The Air Pirate

The sea was blue as the Mediterranean, the sky a huge hollow turquoise, the air all Arabia. Away in the bay St. Michael's Mount, crowned with towers, gleamed like a vision of the New Jerusalem in some old monkish missal – and the heart within me was so hard, stern, and full of deadly purpose that no summer seas nor balmy western winds could touch the rigour of my mood.

For we were on the battlefield now. There was no more vagueness nor speculation. I, in the place I occupied, owed a debt to society, and to myself a personal and bitter revenge. And those debts should be paid.

Danjuro knocked and entered the bedroom. Yesterday afternoon, within half an hour of our arrival at Penzance, he had disappeared, telling me not to wait up for him, as he could not say what time he would return. I accordingly went to bed early, for I was tired out, and had not seen him until now.

"I have been very busy, Sir John," he said. "In the characters of a mining engineer at one place and agent for a foreign shipping firm at another, I have been making some very necessary inquiries. I engaged a local motor – our own would hardly have suited the part – and I have covered a great deal of country."

"And your exact object?"

"I have two. One is to discover any private engineering works where special engines could have been made in secret. You will remember that we both came to the conclusion that the Air Pirate could have obtained silent engines in no other way. The other is – petrol."

"Petrol! I never thought of that! I see what you mean."

"Precisely, Sir John. An airship such as the one we are after must have a constant supply of petrol, and, of course, consumes enormous quantities. When I can connect a certain private individual with the receipt of such quantities, we are another step forward."

"How have you got on?" I asked eagerly.

"I have nothing definite. But there are certain indications – slight, oh, very slight! – which I am following up. I will go into everything with you this evening. Meanwhile you have your own day mapped out."

"Yes. I have studied the local maps and asked a good many questions. After breakfast I shall walk over the moors to this little lonely village of Zerran. It is about eight miles away from here, and, I understand, not more than one and a half from Tregeraint Sea House, which is the home of Major Helzephron. There is a fair-sized old-fashioned inn on the cliffs where we shall probably be able to get rooms."

"And settle down to our reading party," he replied, with a sudden gleam in his narrow eyes. "I have the Greek texts of Plato's 'Republic' and the 'Meno' in my portmanteau; it is wise to pay attention to details! We shall, then, meet at dinner this evening, and I expect that your news will be of great importance. With your permission, I shall take honourable Thumbwood with me. He will be useful."

After breakfast, with some sandwiches and a flask, I set out, passing down the main street of the far western town, and by the last station in England, till I found myself mounting a winding road which led upwards through a suburb towards the moorlands.

The air was heavy with the perfume of innumerable flowers. Tall palm-trees grew in the gardens of old granite houses, a sub-tropical flora flourished everywhere, and it was difficult to believe that one was in England. The hedges were luxuriant with ferns that grow in hot-houses elsewhere, Royal Osmunda and Maidenhair, and every moment the road grew steeper.

If you look at the map of Cornwall you will see that the extremity of the county forms a sort of peninsula. Penzance is on the south, and faces the English Channel on the south. My back was now turned to this, and I was walking due north, towards my objective, the vast and little known "Hinterland" of mountainous moor and savage coast which lies between the Channel and the Atlantic.

As I went, the warmth and colour, the riot of Nature all round, seemed as unreal as a dream. It brought no ease or healing to my soul. Deep, deep down, though controlled and prisoned by the will, an unending agony was lying. I'm not going to insist upon this, or often obtrude it in my story. But you must not think that, until the very end, I knew a moment's peace. My dear love and her awful fate were ever before me, and all the sights and sounds of Nature in this western paradise breathed nothing but her name.

… At last the habitations of man grew fewer. Gardens gave place to sloping fields enclosed by "hedges" of stone, and at length a long, level sky-line above and in front showed me that the moors were close.

I reached the top at last, and took in a great breath of the sweetest, most exhilarating air that I have ever known. The unfenced road stretched away ahead of me for miles, a long, white ribbon laid upon the heath and yellow gorse. I was on a vast plateau of gold and brown and purple. To the left great hills crowned with rock granite tors cut into the sky, and to the right was the jagged summit of Carne Zerran, three miles away as the crow flies. At its foot, on the edge of mighty cliffs that fell away a sheer three hundred feet to the ocean, I knew lay the little village that I sought.

I looked at my map for a moment, took out my pocket compass, and then plunged into the heather. Already I had a good idea of the lie of the country – it is an instinct with your flying man – and I realized that an accurate knowledge of it would prove invaluable in the task before me.

I met no living soul during that first walk over the moor. Larks were singing high above in the blue; a pair of the rare Cornish choughs, with their scarlet bills, flew screeching from the summit of a lichen-covered rock as big as a house; but until I got to Carne Zerran, and looked down to the narrow strip of pasture lands and cornfields that lie along the cliffs, there was no sign of human habitation.

Far down below I saw a church tower and a little cluster of grey houses. Beyond was the coast-line, with a creamy froth of breakers at the foot of the jagged cliffs, and the Atlantic, "Mother of Oceans," beyond. There was no land between me and New York! I suppose that in all the glory of sun and colour, superb spaces of sea and sky, I stood alone, and looked upon a scene as fair as any on this earth. But as I focussed my binoculars, and swept the coast, my only thought was that here – if anywhere at all – was the heart of the mystery I had come to solve.

Well! It was a fitting setting, in its lonely vastness. Anything might happen here among these Druid-haunted hills. A crafty fiend, a man with a great intellect and Satan in his soul, might well find this his proper theatre!

About a mile from the village, and just below me, I saw the cliffs bent inwards between two projecting headlands. This must be the Zerran Cove of the map, and – yes, seemingly upon the very edge of the precipice was a long, grey building, which could be none other than "The Miners' Arms."

I began the descent, leaping from rock to rock, where the adders lay basking in the sun. After a few hundred yards, I struck a gorge, through which a stream fell towards the sea. Here I found a well-defined path, which looped downwards to the ruins of a deserted tin-mine. I saw, as I passed it, the windowless engine-house, and the gaunt timbers of the winding gear still in place. The gibbet-like erection and the dumps of useless stuff covered with rank dock leaves made a forlorn and ugly picture in that narrow gorge where the sun hardly penetrated.

I passed it soon, and came out upon the main coach road from St. Ives to Land's End, and, crossing this, found a side lane, which took me direct to the remote hostelry I had seen from the heights above.

It was a large place, covered with ivy, and no doubt did a considerable trade eighty years before, when the innumerable tin-mines on the moor were all at work. Now it seemed forgotten by the world, and all asleep in the sun. "An ideal base for our operations!" I thought, as I strode through an open door into a long, low room, with a stone floor and heavily timbered roof.

It was cool, and so dark after the blazing sunshine that, for a moment, I could see nothing, though I heard a sound of stertorous breathing. When my eyes became accustomed to the gloom I saw that there was a man asleep by the little counter. He sat on a bench which ran along the wall, and his head was buried in his arms, which rested on a beer-stained table. By his side stood a bottle half full of whisky.

Supposing him to be the landlord – and no engaging figure at that – I touched him on the shoulder. It was like springing a trap! Instantly he snatched away his arms and sat up. For a second sleep held him. Then it passed away like a breath on glass, and if ever I saw fear on a man's face I saw it then.

He was dressed in a blue jersey and an alpaca coat, oil-stained and dirty. His hands were the hands of a mechanic, with grimy nails. But it was his face that held me. It was sleek and cunning. There was a curious mixture of refinement and wickedness. He seemed like a naturally sensitive man, whom circumstances, indulgence, or some special temptation, had led very deeply astray.

I noted all this while he stared at me with a drooping jaw and bloodshot eyes. His skin had turned dead-white, like the belly of a fish, and whatever he was thinking I felt that I would not have that man's conscience for a million.

"I want you," I said – they were the first words that came.

He made an inarticulate noise.

"You are the landlord, aren't you?"

At that he gave a long breath and his rigidity relaxed. He snatched at the whisky bottle, poured some into a glass and drank it off neat.

"Lord, how you startled me!" he said glibly. "I was far away – dreaming – and you frightened me out of my life!"

It was my turn to be amazed, though I showed nothing. The fellow spoke with a cultivated voice and accent which were impossible to mistake. He was not what I had thought him.

"I am very sorry," I said; "you must please excuse me. But I naturally thought …"

"Of course you did!" he said, and a civil but ugly smile came on his clever, unpleasant face. "As a matter of fact, Trewhella, the landlord, has just gone to the village for a few minutes. He asked me to keep house for him. He's almost due back now."

Thanking him urbanely, I sat down, my mind working very quickly. He offered me some whisky, and though it was the last thing I wanted, I accepted after a show of reluctance. He was watching me out of the corners of his eyes the whole time.

"Can you tell me," I said, with great openness of manner, "if I can get rooms here, or in Zerran village?"

He became alert at once. "Rooms, to stay in, do you mean?"

"Yes. I am an Oxford tutor, and I have a young foreign gentleman in my charge whom I am coaching. I want a quiet place for three or four weeks, and this seems ideal for the purpose."

His face cleared. "I should imagine so," he replied. "I know Trewhella does let sometimes."

"You live here?" I remarked, with polite indifference.

"I have been here for a year," he answered. "I am, as a matter of fact, a mining engineer – hence these clothes! I belong to a little private syndicate of friends who are opening up a disused tin-mine, on the moor not far away. Ah, here is the landlord! Trewhella, this gentleman wishes to speak to you." And then to me: "Good-morning, sir. No doubt, if you come here, I and my friends will see something of you. We are mostly public-school and University men ourselves, and we often look in here of an evening after our day's work."

He waved his hand and went out into the sunshine.

CHAPTER X SIR JOHN CUSTANCE COMES UPON THE HOUSE OF HELZEPHRON

Mr. Trewhella was an elderly Cornishman, with welcoming manners, the native shrewdness of his race, but without guile. We got on famously from the word "go." He had three bedrooms and a large sitting-room to let. His wife, who had driven into St. Ives, was, he asserted, a good cook. As for Thumbwood, he could wait on us and live with the landlord and his wife. Finally, there was an empty barn which would hold our car very comfortably.

"And what would you be thinking of paying, zur?" asked Mr. Trewhella.

"I shall leave that to you. I may tell you that the gentleman I am preparing for his Oxford examination is wealthy. He is a Japanese nobleman, and as long as you make us comfortable …"