The Bomb Makers Part 13

The bearded man was a complete stranger, hence Kennedy resolved to follow him when he reappeared, and try to establish his ident.i.ty. Being known to Drost and Ortmann, it was always both difficult and dangerous for him to follow either too closely. But with a stranger it was different.

Before twenty-four hours had pa.s.sed, the Flight-Commander had ascertained a number of interesting facts. The bearded man was known as Arthur Cole, and was an electrician employed at one of the County Council power-stations. He lived in Tenison Street, close to Waterloo Station, and was a widower.

Next day, on making further inquiry of shops in the vicinity, a woman who kept a newspaper-shop exclaimed:

"I may be mistaken, sir, but I don't believe much in that there Mr Cole."

"Why?" asked Kennedy quickly.

"Well, 'e's lived 'ere some years, you know, and before the war I used to order for 'im a German newspaper--the Berliner-Something."

"The _Berliner-Tageblatt_ it was, I expect."

"Yes. That's the paper, sir," said the woman. "'E used to be very fond of it, till I couldn't get it any more."

"Then he may be German?"

The woman bent over the narrow counter of her small establishment and whispered:

"I'm quite certain 'e is, sir."

That night Seymour saw his well-beloved in the theatre between the acts, and told her the result of his inquiries. Then he returned to his vigil and watched the dingy house in Tenison Street, one of those drab London streets in which the sun never seems to shine.

For three nights Kennedy remained upon constant vigil. On the fourth night, just as Ella was throwing off her stage dress at the conclusion of the show, she received a telegram which said: "Gone north. Return soon. Wait."

It was unsigned, but she knew its sender.

Four days she waited in eager expectation of receiving news. On the fifth night, just before she left for the theatre, Ortmann arrived to visit her father. She greeted him merrily, but quickly escaped from that detestable atmosphere of conspiracy, at the same time remembering that mysterious female intruder.

Who could she have been?

In the meantime Seymour Kennedy, who had obtained a few days' leave, had been living at the Central Hotel in that busy Lancashire town which must here be known as G--. To that town he had followed the man Cole and had constantly watched his movements. Cole had taken up his quarters at a modest temperance hotel quite close to the Central, which was the big railway terminus, and had been daily active, and had made several journeys to places in the immediate manufacturing outskirts of G--.

At last he packed his modest Gladstone bag and returned to London, Kennedy, in an old tweed suit, travelling by the same train.

On their arrival Kennedy took a taxi direct from Euston to the theatre.

When Ella had sent her dresser out of the room upon an errand, he hurriedly related what had occurred.

The man Cole had, he explained, met in G--a thin-faced, dark-haired young woman, apparently of his own social standing, a young woman of the working-cla.s.s, who wore a bra.s.s war-badge in the shape of a triangle.

The pair had been in each other's company constantly, and had been twice out to a manufacturing centre about six miles away, a place known as Rivertown.

Briefly he related what he had observed and what he had discovered.

Then he went out while she dressed, eventually driving with her to a snug little restaurant off Oxford Street, where they supped together.

"Do you know, Ella," he asked in a low voice, as they sat in a corner, "now that we've established the fact that the man Cole has visited your father, and also that he is undoubtedly implicated in the forthcoming plot, can it be that this young woman whom he met in G--is the same who entered your father's house on the night of my visit there?"

"I wonder!" she exclaimed. "Why should she go there?"

"Out of curiosity, perhaps. Who knows? She's evidently on friendly terms with this electrician. Cole, who, if my information is correct, is no Englishman at all--but a German!"

Ella reflected deeply. Then she answered:

"Perhaps both the man and woman came there for the purpose either of robbery--or--"

"No. They were probably suspicious of your father's manner, and came to examine the house."

"But if they did not trust my father surely they would not be in active a.s.sociation with him, as you say they are," the girl argued.

"True. But they might, nevertheless, have had their curiosity aroused."

"And by so doing they may have seen us," she declared apprehensively.

"I hope not."

"And even if they did, they surely would not recognise us again," he exclaimed. "But," he added, "no time must be lost. You must take another brief holiday from the theatre, and see what we can do."

"Very well," was the dancer's reply. "I'll see Mr Pettigrew to-morrow, and get a rest. It will give my understudy a chance."

Over a fortnight went by.

It was half-past five o'clock on a cold January evening when a trainful of merry-faced girl munition workers stood at the Central Station at G-- ready to start out to Rivertown to work on the night shift in those huge roaring factories where the big sh.e.l.ls were being made.

Each girl wore a serviceable raincoat and close-fitting little hat, each carried a small leather attache-case with her comb, mirror, and other little feminine toilet requisites, and each wore upon her blouse the bra.s.s triangle which denoted that she was a worker on munitions.

Peering out from the window of one of those dingy third-cla.s.s compartments was a young girl in a rather faded felt hat and a cheap navy-blue coat, while upon the platform, apparently taking notice of n.o.body, stood a tallish young man in a brown overcoat. The munition-girl was Ella Drost, and the man her lover, Seymour Kennedy.

As the train at last moved out across the long bridge over the river, the pair exchanged glances, and then Ella, with her bra.s.s triangle on her blouse, sat back in the crowded carriage in thought, her little attache-case upon her knees, listening to the merry chat of her fellow-workers.

Arrived at the station, she followed the crowd of workers to the huge newly-erected factory close by, a great hive of industry where, through night and day, Sunday and weekday, over eight thousand women made big sh.e.l.ls for the guns at the front.

At the entrance-gate each girl pa.s.sed singly beneath the keen eyes of door-keepers and detectives, for no intruder was allowed within, it being as difficult for strangers to gain admission there as to enter the presence of the Prime Minister at Downing Street.

The shifts were changing, and the day-workers were going off. Hence there was considerable bustle, and many of those lathes drilling and turning the great steel projectiles were, for the moment, still.

Presently the night-workers began to troop in, each in her pale-brown overall with a Dutch cap, around the edge of which was either a red or blue band denoting the status of the worker, while the forewomen were distinctive in their dark-blue overalls.

Some of the girls had exchanged their skirts for brown linen trousers.

Those were the girls working the travelling cranes which, moving up and down the whole length of the factory, carried the sh.e.l.ls from one lathe to another as they pa.s.sed through the many processes between drilling and varnishing. Ella was among these latter, and certainly n.o.body who met her in her Dutch cap with its blue band, her linen overall jacket with its waistband, and her trousers, stained in places with oil, would have ever recognised her as the star of London revue.

Lithely she mounted the straight steep iron ladder up to her lofty perch on the crane, and, seating herself, she touched the switch and began to move along the elevated rails over the heads of the busy workers below.

The transfer of a sh.e.l.l from one lathe to another was accomplished with marvellous ease and swiftness. A girl below her lifted her hand as signal, whereupon Ella advanced over her, and let down a huge pair of steel grips which the lathe-worker placed upon the sh.e.l.l, at the same time releasing it from the lathe. Again she raised her hand, and the sh.e.l.l was lifted a few yards above her head and lowered to the next machine, where the worker there placed it in position, and then released it to undergo its next phase of manufacture.

Such was Ella's work. In the fortnight she had been there she had become quite expert in the transfer of the huge sh.e.l.ls, and, further, she had become much interested in her new life and its unusual surroundings In that great place the motive force of all was electricity. All those whirring lathes, drills, hammers, saws, cutting and polishing machines, cranes, everything in that factory, as well as the two other great factories in the near vicinity, were driven from the great electrical power-station close by.

Now and then, as the night hours pa.s.sed, though within all was bright and busy as day, Ella would give a glance at the woman working the crane opposite hers, a thin-faced, dark-haired young woman, who was none other than the mysterious friend of the man Cole, and whom she held in great suspicion.

While Ella worked within the factory in order to keep a watchful eye, Seymour Kennedy watched with equal shrewdness outside.