The Bomb Makers Part 7

"Bah! Your fancy--mere fancy!" declared the professor of chemistry. "I know you've been unduly suspicious for a long time, but I tell you that Ella and her lover are far too much absorbed in their own affairs to trouble about our business." Ortmann shrugged his shoulders. He did not tell his friend Drost the true extent of his knowledge, for it was one of his main principles never to confide serious truths to anybody.

By that principle he had risen in his Emperor's service to the high and responsible position he now occupied--the director of The Hidden Hand.

As such, he commanded the services of many persons of both s.e.xes in the United Kingdom. Some were persons who, having accepted German money or German favours in the pre-war days, were now called upon to dance as puppets of Germany while the Kaiser played the tune. Many of them, subjects of neutral countries, had been perfectly friendly to us, but since the war the relentless thumbscrew of blackmail had been placed upon them by Ernst von Ortmann, and they were compelled to do his bidding and act against the interests of Great Britain.

Over the heads of most of them, men and women--especially the latter-- the wily Ortmann and his well-organised staff held doc.u.mentary evidence of such a d.a.m.ning character that, if handed to the proper quarter, would either have caused their arrest and punishment, or, in the case of the fair s.e.x, cause their social ostracism. Hence Ortmann held his often unwilling agents together with an iron hand which was both unscrupulous and drastic. Woe betide either man or woman who, having accepted Germany's good-will and favours before the war, now dared to refuse to do her dirty work.

Truly, the Hidden Hand was that of the "mailed-fist" covered with velvet, full of double cunning and irresistible influence in quite unsuspected quarters.

Old Theodore Drost was but a p.a.w.n in Germany's dastardly attack upon England, but a very valuable one, from his intimate knowledge of explosives. Moreover, as an inventor of death-dealing devices, he certainly had no equal in Europe.

In order to discuss in secret a daring and terrible plot, the pair had lunched in company at Park Lane.

At that same hour, on that same day, Flight-Commander Seymour Kennedy, in his naval uniform with the "pilot's wings," was on leave from a certain air-station on the South-East coast, and was seated opposite Ella Drost in the Cafe Royal, in Regent Street, discussing a lobster salad _tete-a-tete_.

It was one of the favourite luncheon places of Drost's daughter.

The revue in which she had been appearing and in which, by the way, Ortmann was financially interested in secret, had finished its season, and the theatre had closed its doors for the summer. Consequently Ella had taken a tiny riverside cottage near Shepperton-on-Thames, though she still kept open her pretty flat in Stamfordham Mansions, her faithful French maid, Mariette, being in charge.

"You seem worried, darling," Kennedy whispered, as he bent across the table to her. "What's the matter?"

"I've already told you."

"But you really don't take it seriously, do you?" asked the well-known air-pilot. "Surely it's only a mere suspicion."

"It is fortunate that I succeeded in obtaining for you an impression of the key of the laboratory," was the girl's reply.

"Yes. It was. Your father never dreams that we know all that is in progress there. It's a real good stunt of yours to keep in with him, and stay at Barnes sometimes."

"Well, I've told you what I ascertained the night before last. Ortmann was there with the others. There's a big _coup_ intended--a dastardly blow, as I have explained."

And in the girl's eyes there showed a hard, serious expression, as she drew a long breath. It was quite plain to her lover that she was full of nervous apprehension, and that what she had related to him was a fact.

Another deeply-laid plot was afoot, but one so subtle and so daring that Kennedy, with his cheerful optimism and his high spirits, could not yet fully realise its nature.

Ella had, an hour before, told him a very remarkable story.

At first, so extraordinary and improbable had it sounded, that he had been inclined to pooh-pooh the whole affair, but now, amid the clatter and bustle of that cosmopolitan restaurant, the same to-day as in the mid-Victorian days, he began to realise that the impression left upon his well-beloved, by the knowledge she had obtained, had been a distinctly sinister one.

"Well, dearest," he said, again leaning across the little _table-a-deux_, "I'll go into the matter at once if you wish it, and we'll watch and wait."

"Yes, do, Seymour," exclaimed the girl anxiously. "I'll help you.

There is a deeply-laid plot in progress. Of that I'm quite certain-- more especially because Ortmann came to see dad yesterday morning and went to see him again to-day."

"You overheard some of their conversation--eh?"

"I did," was her open response. "And for that reason I am so full of fear."

At nine o'clock that same night, in accordance with an appointment, Ella Drost stood upon the whitewashed kerb in Belgrave Square, at the corner of West Halkin Street.

Darkness had already fallen. The London streets were gloomy because of the lighting order, and hardly a light showed from any house in the Square.

For fully ten minutes she waited until, at last, from out of Belgrave Place, a car came slowly along, and pulled up at the spot where she stood.

In a moment Ella had mounted beside her lover who, next second, moved off in the direction of Knightsbridge.

"It's rather fortunate that we've met here, darling," were his first words. "Since we were together this afternoon I have been followed continuously. Had I called at Stamfordham Mansions, Ortmann would have had his suspicions confirmed. But I've successfully eluded them, and here we are."

"I know--I feel sure that Ortmann suspects us. Why does he live as Mr Horton over at Wandsworth Common?"

"Because he is so infernally clever," laughed the air-pilot, in his cheery, nonchalant way.

Neither of them knew, up to that moment, anything more of Mr Henry Harberton, of Park Lane, save reading in the papers of his social distinction. Neither Kennedy nor his charming well-beloved had dreamed that Ortmann, alias Horton, patriotic Britannia-rule-the-Waves Englishman, was identical with that meteoric planet in the social firmament of London, Mr Henry Harberton, whose wealth was such that even in war-time he could give two-guinea-a-head luncheons to his friends at one or other of the half-dozen or so London restaurants which cater for such clients.

Seymour Kennedy was driving the car swiftly, but Ella, nestling beside him, took no heed of the direction in which they were travelling. The night-wind blew cold and he, solicitous of her welfare, bent over and with his left hand drew up the collar of her Burberry.

They were leaving London ere she became aware of it, travelling westward, branching at Hounslow upon the old road to Bath, the road of d.i.c.k Turpin's exploits in the good old days of c.o.c.ked-hats, powder-and-patches, and three-bottle men.

Pa.s.sing through Slough, they crossed the river at Maidenhead and again at Henley, keeping on the ever ascending high-road over the Chilterns, to Nettlebed, until they ran rapidly down past Gould's Grove through Benson, and past Shillingford where, a short distance beyond, he pulled up and, opening a gate, placed the car in a meadow grey with mist.

Afterwards the pair, leaving the high-road, turned into a path which led through the fields down to the river. Reaching it at a point not far from Day's Lock, they halted.

Before them, between the pathway and the river's brink, there showed a lighted window obscured by a yellow holland blind, the window of a corrugated iron bungalow of some river enthusiast, the room being apparently lit by a paraffin lamp.

Carefully, and treading upon tiptoe, they crept forward without a sound, and, approaching the square, inartistic window, halted and strained their ears to listen to the conversation in progress within.

Words in German were being spoken. Ella listened, and recognised her father's voice. Ortmann was speaking, too, while other voices of strangers also sounded.

What Seymour overheard through the thin wood-and-iron wall of the riverside bungalow quickly convinced him that Ella's suspicions were only too well founded. A desperate conspiracy to commit outrage was certainly being formed--a plot as daring and as subtle as any ever formed by the Nihilists in Russia, or the Mafia in Italy.

The Germans, _par excellence_ the scientists of Europe, were out to win the war by frightfulness, just as thousands of years ago the Chinese won their wars by a.s.suming horrible disguises and pulling ugly faces to bring bad luck upon their superst.i.tious enemies. The Great War Lord of Germany, in order to save his throne and substantiate his t.i.tle of All-Highest, had set loose his sorry dogs of depravity, degeneracy, and desolation. And he had planted in our island a clever and unscrupulous crew, headed by Ortmann, whose mission was, if possible, to wreck the Ship of State of Great Britain.

The air-pilot listened to the conversation in amazement. He realised then how Ella had exercised a shrewder watchfulness than he had ever done, although he had believed himself so clever.

Therefore, when she whispered, "Let's get away, dear, or we may be discovered," he obeyed her, and crawled off over the strip of gravel to the gra.s.s, after which both made their way back to the footpath.

"Well?" asked the popular actress, as they strode along hand in hand to where they had left the car. "What's your opinion now--eh? Haven't you been convinced?"

"Yes, darling. I can now see quite plainly that there is a plot on foot which, if we are patriots, you and I, we must scotch, at all hazards."

"I agree entirely, Seymour," was the girl's instant reply. "I tried to warn you a month ago, but you were not convinced. To-day you are convinced--are you not? I am acting only for my dear dead mother's country, for, strictly speaking, being the daughter of a German, I am an alien enemy."

About two o'clock one morning, about a week later, the dark figure of a man in a shabby serge suit and golf-cap, treading noiselessly in rubber-shoes, crossed Hammersmith Bridge in the direction of Barnes and, pa.s.sing along that wide open thoroughfare, paused for a moment outside the house of the Dutch pastor, Mr Drost. Then, finding himself un.o.bserved, he slipped into the front garden and, bending, concealed himself in some bushes.

He had waited there for ten minutes or so, watching the dark, silent house, when, slowly and noiselessly, the front door opened, and next moment Kennedy and Ella were face to face. The latter wore a pretty pale-blue dressing-gown, for she had just risen from bed, she having spent the last two days at her father's house.

With a warning finger upon her lips, and with a small flash-lamp in her hand, she led her lover up three flights of stairs to the door of that locked room, which she silently opened with her duplicate key.