The Air Pirate
I followed him completely and said so. From what we already knew these
deductions were perfectly fair ones.
"I thank you. Now we come to the man himself. I believe him to be a
person of education, and one who has held a good social position. He is
also desperate in his circumstances, and a person to whom material
pleasure is the highest good."
"Rickaby said that the men who came aboard the _Albatros_ spoke like
educated people."
"Yes. Our field of search already begins to grow narrower. Am I right in
saying that every aviator in this country must pass an examination and
be licensed before he is allowed to fly?"
"It is so. All aviators, professional or amateur, must have a licence
from the Air Police. This is registered. I have already had the records
for the past ten years searched at Whitehall. But this has yielded no
result. There is no one who could possibly be our man."
"It was well thought of, Sir John, if I may say so. But in my opinion we
shall have to go back a good deal further than ten years. We now come
to the question of the pirate airship itself and its peculiar qualities.
Let us fix upon one--the silence of its engines. I am aware that the
constructors of motor engines have been busy upon this problem for
years."
"And with little result. The problem has not been solved."
"Except by our unknown friends. I have already examined all the recent
patents of silencing devices at your patent office here. I spent
yesterday morning there, and found nothing. The significance of that is
obvious. Any ordinary inventor who had discovered something of such
importance would protect it at once. We can therefore make up our minds
that in no regular motor-engineering works throughout this country has
the complete silencer been evolved. It would be impossible for the most
brilliant inventor to keep such a thing entirely to himself."
"Again the field shrinks?"
"Yes, Sir John. We now have a man of the character already indicated,
who, as he has undoubtedly constructed silent engines, must have done so
in secret. He must have had private engineering works in order to make
an important part of his machines. The point is, where? On the
Continent? I think not. He would be watched far more carefully than in
this country. America is still more unlikely. Let us assume England.
Having done so, we can, I think, safely deduce that for obvious reasons
this man and his confederates--for we know he has them--would endeavour
to build his pirate ship as near as possible to the place he intended to
use as the base of his operations. And that base--if your experience
bears me out--is certainly somewhere or other on the coast?"
"Of course, one would say that it must be so, Mr. Danjuro. And yet it
seems impossible. The whole coast of England is patrolled by the
coastguards. For all practical purposes England is no bigger than a
pocket-handkerchief. I thought of Scotland and the Northern Isles. I
thought of wild places on the Irish coast. I have had a fleet of
airships surveying and photographing these places for the last two days.
No hangar bigger than a motor-shed could have escaped their notice. All
the land police of the villages round the coasts have been interrogated
by Scotland Yard. Nothing, nothing whatever has been seen."
I spoke with some passion, for I felt it. The sense of impotence was
maddening.
The Japanese rolled another cigarette. As he did so the door opened and
Thumbwood came in.
"I delivered your note, Sir John, and the editor's compliments and
thanks."
"Charles," I said, "this gentleman here is Mr. Danjuro. He is going to
help us. Mr. Danjuro is "--I hesitated for a moment, really it was
difficult to describe him!--"is one of the foremost detectives in the
world!"
Thumbwood's hand went up to his forehead in the stable boy's salute.
Then, as he saw my guest full-face, he started. "I saw you this morning,
sir," he said. "You were talking to old Mrs. Jessop, the dresser at the
Parthenon Theatre. It was in the 'Blue Dragon,' just round the corner by
the stage-door."
"And you were with the stage-door keeper. A curious coincidence," Mr.
Danjuro replied, with his weary smile, and at a look from me Thumbwood,
very puzzled indeed, left the room.
"I spent part of this morning at the Parthenon Theatre, Sir John. Your
servant apparently thought of doing the same thing. A man of
considerable acumen?--I imagined so. To proceed. Now that we have
cleared away a few preliminary obstructions, we arrive at a point which
I regard as of great significance. You are engaged--I speak of intimate
matters, but purely in my character of a consultant--to Miss Constance
Shepherd, a young lady of beauty and celebrity."
... Confound the fellow, he spoke of Connie as if she were a fish!
"That is so," I told him.
"That young lady was kidnapped by the unknown airman. From among all
the passengers she and her maid were singled out. Now that fact--upon
which you must have already pondered considerably--is a key fact. Was it
done for the purpose of holding this lady up to ransom? I see the
suggestion has been made in the Press. I answer no. In the first place,
it would be altogether too dangerous a game, and the attempt would
certainly lead to discovery. Secondly, there were other people on board
who would have been more profitable prey. The Duke of Perth, for
instance, or the cinema actor who receives sixty thousand pounds a year.
Now it is extremely improbable that in the rush and excitement of the
attack and robbery of the _Atlantis_, the pirate leader was suddenly
struck by a pretty face. Indeed, we know from accounts of the passengers
that Miss Shepherd was deliberately searched for. That indicates with
certainty that the pirate knew she was on board, and had a design of
capturing her. In its turn, this predicates a former acquaintance, and,
undoubtedly, a repulse in the past. Hence my inquiries and my interview
with the theatre dresser this morning."
I astonished that little man. It was the first and last time. Leaping up
in my chair, I believe I shouted like a madman. At any rate, Thumbwood
was inside the room before I could find words to speak.
Something had flashed upon me, white-hot and sudden, as an electric
advertisement flashes out upon one at night. It was something that I had
entirely and utterly forgotten until now.
"There was a man," I gasped, "a scoundrel who had been annoying Miss
Shepherd for a long time. He wanted to marry her. She told me of it.
_And he was once a celebrated flying man!_"
"Long ago, in the Great War," said Danjuro calmly. "Major Helzephron,
V.C. I was aware of it."
"And one of the boys if ever there was one, sir!" Thumbwood broke in.
"Warned off the course everywhere. I've got a bit of information too!"
I stared at them, trembling with excitement. And then reality, like a
cold douche of water, brought me to my senses. Of course, it was
impossible. The thing was a mere coincidence. Why, while the first
ship--the _Albatros_--had been attacked, this man, Helzephron, was in
London! He had travelled west in the same train with me and Connie.
"May I ask exactly what you know, Sir John?"
... I told Danjuro precisely what had happened at Paddington and how
Connie herself had explained it.
He listened to me in attentive silence. When I had finished, I saw that
a small leather pocket-book had appeared in his hands--everything that
the fellow did had the uncanny effect of a clever trick--and he was
turning over the leaves.
"So far," he began, "in the consideration of this problem we have been
eliminating impossibilities, or improbabilities so strong that they
amount to that. This has left us with a small residuum of fact, unproved
fact, but sufficient to work from. One thing emerges clearly. It is the
nature and personality of our unknown friend. It is not too much to say
that he MUST be very like what we have imagined him to be. A certain
person appears dimly on the scene--this Major Helzephron. Let us see how
his personality squares with the personality we have been deducing. Mr.
Thumbwood has apparently collected some information. I have done so,
too. Let us pool results!" He looked at Charles, who blushed.
"Out with it, Charles; you've done splendidly," I said.
"Well, Sir John, I found out that this gentleman is a pretty bad
wrong-'un, judging by the company he keeps. And he used to annoy Miss
Shepherd something chronic. He'd wait at the stage-door and try and
speak to her when she got into the car after the performance, and he was
always leaving notes and flowers with the stage-door keeper. Miss
Shepherd would never take them. She always sent them back from her room.
It got so bad at last that she complained to the stage manager, and he
had a plain clothes man from Vine Street there one night. Major
Helzephron was told off pretty plainly, I hear. He used to come very
nasty sometimes, and once or twice he was fair blotto! And Mr. Meggit,
the commission agent, knows him well. He's done a lot of racing in his
time, and no open scandal. But he knows how to work the market, and the
best men won't lay him the odds no more."
I shrugged my shoulders. It was only what one expected. The man was one
of the fast blackguards who infest the West End of London; that was all.
There were dozens like him. The facts only seemed to prove that he could
not possibly be connected with the Atlantic outrages.
"You see?" I said to the Japanese, sure that he would follow my thought.
Then I thanked good little Charles and he left the room.
"That is the surface," Danjuro replied. "I cross-examined a _woman_ who
was in constant attendance on Miss Shepherd. From her I learnt just what
your servant has discovered. But I went a little deeper. It is a case of
genuine overmastering passion on the part of this man. Nothing less. He
is of a dangerous age for that to come to him, certainly over forty-five
years. A woman knows. But that is not all."
"So far we have learnt nothing of importance." I was getting restive, I
wanted to be _doing_ something. And yet, what was there to do? If I had
thought all night by myself I could not have mapped out the situation
more clearly. And as I looked at the little man, half lost in a big
saddlebag chair, I felt ashamed of my irritation. A brain packed in ice
was there, a logical machine of the first order. I could not expect
humanity, sympathy, from such a one. Still, it would have helped! Hadn't
I lost the one thing that made life worth living? What might not be
happening to Connie even now?
... He read my thoughts like a book, confound him!
"I understand your feelings, believe me, Sir John," he said, "but I must
go my own way. We have not been talking for an hour yet! And if it is
any consolation for you to know, let me say that it is imperative that
we leave London to-night."
"My nerves are strained. Please go on," I answered. "I can hardly tell
you what a godsend your appearance on the scene really is to me."
"In my business as agent and guard to my patron, Mr. Van Adams, it is
always necessary that I keep more or less in touch with a certain circle
of what I may describe as the aristocracy, the brains of International
Crime. It has proved useful. After my visit to the Parthenon this
morning I called upon an old acquaintance, the Honourable James
Brookfield."
"Lord Slidon's son? The man who got five years ..."
"Yes. Of course, everyone knows his name. He made one little slip. Mr.
Brookfield is very acute, and a great student of character. Entirely
incapable of understanding a man or woman of decent morals and normal
instincts, he is infallible in his judgment of the criminal type. Mr.
Brookfield owes me any little service he can render, and I supplemented
my request for information with a note for fifty pounds."