"Do get rid of the girl! Can't you see that she's highly dangerous!"
whispered the tall, rather overdressed man as he glanced furtively
across the small square shop set with little tables, dingy in the haze
of tobacco-smoke. It was an obscure, old-fashioned little restaurant in
one of London's numerous byways--a resort of Germans, naturalised and
otherwise, "the enemy in our midst," as the papers called them.
"I will. I quite agree. My girl may know just a little too much--if we
are not very careful."
"Ah! she knows far too much already, Drost, thanks to your ridiculous
indiscretions," growled the dark-eyed man beneath his breath. "They
will land you before a military court-martial--if you are not careful!"
"Well, I hardly think so. I'm always most careful--most silent and
discreet," and he grinned evilly.
"True, you are a good Prussian--that I know; but remember that Ella has,
unfortunately for us, very many friends, and she may talk--women's talk,
you know. We--you and I--are treading very thin ice. She is, I
consider, far too friendly with that young fellow Kennedy. It's
dangerous--distinctly dangerous to us--and I really wonder that you
allow it--you, a patriotic Prussian!"
And, drawing heavily at his strong cigar, he paused and examined its
white ash.
"Allow it?" echoed the elder man. "How, in the name of Fate, can I
prevent it? Suggest some means to end their acquaintanceship, and I am
only too ready to hear it."
The man who spoke, the grey-haired Dutch pastor, father of Ella Drost,
the smartly-dressed girl who was seated chatting and laughing merrily
with two rather ill-dressed men in the farther corner of the little
smoke-dried place, grunted deeply. To the world of London he posed as a
Dutchman. He was a man with a curiously triangular face, a big square
forehead, with tight-drawn skin and scanty hair, and broad heavy
features which tapered down to a narrow chin that ended in a pointed,
grey, and rather scraggy beard.
Theodore Drost was about fifty-five, a keen, active man whose
countenance, upon critical examination, would have been found to be
curiously refined, intelligent, and well preserved. Yet he was shabbily
dressed, his long black clerical coat shiny with wear, in contrast with
the way in which his daughter--in her fine furs and clothes of the
latest mode--was attired. But the father, in all grades of life, is
usually shabby, while his daughter--whatever be her profession--looks
smart, be it the smartness of Walworth or that of Worth.
As his friend, Ernst Ortmann, had whispered those warning words he had
glanced across at her, and noting how gaily she was laughing with her
two male friends, a cigarette between her pretty lips, he frowned.
Then he looked over to the man who had thus urged discretion.
The pair were seated at a table, upon which was a red-bordered cloth,
whereon stood two half-emptied "bocks" of that light beer so dear to the
Teuton palate. They called it "Danish beer," not to offend English
customers.
The girl whose smiles they were watching was distinctly pretty. She was
about twenty-two, with a sweet, eminently English-looking face, fair and
quite in contrast with the decidedly foreign, beetle-browed features of
the two leering loafers with whom she sat laughing.
Theodore Drost, to do him justice, was devoted to his daughter, who,
because of her childish aptitude, had become a dancer on the lowest
level of the variety stage, a touring company which visited fifth-rate
towns. Yet, owing to her discovered talent, she had at last graduated
through the hard school of the Lancashire "halls," to what is known as
the "syndicate halls" of London.
From a demure child-dancer at an obscure music-hall in the outer
suburbs, she had become a noted revue artiste, a splendid dancer, who
commanded the services of her own press-agent, who in turn commanded
half-a-dozen lines in most of the London morning papers, both her
prestige and increased salary following in consequence. The British
public so little suspect the insidious influence of the press-agent in
the formation of modern genius. The press-agent has, in the past, made
many a mediocre fool into a Birthday Baronet, or a "paid-for Knight,"
and more than one has been employed in the service of a Cabinet
Minister. Oh what sheep we are, and how easily we are led astray!
On that wintry night, Ella Drost--known to the theatre-going public as
Stella Steele, the great revue artiste whose picture postcards were
everywhere--sat in that stuffy, dingy little restaurant in Soho, sipping
a glass of its pseudo-Danish lager, and laughing with the two
unpresentable men before her.
Outside the unpretentious little place was written up the single word
"Restaurant." Its proprietor a big, full-blooded, fair-bearded son of
the Fatherland, had kept it for twenty years, and it had been the
evening rendezvous of working-class Germans--waiters, bakers, clerks,
coiffeurs, jewellers, and such-like.
Here one could still revel in Teuton delicacies, beer brewed in Hamburg,
but declared to be "Danish," the succulent German liver sausage, the
sausage of Frankfort--boiled in pairs of course--the palatable
sauerkraut with the black sour bread of the Fatherland to match.
"I wish you could get rid of Kennedy," said Ortmann, as he again, in
confidence, bent across the table towards Ella's father. "I believe
she's in collusion with him."
"No," laughed the elder man, "I can't believe that. Ella is too good a
daughter of the Fatherland." He was one of Germany's chief agents in
England, and had much money in secret at his command.
Ortmann screwed up his eyes and pursed his lips. He was a shrewd,
clever man, and very difficult to deceive.
"Money is at stake, my dear Drost," he whispered very slowly--"big
money. But there is love also. And I believe--nay, I'm sure--that
Kennedy loves her."
"Bah! utterly ridiculous!" cried her father. "I don't believe that for
a single moment. She's only fooling him, as she has fooled all the
others."
"All right. But I've watched. You have not," was the cold reply.
From time to time the attractive Ella, on her part, glanced across at
her father, who was whispering with his overdressed companion, and, to
the keen observer, it would have been apparent that she was only smoking
and gossiping with that pair of low-bred foreigners for distinct
purposes of her own.
The truth was that, with her woman's instinct, feminine cleverness and
ingenuity, she, being filled with the enthusiasm of affection for her
aviator-lover, was playing a fiercely desperate part as a staunch and
patriotic daughter of Great Britain.
The hour was late. She had hurried from the theatre in a taxi, the
carmine still about her pretty lips, her eyes still darkened beneath,
and the greasepaint only roughly rubbed off. The great gold and white
theatre near Leicester Square, where, clad in transparencies, she was
"leading lady" in that most popular revue "Half a Moment!" had been
packed to suffocation, as indeed it was nightly. Officers and men home
on leave from the battle-front all made a point of seeing the pretty,
sweet-faced Stella Steele, who danced with such artistic movement, and
who sang those catchy patriotic songs of hers, the stirring choruses of
which even reached the ears of the Bosches in their trenches. And in
many a British dug-out in Flanders there was hung a programme of the
revue, or a picture postcard of the seductive Stella.
There were, perhaps, other Stella Steeles on the stage, for the name
was, after all, not an uncommon one, but this star of the whole Steele
family had arisen from the theatrical firmament since the war. She, the
laughing girl who, that night, sat in that obscure, smoke-laden little
den of aliens in Soho, was earning annually more than the "pooled"
salary of a British Cabinet Minister.
That Stella was a born artiste all agreed--even her agent, that fat
cigar-smoking Hebrew cynic who regarded all stage women as mere cattle
out of whom he extracted commissions. To-day nobody can earn unusual
emoluments in any profession without real merit assisted by a capable
agent.
Stella Steele was believed by all to be thoroughly British. Nobody had
ever suspected that her real name was Drost, nor that her bespectacled
and pious father had been born in Stuttgart, and had afterwards become
naturalised as a Dutchman before coming to England. The
cigarette-smoking male portion of the khaki-clad crowd who so loudly
applauded her every night had no idea that their idol had been born in
Berlin. Isaac Temple, the mild-mannered press-agent whom she employed,
had always presented her, both to press and public, and sent those
artistic photographs of hers to the Sunday illustrated papers, as
daughter of a London barrister who had died suddenly, leaving her
penniless. Thus had the suspicious connection with Drost been always
carefully suppressed, and Ella lived very quietly in her pretty flat in
Stamfordham Mansions, situate just off the High Street in Kensington.
Her father--her English mother, whom she had adored, being long ago
dead--lived a quiet, secluded life in one of those rather large houses
which may be found on the south side of the Thames between Putney and
Richmond. Pastor Drost had, it was believed by the Dutch colony in
London, been a missionary for some years in Sumatra, and, on more than
one occasion, he had lectured upon the native life of that island.
Therefore he had many friends among Dutch merchants and others, who all
regarded him as a perfectly honest and even pious, if rather eccentric,
man.
At times he wore big round horn-rimmed glasses which grossly magnified
his eyes, giving him a strange goggled appearance. The world, however,
never knew that Pastor Drost's only daughter was that versatile dancer
who, dressed in next-to-nothing, nightly charmed those huge enthusiastic
audiences in the popular revue, "Half a Moment!"
Until three months after the outbreak of war Ella had regarded her
father's idiosyncrasies with some amusement, dismissing them as the
outcome of a mind absorbed in chemical experiment, for though none save
herself was aware of it, the long attic beneath the roof of her father's
house--the door of which Theodore Drost always kept securely locked--was
fitted as a great chemical laboratory, where he, as a professor of
chemistry, was constantly experimenting.
After the outbreak of war, by reason of a conversation she one day
overheard between her father and his mysterious visitor, Ernst Ortmann,
her suspicions had become aroused. Strange suspicions they indeed were.
But in order to obtain confirmation of them, she had become more
attached to her father, and had visited him far more frequently than
before, busying herself in his domestic affairs, and sometimes assisting
the old widow, Mrs Pennington, who acted as his single servant.
Two years prior to the war, happening upon that house, which was to be
sold cheap, Ella had purchased it, ready furnished as it was, and given
it as a present to her father as a place in which he might spend his old
age in comfort. But until that night when she had overheard the curious
conversation--which she had afterwards disclosed in confidence to her
lover, Lieutenant Seymour Kennedy, Flight-Commander of the Naval Air
Service--she had never dreamed that her father, the good and pious
Dutchman who had once been a missionary, was an enemy alien, whose plans
were maturing in order to assist a great and desperate conspiracy
organised by the secret service of the German Fatherland.
On a certain well-remembered November evening she had revealed to
Kennedy the truth, and they had both made a firm compact with each
other. The plotter was her father, it was true. But she was a daughter
of Great Britain, and it was for her to combat any wily and evil plot
which might be formed against the land which had given birth to her
adored mother.
She loved Seymour Kennedy. A hundred men had smiled upon her, bent over
her little hand, written to her, sent her flowers and presents, and
declared to her their undying affection. It is ever so. The popular
actress always attracts both fools and fortunes. But Ella, level-headed
girl as she was, loved only Seymour, and had accepted the real,
whole-hearted and honest kisses which he had imprinted upon her lips.
Seymour Kennedy was a gentleman before being an officer, which could
not, alas! be said of all the men in the services in war-time.
Ella Drost was no fool, her dead mother had always instilled into her
mind that, though born of a German father, yet she was British, an
argument which, if discussed legally, would have been upset, because,
having, unfortunately, been born in Berlin, she was certainly a subject
of the German octopus. At the time of her birth her father had occupied
a very important position among professors--half the men in the
Fatherland were professors of something or other--yet Drost had been
professor of chemistry at the Imperial Arsenal at Spandau--that great
impregnable fortress in which the French war indemnity of 1870 had been
locked up as the war-chest of golden French louis.
How strange it was! And yet it was not altogether strange. Ella, whose
heart--the heart of a true British girl trained at her mother's knee--
had discovered a curious "something" and, aided by her British airman
lover, was determined to carry on her observations, at all hazards, to
the point of ascertaining the real truth.
England was at war at the battle-front--and she, a mere girl, was at war
with the enemy in its midst.
Three-quarters of an hour later Ella--whose comfortable car was waiting
outside the dingy little place--had driven her father home, but on the
way she expressed her decision to stay with him, as it was late and her
French maid, Mariette, had no doubt gone to bed.
As they stood in her father's large, well-furnished dining-room, Ella
drew some lemonade from a siphon and then, declaring that she was
sleepy, said she would retire.
"All right, my dear," replied the old man. "All right. You'll find
your room quite ready for you. I always order that it shall be kept
ready for you. Let's see! You were here a week ago--so the bed will
not be damp."
The girl bent and imprinted a dutiful kiss upon her father's white brow,
but, next instant, set her teeth, and in her blue eyes--though he did
not see it--there showed a distinct light of suspicion.
Then she switched on the light on the stairs, loosened her furs, and
ascended to the well-furnished room that was always regarded as hers.
The room in which Ella found herself was large, with a fine double
wardrobe, a long cheval-glass, and a handsome mahogany dressing-table.
The curtains and upholstery were in pale-blue damask, while the thick
plush carpet was of a darker shade.
Instead of retiring, Ella at once lit the gas-stove, glanced at her
wristlet-watch, the face of which was set round with diamonds, and then
flung herself into a deep armchair to think, dozing off at last, tired
out by the exertion of her dancing.
The striking of the little gilt clock upon the mantelshelf presently
aroused her, and, rising, she switched off the light and, creeping upon
tiptoe, slowly opened her bedroom door and listened attentively.
Somewhere she could hear the sound of men's voices. One she recognised
as her father's.
"That's Nystrom again! That infernal hell-fiend!" she whispered
breathlessly to herself.
Then, removing her smart shoes and her jingling bangles, she crept
stealthily forth along the soft carpet of the corridor, and with great
care ascended the stairs to the floor above, which was occupied by that
long room, the door of which was always kept locked--the room in which
her father conducted his constant experiments.
From the ray of light she saw that the door was ajar. Within, the two
men were talking in low deep tones in German.
She could hear a hard sound, as of metal being filed down, and more than
once distinguished the clinking of glass, as though her father was
engaged in some experiment with his test-tubes and other scientific
paraphernalia which she had seen arranged so methodically upon the two
long deal tables.
"What has Ortmann told you?" asked Theodore Drost's midnight visitor,
while his daughter stood back within the long cupboard on the landing,
listening.
"He says that all is in order. We have a friend awaiting us."
"And the payment--eh?" asked the man Nystrom, a German who had been
naturalised as a Swede, and now lived in London as a neutral. As a
professor of chemistry he had been well-known in Stockholm and, being a
bosom friend of the Dutch pastor's, the pair often delighted in dabbling
together in their favourite science.
"I shall meet Ernst on Friday night. If we are successful, he will pay
two thousand pounds--to be equally divided between us."
"Good," grunted the other. "We shall be successful, never fear--that is
if Ortmann has arranged things at his end. _Himmel_! what a shock it
will be--eh, my friend?--worse than the Zeppelins!"
Theodore Drost laughed gleefully, while his daughter, daring to creep
forward again, peered through the crack of the door and saw the pair
bending over what looked like a square steel despatch-box standing upon
the table amid all the scientific apparatus.
The box, about eighteen inches long, a foot wide, and six inches deep,
was khaki-covered, and, though she was not aware of it at the time, it
was of the exact type used in the Government offices.
Fridtjof Nystrom, a tall, dark-haired man, with a red, blotchy face,
rather narrow-eyed and round-shouldered, was adjusting something within
the box, while old Drost, who had discarded his shabby black pastor's
coat and now wore a dark-brown jacket, took up a small glass retort
beneath which the blue flame of a spirit-lamp had been burning, and from
it he poured a few drops of some bright red liquid into a tiny tube of
very thin glass. Then, taking a small blow-pipe, he blew the flame upon
the tube until he had melted the glass and sealed it hermetically.
The blotchy-faced man watched this latter operation with great interest,
saying:
"Have a care now, my dear Theodore. The least mishap, and not a piece
of either of us would remain to tell the story."
"_Ja_! Leave that to me," answered Ella's father. "We do not, I agree,
desire a repetition of the disaster which happened last week."
Ella, hearing those words, stood aghast.
A week before all London had been mystified and horrified by a most
remarkable explosion which had occurred one night in a house in one of
the outer suburbs, whereby the place had been set on fire and utterly
demolished. Whoever were present in the house had been blown to atoms,
for no trace of the occupants, or of what had caused the disaster, had
been discovered. At first it was believed to have been caused by an
incendiary bomb dropped from the air, but expert evidence quickly
established the fact that something within the house had exploded.
Was it possible that her father and his dastardly companions possessed
knowledge of what had actually occurred there?
Suddenly, Drost having handed the tiny sealed tube to Nystrom, the
latter proceeded to place it in position within the box, using most
infinite care. Then her father turned upon his heel, and came forward
to the door behind which his daughter was standing.
In a second Ella had shrunk back noiselessly into the cupboard, which
the old man passed in the darkness, and descended the stairs.
He had passed the door of Ella's room when, having gained the bottom of
the stairs, he paused and whistled softly. In a few seconds Nystrom
came forth.
"Come, Fridtjof," he urged in a low whisper. "Let us drink to the
success of our expedition to-night, and the victory of our dear
Fatherland," an invitation which his visitor at once accepted.
Ella heard the two men descend, making but little noise, and a moment
later she crept into the long, well-lit laboratory where, upon the
table, stood the big official-looking despatch-box.
A second's glance was sufficient to reveal the truth even to her, a
woman unversed as she was in such things. It was a most
ingeniously-constructed infernal machine which would detonate the
quantity of high-explosive which she saw had been placed within.
Though her father had taken the greatest precaution to conceal from his
daughter the exact line of his chemical experiments, yet, if the truth
be told, Ella and her lover had watched carefully, and Kennedy--who had
shared his well-beloved's suspicions--had ascertained, without doubt,
that Drost and Nystrom had been engaged in that long, low room beneath
the roof, in treating toluene with nitric and sulphuric acid for several
days under heat thus producing tri-nitro-toluene--or trotul--that modern
high-explosive, of terrible force, which was rapidly superseding picric
acid as a base for shell-fillers.
At a glance Ella saw that the square steel bomb, fashioned like an
official despatch-box, was filled with this highly dangerous explosive,
and that the thin glass tube which, when broken, would explode it, had
already been placed in position. Such a bomb, on exploding in a
confined space, must work the most terrible havoc.
In those few seconds the girl verified the suspicion which Kennedy had
entertained. Some desperate outrage was to be committed. That was
quite certain.
A bomb from a Zeppelin could not cause greater injury to life and
property than that ingeniously contrived machine, the delicately
constructed fuse of which, fashioned on the lathe by her father's own
hands, could be arranged to detonate at any given time.
A second's pause, and then the girl, beneath her breath, took a deep
oath of vengeance against the ruler of that hated land wherein she had
been born.
"Thank Heaven that I am English!" she whispered to herself. "And I will
live--and die, if necessary--as an English girl should."
With those words upon her lips she crept away from the laboratory, down
the stairs to her room, and, swiftly putting on her fur coat, she went
into the basement, from which she let herself out noiselessly, and then
hurried through the night, in the direction of Hammersmith Bridge.
On gaining the bridge, she saw the red rear-light of a motor-car, and
knew that it was Kennedy's. He had drawn up against the kerb, and had
been consuming cigarettes waiting in impatience for a long time.
"Well, darling?" he asked, as they met. "I got your message from the
theatre to-night. What is in progress?"
"Something desperate," was her quick reply. "Let's get into the car and
I'll explain."
Both entered the comfortable little coupe, and then Ella explained in
detail to her flying-man lover all that she had discovered.
The keen-faced, clean-shaven young officer in uniform who, before he had
gone in for aviation duties, had graduated at Osborne, and afterwards
been at sea and risen from "snotty" to lieutenant, sat beside her,
listening intently.
"Just as we thought, darling," he remarked. "For me, loving you so
dearly, it is a terrible thing to know that your father is such a deadly
and ingenious enemy of ours as he is. Truly the German plotters are in
our midst in every walk of life, from high society down to the scum of
the East End. The brutes are out to win the war by any underhand,
subtle, and brutal means in their power. But we have discovered one
line of their enemy intentions and, with your aid, dearest, we will
follow it up and, without exposing your father and bringing disgrace
upon you, we'll set out to combat them every time."
"Agreed, dear," declared the girl with patriotic enthusiasm. "I have
told you all along of my suspicions. To-night they are verified.
Father, and that devilish scoundrel, Nystrom, mean mischief--for payment
too--one thousand pounds each!"
"The infernal brutes!" exclaimed the man at her side. "At least it is
to you, dear, that this discovery is due. I had no idea what you were
after when you sent me that wire to-night."
"I suspected, and my suspicions have proved correct," said the girl.
"Shall we wait here and follow them? They must cross the river if they
intend to go into London to-night--as no doubt they do."
"Yes. They believe you to be soundly asleep, I suppose?"
"I locked my door, and have the key in my pocket," replied his
well-beloved with a light laugh.
And she, putting her ready lips to his, sat with him in the car at the
foot of the long suspension-bridge, waiting for any person to cross.
They remained there for perhaps half-an-hour, ever eager and watchful.
Several taxis passed, but otherwise all was quiet in the night. Now and
then across the sky fell the big beams of searchlights seeking enemy
aircraft, and these they were watching, when, suddenly, a powerful,
dark-painted car approached.
"Look!" cried Ella. "Why, that's that fellow Benyon's car--he's a
friend of Dad's!"
Next moment it flashed past, and beneath the dim light at the head of
the bridge they both caught a glimpse of two men within, one of whom was
undoubtedly Theodore Drost.
"Quick!" cried Ella. "Let's follow them! Fortunately you have to-night
another car, unknown to them!"
In an instant Seymour Kennedy had started his engine, and slowly he drew
out across the bridge, speeding after the retreating car over the river,
along Bridge Road to Hammersmith Broadway and through Brook Green, in a
direction due north.
Through the London streets it was not difficult at that hour to follow
the red tail-light of the car in which Drost sat with his bosom friend
George Benyon, a mysterious person who seemed to be an adventurer, and
who lived somewhere in York or its vicinity.
"I wonder if they are going up to York?" Ella asked, as she sat in the
deep seat of the coupe at her lover's side.
"We'll see. If they get on to the North Road we shall at once know
their intentions," was her lover's reply.
Half-an-hour later the pseudo-Dutch pastor and his companion, driven by
rather a reckless young fellow, were on the main Great North Road, and
Kennedy, possessing a lighter and superior car, had no misgivings as to
overtaking them whenever he wished.
On through the night they went, passing Barnet, Hatfield, Hitchin, the
cross-roads at Wansford, and up the crooked pebbled streets of Stamford,
until in the grey of morning they descended into Grantham, with its tall
spire and quaint old Angel and Crown Hotel.
It was there that Drost and his companion breakfasted, while Ella and
her lover waited and watched.
Some devilish plot of a high-explosive nature was in progress, but of
its true import they were in utter ignorance. Yet their two British
hearts beat quickly in unison, and both were determined to frustrate the
outrage, even at the sacrifice of their own lives.
At three o'clock in the afternoon Drost and Benyon drew up at the
Station Hotel at York, and there took lunch, while Ella and her lover
ate a very hurried and much-needed meal in the railway-buffet in the big
station adjoining.
Then, after they had watched the departure of the big mud-spattered car
which contained the two conspirators, they were very quickly upon the
road again after them.
Out of the quiet old streets of York city, past the Minster, they turned
eastward upon that well-kept highway which led towards the North Sea
Coast.
An hour's run brought them to the pleasant town which I must not, with
the alarming provisions of the Defence of the Realm Act before me,
indicate with any other initial save that of J--.
The town of J--, built upon a deep and pretty bay forming a natural
harbour with its breakwater and pier, was, in the pre-war days, a
popular resort of the summer girl with her transparent blouses and her
pretty bathing costumes, but since hostilities, it was a place believed
to be within the danger zone.
As they descended, by the long, winding road, into the town, they could
see, in the bay, a big grey four-funnelled first-class cruiser lying at
anchor, the grey smoke curling lazily from her striped funnels--resting
there no doubt after many weeks of patrol duty in the vicinity of the
Kiel Canal.
Indeed, as they went along the High Street, they saw a number of
clear-eyed liberty men--bluejackets--bearing upon their caps the name
H.M.S. _Oakham_.
The car containing Ella's father and his companion pulled up at the
Palace Hotel, a big imposing place, high on the cliff, therefore
Kennedy, much satisfied that he had thus been able to follow the car for
over two hundred miles, went on some little distance to the next
available hotel.
This latter place, like the Palace, afforded a fine view of the bay, and
as they stood at a window of the palm-lined lounge, they could see that
upon the cruiser lights were already appearing.
Kennedy called the waiter for a drink, and carelessly asked what was in
progress.
"The ship--the _Oakham_--came in the day before yesterday, sir," the man
replied. "There's a party on board this evening, they say--our Mayor
and corporation, and all the rest."
Ella exchanged glances with her lover. She recollected that
khaki-covered despatch-box. Had her father brought with him that
terrible death-dealing machine which he and Nystrom had constructed with
such accursed ingenuity?
The hotel was deserted, as east coast hotels within the danger zone
usually were in those war days, remaining open only for the occasional
traveller and for the continuity of its licence. The great revue star
had sent a telegram to her manager, asking that her understudy should
play that night, and the devoted pair now stood side by side watching
how, in the rapidly falling night, the twinkling electric lights on
board the fine British cruiser became more clearly marked against the
grey background of stormy sea and sky.
"I wonder what their game can really be?" remarked the young
flying-officer reflectively as, alone with Ella, his strong arm crept
slowly around her neat waist.
From where they stood they were afforded a wide view of the broad road
which led from the town down to the landing-stage, from which the
cruiser's steam pinnace and picket-boat were speeding to and fro between
ship and shore. A dozen or so smart motor-cars had descended the road,
conveying the guests of the captain and officers who, after their long
and unrelaxing vigil in the North Sea, certainly deserved a little
recreation. Then, as the twilight deepened and the stars began to shine
out over the bay, it was seen that the procession of guests had at last
ended.
"I think, Ella, that we might, perhaps, go down to the landing-stage,"
said Kennedy at last--"if you are not too tired, dear."
"Tired? Why, of course not," she laughed, and after he had helped her
on with her coat, they both went out, passing down to the harbour by
another road.
For fully an hour they idled about in the darkness, watching the swift
brass-funnelled pinnace which, so spick and span, and commanded by a
smart lad fresh from Osborne, was making the journey regularly between
ship and quay. Away in the darkness the lights on the cruiser's
quarter-deck reflected into the sea, while ever and anon the high-up
masthead signal-lamp winked in Morse code to the coastguard station five
miles distant across the bay.
While they were watching, the pinnace came in again, whereupon the smart
figure of a naval officer in his topcoat appeared within the zone of
light, and descended the steps, shouting in an interrogative tone:
"_Oakham_?"
"Ay, ay, sir!" came a cheery voice from the pinnace.
"Look!" gasped Ella, clinging to her lover's arm. "Why--it's Benyon--
dressed as a naval lieutenant! He's going on board, and he's carrying
that despatch-box with him!"
Indeed, he had handed the heavy box to one of the men, and was at that
moment stepping into the pinnace.
"Off to the ship--as quick as you can!" they heard him order, while,
next moment, the boat was cast loose and the propeller began to revolve.
"We haven't a second to lose!" whispered Kennedy who, as soon as the
pinnace was around the pier-head, called out "Boat!" In an instant
half-a-dozen men, noticing that he was a naval officer, were eagerly
crowding around him.
"I want to follow that pinnace--quick!" he said. "Three men--and you
can sail out there. The wind's just right."
In a few moments a boat came alongside the steps, and into it the pair
stepped, with three hardy North Sea boatmen.
Quickly sail was set and, favoured by a fresh breeze, the boat slowly
heeled over and began to skim across the dark waters.
Already the light on the pinnace showed far away, it having nearly
reached the ship. Therefore Kennedy, in his eagerness, stirred the
three men to greater effort, so that by rowing and sailing by turns,
they gradually grew nearer the long, dark war-vessel, while Ella sat
clasping her well-beloved's hand in the darkness, and whispering
excitedly with him.
Those were, indeed, moments of greatest tension, away upon that dark
wintry sea beyond the harbour, that wide bay which, on account of its
unusual depth and exposed position, was never considered a very safe
anchorage.
Their progress seemed at a snail's pace, as it always seems upon the sea
at night. They watched the pinnace draw up, and they knew that the man,
Benyon, who, though German-born, had lived in London the greater part of
his life--was on board carrying that terrible instrument of death that
had been cleverly prepared in such official guise.
At last--after an age it seemed--the boat swung in beside the lighted
gangway against the pinnace, and Kennedy, stepping nimbly up, said to
the sentry on board:
"Let nobody pass up or down, except this lady." Then, seeing the
officer on duty, he asked if a lieutenant had arrived on board with a
despatch-box.
"Yes. I've sent him down to the captain," was the reply.
"Take me to the captain at once, please," Kennedy said in a calm voice.
"There's no time to lose. There's treachery on board!"
In a second the officer was on the alert and ran down the stern gangway
which led direct to the captain's comfortable cabin, with its
easy-chairs covered with bright chintzes like the small drawing-room of
a country house.
Kennedy followed with Ella, but the captain was not there. The sentry
said he was in the ward-room, therefore the pair waited till he came
forward eagerly.
"Well," asked the grey-haired captain with some surprise, seeing an
officer and a lady. "What is it?"
"Have you received any despatches to-night, sir?" Kennedy inquired.
"No. What despatches?" asked the captain.
Then, in a few brief words, Kennedy explained how he had watched a man
in naval uniform come off in the pinnace, carrying a heavy despatch-box.
The man had passed the sentry and been directed below by the officer on
duty. But he had never arrived at the captain's cabin.
The "owner," as the captain of a cruiser is often called by his brother
officers, was instantly on the alert. The alarm was given, and the ship
was at once thoroughly searched, especially the ammunition stores,
where, in the flat close to the torpedoes on the port side, the deadly
box was discovered. The guests knew nothing of this activity on the
lower deck, but the two men who found the box heard a curious ticking
within, and without a second's delay brought it up and heaved it
overboard.
Then again the boatswain piped, and every man, as he stood at his post,
was informed that a spy who had attempted to blow up the ship was still
on board. Indeed, as "Number One," otherwise the first lieutenant, was
addressing them a great column of water rose from an explosion deep
below the surface, and much of it fell heavily on deck.
Another thorough search was made into every corner of the vessel,
whereupon the stranger in uniform was at last discovered in one of the
stokeholds. Two stokers rushed across to seize him, but with a quick
movement he felled both with an iron bar. Then he ran up the ladder
with the agility of a cat, and sped right into the arms of Ella and
Kennedy.
"Curse you--I was too late!" he shrieked in fierce anger, on recognising
them, and then seeing all retreat cut off, he suddenly sprang over the
side of the vessel, intending, no doubt, to swim ashore.
At once the pinnace went after him, but in the darkness he could not be
discovered, though the searchlights began to slowly sweep the dark
swirling waters.
That he met a well-deserved fate, however, was proved by the fact that
at dawn next day his body was picked up on the other side of the bay.
Yet long before, Theodore Drost, suspecting that something was amiss by
his fellow spy's non-return, had left by train for London.
Seymour Kennedy was next day called to the Admiralty and thanked for his
keen vigilance, but he only smiled and kept a profound secret the active
part played by his particular friend, the popular actress--Miss Stella
Steele.