The heat was stifling in the Gran Ancora at Barcelona, an obscure but
grandiloquently named cafe of more than doubtful reputation. At
dilapidated tables in the long apartment which served as a saloon groups
of rough-looking men were drinking steadily. The fumes of strong
tobacco poisoned the heavy atmosphere, flies swarmed over everything,
the air was full of the reek of stale drink and unwashed humanity.
Though it was but early evening the ill-omened place was already filling
up. It was a notorious haunt of betting men and some of the worst
characters of the town, frequented by desperadoes who were ready to
undertake any deed of violence if it offered the promise of plunder.
The swarms of anarchists, who are the curse of Spain, found there a
ready welcome and congenial companionship.
At a table at one end of the long room, sat a solitary individual who
was reading the "Diario," an anarchist journal devoted to the preaching
of doctrine of the most revolutionary type. He spoke to no one, and no
one spoke to him, though now and again curious glances were directed
towards him. He took no notice of the hubbub around him, but went on
calmly reading his paper and sipping slowly at a glass of the villainous
wine which seemed to be the favourite beverage of the habitues of the
house.
The stranger was no other than Dick Manton. He had come to Barcelona on
the trail of a gang of international crooks who had got away with a
hundred thousand francs by a clever bank swindle in Paris. Had his
identity been suspected his life in that haunt of depravity would not
have been worth five minutes' purchase.
But he sat there undisturbed, apparently oblivious of what was going on
around him, but in reality keenly on the alert and with one hand close
to the butt of the heavy revolver which, as he well knew, he might be
called upon to use at any moment in the deadliest earnest.
Manton stiffened suddenly as his eye fell on the queer jumble of figures
quoted above. They were buried away in a mass of advertisements and
might well be overlooked by the casual reader. As Dick well knew, the
"Diario" was used for all kinds of queer communications to all kinds of
queer people, and he was attracted by the hint of mystery, a lure which
he could never resist. The jumble of figures fascinated him. He had a
strange feeling that it would be well worth while to try to decipher the
weird cryptogram. But he knew better than to try to do so there. It
was not healthy to try in public to pry into the secrets of the
underworld of Barcelona.
Dick Manton had had a strange and adventurous career. But as he gazed
at the odd announcement, he had a premonition that he was on the edge of
a mystery stranger than anything that he had so far encountered.
Having read the queer cryptogram over and over again, Dick slipped the
paper into his pocket.
Presently he finished his wine and sauntered out, with an uneasy feeling
that made him wonder whether he would reach the door without a bullet in
his back. He got out in safety, however, and once clear of the doubtful
neighbourhood of the cafe, made his way swiftly to his rooms at the
"Hotel Falcon."
It took several hours of hard work before he could obtain the key of the
cipher. Then he realised with a gasp that it was in one of the simplest
of British signal codes. The key read:
At first Dick was completely mystified. The message conveyed nothing to
him. Who were Mataza, Wilson, and Greening? Where was Chalkley? And,
above all, why should such a message appear in an English code in an
obscure paper published in Barcelona?
It was the last point which worried him most.
He felt instinctively that the message must conceal a meaning of which
he was necessarily ignorant, and that it must be related to some affair
which was pending in England. The more he thought about it the more
uneasy he grew. He had the premonition which so often comes to the help
of the detective, and at length, though he was almost ashamed of acting
on such slender grounds, he decided to consult his chief. An hour later
he was on his way to Paris, leaving the affair of the bank swindlers in
the hands of a capable subordinate.
Arriving in Paris he drove straight to Regnier's private apartment, just
off the Place de la Concorde.
"Why, Manton, what brings you here?" asked Regnier in surprise. "Have
you finished at Barcelona already?"
For answer Dick laid the deciphered cryptogram before the Chief.
"What do you make of that?" he asked abruptly.
Regnier read the slip of paper with knitted brows.
"Queer," he commented. "Why should it be published in the `Diario'? I
think it means mischief. Do you know Chalkley?"
Dick shook his head.
"No," he replied, "but it sounds like an English name. And yet I have a
feeling that I must have heard it somewhere. It sounds familiar, but I
cannot place it. In the meantime I will run home and see if the English
papers will tell me anything."
Dick found Jules and Yvette eager for news; he had telegraphed them that
he was returning. Dick, Jules, and Yvette had become the most
formidable combination in the French Secret Service. They always
insisted on working together, they would accept no assistance except
that which they chose themselves, and they would work only under the
direction of Regnier, who was astute enough to realise their abilities.
Yvette had been prevented by a slight illness from accompanying Dick to
Barcelona, and both she and Jules, who had stayed with her, hated
inaction. There had been a slump in international crime of the kind in
which they specialised, and they were suffering from _ennui_. Anything
which promised excitement and adventure was welcome.
They listened eagerly while Dick told his story.
"And now," said Dick, half ruefully, as he concluded, "I don't know
whether we are on the track of something or whether I have been an
idiot."
Yvette's eyes were dancing with merriment.
"Well, Dick," she said, "you are certainly a pretty Englishman not to
know one of the most famous places in your own country. Don't you
really know Chalkley?"
"No," replied Dick in bewilderment. "What do you know about it?"
For answer Yvette rummaged among a pile of newspapers and produced a
copy of the "Times" dated a week before.
"There?" she said. "Read that."
"That" was a closely printed column which Dick proceeded to scan with
attention. It was an article describing the wonderful deposits of
pitchblende, the ore from which radium is extracted, which had been
discovered in the Ural region in the neighbourhood of Zlatoust. An
English combine had secured the monopoly of the working for fifteen
years, and already a supply of radium valued at one hundred and fifty
thousand pounds had been brought home by the famous Professor Fortescue
for the use of British chemists and medical men.
The discovery and acquisition of the monopoly by British interests, the
article pointed out, had put England far ahead in the field of radium
research, for she had now a big supply of the precious commodity at her
disposal, while other nations were struggling along with the tiny
quantities obtained from other and far less rich deposits. And, as was
fully explained, it was not in medicine alone that the radium would be
valuable; there was hardly a department of commerce, to say nothing of
the arts of warfare, in which radium was not playing a considerable and
constantly increasing part. So many new discoveries were being made by
the band of experts, of whom Professor Fortescue was the acknowledged
head, that it was beginning to be realised that radium in the future was
likely to be as valuable as coal and oil had been in the past.
But--and here was the fact of most significance to Dick--the radium was
at Chalkley, Professor Fortescue's home in the wilds of the Durham
moors. He had taken it there on his return from Zlatoust for use in
some critical experiments he had in hand before it was sent on to the
young but growing school of Medicine at Durham University.
They had at least approached the heart of the mystery! It was evident
that some band of international desperadoes had designs on the precious
radium. In spite of their enormous value, the two tubes containing the
salt could easily be carried in a man's pocket, and in Germany there
would be a ready market for it among the great chemical firms, whose
business consciences were sufficiently elastic to permit them to pay a
big price and ask no awkward questions.
Dick was reading the report carefully, when he suddenly gave a startled
exclamation.
"Why, look here," he said, "the radium is only to be kept at Chalkley
till the twenty-ninth. That explains the twenty-nine in the
advertisement. And to-day is the twenty-seventh. If anything is to
happen it must be at once or they will be too late. I must ring up
Regnier." Regnier was with them in half an hour. He was filled with
excitement when he learned the facts which Yvette had discovered.
"That," he said, "puts an entirely new complexion on the affair. There
can now be very little doubt about the matter. Clearly `lead' means
radium, and I think we can interpret `bull market' as an intimation that
it is a big prize. They are evidently well informed, whoever they are.
We must tell London at once."
But before anything could be done a messenger for Regnier arrived post
haste from the bureau of the Secret Service in the Quai d'Orsay with
strange news.
A big aeroplane, flying at a tremendous speed, had crossed the
Franco-Spanish frontier near Bagneres de Luchon having apparently come
right across the Pyrenees. It had ignored all the signals of the French
frontier guards, whose aeroplanes had, in consequence, gone up in
pursuit. Only one of them was fast enough to approach the stranger, and
a fight had followed in which the French machine was crippled and forced
to descend. Thereupon the strange machine had proceeded, flying in the
direction of Bordeaux. Telephone messages had brought warning of its
approach, and several attempts had been made to stop it, but without
success. It had been reported, chased by French aeroplanes over
Bordeaux, Nantes, and St Malo, and at the latter place, just as dusk
was falling, it had left the French coast and laid a course apparently
for England. No further news of it had been received.
Regnier looked grave.
"Of course," he said, "we have absolutely no reason to couple this
machine with the advertisement in the `Diario,' but I confess I am
uneasy. There is at Chalkley radium worth a fortune, easily carried if
anyone can get hold of it, and readily convertible into cash. What
better device could be employed than a fast aeroplane which could get to
Durham and away before anyone could hope to stop it? In any case, I am
going to telephone Scotland Yard at once."
Half an hour later he was in communication with Inspector Cummings, the
senior officer on duty at the Yard. To him he explained his suspicions,
half afraid, with the Frenchman's dread of ridicule, that the other
would laugh at his story as an old woman's tale.
But Inspector Cummings was too experienced to be neglectful or sceptical
of anything which could disturb Regnier, whom he well knew to be one of
the most astute and level-headed of men. He took the matter seriously
enough.
"We have heard nothing yet," he said. "But I will 'phone Durham at once
and let you know in the course of an hour."
They waited anxiously for the reply. It came at last.
"Cummings speaking," said the voice on the 'phone. "I have spoken to
Durham. They have heard nothing there, but they are unable to obtain
any reply from Professor Fortescue. The telephone exchange reports his
line out of order.
"But here is a queer thing. A big aeroplane, evidently a foreigner, was
reported this morning to have been seen over the Midlands flying north.
There was a lot of mist about, and we have not been able to trace the
machine yet. But it was certainly not one of ours."
"Well," said Regnier, "will you keep me posted? I fancy you will have
more news before long. In any case, you will have Durham warned?"
"I have warned them myself," replied Cummings, "and they are sending a
couple of men out in a motor to make inquiries. You know Chalkley is
about twenty-five miles from Durham and quite in the wilds. Professor
Fortescue was, a couple of years ago, carrying out some experiments in
which it was absolutely necessary he should be away from anything like
traffic vibrations, and he chose this place for the purpose because it
was remote from any railway or heavy traffic. He has stayed there ever
since; he said it suited him to be `out of the world,' as he called it."
Three hours later came still more startling news.
The police officers who had gone from Durham to Chalkley had found that
two armed men had made a raid on Professor Fortescue's house. They had
gagged the servants, who were found lying bound and helpless, and the
Professor himself was found lying unconscious in his laboratory, having
apparently been sandbagged. The raiders had leisurely helped themselves
to food, and, having cut the telephone wires, had departed without any
particular haste.
But the great leaden safe, weighing several hundredweights, in which the
precious radium had been brought to England, was found to have been
broken open. _The radium was gone_!
Nothing in the meantime had been heard of the strange aeroplane. But a
few hours later an old shepherd walked into one of the local
police-stations and told a queer story.
His sheep the previous evening, he reported, had been disturbed by the
passing of an aeroplane which, flying very low, had landed on the moors
a few miles away from the Professor's house. It had stayed there all
night and, so far as he knew, was still there. He had been unable to
approach it closely as it was separated from where he had been by a deep
gorge and a stream which he could not cross without making a detour of
several miles. He had seen two men near the machine who had walked away
and disappeared in the folds of the moor.
A strong party of police, Cummings added, had left at once for the spot
where the aeroplane had been seen, taking the shepherd with them as
guide. The place was remote from any road, and it would be an hour or
two before they could get there. But the Air Ministry had been warned,
and already aeroplanes were going up in the hope of locating the strange
machine.
"I must be in this," said Dick. "Ask him if I can come over. I cannot,
of course, go unasked."
"Of course," said Cummings in reply to Regnier's request. "We shall be
only too glad to have Mr Manton. Miss Pasquet can come too, if she
likes. But I'm afraid he won't be able to get here in time. We shall
either have got these fellows or lost them hopelessly in a few hours."
Dick turned to Jules.
"Ring up the British Air Ministry," he said, "and ask them if the
strange machine gets off the ground to send us every movement as it is
reported. Keep the telephone on all the time. I am going to try to cut
these chaps off with the Mohawk. You will have to report to me by
wireless every movement as it comes through. From what we have heard I
fancy there are very few machines in England fast enough to catch those
fellows if they once get started. Of course you will come, Yvette?"
An hour later, Dick and Yvette, seated in the helicopter, were in full
flight for England. Yvette was at the controls; Dick, in view of the
work that might be before them, crouched over the tiny machine gun which
peered from the bow of the machine.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Fortescue was in a terrible state of distress. He had been
working in his laboratory, when a slight noise had caused him to turn
round. A man, apparently a foreigner as the Professor judged from the
hasty glance he got at him, was standing close behind him. Before the
Professor could speak or move he received a violent blow on the head,
and remembered nothing more till he recovered consciousness some time
later under the care of the police.
His chief concern was for the radium, and his distress at its loss was
pitiful. It was a disaster from which he seemed unable to recover. But
he appeared to derive a strange satisfaction from the danger in which
the thieves would find themselves.
"I don't know how they will get it away," he declared to the police
inspector. "It was dangerous to stay very near the safe for long owing
to the terrible power of the radium rays. If the thieves try to carry
the tubes in their pocket they will not get very far. Surely they
cannot realise the terrible risk they are running. However, that need
not distress us; all we want is to get the radium back."
In the meantime a strong party of police had arrived from Durham at the
Professor's house, and, under the guidance of the old shepherd, started
across the moors for the spot at which the strange aeroplane had been
seen. It was slow going over rough and difficult ground which tested
the endurance even of the younger men. The only unconcerned person was
the old shepherd who trudged stolidly on at a pace with which they found
it difficult to keep up.
They had gone eight or nine miles before the old man spoke.
"Not far now," he said.
A mile farther on he halted.
"It's just over yon hill," he said, pointing to a small eminence a few
hundred yards away. "You will see it as soon as you get at the top."
Breasting the rise, the police cautiously approached the ridge and
glanced over. There in the valley, only five or six hundred yards away,
was the aeroplane. Two men in air kit stood beside it.
Scattering into a thin line the police rushed down the slope, every man
with a revolver ready in his hand.
But they were just too late. They had only gone a few yards when the
men hastily took their places in the machine, there was a loud whirr as
the engine broke into action, and while the policemen were still a
hundred yards away, the strange machine rose into the air and was gone.
A furious volley rattled out from the revolvers, but the range was too
great and the breathless policemen had the mortification of seeing the
machine disappear rapidly to the south.
Immediately the fastest runner of the party started at a trot for the
Professor's house to send out a warning. But it was not necessary. The
aerodromes all over the kingdom had been warned by wireless from the Air
Ministry, and already a host of machines were scouting in every
direction.
The stranger, flying due south, had reached Bradford before he was
signalled. Instantly there was a rush of aeroplanes from all parts of
the Midlands to cut him off. But he slipped through the cordon, flying
very high and at a tremendous speed. Outside Birmingham a fast scout
picked him up and reported by wireless, and from the huge aerodrome at
Cheltenham over twenty fighting planes leaped into the air to stop the
career of the marauder.
There was now no chance, at least, of his getting away unobserved. He
was under constant observation, alike from the air and the ground, and
every moment wireless messages were pouring into the Air Ministry
reporting his progress. But to catch him proved impossible. Only two
of the pursuing machines were fast enough to keep up with the stranger,
and even they could not overtake him. So the headlong flight went on,
drawing ever nearer to the southern coast. If the stranger could get
out to sea all chance of stopping him would vanish.
But, unknown to the furious British airmen, help was close at hand.
Warned by Jules' wireless messages of the direction the strange machine
was taking, Yvette had steered a course to intercept him somewhere in
the neighbourhood of Bournemouth, and the Mohawk, with its wireless
chattering incessantly, was now swinging lazily at half speed in a big
circle between Salisbury and the Hampshire watering-place.
"Over Salisbury now," called Yvette to Dick, her voice ringing out
clearly above the muffled hum of the propeller, the only sound which
came from the helicopter, with its beautifully silenced engines.
A few minutes later Dick pointed to the north. "Here he comes," he
shouted.
Far away were three tiny specks in the sky.
Through his glasses Dick could make them out clearly enough. The leader
was a machine of a type he had never seen before; a mile behind it were
a couple of planes which he at once recognised as the Bristol fighters
which had been so familiar to him in France.
The pace of the three machines was terrific. It was clear the English
airmen were going all out in a desperate effort to catch the stranger
before he reached the water, and they were expending every ounce of
energy. But a moment or two later it was quite clear they were falling
behind. Presently a puff of smoke from the leader signalled "petrol
exhausted," and he dropped in a long slant to the ground.
The second machine, however, held on grimly, though slowly losing
ground. Evidently his predicament was the same as that of his
colleague, and a moment later he, too, dipped earthward and was out of
the fight.
Only the Mohawk stood between the stranger and safety!
But it was a Mohawk very different from the comparatively crude machine
of a year before, wonderful though that was. Dick and Jules had worked
out a revolutionary improvement in the lifting screws, with the result
that a small supplementary engine, using comparatively little power, was
now sufficient to keep the machine suspended in the air. As a result
the full power of the big twin driving engines was now available for
propulsion, and the speed of the Mohawk, when pushed to the limit, was
something of which Dick had hardly dreamed in his earlier days. So far
as he knew the Mohawk was easily the fastest craft in existence.
But what of the stranger? Had the men of the mystery craft a still
greater secret up their sleeve? That they had something big Dick could
plainly see by the way the fastest craft of the British Air Service, the
best in the world, had dropped astern of the stranger. Was the Mohawk
fast enough to beat the pirate? They would soon know.
As the big machine came on, Yvette set the elevating propellers of the
Mohawk to work, and the helicopter shot upward. The stranger saw the
manoeuvre and at once followed suit. But here he was at a disadvantage.
Yvette's object, of course, was to get above him. He would then be at
their mercy, for he could not fire vertically, while the gun of the
Mohawk was specially constructed so as to be able to fire downwards
through a trap which opened in the flooring. If they could get what in
the air corresponded to the "weather gauge" at sea, they would have the
marauder at their mercy if the Mohawk had speed enough to hold him.
Could they do it?
Plainly the fugitive saw his danger. As Yvette shot upward he must have
realised that in speed of climbing he was no match for his antagonist.
He decided to trust to his heels.
Yvette, climbing rapidly, had got a couple of thousand feet above the
stranger and was heading to meet him. They were now twelve thousand
feet in the air.
Suddenly, with a tremendous nose dive, the foreign aeroplane slipped
below them. The manoeuvre was so smartly carried out that Yvette was
completely taken by surprise, and before she could recover herself the
chance of bringing the stranger to battle had gone. He had passed five
thousand feet below them, and the issue now depended upon speed and
endurance.
With a cry of disappointment, Yvette swung the Mohawk round in pursuit.
Their quarry, by his daring manoeuvre, had gained a couple of miles
before she could turn, and was fast disappearing towards the sea.
Dick shook his head. He had seen the speed of which the fugitive was
capable, and he had the gravest doubts whether the Mohawk could equal
it.
Waiting for the strange aeroplane, Yvette had set the Mohawk to a
comparatively slow pace. She had misjudged the distance and her error
had enabled the raider to get a more than useful--possibly a decisive--
lead.
But even as she swung round she had pressed the accelerator and the
Mohawk quivered as the big twin engines began to work up to their
maximum. Watching keenly, Dick saw the apparent rush away of the
foreigner slacken and finally stop. They were at least holding their
own. He signalled Yvette for more speed. She shook her head.
Dick was in despair. The pace at which they were going was not enough.
He thought it was their best. But he had not calculated on Yvette's
resourcefulness.
The French girl had swiftly made up her mind. She knew they had plenty
of petrol for several hours' flight. They were holding their own
already in the matter of speed, and the Mohawk, though Dick did not know
it, had still some knots in reserve. Yvette would not jeopardise the
engines by instantly pushing them to the limit.
But they were "warming up" under her skilful handling. They were two
miles behind as they passed over Bournemouth and started the long flight
to the French coast which the stranger was seeking.
Half an hour slipped by and Dick suddenly realised that the Mohawk was
gaining, slowly, it was true, but unmistakably. He looked inquiringly
at Yvette, who nodded and smiled.
"All right, Dick," she shouted. "We can get them any time we want."
Dick realised her plan. His own thought, as a fighting man, would have
been to close at once and have it out. But Yvette had the radium in
mind. If they smashed the stranger over the sea the priceless radium
would inevitably be lost.
With the Mohawk gradually gaining, the chase drew near to the French
coast. Cherbourg loomed ahead of them, drew near, and disappeared
beneath them. They were over France.
Instantly Yvette began to coax the Mohawk to do its best. Splendidly
the engines responded, the plane shot forward at a pace which surprised
Dick, and a few minutes later they were directly above the fugitive.
The battle was all but won. In vain their quarry sought, by diving and
twisting, to shake them off. His position was hopeless.
Seeing a good landing-place ahead Dick fired a couple of shots as a
signal. They could see the terrified face of the passenger in the plane
below gazing upward at the strange shape of the Mohawk above them.
Then the signal of surrender came, and the fugitive dipped earthward. A
couple of minutes later it came to land, and the two occupants stood
holding up their hands while the Mohawk came gently to earth fifty yards
away, dropping vertically from the sky in a fashion which caused the
pilot of the foreign machine the wildest astonishment.
The radium was saved! But it enacted a fearful revenge. The
unfortunate passenger, who they found out later was a well-known Spanish
anarchist, had imprudently placed the two tubes in his pocket,
apparently ignorant of their terrible power. Even in the short time he
had them in his possession he was so terribly burned that he died a
couple of days later in spite of the efforts made to save him, while the
pilot, who had, of course, been near enough to the tubes to get some of
the effects, was also so seriously injured that for weeks his life hung
in the balance. It was found impossible to remove the tubes to England
until Professor Fortescue, overjoyed at the good news, came bringing the
leaden safe into which the precious tubes were placed.
The sequel came a week later. Not even the British War Office could
ignore the fact that the Mohawk, single-handed, had achieved a feat at
which the British Air Force had signally failed. A highly placed
official sought Dick out. The result was that the plans of the Mohawk
were sold jointly to England and France at the price of one hundred
thousand pounds.
And Regnier lost his "star" combination. Dick had no longer before his
eyes the fear that had haunted him for so long that in marrying Yvette
he would be condemning her to a life of comparative poverty. And so the
companionship born amid the stress and tumult of war came at last to
perfect fruition in the marriage between the two lovers which took place
in Paris just three months after their last air adventure.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The End.