The Air Pirate

… This is how I plunged into a series of dangerous adventures, a dark underworld of crime and almost superhuman cunning, probably without parallel in modern times.

Arrangements were soon made at Whitehall. Muir Lockhart was an understanding man, and by three o'clock in the afternoon I walked out into the sunshine free from all official cares for a month. I took a long, deep breath as I crossed the Horse Guards Parade and made my way to the long, green vista of the Mall. "The first act is over," I thought. "The curtain is rising on the real drama. Somewhere in this world there is a man whose discovery and death I owe to Society and to myself."

And I was a man who never failed to pay a debt.

I have given you but little indication of my mental state during the last few days. It won't bear much writing about even now. A cold fury, instead of blood, came and went in my veins, and my heart was ice. Every now and again, especially when I was alone, agony for which there is, there can be, no name got hold of me, and sported with me as the wind sports with a leaf. I suppose I had a tiny foretaste of what is felt by a soul that is eternally damned. I dared not think too much of Constance and her fate. If I had let myself go that way the running waters would have risen and overwhelmed me utterly. But, thank God, my intellect held. The streak of hardness which had served me so well in my career, and had enabled me to push to the top at an early age, came to the rescue now. Every faculty was sharpened; the will concentrated to a single purpose. I was alone, and I walked in darkness, but I was conscious of Power – charged to the brim as a battery is charged with the electric fluid. As I walked calmly up St. James', on the way to my chambers, I doubt if a more single-minded and dangerous man than I walked the streets of London.

And I knew, by some mysterious intuition, that I should succeed in the task before me. I had not, as yet, more than the most rudimentary idea how I was going to set about it, but I should succeed. Don't misunderstand me. I had hardly any hope of seeing my dear love alive again. I believed that all the joy of life was finally extinguished. But justice – call it vengeance rather – remained, and I was as sure that I was the chosen instrument of that as I was that I had just passed between Marlborough House and the Palace of St. James.

My expensive but delightful chambers in Half Moon Street were on the second floor – sitting-room, dining-room, bed and dressing rooms and bath.

The sitting-room was panelled in cedar-wood, which had been stained a delicate olive-green, with the mouldings of the panels picked out in dull gold. Connie and her gay young friends, when they came to have tea with me, or supper after the theatre, used to say that it was one of the most charming rooms in London.

I had spent an infinity of time and money on it, determined that it should be "just so." For instance, the carpet was from Kairowan in Tunisia, and had taken a whole family of Arab weavers five years to make. Never was there a more perfect blue – not the crude peacock colour of the cheaper Oriental rugs, but a blue infused with a silver-ash shade, contrasting marvellously with the warm brick-reds and tawny yellows. It was a bargain at four hundred pounds.

I had hung only half a dozen pictures in this room, all modern and all good. My "Boys Bathing," by Charles Conder – better known as the painter of marvellous fans – was a masterpiece of sunlight and sea foam which made me the envy of half the collectors in town. Then I had a William Nicholson – "Chelsea Ware" – that was extraordinarily fascinating. It was just some old Chelsea plates and a jug standing on a table. It doesn't sound fascinating, I know, but the painting was so brilliant, there was such vision in the way it was seen, that one could look at it for hours.

There was an open hearth of rough red brick in the room, deep and square, and when there was a fire it burned in a gipsy brazier of iron. I had a lot of trouble to get this last of the right shape, and finally it had to be made for me, from the design of an artist in Birmingham.

Such a room, with its perfect colour harmonies and severe lines, required no knick-knacks. Nothing small or petty, however beautiful in itself, could be allowed there. I had two cabinets of magnificent china in my dining-room, but china would have been quite out of place here. Along one wall, about four feet from the floor, was a single shelf of old pewter – cups and flagons of the Tudor period with the double-rose hall-mark – and that was all.

As I entered and flung myself wearily into a chair, the afternoon sunlight poured in through the half-drawn curtains of sea-green silk. In the ceiling a hidden electric fan was whirring, and the room was deliciously cool. And as I looked round, the place seemed hateful beyond all expression. I was sick of it, loathed its beauty and comfort; an insane desire came to take a hammer and wreak havoc there as my eyes fell on the only photograph in the room. It was one of Constance, in a frame of dull silver, studded with turquoises, and she had given it to me no longer than a fortnight ago.

Thumbwood slept at the top of the house. He came in, after I had been resting for a few minutes.

"I've made the necessary arrangements, Charles," I said, "and we shall start operations at once." I had no secrets from this devoted friend and servant.

"Glad to hear it, Sir John. I've been round the town this morning, and there's a lot of talk."

He followed me into the sitting-room and brought me cigars.

"You see," he went on confidentially, "a gentleman's servant, especially if he belongs to the club just off Jermyn Street, and more specially still if he's been a racing man, hears all that's going on quicker than anyone. This morning I've been talking to the porters and valets of two of the best clubs, Sir John. Then I 'ad a crack with Meggit, the bookmaker, what does all the St. James' smaller commissions, and after that I strolled to the Parthenon Theatre, and took out the stage door-keeper and filled him up and made 'im talk a bit. 'Im and me is great friends consequent of my taking so many messages and flowers for you, sir, when Miss Shepherd was acting there."

"Ah! I see you haven't wasted your time." I smiled inwardly at Thumbwood's idea of helping me.

"No, Sir John. I've learned a lot of funny little things, just trifles, so to say, but they may prove useful later on. There's one thing you ought to know at once. Them theatricals have been talking, and it's all over town that Miss Shepherd travelled down to Plymouth with you. It's certain to be in the papers this afternoon, if it ain't already. There's been half a dozen reporters buzzing round the theatre this morning."

I ground my teeth with anger, but only for a moment. Of course, the thing was inevitable. There was only one thing to do.

I took up the telephone on the writing-table and got put on to the Evening Wire. "I am Sir John Custance," I said to the editor. "I hear that there is a good deal of talk going about London in respect of Miss Constance Shepherd and myself. To avoid the least misconception, I authorize you to state, in your next edition, that Miss Shepherd and I were engaged to be married. I'll send my servant down to your office at once, with a note confirming this conversation."

It was the only way, much as I hated it, to stop malicious gossip, and I scribbled a chit to the editor.

"Get into a taxi and take that at once," I said to Thumbwood. As I gave him the letter, there was a ring at the front-door bell.

The little man went out and I heard voices, one harsh and deep, that seemed familiar.

"Who is it?" I asked as Charles returned. "I can't see anyone…"

"Wouldn't take any denial, sir. It's the American gentleman who picked up Captain Pring after the attack on the Albatros. Says he must see you."

"Mr. Van Adams?"

"Yes, Sir John."

"Show him in."

A moment afterwards I was shaking hands with the thickset man whose jaw was like a pike's and whose eyes resembled animated steel. Thumbwood went off with the letter. I heard the front door close after him.

Now I don't suppose at that moment I would have seen any other man in London unconnected with my office at Whitehall. I didn't want to see the millionaire, but directly he was inside the room my irritation vanished. He had meant to see me. He had now accomplished his end, and I had a firm conviction that sentries with fixed bayonets wouldn't have kept him out.

He sat down quietly in the chair I indicated, and took a cigar with great deliberation. I was not in the least impatient. I knew now that I was glad that he had come, and waited for him to begin. When he did speak the harsh voice was considerably modified, and no one whatever could have said that he was an American.

"Any success I may have made in life," he said without preliminary, "has come from the faculty of judging men. I started, as a youth, with this power in a more than ordinary degree. I've been developing it ever since."

He puffed thoughtfully at his cigar. He had said this with calm determination, not in the least as if he were speaking of himself, but merely as a man stating a fact which would be useful a little later on.

For my part I said nothing. I felt as though I was playing a sort of decorous game with rigid rules. To speak then would be to revoke!

"… And, though the ordinary man does not like to hear such a statement, I have a pretty good idea of you, Sir John. You're not an ordinary man. That's why I'm here. I'll put it in two words. I want to help you. I can help you. It is for you to say if you want me."

Now there could only be one answer to a question like that. The man in my arm-chair was one of the most powerful men on earth. Moreover, his reputation stood high. He was no financial pirate. The whole world trusted him.

"I answer that, Mr. Van Adams, with a single word: Thank you."

He nodded as if pleased. "Quite!" he said, and then, half turning in his chair, "of course I don't ask you to tell me any official secrets…"

I laughed at that. The Government would have let this man know all there was to be known upon his simple request.

He saw that I understood. "There are none for one thing," I told him. "You know exactly as much as my department knows, as I told the Home Secretary this morning. There are no developments, except, of course, the protective measures we and the States are taking. The one thing I can tell you, and which is in strict confidence, is that I have arranged for my official duties to be carried on by my assistant for a month. From this afternoon I am absolutely free to do what I like and go where I like. No one will know of this but my confidential servant. I intend to devote this evening to mapping out a plan of campaign."

"That's good, Sir John. That is just what I wanted to hear. Let me explain my motives. They are not complicated. One is that, as one of the chief money-brokers of the world, I naturally want to prevent any financial panic. Next, I am a bit of a sportsman in my way. I like hunting things down. This pursuit appeals to me a good deal. And, last – when I was five-and-thirty, a desperate gang of crooks in San Francisco kidnapped my little daughter Pearl – she that is Duchess of Shropshire now – and held her up to ransom. It was before you took notice, for I'm close on seventy, but the episode created some considerable stir at the time. I can pretty well guess what you are going through now."

As he looked at me his eyes were no longer like living steel, nor his jaw like a pike's.

So he also knew! I mumbled something or other.

"Quite," he answered quickly, and then went on: "In thinking over various ways in which I could be of use I have come to a certain conclusion. Money, I suppose, won't help you – though, of course, any sum is available?"

"I have the Government behind me, and I myself am not poor, thank you."

"It is as I thought. In England I myself can do nothing personally that others cannot do as well. In America I have every sort of influence…"

I looked him in the face. "I am not going to trouble about America in the very least."

"Quite! I see what you mean. And I am absolutely of your opinion. Now I'll come to what I can do for you."

He rose slowly from his chair and came up to me. When he spoke he had dropped his voice a full tone.