The Bomb-Makers

“I must take this stick, Ella. I’ll be back again by four o’clock, and will leave it just outside the front door. You take it in, and replace it exactly as we found it.”

He lost no time. In five minutes he had crept from that dark house of mystery and death, and, carrying the stick, returned across Hammersmith Bridge.

At ten minutes to four he was back again in Barnes and had left the suspicious-looking ash-stick against the front door, afterwards going to his rooms to snatch a few hours’ sleep.

Next day happened to be Sunday, but at noon on Monday Mr Merton Mansfield, one of the most active members of the Cabinet, as well as one of the most popular of Cabinet Ministers, presided at the unveiling of a number of captured German guns which had been drawn up in Hyde Park in order that the public might be afforded an opportunity of seeing the trophies of war in Flanders won by British pertinacity and pluck.

Accompanying Merton Mansfield, the people’s idol, the man in whom Great Britain trusted to see that all was well, and who was, at the same time, hated and feared by the Germans, were several other members of the Cabinet.

The crowd outside the wire fence, within which stood the shrouded guns, was a large one, for some patriotic speeches were expected. Ella and Kennedy were among the spectators eagerly watching the movements of a thin-faced, well-dressed, middle-aged man, who wore an overcoat, in the left-hand pocket of which was something rather bulky, and who carried in his hand an ash-stick.

The man’s name was Hans Rozelaar, known to his friends by the English name of Rose. By the fellow’s movements it was plain that he was quite unsuspicious of the presence of the daughter of his fellow-conspirator, Theodore Drost.

Gradually he had worked himself through the crowd until he stood in the front row behind the wire which fenced off the guns with the Cabinet Ministers and their friends, and within ten yards or so of where stood Mr Merton Mansfield.

Kennedy was beside Ella some distance away, watching breathlessly. It had been his first impulse to go to Scotland Yard and reveal what they had discovered, but after due consideration he saw that the best punishment for the conspirators was the one he had devised.

But if it failed? What if that most deadly grenade was exploded in the group of Great Britain’s leaders – the men who were working night and day, and working with all their might and intelligence, to crush the Hun effectively, even though so slowly.

A roar of applause rose from the crowd as Merton Mansfield removed his hat preparatory to speaking. The short, stout, round-faced Cabinet Minister who, in the days of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s Premiership, had been so unpopular with the working-class, yet who had now come to the forefront as the saviour of our dear old England, smiled with pleasure at his hearty reception.

The little group of England’s greatest men, Cabinet Ministers and well-known politicians, with a sprinkling of men in khaki, clustered round him, as he commenced to address the assembly, to descant upon the heroic efforts of “French’s contemptible little Army,” of their great exploits, of their amazing achievements, and the staggering organisation of Lord Kitchener.

“Here, before you, you have some small souvenirs – some small idea of the weapons which the unscrupulous fiends who are our enemies are using against our gallant troops. They, unfortunately, are not gallant soldiers, these Huns in modern clothing – they are pirates with the skull and crossbones borne upon the helmets of their crack regiments. Yet we shall win – I tell you that we shall win, be the time long or short, be the sacrifice great or small – we shall win because Right, Truth, and God’s justice are with us! And I will here give you a message from the Prime Minister – who would have been here, if it were not for the fact that he is at this moment having audience of His Majesty the King.”

A great roar of applause greeted this announcement, when, suddenly, a loud explosion sounded, startling everyone and causing women to scream.

The lovers, who had kept their eyes upon the man in the overcoat, saw a red flash, and saw him reel and fall to earth with his face blown away.

They had seen how he had placed the grenade over his ash-stick, and how, a second later, he had sharply slung it across from right to left, intending the deadly bomb to land at Mr Merton Mansfield’s feet.

Instead, with its fuse set by the little points of steel protruding from the stick, it had, nevertheless, failed to pass from the stick, because of the small piece of thin wire which Seymour Kennedy had driven through just above the ferrule, on that night when he had afterwards left the stick at old Drost’s front door. His quick intelligence had shown him that the empty grenade had already been tried upon the stick, and that when filled, and the fuse attached, it certainly would not be tested again.

Hans Rozelaar had slung the grenade just as old Theodore Drost had instructed him, but it had remained fast at the end of the stick, and ere he could release it, it had exploded, blowing both his hands off and his features out of all recognition, though, very fortunately, injuring no one else.

“Come, darling. We have surely seen enough!” whispered Seymour Kennedy softly to Ella, as they watched the great sensation caused by the self-destruction of the conspirator, and the hurry of the police towards the dead man. “The Ministers will very soon discover for themselves how narrowly they have escaped.”

And as they both turned away, Ella, looking fondly into her lover’s face, remarked in a low voice: “Yes, indeed, Seymour. They certainly owe their safety to you!”

Chapter Four.

The Explosive Needle

“Then you suspect that another plot is in progress, Ella?”

“I feel confident of it. The Count is furious at the failure of the conspiracy against Mr Merton Mansfield. He came to see father last night. I did not gather much, as I had to get away to the theatre, but I overheard him suggest that some other method should be tried,” replied Ella Drost.

She was sitting in the dainty little drawing-room of the flat in Stamfordham Mansions, chatting with her airman lover.

“Of course,” he said. “Ortmann and your father were well aware that Merton Mansfield is still the strongest man in the whole Government, a marvellous organiser, and the really great man upon whom Britain has pinned her faith.”

“They mean to work some evil upon him,” the girl said apprehensively. “I’m quite certain of it! Cannot we warn him?”

“I did so. I wrote to him, urging him to take precautions, and declaring that a plot was in progress,” said Kennedy. “I suppose his secretary had the letter and probably held it back in order not to disturb him. Secretaries have a habit of doing that.”

Ella, whose cigarette he had just lit, blew a cloud of blue smoke from her lips, and replied:

“Well, if that’s the case then it is exceedingly wrong. The greatest care should be taken of those who are leading us to victory. Ah! dearest,” she added with a sigh, “you do not know how bitter I feel when I reflect that my own father is a German and, moreover, a most deadly enemy.”

“I know, darling, I know,” the man responded. “That’s the worst of it. To expose the organiser of these conspirators would be to send your own father to prison – perhaps to an ignominious end.”

“Yes. All we can do is to watch closely and thwart their devilish designs, as far as we are able,” the girl said.

“Unfortunately, I’ll have to go back to the air-station to-night, but I’ll try to come up again for the week-end.”

Disappointment overspread the girl’s face, but a second later she declared:

“In that case I shall go and stay with father over at Barnes, and endeavour to discover what is intended.”

Therefore, that night, after her work at the theatre, she went to Theodore Drost’s house at Barnes, instead of returning to the flat at Kensington. As she always kept her room there and her visits seemed to delight old Drost, she was always able to keep in touch with Kennedy and so help to frustrate the evil machinations of her father.

As the days passed she became more than ever confident that another deep-laid plot was in progress. Nor was she mistaken, for, truth to tell, Ortmann was having many long interviews with his clever catspaw, the man who posed as the plain and pious pastor of the Dutch Church, old Theodore Drost.

An incident occurred about a week later which showed the trend of events. The old pastor called one day at that modest, dreary little house close by Wandsworth Common, where Count Ernst von Ortmann, the man who secretly directed the agents of Germany in England, lived as plain Mr Horton whenever he grew tired of his beautiful house in Park Lane. Leading, by the fact of his occupation a dual existence, it was necessary for his nefarious purposes that he should frequently disappear into South London, away from the fashionable friends who knew him as Mr Henry Harberton.

The pair were seated together that evening, smoking and discussing the cause of the failure of Rozelaar and the reason of his death by his own bomb.

“Ah! my dear Theodore,” exclaimed the Count, in German, throwing himself back in the old wicker armchair in that cheaply furnished room. “Your machine was too elaborate.”

“No, you are mistaken, it was simplicity itself,” Drost declared.

“Could anybody have tampered with it, do you think?”

“Certainly not. Nobody knew – nobody saw it except ourselves and Rozelaar,” Drost said.

“And we very nearly blew ourselves up with it during the test. Do you remember?” laughed Ortmann.

“Remember! I rather think I do. It was, indeed, a narrow escape. We won’t repeat it. I’ll be more careful, I promise you!” Drost assured his paymaster. “Yet I cannot guess how Rozelaar lost his life.”

“Well, we need not trouble. His was not exactly a precious life, Theodore, was it? The fellow knew a little too much, so, for us, it is perhaps best that the accident should have happened.”

“It is not the first time that fatal accidents have happened to those who, having served Germany, are of no further use,” remarked Drost grimly.

And at his remark the crafty Count – the man who directed the German octopus in Britain – smiled, but remained silent.

Though Ella, still at Barnes, kept both eyes and ears open during the day – compelled, of course, to go to the theatre each evening – yet she could discover no solid fact which might lead her to find out what was in progress.

The Count came very often over to Barnes, and on two or three occasions was accompanied by a fair-haired young man whose real name was Schrieber, but who had changed it to Sommer, and declared himself to be a Swiss. Indeed, he had forged papers just as old Drost possessed. The fabrication of identification-papers – with photographs attached – became quite an industry in Germany after war had broken out, while many American passports were purchased from American “crooks” and fresh photographs cleverly superimposed.