The Bomb-Makers

“But you really don’t take it seriously, do you?” asked the well-known air-pilot. “Surely it’s only a mere suspicion.”

“It is fortunate that I succeeded in obtaining for you an impression of the key of the laboratory,” was the girl’s reply.

“Yes. It was. Your father never dreams that we know all that is in progress there. It’s a real good stunt of yours to keep in with him, and stay at Barnes sometimes.”

“Well, I’ve told you what I ascertained the night before last. Ortmann was there with the others. There’s a big coup intended – a dastardly blow, as I have explained.”

And in the girl’s eyes there showed a hard, serious expression, as she drew a long breath. It was quite plain to her lover that she was full of nervous apprehension, and that what she had related to him was a fact.

Another deeply-laid plot was afoot, but one so subtle and so daring that Kennedy, with his cheerful optimism and his high spirits, could not yet fully realise its nature.

Ella had, an hour before, told him a very remarkable story.

At first, so extraordinary and improbable had it sounded, that he had been inclined to pooh-pooh the whole affair, but now, amid the clatter and bustle of that cosmopolitan restaurant, the same to-day as in the mid-Victorian days, he began to realise that the impression left upon his well-beloved, by the knowledge she had obtained, had been a distinctly sinister one.

“Well, dearest,” he said, again leaning across the little table-à-deux, “I’ll go into the matter at once if you wish it, and we’ll watch and wait.”

“Yes, do, Seymour,” exclaimed the girl anxiously. “I’ll help you. There is a deeply-laid plot in progress. Of that I’m quite certain – more especially because Ortmann came to see dad yesterday morning and went to see him again to-day.”

“You overheard some of their conversation – eh?”

“I did,” was her open response. “And for that reason I am so full of fear.”

At nine o’clock that same night, in accordance with an appointment, Ella Drost stood upon the whitewashed kerb in Belgrave Square, at the corner of West Halkin Street.

Darkness had already fallen. The London streets were gloomy because of the lighting order, and hardly a light showed from any house in the Square.

For fully ten minutes she waited until, at last, from out of Belgrave Place, a car came slowly along, and pulled up at the spot where she stood.

In a moment Ella had mounted beside her lover who, next second, moved off in the direction of Knightsbridge.

“It’s rather fortunate that we’ve met here, darling,” were his first words. “Since we were together this afternoon I have been followed continuously. Had I called at Stamfordham Mansions, Ortmann would have had his suspicions confirmed. But I’ve successfully eluded them, and here we are.”

“I know – I feel sure that Ortmann suspects us. Why does he live as Mr Horton over at Wandsworth Common?”

“Because he is so infernally clever,” laughed the air-pilot, in his cheery, nonchalant way.

Neither of them knew, up to that moment, anything more of Mr Henry Harberton, of Park Lane, save reading in the papers of his social distinction. Neither Kennedy nor his charming well-beloved had dreamed that Ortmann, alias Horton, patriotic Britannia-rule-the-Waves Englishman, was identical with that meteoric planet in the social firmament of London, Mr Henry Harberton, whose wealth was such that even in war-time he could give two-guinea-a-head luncheons to his friends at one or other of the half-dozen or so London restaurants which cater for such clients.

Seymour Kennedy was driving the car swiftly, but Ella, nestling beside him, took no heed of the direction in which they were travelling. The night-wind blew cold and he, solicitous of her welfare, bent over and with his left hand drew up the collar of her Burberry.

They were leaving London ere she became aware of it, travelling westward, branching at Hounslow upon the old road to Bath, the road of Dick Turpin’s exploits in the good old days of cocked-hats, powder-and-patches, and three-bottle men.

Passing through Slough, they crossed the river at Maidenhead and again at Henley, keeping on the ever ascending high-road over the Chilterns, to Nettlebed, until they ran rapidly down past Gould’s Grove through Benson, and past Shillingford where, a short distance beyond, he pulled up and, opening a gate, placed the car in a meadow grey with mist.

Afterwards the pair, leaving the high-road, turned into a path which led through the fields down to the river. Reaching it at a point not far from Day’s Lock, they halted.

Before them, between the pathway and the river’s brink, there showed a lighted window obscured by a yellow holland blind, the window of a corrugated iron bungalow of some river enthusiast, the room being apparently lit by a paraffin lamp.

Carefully, and treading upon tiptoe, they crept forward without a sound, and, approaching the square, inartistic window, halted and strained their ears to listen to the conversation in progress within.

Words in German were being spoken. Ella listened, and recognised her father’s voice. Ortmann was speaking, too, while other voices of strangers also sounded.

What Seymour overheard through the thin wood-and-iron wall of the riverside bungalow quickly convinced him that Ella’s suspicions were only too well founded. A desperate conspiracy to commit outrage was certainly being formed – a plot as daring and as subtle as any ever formed by the Nihilists in Russia, or the Mafia in Italy.

The Germans, par excellence the scientists of Europe, were out to win the war by frightfulness, just as thousands of years ago the Chinese won their wars by assuming horrible disguises and pulling ugly faces to bring bad luck upon their superstitious enemies. The Great War Lord of Germany, in order to save his throne and substantiate his title of All-Highest, had set loose his sorry dogs of depravity, degeneracy, and desolation. And he had planted in our island a clever and unscrupulous crew, headed by Ortmann, whose mission was, if possible, to wreck the Ship of State of Great Britain.

The air-pilot listened to the conversation in amazement. He realised then how Ella had exercised a shrewder watchfulness than he had ever done, although he had believed himself so clever.

Therefore, when she whispered, “Let’s get away, dear, or we may be discovered,” he obeyed her, and crawled off over the strip of gravel to the grass, after which both made their way back to the footpath.

“Well?” asked the popular actress, as they strode along hand in hand to where they had left the car. “What’s your opinion now – eh? Haven’t you been convinced?”

“Yes, darling. I can now see quite plainly that there is a plot on foot which, if we are patriots, you and I, we must scotch, at all hazards.”

“I agree entirely, Seymour,” was the girl’s instant reply. “I tried to warn you a month ago, but you were not convinced. To-day you are convinced – are you not? I am acting only for my dear dead mother’s country, for, strictly speaking, being the daughter of a German, I am an alien enemy.”

About two o’clock one morning, about a week later, the dark figure of a man in a shabby serge suit and golf-cap, treading noiselessly in rubber-shoes, crossed Hammersmith Bridge in the direction of Barnes and, passing along that wide open thoroughfare, paused for a moment outside the house of the Dutch pastor, Mr Drost. Then, finding himself unobserved, he slipped into the front garden and, bending, concealed himself in some bushes.

He had waited there for ten minutes or so, watching the dark, silent house, when, slowly and noiselessly, the front door opened, and next moment Kennedy and Ella were face to face. The latter wore a pretty pale-blue dressing-gown, for she had just risen from bed, she having spent the last two days at her father’s house.

With a warning finger upon her lips, and with a small flash-lamp in her hand, she led her lover up three flights of stairs to the door of that locked room, which she silently opened with her duplicate key.

“Father and the man Hans Rozelaar have been at work here nearly all day,” she whispered, when at last they halted before the long deal table upon which stood Drost’s chemical apparatus.

Kennedy’s shrewd eyes were quick to notice what was in progress in secret.

With some curiosity he took up a tube of tin about a foot long and four inches in diameter. On examining it he saw that through the centre was a second tin tube of about an inch in diameter. Holding it as a telescope towards the light he could see through the inner tubes and noticed that near one end of it a small steel catch was protruding. Further and minute examination revealed that to the catch could be attached a time-fuse already concealed between the inner and outer tubes.

“This is evidently some ingenious form of hand grenade,” whispered Kennedy. “It’s all ready for filling. But why, I wonder, should a tube run through the middle in this way?”

He was pondering with it in his hand, when his gaze suddenly fell upon something else which was lying close to the spot where he found the tin tube.

It was a thin ash walking-stick. On Kennedy taking it up it presented a peculiar feature, for as he grasped it there sounded a sharp metallic click. Then, to his surprise, he discovered that he had inadvertently released a spring in the handle, this in turn releasing four small steel points half-way down the stick.

“Curious!” he whispered to his well-beloved, for Drost was sleeping below entirely unconscious of the intruders in his secret laboratory. “What connection can the stick have with the grenade – if not for the purpose of throwing?”

He therefore placed the inner tube over the little knob of the stick, and found that it just fitted, so that with plenty of play it slid down as far as the projecting points which, after striking the little steel catch which would be connected with the fuse, allowed it to pass over freely and leave the stick.

“Ah! I’ve got it!” he whispered excitedly. “The grenade can be carried in the pocket with perfect safety, until when required it is placed over the handle of the stick and whirled off. As it passes the projections on the stick the time-fuse is set for so many seconds, and the grenade automatically becomes a live one. A very pretty contrivance indeed! – very pretty!” he added with a grin. “This, I must admit, does considerable credit to Ortmann, Drost and Company.”

Ella, who had been standing by, holding the electric torch, stood in wonder at the discovery. Truly, some of her father’s inventions had been diabolical ones.

Kennedy saw that the ash-stick had been finished and was in working order. All was complete, indeed, save the filling of the deadly grenade, the attaching of the fuse, and the painting of the bright tin.

For fully five minutes the air-pilot stood in silence, deeply pondering.

Then, as a sudden idea occurred to him, he said quickly: