The Bomb-Makers

In a few seconds the man Cole lay there dead.

Was it any wonder that the Press made no mention of the affair?

Chapter Six.

The Silent Death

In the yellow sunshine of a bright and cloudless autumn afternoon, Ella Drost descended from her motor-cycle at a remote spot where four roads crossed at a place called Pittsgate, about a mile and a half out from Goudhurst, in Kent, having travelled from London by way of Tunbridge Wells.

In leather cap, leggings, mackintosh, and leather belt she presented a charming type of the healthy English sports-girl. Indeed, in that very garb one could buy picture postcards of her all over the kingdom, those who purchased them little dreaming that Stella Steele, who had for so many nights been applauded by the khaki crowds in the theatre, where she merrily danced in the revue “Half a Moment!” was the daughter of old Theodore Drost, the sworn enemy of Great Britain, the man who had for so long succeeded in misleading the alien authorities into the belief that he was a pious pastor of the Dutch Church.

Certainly the man who posed as an ex-missionary from Sumatra, and who wore the shabby, broad-brimmed clerical hat and horn-rimmed glasses, had never once been suspected of treasonable acts, save by his daughter Ella and Seymour Kennedy.

It was to meet Kennedy that Ella had motored down from London that day. The roads were rather bad, and both machine and rider were splashed with mud. Yet for that she cared nothing. Her mind was too full of the investigations upon which they were engaged.

She took out a large scale map, unfolded it, and studied it carefully, apparently tracing a route with her finger. Then glancing at her wristlet-watch, she looked eagerly down the long, straight road upon her left – the road which led up from Eastbourne, through Mayfield and Wadhurst.

Nobody was in sight, therefore she consoled herself with a cigarette which she took from her case, and again studied her map until, at last, she suddenly heard the pop-pop-pop of a motor-cycle approaching and saw Seymour, his body bent over the handles, coming up the hill at a rattling pace.

In a few minutes he had pulled up, and, taking her in his arms, kissed her fondly, expressing regret if he were late.

“Eastbourne is further off than I expected, darling,” he added. “Well?” he asked eagerly.

“Nothing particular has happened since we parted on Thursday,” replied the girl. “Father has been several times to see Mr Horton in Wandsworth, and last night dined with Mr Harberton in Park Lane.”

“Ah! What would the public think if they knew that Count Ernst von Ortmann, who pulls the fingers of the Hidden Hand in our midst, Henry Harberton of Park Lane, and Mr Horton of Wandsworth, were one and the same person, eh?” exclaimed the man, who, though not in uniform, revealed his profession by his bearing.

“One day it will be known, dear,” said the girl. “And then there will be an end to my father. The Count will believe that my father has betrayed him.”

“Why do you anticipate that?”

“Because only the night before last, when Ortmann called, I overheard him remark to my father that he was the only person who knew his secret, and warning him against any indiscretion, and of the fate which Germany would most certainly meet out to him if any contretemps occurred.”

“Yes,” remarked the air-pilot reflectively. “I suppose that if the authorities really did arrest the inoffensive and popular Mr Harberton, the latter would, no doubt, revenge himself most bitterly upon your father.”

“Of that I’m perfectly certain, dear. Often I am tempted to relinquish my efforts to combat the evil they try to work against England, and yet the English are my own people – and also yours.”

“You’re a thorough brick, Ella. There’s not a girl in all the kingdom who has run greater risks than your dear self, or been more devoted to the British cause. Why, a dozen times you’ve walked fearlessly into danger, when you might have been blown to atoms by their infernal bombs.”

“No, no,” she laughed. “Don’t discuss it here. I’ve only done what any other girl in my place would have done. Come,” she added. “Let’s get on and carry out the plan we arranged.”

“Right-ho!” he replied. “That’s the road,” he added, pointing straight before him. “According to the map, there’s a wood a little way up, where the road forks. We take the left road, skirt another wood past a farm called Danemore, then over a brook, and it’s the first house we come to on the right – with another wood close behind it.”

“Very well,” answered the girl. “You’ll have a breakdown close to the house – eh?”

“That’s the arrangement,” he laughed, and next minute he was running beside his machine, and was soon away, followed by his mud-bespattered well-beloved.

Off they both sped, first down a steep slope, and then gradually mounting through a thick wood where the brown leaves were floating down upon the chilly wind. They passed the farm Kennedy had indicated, crossed the brook by a bumpy, moss-grown bridge, and suddenly the man threw up his hand as a signal that he was pulling-up, and, slowing down, alighted, while his engine gave forth a report like a pistol-shot.

Ella, too, dismounted, and saw they were before a good-sized, well-kept farmhouse, which stood a short distance back from the road, surrounded by long red-brick outbuildings.

The report had brought out an old farm-hand – a white-bearded old fellow, who was scanning them inquisitively.

Both Ella and her lover were engaged in intently examining the latter’s machine, looking very grave, and exchanging exclamations of despair. Kennedy opened a bag of tools and, with a cigarette in his mouth, commenced an imaginary repair, with one eye upon the adjacent house. This lasted for about a quarter-of-an-hour. In the meantime a woman, evidently the farmer’s wife, had come out to view the strangers, and had returned indoors.

“I think it’s now about time we might go in,” the air-pilot whispered to his companion, whereupon both of them entered the gate and passed up the rutty drive to the house.

“I wonder if you could lend me a heavy hammer?” asked the motor-cyclist in distress of the pleasant, middle-aged woman who opened the door.

“Why, certainly, sir. Would the coal-hammer do?” she asked.

“Fine!” was the man’s reply. “I’m so sorry to trouble you, but I’ve broken down, and I’m on my way to London.”

“I’m very sorry, sir,” exclaimed the woman, who fetched a heavy hammer from her kitchen. “Would the young lady care to come in and wait?”

“Oh, thanks. It’s awfully good of you,” said Ella. “The fact is I am a little fagged, and if I may sit down I shall be so grateful.”

“Certainly, miss. Just come in both of you for a moment,” and she led the way into a homely well-furnished room with a great open hearth where big logs were burning with a pleasant smell of smouldering beech.

“What a comfortable room you have here!” Kennedy remarked, looking at the thick Turkey carpet upon the floor, and the carved writing-table in the window.

“Yes, sir. This is a model dairy-farm. It belongs to Mr Anderson-James, who lives in Tunbridge Wells, and who comes here for week-ends sometimes, and for the shooting. I expect him here to-night. My husband farms for him, and I look after the place as housekeeper.”

“A model farm!” exclaimed Ella. “Oh! I’d so much like to see it. I wonder if your husband would allow me?”

“He’d be most delighted, miss.”

“Stevenson is my name, and this is my friend Mr Kershaw,” Ella said, introducing herself.

“My name is Dennis,” replied the comely farmer’s wife with a pleasant smile. “This is called Furze Down Farm, and Mr Anderson-James is a solicitor in Tunbridge Wells. So now you know all about us,” and the woman, in her big white apron, laughed merrily.

Kennedy and the girl exchanged glances.

“Well,” he said, “I’ll go out and try to put the machine right. It won’t take very long, I hope. If I can’t – well, we must go back by train. Where’s the nearest station, Mrs Dennis?”

“Well – Paddock Wood is about two miles,” was her reply. “If you can’t get your motor right my husband will put it into a cart and drive you over there. It’s the direct line to London.”

“Thanks so much,” he said, and went out, leaving Ella to rest in the cosy, well-furnished room which the solicitor from Tunbridge Wells occupied occasionally through the week-ends.

“Mr Anderson-James keeps this place as a hobby. He’s retired from practice,” the woman went on, “and he likes to come here for fresh air. When you’ve rested I’ll show you round the houses – if you’re interested in a dairy-farm.”

“I’m most interested,” declared the girl. “I don’t want to rest. I’d rather see the farm, if it is quite convenient to you to show it to me.”

“Oh, quite, miss,” was the woman’s prompt response. She came from Devonshire, as Ella had quickly detected, and was an artist in butter-making, the use of the mechanical-separator, and the management of poultry.

The pair went out at once and, passing by clean asphalt paths, went to the range of model cowhouses, each scrupulously clean and well-kept. Then to the piggeries, the great poultry farm away in the meadows, and, lastly, into the white-tiled dairy itself, where four maids in white smocks and caps were busy with butter, milk, and cream.

Ranged along one side of the great dairy were about thirty galvanised-iron chums of milk, ready for transport, and Ella, noting them, asked their destination.

“Oh! They go each night to the training-camp at B – . They go out in two lots, one at midnight, and one at two o’clock in the morning.”

“Oh, so you supply the camp with milk, do you?”

“Yes. Before the war all our milk went up to London Bridge by train each night, but now we supply the two camps. There are fifty thousand men in training there, they say. Isn’t it splendid!” added the woman, the fire of patriotism in her eyes. “There’s no lack of pluck in the dear old country.”

“No, Mrs Dennis. All of us are trying to do our bit,” Ella said. “Does the Army Service Corps fetch the milk?”

“No, miss. They used to, but for nearly six weeks we’ve sent it in waggons ourselves. The camp at B – is ten miles from here, so it comes rather hard on the horses. It used to go in motor-lorries. Old Thomas, the man bending down over there,” and she pointed across the farm-yard, “he drives the waggon out at twelve, and Jim Jennings – who only comes of an evening – does the late delivery.”

“But the road is rather difficult from here to the camp, isn’t it?” asked the girl, as though endeavouring to recollect.

“Yes. That’s just it. They have to go right round by Shipborne to avoid the steep hill.”

Five minutes later they were in the comfortable farm-house again, and, after a further chat, Ella went forth to see how her companion was progressing.

The repair had been concluded – thanks to the coal-hammer! Ella took it back, thanked the affable Mrs Dennis, and, five minutes later, the pair were on their way to London, perfectly satisfied with the result of their investigations.

On that same evening, while Kennedy and Ella were having a light dinner together at the Piccadilly Grill before she went to the theatre, the elusive Ortmann called upon old Theodore Drost at the dark house at Castelnau, on the Surrey side of Hammersmith Bridge. He came in a taxi, and accompanying him was a grey-haired, tall, and rather lean man, who carried a heavy deal box with leather handle.

Drost welcomed them, and all three ascended at once to that long attic, the secret workshop of the maker of bombs. The man who posed as a pious Dutch missionary switched on the light, disclosing upon the table a number of small globes of thin glass which, at first, looked like electric light bulbs. They, however, had no metal base, the glass being narrowed at the end into a small open tube. Thus the air had not been exhausted.

“This is our friend, Doctor Meins,” exclaimed Ortmann, introducing his companion, who, a few minutes later, unlocked the box and brought out a large brass microscope of the latest pattern, which he screwed together and set up at the further end of the table.

Meanwhile from another table at the end of the long apartment old Drost, with a smile of satisfaction upon his face, carried over very carefully a wooden stand in which stood a number of small sealed glass tubes, most of which contained what looked like colourless gelatine.

“We want to be quite certain that the cultures are sufficiently virulent,” remarked Ortmann. “That is why I have brought Professor Meins, who, as you know, is one of our most prominent bacteriologists, though he is, of course, naturalised as a good Englishman, and is in general practice in Hampstead under an English name.”

The German professor, smiling, took up one of the hermetically sealed tubes, broke it, and from it quickly prepared a glass microscope-slide, not, however, before all three had put on rubber gloves and assumed what looked very much like gas-helmets, giving the three conspirators a most weird appearance. Then, while the Professor was engaged in focussing his microscope, Drost, his voice suddenly muffled behind the goggle-eyed mask, exhibited to Ortmann one of the glass bombs already prepared for use.

It was about the size of a fifty-candle-power electric bulb, and its tube having been closed by melting the glass, it appeared filled with a pale-yellow vapour.

“That dropped anywhere in a town would infect an enormous area,” Drost explained. “The glass is so thin that it would pulverise by the small and almost noiseless force with which it would explode.”

“It could be dropped by hand – eh?” asked Ortmann. “And nobody would be the wiser.”

“No, if dropped by hand it would, no doubt, infect the person who dropped it. The best way will be to drop it from a car.”

“At night?”

“No. In daylight – in a crowded street. It would then be more efficacious – death resulting within five days to everyone infected.”

“Terrible!” exclaimed the Kaiser’s secret agent – the man of treble personality.

“Yes. But it is according to instructions. See here!” and he took up what appeared to be a small bag of indiarubber – like a child’s air-ball that had been deflated. “This acts exactly the same when filled, only the case is soluble. One minute after touching water or, indeed, any liquid, it dissolves, and thus releases the germs!”

“Gott!” gasped Ortmann. “You are, indeed, a dealer in bottled death, my dear Theodore. Truly, you’ve been inventing some appalling things for our dear friends here – eh?”

The man with the scraggy beard, who was a skilled German scientist, though he posed as a Dutch pastor, smiled evilly, while at that moment the man Meins, who had his eye upon the microscope, beckoned both of them forward to look.

Ortmann obeyed, and placing his eye upon the tiny lens, saw in the brightly reflected light colonies of the most deadly bacilli yet discovered by German science – the germs of a certain hitherto unknown disease, against which there was no known remedy. The fifth day after infection of the human system death inevitably resulted.

“All quite healthy!” declared the great bacteriologist from behind his mask. “What would our friends think if they knew the means by which they came into this country – eh?”

Drost laughed, and, crossing to a cupboard, took out a fine Ribston-pippin apple. This he cut through with his pen-knife, revealing inside, where the core had been removed, one of the tiny tubes secreted.

“They came like this from our friends in a certain neutral country,” he laughed.

From tube after tube Meins took and examined specimens, finding all the cultures virulent except one, which he placed aside.

Then, turning to Drost, he gave his opinion that their condition was excellent.

“But be careful – most scrupulously careful of yourself, and of whoever lives here with you – your family and servants. The bacteria are so easily carried in the air, now that we have opened the tubes.”

“Never fear,” replied the muffled voice of Ella’s father. “I shall be extremely careful. But what is your opinion regarding this?” he added, showing the professor one of the tiny bags of the soluble substance.

Meins examined it closely. Obtaining permission, he cut out a tiny piece with scissors and placed it beneath his powerful microscope.

Presently he pronounced it excellent.

“I see that it is impervious. If it is soluble, as you say, then you certainly need have no fear of failure,” he said, with a benign smile. Then he set to work to reseal the tubes he had opened, while Drost, with a kind of syringe, sprayed the room with some powerful germ-destroyer.

Ten minutes later the pair had descended the stairs, while old Drost had switched off the light and locked the door of the secret laboratory wherein reposed the germs of a terrible disease known only to the enemies of Great Britain – a fatal malady which Germany intended to sow broadcast over the length and breadth of our land.

For an hour they all three sat discussing the diabolical plot which would disseminate death over a great area of the United Kingdom, for Germany had many friends prepared to sacrifice their own lives for the Fatherland, and it was intended that those glass and rubber bombs should be dropped in all quarters to produce an epidemic of disease such as the world had never before experienced.

Old Theodore Drost, installed in his comfortable dining-room again, opened a long bottle of Berncastler “Doctor” – a genuine bottle, be it said, for few who have sipped the “Doctor” wine of late have taken the genuine wine, so many fabrications did Germany make for us before the war.

“But I warn you to be excessively careful,” the professor said to Drost. “Your daughter comes here sometimes, does she not? Do be careful of her. Place powerful disinfectants here – all over the house – in every room,” he urged; “although I have plugged the tubes with cotton wool properly treated to prevent the escape of the infection into the air, yet one never knows.”

“Ella is not often here,” her father replied. “She is still playing in ‘Half a Moment!’; besides, she is rehearsing a new revue. So she, happily, has no time to come and see me.”

“But, for your own safety, and your servant’s, do be careful,” Meins urged. “To tell you the honest truth, I almost fear to remove my mask – even now.”

“But there’s surely no danger down here?” asked Drost eagerly.

“There is always danger with such a terribly infectious malady. It is fifty times more fatal than double pneumonia. It attacks the lungs so rapidly that no remedy has any chance. Professor Steinwitz, of Stettin, discovered it.”

“And is there no remedy?”

“None whatsoever. Its course is rapid – a poisoning of the whole pulmonary system, and it’s even more contagious than small-pox.”

Then they removed their masks and drank to “The Day” in their German wine.

Six nights later Stella Steele had feigned illness – a strain while on her motor-cycle, and her understudy was taking her part in “Half a Moment!” much to the disappointment of the men in khaki, who had seated themselves in the stalls to applaud her. Among the men on leave many had had her portrait upon a postcard – together with a programme in three-colour print – in their dug-outs in Flanders, for Stella Steele was “the rage” in the Army, and among the subalterns any who had ever met her, or who had “known her people,” were at once objects of interest.

In the darkness on a road with trees on either side – the road which runs from Tonbridge to Shipborne, and passes between Deene Park and Frith Wood – stood Kennedy and Ella. They had ridden down from London earlier in the evening and placed their motorcycles inside a gate which led into the forest on the left side of the road.

They waited in silence, their ears strained, but neither uttered a word. Kennedy had showed his well-beloved the time. It was half-past one in the morning.

Of a sudden, a motor-car came up the hill, a closed car, which passed them swiftly, and then, about a quarter-of-a-mile further on, came to a halt. Presently they heard footsteps in the darkness and in their direction there walked three men. The moon was shining fitfully through the clouds, therefore they were just able to distinguish them. The trio were whispering, and two of them were carrying good-sized kit-bags.

They came to the gate where, inside, Ella and Kennedy had hidden their cycles, and there halted.

That they were smoking Kennedy and his companion knew by the slight odour of tobacco that reached them. For a full quarter-of-an-hour they remained there, chatting in low whispers.

“I wonder who they are?” asked Ella, bending to her lover’s ear.

“Who knows?” replied the air-pilot. “At any rate, we’ll have a good view from here. You were not mistaken as to the spot?”

“No. I heard it discussed last night,” was the girl’s reply.

Then, a moment later, there was a low sound of wheels and horses’ hoofs climbing the hill from the open common into that stretch of road darkened by the overhanging trees. Ella peered forth and saw a dim oil lamp approaching, while the jingling of the harness sounded plain as the horses strained at their traces.

Onward they came, until when close to the gate where the three men lay in waiting, one of the latter flashed a bright light into the face of the old man who was driving the waggon, and shouted:

“Stop! Stop!”

The driver pulled up in surprise, dazzled by the light, but the next second another man had flung into his face a mixture of cayenne pepper and chemicals by which, in an instant, he had become blinded and stupefied, falling back into his seat inert and helpless.

Then Ella and Kennedy, creeping up unnoticed by the three in their excitement, saw that they had mounted into the waggon, which was loaded with milk-churns – the waggon driven nightly from Furze Down Farm to the great camp at B – , carrying the milk for the morning.

Upon these chums the three set swiftly to work, opening each, dropping in one of those soluble bombs, and closing them. The bombs they took from the two kit-bags they had carried from the car.

They were engaged in carrying out one of the most dastardly plots ever conceived by Drost and his friends – infecting the milk supply of the great training-camp!

Kennedy was itching to get at them and prevent them, but he saw that, by knowledge gained, he would be in a position to act more effectively than if he suddenly alarmed them. Therefore the pair stood by until they had finished their hideous work of filling each chum with the most deadly and infectious malady known to medical science.

Presently, when they had finished, the old driver, still insensible, was lifted from his seat, carried into the wood, and there left, while one of the conspirators – who they could now see was dressed as a farm-hand, and would no doubt pose as a new labourer from Furze Down – took his place and drove on as though nothing had happened, leaving the other two to make their way back to the car.

When the red rear-light of the waggon was receding, Kennedy and Ella followed it, for it did not proceed at much more than walking pace.

They walked along in silence till they saw the two men re-enter the car, leaving their companion to deliver the milk at the camp. Evidently a fourth man had been waiting in the car for, as soon as they were in, the man who drove turned the car, which went back in the direction it had come, evidently intending to meet the second waggon, which was due to come up an hour afterwards. No doubt the same programme would be repeated, and the fourth man would drive the second car to the adjacent camp.

As soon, however, as the car had got clear away, Kennedy and his well-beloved ran to their motorcycles, mounted them, and in a short time had passed in front of the milk-waggon ere it could get down into Shipborne village.

Putting their motors against a fence, they waited until the waggon came up, when Kennedy stepped into the road, and flashing an electric lamp on to the driver’s face, at the same time fired a revolver point-blank at him.

This gave the fellow such a sudden and unexpected scare that he leaped down from the waggon and, next moment, had disappeared into the darkness, while Ella rushed to the horses’ heads and stopped them.

“That’s all right!” laughed Kennedy. “Have you got your thick gloves on?”