Chapter Four. The Explosive Needle.

“Then you suspect that another plot is in progress, Ella?”

“I feel confident of it. The Count is furious at the failure of the conspiracy against Mr Merton Mansfield. He came to see father last night. I did not gather much, as I had to get away to the theatre, but I overheard him suggest that some other method should be tried,” replied Ella Drost.

She was sitting in the dainty little drawing-room of the flat in Stamfordham Mansions, chatting with her airman lover.

“Of course,” he said. “Ortmann and your father were well aware that Merton Mansfield is still the strongest man in the whole Government, a marvellous organiser, and the really great man upon whom Britain has pinned her faith.”

“They mean to work some evil upon him,” the girl said apprehensively. “I’m quite certain of it! Cannot we warn him?”

“I did so. I wrote to him, urging him to take precautions, and declaring that a plot was in progress,” said Kennedy. “I suppose his secretary had the letter and probably held it back in order not to disturb him. Secretaries have a habit of doing that.”

Ella, whose cigarette he had just lit, blew a cloud of blue smoke from her lips, and replied:

“Well, if that’s the case then it is exceedingly wrong. The greatest care should be taken of those who are leading us to victory. Ah! dearest,” she added with a sigh, “you do not know how bitter I feel when I reflect that my own father is a German and, moreover, a most deadly enemy.”

“I know, darling, I know,” the man responded. “That’s the worst of it. To expose the organiser of these conspirators would be to send your own father to prison—perhaps to an ignominious end.”

“Yes. All we can do is to watch closely and thwart their devilish designs, as far as we are able,” the girl said.

“Unfortunately, I’ll have to go back to the air-station to-night, but I’ll try to come up again for the week-end.”

Disappointment overspread the girl’s face, but a second later she declared:

“In that case I shall go and stay with father over at Barnes, and endeavour to discover what is intended.”

Therefore, that night, after her work at the theatre, she went to Theodore Drost’s house at Barnes, instead of returning to the flat at Kensington. As she always kept her room there and her visits seemed to delight old Drost, she was always able to keep in touch with Kennedy and so help to frustrate the evil machinations of her father.

As the days passed she became more than ever confident that another deep-laid plot was in progress. Nor was she mistaken, for, truth to tell, Ortmann was having many long interviews with his clever catspaw, the man who posed as the plain and pious pastor of the Dutch Church, old Theodore Drost.

An incident occurred about a week later which showed the trend of events. The old pastor called one day at that modest, dreary little house close by Wandsworth Common, where Count Ernst von Ortmann, the man who secretly directed the agents of Germany in England, lived as plain Mr Horton whenever he grew tired of his beautiful house in Park Lane. Leading, by the fact of his occupation a dual existence, it was necessary for his nefarious purposes that he should frequently disappear into South London, away from the fashionable friends who knew him as Mr Henry Harberton.

The pair were seated together that evening, smoking and discussing the cause of the failure of Rozelaar and the reason of his death by his own bomb.

“Ah! my dear Theodore,” exclaimed the Count, in German, throwing himself back in the old wicker armchair in that cheaply furnished room. “Your machine was too elaborate.”

“No, you are mistaken, it was simplicity itself,” Drost declared.

“Could anybody have tampered with it, do you think?”

“Certainly not. Nobody knew—nobody saw it except ourselves and Rozelaar,” Drost said.

“And we very nearly blew ourselves up with it during the test. Do you remember?” laughed Ortmann.

“Remember! I rather think I do. It was, indeed, a narrow escape. We won’t repeat it. I’ll be more careful, I promise you!” Drost assured his paymaster. “Yet I cannot guess how Rozelaar lost his life.”

“Well, we need not trouble. His was not exactly a precious life, Theodore, was it? The fellow knew a little too much, so, for us, it is perhaps best that the accident should have happened.”

“It is not the first time that fatal accidents have happened to those who, having served Germany, are of no further use,” remarked Drost grimly.

And at his remark the crafty Count—the man who directed the German octopus in Britain—smiled, but remained silent.

Though Ella, still at Barnes, kept both eyes and ears open during the day—compelled, of course, to go to the theatre each evening—yet she could discover no solid fact which might lead her to find out what was in progress.

The Count came very often over to Barnes, and on two or three occasions was accompanied by a fair-haired young man whose real name was Schrieber, but who had changed it to Sommer, and declared himself to be a Swiss. Indeed, he had forged papers just as old Drost possessed. The fabrication of identification-papers—with photographs attached—became quite an industry in Germany after war had broken out, while many American passports were purchased from American “crooks” and fresh photographs cleverly superimposed.

One afternoon the young man Schrieber called, remained talking alone with Drost for about ten minutes, and then left. Presently the old man entered the drawing-room wherein his daughter was seated writing a letter. In his hand he carried a china vase about fourteen inches high, the dark-blue ornamentation being very similar to a “willow-pattern” plate. It was shaped something like a Greek amphora, and quite of ordinary quality.

“Ella, dear,” said her father, handing her the vase, “I wish you could get one exactly like this. You’ll be able to get it quite easily at one of the big stores in the West End. A friend of mine has a pair, and has broken one.”

“Certainly, dad,” was the girl’s reply. “I’m going out this afternoon, and I’ll take it with me.” That afternoon Ella Drost went to several shops until at last, at one in Oxford Street, she found the exact replica. They were in pairs, and she was compelled to buy both. Later on she took them to Barnes, but before doing so she called in at her own flat and there left the superfluous vase.

Old Drost seemed highly delighted at securing the exact replica of the broken ornament.

“Excellent!” he said. “Excellent! Really, my dear child, I thought that you would have had to get it made. And making things in war-time is such a very long process.”

“I had a little trouble, but I at last got a clue to where they had been bought, and there, sure enough, they had one pair still in stock.”

“Excellent! Excellent!” he grunted, and he carried off both the pattern vase and its companion to his little den where he usually did his writing.

That same evening, while the taxi was at the door to take Ella to the theatre, the Count called.

“Ah! Fräulein!” he cried, as he entered the dining-room where Ella stood ready dressed in her smart coat and hat, as became one who had been so successful in her profession and drew such a handsome salary, much to the envy of her less fortunate fellow-artistes. “Why—you’re quite a stranger—always away at the theatre whenever I call. I took some friends from the club to see you the night before last. That new waltz-song of yours is really most delightful—so catchy,” he added, speaking in German.

“Do you like it?” asked the bright, athletic girl who led such a strange semi-Bohemian life, and was yet filled with constant suspicion concerning her father. “At first I did not like singing it, because I objected to some of the lines. But I see now that everyone seems attracted by it.”

“No, Fraulein Ella!” exclaimed the Count, with his exquisite courtesy. “The public are not attracted by the song, but by your own chic and charm.”

“Now, really, Count,” exclaimed Ella, “this is too bad of you! If one of my stall-admirers had said so I would forgive him. But, surely, you know me too well to think that I care for flattery from you. I have been too long on the stage, I assure you. To me applause is merely part of the show. I expect it, and smile and bow when the house claps. It does not fill me with the least personal pride, I assure you. When I first went on the stage it certainly did. But to-day, after being all these years before the public—”

“All these years!” echoed Ortmann, interrupting her. “Why, you are not much more than twenty now, Ella!”

“And think, I’ve already been twelve years on the stage—a life hard enough, I can tell you!”

“Yes, I know,” remarked the Count. “But you’ll forget all about your friend Commander Kennedy some day, I expect, and marry a wealthy man.”

Ella’s eyebrows contracted for a few seconds.

“Well—perhaps,” she said. “But I may yet marry Mr Kennedy, you know!”

Count Ernst Ortmann smiled—a hard evil expression upon his heavy lips. He held Seymour Kennedy in distinct suspicion.

Indeed, when Ella had gone and he was standing with old Drost in the dining-room, he remarked:

“I still entertain very grave suspicions regarding that fellow Kennedy. Couldn’t you keep Ella away from him? Could not we part them somehow? While they are in love a distinct danger exists. He may learn something at any moment. My information is that he is particularly shrewd at investigations, and he may suspect. If so, then the game might very easily be up.”

“Bah! Do not anticipate any such contretemps. He knows nothing—take that from me. We have nothing whatever to fear in that direction,” Drost assured him. “If I thought so I should very soon take steps to part them.”

“How would you accomplish that?”

Theodore Drost’s narrow face—broad at the brow and narrow at the chin—puckered in a smile.

“It would not be at all difficult,” he said, with a mysterious expression. “I have something upstairs which would very soon effect our purpose and leave no trace—if it were necessary.”

“But it is necessary,” the Count declared.

“One day it may be,” Drost said. “But not yet.”

“Your girl is in love with him, and I suppose you think it a pity to—well, to spoil their romance, even in face of all that Germany has at stake!” remarked the Count, with an undisguised sneer. “Ah, my dear Drost! you pose as a Dutch pastor, but do you not remember our German motto: Der beste prediger ist der Zeit?” (Time is the best preacher.)

“Yes, yes,” replied the old man with the scraggy beard. “But please rely upon my wits. My eyes are open, and I assure you there is nothing whatever at present to fear.”

“Very well, Drost,” Answered the Count. “I submit to your wider knowledge. But now that the girl has gone, we may as well go upstairs—eh? You’ve, of course, seen in to-night’s paper that Merton Mansfield is to address the munition-makers in the Midlands in a fortnight’s time.”

Old Drost again smiled mysteriously, and said:

“I knew that quite a fortnight ago. Schrieber has been north. He returned only last Tuesday.”

“Did you send him north?”

“I did. He went upon a mission. As you know, I am generally well ahead with any plans I make.”

“Plans! What are they? Really, my dear Theodore, you are a perfect marvel of clever inventiveness!”

Ella’s father shrugged his shoulders, and in his deep guttural German replied:

“I am only doing my duty as a good loyal son of our own Fatherland.”

“Well spoken,” declared the Count. “There is a good and just reward awaiting you after the war, never fear! Our Emperor does not forget services rendered. Let us go upstairs—eh? I am anxious to learn what you suggest.”

The pair ascended the stairs to the carefully locked room in the roof, that long, well-equipped laboratory wherein Theodore Drost spent so many hours daily experimenting in the latest discovered high-explosives. After Drost had switched on the light he carefully closed the door, and then, crossing to a long deal cupboard where hung several cotton overalls to protect his clothes against the splash of acids, he took out his military gas-masks—those hideous devices with rubber mouth-pieces and mica eye-holes, as used by our men at the front.

“It is always best to take precautions,” Drost said, as he handed his companion and taskmaster a helmet. “You may find it a little stifling at first, but it is most necessary.”

Both put on the masks, after which Drost handed the Count a pair of rubber gloves. These Ortmann put on, watching Drost, who did the same.

“It is a good job, Count, that we are alone in the house, otherwise I could do no work. The gas is heavy, and any escaping from here will fall to the basement. One fourteen-thousandth part in air, and the result must be fatal. There is no known antidote. Ah!” he laughed, “these poor, too-confiding English little dream of our latter-day discoveries—scientific discoveries by which we hold all the honours in the game of war.”

“Very well,” grunted the Count. “Let us hope that our science is better than that of our enemies. But I confess that to-day I have doubts. These British have made most wonderful strides—the most amazing progress in their munitions and devices.”

While he spoke old Drost was, with expert hand, mixing certain compounds, grey and bright-green crystals, which he pounded in a mortar. Then, carefully weighing with his apothecary’s scales several grammes of a fine white powder, he added it and, while the Count, still wearing his ugly mask, watched, mixed a measured quantity of water and placed the whole into a big glass retort which was already in a holder warmed by the pale-blue flame of a spirit-lamp.

Suddenly Drost made a gesture to his companion, and while the liquid in the retort was bubbling, he attached to the narrow end of the retort an arrangement of bent glass tube, and proceeded to distil the liquid he had produced.

This product, which fell drop by drop into a long test-tube, was of a bright-blue colour. Drop by drop fell that fatal liquid—fatal because it gave off a poison-gas against which no human being could exist for more than five seconds.

“This,” exclaimed Drost, his voice muffled by his mask, “is the most fatal of any gas that chemical science has yet discovered. It does not merely asphyxiate and leave bad symptoms afterwards, but it kills outright in a few seconds. It is absolutely deadly.”

The room had by that time become filled by a curious orange-coloured vapour—bright-orange—which to Ortmann’s eyes was an extraordinary phenomenon. Had he not worn the protective mask he would have been instantly overwhelmed by an odour closely resembling that of cloves—a terribly fatal perfume, which would sweep away men like moths passing through the flame of a candle.

“Well, my dear Drost,” said the Count, “I know you will never rest until you’ve devised a means of carrying out our plans for the downfall of Merton Mansfield, and certainly you seem to have adopted some measure—deadly though it may be—which is quite in accord with your ingenuity.” He also spoke in a low, stifled voice from within his ugly mask.

Drost nodded, and then into the marble mortar, in which he had mixed his devilish compounds, he poured something from a long blue glass-stoppered bottle, whereupon the place instantly became filled with volumes of grey smoke which, when it cleared, left the atmosphere perfectly clear—so clear, indeed, that both men removed their masks, sniffing, however, at the faint odour of cloves still remaining.

Afterwards the old chemist took from the cupboard a small cardboard box which, on opening, contained, carefully packed in cotton wool, a short, stout, but hollow needle. Attached to it at one end was a small steel box about two inches broad and the same high. The box was perforated at intervals.

“This is the little contrivance of which I spoke,” said Drost gleefully, as he gazed upon it in admiration. “The explosive needle, when filled, and this little chamber, also properly charged, cannot fail to act.”

“I take it, my dear friend, that it will be automatic—eh?” remarked the Count, examining it with interest.

Old Drost smiled, nodded, and replaced his precious contrivance in its box, after which both men left the laboratory, Drost carefully locking the door before descending the stairs to follow his companion.

Both of them took a taxi to the fine house in Park Lane where Ortmann assumed the rôle of society man. At ten o’clock a visitor was ushered in, and proved to be the young man whose real name was Schrieber. Apparently he had just returned from a journey, and had come straight from the station in order to make some secret report to Ortmann.

When the three were closeted together the young German, who passed as a Swiss, produced from his pocket three small photographs showing the interior of a room taken from different angles, but always showing the fireplace.

“Excellent!” declared Drost, as he examined all three prints beneath the strong light. “You have done splendidly.”

“Yes, all is in readiness. I have made friends with the maids, and when I return I shall be welcomed. No breath of suspicion will be aroused. We have now but to wait our time.”

And the three conspirators—men who were working so secretly, yet with such dastardly intent in the enemy’s cause—laughed as they helped themselves to cigars from the big silver box.

Nearly three weeks passed when, one day while Seymour Kennedy was sitting in Ella’s pretty little drawing-room, he accidentally noticed the artistic blue-and-white vase, and remarking how unusual was the shape, his beloved related how it had come into her possession.

Kennedy reflected for a few seconds, his brows knit in deep thought.

“Curious that your father desired to match a vase like this! With what object, I wonder?”

“He told me that he wanted it for a friend.”

“H’m! I wonder why his friend was so eager to match it?” was the air-pilot’s remark. “And, again, why did he send you to buy it, when his friend could surely have done so?”

Ella was silent. That question had never occurred to her.

“I wonder if your father is making some fresh experiment? Have you been to the laboratory lately?” he inquired.

“No, dear.”

“A secret visit there might be worth while,” he suggested. “Meanwhile, the question of this vase excites my curiosity considerably. I can’t help thinking that Ortmann is at the bottom of some other vile trickery. Their failure to kill Merton Mansfield has, no doubt, made them all the more determined to deal an effective coup.”

Some five days later it was announced in the London papers that Mr Merton Mansfield, the man in whom Great Britain placed her principal trust in securing victory, would, on the following Thursday, address a mass meeting of the munition workers in the great Midland town of G—. The object of the meeting was to urge greater enthusiasm in the prosecution of the war, and to induce the workers, in the national cause, to forego their holidays and thus keep up the output of heavy shells and high-explosives.

Seymour Kennedy, who was in the mess at the time, read the paragraph, and then sat pondering.

Next day he induced his commanding officer to give him leave, and he was soon in London making active inquiries. He found that Mr Merton Mansfield had been compelled to decline the invitation of Lord Heatherdale, and had arranged to stay the night at the Central Station Hotel at G—, as he would have to return to London by the first train next morning.

Mr Merton Mansfield was an extremely busy man. No member of the Cabinet held greater responsibility upon his shoulders, and certainly no man held higher and stronger views of British patriotism. Any words from his lips were listened to eagerly, and carefully weighed, not only here, but in neutral countries also. Hence, at this great meeting he was expected to reveal one or two matters of paramount interest, and also make a further declaration of British policy.

On the Tuesday night—two days before the meeting—Flight-Commander Kennedy slept at the Central Hotel in G— and next morning returned to London.

Next night—or rather at early morning—Ella silently opened the front door of her father’s house at Barnes, and her lover slipped in noiselessly, the pair afterwards ascending to the secret laboratory which his well-beloved opened with her duplicate key. Without much difficulty they opened the cupboard and examined the contents of the small cardboard box—discovering the curious-looking needle attached to the little perforated steel box.

“This place smells of cloves—doesn’t it?” whispered Seymour.

“Yes, darling. I’ve smelt the same smell for some days. Father said he had upset a bottle of oil of cloves.”

“This is certainly a most curious apparatus!” Kennedy whispered, holding the needle in his hand. “See, this box is not a bomb. It is perforated to allow some perfume—or, more likely, a poison-gas—to escape. The needle is certainly an explosive one!”

Further search revealed a small clockwork movement not much larger than that of a good-sized watch, together with a small bag of bird’s sand.

Having made a thorough search, they replaced things exactly as they had found them, and then Kennedy crept forth again into the broad thoroughfare called Castelnau.

“Those devils mean mischief again!” he muttered to himself as he hurried across Hammersmith Bridge. “That explosive needle is, I can quite see, a most diabolical invention. Drost surely has the inventive brains of Satan himself!”

At that same hour the young man Schrieber was seated with Ortmann in Park Lane, listening to certain instructions, until at last he rose to go.

“And, remember—trust in nobody!” Ortmann urged. “If you perform this service successfully, our Fatherland will owe you a very deep debt of gratitude—one which I will personally see shall not be forgotten.”

At midday on Thursday Kennedy and Ella left St. Pancras station for G—, arriving there three hours later, and taking rooms at the Central Hotel.

As soon as Ella entered hers, she was astonished to see upon the mantelshelf a pair of the same blue-and-white vases as those her father had asked her to match!

When, ten minutes later, she rejoined Kennedy in the lounge, she told him of her discovery.

“Yes,” was his reply. “They are the same in all the rooms—one of the fads of the proprietor. But,” he added, “you must not be seen here. We don’t know who is coming from London by the next train.”

For that reason Ella retired to her room and did not leave it for some hours, not indeed till her lover came to tell her that all was clear.

By that time Mr Merton Mansfield had arrived, eaten a frugal dinner, and had gone to the meeting.

“That young man Schrieber has arrived also,” Kennedy told her. “He’s never seen me, so he suspects nothing. He has also gone to the meeting, therefore we can go down and have something to eat.”

That night at eleven o’clock Mr Merton Mansfield returned, was cheered loudly by a huge crowd gathered outside the hotel, and waited below chatting for nearly half-an-hour before he retired to his room.

The room was numbered 146—the best room of a suite on the first floor—and to this room the young German, the catspaw of Ortmann, had gone about a quarter past eleven, gaining admission through the private sitting-room next door.

On entering he, quick as lightning, took down one of the vases from the mantelshelf and replaced it by another exactly similar which he drew from beneath the light coat thrown over his arm. Then, carrying the vase with him concealed by his coat, he slipped quickly out again unobserved, not, however, before he had poured into the other vase some bird-sand so as to make them both of equal weight when the maid came to dust them on the morrow. The conspirators left nothing to chance.

In that innocent-looking vase he had brought was one of the most diabolical contrivances ever invented by man’s brain. To the explosive needle the tiny clock had been attached and set to strike at half-past two, an hour when the whole hotel would be wrapped in slumber. The effect of striking would be to explode the needle and thus break a thin glass tube of a certain liquid and set over a piece of sponge saturated by a second liquid. The mixing of the two liquids would produce that terribly deadly poison-gas which, escaping through the perforation, must cause almost instant death to any person sleeping in the room.

Truly, it was a most diabolical death-trap.

Ten minutes later Mr Merton Mansfield, quite unsuspicious, entered the room and retired to bed, an example followed by the assassin Schrieber, who had a room on the same corridor a little distance away.

At nine o’clock next morning Seymour Kennedy, bright and spruce in his uniform, descended to the hall and inquired of the head-porter if Mr Merton Mansfield had left.

“Mr Mansfield is an early bird, sir. He went away to London by the 6:47 train.”

The air-pilot turned upon his heel with a sigh of relief.

Two hours later, however, while seated in the lounge with Ella, prior to returning to London, Kennedy noticed that there was much whispering among the staff. Of the porter he inquired the reason.

“Well, sir,” the man replied, “it seems that a maid on the first floor, on going into one of the rooms this morning, found a visitor dead in bed—Mr Sommer, a Swiss gentleman who arrived last night. The place smells strongly of cloves, and the poor girl has also been taken very ill, for the fumes in the place nearly asphyxiated her.”

Seymour again returned to Ella and told her what had occurred.

“But how did you manage it?” she asked in a low whisper.

“Well, after watching Schrieber put the vase in the room, I entered after him and replaced it by the vase you had bought, afterwards taking the one with the explosive needle to Schrieber’s room and carrying away the superfluous one. The man must have glanced at the pair of vases on his mantelshelf before sleeping, but he, of course, never dreamed that he was gazing upon the infernal contrivance that he had placed in the Minister’s room with his own hand.”

“I see,” exclaimed Ella. “And, surely, he richly deserved his fate!”

The deadly contrivance was found when the room was searched, but the police of G— still regard the affair as a complete and inexplicable mystery.