THE FINAL COUNT [Part 2]

CHAPTER VII

In Which I Appear to Become Irrelevant

I think it was the method of the murder of Sir John that brought home to me most forcibly the nerve of the gang that confronted us. And though there will be many people who remember the affair, yet, for the benefit of those who do not, I will set forth what happened as detailed in the papers of the following day. The cutting is before me as I write.

“Another astounding and cold-blooded murder occurred between the hours of nine and ten last night. Sir John Dallas, the well-known scientist and authority on toxicology, was stabbed through the heart in his own laboratory.

“The following are the facts of the case. Sir John, as our readers will remember, gave evidence as recently as the day before yesterday in the sensational Robin Gaunt affair. He described in court the action of the new and deadly poison, by means of which the dog, the policeman and the Australian—David Ganton—had been killed. He also stated that he was endeavouring to analyse the drug, and there can be little doubt that he was engaged on that very work when he met his end.

“It appears that yesterday afternoon a further and, at present, secret development occurred which caused Sir John to feel hopeful of success. He returned to his house in Eaton Square in time for dinner, which he had served in his study—the usual course of procedure when he was busy. At eight-thirty he rang the bell and Elizabeth Perkins, the parlour-maid, came and removed the tray. He was apparently completely absorbed in his research at that time, since he failed to answer her twice-repeated question as to what time he would like his milk. On the desk in front of him was a bottle containing a colourless liquid which looked like water, and a small cardboard box.

“These facts are interesting in view of what is to follow, and may prove to have an important bearing on the case. At between nine o’clock and a quarter-past the front-door bell rang, and it was answered by Perkins. There was a man outside who stated that he had come to see Sir John on a very important matter. She told him that Sir John was busy, but when he told her that it was in connection with Sir John’s work that he was there, she showed him along the passage to the laboratory. And then she heard the stranger say distinctly, ‘I’ve come from Scotland Yard, Sir John.’ Now there can be but little doubt that this man was the murderer himself, since no one from Scotland Yard visited Sir John at t hat hour. And as walking openly into a man’s house, killing him, and walking out again requires a nerve possessed by few, the added touch of introducing himself as a member of the police is quite in keeping with the whole amazing case.

“To return, however, to what happened. Perkins, having shown this man into the laboratory, returned to the servants’ hall, where she remained till ten o’clock. At ten o’clock she had a standing order to take Sir John a glass of warm milk, if he had not rung for it sooner. She got the milk and took it along to the laboratory. She knocked and, receiving no answer, she entered the room. At first she thought he must have gone out, as the laboratory appeared to be empty, and then, suddenly, she saw a leg sticking out from behind the desk. She went quickly to the place to find, to her horror, that Sir John was lying on the floor with a dagger driven up to the hilt in his heart.

“She saw at a glance that he was dead, and rushing out of the house she called in a policeman, who at once rang up Scotland Yard. Inspector MacIver, who, it will be recalled, is in charge of the Robin Gaunt mystery, at once hurried to the scene. And it was he who elucidated the fact that the bottle containing the colourless liquid, and the little cardboard box, had completely disappeared. It seems, therefore, impossible to doubt that at any rate one motive for the murder of this distinguished savant was the theft of these two things with their unknown contents. And further, since we know that Sir John was experimenting with this mysterious new poison, the connection between this dastardly crime and the Gaunt affair seems conclusive.

“The matter is in the capable hands of Inspector MacIver, and it is to be hoped that before long the cold-blooded criminals concerned will be brought to justice. It is an intolerable and disquieting state of affairs that two such appalling crimes can be committed in London within three days of one another.”

Which was a fair sample of what they all said. The Daily Referee offered a reward of a thousand pounds to the first person who discovered a clue which should lead to the arrest of the murderer or murderers. “Retired Colonel” and “Frankly disgusted” inflicted their opinions on a long-suffering public; and as day after day went past and nothing happened, Scotland Yard began to get it hot and strong in the Press.

Somehow or other MacIver managed to hush up the death of the woman at Number 12 Ashworth Gardens, but there was no getting away from the fact that the authorities were seriously perturbed. Their principal cause of anxiety lay, as I have shown, in a fact unknown to the public; and whereas the latter were chiefly concerned with bringing the murderers to book, Scotland Yard and the Secret Service’s chief worry was to what had happened to the secret. Had it been disposed of to a foreign Power? If so, to which?

The only ray of comfort during the weeks that followed lay in Drummond’s happy idea of dividing the antidote—if it was an antidote—into two portions. For MacIver’s specimen had been analysed, and its exact composition was known. The trouble lay in the fact that it was impossible to carry out further experiments, since we possessed none of the poison. For an antidote to be efficacious it is advisable to know how to use it, and since the most obvious way was not the correct one, we were not much farther advanced. Still, the general opinion was that Drummond’s theory was correct, and all the necessary steps were taken to allow of its immediate manufacture on a large scale, should occasion arise.

Gradually, as was only natural, public interest died down. Nothing further happened, and it seemed to all of us that the events of those few days were destined to have no sequel. Only Drummond, in fact, continued to do anything: the rest of us slipped back into the normal tenor of our ways. He still periodically disappeared for hours at a time—generally in a disguise of some sort. He was not communicative as to what he did during these absences, and after a time he, too, seemed to be losing interest. But the whole thing rankled in his mind: he made no secret of that.

“Put it how you like,” he said to me on one occasion, “we got very much the worst of it, Stockton. They got away with everything they wanted, right under our noses. And positively the only thing we have to show for our trouble is the antidote.”

“A pretty considerable item,” I reminded him.

He grunted.

“Oh, for ten minutes with gorse bush alone,” he sighed. “Or even five.”

“You may get it yet,” I said.

Off and on we saw a good deal of MacIver, in whose mind the affair rankled also. The comments in the Press concerning Scotland Yard had not pleased him, and I rather gathered that the comments of his immediate superiors had not pleased him either. It was particularly the murder of Sir John Dallas that infuriated him, and over which criticism was most bitter. The other affair contained an element of mystery; a suspicion, almost of the uncanny. There seemed to be some excuse for his failure in connection with Robin Gaunt. But there was no element of mystery over stabbing a man to death. It was just a plain straightforward murder. And yet it remained wrapped in as dense a fog as the other. It was perfectly true that Elizabeth Perkins stated that she would recognise the man again. But, as MacIver said, what was the use of that unless he could first be found? And as she was quite unable to describe him, beyond saying that he was of medium height, clean-shaven and dark, the prospect of finding him was remote. At a conservative estimate her description would have fitted some ten million men.

The case of the man called Doctor Helias held out a little more prospect of success. Drummond and I separately described that human monstrosity to MacIver, and within two days a description of him was circulated all over the world. But, as Major Jackson pointed out a little moodily, it wasn’t likely to prove of much use. If our fears were justified: if the secret of the poison had been handed over to a foreign Power, it was clear that Doctor Helias was an agent of that Power. And if so they wouldn’t give him away.

It certainly proved of no use: no word or trace of him was discovered. He seemed to have disappeared as completely as everyone else connected with the business.

Another thing MacIver did was to turn his attention to the genuine owner of Number 12. First he tracked the maid, and we found out that part, at any rate, of the story told us by the woman who had died was true. Someone had come round and asked Miss Simpson to let the house: she had talked it over later with the maid. And on a certain morning a wire had come stating that her mother was ill, and summoning the maid to her home in Devonshire. To her surprise she found her mother perfectly fit. The wire had been sent from the village by a woman; that was all they could tell her at the Post Office. And then next morning, when she was still puzzling over the affair, had come a letter in Miss Simpson’s handwriting. It was brief and to the point, stating that she had decided after all to let her house, and was proposing to travel. And it enclosed a month’s wages in lieu of notice. The maid had felt hurt at such a brusque dismissal, and was shortly going to another place.

“That’s really all I got out of her,” said MacIver, “except for a description of Miss Simpson. She is short and fat, as Captain Drummond surmised. Also, according to the maid, she has no near relatives and very few friends. She hardly went out at all, and no one ever came to the house. Moreover, the description the maid gave me of the woman who came to ask to rent the house would fit the woman who impersonated Miss Simpson and was killed, which may be poetic justice, but it doesn’t help us much.”

Inquiries as to Miss Simpson’s predecessors helped as little. Messrs Paul & Paul were the agents right enough; but all they could say, having consulted their books, was that the house had belonged to a Mr Startin, who, they believed, had gone abroad. And they knew absolutely nothing about him.

“A dead end everywhere,” said MacIver despondently. “Never in the whole course of my career have I seen every trace so completely covered. They set the whole Press blazing from end to end in the country, and then they disappear as if they were wiped out.”

And then on the 20th of June occurred the next link in the chain. It was an isolated one, and it is safe to say that the few people who may have read the paragraph in the papers never connected it with the other issues.

“A fisherman named Daniel Coblen made a gruesome discovery late yesterday afternoon. He was walking over the rocks near the Goodrington Sands at Paignton when he saw something floating in the sea. It proved to be the body of a woman in an advanced stage of decomposition. He at once informed the police. From marks on the unfortunate lady’s garments it appears that her name was A. Simpson. Doctor Epping, who made an examination, stated that she must have been dead for considerably over a month.”

As I say, the few people who may have read the paragraph would assuredly have traced no connection between it and Sir John Dallas being stabbed to death, but MacIver went down post haste to Paignton. It transpired at the inquest that death was due to drowning: no marks of violence could be found on the body. But the point of interest lay in how it had happened. How had she been drowned? No local boatman knew anything about it: no ship had reported that any passenger of that name was missing. How then had Miss Simpson been drowned?

That it was a question of foul play seemed obvious—but beyond hat one bald fact everything seemed blank. The gang had decided to get rid of her, and they had chosen drowning as the method. Why they had done so was a totally different matter.

It was well-nigh inconceivable that they would have taken the trouble to put her on board a boat merely to take her out to sea and drown her, when their record in London showed that they had no hesitation in using far more direct methods. It seemed to add but one more baffling feature to a case that contained no lack of them already.

And the sole result was that Drummond’s interest, which had seemed to be waning, revived once more. Sometimes I wonder if Drummond, with that strangely direct brain of his, didn’t have a glimmering of the truth. Not the final actual truth—that would have been impossible at that stage of the proceedings; but a glimpse of the open ground through the trees. He said nothing then, and when I asked him the other day he only shrugged his shoulders. But I wonder…Day after day he disappeared by himself until his wife grew quite annoyed about it. As a matter of fact I, too, thought he was wasting his time. What he was doing, or where he went, he would never say. He just departed in the morning or after lunch, and often did not return till two or three in the morning. And since there seemed to be nothing particular to look for, and no particular place to look for it in, the whole thing struck me as somewhat pointless.

It was about that time that I began to see a good deal of Major Jackson. His club had been closed down for structural repairs, and the members had come to mine. So I saw Jackson two or three times a week at lunch. General Darton, too, was frequently there, and sometimes we shared the same table. On the whole I thought they were fairly optimistic: nothing had as yet been heard from any of our agents abroad which led them to suspect any particular Power of having acquired the secret.

“Somebody must have it presumably,” said the General. “Crimes of that sort aren’t perpetrated for fun. But the great point, Stockton, is this—we’ve got the antidote. It might be quite useful if we could discover how it worked,” he added sarcastically.

“Anyway those squirting machines must have a very small range, and there still are rifles left in the world amidst this mass of filthy chemicals.”

The worthy infantryman snorted, and Jackson kicked me gently under the table. He was off on his favourite topic, and he required no assistance from us. Only now as I look back on that conversation, which was only one of many similar ones, that big fundamental mistake of ours looms large. It was a natural mistake, particularly since the War Office had been concerned in the affair from the very beginning. Automatically their gaze was fixed on the foreign target; and it was tacitly assumed by us all that the direction was right. Until, that is, Drummond proved it wrong.

At the time, however, all of us who knew the inner history of the affair had our attention fixed abroad; and for the rest—the great general public—the Robin Gaunt mystery had become a back number. The Press had buried him in a final tirade of obloquy and turned its attention to other things—principally, as will be remembered, the Wilmost dirigible airship.

It was in July, I see after reference to my files, that the Wilmot airship publicity stunt was first started. Up to that date airships were regarded as essentially connected with the fighting services. And it was then that the big endeavour was made to popularise them commercially.

The first difficulty which the promoters of the scheme had to overcome was a distinct feeling of nervousness on the part of the public. Aeroplanes they were accustomed to: the magnificent Croydon to Paris service was by this time regarded as being as safe as the boat train. But airships were a different matter. Airships caught fire and burned: airships broke their backs and crashed: airships had all sorts of horrible accidents.

The second difficulty was financial nervousness in the City, doubtless induced largely by the physical nervousness of the public. Would a fleet of airships—six was the number suggested—pay? They were costly things to construct: a mooring mast worked out at about £25,000—a shed at more than £100,000. Would it prove a commercial success?

And the promoters of the scheme, rightly realising that the first difficulty was the greater, took every step they could to reassure the public. Who can fail to remember that beautiful, graceful ship circling over London day after day: going long trips over the Midlands and down to the West Country: anchored to the revolving top of the lattice-work mooring mast?

And then came the celebrated trip on July 25th, when representatives from every important London paper were taken for a trial voyage, and entertained to a luncheon during the journey which the Ritz itself could not have beaten.

I have before me a copy of the Morning Herald of the 26th in which an account of the trip is given. And I cannot refrain from quoting a brief extract. Having described the journey, and paid a glowing tribute to the beauty and the comfort of the airship, the writer proceeds as follows:—

Then came the culminating moment of this wonderful experience. Lunch was over, a meal which no restaurant de luxe could have bettered. The drone of the engines ceased, and, as we drifted gently down wind, the whole gorgeous panorama of English woodland scenery unfolded itself before our eyes. It was the psychological moment of the day: it was the fitting moment for Mr Wilmot to say a few words. He rose, and we tore our eyes away from the view to look at the man who had made that view possible. Tall, thick-set, and with greying hair and eyes gleaming with enthusiasm he stood at the end of the table.

“I am not going to say much,” he remarked, in his deep steady voice—a voice which holds the faintest suspicion of American accent, “but I feel that this occasion may mark the beginning of a new epoch in British aviation. Today you have seen for yourselves something of the possibilities of the airship as opposed to the aeroplane: I want the public to see those possibilities too. The lunch which you have eaten has been prepared entirely on board: not one dish was brought into the kitchen ready-made. I mention that to show that the domestic arrangements are, as I think you will agree, passably efficient. But that, after all, is a detail. Think of the other possibilities. A range of 3000 miles carrying fifty passengers in the essence of comfort. Australia in a fortnight; America in three days. And it is safe, gentlemen—safe. That is the message I want you to give the British public.”

And at this point I can imagine the reader laying the book down in blank amazement. What, he will say, is the fellow talking about? What on earth has the Wilmot dirigible got to do with the matter? We all know that any hope of success for the scheme was killed when the airship crashed in flames. There were ridiculous rumours of Wilmot going mad, though for some reason or other the thing was hushed up in the papers. Anyway, what has it got to do with Gaunt and his poison?

Don’t get irritable, my friend. I warned you that I am no story-teller: maybe if I was I could have averted your anger by some trick of the trade. And I admit it looks as if I had suddenly taken leave of my senses, and that a dissertation on the habits of ferrets would have been equally relevant. I will merely say that at the time I would have agreed with you. The Wilmot dirigible had as little to do with Robin Gaunt in my mind as the fact that my clerk’s name was Stevens. If I ever thought of Mr Wilmot, which I presume I must have done, I pictured him as an ordinary business man who saw a great commercial future in the rigid airship. I take it that such was the picture in everybody’s mind. I know that I heard of him lunching in the City: I know that I heard rumours of a company being actually floated. (The Duke of Wessex was to be one of the directors.)

The principal thing I did not know at the time was the truth. So bear with me, my irritated friend: in due course you shall know the truth yourself. Whether you believe it or not is a totally different matter.

Furthermore, I’m now going to make you angry again. More apparent red herrings are going to be drawn across the trail: herrings which, I once again repeat, seemed as red to me then as they will to you now.

On the 31st of July the celebrated American multi-millionaire, Cosmo A. Miller, steamed into Southampton Water in his equally celebrated yacht, the Hermione. He had with him on board the type of party that a multi-millionaire might have been expected to entertain. To take the ladies first, there was his wife, for whom he had recently bought the notorious Shan diamonds. The diamonds of death, they had been christened: strange, wasn’t it, how they lived up to their evil reputation! Then there was Angela Greymount, a well-known film star: Mrs Percy Franklin, a New York society woman and immensely wealthy; and finally Mrs James Delmer, the wife of a Chicago millionaire. The feminine side of the party was to be completed by the Duchess of Sussex—also an American, and Lady Agatha Dawkins, an extremely amusing woman whom I knew slightly. These last two were to join the yacht at Southampton, and it was to pick them up that the Hermione called there.

The men consisted of the owner, three American business friends, the Duke of Sussex and Tony Beddington, who was, incidentally, a pal of Drummond’s. He and the Duke also joined the yacht in England.

Cowes week was in progress at the time, of course—so the eyes of social England and the pens of those who chronicle the doings of the great were already occupied in that quarter. But the arrival of the Hermione was something which dwarfed everything else. Never had so much wealth been gathered together in a private yacht before. Mrs Tattle, in that bright and breezy column which she contributed daily to the Morning Express, stated that the jewellery alone was worth over two million pounds sterling. And it is, I gather, a fact that a dear friend of Mrs Cosmo Miller’s once stated that she’d lunched with Minnie’s diamonds and she believed Minnie was inside.

The yacht itself was a miniature floating palace. It had a swimming pool and a gymnasium: it had listening-in sets and an electric piano encrusted in precious stones—or almost. There was gold plate for use at dinner, and the plebeian silver for lunch. In fact it was the supreme essence of blatant vulgarity.

In addition to the guests there were the Wallaby Coon Quartette, the Captain, the wireless operator, four maids, the chef and the writer of “The Three Hundred Best Cocktails” as barman. The crew numbered sixteen.

So that when the Hermione steamed slowly down Southampton Water there were in all forty souls on board. The sea was like a mill-pond; the date was August 2nd. On August 4th a marconigram was received in London by the firm of Bremmer and Bremmer. It was from Mr Miller, and is of interest merely because it is the last recorded message from the Hermione. From that moment she completely disappeared with every soul on board.

At first no one worried. When the Hermione failed to arrive at the Azores, which was originally intended, it was assumed that Mr Miller and his guests had changed their route. But when, on August 10th, Bremmer and Bremmer having obtained the information required by Mr Miller proceeded to wireless it to the Hermione, no response whatever was received from her. The sea was still beautifully calm: no report of any storms had been received from the Atlantic. And somewhere in the Atlantic the Hermione must be, since it was definitely certain she had not passed Gibraltar and entered the Mediterranean.

By August 12th the whole Press—English and American—was seething with it.

MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF MULTI-MILLIONAIRE’S YACHT,

COSMO A. MILLER BEATS IT WITH WALLABY QUARTETTE,

S.Y. HERMIONE REFUSES WIRELESS CALLS, etc., etc.

Still no one took it seriously. The yacht was fitted with a Marconi installation: the sea was still like glass. The general opinion was that there had been a break-down in the engines, and that for some obscure reason the wireless was out of action.

But by August 20th, when the silence was still unbroken, the tone of the Press began to change. Once again I will refer to my file of cuttings, and quote from the Morning Herald of that date.

“The mysterious silence of the S.Y. Hermione has now become inexplicable. The last communication from her was received more than a fortnight ago. Since then nothing further has been heard, though Mr Cosmo Miller, her owner, has been repeatedly called up on important business matters. It is impossible to avoid a feeling of grave anxiety that all is not well.”

But what could have happened? The wireless operator was known to be a first-class man, and it seemed impossible that such damage could have happened to his instruments, in a perfectly calm sea, that he would be unable to effect a temporary cure.

Then some bright specimen had an idea which held the field for quite a while. It was just an advertisement—an elaborate publicity stunt. They were receiving all these messages, and taking no notice of them merely in order to keep the eyes of the world focussed on t hem. Such a thing, it was argued, was quite in keeping with at any rate Mrs Miller’s outlook on life. And it wasn’t until August 25th came and went that one of the officials at Southampton Docks shattered that theory. The Hermione’s bunkers only held sufficient coal for a fortnight, and that only when steaming at her economic speed. And it was now twenty-four days since she had sailed.

By this time the public on both sides of the Atlantic were very gravely perturbed. The wildest rumours were flying round: from pirates to sea serpents all sorts of suggestions were put forward.

Both the British and American navies despatched light cruisers to discover what they could; and it may be remembered that when Mr Wilmot’s patriotic offer to place his airship at the disposal of the authorities were refused, he himself, at his own expense, went far out into the Atlantic to see if he could find out anything.

Nothing was ever discovered; no trace was found of the yacht. And no trace ever will be; for she sank with every soul on board.

Now for the first time I will put down what happened, and show the connection between the two chains of events—the big and the so-called little: between the disappearance of the Hermione and Robin Gaunt’s cry over the telephone. I will tell of the death of Mr Wilmot, and of what happened to the man called Helias in that lonely spot in Cornwall. And, perhaps, most important of all, certainly most interesting, I will set down word for word the last statement of Robin Gaunt.

CHAPTER VIII

In Which We Come to Black Mine

But before I go on to pick up the thread of my story, I wish again to reiterate one thing. On September 5th, when Drummond rang me up at my office asking me to go round to his house at once, there was no inkling in my mind that there was any connection. Nor was there in his. The events I had just recorded were as irrelevant to us as they appear to be on these pages. In fact the last thing known to us which was connected in any way with Robin Gaunt in our minds was the discovery of Miss Simpson’s body at Paignton.

So it was with a considerable feeling of surprise that I listened to what Drummond had to say over the telephone.

“Found out something that may be of value: can you come round at once?”

I went, to find, to my amazement, a man with him whom I had never expected to see again. It was little rat face, who had been put to watch Toby Sinclair and whom we had saved from hanging in Number 10. He was sitting on the edge of his chair, plucking nervously at a greasy hat in the intervals of getting outside a quart of Drummond’s beer.

“You remember Mr Perton, don’t you, old boy?” said Drummond, winking at me. “I happened to meet him this morning, and reminded him that there was a little matter of a fiver due to him.”

“Well, gentlemen,” said Mr Perton nervously, “I don’t know as ’ow I can call it due, for I didn’t do wot you told me to. But I couldn’t sir: I ’ad a dreadful time. You won’t believe wot them devils did to me. They ’ung me.”

“Did they indeed?” said Drummond quietly. “They don’t seem to have done it very well.”

“Gawd knows ’ow I escaped, guv’nor. They ’ung me, the swine—and left me swinging. I lost consciousness, I did—and then when I come to again, I was laying on the floor in the room alone. You bet yer life I didn’t ’alf do a bolt.”

“A very sound move, Mr Perton. Have some more beer? Now do you know why they hanged you?”

“Strite I don’t, guv’nor. They said to me, they said—‘You’re bait, my man: just bait.’ They’d got me gagged, the swine: and they was a-peering out of the window. ‘Here they come,’ says one of ’em: ‘trice ’im up!’ So they triced me up, and then they give me a push to start me swinging. Then they does a bunk into the next ’ouse.”

“How do you know they bunked into the next house?” said Drummond.

“Well, guv’nor, there was a secret door, there was—and they’d brought me from the next house.”

He looked at us nervously, as if afraid of the reception of his story.

“How long had you been in the next house, Mr Perton,” asked Drummond reassuringly, “before they brought you through the secret door to hang you?”

“Three or four hours, sir: bound and gagged. Thrown in the corner like a ruddy sack of pertaters. Just as I told you, sir.”

“I know, Mr Perton; but I want my friend to hear what you have to say also. During those three or four hours whilst you were thrown in the corner, you heard them talking, didn’t you?”

“Well, I didn’t pay much attention, sir,” said Mr Perton apologetically. “I was a-wondering wot was going to ’appen to me too ’ard. But there was a great black-bearded swine, who was swearing something awful. And two others wot was sitting at a table drinking whisky. They seemed to be fair wild about something. Then the other bloke come in—the bloke wot had been in Clarges Street that morning, and the one wot had brought me from the Three Cows to the ’ouse. They shut up swearing, though you could see they was still wild.

“‘You know wot to do,’ says the new man,’with regard to that thing.’ He points to me, and I listened ’ard.

“‘We knows wot to do,’ says the black-bearded swab, ‘but it’s damned tomfoolery.’

“‘That’s for me to decide,’ snaps the new bloke. ‘I’ll get the others next door, and I’ll do the necessary once they’re there.’ They didn’t say nothing then abaht making me swing, you see, so…

“Quite, Mr Perton,” interrupted Drummond. “But they did say something else, didn’t they?”

“Wot, that there bit about Land’s Hend? Wot was it ’e said, now—old black beard? Yus—I know. ‘We’ll all be in ’ell’s end,’ he said, ‘not Land’s Hend if we goes on like this.’ And then someone cursed ’im for a ruddy fool.”

“You’re sure of that, Mr Perton, aren’t you?” I could hear the excitement in Drummond’s voice. “I mean the bit about Land’s End?”

“Sure as I’m sitting ’ere, sir.”

He took a large gulp of beer, and Drummond rose to his feet. “Well, I’m much obliged to you, Mr Perton. I have your address in case I want it, and since you had such a rotten time, I must make that fiver a tenner.” He thrust two notes into the little man’s hand, rushed him through the door, and bawled for Denny to let him out. Then he came back, and his face was triumphant.

“Worth it, Stockton: worth day after day, night after night searching London for that man. Heavens! the amount of liquor I’ve consumed in the Three Cows.”

“Great Scott!” I cried, “is that what you’ve been doing?”

“That—and nothing else. And then I ran into him this morning by accident outside your rooms in Clarges Street. Still, it’s been worth it: we’ve got a clue at last.”

“You mean?” I said, a little bewildered.

“Land’s End, man: Land’s End,” he cried. “I nearly kicked the desk over when he said it first. Then I sent for you: I wanted him to repeat his story for confirmation. He did—word for word. The fog is lifting a little, old boy: one loose end is accounted for at any rate. I always thought they hanged the poor little swine in order to get a sitting shot at us. As they told him—bait. But, anyway, that is all past, and a trifle. He’s got a tenner in his pocket and two quarts of beer in his stomach—and we can let him pass out of the picture. We, on the contrary, I hope and trust, are just going to pass into it again.”

“You really think,” I said a little doubtfully, “that we’re likely to find out anything at Land’s End?”

“I’m going to have a damned good try, Stockton,” he said quietly. “On his own showing the little man was listening with all his ears at that time, and it seems incredible to me that he would invent a thing like that. We know that the rest of his story was true—the part that he would think us least likely to believe. Very well, then: assuming that black beard did make that remark it must have had some meaning. And what meaning can it have had except the obvious one?—namely, that the gang was going to Land’s End. Why they went to Land’s End, Heaven alone knows. But what this child knows is that we’re going there too. I’ve warned in the boys: Toby, Peter and Ted are coming with us. Algy is stopping behind here to guard the fort.”

“What about MacIver?” I asked.

Drummond grinned.

“Mac hates leaving London,” he remarked. “And if by any chance we do run into gorse bush, I feel MacIver would rather cramp my style. When can you start?”

“Well,” I said doubtfully.

“After lunch?”

“I’ve got a rather important brief.”

“Damn your brief.”

I did, and after lunch we started. We went in the Hispano, and spent the night in Exeter.

“Tourists, old lads,” remarked Drummond. “That’s what we are. Visiting Penzance. Let’s make that our headquarters.”

And so at four o’clock on the 6th September five tourists arrived at Penzance and took rooms at an hotel. But should any doubting reader who dwells in that charming West Country town search the various hotel registers I can tell him in advance that he will find no record of our names. Further, I may say that mine host at Exeter would have been hard put to it to recognise the five men who got out of the Hispano in Penzance. There was no point in handicapping ourselves unnecessarily, and Drummond and I at any rate would be certainly recognised by the gang, even if the others weren’t.

The next day we split up. The plan of action we had decided on was to search the whole of the ground west of a line drawn from St Ives to Mount’s Bay. We split it into five approximately equal parts with the help of a large-scale ordnance map, and each part worked out at about ten square miles.

“To do it properly should take three or perhaps four days,” said Drummond. “It’s hilly going, and the north coast is full of caves. If anybody discovers anything, report to the hotel at once. Further, in order to be on the safe side we’d better all return here every night.”

We drew lots for our beats, and I got the centre strip terminating to the north in the stretch of coast on each side of Gurnard’s Head. Having a very mild sketching ability I decided that I would pose as an artist. So I purchased the necessary gear, slung a pair of Zeiss field-glasses over my shoulder and started off. I had determined to work my strip from north to south, since I felt sure that if the gang was there at all they would have chosen the desolate country in the north or centre rather than the comparatively populous part near Penzance itself.

The weather was glorious, and since I happen to love walking I foresaw a very pleasant holiday in store. I admit frankly that I did not share the optimism of the others. It struck me that, considering over four months had elapsed, we were building altogether too much on a chance remark.

This is not a guide-book, so I won’t bore my readers with rhapsodies over the scenery. The granite cliffs carved and indented into fantastic shapes by countless centuries of erosion: the wild rugged tors rising from the high moorland—it is all too well known to need any further description from my pen. And the desolation of it! Here and there a deserted mine shaft—tin, I supposed, or copper. No longer a paying proposition: not even worth the labour of dismantling the rusty machinery.

I stopped for a few moments to light my pipe, and a passing shepherd touched his cap.

“Going sketching, sir,” he said in his delightful West Country burr. “There certainly do be some fine views round these parts.”

I walked with him for a while listening absent-mindedly to his views on men and matters. And, in common with a large number of people in many walks of life, he was of the opinion that things were not what they were. The good old days! Those were the times.

“I remember, sir, when each one of them was a working concern.” He paused and pointed to a derelict mine below us. “That was Damar Mine—that was, and two hundred men used to work there.”

“Bad luck on them,” I said, “but I think as far as the scenery is concerned it’s better as it is. Didn’t pay, I suppose?”

“That’s it, sir: didn’t pay. Though they do say as how the men that are working Black Mine are going to make it pay. A rare lot of money they’re putting into it, so Peter Tregerthen told me. He be one of the foremen.”

“Where is Black Mine?” I asked perfunctorily.

“Just over this hill, sir, and you’ll see it. Only started in May, they did. Queer people too.”

I stared at him: it was impossible, of course—just a coincidence…

“How do you mean—queer people?” I asked.

“Peter Tregerthen he tells me as how they’ve got queer ideas,” he answered. “Scientific mining they’re a-going for: carrying out lots of experiments secretly—things which the boss says will revolutionise the industry. But so far nothing seems to have come of them: they just goes on mining in the old way. There it is, sir: that’s Black Mine.”

We had reached the top of the tor, and below us, a quarter of a mile away, lay the road from Land’s End to St Ives. On the other side, half-way between the road and the edge of the cliffs, stood the works, and for a moment or two a sudden uncontrollable excitement took hold of me. Was it possible that our search was ended almost before it had begun? And then I took a pull at myself: I was jumping ahead with a vengeance. To base such an idea on a mere coincidence in dates and a Cornish miner’s statement that the owners were queer people was ridiculous. And anything less nefarious than the peaceful appearance of Black Mine would have been hard to imagine. Smoke drifted lazily up from the tall chimney, and lines of trucks drawn by horses passed and repassed.

“How many men are employed there?” I asked my companion.

“Not many, sir, yet,” he answered. “It’s up in that wooden building yonder on the edge of the cliffs that they be experimenting as I told you. No one aren’t allowed near at all. In fact Peter Tregerthen he did tell me that one day he went up and there was a terrible scene. He wanted for to ask the boss something or t’other, and the boss very nigh sacked him. Well, sir, I reckons I must be a-going on. Be you waiting here?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think I’ll stop here a bit. Good-morning to you.”

I watched him go down the hill and strike the road: then, moved by a sudden impulse, I retraced my steps to the reverse slope of the tor, and lying down behind a rock I focussed my field-glasses on the wooden building which was so very private in its owners’ estimation. It seemed a perfectly ordinary erection, though considerably larger than I had thought when I saw it with the naked eye. I could see now that it stretched back some distance from the edge of the cliff, though, being foreshortened, it was hard to guess any dimensions.

Of signs of life in it I could see none. No one entered or left, and on the land-side—the only one I could observe properly—there were no windows as far as I could make out. And then a sudden glint, such as the sun makes when its light strikes something shining, came from up near the roof. It was not repeated, though I kept my glasses glued on the spot for ten minutes.

It was as I was coming to the conclusion that I was wasting time, and that an inspection from closer range was indicated (after all they couldn’t sack me), that a man came out of the building and walked towards the mine. I saw, on consulting the ordnance map, that the mine itself was just over half-a-mile from where I lay, and the cliffs edge was distant a further half-mile. And it was just about ten minutes before the man reappeared on my side of the mine buildings. I watched him idly: he was still too far off for me to be able to distinguish his features. After a while he struck the road, but instead of turning along it one way or the other he came straight on, and commenced to climb the hill. In fact it suddenly dawned on me that he was coming directly for me. I slipped backwards out of sight, and hurriedly set up my easel and camp stool, only to see another man approaching from my right rear. And the second man must have seen my hurried preparations. However, I argued to myself that there is no law that prevents a man admiring a view through field-glasses preparatory to sketching it. And though as an argument it was perfectly sound, the presence of Drummond would have been far more comforting.

“Good-morning.”

The man who had come from the mine breasted the rise in front of me, and I glanced up. He was a complete stranger, with a dark rather swarthy face, and I returned the compliment politely.

“Sketching, I see,” he remarked affably.

“Just beginning,” I answered. And then I took the bull by the horns. “I’ve been admiring the country through my glasses most of the morning.”

“So I perceived,” said another voice behind my shoulder. It was the second man, who again I failed to recognise. “You seemed to decide to start work very suddenly.”

“I presume,” I remarked coldly, “that I can decide to start work when I like, where I like, and how I like. The matter is my business, and my business only.”

A quick look passed between the two men, and then the first arrival spoke.

“Of course,” he remarked still more affably. “But the fact of the matter is this. By way of experiment a small syndicate of us have taken over Black Mine. We believe, I trust rightly, that we have stumbled on a method which will enable us to make a large fortune out of tin mining. The information has leaked out, and we have had several people attempting to spy on us. Please wait”—he held up his hand as I began an indignant protest. “Now that I have seen you, I am perfectly sure that you are not one of them. But you will understand that we must take precautions.”

“I would be obliged,” I remarked sarcastically, “if you would tell me how you think I can discover your secret—even granted I knew anything about tin-mining, which I don’t—from the range of a mile.”

“A very natural remark,” he replied. “But, to adopt military terms for a moment, there is such a thing as reconnoitring a position, I believe, before attempting to assault it.”

“Which it seems to me, sir, you have been doing pretty thoroughly this morning,” put in the other.

I rose to my feet angrily.

“Look here,” I said, “I’ve had about enough of this. I’m an Englishman, and this is England. If you will inform me of any law which prohibits me from looking through field-glasses at anything I like for as long as I like, I shall be pleased to listen to you. If, however, you can’t, I should be greatly obliged if you’d both of you go to blazes. I may say that the question of tin-mining leaves me even colder than your presence.”

Once again I saw a quick glance pass between them.

“There is no good losing your temper, sir,” said the first man. “We are speaking in the most friendly way. And since you have no connection with the tin-mining industry there is no need for us to say any more.”

“I certainly have no connection with the tin-mining industry,” I agreed. “But for the sake of argument supposing I had. Is that a crime?”

“In this locality, and from our point of view,” he smiled, “it is. In fact it is worse than a crime: it is a folly. Several people have proved that to their cost. Good-morning.”

I watched them go, and my first thought was to pack up and walk straight back to the hotel. And then saner counsels prevailed. That second man—where had he come from? I felt certain now that that flash had been a signal. Or an answer. He must have been lying up in that high ground behind me on the right. And glancing round I could see hundreds of places where men could lie hidden and watch my every movement.

Was it genuine? that was the whole point. Was all this talk about revolutionising tin-mining the truth, or merely an elaborate bluff? There below me was an actual tin mine going full blast, which substantiated their claim. Anyway the main thing was to give them no further cause for suspicion. And in view of the fact that for all I knew unseen eyes might still be watching me, I decided to stop on for a couple of hours, eat my lunch, and then saunter back to Penzance. Moreover, I determined that I wouldn’t use the field-glasses again. I had seen all I could from that distance, so there was no object in rousing further suspicion in the event of my being watched.

Was it genuine? The question went on reiterating itself in my mind. And it was still unanswered when I returned to the hotel about tea-time. I had seen no trace of any other watcher; the high ground on each side of me had seemed silent and deserted while I ate my lunch and sketched perfunctorily for an hour or so. Was it genuine? Or did the so-called secret process cloak something far more sinister?

We weighed up the points for and against the second alternative over a round of short ones before dinner.

Points for—Coincidence of dates and the very special precautions taken to prevent outsiders approaching. Point against—Why come to a derelict tin mine in the back of beyond, and incur all the expense of paying miners, when on the face of it a far more accessible and cheaper location could be found?

“In fact,” remarked Drummond, “the matter can only be solved in one way. We will consume one more round of this rather peculiar tipple which that sweet girl fondly imagines is a Martini: we will then have dinner: and after that we will go and see for ourselves.”

“Supposing it is genuine?” I said doubtfully.

“Then, as in the case of Aunt Amelia, we will apologise and withdraw. And if they refuse to accept our apologies and show signs of wishing to rough-house, Heaven forbid that we should disappoint them.”

We started at nine in the car. There was no moon and we decided to approach from the west, that is, the Land’s End direction. “We’ll leave the car a mile or so away—hide it if possible,” said Drummond. “And then, Stockton, call up your war lore, for we’re going to have a peerless night creep.”

“Do we scatter, Hugh, or go in a bunch?” asked Jerningham. “Ordinary patrol, Ted. I’ll lead: you fellows follow in pairs.”

His eyes were gleaming with excitement; and if my own feelings were any criterion we were all of us in the same condition. My doubts of the morning had been replaced by a quite unjustifiable optimism: I felt that we were on the track again at last. Undoubtedly the wish was father to the thought, but as we got into the car after dinner I was convinced that these were no genuine experimenters in tin.

“Carry a revolver, but don’t use it except as a last resort.”

Such were Drummond’s orders, followed by a reminder of the stringent necessity for silence.

“On their part as well as our own,” he said quietly. “If you stumble on anyone, don’t let him give the alarm.”

In our pockets we each of us had a gag, a large handkerchief, a length of fine rope, and a villainous-looking weapon which Drummond alluded to as Mary. It was a short, heavily loaded stick, and as he calmly produced these nefarious objects from his suitcase, followed by five decent-sized bottles of chloroform, I couldn’t help roaring with laughter.

“Always travel hoping for the best,” he grinned. “Don’t forget, boys—no shooting. To put it mildly, it would be distinctly awkward if we killed a genuine tin merchant.”

* * * *

It was ten o’clock when we reached a spot at which Drummond considered it sound to park the car. For the last two miles we had been travelling without lights, and with the aid of a torch we confirmed our position on the map.

“I make out that there is another ridge beyond the one in front of us before we get to Black Mine,” said Drummond. “If that’s so and they’ve got the place picketed, the sentry will be on the further one. Man-handle her in, boys: she’ll make a noise on reverse.”

We backed the car off the road into a small deserted quarry and then, with a final inspection to see that all our kit was complete, we started off. Toby and I came five yards behind Drummond, with the other two behind us again, and I soon began to realise that the yarns I had heard from time to time—told casually by his pals about our leader—were not exaggerated. I have mentioned before, his marvellous gift of silent movement in the dark; and I had myself seen an exhibition of it in the house in Ashworth Gardens. But that was indoors: that night I was to see it in the open. You could hear nothing: you could see nothing, until suddenly he would loom up under your nose with whispered instructions.

Toby had had previous experience of him, but the first time it happened I very nearly made a fool of myself. It was so utterly unexpected that, never dreaming it was he, I lunged at him viciously with my loaded stick. The blow fell on empty air, and I heard him chuckle faintly.

“Steady, old man,” he whispered from somewhere behind me. “Don’t lay me out at this stage of the proceedings. We’re just short of the top of the first ridge: spread out sideways until we’re over. Then same formation. Pass it back.”

We waited till the other two bumped into us, I feeling the most infernal ass. And then, even as we were passing on the orders, there came a faint snarling noise away to our left. We stared in the direction it came from, but it was not repeated. All was silent save for the lazy beat of the breakers far below.

“By Gad! you fellows, we’ve bumped the first sentry.” Drummond materialised out of the night. “Fell right on top of him. Had to dot him one. What’s that?”

A stone moved a few yards away from us, and a low voice called out—“Martin! Martin—are you there? What was that noise? God! this gives me the jumps. Martin—where are you? Ah—” The beginnings of a scream were stifled in the speaker’s throat, and we moved cautiously forward to find Drummond holding someone by the throat.

“Put him to sleep, Ted,” he whispered, and the sickly smell of chloroform tainted the air.

“Lash him up and gag him,” said Drummond, and then, with infinite precaution, he switched his torch for a second on to the man’s face. He was one of the two who had spoken to me that morning.

“Good,” said Drummond cheerfully. “We won’t bother about the other: he will sleep for several hours. And now, having mopped up the first ridge, let us proceed to do even likewise with the second. Hullo! what the devil is that light doing? Out to sea there.”

Three flashes and a long pause—then two flashes. That was all: after that, though we waited several times, we saw nothing more. “Obviously a signal of some sort,” remarked Drummond. “And presumably it is to our friends in front. By Jove! you fellows, is it possible that we’ve run into a bunch of present-day smugglers? What a perfectly gorgeous thought. Let’s get on with it. There’s not likely to be anyone in the hollow in front, but go canny in case of accidents. Same formation as before, and spread out when we come to the next ridge.”

Once more we started off. Periodically I glanced out to sea, but there was no repetition of the signal. Whatever boat had made it was lying off there now without lights—waiting. And for what? Smugglers? Possible, of course. But what a coast to choose! And yet was it a bad one? Well out of the beaten track: full of caves: sparsely populated. One thing anyway seemed certain. If the signal had been intended for the present owners of Black Mine, it rather disposed of the genuineness of their claim. The connection between tin-mining secrets and mysterious signals out at sea seemed rather too obscure to be credible.

“Hit him, Stockton.”

Toby Sinclair’s urgent voice startled me out of my theorising just in time. I had literally walked on a man, and it was a question of the fraction of a second as to whether he got away and gave the alarm.

“Good biff,” came in Drummond’s whisper as the man crashed. “I’ve got the other beauty. We’re through the last line.”

The other two had joined us, and for a while we stood there listening. Ahead of us some three hundred yards away was the Black Mine: to the left, on the edge of the cliff, the wooden house stood outlined against the sky. And even as we stared at it a door opened for a second, letting out a shaft of light as someone came out.

“So our friends are not in bed,” said Drummond softly. “There is activity in the home circle. Let’s go and join the party. We’ll make for the edge of the cliff a bit this side of the house.”

It was farther than it looked, but we met no more sentries. No further trace of life showed in the wooden house as we worked our way cautiously forward.

“Careful.” Drummond’s whisper came from just in front of us. “We’re close to the edge.” He was peering in front, and suddenly he turned round and gripped my arm. “Look up there towards the house. See anything? Underneath a little—just below the top of the cliff.”

I stared at the place he indicated, and sure enough there was a patch which seemed less dark than its surroundings.

“There’s a heavily screened light inside there,” he muttered. “It’s an opening in the cliff.”

And then, quite clearly audible over the lazy beat of the sea below, we heard the sound of rowlocks.

“This is where we go closer,” said Drummond. “It strikes me things are going to happen.”

We crept towards the house, and I know that I at any rate was quivering with excitement. I could just see Drummond in front well enough to conform to his every movement. He paused every now and then, but not for long, and I pictured him peering into the darkness with that uncanny sight of his. Once, I remember, he stopped for nearly five minutes, and while I lay there trying to stop the pounding of my heart I thought I heard voices below. Then he went on again, until the house seemed almost on top of us.

At last he stopped for good, and I saw him beckoning to us to come and join him. He was actually on the edge of the cliff, and when I reached his side and passed over, I very nearly gave the show away in my surprise. Not twenty feet below us a man’s head was sticking out of the face of the cliff. We could see it outlined against a dim light that came from inside, and he was paying out something hand over hand. At first I couldn’t see what it was. It looked like a rope, and yet it seemed singularly stiff and inflexible.

“Form a circle,” breathed Drummond to the other three. “Not too near. For Heaven’s sake don’t let us be surprised from behind.”

“What on earth is it that he’s paying out?” I whispered in his ear as he once more lay down beside me.

“Tubing of sorts,” he answered. “Don’t talk—watch.”

From below came a whistle, and the man immediately stopped. Then a few seconds later came another whistle and the man disappeared. Something must have swung into position behind him, for the light no longer shone out; only a faint lessening of the darkness marked the spot where he had been. And then, though it may have been my imagination, I thought I heard a slight gurgling noise such as a garden hose makes when you first turn the water on. For some time nothing further happened; then again from below came the whistle. He must have been waiting for it from behind the screen, for he reappeared instantly. As before the light shone on him, and suddenly I felt Drummond’s hand close on my arm like a vice. For the man was wearing india-rubber gauntlets.

Coil by coil he pulled the tubing up until it was all in: then again he disappeared and the screen swung down, shutting out the light. “Stockton,” whispered Drummond, “we’ve found ’em.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Explore,” he said quietly. “If we’d got through without bumping their sentries, I’d have given it a chance till daylight tomorrow. As it is, it’s now or never.”

“Then I’m coming with you,” I remarked.

“All right,” he whispered. “But I’m going down to reconnoitre first.”

He collected the other three and gave his orders. He, Jerningham and I would go down and force an entrance through the front of the cliff: the other two would guard our retreat and hold the rope for us to ascend again. But Toby was adamant. There was a large post rammed into the ground for some purpose or other to which the rope could be attached, and he and Peter insisted on coming too. And even in the darkness I could see Drummond’s quick grin as he agreed.

“As soon as I signal all right, the next man comes down. And if they find the bally rope and cut it we’ll fight our way out through the back door. One other thing: instructions re revolvers cancelled. It’s shoot quick, and shoot often. Great Heavens! what’s that?”

From somewhere near by there came a dreadful chattering laugh followed by a babble of words which died away as abruptly as it had started. To the others it was merely a sudden noise, staggering because of the unexpectedness of it, but to me it was a paralysing shock which for the moment completely unnerved me. For the voice which had babbled at us out of the night was the voice of Robin Gaunt.

CHAPTER IX

In Which We Are Entertained Strangely in Black Mine

“You’re certain of that?” muttered Drummond tensely, for even his iron nerves had been shaken for the moment.

“Absolutely,” I answered. “That cry came from Robin Gaunt.”

“Then that finally proves that we’re on to ’em. Let’s get busy: there’s no time to lose.”

We made fast the rope, and then lay peering over the edge of the cliff as he went down hand over hand. For a moment the light gleamed out as he drew aside the screen, and then we heard his whispered “Come on.” One after another we followed him till all five of us were standing in the cave. Behind us a curtain of stout sacking, completely covering the entrance, was all that separated us from a hundred-feet fall into the Atlantic: in front—what lay in front? What lay round the corner ten yards away? Even now, though many months have elapsed since that terrible night, I can still feel the pricking at the back of my scalp during the few seconds we stood there waiting.

Suddenly Drummond stooped down and sniffed at something that lay on the floor. Then he beckoned significantly to me. It was the end of the tubing which we had seen the man paying out, and from it came the unmistakable scent of the poison. More confirmation of the presence of the gang: and another piece in this strange and inexplicable jig-saw.

I straightened up to see that Drummond had reached the corner and was peering cautiously round it. He was flattened against the rough wall, and his revolver was in his hand. Inch by inch he moved forward with Jerningham just behind him, and the rest of us following in single file.

The passage went on bending to the left and sloping downwards. The floor was smooth and made of cement, but the walls and roof were left in their natural condition just as they had been blasted out. It was not new except for the floor, and as we crept forward I wondered for what purpose, and by whom it had been originally made. The illumination came from somewhere in front, and it was obvious through the light getting brighter that that somewhere was very close.

Suddenly Drummond became motionless: just ahead of us a man had laughed.

“Damned if I see what there is to laugh at,” snarled a harsh voice. “I’m sick to death of this performance.”

“You won’t be when you get your share of the stuff,” came the answer.

“It’s an infernal risk, Dubosc.”

“You don’t handle an amount like that without running risks,” answered the other. “What’s come over you tonight? We’ve been here four months and now, when we’re clearing out, you’re as jumpy as a cat with kittens.”

“It’s this damned place, I suppose. No report in from the sentries? No one about?”

‘Of course there’s no one about. Who would be about in this God-forsaken stretch of country if he hadn’t got to be?”

“There was that sketching fellow this morning. And Vernier swears that he was lying there on the hill examining the place for an hour through glasses.”

“What if he was? He couldn’t see anything.”

“I know that. But it means he suspected something.”

“It’s about time you took a tonic,” sneered the other. “We’ve gone through four months in this place without being discovered; and now, when we’ve got about four more hours to go at the most, you go and lose your nerve because some stray artist looks at the place through field-glasses. You make me tired. Devil take it, man, it’s a tin mine, with several perfectly genuine miners tinning in it.”

He laughed once again, and we heard the tinkle of a glass.

“There was every excuse if you like for being windy when we were in London. And it served that cursed fool Turgovin right. What did we want anyway with that man—what was his name—Stockton, wasn’t it? What was the good of killing him, even if the fool had done it, and not got killed himself? I tell you that when I saw the Chief a week later, he was still apoplectic with rage. And if Turgovin hadn’t been dead, the Chief would have killed him, himself. We ought to have done what Helias said, and cleared out as soon as we got Gaunt.”

“What are we going to do with that madman when we go?”

“Kill him,” said the other callously. “If he hadn’t gone mad, and suffered from his present delusion, he’d have been killed weeks ago. Hullo, here he is. Why ain’t you tucked up in the sheets, looney?”

And then I heard old Robin’s voice.

“Surely it’s over by now, isn’t it?”

“Surely what’s over? Oh! the war. No: that’s not over. The Welsh have gained a great victory over the English and driven ’em off the top of Snowdon. Your juice doesn’t seem to be functioning quite as well as it ought to.”

“It must succeed in time,” said Robin, and his voice was the vacant voice of madness. “How many have been killed by it?”

“A few hundred thousand,” answered the other. “But they’re devilish pugnacious fighters, these Englishmen. And the General won’t give up until he’s got that leg of Welsh mutton for his dinner. By the way, looney, you’ll be getting slogged in the neck and hurt if I hear you making that infernal noise again. Your face is bad enough without adding that filthy shindy to it.”

“That’s so,” came in a new deep voice. I saw Drummond’s hand clench and glanced round at me. Doctor Helias had come on the scene. “If it occurs again, Gaunt, I shall hang you up head downwards as I did before.”

A little whimpering cry came from Robin, and suddenly the veins stood out on Drummond’s neck. For a moment I thought he was going to make a dash for them then and there, which would have been a pity. Sooner or later it would have to come: in the meantime, incomprehensible though much of it was, we wanted to hear everything we could.

“Get out, you fool,” snarled Helias.

There was the sound of a heavy blow, and a cry of pain from Robin.

“Let him be, Helias,” said one of the others. “He’s been useful.”

“His period of utility is now over,” answered Helias. “I’m sick of the sight of him.”

“But there isn’t enough,” wailed Gaunt. “Too much has gone into the sea, and it is the air that counts.”

“It’s all right, looney; there’s plenty for tonight. Go and put your pretty suit on so as to be ready when he comes.”

A door closed and for a time there was silence save for the rustling of some papers. And then Helias spoke again.

“You’ve neither of you left anything about, have you?”

“No. All cleared up.”

“We clear the instant the job is finished. Dubosc—you’re detailed to fill the tank with water as soon as it’s empty. I’ll deal with the madman.”

“Throw him over the cliff, I suppose.”

“Yes; it’s easiest. You might search his room, Gratton: I want no traces left. Look at the fool there peering at his gauge to see if there’s enough to stop the war.”

“By Jove! this is going to be a big job, Helias.”

“A big job with a big result. The Chief is absolutely confident. Lester and Degrange are in charge of the group on board the Megalithic, and Lester can be trusted not to bungle.”

“Boss! Boss! Vernier is lying bound and gagged on the hill outside there.”

Someone new had come dashing in and Drummond gave us a quick look of warning. Discovery now was imminent. “What’s that?” We heard a chair fall over as Helias got up. Vernier gagged. “Where are the others?”

“Don’t know, boss. Couldn’t see them. But I was going out to relieve Vernier, and I stumbled right on him. He’s unconscious. So I rushed back to give the warning.”

“Rouse everyone,” said Helias curtly. “Post the danger signal in the roof. And if you see any stranger, get him dead or alive.”

“Terse and to the point,” remarked Drummond. “Just for the moment, however, stand perfectly still where you are.”

He had stepped forward into the room, and the rest of us ranged up alongside him.

“Well, gorse bush—we meet again. I see you’ve removed your face fungus. Very wise: the police were so anxious to find you.”

“By God! it’s the Australian,” muttered Helias. He was standing by the table in the centre of the room, and his eyes were fixed on Drummond.

“Have it that way if you like,” answered Drummond. “The point is immaterial. What my friends and I are principally interested in is you, Doctor Helias. And when we’re all quite comfortable we propose to ask you a few questions. First of all, you three go and stand against that wall, keeping your hands above your heads.”

Dazedly they did as they were told: our sudden appearance seemed to have cowed them completely.

“Feel like sitting down, do you, Doctor? All right. Only put both your hands on the table.”

He pulled up a chair and sat down facing Helias.

“Now then: to begin at the end. Saves time, doesn’t it? What exactly is the game? What are you doing here?”

“I refuse to say,” answered the other.

“That’s a pity,” said Drummond. “It would have saved so much breath. Let’s try another. Why have you got Gaunt here, and why has he gone mad?”

“Ask him yourself.”

“Look here,” said Drummond quietly, “let us be perfectly clear on one point, Doctor Helias. I know you, if not for a cold-blooded murderer yourself, at any rate for a man who is closely connected with several of the worst. I’ve got you and you’re going to the police. What chance you will have then you know best. But if you get my goat you may never get as far as the police. For only a keen sense of public duty restrains me from plugging you where you sit, you ineffable swine.”

“In which case you would undoubtedly hang for it,” snarled the other. His great hairy hands kept clenching and unclenching on the table: his eyes, venomous with hatred, never left Drummond’s face.

“I think not,” said Drummond. “However, at present the point does not arise. Now another question, Helias. Who was the woman who impersonated the wretched Miss Simpson the first time?”

“I refuse to say.”

“She knew me, didn’t she? I see you start. You forget that Stockton was not unconscious like the rest of us. Helias—do you know a man called Carl Peterson?”

He fired the question out suddenly, and this time there was no mistaking the other’s agitation.

“So,” said Drummond quietly. “You do. Where is he, Helias? Is he at the bottom of all this? Though it’s hardly necessary to ask that. Where is he?”

“You seem to know a lot,” said Helias slowly.

“I want to know just that one thing more,” answered Drummond. “Everything else can wait. Where is Carl Peterson?”

“Supposing I told you, would you let me go free?”

Drummond stared at him thoughtfully.

“If I had proof positive—and I would not accept your word only—as to where Peterson is, I might consider the matter.”

“I will give you proof positive. To do so, however, I must go to that cupboard.”

“You may go,” said Drummond. “But I shall keep you covered, and shoot without warning on the slightest suspicion of trickery.”

“I am not a fool,” answered the other curtly. “I know when I’m cornered.”

He rose and walked to the cupboard, and I noticed he was wearing a pair of high white rubber boots.

“Been paddling in your filthy poison, I suppose,” said Drummond. “You deserve to be drowned in a bath of it.”

The other took no notice. He was sorting out some papers, and apparently oblivious of Drummond’s revolver pointing unwaveringly at the base of his skull.

“Strange how one never can find a thing when one wants to,” he remarked conversationally. “Ah! I think this is it.”

He came back to the table, with two or three documents in his hand.

“I have your word,” he said, “that if I give you proof positive you will let me go.”

“You have my word that I will at any rate think about it,” answered Drummond. “Much depends on the nature of the proof.”

Helias had reseated himself at the table opposite Drummond, who was looking at the papers that had been handed to him.

“But this has got nothing to do with it,” cried Drummond after a while. “Are you trying some fool trick, Helias?”

“Is it likely?” said the other. “Read on.”

“Keep him covered, Ted.”

And then suddenly Drummond sniffed the air.

“There’s a strong smell of that poison of yours, Helias.”

I caught one glimpse on Helias’s face of unholy triumph, and the next moment I saw it.

“Lift your legs, Drummond,” I yelled. “Lift them off the floor.”

The advancing wave had actually reached his chair; another second would have been too late. I have said that the passage sloped down abruptly from the opening in the cliff to the room, and pouring down it was a stream of the liquid. It came surging over the smooth floor and in an instant there ensued a scene of wild confusion. Drummond had got on the table: Toby Sinclair and I scrambled on to chairs, and Jerningham and Darrell just managed to reach a wooden bench.

“You devil,” shouted the man Dubosc, “turn off the stopcock. We’re cut off.”

Helias laughed gratingly from the passage into which he had escaped in the general scramble. And then for the first time we noticed the three other members of the gang. They were standing against the wall—completely cut off, as they said. Owing to some irregularity in the floor they were surrounded by the liquid, which still came surging into the room.

And then there occurred the most dreadful scene I have ever witnessed. They screamed and fought like wild beasts for the central position—the place which the poison would reach last. It was three inches deep now under our chairs, and it was within a yard of the place where the three men struggled.

Suddenly the first of them went. He slipped and fell right into the foul stuff, and as he fell he died. Without heeding him the other two fought on. What good they could do by it was beside the point: the frenzied instinct of self-preservation killed all reason. And forgetful of our own danger we watched them, fascinated.

It was Dubosc who managed to wrap his legs round the other’s waist, at the same time clutching him round the neck with his arms.

“Carry me to the cupboard, you fool,” he screamed. “It’s the only chance.”

But the other man had completely lost his head. In a last frenzied attempt to get rid of his burden he stumbled and fell. And with an ominous splash they both landed in the oncoming liquid. It was over; and we stared at the three motionless bodies in stupefied silence.

“I don’t like people who interfere with my plans,” came the voice of Helias from the passage. “Unfortunately I shan’t have the pleasure of seeing you die because the thought of your revolver impels me to keep out of sight. But I will just explain the situation. In the cupboard is a stopcock. In the building beyond you is a very large tank containing some tons of this poison. We use the stopcock to allow the liquid to pass through the pipe down to the sea—on occasions. Now, however, the end of the pipe is in the passage, which, as you doubtless observed, slopes downwards into the room where you are. And so the liquid is running back into the room, and will continue to do so until the stopcock is turned off, or the tank is empty. It ought to rise several feet, I should think. I trust I make myself clear.”

We looked round desperately: we were caught like rats in a trap.

Already the liquid was so deep that the three dead men were drifting about in it sluggishly, and the smell of it was almost overpowering.

“There’s only one thing for it,” said Drummond at length. His voice was quite steady, and he was tucking his trousers into his socks as he spoke.

“You’re not going to do it, Hugh,” shouted Jerningham. “We’ll toss.”

“No, we won’t, old lad. I’m nearest.”

He stood up and measured the distance to tie cupboard with his eye.

“Cheer oh! old lads—and all that sort of rot,” he remarked. “Usual messages, don’t you know. It’s my blithering fault for having brought you here.”

And Peter Darrell was crying like a child.

“Don’t!” we shouted. “For God’s sake, man—there’s another way! There must be!”

And our shout was drowned by the crack of a revolver. It was Drummond who had fired, and the shot was followed by the sound of a fall.

“I thought he might get curious,” he said grimly. “He did. Poked his foul face round the corner.”

“Is he dead?” cried Ted.

“Very,” said Drummond. “I plugged him though the brain.”

“Good Lord! old man,” said Peter shakily. “I thought you meant that other stuff.”

“Dear old Peter,” Drummond smiled: “I did. And I do. But I’m glad to have paid the debt first. You might—er—just tell—er—you know, Phyllis and that.”

For a moment his voice faltered: then with that wonderful cheery grin of his he turned to face certain death. And it wasn’t only Peter who was sobbing under his breath.

His knees were bent: he was actually crouching for the jump when the apparition appeared in the door.

“Hugh,” shouted Ted. “Wait.”

It was the figure of a man clothed from head to foot in a rubber garment. His legs were encased in what looked like high fishing waders: his body and hands were completely covered with the same material. But it was his head that added the finishing touch. He wore a thing that resembled a diver’s helmet, save that it was much less heavy and clumsy. Two pieces of glass were fitted for his eyes, and just underneath there was a device to allow him to breathe.

He stood there for a moment with the liquid swirling round his legs, and then he gave a shout of rage.

“The traitor: the traitor. There will not be enough for the air.”

It was Robin Gaunt, and with sudden wild hope we watched him stride to the cupboard. Of us he took no notice: he did not even pause when one of the bodies bumped against him. He just turned off the stopcock, and then stood there muttering angrily whilst we wiped the sweat from our foreheads and breathed again. At any rate for the moment we were reprieved.

“The traitor. But I’ll do him yet. I’ll cheat him.”

He burst into a shout of mad laughter.

“I’ll do him. There shall be enough.”

Still taking no notice of us, he waded back to the door and disappeared up the passage. What wild delusion was in the poor chap’s brain we knew not: sufficient for us at the moment that the liquid had ceased to rise.

Half-an-hour passed—an hour with no further sign of Gaunt. And the same thought was in all our minds. Had we merely postponed the inevitable? The fumes from the poison were producing a terrible nausea, and once Darrell swayed perilously on his bench. Sooner or later we should all be overcome, and then would come the end. One thing—it would be quick. Just a splash—a dive…

“Stockton,” roared Drummond. “Wake up.”

With a start I pulled myself together and stared round stupidly.

“We must keep awake, boys,” said Drummond urgently. “In an hour or two it will be daylight, and there may be someone about who will hear us shout. But if you sleep—you die.”

And as he spoke we heard Gaunt’s voice outside raised in a shout of triumph.

“He is coming; he is coming. And there will be enough.”

We pulled ourselves together: hope sprang up again in our minds; though Heaven knows what we hoped for. Whoever this mysterious he proved to be, it was hardly likely that he would provide us with planks or ladders by which we could walk over the liquid.

“What’s that noise?” cried Toby.

It sounded like a motor bicycle being ridden over undulating ground, or a distant aeroplane on a gusty day. It was the drone of an engine—now loud, now almost dying away, but all the time increasing in volume. Shout after shout of mad laughter came from Gaunt, and once he rushed dancing into the room with arms outstretched above his head.

“He comes,” he cried. “And the war will cease.”

And now the noise of the engine was loud and continuous and seemed to come from close at hand. Gaunt in a frenzy of joy was shouting meaningless phrases whilst we stood there marooned in his foul poison, utterly bewildered. For the moment intense curiosity had overcome all other thoughts.

Suddenly Gaunt reappeared again, staggering and lurching with something in his arms. It was a pipe similar to the one which had so nearly caused our death, and he dropped the nozzle in the liquid.

“I’ll cheat him,” chuckled Gaunt. “The traitor.”

It was Drummond who noticed it first, and his voice almost broke in his excitement.

“It’s sinking, you fellows: it’s sinking.”

It was true: the level of the liquid was sinking fast. Hardly daring to believe our eyes we watched it disappearing: saw first one and then another of the dead men come to rest on the floor and lie there sodden and dripping. And all the time Robin Gaunt stood there chuckling and muttering.

“Go on, pump: go on. I will give you the last drop.”

“But where’s it being pumped to?” said Jerningham dazedly. “I suppose we aren’t mad, are we? This is really happening. Great Scott! look at him now.”

Holding the pipe in his hands, Gaunt went to pool after pool of the poison as they lay scattered on the uneven floor. His one obsession was to get enough, but at last he seemed satisfied.

“You shall have more,” he cried. “The tank is still half full.”

He lurched up the passage with the piping, and a few seconds later we heard a splash.

“Go on,” came his shout. “Pump on: there is more.”

“Devil take it,” cried Drummond. “What is happening? I wonder if it’s safe to cross this floor.”

“Be careful, old man,” said Jerningham. “Hadn’t we better let it dry out a bit more? Everything is still ringing wet.”

“I know that. But what’s happening? We’re missing it all. Who has pumped up this stuff?”

He gave a sudden exclamation.

“I’ve got it. Chuck me a handkerchief, someone. These two books will do.”

He sat down on the table, and tied a book to the sole of each of his shoes. Then he cautiously lowered himself to the ground.

“On my back—each of you in turn,” he cried.

And thus did we escape from that ghastly room, to be met with a sight that drove every other thought out of our mind. Floating above the wooden hut so low down that it shut out the whole sky was a huge black shape. It was Wilmot’s dirigible.

Standing by the tank of which Helias had spoken was Robin Gaunt, and the piping which had drained the liquid from the room was now emptying the main reservoir.

“Enough: there will be enough,” he kept on saying. “And this time he will succeed. The war will stop. Instantaneous, universal death. And I shall have done it.”

“But there isn’t any war, Robin,” I cried.

He stared at me vacantly through his goggles.

“Instantaneous, universal death,” he repeated. “It is better so—more merciful.”

We could see the details of the airship now: pick out the two central gondolas and the keel which formed the main corridor of the vessel. And once I thought I saw a man peering down at us—a man covered with just such a garment as Robin was wearing.

“Pumping it into a ballast tank,” said Toby, going to the door. “You see that: they’re letting water out as this stuff goes in.”

He pointed to the stern of the vessel, and in the dim light it was just possible to see a stream of liquid coming out of the airship.

“To think,” he went on dazedly, “that ten days ago I went for one of Wilmot’s Celebrated Six-hour Trips and had Lobster a l’Américain for lunch.”

Suddenly the noise of the engine increased, and the airship began to move. I glanced at Robin and he was nodding his head triumphantly.

“I knew there would be enough,” he cried. “Go: go, and stop the senseless slaughter.”

The poor devil stood there, his arms thrown out dramatically while the great vessel gathered speed and swung round in a circle. Then she flew eastwards, and five minutes later was lost to sight.

“Well, I’m damned,” said Jerningham, sitting down on the grass and scratching his head.

“You’re certain it was Wilmot’s?” said Drummond.

“Absolutely,” said Toby. “There’s no mistaking her.”

“Can’t we get any sense out of Gaunt?” cried Jerningham.

“Where is he anyway?”

And just then he appeared. He had taken off his suit of india-rubber, and I gave an exclamation of horror as I saw his face. From chin to forehead ran a huge red scar; the blow that gave it to him must have well-nigh split his head open. He came towards us as we sat on the ground, and stopped a few yards away, peering at us curiously.

“Who are you?” he said. “I don’t know you.”

“Don’t you know me, Robin?” I said gently. “John Stockton.”

For a while he stared at me: then he shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter,” I went on. “Tell us why your poison is pumped up into the airship.”

“To stop the war,” he said instantly. “It flies over the place where they are fighting and sprays the poison down. And everyone touched by the poison dies.”

“It sounds fearfully jolly,” remarked Drummond. “And what happens if a shell bursts in the airship; or an incendiary bullet?”

A sudden look of cunning came on Robin’s face.

“That would not matter,” he answered. “Not one: nor even two. And an incendiary bullet is useless. Just death. Instantaneous, universal death.”

He stared out over the sea, and Drummond shrugged his shoulders hopelessly.

“Or better still, as I have told them all,” went on Robin dreamily, “is a big city. The rain of death. Think of it! Think of it in London…”

“Good God!” With a sudden gasp Drummond got to his feet. “What are you saying, man? What do you mean?”

“The rain of death coming down from the sky. That would stop the war.”

“But there isn’t a war,” shouted Drummond, and Robin cringed back in terror.

“Steady, Drummond,” I said. “Don’t frighten him. What do you mean, Robin? Is that airship going to spray your poison on London?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps if the war doesn’t stop he will do it. I have asked him to.”

He wandered away a few paces, and Jerningham shook his head.

“Part of the delusion,” he said. “Why, damn it, Wilmot is trying to float a company.”

“I know that,” said Drummond. “But why has he got that poison on board?”

“It’s possible,” I remarked, “that he is taking the stuff over to some foreign Power to sell it.”

“Then why not make it over there and save bother?”

To which perfectly sound criticism there was no answer.

“Anyway,” said Drummond, “there is obviously only one thing to do. Get out of this, and notify the police. I should think they would like a little chat with Mr Wilmot.” And then suddenly he stared at us thoughtfully. “Wilmot! Can it be possible that Wilmot himself is Peterson?”

He shook both his fists in the air suddenly.

“Oh! for a ray of light in this impenetrable fog. Who was down there last night? Whom did we see signalling from the sea? Why did they want the poison? Why does the airship want it? In fact, what the devil does it all mean? Hullo! What’s Ted got hold of?”

Jerningham was coming towards us waving some papers in his hand.

“Just been into another room,” he cried, “and found these. Haven’t examined them yet, but they might help.”

With a scream of rage Robin, who had been standing vacantly beside us, sprang at Jerningham and tried to snatch the papers away.

“They’re mine,” he shouted. “Give them to me.”

“Steady, old man,” said Drummond, though it taxed all his strength to hold the poor chap in his mad frenzy. “No one is going to hurt them.”

“It’s gibberish,” I said, peering over Jerningham’s shoulder. He was turning over the sheets, on which disconnected words and phrases were scrawled. They had been torn out of a cheap notebook and there seemed to be no semblance of order or meaning. Stray chemical formulae were mixed up with sentences such as “Too much to the sea. I have told him.”

“Just mad gibberish,” I repeated. “What else can one expect?”

I turned away, and as I did so Jerningham gave a cry of triumph.

“Is it?” he said. “That’s where you’re wrong. It may not help us much, but this isn’t gibberish.”

In his hand he held a number of sheets of paper covered with Robin’s fine handwriting. He glanced rapidly over one or two, and gave an excited exclamation.

“Written before he lost his reason,” he cried. “It’s sense, you fellows—sense.”

And the man who had written sense before he lost his reason was crying weak tears of rage as he still struggled impotently in Drummond’s grip.

CHAPTER X

In Which We Read the Narrative of Robin Gaunt

Many times since then have I read that strange document, the original of which now lies in Scotland Yard. And whenever I do my mind goes back to that September morning, when, sitting in a circle on the short clipped turf two hundred feet above the Atlantic, we first learned the truth. For after a while Robin grew quiet, though I kept an eye on him lest he should try and snatch his precious papers away. But he didn’t: he just sat a little apart from us staring out to sea, and occasionally babbling out some foolish nonsense.

Before me as I write is an exact copy. Not a line will be altered: not a comma. But I would ask those who may read to visualise the circumstances under which we first read that poor madman’s closely guarded secret with the writer himself beside us, and the gulls screaming discordantly over our heads.

I am going mad.

[Thus it started without preamble.]

I, Robin Caxton Gaunt, believe that I shall shortly lose my reason. The wound inflicted on me in my rooms in London: the daily torture I am subjected to, and above all the final unbelievable atrocity which I saw committed with my own eyes, and for which, so help me God, I feel a terrible personal responsibility, are undermining my brain. I have some rudimentary medical knowledge: I know how tiny is the dividing line between sanity and madness. And I have been seeing things lately that are not there: and hearing things that do not exist.

It may be that I shall never complete this document. Perhaps my brain will go first: perhaps one of these devils will discover me writing. But I am making the attempt, and maybe in the future the result will fall into the hands of someone who will search out the arch monster responsible and kill him as one kills a mad dog. Also—for they showed me the newspapers at the time—it may help to clear my character from the foul blot which now rests on it. Though why John Stockton, who I thought was my friend, didn’t say what he knew at the inquest I can’t imagine.

[That hurt, as you may guess.]

I will begin at the beginning. During the European war I was employed at Headquarters on the chemical branch. And just before the Armistice was signed I had evolved a poison which, if applied subcutaneously, caused practically instant death. It was a new poison unknown before to toxicologists, and if it were possible I would like the secret to die with me. God knows, I wish now I had never discovered it. Anyway I will not put down its nature here. Sufficient to say that it is the most rapid and deadly drug known at present in the civilised world.

As a death-dealing weapon, however, it suffered from one grave disadvantage: it had to be applied under the skin. To impinge on a cut or a small open place was enough, but it was not possible to rely on finding such a thing. Moreover, the method of distribution was faulty. I had evolved a portable cistern capable of carrying five gallons, which could be ejected through a fine-pointed nozzle for a distance of over fifty yards when pressure was applied by means of a pump, on the principle of a pressure-fed feed in a motor-car. But a rifle bullet carries considerably more than fifty yards, and therefore rifle fire afforded a perfectly effective counter except in isolated cases of surprise.

The possibilities of shells filled with the liquid, of distribution by aeroplane or airship, were all discussed and rejected for one reason or another. And the scheme which was finally approved consisted of the use of the poison on a large scale from fleets of tanks.

All that, however, is ancient history. The Armistice was signed: the war was over: an era of peace and plenty was to take place. So we thought—poor deluded fools. Six years later found Europe an armed camp with every nation snarling at every other nation. Scientific soldiers gave lectures in which they stated their ideas of the next war: civilised human beings talked glibly of raining down myriads of disease germs on huge cities. It was horrible—incredible: man had called in science to aid him in destroying his fellow men, and science had obeyed him—at a price. It was a price that had not been contemplated: it was a case of another Frankenstein’s monster. Man had now to obey science, not science man: he had created a thing which he could not control.

It was in the summer of 1924 that the idea first came to me of inventing a weapon so frightful that its mere existence would control the situation. The bare fact that it was there would act as the presence of the headmaster in a room full of small boys. One very forgetful lad might have to be caned once, after that the lesson would be learned. At first it seemed a wildly fanciful notion, but the more I thought of it the more the idea gripped me. And quite by chance in the July of that year when I was stopping in Scotland playing golf I met a man called David Ganton—an Australian—whose two sons had been killed in Gallipoli. He was immensely wealthy—a multi-millionaire, and rather to my surprise when I mentioned my idea to him casually one evening he waxed enthusiastic over it. To him war was as abhorrent as it was to me: and he, like I, was doubtful as to the efficacy of the League of Nations. He immediately placed at my disposal a large sum of money for research work, and told me that I could call on him for any further amount I required.

My starting-point, somewhat naturally, was the poison I had discovered during the war. And the first difficulty to be overcome was the problem of the subcutaneous injection. A wound, or an opening of some sort, must be caused on the skin before the poison could act. For months I wrestled with the problem till I was almost in despair. And then one evening I got the solution—obvious, as things like that so often are. Why not mix with the poison an irritant blister which would make the little openings necessary?

Again months of work, but this time with renewed hope. The main idea was, I knew, the right one: the difficulty now was to find some liquid capable of blistering the skin, which when mixed with the poison would not react with it chemically and so impair its deadliness. The blister and the poison had, in short, though mixed together as liquids, each to retain its own individuality.

In December 1925 I solved the problem: I had in my laboratory a liquid so perfectly blended that two or three drops touching the skin meant instantaneous death.

Then came the second great difficulty—distribution. The tank scheme, however effective it might have been when a war was actually raging, was clearly an impossibility in such circumstances as I contemplated. Something far more sudden, far more mobile was essential.

Aeroplanes had great disadvantages. Their lifting power was limited: they were unable to hover: they were noisy.

And then there came to my mind the so-called silent raid on London during the war when a fleet of Zeppelins drifted downwind over the capital with their engines shut off. Was that the solution?

There were disadvantages there too. First and foremost—vulnerability. Silent raids by night were not my idea of the function of a world policeman. But by day an airship is a comparatively easy thing to hit; and once hit she comes down in flames.

The solution to that was obvious: helium. Instead of hydrogen she would be filled with the non-inflammable gas helium.

Which brought me to the second difficulty—expense. Hydrogen can be produced by a comparatively cheap process—the electrolysis of water: helium is rare and costly.

I met Ganton in London early in 1926 and told him my ideas. His enthusiasm was unbounded: the question of expense he waved aside as a trifle.

“That’s my side of the business, Gaunt: leave that to me. You’ve done your part: I’ll do the rest.”

And then, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, he calmly announced his intention of having a rigid dirigible constructed of the Zeppelin type.

For many months after that I did not see him, though I was in constant communication with him by letter. Difficulties had arisen, as I had rather anticipated they might, but with a man like Ganton difficulties only increased his determination. And then there came on the scene the man—if such a being can be called a man—who goes by the name of Wilmot. What that devil’s real name is I know not; but if these words are ever read, then to the reader I say, seek out Wilmot and kill him, for a man such as he has no right to live.

From the very first poor Ganton was utterly deceived. Letter after letter to me contained glowing eulogies of Wilmot. He too was heart and soul with me in his abhorrence of war; and, what was far more to the point, he was in a position to help very considerably with regard to the airship. It appeared that a firm in Germany had very nearly completed a dirigible of the Zeppelin type, to be used for commercial purposes. It was to be the first of a fleet, and the firm was prepared to hand it over when finished provided they secured a very handsome profit on the deal. They made no bones about it: they were constructing her for their own use and they were not going to sell unless it was really made worth their while.

Ganton agreed. The exact figure he paid I don’t know—but it was enormous. And his idea, suggested again by Wilmot, was to employ the airship for a dual purpose. Ostensibly she was to be a commercial vessel, and, in fact, she was literally to be employed as one. But, in addition, she was to have certain additions made to her water ballast tanks which would enable those tanks to be filled with my poison if the necessity arose. The English Government was to be informed, and the vessel was to be subjected to any tests which the War Office might desire. After that the airship would remain a commercial one until occasion should arise for using her in the other capacity. Such was the proposition that I was going to put before the Army Council on the morning of April 28th of this year. The appointment was made, and mentioned by me to John Stockton when I dined with him at Prince’s the preceding evening. Why did he say nothing about it in his evidence at the inquest?

As the reader may remember, on the night of April 27th, a ghastly tragedy occurred in my rooms in Kensington—a tragedy for which I have been universally blamed. That I know: I have seen it in the Press. They say I am a madman, a cold-blooded murderer, a super-vivisectionist. They lie, damn them, they lie.

[In the original document it was easy to see the savage intensity with which that last sentence was written.]

Here and now I will put down the truth of what happened in my rooms that night. It must be remembered that I had never seen Wilmot, but I knew that he was coming round with Ganton to see the demonstration. Ganton had written me to that effect, and so I was expecting them both. He proved to be a big, thick-set man, clean-shaven, and with hair greying a little over the temples. His eyes were steady and compelling: in fact the instant you looked at him you realised that his was a dominating personality.

I let them both in myself—Mrs Rogers, my landlady, being stone deaf—and took them at once up to my room. I was the only lodger in the house at the time, and looking back now I wonder what that devil would have done had there been others. He’d have succeeded all right: he isn’t a man who fails. But it would have complicated things for him.

He professed to be keenly interested, and stated that he regarded it as an honour to be allowed to be present at such an epoch-making event. And then briefly I told them how matters stood. Since I had perfected the poison, I had spent my time in searching for an antidote: a month previously I had discovered one. It was not an antidote in the accepted sense of the word, in that it was of no use if applied after the poison. It consisted of an ointment containing a drug which neutralised not the poison but the blister. So that if it was rubbed into the skin before the application of the poison the blister failed to act, and the poison—not being applied subcutaneously—was harmless. I pointed out that it was for additional security, though the special india-rubber gloves and overalls I had had made were ample protection.

He was interested in the matter of the antidote, was that devil Wilmot.

Then I showed them the special syringes and cisterns I had designed more out of curiosity than anything else, for our plan did not include any close-range work.

And he was interested—very interested in those—was that devil Wilmot.

Then I experimented on two guinea-pigs. The first I killed with the poison: the second I saved with the antidote. And I saw one fool in the papers who remarked that I must obviously be mad since I had left something alive in the room!

“Most interesting,” remarked Wilmot. He went to the window and threw it up. “The smell is rather powerful,” he continued, leaning out for a moment. Then he closed the window again and came back: he had signalled to his brother devils outside from before our very eyes and we didn’t guess it. Why should we have? We had no suspicions of him.

“And tomorrow you demonstrate to the War Office,” he said. “I have an appointment at ten-thirty,” I told him.

“And no one save us three at present knows anything about it.”

“No one,” I said. “And even you two don’t know the composition of the poison or of the antidote.”

“But presumably, given samples, it would be easy to analyse them both.”

“The antidote—yes: the poison—no,” I remarked. “The poison is a secret known only to me, though, of course, I propose to tell you. I take it that there will be no secrets between us three?”

“None, I hope,” he answered. “We are all engaged on the same great work.”

And just then a stair creaked outside. Now I knew Mrs Rogers slept downstairs, and rarely if ever came up at that hour. And so almost unconsciously—certainly suspecting nothing—I went to the door and opened it. What happened then is still a confused blur in my mind, but as far as I can sort it out I will try and record it.

Standing just outside the door were two men. One was the man whom I afterwards got to know as Doctor Helias: the other I never saw again till he was, carried in dead to the cellar where they confined me.

But it was the appearance of Helias that dumbfounded me for a moment or two. Never have I seen such an appalling-looking man: never have I dreamed that such a being could exist. Now that a description of him has been circulated by the police he has shaved off the mass of black hair the covered his face; but nothing can ever remove the mass of vile devilry that covers his black soul.

But to go back to that moment. I heard a sudden cry behind me, and there was Ganton struggling desperately with Wilmot. In Wilmot’s hand was a syringe filled with the poison, and he was snarling like a brute beast. For a second I stood there stupefied; then it seemed to me we all sprang forward together—I to Ganton’s assistance, the other two to Wilmot’s. And after that I’m not clear. I know that I found myself fighting desperately with the second man, whilst out of the corner of my eye I saw Wilmot, Helias and Ganton go crashing through the open door.

“Telephone Stockton.”

It was Ganton’s voice, and I fought my way to the machine. I was stronger than my opponent, and I hurled him to the floor, half stunning him. It was Stockton’s number that came first to my head, and I just got through to him. I found out from the papers that he heard me, for he came down at once; but as for me I know no more. I can still see Helias springing at me from the door with something in his hand that gleamed in the light: then I received a fearful blow in the face. And after that all is blank. It wasn’t till later that I found out that little Joe—my terrier—had sprung barking at Wilmot as he came back into the room and had been killed with what was left of the poison after Ganton had been murdered in the next room.

How long afterwards it was before I recovered consciousness I cannot say. I found myself in a dimly-lit stone-floored room which I took to be a cellar. Where it was I know not to this day. At first I could not remember anything. My head was splitting, and I barely had the strength to lift a hand. Now I realise that the cause of my weakness was loss of blood from the wound inflicted on me by Helias: at the time I could only lie in a kind of stupor in which hours were as minutes and minutes as days.

And then gradually recollection began to come back—and with it a blind hatred of the treacherous devil who called himself Wilmot. What had he done it for? The answer seemed clear. He wished to get the secret of the poison in order to sell it to a foreign Power. Ganton had confided in him believing him to be straight, and all the time he had been waiting and planning for this. And if once the secret was handed over to a nation which could not be trusted to use it in the way I intended—God help the world. I imagined Russia possessing it—Russia ruled by its clique of homicidal despots. And it would be my fault—my responsibility.

In my agony of mind I tried to get up. It was useless: I was too weak to move. And suddenly I happened to look at my hands in the dim light and I saw they were covered with blood. I was lying in a pool of it, and it was my own. Once again time ceased, but I did not actually lose consciousness. Automatically my brain went on working, though my thoughts were the jumbled chaos of a fever dream. And then out of the hopeless confusion there came an idea—vague at first but growing in clearness as time went on. I was still in evening clothes, and in the pockets of my dinner jacket I had placed the two samples—the bottle containing the poison, and the box full of the antidote? Were they still there? I felt, and they were. Would it be possible to hide them somewhere in the hopes of them being found by the police? And if they were found, then at any rate my own country would be in the possession of the secret too.

But where to hide them? Remember, I was too weak to even stand, much less walk, so the hiding-place would have to be one which I could reach from where I sat. And just then I noticed, because my hand was resting on the ground, that some of the bricks in the floor were loose.

Now I know from what Wilmot has told me since that the hiding-place was discovered by the authorities. Was it my handkerchief, I wonder, on which I scrawled the clue in blood with my finger? But oh! dear Heavens, why did they lose the antidote? Why didn’t they guard John Dallas? He was murdered, of course: you know that. He was murdered by Wilmot himself. He was murdered by that devil—that devil—that…I must take a pull at myself. I must be calm. But the noises are roaring in my head: they always do when I think that it was all in vain. Besides, I’m going on too fast.

I buried the two things under two bricks, and I pushed the handkerchief into a crack in the wall behind me. And then I think I must have slept—for the next thing I remember was the door of the cellar opening and men coming in carrying another in their arms. They pitched him down in a corner, and I saw he was dead. Then I looked closer, and I saw it was the man I had fought with at the telephone.

But how had he died? Why did his eyes stare so horribly? Why was he so rigid?

It was Helias who told me—he had followed the other two in. “Well, Mr Pacifist,” he remarked, “do you like the effects of your poison? That man died of it.”

Until my reason snaps, which can’t be long now, I shall never forget the horror of that moment. It was the first time I had seen the result of my handiwork on a human being. Since then, God help me, I have seen it often—but that first time, in the dim light of the cellar, is the one that haunts me.

For a while I could think of nothing else: those eyes seemed to curse me. I think I screamed at them to turn his head away. I know that Helias came over and kicked me in the ribs.

“Shut that noise, damn you,” he snarled. “We’ve got quite enough to worry us as it is without your help. I’ll gag you if you make another sound.”

Then he turned to the other two.

“That fool has brought the police into the next house,” he raved, and wild hope sprang up in my mind. “That means we must get these two out of it tonight. Get his clothes.”

One of the men went out, to come back almost at once with a suit of mine.

“Look here, Helias,” he said, “if we’re to keep him alive we’d better handle him gently. He’s lost about two buckets of blood.”

“Handle him how you like,” returned Helias, “but he’s got to be out of this in an hour.”

And so they took off my evening clothes and put on the others. Then one of them put a rough bandage on my head and face, and here and now I would say—if ever that vile gang be caught—that I hope mercy will be shown him. I don’t know his name, and I have never seen him since, but he is the only one who has treated me with even a trace of kindness since I fell into their clutches.

I think I must have become unconscious again: certainly I have no coherent recollection of anything for the next few hours. Dimly I remember being put into a big motor-car, seeing fields and houses flash past. But where I was taken to I have no idea. Beyond the fact that it was somewhere in the country and that there were big trees around the house, I can give no description of the place in which I was kept a prisoner for the next few weeks.

Little by little I recovered my strength, and the ghastly wound on my face healed up. But I was never allowed out of doors, and when I asked any question, no answer was given. The window was barred on the outside: escape was impossible even had I possessed the necessary strength.

But one night, when I was feeling desperate, I determined to chance things. I flashed my electric light on and off, hoping possibly to attract the attention of some passer-by. And two minutes later Helias came into the room. I had not seen him since the night in the cellar, and at first I did not recognise him, for he had shaved his face clean.

“You would, would you?” he said softly. “Signalling! How foolish. Because anyway no one could see. But you obviously need a lesson.”

He called to another man, and between them they slung me up to a hook in the wall by my feet, so that I hung head downwards. And after a while the pressure of blood on the partially healed wound on my face became so terrible that I thought my head would burst.

“Don’t be so stupid another time,” he remarked as they cut me down. “If you do I’ll have your window boarded up.”

They left me, and in my weakness I sobbed like a child. Had I had any, I would have killed myself then and there with my own poison. But I hadn’t, and they took care to see that I had no weapon which could take its place. I wasn’t allowed to shave: I wasn’t even allowed a steel knife with my meals.

The days dragged on into weeks, and weeks into months, and still nothing happened. And I grew more and more mystified as to what it was all about. Remember that then I had seen no papers, and knew nothing. I wasn’t even sure that David Ganton was dead. Why did they bother to keep me alive? was the question I asked myself again and again. They had the secret: at least I assumed they must have, for the paper on which I had written the formula of the poison was no longer in my possession. So what use could I be to them?

And then one day—I’d almost lost count of time, but I should say it was about the 10th of June—the door of my room opened and Helias came in, followed by Wilmot.

“You certainly hit him pretty hard, Doctor,” said Wilmot, after he’d looked at me for some time. “Well, Mr Gaunt—been happy and comfortable?”

“You devil,” I burst out, and then, maddened by his mocking smile, I cursed and raved at him till I was out of breath.

“Quite finished?” he remarked when I stopped. “I’m in no particular hurry, and as I can easily understand a slight feeling of annoyance on your part, please don’t mind me. Say it all over again if it comforts you in any way.”

“What do you want?” I said, almost choking with sullen rage.

“Ah! that’s better. Will you have a cigar? No. Then you won’t mind if I do. The time has come, Mr Gaunt,” he went on, when it was drawing to his satisfaction, “when you must make a little return for the kindness we have shown you in keeping you alive. For a while I was undecided as to whether I would dispose of you like your lamented confrère Mr Ganton, but finally I determined to keep you with us.”

“So Ganton is dead,” I said. “You murdered him that night.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “As you say, I killed him that night. I have a few little fads, Mr Gaunt, and one of them is a dislike to the word murder. It’s so coarse and crude. Well—to return, Mr Ganton’s sphere of usefulness as far as I was concerned was over the moment he had afforded me the pleasure of meeting you. But for the necessity of his doing that, he would have—er—disappeared far sooner. He had very kindly paid a considerable sum of money to acquire an airship, and as I wanted the airship and not Mr Ganton, the inference is obvious. You’ve no idea, Mr Gaunt, how enormously it simplifies matters when you can get other people to pay for what you want yourself.”

I found myself staring at him speechlessly: in comparison with this cold, deadly suavity Helias seemed merely a coarse, despicable bully.

“In addition to that,” he went on quietly, “the late Mr Ganton presented me with an idea. And ideas are my stock-in-trade. For twenty years now I have lived by turning ideas into deeds, and though I have accumulated a modest pittance I have not yet got enough to retire on. I trust that with the help of Mr Ganton’s idea—elaborated somewhat naturally by me—I shall be able to spend my declining years in the comfort to which I consider myself entitled.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” I muttered stupidly.

“It is hardly likely that you would at this stage of the proceedings,” he continued. “It is also quiet unnecessary that you should. But I like everyone with whom I work to take an intelligent interest in the proceedings. And the thought that your labours during the next few weeks will help to provide me with my pension should prove a great incentive to you. In addition you must remember that it will also repay a little of the debt you owe to Doctor Helias for his unremitting care of you during your period of convalescence.”

“For God’s sake, don’t go on mocking,” I cried. “What is it you want me to do?”

“First, you will move from here to other quarters which have been got ready for you. Not quite so comfortable, perhaps, but I trust they will do. Then you will take in hand the manufacture of your poison on a large scale, a task for which you are peculiarly fitted. A plant has been installed which may perhaps need a little alteration under your expert eye: anything of that sort will be attended to at once. You have only to ask.”

“But what do you want the poison for?” I asked.

“That, as Mr Gilbert once said—or was it Mr Sullivan?—is just like flowers that bloom in the spring, tral-la-la. It has nothing to do with the case. In time you will know, Mr Gaunt: until then, you won’t.”

“Is it for a foreign country?” I demanded.

He smiled. “It is for me, Mr Gaunt, and I am cosmopolitan. But you need have no fears on that score. I am aware of the charming ideal that actuated you and Mr Ganton, but, believe me, my dear young friend, there’s no money in it.”

“It was never a question of money,” I cried.

“I know.” His voice was almost pained. “That is what struck me as being so incredible about it all. And that is where my elaboration comes in. Now there is money in it: very big money if things work out as I have every reason to hope they will.”

“And what if I refuse?” I said.

He studied the ash on the end of his cigar.

“In the course of the twenty years I have already mentioned, Mr Gaunt,” he said, “I wouldn’t like to say how many people have made that remark to me. And the answer has become monotonous with repetition. Latterly one of your celebrated politicians has given me an alternative reply, which I will now give to you. Wait and see. We’ve been very kind to you, Gaunt, up to date. You gave me a lot of trouble over that box of antidote which you hid in the cellar”—how my heart sank at that—“though I realise that it was partially my fault—in not remembering sooner that you had it in your pocket. In fact, I had to dispose of an eminent savant, Sir John Dallas, in order to get hold of it.”

“Then the authorities got it?” I almost shouted.

“Only to lose it again, I regret to say. By the way,” he leaned forward suddenly in his chair—“do you know a man called Drummond—Captain Hugh Drummond?”

From beside me as I read, Drummond heaved a deep sigh of joy. “It is Peterson,” he said. “That proves it. Go on, Stockton.”

“Hugh Drummond! No, I’ve never heard of the man. But do you mean to say you murdered Sir John?”

“Dear me! That word again. I keep on forgetting that you have been out of touch with current affairs. Yes, Sir John failed to see reason—so it was necessary to dispose of him. Your omission of the formula for the antidote on the paper containing that of the poison has deprived the world, I regret to state, of an eminent scientist. However, during the sea-voyage which you are shortly going to take I will see that you have an opportunity of perusing the daily papers of that date. They should interest you, because really, you know, your discovery of this poison has had the most far-reaching results. Still, if you will give me these ideas…”

He rose shrugging his shoulders.

“Am I to be taken abroad?” I cried.

“You are not,” he answered curtly. “You will remain in England. And if I may give you one word of warning, Mr Gaunt, it is this. I require your services on one or two matters, and I intend to have your services. And my earnest advice to you is that you should give that service willingly. It will save me trouble, and you—discomfort.”

With that they left me, if possible more completely bewildered than before. I turned it over from every point of view in my mind, and I could see no ray of light in the darkness. The only point of comfort was that at any rate I was going to change my quarters, and it was possible that I might escape from the new ones. Vain hope! It is dead now, but it buoyed me up for a time.

It was two days later that Helias entered the room and told me to get ready.

“You are going in a car,” he said. “And I am going with you. If you make the slightest endeavour to communicate or signal to anyone I shall gag you and truss you up on the floor.”

And that brings me to the point…Eyes, those ghastly staring eyes. And the woman screaming…Oh! God, my head…

At this point the narrative as a narrative breaks off. It is continued in the form of a diary. But it has given rise to much conjecture. Personally I think the matter is clear. I believe, in fact from a perusal of the original it is obvious, that “head” was the last coherent word written by Robin Gaunt. The rest of the sheet is covered with meaningless scrawls and blots. In fact I think that at that point the poor chap’s reason gave way. How comes it, then, that the diary records events which occurred after he had been taken away in the motor-car? To me the solution is clear. The diary, though its chronological position comes after the narrative given above, was actually written first.

Surely it must be so. Up to the time when he was removed in the car he was in such a dazed physical and mental condition that the mere effort of keeping a diary would have been beyond him. Besides, what was there to record? His mind, as he says, was hopelessly fogged. He knew nothing when he left the house in which he had been confined as to what had happened in his rooms in London—or rather shall I say he knew nothing as to what had been reported in the papers? And yet the narrative already given was obviously written with a full knowledge of those reports.

Besides—take his first paragraph, “Daily torture.” There had been no question of daily torture. “Final unbelievable atrocity.” There had been none. No: it is clear. When things began to happen Gaunt kept a diary. And when, at the end he felt his reason going, he wrote the narrative to fill in the gap not covered by the subsequent notes. Had he not gone mad we might have had the whole story in the form in which he presented the first half.

I know that certain people hold a different view. They agree with me that he went mad at this point, but they maintain that the diary was written by him when he was insane. They say, in fact, that he scrawled down the disordered fancies of his brain, and for confirmation of their argument they point to the bad writing—sometimes well-nigh illegible: to the scraps of paper the notes were made on: to the general untidiness and dirt of the record.

I can only say that I am utterly convinced they are wrong. The bad writing, the scraps of paper were due, I feel certain, to the inherent difficulties under which they were written. Always was he trying to escape detection: he just scribbled when he could and where he could. Then for some reason which we shall never know he found himself in the position of being able to write coherently and at length. And the fortunate thing is that he brought his narrative so very close to the point where his diary starts.

CHAPTER XI

In Which We Read the Diary of Robin Gaunt

I am on board a ship. She is filling with oil now from a tanker alongside. No lights. No idea where we are. Thought the country we motored through resembled Devonshire.

They’re Russians—the crew—unless I’m much mistaken. The most frightful gang of murderous-looking cut-throats I’ve ever seen. Two of them fighting now: officers seem to have no control. Difficult to tell which are the officers. Believe my worst fears confirmed: the Bolsheviks have my secret. May God help the world!

Under weigh. Just read the papers Wilmot spoke about. Is Stockton mad? Why did he say nothing at the inquest? And Joe—poor little chap. How dare they say such things about me? The War Office knew; why have they kept silent?

The murderers! The foul murderers! There was a wretched woman on board, and these devils have killed her. They pushed her in suddenly to the cabin where I was sitting. She was terrified with fear, poor soul. The most harmless little short fat woman. English. They hustled her through—three of them, and she screamed to me to help her. But what could I do? Two more of the crew appeared, and one of them clapped his hand over her mouth. They took her on deck—and with my own eyes I saw them throw her overboard. It was dark, and she disappeared at once. She just gave one pitiful cry—then silence. Are they going to do the same to me?

Four men playing cards outside the door. Certain now that they are Russians. What does it all mean?

It is incomprehensible. There must be at least fifty rubber suits on board with cisterns and everything complete for short-range work with my poison. An officer took me to see them, and one of the men put one on.

“Good?” said the officer, looking at me.

I wouldn’t answer, and a man behind me stuck a bayonet into my back.

“Good now?” snarled the officer.

I nodded. Oh! for a chance to be on equal terms…

But they are good: far too good. They have taken my rough idea, and improved upon it enormously. A man in one of those suits could bathe in the poison safely. But what do they want them for, on board a ship?

Thank Heavens! I am on shore again. They dragged me up on deck and I thought it was the end. A boat was alongside, and they put me in it. Then some sailors rowed me away. It was dark, and the boom of breakers on rocks grew louder and louder. At last we reached a little cove, and high above me I could see the cliffs. The boat was heaving, and then the man in charge switched on an electric torch. It flashed on the end of a rope ladder dangling in front of us, and swaying perilously as the swell lapped it and then receded. He signed to me to climb up it, and when I hesitated for a moment, he struck me in the face with his boat-hook. So I jumped and caught the ladder, and immediately the boat was rowed away, leaving me hanging precariously. Then a wave dashed me against the cliff, half stunning me, and I started to climb. An ordeal even for a fit man…Exhausted when I reached the top. I found myself in a cave hewn out of granite. And Helias was waiting for me.

“Your quarters,” he said. “And no monkey tricks.”

But I was too done in to do anything but sleep.

The mystery deepens. This place is too amazing. Today I have been shown the plant in which my poison is to be made. It is a huge tank capable of holding I know not how many tons concealed from view by a wooden building built around it. The building is situated on the top of the cliff and the cliff itself is honeycombed with caves and passages. One in particular leads down from the tank to a kind of living-room, and thence up again to another opening in the cliff similar to the one by which I entered. And from the bottom of the tank there runs a pipe—yards and yards of it coiled in the room. Enough to allow the end to reach the sea. There is a valve in the room by which the flow can be stopped. It must be to supply the vessel below. But why so much? I will not make it: I swear I will not make it, even if they torture me.

Dear God! I didn’t know such things were known to man. Four days—four centuries. Don’t judge me…I tried, but the entrance was guarded.

[In the original this fragment was almost illegible. Poor devil—who would judge him? Certainly not I. Who can even dimly guess the refinements of exquisite torture they brought to bear on him in that lonely Cornish cave? And I like to think that behind that last sentence lies his final desperate attempt to outwit them by hurling himself on to the rocks below. “But the entrance was guarded.”]

It is made. And now that it is made what are they going to do with it? They’ve let me alone since I yielded, but my conscience never leaves me alone. Night and day: night and day it calls me “Coward.” I am a coward. I should have died rather than yield. And yet they could have made it themselves: they said so. They knew the formula. But they thought I’d do it better. If any accident took place I was to be the sufferer.

Should I have ended it all? It would have been so easy. It would be so easy now. One touch: one finger in the tank and everything finished. But surely sooner or later this place must be discovered. I lie and look out over the grey sea, and sometimes on the far horizon there comes the smoke of a passing vessel.

Always far out—too far out. Anyway I have no means of signalling. I’m just a prisoner in a cave. They don’t even give me a light at night. Nothing to do but think and go on thinking, and wonder whether I’m going mad. Is it a dream? Shall I wake up suddenly?

Yesterday I had a strange thought. I must be dead. It was another world, and I was being shown the result of my discovery on earth. Cruelty, death, torture—that was all that the use of such a poison as mine could lead to. It was my punishment. It’s come back to me since—that thought. What was that strange and wonderful play I saw on earth? “Outward Bound.” Rather the same idea: no break—you just goon. Am I dead?

[Undoubtedly to my mind the first time that Robin Gaunt’s reason began to totter. Poor devil—day after day—brooding alone.]

Things are going to happen. There’s a light at sea—signalling. Is it the ship, I wonder? They’re letting down the pipe from the cave about me. It’s flat calm: there is hardly a murmur from the sea below.

At last I know the truth. At last I know the reason for the tank on the top of the cliff, and all that has happened in the last three months. With my own eyes I have seen an atrocity, cold-blooded and monstrous beyond the limits of human imagination.

Six thousand feet below me gleams the Atlantic: I am on board the dirigible that Wilmot murdered Ganton to obtain. I have locked my cabin door: I hope for a few hours to be undisturbed. And so whilst the unbelievable thing that has happened is fresh in my mind I will put it down on paper.

[I may say that this final portion of Robin Gaunt’s diary was written in pencil in much the same ordered and connected way as the first part of his narrative. It shows no trace of undue excitement in the handwriting: nor, I venture to think, does it show any mental aberration as far as the phraseology is concerned.]

I will start from the moment when I saw the signal from the sea. The pipe was hanging down the cliff, and after a while there came a whistle from below. Almost at once I heard the gurgle of liquid in the pipe: evidently poison from the tank was being lowered to someone underneath. Another whistle and the gurgling ceased. Then came the noise of oars; the pipe was drawn up, and for some time nothing more happened.

It was about half-an-hour later that Helias appeared and told me to come with him. I went to the main living-room, where I found Wilmot, and a man whom I recognised as having seen on board. They were talking earnestly together and poring over a chart that lay between them on the table.

“The 2nd or 3rd,” I heard Wilmot say, “and the first port of call is the Azores.”

The other man nodded, and pricked a point on the chart. “That’s the spot,” he said. “A bit west of the Union Castle route.” And just then I became aware of the faint drone of an engine. It sounded like an aeroplane, and Wilmot rose.

“Then that settles everything. Now I want to see how this part works.” He glanced at me as I stood there listening to the noise, which by this time seemed almost overhead. “One frequently has little hitches the first time one does a thing, Mr Gaunt. You will doubtless be able to benefit from any that may occur when you proceed yourself to stop the next war.”

They all laughed, and I made no answer.

“Let’s go and watch,” said Wilmot, glancing at his watch. “I’ll just time it, I think.”

He led the way up the passage towards the tank, and I followed. That there was some devilish scheme on foot I knew, but I was intensely eager to see what was going to happen. Anything was better than the blank ignorance of the past few weeks.

We approached the tank, and then to my amazement I saw that there was a large open space in the roof through which I could see the stars. And even as I stared upwards they were blotted out by a huge shape that drifted slowly across the opening so low down that it seemed on top of us.

“The dirigible that Mr Ganton so kindly bought for me,” said Wilmot genially. “As I say, it is the first time we have done this and I feel a little pardonable excitement.”

And now the huge vessel above us was stationary, with her engines going just sufficiently to keep her motionless in the light breeze. One could make out the two midship gondolas, and the great central keel that forms the backbone of every airship of her type. And as I stared at her fascinated, something hit the side of the wooden house with a thud. A man clad in one of the rubber suits who was standing on the roof slipped forward and caught the end of a pipe similar to the one in the cave. This he dropped carefully into the tank.

“Ingenious, don’t you think, Mr Gaunt?” said Wilmot. “We now pump up your liquid into the ballast tanks, at the same time discharging water to compensate for weight. You will see that by keeping one tank permanently empty there is always room for your poison to be taken on board. When the first empty tank is filled, another has been emptied of water and is ready.”

I hardly listened to him: I was too occupied in watching the level of the liquid fall in the gauge of the tank: too occupied in wondering what was the object of it all.

“Twelve minutes,” he remarked as the pump above began to suck air in the tank. “Not so bad. We will now go on board. Another little device, Gaunt, on which we flatter ourselves. It looks alarming, but there is no danger.”

Swinging above us was a thing that looked like a cage, which had evidently been let down from the airship. In a moment or two it came to rest on the roof, and Wilmot beckoned to me to go up the steps.

“Room for us both,” he remarked.

I made no demur: it was useless to argue. Why he wanted me on board was beyond me, though doubtless I should know in time. So I followed him into the cage, and he shut the door. And the next moment we were being drawn up to the dirigible.

It was the first time I had been outside and I stared round eagerly, but in the faint grey light that precedes dawn it was difficult to see much. Far below us lay the sea, whilst inland the ground was hilly. I saw what I took to be a road in the distance: also a tall chimney which stuck up from the midst of low-lying buildings. And then the cage came to rest: it had been drawn right into the keel of the airship. A metal plate closed underneath us with a clang, and we both stepped out into the central corridor.

“Something to eat and drink, Mr Gaunt,” said Wilmot, and I followed him in a sort of dull stupor.

He led the way to a luxurious cabin which was fitted up as a dining-room. On the table were champagne and a variety of sandwiches.

“We will regard this as a holiday for you,” he remarked. “And if you behave yourself there is no reason why it shouldn’t prove a very pleasant one. After it is over you will have to refill the tank for us, but for the next three or four days let us merely enjoy ourselves.”

We were flying eastwards—I could tell that by the light; and I peered out of the window, trying to see if I could spot where we were.

“A beautiful sight, isn’t it?” said Wilmot. “And when the sun rises it is even more beautiful. Lord Grayling and the Earl of Dorset both agreed that to see the dawn from such a vantage-point was to see a very wonderful sight.”

“In God’s name,” I burst out, “what does it all mean?”

He smiled as he selected a sandwich.

“Just your scheme, my dear fellow,” he answered. “Your scheme in practice.”

“But there’s no war on,” I cried.

“No. There’s no war on,” he agreed.

“Then why have you filled the ballast tanks with poison?”

“You may remember that I once pointed out to you the weak point in your scheme,” he answered. “There was no money in it. In the course of the next few days you are going to see that defect remedied, I trust.

“Of course,” he went on after a while, “This is only going to be quite a small affair. It’s in the nature of a trial run: just to accustom everyone to what they have to do when the big thing comes along. And that’s why I’ve brought you along. You have had, I gather, a little lesson over not doing what you’re told, and I feel sure that you will give me no further trouble. But one never knows that some little hitch may not occur, and should it do so in your particular department, it will be up to you to rectify it.”

But I haven’t the time to give that devil’s conversation in full. I can see him now, suave and calm, seated at the table smoking a cigar whilst he played with me as a cat plays with a mouse. Utterly ignorant then as to what was going to happen, much of it was lost on me. Now I can see it all.

It conveyed nothing to me then that the British public was keenly interest in the airship: that tours at popular prices were given twice a week: that there was talk of floating a company in the City.

“Not that that is ever likely to come off, my dear Gaunt,” he remarked, “though if it did, of course, I should have no objection to taking the money. But it instils confidence in the public mind: makes them regard me as an institution. And an institution can do no wrong. You might as well suspect the Cornish Riviera express of robbing the Bank of England.”

There lies the diabolical ingenuity of it all. Did I not hear from the cabin where they kept me bound and gagged—guarded by two men—did I not hear him showing two members of the Royal Family over the vessel? That was while we were tied up to the mooring mast before we started.

Did we not go for a four-hour trip with thirty people on board, amongst them some of the highest in the land? He told me their names that night, with a vile mocking smile on his face.

“But why,” I shouted at him, “why?”

“All in good time,” he answered. “I am just showing you what an institution I am.”

That’s it: and will anyone believe what I am going to write down? I see it all now: the tin mine ostensibly being worked as a tin mine; in reality merely a cloak to disguise the making of the poison. As he said, it had to be in a deserted place by the sea, because the ship had to take supplies on board.

He’s told me everything: he knows I’m in his power. He seems to take a delight in tormenting me: in exposing for my benefit the workings of his vile brain. But he’s clever: diabolically clever.

It was two days ago that they let me out of my cabin. The airship was in flight, and looking out I saw that we were over the sea. They took me into the dining-cabin, and there I saw Wilmot and a woman. She was smoking a cigarette, and I saw she was very beautiful. She stared at me with a sort of languid interest: then she made some remark to Wilmot at which he laughed.

“Our friend Helias has a strong right arm,” he remarked. “Well, Gaunt—very soon now your curiosity is going to be satisfied. We have ceased to be commercial: we’re going to go and stop your war. But we still remain an institution. Have you ever heard of Mr Cosmo Miller?”

“I have not,” I said.

“He is an American multi-millionaire, and at the moment he is some forty miles ahead of us in his yacht. If you look through that telescope you will be able to see her.”

I glanced through the instrument, and saw away on the horizon the graceful outlines of a steam yacht.

“A charming boat—the Hermione,” he went on. “It goes against the grain to sink her.”

“To do what?” I gasped.

“Sink her, my dear Gaunt. She is, one might say, your war. She is also the trial run to give us practice for other and bigger game.”

I stared at him speechlessly: surely he must be jesting.

“Considerate of Mr Miller to select this moment for his trip, wasn’t it? Otherwise we might have had to try our ’prentice hand on less paying game. At any rate he has sufficient jewellery on board to pay for our running expenses if nothing more.”

“But, good God!” I burst out, “you can’t mean it. What is going to happen to the people on board?”

“They are going to sink with her,” he replied, getting up and looking through the telescope.

A man came into the cabin and Wilmot swung round.

“No message been sent yet, Chief.”

Wilmot nodded and dismissed him.

“A wonderful invention—wireless, isn’t it? But I confess that it renders modern piracy a little difficult. In this case the matter is not one of vital importance, but when we come to the bigger game the question will have to be very carefully handled. Now on this occasion it may be that the two excellent and reliable men who took the place of two members of the Hermione’s crew at Southampton have broken up the instrument already; or it may be that the wireless operator hardly considers it worth while to broadcast the information that he has seen us. However, we shall soon know. My dear!” he added to the girl, “we’re getting very close. I think it might interest you now.”

She got up and stood beside him, whilst I stood there in a sort of stupor. I watched Wilmot go to a speaking-tube: heard him give directions to fly lower. And then, drawn by some unholy fascination, I too went and looked out.

Half-a-mile ahead of us was the yacht, steaming slowly ahead. The passengers were lining the rail staring up at us, and in a few seconds we had come so close that I could see the flutter of their pocket-handkerchiefs.

“Come with me, Gaunt,” snapped Wilmot. “Now comes the business. My dear, you stay here.”

He rushed me along the main corridor till we came to one of the central ballast tanks. The engines were hardly running, and I realised that we must be directly over the yacht and just keeping pace with her. Two men clad in rubber suits stood by the tank: two others were by the corresponding tank on the opposite side of the gangway. Wilmot himself was peering into an instrument set close by the first tank, and I saw a duplicate by the second. I went to it and found it was an arrangement of mirrors based on the periscope idea: by looking into it I saw directly below the airship.

And of the next ten minutes how can I tell? Straight underneath us—not a hundred feet below—lay the yacht. Everyone—guests, crew, servants—were peering up at the great airship, which must have seemed to fill the entire sky. And then Wilmot gave an order. Two levers were pulled back, and the rain of death began to fall. The rain that I had invented—Oh, God!—it was unbelievable…

I saw a woman who had been waving at us fall backwards suddenly on the deck and lie there rigid, her face turned up towards us. A man rushed forward to her help: he never reached her. The poison got him first. And all over the deck it was the same. Men and women ran screaming to and fro, only to crash forward suddenly and lie still as the death rain went on falling. I saw three blacks, their faces incongruous against their white ducks. They had rushed out at the sound of the pandemonium on deck, and with one accord, as if they had been pole-axed simultaneously, they died. I saw a man in uniform shaking his fist at us. He only shook it once, poor devil…

And then as if from a great distance I heard Wilmot’s voice—“Enough.”

The rain of death ceased: it was indeed enough. No soul moved on the yacht: only a white-clad figure at the wheel kept her on her course.

Stumbling blindly, I went back to the central cabin. The girl was still there, staring out of the window, and I think I screamed foolish curses at her. She took no notice: she was watching something through a pair of glasses.

“Quite well timed,” she remarked as Wilmot entered. “She’s only about a mile off.”

I looked and saw a vessel tearing through the water towards us: coming to the rendezvous of death.

“I would never have believed,” said Wilmot, “that with her lines she would have been capable of such speed.”

Then he turned to me.

“Put on that suit,” he said curtly. “We’re going down on deck.”

He was getting into one himself, and half unconsciously I followed his example. I was dazed: stunned by the incredible atrocity I had just witnessed.

And if it had been terrible from above, what words can paint the scene on deck as we stepped out of the cage? In every corner lay dead bodies; and one and all they stared at me out of their sightless eyes. They cursed me for having killed them: everywhere I turned they cursed me.

The deck was ringing wet: the smell of the poison lay heavy in the air. And again and again I asked myself—What was the meaning of this senseless outrage? I didn’t know then of the incredible wealth of the wretched people who had been killed: of the marvellous jewels that were on board.

The other vessel lay alongside: a dozen of the crew clothed in rubber suits had come on board the yacht. It was the ruthless efficiency of it all that staggered me: they worked like drilled soldiers. One by one they carried the bodies below and piled them into cabins. And when a cabin was full they shut the door. They damped down the stoke-room fires: they blew off what head of steam remained. They stove in the four ship’s boats and sank them: they moved every single thing that would float and put it below in such a place that when the ship sank everything would go down with her. And all the while the dirigible circled overhead.

Once, and only once, did anything happen to interrupt them. Heaven knows where he had been hidden or how he had escaped, but suddenly, with a wild shout, one of the crew darted on deck. In his hands he held a pick: he was a stoker evidently. Gallant fellow: he got one of them before he died. In the head—with his pick, and then another of the pirates just laid his glove wet with the poison against the stoker’s face. And the work went on.

At last Wilmot appeared again. He was carrying a suitcase, and I saw him signal to the airship. She manoeuvred back into position and the cage was lowered on to the deck of the yacht. And a minute later we were in the dirigible once more.

“A most satisfactory little experiment,” said Wilmot. “We will now examine the spoils more closely.”

Sick with the horror of it all, I stood at the cabin window, whilst he and the woman went over the jewels on the table behind me. We had circled a little away from the yacht, and the other vessel no longer lay alongside, but a hundred yards or so away. And suddenly there came a dull boom, and the yacht rocked a little on the calm sea.

“A sight, my dear, which I don’t think you’ve ever seen,” said Wilmot, and he and the woman came to the window. “A ship sinking.”

Slowly the yacht settled down in the water: they had blown a great hole in her bottom. And then at last with a sluggish lurch her bows went under and she turned over and sank. For a time the water swirled angrily to mark her grave: then everything grew quiet. No trace remained of their devilish handiwork: the sea had swallowed it up.

“Most satisfactory,” repeated Wilmot. “Don’t you agree, Gaunt?” He laughed evilly at the look on my face.

“And you have committed that atrocious crime for those,” I said, pointing at the jewels.

“Not altogether,” he answered. “As I told you before, this is merely in the nature of a trial trip. Of course it’s pleasant to have one’s expenses paid, but the principal value of this has been practice for bigger game…That is what we are out for, my dear Gaunt: bigger game.”

I watched him with a sort of dazed fascination as he lit a cigar. Then he began to examine through a lens the great heap of precious stones in front of him. And after a while the thought began to obsess me that he was not human. His complete air of detachment: his amused comments when he discovered that a beautiful tiara was only paste: above all the languorous indifference of the girl who only an hour before had witnessed an act of wholesale murder made my head spin.

They are devils—both of them: devils in human form; and I told them so.

They laughed, and Wilmot poured me out a glass of champagne.

“You flatter us, Gaunt,” he remarked. “Surely you have not been listening to the foolish remarks of the crew. They, poor simpleminded fellows, do, I understand, credit me with supernatural powers, but I am surprised at you. Merely your antidote, my friend: that’s all.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” I muttered.

“There now,” he said genially, “I am always forgetting that your knowledge of past events is limited. An amusing little story, Gaunt, and one which flatters your powers as a chemist. I may say that it also flatters my powers as a prophet. My men, as you may know, are largely Russians of the lower classes. Docile, good fellows as a general rule, with a strong streak of superstition in them. And realising that in a concern of this sort one has to control with an iron hand, I anticipated that possibly an occasion might arise when some foolish man would question that control. It was because of that, my dear Gaunt, that I took so much trouble to procure that admirable ointment of yours, the existence of which is not known to the members of my crew. In that point lay the little element of—if I may say so—genius, which separates a few of us from the common herd. Though I admit that it was with some trepidation—pardonable I think you will allow—that I put the matter to the test. Of the efficacy of your poison I had no doubt, but with regard to the antidote I had only seen it in action once, and then on a guinea-pig. If I remember aright, my darling,” he said to the girl, “we drank to Mr Gaunt’s skill as a chemist in one of our few remaining bottles of Imperial Tokay, at the conclusion of the episode. A wonderful wine, Gaunt; but I fear extinct. These absurd revolutions that take place for obscure reasons do a lot of harm.”

That’s how he talked: the man is not human. Then he went on.

“But the episode in question will, I am sure, interest you. As I had forseen, some stupid men began to question my authority. In fact, though you will hardly believe it, it came to my ears that there was a conspiracy to take my life. It is true I had had a man flogged to death, but what is a Russian peasant more or less? Apparently this particular fellow sang folk-songs well, or tortured some dreadful musical instrument better than his friends. At any rate he was popular, and his death was a source of annoyance to the others. So, of course, it became necessary to take the matter in hand at once in a way which should restore discipline, and at the same time prevent a recurrence in the future. My dearest, this caviare is not so good as the last consignment. Another devastating example of the harm done by revolutions, I fear. Even the sturgeons have gone on strike.

“However, to return to my little story. I bethought me of your antidote. “Here,” said Ito myself, “is an opportunity to test that dear chap Gaunt’s excellent ointment in a manner both useful and spectacular.” So I rubbed it well into my face and hands—even into my hair, Gaunt—and strode like a hero of old into the midst of the malcontents. You perceive the beauty of the idea. A man not gifted with our brains might reasonably remark, “Why not don a rubber suit, which you know is quite safe?”

“True, but besides being hot and uncomfortable—I think we shall have to try and improve those suits, Gaunt—it is very clumsy in the event of the wearer being attacked with a knife. And though I anticipated from what I had heard that they proposed to use your poison, one has to allow for all eventualities. Also there was that mystic vein in them which I wanted to impress.

“Behold me then, my dear fellow, apparently as I am now, striding alone and unarmed to their quarters. For a moment they stared at me dumbfounded—my sudden appearance had cowed them. And then one of them pulled himself together and discharged a syringe full of the liquid at me. It hit me in the cheek—a most nervous moment, I assure you. I apologise deeply to you now for my qualms; I should have trusted your skill better.

“Nothing happened, and the men cowered back. I said no word; but step by step I advanced on the miscreant who had dared to try and rob the world of one of its chief adornments. And step by step he retreated till he could retreat no further. Then I took his hand and laid it on my cheek. And that evening we tied him in a weighted sack, and buried him at sea.”

He smiled thoughtfully and studied the ash on his cigar.

“It was most successful. Rumours about me vary amongst these excellent fellows. The one I like best is that I am a reincarnation of Rasputin. But there has been no further trouble.”

He rose from the table and swept the jewels carelessly into the suitcase.

“Not a bad haul, my little one. We shall have to be very careful over the disposal of the Shan diamonds: they’re notorious stones.”

They both walked over to one of the windows together, and…

[At this point the narrative breaks off abruptly. Evidently Gaunt was interrupted and crammed the papers hurriedly into his pocket. And the only other document—the most vital of all—was scrawled almost illegibly on a torn scrap of paper. Whether it was written on the airship or at Black Mine will never be known. Of how he got back to the mine there is no record. Who were the men alluded to as “them” is also a mystery, though I have no doubt that one of them was Wilmot. Possibly the other was Helias.]

I heard them today. They didn’t know I was listening. The Megalithic with thirty of the gang on board. Attack by night. The bigger game. He will succeed: he is not human…Hydrogen not helium…Not changed…Sacrifice ship…Fire…

That is all. Those are the papers that we read, sitting on the edge of the cliff with the writer beside us staring with vacant eyes over the grey sea below. Those were the papers, stumbled on by the merest accident, on which we had to base our plans. Was it true or were we the victims of some gigantic delusion on the part of Gaunt? That was the problem that faced us as the first rays of the early sun lit up Black Mine on the morning of September 8th.

CHAPTER XII

In Which the Final Count Takes Place

How much of it was true? We had confirmation of a certain amount with our own eyes. We had seen the pipe, lowered over the cliff: we had seen the mysterious signal from the sea. Above all we had seen Wilmot’s dirigible actually filling up with the poison. So much, therefore, we knew. But what of the rest?

What of the astounding story of the Hermione? Had we discovered the solution of the yacht’s disappearance, or had we been wasting our time reading the hallucination of a madman’s brain? Had Gaunt—having read in the papers of the loss of the Hermione—imagined the scene he had described?

Against that theory was the fact—as I have mentioned before—that neither in the writing nor the phraseology could we detect any sign of insanity. And surely if the whole thing was a delusion, traces of incoherence and wildness would have been bound to appear.

So we reasoned, and still could come to no conclusion. It seemed so wildly fantastic: so well-nigh incredible. And if those epithets could be used in connection with the Hermione, what was to be said concerning the amazement fragment about the Megalithic? Even granted for the moment that the description of the loss of the Hermione was correct, were we seriously to imagine that the same thing could be done to a great Atlantic liner?

From the very first moment Drummond made up his mind and never changed it. I admit that I was sceptical until the last damning proof came to us, but he never hesitated.

“It’s the truth,” he said quietly. “I am convinced of it. The mystery of the Hermione is solved. And with regard to the Megalithic it is the truth also.”

I suppose he saw my look of incredulity, for he then addressed himself exclusively to me.

“Stockton, ever since the time in Ashworth Gardens when that woman recognised me, I’ve known that we were up against Peterson. I’ve felt it in every fibre of my being. Now it’s proved beyond a shadow of doubt. Whatever may or may not be true in that diary of Gaunt’s, that fact is obvious. Wilmot is Peterson: nothing else could account for his asking Gaunt if he knew me.”

He lit a cigarette, and I was struck by the gravity of his face.

“You’ve asked once or twice about Peterson,” he went on after a while. “But though we’ve told you a certain amount, to you he is merely a name. To us, and to me particularly, he’s rather more than that. That is why I am certain in my own mind that that scrawled message about the Megalithic is true. And the principal reason for making me think it is true lies in the last few words. That is Peterson all over.”

I glanced at the scrap of paper.

“Hydrogen not helium…Not changed…Sacrifice ship…Fire…”

“My God! you fellows—it’s stupendous. Don’t you see the tear in the paper there between sacrifice and ship? Ship doesn’t refer to the Megalithic: the word ‘air’ has been torn out. It’s the airship he is going to sacrifice. It is still full of hydrogen: Peterson wasn’t going to the expense of refilling with helium.”

He was pacing up and down, his hands in his pockets.

“That’s it: I’ll swear that’s it. It’s the Peterson creed. It’s the loophole of escape that he always leaves himself. He has decided to attack the Megalithic; why, we don’t know. Possibly a boatload of American multi-millionaires on board. He’s got thirty of his own men in the ship, and that strange craft of his alongside. Let’s suppose the attack is successful. The liner disappear: sinks with all hands. Right: there’s nothing further to worry about. But supposing it isn’t successful. With the best of luck and arrangement it’s a pretty big job to tackle—even for Peterson. What’s going to happen then? In a few seconds the astounding news will be wirelessed all over the world that Wilmot’s dirigible is carrying out an act of piracy on the high seas of such unbelievable devilry that it would make our old pal Captain Hook rotate in his coffin if he heard of it. Suppose another thing too. Suppose it is successful, but that the wireless people in the Megalithic manage to get a message through before their gear is put out of action. Peterson gets that message on his own installation. What’s he going to do? He may be an institution all right at the moment, but he won’t have the mayor and a brass band out to welcome him on his return once the truth is known. So he descends from his airship either into this mysterious vessel of his, or else on to dry land. We know he can do that. What he does with the crew is immaterial. Probably leaves them with a few ripe and fruity instructions, and a bomb timed to explode a little later. And so Wilmot’s dirigible pays the just retribution for an astounding and diabolical crime, while Wilmot himself retires to Monte Carlo on the proceeds thereof. It’s what he has always said: there’s nothing like dying to put people off the scent. No police in the world are going to bother to look for the blighter if they think he is a perfectly good corpse in his own burnt-out airship. It’s a pity in a way,” he concluded regretfully, “a great pity. I should have liked to deal with him personally.”

“Well, why not?” said Jerningham.

“It’s too big altogether, Ted,” answered Drummond. “I never mind chancing things a certain amount with MacIver, but I don’t think we’d be justified this time. The consequences of failure would be too appalling. Let’s dump the sentries inside the hut, and then push off and have some breakfast. After that we’ll make for London and MacIver. Whatever is believed or is not believed, there’s one thing that Peterson is going to find it hard to explain. Why are his ballast tanks full of Gaunt’s poison?”

So we carried the men, who still lay bound and gagged, into the wooden hut. And there, having locked the door, we left them, with the scent of death still heavy in the air and their four gruesome companions.

“It breaks my heart,” said Drummond disconsolately as we strolled towards the car, “to think that we’ve got to pull in Scotland Yard. Still, we’ve had a bit of fun…”

“We have,” I agreed grimly. “Incidentally what on earth are we going to do with Gaunt?”

“Well, since the poor bloke is bug house, I suppose we’ll have to stuff him in a home or something. Anyway that comes later: the first thing is to lead him to an egg or possibly a kipper. We can pretend he’s eccentric, if the staff go up the pole when they see him.”

And so we returned to the hotel, which I certainly had never expected to see again. Now that it was all over the reaction had set in, and I even found myself wondering whether it hadn’t all been some terrible nightmare. Only there sat Robin Gaunt to prove the reality, and in my pocket I could feel the sheets of his diary.

Sleep! I wanted it almost more than food: sleep and something to get rid of the racking headache which the fumes of that foul liquid had produced. And even as I waited for breakfast I found my head nodding on to the table. It was over: the strain and tension was past. One could relax…

“Good Lord!” Drummond’s startled exclamation roused us all. He was staring at a newspaper, whilst his neglected cigarette burnt the table-cloth beside him.

“What’s the day of the week?”

“Thursday,” said someone sleepily.

“Look here, you fellows,” he said gravely, “pull yourselves together and wake up. The Megalithic sails today from Liverpool for New York.”

We woke up all right at that, and his next remark completed the arousing process.

“Today, mark you—carrying thirty million in bullion on board.”

“Instantaneous, universal death,” babbled Gaunt, but we paid no attention. We just sat there—all ideas of sleep banished—staring at Drummond.

“They must be warned,” he said decisively. “Even at the risk of making ourselves look complete and utter fools. The Megalithic must be wirelessed.”

He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out some letters. “Give me a pencil: I’ll scribble down a message.”

And then suddenly he broke off, and sat looking blankly at something he held.

“Well, I’m damned,” he muttered. “I’d forgotten all about that. Tonight is the night of Wilmot’s Celebrated Farewell Gala Night Trip. Somebody sent me two complimentary tickets for it. Couldn’t think who’d done it or why. Phyllis was keen on going.”

Once more he fell silent as he stared at the two tickets.

“I’ve got it now,” he said at length, and his voice was ominously quiet. “Yes—I’ve got it all now. Peterson sent me those two tickets, and there’s no need to ask why.”

He turned to the girl, who was putting the breakfast on the table.

“How long will it take to get through to London on the telephone? Anyway I must do it. Get me Mayfair 3XI. Now then, you fellows—food. And after that we’ll drive to London as even the old Hispano has never moved before.”

“What are you ringing up Algy for?” said Darrell.

“I want four more tickets, Peter, for tonight’s trip. And above all I want some of that antidote. Peterson is not the only man who can play that particular game.”

“What about wirelessing the Megalithic?” I asked.

He looked at me with a queer smile.

“No necessity now, Stockton. If there is one thing in this world that is certain beyond all others it is that Wilmot’s dirigible will be at the aerodrome when we get back to London. For I venture to think—without undue conceit—that there is one desire in Mr Wilmot’s heart that runs even the possession of thirty million fairly close. And that desire is my death.”

I stared at him incredulously, but he was perfectly serious.

“Had I not known that he was going to be there, it would have been imperative to warn the Megalithic. Now the situation is different. If we wireless, don’t forget that he will get the message. We warn him equally with the ship.”

“Yes, but even so,” I objected, “dare we run the risk?”

“There is no risk,” said Drummond calmly. “Now that I know who Wilmot is—there is no risk. And tonight I’m going to have my final settlement with the gentleman.”

He would say no more: all the way back to London, when he drove like a man possessed with ten devils, he hardly opened his lips. And sitting beside him, busy with my own thoughts, the spell of his extraordinary personality began to obsess me. Never had he seemed so completely sure of himself—so absolutely confident.

And yet the whole thing was bizarre and strange enough to cause all sorts of doubts. I, too, had forgotten the much-advertised final trip of the airship, until Drummond had pulled the tickets out of his pocket. The dinner was to be even more wonderful than usual, and every guest was to receive a memento of the occasion from Mr Wilmot himself. The thing that defeated me was why Wilmot should waste the time. Granted that Drummond’s theory was correct, and that after having attacked the Megalithic the airship was to come down in flames, why fool around with a two or three hours’ cruise beforehand? There was no longer any necessity to pose as an “institution.”

Drummond smiled at my remarks.

“Why of necessity should you assume that it’s going to be three hours wasted? You don’t imagine, do you, that a man like Peterson would consider it necessary to return to the aerodrome and deposit his passengers?”

“But, great Scott, man,” I exploded, “he can’t carry out an attack on the Megalithic, with fifty complete strangers on board his airship.”

“Can’t he? Why not? Once granted that he’s going to carry out the attack at all, I don’t see that fifty or a hundred and fifty strangers would matter. You seem to forget that an integral part of his plan is that none of them should return alive to tell the tale.”

“It’s inconceivable that such a man can exist,” I said.

“He’s mother’s bright boy all right is Carl Peterson,” agreed Drummond. “I confess that I’m distinctly intrigued to see what is going to happen tonight.”

“But surely, Drummond,” I said, “we’re not justified in going through with this. An inspection of his ballast tanks will prove the presence of the poison. And then the matter passes into the hands of Scotland Yard.”

“I’m perfectly aware that that is what we ought to do,” he said gravely. “Moreover, it is what we would do if it was possible.”

“But why isn’t it possible?” I cried.

“Think, man,” he answered. “At a liberal estimate we shall have an hour in which to change and get to the aerodrome. If we puncture we shan’t have as much. Let us suppose that during that hour we can persuade MacIver and Co. that we are not mad—a supposition which I think is very doubtful. But for the sake of argument we will suppose it. What is going to happen then? MacIver appears at the aerodrome with a bunch of his pals, and attempts to board the airship. Peterson, who can spot MacIver a mile off, either sheers off at once in his dirigible, leaving MacIver dancing a hornpipe on the ground; or, what is just as likely, lets him come on board and then murders him. Don’t you see, Stockton, the one fundamental factor of the whole thing is that that airship is never going to return. It doesn’t matter one continental hoot to Peterson whether he is suspected or whether he isn’t suspected—once he has started. He may be branded as the world’s arch-devil: what does he care? A just retribution has overtaken him: he has perished miserably in the flames of his machine. No—I’ve thought it over, and I’m convinced that our best chance is to let his plans go on as he has arranged them. Don’t let him suspect that we suspect. It won’t seem strange to him that I turn up: he’ll merely assume that I’ve utilised the ticket he sent me in utter ignorance of who he is. And then…”

“Yes,” I said curiously as he paused. “And then—what?”

“Why—just one thing. The one vital thing, Stockton, which knocks the bottom out of his entire scheme. If we’re right, and I know we’re right, his whole plan depends on his ability to leave the airship. And he’s not going to leave the airship…”

“For all that,” I argued, “he may cause the most ghastly damage to the Megalithic.”

“I think not,” said Drummond quietly. “I’ve made out a rough time-table, and this is how I see it. He plans to attack her somewhere off the south coast of Ireland, probably in the early hours of tomorrow morning. Long before that the guests will have realised that something is wrong. The instant that occurs he will show his hand, and matters will come to a head. One way or another it will be over by eleven o’clock.”

“My God! it’s an awful risk we’re running,” I muttered.

“And an unavoidable one,” he answered.

“There’s not a human being in England who would not believe us to be absolutely crazy if we told them what we know. So that any possibility of preventing people going on board that airship tonight may be ruled out of court at once.”

It was half-past five when we arrived, and we found Algy Longworth waiting for us at Drummond’s house.

“Done everything you told me, old lad,” he cried cheerfully. “They thought I was mad at the War House. Great Scott!” he broke off suddenly as he saw Gaunt, “who’s your pal?”

“Doesn’t matter about him, Algy. You’ve got the antidote?”

“A bucket of it, old boy. Saw Stockton’s pal—one Major Jackson.”

“And you’ve got four tickets for Wilmot’s dirigible this evening?”

“Got ’em at Keith and Prowse. What is the fun and laughter?”

“Peterson, Algy. Our one and only Carl. He’s Wilmot.”

Algy Longworth stared at him incredulously.

“My dear old bird,” he said at length, “you’re pulling my leg.”

“Wilmot is Carl Peterson, Algy. Of that there is no shadow of doubt. And that’s why you’ve got four tickets. We renew our acquaintance tonight.”

“Good Lord! Well, the tickets are a tenner each, including dinner, and I got the last. So we must get our money’s worth.”

“You’ll get that all right,” said Drummond grimly. “Have you brought everybody’s clothes round? Good. Get changed, you fellows: we start at six.”

And now I come to the final act in the whole amazing drama. Though months have elapsed, every detail of that last flight is as clear in my mind as if it had happened yesterday.

We started at six, leaving Denny in charge of Robin. Each of us had in our pockets a pot of the antidote and a revolver; and no one talked very much. Drummond, his face set like granite, stared at the road in front of him. Algy Longworth polished and repolished his eyeglass ceaselessly. In fact, in sporting parlance—I don’t know about Drummond, but as far as the rest of us were concerned—we had got the needle.

The evening was calm and still as we motored into the aerodrome. Great flaring arc lights lit up everything with the brightness of day: whilst above our heads, attached to the mooring mast, floated the graceful vessel, no longer dark and sinister as we had seen her the night before, but a blaze of light from bows to stern.

She was due to start at seven o’clock, and at ten minutes to the hour we stepped out of the lift at the top of the mast into the main corridor of the dirigible. Everywhere the vessel was gaily decorated with festoons of brightly coloured paper and fairy-lights. And in the first of the big cabins ahead we caught a glimpse of a crowd of fashionably dressed women gathered round a thick-set good-looking man in evening clothes. Mr Wilmot was welcoming his guests.

“Is that Peterson?” I whispered to Drummond.

He laughed shortly.

“Do you mean—do I recognise him? No, I don’t. I never have yet, by looking at his face. But it’s Peterson all right.”

Drummond was handing his coat and hat to a diminutive black boy in a bright red uniform, and I glanced at his face. A faint smile was hovering round his lips, but his eyes were expressionless. And even the smile vanished as he strolled towards the group in the ante-room: he was just the ordinary society man attending some function.

And what a function it proved. It was the first time that I had ever been inside an airship, and the thing that impressed me most was the spaciousness of everything—and the luxury. Even granting that it was a special occasion, one had to admit that the whole thing was marvellously well done. The lighting effect was superb; and in every corner great masses of hot-house flowers gave out a heavy scent.

“It’s Eastern,” I said to Drummond. “Oriental.”

“Peterson has always been spectacular,” he answered. “But I agree that he has spared no pains with the coffin.”

“I simply can’t believe it,” I said. “Now that we’re actually here, surrounded by all this, it seems incredible that he proposes to sacrifice it all.”

“There are a good many things about Peterson that strike one as incredible,” said Drummond quietly. “But I wish I had even an inkling of what he’s going to do.”

Suddenly the eyes of the two men met over the heads of the women. It was the moment I had been waiting for and I watched Wilmot intently. For perhaps the fraction of a second he paused in his conversation and it seemed to me that a gleam of triumph showed on his face: then once again he turned to the woman beside him with just the correct shade of deference which is expected of those who converse with a Duchess.

Drummond also had turned away and was chatting with someone he knew, but I noticed that he continually edged nearer and nearer to the place where Wilmot was standing a little apart from the others. At last he stopped in front of them and bowed.

“Good-evening, Duchess,” he remarked. “Why aren’t you slaughtering birds up North?”

“How are you, Hugh? Same thing applies to you. By the way—do you know Mr Wilmot?—Captain Drummond?”

The two men bowed, and Jerningham and I, talking ostensibly, drew closer. I know my hands were clammy with excitement, and I don’t think the others were in much better condition.

“Your last trip, Mr Wilmot, I believe,” said Drummond.

“That is so,” answered the other. “In England, I regret to say, the weather is so treacherous that after the early part of September flying ceases to be a pleasure.”

“He has got some wonderful surprise for us, Hugh,” said the Duchess.

“Merely a trifling souvenir, my dear Duchess,” answered Wilmot suavely.

“Of what has become quite an institution, Mr Wilmot,” put in Drummond.

Wilmot bowed.

“I had hoped perhaps to have made it even more of an institution,” he answered. “But the public takes to new things slowly. Ah! we’re off.”

“And what,” asked Drummond, “is our course tonight?”

“I thought we would do the Thames Valley. Duchess—a cocktail?”

A waiter with a row of exquisite glasses containing an amber liquid was handing her a tray.

“Captain Drummond? You, I’m sure, will have one.”

“Why, certainly, Mr Wilmot. I feel confident that what the Duchess drinks is safe for me.”

And once again the eyes of the two men met.

Personally I think it was at that moment that the certainty came to Wilmot that Drummond knew. But just as certainly no sign of it showed on his face. All through the sumptuous dinner that followed, when he and Drummond sat one on each side of the Duchess, he played the part of the courteous host to perfection. I was two or three places away myself, so much of their conversation I missed. But some of it I did hear, and I marvelled at Wilmot’s nerve.

Deliberately Drummond brought up the subject of the Robin Gaunt mystery, and of the fate of the Hermione. And just as deliberately Wilmot discussed them both. But all the time he knew and we knew that things were moving inexorably towards their appointed end. And what was that end going to be?

That was the question I asked myself over and over again. It seemed impossible, incredible that the suave, self-possessed man at the head of the table could possess a mind so imfamously black that, without a qualm, he would sacrifice all these women. And yet he had not scrupled to murder the women in the Hermione.

It seemed so needless—so unnecessary. Why have brought them at all? Why not have flown with his crew alone? Why have drawn attention to himself with his much-advertised gala night?

“Have you noticed the rate at which we are going? She’s positively quivering.”

Jerningham’s sudden question broke in on my thoughts, and I realised that the whole great vessel was vibrating like a thing possessed. But no one seemed to pay any attention: the band still played serenely on, scarcely audible over the loud buzz of conversation.

At last dinner was over, and a sudden silence fell as Wilmot rose to his feet. A burst of applause greeted him, and he bowed with a faint smile.

“Your Grace,” he began, “Ladies and Gentlemen. It is, believe me, not only a pleasure but an honour to have had such a distinguished company tonight to celebrate this last trip in my airship. I am no believer in long speeches, certainly not on occasions of this sort. But, before distributing the small souvenirs which I have obtained as a memento of this—I trust I may say—pleasant evening, there is one thing which as loyal subjects of our gracious Sovereign it is our duty to perform. Before, however, requesting the distinguished officer on my right”—he bowed to Drummond, and suddenly with a queer thrill I noticed that Drummond’s face was shining like an actor’s with grease paint—“to propose His Majesty’s health, I would like to mention one fact. The liqueur in which I would ask you to drink the King is one unknown in this country. It is an old Chinese wine the secret of which is known only to a certain sect of monks. Its taste is not unpleasant, but its novelty will lie in the fact that you are drinking what only two Europeans have ever drunk before. One of those is dead—not, I hasten to assure you, as a result of drinking it: the other is myself. I will now ask Captain Drummond to propose the King.”

In front of each of us had been placed a tiny glass containing a few drops of the liqueur, and Drummond rose to his feet, as did all of us.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen,” he said mechanically, and I could tell he was puzzled—“the King.”

The band struck up the National Anthem, and we stood there waiting for the end. Suddenly on Drummond’s face there flashed a look of horror, and he swung round staring at Wilmot. And then came his mighty shout—drowning the band with its savage intensity.

“Don’t drink. For God’s sake—don’t drink. It’s death.”

Unconsciously I sniffed the contents of my glass: smelt that strange sickly scent: realised that the liquid was Gaunt’s poison.

The band stopped abruptly, and a woman started to laugh hysterically. And still Drummond and Wilmot stared at one another in silence, whilst the great vessel drove on throbbing through the night.

“What’s all this damned foolery?” came in angry tones from a red-faced man half-way down the table. “You’re frightening the women, sir. What do you mean—death?”

He raised the glass to his lips, and before any of us could stop him, he drained it. And drinking it he crashed forward across the table—dead.

It was then that real pandemonium broke loose. Women screamed and huddled together in little groups, staring at the man who had spoken—now lying rigid and motionless with broken glass and upset flower vases all round him.

And still Drummond and Wilmot stared at one another in silence.

“The doors, you fellows.” Drummond’s voice reached us above the din. “And line up the servants and keep them covered.”

With a snarl that was scarcely human Wilmot sprang forward. He snatched up the Duchess’s liqueur glass and flung the contents in Drummond’s face. And Drummond laughed.

“Your mistake, Peterson,” he said. “You only got half the antidote when you murdered Sir John Dallas. Ah! no—your hands above your head.”

The barrel of his revolver gleamed in the light, and once again silence fell as, fascinated, we watched the pair of them. They stood alone, at the head of the table, and Drummond’s eyes were hard and merciless, while Peterson plucked at his collar with hands that shook.

“Where are we driving to at this rate, Carl Peterson?” said Drummond.

“There’s some mistake,” muttered the other.

“No, Peterson, there is no mistake. Tonight you were going to do to the Megalithic what you did to the Hermione—sink her with every soul on board. There’s no good denying it: I spent last night in Black Mine.”

The other started uncontrollably, and the blazing hatred in his eyes grew more maniacal.

“What are you going to do, Drummond?” he snarled.

“A thing that has been long overdue, Peterson,” answered Drummond quietly. “You unspeakable devil: you damnable wholesale murderer.”

He slipped the revolver back in his pocket, and picked up his own liqueur glass.

“The good host drinks first, Peterson.” His great hand shot out and clutched the other’s throat. “Drink, you foul brute: drink.”

Never to my dying day shall I forget the hoarse yell of terror that Peterson uttered as he struggled in that iron grip. His eyes stared fearfully at the glass, and with a sudden stupendous effort he knocked it out of Drummond’s hand.

And once again Drummond laughed: the contents had spilled on the other’s wrist.

“If you won’t drink—have it the other way, Carl Peterson. But the score is paid.”

His grip relaxed on Peterson’s throat: he stood back, arms folded, watching the criminal. And whether it was the justice of fate, or whether it was that previous applications of the antidote had given Peterson a certain measure of immunity, I know not. But for full five seconds did he stand there before the end came. And in that five seconds the mask slipped from his face, and he stood revealed for what he was. And of that revelation no man can write…

Thus did Carl Peterson die on the eve of his biggest coup. As he had killed, so was he killed, whilst, all unconscious of what had happened, the navigator still drove the airship full speed towards the west.

And now but little remains to be told. It was Drummond who walked along the corridor and found the control cabin. It was Drummond who put a revolver in the navigator’s neck, and forced him to swing the airship round and head back to London. It was Drummond who commanded the dirigible till finally we tied up once more to the mooring mast.

And then it was Drummond who, revolver in hand to stop any rush of the crew, superintended the disembarkation of the guests. Lift load after lift load of white-faced women and men went down to the ground till only we six remained. One final look did we take at the staring glassy eyes of the man who sprawled across the chair in which he had sat to entertain Royalty, and then we too dropped swiftly downwards.

News had already passed round the aerodrome, and excited officials thronged round us as we stepped out of the lift. But Drummond would say nothing.

“Ring up Inspector MacIver at Scotland Yard,” he remarked curtly. “Leave all the rest of them on board till he comes. I will stop here.”

But, as all the world knows, it was decreed otherwise. Barely had we sat down in one of the waiting-rooms when an agitated man rushed in.

“She’s off,” he cried. “Wilmot’s dirigible is under weigh.”

We darted outside to see the great airship slowly circling round. She still blazed with light, and from the windows leaned men, waving their arms mockingly. Then she headed north-east. And she was barely clear of the aerodrome when it happened. What looked to me like a yellow flash came from amidships, followed by a terrible rending noise. And before our eyes the dirigible became a roaring furnace of flame. Then, splitting in two, she dropped like a stone.

What caused the accident no one will ever know. Personally I am inclined to agree with Drummond that one of the crew, realising that Wilmot was dead, decided to ransack his cabin to see what he could steal. And in the cabin he found some infernal device for causing fire, which in his unskilful hands exploded suddenly. It is a possible solution: that is all I can say for it. Anyway the point is immaterial. For twelve hours no man could approach the wreckage, so intense was the heat. And when at length it was possible, the bodies were so terribly burned as to be unrecognisable. Two only could be traced: the two in evening clothes. Though which was the red-faced man who had drunk and which was Wilmot no one could say. And again the point is immaterial. For when a man is dead he’s dead, and there’s not much use in worrying further. What did matter was that one of those two charred corpses was all that remained of the super-criminal known to the world as Wilmot—and known to Drummond as Carl Peterson.

CHAPTER XIII

In Which I Lay Down My Pen

I have finished. To the best of my ability I have set down the events of that summer. At the outset I warned my readers that I was no literary man: had there been anyone else willing to tackle the job I would willingly have resigned in his favour.

There will be many even now who will in all probability shrug their shoulders incredulously. Well, as I have said more than once, I cannot make any man believe me. If people choose to think that Gaunt’s description of the sinking of the Hermione is a madman’s delusion based on what he had read in the papers, they are welcome to their opinion. But the Hermione has never been heard of again, and it is now more than a year since she sailed from Southampton. And I have, at any rate, put forward a theory to account for her loss.

What is of far more interest to me is what would have happened had the attack been carried out on the Megalithic. What would have happened if Drummond had not chanced to pick out the scent of death in his glass, from the heavy languorous smell of the hothouse flowers that filled the cabin in which we dined? Can’t you picture that one terrible moment, as with one accord every man and woman round that table pitched forward dead, under the mocking cynical eyes of Wilmot, and the great airship with its ghastly load tore on through the night?

And then—what would have happened? Would the attack have been successful? I know not, but sometimes I try to visualise the scene. The dirigible—no longer blazing with light—but dark and ghostly, keeping pace with the liner low down on top of her. Those thirty desperate men: the shattered wireless: and over everything the rain of death. And then the strange craft capable of such speed in spite of her lines, alongside. Everywhere panic-stricken women and men dashing to and fro, and finding no escape. Perhaps the siren blaring madly into the night, until that too ceased because no man was left to sound it.

Then in the grey dawn the transfer of the bullion to the other vessel: the descent of Wilmot from the airship: perhaps a torpedo. A torpedo was all that was necessary for the Lusitania.

And then, last of all, I can see Wilmot—his hands in his pockets, a cigar drawing evenly between his lips—standing on the bridge of his ship. The swirling water has calmed down: only some floating wreckage marks the grave of the Megalithic. Suddenly from overhead there comes a blinding sheet of flame, and the doomed airship falls blazing into the sea.

Guess-work, I admit—but that is what I believe would have happened. But it didn’t, and so guesswork it must remain to the end. There are other things too we shall never know. What happened to the vessel with the strange lines? There is no one known to us who can describe her save Robin Gaunt, and he is incurably insane. Where is she? What is she doing now? Is she some harmless ocean-going tramp, or is she rotting in some deserted harbour?

What happened to the men we had left bound in Black Mine? For when the police got there next day there was no sign of them. How did they get away? Where are they now? Pawns—I admit; but they might have told us something.

And finally, the thing that intrigues Drummond most. How much did Peterson think we knew?

Personally I do not think that Peterson believed we knew anything at all until the end. Obviously he had no idea that we had been to Black Mine the night before, until Drummond told him so. Obviously he believed himself perfectly safe, and but for the discovery of Gaunt’s diary he would have been. Should we, or rather Drummond, ever have suspected that liqueur except for the knowledge we had? I doubt it, and so does Drummond. Even though we knew that smell so well—the smell of death—I doubt if we should have picked it out from the heavy exotic scent of the flowers.

They are questions which for ever will remain unanswered, though it is possible that some day a little light may be thrown on them.

And now there is but one thing more. Drummond and his wife are in Deauville, so I must rely on my memory.

It was four days after the airship had crashed in flames. The scent of the poison no longer hung about the wreckage: the charred bodies had all been recovered. And as Drummond stood looking at the debris a woman in deep black approached him.

“You have killed the man I loved, Hugh Drummond,” she said. “But do not think it is the end.”

He took off his hat.

“It would be idle to pretend, Mademoiselle,” he said, “that I do not know you. But may I ask why you state that I killed Carl Peterson? Is not that how he died?”

With his hand he indicated the wreckage.

She shook her head.

“The airship came down in flames at half-past one,” she said. “It was at ten o’clock that Carl died.”

“That is so,” he said gravely. “I said the other to spare your feelings. You have seen, I presume, someone who was on board?”

“I have seen no one,” she answered.

“But those details have been kept out of the papers,” he exclaimed.

“I have read no paper,” she replied.

“Then how did you know?”

“He spoke to me as he died,” she said quietly. “And as I said before, it is not the end.”

Without another word she left him. Was she speaking the truth, or was there indeed some strange rapport between her and Peterson? Did the personality of that arch-criminal project itself through space to the woman he had lived with for so many years? And if so, what terrible message of hatred against Drummond did it give to her?

He has not seen her since: the memory of that brief interview is getting a little blurred. Perhaps she too has forgotten: perhaps not. Who knows?