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BERYL OF THE BIPLANE
NOVELS BY WILLIAM LE QUEUX
“_THE MASTER OF MYSTERY._”
THE FOUR FACES Cloth, 1/- net.
DONOVAN OF WHITEHALL Cloth, 1/- net.
THE SPY HUNTER Paper, 1/- net.
THE TICKENCOTE TREASURE Paper, 6d.
THE GREAT WHITE QUEEN Paper, 6d.
THE DEATH DOCTOR Paper, 6d.
LYING LIPS Paper, 6d.
AT THE SIGN OF THE SWORD Paper, 6d.
C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LTD.
BERYL OF THE
BIPLANE
_Being the Romance of an Air-woman of To-day_
BY
WILLIAM LE QUEUX
LONDON
C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LIMITED
HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.
1917
[_Copyright in the United States of America by William Le Queux, 1917.
Cinema rights reserved._]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE MYSTERIOUS NUMBER SEVEN 1
II. MR. MARK MARX 21
III. THE SHABBY STRANGER 43
IV. THE THURSDAY RENDEZVOUS 63
V. CONCERNS THE HIDDEN HAND 82
VI. THE PRICE OF VICTORY 101
BERYL OF THE BIPLANE
CHAPTER I.
THE MYSTERIOUS NUMBER SEVEN.
“Are you flying ‘The Hornet’ to-night?”
“I expect so.”
“You were up last night, weren’t you? Mac told me so at Brooklands this
morning.”
“Yes--Zepp-hunting. I was up three hours, but, alas! had no luck. Two
came in over Essex but were scared by the anti-aircraft boys, and
turned tail. Better luck to-night, I hope,” and Ronald Pryor, the tall,
dark, good-looking young man in grey flannels, laughed merrily as, with
a quick movement, he flicked the ash from his after-luncheon cigarette.
His companion, George Bellingham, who was in the uniform of the Royal
Flying Corps, wearing the silver wings of the pilot, was perhaps three
years his senior, fair-haired, grey-eyed, with a small sandy moustache
trimmed to the most correct cut.
Passers-by in Pall Mall on that June afternoon no doubt wondered why
Ronald Pryor was not in khaki. As a matter of fact, the handsome,
athletic young fellow had already done his bit--and done it with very
great honour and distinction.
Before the war he had been of little good to society, it is true. He
had been one of those modern dandies whose accomplishments include an
elegant taste in socks--with ties to match--and a critical eye for an
ill-cut pair of trousers. Eldest son of a wealthy bank-director, Ronnie
Pryor had been born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth.
After his career at Oxford, his father, Henry Pryor, who lived mostly
at his beautiful old place, Urchfont Hall, a few miles out of Norwich,
had given him an ample allowance. He had lived in a bachelor flat in
Duke Street, St. James’s, and spent several gay years about town with
kindred souls of both sexes, becoming a familiar object each night at
the supper-tables of the Savoy, the Carlton, or the Ritz.
This wild oat sowing had, however, been brought to an abrupt conclusion
in a rather curious manner.
One Saturday afternoon he had driven in a friend’s car over to the
Aerodrome at Hendon, and had there witnessed some graceful flying. He
had instantly become “bitten” by the sport, and from that moment had
devoted himself assiduously to it.
Four months later he had taken his “ticket” as a pilot, and then,
assisted by capital from his indulgent father, had entered business
by establishing the well-known Pryor Aeroplane Factory at Weybridge,
with a branch at Hendon, a business in which his companion,
Flight-Lieutenant George Bellingham, of the Royal Flying Corps, had
been, and was still, financially interested.
That Ronnie Pryor--as everyone called him--was a handsome fellow could
not be denied. His was a strongly marked personality, clean-limbed,
with close-cut dark hair, a refined aquiline face, and that slight
contraction of the eyebrows that every air-pilot so quickly develops.
On the outbreak of war he had been out with General French, had been
through the retreat from Mons, and while scouting in the air during the
first battle of Ypres, had been attacked by a German Taube. A fierce
and intensely exciting fight in the air ensued, as a result of which he
brought his enemy down within our own lines, but unfortunately received
a severe wound in the stomach himself, and, planing down, reached earth
safely a long distance away and collapsed unconscious.
The condition of his health was such that the Medical Board refused to
pass him for service abroad again, therefore he was now devoting his
time to building aeroplanes for the Government, and frequently flying
them at night, thus assisting in the aerial defence of our coast, and
of London.
Ronnie Pryor was known as one of the most daring and intrepid
air-pilots that we possessed. Before his crash he had brought down
quite a number of his adversaries in the air, for the manner in which
he could manipulate his machine, “zumming,” diving, rising, and flying
a zigzag course, avoiding the enemy’s fire, was marvellous. Indeed, it
was he who one afternoon dropped nine bombs upon the enemy’s aerodrome
at Oudenarde, being mentioned in despatches for that daring exploit.
His one regret was that the doctor considered him “crocked.” Discarding
his uniform he, in defiance of everybody, flew constantly in the big
biplane which he himself had built, and which the boys at Hendon had
nicknamed “The Hornet.” The machine was a “strafer,” of the most
formidable type, with an engine of two hundred and fifty horse-power,
fitted with a Lewis gun and a rack for bombs, while no more daring
airman ever sat at a joy-stick than its owner.
“They’re running that new Anzani engine on the bench at Hendon,”
Bellingham remarked presently. “I’m going out to see it. Come with me.”
Ronnie considered for a few seconds, and then accepted the suggestion,
he driving his partner out to Hendon in his yellow car which had been
standing in St. James’s Square.
At the busy aerodrome, where all sorts of machines were being assembled
and tested, they entered the spacious workshops of the Pryor Aeroplane
Factory where, in one corner, amid whirring machinery, a large
aeroplane-engine was running at top speed with a hum that was deafening
in the confined space.
Half-an-hour later both men went forth again into the aerodrome where
several “school ’buses” were being flown by pupils of the flying
school. Suddenly Bellingham’s quick airman’s eye caught sight of a
biplane at a great height coming from the north-west.
“Why, isn’t that Beryl up in your ’bus?” he exclaimed, pointing out the
machine. “I didn’t know she was out to-day.”
“Yes,” was Ronnie’s reply. “She flew over to Huntingdon this morning to
see her sister.”
“Was she up with you last night?”
“Yes. She generally goes up daily.”
“She has wonderful nerve for a woman,” declared George. “A pupil who
has done great credit to her tutor--yourself, Ronnie. How many times
has she flown the Channel?”
“Seven. Three times alone, and four with me. The last time she crossed
alone she went up from Bedford and landed close to Berck, beyond
Paris-Plage. She passed over Folkestone, and then over to Cape Grisnez.”
“Look at her now!” Bellingham exclaimed in admiration. “By Jove! She’s
doing a good stunt!”
As he spoke the aeroplane which Beryl Gaselee was flying, that great
battleplane of Ronnie’s invention--“The Hornet,” as they had named it
on account of a certain politician’s reassurance--circled high in the
air above the aerodrome, making a high-pitched hum quite different from
that of the other machines in the air.
“She’s taken the silencer off,” Ronnie remarked. “She’s in a hurry, no
doubt.”
“That silencer of yours is a marvellous invention,” George declared.
“Thank goodness Fritz hasn’t got it!”
Ronnie smiled, and selecting a cigarette from his case, tapped it down
and slowly lit it, his eyes upon the machine now hovering like a great
hawk above them.
“I can run her so that at a thousand feet up nobody below can hear
a sound,” he remarked. “That’s where we’ve got the pull for night
bombing. A touch on the lever and the exhaust is silent, so that the
enemy can’t hear us come up.”
“Yes. It’s a deuced cute invention,” declared his partner. “It saved me
that night a month ago when I got over Alost and put a few incendiary
pills into the German barracks. I got away in the darkness and, though
half-a-dozen machines went up, they couldn’t find me.”
“The enemy would dearly like to get hold of the secret,” laughed
Ronnie. “But all of us keep it guarded too carefully.”
“Yes,” said his partner, as they watched with admiring eyes, how
Beryl Gaselee, the intrepid woman aviator, was manipulating the big
battleplane in her descent. “Your invention for the keeping of the
secret, my dear fellow, is quite as clever as the invention itself.”
The new silencer for aeroplane-engines Ronnie Pryor had offered to
the authorities, and as it was still under consideration, he kept it
strictly to himself. Only he, his mechanic, Beryl and his partner
George Bellingham, knew its true mechanism, and so careful was he to
conceal it from the enemy in our midst, that he had also invented a
clever contrivance by which, with a turn of a winged nut, the valve
came apart, so that the chief portion--which was a secret--could be
placed in one’s pocket, and carried away whenever the machines were
left.
“I don’t want any frills from you, old man,” laughed the merry,
easy-going young fellow in flannels. “I’m only trying to do my best for
my country, just as you have done, and just as Beryl is doing.”
“Beryl is a real brick.”
“You say that because we are pals.”
“No, Ronnie. I say it because it’s the rock-bottom truth; because Miss
Gaselee, thanks to your tuition, is one of the very few women who have
come to the front as aviators in the war. She knows how to fly as well
as any Squadron Commander. Look at her now! Just look at the spiral
she’s making. Neither of us could do it better. Her engine, too, is
running like a clock.”
And, as the two aviators watched, the great battleplane swept round and
round the aerodrome, quickly dropping from twelve thousand feet--the
height at which they had first noticed its approach--towards the wide
expanse of grass that was the landing-place.
At last “The Hornet,” humming loudly like a huge bumblebee, touched
earth and came to a standstill, while Ronnie ran forward to help his
well-beloved out of the pilot’s seat.
“Hullo, Ronnie!” cried the fresh-faced, athletic girl merrily. “I
didn’t expect to find you here! I thought you’d gone to Harbury, and I
intended to fly over and find you there.”
“I ran out here with George to see that new engine running on the
bench,” he explained. “Come and have some tea. You must want some.”
The girl, in her workmanlike air-woman’s windproof overalls, her
“grummet”--which in aerodrome-parlance means headgear--her big goggles
and thick gauntlet-gloves, rose from her seat, whilst her lover took
her tenderly in his arms and lifted her out upon the ground.
Then, after a glance at the altimeter, he remarked:
“By Jove, Beryl! You’ve been flying pretty high--thirteen thousand four
hundred feet.”
“Yes,” laughed the girl merrily. “The weather this afternoon is perfect
for a stunt.”
Then, after the young man had gone to the exhaust, unscrewed the
silencer and placed the secret part in his pocket, the pair walked
across to the tea-room and there sat _tête-à-tête_ upon the verandah
gossiping.
Beryl Gaselee was, perhaps, the best-known flying-woman in the United
Kingdom. There were others, but none so expert nor so daring. She would
fly when the pylon pilots--as the ornate gentlemen of the aerodromes
are called--shook their heads and refused to go up.
Soft-featured, with pretty, fair and rather fluffy hair, and quite
devoid of that curious hardness of feature which usually distinguishes
the female athlete, her age was twenty-three, her figure slightly
_petite_ and quite slim. Indeed, many airmen who knew her were amazed
that such a frail-looking little person could manage such a big,
powerful machine as Ronnie Pryor’s “Hornet”--the ’bus which was the
last word in battleplanes both for rapid rising and for speed.
The way in which she manipulated the joy-stick often, indeed,
astonished Ronnie himself. But her confidence in herself, and in the
stability of the machine, was so complete that such a thing as possible
disaster never occurred to her.
As she sat at the tea-table, her cheeks fresh and reddened by the
cutting wind at such an altitude, a wisp of fair hair straying across
her face, and her big, wide-open blue eyes aglow with the pleasure of
living, she presented a charming figure of that feminine type that
is so purely English. They were truly an interesting pair, a fact
which had apparently become impressed upon a middle-aged air-mechanic
in brown overalls who, in passing the verandah upon which they were
seated, looked up and cast a furtive glance at them.
Both were far too absorbed in each other to notice the man’s unusual
interest, or the expression of suppressed excitement upon his grimy
face, as he watched them with covert glance. Had they seen it, they
might possibly have been curious as to the real reason. As it was, they
remained in blissful ignorance, happy in each other’s confidence and
love.
“Just the weather for another Zepp raid to-night,” Ronnie was
remarking. “No moon to speak of, wind just right for them, and a high
barometer.”
“That’s why you’re going to Harbury this evening, in readiness to go
up, I suppose?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You’ll let me go with you, won’t you?” she begged, as she poured him
his second cup of tea with dainty hand.
“You were up last night, and you’ve been for a long joy-ride to-day. I
think it would really be too great a strain, Beryl, for you to go out
to-night,” he protested.
“No, it won’t. Do let me go, dear!” she urged.
“Very well,” he replied, always unable to refuse her, as she knew full
well. “In that case we’ll fly over to Harbury now, and put the ’bus
away till to-night. I’ve sent Collins out there in readiness.”
Then, half-an-hour later, “The Hornet,” with Ronnie at the joy-stick
and Beryl in the observer’s seat, rose again from the grass and,
after a couple of turns around the pylons, ascended rapidly, heading
north-east.
As it did so, the dark-eyed mechanic in the brown overalls stood
watching it grow smaller until it passed out of sight.
For some minutes he remained silent and pensive, his heavy brows knit
as he watched. Then, suddenly turning upon his heel, he muttered
to himself and walked to one of the flying schools where he, Henry
Knowles, was employed as a mechanic on the ’buses flown by the men
training as air-pilots for the Front.
In a little over half-an-hour the big biplane with its loud hum
travelled nearly forty miles from Hendon, until at last Ronnie,
descending in search of his landmark, discovered a small river winding
through the panorama of patchwork fields, small dark patches of woods,
and little clusters of houses which, in the sundown, denoted villages
and hamlets. This stream he followed until Beryl suddenly touched his
arm--speech being impossible amid the roar of the engine--and pointed
below to where, a little to the left, there showed the thin, grey spire
of an ivy-clad village church and a circular object close by--the
village gasometer.
The gasometer was their landmark.
Ronnie nodded, and then he quickly banked and came down upon a low hill
of pastures and woods about five miles east of the church spire.
The meadow wherein they glided to earth in the golden sunset was some
distance from a small hamlet which lay down in the valley through which
ran a stream glistening in the light, and turning an old-fashioned
water-mill on its course. Then, as Ronnie unstrapped himself from his
seat and hopped out, he exclaimed:
“Now, dear! You must rest for an hour or two, otherwise I shall not
allow you to go up with me after Zepps to-night.”
His smart young mechanic, a fellow named Collins, from the aeroplane
works came running up, while Ronnie assisted Beryl out of the machine.
In a corner of the field not far distant was a long barn of corrugated
iron, which Ronnie had transformed into a hangar for “The Hornet”--and
this they termed “The Hornet’s Nest.” To this they at once wheeled the
great machine, Beryl bearing her part in doing so and being assisted by
two elderly farm-hands.
Then Collins, the mechanic, having received certain instructions, his
master and Beryl crossed the meadow and, passing through a small copse,
found themselves upon the lawn of a large, old-fashioned house called
Harbury Court. The place, a long, rambling two-storied Georgian one,
with a wide porch and square, inartistic windows, was partly covered by
ivy, while its front was gay with geraniums and marguerites.
There came forward to meet the pair Beryl’s married sister Iris, whose
husband, Charles Remington, a Captain in the Munsters, had been many
months at the Front, and was now, alas! a prisoner of war in Germany.
“I heard you arrive,” she said cheerily, addressing the pair. And then
she told them how she had waited tea for them. Neither being averse
from another cup, the trio passed through the French window into the
big, cool drawing-room with its bright chintzes, gay flowers, and
interesting bric-a-brac.
While Beryl went half-an-hour later to her room to rest, and Ronnie
joined Collins to test various portions of the ’bus and its apparatus
before the night flight, a curious scene was taking place in the top
room of a block of new red-brick flats somewhere in a northern suburb
of London--the exact situation I am not permitted to divulge.
From the window a very extensive view could be obtained over London,
both south and east, where glowed the red haze of sunset upon the
giant metropolis, with its landmarks of tall factory chimneys, church
steeples, and long lines of slate roofs.
The room was a photographic studio. Indeed, the neat brass-plate upon
the outer door of the flat bore the name “R. Goring, Photographer,”
and as such, its owner was known to other tenants of the various
suites, persons of the upper middle-class, men mostly occupying good
positions in the City.
True, a whole-plate camera stood upon a stand in a corner, and there
were one or two grey screens for backgrounds placed against the wall,
but nothing else in the apartment showed that it was used for the
purpose of photography. On the contrary, it contained a somewhat
unusual apparatus, which two men present were closely examining.
Upon a strong deal table, set directly beneath the great
skylight--which had been made to slide back so as to leave that portion
of the roof open--was a great circular searchlight, such as is used
upon ships, the glass face of which was turned upward to the sky.
Set in a circle around its face were a number of bright reflectors and
prisms placed at certain angles, with, above them, a large brass ring
across which white silk gauze was stretched so that the intense rays
of the searchlight should be broken up, and not show as a beam in the
darkness, and thus disclose its existence.
At a glance the cleverness of the arrangement was apparent. It was one
of the enemy’s guiding lights for Zeppelins!
The owner of the flat, Mr. Goring, a burly, grey-haired man of
fifty-five, was exhibiting with pride to his visitor a new set of
glass prisms which he had that day set at the proper angle, while the
man who was evincing such interest was the person who--only a few
hours before--had worked in his mechanic’s overalls, at the Hendon
Aerodrome, the man, Henry Knowles, who was to all intents and purposes
an Englishman, having been in London since he was three years of age.
Indeed, so well did he speak his Cockney dialect, that none ever dreamt
that he was the son of one Heinrich Klitz, or that his Christian name
was Hermann.
His host, like himself, was typically English, and had long ago paid
his naturalisation fees and declared himself of the British bulldog
breed. In public he was a fierce antagonist of Germany. In strongest
terms he denounced the Kaiser and all his ways. He had even written to
the newspapers deploring Great Britain’s mistakes, and, by all about
him, was believed to be a fine, honest, and loyal Englishman. Even
his wife, who now lived near Bristol, believed him to be British. Yet
the truth was that he had no right to the name of Richard Goring, his
baptismal name being Otto Kohler, his brother Hans occupying, at that
moment, the post of President of the German Imperial Railways, the
handsome offices of which are numbered 44, Linkstrasse, in Berlin.
The pair were members of the long-prepared secret enemy organisation in
our midst--men living in London as British subjects, and each having
his important part allotted to him to play at stated times and in
pre-arranged places.
Richard Goring’s work for his country was to pose as a photographer--so
that his undue use of electric-light current should not attract
attention--and to keep that hidden searchlight burning night after
night, in case a Zeppelin were fortunate enough to get as far as London.
As “Light-post No. 22” it was known to those cunning Teutons who
so craftily established in England the most wonderful espionage
system ever placed upon the world. In England there were a number of
signallers and “light-posts” for the guidance of enemy aircraft, but
this--one of the greatest intensity--was as a lighthouse, and marked
as of first importance upon the aerial chart carried by every Zeppelin
Commander.
Mr. Goring had shown and explained to his friend the improved mechanism
of the light, whereupon Knowles--who now wore a smart blue serge
suit and carried gloves in his hand--laughed merrily, and replied in
English, for they always talked that language:
“I saw Gortz at Number Three last night. He has news from Berlin that
the big air raid is to be made on the fourteenth.”
“The fourteenth!” echoed his friend. Then, after a second’s reflection,
he added: “That will be Friday week.”
“Exactly. There will be one or two small attempts before--probably one
to-night--a reconnaissance over the Eastern Counties. At least it was
said so last night at Number Three,” he added, referring to a secret
meeting place of the Huns in London.
“Well,” laughed the photographic artist. “I always keep the light going
and, thanks to the plans they sent me from Wilhelmsplatz a month before
the war, there is no beam of light to betray it.”
“Rather thanks to the information we have when the British scouting
airships leave their sheds.”
“Ah, yes, my dear friend. Then I at once cut it off, of course,”
laughed the other. “But it is a weary job--up here alone each night
killing time by reading their silly newspapers.”
“One of our greatest dangers, in my opinion, is that young fellow
Ronald Pryor--the aeroplane-builder,” declared Knowles. “The man whom
our friend Reichardt tried to put out of existence last week, and
failed--eh?”
“The same. He has a new aeroplane called ‘The Hornet,’ which can be
rendered quite silent. That is a very great danger to our airships.”
“We must, at all hazards, ascertain its secret,” said his host
promptly. “What does Reichardt say?”
“They were discussing it last night at Number Three.”
And then the man who called himself Knowles and who, by working as a
humble mechanic at a flying school at Hendon, was able to pick up so
many facts concerning our air service, explained how “The Hornet” was
kept in secret somewhere out in Essex--at some spot which they had not
yet discovered.
“But surely you’ll get to know,” was the other’s remark, as he leant
idly against the table whereon lay the complicated apparatus of prisms,
and reflectors which constituted the lighthouse to guide the enemy
aircraft.
“That is the service upon which Number Seven has placed me,” was the
response.
He had referred to the director of that branch of the enemy’s
operations in England--the person known as “Number Seven”--the cleverly
concealed secret agent who assisted to guide the invisible hand of
Germany in our midst. The individual in question lived in strictest
retirement, unknown even to those puppets of Berlin who so blindly
obeyed his orders, and who received such lavish payment for so doing.
Some of the Kaiser’s secret agents said that he lived in London; others
declared that he lived on a farm in a remote village somewhere in
Somerset; while others said he had been seen walking in Piccadilly
with a well-known peeress. Many, on the other hand, declared that he
lived in a small country town in the guise of a retired shopkeeper,
interested only in his roses and his cucumber-frames.
“A pity our good friend Reichardt failed the other day,” remarked the
man who posed as a photographer. “What of that girl Gaselee?”
“The next attempt will not fail, depend upon it,” was Knowles’ reply,
in tones of confidence. “When Ronald Pryor dies, so will she also. The
decision at Number Three last night was unanimous.” And he grinned
evilly.
Then both men went forth, Goring carefully locking the door of the
secret studio. Then, passing through the well-furnished flat, he closed
the door behind him, and they descended the stairs.
That night just after eleven o’clock, Beryl in her warm air-woman’s
kit, with her leather “grummet” with its ear-pieces buttoned beneath
her chin, climbed into “The Hornet” and strapped herself into the
observer’s seat.
Collins had been busy on the ’bus all the evening, testing the powerful
dual engines, the searchlight, the control levers, and a dozen other
details, including the all-important silencer. Afterwards he had placed
in the long rack beneath the fusilage four high explosive spherical
bombs, with three incendiary ones.
Therefore, when Ronnie hopped in, the machine was in complete readiness
for a night flight.
Arranged at each corner of the big grass-field was a powerful electric
light sunk into the ground and covered with glass. These could be
switched on from the house supply and, by means of reflectors, gave
splendid guidance for descent. At present, however, all was, of course,
in darkness.
The night was windless and overcast, while the barometer showed the
atmospheric pressure to be exactly that welcomed by Commanders of enemy
airships.
Ronnie after switching on his little light over the instruments and
examining his gauges, shouted to Collins:
“Righto! Let her rip!”
In a moment there was a terrific roar. The wind whistled about their
ears, and next second they were “zumming,” up climbing at an angle of
quite thirty degrees, instead of “taxi-running” the machine before
leaving the ground.
Not a star showed, neither did a light. At that hour the good people of
Essex were mostly in bed.
On their right, as they rose, Beryl noticed one or two red and green
lights of railway signals, but these faded away as they still climbed
ever up and up, travelling in the direction of the coast. The roar of
the engines was deafening, until they approached a faintly seen cluster
of lights which, by the map spread before him beneath the tiny light,
Ronnie knew was the town of B----. Then he suddenly pulled a lever by
which the noise instantly became so deadened that the whirr of the
propeller alone was audible, the engines being entirely silenced.
The young man, speaking for the first time, exclaimed:
“We’ll first run along the coast and scout, and then turn back inland.”
Scarcely had he uttered those words when suddenly they became blinded
by a strong searchlight from below.
“Hullo! Our anti-aircraft boys!” he ejaculated and at the same moment
he pushed back the lever, causing the engines to roar again.
The men working the searchlight at once distinguished the tri-coloured
rings upon the planes, and by its sudden silence and as sudden roar
they knew it to be “The Hornet.” Therefore next second they shut off
the beam of the light, and once again Ronnie silenced his ’bus.
It was then near midnight, and up there at ten thousand feet the wind
was bitingly cold. Moreover there were one or two air currents which
caused the machine to rock violently in a manner that would have
alarmed any but those experienced in flying.
Beryl buttoned her collar still more snugly, but declared that she was
not feeling cold. Below, little or nothing could be seen until, of a
sudden, they ran into a thick cold mist, and then knew that they were
over the sea.
With a glance at his luminous compass, the cheery young airman quickly
turned the machine’s nose due south, and a quarter of an hour later
altered his course south-west, heading towards London.
“Nothing doing to-night, it seems!” he remarked to his companion, as,
in the darkness, they sped along at about fifty miles an hour, the wind
whistling weirdly through the stays, the propeller humming musically,
but the sound seeming no more than that of a bumblebee on a summer’s
day.
It was certain that such sound could not be heard below.
After nearly an hour they realised by certain unmistakable
signs--mostly atmospheric--that they were over the outer northern
suburbs of London.
Then, as Ronnie altered his course, in the inky blackness of the night,
both saw, deep below, an intense white light burning like a beacon, but
throwing no ray.
“That’s curious!” remarked Pryor to the girl beside him. “I can’t make
it out. I’ve seen it several times before. One night a month ago I saw
it put out, and then, when one of our patrolling airships had gone
over, it came suddenly up again.”
“An enemy light for the guiding of enemy Zeppelins--eh?” Beryl
suggested.
“Exactly my opinion!” was her lover’s reply.
As he spoke they passed out of range of vision, all becoming dark
again. Therefore, Ronnie put down his lever and turned the ’bus quickly
so that he could again examine the mysterious light which would reveal
to the enemy the district of London over which they were then flying.
For a full quarter of an hour “The Hornet,” having descended to about
three thousand feet, manoeuvred backwards and forwards, crossing and
recrossing exactly over the intense white light below, Ronnie remaining
silent, and flying the great biplane with most expert skill.
Suddenly, as he passed for the sixth time directly over the light, he
touched a lever, and a quick swish of air followed.
In a moment the white light was blotted out by a fierce blood-red one.
No sound of any explosion was heard. But a second later bright flames
leapt up high, and from where they sat aloft they could clearly
distinguish that the upper story of the house was well alight.
Once again “The Hornet,” which had hovered over the spot, flying very
slowly in a circle, swooped down in silence, for Pryor was eager to
ascertain the result of his well-placed incendiary bomb.
As, in the darkness, they rapidly neared the earth, making no sound
to attract those below, Beryl could see that in the streets, lit by
the flames, people were running about like a swarm of ants. The alarm
had already been given to the fire-brigade, for the faint sound of a
fire-bell now reached their ears.
For five or six minutes Pryor remained in the vicinity watching the
result of the bomb.
Beryl, strapped in, peered below, and then, placing her eye to the
powerful night-glasses, she could discern distinctly two fire-engines
tearing along to the scene of the conflagration.
Then with a laugh Ronnie pulled over the lever and, climbing high
again, swiftly made off in the direction of Harbury.
“That spy won’t ever show a light again!” he remarked grimly.
Next day the newspapers reported a serious and very mysterious outbreak
of fire in a photographic studio at the top of a certain block of
flats, the charred remains of the occupier, Mr. Richard Goring, a
highly respected resident, being afterwards found, together with a
mass of mysterious metal apparatus with which he had apparently been
experimenting, and by which--as the Coroner’s jury eventually decided
four days later--the fatal fire must have been caused.
One morning Beryl and Ronnie, seated together in the drawing-room at
Harbury, read the evidence given at the inquest and the verdict.
Both smiled, but neither made remark.