William Le Queux

“ Silently the Mohawk came down till it was not more than five hundred feet above its unsuspecting prey, the loud drone of whose engine came clearly on the air. Dick swung round in a circle, following every movement of the machine below, with a swift precision which Yvette keenly appreciated.
Dick had made up his mind that the offices above the aeroplane shed probably held the key to the problem they had to solve. He knew he could destroy the machine itself. But that would not be enough if the plans remained intact; a new machine could quickly be built. ”

“ As dusk fell, Dick, Yvette, Jules, and Buckman carefully crossed the wire and took up their positions in the centre of the circle, lying full length in the sheltering heather, and each with a revolver ready to hand. In a leash beside Dick lay Spot, his favourite Airedale, who could be trusted to give warning of the approach of any intruder, and afterwards to track him remorselessly.
As the leaden moments dragged by it grew darker and darker until the country-side was plunged in pitch blackness. The strain on the watchers was terrific. They could not smoke or talk, they hardly dared to move. ”

“ But behind the scenes, in a hundred laboratories, students bent unceasingly over their myriad experiments, striving to wrest from Nature her greatest secret, the mystery of the mighty energy of the atom. Since the day when Madame Curie had discovered that in breaking up, yet seemingly never growing less, radium was shooting off day and night power which never seemed to diminish, the minds of the men of science had been filled with the dream of discovering the secret. ”

“ Jules Charetier paled at the mention of “The Seven,” the powerful camarilla whose hidden influence was felt throughout the criminal underworld of Paris, London, and New York. The men who, practically without risk to themselves, were responsible for half the anarchist crimes of the three great capitals. Who they were, and their real names, not even Yvette knew. Never appearing directly themselves, they worked entirely through agents, and fighting against them, the police found themselves in a stifling fog of mystery. ”

“ Dick—if you could only realise what it means to me!” she sobbed. “I have been all through the smashed-up parts of France—everything, even our churches, is smashed and broken and defiled. The poor people are working desperately to restore their old homes, and they only want help to be happy again. But France has no money, and Germany won’t pay—as every one foresaw except your British statesmen. Do you think I am likely to hesitate to rob a German thief when it means happiness for hundreds of French men and women and children?” ”

“ It seemed an age before Captain Le Couteur, his face white as chalk, took down the message which followed, and then referring to the code, read:
“Yvette arrested this morning by Kranzler.”
Dick turned dizzy and the room spun round him as the dreadful significance of the words struck him. Kranzler, of all men! The murderer of Yvette’s father and mother, the man whom she had beaten over and over again at his own game of espionage during the war, the man whose sensational attempt to dispose of Rasputin’s stolen jewels had been foiled by Yvette’s skill and daring! ”

“ Dick Manton, lounging idly in the Assembly Hall of the little town of Fenways, in the centre of the Norfolk Broads, watched with eyes half critical and half amused the throng of dancers circling gaily to the strains of three violins and a tinkling piano which did duty for an orchestra when the youth of Fenways amused itself with a dance. ”

“ As the maid turned Dick’s arm was slipped round her, and a chloroformed pad was pressed swiftly over her face. Taken utterly by surprise, the girl was too firmly held to do more than struggle convulsively, and in a few moments, as the drug took effect, she lay a limp heap in Dick’s arms.
Snatching from a valise a chambermaid’s costume and cap, Yvette swiftly transformed herself into a replica of the unconscious girl. Then picking up the tray and its contents she silently left the room, having poured a few drops of colourless liquid into each of the glasses of brandy. ”

“ The taxi was still outside the door when he got back to the Koeniggratzer-strasse. As an excuse for waiting he feigned engine trouble and tinkered with his machine, keeping all the time a close watch on the door opposite.
He had not long to wait. In about half an hour Yvette was brought out, still in the custody of Kranzler, and driven away. Jules followed, and, at length, had the satisfaction of knowing that Yvette was in the big prison outside Spandau. It was a melancholy satisfaction, it is true, but to know where she was was of supreme importance. ”

“ Fortune favoured them. As they drew nearer to Lympne, swinging in from the slightly easterly course he had set, Dick caught sight of the navigation lights of the big mail aeroplane heading from London to Paris. His own machine, bearing, of course, no lights, was far above the stranger, the thunder of whose big engines came clearly up to them. A couple of red flares from the big plane signalled her code to the aerodrome, the searchlight blinked an acknowledgment, and the mail plane tore swiftly onward. ”

“ A network of wire stays running from the wings to the fuselage of the car were speedily hooked up and drawn taut.
Then the two mysterious figures climbed again into the transformed car. There was a low, deep hum as the propellers began to revolve, the monoplane shot forward a few yards along the road, then lifted noiselessly, and, graceful and silent as a night-bird, vanished into the shrouding mist. ”

“ Could they get to Jules in time? A wireless message bade him hasten.
“Ten miles more, Dick,” said Yvette at last, “and then I can make three miles and the glide as we come down. It’s lucky we are so high; we ought to do it.”
Then seven or eight miles away a column of vapour rose from the water ahead. Jules had fired a smoke bomb to guide them! Their petrol was almost gone. But as the engine flickered out and stopped Yvette, with a cry of joy, pointed to a tiny dot on the sea which they knew was Jules rushing to their help. A rocket shot up from the launch. ”

“ Three o’clock boomed from a distant church dock. Footsteps echoed inside. The meeting was assembling!
How they longed to see into that room of mystery! But that was impossible; they must rely upon the microphone alone for all the information they could obtain. Jules’ hand sought Yvette’s wrist, and in the Morse code he tapped out with his fingers—he dared not speak—a caution to listen acutely. Their only hope of identifying the criminals was by their voices. ”

“ Yvette pointed to it.
There, sharply and clearly defined, was the unmistakable imprint of a naked, misshapen foot! It was human beyond all question. It pointed in the direction of the house they had just left, and it was dear that the barefooted walker, whoever he may have been, had stepped from the heather just on to the patch of firm sand and been carried by his next stride through and beyond the rivulet on to the heather and stones where no footprints would remain. ”

“ They little dreamed that the savage brutes would indeed have torn Yvette to pieces had not Gaston thoughtfully taken the precaution to lock them up before he and Jules started to rescue her!
Away at Verdun Dick stood beside the Mohawk waiting impatiently in the dark. Time and again he had tested every nut and screw in the machine; time and again he had run the powerful engine to make sure that it was in working order.
At last the longed for moment for action came. Anything was better than long drawn-out suspense.
He wrung Le Couteur’s hand as he stepped into the machine. ”

“ It was not healthy to try in public to pry into the secrets of the underworld of Barcelona.
Dick Manton had had a strange and adventurous career. But as he gazed at the odd announcement, he had a premonition that he was on the edge of a mystery stranger than anything that he had so far encountered. ”

“ She now proceeded to enlist the ragged battalions of Soho in a fashion that caused Buckhurst much amusement.
“Find out for me all the hunchbacked men you can,” was all the instructions she gave them.
“But, mademoiselle,” said Inspector Buckhurst, “it will be the talk of Soho, and our man if he is there will slip away.”
Yvette was unmoved.
“Just think a minute,” she said. “Who can go about all day and all night without being suspected? The children. Who can go into dens where your men hardly dare to venture? The children. Who know all the hidden haunts of which your men are utterly ignorant? ”

“ Dick Manton’s words were prophetic, for on that same evening before a meeting of the Royal Society in London, Professor Rudford, the world-famed scientist, made an amazing speech in which he said:
“Could we but solve the problem of releasing and controlling the mighty forces locked up in this piece of chalk, we should have power enough to drive the biggest liner to New York and back. We should have at our disposal energy unlimited. The daily work of the world would be reduced to a few minutes’ tending of automatic machinery. ”

“ Had the men of the mystery craft a still greater secret up their sleeve? That they had something big Dick could plainly see by the way the fastest craft of the British Air Service, the best in the world, had dropped astern of the stranger. Was the Mohawk fast enough to beat the pirate? They would soon know.
As the big machine came on, Yvette set the elevating propellers of the Mohawk to work, and the helicopter shot upward. The stranger saw the manoeuvre and at once followed suit. ”

“ Strange stories had come through the French Secret Service of a new and wonderful type of aircraft which was being tested with the utmost secrecy somewhere in the neighbourhood of Spandau, the great military town near Berlin. Of its precise character little was known or could be ascertained, and even Regnier, the astute and energetic head of the French Secret Service, had at length to confess himself utterly beaten. ”

“ Dick was a general favourite, and more than one pretty girl in the room would have been only too glad to arouse something more than a passing interest in the young airman, whose dare-devil exploits above the German lines in France had brought him the Flying Cross, whose brilliant career had been cut short by a bullet wound, received in a “dog-fight” above Bethune, which had rendered him unfit for the continual hardships of active service. ”

“ Dick, Jules, and Yvette had become the most formidable combination in the French Secret Service. They always insisted on working together, they would accept no assistance except that which they chose themselves, and they would work only under the direction of Regnier, who was astute enough to realise their abilities. Yvette had been prevented by a slight illness from accompanying Dick to Barcelona, and both she and Jules, who had stayed with her, hated inaction. ”

“ Progress, of course, was slow; falls and stumbles every few moments checked the pace; the darkness was baffling. It was with feelings of intense relief that Dick at length saw the silvery edge of the moon lifting itself above the hills behind him. He had lost all sense of direction, but the moon rising behind him told him he was travelling westward.
Half an hour later the country was bathed in soft light and Dick was able to pick up his bearings. Suddenly he realised with a shock that he was heading straight for Lockie! ”

“ Yvette had become suddenly radiant.
“Why, Dick!” she cried, “that’s the very thing. We simply can’t be caught. And when we land anywhere we can be ordinary motorists. It’s wonderful—wonderful!”
“Don’t be too sure,” replied Dick grimly. “The Air Police are pretty wide awake. However, it’s worth trying. Now, shall we go to-night? There’s a train from Liverpool Street at six-twenty. We shall get down to Fenways by nine. We shall have five miles to walk to the shed where I keep the machine—of course, we daren’t drive out—and we must manage to reach Paris about dawn. ”

“ Her brother, quiet and dreamy, lacked his sister’s vivacity, but there was a suggestion of strength and iron resolution in the firm mouth and steely eyes.
“It will be terribly dangerous, Dick,” said Yvette, with an altogether new note of anxiety in her voice.
“I suppose it will,” replied Dick, “but,”—and his voice hardened as he spoke—“I don’t see what else we can do. We cannot run the risk of seeing a perfected helicopter in German hands. It would be too fearful a weapon. We must get hold of the plans and destroy the machine, whatever the risk may be.” ”

“ For they knew well that he spoke only of what he knew, and the measured phrases conjured up in their keen brains not only a picture of a world where labour had been reduced to the vanishing point, but of a world where evil still strove with good, where the enemies of society still strove against the established order of things which they hated, where crime in the hands of the master criminal, armed with force whose potentiality they could only dream of, would be something transcending in sheer horror all the past experiences of tortured humanity. ”

“ Matters were in this stage when Dick, to his great surprise, received a brief telegram from Yvette.
“Can you come to Paris? very urgent—Yvette,” the message ran.
Dick left at once and next evening found him with Yvette and Jules at a small hotel near the Gare du Nord. After a cordial greeting Yvette, as usual, plunged direct into the business in hand.
“Now, Dick,” she said, “our last adventure was quite a success. Are you good for something more exciting and decidedly more dangerous? Or,” she added mischievously, “is Norfolk and the motor business exciting and dangerous enough for you?” ”