The Zeppelin Destroyer: Being Some Chapters of Secret History

“Well, because we get many young ladies reported missing in the course of a year, and many of them we find, on inquiry, have hidden themselves purposely, for their own private reasons, quarrels, run-away matches, hiding from angry parents, and such-like causes. I tell you,” he added, “some of the cases give us quite a lot of trouble and annoyance.”

“I’m quite sure that Miss Lethmere is not hiding herself purposely,” I declared quickly. “There can be no object in her doing so.”

“No. Not as far as you are aware, sir,” the inspector replied very politely. “But neither you nor I can always follow the trend of the feminine mind,” he added with a faint smile. “You, of course, do not suspect the existence of any motive which would lead her to disappear intentionally. Nobody in such circumstances as yours, ever does. Do you happen to know whether she took any money with her when she left home?”

“Mulliner, Lady Lethmere’s maid, says that just before going out Miss Lethmere glanced in her purse, found that she only had a few shillings, and took four Treasury-notes from her jewel-box.”

“Was that all the money in the jewel-box?” he asked.

“No. About eighteen pounds remains there now.”

“H’m. She evidently did not make any preparation for a journey – or any long absence.”

“Well,” replied the inspector after a brief pause, “we will certainly circulate her description, and see what we can gather. The young lady may have met with a street accident, and be in one of the hospitals. Though I hope she hasn’t, of course!”

So with that rather poor assurance I had to be content, and took my leave.

That afternoon I again went out to Hendon, making inquiry everywhere of the men who were Roseye’s friends, but she certainly never went there on the Saturday, and I found her machine still in the hangar. Her mechanic knew nothing, for he had received no orders from her since Friday.

Three days – three breathless anxious days passed. Ah! shall I ever forget the awful tension of those terrible hours!

Sir Herbert had returned, and, with his wife, was naturally distracted. He was making inquiries in every quarter of friends and acquaintances, and of anyone who might have been likely to see his missing daughter. In this, both Teddy and I actively assisted him.

On the third evening I returned to my rooms to wash, intending to go along to the Automobile Club to dine with the flying-boys who assembled there every night, when Theed told me that the police had, an hour before, rung me up from Scotland Yard, and requested me to go down there at once.

This I did without delay and, having been shown into that big, bare waiting-room, the same dark-haired inspector came to see me.

“Well, Mr Munro,” he exclaimed, “we’ve met with no very great result, though the description of the missing young lady has been circulated right through the country. But the affair is certainly a mystery.”

“Then you don’t suspect that she has purposely disappeared – eh?” I asked quickly.

“Well – after all – I don’t know,” was his hesitating reply. “Something belonging to her has been found which rather leads to that supposition.”

“What has been found?” I gasped eagerly.

“This,” he answered, and he placed upon the table a gold chatelaine which I at once recognised as belonging to Roseye – for. I had given it to her. It formed a jingling bunch. There was a chain-purse, a combined match-box and cigarette-case, a powder-box with its little mirror in the cover, and a card-case all strung upon thin gold chains which, in turn, were attached to a ring – so that it could be carried upon the finger.

“Wherever was that found?” I asked, turning pale at sight of it.

“It was discovered this morning by a platelayer engaged in examining the rails in the long tunnel just beyond Welwyn Station on the Great Northern Railway.”

“In a tunnel!”

“Yes. The two tunnels which are quite near to each other have, at our request, been thoroughly searched by the local police and the platelayers, but nothing else has been found. My first fear was,” added the inspector, “that there might have been a tragedy in the tunnel. Happily, however, there is no ground for any such suspicion.”

“But there may have been a struggle in the train!” I suggested.

“Possibly,” answered the inspector. “It’s fortunate that the cards were in the case, for when the chatelaine was handed to the sergeant of constabulary at Welwyn, he at once recognised Lethmere as the name of the lady whose description had been circulated by us. Therefore the constabulary sent it up here at once.”

I took it and found that in the purse were the four Treasury-notes, as the maid Mulliner had described, together with some silver. Three of my own particular brand of Russian cigarettes remained in the case, while among the cards which I opened upon the table was one of my own upon which I had, only a few days previously, written down the address of the makers of a new enamel which I had advised her to try upon her machine.

The tiny powder-puff and the small bevelled mirror were there, though the latter had been cracked across in its fall in the tunnel.

“Seven years bad luck!” I remarked to the inspector, whose name I had learned to be Barton.

I was turning over with curiosity that bunch of jingling feminine impedimenta which I knew so well, when the door suddenly opened, and a red-tabbed captain in khaki entered.

“This is Captain Pollock,” Barton said, introducing him. “He wished, I believe, to ask you a question, Mr Munro.”

I looked at the new-comer with some surprise, as he bowed and, in rather an authoritative manner, took a chair at the big leather-covered table at which I was seated with the inspector.

“The facts of your friend Miss Lethmere’s disappearance have been communicated to us, Mr Munro,” he commenced, “and we find that the lady’s disappearance is much complicated by certain rather curious facts.”

“Well?” I asked, rather resentful that another department of the State should enter upon what, after all, was a purely personal investigation. Besides, I could see no motive. The War Office had enough to do without making inquiries regarding missing persons.

“Well,” said the captain politely, “I of course know you, Mr Munro, to be a well-known aviator, and have often read of the long and sensational flights undertaken by Miss Lethmere and yourself. I hope you will not think that I am personally inquisitive regarding your lady friend. But,” he went on apologetically, “I am only performing my duty in inquiring in the interests of the State. You are, I know, an intensely patriotic man. I hope that I, as a British officer, am equally patriotic. Therefore we stand upon the same ground – don’t we?”

“Most certainly,” was my reply, though, much puzzled as to the drift of his argument, I looked straight into his face, a round, rather florid countenance, with a small sandy moustache.

“Good,” he said. “Now I want you to answer me, in confidence, the questions I will put to you. Your replies I shall treat as absolutely secret.”

“Captain Pollock is from the Intelligence Department,” remarked the inspector, interrupting in explanation.

“I will answer, of course, to the best of my ability,” I said. “But with one reservation – I will say nothing that might reflect upon a woman’s honour.”

He pursed his lips ever so slightly. But that very slight movement did not pass me unnoticed.

Was a woman’s honour concerned in this?

The two men exchanged glances, and in an instant a fierce resentment arose within me. Between us, upon the bare table, lay the gold chatelaine that I had bought at Bouet’s, in the Gallerie at Monte Carlo a year and a half ago.

It had been found in that tunnel on the main line of the Great Northern. Something tragic had occurred. Was there any further room for doubt?

“The matter does not concern a woman’s honour – er – not exactly so,” the man in khaki said slowly.

“I want to know – ” And he paused, as though hesitating to explain his motive for coming along to see me.

“What do you want to know about?” I asked boldly. “Come, Captain Pollock, let us face each other. There is a mystery here in Miss Lethmere’s disappearance, and in the finding of this bunch of feminine fripperies in the tunnel. I intend to elucidate it.”

“And I will assist you, Mr Munro – if you will only be frank with me.”

“Frank!” I echoed. “Of course I’ll be frank!” Again he looked me straight in the face with those funny, half-closed little eyes of his. Then, after a few moments’ pause, he asked:

“Now – tell me. Is it a fact that you, with a friend of yours named Ashton, have made some very remarkable electrical discovery?”

I looked at him, stunned by surprise. He noticed my abject astonishment.

“I’ll go farther,” he went on. “Does this discovery of yours concern aircraft; is it designed to bring disaster upon Zeppelins; and are you engaged in perfecting a secret invention in which you have the most entire confidence? In other words, have you nearly perfected a method by which you will be able to successfully combat enemy airships in the air? Tell me the truth, Mr Munro – in strictest secrecy, remember.”