“I am doing only what is my duty, dear,” replied the girl in the kimono; “and with your aid I hope to upset this latest plot of Ortmann and his friends.”
“Have you seen Ortmann lately?” her lover asked.
“No. He has been away somewhere in Holland – conferring with the German Secret Service, without a doubt. I heard father say yesterday, however, that he had returned to Park Lane.”
“Returned, in order to distribute more German money, I suppose?”
“Probably. He must have spent many hundreds of thousands of pounds in the German cause both before the war and after it,” replied the girl.
The pair stood in the laboratory for some time examining some of the apparatus which old Drost, now sleeping below, had during that day been using for the manufacture of the explosive contained in those innocent-looking oil-cans.
Kennedy realised, by the delicacy of the apparatus, how well versed the grey-haired old Prussian was in explosives, and on again examining the attaché-cases with their mechanical contents, saw the cleverness with which the plot, whatever its object, had been conceived.
What was intended? There was no doubt a conspiracy afoot to destroy some public building, or perhaps an important bridge or railway junction.
This he pointed out to Ella, who, in reply, said:
“Yes. I shall remain here and watch. I shall close up my flat, and send my maid on a holiday, so as to have excuse to remain here at home.”
“Right-ho! darling. You can always get at me on the telephone. You remain here and watch at this end, while I will keep an eye on Ortmann – at least, as far as my flying duties will allow me.”
Thus it was arranged, and the pair, treading noiselessly, closed the door and, relocking it, crept softly down the stairs. In the dark hall Seymour took his well-beloved in his strong arms and there held her, kissing her passionately upon the brow. Then he whispered:
“Good-night, my darling. Be careful that you are not detected watching.”
A moment later he had slipped out of the door and was gone.
Hardly had the door closed when Ella was startled by a movement on the landing at the head of the stairs – a sound like a footstep. There was a loose board there, and it had creaked! Some one was moving.
“Who’s there?” she asked in apprehension.
There was no reply.
“Some one is up there,” she cried. “Who is it?”
Yet again there was no response.
In the house there was the old servant and her father. Much puzzled at the noise, which she had heard quite distinctly, she crept back up the dark stairs and, finding no one, softly entered her father’s room, to discover him asleep and breathing heavily. Then she ascended to the servant’s room, but old Mrs Pennington was asleep.
When she regained her own cosy room, which was, as always, in readiness for her, even though she now usually lived in the flat in Stamfordham Mansions, over in Kensington, she stood before the long mirror and realised how pale she was.
That movement in the darkness had unnerved her. Some person had most certainly trodden upon that loose board, which she and her lover had been so careful to avoid.
“I wonder!” she whispered to herself. “Can there have been somebody watching us?”
If that were so, then her father and the chief of spies, the man Ortmann, would be on their guard. So, in order to satisfy herself, she took her electric torch and made a complete examination of the house, until she came to the small back sitting-room on the ground floor. There she found the blind drawn up and the window open.
The discovery startled her. The person, whoever it could have been, must have slipped past her in the darkness and, descending the stairs, escaped by the way that entrance had been gained.
Was it a burglar? Was it some one desirous of knowing the secrets of that upstairs laboratory? Or was it some person set to watch her movements?
She switched on the electric light, which revealed that the room was a small one, with well-filled bookshelves and a roll-top writing-table set against the open window.
Upon the carpet something glistened, and, stooping, she picked it up. It was a woman’s curb chain-bracelet, the thin safety-chain of which was broken.
Could the intruder have been a woman? Had the bracelet fallen from her wrist in her hurried flight? Or had it fallen from the pocket of a burglar who had secured it with some booty from a house in the vicinity?
Ella looked out into the small garden, but the intruder had vanished. Therefore she closed the window, to find that the catch had been broken by the mysterious visitor, and then returned again to her room, where she once more examined the bracelet beneath the light.
“It may give us some clue,” she remarked to herself. “Yet it is of very ordinary pattern, and bears no mark of identification.”
Next day, without telling her father of her midnight discovery, she met Seymour Kennedy by appointment at the theatre, showed him what she had found, and related the whole story.
“Strange!” he exclaimed. “Extraordinary! It must have been a burglar!”
“Or a woman?”
“But why should a woman break into your house?”
“In order to watch me. Perhaps Ortmann or my father may have suspicions,” replied the actress, arranging her hair before the big mirror.
“I hope not, Ella. They are both the most daring and the most unscrupulous men in London.”
“And it is for us to outwit them in secret, dear,” she replied, turning to him with a smile of sweet affection.
In the days that followed, the mystery of the intruder became further increased by Ella making another discovery. In the garden, upon a thorn-bush against the wall, Mrs Pennington found a large piece of cream silk which had apparently formed part of the sleeve of a woman’s blouse. She brought it to Ella, saying:
“I’ve found this in the garden, miss. It looks as if some lady got entangled in the bush, and left part of ’er blouse behind – don’t it? I wonder who’s been in our garden?”
Ella took it and, expressing little surprise, suggested that it might have been blown into the bush by the wind.
It, however, at once confirmed her suspicion that the midnight visitor had been a woman.
While Ella sang and danced nightly at the theatre, and afterwards drove home to Castelnau, to that house where upstairs was stored all that high-explosive, Seymour Kennedy maintained a watchful vigilance upon Ernst von Ortmann, the chief of enemy spies, and kept that unceasing watch over him, not only at the house at Wandsworth, but also at the magnificent mansion in Park Lane.
To von Ortmann’s frequent dinner-parties in the West End came the crafty and grave-faced old Drost, who there met other men of mysterious antecedents, adventurers who posed as Swiss, American, or Dutch, for that house was the headquarters of enemy activity in Great Britain, and from it extended many extraordinary and unexpected ramifications.
That some great and desperate outrage was intended in the near future Kennedy was confident, as all the apparatus was ready. But of Drost’s intentions he could discover nothing, neither could Ella.
One cold night, while loitering in the darkness beside the railings of the Park, Kennedy saw Ortmann emerge from the big portico of his house and walk to Hyde Park Corner, where he hailed a taxi and drove down Grosvenor Gardens. Within a few moments Kennedy was in another taxi closely following.
They crossed Westminster Bridge and turned to the right, in the direction of Vauxhall. Then, on arriving at Clapham Junction station, Kennedy, discerning Ortmann’s destination to be the house in Park Road, Wandsworth Common, where at times he lived as the humble Mr Horton, the retired tradesman, he dismissed his taxi and walked the remainder of the distance.
When he arrived before the house, he saw a light in Horton’s room, and hardly had he halted opposite ere the figure of a man in a black overcoat and soft felt hat came along and ascended the steps to the door.
It was the so-called Dutch pastor, Theodore Drost.
The latter had not been admitted more than five minutes when another visitor, a short, thick-set bearded man, having the appearance of a workman, probably an engineer, passed by, hesitated, looked at the house inquiringly, and then went up the steps and rang the bell.
He also quickly gained admission, and therefore it seemed plain that a conference was being held there that night.
The bearded man was a complete stranger, hence Kennedy resolved to follow him when he reappeared, and try to establish his identity. 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 passed, 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-class, who wore a brass 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 association 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 shells were being made.
Each girl wore a serviceable raincoat and close-fitting little hat, each carried a small leather attaché-case with her comb, mirror, and other little feminine toilet requisites, and each wore upon her blouse the brass triangle which denoted that she was a worker on munitions.
Peering out from the window of one of those dingy third-class 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 nobody, 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 brass triangle on her blouse, sat back in the crowded carriage in thought, her little attaché-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 shells for the guns at the front.
At the entrance-gate each girl passed 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 shells from one lathe to another as they passed through the many processes between drilling and varnishing. Ella was among these latter, and certainly nobody 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 shell 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 shell, at the same time releasing it from the lathe. Again she raised her hand, and the shell 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 shells, 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 passed, 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.
The days went past, but nothing suspicious occurred until one night Cole, who was again living at the temperance hotel, joined the munition-workers’ train, being followed by Ella, who found that he had been engaged as an electrician in the power-house.
Next day he met the thin-faced young woman, who was known to her fellow-workers as Kate Dexter, and they spent several hours together, at lunch and afterwards at a picture-house. But, friends as they were, when they left the Central Station they took care never to travel in the same carriage. So, to their fellow-workers, they were strangers.
One afternoon, at half-past two, Kennedy, who was at the Central Hotel, called at Ella’s lodgings and explained how he had seen her father walking in the street with Cole.
“I afterwards followed them,” he added, “and eventually found that your father is at the Grand Hotel.”
“Then mischief is certainly intended,” declared the girl, her cheeks turning pale.
“No doubt. They mean to execute the plot without any further delay. That’s my opinion. It will require all our watchfulness and resource if we are to be successful.”
“Why not warn the police?” suggested the girl.
“And, by doing so, you would most certainly send your father to a long term of penal servitude,” was her lover’s reply. “No. We must prevent it, and for your own sake allow your father a loophole for escape, though he certainly deserves none.”
Ella had once travelled in the same train as the woman Dexter, but the latter had not recognised her; nevertheless, from inquiries Kennedy had made in London, it seemed that a month before the woman had been living in London, and was a close friend of Cole’s. She had only recently gone north to work on munitions, and had, like Ella, been instructed in the working of the electrical cranes.
For three days Theodore Drost remained at the Grand Hotel, where he had several interviews with the electrician Cole, and while Ella kept out of the way by day and went to the works at night, her lover very cleverly managed to maintain a strict watch.
More than once Ella had contrived to pass the door of the great power-station with its humming dynamos which gave movement to that huge mass of machinery in the three factories turning out munitions, and had seen the man Cole in his blue dungarees busily oiling the machinery.
Once she had watched him using thick machine-oil from cans exactly similar to those she had seen stored beneath the table in her father’s laboratory.
Night after night Ella, working there aloft in her crane, waited and wondered. Indeed, she never knew from hour to hour whether the carefully laid plans of the conspirators might not result in some disastrous explosion, in which she herself might be a victim.
But Kennedy reassured her that he was keeping an ever-watchful vigil, and she trusted him implicitly. As a matter of fact, one of the London detectives watching the place was a friend of his, and, without telling him the exact object of his visit, he was able to gain entrance to the works.
Naturally the detective became curious, but Kennedy, who usually wore an old tweed suit and a seedy cap, promised to reveal all to him afterwards.
About half-past one, on a wet morning, Ella had just stopped her crane when, at the entrance end of the building, she caught a glimpse of some one beckoning to her. It was her well-beloved. In a few moments she had clambered down, and, hurrying through the factory, joined him outside.
“Did you travel with that woman Dexter to-night?” he inquired eagerly in a low whisper as they stood in the darkness.
“Yes.”
“Did she carry her attaché-case?”
“Yes. She always does.”
“She did not have it when she went home yesterday morning, for she left it here – the case which your father prepared,” he said. “She brought the second of the cases with her to-night.”
“Then both are here!” exclaimed Ella in excitement.
“Both are now in the power-house. I saw her hand over the second one to Cole only a quarter of an hour ago. Let us watch.”
Then the pair crept on beneath the dark shadows through the rain to the great square building of red-brick which, constructed six months before, contained some of the finest and most up-to-date electrical plant in all the world.
At last they gained the door, which stood slightly ajar. The other mechanics were all away in the canteen having their early morning meal, and the man Cole, outwardly an honest-looking workman, remained there in charge.
Together they watched the man’s movements.
Presently he came to the door, opened it, and looked eagerly out. In the meantime, however, Kennedy and his companion had slipped round the corner, and were therefore out of view. Then, returning within, Cole went to a cupboard, and as they watched from their previous point of vantage they saw him unlock it, displaying the two little leather attaché-cases within.
Close to the huge main dynamo in the centre of the building there stood on the concrete floor six cans of lubricating-oil which, it was proved afterwards, were usually kept at that spot, and therefore were in no way conspicuous.
Swiftly the man Cole drew a coil of fine wire from the cupboard, the ends being joined to the two attaché-cases – so that if the mechanism of one failed, the other would act – and with quick, nimble fingers he joined the wire to that already attached to the six inoffensive-looking cans of “oil.”
The preparations did not occupy more than a minute. Then, seizing a can of petrol, he placed it beside the cans of high-explosive, in order to add fire to the explosion.
Afterwards, with a final look at the wires, and putting his head into the cupboard, where he listened to make certain that the clockwork mechanism was in motion, he glanced at the big clock above. Then, in fear lest he should be caught there, he ran wildly out into the darkness ere they were aware of his intention.
“Quick!” shouted Kennedy. “Rush and break those wires, Ella! I’ll watch him!”
Without a second’s hesitation, the girl dashed into the power-house and frantically tore the wires from the cupboard and from the fastenings to the deadly attaché-cases, and – as it was afterwards proved – only just in time to save herself, the building, and its mass of machinery from total destruction.
Meanwhile, Kennedy had overtaken the man Cole, and closed desperately with him, both of them rolling into the mud.
Just as Ella was running towards them a pistol-shot rang out.
The fellow had drawn a revolver and in desperation had tried to shoot his captor, but instead, in Kennedy’s strong grip, his hand was turned towards himself, and the bullet had struck his own face, entering his brain.
