The Air Pirate

"The car is here. I can write official telegrams in code to Plymouth and London. Within an hour the hinterland and the sea from here to Scilly can be covered with a swarm of ships. St. Ives is only six miles away."

"Write the dispatches at once. I will call Thumbwood, who must take them in, together with an official note from you to the postmaster."

I unlocked my portfolio and wrote the wires. There should be such an invasion of the air to-night as Far West Cornwall had never known!

Thumbwood appeared, I gave him full instructions, and heard the Rolls-Royce start below.

"And now, our part!" I said to Danjuro.

"If we are right in our conjecture, the pirates will shortly leave Tregeraint on their expedition. How they will join the airship or where we don't know. But we may safely assume that the house will be left in charge of one or at most two men. The others will all be wanted to man the ship; it is a simple calculation. Here is your chance. You must get inside Tregeraint, obtain conclusive evidence, and if the poor lady is there alive, bring her away in safety. Perhaps to-night the Pirate Ship will make its last cruise! Our presence here, our identity, is quite unsuspected. A concentration of hostile airships in this neighbourhood is the last thing Helzephron will expect to-night."

"And you, my friend?"

"I would that I could come with you, for you go in danger of your life, but, as I see it, my work should be different. Someone, in view of its escape, must solve the mystery of the Pirate Ship itself. I have a theory already; I must put it to proof. There are boats in the cove below – I see that the moon is rising, I know what I must do. But, even so, I will come with you, Sir John, if you say so."

I shook my head. "No, I will go alone. It is my job."

Then Danjuro did a strange thing. He took my hand, bowed over it and kissed it! "You also are of the Samurai!" he said.

In a minute more he carried in a heavy bag from his own bedroom, and produced from it a miscellany of objects.

"Here is a twelve-shot automatic, with a dozen cartridge clips," he said. "You know all about the working of it? I thought so. This pair of wire-cutters you will need for the barbed fence. These two keys with adjustable wards – you turn the milled screw at the end to adjust them – will open any ordinary lock. Here also is an extremely powerful steel lever, with a wedge end. In the hands of a strong man like yourself it will wrench open most windows or doors."

God knows there was no lightness in my heart, but in the usual English way at serious moments, I laughed.

"The Complete Burglar!" I said.

Danjuro looked at me with a glance as cold as ice.

"I am in most deadly earnest, Sir John. You know what my experience has been. Well, I say deliberately that I have never been in such peril as you are going into."

"I meant nothing. And what is this?" I had taken up a little leather tube with a lens at one end.

"A powerful electric torch. But it is more than that. You can instantly reverse it in your hand, and if you press this stud, the plated bottom flies open, and by means of a spring an ounce of cayenne pepper is projected for several yards. It will stop anyone and operates instantaneously. A little thing I invented and have found most useful. These handcuffs are of papier mâché and weigh practically nothing. They are from Japan and tough as the hardest steel. You may require them. And I never go on an expedition without this tiny bottle of chloroform and pad. You can stow everything about you with ease, and the combined weight is as nothing."

I did so, and it was as he said. Then a thought struck me.

"Armed and prepared like this, I feel certain that I shall get in. But there are two Tibetan mastiffs let loose in the grounds at night. I can shoot them, but the noise of the report …"

"That is provided for, Sir John. You see this gun?"

"It looks like a short-barrelled rook-rifle, except for the great thickness at the breech."

"It holds ten conical bullets. They are hollow-nosed and expand on impact. The point is that the gun is perfectly noiseless. Powder is not used at all. The propelling power is liquefied carbonic-acid gas, and all that is heard at the moment of firing is a sharp snap. With this you can stalk the dogs and kill them easily enough. Do not forget your hunting flask and brandy and water. And for concentrated food, should you be detained in hiding, though I and Thumbwood will be coming to look after you if you don't appear by morning, these solid chocolate cakes are invaluable."

All this was done quickly, and with the most business-like precision. Although my sense of humour told me that I was like the White Knight in "Alice in Wonderland," I did realize that I should be a terribly nasty customer to tackle, and I was grateful.

While we had been talking there came sounds from below of the closing of the inn, and shortly after we were called to supper.

"Don't you stay up any longer, Mr. Trewhella," I said. "You must want your rest. As for us, we are late birds. Both I and my friend sometimes take a five minutes' stroll last thing before we turn in. That won't inconvenience you?"

"Bless your life, no, zur. You do as you're a mind here. 'Tesn't like a town. The key of the front door hangs on a nail by the side. And if you should be going out later, Billy Pengelly's in the empty pigsty, a sleeping off what he's had, and there's a bucket of cold water on the wall. In half an hour's time or so I know as he'd be grateful for having it poured over 'en!"

We promised to perform what was evidently one of the amenities of this primitive place and Mr. Trewhella withdrew.

"That coastguard may be useful to me," Danjuro said. "And now, Sir John, I don't want to hurry you, but my advice is that you start. I don't suppose that the band has left Tregeraint yet. But there are a hundred hiding-places on the moor all round the domain, and you may be able to see which way they go before you make your own attempt. I shall be on the trail in a very few minutes after you."

"And Charles? He will be back shortly."

"I shall need him. I know he would wish to be with you, Sir John, but I believe your chances are better alone. I shall not leave until he returns, provided he is not unduly detained."

He went to the window and pulled aside the curtain. "A waning moon," he said, "which will be at full power about midnight, when there may be such a battle in the air as the world will hear with wonder!"

I saw to my gear. It fitted about me very comfortably.

"Well, good-night," I said, and without further words I went quietly out of the house.

When I got a hundred yards away I turned and looked at it, all silvered in the moon. The air was sweet with the perfume of shy moorland flowers that give up all their treasure to the night. The Atlantic, far below, made a sound like fairy dreams, and on the distant slopes of Carne Zerran an owl sounded his melancholy oboe note.

A lovely night, gentlemen!

CHAPTER XII

THE KILLING OF MICHAEL FEDDON

The moon was in its last quarter, and shed a faint spectral light over the moor as I came quietly up to the first of the barbed-wire fences that surrounded Tregeraint. I lay down in the heath, certain that I was quite invisible, and waited.

An hour had hardly elapsed since the band had left "The Miners' Arms." Were they still here, or had they set out for their unknown destination? I could not hear a sound of any kind. From where I lay the high wall hid the house, and among the mine buildings higher up there was neither light nor movement. Tregeraint might have been deserted for a hundred years, and the roaring company of the inn had vanished into thin air. And strain my eyes as I would, there was no sign of the great Tibetan dogs.

I remained motionless for a quarter of an hour by the illuminated dial of my watch. Then, as nothing happened, I began operations. The wire was tough and intricate, but ten minutes' work with Danjuro's powerful cutters disposed of it sufficiently for me to crawl through both the first and second fence without a scratch. I stood now in the lower portion of a large, oblong paddock of short grass, all grey in the moon. The surrounding wall of the Manor was about a hundred yards up the slope, and with the gas rifle on my arm I glided over the intervening space like a ghost. My boots were soled with india-rubber and I made no sound at all.

I found the wall to be ten or eleven feet high. It was crowned with a cheval de frise of iron spikes, and, owing to its height and smooth surface, quite insurmountable. But I knew there must be an entrance somewhere, and never expected to climb the barrier, and I began a cautious circuit. About half-way round the extent I came to a wooden door set in the wall. It was a mere postern, not more than five feet high, and had a barred grille in the centre of about a foot square. I reflected that this must be a side or garden exit, and that the main gate was probably on the other side, facing the mine-head. But it was all the better for my purpose if this was so, and I took out my steel "jemmy" and prepared to tackle it.

My intention was to prise it open with my tool, for I am a very powerful man, but suddenly another idea occurred to me. The bars of the grille were old and rusted. As there was no key-hole in the door, it was obviously secured by bolts. I inserted my lever, and without putting out my full strength, and with little more sound than is made by the striking of a match, soon had three of the bars out of the wood and lying on the grass.

My arms are long. I pushed my right through and my fingers, after a little groping, caught the handle of the bolt, which slid back easily enough. It had been oiled and showed that the door, which swung back at once, was in constant use.

I stepped within, treading like a cat, and closed the door behind me. I stood in a large and neglected garden, where shrubs and flowers grew as they would and formed a miniature jungle, through which I could see the dark façade of the house, now quite close. Everything was as still as death, and I listened with strained attention for several minutes. So far the work had been ridiculously easy, but as I crept up a moss-grown path towards the building every nerve was on the alert. I was not afraid, I think I can truly say so, but there was a chill on my soul. This old house, with its atmosphere of robbery and murder, its singular and formidable inhabitants, the unknown dangers of the approach, and, above all, the thought that Connie might be within it, all combined to wrap me in a terrible gloom of the spirit. Yet, looking back, I see that this was well. It hardened all my resolution and made me terrible.

I had no thought of it then, but now I can see the grim horror of such a being as I had become approaching the house step by step…

All the lower windows were shuttered. There was not a gleam of light anywhere as I followed the path and came to the front, where there was a grass-grown gravel sweep and iron gates in the wall. This part of the house was plain and unadorned, save for a pillared porch and steps leading down to the drive. A thick growth of ivy covered it from the ground to the first-floor windows, and after I had gently tried the heavy front door, which, as I expected, was locked, this suggested a mode of entrance. If I could climb up and get on to the roof of the porch, it might be possible to force the central bedroom window, which I could see was unshuttered.

The ivy was of ancient growth, the stems thick and tough. Any schoolboy could have mounted to the top of the porch. And any boy could have pushed back the catch of the window with the blade of his pocket-knife, opened it and stepped inside.

I stood in a bedroom, dark, except for a little pool of moonlight by the window. I felt curtains, and I drew them before I switched on my torch. It was an ordinary bedroom, very untidy, furnished with a suite of painted deal. There was, however, a great saucer-bath full of water, and a pair of Indian clubs. The wall was hung with photographs of football teams, and in an open drawer of the little dressing-table was a pile of gold and notes.

Commonplace enough, like an undergraduate's room at Oxford, but, nevertheless, it affected me unpleasantly. It was like a sudden intimacy with something abominable, as I opened the door inch by inch, and felt for the powerful pistol in my pocket. My heart hung poised for an instant as I stepped out into a dark corridor, and then I gave a gasp, and my heart almost stopped beating.