From a derelict shed adjoining a lonely road which stretched for miles
across the Norfolk fens, a strange shape slid silently into the night
mist. It was a motor-car of an unfamiliar design. The body, of
gleaming aluminium, was of unusual width, and was lifted high above the
delicate chassis and spidery bicycle wheels that seemed almost too
fragile to bear the weight of an engine.
Noiselessly the strange car backed out of the shed. There was no
familiar _teuf-teuf_ of the motor-engine; so silent was the car that it
might have been driven by electricity, save that the air was filled with
the reek of petrol.
Swinging round on the grass of the meadow, the car headed for the
gateway, turned into the road, and sped along silently for a few miles.
It halted at length at a point where the narrow roadway widened somewhat
and ran along an elevated embankment evidently constructed to raise the
road above flood-level.
As the car came to rest, two leather-helmeted figures descended from the
tiny cockpit in the body of it. One was a slim young fellow of
twenty-five or twenty-six; the other, despite the clinging motor
costume, showed feminine grace in every movement. It was a young girl,
evidently in the early twenties.
The two set busily to work, and in a few minutes their strange car had
undergone a wonderful transformation.
From each side shot out long twin telescopic rods. These, swiftly
joined together by rapidly unrolled strips of fabric, soon resolved
themselves into the wings of a tiny monoplane. From a cleverly hidden
trap-door in the front of the car, appeared an extending shaft bearing a
small propeller, whose twin blades, hinged so as to fold alongside the
shaft when not in use, were quickly spread out and locked into position.
A network of wire stays running from the wings to the fuselage of the
car were speedily hooked up and drawn taut.
Then the two mysterious figures climbed again into the transformed car.
There was a low, deep hum as the propellers began to revolve, the
monoplane shot forward a few yards along the road, then lifted
noiselessly, and, graceful and silent as a night-bird, vanished into the
shrouding mist.
The adventures of the Gay Triangle had begun!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dick Manton, lounging idly in the Assembly Hall of the little town of
Fenways, in the centre of the Norfolk Broads, watched with eyes half
critical and half amused the throng of dancers circling gaily to the
strains of three violins and a tinkling piano which did duty for an
orchestra when the youth of Fenways amused itself with a dance.
Dick was wholly and entirely a product of the war. The lithe, slim
body, hatchet face, and keen, resolute eyes stamped him from head to
foot with the unmistakable _cachet_ of the airman. He smiled, as he
watched the dancers, in acknowledgment of the gay greeting flung to him
by a score of laughing girls who, with the joy of youth, were giving
themselves unreservedly to the pleasures of the fox-trot.
Dick was a general favourite, and more than one pretty girl in the room
would have been only too glad to arouse something more than a passing
interest in the young airman, whose dare-devil exploits above the German
lines in France had brought him the Flying Cross, whose brilliant career
had been cut short by a bullet wound, received in a "dog-fight" above
Bethune, which had rendered him unfit for the continual hardships of
active service. He had been offered a "cushy" job in acknowledgment of
his services. But Dick could not bear the idea of being "in the show"
and yet not of it, and had accepted his discharge with what philosophy
he could muster.
His chief asset was his amazing knowledge of motor-engines. They had
been his one absorbing craze. While in the Army he had studied intently
every type of engine to which he could gain access; he had read every
book on the subject upon which he could lay his hands, and even among
the expert pilots of the Air Force he was acknowledged as a master of
engine craft.
It was this knowledge of engines which had sent Dick into the motor
business. He knew, of course, that he could have obtained a good post
with one of the big companies had he chosen to stay in London. But his
nerves were still tingling from the stress of war, and he was still weak
from the after effects of his wounds. So, for the sake of peace and
fresh air, he had invested a part of his capital in a small motor
business at Fenways. If he was not making a fortune he was at least
living, and the keen Norfolk air was rapidly bringing him back to
health.
At times the longing for the old life, the rash and whirl of the city,
came upon him with almost overwhelming force.
Suddenly a cameo of his days in France leapt into his mental vision. He
found himself once again staring, as in a mirror, at the slim figure of
a half-fainting French girl stealing through the dusk towards the
British lines. A crackling volley of shots from the Boche lines
followed her, but by some miracle she came on unhurt. Dick had been
sent up to the front to supervise the removal of a German plane of a new
pattern which had crashed just behind the trenches and had wandered into
the front line (where, of course, he had no business!), and it was he
who caught the exhausted girl in his arms as she dropped into the
British trench.
He had often wondered since what had become of Yvette Pasquet. She had
stayed on in the little town where Dick's squadron was stationed, and
they had become good friends. Dick had thus learnt something of her
tragic history.
An Alsatian, French to the finger-tips, Yvette had lived in London for
some years and spoke English well. But she had seen her father and
mother shot down by the Germans on the threshold of their home, and she
herself had only been preserved from a worse fate by a young German
officer, who had risked his life to save her from his drink-maddened
soldiers. Sweet and gentle in all other respects, Yvette Pasquet was a
merciless fiend where Germans were concerned; her hatred of them reached
a passion of intensity which dominated every other emotion.
How she had managed to get through the German lines she never quite
remembered. Her father had been well-to-do, and before her escape after
the final tragedy, Yvette had managed to secure the scrip and shares
which represented the bulk of his fortune, and had brought them across
with her safely concealed under her clothing.
From that time forward she had been the brain of a remarkable
organisation which had devoted itself to smuggling from the occupied
regions into France gold, jewellery, and securities, which had been
hidden from the prying eyes of the Hun.
After his wound Dick had lost sight of her. For many months he had lain
dangerously ill, and when he had recovered sufficiently to write, Yvette
had disappeared.
Dick's reverie was broken at length by a light touch on his arm. "A
penny for your thoughts!" said a soft voice at his elbow.
Dick came to earth with a jerk. The voice was that of Yvette herself!
And when he turned he found her standing beside him, smiling into his
face with the light of sheer mischief dancing in her brilliant eyes.
With her was a tall young Frenchman, obviously her brother.
"Yvette!" Dick gasped in sheer amazement. "What on earth brings you
here?"
"I came to look for you, my friend," was the quaint but sufficiently
startling reply in excellent English. "But let me present my brother.
Jules--this is Mr Manton."
Dick, his head in a whirl, mechanically acknowledged the introduction.
Yvette had come to look for him! What could it mean?
"We came down from London this evening," Yvette explained, "and are
staying at the `George.' We soon found your rooms, and hearing you were
here decided to give you a surprise."
"You have certainly succeeded," Dick rejoined. "But how on earth did
you learn I was in Fenways?"
"Well," said Yvette, "it's no mystery. I happened to meet Vincent quite
by accident in Paris, and he told me where you were." Vincent was an
old flying colleague, and one of the very few people with whom Dick had
cared to keep in touch.
"I have tried several times to find you," went on the girl, "but even
your own War Office didn't seem to know what had become of you after you
left the Army, and my letters were returned to me."
Then her manner changed.
"Dick," she said seriously, "I came down to see you on business--
important business. I can't explain here. I want you to come back to
Town with us in the morning. My brother and I have a proposition to put
before you. We want your help. Will you come?"
Wonderingly, Dick consented.
"Yes," he said, "I shall be glad. My assistant can quite well look
after things here while I am away."
"Very well," said Yvette, with a look of relief which did not escape
Dick, "that's settled. Now let us enjoy ourselves."
Dick spent a sleepless night, crowded with old memories which kept him
wide awake. Next morning he found himself with his two companions in
the train for London. Arriving at Liverpool Street, they took a taxi
and were soon comfortably ensconced in a private room at a small but
exclusive West End hotel.
It was not until after lunch that Yvette opened a conversation that was
destined to exercise a powerful influence on Dick Manton's career.
"Now, Dick,"--she called him "Deek"--"before I say anything I must make
it a condition that under no circumstances will you ever mention what
passes between us. I know I can trust you implicitly. I am going to
make you an offer which you are absolutely free either to accept or
refuse. It will surprise you, and you are entitled to a full
explanation. But in case you refuse, not a word of our conversation
must ever pass your lips under any circumstances whatever. Do you
agree?"
"Of course I do," replied Dick, wondering what was coming.
"Very well," laughed Yvette, "now I can tell you everything."
"You will remember," she went on, "what I was doing in France--smuggling
money and valuables out of the reach of the Germans. Well, I am doing
the same thing still, but on a different scale and by different methods.
I dare say you know that there is an enormous amount of smuggling into
England; the heavy import duties have made it a very profitable game.
What you probably don't know is that it is mostly carried on by Germans.
There is a regular organisation at work, clever, secret, and highly
efficient. But the chain, like every chain, has a weak link, and I
happen to have found it. The head of the whole undertaking is Otto
Kranzler, of Frankfort. You will remember him. He was the commandant
responsible for the murder of my father and mother."
"I remember!" Dick exclaimed.
"At the very moment Kranzler is in Paris, looking for an opportunity to
get into England with a wonderful collection of jewels, which formed a
part of those given to the mock-monk Rasputin by the late Czarina of
Russia and some of his wealthy female admirers. Now, Dick, I want those
jewels, and I am going to have them?"
"But how?" queried Dick.
"Kranzler is in a serious difficulty. So far as I can make out the
jewels were brought into Germany by a Bolshevik agent for disposal, of
course, against the German law. Rasputin's jewels were liable to
confiscation, and by some means the German Secret Police got wind of the
affair. Kranzler, however, was too quick for them, and slipped over the
frontier into France in the nick of time. Now he is in a quandary.
"Under French law he has so far committed no offence, and cannot be
arrested. But if he attempts either to deal in the jewels or to export
them he will find himself in trouble. The French police are
wide-awake--of course, they got a tip from the Germans--and are watching
him as a cat watches a mouse.
"So there he is," she went on, "planted in an hotel with jewels worth at
least fifty thousand pounds, and unable to move! His one chance is to
get the jewels away by a messenger. He is clever and may succeed, but I
don't think he will. He has already tried but without success.
"I have a plan. I think I can get the jewels out of the hotel. But
they must be brought to England, and there is the difficulty. When
Kranzler loses them he can't make any formal complaint, but he will
certainly get out of France as speedily as possible; that will give the
game away, and the watch on the boats will be keener than ever. I dare
not risk sending them by a messenger. An aeroplane is the only chance.
And I want you to fly that aeroplane!"
Dick coloured painfully.
"But, my dear Yvette," he stammered, "you don't mean to say you
intend--?"
"To steal the jewels?" Yvette completed the sentence.
"Yes," Dick admitted, horribly embarrassed. He found it impossible to
associate Yvette with what appeared to him a piece of cold-blooded
larceny.
"I quite expected you to say that, Dick," Yvette replied. "And perhaps
I should have thought less of you if you had said anything else. But
surely you don't take me for a common thief?" Without waiting for
Dick's reply, she went on: "Now, try to look at this affair through our
French eyes for a moment. I'm going to have those jewels--at least, I'm
going to try. Who am I hurting? A German who robbed me of my father
and mother! Would any Frenchman or Frenchwoman hesitate a moment? He
is a thief and a murderer! Whom am I benefiting? Myself? Not for a
moment; I wouldn't touch a penny of the money. If I bring this off--and
I think I shall--there will be at least a million francs to help on the
restoration of the devastated regions of France. Now, Dick, you helped
France once. Won't you do it again? I must have some one I can trust,
and I know no one but yourself. It will be great sport to beat the
police of two countries," she added with a laugh.
Dick's imagination caught fire. It was impossible to resist Yvette's
appeal. He was more weary than he knew of his humdrum life in Norfolk,
and here was an adventure after his own heart. His mind was swiftly
made up.
"I'm on, Yvette!" he said shortly.
To his amazement, the girl burst into a sudden passion of tears.
"On? Dick--if you could only realise what it means to me!" she sobbed.
"I have been all through the smashed-up parts of France--everything,
even our churches, is smashed and broken and defiled. The poor people
are working desperately to restore their old homes, and they only want
help to be happy again. But France has no money, and Germany won't
pay--as every one foresaw except your British statesmen. Do you think I
am likely to hesitate to rob a German thief when it means happiness for
hundreds of French men and women and children?"
He tried clumsily to comfort her, and at length she grew more calm.
"There is no time to be lost," she declared. "We must get over to Paris
to-night. I have lately learnt to fly, and my aeroplane is hidden a few
miles from Paris. The real problem is to get hold of the jewels and
bring them safely out of the hotel. Then the aeroplane can start at
once."
"But what about Lympne?" Dick asked. "You know all aeroplanes entering
England from the Continent must land at Lympne for identification and
customs examination. And the jewels would certainly be found."
"You must not land at Lympne," Yvette declared positively. "You will
have to get in unobserved and land somewhere away from any aerodrome.
You can abandon the aeroplane; that won't matter if you get through
safely."
"And leave it to be identified in a few hours' time by the engine
marks?" asked Dick. "No, Yvette, that won't do. And besides," he went
on, "there wouldn't be the slightest chance of getting through. The new
wireless direction-finders would give me away long before I could even
reach the coast, and the Air Police would do the rest. I should simply
be shadowed till I landed--or even shot down if I refused to land! Four
smuggling planes were picked up last week by the new wireless-detectors,
and every one was captured."
"Then I don't know what I shall do," Yvette replied blankly. "I thought
you would surely be able to slip over at night."
Then Dick, even against his better judgment, which warned him he was
taking on a foolhardy enterprise, sprang his great surprise.
"Well," he said, "perhaps I can help you, after all. You know, in
Fenways I'm supposed to be only a motor-dealer. Really, I have been
working for over two years quite secretly on a combination of aeroplane
and motor-car, and now I think I have got it about perfect. You can
change the motor-car to a little monoplane in less than half an hour.
The wing struts telescope back into the body, so does the
propeller-shaft, and the blades fold back along the shaft."
"Have you really?" she gasped eagerly.
"Yes. Best of all, I've got an absolute silencer on the exhaust; I've
run the engine at top speed on the ground and found I could not hear it
a hundred yards away. So far I have only made one or two flights, but
they were quite successful. It seats two in little cockpits placed one
on each side of the centre line where the propeller shaft runs. Why
shouldn't we try to fly her over tonight? I feel pretty sure we could
do it at ten thousand feet without the direction-finders knowing
anything about us."
"Excellent!" cried the girl.
"The great disadvantage is that I can't get any speed to speak of on the
ground. I have had to make everything very light, of course, and I
fancy about twenty miles an hour, unless the roads were exceptionally
good, would be our limit. We should have no chance of getting away if
we were chased on the ground--or in the air, for that matter--if we were
spotted. We might fly over to-night and chance getting caught. Of
course, I have my pilot's certificate, and if we were caught I could
easily explain that I was making a night flight and my compass had gone
wrong. It wouldn't be a very serious matter the first time as, of
course, we should have nothing contraband. If we got over safely we
could take the chance of coming back loaded."
Yvette had become suddenly radiant.
"Why, Dick!" she cried, "that's the very thing. We simply can't be
caught. And when we land anywhere we can be ordinary motorists. It's
wonderful--wonderful!"
"Don't be too sure," replied Dick grimly. "The Air Police are pretty
wide awake. However, it's worth trying. Now, shall we go to-night?
There's a train from Liverpool Street at six-twenty. We shall get down
to Fenways by nine. We shall have five miles to walk to the shed where
I keep the machine--of course, we daren't drive out--and we must manage
to reach Paris about dawn. If we are too early I cannot land in the
dark, and if we are late people will be about and we shall run the risk
of being spotted."
Yvette promptly produced a small but beautifully clear contour map.
"There's your landing-place," she said, pointing to a large clearing
surrounded by thick woods. "It's about fifteen miles from Paris, and my
own aeroplane is pushed in under the edge of the trees. It is quite a
lonely spot in the forest a little to the north of Triel. Of late years
the forest has been very much neglected and very few people go there.
An old farmer, who lives quite alone, grazes a few sheep in the
clearing, and I have, of course, had to arrange with him about my
machine. He thinks I am an amateur flyer, and I have told him I am
making some secret experiments and paid him to keep quiet. I flew the
machine there myself when I bought it from the Francois Freres, of
Bordeaux. Of course, I had my papers all in order when I bought it."
"All right; that will do well enough," said Dick. "We will go over
to-night. Jules can go by the boat train."
A few hours later Dick and Yvette were standing in the shed beside the
strange motor-car, Dick rapidly explaining the system of converting the
machine into a monoplane.
"We must get off the ground as quickly as possible," he said. "People
go to bed early in these parts, but there is always a chance of some one
being about, and I don't want to be caught while we are making the
change."
At a suitable spot on the road, the change was made. It occupied Dick,
with Yvette's skilful help, just twenty minutes.
"We can do it in fifteen," he declared, "when you are thoroughly
accustomed to it."
As a matter of fact they did it in less on one memorable occasion some
weeks later when their pursuers were hot on their heels.
Soon they were speeding swiftly southwards. Dick had set the monoplane
on a steep, upward slant, aiming to reach ten thousand feet before he
drew abreast of London. Thanks to the clinging mist, they were soon
utterly out of sight from below, and Dick had to steer by compass until
they sighted thirty miles ahead, and slightly to their right, the great
twin beams of light which marked the huge aerodrome at Croydon.
Then Dick veered to the south-east, flying straight for Lympne and the
French coast. After all, he argued, the bold course was the best. No
one would expect an aeroplane on an illicit errand to venture right
above the head-quarters of the Air Police, and should any machine be
about on lawful business the noise of their engines would prevent the
detectors picking up the throbbing whirr of the propeller, which, of
course, could not be absolutely silenced.
Fortune favoured them. As they drew nearer to Lympne, swinging in from
the slightly easterly course he had set, Dick caught sight of the
navigation lights of the big mail aeroplane heading from London to
Paris. His own machine, bearing, of course, no lights, was far above
the stranger, the thunder of whose big engines came clearly up to them.
A couple of red flares from the big plane signalled her code to the
aerodrome, the searchlight blinked an acknowledgment, and the mail plane
tore swiftly onward. Dick could not match its hurtling speed, but he
followed along its track, confident that he would now be undetected.
They swept silently above the brilliantly lighted aerodrome, then across
the Channel, and just as dawn was breaking detected the Triel forest,
and dropped lightly to earth almost alongside Yvette's machine. By
eight o'clock the machine, now a motor-car, was safely locked up in a
disused stable in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, and Dick, Jules, and
Yvette were soon in deep consultation.
That evening, just as dusk was falling, a half-drunken coachman sprawled
lazily on a bench set against a wall in the deep courtyard of the "Baton
d'Or," a quiet hotel located in aback street in the market quarter of
Paris. By his side was a bottle of _vin blanc_. Before him, harnessed
to a dilapidated carriage, stood his horse, a dejected-looking animal
enough.
Directly over his head, at a window of a room on the third floor, two
men stood talking. One of them was Otto Kranzler.
Two rooms away, on the same floor, a curious little drama was being
enacted.
Lounging on a sofa near the door was Dick Manton. Yvette, on a chair
drawn near the window, faced him.
Yvette rang the bell, and the two were talking when a chambermaid
appeared.
"Coffee and cognac for two," Yvette ordered.
A few minutes later the girl reappeared. She crossed the room with a
tray and set it on the table in front of Yvette.
As the maid turned Dick's arm was slipped round her, and a chloroformed
pad was pressed swiftly over her face. Taken utterly by surprise, the
girl was too firmly held to do more than struggle convulsively, and in a
few moments, as the drug took effect, she lay a limp heap in Dick's
arms.
Snatching from a valise a chambermaid's costume and cap, Yvette swiftly
transformed herself into a replica of the unconscious girl. Then
picking up the tray and its contents she silently left the room, having
poured a few drops of colourless liquid into each of the glasses of
brandy.
Kranzler was evidently in a bad temper.
"I tell you," he said to his companion, "there _must_ be a way out.
That infernal--"
There was a knock at the door, and a chambermaid entered with coffee and
liqueurs. It was Yvette!
"Would the messieurs require anything further?" she asked as she set
down the tray.
"No, that's all for to-night," said Kranzler in a surly tone, as he
picked up the brandy and drained it with obvious relish. His companion
followed suit.
Dick was sitting beside the unconscious girl as Yvette re-entered the
room.
"She's quite all right," he said, as he watched her narrowly for signs
of returning consciousness, "but I must give her a little more just as
we are leaving. How did you get on?"
"Splendidly," said Yvette; "they noticed nothing, and I saw them both
drink the brandy as I left the room."
Ten minutes later Yvette re-entered Kranzler's room. The two men had
collapsed into chairs. Both were sleeping heavily.
Without losing a second Yvette tore open Kranzler's waistcoat and passed
her hand rapidly over his body. A moment later she had slit open the
unconscious man's shirt, and from a belt of webbing which ran round his
shoulders cut away a flat leather pouch.
From her pocket she took a reel of strong black thread. To one end of
this she fastened the pouch, and, crouching by the open window, pushed
the pouch over the sill and swiftly lowered it into the darkness.
A moment later came a sort of tug at the line, the thread snapped, and
Yvette let the end fall. Then, with a glance at her drugged victims,
she snatched up the tray and returned with it to her own room.
Lying on the sofa, the chambermaid stirred uneasily. She was evidently
recovering. While Yvette swiftly discarded her disguise Dick again
pressed the chloroform to the girl's face.
A few moments later "Mr and Mrs Wilson, of London," were being
escorted by the hotel porter to a waiting taxi-cab.
They never returned.
In the semi-darkness of the courtyard the drunken coachman had stiffened
and leant back against the wall as a small, dark object lightly touched
his shoulder. His arm, twisted behind him, felt for and found a slender
thread. Held against the wall behind him was the flat leather pouch
which Yvette had lowered. A moment later it was transferred to a
capacious pocket, and the coachman, staggering uncertainly to his horse,
mounted the carriage and drove noisily out of the yard. No one paid the
slightest attention to him; no one realised that that uncouth exterior
concealed the slim form of Jules Pasquet, his nerves quivering with
excitement at the success of the Gay Triangle's first daring _coup_.
An hour later the Paris police took charge of an old horse found
aimlessly dragging an empty carriage along one of the boulevards. About
the same time, from a forest clearing fifteen miles away from Paris, a
tiny monoplane rose silently into the air and sped away in the direction
of the French coast.
Kranzler left Paris the following day and returned to Germany. He was
strictly searched at the frontier, of course without result, and the
puzzled French police never solved the problem of how, as they thought,
he had beaten them. He had not dared to complain. "Mr and Mrs
Wilson" were never even suspected, for by a strange coincidence some
articles of jewellery were stolen from another room that same night, and
when the drugged chambermaid told her story it was assumed that the
Wilsons were hotel thieves of the ordinary type.
A month later the _Petit Parisien_ announced in black type with a
flaring headline:
"An anonymous gift of one million francs has been received by the French
Government, to be devoted to the relief of the devastated regions of
France."