The Zeppelin Destroyer: Being Some Chapters of Secret History

“Look here, Claude,” Teddy said at last, bending over me and speaking in a low tone. “Has it struck you as rather peculiar that the appearance of those strangers at Gunnersbury should have been followed so quickly by this accident of yours?”

“By Jove! no!” I gasped, as the true import of his words became instantly impressed upon me.

“We have enemies, Teddy – you and I – without a doubt. We’ve made a discovery which is destined to upset the enemy’s plans – therefore they want to wipe us, and all our knowledge, out of existence. That’s what you mean – isn’t it?”

My chum nodded in the affirmative.

“That’s exactly what I do mean,” he said in a hard, meaning tone.

“Then my accident was due to treachery!” I cried angrily. “We must discover how it was all arranged.”

“Yes. Somebody, no doubt, tampered with your machine,” Teddy declared very gravely. “Because I believe this, I’ve left it just as it was, and locked it up safely with a man to look after it. We’ll examine it together later on, when you’re fit to run over.”

Well, to cut a long story short, we did examine it about a week later. With Harry Theed, Teddy and Roseye, we made a very complete survey of every strainer, wing-flap hinge, nut-bolt, taper-pin, eye-bolt, in fact every part of the machine, save the engine – which was quite in order and practically undamaged.

For a whole day we worked away, failing to discover anything, but late in the afternoon I noticed one of the bolts missing, and called the attention of both my companions.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Teddy. “Why, that’s the weak spot where the plane must have buckled!” Then, bending closer to the hole in which the missing steel bolt should have been, he cried: “Look! What do you make of this – eh, Claude?”

I bent eagerly to where he indicated, and there saw something which caused me to hold my breath.

In the hole where the steel bolt should have been was a plug of broken wood!

Wood! The truth became, in that instant, quite plain. The tested steel bolt, which was most important to secure the rigidity of the aeroplane, had been withdrawn, and in its socket a plug of wood had been placed by some dastardly and unknown enemy!

The Invisible Hand, of which I had spoken so many times, had very narrowly sent me to my death!

Who could have tampered with my machine?

All four of us stood gazing at each other, aghast at the discovery of that wicked plot against my life. My escape had been miraculous. I had risen easily from the ground, the wooden bolt holding the plane in position, but as soon as I had attempted to turn, strain had, of course, been placed upon the machine, and instantly the wood had snapped, so that I had come down to earth like a log.

“If there is a desperate plot against me, Roseye,” I said, looking straight at her, “then there is, surely, a similar one against you, and also against Teddy. Our enemies are desperate, and they know a good deal – that’s certain. Perhaps they have somehow learnt that we four possess the secret of how the Zeppelin menace can be combated. No secret however is safe from the owner of the Invisible Hand. Hence, if an attempt is made to send me to my death – attempts will also be made against you both.”

“Well – that seems quite feasible – at any rate,” remarked Teddy. “I don’t think Roseye should go up again – just for the present.”

“Certainly not,” I said. “There’s some deep-laid and desperate scheme against us. Of that, I’m now convinced. Our enemies do not mean to allow us to conduct any further experiments – if they can help it.”

“But they don’t know the truth, Claude,” chimed in Roseye.

“No. They are working most strenuously to get at it. That’s quite clear.”

“But who can they be?” asked my well-beloved.

“Ah! That’s a mystery – at least it is at the present. It is a very serious problem which we must seek to solve.”

“But we shall do so, sooner or later, never fear,” Teddy exclaimed confidently. “We hold the secret, and our enemies, whoever they may be, shall never learn it.”

A silence fell between us for several moments.

At last I said:

“I wonder who that woman was that old Theed declares he saw on that night out at Gunnersbury?”

“Ah! if we knew that, my dear chap, we might make some progress in our inquiries. But we don’t,” Teddy said. “Her identity is just as much of a mystery as that of the owner of the Invisible Hand – that hand that took out the steel bolt and replaced it with one of wood.”

“But I mean to discover the author of this infernal attempt upon me!” I exclaimed fiercely. “Whoever did it intended that I should be killed.”

“Never mind. You’ve cheated them finely, Claude,” Teddy laughed. “Get quite well, old man, and we’ll set to work to fathom this mystery, and give whoever is responsible his just deserts.”

“That we will,” I said resolutely. “It’s the dirty work of somebody who is jealous of us.”

“Yes. And I think that Miss Lethmere ought to exercise the very greatest care,” he remarked. “As they failed in their attempt upon you, they may very probably make one upon her.”

“By Jove! I never thought of that!” I gasped, staring at my friend. “And they might form a plot against you also – remember that, Teddy.”

“Quite likely,” said my chum airily. “I’ll keep wide awake, never fear. What about getting old Theed to suggest some good private detective?”

“No,” was my prompt reply. “We’ll be our own detectives. We’ll watch and wait.”

Chapter Eight

Some Suspicions

We waited, and we watched. And what we were able to discover was certainly astounding.

During my convalescence many of my flying friends called at my rooms in Shaftesbury Avenue to congratulate me upon my narrow escape.

I had been shaken very considerably, but actually I was not much the worse for it. I felt quite fit and eager, but the doctor would not hear of me going out, except for a run in a closed car.

The real cause of my accident was kept a profound secret from every one.

The governor thought it was due to clumsiness or recklessness, and I was, of course, compelled to allow him to think so. Sir Herbert and Lady Lethmere, who called one afternoon, appeared to hold the same opinion, for the red-faced old steel manufacturer said:

“You must really be more careful, in future, my dear boy – far more careful. Accidents so quickly happen in aeroplanes.”

“Yes, accidents do,” I admitted. It was on the tip of my tongue to explain to him how some devilish plotter had attempted to take my life.

I was constantly haunted by the remembrance of a face – the face of that man in the crowd with the eyes askew. As I sat alone at my fireside, often reading the papers through, even to the advertisements, and out of patience with everything and everybody, those narrow beady eyes would rise before me. I would recognise that face with the curious exultant expression anywhere.

After long debate within myself I had come to the conclusion, however, that the man with the eyes askew was not actually the person who had substituted in my machine a wooden bolt for a steel one.

I recollect the expression upon that hard, furrowed countenance even now – a wildly exultant expression as though he were gloating over the death-trap so cunningly prepared for me. Yet, when I reflected during my convalescence, I knew that no lunatic’s hand was responsible for such crafty contrivance, and further, the person who had withdrawn the steel bolt would certainly not come forth so boldly to peer into my face as that podgy little stranger had done.

No. The man with the eyes askew might, perhaps, have gained secret knowledge of the dastardly plot, and come there to watch me rise to my death. But I was confident that his was not the Invisible Hand that had been raised against me.

From everybody – even from Lionel Eastwell and the insurance people – we concealed the truth. Lionel, who lived in Albemarle Street, not far away often came in to cheer me up, sitting with me, consuming cigarettes, expressing wonder at the reason of my accident, and gossiping technicalities, as airmen will always gossip. Indeed, at the Royal Automobile Club the air “boys” are the biggest gossips in that institution – which, not so long ago, Prince Henry of Prussia so completely “nobbled.”

Reminiscences of the “Prince Henry Motor Tour” through England have not been exactly popular since August 1914 – and any member mentioning His Imperial Highness’s name had become at once taboo. The remembrance of that tour through the heat and dust of the Moselle valley, and afterwards from south to north of England, is still with me. My pilot in Germany was a certain Uhlan captain, who afterwards distinguished himself as responsible for the atrocities committed upon the poor inoffensive Belgians in Dinant, on the Meuse. The lives of seven hundred of those poor victims, men, women and children butchered in cold blood in the Grand Place outside the church with the bulgy spire cries out for vengeance upon that fair-haired spick-and-span Prussian who sat beside me for many days chatting so amiably in English, and assuring me that Germany would ever be Great Britain’s firmest friend and ally.