In the yellow sunshine of a bright and cloudless autumn afternoon, Ella
Drost descended from her motor-cycle at a remote spot where four roads
crossed at a place called Pittsgate, about a mile and a half out from
Goudhurst, in Kent, having travelled from London by way of Tunbridge
Wells.
In leather cap, leggings, mackintosh, and leather belt she presented a
charming type of the healthy English sports-girl. Indeed, in that very
garb one could buy picture postcards of her all over the kingdom, those
who purchased them little dreaming that Stella Steele, who had for so
many nights been applauded by the khaki crowds in the theatre, where she
merrily danced in the revue "Half a Moment!" was the daughter of old
Theodore Drost, the sworn enemy of Great Britain, the man who had for so
long succeeded in misleading the alien authorities into the belief that
he was a pious pastor of the Dutch Church.
Certainly the man who posed as an ex-missionary from Sumatra, and who
wore the shabby, broad-brimmed clerical hat and horn-rimmed glasses, had
never once been suspected of treasonable acts, save by his daughter Ella
and Seymour Kennedy.
It was to meet Kennedy that Ella had motored down from London that day.
The roads were rather bad, and both machine and rider were splashed with
mud. Yet for that she cared nothing. Her mind was too full of the
investigations upon which they were engaged.
She took out a large scale map, unfolded it, and studied it carefully,
apparently tracing a route with her finger. Then glancing at her
wristlet-watch, she looked eagerly down the long, straight road upon her
left--the road which led up from Eastbourne, through Mayfield and
Wadhurst.
Nobody was in sight, therefore she consoled herself with a cigarette
which she took from her case, and again studied her map until, at last,
she suddenly heard the pop-pop-pop of a motor-cycle approaching and saw
Seymour, his body bent over the handles, coming up the hill at a
rattling pace.
In a few minutes he had pulled up, and, taking her in his arms, kissed
her fondly, expressing regret if he were late.
"Eastbourne is further off than I expected, darling," he added. "Well?"
he asked eagerly.
"Nothing particular has happened since we parted on Thursday," replied
the girl. "Father has been several times to see Mr Horton in
Wandsworth, and last night dined with Mr Harberton in Park Lane."
"Ah! What would the public think if they knew that Count Ernst von
Ortmann, who pulls the fingers of the Hidden Hand in our midst, Henry
Harberton of Park Lane, and Mr Horton of Wandsworth, were one and the
same person, eh?" exclaimed the man, who, though not in uniform,
revealed his profession by his bearing.
"One day it will be known, dear," said the girl. "And then there will
be an end to my father. The Count will believe that my father has
betrayed him."
"Why do you anticipate that?"
"Because only the night before last, when Ortmann called, I overheard
him remark to my father that he was the only person who knew his secret,
and warning him against any indiscretion, and of the fate which Germany
would most certainly meet out to him if any _contretemps_ occurred."
"Yes," remarked the air-pilot reflectively. "I suppose that if the
authorities really did arrest the inoffensive and popular Mr Harberton,
the latter would, no doubt, revenge himself most bitterly upon your
father."
"Of that I'm perfectly certain, dear. Often I am tempted to relinquish
my efforts to combat the evil they try to work against England, and yet
the English are my own people--and also yours."
"You're a thorough brick, Ella. There's not a girl in all the kingdom
who has run greater risks than your dear self, or been more devoted to
the British cause. Why, a dozen times you've walked fearlessly into
danger, when you might have been blown to atoms by their infernal
bombs."
"No, no," she laughed. "Don't discuss it here. I've only done what any
other girl in my place would have done. Come," she added. "Let's get
on and carry out the plan we arranged."
"Right-ho!" he replied. "That's the road," he added, pointing straight
before him. "According to the map, there's a wood a little way up,
where the road forks. We take the left road, skirt another wood past a
farm called Danemore, then over a brook, and it's the first house we
come to on the right--with another wood close behind it."
"Very well," answered the girl. "You'll have a breakdown close to the
house--eh?"
"That's the arrangement," he laughed, and next minute he was running
beside his machine, and was soon away, followed by his mud-bespattered
well-beloved.
Off they both sped, first down a steep slope, and then gradually
mounting through a thick wood where the brown leaves were floating down
upon the chilly wind. They passed the farm Kennedy had indicated,
crossed the brook by a bumpy, moss-grown bridge, and suddenly the man
threw up his hand as a signal that he was pulling-up, and, slowing down,
alighted, while his engine gave forth a report like a pistol-shot.
Ella, too, dismounted, and saw they were before a good-sized, well-kept
farmhouse, which stood a short distance back from the road, surrounded
by long red-brick outbuildings.
The report had brought out an old farm-hand--a white-bearded old fellow,
who was scanning them inquisitively.
Both Ella and her lover were engaged in intently examining the latter's
machine, looking very grave, and exchanging exclamations of despair.
Kennedy opened a bag of tools and, with a cigarette in his mouth,
commenced an imaginary repair, with one eye upon the adjacent house.
This lasted for about a quarter-of-an-hour. In the meantime a woman,
evidently the farmer's wife, had come out to view the strangers, and had
returned indoors.
"I think it's now about time we might go in," the air-pilot whispered to
his companion, whereupon both of them entered the gate and passed up the
rutty drive to the house.
"I wonder if you could lend me a heavy hammer?" asked the motor-cyclist
in distress of the pleasant, middle-aged woman who opened the door.
"Why, certainly, sir. Would the coal-hammer do?" she asked.
"Fine!" was the man's reply. "I'm so sorry to trouble you, but I've
broken down, and I'm on my way to London."
"I'm very sorry, sir," exclaimed the woman, who fetched a heavy hammer
from her kitchen. "Would the young lady care to come in and wait?"
"Oh, thanks. It's awfully good of you," said Ella. "The fact is I am a
little fagged, and if I may sit down I shall be so grateful."
"Certainly, miss. Just come in both of you for a moment," and she led
the way into a homely well-furnished room with a great open hearth where
big logs were burning with a pleasant smell of smouldering beech.
"What a comfortable room you have here!" Kennedy remarked, looking at
the thick Turkey carpet upon the floor, and the carved writing-table in
the window.
"Yes, sir. This is a model dairy-farm. It belongs to Mr
Anderson-James, who lives in Tunbridge Wells, and who comes here for
week-ends sometimes, and for the shooting. I expect him here to-night.
My husband farms for him, and I look after the place as housekeeper."
"A model farm!" exclaimed Ella. "Oh! I'd so much like to see it. I
wonder if your husband would allow me?"
"He'd be most delighted, miss."
"Stevenson is my name, and this is my friend Mr Kershaw," Ella said,
introducing herself.
"My name is Dennis," replied the comely farmer's wife with a pleasant
smile. "This is called Furze Down Farm, and Mr Anderson-James is a
solicitor in Tunbridge Wells. So now you know all about us," and the
woman, in her big white apron, laughed merrily.
Kennedy and the girl exchanged glances.
"Well," he said, "I'll go out and try to put the machine right. It
won't take very long, I hope. If I can't--well, we must go back by
train. Where's the nearest station, Mrs Dennis?"
"Well--Paddock Wood is about two miles," was her reply. "If you can't
get your motor right my husband will put it into a cart and drive you
over there. It's the direct line to London."
"Thanks so much," he said, and went out, leaving Ella to rest in the
cosy, well-furnished room which the solicitor from Tunbridge Wells
occupied occasionally through the week-ends.
"Mr Anderson-James keeps this place as a hobby. He's retired from
practice," the woman went on, "and he likes to come here for fresh air.
When you've rested I'll show you round the houses--if you're interested
in a dairy-farm."
"I'm most interested," declared the girl. "I don't want to rest. I'd
rather see the farm, if it is quite convenient to you to show it to me."
"Oh, quite, miss," was the woman's prompt response. She came from
Devonshire, as Ella had quickly detected, and was an artist in
butter-making, the use of the mechanical-separator, and the management
of poultry.
The pair went out at once and, passing by clean asphalt paths, went to
the range of model cowhouses, each scrupulously clean and well-kept.
Then to the piggeries, the great poultry farm away in the meadows, and,
lastly, into the white-tiled dairy itself, where four maids in white
smocks and caps were busy with butter, milk, and cream.
Ranged along one side of the great dairy were about thirty
galvanised-iron chums of milk, ready for transport, and Ella, noting
them, asked their destination.
"Oh! They go each night to the training-camp at B--. They go out in
two lots, one at midnight, and one at two o'clock in the morning."
"Oh, so you supply the camp with milk, do you?"
"Yes. Before the war all our milk went up to London Bridge by train
each night, but now we supply the two camps. There are fifty thousand
men in training there, they say. Isn't it splendid!" added the woman,
the fire of patriotism in her eyes. "There's no lack of pluck in the
dear old country."
"No, Mrs Dennis. All of us are trying to do our bit," Ella said.
"Does the Army Service Corps fetch the milk?"
"No, miss. They used to, but for nearly six weeks we've sent it in
waggons ourselves. The camp at B--is ten miles from here, so it comes
rather hard on the horses. It used to go in motor-lorries. Old Thomas,
the man bending down over there," and she pointed across the farm-yard,
"he drives the waggon out at twelve, and Jim Jennings--who only comes of
an evening--does the late delivery."
"But the road is rather difficult from here to the camp, isn't it?"
asked the girl, as though endeavouring to recollect.
"Yes. That's just it. They have to go right round by Shipborne to
avoid the steep hill."
Five minutes later they were in the comfortable farm-house again, and,
after a further chat, Ella went forth to see how her companion was
progressing.
The repair had been concluded--thanks to the coal-hammer! Ella took it
back, thanked the affable Mrs Dennis, and, five minutes later, the pair
were on their way to London, perfectly satisfied with the result of
their investigations.
On that same evening, while Kennedy and Ella were having a light dinner
together at the Piccadilly Grill before she went to the theatre, the
elusive Ortmann called upon old Theodore Drost at the dark house at
Castelnau, on the Surrey side of Hammersmith Bridge. He came in a taxi,
and accompanying him was a grey-haired, tall, and rather lean man, who
carried a heavy deal box with leather handle.
Drost welcomed them, and all three ascended at once to that long attic,
the secret workshop of the maker of bombs. The man who posed as a pious
Dutch missionary switched on the light, disclosing upon the table a
number of small globes of thin glass which, at first, looked like
electric light bulbs. They, however, had no metal base, the glass being
narrowed at the end into a small open tube. Thus the air had not been
exhausted.
"This is our friend, Doctor Meins," exclaimed Ortmann, introducing his
companion, who, a few minutes later, unlocked the box and brought out a
large brass microscope of the latest pattern, which he screwed together
and set up at the further end of the table.
Meanwhile from another table at the end of the long apartment old Drost,
with a smile of satisfaction upon his face, carried over very carefully
a wooden stand in which stood a number of small sealed glass tubes, most
of which contained what looked like colourless gelatine.
"We want to be quite certain that the cultures are sufficiently
virulent," remarked Ortmann. "That is why I have brought Professor
Meins, who, as you know, is one of our most prominent bacteriologists,
though he is, of course, naturalised as a good Englishman, and is in
general practice in Hampstead under an English name."
The German professor, smiling, took up one of the hermetically sealed
tubes, broke it, and from it quickly prepared a glass microscope-slide,
not, however, before all three had put on rubber gloves and assumed what
looked very much like gas-helmets, giving the three conspirators a most
weird appearance. Then, while the Professor was engaged in focussing
his microscope, Drost, his voice suddenly muffled behind the goggle-eyed
mask, exhibited to Ortmann one of the glass bombs already prepared for
use.
It was about the size of a fifty-candle-power electric bulb, and its
tube having been closed by melting the glass, it appeared filled with a
pale-yellow vapour.
"That dropped anywhere in a town would infect an enormous area," Drost
explained. "The glass is so thin that it would pulverise by the small
and almost noiseless force with which it would explode."
"It could be dropped by hand--eh?" asked Ortmann. "And nobody would be
the wiser."
"No, if dropped by hand it would, no doubt, infect the person who
dropped it. The best way will be to drop it from a car."
"At night?"
"No. In daylight--in a crowded street. It would then be more
efficacious--death resulting within five days to everyone infected."
"Terrible!" exclaimed the Kaiser's secret agent--the man of treble
personality.
"Yes. But it is according to instructions. See here!" and he took up
what appeared to be a small bag of indiarubber--like a child's air-ball
that had been deflated. "This acts exactly the same when filled, only
the case is soluble. One minute after touching water or, indeed, any
liquid, it dissolves, and thus releases the germs!"
"_Gott_!" gasped Ortmann. "You are, indeed, a dealer in bottled death,
my dear Theodore. Truly, you've been inventing some appalling things
for our dear friends here--eh?"
The man with the scraggy beard, who was a skilled German scientist,
though he posed as a Dutch pastor, smiled evilly, while at that moment
the man Meins, who had his eye upon the microscope, beckoned both of
them forward to look.
Ortmann obeyed, and placing his eye upon the tiny lens, saw in the
brightly reflected light colonies of the most deadly bacilli yet
discovered by German science--the germs of a certain hitherto unknown
disease, against which there was no known remedy. The fifth day after
infection of the human system death inevitably resulted.
"All quite healthy!" declared the great bacteriologist from behind his
mask. "What would our friends think if they knew the means by which
they came into this country--eh?"
Drost laughed, and, crossing to a cupboard, took out a fine
Ribston-pippin apple. This he cut through with his pen-knife, revealing
inside, where the core had been removed, one of the tiny tubes secreted.
"They came like this from our friends in a certain neutral country," he
laughed.
From tube after tube Meins took and examined specimens, finding all the
cultures virulent except one, which he placed aside.
Then, turning to Drost, he gave his opinion that their condition was
excellent.
"But be careful--most scrupulously careful of yourself, and of whoever
lives here with you--your family and servants. The bacteria are so
easily carried in the air, now that we have opened the tubes."
"Never fear," replied the muffled voice of Ella's father. "I shall be
extremely careful. But what is your opinion regarding this?" he added,
showing the professor one of the tiny bags of the soluble substance.
Meins examined it closely. Obtaining permission, he cut out a tiny
piece with scissors and placed it beneath his powerful microscope.
Presently he pronounced it excellent.
"I see that it is impervious. If it is soluble, as you say, then you
certainly need have no fear of failure," he said, with a benign smile.
Then he set to work to reseal the tubes he had opened, while Drost, with
a kind of syringe, sprayed the room with some powerful germ-destroyer.
Ten minutes later the pair had descended the stairs, while old Drost had
switched off the light and locked the door of the secret laboratory
wherein reposed the germs of a terrible disease known only to the
enemies of Great Britain--a fatal malady which Germany intended to sow
broadcast over the length and breadth of our land.
For an hour they all three sat discussing the diabolical plot which
would disseminate death over a great area of the United Kingdom, for
Germany had many friends prepared to sacrifice their own lives for the
Fatherland, and it was intended that those glass and rubber bombs should
be dropped in all quarters to produce an epidemic of disease such as the
world had never before experienced.
Old Theodore Drost, installed in his comfortable dining-room again,
opened a long bottle of Berncastler "Doctor"--a genuine bottle, be it
said, for few who have sipped the "Doctor" wine of late have taken the
genuine wine, so many fabrications did Germany make for us before the
war.
"But I warn you to be excessively careful," the professor said to Drost.
"Your daughter comes here sometimes, does she not? Do be careful of
her. Place powerful disinfectants here--all over the house--in every
room," he urged; "although I have plugged the tubes with cotton wool
properly treated to prevent the escape of the infection into the air,
yet one never knows."
"Ella is not often here," her father replied. "She is still playing in
`Half a Moment!'; besides, she is rehearsing a new revue. So she,
happily, has no time to come and see me."
"But, for your own safety, and your servant's, do be careful," Meins
urged. "To tell you the honest truth, I almost fear to remove my mask--
even now."
"But there's surely no danger down here?" asked Drost eagerly.
"There is always danger with such a terribly infectious malady. It is
fifty times more fatal than double pneumonia. It attacks the lungs so
rapidly that no remedy has any chance. Professor Steinwitz, of Stettin,
discovered it."
"And is there no remedy?"
"None whatsoever. Its course is rapid--a poisoning of the whole
pulmonary system, and it's even more contagious than small-pox."
Then they removed their masks and drank to "The Day" in their German
wine.
Six nights later Stella Steele had feigned illness--a strain while on
her motor-cycle, and her understudy was taking her part in "Half a
Moment!" much to the disappointment of the men in khaki, who had seated
themselves in the stalls to applaud her. Among the men on leave many
had had her portrait upon a postcard--together with a programme in
three-colour print--in their dug-outs in Flanders, for Stella Steele was
"the rage" in the Army, and among the subalterns any who had ever met
her, or who had "known her people," were at once objects of interest.
In the darkness on a road with trees on either side--the road which runs
from Tonbridge to Shipborne, and passes between Deene Park and Frith
Wood--stood Kennedy and Ella. They had ridden down from London earlier
in the evening and placed their motorcycles inside a gate which led into
the forest on the left side of the road.
They waited in silence, their ears strained, but neither uttered a word.
Kennedy had showed his well-beloved the time. It was half-past one in
the morning.
Of a sudden, a motor-car came up the hill, a closed car, which passed
them swiftly, and then, about a quarter-of-a-mile further on, came to a
halt. Presently they heard footsteps in the darkness and in their
direction there walked three men. The moon was shining fitfully through
the clouds, therefore they were just able to distinguish them. The trio
were whispering, and two of them were carrying good-sized kit-bags.
They came to the gate where, inside, Ella and Kennedy had hidden their
cycles, and there halted.
That they were smoking Kennedy and his companion knew by the slight
odour of tobacco that reached them. For a full quarter-of-an-hour they
remained there, chatting in low whispers.
"I wonder who they are?" asked Ella, bending to her lover's ear.
"Who knows?" replied the air-pilot. "At any rate, we'll have a good
view from here. You were not mistaken as to the spot?"
"No. I heard it discussed last night," was the girl's reply.
Then, a moment later, there was a low sound of wheels and horses' hoofs
climbing the hill from the open common into that stretch of road
darkened by the overhanging trees. Ella peered forth and saw a dim oil
lamp approaching, while the jingling of the harness sounded plain as the
horses strained at their traces.
Onward they came, until when close to the gate where the three men lay
in waiting, one of the latter flashed a bright light into the face of
the old man who was driving the waggon, and shouted:
"Stop! _Stop_!"
The driver pulled up in surprise, dazzled by the light, but the next
second another man had flung into his face a mixture of cayenne pepper
and chemicals by which, in an instant, he had become blinded and
stupefied, falling back into his seat inert and helpless.
Then Ella and Kennedy, creeping up unnoticed by the three in their
excitement, saw that they had mounted into the waggon, which was loaded
with milk-churns--the waggon driven nightly from Furze Down Farm to the
great camp at B--, carrying the milk for the morning.
Upon these chums the three set swiftly to work, opening each, dropping
in one of those soluble bombs, and closing them. The bombs they took
from the two kit-bags they had carried from the car.
They were engaged in carrying out one of the most dastardly plots ever
conceived by Drost and his friends--infecting the milk supply of the
great training-camp!
Kennedy was itching to get at them and prevent them, but he saw that, by
knowledge gained, he would be in a position to act more effectively than
if he suddenly alarmed them. Therefore the pair stood by until they had
finished their hideous work of filling each chum with the most deadly
and infectious malady known to medical science.
Presently, when they had finished, the old driver, still insensible, was
lifted from his seat, carried into the wood, and there left, while one
of the conspirators--who they could now see was dressed as a farm-hand,
and would no doubt pose as a new labourer from Furze Down--took his
place and drove on as though nothing had happened, leaving the other two
to make their way back to the car.
When the red rear-light of the waggon was receding, Kennedy and Ella
followed it, for it did not proceed at much more than walking pace.
They walked along in silence till they saw the two men re-enter the car,
leaving their companion to deliver the milk at the camp. Evidently a
fourth man had been waiting in the car for, as soon as they were in, the
man who drove turned the car, which went back in the direction it had
come, evidently intending to meet the second waggon, which was due to
come up an hour afterwards. No doubt the same programme would be
repeated, and the fourth man would drive the second car to the adjacent
camp.
As soon, however, as the car had got clear away, Kennedy and his
well-beloved ran to their motorcycles, mounted them, and in a short time
had passed in front of the milk-waggon ere it could get down into
Shipborne village.
Putting their motors against a fence, they waited until the waggon came
up, when Kennedy stepped into the road, and flashing an electric lamp on
to the driver's face, at the same time fired a revolver point-blank at
him.
This gave the fellow such a sudden and unexpected scare that he leaped
down from the waggon and, next moment, had disappeared into the
darkness, while Ella rushed to the horses' heads and stopped them.
"That's all right!" laughed Kennedy. "Have you got your thick gloves
on?"
"Yes, dear."
"Well, be careful that not a drop of milk goes over your hands or feet.
There's lots of time to pitch it all out on the roadway."
Then climbing into the waggon the pair, by a pre-arranged plan, began to
open the chums and turn their contents out of the waggon until the whole
wet roadway was white with milk, which soaked into the ground and ran
into the gutters and down the drains: for, fortunately, being near
Shipborne, the footpaths on either side were drained, and by that any
chance of infection later would, they knew, be minimised.
Each chum they turned upon its side until not a drain of milk remained
within, and then, leading the horses to graze on the grass at the
roadside, the pair sped swiftly back along the road in the direction the
car had taken.
About five miles away they found the conspirators' car upon the side of
the road without any occupant. They were waiting for the second waggon.
Without ado, Kennedy mounted into it, started it, and drew it out into
the middle of the road, which at that point was upon a steep gradient.
Then, taking a piece of blind-cord from his pocket, he swiftly tied up
the steering-wheel and, jumping out, started the car down the hill.
Away it flew at furious speed, gathering impetus as it went. For a few
moments they could hear it roaring along until, suddenly, there was a
terrific crash.
"That's upset their plans, I know," he laughed to Ella.
"We'll go and investigate in a moment, and watch the fun."
This they did later on, finding the car turned turtle at the bottom of
the hill, with three men standing around it in dismay.
Kennedy inquired what had happened, but neither would say much.
Yet, while they stood there, the second milk-laden waggon approached,
passed, and went onward, its sleepy driver taking no notice of the five
people at the roadside.
For half-an-hour Kennedy and Ella remained there in pretence of
endeavouring to right the car, until they knew that the waggon, with its
contents, was well out of harm's way.
Then they remounted and returned to London, having, by their ingenious
investigations and patient watching, saved the lives of thousands of
Great Britain's gallant boys in khaki.
Two days later Theodore Drost was taken suddenly ill with symptoms which
puzzled his local doctor at Barnes. He spoke to Ortmann over the
telephone, but the latter dared not risk a visit to Castelnau. Ella
also heard from her father over the telephone when, that night, she
returned to Stamfordham Mansions at the end of the "show." She, knowing
all she did, regarded a visit there as too dangerous, but rang up
Kennedy at his air-station and guardedly informed him of the situation.
Five days later Theodore Drost lay dead of a malady to which the
bespectacled doctor at Barnes gave a name upon his certificate, but of
which he was really as ignorant as his own chauffeur.
But the curious part of the affair was that while Drost lay dead in the
house, and the night before his burial, a mysterious fire broke out
which gutted the place, a fact which no doubt must have been a great
mystery to Ortmann and his friends.
The Metropolitan Fire Brigade still entertain very grave suspicions that
it was due to an incendiary because of its fierceness; yet who, they ask
themselves, could have had any evil design upon the property of the poor
dead Dutch pastor?
The End.