I went back to my rooms in Shaftesbury Avenue and, in consequence of my
telephone message, Teddy came and threw himself in the chair opposite me
half an hour later, to discuss the curious disappearance of my
well-beloved.
Teddy suggested that we should report the occurrence to the police, and
give them Roseye's photograph, but I was averse to this course. I
pointed out that, in all probability, she was with friends somewhere,
and that Monday morning would bring me a letter from her.
Well--Monday morning came. Eagerly I went through my correspondence,
but there was no word from her, either to her mother or to myself. It
was only then that I began to be really anxious, and at noon I went down
to Scotland Yard and there, in the cold waiting-room, stated exactly
what had occurred.
The inspector, when he looked at the photograph I produced, exclaimed:
"Ah, sir. I've often seen Miss Lethmere's picture in the papers. Why,
she's the famous flying-lady--isn't she?"
I replied in the affirmative, and explained how she had left her home in
Cadogan Gardens to go to Hendon to meet me.
"I see. She was lost sight of between Cadogan Gardens and Hendon," he
exclaimed, adding a memorandum to what he had already written down.
"Well, sir," he said. "We'll do our best, of course. But--you don't
think Miss Lethmere has disappeared intentionally--eh?"
And he looked at me inquiringly with his dark, serious eyes.
"Intentionally! No--why?"
"Well, because we get many young ladies reported missing in the course
of a year, and many of them we find, on inquiry, have hidden themselves
purposely, for their own private reasons, quarrels, run-away matches,
hiding from angry parents, and such-like causes. I tell you," he added,
"some of the cases give us quite a lot of trouble and annoyance."
"I'm quite sure that Miss Lethmere is not hiding herself purposely," I
declared quickly. "There can be no object in her doing so."
"No. Not as far as you are aware, sir," the inspector replied very
politely. "But neither you nor I can always follow the trend of the
feminine mind," he added with a faint smile. "You, of course, do not
suspect the existence of any motive which would lead her to disappear
intentionally. Nobody in such circumstances as yours, ever does. Do
you happen to know whether she took any money with her when she left
home?"
"Mulliner, Lady Lethmere's maid, says that just before going out Miss
Lethmere glanced in her purse, found that she only had a few shillings,
and took four Treasury-notes from her jewel-box."
"Was that all the money in the jewel-box?" he asked.
"No. About eighteen pounds remains there now."
"H'm. She evidently did not make any preparation for a journey--or any
long absence."
"Well," replied the inspector after a brief pause, "we will certainly
circulate her description, and see what we can gather. The young lady
may have met with a street accident, and be in one of the hospitals.
Though I hope she hasn't, of course!"
So with that rather poor assurance I had to be content, and took my
leave.
That afternoon I again went out to Hendon, making inquiry everywhere of
the men who were Roseye's friends, but she certainly never went there on
the Saturday, and I found her machine still in the hangar. Her mechanic
knew nothing, for he had received no orders from her since Friday.
Three days--three breathless anxious days passed. Ah! shall I ever
forget the awful tension of those terrible hours!
Sir Herbert had returned, and, with his wife, was naturally distracted.
He was making inquiries in every quarter of friends and acquaintances,
and of anyone who might have been likely to see his missing daughter.
In this, both Teddy and I actively assisted him.
On the third evening I returned to my rooms to wash, intending to go
along to the Automobile Club to dine with the flying-boys who assembled
there every night, when Theed told me that the police had, an hour
before, rung me up from Scotland Yard, and requested me to go down there
at once.
This I did without delay and, having been shown into that big, bare
waiting-room, the same dark-haired inspector came to see me.
"Well, Mr Munro," he exclaimed, "we've met with no very great result,
though the description of the missing young lady has been circulated
right through the country. But the affair is certainly a mystery."
"Then you don't suspect that she has purposely disappeared--eh?" I
asked quickly.
"Well--after all--I don't know," was his hesitating reply. "Something
belonging to her has been found which rather leads to that supposition."
"What has been found?" I gasped eagerly.
"This," he answered, and he placed upon the table a gold chatelaine
which I at once recognised as belonging to Roseye--for. I had given it
to her. It formed a jingling bunch. There was a chain-purse, a
combined match-box and cigarette-case, a powder-box with its little
mirror in the cover, and a card-case all strung upon thin gold chains
which, in turn, were attached to a ring--so that it could be carried
upon the finger.
"Wherever was that found?" I asked, turning pale at sight of it.
"It was discovered this morning by a platelayer engaged in examining the
rails in the long tunnel just beyond Welwyn Station on the Great
Northern Railway."
"In a tunnel!"
"Yes. The two tunnels which are quite near to each other have, at our
request, been thoroughly searched by the local police and the
platelayers, but nothing else has been found. My first fear was," added
the inspector, "that there might have been a tragedy in the tunnel.
Happily, however, there is no ground for any such suspicion."
"But there may have been a struggle in the train!" I suggested.
"Possibly," answered the inspector. "It's fortunate that the cards were
in the case, for when the chatelaine was handed to the sergeant of
constabulary at Welwyn, he at once recognised Lethmere as the name of
the lady whose description had been circulated by us. Therefore the
constabulary sent it up here at once."
I took it and found that in the purse were the four Treasury-notes, as
the maid Mulliner had described, together with some silver. Three of my
own particular brand of Russian cigarettes remained in the case, while
among the cards which I opened upon the table was one of my own upon
which I had, only a few days previously, written down the address of the
makers of a new enamel which I had advised her to try upon her machine.
The tiny powder-puff and the small bevelled mirror were there, though
the latter had been cracked across in its fall in the tunnel.
"Seven years bad luck!" I remarked to the inspector, whose name I had
learned to be Barton.
I was turning over with curiosity that bunch of jingling feminine
impedimenta which I knew so well, when the door suddenly opened, and a
red-tabbed captain in khaki entered.
"This is Captain Pollock," Barton said, introducing him. "He wished, I
believe, to ask you a question, Mr Munro."
I looked at the new-comer with some surprise, as he bowed and, in rather
an authoritative manner, took a chair at the big leather-covered table
at which I was seated with the inspector.
"The facts of your friend Miss Lethmere's disappearance have been
communicated to us, Mr Munro," he commenced, "and we find that the
lady's disappearance is much complicated by certain rather curious
facts."
"Well?" I asked, rather resentful that another department of the State
should enter upon what, after all, was a purely personal investigation.
Besides, I could see no motive. The War Office had enough to do without
making inquiries regarding missing persons.
"Well," said the captain politely, "I of course know you, Mr Munro, to
be a well-known aviator, and have often read of the long and sensational
flights undertaken by Miss Lethmere and yourself. I hope you will not
think that I am personally inquisitive regarding your lady friend.
But," he went on apologetically, "I am only performing my duty in
inquiring in the interests of the State. You are, I know, an intensely
patriotic man. I hope that I, as a British officer, am equally
patriotic. Therefore we stand upon the same ground--don't we?"
"Most certainly," was my reply, though, much puzzled as to the drift of
his argument, I looked straight into his face, a round, rather florid
countenance, with a small sandy moustache.
"Good," he said. "Now I want you to answer me, in confidence, the
questions I will put to you. Your replies I shall treat as absolutely
secret."
"Captain Pollock is from the Intelligence Department," remarked the
inspector, interrupting in explanation.
"I will answer, of course, to the best of my ability," I said. "But
with one reservation--I will say nothing that might reflect upon a
woman's honour."
He pursed his lips ever so slightly. But that very slight movement did
not pass me unnoticed.
Was a woman's honour concerned in this?
The two men exchanged glances, and in an instant a fierce resentment
arose within me. Between us, upon the bare table, lay the gold
chatelaine that I had bought at Bouet's, in the Gallerie at Monte Carlo
a year and a half ago.
It had been found in that tunnel on the main line of the Great Northern.
Something tragic had occurred. Was there any further room for doubt?
"The matter does not concern a woman's honour--er--not exactly so," the
man in khaki said slowly.
"I want to know--" And he paused, as though hesitating to explain his
motive for coming along to see me.
"What do you want to know about?" I asked boldly. "Come, Captain
Pollock, let us face each other. There is a mystery here in Miss
Lethmere's disappearance, and in the finding of this bunch of feminine
fripperies in the tunnel. I intend to elucidate it."
"And I will assist you, Mr Munro--if you will only be frank with me."
"Frank!" I echoed. "Of course I'll be frank!" Again he looked me
straight in the face with those funny, half-closed little eyes of his.
Then, after a few moments' pause, he asked:
"Now--tell me. Is it a fact that you, with a friend of yours named
Ashton, have made some very remarkable electrical discovery?"
I looked at him, stunned by surprise. He noticed my abject
astonishment.
"I'll go farther," he went on. "Does this discovery of yours concern
aircraft; is it designed to bring disaster upon Zeppelins; and are you
engaged in perfecting a secret invention in which you have the most
entire confidence? In other words, have you nearly perfected a method
by which you will be able to successfully combat enemy airships in the
air? Tell me the truth, Mr Munro--in strictest secrecy, remember."
His words staggered me. How could he know the secret that we had so
closely guarded?