Isabel Worth leaned back in the comfortable seat by Granet’s side and breathed a little sigh of content. She had enjoyed her luncheon party a deux, their stroll along the sands afterwards, and she was fully prepared to enjoy this short drive homewards.
“What a wonderful car yours is!” she murmured. “But do tell me—what on earth have you got in behind?”
“It’s just a little experimental invention of a friend of mine,” he explained. “Some day we are going to try it on one of these creeks. It’s a collapsible canvas boat.”
“Don’t try it anywhere near us,” she laughed. “Two of the fishermen from Wells sailed in a little too close to the shed yesterday and the soldiers fired a volley at them.”
Garnet made a grimace.
“Do you know I am becoming most frightfully curious about your father’s work?” he observed.
“Are you really?” she replied carelessly. “For my part, I wouldn’t even take the trouble to climb up the ladder into the workshop.”
“But you must know something about what is going on there?” Granet persisted.
“I really don’t,” she assured him. “It’s some wonderful invention, I believe, but I can’t help resenting anything that makes us live like hermits, suspect even the tradespeople, give up entertaining altogether, give up even seeing our friends. I hope you are not going to hurry away, Captain Granet. I haven’t had a soul to speak to down here for months.”
“I don’t think I shall go just yet,” he answered. “I want first to accomplish what I came here for.”
She turned her head very slowly and looked at him. There was quite a becoming flush upon her cheeks.
“What did you come for?” she asked softly.
He was silent for a moment. Already his foot was on the brake of the car; they were drawing near the plain, five-barred gates.
“Perhaps I am not quite sure about that myself,” he whispered.
They had come to a standstill. She descended reluctantly.
“I hate to send you away,” she sighed, “it seems so inhospitable. Will you come in for a little time? The worst that can happen, if we meet dad, is that he might be rather rude.”
“I’ll risk it with pleasure,” Granet replied.
“Can I see your collapsible boat?” she asked, peering in behind.
He shook his head.
“It isn’t my secret,” he said, “and besides, I don’t think my friend has the patent for it yet.”
The sentry stood by and allowed them to pass, although he looked searchingly at Granet. They walked slowly up the scrubby avenue to the house. Once Granet paused to look down at the long arm of the sea on his left.
“You have quite a river there,” he remarked.
She nodded.
“That used to be the principal waterway from Burnham village. Quite a large boat can get down now at high tide.”
They entered the house and Isabel gave a little gesture of dismay. She clutched for a moment at Granet’s arm. An elderly man, dressed in somber black clothes disgracefully dusty, collarless, with a mass of white hair blown all over his face, was walking up and down the hall with a great pair of horn-rimmed spectacles clutched in his hand. He stopped short at the sound of the opening door and hurried towards them. There was nothing about his appearance in the least terrifying. He seemed, in fact, bubbling over with excited good-humour.
“Isabel, my dear,” he exclaimed, “it is wonderful! I have succeeded! I have changed the principles of a lifetime, made the most brilliant optical experiment which any man of science has ever ventured to essay, with the result—well, you shall see. I have wired to the Admiralty, wired for more work-people. Captain Chalmers, is it not?” he went on. “You must tell your men to double and redouble their energies. This place is worth watching now. Come, I will show you something amazing.”
He turned and led them hastily towards the back door. Isabel gripped Granet’s arm.
“He thinks you are the officer in command of the platoon here,” she whispered. “Better let him go on thinking so.”
Granet nodded.
“Is he going to take us to the workshop?”
“I believe so,” she assented.
They had hard work to keep up with Sir Meyville as he led them hastily down the little stretch of shingle to where a man was sitting in a boat. They all jumped in. The man with the oars looked doubtfully for a moment at Granet, but pulled off at once when ordered to do so. They rowed round to the front of the queer little structure. A man from inside held out his hand and helped them up. Another young man, with books piled on the floor by his side, was making some calculations at a table. Almost the whole of the opening of the place was taken up by what seemed to be a queer medley of telescopes and lenses pointing different ways. Sir Meyville beamed upon them as he hastily turned a handle.
“Now,” he promised, “you shall see what no one has ever seen before. See, I point that arrow at that spot, about fifty yards out. Now look through this one, Isabel.”
The girl stooped forward, was silent for a moment, then she gave a little cry of wonder. She clutched Granet’s arm and made him take her place. He, too, called out softly. He saw the sandy bottom covered with shells, a rock with tentacles of seaweed floating from it, several huge crabs, a multitude of small fishes. Everything was clear and distinct. He looked away with a little gasp.
“Wonderful!” he exclaimed.
Sir Meyville’s smile was beatific.
“That is my share,” he said. “Down in the other workshop my partners are hard at it. They, too, have met with success. You must tell your men, Captain Chalmers, never to relax their vigil. This place must be watched by night and by day. My last invention was a great step forward, but this is absolute success. For the next few months this is the most precious spot in Europe.”
“It isn’t Captain Chalmers, father,” Isabel interrupted.
Sir Meyville seemed suddenly to become still. He looked fixedly at Granet.
“Who are you, then?” he demanded. “Who are you, sir?”
“I am Captain Granet of the Royal Fusiliers, back from the Front, wounded,” Granet replied. “I can assure you that I am a perfectly trustworthy person.”
“But I don’t understand,” Sir Meyville said sharply. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to call upon your daughter,” Granet explained. “I had the pleasure of meeting her at lunch at Lady Anselman’s the other day. We have been playing golf together at Brancaster.”
Sir Meyville began to mumble to himself as he pushed them into the boat.
“My fault,” he muttered,—“my fault. Captain Granet, I thought that my daughter knew my wishes. I am not at present in a position to receive guests or visitors of any description. You will pardon my apparent inhospitality. I shall ask you, sir, to kindly forget this visit and to keep away from here for the present.”
“I shall obey your wishes, of course, sir,” Granet promised. “I can assure you that I am quite a harmless person, though.”
“I do not doubt it, sir,” Sir Meyville replied, “but it is the harmless people of the world who do the most mischief. An idle word here or there and great secrets are given away. If you will allow me, I will show you a quicker way down the avenue, without going to the house.”
Granet shrugged his shoulders.
“Just as you will, sir,” he assented.
“You can go in, Isabel,” her father directed curtly. “I will see Captain Granet off.”
She obeyed and took leave of her guest with a little shrug of the shoulders. Sir Meyville took Granet’s arm and led him down the avenue.
“Captain Granet,” he said gravely, “I am an indiscreet person and I have an indiscreet daughter. Bearing in mind your profession, I may speak to you as man to man. Keep what you have seen absolutely secret. Put a seal upon your memory. Go back to Brancaster and don’t even look again in this direction. The soldiers round this place have orders not to stand on ceremony with any one, and by to-night I believe we are to have an escort of Marines here as well. What you have seen is for the good of the country.”
“I congratulate you heartily, sir,” Granet replied, shaking hands. “Of course I’ll keep away, if I must. I hope when this is all over, though, you will allow me to come and renew my acquaintance with your daughter.”
“When it is over, with pleasure,” Sir Meyville assented.
Granet stepped into his car and drove off. The inventor stood looking after him. Then he spoke to the sentry and made his way across the gardens towards the boat-shed.
“I ought to have known it from the first,” he muttered. “Reciprocal refraction was the one thing to think about.”
Granet, as he drove back to the Dormy House, was conscious of a curious change in the weather. The wind, which had been blowing more or less during the last few days, had suddenly dropped. There was a new heaviness in the atmosphere, little banks of transparent mist were drifting in from seawards. More than once he stopped the car and, standing up, looked steadily away seawards. The long stretch of marshland, on which the golf links were situated, was empty. A slight, drizzling rain was falling. He found, when he reached the Dormy House, that nearly all the men were assembled in one of the large sitting-rooms. A table of bridge had been made up. Mr. Collins was seated in an easy-chair close to the window, reading a review. Granet accepted a cup of tea and stood on the hearth-rug.
“How did the golf go this afternoon?” he inquired.
“I was dead off it,” Anselman replied gloomily.
“Our friend in the easy-chair there knocked spots off us.”
Mr. Collins looked up and grunted and looked out of the window again.
“Either of you fellows going to cut in at bridge?” young Anselman continued.
Granet shook his head and walked to the window.
“I can’t stick cards in the daytime.”
Mr. Collins shut up his review.
“I agree with you, sir,” he said. “I endeavoured to persuade one of these gentlemen to play another nine holes—unsuccessfully, I regret to state.”
Granet lit a cigarette.
“Well,” he remarked, “it’s too far to get down to the links again but I’ll play you a game of bowls, if you like.”
The other glanced out upon the lawn and rose to his feet.
“It is an excellent suggestion,” he declared. “If you will give me five minutes to fetch my mackintosh and galoshes, it would interest me to see whether I have profited by the lessons I took in Scotland.”
They met, a few moments later, in the garden. Mr. Collins threw the jack with great precision and they played an end during which his superiority was apparent. They strolled together across the lawn, well away now from the house. For the first time Granet dropped his careless tone.
“What do you make of this change in the weather?” he asked quickly.
“It’s just what they were waiting for,” the other replied. “What about this afternoon?”
“I am not scientist, worse luck,” Granet replied impatiently, “but I saw enough to convince me that they’ve got the right idea. Sir Meyville thought I was the man commanding the escort they’ve given him,—actually rowed me out to the workshop and showed me the whole thing. I tell you I saw it just as you described it,—saw the bottom of the sea, even the colour of the seaweed, the holes in the rocks.”
“And they’ve got the shells, too,” Collins muttered, “the shells that burst under water.”
Granet looked around. They were playing the other end now.
“Listen!” he said.
They paused in the middle of the lawn. Granet held up his handkerchief and turned his cheek seaward. There was still little more than a floating breath of air but his cheek was covered with moisture.
“I have everything ready,” he said. “Just before we go to bed to-night I shall swear that I hear an aeroplane. You’re sure your watch is right to the second, Collins?”
“I am as sure that it is right,” the other replied grimly, “as I am that to-night you and I my young friend, are going to play with our lives a little more carelessly than with this china ball. A good throw, that I think,” he went on, measuring it with his eye carefully. “Come, my friend, you’ll have to improve. My Scotch practice is beginning to tell.”
Geoffrey Anselman threw up the window and looked out.
“Pretty hot stuff, isn’t he Ronnie?” he asked.
Granet glanced at his opponent, with his bent shoulders, his hard face, hooked nose and thin gold spectacles.
“Yes,” he admitted quietly, “he’s too good for me.”
At about half-past ten that evening, Granet suddenly threw down his cue in the middle of a game of billiards, and stood, for a moment, in a listening attitude.
“Jove, I believe that’s an airship!” he exclaimed, and hurried out of the room.
They all followed him. He was standing just outside the French-windows of the sitting-room, upon the gravel walk, his head upturned, listening intently. There was scarcely a breath of wind, no moon nor any stars. Little clouds of grey mist hung about on the marshes, shutting out their view of the sea. The stillness was more than usually intense.
“Can’t hear a thing,” young Anselman muttered at last.
“It may have been fancy,” Granet admitted.
“A motor-cycle going along the Huntstanton Road,” Major Harrison suggested.
“It’s a magnificent night for a raid,” Dickens remarked glancing around.
“No chance of Zepps over here, I should say,” Collins declared, a little didactically. “I was looking at your map at the golf club only this morning.”
They all made their way back to the house. Granet, however, seemed still dissatisfied.
“I’m going to see that my car’s all right,” he told them. “I left it in the open shed.”
He was absent for about twenty minutes. When he returned, they had finished the game of snooker pool without him and were all sitting on the lounge by the side of the billiard table, talking of the war. Granet listened for a few minutes and then said good-night a little abruptly. He lit his candle outside and went slowly to his room. Arrived there, he glanced at his watch and locked the door. It was half-past eleven. He changed his clothes quickly, put on some rubber-soled shoes and slipped a brandy flask and a revolver into his pocket. Then he sat down before his window with his watch in his hand. He was conscious of a certain foreboding from which he had never been able to escape since his arrival. In France and Belgium he had lived through fateful hours, carrying more than once his life in his hands. His risk to-night was an equal one but the exhilaration seemed lacking. This work in a country apparently at peace seemed somehow on a different level. If it were less dangerous, it was also less stimulating. In those few moments the soldier blood in him called for the turmoil of war, the panorama of life and death, the fierce, hot excitement of juggling with fate while the heavens themselves seemed raining death on every side. Here there was nothing but silence, the soft splash of the distant sea, the barking of a distant dog. The danger was vivid and actual but without the stimulus of that blood-red background. He glanced at his watch. It wanted still ten minutes to twelve. For a moment then he suffered his thoughts to go back to the new thing which had crept into his life. He was suddenly back in the Milan, he saw the backward turn of her head, the almost wistful look in her eyes as she made her little pronouncement. She had broken her engagement. Why? It was a battle, indeed, he was fighting with that still, cold antagonist, whom he half despised and half feared, the man concerning whose actual personality he had felt so many doubts. What if things should go wrong to-night, if the whole dramatic story should be handed over for the glory and wonder of the halfpenny press! He could fancy their headlines, imagine even their trenchant paragraphs. It was skating on the thinnest of ice—and for what? His fingers gripped the damp window-sill. He raised himself a little higher. His eyes fell upon his watch—still a minute or two to twelve. Slowly he stole to his door and listened. The place was silent. He made his way on tiptoe across the landing and entered Collins’ room. The latter was seated before the wide-open window. He had blown out his candle and the room was in darkness. He half turned his head at Granet’s entrance.
“Two minutes!” he exclaimed softly. “Granet, it will be to-night. Are you ready?”
“Absolutely!”
They stood by the open window in silence. Nothing had changed. It was not yet time for the singing of the earliest birds. The tiny village lay behind them, silent and asleep; in front, nothing but the marshes, uninhabited, lonely and quiet, the golf club-house empty and deserted. They stood and watched, their faces turned steadfastly in a certain direction. Gradually their eyes, growing accustomed to the dim and changing light, could pierce the black line above the grey where the sea came stealing up the sandy places with low murmurs, throwing with every wave longer arms into the land.
“Twelve o’clock!” Collins muttered.
Suddenly Granet’s fingers dug into his shoulder. From out of that pall of velvet darkness which hung below the clouds, came for a single moment a vision of violet light. It rose apparently from nowhere, it passed away into space. It was visible barely for five seconds, then it had gone. Granet spoke with a little sob.
“My God!” he murmured. “They’re coming!”
Collins was already on his feet. He had straightened himself wonderfully, and there was a new alertness in his manner. He, too, wore rubber shoes and his movements were absolutely noiseless. He carried a little electric torch in his hand, which he flashed around the room while he placed several small articles in his pocket. Then he pushed open the door and listened. He turned back, held up his finger and nodded. The two men passed down the stairs, through the sitting-room, out on to the lawn by a door left unfastened, and round the house to the shed. Together they pushed the car down the slight incline of the drive. Granet mounted into the driving-seat and pressed the self-starter. Collins took the place by his side.
“Remember,” Granet whispered, “we heard something and I met you in the hall. Sit tight.”
They sped with all the silence and smoothness of their six-cylinder up the tree-hung road, through the sleeping village and along the narrow lane to Market Burnham. When they were within about a hundred yards of the gate, Granet brought the car to a standstill.
“There are at least two sentries that way,” he said, “and if Sir Meyville told me the truth, they may have a special guard of Marines out to-night. This is where we take to the marshes. Listen. Can you hear anything?”
They both held their breath.
“Nothing yet,” Collins muttered. “Let’s get the things out quickly.”
Granet hurried to the back of the car, ripping open the coverings. In a few moments they had dragged over the side a small collapsible boat of canvas stretched across some bamboo joints, with two tiny sculls. They clambered up the bank.
“The creek must be close here,” Granet whispered. “Don’t show a light. Listen!”
This time they could hear the sound of an engine beating away in the boat-house on the other side of the Hall. Through the closely-drawn curtains, too, they could see faint fingers of light from the house on the sea.
“They are working still,” Granet continued. “Look out, Collins, that’s the creek.”
They pushed the boat into the middle of the black arm of water and stepped cautiously into it. Taking one of the paddles, Granet, kneeling down, propelled it slowly seaward. Once or twice they ran into the bank and had to push off, but very soon their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. By degrees the creek broadened. They passed close to the walls of the garden, and very soon they were perceptibly nearer the quaintly-situated workshop. Granet paused for a moment from his labours.
“The Hall is dark enough,” he muttered. “Listen!”
They heard the regular pacing of a sentinel in the drive. Nearer to them, on the top of the wall, they fancied that they heard the clash of a bayonet. Granet dropped his voice to the barest whisper.
“We are close there now. Stretch out your hand, Collins. Can you feel a shelf of rock?”
“It’s just in front of me,” was the stifled answer.
“That’s for the stuff. Down with it.”
For a few moments Collins was busy. Then, with a little gasp, he gripped Granet’s arm. His voice, shaking with nervous repression, was still almost hysterical.
“They’re coming, Granet! My God, they’re coming!”
Both men turned seaward. Far away in the clouds, it seemed, they could hear a faint humming, some new sound, something mechanical in its regular beating, yet with clamorous throatiness of some human force cleaving its way through the resistless air. With every second it grew louder. The men stood clutching one another.
“Have you got the fuse ready? They must hear it in a moment.” Granet muttered.
Collins assented silently. The reverberations became louder and louder. Soon the air was full of echoes. From far away inland dogs were barking, from a farm somewhere the other side of the road they heard the shout of a single voice.
“Now,” Granet whispered.
Collins leaned forward. The fuse in his hand touched the dark substance which he had spread out upon the rock. In a moment a strange, unearthly, green light seemed to roll back the darkness. The house, the workshop, the trees, the slowly flowing sea, their own ghastly faces—everything stood revealed in a blaze of hideous, awful light. For a moment they forgot themselves, they forgot the miracle they had brought to pass. Their eyes were rivetted skyward. High above them, something blacker than the heavens themselves, stupendous, huge, seemed suddenly to assume to itself shape. The roar of machinery was clearly audible. From the house came the mingled shouting of many voices. Something dropped into the sea a hundred yards away with a screech and a hiss, and a geyser-like fountain leapt so high that the spray reached them. Then there was a sharper sound as a rifle bullet whistled by.
“My God!” Granet exclaimed. “It’s time we were out of this, Collins!”
He seized his scull. Even at that moment there was a terrific explosion. A stream of lurid fire seemed to leap from the corner of the house, the wall split and fell outwards. And then there came another sound, hideous, sickly, a sound Granet had heard before, the sound of a rifle bullet cutting its way through flesh, followed by an inhuman cry. For a moment Collins’ arms whirled around him. Then, with no other sound save that one cry, he fell forward and disappeared. For a single second Granet leaned over the side of the boat as though to dive after him. Then came another roar. The sand flew up in a blinding storm, the whole of the creek was suddenly a raging torrent. The boat was swung on a precipitous mountain of salt water and as quickly capsized. Granet, breathless for a moment and half stunned, found his way somehow to the side of the marshland, and from there stumbled his way towards the road. The house behind him was on fire, the air seemed filled with hoarse shoutings. He turned and ran for the spot where he had left the car. Once he fell into a salt water pool and came out wet through to the waist. In the end, however, he reached the bank, clambered over it and slipped down into the road. Then a light was flashed into his eyes and a bayonet was rattled at his feet. There were a couple of soldiers in charge of his car.
“Hands up!” was the hoarse order.
Granet calmly flashed his own electric torch. There were at least a dozen soldiers standing around, and a little company were hurrying down from the gates. He switched off his light almost immediately.
“Is any one hurt?” he asked.
There was a dead silence. He felt his arms seized on either side.
“The captain’s coming down the road,” one of the men said. “Lay on to him, Tim!”
Granet sauntered in to breakfast a few minutes late on the following morning. A little volley of questions and exclamations reached him as he stood by the sideboard.
“Heard about the Zeppelin raid?”
“They say there’s a bomb on the ninth green!”
“Market Burnham Hall is burnt to the ground!”
Granet sighed as he crossed the room and took his seat at the table.
“If you fellows hadn’t slept like oxen last night,” he remarked, “you’d have known a lot more about it. I saw the whole show.”
“Nonsense!” Major Harrison exclaimed.
“Tell us all about it?” young Anselman begged.
“I heard the thing just as I was beginning to undress,” Granet explained. “I rushed downstairs and found Collins out in the garden. ... Where the devil is Collins, by-the-bye?”
They glanced at his vacant place.
“Not down yet. Go on.”
“Well, we could hear the vibration like anything, coming from over the marsh there. I got the car out and we were no sooner on the road than I could see it distinctly, right above us—a huge, cigar-shaped thing. We raced along after it, along the road towards Market Burnham. Just before it reached the Hall it seemed to turn inland and then come back again. We pulled up to watch it and Collins jumped out. He said he’d go as far as the Hall and warn them. I sat in the car, watching. She came right round and seemed to hover over those queer sort of outbuildings there are at Market Burnham. All at once the bombs began to drop.”
“What are they like?” Geoffrey Anselman exclaimed.
Granet poured out his coffee carefully.
“I’ve seen ‘em before—plenty of them, too,” he remarked, “but they did rain them down. Then all of a sudden there was a sort of glare—I don’t know what happened. It was just as though some one had lit one of those coloured lights. The Hall was just as clearly visible as at noonday. I could see the men running about, shouting, and the soldiers tumbling out of their quarters. All the time the bombs were coming down like hail and a corner of the Hall was in flames. Then the lighted stuff, whatever it was, burnt out and the darkness seemed as black as pitch. I hung around for some time, looking for Collins. Then I went up to the house to help them extinguish the fire. I didn’t get back till four o’clock.”
“What about Collins?” young Anselman asked. “I was playing him at golf.”
“Better send up and see,” Granet proposed. “I waited till I couldn’t stick it any longer.”
They sent a servant up. The reply came back quickly—Mr. Collins’ bed had not been slept in. Granet frowned a little.
“I suppose he’ll think I let him down,” he said. “I waited at least an hour for him.”
“Was any one hurt by the bombs?” Geoffrey Anselman inquired.
“No one seemed to be much the worse,” Granet replied. “I didn’t think of anything of that sort in connection with Collins, though. Perhaps he might have got hurt.”
“We’ll all go over and have a look for him this afternoon if he hasn’t turned up,” Anselman suggested. “What about playing me a round of golf this morning?”
“Suit me all right,” Granet agreed. “I’d meant to lay up because of my arm, but it’s better this morning. We’ll start early and get back for the papers.”
They motored down to the club-house and played their round. It was a wonderful spring morning, with a soft west wind blowing from the land. Little patches of sea lavender gave purple colour to the marshland. The creeks, winding their way from the sea to the village, shone like quicksilver beneath the vivid sunshine. It was a morning of utter and complete peace. Granet notwithstanding a little trouble with his arm, played carefully and well. When at last they reached the eighteenth green, he holed a wonderful curly putt for the hole and the match.
“A great game,” his cousin declared, as they left the green. “Who the devil are these fellows?”
There were two soldiers standing at the gate, and a military motor-car drawn up by the side of the road. An orderly stepped forward and addressed Granet.
“Captain Granet?” he asked, saluting.
Granet nodded and stretched out his hand for the note. The fingers which drew it from the envelope were perfectly steady, he even lifted his head for a moment to look at a lark just overhead. Yet the few hastily scrawled lines were like a message of fate:—
The officer in command at Market Burnham Hall would be obliged if Captain Granet would favour him with an immediate interview, with reference to the events of last night.
“Do you mean that you want me to go at once, before luncheon?” he asked the orderly.
The man pointed to the car.
“My instructions were to take you back at once, sir.”
“Come and have a drink first, at any rate,” Geoffrey Anselman insisted.
The orderly shook his head, the two soldiers were barring the gateway.
“Some one from the War Office has arrived and is waiting to speak to Captain Granet,” he announced.
“We’re all coming over after lunch,” young Anselman protested. “Wouldn’t that do?”
The man made no answer. Granet, with a shrug of the shoulders, stepped into the motor-car. The two soldiers mounted motor-cycles and the little cavalcade turned away. Granet made a few efforts at conversation with his companion, but, meeting with no response, soon relapsed into silence. In less than twenty minutes the car was slowing down before the approach to the Hall. The lane was crowded with villagers and people from the neighbouring farmhouses, who were all kept back, however, by a little cordon of soldiers. Granet, closely attended by his escort, made his way slowly into the avenue and up towards the house. A corner of the left wing of the building was in ruins, blackened and still smouldering, and there was a great hole in the sand-blown lawn, where a bomb had apparently fallen. A soldier admitted them at the front entrance and his guide led him across the hall and into a large room on the other side of the house, an apartment which seemed to be half library, half morning-room. Sir Meyville and a man in uniform were talking together near the window. They turned around at Granet’s entrance and he gave a little start. For the first time a thrill of fear chilled him, his self-confidence was suddenly dissipated. The man who stood watching him with cold scrutiny was the one man on earth whom he feared—Surgeon Major Thomson.
It was a queer little gathering in the drawing-room of Market Burnham Hall, queer and in a sense ominous. Two soldiers guarded the door. Another one stood with his back to the wide-flung window, the sunlight flashing upon his drawn bayonet. Granet, although he looked about him for a moment curiously, carried himself with ease and confidence.
“How do you do, Sir Meyville?” he said. “How are you, Thomson?”
Sir Meyville, who was in a state of great excitement, took absolutely no notice of the young man’s greeting. Thomson pointed to a chair, in which Granet at once seated himself.
“I have sent for you, Captain Granet,” the former began, “to ask you certain questions with reference to the events of last night.”
“Delighted to tell you anything I can,” Granet replied. “Isn’t this a little out of your line, though, Thomson?”
Sir Meyville suddenly leaned forward.
“That is the young man,” he declared. “I took him to be the officer in command here and I showed him over my workshop. Quite a mistake—absolutely a wrong impression!”
“It was a mistake for which you could scarcely hold me responsible,” Granet protested, “and you must really excuse me if I fail to see the connection. Perhaps you will tell me, Major Thomson, what I am here for?”
Major Thomson seated himself before the desk and leaned a little back in his chair.
“We sent for you,” he said, “because we are looking for two men who lit the magnesium light which directed the Zeppelin last night to this locality. One of them lies on the lawn there, with a bullet through his brain. We are still looking for the other.”
“Do you imagine that I can be of any assistance to you?” Granet asked.
“That is our impression,” Major Thomson admitted. “Perhaps you will be so good as to tell us what you were doing here last night?”
“Certainly,” Granet replied. “About half-past ten last night I thought I heard the engine of an airship. We all went out on the lawn but could see nothing. However, I took that opportunity to get my car ready in case there was any excitement going. Later on, as I was on my way upstairs, I distinctly heard the sound once more. I went out, started my car, and drove down the lane. It seemed to be coming in this direction so I followed along, pulled up short of the house, climbed on the top of the bank and saw that extraordinary illumination from the marshland on the other side. I saw a man in a small boat fall back as though he were shot. A moment or two later I returned to my car and was accosted by two soldiers, to whom I gave my name and address. That is really all I know about the matter.”
Major Thomson nodded.
“You had only just arrived, then, when the bombs were dropped?”
“I pulled up just before the illumination,” Granet asserted.
Thomson looked at him thoughtfully.
“I am going to make a remark, Captain Granet,” he said, “upon which you can comment or not, as you choose. Was not your costume last night rather a singular one for the evening? You say that you were on your way upstairs to undress when you heard the Zeppelin. Do you wear rubber shoes and a Norfolk jacket for dinner?”
Granet for a moment bit his lip.
“I laid out those things in case there was anything doing,” he said. “As I told you, I felt sure that I had heard an airship earlier in the evening, and I meant to try and follow it if I heard it again.”
There was a brief silence. Granet lounged a little back in his chair, but though his air of indifference was perfect, a sickening foreboding was creeping in upon him. He was conscious of failure, of blind, idiotic folly. Never before had he been guilty of such miserable short-sightedness. He fought desperately against the toils which he felt were gradually closing in upon him. There must be some way out!
“Captain Granet,” he questioner continued, in his calm, emotionless tone, “according to your story you changed your clothes and reached here at the same time as the Zeppelin, after having heard its approach. It is four miles and a half to the Dormy House Club, and that Zeppelin must have been travelling at the rate of at least sixty miles an hour. Is your car capable of miracles?”
“It is capable of sixty miles an hour,” Granet declared.
“Perhaps I may spare you the trouble,” Thomson proceeded drily, “of further explanations, Captain Granet, when I tell you that your car was observed by one of the sentries quite a quarter of an hour before the arrival of the Zeppelins and the lighting of that flare. Your statements, to put it mildly, are irreconcilable with the facts of the case. I must ask you once more if you have any other explanation to give as to your movements last night?”
“What other explanation can I give?” Granet asked, his brain working fiercely. “I have told you the truth. What more can I say?”
“You have told me,” Major Thomson went on, and his voice seemed like the voice of fate, “that you arrived here in hot haste simultaneously with the lighting of that flare and the dropping of the bombs. Not only one of the sentries on guard here, but two other people have given evidence that your car was out there in the lane for at least a quarter of an hour previous to the happenings of which I have just spoken. For the last time, Captain Granet, I must ask you whether you wish to amend your explanation?”
There was a little movement at the further end of the room. A curtain was drawn back and Isabel Worth came slowly towards them. She stood there, the curtains on either side of her, ghastly pale, her hands clasped in front of her, twitching nervously.
“I am very sorry,” she said. “This is all my fault.”
They stared at her in amazement. Only Granet, with an effort, kept his face expressionless. Sir Meyville began to mutter to himself.
“God bless my soul!” he mumbled. “Isabel, what do you want, girl? Can’t you see that we are engaged?”
She took no notice of him. She turned appealingly towards Major Thomson.
“Can you send the soldiers away for a moment?” she begged. “I don’t think that they will be needed.”
Major Thomson gave a brief order and the men left the room. Isabel came a little nearer to the table. She avoided looking at Granet.
“I am very sorry indeed,” she went on, “if anything I have done has caused all this trouble. Captain Granet came down here partly to play golf, partly at my invitation. He was here yesterday afternoon, as my father knows. Before he left—I asked him to come over last night.”
There was a breathless silence. Isabel was standing at the end of the table, her fingers still clasped nervously together, a spot of intense colour in her cheeks. She kept her eyes turned sedulously away from Granet. Sir Meyville gripped her by the shoulder.
“What do you mean, girl?” he demanded harshly. “What do you mean by all this rubbish? Speak out.”
Granet looked up for a moment.
“Don’t,” he begged. “I can clear myself, Miss Worth, if any one is mad enough to have suspicions about me. I should never—”
“The truth may just as well be told,” she interrupted. “There is nothing to be ashamed of. It is hideously dull down here, and the life my father has asked me to lead for the last few months has been intolerable. I never sleep, and I invited Captain Granet to come over here at twelve o’clock last night and take me for a motor ride. I was dressed, meaning to go, and Captain Granet came to fetch me. It turned out to be impossible because of all the new sentries about the place, but that is why Captain Granet was here, and that,” she concluded, turning to Major Thomson, “is why, I suppose, he felt obliged to tell you what was not the truth. It has been done before.”
There was a silence which seemed composed of many elements. Sir Meyville Worth stood with his eyes fixed upon his daughter and an expression of blank, uncomprehending dismay in his features. Granet, a frown upon his forehead, was looking towards the floor. Thomson, with the air of seeing nobody, was studying them all in turn. It was he who spoke first.
“As you justly remark, Miss Worth,” he observed, “this sort of thing has been done before. We will leave it there for the present. Will you come this way with me, if you please, Captain Granet? I won’t trouble you, Miss Worth, or you, Sir Meyville. You might not like what we are going to see.”
Granet rose at once to his feet.
“Of course, I will come wherever you like,” he assented.
The two men passed together side by side, in momentous silence, across the stone hall, out of the house, and round the back of the garden to a wooden shed, before which was posted a sentry. The man stood on one side to let them pass. On the bare stone floor inside was stretched the dead body of Collins. The salt water was still oozing from his clothes and limbs, running away in little streams. There was a small blue hole in the middle of his forehead.
“This, apparently,” Thomson said, “is the man who lit the magnesium light which showed the Zeppelin where to throw her bombs. The thing was obviously prearranged. Can you identify him?”
“Identify him?” Granet exclaimed. “Why, I was playing bowls with him yesterday afternoon. He is a Glasgow merchant named Collins, and a very fine golf player. He is staying at the Dormy House Club.”
“He has also another claim to distinction,” Major Thomson remarked drily, “for he is the man who fired those lights. The sergeant who shot him fancied that he heard voices on the creek, and crept up to the wall just before the flare came. The sergeant, I may add, is under the impression that there were two men in the boat.”
Granet shook his head dubiously.
“I know nothing whatever of the man or his movements,” he declared, “beyond what I have told you. I have scarcely spoken a dozen words to him in my life, and never before our chance meeting at the Dormy House.”
“You do not, for instance, happen to know how he came here from the Dormy House?”
“If you mean did he come in my car,” Granet answered easily, “please let me assure you that he did not. My errand here last night was indiscreet enough, but I certainly shouldn’t have brought another man, especially a stranger, with me.”
“Thank you,” Major Thomson concluded, “that is all I have to say to you for the present.”
“Has there been much damage done?” Granet inquired.
“Very little.”
They had reached the corner of the avenue. Granet glanced down towards the road.
“I presume,” he remarked, “that I am at liberty to depart?”
Thomson gave a brief order to the soldier who had been attending them.
“You will find the car in which you came waiting to take you back, Captain Granet,” he announced.
The two men had paused. Granet was on the point of departure. With the passing of his sudden apprehension of danger, his curiosity was awakened.
“Do you mind telling me, Major Thomson,” he asked, “how it is that you, holding, I presume, a medical appointment, were selected to conduct an inquiry like this? I have voluntarily submitted myself to your questioning, but if I had had anything to conceal I might have been inclined to dispute your authority.”
Thomson’s face was immovable. He simply pointed to the gate at the end of the avenue.
“If it had been necessary, Captain Granet,” he said coldly, “I should have been able to convince you that I was acting under authority. As it is, I wish you good-morning.”
Granet hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders and turned away.
“Good-morning, Major!”
He made his way down to the lane, which was still crowded with villagers and loungers. He was received with a shower of questions as he climbed into the car.
“Not much damage done that I can hear,” he told them all. “The corner of the house caught fire and the lawn looks like a sand-pit.”
He was driven in silence back to the Dormy House. When he arrived there the place was deserted. The other men were lunching at the golf club. He made his way slowly to the impromptu shed which served for a garage. His own car was standing there. He looked all around to make sure that he was absolutely alone. Then he lifted up the cushion by the driving-seat. Carefully folded and arranged in the corner were the horn-rimmed spectacles and the silk handkerchief of the man who was lying at Market Burnham with a bullet through his forehead.