The Bomb-Makers

“This is the little contrivance of which I spoke,” said Drost gleefully, as he gazed upon it in admiration. “The explosive needle, when filled, and this little chamber, also properly charged, cannot fail to act.”

“I take it, my dear friend, that it will be automatic – eh?” remarked the Count, examining it with interest.

Old Drost smiled, nodded, and replaced his precious contrivance in its box, after which both men left the laboratory, Drost carefully locking the door before descending the stairs to follow his companion.

Both of them took a taxi to the fine house in Park Lane where Ortmann assumed the rôle of society man. At ten o’clock a visitor was ushered in, and proved to be the young man whose real name was Schrieber. Apparently he had just returned from a journey, and had come straight from the station in order to make some secret report to Ortmann.

When the three were closeted together the young German, who passed as a Swiss, produced from his pocket three small photographs showing the interior of a room taken from different angles, but always showing the fireplace.

“Excellent!” declared Drost, as he examined all three prints beneath the strong light. “You have done splendidly.”

“Yes, all is in readiness. I have made friends with the maids, and when I return I shall be welcomed. No breath of suspicion will be aroused. We have now but to wait our time.”

And the three conspirators – men who were working so secretly, yet with such dastardly intent in the enemy’s cause – laughed as they helped themselves to cigars from the big silver box.

Nearly three weeks passed when, one day while Seymour Kennedy was sitting in Ella’s pretty little drawing-room, he accidentally noticed the artistic blue-and-white vase, and remarking how unusual was the shape, his beloved related how it had come into her possession.

Kennedy reflected for a few seconds, his brows knit in deep thought.

“Curious that your father desired to match a vase like this! With what object, I wonder?”

“He told me that he wanted it for a friend.”

“H’m! I wonder why his friend was so eager to match it?” was the air-pilot’s remark. “And, again, why did he send you to buy it, when his friend could surely have done so?”

Ella was silent. That question had never occurred to her.

“I wonder if your father is making some fresh experiment? Have you been to the laboratory lately?” he inquired.

“No, dear.”

“A secret visit there might be worth while,” he suggested. “Meanwhile, the question of this vase excites my curiosity considerably. I can’t help thinking that Ortmann is at the bottom of some other vile trickery. Their failure to kill Merton Mansfield has, no doubt, made them all the more determined to deal an effective coup.”

Some five days later it was announced in the London papers that Mr Merton Mansfield, the man in whom Great Britain placed her principal trust in securing victory, would, on the following Thursday, address a mass meeting of the munition workers in the great Midland town of G – . The object of the meeting was to urge greater enthusiasm in the prosecution of the war, and to induce the workers, in the national cause, to forego their holidays and thus keep up the output of heavy shells and high-explosives.

Seymour Kennedy, who was in the mess at the time, read the paragraph, and then sat pondering.

Next day he induced his commanding officer to give him leave, and he was soon in London making active inquiries. He found that Mr Merton Mansfield had been compelled to decline the invitation of Lord Heatherdale, and had arranged to stay the night at the Central Station Hotel at G – , as he would have to return to London by the first train next morning.

Mr Merton Mansfield was an extremely busy man. No member of the Cabinet held greater responsibility upon his shoulders, and certainly no man held higher and stronger views of British patriotism. Any words from his lips were listened to eagerly, and carefully weighed, not only here, but in neutral countries also. Hence, at this great meeting he was expected to reveal one or two matters of paramount interest, and also make a further declaration of British policy.

On the Tuesday night – two days before the meeting – Flight-Commander Kennedy slept at the Central Hotel in G – and next morning returned to London.

Next night – or rather at early morning – Ella silently opened the front door of her father’s house at Barnes, and her lover slipped in noiselessly, the pair afterwards ascending to the secret laboratory which his well-beloved opened with her duplicate key. Without much difficulty they opened the cupboard and examined the contents of the small cardboard box – discovering the curious-looking needle attached to the little perforated steel box.

“This place smells of cloves – doesn’t it?” whispered Seymour.

“Yes, darling. I’ve smelt the same smell for some days. Father said he had upset a bottle of oil of cloves.”

“This is certainly a most curious apparatus!” Kennedy whispered, holding the needle in his hand. “See, this box is not a bomb. It is perforated to allow some perfume – or, more likely, a poison-gas – to escape. The needle is certainly an explosive one!”

Further search revealed a small clockwork movement not much larger than that of a good-sized watch, together with a small bag of bird’s sand.

Having made a thorough search, they replaced things exactly as they had found them, and then Kennedy crept forth again into the broad thoroughfare called Castelnau.

“Those devils mean mischief again!” he muttered to himself as he hurried across Hammersmith Bridge. “That explosive needle is, I can quite see, a most diabolical invention. Drost surely has the inventive brains of Satan himself!”

At that same hour the young man Schrieber was seated with Ortmann in Park Lane, listening to certain instructions, until at last he rose to go.

“And, remember – trust in nobody!” Ortmann urged. “If you perform this service successfully, our Fatherland will owe you a very deep debt of gratitude – one which I will personally see shall not be forgotten.”

At midday on Thursday Kennedy and Ella left St. Pancras station for G – , arriving there three hours later, and taking rooms at the Central Hotel.

As soon as Ella entered hers, she was astonished to see upon the mantelshelf a pair of the same blue-and-white vases as those her father had asked her to match!

When, ten minutes later, she rejoined Kennedy in the lounge, she told him of her discovery.

“Yes,” was his reply. “They are the same in all the rooms – one of the fads of the proprietor. But,” he added, “you must not be seen here. We don’t know who is coming from London by the next train.”

For that reason Ella retired to her room and did not leave it for some hours, not indeed till her lover came to tell her that all was clear.

By that time Mr Merton Mansfield had arrived, eaten a frugal dinner, and had gone to the meeting.

“That young man Schrieber has arrived also,” Kennedy told her. “He’s never seen me, so he suspects nothing. He has also gone to the meeting, therefore we can go down and have something to eat.”

That night at eleven o’clock Mr Merton Mansfield returned, was cheered loudly by a huge crowd gathered outside the hotel, and waited below chatting for nearly half-an-hour before he retired to his room.

The room was numbered 146 – the best room of a suite on the first floor – and to this room the young German, the catspaw of Ortmann, had gone about a quarter past eleven, gaining admission through the private sitting-room next door.

On entering he, quick as lightning, took down one of the vases from the mantelshelf and replaced it by another exactly similar which he drew from beneath the light coat thrown over his arm. Then, carrying the vase with him concealed by his coat, he slipped quickly out again unobserved, not, however, before he had poured into the other vase some bird-sand so as to make them both of equal weight when the maid came to dust them on the morrow. The conspirators left nothing to chance.

In that innocent-looking vase he had brought was one of the most diabolical contrivances ever invented by man’s brain. To the explosive needle the tiny clock had been attached and set to strike at half-past two, an hour when the whole hotel would be wrapped in slumber. The effect of striking would be to explode the needle and thus break a thin glass tube of a certain liquid and set over a piece of sponge saturated by a second liquid. The mixing of the two liquids would produce that terribly deadly poison-gas which, escaping through the perforation, must cause almost instant death to any person sleeping in the room.

Truly, it was a most diabolical death-trap.

Ten minutes later Mr Merton Mansfield, quite unsuspicious, entered the room and retired to bed, an example followed by the assassin Schrieber, who had a room on the same corridor a little distance away.

At nine o’clock next morning Seymour Kennedy, bright and spruce in his uniform, descended to the hall and inquired of the head-porter if Mr Merton Mansfield had left.

“Mr Mansfield is an early bird, sir. He went away to London by the 6:47 train.”

The air-pilot turned upon his heel with a sigh of relief.

Two hours later, however, while seated in the lounge with Ella, prior to returning to London, Kennedy noticed that there was much whispering among the staff. Of the porter he inquired the reason.

“Well, sir,” the man replied, “it seems that a maid on the first floor, on going into one of the rooms this morning, found a visitor dead in bed – Mr Sommer, a Swiss gentleman who arrived last night. The place smells strongly of cloves, and the poor girl has also been taken very ill, for the fumes in the place nearly asphyxiated her.”

Seymour again returned to Ella and told her what had occurred.