Guy Thorne

“ Every faculty of mind and body had been devoted to that one end. And yet he must have loved the American to have served him so? And if he could love he was human!
I wrestled with the problem till dawn, and got no nearer a solution. I knew that, despite our companionship in peril and the extraordinary adventures we had gone through together, if Van Adams had lived and for any reason had told Danjuro to put me out of the way, the little man would have executed the job with neatness, dispatch, and an entire absence of compunction. ”

“ The needle upon the speed indicator quivered round its dial, moving ever upwards. Eighty, a hundred, a hundred and fifty—and thirty more—we were doing nearly two hundred miles an hour, straight out over the Atlantic before I had a thought of our destination, or of anything but the supreme glory of that rush up the dawn wind.
The whole morning world was blue and gold, new-built and beautiful. Far below, the Mother of Oceans lay in an unwrinkled sheet of sapphire, "as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire." A tiny purple cloud upon the horizon was the Isles of Scilly, sleeping under the sun. ”

“ Wires from the Government, from America, from Royalty, poured in, in a never-ceasing stream. There were innumerable officials to see, the correspondents of the great newspapers to satisfy with some sort of story—a hundred things to do and arrange for. The whole of England was in a ferment, and the stone building of the Air Police on the Hoe was, for a few hours, the centre of it all. The air was thick with patrol ships, warning off aviators of all kinds from approaching the Pirate Ship, which lay at rest and harmless by the north wall of the pool. ”

“ There is bitterness at the bottom of every cup—surgit amari aliquid—and life was a poor thing at best. And I fell to reflecting on the evil and misery that can be wrought by one man.
The gaunt spectre of Hawk Helzephron haunted my mind, and the long row of dead men that must be laid to his account, the brave fellows of my own service, the Transatlantic people—to say nothing of the black scoundrels that he had made and tempted, who had been hurried into eternity with their crimes unrepented.... ”

“ The pirate ship, you will remember, was—like all the big long-distance airships—a cross between what used to be known in the old days as the "seaplane" and the "flying-boat." True, some of our war aeroplanes of quite large size were fitted with floats that could be raised, and wheels for land work in addition.
This might be the case with the pirate. But it was not to be thought of for a moment that a man of Helzephron's intelligence would dare to house his extraordinary ship where any one of my police could have investigated simply by showing his badge of office. ”

“ 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.
I stood at the head of broad, shallow stairs. Below was a large hall, dimly lit, and pouring up to me in a volume of sound came the melodious thunder of a piano played by a master hand!
At first my knees grew weak, and I clutched the shadowy banisters to save me from falling. Constance! ”

“ I lit a cigarette and watched, and it was a sight worth watching.
Beyond, stretched the largest sea-drome in Great Britain, a harbour within a harbour, surrounded by massive concrete walls. In the roughest weather, when even within the distant breakwater the Sound is turbulent, the sea-drome is calm as a duck-pond. Now it was like a sheet of polished silver, and resting on their great floats at their moorings were three gigantic air-liners, with electric launches and motor-boats plying between them and the landing-stages. ”

“ Arrangements were soon made at Whitehall. Muir Lockhart was an understanding man, and by three o'clock in the afternoon I walked out into [Pg 70] 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." ”

“ I called out, as I ran through Helzephron's room. "We are going to fly to Plymouth at once in the Pirate Ship."
The maid Wilson shrieked.
"Oh, Sir John, that awful ship! I couldn't go in 'er again, not for my life. Let's go in a taxi, Miss, please 'ave a taxi; I couldn't face the ship."
"You'll lose your life quickly enough if you stay," I said to the yelping fool, though, Heaven knows, the poor soul had gone through enough to turn her mind entirely. Her mouth grew like a round O, and I was preparing for another shriek when I suddenly thought of something. ”

“ The inner history of the piracies is only fully known to one man. It is a story, we understand, that puts the imagination of the boldest writer of fiction to shame. Such parts of it as have been made public hint at a story of absorbing interest behind. The bad old days of censorship and secrecy have vanished with the occasions that made them necessary. We suggest that a full and detailed 'story' of the first—and we trust the last—Air Pirate should be written, and given to the world. ”

“ That Major Helzephron is all we have just heard, but a far more sinister and formidable person than anyone suspects. He is a man of marked intellectual powers. Below the veneer of coarse pleasures and fast life in London and Paris, there is something that glows like a hot coal. His appearances in town are irregular and fitful. His real life, Brookfield is certain of this, is lived far away from cities. And it is a life with a purpose. ”

“ 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." ”

“ At a quarter to nine I stood on the Hoe and watched the Atlantis start for America. Her navigation lights were all turned on; the innumerable port-holes of the huge fusilage made an amber necklace below the immense grey planes.
Then, from the towers on the sea-drome wall the "flare-path" shot out—an avenue of white and steady light to guide the liner outwards. ”

“ You may be glad to marry a man, after all!"
He was half-way to the door when suspicion took hold of him. "How do I know that you won't be up to some trick?" he snarled; "try to loose him or something? Not that there would be any chance of escape if you did."
"I give you my word of honour," Connie answered, "or you can tie me up, too. That would be the best way. Fasten me in this chair so that I can't move."
Helzephron shook his head impatiently. Then the door banged and we were alone. ”

“ But few people have ever taken him seriously as the head of our Air Police, and now nobody will."
There was a row of stars here, as if Mr. Paul Pry paused for breath, or was stopping to pick up another handful of mud, and then he went on again:
"If the nation is called upon to pay thousands and thousands a year for the upkeep of an efficient service of Air Police, it is entitled to see that it gets it, and that the man in charge is able to provide it. ”

“ He looked like a man of immense age, and his narrow eyes were full of brooding, sombre light. Almost at his feet lay the body of Helzephron. It had been decently disposed with the hands upon the breast, and the morning light played over the hawk-like, bronzed face and open eyes in which there was now no cruelty.
The dead man was august as he lay there. There was a certain nobility about the features. He did not look like a scoundrel, and all resentment and hate passed away from me for ever as I looked at him. ”

“ He was, moreover, the second pilot of the Pirate Ship, trained by Helzephron himself.
"I did not ask you to speak," I answered.
"No, but really it's no end of a stunt. The controls are ten times as sensitive as in an ordinary machine. If you were the best pilot living, you'd find it hard to manage in a ship that's quite new to you, and has all sorts of habits and tricks that no other has." ”

“ I saw at once that he had heard something.
"The very man!" he cried, jumping up from his basket chair and gripping me warmly by the hand. "I heard you were here, Sir John, and I made sure of seeing you before I started. Now what's all this? Sir Joshua's half out of his mind with worry, the offices are turned upside down, and Seth Pring—confound him!—is as close as an oyster!" ”

“ Before concluding these remarks, however, I must say a word or two about the extraordinary and sinister disappearance of delightful Constance Shepherd. Sad as it is to hear of brave men shot down while doing their duty, there is something peculiarly terrible in the carrying off of the little lady to whom London owes so much. Dear little Connie! We of Bohemia knew and loved you well! Many is the happy hour that Paul Pry has spent in your company, many the bumper of bubbly water he has quaffed to your success! ”

“ For the American millionaire he had supreme love, with devotion—worship—and for no one and nothing else on earth above or below it.
A man with a single obsession, a man of one idea. Well, most of the great men in life have been that....
I steered for Plymouth at full speed, coming down to three thousand feet. In a flash the jagged coast, fringed with a thin line of white, came clear to view. We sped from the Atlantic, over the narrow peninsula of land which divides it from the Channel, and then turned east. ”

“ The police of the world are looking for him, if he is alive."
"I think it will be a long pursuit, Sir John. He has got off with the treasure, and I know one or two things about him which are not generally known. I do not think that Mr. Vargus will fall into the hands of the police."
"Then you ...?"
"It is my work. I owe the spirit of my patron this man's blood, and I shall pay the debt. Were he to hide in the depths of the sea, sooner or later I shall find him. There is no power strong enough in life to keep us two apart." ”

“ All England knew that face in the days when little Connie sang and danced herself into the heart of the public, but none knew it as well as I.
How can I describe that marvellous hair of dark chestnut, those deep amethyst eyes, and the perfect bow of lips which were truer to the exact colour of coral than any I have ever seen? It only makes a catalogue after all. It's the expression—the soul, if you like—that makes the true face ”

“ My life has been a succession of lost illusions, I think. I loved you, and I love you still, with all the force and power of a nature which, whatever else it may be, is stronger than that of most men in this feeble world. ”

“ 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...." ”

“ On one of the wild and lonely Breton moors a goat-herd had discovered the wreckage of a large airship. By it was the body of a young man, but only one body. The telegrams urgently asked me to come over at once.
I did so, in my fastest patrol boat. Lying in a wild wilderness of gorse and heather were the remains of the Pirate Ship. It had been destroyed beyond possibility of reconstruction, and destroyed methodically and deliberately while at rest upon the ground. There was no doubt about that. The body I afterwards saw in the Morgue at Quimper was that of Gascoigne. ”

“ Helzephron cursed deeply. "Get it over," he said. "Take the dogs to the far end of the [Pg 218] cave. When I blow this whistle let them go. You'll hear them running up behind you, Sir John," he said, with an insane chuckle.
Vargus disappeared.
I stared out at the cave mouth. Each moment it grew lighter. I thought that I should have liked to have seen one more summer dawn. But Helzephron was lifting his whistle; and then the mouth of the cave seemed to recede and shrink to the size of a mere window. ”

“ Sir John Custance, Bart., is the typical Government official of the musical comedy or the comic paper. He is an aristocrat who, after a short experience in the air, is shoved into the highly-paid and responsible position he holds without any reason that the man in the street can understand. A baronet, and, if report speaks truly, a man of considerable private means, I have—in common with many other people—often asked myself what possible qualification this young gentleman can have for his job. Johnny is a most estimable person, no doubt, in private life. ”

“ For it is there we shall be in the very centre of the web. In those far western solitudes, despite the recent opening up of the Duchy to tourists, there are still vast spaces of lonely moorland and unvisited coast where one may walk for half a day and meet no living soul. There is a great Hinterland between the little town of St. Ives and the Land's End that for all practical purposes is unknown and unexplored. Later on, I will show you certain maps.... It is in one of the remotest spots of all that Major Helzephron has his house. ”

“ Mere office activities, the planning of guard and patrol ships, conferences with pilots and officials, had been quite powerless to calm the terrible fever of unrest within me. It was commanding other people to do things, not doing them myself. I knew all the time that I should have been happier piloting one of the war-planes over the Atlantic. ”