. . . May Be Blind
Poole turned back towards his unfortunate subordinate.
“What happened?” he asked curtly. “Where’s that constable?”
“Revolver, sir, I think,” replied Fallows weakly “—hit me with it—on
the head. Munt ran to the body—when it fell. I waited—below
stairs—there’s a drop. Chap jumped—hit at me as he came down—knocked
me out. Don’t know—where—Munt is.”
He gave a gasp and collapsed into unconsciousness. Poole straightened
himself and turned again towards the alley-way. As he did so, Ryland
Fratten emerged from it, hobbling uncertainly.
“Sorry I couldn’t get out before, Inspector,” he said. “My legs were
asleep—they’ll hardly carry me now.”
“What were you doing up—no, never mind that now; we must find these
people.” He ran down into the street and looked to right and left.
From the direction of Cannon Street Station a disconsolate-looking
uniformed police-constable was approaching at an awkward shuffle.
“Where the hell have you been?” demanded the Inspector angrily. “Where
have those people got to?”
“Couldn’t say, I’m sure, sir,” replied the constable in an aggrieved
voice. “When the body fell, sir, I ran to it. Then I ’eard a shout,
and lookin’ round, saw the other ’tec bein’ laid out by a bloke with a
gun. I darted after ’im” (the idea of the solid police-constable Munt
“darting” anywhere would have tickled Poole at any other time). “The
girl ’ad gone off down the alley—’er mate follered ’er. I made after
’im and as I turned into the street ’e was waiting for me and caught
me slap in the wind with ’is knee—doubled me right up. ’E pushed me
over and give me two more with the ’eel of ’is boot—in the belly and
them parts—brutal it was, sir. Took me a couple o’ minutes to come
round. But I’d seen which way e’d gone—turned up Chaffer’s Way
there—’undred yards along—leads into Leadenhall it does. I went after
’em as soon as I could but I couldn’t see nothing of them.”
“Did you spread the warning? Did you tell the nearest possible points
or patrols?”
“No, sir. I come back to see if I could ’elp that pore ’tec what ’ad
been knocked out.”
“You blasted fool,” exclaimed Poole in a white heat of rage. “Your
superintendent shall hear of this. If they get away I’ll have you
hounded out of the force. Get off now and telephone to your divisional
headquarters—give them a description—Captain and Mrs. Wraile—tell them
to look out for a two-seater Caxton coupé and to search all garages in
this neighbourhood for it. Tell them to ring all the garages round
here and warn them not to let that car out—to hold the owners if they
can. Then get round to the men on point duty round here yourself and
warn them—and any patrols you meet. It’s murder they’re wanted for,
mind. Do this job thoroughly and I may forget the rest. Shift
yourself.”
P. C. Munt went off at the nearest to a “dart” that he had ever
attained. Poole turned to Ryland.
“There ought to have been two plain-clothes men here from the Yard
long ago,” he explained. “I was going to put them on to the Wrailes in
any case; luckily I linked up here with Fallows, who was on your
trail, Mr. Fratten, and we picked up that uniformed fool just outside.
I can’t stop to explain more now, sir, but if you wouldn’t mind
staying with Fallows till I can send an ambulance—I’ll get on to the
Yard and get general information out. These people’ll make for the
ports in all probability. The roads and railways must both be
watched—they may not use their car. I wish I knew what garage they
used round here—it must be close at hand—I ought to have asked that
fool Munt for the nearest ones—fool myself.”
Poole dashed off to the nearest telephone, and was quickly through to
the Chief Inspector Barrod. Within half an hour every station in
London, and many in the suburbs, was being watched for the Wrailes.
Within an hour all County Constabularies within two hundred miles of
London had been warned of the possible car or train passengers, whilst
every port in the kingdom had a similar description. A message to the
divisional police in the Fulham district ensured that the Wrailes’
lodgings would be at once put under watch.
Poole’s part in this had taken less than ten minutes—the time of his
telephone conversation with Barrod; immediately it was finished, he
rang up the divisional station, found out that Munt had put his
message through correctly and that all possible steps were being taken
to search for the runaways, and finally asked for the locations of the
nearest garages to Ald House. Only three were within the five minutes’
walk that Poole, with his knowledge of Mrs. Wraile’s time-table, put
as the outside limit. Within another ten minutes Poole had found the
car in a garage almost at the back of Ald House—within less than a
minute’s walk. The Wrailes had not been near it since it had been left
there in the morning.
Poole again rang up Scotland Yard and arranged for a plain-clothes man
to be posted at the garage, in case the Wrailes even now came for
their car. He also arranged for all cab ranks and shelters in the
neighbourhood of Ald House to be interrogated—there was a strong
possibility of the Wrailes having picked up a taxi as they had not
taken their car.
Returning to Ald House, Poole found that the two plain-clothes men
from Scotland Yard had at last turned up; they had come by Underground
from Westminster and had been held up for twenty minutes by a
breakdown on the line. Soon after their arrival, a police ambulance
had also turned up and removed Fallows and the body of Leopold Hessel.
P. C. Munt, who had been explaining the situation to the plain-clothes
men, reported that the other gentleman had said that he was returning
to Queen Anne’s Gate and would be there for the rest of the evening if
Inspector Poole wanted him. The detective felt that Ryland’s
explanation of his peculiar behaviour could now wait; there was no
longer any possibility that he was a confederate of the murderers.
Besides, there was a lot of work still to be done before he could feel
that the net spread for the Wrailes was complete; in all probability
Chief Inspector Barrod would do all that could be done, but Poole was
not going to leave anything to chance now.
During the hours that followed, the Victory Finance offices were
searched, the Wrailes’ rooms in Fulham not only searched but turned
inside out; the owners had not been back since morning and there was
no sign of a hurried flight. Poole collected all the papers he could
lay his hands on for future inspection, but for immediate use he
concentrated on an exhaustive search for photographs of the
fugitives—he wanted to get their likenesses broadcast through the
country with the least possible delay. A cabinet photograph on Mrs.
Wraile’s writing-table gave an excellent representation of Sir Hunter
Lorne’s late Brigade Major in uniform, but it was not till a volume of
snapshots had been unearthed and searched that a picture of his wife
was forthcoming.
The rush of work had kept Poole’s mind from the problem of Hessel’s
identity with Lessingham. Although it had come as a complete surprise,
the detective had felt too suspicious of the banker’s connection with
the case—and particularly with the five minutes following the
“accident”—to be entirely astonished. Now, as he worked on the
creation of the net to catch the living criminals he felt that he
could well thrust the problem of the dead one into the background
until his immediate task was completed. By the time he got back to his
Battersea lodgings, well after midnight, he had forgotten all about it
and dropped asleep the moment his head touched the pillow.
The succeeding days were trying ones for Inspector Poole. Once the
machinery of Scotland Yard and of the County Constabularies was in
full working order, there was little he could do himself in the way of
pursuit. For days the search went on, at first with confidence, then
with patient hope, finally with dogged persistence—but little more.
At a conference with the Assistant-Commissioner on the morning after
the affair at Ald House it had been decided to take the public fully
into the confidence of the police—primarily in order that the full
power of the press might be brought to bear in the search. Placards
bearing the likeness of James and Miriam Wraile were posted at every
police station and post office; all but the most dignified newspapers
printed similar reproductions, together with minute descriptions, and
every detail of the escape and many possible and impossible theories
and suggestions. The B.B.C. gave nightly encouragement to the
searchers, both professional and amateur.
An inquest was held on the body of Leopold Hessel, at which his
identity with the financier, Travers Lessingham, was revealed,
together with his association with Captain Wraile in the Rotunda
Syndicate transactions. Nothing, however, was said at the first
hearing about the Fratten murder, though naturally the public jumped
to their own conclusions. The circumstances of Hessel’s death could
not, of course, be fully established without the presence of the
Wrailes, and the inquest was adjourned for a fortnight.
Poole busied himself in connecting up the carefully concealed threads
which had united this latest Jekyll and Hyde. Travers Lessingham had
apparently been in existence since the year following the war, though
he had begun his operations in the City in a very minor key—feeling
his way, as Poole phrased it. In addition to his arrangement with the
Hotel Antwerp and Mme. Pintole of the Rue des Canetons, Hessel had
kept a small studio in the neighbourhood of Gray’s Inn; this he had
used for changing from one identity to the other, and as the tone of
the lower grades of studio life is anything but inquisitive, there was
small risk of anyone giving him away.
The actual disguise was a simple matter; a wig of curly black hair,
darkened eyebrows and whitened face, tinted spectacles (too common in
these days to excite suspicion), a differently shaped dental plate,
coat padded on the shoulder-blades, and waistcoat and trousers in
front—these required no great skill to adjust and manipulate. His
appearances as Lessingham in the City were so rare that no one had
time to get to know him and so to begin to take an interest in his
movements. That at least was how such of his City acquaintances as
admitted to it explained their deception. The complete details of his
performance would probably never be known unless the Wrailes chose to
reveal it. They must, in the months of his more active life as
Lessingham, have manipulated a great deal for him—and they would now,
in all probability, never disclose the facts.
Ten days after the escape of the Wrailes,—ten days in which not one
whiff of scent came to the eager nostrils of the public, so that even
their press-fed enthusiasm was beginning to wane—Inez and Ryland
Fratten, with Laurence Mangane, were sitting at tea in the
morning-room at Queen Anne’s Gate when Golpin entered to announce that
Inspector Poole was waiting in the hall and would like to see either
Miss or Mr. Fratten or both.
“Oh, show him in, Golpin,” said Inez. “And bring another cup. He may
have some news.”
Mangane rose to his feet, but Inez stretched out a detaining hand.
“Don’t go,” she said. “He can’t be here ‘with hostile intent’ now. Ah,
there you are, Mr. Poole; come and have some tea. We thought you’d
forgotten all about us. Have you got any news?”
Poole smiled and took the chair that Ryland pushed across to him.
“I haven’t quite forgotten about you, Miss Fratten; I’ve come to ask
some questions.”
“Oh-h!” groaned Inez. “I thought that was over.”
“Not quite, but to show they aren’t of ‘hostile intent’—as I think I
heard you say—I’ll accept your kind offer of some tea.” He turned to
Ryland. “It’s you, sir, really, that I want to ask questions. They’re
really more to satisfy my own curiosity than of official necessity.
D’you mind if I do? They’re quite harmless.”
“No, of course he doesn’t,” answered Inez, who had seen Ryland
hesitate. “But remember—we’ve got our own curiosity—you won’t do all
the asking.”
Poole laughed.
“That’s a bargain then. It’s just this, Mr. Fratten. I gathered from
you that you went up that fire-escape to try and overhear what Wraile
and Lessingham were talking about; how did you know they were going to
be there, and how did you know about the escape?”
“I was there two or three nights before—as I believe you know. I heard
Wraile and his secretary—as I believed her to be then—I didn’t
recognize her voice—talking about Lessingham—that he’d be there on
Tuesday evening after the office closed. I found the fire-escape,
because I went back that same night to look for it—as I was going home
it suddenly struck me that there might be such a thing and that if
there were, it was the very way to hear what was going on.”
“Good for you, sir,” said Poole. “But why didn’t you tell me what you
were after—that you were on the trail of this Rotunda business?”
“Why indeed?” broke in Inez. “Because he was a pig-headed idiot! He
wouldn’t tell me when I saw him next morning—snubbed me when I asked
him what he was up to—so I didn’t tell him about Miss Saverel being
his precious Daphne. Nearly cost him his life, that particular bit of
pig-headedness did.”
“I’m afraid I’m partly to blame, Inspector,” interposed Mangane. “I
put you both on to the same trail without letting the other know. I
knew Fratten didn’t want anyone to know what he was doing and I
thought that if I told him you were on it too, he might whip off.”
“So I should have,” said Fratten. “I don’t suppose any of you’ll
understand, but I wanted to do something useful for once in my life,
without shouting about it. You see, I’ve behaved like a first-class
swine over this whole business—both before and after my father’s
death. There’s one question that you haven’t asked me, Inspector, and
I know you want to—you’re a real brick not to have let it out. You
see, I know that you went to that chap Silence and found out about Sir
Horace’s letter—he told me when I repaid him the other day. I want you
all to know about that—yes, you too, Mangane—then I shall have got
everything off my chest and be able to start again.”
Behind the tea-table Inez’s hand crept along the sofa and slipped into
Ryland’s.
“You know I was engaged to a girl at the ‘Inanity’—Julie Vermont? One
says ‘engaged,’ but I don’t think either of us ever thought of getting
married—it was just rather fun—and quite a common thing with fellows
who went with that crowd. But she meant business—money. When I
suggested we should break it off—we’d had quite enough of each
other—she talked of breach of promise. I needn’t tell you the whole
story—it worked out at £15,000 in the end—practically blackmail—she
evidently knew how I stood with my father. I was pretty desperate—I
tried to get it out of him—wrote to him. He sent for me and gave me
hell—you remember that, Inez—it was the day he had that accident—I
couldn’t help it then—he’d got my letter and sent for me. He
practically turned me out. You know about that.
“Soon after that, Inez got me to go and see Sir Horace Spavage—the
doctor—about father’s health. I couldn’t understand much of what he
said—it was rather technical—so I got him to write it down. It
amounted to a pretty poor ‘life,’ as the insurance people say. I was
taking the note back to Inez when it occurred to me that I might use
it as security for raising the money. Most of the money-lenders
wouldn’t look at me—I’d borrowed all over the place and they knew that
father wouldn’t pay up any more—but that fellow Silence will always go
one further than the rest—at a price—and I took the note to him. He
advanced me the £15,000 on that—for three months—at a terrific rate of
interest. It was a gamble. That’s the awful part about it; I didn’t
properly realize it at the time, but of course directly he was dead I
did—I was gambling with my father’s life.”
Ryland stopped and sat, with haggard face, staring at the cup in front
of him. Inez gently squeezed his hand, the others sat in awkward
silence. Poole was the first to break it.
“Good of you to tell me that, sir,” he said. “I appreciate your
telling me—I shouldn’t have asked. Well, it’s your turn now, Miss
Fratten.” He looked at his watch. “I can give you ten minutes—I’ve got
to catch a train.”
“Oh, but I’ve got thousands of questions,” exclaimed Inez. “I want to
know about Mr. Hessel—did you know he was in it? I couldn’t make out
from the inquest.”
“I didn’t know he was Lessingham, if that’s what you mean, Miss
Fratten. But I had a very strong suspicion that he was in the plot
to kill your father. Not at first—he completely deceived me; but as
the actual facts of the murder came out—how it was done and how
closely the Wrailes’ alibis fitted to the actual time of the attack—it
seemed to me that it couldn’t possibly be a chance that your father
and Hessel had walked into the trap at the one and only time
that would fit in with the alibis that the Wrailes _had arranged
beforehand_—Captain Wraile, remember, had asked someone to visit him
at the club at seven, and Mrs. Wraile had to be back in time to see
the hall-porter before he went off duty at seven—and couldn’t get away
till appreciably after six. No—Sir Garth must have been led at the
exactly right moment, into the trap—led by Hessel. I remember now that
the first time I interviewed Hessel he told me that your father always
walked home across the Park in the evening. That, no doubt, was to
make me think that his walk was well known by other people—and on that
they based their plan—but the _exactness_ of the time couldn’t have
been counted on—it must have been manufactured.
“Then there were the ‘Ethiopian and General’ papers—they were missing
from Sir Garth’s carefully collected wrapper on the ‘Victory Finance
Company.’ They must have been stolen. The opportunities of stealing
them were very slight—Hessel called Mr. Mangane within a few minutes
of Sir Garth’s body being carried upstairs out of here, and had the
study doors locked—took the keys. He carefully did not come back here
till days afterwards, and then only went into the room with Menticle
and Mr. Mangane as witnesses—to create the impression that nobody had
a chance of touching anything—that nothing _had_ been touched.
Actually, there was a possibility that they might have been taken
_before_ he and Mangane locked the study. It was hardly likely that
they were moved before the body was brought back—though not
impossible. While the body was in here, Golpin was in the hall and
swears nobody entered the study. Mangane might have gone in from his
room—nobody else could have because he was there all the time. But I
didn’t think he had—I knew him personally. There remained the
possibility that Hessel had gone in himself in those two or three
minutes after the body was moved and before he sent for Mangane. There
was no earthly reason why he shouldn’t have—I came to the conclusion
that he did.
“I should say that there’s no doubt that your father had begun to
smell trouble about the Ethiopian and General, Miss Fratten, and that
his notes made that pretty clear. No doubt that was why he seemed to
you to be worried—he was unhappy at finding a friend—Sir Hunter—mixed
up in a shady business. That’s why Hessel only took the ‘Ethiopian and
General’ papers. Why he left the other notes—the details about the Nem
Nem Sohar and South Wales Pulverization and the queries about all
three, which attracted our attention to the Ethiopian and General,—I
don’t know. Probably he lost his head—or tried to be too clever—it’s
generally one of those alternatives that hangs a murderer.
“Of course I only came to this point quite late—the last developments
came with a rush and I couldn’t do everything at once—I had no time to
question him again, though I tried to once—he was away. But we should
definitely have linked him up in a day or two. Now, Miss Fratten, I’ve
taken rather longer than I meant over that—I haven’t time to answer
more questions—because I’ve got something to tell you.
“It’s what I really came here for—to read you a letter. My chief—Sir
Leward Marradine—told me to come and show it to you—reading will be
simplest.
“It’s a letter from Captain Wraile—postmark ‘Liverpool,’ date
yesterday—no other indication. This is what he says:
“Dear Commissioner,
I’m taking a leaf out of the book of a man I’ve a great admiration
for—the man who killed Sir John Smethrust. After he got clear he
wrote to Scotland Yard and explained how he’d done it—said he liked
to tidy things up. So do I. By the time you get this—it will be
posted ten days from now—Miriam and I will be absolutely clear—not
only across the water but across half a continent—start looking for
us if you like. If you find us you’re smarter than I give you credit
for—but you won’t take us alive—and one or two of you’ll get hurt.
There are a few details I’d like to make clear. I take it, as a
basis, that you know how the killing was done and the alibis
arranged—your Mr. Poole seemed fairly sharp on that, though I don’t
quite know how he turned up at Ald House when he did on Tuesday
night.”
(“By the way, Mr. Fratten, I was following you. Fallows rang up that
you slipped him and we traced you there. I was looking for Mrs.
Wraile’s way out too—after finding that her husband had left his club
by a back window I guessed that they’d repeated the trick at Ald
House.”)
“After Poole disturbed us, we cut down the escape. Poor Lessingham
didn’t know the rail was missing at one turn—he went over—quite
accidentally, I needn’t assure, Mr. Commissioner. We slipped your
not very vigorous watch-dogs, got a taxi, and so—by stages that I
won’t mention—to the beginning of our long journey.
Now about earlier times. Lessingham—Hessel—struck on me when I was
on my beam ends, like many other soldiers. He was on them
too—psychologically, and for a different reason. He had had a
devilish time in the war—‘German Jew’ and all the rest of it. His
one idea was to get his own back—he was quite unscrupulous—and
unreasonable as to how he did it and who he did it to, though he
probably wouldn’t have picked on his own friend, Fratten, if Fratten
hadn’t stumbled across our path—might have, though—complexes are
funny things.
You’ve got to the bottom of the Rotunda game by now—I needn’t bother
you with that. By the way, my poor old General was quite innocent of
what was happening—as he has been all his life—don’t run him in.
Resston, too, of course. Lessingham’s official letters were sent by
the clerks to the Hotel Antwerp and by them to Mme. Pintole, who
destroyed them. But another set, and anything of importance, was
sent privately by Miriam to his own home address—as Hessel. In that
way he was kept absolutely up to date all the time though he only
came near us about once a month. In the same way, he wrote to her or
to me. It all went swimmingly till Fratten blew in.
The idea of how to kill him was Hessel’s—I wish I could claim the
credit for it. On the very day that Fratten told him about having
been invited to join our Board he also told him about having a
thorasic aneurism. By the merest chance, Hessel knew what a thorasic
aneurism was—and where it was—he’d had a relation or someone with
it. What’s more, just after he heard about it, Fratten was nearly
run over by a motor and the shock nearly did him in—that gave Hessel
the idea. The affair on the Steps of course, we staged to distract
attention from the actual attack. It would probably be put down to
an accident and it was a million to one against my being traced. I
don’t know now how you got on to it. After the ‘accident’ I made for
the car and Hessel led Fratten exactly where we wanted him, waving a
bright cigar end to mark his course. The shooting was easy, but the
damn slug caught somewhere and the cord broke. I went back to look
for it but couldn’t find it—perhaps you did.
My own disguise for the part, of course, was very slight—moustache
darkened with grease stick—easily wiped off—and a clerk’s voice. My
overcoat and hat I’d hung on the visitors’ peg in the passage
outside the small library—the coat was a shabby one, so I’d walked
in with it over my arm. My appointment with Lukescu was made
officially by my office for 6.30—no doubt you checked that—but I
telephoned to him privately not to come till 7. Of course the times
were very carefully worked out and Hessel neatly steered Fratten
into them.
Just two small points to interest the good Inspector. When he and
Miss Fratten sleuthed us on the Underground that evening and we
slipped out at Charing Cross Station, we took the only taxi on the
rank—pure luck that—we’d had no time to plan—and then slipped down
into the tube at Piccadilly Circus. When he came to interview Blagge
and ‘Miss Saverel’ at the Conservative office, she sent a note to me
from under his very nose, telling me he was there and asking me to
cut her out. I did.
Anything more you want to know, you must ask—but you’ll probably be
blue in the face before you get an answer.
Adieu, cher Commissionaire,
James Wraile.
P. S. I dedicate the identical cross-bow—it’s killed Boches as well
as bankers—to the Black Museum—you’ll find it in the cloak-room at
King’s Cross.”
“That’s the letter, Miss Fratten.”
“Well I’m dashed, he’s got a nerve,” said Ryland.
“So they’ve slipped you after all, Mr. Poole,” said Inez—her voice
poised half-way between relief and disappointment.
Poole shook his head.
“Four days ago,” he said, “a bus conductor recovered from an attack of
influenza—and saw our appeal. He came to me and told me that the
Wrailes had boarded his bus in Leadenhall Street and got off at King’s
Cross. He probably wouldn’t have noticed where they got off if they’d
got off in the crowd at the King’s Cross stop—but (as I found on
pressing him) they got off one street short of it, by pulling the
cord—and he noticed them. They took that turn to the left—they didn’t
go to King’s Cross or St. Pancras.
“I searched the neighbourhood and found a garage from which they took
their _other_ car. They were already slightly disguised—in their walk
from the bus to the garage—evidently they always carried small sticks
of make-up in case a bolt was necessary. They had bought that car
months ago and kept it in that garage—for the bolt and for one other
purpose. That evening they drove quietly out of London, stopping
somewhere to change their appearance properly—no doubt a make-up box
was part of the car’s equipment. They drove through the night—no one
was looking out for a Morris saloon with a middle-aged couple in
it—down to their cottage in North Wales—near Ruthin. From there, of
course, it was a simple matter to run up to Liverpool—yesterday—and
post that letter. They’d taken that cottage last spring and been there
for very occasional week-ends—as the middle-aged Mr. and Mrs.
Waterford—in that Morris car. [‘That’s the car she drove me in,’
thought Ryland.] Nobody had paid any attention to them—nobody does
now—except the police. The last link in the story that I’ve been
telling you was completed by us this morning; their place will be
surrounded as soon as it’s dark—it is already. I’m going down now to
take them.”
Poole rose to his feet.
“My train’s at seven—I must go. Good-night, Miss Fratten—thank you for
giving me tea—and for all you’ve done to make a beastly job bearable.
Good-night, Mr. Fratten—you won’t mind if I wish you good luck?
Good-night, Mr. Mangane.”
He turned on his heel and walked quickly to the door. The three others
still sat, almost petrified by astonishment at the sudden change of
situation. Inez was the first to recover herself; she sprang to her
feet and ran after Poole shutting the door firmly behind her. The
detective was just opening the front door.
“Mr. Poole, wait!” she said.
He turned back to meet her.
“I just wanted to say—that letter of Captain Wraile’s—they’re
desperate people, Mr. Poole—do be—do be as careful as you can.”
Poole looked down into the girl’s flushed face and sparkling eyes—eyes
in which sympathy and anxiety at least were present. A great longing
seized him.
“If you . . .” he forced back the words that were surging to his lips.
“Thank you, Miss Fratten,” he said. “I shall do my duty.”
He turned abruptly, opened the door, and walked out into the night.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
This transcription follows the text of the edition published by Payson
& Clarke Ltd in 1929. The following changes have been made to correct
what are believed to be unambiguous printer’s errors.
* “Inpector” was changed to “Inspector” (Chapter VI).
* “ect.” was changed to “etc.” (Chapter VI).
* “Phys,” was changed to “Phys.” (Chapter VI).
* “Brittanica” was changed to “Britannica” (Chapter VII).
* “occcasionally” was changed to “occasionally” (Chapter IX).
* “impossible for use” was changed to “impossible for us”
(Chapter XI).
* “Duhamel Freres” was changed to “Duhamel Frères” (Chapter XV).
* “testting” was changed to “testing” (Chapter XVII).
* “a complicate” was changed to “a complicated” (Chapter XIX).
* “realiable” was changed to “reliable” (Chapter XXI).
* “fiften” was changed to “fifteen” (Chapter XXV).
* “faint preliminary whim” was changed to “faint preliminary whirr”
(Chapter XXV).
* “startingly” was changed to “startlingly” (Chapter XXV).
* “necesity” was changed to “necessity” (Chapter XXVI).
* Seven occurrences of mismatched quotation marks have been repaired.