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The Zeppelin Destroyer: Being Some Chapters of Secret History

by William Le Queux · English · Gutenberg #40995 · 337,447 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Zeppelin Destroyer: Being Some Chapters of Secret History

Author: William Le Queux


        
Release date: October 9, 2012 [eBook #40995]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ZEPPELIN DESTROYER: BEING SOME CHAPTERS OF SECRET HISTORY ***

The Zeppelin Destroyer
Being some Chapters of Secret History
By William Le Queux
Published by Hodder and Stoughton. London, New York, Toronto.
This edition dated 1916.

The Zeppelin Destroyer, by William Le Queux.

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
THE ZEPPELIN DESTROYER, BY WILLIAM LE QUEUX.

CHAPTER ONE.

OVER A "GASPER."

"To-morrow?  To-morrow, my dear Claude!  Why, there may not be a
to-morrow for you--or for me, when it comes to that--eh?"

"Yes.  You're quite right, old son," was my cheerful reply.  "I'm quite
aware that these experiments are confoundedly dangerous--and, besides,
there are nasty wind-pockets about just now.  I got into a deadly one
yesterday afternoon, just across the line at Mill Hill."

"I saw you," replied my friend Teddy Ashton, a fellow-aviator and chum
at Hendon.  "It gave me a nasty moment.  You had engine-trouble at the
same time."

"Yes," I replied.  "I was up over eight thousand feet when, without a
second's warning, I found myself in a pocket spinning over.  Phew!  If
ever I nearly came to grief, it was at that moment!"

"I was on the lawn, having tea with Betty, and we were watching you.  I
quite expected to see you come plumb down," Teddy said.  "You righted
your old bus splendidly."

"She'll have to have a new dope, I think," was my reply, endeavouring to
turn the conversation into another channel, for I did not care to
discuss my narrow escape from death over the mishap which was certainly
my own fault.

I was standing with Teddy in one of the long work-sheds of the Barwick
Aeroplane Factory at Hendon on that bright morning early in October,
1915.  The wind was light, the barometer high, and both of us had been
up, as we had been testing our monoplanes.

As he stood leaning against a half-finished machine idly smoking a
"gasper"--a cigarette in the airman jargon--he presented a fine picture
of the clean-limbed young Englishman in his wind-proof aviation suit,
with leather cap and ear-pieces, while his goggles had been pushed upon
his brow.

Both of us, "as quirks," had learned to fly at the same school at
Brooklands before the outbreak of war, and both of us were enthusiastic
airmen.

In introducing myself to the reader of this chronicle of fact I suppose
I ought--at the risk of using the first person singular a little too
much--to explain that I, Claude Munro, aged twenty-five, am son of Sir
Reginald Munro, a man well-known as a physician, a prominent prescriber
of pills and powders in Wimpole Street.

On coming down from Cambridge I had read for the bar a short time, but
finding that my inclination was more in the direction of electricity and
mechanics, my indulgent father allowed me to take a course of study at a
Wireless School, where I was not long in learning most of the recent
discoveries in the field of radio-telegraphy.

One Saturday afternoon, about two years before, my father had taken me
in his car to Hendon to see the passenger-flights at two guineas a head,
and the excellent Verrier had taken me up with him.  Immediately I
became "bitten" with aviation, and instantly decided to adopt it as a
profession.

At first the governor--as all governors do--set his face firmly against
such a risky business, but at last I persuaded him to plank down the
fees, and thereupon I began a course of tuition in flying, with the
result that I now owned my own big monoplane upon which I was conducting
certain important experiments, in association with Teddy Ashton.

"See that in the paper this morning about the new German Fokker
monoplane?"  I asked him as we both smoked and rested, our machines
standing side by side outside.

"Of course, my dear old Claude," was his reply.

"It would be one of the jokes of the war if it wasn't such a grim jest.
Remember what they said recently in Parliament--that we held the
supremacy of the air, and that it is maintained."

"All humbug," I declared bluntly.  "Sad though it is to admit it."

"Of course it is!" cried Teddy very emphatically.

"The fact is that the public haven't yet realised that the joke is
against our Government `experts' who now see all their science set at
nought by a rule-of-the-thumb Dutchman who, by the simple process of
putting a big engine into a copy of an obsolete French monoplane, has
given his own country's chief enemy the freedom of the air."

I agreed with him; and his words, I confess, set me thinking.  The
papers had been full of the Fokker aeroplane, of its great superiority
over anything we possessed, and of it as a real peril to our pilots in
Flanders.

"The real fact is," declared Teddy, in the intervals of a deal of
hammering, "that there's nothing extraordinary about the Fokker except
that it is built sensibly for a definite job and does it, while our own
`experts' have tangled themselves and the British aircraft industry in a
web of pseudo-science and political scheming which has resulted in our
lack of the proper machines and engines to fight the Zeppelins."

"Yes," I answered with a sigh.  "You're quite right, Teddy.  But
something _must_ be done.  We must find some means by which to fight the
enemy's dirigibles.  We have a few good aeroplanes, I admit, but, as you
say, those are not the product of the Government factories, but have
been produced by private firms.  Why?  Because airmen have been so badly
let down by their experts."

At that moment a shadow was cast before the door of the shed, and a
bright musical feminine voice cried:

"Hulloa, Claude!  I followed you hard, right from Hertford."

It was Roseye--"Rosie" of the aerodrome!  Roseye Lethmere, daughter of
Sir Herbert Lethmere, was my own well-beloved, whom I had taught to fly,
and who was at that moment perhaps the most notable airwoman in England.

"Really," I exclaimed, as I advanced to meet her.

"Why, I hadn't any idea you were here.  Nobody told me."

"Miss Lethmere is always elusive," Teddy laughed, bowing to her.  "Have
you been up on your own bus, or on Eastwell's?"

"On Mr Eastwell's.  My engine did not run well, so Barnes, his
mechanic, lent me his machine," was her reply.  Then, turning to me, she
said: "I went up only five minutes after you.  I wonder you didn't look
back when you banked over the railway line at Wheathampstead.  I was
just behind you then, though I could not overtake you, as my engine
seemed a little sluggish."

"That doesn't occur very often in Eastwell's bus," remarked Teddy.  "I
flew it last Thursday, and found the 150 Gnome ran perfectly."

"Well, Claude, you outdistanced me altogether," declared my
well-beloved.  "From Hertford, with the wind behind you, you absolutely
shot back.  I thought that Mr Eastwell's machine would outmatch yours,
but, though I put every ounce into the engine, I was hopelessly out of
it.  It hadn't been tuned up well."

"That's curious, Roseye," I replied.  "I had no idea that my bus was any
match for his!  I thought that his Mertonville machine was much faster
than mine--or than yours as a matter of fact."

"To-day mine is out of the running," she laughed.  To you, my reader, I
suppose I ought to describe my own beloved Roseye.  Well, I am not good
at describing women.  As the only son of a blunt, white-haired physician
who having made expert study of all the thousand-and-one ailments of the
eternal feminine, including that affection called "nerves"--mostly the
result of the drug habit, I had heard, from my youth upwards, many
disparaging remarks upon the follies and the unbalance of the mind of
the gentler sex.

This, however, did not prevent me from loving Roseye Lethmere, daughter
of Sir Herbert, who had come into my life quite unexpectedly a year ago.

As she stood there chatting with us, attired in her airwoman's clothes,
her appearance was certainly workwomanlike.  She was dressed in a
wool-lined leather coat, and overall trousers, with a knitted Balaclava
helmet, and over that again a leather skull-cap, the whole tied down
tightly beneath the chin.  A huge khaki woollen muffler was around her
throat, while a pair of unsightly goggles hanging around her neck
completed the picture.  She had followed my advice, I noted, and tied
her muffler very securely around her chin.

How very different she looked at that moment to when I took her--as I so
frequently did--to a play, and afterwards to supper at the Carlton, the
Savoy, or Ciro's.  She was a girl who, on the outbreak of war, had
decided to play her part in the national crisis, and she certainly had
done so.

Three times had she flown across the Channel with me, and three times
had we returned in safety to Hendon.

Indeed, only a week before, she had flown by herself on a British-built
Duperdussin with 100 horse-power Anzani engines from Brooklands across
to France, descending a mile outside Abbeville.  She had had lunch at
the old Tete de Boeuf hotel in that town, and returned, landing safely
at Hendon--a feat that no woman had ever before accomplished.

Roseye Lethmere certainly possessed a character that was all her own.

In her ordinary costume, as a London girl, she was inexpressibly dainty
and extremely well dressed.  Her curiously soft blue eyes, almost
child-like in their purity of expression, were admired everywhere.
Whenever, however, her picture appeared in the papers it was always in
her flying costume.

Most women, when they take up any outdoor exercise, be it hunting,
golfing, strenuous tennis, or sport of any kind, usually acquire a
certain indescribable hardness of feature, a sign by which, when they
sit in the stalls of a theatre, the mere man at once knows them.

But the beauty of Miss Rosie--as she was known at Hendon--in spite of
her many exciting and perilous exploits in the air, was still soft and
sweet, as it should be with any fresh healthy girl of twenty-two.

The workmen started hammering again, fitting a new propeller to a
machine in course of hurried completion for the front, so we all three
went outside, where our own machines stood close together.

Theed, my mechanic--who had been the governor's chauffeur before I took
up flying--was busily testing my engine, and I could hear it missing a
little.

"Hulloa!"  I cried, looking up at a big monoplane at that moment passing
over us.  "Why, Eastwell's up in Thorold's new bus!"

"Yes," answered Roseye.  "I passed quite close to him behind St
Albans."

The October morning was bright and sunny, with a blue, cloudless sky,
just the morning for trial flights and stunts, and, in consequence, two
pupils were out on the aerodrome with their instructors, preparing for
their lesson.

Roseye noticed this, and smiled across at me.  She remembered, probably,
how carefully I used to strap her into the seat, and how, more than
once, she had gasped when we made a nose-dive, or volplaned for an
undesired landing.  Yet, even in those days, she had betrayed no fear in
the air for, apparently, she reposed entire faith in my judgment and my
capabilities at the joy-stick.

We stood watching Eastwell as he banked first on one side, then on the
other, until at last he made a graceful tour of the aerodrome and,
swooping down suddenly, landed quite close to us.

"Morning!" he cried cheerily, as he slowly unstrapped himself and
climbed out of his seat.  "Morning, Miss Lethmere," he added, saluting.
"Well, how does my bus go?  You had a little engine-trouble, hadn't
you?"

"Yes.  I couldn't overtake Mr Munro," she replied, laughing.  "Were you
watching me?"

"Yes.  I've just come back from Cambridge.  I left here this morning as
soon as it was light--" Eastwell, in his aviator's leather jacket, fur
helmet and goggles, presented a tall, gaunt, rather uncouth figure.
Yet, in his ordinary clothes, he was something of a dandy, with light
brown hair, a carefully-trained moustache, and a pair of shrewd grey
eyes.

Roseye had been acquainted with him for over two years, and it was she
who had first introduced us.

They had met at Wiesbaden, where her father, Sir Herbert, had been
taking his annual "cure."  Eastwell had been at the Kaiserhof Hotel
where they had also been staying and, being a young Englishman of means
and leisure, an acquaintanceship had sprung up between them.

Lionel Eastwell was a great lover of music, and for that reason had been
at Wiesbaden, where, in the Kursaal, the programme in the pre-war days
was always excellent.

On their return to London Eastwell called at Cadogan Gardens, and Sir
Herbert had then ascertained that the pleasant young man--who for two
years had taken such a great interest in aviation--was possessed of a
very comfortable income, was a member of the aero club, and lived in a
very snug set of chambers half-way up Albemarle Street.

At the Royal Automobile Club he was also a well-known figure in the
select circle of rather go-ahead airmen who made that institution their
nightly rendezvous.

As a result of hearing Lionel Eastwell speak of the pleasures and
exhilaration of the air, and after watching his flights at Hendon,
Roseye had at last determined to seek the new sensation of aerial
navigation, and in taking her lessons she and I had met.

Airmen and airwomen form a very select coterie practically unknown to
the world outside the aerodrome.  They fly; they risk their lives; they
make their daily experiments with their new engines, new wings, new
airscrews, new strainers, new magnetos, and all sorts of newly-invented
etceteras, all the time risking their lives in a bad nose-dive, or with
a buckled wing.

Our quartette, all of us enthusiasts, and all holding our own views
regarding the British supremacy of aerial navigation in the war, stood
chatting for ten minutes, or more, until turning to Roseye, I said:

"Well, I'm going over to see what Theed is up to."  Then, together, we
left Eastwell to go back to his own machine.

Yet, in that second, a strange thing occurred.  Perhaps I may have been
unduly suspicious--if so, I regret it and offer apology--but I felt
certain somehow that I saw in Roseye's face a look of displeasure that I
should have taken her from the man whose sudden appearance had caused
her countenance to brighten.

And, at the same time, as I glanced surreptitiously at Lionel Eastwell,
while in the act of offering him a "gasper" from my case, I most
certainly saw a strange and distinctly sinister expression--one that
caused me through the next hour to reflect very deeply, and ponder over
its cause.

CHAPTER TWO.

THE MURDER-MACHINES.

An hour later I made another flight in order to try my new gyroscopic
stabiliser, which--for the benefit of those unversed in aerial
navigation--I may say is an invention which incorporates a horizontal
reference plane of accuracy and integrity to which all angles can be
referred.

I flew across to the Thames, and followed the winding silvery streak
with dotted blotches of houses up to Windsor and back, finding that the
invention rendered my machine a platform which was not only steady, but
was also held in constant relation to the horizontal.

That morning was ideal for flying and, on my return, I was not surprised
to find that both Teddy Ashton and Roseye were up again.  Indeed, as I
brought my machine to earth I saw Roseye flying at a great height coming
in from the south.

Two or three of the school-buses were up, circling the aerodrome,
including an unwieldy one that always reminded us of poor Cody's
"cathedral."

As soon as I landed, Eastwell came across again, eager to inquire how
the new gyroscope arrangement had worked, for, like myself, he was a
great enthusiast over all new notions, however wild they might be.
Indeed, I believe he had tried every newfangled idea produced during the
past couple of years.

I having pronounced it good, he begged me to let him try it, and a few
moments later he was in the pilot's seat.  Then after Theed had spun the
propeller, our friend rose quickly, and went out to meet my well-beloved
on her return.

Roseye, seeing my bus, thought I was flying it, but as she circled
gracefully down she realised at last that it was Eastwell, and both
machines, after making several fine circuits of the aerodrome, came to
earth almost at the same moment.

I had been watching Roseye.  For a woman, she was certainly a most
intrepid flyer.  Crossing to her, I glanced at her self-registering
altimeter and saw that she had been up over eight thousand feet.

"I've been across to Dorking," she laughed gaily, as she sprang out of
her seat, raised her goggles and pulled off her heavy leather gloves.
"I followed the railway from Dorking along to Guildford and met two men
up from Farnborough.  At Guildford I kept over the South Western line to
Surbiton, and then steered back by compass."

She also inquired how my stabiliser had worked, and I told her that
Lionel had been trying it.

Later, Eastwell was full of most glowing praise of the new invention,
after which I put my machine back into the hangar and, taking Roseye
with me in my two-seater, deposited her at home in Cadogan Gardens in
time for lunch.

Then, as was my habit, I went on to the Royal Automobile Club in Pall
Mall, and, after my meal, sat in the window of the big smoking-room
chatting with three of the boys--airmen all of them.

George Selwyn, a well-known expert on aircraft and editor of an aircraft
journal, had been discussing an article in that morning's paper on the
future of the airship.

"I contend," he said firmly, "that big airships are quite as necessary
to us as they are to Germany.  We should have ships of the Zeppelin and
Schutte-Lanz class.  The value of big airships as weapons of defence
cannot be under-estimated.  If we had big airships it is certain that
Zeppelin raids--more of which are expected, it seems--would not be
unopposed, and, further, we should be able to retaliate.  We've got the
men, but we haven't got the airships--worse luck!  The Invisible Hand of
Germany has deceived us finely!"

"That's so," I chimed in.  "The Germans can always soothe their own
people by saying that, however dear food is and all that, yet they can't
be strafed from above--as we unfortunately are."

"I quite agree," declared Charlie Digby, a well-known pilot, and holder
of a height-record.  A tall, clean-shaven, clean-limbed fellow he was
lying back in the deep leather armchair with his coffee at his side.
"But is it not equally true that, if we had aeroplanes of the right
construction and enough of them, we could give the night-raiders in
Zeppelins a very uncomfortable time?"

"Quite so.  I'm all in favour of suitable aeroplanes," Selwyn admitted.
"We must upset this Zeppelin menace by some means or other.  Here we
are--the greatest and most powerful nation the world has ever seen,
worried three times a month by the threat of these German gas-bags!  It
is quite possible to obtain such aeroplanes as would enable us to fight
the Zepps.  As somebody wrote in the paper the other day regarding the
future range of the naval big guns, it is useless to send up
half-trained quirks on soggy seaplanes accompanied by still less trained
spotting officers equipped with short-range wireless which cannot
receive.  The gun-spotter in a Fleet action should be a fully trained
and experienced gunnery-Jack, seated in a comfortable observation-car
where charts and navigating instruments can be used with accuracy.
Therefore, if we can't get the proper aeroplanes, we must have airships
for the purpose, as they are at present the only apparent vehicle for
scientific gunnery in a Fleet action."

With this we all agreed.

"Another point," I said, "was advanced by a clever writer in the
_Aeroplane_ the other day.  It was pointed out that in the matter of
fighting Zeppelins, however good aeroplane patrols may be, they must
depend on their eyes to find enemy airships.  One may silence engines,
but one cannot silence air, and, though one may shut off and glide
slowly, yet there will always be enough whistling of wind round wires
and struts to wash out any noise of airship engines, gears, and
propellers, unless they are very close indeed.  An airship, on the other
hand, can shut off and float.  There may be some creaking of the
girders, and stays, but there will be no continuous whistling.
Therefore an airship makes a perfect listening-post for enemy aircraft
of all kinds."

"I'm quite sure of that," declared Charlie Digby from the depths of his
chair.  "If we are to win the war we must fight the Zeppelin.  We want a
real good man at the head of affairs and we should allow him a free
hand, and put a stop to the endless committees and conferences and
confabulations which have been the curse of this country in every
department since war began--and before.  Let that man have the advice of
all the specialists he may require, and let him encourage people with
ideas to offer their advice, instead of turning them down, as is the
custom of most people in commanding positions."

Those same sentiments I had read in one of the papers that very day.

I said nothing more.  It was time for me to be off, so I rose and left,
having an appointment with Teddy Ashton.

As I passed through the big hall of the club I reflected how true were
Digby's words.  If we were to win the war we must fight the Zeppelins
effectively.

_But how_?

That same question had occupied the minds of both Teddy and myself for
many months, long indeed before the first Zeppelin had crossed the North
Sea.  Both of us had realised the deadly peril of those huge
murder-machines against which we would be utterly powerless.

During the first year of war the public had laughed at the idea of
Zeppelins coming over to drop bombs on undefended towns, or making an
air raid upon London.  The popular reply to anyone who ventured to
express fear of such a thing as had been openly threatened in the German
Press was: "Bah! they haven't come yet!"

But at last they had come, and they had dropped bombs upon inoffensive
citizens.  There were some writers already crying, "Never mind the
Zeppelins!"  In the sluggish apathy which refused to worry as to the
state of our air-defences they discovered a sort of heroism!  "Surely,"
they exclaimed, "civilians, including women and children, ought to be
really glad and proud to share the risks of their sons or brothers in
the trenches."

A poor argument surely!  The unarmed people of London and the provinces,
when summoned to confront the hail of fire and death, had showed an
imperturbable coolness worthy to compare with the valour of the soldiers
in the field.  On that point, testimony was unanimous.  The people had
been splendid.  But they expected something more than passive heroism.
It was so very easy to shut one's eyes to the ghastly record of
suffering a hundred miles off, easy, as somebody had said, to doze under
the hillside with Simple, Sloth and Presumption.

Long ago I had agreed with Teddy that some means must be found to fight
effectively the German airships now that anti-aircraft guns had proved
unreliable for inflicting much damage, except in a haphazard way.  In
conjunction, therefore, we had been actively conducting certain secret
experiments in order to devise some plan which might successfully combat
the terror of the night.

Zeppelins had flown over the coast towns and hurled bombs upon its
defenceless inhabitants.  Each raid had been more and more audacious in
its range, and in its general scheme.  London and the cities of the
Midlands had been, more than once in sight of the enemy's airships.  Yet
a certain section of the Press were still pooh-poohing the real
significance of the attempt to demoralise us at home.

Out in St James's Square--on the cab-rank which the Club had taken for
its own--I jumped into my car and drove away down to Gunnersbury, beyond
Chiswick, where, in a market-garden, I rented a long shed of corrugated
iron, a place wherein, with Teddy, I conducted the experiments which we
were making into the scientific and only way by which Zeppelins could be
destroyed.

While the world had been wondering, we had worked, and in our work
Roseye constantly assisted us.  It was hard and secret work, entailing
long and patient study, many experiments, and sometimes flights
necessitating much personal risk.

Failures?  Oh! yes, we had many!  Our failures were, indeed, of daily
occurrence.  More than once, when we thought ourselves within an ace of
success, we found that we were faced with the usual failure.

Many, alas! were the disappointments.  Yet we all three had one goal in
view, keeping it ever before us--the fighting of the Zeppelin.

Little did we dream of the strange, dramatic events which were to result
from our secret scientific investigations, undertaken in all our
enthusiasm.

Could we but have foreseen what the future held for us--or the power put
forth against us by the Invisible Hand!

CHAPTER THREE.

THE BROWN DEAL BOX.

Six days had gone by.

The weather having continued bright and fine, with a high and steady
barometer, all of us at Hendon, quirks and pilots alike, had been up on
many occasions.

In secret, I had placed upon my machine--a Breguet monoplane with a 200
horse-power Salmson--another new invention which, with Teddy's aid, I
had devised, and was testing.  We were keeping the affair a profound
secret.  Nobody knew of the contrivance evolved out of my knowledge of
wireless, save we two, Roseye and my mechanic Harry Theed.

Carefully concealed from the eye it was carried in a large locked box,
while, as further precaution, after testing it each time, I put it on my
car and took it away to my chambers with me, for we were not at all
anxious for any of the mixed crowd at the aerodrome to pry into what we
were doing, or to ascertain the true direction of our constant
experiments.

One afternoon down at Gunnersbury Teddy, in mechanic's brown overalls,
was busily engaged repairing a portion of the apparatus which I had
broken that morning owing to an unfortunately bad landing.

To the uninitiated the long shed with its two lathes, its tangle of
electric wires across the floor, the great induction coils--some of them
capable of giving a fourteen-inch spark--the small dynamo with its
petrol engine, and other electrical appliances, would no doubt have been
puzzling.

Upon the benches stood some strange-looking wireless condensers,
radiometers, detectors and other objects which we had constructed.  Also
dressed in overalls, as was my chum and fellow-experimenter, I was
engaged in assisting him to adjust a small vacuum tube within that
heavy, mysterious-looking wooden box which I daily carried aloft with me
in the fuselage of my aeroplane.

We smoked "gaspers" and chatted merrily, as we worked on, until at last
we had completed the job.

"Now let's put a test on it again--eh, Claude?" my friend suggested.

"Right ho!"  I acquiesced.

It was already dusk, for the repair had taken us nearly four hours, and
during the past half-hour we had worked beneath the electric light.

The shed was on one side of the large market-garden, at a considerable
distance from any house.  Indeed, as one stood at the door there spread
northward several flat market-gardens and orchards, almost as far as the
eye could reach.

Presently, when we had adjusted the many heavily-insulated wires, I
started the dynamo, and on turning on the current a bright blue blinding
flash shot, with a sharp fierce crackling, across the place.

"Gad! that's bad!" gasped Teddy, pale in alarm.  "Something's wrong!"

"Yes, and confoundedly dangerous to ourselves and to the petrol--eh?"  I
cried, shutting off the dynamo instantly.

"Phew!  It was a real narrow shave!" remarked Teddy.  "One of the
narrowest we've ever had!"

"Yes, my dear fellow, but it tells us something," I said.  "We've made
an accidental discovery--that spark shows that we can increase our power
a thousandfold, when we like."

"It has, no doubt, given the wireless operators at the Admiralty, at
Marconi House, and elsewhere a very nasty jar," laughed Teddy.  "They'll
wonder what's up, won't they?"

"Well, we can't help their troubles."  I laughed.

"I expect we've jammed them badly," Teddy said.  "Look the aerial is
connected up!"

"By Jove! so it is?"  I said.

I saw what I had not noticed before, that the network of phosphor-bronze
aerial wires strung beneath the roof of the shed had remained connected
up with the coils from an experiment we had conducted on the previous
afternoon.

"I'll pump Treeton about it to-morrow.  He'll be certain to have heard
if there has been any unusual signals at Marconi House," I said.
"They'll no doubt believe that spark to be signals from some new
Zeppelin!"

"No doubt.  But we may thank our stars that we're safe.  Both of us
could very easily have been either struck down, or blown up by the
petrol-tank.  We'll have to exercise far more caution in the future,"
declared Teddy.

Caution!  Why, Teddy had risked his life in the air a hundred times in
the past four months, flying by day and also by night, and experimenting
with that apparatus of ours by which we hoped to defy the Zeppelin.

Those were no days for personal caution.  The long dark shadow of the
Zeppelin had been over London.  Women and babes in arms had been blown
to pieces in East Anglia, on the north-east coast, and every one knew,
from the threats of the Huns, that worse was intended to follow.

Our searchlights and aerial guns had been proved of little use.  London,
the greatest capital of the civilised history, the hub of the whole
world, seemed to lie at the mercy of the bespectacled night-pirate who
came and went as he pleased.

As is usual, the public were "saying things"--but were not acting.  Both
Teddy and I had foreseen this long ago, for both of us had realised to
the full the deadly nature of the Zeppelin menace.  It was all very well
for a Cabinet Minister to assure us on March 17, 1915, that "Any hostile
aircraft, airships, or aeroplanes which reached our coast during the
coming year would be promptly attacked in superior force by a swarm of
very formidable hornets."

Events had shown that the British authorities at that time did not allow
sufficiently for the great height at which Zeppelins could travel, or
for the fact that, while the airship could operate successfully at
night-time, darkness was the least suitable time for aeroplanes in the
stage of development which they had reached, on account of the
difficulties of starting and of landing in the dark, as well as of
seeing or hearing the airship from a machine flying aloft.

The German Government and the German people had thrown their fullest
energies into the development of aircraft for war.  Unfortunately we had
not, and it is not too much to say that, during the first few months of
the war, the responsible authorities in this country did not take the
aerial menace seriously.

We, as practical airmen, had taken it up seriously--very seriously, and,
as result, had devoted all our time and all our limited private means--
for my governor was not too generous in the matter of an allowance--
towards combating the rapidly increasing peril of air attack.

The first German attempt had been on Christmas Day in the previous year.
As I happened to witness it, it had fired me with determination.

Shall I ever forget the excitement of that day.  I had gone down the
Thames to spend Christmas with my old friend, Jack Watson, of the Naval
Flying Corps, when, under cover of a light fog, a German airman suddenly
appeared.

We first saw him over the Estuary, slightly to the south of us, flying
at a height that we estimated at about 9,000 feet.  There was great
excitement.  Anti-aircraft guns at once opened on him, but they failed
to hit him.  Lost to our view in a mist, he was not seen again until
well up the river, and from the reports afterwards published it seems
that fire was once more opened on him from our guns.  Rising higher to
escape our shells, he made a complete half-circle.  By now, several
British aeroplanes were in pursuit, and the German, seeing that it was
hopeless to attempt to go farther, turned back.  Thousands of people had
a good view of this--the first real air-battle on the British coast.
Shells were bursting in the air apparently all round the German.  Time
after time it seemed that he had been hit, yet time after time he
escaped.  Men could not fail to admire the skill with which he handled
his machine.  At one point a sudden dip of the aeroplane seemed to show
that a shot had got home.  Still, however, according to what I heard
afterwards, he kept on, circling, dodging, twisting, climbing and diving
with almost incredible swiftness to escape his pursuers.  He made
straight for the sea--and escaped.  Weeks afterwards a rumour was
received that some fishermen had found a body away out in the sea which
was believed to be that of the German airman, but no satisfactory
confirmation was ever published.

It was that incident which first set me thinking of how to combat
hostile aircraft.  At once I thought of aeroplane versus aeroplane, but
when three weeks later, two Zeppelins came over to the east coast to
reconnoitre, and dropped nine bombs, blowing to pieces two old people,
then my attention was turned towards the Zeppelin, and in Teddy Ashton I
found a ready and enthusiastic assistant.

This raid, and those which followed on points on the north-east coast,
small as their immediate results were, yet demonstrated one thing.  The
German Press proclaimed that German genius had at last ended the legend
that England was invulnerable owing to her insularity.  An English
writer had pointed out that it was certainly proved that the seas no
longer protected England from attack.  She was no longer an island.
Should she hope to keep her shores inviolate, and to allow her people to
live in the safety that they had enjoyed for so many centuries, she must
be prepared to meet invaders from the sky, as well as on the water.
Both Teddy and myself saw that the coming of the German airship was the
beginning of a new chapter in the history of this country.

The real German defence was summed up in a semi-official message
published, which read: "The German nation has been forced by England to
fight for her existence, and cannot be forced to forego legitimate
self-defence, and will not do so, relying upon her good right."

Her good right!  Had Germany a right to drop bombs blindly on open
villages, and kill our women and babes at night?

That had fired us both, and the result had been that long shed, and the
great mass of electrical apparatus it contained.

Sometimes, when I begged more money from my father for the purposes of
those experiments, he had grumbled, yet always when I pointed out what
Teddy and I were actually doing, he was ready again to sign a further
cheque.

Teddy was, of course, richer than myself.  His father had been a
cotton-weaver who had lived in Burnley, and had died leaving his whole
fortune to his only son.  Therefore my friend was possessed of
considerable means, and had it not been so, I fear that we should never
have been able to establish such an extensive plant, or go to the big
expenses which we had so often to incur.

The secrets of that shed of ours had to be well guarded.  Our
night-watchman was a retired police-sergeant, John the father of my
faithful mechanic, Harry Theed, and in him we reposed the utmost
confidence.

"If anyone ever wants to get into this 'ere place, sir," old Theed often
said to me, "then they'll have to put my lights out first--I can assure
you."

"Well," Teddy exclaimed presently, as he slowly lit a fresh cigarette.
"Let's adjust things a bit better, and we'll then try how she goes--away
out on the pole.  It's getting quite dark enough to see--especially with
your glasses."

"Right you are," I said, and then, after another ten minutes of
manipulation with the wires, during which I "cut out" the aerial and
several big glass-and-tin-foil condensers, all was ready for the
experiment.

Teddy had drawn a heavy wooden bench in front of the door, and upon it I
placed the big box of brown-stained deal which contained our mysterious
apparatus from which we both expected such great things.  Indeed, that
curious machine, had just escaped bringing upon us instant death.

Yet that mishap to which we had been accidentally so near had revealed
several things to me, causing me to reflect upon certain crucial and
technical points which, hitherto, I had not considered.

In that square, heavy box, connected up by its high-tension wires to
three of the big induction coils upon the table was, we believed, stored
a power by which the Zeppelins could be successfully destroyed and
brought to earth.

It was nearly dark when I opened the door of the shed situated opposite
to where I had placed the box, and looked out to ascertain if anyone was
about, as we wished for no prying eyes to witness our experiment.

I walked out, and around the building, but nobody was near.  Then, when
I returned to the door, I stood for a moment gazing away across the wide
area of market-gardens to where, perhaps half a mile distant, stood a
high flag-pole which had been erected for me a couple of years before,
and which had, before the war, borne my wireless aerial.

The little white hut near by I had built, and until the outbreak of war,
when Post Office engineers had come and seized my private station, I had
spent many hours there each evening reading and transmitting messages.

The pole, in three sections, which in the falling darkness could only
just be discerned, was about eighty feet in height and stayed by eight
steel guys, each of which was in three sections connected together by
green-glazed porcelain insulators, so that any leakage of electrical
current could not go to earth.  Affixed to the pole and protruding some
two feet above it was a copper lightning-conductor with four points, an
accessory which I had had put up recently for experimental purposes.

"Nobody's about," I said to Teddy when I returned.  "Will you run the
dynamo, if all is in order?"

Then, after a final examination of the various electrical connexions, he
started the engine and the dynamo began to hum again.

I drew over a switch at the side of the box, when a loud crackling was
heard within--a quenched-spark of enormous power.  Afterwards, I quickly
seized my binoculars and going out through the open door, taking great
care not to pass before the lens,--where in the place of glass was a
disc of steel--something like that of a big camera, forming the end of
the box, I focussed my glasses eagerly upon the flagstaff.

"Hurrah!  Teddy!"  I cried in glee.  "It works--Gad! come and look!  At
last!  _We have it at last_!"

Next moment, my friend was eagerly at my side, while at the same instant
we heard a light footstep and Roseye, in her big motor-coat, stood
unexpectedly before us.

"It works!  Roseye!  It works, darling!  Mind!  Don't pass in front of
the box.  Do be careful!"  I cried in warning, while at the same time
Teddy Ashton, with the binoculars at his eyes, gasped:

"By Jove, Claude!  It's wonderful.  Yes!  You're right!  _We have
success at last_!"

CHAPTER FOUR.

CONCERNS THE SECRET.

In our eagerness, Roseye and I set out to walk towards the pole, leaving
Teddy in charge of the apparatus.

To approach the spot, we had to leave the market-garden and take a road
lined by meagre cottages, then at last, skirting two orchards and yet
another market-garden, we came out upon a second road, which we crossed,
and at last found ourselves at the disused wireless-hut.

There a strange spectacle greeted our eyes for, the darkness having by
that time become complete, we saw, around the lightning-conductor on the
pole and over the steel stays, blue electric sparks scintillating.

"Look, darling!"  I cried.  "See what we have at last produced by the
unseen directive current!"

"Yes," replied my well-beloved.  "Look at the sparks!  How pretty they
are!  Why--they seem to be jumping across the insulators from one
stretch of wire-rope to the other!"

"That effect is exactly what Teddy and I have for so long laboured to
produce," was my answer, as I stood there fascinated by the sparks and
the slight crackling which reached our ears where we stood.

The fact was that though our apparatus was half a mile away, yet upon
those steel strands, as well as upon the copper lightning-conductor, the
electric waves which we were discharging--a new development of the
discovery of Heinrich Hertz--was such as to spark over all the
intervening gaps, even though the space where the insulators were
inserted was quite three inches.

It was a phenomenon such as had never before been witnessed by any
experimenter in electricity.  The theories I had formed and so often
discussed with Teddy were now proved to be quite sound, for they had
resulted in the construction of that apparatus which must, I knew, be
most deadly to any Zeppelin.

The sparks, as we watched them, suddenly ceased.

For a moment I stood surprised, yet next instant realised that Teddy
had, no doubt, some very good reason for stopping the engine.  Somebody
might have come upon the scene, and we were always extremely cautious
that nobody should know in what we were engaged.  The neighbours knew us
as airmen, and believed we were engaged in making some kind of new
propellers.

What I had seen in those few minutes, the flashing crackling sparks
running over the surface of those porcelain insulators and, indeed, over
part of the wooden pole--for it happened to have been raining until an
hour before, and all the surfaces were damp--was, to me, sufficient to
cause me to hold my breath in excitement.

"We have made a great and most important discovery to-day, Roseye," I
said as calmly as I could, as together we walked back to the shed.
"This discovery is undreamed of by Germany.  It will give us power over
any Zeppelin which dares to come to our shores, providing that we can
approach sufficiently near."

"Ah! if you can," replied the girl at my side.  "No doubt we shall
increase the range," I replied.  "We have, this evening, established the
one most important fact that our apparatus is really capable of
directing the rays, and that between metal and metal we can now, as
Hertz endeavoured to, set up an electric spark from a distance."

"You certainly have done that--but I don't yet see the trend of your
argument, Claude.  I know I'm only a woman and unversed in
technicalities, so please forgive me, won't you?"

"Well," I said as we walked, my arm linked in hers.  "First, as you
know, a Zeppelin is constructed mostly of aluminium, its stays and
practically all its rigid parts are of that metal except some of light
steel.  It consists of a number of ballonets filled with highly
inflammable gas, and around those ballonets are ribs of aluminium and
steel.  There must be joints in these ribs, and over those joints we
have now proved that we can create sparks from a considerable distance.
From the ballonets there is a constant leakage of gas, therefore if we
charge the aluminium and steel so that they spark wherever there is the
slightest gap we shall ignite that escaping gas and cause the whole
airship to explode with terrific force.  Do I explain it clearly?"

"Quite, Claude," was her slow, thoughtful reply.  "I see now in what
direction all these wonderful and patient experiments have been made.
To-night you have certainly produced sparks."

"And ere long I hope we shall increase our range, and be able to do
without half the current and all its consequent paraphernalia," was my
confident reply.  "I'm certain," I said, "as certain as we are walking
here together, that we have at last established a sound means of
protecting Great Britain against Zeppelin raids."

"I hope you have, dear," Roseye replied.  "Oh! what a great thing it
will be for the country.  You and Teddy will deserve monuments--if you
really can succeed."

"We _shall_ succeed, darling--with your assistance.  I'm confident of
that!"

"I--how can I help?"

"In many ways.  You've already assisted us enormously," I said.  "Teddy
was only saying so to-day," and I gripped her arm more tightly, as we
turned the corner and approached the shed where Ashton was, we knew,
awaiting us.

"Splendid, my dear fellow!"  I cried as we re-entered.  "Sparking
beautifully, all over--like fireworks!"

"Pretty dangerous fireworks!" my friend remarked.  "I cut off the
current just now."

"Yes," I said.  "Why?"

"Well, do you know, old chap, I thought I heard somebody about!" he
replied.  "Even with the dynamo running I fancied I overheard voices.
Therefore I cut off at once, and went outside to see.  Strangers seemed
to be somewhere at the back."

"Did you find anyone?"  Roseye asked.

"Nobody--yet I'm quite certain I heard voices," he insisted.

"Some of the men from the market-garden perhaps," I remarked.

"I don't think so," was Teddy's reply.

"Why not?"  I demanded in surprise.

"Well--because what I heard--and I tell you, Claude, I heard it quite
distinctly--was a sudden exclamation of surprise."

"Surprise!"

"Yes.  As though somebody had made an unexpected discovery," Teddy said.
"I had just been watching the effect on the pole through your glasses,
and had returned inside when I heard an exclamation, followed by some
quick words of surprise that I could not catch.  It was a man's voice."

"Surely there could not be anybody else watching the sparking upon the
pole!"  I exclaimed in quick apprehension.

"That's just what I believe has happened," Ashton replied seriously.
"We've been watched--as I suspected we were."

"You've said so all along, I know."

"And now I'm quite convinced of it.  And whoever has watched us making
our experiments now knows that to-night our efforts have been crowned
with success."

"Well," I remarked after a pause.  "If what you say is true, Teddy, we
shall have to be very wary in future.  I know there are a great many
unscrupulous persons who would be ready to go to any length in order to
learn this secret discovery of ours which, when fully developed, will, I
feel convinced, mean the buckling-up of the Zeppelin menace."

"That's quite true, Claude," Roseye declared.  "At Hendon and elsewhere
there are, I know, a number of men intensely jealous of your success,
and of the one or two ideas which you have patented, and which are now
adopted in the construction of our military aeroplanes."

"It's really astonishing how many enemies one makes quite
unintentionally!" declared Teddy, leaning against the bench.  "Claude
has more than I have, I believe--and I never disguise from myself that
I've got a really fine crop."

"Only the other day, when Lionel dined with us, he was speaking to dad
about spies," Roseye said.  "He told us that he felt sure that we had
men in our air-service who sent every new development and idea to
Germany.  Do you think that's really a fact?"

"A fact!"  I echoed.  "Why, dearest, of course it is!  We've seen the
result of it many times.  As soon as we had that integral propeller the
Germans knew, and copied us; the secret of Jack Pardon's new dope was
known in a few days, and the enemy are using it on every one of their
machines to-day.  Nothing is secret from those brutes."

"But who does all this?" asked Roseye.

"Why, what I call the Invisible Hand," was my reply.  "The Invisible
Hand was established in our midst in about 1906, when the Kaiser sat
down and craftily prepared for war.  He saw himself faced by the problem
of the great British power and patriotism, and knew that the Briton
would fight every inch for his liberty.  Therefore the All-Highest Hun--
the man who will be held up to universal damnation for all time--
proceeded to adopt towards us the principle of dry-rot in wood.  He
started a system of sending slowly, but very surely, his
insect-sycophants to burrow into the beam of good British oak which had
hitherto supported our nation.  That beam, to-day, is riddled by these
Teutonic worms--insects which, like the book-worm, are never seen, yet,
directed by the Invisible Hand, are only known by their works."

"Then you think there really are spies at Hendon?"

"Of that I'm quite certain," was my reply.  "We all know that there are
spies at every aerodrome--while in the higher ranks those who control
our air-services, though patriotic enough, seem to suffer by reason of
the still higher control which divides responsibility."

"Have any spies been lurking about here to-night?" asked Roseye very
anxiously.

"That is my firm conviction," was Teddy's reply to her.  "I believe that
there have been two strangers here.  One was, perhaps, gazing through
his glasses at the pole and, seeing in the darkness the sparking over
the insulators set in the steel guys, ejaculated the natural expression
of surprise that I overheard.  But they got away noiselessly, and all my
search failed to discover them."

"Well--we must be very wary, my dear Teddy," I repeated.  "They must not
get at this secret of ours, otherwise from the gondola of a Zeppelin
they will be able to use the invisible force against any of our
aeroplanes in a stronger and greater degree than we could ever hope to
do it.  Then we ourselves would be destroyed by the secret power we have
invented."

"They shall never know the secret from me," was my friend's fierce
reply.  "Only we three know it--while Theed has, of course, learnt
something.  That could, not be helped."

"We must not forget the words I read out to you the other day from the
_Berliner Tageblatt_," I replied.  "That paper said: `The fires and
devastation caused by our Zeppelin squadron in England represented a
victory greater and more important than could be achieved in a single
battle.'  That," I added, "is the triumphant boast of Major Moraht,
Germany's most prominent military critic."

"Yes, and it went further," exclaimed Teddy, turning to Roseye.  "The
paper declared that if the Germans were as brutal as they were accused
of being, their naval airship squadron could long ago, in memory of the
Baralong, have set London afire at all four of her corners."

"That's just what we intend to prevent," I declared very emphatically.
"That is what, notwithstanding the efforts of prowling strangers who are
seeking to know in what direction our experiments are being conducted,
we intend to achieve.  To-night, Roseye, we have made one great and
astounding discovery--a discovery which has placed within our hands a
power which Germany, with all her science and investigation, little
dreams.  We now know the true secret which will eventually prove the
undoing of the Kaiser and his barbarous hordes."

"Yes, dear," was my well-beloved's reply.  "At all hazards, no spy of
Germany must be allowed to wrest this secret from us."

"But they are clever--devilishly cunning and entirely unscrupulous.  The
Invisible Hand, well provided with money, lurks everywhere, ready to
grasp what it can in the interest of our octopus enemies," I declared
warningly.  "Therefore let us be ever on the alert--ever watchful and
mindful, in order to avert the relentless talons with which this unknown
and Invisible Hand is furnished."

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE RAID ON LONDON.

It was the night of the fourteenth of October, in the year 1915.

Sir Herbert and Lady Lethmere, with Roseye--who looked charming in
pink--were dining _en famille_ in Cadogan Gardens.  The only two guests
were Lionel Eastwell and myself.

"Terrible--is it not?"  Lady Lethmere remarked to me, as I sat on her
right.  "We were at the Lyric Theatre when the Zeppelins came last
night.  We heard the guns firing.  It was most alarming.  They must have
caused damage in London somewhere.  Isn't it too awful?"

"And at other places, I fear," remarked Sir Herbert, a fine outspoken,
grey-haired, rather portly man, who had crowned his career as a
Sheffield steel manufacturer by receiving a knighthood.  He spoke with
the pleasant burr of the north country.

"Well, the noise of the guns was terrific," his wife went on.
"Fortunately there was no panic whatever in the theatre.  The people
were splendid.  The manager at once came on the stage and urged us all
to keep our seats--and most people did so.  But it was most alarming--
wasn't it, Herbert?"

"Yes, dear, it really was," replied her husband, who, turning to me,
asked: "What were you doing at that time, Munro?"

"Well, Sir Herbert, to tell the truth I happened to be out at Hendon
with my friend Ashton, preparing for a flight this morning.  I got hold
of a military biplane which had just been finished and had only had its
last tests that afternoon, but as I had no bombs, and not even a rifle,
I was unable to go up."

"And if you had gone?"  Eastwell chimed in.  "I fear, Claude, that you
would never have reached them in time.  They flew far too high, and
were, I understand, moving off before our men could get up.  Our Flying
Corps fellows were splendid, but the airships were at too great an
altitude.  They rose very high as they approached London--according to
all reports."

"And the reports are pretty meagre," I remarked.  "I only know that I
was anxious and eager to go up, but as I had not the necessary defensive
missiles it was utterly useless to make the attempt."

"Nevertheless, I believe our anti-aircraft guns drove them off very
quickly, didn't they?"  Lionel asked.

"Not before they'd done quite enough damage and killed innocent old
persons and non-combatants.  Then they went away, and bombed other
defenceless towns as they passed--the brutes!" said Lady Lethmere.

"And writers in to-day's papers declare that all this is really of no
military significance," remarked Sir Herbert, glancing fiercely across
the table, a stout, red-faced man, full of fiery fight.

"Military significance is an extremely wide term," I ventured to remark.
"London heard the bombs last night.  To-day we are no longer outside
the war-zone.  We used, in the good old Victorian days, to sing
confidently of our `tight little island.'  But it is no longer tight.
It seems to me that it is very leaky--and its leakage is towards those
across the North Sea who have for so long declared themselves our
friends.  Friends!  I remember, and not so very long ago, standing on
the Embankment and watching the All-Highest Kaiser coming from the
Mansion House with a huge London crowd cheering him as their friend."

"Friend!" snorted Sir Herbert.  "He has been far too clever for us.  He
has tricked us in every department of the State.  Good King Edward knew;
and Lord Roberts knew, but alas! our people were lulled to sleep by the
Kaiser's pretty speeches to his brave Brandenburgers and all the rest,
and his pious protests that his only weapon was the olive branch of
peace."

"Yet Krupp's and Ehrhardt's worked on night and day," I said.  "Food,
metals, money and war-materials were being collected each month and
stored in order to prepare for the big blow for which the Emperor had
been so long scheming and plotting."

"Yes, truly the menace of the Zeppelin is most sinister," said Roseye
across the table.  "How can we possibly fight it?  We seem to be
powerless!  Our lawyers are busy making laws and fining people for not
creeping about in the darkness at night, and asking us to save so as to
pay ex-ministers their big pensions, but what can we do?"

"Rather ask whom can we trust?"  I suggested.

"But, surely, Claude, there must arise very soon some real live man who
will show us the way to win the war?" asked Roseye.

I drew a long breath.  She knew our secret--the secret of that long dark
shed out at Gunnersbury which was watched over at night by the sturdy
old Theed, father of my mechanic, he being armed with a short length of
solid rubber tyre from the wheel of an old disused brougham--about the
best weapon of personal defence that could ever be adopted.  A blow from
that bit of flexible rubber would lay out a man senseless, far better
than any iron bar.

"Well," said Sir Herbert, re-entering our discussion.  "The Zeppelin
peril must be grappled with--but who can enter the lists?  You airmen
don't seem to be able to combat it at all!  Are aeroplanes too slow--or
what?"

"No, Sir Herbert," I replied.  "That's not the point.  There are many
weaknesses in the aeroplane, which do not exist in the big airship--the
cruiser of the air.  We are only the butterflies--or perhaps hornets, as
the Cabinet Minister once termed us--but I fear we have not yet shown
much sting."

"We may, Claude!" interrupted Roseye with a gay laugh.

"Let's hope we can," I said.  "But all these new by-laws are, surely,
useless.  Let's hit the Hun in his home.  That's my point of view.  We
can do it--if only we are allowed."

"I'm quite sure of that, Claude," Roseye declared.  "There are lots of
flying-men who, if given bombs to-morrow, would go up and cross to the
enemy aircraft centres in Belgium or Schleswig and drop them--even at
risk of being shot down."

"Well, Sir Herbert," I ventured, laughing, "the situation is not without
its humour.  I don't know whether it has ever occurred to you that, in
order not to unduly alarm the public, we may yet have certain
regulations posted upon our hoardings that may prohibit Zeppelin
commanders from cruising over England without licences; that they must
have red rear-lights; they must put silencers upon their engines, and
must not throw orange peel, paper bags, bottle or other refuse within
the meaning of the Act into the streets in such a manner as to cause any
danger to foot-passengers or create litter such as would come beneath
the powers relegated to inspectors of nuisances of Boroughs.  Such
regulations might, perhaps, make it a penal offence if Zeppelins did not
keep to the left in traffic; if bombs were dropped in places other than
those properly and purposely illuminated for the purpose, or if they did
not travel at a rate faster than the British aircraft."

"Really, Claude, that's an awfully humorous idea," remarked Sir Herbert
as all at table laughed.

"In addition, it might be suggested that the heads of all dogs, ducks,
cats, parrots, and the horns of gramophones might be encased in
cotton-wool to conceal their whereabouts, that no smoking be permitted,
and no artificial light between one hour before sunset and one hour
after sunrise."

"Exactly," I laughed.  "And an inter-departmental committee of the
red-tabbed might be charged with the due execution of the regulations--
all offenders to be shot at sunrise following the day whereon any breach
of the Defence of the Zeppelin Act were committed."

"Really you're too bad!" declared Eastwell, laughing heartily as he held
his glass poised in his hand.

"Well," I protested.  "Here we've had Zeppelins killing people.  Surely
something must be done!  Either regulate the Zeppelin traffic, or else
fight them."

"I'm all for the latter," declared Roseye.

"So am I," was my remark.

"And I also," declared Eastwell.  "_But how_?--that's the question!"

Roseye exchanged glances with me, and I wondered whether he noticed
them.

Somehow I had just a faint suspicion that he did, for I detected a
curious expression upon his lips--a look such as I had never seen there
before.

He made no remark, but busied himself with the excellently-cooked snipe
before him.

Fortunately Lionel Eastwell was not aware of our secret--the secret of
that brown deal box which we were so rapidly perfecting.

Only on the previous day Roseye had been up in the air with me across
Hampstead, Highgate, and out as far as Hatfield and home to the
aerodrome, making a further test of the potent but unseen power which we
had been able to create, and which must, if further developed, be our
strong arm by which to strike a very deadly blow against enemy airships.

"Personally," declared Sir Herbert, in his bluff, matter-of-fact way, "I
think the whole idea of air-defence from below is utterly futile.  A gun
can never hit with accuracy a moving object so high in the air and in
the dark.  What target is there?"

"Exactly," exclaimed Eastwell.  "That has always been my argument.  I've
been interested in aviation for years, and I know the enormous
difficulties which face the efforts of those who man our anti-aircraft
guns.  Searchlights and guns I contend are inadequate."

"They've hardly been tried, have they?" queried Lady Lethmere.  "And,
moreover, I seem to recollect reading that both have done some excellent
work on the French front."

"But London is not the French front," Eastwell protested.  "The
conditions are so very different."

"Then what do you suggest as a really reliable air-defence?"  Sir
Herbert inquired.

"Fight them with fast aeroplanes and bombs," Eastwell said.

"But you've just told Munro that had he gone up last night from Hendon
his flight would have been quite useless, as he would never have been
able to mount sufficiently high in the time."

"Quite so.  But we ought to have efficient air-patrols at night," was
his reply.

"Combined with properly illuminated landing-places," Roseye added.
"Otherwise more than half the airmen and observers must kill themselves
through landing in the dark without any knowledge of the direction of
the wind."

"That could all be arranged--as it no doubt will be in due course," I
said.  "The Government are not such fools as some people seem inclined
to believe.  I'm not one of those who blame the whole Government for a
few mistakes of its subordinate departments, and the incompetency of men
pitchforked, in the hurry of an unexpected war, into places for which
they are entirely unfitted.  We all know of glaring cases of that sort.
No.  Let's take heart, and look on the best side of things.  Britain is
not vanquished yet, and the heart of the true Briton beats quicker and
is fiercer than ever in its patriotism over the base enemy outrage of
the kind that was committed upon innocent Londoners last night."

"Only yesterday I was reading a popular book called _Can Germany Win_?
written by an anonymous American," remarked Sir Herbert.  "The writer
gaily informs the public that even well-directed rifle-fire can bring
the vaunted Zeppelins down, and to secure any accuracy of aim
themselves, the airships must descend to an altitude which brings them
well within the range of modern guns."

"I know!"  I laughed.  "The rubbish written about Zeppelins is simply
ludicrous.  I've read that book, which has no doubt been read by
thousands of patriotic Britons.  I remember quite well that, in it, we
are gravely informed that as far as Zeppelins were concerned the British
public may sleep comfortably in their beds.  The great thing is, we are
urged, to discount as far as possible, by reason supported by
scepticism, the terrorising tales of the Zeppelin's worth and doughty
prowess which are so brilliantly `press-agented' in Germany.  The writer
has further told us that talk never broke any bones, and the Germans are
doing a good deal of talk at the present moment to hide the defects in
their monster pets which have been detected as useless by the test of
War.  The Zeppelins, the writer told us, are comparatively negligible
quantities.  Last night's raid is the commentary."

"Yes," said Roseye, "something must really be done to prevent such
raids."

"But how?" queried Lionel Eastwell across the table in that slow refined
voice of his.  "It's all very well to talk like that--but you must
_act_."

Roseye and I again exchanged glances.  She knew well what was passing in
my mind.

And I remained silent.

CHAPTER SIX.

THEED'S STRANGE STORY.

The following morning while I was writing letters in my room Theed
entered, saying that his father had called and wished to see me.

A moment later the sturdy old ex-police-sergeant came in, his felt hat
in his hand, and when I had sat him beside the fire I saw an unusual
expression upon his grey, furrowed countenance.

"I've come up, sir," he said, "because something curious 'appened at the
shed lars' night."

"Happened--what's happened?"  I asked, staring at him.

"Well--something I can't quite make out, sir.  But I thought I ought to
report at once."

"Tell me, by all means, Theed," I said, instantly interested.

"Well, sir.  There were strangers about lars' night."

"Strangers!  Who?"  I asked, recollecting Teddy's allegations on the
night of our successful test.

"Well--it was like this, Mr Munro," the old fellow began.  "I went on
at nine o'clock as usual, and met Harry there.  We talked together about
half an hour, and then he left.  I 'ad a pipe in front o' the stove and
sat readin' the war news--as I always do.  I expect I must 'ave dozed
for a bit, but I woke up at eleven, 'ad another pipe and read a bit more
of my paper.  I heard Chiswick church-clock strike twelve, and then,
after makin' up the stove again, I 'ad another doze, as I generally do.
Of a sudden I was woke up by hearin' low whisperin'.  My lamp was out--
it 'ad gone out because I 'adn't much oil.  But I was on the alert in a
moment, for I saw the light of an electric torch a movin' about at the
other end of the shed, and two figures were a gropin' about and
whisperin'.  I'll swear one was a woman!"

"A woman!"  I gasped.  "What did you do?"

"I took up my bit o' rubber tyre, bent down, and crept noiselessly
along.  It seemed as if they were examining those three electric coils,
and were perhaps a tryin' to find the box what--"

"Happily, I took the precaution to bring it away yesterday afternoon,
and have it here, in the next room," I interrupted.

"Good.  Excellent, sir!  My idea is that they were after that there box.
I'm dead certain of it," old Theed said.  "Well, I bent well below the
benches and nearly got up to 'em in order to flash my lamp, an' so take
'em by surprise, when, of a sudden, somebody clipped me hard over the
'ead, and I knew nothing more till I awoke at daylight, and found this!"
he added, pointing to a spot on the back of his head upon which was a
big lump and a large piece of black sticking-plaster.

"Then there must have been a third person present--eh?"

"There must!  He'd evidently been a watchin' me, and struck me down,
just as I was a comin' up to the pair with the torch."

"You say you saw a woman.  Did you also see the man's face?"

"No, I didn't.  And I only knew that there was a woman there by the
black fur she wore around her throat.  I was right at the opposite end
of the shed, remember, and I only saw 'er just for a second--a biggish
woman's white face and the black fur."

"You didn't see the person who knocked you down?"

"No, I didn't--the cursed blackguard," was old Theed's quick reply.
"Had I seen him, I'd 'ave given 'im a taste of my bit o' rubber--I tell
yer.  He wouldn't 'ave been sensible yet--you bet!"

"But how did they get in?"  I asked, amazed at his story.

"Get in?  Why, they seem to 'ave 'ad a latch-key.  At any rate they
opened the door with a duplicate key that they'd got from somewhere.
There's no sign of 'em having broken in."

For a few moments I stood in silence, then Theed's son having called a
taxi, I got in and took our faithful night-watchman down to Gunnersbury.

There, on the spot, he explained to me exactly what had occurred in the
night, giving a dramatic demonstration of how he had crept up to the
intruders, and pointing out the spot where he had fallen, and where,
indeed, there were some palpable blood-spots from the wound in his head.

"While I lay 'ere, sir," he added, "the three of 'em, of course, just
pried into everything they wanted to see, and then went out, closin' the
door after them.  It was just after eight this morning when I came to,
and I tell you I felt quite dazed, and horrible bad!"

"What time do you think all this happened?"  I inquired.

"In the middle of the night--between two and three o'clock--I should
say."

Careful investigation which I made of the whole apparatus disclosed that
nothing whatever had been interfered with--except one thing.  Two wires
connecting the big induction coils had evidently been disconnected, for
they had been wrongly connected up, thus showing that the strangers,
whoever they had been, might have made certain experiments with our
plant.

Happily, however, that big brown deal box had not been there, and I
smiled within myself at the bitter disappointment which must have been
theirs.  In any case, our great secret was still safe.

"Well," I said.  "You certainly had a most exciting adventure, Theed.
We'll have to set a trap for these gentry in future.  Just think out
something, will you, and Mr Ashton and I will help you.  If they come
again we might put in a little electric `juice' which will effectively
stop them from meddling with our things in future.  They might get a
very nasty jar," I added, laughing.

"But 'ow do you think they got hold of that duplicate key, sir?" asked
the grey-haired old pensioner.

I hesitated.  The whole affair was a most complete mystery, and only
went to bear out Teddy's declaration that, on the night of our test,
somebody must have been about and expressed sudden surprise at its
astounding result.

From the telephone call-box inside Hammersmith Broadway station I rang
up Teddy at Hendon, and asked him to meet me there after lunch.

This he did, and as together we walked away from the hangars, so as not
to be overheard, I related to him the strange story, as told by old
Theed.

He stood astounded.

"Somebody knows, my dear Claude!  Who _can_ it be?"

"Who knows?  Only ourselves, Roseye and the Theeds.  Nobody else," was
my quick reply.

Then, suddenly, he said: "I suppose Roseye couldn't have dropped any
hint to her father?  If so, the latter might have spoken to Eastwell--or
somebody else!"

"Roseye made to me a solemn promise of secrecy, and I trust her, Teddy,"
I said very quietly.

"So do I, my dear fellow.  So do I," he assured me.

"Well--I can't fathom the mystery at all.  Evidently they were on some
desperate errand--or they wouldn't have knocked poor old Theed
senseless--eh?  And the woman!  Who could she have been?"

"Who knows?"  I asked.  "Nevertheless, we must make it our business to
find out, my dear chap," I added in earnestness.  "We've got secret
enemies somewhere--probably around us here.  Indeed, that has been my
firm conviction for some time."

"And mine also.  So let us keep open eyes everywhere.  Where's Roseye?
Is she coming over this afternoon?"

"I expect her every minute.  She'll be astounded and excited."

"You won't tell her--shall you?  It will only alarm her, Claude--and I
never advocate alarming a woman."

I paused.  Instantly I realised the weight of such an argument, for
Roseye was, after all, a dainty and highly-strung little person, who
might worry herself over the mystery far too much.

"Yes, Teddy," I said somewhat reluctantly.  "I quite agree.  At present
we'd best leave matters as they are, and keep our own counsel."

Hardly were those words out of my mouth when we saw my well-beloved,
with face flushed in glad welcome, coming across to us.  She had
evidently arrived in her car, and already put on her air-kit, for, it
being a fine afternoon, she intended to make a flight.

The Zeppelin raid upon London had set the whole aircraft world agog.
Every one at Hendon and Brooklands was full of it, most men criticising
the air-services, of course, and declaring vaguely that "something must
really be done."

It was so very easy to make such a declaration.  Old men in their
easy-chairs in the London club-windows were saying that very same thing,
but nobody could, with truth, point out any real effective remedy
against what certain Hide-the-Truth newspapers described as "the German
gas-bags."

A lot of people were about the aerodrome that afternoon, and Teddy went
off to test his engine, while Roseye, drawing on her thick gloves,
mounted into her machine which her mechanic had brought out for her.

"I shall run over to Aylesbury and back," she told me.  "I know the
railway line.  Shall you go up?"

"Probably," I replied, as I stood beside her Duperdussin watching her
man adjusting one of the stays which he seemed to think was not quite
tight enough.  Then, a few moments later, she shot from me with a fierce
blast of the exhaust, and in a few seconds had left the ground, rapidly
rising in the air.

I watched her for some minutes as she skimmed over the tree-tops and
rose higher and higher, then satisfying myself that her engine was
running well.  I turned and crossed to the shed wherein stood my own
bus, with the ever-patient Theed awaiting me.

The Breguet was brought out, and with a few idlers standing about me, as
they always do at Hendon, I climbed into the pilot's seat and began to
test my big engine.  It roared and spluttered at first, but gradually,
with Theed's aid--and he was a splendid mechanic by the way--I got it to
run with perfect evenness and precision.

Why, I don't know, but my bus usually attracted some onlookers.  About
the aerodrome we always have a number of idle persons with a sprinkling
of the eternal feminine silk-stockinged hangers-on to the pilots and
pupils who, not being able to fly, do the next best thing, become
friends of flying-men.  In that little knot of people gathered about my
machine--probably on account of the Zeppelin sensation--I noted, in
particular, one podgy fat-faced little man.

As I strapped myself into the pilot's seat, after examining my
altimeter, compass, etc, and adjusting my self-registering thermometer,
I chanced to glance at the people around, and had noticed the man in
question.  His strange-looking bead-like eyes fascinated me.  Upon his
round white face was a look of intense interest, yet those eyes, rather
narrowly set, struck me as queer-looking and uncanny--eyes such as I had
never seen before.

Suddenly I wondered if their gaze upon me was some evil omen.

Next second I laughed within myself at such an absurd thought.  It was
the first time in all my life that such an idea had ever crossed my
mind, therefore I at once dismissed it.  Such thought was most foolish
and utterly ridiculous.

Yet, again, I glanced at him, unable to withdraw my gaze entirely.
Those dark, beady eyes of his, set slightly askew, were certainly most
uncanny.  Their gaze seemed cold and relentless, and yet at the same
time exulting.

Sight of them sent through me a strange creepy feeling, but, with
resolution, I turned away, busying myself in my preparations for
starting.

Perhaps it was knowledge that strangers had been prying into our
experimental plant out at Gunnersbury that had somewhat upset me, yet,
after all, though they had cruelly assaulted poor old Theed, no very
great success had been theirs.

Who were they?  That was the vital question.

Just as I was on the point of starting I saw Lionel Eastwell coming from
the hangar, walking behind his own machine, which was being pushed out
by his man Barnes and two others.

I waved to him from my seat, and he waved a merry greeting back to me.

Then, all being ready, I motioned to Theed to let her go, and with a
deafening rush I shot forward, leaving behind a pungent blue trail from
the big exhaust.

I rose quickly and had begun the ascent, the engine running beautifully,
when of a sudden, before I was aware of it, something went wrong.

A sharp crack, a harsh tearing sound, and one of my wings collapsed.
Across the back I was struck a most violent blow just as she took a
nose-dive, and then, next instant, all knowledge of what had happened
became blotted out by a dark night of unconsciousness.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

REVEALS A PLOT.

The next that I recollect is, with my brain awhirl, I tried to open my
eyes, but so painful were they, that I was compelled to close them again
in fearful agony.

Somebody whispered close to me, but my mind was too muddled to
understand what was said.

My eyes burned in their sockets; my brain seemed unbalanced and aflame.
I tried to think, but alas! could not.  When I tried to recollect, all
remembrance of the past seemed as though it were wrapped up in
cotton-wool.

How long I remained in that comatose state I have no idea.

Some unknown hand forced between my teeth a few drops of liquid, which
with difficulty I swallowed.  This revived me, I know, for slowly--very
slowly--the frightful pain across my brow decreased, and my burning eyes
became easier until, at last, blinking, I managed to open them just a
little.

All was dead white before me--the white wall of a hospital-ward I
eventually discovered it to be--and as I gazed slowly around, still
dazed and wondering, I saw a man in black, a doctor, with two nurses
standing anxiously beside my bed.

"Hulloa, Mr Munro," he exclaimed softly.  "You're better now, aren't
you?"

"Yes," I whispered.  "But--but where am I?"

"Never mind where you are.  Just go to sleep again for a bit," the
doctor urged.  "You're all right--and you'll very soon be up again,
which is the one thing that matters," I heard him say.

"But, tell me--" I articulated with great difficulty.

"I shan't tell you anything, just yet," said the man in black firmly.
"Just go to sleep again, and don't worry.  Here.  Take this," and he
placed a little medicine-glass to my parched lips.

The effect of the drug was sleep--a long sleep it must have been--for
when I again awoke it was night, and I saw a stout, middle-aged
night-nurse seated at my side, reading beneath a green-shaded lamp.

As soon as she noticed me moving she gave me another draught, and then,
thoroughly revived, I inquired of her what had actually happened.

I saw her motion to some one behind her, and next moment found Roseye
bending over me, pale-faced and anxious.

"Oh!  I'm so glad, dear," she whispered eagerly into my ear.  "Once we
thought you would never recover, and--and I've been watching and waiting
all the time.  They wouldn't let me see you until to-night.  Teddy has
been here constantly, and he only left at midnight."

"But--darling--but what has happened?"  I managed to ask, looking up
into those dear eyes of hers utterly amazed.

"May I tell him, nurse?" she inquired, turning to the buxom woman beside
her.

The nurse nodded assent, whereupon she said:

"Well--you've had a nasty spill!  One of your wings suddenly buckled--
and you fell.  It's a perfect miracle that you were not killed.  I saw
the accident just as I was going up in a spiral, and came down again as
fast as ever I could.  When I reached you, I found you pinned beneath
the engine, and everybody believed you to be stone-dead.  But, happily,
they got you out--and brought you here."

"What is this place?"  I asked, gazing around in wonderment.  "Where am
I?"

"The Hendon Cottage Hospital," was her reply.

"How long have I been here?"

"Four days.  The papers have had a lot about your accident."

"The papers make a lot of ado about nothing," I replied, smiling.  "To
them, every airman who happens to have a nose-dive is a hero.  But how
did it happen?"

"Nobody knows.  You seemed to be ascending all right, when suddenly I
saw your right-hand plane collapse, and you came down plumb," she said.
"As you may imagine, darling, I rushed back, fearing the worst, and
through these four awful days I have dreaded that you might never speak
to me again."

"What does Theed say?"

"What can he say?  He has declared that before you started everything
was perfectly in order."

"Has Teddy examined the bus?"

"I think so, but he's entirely mystified--just as we all are," said my
well-beloved.  "Dad and mother are dreadfully worried about you."

"Thanks," I replied.  "I'll be all right soon--but I'm stiff--jolly
stiff, I can tell you!"

"That doesn't matter," said the nurse cheerily.  "No bones are broken,
and Doctor Walford has said that you'll be up again very soon."

"Well--thanks for that," I replied with a smile.  "My chief desire at
the present moment is to know why my machine failed.  Yet I suppose I
ought to be thankful to Providence that I wasn't killed--eh?"

"Yes, Claude, you ought.  Your smash was a very bad one indeed."

"Has the guv'nor been here?"

"Every day.  But of course you've been under Doctor Walford, and he's
not allowed anyone to see you."

"I suppose the guv'nor has been saying to everybody, `I told you so,'" I
remarked.  "He had always said I'd kill myself, sooner or later.  My
reply was that I'd either fly, or kill myself in the attempt.  Have
there been any more Zeppelin raids while I've been lying here?"

"No raids, but gossip has it that Zeppelins have been as far as the
coast and were afterwards driven off by our anti-aircraft guns."

"Good.  When will Teddy be here?"  I asked, raising myself with
considerable difficulty.

"In the morning," was my love's response, as she took my hand in hers,
stroking it softly, after which I raised her slim fingers to my lips.

Seeing this, the nurse discreetly left us, strolling to the other end of
the ward, in which there were about twenty beds, while Roseye, bending
down to me, whispered in my ear:

"You can't tell how I feel, dear Claude, now that God, in His great
goodness, has given you back to me," and she cried quietly, while again
and again I pressed her soft little hand to my hot, fevered lips.

Teddy Ashton, bright and cheery at news of my recovery, stood by my bed
at about nine o'clock next morning.  The doctor had seen me and cheered
me by saying that I would soon be out.  My first questions of Teddy were
technical ones as to how the accident happened.

"I really can't tell, old chap," was his reply.  "I've had the bus put
into the hangar and locked up for you to see it just as it is."

"Is it utterly wrecked?"  I inquired anxiously, for I feared the
guv'nor's wrath and his future disinclination to sign any more cheques.

"No.  Not so much as we expected.  One plane is smashed--the one that
buckled.  But, somehow, you seemed to first make a nose-dive, then
recover, and glide down to a bad landing."

"But how could it possibly have happened?"  I demanded.  "All was right
when I went up, I'm certain.  Theed would never have let me go without
being perfectly satisfied.  That I know."

"No, he wouldn't," Teddy agreed.  "But the affair has caused a terrible
sensation at Hendon, I can tell you."

In an instant the recollection of that podgy man, with those black eyes
set askew, crossed my mind.

Yes.  After all, sight of him had been an omen of evil.  Hitherto I had
scorned any such idea, but now I certainly had positive proof that one
might have a precursor of misfortune.  I deeply regretted the accident
to my Breguet for, not knowing the true extent of the damage, I began to
despair of bringing our secret experiments to a satisfactory issue.

"Look here, Claude," Teddy said at last, bending over me and speaking in
a low tone.  "Has it struck you as rather peculiar that the appearance
of those strangers at Gunnersbury should have been followed so quickly
by this accident of yours?"

"By Jove! no!"  I gasped, as the true import of his words became
instantly impressed upon me.

"We have enemies, Teddy--you and I--without a doubt.  We've made a
discovery which is destined to upset the enemy's plans--therefore they
want to wipe us, and all our knowledge, out of existence.  That's what
you mean--isn't it?"

My chum nodded in the affirmative.

"That's exactly what I do mean," he said in a hard, meaning tone.

"Then my accident was due to treachery!"  I cried angrily.  "We must
discover how it was all arranged."

"Yes.  Somebody, no doubt, tampered with your machine," Teddy declared
very gravely.  "Because I believe this, I've left it just as it was, and
locked it up safely with a man to look after it.  We'll examine it
together later on, when you're fit to run over."

Well, to cut a long story short, we did examine it about a week later.
With Harry Theed, Teddy and Roseye, we made a very complete survey of
every strainer, wing-flap hinge, nut-bolt, taper-pin, eye-bolt, in fact
every part of the machine, save the engine--which was quite in order and
practically undamaged.

For a whole day we worked away, failing to discover anything, but late
in the afternoon I noticed one of the bolts missing, and called the
attention of both my companions.

"By Jove!" exclaimed Teddy.  "Why, that's the weak spot where the plane
must have buckled!"  Then, bending closer to the hole in which the
missing steel bolt should have been, he cried: "Look!  What do you make
of this--eh, Claude?"

I bent eagerly to where he indicated, and there saw something which
caused me to hold my breath.

In the hole where the steel bolt should have been was a plug of broken
wood!

Wood!  The truth became, in that instant, quite plain.  The tested steel
bolt, which was most important to secure the rigidity of the aeroplane,
had been withdrawn, and in its socket a plug of wood had been placed by
some dastardly and unknown enemy!

The Invisible Hand, of which I had spoken so many times, had very
narrowly sent me to my death!

Who could have tampered with my machine?

All four of us stood gazing at each other, aghast at the discovery of
that wicked plot against my life.  My escape had been miraculous.  I had
risen easily from the ground, the wooden bolt holding the plane in
position, but as soon as I had attempted to turn, strain had, of course,
been placed upon the machine, and instantly the wood had snapped, so
that I had come down to earth like a log.

"If there is a desperate plot against me, Roseye," I said, looking
straight at her, "then there is, surely, a similar one against you, and
also against Teddy.  Our enemies are desperate, and they know a good
deal--that's certain.  Perhaps they have somehow learnt that we four
possess the secret of how the Zeppelin menace can be combated.  No
secret however is safe from the owner of the Invisible Hand.  Hence, if
an attempt is made to send me to my death--attempts will also be made
against you both."

"Well--that seems quite feasible--at any rate," remarked Teddy.  "I
don't think Roseye should go up again--just for the present."

"Certainly not," I said.  "There's some deep-laid and desperate scheme
against us.  Of that, I'm now convinced.  Our enemies do not mean to
allow us to conduct any further experiments--if they can help it."

"But they don't know the truth, Claude," chimed in Roseye.

"No.  They are working most strenuously to get at it.  That's quite
clear."

"But who can they be?" asked my well-beloved.

"Ah!  That's a mystery--at least it is at the present.  It is a very
serious problem which we must seek to solve."

"But we shall do so, sooner or later, never fear," Teddy exclaimed
confidently.  "We hold the secret, and our enemies, whoever they may be,
shall never learn it."

A silence fell between us for several moments.

At last I said:

"I wonder who that woman was that old Theed declares he saw on that
night out at Gunnersbury?"

"Ah! if we knew that, my dear chap, we might make some progress in our
inquiries.  But we don't," Teddy said.  "Her identity is just as much of
a mystery as that of the owner of the Invisible Hand--that hand that
took out the steel bolt and replaced it with one of wood."

"But I mean to discover the author of this infernal attempt upon me!"  I
exclaimed fiercely.  "Whoever did it intended that I should be killed."

"Never mind.  You've cheated them finely, Claude," Teddy laughed.  "Get
quite well, old man, and we'll set to work to fathom this mystery, and
give whoever is responsible his just deserts."

"That we will," I said resolutely.  "It's the dirty work of somebody who
is jealous of us."

"Yes.  And I think that Miss Lethmere ought to exercise the very
greatest care," he remarked.  "As they failed in their attempt upon you,
they may very probably make one upon her."

"By Jove!  I never thought of that!"  I gasped, staring at my friend.
"And they might form a plot against you also--remember that, Teddy."

"Quite likely," said my chum airily.  "I'll keep wide awake, never fear.
What about getting old Theed to suggest some good private detective?"

"No," was my prompt reply.  "We'll be our own detectives.  We'll watch
and wait."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

SOME SUSPICIONS.

We waited, and we watched.  And what we were able to discover was
certainly astounding.

During my convalescence many of my flying friends called at my rooms in
Shaftesbury Avenue to congratulate me upon my narrow escape.

I had been shaken very considerably, but actually I was not much the
worse for it.  I felt quite fit and eager, but the doctor would not hear
of me going out, except for a run in a closed car.

The real cause of my accident was kept a profound secret from every one.

The governor thought it was due to clumsiness or recklessness, and I
was, of course, compelled to allow him to think so.  Sir Herbert and
Lady Lethmere, who called one afternoon, appeared to hold the same
opinion, for the red-faced old steel manufacturer said:

"You must really be more careful, in future, my dear boy--far more
careful.  Accidents so quickly happen in aeroplanes."

"Yes, accidents do," I admitted.  It was on the tip of my tongue to
explain to him how some devilish plotter had attempted to take my life.

I was constantly haunted by the remembrance of a face--the face of that
man in the crowd with the eyes askew.  As I sat alone at my fireside,
often reading the papers through, even to the advertisements, and out of
patience with everything and everybody, those narrow beady eyes would
rise before me.  I would recognise that face with the curious exultant
expression anywhere.

After long debate within myself I had come to the conclusion, however,
that the man with the eyes askew was not actually the person who had
substituted in my machine a wooden bolt for a steel one.

I recollect the expression upon that hard, furrowed countenance even
now--a wildly exultant expression as though he were gloating over the
death-trap so cunningly prepared for me.  Yet, when I reflected during
my convalescence, I knew that no lunatic's hand was responsible for such
crafty contrivance, and further, the person who had withdrawn the steel
bolt would certainly not come forth so boldly to peer into my face as
that podgy little stranger had done.

No.  The man with the eyes askew might, perhaps, have gained secret
knowledge of the dastardly plot, and come there to watch me rise to my
death.  But I was confident that his was not the Invisible Hand that had
been raised against me.

From everybody--even from Lionel Eastwell and the insurance people--we
concealed the truth.  Lionel, who lived in Albemarle Street, not far
away often came in to cheer me up, sitting with me, consuming
cigarettes, expressing wonder at the reason of my accident, and
gossiping technicalities, as airmen will always gossip.  Indeed, at the
Royal Automobile Club the air "boys" are the biggest gossips in that
institution--which, not so long ago, Prince Henry of Prussia so
completely "nobbled."

Reminiscences of the "Prince Henry Motor Tour" through England have not
been exactly popular since August 1914--and any member mentioning His
Imperial Highness's name had become at once taboo.  The remembrance of
that tour through the heat and dust of the Moselle valley, and
afterwards from south to north of England, is still with me.  My pilot
in Germany was a certain Uhlan captain, who afterwards distinguished
himself as responsible for the atrocities committed upon the poor
inoffensive Belgians in Dinant, on the Meuse.  The lives of seven
hundred of those poor victims, men, women and children butchered in cold
blood in the Grand Place outside the church with the bulgy spire cries
out for vengeance upon that fair-haired spick-and-span Prussian who sat
beside me for many days chatting so amiably in English, and assuring me
that Germany would ever be Great Britain's firmest friend and ally.

Ah!  How cleverly were we all bamboozled!  Whenever I entered the
portals of the club I remembered, as many of my fellow-members did, how
completely we were gulled and blinded by that horde of German secret
agents who came to us as friends and fellow-motorists, and partook of
our hospitality while actively plotting for our undoing.

Lionel Eastwell sat discussing this with me one dark rainy afternoon.

"There's no doubt that the Germans held out the hand of friendship and
laughed up their sleeves," he said, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke
upwards from his lips.  "Now that one remembers, one grows furious at it
all.  I confess that I liked Germany and the Germans.  My people went to
Germany each summer, for the mater was a bit of a musician, and we
usually drifted to Dresden.  I suppose I inherited from her my love of
music, and that's why I was sent to Dresden for a couple of years'
tuition."

"And did you never suspect?"  I asked.  "Remember what Lord Roberts and
many others told us.  Recollect how we were warned by men who had
travelled, and who knew."

"Of course I read all those speeches and writings, but I confess,
Claude, that I laughed at them.  I never dreamed that war would come--
not for another twenty years or more.  I was lulled into a sense of
false security, just as our Government and people were lulled."

"True, Germany told us fables--pretty land, sea and air fables--and we
were childish enough to believe them.  If peace had been the Kaiser's
object, why did Krupp's and Ehrhardt's work night and day and Count
Zeppelin carry on his frantic work of building giant airships?"  I
queried.  "The greatest block head in a village school, with the true
facts before him, could have done nothing else than suspect.  But we are
such a smug and unsuspicious people.  We never like to hear an
unpleasant truth."

"True, we're aroused now.  This Zeppelin raid on London has inflamed the
public mind.  The people are clamouring loudly for something to be done.
What can be done?" he asked.  "How can we possibly fight those enemy
airships--eh?"  And he looked me straight in the face with those calm
blue-grey eyes of his.

I paused.

I would have greatly liked to tell him of our secret discovery, for,
after all, he was our most intimate friend.  Yet I had given a promise
to Roseye and to Teddy and, therefore, could not break it.

That Lionel Eastwell was a real stolid John Bull patriot had been proved
times without number.  We all liked him, for he was ever courteous to
Roseye, and always wholehearted and easy-going with both Teddy and
myself.

"You ask a question which I can't answer, Lionel," I replied at last.

"I thought, perhaps, you had some scheme," he laughed airily.  "You're
always so very inventive."

Those words, when I remembered them in the light of after events,
sounded somewhat curious.

"Inventive!"  I laughed.  "How can I put forward any scheme by which to
fight an airship, except that of fast aeroplanes capable of mounting
above the airship and dropping bombs?  And, surely, that's one which our
Aircraft Factory have considered long ago."

Lionel shook his head in reply.

"No.  There must be some other mode than that--if we could only discover
it.  That poor women and children are being blown to pieces while in
their beds is too terrible to contemplate," he declared.  "To-day Great
Britain seems inadequately defended.  But somebody will, of course,
devise something.  We can't remain defenceless much longer.  Whenever an
arm of war has been invented, ever since the dark ages, somebody has
always invented something to combat it.  It will be so in the case of
the Zeppelin--never fear," he added confidently.

"Let's hope so," I replied, yet, truth to tell, it seemed to me very
much as though he were trying to pump me regarding the secrets of that
brown deal box which was reposing in a locked cupboard in the adjoining
room.  Perhaps, of course, mine was an entirely ungrounded suspicion.
But there it was.  I hesitated--and wondered.

At that moment Theed--who acted as my mechanic, valet, and
man-of-all-work--rapped at the door and, entering, announced:

"Miss Lethmere, sir."

Next instant Roseye, merry and radiant in a new fur motor-coat and
close-fitting black hat, burst into the room.

She drew back on seeing Lionel, and then, recovering herself in an
instant, exclaimed:

"Oh, Claude, I--thought you were alone!  How are you to-day?  I've
brought you some flowers."

"Thanks, dear," I replied.  "I'm feeling much better to-day.  Teddy was
in this morning, and he told me that you'd made a flight soon after
breakfast.  How far did you go?  I thought you intended to rest for a
bit?"

"I went to Chelmsford," she replied.  "I had a little engine-trouble
before I got back, and had to come down in somebody's park.  I think it
was somewhere near Watford.  But I was able to put it right and get
home, if a trifle lamely."

"So Bertie Maynard told me," remarked Lionel.  "I saw him in the club
just before lunch, and he said that you'd had engine-trouble."

"Oh, it wasn't very much really.  Only, after Claude's smash, I'm rather
careful," she said.

"One should always take every precaution," declared Lionel seriously, as
he rose and gave her his chair opposite me.  "A lot of the boys are far
too daring nowadays.  They've followed Pegoud, and take needless risks
long before they are qualified to do so.  It's easy enough to make the
sensational loop if you are a practised hand.  But when half-trained
pupils try and attempt it--well, they're bound to make a mess of it."

Roseye glanced at me for a moment, and I knew that she was annoyed at
Lionel's presence.  He was a good enough fellow in his place as a friend
of her family, and a gossip who entertained her father so constantly,
but she had no desire that he should be present at what she had intended
should be a cosy _tete-a-tete_ over our tea and muffins.

"Well.  Have you seen the papers to-day?"  I asked, in order to change
the subject.  "They are still full of the want of an efficient
air-defence."

"That will come all right, my dear Claude, I'm sure," replied Lionel
who, leaning back against the corner of my writing-table, had lit a
fresh cigarette.

"I sincerely hope so," returned Roseye.  "What we sadly need is a Man
who will be really responsible for air-defence--and air-defence alone--
one who can make the most of the weapons that are now in our hands, and
who has the wit, courage and initiative to use our own splendid airmen
as they themselves desire to be employed--namely, to fight the enemy."

"Quite so," I agreed.  "We also want arrangements for warning the towns
and cities that air-raids are probable, so that people may take cover
against both bombs and splinters of shell from anti-aircraft guns."

"All that will come in due course," Lionel assured us.

"No doubt," I hastened to say.  "Please understand that I'm not
criticising any department of our defences.  On the contrary, I only
argue from the point of the man who may be desirous of protecting his
home.  Perhaps, as you say, some efficient means will at last be found
by which to deal successfully with the enemy aircraft.  If so, the whole
country will eagerly welcome it."

"What we don't like is attacks without any timely warning," said Roseye.

Lionel smiled--with a touch of sarcasm I thought.

"There won't be any more raids for a bit, I feel positive, Miss
Lethmere," was his assurance.  "Our friends across the North Sea are not
yet fully prepared with their machinery.  The raid on the thirteenth was
but a mere rehearsal of what they hope to do.  And, as you argue, we
should certainly be prepared."

"You speak almost as though you know," I remarked, not without some
surprise at his words.

"I only speak after surveying the matter calmly and logically," was his
slow reply.  "The German newspapers have--ever since the early days of
the war--threatened to bombard London from the air.  This last raid has
shown that they are capable of doing so."

"They're capable of anything!"  I cried.  "Remember Scarborough!"

"And Belgium," chimed in Roseye.

"Well," said Lionel to me.  "You make all sorts of experiments on your
new propellers and things down at Gunnersbury.  Why don't you try and
devise some plan by which we can destroy Zeppelins?  You're always so
intensely ingenious, Claude."

"So you've just said.  But far better men than myself have tried--and
failed," was my diplomatic response.

"But surely some means can be devised!" he cried.  "Our flying-boys are
splendid, as you know--and--"

"Except when they come to grief, as I did the other day," I interrupted
with a hard laugh.

"Well, you surely can't complain," was his answer.

"You've had the very devil's luck ever since you took your certificate."

"Admitted.  But that doesn't help me to fight Zeppelins," I replied.

"It only wants somebody to do something, to find out some new invention
or other, and the boys will tumble over each other in their eagerness to
go up after enemy airships.  Of that, I'm positive," declared Eastwell.
"You've got a lot of plant down at Gunnersbury, haven't you?  If so, you
ought to turn your serious attention to this matter which is at the
present moment of the very highest importance to the country."

Roseye glanced at me, and I saw that my visitor's words and bearing
puzzled her.

"What do you make of Lionel's questions?"  I asked her ten minutes
later, when Eastwell had risen and left, having taken the gentle hint
that I wished to be alone with Roseye over the tea and muffins.

"I don't know what to make of them, dear," replied the girl, seating
herself again in the big chair.

"Well, I've been watching him for some days," I said slowly.  "And, do
you know that, strictly between ourselves, I believe that he has some
suspicion of the direction of our experiments, and is pumping us to see
what he can glean!"

"How can he possibly know?  He is, of course, well aware that you've
been devising new propellers, but he can know nothing of our real work.
Neither Teddy nor Theed would ever let drop a single word, and, as you
know, I've never breathed a sentence at home."

"He spoke as though he knew that the enemy intended more raids--but not
just at present."

Roseye suddenly stirred herself and stared at me in amazement with those
big expressive eyes of hers.

"What? do you think--do you really suspect that Lionel Eastwell is our
enemy, Claude?" she asked, suddenly pale and breathless.

"Well--perhaps not exactly that," I replied hesitatingly.  "Only his
queer questions, naturally make one think.  We know we have enemies,
clever, unscrupulous ones who have not hesitated to attempt to take my
life.  Therefore we must both be wary--extremely wary--for we never know
where the next pitfall may be concealed."

"I quite agree with all that, dear," answered Roseye, looking at me
earnestly.  "But I really can't think that Lionel is anything else than
one of our best friends.  At least he's been a really good chum to me,
ever since we first met.  No," she added decisively, "I'm convinced that
no suspicion can attach to him.  Such an idea, Claude, is to me, too
utterly absurd."

"Yes.  Well, I suppose you're right, dearest," I replied with a sigh.
"Women always see so very much farther than men in matters of this
sort."

And I rose and, crossing to her chair, kissed her fondly upon the lips.

"I'm sorry--very sorry indeed, dearest, that I've cast any reflection
upon your friend," I said in deep apology.  "Do please forgive me, and
we'll never mention the subject again."

CHAPTER NINE.

CONTAINS MORE CURIOUS FACTS.

One afternoon a week later, when out at Hendon, I heard accidentally
from a man I knew--one of the instructors at the Grahame-White Aviation
School--that Eastwell was very queer, and in bed.

The weather proved bad for flying, therefore I sent Theed off and
returned to town.  Teddy had gone down to the naval air-station at
Yarmouth to see the test of a new seaplane, so I went along to look up
Lionel at his rooms in Albemarle Street.

His man, a thin-faced, dark-haired fellow named Edwards, who admitted
me, said that his master had had a bad attack of something, the true
import of which the doctor had failed to diagnose.

I found him lying in bed in his narrow but artistic bachelor bedroom,
looking very wan and pale.

"Hulloa, Claude!" he cried with sudden joy, as I entered.  "Awfully good
of you to come in, old chap!  I've been horribly queer these last three
days, but I'll be fit again in a day or two, the doctor says.  Well--
what's the news?  How are the boys out at Hendon?"

"All right.  I was there this morning.  Harrington had rather a bad
smash yesterday afternoon, I hear.  Came down outside Ruislip, and made
an unholy mess."

"Not hurt, I hope?"

"Tore his face and hands a bit--that's all.  But his biplane is in
scraps, they say."

He pointed to the box of cigarettes, and I took one.  Then, when I had
seated myself at his bedside, I saw that he had newspapers scattered
everywhere, including the Paris _Matin_, the _Journal_, and the Rome
_Tribuna_.  That was the first time I had known that our friend was a
linguist.

"Well," he asked.  "What about the Zeppelin raids?  Any more news?"

He had returned to the subject by which he seemed obsessed.  Yet, after
all, this was not surprising, for many people talked air-raids
incessantly.  One section of the public, as usual, blamed the
authorities, while the other supported them.

"Well," I said cheerily, "there's a new invention they are all talking
of at Hendon to-day.  Somebody has claimed to be able to construct a
biplane which will rise from the ground without running, and can attain
any speed from ten to two hundred miles an hour."

"Phew!  That's interesting," exclaimed Lionel, raising himself upon his
elbow, and taking a sip of a glass of barley-water at his side.  "And
who is this wonderful man who has such a wonderful scheme?"

"Oh, I forget his name," I said.  "But the theory, as far as I can
gather, is rather a good one.  He can rise so quickly."

"How?"

"Well," I replied.  "From what I can hear, there is a kind of rotary
wing--not a propeller and not a thing which can be classed as a
helicoptic."

Lionel Eastwell grew intensely interested in the new invention which
everybody at the aerodrome was discussing.

"Yes," he said.  "I follow.  Go on, Claude.  Tell me all you've heard
about it.  The whole thing sounds most weird and wonderful."

"Well," I said, "from what I can find out, the machine is not designed
to screw itself through the air in the direction of its axis, or, by
pushing the air downwards, to impart upward motion to the structure, as
a screw propeller in water imparts a forward motion to the vessel by
pushing the water backwards.  The biplane is designed to obtain by a
rotary motion the same upward thrust in opposition to the downward pull
of gravity as the flapping wings, and the passive outspread wings of
birds, and to obtain it by the blades being projected through the air in
such a manner as to extract and utilise the practically constant energy
of the expansive force of the air."

"By Jove!" my friend exclaimed, stirring himself in his bed.  "That
theory is very sound indeed--the soundest I've ever heard.  Who's
invented it?"

"As I've told you, I've forgotten," I replied.  "But what does it
matter?  There are hosts of new inventions every month, and the poor
misguided public who put their money into them generally lose it.  But I
quite agree that the general idea of this is splendid.  The
war-inventions authorities ought at once to take it up hot and strong.
The inventor is, no doubt, an ingenious man of thought and knowledge--
whoever he may be.  But alas! nobody ever meets with very much
encouragement in aeronautics."

"No," he said, pillowing his head comfortably.  "It is all so
mysterious.  We take on a wild-cat idea one day and manufacture machines
that are declared to work miracles.  Then, next week, we abandon the
type altogether, and woo some other smooth-tongued inventor."

"That's just it," I laughed.  "If the authorities could only adopt some
really reliable type to fight Zeppelins.  But alas! it seems that they
can't," I added.

For a few seconds he remained silent.  I saw that he was reflecting
deeply.

"Well," he said.  "We've established listening-posts all round London
for its protection."

"A real benefit they are!"  I laughed.  "We have officers and men
listening all night, it is true.  Of course as a picturesque fiction in
order to allay public curiosity they publish photographs of men
listening to things like gramophone-trumpets."

"Exactly.  The theory of that new invention is extremely sound.  That's
my opinion."

"And mine also," I said.  "I hear that the inventor has told the
authorities that if they will assist him to complete his machine--which
I expect is a costly affair--he will be able to carry out daily raids on
Cuxhaven, Essen, Dusseldorf, and even as far as Berlin; carrying several
tons of explosives."

"How many?" asked my friend.

"Oh! four or five it is said."

"Phew!" remarked Lionel, again stirring in his bed.  "That sounds really
healthy--doesn't it?"

"Yes--the realisation of the dream of every flying-man to-day," I said.

Then our conversation drifted into another channel, and, half an hour
later, I left him.

During the past few days Teddy and I had been very busy with our own
invention, and had made a number of further experiments down at
Gunnersbury.

We could easily direct the electric current upon those insulated steel
guys around our distant wireless-pole, but our difficulty was how to
increase our power without increasing the bulk of the apparatus which we
should be compelled to take up in the monoplane for purposes of
attacking a Zeppelin.

There was a limit to the weight which my Breguet with its 200
horse-power engines would carry, and though, of course, we believed it
would be unnecessary to use bombs, yet some should be carried for
purposes of defence, as well as a Lewis gun.

Therefore we were faced by a very difficult problem, that of weight.

The next day was Sunday, and Teddy having returned from Yarmouth, we
spent the whole afternoon and evening down at the workshop, making
further experiments.  I had not seen Roseye since Friday evening, which
I had spent at Lady Lethmere's, Sir Herbert being absent in Liverpool.
Therefore, as we had carried out an alteration of the apparatus and
intended to try sparking upon the pole again after dark, I rang Roseye
up on the telephone shortly after five o'clock.

Mulliner, Lady Lethmere's maid, replied, and a few minutes later Lady
Lethmere herself spoke to me.

"Oh, I've rung you up at your rooms half a dozen times to-day, Mr
Munro--but could get no answer!" she said.

"Being Sunday, my man is out," I exclaimed.  "I'm down here at
Gunnersbury."

"Can you take a taxi at once, and come over and see me?" she urged.  "I
want to speak to you immediately."

"What about?"  I asked anxiously.

"I can't say anything over the telephone," she answered in a distressed
voice.  "Do come at once, Mr Munro.  I am in such trouble."

I promised.  And after briefly relating the curious conversation to
Teddy, I found a taxi, and at once drove to Cadogan Gardens.

"Mr Munro!" exclaimed Lady Lethmere, looking at me with a pale, anxious
expression as I entered the morning-room.  "Something has happened!"

"Happened--what?"  I gasped.

"Roseye!  She went out yesterday morning to go over to Hendon to meet
you--she told me--_and she's not come back_!"

"Not back!"  I cried, staring at her.  "Where can she be?"

"Ah!  That's exactly what I want to know," replied the mother of my
well-beloved.  "I thought perhaps she might have flown somewhere and had
a breakdown, and was therefore unable to return, or to let me know last
night.  That happened, you recollect, when she came to grief while
flying over the Norfolk Broads."

"But she never arrived at Hendon yesterday," I exclaimed.  "I was there
all the morning."

"So I understand from Mr Carrington of the Grahame-White School, to
whom I telephoned this morning.  It was after learning this curious fact
that I began to try and get into communication with you."

"Well--where can she possibly be?"  I asked in blank dismay.

"The only thing I can think of is that she altered her mind at the last
moment, and went to see some friends.  She may have given a servant a
telegram to send to me, and the servant forgot to dispatch it.  Such
things have happened, you know."

I shook my head dubiously.  Knowing Roseye as I did, I knew that she
always sent important messages herself.

"One thing is certain, that she has not met with an accident while
flying, for her machine is still locked up in the hangar."

"Yes.  It is a consolation to know that she has not gone up and
disappeared."

"No," I said.  "She seems to have intended to meet me.  But we had no
appointment to meet.  My intention yesterday morning was to go over to
Gunnersbury, and I only changed my mind five minutes before I left my
rooms.  I spent part of the afternoon with Eastwell, who is queer in
bed."

"I heard that he was not well.  Roseye told me so yesterday morning
before she went out."

"I wonder how she knew?"  I exclaimed.

"I believe he spoke to her on the telephone on Friday night."

"You overheard some of their conversation, I suppose?"

"None.  She was shut up in the telephone-box, and when she came out I
asked her who had rung up.  She replied, `Oh! only Lionel!'  Next
morning, while we were at breakfast, she remarked that Mr Eastwell was
ill and in bed.  He must have told her so on the previous night."

I remained silent.  This disappearance of Roseye, following so closely
upon the dastardly attempt upon my life, caused me to pause.  It was
more than curious.  It was distinctly suspicious.

Was the Invisible Hand--the claw-grip of which had laid such a heavy
grasp upon Great Britain ever since August 1914--again at work?  Was the
clutch of that hand, which had so cunningly protected the enemy alien
and fed the Germans, again upon myself and the woman I loved?

"Lady Lethmere, this is all too amazing.  I had no idea that Roseye was
missing," I said.  "Sir Herbert has not returned, I suppose?"

"No.  I expect him to-morrow.  I have not yet sent him word.  But I must
say I am now getting most anxious."

"Of course," I said.  "We have to remember that to-day is Sunday, and
that few telegraph offices are open."

"Yet there is always the telephone," Lady Lethmere said.

I argued that, in many country places, the telephone service was not
available on Sundays and, though I felt intensely anxious, I endeavoured
to regard the matter with cheerful optimism.  I saw, however, that Lady
Lethmere, a good, kindly and most charming woman, who had ever been
genuinely friendly towards me, was greatly perturbed regarding her
daughter's whereabouts.

And surely not without cause.  Roseye had left that house at eleven
o'clock on the previous morning--dressed as usual in a navy-blue
gaberdine coat and skirt, with her skunk boa and muff, intending to
change later on into her Burberry flying-suit which she kept at Hendon.
From the moment when she had closed the front door behind her, she had
vanished into space.

Such was the enigma with which I--her lover--was at that moment faced.

I ask you, my reader, to place yourself for a moment in my position, and
to put to yourself the problem.

How would you have acted?

Would you have suspected, as I suspected, the sinister and deadly touch
of the Invisible Hand?

CHAPTER TEN.

THE TUNNEL MYSTERY.

I went back to my rooms in Shaftesbury Avenue and, in consequence of my
telephone message, Teddy came and threw himself in the chair opposite me
half an hour later, to discuss the curious disappearance of my
well-beloved.

Teddy suggested that we should report the occurrence to the police, and
give them Roseye's photograph, but I was averse to this course.  I
pointed out that, in all probability, she was with friends somewhere,
and that Monday morning would bring me a letter from her.

Well--Monday morning came.  Eagerly I went through my correspondence,
but there was no word from her, either to her mother or to myself.  It
was only then that I began to be really anxious, and at noon I went down
to Scotland Yard and there, in the cold waiting-room, stated exactly
what had occurred.

The inspector, when he looked at the photograph I produced, exclaimed:

"Ah, sir.  I've often seen Miss Lethmere's picture in the papers.  Why,
she's the famous flying-lady--isn't she?"

I replied in the affirmative, and explained how she had left her home in
Cadogan Gardens to go to Hendon to meet me.

"I see.  She was lost sight of between Cadogan Gardens and Hendon," he
exclaimed, adding a memorandum to what he had already written down.
"Well, sir," he said.  "We'll do our best, of course.  But--you don't
think Miss Lethmere has disappeared intentionally--eh?"

And he looked at me inquiringly with his dark, serious eyes.

"Intentionally!  No--why?"

"Well, because we get many young ladies reported missing in the course
of a year, and many of them we find, on inquiry, have hidden themselves
purposely, for their own private reasons, quarrels, run-away matches,
hiding from angry parents, and such-like causes.  I tell you," he added,
"some of the cases give us quite a lot of trouble and annoyance."

"I'm quite sure that Miss Lethmere is not hiding herself purposely," I
declared quickly.  "There can be no object in her doing so."

"No.  Not as far as you are aware, sir," the inspector replied very
politely.  "But neither you nor I can always follow the trend of the
feminine mind," he added with a faint smile.  "You, of course, do not
suspect the existence of any motive which would lead her to disappear
intentionally.  Nobody in such circumstances as yours, ever does.  Do
you happen to know whether she took any money with her when she left
home?"

"Mulliner, Lady Lethmere's maid, says that just before going out Miss
Lethmere glanced in her purse, found that she only had a few shillings,
and took four Treasury-notes from her jewel-box."

"Was that all the money in the jewel-box?" he asked.

"No.  About eighteen pounds remains there now."

"H'm.  She evidently did not make any preparation for a journey--or any
long absence."

"Well," replied the inspector after a brief pause, "we will certainly
circulate her description, and see what we can gather.  The young lady
may have met with a street accident, and be in one of the hospitals.
Though I hope she hasn't, of course!"

So with that rather poor assurance I had to be content, and took my
leave.

That afternoon I again went out to Hendon, making inquiry everywhere of
the men who were Roseye's friends, but she certainly never went there on
the Saturday, and I found her machine still in the hangar.  Her mechanic
knew nothing, for he had received no orders from her since Friday.

Three days--three breathless anxious days passed.  Ah! shall I ever
forget the awful tension of those terrible hours!

Sir Herbert had returned, and, with his wife, was naturally distracted.
He was making inquiries in every quarter of friends and acquaintances,
and of anyone who might have been likely to see his missing daughter.
In this, both Teddy and I actively assisted him.

On the third evening I returned to my rooms to wash, intending to go
along to the Automobile Club to dine with the flying-boys who assembled
there every night, when Theed told me that the police had, an hour
before, rung me up from Scotland Yard, and requested me to go down there
at once.

This I did without delay and, having been shown into that big, bare
waiting-room, the same dark-haired inspector came to see me.

"Well, Mr Munro," he exclaimed, "we've met with no very great result,
though the description of the missing young lady has been circulated
right through the country.  But the affair is certainly a mystery."

"Then you don't suspect that she has purposely disappeared--eh?"  I
asked quickly.

"Well--after all--I don't know," was his hesitating reply.  "Something
belonging to her has been found which rather leads to that supposition."

"What has been found?"  I gasped eagerly.

"This," he answered, and he placed upon the table a gold chatelaine
which I at once recognised as belonging to Roseye--for.  I had given it
to her.  It formed a jingling bunch.  There was a chain-purse, a
combined match-box and cigarette-case, a powder-box with its little
mirror in the cover, and a card-case all strung upon thin gold chains
which, in turn, were attached to a ring--so that it could be carried
upon the finger.

"Wherever was that found?"  I asked, turning pale at sight of it.

"It was discovered this morning by a platelayer engaged in examining the
rails in the long tunnel just beyond Welwyn Station on the Great
Northern Railway."

"In a tunnel!"

"Yes.  The two tunnels which are quite near to each other have, at our
request, been thoroughly searched by the local police and the
platelayers, but nothing else has been found.  My first fear was," added
the inspector, "that there might have been a tragedy in the tunnel.
Happily, however, there is no ground for any such suspicion."

"But there may have been a struggle in the train!"  I suggested.

"Possibly," answered the inspector.  "It's fortunate that the cards were
in the case, for when the chatelaine was handed to the sergeant of
constabulary at Welwyn, he at once recognised Lethmere as the name of
the lady whose description had been circulated by us.  Therefore the
constabulary sent it up here at once."

I took it and found that in the purse were the four Treasury-notes, as
the maid Mulliner had described, together with some silver.  Three of my
own particular brand of Russian cigarettes remained in the case, while
among the cards which I opened upon the table was one of my own upon
which I had, only a few days previously, written down the address of the
makers of a new enamel which I had advised her to try upon her machine.

The tiny powder-puff and the small bevelled mirror were there, though
the latter had been cracked across in its fall in the tunnel.

"Seven years bad luck!"  I remarked to the inspector, whose name I had
learned to be Barton.

I was turning over with curiosity that bunch of jingling feminine
impedimenta which I knew so well, when the door suddenly opened, and a
red-tabbed captain in khaki entered.

"This is Captain Pollock," Barton said, introducing him.  "He wished, I
believe, to ask you a question, Mr Munro."

I looked at the new-comer with some surprise, as he bowed and, in rather
an authoritative manner, took a chair at the big leather-covered table
at which I was seated with the inspector.

"The facts of your friend Miss Lethmere's disappearance have been
communicated to us, Mr Munro," he commenced, "and we find that the
lady's disappearance is much complicated by certain rather curious
facts."

"Well?"  I asked, rather resentful that another department of the State
should enter upon what, after all, was a purely personal investigation.
Besides, I could see no motive.  The War Office had enough to do without
making inquiries regarding missing persons.

"Well," said the captain politely, "I of course know you, Mr Munro, to
be a well-known aviator, and have often read of the long and sensational
flights undertaken by Miss Lethmere and yourself.  I hope you will not
think that I am personally inquisitive regarding your lady friend.
But," he went on apologetically, "I am only performing my duty in
inquiring in the interests of the State.  You are, I know, an intensely
patriotic man.  I hope that I, as a British officer, am equally
patriotic.  Therefore we stand upon the same ground--don't we?"

"Most certainly," was my reply, though, much puzzled as to the drift of
his argument, I looked straight into his face, a round, rather florid
countenance, with a small sandy moustache.

"Good," he said.  "Now I want you to answer me, in confidence, the
questions I will put to you.  Your replies I shall treat as absolutely
secret."

"Captain Pollock is from the Intelligence Department," remarked the
inspector, interrupting in explanation.

"I will answer, of course, to the best of my ability," I said.  "But
with one reservation--I will say nothing that might reflect upon a
woman's honour."

He pursed his lips ever so slightly.  But that very slight movement did
not pass me unnoticed.

Was a woman's honour concerned in this?

The two men exchanged glances, and in an instant a fierce resentment
arose within me.  Between us, upon the bare table, lay the gold
chatelaine that I had bought at Bouet's, in the Gallerie at Monte Carlo
a year and a half ago.

It had been found in that tunnel on the main line of the Great Northern.
Something tragic had occurred.  Was there any further room for doubt?

"The matter does not concern a woman's honour--er--not exactly so," the
man in khaki said slowly.

"I want to know--" And he paused, as though hesitating to explain his
motive for coming along to see me.

"What do you want to know about?"  I asked boldly.  "Come, Captain
Pollock, let us face each other.  There is a mystery here in Miss
Lethmere's disappearance, and in the finding of this bunch of feminine
fripperies in the tunnel.  I intend to elucidate it."

"And I will assist you, Mr Munro--if you will only be frank with me."

"Frank!"  I echoed.  "Of course I'll be frank!"  Again he looked me
straight in the face with those funny, half-closed little eyes of his.
Then, after a few moments' pause, he asked:

"Now--tell me.  Is it a fact that you, with a friend of yours named
Ashton, have made some very remarkable electrical discovery?"

I looked at him, stunned by surprise.  He noticed my abject
astonishment.

"I'll go farther," he went on.  "Does this discovery of yours concern
aircraft; is it designed to bring disaster upon Zeppelins; and are you
engaged in perfecting a secret invention in which you have the most
entire confidence?  In other words, have you nearly perfected a method
by which you will be able to successfully combat enemy airships in the
air?  Tell me the truth, Mr Munro--in strictest secrecy, remember."

His words staggered me.  How could he know the secret that we had so
closely guarded?

I did not reply for several moments.

"Well?" he asked, repeating his question.

"I don't see why I should reveal to anyone--even to you--what I have
been doing in the interests of the defence of our country," I protested.

"Except that by doing so we should both be able to carry our
investigations farther--and, I hope, to a satisfactory issue."

I had given my word to Teddy and to Roseye, and they had given their
words to me, to disclose nothing.  This I recollected and, therefore, I
hesitated.

The captain, seeing my reluctance, said:

"In this inquiry we ought, surely, to assist each other, Mr Munro!
Miss Lethmere is missing, and it is for us to unite in our efforts to
elucidate the mystery."

"But how can answers to the questions you have put to me serve, in any
way whatever, to bring us nearer to the truth of what has happened to
Miss Lethmere?"  I queried.

"They do.  I merely ask you, yes or no.  Your reply will at once place
us in a far better position to conduct this most important inquiry," he
said.  "I may tell you that at present the gravest suspicion rests upon
Miss Lethmere."

"Suspicion!"  I echoed angrily.  "Of what, pray?"

The captain drew a long breath and, once more looking me straight in the
face, replied:

"Well, of being a secret agent of the German Government--or to put it
very bluntly, of being a spy!"

"Roseye a spy!"  I shouted, starting up from my chair.  "A most foul and
abominable lie!  How dare you cast any such imputation upon her?"

"It is, unfortunately, no imputation, Mr Munro," replied the captain.
"You naturally doubt the truth, but we have documentary evidence that
the missing lady is not exactly the purely patriotic young person whom
you have so long believed her to be.  Since the war lots of men who have
trusted pretty women have had many rude awakenings, I assure you."

"I'll believe nothing against Roseye!"

"Well," answered Pollock, taking from his pocket an official envelope,
"perhaps you will look at this!" and from the envelope he took a half
sheet of dark-blue notepaper of a type and size used by ladies, and
handed it across to me, saying:

"This was found in her card-case here.  From Scotland Yard they sent it
over to us this afternoon, and its real import we very quickly
discovered."

My eyes fell upon the paper, and I saw that it was covered with lines of
puzzling figures in groups of seven, all written neatly in a distinctly
feminine hand.

"Well," I asked in surprise, "what does all this mean?"

"Only one thing," was the hard reply.  "This paper, folded small and
secreted, was found in this card-case.  Those figures you see convey a
message in the secret code of the Intelligence Department of the German
Naval War Staff--a seven-figure code.  A couple of hours ago we
succeeded in deciphering the message, which is to the effect that you
and Ashton have made an astounding discovery and have succeeded in
directing a powerful electric wave by which you can charge metals at a
distance, and cause sparking across any intervening spaces of those
metals.  By this means you are hoping to defeat Zeppelins by exploding
the gas inside their ballonets, and as you are both highly dangerous to
the success of the enemy's plans for the wholesale destruction of life
and property by airships, it is here suggested that you should both meet
sudden ends at the hands of certain paid hired assassins of the Berlin
secret police."

Then, after a pause, the captain again looked at me, and said very
slowly:

"Mr Munro.  This document found in Miss Lethmere's purse is nothing
else but your own death-warrant!  Miss Lethmere is a spy and, though she
may be your friend, she is plotting your death!"

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

THE SIGNALMAN'S STORY.

I sat, staggered by that damning evidence placed before me!

Proof indisputable lay there that Roseye--my own dear well-beloved, she
whose ready lips met mine so often in those fierce, trustful caresses--
the intrepid girl who had been as "a pal" to Teddy and myself in our
secret experiments, and who knew all the innermost secrets of our
invention and our power to fight Zeppelins--was a traitor to her
country!

It was incredible!

Was it by her connivance that the steel bolt in my machine had been
withdrawn, and one of wood substituted?

In this terrible war men laughed, and women wept.  The men went out to
the front in Flanders with all the fine patriotic sentiment of Britons,
singing gaily the various patriotic songs of war.  But alas! how many
went to their death, and the women wept in silence in the back streets
of our dear old London, and of every town in the work-a-day kingdom.

In official circles it was known--known indeed to the public at large--
that the Zeppelin menace was a real and serious one.  Teddy and I had,
in secret, striven our best to discover a means by which to combat these
sinister attacks upon our non-combatants.

Yet upon that leather-covered table before me lay that puzzling cryptic
message found among the belongings of my missing beloved.

The whole affair was, indeed, a mystery.  After a few moments of silence
I raised my head and, looking again at Pollock, said:

"All this is, of course, very interesting from the point of view of a
police problem, but the hard, real fact remains."

"What fact?" he asked.

"That I, with my friend Ashton, am in possession of certain discoveries
by which we can, under given conditions, bring Zeppelins to the ground."

The red-tabbed captain curled his lip in a rather supercilious smile.

He was evidently one of those persons imported into the Department after
the outbreak of war and, in comparison with Barton as an investigator,
was a nonentity.

True, a piece of paper bearing a message in the enemy's cipher had been
found secreted in Roseye's card-case.

But I argued that before the owner of the card-case could be condemned,
she must be found, and an explanation demanded of her.

"You surely cannot condemn an accused person in her absence!"  I argued.

Barton agreed with me.  It was against all principles of justice to
condemn an accused person unheard.

"Well," explained the red-tabbed captain, "upon the face of it, there
can be no real defence.  Here we have the missing lady's belongings
found in a tunnel, and in them--fortunately, for ourselves--we discover
a message intended for transmission to the enemy.  That message, Mr
Munro, is quite plain, and speaks for itself.  You have made an
interesting scientific discovery.  Possibly they have ferreted out your
secret.  It interests them: they fear you and, therefore, they have
plotted your death."

"I won't believe that!"  I cried in angry resentment.  "Ask yourself!
Would you yourself believe it of the woman whom you loved?"

"My dear Mr Munro," replied the captain coldly, "we are at war now.  We
cannot gauge either our feelings, or our beliefs, by the standard of
pre-war days."

"Well," I declared bluntly, "I don't believe it.  Miss Lethmere would
never hold any communication with the enemy.  Of that I'm quite
positive."

"But we have it written down here--in black and white!"

"True.  But before we take this as authentic we must discover her, and
question her.  To you mysterious people of the Secret Service the task
will, surely, not be so very difficult.  You know the mystery of Miss
Lethmere's sudden and unaccountable disappearance.  Therefore I leave
all to you--to investigate, and to elucidate the puzzle.  I don't
pretend to account for it.  You, both of you, of the War Intelligence
Department and the Special Branch of Scotland Yard, have the facts
before you--plain facts--the disappearance of Lady Lethmere's daughter.
When her whereabouts is ascertained then the remainder of the inquiry is
surely quite easy.  I am not an investigator," I added with biting
sarcasm.  "I'm only an inventor, and I leave it to you both to discover
why Miss Lethmere disappeared."

"You apparently have invented something of which the enemy is
determined, at all hazards, to learn the truth," remarked Inspector
Barton.

I laughed, and slowly took a cigarette from my case.

"They will never know that," I declared with entire confidence.  "I can
tell you both that the secret experiments of Ashton and myself have been
crowned with success.  We have, however, been most wary and watchful.
We are well aware that at our works out at Gunnersbury there have been
intruders, but those who have dared to enter at night to try and
discover our plans have been entirely misled and, up to the present, no
single person beyond ourselves has ever seen, or has ever gained any
knowledge whatsoever of that electrical arrangement which constitutes
our discovery."

"Then you really can fight Zeppelins?" asked Barton, much interested.

I nodded in the affirmative, and smiled.

"So what is written here in cipher is perfectly correct?" asked Pollock.

"Perfectly.  The missing lady has actively assisted Mr Ashton and
myself in our experiments."

"And apparently the lady wrote down this message giving you away,"
remarked Barton.

"Somebody wrote it--but it certainly is not her handwriting."

"Quite so.  Spies frequently get other persons to copy their messages in
order that they can disclaim them," replied the Intelligence officer.
"We've had several such cases before us of late."

His words aroused my anger bitterly.  That Roseye had held any
communication with the enemy I absolutely refused to believe.  Such
suggestion was perfectly monstrous!

Yet how was it possible that anyone should know of the success of our
experiments at Gunnersbury?

Recollection of that well-remembered night when Teddy had declared there
had been strangers prowling about, flashed across my mind.

I knew, too well, that the evil that had befallen me, as well as the
disappearance of my well-beloved, had been the work of the Invisible
Hand--that dastardly, baneful influence that had wrecked my machine and
nearly hurled me to the grave.

"Well," I said at last, "I would much like a copy of this remarkable
document."

"I fear that I cannot give it to you, Mr Munro," was the captain's slow
reply.  "At present it is a confidential matter, concerning only the
Department, and the person in whose possession it was."

"We must find that person," I said resolutely.

"What is your theory regarding Miss Lethmere?"  I asked, turning to
Barton.

"Well, Mr Munro, it would appear that either the lady herself, or some
thief, threw the chatelaine from a train passing north through the
tunnel."

"There may have been a struggle," I remarked, "and in trying to raise
the alarm it might have dropped from her hand."

"That certainly might have been the case," the inspector admitted.

An hour later, accompanied by Teddy and Barton, I set out from King's
Cross station and, on arrival at Welwyn--a journey a little over twenty
miles--we spent the evening in searching inquiry.

The station-master knew nothing, except that both tunnels had been
searched without result.

The story told by the platelayer who found the chatelaine was to the
effect that he noticed a paper bag lying in the centre of the up-express
line and, on picking it up, found the jingling bunch of gold
impedimenta.  The paper bag had probably been blown along there by a
passing train and had somehow become entangled among the short lengths
of chain composing the chatelaine.

"Of course it might ha' been there a couple o' days," the stout,
sooty-faced man replied to a question of Barton's.  "I work in the
tunnels all the time, but I didn't see it before to-day.  We often finds
things thrown out o' trains--things people want to get rid of.  They
must 'ave quite a fine collection o' things up at King's Cross--things
what I and my mates have found while we've been a goin' along with our
flares."

"You can form no idea when it might have been thrown out?"  I asked.

"Probably late last night, or early this mornin'," was the man's reply.
"I started to examine all the rails just after eleven o'clock last
night, and had not quite finished when the 11:30 express out o' King's
Cross for Edinburgh came through."

"It might have been thrown from that," I remarked.  "Where was the first
stop made by that express?"

"Grantham, sir--at 1:33 in the morning--then York," he replied, in a
hard, rough voice.  His face was deeply furrowed, and his eyes were
screwed up, for he spent more than half his life in the darkness,
choking smoke and wild racket of those two cavernous tunnels through
which trains roared constantly, both night and day.  "Of course, sir,"
he added, "there were lots o' trains a passing on the up-line during the
night, mails, goods, and passengers.  Therefore it's quite impossible to
say from which the gold stuff was thrown.  My idea is that a thief
wanted to get rid of it."

"No," I replied.  "If that were so he'd most certainly have taken the
money from the purse.  The Treasury-notes and silver could not have been
identified."

"Then your theory is that it was dropped out by accident?" asked Teddy,
who had been listening to the man's story with keenest interest.

"Well--it certainly was not got rid of purposely by any thief," was my
answer, and with this Barton agreed.

Of other railwaymen we made inquiry.  To each I showed Roseye's
photograph, but none of the porters had any recollection of seeing her.

The signalman who was on night duty in the box north of the second
tunnel was somewhat dubious.  When I showed him the photograph he said:

"Well, sir, Saturday night was a bright calm night--and when the Scotch
express was put through to me from Welwyn box I was wondering if there
were any Zeppelins about, for it was just such another night as that on
which they recently attacked London.  They always seem to look for the
railway lines for guidance up to town.  After I had attended to my
signals, and accepted the express, I went to the window of my cabin to
look out.  As I was standing there the express came out of the tunnel
and flew by.  The driver was a little late and was, I saw, making up
time.  As it went past nearly all the windows had drawn blinds--all but
about three, I think.  At one of them I caught a glimpse of two women
who, standing up near the door, seemed to be struggling with each
other."

"You saw them distinctly?"  I asked eagerly.  "Two women?"

"Yes.  I saw them quite plainly," he replied, and I realised that he was
a man of some intelligence.  "When trains go by, especially the
expresses, the glimpse we get is only for a fraction of a second.  But
in that we can often see inside the carriages at night, if the
regulations are broken and the blinds are up.  A good many people
disregard the danger--even in these days of Zeppelins."

"They do," I said.  "But please describe, as far as you are able,
exactly what you saw."

"Well, sir, the Scotch express tore past just as I was standing at the
window star-gazing.  My mate at Stevenage had just put through an
up-goods, and all was clear, so I stood wondering if the Zepps would
dare to venture out.  Then I heard the low roar of the Edinburgh
night-express approaching up the tunnel, and a moment later it ran past
me.  As it did so I saw in one of the carriages the two women standing
there.  Both had their hats off.  One, a fine big strong person I should
take her to be, seized the other, whose hair had fallen about her
shoulders, and she seemed to be helplessly in her grip."

"Did you report it?"  Barton asked quickly.

"I rang up Stevenage and told my mate that something was going on in the
express.  But he replied later on to say that he had watched, and seen
nothing.  Later on in the night he spoke to me again, and said that the
man in the Hitchin box, who had kept a look out, had reported back that
all blinds of the express had then been drawn."

"So the assumption seems to be that Roseye was attacked by some strange
woman," I said, turning to Teddy.  "She struggled at the door, and in
the struggle the chatelaine which she had in her hand fell out upon the
line."

Barton drew a long breath.

"It's all a profound mystery, Mr Munro," he said.

"If your theory is correct, then we must go a step further and assume
that the stout woman overpowered Miss Lethmere, and afterwards drew down
the blinds before the express reached Hitchin, where there is a junction
and the train would, I suppose, slow down."

"Yes, sir," exclaimed the signalman.  "Drivers have orders to go slow
through Hitchin because of the points there."

"But why should Miss Lethmere be attacked by a woman?"  I queried in
dismay.

"Why should she have disappeared from home at all, Mr Munro?" asked
Barton.  "Yes.  I quite agree with you, sir, the more we probe this
mystery, the more and more complicated it becomes."

"Well, Mr Barton?"  I exclaimed.  "Now, tell me frankly, what's your
theory.  Why has Miss Lethmere disappeared?"

The inspector, one of the best and shrewdest officials attached to the
Criminal Investigation Department, paused for a few moments and, looking
me full in the face, replied:

"To tell you the truth, Mr Munro, I'm still absolutely puzzled.  The
whole affair seems to grow more involved, and more astounding."

CHAPTER TWELVE.

REVEALS AN ASTOUNDING FACT.

Weeks passed, but alas! the problem remained unsolved.  I became plunged
in the darkest depths of despair.

The hue-and-cry had been raised all over the kingdom.  Sir Herbert
Lethmere had offered a reward for any information concerning his
daughter, but nobody came forward with any really tangible declaration.

The hard indisputable fact was that she had gone down those front-door
steps in Cadogan Gardens and disappeared as completely as though the
earth had opened and swallowed her.

For me, those weeks were weeks of keen, hourly anxiety, weeks of grief
and breathless forebodings.

The woman I loved so dearly had been snatched from me, and now I felt
that I had no further object in life.  Indeed, I had no heart to make
any further experiments to perfect my Zeppelin-destroyer, and though
Teddy, in his old cheery way, tried to console me and endeavoured to get
me down to Gunnersbury, I always firmly refused to go.  The place was
now hateful to me.  My keenness had vanished.  Now and then I went out
to Hendon and looked at Roseye's machine still there.  Her mechanic,
whom Sir Herbert still kept on--he being unfit for military service--
hung about the aerodrome and smoked "yellow perils" awaiting his
mistress's return.

Once or twice, on bright days, I made a short flight just to keep fit.
Otherwise I generally remained at home in my rooms pondering, or else
out trying to follow some imaginary clue to which my theory led me.

Lionel Eastwell always expressed himself full of sympathy.  Many times
we met at the club and elsewhere, and he always expressed his belief
that Roseye was somewhere with friends.  Indeed, he seemed full of
optimism.

"My firm opinion is that Miss Lethmere has met with an accident, and is
in some hospital or other--some cottage hospital perhaps.  Maybe she has
lost her memory as result of her unfortunate mishap," he suggested one
day.  "There are lots of such cases recorded in the papers."

Truth to tell, my suspicion of Lionel Eastwell had daily increased.
First, he had always appeared far too inquisitive regarding our
experimental work.  Secondly, he had been ever polite and affable
towards Roseye with a view, it seemed, of preserving an extremely close
friendship.  Why, I wondered?  I knew that she had liked him for his
courtesy and pleasant demeanour ever since they had first met.  And the
point that they had first met in Germany I had never forgotten.  It had
increased my suspicion--and pointedly so.

The most puzzling fact concerning him, however, was that I had
discovered during my eager and constant investigations, from one of the
boys at Hendon--Dick Ferguson, who was flying a new REP "Parasol," that
on the very evening of the day that I had called at Albemarle Street to
find him ill in bed, he had met him in Hatchett's in Piccadilly, and had
actually dined with him there in the grill-room.

When I had sat at Eastwell's bedside, three hours before, he had then
declared himself unable to move without pain, and had told me that the
doctor had strictly forbidden him to get up.  Yet, on that very same
night, he had dined down below in the cheerful grill-room and, according
to Dick, was as merry as ever.

These were facts which certainly required explanation.

Why had he not gone along to the Piccadilly Hotel, or to the Club, as
was his habit?  Was it because, fearing to be seen, he had chosen the
smaller and quieter resort?

Most probably he feared to meet either Teddy or myself at the
Piccadilly, for we both frequently went there as a change from the
Automobile Club.  We flying-men are a small circle, and we have our own
particular haunts--just as every other profession has.

Three times I had questioned Dick Ferguson regarding Lionel's presence
at that small, but popular restaurant on that particular night.  At
first I believed that he had probably mistaken the date--which was so
easy.  But he had fixed it absolutely by telling me that it was the
night when the Admiralty had admitted that Zeppelins had again been over
Essex and Norfolk and been driven back by our anti-aircraft guns.

Certainly I had no reason to doubt Dick's story.  He was a pal of
Teddy's, and I had been up with him twice on his new "Parasol"--that
machine which Hendon men will remember as having caused such a
sensation.

How flying has changed since the war!  In the pre-war days those Sunday
meetings out at Hendon, with their passenger-flights, were quite smart
frivolous gatherings.  In the enclosure stood rows of fine cars with
many young "bloods"--who afterwards gallantly put on khaki--with many of
their best girls, some of them of the bluest blood of the land, while
others were revue actresses, with a few women aged, apeing and adipose,
with of course a good sprinkling of girls on the keen look out for
husbands.

There are some men who went regularly to "exhibitions of flying" before
the war who could tell strange tales--of pretty women held in the
clutches of blackguards, and of good, innocent boys who fell, were
blackmailed, and were "squeezed" to their death.

But it is ever so in sport.  The racecourse and the _tapis vert_ have
both been the cause of the downfall of a good many excellent fellows,
therefore the organisers of the aerodromes are not to be blamed for the
exploits of those pestilent undesirables who as at Epsom, Newmarket or
Sandown, having paid the admission fee, passed through its gates.

Ah!  I recall--and many will recall with me--those summer afternoons
upon the lawn where the little tea-tables were set, and where some of
the worst girls in the smartest and most daring of costumes sat with
some of the best girls in the neatest to sip the innocuous beverage and
to nibble cakes with the best and bravest young fellows in all England.

That strange, daring little world of flying-men--knew it, but they were
level-headed and, keeping themselves to themselves, gave the cold
shoulder to the unknown ones who drifted in from nowhere to display
their brilliant raiment, and to watch, in a bored way, such feats as
looping the loop, and other exercises which have proved such splendid
training for our flying-boys to-day.

I did not trust Eastwell.  Both his actions and his attitude puzzled me.
An intimate friend of Sir Herbert, he was often at Cadogan Gardens,
telling his host and Lady Lethmere that he firmly believed that Roseye
was still ill, and still unidentified.

Purposely I avoided him.  Teddy and I were in full agreement over this.
A man who had been ill in bed and in pain, with no prospect of getting
about for some days, and yet could go and dine merrily at Hatchett's
that same evening, was, I argued, not to be trusted further.

All that Captain Pollock and Inspector Barton had told me served to
increase the amazing puzzle.

They said that Roseye was a spy of Germany, but I defied them.  I
declared that they had lied.

"My own opinion, Munro, is that my poor girl is dead," Sir Herbert
declared one afternoon when I called.  "I know," he went on
sympathetically.  "I know how deeply devoted you were to her.  But alas!
we must be brave and face facts in this critical situation in which we
all find ourselves to-day."

For a moment I did not reply.  I had frankly told him of that mysterious
message found in Roseye's card-case, and he had followed every channel
of my inquiries with eager interest, paying most of the out-of-pocket
expenses and having one or two confidential interviews with Inspector
Barton.

Like myself, and like Teddy also, he would not hear of any allegation
against his daughter.  That cryptic message he regarded as the work of
the Invisible Hand which, since August 1914, had been raised against our
dear beloved country.

Once or twice Lionel Eastwell had called upon me in Shaftesbury Avenue
and sat beside my fire, discussing the war, the Zeppelin menace and the
apparent apathy in certain quarters to deal firmly with it.  At that
moment the popular Press were loud in their parrot-cries that we had no
adequate defence.  In a sense, they voiced the public demand.  But those
papers which were now loudest in the denunciation of the Government were
the selfsame which, before the war, had jeered at any suggested progress
in aviation, and had laughed to scorn any prizes offered to aviators as
encouragement in designing machines, or in flying them.

The Invisible Hand was, even in those days, laid heavily upon the Press,
who laughed at Zeppelins, and declared that on that night long ago, when
they had been seen hovering over Sheerness, the naval witnesses of their
arrival were "pulling the long bow."

The Invisible Hand indeed stretched far and wide in the pre-war days.
From Wick to Walmer, from Cork to Cromer, and from Donegal to Dover, the
British public were assured that Zeppelins could never cross the North
Sea.  They were only very delicate gas-bags--some called them
egg-shells--which could perhaps take up passengers in fair weather and,
given continued fair weather, deposit them somewhere in safety.

The Invisible Hand wrote screeds of deliberate lies and utterly
bamboozled England, just as the Crowned Criminal of Germany carried on
his secret and insidious policy of the Great Betrayal.

Curiously enough the very organs of the Press which in 1913, when
strange airships were reported over Yorkshire and the North-East coast,
received the news with incredulity and amusement, were the very organs
which now cried the loudest that something must be done to destroy
Zeppelins.

I was chatting with Teddy one afternoon in my room, and had pointed out
that fact, whereupon he blew a cloud of cigarette smoke from his lips,
and said:

"You're quite right, my dear Claude.  The armchair sceptics of 1913 were
the people who have since told us that Zeppelins could kill only an
occasional chicken--that Zeppelins could not reach London--that
Zeppelins, if they did get to London, would never return--that Zeppelins
were useless in bad weather--that Zeppelins could not survive a fall of
snow--and so on."

"Do you recollect how one section of the Press violently attacked
another because the latter had dared to warn the country against the
danger of attacks from the air?"  I asked.  "The purblind optimists
waxed hilarious, and called it the `Scareship Campaign.'"

Teddy laughed, as he stretched himself in his chair.

"Yes," he said.  "I recollect quite well, though I had not yet taken my
`ticket,' how the `trust-our-dear-German-brother' propagandists were
terribly angry because some newspaper or other had demanded a large
provision for dirigibles in the coming Estimates.  They accused the
paper of `staging the performance' for the sake of a new journalistic
scoop.  One paper, a copy of which I still have," Teddy went on,
"expressed greatest amusement at the statements of witnesses who had
seen and heard Zeppelins on the North-East coast.  I was only reading it
the other day.  One person heard `the whirr of engines'; another `a
faint throbbing noise.'  To one, the airship appeared as `a cigar-shaped
vessel,' to another as `a small luminous cloud.'  These variations--they
are not contradictions--were sufficient, in the opinion of that
particular paper, to discredit the whole business.  The writer of the
article calmly stated that what was alleged to be a Zeppelin `turns out
to have been merely a farmer working at night in a field on the hilltop,
taking manure about in a creaky wheelbarrow, with a light swung on the
top of a broomstick attached to it.'"

"I know, Teddy," I exclaimed.  "Our dear old England has been sadly
misled by those who intended to send us to our ruin and dominate the
world.  Yet we have one consolation--you and I--namely, that we have,
within our hands, a power of which the enemy knows nothing, and--"

"But the enemy suspects, my dear old fellow," said my friend seriously.
"That's why you had your unfortunate spill--and why Roseye is to-day
missing.  Probably I shall be the next to fall beneath the clutch of the
Invisible Hand."

"Yes.  For heaven's sake! do be careful," I exclaimed anxiously.  "You
can't be too wary!"

"Well--we've the satisfaction of knowing that they haven't discovered
our secret," he declared.

"No--and, by Jove! they won't!"  I declared firmly.  "Yet, the way in
which we have been misled by those infected with the Teuton taint is
really pathetic.  I remember the wheelbarrow story quite well.  Just
about that same time a foreign correspondent of one of our London daily
papers wrote telling us that Zeppelins were mere toys.  They cost fifty
thousand pounds apiece to build, and German experts had agreed that in
fine weather they might reasonably expect to reach our coast, but that
it was doubtful if they could get back.  The return voyage, with the
petrol running low and the capacity of the ship and crew approaching
exhaustion, would probably end in disaster if the wind were contrary.
We were also told by this wonderful correspondent that the idea that
these ships could drop from one to two tons of explosives on our heads
at any time was absurd."

"Yes, yes," Teddy sighed.  "It is all too awful!  That correspondent's
story only serves to show how easily we were fascinated by German
friendship, and by the Emperor himself, who raced at Cowes, and who,
while bowing his head piously over Queen Victoria's grave, was already
secretly plotting our downfall.  But are we not secretly plotting the
downfall of the Zeppelins--eh?" he added, with his usual cheery good
humour.

"Yes, we are.  And, by Gad, we'll show the world what we can do, ere
long," I said.  "But I am full of fierce anger when I recollect how our
little aviation circle has been ridiculed by red-taped officialdom, and
starved by the public, who thought us airy cranks just because the
Invisible Hand was all-powerful in our midst.  The German experts
deceived the Berlin correspondents of our newspapers; the Emperor
uttered his blasphemous prayers for peace, the Teutonic money-bags
jingled and their purse-strings were opened.  And so our trustful public
were lulled to sleep, and we were told to forget all about Zeppelins for
they were mere harmless toys, and we were urged, in leading articles of
our daily papers, to get on with the Plural Voting Bill, and to
investigate the cause in the fall of the output of sandstone--`including
ganister' as officialdom describes that commodity."

"True, Claude," exclaimed my friend, as we smoked together.  "The whole
thing is a striking example of the blindness of those who would not see;
and who, even now, when innocent women and children are being killed,
are dismissing the raids as `of no military importance.'"

"Since war broke out we've learnt one or two things--haven't we?"  I
said.  "Though the public are still in ignorance of the actual truth, we
flying-men who have studied aeronautics as perfected by Germany, know
that Zeppelins can now be brought to a standstill and mark time during
the observations of their pilots.  Aiming is still in a primitive stage,
notwithstanding the use of `directed' aerial torpedoes such as we know,
by the Press bureau, have been used.  Smoke-bombs are effective to cover
the rising of the airship to safety heights.  Zeppelins can fly at a
height of two and a half to three miles, while shots through the fabric
can be repaired during the flight."

"Exactly," replied Teddy.  "But we have also proved that warnings to
Britons do not foster panic.  Nowadays we see quite plainly that
Zeppelin raids have been adopted by the Germans as part of their regular
campaign, and it is quite clear that during the coming months they may
`increase and multiply'--whatever the civilised world may say or think.
The enemy is out to damage our cities, and has, indeed, told the
neutrals that he will do so, regardless of every law of civilised
warfare."

"I contend that Zeppelin raids _are_ of military importance--of very
great importance--and I intend to devote myself to treating them as
such, whatever officialdom may say to the contrary," I declared.

"Bravo! old man!"  Teddy said.  "And I'll help you--with every ounce of
energy I possess!"

Yet scarcely had he uttered those words, when Theed opened the door and
held it back for a visitor to enter.

I started to my feet, pale and speechless!  I could not believe my eyes.

There, before us, upon the threshold, dressed cheaply, plain, even
shabbily, and utterly unlike her usual self, stood Roseye--my own
beloved!

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 she _is_ here!" she shrieked.  "You can't deceive _me_; 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 a _matinee_.  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 a _matinee_ with 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

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