Proof indisputable lay there that Roseye--my own dear well-beloved, she
whose ready lips met mine so often in those fierce, trustful caresses--
the intrepid girl who had been as "a pal" to Teddy and myself in our
secret experiments, and who knew all the innermost secrets of our
invention and our power to fight Zeppelins--was a traitor to her
country!
It was incredible!
Was it by her connivance that the steel bolt in my machine had been
withdrawn, and one of wood substituted?
In this terrible war men laughed, and women wept. The men went out to
the front in Flanders with all the fine patriotic sentiment of Britons,
singing gaily the various patriotic songs of war. But alas! how many
went to their death, and the women wept in silence in the back streets
of our dear old London, and of every town in the work-a-day kingdom.
In official circles it was known--known indeed to the public at large--
that the Zeppelin menace was a real and serious one. Teddy and I had,
in secret, striven our best to discover a means by which to combat these
sinister attacks upon our non-combatants.
Yet upon that leather-covered table before me lay that puzzling cryptic
message found among the belongings of my missing beloved.
The whole affair was, indeed, a mystery. After a few moments of silence
I raised my head and, looking again at Pollock, said:
"All this is, of course, very interesting from the point of view of a
police problem, but the hard, real fact remains."
"What fact?" he asked.
"That I, with my friend Ashton, am in possession of certain discoveries
by which we can, under given conditions, bring Zeppelins to the ground."
The red-tabbed captain curled his lip in a rather supercilious smile.
He was evidently one of those persons imported into the Department after
the outbreak of war and, in comparison with Barton as an investigator,
was a nonentity.
True, a piece of paper bearing a message in the enemy's cipher had been
found secreted in Roseye's card-case.
But I argued that before the owner of the card-case could be condemned,
she must be found, and an explanation demanded of her.
"You surely cannot condemn an accused person in her absence!" I argued.
Barton agreed with me. It was against all principles of justice to
condemn an accused person unheard.
"Well," explained the red-tabbed captain, "upon the face of it, there
can be no real defence. Here we have the missing lady's belongings
found in a tunnel, and in them--fortunately, for ourselves--we discover
a message intended for transmission to the enemy. That message, Mr
Munro, is quite plain, and speaks for itself. You have made an
interesting scientific discovery. Possibly they have ferreted out your
secret. It interests them: they fear you and, therefore, they have
plotted your death."
"I won't believe that!" I cried in angry resentment. "Ask yourself!
Would you yourself believe it of the woman whom you loved?"
"My dear Mr Munro," replied the captain coldly, "we are at war now. We
cannot gauge either our feelings, or our beliefs, by the standard of
pre-war days."
"Well," I declared bluntly, "I don't believe it. Miss Lethmere would
never hold any communication with the enemy. Of that I'm quite
positive."
"But we have it written down here--in black and white!"
"True. But before we take this as authentic we must discover her, and
question her. To you mysterious people of the Secret Service the task
will, surely, not be so very difficult. You know the mystery of Miss
Lethmere's sudden and unaccountable disappearance. Therefore I leave
all to you--to investigate, and to elucidate the puzzle. I don't
pretend to account for it. You, both of you, of the War Intelligence
Department and the Special Branch of Scotland Yard, have the facts
before you--plain facts--the disappearance of Lady Lethmere's daughter.
When her whereabouts is ascertained then the remainder of the inquiry is
surely quite easy. I am not an investigator," I added with biting
sarcasm. "I'm only an inventor, and I leave it to you both to discover
why Miss Lethmere disappeared."
"You apparently have invented something of which the enemy is
determined, at all hazards, to learn the truth," remarked Inspector
Barton.