The Zeppelin Destroyer/Chapter VIII

by William Le Queux

 

CHAPTER VIII

SOME SUSPICIONS

We waited, and we watched. And what we were able to discover was certainly astounding.

During my convalescence many of my flying friends called at my rooms in Shaftesbury Avenue to congratulate me upon my narrow escape.

I had been shaken very considerably, but actually I was not much the worse for it. I felt quite fit and eager, but the doctor would not hear of me going out, except for a run in a closed car.

The real cause of my accident was kept a profound secret from every one.

The governor thought it was due to clumsiness or recklessness, and I was, of course, compelled to allow him to think so. Sir Herbert and Lady Lethmere, who called one afternoon, appeared to hold the same opinion, for the red-faced old steel manufacturer said:

'You must really be more careful, in future, my dear boy—far more careful. Accidents so quickly happen in aeroplanes.'

'Yes, accidents do,' I admitted. It was on the tip of my tongue to explain to him how some devilish plotter had attempted to take my life.

I was constantly haunted by the remembrance of a face—the face of that man in the crowd with the eyes askew. As I sat alone at my fireside, often reading the papers through, even to the advertisements, and out of patience with everything and everybody, those narrow beady eyes would rise before me. I would recognize that face with the curious exultant expression anywhere.

After long debate within myself I had come to the conclusion, however, that the man with the eyes askew was not actually the person who had substituted in my machine a wooden bolt for a steel one.

I recollect the expression upon that hard, furrowed countenance even now—a wildly exultant expression as though he were gloating over the death-trap so cunningly prepared for me. Yet, when I reflected during my convalescence, I knew that no lunatic's hand was responsible for such crafty contrivance, and further, the person who had withdrawn the steel bolt would certainly not come forth so boldly to peer into my face as that podgy little stranger had done.

No. The man with the eyes askew might, perhaps, have gained secret knowledge of the dastardly plot, and come there to watch me rise to my death. But I was confident that his was not the Invisible Hand that had been raised against me.

From everybody—even from Lionel Eastwell and the insurance people—we concealed the truth. Lionel, who lived in Albemarle Street, not far away often came in to cheer me up, sitting with me, consuming cigarettes, expressing wonder at the reason of my accident, and gossiping technicalities, as airmen will always gossip. Indeed, at the Royal Automobile Club the air 'boys' are the biggest gossips in that institution—which, not so long ago, Prince Henry of Prussia so completely 'nobbled.'

Reminiscences of the 'Prince Henry Motor Tour' through England have not been exactly popular since August 1914—and any member mentioning His Imperial Highness's name had become at once taboo. The remembrance of that tour through the heat and dust of the Moselle valley, and afterwards from south to north of England, is still with me. My pilot in Germany was a certain Uhlan captain, who afterwards distinguished himself as responsible for the atrocities committed upon the poor inoffensive Belgians in Dinant, on the Meuse. The lives of seven hundred of those poor victims, men, women and children butchered in cold blood in the Grand Place outside the church with the bulgy spire cries out for vengeance upon that fair-haired spick-and-span Prussian who sat beside me for many days chatting so amiably in English, and assuring me that Germany would ever be Great Britain's firmest friend and ally.

Ah! How cleverly were we all bamboozled! Whenever I entered the portals of the club I remembered, as many of my fellow-members did, how completely we were gulled and blinded by that horde of German secret agents who came to us as friends and fellow-motorists, and partook of our hospitality while actively plotting for our undoing.

Lionel Eastwell sat discussing this with me one dark rainy afternoon.

'There's no doubt that the Germans held out the hand of friendship and laughed up their sleeves,' he said, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke upwards from his lips. 'Now that one remembers, one grows furious at it all. I confess that I liked Germany and the Germans. My people went to Germany each summer, for the mater was a bit of a musician, and we usually drifted to Dresden. I suppose I inherited from her my love of music, and that's why I was sent to Dresden for a couple of years' tuition.'

'And did you never suspect?' I asked. 'Remember what Lord Roberts and many others told us. Recollect how we were warned by men who had travelled, and who knew.'

'Of course I read all those speeches and writings, but I confess, Claude, that I laughed at them. I never dreamed that war would come—not for another twenty years or more. I was lulled into a sense of false security, just as our Government and people were lulled.'

'True, Germany told us fables—pretty land, sea and air fables—and we were childish enough to believe them. If peace had been the Kaiser's object, why did Krupp's and Ehrardt's work night and day and Count Zeppelin carry on his frantic work of building giant airships?' I queried. 'The greatest blockhead in a village school, with the true facts before him, could have done nothing else than suspect. But we are such a smug and unsuspicious people. We never like to hear an unpleasant truth.'

'True, we're aroused now. This Zeppelin raid on London has inflamed the public mind. The people are clamouring loudly for something to be done. What can be done?' he asked. 'How can we possibly fight those enemy airships—eh? 'And he looked me straight in the face with those calm blue-grey eyes of his.

I paused.

I would have greatly liked to tell him of our secret discovery, for, after all, he was our most intimate friend. Yet I had given a promise to Roseye and to Teddy and, therefore, could not break it.

That Lionel Eastwell was a real stolid John Bull patriot had been proved times without number. We all liked him, for he was ever courteous to Roseye, and always wholehearted and easy-going with both Teddy and myself.

'You ask a question which I can't answer, Lionel,' I replied at last.

'I thought, perhaps, you had some scheme,' he laughed airily. 'You're always so very inventive.'

Those words, when I remembered them in the light of after events, sounded somewhat curious.

'Inventive!' I laughed. 'How can I put forward any scheme by which to fight an airship, except that of fast aeroplanes capable of mounting above the airship and dropping bombs? And, surely, that's one which our Aircraft Factory have considered long ago.'

Lionel shook his head in reply.

'No. There must be some other mode than that—if we could only discover it. That poor women and children are being blown to pieces while in their beds is too terrible to contemplate,' he declared. 'To-day Great Britain seems inadequately defended. But somebody will, of course, devise something. We can't remain defenceless much longer. Whenever an arm of war has been invented, ever since the dark ages, somebody has always invented something to combat it. It will be so in the case of the Zeppelin—never fear,' he added confidently.

'Let's hope so,' I replied, yet, truth to tell, it seemed to me very much as though he were trying to pump me regarding the secrets of that brown deal box which was reposing in a locked cupboard in the adjoining room. Perhaps, of course, mine was an entirely ungrounded suspicion. But there it was. I hesitated—and wondered.

At that moment Theed—who acted as my mechanic, valet, and man-of-all work—rapped at the door and, entering, announced:

'Miss Lethmere, sir.'

Next instant Roseye, merry and radiant in a new fur motor-coat and close-fitting black hat, burst into the room.

She drew back on seeing Lionel, and then, recovering herself in an instant, exclaimed:

'Oh, Claude, I—thought you were alone! How are you to-day? I've brought you some flowers.'

'Thanks, dear,' I replied. 'I'm feeling much better to-day. Teddy was in this morning, and he told me that you'd made a flight soon after breakfast. How far did you go? I thought you intended to rest for a bit?'

'I went to Chelmsford,' she replied. 'I had a little engine-trouble before I got back, and had to come down in somebody's park. I think it was somewhere near Watford. But I was able to put it right and get home, if a trifle lamely.'

'So Bertie Maynard told me,' remarked Lionel. 'I saw him in the club just before lunch, and he said that you'd had engine-trouble.'

'Oh, it wasn't very much really. Only, after Claude's smash, I'm rather careful,' she said.

'One should always take every precaution,' declared Lionel seriously, as he rose and gave her his chair opposite me. 'A lot of the boys are far too daring nowadays. They've followed Pegoud, and take needless risks long before they are qualified to do so. It's easy enough to make the sensational loop if you are a practised hand. But when half-trained pupils try and attempt it—well, they're bound to make a mess of it.'

Roseye glanced at me for a moment, and I knew that she was annoyed at Lionel's presence. He was a good enough fellow in his place as a friend of her family, and a gossip who entertained her father so constantly, but she had no desire that he should be present at what she had intended should be a cosy tête-à-tête over our tea and muffins.

'Well. Have you seen the papers to-day?' I asked, in order to change the subject. 'They are still full of the want of an efficient air-defence.'

'That will come all right, my dear Claude, I'm sure,' replied Lionel who, leaning back against the corner of my writing-table, had lit a fresh cigarette.

'I sincerely hope so,' returned Roseye. 'What we sadly need is a Man who will be really responsible for air-defence—and air-defence alone—one who can make the most of the weapons that are now in our hands, and who has the wit, courage and initiative to use our own splendid airmen as they themselves desire to be employed—namely, to fight the enemy.'

'Quite so,' I agreed. 'We also want arrangements for warning the towns and cities that airraids are probable, so that people may take cover against both bombs and splinters of shell from anti-aircraft guns.'

'All that will come in due course,' Lionel assured us.

'No doubt,' I hastened to say. 'Please understand that I'm not criticizing any department of our defences. On the contrary, I only argue from the point of the man who may be desirous of protecting his home. Perhaps, as you say, some efficient means will at last be found by which to deal successfully with the enemy aircraft. If so, the whole country will eagerly welcome it.'

'What we don't like is attacks without any timely warning,' said Roseye.

Lionel smiled—with a touch of sarcasm I thought.

'There won't be any more raids for a bit, I feel positive, Miss Lethmere,' was his assurance. 'Our friends across the North Sea are not yet fully prepared with their machinery. The raid on the thirteenth was but a mere rehearsal of what they hope to do. And, as you argue, we should certainly be prepared.'

'You speak almost as though you know,' I remarked, not without some surprise at his words.

'I only speak after surveying the matter calmly and logically,' was his slow reply. 'The German newspapers have—ever since the early days of the war—threatened to bombard London from the air. This last raid has shown that they are capable of doing so.'

'They're capable of anything!' I cried. 'Remember Scarborough!'

'And Belgium,' chimed in Roseye.

'Well,' said Lionel to me. 'You make all sorts of experiments on your new propellers and things down at Gunnersbury. Why don't you try and devise some plan by which we can destroy Zeppelins? You're always so intensely ingenious, Claude,'

'So you've just said. But far better men than myself have tried—and failed,' was my diplomatic response.

'But surely some means can be devised!' he cried. 'Our flying boys are splendid, as you know—and——'

'Except when they come to grief, as I did the other day,' I interrupted with a hard laugh.

'Well, you surely can't complain,' was his answer. 'You've had the very devil's luck ever since you took your certificate.'

'Admitted. But that doesn't help me to fight Zeppelins,' I replied.

'It only wants somebody to do something, to find out some new invention or other, and the boys will tumble over each other in their eagerness to go up after enemy airships. Of that, I'm positive,' declared Eastwell. 'You've got a lot of plant down at Gunnersbury, haven't you? If so, you ought to turn your serious attention to this matter which is at the present moment of the very highest importance to the country.'

Roseye glanced at me, and I saw that my visitor's words and bearing puzzled her.

'What do you make of Lionel's questions?' I asked her ten minutes later, when Eastwell had risen and left, having taken the gentle hint that I wished to be alone with Roseye over the tea and muffins.

'I don't know what to make of them, dear,' replied the girl, seating herself again in the big chair.

'Well, I've been watching him for some days,' I said slowly. 'And, do you know that, strictly between ourselves, I believe that he has some suspicion of the direction of our experiments, and is pumping us to see what he can glean!'

'How can he possibly know? He is, of course, well aware that you've been devising new propellers, but he can know nothing of our real work. Neither Teddy nor Theed would ever let drop a single word, and, as you know, I've never breathed a sentence at home.'

'He spoke as though he knew that the enemy intended more raids—but not just at present.'

Roseye suddenly stirred herself and stared at me in amazement with those big expressive eyes of hers.

'What? do you think—do you really suspect that Lionel East well is our enemy, Claude?' she asked, suddenly pale and breathless.

'Well—perhaps not exactly that,' I replied hesitatingly. 'Only his queer questions, naturally make one think. We know we have enemies, clever, unscrupulous ones who have not hesitated to attempt to take my life. Therefore we must both be wary—extremely wary—for we never know where the next pitfall may be concealed.'

'I quite agree with all that, dear,' answered Roseye, looking at me earnestly. 'But I really can't think that Lionel is anything else than one of our best friends. At least he's been a really good chum to me, ever since we first met. No,' she added decisively, 'I'm convinced that no suspicion can attach to him. Such an idea, Claude, is to me, too utterly absurd.'

'Yes. Well, I suppose you're right, dearest,' I replied with a sigh. 'Women always see so very much farther than men in matters of this sort.'

And I rose and, crossing to her chair, kissed her fondly upon the lips.

'I'm sorry—very sorry indeed, dearest, that I've cast any reflection upon your friend,' I said in deep apology. 'Do please forgive me, and we'll never mention the subject again.'