at Barnes, and her lover slipped in noiselessly, the pair afterwards ascending to the secret laboratory which his well-beloved opened with her duplicate key. Without much difficulty they opened the cupboard and examined the contents of the small cardboard box—discovering the curious-looking needle attached to the little perforated steel box.“This place smells of cloves—doesn’t it?” whispered Seymour.“Yes, darling. I’ve smelt the same smell for some days. Father said he had upset a bottle of oil of cloves.”“This is certainly a most curious apparatus!” Kennedy whispered, holding the needle in his hand. “See, this box is not a bomb. It is perforated to allow some perfume—or, more likely, a poison-gas—to escape. The needle is certainly an explosive one!”Further search revealed a small clockwork movement not much larger than that of a good-sized watch, together with a small bag of bird’s sand.Having made a thorough search, they replaced things exactly as they had found them, and then Kennedy crept forth again into the broad thoroughfare called Castelnau.“Those devils mean mischief again!” he muttered to himself as he hurried across Hammersmith Bridge. “That explosive needle is, I can quite see, a most diabolical invention. Drost surely has the inventive brains of Satan himself!”At that same hour the young man Schrieber was seated with Ortmann in Park Lane, listening to certain instructions, until at last he rose to go.“And, remember—trust in nobody!” Ortmann urged. “If you perform this service successfully, our Fatherland will owe you a very deep debt of gratitude—one which I will personally see shall not be forgotten.”At midday on Thursday Kennedy and Ella left St. Pancras station for G—, arriving there three hours later, and taking rooms at the Central Hotel.As soon as Ella entered hers, she was astonished to see upon the mantelshelf a pair of the same blue-and-white vases as those her father had asked her to match!When, ten minutes later, she rejoined Kennedy in the lounge, she told him of her discovery.“Yes,” was his reply. “They are the same in all the rooms—one of the fads of the proprietor. But,” he added, “you must not be seen here. We don’t know who is coming from London by the next train.”For that reason Ella retired to her room and did not leave it for some hours, not indeed till her lover came to tell her that all was clear.By that time Mr Merton Mansfield had arrived, eaten a frugal dinner, and had gone to the meeting.“That young man Schrieber has arrived also,” Kennedy told her. “He’s never seen me, so he suspects nothing. He has also gone to the meeting, therefore we can go down and have something to eat.”That night at eleven o’clock Mr Merton Mansfield returned, was cheered loudly by a huge crowd gathered outside the hotel, and waited below chatting for nearly half-an-hour before he retired to his room.The room was numbered 146—the best room of a suite on the first floor—and to this room the young German, the catspaw of Ortmann, had gone about a quarter past eleven, gaining admission through the private sitting-room next door.On entering he, quick as lightning, took down one of the vases from the mantelshelf and replaced it by another exactly similar which he drew from beneath the light coat thrown over his arm. Then, carrying the vase with him concealed by his coat, he slipped quickly out again unobserved, not, however, before he had poured into the other vase some bird-sand so as to make them both of equal weight when the maid came to dust them on the morrow. The conspirators left nothing to chance.In that innocent-looking vase he had brought was one of the most diabolical contrivances ever invented by man’s brain. To the explosive needle the tiny clock had been attached and set to strike at half-past two, an hour when the whole hotel would be wrapped in slumber. The effect of striking would be to explode the needle and thus break a thin glass tube of a certain liquid and set over a piece of sponge saturated by a second liquid. The mixing of the two liquids would produce that terribly deadly poison-gas which, escaping through the perforation, must cause almost instant death to any person sleeping in the room.Truly, it was a most diabolical death-trap.Ten minutes later Mr Merton Mansfield, quite unsuspicious, entered the room and retired to bed, an example followed by the assassin Schrieber, who had a room on the same corridor a little distance away.At nine o’clock next morning Seymour Kennedy, bright and spruce in his uniform, descended to the hall and inquired of the head-porter if Mr Merton Mansfield had left.“Mr Mansfield is an early bird, sir. He went away to London by the 6:47 train.”The air-pilot turned upon his heel with a sigh of relief.Two hours later, however, while seated in the lounge with Ella, prior to returning to London, Kennedy noticed that there was much whispering among the staff. Of the porter he inquired the reason.“Well, sir,” the man replied, “it seems that a maid on the first floor, on going into one of the rooms this morning, found a visitor dead in bed—Mr Sommer, a Swiss gentleman who arrived last night. The place smells strongly of cloves, and the poor girl has also been taken very ill, for the fumes in the place nearly asphyxiated her.”Seymour again returned to Ella and told her what had occurred.“But how did you manage it?” she asked in a low whisper.“Well, after watching Schrieber put the vase in the room, I entered after him and replaced it by the vase you had bought, afterwards taking the one with the explosive needle to Schrieber’s room and carrying away the superfluous one. The man must have glanced at the pair of vases on his mantelshelf before sleeping, but he, of course, never dreamed that he was gazing upon the infernal contrivance that he had placed in the Minister’s room with his own hand.”“I see,” exclaimed Ella. “And, surely, he richly deserved his fate!”The deadly contrivance was found when the room was searched, but the police of G— still regard the affair as a complete and inexplicable mystery.
“Then you suspect that another plot is in progress, Ella?”
“I feel confident of it. The Count is furious at the failure of the conspiracy against Mr Merton Mansfield. He came to see father last night. I did not gather much, as I had to get away to the theatre, but I overheard him suggest that some other method should be tried,” replied Ella Drost.
She was sitting in the dainty little drawing-room of the flat in Stamfordham Mansions, chatting with her airman lover.
“Of course,” he said. “Ortmann and your father were well aware that Merton Mansfield is still the strongest man in the whole Government, a marvellous organiser, and the really great man upon whom Britain has pinned her faith.”
“They mean to work some evil upon him,” the girl said apprehensively. “I’m quite certain of it! Cannot we warn him?”
“I did so. I wrote to him, urging him to take precautions, and declaring that a plot was in progress,” said Kennedy. “I suppose his secretary had the letter and probably held it back in order not to disturb him. Secretaries have a habit of doing that.”
Ella, whose cigarette he had just lit, blew a cloud of blue smoke from her lips, and replied:
“Well, if that’s the case then it is exceedingly wrong. The greatest care should be taken of those who are leading us to victory. Ah! dearest,” she added with a sigh, “you do not know how bitter I feel when I reflect that my own father is a German and, moreover, a most deadly enemy.”
“I know, darling, I know,” the man responded. “That’s the worst of it. To expose the organiser of these conspirators would be to send your own father to prison—perhaps to an ignominious end.”
“Yes. All we can do is to watch closely and thwart their devilish designs, as far as we are able,” the girl said.
“Unfortunately, I’ll have to go back to the air-station to-night, but I’ll try to come up again for the week-end.”
Disappointment overspread the girl’s face, but a second later she declared:
“In that case I shall go and stay with father over at Barnes, and endeavour to discover what is intended.”
Therefore, that night, after her work at the theatre, she went to Theodore Drost’s house at Barnes, instead of returning to the flat at Kensington. As she always kept her room there and her visits seemed to delight old Drost, she was always able to keep in touch with Kennedy and so help to frustrate the evil machinations of her father.
As the days passed she became more than ever confident that another deep-laid plot was in progress. Nor was she mistaken, for, truth to tell, Ortmann was having many long interviews with his clever catspaw, the man who posed as the plain and pious pastor of the Dutch Church, old Theodore Drost.
An incident occurred about a week later which showed the trend of events. The old pastor called one day at that modest, dreary little house close by Wandsworth Common, where Count Ernst von Ortmann, the man who secretly directed the agents of Germany in England, lived as plain Mr Horton whenever he grew tired of his beautiful house in Park Lane. Leading, by the fact of his occupation a dual existence, it was necessary for his nefarious purposes that he should frequently disappear into South London, away from the fashionable friends who knew him as Mr Henry Harberton.
The pair were seated together that evening, smoking and discussing the cause of the failure of Rozelaar and the reason of his death by his own bomb.
“Ah! my dear Theodore,” exclaimed the Count, in German, throwing himself back in the old wicker armchair in that cheaply furnished room. “Your machine was too elaborate.”
“No, you are mistaken, it was simplicity itself,” Drost declared.
“Could anybody have tampered with it, do you think?”
“Certainly not. Nobody knew—nobody saw it except ourselves and Rozelaar,” Drost said.
“And we very nearly blew ourselves up with it during the test. Do you remember?” laughed Ortmann.
“Remember! I rather think I do. It was, indeed, a narrow escape. We won’t repeat it. I’ll be more careful, I promise you!” Drost assured his paymaster. “Yet I cannot guess how Rozelaar lost his life.”
“Well, we need not trouble. His was not exactly a precious life, Theodore, was it? The fellow knew a little too much, so, for us, it is perhaps best that the accident should have happened.”
“It is not the first time that fatal accidents have happened to those who, having served Germany, are of no further use,” remarked Drost grimly.
And at his remark the crafty Count—the man who directed the German octopus in Britain—smiled, but remained silent.
Though Ella, still at Barnes, kept both eyes and ears open during the day—compelled, of course, to go to the theatre each evening—yet she could discover no solid fact which might lead her to find out what was in progress.
The Count came very often over to Barnes, and on two or three occasions was accompanied by a fair-haired young man whose real name was Schrieber, but who had changed it to Sommer, and declared himself to be a Swiss. Indeed, he had forged papers just as old Drost possessed. The fabrication of identification-papers—with photographs attached—became quite an industry in Germany after war had broken out, while many American passports were purchased from American “crooks” and fresh photographs cleverly superimposed.
One afternoon the young man Schrieber called, remained talking alone with Drost for about ten minutes, and then left. Presently the old man entered the drawing-room wherein his daughter was seated writing a letter. In his hand he carried a china vase about fourteen inches high, the dark-blue ornamentation being very similar to a “willow-pattern” plate. It was shaped something like a Greek amphora, and quite of ordinary quality.
“Ella, dear,” said her father, handing her the vase, “I wish you could get one exactly like this. You’ll be able to get it quite easily at one of the big stores in the West End. A friend of mine has a pair, and has broken one.”
“Certainly, dad,” was the girl’s reply. “I’m going out this afternoon, and I’ll take it with me.” That afternoon Ella Drost went to several shops until at last, at one in Oxford Street, she found the exact replica. They were in pairs, and she was compelled to buy both. Later on she took them to Barnes, but before doing so she called in at her own flat and there left the superfluous vase.
Old Drost seemed highly delighted at securing the exact replica of the broken ornament.
“Excellent!” he said. “Excellent! Really, my dear child, I thought that you would have had to get it made. And making things in war-time is such a very long process.”
“I had a little trouble, but I at last got a clue to where they had been bought, and there, sure enough, they had one pair still in stock.”
“Excellent! Excellent!” he grunted, and he carried off both the pattern vase and its companion to his little den where he usually did his writing.
That same evening, while the taxi was at the door to take Ella to the theatre, the Count called.
“Ah! Fräulein!” he cried, as he entered the dining-room where Ella stood ready dressed in her smart coat and hat, as became one who had been so successful in her profession and drew such a handsome salary, much to the envy of her less fortunate fellow-artistes. “Why—you’re quite a stranger—always away at the theatre whenever I call. I took some friends from the club to see you the night before last. That new waltz-song of yours is really most delightful—so catchy,” he added, speaking in German.
“Do you like it?” asked the bright, athletic girl who led such a strange semi-Bohemian life, and was yet filled with constant suspicion concerning her father. “At first I did not like singing it, because I objected to some of the lines. But I see now that everyone seems attracted by it.”
“No, Fraulein Ella!” exclaimed the Count, with his exquisite courtesy. “The public are not attracted by the song, but by your ownchicand charm.”
“Now, really, Count,” exclaimed Ella, “this is too bad of you! If one of my stall-admirers had said so I would forgive him. But, surely, you know me too well to think that I care for flattery from you. I have been too long on the stage, I assure you. To me applause is merely part of the show. I expect it, and smile and bow when the house claps. It does not fill me with the least personal pride, I assure you. When I first went on the stage it certainly did. But to-day, after being all these years before the public—”
“All these years!” echoed Ortmann, interrupting her. “Why, you are not much more than twenty now, Ella!”
“And think, I’ve already been twelve years on the stage—a life hard enough, I can tell you!”
“Yes, I know,” remarked the Count. “But you’ll forget all about your friend Commander Kennedy some day, I expect, and marry a wealthy man.”
Ella’s eyebrows contracted for a few seconds.
“Well—perhaps,” she said. “But I may yet marry Mr Kennedy, you know!”
Count Ernst Ortmann smiled—a hard evil expression upon his heavy lips. He held Seymour Kennedy in distinct suspicion.
Indeed, when Ella had gone and he was standing with old Drost in the dining-room, he remarked:
“I still entertain very grave suspicions regarding that fellow Kennedy. Couldn’t you keep Ella away from him? Could not we part them somehow? While they are in love a distinct danger exists. He may learn something at any moment. My information is that he is particularly shrewd at investigations, and he may suspect. If so, then the game might very easily be up.”
“Bah! Do not anticipate any suchcontretemps. He knows nothing—take that from me. We have nothing whatever to fear in that direction,” Drost assured him. “If I thought so I should very soon take steps to part them.”
“How would you accomplish that?”
Theodore Drost’s narrow face—broad at the brow and narrow at the chin—puckered in a smile.
“It would not be at all difficult,” he said, with a mysterious expression. “I have something upstairs which would very soon effect our purpose and leave no trace—if it were necessary.”
“But itisnecessary,” the Count declared.
“One day it may be,” Drost said. “But not yet.”
“Your girl is in love with him, and I suppose you think it a pity to—well, to spoil their romance, even in face of all that Germany has at stake!” remarked the Count, with an undisguised sneer. “Ah, my dear Drost! you pose as a Dutch pastor, but do you not remember our German motto:Der beste prediger ist der Zeit?” (Time is the best preacher.)
“Yes, yes,” replied the old man with the scraggy beard. “But please rely upon my wits. My eyes are open, and I assure you there is nothing whatever at present to fear.”
“Very well, Drost,” Answered the Count. “I submit to your wider knowledge. But now that the girl has gone, we may as well go upstairs—eh? You’ve, of course, seen in to-night’s paper that Merton Mansfield is to address the munition-makers in the Midlands in a fortnight’s time.”
Old Drost again smiled mysteriously, and said:
“I knew that quite a fortnight ago. Schrieber has been north. He returned only last Tuesday.”
“Did you send him north?”
“I did. He went upon a mission. As you know, I am generally well ahead with any plans I make.”
“Plans! What are they? Really, my dear Theodore, you are a perfect marvel of clever inventiveness!”
Ella’s father shrugged his shoulders, and in his deep guttural German replied:
“I am only doing my duty as a good loyal son of our own Fatherland.”
“Well spoken,” declared the Count. “There is a good and just reward awaiting you after the war, never fear! Our Emperor does not forget services rendered. Let us go upstairs—eh? I am anxious to learn what you suggest.”
The pair ascended the stairs to the carefully locked room in the roof, that long, well-equipped laboratory wherein Theodore Drost spent so many hours daily experimenting in the latest discovered high-explosives. After Drost had switched on the light he carefully closed the door, and then, crossing to a long deal cupboard where hung several cotton overalls to protect his clothes against the splash of acids, he took out his military gas-masks—those hideous devices with rubber mouth-pieces and mica eye-holes, as used by our men at the front.
“It is always best to take precautions,” Drost said, as he handed his companion and taskmaster a helmet. “You may find it a little stifling at first, but it is most necessary.”
Both put on the masks, after which Drost handed the Count a pair of rubber gloves. These Ortmann put on, watching Drost, who did the same.
“It is a good job, Count, that we are alone in the house, otherwise I could do no work. The gas is heavy, and any escaping from here will fall to the basement. One fourteen-thousandth part in air, and the result must be fatal. There is no known antidote. Ah!” he laughed, “these poor, too-confiding English little dream of our latter-day discoveries—scientific discoveries by which we hold all the honours in the game of war.”
“Very well,” grunted the Count. “Let us hope that our science is better than that of our enemies. But I confess that to-day I have doubts. These British have made most wonderful strides—the most amazing progress in their munitions and devices.”
While he spoke old Drost was, with expert hand, mixing certain compounds, grey and bright-green crystals, which he pounded in a mortar. Then, carefully weighing with his apothecary’s scales several grammes of a fine white powder, he added it and, while the Count, still wearing his ugly mask, watched, mixed a measured quantity of water and placed the whole into a big glass retort which was already in a holder warmed by the pale-blue flame of a spirit-lamp.
Suddenly Drost made a gesture to his companion, and while the liquid in the retort was bubbling, he attached to the narrow end of the retort an arrangement of bent glass tube, and proceeded to distil the liquid he had produced.
This product, which fell drop by drop into a long test-tube, was of a bright-blue colour. Drop by drop fell that fatal liquid—fatal because it gave off a poison-gas against which no human being could exist for more than five seconds.
“This,” exclaimed Drost, his voice muffled by his mask, “is the most fatal of any gas that chemical science has yet discovered. It does not merely asphyxiate and leave bad symptoms afterwards, but it kills outright in a few seconds. It is absolutely deadly.”
The room had by that time become filled by a curious orange-coloured vapour—bright-orange—which to Ortmann’s eyes was an extraordinary phenomenon. Had he not worn the protective mask he would have been instantly overwhelmed by an odour closely resembling that of cloves—a terribly fatal perfume, which would sweep away men like moths passing through the flame of a candle.
“Well, my dear Drost,” said the Count, “I know you will never rest until you’ve devised a means of carrying out our plans for the downfall of Merton Mansfield, and certainly you seem to have adopted some measure—deadly though it may be—which is quite in accord with your ingenuity.” He also spoke in a low, stifled voice from within his ugly mask.
Drost nodded, and then into the marble mortar, in which he had mixed his devilish compounds, he poured something from a long blue glass-stoppered bottle, whereupon the place instantly became filled with volumes of grey smoke which, when it cleared, left the atmosphere perfectly clear—so clear, indeed, that both men removed their masks, sniffing, however, at the faint odour of cloves still remaining.
Afterwards the old chemist took from the cupboard a small cardboard box which, on opening, contained, carefully packed in cotton wool, a short, stout, but hollow needle. Attached to it at one end was a small steel box about two inches broad and the same high. The box was perforated at intervals.
“This is the little contrivance of which I spoke,” said Drost gleefully, as he gazed upon it in admiration. “The explosive needle, when filled, and this little chamber, also properly charged, cannot fail to act.”
“I take it, my dear friend, that it will be automatic—eh?” remarked the Count, examining it with interest.
Old Drost smiled, nodded, and replaced his precious contrivance in its box, after which both men left the laboratory, Drost carefully locking the door before descending the stairs to follow his companion.
Both of them took a taxi to the fine house in Park Lane where Ortmann assumed therôleof society man. At ten o’clock a visitor was ushered in, and proved to be the young man whose real name was Schrieber. Apparently he had just returned from a journey, and had come straight from the station in order to make some secret report to Ortmann.
When the three were closeted together the young German, who passed as a Swiss, produced from his pocket three small photographs showing the interior of a room taken from different angles, but always showing the fireplace.
“Excellent!” declared Drost, as he examined all three prints beneath the strong light. “You have done splendidly.”
“Yes, all is in readiness. I have made friends with the maids, and when I return I shall be welcomed. No breath of suspicion will be aroused. We have now but to wait our time.”
And the three conspirators—men who were working so secretly, yet with such dastardly intent in the enemy’s cause—laughed as they helped themselves to cigars from the big silver box.
Nearly three weeks passed when, one day while Seymour Kennedy was sitting in Ella’s pretty little drawing-room, he accidentally noticed the artistic blue-and-white vase, and remarking how unusual was the shape, his beloved related how it had come into her possession.
Kennedy reflected for a few seconds, his brows knit in deep thought.
“Curious that your father desired to match a vase like this! With what object, I wonder?”
“He told me that he wanted it for a friend.”
“H’m! I wonder why his friend was so eager to match it?” was the air-pilot’s remark. “And, again, why did he send you to buy it, when his friend could surely have done so?”
Ella was silent. That question had never occurred to her.
“I wonder if your father is making some fresh experiment? Have you been to the laboratory lately?” he inquired.
“No, dear.”
“A secret visit there might be worth while,” he suggested. “Meanwhile, the question of this vase excites my curiosity considerably. I can’t help thinking that Ortmann is at the bottom of some other vile trickery. Their failure to kill Merton Mansfield has, no doubt, made them all the more determined to deal an effectivecoup.”
Some five days later it was announced in the London papers that Mr Merton Mansfield, the man in whom Great Britain placed her principal trust in securing victory, would, on the following Thursday, address a mass meeting of the munition workers in the great Midland town of G—. The object of the meeting was to urge greater enthusiasm in the prosecution of the war, and to induce the workers, in the national cause, to forego their holidays and thus keep up the output of heavy shells and high-explosives.
Seymour Kennedy, who was in the mess at the time, read the paragraph, and then sat pondering.
Next day he induced his commanding officer to give him leave, and he was soon in London making active inquiries. He found that Mr Merton Mansfield had been compelled to decline the invitation of Lord Heatherdale, and had arranged to stay the night at the Central Station Hotel at G—, as he would have to return to London by the first train next morning.
Mr Merton Mansfield was an extremely busy man. No member of the Cabinet held greater responsibility upon his shoulders, and certainly no man held higher and stronger views of British patriotism. Any words from his lips were listened to eagerly, and carefully weighed, not only here, but in neutral countries also. Hence, at this great meeting he was expected to reveal one or two matters of paramount interest, and also make a further declaration of British policy.
On the Tuesday night—two days before the meeting—Flight-Commander Kennedy slept at the Central Hotel in G— and next morning returned to London.
Next night—or rather at early morning—Ella silently opened the front door of her father’s house at Barnes, and her lover slipped in noiselessly, the pair afterwards ascending to the secret laboratory which his well-beloved opened with her duplicate key. Without much difficulty they opened the cupboard and examined the contents of the small cardboard box—discovering the curious-looking needle attached to the little perforated steel box.
“This place smells of cloves—doesn’t it?” whispered Seymour.
“Yes, darling. I’ve smelt the same smell for some days. Father said he had upset a bottle of oil of cloves.”
“This is certainly a most curious apparatus!” Kennedy whispered, holding the needle in his hand. “See, this box is not a bomb. It is perforated to allow some perfume—or, more likely, a poison-gas—to escape. The needle is certainly an explosive one!”
Further search revealed a small clockwork movement not much larger than that of a good-sized watch, together with a small bag of bird’s sand.
Having made a thorough search, they replaced things exactly as they had found them, and then Kennedy crept forth again into the broad thoroughfare called Castelnau.
“Those devils mean mischief again!” he muttered to himself as he hurried across Hammersmith Bridge. “That explosive needle is, I can quite see, a most diabolical invention. Drost surely has the inventive brains of Satan himself!”
At that same hour the young man Schrieber was seated with Ortmann in Park Lane, listening to certain instructions, until at last he rose to go.
“And, remember—trust in nobody!” Ortmann urged. “If you perform this service successfully, our Fatherland will owe you a very deep debt of gratitude—one which I will personally see shall not be forgotten.”
At midday on Thursday Kennedy and Ella left St. Pancras station for G—, arriving there three hours later, and taking rooms at the Central Hotel.
As soon as Ella entered hers, she was astonished to see upon the mantelshelf a pair of the same blue-and-white vases as those her father had asked her to match!
When, ten minutes later, she rejoined Kennedy in the lounge, she told him of her discovery.
“Yes,” was his reply. “They are the same in all the rooms—one of the fads of the proprietor. But,” he added, “you must not be seen here. We don’t know who is coming from London by the next train.”
For that reason Ella retired to her room and did not leave it for some hours, not indeed till her lover came to tell her that all was clear.
By that time Mr Merton Mansfield had arrived, eaten a frugal dinner, and had gone to the meeting.
“That young man Schrieber has arrived also,” Kennedy told her. “He’s never seen me, so he suspects nothing. He has also gone to the meeting, therefore we can go down and have something to eat.”
That night at eleven o’clock Mr Merton Mansfield returned, was cheered loudly by a huge crowd gathered outside the hotel, and waited below chatting for nearly half-an-hour before he retired to his room.
The room was numbered 146—the best room of a suite on the first floor—and to this room the young German, the catspaw of Ortmann, had gone about a quarter past eleven, gaining admission through the private sitting-room next door.
On entering he, quick as lightning, took down one of the vases from the mantelshelf and replaced it by another exactly similar which he drew from beneath the light coat thrown over his arm. Then, carrying the vase with him concealed by his coat, he slipped quickly out again unobserved, not, however, before he had poured into the other vase some bird-sand so as to make them both of equal weight when the maid came to dust them on the morrow. The conspirators left nothing to chance.
In that innocent-looking vase he had brought was one of the most diabolical contrivances ever invented by man’s brain. To the explosive needle the tiny clock had been attached and set to strike at half-past two, an hour when the whole hotel would be wrapped in slumber. The effect of striking would be to explode the needle and thus break a thin glass tube of a certain liquid and set over a piece of sponge saturated by a second liquid. The mixing of the two liquids would produce that terribly deadly poison-gas which, escaping through the perforation, must cause almost instant death to any person sleeping in the room.
Truly, it was a most diabolical death-trap.
Ten minutes later Mr Merton Mansfield, quite unsuspicious, entered the room and retired to bed, an example followed by the assassin Schrieber, who had a room on the same corridor a little distance away.
At nine o’clock next morning Seymour Kennedy, bright and spruce in his uniform, descended to the hall and inquired of the head-porter if Mr Merton Mansfield had left.
“Mr Mansfield is an early bird, sir. He went away to London by the 6:47 train.”
The air-pilot turned upon his heel with a sigh of relief.
Two hours later, however, while seated in the lounge with Ella, prior to returning to London, Kennedy noticed that there was much whispering among the staff. Of the porter he inquired the reason.
“Well, sir,” the man replied, “it seems that a maid on the first floor, on going into one of the rooms this morning, found a visitor dead in bed—Mr Sommer, a Swiss gentleman who arrived last night. The place smells strongly of cloves, and the poor girl has also been taken very ill, for the fumes in the place nearly asphyxiated her.”
Seymour again returned to Ella and told her what had occurred.
“But how did you manage it?” she asked in a low whisper.
“Well, after watching Schrieber put the vase in the room, I entered after him and replaced it by the vase you had bought, afterwards taking the one with the explosive needle to Schrieber’s room and carrying away the superfluous one. The man must have glanced at the pair of vases on his mantelshelf before sleeping, but he, of course, never dreamed that he was gazing upon the infernal contrivance that he had placed in the Minister’s room with his own hand.”
“I see,” exclaimed Ella. “And, surely, he richly deserved his fate!”
The deadly contrivance was found when the room was searched, but the police of G— still regard the affair as a complete and inexplicable mystery.