Thorne Guy
The Air Pirate

Major Helzephron had been taken to Vine Street Police Station, and locked up for the night, charged with an aggravated assault on Mr. Wag Ashton at the Mille Colonnes Restaurant, on the evidence of M. Nicholas and the head-waiter.

A medical man had attended the Court on behalf of the prosecutor, to say that Mr. Ashton was too unwell to appear until the morrow. Upon his promising to attend the Court the next day, Major Helzephron was admitted to bail.

"That gives us nearly two clear days," said Danjuro. "When Ashton does appear, he will not press the case, and will own that he gave provocation; Helzephron will be fined, perhaps let off. I see that Honourable Ashton battered him a good deal! And now, your news, Sir John, if you please."

CHAPTER XI
"THE AIR WOLVES ARE HUNTING TO-NIGHT!"

He made no comment, and did not interrupt me until I had completely finished, nor did his inscrutable face give any indication of what he thought.

"My own investigations," he said, "can be told in a few words. The small steamship which brings supplies to the cove behind the inn is the private property of Helzephron, and she is a great deal faster and much better engined than most people are aware. She lies at the little port of Hayle, which is on the main line from Plymouth to Penzance, in St. Ives Bay. At certain times large quantities of petrol arrive in separate consignments from different parts of the country. The Sea Gull is loaded to her capacity, and then makes the short voyage to Zerran Cove."

"That's the last link!" I said. "No one could doubt now!"

"There is another, still more interesting fact. Hayle was once a place of much greater importance than it is at present. There were large foundries and engineering works there in the past. These have been abandoned, owing to the silting up of the harbour, for many years, as only vessels of small draught can enter easily to-day. But the foundry buildings remain. From time to time a portion of them has been let for this or that small enterprise. Three years ago Helzephron rented a part of the works and installed machinery. He had about twenty labourers, but the real work, whatever it was, took place in a large experimental shed, to which no one was admitted but he and his friends. They were already at Zerran, and used to drive over in motors every day. It was locally known that some new machinery for Wheal Tregeraint was being made. Many shippings took place from Hayle to Zerran Cove."

"But the ship, the Pirate Ship itself?"

"Who can tell? We go step by step in the dark. Many theories have crossed my mind. I have dismissed them all. I want to approach this, the most sinister problem of all, with a blank mind. We can do nothing till we are on the spot. Our preliminary work is over, but the real labour begins."

"A sinister problem enough," I answered bitterly. "But not the most trouble to me. I tell you, Danjuro, that as I lay among the heather and looked down upon that lonely house, as I thought of the devilish crew that live there, for a moment my heart turned to water, and the agony was more than I could endure. She may be there, at this moment, defenceless and in the power …"

I could not go on. I covered my face with my hands, and was nearer breaking down than ever before. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. "It has never left my mind, either. Do not give way, for the moment of action has come. We go to the inn at Zerran to-night – within the hour."

"To-night!"

"Yes. We cannot afford to waste a moment. Helzephron is kept in London. One great danger is removed from our path. We shall never have a better opportunity than now. In dealing with enemies such as ours, we must strike quickly and strongly when they think themselves most secure. Before dawn we must have penetrated the inmost secrets of Tregeraint."

I had by now grown accustomed to regard Danjuro as the leader of our enterprise. His decision was like cool water to a man dying of thirst in a desert. I stood up, absolutely myself. "There is, of course, no reason why we should not install ourselves at Zerran to-night instead of to-morrow morning. Trewhella won't mind," I said.

"I will order the car in an hour. Meanwhile, I have one or two things to do. Perhaps you will settle the hotel bill, Sir John, and tell the people that we are leaving?.."

It was a stiflingly hot night as the car climbed up to the moors, and in the glare of our headlights the gorse and heather by the roadside streamed swiftly like some golden cinema, leaving a more sable dark before and behind them. Danjuro, by my side, was lost in thought. The massive head hung upon his chest. About half-way on our journey he said a curious thing. "This would be an ideal night for another raid in the air-lanes of the Atlantic."

I did not answer, for I, also, was thinking deeply. So it was for to-night! We crossed swords, fired the first shot, what you will, with our cunning enemy in a few hours. What would they bring forth?

I felt no fear, only a deep resolution not to fail in rescue and the execution of Justice. I was happier than I had been for days, for it is thought that turns the bones to pith and thins the blood, not action. And, as we flashed down the dark moor road to where the lights of the solitary inn showed yellow, I sent a wordless prayer to the Throne of Justice and Mercy. And, as if an answer was truly and instantly vouchsafed, there came into my mind these words from the ninety-first Psalm: "I will deliver thee from the snare of the hunter."

And after that I put mere abstract thought away from me.

As we rolled up silently to the inn, we heard a great noise of singing from the long room. A tall woman came out of a side door, and I explained that we had decided to come earlier than we had planned. She was a comely, good-humoured dame, who made no trouble about our arrival. Both bedrooms and sitting-rooms were prepared, and when Thumbwood had taken the car round to the barn, he went upstairs to unpack the baggage. Mr. Trewhella appeared from the bar. I introduced Danjuro, and we arranged to have some supper at half-past ten.

Meanwhile the singing continued in great volume, mingled with the twanging chords of a banjo.

"Your guests are merry to-night," said Danjuro.

"It's the gentlemen from the mine, sir," said the landlord. "It's one of their nights off, so to speak. Would you like to join 'em for half an hour?"

"I think not on our first night. But they sing very well. As a foreigner I am interested in all English customs; may I take a peep?.."

He had gone to the communicating door as he spoke, and pulling aside a red curtain which covered the upper half of glass, he looked through. I did the same.

The long room was full of people and tobacco smoke. With a single exception, that of Mr. Vargus, they were all quite young men, ranging, I should say, from three-and-twenty to thirty. Most of them were dressed in old tweed suits, but the material and cut told their own tale, and spoke of the "right" kind of tailor. At first glance they might have been a collection of naval officers or senior undergraduates, but only at first glance. My eyes roved from face to face, and on each I saw the loss of innocence and honour. Some were cunning; others had a brutality in ill accord with their youth, and there was a hard bravado in the eyes of all. It was sickening. One felt that one had suddenly looked upon something that should remain hidden. In that haze of smoke lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous and evil in the universe.

I almost wanted to spit upon the floor, in an uncontrollable gesture of repudiation. As I turned, I saw the landlord looking at me.

"A promising lot of young devils," said I.

"You do see it too, zur?" he replied, and then Danjuro touched my arm, and I turned to look again. A man, without a hat, had just entered the room from the outside. He sat in a chair which he had obviously occupied before, for he was in naval uniform, and his cap was lying there. He was a big, foolish-looking fellow, far gone in drink, but despite that his face was the only wholesome one there.

"Who is that?" I whispered to Trewhella, as Mr. Vargus poured a generous allowance of rum into the new-comer's glass.

"That's Billy Pengelly, our coastguard. The gentlemen do make a lot of him, and he's none the better for't, for Billy's one as likes his drop. Still, he goes and sleeps it off, and he belong to be strong as a bull. And in these lone parts there's not often anyone to see if he's on the watch or not."

A tall boy with a banjo took up his instrument and twanged the chords.

"Now, gentlemen!" he shouted in a clear fresh tenor, "a chorus!" And without further preliminary he dashed into nothing less than the "Pirate's Chanty" from "Treasure Island":

 
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest!
Yo, ho! and a bottle of rum!"
 

The inn rocked with the volume of sound. I stood there fascinated, with a sort of horror. The thing – knowing what I knew – was so daring and grim that, more than anything else, it showed me with whom we had to deal.

The application was lost upon Danjuro, but I told him what it meant in French, and he nodded with contracted eyes.

 
"Drink, and the devil had done for the rest,
Yo, ho! and a bottle of rum!"
 

One would have thought that the room could not contain the noise, and that the very windows must be shattered, and in the very middle of it I heard something else – the urgent, throbbing sound of an engine.

Danjuro heard it as soon as I did. "Motor-bicycle," he whispered.

The sound grew insistent. Whoever was coming rode hell for leather and with the exhaust open. Then there was a succession of reports, a grinding noise, and the door of the bar was flung suddenly open.

A tall man in goggles and overalls covered with dust walked in. As he did so, the pirate chant stopped with dramatic suddenness, and the singers jumped to their feet. Then he removed his glasses and his cap.

It was Major Helzephron.

They clustered round him thickly, and to each one he said a quiet word. In every case, when this happened, the man spoken to nodded and vanished into the night. I could hear them running outside the inn. Lastly, Helzephron took Vargus by the arm, and they also passed out. I could see the man more plainly than ever before. There was a great bruise round about the left eye, and the face was pale. But it blazed with will and purpose, and the cruel mouth was set in a malicious and abominable smile.

"The wolves are hunting to-night!" Danjuro said to me two minutes later in my bedroom, and once again his face was like a demon of Old Japan. "Helzephron will not appear at the police court to-morrow. He has arranged it somehow, and, after all, it is a trivial affair. He has ridden down from London during the day."

"You mean that there is going to be a raid to-night?"

"I feel sure of it. Why else should Helzephron rush from London? And you observed the manner of his confederates. Don't you see this – with all his cunning precautions the pirate is far too clever not to know that his career must be a short one. He cannot hope to remain concealed for any great length of time. His object is to obtain an immense fortune quickly. Already I calculate he has stolen jewels and money to the value of two hundred thousand pounds. A few more such coups and he can disband his crew and disappear for ever. Speed is the essence of his plan."

"But we must do something, we must stop it…"

"Our opportunity for action is improved, Sir John. In the first place, you must take steps to concentrate a fleet of patrol ships in this neighbourhood."

"The car is here. I can write official telegrams in code to Plymouth and London. Within an hour the hinterland and the sea from here to Scilly can be covered with a swarm of ships. St. Ives is only six miles away."

"Write the dispatches at once. I will call Thumbwood, who must take them in, together with an official note from you to the postmaster."

I unlocked my portfolio and wrote the wires. There should be such an invasion of the air to-night as Far West Cornwall had never known!

Thumbwood appeared, I gave him full instructions, and heard the Rolls-Royce start below.

"And now, our part!" I said to Danjuro.

"If we are right in our conjecture, the pirates will shortly leave Tregeraint on their expedition. How they will join the airship or where we don't know. But we may safely assume that the house will be left in charge of one or at most two men. The others will all be wanted to man the ship; it is a simple calculation. Here is your chance. You must get inside Tregeraint, obtain conclusive evidence, and if the poor lady is there alive, bring her away in safety. Perhaps to-night the Pirate Ship will make its last cruise! Our presence here, our identity, is quite unsuspected. A concentration of hostile airships in this neighbourhood is the last thing Helzephron will expect to-night."

"And you, my friend?"

"I would that I could come with you, for you go in danger of your life, but, as I see it, my work should be different. Someone, in view of its escape, must solve the mystery of the Pirate Ship itself. I have a theory already; I must put it to proof. There are boats in the cove below – I see that the moon is rising, I know what I must do. But, even so, I will come with you, Sir John, if you say so."

I shook my head. "No, I will go alone. It is my job."

Then Danjuro did a strange thing. He took my hand, bowed over it and kissed it! "You also are of the Samurai!" he said.

In a minute more he carried in a heavy bag from his own bedroom, and produced from it a miscellany of objects.

"Here is a twelve-shot automatic, with a dozen cartridge clips," he said. "You know all about the working of it? I thought so. This pair of wire-cutters you will need for the barbed fence. These two keys with adjustable wards – you turn the milled screw at the end to adjust them – will open any ordinary lock. Here also is an extremely powerful steel lever, with a wedge end. In the hands of a strong man like yourself it will wrench open most windows or doors."

God knows there was no lightness in my heart, but in the usual English way at serious moments, I laughed.

"The Complete Burglar!" I said.

Danjuro looked at me with a glance as cold as ice.

"I am in most deadly earnest, Sir John. You know what my experience has been. Well, I say deliberately that I have never been in such peril as you are going into."

"I meant nothing. And what is this?" I had taken up a little leather tube with a lens at one end.

"A powerful electric torch. But it is more than that. You can instantly reverse it in your hand, and if you press this stud, the plated bottom flies open, and by means of a spring an ounce of cayenne pepper is projected for several yards. It will stop anyone and operates instantaneously. A little thing I invented and have found most useful. These handcuffs are of papier mâché and weigh practically nothing. They are from Japan and tough as the hardest steel. You may require them. And I never go on an expedition without this tiny bottle of chloroform and pad. You can stow everything about you with ease, and the combined weight is as nothing."

I did so, and it was as he said. Then a thought struck me.

"Armed and prepared like this, I feel certain that I shall get in. But there are two Tibetan mastiffs let loose in the grounds at night. I can shoot them, but the noise of the report …"

"That is provided for, Sir John. You see this gun?"

"It looks like a short-barrelled rook-rifle, except for the great thickness at the breech."

"It holds ten conical bullets. They are hollow-nosed and expand on impact. The point is that the gun is perfectly noiseless. Powder is not used at all. The propelling power is liquefied carbonic-acid gas, and all that is heard at the moment of firing is a sharp snap. With this you can stalk the dogs and kill them easily enough. Do not forget your hunting flask and brandy and water. And for concentrated food, should you be detained in hiding, though I and Thumbwood will be coming to look after you if you don't appear by morning, these solid chocolate cakes are invaluable."

All this was done quickly, and with the most business-like precision. Although my sense of humour told me that I was like the White Knight in "Alice in Wonderland," I did realize that I should be a terribly nasty customer to tackle, and I was grateful.

While we had been talking there came sounds from below of the closing of the inn, and shortly after we were called to supper.

"Don't you stay up any longer, Mr. Trewhella," I said. "You must want your rest. As for us, we are late birds. Both I and my friend sometimes take a five minutes' stroll last thing before we turn in. That won't inconvenience you?"

"Bless your life, no, zur. You do as you're a mind here. 'Tesn't like a town. The key of the front door hangs on a nail by the side. And if you should be going out later, Billy Pengelly's in the empty pigsty, a sleeping off what he's had, and there's a bucket of cold water on the wall. In half an hour's time or so I know as he'd be grateful for having it poured over 'en!"

We promised to perform what was evidently one of the amenities of this primitive place and Mr. Trewhella withdrew.

"That coastguard may be useful to me," Danjuro said. "And now, Sir John, I don't want to hurry you, but my advice is that you start. I don't suppose that the band has left Tregeraint yet. But there are a hundred hiding-places on the moor all round the domain, and you may be able to see which way they go before you make your own attempt. I shall be on the trail in a very few minutes after you."

"And Charles? He will be back shortly."

"I shall need him. I know he would wish to be with you, Sir John, but I believe your chances are better alone. I shall not leave until he returns, provided he is not unduly detained."

He went to the window and pulled aside the curtain. "A waning moon," he said, "which will be at full power about midnight, when there may be such a battle in the air as the world will hear with wonder!"

I saw to my gear. It fitted about me very comfortably.

"Well, good-night," I said, and without further words I went quietly out of the house.

When I got a hundred yards away I turned and looked at it, all silvered in the moon. The air was sweet with the perfume of shy moorland flowers that give up all their treasure to the night. The Atlantic, far below, made a sound like fairy dreams, and on the distant slopes of Carne Zerran an owl sounded his melancholy oboe note.

A lovely night, gentlemen!

CHAPTER XII
THE KILLING OF MICHAEL FEDDON

The moon was in its last quarter, and shed a faint spectral light over the moor as I came quietly up to the first of the barbed-wire fences that surrounded Tregeraint. I lay down in the heath, certain that I was quite invisible, and waited.

An hour had hardly elapsed since the band had left "The Miners' Arms." Were they still here, or had they set out for their unknown destination? I could not hear a sound of any kind. From where I lay the high wall hid the house, and among the mine buildings higher up there was neither light nor movement. Tregeraint might have been deserted for a hundred years, and the roaring company of the inn had vanished into thin air. And strain my eyes as I would, there was no sign of the great Tibetan dogs.

I remained motionless for a quarter of an hour by the illuminated dial of my watch. Then, as nothing happened, I began operations. The wire was tough and intricate, but ten minutes' work with Danjuro's powerful cutters disposed of it sufficiently for me to crawl through both the first and second fence without a scratch. I stood now in the lower portion of a large, oblong paddock of short grass, all grey in the moon. The surrounding wall of the Manor was about a hundred yards up the slope, and with the gas rifle on my arm I glided over the intervening space like a ghost. My boots were soled with india-rubber and I made no sound at all.

I found the wall to be ten or eleven feet high. It was crowned with a cheval de frise of iron spikes, and, owing to its height and smooth surface, quite insurmountable. But I knew there must be an entrance somewhere, and never expected to climb the barrier, and I began a cautious circuit. About half-way round the extent I came to a wooden door set in the wall. It was a mere postern, not more than five feet high, and had a barred grille in the centre of about a foot square. I reflected that this must be a side or garden exit, and that the main gate was probably on the other side, facing the mine-head. But it was all the better for my purpose if this was so, and I took out my steel "jemmy" and prepared to tackle it.

My intention was to prise it open with my tool, for I am a very powerful man, but suddenly another idea occurred to me. The bars of the grille were old and rusted. As there was no key-hole in the door, it was obviously secured by bolts. I inserted my lever, and without putting out my full strength, and with little more sound than is made by the striking of a match, soon had three of the bars out of the wood and lying on the grass.

My arms are long. I pushed my right through and my fingers, after a little groping, caught the handle of the bolt, which slid back easily enough. It had been oiled and showed that the door, which swung back at once, was in constant use.

I stepped within, treading like a cat, and closed the door behind me. I stood in a large and neglected garden, where shrubs and flowers grew as they would and formed a miniature jungle, through which I could see the dark façade of the house, now quite close. Everything was as still as death, and I listened with strained attention for several minutes. So far the work had been ridiculously easy, but as I crept up a moss-grown path towards the building every nerve was on the alert. I was not afraid, I think I can truly say so, but there was a chill on my soul. This old house, with its atmosphere of robbery and murder, its singular and formidable inhabitants, the unknown dangers of the approach, and, above all, the thought that Connie might be within it, all combined to wrap me in a terrible gloom of the spirit. Yet, looking back, I see that this was well. It hardened all my resolution and made me terrible.

I had no thought of it then, but now I can see the grim horror of such a being as I had become approaching the house step by step…

All the lower windows were shuttered. There was not a gleam of light anywhere as I followed the path and came to the front, where there was a grass-grown gravel sweep and iron gates in the wall. This part of the house was plain and unadorned, save for a pillared porch and steps leading down to the drive. A thick growth of ivy covered it from the ground to the first-floor windows, and after I had gently tried the heavy front door, which, as I expected, was locked, this suggested a mode of entrance. If I could climb up and get on to the roof of the porch, it might be possible to force the central bedroom window, which I could see was unshuttered.

The ivy was of ancient growth, the stems thick and tough. Any schoolboy could have mounted to the top of the porch. And any boy could have pushed back the catch of the window with the blade of his pocket-knife, opened it and stepped inside.

I stood in a bedroom, dark, except for a little pool of moonlight by the window. I felt curtains, and I drew them before I switched on my torch. It was an ordinary bedroom, very untidy, furnished with a suite of painted deal. There was, however, a great saucer-bath full of water, and a pair of Indian clubs. The wall was hung with photographs of football teams, and in an open drawer of the little dressing-table was a pile of gold and notes.

Commonplace enough, like an undergraduate's room at Oxford, but, nevertheless, it affected me unpleasantly. It was like a sudden intimacy with something abominable, as I opened the door inch by inch, and felt for the powerful pistol in my pocket. My heart hung poised for an instant as I stepped out into a dark corridor, and then I gave a gasp, and my heart almost stopped beating.

I stood at the head of broad, shallow stairs. Below was a large hall, dimly lit, and pouring up to me in a volume of sound came the melodious thunder of a piano played by a master hand!

At first my knees grew weak, and I clutched the shadowy banisters to save me from falling. Constance! Who could be playing in this evil house but she! I can never forget the agonized pang of mingled joy and horror that I felt. But as I crouched and listened, the fierce emotion passed away. Whoever was playing, it was not my girl. A lost soul made that music.

I glided down the stairs. Certainly the wolves had left their lair, though in what manner I could not divine. The house was inhabited by but one or two people at most. All the doors along the corridor stood open, as if the rooms had been left in a hurry. The building felt deserted, empty of its usual inhabitants…

A dim light came from an open door at the right of the hall. I peeped in and saw a long shadowy room of great size. The walls were panelled and hung here and there with pictures, the floor carpeted. Two immense oak tables, with their complement of chairs, went up and down the centre, and it hardly needed a butler's hatch in the wall, doubtless communicating with the kitchen, to tell me that this was the dining-room of Helzephron and his buccaneers.

At the far end, and opposite the entrance door, was a wide and lofty archway, half covered by a curtain. It led to another room beyond, and it was from this that a bright light streamed, and the sound of music came.

I placed my gas rifle on the floor by the wall, took out my automatic, unlocking the safety catch, and went to the curtain on tiptoe. There was an alcove at the side, where some shelves had been, and this was perfectly dark. I marked it as a possible hiding-place, and then pulled the curtain aside for half an inch. Just as I did so there was a clash of prelude, and the pianist began the enchanted Third Ballade of Chopin.

It was the man known to me as Vargus, the man with the smooth voice, the face that was evil and refined. He sat at a magnificent grand piano, swaying a little on his stool…

Do you know that marvellous composition of Chopin's? Most people have heard it at least once or twice in their lives, played by some maestro. I have heard the renderings of the great pianists of the world, but none played as this man played.

A terrible remorse informed the unearthly music. It was as though the player strained with every power of his being to recapture something irrevocably lost. When he came to that strange passage which has been so often compared to the soft cantering of a horse, the pain in the lovely chords was unbearable. The artist, Aubrey Beardsley, made a wonderful drawing of this passage – a spectral white charger ambling through a dark wood of pines, bearing a lady in a cloak of black velvet. The picture rose before my eyes as I stood, but it flashed away, and words of awful significance took its place in my mind and fitted themselves to the closing chords…

"Night and day he was among the tombs, and on the hills, crying out and beating himself with stones."

As you may know, the piece ends in a furious welter of sound. It had just concluded, and the player sat motionless as a wax doll, when another figure heaved itself into my line of vision, a burly giant, with red hair and a heavy, sullen face.

"Now you've finished that – row," he growled, "we'd better be moving. We may get signals coming through soon. And I suppose I must feed the canaries!"

I knew the man at once. There was no possibility of mistake. It was Michael Feddon, the famous Rugby international, and six years ago the idol of the public. It was said that he was the finest back that England had ever seen. In the height of his career he had been mixed up in a horrible, criminal scandal, and received five years' penal servitude.

I swallowed in my throat with loathing, but the next words drove all thought of Feddon's career from my mind.

"Everything is ready on a tray in the kitchen, and the soup is on the electric stove. It will be hot by now," said Vargus, in his soft, creamy voice.

"I'll get it, and I wish the damned business was over. I said from the first that when the Chief brought those two women here we ran more risk than ever before. It'll turn out badly yet. Mark my words, Vargus."

Vargus took up a bottle which stood on a table by the piano. It was brandy, and he poured out two glasses half full, adding soda from a siphon.

"Here's luck; not a bit of it," he said. "If all goes well to-night, a couple more expeditions will see us finished, with a hundred thousand each, and scattered all over the globe. We all have our fancies. The Chief's is this Shepherd girl. Well, in another fortnight he'll disappear with her. Every man to his taste."

Feddon swallowed his brandy at a gulp. "She'll lead him a dance yet!" he said. "I never saw such a spitfire. I hate going near her, and I wish it wasn't my turn to stay at home. I'd tame her, though, if she were mine. I wouldn't stand her pretty ways and the things she says, like the Chief does. He's mad about the girl."

"And what would you do, my beefy friend?" said Vargus, with his abominable smile.

Feddon touched his middle. He was wearing a leather belt. "Take this to her," he said, "and beat her black and blue."

Vargus rose, grinning. "Well, get the food," he said. "I'll go down at once. You'll find me in the wireless cabin."

Feddon lurched forward. I had just time to press myself into the alcove, when he came through the curtain and strode heavily through the room into the hall.

Vargus went to a tall mirror by the piano, as I watched him breathlessly. He did something that I could not see, and it swung open like a door. There was the snap of an electric switch, and I saw him step into a lift, pull a rope, and sink out of sight, leaving the door open.