Chapter Thirteen.The Leopard’s Eyes.For a few moments I stood dumbfounded.I could scarcely believe my own eyes.The figure before me was pale-faced and wan. She wore an old blue felt hat with wide brim which was most unbecoming, a faded jersey that had once been dark mauve, and an old black skirt, while her boots were cracked and bulging, and she was without gloves.She smiled at me inanely, as she came across the room and Theed closed the door after her.“Roseye!” I gasped. “Whatever does this mean?”“Is it really you!” cried Teddy, equally amazed.“It is,” she replied in a low, very weary voice.I saw that she appeared exhausted, for she clutched at the edge of the table, so I led her gently to my chair wherein she sank inertly, with a deep sigh.“Roseye,” I said. “Where have you been?”She turned her gaze upon the fire. Her face remained hard-set. The expression upon her white countenance was one of tragedy.Her chest heaved and fell, and I saw that her ungloved hands, grasping the arms of the chair, were trembling.“You are cold!” I cried. And dashing to the cupboard I got out some brandy and a siphon.She sipped a few drops from the glass I offered her, smiling in grateful acknowledgment.Then, as I stood upon the hearthrug facing her, I repeated my question:“Tell us, Roseye. Where have you been?”In her great blue eyes I noticed a strange, vacant expression; a look such as I had never seen there before. She only shook her head mournfully.“What has happened?” I inquired, bending and placing my hand tenderly upon her shoulder.But, with a sudden movement, she buried her face in her small hands and burst into a torrent of tears.“Don’t ask me!” she sobbed. “Don’t ask me, Claude!”“Look here, old chap,” exclaimed Teddy, who was quite as mystified as myself. “I’ll come back later on. That Miss Lethmere is safe is, after all, the one great consolation.”And, rising, my friend discreetly left the room.When he had gone I fell upon my knees before my rediscovered love and, taking her cold hands in mine, covered them with hot, fervent kisses, saying:“Never mind, darling. You are safe again—and with me!”All my efforts to calm her, however, proved unavailing, for she still sobbed bitterly—the reaction, no doubt, of finding herself again beside me. With women, in circumstances of great strain, it is the feminine privilege to relieve themselves by emotion.“Speak!” I urged of her. “Tell me where you’ve been, darling?”But she only shook her head and, still convulsed by sobs, sat there inert and heedless of all about her.As I knelt in silence, the quiet of my room remained unbroken save for the low ticking of the clock, and the soft sobs of the woman I so dearly loved.Tenderly I took my own handkerchief and wiped those tears from her white, hard-set face. Then, for the first time, I saw that her left eyebrow showed a dark red scar. It had not been there on the last occasion when we had been together.That mark upon her brow set me wondering.Across her forehead she drew her hand wearily, as at last she sat forward in her chair, an action as though to clear her confused and troubled brain.“Let me take off your hat,” I said and, with a man’s clumsiness, removed the old felt hat from her head.As I did so her wealth of soft hair, which I saw had been sadly neglected, fell unkempt about her shoulders.“That—that woman!” she suddenly ejaculated, half starting from her seat. “Ah! that woman!” she cried.“What woman, dear?” I asked, much mystified at her words.“That woman—that awful woman!” she shouted.“Ah! send her away—save me from her—Oh! save me.Look!”And she pointed straight before her at some phantom which she had conjured up in her imagination.At once I realised that she was hysterical, and that some hideous ghost of her past adventure had arisen before her.“Calm yourself, darling,” I urged softly, my arm around her waist. “There is no one here. You are alone—alone with me—Claude!”“Claude!” she echoed, turning toward me and gazing blankly into my eyes with an expression which lacked recognition. “Oh—yes!” she added in a tone of surprise. “Why—yes—Claude! Is it you—really you?”“Yes. I am Claude—and you are alone with me,” I said in great apprehension, for I feared lest she might be demented. No doubt she had been through some terrible experiences since last I had clasped her hand.Again she sighed deeply. For the next few moments she gazed into my eyes in silence. Their stony stare thrilled and awed me. At last a very faint smile played about her lips, and she exclaimed: “Oh, yes! How awfully silly of me, Claude! How very foolish. Forgive me, won’t you?”“Forgive you, darling! Why, of course,” I said, pressing her closely to me.“But—but that terrible woman!” she cried, still terrified. “You won’t let her come near me again—will you?”“No. She shan’t. I’m with you, and will protect you, darling. Trust in me.”“Ah!” she sighed. “It was awful. How—how I’ve lived through it I don’t know.”“Through what?” I asked, eager to induce her to tell her story.“No,” she answered. “You—you would never believe me!—you would never understand! Oh! that woman! Look!” and in terror she raised her finger and pointed again straight before her. “Look! Don’t you see her! She’s fixed her eyes upon me—those awful leopard’s eyes!”“There’s nobody here, Roseye,” I assured her. “You’re alone with me.”“Alone! Why, no. She’s there—see straight over there!” cried my love, her face distorted by wild terror. “Ah! she’s coming nearer!” she shrieked, again covering her face with her hands, as though to shut out the imaginary face.“Ugh!” she shuddered. “Don’t let her touch me! Don’t let her touch me! Don’t, Claude—for Heaven’s sake, I beg of you. That woman—that awful woman with the leopard’s eyes!”“Come, come,” I said, rather severely. “You must not give way to these hallucinations, Roseye. There’s nobody here, I assure you. It’s all—”“But sheishere!” she shrieked. “You can’t deceiveme; she’s here—with us. Perhaps you can’t see her—but I can. Oh! those horrible eyes—the fiend! Ah! what I have suffered!”I did not reply. I was at a loss how to act. Sight of my beloved betraying such abject terror unnerved me.Too well did I recollect the story of the railway signalman near Welwyn, how, when the night-express came out of the tunnel tearing north from London, he had distinctly seen two women struggling. One was in the grasp of the other.Was this the woman whom Roseye believed was present in my room—the mysterious Woman with the Leopard’s Eyes?I crossed to the window, and standing at the spot where at my love declared she could see the mysterious female by which she seemed haunted, said:“Now, look, dear! There is nobody here.”“There is!” she persisted. “She’s there just behind you. Mind! She intends to do you harm! Yes,” she added. “I saw her at Hendon. I remember, most distinctly! She knows you—and she means to do you harm!”I returned to her side, frantic at my inability to convince her that all was her imagination.There was no doubt that, deeply impressed upon her memory, was some recollection of terrifying events in which a mysterious woman had played a leading part.As I looked at that blank, yet horrified expression upon her pale, sweet face I became more than ever convinced that she had been held beneath the thraldom of some woman of evil intent—that woman whom she described as possessing the crafty eyes of a leopard.For a full half-hour I argued with her, endeavouring to calm her but, unfortunately, to little avail. Presently, however, her expression altered, she grew less agitated, until at last, as I sat holding her in my arms, I kissed her fondly upon the lips, and again begged:“Do tell me, my darling, where you have been all this long time? I’ve searched for you everywhere.”“I—I don’t know,” was her blank reply. “I can’t tell you.”“But surely you recollect something?” I urged eagerly. “Those are not your own clothes that you are wearing. Where did you get them from?”She looked quickly down at her jersey and at her skirt, and then raised her eyes to me in dismay. Apparently, for the first time, she now realised that she was dressed in some one else’s clothes.“That’s curious!” she exclaimed, as though speaking to herself. “That’s very curious. That hat is not mine, either!”“No, it isn’t,” I said, handing it to her to examine, which she did critically.Then, placing her hands idly upon her knees, she remained for a long time with brows knit in silence, apparently trying to recall the past.“You lost your chatelaine—the one I gave you,” I said, hoping that the fact might, in some way, stir the chords of her blunted memory.“My chatelaine!” she repeated, looking at me vacantly.“Yes. You lost your purse and money, and other things,” I said. “I think you must have lost it from a train.”Suddenly she raised her face again to mine, and asked in a half-dazed kind of way:“Are you—are you Claude?”“Yes,” I replied. “Surely you remember me!”“Oh—yes! But—oh! my head—my poor head!” and she placed her hands to her temples and drew a long breath.“Cannot you recollect—do try and tell me something. Try and describe to me what occurred after you left home. What happened to you?”She shook her head sadly.“I can’t tell you,” she said at last, speaking quite rationally. “I really can’t.”“But you must recollect something, dear?” I asked. “Your chatelaine was found dropped from a train on the line near Welwyn station, on the Great Northern Railway.”“On the railway?” she repeated slowly. “Ah!”“That brings back something to your memory, dearest, does it not?” I inquired anxiously, for I now felt convinced that she remembered something regarding her loss.“Yes—but—but—well, I can’t tell you about it, Claude.”“You can’t, dearest—or do you mean that you decline to tell me! Which?”For a few moments she was again silent. Her blank white face had become almost as its own self, with that sweet, calm smile I had known so well.“I must decline to tell you,” she slowly answered at last. “I’m sorry—but I—I only ask your forgiveness, Claude.”“What is there for me to forgive?” I cried dismayed. “You disappeared. Everybody feared foul play—and—”“There was foul play!” she interrupted in a hoarse voice.“By whom?”“By somebody.”“You know who were your enemies?” I asked quickly. “You must know, indeed.”She nodded in the affirmative, her eyes once more downcast, as though fearing to meet my gaze.“Cannot you name them—cannot you denounce them, darling? It is your duty,” I said in a low, persuasive tone. “Reveal the truth to me, Claude.”“No, never!” was her plain and instant reply.“Why not?”“There are reasons.”“What reasons?”“Reasons of my own. Strong reasons.”“And may I not know them?” I asked with some resentment.“No, Claude—I can never reveal the truth—not even to you.” She was now quite her old self.“But I thought we trusted each other blindly and implicitly,” I protested. “You surely know how deeply and fondly I love you, my darling.”“Exactly,” she exclaimed, with one of those sweet and winning smiles of hers. “That’s just my point. If you love me as you declare—and I believe you do—then you will trust me, and you will, when I assure you that I cannot tell you what has happened, refrain from further questioning me.”Her argument was, certainly, one to which I could not very well reply. It was a curious argument, and aroused suspicion within me.She had now grown quite calm, and I could plainly see that she had at last recalled the past, yet she did not intend to make any statement whatever regarding it.Why? This disinclination to reveal to me the slightest fact was, in itself, most extraordinary. I then found myself reflecting upon the discovery of that secret memorandum in her card-case, and the allegation made against her by the red-tabbed Intelligence officer.I was on the point of telling her what had been discovered—the purport of the cipher-message and the suspicion which rested upon her. Yet, would that induce her to be frank and tell me the truth? I decided that it would not, therefore I said nothing. Instead, I remarked in a low, sympathetic voice: “I really think, darling, that it is due to me—to your people also—that you should tell us the truth of what happened to you, and of the identity of your enemies.”“I have already told you, Claude,” was her quiet response. “If you really love me, then you should at least trust me.”“I do trust you, darling!” I protested quickly. “You surely know that! You are in possession of all the secrets of our invention, and—”“Ah! the invention—the invention!” she cried and, as she suddenly recollected it, her whole manner instantly changed.She started from her chair crying: “Yes—yes! Now I remember! I remember! It was awful—terrible—ugh! Ah! my poor brain!” and again she drew her hand across her brow. “My poor head!”She paused but, next second, she turned to me, exclaiming in a tone quite unusual to her:“No! I shall tell you nothing—I shall say nothing! I do not want to remember—I pray only to forget—yes, to forget all—everything. It is too horrible! Too cruel!” and I saw that my reference to our secret apparatus had stirred another chord in her memory—one that caused her both fierce anger and bitter remorse.That fact, in itself, revealed to me quite plainly that her tragic experiences, whatever they might have been, had some curious connexion with our invention for the destruction of Zeppelins. Thus, arguing with myself further, I became more than ever convinced that she, in all her innocence, had fallen defenceless into the unscrupulous grip of the terrible but relentless Invisible Hand.Why did she so persistently withhold from me the truth? What more natural than, knowing the identity of her enemies, she should seek to denounce and justly punish them? Now she was back at my side she surely could not fear them!Certainly her demeanour was most mysterious, and I stood there, facing her, utterly bewildered. The expression in her dear face was quite uncanny.Once again I begged her to tell me something—however slight—regarding what had occurred to her. I told her of our tireless search; of the eager hue and cry; of the publication of her portrait, and of the offered reward for any information.“Ah!” she replied, with a strange, faint smile, as though of triumph almost. “All that was to no effect. The precautions taken were far too complete. Nobody could have found me—for I was in a living grave.”“Yes,” I said, hoping that she would reveal to me something more, however vague. “Tell me about it, darling. Do, Roseye.”“Tell you!” she echoed with angry resentment, putting me from her firmly and staring at me. “No, never!” Then a second later she turned towards the curtained window and shrieked:“Ah! look!—that accursed woman again! Why do you allow her to come here—if you love me, Claude!”“She is not here,” I declared firmly. “It is all your silly imagination!”“She is!” cried my love wildly. “You are lying to me! She’s there! Over there! Kill her—Claude—or she will kill you—ah!that Woman with the Leopard’s Eyes!”
For a few moments I stood dumbfounded.
I could scarcely believe my own eyes.
The figure before me was pale-faced and wan. She wore an old blue felt hat with wide brim which was most unbecoming, a faded jersey that had once been dark mauve, and an old black skirt, while her boots were cracked and bulging, and she was without gloves.
She smiled at me inanely, as she came across the room and Theed closed the door after her.
“Roseye!” I gasped. “Whatever does this mean?”
“Is it really you!” cried Teddy, equally amazed.
“It is,” she replied in a low, very weary voice.
I saw that she appeared exhausted, for she clutched at the edge of the table, so I led her gently to my chair wherein she sank inertly, with a deep sigh.
“Roseye,” I said. “Where have you been?”
She turned her gaze upon the fire. Her face remained hard-set. The expression upon her white countenance was one of tragedy.
Her chest heaved and fell, and I saw that her ungloved hands, grasping the arms of the chair, were trembling.
“You are cold!” I cried. And dashing to the cupboard I got out some brandy and a siphon.
She sipped a few drops from the glass I offered her, smiling in grateful acknowledgment.
Then, as I stood upon the hearthrug facing her, I repeated my question:
“Tell us, Roseye. Where have you been?”
In her great blue eyes I noticed a strange, vacant expression; a look such as I had never seen there before. She only shook her head mournfully.
“What has happened?” I inquired, bending and placing my hand tenderly upon her shoulder.
But, with a sudden movement, she buried her face in her small hands and burst into a torrent of tears.
“Don’t ask me!” she sobbed. “Don’t ask me, Claude!”
“Look here, old chap,” exclaimed Teddy, who was quite as mystified as myself. “I’ll come back later on. That Miss Lethmere is safe is, after all, the one great consolation.”
And, rising, my friend discreetly left the room.
When he had gone I fell upon my knees before my rediscovered love and, taking her cold hands in mine, covered them with hot, fervent kisses, saying:
“Never mind, darling. You are safe again—and with me!”
All my efforts to calm her, however, proved unavailing, for she still sobbed bitterly—the reaction, no doubt, of finding herself again beside me. With women, in circumstances of great strain, it is the feminine privilege to relieve themselves by emotion.
“Speak!” I urged of her. “Tell me where you’ve been, darling?”
But she only shook her head and, still convulsed by sobs, sat there inert and heedless of all about her.
As I knelt in silence, the quiet of my room remained unbroken save for the low ticking of the clock, and the soft sobs of the woman I so dearly loved.
Tenderly I took my own handkerchief and wiped those tears from her white, hard-set face. Then, for the first time, I saw that her left eyebrow showed a dark red scar. It had not been there on the last occasion when we had been together.
That mark upon her brow set me wondering.
Across her forehead she drew her hand wearily, as at last she sat forward in her chair, an action as though to clear her confused and troubled brain.
“Let me take off your hat,” I said and, with a man’s clumsiness, removed the old felt hat from her head.
As I did so her wealth of soft hair, which I saw had been sadly neglected, fell unkempt about her shoulders.
“That—that woman!” she suddenly ejaculated, half starting from her seat. “Ah! that woman!” she cried.
“What woman, dear?” I asked, much mystified at her words.
“That woman—that awful woman!” she shouted.
“Ah! send her away—save me from her—Oh! save me.Look!”
And she pointed straight before her at some phantom which she had conjured up in her imagination.
At once I realised that she was hysterical, and that some hideous ghost of her past adventure had arisen before her.
“Calm yourself, darling,” I urged softly, my arm around her waist. “There is no one here. You are alone—alone with me—Claude!”
“Claude!” she echoed, turning toward me and gazing blankly into my eyes with an expression which lacked recognition. “Oh—yes!” she added in a tone of surprise. “Why—yes—Claude! Is it you—really you?”
“Yes. I am Claude—and you are alone with me,” I said in great apprehension, for I feared lest she might be demented. No doubt she had been through some terrible experiences since last I had clasped her hand.
Again she sighed deeply. For the next few moments she gazed into my eyes in silence. Their stony stare thrilled and awed me. At last a very faint smile played about her lips, and she exclaimed: “Oh, yes! How awfully silly of me, Claude! How very foolish. Forgive me, won’t you?”
“Forgive you, darling! Why, of course,” I said, pressing her closely to me.
“But—but that terrible woman!” she cried, still terrified. “You won’t let her come near me again—will you?”
“No. She shan’t. I’m with you, and will protect you, darling. Trust in me.”
“Ah!” she sighed. “It was awful. How—how I’ve lived through it I don’t know.”
“Through what?” I asked, eager to induce her to tell her story.
“No,” she answered. “You—you would never believe me!—you would never understand! Oh! that woman! Look!” and in terror she raised her finger and pointed again straight before her. “Look! Don’t you see her! She’s fixed her eyes upon me—those awful leopard’s eyes!”
“There’s nobody here, Roseye,” I assured her. “You’re alone with me.”
“Alone! Why, no. She’s there—see straight over there!” cried my love, her face distorted by wild terror. “Ah! she’s coming nearer!” she shrieked, again covering her face with her hands, as though to shut out the imaginary face.
“Ugh!” she shuddered. “Don’t let her touch me! Don’t let her touch me! Don’t, Claude—for Heaven’s sake, I beg of you. That woman—that awful woman with the leopard’s eyes!”
“Come, come,” I said, rather severely. “You must not give way to these hallucinations, Roseye. There’s nobody here, I assure you. It’s all—”
“But sheishere!” she shrieked. “You can’t deceiveme; she’s here—with us. Perhaps you can’t see her—but I can. Oh! those horrible eyes—the fiend! Ah! what I have suffered!”
I did not reply. I was at a loss how to act. Sight of my beloved betraying such abject terror unnerved me.
Too well did I recollect the story of the railway signalman near Welwyn, how, when the night-express came out of the tunnel tearing north from London, he had distinctly seen two women struggling. One was in the grasp of the other.
Was this the woman whom Roseye believed was present in my room—the mysterious Woman with the Leopard’s Eyes?
I crossed to the window, and standing at the spot where at my love declared she could see the mysterious female by which she seemed haunted, said:
“Now, look, dear! There is nobody here.”
“There is!” she persisted. “She’s there just behind you. Mind! She intends to do you harm! Yes,” she added. “I saw her at Hendon. I remember, most distinctly! She knows you—and she means to do you harm!”
I returned to her side, frantic at my inability to convince her that all was her imagination.
There was no doubt that, deeply impressed upon her memory, was some recollection of terrifying events in which a mysterious woman had played a leading part.
As I looked at that blank, yet horrified expression upon her pale, sweet face I became more than ever convinced that she had been held beneath the thraldom of some woman of evil intent—that woman whom she described as possessing the crafty eyes of a leopard.
For a full half-hour I argued with her, endeavouring to calm her but, unfortunately, to little avail. Presently, however, her expression altered, she grew less agitated, until at last, as I sat holding her in my arms, I kissed her fondly upon the lips, and again begged:
“Do tell me, my darling, where you have been all this long time? I’ve searched for you everywhere.”
“I—I don’t know,” was her blank reply. “I can’t tell you.”
“But surely you recollect something?” I urged eagerly. “Those are not your own clothes that you are wearing. Where did you get them from?”
She looked quickly down at her jersey and at her skirt, and then raised her eyes to me in dismay. Apparently, for the first time, she now realised that she was dressed in some one else’s clothes.
“That’s curious!” she exclaimed, as though speaking to herself. “That’s very curious. That hat is not mine, either!”
“No, it isn’t,” I said, handing it to her to examine, which she did critically.
Then, placing her hands idly upon her knees, she remained for a long time with brows knit in silence, apparently trying to recall the past.
“You lost your chatelaine—the one I gave you,” I said, hoping that the fact might, in some way, stir the chords of her blunted memory.
“My chatelaine!” she repeated, looking at me vacantly.
“Yes. You lost your purse and money, and other things,” I said. “I think you must have lost it from a train.”
Suddenly she raised her face again to mine, and asked in a half-dazed kind of way:
“Are you—are you Claude?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Surely you remember me!”
“Oh—yes! But—oh! my head—my poor head!” and she placed her hands to her temples and drew a long breath.
“Cannot you recollect—do try and tell me something. Try and describe to me what occurred after you left home. What happened to you?”
She shook her head sadly.
“I can’t tell you,” she said at last, speaking quite rationally. “I really can’t.”
“But you must recollect something, dear?” I asked. “Your chatelaine was found dropped from a train on the line near Welwyn station, on the Great Northern Railway.”
“On the railway?” she repeated slowly. “Ah!”
“That brings back something to your memory, dearest, does it not?” I inquired anxiously, for I now felt convinced that she remembered something regarding her loss.
“Yes—but—but—well, I can’t tell you about it, Claude.”
“You can’t, dearest—or do you mean that you decline to tell me! Which?”
For a few moments she was again silent. Her blank white face had become almost as its own self, with that sweet, calm smile I had known so well.
“I must decline to tell you,” she slowly answered at last. “I’m sorry—but I—I only ask your forgiveness, Claude.”
“What is there for me to forgive?” I cried dismayed. “You disappeared. Everybody feared foul play—and—”
“There was foul play!” she interrupted in a hoarse voice.
“By whom?”
“By somebody.”
“You know who were your enemies?” I asked quickly. “You must know, indeed.”
She nodded in the affirmative, her eyes once more downcast, as though fearing to meet my gaze.
“Cannot you name them—cannot you denounce them, darling? It is your duty,” I said in a low, persuasive tone. “Reveal the truth to me, Claude.”
“No, never!” was her plain and instant reply.
“Why not?”
“There are reasons.”
“What reasons?”
“Reasons of my own. Strong reasons.”
“And may I not know them?” I asked with some resentment.
“No, Claude—I can never reveal the truth—not even to you.” She was now quite her old self.
“But I thought we trusted each other blindly and implicitly,” I protested. “You surely know how deeply and fondly I love you, my darling.”
“Exactly,” she exclaimed, with one of those sweet and winning smiles of hers. “That’s just my point. If you love me as you declare—and I believe you do—then you will trust me, and you will, when I assure you that I cannot tell you what has happened, refrain from further questioning me.”
Her argument was, certainly, one to which I could not very well reply. It was a curious argument, and aroused suspicion within me.
She had now grown quite calm, and I could plainly see that she had at last recalled the past, yet she did not intend to make any statement whatever regarding it.
Why? This disinclination to reveal to me the slightest fact was, in itself, most extraordinary. I then found myself reflecting upon the discovery of that secret memorandum in her card-case, and the allegation made against her by the red-tabbed Intelligence officer.
I was on the point of telling her what had been discovered—the purport of the cipher-message and the suspicion which rested upon her. Yet, would that induce her to be frank and tell me the truth? I decided that it would not, therefore I said nothing. Instead, I remarked in a low, sympathetic voice: “I really think, darling, that it is due to me—to your people also—that you should tell us the truth of what happened to you, and of the identity of your enemies.”
“I have already told you, Claude,” was her quiet response. “If you really love me, then you should at least trust me.”
“I do trust you, darling!” I protested quickly. “You surely know that! You are in possession of all the secrets of our invention, and—”
“Ah! the invention—the invention!” she cried and, as she suddenly recollected it, her whole manner instantly changed.
She started from her chair crying: “Yes—yes! Now I remember! I remember! It was awful—terrible—ugh! Ah! my poor brain!” and again she drew her hand across her brow. “My poor head!”
She paused but, next second, she turned to me, exclaiming in a tone quite unusual to her:
“No! I shall tell you nothing—I shall say nothing! I do not want to remember—I pray only to forget—yes, to forget all—everything. It is too horrible! Too cruel!” and I saw that my reference to our secret apparatus had stirred another chord in her memory—one that caused her both fierce anger and bitter remorse.
That fact, in itself, revealed to me quite plainly that her tragic experiences, whatever they might have been, had some curious connexion with our invention for the destruction of Zeppelins. Thus, arguing with myself further, I became more than ever convinced that she, in all her innocence, had fallen defenceless into the unscrupulous grip of the terrible but relentless Invisible Hand.
Why did she so persistently withhold from me the truth? What more natural than, knowing the identity of her enemies, she should seek to denounce and justly punish them? Now she was back at my side she surely could not fear them!
Certainly her demeanour was most mysterious, and I stood there, facing her, utterly bewildered. The expression in her dear face was quite uncanny.
Once again I begged her to tell me something—however slight—regarding what had occurred to her. I told her of our tireless search; of the eager hue and cry; of the publication of her portrait, and of the offered reward for any information.
“Ah!” she replied, with a strange, faint smile, as though of triumph almost. “All that was to no effect. The precautions taken were far too complete. Nobody could have found me—for I was in a living grave.”
“Yes,” I said, hoping that she would reveal to me something more, however vague. “Tell me about it, darling. Do, Roseye.”
“Tell you!” she echoed with angry resentment, putting me from her firmly and staring at me. “No, never!” Then a second later she turned towards the curtained window and shrieked:
“Ah! look!—that accursed woman again! Why do you allow her to come here—if you love me, Claude!”
“She is not here,” I declared firmly. “It is all your silly imagination!”
“She is!” cried my love wildly. “You are lying to me! She’s there! Over there! Kill her—Claude—or she will kill you—ah!that Woman with the Leopard’s Eyes!”
Chapter Fourteen.False or True?One bright crisp afternoon in mid-December, Roseye, wrapped warmly in her furs, sat beside me in the car as we sped through Leatherhead on our way out to Burford Bridge, where we had decided to have tea.In the grey wintry light the landscape had become gloomy and depressing. Yet my love chatted merrily as we sped along.Since that well-remembered evening at my rooms when she had made her sudden reappearance on my threshold from nowhere, the days had been very dark and terribly anxious ones.After her refusal to tell me anything, I had taken her home, where her sudden arrival had been as a thunderbolt to her parents. But alas! her overstrained brain had then given way, and for three weeks she had remained in bed under the care of Sir Charles Needham, one of the greatest mental specialists in Harley Street.Thanks to his skill, she had slowly recovered—very slowly it seemed to me.A dozen times I had chatted with Sir Charles, and he had admitted to me that the case was not only most unusual, but almost unique. He could not obtain from her any lucid account of what had occurred after she had left home on that fatal morning. She had contradicted herself so many times.Any reference to inventions, to electricity, to trains, to Zeppelins, or to women, sent her into fierce paroxysms of anger. Her attitude was most mysterious. In fact her adventures during the time she had been missing were enveloped in a dark cloud of mystery which, even Barton himself, was unable to penetrate.Captain Pollock, of course, had been informed and had repeated his red-taped suspicions. But, having no reliable or actual evidence upon which to base his assertions, Barton seemed inclined to disregard them.I noticed this, putting it down to the usual disagreement which exists in officialdom the world over. No one official has ever been known to be in actual accord with another in another Department. That’s why the clock of State creaks on so rustily in every civilised community.Arrived at that motoring rendezvous, the Burford Bridge Hotel, we took a stroll in its picturesque grounds on the slope of Box Hill, leafless and deserted on that December afternoon.Having walked some distance along the gravelled paths, we sat together upon a seat, when her sudden silence caused me to ponder. Since we had been walking she had scarcely uttered a word, and had appeared utterly absorbed.At last she exclaimed:“I shall be so very glad when they let me fly again, Claude. I feel ever so much better now—quite my old self again.”“I’m delighted to hear that,” was my reply. “But you must wait another week or two before you take out your machine. Your man is overhauling it thoroughly. When I was at Hendon yesterday I saw that he had taken down the engine.”“Yes. I’m most anxious to help you, dear, with your great invention. How is it getting on?”“Famously,” I replied. “Teddy and I have been working hard for the last four days, and have made progress in both lightening the weight of the outfit, and increasing its power. I’ve ordered a big new dynamo to be constructed on such lines that it can be placed on my machine with a second engine. This engine will either run the dynamo, or the propeller.”“Of course, I quite see,” she exclaimed. “You must have a second engine for night-flying. How long will it be, do you think, before you can make a trial flight?” she asked anxiously.“Early in January I hope, darling.”“And you will let me come with you—won’t you? Now promise me. Do,” she urged, placing her gloved hand upon my arm, and looking earnestly into my face.“Yes. I promise,” I answered laughing. “Teddy will, no doubt, be very anxious to come, but you shall make the first flight, darling. It is your privilege.”“May I come out to Gunnersbury and help you?” she asked. “I’m quite all right again, I assure you.”“When Sir Charles gives his consent, then you may come,” I replied.“I’ll ask him to-morrow,” she cried gladly. “I’m so horribly tired of leading an idle life at home. Lionel lunched with us yesterday, and took me out to amatinée. It was quite jolly to have such a change. We had tea at the Piccadilly afterwards.”“Lionel!” I exclaimed in surprise.“Yes. Why? Are you jealous—you dear old thing?”I drew a deep breath, and she evidently noticed my displeasure.“Jealous!” I cried with affected nonchalance. “Why should I be?”“Well—I ought, of course, to have told you before,” she answered. “But he’s such a good friend of ours, you know.”Good friend. All the suspicions I held regarding him flashed across my mind. Why had he pretended to be an invalid on that day I had sat at his bedside, and yet afterwards had dined at Hatchett’s? Why was he ever inquisitive regarding our secret experiments, and why did he appear to possess such unusual knowledge of coming events?“Yes,” I remarked after a pause. “He is, no doubt, a good friend.”I saw that I could learn more by disarming suspicion than by appearing ungenerous.“You don’t mind me going to amatinéewith him, do you, Claude?” she asked frankly. “Of course, if it has annoyed you, I won’t go again. But mother said she thought a theatre would be a pleasant relaxation for me, now that we can’t go out at night on account of the darkened streets and the bad winter weather.”“The darkened streets seem to make no difference to pleasure-going,” I said bitterly, and purposely disregarding her first question. “Though we are at war—though thousands upon thousands of our poor brave fellows have been killed or maimed in the defence of their homes and their loved ones, yet the London public are still the same. Nothing seems to disturb them. Bond Street, with all its fripperies, is still in full swing: the drapers everywhere are paying big dividends—money is being squandered in luxuries by those who have never previously known such things; jewellers are flourishing, and extravagance runs riot through the land. Men and women go nightly to revues and join in rollicking choruses, even while the death-rattle sounds in the throats of Britain’s bravest sons. Ah! Roseye,” I said. “It is all too awful. What I fear is that we are riding gaily for a fall.”“No,” she said. “I agree in a sense with all you say. But we are not riding for a fall, so long as we have brave men ready to sacrifice their lives in Britain’s cause. You, Claude, are one of those,” she added, looking straight into my face with an open, frank expression—that love-look which can never be feigned, either by man or by woman.In that second I realised that at least my suspicion that she had any secret affection for Lionel Eastwell was groundless.Yet I was, nevertheless, annoyed that he should still mislead her parents by expressions of friendship. True, when I came to examine and to analyse my doubts, I could discover no real and actual foundation for them. Perhaps it was an intuition that possessed me—a strange half-formed belief that Eastwell, though such a cheerful companion, such a real good fellow, and so popular with all the flying-boys, was not exactly of the truly patriotic type which he represented himself to be.For that reason alone I inwardly objected to Roseye associating with him, yet as he was such a warmly welcomed friend of the family, it was extremely difficult for me to move in any antagonistic spirit.Within myself I had a fierce and desperate struggle, yet long ago I had realised that if I intended to win I must not show the slightest sign of anger or of suspicion.So, as we sat there together—gazing across the sloping lawn, so melancholy in that falling December twilight, yet so picturesque and gay on those summer evenings as I had often known it—I crushed down the apprehension that had arisen within me, and laughed gaily with my dainty well-beloved.Still the facts—the mysterious inexplicable facts—remained. Was it possible that my love desired again to assist in the completion of our experiments in order to know the result of them—and perhaps to betray them?No. I could not—even in my inward anger at the knowledge that she had spent the previous afternoon with the man I suspected—bring myself to believe that she was really acting in contradiction to the interests of the country.Somebody has truly said that love is blind. Well, I loved Roseye. And my blindness had been a very pleasant and delightful affliction up to that tragic day of her disappearance.Through those weeks when her mind had remained unbalanced and unhinged, she had never once made any statement nor had she ever inadvertently admitted anything which might reveal the truth as to where she had been, or the identity of the person whom she held in greatest terror—that Woman with the Leopard’s Eyes.With all the cunning I possessed I had sought to glean from her some fact, any fact however vague, concerning those weeks when she had been missing, but beyond what I have written in these pages, I could gather no single incident.I was but an ordinary man—one whose father had risen in the medical profession to grasp one of its plums. From being a ne’er-do-well and idler, I had taken up aviation and, after much perseverance, had learned to fly. I suppose I was gifted with ordinary intelligence, and that intelligence had shown me that, now we were at war, the enemy had placed upon the whole country that secret Hand, eager and clutching, to effect and secure our undoing. Its finger-prints, indelible and unmistakable, remained wherever one sought them.That Hand had been upon me when I had crashed to earth with a wooden bolt in my machine in place of one of steel.But whether the Hand had really been placed upon Roseye was a problem which utterly defied solution.That she had suffered had been vividly apparent, yet her absolute and fixed refusal to say anything, to admit anything, or to make any charge against anyone, was, in itself, an astounding feature of what was an extremely curious situation.I remained that afternoon at Burford Bridge just as dumbfounded and mystified as I had been at that moment when Theed had opened the door of my sitting-room and she had returned from what, in her own words, had been a living tomb.Why a living tomb? Who had prepared the trap—if trap there had been? Who was the unknown woman, the very mention of whom terrified her—the Woman with the Leopard’s Eyes?Though we sat there and laughed together—for I had affected, I hope successfully, an utter disregard of any suspicion or jealousy of Eastwell—I gazed upon her, and I saw that she had grown nervous and anxious.Why?It seemed to me that, with her woman’s innate cleverness and cunning—which by the way is never outmatched by that of the mere man—she was reading my own innermost thoughts. She knew my suspicions, and her intention, at all hazards, was to conceal from me some bitter and perhaps disgraceful truth.This thought aroused within me a relentless hatred of the fellow Eastwell. Nevertheless, once again when I came to examine the actual facts, I could discover really nothing tangible—nothing which ought to lead me, with any degree of right or justice, to an adverse decision.I had revealed much to Inspector Barton before Roseye’s disappearance. I had told him of my suspicions of Eastwell, but I suppose he had—as natural to, an investigator of crime—regarded those suspicions as the natural outcome of a man’s jealousy. But they were not, because I had never been jealous of the man—not until we sat there on the lawn before the hotel, and she had told me how she had spent an afternoon at the theatre in his company.As a matter of fact jealousy had never entered my head. Previously I had always regarded Eastwell as quite a good fellow, full of the true stamina of a patriot. He had been, I knew, full of schemes for the future of aviation in England ever since he had taken his first flap at the aerodrome. Once, indeed, he had serious thoughts, in the pre-war days, of putting up as Parliamentary candidate for a Yorkshire borough. But the matter fell through because the Opposition, on their part, ran a man whose chances were assured—an Anglo-Indian colonel who had passed through every local distinction, from being a member of the local Board of Guardians to becoming a DL. Against such odds Eastwell could not fight. In the great game of politics it has ever been that the local man who spends his money with the local butcher, baker and candlestick-maker, is usually returned with a thumping majority.The man from afar, the man with a mission, the man who knows his job and will dare to raise his voice in the House to declaim his country’s shortcomings, will usually be jeered at as a “carpetbagger” and hopelessly outpaced and outvoted.I knew this. I had seen it long ago.As I sat there at Roseye’s side I fell to wondering—wondering whether she had actually played an open, straightforward game.Or was she deceiving me!Which?
One bright crisp afternoon in mid-December, Roseye, wrapped warmly in her furs, sat beside me in the car as we sped through Leatherhead on our way out to Burford Bridge, where we had decided to have tea.
In the grey wintry light the landscape had become gloomy and depressing. Yet my love chatted merrily as we sped along.
Since that well-remembered evening at my rooms when she had made her sudden reappearance on my threshold from nowhere, the days had been very dark and terribly anxious ones.
After her refusal to tell me anything, I had taken her home, where her sudden arrival had been as a thunderbolt to her parents. But alas! her overstrained brain had then given way, and for three weeks she had remained in bed under the care of Sir Charles Needham, one of the greatest mental specialists in Harley Street.
Thanks to his skill, she had slowly recovered—very slowly it seemed to me.
A dozen times I had chatted with Sir Charles, and he had admitted to me that the case was not only most unusual, but almost unique. He could not obtain from her any lucid account of what had occurred after she had left home on that fatal morning. She had contradicted herself so many times.
Any reference to inventions, to electricity, to trains, to Zeppelins, or to women, sent her into fierce paroxysms of anger. Her attitude was most mysterious. In fact her adventures during the time she had been missing were enveloped in a dark cloud of mystery which, even Barton himself, was unable to penetrate.
Captain Pollock, of course, had been informed and had repeated his red-taped suspicions. But, having no reliable or actual evidence upon which to base his assertions, Barton seemed inclined to disregard them.
I noticed this, putting it down to the usual disagreement which exists in officialdom the world over. No one official has ever been known to be in actual accord with another in another Department. That’s why the clock of State creaks on so rustily in every civilised community.
Arrived at that motoring rendezvous, the Burford Bridge Hotel, we took a stroll in its picturesque grounds on the slope of Box Hill, leafless and deserted on that December afternoon.
Having walked some distance along the gravelled paths, we sat together upon a seat, when her sudden silence caused me to ponder. Since we had been walking she had scarcely uttered a word, and had appeared utterly absorbed.
At last she exclaimed:
“I shall be so very glad when they let me fly again, Claude. I feel ever so much better now—quite my old self again.”
“I’m delighted to hear that,” was my reply. “But you must wait another week or two before you take out your machine. Your man is overhauling it thoroughly. When I was at Hendon yesterday I saw that he had taken down the engine.”
“Yes. I’m most anxious to help you, dear, with your great invention. How is it getting on?”
“Famously,” I replied. “Teddy and I have been working hard for the last four days, and have made progress in both lightening the weight of the outfit, and increasing its power. I’ve ordered a big new dynamo to be constructed on such lines that it can be placed on my machine with a second engine. This engine will either run the dynamo, or the propeller.”
“Of course, I quite see,” she exclaimed. “You must have a second engine for night-flying. How long will it be, do you think, before you can make a trial flight?” she asked anxiously.
“Early in January I hope, darling.”
“And you will let me come with you—won’t you? Now promise me. Do,” she urged, placing her gloved hand upon my arm, and looking earnestly into my face.
“Yes. I promise,” I answered laughing. “Teddy will, no doubt, be very anxious to come, but you shall make the first flight, darling. It is your privilege.”
“May I come out to Gunnersbury and help you?” she asked. “I’m quite all right again, I assure you.”
“When Sir Charles gives his consent, then you may come,” I replied.
“I’ll ask him to-morrow,” she cried gladly. “I’m so horribly tired of leading an idle life at home. Lionel lunched with us yesterday, and took me out to amatinée. It was quite jolly to have such a change. We had tea at the Piccadilly afterwards.”
“Lionel!” I exclaimed in surprise.
“Yes. Why? Are you jealous—you dear old thing?”
I drew a deep breath, and she evidently noticed my displeasure.
“Jealous!” I cried with affected nonchalance. “Why should I be?”
“Well—I ought, of course, to have told you before,” she answered. “But he’s such a good friend of ours, you know.”
Good friend. All the suspicions I held regarding him flashed across my mind. Why had he pretended to be an invalid on that day I had sat at his bedside, and yet afterwards had dined at Hatchett’s? Why was he ever inquisitive regarding our secret experiments, and why did he appear to possess such unusual knowledge of coming events?
“Yes,” I remarked after a pause. “He is, no doubt, a good friend.”
I saw that I could learn more by disarming suspicion than by appearing ungenerous.
“You don’t mind me going to amatinéewith him, do you, Claude?” she asked frankly. “Of course, if it has annoyed you, I won’t go again. But mother said she thought a theatre would be a pleasant relaxation for me, now that we can’t go out at night on account of the darkened streets and the bad winter weather.”
“The darkened streets seem to make no difference to pleasure-going,” I said bitterly, and purposely disregarding her first question. “Though we are at war—though thousands upon thousands of our poor brave fellows have been killed or maimed in the defence of their homes and their loved ones, yet the London public are still the same. Nothing seems to disturb them. Bond Street, with all its fripperies, is still in full swing: the drapers everywhere are paying big dividends—money is being squandered in luxuries by those who have never previously known such things; jewellers are flourishing, and extravagance runs riot through the land. Men and women go nightly to revues and join in rollicking choruses, even while the death-rattle sounds in the throats of Britain’s bravest sons. Ah! Roseye,” I said. “It is all too awful. What I fear is that we are riding gaily for a fall.”
“No,” she said. “I agree in a sense with all you say. But we are not riding for a fall, so long as we have brave men ready to sacrifice their lives in Britain’s cause. You, Claude, are one of those,” she added, looking straight into my face with an open, frank expression—that love-look which can never be feigned, either by man or by woman.
In that second I realised that at least my suspicion that she had any secret affection for Lionel Eastwell was groundless.
Yet I was, nevertheless, annoyed that he should still mislead her parents by expressions of friendship. True, when I came to examine and to analyse my doubts, I could discover no real and actual foundation for them. Perhaps it was an intuition that possessed me—a strange half-formed belief that Eastwell, though such a cheerful companion, such a real good fellow, and so popular with all the flying-boys, was not exactly of the truly patriotic type which he represented himself to be.
For that reason alone I inwardly objected to Roseye associating with him, yet as he was such a warmly welcomed friend of the family, it was extremely difficult for me to move in any antagonistic spirit.
Within myself I had a fierce and desperate struggle, yet long ago I had realised that if I intended to win I must not show the slightest sign of anger or of suspicion.
So, as we sat there together—gazing across the sloping lawn, so melancholy in that falling December twilight, yet so picturesque and gay on those summer evenings as I had often known it—I crushed down the apprehension that had arisen within me, and laughed gaily with my dainty well-beloved.
Still the facts—the mysterious inexplicable facts—remained. Was it possible that my love desired again to assist in the completion of our experiments in order to know the result of them—and perhaps to betray them?
No. I could not—even in my inward anger at the knowledge that she had spent the previous afternoon with the man I suspected—bring myself to believe that she was really acting in contradiction to the interests of the country.
Somebody has truly said that love is blind. Well, I loved Roseye. And my blindness had been a very pleasant and delightful affliction up to that tragic day of her disappearance.
Through those weeks when her mind had remained unbalanced and unhinged, she had never once made any statement nor had she ever inadvertently admitted anything which might reveal the truth as to where she had been, or the identity of the person whom she held in greatest terror—that Woman with the Leopard’s Eyes.
With all the cunning I possessed I had sought to glean from her some fact, any fact however vague, concerning those weeks when she had been missing, but beyond what I have written in these pages, I could gather no single incident.
I was but an ordinary man—one whose father had risen in the medical profession to grasp one of its plums. From being a ne’er-do-well and idler, I had taken up aviation and, after much perseverance, had learned to fly. I suppose I was gifted with ordinary intelligence, and that intelligence had shown me that, now we were at war, the enemy had placed upon the whole country that secret Hand, eager and clutching, to effect and secure our undoing. Its finger-prints, indelible and unmistakable, remained wherever one sought them.
That Hand had been upon me when I had crashed to earth with a wooden bolt in my machine in place of one of steel.
But whether the Hand had really been placed upon Roseye was a problem which utterly defied solution.
That she had suffered had been vividly apparent, yet her absolute and fixed refusal to say anything, to admit anything, or to make any charge against anyone, was, in itself, an astounding feature of what was an extremely curious situation.
I remained that afternoon at Burford Bridge just as dumbfounded and mystified as I had been at that moment when Theed had opened the door of my sitting-room and she had returned from what, in her own words, had been a living tomb.
Why a living tomb? Who had prepared the trap—if trap there had been? Who was the unknown woman, the very mention of whom terrified her—the Woman with the Leopard’s Eyes?
Though we sat there and laughed together—for I had affected, I hope successfully, an utter disregard of any suspicion or jealousy of Eastwell—I gazed upon her, and I saw that she had grown nervous and anxious.
Why?
It seemed to me that, with her woman’s innate cleverness and cunning—which by the way is never outmatched by that of the mere man—she was reading my own innermost thoughts. She knew my suspicions, and her intention, at all hazards, was to conceal from me some bitter and perhaps disgraceful truth.
This thought aroused within me a relentless hatred of the fellow Eastwell. Nevertheless, once again when I came to examine the actual facts, I could discover really nothing tangible—nothing which ought to lead me, with any degree of right or justice, to an adverse decision.
I had revealed much to Inspector Barton before Roseye’s disappearance. I had told him of my suspicions of Eastwell, but I suppose he had—as natural to, an investigator of crime—regarded those suspicions as the natural outcome of a man’s jealousy. But they were not, because I had never been jealous of the man—not until we sat there on the lawn before the hotel, and she had told me how she had spent an afternoon at the theatre in his company.
As a matter of fact jealousy had never entered my head. Previously I had always regarded Eastwell as quite a good fellow, full of the true stamina of a patriot. He had been, I knew, full of schemes for the future of aviation in England ever since he had taken his first flap at the aerodrome. Once, indeed, he had serious thoughts, in the pre-war days, of putting up as Parliamentary candidate for a Yorkshire borough. But the matter fell through because the Opposition, on their part, ran a man whose chances were assured—an Anglo-Indian colonel who had passed through every local distinction, from being a member of the local Board of Guardians to becoming a DL. Against such odds Eastwell could not fight. In the great game of politics it has ever been that the local man who spends his money with the local butcher, baker and candlestick-maker, is usually returned with a thumping majority.
The man from afar, the man with a mission, the man who knows his job and will dare to raise his voice in the House to declaim his country’s shortcomings, will usually be jeered at as a “carpetbagger” and hopelessly outpaced and outvoted.
I knew this. I had seen it long ago.
As I sat there at Roseye’s side I fell to wondering—wondering whether she had actually played an open, straightforward game.
Or was she deceiving me!
Which?
Chapter Fifteen.Concerns Harold Hale.Christmas came, but it brought no relaxation to Teddy, or to myself.We were working hard at our scheme out at Gunnersbury, making experiment after experiment, many being failures, with a few successes.Of Eastwell we saw nothing, for he had flown up to the north-east coast in order to watch some evolutions being carried out by the anti-aircraft corps, and had not returned.Sir Charles had now given Roseye permission to assist us in our work and, indeed, one morning in the first week of the New Year she made her first flight since that day of her disappearance.My mind, however, was by no means at rest. After my own experiences I was careful to examine and to fly her machine several times around the aerodrome before I would allow her to go up. If my machine had been tampered with in the way it had, then there was but little doubt that an attempt might be made against her.She had gone for about an hour when I saw her returning, a tiny speck in the clear sky coming from the south-west, and flying very high. When at last she landed and I handed her out of the pilot’s seat, she put up her big goggles and, flushed with satisfaction, cried:“I’ve had such a splendid wind behind me! The weather is quite perfect. How good it feels to be out once again, Claude!”“Yes, dear,” I answered, as we strolled together over towards the hangars, whence one of the school-buses had just begun to flap. “I should like to go up but, as you know, they are busy putting in my second engine for night-flying, and to drive the dynamo. I fear it won’t be ready for quite another fortnight yet.”“What speed do you really expect to develop?” she asked, much interested.“In order to overtake a Zeppelin I must, at least, be able to fly eighty miles an hour,” was my reply. “And I must also be able to fly as slowly as thirty-five in order to economise fuel and to render the aim accurate as well as to make night-landing possible.”“Are you certain that you will be able to do it?” she asked, a little dubiously I thought. She knew that, as far as our apparatus for the direction of the intense electric current was concerned, it was practically perfect. Yet she had, more than once, expressed her doubt as to whether my monoplane, with its improvements of my own design, would be able to perform what I so confidently expected of it.“Of course one can be certain of nothing in this world, dear,” was my reply. “But by all the laws of aerodynamics it should, when complete, be able to do what I require. I must be able to carry fuel for twelve hours cruising at low speed, so as to enable me to chase an airship to the coast, if necessary. Further, I must, in order to be successful, be able to climb to ten thousand feet in not more than twenty minutes. You see,” I explained, “I am trying to have the engines silenced, and I am fitting up control-gear for two pilots, so as to allow one to relieve the other, and, further, I have designed the alterations whereby either Teddy or myself can have equal facilities to work the searchlight as well as the deadly current.”“I do hope it will be a success. You have had so many failures, dear,” she said, as we stood together, watching Teddy make a descent, for he was up testing his engine.“Yes, that first magnetic wave idea proved a failure,” I said regretfully. “And why, I can’t yet discover. My first idea was to create an intensified magnetic wave which would have the effect of ‘seizing’ the working parts of the Zeppelin engines, and putting them out of action. For instance, from your aeroplane you would direct this wave against the Zeppelin and bring its engines gradually into a state of immobility. The natural act of the Zeppelin engineer, on finding that his engine was slowing down, would be to admit more fuel for a few moments. On the sudden release of the arresting medium the engine would ‘pick-up’ violently and blow the heads out of the cylinders, thereby causing the explosion which we desire to create.”“Your experiments were all in secret,” Roseye remarked. “The theory seems sound enough. Curious that it did not work!”“Yes. Even now I can’t, for the life of me, discover the reason,” I replied. “Yet we have, happily, tested this new apparatus of ours, and we know it is feasible as soon as ever we can get its weight further reduced, and the ray intensified.”“And the sooner you can do that, the better,” my well-beloved declared. “Before very long, at the present rate of increase, we shall, I expect, see Zeppelins of a much greater size.”“True,” I remarked, as I watched Teddy spring out of his bus, and make his way across the aerodrome in our direction. “No time should be lost. To be effective the aeroplane will have to be able to climb to 18,000 feet, and even remain aloft at that height for hours to lie in wait for the airship. The airship of one year hence will inevitably be a much more formidable machine than the present Zeppelin.”“But we must be most careful to keep the secret, Claude,” she urged. “The enemy must not know it, or they may combat us!”I was silent for a few moments. Across my mind there flashed the recollection of that strange enemy message in cipher that had been found in her card-case.What could be the explanation of that mystery? It was plain that the enemy were in possession of some facts and, further, that at all hazards, and regardless of all risks, they intended to discover our secret.I disregarded her remark, merely answering:“I fear the Zeppelin menace will be serious in the North Sea before many months. It is only the bad weather which protects us.”The alterations to my machine were being carried on by a first-class firm at Willesden, therefore, at Teddy’s suggestion, all three of us ran over in the car in order to inspect the work, which we found progressing most favourably.The foreman engineer, a big fat, elderly man, just as we were about to leave the premises, called me aside and, in a confidential tone, exclaimed:“Excuse me, sir. But did you send a gentleman named Hale here?”“Hale?” I repeated, looking at him in surprise. “I know nobody of that name!”“Well—here’s his card,” said the engineer. “He called yesterday afternoon, and told me that you’d sent him, and that he had your authority to look at your machine.”I took the rather soiled card, and saw upon it the name: “Harold Hale—National Physical Laboratory.”I held it in my hand in surprise.“A Government official!” I exclaimed in wonder. “I gave no such permission!” I declared. “As I have repeatedly said, these alterations you are making are strictly in secret.”“That’s what I told him, sir.”“You didn’t let him see the work, I hope?” I asked anxiously.“Not very likely, sir,” was the man’s reply. “I asked him for a written authorisation, but he said he’d left it in his office. There was a good deal of swank about him, I thought. He seemed to have a swelled head.”“Well—what happened?” I inquired.“Oh! He became very officious-like—said he was a Government inspector of aircraft, and demanded to see what alterations you were making in your machine. My reply was to tell him that when he brought a letter from you, I’d show him—and not before.”“Excellent!” I said. “Then he didn’t produce any credentials?”“None. But he argued with me for a long time—told me that I had no right to deny him access to information required for official purposes; that I was liable under the Defence of the Realm Act, and all sorts of other bunkum. In reply, I merely told him to go along to the office and see Mr Smallpiece, our manager—whom I knew to be up at the London office,” added the foreman with a grin.“What kind of man was he? Describe him,” I urged.“Well—he was about forty I should say—round-faced, with a little close-cropped black moustache. He was well dressed—a dark-blue overcoat with velvet collar, and a grey plush hat. He came in a taxi.”“Ah! If we could find the driver, we might perhaps discover who he was,” I exclaimed.“Well, sir, I suspected him, somehow. I didn’t like him. So I took the number of the taxi. You’ll see it on the back of the card.”I looked, and there found a number scribbled in pencil.“By Jove!” I cried. “Most excellent. I’ll soon find out what his movements were. Thank you very much,” I added. “Remember nobody is to know anything whatever of the work in progress. That man may have been a Spy.”“That’s just exactly what I put him down to be, sir!” declared the foreman. “But trust me. Nobody shall know anything.”When I rejoined Roseye and Teddy they were inquisitive—and very naturally—as to what the foreman had been telling me. But I kept my own counsel, determined to make investigations alone.We drove back to town and lunched in the restaurant at the Piccadilly Hotel. Teddy had suggested the Automobile Club, but I had overruled him, and we went to the Piccadilly instead. At the club there was far too much flying “shop”—and I wanted time to think.At three o’clock I ran Roseye home, dropping Teddy on the way, and then returned to Shaftesbury Avenue.As I entered, Theed told me that his father had been up to say that on the previous night there had been some strangers about the shed at Gunnersbury. He had heard footsteps around the place at about three o’clock in the morning, but on going out he could discover nobody. He had taken out his big heavy Browning pistol which I had bought for him, and he had told his own son that he regretted that he had not caught the intruders.Here was another source of suspicion! It confirmed my belief that the Invisible Hand had been laid once more upon us, and, further, that whoever directed it was alike most daring and unscrupulous.“That’s most curious!” I said, in reply to Theed. “Your father seems to be having quite a lively time at night out there!”“Yes. He does, sir. He’s convinced that somebody is watching to find out what’s going on—spies, he declares.”“No, no, Theed,” I laughed, in order to hearten him. “There’s far too much bunkum talked about spies, and far too many sensational rumours on every hand. Tell your father that he’s becoming nervous. Surely he ought not to be after all his long police service!”I only uttered those words for effect. I knew that Theed would bully the old man, and tell him that he was suffering from nerves. Every son loves to jeer at his father, be he peer or peasant.I passed into my room and took up the telephone.In a few moments I was on to my friend Professor Appleton, the Director of the National Physical Laboratory, that department which, for years, had studied aeronautics.“I don’t follow you, Mr Munro,” he said, when I told him the facts. “What name do you say?”“Hale,” was my reply. “H-a-l-e,” and I spelt it.“We’ve nobody of that name. There must surely be some mistake!”“But he came with a visiting-card,” I said. “He went to the firm of engineers who are making certain alterations in my monoplane, and demanded of the foreman the right to examine what was in progress. He told them at Willesden that he was an official of your Department, sent by you, with authority from myself.”“Well, Mr Munro,” replied the professor, in that quiet, matter-of-fact way of his, “this is the first I’ve ever heard of any Mr Hale. He certainly has never been sent by us. In fact I was entirely unaware, until this moment, that you had any experiments in progress.”“Really, professor, I’m awfully sorry to trouble you,” I said. “But I’m only trying to do my little bit—my very small bit—in the war. Thank you for telling me this. One never knows when one meets enemies. The Germans are so clever, so practical, and so subtle.”“They are,” he answered. “Be wary, my dear Munro. If you are carrying out experiments upon any extensive scale you may be quite certain that somebody in enemy pay is watching. I have long seen it—long before the outbreak of war.”Here again we had come up against the dead wall of fact.“Then you think that the stranger was an enemy spy?” I asked.“Well, in face of the facts, and of what I myself know, I’m perfectly certain of it,” the professor said. “I have no knowledge whatever of any person called Harold Hale. He evidently went out to Willesden to try and obtain certain knowledge, yet, by the sturdy attitude of the foreman whom you mention, he was defeated. Truly the wily and dastardly plots of our dear-brother-Germans—as they were called by some irresponsible Englishmen those hot August days of the declaration of war—have been amazing. It seems to me, Munro,” added the voice over the wire, “that if you are wary and watchful you may discover something that may be of unusual interest to the Intelligence Department.”Then in my ear there was a loud buzz, followed by a sharp click, and all became silent.
Christmas came, but it brought no relaxation to Teddy, or to myself.
We were working hard at our scheme out at Gunnersbury, making experiment after experiment, many being failures, with a few successes.
Of Eastwell we saw nothing, for he had flown up to the north-east coast in order to watch some evolutions being carried out by the anti-aircraft corps, and had not returned.
Sir Charles had now given Roseye permission to assist us in our work and, indeed, one morning in the first week of the New Year she made her first flight since that day of her disappearance.
My mind, however, was by no means at rest. After my own experiences I was careful to examine and to fly her machine several times around the aerodrome before I would allow her to go up. If my machine had been tampered with in the way it had, then there was but little doubt that an attempt might be made against her.
She had gone for about an hour when I saw her returning, a tiny speck in the clear sky coming from the south-west, and flying very high. When at last she landed and I handed her out of the pilot’s seat, she put up her big goggles and, flushed with satisfaction, cried:
“I’ve had such a splendid wind behind me! The weather is quite perfect. How good it feels to be out once again, Claude!”
“Yes, dear,” I answered, as we strolled together over towards the hangars, whence one of the school-buses had just begun to flap. “I should like to go up but, as you know, they are busy putting in my second engine for night-flying, and to drive the dynamo. I fear it won’t be ready for quite another fortnight yet.”
“What speed do you really expect to develop?” she asked, much interested.
“In order to overtake a Zeppelin I must, at least, be able to fly eighty miles an hour,” was my reply. “And I must also be able to fly as slowly as thirty-five in order to economise fuel and to render the aim accurate as well as to make night-landing possible.”
“Are you certain that you will be able to do it?” she asked, a little dubiously I thought. She knew that, as far as our apparatus for the direction of the intense electric current was concerned, it was practically perfect. Yet she had, more than once, expressed her doubt as to whether my monoplane, with its improvements of my own design, would be able to perform what I so confidently expected of it.
“Of course one can be certain of nothing in this world, dear,” was my reply. “But by all the laws of aerodynamics it should, when complete, be able to do what I require. I must be able to carry fuel for twelve hours cruising at low speed, so as to enable me to chase an airship to the coast, if necessary. Further, I must, in order to be successful, be able to climb to ten thousand feet in not more than twenty minutes. You see,” I explained, “I am trying to have the engines silenced, and I am fitting up control-gear for two pilots, so as to allow one to relieve the other, and, further, I have designed the alterations whereby either Teddy or myself can have equal facilities to work the searchlight as well as the deadly current.”
“I do hope it will be a success. You have had so many failures, dear,” she said, as we stood together, watching Teddy make a descent, for he was up testing his engine.
“Yes, that first magnetic wave idea proved a failure,” I said regretfully. “And why, I can’t yet discover. My first idea was to create an intensified magnetic wave which would have the effect of ‘seizing’ the working parts of the Zeppelin engines, and putting them out of action. For instance, from your aeroplane you would direct this wave against the Zeppelin and bring its engines gradually into a state of immobility. The natural act of the Zeppelin engineer, on finding that his engine was slowing down, would be to admit more fuel for a few moments. On the sudden release of the arresting medium the engine would ‘pick-up’ violently and blow the heads out of the cylinders, thereby causing the explosion which we desire to create.”
“Your experiments were all in secret,” Roseye remarked. “The theory seems sound enough. Curious that it did not work!”
“Yes. Even now I can’t, for the life of me, discover the reason,” I replied. “Yet we have, happily, tested this new apparatus of ours, and we know it is feasible as soon as ever we can get its weight further reduced, and the ray intensified.”
“And the sooner you can do that, the better,” my well-beloved declared. “Before very long, at the present rate of increase, we shall, I expect, see Zeppelins of a much greater size.”
“True,” I remarked, as I watched Teddy spring out of his bus, and make his way across the aerodrome in our direction. “No time should be lost. To be effective the aeroplane will have to be able to climb to 18,000 feet, and even remain aloft at that height for hours to lie in wait for the airship. The airship of one year hence will inevitably be a much more formidable machine than the present Zeppelin.”
“But we must be most careful to keep the secret, Claude,” she urged. “The enemy must not know it, or they may combat us!”
I was silent for a few moments. Across my mind there flashed the recollection of that strange enemy message in cipher that had been found in her card-case.
What could be the explanation of that mystery? It was plain that the enemy were in possession of some facts and, further, that at all hazards, and regardless of all risks, they intended to discover our secret.
I disregarded her remark, merely answering:
“I fear the Zeppelin menace will be serious in the North Sea before many months. It is only the bad weather which protects us.”
The alterations to my machine were being carried on by a first-class firm at Willesden, therefore, at Teddy’s suggestion, all three of us ran over in the car in order to inspect the work, which we found progressing most favourably.
The foreman engineer, a big fat, elderly man, just as we were about to leave the premises, called me aside and, in a confidential tone, exclaimed:
“Excuse me, sir. But did you send a gentleman named Hale here?”
“Hale?” I repeated, looking at him in surprise. “I know nobody of that name!”
“Well—here’s his card,” said the engineer. “He called yesterday afternoon, and told me that you’d sent him, and that he had your authority to look at your machine.”
I took the rather soiled card, and saw upon it the name: “Harold Hale—National Physical Laboratory.”
I held it in my hand in surprise.
“A Government official!” I exclaimed in wonder. “I gave no such permission!” I declared. “As I have repeatedly said, these alterations you are making are strictly in secret.”
“That’s what I told him, sir.”
“You didn’t let him see the work, I hope?” I asked anxiously.
“Not very likely, sir,” was the man’s reply. “I asked him for a written authorisation, but he said he’d left it in his office. There was a good deal of swank about him, I thought. He seemed to have a swelled head.”
“Well—what happened?” I inquired.
“Oh! He became very officious-like—said he was a Government inspector of aircraft, and demanded to see what alterations you were making in your machine. My reply was to tell him that when he brought a letter from you, I’d show him—and not before.”
“Excellent!” I said. “Then he didn’t produce any credentials?”
“None. But he argued with me for a long time—told me that I had no right to deny him access to information required for official purposes; that I was liable under the Defence of the Realm Act, and all sorts of other bunkum. In reply, I merely told him to go along to the office and see Mr Smallpiece, our manager—whom I knew to be up at the London office,” added the foreman with a grin.
“What kind of man was he? Describe him,” I urged.
“Well—he was about forty I should say—round-faced, with a little close-cropped black moustache. He was well dressed—a dark-blue overcoat with velvet collar, and a grey plush hat. He came in a taxi.”
“Ah! If we could find the driver, we might perhaps discover who he was,” I exclaimed.
“Well, sir, I suspected him, somehow. I didn’t like him. So I took the number of the taxi. You’ll see it on the back of the card.”
I looked, and there found a number scribbled in pencil.
“By Jove!” I cried. “Most excellent. I’ll soon find out what his movements were. Thank you very much,” I added. “Remember nobody is to know anything whatever of the work in progress. That man may have been a Spy.”
“That’s just exactly what I put him down to be, sir!” declared the foreman. “But trust me. Nobody shall know anything.”
When I rejoined Roseye and Teddy they were inquisitive—and very naturally—as to what the foreman had been telling me. But I kept my own counsel, determined to make investigations alone.
We drove back to town and lunched in the restaurant at the Piccadilly Hotel. Teddy had suggested the Automobile Club, but I had overruled him, and we went to the Piccadilly instead. At the club there was far too much flying “shop”—and I wanted time to think.
At three o’clock I ran Roseye home, dropping Teddy on the way, and then returned to Shaftesbury Avenue.
As I entered, Theed told me that his father had been up to say that on the previous night there had been some strangers about the shed at Gunnersbury. He had heard footsteps around the place at about three o’clock in the morning, but on going out he could discover nobody. He had taken out his big heavy Browning pistol which I had bought for him, and he had told his own son that he regretted that he had not caught the intruders.
Here was another source of suspicion! It confirmed my belief that the Invisible Hand had been laid once more upon us, and, further, that whoever directed it was alike most daring and unscrupulous.
“That’s most curious!” I said, in reply to Theed. “Your father seems to be having quite a lively time at night out there!”
“Yes. He does, sir. He’s convinced that somebody is watching to find out what’s going on—spies, he declares.”
“No, no, Theed,” I laughed, in order to hearten him. “There’s far too much bunkum talked about spies, and far too many sensational rumours on every hand. Tell your father that he’s becoming nervous. Surely he ought not to be after all his long police service!”
I only uttered those words for effect. I knew that Theed would bully the old man, and tell him that he was suffering from nerves. Every son loves to jeer at his father, be he peer or peasant.
I passed into my room and took up the telephone.
In a few moments I was on to my friend Professor Appleton, the Director of the National Physical Laboratory, that department which, for years, had studied aeronautics.
“I don’t follow you, Mr Munro,” he said, when I told him the facts. “What name do you say?”
“Hale,” was my reply. “H-a-l-e,” and I spelt it.
“We’ve nobody of that name. There must surely be some mistake!”
“But he came with a visiting-card,” I said. “He went to the firm of engineers who are making certain alterations in my monoplane, and demanded of the foreman the right to examine what was in progress. He told them at Willesden that he was an official of your Department, sent by you, with authority from myself.”
“Well, Mr Munro,” replied the professor, in that quiet, matter-of-fact way of his, “this is the first I’ve ever heard of any Mr Hale. He certainly has never been sent by us. In fact I was entirely unaware, until this moment, that you had any experiments in progress.”
“Really, professor, I’m awfully sorry to trouble you,” I said. “But I’m only trying to do my little bit—my very small bit—in the war. Thank you for telling me this. One never knows when one meets enemies. The Germans are so clever, so practical, and so subtle.”
“They are,” he answered. “Be wary, my dear Munro. If you are carrying out experiments upon any extensive scale you may be quite certain that somebody in enemy pay is watching. I have long seen it—long before the outbreak of war.”
Here again we had come up against the dead wall of fact.
“Then you think that the stranger was an enemy spy?” I asked.
“Well, in face of the facts, and of what I myself know, I’m perfectly certain of it,” the professor said. “I have no knowledge whatever of any person called Harold Hale. He evidently went out to Willesden to try and obtain certain knowledge, yet, by the sturdy attitude of the foreman whom you mention, he was defeated. Truly the wily and dastardly plots of our dear-brother-Germans—as they were called by some irresponsible Englishmen those hot August days of the declaration of war—have been amazing. It seems to me, Munro,” added the voice over the wire, “that if you are wary and watchful you may discover something that may be of unusual interest to the Intelligence Department.”
Then in my ear there was a loud buzz, followed by a sharp click, and all became silent.
Chapter Sixteen.At Holly Farm.Those constant proofs of the enemy’s eager inquisitiveness were, I here freely admit, very disconcerting.We seemed surrounded by spies.A dastardly attempt had been made to kill me, while some evil—what, I knew not—had happened to my well-beloved. It often struck me as most peculiar why she should preserve that strict secrecy regarding her whereabouts through those weeks when she had been missing.Her terror of the mysterious woman whom she so constantly described as possessing the eyes of a leopard, together with the unbalanced condition of her brain, were, in themselves, solid proof that she had passed through some horrifying and terrible experience. Besides, had she not admitted that she had existed in what she herself had termed “a living tomb?”So evident was it that we were being watched by some persons who intended, at all hazards, to discover the secret of our directive electrical apparatus that Teddy and I now adopted a new scheme. Each evening, after concluding our experiments, instead of taking the brown deal box back to my rooms, both my friend and myself disconnected the essential parts of the apparatus, each taking part of it home for safe keeping, thus leaving only the shell to be inspected by any intruder who might make a further visit to the shed.Old Theed, however, kept a good look out and, as twice he had reported suspicious persons in the vicinity at night, he always carried his Browning pistol.A fortnight had passed and my newly-arranged monoplane was nearing completion. Daily I went out to Willesden to superintend, and make certain alterations which had occurred to me since I had adopted my new design.That more Zeppelin raids were expected everybody knew, and none better than myself.The weather in the last fortnight of January 1916 was bad, and many people were declaring that the German airships would not dare to venture out except in calm conditions.Some of the boys were discussing that point at Hendon one afternoon.Teddy was inclined to argue as the public argued, that Zeppelins were affected by weather conditions, and advanced many theories of fogs, clouds, rain, snow, and the barometer.“Then you don’t think inclement weather any protection, Claude?” asked my friend, while the others all listened in silence.“No,” I said. “I quite agree with the arguments put forward on a basis of fact by many writers in the press. Of course Zeppelins, like every other craft not independent of the weather, prefer to sally forth in calms or light winds. But the utmost one can say is, first, that the calmer the weather the likelier a raid is to occur; and, secondly, that raids are less likely to occur in broad moonlight than on dark nights.”“Then, my dear fellow,” whispered Teddy into my ear, in a tone so low that the others could not hear, “it is on one of the dark nights that we must make our trial flight—eh?”“Well, according to the latest yarns,” remarked a fellow named Ainley, “the newest Zeppelins are armoured, and these very large craft have a gross lift of over thirty tons.”“That is not much larger than the Zeppelins existing when war broke out,” I said, “but, of course, it must be admitted that even a small increase of size enlarges an airship’s capabilities and range. The top speed of the new thousand horse-power type is said to be about sixty-two miles an hour, but driving at such high speed must involve a heavy consumption of petrol.”“What about climbing?” asked Ainley. “You’ve made Zeppelins a study, Munro. Tell us your opinion?”“Well, in order to escape, more than one German airship has risen, we know, to 10,000 feet, but that was only in case of great emergency, and meant sacrifice of load and great waste of gas. You see, if a Zeppelin is over a town and is discharging her bombs and consuming her petrol, her natural tendency would be to rise. Probably the new type of super-Zeppelin could, I should say, rise 4,000 to 5,000 feet, but it must be remembered that it cannot, with impunity, go to 12,000 or 15,000 feet because of the density of the atmosphere.”“Cover Great Britain with up-to-date ‘Archies.’ That’s my opinion—and one shared by many competent writers on the subject,” Ainley remarked, whereupon Teddy and I exchanged glances.Little did that small group of pilots dream of the great surprise which we had “up our sleeve.”A few days later—the First of February to be exact—the country was startled by the news published in the morning papers that on the previous night no fewer than six Zeppelins had flown over some Midland counties, dropping a large number of bombs, and killing and injuring many innocent women and children.People who read the accounts stood aghast. Then, once again, came the cry from the big populous centres in the Midlands that warning of the approach of enemy aircraft should be given, and once again the papers were flooded with letters from indignant readers making all sorts of wild suggestions how to combat the Zeppelin peril. On top of this, however, came the welcome news that the L19, one of the raiders, had been found by a trawler in a sinking condition in the North Sea.At least one of the barbaric baby-killers had got its just deserts.Personally, I felt deeply moved by this latest dastardly invasion. That there must be an end to “traditions,” to political speech-making, to conferences and to promises of imaginary “nests of hornets,” was now clear. The homes of Englishmen were threatened with destruction. Germany had adopted a new mode of warfare that must change everything. Therefore, happily, unfettered by red tape, and unattached to any naval or military branch of the Service, but merely an experimenter, I intended, at the earliest moment, to put my directive wave to the crucial test.During the past week we had not been idle a moment, and Teddy and I, after more failures, had at last been able to reduce the weight of our apparatus by nearly one-half, while we had been able to more than double the intensity of the current since that well-remembered night when we had tested it upon our wireless-pole while strangers had lurked unseen in the vicinity.My monoplane was at last completed, and ready for delivery. All three of us became greatly excited, for after so many months of patient experimenting and designing, all was now ready for a practical trial in the air.Lionel had returned from the North, but was gone to France in connexion with some trials of a new French monoplane at the aerodrome at St. Valéry-en-Caux. Therefore he was in ignorance of our pending experiments.That we were being closely watched by spies, and that our every movement was being noted, we knew quite well. Indeed, Roseye seemed, curiously enough, to be filled with serious apprehensions.Because of this, I decided not to fly from Hendon, but to experiment out in the country. Therefore on Thursday, the Tenth of February, in greatest secrecy, I removed my machine in two motor-lorries down to a little place called Nutley, on the borders of those high lands of Ashdown Forest, about eleven miles north of Lewes.There, after some search, we found a convenient barn at a lonely, out-of-the-world place called Holly Farm, and this we soon converted into a suitable hangar.The farmer and his wife were quite ready to rent us the house furnished as it stood, so next day we found ourselves in full possession.Our party consisted of Teddy Ashton, the Theeds (father and son), Roseye, the maid Mulliner, and myself. Roseye and I made another journey by car up to Gunnersbury, and also to my rooms, in order to fetch down the remainder of the apparatus, and on the third day of our arrival all the parts were ready for assembling.Holly Farm was a small but comfortable old house, with an ancient whitewashed kitchen which had black oak beams across its ceiling. The living-room was typical of the “best room” of the old-fashioned British farmer. In the deep-seated window stood a case of wool-flowers beneath a glass dome, while upon the horsehair-covered furniture were many crocheted antimacassars, and upon the wide, open hearth the farm-hand, an old fellow of nearly eighty, made huge log fires which were truly welcome in that wintry chill.We had brought with us an ample stock of provisions, for the place we had chosen stood upon one of the highest points, not far from Chelwood Beacon, and miles from any town or village of any size.From the attic windows which peeped forth from the thatch, we commanded a magnificent view both away north over Surrey, and south across the Downs to the Channel. We were up upon what the Bathy-orographical map of England terms “The Forest Ridge,” which lies between the North Downs and the sea.With old Theed as sentry, we worked away in the farmyard, the doors of which were carefully closed, assembling the machine. That work took three days, though we all strove with a will, leaving Mulliner to act as housekeeper and prepare our meals.Every day Theed’s son took the farmer’s cycle and went to get us a paper at Forest Row Station on the line between Tunbridge Wells and Horsham, that being the only connexion we held with the world outside. The good farmer I had paid handsomely, and had frankly told him that we were making some secret experiments with a new aeroplane against the Germans, whereupon he, as a good Englishman, had promised to hold his tongue.That week passed rapidly—a week of arduous work, of intense anxiety and excitement. Sometimes a part would not fit, or was missing, and then our spirits would instantly flag. Still, after much eagerness—and sometimes a few bad words,sotto voce, of course—we gradually got the machine into readiness, and began the engine-test.So powerful were those twin engines, with their wide throttle range, that their roar could be heard miles away, for I had not been able to silence them. Nevertheless, nowadays, country people are happily so used to hearing the rhythmic throb of aeroplane engines, that they scarcely take notice of it. Mine, however, were unusually fierce, especially when both were working, one for the propeller, and the other either for the searchlight or the directive sparking apparatus.They had both been run “upon the bench” for many hours, of course, and passed as perfect by the makers. Yet a pilot never likes to trust himself upon something he has not tested with his own hands.Each one of us had his or her own work, and each one of us worked with a true spirit of patriotism. I had argued that if the Anti-Aircraft Service were unable to bring down Zeppelins, then I, as a private individual and a pilot who had had some experience in the air, was ready to risk my own life in the attempt. And in this Teddy was whole-heartedly with me.Naturally, Roseye often grew apprehensive. It was because of that she made me repeat many times the promise I had given her—that she should make the first flight with me in the newly-constructed machine.Each day Teddy and I, aided by young Theed, worked testing, tightening strainers, seeing to pins and washers, adjusting bolts and other things. And at evening, while the Theeds and Mulliner gossiped in the kitchen, we three made ourselves comfortable before the great log fire in the farmer’s best room, and sometimes passed the time with cards, a well-thumbed pack of which Roseye had discovered in a drawer.One evening we had played cards and Teddy had wished us good night, taken his candle and ascended the narrow creaky stairs, worn hollow by the tread of generations of farmers.“Claude,” exclaimed my love, when we were alone, “I feel so very worried over you! I know how keen you are to act your part in this war, and to put your theory to the test. But is it really wise? Remember that you are going to risk your life. The creation of that electric wave, when in the air, may re-act upon your own engines and seize them—or it may create a spark across your own petrol-tank. In that case you would be blown up in mid-air!”“Ah! That contingency I’ve already provided for, darling,” I assured her. “Have you not seen that my new petrol-tank is a wooden barrel held by wooden bands, so that there is no metal over which to spark?”“I know. But electricity is such a mysterious force, one never knows what it will do, or how it will take effect.”“You are going a little wide of the mark, Roseye,” I laughed. “We know pretty well the limitations of electricity—or rather we three know as much—and perhaps a little more, than the enemy does. My discovery is quite simple, after all. I have found out the means by which to create and to direct a flash of intense electrical current, a kind of false lightning. And that current, sparking over the interstices between the aluminium lattice-work and envelope of a Zeppelin, must certainly ignite the inflammable gas with which the ballonets are filled and which is so constantly escaping.”“Yes, I know,” was her answer, as she allowed me to place my arm tenderly about her slim waist.Then she seemed unduly thoughtful and apprehensive.“Well?” I asked. “Why are you worrying, darling? I am striving to do my very best for my country. I am going to fight—or attempt to fight—just as valiantly as though I were dressed in khaki, and wore the winged badge of the pilot of the Royal Flying Corps. Indeed, my chance is better. I have no Flight-Commander to look to for orders. I am simply a handy man of the air who has, I trust, thought out a feasible plan.”“Your plan is most excellent, Claude,” she admitted. “But what I fear is the great personal risk and peril to yourself.”“There’s none,” I laughed. “You, my dear, have no fear when you are flying—even at high altitudes. Neither have I. Both of us are used to being up, and our machines are part of ourselves. I never think of danger; neither do you, Roseye. So don’t let us discuss it further,” I urged.Then, in order to turn our conversation into a different channel, while I still held her hand as she sat upon that old black horsehair couch with me at her side, I said:“I’ve just been reading what is termed a hot-aircraft poem in theAeroplane. I wonder if I recollect the concluding lines. They run something like this:—”The Scout makes no question of Ays or Noes,But right or left, as banks the Pilot, goesAnd he who dropped One down into the Field—He knows about it all—he knows, he knows!Here with a Dud Machine, if Winds allow,A Flask of Wine, a Load of Bombs—and ThouBefore me sitting in the Second Seat—A Midnight Raid is Paradise enow.And when I turn upon the Homeward Trail,Dreaming of Decorations, Cakes and Ale,How bitter on the First Day’s Leave to findMy Name spelt wrongly in the “Daily Mail!”“Ah!” protested my love. “You really don’t take it with sufficient seriousness, Claude!”“I do,” was my quick protest. “I am not worrying about failure: I am only anticipating success.”“Do not be over sanguine, dear, I beg of you.”“I never have been,” was my reply. “To-morrow I shall make the first test in the air—and you shall come with me, as I have for so long promised.”
Those constant proofs of the enemy’s eager inquisitiveness were, I here freely admit, very disconcerting.
We seemed surrounded by spies.
A dastardly attempt had been made to kill me, while some evil—what, I knew not—had happened to my well-beloved. It often struck me as most peculiar why she should preserve that strict secrecy regarding her whereabouts through those weeks when she had been missing.
Her terror of the mysterious woman whom she so constantly described as possessing the eyes of a leopard, together with the unbalanced condition of her brain, were, in themselves, solid proof that she had passed through some horrifying and terrible experience. Besides, had she not admitted that she had existed in what she herself had termed “a living tomb?”
So evident was it that we were being watched by some persons who intended, at all hazards, to discover the secret of our directive electrical apparatus that Teddy and I now adopted a new scheme. Each evening, after concluding our experiments, instead of taking the brown deal box back to my rooms, both my friend and myself disconnected the essential parts of the apparatus, each taking part of it home for safe keeping, thus leaving only the shell to be inspected by any intruder who might make a further visit to the shed.
Old Theed, however, kept a good look out and, as twice he had reported suspicious persons in the vicinity at night, he always carried his Browning pistol.
A fortnight had passed and my newly-arranged monoplane was nearing completion. Daily I went out to Willesden to superintend, and make certain alterations which had occurred to me since I had adopted my new design.
That more Zeppelin raids were expected everybody knew, and none better than myself.
The weather in the last fortnight of January 1916 was bad, and many people were declaring that the German airships would not dare to venture out except in calm conditions.
Some of the boys were discussing that point at Hendon one afternoon.
Teddy was inclined to argue as the public argued, that Zeppelins were affected by weather conditions, and advanced many theories of fogs, clouds, rain, snow, and the barometer.
“Then you don’t think inclement weather any protection, Claude?” asked my friend, while the others all listened in silence.
“No,” I said. “I quite agree with the arguments put forward on a basis of fact by many writers in the press. Of course Zeppelins, like every other craft not independent of the weather, prefer to sally forth in calms or light winds. But the utmost one can say is, first, that the calmer the weather the likelier a raid is to occur; and, secondly, that raids are less likely to occur in broad moonlight than on dark nights.”
“Then, my dear fellow,” whispered Teddy into my ear, in a tone so low that the others could not hear, “it is on one of the dark nights that we must make our trial flight—eh?”
“Well, according to the latest yarns,” remarked a fellow named Ainley, “the newest Zeppelins are armoured, and these very large craft have a gross lift of over thirty tons.”
“That is not much larger than the Zeppelins existing when war broke out,” I said, “but, of course, it must be admitted that even a small increase of size enlarges an airship’s capabilities and range. The top speed of the new thousand horse-power type is said to be about sixty-two miles an hour, but driving at such high speed must involve a heavy consumption of petrol.”
“What about climbing?” asked Ainley. “You’ve made Zeppelins a study, Munro. Tell us your opinion?”
“Well, in order to escape, more than one German airship has risen, we know, to 10,000 feet, but that was only in case of great emergency, and meant sacrifice of load and great waste of gas. You see, if a Zeppelin is over a town and is discharging her bombs and consuming her petrol, her natural tendency would be to rise. Probably the new type of super-Zeppelin could, I should say, rise 4,000 to 5,000 feet, but it must be remembered that it cannot, with impunity, go to 12,000 or 15,000 feet because of the density of the atmosphere.”
“Cover Great Britain with up-to-date ‘Archies.’ That’s my opinion—and one shared by many competent writers on the subject,” Ainley remarked, whereupon Teddy and I exchanged glances.
Little did that small group of pilots dream of the great surprise which we had “up our sleeve.”
A few days later—the First of February to be exact—the country was startled by the news published in the morning papers that on the previous night no fewer than six Zeppelins had flown over some Midland counties, dropping a large number of bombs, and killing and injuring many innocent women and children.
People who read the accounts stood aghast. Then, once again, came the cry from the big populous centres in the Midlands that warning of the approach of enemy aircraft should be given, and once again the papers were flooded with letters from indignant readers making all sorts of wild suggestions how to combat the Zeppelin peril. On top of this, however, came the welcome news that the L19, one of the raiders, had been found by a trawler in a sinking condition in the North Sea.
At least one of the barbaric baby-killers had got its just deserts.
Personally, I felt deeply moved by this latest dastardly invasion. That there must be an end to “traditions,” to political speech-making, to conferences and to promises of imaginary “nests of hornets,” was now clear. The homes of Englishmen were threatened with destruction. Germany had adopted a new mode of warfare that must change everything. Therefore, happily, unfettered by red tape, and unattached to any naval or military branch of the Service, but merely an experimenter, I intended, at the earliest moment, to put my directive wave to the crucial test.
During the past week we had not been idle a moment, and Teddy and I, after more failures, had at last been able to reduce the weight of our apparatus by nearly one-half, while we had been able to more than double the intensity of the current since that well-remembered night when we had tested it upon our wireless-pole while strangers had lurked unseen in the vicinity.
My monoplane was at last completed, and ready for delivery. All three of us became greatly excited, for after so many months of patient experimenting and designing, all was now ready for a practical trial in the air.
Lionel had returned from the North, but was gone to France in connexion with some trials of a new French monoplane at the aerodrome at St. Valéry-en-Caux. Therefore he was in ignorance of our pending experiments.
That we were being closely watched by spies, and that our every movement was being noted, we knew quite well. Indeed, Roseye seemed, curiously enough, to be filled with serious apprehensions.
Because of this, I decided not to fly from Hendon, but to experiment out in the country. Therefore on Thursday, the Tenth of February, in greatest secrecy, I removed my machine in two motor-lorries down to a little place called Nutley, on the borders of those high lands of Ashdown Forest, about eleven miles north of Lewes.
There, after some search, we found a convenient barn at a lonely, out-of-the-world place called Holly Farm, and this we soon converted into a suitable hangar.
The farmer and his wife were quite ready to rent us the house furnished as it stood, so next day we found ourselves in full possession.
Our party consisted of Teddy Ashton, the Theeds (father and son), Roseye, the maid Mulliner, and myself. Roseye and I made another journey by car up to Gunnersbury, and also to my rooms, in order to fetch down the remainder of the apparatus, and on the third day of our arrival all the parts were ready for assembling.
Holly Farm was a small but comfortable old house, with an ancient whitewashed kitchen which had black oak beams across its ceiling. The living-room was typical of the “best room” of the old-fashioned British farmer. In the deep-seated window stood a case of wool-flowers beneath a glass dome, while upon the horsehair-covered furniture were many crocheted antimacassars, and upon the wide, open hearth the farm-hand, an old fellow of nearly eighty, made huge log fires which were truly welcome in that wintry chill.
We had brought with us an ample stock of provisions, for the place we had chosen stood upon one of the highest points, not far from Chelwood Beacon, and miles from any town or village of any size.
From the attic windows which peeped forth from the thatch, we commanded a magnificent view both away north over Surrey, and south across the Downs to the Channel. We were up upon what the Bathy-orographical map of England terms “The Forest Ridge,” which lies between the North Downs and the sea.
With old Theed as sentry, we worked away in the farmyard, the doors of which were carefully closed, assembling the machine. That work took three days, though we all strove with a will, leaving Mulliner to act as housekeeper and prepare our meals.
Every day Theed’s son took the farmer’s cycle and went to get us a paper at Forest Row Station on the line between Tunbridge Wells and Horsham, that being the only connexion we held with the world outside. The good farmer I had paid handsomely, and had frankly told him that we were making some secret experiments with a new aeroplane against the Germans, whereupon he, as a good Englishman, had promised to hold his tongue.
That week passed rapidly—a week of arduous work, of intense anxiety and excitement. Sometimes a part would not fit, or was missing, and then our spirits would instantly flag. Still, after much eagerness—and sometimes a few bad words,sotto voce, of course—we gradually got the machine into readiness, and began the engine-test.
So powerful were those twin engines, with their wide throttle range, that their roar could be heard miles away, for I had not been able to silence them. Nevertheless, nowadays, country people are happily so used to hearing the rhythmic throb of aeroplane engines, that they scarcely take notice of it. Mine, however, were unusually fierce, especially when both were working, one for the propeller, and the other either for the searchlight or the directive sparking apparatus.
They had both been run “upon the bench” for many hours, of course, and passed as perfect by the makers. Yet a pilot never likes to trust himself upon something he has not tested with his own hands.
Each one of us had his or her own work, and each one of us worked with a true spirit of patriotism. I had argued that if the Anti-Aircraft Service were unable to bring down Zeppelins, then I, as a private individual and a pilot who had had some experience in the air, was ready to risk my own life in the attempt. And in this Teddy was whole-heartedly with me.
Naturally, Roseye often grew apprehensive. It was because of that she made me repeat many times the promise I had given her—that she should make the first flight with me in the newly-constructed machine.
Each day Teddy and I, aided by young Theed, worked testing, tightening strainers, seeing to pins and washers, adjusting bolts and other things. And at evening, while the Theeds and Mulliner gossiped in the kitchen, we three made ourselves comfortable before the great log fire in the farmer’s best room, and sometimes passed the time with cards, a well-thumbed pack of which Roseye had discovered in a drawer.
One evening we had played cards and Teddy had wished us good night, taken his candle and ascended the narrow creaky stairs, worn hollow by the tread of generations of farmers.
“Claude,” exclaimed my love, when we were alone, “I feel so very worried over you! I know how keen you are to act your part in this war, and to put your theory to the test. But is it really wise? Remember that you are going to risk your life. The creation of that electric wave, when in the air, may re-act upon your own engines and seize them—or it may create a spark across your own petrol-tank. In that case you would be blown up in mid-air!”
“Ah! That contingency I’ve already provided for, darling,” I assured her. “Have you not seen that my new petrol-tank is a wooden barrel held by wooden bands, so that there is no metal over which to spark?”
“I know. But electricity is such a mysterious force, one never knows what it will do, or how it will take effect.”
“You are going a little wide of the mark, Roseye,” I laughed. “We know pretty well the limitations of electricity—or rather we three know as much—and perhaps a little more, than the enemy does. My discovery is quite simple, after all. I have found out the means by which to create and to direct a flash of intense electrical current, a kind of false lightning. And that current, sparking over the interstices between the aluminium lattice-work and envelope of a Zeppelin, must certainly ignite the inflammable gas with which the ballonets are filled and which is so constantly escaping.”
“Yes, I know,” was her answer, as she allowed me to place my arm tenderly about her slim waist.
Then she seemed unduly thoughtful and apprehensive.
“Well?” I asked. “Why are you worrying, darling? I am striving to do my very best for my country. I am going to fight—or attempt to fight—just as valiantly as though I were dressed in khaki, and wore the winged badge of the pilot of the Royal Flying Corps. Indeed, my chance is better. I have no Flight-Commander to look to for orders. I am simply a handy man of the air who has, I trust, thought out a feasible plan.”
“Your plan is most excellent, Claude,” she admitted. “But what I fear is the great personal risk and peril to yourself.”
“There’s none,” I laughed. “You, my dear, have no fear when you are flying—even at high altitudes. Neither have I. Both of us are used to being up, and our machines are part of ourselves. I never think of danger; neither do you, Roseye. So don’t let us discuss it further,” I urged.
Then, in order to turn our conversation into a different channel, while I still held her hand as she sat upon that old black horsehair couch with me at her side, I said:
“I’ve just been reading what is termed a hot-aircraft poem in theAeroplane. I wonder if I recollect the concluding lines. They run something like this:—”
The Scout makes no question of Ays or Noes,But right or left, as banks the Pilot, goesAnd he who dropped One down into the Field—He knows about it all—he knows, he knows!Here with a Dud Machine, if Winds allow,A Flask of Wine, a Load of Bombs—and ThouBefore me sitting in the Second Seat—A Midnight Raid is Paradise enow.And when I turn upon the Homeward Trail,Dreaming of Decorations, Cakes and Ale,How bitter on the First Day’s Leave to findMy Name spelt wrongly in the “Daily Mail!”
The Scout makes no question of Ays or Noes,But right or left, as banks the Pilot, goesAnd he who dropped One down into the Field—He knows about it all—he knows, he knows!Here with a Dud Machine, if Winds allow,A Flask of Wine, a Load of Bombs—and ThouBefore me sitting in the Second Seat—A Midnight Raid is Paradise enow.And when I turn upon the Homeward Trail,Dreaming of Decorations, Cakes and Ale,How bitter on the First Day’s Leave to findMy Name spelt wrongly in the “Daily Mail!”
“Ah!” protested my love. “You really don’t take it with sufficient seriousness, Claude!”
“I do,” was my quick protest. “I am not worrying about failure: I am only anticipating success.”
“Do not be over sanguine, dear, I beg of you.”
“I never have been,” was my reply. “To-morrow I shall make the first test in the air—and you shall come with me, as I have for so long promised.”