Old Theed, the stalwart ex-police officer, was greatly excited.
"Just before half-past eight, my son having gone in the car over to
Horsham to see his young lady, and afterwards to pick up Mr Ashton, I
was sitting in the kitchen with Mulliner," he said. "Suddenly I thought
I heard footsteps out in the yard. I listened for a few moments and
then I heard, quite distinctly, a curious sawing noise. I went silently
out by the front door and was just creeping round the corner of the
house, when the figure of a man--who was evidently on the watch--
suddenly sprang from the shadow. I was seized by the collar, and the
next I knew was that a handkerchief was stuffed into my mouth and a rope
tied round my arms and legs. I tried to cry out, but I could not. I
was trussed like a fowl. My assailants were two men, and pretty tough
ones they were, too!"
"Mulliner was in the house--eh?" asked Roseye.
"Yes, miss. They flung me down into the garden yonder, up against those
rose-bushes, and then went into the house after her," Theed went on. "I
heard her scream, but could not move to assist her. She shouted for
help, but I couldn't answer. But she was plucky and she saved the
situation."
"How?" I asked, amazed.
"Why, she shouted out to me: `It's all right, Theed! I've telephoned
down to Nutley. The police will soon be here!'"
"That was certainly a master-stroke, considering that we have no
telephone here," I exclaimed.
"No. But it scared the thieves--or whoever they were--for they didn't
wait, but made off in a car which they had waiting down the lane. I
heard them hurry away down to the lane, and soon afterwards the car
started."
"Who released you?" I asked.
"They had tied Mulliner to a chair in the kitchen but, after half an
hour, she managed to get free, and came out to find and release me.
Then, on going into the yard with a lamp, we found a curious thing.
They had evidently been examining your aeroplane, sir."
"They've been in there!" I gasped. "Strangers!"
"Yes, sir. But, as far as I can see, they've done nothing."
I at once took one of the side-lamps from the car and, with Roseye, went
into the barn. Mulliner, who had now recovered from her fright,
followed us.
As far as I could discern by a cursory glance, nothing had been tampered
with. It was fortunate, however, that we had removed the box containing
the secret electrical apparatus, and that it was concealed in the house,
as was our constant habit.
The story told by the pair was certainly alarming.
Once again I recognised here the evil finger-prints of the Invisible
Hand.
"You saw the men who attacked you?" Roseye said to Mulliner when we
were again in the house. "Describe them to us."
"Well, miss. There's the difficulty. There were two men, I know, as
well as a woman--a tallish woman, dressed in a fur-coat and a small
motor-hat. She had a thin, dark-looking face and funny eyes, and she
spoke to the men in some foreign language--Italian, I think."
"Ah!" gasped Roseye, turning to me terrified. "The woman! I feared
it--I knew it! The woman with the Leopard's Eyes!"
"And the men?" I asked. "Did you not see them?"
"I only caught a glimpse of one of them," and the description she gave
of him almost tallied with that of the man whom we had seen in the
woman's company at the roadside. The pair had evidently been on the
watch ever since afternoon. They no doubt had seen us leave, and also
watched Teddy and Theed's son go away.
"But the second man?" I demanded eagerly. "Can't you give us any
description of him?"
The maid hesitated, and fidgeted slightly. I saw that she was undecided
and a little unwilling. Her hair was still awry from her attack, and
she had forgotten, in her excitement, to replace her well-starched
Dutch-cap.
"Well, sir," she answered at last, "I have a suspicion--but only a very
faint one--remember I couldn't really see his face, for he sprang upon
me from behind. But he spoke to his companion, and I thought I
recognised his voice--only a faint suspicion," the woman added.
"Indeed, I don't really like mentioning it, because I'm sure you'll
laugh at me. You'll think it too absurd."
"No. This is no laughing matter, Mulliner," I said. "We are in deadly
earnest. It is only right of you to tell us any suspicion that you
entertain."
"Well--to tell you the truth, sir, I thought I recognised the voice of a
gentleman who often visits Cadogan Gardens--Mr Eastwell."
"Eastwell!" I echoed. "Do you really think it was actually Mr
Eastwell?"
I glanced at Roseye and saw that, at mention of the man's name, her face
had instantly gone pale as death, and her hands were trembling.
"Are you quite sure of that, Mulliner?" she asked breathlessly.
"No. Not quite. I only know that he wore a big pair of motor-goggles
with flaps on the cheeks, and those effectively altered his appearance,
but as he assisted in tying me up in the chair, my eyes caught sight of
his watch-chain. It was familiar to me--one of alternate twisted links
of gold and platinum of quite uncommon pattern. This I recognised as
Mr Eastwell's, for I had seen it many times before, and it went far to
confirm my suspicion that the voice was undoubtedly his. I admit, miss,
that I was staggered at the discovery."
I led Roseye into the best room and, having closed the door, stood
before her in front of the log fire and asked:
"Now what is your opinion, dear? Has Lionel Eastwell been here
to-night, do you really think?" Her pale lips compressed, and her eyes
narrowed at my words. I saw that she was unnerved and trembling.
"Yes," she whispered at last. "Yes--Claude--I believe he has been
here!"
"Then he's not our friend, as we have so foolishly believed--eh?"
She drew a long breath, and gazed about the room as though utterly
mystified.
"I--I never suspected this!" was her low reply. "But--"
"But what? Tell me, darling. Do tell me," I begged.
"But he may be acting in conjunction with that woman in some desperate
plot against us!"
"I believe he is," I declared. "I believe that whatever has happened to
you, and my accident also, are both the result of cunning and dastardly
plots directed by this man who has so long posed as our friend. Have
you never suspected it?" I asked of her.
"Never--until to-night," was her reply. "But if he has dared to come
here in order to assist that woman, then his action places an entirely
fresh complexion upon the whole affair."
"My opinion is that Lionel Eastwell has, all along, suspected that we
have perfected our invention, and has formed a most clever and desperate
plot to possess himself of our secret, in order to transmit it to
Germany," I declared, as I held her hand tenderly in mine.
"Yes," she replied, sighing after a pause. "Your surmise may be
correct, Claude."
"But do you share my views?"
"Well--" she responded at last, "yes, Claude--I do! But," she added,
"the whole affair is too mystifying--too utterly amazing. When, one
day, I can tell you what happened to me you will, I know, stand aghast.
Ah! when I think of it all," she cried hoarsely, "I often regard it as a
miracle that I am alive and at your side again--at the side of the man I
love!"
More than this she refused to tell me.
I had, at last, established that the hand of Lionel Eastwell, the
popular pilot at Hendon, was the hand of the enemy. I had suspected it,
but here was proof!
His association with the mysterious woman was, of course, still an
enigma, but I saw that Roseye herself held the key to it, and now that
we had agreed that Eastwell was playing us both false, I hoped that
this, in itself, would induce her to tell me the frank and open truth.
When Teddy returned he heard from my lips what had happened during our
absence, and he stood speechless.
"Let's run the dynamo, light up, and examine the machine," he suggested,
and though it was already midnight we readily adopted his suggestion.
That it had again been tampered with I felt no doubt.
That statement of old Theed's that he had heard "sawing" made it plain
that some devil's work had been done--and by Eastwell no doubt, because
he was an expert in aviation. The expert knows exactly the point at
which he can weaken the strongest aeroplane.
Well, we soon ran the dynamo, and had a good light going, one that was
almost too glaring in that confined space. All of us were present,
including the maid Mulliner, as slowly we examined and tested, piece by
piece, every bolt, nut, strainer, and indeed every part of the machine.
It was past three o'clock in the morning ere we finished, yet we could
find absolutely nothing wrong. The engines worked well: the dynamo was
in order, the intensified current for the working of the invisible wave
was up to the high voltage as before, and as far as we could discover
the machine had not been tampered with in any way.
"They intended to investigate the secrets of the box," Teddy remarked.
"No doubt that's what they were after."
"Well--they didn't see very much!" I laughed, for already I had been up
to the locked attic to which we had carried it on the previous night,
and found it there with the door still secure.
Then, having satisfied ourselves that no damage had been done, we all
retired to rest.
But sleep did not come to my eyes.
Hour after hour I lay awake until the grey dawn, pondering over the
events of that night. That a desperate plot of the enemy was afoot
against us could not be doubted, and I realised that it would take all
our ingenuity and foresight to combat the plans of an unscrupulous enemy
well provided with money, and desperate upon a resolve.
To go boldly to the authorities and denounce Lionel Eastwell as a spy
would avail me nothing. Indeed, there was no actual evidence of it. No
more popular man at Hendon, at Brooklands, or at the Royal Automobile
Club was there than Eastwell. Yet, was not that popularity, purchased
by the ample means at his disposal, and the constant dinners and
luncheons which he gave regardless of their cost, proof in itself that
he was acting secretly against the interests of Great Britain? Long ago
I had suspected that his was the Invisible Hand that sent every secret
of our progress in aviation to Germany by way of the United States. He
had several American friends to whom I had been introduced, apparently
business men who had come over for various reasons, and it was, no
doubt, those men who conveyed back to New York secret information which,
later on, returned across the Atlantic and was duly docketed in the
Intelligence Bureau of the German General Staff at Berlin. Truly the
wily Teuton leaves nothing to chance, and has his secret agents in the
most unsuspected places.
Yet, reflecting as I did in those long wakeful hours, I saw that it was
not surprising, and that the enemy would, naturally, have kept a very
watchful eye upon anyone who had devised a means of fighting Zeppelins,
and, if possible, defeat him in his attempt.
This thought decided me. I meant, at all hazards, to try my device
against an enemy airship, even though I might fail. I had foreseen all
the risks of machine-guns mounted upon the top of the latest airship, of
the dangers of night-flying, of landing difficulties even if successful,
and the hundred and one mishaps which might occur in the excitement and
darkness.
Indeed, in following a Zeppelin at a high altitude and in clouds, I
might very easily be mistaken for an enemy attendant aeroplane, and thus
draw the fire of our own anti-aircraft guns. In addition, I held no
official position in the anti-aircraft service. As far as the
newly-formed Joint Naval and Military Air Committee were concerned, I
might be a mere man-in-the-street. Therefore I should be compelled to
act upon my own initiative. Indeed, I had already offered my invention
to the proper official quarter, but had only received a type-written
acknowledgment. I, however, was not surprised, because that Department
had, I knew, been flooded by the devices of hot-air cranks.
Still, as I lay reflecting, I remembered that we could build 1,700
aeroplanes for the cost of one Dreadnought, and a Zeppelin would cost a
good deal less than a destroyer. I did not approve of that shrieking
section of the Press which was loudly declaring that we had lost the
supremacy in aeroplanes which we possessed at the beginning of the war.
That was not a fact. We, of course, had no dirigibles worth the name
and, perhaps, we were asking pilots to fly machines inferior to the
Fokker. Yet we had brought Fokkers down at the front, and with good
experimental work and a speedy policy of construction we should, I
believed, soon be far ahead of the Central Powers as far as aircraft was
concerned.
Those days were dark and perilous days for Britain.
That something must be done, every one was agreed. Yet, as I tossed
upon my bed in that narrow little room in the obscure farm-house, I knew
that within my hand I possessed a great, and yet mysterious power--and
that power I intended to use and prove at the earliest opportunity.
Still I had to reckon with enemies; cool, clever, cunning persons who
would hesitate at nothing in order to nullify my efforts, and wreck my
machine and all my hopes.
Ah! If only Roseye, my well-beloved, would reveal to me the truth.
Why did she so persistently refuse?
Why? I wondered why?