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diff --git a/40361-0.txt b/40361-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..00f03cb --- /dev/null +++ b/40361-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7939 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40361 *** + +_The Air Pirate_ + + + + +Some Ranger Gull Books + +_HIS GRACE'S GRACE_ +_BACK TO LILAC LAND_ +_THE CIGARETTE SMOKER_ +_PORTALONE_ +_THE SERF_ } _Historical_ +_THE HOUSE OF TORMENT_ } _Novels_ +_WHEN SATAN RULED_ } +_THE HARVEST OF LOVE_ +_A STORY OF THE STAGE_ +_THE PRICE OF PITY_ + + + + +_THE AIR PIRATE_ + +_By Ranger Gull, Author of "The Serf," +"Back to Lilac Land," "The Snare of the Fowler," etc._ + +[Illustration: Decoration] + +_LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, LTD. +PATERNOSTER HOUSE, E.C._ + + + + +Dedication + + +TO PERCY BURTON, Esq. + + In memory of a certain celebrated walk from Great Holland to + Frinton-on-Sea, and the salmon we met at the end of it. With all + good wishes from the Author. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAP. PAGE + I.--THE COMMISSIONER OF AIR POLICE FOR GREAT + BRITAIN RIDES TO PLYMOUTH IN GOOD COMPANY 9 + + II.--FATE OF THE TRANSATLANTIC AIR-LINER + "ALBATROS" 24 + + III.--"COLD-BLOODED PIRACY IN THE HIGH AIR" 39 + + IV.--THE NEWSPAPERS IN FULL CRY 55 + + V.--THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT OF MR. VAN ADAMS 67 + + VI.--MR. DANJURO, THINKING MACHINE, + EXPLAINS HIMSELF 83 + + VII.--THE CURIOUS FIGHT IN THE RESTAURANT 99 + + VIII.--THE HUNTING INSTINCT IS STIMULATED + BY A PROCESSION 111 + + IX.--THE MAN WITH THE WICKED FACE 128 + + X.--SIR JOHN CUSTANCE COMES UPON THE + HOUSE OF HELZEPHRON 138 + + XI.--"THE AIR WOLVES ARE HUNTING TO-NIGHT!" 150 + + XII.--THE KILLING OF MICHAEL FEDDON 165 + + XIII.--THE SECRET THAT PUZZLED TWO CONTINENTS 176 + + XIV.--THE AIR PIRATE AT LAST 187 + + XV.--LED OUT TO DIE 203 + + XVI.--THE HOUNDS FROM THIBET AND MR. VARGUS; + WITH A DISCOVERY ON BOARD THE PIRATE 216 + + XVII.--THE MOMENT OF TRIUMPH 236 + +XVIII.--THE GOLDEN DREAM 253 + + XIX.--LAST FLIGHT OF THE PIRATE AIRSHIP 266 + + EPILOGUE 277 + + + + +THE AIR PIRATE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE COMMISSIONER OF AIR POLICE FOR GREAT BRITAIN RIDES TO PLYMOUTH IN +GOOD COMPANY + + +Nearly two years ago a leading London daily newspaper said: "The +Government have assured us that all danger from present and future air +piracies is now over, and that the recent events which so startled and +horrified both this country and the United States of America can never +recur. For our own part we accept that assurance, and we do not think +that the Commissioner of Air Police for the British Government will be +caught napping again. + +"In saying this we do not in the least mean to imply that Sir John +Custance could either have foreseen or prevented the astounding +mid-Atlantic tragedies. Sir John, though barely thirty years of age, is +an official in every way worthy of his high position, an organizer of +exceptional ability and a pilot of practical experience. Press and +public are perfectly well aware that it is owing to his personal +exertions that our magnificent Transatlantic air-liners are no longer +stricken down by the Night Terror of the immediate past. And in saying +this much, we have both a suggestion and a request to make. + +"The inner history of the piracies is only fully known to one man. It is +a story, we understand, that puts the imagination of the boldest writer +of fiction to shame. Such parts of it as have been made public hint at a +story of absorbing interest behind. The bad old days of censorship and +secrecy have vanished with the occasions that made them necessary. We +suggest that a full and detailed 'story' of the first--and we trust the +last--Air Pirate should be written, and given to the world. And we call +upon that most popular public man, Sir John Custance, to do this for us. +He alone knows everything." + +At the time that it appeared I read the above to Charles Thumbwood, my +little valet, as I finished breakfast, in my Half Moon Street chambers. + +"Not _quite_ correct, Charles. You know almost as much about it as I do. +To say nothing of a certain friend ..." + +"I wouldn't say that, Sir John," said Charles, brushing my light +overcoat. "Though I rode part of the course alongside of you; to say +nothing of Mr. Danjuro." Thumbwood was a jockey before I took him into +my service. "Are you going to write it all down, Sir John?" + +"That depends on several things, and on one person especially. I must +think it all over." + +Think it over I did as I drove to my offices in Whitehall--the Scotland +Yard of the Air--and I discussed it afterwards with a certain lady.... + +Which is how the following narrative came to be written, though I did +not complete it until the best part of two years had elapsed. + + +II + +I never did any flying during the Great War. I was too young, being only +fifteen and at Eton when Peace was signed. But from the very earliest +days that I can remember aviation fascinated me as nothing else could. +My father, the first baronet, left me a moderate fortune. He died when I +was eighteen, and instead of going to Oxford, I entered as a cadet in +the R.F.C. It is not necessary to detail how, when I had earned my +wings, I joined the civil side of flying and became a pilot-commander in +the Transatlantic Service. I had a good deal of influence behind me, +and, to cut a long story short, at twenty-eight I was Assistant, and at +thirty Chief Commissioner of the British Air Police. I was answerable +to Government alone, and, within its limits, my powers were absolute. + +It was on a morning in late June, the 25th to be exact, when the wheels +began to move. I date the start of everything from that morning. About +one o'clock on the preceding night Thumbwood had waked me from +refreshing sleep. A wireless message, in code, had been received at +Whitehall. It was addressed to me personally, and was from the +Controller of the White Star Air Line at Plymouth. My people at +Whitehall, on night duty, thought it of sufficient importance to send on +even at this hour. + +As soon as I was thoroughly awake, and had done cursing Thumbwood, I +read the message. It only said that a matter of the gravest importance +required my personal presence at Plymouth, and would I come down at +once. + +Now considerable experience of the fussy great men who controlled the +air-liner companies, which linked up England with all parts of the +world, had made me somewhat sceptical of these urgent demands for my +presence. More than once I had to explain that I was not at the beck and +call of any commercial magnate, and if I had made myself disliked in +certain quarters I had, at least, made my office respected. + +Accordingly I scribbled instructions to the chief inspector on duty that +he should send a wireless to Plymouth requesting further details. Then +I went to sleep again. + +As a matter of fact, I _was_ going to Plymouth the next morning in any +case, though on private business. Sir Joshua Johnson, Controller of the +White Star Line, did not, of course, know that. His midnight message was +a coincidence. + +I could have flown down from Whitehall in my fast police yacht in an +hour, but, as it happened, I was going to train from Paddington. Sir +Joshua could wait until I turned up some time after lunch. + +How well I remember the morning of my departure from town. The long +departure platform at Paddington was crowded with well-dressed, +happy-looking people, as I stood by the door of my reserved carriage in +the Riviera Express--that superb train, with its curved roof, which runs +to Plymouth without a stop. + +Thumbwood, invaluable little man, filled the carriage with flowers, +great bunches of white lilac and June roses, and the station-master, who +came up for a chat, looked curiously at the bower my valet had made. The +Chief Commissioner of Air Police was not wont to travel like that! + +For my part, I was wildly exhilarated, and at the same time, as nervous +as a boy making his first flight. To-day might prove one of the happiest +or quite the most miserable of my life. I was going to put it to the +test. Confound it, why didn't Connie come? + +On this morning Miss Constance Shepherd, the young light-comedy actress, +adored of London, and to me the rose of all the roses, was travelling +down to Plymouth to catch the air-liner starting from that port to New +York at eight-thirty this evening. And she had promised to travel with +me! + +Would she have done so, I kept on asking myself, if she didn't know +quite well what I meant to say to her? Or was it just friendliness? I +knew she liked me. + +... Why didn't she come? Here it was, only eight minutes before the +train started. As I searched the platform, with an eye that strove to +appear calm and unconcerned, I saw faces that I knew--faces of +theatrical celebrities, two or three of the prettiest girls in England, +a handsome, hook-nosed young man, who was, perhaps, the best known +theatrical manager in London, two eminent comedians carrying bouquets. +And the Press photographers were beginning to arrange their cameras.... + +I had completely forgotten what a tremendous celebrity dear little +Connie was. I might have known they'd have given her a send-off on her +way to the States. All the same, it annoyed me, as it seemed to be +annoying a tall, hatchet-faced man in Donegal tweeds, who scowled at +the little crowd. Was he a friend, too, I wondered? + +She came at last, very late of course, and after a brief smile at me, +underwent the public ceremonies of the occasion, while I--I own +it--retired into the carriage for a minute or two. But I saw the cameras +click, and the girls embrace, and the crowd of sightseers trying to push +into the charmed circle, and then Connie was in the corridor, leaning +out of the window, waving and smiling as the train began to move to an +accompaniment of loud cheers. + +"My dear Connie, royalty isn't in it!" I said, as she stepped laughingly +into the carriage, and I pushed the sliding door home. + +"Oh, they're dears!" she said, "and they do really mean well, despite +the fact that we shall all be in the picture papers to-morrow morning, +and that's good for business." + +"I thought you were never coming." + +"It is an impression I convey," she answered; "but I'm very careful, +really. My maid was here with the luggage half an hour ago. What lovely +flowers you have got for me, John!" + +She lay back in her seat as the train gathered speed and Ealing flashed +by with a roar, and I feasted my eyes on the fairest picture in the +world. + +She wore a simple travelling coat and skirt of white piqué, and the +white lilac was all about her, framing her face as she held up a branch +to inhale its fragrance. All England knew that face in the days when +little Connie sang and danced herself into the heart of the public, but +none knew it as well as I. + +How can I describe that marvellous hair of dark chestnut, those deep +amethyst eyes, and the perfect bow of lips which were truer to the exact +colour of coral than any I have ever seen? It only makes a catalogue +after all. It's the expression--the soul, if you like--that makes the +true face; and here was one so frank and kind and sweet that when one +looked it seemed as if hands were placed beneath the heart, lifting it +up! + +On one other day only did I see her more lovely than she was now. + +Well, it was too early to say what I wanted to say, and, besides, I was +nervous as yet. We hadn't settled down. As I expected, her breakfast had +consisted of tea and a macaroon, so I produced a basket--lunch was to +come later--in which a silver box of caviare sandwiches was surrounded +by crushed ice in a larger box of zinc. There was also iced hock and +seltzer water. We both felt more at home in a few minutes. + +We had lit our cigarettes, and I was thinking hard, when someone passing +along the corridor looked in upon us for a moment. I had an impression +of a brown face and a scowl. It was the man in tweeds that I had noticed +at Paddington. + +"That _beast_!" said Connie suddenly. + +I turned and looked at her. She was frowning adorably, and I thought she +looked rather pale. + +"D'you know him, then?" + +"I did, and I simply hate him." + +"Who is he?" + +"I expect you've heard his name, John. Most people have in town. He is +Henry Helzephron, a big man in your way once." + +I _did_ know the name as that of a pilot of extraordinary courage and +ability during the Great War. He had gained the Victoria Cross when a +lad of twenty, and his exploits during two wonderful years formed part +of the history of aviation. He had not flown for years now, and divided +his time between the more dissipated haunts of the West End and an +estate he had somewhere in Devon or Cornwall, a "has-been" with a +sinister reputation, a lounger of thirty-six. + +"I know. 'Hawk Helzephron' he used to be called. Gone all to pieces, I +understand. But how do _you_ know him, dear?" + +"He did me the honour to ask me to marry him about two months ago," she +answered, "and since then he is always putting himself in my way. He +does not speak, but he comes to the theatre and glares. I am always +meeting him, and I hate the sight of him. He makes me afraid...." + +Here was my chance and I took it like a shot. She should never be +unprotected from Helzephrons and all the tribe who haunt the stage door +any more! + +A successful aviator takes instantaneous decisions. He must. If he +hesitates he's lost. + +What I said, as the Riviera Express hurled itself through the summer +noon, is not part of this narrative. I daresay I was no more original +than most men, but the results were eminently satisfactory for, as we +ran past the towers and winding river of Exeter, Connie and I were +engaged. + +I remember that I lugged the ring out of my waistcoat pocket--sapphires +and diamonds, a top-shelf ring!--precisely as we glided through Exeter +Station. + +"O-oh!" said Connie, as the thing winked and shone in the sunlight; and +then: "You _wretch_! I'll never forgive you--never!" + +I wondered what was the matter. In fact, I asked her. + +"You made so sure of me that you actually bought this beforehand!" + +"It doesn't do to leave anything to chance," I said, and I made her put +it on, and gave her several other things of no particular importance +while she was doing it. + +For the rest of the journey, past the red cliffs and blue seas of +Teignmouth and Paignton, we had a long and happy talk, finding out--of +course--all sorts of delightful things about each other which we had +only suspected before. + +Perhaps there is nothing fresher and more delightful in life than those +first few hours of revelation, when a man and a girl who love each other +have, at last, become engaged. It is like coming into harbour after an +anxious voyage, and yet, all the time there is the splendid knowledge +that there are new and marvellous seas waiting to be explored, this +time--together! + +Connie was to act in New York for a month and in Boston for a fortnight. +It was a 'star' engagement, and six weeks would soon pass. Besides, now +that Plymouth was barely thirty hours from New York, there was nothing +to prevent me from popping over once or twice to see her. I was +responsible to no one for my time, and half a dozen quite real matters +in connection with my job would provide a valid excuse. After the six +weeks were over, why, then, we would be married! + +"There is absolutely no reason on earth why we should wait," I told her, +in sublime ignorance of what the Fates had in store for both of us. +"I'll have a special licence ready, and the day you land again on this +side you shall be Lady Custance, darling!" + +So it was settled, lightly and happily enough, and when we left the +train at Plymouth Station there was not a cloud in the sky or in our +hearts. + +I found that Mr. Thumbwood had been making excellent use of his time, +even as his master had, for the little man was assisting a demure and +well-looking maiden to collect luggage, who turned out to be Connie's +maid, Wilson. + +We left them to it and drove to the Royal Hotel, not before I had seen +the train start again on its journey to Cornwall, with Mr. +Helzephron--whom I had quite forgotten--standing in the corridor and +regarding us with a malignant scowl upon his hawk-like, dissipated +countenance. But Mr. Helzephron, and all other men alive, were about six +a penny to me just then. + +Connie was to leave the sea-drome at eight-thirty in that fine +flying-liner _Atlantis_. She was a Royal Mail ship, and about the +fastest and finest flyer in the Transatlantic service, with a carrying +capacity of three hundred and fifty passengers, and a thousand tons dead +weight of cargo. Her crew numbered forty, and she was commanded by +Captain Swainson, one of the most reliable pilot commanders in the air. +He was a man I both knew and liked. + +Connie wanted a rest and a sleep. "At least, I want to be alone to think +it all over!" she said, so she went up to her room in the hotel at +once. I arranged to call for her at five, when we would go for a stroll +and afterwards have an early dinner. Then I washed my hands and strolled +into the famous long bar of the hotel for a sandwich and a whisky and +soda, before proceeding to the offices of the White Star Line on the +Hoe. + +As I munched my sandwich, I wondered what the affair was that had made +Sir Joshua Johnson send me a wireless message in the middle of the +night--a time when obese old gentlemen should be fast asleep in bed. I +had told my people at Whitehall to ask for further particulars, but I +had not the least intention of being bothered with them--or any police +business whatever--until I had settled my own personal affairs with +Connie. Accordingly, when I left my chambers in the morning to go to +Paddington, I sent a message to Whitehall to say that I was proceeding +to Plymouth during the day, and would wait till my arrival to hear what +the business was. Muir Lockhart, my assistant, would perfectly +understand, and was quite capable of dealing with anything that might +come along. + +The long bar was, as usual, full of naval officers, with a sprinkling of +Air Merchant Service men in their uniform of grey, silver and light +blue. I saw no one that I knew, until the swing-doors leading into the +hotel were flung open, and a wiry little man in the black and silver +uniform of my own corps came hurriedly in. His peaked cap, with the +silver wings and sword badge, was pushed back on his head, and he was in +a state of unenviable heat and perspiration. He was Pilot Superintendent +Lashmar, chief of the Ocean Patrol stationed at Plymouth, with equal +rank to a lieutenant-commander in the Navy, and one of my most trusted +officers in the West. + +He went up to the bar and ordered a "long glass of iced ginger-beer, +with a dash of gin in it," and then I clapped him on the shoulder. He +wheeled round in a second, and when he saw who it was his face changed +from anxiety to relief. + +"Thank Heaven you're come, sir," he said, as he saluted. "We've been +signalling to Whitehall all the morning, and all we could get was that +you were on your way. I've been backwards and forwards from the A.P. +Headquarters to the White Star Office a dozen times." + +"I came down by train, Mr. Lashmar," I said, realizing in an instant +that there really _was_ something important afoot, and that by bad luck +I was behind time. Sir Joshua Johnson was all very well, but when my own +people began to send out signals--that was quite another matter. + +"We thought you'd fly down in the yacht, sir, and we've been sending +wireless trying to pick you up." + +"I couldn't. I have had some most important business to attend to. +Anyhow, I'm here now. What's it all about?" + +"You haven't heard _anything_, sir?" he asked in amazement. + +Again I cursed my luck, but I wasn't going to give it away. "We'll go +round to Sir Joshua Johnson at once," was all I said. + +"That will be best, sir, and then every detail can be put before you in +sequence. I have my report with me, written up to date. I think I've +taken all possible measures up to the present, but, of course, we've +been waiting for you. Sir Joshua, as you may imagine, is half out of his +wits." + +"He's not had very far to travel, then," I said to gain time. All this +was so much Greek to me, and I had to walk warily. + +In a minute more Lashmar and I were on the Hoe and approaching the +stately offices of the Line, which stood in the very centre of that +famous promenade above the blue waters of the Sound. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +FATE OF THE TRANS-ATLANTIC AIR-LINER "ALBATROS" + + +There were a good many people in both the ante-room and the secretaries' +room as I was led to Sir Joshua. I was immediately aware of an unusual +stir and excitement, and people nodded and whispered as I +passed--"That's Sir John Custance, the Police Commissioner." "I expect +there's some news," were two of the _sotto voce_ remarks I heard. + +Sir Joshua sat in his own magnificent apartment, with the great window +looking out over Drake's Island and Mount Edgcombe to the horizon. A +tray and a decanter showed that he had lunched there, and there was a +good deal of cigar smoke in the air. + +Sir Joshua was a tall and corpulent man of nearly seventy, with a red +face with little purple veins in the cheeks, a thatch of snow-white hair +and close whiskers. He had been an early pioneer of commercial flying, +and had reaped his reward in the control of the finest air fleet in the +world and the Lord knows how many millions of money. He was distinctly +an able and upright man, and his only faults were a slight pomposity and +a mistaken idea that the Commissioner of A.P. for Great Britain was a +sort of unpaid official of The White Star Line! A good many of the great +air-shipping magnates had tried to take that line in the past--and been +snubbed for their pains! + +Sir Joshua was not pompous this afternoon, and his face was twitching as +he shook hands. + +"Thank God you're come, Sir John," he said, "I am almost out of my mind +with worry and anxiety. You will agree with me that this affair is as +grave as it well can be?" + +To that I was diplomatically silent. What I said was: "I have seen +Superintendent Pilot Lashmar. What I want now, Sir Joshua, as a +preliminary, is a brief and exact account from your own lips." + +"Sit down," he said, pushing a padded chair towards me and handing a box +of cigars. "You shall have it in a nutshell." He sat down opposite to +me, pulled some papers towards him with a hand that shook a little, and +began to read. + +... "Our liner _Albatros_, carrying the mails, left New York yesterday +morning about seven a.m., American time. She was consequently due here +at Plymouth about six-thirty this afternoon--Greenwich. The weather +conditions at the ten thousand feet mail-ship level were perfect. In +addition to the mails there were about two hundred passengers, and she +carried, though this was known only to a few officials, a parcel of +particularly fine Brazilian diamonds, consigned from Tiffany's of New +York to Aaron and Harris, the dealers in precious stones, of Hatton +Garden. The jewels were in the ship's safe, in charge of the purser. +Various ships--I have the full list--sighted the _Albatros_ during the +day and exchanged signals, while she duly reported herself by wireless +as she passed each lightship, as soon as dusk fell. The lightships, as +you know, are a hundred miles apart from the Fastnet to Long Island, and +are connected by cable with our telegraph room here. The indicating +dials register, degree by geographical degree, the exact position of any +of our ships when in the air. This record is printed on a tape beneath +each dial, and each record is examined every hour or two by a clerk." + +Of course, I knew all this. The minutest detail of the system was +familiar. I wished that Sir Joshua would "cut the cackle and come to the +'osses." No doubt my face showed something of what I felt, for Sir +Joshua half apologized. + +"You see, Sir John," he said, "I thought it best to prepare some sort of +short and coherent statement for the Press. As yet they have got hold +of nothing, but we can't possibly keep it much longer. Even you +couldn't, with all your powers. And what I am reading is this statement. +I particularly want you to hear it, as, of course, it rests with you if +it shall be published in this form or not." + +I bowed, and Sir Joshua continued: + +"At ten o'clock last night the clerk on duty examined the tapes. When he +came to the one recording the progress of the _Albatros_, he found that +for two hours there was no record of her at all. The last record was +that she had passed and signalled to Lightship A. 70 that all was well. +A two hours' gap is so unusual, owing to the--er--perfection of our +organization, that the clerk was alarmed, and reported the matter to a +superior upstairs. + +"A general call to all our ships in the air at that moment was at once +sent out, and in a few minutes responses were received from several of +them to the effect that the _Albatros_ had not been sighted. Nor was +there any answer from the ship herself. A signal to Lightship A. 71, the +next guide-boat the _Albatros_ should have passed, elicited the +information that she had never done so. By eleven o'clock all these +facts were known in this office. The night staff here became seriously +alarmed. By a fortunate coincidence I was attending a performance at the +Theatre Royal close by, with Lady Johnson and my daughters. This was +known, and a messenger caught me at the close of the play, and I came +round at once. I had not been in the offices for five minutes, when news +of the most extraordinary and sensational character began to come in +from our receiving station by the Citadel. + +"Captain Pring, one of our most reliable pilot commanders, was in charge +of the _Albatros_. The message was from him, and this is the gist of it. +At sundown the _Albatros_ was flying on the ten-thousand-foot level. The +Lightship A. 70 was some twenty miles astern. No other airships were in +sight, when the look-out man reported a boat coming up at great speed +from the east. The _Albatros_ was doing her steady ninety knots, but as +the two ships approached, it was seen that the stranger, a much smaller +boat, was flying at an almost incredible rate. Pring reports that she +was doing a sixteen to eighteen second mile, but there is doubtless a +mistake in the message. + +"The boat showed no distinguishing lights, and failed to signal, as she +flashed past the liner at the distance of half a mile. There were +several curious features about her which attracted attention, though +what these were we do not yet know. This strange ship turned and came up +with the _Albatros_, actually flying round her in spirals with the +greatest ease. Then, without the slightest warning, she opened fire on +our vessel, and the first shell, obviously by design, blew away our +wireless." + +My heart simply bounded within me. This was news with a vengeance! I had +to exercise all my self-control not to pour out a stream of frantic +questions. It was beyond thinking! Such a thing had not happened since +the League of Nations came into being. It might mean hideous war once +more--anything! + +Sir Joshua had paused to drink a glass of water. He understood the +immense gravity of this news as well as I did, and his voice was +unsteady as he went on in answer to my nod! + +"The _Albatros_ was helpless. Since the international agreement that +only naval, military and police ships may fly armed, she had no possible +means of defence. Flight, even, was impossible, and the loss of her +wireless forbade her to summon help. Then the anonymous ship turned a +machine gun on her rudder and shot it out of gear. There was nothing for +it but to descend to the water and rest on her floats. Pring was forced +to give the order, and she planed down. The other ship followed and took +the water not two hundred yards away. + +"She then signalled in Morse code, with a Klaxon horn, that she was +sending men aboard the _Albatros_, and that if the captain or crew +offered the slightest resistance she'd blow her to pieces. They launched +a Berthon collapsible boat from a door in the stern fusilage. There were +four men in her, all armed with large-calibre automatic pistols, and +wearing pilot's hoods and masks with talc eye-pieces, so that it was +impossible to identify them. Pring could do nothing at all. He had the +passengers to consider. These ruffians cleared out the safe and the +women's jewel-cases--they left the mails alone--and in ten minutes they +were back again with the loot. The ship lifted and went off in the dark +at two hundred miles an hour, leaving the _Albatros_, helpless upon the +water. + +"It was a business of several hours to rig up a makeshift rudder, but, +fortunately, her searchlights were all right, and she kept on signalling +with these until she was sighted by a big cargo steamer, a Baltimore to +Cadiz boat, coming up from the south, the _Sant Iago_. She took off the +passengers and is bringing them home; she's only a fifteen-knot boat, +but I have already dispatched one of our smaller liners to pick her up +and take the passengers aboard. They ought to be here some time +to-morrow. + +"The _Sant Iago_ has wireless, and was able to communicate, not only +with us, but also with the air-yacht _May Flower_, which she sighted on +the four-thousand-foot level at dawn. The _May Flower_ belongs to Mr. +Van Adams, the Philadelphia millionaire, who is crossing to England with +a party of friends. She came down to the water and took up Commander +Pring and the second officer, and should be here by tea-time this +afternoon. Then we shall know more of this unprecedented, this +deplorable business." + +"And the _Albatros_, Sir Joshua?" + +"A small crew was left on her, and an emergency tender and workmen +started at dawn. She ought to be flying again to-night." + +I had all the available facts at last, and long before Sir Joshua had +finished my mind was busy as a mill. There was going to be the very +biggest sort of commotion over this. England and America would be in a +blaze of fury within twenty-four hours, and every flying man, from the +skippers of the lordly London-Brindisi-Bombay boats, or the +Transatlantic Line, to the sporting commercial traveller in a secondhand +50 h.p. trussed-girder blow-fly, would be wagging the admonishing finger +at ME. + +"Thank you, Sir Joshua. Most lucid, if I may say so. As a clear +statement of fact, combined with a sense of vivid narrative, your +account could hardly be improved on." + +"You think, Sir John ..." + +"When the time comes to make a statement for the newspapers I would not +alter a word." + +Thus did the tongue of the flatterer evade a situation that might have +been a trifle awkward for me. I rose at that. "I must leave you now, Sir +Joshua," I said, "as I have a great deal to see to and must rejoin Mr. +Lashmar. Steps have already been taken, and later on in the day I shall +be able to tell you more. Meanwhile I shall see Captain Pring directly +the _May Flower_ arrives, and before anyone else. Our future action must +depend a great deal on his statement." + +This was said in my curtest official manner, and then I got out of the +room as quickly as I possibly could. Lashmar was waiting, and I took him +by the arm and hurried him out of the office. + +"I've only just heard full details, Lashmar, and pretty bad they are. +Now has anything been done--by us, I mean?" + +"I had two of our patrol ships out at two-thirty this morning cruising +over a wide area, sir. They are out still, and reporting every hour. No +results, no strange airship seen anywhere. I've been out myself up and +down the Irish coast and round the Scillies this morning, more for +form's sake than anything else. And I've cabled the whole story, as far +as we know it, to the States." + +"Good! Any reply from them?" + +"Their police ships are out from Cape Breton to the Bermudas, but they +don't seem to have sighted anything out of the ordinary as yet." + +"Of course, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack along +that huge stretch, eight hundred miles if it's an inch. But, as far as I +can see, it's up to them; not us." + +"You think so, sir?" + +"Why, yes. It's a case of sheer rank and daring piracy. It's been +organized with great skill, and the pirates, whoever they are, have +command of something quite out-size in the way of a ship. There isn't a +works in England where such a boat could be built without our knowing +about it before it was launched. And it's dead certain that there's +nowhere in these little islands to hide her. Every single bit of spruce +and piano wire with a motor-bicycle engine that can fly ten yards has to +be registered and licensed by me. No, this is an American stunt." + +We had been crossing the Hoe as we talked, in the direction of the +Citadel, and we now came to the long, low building of Dartmoor stone, +which is the Plymouth Headquarters of the A.P. It is perched on the edge +of the cliff, and within five yards of the spot where Sir Francis Drake +is said to have finished his game of bowls when the Armada was coming up +Channel. + +We passed through the gates, where the police sentry presented arms, and +began to walk up and down the terrace. + +"Signal to Southampton," I ordered, "and get a couple of their fastest +boats here at once. They may be useful in an emergency, and it will look +as if we are doing something. Ready for action, of course, and with full +service ammunition and bombs. Sir Joshua may have a fit if he likes, but +there is nothing to be done until we know more--unless you can suggest +anything?" + +The little man shook his head. He was keen as a terrier, of course, and +he had already acted with great promptitude and wisdom. + +Just then an orderly came out on to the terrace and handed me a signal. + +I read it out to Lashmar: "Air-yacht _May Flower_ just passed St. Mary's +doing ninety knots." It was from our most westerly A.P. station on +Tresco in the Scillies. Lashmar made a rough calculation: "Twenty-five +miles west-sou'-west of Land's End, add another seventy--she'll be here +just under the hour, sir." + +"Then I tell you what, Mr. Lashmar, go and meet her and escort her home. +Not a living soul must speak to Captain Pring before I do--not even Sir +Joshua or any of the White Star people. Give that as my orders when you +meet the yacht. But put it very politely to Mr. Van Adams--my +compliments and that sort of thing. He's the sort of person who could +buy the goodwill of the universe for ready money. Make your escort +appear a compliment from the Government!" + +Lashmar never wasted words. He understood exactly, saluted, and hurried +to the electric railway, which ran down like a chute into the sea-drome +far below. I lit a cigarette and watched, and it was a sight worth +watching. + +Beyond, stretched the largest sea-drome in Great Britain, a harbour +within a harbour, surrounded by massive concrete walls. In the roughest +weather, when even within the distant breakwater the Sound is turbulent, +the sea-drome is calm as a duck-pond. Now it was like a sheet of +polished silver, and resting on their great floats at their moorings +were three gigantic air-liners, with electric launches and motor-boats +plying between them and the landing-stages. + +Right in the centre was the splendid _Atlantis_, graceful as a swan, by +which Connie was to leave for the States in a few hours. She was +surrounded by a swarm of boats no bigger than water-beetles from where I +stood. + +A bell rang, there was a rumbling sound, and from a tunnel just beneath +me the car, with Lashmar in it, shot down to the water like a stone +running down a house roof. As the car dwindled to a punt, a match-box, +and finally a postage stamp, I heard the creak and swish of the +semaphore behind me on the roof of the station. On the far side of the +sea-drome was our Patrol Ship No. 1, stream-line fusilage, with the +familiar red, white and blue line, snow-white planes, guns fore and +aft, and twin propellers of phosphor bronze winking white-hot in the +afternoon sun. + +The semaphore was sighted in five seconds. I got a pair of glasses, and +saw that the engines were already "ticking over" as Lashmar jumped into +a launch and went over the pool, with a cream-white wake behind him and +two ostrich plumes of spray six feet high at the bows. He was on board +in less time than it takes to write it. I heard the faint throbbing of +the four high-compression engines change to the drone of a hornet. No. 1 +Patrol slid over the water until her floats lifted--lifted until they +barely touched the surface, and she was clear. One clean spiral over +Pinklecombe way, and then, as she mounted, she turned and was off over +Rams Head like an arrow from a bow. Though I say it that shouldn't, my +officers and men of the A.P. were just about as good as they're made! + +There was a good three-quarters of an hour to spare, and the Royal Hotel +was not four minutes away. After the recent excitements a cup of tea +with Connie seemed just the thing. As I legged it over the Hoe, I +realized that I might be very busy for some time, and, in consequence, +late for dinner. I must tell my girl that something of great importance +had happened, though, in any case, I was determined to see her off, come +what might. + +Then I remembered something. As Chief Commissioner I had absolute +control over the airports of England in a time of crisis. In any case, +it would be as well to, close the sea-drome in preparation for the _May +Flower's_ arrival. I should then be certain that no one could possibly +get at Captain Pring before I could. And if I chose to detain even the +Royal Mail for half an hour later on in the evening--under the +circumstances!--no one would say me nay. + +There is a telephone box in the hall of the Royal Hotel. In thirty +seconds my orders were given, and not a living soul would enter or leave +Plymouth sea-drome without my permission. Then I strolled into the +winter gardens, where I found Connie sitting at a little table among +tubs of azaleas and listening to the strains of a ladies' orchestra. + +"I've half an hour and ten minutes exactly, darling," I said, putting my +watch on the table and helping her to early strawberries. "Tell me when +the time's up, and then I must rush away for an hour before we dine." + +Straightway I forgot all about the _Albatros_, Captain Pring, and the +mysterious armed ship in mid-Atlantic. + +Knowing what I know now, I wonder how I could have taken it so lightly, +even then. But grave and serious as the affair was, amazing, too, in +its boldness, an elaborate and unexpected masterpiece of crime, it +seemed remote and very far away, like something one reads of in a +foreign newspaper, never conceiving that it can have anything to do with +one's own _personal_ life. + +If only I could have peeped but a little way into the future! + + + + +CHAPTER III + +"COLD-BLOODED PIRACY IN THE HIGH AIR" + + +Pilot-commander Pring was a tall, lean, lantern-jawed officer, who, +though of English nationality, had spent most of his life in America. +His face was still pale and grim with passion and mortification as I +closed the door of my private room at the A.P. Station on him, Mr. Van +Adams, the multi-millionaire, and Mr. Rickaby, second officer of the +_Albatros_. + +"Now, gentlemen, sit down, please," I said. "And I will ask Captain +Pring a few questions. Sir Joshua Johnson has given me the main facts, +but I want details. I won't detain you long, but I felt I ought to see +you before anyone else." + +"Oh, quite!" said Mr. Van Adams, a fleshy man, with a watchful eye and a +jaw like a pike. + +"This is an extraordinary affair, Captain Pring," I went on. "But, thank +goodness, you haven't lost your ship, or any lives. I know what you feel +about the _Albatros_." + +"She is father, mother, brother, sister, hired girl and dog under the +waggon to me!" said Pring, and then he blazed up into fury. I +disentangle the few words I can. The majority were too overdressed for +respectable society. + +"... His Majesty's Mails! First time in history of flying, and it's +happened to ME! Cold-blooded piracy in the High Air! They'd have blown +us to pieces as soon as look at us! When I get hold of that +slime-lapping leper, the pirate skipper, I won't leave him hide or hair +to cover the wart he calls his heart! ..." and so on, for a good two +minutes by the office chronometer. + +I let him rip. It was the quickest way. It's dangerous to throttle down +a man like Pring. + +"The Captain is, naturally, furious," I said. + +"Oh, quite!" answered Mr. Van Adams. + +Then we got to business. "The strange airship, Captain Pring. Let's +begin with that. She approached you flying _West_, I understand?" + +"She did, Sir John. Does that put you wise to anything?" + +"It would appear that she was coming from Europe. But that was probably +a trick. She might have been waiting about for hours." + +"Curious thing, then, that all the ships in the air during the last +thirty hours that were within fifteen hundred miles of the American and +Canadian coast never saw anything of her. The Air Police of the U.S.A. +have questioned every registered boat, Transatlantic and coastal trade, +and not one of them sighted her. And, as you know, Sir John, from Cape +Race to Charleston in summer weather the air's as thick with craft as +gnats over a pond. Ain't that so, Mr. Van Adams, sir?" + +"Quite, Captain Pring." + +"I see your inference. Well, we'll leave that for a moment. I understand +that there were some peculiar features about this ship. What were they?" + +"She's the fastest thing in the air, bar none. That I can swear to. A +pilot of my experience can't well be deceived, and if that ship--she's +one of the very few I've seen with four propellers--can't do two hundred +and forty miles an hour, _without a following wind, mind_, then I'm a +paretic!" + +I whistled. Such speeds had been dreamed of but never known. "Nearly +three times hurricane velocity!" I said. + +"She'd race the dawn, Sir John! and that's my honest belief. There's +never been such a flying boat before. And she don't carry a crew of more +than twelve or fifteen men, in my opinion. The rest's all engines and +petrol. She ain't more than twice the size of one of your patrol ships, +all over." + +This was talking! Each moment the affair grew more tense and +interesting. + +"That narrows our field of search no end," I remarked. "A boat like that +can't be built anywhere in the world without leaving traces." + +"It colours the cat different, sure," said Captain Pring. "Now, here's +another point. Gum! I'm going to startle you some more, Sir John, but, +as God sees me, I'm speaking truth. Here's Mr. Rickaby here as'll swear +to all I say...." + +He looked at the second officer, a good-looking, brown-faced lad. "It's +all gospel, Sir John," he broke in. + +"Of course," I said impatiently, "I know you couldn't be mistaken, +Pring, and I won't insult you by thinking you'd pull a Chief +Commissioner's leg over an affair of this importance. What's number two? +Let's have it!" + +"The man who runs her, or the man who built her, has solved another +problem. He's produced silent engines at last! That ship's motors don't +make more noise than a June bug! On a dark night she could pass within +two hundred yards of you, and you'd never guess that she was near." + +From that moment I saw the thing in its true proportions. From that +moment the air became unsafe. A man-eating tiger let loose upon a quiet +country-side was not a tithe as dangerous. + +The three other men saw that I understood. + +"The scoundrels who came aboard the _Albatros_ and looted the ship. +What of them?" + +"They were masked so's their mothers wouldn't, have known 'em. Armed to +the teeth, too. We'd have downed them quick enough, even at the cost of +a life or two, but there was the pirate with a four-inch gun trained on +us. And she meant business. I did right, Sir John?" + +The poor fellow's voice shook, and his face was corrugated with anxiety. + +"I should have done exactly the same myself under the circumstances, +Pring. Your first duty was to the women and children under your care. +That view, I am certain, will be accepted by the company and the +Government, to say nothing of the public, when it gets out. About these +men, again, did you judge them to be American or foreigners?" + +"They didn't speak much, except, to give a few orders. But what they +_did_ say I heard, every word. I was with them all the time, and so was +Mr. Rickaby here. I'll spring another surprise on you, Sir John, and +then I've done. _Those chaps were English, every one of them._ And, +what's more, they weren't any plug-ugly crowd neither! They were +educated men of some social position, club men at some time or other, or +I'm a short sport!" + +The second officer spoke. "Captain Pring is perfectly right, sir," he +said modestly. "I'll swear that they had been public school or 'Varsity +men at some time or other." + +"Where were you?" I asked quickly. + +"Harrow, sir." + +I nodded. Here was another astounding fact for consideration when I was +alone. + +"And then, after a time," Pring continued, "the _Sant Iago_ tramp +steamer freighter came up from way down South and rescued us. After that +we sighted the lights of Mr. Van Adams' air yacht, the _May Flower_, and +in answer to our signal he came down and took me and Rickaby aboard." + +"Quite," said the laconic millionaire. + +"To-night, Captain Pring, I shall want a long talk with you. Now I must +surrender you to Sir Joshua. For the present, I want you all three to +give me your words of honour that you will tell no one at all anything +about the appearance or speed of the ship, that her engines were silent, +or you suspect the ruffians on her to be English. That is most +important. In fact, I must make it an order, under the powers with which +I am invested by the Secretary of State. As an order, it cannot apply, +to you, Mr. Van Adams, but you have been so kind and helpful hitherto +that I feel sure you'll give me your promise? You must see how necessary +it is." + +Mr. Van Adams was going to use his word-of-all-work, I saw it coming, +when he changed his mind. + +"I'm on," he said instead. + +The two pilots gave me their assurances, and we walked out of the office +together. As we went along the terrace Pring pointed down to the +sea-drome, where the millionaire's air yacht, a beautiful boat, painted +cream colour and black, was now resting at her moorings. + +"The _Atlantis_ starts to-night," he said significantly. + +"She will be escorted by an armed patrol," I said, "until she meets one +of the American A.P. ships in mid-ocean. Surely, you don't think there's +any danger?" + +To tell the truth, I had been so concentrated upon the matter in hand +that I had hardly given a thought to the outgoing liner. Can you blame +me? Anyway, duty came before any private considerations. Now, Pring's +remark started a new set of thoughts. I looked at him with great +anxiety. He did not know the whole of my reason, but he saw that I was +disturbed. + +"No, Sir John," he answered, "I don't think the danger worth the waggle +of a mule's ear. It was only a passing remark. It stands to reason that +Captain Kidd'll know that the police boats of two hemispheres are out +looking for him in swarms by now. He'll figure that out, sure. If he +was to start any of his stunts within the next few days, he'd have about +as much chance as a fat man in Fiji." + +"That's what I thought." + +"You may make your mind easy about the _Atlantis_, sir. Besides, as you +say, to put the lid on, she'll be escorted." + +"Quite," I said involuntarily, and then we both laughed. + +"Royal Hotel at ten-thirty," I said. "I shall be staying there +to-night." + +I shall never forget that dinner with Connie. One of her greatest charms +is her serene light-heartedness. It is not silliness or frivolity, don't +think that, but the bloom upon the fruit of a clear and happy nature +whose conscience is at rest. My girl wasn't a fool. She was not ignorant +of evil and the grey sides of life. But they left her untouched. Perhaps +her very simplicity, the gay and stainless courage that she wore like a +flag through life, had helped her to her great success. The British +public might admire and enjoy the work of other artists, but they had +taken little Connie Shepherd to their hearts. + +She was gay at our dinner, bubbling over with joy and fun. I did my best +to respond, but it was rather difficult. There was a shadow on my mind, +and it would not go away. + +"Dearest old John!" she said once, "what is it? You're sad, inside of +you, and you're pretending you're not!" + +"Darling, in an hour or two you'll be gone. How can I be very happy?" + +She shook her head. "It's not that. You can't deceive me. I don't want +to part, either, especially on this day of days. But we are both of us +sensible, and we both know it's only for six weeks. You aren't in the +least sentimental--horrid word!--nor am I. We go deeper than that." + +"Well, then, to tell you the truth"--and it _was_ the truth--"I am a bit +under the weather, and I can't quite say why. Perhaps it's reaction. But +most probably, it's because I have been hearing some news, a matter in +connection with my work which has excited me. It's a problem of +organization I must solve at once. Forgive me, sweetheart!" + +"My dear, if you were not what you are, I should never have said 'yes.' +No one has ever had such a position as you at your age, and I know how +you've fought for it. I _love_ you to be preoccupied about your work." + +We finished dinner, however, in a happier mood, and then walked down to +the sea-drome together. Connie's heavy luggage had gone to New York by +steamer a week ago. The two small trunks she had brought with her from +London were already on board the _Atlantis_, and Wilson and Thumbwood +carried a couple of dressing-bags. + +It was a perfect evening. The sun, in going to rest, had hung the sky +with banners, golden and glorious. The music of a band upon the pier +came softly up to the terrace of the A.P. Station. Young men and maidens +in summer clothes strolled up and down over the greens, and a +sickle-shaped new moon was rising over Devonport and the Hamoaze. + +We went down in the electric car, and boarded the _Atlantis_ from one of +my launches. She was lit up in all her triple decks, as we climbed +aboard by the saloon accommodation ladder, and a steward took Connie and +her maid to her cabin, while I went to find my old friend, Captain +Swainson. + +The big, bearded man was sitting alone in his little room. There was a +cup of black coffee by his side, and he was chewing an unlighted cigar. +I saw at once that he had heard something. + +"The very man!" he cried, jumping up from his basket chair and gripping +me warmly by the hand. "I heard you were here, Sir John, and I made sure +of seeing you before I started. Now what's all this? Sir Joshua's half +out of his mind with worry, the offices are turned upside down, and Seth +Pring--confound him!--is as close as an oyster!" + +I found out that he knew just what Sir Joshua knew, and no more. He was +indignant but quite cool, inclined to minimize the whole affair. + +It seemed to me that to tell him the whole truth would serve no good +purpose. + +Pilot Superintendent Lashmar, whom I was going to send in command of the +escort, would, of course, know everything. + +"Well, I'm sending an escort with you half-way across," I said. "Lashmar +will go--you know him?--in No. 1 Patrol Boat. It's heavily armed, and he +can shoot straighter than any man in the service. Got his experience in +the Great War." + +"Escort be blowed!" said hearty Captain Swainson. "I can't think what +old Pring was about to let himself be held up like that--though, of +course, it's just as you wish, Sir John." + +"I don't suppose there's the least need of it, Swainson. But this +business'll make a bit of a noise, and it looks well. Now I'll tell you +a secret. I'm engaged to be married! Settled it coming down in the train +this morning." + +"The deuce you are! A thousand congratulations!" + +"Thanks. What's more, the lady is aboard your ship, and flies to New +York with you to-night. I want you to look after her for me." + +"Can a duck swim? Well, this _is_ news! Now I understand about that +escort! But do introduce me, Sir John. It will be more than a pleasure +to make the young lady comfortable." + +We went off to seek Connie, and found her sitting behind one of the +multiplex wind-screens on the saloon deck, listening to the music of a +piano and violin that came through the open hatch of the palm-court +below. + +I remember that the musicians were playing a selection of old English +airs, sweet, plaintive music, and had just got to "The Last Rose of +Summer." + +I'm not emotional, but when I hear that tune to-day--thank goodness, it +isn't often!--I go out of the room. + + +At a quarter to nine I stood on the Hoe and watched the _Atlantis_ start +for America. Her navigation lights were all turned on; the innumerable +port-holes of the huge fusilage made an amber necklace below the immense +grey planes. + +Then, from the towers on the sea-drome wall the "flare-path" shot +out--an avenue of white and steady light to guide the liner outwards. +From the roof of the A.P. Station the compressed air-horn sent out three +long, brazen calls. I had arranged it so. It was my Godspeed to +Constance. Old Swainson answered on his Klaxon, and then the liner began +to move slowly over the glittering water. Every second she increased her +speed and lifted until she rose clear and slanted upwards. I had a +vision of the mysterious silvery thing like a moth in the centre of the +light-beam, and then the flare-path shifted out to sea, and rose till it +was almost at a right angle with the water. The _Atlantis_ was +spiralling up to her ten-thousand-foot level, and in a moment or two she +was nothing more than a speck. + +Just as I lost sight of her, Patrol Ship No. 1 lifted and followed like +a hawk after a heron, and then both ships were lost in the night. + +The band on Plymouth Pier was still playing. The young men and maidens +were still strolling round the lawns in the moonlight. The air was sweet +and pure, full of laughter and the voices of girls. But I went back to +the station with a heavy heart. + +Two shorthand clerks and two telegraphists were waiting for me, and in +the next hour I got through an infinity of work. There was a mass of +telegrams to answer from America. They had been re-wired from Whitehall. +I had to send out fifty or sixty signals to organize a complete patrol +of the Atlantic air-lanes. There was a long and confidential "wireless" +to my assistant, Muir Lockhart, in London, and last, though by no means +least, a condensed report of everything for the Home Secretary. It was +after ten when I had finished, and I walked slowly back to the "Royal," +dead tired in mind and body. When I came to think of it, I realized that +this had been one of the most eventful and exciting days of my life. + +Thumbwood--you will hear a great deal about him before this narrative is +over--was waiting in the hall. He hurried me upstairs to where a tepid +bath dashed with ammonia was waiting. Five minutes in this, a brisk rub +down, a complete change into evening kit, a tea-cup of Bovril with a +tablespoon of brandy and a pinch of celery salt in it--what Thumbwood +called my "bran-mash"--and I was a new man again. + +For a perfect valet commend me a man who has had charge of racehorses in +his time! + +Then I went down to meet Captain Pring. I saw at once, as I came into +the public rooms of the hotel, that the news was out. Groups of people +were standing together and talking earnestly. There was a buzz of +suppressed excitement, natural anywhere, but particularly so in the +principal air-port of England. + +And there were special editions of the evening papers.... + +These--I got one and looked--had made the most of very scanty material. +Nothing like the whole truth had leaked out, but there was, +nevertheless, a sensation of the first magnitude. I was recognized and +pointed to; a naval captain even spoke, and tried to pump me!--though +he soon found that there was nothing doing--and when Captain Pring came +into the lounge some idiot started to cheer, and there was what the +papers describe as a "scene." + +Pring and I supped alone in a private room and had a long confidential +talk, in the course of which I learnt many things. I am not going to +give any details of that talk at present. It was momentous--it is enough +to say that now--and has its proper place further on in the story. + +The worthy Captain went at twelve, and I retired to bed. Thumbwood slept +in a dressing-room opening out of my bedroom. By his couch was a +telephone, which I arranged was to be connected with the A.P. Station +all night long. If any signal came Thumbwood was to take it, and, if +important, wake me at once. + +... I am going to conclude this first portion of the narrative in as few +lines as possible. Even to-day I shirk the writing of them. + +I was awakened suddenly to find my room blazing with light; I afterwards +found that the exact time was 2.30 a.m. + +Thumbwood was standing by the bed. "Sir John," he said hoarsely, +"there's a signal!" + +One glance at the lad's face was enough, and I set my teeth--hard. + +"Bad news?" + +"Terrible news, Sir John!" + +"Go on." + +"_Atlantis_ attacked two hundred miles west of Cork. Captain Swainson +and four other men shot dead. Patrol Boat No. 1 disabled. Commander +Lashmar and most of the crew killed. Signal got through by two survivors +of crew, who managed to repair wireless." + +Twice I swallowed with a dry mouth. Thumbwood knew what I wanted to ask. + +"The young lady, Sir John, and her maid ..." + +"Dead, too?" + +"No, Sir John. They were taken from among all the other passengers and +put aboard the pirate ship, which then flew away with them." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE NEWSPAPERS IN FULL CRY + + +You are to imagine, if you please, the private room of the Chief +Commissioner of Air Police at Whitehall. + +A soft Turkey carpet of dull brick-reds and blues covers the parquet +floor. The walls are hung with pictures of famous airmen of the past, +inventors, fighters, pioneers of the great commercial service of +air-liners which now fills the skies and has shrunk the planet--for all +practical purposes--to a fifth of its former size. There are two or +three huge writing-tables covered with crimson morocco; the chairs are +thickly padded and luxurious. A range of tall windows looks down upon +the endless stir and movement of the wide street, where the nerves of +Empire meet in one central ganglion. + +Standing by one of these windows is a light-haired young man of thirty +in a lounge suit of dark blue. He wears a rather heavy, +carefully-trimmed moustache, and his face is seamed and furrowed with +anxiety and grey from want of rest. + +Thus you see me in London, two days after Thumbwood brought the +terrible news to my bedroom in the hotel at Plymouth. + +General Sir Hercules Nichelson, Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Flying +Corps, had been with me for half an hour, and was just taking his leave. + +"Then all that is satisfactorily arranged, Sir John," he said. "We shall +supplement your patrol ships with three war-ships at Plymouth and three +at the Scillies. They will, of course, be air cruisers, both faster and +better armed than your boats, and between us both we shall put an end to +this pest before many days are over." + +"I sincerely trust so," I said. "And I do not see how it is possible +that there should be any further outrages. The net will be too close. +America, with its much greater coastal area, is taking extraordinary +precautions." + +"It will be impossible for these devilish scoundrels to escape," the +General repeated with confidence--the onus of it all was not falling +upon _him!_--"and now, we quite understand one another." + +"Perfectly, I think, Sir Hercules." + +"Your chief station officer is to be in full command, under you, at each +air-port." + +"It was your suggestion, Sir Hercules, and since it came from you, I do +think it would be best. My men are always patrolling the air-lines. The +organization is complete already." + +"Exactly. And as for my fellows, they will be proud to serve under such +gallant and experienced officers as those of the A.P." + +"It's kind of you to say so." + +"Not at all. It is the truth. And now, as an older man, let me give you +a little advice, if I am not taking a liberty. Don't let this affect you +too much, Sir John. Every sane man knows that neither you nor anyone +else could have avoided what has happened, or have provided against it. +It is a great thing to have an acute sense of responsibility; I honour +you for it. But don't overdo it. I know the strain you are enduring. +Don't let it go too far. If you were to break down now, that would be a +final disaster...." + +The kind, white-haired old man shook me warmly by the hand, and left the +room. + +Almost immediately young Bickenhall, my private secretary, came in. +"Here is the morning's Press, sir," he said, and upon my table he put +down various columns cut from the journals of that morning--all dealing +with the sensational and terrible events on the Atlantic that were now +the common knowledge of the world. + +I sat down to glance through them--I was keeping an iron grip upon +myself these times--in order to gauge public opinion. It occurs to me +that, in order to acquaint you with the progress of events from my +awakening at Plymouth till the morning of which I speak, I cannot do +better than quote a paragraph here and there from the daily papers. It +will bring us up to date more quickly and concisely than in any other +way. + +This, then, from one of the leading London journals, a weighty, somewhat +ponderous sheet, with considerable influence: + + +"... We have given an account of the first attack upon the air-liner +_Albatros_, under command of Captain Pring, whose conduct in such a +trying situation did not deviate from the best traditions of our British +aviators. Most people would have thought that after such a dastardly +outrage, the unknown pirate would have been content to rest upon his +infamous laurels and retire to his lair, with the valuable booty he had +secured. But it was not so. With an audacity unparalleled in the annals +of crime, this vulture, on the very next night, commits an outrage +which, for ferocity and daring, makes the first one seem like a mere +frolic. + +"It is now possible to disentangle something of the truth from the +various conflicting stories that have reached us, and it is, moreover, +confirmed in its essential details by the authorities of the Air Police +at Whitehall, who have issued a guarded statement. + +"It appears that two nights ago the famous air-liner _Atlantis_ left +the Plymouth sea-drome about nine in the evening. The Captain, Commander +Pilot Swainson, was one of the best known and trusted officers in the +Transatlantic service. He did not anticipate the slightest danger. Sir +John Custance, Chief Commissioner of the Air Police of Great Britain, +was himself at Plymouth, having hurried down from London upon receiving +news of the first piracy. Sir John insisted that the _Atlantis_ should +be escorted, for half of her journey to America, by the armed Patrol +Ship '1,' under command of Superintendent Pilot-Commander Lashmar, +D.S.O., himself an officer of great distinction. Half-way across the +Atlantic the liner was to be met by a similar escort of the United +States A.P., and let us here say that it is difficult to tell what other +precautions Sir John Custance could have devised. + +"The _Atlantis_ carried the Royal Mail and a full complement of +passengers, among whom were some distinguished names. Mr. Bootfeller, of +the United States Senate, Mr. Greenwell, the well-known publisher, the +Duke of Perth, and 'Walty Priest,' the cinema 'star,' were among the +men, while in the list of ladies was Miss Constance Shepherd, a young +actress, of whom it is not too much to say that she has endeared herself +to the British public. + +"About two o'clock in the morning disastrous and terrible news began to +filter through to the Plymouth wireless stations. It can be summarized +as follows: When not more than two hundred and fifty miles west of +Ireland, the patrol ship, which was flying three miles or so behind the +_Atlantis_, was suddenly attacked by an unknown airship. The moon had +set, the ten-thousand-feet level was dark, and the attack was delivered +without the slightest warning. Patrol Ship No. 1 was instantly disabled +by a rain of shells. Captain Lashmar was shot dead, and with him +perished all of the crew except three men, one of whom was so seriously +wounded that his life is despaired of, the other two being only slightly +wounded. + +"An utter wreck, the patrol ship was just able to descend to the water, +where she rested like a wounded and dying bird. + +"Meanwhile the unknown ship caught up with the _Atlantis_ and +commenced--as in the case of the _Albatros_--with shooting away her +wireless aerials. The rudder and stern propeller were then destroyed, +and the great liner forced to plane to the surface of the water. Six +masked and armed ruffians went aboard of her, and a systematic looting +of the ship commenced. Captain Swainson could not bear this. He drew a +revolver and shot one of the pirates dead. Then, calling on his crew to +assist him, he made a determined rush, regardless of consequences. The +fight was unequal. Captain Swainson was the only defender who carried +fire-arms, while the robbers were provided with heavy automatic pistols. + +"Five men of the _Atlantis_ were killed almost instantly, and the rest +cowed, while the systematic robbery continued. And now, alas! 'horrors +upon horror's head accumulate.' Their evil work completed, the ruffians +sought out Miss Constance Shepherd and her maid, Miss Wilson, from among +the passengers. These unfortunate ladies were forced at the pistol's +mouth to embark upon the pirates' small boat, in which they were rowed +rapidly to the pirate ship and taken on board. The ship then rose from +the water and was lost to sight. + +"Meanwhile two heroes were at work. On board the broken patrol ship two +able navigators, Paget and Fowles, were wounded, indeed, but not +entirely disabled. Both men had some knowledge of wireless, and with +superhuman toil, as the hours went on, they contrived to rig up a +temporary apparatus which, at last, served to send out a brief account +of the disaster and a call for help. + +"When rescue ships arrived at early dawn, they found that the patrol +ship had drifted close to the _Atlantis_, and that Dr. Weatherall, the +surgeon of the liner, had swum aboard the No. 1 and rendered what help +he could to the wounded men. + +"Press representatives are at Plymouth, but, so far, few of the +passengers of the _Atlantis_ have been able, and none have been allowed +by the authorities, to make personal statements for publication. This +embargo, we are assured, will be removed by this evening. + +"This is a precise account of what has happened. We must now turn to the +consideration of the situation...." + + +Another journal, a weekly one this time, headed its remarks with a +portrait of my unhappy self. Underneath was written: "The Man the +Atlantic Pirates tricked!" The rag had an immense circulation in all the +tap rooms of England. + +Well, I would see what the blackguards of the country were reading about +me. Shrewd young Bickenhall wouldn't have brought the unclean thing in +if he hadn't thought it worth while. I give it for what it's worth: + + +"Poor Johnny Custance! You're up against it good and thick to-day, and +no mistake, and Paul Pry"--this was the signature of the tout who wrote +the article--"can't say he's very sorry for you. For some time past a +little bird has been whispering in the clubs that all is not well in the +State of Denmark--to wit, the office of the Commissioner of Air Police +at Whitehall. The aristocratic young gentlemen who daily condescend to +drop into this palatial edifice for an hour or two have long held the +reputation of being the best dressed of all our minor Government +officials, and, considering the salaries they draw from the public +purse, this is not surprising. But I have never yet heard that they did +any work worth mentioning, or, indeed, anything to justify their +precious and beautiful existence. + +"Flying Police we must have, and never has the necessity for them been +greater than at this moment; but there is a vast deal of difference from +the handy pilot of a patrol ship at Plymouth or Portland and the +bureaucratic popinjays of Pall Mall. + +"Sir John Custance, Bart., is the typical Government official of the +musical comedy or the comic paper. He is an aristocrat who, after a +short experience in the air, is shoved into the highly-paid and +responsible position he holds without any reason that the man in the +street can understand. A baronet, and, if report speaks truly, a man of +considerable private means, I have--in common with many other +people--often asked myself what possible qualification this young +gentleman can have for his job. Johnny is a most estimable person, no +doubt, in private life. I have heard it remarked that his moustache is +one of the most perfect things in the West End of London, and he is +frequently to be seen adorning a stall or box at the Parthenon Theatre. +But few people have ever taken him seriously as the head of our Air +Police, and now nobody will." + + +There was a row of stars here, as if Mr. Paul Pry paused for breath, or +was stopping to pick up another handful of mud, and then he went on +again: + + +"If the nation is called upon to pay thousands and thousands a year for +the upkeep of an efficient service of Air Police, it is entitled to see +that it gets it, and that the man in charge is able to provide it. What +has happened? A crew of murdering ruffians in an airship have looted two +of our greatest air-liners, slaughtered several people, kidnapped one of +our most popular actresses, and escaped scot-free. Vanished into the +wide! While Sir John Custance twiddles his thumbs in Whitehall and calls +upon the air forces of the Admiralty and War Office to supplement his +own miserably inefficient organization. + +"As usual, we are not without some very special and exclusive +information in this office. My readers know from past experience that +their Paul is not easily caught napping. I believe that I shall have +something to say that will startle everyone in next week's number, +though, for certain reasons, I cannot be more explicit at present. +Before concluding these remarks, however, I must say a word or two about +the extraordinary and sinister disappearance of delightful Constance +Shepherd. Sad as it is to hear of brave men shot down while doing their +duty, there is something peculiarly terrible in the carrying off of the +little lady to whom London owes so much. Dear little Connie! We of +Bohemia knew and loved you well! Many is the happy hour that Paul Pry +has spent in your company, many the bumper of bubbly water he has +quaffed to your success! + +"No one could possibly have foreseen such a tragic ending to the +American journey which Miss Shepherd set out upon with such high hopes. +And yet, there was not wanting a slight shadow of premonition. Only a +week ago she said to me: 'Paul, I'm not so sure, after all, that +everything will go well. There are certain things. I can't tell you of +them----' But I must refrain from betraying a confidence. Let it be +enough to say that my little friend had her moments of dejection, when +she was not entirely happy about the future." + + +I put down the paper and rang for Bickenhall. "You've read this, I +suppose?" I asked, pointing to it. + +He nodded. "Lies, of course," he said; "mere words to fill up the +column." + +"No doubt. Still, the man hints all sorts of things, damn him! And one +can't neglect any possible clue." I was in a raging fury, and Bickenhall +saw it, though he was far from suspecting the true cause. + +"The office is in the Strand," he said, "three minutes by taxi. I'll go +and interview this Paul Pry and put the fear of God into him." + +I knew my Bickenhall. He is an energetic and hefty young man, and though +I had little hopes that he would discover anything of value, I had a +shrewd suspicion that Mr. Paul Pry was about to experience a peculiarly +unpleasant ten minutes. + +I was right in both my conjectures. + +The secretary returned in half an hour. "Just a ramp," he said. "I found +a greasy ruffian smelling of gin in a back room, and frightened him out +of his life. He's never met Miss Shepherd, and has no private +information whatever. Will apologize in any manner you like." + +I am not going to bother you with what the journalists wrote. There were +hundreds of columns of suggestions, conjecture, reproof, alarm, and so +forth. On the whole my department was let down fairly lightly, and I was +glad. Please don't think that I cared twopence for myself. I did not. +But I should have bitterly resented any serious reflections on my staff, +officers and men, who were, and are, as able and loyal a body as can be +found anywhere in the world. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT OF MR. VAN ADAMS + + +At mid-day I had an appointment with the Home Secretary. He received me +with the utmost kindness, and we had half an hour of highly confidential +talk. The purport of it will appear later. This is not the place for it. + +Towards the end I informed him that I had a request to make. + +"Tell me," he answered at once, "and let me repeat that the Government +has every confidence in you, Sir John. Don't take this too hardly, I beg +of you." + +I had a sudden impulse. "I trust," I said, "that my anxiety for the +public welfare is in no degree overshadowed by a private sorrow. Indeed, +I am sure that it isn't. But, if I may speak in confidence, I should +like you to know, sir, that I was engaged to be married to Miss +Constance Shepherd." + +There was a perceptible silence. I heard the great man take a long +inward breath, and murmur to himself, "Poor fellow!" Then he did the +right, the quite perfect thing: he stretched out his hand, and took mine +in a firm, warm grasp. + +When I could speak, I returned to business. + +"My request, sir, is this. I want to disappear for a month." + +"Disappear, Sir John?" + +"That's what it amounts to. Practically, I am going to ask for four +weeks' leave of absence. It must be private, though. If the news were +published the public would misunderstand, and think I was deserting my +post in a time of difficulty and danger." + +"Whereas?" + +"Whereas I want to investigate this affair in my own way. I believe that +the theories of the Press and public, and also those of Scotland +Yard--with whom I have been in consultation--are quite wrong. Nor do my +communications with America give me any reason to change my opinion. +This is a matter of life and death to me. I owe the Government, who have +promoted me so rapidly to the high position I occupy, a solution of this +mystery. I owe them and the public that the fiends who have committed +these outrages should be brought to justice. And, if God allows me, I +will do it. My honour and that of my department are at stake. Those two +things come before anything else. In addition, I have the private +reasons of which I have told you. And, in order to succeed, I am +persuaded that my way is the only way." + +"You have certainly the strongest motives a man well could have to urge +you on. But can you be a little more explicit?" + +"I want to leave Mr. Muir Lockhart in charge at the office. He is +perfectly capable of taking charge. He has everything at his fingers' +ends. And I shall arrange that he can always communicate with me at any +time." + +The Home Secretary thought for a moment, and drummed with his fingers on +the arm of his chair. He had been a famous barrister, and renowned for +the perfection of his turn-out. His finger-nails were pink and polished +as the light fell upon them, and I wondered if he had them manicured. + +Then he looked up. "Very well, do as you like," he said suddenly. "I +take it that you know what you're about. And heartfelt good wishes for +your success." + +... This is how I plunged into a series of dangerous adventures, a dark +underworld of crime and almost superhuman cunning, probably without +parallel in modern times. + +Arrangements were soon made at Whitehall. Muir Lockhart was an +understanding man, and by three o'clock in the afternoon I walked out +into the sunshine free from all official cares for a month. I took a +long, deep breath as I crossed the Horse Guards Parade and made my way +to the long, green vista of the Mall. "The first act is over," I +thought. "The curtain is rising on the real drama. Somewhere in this +world there is a man whose discovery and death I owe to Society and to +myself." + +And I was a man who never failed to pay a debt. + +I have given you but little indication of my mental state during the +last few days. It won't bear much writing about even now. A cold fury, +instead of blood, came and went in my veins, and my heart was ice. Every +now and again, especially when I was alone, agony for which there is, +there can be, no name got hold of me, and sported with me as the wind +sports with a leaf. I suppose I had a tiny foretaste of what is felt by +a soul that is eternally damned. I _dared_ not think too much of +Constance and her fate. If I had let myself go that way the running +waters would have risen and overwhelmed me utterly. But, thank God, my +intellect held. The streak of hardness which had served me so well in my +career, and had enabled me to push to the top at an early age, came to +the rescue now. Every faculty was sharpened; the will concentrated to a +single purpose. I was alone, and I walked in darkness, but I was +conscious of Power--charged to the brim as a battery is charged with the +electric fluid. As I walked calmly up St. James', on the way to my +chambers, I doubt if a more single-minded and dangerous man than I +walked the streets of London. + +And I knew, by some mysterious intuition, that I should succeed in the +task before me. I had not, as yet, more than the most rudimentary idea +how I was going to set about it, but I should succeed. Don't +misunderstand me. I had hardly any hope of seeing my dear love alive +again. I believed that all the joy of life was finally extinguished. But +justice--call it vengeance rather--remained, and I was as sure that I +was the chosen instrument of that as I was that I had just passed +between Marlborough House and the Palace of St. James. + +My expensive but delightful chambers in Half Moon Street were on the +second floor--sitting-room, dining-room, bed and dressing rooms and +bath. + +The sitting-room was panelled in cedar-wood, which had been stained a +delicate olive-green, with the mouldings of the panels picked out in +dull gold. Connie and her gay young friends, when they came to have tea +with me, or supper after the theatre, used to say that it was one of the +most charming rooms in London. + +I had spent an infinity of time and money on it, determined that it +should be "just so." For instance, the carpet was from Kairowan in +Tunisia, and had taken a whole family of Arab weavers five years to +make. Never was there a more perfect blue--not the crude peacock colour +of the cheaper Oriental rugs, but a blue infused with a silver-ash +shade, contrasting marvellously with the warm brick-reds and tawny +yellows. It was a bargain at four hundred pounds. + +I had hung only half a dozen pictures in this room, all modern and all +good. My "Boys Bathing," by Charles Conder--better known as the painter +of marvellous fans--was a masterpiece of sunlight and sea foam which +made me the envy of half the collectors in town. Then I had a William +Nicholson--"Chelsea Ware"--that was extraordinarily fascinating. It was +just some old Chelsea plates and a jug standing on a table. It doesn't +sound fascinating, I know, but the painting was so brilliant, there was +such vision in the way it was seen, that one could look at it for hours. + +There was an open hearth of rough red brick in the room, deep and +square, and when there was a fire it burned in a gipsy brazier of iron. +I had a lot of trouble to get this last of the right shape, and finally +it had to be made for me, from the design of an artist in Birmingham. + +Such a room, with its perfect colour harmonies and severe lines, +required no knick-knacks. Nothing small or petty, however beautiful in +itself, could be allowed there. I had two cabinets of magnificent china +in my dining-room, but china would have been quite out of place here. +Along one wall, about four feet from the floor, was a single shelf of +old pewter--cups and flagons of the Tudor period with the double-rose +hall-mark--and that was all. + +As I entered and flung myself wearily into a chair, the afternoon +sunlight poured in through the half-drawn curtains of sea-green silk. In +the ceiling a hidden electric fan was whirring, and the room was +deliciously cool. And as I looked round, the place seemed hateful beyond +all expression. I was sick of it, loathed its beauty and comfort; an +insane desire came to take a hammer and wreak havoc there as my eyes +fell on the only photograph in the room. It was one of Constance, in a +frame of dull silver, studded with turquoises, and she had given it to +me no longer than a fortnight ago. + +Thumbwood slept at the top of the house. He came in, after I had been +resting for a few minutes. + +"I've made the necessary arrangements, Charles," I said, "and we shall +start operations at once." I had no secrets from this devoted friend and +servant. + +"Glad to hear it, Sir John. I've been round the town this morning, and +there's a lot of talk." + +He followed me into the sitting-room and brought me cigars. + +"You see," he went on confidentially, "a gentleman's servant, especially +if he belongs to the club just off Jermyn Street, and more specially +still if he's been a racing man, hears all that's going on quicker than +anyone. This morning I've been talking to the porters and valets of two +of the best clubs, Sir John. Then I 'ad a crack with Meggit, the +bookmaker, what does all the St. James' smaller commissions, and after +that I strolled to the Parthenon Theatre, and took out the stage +door-keeper and filled him up and made 'im talk a bit. 'Im and me is +great friends consequent of my taking so many messages and flowers for +you, sir, when Miss Shepherd was acting there." + +"Ah! I see you haven't wasted your time." I smiled inwardly at +Thumbwood's idea of helping me. + +"No, Sir John. I've learned a lot of funny little things, just trifles, +so to say, but they may prove useful later on. There's one thing you +ought to know at once. Them theatricals have been talking, and it's all +over town that Miss Shepherd travelled down to Plymouth with you. It's +certain to be in the papers this afternoon, if it ain't already. There's +been half a dozen reporters buzzing round the theatre this morning." + +I ground my teeth with anger, but only for a moment. Of course, the +thing was inevitable. There was only one thing to do. + +I took up the telephone on the writing-table and got put on to the +_Evening Wire_. "I am Sir John Custance," I said to the editor. "I hear +that there is a good deal of talk going about London in respect of Miss +Constance Shepherd and myself. To avoid the least misconception, I +authorize you to state, in your next edition, that Miss Shepherd and I +were engaged to be married. I'll send my servant down to your office at +once, with a note confirming this conversation." + +It was the only way, much as I hated it, to stop malicious gossip, and I +scribbled a chit to the editor. + +"Get into a taxi and take that at once," I said to Thumbwood. As I gave +him the letter, there was a ring at the front-door bell. + +The little man went out and I heard voices, one harsh and deep, that +seemed familiar. + +"Who is it?" I asked as Charles returned. "I can't see anyone...." + +"Wouldn't take any denial, sir. It's the American gentleman who picked +up Captain Pring after the attack on the _Albatros_. Says he must see +you." + +"Mr. Van Adams?" + +"Yes, Sir John." + +"Show him in." + +A moment afterwards I was shaking hands with the thickset man whose jaw +was like a pike's and whose eyes resembled animated steel. Thumbwood +went off with the letter. I heard the front door close after him. + +Now I don't suppose at that moment I would have seen any other man in +London unconnected with my office at Whitehall. I didn't want to see the +millionaire, but directly he was inside the room my irritation vanished. +He had meant to see me. He had now accomplished his end, and I had a +firm conviction that sentries with fixed bayonets wouldn't have kept him +out. + +He sat down quietly in the chair I indicated, and took a cigar with +great deliberation. I was not in the least impatient. I knew now that I +was glad that he had come, and waited for him to begin. When he did +speak the harsh voice was considerably modified, and no one whatever +could have said that he was an American. + +"Any success I may have made in life," he said without preliminary, "has +come from the faculty of judging men. I started, as a youth, with this +power in a more than ordinary degree. I've been developing it ever +since." + +He puffed thoughtfully at his cigar. He had said this with calm +determination, not in the least as if he were speaking of himself, but +merely as a man stating a fact which would be useful a little later on. + +For my part I said nothing. I felt as though I was playing a sort of +decorous game with rigid rules. To speak then would be to revoke! + +"... And, though the ordinary man does not like to hear such a +statement, I have a pretty good idea of you, Sir John. You're not an +ordinary man. That's why I'm here. I'll put it in two words. I want to +help you. I _can_ help you. It is for you to say if you want me." + +Now there could only be one answer to a question like that. The man in +my arm-chair was one of the most powerful men on earth. Moreover, his +reputation stood high. He was no financial pirate. The whole world +trusted him. + +"I answer that, Mr. Van Adams, with a single word: Thank you." + +He nodded as if pleased. "Quite!" he said, and then, half turning in his +chair, "of course I don't ask you to tell me any official secrets...." + +I laughed at that. The Government would have let this man know all there +was to be known upon his simple request. + +He saw that I understood. "There are none for one thing," I told him. +"You know exactly as much as my department knows, as I told the Home +Secretary this morning. There are no developments, except, of course, +the protective measures we and the States are taking. The one thing I +_can_ tell you, and which is in strict confidence, is that I have +arranged for my official duties to be carried on by my assistant for a +month. From this afternoon I am absolutely free to do what I like and go +where I like. No one will know of this but my confidential servant. I +intend to devote this evening to mapping out a plan of campaign." + +"That's good, Sir John. That is just what I wanted to hear. Let me +explain my motives. They are not complicated. One is that, as one of the +chief money-brokers of the world, I naturally want to prevent any +financial panic. Next, I am a bit of a sportsman in my way. I like +hunting things down. This pursuit appeals to me a good deal. And, +last--when I was five-and-thirty, a desperate gang of crooks in San +Francisco kidnapped my little daughter Pearl--she that is Duchess of +Shropshire now--and held her up to ransom. It was before you took +notice, for I'm close on seventy, but the episode created some +considerable stir at the time. I can pretty well guess what you are +going through now." + +As he looked at me his eyes were no longer like living steel, nor his +jaw like a pike's. + +So he also knew! I mumbled something or other. + +"Quite," he answered quickly, and then went on: "In thinking over +various ways in which I could be of use I have come to a certain +conclusion. Money, I suppose, won't help you--though, of course, any sum +is available?" + +"I have the Government behind me, and I myself am not poor, thank you." + +"It is as I thought. In England I myself can do nothing _personally_ +that others cannot do as well. In America I have every sort of +influence...." + +I looked him in the face. "I am not going to trouble about America in +the very least." + +"Quite! I see what you mean. And I am absolutely of your opinion. Now +I'll come to what I _can_ do for you." + +He rose slowly from his chair and came up to me. When he spoke he had +dropped his voice a full tone. + +"I must let you into one or two little secrets about myself," he said. +"In the first place, a man so rich as I am does not become so without +making powerful and unscrupulous enemies. Also, American methods are +direct. It will probably surprise you to hear that my life has been +attempted twelve or fifteen times, but that is the case. Some of the +methods were diabolically ingenious, too! However, I stand here to-day, +quite unharmed and quite safe. Why? I'll tell you. + +"Quite early in my successful career I saw what would happen. I watched +other men assassinated, and was determined that it shouldn't happen to +me. How was it to be avoided? I thought that point out very carefully, +and came to a conclusion. I must find, and then attach to my person, +someone of extraordinary intelligence, cunning, skill and personal +prowess. My ambitions ran high. I wanted someone who would devote his +whole life to my service, a familiar spirit, no less! It took me three +years of steady work to find that familiar spirit--to discover the exact +combination of qualities I required. But a multi-millionaire is the +Magician of to-day, and I have a Genie as clever and infallible as any +out of the old 'Arabian Nights.' I pay him the salary of a cinema star, +and I say, meaning every word of it, that there isn't another like him +in the world. Do you think this tall talk, Sir John?" + +It was certainly amazing, but I could not but believe him. + +"You startle and you interest me deeply," I replied. "You are to be +congratulated." + +"I am--on a unique human possession. Well, you can't have failed to see +what I'm driving at. I will lend you this man, place his services +entirely at your disposal, for a month!" + +For a moment or two I was silent. I believed every word that Van Adams +said, and I was not hesitating--only just letting the offer, and what it +meant, sink into my mind. It became plain. It was like the offer of a +rope-ladder to a man in prison, a light and a pickaxe to an entombed +miner. + +"It is the most generous offer I've ever heard of, Mr. Van Adams. I +can't express my thanks. You really mean this?" + +"I do. And as an ounce of proof is worth a ton of talk--allow me to +introduce you to Mr. Danjuro!" + +He turned round as he spoke and I with him. Then I gave a cry of +astonishment, which I could not have kept back to save my life. + +Standing some yard or so away was a little Japanese gentleman, not much +more than five feet high. He wore gold pince-nez, a neat blue lounge +suit and brown boots. There was nothing noticeable about him in any way, +except an unusually fine cranial development--a massive forehead and a +great space between the corners of the dark eyes and the ears. + +"Good heavens, how did he get here?" I said. + +Van Adams laughed. "I daresay he'll tell you; I don't know," he +answered. "I just told him to be here. I wanted to give you an object +lesson, in fact. Now, Mr. Danjuro knows all that I know. You can trust +him absolutely. He knows what is in front of him, and he knows where to +find me when I'm wanted. Now I'll leave you together and say +good-afternoon." + +He was gone almost before I could thank him. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MR. DANJURO, THINKING MACHINE, EXPLAINS HIMSELF + + +"Won't you sit down?" I said foolishly. The little Japanese bowed +politely and did so. + +I was at a loss what to say. My mind was in a whirl. I wanted to laugh, +to call Van Adams back, but my dominating sensation was one of supreme +annoyance. So this natty, commonplace little Asiatic was the +millionaire's "familiar spirit"! He was unique, was he! I cursed myself +for several kinds of fool to have saddled myself with this amazing +stranger at the beginning of my work. At any rate, I reflected +irritably, as I sat down opposite, I could easily send him off on some +wild-goose chase or another.... + +Yes! I was never more annoyed in my life, and my annoyance lasted for +exactly sixty seconds. Without the slightest embarrassment of any sort, +and with no preliminaries at all, Mr. Danjuro plunged into business. His +voice was clear and low. He had no accent of any kind, though his +English was a trifle pedantic and scholarly. He spoke as impersonally as +a gramophone. + +"... I am entirely with you, Sir John, in your opinion that it is not in +the United States of America, but here--in England--that we shall solve +the mystery surrounding this dark business." + +"But I never said ..." + +He smiled faintly, almost wearily. "And since I have the great honour to +be associated with you, I trust you will allow me to suggest a plan of +campaign." + +"I was going to try and think one out to-night." + +"It is a privilege to assist. I have come in contact with many crafty +and malignant criminals during the last thirty years, but here one +detects a master. It will be a pleasure indeed to hunt him down. Have I +your honourable permission to smoke?" + +With one hand he produced a square of rice paper and a pinch of tobacco +from his pocket, and rolled a cigarette on his knee like a conjuring +trick. He had not raised his voice, but a sudden gleam came into the +oblique black eyes which suggested the deep but hidden ferocity of his +race. + +He resumed. "From all I have gathered, and I have talked much with +Captain Pring, Mr. Rickaby and the passengers of the _Albatros_, we +have to look for a man who is (1) an aviator in the first rank; (2) an +inventor and mechanical genius, or able to command the services of such; +(3) a person of some wealth or able to procure money." + +I followed him completely and said so. From what we already knew these +deductions were perfectly fair ones. + +"I thank you. Now we come to the man himself. I believe him to be a +person of education, and one who has held a good social position. He is +also desperate in his circumstances, and a person to whom material +pleasure is the highest good." + +"Rickaby said that the men who came aboard the _Albatros_ spoke like +educated people." + +"Yes. Our field of search already begins to grow narrower. Am I right in +saying that every aviator in this country must pass an examination and +be licensed before he is allowed to fly?" + +"It is so. All aviators, professional or amateur, must have a licence +from the Air Police. This is registered. I have already had the records +for the past ten years searched at Whitehall. But this has yielded no +result. There is no one who could possibly be our man." + +"It was well thought of, Sir John, if I may say so. But in my opinion we +shall have to go back a good deal further than ten years. We now come +to the question of the pirate airship itself and its peculiar qualities. +Let us fix upon one--the silence of its engines. I am aware that the +constructors of motor engines have been busy upon this problem for +years." + +"And with little result. The problem has not been solved." + +"Except by our unknown friends. I have already examined all the recent +patents of silencing devices at your patent office here. I spent +yesterday morning there, and found nothing. The significance of that is +obvious. Any ordinary inventor who had discovered something of such +importance would protect it at once. We can therefore make up our minds +that in no regular motor-engineering works throughout this country has +the complete silencer been evolved. It would be impossible for the most +brilliant inventor to keep such a thing entirely to himself." + +"Again the field shrinks?" + +"Yes, Sir John. We now have a man of the character already indicated, +who, as he has undoubtedly constructed silent engines, must have done so +in secret. He must have had private engineering works in order to make +an important part of his machines. The point is, where? On the +Continent? I think not. He would be watched far more carefully than in +this country. America is still more unlikely. Let us assume England. +Having done so, we can, I think, safely deduce that for obvious reasons +this man and his confederates--for we know he has them--would endeavour +to build his pirate ship as near as possible to the place he intended to +use as the base of his operations. And that base--if your experience +bears me out--is certainly somewhere or other on the coast?" + +"Of course, one would say that it must be so, Mr. Danjuro. And yet it +seems impossible. The whole coast of England is patrolled by the +coastguards. For all practical purposes England is no bigger than a +pocket-handkerchief. I thought of Scotland and the Northern Isles. I +thought of wild places on the Irish coast. I have had a fleet of +airships surveying and photographing these places for the last two days. +No hangar bigger than a motor-shed could have escaped their notice. All +the land police of the villages round the coasts have been interrogated +by Scotland Yard. Nothing, nothing whatever has been seen." + +I spoke with some passion, for I felt it. The sense of impotence was +maddening. + +The Japanese rolled another cigarette. As he did so the door opened and +Thumbwood came in. + +"I delivered your note, Sir John, and the editor's compliments and +thanks." + +"Charles," I said, "this gentleman here is Mr. Danjuro. He is going to +help us. Mr. Danjuro is "--I hesitated for a moment, really it was +difficult to describe him!--"is one of the foremost detectives in the +world!" + +Thumbwood's hand went up to his forehead in the stable boy's salute. +Then, as he saw my guest full-face, he started. "I saw you this morning, +sir," he said. "You were talking to old Mrs. Jessop, the dresser at the +Parthenon Theatre. It was in the 'Blue Dragon,' just round the corner by +the stage-door." + +"And you were with the stage-door keeper. A curious coincidence," Mr. +Danjuro replied, with his weary smile, and at a look from me Thumbwood, +very puzzled indeed, left the room. + +"I spent part of this morning at the Parthenon Theatre, Sir John. Your +servant apparently thought of doing the same thing. A man of +considerable acumen?--I imagined so. To proceed. Now that we have +cleared away a few preliminary obstructions, we arrive at a point which +I regard as of great significance. You are engaged--I speak of intimate +matters, but purely in my character of a consultant--to Miss Constance +Shepherd, a young lady of beauty and celebrity." + +... Confound the fellow, he spoke of Connie as if she were a fish! + +"That is so," I told him. + +"That young lady was kidnapped by the unknown airman. From among all +the passengers she and her maid were singled out. Now that fact--upon +which you must have already pondered considerably--is a key fact. Was it +done for the purpose of holding this lady up to ransom? I see the +suggestion has been made in the Press. I answer no. In the first place, +it would be altogether too dangerous a game, and the attempt would +certainly lead to discovery. Secondly, there were other people on board +who would have been more profitable prey. The Duke of Perth, for +instance, or the cinema actor who receives sixty thousand pounds a year. +Now it is extremely improbable that in the rush and excitement of the +attack and robbery of the _Atlantis_, the pirate leader was suddenly +struck by a pretty face. Indeed, we know from accounts of the passengers +that Miss Shepherd was deliberately searched for. That indicates with +certainty that the pirate knew she was on board, and had a design of +capturing her. In its turn, this predicates a former acquaintance, and, +undoubtedly, a repulse in the past. Hence my inquiries and my interview +with the theatre dresser this morning." + +I astonished that little man. It was the first and last time. Leaping up +in my chair, I believe I shouted like a madman. At any rate, Thumbwood +was inside the room before I could find words to speak. + +Something had flashed upon me, white-hot and sudden, as an electric +advertisement flashes out upon one at night. It was something that I had +entirely and utterly forgotten until now. + +"There was a man," I gasped, "a scoundrel who had been annoying Miss +Shepherd for a long time. He wanted to marry her. She told me of it. +_And he was once a celebrated flying man!_" + +"Long ago, in the Great War," said Danjuro calmly. "Major Helzephron, +V.C. I was aware of it." + +"And one of the boys if ever there was one, sir!" Thumbwood broke in. +"Warned off the course everywhere. I've got a bit of information too!" + +I stared at them, trembling with excitement. And then reality, like a +cold douche of water, brought me to my senses. Of course, it was +impossible. The thing was a mere coincidence. Why, while the first +ship--the _Albatros_--had been attacked, this man, Helzephron, was in +London! He had travelled west in the same train with me and Connie. + +"May I ask exactly what you know, Sir John?" + +... I told Danjuro precisely what had happened at Paddington and how +Connie herself had explained it. + +He listened to me in attentive silence. When I had finished, I saw that +a small leather pocket-book had appeared in his hands--everything that +the fellow did had the uncanny effect of a clever trick--and he was +turning over the leaves. + +"So far," he began, "in the consideration of this problem we have been +eliminating impossibilities, or improbabilities so strong that they +amount to that. This has left us with a small residuum of fact, unproved +fact, but sufficient to work from. One thing emerges clearly. It is the +nature and personality of our unknown friend. It is not too much to say +that he MUST be very like what we have imagined him to be. A certain +person appears dimly on the scene--this Major Helzephron. Let us see how +his personality squares with the personality we have been deducing. Mr. +Thumbwood has apparently collected some information. I have done so, +too. Let us pool results!" He looked at Charles, who blushed. + +"Out with it, Charles; you've done splendidly," I said. + +"Well, Sir John, I found out that this gentleman is a pretty bad +wrong-'un, judging by the company he keeps. And he used to annoy Miss +Shepherd something chronic. He'd wait at the stage-door and try and +speak to her when she got into the car after the performance, and he was +always leaving notes and flowers with the stage-door keeper. Miss +Shepherd would never take them. She always sent them back from her room. +It got so bad at last that she complained to the stage manager, and he +had a plain clothes man from Vine Street there one night. Major +Helzephron was told off pretty plainly, I hear. He used to come very +nasty sometimes, and once or twice he was fair blotto! And Mr. Meggit, +the commission agent, knows him well. He's done a lot of racing in his +time, and no open scandal. But he knows how to work the market, and the +best men won't lay him the odds no more." + +I shrugged my shoulders. It was only what one expected. The man was one +of the fast blackguards who infest the West End of London; that was all. +There were dozens like him. The facts only seemed to prove that he could +not possibly be connected with the Atlantic outrages. + +"You see?" I said to the Japanese, sure that he would follow my thought. +Then I thanked good little Charles and he left the room. + +"That is the surface," Danjuro replied. "I cross-examined a _woman_ who +was in constant attendance on Miss Shepherd. From her I learnt just what +your servant has discovered. But I went a little deeper. It is a case of +genuine overmastering passion on the part of this man. Nothing less. He +is of a dangerous age for that to come to him, certainly over forty-five +years. A woman knows. But that is not all." + +"So far we have learnt nothing of importance." I was getting restive, I +wanted to be _doing_ something. And yet, what was there to do? If I had +thought all night by myself I could not have mapped out the situation +more clearly. And as I looked at the little man, half lost in a big +saddlebag chair, I felt ashamed of my irritation. A brain packed in ice +was there, a logical machine of the first order. I could not expect +humanity, sympathy, from such a one. Still, it would have helped! Hadn't +I lost the one thing that made life worth living? What might not be +happening to Connie even now? + +... He read my thoughts like a book, confound him! + +"I understand your feelings, believe me, Sir John," he said, "but I must +go my own way. We have not been talking for an hour yet! And if it is +any consolation for you to know, let me say that it is imperative that +we leave London to-night." + +"My nerves are strained. Please go on," I answered. "I can hardly tell +you what a godsend your appearance on the scene really is to me." + +"In my business as agent and guard to my patron, Mr. Van Adams, it is +always necessary that I keep more or less in touch with a certain circle +of what I may describe as the aristocracy, the brains of International +Crime. It has proved useful. After my visit to the Parthenon this +morning I called upon an old acquaintance, the Honourable James +Brookfield." + +"Lord Slidon's son? The man who got five years ..." + +"Yes. Of course, everyone knows his name. He made one little slip. Mr. +Brookfield is very acute, and a great student of character. Entirely +incapable of understanding a man or woman of decent morals and normal +instincts, he is infallible in his judgment of the criminal type. Mr. +Brookfield owes me any little service he can render, and I supplemented +my request for information with a note for fifty pounds." + +"And you learnt ...?" + +"That Major Helzephron is all we have just heard, but a far more +sinister and formidable person than anyone suspects. He is a man of +marked intellectual powers. Below the veneer of coarse pleasures and +fast life in London and Paris, there is something that glows like a hot +coal. His appearances in town are irregular and fitful. His real life, +Brookfield is certain of this, is lived far away from cities. And it is +_a life with a purpose_." + +Quite suddenly and unexpectedly Mr. Danjuro began to reveal himself. + +The last words were spoken in a changed voice. The flatness and monotony +had vanished. The words vibrated in the room, and I felt the thrill of +them. It was the power of personality, and from then onwards I was hand +in glove with this bizarre thinking machine that Fate had sent me. + +I tried to emulate Danjuro's dispassionate and scientific method. + +"It is curious," I said, "that a real intellect should care to spend +part of its time in rake-helling round the low clubs, the gambling-rooms +and stage-doors of London. Such a thing is known, but it is rare." + +"You put your finger instantly upon what seems a weak spot in my +character sketch. But let us assume that it has been done with a deep +motive." + +"Ah!" He knew, or suspected, something more. He referred to his +notebook. + +"Two years ago a certain Mr. Herbert Gascoigne was expelled from Christ +Church College, Oxford." + +"Sent down, we call it; but go on." + +"The case was a bad one. The young man had established a sort of +gambling club and ruined several of his contemporaries. It was +discovered that he was using a roulette wheel that had been tampered +with. He came to London and drifted into the worst gang of swindlers. +Major Helzephron met him. They became very friendly. The younger man was +obviously under the influence of the elder. Finally Gascoigne deserted +his old haunts and has disappeared." + +I began to see light. + +"On several occasions my astute friend, Mr. Brookfield, has witnessed +precisely the same phenomenon. Some young man of the upper classes has +been ruined socially, and our enigmatic friend has taken him up, been +seen about with him, and so forth. Finally the young man vanishes." + +"It is not philanthropy, Mr. Danjuro." + +"It is not, and it gives rise to curious speculations. Where could a +Napoleonic criminal, patiently planning and meditating a stupendous +coup, find a better recruiting ground than among the desperate and +ruined young men of his own class? The plan is in itself evidence of +genius. They speak his language, he understands their way of thought; +there are a thousand bonds between them. I can conceive no more solid +and formidable combination than just this. The one last virtue remaining +to these desperate and outcast young men will be loyalty to their +leader. Society has cast them out, therefore they will make war on +Society. Given that attitude of mind, a leader like Major Helzephron, +and a plan so daring, and the thing becomes plain as daylight. And if +this man had not fallen into an overmastering passion for Miss Shepherd +there would have been no means of getting on his trail at all." + +It was only with great difficulty that I could control my thoughts. We +seemed miles nearer the truth than I had been an hour ago. Then one idea +emerged clearly. + +"Quite so. And isn't it all in our favour that we, and we alone, are in +a position to connect Helzephron with the piracy? He will think himself +perfectly secure?" + +"I do not for a moment believe," Danjuro replied with emphasis, "that a +single soul besides ourselves has the least suspicion. The man will have +taken supreme care to cover his tracks. My inquiries could have +suggested nothing to the people I interviewed. Mr. Brookfield thinks I +required my information for quite another reason. Yes, Sir John, we have +a task of immense difficulty and danger before us. You must recognize +that to the full. My sincere belief is that it would be somewhat safer +to venture into a cage of cobras than where we have to go. But"--he took +out his watch--"it is five o'clock. Let us say that the game begins at +this moment! Very well. We, and not the enemy, have scored the first +point!" + +He suddenly glided from his chair with a single sinuous movement. As he +stood up he was transformed. The bland modern look faded from his face. +It grew terrible. The eyes narrowed to slits of light, the square jaw +protruded, the grey lips were caught up in a tiger-grin, and the slim +body seemed to swell out with iron muscle like a wrestler stripped in +the arena. + +You have seen some of the real old Japanese colour-prints, pictures of +the ancient Samurai or the frightful Akudogi shouting at you--yes? The +flat, awful stolidity, the incarnate hate.... + +Then you have seen something of what I saw then. + +Wow! Millionaire Van Adams was well served! + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE CURIOUS FIGHT IN THE RESTAURANT + + +"It is a good deal to ask, Sir John," said Danjuro briskly, "but, for +the moment, will you place yourself entirely in my hands?" + +"I am perfectly content to do so." + +"Then permit me to press the bell." He did so. + +"I left a black bag in the hall," Danjuro said politely when Thumbwood +came in. "Would you please let me have it?" + +The bag was brought. Danjuro placed it on the table and opened it. + +"You are very well known, Sir John," he remarked. "Major Helzephron and +his friends have either seen you at some time or other, or have +certainly seen the numerous pictures of you that have appeared in the +newspapers during the last few days. It is imperative that you change +your appearance at once. I foresaw that and have brought materials." + +I am afraid I whistled with dismay. The idea didn't please me in the +very least. "Is it really necessary?..." + +"Absolutely. But it will not inconvenience you. Will you go into your +bedroom and clip off your moustache with scissors, afterwards shaving +the upper lip clean? You see, the man who leaves London to-night must +not in the least resemble the Chief Commissioner of Air Police." + +I went and did it. I had to. When the operation was over I shouldn't +have known myself, it made such a difference. I never knew that I had +such a grim and forbidding mouth! + +I returned to the sitting-room. Mr. Danjuro did not make the least +comment, but he removed my collar and tie with the deftness of a barber +and fastened a towel round my neck. Then he sponged my skin all over +with some faintly pink stuff out of a bottle. When he had done that, he +began on my hair with something else, and finally my eyebrows. + +"May I ask what you are doing?" I said after a time. + +"I am dyeing your hair black, Sir John. The dye can be removed at any +time. The appearance is absolutely natural. The drug I am using is not +generally known. I procure it from a friend in the Honcho Dori at +Yokohama, and also the liquid which has already changed your skin from +blond to swarthy. I will treat your hands in a minute." + +I suppose I was three-quarters of an hour under his ministrations +before he stepped back and looked at me critically. "Part your hair in +the centre, instead of at the side, wear a low collar instead of a high +one, and spectacles--they can be of plain glass--and you need not have +the slightest fear of recognition. In fact, Sir John, as far as outward +appearance goes, you have already ceased to exist!" + +There was a mirror over the mantel-shelf. I stood up and looked. It was +marvellous! It was uncanny, too. A dark-haired, dark-skinned stranger +leered out of the glass at me, and I turned away with mingled feelings +of amazement and disgust. + +"Do you drive an automobile?" the Japanese asked. + +I jumped at the suddenness of the question, for my thoughts were far +away. "Yes, I have a touring car of my own in a neighbouring garage." + +"It will be better not to use it. We shall take one of Mr. Van Adams' +cars. It is ready." + +I laughed. "I've a lot to hear yet, you know, Mr. Danjuro, though I have +placed myself in your hands without reserve. But you made very sure of +me beforehand, didn't you?" + +"It is Mr. Van Adams' command," he answered simply, and I reflected that +here, indeed, was a man with a single soul. + +"We shall leave London at midnight," he went on, "and drive through the +whole of the night. I, also, am an expert chauffeur, and we can relieve +each other." + +"Thumbwood can drive, too. Of course we take him with us?" + +"He will be of the greatest assistance. Now, Sir John, if you want to +take a little sleep, now is the time. I should like to consult with your +servant, if I may, and have a chat with him. We shall have a good deal +to do with one another." + +Strangely enough, I did feel drowsy, despite my excitement. A couple of +hours' sleep would refresh me wonderfully, and I knew it. + +"Very well; I think it is a good suggestion. Say for two hours." + +"By all means. I will carry out some other arrangements meanwhile. You +shall have full explanations later on, and I thank you sincerely for the +confidence you have reposed in me." + +While we were talking we had left the room and crossed the hall. + +"A pleasant sleep," he said, politely opening the door for me. "We will +go and have a look at Major Helzephron later on." + +"_What?_" I shouted. + +"He is in London. I have never seen him and I must certainly do so." + +"In London?" I cried, a dozen conflicting thoughts crowding and +crushing into my mind. + +"... It is the reason that we leave London to-night." + +Then he had shut the door on me and was gone. I had known him less than +two hours. I was a man accustomed to rule, whose whole life was spent in +giving orders, and I lay down on my bed like a lamb without a further +question. And, what is more, I did exactly as Mr. Danjuro had said. I +fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. + +At a little after eight Mr. Danjuro and myself sat at dinner at the +Restaurant Mille Colonnes. Most people know that expensive and luxurious +home of epicures, with Nicholas, its stout and arrogant proprietor, and +M. Dulac, its famous chef. + +We sat in the south gallery, at the extreme end, against the wall. The +electric lights in the roof above us had been extinguished, and our +table was lighted by candles in red shades. Indeed, we sat in a sort of +darkness which must have made us almost invisible to the other diners, +most of whom sat in the longer arm of the gallery at right angles to our +own. + +We, on the contrary, could see everything. We could look over the gilded +rail into the hall of the restaurant below, and every detail of the +gallery on our own level was clear and distinct, though there was such +a towering erection of flowers and ferns in the centre of our table that +it obscured what would otherwise have been a perfect view. + +I wore a low, turned-down collar and a dark flannel suit. Danjuro, also, +had changed his clothes, and, in some real but indefinite way, his +appearance. He wore a flannel suit and a straw hat, and also a necktie +which I suddenly spotted as that of my old college, Christ Church, +Oxford. But the extraordinary thing about him was that he seemed fifteen +years younger. + +He had promised to explain at the "Mille Colonnes." As we began upon the +salted prawns and the stuffed olives he did so. + +"You are now Mr. Johns, an Oxford tutor, Sir John. I am a young Japanese +gentleman, my own name will serve, whom you are coaching. We are going +into the country with this disguise. It is one which will easily account +for your being in the company of an Asiatic gentleman, and which you +will have no difficulty in sustaining." + +It was, indeed, a simple and excellent plan for avoiding undue +curiosity. I said so, and then: "Now perhaps you will tell me where we +are going. I have my ideas...." + +"We are going west," he answered gravely. "To Cornwall." + +My heart beat fast. It was what I wanted him to say. "To the home of +Helzephron?" + +"Yes. For it is there we shall be in the very centre of the web. In +those far western solitudes, despite the recent opening up of the Duchy +to tourists, there are still vast spaces of lonely moorland and +unvisited coast where one may walk for half a day and meet no living +soul. There is a great Hinterland between the little town of St. Ives +and the Land's End that for all practical purposes is unknown and +unexplored. Later on, I will show you certain maps.... It is in one of +the remotest spots of all that Major Helzephron has his house. I tell +you, Sir John," he continued, with a sort of passion, "that in those +lost and forgotten solitudes, where England stretches out her granite +foot to spurn the Atlantic, strange secrets lie hid to-day! On those +grey and lonely moors, where the last Druids practised their mysterious +rites, and which are still covered with sinister memorials of the past, +lies the explanation of the terror which is troubling the world! There, +and there only, shall we discover the secrets of the air, and--if human +skill and determination are of any avail--Miss Constance Shepherd!" + +An obsequious waiter came with iced _consommé_. He was followed by the +great Nicholas himself, bulging out of his buttoned frock-coat--Nicholas +never wore evening dress--who bowed low and had a whispered +confabulation with Danjuro. + +I remarked on this unusual honour. "I do what I wish here," the +Japanese replied. "It is, of course, through Mr. Van Adams. I hold this +place in the hollow of my hand--as you will presently see!" + +He gave one of his rare and weary smiles, and then said quietly: "Please +do not get up or move. Major Helzephron has just come into the gallery!" + +I could not have moved. His words turned me to stone. + +"I felt sure," he went on, "that for a day or two Helzephron would show +himself in London. Knowing what we know--or at least suspect--such a +move was a certainty. He is in the habit of coming here. He booked his +usual seat at this restaurant, and his usual box at the Parthenon +Theatre--and for reasons obvious to you and me, if to no one else in the +world! I confess to an anxiety to look upon this man." + +"You have had this corner darkened?" I said quickly. "No one can see +_us_ here?" + +"Not clearly. And Helzephron would not know who we are if he did see us. +But, as he is sure to come upon us in Cornwall, it is better to take no +risks. To that end I have had a little device arranged for us which +proved of great service to me once in Chicago." + +He bent forward to the mass of ferns and flowers in the centre of the +table, disarranging the greenery at its base. At once a green-painted +tube became visible, and then a slanting mirror, the size of a postcard. + +"What on earth is that?" I whispered. + +"An adaptation of the periscope!" he replied, taking a magnifying glass +from his pocket, adjusting it, and bending over the mirror. "The lens is +focussed upon Helzephron's table. With this magnifier I enlarge the +image in the mirror. Ah! So that is the honourable gentleman!" + +A faint hissing noise came from him. His face stiffened into fixed and +horrible intentness as he stared through his magnifier at the little +oblong of mirror. + +"Shi-ban, Go-ban, hei!" he muttered. "There are two, then. I expect the +younger man is the Honourable Herbert Gascoigne, of whom we have heard!" + +The hissing noise continued, the ecstasy of attention did not relax for +two or three minutes. + +At last Danjuro looked up. His face, which had seemed carved out of +jade, relaxed. + +"Will you take my seat?" he said politely, handing me his reading-glass. +"A little drama will commence in a few minutes. It will interest you!" + +I gave him a glance of interrogation as we exchanged chairs. + +"We shall be in Cornwall to-morrow, and in advance of our friends," he +whispered. "But, in order that we may carry out our preliminary +inquiries quite undisturbed, I have thought out a little plan by which, +if all goes well, Major Helzephron will be detained in London for a day +or two--you will see." + +Trembling with eagerness I stared down at the mirror. + +The periscope was perfectly focussed. The addition of the reading-glass +made everything perfectly clear. + +Two men in evening clothes were seated at a table. Their heads were +close together, and they were talking earnestly. One was a tall, +handsome boy of two-and-twenty, with a fair complexion and a reckless, +dissipated cast of face. Young as he was, evil experience had marked +him, and his smile was that of a much older man. + +But I scarcely cast a glance on him as I stared at the coloured, moving +miniature of "Hawk Helzephron." The man's face was deeply tanned; above +the brows a magnificent dome of white forehead went up to a thatch of +dark red hair--the forehead of a thinker if ever I saw one. The face +below was seamed and lined everywhere. The thin nose curved out and down +like that of a bird of prey. The mouth was large, well-shaped, but +compressed, the chin a wedge of resolution. And, as he talked, I saw a +pair of slightly protruding eyes, cold and fierce. The whole aspect of +the man was ferocious and formidable to a degree. + +"Watch!" whispered Danjuro. + +I watched, and this is what I saw. + +Into the picture came a thick-set, brutal-looking man, with a blazing +diamond in his shirt-front. He was passing Helzephron's table when his +dinner jacket caught a wine-glass and swept it to the floor. + +The hawk-faced man looked up with a scowl and said something just as the +portly Nicholas and a waiter appeared in the background, as if passing +casually by. + +The thick-set man bent down till his face was close to Helzephron's. He +said something also, with an unpleasant smile. + +Instantly Helzephron leapt up and drove his fist full into the other's +face. + +The fight that followed ended very speedily. The thick-set man took the +blow calmly. Then, without heat, and in a fashion which instantly told +me the truth of the matter, he set about Helzephron, hitting him where +and when he chose, until a shouting crowd of guests and waiters +separated the combatants and a policeman and commissionaire hurried them +away from the gallery. + +During all the tumult Mr. Danjuro sat quietly smoking a cigarette. + +"That was Mr. Wag Ashton, the pugilist," he remarked. "Honourable +Nicholas and the waiter saw that the honourable Helzephron struck him +first. I think the Major will be resting for a day or two before Mr. +Ashton summonses him for assault." + +I felt faint with surprise and amazement. + +"So you, you arranged ..." + +He interrupted me. "Now let us finish our dinner in peace," he said. +"Some river trout, _meunier_, are coming." + +An hour afterwards, with myself at the wheel, a huge sixty horse-power +limousine, loaded with luggage and with Messrs. Danjuro and Thumbwood +inside, was rolling down the Piccadilly slope. + +To Penzance. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HUNTING INSTINCT IS STIMULATED BY A PROCESSION + + +The big car rolled down Piccadilly. She was a beauty to handle, as I +discovered in the first two minutes. The very latest type of electric +starter, a magnificent lighting installation--every convenience was +ready to my hand. I was in an extraordinary state of mind as I steered +the car through the late theatre and restaurant traffic, purely +mechanically and without conscious thought about it. + +The predominant sensation was one of immense overwhelming relief at the +prospect of _action_. Mere office activities, the planning of guard and +patrol ships, conferences with pilots and officials, had been quite +powerless to calm the terrible fever of unrest within me. It was +commanding other people to do things, not doing them myself. I knew all +the time that I should have been happier piloting one of the war-planes +over the Atlantic. Now, at any rate, I was doing something real. I was +actually setting out, in my own person, upon a definite quest. It might +be all moonshine. I was well aware that many hard-headed people would +have laughed at this expedition, considering the slender evidence I had. +They would have talked about "circumstantial evidence," the folly of +pure assumption, and so forth. "Behold this dreamer cometh!" would have +been their attitude. + +And although I was driving the big car up Park Lane for Oxford Street +and the road to the West, I did feel as if I were in a dream. My whole +life had been altered by the events of the past few days, ruined for +ever it might be. To-night its stream was violently diverted from its +course. Everything with which I was familiar had flashed away, and I was +on the brink of the fantastic and unknown. There was not a man in London +setting out upon so strange an errand, under circumstances so +unprecedented, as I was this night. We slid by a huge white house, set +back from the railings, and with all its windows looking out over the +Park. It was the London palace that Mr. Van Adams had built for himself +during the last five years, and the strangeness of my affair was +intensified at the sight. + +Only a few hours ago the great man had been sitting in my chambers, and +introducing the enigmatic figure that sat behind me in the car. Here +was a dream figure indeed! It was impossible to think of Danjuro as a +human being. He was just a brain, a specialized force, devoted to one +object, and probably, as Van Adams had hinted, the supreme force of its +kind in existence. Already I had placed myself in his hands, and not +only my personal interests, dear as those were to me, but my +responsibilities to the State as well, and that was no small thing for +him to have achieved in so short a space of time. The unique detachment +and concentration that was sitting behind me had an almost magical +effect upon one's mind and will. With such help, surely, I could not +fail? + +I fell to thinking of what the Japanese had already achieved, the quiet +and masterly skill of his analysis, the cold audacity of his plot to +keep Helzephron in London, the neatness and finish of his operations as +witnessed by the periscope upon the dinner-table at the "Mille +Colonnes." Surely, Helzephron, or whoever was the master-criminal, was a +doomed man with Danjuro on his track? + +We were running out of Ealing now, and traffic was almost gone in the +long, straight westward road among the acres of market gardens and +glass-houses that fringe the western approach to the metropolis. I let +out the powerful engines, and as the car leapt like a spurred horse, my +heart leapt up into anger at the name Helzephron. + +Connie--poor, lost Connie--had told me herself how the man had pestered +her, and I had seen him at Paddington with my own eyes. The +investigations at the Parthenon Theatre by Thumbwood and Danjuro had put +the details in the picture, and an ugly one it was. The man, V.C. as he +was, had a bad reputation enough. I had watched him that very evening, +marked every line upon the hawk-like, cruel face, and thrilled when the +vulgar pugilist attacked him. It was the next best thing to thrashing +him myself! Yet--I record this as an interesting point of my psychology +at the beginning of the enterprise--I was disgusted with and loathed the +man only. I did not hate him, for I found it, even now, impossible to +believe that he was the abductor of my girl. + +Understand me if you can. Danjuro had convinced my intellect, but not my +heart. My state was the reverse of the ordinary state in such a +situation. Plenty of people believe in anything--a religion for +example--by faith, and cannot justify their faith intellectually. Their +belief is always confident and strong. I believed intellectually, but +had no faith, which was why this quest seemed shadow-like and a thing in +a dream. No doubt, the long night drive and my curious companion--I was +always conscious of him--intensified the impression of unreality. + +About three in the morning Danjuro spoke through the tube and insisted +on relieving me. I stopped the huge car in a dark, tree-bordered road, +where the moonlight lay in pools and patches of silver, and exchanged +seats with the little man. As I stood on the road and stamped with my +feet to restore the circulation, the night-breeze rustled in the leaves, +and far away I heard the nightjar spinning. Never was such a still and +solitary place. Danjuro's face in the moonlight seemed as immobile and +lifeless as one of those Japanese masks of wax with eyes of opalescent +glass that you can buy in the Oriental shops. + +I got inside and, suddenly weary, sank back in the luxuriously cushioned +seat. The car started again, and Thumbwood switched on a light in the +roof. He produced a Thermos flask of hot soup, which I found delicious +and refreshing. + +"How have you been getting on with Mr. Danjuro?" I inquired. + +"Very well, thank you, Sir John. He knows everything, I do believe. If +there's one thing where I should detect a man who was talking through +'is 'at, it's 'osses. Stands to reason. But this gentleman knows 'osses +like a blooming trainer, sir. And as for the games of the crooks in the +ring and on the course, he's wide to every one of 'em. I generally +carries a pack of cards in my pocket, sir, and I've got one with me now. +The things 'e showed me passes belief. I've seen a good deal of that +sort of work, but Mr. Danjuro's an easy winner. I wouldn't play poker +with 'im, no, nor 'alfpenny nap, for a fistful o' thick 'uns!" + +We breakfasted at Exeter, and I had the opportunity of a shave and a +bath. I remember that when I was half-way up the hotel stairs a horrid +thought struck me, and I hurried down again to consult Danjuro. + +How would the stuff he had put on my skin stand hot water and soap? + +He reassured me, however. Nothing would remove the beastly stuff but a +preparation he carried with him, and I bathed in peace. + +It was a beautiful morning when we started again, and for many miles our +route lay close to the smiling Devon sea. The waves were sapphire blue, +framed in the red sandstone rocks, and the sky resembled a great hollow +turquoise. It was a bright morning, and one side of me rejoiced in it; +but the thought of my girl was always there, a constant sullen pain, for +which the morning held no anodyne. + +Thumbwood drove on this stretch of the journey, and Danjuro sat inside +studying innumerable maps, and now and then making notes in a +pocket-book. I wondered what thoughts were seething and bubbling behind +that massive dome of skull. + +Apart from the scenery, there was plenty to interest a Commissioner of +Air Police. The sky was speckled with small private planes, converging +upon Plymouth or Exeter from many a pleasant country residence. There +was no longer any need for the professional man or the prosperous +tradesman to live within a very few miles of his place of business. Men +flew to their day's work, and from considerable distances, and as a +matter of course. A mile or two out at sea one distinguished the large +steady-going passenger airships by which England was now ringed, and +occasionally the Royal Mail boats cut the sky like javelins. More than +once I spotted one of my police patrols. It was curious to remember that +I, who sat here with a stained face and shaven lip, bowling along the +Devon roads at a miserable forty miles an hour, had supreme control of +all those aerial argosies. + +There were few cars upon the roads at this early hour. Contrary to +general opinion fifteen years ago, the popularity of flying had by no +means killed the automobile. It had lessened their numbers in an +appreciable degree, and made the roads more pleasant. I should, of +course, have preferred to reach our destination, or, at any rate, to +have travelled the greater part of the way towards it by airship. The +system of registration and the police regulations--framed by +myself--would have given too much away. My actual identity and purpose +might not have been discovered, but we should have been easily traced, +and Helzephron--if he was what we suspected--would be the first to hear +of a private aeroplane making its appearance in the solitudes where he +lived. + +Towards midday we were approaching Plymouth, when I began to feel +uneasy. The agony I had endured there a day or two ago, when Thumbwood +burst into my bedroom with news of the _Atlantis_ disaster, clouded my +memory. I felt that I never wished to see the pride of Devon again. +This, though, was merely weakness which I crushed down. More practical +considerations occurred to me. I made Charles stop the car and got +inside with Danjuro. + +"Look here," I said, "hadn't we better run straight through the town and +get on into Cornwall? We can lunch at St. Germans or somewhere." + +"You have some special reason for avoiding Plymouth, Sir John?" Danjuro +asked politely. + +"Well, it's the air-port for America. One of my largest stations is +there. Dozens and dozens of people know me. I've always been a familiar +figure in Plymouth, and never more so than lately, of course." + +The Japanese gave his little weary smile. "I do not think you realize +the alteration in your appearance," he said. "I assure you, and I am an +expert in these matters, that no one at all would ever recognize you. I +had proposed to stop in Plymouth for at least a couple of hours." + +"Why, exactly?" + +"For several reasons. One is that I shall be able to purchase some local +Cornish maps and a directory or two, which I need, and found no +opportunity of procuring in London. But that is not all. Here we are in +the very centre of air matters, as far as the Atlantic is concerned. The +place is still seething with excitement. Nothing else but the piracies +is spoken of. The town is packed with correspondents of the principal +European newspapers. It is in a ferment. I much wish to go about with my +ears open for an hour or two. I do think, Sir John, that it would be +unwise to neglect this opportunity, for you as well as myself. There is +no knowing what we may pick up." + +"You're certain about my disguise?" + +"Perfectly certain. You will not, of course, enter into long +conversations with anyone who knows you well, as your voice would betray +you. Otherwise you may rest secure." + +"Yes, that's the weak point," I replied. "I've always heard that, +however perfectly a man may be disguised, you cannot disguise his +voice." + +He rolled a cigarette with the quick snatching movement of his fingers +that always struck me as a miracle of dexterity. + +"It is not true," he remarked. "I have invented five methods, three +mechanical and two medical or chemical, whichever you like to call +them. When we have leisure I will show you. But there is no need for +anything of the sort in your case. It will give you confidence, Sir +John, to test the completeness of your new appearance. If you will go to +the Royal Hotel and lunch there--keeping awake to hear the general +talk--I will join you about three." + +"Very well," I replied, though with some reluctance, "and the car?" + +"Mr. Thumbwood has been with you at the 'Royal,' and he is not +disguised. It would be better that he should not approach the hotel. We +will put you down a short distance away. I will remain in the car and +direct Thumbwood where to go." + +Nothing escaped this little man! He seemed to foresee and provide for +everything, and when I alighted five minutes afterwards, some two +hundred yards from the hotel, I felt fairly secure in my new character +as Mr. Johns, the don of Christ Church, Oxford. + +Immediately I was in the street I became aware--you know how one +does?--that the Japanese was right, and Plymouth was in a ferment. +London is too vast for anything but a national calamity to make any +alteration in the outward appearance of things, and even then it takes a +sharp eye and a man well versed in the psychology of crowds to detect +anything unusual. Not so a big provincial town. + +As I walked along the classic façade of the theatre and turned the +corner to the main entrance of the hotel, I saw one thought on every +face and heard one single topic of discussion. The streets, always so +gay and cheerful with military and naval uniforms, seemed more crowded +than their wont, and there was a definite electricity in the air. I know +that I felt stimulated, encouraged to persist, and as I ascended the +massive steps of the hotel, my clean-shaven lips smiled to think with +what interest I should be regarded if anyone had but an inkling of whom +I was and upon what mission. + +And then I had a shock. + +Standing in the big lounge-hall, and talking to a man in a black +morning-coat and a silk hat, was my second in command--Muir Lockhart, +Assistant Commissioner of Air Police! He was in uniform, a special +uniform that we both wore upon ceremonial occasions only. + +"Yes," he was saying, "I'm down here representing the Chief." + +I dared not stay to listen, but I walked towards them as slowly as I +could. Muir Lockhart has a somewhat high, penetrating voice. + +"When did you come down?" asked the other man. + +"Arrived half an hour ago, flew down from Whitehall this morning," said +Muir Lockhart. + +"Then Sir John Custance isn't coming?" + +My assistant shook his head. "Utterly impossible," he said. "Sir John +cannot leave town just now. He must be at the head of things; can't +possibly be spared. I saw him this morning before I left; he had been +working all night and was nearly dead. 'Explain my position to them,' he +said; 'nothing but strict duty would keep me away from Plymouth to-day.' +So, you see how it is, Mr. Mayor?" + +"Oh, quite, quite! Well, I must be getting round to the Guildhall. You +will march up your men at half-past one? Thank you." + +The man in the silk hat, who I realized must be the Mayor of Plymouth, +hurried away. I was left face to face with Muir Lockhart. + +He stared at me, not offensively, but in such a way that he could not +have missed a detail of my appearance; he always was an observant +beggar. Then he passed by without a sign of recognition. Good! I +reflected, if my own colleague, who saw me for several hours each day, +did not know me, no one else would. It seemed a good omen, and I blessed +Danjuro in my heart. + +And what a splendid liar Muir Lockhart was! He knew that I had gone away +on my own, and he hadn't the least idea in the world where I was! It +was a temptation to discover myself, but I refrained. + +I was very puzzled. What on earth was he doing here in uniform, and +talking to the Mayor about? I hadn't a suspicion of the truth even then, +and I had a curious sense of being out of things, forgotten and on the +scrap-heap! The long drive had made me hungry and I thought about lunch. +Before going into the coffee-room I wished to remove the stains of +travel, so I went down the corridor to the lavatory. + +When I entered a man in his shirt-sleeves was bending over one of the +basins and sluicing himself with many splashes. As I was washing my own +swarthy hands he emerged from a towel and gave me a casual glance. + +It was Mr. Van Adams! + +I could not repress a violent start, the thing was so sudden. What did +this gathering of the clans mean? He noticed my movement at once, and +looked at me with inquiry in his eyes. The lavatory was quite empty save +for our two selves, and my decision was taken at once. + +"Mr. Van Adams?" I asked. + +"Sure!" he replied. "You have the floor--shoot!" + +"You don't know me?" + +"Not from the great Lum-tum, though your voice is kind of homey." + +"I'm Sir John Custance. Danjuro's been faking me up. He's down here +with me." + +"Gee!" said Mr. Van Adams. "Aren't you the fresh thing now, Sir John? So +you're down for the obsequies incog.? That's what I've come for--matter +of respect. Flew down from Park Lane after breakfast." + +"I'm on my way west. We only stopped here for an hour or two, as Danjuro +had some business." + +"I've ordered lunch in a private room overlooking the square. Come right +up, Sir John, you'll be able to see everything from there." + +"Thank you. But I'm still in the dark. I'm right away from the office +now, as you know. I saw Commander Muir Lockhart here just now, but I +couldn't speak to him...." + +He took me by the arm and led me along the corridor to the lift. +"Captain Lashmar, of your force and the five men of the patrol boat are +being buried to-day," he said; "also Captain Swainson, of the +_Atlantis_, and the boys murdered on _his_ ship." + +I flushed under my dye. I had never heard a word of it. I felt an +absolute beast as we entered the private room, and I tried to explain to +the millionaire. + +"Think you callous and unfeeling?" he said in answer. "Guess I know +better than that, my friend. You're out to prevent just such a +spectacle as we're going to witness from ever happening again. You're +playing a better game than prancing along at the head of a procession. +You're getting busy at the heart of things. Now sit down and share the +pork bosom and beans, or whatever they've given us. And tell me all +about it." + +We sat down to lunch, and after a glass of Burgundy, I told Van Adams of +all that had occurred, and also expressed my complete confidence in +Danjuro. + +"You're right," he said. "There isn't an investigator on the globe +that'd carry a tune to him. He has his orders to stick to you right +through and he'll carry them out. That little man's got a brain like the +Mammoth Cave, and he's without human passions, save only one--he'd go to +hell in a paper suit for me! See here----" and the millionaire told me a +string of anecdotes about the uncanny little Jap that would make the +fortunes of a writer of Romance. + +He was still on the same subject when he stopped in the middle of a +sentence. + +The noise in the square outside was suddenly hushed, and we heard a +muffled chord of music. Rising from our chairs we went to the windows. +Everywhere, as far as eye could reach, was a black sea of heads, from +among which the slender clocktower on its island in the centre rose +like a sentinel. + +The pavements were lined by troops, soldiers and sailors in equal +proportions, and there was a flutter as of falling leaves as every head +was bared and the piercing sweetness of Chopin's "Funeral March" filled +all the air. + +Then they came, following the band: thirteen coffins covered with +flowers, thirteen brave heroes, who would never slant down the long +reaches of the upper air again. + +After the hearses walked Paget and Fowles, the two heroic airmen who had +called the rescuing ship by wireless, and then came the chaplains and +Muir Lockhart. + +For my part I saw the whole procession in a dream. The head of the +Transatlantic Air Line, the Mayor and Corporation in their robes--the +stately funereal pomp of it all seemed unsubstantial and unreal. + +Mr. Van Adams was kneeling a yard or two away from the window. His head +was bent, he had a crucifix and a string of golden beads in his hands, +and was saying prayers. Who would have thought it of this master of +millions with the pike-like jaw? I suppose he was a Catholic. + +But my mind was far away, above the heaving wastes of the Atlantic, and +I saw an unnamed, unknown ship rushing through the air, at a speed +undreamed of hitherto in the history of flight. And in the pilot's seat +I had a vision of a hawk-faced man with cruel eyes and a smile upon his +hard, thin lips.... + +I stood there for so long that the very tail of the procession was +passing by, and Mr. Van Adams rose from his prayers with the sign of the +Cross, and touched me on the arm. + +"Look!" he said, pointing down into the street. + +I followed his finger and saw Danjuro standing on the opposite kerb. He +was looking after the cortège, and his face, with the expression on it, +was quite clear to see.... + +In an instant I came out of my dream. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE MAN WITH THE WICKED FACE + + +On the morning after our arrival I stepped out of my bedroom window at +Penzance and stood upon the balcony. + +Many times had I flown over Cornwall; never had I set foot in the Duchy +until now. Plymouth had always been my furthest west. + +The sea was blue as the Mediterranean, the sky a huge hollow turquoise, +the air all Arabia. Away in the bay St. Michael's Mount, crowned with +towers, gleamed like a vision of the New Jerusalem in some old monkish +missal--and the heart within me was so hard, stern, and full of deadly +purpose that no summer seas nor balmy western winds could touch the +rigour of my mood. + +For we were on the battlefield now. There was no more vagueness nor +speculation. I, in the place I occupied, owed a debt to society, and to +myself a personal and bitter revenge. And those debts should be paid. + +Danjuro knocked and entered the bedroom. Yesterday afternoon, within +half an hour of our arrival at Penzance, he had disappeared, telling me +not to wait up for him, as he could not say what time he would return. I +accordingly went to bed early, for I was tired out, and had not seen him +until now. + +"I have been very busy, Sir John," he said. "In the characters of a +mining engineer at one place and agent for a foreign shipping firm at +another, I have been making some very necessary inquiries. I engaged a +local motor--our own would hardly have suited the part--and I have +covered a great deal of country." + +"And your exact object?" + +"I have two. One is to discover any private engineering works where +special engines could have been made in secret. You will remember that +we both came to the conclusion that the Air Pirate could have obtained +silent engines in no other way. The other is--petrol." + +"Petrol! I never thought of that! I see what you mean." + +"Precisely, Sir John. An airship such as the one we are after must have +a constant supply of petrol, and, of course, consumes enormous +quantities. When I can connect a certain private individual with the +receipt of such quantities, we are another step forward." + +"How have you got on?" I asked eagerly. + +"I have nothing definite. But there are certain indications--slight, +oh, very slight!--which I am following up. I will go into everything +with you this evening. Meanwhile you have your own day mapped out." + +"Yes. I have studied the local maps and asked a good many questions. +After breakfast I shall walk over the moors to this little lonely +village of Zerran. It is about eight miles away from here, and, I +understand, not more than one and a half from Tregeraint Sea House, +which is the home of Major Helzephron. There is a fair-sized +old-fashioned inn on the cliffs where we shall probably be able to get +rooms." + +"And settle down to our reading party," he replied, with a sudden gleam +in his narrow eyes. "I have the Greek texts of Plato's 'Republic' and +the 'Meno' in my portmanteau; it is wise to pay attention to details! We +shall, then, meet at dinner this evening, and I expect that your news +will be of great importance. With your permission, I shall take +honourable Thumbwood with me. He will be useful." + +After breakfast, with some sandwiches and a flask, I set out, passing +down the main street of the far western town, and by the last station in +England, till I found myself mounting a winding road which led upwards +through a suburb towards the moorlands. + +The air was heavy with the perfume of innumerable flowers. Tall +palm-trees grew in the gardens of old granite houses, a sub-tropical +flora flourished everywhere, and it was difficult to believe that one +was in England. The hedges were luxuriant with ferns that grow in +hot-houses elsewhere, Royal Osmunda and Maidenhair, and every moment the +road grew steeper. + +If you look at the map of Cornwall you will see that the extremity of +the county forms a sort of peninsula. Penzance is on the south, and +faces the English Channel on the south. My back was now turned to this, +and I was walking due north, towards my objective, the vast and little +known "Hinterland" of mountainous moor and savage coast which lies +between the Channel and the Atlantic. + +As I went, the warmth and colour, the riot of Nature all round, seemed +as unreal as a dream. It brought no ease or healing to my soul. Deep, +deep down, though controlled and prisoned by the will, an unending agony +was lying. I'm not going to insist upon this, or often obtrude it in my +story. But you must not think that, until the very end, I knew a +moment's peace. My dear love and her awful fate were ever before me, and +all the sights and sounds of Nature in this western paradise breathed +nothing but her name. + +... At last the habitations of man grew fewer. Gardens gave place to +sloping fields enclosed by "hedges" of stone, and at length a long, +level sky-line above and in front showed me that the moors were close. + +I reached the top at last, and took in a great breath of the sweetest, +most exhilarating air that I have ever known. The unfenced road +stretched away ahead of me for miles, a long, white ribbon laid upon the +heath and yellow gorse. I was on a vast plateau of gold and brown and +purple. To the left great hills crowned with rock granite tors cut into +the sky, and to the right was the jagged summit of Carne Zerran, three +miles away as the crow flies. At its foot, on the edge of mighty cliffs +that fell away a sheer three hundred feet to the ocean, I knew lay the +little village that I sought. + +I looked at my map for a moment, took out my pocket compass, and then +plunged into the heather. Already I had a good idea of the lie of the +country--it is an instinct with your flying man--and I realized that an +accurate knowledge of it would prove invaluable in the task before me. + +I met no living soul during that first walk over the moor. Larks were +singing high above in the blue; a pair of the rare Cornish choughs, with +their scarlet bills, flew screeching from the summit of a lichen-covered +rock as big as a house; but until I got to Carne Zerran, and looked down +to the narrow strip of pasture lands and cornfields that lie along the +cliffs, there was no sign of human habitation. + +Far down below I saw a church tower and a little cluster of grey houses. +Beyond was the coast-line, with a creamy froth of breakers at the foot +of the jagged cliffs, and the Atlantic, "Mother of Oceans," beyond. +There was no land between me and New York! I suppose that in all the +glory of sun and colour, superb spaces of sea and sky, I stood alone, +and looked upon a scene as fair as any on this earth. But as I focussed +my binoculars, and swept the coast, my only thought was that here--if +anywhere at all--was the heart of the mystery I had come to solve. + +Well! It was a fitting setting, in its lonely vastness. Anything might +happen here among these Druid-haunted hills. A crafty fiend, a man with +a great intellect and Satan in his soul, might well find this his proper +theatre! + +About a mile from the village, and just below me, I saw the cliffs bent +inwards between two projecting headlands. This must be the Zerran Cove +of the map, and--yes, seemingly upon the very edge of the precipice was +a long, grey building, which could be none other than "The Miners' +Arms." + +I began the descent, leaping from rock to rock, where the adders lay +basking in the sun. After a few hundred yards, I struck a gorge, +through which a stream fell towards the sea. Here I found a well-defined +path, which looped downwards to the ruins of a deserted tin-mine. I saw, +as I passed it, the windowless engine-house, and the gaunt timbers of +the winding gear still in place. The gibbet-like erection and the dumps +of useless stuff covered with rank dock leaves made a forlorn and ugly +picture in that narrow gorge where the sun hardly penetrated. + +I passed it soon, and came out upon the main coach road from St. Ives to +Land's End, and, crossing this, found a side lane, which took me direct +to the remote hostelry I had seen from the heights above. + +It was a large place, covered with ivy, and no doubt did a considerable +trade eighty years before, when the innumerable tin-mines on the moor +were all at work. Now it seemed forgotten by the world, and all asleep +in the sun. "An ideal base for our operations!" I thought, as I strode +through an open door into a long, low room, with a stone floor and +heavily timbered roof. + +It was cool, and so dark after the blazing sunshine that, for a moment, +I could see nothing, though I heard a sound of stertorous breathing. +When my eyes became accustomed to the gloom I saw that there was a man +asleep by the little counter. He sat on a bench which ran along the +wall, and his head was buried in his arms, which rested on a +beer-stained table. By his side stood a bottle half full of whisky. + +Supposing him to be the landlord--and no engaging figure at that--I +touched him on the shoulder. It was like springing a trap! Instantly he +snatched away his arms and sat up. For a second sleep held him. Then it +passed away like a breath on glass, and if ever I saw fear on a man's +face I saw it then. + +He was dressed in a blue jersey and an alpaca coat, oil-stained and +dirty. His hands were the hands of a mechanic, with grimy nails. But it +was his face that held me. It was sleek and cunning. There was a curious +mixture of refinement and wickedness. He seemed like a naturally +sensitive man, whom circumstances, indulgence, or some special +temptation, had led very deeply astray. + +I noted all this while he stared at me with a drooping jaw and bloodshot +eyes. His skin had turned dead-white, like the belly of a fish, and +whatever he was thinking I felt that I would not have that man's +conscience for a million. + +"I want you," I said--they were the first words that came. + +He made an inarticulate noise. + +"You are the landlord, aren't you?" + +At that he gave a long breath and his rigidity relaxed. He snatched at +the whisky bottle, poured some into a glass and drank it off neat. + +"Lord, how you startled me!" he said glibly. "I was far +away--dreaming--and you frightened me out of my life!" + +It was my turn to be amazed, though I showed nothing. The fellow spoke +with a cultivated voice and accent which were impossible to mistake. He +was not what I had thought him. + +"I am very sorry," I said; "you must please excuse me. But I naturally +thought ..." + +"Of course you did!" he said, and a civil but ugly smile came on his +clever, unpleasant face. "As a matter of fact, Trewhella, the landlord, +has just gone to the village for a few minutes. He asked me to keep +house for him. He's almost due back now." + +Thanking him urbanely, I sat down, my mind working very quickly. He +offered me some whisky, and though it was the last thing I wanted, I +accepted after a show of reluctance. He was watching me out of the +corners of his eyes the whole time. + +"Can you tell me," I said, with great openness of manner, "if I can get +rooms here, or in Zerran village?" + +He became alert at once. "Rooms, to stay in, do you mean?" + +"Yes. I am an Oxford tutor, and I have a young foreign gentleman in my +charge whom I am coaching. I want a quiet place for three or four weeks, +and this seems ideal for the purpose." + +His face cleared. "I should imagine so," he replied. "I know Trewhella +does let sometimes." + +"You live here?" I remarked, with polite indifference. + +"I have been here for a year," he answered. "I am, as a matter of fact, +a mining engineer--hence these clothes! I belong to a little private +syndicate of friends who are opening up a disused tin-mine, on the moor +not far away. Ah, here is the landlord! Trewhella, this gentleman wishes +to speak to you." And then to me: "Good-morning, sir. No doubt, if you +come here, I and my friends will see something of you. We are mostly +public-school and University men ourselves, and we often look in here of +an evening after our day's work." + +He waved his hand and went out into the sunshine. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +SIR JOHN CUSTANCE COMES UPON THE HOUSE OF HELZEPHRON + + +Mr. Trewhella was an elderly Cornishman, with welcoming manners, the +native shrewdness of his race, but without guile. We got on famously +from the word "go." He had three bedrooms and a large sitting-room to +let. His wife, who had driven into St. Ives, was, he asserted, a good +cook. As for Thumbwood, he could wait on us and live with the landlord +and his wife. Finally, there was an empty barn which would hold our car +very comfortably. + +"And what would you be thinking of paying, zur?" asked Mr. Trewhella. + +"I shall leave that to you. I may tell you that the gentleman I am +preparing for his Oxford examination is wealthy. He is a Japanese +nobleman, and as long as you make us comfortable ..." + +This had the desired effect. The landlord became expansive in his slow +way, and showed me all over the premises of his quaint and rambling +dwelling. It was a wild and fantastic spot, an ancient haunt of +smugglers and wreckers, I learnt. The back-yard opened straight into the +short pneumatic turf above the cliffs, the brink of which was not more +than two hundred yards away. Here the stream, which flowed past the inn, +descended in a series of miniature cataracts to a tiny cove of +deep-green water, almost enclosed by two towering precipices, crowned +with jagged spires and pinnacles of rock. There was a little scimitar of +golden sand far down at the water's edge, and the scene was one of +savage grandeur that I have rarely known surpassed in all my travels. + +As he stood on the height and looked down, I saw something which seemed +strangely out of place. A line of street rails, with wooden rollers at +intervals between them, fell at a dizzy angle from a spot some ten yards +away on the turf, ending abruptly on the level, and in front of a +smallish hut of corrugated iron. + +"What is the rail for?" I asked. "Surely you don't haul the +boats"--there were two of them lying on the beach--"right up to the top +of the cliff! It must be two hundred and fifty feet!" + +"Nigher three hundred, zur. No. Them rails belong to bring up machinery +and stores for Tregeraint Mine by Carne Zerran. They do come by sea in a +lil' steamboat. 'Tes more convenient so. There be a lil' oil engine in +that shed to haul 'em up in trucks. I let the land, for 'tes all mine +down-along, and they do pay me ten pound a year." + +We strolled back to the house, Mr. Trewhella proposing a Cornish pasty +and beer for lunch. + +"Now you mention it, that gentleman who was keeping house for you just +now said that he was a mining engineer." + +The landlord's big, weather-beaten face wrinkled like a stained window. +He began to heave and chuckle, finally exploding in a bellow of +laughter. + +"Mr. Vargus!" he spluttered, "Mr. Vargus! He _thinks_ he be a mining +engineer, but a knows no more about it than my pig! He be a clever +gentleman, sure 'nuf. He do have some braäve knowledge to machinery, +I'll allow. But mining, and tin-mining!" + +Mr. Trewhella could find no further words to express his contempt for +the mining attainments of my friend with the refined and evil face. + +"You see," the landlord continued, as we ate our pasties, "I'm an old +mine-captain myself, bred and born to it. 'Tedn't likely as I could be +deceived. When I heered that a gentleman had come into Tregeraint Manor +and the old mine, and proposed to work it, I laughed, I did. I know +every inch of Wheal Tregeraint, and fifty years ago it was a fine +property. To-day them amatoors up along'll never get enough tin out to +oxidize, let alone smelt." + +"Who are they, then, Mr. Trewhella?" + +"That's what lots of folk asked when they first come here in twos and +threes. They're gentlemen, zur, like yourself, that's what they are. +Never was such a thing known in these parts, though folk are used to 'em +now. There's Mr. Helzephron, a Cornishman himself, and should know +better, Mr. Vargus, you seed, Mr. Gascoigne, a mad young devil if you +like, and near a dozen more. They all live together in the greät house +on the cliff and work the mine theyselves. Never no one else allowed. +They cooks and does for themselves, just as if they was in a mining camp +in California." + +"No women, servants or anything?" + +"Never an apron. My missus belong to say they lives like Popish monks, +which she see when travelling with a lady among the Eyetalians. 'Not so, +my tender dear,' says I. 'I never heered that Popish monks spent most of +their evenings in the village inn with a bottle of Scotch whisky afore +each man, and precious little left by closing time!'" + +"A hard-drinking lot then?" + +"Wonderful at their liquor. I tell you, zur, it's good for me! Now I've +got used to them and their funny ways, I wish they'd stay for ever. +Speaking from a strictly business point of view, that is. But soon +they'll find out they've lost their money and they'll jack it up. 'Tes +not in reason as they can go on, though they do seem so full of hope and +certainty, as you mind to up! But I _know_." + +He was obviously pleased with my interest in his talk. I wondered what +he would have said if he had known who I was and why I was there? Under +a calm exterior, a professor munching potato pasty! I was filled with a +furious excitement. The man's gossip was worth a sovereign a word. Here +was, moment by moment, what looked like complete confirmation of our +suspicions. And yet, even as I realized this, I realized also how +infernally clever the scheme was. Without the clue which Danjuro and +myself alone possessed, there was nothing in the world to connect +Helzephron and Tregeraint with the business that was ruffling the calm +of two continents. + +It was not my game to ask more direct questions than I could help. It +was better to let the racy stream flow on, with a word of comment now +and then. I ventured a calculated one now. + +"Fools and their money are soon parted," said I. + +"You may say that, zur! And they've poured out money like water. +Electric light, oal sorts o' cases full of new-fangled machinery, and +that mystery made about the silly old mine you'd think it was a seam of +diamonds." + +"It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, Mr. Trewhella!" I rose +from the table as I spoke. "But what you say about a dozen or more +gentlemen drinking nearly a bottle of whisky each rather surprises me. +I'm no foe to honest enjoyment, but ..." + +I put on a slight primness of manner, as became the character I +sustained. + +The landlord nodded vigorously. "'Tes so!" he agreed, "and most onusual. +They be gentlefolk, sure 'nuff, but shall I tell 'ee what I think?" + +"What's that?" + +"I think as most of 'em's dropped out, so to speak. I shouldn't be +frightened if as their families didn't have anything to say to 'em, and +they've nowhere much else to go. Mr. Helzephron knows what he's about, +he do. I judge by a kind o' reckless way they have, 'specially the +younger gentlemen. They don't seem to mind about ordinary things same as +most. Well, I suppose this fool tin-mining keeps 'em out of mischief." + +I wondered. + + +When I set out upon the return journey I took another route. I found +from the landlord that by skirting the coast for a mile in the direction +of St. Ives I could come upon a moorland path that would take me to the +little railway-station of St. Erth. I could then catch a train for +Penzance. My ostensible reason was to vary my walk, my real one that by +this change of plan I should pass by and have a view of Tregeraint Mine +and the Manor House. + +"Not that you'll see much or get close," said Mr. Trewhella. + +"How is that?" I asked. + +"I told you that Mr. Helzephron"--apparently the hawk-faced man had +dropped his military title in Cornwall--"do make a mystery of his +peddling mine. He goes further than that. The mine buildings and the +house are surrounded by two fences of barbed-wire and the Manor by a +high wall. 'Trespassers,' notice boards belong to say, 'will be +prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law'!" + +"Well, I shan't attempt to trespass, Mr. Trewhella!" + +The landlord laughed. "Mine prospectin's not in the way of a larned +gentleman like yourself. Maybe it's as well. Mr. Helzephron has got two +dogs he turns out at night, and terrible ugly customers they be. Mr. +Vargus do tell me that they be Tibetan mastiffs, which am the largest +dogs in the world. They look like a sour-faced Newfoundland with heavy +ears, only bigger." + +I tramped away from "The Miners' Arms." Although I recognized the fact +that we were only at the fringe of discovery, my mind was made up. Thick +darkness surrounded me, but I was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt +that Major Helzephron, and no other, was the man for whom the whole +world was hunting. + +And as I thought of him and the crew of lost and reckless men who did +his will, the fair landscape seemed to darken, the sweet airs to be +tainted.... + +The path I traversed was the coastguard's path, as I could see by the +white-washed boulders to serve as a guide by night. It was never more +than two or three yards away from the brink of the savage precipices +that fell for two hundred and fifty feet sheer to the water. The ocean +was on my left; on the right the great hill, known as Carne Zerran, +towered up, and the edge of the high moors cut the sky. On that side it +was as though one were walking at the bottom of a cup. + +After about half a mile of the path, it suddenly left the cliff edge, +and turned inland. For several hundred yards the brink was guarded by a +semicircle of barbed-wire fence, which made it impossible to approach. A +notice board informed the wayfarer that here, owing to old mining +operations, the cliff was extremely dangerous. + +It looked so, indeed. The edge was broken and irregular. I saw that it +ran out in a curious headland for a considerable way, a mere wall of +rock with a razor-back path on the top, which curved round again and ran +parallel to the cliff on which I was, making a mighty chasm from which +rose the cries of innumerable sea-birds. There was a narrow mouth +seawards, and another headland jutted out to make a cove like the one at +the inn, though that, of course, had no winding cañon at the end. + +I crept up to the brink, where the wire fence began, and, lying down, +with one arm round the first post, peered over. + +It was a terrible place. The rock overhung so for hundreds of yards that +I could not see the bottom. But the other side of the cañon was clear to +view, a great wall of black rock, where sea-hawks nested, and +inaccessible to the boldest climber. To the right the cove seemed to be +of fair size from horn to horn, but it was no tranquil spot like the one +at the back of the inn. Even on a calm day like the present, the +Atlantic ground swell poured in with tremendous force, and was broken +with ferocious whirlpools and spray-fountains by toothed rock-ledges a +foot or two below the surface. The smallest boat could not have entered +Tregeraint Cove and lived there for a moment. + +For some reason or other the place affected me most unpleasantly, and +it was with a little shudder that I retreated and skirted the fence +which guarded the dangerous part of the cliff. When I had passed by +this, the path turned at right angles and went inland. + +As I turned I saw, perhaps a furlong away, the house of Helzephron. + +It lay upon the eastern slope of Carne Zerran, an ancient, grim-looking +house of granite, long, low, and of considerable size. A few stunted +trees grew round about, and a fairly extensive domain of gardens, as I +supposed, surrounded by a high wall. Using my prism glasses, I could see +that this wall was topped by iron spikes. Of course, I was considerably +below Tregeraint as on the sloping hill-side, and it lay quite open to +view. Higher up, and beyond the house, was the derrick, engine-house and +sheds of the mine, with here and there dumps of débris and various +sheds. + +Although the wire fences, which I soon made out, went round the whole +property, it lay quite open to the view. And when I had passed it, and +climbed to the table-land of the moor beyond, I saw that it would be +even more open to the eyes--spread out like a map, in short. + +One thing was already certain. There was nothing whatever in the nature +of a hangar, no building that could possibly shelter even an ordinary +four or five seater biplane, to say nothing of an air cruiser. + +I was not disappointed, because I had hardly expected to meet with +anything of the kind. The pirate ship, you will remember, was--like all +the big long-distance airships--a cross between what used to be known in +the old days as the "seaplane" and the "flying-boat." True, some of our +war aeroplanes of quite large size were fitted with floats that could be +raised, and wheels for land work in addition. + +This might be the case with the pirate. But it was not to be thought of +for a moment that a man of Helzephron's intelligence would dare to house +his extraordinary ship where any one of my police could have +investigated simply by showing his badge of office. The land policeman +and the coastguards of the whole English coastline had already reported +on every hangar and aerodrome in the kingdom. If Helzephron was the man +I believed him, I was well aware that we were only at the beginning of +the duel. + +I mounted up past the wire fences and the mine. I did not dare to use my +glasses in passing, for I saw in the distance one or two figures of men +strolling about by the engine-house and derrick. But when I was at last +among the heather at the top, I lay down, and took a long survey of the +buildings, drawing a careful map in my pocket-book, which might prove +of great use later on. + +I waited half an hour at the little station of St. Erth, and then caught +a train to Penzance, arriving at the hotel about tea-time. As I came +into the lounge, after a wash and brush up, I saw Danjuro sitting in one +corner. He had a pile of newspapers round him, and I saw that the London +journals had arrived. + +He handed me one of them as I sat down. A paragraph among the police +news was marked in pencil. + +Major Helzephron had been taken to Vine Street Police Station, and +locked up for the night, charged with an aggravated assault on Mr. Wag +Ashton at the Mille Colonnes Restaurant, on the evidence of M. Nicholas +and the head-waiter. + +A medical man had attended the Court on behalf of the prosecutor, to say +that Mr. Ashton was too unwell to appear until the morrow. Upon his +promising to attend the Court the next day, Major Helzephron was +admitted to bail. + +"That gives us nearly two clear days," said Danjuro. "When Ashton does +appear, he will not press the case, and will own that he gave +provocation; Helzephron will be fined, perhaps let off. I see that +Honourable Ashton battered him a good deal! And now, your news, Sir +John, if you please." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +"THE AIR WOLVES ARE HUNTING TO-NIGHT!" + + +He made no comment, and did not interrupt me until I had completely +finished, nor did his inscrutable face give any indication of what he +thought. + +"My own investigations," he said, "can be told in a few words. The small +steamship which brings supplies to the cove behind the inn is the +private property of Helzephron, and she is a great deal faster and much +better engined than most people are aware. She lies at the little port +of Hayle, which is on the main line from Plymouth to Penzance, in St. +Ives Bay. At certain times _large quantities of petrol arrive in +separate consignments from different parts of the country_. The _Sea +Gull_ is loaded to her capacity, and then makes the short voyage to +Zerran Cove." + +"That's the last link!" I said. "No one could doubt now!" + +"There is another, still more interesting fact. Hayle was once a place +of much greater importance than it is at present. There were large +foundries and engineering works there in the past. These have been +abandoned, owing to the silting up of the harbour, for many years, as +only vessels of small draught can enter easily to-day. But the foundry +buildings remain. From time to time a portion of them has been let for +this or that small enterprise. Three years ago Helzephron rented a part +of the works and installed machinery. He had about twenty labourers, but +the real work, whatever it was, took place in a large experimental shed, +to which no one was admitted but he and his friends. They were already +at Zerran, and used to drive over in motors every day. It was locally +known that some new machinery for Wheal Tregeraint was being made. Many +shippings took place from Hayle to Zerran Cove." + +"But the ship, the Pirate Ship itself?" + +"Who can tell? We go step by step in the dark. Many theories have +crossed my mind. I have dismissed them all. I want to approach this, the +most sinister problem of all, with a blank mind. We can do nothing till +we are on the spot. Our preliminary work is over, but the real labour +begins." + +"A sinister problem enough," I answered bitterly. "But not the most +trouble to me. I tell you, Danjuro, that as I lay among the heather and +looked down upon that lonely house, as I thought of the devilish crew +that live there, for a moment my heart turned to water, and the agony +was more than I could endure. _She_ may be there, at this moment, +defenceless and in the power ..." + +I could not go on. I covered my face with my hands, and was nearer +breaking down than ever before. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. "It +has never left my mind, either. Do not give way, for the moment of +action has come. We go to the inn at Zerran to-night--within the hour." + +"To-night!" + +"Yes. We cannot afford to waste a moment. Helzephron is kept in London. +One great danger is removed from our path. We shall never have a better +opportunity than now. In dealing with enemies such as ours, we must +strike quickly and strongly when they think themselves most secure. +Before dawn we must have penetrated the inmost secrets of Tregeraint." + +I had by now grown accustomed to regard Danjuro as the leader of our +enterprise. His decision was like cool water to a man dying of thirst in +a desert. I stood up, absolutely myself. "There is, of course, no reason +why we should not install ourselves at Zerran to-night instead of +to-morrow morning. Trewhella won't mind," I said. + +"I will order the car in an hour. Meanwhile, I have one or two things to +do. Perhaps you will settle the hotel bill, Sir John, and tell the +people that we are leaving?..." + +It was a stiflingly hot night as the car climbed up to the moors, and in +the glare of our headlights the gorse and heather by the roadside +streamed swiftly like some golden cinema, leaving a more sable dark +before and behind them. Danjuro, by my side, was lost in thought. The +massive head hung upon his chest. About half-way on our journey he said +a curious thing. "This would be an ideal night for another raid in the +air-lanes of the Atlantic." + +I did not answer, for I, also, was thinking deeply. So it was for +to-night! We crossed swords, fired the first shot, what you will, with +our cunning enemy in a few hours. What would they bring forth? + +I felt no fear, only a deep resolution not to fail in rescue and the +execution of Justice. I was happier than I had been for days, for it is +thought that turns the bones to pith and thins the blood, not action. +And, as we flashed down the dark moor road to where the lights of the +solitary inn showed yellow, I sent a wordless prayer to the Throne of +Justice and Mercy. And, as if an answer was truly and instantly +vouchsafed, there came into my mind these words from the ninety-first +Psalm: "I will deliver thee from the snare of the hunter." + +And after that I put mere abstract thought away from me. + +As we rolled up silently to the inn, we heard a great noise of singing +from the long room. A tall woman came out of a side door, and I +explained that we had decided to come earlier than we had planned. She +was a comely, good-humoured dame, who made no trouble about our arrival. +Both bedrooms and sitting-rooms were prepared, and when Thumbwood had +taken the car round to the barn, he went upstairs to unpack the baggage. +Mr. Trewhella appeared from the bar. I introduced Danjuro, and we +arranged to have some supper at half-past ten. + +Meanwhile the singing continued in great volume, mingled with the +twanging chords of a banjo. + +"Your guests are merry to-night," said Danjuro. + +"It's the gentlemen from the mine, sir," said the landlord. "It's one of +their nights off, so to speak. Would you like to join 'em for half an +hour?" + +"I think not on our first night. But they sing very well. As a foreigner +I am interested in all English customs; may I take a peep?..." + +He had gone to the communicating door as he spoke, and pulling aside a +red curtain which covered the upper half of glass, he looked through. I +did the same. + +The long room was full of people and tobacco smoke. With a single +exception, that of Mr. Vargus, they were all quite young men, ranging, +I should say, from three-and-twenty to thirty. Most of them were dressed +in old tweed suits, but the material and cut told their own tale, and +spoke of the "right" kind of tailor. At first glance they might have +been a collection of naval officers or senior undergraduates, but only +at first glance. My eyes roved from face to face, and on each I saw the +loss of innocence and honour. Some were cunning; others had a brutality +in ill accord with their youth, and there was a hard bravado in the eyes +of all. It was sickening. One felt that one had suddenly looked upon +something that should remain hidden. In that haze of smoke lurked all +that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous and evil in the +universe. + +I almost wanted to spit upon the floor, in an uncontrollable gesture of +repudiation. As I turned, I saw the landlord looking at me. + +"A promising lot of young devils," said I. + +"You do see it too, zur?" he replied, and then Danjuro touched my arm, +and I turned to look again. A man, without a hat, had just entered the +room from the outside. He sat in a chair which he had obviously occupied +before, for he was in naval uniform, and his cap was lying there. He was +a big, foolish-looking fellow, far gone in drink, but despite that his +face was the only wholesome one there. + +"Who is that?" I whispered to Trewhella, as Mr. Vargus poured a +generous allowance of rum into the new-comer's glass. + +"That's Billy Pengelly, our coastguard. The gentlemen do make a lot of +him, and he's none the better for't, for Billy's one as likes his drop. +Still, he goes and sleeps it off, and he belong to be strong as a bull. +And in these lone parts there's not often anyone to see if he's on the +watch or not." + +A tall boy with a banjo took up his instrument and twanged the chords. + +"Now, gentlemen!" he shouted in a clear fresh tenor, "a chorus!" And +without further preliminary he dashed into nothing less than the +"Pirate's Chanty" from "Treasure Island": + + + "_Fifteen men on the dead man's chest! + Yo, ho! and a bottle of rum!_" + + +The inn rocked with the volume of sound. I stood there fascinated, with +a sort of horror. The thing--knowing what I knew--was so daring and grim +that, more than anything else, it showed me with whom we had to deal. + +The application was lost upon Danjuro, but I told him what it meant in +French, and he nodded with contracted eyes. + + + "_Drink, and the devil had done for the rest, + Yo, ho! and a bottle of rum!_" + + +One would have thought that the room could not contain the noise, and +that the very windows must be shattered, and in the very middle of it I +heard something else--the urgent, throbbing sound of an engine. + +Danjuro heard it as soon as I did. "Motor-bicycle," he whispered. + +The sound grew insistent. Whoever was coming rode hell for leather and +with the exhaust open. Then there was a succession of reports, a +grinding noise, and the door of the bar was flung suddenly open. + +A tall man in goggles and overalls covered with dust walked in. As he +did so, the pirate chant stopped with dramatic suddenness, and the +singers jumped to their feet. Then he removed his glasses and his cap. + +It was Major Helzephron. + +They clustered round him thickly, and to each one he said a quiet word. +In every case, when this happened, the man spoken to nodded and vanished +into the night. I could hear them running outside the inn. Lastly, +Helzephron took Vargus by the arm, and they also passed out. I could see +the man more plainly than ever before. There was a great bruise round +about the left eye, and the face was pale. But it blazed with will and +purpose, and the cruel mouth was set in a malicious and abominable +smile. + +"_The wolves are hunting to-night!_" Danjuro said to me two minutes +later in my bedroom, and once again his face was like a demon of Old +Japan. "Helzephron will not appear at the police court to-morrow. He has +arranged it somehow, and, after all, it is a trivial affair. He has +ridden down from London during the day." + +"You mean that there is going to be a raid to-night?" + +"I feel sure of it. Why else should Helzephron rush from London? And you +observed the manner of his confederates. Don't you see this--with all +his cunning precautions the pirate is far too clever not to know that +his career must be a short one. He cannot hope to remain concealed for +any great length of time. His object is to obtain an immense fortune +_quickly_. Already I calculate he has stolen jewels and money to the +value of two hundred thousand pounds. A few more such coups and he can +disband his crew and disappear for ever. Speed is the essence of his +plan." + +"But we must do something, we must stop it...." + +"Our opportunity for action is improved, Sir John. In the first place, +you must take steps to concentrate a fleet of patrol ships in this +neighbourhood." + +"The car is here. I can write official telegrams in code to Plymouth +and London. Within an hour the hinterland and the sea from here to +Scilly can be covered with a swarm of ships. St. Ives is only six miles +away." + +"Write the dispatches at once. I will call Thumbwood, who must take them +in, together with an official note from you to the postmaster." + +I unlocked my portfolio and wrote the wires. There should be such an +invasion of the air to-night as Far West Cornwall had never known! + +Thumbwood appeared, I gave him full instructions, and heard the +Rolls-Royce start below. + +"And now, our part!" I said to Danjuro. + +"If we are right in our conjecture, the pirates will shortly leave +Tregeraint on their expedition. How they will join the airship or where +we don't know. But we may safely assume that the house will be left in +charge of one or at most two men. The others will all be wanted to man +the ship; it is a simple calculation. Here is your chance. You must get +inside Tregeraint, obtain conclusive evidence, and if the poor lady is +there alive, bring her away in safety. Perhaps to-night the Pirate Ship +will make its last cruise! Our presence here, our identity, is quite +unsuspected. A concentration of hostile airships in this neighbourhood +is the last thing Helzephron will expect to-night." + +"And you, my friend?" + +"I would that I could come with you, for you go in danger of your life, +but, as I see it, my work should be different. Someone, in view of its +escape, _must_ solve the mystery of the Pirate Ship itself. I have a +theory already; I must put it to proof. There are boats in the cove +below--I see that the moon is rising, I know what I must do. But, even +so, I will come with you, Sir John, if you say so." + +I shook my head. "No, I will go alone. It is my job." + +Then Danjuro did a strange thing. He took my hand, bowed over it and +kissed it! "You also are of the Samurai!" he said. + +In a minute more he carried in a heavy bag from his own bedroom, and +produced from it a miscellany of objects. + +"Here is a twelve-shot automatic, with a dozen cartridge clips," he +said. "You know all about the working of it? I thought so. This pair of +wire-cutters you will need for the barbed fence. These two keys with +adjustable wards--you turn the milled screw at the end to adjust +them--will open any ordinary lock. Here also is an extremely powerful +steel lever, with a wedge end. In the hands of a strong man like +yourself it will wrench open most windows or doors." + +God knows there was no lightness in my heart, but in the usual English +way at serious moments, I laughed. + +"The Complete Burglar!" I said. + +Danjuro looked at me with a glance as cold as ice. + +"I am in most deadly earnest, Sir John. You know what my experience has +been. Well, I say deliberately that I have never been in such peril as +you are going into." + +"I meant nothing. And what is this?" I had taken up a little leather +tube with a lens at one end. + +"A powerful electric torch. But it is more than that. You can instantly +reverse it in your hand, and if you press this stud, the plated bottom +flies open, and by means of a spring an ounce of cayenne pepper is +projected for several yards. It will stop anyone and operates +instantaneously. A little thing I invented and have found most useful. +These handcuffs are of papier mâché and weigh practically nothing. They +are from Japan and tough as the hardest steel. You may require them. And +I never go on an expedition without this tiny bottle of chloroform and +pad. You can stow everything about you with ease, and the combined +weight is as nothing." + +I did so, and it was as he said. Then a thought struck me. + +"Armed and prepared like this, I feel certain that I shall get in. But +there are two Tibetan mastiffs let loose in the grounds at night. I can +shoot them, but the noise of the report ..." + +"That is provided for, Sir John. You see this gun?" + +"It looks like a short-barrelled rook-rifle, except for the great +thickness at the breech." + +"It holds ten conical bullets. They are hollow-nosed and expand on +impact. The point is that the gun is perfectly noiseless. Powder is not +used at all. The propelling power is liquefied carbonic-acid gas, and +all that is heard at the moment of firing is a sharp snap. With this you +can stalk the dogs and kill them easily enough. Do not forget your +hunting flask and brandy and water. And for concentrated food, should +you be detained in hiding, though I and Thumbwood will be coming to look +after you if you don't appear by morning, these solid chocolate cakes +are invaluable." + +All this was done quickly, and with the most business-like precision. +Although my sense of humour told me that I was like the White Knight in +"Alice in Wonderland," I did realize that I should be a terribly nasty +customer to tackle, and I was grateful. + +While we had been talking there came sounds from below of the closing of +the inn, and shortly after we were called to supper. + +"Don't you stay up any longer, Mr. Trewhella," I said. "You must want +your rest. As for us, we are late birds. Both I and my friend sometimes +take a five minutes' stroll last thing before we turn in. That won't +inconvenience you?" + +"Bless your life, no, zur. You do as you're a mind here. 'Tesn't like a +town. The key of the front door hangs on a nail by the side. And if you +_should_ be going out later, Billy Pengelly's in the empty pigsty, a +sleeping off what he's had, and there's a bucket of cold water on the +wall. In half an hour's time or so I know as he'd be grateful for having +it poured over 'en!" + +We promised to perform what was evidently one of the amenities of this +primitive place and Mr. Trewhella withdrew. + +"That coastguard may be useful to me," Danjuro said. "And now, Sir John, +I don't want to hurry you, but my advice is that you start. I don't +suppose that the band has left Tregeraint yet. But there are a hundred +hiding-places on the moor all round the domain, and you may be able to +see which way they go before you make your own attempt. I shall be on +the trail in a very few minutes after you." + +"And Charles? He will be back shortly." + +"I shall need him. I know he would wish to be with you, Sir John, but I +believe your chances are better alone. I shall not leave until he +returns, provided he is not unduly detained." + +He went to the window and pulled aside the curtain. "A waning moon," he +said, "which will be at full power about midnight, when there may be +such a battle in the air as the world will hear with wonder!" + +I saw to my gear. It fitted about me very comfortably. + +"Well, good-night," I said, and without further words I went quietly out +of the house. + +When I got a hundred yards away I turned and looked at it, all silvered +in the moon. The air was sweet with the perfume of shy moorland flowers +that give up all their treasure to the night. The Atlantic, far below, +made a sound like fairy dreams, and on the distant slopes of Carne +Zerran an owl sounded his melancholy oboe note. + +A lovely night, gentlemen! + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE KILLING OF MICHAEL FEDDON + + +The moon was in its last quarter, and shed a faint spectral light over +the moor as I came quietly up to the first of the barbed-wire fences +that surrounded Tregeraint. I lay down in the heath, certain that I was +quite invisible, and waited. + +An hour had hardly elapsed since the band had left "The Miners' Arms." +Were they still here, or had they set out for their unknown destination? +I could not hear a sound of any kind. From where I lay the high wall hid +the house, and among the mine buildings higher up there was neither +light nor movement. Tregeraint might have been deserted for a hundred +years, and the roaring company of the inn had vanished into thin air. +And strain my eyes as I would, there was no sign of the great Tibetan +dogs. + +I remained motionless for a quarter of an hour by the illuminated dial +of my watch. Then, as nothing happened, I began operations. The wire +was tough and intricate, but ten minutes' work with Danjuro's powerful +cutters disposed of it sufficiently for me to crawl through both the +first and second fence without a scratch. I stood now in the lower +portion of a large, oblong paddock of short grass, all grey in the moon. +The surrounding wall of the Manor was about a hundred yards up the +slope, and with the gas rifle on my arm I glided over the intervening +space like a ghost. My boots were soled with india-rubber and I made no +sound at all. + +I found the wall to be ten or eleven feet high. It was crowned with a +_cheval de frise_ of iron spikes, and, owing to its height and smooth +surface, quite insurmountable. But I knew there must be an entrance +somewhere, and never expected to climb the barrier, and I began a +cautious circuit. About half-way round the extent I came to a wooden +door set in the wall. It was a mere postern, not more than five feet +high, and had a barred _grille_ in the centre of about a foot square. I +reflected that this must be a side or garden exit, and that the main +gate was probably on the other side, facing the mine-head. But it was +all the better for my purpose if this was so, and I took out my steel +"jemmy" and prepared to tackle it. + +My intention was to prise it open with my tool, for I am a very powerful +man, but suddenly another idea occurred to me. The bars of the _grille_ +were old and rusted. As there was no key-hole in the door, it was +obviously secured by bolts. I inserted my lever, and without putting out +my full strength, and with little more sound than is made by the +striking of a match, soon had three of the bars out of the wood and +lying on the grass. + +My arms are long. I pushed my right through and my fingers, after a +little groping, caught the handle of the bolt, which slid back easily +enough. It had been oiled and showed that the door, which swung back at +once, was in constant use. + +I stepped within, treading like a cat, and closed the door behind me. I +stood in a large and neglected garden, where shrubs and flowers grew as +they would and formed a miniature jungle, through which I could see the +dark façade of the house, now quite close. Everything was as still as +death, and I listened with strained attention for several minutes. So +far the work had been ridiculously easy, but as I crept up a moss-grown +path towards the building every nerve was on the alert. I was not +afraid, I think I can truly say so, but there was a chill on my soul. +This old house, with its atmosphere of robbery and murder, its singular +and formidable inhabitants, the unknown dangers of the approach, and, +above all, the thought that Connie might be within it, all combined to +wrap me in a terrible gloom of the spirit. Yet, looking back, I see +that this was well. It hardened all my resolution and made me terrible. + +I had no thought of it then, but now I can see the grim horror of such a +being as I had become approaching the house step by step.... + +All the lower windows were shuttered. There was not a gleam of light +anywhere as I followed the path and came to the front, where there was a +grass-grown gravel sweep and iron gates in the wall. This part of the +house was plain and unadorned, save for a pillared porch and steps +leading down to the drive. A thick growth of ivy covered it from the +ground to the first-floor windows, and after I had gently tried the +heavy front door, which, as I expected, was locked, this suggested a +mode of entrance. If I could climb up and get on to the roof of the +porch, it might be possible to force the central bedroom window, which I +could see was unshuttered. + +The ivy was of ancient growth, the stems thick and tough. Any schoolboy +could have mounted to the top of the porch. And any boy could have +pushed back the catch of the window with the blade of his pocket-knife, +opened it and stepped inside. + +I stood in a bedroom, dark, except for a little pool of moonlight by the +window. I felt curtains, and I drew them before I switched on my torch. +It was an ordinary bedroom, very untidy, furnished with a suite of +painted deal. There was, however, a great saucer-bath full of water, and +a pair of Indian clubs. The wall was hung with photographs of football +teams, and in an open drawer of the little dressing-table was a pile of +gold and notes. + +Commonplace enough, like an undergraduate's room at Oxford, but, +nevertheless, it affected me unpleasantly. It was like a sudden intimacy +with something abominable, as I opened the door inch by inch, and felt +for the powerful pistol in my pocket. My heart hung poised for an +instant as I stepped out into a dark corridor, and then I gave a gasp, +and my heart almost stopped beating. + +I stood at the head of broad, shallow stairs. Below was a large hall, +dimly lit, and pouring up to me in a volume of sound came the melodious +thunder of a piano played by a master hand! + +At first my knees grew weak, and I clutched the shadowy banisters to +save me from falling. Constance! Who could be playing in this evil house +but she! I can never forget the agonized pang of mingled joy and horror +that I felt. But as I crouched and listened, the fierce emotion passed +away. Whoever was playing, it was not my girl. A lost soul made that +music. + +I glided down the stairs. Certainly the wolves had left their lair, +though in what manner I could not divine. The house was inhabited by +but one or two people at most. All the doors along the corridor stood +open, as if the rooms had been left in a hurry. The building _felt_ +deserted, empty of its usual inhabitants.... + +A dim light came from an open door at the right of the hall. I peeped in +and saw a long shadowy room of great size. The walls were panelled and +hung here and there with pictures, the floor carpeted. Two immense oak +tables, with their complement of chairs, went up and down the centre, +and it hardly needed a butler's hatch in the wall, doubtless +communicating with the kitchen, to tell me that this was the dining-room +of Helzephron and his buccaneers. + +At the far end, and opposite the entrance door, was a wide and lofty +archway, half covered by a curtain. It led to another room beyond, and +it was from this that a bright light streamed, and the sound of music +came. + +I placed my gas rifle on the floor by the wall, took out my automatic, +unlocking the safety catch, and went to the curtain on tiptoe. There was +an alcove at the side, where some shelves had been, and this was +perfectly dark. I marked it as a possible hiding-place, and then pulled +the curtain aside for half an inch. Just as I did so there was a clash +of prelude, and the pianist began the enchanted Third Ballade of Chopin. + +It was the man known to me as Vargus, the man with the smooth voice, +the face that was evil and refined. He sat at a magnificent grand piano, +swaying a little on his stool.... + +Do you know that marvellous composition of Chopin's? Most people have +heard it at least once or twice in their lives, played by some +_maestro_. I have heard the renderings of the great pianists of the +world, but none played as this man played. + +A terrible remorse informed the unearthly music. It was as though the +player strained with every power of his being to recapture something +irrevocably lost. When he came to that strange passage which has been so +often compared to the soft cantering of a horse, the pain in the lovely +chords was unbearable. The artist, Aubrey Beardsley, made a wonderful +drawing of this passage--a spectral white charger ambling through a dark +wood of pines, bearing a lady in a cloak of black velvet. The picture +rose before my eyes as I stood, but it flashed away, and words of awful +significance took its place in my mind and fitted themselves to the +closing chords.... + + + "_Night and day he was among the tombs, and on the hills, crying + out and beating himself with stones._" + + +As you may know, the piece ends in a furious welter of sound. It had +just concluded, and the player sat motionless as a wax doll, when +another figure heaved itself into my line of vision, a burly giant, +with red hair and a heavy, sullen face. + +"Now you've finished that ---- row," he growled, "we'd better be moving. +We may get signals coming through soon. And I suppose I must feed the +canaries!" + +I knew the man at once. There was no possibility of mistake. It was +Michael Feddon, the famous Rugby international, and six years ago the +idol of the public. It was said that he was the finest back that England +had ever seen. In the height of his career he had been mixed up in a +horrible, criminal scandal, and received five years' penal servitude. + +I swallowed in my throat with loathing, but the next words drove all +thought of Feddon's career from my mind. + +"Everything is ready on a tray in the kitchen, and the soup is on the +electric stove. It will be hot by now," said Vargus, in his soft, creamy +voice. + +"I'll get it, and I wish the damned business was over. I said from the +first that when the Chief brought those two women here we ran more risk +than ever before. It'll turn out badly yet. Mark my words, Vargus." + +Vargus took up a bottle which stood on a table by the piano. It was +brandy, and he poured out two glasses half full, adding soda from a +siphon. + +"Here's luck; not a bit of it," he said. "If all goes well to-night, a +couple more expeditions will see us finished, with a hundred thousand +each, and scattered all over the globe. We all have our fancies. The +Chief's is this Shepherd girl. Well, in another fortnight he'll +disappear with her. Every man to his taste." + +Feddon swallowed his brandy at a gulp. "She'll lead him a dance yet!" he +said. "I never saw such a spitfire. I hate going near her, and I wish it +wasn't my turn to stay at home. I'd tame her, though, if she were mine. +I wouldn't stand her pretty ways and the things she says, like the Chief +does. He's mad about the girl." + +"And what would you do, my beefy friend?" said Vargus, with his +abominable smile. + +Feddon touched his middle. He was wearing a leather belt. "Take this to +her," he said, "and beat her black and blue." + +Vargus rose, grinning. "Well, get the food," he said. "I'll go down at +once. You'll find me in the wireless cabin." + +Feddon lurched forward. I had just time to press myself into the alcove, +when he came through the curtain and strode heavily through the room +into the hall. + +Vargus went to a tall mirror by the piano, as I watched him +breathlessly. He did something that I could not see, and it swung open +like a door. There was the snap of an electric switch, and I saw him +step into a lift, pull a rope, and sink out of sight, leaving the door +open. + +He could not have sunk ten feet when I was in the room. It was large and +square, furnished with something like luxury, and brilliantly lit with +electric globes. + +There was an arm-chair in full view of the archway. I sat down, and it +was still warm from its last occupant. That seemed to me amusing, and I +smiled. + +Something clanked, a soft swishing noise changed to a distant rumble, +and the lift came into sight. I had it covered, but it was +empty--waiting for the man who was going to "feed the canaries." + +I waited for him, too. There was a box of cigarettes close by. I lit one +and smoked quietly. Then I heard him coming through the dining-room, his +footsteps and the rattle of a tray. + +The half-drawn curtain bellied out and was pushed aside. Feddon stood +there with the tray in his hands and the light shining on his ugly red +hair. + +He saw me. His mouth opened and his eyes started out. He seemed +unutterably foolish, like a great cod, and I laughed aloud. + +But he was quick, oh, quick and clever! Like the famous footballer that +he was! In a second he had ducked, and the loaded tray was skimming +across the room straight at my head, as he hurled himself after it, +quick as a snake strikes. + +I was ready, though. He was not. My first shot broke his shoulder and +stopped him for an instant. Then, with a roar of pain and fury, he came +on again, and I shot him through the heart when he was three feet away. + +Mr. Feddon would feed no more canaries. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE SECRET THAT PUZZLED TWO CONTINENTS + + +I stood looking down at Michael Feddon's body. I was stunned. For the +man I had just killed I cared nothing, felt no emotion. I had saved him +from the drop; that was all. But, though I had been convinced that +Danjuro's and my own suspicions were absolute fact, the full realization +had come so suddenly that it clouded the mind. + +Constance _was_ here, and she was unharmed! + +I had, indeed, penetrated into the very centre of this lair of the +air-wolves, and already had enough evidence to hang the lot. For a +minute the mingled joy and relief was so great that I could not grasp +them. + +The brandy bottle of Mr. Vargus was still on the side table. I stepped +over the body--the leather belt which he had proposed as an instrument +of correction for Constance was in full view--and helped myself +sparingly. Almost immediately my brain cleared. + +I listened intently. The two shots from my automatic had alarmed no +one. The sinister house was as silent as before. It seemed quite certain +that Feddon and Vargus alone remained to guard it. Even the two Tibetan +mastiffs of which I had heard so much had disappeared. + +To my right, the tall mirror swung on its hinges, and the lift beyond +was lit by a globe in the roof. To what it led I did not know, probably +some cellar where poor Constance and her maid were imprisoned, though a +lift seemed superfluous. At any rate, Vargus--the next person to +tackle--was down there, and it was long odds that I could not get the +better of him. Moreover, and this was in my favour, he was expecting +Feddon, and the arrival of the lift would not startle him at first, if +he were close by. + +I examined the lift. It was electrically operated, and of a type +perfectly familiar to me, fitted with an automatic magnetic brake. I saw +that it travelled from its secret recess behind the mirror to one other +spot only, stopping nowhere on the way. A touch of the rope started it, +and it would stop itself when its journey was done. + +Well, there was no use waiting. Again I must plunge into the unknown. +Connie was waiting! I wondered how honourable Danjuro was getting on, +and laid myself long odds that he wasn't having such an exciting time as +I was! How he would stare if he came back to "The Miners' Arms" in a +few hours and found me there with Connie, and the artistic Mr. Vargus +cooling down in the patent _papier mâché_ handcuffs from Japan! Mr. +Trewhella of the inn had shown me a large pig, which he called "Gladys," +and of which he was fond. There was a vacant and stoutly-built sty next +door, which would be an excellent place of confinement for the +interpreter of Chopin! + +... Yes, I thought these thoughts, even at that moment. I was madly +exhilarated. Everything had gone so easily and well. I stepped into the +lift humming a song. It was the old chanty that the pirates had roared +in the inn two short hours ago: + + + "_Fifteen men on the dead man's chest._" + + +There was a looking-glass on one side of the lift--probably the thing +had been bought entire at some sale--and I saw myself in it. The song +died away. Whose was this grim and terrible face, gashed with deep +lines, with eyes that smouldered with a red light? Mine? I have told you +how Danjuro looked when the bloodhound that he was emerged for an +instant from behind the bland Oriental mask. There was not a pin to +choose between us. + +The lift sank slowly. Every second I expected the soft jerk of its +stopping. But the seconds went on. Down and down, what cellar was it +that lay so low? Were we dropping to the centre of the earth? It seemed +an age before the motion slowed, and I had already obtained an inkling +of the truth when a dim archway rose up before me, and the machine came +to rest. + +This was no cellar. I was deep down in Tregeraint Mine, which must run +under the house itself! In the necessity for fox-like caution, I did not +follow out the thought--not yet. But I believe that the subconscious +brain had already seen far into the mystery.... + +I stepped out into a mine cutting. The walls were cut in the rock, and +the roof here and there shored up with heavy timber props. It was wide +enough for two men to walk abreast, and quite eight feet high. Every +fifteen yards or so hung a roughly-wired electric lamp, and the floor +was beaten hard by the passage of many feet. The air was hot and +stagnant. + +I prowled down this passage without a sound, my pistol in my hand, ready +to shoot at sight, but for what seemed an interminable time I met no +one, and saw nothing but the damp walls, here and there sparkling with +yellow pyrites and the green of copper. + +There came at length a rough wooden door, which swung easily open, and +beyond a much narrower and higher passage than before, a more natural +cleft in the immemorial rock, it seemed, owing nothing to the agency of +human hands. It dripped with water. Hitherto I had been walking on a +level, now I trod a fairly steep descent, while the path was no longer +straight, but full of fantastic twistings. Each moment the air grew +cooler, and each moment a deep, murmurous noise, like very faint and +muffled drums, grew louder. + +The lights, now suspended from a thick and tarry cable, were less +frequent than at first, and the place was full of shadows. But as for +the noise, that could only be one thing, the Atlantic ground-swell. I +was approaching the sea, doubtless by one of the old mine "adits," made +for ventilation many years ago and long before the invention of the +electric fan. + +The narrow way ended in a door. It was latched but not locked, and I +pushed it slowly open. Immediately there was a sense of vast and gloomy +space. I say "gloomy," for it was not absolutely dark. Here and there +hung dim, yellow lights.... + +Advancing a step or two upon a floor of hard earth on sand, I found +myself in a vast cavern. It seemed as large as the shell of a cathedral, +and for organ there was the plangent, echoing sound of sea waves. The +sound came from my right, and was carried on a current of sweet, +brine-laden air. Peering through the darkness, I seemed to be aware of +a faint, ghostly radiance, a considerable distance away. + +I had lost the capacity for amazement, but not of quick thinking. In a +lightning flash of realization I knew that I had penetrated to the heart +of Helzephron's secret, even before my thoughts arranged themselves in +sequence. And then, as near as possible coincident with my stepping +through the door, I heard a shout. + +Someone had seen me.... + +The shout came from the other side of the long, aisle-shaped cave. +Simultaneously, half-way up the side, at a height of thirty feet from +the floor, there was a sudden illumination. I saw a broad ledge in the +wall, railed round, with a ladder staircase descending from it. A little +black figure was leaning over the rail, and it was from this that the +shouting came. It did not need his words to tell me that here was a +wireless station. I could see the drum and the battery shelf quite +distinctly. + +"A signal!" he shouted, and I knew that he took me for the dead man +above. "They're coming back! The sky swarms with armed patrols and +warships. They've had to run for it, but the Chief thinks he's shaken +them off. I must switch on the guides!" + +I gave an answering shout, keying my voice down to something like +Feddon's bass growl. + +"It's C.Q.D.!--C.Q.D.!" came in a shrill voice of alarm, and Mr. Vargus +ran down the ladder like an ape. + +C.Q.D.! The signal of "extreme danger." Well, I rather thought it was! + +Where I stood I was in deep shadow, and my face could not possibly be +seen. I was much the same height and build as the dead man, and Vargus +ran down the cave without the least suspicion. He had gone to his left, +my right, to where I had already seen a pale light, and I followed him, +more slowly, at a distance of some ten yards. It was a natural instinct +enough. My only idea was to silence him, find Constance, and fly from +the horrible place. I could not know that I was making a fatal mistake. + +I was running forward into complete understanding. The great cave turned +a little to the right. It opened out every second until at length I saw +the mouth, wide as that of the largest-sized hangar on an aerodrome, +flooded with moonlight! + +Opposite, sixty yards away, was a precipitous wall of black rock; +between it and the mouth of the cave a terrible chasm, which fell sheer +to the water. It was all clear now. Far above, on the top of the cliffs, +was that fenced-in part with the "dangerous" notice boards. You will +remember that I had lain down by the side of this fence and peered +downwards. I had looked into the same gulf that I was now looking into +from a much lower altitude. And the rock there overhung so greatly that +there was no possible indication of the cave mouth where I now stood. + +Moreover, the cave itself turned _inward_ from the sea, running parallel +to the cliff. _From the sea, as from the land, the opening of the cave +was entirely hidden._ + +Vargus was fumbling at a switch-board. He pulled down a vulcanite +handle; there was a green spark, and lights at the top, bottom and sides +of the entrance glowed out brightly. + +Imagine an illuminated rabbit-hole in the side of a railway embankment, +and you have an exact miniature of what this vast secret cave had now +become. Go a little further and think of a bat whose lair was in this +hole, and was guided to it by the lights.... + +Vargus snapped another and smaller switch. I watched him with a sense of +complete detachment. I knew, as well as if I had been told, that he was +lighting guiding lamps somewhere on the two headlands that guarded the +entrance to the cave outside. No thought of danger came to me; I think +joy at this complete discovery, and wonder at the stupendous cunning and +achievement of it all were my only emotions. + +"They may be here at any moment, Feddon. I tell you I don't like it at +all. I told the Chief that it was madness not to lie low for a bit. But +you know what he is. The Government has got the tip somehow, the Cornish +seas are _humming_ with enemies. That fellow, Custance, is smart as they +make them...." + +He was moving towards me as these words came from him in a nervous, +disjointed stream of words. Then he saw me, and stopped bang in the +middle of a sentence. + +It was my moment. + +"How do you do, Mr. Vargus," I said. "You mentioned my name. Indeed, you +paid me a compliment for which I thank you. I thought I'd drop in for a +chat. Sorry to find Major Helzephron out." + +I never saw a man in such deadly fear. His face went the colour of +cheese, and a horrible choking noise began in his throat. He staggered +to within a yard of the brink; another step and he would have plunged +into the abyss. + +"You, you, _you_!" he said, the last word in a dreadful whisper. + +"The Oxford professor--yes. Mr. Vargus, I am a lover of music, and you +have entertained me royally to-night. But you have played Chopin for the +last time in this world." + +I lifted the pistol and covered his heart. His yellow mask quivered and +was still. "Quickly, please," he said, and there was even a faint smile +of relief about his pallid lips. + +He could face death gladly, and I knew why. To have shot him there and +cast his body to the void would have been a mercy. I had other uses for +Mr. Vargus. + +My pistol hand was steady as a rock. With the left I took out Danjuro's +handcuffs and walked up to him. + +"Not yet," I said, when I was within a foot. + +He saw what I meant. As comprehension leapt into his eyes he tried to +step back. He nearly did it, but I was just too quick for him. I caught +his ankle with the crook of my right foot, and he crashed on his back +with his head and shoulders actually over the chasm. Before he could +move again I had jerked him backwards by the legs, and had him +handcuffed. + +I pulled him to his feet by his collar, and half marched, half carried +him back into the cave. He was nothing more than a bundle of clothes in +my hands. + +"Now," I said, "take me _at once_ to the place where Miss Shepherd is +confined, and, though I make no promises, it may go less hardly with you +than the rest." + +He twisted his head and tried to look me in the face. "If I do, will you +shoot me?" he whispered, fawning on me like a beaten dog. "For God's +sake shoot me, or give me an opportunity to shoot myself." + +"The hangman will save you the trouble," I answered brutally. "Now then, +march!" He gave a great wail of despair. + +"Ah, you don't know what I was once!" he cried, and there was such a +horror of remorse, a damnation so profound in that cry of agony, that a +fiend would have been moved. + +"I heard you play the Third Ballade," I answered, and my voice was no +longer firm. + +"Death, please, Death." + +"Take me quickly to Miss Shepherd. Then perhaps--I can't kill you +myself, but ..." + +It was as though my words poured a new life into his veins. His knees +still knocked together in a loathsome paralysis, but he made effort to +shamble forward. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE AIR PIRATE AT LAST + + +Vargus was silent now. Our feet made no noise upon the sandy floor of +the cave. It was then that I heard something like a cat purring. + +Unconsciously I stopped to listen. No, it wasn't a cat, it was the faint +drone of some night beetle; it was ... + +On the right wall of the cavern, remember that my back was turned to its +mouth and the sea--there was a sudden flash of white light. + +The rest happened in five seconds. + +The light leapt out from the wall, and instantaneously the vast vaulted +place was brilliantly illuminated. I had a fleeting vision of wooden +galleries, a workshop and smithy, piles of stores, and then I wheeled +round with a shout of terror. The drone had leapt up to a deep, menacing +note, like the E string of a double bass. A circular furnace of white +light in the centre of a gigantic shadow rushed at me with incredible +speed. + +A blast of wind struck me like the shell from a six-inch gun; the drone +rose to the echoing shout of an army as the Pirate Airship entered the +cave that was its home. + +I had just the millionth part of a second in which to realize the truth +before my head struck; the wind seemed to tear out my very vitals, and I +knew nothing more. + + * * * * * + +Once, when I was a boy at the seaside in Wales, I dived into a deep rock +pool, and, deceived by the clearness of the water, hit my head against a +submerged ledge, and for several seconds was stunned. There was no one +with me, but, fortunately, I recovered in time, and with bursting lungs +regained the surface. + +The experience was repeated now, or so it seemed, with a curious +subconscious memory. I thought that I was rushing violently upwards +towards the light out of a well of darkness. Each moment the radiance +increased and my speed grew greater. There was a sound as of many waters +in my ears. + +I opened my eyes. The light was brilliant, painful. Also, it moved and +flashed, and so it was not the sun of twenty years before beating +down.... + +Someone spoke: "Yes, it's the man himself. He's shaved off his +moustache, and his hair and skin are dyed. He's a fair chap really. +Look at his lower neck and chest. It's Sir John Custance right enough!" + +I lay and listened. Although I heard every word, and perceived that an +electric torch was dancing about, the conversation hardly seemed to +concern me. + +There was another voice: "Vargus said he admitted it, but Vargus has +fainted again." + +Hands felt me all over. Things were taken from my pockets, and there +were sharp exclamations of surprise. Somebody gave a long, low whistle. + +"No bones broken. His eyes are opening. Give me that flash, Gascoigne." + +Someone poured brandy down my throat--I knew it was brandy--and I moved +my limbs and groaned. + +Then I heard a shout as a door that I could not see was burst open. +"Feddon's killed!" came in a high, excited voice. "Poor old Feddy's shot +through the heart." + +I think it was at this precise moment that I regained full +consciousness, and realized that I was not badly hurt. My whole body +felt as if it had been severely beaten, but instinct told me that there +was no real damage. As for the shock, it was not until several hours +afterwards that I felt its effect, though then it meant collapse. + +I lay perfectly still, this time by design, and closed my eyes. +Everything had come back to me; I remembered every incident from the +moment I had cut the barbed wire to that when I had escaped, by a +miracle, death from the returning Pirate Ship. + +My first thought was one of bitter disappointment. So they had run the +gauntlet, after all! The mystery ship had escaped the swarm of cruisers +and patrol boats that were looking for her. I believe I ground my teeth +with rage. A second afterwards I groaned out loud. The sound was wrung +from my very heart. I was too late to rescue Constance now.... + +All round me there was a buzz of low-pitched voices. Without any trouble +at all, I could detect the note of fear and consternation. And it was +tonic. My plight seemed desperate enough, but there was a chance yet. +They had taken my weapons from me, but others might prove as valuable. +The pirates were disorganized, alarmed. Well, craft should meet craft! +Surely, the moment was favourable? + +I was in a dimly-lit place, surrounded by dark figures. How long I lay +thus I do not know, probably for no great space of time. At any rate, I +had not been in full possession of my faculties for many minutes when a +door opened, and a voice spoke in accents of authority. + +It was a voice that I had never heard before, but I knew whose it was. + +"I have made a careful examination of the house," came in clear, +well-bred tones, "and there is no one there. It is the same outside and +all round the fence. I let the dogs loose and they discovered nothing." + +"How did this"--I was kicked brutally in the side--"get in, Chief?" +asked a voice. + +"Cut the fence wire, and managed to open the door in the east wall. Then +climbed the porch and entered through Feddon's bedroom. The dogs +followed the scent and showed. That doesn't matter much now. The point +is that he's here." + +"And we know what to deduce from that!" I heard, and pricked up my ears. +My friend Mr. Vargus had revived then! There was a soft malignancy in +his voice that made me shudder. + +"Vargus is right. It is fairly certain that the game's up as far as this +place is concerned. They've marked us down, sure enough. In a few +minutes I shall take steps to find out exactly how much they _do_ know. +Meanwhile we appear to have some time before us, and we must carry out +the emergency plan that we've so often rehearsed. Gascoigne, Jones and +Sutton, Pointz, fill all the petrol tanks to full capacity, load +emergency stores, examine and reverse ship. When finished, report to me +in my room." + +The men hurried away. + +"Philips and Minver get on to the moor and report any man or body of men +advancing on the house. You will take rifles and act as outposts. At any +sign of approach, don't hesitate to fire. Then fall back on the house." + +"Shall we take the dogs, Chief? They would be useful." + +"No, I shall need them. The rest of you will hold the house till the +last moment. Then get into the lift and come down. It will take them +some time to find out the way and follow, while one man can hold the +passages for any length of time. We shall all be fifty miles out at sea +before anyone can break in down here, and all the swag is packed ready +to go on board. Vargus, you will stay down here and help me in what I've +got to do." + +Several other men left the room. + +In a lower voice, though I heard every word, Helzephron went on talking +to his lieutenant. + +"... Mind you, I don't actually expect an attack in force, but we must +be prepared. For all we know, there may be a hundred men waiting on the +moor. One thing is certain. They know where, or whereabouts we are, or +that gentleman on the floor would not have got in, nor all those ships +be cruising about outside. So we must be off with all we can take to our +emergency base in the Hebrides. Once outside, nothing can touch us, of +course, and we'd get up to sixteen thousand feet at once. Barometer +readings make it pretty certain that it will be cloudy at dawn, and it's +a million chances to one against our even being seen." + +I lay not three yards away. I had not noticed it until now, but my +ankles were tied together, and, weak as I was, any physical effort was +impossible. Helzephron had talked over his plans with an absolute +disregard of my presence. He may or may not have known that I was +conscious; quite obviously he didn't care twopence one way or the other. +And that meant one thing and one thing only. + +Before the Pirate Ship fled from its lair for the last time John +Custance would have ceased to exist in the body. + +"... Now for Sir John. How do you feel, Vargus? You took a nasty toss, +and it's damned lucky for you we turned up when we did! Do you feel +strong enough to drag Sir John into my room? If so, I'll go ahead and +turn on the lights." + +"I'm quite strong enough for _that_," said Mr. Vargus, with a nasty +laugh, and in a few seconds he had me by the heels, and was towing me +like a log over an uneven floor. It was only by stiffening the muscles +of my neck till they cracked that I could keep my head from bruising +badly. Then a cloth of some sort was dropped on my face and tied round +my head. I felt myself carried for a yard or two, put into a chair with +an upright back, and then lashed securely to it by strong cords. + +"I'll call you when I want you again," said the voice of Helzephron. "Go +and help the others load the ship. And remember that we must take every +round of ammunition we can stow in her. Twenty-four hours' rations will +be ample. We can renew those at any time. Shells are quite another +matter. Sacrifice everything to them." + +A door closed. I heard the creak of a chair as Helzephron sat down. +There was a long silence, and through the cloth I could feel that he was +watching me. + +The duel to the death began. I was as a naked man before another with a +sword. I braced every nerve and stiffened my will! + +"You are in a very unpleasant predicament, Sir John Custance." + +The voice was passionless, even a little weary. + +"I think it's mutual, Mr. Helzephron," was my answer, and I put an +accent on the "_Mister_." He should have no honourable military title +from me. + +"Well, that is possible. Indeed, I admit that you have seriously +deranged my plans. But the trumps are mine, after all. With your +intelligence you must be aware that you have a very short time to live." + +"I don't doubt that, but I dispute your estimate of your hand." + +"May I ask why?" + +"With pleasure. I don't care twopence about my own life in comparison +with my duty to society. You care a good deal for yours, and you also +have a short time in front of you. If it is any satisfaction to you to +know, you're in a net from which even the particular minor devils that +preside over thieves can't free you." + +Thus I lied bravely. A good deal, I thought, might depend on my ability +to get the scoundrel into a furious rage, and, anyway, it was a delight +to insult him. + +A sharp breath told me that I had drawn blood. + +"You use dangerous language, Sir John. You'll be sorry if you go on." + +"Now, look here," I rapped out, in the tone I should have used to an +impudent office boy, "please understand that you can't frighten me. I +know that bounders of your type don't understand a gentleman and how he +feels about things. I only assure you that you will waste your time. And +time _ought_"--I said it with meaning--"to be worth more to you now than +all the valuables you picked from the pockets of the _Atlantis_ +passengers." + +He came up to me, and I thought that this was the moment. But he only +tore the cloth from my head and returned to his chair. + +I looked round with interest. The room, no doubt part of the cavern +system into which the mine had penetrated, was matchboarded all round. +The boarding was painted white, and a cluster of electrics hung from the +ceiling. There was a carpet on the floor, a couple of arm-chairs, a +writing-table, and a big steel safe. In one corner was another door than +the entrance one, partly concealed by a green curtain hanging from a +brass rod. + +Helzephron himself sat opposite. The handsome, hawk-like face was badly +bruised. He stared at me with concentrated malignancy. Then he smiled, +with a flash of large white teeth. + +"Really, I should hardly have known you," he said. + +"I should have recognized you anywhere, even with the bruises!" I +replied. "Mr. Ashton left you your teeth, I see." + +His face grew dark. He nodded twice. "I thought that," he said, half to +himself. + +"I saw the whole thing, and it was most amusing, Mr. Helzephron. I was +sitting in the smaller arm of the gallery at the 'Mille Colonnes,' +behind a centre-piece of flowers. I, _and my companion_, had concealed a +periscope in the flowers, and got the whole thing framed, as it were. It +gave a zest to the Burgundy. But I thought you'd have made a better +fight of it!" + +The man leapt from his chair with a savage curse and took two steps +towards me, with clenched fist and lifted arm. + +I looked up in that convulsed and purple face. + +"Quite so!" I said quietly. "I'm tied up. It's quite safe to hit me." + +If he was going to torture me, and I had few illusions on the matter, I +was having my innings now. He _had_ been a gentleman once, he had been a +brave soldier. It was because I knew this that I could stab him. + +He didn't strike. He began to walk up and down the room, swallowing his +rage with an almost superhuman effort--being what he was. Perhaps shame +helped him, perhaps it was cunning, but he sat down again, and though he +trembled, his voice was calm. + +"So you think me a coward, do you?" he said. "I'll do you the justice to +say that you're none." + +My mind was working with an insight that it has never possessed before +or since. The key to the man's psychology was in my hand at last. + +All criminals are vain. In great criminals vanity assumes colossal +proportions until it becomes a real madness. Criminologists call it +megalomania. It is egotism fostered and indulged to the point of +monstrosity, when all moral considerations are swept away, and the +subject thinks himself superior to all law, and glories in his +greatness. + +_Lord of himself, that heritage of woe!_ I think Byron said that. + +"You've correctly expressed me," I told him. + +"Perhaps your detective work has not gone so far as to inform you that I +hold the Victoria Cross?" Yes! he was mad! No sane man of his extraction +would have said that. + +"It is a distinction above all others, Mr. Helzephron. And you'll have +another very soon. Indeed, you'll never be forgotten. You'll be historic +as the one V.C. who was degraded. They'll do it the day before they hang +you at Pentonville, and it will be in the _Gazette_." + +He grew quite white, whether from anger or shame I do not know. But I +went on. Something inside me that was not myself seemed to be speaking. + +"You've been living quite an artificial life, you see, surrounded by +your amicable young friends and the artistic Mr. Vargus. You, no doubt, +think of yourself as of a very glorious order. Making war on society, +Ajax defying the thunder, King of the air, and all that sort of thing. +I'll bet anything you've compared yourself to Napoleon a thousand +times! It's the way the late Kaiser of Germany fell. It's called +megalomania. But you aren't anything of the sort, you know. You are a +cowardly thief, who steals and murders for the sake of his pocket. You +asked me a question and I've answered it." + +He heard each word. His eyes became glassy and his jaw dropped. For all +the world he was like an evil child who hears the truth about itself, +and all the power was wiped out of his face as chalk marks are wiped off +a blackboard. + +He got up abruptly, and left the room by the curtained door. He was away +for ten minutes. When he returned he was his old self, but with an +addition--he had been drinking back his devilishness. There was a strong +odour of brandy as he entered. His eyes were full and liquid, and he was +amazingly vital. I knew that I could hurt him no longer. He wore +impenetrable armour. He sat down and lit a cigarette. He smiled with an +evil good-humour. It was his hour now. + +"Well, we've got acquainted at last," he began in an easy conversational +tone. "You've been excessively clever in hunting me down, and your +powers of insult are exceptional. I admit again that you have smoked me +out here, but as to putting an end to my activities, that's a very +different story. Your people can't get at me once I'm out of this snug +retreat, and they can't force an entry here until I'm gone. So much as +between the Commissioner of Police and the Pirate. You've had your say +and I've had mine." + +"Then there is nothing more to be said." + +"Excuse me, as man to man, there's a good deal. I purchased an evening +paper on the afternoon of the evening when I was attacked by your hired +bully." + +At last the conversation was growing interesting. + +"With stolen money?" I asked impudently. But it fell dead flat. I don't +think he even heard me. + +"The paper made public some news that I had already gathered from +another source. The news of your engagement, Sir John Custance." + +We stared at each other in dead silence for half a minute. + +"To Miss Constance Shepherd," he went on. + +I said nothing. + +"... Who at this moment is not twenty yards away from you, and who will +fly with me to-night to where all your police boats will never find us." + +"By force." + +"Well, up to the present I admit that I have had to take the law into my +own hands. I am a man who believes in getting what he wants. Your +arrival, the fact that you're my guest for a short time, has given my +thoughts quite a new direction." + +I saw that there was a deep and sinister meaning in what he said, but +not an inkling of the abominable truth came to me. He understood that +from my face, and he laughed out loud. + +"Oh, this is going to be enormously refreshing!" he cried. "This is +going to make everything worth while!" + +My heart turned to stone as I watched that unholy merriment. + +When he had finished laughing, he said: "Miss Shepherd does not know as +yet that I have the honour of entertaining you. I am about to inform +her. And then, if she wishes it, as no doubt she will, you must really +meet. Journeys end in lovers' meetings, they say." + +He was about to add something when there was a knock at the door. Mr. +Vargus came in. + +"All loaded," he said, looking nervously at me, as if wondering what had +passed during his absence. "All loaded and everything ready for a start. +The others have gone up to the house." + +"Well, there's nothing to report, or they would have telephoned down. +There is no hurry for an hour yet...." + +Helzephron took the short man by the arm and drew him into a corner of +the room. They whispered together for nearly ten minutes. I could not +catch a word. + +Then Vargus nodded with an air of triumphant comprehension, and left the +room. + +"On second thoughts," said Helzephron, "I am not going to prepare Miss +Shepherd. We will let it be in the nature of a pleasant surprise." + +He disappeared through the green-curtained door. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +LED OUT TO DIE + + +In relating what is immediately to follow I shall do so with as plain +and unvarnished a narrative as my pen can command. You will read of what +Constance and I endured, but do not ask me to do more than hint at the +anger of my soul. It is impossible to describe, at least it would +require the pen of a Dante or a Milton, nor would I describe it if I +could. It is bad enough to live that hour again even faintly and in +imagination. To call it up into full memory--soul memory--is a task for +which I have not the least inclination. You shall, therefore, have the +facts with very little comment upon them. + +I think it's about all you'll need. + +Helzephron was away for a considerable time. During his absence Vargus +peeped in once and looked at me. I won't describe his face. + +When the hawk-faced man returned, he dragged my chair to the far end of +the room, and pushed the writing-table in front of it to form a +barrier. There was a deliberation in all he did that was inexpressibly +alarming. His lips were drawn in a tight smile, so that I could see the +teeth.... + +He set a chair over against the wall opposite, and then he went again +through the curtained door. A moment afterwards he entered, followed by +Connie. + +The room grew whirlingly dark and cleared. I could not speak, for my +throat seemed to be closing up, but I saw my girl very distinctly. + +She was, as I had never seen her, deadly pale, with large, dark rings +under her eyes and all the joy of life ironed out of her sweet face. Yet +she was not thinner and there were no lines. The colour had gone from +her cheeks and the lustre from her hair, but I somehow thought that her +physical health had not suffered alarmingly. + +When she spoke I knew that this was true, and I knew why. Her +indomitable spirit remained. The sunny courage of the past had condensed +within her soul and turned to unconquerable purpose. Her voice was so +full of scorn that it cut even me like the lash of a whip. It was a +marvel that the tall man could have borne it for a moment. + +But his eyes had a red light in them, like the eyes of a hound--mad. + +"What new devilry is this?" the girl said, as her eyes fell upon me, +trussed up there behind the table. "Do you suppose that I want any +further evidence to tell me from where you come and whom you serve?" + +"Look at this gentleman; look at him well." + +"Another of your unhappy prisoners! So you add torture to your crimes. +And you dare to make me witness it!" + +She turned in a fury of disgust and loathing, and made a step towards +the door. But before she moved further--God bless her!--she said: "You +have fallen into the hands of a very horrid scoundrel, sir, but ..." + +At that I managed to cry out: "Connie, dearest, don't you know me?" + +I ought not to have been so sudden. I cursed myself for it. It was just +as if I had struck her down, for she reeled, and fell into the chair in +a swoon. + +I myself was near to it. There was a rush as of cataracts, a sensation +of drowning. When I recovered, the maid, Wilson, was ministering to her +mistress; there was a sound of pouring liquid, though I could see +nothing, for Helzephron stood directly in front of me, watching what +went on. + +"Look here, Helzephron," I said hoarsely. "This _can't_ go on. For God's +sake stop it! Get her away before she recovers and do what you like to +me." I thought desperately for something that would move him. + +He turned round slowly. "Too late now," he said slowly. "You've got to +go through with it, both of you." + +The malice had faded out of his eyes. He spoke dreamily: "There is no +other way...." + +He moved away and leant against the wall at the side, looking down +moodily at Constance, who was coming to herself. Her eyes opened, and +Helzephron made an impatient gesture with his arm. The maid, Wilson, +vanished like a ghost. I could see that she, poor thing, went in +terrible fear. + +I spoke out directly I thought Connie could understand. I was +desperately determined to have my say. It might be the last chance. To +my surprise, though I soon understood the reason, Helzephron did not +interrupt. + +"Yes, it is I, Constance. I'm disguised; that is why you didn't know me. +Darling, it's going to be all right. Be brave a little longer!" + +I saw comprehension dawn in her eyes, and then they blazed out into +love. "John! You've come at last. It's been weary waiting. But you are +tied up." Her voice changed. "You're in the power of this man, too!" + +"For this moment I may be; but that is nothing. He is tracked down and +his hour has come. He knows it. I made a mistake and he captured me, but +outside the forces are converging, and for him the whole world is now +no wider than this little room." + +Helzephron made no sign. From his great height he stared down at us like +a stone figure. I doubt if he either saw or heard. + +"Tell me quickly--he has not ill-used you, he has not laid hands on you, +hurt you...." + +A bitter laugh burst from her. "He has stolen me away from life and kept +me here a prisoner. But there has been food to eat, and the cage is +gilded with the proceeds of his thefts. He knows well enough that if he +dared to touch me I should kill myself. No power on earth and none of +his cunning precautions could prevent it, and that also he knows. Thank +God his time has come." + +"Tell me everything, quickly. A lot depends on it." How could I explain +that he was going to kill me, that he could and would do so long before +there was any chance of help arriving? + +"He has dared," she said, and I never knew that a woman's voice could be +so hard, "dared to offer me what he calls love. The word is hideous in +such a mouth. He has raved, threatened and implored me to--to marry +him--to fly away with him and be his wife." + +She shuddered terribly and sank back in the chair, as if exhausted. I +racked my brains for words. What could I say or do? That she would kill +herself rather than yield an inch I was certain. But he could still +prolong her torture. The chances were that he would get away in his +marvellous ship for a time. On the other hand, it might well be that the +searching airships were in such force by now that even the Pirate Ship +could not escape. There would be a battle in the air. She would be shot +to pieces by our cruisers' heavy guns. And Connie would be on board.... + +What could I say? + +Helzephron stood up from the wall. With slow movements he lit a +cigarette, but his hand was trembling as if in a palsy. He spoke to +Constance. + +"You have already told me that you love Sir John Custance," he said. "I +heard that from your own lips two days ago. But 'love' means many +things. And you may well have said it to keep me at arm's length. Sir +John Custance is here now, and in my power. What of him and you?" + +Connie looked at him for a moment without a word. There was not a trace +of fear in her eyes. "I will tell you," she said at length. "That man is +my man, and I am his woman from now until the end of time and for all +eternity. You cannot understand, I know. But if words have meaning, mine +are plain enough." + +Helzephron suddenly threw away his cigarette and gave what seemed to be +a sigh of relief. The sound, the gesture, were startling. I could not +understand.... + +"Well," he said, "that is another, and the last, illusion gone. My life +has been a succession of lost illusions, I think. I loved you, and I +love you still, with all the force and power of a nature which, whatever +else it may be, is stronger than that of most men in this feeble world. +I would have given you a love so rich, abundant and wonderful that you +would have forgotten your passion for this man. Mine would have consumed +it utterly. And you would have responded. You think not, but I know +better. It would have been flame and flame, LOVE. Now I see that it is +indeed too late." + +His tones were not raised; there was nothing particularly eloquent in +the actual words he spoke. But to me they tolled like a great bell--a +bell that tolls while the iron gates of hell are opening slowly.... + +"Yes, too late!" Connie said quickly. "And you see it now! It could +never have been. And now you will let us go! Oh, be quick! Untie John, +please do; it must be hurting him so!" + +For the first and last time that night two tears rolled down my cheeks. + +I suppose that for a brief space there had been some lingering nobility +in Helzephron's mind, some flicker of life in that dark soul. The man +had not always been under the dominion of evil. + +But now I saw, without possibility of mistake, the final eclipse of +good. It was a visible thing, the last awful act in the terrible drama +of his life, and it took place before one's eyes like crystals +dissolving in a glass. + +He looked steadfastly at Constance. + +"Sir John can go," he said, "for all the debt of ill-will I owe him, he +can go from here unharmed. My dear girl, it rests entirely with you!" + +She did not understand. + +"Oh, then let him go now, at once." + +"That man," he answered, "lives, or dies a peculiarly unpleasant death; +goes free, or is nothing but a heap of clothes in half an hour, as you +shall decide, Constance." + +By the slow dilation of her eyes, I think she knew what he would say. + +"It is like this," he went on. "If I cannot have Love, the real thing, +at least Fate has put it in my power to demand--and have!--the second +best, the semblance of it. The moment that you give me your solemn +promise to marry me, Sir John walks out on to the moor." + +I gave Constance one swift, warning look. Would the man believe that +another was as base as he himself? Everything depended on that. + +"You cannot do it, Constance," I said, with a careful tremor in my +voice, trying to suggest a slight dawn of hope, and again I sent her a +signal of caution. + +Helzephron gave an almost imperceptible start, and a faint smile began +to play about his cruel lips. + +The fish was rising. + +"It would be a martyrdom," I went on. "What is my life worth--even to +the State"--I thought that was a clever touch--"in exchange for such a +sacrifice?" + +Praise God for her quick wits! She saw that I was acting, and fell into +her part with supreme naturalness. A wail of pain came from her, and she +covered her face with her hands. "I cannot let you die," she cried. "Do +I not love you? Is not your life of supreme value?" + +I spoke in a tone of hardly veiled eagerness: "But your own happiness, +what of that?" + +Connie made a passionate gesture of renunciation. She turned to our +torturer. "Sir," she said, "have you no mercy, no compassion?" + +"I have nothing but one overmastering need." + +"Then leave us. Let me be alone with Sir John for a few minutes." She +beckoned to him and he came, leaning his head low. + +"Go," she whispered. "I cannot persuade him while you are here. Leave us +alone and I will do my best." + +The fool was wax in her hands. That one confidential whisper seemed to +have transformed him. + +"Yes, I'll go," he said, but I heard every word. "I don't think our +friend will take much persuading! You may be glad to marry a _man_, +after all!" + +He was half-way to the door when suspicion took hold of him. "How do I +know that you won't be up to some trick?" he snarled; "try to loose him +or something? Not that there would be any chance of escape if you did." + +"I give you my word of honour," Connie answered, "or you can tie me up, +too. That would be the best way. Fasten me in this chair so that I can't +move." + +Helzephron shook his head impatiently. Then the door banged and we were +alone. + +I began to speak at once. There was no time to waste. + +"Dearest love of my heart, it is good-bye. We have managed to snatch +these few moments for farewell." + +Her face shone with love and courage as she smiled at me. "Is there no +way, darling?" + +"None. This is the end. We have fooled that devil for a minute. When he +returns and finds out the end will come quickly. Now, listen...." + +In a few sentences I told her exactly how matters stood, and of my +certainty that Helzephron's course was almost run. Nor did I disguise +from her that in any attack upon the Pirate Ship her own fate was sure. + +"What does it matter? I should kill myself, anyhow, rather than submit +to one touch from him. I have the means ready. Oh, my love, I am prouder +of you at this moment than I ever was!" + +How I rejoiced in her! Never for a single instant had she believed that +I would let her do this thing. It was not even spoken of between us. It +was worth while dying for love and trust like this! + +"And you see, dear love," she went on, "it will not be long. We shall be +together again in a few hours, never to part any more...." + +Very solemnly and quietly we said farewell. Neither of us was unhappy. A +great exaltation and peace consoled us, but the moment is too sacred for +description here. + +I gave one last look at her serene and radiant face, striving to image +it upon my brain, so that it should be the last thing I saw, and then I +called for Helzephron with a strong voice. + +From the first instant that he stepped into the room and saw our faces, +he knew the truth. + +He was very quiet, but his eyes shone again with the dull red light that +you may sometimes see in a dog's eyes. One could almost have pitied him, +for he was as one who desired even one drop of living water to cool his +tongue and was tormented in a flame. + +I was praying hard for one boon--that Constance should not see me die. +It seemed that my prayer was answered, for he led her roughly to the +curtained door and pushed her through. + +He whistled, and Vargus came in through the other door. The movements of +both men were detached and business-like. I had the odd fancy that this +was exactly how the paid executioner goes about his work in the prisons. + +Once more the cloth was tied over my head, the chair was lifted, and I +was carried away. The swinging motion lasted a long time. I must have +been taken a considerable distance from the room of my agony when the +chair was finally set down. I heard the plangent beating of waves and +felt cool airs. I was in the central cavern once more, and near to the +mouth of it. So that was it! They were going to throw me to the +whirlpools and the rocks below!... + +I felt strong and slender fingers about my neck--Vargus the +pianist!--and shuddered at the contact. The cloth was removed. It was as +I thought: all round was the cathedral-like cave, but now dozens of +lights were turned on, including a great blue arc-lamp suspended from +the roof, and all the shadows and mystery were gone. + +Not far away, resting upon rubber-covered wheels, which were dropped +below the floats by an adaptation of the Raynor-Wallis patent, was the +great Pirate Ship, towering up under the domed roof, spreading her great +planes from side to side, lovely in her lines, an awful instrument of +power. Even at that supreme moment I longed to examine her, to go aboard +and make acquaintance with the wonders she held. + +The ruling passion of a man's life dies hard! + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE HOUNDS FROM THIBET AND MR. VARGUS; WITH A DISCOVERY ON BOARD THE +PIRATE + + +They turned my chair so that I faced the mouth of the cave, which was +some thirty yards away. The moon had set. The short summer night was +over, and the first grey hint of the dawn, that I should never see, was +near. + +Helzephron sat down on a stool a few yards away from me. His back was to +the cavern mouth. He spoke a word to Vargus, who padded away behind me. + +"Why are we waiting?" I said. + +"Because you had the misfortune to hear my friend Vargus pouring his +soul out at the piano, Sir John." + +"I am still rather in the dark." + +"I have no objection to satisfying a curiosity which is legitimate under +the circumstances. I was going to put a pistol to your ear and throw you +into the cove. But Mr. Vargus has fantastic tastes, and you have put his +back up. He asked me a favour, and as I owe him a good deal, I could +not refuse it. But I see he is returning. You shall have a concrete +explanation." + +From, somewhere behind me I heard the padding of footsteps, accompanied +by a curious scuffling noise and the sound of heavy breathing. Then +Helzephron gave a short bark of laughter, and Vargus came round the +chair. + +Then I knew. + +On leather leashes Vargus held two monstrous dogs. Each one was as big +as a newly-born calf. They were like Newfoundlands, and yet unlike, for +there was a great bull-dog jowl to each.... + +"My Tibetan mastiffs," said Helzephron. "Death by dogs for a dog!" + +Vargus brought the brutes within two yards of me. Their teeth were +bared, their hackles rose, there was the dull red light in their eyes, +too, but not a sound came from either. + +Both men watched me intently, but they got none of the satisfaction that +they hoped. It was simply that the bitterness of death was over. That +was all. Fear was something that I was no longer capable of feeling. To +be worried to death by mastiffs was just like any other death, then. I +understood how it was that martyrs for religion, or any cause in which +they believed, died so quietly. + +Helzephron cursed deeply. "Get it over," he said. "Take the dogs to the +far end of the cave. When I blow this whistle let them go. You'll hear +them running up behind you, Sir John," he said, with an insane chuckle. + +Vargus disappeared. + +I stared out at the cave mouth. Each moment it grew lighter. I thought +that I should have liked to have seen one more summer dawn. But +Helzephron was lifting his whistle; and then the mouth of the cave +seemed to recede and shrink to the size of a mere window. + +A mere window. With idle curiosity I saw how a fat spider was slowly +descending his swinging thread, and I was a child again, seated at the +nursery window.... + +The whistle blew a shrill, echoing blast. + +At once my mind awoke to full consciousness, and I braced myself to die +without a cry. The cave mouth became itself again, and the spider ... + +_Hanging by one arm and a leg, half-way down a stout rope, was a short, +thick-set figure...._ + +As the rapid thud of the racing dogs grew loud the figure's right arm +raised itself. + +_Bang! Crash! Bang! Crash!_ a wild howl of pain, thunderous echoes +rolling down the cavern, and Helzephron on his feet in time to see +something bounding towards him like an india-rubber ball. + +I knew who that was. I had one glimpse of a terrible grinning face as +Danjuro leapt at the hawk-faced man; heard a strangled scream and a +long, crunching crack, and saw two whirling figures crash to the floor. + +I can't express the suddenness of it all. Before my brain could register +the impression, another person was sprinting by me, yelling like a +fiend. Then Danjuro rose from the floor--alone--and my ropes were being +divided, my stiff limbs rubbed, and a calm, exultant voice remarked: +"Exit Honourable Helzephron." + +I began to laugh weakly. + +"You were just in time, Danjuro. Have you killed him?" + +He was about to reply when there was a diversion. + +Charles Thumbwood appeared. He had Mr. Vargus by the collar, and was +kicking him along to the accompaniment of flowers of language that I +shall not attempt to reproduce. + +"Caught 'im at the telephone," gasped Charles. "Gr-r-r, you little +swine"--a furious kick--"Gr-r-r, you slime-lapping leper you! 'E was +telephoning to 'is friends, Sir John. Thank Gawd we come in time, Sir +John! Gr-r-r, there's one as you won't forget in an 'urry!" and lifting +Mr. Vargus several inches from the floor with a final kick, Little +Thumbwood flung him away, began to feel me all over with trembling +hands, and burst into a flood of tears. + +But I had caught his words. The telephone! We should have all the band +upon us in two minutes, desperate and fighting for their lives. + +"Quick!" I shouted, "follow me. We must get Miss Shepherd safe. There +isn't a moment to lose." + +I don't know how I did it, and the first few yards were like running on +red-hot ploughshares; but I got going, and raced down the great cave, +past the Pirate Ship, to the door at the end. + +I noticed a door on the left as I ran. It was the one by which I had +first entered, the one that marked the passage leading to the lift. + +"Block that somehow!" I called to Thumbwood. "It may keep them back for +a minute or two. Shoot anyone who breaks through." + +He understood and stopped at once. I saw him dragging up some cases to +make cover and lying down behind them, as I turned just outside the door +which led to the ante-room to Helzephron's private sanctum. + +... We found Constance upon her knees in a richly furnished room. Her +maid, Wilson, was weeping and trembling in a corner. As we burst in she +shrieked with terror. + +But Constance fainted dead away. + +I took that unfortunate woman, Wilson, and shook her into sanity. There +was nothing else to be done, and I remember that it seemed quite +natural and obvious at the time. I knew that we hadn't a moment to lose, +and I was in a state of abnormal excitement. + +When she had regained some sort of control, which was in less than a +minute, I ordered her to attend to Constance, and, when she came to +herself, to tell her that we were all saved and Helzephron as powerless. +Then I hurried out into the cave. + +Danjuro and Thumbwood were working like demons. Piles of boxes and other +impedimenta had been erected in two strategic positions commanding the +door. Behind each pile were two or three automatic rifles and many clips +of ammunition. Just as I came up Danjuro went to the door and opened it +wide. + +I grasped his idea at once. As you may remember from my former +description, the passage was a mere cleft in the rock. Certainly not +more than one man could walk abreast, and he could be shot down the +moment he turned the corner. A child who could shoot straight would have +been able to hold the passage, and behind the barrier on the floor of +the cave would have been safe enough. + +"I trust honourable lady quite safe?" said Danjuro in his quiet, silky +voice. + +"Yes; the maid's attending to her. Thank God that unutterable scoundrel +has not harmed her." + +Then I remembered something. Danjuro's face was perfectly placid and +ordinary. The grinning devil-mask had vanished as if it had never been. +To look at him no one would have guessed that he was anything but a +peaceable little Eastern student, such as you may see by the dozen any +day round about the Law Courts in town. He rolled a cigarette in his +conjuring way as I spoke, and yet, a few moments ago those slender hands +had just broken the neck of the Master Criminal of Europe! + +"Look here, old chap," I said. "I haven't had a moment to thank you. You +and Charles arrived in the very nick of time. A few seconds more and I +should have been done for; and as for Miss Shepherd ..." + +I couldn't go on. I just held out my hand. + +He didn't take it--cold-blooded little beggar! He just bowed politely +and murmured something that sounded like "Glad to be of any help!" Then +he brightened up. "I think, Sir John," he said, "that we can reckon +ourselves as quite safe from any intrusion now!" and he waved his hand +towards the open door. + +"Let 'em all come!" remarked Thumbwood. + +Then, quite suddenly, the floor of the cave seemed to heave up and down. +The great arc lights which made it as bright as day began to wheel round +like fireworks, and I fainted for the second time. + +When I recovered it was to find myself in the late Helzephron's own +room. Something cold was on my forehead and something chilly and scented +trickled down my face. I opened my eyes, and Constance was kneeling by +my side. + +"My love, my dear love!" she whispered. "I never thought that I should +see you alive again. Oh, thank God, thank God!" + +Then her arms were round me, and for a long time we spoke no word. I +think I know what the man who was called back from death in Palestine +long ago must have felt.... + +She gave me food and wine, and at last, though I felt physically weak +and shaken, my mind worked again, and I stood up. We were alone in the +room, and no sound came from outside, so I concluded that all was safe +for the present. + +"A little Japanese carried you in here," Connie said, "as easily as if +you were a child. I had just come to myself, and I thought, oh, John, I +thought that you had been killed, and that he was one of those awful +people. But he shouted out at once that what Wilson said was true and we +were saved. I believed him, in spite of the shock his appearance gave me +at first, and when he had put you down gently in this chair he hurried +away. John, who is he, and how are we saved?" + +"We owe everything to him," I answered gravely. "He killed Helzephron +with his own hands"--I did not tell her about the dogs just then--"and +in a few hours we shall be back in the world. We can never, as long as +we live, pay our debt to Danjuro." + +In as short a time as I could, I explained everything to her, from the +first moment when I had heard of her capture until now. I walked about +the room as I did so, and new life flowed into my cramped limbs. When I +had smoked a cigarette, I felt almost normal again. + +"Now, dear," I said, when my story was over, "we aren't exactly out of +the wood yet, though there's nothing whatever to be alarmed at. Go into +your own room and collect your things together; whatever you want to +take away with you. Stay here with Wilson till I come again. I may be +some time. There are a good many things to straighten out." + +One more embrace and I left her, sobbing with great happiness, and, +passing through the ante-room, hurried out into the great cave. + +My first glance was towards the door of the rock passage leading to the +lift. It was still open. Sitting on the barrier twelve yards or so away +was Thumbwood. A rifle lay across his knees and he was placidly smoking +his pipe. + +"All right?" I shouted. + +"All O.K., Sir John," he answered, standing up. + +"Not a sign of anyone. As a matter of fact, Mr. Danjuro and me have +ascertained that this 'ere dog-fancier 'adn't time to get through to his +friends upstairs. I got 'old of 'im just as he was topping the fence." + +I followed his glance, and I saw Mr. Vargus, trussed like a fowl, on the +floor a yard or two away. + +I had quite forgotten that ingenious and artistic person, and I started. +He was a sorry sight enough, dirty, blood-stained and horrible, as his +pale, wicked face stared up at me. He said nothing, and I shuddered as I +looked at him--shuddered as I had never done at Helzephron. + +"Where's Mr. Danjuro?" I asked. + +"Up at the mouth of the cave, Sir John. I was to send you to him +directly you came." + +I nodded, turned, and began to walk up the great cave. The Pirate +Airship lay there, gleaming and wonderful. There was a light steel +ladder at her side as I passed, leading up into the fuselage, and it was +only by a strong effort of will that I could keep myself from mounting +it and exploring the mechanical marvels that I knew she contained. +However, I resisted the temptation and hurried on. The lights depending +from the roof grew dimmer each moment as I drew near the curving +entrance. "It must be full day outside," I thought, as the fresh sea-air +came to meet me, and then, as I turned round the bend, I saw the squat, +black figure of the Japanese silhouetted against the rosy fires of +sunrise. + +Danjuro was standing motionless. He was looking down at some humped +objects upon the ground. The rope, like a wisp of spider's web, swung +gently to and fro. There was not a sound save the soft murmur of the sea +far down below. + +"I'm all right now," I said, and he turned to me without a start, though +he could not have heard me coming. + +His face was calm, but wrinkled up in every direction. He looked like a +man of immense age, and his narrow eyes were full of brooding, sombre +light. Almost at his feet lay the body of Helzephron. It had been +decently disposed with the hands upon the breast, and the morning light +played over the hawk-like, bronzed face and open eyes in which there was +now no cruelty. + +The dead man was august as he lay there. There was a certain nobility +about the features. He did not look like a scoundrel, and all resentment +and hate passed away from me for ever as I looked at him. + +The two huge dogs, one with a bullet through its brain, the other shot +in the chest and through the heart as it was in the act of leaping, were +hideous objects.... + +When I looked up again the wrinkles had gone from Danjuro's face, the +sombre expression from his eyes. It was a magical change, but I was long +past wonder at anything in connection with him. + +"We will have those dogs skinned," he remarked in his ordinary voice. +"They will make a fine rug for your house, Sir John." + +"No doubt; but we've got to get out of this first. Remember that there +are a dozen desperate scoundrels not far away. And I don't see either +Miss Shepherd or myself returning to the world up that rope! By the way, +I haven't heard how you managed to get here in time." + +He told me the story shortly enough. There was not an unnecessary detail +and no comment whatever. Thumbwood supplied the lacking picturesqueness +some days later. But even as Danjuro told it, I realized the marvellous +sagacity and contempt of danger that had saved us. + +It seemed that when he had arrived at Zerran, the idea of a cave, either +natural or enlarged by pretended mining operations, was already in his +mind. As soon as I had left the inn on my expedition, Danjuro and +Thumbwood had taken one of Trewhella's boats and set out eastwards along +the coast. The Japanese had already taken his bearings, and knew that +Tregeraint House would be a little to the left of the jagged peak of +Carne Zerran. They cruised along into the moonlight until they picked up +their mark, and not two hundred yards further on struck the entrance to +the S-shaped cove. Then Danjuro had no longer any doubts. No boat could +live in that cauldron of the waves, but it seemed a man could, for our +rescuers proved it! + +He stripped and went in--I learnt afterwards that he was as much at home +in the water as a seal, and, of course, like so many of his countrymen, +he was simply a mass of steel muscles. In twenty minutes the secret was +a secret no longer. + +Danjuro's next move was to row back to Zerran Cove at top speed, and +hasten up the cliff path to the inn. Here he disinterred the coastguard +from the pigsty and roused him to immediate action. + +Ropes and crowbars were procured, the fenced-off "dangerous" area on the +cliff-top invaded, and Danjuro, with Charles, descended in the nick of +time. But there was more than this. The coastguard had his orders. +Directly the two men disappeared over the brink he was instructed to +make all haste to the watch-house, some two miles away in the direction +of St. Ives. From there the Chief Boatswain was to telephone all along +the coast to the various stations, and also to the police at St. Ives, +Camborne and Penzance. + +"In three or four hours, perhaps sooner," Danjuro concluded, "an armed +force should be concentrating on the moors upon the house above. The +pirates will be desperate, and will put up a fight--at least, I think +so, but the end is certain." + +"And meantime, all we can do is to wait here until something happens?" + +"That is as you please, Sir John," he answered, looking at me curiously. + +For a minute I did not see what he meant, but then a great idea dawned +upon me. + +"The Pirate Ship!" I burst out. + +"I have always heard that Sir John Custance is a skilled pilot," he said +with a bow. + +I saw it all clearly. There was a gorgeous, dramatic end to it all well +within my grasp! It would be something to make the whole world gasp! The +Pirate Ship was, I knew, already loaded with the proceeds of the +pirates' robberies. It was not only full of loot, but prepared in every +way for a long cruise. Helzephron and his ruffians had planned an almost +immediate escape from the cave to some new refuge of which I had heard +them speak. Doubtless, if things had gone right with them, they would +have been off by now, with my mangled body tossed in the whirlpools +below and Constance still a prisoner. Helzephron would have mounted to a +great height, and trusted to his immense superiority in speed over all +the airships in existence for escape. I have little doubt that, had +things fallen out as he planned, he would have been able to carry out +his scheme. But God disposes.... + +There was nothing, so I thought at the moment, to prevent _me_ from +piloting the airship out of its lair. Once in the sky I could make a +bee-line for Plymouth, and get there in a little more than half an +hour--if it was indeed true that the mysterious ship could do her two +hundred and forty M.P.H. To swoop down to Plymouth sea-drome with +Constance, the Pirate Ship and the recovered treasure! That would, +indeed, be a triumph such as is given to few men to experience. I have a +fairly vivid imagination, and I saw it all in one radiant picture. + +"Let's go and have a look at the ship at once," I said, and almost ran +back into the cavern, where she towered up and threw black velvet +shadows in the fierce blue light that streamed down from the suspended +arcs. Danjuro followed. + +As I swung myself over the side and descended a short ladder, I found +myself in a roomy main cabin. A switch to my hand illuminated it, and +even then I saw that the ship had been designed by a master hand. Below +the port-holes, filled with toughened glass and provided with shutters +of a design that was new to me, ran a continuous seat of woven camels' +hair cord, easily convertible into sleeping bunks for half a dozen +people. There was an electric stove of polished aluminium for cooking, +and an electric radiator for warming the cabin, clustering round a +central supporting column. I saw also that there was a very complete +telephone installation connecting this main cabin with the pilot's room +forward. + +Under the seats was a collection of wooden cases and a box of japanned +steel, which I judged, and rightly, contained the treasure taken from +the _Albatros_ and the _Atlantis_. A sliding door aft led into a +store-room, which seemed to contain everything necessary for a cruise of +several days. I noticed boxes of expensive cigars, bottles of whisky and +liqueurs, tinned oysters, larks, asparagus, such as wealthy yachtsmen +provide themselves with. The dogs did themselves well! + +Leading out of this was a final cabin fitted with tools of every sort, a +rack of automatic rifles and pistols, and several thousand rounds of +small-arms ammunition. Here also, with a padded door, was a little +compartment for the wireless operator, and I pictured one of the +black-hearted scoundrels sitting there and picking up the messages from +airships of the trade routes with a grin upon his face. + +Danjuro came with me and looked about him quickly, but with no change of +expression. "So far, so good," I said to him; "but all this is +unimportant, really, though it is very complete. What really matters is +the pilot's cabin, the engines, controlling gear, petrol supply, and so +on. Let's go forward. Do you understand anything about airships?" + +"A very little, Sir John," he replied, and--so petty are we all at +times--I felt a perceptible thrill of pleasure at hearing there was at +least something of which this paragon was ignorant. + +"Never had occasion to study them?" I asked, as we passed again through +the main cabin. + +"I have watched the pilot in Honourable Van Adams' yacht the _May +Flower_, but that is all...." + +I hardly heard him, for I was in the pilot's room at last. + +I saw at a glance that here were a number of things absolutely new to +me, and so to all the aviators of the world. I am not going to be +technical. This narrative is written for the general reader, and my +expert conclusions have been published elsewhere. I can but indicate +some of the wonders of mechanical skill with which I was confronted. + +For instance, the designer of the ship was the first man to solve the +problem of easy control. Up to the present all pilots had controlled +their ships--the movements of planes and rudders, etc.--with a certain +amount of manual labour. It is true that recent inventions had minimized +this; ball-bearings, the rack and pinion, had made the main control +levers and wheels much easier to move than they were in the old days of +the Great War--when flying first began to come into its own. But there +was still a great deal of physical strain, which greatly lessened +efficiency upon a long cruise. Moreover, the instant decision necessary +to be taken by an aviator--when a fraction of a second may spell safety +or ruin--had been always hampered by the comparative mechanical slowness +of control. + +In the Pirate Ship this disability did not exist. Just as the largest +ocean-going liner--sea-ship, not airship, I mean--can be steered by a +wheel not more than two feet in diameter by the invention of the steam +steering gear, so the Pirate Ship was controlled by a series of little +wheels and levers, covered with leather, that looked like toys. + +Electricity had been brought into play, and a touch of the pilot's hand +was magnified into power that in an instant would deflect a mighty +lifting plane or vast rudder. + +The fuel capacity of the ship was immense. She carried as much petrol, +in the huge and ingeniously contrived tanks below the fuselage, as one +of the great air-liners, though she was not a fifth of the size. I saw +at once that she could keep the air for days. + +Examining the cockpit, in which two quick-firing guns were placed, I +found them both of the very latest pattern, and mounted with a swivel +device that was far in advance of anything attempted hitherto. Only the +great battle-planes of the world's air navies could mount guns of such +power, and she could circle round them with ease while in full flight. + +But it was when I mounted to the little deck above, and began to examine +the two huge six-cylinder engines, that my admiration and interest grew +beyond all bounds. The chief triumph of all, the silencing mechanism +that reduced the ordinary roar of air engines to no more than the hum of +a dynamo, did not at once become clear. It would have been necessary to +take the machines to pieces to have discovered everything; but an +examination of the exhausts put me on the track, and I marvelled at the +creation of a master-mind. + +I was looking at the twin propellers, which had a curve that was new to +me, and even material that I could not immediately define, when Danjuro +hailed me from the pilot's room. + +I tumbled down to find the little man bending over the various controls +ranged in front of the pilot's seat. + +"It seems to me, Sir John," he said, "pray correct me if I am wrong, +that there is something wanting here. I know little about airships, but +something of electricity, and can quite understand this system. But it +seems to me that a key-part of the mechanism has been removed." + +He pulled over a lever a few inches long. Its movement should have been +registered upon a dial above, but the needle never moved. + +"Do that again!" I cried, and, mounting a step, put my head into the +little dome of glass in the cabin roof which commanded the whole length +of the ship. One of the tilting planes by the rudder should have moved +when the lever was pulled over. + +It remained motionless. + +"One of the honourable gentlemen upstairs has got a small but very +essential piece of linking apparatus in his pocket," said Danjuro. + +It was only too true. A moment's reflection satisfied me of that, and I +stared blankly at my companion. + +My gorgeous, if somewhat vainglorious, plan was knocked on the head. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE MOMENT OF TRIUMPH + + +I descended from the airship in silence. Danjuro followed me. Thumbwood +was still on guard. The bundle that was Mr. Vargus lay upon the ground, +and a face like a white wedge of venom stared up at us. There was no +sign of the enemy, but I felt that we should not be left in peace much +longer, and my disappointment at the discovery on board the pirate was +keen. + +"There is still a chance," Danjuro whispered in my ear. "And with your +permission, Sir John, I am going to try it." + +I nodded, and he stepped up to Vargus and pulled him up into a sitting +posture, propping him against the barrier. + +"There is a part of the control mechanism of the airship missing," +Danjuro said, with silky politeness. + +Vargus grinned suddenly, a momentary rictus that came and went, utterly +horrible. + +"And we want that piece of the machine," the Japanese went on. + +Vargus spoke, in his peculiar oily voice. "Then you may go on wanting, +you putty-faced little spawn of a monkey." + +I cannot hope to describe the depth of poisonous hate the man put into +the words. His accent was cultured and refined; the great dome of the +blood-stained forehead spoke loudly of intellect, yet the voice somehow +reeked of the pit. I know that it struck me cold, and I saw the rifle in +Thumbwood's hands was shaking. Although this was the man who had devised +an abominable death for me, I can honestly say that I felt no personal +resentment. I can't account for it, but it was so. + +I should have welcomed that, rather than the inward loathing, like a +shudder of the soul, at something inhuman and unclean. + +What Danjuro felt I don't know, but he didn't turn a hair. + +"I think you will assist us," he said. + +For answer the thing below spat in his face. + +I expected to see Danjuro leap upon him and strangle him where he sat. I +shouldn't have raised a finger to stop it. But it was not so. The little +man stepped aside and carefully wiped his face with a silk handkerchief +that seemed to come from nowhere. Then he went behind Mr. Vargus and +began to feel his head all over, with quick, delicate movements of his +fingers. + +"How can you touch him?" I cried, hardly knowing what I said, for the +thing was ugly and uncanny beyond belief. Danjuro was like some sinister +phrenologist in a nightmare, feeling the bumps of a devil. + +"I know now what I wanted to know about him," Danjuro purred after a +moment. "I never doubted the intelligence, Sir John. It is very marked. +And there is great energy and courage of a sort. But our friend who +spits has one little failing. He is afraid of physical pain." + +"You're not going to ...?" + +Danjuro looked me full in the eyes, and in his I saw a stony resolution +that I was in no state to combat. + +"I will go and see Miss Shepherd," I said, and turning on my heel, +walked quickly to the inner end of the cavern. As I went I heard Danjuro +ask Thumbwood for a box of matches.... + +I am quite aware that there are lots of softhearted people who will say +I ought never to have allowed Danjuro to do what he did. Well, they must +have their own opinion, that's all. I believe it was nothing like so bad +as the cat-o'-nine-tails which is constantly administered in our +prisons, and under the circumstances I think it was justifiable. Call me +what names you like as you read this--you have not seen Mr. Vargus and +his dogs, nor spent a small eternity in the pirates' cave. + +... Constance was wonderfully recovered. I spent a minute or two with +her, and then returned to the scene of action. + +Mr. Vargus was speaking in a quick, panting voice, and these were the +words I heard: + +"Gascoigne, Mr. Gascoigne; he has it. He was our second pilot. It was +always in his charge." + +Danjuro gave his little weary smile. Then he put his hand gently upon my +arm and drew me away to the other side of the cave. + +"We will now summon honourable Gascoigne," he said. "He is the young +gentleman we saw with late honourable Helzephron at the 'Mille +Colonnes.' The little necessary piece of the mechanism in his possession +is, I have just learnt, generally referred to as 'the link.'" + +"But how ...?" I was beginning, when he pointed to a telephone +instrument upon a screen of tongue-and-groove boarding. "This +communicates with the house," he whispered. "Mr. Vargus nearly got +through recently, you will remember, just before the good Thumbwood +caught him." + +He raised the instrument to his mouth and ear. + +In a second or two a bell rang and Danjuro began to speak. I nearly +jumped out of my boots. The words were simple enough, but the voice +with its oily refinement was the voice of Mr. Vargus! + +"Is that you, Gascoigne? Yes, Vargus speaking. The Chief says you are to +come down at once and bring the control link with you. What? No, the +others are to wait till they're sent for. What? Oh, yes, quite dead. I +wish you could have seen it!" + +It was a triumph of mimicry that I shall never forget, the more so as it +was the only occasion on which I heard this marvellous man attempt +anything of the sort. Heaven knows what other talents he must have +possessed! + +"The young gentleman was asking about you, Sir John. He seemed quite +curious about your end!" + +I smiled grimly. "What are you going to do?" I asked. + +In answer he hurried back to the open door and crouched down in the +shadow by its side. I motioned to Thumbwood to lie down behind the +barrier which was exactly facing the passage, and drawing my automatic +pistol, which I had regained from Helzephron's room, I retired to the +opposite side of the door and outside the line of direct vision. + +There was silence for a minute or so, and then, far away in the rock, I +heard a hollow rumble and the clank of a gate. The lift had descended +and Gascoigne was on his way. A few seconds afterwards I heard a merry +whistle, fresh and sweet, as if the performer had not a care in the +world. He was whistling the lilting tune of a popular song which all the +street boys were singing at that time: + + + "_Merry Maudie met her fate at Margate!_" + + +Callous young dog! In a moment he would not be so cheerful.... + +I had left it to that concentrated muscle, Danjuro, though I stood ready +to help if necessary. But I knew that he was a supreme exponent of +jiu-jitsu--_teste_ the hideous death Helzephron died--and I had little +fear. Indeed, I found myself looking on with a detached and interested +curiosity as one might at a prize-fight. I wondered if Danjuro would +kill him or not. And if you had supped so full of horrors as I had in +that awful cave, you'd have felt like that, too! + +... For a second I saw Gascoigne in the full light from the roof and +framed by the archway, like a picture. It was the same young fellow, +with the dissipated face, that I had seen at the restaurant, though he +had not been among the singing pirates at the inn. He was extremely +handsome still, with the face of a lost angel. As a boy at school he +must have been beautiful. + +Then the squat shadow that crouched by the lintel of the door, like a +monstrous toad, expanded swiftly. Danjuro caught Gascoigne by the right +hand with the speed of lightning, and pulled the arm out straight with a +jerk. Then, as the young man was falling forward, the left arm of the +Japanese shot out _under_ his captive's rigid right and the hand seized +the lapel of Gascoigne's coat. He was powerless. If he made the +slightest movement Danjuro would have broken his arm like a pipe-stem. +He could not swing round and hit with his left, and I saw his mouth open +with foolish amazement like the mouth of a fish, as his legs were kicked +from under him, and he fell back with his assailant on the top of him. + +I tied his ankles together with neatness and dispatch, while I listened +to a sickening flood of blasphemous profanity that flowed from the +clear-cut lips of this _ci-devant_ gentleman in a ceaseless stream. More +and more I realized what a crew of utter devils Helzephron had got round +him. + +At last he was bound, and Danjuro took from him a leather box, which he +wore suspended round his shoulders by a strap. He handed it to me, and, +opening it, I found it was the control link that we sought. + +"You can fit that in all right, Sir John?" + +"Oh, yes, I don't think it presents any difficulty." + +"Very well, then, in a few minutes we will start; that is, if you think +you can take the ship out of this place?" + +I had already considered that and decided that I could. It was a +ticklish job enough, and would require the most delicate care, +especially with an untried ship. But in the past I had landed on the +deck of a moving battleship, and there were few stunts that were not +familiar to me. I felt I could do it. + +"I don't think I shall let you down," I said, and hurried to the ship. + +Five minutes showed me that I had got the hang of the apparatus and that +electrical connection was restored, and I spent a further ten in +thoroughly examining and getting accustomed to the controls. Moreover, I +made one new and startling discovery. + +There was no need, in this marvellous ship, for mechanics to swing the +propeller at the start. Again electricity from the ship's dynamo was +employed, and the starting device was a miracle of ingenuity, worked +from the pilot's cabin. + +Mr. Vargus, though I offered to loosen his bonds at the feet, absolutely +refused to walk, and Danjuro carried him up the ladder and threw him +upon the floor of the cabin like a sack of corn. Gascoigne, now very +white and silent, was more amenable. It seems that Vargus had +acquainted him with everything that had passed as they lay together on +the ground. + +"I'll go all right, sir," he said to me, as I helped him to his feet. + +As I had the muzzle of my pistol in the small of his back, he couldn't +well do anything else, but he lost nothing by being civil. + +"I can't believe that the Chief's dead and everything's finished," he +said, with a curious sort of sob. I realized that all sense of right and +wrong had left this youth early. He was the true stuff of which +criminals are made, incapable of putting himself in the place of his +victims, and while bitterly conscious of defeat and punishment to come, +incapable of remorse. + +Without a trace of pose this man behaved just as if he were an officer +captured by the enemy in war-time, and I dare swear he felt just like +that. There is only one thing to do with these abnormals that get +themselves born now and then--destroy them. + +Morally I felt sure that Gascoigne was not a hundredth part so +responsible as Vargus. But one was born a criminal, and, from that point +of view, insane. The other had had the capabilities of sainthood, but +had opened his soul to the Dweller on the Threshold and was doubly lost. + +We went slowly towards the ship. "Good old bird!" he said, as any public +schoolboy might have said it. "I expect this'll be the last cruise I +ever take in her." + +"Or in any ship at all," I answered. "I suppose you've no illusions as +to what's in store for you?" + +"No, I suppose it's a hanging job," he replied, and I assented, though, +as you will learn, both his anticipations were to prove wrong. + +Danjuro and I shifted Vargus out of the main cabin into the small one +where the tools and spare parts were stored. We didn't want Constance to +see him, and he was so well secured that he couldn't possibly do any +harm. + +Gascoigne we left for the present on one of the seats, and I hurried to +fetch the two women, passing Thumbwood, still at his post. + +"Everything is arranged," I called out, as I ran through Helzephron's +room. "We are going to fly to Plymouth at once in the Pirate Ship." + +The maid Wilson shrieked. + +"Oh, Sir John, that awful ship! I couldn't go in 'er again, not for my +life. Let's go in a taxi, Miss, please 'ave a taxi; I couldn't face the +ship." + +"You'll lose your life quickly enough if you stay," I said to the +yelping fool, though, Heaven knows, the poor soul had gone through +enough to turn her mind entirely. Her mouth grew like a round O, and I +was preparing for another shriek when I suddenly thought of something. + +"Miss Connie will be quite safe with me," I said quickly, "and I shall +put you in charge of Charles Thumbwood. You remember him? He'll look +after you all right, Wilson." + +It acted like a charm. I had remembered Charles's attention to the +pretty maid in the train. + +"Ow!" said Wilson. "Is Mr. Thumbwood here, then, Sir John?" + +"Very much so. You will be his especial charge, and the journey won't +take more than three-quarters of an hour." + +The girl picked up the dressing-bag, which she had dropped upon the +floor. "Then that will be all right," she said with a flush, and I +wondered if she thought Charles was going to pilot the ship himself. How +true it is that Faith can move mountains! No doubt Constance felt just +the same about me as Mary Wilson did about Charles. + +... We had come out into the cave, and had walked a few yards towards +the looming bulk of the ship, when the telephone bell on the cave-side +ahead of us rang furiously. It kept on like an alarm-clock, and telling +the girls to remain still for a moment, I ran up and unhooked the +receiver. + +A voice was bawling at the other end, so loud that the words rang and +buzzed one into the other, and I could only distinguish one or two. I +heard enough to know what had happened, though. + +"Chief ... coastguard police ... rifles ... all round the house on the +moor were coming down ... two of us stay ... hold till last moment...." + +So that was it! Billy Pengelly, the coastguard, had made good. The wires +had been at work while we had been about our mole-like warfare +underground. The avengers were among the gorse and heather, and the +remainder of the pirates were doomed.... + +"Come on," I shouted to Connie, realizing that there was literally not a +moment to lose, and, alarmed by the excitement in my voice, they started +to run. + +When they had come up to me, and I started to run with them towards the +ship, there was a sudden thunderous report. Looking to the right, I saw +that Thumbwood had taken cover, and was lying on his stomach behind the +barrier. The open door was but a dim oblong of yellow light at that +distance, and I could not see a yard down the passage in the rocks. + +Thumbwood fired again, and the echoing roar had not died away when +something went by my ear with a vicious _zipp_, and I heard the splash +of a bullet upon the granite. + +The pirates were coming down in force, and, finding themselves between +Scylla and Charybdis, had turned at bay. + +I knew Thumbwood would keep them where they were for a minute or two, +and I raced to the ship with Connie at my side. Wilson had fainted, and +we had to drag her between us. + +Half-way up the light, steep accommodation ladder Danjuro was waiting, +perfectly calm and unconcerned. We handed up the unconscious maid, and +he disappeared with her in a second. Then Connie was helped up the +ladder, while the whole cavern began to thunder with a fusillade of +rapid firing. + +"The police and coastguards are surrounding the house," I shouted, "and +the rest of the crew have come down, and are trying to fight their way +into the cave." + +"It is what I thought, Sir John. Those gentlemen must be considerably +surprised at their reception! We can shoot them all down before they get +out of the passage. Perhaps, now that rescue is at hand, we had better +wait and do so?" + +His eyes were glistening; I saw the light of slaughter in them. For an +instant I hesitated. What he said was sane enough. The risk was +comparatively small; it would only be postponing the triumphal flight. + +Then I took a decision--it rested with me, and I was alone responsible. +"We mustn't shoot them all down," I shouted through the din, for bullets +were streaming into the cave behind as though they were pumped from a +hose. "Some of them must be brought to justice. We had better be off +and leave the coastguards and police to deal with them." + +Thus I spoke. I said what I honestly thought was best at the moment, +though perhaps my mind was a little influenced by the natural and +terrible anxiety to get my girl away from further horrors. + +At any rate, I decided, and all my life long I shall never cease to +regret it. + +"Very good," said Danjuro. "Up into the pilot's cabin, quick, Sir John. +You are indispensable there. Prepare for an instant start. I will run +and fetch Thumbwood. We shall have to fire thirty or forty rounds +quickly into the passage to keep them back. Of course, they are firing +automatic pistols round the bend now, and not exposing themselves any +more. After we have fired we shall run for the ship. You will hear me +shout and then start like lightning!" + +He slipped past me, and, crouching almost to the ground, ran back +towards Thumbwood like some great cat. + +I flung myself aboard. Constance was attending to Wilson in the main +cabin. Gascoigne was lying bound where he had been thrown, but his eyes +were blazing with excitement. + +I put a stop to that at once. "The remainder of your friends are being +shot down," I said curtly. "Lucky for you to be here." + +All the animation died out of his face. And, as I didn't want to leave +him alone with Connie--it seemed a desecration that he should be in the +same place with her even for a moment--I whipped out my knife, cut the +bonds at his feet, and pushed him into the pilot's cabin, making him lie +upon the floor at my side as I got into the swivel chair. I could shoot +him dead in an instant if he moved. + +Then I sat rigid, with my hand upon the switch which started the +engines. + +In reality, I know now that the time of waiting was very short, but it +seemed an eternity to me. For the first time my nerves felt upon the +point of giving way. My hand trembled. I began to think of the narrow +S-shaped passage between high walls of rock to the sea, and realized the +appalling nature of the task before me. A mere touch of the planes upon +those iron barriers, and all the long struggle would prove unavailing, +the triumph turn to a defeat in which my girl and I, the superman +Danjuro, and faithful Thumbwood would lose our hard-won lives. + +One touch and the ship would crumple up like paper and fall like a stone +into the cruel cauldron of jagged rock and furious waves far below. + +There came a voice from the floor. Had the prisoner divined something of +my thoughts? + +"... Look here, Sir John, you're up against a nasty job. It's the very +devil getting out of here if you don't know the way and haven't +practised it." + +Something in the young fellow's voice told me that this was not mockery. +He was, moreover, the second pilot of the Pirate Ship, trained by +Helzephron himself. + +"I did not ask you to speak," I answered. + +"No, but really it's no end of a stunt. The controls are ten times as +sensitive as in an ordinary machine. If you were the best pilot living, +you'd find it hard to manage in a ship that's quite new to you, and has +all sorts of habits and tricks that no other has." + +He spoke truly enough, and I knew it, but it was none the less +unpleasant to hear. + +"I suppose you're afraid for your damned skin," I sneered. + +"Oh, come, draw it mild," he replied. "I only spoke to try and help you. +I know when I'm beaten, and I don't bear any malice." + +"If I do take you safely out, it will only mean the gallows." + +"Oh, no, it won't!" he said. "I shall turn King's evidence. There are +lots of things I know that no one else except Vargus knows now. I shall +get let off with fifteen years. Bet you a fiver, if you like. It's to my +interest to help you out." + +I can generally tell when a man is sincere, and I realized that this +young scoundrel was, despite--and perhaps because of--the baseness of +his motive. + +"Help me?" + +"Yes, out of the passage. Once you get in clear air you'll fly her +easily enough--and you'll be astonished, by Jove! But you'd better let +me pilot you. It's the lift and the sharp right bank that are so +difficult...." + +"Get up," I said. + +He scrambled to his feet. + +"Stand there!" He leaned against the wall at my side, his hands tied +behind him and his arms tightly bound. + +He was about to speak, when suddenly we both started. Something had +happened. For a moment I did not realize what it was. Then I knew. The +continuous thunder of rifle fire had stopped. Everything was dead +silent. I'd hardly become conscious of the fact when there was a loud +shout. + +"Let her go, Sir John! Let her go!" + +Danjuro stumbled into the cabin, panting like a whippet. + +I pulled over the switch and then the lever of the starting mechanism. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE GOLDEN DREAM + + +The strangely-shaped propellers bit the air at once, the walls of the +cavern, flooded with spectral light, slid backwards, and as the ship +swerved round the curve towards the entrance, the day leapt at us. + +Wow! but it was touch and go during the next ten seconds. If it had not +been for Gascoigne I am sure that I should never have gone through. The +great ship shot out of its lair like a dart; a touch upon the little +steering-wheel and she was banking in the terrible right-hand turn; the +granite walls seemed rushing to meet and crush her, and only the quick, +steady words of command from the prisoner, which like an automaton I +obeyed, got her finally into the straight.... + +And then--oh, then--I opened out the marvellous engines; she seemed to +shake herself for an instant like a bird poised for a long flight, and, +humming like a wasp, she shot up and out to sea.... + +The needle upon the speed indicator quivered round its dial, moving +ever upwards. Eighty, a hundred, a hundred and fifty--and thirty +more--we were doing nearly two hundred miles an hour, straight out over +the Atlantic before I had a thought of our destination, or of anything +but the supreme glory of that rush up the dawn wind. + +The whole morning world was blue and gold, new-built and beautiful. Far +below, the Mother of Oceans lay in an unwrinkled sheet of sapphire, "as +it were a sea of glass mingled with fire." A tiny purple cloud upon the +horizon was the Isles of Scilly, sleeping under the sun. + +Connie stole in and stood by my side, her hand upon my shoulder, and I +knew that her heart also was full to overflowing, as memory flared up +and down in us like the flame of a lamp in a draught. It was a moment so +exquisite, so full of gratitude to God, that no words of mine can do +more than hint at it. For we had escaped from hell and the snare of +devils, and knew it in one lightning flash of gratitude and joy. + +As she stared out at the sea and sky, which glowed like the pavements of +the New Jerusalem, Connie quoted some words from Milton--the song of the +released spirit in his epilogue of "Comus": + + + "To the Ocean now I fly, + And those happy climes which lie + Where Day never shuts his eye + Up in the broad fields of the sky." + + +And then, as I glanced at the compass card and made a great sweep +round, so that we faced the jagged coasts of Cornwall once again, she +whispered, with a proud note in her voice: + + + "For still the Lord is Lord of Might + In deeds, in deeds, he takes delight." + + +Then, with a tiny pressure of my arm, she went back to the other cabin. + +I had not noticed Danjuro for the last few minutes. He had led Gascoigne +behind me as soon as we had made the passage. Now he reappeared. + +"Danjuro!" I cried, "this ship is wonderful beyond all imagining! There +isn't her equal in the whole world. She'll revolutionize flying. It's a +perfect joy to pilot her!" + +Danjuro nodded calmly; he was not given to enthusiasms, this man with a +panther in his soul. "I have been speaking with the prisoner," he said. + +"With Vargus?" + +"No, though I have been to look at him, and he is quite safe. With +Gascoigne, and he has suggested something that has not occurred to +either of us, Sir John." + +"His help will all tell in his favour when it comes to the trial. What +is it now?" + +"Something eminently sensible and pressing! As you see, this ship is +quite unmistakable. Any pilot would recognize her from the descriptions +which have been circulated. We are now approaching the coast again and +about to fly to Plymouth. The air must be full of armed patrol ships, +and, whatever our speed, if we escape being shot down _en route_, we +should certainly be blown to pieces on approaching the sea-drome!" + +I flushed up. I had been an incredible ass never to have thought of that +before. It was only too true. Nobody could possibly know that we had +captured the Pirate Ship.... + +I reduced our speed to half of what it had been. "What are we to do?" I +said. + +"There is a complete wireless installation on board the ship. Can you +operate it, Sir John?" + +"No. Even if I could leave the controls, that would be impossible. I +know nothing about it, unfortunately." + +"Nor I, Sir John. It is a gap in my knowledge that I propose to remedy +shortly. But this Gascoigne is an operator, and offers to send any +message." + +"I suppose we can trust him? He certainly saved us from disaster coming +out of the cavern." + +I shuddered; I did not want to think of that blood-stained hole of +horror any more. + +"Yes, I think he can he trusted. He has everything to gain, and can do +no harm that I can see. I cannot operate the keys of the apparatus, but +I know the Morse code, and if I stand by him I can check each letter as +he sends it out." + +Then I had an inspiration too. "Good! And now I think I can make it +quite sure. I can remember the private code of the Air Police with +hardly a gap. We will call up Plymouth, and all the police boats now +flying, in that private code. Meanwhile, we had better run out to sea +again while you are taking it down." + +Again I turned the ship, and as we spiralled up and out again, I formed +the message in my mind and translated it, word for word, into the +letters of the code, which Danjuro took down in pencil upon a sheet of +his pocket-book. + +When I had finished, and as the message was necessarily rather a long +one it took some time, Danjuro marched Gascoigne away to the rear cabin, +where Vargus was lying. It was there, you may remember, that the +wireless apparatus was installed. + +We were now reaching a great height, far above any of the regular +air-lanes, and I felt quite secure from any attack. Land, sea, every +reminder of the world below, had vanished utterly. With hardly a sound +from the magic engines we floated in a haze of gold chrysophrase. It was +like a happy dream, though never was dream so beautiful. + +Connie stole in again. "I thought I would leave Thumbwood and Wilson +alone," she said. "They have been sitting side by side and whispering +to each other ever since we started. Neither of them seems to have the +least curiosity as to where we are or where we're going." + +"How thoughtful of you, dearest! Was that the only reason you came in +here!" + +The rest of the conversation is not a part of this story. It lasted a +long time as we droned round great five-mile circles of the upper air. +And then a telephone rang at my ear. + +Danjuro was speaking. The message had been received at Plymouth, and an +answer had been coming through for the last ten minutes. He was writing +it down, letter by letter, from Gascoigne's dictation. Shortly +afterwards he brought it in to me, and as I read it off the world closed +round me again and fairyland vanished. + +Triumph filled my veins and reddened my blood. The message came from +Muir Lockhart, who was at Plymouth again, and was one shout of wonder +and congratulation. "The whole world will thank you," it concluded. + +For a little time I was intoxicated by that message. I saw myself a +hero, vindicated a thousand times in the eyes of all men, the Chief of +Air Police whose name would be historical. I think there are few men of +my age who would not have had their moment of vainglory; we are made so. +But as I read the message to the man who had brought it, I realized +that I had done nothing, after all, and that everything was due to his +marvellous brilliancy and courage. + +Thank Heaven that I realized it without a pang of envy, and I told him +what I thought of him in no unstinted way. + +He heard me to the end with no change of countenance. When I had done, +he said: "You have been very kind, Sir John, and I greatly appreciate +what you have said. If, indeed, you are indebted to me in any way for +the help I have been able to give, you can repay me, if you will." + +"To the half of my kingdom!" I said, with a laugh, though I was in dead +earnest all the same. + +"That is a promise, Sir John?" He looked down at me with magnetic eyes. + +"A promise, Danjuro." + +"Then, while I live, I ask you to say nothing whatever of my part in +this affair. I wish it kept as secret as possible; some little part must +leak out; there will be investigations, public trials, and so forth. But +much can be kept secret, and it rests with you and Thumbwood. And as I +have your promise, my mind is at rest." + +"But this is madness, Danjuro! You are owed the thanks of two +continents. You ..." + +He interrupted me. + +"I want nothing of the sort. I have had your thanks, and that is +sufficient. The work itself is enough. My usefulness to Mr. Van Adams, +the endeavour of my whole life, would be destroyed if anything were +known." + +Reluctantly I promised. "But Mr. Van Adams, I shall tell _him_ +everything!" I said. + +Danjuro bowed his head. A faint flush came into his yellow face. "If you +think I have done anything worth it," he replied, with a curious and +touching silence. + +And this was the man with the panther in his soul! For the American +millionaire he had supreme love, with devotion--worship--and for no one +and nothing else on earth above or below it. + +A man with a single obsession, a man of one idea. Well, most of the +great men in life have been that.... + +I steered for Plymouth at full speed, coming down to three thousand +feet. In a flash the jagged coast, fringed with a thin line of white, +came clear to view. We sped from the Atlantic, over the narrow peninsula +of land which divides it from the Channel, and then turned east. The +Bay, with St. Michael's Mount looking like a tiny white pebble, gave +place to the long, menacing snout of the Lizard, and, as a few minutes +later we neared Falmouth, a flight of airships rose from the water of +that mighty harbour and came up to join us like a flock of gulls, the +big Klaxon electric horns blaring a welcome. Dead Man's Rock and Gall +Island, Looe, Mevagissey, Fowey--all slipped away astern, and the bluff +outlines of Rame Head, from which the Devon watchers first signalled the +Armada, came rushing into view. I had been speeding far ahead, turning +back, flying all round the escorting patrol boats, which were doing all +they knew, letting them see what a wonder had come into our hands, and +rejoicing more and more in the powers of the ship, as I found them one +by one. Now I slowed down, and signalled by horn to the leading vessel +of the flotilla. + +As we turned and entered Plymouth Sound, the others spread themselves +out in a great wedge, of which I was leader, like a skein of wild geese +upon the wing. A salute of guns boomed out as we flew high on the +Breakwater, and all the bells of Plymouth were ringing as I swooped down +into the sea-drome. + +And all this time, for three-quarters of an hour or more, our two +prisoners had been alone together in the aft cabin, where the tools and +spare parts were stored. Neither I nor Danjuro had given them a further +thought, and it was the one fatal mistake we made upon that morning of +triumph. + +Thumbwood had, however, been in to look at them once or twice, and had +seen nothing disturbing. Certainly, when some of my men came to take +them to the station, they were lying sullen in their bonds, and not +saying a word to each other of any kind. + +But by that time the mischief was doubtless done. + + * * * * * + +Space begins to press upon me. There are still two strange and +unforgettable scenes to add to this narrative, further tragedies to set +down. The last scene of all, which I have called "The Epilogue," was not +written for a year after the earlier part of this story, which is now +published as a whole for the first time. Why this is so will become +clear as you read on, if you care to follow me to the very end. + +But as I would not weary you, I will only indicate the happenings during +the rest of that day at Plymouth in the briefest possible fashion. I am +impatient to bring the story up to the hour of eleven-thirty of the same +night. + +Immediately we were at rest on the placid waters of the sea-drome, Muir +Lockhart, with a strong force of Air Police, came aboard. Constance and +her maid were taken in a motor-boat to one of my patrol ships, which +started with them for the Hounslow Aerodrome within half an hour of our +arrival. We both of us thought it best that she should proceed to London +immediately, and going by air in a Government ship, she would escape +all annoyance and publicity. + +All approach to the sea-drome was barred, and though the Hoe was crowded +with spectators, none of them could approach anywhere near to us. When I +had given Lockhart an outline of what had occurred, the two prisoners +were taken over the pool with a strong guard, and run up in the private +lift to the A.P. station, where there was a strong cell ready to receive +them. Then I was free to show my colleague, himself an expert airman, +the wonders of our capture. + +I was doing this--we were in the pilot's cabin--when one of my men came +in and said that a motor-launch had come alongside from the private +air-yacht _May Flower_, which was moored not a hundred yards away. I had +noticed, when descending, that a magnificent yacht was close by, but I +did not identify it as Mr. Van Adams' ship. It appeared that he had been +sleeping aboard for the last two or three nights, since he had flown +down from London for the funeral, and was now alongside. + +Van Adams, of course, was an exception to all ordinary rules, and in a +minute he was shaking hands in the private saloon and betraying a most +lively curiosity as to our adventures. I put Danjuro to satisfy him, and +when we had discussed a bottle of Helzephron's champagne, I left a +couple of trusted men to guard the ship, and went ashore. Danjuro +returned to the _May Flower_ with his patron. + +The rest of the day was a whirl of business and excitement, though I +managed to get three hours much needed sleep in the afternoon. + +Wires from the Government, from America, from Royalty, poured in, in a +never-ceasing stream. There were innumerable officials to see, the +correspondents of the great newspapers to satisfy with some sort of +story--a hundred things to do and arrange for. The whole of England was +in a ferment, and the stone building of the Air Police on the Hoe was, +for a few hours, the centre of it all. The air was thick with patrol +ships, warning off aviators of all kinds from approaching the Pirate +Ship, which lay at rest and harmless by the north wall of the pool. + +Just before I retired to rest the news of what was called "The Battle of +the Moor" began to come through. The pirates, seeing their ship gone, +had rushed up again into the house, and had held it with the courage of +desperation. Only three of them had survived, and were now locked up in +the police-station at Penzance. + +... It would take many pages to detail the events of that crowded day, +which did not end for me until ten o'clock at night, for I was forced to +attend a congratulatory dinner at the "Royal." Previous to that I had +found it necessary to summon Danjuro from the _May Flower_, where he had +remained quietly with Mr. Van Adams during the day. It was necessary +that I should be restored to something like my former self, and only +Danjuro could make me blond again! My moustache, alas! he could not +restore. + +I had arranged to sleep at the station, where there were several +bedrooms, and about ten-thirty I passed the sentry and entered the +grounds. + +Plymouth was now quiet. It was a hot, dark night, with neither moon nor +stars. During the day the weather had changed, and now thunder muttered +far away at sea and amethyst sheet-lightning flickered upon the horizon. + +Now and again a drop of hot rain fell. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +LAST FLIGHT OF THE PIRATE AIRSHIP + + +The station superintendent met me in the office, which was brilliantly +lit and cooled by an electric fan. + +"I expect you're feeling pretty well done, Sir John," he said. + +"I feel pretty tired, Johnson, I own." + +"There's a big thunderstorm coming up, not a doubt of it. The air'll be +cooler afterwards. All the arrangements about the prisoners are made, +sir." + +The staff had been in communication with London all day upon this +matter, but I had not heard the result. I inquired from the +superintendent now. + +"Our two birds, Sir John, and the three they've got at Penzance are to +travel to London to-night. They'll be brought up at Bow Street for a +minute or two, and remanded for a week to suit your convenience. The +Home Office will communicate with you, sir." + +"Very well. How are they going?" + +"The night mail train leaves Penzance at twelve, and gets here at two. +The other three will be on board and well guarded. Our prisoners will +join the train at Mill Bay Station. I've detailed Prosser and Moore to +escort them." + +"See that the men are well armed. How are the prisoners?" + +"Very quiet, sir. They seem to realize that it's all up with them. +They've taken their food all right." + +"They are both together?" + +"Yes, Sir John. You see, we've only the one cell that is absolutely +safe. But that can't make any difference. A man looks in every +half-hour. They can't hear him coming, and he reports that they don't +even talk." + +"They're not handcuffed?" + +"No, I didn't think it necessary, sir. They will be, and chained +together, too, when they leave for the train. We searched them +thoroughly, and took everything they had on them away half an hour after +they were brought in. Would you like to see them, sir?" + +"I don't think so, Johnson. I've been a good deal too much in their +society during the last day or two. I don't want to look at that Vargus +again until he's in the dock, and I'm giving evidence against him." + +"He's a wicked-looking customer, if ever I saw one," said the +inspector, with a face of disgust. "Well, good-night, sir, and I hope +you'll sleep well. I've told the station attendant to have your bath +ready at eight. He'll call you then." + +The good Johnson went away, and I was left alone. My head ached, and I +felt disinclined for sleep at once. I undressed, however, and sat in +pyjamas as I smoked a final pipe. There was whisky, soda and a bowl of +ice, and I took a peg. I felt singularly low and dispirited. It was, I +supposed, the inevitable reaction of the nerves after all I had endured, +combined with the heavy pressure of the atmosphere and the electric +tension of the storm. At any rate, I remember feeling--as everyone does +at times--that the greatest triumphs and successes were worth very +little, after all, when once they were achieved. There is bitterness at +the bottom of every cup--_surgit amari aliquid_--and life was a poor +thing at best. And I fell to reflecting on the evil and misery that can +be wrought by one man. + +The gaunt spectre of Hawk Helzephron haunted my mind, and the long row +of dead men that must be laid to his account, the brave fellows of my +own service, the Transatlantic people--to say nothing of the black +scoundrels that he had made and tempted, who had been hurried into +eternity with their crimes unrepented.... + +It was a morbid train of thought, but I was worn out, and the dark hour +had its way with me, until I thought of Connie and her merciful +preservation from harm, my own rescue. Then, rather ashamed of myself, I +made an effort to banish these gloomy imaginings, said my prayers, and +got into bed. + +All the same, as I fell asleep, the stammer of the approaching thunder +and the white glare of lightning, which now and then flashed into the +darkened room, seemed like the growling of those awful dogs and the +glare of the advancing airship in the cave.... + +I think now that I must have had some unconscious premonition of the +tragedy which was racing towards me all the time. + +... I was awakened sharply and suddenly, at first I thought by a flash +of lightning. But it was not so. The electrics had been suddenly turned +on, and there were men in uniform round my bed. The wind had risen and +was whistling outside. A deluge of thunder rain was in progress, and +great sheets of water were flung against the window. + +I saw Superintendent Johnson. His face was white as linen. + +"What is it?" I shouted. + +He shouted in answer, and I heard his voice above the tumult of the +storm. + +"The prisoners, Sir John," he wailed. "They've got away. They picked +the lock of the cell somehow, got into the passage, and broke the bars +of the window at the end. We none of us heard a sound!" + +I leapt out of bed and began to bellow orders for pursuit--until I saw +Johnson's terrified face again, and knew that I had not heard all. + +"... They got down to the water somehow, sir. They must have climbed +down the lift rails. _And they swam to the ship...._" + +"Good God! _What_ ship?" + +"Their own ship, Sir John. Somehow or other they managed to get on +board; we've just heard...." + +"_Where are they?_" + +"They did for the two men on board, and must have managed to start the +engines--_the ship's gone_. The searchlights are all over the pool, and +there's no trace of her. They were seen, Sir John, I ..." + +He broke off short, the words drying up in his mouth. All the other men +shrank together in a frightened group as Danjuro came slowly into the +room. + +I have never seen a figure so awe-inspiring, or terrible. + +In moments of supreme emotion a European grows chalk-white, an Asiatic +grey. + +The Japanese was livid grey now, and his face seemed carved with +fantastic gashes--grey rubber slashed with a knife. He was like a man +who had slept a thousand years and wakened to find himself old, and in +hell. + +He came slowly up to me, moving like a thing on wheels drawn by a cord, +and when he was close, he spoke. + +I can never recall his voice without an almost physical state of fear. +Suppose that you could go with Dante to that gate over which is written, +"_Abandon hope all ye who enter here._" And suppose, as you stood there +and listened, you heard a well-known voice far down, saying, "I am +tormented in this flame...." + +Well, Danjuro's voice was like that. + +"During a lull in the storm," he said, as if repeating a lesson, "I went +up on the deck of the _May Flower_ for a breath of air. Mr. Van Adams +accompanied me. We were looking over the water to the Pirate Ship, when +I saw lights flashing up and down through the portholes of the fuselage. +It struck me as strange. We wondered what the two men in charge could be +doing. As we watched, we were just able to distinguish two men coming up +on deck. Then there came a vivid flash of lightning, and I saw +everything plainly. The two men were Vargus and Gascoigne, and they were +carrying the body of a man in uniform, which they lowered into the +water." + +Inspector Johnson gave a quick gasp. Danjuro continued: + +"Without a moment's delay I got a couple of pistols, and Mr. Van Adams +and I jumped into the electric launch, which was moored alongside the +_May Flower_, though on the other side to that which faced the Pirate. +There was no time to summon help. We shot out into the pool just as the +storm began again with thunder-claps and a deluge of water. We were +within a few yards of the ship and making ready to board her, when Mr. +Van Adams flashed a powerful electric torch, and I saw Vargus with a +knife in his hand hacking at the mooring ropes. At the same time I +noticed that the lights in the pilot's cabin had been turned on. + +"I took a snap-shot at Vargus and missed him. Almost simultaneously he +fired directly at the light of the torch which Mr. Van Adams held. The +bullet went through Mr. Van Adams' heart, and he fell back dead in my +arms--I was steering the launch. I fired off all the cartridges in my +pistol, but the thunder drowned the noise. The Pirate Ship began to +move. I saw the lights in her side moving along--and then she lifted and +disappeared." + +The awful voice ceased, and all of us in that room stood like waxen +figures in a show. + + * * * * * + +For three days the Press and public were kept in entire ignorance of +what had happened during the storm. + +Upon the fourth, just as I was beginning to think that all my measures +were in vain and that the Pirate Ship had vanished utterly, the Head +Office in Whitehall received two long telegrams from the Prefect of +Finistère in France and the Chief of Police of Quimper, the old +cathedral city in Brittany. + +On one of the wild and lonely Breton moors a goat-herd had discovered +the wreckage of a large airship. By it was the body of a young man, but +only one body. The telegrams urgently asked me to come over at once. + +I did so, in my fastest patrol boat. Lying in a wild wilderness of gorse +and heather were the remains of the Pirate Ship. It had been destroyed +beyond possibility of reconstruction, and destroyed methodically and +deliberately while at rest upon the ground. There was no doubt about +that. The body I afterwards saw in the Morgue at Quimper was that of +Gascoigne. He had not met his death by any accidental means, but had +been stabbed in the back. + +He must have been dead for quite two days before the goat-herd made his +discovery, and of Vargus, living or dead, there was not a trace. + +I was back in London again that night, and just as I was going to bed +in Half Moon Street the bell of the flat rang. Thumbwood went to the +door and announced that Mr. Danjuro wished to see me. + +He was in evening dress, and quite his old self again to outward +appearances, except that his black hair had turned an iron grey. + +For a moment or two we discussed details of the inquest that had been +held _in camera_ upon poor Van Adams, arrangements made for the trial of +the three surviving pirates, and so on. Then I told him what I had seen +at Quimper. + +"Mr. Muir Lockhart told me of the telegrams from France," he said. "I +called at Whitehall, but you had already started for Quimper, Sir John. +I must apologize for such a late call, but I was anxious to hear your +news. Now I see my way clear." + +"I suppose, after your great loss, you will go back to America, or +perhaps Japan, and settle down?" + +He shook his head. + +"You know," I continued, "that if you cared for it, there is a +highly-paid and important position open to you with the Air Police? +Nothing would give me greater pleasure, as you know, than to have you as +a colleague." + +"I thank you, Sir John, but I have other work to do. I am a rich man, +but that only interests me, inasmuch as it is a means to an end. When +that end is reached ..." + +He made a curious gesture with his arm, which I did not understand. + +"May I ask what your work is?" + +He looked at me with surprise. + +"Vargus is still alive," he said simply. + +"He will be caught soon. The police of the world are looking for him, if +he is alive." + +"I think it will be a long pursuit, Sir John. He has got off with the +treasure, and I know one or two things about him which are not generally +known. I do not think that Mr. Vargus will fall into the hands of the +police." + +"Then you ...?" + +"It is my work. I owe the spirit of my patron this man's blood, and I +shall pay the debt. Were he to hide in the depths of the sea, sooner or +later I shall find him. There is no power strong enough in life to keep +us two apart." + +He had dropped his voice. The words hissed like a knife upon a strop. + +"I wish you good luck," I said at length, and was about to say more, to +express my gratitude again, when he cut me short. + +"I am leaving for Paris in half an hour," he said, "and must bid you +farewell, Sir John. Convey my humble compliments to Miss Shepherd," and +with a low bow and a frigid handshake he was gone. + +Six weeks afterwards, on the day before my wedding, I received a +magnificent Japanese vase of the old Satsuma enamel, but the card +enclosed bore no address. + +I did not see this extraordinary being again for nearly two years. Of +that meeting I shall write in the following short epilogue. + + + + +EPILOGUE + + +In the winter of 19-- I was at Monte Carlo for three weeks, taking a +short holiday alone, and also looking out for a villa at Roquebrune or +Mentone for my wife, who was to come out with the baby as soon as the +house had been secured. + +Now and again I went into the "Rooms" and staked a louis or two upon an +even chance or a _transversale_ at roulette; but, speaking generally, +the Casino bored me. The cosmopolitan crowd of smart people--like +champagne corks floating on a cesspool--the professional gamblers, with +their veil of decorous indifference concealing a fierce greed for money +which they have not earned--a sprinkling of wood-ash over a glowing +fire--presented little interest, and I much preferred long walks and +drives in the earthly paradise of Les Alpes Maritimes. + +I stayed at the Métropole Hotel, making it the base of my excursions, +and one evening, after dinner, I paid one of my rare visits to the +Casino. I wandered about the gilded, stuffy saloons, with their +illuminations of oil-lamps--so that no enterprising gentleman may cut +the electric wires and make off with the money on the tables!--the low +voices and almost sanctimonious manner of the players, the over-dressed +demi-mondaines who glide about with their hard, evil eyes. The place was +very full. All the chairs round the roulette tables were occupied, and +people were standing behind the chairs as well. As I am tall, I was able +to reach over and place my stakes, and I did so several times. When I +had lost four louis with monotonous regularity, I decided that it was +not worth while, and thought I would go and smoke, for, contrary to the +usual pictures in the magazines, smoking is _not_ allowed in the +roulette or trente-et-quarante rooms. + +So I went out into the Atrium, the great pillared entrance hall, which +looks like an important provincial corn exchange, and lit a cigarette. +The place was fairly full of people, walking up and down, or reading the +latest telegrams, which are fixed up upon a green-baize screen, and I +was watching them idly when, coming round the corner from the +cloak-room, I saw--Danjuro! + +My heart gave a sudden leap, the sight of him was so utterly unexpected +and recalled so much. To tell the truth, he seemed to belong to a long +past and forgotten dream, for Connie and I, by mutual consent, hardly +ever spoke of the days of the pirates. + +Danjuro was about fifteen yards away. I saw his face distinctly, and was +certain that I was not mistaken. Then he looked up, and I could swear +that he saw and recognized me. + +Be that as it may, he turned and slipped round the corner like a weasel, +and when I got there he had vanished. I made a search, of course, though +I knew how futile it would be if he wished to avoid me, and the result +was as I expected. There wasn't a trace of him anywhere, and none of the +attendants or door-keepers had seen a Japanese gentleman anywhere. + +I went for a walk on the terrace in the moonlight, and then returned to +the hotel and sought my bed. For a long time I could not sleep. The +sight of Danjuro had made me restless. A legion of memories trooped +through the brain, and curiosity marshalled the procession. What was +that enigmatic and sinister being doing here? Was he still upon his +ruthless quest, moving through the panorama of European life like some +wandering Jew of vengeance? Nothing had ever been heard of Vargus again. +For my part, I shared the opinion of the police bureaux of the +Continent, that the soft-voiced and malignant scoundrel was dead. + +It was pathetic to think of Danjuro prowling through life to avenge his +patron, wasting his magnificent powers upon a hopeless quest. Pathetic, +yes--so ran my thoughts--but one can't think of Danjuro as an ordinary +human being. He was simply a single idea, clothed in flesh, a marvellous +machine designed for one operation only, a specialist so perfect that he +became a monomaniac. + +Poor Van Adams, to protect and serve him had been Danjuro's whole life. +Every faculty of mind and body had been devoted to that one end. And yet +he must have loved the American to have served him so? And if he could +love he was human! + +I wrestled with the problem till dawn, and got no nearer a solution. I +knew that, despite our companionship in peril and the extraordinary +adventures we had gone through together, if Van Adams had lived and for +any reason had told Danjuro to put me out of the way, the little man +would have executed the job with neatness, dispatch, and an entire +absence of compunction. + +I decided that Danjuro, as a subject of psychological analysis, was +quite beyond me, and did my best to forget the incident. With an effort +I managed to do so, and got a few hours' sleep before Thumbwood called +me. I said nothing to him of having seen Danjuro, for he also is +unwilling to talk much of the days of terror--perhaps because his wife, +Wilson, that was, and is still, Connie's handmaid--so strenuously +objects to it. + +About half-past eleven I left the hotel and strolled to the foot of the +funicular railway which hauls one up from the narrow ledge of land on +which Monte Carlo stands to the heights of La Turbie. I designed to +lunch at the excellent hotel at the top in the clear mountain air, and +then to walk along the Upper Corniche towards Roquebrune, Eze, and the +mountains above Mentone. There is much to explore in these high +regions--ruins of Roman and medieval forts, built as a defence against +the raiding Moors of the Mediterranean, and here and there delightful +villas among pine-woods and olive groves, far from the haunts of men. + +It was a house of this description, a mountain hermitage, that I wished +to find and take for six months. I knew that they were occasionally to +be let, but somewhat difficult to come across upon the books of the +agents. In Monte Carlo I had been assured that personal exploration was +the best and quickest way. + +I lunched at La Turbie on a magnificent _bouillabaisse_ and +_riz-de-veau_, and after an interval set out upon my walk. It was a +magnificent afternoon, the air golden clear. Far away out to sea Corsica +lay like a dim cloud. The mountain side fell in terrace after terrace +of olives to groups of painted houses looking like toys. Away to the +right were the red roofs and gleaming white buildings of the Monte Carlo +palaces, and the promontory of the Tête du Chien was perfectly outlined +in the azure of the sea. + +"Yes," I thought, "upon this great height is the place to live when one +comes to the Côte d'Azur, and I won't go home to-night until I have +found something...." And I began to climb by a by-path. + +The afternoon was hot. After a mile or two I rested in the shade of a +great rock and fell asleep. When I awoke the sun, which sets early in +winter, even on the Riviera, was declining. I was not quite sure of my +direction, but thought that I could make Roquebrune by an oblique path +over the spur of the mountain, and from there easily descend to Cap +Martin and get a carriage, and take the tram which crawls along the +cliff to Monte Carlo. So I set out. + +The path, however, did not prove to be the right one, and it was +twilight, or that extremely short interval which does duty for it in the +south, before I came to three or four stone huts fronting a plateau with +an enclosure full of goats. I explained my predicament to a swarthy +woman who sat knitting at a door, and she gave me directions. She also +said, in mingled French and Italian, for the frontier was not five +miles away, that there would be a small empty villa to be let a mile +onwards--at least, she believed so. + +"Can you tell me the name of the owner, madame?" I asked. + +"But, no, m'sieu. It is a new gentleman. He has bought the villa and the +larger one, which is close to it but higher up the hill. He is a scholar +of some sort, and lives quite alone, so he cannot want the smaller house +on the road. It was, moreover, always let in the time of the last owner, +M. Visguis, of Nice." + +I thanked the good dame, refused a cup of goats' milk, gave her a +five-franc piece and started on my way again rejoicing. My luck was in. +This mountain châlet would be just the thing, and I made up my mind to +interview the recluse on my way home. + +The sun sank, and night came up with a rush out of the Mediterranean. +Everything was dead still. There are no birds in these solitudes, and +the hum of day insects was over. Although the moon rose almost at once +and gave sufficient light to steer by, the place was eerie. Immense +rocks threw ashen shadows. The stone pines stood like silent sentinels, +and the huge coronet of jewels--topaz against black velvet--that was +Monte Carlo seemed a hundred miles away. + +Following my directions, I came at length to the garden wall of a +fairly large villa, painted all along the sides, with gigantic and +melancholy trees, and the moonlight shed a ghostly radiance upon it. +This, I knew, was the house in occupation. The one that might be let was +lower down the slope and on the other side of the road--to my right. I +could just see the roof of it as I peered over the parapet. + +Pushing open a wooden gate, I went up the garden path towards the Villa +Turquoise--that I had discovered was its name. Tree frogs were croaking +round the house, but as it was winter, there were no friendly fireflies; +once or twice the fans of a palm clicked with a dry, rustling noise. + +It was difficult to find the door as I came up to the villa, but after a +moment, I saw a broad band of yellow light coming from the side, and +turned towards it. I walked upon the turf of a little lawn, and threaded +my way between orange and pepper trees, with here and there a bush of +Cape gooseberries. + +And up to that moment I never had a suspicion or a qualm. Indeed, I felt +at peace with myself and all the world, washed and purified by the sweet +Alpine air and all the loveliness my eyes had looked upon that day. Then +I heard, clear, strong and sudden, a chord of music on a piano. + +I stopped dead still. + +Again that crash of sound, and then a smooth and mellow arpeggio, as +masterly fingers ran up and down the keys of a magnificent instrument. + +I grew cold, suddenly and horribly cold. + +I could see nothing but a long French window glowing orange with light +in the dark side of the house. I had heard nothing but some chords upon +a grand piano. + +But in that moment, though subconsciously, I _knew_. + +I moved forward in little automatic jerks, listening with a dreadful +fear, a sick certainty. The second before I came to the window and +looked inside, it began. + +Played by a master hand, I heard the opening notes of the Third Ballade +of Chopin.... + +Another step, and, in the darkness myself, I could see into the room. + +The musician was Mr. Vargus. + +He had grown a little moustache, which was waxed at the ends, and a +small black imperial on his chin. He was also much fatter than when I +had seen him last, and he wore a smoking jacket of purple velvet. On one +finger was a diamond ring, which flashed in the lamplight as the firm, +powerful hands rose and fell. + +There was a soft smile in the sly eyes as he interpreted the beautiful, +fantastic music. + +I am going to tell you what happened without comment or any reference +whatever to my own feelings. + +The melody progressed to that marvellous passage which Beardsley saw in +line as a white horse ambling through a dark wood of pines, ridden by a +lady in a dress of black velvet. + +At the opening chords of the theme a door behind the player opened +quietly. He heard nothing. + +An awful and august figure entered. + +It was Danjuro, but not the Danjuro I had ever known. + +He wore a robe of yellow silk with wide kimono sleeves, and a sash of +purple round his waist. Into the sash was thrust the long scabbard of an +ancient Japanese sword--a scabbard of tortoise-shell and silver. His +hair was differently arranged, his lips compressed into a single line. +The eyes, which seemed curiously elongated, glittered like black lacquer +in a high light. + +He crept forward and touched Vargus on the shoulder. + +The man in the velvet coat leapt up with a short, sharp cry. Then he +whipped round and came face to face with Danjuro. + +They remained, staring into each other's eyes for several seconds. + +I saw a ghostly change beginning in the pirate's face. Inch by inch +something crept over it like a veil as life ebbed away. Then he fell in +a crumpled heap upon the carpet. + +The Japanese looked down at him without a change in his dreadful stony +glare. Then he bent down and pulled the limp form out straight, turning +it with its face downwards. He drew the sword and lifted it high above +his head. + +As it gleamed I shut my eyes.... + +When I looked again, sick with the sickness of death itself, the figure +in the yellow robe had raised both arms above its head. The sleeves had +slipped away and the coils of muscle stood out upon the brown flesh. + +Danjuro's lips were parted. He seemed to be speaking rapidly to +something above him. His whole face was irradiated with joy, and the +sword in his right hand shone like a tall flame. + +He remained there for some little time. Then he lowered his arms, and +taking a square of purple silk from his breast, he cleansed the sword, +and I knew what he was going to do. + +He placed the jewelled hilt upon the carpet and adjusted the point at +his waist, steadying the blade with his left hand. Then, with a loud +cry, as if of exaltation, he fell heavily forward.... + +He had gone to his own place in the way appointed to the Heroes of Old +Japan. + + +THE END + + +PRINTED AT + +THE CHAPEL RIVER PRESS + +KINGSTON, SURREY. + + +PATERNOSTER HOUSE, +PATERNOSTER ROW, +LONDON, E.C. +_July, 1919_. + + + + +ADVERTISEMENTS + + +Messrs. HURST & BLACKETT'S + +ANNOUNCEMENTS + +OF + +NEW BOOKS _FOR THE AUTUMN OF 1919_ + + +An Important Book + +By HARRY FURNISS + +My Bohemian Days + +With over 120 illustrations from original and characteristic drawings by +this famous artist. + +_In one volume, demy cloth_, +16s.+ _net_. + +As a famous caricaturist and humorous artist the author has intimate +knowledge of the life of which he writes. He knew Bohemia from the +inside, and was closely associated with many of the interesting people +who are introduced into his book. He carries his humour into his +writing, and there are numbers of good stories to help him. The book not +only makes enjoyable reading, but it also throws a good deal of light on +a number of well-known characters in the world of Bohemia and the +atmosphere in which they lived. The many drawings by the author which +illustrate the book are a special feature, and greatly add to its +interest. + + +_A New Volume of the famous_ + +Memoirs of William Hickey + +Edited by ALFRED SPENCER + +_In demy 8vo, cloth gilt_, +15s.+ _net_. + +This third volume continues the memoirs from 1782, and will be found as +fascinating as those which have already been published. It contains much +interesting matter concerning East India in the old Colonial days, and a +number of interesting letters arising out of the retention of Hickey and +his companion, Charlotte Barry, as prisoners by the French on their way +out to Calcutta. It is possible that the work may be completed with this +volume, but a fourth volume may perhaps be necessary. The price of the +present volume has, owing to increased costs of production, been +advanced to 15s. net, and the price of the first two volumes has also +had to be increased. + + _Reprints are now ready of Vol. I. (the Third Edition) and Vol. II. + (the Second Edition) (1749 to 1782), each in demy 8vo, cloth gilt, + 15s. net. Vol. II. contains photogravure portraits._ + +A few short extracts from scores of columns of Reviews: + + _The Athenæum_: "One of the most interesting eighteenth-century + documents that have appeared for some time." + + _The Times_: "Fascinating for its honesty and vividness; it is + difficult to give any idea of the spontaneous vivacity of the + narration; it is of remarkable interest." + + _The Spectator_: "Deserves, both for its human and historical + interest, to be widely studied." + + _Daily Telegraph_: "A 'find' of really important interest, likely + to take an important place among eighteenth-century documents." + + _Manchester Guardian_: "For colour and zest these memoirs would be + hard to beat; were they fiction they would be called 'unmatchable + pictures of the time.'" + + _The Globe_: "A glorious book. Its period is a little later than + Tom Jones, but the splendid rollicking spirit is the same. No lover + of English literature can fail to enjoy to the utmost the virile + jolly picture it represents." + + _Daily Express_: "One of the most absorbingly interesting books of + recent times." + + +_A delightful volume_ + +By LADY CATHERINE MILNES GASKELL + +A Woman's Soul + +By the Author of "Friends Round the Wrekin," "A Shropshire Lass and +Lad," etc. + +_In demy, cloth_, +16s.+ _net_. + +Under a thin guise of fiction Lady Catherine Milnes Gaskell has written +a most sympathetic and entertaining account of her experiences during +the war, and those of her friends and neighbours. Like many other ladies +of position she threw herself heart and soul into the every-day drudgery +of hospital work and the numerous duties of those who undertook the +responsibilities of large country estates in the absence of their +owners; and she gives us in a most delightful story a very true insight +into the activities, thoughts and feelings of a class which did a great +deal of war work, and said very little about it. + +Her previous books have already established her as a close observer of +human nature and a writer with a wide, tolerant outlook and a style of +unusual distinction. + +Some Press opinions on the Author's work: + + "The book, fresh and alive, reads as if it were an actual record of + her life."--_Times._ + + "It is the real thing that interests this pleasant author, the real + aspect of nature, the real romance of the countryside, the real + meaning of life."--_Daily Telegraph._ + + "All those who have read and liked her previous books will find the + same fragrance the same chatty friendliness, the same easy + niceness."--_Observer._ + + "All that she writes she invests with an air of delicate + distinction."--_Spectator._ + + +Just Ready + +_A TIMELY AND IMPORTANT BOOK_ + +The New Traffic (Aircraft) + +By W. H. BERRY + +Editor of _The Car_ and _Aviation_ and Author of "Aircraft in War and +Commerce," "Fighting Aeroplanes," &c. + +_In cr. 8vo, bound with frontispiece and a wrapper in colours, +3s.+ +6d.+ +net._ + +One of the greatest problems of the day is to determine how aircraft can +be turned to the best advantage in the service of the country. The war +is over, but the days for the use of aircraft in the carrying of +passengers, goods, and mails, and for the convenience and pleasure of +the private user have only just begun. Mr. Berry's book deals with the +last year or two of aviation, the present position and what may be +expected in the future. Already passenger and mail services are being +established, and it will probably not be long before many men will be +using aeroplanes in the way they now use cars, only they will be able to +go where cars cannot, and at a much quicker pace. Mr. Berry's book is +for the general reader. He tells him what he will want to know, takes +him through actual flights, explains engines, controls, construction, +cross country and overseas flying, laws, rules and traffic regulations, +what cost of services will be, and how mail services already established +are working. Everything that a man wants to know who expects to fly on +his own account or who hopes to be taken up as a passenger will be found +here. The book is particularly timely in view of the enormous interest +now being taken by the press in the subject of the future uses of +aircraft. + + +_Just Published_ + +Elizabethan Ulster + +By LORD ERNEST HAMILTON + +Author of "The First Seven Divisions" (21st Edition), "The Soul of +Ulster," etc. + +_In demy 8vo, cloth, +16s.+ net._ + + "A very full and detailed story of the beginnings of Ulster he has + made a history, very lively and entertaining without sacrificing + anything of the seriousness with which it deserves to be + treated."--_Westminster Gazette._ + + "A detailed account of the amazingly complex affairs of Ulster + during Elizabeth's reign.... The book is a just picture of a + quaking bog of seething hatreds."--_Morning Post._ + + "A picturesque story of lawless chiefs, unruly clans, ruthless + soldiers, and crafty but bewildered statesmen."--_Athenæum._ + + "This history is studiously impartial ... a valuable and important + contribution to Irish history."--_Scotsman._ + + +NEW NOVELS + +For the AUTUMN, 1919. + +_Each in crown 8vo, cloth_, +6s. 9d.+ _net_. + + +Sanity Jane + +By COUNTESS BARCYNSKA + +Author of "The Honey Pot" (60th Thousand), "Love Maggy," etc. + +This novel is almost certain to be in very great demand. It is a live +book, and Sanity is a very real girl. The book is distinctive, and a +most intriguing situation is created when the man Sanity loves believes +her to be the woman--a stranger to him--who is to provide the +compromising circumstances necessary for his wife to obtain, "by +arrangement," her divorce. The author, in taking Sanity through her very +interesting career, deals in her characteristic manner with life and +people as one finds them to-day. + + +The Death Drum + +By MARGARET PETERSON + +Author of "To Love," "Butterfly Wings," "The Lure of the Little Drum," +etc. + +As in her last novel, "The Sword Points of Love," Miss Peterson has +chosen East Africa as the background for her new story. It is based on a +native superstition that very few white people know anything about, but +which may in time cause trouble. It has, at any rate, provided the +author with a fine idea for her novel, and she has made the best +possible use of it. The book is absorbingly interesting, full of +thrilling incident and adventure, and with many touches of native life +that are particularly effective, coming as they do from one who is +living among them. + + +Panther + +A Comedy of Morals + +By R. A. FOSTER-MELLIAR + +Author of "Blindstone," "And Betty Too," etc. + +A novel of country life, in which there is a good mixture of +love-making, hunting, intrigue, and almost murder. Two well-contrasted +and charming girls divide the honours as heroines, and uncertainty as to +what will happen to them is well kept up. There are some very +interesting characters capitally portrayed, and, above all, there is a +really good story well told in uncommonly good writing. + + +The Air Pirate + +By C. RANGER-GULL + +Author of "The Snare of the Fowler," etc. + +The author dates his story forward, when rapid transit and transport +will be carried on by air. One of the great points about it is that the +author is the first in the field with his idea. The Air Pirate, a +mysterious figure, who had been a daring airman in the Great War, has +his lair in Cornwall, and raids the Atlantic with a wonderful airship. +There is a love story, in which a young English baronet of the +Government Air Police is the hero and a beautiful young actress the +heroine. She is carried off to Cornwall by the pirate, who is in love +with her, in his airship, and then follow many thrilling adventures in +the efforts of her young lover to discover her. One sensation follows +another rapidly, and the reader is kept in breathless suspense all +through. It is the best thing the author has yet done. + + +Love and the Cardinal + +By J. H. SYMONS + +Author of "The Supreme Mystery" + +A story of the days of Cardinal Wolsey and the Court of Henry VIII. It +will appeal to all who like a good historical romance. The hero, a young +esquire, finds Wolsey, when he was but a poor parish priest, in the +village pillory and sets him free. When next they meet, Wolsey is the +powerful Cardinal, and the hero has been condemned to torture for trying +to save the Duke of Buckingham, whose daughter he worships. Wolsey helps +the hero and brings him to Court. There are plottings and jealousies and +narrow escapes, but in the end Love is triumphant. + + +Spade Work + +By Mrs. HENRY DUDENEY + +Author of "Candlelight," etc. + +Another of the Author's stories of Sussex + +Caroline Beech and her mother, with the airs of a duchess who has had to +do the work of a cook, and Enoch Wood, the musician who demands fame +above all things, and Juniper Sadgrove, with her glorious voice, are the +characters whose interplay form the plot of Mrs. Dudeney's latest novel. +She has set the scene in her loved Sussex, and her description of the +old-world village and its inhabitants is most delightful. Enoch's career +is the rock on which the ship of his love may be wrecked, but the +development of the story will hold the reader's attention to the last +page. + + +The Green Shoes of April + +By RACHEL SWETE MACNAMARA + +Author of "Morning Joy," "Lark's Gate," etc. + +An Irish love story out of the common, and with many ups and downs, but +with a happy ending. It is, as one expects from Miss Macnamara, +unusually well written with excellent character drawing. Jasper Lysaght +made a mistaken marriage with an actress when he was very young. They +hold together but a little while, when he meets his true mate, but a +maliciously interfering grandmother and wounded pride separate them. +They come together again and marry, Jasper believing himself free, but +his first wife reappears. All, however, comes right in the end. + + +Shooting Stars + +By SOPHIE KERR + +An intensely dramatic novel of married life--the story of Harleth +Crossey ("as self-willed as a shooting star and about as uncomfortable +around the house"), and his wife Marcia--she made all the concessions, +all the adjustments and all the compromises until--something happened. + +You might have called it a rebellion; it was a startling, if cruel +awakening as well. + + +The Master Mind + +By FERGUS HUME + +Author of "The Mystery of A Hansom Cab," "Heart of Ice." etc. + +In the working out of the plot and the discovery of the master mind of a +gang of thieves the author keeps the reader's attention firmly fixed. +The book is written carefully; there are no great improbabilities; the +characters are human, not too good and not impossibly wicked; the +heroine is a charming natural girl, the hero a nice boy. There is a +mystery surrounding a murder and theft, and it might all have happened. +A good readable story. + + +A Whirlwind of Passion + +By EDNA WORTHLEY UNDERWOOD + +The publishers have pleasure in introducing the author with this novel. +It is perhaps not too much to say that since "Quo Vadis," no more +powerful historical romance has been produced. The story is most +dramatic, and the central figure is the great Catherine. The reader is +given a clear insight into the Russian Court and its intrigues. The time +of the story is the dramatic moment when the reign of the Empress +Elizabeth was drawing to a close, and the throne was hanging in the +balance. The author has seized on this tense situation, and told a +wonderful story of love, of passion, of plotting and ruthless power, of +murder and sudden death. It is a brilliant book, full of life, movement +and colour, and it is of particular interest at the present time. + + +Green Ladies + +By DOUGLAS NEWTON + +Author of "The War Caché," etc. + +A charming story told in a delightful manner, recalling the work of +Henry Harland. The scene is in Hampshire, where some mystery attaches to +the lady owner of a house occupied temporarily by a much-travelled man, +who is recovering his health. How he becomes interested in the lady, how +he gradually discovers her story, how he labours to free her from the +cloud that oppresses her, and finally is made happy by her, is so +daintily and beautifully related, that one wishes to read many of the +pages over again. Mr. Douglas Newton goes a long step forward with this +novel, which reveals him in a new capacity. + + +Embers + +By JULES DEPREND + +_A novel that won a $10,000 prize in America._ + +This story of life among the French Canadians on the American border is +refreshingly outside the common run of novels. It is remarkable for its +terseness of expression and as a convincing piece of realism. It is as +strong and virile as Balzac, and its story so absorbing with its many +dramatic situations, that it holds the attention from beginning to end. +Against his father's wishes, the hero takes up a course of study with a +view to becoming a priest. During his holidays he sees much of a +neighbour's daughter, who had been a companion of his childhood. How he +succumbs, then decides to continue his studies abroad, and eventually +returns to his sweetheart and child is told in this powerful book, of +which it may be said that it is not only a fine piece of work, but one +of genius. + + +Firecracker Jane + +By ALICE CALHOUN HAINES + +A breathless romance of the Mexican border, with a spirited heroine, a +good sportswoman with a high sense of honour. How she is, under stress, +married by her Mexican cousin and plunged into the Mexican turmoil, +captured by a brutal revolutionist, and effects her escape, and how the +love tangle is unravelled, and she is left with her real love mate, +makes thrilling reading. The story is full of adventure, vivacious and +fresh. + + +The Cabin (La Barraca) + +By V. BLASCO IBANEZ + +Author of "+The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse+," etc. + +Over a Quarter of a Million copies of this author's work have already +been sold in English speaking countries. + +This may be said to be the masterpiece of a novelist who has established +himself as a great master. "The Cabin" was the book which first made +Ibanez's reputation outside Spain, and very large numbers of it have +been sold on the Continent and in America since its first appearance. It +is a vivid presentation of one side of Spanish life, and tells how a +hard-working farmer and his family are oppressed and wronged by his +neighbours, who had determined that the farm should not be tilled. +Disaster overtakes the family at the end of the conflict, and the +elemental theme of a blind communal hatred is thus worked out to its +logical conclusion. The story seems to write itself, so simply, and +perfectly is it done. It is a remarkable work of art. + + +The Terrible Island + +By BEATRICE GRIMSHAW + +Author of "In the Strange South Seas," "Red Bob of the Islands," etc. + +This story has all the charm and glamour of the South Seas and a +background of grim mystery, which make a plot full of thrills as well as +of delightful romance. "The Lady of Sea," who appears in such strange +fashion and so charms the hearts of Flower and Owen Ireland, is a +delicious heroine, whose romance will appeal to every reader, while +"Rocky Jim" is a remarkable character creation. A novel that will well +support the author's great reputation. + + ++Messrs. HURST & BLACKETT+ announce that they have taken over the +publication of the very popular book-- + +Honeymoon Dialogues + +By JAMES JAMES + +of which a large edition (the 10th) is now ready. _In crown 8vo. cloth, +with picture wrapper_, +4s. 6d.+ _net_. + + +_SOME VERY SUCCESSFUL NOVELS._ + +_Recently Published._ + + +The Holiday Husband + +2nd Edition By DOLF WYLLARDE + +"A story of such temptation as must come to many girls."--_Daily Mail._ + +"Dolf Wyllarde has treated a delicate subject with firmness and skill. +Every girl should read it."--_Ladies' Field._ + +"The subject is one suggested by the problems that assail the +independent girl of to-day. In the treatment the authoress +excels."--_Evening News._ + + +The Sword Points of Love + +2nd Edition By MARGARET PETERSON + +"A very striking book. A sense of the actual quite out of the common. By +far her best book."--_Daily News._ + +"A clever story set out with a sober reality which lends additional +effectiveness."--_Scotsman._ + + +Who Cares? + +3rd Edition By COSMO HAMILTON + +"The hero is a delightful character.... A vivid and arresting story, +assured of wide popularity."--_Lady._ + +"An entertaining holiday novel ... depicts the pleasure-loving Joan +cleverly and with agility."--_Evening News._ + + +Nurse Benson + +2nd Edition By JUSTIN HUNTLY McCARTHY + +"Translated into a novel with neat and dexterous hand ... the dialogue +sparkles and crackles exhilaratingly."--_Sketch._ + +"As effective in a book as on the stage."--_Yorkshire Post._ + +"A particularly readable novel ... exactly the kind for the holiday +kit."--_Morning Post._ + + +Morning Joy + +By RACHEL SWETE MACNAMARA + +"Desirée is a charming figure of youthful womanhood."--_Scotsman._ + +"A very readable story that should prove popular. The characterization +is very clever."--_Sheffield Telegraph._ + + +The Devil's Problem + +2nd Edition By MARGARET WESTRUP + +"Delicately and skilfully done ... shows a great deal of +cleverness."--_Westminster Gazette._ + +"Characters well drawn ... we admire the novel for diction and +balance."--_Times._ + +"Every woman reader will delight in this book. The characters are +remarkably well drawn."--_Ladies' Pictorial._ + + +The Stain By ELEANOR NEPEAN + +"An intriguing situation, readable and well handled, with much good +characterisation."--_Times._ + + +Hurst & Blackett's + +NEW 3/6 Net SERIES OF FAMOUS NOVELS + +_Each printed on good paper, cloth bound, with picture wrapper in +colours._ + +The Publishers have pleasure in announcing the issue of this new series +of very successful novels. They are as well produced as new 6/- +Editions. + +By GERTRUDE PAGE + +Whose Sales are now in the Second Million + +Winding Paths +Some There are-- +Where the Strange Roads Go Down +Follow After + + +By COSMO HAMILTON + +Scandal 5th Edition + + +By CYNTHIA STOCKLEY + +Poppy 177th Thousand +The Claw 128th Thousand + + +Also specially bound, 3/6 net. + +A Gift Edition of Gertrude Page's famous book + +Two Lovers and a Lighthouse + +Which has been described as one of the most beautiful love stories ever +written. + + +STANDARD BOOKS ON THE HORSE. + +By Capt. M. HORACE HAYES, F.R.C.V.S. + + +POINTS OF THE HORSE + +A Treatise on the Conformation, Movements, Breeds and Evolution of the +Horse, with 658 illustrations. Revised and enlarged edition, and 279 +illustrations added. 1 vol., super royal 8vo, cloth gilt and gilt top, ++34s.+ + + +VETERINARY NOTES. For Horse Owners + +An Illustrated Manual of Horse Medicine and Surgery written in simple +language. A New (the 8th) Edition, brought up to date by various Experts +in Veterinary Science. One vol., demy 8vo, cloth gilt. +15s.+ net, with +over 250 Illustrations. This notable work has maintained its supremacy +for 37 years. + + +STABLE MANAGEMENT AND EXERCISE: a Book for Horse Owners and Students + +_Revised and Enlarged Edition. Illustrated by Drawings and numerous +Reproductions of Photographs taken specially for this work. In one vol., +demy 8vo, cloth gilt._ +12s.+ _net_. + + +ILLUSTRATED HORSEBREAKING + +Revised and Enlarged Edition, with 130 Illustrations from Drawings by J. +H. OSWALD BROWN and from Photographs specially taken for the work. One +vol., demy 8vo, cloth gilt, +12s.+ net. + + +RIDING AND HUNTING + +_Revised and Enlarged Edition. In one vol., demy 8vo, cloth_, +16s.+ _net, +with upwards of 250 reproductions of Photographs and Drawings_. + + +FRIEDBERGER & FROHNER'S VETERINARY PATHOLOGY + +Translated and Edited by Captain HAYES. + +With notes on Bacteriology by Prof. R. TANNER HEWLETT, M.D., D.P.H. +Revised and Enlarged Edition, re-translated. 2 vols., demy 8vo, cloth +gilt, +21s.+ net. + + +By MRS. HAYES + +THE HORSEWOMAN: A Practical Guide. + +_Originally edited by the late Captain M. H. HAYES. Revised Edition, +Enlarged. In one vol., demy 8vo, cloth gilt_, +12s.+ _net, with 156 +illustrations_. + + +By JAMES FILLIS + +_Ecuyer en chef to the Central Cavalry School at St. Petersburg._ + + +BREAKING AND RIDING. With Military Commentaries. + +_Translated by Captain M. H. HAYES. With 70 illustrations from +Photographs and Sketches taken on the spot. In one vol., demy 8vo, cloth +gilt_, +16s.+ _net_. + +"A higher authority there could not be."--_Field._ + + +MODERN POLO By Capt. E. D. MILLER + +In demy, 8 vo, cloth gilt, with about 150 illustrations and diagrams of +which over 50 are entirely new to the work, +16s.+ net. + + +Hurst & Blackett's 2/- NET Novels + +_Each volume bound, and with a most attractive picture wrapper in +colours._ + + +Fate and Drusilla + +By Alice and Claude Askew + + +Love Maggy + +By Countess Barcynska + + +The Golden Triangle + +By Maurice Le Blanc + + +The Crystal Stopper + +By Maurice Le Blanc + + +The Bombshell + +By Maurice Le Blanc + + +To Right the Wrong + +By Edna Lyall + + +In Spite of All + +By Edna Lyall + + +Love's Burden + +By Margaret Peterson + + +Fate and the Watcher + +By Margaret Peterson + + +Love Wins + +By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + + +Bequeathed + +By Beatrice Whitby + + +Hurst & Blackett's 2/- Novels + +Already Published. + +Each volume bound and with a most attractive picture wrapper + + +Drusilla's Point of View By Madame Albanesi +A Question of Quality Madame Albanesi +The Honey Pot Countess Barcynska +The Youngest Miss Mowbray Mrs. B. M. Croker +Red Bob of the Islands Beatrice Grimshaw +Behold and See Lilith Hope +Heart of Ice Fergus Hume +The Hardy Norseman Edna Lyall +Knight Errant Edna Lyall +We Two Edna Lyall +Won by Waiting Edna Lyall +In the Golden Days Edna Lyall +Donovan Edna Lyall +Two Lovers and a Lighthouse Gertrude Page +The Edge O' Beyond Gertrude Page +Paddy the Next Best Thing Gertrude Page +Love in the Wilderness Gertrude Page +The Silent Rancher Gertrude Page +The Rhodesian Gertrude Page +The Great Splendour Gertrude Page +To Love Margaret Peterson +Butterfly Wings Margaret Peterson +Spies of the Kaiser Wm. Le Queux +Secrets of the Foreign Office Wm. Le Queux +The House of the Wicked Wm. Le Queux +The Man from Downing Street Wm. Le Queux +The Devil's Carnival Wm. Le Queux +The Ides of March Mrs. Baillie Reynolds +Worlds End Amelie Rives + (Princess Troubetzkoy) +Shadows of Flames Amelie Rives + (Princess Troubetzkoy) +Pan's Mountain Amelie Rives + (Princess Troubetzkoy) +The Long Lane's Turning Hallie Erminie Rives +Lavender's Love Story Effie Adelaide Rowlands +The Man with the Money Effie Adelaide Rowlands +The Woman Who Lived Again Lindsay Russell +The Turnstile of Night Mrs. C. N. Williamson + + +Also by WM. LE QUEUX + +The Life Story of the Ex-Crown Princess of Saxony + +Told by Herself and related by Wm. Le Queux. + + ++Rasputin+ (The amazing true story of the Rascal Monk) + +180th Thousand + + +And a New Volume + +The Secret Shame of the Kaiser + + This Book of startling revelations, which is probably destined to + be as popular as the Author's +"Rasputin," the Rascal Monk+ (180th + thousand), is now published for the first time. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Air Pirate, by Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40361 *** |