The Zeppelin Destroyer: Being Some Chapters of Secret History

“They will never know that,” I declared with entire confidence. “I can tell you both that the secret experiments of Ashton and myself have been crowned with success. We have, however, been most wary and watchful. We are well aware that at our works out at Gunnersbury there have been intruders, but those who have dared to enter at night to try and discover our plans have been entirely misled and, up to the present, no single person beyond ourselves has ever seen, or has ever gained any knowledge whatsoever of that electrical arrangement which constitutes our discovery.”

“Then you really can fight Zeppelins?” asked Barton, much interested.

I nodded in the affirmative, and smiled.

“So what is written here in cipher is perfectly correct?” asked Pollock.

“Perfectly. The missing lady has actively assisted Mr Ashton and myself in our experiments.”

“And apparently the lady wrote down this message giving you away,” remarked Barton.

“Somebody wrote it – but it certainly is not her handwriting.”

“Quite so. Spies frequently get other persons to copy their messages in order that they can disclaim them,” replied the Intelligence officer. “We’ve had several such cases before us of late.”

His words aroused my anger bitterly. That Roseye had held any communication with the enemy I absolutely refused to believe. Such suggestion was perfectly monstrous!

Yet how was it possible that anyone should know of the success of our experiments at Gunnersbury?

Recollection of that well-remembered night when Teddy had declared there had been strangers prowling about, flashed across my mind.

I knew, too well, that the evil that had befallen me, as well as the disappearance of my well-beloved, had been the work of the Invisible Hand – that dastardly, baneful influence that had wrecked my machine and nearly hurled me to the grave.

“Well,” I said at last, “I would much like a copy of this remarkable document.”

“I fear that I cannot give it to you, Mr Munro,” was the captain’s slow reply. “At present it is a confidential matter, concerning only the Department, and the person in whose possession it was.”

“We must find that person,” I said resolutely.

“What is your theory regarding Miss Lethmere?” I asked, turning to Barton.

“Well, Mr Munro, it would appear that either the lady herself, or some thief, threw the chatelaine from a train passing north through the tunnel.”

“There may have been a struggle,” I remarked, “and in trying to raise the alarm it might have dropped from her hand.”

“That certainly might have been the case,” the inspector admitted.

An hour later, accompanied by Teddy and Barton, I set out from King’s Cross station and, on arrival at Welwyn – a journey a little over twenty miles – we spent the evening in searching inquiry.

The station-master knew nothing, except that both tunnels had been searched without result.

The story told by the platelayer who found the chatelaine was to the effect that he noticed a paper bag lying in the centre of the up-express line and, on picking it up, found the jingling bunch of gold impedimenta. The paper bag had probably been blown along there by a passing train and had somehow become entangled among the short lengths of chain composing the chatelaine.

“Of course it might ha’ been there a couple o’ days,” the stout, sooty-faced man replied to a question of Barton’s. “I work in the tunnels all the time, but I didn’t see it before to-day. We often finds things thrown out o’ trains – things people want to get rid of. They must ’ave quite a fine collection o’ things up at King’s Cross – things what I and my mates have found while we’ve been a goin’ along with our flares.”

“You can form no idea when it might have been thrown out?” I asked.

“Probably late last night, or early this mornin’,” was the man’s reply. “I started to examine all the rails just after eleven o’clock last night, and had not quite finished when the 11:30 express out o’ King’s Cross for Edinburgh came through.”

“It might have been thrown from that,” I remarked. “Where was the first stop made by that express?”

“Grantham, sir – at 1:33 in the morning – then York,” he replied, in a hard, rough voice. His face was deeply furrowed, and his eyes were screwed up, for he spent more than half his life in the darkness, choking smoke and wild racket of those two cavernous tunnels through which trains roared constantly, both night and day. “Of course, sir,” he added, “there were lots o’ trains a passing on the up-line during the night, mails, goods, and passengers. Therefore it’s quite impossible to say from which the gold stuff was thrown. My idea is that a thief wanted to get rid of it.”

“No,” I replied. “If that were so he’d most certainly have taken the money from the purse. The Treasury-notes and silver could not have been identified.”

“Then your theory is that it was dropped out by accident?” asked Teddy, who had been listening to the man’s story with keenest interest.

“Well – it certainly was not got rid of purposely by any thief,” was my answer, and with this Barton agreed.

Of other railwaymen we made inquiry. To each I showed Roseye’s photograph, but none of the porters had any recollection of seeing her.

The signalman who was on night duty in the box north of the second tunnel was somewhat dubious. When I showed him the photograph he said:

“Well, sir, Saturday night was a bright calm night – and when the Scotch express was put through to me from Welwyn box I was wondering if there were any Zeppelins about, for it was just such another night as that on which they recently attacked London. They always seem to look for the railway lines for guidance up to town. After I had attended to my signals, and accepted the express, I went to the window of my cabin to look out. As I was standing there the express came out of the tunnel and flew by. The driver was a little late and was, I saw, making up time. As it went past nearly all the windows had drawn blinds – all but about three, I think. At one of them I caught a glimpse of two women who, standing up near the door, seemed to be struggling with each other.”

“You saw them distinctly?” I asked eagerly. “Two women?”

“Yes. I saw them quite plainly,” he replied, and I realised that he was a man of some intelligence. “When trains go by, especially the expresses, the glimpse we get is only for a fraction of a second. But in that we can often see inside the carriages at night, if the regulations are broken and the blinds are up. A good many people disregard the danger – even in these days of Zeppelins.”

“They do,” I said. “But please describe, as far as you are able, exactly what you saw.”

“Well, sir, the Scotch express tore past just as I was standing at the window star-gazing. My mate at Stevenage had just put through an up-goods, and all was clear, so I stood wondering if the Zepps would dare to venture out. Then I heard the low roar of the Edinburgh night-express approaching up the tunnel, and a moment later it ran past me. As it did so I saw in one of the carriages the two women standing there. Both had their hats off. One, a fine big strong person I should take her to be, seized the other, whose hair had fallen about her shoulders, and she seemed to be helplessly in her grip.”

“Did you report it?” Barton asked quickly.

“I rang up Stevenage and told my mate that something was going on in the express. But he replied later on to say that he had watched, and seen nothing. Later on in the night he spoke to me again, and said that the man in the Hitchin box, who had kept a look out, had reported back that all blinds of the express had then been drawn.”

“So the assumption seems to be that Roseye was attacked by some strange woman,” I said, turning to Teddy. “She struggled at the door, and in the struggle the chatelaine which she had in her hand fell out upon the line.”

Barton drew a long breath.

“It’s all a profound mystery, Mr Munro,” he said.

“If your theory is correct, then we must go a step further and assume that the stout woman overpowered Miss Lethmere, and afterwards drew down the blinds before the express reached Hitchin, where there is a junction and the train would, I suppose, slow down.”

“Yes, sir,” exclaimed the signalman. “Drivers have orders to go slow through Hitchin because of the points there.”

“But why should Miss Lethmere be attacked by a woman?” I queried in dismay.

“Why should she have disappeared from home at all, Mr Munro?” asked Barton. “Yes. I quite agree with you, sir, the more we probe this mystery, the more and more complicated it becomes.”

“Well, Mr Barton?” I exclaimed. “Now, tell me frankly, what’s your theory. Why has Miss Lethmere disappeared?”

The inspector, one of the best and shrewdest officials attached to the Criminal Investigation Department, paused for a few moments and, looking me full in the face, replied:

“To tell you the truth, Mr Munro, I’m still absolutely puzzled. The whole affair seems to grow more involved, and more astounding.”

Chapter Twelve